Battle Fantasia MUSH - User contributions [en]

Chu-Chu

2020-06-06T22:02:58Z

Kestrel: finishing touch

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:Chucheeks.gif]]
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 1
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 3
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#e25555; border: 3px #fffa7f solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu Rocket!:
| colspan="3" | He's not made out of elastic or rubber, but sometimes it sure seems like it. While this lets him fit prodigious amounts of food into his little body, it also makes Chu-Chu... puntable. Extremely puntable. Sometimes he is punted to surprisingly helpful places, though...
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Bravest Little Mousemonkey:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu is quite sure he can take on opponents five hundred times his size. Chu-Chu... cannot. He can't even take on opponents his size, but that's not gonna stop him from trying, for better or worse! (The punting often follows.)
|-
! style="background:#ca83e9; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Chu-Chu''' is stupendous in every respect! Just ask Anthy.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-06-06T18:05:33Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:Chucheeks.gif]]
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 1
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 3
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#e25555; border: 3px #fffa7f solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu Rocket!:
| colspan="3" | He's not made out of elastic or rubber, but sometimes it sure seems like it. While this lets him fit prodigious amounts of food into his little body, it also makes Chu-Chu... puntable. Extremely puntable. Sometimes he is punted to surprisingly helpful places, though...
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Bravest Little Monkeymouse:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu is quite sure he can take on opponents five hundred times his size. Chu-Chu... cannot. He can't even take on opponents his size, but that's not gonna stop him from trying, for better or worse! (The punting often follows.)
|-
! style="background:#ca83e9; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Chu-Chu''' is stupendous in every respect! Just ask Anthy.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-05-31T02:36:45Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:Chucheeks.gif]]
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 3
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#e25555; border: 3px #fffa7f solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#ca83e9; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-05-31T02:23:20Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:Chucheeks.gif]]
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 3
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#ffb8bd; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-05-31T02:20:25Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:Chucheeks.gif]]
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 3
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

File:Chucheeks.gif

2020-05-31T02:19:40Z

Kestrel:

Chu-Chu

2020-05-31T02:16:18Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:YourPicture.png]]
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 3
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#ffadc6; border: 3px #ca83e9 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-05-30T16:11:58Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:YourPicture.png]]
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" | Ravenous teenage boy
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 3
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
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|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
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[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-05-30T02:40:08Z

Kestrel: fiddle fiddle

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:YourPicture.png]]
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" |
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 3
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

Chu-Chu

2020-05-30T01:45:52Z

Kestrel: Created page with "{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2" |- ! style="ba..."

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 80%; float: center; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Chu-Chu'''
|-
! colspan="4" align="center" | [[File:YourPicture.png]]
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Mascot Name:
| colspan="3" | Chu-Chu
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Magical Girl Partner:
| colspan="3" | Anthy Himemiya
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Class:
| colspan="3" | Animal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| colspan="3" | Male
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Behavioral Age:
| colspan="3" |
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Weight:
| colspan="3" | Two ounces
|-
! style="text-align:left" colspan="1" | Favorite Food:
| colspan="3" | Whatever he is currently stuffing in his mouth.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Stats'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Cuteness:
! | 3
! style="text-align:left" | Roughness:
! | 4
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Quickness:
! | 4
! style="text-align:left" | Smartness:
! style="padding-right:70px" | 2
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Traits'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #1:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 1.
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Trait Name #2:
| colspan="3" | A description of Trait 2.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''Special Ability'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Chu-Chu, International Monkeymouse of Mystery:
| colspan="3" |Once per plot Chu-Chu can do a quick-change into a useful (and handsome!) costume, complete with Chu-Chu-sized tools of whatever trade.
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="4" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Your Cast Page]] (OC)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Player:
| [[User:YourUsername|YourUsername]]
|-
|}
'''Your Mascot Name''' is stupendous in every respect!

Here's a brief summary of who they are and what their deal is.

====Logs and Cutscenes====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 1
|rowcolformat=width=50%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Mascots]]

2019-10-04 - Imperfect Present Tension

2019-10-20T23:33:57Z

Kestrel: Created page with "{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2" |- ! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Imperfect Present Tens..."

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Imperfect Present Tension'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Kasagami and Homura strike a scholastic deal.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Kasagami Araki]] and [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Academy Classrooms
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-10-04 - 2015-07-04
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura Akemi was absent from school for what amounted to almost a month, starting a few days before a terrible worldending storm (which now exists only in the memories of the mahou) and ending when she stepped back into Ohtori Academy's front office and handed in one of her hospital excuse slips. Twenty-six days exactly, if you're Homura Akemi and were counting them.

It's been a long time since she's had such a long school absence, and certainly rumors abounded as the absence stretched. Was her heart condition acting up again? Was she... ever coming back? Was she /dead/? Kids talk, and the kids at Ohtori don't just talk, they gossip like it's earning them future college credit.

None of the rumors were true, of course, because none of them involved Homura taking a personal sabbatical to recover (...somewhat) and grow confident in her new powers.

She's returned now, though, and has been back for about a week now, and she has ENDLESS stacks of homework and make-up tests to get done. What's worse, for the first time in decades she's never seen this homework before, never taken these tests before. It is all new territory and she hasn't studied for any of it, because it has also been decades since Homura Akemi has studied schoolwork.

She appears as she always did: smooth pale features, big dark eyes, conscious perfect grace, crisp Ohtori uniform. There's no sign of that heart attack a good third of the rumors claimed she'd had. Really, the only visible difference is how she's taken to wearing a red ribbon in her glossy hair instead of a headband.

And right now... right now she's the only one in an empty English class after the last bell, taking yet another make-up test. The teacher left her to it ten minutes ago.

She's been stuck on the same question for the last four of them.

Any students passing by in the hall, if they glance through the open door, can see her bent over a desk with her pencil tip tap-tap-tap-TAP-TAP-TAPPING the same spot on her test paper. It's left a speckle pattern, pointillistic evidence of Homura's frustration with herself. She retains too much discipline to lower her forehead to the desk and allow it to thud right into the test paper, but the desire... it is in her.

Finally, with short quiet expulsion of what just might be a sigh, she skips down to the next question.

And also does not know its answer.

Tap-tap-tap-tAP-TAP-T-- *snap*

A little graphite missile goes flying as the pencil tip finally gives.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Rumors fly fast, particularly to ears receptive to them. And now that she's occupying a true and proper seat as the Student Council Secretary? It behooves Kasagami Araki to keep an ear to the ground just in case any useful bits of gossip pop up. If nothing else, things that can get her vengeance on Saionji or Touga, or a leg up on her competition is of great concern for the Duelist!

Also, let's face it, Kassie is not above devouring a rumor for her own amusement. The greatly-exaggerated tales of one Homura Akemi's passing are fairly fresh in her ears as the StuCo member is walking by the English class that Homura is stuck in. She has a briefcase filled with Important Student Council Documents in one hand, coat and hair fluttering behind her as she winks or grins to students she passes. Even now, her somewhat restored reputation has her /basking/ in the attention. A sidewards glance into the classroom has her catching a certain head of dark hair.

She pauses, does the equivalent of a very fancy u-turn, and leaves a pair of admirers (reformed members of the Kassie Longcoat Club), nearly smashed into each other like some kind of human car wreck.

A shadow falls upon Homura Akemi. Said shadow is grinning in that cheshire way she so prefers when she's enjoying a fight or just deep in some sort of amusement. Her good eye sparkles.

"Ahhhh, long lost damsel of Ohtori, I see the rumors of your demise are very, /very/ overstated! Homura-chan! Where /ever/ have you been!? I was worried you know? As your beloved and dashing Student Council Secretary, I was wondering if I'd have to write a suitable obituary! 'Raven haired mystery dies suddenly due to freak gas explosion'. Or something like that. Or maybe an electrical storm, that sounds a bit more /you/!"

Kasagami is absolutely leaning over trying to eye what Homura is working on.

"...Wait. Homura. Are you...is that a test?" A brow rises. Her grin goes from amused to amused-smug in an instant.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Visions of slipping grades assail Homura. She's not really looking at that question about how to conjugate the English word for 'drive' to future perfect tense any more. Instead she's imagining the fall from grace as her effortless scholastic excellence dulls, and the nights she'll lose to the homework and studying that all the rest of her classmates have to do...

And she's arguing with herself over whether she should even bother now that a certain girl is no longer in her homeroom, or her school, or her worldly plane of existence.

Therefore it is Homura's practiced cool that keeps her from jumping five feet when that Araki-shaped shadow crosses her, rather than any actual awareness of Kasagami's presence. She instead holds very still as Kassie's grin and words fall upon her next, and prolongs that stance for a few seconds -- looking at her test paper instead as the other girl speaks, for long enough that it wordlessly communicates Homura's irritation.

But she does lean back in her chair after that, and looks up at Kasagami with that pale doll face set to an /extremely/ neutral expression. This leaves her make-up test exposed, with its mostly blank answers and its dot-dot-dot-DOT-DOT-DOTTED decorations. Homura's eyes follow Kasagami but she otherwise does not move as the other girl leans in.

"It's as you say. I missed some classes, so I have some tests to make up." The way she says it, it's as nonchalant as a cat walking away from a flubbed landing.

She doesn't respond to the questions about what she was doing in the meantime. Instead she pulls a pencil sharpener out of her school satchel and begins grinding down to a new tip. Shavings flutter to the desk after each twist of the pencil.

"Those obituaries are some creative writing. So you picked up the pen after losing with your sword," she comments after a bit of this, in that quiet cool voice of hers. "Do you find it mightier?"

Maybe if she aggravates Kasagami enough, she can get back to this aggravating test. ...And it must be said that a part of Homura enjoys stinging Kasagami over going back to the test, too.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Kasagami's twitch is almost audible. Her entire body feels that rough blow straight to her pride, especially coming from the stoic Homura. Her smugness slips for a moment, though the grin still remains. She clings to it. A show of confidence is good. Appearances are everything at Ohtori.

The wound of her loss, and losses, still feel fresh. It's barely scabbed over, and Homura just ripped it off.

The Duelist skips only one or two beats before she retorts. "I'll have you know, Homura Akemi, that a King relishes in both the sword and the pen! Cutting our opponents is as natural as carving the law into parchment. Maybe you should respect the pen a little more. You must be out of practice with it, after all. That's a lot of empty answers, for a student that's known for her excellence in academia! And on a mere makeup test too!" Digs Kassie, wandering over from behind Homura to reach for a chair. She spins it around on one leg, punts the desk out of the way, and then slams it down a little /too/ hard. When the students peek in?

She glares out the door, face making a 'get out' in no uncertain terms. The door slams closed as the small gaggle of students flees. No doubt the spark of a new rumor in the making!

"So. How are you doing, really? I'd wonder if you were cheating, before, but discipline isn't my wheelhouse anymore. So the only question is, why are you actually having trouble here?" Kasagami might actually be concerned here. It is /strange/, for Homura to not have the answers.

The smugness has dropped. "Come on. We're war sisters. Mavens of the battlefield against any who would threaten our companions! Shepherds! That has to count for something, even to someone as stoic as you! I'll help you out, within the bounds of my station of course. English, right? Father made sure I learned early. I don't mind tutoring you. You have to make Ohtori, and me, proud!" Oh yeah, she's actually trying to be encouraging here. Even if she's still somewhat of a jerk.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura catches the moment her arrow strikes true, fleeting though it is. She's a quick girl.

It affects her more than she'd anticipated. It's not that she never felt guilt for acting the jerk on previous occasions -- indeed the opposite. But before, she'd paired acidic guilt with heady conviction, and before... before, she'd had a very different purpose. Instead of feeling any satisfaction at all, she sees Kasagami's thin grin and just feels more miserable.

And of course, that's when the other girl comments on her grades. The pencil gets ground down another good ten millimeters while Kassie's chair-fetching and glare-shooing. It's sharp the entire time. Homura doesn't notice.

"I wasn't cheating," she replies to the accusation which Kassie floated and then waved off. It's... true-ish. At the least, it is to Homura's eyes arguable that she has put in her time (and then some) on all those tests and all that homework, and earned those grades forevermore.

Kassie exhibits concern, after Homura's jerkery, and even some rough tact in scaring away eavesdroppers. It doesn't in any way lessen Homura's feeling that none of these things are the other girl's business, but she does stop and actually /listen/. It shows in the slowing and stopping of that incessant graphite-grinding.

It's just them in the quiet, closed classroom with Homura's make-up test and Kasagami's concern between them. How /is/ Homura doing, really? Does shedding blood together count for anything to the girl with ice in her veins?

But the truth is, of course, that it /is/ blood in her veins, and that the fearsome Puella Magi is also just a girl. She looks down, and there's this extended moment of still while she takes in her /extremely/ sharp half-of-a-pencil, then withdraws it with all the silent dignity she can muster. Raven strands gleam as Homura flicks fingers through her own hair.

"I was gone a while. I am caught up on the past classwork and homework, of course. That leaves the tests. I haven't had time to study for all of them."

If she did the classwork and homework, then wouldn't that have taught her most of the test material...? Homura keeps going, smooth and steady. She doesn't mention that a certain green-gemmed friend is wholly responsible for this catchup; what she is not too proud to accept from Eri, she is too proud to admit to Kasagami.

That wording needles her, though, the... /charity/ of it all. Doesn't /mind/ tutoring her. Since they're public and all... (Homura's grades upon return have not yet posted, pending tests, so her shame is currently also pending.) "Your math grades could be better. How about we make a trade?"

Homura Akemi is all business, all the time. Or at least she finds it more comfortable to pretend this is the case…

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

"Uh-huh." Comes Kassie with the tone of someone that does not believe that at all while very obviously faking like she believes it. All while smiling. She might be playing with Homura just a little bit for her own amusement here.

But there's a faustian scholastic deal to be struck, and as they're alone? Well Kassie takes her own war-sisters in-group talk seriously. The group means a lot to the Duelist. Sorry Homura, you don't get to be a loner. In Kasagami's mind, anyway.

Eventually though the Student Council Secretary comes to the belief that she at least believes enough of Homura's tale that she doesn't push back so much on it. Tests, and finding time for them with magical shenanigans, is /tough/. There is more than a little sympathy in the young woman's heart.

"You dare bargain with a /King/ do you!? How brave! Or perhaps foolish!" Talks up Kassie, leaning backwards in her chair at an angle that is most definitely dangerous. A mere gust of wind or errant wandering mascot could tilt her over into becoming humpty dumpty rather than royalty. Her feet are just slightly off the ground.

Oh how she tempts gravitic fate.

"But royalty ever pursues improvement to better themselves and their loyal subjects, therefore you have a deal Homura-chan! Don't worry. I have plenty of books in my dorm. And some snacks, and coffee. We will race the rays of morning sunlight in...steeds of equations and grammar!" Nod nod nod.

"...That one sounded better in my head."

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

That sure-I-believe-you smile ruffles no obvious feathers in the raven-haired puella; she's well-practiced at keeping her visible feathers smooth. The thing is, Homura remembers how good a tutor Kasagami can be, even if /this/ Kasagami has never tutored Homura. Once upon a timeline...

And /this/ Homura, the one without glasses and without clockwork shield, needs tutoring badly. Almost as badly as she needs friends... though Homura is not in the business of admitting that to anyone, least of all herself.

"We are all of us fools," she murmurs after Kasagami calls her foolish. Then, at a more conversational volume -- leaving a gulf of decibels between Homura's voice and her senpai's, still -- she says, "And the only subjects here are school ones." Flat tone, flat look.

She does glance down, once, at the precarious tilt that chair's at. There is something of a cat about her in that moment: specifically, a cat considering whether to bat something breakable off a table.

Homura Akemi is a being of ironclad self control.

She does not otherwise move, not a twitch of her foot; her gaze returns to Kasagami after a slow blink.

"Better there than the library. Those are supposed to be quiet, you know." She's still remembering that long-gone history lesson... "It's a deal. I will bring everything I have learned about geometry, physics, trigonometry, equations, and statistics." There's something almost grizzled to how she rattles off aspects of mathematics, like she's an old soldier and they're tours of duty.

"If you produce speeches like that in English, too..." Homura cocks her head and regards the taller girl in her swiftly tilting chair. Then, deadpan: "At least I know I'll have the adjectives and archaic nouns well-studied."

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-09-15 - Promises to Keep

2019-09-23T01:57:23Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Promises to Keep'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura with her new purpose comes upon Mikoto with hers. The fight which follows feels as inescapable as it is unsought.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]] and [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Asakusa Traditional District - Azuma-bashi Bridge
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-09-15 - 2015-06-28
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Rag'n'Bone Man - The Arrow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5J3tuPOlsU

so the story goes
we weren't high enough, high enough
don't you need this 'no more'?

What is there to say, on the nature of regret?

It is a thing Mikoto Minagi feels keenly, even if she has only confessed her guilt to her allies. It haunts her, here on the surface, where she is not protected from the ghosts of her actions. She seeks their suffering, in all its wretched forms, and always, always...

... always just a little bit worse than she'd done before.

But there are so many regrets, for a girl like Mikoto. Regrets she can name - regrets she cannot bring herself to name.

This isn't just any bridge, illuminated in the light of the city at night, neon brightness refracted into the water.

Azuma-bashi crosses water: Mikoto crossed a line.

Why - why, she wonders, has she brought herself here? Here, of all places. They are sins which never existed, faults from a worsened world. It is better, now, better for everyone else - though their salvation came after Mikoto's, her privilege as the Lord's sister. (A different salvation, between them.)

But here she stands, striding slow over the bridges' surface, long after the world has found their rest. There are no cars crossing, this late at night: it is the time of trucks, hauling goods for the next morning, and the last one passed a few minutes prior. Tokyo never sleeps, but even the busiest cities have some span of dormancy - a time when even the most dedicated night owl finds some warm hollow to sleep in.

are you strong enough, strong enough
to lose it, to fool yourself?
so hard to understand

She comes to lean on the side of the bridge, by its centre. A little grunt, as the pressure hits a tender spot inadvertently. Thanks to her pendant's warmth, her utter defeat yesterday has not left her broken... but it's still sore. She winces, she remembers --

'...the pain helps... ease the tension - some. Like a release... and a distraction that keeps it from building up.'

"It doesn't," Mikoto mutters, bitter, into the wind. "... it doesn't help."

The grimace curls her lips, as she looks down at the water. She looks down and she sees oblivion between reflected lights: water at night is a void. Her eyes are not bright enough to shine against it, so far down.

It feels like a metaphor.

She pushes herself off the side of the bridge - she keeps walking - and feels her anger build with every step. She wasn't lying, yesterday. She's not angry at them, her enemies, the magical girls.

... she's angry at herself.

Attacking a civilian celebration on the beach, striking at a flutist's recitation when she didn't know the first thing about magic or monsters...

Ah, she thinks.

That's why she's here.

Near one end of the bridge, she stops. She draws her blade - shrugs her case back onto her shoulder - reverses her grip. Mikoto holds Miroku, one hand held against the flat of the blade and the other at its hilt, staring down at her reflection in the black metal. It should be steel, acts like steel... it isn't steel.

That feels like a metaphor, too.

'You are the saddest person here, right now. It's written in your sword.'

She blinks, and a salty droplet falls from her cheek to black obsidian. Not its usual meal; still it feeds a hungry blade. They are all of them hungry, bellies emptied in hours, ravenous for the next meal - the next disaster.

They are well-bred and finely crafted.

With a sad, small noise, her eyes lid under tense cheeks and drawn brow. They scrunch shut; she shakes her head, braids whipping at the sides of her face. A frustrated little growl builds swiftly to a scream, anguished and angry and alienated, and Mikoto's hands find the hilt of her blade --

-- and she finds herself whirling --

-- and plunging Miroku into a yawning dark portal on the bridge's surface, light energy crackling out in an explosion which cracks through the surface of the Azuma-bashi bridge.

Foundations split asunder. Concrete showers down into the black void of water below.

It will be destroyed.

guess i didn't wanna change
this hold on me, this hold on me

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura Akemi has long waged war against sleep. It robs so much /time/ from a person, and time has been the one of the teenager's most precious resources for decades now. Her entire existence is no longer intent upon a dread deadline, but old habits die hard.

Tonight her restless legs take her to Shitamachi, to retrace dark steps. Once, she and Mikoto chose this place for a deadly ambush, and in the premeditation she'd taken great pains to make sure a certain girl would not be there to witness the murder of her best friend. In the end, no part of it went as planned. Sayaka Miki survived; and ultimately Madoka Kaname saw everything, /everything/ Homura did.

She still does -- somehow, somewhere.

Without breaking stride Homura Akemi looks upward, even though she knows the impulse is illogical. The being which she knew as Madoka is not up any more than she is down -- is... everywhere, is... nowhere. Homura looks up nonetheless, because that is where you look when you look for God. Older habits die hard, too.

All she sees are the overhead lights of Azuma-bashi Bridge and the dull greyblack of the city-lit night sky beyond. She feels lonely, instead of any ineffable presence.

With a deep sigh she drops her eyes and sees Mikoto Minagi down the bridge's span, at its end.

She stops in the middle of starting to walk again, and her Ohtori uniform skirt swings with the motion. The pause is born of a few reasons: Homura wasn't expecting to see anyone out on the bridge, much less someone who knows her; and that armored spaulder on Mikoto's shoulder is a second layer of unexpected, part of an outfit she's never seen before.

Then there's Miroku in her hands.

She looks so very sad, but the hairs at the back of Homura's neck rise and at first she is not sure why -- not until Mikoto shakes her head and looses that horrible lonely /scream/.

Mikoto may be too preoccupied with her extremely expressive bridge destruction to spot Homura, much less see how the other girl's eyes flare wide to better reflect that explosion. Then a smaller eruption occurs around Homura Akemi, magic the color of her eyes and her soul, and she's leaping off a slow-falling slab of concrete with dusky violet ribbons trailing behind.

There's no enemy in sight, no apparent reason to explain Mikoto's actions. Something is wrong, is very wrong, but Homura does not know what, yet. She has clung too close to her isolation, since...

Her mind races, though. She had her worries about the berserker, before. What has happened, since...? Dark-clad heels touch down on the ragged edge of the broken roadway, one-two, and Homura now holds an elegant black longbow before her, yet empty of bowstring and arrow.

'Use my name. Else I might not notice.'

Homura does not move to cross the twenty-some yards between herself and Mikoto, however shaky her current footing is. Instead she shouts, "Mikoto Minagi!" in a bid to get the other girl's attention -- with an internal acknowledgement that Homura has no idea yet what that might lead to. "What are you doing?"

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

There is only one higher power Mikoto Minagi answers to, a dark and transcendent thing, ineffable and undeniable.

(From above, a star shines...)

There are no enemies Mikoto Minagi answers to, as she crumbles Azuma-bashi: only the ghosts of what once was, and the guilt of what is come. Left voiceless she expresses herself through her destruction - her obstruction - her transgression; rebar her canvas, concrete her brush.

But they will answer; they must answer; and they will dance, his will be done.

Tap-tap go heels on broken bridge, and Mikoto whirls, golden eyes slit in fury, foot shifting back to launch herself forward --

'Mikoto Minagi!'

Once more shock blanches her face; she staggers, and does not spring into her assault. "Homura," Mikoto says, the mora numb on lips used to screaming. She scowls, as she thinks on it: all the other Puella Magi came back, but one.

Of course Homura would show up eventually.

But of all the girls she expected to demand answers from her...

"... Homura!" Mikoto snarls her name in threat, now, grasping her blade with renewed grip. Certainly, she has noticed her: Homura is the only threat worth noticing, on the approach. A growl vibrates through her throat as her terrible gaze scans over the unstrung bow, the lack of shield - no grenades, though perhaps she's hiding them, as she does --

Homura isn't the only one who doesn't know precisely what's happened to the girl she's facing down.

But what is Mikoto doing?

This she answers first with action: tearing forward on the crumbling bridge, blade screaming against the uneven ground. She's faster than she was - fast enough to slip past one of the bullets Mikoto isn't entirely convinced Homura won't shoot out of nowhere, no matter the lack of gun in her hand - but it's all the speed of a freight train, and then as now she commits to a path of destruction and she cannot easily sway from it. Up comes her blade, diagonal from below, and there is one thing Homura might notice in the approach:

The flat of her claymore, turned towards her, when it would be so much more effective to split her up from hip to chest.

She's not striking to kill, and she offers no explanation.

Instead, drawing close, she snarls, angry and embittered and cold: "/Pulling myself together./"

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Dauntlessness on Homura Akemi.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi perfectly dodges 34 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Dauntlessness, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Homura Akemi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It's surprise after surprise, tonight. Homura was not expecting an attack to follow so swiftly on the heels of recognition -- not from this girl, at least. Perhaps she should have asked /why/ Mikoto is doing what she is doing, but right now the /what/ comes at Homura with shocking swiftness, and requires her imminent attention.

To make use of her unusual powers, Homura had to learn to be very quick; she may no longer have those powers but she retains world-class reflexes. Still-

Still, there is something remarkably mundane about Homura's artful evasion -- something terrestrial about how she launches fingertips-to-heels away along the ragged edge of uneven concrete, never once blinking out of sight.

The titanic mercy of Miroku's broadside edge crushes the air she'd just occupied and the wind of that passage whips long red ribbontails across Homura's face as she straightens. Narrowed violet eyes study her former ally, her former... friend, sensei, braidsister...

Mikoto pushes in and lands the hit her Child did not. See how those famously emotionless eyes widen again, by increments? Another terrible thing Homura did to her former friend, sensei, and braidsister, in the name of a battle which she ended up losing. Mikoto remembers. So does she.

Homura takes a half-step back, and lifts her bow between them. Its slender curves rise taller than both girls. As the Puella draws, the weapon bursts to life, in string and power-wrapped arrow and flame atop its span. All the crackling light washes that parchment face in pale violet and throws the twist of her lips into sharp relief.

The hard, serious expression she wears makes perfect sense for the Homura that Mikoto knows. What she says...

"I... don't want to hurt you, Mikoto." It sounds like something one of those more cheerily-hued magical girls might cry out over heart-shaped beams, although they probably wouldn't utter it in a soft near-monotone.

Then Homura squeezes her eyes shut, which is also a somewhat unusual thing to do when menaced by an /extremely/ angry girl with a huge sword... but the subsequent white-hot flaring of the drawn arrow makes a stark explanation as Homura pours magic into the weapon. It detonates /immediately/ upon release, and the Puella is already half-turned and leaping clear.

She never /wanted/ to hurt Mikoto.

But today she follows words with action, because that arrow bursts into lumens and concussive force -- enough to seriously disorient if taken full in the face, but that's about it.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi has used Sound and Fury on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi fails to dodge Homura Akemi's Sound and Fury, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Blind, Cripple, Diversion, and Stagger applied to Mikoto Minagi!

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

It's not the first time Mikoto has crossed blades with someone even more agile than she is.

It isn't even the first time this week.

By the beset growl which rips from her throat, it never quite stops being frustrating, without joy and denied satisfaction.

But Homura doesn't want to /hurt/ Mikoto, and she sees the little widening of her eyes and hears the flatness in her voice; the contrast confounds her. (She has not the context of tenfold years.) It's just a moment's pause, a moment to narrow her eyes and try to puzzle the difference in what she says now.

It's one moment too many.

Her breath crosses her teeth in sharp intake as she sees Homura draw her arrow. Mikoto knows the behaviour of arrows: she has fought alongside the Wind Knight, and she has fought against her. So when she sees that arrow flaring up, Mikoto twirls her weight to the side --

-- which would have been sufficient to let an arrow pass.

The arrow does not pass.

It /explodes./

All a sudden from her side Mikoto finds herself instructed in blunt force, with a strangled noise of surprise cut off by the impact. Miroku is heavy, but Mikoto is light: she is flung by the explosion, and for a horrifying moment it may seem as if she will plunge down the crumbling edge of the bridge into the black, black void below.

Well.

Perhaps she would have, were she not designed for this.

At an angle to the edge of the bridge she plunges Miroku into the concrete, uses her momentum to swing about it and back towards the sky again; forced to release its hilt to complete her manoeuvre, she spins and lands on the unsteady bridge again. She staggers on the landing, teeth agrit, and her nostrils flare as she blinks the brightness from her eyes.

A hiss of air puffs out, tongue clicking against the back of her teeth, and Mikoto growls as she reaches out with open palm. "Miroku!"

Obsidian spikes do not come.

Rather her blade shimmers from existence, with a sparkle to make any pure-hearted girl who doesn't want to fight proud, and embeds itself in the concrete before her. She grasps it - reseats her grip, where she has placed her hand too high up on the hilt - and twists it in the ground.

Unlike all those other accidents: "I mean to," sharp of word and blade. Black portals yawn open, around Homura, and from them lance /darkness:/ dark like secrets or surrender or suffering, sick with red energy, coursing straight towards her. The shadows pass through concrete and steel - they do not pierce; nevertheless they are terrible, and promise no salvation.

This is no darkness cast by light, the echo of something warm and good. No comfortable shade, assistant to brightness.

No: this is darkness which demands.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Darkness on Homura Akemi.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi counters 11 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Darkness, taking 11 Fatigue damage! Homura Akemi's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate! Tangle and Trap applied to Homura Akemi!
COMBAT: Homura Akemi's counterattack, Ghost Step, partially gets through, doing 25 Fatigue damage to Mikoto Minagi! Critical Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura has never shied away from hurting Mikoto before, regardless of her feelings; and Mikoto has never meant to hurt Homura before, despite those times she has. The grey girl can feel the balance of power shifting between them, even as the wounded bridge shifts beneath her feet.

I have earned this, Homura thinks, and there is fear and black comfort both in the thought.

That doesn't mean she's going to sit still and take it, though -- she has a world to defend in the name of the girl she loves, and she can't do that if she lets the darkness take her (Mikoto's or her own). Not yet. She crouches into a ball with her bow crosswise before her as the portals unleash, making as small a target as she can of herself.

Vivid magic flares between her fingers, a small bright defiance of the incoming black, like a twinkling star...

She doesn't want to hurt Mikoto but she will defend herself. Leaping aside at the last moment -- and suffering a shadow bolt's sear across one calf, thanks to that -- she looses a violet-wrapped arrow at the other girl. Homura Akemi still deals in explosions, though they no longer come wrapped in cold metal; the arrow detonates, and with far more prejudice than the last. The Puella Magi suppresses her wince as she tumbles away, lips pressed flat.

If she could stop time, she could...

...avoid these frightening new magics Mikoto is wielding.
...retreat easily, without fearing a black blade in her back.
...take aim on some vital spot with the leisure to make sure the shot flew true...

No.

She can't. She can't, and she refuses to allow herself to long for the way things were -- that would be a kind of sacrilege. Some things have not changed, and Homura's ability to deny and deceive herself remains as intact as her reflexes.

She still /really/ needs to get out of this whole, though, and it seems that may mean putting Mikoto out of commission in some form or another. Well -- this is a test, then. Of her devotion, of her ability. She runs harder and leaps high, engaging some of the superhuman ability she traded her soul for, to gain the top of a red-iron lamppost. Her sable swallowtail catches the maritime wind, and its ripples reflect glossy violet from a newly drawn arrow.

What would the Covenant of Style have said in a moment like this? Ah, maybe something like...

"I won't fight you unless you make me, Mikoto. But I won't stand by and let you harm this place, either. This world is-" -is irredeemable, is an impossibly lonely place now, is... is- "This world is worth protecting!" To someone she loves, and therefore she will protect it.

Homura feels a bittersweet rush in the wake of the arrow's release, and then it is gone and she's left with the guilt and the desperation that comes with fighting an angry, bitter friend.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi has used Twilight Prayer on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi dodges 10 Fatigue damage from Homura Akemi's Twilight Prayer, taking 15 Fatigue damage! Homura Akemi is Psyched! Mikoto Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

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

Just as she says: Mikoto means to hurt Homura.

Her words are, as ever, exact in a specific sort of way.

'...what you have to do. What you want to do. Please tell me they're different, at least - that the idea of just going home and having supper still means something!'

There's no time to dwell on it.

Homura compressing herself is not an image Mikoto savours, the way her Lord Brother lingers on the sounds of misery. Absent joy she can, at least, be satisfied she has cornered her. But Homura is a girl possessed of a thousand tricks, by Mikoto's reckoning, and here is another: the way she leaps aside, looses another of those arrows which explode in precisely the way arrows don't. Mikoto springs away, and this time rolls with the expected explosion - going low to the ground, to stop herself from being flung through the air.

Thud-thud-THUD, and she was already sore.

She pushes herself up in a smooth motion, heedless of the complaints, teeth set in a line. Golden eyes seek out the swift-moving form of her foe - there, on the lamppost. (Why is it /always/ a lamppost, Mikoto wonders, deliberately.)

Homura draws her arrow, says the world is worth protecting. And Mikoto - Mikoto does not say that the world is good, does not praise girls or ramen or cats, does not delight in the knowing.

It is not that she does not believe in the world. In her mind she is fighting for it, just as fiercely as Homura.

But hers is a belief which leaves no room for warmth or delight.

In that instant Mikoto says nothing at all, because the arrow is coming for her, and once more her instincts cause her to bend at the knees and leap back from the blast. Light rushes past her; this time, she keeps her footing, straightening as the luminosity fades to the night.

"I know." Mikoto says, words a tomb of finality. "You won't." /Omae,/ arrogant and superior, and in a kinder tone it might have been a glorious celebration of closeness. Now --

"You're a magical girl. You're Puella Magi. You're our /enemy./"

It is the greatest curse Mikoto Minagi knows.

"And I'll make you," she promises, the only oath she can offer. She hefts her blade up, edge gleaming blue in the darkness. "It's an order... from my Lord Brother."

At once she leaps impossibly high into the air, blade coming up overhead - and even its flat edge, swung with such momentum, will resound like a bell if it strikes Homura.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Devastation on Homura Akemi.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Devastation, taking 25 Fatigue damage! Mikoto Minagi is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Rage Against the Machine - Know Your Enemy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4smim2MNvF8

Magical girls -- Puella Magi -- are Mikoto's enemy? "I've been away too long," Homura comments to herself and Mikoto both in that soft, dry tone of hers.

At least Homura kept the secret of a Soul Gem's vulnerability from Mikoto, back when they were close allies... ah, but no. Mikoto knows /exactly/ how vulnerable a Soul Gem is, doesn't she? Cold anger rises in a dead heart, and may betray via a sharp look that this is still Homura after all, whatever heroic prayers she chants.

Restraint. She knows how to employ that, and does, and the look veils again. Mikoto rises and Homura charts that impossible leap with a tilt of her forcibly inexpressive face.

She lifts the unstrung bow overhead and begins to crouch, readying to slip down from her lamppost perch and let its red iron suffer Miroku's terrible force for her with her own weapon as backup--

--and her shadow-scored leg spasms and she just /crumples/ instead with a bitten-back cry, prone in an awkward heap beneath the blunt edge of incredible violence. There's an awful dull CLANG as Miroku bends the metal lamp-top into a V through the body of a skinny girl, and shattered glass rains down on concrete from the pulverized bulb.

Homura rolls free of the murdered lamppost and thuds to the shard-strewn concrete below, and the ache of this second impact through a body now made of bruises finally drives a muffled "ngh" from her. Two halves of what was once an elegant bow clatter to the concrete right after.

An old memory comes to her, then, of Mikoto using her sword and her strength to halt the crushing momentum of an industrial crane. She'd thought her sensei could stop a train with her sword, then. Now, she has been taught that the sword /is/ the train. She pushes through the pain and springs to feet made nimble again through the application of sheer steely will. "Your Lord Brother..." Of course she recognizes that phrasing, that... title. Who among Mikoto's friends would not? And Homura was that, once.

One arm extends from Homura's side. Her fingers close through crackling violet magic and take hold of a newly-summoned bow.

With her head down, she takes quick stock of her surroundings... then looks up at Mikoto. She draws without looking, arrow nocked and pointed away and to the side, almost casually lowered. "What about Eri? Or your roommate, Mai?" She knows Mikoto well enough to lob those names her way, too, even if she has to call them through gritted teeth thanks to the obsidian beating she's taken. "Have you finally discovered who you're loyal to, and who you aren't?"

Having taken her direct shot, she now looses the indirect. Still without looking she lets her arrow fly, and it impacts with the pavement yards away -- there's a flash, an explosion -- and the arrow emerges from the point of impact?!

It zings off in a perfect line at an entirely new angle and crosses a hundred yards in an eyeblink, only to ricochet in a bright flash off of yet another doomed lamppost, which creaks and falls after. The arrow travels on, its violet magic noticeably dimmer now...

Another strike, another explosion, and now an entirely black arrow flies bullet-straight through the air, unnatural in trajectory and accuracy both. It streaks for where Mikoto's back was half a second earlier from what may be an entirely unexpected angle of approach. This one won't explode when it hits, but it is still an arrow, after all.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi has used Impossible Shot on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi braces 16 Fatigue damage from Homura Akemi's Impossible Shot, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Cripple applied to Mikoto Minagi!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Nobuo Uematsu - Memories of The Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2owQtQEUr-U

Mikoto has felt the glass of a Soul Gem beneath her fingers, trusted to her iron grasp, tightening, tightening, /tightening.../ until that fragile Fabergé shattered to a million green pieces, hope freed from the bottom of the jar.

She remembers /her/ fingers closing on Eri, crushing the life from her while that life was still hers.

It's blurred at the edges. She thinks she knows why, in the manner of a hot stove. All for the mercy of Eri Shimanouchi; no less painful to accomplish.

But yes - yes, Mikoto knows the vulnerability of a Soul Gem.

She knows it all too well.

Her sword does not fall on Homura's Soul Gem, restrained or otherwise. Her aim is no accident. She knows the weakness Homura wears, and consciously she declines to take advantage, because she remembers enough.

It's for the best.

Mikoto does not know how to employ restraint well, and her attempts are clumsy and dangerous still. Homura crumples and Mikoto does not relent in her assault, does not arrest her movement or twist away: she falls on the wounded girl, crushing her under the broad flat of her blade into the perch they all love so much.

She lands near Homura, and perhaps her mercy is in the way she does not immediately follow through, does not slam her down before she can rise.

(Can she bleed every drop of blood and come back from it, Mikoto wonders. One way to find out.)

Mikoto shattered Homura's bow but there again she summons it - no, she corrects herself, she is no HiME and that is no Element, surely she has summoned /another/ - and golden gaze levels on purple, darting for instants to note the casual dip of her arrow.

She has never been able to hide anything - not the way her eyes widen at the incision, the pain which floods the gaps; lips parted and teeth apart, brow knit and tension writ across her face.

Disloyalty is the worst sin a girl like Mikoto could be accused of, and she still...

She catches movement from the corner of her eye and her gaze jerks back down to the bow again, now loosed. Mikoto whirls, bracing against an explosion which has, to her mind, clearly /missed/ --

-- except --

-- there's still /movement./ Mikoto shifts her stance, fluid in her own motion, as her mind assesses the exclusion zone Homura establishes. But it keeps going - keeps going and it's not /right,/ the way it moves, it's not /like/ an arrow, and the confusion costs her precious seconds.

(That confusion, perhaps, is its own little tell: Mikoto was surprisingly adept at facing the wrongness of Witches. When errors in reality were ascribed to the enemy, it was simple to face them. Now...)

She hears the air splitting behind her and finally it is all she can do to whirl and face it, bringing her blade up between herself and the arc.

There is one key problem with her defence, ingrained though it is. Mikoto, operating on instinct and experience, fails to account for the new information she has not yet managed to fully process:

This arrow /does not arc./

Straight it shoots, and lodges itself firmly into - her /vambrace,/ she's at least quick enough to put that wrist between chest and projectile. The unexpected impact sends her staggering back, reverberating to her bones. She feels the bend of the metal, against her skin, and when she looks down she finds Homura's arrow embedded into steel.

"Tch," Mikoto hisses through her teeth, shifting her greatsword to a one-handed grip so that she can grasp the arrowshaft.

She pulls, gaze flicking from her work back to Homura, suspicious of leaving her unobserved. "They /come back,/ Homura," she explains in a low tone, as she works. "Even Grandfather, sort of, through the Book. People leave, or they die, and I cry lots and feel really sad, but... then I find someone else." She pulls the shaft free, and reveals her inexpertness with bows as she growls to find the arrowhead left behind. Crickle-/crack/ the length splinters in her frustrated grip, and she tosses it away, reversing the grip on her blade again. "I keep going." She pushes the end of Miroku's hilt against the side of the arrowhead. She'll apologise later, or with Homura's blood, whichever comes first. "But they come back, and they don't fit in the same. Things /change./ And it..." Here her expression softens, sadness or regret, and her guarded tone grows more muted by inches, "it used to be good, having more important people, even if it was different, but..."

Thonk. There it goes.

She shifts her grip to the other side, shaking the afflicted wrist with a noise of discontent, and finally settles both hands on red thread once more. "My Lord Brother came back," she says, voice firm again, "and it /had/ to be the same. Then Mai and Eri came back, and they didn't fit in no more. Understand?"

Part of her is explaining because she cannot speak her mind to the one person who matters.

Part of her is explaining to test the limits of Homura's newfound beneficence and reluctance to fight.

... part of her just doesn't want Homura to think it was easy.

Homura's opinion mattered to her - Homura's counsel mattered - and once upon a time Mikoto wanted to help Homura, too.

Once upon a time, Mikoto thought her days of being an enemy to Tokyo were over. She thought she related to Homura through past experience. The complexity is not lost on her - the way Homura now almost seems to stand where Mikoto once stood, the way Mikoto seems to abjure her attempts to reach out in just the same way.

Would it be different, Mikoto wonders - if she had the courage to tell Homura she knew how it felt, back there in those woods..?

It doesn't matter, she tells herself, and with the telling tightens her grip on her blade. If Homura really does stand where Mikoto once stood, then just as Mikoto did, Homura must understand why Mikoto acts as she does. It must be the same.

And yet, it's Mikoto going to great lengths to explain...

... maybe even she's not completely convinced it's analogous.

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

What matters is that there is an enemy before Mikoto, and she must fight.

"Too many people," she snaps, anger rising forefront in her voice again as acrobatic legs bend. "Too many promises!"

The yell rips from her lips just as sensible Ohtori flats kick up rubble, Mikoto launching forward from her ready position. She charges towards Homura, and unlike a wending arrow she is no trick: through the straightest path she charges for her, sharp golden eyes locked on her centre of mass, and her feet plant suddenly and she whirls in revolution. Once and once again the flat of her blade - it is still the /flat/ of her blade, no matter the tug at the corner of her consciousness - carves its own exclusion zone against the tortured remains of the bridge. At her second spin she lifts her claymore, and throws all her weight of momentum into a horizonal slash.

And that last word - that curse of promises - it cedes to a feral scream, ferocious and syllabic.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium on Homura Akemi.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi fails to dodge Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disequilibrium, taking 44 Fatigue damage! Exhausted applied to Homura Akemi!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura recognizes the mercy in the breather she's granted while regaining her feet. Mikoto may mean to hurt her, but perhaps in some small way she also means not to. It's not enough to wager an existence on, though, and Homura has never been the sort to throw her weapon down in a bid to end a fight.

No, she does as she always has: she gets up and fights on, whether she wants to or not.

And she /does/ want to -- wants to wield this bow which reminds her of another, pinker bow, wants to use these new and hallowed powers in the manner which honors /her/ best. But nothing about this terrible fight with her once-braidsister makes Homura feel closer to the girl she loves, and she feels trapped between who she believes she is and who she feels she must be.

What would Madoka do?

She doesn't know, just knows that the girl who saved her once upon a time -- saved her so many times -- would do the right thing, would face Mikoto with her beautiful mixture of love and bravery and light the way for compassion. The Puella's lips press flat and white with pain physical and emotional. When has Homura ever done the right thing? The wrong things for the right reasons, perhaps, but...

The grey girl fires her tricksome arrow and draws no satisfaction from how well its tricks land. Instead she feels a cool trickle of relief when it clangs into Mikoto's vambrace instead of piercing her back.

As Mikoto works the black and strangely smooth arrow free, Homura holds her empty and unlit bow at her side, not unlike how a soldier might rest her hand on the butt of her sidearm. She listens, with that old flat affect hard-projected over a wrack of tension and fear. Fear of doing the wrong thing... Fear of that terrible black blade. Fear like a live wire snapping around inside her. Her level violet eyes do not leave Mikoto once.

When Mikoto asks if Homura understands, she receives a head-tilt in return rather than a nod. Red ribbon and black bangs alike flutter, silent, but then the grey girl speaks when it seemed like she would not.

"...Your promise to him comes first." There's a very brief pause before she goes on, in that smooth quiet voice of hers which is never soft. "They took space which should have been his, places which were meant for him all along. Change was a betrayal."

Whyever it is that Mikoto wants Homura to understand, it seems that she just might, or at least she is drawing her own meaning from it. They have ever been sisters in their devotional natures -- a more enduring sisterhood than the braids.

Maybe this understanding distracts Homura, softens her focus for a fateful moment; maybe she is too battered already to move the way they both know she can. Whatever else is true, she can react so very quickly but she cannot react quickly enough to avoid Mikoto's anger as externalized with her titanic Child.

The charge takes her full-force, and it is by the grace of a turned blade alone that Homura is in one piece instead of two after. Miroku smacks her sidelong and she goes flying through the air in a ragdoll arc, only to skip across the uneven bridge like a soft grey stone.

Somewhere amid the violence a sound escapes, tiny and high and pained and utterly against Homura's will. She hits a chunk of upended concrete and it ends her tumble with a final thud. Black hair falls across her face as she rolls to her hands and knees.

Mikoto called her enemy. What will happen to Homura, if Mikoto succeeds in beating her down here? Blunt of her fel blade or no...

Not yet.

Somehow she gets up, and somehow it is without further shameful vocalization of her terrible pain. Somewhere between them a lost bow lies; she pours magic into her empty hand and it fills with a replacement, black and slender and beautiful.

"I have a promise to keep too," she says, and does not explain anything about hers. She draws a deep breath, though it wrings a sharp red sensation from her chest.

Across a span of space gained oh so painfully, violet twinkles -- it builds, between fingers as they pull back, and blinding power builds around a single arrow. She takes as careful aim as a split second will allow her deadeye; Mikoto has demonstrated how quickly she can cross space. The flame atop her bow burns hot and bright, nearer white than violet now.

She exhales; she releases. There are no startled starlings to herald this arrow's flight, but this is a very different night.

Because Homura has not sniped at the most fatal place possible on her enemy; instead she drew down on her friend's leg, aiming to disable so she can make good an escape. It'll still explode when it hits, though. Homura is about as good at restraint as Mikoto is, when it comes right down to it. They're both trying, for whatever it is worth.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Homura Akemi has used Deliverance on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Homura Akemi has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi fails to dodge Homura Akemi's Finisher, Deliverance, taking 93 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Mikoto Minagi is unable to keep fighting!

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

Whether they want to... or not.

Sharply Mikoto demands Homura's understanding; quietly she renders it. Mikoto grunts affirmation, head dipping slightly in acknowledgement of her accuracy. She must love only her Lord Brother, and yet she grew fond of them.

It's just the pained shade over her eyes - between the thin of sternly-pressed lips, that intent expression - which reveals just how harsh Homura's words really are.

Betrayal...

But that's why she had to stop.

And that's why she can't stop.

She cannot betray him, the most important man in the world, most noble and powerful and beloved. She cannot!

She is not distracted, as she charges forward, focused in on the one tiny speck called 'Homura'. She is not distracted at all, hurling her force into her, turning with her arc and starting after her with clear intent to follow through. Not distracted at all, until --

-- she realises, staccato beat after the noise: she heard Homura cry out.

Mikoto pulls up, eyes widening, breath hitching halfway up her throat, and watches her fall from uprooted bridgepart to the tortured ground. Her fingers tighten around the red fate-threads of Miroku's hilt, holds it there, in front of her. This is what she's doing... to Homura, someone she relied on.

Suddenly, Homura isn't the only girl here wondering what will happen to Homura.

She made a promise, Homura says. "Promises," Mikoto says, "are heavy, Homura."

It's not a warning, not really. Mikoto has known Homura has had her own secret purposes for some time now. (It isn't much time at all. It's forever ago.) More an observation, shared with all the weariness of...

... well, shall we invoke a salaryman?

Homura invokes something else, from that bow she has summoned from aether. It is aimed in the space between seconds; Mikoto has barely a sliver to take in the white heat of that flame. Her eyes catalogue the threat: her muscles respond, before she has had time to think a single thought about it.

Her instincts say move, and she moves.

She does not move fast enough.

In that approximation of moments Mikoto thought that straight arrow would fly to her centre of mass - she has seen her sniper bullet cave through a girl's chest, on this very platform. Her first movement is to protect her obsidian heart, and in her miscalculation of Homura's intent she runs old numbers. Her answer is useless.

Once more, Homura demonstrates her intent: 'I... don't want to hurt you, Mikoto.'

So much different, now, from then: 'If it all goes according to plan Sayaka Miki will be dead before she hits the ground.'

And that white-violet light explodes too low, at her side, and --

-- the matter of speed here cannot be understated. A fractional error is tantamount to failure: there is no /room/ for error, at the speed of light. No room to reconsider; no room to adjust.

Do not be fooled by the span of words. They will lie: they will say it was a languid motion, easily seen, easily comprehended. Every breath between beats is misleading.

This was not a paragraph.

This was an /instant./

In that instant Mikoto is blown away by light which builds like a guiding star, flung headlong into the void where that bridge ought to be. Had she her way, she would collapse through the yawning hole into the black void below.

But Homura's light washes over the bridge far more quickly than a girl can fall: crumbling pieces of concrete fall upwards rather than down, the tape reversed as rebar knits together again, supports bitumen made smooth once more by the warmth of her magic.

Mikoto does not crash down into the water. She impacts with the repaired ground, once, twice, bouncing more like a discarded marionette than a beachball. One hand still grasps her blade; the other fumbles to find its way under her, trembling visibly. She mumbles something, some thought from before she had to arrest her thoughts in favour of action, some shred of consciousness to hold onto.

"... holding that weight..."

The Fallen girl huffs out a pained breath through her teeth, a strangled utterance in the back of her throat, collapsing back to now-even ground. Those teeth set in a line. She tries again.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The Beatles - Carry That Weight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B224XDJw6g

Promises are heavy...

As heavy as a gun in the shaking hands of a girl in braids.

"Promises are as heavy as wishes," Homura says in her quietest voice yet, after releasing her arrow.

Neither of them are moving fast enough tonight. It is almost as if two girls' hearts are not in this fight. Homura watches as her brutal but genuine attempt at mercy explodes and her eyes narrow -- against the light, against the other girl's pain -- but she does not move, does not allow herself to hunch and clutch her Miroku-crumpled belly. Long black hair and long red ribbons whip in the burst's backdraft.

Mikoto falls, but it is a short fall to restored blacktop instead of a longer one to black waters below, and that is another hard mercy wrought by the magic of girls. Homura stares at the girl she's shot down, who is only a few carlengths away and clearly in no shape to give chase. The HiME's will outmatches her body's ability to enact it; Homura knows what that is like, too.

She did that to Mikoto.

Some protector Homura is turning out to be.

Her knuckles whiten around her bow's grip. She's caught between shame and terror beneath her cool porcelain mask of a face. Normally so deadly decisive, the grey girl hesitates.

What should she do...? She thinks of the girl who saved her, and takes a shuffling step forward. She thinks of lessons on rooftops, and says, "Mikoto," but stops after that step, falls silent after that name. What is she going to do? Run up and hug the girl better? The thought is acidic and self-defeating, but that is Homura Akemi. She has not changed /that/ much.

Change is betrayal, after all.

The diamond on the back of her hand swims with darkness, and a cold lump of pain curls in her gut. Homura turns her head and gives Mikoto her profile. "It's a new world," she says, and the words are dry leaves falling. "You have your promise and I have mine."

She retreats by a step, with an audible scrape of her heel, and employs her considerable will in not doubling over as she turns to go. Homura is leaving Mikoto to her agony, again, and '/Pulling myself together/' snarl-echoes in her head. It's different now, she tells herself, but how can a girl who has lied to herself so often tell whether this is more of the same?

She breaks into a run, pelting away into the night, and that feels all too familiar, too.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Next to Normal - Wish I Were Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlwMZRKtGqg

Almost.

Mercy: it drives compassion and forgiveness, looks clement upon the guilty, offers succour to distress. Nowhere written here is /kindness./ Sometimes mercy is elision, a moment to recover; sometimes it lies in a shot fired low.

And it is not soft but it is theirs, unfeigned and heartfelt.

If Mikoto had been the one to instruct Homura, rather than the other way around, she would have told her not to hesitate. Over and over again, not understanding its root. Do as she says, not as she does: how many times has Mikoto not followed through, this battle alone?

It's almost like...

... she's splitting her resources.

(A war fought on many fronts is already lost.)

Mikoto hears her name and lifts her head, weary golden eyes finding Homura in the swimming image of the bridge. "... Homura," she says, and for a moment there are no edges to her, muted by her sorrow. A moment - before that sharpness comes back, defensive pull of her lips to show teeth and narrowing of her eyes.

'Don't leave me!'

"Stay away..."

It is as much as the growling of a wounded beast; there is little Mikoto can do to ward her away, as she is. Perhaps she can pretend it worked anyway, the way Homura turns away. There is the sound of air hissing in through teeth, as Homura speaks on the world.

'It hurts, huh? To see your future stretching out ahead of you, to know what it really might be.'

A world where no one has to fight each other.

A world where Mikoto will fight them all.

A world with allies who do not speak of whether they will die, but when.

She has her promise and she can have nothing else.

Once again Homura runs from her and this time Mikoto does not reach out, does not call after. Once again Mikoto summons the strength to stagger up after certain defeat, and once again she retreats home.

Once again her Lord Brother looks her injuries over, with a thoughtful noise, and leaves her to attribute it to his concern.

[[Category:Logs]]

Homura Akemi

2019-09-22T16:19:45Z

Kestrel: consistent capitalization is hard okay

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%; " align="center" colspan="2" | '''Homura Akemi'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:bowuraprofile.png|310px]]
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Homura Akemi
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| The First Apostle
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Female
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 15
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Violet
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| None
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[School: Ohtori Academy|Ohtori Academy]] (Grade 10)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite subject:
| ...okay, math
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Least favorite subjects:
| History
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]
|-
|}

__NOTOC__

::''"I will fight to protect this world...!"
:::''(For her)''

>>>>>--- OVERVIEW ---------->

A girl of exceptional and practiced grace, with long black hair and pale skin like bleached bone. When she transferred to Ohtori Academy there were rumors about her medical history, but Homura demonstrated such coolly effortless perfection that the student populace has mostly moved on to praising her. From afar. With that cool perfection comes a firmly enforced social and emotional distance that rebuffs familiarity and resists forming bonds. Those who know Homura Akemi as a Puella Magi encounter similar distance, though she now fights alongside them. In homeroom, Saotome-sensei sometimes catches the once-flawless student at distracted daydreaming, staring off into what seems like space... She's never without a strikingly red ribbon; it's usually tied across her bangs with a neat bow, like a headband.

>>>>>--- HISTORY ----------->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- ABILITIES --------->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- RELATIONSHIPS ----->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- GALLERY ----------->

<gallery>
File:chocolates.jpg|A gift for Madoka (and Pink) <3 Commission done by MadamMeatball on DA
File:firstapostle.png|The First Apostle [https://twitter.com/kyomoneko_2/status/992043043791429632 source]
</gallery>

>>>>>--- LOGS -------------->

{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

>>>>>--- CUTSCENES --------->

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Characters]][[Category:Ohtori]]

Homura Akemi

2019-09-17T03:42:53Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%; " align="center" colspan="2" | '''Homura Akemi'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:bowuraprofile.png|310px]]
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Homura Akemi
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| The First Apostle
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Female
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 15
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Violet
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| None
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[School: Ohtori Academy|Ohtori Academy]] (Grade 10)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite subject:
| ...okay, math
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Least favorite subjects:
| History
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]
|-
|}

__NOTOC__

::''"I will fight to protect this world...!"
:::''(For her)''

>>>>>--- OVERVIEW ---------->

A girl of exceptional and practiced grace, with long black hair and pale skin like bleached bone. When she transferred to Ohtori Academy there were rumors about her medical history, but Homura demonstrated such coolly effortless perfection that the student populace has mostly moved on to praising her. From afar. With that cool perfection comes a firmly enforced social and emotional distance that rebuffs familiarity and resists forming bonds. Those who know Homura Akemi as a puella magi encounter similar distance, though she now fights alongside them. In homeroom, Saotome-sensei sometimes catches the once-flawless student at distracted daydreaming, staring off into what seems like space... She's never without a strikingly red ribbon; it's usually tied across her bangs with a neat bow, like a headband.

>>>>>--- HISTORY ----------->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- ABILITIES --------->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- RELATIONSHIPS ----->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- GALLERY ----------->

<gallery>
File:chocolates.jpg|A gift for Madoka (and Pink) <3 Commission done by MadamMeatball on DA
File:firstapostle.png|The First Apostle [https://twitter.com/kyomoneko_2/status/992043043791429632 source]
</gallery>

>>>>>--- LOGS -------------->

{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

>>>>>--- CUTSCENES --------->

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Characters]][[Category:Ohtori]]

File:Firstapostle.png

2019-09-17T03:42:43Z

Kestrel: Source: https://twitter.com/kyomoneko_2/status/992043043791429632

Source: https://twitter.com/kyomoneko_2/status/992043043791429632

Homura Akemi

2019-09-17T03:10:59Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%; " align="center" colspan="2" | '''Homura Akemi'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:bowuraprofile.png|310px]]
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Homura Akemi
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| The First Apostle
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Female
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 15
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Violet
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| None
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[School: Ohtori Academy|Ohtori Academy]] (Grade 10)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite subject:
| ...okay, math
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Least favorite subjects:
| History
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]
|-
|}

__NOTOC__

::''"I will fight to protect this world...!"
:::''(For her)''

>>>>>--- OVERVIEW ---------->

A girl of exceptional and practiced grace, with long black hair and pale skin like bleached bone. When she transferred to Ohtori Academy there were rumors about her medical history, but Homura demonstrated such coolly effortless perfection that the student populace has mostly moved on to praising her. From afar. With that cool perfection comes a firmly enforced social and emotional distance that rebuffs familiarity and resists forming bonds. Those who know Homura Akemi as a puella magi encounter similar distance, though she now fights alongside them. In homeroom, Saotome-sensei sometimes catches the once-flawless student at distracted daydreaming, staring off into what seems like space... She's never without a strikingly red ribbon; it's usually tied across her bangs with a neat bow, like a headband.

>>>>>--- HISTORY ----------->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- ABILITIES --------->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- RELATIONSHIPS ----->

(Pending)

>>>>>--- GALLERY ----------->

<gallery>
File:chocolates.jpg|A gift for Madoka (and Pink) <3 Commission done by MadamMeatball on DA
</gallery>

>>>>>--- LOGS -------------->

{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

>>>>>--- CUTSCENES --------->

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Characters]][[Category:Ohtori]]

Homura Akemi

2019-09-17T02:39:08Z

Kestrel: Bit by bit

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%; " align="center" colspan="2" | '''Homura Akemi'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:bowuraprofile.png|310px]]
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Homura Akemi
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| The First Apostle
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Female
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 15
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Violet
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| None
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[School: Ohtori Academy|Ohtori Academy]] (Grade 10)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite subject:
| ...okay, math
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Least favorite subjects:
| History
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]
|-
|}

__NOTOC__

::''"I won't rely on anyone anymore!
::''I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"''

[[Image:01-overview-65.jpg]]

A girl of exceptional and practiced grace, with long black hair and pale skin like bleached bone. When she transferred to Ohtori Academy there were rumors about her medical history, but Homura demonstrated such coolly effortless perfection that the student populace has mostly moved on to praising her. From afar. With that cool perfection comes a firmly enforced social and emotional distance that rebuffs familiarity and resists forming bonds. Those who know Homura Akemi as a puella magi encounter the same distance, and she even seems to have the strange and miracle-granting Kyuubey intrigued. She's renowned for unbelievable speed in combat, perhaps the result of some strange technique... When Homura thinks no one is looking, she can be caught staring at Madoka Kaname from across their classroom. Often Madoka is the one who catches her at it.

[[Image:02-history-65.jpg]]

(In progress, literally)

[[Image:03-abilities-65.jpg]]

[[Image:itsasecret.png]]

[[Image:04-relationships-65.jpg]]

(In progress, also literally)

[[Image:05-gallery-65.jpg]]

<gallery>
File:chocolates.jpg|A gift for Madoka (and Pink) <3 Commission done by MadamMeatball on DA
</gallery>

[[Image:06-logs-65.jpg]]

{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Image:07-cutscenes-65.jpg]]

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no cutscenes on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Category:Characters]][[Category:Ohtori]]

File:Bowuraprofile.png

2019-09-17T02:30:34Z

Kestrel:

Homura Akemi

2019-09-17T02:30:21Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%; " align="center" colspan="2" | '''Homura Akemi'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:bowuraprofile.png|310px]]
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Homura Akemi
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| Transfer Student; Time Criminal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Female
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 14
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Violet
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| None
|-
! style="text-align:left" | War affiliation:
| [[Shepherds]]
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[School: Ohtori Academy|Ohtori Academy]] (Grade 9)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite subjects:
| The classes Madoka is in
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Least favorite subjects:
| Guess
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]
|-
|}

__NOTOC__

::''"I won't rely on anyone anymore!
::''I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"''

[[Image:01-overview-65.jpg]]

A girl of exceptional and practiced grace, with long black hair and pale skin like bleached bone. When she transferred to Ohtori Academy there were rumors about her medical history, but Homura demonstrated such coolly effortless perfection that the student populace has mostly moved on to praising her. From afar. With that cool perfection comes a firmly enforced social and emotional distance that rebuffs familiarity and resists forming bonds. Those who know Homura Akemi as a puella magi encounter the same distance, and she even seems to have the strange and miracle-granting Kyuubey intrigued. She's renowned for unbelievable speed in combat, perhaps the result of some strange technique... When Homura thinks no one is looking, she can be caught staring at Madoka Kaname from across their classroom. Often Madoka is the one who catches her at it.

[[Image:02-history-65.jpg]]

(In progress, literally)

[[Image:03-abilities-65.jpg]]

[[Image:itsasecret.png]]

[[Image:04-relationships-65.jpg]]

(In progress, also literally)

[[Image:05-gallery-65.jpg]]

<gallery>
File:chocolates.jpg|A gift for Madoka (and Pink) <3 Commission done by MadamMeatball on DA
</gallery>

[[Image:06-logs-65.jpg]]

{{#dpl: |category = logs¦cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki that {{PAGENAME}} participated in.
}}

[[Image:07-cutscenes-65.jpg]]

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = logs
|ordermethod = title
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[[Category:Characters]][[Category:Ohtori]]

2019-07-21 - Mochi and Demarcation

2019-07-29T04:47:07Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Mochi and Demarcation'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Mikoto and Setsuna do not eat together.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]] and [[Setsuna Meioh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Akihabara Electric Town
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
07-21-2019 - 06-17-2015
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Homestuck - Sweet Dreams, Timaeus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhVCvz1sRdw

'It's on him that he chose duty over you. You were a child and it should have been his responsibility to protect you - and he didn't.'

Mikoto wants to deny it as another attack, but it's just too hard. (It's supposed to be easy to shoot the messenger.) They're feelings she's barely gotten to process - the way they haven't talked about it, here in his Palace.

Maybe that's why she talked about it, out there in Tokyo.

She was afraid her Lord Brother would be displeased, but he smiled the same magnanimity she has always known from him. He just seemed concerned, when he saw how troubled she was. Because he loves her, she insists, to herself; he cares about her; he's good for her.

He didn't make her talk about it, and it's got to be a relief.

She's curled into him on his throne, now, resting against his side. Small hands ball loosely into his jacket; his are broad and strong, and one plays idly through her hair, soothing the pain he can see so plainly. His heart beats, slow and steady, and by now hers has matched it in its edges. There are no more tears on her cheeks. He wiped them all away.

(They're his, now, each glittering jewel.)

"Mikoto," he murmurs, low in his chest, and she feels it as much as she hears it. Her eyes blink open, and gold meet gold, so terribly bright. He looks at her as if she is his world; she knows he is hers. Gently, broaching no argument: "It's time."

And she can't feel sad or vulnerable any more, because he has taken care of her, and now she must take care of him, in complete equity. She can't, and by his side she does not, looking up to him with determined devotion. "Yes, Lord Brother."

...---...

Not only does Mikoto's assault not work, striking in Akihabara just means that everyone decides it was a cosplay shoot with amazing special effects by the end.

But that's fine.

She doesn't have to kill them. She just has to make them suffer.

She flees the scene just as soon as it's obvious it's not going well, and she pretends she isn't miserable.

...---...

Here's what the magical girls don't see, when someone like Mikoto makes her exit: the depletion. She is a furnace; she burns energy. She is more than they are, eyes which catch every detail in the half-light and glare of nighttime Tokyo, and it is not without cost.

It didn't get better, when she started to fulfill her true calling. It is a fundamental flaw in her design, the limitations lashing at excellence. She can no more overcome it than deny there is blood in her veins.

It's frustrating.

More frustrating would be collapsing in the middle of Tokyo - Mikoto knows what happens after that. (Mikoto knows what happens; Mikoto knows what she should know will happen; both are terrifying.) And so, after fleeing under a moonless dark sky, the Obsidian Lord's very own HiME does not go far. Far enough to evade immediate suspicion from the girls involved in the fight, at least.

And that's how a girl in full regalia - vambrace about her arm, spaulder across her shoulder, cape fluttering behind it, a sword-case on her other side - comes to stride into the KAWAII KOTATSU KAFE.

Its theme is right there in the name.

Of course, the kotatsu aren't heated, right now; it's summer! Regardless, it's a particular maid cafe with a lower turnout in these hotter months, which makes it the perfect place for /Mikoto/ to slip inside. They have fashioned their eatery like a dozen little loungerooms, separated from each other by sliding wooden doors; the maids themselves are all dressed up in overwrought pyjamas, as if they've all checked out for the day.

A woman in a fox kigurumi waves to her, cheerfully. "Welcome! Please --" Mikoto heads right for one of their lounge-booths. "-- oh, be seated... we'll be right with you!"

"Mm," Mikoto nods vague assent, a braid brushing over the scrapes of battle.

Well, she's not about to start trouble for people who are just trying to serve food.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The Future Sound of London - Moments of Isolation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o6ElL7vsGg

At least one magical girl in Akihabara is not involved in the 'special effects extravaganza' at all; she is, instead, a few blocks away on her own mission. This is not so unusual for Sailor Pluto, Outer Senshi and Guardian of Time. She searches Electric Town tonight, as she has searched other neighborhoods in this nigh-endless metropolis on other nights: alone, from rooftops and alleyways, her progress meticulous and methodical.

It's beautiful out, warm and clear, and the breeze as it lifts dark strands of her hair feels pleasant. The Moon shows only her shadow to the Earth tonight, though, and Pluto feels her loneliness more keenly. She surveys the streets below and the city's nocturnal sorts from atop a bright "MANGA" sign the size of a small bus attached to the side of a building, trusting its red glare to blind passersby to her dark silhouette.

Such a very small span of time has passed since she last laid eyes on Hotaru Tomoe, at least in the grand scheme of things for the Guardian of Time. A blip, a sliver of a segment of an eyeblink amidst eons of experience.

Still it feels like it has been very long, indeed.

Having spent hours out and seeking, Sailor Pluto is forced to admit to herself that tonight is unlikely to change that. She will return to her Tower and her penthouse apartment, to spend the night's dwindling hours running simulations on her research desktop and poring over maps of the city, perhaps to permit herself a short nap before university classes in the morning...

Sailor Pluto drops straight down several silent stories into the darkness of an alley, with the comet's tail of her hair fluttering as she falls; there's a burst of dark illumination from the shadows; Setsuna Meioh strides out onto the sidewalk in a pastel violet skirtsuit.

Feeling a weariness she does not show, she punches a quick text into her phone to request her driver Etsuko come pick her up. The reply back is swift, giving an ETA twenty minutes. Setsuna is already striding through the doors of KAWAII KOTATSU KAFE as she reads it, eyes down on her phone screen. (They advertised marshmallow mochi in one of their larger window advertisements, and she can think of no better way to tip her driver.)

The woman in the fox kigurumi offers to seat her, which has Setsuna looking up again politely to demur and make a to-go order, and that's when she spots Mikoto in her booth. A short pause follows as she takes in the strange new garb... as she considers.

"No, thank you. I am here to join my friend." Setsuna says it because it has become true, in the moment.

A few moments later she is standing just outside Mikoto's booth, hands folded before her, still and unmenacing -- but also tall and unbending. "Mikoto-chan? May I join you?" The Outer Senshi has never been so casual as to just slide in and join without asking, but there is something more than politeness to the request tonight. She was not there when Mikoto attacked her friends, but she was there for Kasagami, after.

A certain awareness lives in her question.

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

Mikoto doesn't hear Setsuna talk about joining her friend, and has no cause to pour scepticism on the statement.

She doesn't hear her, because she walked straight into the booth and laid her head down on the table, nestled in the crook of her arm. It's fine, she assures herself. She just has to hold out a little longer.

She really should have gotten something to eat before. She just saw an opportunity and took it.

Thinking ahead has never really been her area of expertise.

She scrunches her eyes when she hears footsteps approaching, though - something doesn't /quite/ fit. With a little grumble, she straightens sitting, just in time to see someone who is distinctly not in pyjamas at the sliding door.

Her lips curl over her teeth, and her hand reaches back for the strap of her sword-case, where Miroku rests beside her just as she does. "You..."

Not 'Setsuna', with all the joy of meeting, but imperious and cool.

"Hello, hello!" Greets the enfoxed girl, waving behind them. "Is everything to your liking?"

Mikoto's lip scrunches at the corner of her face as she weighs her options, and finally she grunts affirmatively, waving a hand in weary acceptance. Palm down, movement at the wrist, it's the same motion used to urge someone forward.

She's too hungry for this.

"Well, how about I just give you the menus, here, and you can see what you want, okay?" The maid chirps, pushing two cutesy menus into Setsuna's hands before she hurries away to see to her other customers.

... customer.

The only other person here is a girl in cat ears at the other end of the cafe.

"Later," Mikoto says to Setsuna, with finality, once she's gone. "I'm eating now."

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

No shock rounds Setsuna's eyes when Mikoto snarl-greets her; she is not a person prone to shock, and what is more, this reaction, it is not unexpected. Saddening, yes. Unexpected, no.

Deeply worrisome? Absolutely.

Sadness is no stranger to Setsuna, and worry regarding Mikoto has a fresher sort of familiarity for her. Only... it has previously been worry /for/ Mikoto, and now it is also worry /about/ Mikoto.

She does not sit down after that cool 'You...' and hand-wave but does half-turn -- only half -- to listen to the fox-maid. Only half, because Setsuna knows well what occupies that case. Once upon a hospital visit she delivered Miroku's case to Mikoto. The girl and the yet-sheathed weapon stay in her peripheral vision thanks to battlewon caution another martial sort might notice and understand.

"Mm," comes the polite and utterly unresponsive sound to the maid's first question, and, "Thank you, we shall," upon receiving the menus. The maid hurries away, and Setsuna remains standing at the booth's edge.

"Later for... what? For you to come after me?" Garnet eyes do not leave Mikoto, now, not even for a moment -- as unwavering as her words.

And then the ever-polite and respectful senshi does something which may be unexpected. Mikoto has not indicated she can sit down, has demonstrated through /ample/ body language that company is not welcome. Setsuna sits down anyhow, sliding into the booth seat across the table.

She holds out one of the menus to Mikoto rather than dropping it on the table between them, and points out, "You are not eating yet."

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

Setsuna doesn't turn her back on Mikoto.

Mikoto can respect that.

It's much more sensible than - than approaching her and asking if she wants a /hug,/ Eri.

"I don't have orders." Gold meets garnet, and she meets her unwavering question with an impassive reply. In its strictest sense it is true: she has not been ordered to come after Setsuna, /specifically./ "But if you're here to stop me, choose better place." Does she just not like fighting around food..?

Fashioned after a kotatsu, these booths are low to the ground, cushions rather than chairs; thankfully, the heater isn't switched on, under the table. For a long moment she just stares at the offered menu, eyebrows raising, her top lip tensing.

She does not take it. Perhaps it's a mercy. It didn't go well, last time someone tried.

She grunts accord to Setsuna's next point, at least, with a small nod, and folds her hands on the table. It's the first gesture she's made which makes any peace at all, because they're where she can see them.

A short while later - is she the only person working out here at the moment?! - the girl in fox kigu returns to the door of their booth, smiling, brightly. "What can I get you?" She asks, smiling.

"Anything's fine," Mikoto replies, short but polite. "... just nothing spicy."

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

"Stopping you is not what brought me to Akihabara, or even into this cafe. As for why I came to your table..."

The eternal observer bends her attention to Mikoto's impassive affect, her movements, and finds it all too easy to reconcile this red-trimmed girl in the booth with the friend-focused aggression she heard tell of. Setsuna lets that sentence end unfinished, and instead says, "Orders from your Lord Brother. You found your purpose, after looking for so long."

She smoothly retrieves the menu after holding it out for a few seconds, untouched by awkwardness, and flips it open to scan the offerings. Both of her hands are in sight as well, her wrists against the kotatsu-table's low edge. Bright and cheerful treats fill the laminate pages, but by the sad solemnity of her face Setsuna could be browsing coffins instead.

"I would like an order of marshmallow mochi for carry out, please. And a cup of green tea, for now." She orders no sweets to eat alongside Mikoto, not this time, just something slightly bitter for herself. The maid's left to figure out for herself what to do with Mikoto's order.

Setsuna waits until she's out of earshot again. "I wonder why your Lord Brother wants your friends hurt. You know most of us would help you, if you only asked. Yet he calls us enemy. He must be very sure we would oppose him, no matter how well you are loved." Setsuna presses her lips together until they make a thin and dark-painted line.

"Your duty must be grave, Mikoto-chan," she says finally. The Outer Senshi knows something of grave duties and the opposition they generate; she and Mikoto have spoken of such, many times. Despite how guarded the Guardian is, that honorific is still warm as she speaks it.

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

"Yes," Mikoto replies, when Setsuna sums up where her orders come from. Not 'yup,' the way she says when she's happy. Not 'yeah,' in that casual manner she had even when things were hard. It's more removed, more practiced.

Rote.

When they make their orders, the kigu girl claps her hands together. "Alrighty! It won't be too long!" And hurries off --

-- in the back room, muttering, "why can't any of these cosplayers break character and just tell me what they want, one of these days I'm gonna just, I swear to God," --

-- but that's how the sausage is made. Back in a booth designed like a family lounge, Mikoto listens to Setsuna's thoughts. She does not interrupt; she considers them. Finally she reaches her conclusion, and Mikoto's gaze slips from her, glancing aside to the black of Miroku's case.

She's tired. It's in the little things: the slight dip of her eyelids, the way her shoulders rest forward instead of sitting straight, the splay of her fingers.

There is interesting crossover, in the body languages of weariness and woe.

'You didn't do anything wrong - but if you keep thinking like that... ... that the rules are more important than the people you love. One day you're going to do something that would be... very difficult to take back.'

With words chosen carefully, and a tone more distant than cold: "I'm prepared to obey any order." In this at least she is sure Setsuna will understand: Setsuna has always understood duty.

And she's still calling herself her friend. She's still referring to her so warmly.

Mikoto shuts her eyes, briefly, breathes in, breathes out. She's just hungry, she assures herself. It's not affecting her, not really.

Those terrible gold eyes open; she looks to Setsuna again, grim in her determination. "Would you," she replies, not quite a question. "You'd help me... even though I'm Dark Fall?"

Maybe it's affecting her a little.

She shouldn't really be provoking her enemies like this, right now.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

She notices the change in diction, much like she noticed that hand upon Miroku's case. And she notices the slumping of shoulders. Setsuna's own rise square and straight; her weariness, she contains far more tightly than her woe.

A slow nod, one communicating that expected understanding, follows when Mikoto says she is prepared to obey any order. In her stillness and her patience she waits while Mikoto's eyes close, understanding, too, that the other girl is not finished speaking yet.

When she does, Setsuna's eyes at long last widen from their naturally narrow state. She doesn't move otherwise -- this is, indeed, when her stillness becomes so complete it is noteworthy.

It is but a moment, a long and singular moment, between them. It changes nothing, and it changes everything.

Setsuna inhales. She shakes her head, slow as the nod, her eyes never leaving golden ones. This makes it easy to see how they narrow again.

"No," she says, as direct an answer as Mikoto's 'Yes' was.

It is, however, less distant somehow. There's a tightness to Setsuna's smooth low voice, one which expresses the sensation deep in her chest. "No, Dark Fall will never have my aid, however I care for you. I have my duty, too, Mikoto-chan."

It's still there, the honorific -- it and the sorrow. Unchanged.

"Your Lord Brother was right to name us enemies, however wrong his goals." Setsuna need not know any specifics of his plans to call them that, not in her judgment. Something implacable joins the sorrow, something the Outer Senshi has never directed at Mikoto before. Change.

Dark Fall...! She cages her horror -- the horror she feels for Mikoto, the horror she feels for them all -- because her friend is now also her enemy, and Setsuna Meioh has an unfortunate amount of experience in that. It means the firming of slowly lowered walls, a return of remove, among other things. She has her duty, too.

And her enemy is weary before her.

The air between them feels heavier, of a sudden. Setsuna Meioh's chin lifts... then lowers again. She shakes her head to herself.

To Mikoto, she says, "Later," in a conscious echo of the second word said to her, though without the hand gesture. Perhaps even soon. But not now, not in this kotatsu kafe.

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

No, Setsuna says, and Mikoto wonders for a moment if it is answer or denial.

No, Setsuna says, and there's this slight upturn of her brow, a minute softening of her eyes, a little tightness in her throat.

No, Setsuna says.

Mikoto couldn't.

And she proceeds with her answer, and Mikoto's lips tighten against each other. Setsuna is implacable, and those golden eyes narrow, chin tilting askance.

She has never assessed Setsuna in such a way before, waiting for the moment she'll strike.

She has never looked upon her like an enemy before.

Her hands are tight on the table, now, in this moment, as they calculate. She sits straighter. Finally Setsuna breaks it, shakes her head, and Mikoto's weight settles back again. She breathes out.

Twists the knife of her own fear. "Learn to hate me." If Eri would hate for her to say it; good. She's supposed to. "I can't protect you no more."

She does not catch the ways she has betrayed herself, her particular choice of verb.

Nor the other.

At this point, the waitress bursts in again. "Thanks for waiting!" She chirps, sliding over two cups of green tea, and two serves of marshmellow mochi, to go. "Let me know if you'd like anything else!"

"I'm grateful," Mikoto says, to her, as one does when receiving food, and the waitress smiles and hurries out, sliding the door closed again.

Mikoto takes a bite. Slow, methodical. It is not the way Mikoto Minagi eats. She does not devour her food, even now she's hungry. She tastes the sweets, and the sorrow in her eyes is unvarnished.

It tastes good.

Chew, swallow. "Stay - if you want." There's a little beat between one word and the rest, as if it might have been a period. A longer, before she adds: "... Sailor Pluto."

She can't protect them any more.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Not once since sitting down has Setsuna's right hand strayed far from her violet suit coat pocket, where she keeps a transformation pen adorned with her planetary sigil. Nothing in her relishes this, but neither does the serious-minded senshi rail against it. She is, perhaps, too accepting of terrible injustices in this world.

But Setsuna has her duty, and Mikoto hers.

"Hate you? No." The implacable thing about Setsuna now is her empathy. She hears her friend in those revealing words, but hears something else, too. A frightened and fleeing Mikoto comes to mind, and the reason she fled...

How long has Mikoto been protecting them all?

Two teas arrive and one, at least, is fated to cool untouched by its recipient. /Dark Fall/. Setsuna knows what she should be doing, right now: she should be reaching into that pocket and taking on this newly revealed threat in this time of her apparent weakness, take whatever slight advantage to try and eliminate this agent of darkness.

She is not doing so, but neither can this be like all the other times they have shared sweets over deadly serious conversation.

At Mikoto's invitation, Setsuna slides free of the booth and unfolds to her full willowy height, only to dip in a bow which is abbreviated by vigilance -- Mikoto never leaves her sight, now more than ever. "I cannot."

Is it a sense of duty which drives Sailor Pluto from the table of her enemy, or is it the ache of a heart too loyal to stop thinking of Miroku's swordmaiden as a friend? Setsuna knows it is both.

"...Mikoto-chan. Until we meet again." She picks up her wrapped marshmallow mochi and drops a generous amount of yen in one motion. A half-turn and long stride allows Setsuna to give their hostess a polite "Arigatou gozaimasu," and a smooth dance-like pivot takes her the rest of the way to the door with a flourish of evergreen hair.

The shutting cafe door finally severs their eye contact.

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

'I cannot.'

"Good."

It's a strange way for Mikoto to say that, too. Something about the tone, like she's echoing something else now.

She can rely on Setsuna, at least, to know the line between them, where they stand and what they must do. Even if she refuses to feel the way Mikoto thinks she should for her enemies, Mikoto was able to push her this far.

She wasn't honestly asking Setsuna to stay.

She wasn't.

Setsuna leaves and Mikoto watches, twin specks of gold, and she does not wish her well in turn, does not say another word. Once she is gone she returns her attention to her mochi, bite, chew, swallow.

It's some time, reflecting over what she has said, before she realises her error.

"I don't want to," she mutters, to herself, stubbornly. "I don't /want/ to protect you."

She tries not to think about a vague note in a window, penned by Mikoto's own hand. /I kept yours./

Mikoto has always hated the vagueness of pronouns, but context supplied meaning: your secrets.

They loved her, and trusted her, and she...

It's fine, she assures herself.

It's not like her Lord Brother has ordered her to say anything.

It's not like she's been protecting them, blade-edge turned aside, always some reason to stop short and retreat.

It's not like they still matter.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-05-31 - The Lucky Date

2019-06-04T14:43:04Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: The Lucky Date'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''But what kind of luck...? Kasagami and Setsuna finally go on a much-longed for getaway...''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Kasagami Araki]] and [[Setsuna Meioh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
The Ocean
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
5-31-2019 - 5-2-2015
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Ah, early June in Tokyo. For its first week, June is more like balmy beautiful May: warm enough for short sleeves and bare legs, yet absent the swelter of summer months. It's a great time to get in your last big outdoors hurrah for a while, because the rest of June and much of July surrenders to the rainy season's intermittent torrents.

When better to go on a long longed-for romantic beach getaway?

Checking weather forecasts is part of proper pre-flight procedure, and Setsuna Meioh has never been one for cutting corners. Sunny skies and a gentle seaward breeze are all that is expected between Tokyo and Nii-jima, some hundred miles off the coast.

Accordingly, she packed light and wears a breezy orange tropical-print sarong dress draped from her neck, leaving her long arms and graceful shoulders bare. It might make for an odd match with the flight helmet she's wearing, save for all that confident poise. Models just know how to make such things work, it seems.

Skies are indeed sunny, and up on this skyscraper-top helipad that blue stretches all around. Overhead the rotors chop lazily, putting a flutter in her dress and the long trailing of evergreen hair which escapes from a helmet which could never hold it. She leans out of the helicopter's cab and extends her hand to her date for the weekend, but not for clasping: it has her helmet's mate in it.

Once it's on, a tinny version of her low smooth voice comes over the comm: "How long have we been wanting to do this? It feels a small forever." Her lips can't be seen, but through the visor her deep red-violet eyes are smiling. And now her hand is free for clasping, for hauling Kasagami up into the cabin, and for holding between flipping through the takeoff switches.

With a barely perceptible upward climb, they are aloft, and floating like a feather in the light breeze -- and then the motion becomes very perceivable as they clear the building and Setsuna jogs the stick forward. The black-bodied bird tips forward and they slice through the sky toward the not-so-distant ocean, leaving their stomachs somewhere behind them.

A low chuckle crackles over the comms, a bit of emoting that bubbles out of Setsuna between the joy of flying and the openness that has grown between the two.

-=-=-=-

But there's a dark smudge between blue of sky and blue of sea, out there demarcating the horizon, and it only grows as they fly directly toward it. The waves below, so sedate and pretty near the coast, grow chop and whitecaps visible even from their height. The wind... picks up.

Soon Setsuna has no extra hand to hold Kassie's, for hers are both needed for the controls.

Soundtrack: Beethoven - 6th Symphony, 4th Movement (Thunder Storm) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRwMxCuagYg

She's flown in more dire conditions, to be sure, but a thunderstorm at sea is no trivial matter to navigate in a helicopter, even for so skilled a pilot. Rain batters the windshield endlessly and all turns dark around them, so dark the sea cannot be seen, and questions of 'up' and 'down' become matters for the aircraft's instruments rather than the naked eye.

Not that the frequent lightning illuminates matters. It just shocks, and blinds, and then the thunder comes right on its heels to rattle the world.

"We'll be fine," Setsuna says with remarkable calm (...control) over the comms, especially considering how busy she is keeping them aloft despite all the wind-driven lurching. But... will their vacation? "It'll clear up by the island. A passing squall, it must be. Something which blew up over the water in the last hour or so and will blow out just as soon."

They are fine. But... this is no a passing squall. The remote beach they eventually put down on -- what they can see of it, through the storm -- is soaked. Is actively soaking. By the way the rain barrages the outside of the helicopter, they too will be soaked the moment they set foot outside of it.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Beautiful weather, a beautiful month, and a beautiful new world with beautiful company! To say, as Kassie hops into the helicopter and snags her beloved's offered helmet, that the world is truly looking up for the Duelist! She peers over all of the flashing lights and switches as Setsuna puts on her skill and control on display, Kasagami fascinated in equal parts by just how /well/ she wars her ensemble of breeziness while showing off her talents.

One can feel the hearts and captivation of the dark haired young woman, slipping on her helmet as she relaxes into her seat, trying to get every detail down. She does, after all, want to learn how to pilot this monstrous metal steed one day!

Kassie herself is also dressed for the weather they're sure to encounter! That is, of the non storm and gloom kind! A light, waterproof tank top ends above her belly, leading into a pair of swimming trunks down to the knees! Her legs and arms are mostly bare as well, trusting in her love and the relative privacy of Nii-jima easing her hangups and insecurities enough for now. Her trunks are also a bit...out of the ordinary.

Blue, actually, rather than the usual black and red. With a multitude of dog breeds on them, each one carrying swords or knives in the mouth! As befitting the Girl Who Would Be King, naturally. A certain pair of pj's rendered in swim version!

"I'd say more like a medium forever! But we'll put our time to good use, soak in sunshine and enjoy the peace and quiet. As much as I love excitement...I think we've earned it, my love." Leeeean! Already, Kassie is aiming for a nice, warm kiss to her sweetheart!

Bonk!

"...Right, helmet." Cough.

-=-=-=-

The seas are stormy, and the peace firmly shattered! Kasagami is gripping the side of her seat with one hand and clenching the other fist as she turns vision from outside the chopper back to Setsuna as she takes in blackness of it all thanks to the sheets of rain! She's tense, grinning, and as the metal enclosure of a bird they're in lurches?

She's raddled around in her seat, but the Duelist laughs aloud. Maybe she can take a little more excitement after all!

"Well, obviously! How could it be less than fine! Just look at us! The fury of mother nature wishes to bar our path to the island of decadence, solitude, and beach-based relaxation! LET'S GET CLOSER AND PUNCH POSEIDON IN THE FACE! You can do this, Setsu-chan, guided by the stars and upon the invincible iron steed! This is all going to be completely fine, the very gods are going to tremble when we land!" She...might be overdoing it a bit here! Totally not nervous, nope!

~One Rain Soaked Beach Later~

On comes a flashlight, and a backpack full of /useful things/ is shoved Setsuna's way, it's twin on Kassie's back. She flicks open...an umbrella???

"It'll...it'll be like five more minutes, and it'll clear up. We'll just call this nature's way of powerwashing the helicopter." Arms cross. She eyes outside, trying to see where they could even run to!

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Bonk!

After a short frozen pause which can only be surprise, Setsuna leans back in and re-bonks Kassie. "Helmet," she replies in that warm voice.

The visor cannot fully obscure how her eyes light up every time she looks Kassie's way. She narrates, lightly, as she goes through the takeoff procedure, explaining what she's doing. "Opening throttle to full... pulling up on pitch control... collective pedal down against torque... And up we go. Scanning left horizon, blue and clear. Scanning right horizon... ah, what a view." Her helmet is tilted Kassie's way.

"...Cyclic forward, and away with us."

-=-=-=-

In one seat, control and a bodily stillness despite the way fingers fly across the controls; in the other seat, kinetic energy and bombast. "The gods themselves, mm?" Voice smooth despite the storm, even heartened by Kasagami's ready defiance of it, she wrenches the ducking helicopter UP and RIGHT, HARD. Good thing these helicopter seats come with five point harnesses.

"Maybe they are having their lark with us. The rainy season is an early guest off Tokyo's coast this year... by whose invitation, I must wonder? Ah, but all this fury of wind and water puts someone else entirely in mind." She's thinking of a nod and a look on a bridge, not so long ago.

Her voice is a modicum less heavy than usual when she makes her rare references to her estranged Outer sisters. Not /light/. But less heavy.

-=-=-=-

"You packed an umbrella? I... should not question it, should I?" she asks as she takes her pack. "Island youma, beware. It is not as long as a shower rod, but it does seem more sturdy." Some humor will surely speed along their wait for the rain to let up.

It might, if the wait had an end in sight.

...No such luck. Five minutes could turn into an hour and they'd still be waiting.

Setsuna Meioh is a patient woman, but she is also a wise one who recognizes a potential sunken cost fallacy when she sees one. After about ten, she calls it. "The sound of rain on the tent canopy will be nice to fall asleep to, don't you think...?"

First, though, they have to put the tent up. In the rain.

-=-=-=-

Crowding together beneath the umbrella is nice, at least, though it's not really possible to keep from getting wet, considering the wind. Soon enough the lower half of Setsuna's sarong is more of a rain-plastered legwrap than a skirt.

The senshi has the umbrella in one hand and the tent instructions in the other, and /those/ she's really trying to keep dry. This requires her to hold them up practically to the bright umbrella canopy.

All the tent supplies have been dumped on the beach before them, and are rapidly getting very very soaked. Lengths of lock-together metal to form tent poles, the pale green-and-blue nylon of what is supposed to, in the end, stretch over a dome shape... it's a geometry nightmare aswim in a downpour. The wet sand is already sticking to half of it, somehow.

"Let us take turns beneath the umbrella." There's no way the assembler can hide beneath it, after all. "I'll read you the first few steps, and then we can swap off." She offers Kassie a warm wink and a warmer press of smiling lips to cheek as a please-and-thank-you for setting it up so the other girl ventures into the rain first. "If you find Poseidon between all those raindrops, be sure to punch him roundly for us both."

Once Kassie ventures out, she crouches down to better shield the instructions and starts reading them off while peering into the umbrella's obscuring canopy. "Now... you want Pole A, and that shall apparently connect to Pole C -- but be sure to set one end into the pocket marked H on the front... left? Is that left?" Peeeer. "Front /right/ corner of the tent nylon..."

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Kasagami, amidst the storm and the attempt at lightness? Smiles reassuringly. "Sometimes...you have to face that fury of the two elements for them to truly respect you. And that's something I'll stand beside you for, no matter what the cost." She adds warmly.

The umbrella gets waggled before they head out amidst the spray and wind! "H...hey! Who do you think I am!? I wouldn't use something this...tiny and /short/ in battle! It would be a disgrace to the Araki family! /Toothpicks aren't weapons/!" Hufffff! One can imagine Kasagami glaring at the entire fencing team right now. Even Juri.

/Especially/ Juri!

When they're both under the umbrella though, and there's so many horrible scattered parts to assemble? The Duelist glares stoically as her beloved lists out all the inconvenient places that these poles should go! She nods every time, listening intently, as she very obviously understands and is listening to where they all need to go. She's just...preparing herself for this act of construction. Centering her being with meditation. Preparing herself to launch into action! Attaining the zen of the Ikea anti-rain tent!!!!

After part two, she is lost, and it's all kind of a big blurr, basically. She cracks her knuckles, eyes a certain soaked senshi joyously, and then grabs the biggest, sturdiest poles amongst the lot of them with both hands!

"Pole T to corner Q!!! That's how an /ordinary/ tent-constructor would think! But taste the power of the Araki Family Tent Pitching Technique and tremble before my might!"

Then Kasagami Araki is basically jamming the biggest tent pole she can find into the ground, looking for another one, and vaguely trying to jam them into each other in a vaguely tent-like shape with little regard for numbers, letters, instructions, or the durability of said poles.

Her hands and body is a blurr! ...Setsuna might want to stop her, she's jsut as likely to bend poles at this rate if she keeps this up! Her ponytail flails as she does so! A convenient grabbing tool to stop dangerously ramshackle-tenting Duelists!?

"...I will say though, as nice as this round is going to sound, sleeping next to the most beautiful girl in the whole galaxy means I'll be too captivated to even notice. Not even a pity!" Wink!

Kassie is shameless, and also is soaked to the bone as her hodge-podge of rammed-together tentpoles trembles and begins to collapse, popping shoujo bubbles along the way!

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

"Umbrella umbrage," Setsuna says, and the words are the driest things for miles. Then she chuckles, almost too low to be heard through the deluge. The tall senshi and keeper of the nearly-as-tall Garnet Rod continues. "As if the longer a sword is, the better... Whether you will countenance it or not, short things are good, too." Like her best friend.

She is just... far too absorbed in the directions, in figuring out their byzantine ways, like an eager math student presented with a ridiculously convoluted problem. "How did they manage to make instructions with complexity sufficient to rival submillimetre astronomy? I am fascinated," she says, and weirdly enough, sounds it.

Suffice to say she is not keen to the overwhelmed glazing of Kasagami's good eye when she gets deeper into the confusing weeds of Tabs and Poles and Slots which scale the entire alphabet, and then start doubling their lettered designations.

She doesn't realize what's about to happen, not until that defiant declaration of War Upon Tent Instructions.

"Kassie... Kassie, wait!"

But her love is as strong as a beestung bull, and swift like a descending swordstroke. Setsuna in her careful and thoughtful ways was too absorbed in her academic approach, and it must be said that maybe she could have spent a little more effort toward haste considering the downpour...

The umbrella drops, the rain pours in, and Setsuna joins Kasagami in a thorough drenching as she jumps to grab Kassie! Not by the ponytail -- more of an arms-open attempt at an obstructing hug, because what better way to waylay a rampaging Kasagami then with affection?

But even Outer Senshi grace can be foiled by a wet flap of tent nylon slipping underfoot...

Her planting foot -- no longer planted, but flying out behind her, even as the rest of the long-limbed young woman flies forward through the rain at Kasagami. Collision!

And it's inevitably going to be a wild splashdown amongst nylon and poles and tabs and sand and rain when they land together, and surely whatever semblance of order Kasagami has forcefully imposed cannot stand against the impact...

After, the first thing Setsuna does -- okay, the second, after a mild groan -- is find Kasagami's ponytail by blind feel amongst their tangle of girls and tent pieces, and grab and tug it. "You...!" Exasperation? Affection?

Both, roundly.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Not even the fascination of Arts of Tent Creation can stop the outer senshi's brave leap towards a thoroughly distracted Duelist! Yup, rain falls harshly upon them both as the umbrella is caught amidst the downpour, and the power of physics decides the course of Setsuna! Kasagami starts to turn as she hears the sounds of her beloved and a trip!

A crash of pretty much everything, and a combination of nylon and pole bits and tabbies are scattered everywhere. It's a disaster area of thoroughly intertwined limbs, with the sound of one lightly dazed Kassie beneath a rather warm and comfy seeming Setsu.

Even if they're now both soggy and sandy too. Ugh! Yaaaaank! Kassie's eyes bug out just a little, only to grin riiight into...well, basically her beloved's collar bone. Leeean! Smooch on the nose!

"Yes, me! See? No mere tent can withstand us! Our love is too powerful to contain." She nods self-satisfied, as though this was all planned out. Then she's reluctantly disentangling herself, shakes off a bit of the water from herself like a dog (to little avail!), and tries to help up her beloved.

One or two treks and some work later, and the duo have finally managed to get beneath trees and use that soaked nylon tent covering and some branches o create a mostly dry area. There's even a fire going after some effort (Kassie notably keeping blankets and a warm Puruchan between herself and it), and some warmed soup and sandwhiches scavenged from their foodstuffs brought.

Only one sleeping bag though, which is totally not at all Kasagami's fault.

The next morning is a far drier affair! Kassie has changed into a less doggie patterned and more beachy blue-and-black pair of swimshorts with big suns on them, and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Rather than let the previous dampness put a damper on the trip, Kassie has been playing amateur fisherwoman. It's gone...well, they all got away, so instead it's eggs, rice, and some salmon pre-packed. She has one of those portable mini-grills, turning the food occasionally before turning back to the glorious rising sun!

"Isn't it beautiful, Setsu-chan? To be alive, to not have the universe about to be torn down in front of your face! Life really is a miracle. We're so lucky..."

How can a storm be scary, after baring witness to the Storm of all Storms?

Then she's rushing over to wrap her arms around Setsuna, to pull her into a dance along the beach joyously! "And I get to appreciate it all with you. We're going to make the best of this world, together!" She's just so /optimistic/ for a second. Really, it all feels like a second chance out here.

Yet, for all that optimism, there's a shadow creeping amidst the waves! Sneak sneak! Sneeeeak sneak! Something crawls atop beach chairs, hops upon a table, and with it's monstrous appendages is reaching for the breakfast! What fiend, what evil youma could be attacking our protagonists' foodstuffs!?

The looming armored shelled beast is going for an egg, it's great claws all snip-snipping away! And as it turns to look back at the two humans with it's gangly eyes, there's nothing but watery /evil/ in them!

Or maybe just crustaceous hunger and confusion. The crab snip-snips at some egg and is right beside the kitchen knife! Kasagami hasn't even noticed the interloper!

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Amid disaster and mangled tent bits, Setsuna finds herself to have landed quite favorably, thanks to Kasagami's alert turn. Credit, also, the kinetic alchemy of senshi and swordswoman; Setsuna does, mid-linger. "So rarely do we get the opportunity to formally dance... but we do make our chances to twirl together, do we not?"

She closes her eyes, also pleased-slash-mollified by that kiss on the nose -- or maybe she's just trying to keep all that rain out of them. "Too powerful to contain... Does that mean our love is fated to soak to the bone tonight? Because if so, I think our love might want to try sheltering back in the helicopter, if only for the night..."

But Kasagami has another idea, and it ends up being a night-saver of one, far more agreeable than curling across helicopter seats. Setsuna takes up fire tending duty without a word needing to be said, and passes heated food Kassie's way. She's even brought some of her herbal tea to steep, and a couple of nifty collapsible mugs to steep it in.

Much later, a murmur in the close dark: "It is nice. The sound of the rain overhead..."

-=-=-=-

"Ah, it does have an end!" The storm, she means, indicating blue morning skies with arms wide. Her smile is small, quiet, but joyful. They have their remote beach vacation back on track.

In accordance with that, Setsuna's donned her remote beach vacation swimsuit. One piece of fabric, black and geometrically complex and sheer in sleek panels, wraps her torso and bares the rest of her. Somehow, /somehow/ she has worked all that hair into a high loose bun. How is that possible? Another of her mysteries...

"I am... unbelievably fortunate, I know. It stuns me anew each day," she replies, after her gaze drops from morning sky to glowing girl. She could not be more ready for a hug, and puts an expressively happy spin into it as they enjoy the beach with light feet and smitten hearts.

There are shadows somewhere out there, on the horizon. But for today, they shall remain there.

...Well, most of them. There is this /one/ shadow that's a little more... proximate.

And chitinous.

The egg, perfectly cooked, delicious just to look at, suffers imminent peril. It doesn't just look tasty to human eyes, but also to watery evil eyestalks. And... lucky for the stalky stalker, the food's erstwhile defenders are far too distracted by each other...

...until one of the plates clanks right over, noisily, as the crab finishes making off with half of its contents! The rest might have been salvageable if they didn't tip into the sand. Ew, gritty salmon.

"That was your plate...!" cries Setsuna, whirling about to face their tormentor.

They're a little ways down the beach, off toward their extra gear. One weapon is at hand... Setsuna darts to the side and grabs something, then tosses it through the air in her girlfriend's direction, handle-first.

"Kassie!! Stop that thing!"

...it's the umbrella. She threw Kassie the umbrella.

Soundtrack: Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTdJy4_rHPE

There were longer bits of tent rod she could have gone for. Maybe she was just in a hurry, but rarely does Time's Guardian allow a time crunch to affect her tactical decisions...

It was probably on purpose.

With every second that passes, Setsuna's plate becomes ever more imperiled as the ten-legged bandit darts that way...!

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Kasagami, as they dance and find themselves in each other's arms amidst the beach, takes a few moments to really look over her beloved. Kassie's gaze upon Setsuna is everything. Enjoyment of her physical beauty, how the /mysterious senshi/ has done her magic to get all that beautiful green hair into a bun, how Setsuna just seems so alive and in the moment with her quiet joy!

After all the harsh events and miracles, the Duelist soaks in this private moment of togetherness with a person that helps her heart sing.

"I'll keep reminding you of that. And myself, each and every day, Setsu-chan~!"

But before she can go in for a romantic kiss, there's shecrabnanigans aclaw!

A plate falls, defeated! Fish felled by sand and egg deyolked into the maw of a monstrous crustracean! "M...my food! How dare you fiend!?" Comes Kassie with all of the outrage only a Girl Who Would Be King can muster! She stands straight as Setsuna rushes to procure a weapon! Kassie's hand is offered as there's the sound of a weapon thrown! Surely, surely her beloved can find a proper weapon against their crabby foe!

Mid rush to the crab, Kasagami looks down. Then sloooowly looks back to Setsuna. Frown. Froooooown! Arms cross! "G...giving me this tiny little /butter knife/ to go into battle with! I am /betrayed/ by love itself! Dooooooomed to wield a toothpick! Oh, this will go into the annals of history like Shakespear's plays!" Bemoans Kassie...before sticking her tongue out at Puu!

And then she holds her umbrella high, and /LASHES/ at the crab!

But the crab is just as quick, flailing with it's pointy weapon of doom! All going pinch pinch and knife knife! The two masters of blade-and-claw pass one another! The wind sets hair and crustaceon scutt swaying!

Who will prevail in this epic CRAB BATTLE!?!?

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

It really is /quite/ a clatter the crab made, to pull Setsuna away from that gaze and those arms around her. Perhaps, she thinks, next time she'll let their food get stolen instead.

Alas...

Today, they lose both the opportunity for a kiss in the moment, and their delicious breakfast. Precious seconds burn by as Kassie vents her offended pride, seconds in which the crab is making mincemeat of Setsuna's food. Ah, the cost of a teasing!

Setsuna is too busy looking right back at Kassie with her arms folded and an eyebrow raised to notice -- and too busy being only-kind-of-secretly charmed by the punkishness of that stuck out tongue, by the sparkle in eyes like garnets.

"Betrayed? Say instead trusted! I know you to be powerful and skilled enough to challenge whatever threatens our new chance at breakfast happiness, my love, no matter what challenges you face."

Less a sparkle, now, and more a twinkle.

Crumbs litter the sand beneath claw and foot like bones might a battlefield.

A flash along the beach -- two sounds clash, wooden umbrella handle versus the sharp scrape of a flailing knife -- sand flies everywhere, and Setsuna calls out after, her eyes wide...

The tableau, post-strike: The closed umbrella stabs halfway up its length into the sand directly between the crustacean's claws, thanks only to a desperate half-scuttle backwards. The knife stabs into the /umbrella/, quivering from the beachy red-white stripes and wooden pole beneath, and it is lodged in the close space between thumb and finger, having narrowly missed both.

Can a crab's eyes bug out? They're already /there/ really, but this crab manages it. They bug out, well, farther, bigger. It froths in distress.

And then it skedaddles as only crabs can. It disappears directly downward, shimmying into the sand so quickly it leaves the eyes wondering if the crab was some sort of illusion... but no, that little depression in the sand tells the tale.

"Ah..." Setsuna strides up next to Kasagami. She slides a hand down one flexed arm, appreciative and soothing in the same touch. "You worked so hard on our food, too. I hope you can forgive my betraying ways... Perhaps if I offer the proper penance."

A deferred kiss makes a good start on that.

-=-=-=-

"I meant the melon pan to be dessert, but now I think dessert for breakfast befits our getaway."

The sand is smooth beneath them. Waves roll down beneath them where sand meets sea, making peaceful noise. Setsuna sits with her legs straight out before her, propped up on her elbows, close enough that their hips touch.

"This has been a better trip than I even dreamed of, Kassie." Her smile, her eyes, both are soft. "Despite it all. Thanks to it all. I'll remember it always. Your spirit... is bright like no other. Your passion teaches me new ways to love the world."

A pause. A wider smile.

"Your tent-pitching skills... well." And then, perhaps to forestall any roguish retribution, wide eyes, she's pointing. "Look! Dolphins, jumping!"

But they are, out there where the waves roll gentle over deeper water, sleek and shining under the sun.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Like a knight ridden off to war with their maiden's banner around their arm, Kassie's eyes /flare/ with confidence! For within her heart is the love of the great Outer Senshi and beautiful, sad heart known as Setsuna Meioh!

As Crab and Kass clash, she feels invincible!

Hair aflutter, sand in the air, and as blade and umbrellade strike? Kassie lets out a triumphant war cry! When the chitinous chivalryless crustacteon is fleeing? She flicks that umbrella free to her side, only to stare down at the umbrella.

Then she's waving it in the air, convinced that the craburai of the beach is down for now! "See what I mean!? Way. Too. Tiny!" Yes, that's right, she's still complaining about the size of her weapon. No, she is /not/ letting this go!

But it's all worth it, even the loss of the food, as soon another kiss finds it way to Kasagami's lips! And this one tastes so much sweeter with victory on it! Leeeeean in, smooch, dip! She parts after a very, very long time.

"You know, if you keep on repenting like that, then I'm going to have to keep coming up with excuses for more food-annihilating betrayals. ...Or just start punishing you myself!"

It's Kassie's turn to pull Setsuna close, indulging in one more before the cooking road!

And Kasagami is right there with Setsuna, hip to hip, a smile on her face in between the last few bits of melon pan. Ahhh. Her own eyes don't peer to the beautiful, rolling waves or enjoy the sounds of the sea. No, the world is Setsuna and her alone as she looks upon the other girl enraptured.

"I'm starting to learn that when everything goes your way, you don't really gain anything. It's adversity, and the people that love you, that truly teach you how to be strong." She leans in a little more, aiming to go cheek to cheek!

There's a blush on her soft side. "And you, my wise stargazer, keep me from acting /too/ much like a fool. Your experience, your love and your intelligence...when force can't win, I remember your temperence. Setsu-chan, you save me from myself when I'm at my worse, and remind me to look beyond a blade sometimes."

Hurrk! "I'll have you know I..."

DOLPHIES!!!!

Yeah, she's utterly forgotten what she was about to rant on. She's sprung to her feet, and is already out with a camera!

Snap snap snaaaap!

"We /have/ to go swimming with them!" Comes Kassie, grinning like a happy fool.

[[Category:Logs]]

2018-10-06 - Over And Over Again

2019-05-10T21:24:17Z

Kestrel:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Over And Over Again'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Alone after the awful truth comes out at [[2018-09-30 - Reckoning I|Haneda Airport]], Madoka makes a wish. Homura commits murder, then explains herself.''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Madoka Kaname]], [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
Shibuya Shopping Ward

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
10/9/18 (moved for chronology) - 05-19-2018
|-
|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Shibuya Shopping Ward +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+
Any rural ingenue looking to come to the big city and get swept away at
first sight would be well-advised to get off at Shibuya Station, where you
could fill a high school yearbook with the people teeming over a single
crosswalk, and a legion of ten-story department stores offer a choice so
broad it resembles existential crisis. Shinjuku might administrate Tokyo,
but Shibuya is its style capital. Its densest concentration of boutiques,
retailers, and restaurants is bound together by Shibuya Crossing, a bustling
pedestrian intersection resembling an even gaudier Times Square.

Within walking distance to Harajuku, Shibuya is less whimsical, and far
grander. Its most iconic symbol is the Shibuya 109 department store, a
cylindrical grey monolith famous even outside of Japan. Each floor of 109
has about a dozen shops, and with ten flights of escalator to ascend, it
doesn't take a mathematician to realize that even this single store can be a
lot to take in. But Shibuya too has its side streets and quirks, and it's
not hard to find a chic little cafe to rest in. Those who find themselves
energized instead have recourse to the night clubs that trade on Shibuya's
stylish reptuation.

Shibuya Station has a humbler landmark as well. It was here that the loyal
dog Hachiko waited for his owner each day, even after the owner had long
since died. A bronze statue of Hachiko waits here still, a reminder that
love and loyalty never die.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Papa's architect friend designed it, and Mama got her friend with the construction company to build it!"

The Kaname house is a symbol of new money in Tokyo, indeed. Really, the impressive part was getting the plot of land, and all the permitting required to tear down something old and make something brand new. But the building itself is also quite striking, both for its modern design and its impressive size.

The path to Madoka's bedroom window in the darkness, however, is mostly notable for how you have to go through Papa's tomato patch. In the middle of the night it is impossible to differentiate hard from ripe, but they catch glints of light off the street, which collect on rounded surfaces then vault back, diffuse. To the unpracticed sneaker, it would be far too easy to crush the base of a plant, or worse, one of the strings tying them up, which are as dangerous as tripwires when it comes to creating noise... and evidence.

After that it's easy going around the corner of the house to the back.

Madoka's blinds are drawn, and the vaguely sakura geometries on them -- somewhere between flower petal and snowflake, but too abstract to really be either a symbol of winter or spring -- are easier to see from the outside than the inside right now because there are no interior lights on right now, but Tokyo is always bright. The fog starting to settle around the city, in fact, is creating a nice diffuse gray radiance. Moonlight isn't moonlight anymore when it passes through fog -- it becomes something else instead.

There is a tiny gap between the edge of the blinds and the window frame, on the side closer to the head of Madoka's bed than the foot.

It's so hard to make out anything inside, but it isn't too hard to figure out that the bed is empty; Totoro is right in the middle, with bunched up blankets all around him. Messier than Madoka would leave it, but then, she hasn't been sleeping in her own bed for weeks. She's had a special house guest -- the daughter of a friend of a family friend, Kozue Kaoru, and Madoka being Madoka she insisted on giving her guest the bed.

Spotting the futon, on the far side of the bed on the floor, is much harder.

Other, larger shapes come into focus first... the edge of Madoka's monitor, on her desk. The chair -- not the desk chair, but one of the other ones, the deep purple upholstered, spindly mahogany-legged one that was always Homura's preference whenever she was the guest in this room. It stands alone, attached to no table or vanity or ''purpose''; the only way that it isn't alone is in that it is not the only one, and the mismatched shapes and sizes of the many other chairs arranged across Madoka's hardwood bedroom floor slowly become visible, one by one.

And there it is, in the corner.

The futon, neatly rolled up, as it is every morning before school. Its rope has a bow tie identical to the ones in Madoka's hair.

But those ribbons aren't here right now, and neither is their owner.

---

<SoundTracker> Umbra Nigra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G81uLQA8OoI

It isn't raining, but it feels like it should be. If it wasn't for the cloying onset of the fog -- a very early warning sign of morning in the sense that it means that the night has passed the point where it is closer to the day before, and is thoroughly in the day after -- the clarity of the air would in fact be offensive. After the rain there are a few hours where Tokyo is cleansed, fresh, when the byproducts of combustion recede and the smell of the sea is sharp as the broken glass outside the izakayas. It would smell like renewal. Like beginnings.

But this is a night for endings, and so to the extent that she is capable of welcoming anything into her heart right now, Madoka welcomes the oppressively thick mist. It makes it hard to know where she is, even when they are streets she's walked down all her life. But that's okay. Every street corner has a memory attached to it, or half a dozen; every storefront could reflect the noses of two girls pressing themselves hungrily to the glass.

She can barely see her feet, and those she has memorized, especially after spending a solid twenty minutes standing on her own doorstep, looking at them and the welcome mat beneath them and wondering at how, like the moon through fog, you aren't yourself anymore when you're passed through something like tonight and come out the other side. Sometimes you really can't go home again. Even when home has a Mama who would love nothing more than for you to wake her up in the middle of the night and confess everything across the kitchen table over scotch (and juice), and a Papa who would make you cocoa and tuck you into bed.

Especially then, because -- because, for the first time -- it wouldn't make anything better. But if she went inside, she would do it anyway. She wouldn't be able to help herself, and then she would lose something irreplaceable, something ''else'' irreplaceable, on the very same night.

And so Madoka walks the streets once protected by the Golden Queen of Shibuya and then, later, Tokyo's Premiere Puella Magi Konbi, and now no one at all, and keeps safe in the realm of the quantum and uncertain the possibility that her parents are still capable of protecting her from terrible things.

Not safe in her heart. Her heart is not a safe place right now, and may never be again. She always worried so much about how Sayaka dissociated herself deliberately from her body but for the first time Madoka understands why she might do the same. The human mind has other tools than magic, though, to distance itself from pain. The fog gives Madoka nothing to look at, and so she looks at nothing, and tries to think of nothing too, to feel nothing. The only part of it that's easy is the part where exhaustion, like the fog, shrouds everything, makes it all indistinct and strange.

She stumbles across every sidewalk's end. No matter how many times, it takes her by surprise. At least she doesn't have so far to fall, though mostly she just staggers, and when she actually ends up on her hands and knees in the gutter, that's the time she hears faint voices approaching her.

"Hahaha!"

They're drunk. Madoka knows from drunk, when it comes to laughter.

"Yeah, man, I've got her parents totally in my pocket. They love me more than they love her now."

There are three of them, a pair of shorter men with their arms slung around the shoulders of a taller man in between.

"But like," one of the shorter men asks the taller, "Isn't she frigid?"

"Not forever... I mean... who could resist ''this''?"

All three of them burst into laughter by then -- and double down on it, uproarious, as they notice the collapsed girl on the edge of the street. Madoka wishes she was wearing tights like Mami when she feels, viscerally, the way they are looking at the space between the top of her stockings and the bottom of her skirt. She can't even see their eyes. She can just feel it, and the invisibly tiny hairs of the fuzz on her skin, on her thighs, stand on end like candlewicks.

"Awww... come back, cutie... Macchan needs more practice..."

It takes a long time for her heart to stop pounding, after she somehow finds her feet and sprints blindly across the street and down the block, and it brings with it all the immediacy that she wanted to forget. Now the fog is just a feature of a cold world, rather than its kind blanket.

And a few blocks later, even that is unable to cross the chasmic distance that surrounds her. It cannot hope to compete with the events of the evening. It is its own horror that, five minutes later, it doesn't even register, and five minutes after that, she has forgotten about it entirely.

Madoka walks, and walks, and walks, and if the world changes around her, at least she can't see it.

<< Madoka... >>

Madoka stops.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura Akemi could have ''sworn'' Madoka went into her house when Endo Naoki dropped her off at the front door. There's a fog, though, like the sea wasn't content with taking Haneda Airport and has sent its cool tendrils into the city as an advance scout for further invasion. The puella's usual high perch across the way on a neighbor's roof keeps her out of Endo's sight, but tonight it also puts too much of that fog in the way for a clear view.

She decides to check. Just to be certain. But if Madoka's in there she's getting ready for bed. So Homura... waits. She gives it a good twenty minutes, just to be on the safe side.

Twenty minutes in damp-chilled henshin garments, twenty minutes spent worrying and running through possibilities in her mind and growing more and more certain that everything is going to hell. Everything she's done to try and prevent it, and Sayaka Miki erupted into a Witch practically in Madoka's arms. Did Homura make it worse? She didn't make it better, that's for sure.

Eri and Kyouko know, now. About her power -- so does Kozue. About Soul Gems. Eri survived, but... how much of her is left? Homura isn't sure how either puella will take the revelation, this time loop. She doesn't even know how they took it in the moment, because she was... she was...

Twenty minutes are up.

Dainty black feet tiptoe through Papa Kaname's tomatoes. In the moment she feels like a sneaking high school student rather than a deadly and stealthy puella magi. With a sharp reminder to herself that only the latter matters, she makes her practiced way past those gardener's tripwires.

Homura knows the gap between Madoka's sakura-print blinds and her window frame as well as she knows her way through the tomato garden at night. She lays fingertips white from diffuse no-longer-moonlight upon the frame's edge -- and sees the tremor in them that she did not feel. She twists her lips, draws a breath, and wills the tremor gone.

Her fingers keep trembling.

She draws them back before they rattle against the window and makes a fist, instead. There. ...Now she can ignore their shaking. As if it's not happening at all.

It's dark within, so Madoka's probably already in bed. Craning over, she leans in to check, bracing for the sight of a sleeping angel and ready to feel the usual rush of love for her and hatred for herself, the devil peering in...

Madoka isn't there.

Neither is Kozue Kaoru but that matters a lot less to Homura, aside from informationally. She's not there. Madoka isn't THERE.

Where is she?

She could be anywhere. She could be ''anywhere''.

She could be with... anyone. Fear burns into her, a vision of two round red alien eyes, and Homura backs away from Madoka's window. She doesn't notice how her heel comes down on the fragile base of one of Papa Kaname's tomato plants, turning the stalk to mangled paste.

Then Homura begins to run.

Where is Madoka Kaname? She has some ideas where the grieving girl might go, right now.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The hall light is on in Sayaka's apartment, and it leaks underneath the shut bedroom door. It can't get far, though, not with the mess made of the floor: a textbook here, a pillow there. An Aohime blouse, crumpled into a ball and thrown. It must have loosened over time, just a little, its own weight forcing it to spread. A battered old denim jacket, beloved, forgotten across the back of the out-of-place dining room-style chair.

There's movement in the big antique mirror across from the window, and that means that there's also a hint of a shadow in the handmirror on the nightstand. Pale skin flashes in the many-sided modern one.

A half dozen sets of cold eyes stare back at Homura. A dozen. Two dozen. The broad chestnut stand faces the frameless wall-mounted looking glass directly, and that means there must be as many girls in the bedroom as there is patience to look, back and back and back and back.

But all of them are purple.

No, there's Madoka. Jammed shoulder to shoulder with Sayaka, still in their middle school uniforms. Madoka is laughing, elated, her arm outstretched, surely holding the phone. Sayaka's eyes sparkle with joy but they're a little tearful too. They're in front of some sort of announcement board, surely at school. Something is scrawled on the hanging paper behind them, in Sayaka's reedy English-language handwriting:

I LOVE

TO

MADOKA

Most of the photos in the room are curated carefully on a bulletin board above the desk, but this one is still loose. It hasn't found its final place.

And now it never will.

---

"Ah," Madoka says, vaguely, "There you are. I was looking for you, earlier..."

She can't see him, in the fog, until she can. That's forgivable. She was looking at nothing, after all, and he is white in a whiteout in any event.

But actually, the moisture isn't quite as dense, here, there's a shift to the flow of the bank that implies an openness entirely unlike the streets and alleys she's worn down. She can feel dryness in the thickening of her tongue. Like an object that may be closer than it appears in the mirror, she can hear the distant trickling of fountains that are actually quite nearby.

With a terrible suddenness, Madoka knows where she is, and the GPS marker that pops up on the neighborhood map in her mind is an unforgiving and painful revelation. Her breath catches in her throat, then comes faster. Needles prick behind her eyes. They're hot.

"...you weren't there." She is too tired to be sharp, so what could have been a bitter accusation emerges as a flat statement instead, modulated only by how it rides a sigh out of her lungs. Just the facts.

<>

Pink eyes look down at red eyes look back up.

There comes a complex silence, one with several layers, like the petals of a flower. Exhaustion meets anticipation and at the point of their collision, tension.

Kyuubey is the one to break it.

<< ...are you mad at me, like the others? >>

Madoka sighs again, and takes a seat next to Kyuubey on the park bench, and tries not to think of how there was a time when her feet didn't touch the ground and Sayaka's did and she would chew the inside of her cheek with that bit of irritation, exacerbated by the endless teasing.

Now it's a pearl too bright for her to look at straight on, like a tiny sun. Just being near it burns her. She doesn't even want to look at it sideways, so she looks over at her little furry companion instead. Some distant piece of her mind observes his little pawsie toes. She knows their pads must be incredibly soft, but she doesn't ever remember playing with them, so where did that knowledge come from?

Oh, she's asking a question.

"If I were," she wonders aloud, small-voiced, too small for there to be room for any meaningful amount of hope, "Would you change Sayaka back?"

<>

Afterwards, it is easier to return her gaze to her feet after all. If she balances her weight just right against the planks of wood, she can't quite feel the Earth.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

When Homura Akemi realizes where she should start her search, she resents the realization. Where else would Madoka Kaname go but someplace related to her dead best friend? Visions of timeline-ending disaster fill her head as she runs flat-out through crawling veils of fog, darkened buildings fading into view and out again like passing ghost ships, and yet there's still a treacherous part of her that hopes she won't find that particular heartstopping shade of pink at Sayaka Miki's apartment.

It is not disappointed, even as the rest of her feels the tide of panic rising. The sensation is too close to being in Kozue Kaoru's seawater vortex for comfort, cold washing up heavy limbs. She stares into her own hundredfold eyes in the darkness of the bedroom of her enemy and doesn't see the cold mask she gives others, but the terrified girl beneath it.

There is no patience in Homura Akemi for her own weakness, none at all. She sees loathing in her own eyes next, and then nothing because she looks away.

The lone swatch of Madoka-pink in the room doesn't escape her, oh no. Homura spots the photograph, the joy on it, and her mouth twists. "Why? Why her? Why do you have to be such good friends with a doomed girl?" Whatever else Sayaka Miki has been to Homura in her long strange existence, her role now is clear. Obstacle. Foe. Danger.

And dead, she still threatens Madoka's soul. The dark-haired puella takes off at a breakneck pace once more. She's not out of places to look, not that she likes the rest much better that the first. She runs faster now, burns more power, more... time. The fog is just as grey and obscuring frozen as it is in motion.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Most rooms are a snapshot frozen in time, the apartment hardly looks changed from memory.

It should be an empty sanctum now, with the Golden Queen gone. The lights are off over the scalene table that once served guests. The kitchen has no dirty dishes in the sink. The guest room door is open. All of this is plainly seen with the shades drawn up, the urban lighting twinkling into it like colorful stars. What of the master bedroom though?

BGM Change - Cruel and Clumsy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6uIP6c-AA

Moonlight slices through the slits in the blinds and the refracted triangles wrought in the glass, leaving slivers of light lying heavy across one side, and dark shadows deepening along the edges.

The bed has an outline within the soft covers that rises at a diagonal, showing that someone must be resting within it. The figure is tucked securely in up past their shoulders. Someone put a lot of effort into tucking this person in. The covers are smoothly drawn over their form, with painstaking toil taken to wrap them securely enough to stay warm.

It's the kind of effort a mother would place into tucking in a child scared of the dark, or an older sibling to a fond younger one. It has a feeling of security, safety, and comfort. Any solitary child might envy the care taken in such a simple act.

A ray of light ends on the hair at the nape of their neck, revealing where the blue fuzz joins the tomboyishly short hair. The outline of her face shows that Sayaka's eyes can only be closed. A casual onlooker might mistake her as just sleeping. Trying to count her breaths would be a futile effort though.

Less obvious is the outline of another girl in a chair across the room, using only a duvet for cover. The outline of drawn up knees of the figure curled up in that smaller space. The darkness gives a certain added illusion of androgyny to the pair, making them seem more twins than ever.

The outline of Kozue's face offers some insight, because her eyes appear fractionally open. Is she awake still? A flicker of spidery thin lashes seemingly confirms it.

The bitter draught of grief has then seemingly offered Kozue Kaoru only stillness, without true repose.

---

A second silence dawns between girl and mascot, but it is not the same as the first. As slowly as fingers of daylight crawl across the ocean towards the island where they live -- still out of sight, but inevitable -- this one is becoming thoughtful.

Madoka is becoming thoughtful -- dares to allow herself to think. To crack open the door. To peek her toes out from underneath the blanket to taste the air outside.

This time, she is the one to break the silence.

"Ne..."

She doesn't look at him, but she doesn't stare at her feet, either. Gradually, almost involuntarily, her gaze drifts upwards, past the fountains, past the hazy outlines of the buildings which are higher than the treetops, into the sky. The sky she cannot see.

"...you once told me that I could become an incredibly powerful magical girl. Was that true?"

Not being observed does not stop Kyuubey from perking up his ears, from flopping onto his side. A little bit of his belly is exposed, and it is even softer and lovelier than the promise of his toes.

<< "Incredible" doesn't even begin to describe it. >> To say that it is rare for Kyuubey to show enthusiasm is to kid oneself; he is enthusiastic for treats, cookies, and Contracts most of all. But there's an extra strain of excitement beyond his usual now, like the same melody played in a higher octave.

Madoka's brain translates it into nerdiness. Like when Papa talks about gardening, or when Sayaka talks about cl--

--nope--

--or when Usagi's classmate with the bottle glasses talks about, well, anything. Kyuubey is a magical girl enthusiast. But he's especially a Madoka enthusiast, isn't he? It's weird.

He's still talking, and it interrupts her own thoughts. << ...your power would be almost incomprehensible! You'd probably be the strongest being in this world! >>

Madoka continues to stare blankly at the stars above the clouds, as though if she looks for long enough they will reveal themselves to her. Kyuubey continues to stare at Madoka for much the same reasons. The tip of his tail twitches impatiently. Usually this is the part where she shakes her head and says it's impossible.

But the thoughtfulness that has gathered around the girl at his side is deepening, and perhaps slipping a little bit sideways. Like her head. She is perched on the edge of consciousness, and about to stumble where the sidewalk ends.

She doesn't. Instead, she asks him another question, or maybe she's really asking herself. The fog shifts around them, billowing a little bit further away, allowing the presence of shadows.

One, cast by the intersection of a high streetlamp with Kyuubey's lifting tail, crawls over her shoulders.

"Why me, though?"

The question is troubled, disturbed, but not as anguished as it might have been. Even a rock skipping across a sea of serenity is still serene.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi transforms into Puella Magi Homura!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Love Like a Sunset Part I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkdwLwaDvoI

It's getting hard to breathe.

She's been running so long and fast now even her magic-honed body is reaching some limits, but that's not all it is. Homura is breathing harder and faster than she needs to, even before racing down her endurance, gasping open-mouthed and tight-throated at a pace fueled by fear instead of exertion. Long black hair whips behind her.

Every wrong place she checks is time lost, and the state Madoka was in...

Homura sees pink eyes as she runs, the beautiful light in them guttered with grief. Round. Teardrowned. She remembers how the thready spark died, when she ''put'' it out with her grinding-bootheel speech. Great job, Homura thinks with the barbed savagery she reserves for aiming at herself. I made sure to drive the point home, and then I ''lost'' her.

She doesn't want to think about the state Madoka is in and she can't stop thinking about it.

As she goes, Homura berates herself for every little thing. Should have gotten closer to make sure Madoka went inside, who knows how much ground was lost waiting? Should have checked her bedroom window sooner -- but knows she wouldn't, she couldn't, not without crossing lines she set for herself a very long time ago. Should have checked Mami Tomoe's apartment before Sayaka's, because...

Because surprise isn't anywhere in her when she ducks a head around the window's edge to spot the body under Mami's covers and the curled carbon copy sitting watch.

Sayaka claimed such... ownership over Mami Tomoe. Homura kept close tabs, especially recently, and knew the blunette had more or less moved into her apartment part time, after the Golden Queen's death. As if being Madoka Kaname's best friend wasn't enough; no, she had to invade every part of what used to be Homura Akemi's life, take her senpai, too. Sayaka laid loud, clumsy claim and then...

'No one's going to die.' In memory she hears the girl boast. 'Madoka-chan isn't going to have to wish for anyone.'

'Because you say so, no one will die. Because you say so, you'll win. You've already used your wish, Miki-san. Stop acting like the world has to do as you say.' Homura should have taken the damned shot.

She tries to refill aching lungs and glares through the glass. That was ''her'' Premiere Puella Magi Konbi. Not Sayaka's. Homura was the first to sit at that beautiful little table and eat Mami Tomoe's beautiful little slices of cake with Madoka Kaname. She was the first to be saved by pink arrows and golden bullets, the first to join them. They taught her... so much. It's no easy thing, having memories so precious that she both clings to them and rarely touches on them directly for the pain of their distance.

Now the corpse of Sayaka Miki lays under that lovely pastel canopy in a bed that is not hers, and Kozue Kaoru sits in that warmly-appointed chair that is not hers. Interlopers. Homura feels the hurt resentment of a lonely kid watching all her old friends sitting at a lunch table with newer, cooler kids.

But... Madoka is not here, either.

Homura's dead heart races like a rabbit and every frantic beat is MA-doka, MA-doka, MA-doka. Her hands are fists, and she doesn't want to know whether the tremor is still there, but her whole being buzzes like a too-tight harp string. She has to find Madoka.

The pale girl runs. She's bent almost double. Her breaths sound out of her open mouth in panic-edged gasps. Skinny legs pelt, long hair streams, sharp quick footfalls echo off the inside of the obscuring fog.

Sayaka Miki's empty shell doesn't matter. Kozue Kaoru's interference doesn't matter, Mami Tomoe's invaded apartment... none of it matters.

Only Madoka matters. She has to find Madoka. She has to find Madoka!

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Raindrops -- Regina Spektor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_oLCJIYOVU

The streets hold no answers for Homura, only questions. Not even ''useful'' questions. Pointless, distracting questions, like why does the fog keep getting thicker and what time is it anyway and oh, who were those guys I just blew past, it doesn't matter.

There are memories for her here, too. As many times as Sayaka and Madoka's noses pressed admiringly against that glass, Homura and Madoka's did too. The first time Homura had a territory, it was Shibuya, for the same reason that it was Madoka's originally, and Sayaka's lately.

There they are now, clutching crepes to their chests and gawking at the pretty sweaters they can't afford. Today's Witch has been slain, and there's just enough time before homework to get a snack and a walk and a good long gossip. Madoka is so engaged in whatever she's being told that she almost walks straight into a telephone pole. Homura's braids bounce down her back as she hastens to grasp her by the collar, thwarting this tragic fate in the nick of time.

Ah -- one has slipped its knot. Laughing, Madoka moves up behind her and reties it. Now her bows are mismatched -- one tied Akemi style and one tied Kaname style. Rueful, Madoka offers to redo it.

Her sprint passes the telephone pole and on the other side is nothing but bags of trash, waiting for the first morning pickup.

<> admits Kyuubey with a certain reluctance. It's like pulling taffy out of his teeth to get him to cop to ignorance, Madoka knows (indeed she knows both halves of that simile -- everyone who lives in the Kaname residence practices good tooth hygiene, voluntarily or otherwise), and it gets her attention. << Truth be told, your latent potential is on a scale that theoretically shouldn't even be possible. I want someone to come explain it as much as you do. >>

She blinks, and molasses-slow begins to drift back to earth from the invisible heavens. A detail at a time, the world comes back into focus: the skyline. The trees. The fountains.

The midnight wind shifts -- and slows -- and the fog, which had parted around the park like it was the Red Sea, rolls back in. In an instant, the only thing she can see is what's right in front of her nose: the fairy mascot at her side, there on the bench.

"Really?"

Credulous, worried -- maybe a little bit guilty -- maybe more than a little bit -- the word escapes Madoka's lips to kiss Kyuubey's ears. But it keeps going, vanishing into the fog. Such a soft little word, tumbling end over end to reach Homura's ears too.

Like a perfect pink crocus unfurling as it's warmed within the ground, it's the first sign of Madoka in what is now a sea of white.

Stopping time is no good -- a rare moment, in fact, when it is almost completely in vain. Homura could pass Madoka six times in an hour in this soup and never know. She can't even see the shield on her own wrist. Another thing she can't do is hear Kyuubey, whose telepathy is tuned to one mind alone right now. But the silence after Madoka's question is as telling as it is terrifying.

<< If you were to release your power, the miracle you could unleash might twist the very fabric of the universe. Why you and you alone should carry such unthinkable power... I can't guess the reason right now. Even if you were a reincarnated princess or a destined bride, a famous idol or future president... all those fates put together wouldn't explain your potential. >>

Her response, when it finally comes after what feels like an eternity, is like a lighthouse. The fog muffles it, the fountains interfere with it, the streets themselves reflect it from odd angles, but, word after word, it is there -- and so is she.

Madoka sounds troubled, and confused, and sad. But at the same time and in the same breath there's something almost clinical about her self-evaluation, a certain practiced detachment, like what it's like when you've read a poem too many times and not just memorized it but internalized it to the point that it's just words and not poetry at all.

"I... I always thought that there was nothing special about me at all. That I would just kind of stumble through life, never being able to help anyone, or be of any use... even before I knew about the Mami Tomoes and Sailor Moons and La Sirenes of the world, I felt that way. And after... it's funny, there's been so much danger since I found out about magical girls, but I felt... safer. Knowing they were out there, these wonderful, wonderful girls. But... I felt worse, too, frustrated and kind of lonesome, left behind. But I figured there was no helping it... even when she was just Sayaka Miki she was a dozen dozen times better than me. Cleverer and braver. Even as a magical girl... I'd just have been a burden to everyone."

She pauses, and the needles behind her eyes grows red hot. Another blink, and then another.

"And then even more so, as a Witch, I guess."

She must be close, now; by the end of all that Homura feels like she, too, could be sitting on a park bench next to Madoka. And yet -- nothing.

<< The reality is quite different from being a burden. Madoka, if you wished it... you could even become the god of this world. >>

"Then... would I be able to do things that even you can't do, Kyuubey?"

The closer Homura gets, the more ''curiosity'' she can hear in Madoka's voice. Yes... it's unmistakable. It's hope.

<< What do you mean? >>

It's hunger. It's ''need''.

"If I made a contract with you, would I be able to turn Sayaka human again?"

Homura knows the answer without being able to hear it, because this has, in fact, played out more than once before. Not just the conversation. The wish, this particular wish. If she ran statistics on Madoka's wishes, after you got rid of the noise of the early neighborhood kitty ones, more of her wishes would be for Sayaka than for anyone else, by miles.

Madoka doesn't know right now, though. She trembles on the edge of the bench with the ''need'' to know, though, and tiny tiny ripples pass through the fog, creating another crucial clue with every tense swing of her twintail.

Kyuubey is motionless, in a 'no sudden moves, don't screw this up' sort of way, but his words are kindly, encouraging.

<< That would be child's play for you. Would that be worth trading your soul for, then? Even knowing what you would become? >>

BGM, AGAIN: Raindrops -- Regina Spektor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_oLCJIYOVU

There she is -- there they are. Like the whole world is holding its breath, the fog around the park bench is perfectly, impossibly still. The only thing in the world moving are Madoka's hands -- as they twist around each other, anxiously and prayerfully all at once.

As tears return to her eyes. As she lets herself ''feel'' again -- voluntarily -- for the first time in hours. The fog is close about her, but not inside her, where it's blowing away, unfurling like its own crocus, to reveal the piercing treasure in her heart. She can't see any of those same storefronts anymore, or even the cobblestones at her feet where they used to play The Dark Squares Are Lava. She doesn't have to, though, for two reasons.

First because these memories are engraved so deeply in her soul that if she made a wish right now, the resultant Gem would have, on its gold chasing at its base, a sloppy English inscription:

I LOVE

TO

MADOKA

And second because she has a dozen or more of the two of them sitting on this very same park bench. After a walk, sharing a snack and a good long gossip. No single memory stands out because, right now, they're all so precious and perfect. Crepes and ramunes and Garigari-kuns. The time and time and time after finishing their exams when they rolled their heads back on their necks and let their shoulders drop for the first time in a week. The time Hitomi got her first love letter and Madoka worried about ever getting one and Sayaka tickled her until she forgot to be afraid of being alone forever. The time after Tatsuya was born and Madoka was told at a stressful moment to go outside and ''play'' already, and NEITHER of their feet touched the ground yet, there on the bench. The time after an endless night in the Emergency Room, on their way home after the nurses kicked them out, where Madoka was too tired to make it home so they took a break, and Madoka fell asleep on Sayaka's shoulder, listening to one earbud's worth of piano music, then woke up in her own bed.

It's like trying to pick your favorite flower in a field of them so endless that they stretch to the horizon, they sway in the breeze...

...spring is coming again, after all...

Now, take all of that -- that ''everything'' -- and compress it into a half-heartbeat, because Madoka does not so much as hesitate. Sayaka -- the return of Sayaka -- the safety of Sayaka -- the future of Sayaka -- rushes into Madoka, and words rush out.

The only things in the world moving are Madoka's hands -- and Madoka's lips.

"For Sayaka, yes. I'll do it. Make me into a mag--"

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura hardly heeds the scenery, at least consciously; she hardly heeds the lack. The fog erases Shibuya's living details, leaving familiar outlines rubbed blank for all of her memories to fill in. Ghosts of timelines past walk the streets she searches, more real than the solid lampposts and building corners that occasionally swim past and fade to white.

Even though they don't exist, not any more, never existed. She erased that day shopping, the gentle tug of her hair in Madoka's hands and the cherished, soft-voiced laugh, even more completely than the fog smudges out the city, sacrificed the happiest times of her miserable grey existence along with everything else.

Madoka is worth it. She cared enough to rebraid the escaped hair of a painfully awkward girl, to rescue her from horrifying monsters, to save Homura Akemi from her own suffocating worthlessness. Madoka... is everything, and she is the only thing Homura has left.

She's running as fast as she possibly, inhumanly can. Homura runs harder.

And then she hears that precious, delicate 'Really?' bloom between the sharp stabs of her footfalls, and Homura skids to a hasty, overbalanced halt lest she stomp out any other perfect pink syllables. The fog saves the pride of the graceless cat, as unseen as her quarry.

It also keeps her from locating Madoka in the silence, the silence where a response should be. Homura doesn't feel her hands fall open at her sides. She doesn't feel the tremor in her fingers.

All she feels is terror.

Madoka speaks again and Homura breathes again, all at once, like she's surfacing from a deep dive. She follows the sound of heartbreak, or tries to, but there are many echoes and Madoka could be anywhere in the whiteout. Could be anywhere, with... What Madoka's saying reaches her as much as her voice does, and an awful little sickly pain twists in the depths of her chest. The things Madoka believes about other people. The things she believes about herself.

When she says the hated name it is hardly confirmation. Homura knows what is happening here. She has seen versions of this so many times before... and it never hurts less for the repetition, entirely unlike other cyclic sorrows in the time mage's existence.

She's going to stop it this time. She follows Madoka's voice, straining every sense, strung between the impossible demands of care and desperation. She hunts the dawning hope she hears.

And there is pink. There is hope. There on the park bench with the eager deceiver is the girl who is the center of her universe, preparing to fling her soul away yet again.

Madoka moves her hands, Madoka opens her mouth. Madoka speaks the beginning of a prayer and the thing hooked in the depths of Homura's chest twists so hard she can barely see for blackening vision.

Homura doesn't need to see to touch her shield.

BGM Change: Sudden, violent silence

The fountain stops. The fog stops. The creature stops. The girl on the bench stops.

It all stops but the wracking rhythm of Homura Akemi's puppet heart, the dizzy howl of blood behind her ears, the sounds she's making that she tells herself are gasps. Her fingertips buzz.

She doesn't feel the smooth weight of the shotgun's stock as muscle memory draws it forth from her shield. She can't make out the metal bite of racking it in the still of the timestop.

Homura has a worm-bodied liar in the sights of the Mossberg, centered within the creeping dark tendrils of the panic shrinking her vision, and she pulls the trigger without any conscious thought or made decision. It is all just a scream of MADOKA in her head, underscored by a chorus of nos.

She doesn't remember releasing the time stop, either. The world just resumes, even though Homura still feels suspended in her own dark.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

In less time than it takes to form another syllable, the air fills with soft little zips and Kyuubey fills with soft little holes.

Well, not that little. Each is about the size of a silver dollar. Through him, the back of the bench can be seen, and its presence is also why he doesn't fall backwards, but instead topples over to one side. He can't possibly balance when half of his neck is gone, and the place where his tail joins his body, and much of his legs, too.

There is a hole where one of his eyes used to be, and holes through his chubby little chin, and floppy little ears. These holes were, perhaps, unnecessary.

It is a gentle kind of flump, the sound it makes when his corpse hits the wood; the same kind of noise that a stuffed animal makes when it's tossed across the room.

The strangled gasp that is torn from Madoka's throat is not gentle in any respect.

She's seen worse, in a sense; this was a remarkably goreless execution, though she doesn't notice the strangeness of the lack of splatter. The holes could have been bored through Kyuubey with a drill bit, and he has no innards to speak of, just a continuous dark red expanse. He isn't leaking.

It doesn't matter. You can see your friend's arm ripped violently off by what you've recently found out was surely someone else's friend, you can see your other friend murdered by your other other friend, and your first friend transform into the antithesis of her every dearly sought ambition, and there's still something extra-horrific about witnessing the snuffing-out of a fairy's life.

It isn't worse.

What's worse is that he was killed because Madoka was going to get her friend back, and now she isn't.

What's worse is that he was killed because Madoka was using him to make a wish.

What's worse is that he was killed because Madoka.

Because of Madoka.

Her eyes were already wet and huge but they are wetter and larger as she turns to the direction whence came the gunfire. She's shocked by the murder but not by the murderer. Indeed, surely it could have been no one else.

Her wail is shrill with dismay.

"Th-that's horrible!"

All that pent up feeling, denied the conduit of a wish, starts rolling down her cheeks instead.

"You didn't have to kill him!!"

Raw with bile, her throat acidifies, and she presses her palms to her knees, closes her eyes, and sways.

Beside her on the bench, Kyuubey lies still. His eye is closed. He could be sleeping, if he wasn't almost more holes than fairy mascot. Right now the ratio is 50/50 at the very least.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The shotgun slips from enervated fingers. There's a sharp crack of metal on cobblestones, then the murder weapon rattles to stillness at Homura Akemi's feet.

Can a heart beat so hard it shudders the shoulders? Hers thunders, rattles through her body like a runaway train, and no part of the pale girl is left unshaken. She's openly gasping, the uncalm bellows of her lungs trying and failing to catch up with Homura's desperation. With strained eyes she stares at the girl she's just traumatized again, and then it all starts coming out of her.

"Why do you always sacrifice yourself? How could you? After everything you just learned? After what you just saw?"

The first syllables are almost smooth as they leave her lips, but the tremor that has Homura's body in its grasp claims her throat with the rest. She can clench unsteady fingers into unsteady fists, but the more she tries to control her voice the more it gets away from her.

It hurts. It ''hurts'', it grips the inside of her chest with cruel hands and squeezes and twists and rips at what's left of her, and her resolve...

Homura has held on so very long.

But she doesn't see the will it took to cling year after year, whiteknuckled, to her purpose and her sanity and her love through the soul-winnowing moebius existence she has taken upon herself. No, Homura just despises herself for weak as speech cracks upon her breaking point and falls out of her mouth, one despicable quaver after another.

"There's nothing special about you? You're no use to anyone? Stop saying those things about yourself."

Three swift and shaky steps bring her to the bench -- to Madoka. The pale girl is close, but her voice rises instead of falling. It climbs in pitch, too, uneven and tight.

She looks angry, standing over the pink-haired hero she adores and the aerated remains of the creature she hates, and maybe she is. Homura is so many things right now that she cannot begin to sort them out. Instead, she keens them at Madoka.

"Stop saying they're more important than you are!"

The sable swallowtail of her hair ripples skyward as she lunges. Homura squeezes her eyes shut against the awful betraying sting in them and grabs -- her hands know Madoka's shoulders, she could find them blindfolded. Earlier tonight those hands felt secure and unbreakable, wrapped around the other girl's waist to keep her from the water's edge.

There is no grip to them at all, now. They shiver atop Madoka's shoulders like fallen leaves.

"You matter so much..."

She hardly sounds like the Homura Akemi that this Madoka knows, once as crisp and impenetrable as lake ice in winter. Thaw has come, and her words emerge wet.

"Can't you see how much it would hurt people if you were gone? Why don't you understand? What about everyone who's trying to protect you?"

The spigot of emotion squeaks shut and she strangles on it.

Homura tries to stand up straight, to push back and away. Teartracks shine white on porcelain cheeks, curling to meet beneath her chin. She rises only to fall, because her nerveless knees will no longer hold her.

Cobblestones smack her palms as she goes down, and Homura is almost like a string-sliced puppet in a white-and-grey heap at Madoka's feet. Except puppets don't shiver, and they don't make small agonized sounds like their heart is a broken thing.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> My Long Forgotten Cloistered Sleep -- Yuki Kajiura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ0tY8ZSdqw

Homura is crying.

Tonight Madoka's tears are a virtually endless well, like a sacred, secret spring. Find it, in the heart of the forest, and know wisdom. Drink from it, and know eternity.

The last tear does not know that it is the last. It burbles up like all the rest, beading, ballooning from that hot lanced place within its girl that birthed it, until that space -- glistening and round and huge and pink -- can no longer contain it.

It glides down her nose -- and falls off the very tip.

Suspended in midair, lit distantly by the blue fluorescence of the fountain, diffused through the fog, it is pink on one side and purple on the other.

And white on the bottom, until the exact moment that it splashes onto Kyuubey's ragged fur. It sinks into it instantly and is gone.

But there are no more. Madoka stands poleaxed, arrested completely by Homura's breakdown. Some hours ago when Sayaka broke down, Madoka panicked when she didn't know the magic words to fix things, to make it all better, to bring her back from the edge of the abyss that she was so obviously about to plunge into -- even if the literality of that metaphor was an as-yet unrevealed surprise.

Some of it, now, is shock; shock from the murder she's just witnessed. It would be completely reasonable for this straw to break her poor camel's back (again, let us not pretend that she hasn't broken already tonight, repeatedly even).

Homura's behavior is shocking, too, by any metric of the mysterious, obsessed girl's behavior. The words themselves are perhaps not so surprising. Even the passion is not shocking in itself -- still waters run very deep. But something profound has been laid bare here, something more than just passion. Something more terrible, something sharper, something much more sad. This misery, the totality of this broken heart...

Some of it is compassion; Madoka responds.

She always does. There is no surer way into her heart than to give her feelings to empathize with, and Homura is perfectly expressing the Madoka inside who grieves for Sayaka, for Mami, for Kyouko and for Eri and even for Homura. For Kozue. For herself.

Her heart pounds in her chest and she aches, she aches with the need to ''do'' something, something ''for'' her, for this suffering stranger, sometimes friend and sometimes bully. Ah, but she wants to ''help''.

But it is not her shock, and it is not her kindness, that stops her tears and her eyelids too, that leaves her as surely frozen as the many Madokas Homura has observed across the dim gray veil of time. It rises within her like the fog all around them, like a thick and cloying mist.

...familiarity.

It quivers uneasily in her belly, in the back of her throat, on the tip of her tongue. It's the tears, Homura's tears, that agonize with their sheer and raw nostalgia. The quavering in her hands, the trembling of her fallen form.

It's the wrong thing to feel -- disquieting in its inexplicability but more profoundly in its dissonance. Homura lies crying at her feet, and Madoka is feeling ''deja vu''? But even the coiling snake of guilt in her gut, of self-consciousness, cannot consume this bizarre serpent. It has constricted at her very core.

Through dry eyes -- bewildered eyes -- dissociating eyes, the only possible defense from feeling something that she oughtn't to be feeling --

-- as if it were all a dream --

-- Madoka stares down at Homura, at this Homura she knows, she knows as well as her own reflection.

The truth leaks out as a question. It is not a shocked question. It is not a kind question. It is almost like the words speak themselves, voiced by another Madoka, or the thing that has taken root within her. The serpent inside Madoka has a rosebud for a head, and it blossoms into Madoka's face. Madoka's face, crying.

Familiar words, and not really a question at all, though that slender sliver of Madoka that is still only this Madoka, from this singular world, beats her wings against the cage of her soul with her desperation to know the answer. But she is not at the wheel right now, or at least not tied to it by more than the most fragile red thread.

"Have the two of us... met... somewhere before?"

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Something I Can Never Have - Flyleaf cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEVOVN24R08

The pitiable crumple of a girl at Madoka's feet hears the question, and each hesitant word hammers pain and hope alike into her battered psyche. And really, how much difference is there between them for Homura Akemi right now? She hasn't allowed herself hope, not of this sort, in a very long time.

It's a knife's edge Homura runs. She is not entirely without hope -- if she was, she'd have already suffered her blue-haired enemy's current fate, her Soul Gem lost to the untender convulsions of its final transformation. Homura seeks it in the permutations of timelines, growing between cracks in the grey expanse of repetition like dandelions through gaps in hard pavement. She keeps her head above the drowning waves of despair by knowing that she, and she alone, is the one who can save Madoka.

That was her very specific wish, after all. To be the one to save Madoka.

Homura has tried to save so ''many'' Madokas, tried and failed so many times, and never has she dreamed that the long sacrifice that is her existence might be acknowledged. That Madoka might somehow see, and understand, everything she's done... Understand why she's had to be so cruel.

Then Homura hears that question and suddenly, suddenly there is a hint of connection -- that this Madoka hears the others over the drowning susurrus of hourglass sands draining away, somehow. It is inexplicable, and so it is terrifying, but...

A new and harrowing hope blooms in the dead depths of Homura's chest. Perhaps it revives; who could say for sure, watching that boneyard of fossilized dreams?

She wants to tell her.

She tries. She ''tries'', tries to say the words, to tell the girl who rescued her fading heart that she is just trying to repay an unpayable debt by saving her gentle soul. Homura tries to tell her how very long ago they first met. She tries to tell her how ''many'' times they've met.

How she wouldn't take back a single thing. How every time they meet again it is worth it, no matter how much Homura suffered in the last time loop's decline and how terrible her failure. How Homura's existence will only be worth anything at all if she can finally save the girl she loves.

Homura wants to tell Madoka everything, wants to tell her so badly...

She tries, and nothing comes out except strangled agony, high pitched and pitiful.

She tries and -- in silence, a raised hand with hesitant fingers falls short of bridging the gap between them.

She tries and all that comes out is, "I'm sorry..."

Madoka is right there, close enough to touch, but the distance is too much for Homura to breach. Insurmountable. She could not be further from the girl she loves in this moment, and knows it to be her fault. Just like the rest of it: the fear and pain Madoka has suffered, the grief at Mami Tomoe and Sayaka Miki's deaths, the terrible truths and their terrible telling. The wish she just almost made, despite everything.

Homura whimpers and her back gives a hitching shudder. Once, then again. Over and over.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"I'm sorry..."

They say it at exactly the same time, Madoka a minor third above Homura's.

One girl reaches desperately towards the other, but that moment of clarity -- that moment of transcendence -- that magic moment, that miraculous moment --

Like everything in the world of Homura Akemi, it runs on borrowed time.

And time... always runs out.

Madoka drowns in a dream of sand.

Her tears return -- as tears do, when the eye is aggravated, when the heart is overwhelmed.

Is it 'reality' that's reasserting herself inside her fluffy pink head?

What is real? Homura is real. Her tears are real. Her suffering is real.

She blinks.

How many Madokas look back at Homura -- and how many Homuras do they see?

Just one -- and just one.

Madoka's suffering is real too.

"I'm sorry," she whimpers, in unison.

What does she know about this girl? This stranger, this secret-keeper, this friend and this savior? This bully and this terror?

She's not the only one suffering.

Sayaka -- Sayaka is dead -- and -- and the reason Homura's pain is familiar is because it reminds Madoka of the living.

She has to -- she has to help the one whose heart is broken.

She has to help the one who's been left behind.

She has to help her.

She has to help

"Kozue," Madoka inhales frantically, breaching the surface of the deep, dark ocean of fate and clinging to the fractured driftwood of herself, of her life. "She's... she's all alone. I've got to find Kozue."

Through an all-but-opaque layer of tears, she looks down at Homura Akemi, who loves her, but she doesn't know why.

"I'm so sorry," she repeats. And she means it. She's so sorry that she can't help this girl collapsed in front of her.

She just doesn't know how.

She just doesn't know her.

She just doesn't know.

But...

She can't lose Kozue too.

She just can't.

Casting Homura a final, agonized, terrified look, Madoka turns and vanishes into the fog. Soon, not even the reckless slapping sound of her soles on the concrete remains, and Homura is alone.

But Homura isn't ''really'', is she?

Something wholly indifferent to the power of privacy is watching her.

Something ignorant of what might have happened, if only this human had been left to writhe in the nadir of her heart.

It's just as well. If it understood -- it would have let it happen.

A voice blossoms in her mind -- Madoka's silent partner, the other half of the conversation she interrupted, the part she could not hear.

But she can hear it now.

<< You knew there was no point in doing that. You just never learn, huh? I have countless spares, of course, but making me use them up for no reason like this... it's wasteful. >>

It leaps down onto the bench from a nearby tree.

It lands neatly, delicately.

And neatly, delicately, it bends its head to the corpse beside it --

-- opens its mouth --

-- and starts to eat.

Kyuubey is confused by human values and in any event, the fluff -- it is fluffy, the corpse, when torn to bite-sized pieces, as fluffy as Madoka's hair, and as pink too, when the red inside and white outside blend together -- traveling down its throat, does not in any way inhibit its ability to speak. It has no vocal cords, after all.

<< You've killed me so many times, >> it continues, matter-of-factly, as the old Kyuubey vanishes into the new Kyuubey without any apparent change in the latter's size or shape. << But this time ... maybe it wasn't a waste. I was ''finally'' able to see what your magical specialty is, Homura Akemi. >>

Its throat pulses as it gulps -- its chin lifts as it looks up from its meal -- from its recycling process -- to look straight at her.

Oh, it is hungry, but not for its own flesh.

It is hungry for truth.

It is hungry for ''answers''.

<< That was Time Magic, wasn't it? >>

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Aphelion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2iT6YPfdXo

Each of them is sorry, and it is a wall between them. They are not sorry together.

Hearing the burden of her flood of pain reflected in Madoka's voice just makes it all worse to Homura, knowing she has further added unnecessarily to the awful emotional toll of the night.

What a neat little spiral of misery for her to slide down. If she was stronger, she'd stop this shameful sobbing. If she was better at this, she would never have broken down in the first place. Oh, it is an ascetic's pride Homura Akemi has taken in her whiteknuckled endurance over the course of stolen timelines, and that pride is part of the desperate scaffolding boxing her in and holding her up. Now it crumples just like she has.

She hears Madoka through her own inarticulate misery, and balls up further like her curled back could somehow protect her from words that fall like lashes, all unintended. The girl with the kind, brave heart sees how alone Kozue is, even through her own fresh grief.

Just like with Sayaka Miki before this, and on so many other occasions in this timeline and timelines gone -- Madoka has to save everyone else, even as Homura tries desperately to save her.

Sharp footfalls recede into the mist and echo off of other moments just like it, other times Madoka has fled Homura, terrified and crying. Why? Why can't she ever catch up to Madoka, no matter how hard she tries?

Why must the girl she loves forever run away from her?

The bent bow of her spine shuddering, Homura drenches the inner crook of what was a perfect white sleeve with saltwater and snot. She'd forgotten how much it ''hurts'' to cry like this--

(no she hasn't, she just refuses to access those memories)

--and her chest aches, her eyes sear, her throat twists till she is sure it will knot itself closed. It's worse than any gruesome injury she has taken in an existence punctuated by apocalyptic violence, and this she cannot fix with the press of a Grief Seed. The wrack of a guttered soul finds no balm in such magics.

Madoka can't let Sayaka Miki's widowed girlfriend be alone, and so she leaves Homura alone instead to sob until it feels like her flawed grey heart will dissect inside her ribcage.

But... she is not alone, not really. The adversary lies in wait.

That hated chirp slithers into her head and where it goes, fear trails a crackling frost behind.

A bucket of ice water dumped on her could produce no deeper shock. The unstoppable crying that Homura thought would consume her from the inside out ceases like the creature cranks some spigot shut in her. Her shoulders still; she stills.

Her next movement is executed with care that any cornered prey might envy. Surreptitiously Homura smears shut and swimming eyes across her sleeve as she rocks forward with toes stretched, then curls back again to stand.

Homura comes up dry-faced but red still stains parchment cheeks from the force of her crying, though the blood is quickly draining. She shoves an arm behind her to hide the wet ruin of her sleeve and glares, and she has enough practice at hiding terror under anger that the expression comes easily despite everything.

The first time she witnessed this vile autocannibalism, revulsion got the best of a younger and incompletely hardened Homura and she'd lost the contents of her stomach even as her enemy regained contents, stomach, and perforated corpus. Tonight it helps to anchor a grief-stricken girl better to her hatred. She locks her knees and brushes free a few vagabond strands of dislodged hair, then locks gaze with those inhuman eyes, red within red in a head as round as a clock face.

'That was Time Magic, wasn't it?'

Dread stabs between Homura's ribs, a stiletto sliding home.

Even with her stolen lifetimes of experience in concealing pain and misery, the puella magi has the look of the gravely wounded: a round-eyed shock as disbelief in one's own mortality bleeds out, beyond revival. Some corner of her mind registers that this, too, is her fault: she's normally so careful to never use her magic to murder the beast, to not tip her hand too far, too publicly. Tonight she lost control, and this is what she reaps.

The shock on her face is an unwilling confirmation, whether such was strictly needed or not. Another bit of lost control, and more ground lost to the enemy along with it. Homura's hands shake again. She digs nails into palms as if fingers could drive straight through flesh and skewer the tremor dead. The twin twist of pain helps get a frozen brain moving again.

There's no denying it. Too late, no point. She could run away from this, but makes no move toward her shield and another fresh start. Walpurgisnacht nears, and this timeline... this just might be the one.

But she can pretend like it doesn't matter. She can pretend she still has the upper hand somehow, even if it feels like there's a neat, delicate white paw shoving her under. Homura reaches for acidic bravado instead of her shield.

"You don't know everything."

Just too much.

Homura knows things, too. She stoops and locates the hefty stock of the fallen Mossberg without looking, then straightens and slides the shotgun into the strange between-space behind esoteric clockwork. Considerable effort goes to making the movement smooth and unhurried.

She has other weapons. "If you think that was pointless, you might as well know nothing at all. And I have learned plenty. You'll always be one step behind me... Incubator."

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Red eyes stare at Homura, as she controls herself (or not), as she pushes back (or not). The Incubator's gaze is as absolutely steady as it would be if it were washed out in shades of timeless gray. The creature doesn't have nervous tics. It doesn't even have instinctual ones; absence the need for the pretense of cuteness -- of organic origin, even -- all unnecessary motions are abandoned. No ear perks. No flicks of the tail. So often Kyuubey looks like its peers among the plushies on Madoka Kaname's bedroom shelf, but never moreso than now.

Except for those eyes.

They aren't empty, except of emotion. They aren't blank, except as boxes that might be checked 'humanity'. What looks out from behind them is calmly alien. Not in the extranational or extraterrestrial sense. In the incomprehensible sense.

It goes both ways. Homura knows that; the Incubator is perversely proud of announcing its continuous befuddlement over the nature of humans and their strange behaviors.

As casually as the Puella Magi stows her gun, Kyuubey stows the rest of its destroyed body inside itself, without ever looking away from her, the motion of its jaw mechanical. Not even a trace is left. There were two and now there is one. The bench is exactly as clean as it was before, which is to say, a little bit dirty. Even the salt from Madoka's tears is still there. That which didn't drip directly onto the fur, that is.

With a complete lack of inflection, it destroys Homura's assertion as thoroughly as she destroyed its last body.

<>

The Incubator swallows the last big bulge in its throat.

<< Madoka Kaname. >>

Said that levelly, it could almost be its meaning instead of a name -- 'keystone of the circle'.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Two cold beings regard each other, but Homura's cool is ultimately as terrestrial, as mortal, as it is fake. The Incubator commands the alien menace of absolute zero. It drops that cuddly facade, sweet as antifreeze, as no longer needed -- and the time traveler clings to hers all the harder, only just suppressing an all too human shiver.

To face the devil unmasked, amid grey mists...

Madoka saw truly in Linden Baum when she'd asked if the fearsome puella across from her was okay, because she was seeing with her heart. Homura's a girl, too.

And she's so very frightened.

Bravado fails her. It knows... if not everything, then far too much. It knows enough. How? Where did she slip? What will it do with this knowledge?

"You... You're going to fail. Nothing you can do will stop me." That, Homura hisses with conviction. With emotion. "Not until she's safe from you and your lies. It doesn't matter how many times I have to try. I just have to beat you once."

There is an insidious release of pressure as she bares these words to the air. This is the secret she could not share with the girl she loves, that lodged in her throat and only came out as agonized squeaks. Homura nearly asphyxiated on those impossible words only minutes ago. She does not examine the relief, nor the insinuation that she might be closer to her greatest enemy than her very best friend in the whole world.

This is her truth, exposed like bone.

She glares and ignores the sting of strained tear ducts. To hell with the Incubator. "Madoka is the only thing that matters." A fine pale chin rises. Homura will just make sure it doesn't matter, one way or another, whether the wish-peddler knows.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

<< Yes, >> the Incubator agrees, sitting up straight on its haunches again.

<< You've made that absolutely true. >>

Cheshire cats disappear by smiling, the expression vanishing at the last.

Incubators disappear expressionlessly. And not all at once. The wind picks up, tossing leaves and a bit of litter into the air. Homura's mane, too.

By the time it has fallen, her nemesis is gone.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-24 - A Brief History Of Time (Criminal)

2019-05-04T17:11:18Z

Kestrel:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''A Brief History Of Time (Criminal)'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''The Incubator pays Homura Akemi a visit.''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Homura Akemi]], Kyuubey, [[Madoka Kaname]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
Yamanote High City - Homura's apartment

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
4/24/2019 - 06-02-2015
|-
|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Yamanote High City +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Tokyo is so large that it has no real "downtown," as it sustains a great
number of such areas. Yamanote taken as a whole, however, has many of the
traits one associates with that term, with dense commercial zoning, prices
as steep as the skyscrapers, and a vibrant mix of subcultures. Yamanote
represents the most Westernized part of Tokyo, and its people are considered
fashionable, sophisticated, and worldly. Their educated dialect forms the
basis of standard Japanese, and their area contains Tokyo's municipal
government, as well as the lion's share of its corporate headquarters. This
area's frantic capitalism keeps Japan on the world stage, but in losing
touch with traditional culture, the people here have gained a reputation for
cynicism, arrogance, and lack of empathy. Yamanote is surely to blame for
Tokyo's reputation as a place where one can purchase a tube instead of a
motel room, or experience the joy of being gently compressed into a crowded
subway car by white-gloved attendants.

The Yamanote area is large enough that it is difficult to generalize its
visual appearance. Western influence is, of course, generally stronger than
anywhere else in Japan, and this is reflected in the architecture,
especially the many corporate towers. High-rise apartment buildings are
common in the residential areas, both the glossy expensive type and the
distinctively Asian raw grey tower blocks favored by lower income citizens.
Parks are less common here than elsewhere, but their greenery crops up
surprisingly often nonetheless, especially where Yamanote borders the bay.
Reclaimed land and the natural Southern Cross Island are considered part of
the district as well, and the Ohtori campus that dominates the latter is
strongly influenced by Yamanote culture.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

With nary a whisper, the front door to Homura Akemi's darkened apartment swings open; with hardly a click, it shuts again behind her. She is alone now, in the privacy of her sanctum. Someone suspicious of the girl's steely poise might watch, in the moments when she sheds her brown school shoes in the unadorned foyer, for signs of her demeanor shedding too: signs that her flatness is not just affect but affectation, some easing of face or slumping of shoulders.

If Homura's facade was only for the sake of others, perhaps such might occur. It does not.

Instead she holds her chin as consciously high as she did on the other side of the door, spiting the battle exhaustion which grits in her eyes, and lets her hair sail behind her in an obsidian wave as she proceeds to the kitchen. It, too, is cleanly unadorned, hardly lived in at all. There's a jumble of empty takeout containers in the trash can, which she glances at before rinsing her hands in the sink; there's a pretty gift-wrapped package atop the fridge, full of uneaten chocolates but without a speck of dust, which she studiously avoids looking at.

It's a bit like how she's tried to avoid looking at Madoka Kaname in the classes they share, recently, except that she's successful here. Homura hasn't tried talking to the grieving girl since the fall of the Mermaid Witch. She's afraid of what she might say; deep down, she's more afraid that Madoka won't stay and listen.

Instead she's been hunting, and for once, not alone. Tokyo's grief-fat Witches yielded their bounty to the prodigal violence of Kyouko and Homura like wheat yields its lustrous harvest to a thresher's blades. Now the time mage has a double pocketful of magic to leverage against the coming storm, and better yet, she's secured the pledge of the spearmaiden.

Homura should feel better, should feel more ready. The smart thing to do would be to head right to bed and get some rest. Instead she paces toward her unlit living room on restless stockinged feet.

It's a vast space, and in the dark its white walls and floor fall grey. So too its concentric furnishings, their colors rendered instead in different shades of shadow. Homura pauses with her fingers barely touching the light switch, and here -- here there is finally a sense of something bleeding through as the pause lengthens. Her shoulders still do not slump, her face remains impassive, but...

She steals a moment before flicking the switch, a moment in which the frames shuffling along the wall like so many cards do not yet exist, a moment in which the intricate workings overhead are heard but not seen. But only a moment, and then she forces herself onward.

With a click light floods the room, illuminating the recessed white circular space. A thin blue arc of a minimalist couch faces a round violet table serving as the centerpiece, across from its mate in yellow, and other green seats radiate away at clockhand angles. Red semicircles encase those, and there are grey and aqua dots on the floor, among other colors. Nightmare imagery superimposes with otherworldly schematics in floating frames on one wall, their displays cycling through daisy-chained familiars and more deeply unsettling iconography.

Overhead, the grand apparatus works. From below it is impossible to say how the metal gears hang, so intricately and so consummately enmeshed with one other. Toothy wheels rotate, smooth as glass despite their obvious weight. They must be perfectly machined, perfectly timed. One can hardly make out the subtle clockwork whir. A shadow slices across the wall: a pendulum, or a scythe. Perhaps if the thing casting it was visible, its true nature could be known.

Homura strides to the center and sits at the blue couch, denying herself sleep, denying herself a moment's respite longer. No matter how many times she's planned the coming fight, she always attacks it anew each timeline. Always approaches it as if this will be the last time.

This time will be no different... Except that this time, she'll win. That's what Homura Akemi tells herself as she shuffles the maps and diagrams atop the table with their notes and their layered UTC timestamps. But if she doesn't, then the grand machinery overhead will reverse its flow again, and a weary soul will march on.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Puella in Somnio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGgLSTOpTI4

The door is shut. The windows are locked. The vents are too small. The alarms, aren't.

Indifferent to the impossibility of its presence, the Incubator casts its shadow over the room, darkening the table from lavender to violet, and the pristine white of the floor to a more neutral gray.

It's sitting on one of the outer lounges, at position eleven of twelve. They are green, and so small that including its tail, the Incubator fills the front of it pretty nicely, like it's the world's least exciting piece of cat tree furniture.

It looks at the screens on the wall, filled with images, artwork, diagrams, poetry. If it has seen these things before, it gives no indication, other than a flick of its right ear.

It watches the immature witch with its usual expressionless affect. Many project emotion onto that fluffy white face with its pink-and-red eyes. Even Homura, more knowledgable than most, is perfectly guilty of this. To her the Incubator's mien is creepy -- objectively true -- but also menacing, malicious in its every curve and line.

The pink ring on its back is the brightest thing in the room by a wide margin. Against the white of the floor and the white of its back, it all but glows.

The Incubator waits.

If there's one thing it's convinced of, it's that Homura Akemi will talk to it, given the opportunity.

That is what humans do, when they share unbearable secrets with only one other soul.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Strangeling shadows are no novelty here. This strangeling shadow, however, falls unwelcome across the inner workings of Homura Akemi's more terrestrial private space -- it cannot be called her home. For Homura, home is not a place.

This in no way lessens her violent sense of intrusion when she realizes the shape of the darkness crossing her battle plans where they are so carefully laid upon her table.

Homura suffers this as she suffers most violence: silently. Only her eyes move at first, flicking sidelong to confirm the intruder's presence, its location. Her stillness would be less of a tell if it did not leave her arm extended, her fingers splayed across her maps.

After the span of a normal human breath (something Homura neglects to take until after, too) she straightens in her seat and folds her hands upon her skirt pleats. She wants the way she holds her chin firmly forward, not turning to face it, to come off as aloof.

All those timelines should have been sufficient tutelage in patience. Nothing could inoculate Homura against her great enemy's knowing silence, the way she feels its wide-set red eyes boring into her.

The quiet stretches. Homura's nostrils flare, and the unchanging cant of her chin turns stubborn.

To hell with it, she thinks, while consciously keeping her mouth from twisting. She is as ready as she can possibly be; there's nothing it can do. Still giving her unwelcome guest an angled profile, she breaks the silence and pretends as hard as she can that doing so is no concession.

"I'm not interested in your games, Incubator." She fires the designation off like a bullet from a timestop, quiet and cold. "There are more important things to do than listen to whatever it is you have to say. If your plan is to distract me from my work, then I have as many bullets as it will take to convince you otherwise."

That's a lot of words, unprompted, from Homura Akemi. And she can't help herself, can't keep herself from the question, despite everything she just said. It's like poking at a sore tooth until it bleeds.

"What do you want?"

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

No; that's not true.

It's sitting comfortably on the floor in front of the table, in a gap between two of the concentric blue couches. It was always there. It could never have cast such a shadow, from that angle.

<< I'm just curious what you're planning to do next... >>

It quirks its head to one side. Maybe it learned that gesture from cats. Of from birds. Or from humans. In any case it didn't learn it quite right. It goes just a centimeter too far, implying just a few hairs' too much elasticity to the neck.

Nothing with bones can move like that.

But then, Homura is intimately familiar with what Incubators are made of. It's turtles all the way down. And then all the way back in again. Waste not, want not. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

The pause between its words grows and grows, the distance to the end of its sentence asymptotic, more and more pregnant, engorged past the due date, until, finally -- ''finally'' --

<< ...Time Traveler Homura Akemi. >>

How cruel for it to say something so unthinkable in a way that makes it such a conversational relief.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Again she is too still. Homura may insist she is not human any more, but that is different altogether from the inhumanity of the thing perched upon her floor. Her eyes flick to the unshadowed papers before returning to the Incubator.

She's spent a long time indeed steeling herself to the unnerving ways of her alien adversary, never with complete success. Tonight it sparks resentment and anger in her. Her stillness becomes a stiffness as the seconds pass.

There's no relief or gratitude from the Puella Magi as it finally, ''finally'' reaches the end of its sentence, but she does react. Violet irises occlude somewhat between narrowed eyelids -- a consciously level look becomes a glare.

Hatred makes a convenient mask for her fear. She nearly convinces herself.

"So you know." A beat. "Then you also understand. It doesn't matter what you know about my plans. Even if you somehow manage to stop me now, it just gives me more data to work with." And she lifts one hand to flick fingertips through glossy black hair.

Her disdain is not feigned. It's the arrogance that keeps her talking.

"Next, I'm going to beat Walpurgisnacht, and deny you Madoka Kaname's soul once and for all. I'll use time itself to take it back from you if I have to, and I won't stop until you lose."

Has her chin risen? Ever so slightly, but yes. Enough so that she views the Incubator against the dainty curve of her nose. Just try me, she dares without saying the words.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The Incubator is frustratingly difficult to get a rise out of. Hate it; disdain it; underestimate it all you like; it does not defend itself. It does not hiss like a cat might, or fly away like a bird. It does not get its hackles up in the human way -- so ably demonstrated just now by Homura herself.

It just sits there and listens and looks, LOOKS, stares unblinkingly at Homura with those big round eyes. They have all the humanity of a camera lens. There is an Aboriginal belief that cameras steal souls, so perhaps this analogy is truly apt.

<< Yes... you have done this all before, haven't you, Homura Akemi? And not just once or twice. >>

It is the musing tone of the theorizing scientist. No judgement, only a dawning expanded awareness.

<< You repeated the time since you met Madoka Kaname countless times in countless worlds, changing the possibilities of the past and looking for the conclusion you wanted. >>

It tilts its head to the other side -- again too far.

<< In a way you are probably the oldest Puella Magi on record. But your bizarre existence answers an impossible question. >>

The silence is shorter this time and ten times more agonizing.

<< Why does Madoka Kaname have such immense potential as a Puella Magi? >>

This is the sound of curiosity becoming satisfied.

<< Now I can ''finally'' form a satisfactory hypothesis. >>

Stretching its front paws in the universal canine position for 'play' -- which may just be a stretch, given the source -- it jumps up on an opposite red couch and starts walking slowly across it, massive tail held high in the air like a victory flag.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura can pretend all she wants that it does not bother her to have her secrets bared to her enemy. It is as true, in the end, as her aggressively projected indifference to the thing's intrusion in her space. Even the knowledge that she can effectively erase this revelation with a touch of hand to shield doesn't allay the sense of violation.

It elaborates on its understanding and she hates every second of the experience with such vehemence that it cannot help but tilt her brows and burn in her gaze. This detestable beast wouldn't even know Madoka's name if she could help it; Homura cannot bear it gaining any window, however slim, into all of her painful and best-forgotten failures.

Nevermind how much it rankles to be called bizarre by a freakish alien creature...

The heat of affrontery gives way quickly enough, though, once ice starts washing through Homura's veins.

Why ''does'' Madoka Kaname have such immense potential as a Puella Magi?

As soon as it asks the question in that terrifying, knowing tone, Homura realizes that she has never once wondered.

Her second realization comes immediately, so fast she can't escape it:

No: she has never once allowed herself to wonder.

She desperately wants the Incubator to stop speaking. There's nothing she can do to stop it. Sure, she could transform, could draw a gun, could punch as many holes as she wants through that repulsive white wormsbody and its too-pink core -- and that would scarcely be better at this juncture than shouting a tearful 'Oh no, please, don't!'

Instead she clings to control -- tells herself she has it still. By all rights her knuckles should be white. She refolds her hands in her lap, but a calm that careful can never seem natural.

She clings to control... and she listens, helpless.

Her resumed stillness is not stiff any more. Homura tells herself she chooses not to move as she sits, frozen.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Does the Incubator sense Homura's discomfort?

Does it know what it's doing by telling her this?

The eyes have it, don't they. They're really a tell if you look closely enough. The creature isn't bothering to remember to blink. Does it ever? Maybe not. Definitely not right now, though, and there is something unsettling and alien to those huge irises, filled with knowledge -- and with interest -- fixed on the immature witch as a whole.

In any case, it doesn't keep her in suspense. Its explanation is as friendly and straightforward as any it has ever provided. The role of a mascot is to teach and guide, after all. And what is an Incubator but a tiny cute fairy who helps girls become magical?

<< One's potential as a Puella Magi depends on the misfortune she's destined to carry. It was incomprensible to me why Madoka Kaname, who lived a normal life, not that of a queen of a country, or a legendary savior, had such an amount of misfortune concentrated around her. >>

The Incubator politely pauses just long enough to let this new information be absorbed by its pupil, before continuing relentlessly on.

<< But Homura... >> It claims a rare intimacy there. Once upon a time they were on a truly first name basis, but it wasn't this time or any remotely recent one. And yet there's something very correct about that dynamic now, isn't it? They are partners in crime. Homura the criminal.

Kyuubey, the beneficiary.

<< ...isn't that she became such a powerful Puella Magi thanks to your repeating time over and over again? >>

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Signum malum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eLlZZsNENg

Of course Madoka Kaname is special.

Homura Akemi knows that. She's the most special girl in the world. Initially, inwardly, and in spite of how trepidation creeps through her, she resents the swindler its claim that she is not. What are queens and saviors to the hopelessly devoted Puella Magi, in comparison?

But it speaks of misfortune. Of its accumulation, around one girl who is extraordinary by standards which do not match those understood by such a dispassionate mind.

Her small lips press together at the familiarity. Resentful. Unsettled.

They part, after.

Naught emerges but a hiss of escaping breath. Her affect, flat no more, evinces ripples as understated as they are profound. There is somewhat in the widening of habitually cool violet eyes which may fulfill her intent adversary's interest.

She has no denials to voice, feels mounting fear without yet fully understanding it, and in this merciless moment lies are beyond the liar, even desperate and half-blind ones. Above, something unseen casts its sweeping shadow, inexorable.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Fiona Apple - Criminal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOzayDpWoI

The Incubator runs out of red couch, having made almost a third of a circle across from the time traveler, and nimbly leaps to the next couch.

This one is blue. The Incubator is in Homura's inner circle, now.

Its lips always form that same little vaguely feline shape...

...but it may not be projecting to say that they are smirking.

<>

Its fluffy tail briefly obscures its entire form as it flips around and begins padding back the other direction, from the top of the C towards its bottom.

It isn't even looking at Homura and her distress. It must be too focused on its theory. It's certainly excited... its voice is rarely so intense, its typical brightness burnished to blinding revelation.

<< You rolled back time for one reason: to save Madoka Kaname. While you relived the same timeframe with the same purpose again and again, you wound together numerous parallel universes... ALL centered around the existence of Madoka Kaname. As a result of that, the destinies of all those worlds, that were never supposed to interact, are now focused on Madoka. >>

Is it Homura's imagination that conjures what's next, drawn there by the Incubator's suggestion? Is it a direct implantation of vision in her mind?

Does it really make a difference?

For the image is plain.

At first it focuses on smaller pieces of the larger puzzle.

Sensible brown loafer, pulled tight against a dainty foot by some kind of... cord?

A hand, both immobilized and limp within its restraint, reveals the truth. This is wire, thin and sharp.

Destiny has a cutting edge.

The cuff is white and red, the terminal point of the Ohtori Middle School girls' uniform sleeve. It's Madoka of course, but Madoka exactly as Homura first saw her, preserved in her mind as perfectly as if she were frozen in time. Shrimpy and pink, not so much a girl on the cusp of womanhood as one whose aspirations on that front might rather badly outpace the hormonal reality.

Even unconscious, there is a faint sheen of pain painting her face like the makeup her mother wears so well.

She is strung up so tightly.

Behind her, gears. Intricate, massive gears.

Familiar gears.

It is a place Homura has never seen, one of the only that she could never go, except, perhaps, here and now and in this way: within her own mind.

The inside of her shield, and its fateful clock.

The Incubator voice continues, typically indifferent to the bondage, the suffering, and as inexorable as the gears themselves on its path to revealing the full truth to its creator.

With every tick, the wires entangling Homura draw just a little bit tighter.

<< By accepting THAT, we discover the origin of her immense magical potential. All the fate lines from the timelines you lived through are now wound tightly around Madoka Kaname. That is the current situation. >>

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

She was the reason. A sick feeling spreads from her gut, like she's been run through but is only now beginning to feel the burning-dull margins of the wound.

"What do you mean?"

All Homura has in her is a whisper. The question leaks from her parted lips like blood.

Transfixed, she cannot but pay attention; cannot but feel every twist of her enemy's blade. Her eyes roll in her too-still face as she follows the thing's pacing, so rarely expressive. Madoka... Madoka, Madoka. Her name batters Homura. The truth buries her.

She can't breathe.

When a vision of the girl she loves more than anything replaces her view of the circling predator -- what else to call something which has placed itself so firmly above you on the food chain -- it is no balm, no refuge. Nothing like stealing those glances of Madoka during class, the ones that keep Homura going. The wires digging into those soft hands... The girl deep inside the Puella Magi shrieks in horror.

The Puella Magi sits where she is, frozen.

Timeloop-driven dissociation numbs a great many things for Homura, but it never gets any easier to see Madoka hurt. Every time pink eyes swim with tears, and contract with pain, and widen with horror, Homura feels it as another stain upon her forsworn soul. Another sin. Sometimes the girl she loves hurts because Homura fails to protect her from the terrible world with its cruel ways; sometimes, the girl she loves hurts because Homura is terrible and cruel to her.

There has always been a reason, a purpose. An end which makes these unforgivable means worthwhile. Absolution is not a thing Homura expects for herself. Keeping her promise, whatever the cost, is enough for her.

And critically, underneath all of that, Homura Akemi tells herself it is okay because she is the sacrifice. The sins rest only upon her soul. Madoka suffers repeatedly across timelines but is not stained; she hurts, but will be freed in the end: saved by Homura.

Saved...

Everything she has done, to Madoka, to others, to herself... it was for worse than nothing. She was never saving the girl she promised, never freeing her. Homura thought she was the one trapped, but Madoka has ground between the gears of her shield every time Homura set it to spinning.

She reset time ''so many times''.

Bile etches fire up her throat. Finally a breath wrenches its entirely autonomic way into burning lungs and she hardly notices. A soft sound, beneath that agonal gasp: grey skirt pleats caught in twitching fingers. There is no physical wound for them to clutch.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

At some point the Incubator must have nimbly hopped from the couch to the table in order to cross over to Homura. It sits there now, at the center of everything, even more the axis around which the chamber revolves than the Puella Magi who constructed it.

Open enthusiasm raises its voice by half an octave, and its tail poofs up in a celebratory manner.

<< You've done great, Homura. You've raised Madoka to become the most powerful witch ever! >>

Now it's watching her -- watching her intently -- curiosity blooming in its wide, wide eyes.

Like the creator of some grand experiment.

But like many scientists, the Incubator can't resist influencing that which it observes. Overplaying its hand, with Homura, is almost as predictable an outcome as Homura's own. If it holds the magnifying glass ''just so'', if the sunlight strikes the lens in just the right way...

No one watches the watchman; no one prevents its mistake.

It just chirps on and on, on and on and on like a tick tick tick tick of those gears, laying the consequences -- the inevitability -- the destiny that Homura has wrought -- all of it plain for her to see.

<< Very soon, you'll be the only Puella Magi left to face Walpurgisnacht... a Walpurgisnacht that has been doing what it does naturally, and engorging upon the witches drawn near it across worlds by these fate lines... growing as surely as Madoka Kaname's own potential. Even if you bring other allies, you still won't have a chance. Yes, to protect this city, Madoka must become a Puella Magi... >>

All of it.

Very soon...

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> nine inch nails - Pinion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNiCnEZD8i0

Folly hollows her.

What it leaves behind is not the sort of emptiness which lies unmoving.

Isn't it fitting, that she made the most important girl in her world into the most important girl in the whole world? The most special -- the very greatest Witch? What a gift she has given Madoka: the unbearable karmic weight of obsessive love.

Something flutters against the inside of her ribs, something with wings in the shape of long-petaled flowers, something which is as black as Homura Akemi's devotion is consuming.

Her worse than worthless love. The one thing Homura dared think worthy in her worse than worthless self: what she felt for Madoka. She should have known better. She should not have dared.

Madoka would be better off if they had never met.

The thought ''hurts''. Homura continues to lash herself with it.

She was already doomed, then, her soul given to the devil's bargain, but at least... at least it was the normal sort of terrible Puella Magi doom she faced. Not this, not...

The Incubator's keen red eyes may note how Homura's unmoving posture betrays the rigidity of her pain. Its prey is helpless. The thing closes, moves to savage her and she listens, she lets it. Its words slide her brain and lodge there, claw by wicked claw.

Walpurgisnacht.

Soon. Very soon...

Her allies.

She isn't the only Puella Magi left yet -- news of Kimiko's death has spread, but Homura and Kyouko Sakura just parted ways, their joint hunt as successful a thing as such a pairing would suggest. The spearmaiden had that piquant spark yet in her eyes when they parted. Eri... she has not seen the green girl in too many days, but she would have word. She would know.

Very soon... that satisfaction. That certainty.

She does not name the thing that has kept her moving forward all these long years 'hope,' because she is careful about words like that. Homura would insist that rational methods perfectly explain her extraordinary feat of devotion, but there is nothing rational about love.

It would be rational to give up, but...

However hard she is on herself, Homura Akemi has never truly been weak. However cold a thing she has tried to forge herself into, the ice has always been a shell over passion.

Wide and staring eyes flicker. They'd been going glassy, had begun to dry. She blinks, and liquid life returns to them; she shivers, and tone returns to slackening muscles. She ''revives'', incrementally, impossibly, as her adversary watches.

It would be rational, inevitable, for her to give up. But love ever fuels the impossible.

Kyouko and Eri are still alive, but... very soon, the Incubator is sure they will not be. Alarm ignites her nerves, a fear which galvanizes rather than arrests.

And one thing is still true, whatever terrible costs Homura has had to pay -- whatever terrible costs Madoka has had to pay -- to ensure it.

She doesn't whisper, but the first syllables must break through rust: "She hasn't wished yet, Incubator."

She cages the thing within her bones, locks it away. Traps it.

Like Homura has trapped Madoka.

No.

NO.

"No! It's not over." She tells it, she tells herself. She insists, as she stands, as weirdling violet magic casts brief sharp shadows and her silhouette sharpens, too. That sable swallowtail swirls, and from amid a furious storm of black strands Puella Magi Homura glares at her opponent.

"Not yet."

And she's gone.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-05-01 - Not Yet

2019-05-02T17:14:26Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Not Yet'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''After the Incubator shares its own terrible revelations with her, Homura Akemi runs to beat the devil.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Tokyo
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
5-1-2019 -
|-
|}

Soundtrack: Thrice - The Earth Isn't Humming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcD81fKRZVU

How many times has Homura Akemi raced headlong through Tokyo's streets? How many times this timeline -- how many times across them all?

'Very soon, you'll be the only Puella Magi left to face Walpurgisnacht...' The devil might as well perch on her shoulder, its double-ears streaming out alongside Homura's hair in the rising stormwinds. She races to spite its smug prophecy.

How many times has she been too late?

Shitamachi blurs around her. It feels necessary to run past the arcade she and Kyouko occupied not so long ago, to spy upon its metal stage through the plate glass windows. It feels futile, even before she sees the empty DDR pads. The screen seems less bright without the spearmaiden's stance to limn.

'I'll fight with you. Dance with me.'

Perched atop the gleaming-wet rooftop of Dark Burger, she shields her eyes and peers through shifting sheets of rain. It's just as futile.

Homura leaps into the open space between buildings and winks out of sight amid the driving grey.

-=-=-=-

Is she searching for Kyouko and Eri? Or is Homura Akemi fleeing like the frightened girl she swore she'd never again be?

Ohtori's famous gardens (to be distinguished from its sheltered Garden) are becoming flower-lined canals as the soil saturates and unceasing rain fills the rows. Eri Shimanouchi kneels in none of them. Futile.

Is she just delaying the inevitable?

They confronted Madoka here, together, before the brutal advent of the Mermaid Witch, before the Golden Queen fell to Eri's rising lash. And after they interrupted her devoted and needful weeding, after Homura dashed a gift from Madoka's hands to the ground with a cold comment... Eri gathered her spilled chocolates, one by one, from the dirt.

Another small tragedy, one of a multitude of sins staining Homura's hands. And for what?

She spins on one heel, splashing muddy water in an arc, and pelts away. She'd told the Incubator it wasn't over yet. It's a thin thing for a soul steeping in grief to depend upon, but Homura Akemi has survived thus far via unceasing movement.

She doesn't check Eri's dorm. It is one place she feels sure the green girl will not be.

-=-=-=-

If they'd grown closer, perhaps she would have a chance of knowing where Kyouko Sakura lays her head. Things stand precisely as determined loner Homura claims she wants them; those cunning boltholes go unchecked.

Only fully-fledged Witches and their prospective prey populate Nishitama's shadowed paths. Another garden Eri Shimanouchi is not tending. There is one place left in sprawling Tama either girl might reliably be. Perhaps Homura will get lucky, and catch them there together.

She races like she can outpace fateful revelations, like she can somehow escape the profound and seductive black which lays in wait behind her eyelids.

Like she can still avert fate.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]

2019-04-26 - Hairtrigger

2019-04-27T05:18:35Z

Kestrel: blurayyyy

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Hairtrigger'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Mikoto almost does something to Homura she can't take back. Homura succeeds.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]] and [[Mikoto Minagi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Akihabara Electric Town
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
4-26-2019 -
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> New Model Army - Sky In Your Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEZmS_9i4Q

It's been hard to pin Mikoto down.

She hasn't been in class since Oktavia fell. It's not unusual for Mikoto to cut classes - to leave halfway through the day. She always at least used to /try./

And now...

Mikoto cannot handle Witches, the way she is. She knows very well how helpless she would be, in a garden, the way sadness weighs at her like an anchor. When she feels that little prickle at the back of her neck - she needs to reverse course promptly. She needs to be anywhere else.

She's just too sad.

There's only one person who can fix her.

...

Mikoto visits Sensouji Temple, at the sort of hour he would. There are no boys here this early in the morning. She leaves.

...

Mikoto tails a couple through Jindai's gardens until the boy happens to turn in her direction. It's not him. She does not linger before peeling off to mix with a group which passes the other way, scanning their faces with quiet intensity. He's not here.

...

Mikoto walks a long route around JAXA's headquarters as she files through Chofu. She wonders how much easier this would be if she could search from space. She'd probably still mess it up somehow. There aren't any boys here, so she doesn't stay long, not even when she sees a cat sitting on the wall. She can't play with cats right now.

...

Mikoto drapes over a low railing of Tokyo Tower in the middle of the day, as a class traverses down below. She should be in class, but she isn't. Mai is at Ohtori, and Mai can't deal with her any more. She watches from here, instead. She is disappointed.

...

Mikoto trespasses onto Juuban's fields, as members of both schools' Kendo clubs file into the gymnasium. From behind the building she watches them enter, and she thinks in desperation that someone who taught her so much might have an interest in play-fighting like this. But each boys' face is wrong. There's no recognition at all.

...

At some point, Mikoto sleeps for a few hours, pressed in against a vent on a rooftop far above the city streets. She hates sleeping alone. She doesn't feel safe now she doesn't have a place to go back to. It's not like her naps, when she was perfectly secure in being able to go home at the end of the day. And she's so agitated that she's disturbing the cats. They're not sleeping with her, either.

...

Mikoto leans over a low railing on the World Tree, watching the visitors file in. There's a boy; he doesn't fit. Another group walk in, shoving each other and laughing in typical joviality. None of them are right, either. There's a boy glued to his phone, who does not even notice the golden eyes boring into the back of his head until he finally looks up to apologise for running into someone. Obviously, that's not him, either.

...

Mikoto walks through Tomoeda without even looking at the attractions. She is looking at the boys taking their dates to a special place, or the boys hanging out with each other, or the boys waiting for people who are devastatingly late. There are a lot of boys here. None of them are the right boy.

...

Mikoto walks along the coastline, openly staring at the people enjoying the afternoon sun. He's not the boy putting on sunscreen, and he's not the boy arguing with his friend over a workbook. She wonders for a sceptical moment what sort of boy brings homework to a beach. She realises she should not have those sorts of thoughts. Perhaps he likes studying on the beach. She doesn't know, because she doesn't remember. None of these boys make her remember.

...

Mikoto walks down the highway, but the cars' lights are on and she can't see anything. A car stops. He's not inside. She declines the offer of a lift.

...

Mikoto has not checked her phone for some time. She doesn't want to talk to her friends. She doesn't want to make it worse. She sees a distinctive face in the crowd, and turns and moves in the opposite direction, as surely as she would evade a Witch. She's not tired enough to stop, not yet.

...

Mikoto is tired enough to stop. It doesn't last long.

Even if she did not feel too vulnerable out here to sleep, the rain would wake her.

It comes and goes in waves, the rain. At times it is calm, and at times it patters down without a single care for girls without umbrellas. Here she comes to the latter, as big lone drops become a hundred-hundred droplets, and she is forced to acknowledge that as relatively safe as her rooftop is, it is a poor haven.

Besides - she realises, as she pushes herself up and scrambles down the fire escape, that she is hungry. She can't remember when she first got hungry, so she knows she should get some food very soon, because she knows the cost of not eating.

The problem is that she forgot her purse, that fateful morning.

But it's not like Mai can get any more disappointed in her than she already is.

The second problem is that the sun has gone down, so it will be harder to steal someone's lunch.

But Mikoto knows where people get lunch.

She slips into the konbini just as the rain shifts into a higher gear, pounding down on the rooftop like a giant tapping its fingers. Nestled into a corner of Akihabara, it's a cramped, homey sort of place; the back shelves, the ones which stock things other than food, might not have been changed much for months. There's a bit of dust back there.

The shelves are high, so it's hard to say exactly how many people are here, but it doesn't sound too crowded.

It should be easy to grab something and leave, right..?

It's not like anyone here could stop her if she really tried.

Mikoto isn't like them.

The cashier - he's not who she's looking for, either, he's a few years too old and too long in the nose - gives her a long look along with the traditional greeting as she enters, hair mussed, dirty cheeks, and a long-sleeved uniform which is more than a little damp. But she doesn't even look at him as she goes to disappear between the shelves, so surely she has a legitimate purpose here. Even if she's rude about it.

She scans the shelf, looking for something to eat, trying to figure out what she can grab and run without causing too much of a scene.

It is a crime interrupted by darkness, as the lights flicker out.

"Aw, man," the cashier grumbles, fumbling around his desk. "Don't tell me them next door's doing their thing with the lighting again - I keep /telling/ 'em it messes with us when the weather's bad - ah, hey, honoured customers, everything's fine, I'll get you a light, just give me a sec --"

But he doesn't really matter, and Mikoto isn't really listening to him. He's just a normal person.

She's not listening to him - because she knows that unexpected darkness is so often a prelude.

There is the sound of a sharp edge drawing in the black.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - It Catches Up With You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEWIngn2_eM

Homura Akemi rents space in the slender pale thing called her body rather than occupying it the way a normal human girl might. Still -- still, it needs regular maintenance, much like the dirty soul upon the back of her hand needs regular cleansing.

Even dead girls walking have to eat.

She snaps a nondescript black umbrella closed just inside the cramped shelter of the konbini and leans it against the entranceway, careless of the ill spirits she shepherds in beneath its canopy, nevermind the shunted rain that splatters to the tiles. It splashes her brown Ohtori loafers, too, but they're already unavoidably drenched.

Walpurgisnacht comes. Homura feels it in her bones, in her blood. Her toes recognize the oily chill of the stormwater soaking them. She inhales its imminence into her lungs with every breath -- the air tastes of ozone and deja vu. It is all so very familiar.

The fear she exhales has a new taste to it.

Display cases up front, in the better traveled and better maintained part of the konbini, offer plenty of good food: cellophane-wrapped onigiri, bentos with their self contained variety, tonkatsu, fresh if cheap sushi. Homura walks right past the good stuff, long hair flowing, and picks up a couple of instant noodle bowls. Their labels make a flavor promise which their dry contents won't be able to deliver on.

Her eyes drift to the mochi display... to the sakura mochi. Her minds drifts, unbidden and inexorable, to a memory of mochi split with a smiling Madoka once upon an aching forever's worth of timelines ago. A ghost of shared sweetness past fills her mouth, then curdles on her tongue.

Grueling, costly timelines ago.

She's been doing far too much remembering since the Incubator left her apartment, and no sleeping whatsoever.

Homura's eyes drop from the mochi. Her instant noodles crinkle in her grip; she forces herself to relax her fingers again, then turns on a heel to head for the counter with her cardboard rations. One foot in front of the other. The storm comes. She has to be ready.

Why? asks a small, plaintive voice from deep within her. It is a young voice; it is a very old voice, having survived more years than any normal teenage girl should have to endure. It is soft with despondency. Why try?

All she has done is get in the way.

All she has done is make things worse-

As she has for the hundredth time in the last few hours, Homura wrenches away from the thought with desperation, with savagery. Not without injury. Each time it tears another piece out of her. Each time the flawed muscle in her chest spasms.

She is whiter than usual as she steps up to the counter, not that the guy behind the counter knows her to tell the difference between shades of parchment pale. Otherwise the girl with the rude umbrella handling does not emote, her doll-like face frozen and beautiful over turmoil. A handful of yen coins tink onto the counter, exact change dropped in cold silence -- she doesn't even look at the cashier. Homura doesn't exactly want to go back to her apartment, but neither does she want to be here any longer.

Then -- the lights flicker out.

And two girls aren't listening to the cashier's grumbled reassurances.

Homura'd heard someone at the back of the store, noted it and made nothing of it. Another late night customer on the other side of tall shelves hardly matters to her. But the hard snikt of drawn blade in the black comes from the same direction.

There's a flash -- the lights have not come back on, it is violet and violently brief -- followed by the hollow rattle of dropped instant noodle bowls hitting the tiles, and Puella Magi Homura Akemi crouches low by the checkout counter.

Metal echoes metal. A cold double *ka-click* sounds over the driving rain, between Mikoto and the only exit: guns being cocked in near-unison.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi transforms into Puella Magi Homura!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Akira Yamaoka - Ain't Gonna Rain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUSoHCcI9nI

Light catches against a gold reflection, echoing it back until it paints a picture of direction and intent. It does not last long enough to show its origin, seen between shelves.

Sound illustrates, too. Mikoto knows the sound of a gun being cocked. It was her introduction to Tokyo, after all.

It's there - and she's here - ah.

Between her and the exit.

It makes sense that a threat would get in the way after cutting the lights, she thinks.

There's a terrible grinding sort of noise as metal - or something close enough - drags across the konbini floor at pace, and a feral growl of warning as something sharp is hoisted up and through the air.

The konbini cashier is wailing something in the darkness, but it hardly matters.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi transforms into HiME Mikoto!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Richard Gibbs - Inbound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLXUEhgNXJU

It makes perfect sense to Homura that whoever or whatever laid in wait for her at the back of the konbini would strike after cutting the lights.

The brutal immediacy of an unexpected attack is a strange kind of balm, but balm it is for the haunted Puella. She is still too practiced at survival to do anything but, in this moment. It drives away all other thoughts, for now. Filling each palm with a Desert Eagle has its cold way of comforting her, too.

More than the menace of shrieking blade, that advancing growl makes Homura's throat feel vulnerable, as though what comes from the dark might tear it out bare teeth.

From her crouch she goes lower still, handheld cannons splayed apart in the blinding black, one gun upraised against an attack from above, the other low and level.

Her teeth clench -- her legs coil -- small fingers bear down on twin triggers...

...with a fuzzy bz-bzzt and a white-strobed stutter, the konbini's lights come back up. They reveal all pending violence, all its dark participants, with the unkind blare of overhead incandescence.

Puella Magi Homura kneels with one Deagle muzzle angled for a blind headshot and the other for any legs her opponent may or may not have -- has -- it's -- her fingers freeze just before passing the point of no return on each trigger.

Her eyes widen by mere fractions, and in the moment she remembers -- she calls out the name she was told to use by the girl herself:

"Mikoto Minagi...!"

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

Up goes the blade --

-- something doesn't smell right --

-- up go the lights --

-- and there they are, in profile. It is difficult to manoeuvre a greatsword in tight quarters: she has brought it up in a short upwards strike, and as the light returns it is clear that it promises to carve right through her assailant's neck, just as surely as she stares down the barrel of a gun.

But something doesn't smell right, and her name calls her back as shock blanches her own face. Hers is obvious. "Homura!" It's Homura - it smells like Homura - and Homura is not her enemy.

Is she?

For an instant Mikoto stares down that Desert Eagle, alarmed and wary still.

But Homura called out to her and she struggles to think, to reason, and she realises Homura has not shot her either, and she thinks perhaps she is reacting just like her.

Breathing heavily, gold eyes flicking back to violet, Mikoto slowly, agonisingly stands down. Miroku lowers; Mikoto's trunk drops an inch, chin ducking down. "I didn't mean to," she says, and actually manages to say it this time. In words and stance she screams: forgive me, I do not want to start this fight.

"H-hey," calls the harried cashier, whose alarm is at least loud enough to be noteworthy now, "I get that this is a cool opportunity for your cosplay, but you can't do that in here! Your props are gonna mess up my shelves!" He thinks it is a game; Mikoto is not focused on him at all.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Note, if you will, amidst the arrested violence between allies the light reveals:

Note how Homura Akemi's fingers freeze on the triggers of heavy pistols, but do not ease from them, even after she recognizes the other girl and calls her name.

Only years and years of practice, of control, allow the grey girl to stand unflinching in path of sure decapitation -- even as something deep in her screams. Mikoto Minagi is confronted by the unblinking barrel of a Desert Eagle. Its diameter speaks eloquently to the damage it can do.

Mikoto says her name; still the guns do not lower. Neither have Homura's eyes narrowed back to their customary flat, cool baseline.

Mikoto stands down...

A privately terrified Homura lowers her arms, lowers her guns, half a second after. A brief delay; an eternity. She inhales, deeply, through her open mouth. Mikoto's apology shuts it for her, after.

Her soles shffff softly on the floor as she straightens in place. "...You didn't," she replies, on the same delay. You didn't mean to; you didn't do it, at all. As if a blow that swings but does not connect leaves no marks. It's less a forgiveness than an attempt to dismiss the situation entirely, uncomfortably emotive apology she doesn't know how to handle inclusive.

There are a great many things Homura would like to pretend have no effect on her. This joins them. Note, if you will, how she offers no apology in return.

Keeping her hands below the counter's level, she slides her weapons away into her shield. The girl in the sharpest cosplay on the block finally glances sidelong at the clerk, without facing him. "That's fine," she says, cool as ice, and stoops to retrieve her dropped noodle bowls.

Then a glance to Mikoto. "We were just leaving," she prompts -- more to the girl who was once her treetop sensei than the clerk, with pronoun and with action. Her utterly flat face in no way acknowledges the near-mutual murder which just transpired, nor betrays her still-elevated heart rate. "Did you want anything?"

It's no apology, but it sounds like Homura is buying.

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

Oh, yes. There are old truths, and they are screaming.

Screaming still, as Mikoto lowers herself and there is a heartbeat between Homura's reciprocation. That jagged thing hammers in her chest, speaks through the desperation in her eyes and the part of her lips for shallowed breath.

Please, she does not say.

And then the half-second passes and Homura stands down, straightens her body and her expression. Homura confirms her intentions, or lack thereof - what has not come to pass. Mikoto nods, mutely, and does not press her for an apology, because she does not think Homura needs to give one.

She thinks it perfectly reasonable to react to someone like her that way, in the darkness. She said it before, didn't she? She's scary.

Just as Homura slides her guns back into her shield - it's such a strange and canny storage device, Mikoto has always fancied how useful something like that would be - the dark girl turns back, to grab the strap of her discarded sword-case and slip Miroku back inside. (The act of casting it aside knocked a few cans of sardines from the shelf. She does not put them back.) Homura excuses them to the clerk, and Mikoto hears the implicit imperative in her inclusion.

She owes her that much, she thinks, after scaring her like that. ... if Homura was even frightened. She might have just been... bracing herself, Mikoto thinks, with a little shudder she does not explain.

(But then, hasn't it always been that way between them? Mikoto tried to kill Alyssa. Homura succeeded. Despite all her training, Homura has always outclassed her in doing what has to be done, as far as Mikoto can tell.)

Regardless, Homura speaks, and Mikoto nods compliance.

And then Homura asks, and helpfully, her stomach growls.

Mikoto points to the tonkatsu, speaks plainly: "That." It's a short confirmation, but there's gratitude in her eyes. She is glad Homura still cares enough to make sure she is fed, even after she almost hurt her. She does not question whether it is anything other than concern.

The cashier is polite enough, but it's clear he's glad to see them go.

...

The rain still pitter-patters, but it is gentle enough now for two girls to escape to the rooftop with ease. The handholds are slippery, but Mikoto has climbed many trees in her youth; buildings are not so different. The light of a billboard blaring a lit-up advertisement shines above them, broad enough to provide a cover at the edge of the roof; the rain parts around it, and long hours lit create a sense of warmth underneath, in the way of lamps which have been left on too long.

It's the sort of thing Mikoto has to rely on, right now.

She hates it. She misses Mai's bed, and Mai's warmth.

At first she is quiet - she is eating. Tearing through the tonkatsu as if she has not eaten a proper meal in ages. This much is true; it is safer to steal snacks, because it is less likely they will hurt her. Snacks are poor fuel for the engine which keeps Mikoto at the ready, every hour of the day. She has to make do.

But eventually the tonkatsu is devoured, every inch of it, and Mikoto is left with her silence.

She looks down at the pre-packaged bowl and for a while all she says is: "Thanks."

Well - that's all she says with her words.

Mikoto has always told a much more detailed story with everything aside from them. She is dirtied; her long-sleeved uniform is crumpled and stained from so much rain; her hair is messy and uncombed, even by her standards. There are dark circles under her eyes, as if she has not slept; there are tracks down her cheeks which speak to liquid more localised than rain.

She is a mess.

She does not try to hide it.

When she speaks she speaks abruptly, with no preamble or context. "I'll go back soon. ... to Nishitama," she realises she should specify, after a moment. "But I can't, right now. I'm too sad. I'd get caught. Don't think Eri's gonna save me again." It is not a judgement she offers with any particular bitterness; she does not fault Eri for needing to be saved, now.

"I just need some time," she repeats herself, and does not realise the irony. "So I don't mess it up worse."

She sounds so sure she has made a mess of it.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

After a moment's thought, Homura picks up both the asked-for tonkatsu and a cold tamago sando for herself -- it seems she won't be heating up those noodles after all. She leaves her umbrella behind in its puddle of rainwater when they go, and tucks their bag of food into her elbow. When the grey girl travels with Mikoto Minagi, she expects to need her hands free.

And sure as the rain falling down on their heads, they ascend. Still, it is no relief to be right, though the time mage usually derives some small satisfaction whenever her predictions prove correct. Not when she knows how very wrong she has been about the most important things, for so very long.

-=-=-=-

A plastic konbini bag is just one of many things which lie between Homura and Mikoto, in the glowing lee of one of Akihabara's famous rooftop billboards.

There's nothing comfortable about the stretch of silences, not to the Puella Magi. Memories lie thick about her like a miasma, precious and devastating. Mikoto does not know this is not the first time Homura has stood in the path of her sweeping blade. This used to be the girl who taught her the terrible things she needed to know. Her once braidsister had apologized then, too. Now...

Homura handles Mikoto's gratitude with as much grace as she did the apology. The other girl gets a long silence and then a single deliberate blink. Beneath the ice she exerts costly control. With mortal danger's distraction faded, she now has herself to contend with again.

"Ohtori Academy is not in Nishitama," Homura points out in that near monotone of hers. There is more than one place Mikoto has not been in a while, and the ever-watchful Puella has noticed. She observes the rest of the girl's disarray here beneath the spotlights' spillage; how could she not?

Rain pours in revulets from the face of the advertisement, making an uneven veil between the girls and the bright lights of Electric Town below. The storm comes.

"There's no time left," Homura says, so quietly the falling water nearly washes the sound away. Such small words, to bear such unimaginable weight.

A very long moment passes. In a more normal tone for her, Homura Akemi does one of the things she does best: makes a question which could be gently-expressed concern come out as coolly clinical. "Why are you so sad, Mikoto Minagi?" When they were braidsisters, she would have asked as a friend. But... hearing about Mikoto's troubles might distract Homura from her own, even for a moment.

The selfish girl in grey has always indulged in vain hopes. It's just that now she recognizes them for such. She takes a mouthful of bread and egg and mayonnaise, chewing mechanically, swallowing it as a dry lump. Forcing herself through the paces.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> How To Destroy Angels - A Drowning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhFyog5zmm8

"I know," Mikoto says, as Homura points out the obvious truth, and it is small and miserable. Perhaps it is only obvious to her. "Ohtori's central... but... Mai's there..."

She knows she should monitor the heart of Fuuka, but Mai told her not to come home.

Isn't it enough to scour the outskirts for now? Just while she seems so mad?

(It's never enough.)

It's never enough, and there's no time left, and Homura might have gotten away with the whisper if Mikoto were anyone else. Her ears are sharp; she catches the murmured mora. Mikoto looks to her, and her eyes crease in new worries, no matter the weight bearing down on her own shoulders. "Homura..."

But she doesn't quite manage to follow it up with a question, because she never knows what to say. It's just her name, caring and concerned and so, so sad. Mikoto is an expert in fitting a novel into a name.

She's used to saying a lot without saying much at all, because she was never of use for her words, after all. It is a strange skill she has developed, here in Tokyo.

A skill Homura calls upon, as she dissects Mikoto's sadness with a direct question. The girl still wearing braids looks down, again, and tells herself Homura would not ask if she didn't care, even if she sounds so cold.

For a long moment she does not say anything. She almost does - lips parting for inward breath, shaping to a mora - but she can't bring herself to say that she does not want to burden her. Homura is not the only selfish girl in attendance. She knows the truth they have lived with; she is a friend; most importantly she is /asking./

Instead her breath grows shaky, and she shakes her head.

Silence beats like a drum.

"Mai... got mad when I messed up breakfast again. Then I hurt Yumi," Mikoto says, finally, the words laden with shame. "I didn't mean to. Then... Endo fought me, and I meant to. Mai and Fate got in the way and... Mai was even more mad. I - I think Mai hates me," her hands tighten around the empty bowl. "Really hates me. I'm burden, and, I'm all twisted up, and, my love's no good, and I was mistake, and my sins are too much..."

She sniffs, loudly, and swallows at a lump in her throat. "Mai cuh- can't deal with me no more, I - can't go home!" Here her voice raises in the same gesture as her face crumples, and the bowl falls into her lap, because suddenly she has buried her face in her hands.

And she cries.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Some other girl might sag her shoulders to hear a friend say her name in such a tone. Some other girl, some softer girl, might crumple altogether to have the sorrow which bleeds from her acknowledged. Some flawed girl, some failure with faulty eyes and wobbly knees...

Homura abruptly despises herself for her lapse, for uttering the words, for letting Mikoto hear. She despises herself for so many reasons... Her neck stiffens; a muscle jumps at the hinge of her jaw. She stares straight ahead, into the rain, and it is anger which leaks from her now.

It is not aimed at Mikoto, precisely, but there is nothing about her tight-lipped silence to tell the other girl that Homura's subtle cold fury is for herself.

It passes, or rather, its evidence fades as Homura makes herself eat. A detached thought floats through: Kyouko would be angry, if this food got wasted. She manages one bite more before setting the sando down in her lap.

All the while she listens to Mikoto. Violet irises edge over, seeking an impression through peripheral vision. It is too hard to look directly at the other girl's despair. She doesn't offer a hand, or any soft murmur of solace, but she is present; she hears each and every word.

Feels them, too keenly.

Love's no good. Sins, too much.

The girl at the center of Mikoto's universe can't deal with her any more.

The selfish girl's sorrows rise up, a tide in her, and she closes her eyes.

The black behind her eyelids is too dark -- Homura opens them again, immediately.

Mikoto is crying.

Homura makes herself process this. It is an action as mechanical as her chewing was, but the time traveler is in the end still good at forcing herself to do what is needful. (Is it? that small voice asks, and she pretends she can ignore it.) Mai... has left her, they have fought. Homura remembers how poorly it has gone in other pasts, when the two have had fallings-out, as well as she remembers the way they cannot ever truly leave each other alone.

The timing... Mikoto sobs into her hands, and Homura does not move except to tilt her head back so that she can stare up into the rain-filled shadows beyond the billboard spotlights. The timing.

Homura thinks, I cannot rely on Mikoto's sword arm for what comes any more than Eri can for aid in Nishitama -- she thinks the coldest thoughts, as if doing so could inoculate her from all that emotion. No use. Those heartbroken sobs batter at her like waves, and Homura has eroded so far already...

She asked. She has her answer, and it cuts too close, exposes bone as surely as Miroku could have cleaved head from shoulders earlier.

Some other girl might reach for the sobbing Mikoto, however her hand shook from shyness. Some other girl, some softer girl, might stammer that name with the same worry she heard her own expressed with earlier. Some hopeful girl, some friend with bashful almost-smiles and black braids to match...

Homura Akemi flees.

She doesn't jump up and run away into the rain, hair flying, however strongly that urge rises in her. With conscious, careful control -- an icy demeanor that runs to brittle more than cold, though Mikoto may or may not be in any position to notice -- she gathers her legs beneath her and rises. The plastic bag rustles as Homura places a mostly uneaten meal back into it and leaves it there.

"...I can't stay." Truth from the lips of a liar. The flat inflection is her deception by omission. "You need to pull yourself together."

She's speaking to Mikoto; she's speaking to herself. She's walking away, along the edge of the roof, her sable swallowtail rippling in the rising stormwinds. She's stepping off, dropping out of sight...

She's landing light but hunching down hard, and remaining in place for a frozen moment as the rain begins its drench. And then she is, finally, running, pelting away in the night.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Kawai Kenji - Main Theme (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mKAiSPtVQ

Mikoto says Homura's name and Homura is angry, and perhaps the other reason Mikoto does not reach out to her is plain.

She is afraid.

She does not want Homura to be angry with her, too.

If she asks Homura what's wrong, she is sure she will only make her angrier.

Mikoto has always been a selfcentred girl, as well-meaning as she is; she understands the world through herself. She sees the grit of that jaw, that fixed stare, and she is so sure she has caused it with her imprecise word. She is so sure she is at fault.

It was an important skill to learn, around faultless people.

She does not stop to consider that there is only one faultless person in the world, and her life is damaged by applying it too widely. She doesn't think like that.

She doesn't think that she might hurt Homura with her honesty. She is just grateful Homura reached out, despite her irritation. She answers her question frankly, as she always has.

She does not realise at first the error she has made, because she is crying.

She does not realise until she hears the sound of a bag rustling - sees Homura standing up. She is a small thing as she looks up to her, jaw dropped, brow knit, eyes blurred with tears. The shock is writ plain there, a wound Homura has carved. For a moment her breath comes quick and she cannot say anything at all.

"W-- wait, Homura..." But her throat chokes on the words, and they come out too strangled, too thin, as she turns away. It is only as she starts walking that Mikoto finds her volume, and her voice tears in desperation. "Don't leave me! I need help! Please--!!" A hand reaches out, trembling in the night air.

"... come back..." Her volume leaves her just as Homura does, dropping off the side of the building into the darkness below. That hand drops to the ground, made warm by a light left on too long. She has been left on too long, and it feels so obvious that no one wants to get too close. In quiet misery she begs pardon, "... please..."

But pleading is useless.

"I didn't mean to," Mikoto mumbles to herself, vision blurry, as she sinks to her side and curls in, hands pressing in a bead at her chest. "... I didn't mean to..."

'Okay. Just- when you're feeling more up to it... you don't have to do this to yourself. Come to us and... we'll be here - ready and waiting to help you.'

But when she came to them, it was too much -- she was too much. And she should have known she was too much, she thinks, in bitter realisation. She should have known not to want help - or support - or understanding. Selfcentredly she blames herself, and does not think of Homura's feelings. Her own choke her too surely.

She blames herself, and the blade of her condemnation is hot to the touch, like it has been left in the hearthfire too long. Homura told her to pull herself together, but she can't even do something as simple as that. No wonder they leave her, she thinks. No wonder she is alone.

Eventually she will realise Homura left her lunch. Kyouko needn't worry.

It won't go to waste.

It's so cold.

She's so cold.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-26 - Hairtrigger

2019-04-27T05:09:23Z

Kestrel: Homura's player doesn't succeed at reverting an edit! Whoops!

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Hairtrigger'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Mikoto almost does something to Homura she can't take back. Homura succeeds.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]] and [[Mikoto Minagi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Akihabara Electric Town
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
4-26-2019 -
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> New Model Army - Sky In Your Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEZmS_9i4Q

It's been hard to pin Mikoto down.

She hasn't been in class since Oktavia fell. It's not unusual for Mikoto to cut classes - to leave halfway through the day. She always at least used to /try./

And now...

Mikoto cannot handle Witches, the way she is. She knows very well how helpless she would be, in a garden, the way sadness weighs at her like an anchor. When she feels that little prickle at the back of her neck - she needs to reverse course promptly. She needs to be anywhere else.

She's just too sad.

There's only one person who can fix her.

...

Mikoto visits Sensouji Temple, at the sort of hour he would. There are no boys here this early in the morning. She leaves.

...

Mikoto tails a couple through Jindai's gardens until the boy happens to turn in her direction. It's not him. She does not linger before peeling off to mix with a group which passes the other way, scanning their faces with quiet intensity. He's not here.

...

Mikoto walks a long route around JAXA's headquarters as she files through Chofu. She wonders how much easier this would be if she could search from space. She'd probably still mess it up somehow. There aren't any boys here, so she doesn't stay long, not even when she sees a cat sitting on the wall. She can't play with cats right now.

...

Mikoto drapes over a low railing of Tokyo Tower in the middle of the day, as a class traverses down below. She should be in class, but she isn't. Mai is at Ohtori, and Mai can't deal with her any more. She watches from here, instead. She is disappointed.

...

Mikoto trespasses onto Juuban's fields, as members of both schools' Kendo clubs file into the gymnasium. From behind the building she watches them enter, and she thinks in desperation that someone who taught her so much might have an interest in play-fighting like this. But each boys' face is wrong. There's no recognition at all.

...

At some point, Mikoto sleeps for a few hours, pressed in against a vent on a rooftop far above the city streets. She hates sleeping alone. She doesn't feel safe now she doesn't have a place to go back to. It's not like her naps, when she was perfectly secure in being able to go home at the end of the day. And she's so agitated that she's disturbing the cats. They're not sleeping with her, either.

...

Mikoto leans over a low railing on the World Tree, watching the visitors file in. There's a boy; he doesn't fit. Another group walk in, shoving each other and laughing in typical joviality. None of them are right, either. There's a boy glued to his phone, who does not even notice the golden eyes boring into the back of his head until he finally looks up to apologise for running into someone. Obviously, that's not him, either.

...

Mikoto walks through Tomoeda without even looking at the attractions. She is looking at the boys taking their dates to a special place, or the boys hanging out with each other, or the boys waiting for people who are devastatingly late. There are a lot of boys here. None of them are the right boy.

...

Mikoto walks along the coastline, openly staring at the people enjoying the afternoon sun. He's not the boy putting on sunscreen, and he's not the boy arguing with his friend over a workbook. She wonders for a sceptical moment what sort of boy brings homework to a beach. She realises she should not have those sorts of thoughts. Perhaps he likes studying on the beach. She doesn't know, because she doesn't remember. None of these boys make her remember.

...

Mikoto walks down the highway, but the cars' lights are on and she can't see anything. A car stops. He's not inside. She declines the offer of a lift.

...

Mikoto has not checked her phone for some time. She doesn't want to talk to her friends. She doesn't want to make it worse. She sees a distinctive face in the crowd, and turns and moves in the opposite direction, as surely as she would evade a Witch. She's not tired enough to stop, not yet.

...

Mikoto is tired enough to stop. It doesn't last long.

Even if she did not feel too vulnerable out here to sleep, the rain would wake her.

It comes and goes in waves, the rain. At times it is calm, and at times it patters down without a single care for girls without umbrellas. Here she comes to the latter, as big lone drops become a hundred-hundred droplets, and she is forced to acknowledge that as relatively safe as her rooftop is, it is a poor haven.

Besides - she realises, as she pushes herself up and scrambles down the fire escape, that she is hungry. She can't remember when she first got hungry, so she knows she should get some food very soon, because she knows the cost of not eating.

The problem is that she forgot her purse, that fateful morning.

But it's not like Mai can get any more disappointed in her than she already is.

The second problem is that the sun has gone down, so it will be harder to steal someone's lunch.

But Mikoto knows where people get lunch.

She slips into the konbini just as the rain shifts into a higher gear, pounding down on the rooftop like a giant tapping its fingers. Nestled into a corner of Akihabara, it's a cramped, homey sort of place; the back shelves, the ones which stock things other than food, might not have been changed much for months. There's a bit of dust back there.

The shelves are high, so it's hard to say exactly how many people are here, but it doesn't sound too crowded.

It should be easy to grab something and leave, right..?

It's not like anyone here could stop her if she really tried.

Mikoto isn't like them.

The cashier - he's not who she's looking for, either, he's a few years too old and too long in the nose - gives her a long look along with the traditional greeting as she enters, hair mussed, dirty cheeks, and a long-sleeved uniform which is more than a little damp. But she doesn't even look at him as she goes to disappear between the shelves, so surely she has a legitimate purpose here. Even if she's rude about it.

She scans the shelf, looking for something to eat, trying to figure out what she can grab and run without causing too much of a scene.

It is a crime interrupted by darkness, as the lights flicker out.

"Aw, man," the cashier grumbles, fumbling around his desk. "Don't tell me them next door's doing their thing with the lighting again - I keep /telling/ 'em it messes with us when the weather's bad - ah, hey, honoured customers, everything's fine, I'll get you a light, just give me a sec --"

But he doesn't really matter, and Mikoto isn't really listening to him. He's just a normal person.

She's not listening to him - because she knows that unexpected darkness is so often a prelude.

There is the sound of a sharp edge drawing in the black.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - It Catches Up With You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEWIngn2_eM

Homura Akemi rents space in the slender pale thing called her body rather than occupying it the way a normal human girl might. Still -- still, it needs regular maintenance, much like the dirty soul upon the back of her hand needs regular cleansing.

Even dead girls walking have to eat.

She snaps a nondescript black umbrella closed just inside the cramped shelter of the konbini and leans it against the entranceway, careless of the ill spirits she shepherds in beneath its canopy, nevermind the shunted rain that splatters to the tiles. It splashes her brown Ohtori loafers, too, but they're already unavoidably drenched.

Walpurgisnacht comes. Homura feels it in her bones, in her blood. Her toes recognize the oily chill of the stormwater soaking them. She inhales its imminence into her lungs with every breath -- the air tastes of ozone and deja vu. It is all so very familiar.

The fear she exhales has a new taste to it.

Display cases up front, in the better traveled and better maintained part of the konbini, offer plenty of good food: cellophane-wrapped onigiri, bentos with their self contained variety, tonkatsu, fresh if cheap sushi. Homura walks right past the good stuff, long hair flowing, and picks up a couple of instant noodle bowls. Their labels make a flavor promise which their dry contents won't be able to deliver on.

Her eyes drift to the mochi display... to the sakura mochi. Her minds drifts, unbidden and inexorable, to a memory of mochi split with a smiling Madoka once upon an aching forever's worth of timelines ago. A ghost of shared sweetness past fills her mouth, then curdles on her tongue.

Grueling, costly timelines ago.

She's been doing far too much remembering since the Incubator left her apartment, and no sleeping whatsoever.

Homura's eyes drop from the mochi. Her instant noodles crinkle in her grip; she forces herself to relax her fingers again, then turns on a heel to head for the counter with her cardboard rations. One foot in front of the other. The storm comes. She has to be ready.

Why? asks a small, plaintive voice from deep within her. It is a young voice; it is a very old voice, having survived more years than any normal teenage girl should have to endure. It is soft with despondency. Why try?

All she has done is get in the way.

All she has done is make things worse-

As she has for the hundredth time in the last few hours, Homura wrenches away from the thought with desperation, with savagery. Not without injury. Each time it tears another piece out of her. Each time the flawed muscle in her chest spasms.

She is whiter than usual as she steps up to the counter, not that the guy behind the counter knows her to tell the difference between shades of parchment pale. Otherwise the girl with the rude umbrella handling does not emote, her doll-like face frozen and beautiful over turmoil. A handful of yen coins tink onto the counter, exact change dropped in cold silence -- she doesn't even look at the cashier. Homura doesn't exactly want to go back to her apartment, but neither does she want to be here any longer.

Then -- the lights flicker out.

And two girls aren't listening to the cashier's grumbled reassurances.

Homura'd heard someone at the back of the store, noted it and made nothing of it. Another late night customer on the other side of tall shelves hardly matters to her. But the hard snikt of drawn blade in the black comes from the same direction.

There's a flash -- the lights have not come back on, it is violet and violently brief -- followed by the hollow rattle of dropped instant noodle bowls hitting the tiles, and Puella Magi Homura Akemi crouches low by the checkout counter.

Metal echoes metal. A cold double *ka-click* sounds over the driving rain, between Mikoto and the only exit: guns being cocked in near-unison.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi transforms into Puella Magi Homura!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Akira Yamaoka - Ain't Gonna Rain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUSoHCcI9nI

Light catches against a gold reflection, echoing it back until it paints a picture of direction and intent. It does not last long enough to show its origin, seen between shelves.

Sound illustrates, too. Mikoto knows the sound of a gun being cocked. It was her introduction to Tokyo, after all.

It's there - and she's here - ah.

Between her and the exit.

It makes sense that a threat would get in the way after cutting the lights, she thinks.

There's a terrible grinding sort of noise as metal - or something close enough - drags across the konbini floor at pace, and a feral growl of warning as something sharp is hoisted up and through the air.

The konbini cashier is wailing something in the darkness, but it hardly matters.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi transforms into HiME Mikoto!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Richard Gibbs - Inbound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLXUEhgNXJU

It makes perfect sense to Homura that whoever or whatever laid in wait for her at the back of the konbini would strike after cutting the lights.

The brutal immediacy of an unexpected attack is a strange kind of balm, but balm it is for the haunted Puella. She is still too practiced at survival to do anything but, in this moment. It drives away all other thoughts, for now. Filling each palm with a Desert Eagle has its cold way of comforting her, too.

More than the menace of shrieking blade, that advancing growl that makes Homura's throat feel vulnerable, as though what comes from the dark might tear it out bare teeth.

From her crouch she goes lower still, handheld cannons splayed apart in the blinding black, one gun upraised against an attack from above, the other low and level.

Her teeth clench -- her legs coil -- small fingers bear down on twin triggers...

...with a fuzzy bz-bzzt and a white-strobed stutter, the konbini's lights come back up. They reveal all pending violence, all its dark participants, with the unkind blare of overhead incandescence.

Puella Magi Homura kneels with one Deagle muzzle angled for a blind headshot and the other for any legs her opponent may or may not have -- has -- it's -- her fingers freeze just before passing the point of no return on each trigger.

Her eyes widen by mere fractions, and in the moment she remembers -- she calls out the name she was told to use by the girl herself:

"Mikoto Minagi...!"

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

Up goes the blade --

-- something doesn't smell right --

-- up go the lights --

-- and there they are, in profile. It is difficult to manoeuvre a greatsword in tight quarters: she has brought it up in a short upwards strike, and as the light returns it is clear that it promises to carve right through her assailant's neck, just as surely as she stares down the barrel of a gun.

But something doesn't smell right, and her name calls her back as shock blanches her own face. Hers is obvious. "Homura!" It's Homura - it smells like Homura - and Homura is not her enemy.

Is she?

For an instant Mikoto stares down that Desert Eagle, alarmed and wary still.

But Homura called out to her and she struggles to think, to reason, and she realises Homura has not shot her either, and she thinks perhaps she is reacting just like her.

Breathing heavily, gold eyes flicking back to violet, Mikoto slowly, agonisingly stands down. Miroku lowers; Mikoto's trunk drops an inch, chin ducking down. "I didn't mean to," she says, and actually manages to say it this time. In words and stance she screams: forgive me, I do not want to start this fight.

"H-hey," calls the harried cashier, whose alarm is at least loud enough to be noteworthy now, "I get that this is a cool opportunity for your cosplay, but you can't do that in here! Your props are gonna mess up my shelves!" He thinks it is a game; Mikoto is not focused on him at all.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Note, if you will, amidst the arrested violence between allies the light reveals:

Note how Homura Akemi's fingers freeze on the triggers of heavy pistols, but do not ease from them, even after she recognizes the other girl and calls her name.

Only years and years of practice, of control, allow the grey girl to stand unflinching in path of sure decapitation -- even as something deep in her screams. Mikoto Minagi is confronted by the unblinking barrel of a Desert Eagle. Its diameter speaks eloquently to the damage it can do.

Mikoto says her name; still the guns do not lower. Neither have Homura's eyes narrowed back to their customary flat, cool baseline.

Mikoto stands down...

A privately terrified Homura lowers her arms, lowers her guns, half a second after. A brief delay; an eternity. She inhales, deeply, through her open mouth. Mikoto's apology shuts it for her, after.

Her soles shffff softly on the floor as she straightens in place. "...You didn't," she replies, on the same delay. You didn't mean to; you didn't do it, at all. As if a blow that swings but does not connect leaves no marks. It's less a forgiveness than an attempt to dismiss the situation entirely, uncomfortably emotive apology she doesn't know how to handle inclusive.

There are a great many things Homura would like to pretend have no effect on her. This joins them. Note, if you will, how she offers no apology in return.

Keeping her hands below the counter's level, she slides her weapons away into her shield. The girl in the sharpest cosplay on the block finally glances sidelong at the clerk, without facing him. "That's fine," she says, cool as ice, and stoops to retrieve her dropped noodle bowls.

Then a glance to Mikoto. "We were just leaving," she prompts -- more to the girl who was once her treetop sensei than the clerk, with pronoun and with action. Her utterly flat face in no way acknowledges the near-mutual murder which just transpired, nor betrays her still-elevated heart rate. "Did you want anything?"

It's no apology, but it sounds like Homura is buying.

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

Oh, yes. There are old truths, and they are screaming.

Screaming still, as Mikoto lowers herself and there is a heartbeat between Homura's reciprocation. That jagged thing hammers in her chest, speaks through the desperation in her eyes and the part of her lips for shallowed breath.

Please, she does not say.

And then the half-second passes and Homura stands down, straightens her body and her expression. Homura confirms her intentions, or lack thereof - what has not come to pass. Mikoto nods, mutely, and does not press her for an apology, because she does not think Homura needs to give one.

She thinks it perfectly reasonable to react to someone like her that way, in the darkness. She said it before, didn't she? She's scary.

Just as Homura slides her guns back into her shield - it's such a strange and canny storage device, Mikoto has always fancied how useful something like that would be - the dark girl turns back, to grab the strap of her discarded sword-case and slip Miroku back inside. (The act of casting it aside knocked a few cans of sardines from the shelf. She does not put them back.) Homura excuses them to the clerk, and Mikoto hears the implicit imperative in her inclusion.

She owes her that much, she thinks, after scaring her like that. ... if Homura was even frightened. She might have just been... bracing herself, Mikoto thinks, with a little shudder she does not explain.

(But then, hasn't it always been that way between them? Mikoto tried to kill Alyssa. Homura succeeded. Despite all her training, Homura has always outclassed her in doing what has to be done, as far as Mikoto can tell.)

Regardless, Homura speaks, and Mikoto nods compliance.

And then Homura asks, and helpfully, her stomach growls.

Mikoto points to the tonkatsu, speaks plainly: "That." It's a short confirmation, but there's gratitude in her eyes. She is glad Homura still cares enough to make sure she is fed, even after she almost hurt her. She does not question whether it is anything other than concern.

The cashier is polite enough, but it's clear he's glad to see them go.

...

The rain still pitter-patters, but it is gentle enough now for two girls to escape to the rooftop with ease. The handholds are slippery, but Mikoto has climbed many trees in her youth; buildings are not so different. The light of a billboard blaring a lit-up advertisement shines above them, broad enough to provide a cover at the edge of the roof; the rain parts around it, and long hours lit create a sense of warmth underneath, in the way of lamps which have been left on too long.

It's the sort of thing Mikoto has to rely on, right now.

She hates it. She misses Mai's bed, and Mai's warmth.

At first she is quiet - she is eating. Tearing through the tonkatsu as if she has not eaten a proper meal in ages. This much is true; it is safer to steal snacks, because it is less likely they will hurt her. Snacks are poor fuel for the engine which keeps Mikoto at the ready, every hour of the day. She has to make do.

But eventually the tonkatsu is devoured, every inch of it, and Mikoto is left with her silence.

She looks down at the pre-packaged bowl and for a while all she says is: "Thanks."

Well - that's all she says with her words.

Mikoto has always told a much more detailed story with everything aside from them. She is dirtied; her long-sleeved uniform is crumpled and stained from so much rain; her hair is messy and uncombed, even by her standards. There are dark circles under her eyes, as if she has not slept; there are tracks down her cheeks which speak to liquid more localised than rain.

She is a mess.

She does not try to hide it.

When she speaks she speaks abruptly, with no preamble or context. "I'll go back soon. ... to Nishitama," she realises she should specify, after a moment. "But I can't, right now. I'm too sad. I'd get caught. Don't think Eri's gonna save me again." It is not a judgement she offers with any particular bitterness; she does not fault Eri for needing to be saved, now.

"I just need some time," she repeats herself, and does not realise the irony. "So I don't mess it up worse."

She sounds so sure she has made a mess of it.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

After a moment's thought, Homura picks up both the asked-for tonkatsu and a cold tamago sando for herself -- it seems she won't be heating up those noodles after all. She leaves her umbrella behind in its puddle of rainwater when they go, and tucks their bag of food into her elbow. When the grey girl travels with Mikoto Minagi, she expects to need her hands free.

And sure as the rain falling down on their heads, they ascend. Still, it is no relief to be right, though the time mage usually derives some small satisfaction whenever her predictions prove correct. Not when she knows how very wrong she has been about the most important things, for so very long.

-=-=-=-

A plastic konbini bag is just one of many things which lie between Homura and Mikoto, in the glowing lee of one of Akihabara's famous rooftop billboards.

There's nothing comfortable about the stretch of silences, not to the Puella Magi. Memories lie thick about her like a miasma, precious and devastating. Mikoto does not know this is not the first time Homura has stood in the path of her sweeping blade. This used to be the girl who taught her the terrible things she needed to know. Her once braidsister had apologized then, too. Now...

Homura handles Mikoto's gratitude with as much grace as she did the apology. The other girl gets a long silence and then a single deliberate blink. Beneath the ice she exerts costly control. With mortal danger's distraction faded, she now has herself to contend with again.

"Ohtori Academy is not in Nishitama," Homura points out in that near monotone of hers. There is more than one place Mikoto has not been in a while, and the ever-watchful Puella has noticed. She observes the rest of the girl's disarray here beneath the spotlights' spillage; how could she not?

Rain pours in revulets from the face of the advertisement, making an uneven veil between the girls and the bright lights of Electric Town below. The storm comes.

"There's no time left," Homura says, so quietly the falling water nearly washes the sound away. Such small words, to bear such unimaginable weight.

A very long moment passes. In a more normal tone for her, Homura Akemi does one of the things she does best: makes a question which could be gently-expressed concern come out as coolly clinical. "Why are you so sad, Mikoto Minagi?" When they were braidsisters, she would have asked as a friend. But... hearing about Mikoto's troubles might distract Homura from her own, even for a moment.

The selfish girl in grey has always indulged in vain hopes. It's just that now she recognizes them for such. She takes a mouthful of bread and egg and mayonnaise, chewing mechanically, swallowing it as a dry lump. Forcing herself through the paces.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> How To Destroy Angels - A Drowning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhFyog5zmm8

"I know," Mikoto says, as Homura points out the obvious truth, and it is small and miserable. Perhaps it is only obvious to her. "Ohtori's central... but... Mai's there..."

She knows she should monitor the heart of Fuuka, but Mai told her not to come home.

Isn't it enough to scour the outskirts for now? Just while she seems so mad?

(It's never enough.)

It's never enough, and there's no time left, and Homura might have gotten away with the whisper if Mikoto were anyone else. Her ears are sharp; she catches the murmured mora. Mikoto looks to her, and her eyes crease in new worries, no matter the weight bearing down on her own shoulders. "Homura..."

But she doesn't quite manage to follow it up with a question, because she never knows what to say. It's just her name, caring and concerned and so, so sad. Mikoto is an expert in fitting a novel into a name.

She's used to saying a lot without saying much at all, because she was never of use for her words, after all. It is a strange skill she has developed, here in Tokyo.

A skill Homura calls upon, as she dissects Mikoto's sadness with a direct question. The girl still wearing braids looks down, again, and tells herself Homura would not ask if she didn't care, even if she sounds so cold.

For a long moment she does not say anything. She almost does - lips parting for inward breath, shaping to a mora - but she can't bring herself to say that she does not want to burden her. Homura is not the only selfish girl in attendance. She knows the truth they have lived with; she is a friend; most importantly she is /asking./

Instead her breath grows shaky, and she shakes her head.

Silence beats like a drum.

"Mai... got mad when I messed up breakfast again. Then I hurt Yumi," Mikoto says, finally, the words laden with shame. "I didn't mean to. Then... Endo fought me, and I meant to. Mai and Fate got in the way and... Mai was even more mad. I - I think Mai hates me," her hands tighten around the empty bowl. "Really hates me. I'm burden, and, I'm all twisted up, and, my love's no good, and I was mistake, and my sins are too much..."

She sniffs, loudly, and swallows at a lump in her throat. "Mai cuh- can't deal with me no more, I - can't go home!" Here her voice raises in the same gesture as her face crumples, and the bowl falls into her lap, because suddenly she has buried her face in her hands.

And she cries.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Some other girl might sag her shoulders to hear a friend say her name in such a tone. Some other girl, some softer girl, might crumple altogether to have the sorrow which bleeds from her acknowledged. Some flawed girl, some failure with faulty eyes and wobbly knees...

Homura abruptly despises herself for her lapse, for uttering the words, for letting Mikoto hear. She despises herself for so many reasons... Her neck stiffens; a muscle jumps at the hinge of her jaw. She stares straight ahead, into the rain, and it is anger which leaks from her now.

It is not aimed at Mikoto, precisely, but there is nothing about her tight-lipped silence to tell the other girl that Homura's subtle cold fury is for herself.

It passes, or rather, its evidence fades as Homura makes herself eat. A detached thought floats through: Kyouko would be angry, if this food got wasted. She manages one bite more before setting the sando down in her lap.

All the while she listens to Mikoto. Violet irises edge over, seeking an impression through peripheral vision. It is too hard to look directly at the other girl's despair. She doesn't offer a hand, or any soft murmur of solace, but she is present; she hears each and every word.

Feels them, too keenly.

Love's no good. Sins, too much.

The girl at the center of Mikoto's universe can't deal with her any more.

The selfish girl's sorrows rise up, a tide in her, and she closes her eyes.

The black behind her eyelids is too dark -- Homura opens them again, immediately.

Mikoto is crying.

Homura makes herself to process this. It is an action as mechanical as her chewing was, but the time traveler is in the end still good at forcing herself to do what is needful. (Is it? that small voice asks, and she pretends she can ignore it.) Mai... has left her, they have fought. Homura remembers how poorly it has gone in other pasts, when the two have had fallings-out, as well as she remembers the way they cannot ever truly leave each other alone.

The timing... Mikoto sobs into her hands, and Homura does not move except to tilt her head back so that she can stare up into the rain-filled shadows beyond the billboard spotlights. The timing.

Homura thinks, I cannot rely on Mikoto's sword arm for what comes any more than Eri can for aid in Nishitama -- she thinks the coldest thoughts, as if doing so could inoculate her from all that emotion. No use. Those heartbroken sobs batter at her like waves, and Homura has eroded so far already...

She asked. She has her answer, and it cuts too close, exposes bone as surely as Miroku could have cleaved head from shoulders earlier.

Some other girl might reach for the sobbing Mikoto, however her hand shook from shyness. Some other girl, some softer girl, might stammer that name with the same worry she heard her own expressed with earlier. Some hopeful girl, some friend with bashful almost-smiles and black braids to match...

Homura Akemi flees.

She doesn't jump up and run away into the rain, hair flying, however strongly that urge rises in her. With conscious, careful control -- an icy demeanor that runs to brittle more than cold, though Mikoto may or may not be in any position to notice -- she gathers her legs beneath her and rises. The plastic bag rustles as Homura places a mostly uneaten meal back into it and leaves it there.

"...I can't stay." Truth from the lips of a liar. The flat inflection is her deception by omission. "You need to pull yourself together."

She's speaking to Mikoto; she's speaking to herself. She's walking away, along the edge of the roof, her sable swallowtail rippling in the rising stormwinds. She's stepping off, dropping out of sight...

She's landing light but hunching down hard, and remaining in place for a frozen moment as the rain begins its drench. And then she is, finally, running, pelting away in the night.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Kawai Kenji - Main Theme (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mKAiSPtVQ

Mikoto says Homura's name and Homura is angry, and perhaps the other reason Mikoto does not reach out to her is plain.

She is afraid.

She does not want Homura to be angry with her, too.

If she asks Homura what's wrong, she is sure she will only make her angrier.

Mikoto has always been a selfcentred girl, as well-meaning as she is; she understands the world through herself. She sees the grit of that jaw, that fixed stare, and she is so sure she has caused it with her imprecise word. She is so sure she is at fault.

It was an important skill to learn, around faultless people.

She does not stop to consider that there is only one faultless person in the world, and her life is damaged by applying it too widely. She doesn't think like that.

She doesn't think that she might hurt Homura with her honesty. She is just grateful Homura reached out, despite her irritation. She answers her question frankly, as she always has.

She does not realise at first the error she has made, because she is crying.

She does not realise until she hears the sound of a bag rustling - sees Homura standing up. She is a small thing as she looks up to her, jaw dropped, brow knit, eyes blurred with tears. The shock is writ plain there, a wound Homura has carved. For a moment her breath comes quick and she cannot say anything at all.

"W-- wait, Homura..." But her throat chokes on the words, and they come out too strangled, too thin, as she turns away. It is only as she starts walking that Mikoto finds her volume, and her voice tears in desperation. "Don't leave me! I need help! Please--!!" A hand reaches out, trembling in the night air.

"... come back..." Her volume leaves her just as Homura does, dropping off the side of the building into the darkness below. That hand drops to the ground, made warm by a light left on too long. She has been left on too long, and it feels so obvious that no one wants to get too close. In quiet misery she begs pardon, "... please..."

But pleading is useless.

"I didn't mean to," Mikoto mumbles to herself, vision blurry, as she sinks to her side and curls in, hands pressing in a bead at her chest. "... I didn't mean to..."

'Okay. Just- when you're feeling more up to it... you don't have to do this to yourself. Come to us and... we'll be here - ready and waiting to help you.'

But when she came to them, it was too much -- she was too much. And she should have known she was too much, she thinks, in bitter realisation. She should have known not to want help - or support - or understanding. Selfcentredly she blames herself, and does not think of Homura's feelings. Her own choke her too surely.

She blames herself, and the blade of her condemnation is hot to the touch, like it has been left in the hearthfire too long. Homura told her to pull herself together, but she can't even do something as simple as that. No wonder they leave her, she thinks. No wonder she is alone.

Eventually she will realise Homura left her lunch. Kyouko needn't worry.

It won't go to waste.

It's so cold.

She's so cold.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-26 - Hairtrigger

2019-04-27T05:05:33Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Hairtrigger'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Mikoto almost does something to Homura she can't take back. Homura manages.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]] and [[Mikoto Minagi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Akihabara Electric Town
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
4-26-2019 -
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> New Model Army - Sky In Your Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEZmS_9i4Q

It's been hard to pin Mikoto down.

She hasn't been in class since Oktavia fell. It's not unusual for Mikoto to cut classes - to leave halfway through the day. She always at least used to /try./

And now...

Mikoto cannot handle Witches, the way she is. She knows very well how helpless she would be, in a garden, the way sadness weighs at her like an anchor. When she feels that little prickle at the back of her neck - she needs to reverse course promptly. She needs to be anywhere else.

She's just too sad.

There's only one person who can fix her.

...

Mikoto visits Sensouji Temple, at the sort of hour he would. There are no boys here this early in the morning. She leaves.

...

Mikoto tails a couple through Jindai's gardens until the boy happens to turn in her direction. It's not him. She does not linger before peeling off to mix with a group which passes the other way, scanning their faces with quiet intensity. He's not here.

...

Mikoto walks a long route around JAXA's headquarters as she files through Chofu. She wonders how much easier this would be if she could search from space. She'd probably still mess it up somehow. There aren't any boys here, so she doesn't stay long, not even when she sees a cat sitting on the wall. She can't play with cats right now.

...

Mikoto drapes over a low railing of Tokyo Tower in the middle of the day, as a class traverses down below. She should be in class, but she isn't. Mai is at Ohtori, and Mai can't deal with her any more. She watches from here, instead. She is disappointed.

...

Mikoto trespasses onto Juuban's fields, as members of both schools' Kendo clubs file into the gymnasium. From behind the building she watches them enter, and she thinks in desperation that someone who taught her so much might have an interest in play-fighting like this. But each boys' face is wrong. There's no recognition at all.

...

At some point, Mikoto sleeps for a few hours, pressed in against a vent on a rooftop far above the city streets. She hates sleeping alone. She doesn't feel safe now she doesn't have a place to go back to. It's not like her naps, when she was perfectly secure in being able to go home at the end of the day. And she's so agitated that she's disturbing the cats. They're not sleeping with her, either.

...

Mikoto leans over a low railing on the World Tree, watching the visitors file in. There's a boy; he doesn't fit. Another group walk in, shoving each other and laughing in typical joviality. None of them are right, either. There's a boy glued to his phone, who does not even notice the golden eyes boring into the back of his head until he finally looks up to apologise for running into someone. Obviously, that's not him, either.

...

Mikoto walks through Tomoeda without even looking at the attractions. She is looking at the boys taking their dates to a special place, or the boys hanging out with each other, or the boys waiting for people who are devastatingly late. There are a lot of boys here. None of them are the right boy.

...

Mikoto walks along the coastline, openly staring at the people enjoying the afternoon sun. He's not the boy putting on sunscreen, and he's not the boy arguing with his friend over a workbook. She wonders for a sceptical moment what sort of boy brings homework to a beach. She realises she should not have those sorts of thoughts. Perhaps he likes studying on the beach. She doesn't know, because she doesn't remember. None of these boys make her remember.

...

Mikoto walks down the highway, but the cars' lights are on and she can't see anything. A car stops. He's not inside. She declines the offer of a lift.

...

Mikoto has not checked her phone for some time. She doesn't want to talk to her friends. She doesn't want to make it worse. She sees a distinctive face in the crowd, and turns and moves in the opposite direction, as surely as she would evade a Witch. She's not tired enough to stop, not yet.

...

Mikoto is tired enough to stop. It doesn't last long.

Even if she did not feel too vulnerable out here to sleep, the rain would wake her.

It comes and goes in waves, the rain. At times it is calm, and at times it patters down without a single care for girls without umbrellas. Here she comes to the latter, as big lone drops become a hundred-hundred droplets, and she is forced to acknowledge that as relatively safe as her rooftop is, it is a poor haven.

Besides - she realises, as she pushes herself up and scrambles down the fire escape, that she is hungry. She can't remember when she first got hungry, so she knows she should get some food very soon, because she knows the cost of not eating.

The problem is that she forgot her purse, that fateful morning.

But it's not like Mai can get any more disappointed in her than she already is.

The second problem is that the sun has gone down, so it will be harder to steal someone's lunch.

But Mikoto knows where people get lunch.

She slips into the konbini just as the rain shifts into a higher gear, pounding down on the rooftop like a giant tapping its fingers. Nestled into a corner of Akihabara, it's a cramped, homey sort of place; the back shelves, the ones which stock things other than food, might not have been changed much for months. There's a bit of dust back there.

The shelves are high, so it's hard to say exactly how many people are here, but it doesn't sound too crowded.

It should be easy to grab something and leave, right..?

It's not like anyone here could stop her if she really tried.

Mikoto isn't like them.

The cashier - he's not who she's looking for, either, he's a few years too old and too long in the nose - gives her a long look along with the traditional greeting as she enters, hair mussed, dirty cheeks, and a long-sleeved uniform which is more than a little damp. But she doesn't even look at him as she goes to disappear between the shelves, so surely she has a legitimate purpose here. Even if she's rude about it.

She scans the shelf, looking for something to eat, trying to figure out what she can grab and run without causing too much of a scene.

It is a crime interrupted by darkness, as the lights flicker out.

"Aw, man," the cashier grumbles, fumbling around his desk. "Don't tell me them next door's doing their thing with the lighting again - I keep /telling/ 'em it messes with us when the weather's bad - ah, hey, honoured customers, everything's fine, I'll get you a light, just give me a sec --"

But he doesn't really matter, and Mikoto isn't really listening to him. He's just a normal person.

She's not listening to him - because she knows that unexpected darkness is so often a prelude.

There is the sound of a sharp edge drawing in the black.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - It Catches Up With You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEWIngn2_eM

Homura Akemi rents space in the slender pale thing called her body rather than occupying it the way a normal human girl might. Still -- still, it needs regular maintenance, much like the dirty soul upon the back of her hand needs regular cleansing.

Even dead girls walking have to eat.

She snaps a nondescript black umbrella closed just inside the cramped shelter of the konbini and leans it against the entranceway, careless of the ill spirits she shepherds in beneath its canopy, nevermind the shunted rain that splatters to the tiles. It splashes her brown Ohtori loafers, too, but they're already unavoidably drenched.

Walpurgisnacht comes. Homura feels it in her bones, in her blood. Her toes recognize the oily chill of the stormwater soaking them. She inhales its imminence into her lungs with every breath -- the air tastes of ozone and deja vu. It is all so very familiar.

The fear she exhales has a new taste to it.

Display cases up front, in the better traveled and better maintained part of the konbini, offer plenty of good food: cellophane-wrapped onigiri, bentos with their self contained variety, tonkatsu, fresh if cheap sushi. Homura walks right past the good stuff, long hair flowing, and picks up a couple of instant noodle bowls. Their labels make a flavor promise which their dry contents won't be able to deliver on.

Her eyes drift to the mochi display... to the sakura mochi. Her minds drifts, unbidden and inexorable, to a memory of mochi split with a smiling Madoka once upon an aching forever's worth of timelines ago. A ghost of shared sweetness past fills her mouth, then curdles on her tongue.

Grueling, costly timelines ago.

She's been doing far too much remembering since the Incubator left her apartment, and no sleeping whatsoever.

Homura's eyes drop from the mochi. Her instant noodles crinkle in her grip; she forces herself to relax her fingers again, then turns on a heel to head for the counter with her cardboard rations. One foot in front of the other. The storm comes. She has to be ready.

Why? asks a small, plaintive voice from deep within her. It is a young voice; it is a very old voice, having survived more years than any normal teenage girl should have to endure. It is soft with despondency. Why try?

All she has done is get in the way.

All she has done is make things worse-

As she has for the hundredth time in the last few hours, Homura wrenches away from the thought with desperation, with savagery. Not without injury. Each time it tears another piece out of her. Each time the flawed muscle in her chest spasms.

She is whiter than usual as she steps up to the counter, not that the guy behind the counter knows her to tell the difference between shades of parchment pale. Otherwise the girl with the rude umbrella handling does not emote, her doll-like face frozen and beautiful over turmoil. A handful of yen coins tink onto the counter, exact change dropped in cold silence -- she doesn't even look at the cashier. Homura doesn't exactly want to go back to her apartment, but neither does she want to be here any longer.

Then -- the lights flicker out.

And two girls aren't listening to the cashier's grumbled reassurances.

Homura'd heard someone at the back of the store, noted it and made nothing of it. Another late night customer on the other side of tall shelves hardly matters to her. But the hard snikt of drawn blade in the black comes from the same direction.

There's a flash -- the lights have not come back on, it is violet and violently brief -- followed by the hollow rattle of dropped instant noodle bowls hitting the tiles, and Puella Magi Homura Akemi crouches low by the checkout counter.

Metal echoes metal. A cold double *ka-click* sounds over the driving rain, between Mikoto and the only exit: guns being cocked in near-unison.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi transforms into Puella Magi Homura!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Akira Yamaoka - Ain't Gonna Rain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUSoHCcI9nI

Light catches against a gold reflection, echoing it back until it paints a picture of direction and intent. It does not last long enough to show its origin, seen between shelves.

Sound illustrates, too. Mikoto knows the sound of a gun being cocked. It was her introduction to Tokyo, after all.

It's there - and she's here - ah.

Between her and the exit.

It makes sense that a threat would get in the way after cutting the lights, she thinks.

There's a terrible grinding sort of noise as metal - or something close enough - drags across the konbini floor at pace, and a feral growl of warning as something sharp is hoisted up and through the air.

The konbini cashier is wailing something in the darkness, but it hardly matters.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi transforms into HiME Mikoto!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Richard Gibbs - Inbound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLXUEhgNXJU

It makes perfect sense to Homura that whoever or whatever laid in wait for her at the back of the konbini would strike after cutting the lights.

The brutal immediacy of an unexpected attack is a strange kind of balm, but balm it is for the haunted Puella. She is still too practiced at survival to do anything but, in this moment. It drives away all other thoughts, for now. Filling each palm with a Desert Eagle has its cold way of comforting her, too.

More than the menace of shrieking blade, that advancing growl that makes Homura's throat feel vulnerable, as though what comes from the dark might tear it out bare teeth.

From her crouch she goes lower still, handheld cannons splayed apart in the blinding black, one gun upraised against an attack from above, the other low and level.

Her teeth clench -- her legs coil -- small fingers bear down on twin triggers...

...with a fuzzy bz-bzzt and a white-strobed stutter, the konbini's lights come back up. They reveal all pending violence, all its dark participants, with the unkind blare of overhead incandescence.

Puella Magi Homura kneels with one Deagle muzzle angled for a blind headshot and the other for any legs her opponent may or may not have -- has -- it's -- her fingers freeze just before passing the point of no return on each trigger.

Her eyes widen by mere fractions, and in the moment she remembers -- she calls out the name she was told to use by the girl herself:

"Mikoto Minagi...!"

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

Up goes the blade --

-- something doesn't smell right --

-- up go the lights --

-- and there they are, in profile. It is difficult to manoeuvre a greatsword in tight quarters: she has brought it up in a short upwards strike, and as the light returns it is clear that it promises to carve right through her assailant's neck, just as surely as she stares down the barrel of a gun.

But something doesn't smell right, and her name calls her back as shock blanches her own face. Hers is obvious. "Homura!" It's Homura - it smells like Homura - and Homura is not her enemy.

Is she?

For an instant Mikoto stares down that Desert Eagle, alarmed and wary still.

But Homura called out to her and she struggles to think, to reason, and she realises Homura has not shot her either, and she thinks perhaps she is reacting just like her.

Breathing heavily, gold eyes flicking back to violet, Mikoto slowly, agonisingly stands down. Miroku lowers; Mikoto's trunk drops an inch, chin ducking down. "I didn't mean to," she says, and actually manages to say it this time. In words and stance she screams: forgive me, I do not want to start this fight.

"H-hey," calls the harried cashier, whose alarm is at least loud enough to be noteworthy now, "I get that this is a cool opportunity for your cosplay, but you can't do that in here! Your props are gonna mess up my shelves!" He thinks it is a game; Mikoto is not focused on him at all.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Note, if you will, amidst the arrested violence between allies the light reveals:

Note how Homura Akemi's fingers freeze on the triggers of heavy pistols, but do not ease from them, even after she recognizes the other girl and calls her name.

Only years and years of practice, of control, allow the grey girl to stand unflinching in path of sure decapitation -- even as something deep in her screams. Mikoto Minagi is confronted by the unblinking barrel of a Desert Eagle. Its diameter speaks eloquently to the damage it can do.

Mikoto says her name; still the guns do not lower. Neither have Homura's eyes narrowed back to their customary flat, cool baseline.

Mikoto stands down...

A privately terrified Homura lowers her arms, lowers her guns, half a second after. A brief delay; an eternity. She inhales, deeply, through her open mouth. Mikoto's apology shuts it for her, after.

Her soles shffff softly on the floor as she straightens in place. "...You didn't," she replies, on the same delay. You didn't mean to; you didn't do it, at all. As if a blow that swings but does not connect leaves no marks. It's less a forgiveness than an attempt to dismiss the situation entirely, uncomfortably emotive apology she doesn't know how to handle inclusive.

There are a great many things Homura would like to pretend have no effect on her. This joins them. Note, if you will, how she offers no apology in return.

Keeping her hands below the counter's level, she slides her weapons away into her shield. The girl in the sharpest cosplay on the block finally glances sidelong at the clerk, without facing him. "That's fine," she says, cool as ice, and stoops to retrieve her dropped noodle bowls.

Then a glance to Mikoto. "We were just leaving," she prompts -- more to the girl who was once her treetop sensei than the clerk, with pronoun and with action. Her utterly flat face in no way acknowledges the near-mutual murder which just transpired, nor betrays her still-elevated heart rate. "Did you want anything?"

It's no apology, but it sounds like Homura is buying.

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

Oh, yes. There are old truths, and they are screaming.

Screaming still, as Mikoto lowers herself and there is a heartbeat between Homura's reciprocation. That jagged thing hammers in her chest, speaks through the desperation in her eyes and the part of her lips for shallowed breath.

Please, she does not say.

And then the half-second passes and Homura stands down, straightens her body and her expression. Homura confirms her intentions, or lack thereof - what has not come to pass. Mikoto nods, mutely, and does not press her for an apology, because she does not think Homura needs to give one.

She thinks it perfectly reasonable to react to someone like her that way, in the darkness. She said it before, didn't she? She's scary.

Just as Homura slides her guns back into her shield - it's such a strange and canny storage device, Mikoto has always fancied how useful something like that would be - the dark girl turns back, to grab the strap of her discarded sword-case and slip Miroku back inside. (The act of casting it aside knocked a few cans of sardines from the shelf. She does not put them back.) Homura excuses them to the clerk, and Mikoto hears the implicit imperative in her inclusion.

She owes her that much, she thinks, after scaring her like that. ... if Homura was even frightened. She might have just been... bracing herself, Mikoto thinks, with a little shudder she does not explain.

(But then, hasn't it always been that way between them? Mikoto tried to kill Alyssa. Homura succeeded. Despite all her training, Homura has always outclassed her in doing what has to be done, as far as Mikoto can tell.)

Regardless, Homura speaks, and Mikoto nods compliance.

And then Homura asks, and helpfully, her stomach growls.

Mikoto points to the tonkatsu, speaks plainly: "That." It's a short confirmation, but there's gratitude in her eyes. She is glad Homura still cares enough to make sure she is fed, even after she almost hurt her. She does not question whether it is anything other than concern.

The cashier is polite enough, but it's clear he's glad to see them go.

...

The rain still pitter-patters, but it is gentle enough now for two girls to escape to the rooftop with ease. The handholds are slippery, but Mikoto has climbed many trees in her youth; buildings are not so different. The light of a billboard blaring a lit-up advertisement shines above them, broad enough to provide a cover at the edge of the roof; the rain parts around it, and long hours lit create a sense of warmth underneath, in the way of lamps which have been left on too long.

It's the sort of thing Mikoto has to rely on, right now.

She hates it. She misses Mai's bed, and Mai's warmth.

At first she is quiet - she is eating. Tearing through the tonkatsu as if she has not eaten a proper meal in ages. This much is true; it is safer to steal snacks, because it is less likely they will hurt her. Snacks are poor fuel for the engine which keeps Mikoto at the ready, every hour of the day. She has to make do.

But eventually the tonkatsu is devoured, every inch of it, and Mikoto is left with her silence.

She looks down at the pre-packaged bowl and for a while all she says is: "Thanks."

Well - that's all she says with her words.

Mikoto has always told a much more detailed story with everything aside from them. She is dirtied; her long-sleeved uniform is crumpled and stained from so much rain; her hair is messy and uncombed, even by her standards. There are dark circles under her eyes, as if she has not slept; there are tracks down her cheeks which speak to liquid more localised than rain.

She is a mess.

She does not try to hide it.

When she speaks she speaks abruptly, with no preamble or context. "I'll go back soon. ... to Nishitama," she realises she should specify, after a moment. "But I can't, right now. I'm too sad. I'd get caught. Don't think Eri's gonna save me again." It is not a judgement she offers with any particular bitterness; she does not fault Eri for needing to be saved, now.

"I just need some time," she repeats herself, and does not realise the irony. "So I don't mess it up worse."

She sounds so sure she has made a mess of it.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

After a moment's thought, Homura picks up both the asked-for tonkatsu and a cold tamago sando for herself -- it seems she won't be heating up those noodles after all. She leaves her umbrella behind in its puddle of rainwater when they go, and tucks their bag of food into her elbow. When the grey girl travels with Mikoto Minagi, she expects to need her hands free.

And sure as the rain falling down on their heads, they ascend. Still, it is no relief to be right, though the time mage usually derives some small satisfaction whenever her predictions prove correct. Not when she knows how very wrong she has been about the most important things, for so very long.

-=-=-=-

A plastic konbini bag is just one of many things which lie between Homura and Mikoto, in the glowing lee of one of Akihabara's famous rooftop billboards.

There's nothing comfortable about the stretch of silences, not to the Puella Magi. Memories lie thick about her like a miasma, precious and devastating. Mikoto does not know this is not the first time Homura has stood in the path of her sweeping blade. This used to be the girl who taught her the terrible things she needed to know. Her once braidsister had apologized then, too. Now...

Homura handles Mikoto's gratitude with as much grace as she did the apology. The other girl gets a long silence and then a single deliberate blink. Beneath the ice she exerts costly control. With mortal danger's distraction faded, she now has herself to contend with again.

"Ohtori Academy is not in Nishitama," Homura points out in that near monotone of hers. There is more than one place Mikoto has not been in a while, and the ever-watchful Puella has noticed. She observes the rest of the girl's disarray here beneath the spotlights' spillage; how could she not?

Rain pours in revulets from the face of the advertisement, making an uneven veil between the girls and the bright lights of Electric Town below. The storm comes.

"There's no time left," Homura says, so quietly the falling water nearly washes the sound away. Such small words, to bear such unimaginable weight.

A very long moment passes. In a more normal tone for her, Homura Akemi does one of the things she does best: makes a question which could be gently-expressed concern come out as coolly clinical. "Why are you so sad, Mikoto Minagi?" When they were braidsisters, she would have asked as a friend. But... hearing about Mikoto's troubles might distract Homura from her own, even for a moment.

The selfish girl in grey has always indulged in vain hopes. It's just that now she recognizes them for such. She takes a mouthful of bread and egg and mayonnaise, chewing mechanically, swallowing it as a dry lump. Forcing herself through the paces.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> How To Destroy Angels - A Drowning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhFyog5zmm8

"I know," Mikoto says, as Homura points out the obvious truth, and it is small and miserable. Perhaps it is only obvious to her. "Ohtori's central... but... Mai's there..."

She knows she should monitor the heart of Fuuka, but Mai told her not to come home.

Isn't it enough to scour the outskirts for now? Just while she seems so mad?

(It's never enough.)

It's never enough, and there's no time left, and Homura might have gotten away with the whisper if Mikoto were anyone else. Her ears are sharp; she catches the murmured mora. Mikoto looks to her, and her eyes crease in new worries, no matter the weight bearing down on her own shoulders. "Homura..."

But she doesn't quite manage to follow it up with a question, because she never knows what to say. It's just her name, caring and concerned and so, so sad. Mikoto is an expert in fitting a novel into a name.

She's used to saying a lot without saying much at all, because she was never of use for her words, after all. It is a strange skill she has developed, here in Tokyo.

A skill Homura calls upon, as she dissects Mikoto's sadness with a direct question. The girl still wearing braids looks down, again, and tells herself Homura would not ask if she didn't care, even if she sounds so cold.

For a long moment she does not say anything. She almost does - lips parting for inward breath, shaping to a mora - but she can't bring herself to say that she does not want to burden her. Homura is not the only selfish girl in attendance. She knows the truth they have lived with; she is a friend; most importantly she is /asking./

Instead her breath grows shaky, and she shakes her head.

Silence beats like a drum.

"Mai... got mad when I messed up breakfast again. Then I hurt Yumi," Mikoto says, finally, the words laden with shame. "I didn't mean to. Then... Endo fought me, and I meant to. Mai and Fate got in the way and... Mai was even more mad. I - I think Mai hates me," her hands tighten around the empty bowl. "Really hates me. I'm burden, and, I'm all twisted up, and, my love's no good, and I was mistake, and my sins are too much..."

She sniffs, loudly, and swallows at a lump in her throat. "Mai cuh- can't deal with me no more, I - can't go home!" Here her voice raises in the same gesture as her face crumples, and the bowl falls into her lap, because suddenly she has buried her face in her hands.

And she cries.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Some other girl might sag her shoulders to hear a friend say her name in such a tone. Some other girl, some softer girl, might crumple altogether to have the sorrow which bleeds from her acknowledged. Some flawed girl, some failure with faulty eyes and wobbly knees...

Homura abruptly despises herself for her lapse, for uttering the words, for letting Mikoto hear. She despises herself for so many reasons... Her neck stiffens; a muscle jumps at the hinge of her jaw. She stares straight ahead, into the rain, and it is anger which leaks from her now.

It is not aimed at Mikoto, precisely, but there is nothing about her tight-lipped silence to tell the other girl that Homura's subtle cold fury is for herself.

It passes, or rather, its evidence fades as Homura makes herself eat. A detached thought floats through: Kyouko would be angry, if this food got wasted. She manages one bite more before setting the sando down in her lap.

All the while she listens to Mikoto. Violet irises edge over, seeking an impression through peripheral vision. It is too hard to look directly at the other girl's despair. She doesn't offer a hand, or any soft murmur of solace, but she is present; she hears each and every word.

Feels them, too keenly.

Love's no good. Sins, too much.

The girl at the center of Mikoto's universe can't deal with her any more.

The selfish girl's sorrows rise up, a tide in her, and she closes her eyes.

The black behind her eyelids is too dark -- Homura opens them again, immediately.

Mikoto is crying.

Homura makes herself to process this. It is an action as mechanical as her chewing was, but the time traveler is in the end still good at forcing herself to do what is needful. (Is it? that small voice asks, and she pretends she can ignore it.) Mai... has left her, they have fought. Homura remembers how poorly it has gone in other pasts, when the two have had fallings-out, as well as she remembers the way they cannot ever truly leave each other alone.

The timing... Mikoto sobs into her hands, and Homura does not move except to tilt her head back so that she can stare up into the rain-filled shadows beyond the billboard spotlights. The timing.

Homura thinks, I cannot rely on Mikoto's sword arm for what comes any more than Eri can for aid in Nishitama -- she thinks the coldest thoughts, as if doing so could inoculate her from all that emotion. No use. Those heartbroken sobs batter at her like waves, and Homura has eroded so far already...

She asked. She has her answer, and it cuts too close, exposes bone as surely as Miroku could have cleaved head from shoulders earlier.

Some other girl might reach for the sobbing Mikoto, however her hand shook from shyness. Some other girl, some softer girl, might stammer that name with the same worry she heard her own expressed with earlier. Some hopeful girl, some friend with bashful almost-smiles and black braids to match...

Homura Akemi flees.

She doesn't jump up and run away into the rain, hair flying, however strongly that urge rises in her. With conscious, careful control -- an icy demeanor that runs to brittle more than cold, though Mikoto may or may not be in any position to notice -- she gathers her legs beneath her and rises. The plastic bag rustles as Homura places a mostly uneaten meal back into it and leaves it there.

"...I can't stay." Truth from the lips of a liar. The flat inflection is her deception by omission. "You need to pull yourself together."

She's speaking to Mikoto; she's speaking to herself. She's walking away, along the edge of the roof, her sable swallowtail rippling in the rising stormwinds. She's stepping off, dropping out of sight...

She's landing light but hunching down hard, and remaining in place for a frozen moment as the rain begins its drench. And then she is, finally, running, pelting away in the night.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Kawai Kenji - Main Theme (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mKAiSPtVQ

Mikoto says Homura's name and Homura is angry, and perhaps the other reason Mikoto does not reach out to her is plain.

She is afraid.

She does not want Homura to be angry with her, too.

If she asks Homura what's wrong, she is sure she will only make her angrier.

Mikoto has always been a selfcentred girl, as well-meaning as she is; she understands the world through herself. She sees the grit of that jaw, that fixed stare, and she is so sure she has caused it with her imprecise word. She is so sure she is at fault.

It was an important skill to learn, around faultless people.

She does not stop to consider that there is only one faultless person in the world, and her life is damaged by applying it too widely. She doesn't think like that.

She doesn't think that she might hurt Homura with her honesty. She is just grateful Homura reached out, despite her irritation. She answers her question frankly, as she always has.

She does not realise at first the error she has made, because she is crying.

She does not realise until she hears the sound of a bag rustling - sees Homura standing up. She is a small thing as she looks up to her, jaw dropped, brow knit, eyes blurred with tears. The shock is writ plain there, a wound Homura has carved. For a moment her breath comes quick and she cannot say anything at all.

"W-- wait, Homura..." But her throat chokes on the words, and they come out too strangled, too thin, as she turns away. It is only as she starts walking that Mikoto finds her volume, and her voice tears in desperation. "Don't leave me! I need help! Please--!!" A hand reaches out, trembling in the night air.

"... come back..." Her volume leaves her just as Homura does, dropping off the side of the building into the darkness below. That hand drops to the ground, made warm by a light left on too long. She has been left on too long, and it feels so obvious that no one wants to get too close. In quiet misery she begs pardon, "... please..."

But pleading is useless.

"I didn't mean to," Mikoto mumbles to herself, vision blurry, as she sinks to her side and curls in, hands pressing in a bead at her chest. "... I didn't mean to..."

'Okay. Just- when you're feeling more up to it... you don't have to do this to yourself. Come to us and... we'll be here - ready and waiting to help you.'

But when she came to them, it was too much -- she was too much. And she should have known she was too much, she thinks, in bitter realisation. She should have known not to want help - or support - or understanding. Selfcentredly she blames herself, and does not think of Homura's feelings. Her own choke her too surely.

She blames herself, and the blade of her condemnation is hot to the touch, like it has been left in the hearthfire too long. Homura told her to pull herself together, but she can't even do something as simple as that. No wonder they leave her, she thinks. No wonder she is alone.

Eventually she will realise Homura left her lunch. Kyouko needn't worry.

It won't go to waste.

It's so cold.

She's so cold.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-11 - Rain, Ramen, and Worry

2019-04-24T16:01:56Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Rain, Ramen, and Worry'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Terrible secrets have been revealed; a pair with secrets of their own comes together to process them.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Kasagami Araki]] and [[Setsuna Meioh]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Taiyou Ramen Stand
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
4-11-2019 -
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

It's a horrible, rainy, black night in Tokyo. Just after midnight, Taiyou Ramen Stand is a rare refuge from the heat, rain, and horrific humidity that makes tonight a distinctly unpleasant time to walk the streets.

A bit of discomfort is fine for one Kasagami Araki. Flicking closed her umbrella, she takes a seat and runs a hand through her hair. It's not the first time she's come in here in a variety of moods after a good romp against a youma or three. But she's unusually quiet, without any of her small talk to the owner of the stand as she orders her two bowls of Double Spicy Ramen for her late night trip out.

One leg crosses over the other, boots clonking lightly as she reaches into her jeans to pull out a phone. The light of the thing illuminates her face in the otherwise semi-dimly lit ramen stand as she waits for something.

Even after her food arrives, she's not downing it with her usual gusto, picking it at with chopsticks. Slurping half-heartedly, her gaze never moves from the phone. One could almost say that Kassie is nervous or anxious.

As though she'd ever admit it. Her hands tremble a little despite the humidity of the night.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

An umbrella of her own shields Setsuna Meioh's upper half from the wet, leaving rain to paint a drenched ombre along the cuffs of her dark pants. Because of who she is, this has an artful rather than an unbecoming effect; because of who she is, she carries her disquiet within her, with shoulders back and head high.

Her footfalls sound through the chaos of falling raindrops, distinct in their precise tempo. Upon rounding the shop's corner she folds her umbrella to step beneath the cloth-panel canopy and murmurs a quiet order to the proprietor. It's too small a space for her to not have seen the other girl in this illuminated island amid the rain-washed dark. Still, Setsuna stays at the counter a moment after her order is filled, with her back to Kasagami.

Then she's rotating on the low heel of one dressy boot and crossing the distance between counter and boot in a few of those long-legged strides. "Kasa-chan," she greets upon sliding into the seat opposite her girlfriend, and long strands of evergreen hair settle slowly in her wake. She's got a fresh cup of tea with her.

A night and a day have passed since the mahou converged upon Haneda together. Setsuna has not slept since, save in fitful spells. The weariness shows to someone who knows her well, in the low flutter of long eyelashes and the way she allows the bench's back to bear her weight. In turn, the senshi feels the tension, and her eyes find the swordswoman's hands, so dear to her.

With the faintest ghost of a smile she offers, "You wear the weather well," with a glance for those wet black locks. Then it fades and she is somber once more. "In all my time standing watch over this planet... There was no hint. No clue. There are more secrets in this world than there is knowledge." The Soldier of Revolution was one for most of her existence.

"And now..." Now Sayaka Miki and Kozue Kaoru are dead. Now... now what? "How are you holding up?" She has not touched her tea.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Kasagami stares into her ramen even as her beloved arrives. She doesn't need to look, in some ways dare not. As if she'll look and find that Setsuna Meioh too has become just another ghost in her life: A Mami Tomoe, a Kozue, a Sayaka. A Mother, a Father. All up and gone with nothing but aching memories.

It's as she speaks, so with that smile tinged by sleeplessness and weariness and the darkness of events that her heart feels like it's beating again. She's alive. That, at least, shatters the irrational, evil little thought.

Everyone has to die. But why do they all seem to go before her?

Here, in this tiny little ramen stand, she feels no need to project power or confidence. Not now, when she's so tired and worried, and horrible implications swirl in her mind that put her on edge. She wants to scream. She wants to carve ten, thirty, three thousand monsters into pieces. She wants to cling to the Puella she cares for and beg them not to become /that/.

The warmh of Setsuna's hands is a balm, and despite more personal worries, she leans against her girlfriend as the senshi finds her seat. It's not merely affection, though it's there in droves. All of the tension in her gives way to a full body shiver.

Hands clench. She's not wearing gloves.

She forces a smile, a grin. Hers is more than a ghost, more of a porcelin mask tossed over her features. She does not, however, hide the confusion and just how lost she is in her eyes.

"Well I'm glad to hear that. It's the kind of night where you either wear it, or get drowned by it. And I'm not ready to stop, yet, Setsu-chan. I can't!" There's a growl in her voice. Frustration given form. Her good eye looks a little wild for a second.

Running her fingers over Pluto's knuckles, she pulls them back and shovels in the spicey food. Her face starts to turn red on the good side. She's soon sweating. The burning sensation, so far away from fire, feels good. It always does, spicy things fill her with energy.

Secrets. What an awful word. Her heart feels a little colder.

"Watch for all of the portents, and even if you keep your eyes stapled open...one person can't see everything. That's why allies are important. Don't blame yourself. We've all messed up, have blood on our hands. But /that/ secret is not our fault! It's the fault of whatever pathetic sadist or monster or /whoever/ is responsible for..." She's getting on a rant. She sucks in a breath and exhales.

"I want to know where Puella Magi come from." She whispers.

She laughs darkly. "I'm getting tired of dead bodies. So, not that great, my love."

"You?" Her eyes soften. Concern lights them up. She stops devouring for a second, taking her love's visage in full for the first time since she got here.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

The observant eyes of the watchful senshi miss few details. They see even more when looking with the attendant worry of her heart. Setsuna doesn't know everything about Kasagami, but she knows some -- enough to know how heavily grief weighs on the duelist, who lost so much, so young. So she's looking for that haunted way in that good grey eye, and feeling for that shiver of emotion when they touch.

When Kassie says she can't stop yet, Setsuna nods, and says, "Good," in her quiet and approbative way. "We neither of us can, can we?" She is familiar with the necessity of moving forward, regardless.

And it further helps, somehow, to watch her fierce love devour all that spicy ramen and start steaming up from within. It encourages Setsuna to sip of her tea. She tries, and takes a mouthful, but is long in swallowing, like even liquid can somehow stick in her throat right now. But when Kasagami says they all have blood on their hands, the senshi looks down at her own, bequieted again.

She's reminded of another meal they had over hard conversation, reminded further by staring at her own hands -- Setsuna's primary view throughout that other evening. Kozue was still alive, then, despite her best efforts.

Secrets.

Her face, downcast, has a classical beauty and stillness to it: a statue's face lovely and sad, carved with tragedy rather than comedy in mind. "Ah, Kasa-chan," she sighs, and looks up again. "It is always too much, and yet... we go on." Garnet meets steel for a time, as long as Setsuna can get away with simply looking upon her love.

Then: "I go on." She shrugs, a brief gesture, and looks out into the falling rain instead of down at her hands. "I keep wondering how this could have been averted. If I missed seeing more clearly. And then... and then I wonder," and she looks steadily out into the rain, her face turned to give only her profile to the other girl, "Was Kozue right, when she came to me? She was trying to save Sayaka, and she did not even know yet what she was trying to save her from. But she knew that girl needed saving."

Her lips twist, a touch. "But if I had known... would I have done it any differently? Because the truth is, the world is easier for me to protect with them gone. I don't know."

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Her fingers snap right towards Setsuna as Kassie slurps up an almost obscene amount of noodles and soup into her gullet, chomping it all down just in time to wink to her love. It's dramatic, performative, but Kasagami needs the little injection of unnecessary drama.

It is something wholly Ohtori, after all.

"There is no stopping for us! People with grand dreams and grand duties share something. Most people stand below the cliff of human potential, waiting for a rope to be cast down. The ambitious grip the rope in their teeth, climbing up the cliff even if their fingers go raw to the bone!"

A pause. "So we'll just have to climb hand-in-hand, and mix our blood to keep going if we have to!" She ends strongly, forcing out her usual confidence into her voice. If nothing else, she can believe in Setsuna if they're together.

It's like staring at a statue cast in despair and sadness. Kasagami once again finds herself hating that visage of Setsuna, even as she's attracted by the other girl's pain. It just feels so unfair, that another should suffer such depths of sadness.

And yet they go on. Kasagami's hand clenches suddenly. One chopstick snaps. It's put aside, even as it's quickly replaced by an attentive employee.

A single hand runs across her face.

She rubs the good side of her face, left briefly blind, feeling the sweat drip down her neck as she does so.

"Sayaka was a problem. To us, to Eri-chan, to all of the Shepherds. She made you her enemy. If Kozue was going to save Sayaka, then she would have dragged her off and ensured she didn't get involved in this utter pileup of a disaster called Puella Magi! ...AS much as I hate that girl, I actually believe she had the right intentions." Kassie sighs, and rubs her nose as the spices really hit. She chomps down more food.

"You're trying to look backwards with perfect vision. Stop, Setsu-chan! Averting this required the knowledge that a Puella Magi could turn into a /monster/! The exact kind of monster we all tried to gather together to kill!" Before there were Shepherds and Chevaliers. She remembers Charlotte all too keenly.

"...The only thing we could have done with forewarning is hurt Sayaka for what she could become. And what would that say about what Eri-chan could become?"

She looks up from her bowl to peer at Setsuna. Her teeth grit. And then she reaches over for Setsuna. Kasagami needs to be close.

"How can we stop Eri-chan from being /that/!?" It's a whisper, but desperate. Kasagami lets go, and voices her truest fear and unknown.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Despite herself, despite everything -- despite the very subject being spoken on -- Setsuna loses herself some in Kasagami's grandiloquence. The drama, the vivid and bloodily motivational rhetoric... It all takes the senshi away. Something eases in her face, before she makes that solemn turn. "Hand in hand, then, up and over and into the sunset." It's a nice thought.

Therefore it cannot languish long in this humid, heavy atmosphere.

Even Setsuna Meioh's grand mane has begun to droop, to cling to her neck and her shoulders from a mixture of rain and sweat. She tugs at the collar of her sleeveless burgundy blouse in an uncharacteristic fidget -- the senshi is ever the still reflecting pool next to the swordswoman's tempest.

"The right intentions... yes. For whatever that is worth. You're right. We could not have known, and neither could she. Too many variables... And all we can do is work with what /is/ known, when we know it."

She is still again what Kasagami reaches for her -- something in what was said struck Setsuna, it's on her face and the careful way she makes no expression at all. She reaches, too, a moment later. The fit of her arms around her love is as close and warm as ever; one tucks round one shoulder as always to cradle the back of a dear head, and the other cinches round the duelist's waist. They fit together, there on the ramen stand bench.

But when Kasagami lets go, Setsuna /withdraws/, into herself.

"The only thing we could have done..." She draws a long breath, and it sinks in her chest like a stone. "And that is the sort of thing I am here for, Kassie. To hurt a girl before she can become..."

She's whispering now, too -- her face is upturned, so Kassie can't see her eyes, so her words float into the rain and nearly disappear into it. "I asked Kaname-san, once: what if saving Sayaka does not work? Now I ask you. What if we can't stop Eri-chan...?"

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Even their brief togetherness and purpose can't help but be dimmed by the solemn mood. That horrible feeling of something being /wrong/ creeps into every thought of Kassie's. She knows part of it, but doesn't know how to bring it up. She has enough tact to not rush in like a bull. Even trying to cut down the problem directly won't work when this beautiful senshi that she loves is being tight lipped.

That night on the train haunts her, even as more horrors haunt her still. Two things they share.

But the closeness /is/ a boon. A distraction for a moment, even as the withdrawal of Setsuna feels like an icey stab to the gut. The follow up question is that cold knife twisted. The mere thought of Eri becoming such a thing has her visibly flinching, one part physical and one part mental anguish, such is it's wrongness. Nevermind the empty shell that she saw Eri as when she last visited.

"You're going to make me say it out loud." A tiny, bitter little laugh.

Her eyes close. Speaking what they'll /have/ to do for their mutual friend feels like she's giving up on the girl a little. "It's the duty of Kings and Queens to mete out justice. To execute murderers. And Witches. It is also what we owe her, as friends, as Shepherds, and as family."

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Distance amid closeness. The Guardian of Time thought herself used to distance, used to loneliness. She finds its pain is altogether different when she can clutch Kassie close and still feel apart from her.

Another twinge tightens her throat, sharp and sympathetic, to hear that black laugh. Setsuna has seen somewhat of the bitter dark in her girlfriend, the shadow in the lee of all that blazing passion. It worries her, even as she may have yet to appreciate its depth, but she has not yet flinched from Kasagami.

There's an apology in her eyes, though.

"I asked, knowing the answer..." And made the duelist say it for the both of them. "Where has my resolve gone? You are right. We both know it, we both see... what this world brings us to, time and again."

Setsuna studies Kassie's face while her eyes are closed, traces her chin and her cheekbones and her scars; she knows it so well, but never ceases wishing for more chances to look anew. She beholds beauty, and sorrow, and youth. Then she looks out into the rain.

A thousand thoughts run through her busy head, and it shows on her face. She thinks of duty; she thinks of a girl who is Small Lady's best friend, and then of the green Puella who is a dear friend of her own. She thinks of Kassie's brave blade being turned to such terrible mercies, and resolves to protect her love from such an act -- however she can, whether her love wills it or no.

Any number of things could fall from her lips when they part, but in the end, Setsuna is thinking of a grey kitten back at her penthouse apartment and simply whispers: "It's Eri-chan," and reaches for Kassie's hand. "Eri-chan." A protest, a prayer, whatever it is, her whisper is thick, and her eyelashes heavy and shining with rare tears.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

That apology, at least, has Kasagami summoning a tiny little smile. There's the slightest of nods to her. It hurts, but...well, how could she deny her love? And it helps deny actually looking deeper, seeing more of their twin troubles. She can't handle it right now. It's an exuse she happily takes.

"You might be a guardian of things that are eternal, Setsuna, a legend, but you're still just human. Don't forget that. To live, love, and create a better future as a human, that's our gift." Her smile grows gentle, fond, and warm for her beloved. Oh, how her heart aches to see those many thoughts running along Setsuna's face.

A hand is reaches, and gripped. First one, then the other, Kasagami slipping off her gloves to do so. Around this beautiful senshi? It's easy to not hide herself. Except, of course, where it matters the most between them.

"Eri-chan. We can't let her be anything else." No matter what Eri might think about it. Or at least, that's what the Duelist whispers to herself in her own head while cursing her weakness.

Tonight, of all nights, she can't stop Eri. And she can't stop those tears upon her beloved's cheeks. It's a long, wet night of self loathing for Kasagami Araki.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-21 - Syncopation

2019-04-24T00:21:01Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Syncopation'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Two formidable Puella Magi tear up a couple of stages together, preparing for their defining performances.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]] and [[Kyouko Sakura]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Tokyo
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
4-21-2019 -
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura Akemi makes a curt gesture with a handful of steel. The submachine gun barks bullets in an uneven line, the spread of the weapon imprecise even at short range -- still, it is more than enough to perforate the odd patchwork quilt stretched across the back wall of an out-of-business noodle shop.

Its panels shred easily, and the sewn image of a microphone does too, and glitter goes everywhere....

It is more than enough to perforate an opening into that which lies beneath, or behind, or beyond: the twisting dark of a Labyrinth. The lair of a Witch.

The lair of a Puella Magi, just like them.

After the cacophony of bullets, there is a settling of white dust from chewed up drywall. With a level glance to the crimson huntress, and no words, Homura steps in -- steps through. She feels a strange prickling between her shoulderblades as she does so, a vulnerability, despite having sought the other girl out for this hunt.

The grey girl usually walks alone. But... Walpurgisnacht is coming.

-=-=-=-

LATE NIGHT DUMPLINGS, reads the sign above the stall with its aging creaky wood slats and flickering streetlight illumination. The proprietor has never felt the need to get fancy; she knows her dumplings are the best in the district, and she stays open into the wee hours to catch Electric Town's late night crowd. She does brisk business loading steaming-fresh food into plain white bags.

"One chicken dumpling, please." Cool and quiet and sometimes polite, that's Homura Akemi. It'll be up soon. She doesn't offer to pay for Kyouko's; she knows better than that.

There aren't any benches, but there is a low wall not too far away which is the perfect height for sitting. Neon shop signs blink colored light down onto the spot. Homura walks over to it and... doesn't sit. She just stands there in her Ohtori uniform, looking across the street, arms straight and at her sides. She doesn't look tense, but there is something about her stillness...

"You understand why I asked you, and not Eri." To hunt, she means. It's unclear if that's a statement or a question, from her inflection. But violet eyes slide Kyouko's way.

-=-=-=-

If grief moves like a tide, Tokyo may be suffering a high water mark. These dark waters carry with them dark creatures, grasping and ravenous. Their hunters have been... busy, and some have fallen; Yamanote and Ueno no longer know the protection of golden bullet and knightly sword. The Witches dance in the night and gather to them their prey, growing fat with despair. They spawn Familiars unchecked, and if a Familiar survives and grows and matures...

...it too becomes a Witch.

Tokyo is heavy with Witches, and thus heavy with bounty. So much grief; so many Seeds.

The harvest has come, enforced by spear and sidearm, to stockpile against the coming storm.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouko Sakura [None] has posed.

Kyouko glances around, leaning on the length of her spear as though she had a third leg to stand on. Has she been to this dive before? If she had, whatever past assessment of its wares didn't go for much anymore. There's a sadness to a shuttered restaurant. A hard struggle for life, all for the sake of feeding the hungry...not good enough to go on.

In a rare display, she visibly startles as Homura sprays lead out along the checkered threshold. Though she's heard gunshots at close range before, the sound is difficult to overstate, and her nerves are typically steeled by the tense readiness of combat or danger.

"Y'know...if you wanted to open 'er up, I've got a box cutter..."

Flicking the broad side of her spear head with a finger, the metal makes a dull peal to sound along with the ringing in her ears. Do bullets come to Homura Akemi so casually that she'd use a gun like a machete? Perceptive Homura is right to tingle between her shoulders. Kyouko is observing her all the while. After all that had transpired between them, the spear fighter still does not feel that she has measured the cut of Homura's cloth. Increasingly, she suspects that she never will.

But a negative can make for a positive of its own, and a persistent absence of communicated information communicates something very distinctive. One of Homura's defining traits is her opacity. She is rigidly disciplined and tightly controlled in the information that she displays in word or in deed. Indeed, the very nature of Homura's magic was only shared with Kyouko quite recently, and only then at Homura's volition. She fights when she has to, hunts on her lonesome, and leaves the rest of the world to wonder.

This hunt, then, is a rare opportunity to observe. Watching Homura step through the gate, Kyouko steps after her.

-=-=-=-

Straight and to the point. Here's a dive Kyouko is not likely to forget, despite the plainness of its branding. One glance at this place tells you the what, the where, and the when. No more and no less. The why is self explanatory, and the how, by now, is well established.

The proprietor looks to Kyouko, and Kyouko nods. "Yeah." No more and no less. This, too, is by now well established.
Herut and down in Tokyo town. Kyouko sighs, and hops onto the wall. "You're so goddamn stiff. You're a tough cookie but one of these days you might just snap. Just sit down and enjoy your food, might as well eat nutrition paste with your attitude." She's stiffened a bit. Although she would never admit it, Eri's a...sensitive subject, lately. Particularly on the topic of hunting, and her recent lack thereof.

"I don't understand why you do anything. But if you're asking if I can come up with a guess, then yeah. I can."

Because not many Puella Magi have proven that they can live through the end of the world.

"Could be risky though. Best way to keep my hide in one piece is to take my share of the grief seeds and hop a plane somewhere to ride off the storm. Why am I the one you think you can rely on?"

-=-=-=-

The bad times are rarely bad for everyone. Arms dealers, drug peddlers, con artists, coffin makers...most misery is not immune to profit. It was not so long ago that Kyouko would have looked at the present state of the city with relish. Such circumstance comes quite rarely, and begets further opportunities. But mostly, Kyouko is tired. Her thoughts are not of which rival to target or which territory to press, but of the recent troubles and understandings that quietly beset her spirits. But that's all internal.

Her arm cuts as well as ever.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Indeed there is all the hard-edged aplomb of a seasoned soldier in how the Akemi girl spews point-blank bullets flinchless. Her hair ripples, her henshin ribbons stream, and her face remains a mask of flat affect. Here is a girl accustomed to percussive destruction. Here, also, is a girl who expends energy on a regular basis to repair her eardrums.

"You're welcome to open up the next one," floats her reply over a grey-clothed shoulder. "There is plenty left to cut inside."

And there is.

-=-=-=-

Homura doesn't sit when told, which might be expected. "I am what I need to be." She also doesn't bother shrugging when she says that, though there is a sense of the gesture in her tone. Her mild acceptance in no way refutes Kyouko's prediction that she may snap. Secretly, though, she admires and envies the other girl her relish of food, her apparent relish for survival. "You can enjoy it enough for the both of us."

Green neon blinks in a blackened shop window; someone forgot to turn the OPEN sign off. It paints the two girls green, too, wherever the color can catch. It makes Homura's eyes darker than violet, even as they reflect some of the light. They catch that stiffening; she looks away after, but in a rare moment, elaborates.

"It's for her sake. Mine as well, I won't deny it. But it comes to the same thing. She can benefit from this hunt without needing to be here for it." A read between the lines suggests that Homura yet has expectations on Eri Shimanouchi's existence: a concern expressed coldly, a mask over worry.

She wants to say she doesn't rely on Kyouko, wants it to be true. And... beneath that, she /very/ badly wants to rely on the girl she can't bring herself to call friend instead of ally. In the end she inhales through her nose and says, "It is a matter of survival. What comes won't stop with Tokyo, won't satisfy itself with Japan." She does not specify that she means Kriemhild Gretchen, not Walpurgisnacht -- means the tragedy of hope expended which will swallow the storm's aftermath and then the rest of the Earth, if Homura fails and Madoka spends her soul.

"Some things cannot be run from. They can only be faced." Over and over again.

"Maybe by now you've seen enough to believe me." An old bitterness creeps into the words. A reference to the Witch revelation, the things Homura has clearly known all along.

-=-=-=-

A Labyrinth is a place of darkness, but behind the microphone quilt this only plays out figuratively. Light splashes Homura and Kyouko both, cast by the baleful eyes of a hundred hungry spotlights; they break easily enough when shot or stabbed, but the shards of their shattered regard find new ways to cut the intruding Puella.

The floor is rotten noodles, stinky and squishy. Better footholds can be had by leaping from balcony to balcony -- they protrude from walls at off intervals, and each holds moth-eaten velvet viewing seats and sometimes the bodies of the Witch's victims in those, like so many inert audience members.

The daughter of the noodle shop owners wanted nothing more than to escape their humble life for her dreams of the idol's stage. She got a wish in exchange for a soul, but her dream did not come true in the end. They so rarely do...

Homura cartwheels midair, and sprays a fine deadly screen of projectiles -- a staccato shatter as they connect -- and she makes thirty impossible shots. Thirty shards of jagged spotlight glass explode in the air before the two Puella, and their way is clear. The submachine gun falls, discarded, and she's reaching into her shield for the first of many grenades as they rush for the Witch's sanctum.

Why does she think she can rely on Kyouko Sakura? Perhaps the answer is in how Homura fights alongside her, with a certain trust -- not explicit but implicit. The way she expects Kyouko to keep up with her, the way she has to work to keep up with Kyouko. That envied and violently expressed relish for survival.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouko Sakura [None] has posed.

Kyouko laughs. Cooler than cool, ice cold. This girl is like a movie monster. She could go further than Mishima if she wanted, go toe to toe with the SDF. Take over the Yakuza if she wanted. Could blow up the Emperor, if she wanted.

Just what is it she wants?

-=-=-=-

What she needs to be? What the hell does that mean? The only thing somebody needs to be is alive. If that's it, then they're kindred spirits...and after all, here they are together, two loners driving the strands of their lives into a parallel park. But most of the time when somebody says they need to be something, they're not talking about that all. They're talking about what they /feel/ they need to be, and that's a whole other bowl of noodles. Again, the question insists itself.

Just what is it she wants?

What is it she believes in? When Homura looks around her, what world does she see? When she looks searchingly at Kyouko after cryptic statements of ambiguous end punctuation, how does she see her? Kyouko was jabbing with her talk of eating paste, but suspects Homura would be entirely satisfied by doing away with food altogether, if she could. Just what is it she's living for?

But then...what a silly question. To live, to go on...that's as much as any Puella Magi can dream for. To live is an ends in and of itself. To live is enough.

Isn't it?

In truth, Kyouko has been starting to wonder.

"I can do plenty. Just don't waste it, that's all it comes down to."

Of course it's open. The dark and the uninviting is open for business all throughout the city. What can one expect from a store that gives no indication of welcome except for the most explicit sign possible? Anything could happen in such a place, so long as one chooses to find out.

Homura is thinking of Eri. That seems...strange, coming from her. Kyouko would never admit it, but Eri has not been herself lately. Or at least...being Eri has worn hard on her, lately. The comment suggests that Homura is to some extent aware of this, and rather than writing her off she's letting her rest. Perhaps she's not so ironhided after all. Perhaps she needs all the help she can get. Kyouko says nothing more of Eri. Her thoughts are her disquiet and that she does not wish to share.

"You seem awfully sure of things I can't imagine anyone could know. But I guess I've never heard you talk so much about anything else, so...good thing you're so mysterious, I suppose."

She shakes her head, but is not so distracted that she fails to note the emotion in Homura's voice. In a still pond every ripple calls attention. "Only death."

Kyouko used to consider dying a violent death to be the worst possible end of a Puella Magi, as well as the only possible end of a Puella Magi. She's spent her current life hedging against that probability. But now she knows there's a worse way to go than the sudden and bloody. She's seen it, and she is far more afraid. All she wants is to die happy...but more and more since Sayaka's deaths, she finds her grip on the all consuming need to survive starting to ease...so she'll stay, and she'll fight. There are worse things that could happen than dying to a dragon with a spear in her hand. And who knows. St. George managed to get by.

-=-=-=-

Wrinkling her nose, her lip curls in disdain as the heel of her boot sinks slightly into the gelatin yield of decaying food. "What a waste...I know it's not real. It could be fresh as could be and I wouldn't eat it any more than the gum drops and donuts and all the other shit I've seen in a labyrinth. But it's like this place is /trying/ to piss me off..."

What a garish thing this poor girl had become, whoever she had been. The Witch's hair in its long looping lengths looks painted with lipstick, its face caked with white lipstick, its oversized bow tied from more rotting noodles, draped in a tattered apron whose blurry logo seems drawn from burst ketchup packets. It is as if the girl's every thought of stardom, of performance, of idols and geishas and vocaloids and shojo and the mundane life she reviled but could not escape had all coalesced into a single pathetic monstrosity..but on its stage she shines. Accompanied by a retinue of familiars...backup dancers, it would seem...this girl who was, who had always wanted a stage, was intent on defending the one she had found.

Kyouko does not hesitate. She wades in, stabbing and cutting and slashing like a frenzied wildcat. Kyouko doesn't fear Homura's guns or grenades, even from her place in the melee. She trusts her to aim true, and to kill with her in harmony.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Portugal. The Man - Heavy Games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgGkKlDtlfE

Each girl considers the other over dumplings and uncomfortable conversation. Homura is not wondering what Kyouko wants; she thinks she knows, and in her arrogance and her silent desperation does not question experience gained over a cheater's hand of lifetimes. It does not occur to her that Kyouko might herself be in a questioning state.

Because she is, for her part, considering the other girl's capacity for philosophical -- and not so philosophical -- savagery. This is not the only timeline Homura has known Kyouko Sakura to be a consummate veteran among Puella Magi, a notorious short-lived breed. When a girl with big soft braids and a poor estimation of her own bravery and worth needed inspiration for becoming a different and worthier girl, she found herself drawn to the tenaciously blazing example set by the spearmaiden.

"Good thing," she echoes drily. This may be what passes for a joke, for her, these days.

Even now, Homura cannot imagine Kyouko as anything other than a ferocious and charismatic survivor -- even now, she looks up to the red magi, feels like she could never equal the other, though she conceals that as well as she conceals the rest. If Kyouko knew what a weak thing lurks beneath the practiced mystery... Homura is sure she'd be repelled. After all, Homura is.

She folds her empty white bag and packs it away in her satchel--

-=-=-=-

--she reaches into her shield and pulls out a grenade, and another, and another, and each punches another jagged hole in the edge of the stage, until the whole thing collapses to reveal the bottom half of the Witch. She'd been pinched to a waspwaist by the stage's trap door. Below, she has not legs but a bristling of microphones, and each and every one screams with her screechy feedback rage. The backup dancers burble and slice up readily beneath Kyouko's pikes. As they die in droves, they transmute into cardboard cutouts of girls and then sink into the rotten noodle swamp.

And her trust is well placed, at least to this point. No grenade lands near enough to menace the fire-haired warrior, though their detonations wash her in sound and light. Bullets whiz in like hornets, but only to pierce the Witch beyond.

Still. Still, Homura does not extend her hand to Kyouko again, not like she did at Haneda. When she stops time to launch an eyeblink offensive, she does so in monochromatic solitude.

-=-=-=-

Between two savage Puella it does not take much time for the Microphone Witch to fall, and they're out again before Tokyo's finest can respond to the rare report of gunshots fired in the city. There's an arcade on the same block as the permanently closed noodle shop, a natural waystop for two girls to take a break without either needing to say they want to.

Police cars go by outside, but flashing lights and sirens can't compete with blinking gachapon signs and arcade game screens and the high-bpm j-pop madness pouring out of the various bemani machines.

Homura leans a hand on the back bar of the DDR machine while Kyouko plays. It's a breach of unspoken etiquette, kind of rude... and a vote of absolute confidence. Homura wouldn't put her hand on that back bar if she thought the other girl was going to need it.

She watches Kyouko play, and if she blinks it's impossible to catch her at it. "You're the most effective person I know," she says in the middle of a song, unprompted. "The hardest to frighten. I would not want to face you in a fight, Kyouko Sakura." Said smoothly, calmly, the implication is that she would if she had to. A thing can be true and bluff all at once. "You accused me once of flattering you, but you asked: why you." Homura has a strange way with compliments.

"If you stay... we can take this thing." Steel in her quiet voice. Because she is a good liar, Homura does not sound like she's trying to convince herself.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouko Sakura [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OLgG1eAg0E

Poor little Homura. Would that Kyouko could see into her heart...she might ask why the raven girl was so certain she had already gleaned every insight to be found from her repetitions, considering the fact that every single one she embarks on is born from a prayer of hope that this time, something will be unlike it has ever been before.

Homura does not fully understand Kyouko. Not this Kyouko, at least. The Kyouko that could see into her heart could not speak for the other Kyoukos, and would not presume to try. But this Kyouko is not repelled by weak things. If anything repels her it is a lack of perspective, and even then it is the lack itself which evokes her distaste, moreso than the person afflicted by it.

It's a hard thing to live.

Not that the Kyouko that could see into her heart would find Homura weak. That Kyouko would rather agree with this Kyouko's assessment. Homura is not weak, but she is certainly unyielding. That which cannot bend can only break, and even cast iron can be called brittle when subjected to sufficient force. Homura pursues an unprecedented and possibly impossible goal with a clear eyed and unsentimental perspective of the world. That much is not beyond that Kyouko's understanding. She would not castigate Homura for not being stronger. But she might encourage her to take a few loops to try to relax, and regain her strength. She wouldn't expect that advice to be heeded, of course, and it's a key distinction between them. Kyouko's goal is a long term avoidance of failure. Homura's is an urgent accomplishment of success.

But Kyouko cannot see into Homura's heart. She cannot see what she is to a girl who still thinks of herself as something quite mousey and small, who at her core beneath the trauma and determination had been quite shy and gentle. She cannot see Homura's anguish or her yearning, cannot see where she has been or where she wants to go.

But Homura is not entirely unseen, nor completely alone. Kyouko eats with her, looks to her, listens to her. Perfect understanding is not required, and Kyouko senses something quite kindred in her, maybe not with the similarity of siblings, but cousins. The finer details are not strictly necessary.

"Funny...I think I've decided. One of these days I'm gonna get something outta you. Maybe some food that makes you forget yourself, or a rise that gets you steaming. An honest laugh or a gasp...something you're not expecting, something you're not ready for.

One of these days I'ma get you."

-=-=-=-

There's not much to romanticize about Kyouko's fight in that little pocket plane. She is certainly athletic, but her performance can hardly be called a performance at all. She simply hacks her enemies apart, driving spikes through them to make confetti of them. It is a grisly and workmanlike display. She is not showing off to anyone, certainly not herself. Just going about the business of extermination, much as Homura does behind her.

The microphones, at least, inspire a reaction out of her. Hissing with irritation at their piercing, insistent wails, she lops off their wire-meshed heads with broad sweeps of her spear, splintering more with a spray of needleblades bleeding the soundwaves dry.

Kyouko knows now what happens when Homura blinks from one spot to another. It is well that she does not take Kyouko's hand. Kyouko does not need saving. She does not compete with Homura for kills, or strive to beat her to the punch in felling the Witch once and for all. She works alongside her, as the partner of her labors. When the final blow lands, she could not say for certain who was responsible for it.

-=-=-=-

Kyouko's focus is absolute. This province of light and sound is as much her domain as the darkened corners of the city where she lays down her head, and of all of its outlets for her to demonstrate her prowess, this one has long been her favorite. Her feet move with rapid precision, her mind given over almost completely to the music, responding quicker than conscious intent could prosecute. She is conscious that Homura observes her, but here she is used to being observed. Kyouko does not feel self conscious, just because it is Homura.

Well..maybe a little.

And she is perfect, perfect in a way that can only be attained by an endeavor that holds out perfection as its highest expectation, landing every step on every beat. Kyouko is familiar with this dance, and has long since learned its steps. But then she hears a note that she didn't expect. She doesn't hesitate or start or mis-step. She simply stops dancing altogether, and turns around.

It isn't much of a dais, but Kyouko stands raised up over Homura all the same, looking slightly down upon her from the stage. The bright colors of the big screen behind her form a backlit corona around her silhouette. She watches Homura say, and if she blinks it's impossible to catch her at it.

Kyouko is quiet for a spell after Homura speaks, not once taking her eyes off of the other Puella Magi's face. At last, she nods a little nod, a subtle gesture laden with significance.

"I'll stay. I'll fight with you."

Kyouko turns back around, unconcerned with the big lettered Failure goading her from the game. She still has more markers to play. Cocking her head to the side, she indicates the other side of the platform, and the place it proclaims for another to join her.

"Dance with me."

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura has a problem with seeing people clearly through her assumptions and plans. Perhaps she did not fix her eyes well enough; but no, this particular myopia has its roots in a hospital-raised girl's unfulfilled need for socialization, and if the grey girl could fix that with a bit of soul magic things would have gone very differently indeed. She instead relies on her hard-won statistics, logical and quantifiable and utterly inadequate to the task of predicting human nature.

Her statistics certainly cannot hope to describe the sharp and lambent spirit of Kyouko Sakura. Homura's calculations are off; they always are, in the end.

In esteeming Kyouko's prowess and ferocity so highly, she has underestimated the red magi's subtleties. She cannot see that there is kindness beneath the spearblades for her. She might not understand it, if she could. Even though their souls are on full display, chips of violet and crimson exposed to air and to eye, neither girl can see the other's heart.

But there is something about Kyouko that draws her back, each time. For a girl who swore angrily to never rely on others, Homura has come perilously close to something like reliance. Each time she tells herself it is expedience, that she is trying different methods and eliminating possibilities. She is gathering resources, that is all; this is no different from stuffing military hardware into her shield. And yet.

Timelines in which Homura ruled out the aid of Kyouko, when available, are hard to find. For reasons the time mage declines to examine, the spearmaiden is one variable she shows little interest in varying.

"I am not fond of surprises..."

This wasn't always the case. Once upon a long lost timeline, it was possible to delight Homura Akemi with the right surprise, or even with the wrong one. Violet eyes flicker to the side; an absence of challenge can, for her, be something like assent.

"But if it amuses you to try, I won't stop you." It has the shape of a rebuff, but Homura is known to be a liar.

-=-=-=-

When Homura fights, it is always a performance. Even when hunting alone she puts herself through the same rigorous paces, holds herself to the same exacting standard. The performance isn't just for others, isn't even primarily for others. With Kyouko at her side...

She doesn't let on that she's showing off, but Homura Akemi absolutely is.

Shotgun shells wallop with precision, and pipe bombs fly and bloom in arcs which call to mind planned pyrotechnic displays -- a ballet of spitfire destruction drawn in brilliant color and light with a dark mote of a girl always at its center. In the end Homura races to strike in time with Kyouko, and an annihilation so absolute leaves no evidence of whether speartip or bullet draw last blood.

-=-=-=-

Would either girl believe that such mutual self consciousness could exist between them, two renowned predators? Homura wouldn't, that's for certain, even as she masks her own. She knows exactly how hard that song is that Kyouko's Perfecting, for one thing.

When the mistress of the arrows stops mid-song, Homura peers up into her neon halo without squinting, and the affectation means that backlighting flares to brilliance in her unhooded eyes. Such an aura suits her, Homura thinks, even as she delivers the rest of her words.

They look upon each other for a span. Lights blink and songs play; the too-cheerful DDR announcer repeats his disappointment as rapidfire arrows turn red behind Kyouko, one after another. Homura doesn't let herself look away, doesn't let herself swallow, quashes all the other nervous urges like bugs. Then -- the nod from the firehaired girl, the agreement.

Nothing seems to change on Homura's face, but there is this subtle easing, something to the way the slender girl holds her shoulders. Even her control is not perfect. She would not be pleased to know that Kyouko can see her relief, can perceive that this means something to her. Her chin dips, too.

Maybe this is why, when that last invitation goes out, it draws a long and owlish blink from the girl who is normally made of stillness. A ripple across becalmed waters. A reaction, fractional but undeniable.

But it is given to Kyouko's back, and so the other girl cannot see that she has done something unexpected, and Homura has the margin she requires to quash that like all the rest.

Only then does she grace the metal arrows with a dainty step, the sable swallowtail of her hair floating in her wake as she takes her second stage of the night alongside Kyouko. Every step after is just as dainty, just as precise, just as consciously Perfect, all the way to the end of the song.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: What Does Her Soul Look Like

2019-04-07T17:41:24Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE X: What Does Her Soul Look Like'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''It is one end among many, but Homura Akemi will never let them stop her.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]], Kriemhild Gretchen, and some jerk of an alien
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Tokyo
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-04-06 - Somewhen amid the timelines
|-
|}

'''What Does Her Soul Look Like'''

A graveyard rain falls cold again from an overcast sky Homura Akemi knows too well. The jagged bones of buildings rise from a shallow stormwater sea once more, like countless exposed fractures across the broken body of Tokyo. A city saved.

A city doomed.

The grey girl kneels upon the tilted corpse of a skyscraper. She stares at the rain-dark concrete beneath her black-clad knees, slim shoulders bowed as if something heavy weighs them down.

Perhaps something heavy does.

Her hair catches the apocalypse wind like a mournful candle's flame and flickers from the nape of her neck in a sable stream. It expresses what the girl herself cannot, any more.

Behind her, above her, the lying beast perches. It occupies the other end of this broken building, and faces the grand central player on this nightmare stage: a terrible and beautiful shape, a storm rising above and behind the churning clouds of Walpurgisnacht vanquished.

It imparts terrible truths about her with a certain satisfaction in its chipper mental voice.

<< Be it sooner or later, there is only one ending for you Puella Magi. As the strongest of all Puella, she took down her greatest enemy. Naturally, after that, all that was left for her was to turn into the wickedest of all Witches... As she is now, I imagine it will only take Madoka about ten days to destroy this entire planet. Oh well. What happens next is mankind's problem, not ours. >>

As the beast's fluffy white tail flicks, Homura stands. Slow. Deliberate. Her limbs feel leaden. She forces them to move.

<< We've got all the energy we need now from this planet. I've met my quota! >>

Homura turns on the ball of her foot: a rotation as deliberate as her rising, as deliberate as every movement she makes now. As devoted.

She turns away from Madoka, away from Gretchen. She begins to walk. The Incubator's curiosity follows.

<< Aren't you going to fight her? >>

That is what Puella Magi do, after all. What they are for.

Hair like liquid shadow flows around Homura's shoulders and head as she walks, a widdershins whirl in a world's end wind.

"No. My battlefield lies elsewhere." Her words are quiet, but not soft.

It is enough to put a note of dawning realization in the hateful foe's mental voice. << Homura Akemi, you're... >>

She does not stay to hear the rest.

<SoundTracker> DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFi-z3dCVZE

Silver surrounds her: a gleaming perfection of circles within circles. Magicwrought metal flashes and she hears a rising whisper, as if of secrets spilling.

"I'll do it over..."

Sand courses, red and sinuous, down the face of a shining clockwork shield, and as the uncountable grains filter past they set those finely-meshed gears to spinning. The precision of movement transcends the mortal, as inhuman as Homura Akemi's descent has made her. She is a weapon now, too, a faithful implement whose purpose is inscribed upon the back of her hand in lustrous violet and golden filigree.

"As many times as it takes, I'll keep going back..."

A montage of tragedy and violence becomes her existence, punctuated by monochromatic loneliness. Through the dark, through the storm, she hearkens to a roseate lighthouse: Madoka Kaname is her guidelight and her explicit reason for being, and Homura would have it no other way.

"I'll relive the same events over and over. I'll find the one way out... the way to save you from a destiny of despair..."

Madoka saved her, once upon a lifetime.

"Madoka... My only friend."

Seen from afar but fiercely protected; loved by the whole entire heart of a girl who would now deny the organ if she could. It is not about Homura, after all.

She will keep her promise, whatever the cost. She has chosen these chains; she cherishes them. They bind her to Madoka.

Interlocking teeth speed and blur until they become smooth and shining circles too, instead of jagged-edged gears. The whole round shield spins, then, spiraling away, and round and around and into the ticking black Homura strides, chin high and eyes open.

"If it's... If it's for you... I don't care if I have to stay locked in this endless maze... forever!"

[[Category:Logs]]
[[Category:Cutscenes]]

2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

2019-04-07T02:38:52Z

Kestrel:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi wakes up in her hospital bed after making a promise to Madoka Kaname and commits herself to fulfilling it, whatever it takes and whatever it makes of her.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Across timelines
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-04-06 - The beginning of Timeline 4 and beyond
|-
|}

Her hospital bed sheets feel like they have the last three times she has woken in them: lightweight linens just this side of flimsy, more sterile than unscented.

Morning slants through expansive windows at precisely the angle it has thrice before to fall full and bright across her face.

And just like two times previous, there is a violet chip of soul embedded in the back of her left hand.

Everything is the same except Homura Akemi.

Sunbeams brighten cheeks blanched bone-white, reflect from eyes strained and glassy. Her whole face creases with grief like she has been sobbing her flawed heart out, without the tracks of tears to show for it.

Those were left in the timeline she just fled, left behind with the broken rescued city and the stormwater sea and the inert form of the girl she loves, the girl she...

Homura throws herself from the bed. Black braids flop, and her small pale toes smack the floor.

The girl she promised.

The fey familiarity of these motions she has gone through -- the scooping up of glasses to her face, the barefooted pad down the hall -- she could sleepwalk through them, now, and she does at first. Her mind is elsewhere, racing ahead, racing away from what is behind her at all speed.

It has taken years, taken timelines, for the lessons of an unfair world to sink in. Every lesson has been more cruel. Now Homura understands, finally. Now she knows.

"No one will believe me about the future."

The bathroom is not far. Homura faces the mirror and her eyes grow hard at what she sees there: the pathetic wreckage of a meek girl. See how she trembles still, traumatized and weak? That girl could never save Madoka.

She pulls the red glasses frames off, and the indistinct form she now faces is better than painful clarity into her unworthy self. This bone-pale blur, framed by darkness, with great violet holes for eyes: she could be someone else altogether. Someone capable of fulfilling that promise.

Homura lifts her soul gem. It flares purple, swims with magic -- so do her eyes, and a new world snaps into focus around her. There is a crackling deep in her ribcage, an unnatural shifting, and for a moment violet pulses through translucent-pale skin. Any flaws are unacceptable, those congenital to her most of all, and she addresses them with savage efficiency.

"No one will accept the truth about the future."

The hair ribbons pull loose as freely as a silver shield turns to her touch, and the rare full glory of her hair slips its bonds with a sibilance of silk. A sable swallowtail unfurls from girlish braids, transforming with a stark elegance which erases their shy soft rounded edges as if they had never been.

She will leave the worthless thing she was behind with all the rest. Homura never liked her much anyhow.

"Then, I..."

She, and she alone. Just like she told the treacherous Incubator when she sold her soul... Just like she promised. Madoka, precious dying Madoka herself said it: a thing only she could do.

Homura turns away from the mirror before she has to witness the way her eyes swim to remember that moment, before she can ruin the lie she is telling herself. If she's going to become strong enough to save Madoka and keep her promise, she should get started right away.

-=-=-=-

Nothing comes easy, but at least Homura has some experience with painful failure now.

An early attempt to leverage her new persona, aloof and cryptic, fails utterly: as it turns out, late night surprise visits to Madoka's window to emit vague spooky warnings aren't all that effective. Puella Homura disappears as mysteriously as she appeared, to let her cheeks burn unseen, in part because she feels ridiculous in the wake of Madoka's gentle confusion and in part because of the undeniable way simply sneaking up to her window at bedtime set a grey girl's heart to racing.

She doesn't try that again. But she does keep trying things, and redoing things, and each time the esoteric hourglass gets set on its end she can cross more possibilities from her mental list, each time she further hones her deadliness and further perfects the cool enigma of her facade.

<SoundTracker> Numquam vincar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBk7pV4G7f4

Her armory grows, theft by sneaking theft. What mundane military base can protect itself against the predation of a time mage? She strides between frozen soldiers and past them, into their weapons lockers without resistance, and takes from them that which she needs. An arsenal's worth; ten arsenals' worth. A hundred.

"I won't rely on anyone anymore!"

She is done with the golden wisdom of Mami Tomoe, now forever tarnished by an experience Homura refuses to think of as harrowing, even though it is. No more manga club and embarrassing secrets shared with Eri, the girl whose laugh was always with and never at her; no more rooftop lessons from their friend Mikoto, who frightened her but not as much as she should have -- rooftop warnings take their place. Kyouko Sakura she observes from afar when possible, and calls her admiration research: the grey girl is a thief of inspiration as well as guns.

And Sayaka... Sayaka she learns to resent nearly as much as she resents herself, and it is too personal to spring forth from anything less than former friendship. Madoka loves the doomed blunette too well, in Homura's bitterly biased estimation.

"I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"

They never have, not really. She knows that now. Only Madoka, who even so did not believe her until it was too late, and... and now Homura sacrifices what closeness remains there, too. Madoka doesn't need to understand her. Not to be saved. In her worst moments Homura believes the distance her punishment, and it is in its way a darkly romantic notion, a flagellate one.

And that helps drive her onward. All of her darkly romantic notions do.

She does not allow herself the mercy of tears any more than she allows herself the closeness of trust. Homura is done with all of that. Done with all of them. Her trust goes to an endless supply of Desert Eagles and grenades instead, to her soul-bought shield and to the private grey-static world she has come to think of as hers and hers alone. The slender adolescent wields machine guns nearly as large as she is with terrifying confidence against Witch after nightmarish Witch, against youma and world-ending apocalypses alike, and that cold hard look takes up permanent residence on her doll-fine face.

"I won't let Madoka fight any more. I'll finish every last Witch myself, end every threat if I must."

The timelines grind on against her soul and she winnows to a razor edge of a thing, no longer human at all or so she will say given any opportunity, with an insistence which is telling. Every repetition hones her as much as it harrows her, and together those twin forces twist Homura Akemi until she hardly recognizes herself...

<SoundTracker> nine inch nails - The Becoming, studio performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsqfT0IpLo

Perfect.

"I'll keep going, as many times as it takes... until I defeat Walpurgisnacht with my own hands!"

So that kind-souled, brave-hearted Madoka doesn't have to. Every relentless forward stride she takes through the timelines keeps her a step ahead of the despair at her heels, and takes her a step further from the girl she used to be. Homura made a promise, and she has a wish to grant in all defiance of the original wish-peddler and the rules of her cruel universe.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]
[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

2019-04-07T02:38:40Z

Kestrel: Kestrel moved page 2019-04-02 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore to 2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi wakes up in her hospital bed after making a promise to Madoka Kaname and commits herself to fulfilling it, whatever it takes and whatever it makes of her.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Across timelines
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-04-02 - The beginning of Timeline 4 and beyond
|-
|}

Her hospital bed sheets feel like they have the last three times she has woken in them: lightweight linens just this side of flimsy, more sterile than unscented.

Morning slants through expansive windows at precisely the angle it has thrice before to fall full and bright across her face.

And just like two times previous, there is a violet chip of soul embedded in the back of her left hand.

Everything is the same except Homura Akemi.

Sunbeams brighten cheeks blanched bone-white, reflect from eyes strained and glassy. Her whole face creases with grief like she has been sobbing her flawed heart out, without the tracks of tears to show for it.

Those were left in the timeline she just fled, left behind with the broken rescued city and the stormwater sea and the inert form of the girl she loves, the girl she...

Homura throws herself from the bed. Black braids flop, and her small pale toes smack the floor.

The girl she promised.

The fey familiarity of these motions she has gone through -- the scooping up of glasses to her face, the barefooted pad down the hall -- she could sleepwalk through them, now, and she does at first. Her mind is elsewhere, racing ahead, racing away from what is behind her at all speed.

It has taken years, taken timelines, for the lessons of an unfair world to sink in. Every lesson has been more cruel. Now Homura understands, finally. Now she knows.

"No one will believe me about the future."

The bathroom is not far. Homura faces the mirror and her eyes grow hard at what she sees there: the pathetic wreckage of a meek girl. See how she trembles still, traumatized and weak? That girl could never save Madoka.

She pulls the red glasses frames off, and the indistinct form she now faces is better than painful clarity into her unworthy self. This bone-pale blur, framed by darkness, with great violet holes for eyes: she could be someone else altogether. Someone capable of fulfilling that promise.

Homura lifts her soul gem. It flares purple, swims with magic -- so do her eyes, and a new world snaps into focus around her. There is a crackling deep in her ribcage, an unnatural shifting, and for a moment violet pulses through translucent-pale skin. Any flaws are unacceptable, those congenital to her most of all, and she addresses them with savage efficiency.

"No one will accept the truth about the future."

The hair ribbons pull loose as freely as a silver shield turns to her touch, and the rare full glory of her hair slips its bonds with a sibilance of silk. A sable swallowtail unfurls from girlish braids, transforming with a stark elegance which erases their shy soft rounded edges as if they had never been.

She will leave the worthless thing she was behind with all the rest. Homura never liked her much anyhow.

"Then, I..."

She, and she alone. Just like she told the treacherous Incubator when she sold her soul... Just like she promised. Madoka, precious dying Madoka herself said it: a thing only she could do.

Homura turns away from the mirror before she has to witness the way her eyes swim to remember that moment, before she can ruin the lie she is telling herself. If she's going to become strong enough to save Madoka and keep her promise, she should get started right away.

-=-=-=-

Nothing comes easy, but at least Homura has some experience with painful failure now.

An early attempt to leverage her new persona, aloof and cryptic, fails utterly: as it turns out, late night surprise visits to Madoka's window to emit vague spooky warnings aren't all that effective. Puella Homura disappears as mysteriously as she appeared, to let her cheeks burn unseen, in part because she feels ridiculous in the wake of Madoka's gentle confusion and in part because of the undeniable way simply sneaking up to her window at bedtime set a grey girl's heart to racing.

She doesn't try that again. But she does keep trying things, and redoing things, and each time the esoteric hourglass gets set on its end she can cross more possibilities from her mental list, each time she further hones her deadliness and further perfects the cool enigma of her facade.

<SoundTracker> Numquam vincar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBk7pV4G7f4

Her armory grows, theft by sneaking theft. What mundane military base can protect itself against the predation of a time mage? She strides between frozen soldiers and past them, into their weapons lockers without resistance, and takes from them that which she needs. An arsenal's worth; ten arsenals' worth. A hundred.

"I won't rely on anyone anymore!"

She is done with the golden wisdom of Mami Tomoe, now forever tarnished by an experience Homura refuses to think of as harrowing, even though it is. No more manga club and embarrassing secrets shared with Eri, the girl whose laugh was always with and never at her; no more rooftop lessons from their friend Mikoto, who frightened her but not as much as she should have -- rooftop warnings take their place. Kyouko Sakura she observes from afar when possible, and calls her admiration research: the grey girl is a thief of inspiration as well as guns.

And Sayaka... Sayaka she learns to resent nearly as much as she resents herself, and it is too personal to spring forth from anything less than former friendship. Madoka loves the doomed blunette too well, in Homura's bitterly biased estimation.

"I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"

They never have, not really. She knows that now. Only Madoka, who even so did not believe her until it was too late, and... and now Homura sacrifices what closeness remains there, too. Madoka doesn't need to understand her. Not to be saved. In her worst moments Homura believes the distance her punishment, and it is in its way a darkly romantic notion, a flagellate one.

And that helps drive her onward. All of her darkly romantic notions do.

She does not allow herself the mercy of tears any more than she allows herself the closeness of trust. Homura is done with all of that. Done with all of them. Her trust goes to an endless supply of Desert Eagles and grenades instead, to her soul-bought shield and to the private grey-static world she has come to think of as hers and hers alone. The slender adolescent wields machine guns nearly as large as she is with terrifying confidence against Witch after nightmarish Witch, against youma and world-ending apocalypses alike, and that cold hard look takes up permanent residence on her doll-fine face.

"I won't let Madoka fight any more. I'll finish every last Witch myself, end every threat if I must."

The timelines grind on against her soul and she winnows to a razor edge of a thing, no longer human at all or so she will say given any opportunity, with an insistence which is telling. Every repetition hones her as much as it harrows her, and together those twin forces twist Homura Akemi until she hardly recognizes herself...

<SoundTracker> nine inch nails - The Becoming, studio performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsqfT0IpLo

Perfect.

"I'll keep going, as many times as it takes... until I defeat Walpurgisnacht with my own hands!"

So that kind-souled, brave-hearted Madoka doesn't have to. Every relentless forward stride she takes through the timelines keeps her a step ahead of the despair at her heels, and takes her a step further from the girl she used to be. Homura made a promise, and she has a wish to grant in all defiance of the original wish-peddler and the rules of her cruel universe.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]
[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-02 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

2019-04-07T02:38:40Z

Kestrel: Kestrel moved page 2019-04-02 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore to 2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

#REDIRECT [[2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore]]

2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

2019-04-07T02:25:42Z

Kestrel:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi wakes up in her hospital bed after making a promise to Madoka Kaname and commits herself to fulfilling it, whatever it takes and whatever it makes of her.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Across timelines
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-04-02 - The beginning of Timeline 4 and beyond
|-
|}

Her hospital bed sheets feel like they have the last three times she has woken in them: lightweight linens just this side of flimsy, more sterile than unscented.

Morning slants through expansive windows at precisely the angle it has thrice before to fall full and bright across her face.

And just like two times previous, there is a violet chip of soul embedded in the back of her left hand.

Everything is the same except Homura Akemi.

Sunbeams brighten cheeks blanched bone-white, reflect from eyes strained and glassy. Her whole face creases with grief like she has been sobbing her flawed heart out, without the tracks of tears to show for it.

Those were left in the timeline she just fled, left behind with the broken rescued city and the stormwater sea and the inert form of the girl she loves, the girl she...

Homura throws herself from the bed. Black braids flop, and her small pale toes smack the floor.

The girl she promised.

The fey familiarity of these motions she has gone through -- the scooping up of glasses to her face, the barefooted pad down the hall -- she could sleepwalk through them, now, and she does at first. Her mind is elsewhere, racing ahead, racing away from what is behind her at all speed.

It has taken years, taken timelines, for the lessons of an unfair world to sink in. Every lesson has been more cruel. Now Homura understands, finally. Now she knows.

"No one will believe me about the future."

The bathroom is not far. Homura faces the mirror and her eyes grow hard at what she sees there: the pathetic wreckage of a meek girl. See how she trembles still, traumatized and weak? That girl could never save Madoka.

She pulls the red glasses frames off, and the indistinct form she now faces is better than painful clarity into her unworthy self. This bone-pale blur, framed by darkness, with great violet holes for eyes: she could be someone else altogether. Someone capable of fulfilling that promise.

Homura lifts her soul gem. It flares purple, swims with magic -- so do her eyes, and a new world snaps into focus around her. There is a crackling deep in her ribcage, an unnatural shifting, and for a moment violet pulses through translucent-pale skin. Any flaws are unacceptable, those congenital to her most of all, and she addresses them with savage efficiency.

"No one will accept the truth about the future."

The hair ribbons pull loose as freely as a silver shield turns to her touch, and the rare full glory of her hair slips its bonds with a sibilance of silk. A sable swallowtail unfurls from girlish braids, transforming with a stark elegance which erases their shy soft rounded edges as if they had never been.

She will leave the worthless thing she was behind with all the rest. Homura never liked her much anyhow.

"Then, I..."

She, and she alone. Just like she told the treacherous Incubator when she sold her soul... Just like she promised. Madoka, precious dying Madoka herself said it: a thing only she could do.

Homura turns away from the mirror before she has to witness the way her eyes swim to remember that moment, before she can ruin the lie she is telling herself. If she's going to become strong enough to save Madoka and keep her promise, she should get started right away.

-=-=-=-

Nothing comes easy, but at least Homura has some experience with painful failure now.

An early attempt to leverage her new persona, aloof and cryptic, fails utterly: as it turns out, late night surprise visits to Madoka's window to emit vague spooky warnings aren't all that effective. Puella Homura disappears as mysteriously as she appeared, to let her cheeks burn unseen, in part because she feels ridiculous in the wake of Madoka's gentle confusion and in part because of the undeniable way simply sneaking up to her window at bedtime set a grey girl's heart to racing.

She doesn't try that again. But she does keep trying things, and redoing things, and each time the esoteric hourglass gets set on its end she can cross more possibilities from her mental list, each time she further hones her deadliness and further perfects the cool enigma of her facade.

<SoundTracker> Numquam vincar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBk7pV4G7f4

Her armory grows, theft by sneaking theft. What mundane military base can protect itself against the predation of a time mage? She strides between frozen soldiers and past them, into their weapons lockers without resistance, and takes from them that which she needs. An arsenal's worth; ten arsenals' worth. A hundred.

"I won't rely on anyone anymore!"

She is done with the golden wisdom of Mami Tomoe, now forever tarnished by an experience Homura refuses to think of as harrowing, even though it is. No more manga club and embarrassing secrets shared with Eri, the girl whose laugh was always with and never at her; no more rooftop lessons from their friend Mikoto, who frightened her but not as much as she should have -- rooftop warnings take their place. Kyouko Sakura she observes from afar when possible, and calls her admiration research: the grey girl is a thief of inspiration as well as guns.

And Sayaka... Sayaka she learns to resent nearly as much as she resents herself, and it is too personal to spring forth from anything less than former friendship. Madoka loves the doomed blunette too well, in Homura's bitterly biased estimation.

"I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"

They never have, not really. She knows that now. Only Madoka, who even so did not believe her until it was too late, and... and now Homura sacrifices what closeness remains there, too. Madoka doesn't need to understand her. Not to be saved. In her worst moments Homura believes the distance her punishment, and it is in its way a darkly romantic notion, a flagellate one.

And that helps drive her onward. All of her darkly romantic notions do.

She does not allow herself the mercy of tears any more than she allows herself the closeness of trust. Homura is done with all of that. Done with all of them. Her trust goes to an endless supply of Desert Eagles and grenades instead, to her soul-bought shield and to the private grey-static world she has come to think of as hers and hers alone. The slender adolescent wields machine guns nearly as large as she is with terrifying confidence against Witch after nightmarish Witch, against youma and world-ending apocalypses alike, and that cold hard look takes up permanent residence on her doll-fine face.

"I won't let Madoka fight any more. I'll finish every last Witch myself, end every threat if I must."

The timelines grind on against her soul and she winnows to a razor edge of a thing, no longer human at all or so she will say given any opportunity, with an insistence which is telling. Every repetition hones her as much as it harrows her, and together those twin forces twist Homura Akemi until she hardly recognizes herself...

<SoundTracker> nine inch nails - The Becoming, studio performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsqfT0IpLo

Perfect.

"I'll keep going, as many times as it takes... until I defeat Walpurgisnacht with my own hands!"

So that kind-souled, brave-hearted Madoka doesn't have to. Every relentless forward stride she takes through the timelines keeps her a step ahead of the despair at her heels, and takes her a step further from the girl she used to be. Homura made a promise, and she has a wish to grant in all defiance of the original wish-peddler and the rules of her cruel universe.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]
[[Category:Logs]]

2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore

2019-04-07T02:24:53Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE X: I Won't Rely On Anyone Anymore'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi wakes up in her hospital bed after making a promise to Madoka Kaname and commits herself to fulfilling it, whatever it takes and whatever it makes of her.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Across timelines
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-04-01 - The beginning of Timeline 4 and beyond
|-
|}

Her hospital bed sheets feel like they have the last three times she has woken in them: lightweight linens just this side of flimsy, more sterile than unscented.

Morning slants through expansive windows at precisely the angle it has thrice before to fall full and bright across her face.

And just like two times previous, there is a violet chip of soul embedded in the back of her left hand.

Everything is the same except Homura Akemi.

Sunbeams brighten cheeks blanched bone-white, reflect from eyes strained and glassy. Her whole face creases with grief like she has been sobbing her flawed heart out, without the tracks of tears to show for it.

Those were left in the timeline she just fled, left behind with the broken rescued city and the stormwater sea and the inert form of the girl she loves, the girl she...

Homura throws herself from the bed. Black braids flop, and her small pale toes smack the floor.

The girl she promised.

The fey familiarity of these motions she has gone through -- the scooping up of glasses to her face, the barefooted pad down the hall -- she could sleepwalk through them, now, and she does at first. Her mind is elsewhere, racing ahead, racing away from what is behind her at all speed.

It has taken years, taken timelines, for the lessons of an unfair world to sink in. Every lesson has been more cruel. Now Homura understands, finally. Now she knows.

"No one will believe me about the future."

The bathroom is not far. Homura faces the mirror and her eyes grow hard at what she sees there: the pathetic wreckage of a meek girl. See how she trembles still, traumatized and weak? That girl could never save Madoka.

She pulls the red glasses frames off, and the indistinct form she now faces is better than painful clarity into her unworthy self. This bone-pale blur, framed by darkness, with great violet holes for eyes: she could be someone else altogether. Someone capable of fulfilling that promise.

Homura lifts her soul gem. It flares purple, swims with magic -- so do her eyes, and a new world snaps into focus around her. There is a crackling deep in her ribcage, an unnatural shifting, and for a moment violet pulses through translucent-pale skin. Any flaws are unacceptable, those congenital to her most of all, and she addresses them with savage efficiency.

"No one will accept the truth about the future."

The hair ribbons pull loose as freely as a silver shield turns to her touch, and the rare full glory of her hair slips its bonds with a sibilance of silk. A sable swallowtail unfurls from girlish braids, transforming with a stark elegance which erases their shy soft rounded edges as if they had never been.

She will leave the worthless thing she was behind with all the rest. Homura never liked her much anyhow.

"Then, I..."

She, and she alone. Just like she told the treacherous Incubator when she sold her soul... Just like she promised. Madoka, precious dying Madoka herself said it: a thing only she could do.

Homura turns away from the mirror before she has to witness the way her eyes swim to remember that moment, before she can ruin the lie she is telling herself. If she's going to become strong enough to save Madoka and keep her promise, she should get started right away.

-=-=-=-

Nothing comes easy, but at least Homura has some experience with painful failure now.

An early attempt to leverage her new persona, aloof and cryptic, fails utterly: as it turns out, late night surprise visits to Madoka's window to emit vague spooky warnings aren't all that effective. Puella Homura disappears as mysteriously as she appeared, to let her cheeks burn unseen, in part because she feels ridiculous in the wake of Madoka's gentle confusion and in part because of the undeniable way simply sneaking up to her window at bedtime set a grey girl's heart to racing.

She doesn't try that again. But she does keep trying things, and redoing things, and each time the esoteric hourglass gets set on its end she can cross more possibilities from her mental list, each time she further hones her deadliness and further perfects the cool enigma of her facade.

<SoundTracker> Numquam vincar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBk7pV4G7f4

Her armory grows, theft by sneaking theft. What mundane military base can protect itself against the predation of a time mage? She strides between frozen soldiers and past them, into their weapons lockers without resistance, and takes from them that which she needs. An arsenal's worth; ten arsenals' worth. A hundred.

"I won't rely on anyone anymore!"

She is done with the golden wisdom of Mami Tomoe, now forever tarnished by an experience Homura refuses to think of as harrowing, even though it is. No more manga club and embarrassing secrets shared with Eri, the girl whose laugh was always with and never at her; no more rooftop lessons from their friend Mikoto, who frightened her but not as much as she should have -- rooftop warnings take their place. Kyouko Sakura she observes from afar when possible, and calls her admiration research: the grey girl is a thief of inspiration as well as guns.

And Sayaka... Sayaka she learns to resent nearly as much as she resents herself, and it is too personal to spring forth from anything less than former friendship. Madoka loves the doomed blunette too well, in Homura's bitterly biased estimation.

"I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"

They never have, not really. She knows that now. Only Madoka, who even so did not believe her until it was too late, and... and now Homura sacrifices what closeness remains there, too. Madoka doesn't need to understand her. Not to be saved. In her worst moments Homura believes the distance her punishment, and it is in its way a darkly romantic notion, a flagellate one.

And that helps drive her onward. All of her darkly romantic notions do.

She does not allow herself the mercy of tears any more than she allows herself the closeness of trust. Homura is done with all of that. Done with all of them. Her trust goes to an endless supply of Desert Eagles and grenades instead, to her soul-bought shield and to the private grey-static world she has come to think of as hers and hers alone. The slender adolescent wields machine guns nearly as large as she is with terrifying confidence against Witch after nightmarish Witch, against youma and world-ending apocalypses alike, and that cold hard look takes up permanent residence on her doll-fine face.

"I won't let Madoka fight any more. I'll finish every last Witch myself, end every threat if I must."

The timelines grind on against her soul and she winnows to a razor edge of a thing, no longer human at all or so she will say given any opportunity, with an insistence which is telling. Every repetition hones her as much as it harrows her, and together those twin forces twist Homura Akemi until she hardly recognizes herself...

<SoundTracker> nine inch nails - The Becoming, studio performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsqfT0IpLo

Perfect.

"I'll keep going, as many times as it takes... until I defeat Walpurgisnacht with my own hands!"

So that kind-souled, brave-hearted Madoka doesn't have to. Every relentless forward stride she takes through the timelines keeps her a step ahead of the despair at her heels, and takes her a step further from the girl she used to be. Homura made a promise, and she has a wish to grant in all defiance of the original wish-peddler and the rules of her cruel universe.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]
[[Category:Logs]]

2019-03-31 - TIMELINE 3: Wish Upon A Star, Redux

2019-04-06T18:58:28Z

Kestrel:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Wish Upon A Star, Redux'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Walpurgisnacht comes to Tokyo. The magical girls rise to confront it en masse, but not without casualties. Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname are the only survivors among the Puella Magi, and both on the verge of a fate worse than death. Madoka has one last use of one last Grief Seed left, and uses it to save Homura from becoming a Witch -- then asks her to go back in time to prevent Madoka from becoming a Puella Magi in the first place. As a final request, she begs Homura to kill her before she can become a Witch. Homura promises to fulfill the first wish and reluctantly grants the second one, before turning back the hourglass... ending Timeline Three.''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Homura Akemi]], [[Madoka Kaname]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
Tokyo

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
3/31/2019 - End of Timeline 3
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Silence and rain

A graveyard rain falls cold from an overcast sky. The jagged bones of buildings rise from a shallow stormwater sea, like countless exposed fractures across the broken body of a fallen city. Here and there are moments of color amid the grey, still and scattered: those who fought bravely to turn the storm called Walpurgisnacht, and fell, too, just as broken.

It's just the two of them, now.

Two girls' arms cross at the wrists; two girls' hands cup grey water and blackly gleaming soul gems. One of the gems used to be pink. The other used to be purple.

Homura Akemi's sopping school uniform clings to her skinny arms, as torn as the rest of her. Everything is a distorted jigsaw through her glasses; their lenses are all cracked and splattered with rain. None of that matters to her. She lies in the water, letting its chill seep into skin and then bone because she has no choice any more.

Her soul feels strangely heavy in her palm, and it's cold, too. Like iron, like ice. If Homura had the strength left for it, she would shiver.

Instead she looks at Madoka next to her, over their crossed arms and guttering soul gems. Her dwindling energy is better spent on the name of the girl who saved her. "Kaname-san..."

Homura's voice is quieter even than is her norm, and cracks high and soft. Like her heart is so weak that each beat steals strength from her words. Her eyes are large and dark and as deeply purple as a fading sunset, even through her ruined glasses. She isn't searching Madoka's face, but gazing upon it, more directly than she ever manages in the day to day of class and monster fighting. Like she's allowed, now, somehow, or maybe she just doesn't have the energy left to be nervous about it.

Looking at Madoka makes it all hurt less, makes it all worth it. She should be sad, and she is, there are tears in her eyes, but...

Sadness isn't what shapes her face as she looks at her best friend, heedless of the broken city and the fallen around them.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Madoka's bleeding. She isn't -- like Sayaka was -- her mind flinches from the comparison; the blood continues to trickle from her wrist, anyway, and from a thousand other scrapes and scratches. Normally they'd be gone, after the battle ended.

But then, this was not like other battles.

What matters is that it's over. Tokyo has been saved. Millions and millions and millions of people she doesn't know, and a handful that she does, will go on...

...but some won't. Some already haven't.

There's a peacefulness in Madoka as she looks over at the very last one of her Puella Magi friends who's still with her. Exhaustion can be peaceful, like a blank, empty gray sky reflecting on a windless lake, and this is some of that. But it doesn't capture the fullness of the feeling.

Homura's wrist feels warm. And her voice feels warm. And her gaze feels warm. Madoka opens herself to that warmth as surely as a cat does on the concrete. She digs deep and, somehow, somewhere, finds the energy to smile. A smile, just for Homura. All for her. Everything for her, Madoka's friend.

Everything is all she has left to give.

"So this is... the end for us too, right?"

It isn't really a question; she asks it in the same way and for the same reason that, at the beginning of the battle, and again in its darkest heart, she had ignited her bow with much too much magic, made it ''burn'' with radiance, with light for others to see. Courage is the currency of a warrior, and easily spent when there's no time left.

Courage for Homura's sake, and for herself. She doesn't have the strength to go out with her head held high literally, but she can manage the metaphor well enough.

Is such gentle acceptance brave, though, really?

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Madoka smiles at her.

Just like that she's warm again, a warmth to accompany what Madoka sees and feels in her. It would be harder not to smile back, especially when her friend says 'us'. They're together, and right now Homura cannot think of anything more important to her in the world.

So Homura smiles back, the expression wobbly but pure, even as she asks a question of consequence.

"You don't have any more Grief Seeds...?"

Homura doesn't, and... and she isn't sad about it. Or terrified, or any of the other things she expected to feel in a moment like this. How could she be, with Madoka smiling at her like that? Anything Madoka has to give is everything to Homura, always. Her brave last, her everything is even more precious.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Her last friend left.

It isn't even a question, what Madoka's going to do next.

But sometimes, to do a good thing, you have to do a bad thing first. Just like Mama said.

Madoka isn't a good liar, but in a way her track record for dutiful honesty paves the way for her success now. It doesn't even take words. She just closes her eyes -- the world is darker for their lack -- and shakes her head in that peculiar way she has, the gentle push of the one cheekbone and then the other. Nnn-nn, but this time without even that gentle burble of vocalization.

One of her twintails splishes down in the puddle -- another half inch of red ribbon stains crimson, now wet -- as she finishes the motion and, once again, lays her head to the side, facing Homura fully.

Somehow, with that silent confirmation of their being totally and completely doomed, her reopened eyes are warmer still. Hearthfire warm.

Heartfire warm.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Readily, easily, she believes Madoka's lie. It's well told and well timed, and protected by the trust Homura has in her.

It isn't peace that Homura feels, but... relief. Undeniable, frightening relief. They're both dying, their soul gems blackened, her shield empty: spent beyond retrieving. The struggle is over.

Homura has never felt much true attachment to this world Madoka loves so, when it comes right down to it. The world did little to encourage it from her. She was raised by EKG monitors and nurses on rotating shifts instead of by loving parents: the timorous transfer student, always on the outside looking in, a ghost of a girl long before her congenitally limited time ran out.

Until she met Madoka Kaname.

The girl who saw her, who saw things in her Homura did not see for herself, who called her brave and drew her as beautiful and bought her a purple chara-barrette from her favorite manga.

However cruel the world has been to Homura since their meeting -- and it has cut her to the bone -- it is a world which has Madoka in it. She wished her soul away to save her best friend, and the world punished her for it, but still she kept on, for Madoka. Now... now it's all done, and the world her best friend loves so won't have Madoka in it for much longer.

What worth does the world hold for her now?

Homura turns her face toward the weeping sky and, in a light whisper, curses it. She curses the world like a benediction, shares it with Madoka, and never knows she misses the glowing warmth in eyes pinker than the pinkest sunrise.

"I see... So... how about we become monsters together... and turn this world upside down? So that there's nothing bad, or sad, left... nothing at all. Let's just break, break, break it all to dust...! Don't you think... that would be great?"

A tear squeezes out of tight-shut eyes and rolls down Homura's cheek; her voice trembles for a body that cannot any more. A darkness seeps through her. It's been so hard, and so painful, and she's been trying so long... she's tired, more tired than any fifteen year old girl should ever be.

But it's over.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Madoka's eyes are warm with a secret, and then Homura is warm too.

Warmer, warmer than was physically, metaphysically, magiophysically possible with a Soul Gem blackened almost to the total darkness of the Grief Seed now gently pressed against it. So gently that Homura's palm couldn't even feel the pressure, like an incredibly delicate bird perching upon a fingertip.

But the difference is incredible. From exhaustion, energy. From despair, hope.

It takes Homura's darkness into itself, revealing the gorgeous purple underneath.

"I was lying. I had one." Her voice is tiny and weary and so, so happy.

Paradoxically -- Madoka's own Gem is as perfectly awful as it was before -- she, too, seems energized -- has enough hidden strength to, now, let a soft rose blush of satisfaction unfurl across her nose, over both cheeks.

Again her eyes disappear into a smile but this time the world ''isn't'' darker for it because her face is lighter, exudes radiance.

She did it.

She saved one more person.

She saved her very last friend.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

It is as easy, in the end, to sink into the despair as it was to believe Madoka's lie. Homura is ready to accept both.

There is a darkness that exists behind the eyelids, a natural darkness which yet allows for the gentle glow of light to press through.

And then there is that which Homura perceives: a consuming lack of color and light which engulfs the senses. It fills her ears and eyes like oil, it coats her tongue and it runs in her veins, blacker than her hair, blacker than the night, blacker than the spaces between the unseen stars above.

She does not feel the tear tracking down her own face any more than she feels any pressure in her palm, because all Homura can feel is the absorptive consumption of despair and a sickly-sharp bitter fury like a puncturing needle.

Is this what it will be like? she wonders, even as grand fantasies of nihilism rage within her. And then, insidious: Why did I ever fight this in the first place? Because she will finally be able to vent all of her resentment and hurt and choked-down tears on a world that was never good enough for Madoka in the first place, and--

and--

and all the comforting, seductive despair ebbs, a tide of oil going out even more swiftly than it came in -- chased by energy, by warmth, by ''Madoka'' -- and Homura convulses back to hope with wide eyes and open mouth and a sharp short gasp to fill empty lungs. A dried violet of a girl blooms again, despite herself.

She turns to the girl who saved her -- who saved her again, this isn't how it's supposed to go -- and with a voice which wavers with emotion rather than terminal weakness she cries out her shock, her denial.

"NO! You...! Why would you-- why me?!"

It makes no sense -- it's not fair. But it is true, and Homura knows shock and horror. The shock of Madoka's deception is a delicate thing, and the truth is that the girl with the long dark braids and the big dark eyes and the heart that won't give up does not value herself enough; she just accepts it.

But plainly, painfully, it horrifies Homura that it is her soul gem glowing rather than Madoka's.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Homura's reaction is heartbreaking and vindicating.

It is why Madoka couldn't just ''offer''.

It is why she ''had'' to play a trick.

The last few motes of pink light are disappearing from her Soul Gem like sand flowing out of the top bulb of an hourglass.

Her smile is already starting to turn a little bit rictus -- sharp with pain. She smothers it as best she can. It isn't easy; but then, it has always required courage -- ''true'' courage -- to set hope against despair, over and over and over, even when it is impossible.

And it ''is'' impossible. For Puella Magi, that is. A happy ending is impossible.

She understands that now, well enough. Body and blood and bone, she understands. Sayaka's body and Mami's blood and achingly deep inside her own bones, bones that aren't real bones anymore, bones that were made for killing.

If she weren't, herself, disappearing into the abyss that used to be her heart -- if she was fully Madoka and not halfway Gretchen -- would she try to use Homura's survival to, in turn, save herself? Is it brave to believe in the possibility, or is it selfish? Certainly she knows all too well the heavy burden Homura's fragile little shoulders have bourne up beneath all this time. To ask more of her...

Homura's hand is clutching hers, and she clutches back, weakly.

Perhaps it is kindness to ask. To just let herself die, without asking... knowing her, Homura would get her sad ending after all, right away. Just from witnessing it. Madoka would become a Witch, and then they'd be Witches together.

And that was the last Grief Seed, and its last use. That much, not a lie.

Madoka swallows and bets on hope. Hope for herself -- hope for Homura.

"Because I have something to ask of you..." Last time she murmured and now it's more of a hoarse whisper. "Something only Homura-chan can do. Homura-chan, you can go back to the past, ne?"

She's so tired, and now her throat is swelling with tears.

"You said you can change history so that it won't end like this, ne?"

They leak out her closed eyelids -- but the words leak out too, a pained hissing weep.

"Will you save me from my stupidity... before I get fooled by Kyuubey?"

Most girls only get one wish.

Her hand loses the strength to hold the Grief Seed, still connecting them, gently, and it presses Seed and Gem and Homura's hand holding all of them, into the puddle.

And Madoka knows, in her heart, that she really is the most selfish girl in the world.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Is Madoka saving herself, or is she saving Homura again? Hope claims it could be both, against the impossible and against the black which waxes within a once-pink soul gem. Warm slender fingers cling to Madoka's, and a violet glow seeps between them.

In a way it is a kindness, because the reason Madoka gives... Homura understands, better than she would any rescue of herself. She would not think Madoka selfish at all. The words her friend uses light a fire in her breast, one which burns away at her natural emotional exhaustion much like the darkling seed banished the metaphysical.

It's not over.

It's not over... because there's something only she can do.

Something she can do for Madoka.

Madoka may better understand the sacrifices she has made, these past few timelines, than Homura herself does. The girl with the cracked glasses nods, makes a choked sound of agreement when Madoka asks if she can go back to the past, can change it.

The weakness in her friend's voice frightens her; the way it seems like she can't even keep her eyes open any more.

And she is ready, so ready, to agree. To promise. After all, Homura's already made this promise, hasn't she? To save Madoka. Promising Madoka herself, instead of the deceitful mascot... her heart leaps, and it's in her voice.

"I promise!" The tears fly from her eyes like they leak from Madoka's, and she cradles that limp and precious hand. "I promise I'll do it! No matter how many times I have to go back and try! I swear, I'll save you!"

She is desperate -- desperate for Madoka to hear, to understand, to ''know'' that it won't end like this, that she will be saved. That Homura will save her. No matter what it takes.

It is as plain as the heart on her sleeve. She will do anything for Madoka.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Madoka's eyes reopen, and they aren't as bright as before. The tears make up for it but the pink star that shines from inside of her is well into its eclipse, now. It is shadowed. She is... shadowed.

Even shadowed, she is grateful.

"I'm glad," she chokes out, around a sob. Her voice is tinier than ever. There's almost no room left in her body for Madoka.

Confirming this, her expression succumbs to pain, teeth grinding, head flopping away from Homura to stare sightlessly at that weeping sky instead.

Her hand clenches around her Soul Gem, which pulses with something much, much stronger than her heartbeat.

She cries out -- and again -- with every spasm, another mewling cry -- and the golden chasing around the Gem is gone now, turned black like a silhouette of itself. There is only the barest memory of pink in the stone, now.

And Madoka's face is almost unrecognizable in its agony. She looks like the corpse that she's about to become.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Even cast from shadow, Madoka's gratitude is light and warmth to Homura.

The transformative pain...

She echoes that cry with her own. Every spasm Madoka suffers hits Homura like a little heart attack. She has agonized over this agony before, and the familiarity is terrible. Like feeling a bone begin to crack along an old healed fracture, and being able to anticipate every excruciating inch of the break.

Her desperation shifts -- she leaps to her knees and the crumpled Grief Seed plips into the water between them, empty of the energy which now reanimates her. But whatever promises Homura has made, she can't save Madoka from this agonal transformation.

Her frantic hands grasp the air, ineffectual. Then she reaches down and grasps Madoka's shoulder with all that renewed strength and warmth, biting her own lip so hard it goes white. She doesn't say don't worry, or it will be okay, or any other obvious lies -- they would die on her tongue. What is happening right now will never be okay.

All she can do is save the next Madoka from ever embarking upon this poison-apple fairy tale in the first place. A happy ending is impossible.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Selfish, selfish, the most selfish girl in the world.

She hates herself. Homura can see it in her face. It's always been there, at Madoka's core, sometimes more or less hidden by confidence and self-esteem, but now it is laid bare, flayed into easy view by suffering both natural and unnatural, this profound self-loathing.

She hates herself for asking, but not enough to not ask. Which only makes it worse. Which only makes her worse.

Her voice sounds like it's being forced through a grinding gearbox. Or a distant radio. Distortion.

"Can I... ask you one more thing?"

A ''third'' wish.

Selfish.

It tears itself from her with the same whisper as the last, dead leaf off a wintering maple tree.

"I don't want to become a witch."

Distress is perhaps the only fuel left to her, potent enough to return life to her voice -- conviction. A miserable siren of a whimper, but there's more to her plea than just wind through teeth.

"There were tough times... and sad times... But there are lots of things... in this world... that I want to protect."

From the distant end of a long, long, dark, dark tunnel -- a tunnel narrowing even now -- barely a pinpoint of herself left -- Madoka gazes up in Homura's direction.

Can she see her?

What good are eyes to a stone? Or to a seed?

But she still has eyes enough left to cry with. Maybe that's enough.

(It's not.)

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

It was worse, impossibly worse, once upon a timeline, to see Madoka become a Witch than it had been to see her die.

Now, this, the self-loathing -- Homura ''knows'' self-loathing -- laid bare... Horrible. Harrowing. She would shift the world from its axis to make Madoka stop hurting like this, to banish that horrible look she knows all too well, the look that doesn't belong on that gently lovely face, in those rose-glow eyes.

So when queasy trepidation, unnamed and intuitive, sneaks into her gut, Homura keeps biting her lip and emits a strangled sound of assent. Madoka can ask her one more thing, no matter what contorts her voice. Madoka can ask her anything.

And then she does.

The hand on Madoka's shoulder grips tight, then releases. Trembles.

It clenches like Homura's throat does, then falls to her side in slow motion.

She's there, above Madoka, a dark and trembling shadow against a bright and clearing sky. The tears stream hot through the cool wet of rain on her cheeks, and pool in the curvature of her glasses lenses.

Homura didn't realize that there was a way, one way, to keep Madoka from becoming skybreaking Gretchen, because her mind refused to bend in that direction at all of its own accord. It was unthinkable to her to harm a hair on Madoka's head. Now... the sounds of the shattering soul gems of her friends resound fresh in her mind, sharp enough to cut.

She... she'll do anything for her...

And the name of the girl she loves more than the world itself escapes right out of her frightened heart in a burble of emotion, in syllables she never quite felt worthy of speaking: "Madoka!"

It tears out of her, leaving a hole in its wake. All of her devotion is in that name, laid as bare as Madoka's self-loathing. Like another promise.

If the girl lying in the water cannot see Homura through the burgeoning dark, then perhaps she can feel the warmth of tears dropping onto her face.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Her name.

The one thing Madoka least expected to hear, born on the lips of Homura.

Something she hardly deserves. Especially not now. It's almost cruel to call this meatsack Madoka, this nascent monster, pregnant with wicked potential.

It's almost cruel; it's definitely kind.

It reaches her, like the last lingering stretch of fingertips splayed across the vast space between them. Homura can hold this body with her hands, but Homura touches Madoka with her name.

"Homura-chan..." she exhales, and in those syllables, so freely and easily spoken all along, dwells an affection so sharp she could cut herself with it.

There are lots of things in this world that Madoka wants to protect.

She tries to smile and discovers that her cheeks are no longer really hers to command. They're so heavy, and it's so dark.

She holds onto the memory of her own name, on Homura's lips, for dear life.

"You finally called me by my name..."

And she's holding onto something else, still.

The original miracle; the original sin; the original damnation. It sits there in the palm of her hand, a little bit of shape and form restored to it, perhaps thanks to the invocation of her name -- round, it's round, round like Madoka is round -- but nevertheless dark, much too dark, dark beyond return.

She can't feel its smooth-but-cracking surface with her palm, but she can feel her palm with its surface, and so she knows it's there. She's there.

A shaking centimeter at a time, she struggles to thrust herself skyward. Homura-ward.

"...I'm happy..."

There are girls and there are witches; there are demons and there are angels. There is despair and there is hope, and in this broken city, along with these broken children, there is one other thing also.

Mercy.

There is mercy, and it is though Madoka is reaching out to grasp it with the absolute last of her strength.

COMBAT: Homura Akemi transforms into Puella Magi Homura!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

She's happy.

Madoka is happy, and it nearly breaks Homura right then and there.

Because even here, even now, even in all of this -- it makes Homura happy, too, and that happiness hurts more deeply than the despair did, even as she clings to it for all she's worth.

Saying Madoka's name made her happy.

And now, all she has to do is this one last thing for her friend. This one... last... thing.

On her knees in the rain, Homura hunches quaking shoulders. She leaks anguish, squeaky and strangled, without ever bidding her throat to make noise. If she had a choice in the matter she would stay silent, would not let Madoka hear her terror. She has none.

Can she do this?

Can she- can she k-

Her crying takes on a wounded, keening tone. The violet of her magic fizzes across Homura and in the air around her, chiming the stark clean lines of her dusky purple collar and white coat and silver shield into being. It casts a small sunset across Madoka, brief and bright and beautiful like fireworks.

It gleams off the swimming black opacity claiming her forfeit soul.

Homura has to.

She has to!

She'll do anything for Madoka. She promised.

Metal chatters on metal. She's shaking too hard, too bodily, to draw the handgun smoothly from her shield.

Homura isn't crying any more.

She's screaming.

It's an awful sound, the sound of a heart breaking itself, indelible and unforgettable, even if only one person will be forced to remember it.

Can she scream so loudly that it will blot out what she's about to do?

No.

She is small and dark, just a girl in braids and broken glasses after all, tiny against the jutting corpses of skyscrapers rising from a sea of tears. Her arms lift. The muzzle flash illuminates her from afar, and then all is dark again.

'''END OF TIMELINE THREE'''

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-02-09 - TIMELINE 2: Beryl Falls And Metallia Rises! Dreams vs. Destruction! Hope vs. Despair!

2019-03-10T18:01:09Z

Kestrel: Videos love to disappear from YT...

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Beryl Falls And Metallia Rises! Dreams vs. Destruction! Hope vs. Despair!'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Timeline 2('s version of the North Pole) ends badly, though not before a truly epic triumph of the magical girls and their dreams over the elemental force of evil Queen Metallia.''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Queen Beryl]], [[Rei Hino]], [[Usagi Tsukino]], [[Steven Universe]], [[Niramo Umokeshi]], [[Takeo Akamizu]], [[Marinette Dupain-Cheng]], [[Nori Ankou]], [[Madoka Kaname]], [[Sayaka Miki]], [[Mami Tomoe]], [[Homura Akemi]], [[Kasagami Araki]], [[Fuu Hououji]], The Maiden of Dreams
|-
|'''Where:''' 
North Pole

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2/9/2019 - 04-24-2014
|-
|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ North Pole +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
A constantly shifting and changing wasteland of ice, the North Pole at its
very sunniest hovers around freezing point, and in the winter plunges far
below it. There is no speck of actual land within 700km of the pole; the
North Pole itself consists entirely of ice floating on the surface of the
water, though its thickness can lend it considerable stability. Few
creatures compete for the scarce resources here; an occasional fox, seal, or
polar bear can be found, but for the most part there is nothing but sea
water and ice.

Even the boundlessly greedy nations of the warm world down south cannot
bring themselves to compete too hard over this ice, and they press their
claims half-heartedly in occasional diplomatic sparring matches while
generally ignoring the area. There are those who believe that this raft of
ice is the home of mystical beings such as angels or gods, due to its
position on the crown of the earth, however, and they are not entirely
wrong. Dark beings have made their home here, undisturbed beneath the ice.

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Pure Heart Crystal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVKolCf7pzM

The sakura faded and the trees grew leaves -- soft breezes became oppressive heat -- and spring yielded unto summer.

It's been a long one already and school hasn't even quite let out for vacation yet. But in the last two months, a lot has happened:

* Akuma! Corrupted Gems! Invaders from Cephiro! Orphans! Witches! Duels! Monsters are growing in variety and intensity, and attacks from monsters of the day (and their lieutenants) are steadily growing in frequency. The struggle to find enough time in the day to save the world and achieve your dream is real.

* Usagi Tsukino was revealed as the Moon Princess, and Ohtori high schooler Mamoru Chiba her Prince Endymion, of the once Golden Kingdom of Earth. Already in love as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, destiny has brought them together in a new life.

* But destiny is an unkind thing. About a month ago Mamoru was kidnapped by the Dark Kingdom, and started making appearances as Dark Endymion, Queen Beryl's chief enforcer.

* Two nights ago, the magical girls of Tokyo experienced the Silverine Dreaming while Sailor Moon and her court visited the Moon, reliving one facet of the secret past of the world.

* Every since Queen Beryl shot the Arthra right out of the sky, everyone has been aware that her base must be north of Tokyo, but only recently did they realize how ''far'' north. The Midchildans want revenge, so this time around nobody waited for her to challenge them -- instead, a joint operation to the North Pole was launched using Dimensional Transport spells.

That last bullet point was about an hour ago.

PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA: TIMELINE ONE

The magical girls fought to interrupt Beryl's dark ritual, landed in the heart of her fortress, and were surrounded by her army. They fought both -- but not without the loss of Sailor Moon. But she was revived through the power of the Ginzuishou and the love of her friends, just in time...

THIS TIME

There is no evil ritual to disrupt, and the North Pole that the magical girls landed in is, initially, dark and cold and seemingly empty. The girls fan out to look for the entrance -- at which point, separated into smaller groups, they're ambushed by the army of youma (also broken up).

The army is not full of pushovers -- every creature (and there is a wide variety) is some combination of claws, fangs, energy blasts and (sometimes) improbable household objects like vacuum cleaners and cookie jars. There are living shadows, and shadowy lives. There are eyes in the darkness -- and in the unbearable brightness, back on the surface, when the sun hits it just so, which is almost worse.

None of them die easily. And there are ''so'' many.

Somewhere along the way the ice yields to crystal -- twined red and blue and other dim, cold auroral colors, with faint and irregular pulsings within, as though little bubbles passed through it -- as though the crystal itself were alive. Here and there are curves of solid stone, deadly cold to the touch.

The Dark Kingdom is beautiful and deadly, like the North Pole. And, like the North Pole, it is still dark, and still cold.

One of the most comforting thoughts is that for every youma fought through, that's one less that's able to attack the other groups, long since lost in the chaos.

COMBAT: Kasagami Araki transforms into Crimson Rose Duelist!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

ELSEWHERE

Where others found resistance and confusion, the North Pole opened its maw wide to welcome Usagi and her team.

And then it slammed closed around them.

The winged and mighty DD Girls, greatest of the Queen's youma army and the ones responsible for draining all the energy of Tokyo last winter, hit the girls on the bridge -- a stunningly beautiful, jagged black ice bridge crossing a chasm whose bottom is surely not still in the realm called Earth. No natural hole has such evil vapors.

"GO!!" Sailor Jupiter screams, and only once her sisters are safe behind her does she turn to face her counterpart -- plus four more.

Lightning glitters in her tears, trails behind her arms, as she thrusts them over her head.

"THIS ENDS HERE! SUPREME!"

There is no sky in the Dark Kingdom... but the heavens respond anyway.

"THUNDER!!!!"

Afterwards, there is no ice bridge either. No DD Girls.

No Makoto.

---

Kunzite, once the leader of the Four Heavenly Kings, is now the only Heavenly King. He was Queen Beryl's second-in-command, but that job has of late been given to another. He does not quite know what he wants anymore, in a world without Beryl's esteem... or Zoisite's love.

The four remaining girls almost run him over in the hallway, which is when he decides that 'revenge' sounds like a pretty good thing to reach out -- and grasp.

He dies on Sailor Venus' sword, the sword torn out of dormant stone at the tomb that is the Moon.

And she dies in the micro-black-hole he calls up with his final breath. Its hunger is endless and it reaches -- reaches -- for Usagi, for the others. It wants to fill its master's emptiness -- even now, in his final moments, Kunzite is empty -- with their screams.

"YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM!"

She fills it with Love-Me Chain, endless glimmering, glittering linked hearts, more than she's ever conjured before, until she's shaking and gasping. It isn't enough.

But she knows, instinctively, that she will be. She is too much, she is always too much, and a little bit too much is enough.

Her golden hair swirls around her as she looks over her shoulder at the others and smiles.

"Protect the Princess," are her final words, her last, unnecessary order as Captain of Her Guard, before the throws herself in like she's going off the high dive at Juuban Community Pool.

The spatial distortion and Kunzite's beautiful corpse vanish in an instant.

And so does Minako.

<Pose Tracker> Rei Hino [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

In the end, as they come to this chamber, maybe Sailor Mars's initial estimation was right, and she should have been suspicious of the boy who always seemed to show up at the final hour. He was close to them, but not close enough. He was taken.

And here he is, kneeling by the woman who has taken him, as if she has earned his fealty. Sailor Mars balls her fists, and one swipes to the side, fingers lengthening out as she does. "Tuxedo Kamen-sama!" She barks, because he has in truth earned that estimation over his time helping them. "How can you listen to a woman like that? Even now, can't you appreciate how Sailor Moon feels at all?!"

It might seem like the strangest thing for her to say - when she told Sailor Moon to keep going, after the bridge crumbled with any hope of seeing Sailor Jupiter again. When she demanded Sailor Moon stand up, in the wake of Sailor Venus's consumption. Each time so hard, as if she was not shaken to her core.

As if the grief has not wrapped around her chest like a python, clenching tighter and tighter.

Her protest is pointless. Prince Endymion receives his orders, and stands, and Sailor Mars steps forward, too. But she knows who is controlling him, and it is not Endymion she springs forward to attack. Let Sailor Moon purify him - Sailor Mars is going to the source.

It is a mistake.

She has barely brought her hands together before she is knocked back by a blast of energy, with force enough to send her sprawling to the ground. Moon Healing Escalation has as poor a showing, Mars realises, as she pushes herself up in time to see him leaping out of the beam. "Sailor Moon!" She cries out, but he has roses enough for them, tossing those black-lipped things with a deft wrist. Enough, too, for Sailor Mars, brought to her knees where she had not quite managed to find her feet.

His impassive eyes fall on Sailor Moon's, and there is no arguing with him, because there is nothing to argue with. He dismisses their roses, but the energy those thorns have drained from them is a wound which lingers on their souls.

He steps forward. There is a sharp sound, an alarming gesture, and his boot impacts against Sailor Moon's side with a horrifically solid noise.

"SAILOR MOON!" Sailor Mars screams, as she forces her feet under her. Prince Endymion reaches for Sailor Moon, grasps her by the throat, hoists her up --

-- and Sailor Mars impacts heavily with the other girl's side, knocking her bodily out of his grasp before he can tighten his grip, pushing her back towards her artifact. She trembles with the exertion of the energy drain, and she is not fast enough to escape as he clamps that hand around her neck, instead. Her hands scrabble at his; to no avail.

It's always draining, with Dark Fall. Mars reflects, as her teeth grit and she groans in pain, that it is always draining. The energy crackles around her neck, a visual indicator of the way it lances through her muscles and her blood.

She cracks open an eye, locks gaze with his, and there is nothing there to argue with at all.

Sailor Mars draws a strangled breath through grit teeth, and forces her hands to lower from their instinctive position. The curl around themselves, instead, index fingers pressed against each other.

She knows she is not fireproof.

Neither is he.

"Fire -- Soul," she grits out the words, and as the words leave her, her lips curl up to a smirk. Yeah, Rei thinks; it's a bit stupid.

The inferno coils out and has nowhere to go. Instead it spirals around them - around both of them, Prince Endymion and Sailor Mars, and maybe this was all for Usagi, and maybe neither of them were very good at showing it. Her teeth grit and her hands grasp his arm again, holding him there as the flames curl around them.

And when the fire fades, they fall on each other, and Prince Endymion does not move, and Sailor Mars barely does. "... hey... Sailor Moon?" Her voice quavers; it has never trembled so much.

She smiles to her, so gently, from behind the soot. "... we always fought, but it was fun."

A finger twitches, the closest she can get to gesturing her away. Her mouth opens, but no words come out from lungs too burnt, this time; a last gasp, and the light in her eyes has vanished.

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

NOW

After an interminable time fighting for their lives in a frozen maze, various clusters of magical girls discover the many entrances to the center of the labyrinth.

Just in time -- to be too late.

---

The silver light reaches out to engulf Queen Beryl. Where it touches her blood, it heals her. Where it touches her darkness, it purifies her, and the collision of this explosive force of love with the malice infecting her body causes pure white smoke to rise from her, spreading out in all directions.

It is not refreshing, and she is not refreshed.

But she dies on her feet.

"You're wrong," she spits out, with the very last of her air. "You've already lost... everything."

And then she falls.

Her knees are harder than the ice beneath her; it shatters instead of her. It is her last, tired victory of the last, tired remnant of a grudge that has lasted so many years that there is no easy way to tally them. This is hatred that slips through time more thoroughly than any hourglass sand.

The last thing she hears are the sobs of her enemy, surrounded by the corpses of the loves of her life.

The stillness, afterwards, is almost a climax. With her hair splayed around her in a red cloud, her face peaceful in the knowledge that her foe's victory is an unhappy one, she could be sleeping. In death, she is as she was in life: a human, a woman. A queen.

The queen is dead.

Long live the queen.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Serenity [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> To Protect the Stars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWSNrlaknMQ

Once upon a time, Usagi Tsukino accepted a brooch from a talking cat, who gave her a duty to protect people from the Dark Kingdom.

Did she know at the time what that truly meant?

Well, just look at her now.

Within the vast cavern that makes up the Dark Kingdom's court, there's a girl on her knees in a white gown that no longer looks pure, but stained. The moon stick, bearing the treasure that everyone was fighting for crescent down in the ice. While she's a Princess, there's nothing regal about her grief. The empty eyed look her blue eyes bear, the choking-hiccuping sobs.

Beryl's finest cruelty was to drive home a singular fact, after she became Princess Serenity. Although it may have resulted in the ancient Queen's death, it brought to mind ancient memories to mingle with those of a grieving Usagi Tsukino.

While it gave her the power to defeat her, this was no kindness, no true triumph. A helpless Princess Serenity once witnessed the deaths of all of her Sailor Senshi, her Prince. And she was utterly helpless to stop the Dark Kingdom from taking even one of them away from her.

Now in this modern era, as heiress to the Moon Kingdom's power, she brought it all to bear against the Dark Queen in an attempt to break the cycle of hatred...

... and it still didn't change the fact that she was helpless to stop the Dark Kingdom from taking them all away from her again. Four girls came with her. Two didn't even leave corpses for her to mourn in the battles that brought them here.

Venus' final smile. Jupiter's last battle cry. Those are what are etched into her memories. Where there should instead be memories of Makoto Kino preparing happily for a date, and Minako Aino singing into a faux microphone to get ready for an audition.

What of the ones who did?

There lies Sailor Mercury over there.

Is she your cat? When she dropped down like that - I thought she might be an angel.

The worst feeling in the world is knowing that all her promise and potential is gone. Yet that's not what Usagi Tsukino become Princess Serenity values the most. They are those gentle smiles, and the quiet laughter, and the sublime insights, and the forbearance her support tried to instill within her. That the past should cut her present chance short...

And there's Sailor Mars.

Anyway it's a bit stupid but... someone like you really needs protecting right?

The worst feeling in the world is knowing she's dead because you asked her to protect you. That you are responsible for her awakening, and thus responsible for her death. She could have become anyone, but she decided to be your friend. The verbal sparring matches she cherished between them have come to an end.

And there's Prince Endymion.

I'm glad you're not hurt... keep that beautiful faith and we will meet again...

Mamoru Chiba, Tuxedo Kamen, Prince Endymion. The two of them never truly even got to know each other this time. Never had her feelings take shape beyond schoolgirl crushes and back and forth-fighting and the cycle begins anew. Star-crossed yet again. Princess Serenity desires to kiss him goodbye, yet she will not do that to Usagi Tsukino.

She will not do that to the girls who gave everything for her again. To Mars, who made the decision that Usagi Tsukino never would.

Trembling as the memories of the first fall of the Moon Kingdom intermingled with those of the events today. Princess Serenity says quietly, "... no that's not right."

BGM Change: Tsuki no Densetsu - Sailor Moon Crystal OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi0HE4pHPgM

Her fingertips reach down to brush the handle of the moonstick, before grasping it more firmly. Eyes shining with tears, there's a steadiness about her which seems uncharacteristic for both Princess Serenity and Usagi Tsukino, "Things are different this time."

Images of all the girls she'd met, fought with, lessons learned, they all flash through her head. In this moment perhaps she is a little more Usagi Tsukino than Princess Serenity. Hope lies in the fact that all is not desolation. Hope lies in the hands of Madoka Kaname, and the guidance Mami Tomoe has lovingly gifted to others. In the courage of Sayaka Miki and in the meek determination of Homura Akemi. In the compassion of a young Steven Universe, and bravery of Takeo Akamizu. In the warmth Mai Tokiha offers for her friends, and the ferocity with which Mikoto Minagi protects them. In the cleverness of the Miraculous Ladybug, and the kindness of Sourisi, and the deeply caring heart of Nori Ankou. In the passion of Kasagami Araki, and the wise words of the Magic Knight of Wind.

She's lost much, more than can ever be expressed. Yet she hasn't lost everything. And what's more, she ''knows'' it.

And what is lost can be regained, with a strong enough faith, a firm enough resolution, and a deep enough love.

Usagi Tsukino who is Princess Serenity does not raise the crystal high, but hugs it against her chest.

"I am never alone. And my happiness..."

And closes her eyes, having hope that when she opens them...

"... are those moments spent with all of you."

She's shed so many tears out of grief for what she's lost, but now she's shedding them on a wish and a prayer. The Ginzushou is struck, and it cannot help but respond. It blossoms instantly. Its radiance spreading throughout all of D-Point nigh instantaneously, changing the dark aurora in the sky into a glorious aurora borealis of light.

It does not simply mend wounds, or restore the soul to the flesh. It undoes the need for it. It denies a reality where they are dead. All four girls who came to know Usagi Tsukino, all four Inner Senshi who swore to protect their Princess are brought back to her, hale and whole.

One on each side of her.

Princess Serenity who is Usagi Tsukino opens her tear-stained eyes to the blinding radiance she has brought into being...

... and when her vision clears...

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Was there no end of evil to be found? As the light of hope halts the dark's advances, another always seems to rise in its place. See: The North Pole.

Two months since the events with Precia, Steven Universe found himself in good company, to thwart that which attempted (on purpose or by sheer accident) to obliterate them from the sky. Thw other Crystal Gems would have him not got, but Steven would not take no for an answer, and with the rise in Corrupted Gem activity, it was up to him and him alone to represent the good will of the group!

In truth, he always admired the senshi-- especially Sailor Moon, in how they thwarted evil. To work alongside them felt like an honor. it inspired him to do better and better with each encounter! He could never say no to their call to arms.

---

"There's no end to them!" Shouts the coated and hooded boy, curling behind a beauteous shield. A creature made of twisted rusted irons and a blue flame assaults him with gouts of fire. They are vaguely humanoid shaped, with mostly elemental energy for a body. two brighter slits make for menacing eyes amidst the crackling coldfire. It threatens to entomb those in this cold place, where they would never be found again.

Icicles and rime from the licking flames build up on the shield, and grow faster and faster in moments. "We gotta pull out all the stops! Dig deep! We can beat these guys!" he shouts toward Fuu and Kasagami in encouragement, at least keeping its attention from them for a moment, perhaps even making an opening for the two!

He was so weary by this point, it was a wonder he could even keep a shield summoned.

---

Boots click on rime coated floor, as Steven manages to stumble into the throne room, in time to fiew a horrifying and miraculous sight. Twas the senshi on the floor, as Beryl is lanced with purest positive energy. Literally cooked away from the inside out as energies meeting causes a catalytic reaction.

Beryl stands little chance. For how powerful and mighty and fearful in sight she was, the small boy witnesses her laid low, as her senshi, her friends-- rise to her side, unscathed. "You' all... okay!" the Gem Child pants, smiling a bright smile as it all ends. The boy laughs his little goofy smile, even as he struggles to make his way over. He is out of sweat and tears at this point from the struggles to just arrive that nothing comes, though the redness in his face clearly would state otherwise.

It was a miracle, nothing less. "I'm so happy..." A pause. "I-Is it really over?"

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

The notion that being a magical girl would be easy died after the first month. Monsters, masterminds and villains of all shapes and makes attack Tokyo and it's up to a new generation of magical defenders to keep things safe for the innocents. Not that it's all been stress and chaos, however. Despite it all, Niramo has been making more friends in the past months than most of her life beforehand!

The mysterious dream that everyone receieved while the Sailor Scouts were on the Moon gives them a look into the past, and with it, a hint towards the future. After the assault on the Garden of Time, the Midchildans are eager for a chance to revenge for the fall of the Arthra. Now, the time has come!

-----

The frigid surface of the North Pole has more darkness than even the lack of the sun could predict. Tonfa swing through the air to barely deflect a bolt of corrupting energy. A powerful kick sends a Youma skidding back, armed with sharp kitchen utiensils and with a head of moldy rice for some strange reason. Binding chains litter the space around her, traps set by a mouse and holds down legs and arms. Yet still it's not enough.

This isn't a Miraculous Ninja out to charge against evil with a smile on her lips. This is a girl trying her best to hold back the flood of evil against her friends. And failing.

A claw of obsidian swipes at Sourisi while she's distracted with an metallic harpy, sending her rolling along the ice before she could get her footing again. She's being worn down slowly, and despite her best efforts, her movements are already slowed from exhaustion. "Madoka-chan, Homura-chan, Opales-chan! Please...hurry up with whatever you have planned! Things are not going so-look out!" A blast of energy is set out of the mob of Youma surrouding them, and Sourisi can already tell it was aimed at Homura.

Without a though against it, Sourisi leaps upward to intercept the blast. She's going to give it her all for her friends.

-----

Claws boots pound on crystaline floors, and Sourisi huffs with each beat of her heart to keep up with the others. Just in time...to see the finale between the Dark Queen and Princess Serenity. Racing thoughts are quick to connect the dots, and she drops to her knees. "No...the Sailor Senshi...are they okay?!" Were they delayed? But as much as she wanted to deny the reality before her, there's no way the Sailor Scouts would let the Princess lead the charge alone...

The light of the Ginzushou washes over them all, and Sourisi closes eyes brimming with tears against the light. Even with how powerful the Silver Crystal was, surely it couldn't..!

More tears fall, but now these are tears of joy washing away sorrow. The magic that resides within the Moon Specter is enough to give rise to new hope. Sourisi just stays on her knees, smiling at the scene before them and not bothering to wipe her face clean. There will be more tears. "This...she did it. They did it." A deep intake of air, and a Mouse raises upwards. "We did it!"

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

EARLIER

When the youma appeared Lancelot drew Arondight. The blade crackled with blue and white lightning, while the steel itself shone as bright and white as the snow of the frozen ground they stood on. As they closed in Lancelot took a deep breath and let it out. He was not going to let these monsters stop him, or hurt anybody, and he knew exactly what he had to do to do it. He has to engage as many of these Youma as he can. Every single one he can reach. Distract them as much as he can. Which means he needs to bring the thunder.

It starts with a roll of a shoulder and then a single step forward. Then another, and another. Each foot step echoes in the halls of the fortress, and each one comes a little faster than the previous before the Knight is running, his sword held low and to the side. By the time he is halway to the charging youma he is running and he lets out a wordless battle cry and jumps at them. SOUNDTRACK FOR LANCELOT'S FIGHT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XESJ9F0O9E&list=PLE3D07CF18375CFC0&index=111

He lands in front of the first one shouting, "LIGHTNING SLASH!" The blade erupting in a cacophony of thunder as he unleashes it into a fanged beast. As that one begins to fall a second one opens it's dragonic like mouth and lets loose with a blast of dark energy. Lancelot spins in place and splits the beam with Arondight. Each side of the split beam slams into a wall on his left and the floor on his right. These send plumes of ice shards that fall like glittering snow ina cloud around the Knight.

From inside that cloud of falling ice comes: "LIGHTNING BLAST!" and a bolt of thick lightning crackles out to take the offending Youma in the face. The lightning evaporates the snow fall around Lancelot who slices his sword to the side and runs forward, parrying a monster with really long claws.

The Knight grits his teeth as he pushes on the beast unable to get the upper hand as more Youma close in, but he spots a dash of red zipping by, "Hey! Red! Could you lend a hand?" In his panic as he begins to be surrounded, he called out in french. When she responds by causing ice shards the size of telephone poles to tinkle down among the flanking Youma, he leaps up and backflips to land on the large piece of glacial ice Ladybug is riding through the massed Youma. He crouches at he rback panting a little and says with a grin to her, "The name is Lancelot. Pleasure to meet you!" Still speaking in french. "

"The pleasure is mine Lancelot!" the girl in red answers as she steers the glacial shard. "And the name is Ladybug. Heads up! More bad guys!"

Nodding Lancelot stays there on the sliding and crushing glacial shard lashing with his blade watching her back as Youma swarm in on all sides. He slashes left, right, stabs upward at a leaping Youma and lets out wave after wave of lightning blasts, sending lightning coursing through the swarm of enemies trying to get to the pair.

INSIDE THE FORTRESS PROPER (End music)

He was out of breath, but at least he wasn't alone. Looking to the cave in he whistles. "Nice job by the way." He frowns as he looks around him in the Throne Room and spies Sailor Moon ... That isn't right, he spies Princess Serenity surrounded by the inner senshi. Only they're all down, and they are definatley dead. He winces and begins to slowly walk forward his sword held at the ready.

His armored boots click on the floor as he slowly begins to walk toward the sad scene. Sailor Jupiter had been known to him, the two had thrown more than one lightning bolt at somebody or karate kicked a bad guy in the face. All of the he knew he had fought beside, hell, he may even have RIED beside on more than one occassion. Yet, here they were, fallen angels.

He quickly supressed a tear and wiped the errant one with his free hand and squared his shoulders. If there was one thing his memory had tought him, now was for the living. Later was when you mourned. With that thought he began to once again walk toward Princess Serenity, but then she makes her proclaimation and he has to shield his eyes from the sudden bright light. When it clears he smiles and with that same free hand has to wipe another tear away. One of reliefe, of joy, of happiness. They had defeated the darkness, and the darkness had LOST. It was one for the good guys. He sniffs once and looks to Ladybug. "Ice shard. Pretty sure." Sniff. "Also. One shouldn't cry in the Antartic. Freezes."

He sniffles again.

<Pose Tracker> Ladybug [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Earlier...

The North Pole is a brutal cold for a little Ladybug to find herself in. As she sprints down another twisted hallway, she finds herself missing the Akuma of Tokyo.

The Akuma, at their heart, are transformed humans. Beryl's army of youma are very much inhuman, and the discrepancies cut like razors. In most of her fights, Ladybug could count on human foibles, a temper blown by a clever quip. In most of her fights, she could plan around human mercy, counting on some situation where the enemy might hold back. In most of her fights, she has no need or reason to go for the kill.

This is nothing like most of her fights, and she has a few injuries already from youma that were down but not dust.

Springing off a saber-fanged scaled ape-like monster, Ladybug reaches out to catch hold of one of the macabre sculptings that adorn these darkened halls. There's only a moment for breath, and her odds of pulling that stunt again are growing dimmer by the moment. One hallway is as dismal and terrific as another here, and dead-ends are growing increasingly common and dangerously literal. Half a dozen in all, advancing cautiously towards the pair of them.

A pair, but not the one she might be used to. The young lady in the red-and-black bodysuit glances to her partner of the hour, a literal knight in shining armor. His sword flashes out once, twice, thrice - but the youma seem to have learned how to avoid the lightning at a distance. Probably survivors from their little glacier jaunt on the way in. Once one gets to sprinting distance, Lancelot might be in serious danger...but if not for his flashy storm, that group would be up the wall toward her already.

For a moment, she whispers to her yo-yo. "Tikki, I love you dearly, but a yo-yo is feeling distinctly inadequate for something like this!" The ape below - midway through punching its claws into the wall to scale upward - looks up in confusion for a moment.

At some point she might realize she's been making all her plans with her partner-of-the-day in French. She hasn't noticed yet, but most youma not knowing the tongue has certainly helped.

Ignoring the monster for a moment, she calls out to Lancelot. "Get ready - I need your brightest flash there and there, as soon as I sweep you off your feet!" She whips out her yo-yo with as much strength as she can, rebounding it off a youma's head to smash into the stone on either side of the little cul-de-sac, tugging it up at last to hook the fang of a gargoyle.

And then she leaps. Into open air, claws snatching at her, to grab Lancelot and swing over the monsters' heads. Arondight shines, and more potent bolts smash into the spots on the wall she marked - but a long tail catches her leg, sending her tumbling. With a wince, she closes her eyes as her luck has finally run out -

And opens them, finding herself in a princess carry in the knight's arms. Behind them, the youma turn just in time to see the dead-end cave in, making that part of this fortress literal after all. Above her, Lancelot smiles. "Well, my lady, might I escort you to our next destination?"

"Is it sad that I can think of worse date nights?" She does push off to stand on her feet, resting a hand against the wall. "We just need snacks and something better to use against these monsters. What I wouldn't give for a runaway ice cream truck right now..."

Now...

There's little poise as Ladybug staggers through the door into the final chamber. Her hair hangs loose on one side, her right hairtie having been lost to a fang that got far too close for comfort, and she has an arm wrapped around her side. Determination might carry her through a fight to come, but she'd sorely hope for a Lucky Charm that didn't require her to run around too much.

The sight she sees is not a hopeful one at first glance, because the first thing she sees is how many fallen bodies there are. Her first fear is that Beryl won, and is about to win again - but the expected death-magic doesn't come, and slowly she realizes more of the tableau before her.

Sailor Moon. Usagi Tsukino. Pyrrhically victorious, having lost her closest friends, clutching a crystal to her heart. Ladybug - Marinette can't move, feeling her heart break in sympathy for what stands before her...

Then there is a whisper. A wish and a prayer. Light.

Beautiful, triumphant light.

"Senpai..." Memories rise, unbidden, of a sheepish unmasking and a childish call of solidarity. Even now, she's not sure how much she can call this young woman an equal and how much she's an example to live up to, but...

"You really are something else. Juuban's definitely gotta be proud of you." There's still tears in her eyes, but they have a flavour that matches her grin, and Ladybug gives a proud thumbs up before starting to stagger forward.

Lancelot does get one last smile as she moves forward, not even bothering to try to hide her emotions. "Oh, is that so? I fear it's contagious."

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene des Opales [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRKJiM9Njr8

There's nothing easy about growing up. It is not made easier even if you are a magical queen, or at least, want to be.

Devils and demons and even the dread Cardiax worm have made their appearances in Tokyo. It has been tiring, and the respites have had a certain grimness to them even if they are seen differently in the moment. Still, there were joys. A princess of the moon. A prince, though abducted. A darkling dream... and a dark mirroring.

Being twinned in the mirror was peculiar for la Sirene des Opales, the shining particolored guardian of sorrow and tears. Even now her throat hurts a little, though of course it is the merest shadow of what she avoided with the aid of her dear Meduse. But Meduse and Batiste stayed in Tokyo. Only those with thick fur or the aid of magic - or folly - or both would brave the depths of the Arctic.

*******

Up here, they use stone. Immaculate.

The shining opal-light of her gown and her sweeping hands has been an orchestra of motion. La Sirene has never been the swiftest mover but she has kept the pace. She has not spoken much - beyond some clasping and kissing of hands on the part of Madoka, and the same if with a little more self depreciating laughter for Homura - before the translation. Now they are here in the throes of everything.

She has marched forwards. Her bursts and blasts and the invocation of LES MYSTERES have pressed back against the youma. Not easily, no - they fight like demons mated with wolverines - but stagger them enough, stay with your friends.

Why did I ever want to do this alone? la Sirene has wondered, not for the first time. Then Sourisi is struck - la Sirene turns to look at her - but the Miraculous recovers with apt swiftness. Then she leaps forwards for -

no, la Sirene thinks, and she leaps, not for the youma but for Sourisi. "Aaaah!" she cries out, vaulting upwards and suddenly wrapping her arms round Sourisi, pressed against her from behind. Her fingers contort into mudras as she says, "Seven Secret Colors -"

Strange lights in hues never seen on this world roll out from around her, like a visible ripple in the surface of a bell's metal. They don't hurt to look at. The incoming blast smashes through one, two, three, four - attenuates into two smaller bursts of flickering light - five - now into three - six - two of them fade into inky splots -

Seven--

With a sound like breaking crystal the burst strikes la Sirene in the side. Attenuated as it is, it still hurts enough for her to cry out - but she lands, sets Sourisi down, and breathes out. "Be careful!" she says, as her left hand rises. Fingers crook again and she looks that way. "Akemin please, make haste! --Les Mysteres--"

*******

The sight of the senshi makes la Sirene's eyes spill over. Her mask, the thin black silk already imperiled by the wind, slides downwards; she tears it off. She doesn't answer Sourisi as she looks towards the dreadful woman in the shining shimmering flames of purification -

A witty rejoinder seems useless.

All there is is sorrow. For a moment she is overcome. Light rises...

But it's not THAT light, la Sirene thinks. It's warming her - it's like the day sky glow, not -

They're there.

They stand anew.

La Sirene feels a delicious sensation. One of the great pay-offs for spending so much time in the depths is just How HIGH *YOU* **CAN** ***RISE*** --

La Sirene des Opales jumps up and down once, twice, clapping her hands. She lands heavily, winces as she feels the blow against her side, and then turns towards the others. "Do you see it. Oh! Oh, oh it happened - there can't be any mistake - will you excuse me, darling Sourisi, if I say that it may be..."

La Sirene bites on her lower lip to stop herself. She recovers herself, tossing back her long black hair as the wordplay - that will-to-laugh - fades enough... to recover herself.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Sis Puella Magica! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btmSuNcxiIU

It takes approximately half a minute for Homura and Madoka to become separated from Mami and Sayaka. After a long moment of scanning the darkness and blinding light, the howling winds, the sheets of aerial ice -- hand shading her eyes completely without effect, upper body thrust over her hips and turning at the waist -- she ever so briefly closes her eyes.

It might be in prayer. It is a still, quiet moment of grief and fear, and she almost dies when a monster comes out of nowhere to eat a young girl worrying about her friends.

But she doesn't, because of Homura's heroism, and afterwards when her eyes snap open, they're very serious. Level. Set.

Ready.

"Don't worry, Homura-chan," she says warmly -- because one of those things about Madoka is that even at her most serious, she is also at her most warm -- "I'll make a light! That way they'll be able to find us, no matter what."

The rose at the tip of her staff unfurls into full bloom.

Its magenta flame is always dramatic, but now it is a brilliant star in the false night.

And then more stars begin to fall. Arrow after arrow sprout in the chests, the arms, the throats of youma after youma. Step after step she advances. A thin sheen of sweat quickly coats her skin, freezes instantly, and crackles away.

This happens over and over and over -- but the roseate light never wavers.

---

La Sirene and Sourisi know Madoka from, by now, almost a year of battles, and not a few school events, shopping trips, maybe the occasional sleepover. She is a stalwart and cheerful companion; an equally thoughtful and silly friend. But being in a great battle together is a whole new way to know somebody.

They learn that she is the likeliest of the group to be watching their backs -- ''specifically'' their backs, rotating on a chunky heel to survey the path they've only just cleared. (Homura knows this move from Witch-hunting, and that one time familiars got the jump on them from behind. Ever since...)

They learn that she believes in stopping to soothe pain -- and, if they hadn't encountered it before, that she is capable of healing, and does so generously, unstintingly. "Ah, well," she pants at one point after banishing a stinging scratch into a tender line of pale new skin, reading the question in someone's eyes, "I guess it's 'cause I wished to fix a save a kitty?" They learn that Madoka heals by applying that same undying roseate flame, closing her bow back up into a staff for just a moment so she can gently tap the offending wound. It feels warm and cheery as a campfire -- which is extra precious in this place.

They learn that she is an indefatigable hypocrite when it comes to her own suffering. But then, she's a Puella Magi. They've always been in the upper echelons of pain resistance, when it comes to magical girls.

They learn that she will jump in the line of fire for them, over and over and over again.

It's just who she is.

And they learn that when she promises to follow through, she will.

"NOW, HOMURA-CHAN!" Madoka shouts, after Sourisi calls for them, then Norin, too --

---

Madoka is so relieved to see Sayaka and Mami -- and Usagi and Rei, for that matter -- that she's still trailing pink sparkles as she sprints across the distance between them.

"Thank goodness," she weeps openly. "I'm so glad. I'm so glad."

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Combat Soundtrack - GUNS GOLD GIRLS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGyseZ43EZY

Her mistake was to yank on the sword, rather than just summon a new one. It sticks, driven through both the torso of a foe and the ice beneath, and though Sayaka gives up on it after two pulls, it's too late. By the time she stands up straight and draws a new sword from her cape, the first youma is already upon her.

A power cable wraps Sayaka swordarm as a youma made out of a home PC rams into Sayaka, grappling her and trying to knock her over, where the advantage of numbers will quickly overwhelm the Puella Magi. Sayaka backpedals to avoid that, then, with a groan of strain, reverses momentum, shoving the PC youma faster and faster until, together, they smash through the mass of youma behind.

Kicking the PC youma in the chest, Sayaka drives her away, swivelling her wrist to free her sword. Their combined impact drove the youma apart, which means they now surround Sayaka. With a shout, Sayaka lifts her sword for a downward strike on the reeling home computer before her, but before she swings, the youma goes crosseyed, a musket ball having ripped through its forehead.

Grinning, Sayaka rounds on her nearest attacker, parrying a heavy blow from an iron bar. That youma drops before Sayaka can riposte, shot through the chest. As she spins to decapitate a third youma charging from behind, that one, too, spins from the impact of a musket shot, falling before it reaches Sayaka. A fourth, fifth and sixth get riddled by a large volley (multiple muskets surely). As Sayaka turns to her last foe, she hesitates, sword at the ready, not sure if she should bother at this point. Just when she decides to go for it, the youma gets shot in the leg, causing her to hesitate, doing a sort of double-take with her sword where it bobs up and down indecisively. As she decides again to try, the youma gets shot three more times.

Turning around, Sayaka puts her fists on her hips as she casts a look of exasperation at Mami. She can't hold it for more than a second before she cants her hips and her lips both, though, revealing the admiration beneath. "I feel like the dog in, whatzitcalled, Duck Hunt," she calls back.

Sayaka's head rocks forward suddenly, struck by a shattering ball of glass. Dazed but not badly wounded, Sayaka yelps as she zig-zags to dodge a few more. Turning, Sayaka feels her blood run cold as a sea of youma pours from the depths of Beryl's fortress. Even from a distance, one stands out; a heavily armored demon, twelve feet tall, carrying a cannon on its shoulder. In the far rear of the army, it will be hard to reach, but the threat is obvious. Sayaka backs away slowly as she watches the great brute load her cannon and lift the burdensome weapon onto her shoulder.

KA-THOOM

A fiery metal ball sails towards the magical girls... Mami, in particular. Sayaka sets off at a sprint back towards her, but it's too far; Mami will have to deal with this on her own. When the cannonball strikes the ice, it smashes a crater, sizzling as the ice quenches its heat rapidly. Facing an impromptu palisade of ice all of a sudden, Sayaka gets an idea.

With an athletic vault, Sayaka clears the palisade, then spins, tossing a fan of swords through it rapidly. Now approaching youma have to face a tiny fort of ice with blades sticking out of it. Not a bad way to receive a charge.

"Senpai, over here!" Sayaka calls, before correcting, "I mean, Mami-san!" The fort is about chest-height for Sayaka. As the sea of youma begins to pour across it, some of those in the front try to slow down to avoid the swords, only to be crammed into them by the weight of those behind. This makes combat easy for about thirty seconds, before the swords end up padded by dead youma, and others start climbing. Sayaka starts defending the palisade, hacking youma off at the ankle as they clamber over, or rapidly dueling those that get over, skewering them to the ground. It would be better for Sayaka and Mami to retreat... but worse for the others. If someone can even briefly hold the line...

But all the while, the cannon youma keeps firing. Its massive cannonballs shatter barriers put up by more mystically inclined magical girls, and sow chaos among those in the rear trying to shoot at range or use magic. Sayaka rams forehead into a wounded youma's nose to knock it cold, then stands, scratched up, bruised, and tattered, to watch the intractable foe reload once again.

"Mami-san," she says, widening her stance yet again to shield the blonde. Her sapphire eyes are on the cannon... hopelessly distant, like artillery. Her voice holds a seriousness that few at Ohtori would believe existed in Sayaka Miki. "Can you hit it from this far?"

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It is bitterly cold... But the wide, wide caverns are good for a ranged combatant like Mami Tomoe. But that doesn't mean it's all gone well--separated in the chaos, Mami can't find Madoka or Homura anywhere. There's a fierce knot of worry in her stomach, but if there's anyone can trust--she has to tell herself that it's Madoka.

...But with Sayaka, she's not alone--and she's practiced with her, too. Together, they can reach the others.

With the first few youma converging on Sayaka as she charges forward, Mami takes the opportunity to set up her next volley, pulling rifles and jabbing them into the ground with extraordinary speed, nearly in silence. The home computer ahead, she lines up in her sights--

Bang.

Another, bang. Mami keeps firing, sometimes one at a time, sometimes six at a time, and none of them are ''easy'', but with their attention on Sayaka Mami can bring her power to bear. ...At first, anyway.

Sayaka looks back to her, and Mami quirks a smile, "...I should probably understand that reference--"

Her quipping is cut off abrubtly as the shattered ball of glass erupts, and Mami too has to dodge the next few, sprinting to the side towards a rocky outcropping that will serve briefly as cover. She looks ahead, to the ''sea'' of youma, to the great armored demon with such a cannon...

"Oh--"

There's no time to move. Mami throws out her hands and a sphere of ribbons erupts around her, starting at the bottom and whirling, twirling upward as a shield. The entire thing is hit full bore by the flaming projectile, and ''sails'' backwards, burning up as Mami hits the ground and rolls--but is burned, not shattered. But Sayaka has an idea, and Mami looks up--"Good thinking!" she calls, and leaps up to run forward. This time Mami can dodge some of the next, aware that they're coming, and she reaches Sayaka in time, stands behind her with a little exhalation. "...From this far..."

Mami sets her jaw. "Yes. But i'll need your help."

Mami breathes, and then in her hands are ribbons to weave forward; occasionally, Sayaka will have seen her conjure different guns from her standard; most often the great Tiro Finale, but other variants as well. This one is not so large as that--but it is ''longer'' than her usual rifle, as well as wider. It is beautiful, silver and gold, and Mami stabilizes her stance, bringing it forward to rest the barrel on Sayaka's shoulder. This close, in this much ''cold'', they can sense each other by mere warmth alone; Mami's breath fogs forward, mist before it reaches Sayaka's back as the veteran leans down over her gun, aiming carefully, ever carefully.

"Sayaka-chan," she murmurs. "Just a little..."

''BANG''. The shot rockets forward for the great demon ahead, center mass, an eruption of golden light that bores a hole through armor and flesh alike.

But even that is not the end. There are more; Mami breathes in, and whirls to start conjuring more guns. "If you can keep the rest off of me," Mami says, "Then we can do this."

By now the bizarre crystal has transformed this place into a thing of her nightmares. But if they stop... Then the others will deal with even more.

-=-=-

Here, Mami steps into the great chamber at the center of the Labyrinth, Sayaka at her side. The golden Puella Magi is battered and tired, but unbroken; her black half-gloves bear the residue of countless shots against so, so many youma. But the battle seems to have ended before she can finish--

Mami looks with wide eyes at the silver light engulfing Queen Beryl, at the smoke... at the death of an ancient Queen. A last, tired victory, a hatred beyond mortality...

Mami looks down, and cannot help but see Beryl's face, and remember--it is always different when their foe is a living, breathing ''being'', evil or otherwise--so different from Witches that have nothing in common at all with the girls who fight them.

How can she focus only on that with Usagi present, though? Mami looks up to her younger friend, reaches for Sayaka's hand as she watches solemnly. She is alone--not alone ''now'', not with all of them, and yet...

What comfort would it be, if Mami lost Madoka and still had others? Homura, Eri... Sayaka? All of them are friends, and yet which are the ones she sees every day?

So it is with surprise that Mami watches Serenity. The light comes, and Mami too can't help but think of times with Usagi, with her protectors...

As the light clears, Mami is whole; she is not exhausted, is not wounded from her passage, is bright and vibrant again as she looks at four girls around Usagi who were not there, but ''should'' have been there. "...She..."

Mami smiles to the girl next to her, looks around for the others who have arrived, for two precious faces, a partner and a student, and others. "It's over," she says, laughing happily despite herself. "I can't believe it. I never imagined..."

For a girl who has lived and breathed magic for years, to see a true miracle never loses its shine. She is careful of wishes, careful of everything like them, and yet...

This is ''right''.

Mami spots a shock of pink and then--Forget just squeezing a hand; in suddenly uncontainable joy, Mami shifts and in an instant her arms are around Sayaka, a little hop closing the distance to give the other Puella Magi the hug that she's usually too restrained to make happen, practically aglow with cheer. "We all--!" If Sayaka doesn't get her footing then Mami will swing around with the taller girl, whirling with relief and happiness and amazement all, reaching out a hand as she pauses only briefly to bring Madoka close, too.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka had been a Sailor Moon fan. When she found out Madoka was basically Sailor Madoka, the fandom had transferred, and then spread out as she met more and more magical girls. But there is something cutting about seeing the hero from Sayaka's carefree school days broken and weeping. She feels tears start to fill her own eyes.

Making brief eye contact with Madoka and Homura as she catches sight of them, Sayaka feels too burdened by the grief in the air to even nod at them. It doesn't much matter; the pain in her eyes conveys more than a nod ever could.

Feeling Mami's eyes on her, Sayaka looks down at her partway, feeling as though it would be somehow profane to turn her face away fully from Sailor Moon at this moment. But when Mami's hand seeks hers, Sayaka's heart catches, and suddenly it is Mami's grief she feels more keenly than her own. To be sought for comfort at a moment like this is sacred, and Sayaka wants it too suddenly, wants to feel this together. Gently wrapping Mami's black half-glove with her full white one, she squeezes her hand, leaning her shoulder into the blonde's. With her free hand, she pushes tears with the base of her hand, sniffling.

She scarcely dares to breathe, as the Princess brings impossible hope in the cold dark.

An uncontrollable laugh of joy bubbles from Sayaka's tearful throat. "No way..." she agrees with Mami. "It's so per--"

Mami is embracing her tightly. "fe-fe-fe-fe," Sayaka stammers, losing coherence as she blushes. As they twirl and come to a stop, though, she's gotten ahold of herself. This is the time, right? They are super close right now, and Sayaka's hugging her, and Mami's hugging Sayaka, and the credits are about to roll...

Sayaka is sweating bullets in the ''North Pole''. She'd just have to duck down a tiny bit and close her eyes...

OH THANK GOD MADOKA. PERFECT TIMING.

Grateful for the save, Sayaka giggles, collapsing into a hug with her best friend as well, now, putting her forehead to both of theirs.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Homura sticks closest to Madoka's side, always, and so she ends up by her best friend's side when the thundrous cold closes in around them. She calls after Mami and Sayaka, but arctic winds snatch the names from her mouth and swallow them up. "Kaname-san..." The time mage clenches a small pale fist as she sees the closing of pink eyes. She'll keep Madoka safe, somehow.

"Eeeyahhh!" A silvery screech sounds out above the howl of arctic wind and the girl's own scream. Her shield lodges in the gnashing jaws of a wolf-reptilian beast, because she's thrown her own left arm into its mouth rather than let it bite Madoka. "Aaaaa....!" Its horrid breath washes over Homura, and she keeps yelling but she's also reaching her other hand into its mouth--

--into her ''shield''--

--and something ''screams'' fire right down the monster's slimy throat. The beast topples with smoke belching from its maw, and Homura's left with a red-streaked arm and a discharged canister of Roman Candles. She stares at Madoka with eyes that reflect the color of a sunset, and her shaking subsides to feel the warmth of those words and the light of a soul-kindled star.

"I'm not worried, Kaname-san," she says, and Homura means it amidst all this terror. She follows Madoka's lead, follows her light, and she is always there whenever Madoka needs saving.

-=-=-=-

The horror has no end, and Homura can never quite catch her breath, nor find the space between dodging youma claws to grieve the senshi who have fallen -- bright and beautiful lives, lost in the dark. She fights on with tears smearing up her glasses lenses and new pains in her frail heart. Her fits easily into Nori's and clasps tight, revealing ice-nipped fingers that warm in her grip -- Homura has ever had poor circulation, she'd know, but this is unusually cold for her. Every time, she is grateful.

It takes a good half minute just for Homura to pull her prepared munitions from her shield; tt took ''days'' for her to put it all together. Each packet is comprised of a series of thin steel cables rigged into a tow cable, which is in turn fastened to mortar tubes as long as her skinny arms. They have names on the side like "EXCALIBUR STORM DELUXE" and "STARBURST SUNSET" and "THE BIG FINALE, MK III", and they all have nice long wicks.

"Sourisi-san, La Sirene, we're almost ready! Just- just hang in there!" Homura winces for the nasty fall Sourisi took, but doesn't let sympathy slow her down -- nor her awe at the unquenchable beauty of Les Mysteres. She figures they both might prefer that.

Each packet is earmarked for a rose-pink arrow, and each is ready to rain shrieking sparkling doom down upon the monstrous hordes. Homura shields a purple lighter from the arctic wind and looks up at Madoka. "Let's do it, Kaname-san!" Her mouth is a grim little line, which looks very out of place on her -- she's such a soft girl, really. But, beneath the meekness: determination.

She lights each one as its arrow gets nocked and sticks close to Madoka and Sourisi and La Sirene after. Pyrotechnics designed to cheer instead slay, burning swaths in the monstrous army.

-=-=-=-

New tears, happy ones, cause new smears on Homura's glasses but she hardly notices. She's running after her best friend, braids flapping; she's casting a sidelong happy smile at La Sirene, giving Sourisi a little cheer.

Madoka was right -- they didn't need to worry at all. Everyone is okay. Everyone is okay, and there they all are!

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

-=-= Ingress Battle -=-=

Kasagami's coat is tight around her shoulders, the tall young woman shivering even as hard boots beat a war path. Hair flutters as she steps aside from the falling and dissipating body of yet another youma that's crossed the path of Knight, Shield Guardian, and Would-Be King. Her body's on autopilot, something approaching a certain kind of freedom building up in Kasagami's heart as she slices again. Step. To the side in a flash, grip, turn, ''cut''.

But not peace. The rigors of being President had taken their toll on Kasagami enough, nevermind the Dueling Games' intrigues, and the occasional outing where youma or Witches interceded. The old memory of that brief hour where the DD girls had stolen so much from everyone feels fresh during their fight inwards. And of the night she spent apologing to her Uncle the day after. Or the aftermath of the Garden of Time, of hours spent sweeping a pair of graves and pouring out a god-awful bottle of whiskey. Her parents never had good taste.

Her sword's strikes, even with every injury she's taken in the long, each held a certain amount of vengeance. A little spite, purpose, arms increasingly heavy but the girl flowing and moving with grace despite. Always for what would be vitals on a human, or simply to destroy. Her winter clothes over her uniform are tattered, one sleeve of her coat is missing, and her right arm has seen far too many sharp claws and the end of an evil vacuume cleaner that tried to chew it up.

Lucky her for bandages and Fuu's healing.

And lucky her for her friends. Kasagami has called on every ounce of steel in her heart thus far, all of the advice of her Father when confronted with danger and the practical applications her Mother drilled into her with long mornings outside or long nights in the dojo. It's not been a battle she's enjoyed. This is no fight for pride or honor or entertainment or World Revolution. This is a war. Kassie has fought like it thus far.

She's in one piece thanks to the ministrations and calming wisdom of the Wind Knight. The fear and seared-in memories have been pushed aside, if not still in the dark corner of her heart, thanks to the encouragement and purity of Steven's good nature. As the flames lick and burst, sparks threatening to catch away from the boy's protection, she draws one last breath. "Steve-kun...you're right. We have people still waiting for us. I..." Teeth grit. She never fully grasped it, but the young man is so brave.

"I will not subject those I care for to a life of nightmares by falling here! Wind Knight-chan!" She'd whipped off her coat's remains, that much more momentary protection before it's toast. She's a flash towards the thing of iron and fire.

It's strong. Her blade carves through fire as her heart stops for long moments. Only once a full half of her nodachi's length is buried straight into the center of the creature's body does she feel the heat on her now half-exposed back. Tears fall, she chokes back pain and lets out words.

"Bow to the strength of knights and royalty joined in friendship and purpose, monster." Her family sword's image is reflected upon itself a dozen times, the Duelist unmoving as she holds the creature still.

-=-= The Miracle -=-=

Kasagami has to catch herself with the hilt of her sword as she forces herself to stay upright. Her eyes cast to the scene of the Princess, and her fallen friends. She blinks, and all of her own injuries are nothing against the deep well of sorrow rising in her chest. The genius and collected Mercury, in repose and unable to be teased. The graceful and aggressive Mars, fallen and taken from their petty social games she's so enjoyed. Two people she's respected so much, and might even have called friends.

"Hey...genius, come on, this is no time to try out pranks! Mars, come on, you still owe me dinner! Right...?" It can't be. Not ''more''.

The Princess denies it, and the light of the Ginzuishou shines. Hope and love fills her. The 'crybaby' girl from Juuban who turned out to be a Princess of the Moon actually did it. Her knees give out. Tears fall in streams, the light of that miracle sparkling within each drop. "How..." is her whispered question as she's struck numb by a wave of relief. Her arm points straight while her heart hammers in her chest. The point of her sword trembles in the air as she finds her voice through gritted teeth.

"How ''DARE'' you, Sailor Mars! Who gave you permission to...to worry me like that!? I am going to make sure you have detention after all of this, understand!?" The young woman's voice cracks, there's joy filling her voice with every syllable, and she's doing an awful job of being the image of a Student Councilor right now.

"And don't even get me started on ''you'', Sailor Moon!" For all of her yelling, her eyes scream 'thank you'.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Leading up --

There's no rest for the weary, as the saying goes in one version - and in contradiction of the other version, the wicked aren't even *trying* to take it easy. Never mind 'monsters of the week'; it seems like there's a new incident every day. Or at least that's what it feels like to the Magic Knight of Wind - and today has been no exception.

Running Battle In the Tunnels --

Having been on the Arthra when it was shot down, and remembering far too well the Dark Kingdom's attempt to harvest the life-force from everyone in Tokyo, there's pretty much *nothing* to stop Fuu from coming along on this mission. Even being separated from her fellow Magic Knights didn't put a dent in her determination; the Wind Knight just joined up with the closest group she could find - that being Steven and Kasagami - and proceeded to help them carve their own path through the Dark Kingdom's forces with bow, blade, and magic, shifting readily between support and offense as the need presents itself.

Such as now.

"Emerald Cyclone!!" the Magic Knight of Wind calls out, her magical gale tearing into the monster of fire and steel, yet so tightly controlled that the spell's edge merely tousles Kasagami's hair like a playful (if chilly) breeze. Fuu is ready with her own sword, just in case that combination wasn't enough ...

But it looks like that might have been it. For now, anyway. "They aren't holding anything back, are they? Hold still a moment, Kasagami-san ... Winds of Healing!" she intones, and her healing magic billows forth, a balmy, soothing breeze caressing Kasagami and Steven, mending their injuries so that the group can push onwards at something more like their full strength.

Witnessing a Miracle --

They reach the heart of darkness, and their eyes are opened to light at the end of all the tunnels. It's the warm light of the Ginzuishou's miracle that quickens the Wind Knight's steps, and a relieved, joyful smile touches her face as she sees everyone else gathered. "Thank goodness," she says quietly, her gaze skimming over everyone else who's there, and it is literally *everyone* who she knew was on this mission. Also some who she didn't 'know' but had caught sight of during the preparations and the mass transport. And, of course, her fellow Magic Knights. She doesn't run over to greet Hikaru and Umi, but smiles, bowing her head towards both of them, and if she gets the chance, she'll make her way over to her closest allies. She's currently a little too preoccupied making sure that everyone who's accounted for is also in decent shape.

They did it. They really did it ... and even if there were some losses, those losses didn't stick. For that, she is intensely grateful.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Mars [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Miracles are strange little things.

Rei was dead; Rei has never been dead. She stands at Princess Serenity's side and she is not quite Sailor Mars, not really. In a sleek red dress, ribbon tied about her neck and necklace nestled there, Princess Mars is hale and whole.

Long and long ago Mars swore protection to the Moon, a planet so like the Earth it orbited but red, so red, angry and dry and possessed of a desert's determination. And like the arid scrublands of her home she persisted, long and long, carried by a wish to the present day.

But it is not just a promise kept so long ago which brings her here.

It's all the little promises, from each day in Tokyo, not a crystalline thing but one made of torii gates and skyscrapers and a route between schools with every shortcut known. Challenges and clashes, and those embarrassing little moments of genuineness.

Rei could have become anyone.

With Usagi, she became happy.

"Princess Serenity," she says, and Princess Mars smiles and Rei smiles, and she would not admit that her throat is a little choked up. Smiling through the emotion, she reaches out for her hand, squeezes it gently in hers. "... you did it."

There is so much she could have done. She kept going; she defeated Beryl; she didn't give up on them. Oh, she didn't even give up on Rei, quarrelsome difficult Rei.

And there is the pride of a Princess guard, there; but there is gratitude, too, from a girl who is becoming so much.

They're okay. Every one of them is okay, Makoto and Minako and Ami and Rei, and it's thanks to her.

Her cheeks colour in response to whispered words, and it is Rei's will which murmurs in turn: "... Usagi." Her name is yobisute.

She squeezes her hand once more before that hand - it is bare, now, not gloved in the manner of the Senshi - drops to her side again, and Princess Mars turns to see everyone who has come. Steven Universe, the bravest little boy. Sourisi, ever-agile in wit and wend. Lancelot, a knight whose thunder cannot help but remind her of Jupiter's own. Ladybug, in all her ingenuity. La Sirene des Opales, who strives no matter the weight of their strife. The Wind Knight, steady in her wisdom. All the Puella Magi: Madoka, that gentle girl who she came to know through Usagi's friendship. Homura, who has always shadowed her with trembling determination. Mami and Sayaka, who work so well together. And, of course...

Her hand rises to hide her smile, as Kasagami points her sword. "Oh, no," she says, and she cannot hide her grin, "''anything but that.''" Worrying about detention in a place like this - there's something about it which is delightful.

She shakes her head, and her smile remains as she lowers her hand. "Everyone... it is good to see you."

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Danger Lurks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJd2QJQM7sI

It is the best kind of ending.

Celebration.

Rebirth not just of life but of hope.

The noise! The warmth, even here, in the icy heart of darkness! The color! Everyone together! Everyone healed and whole!

Amid the happy chaos, one corpse remains a corpse.

It is the only time in all of history that Queen Beryl has not been the center of attention in her own throne room. She is tall and statuesque, but sprawled backwards on the ground, it doesn't matter. Frost is already beginning to creep across her violet gown, to transform her luscious locks from red to white. Her expression was never peaceful, but is beginning to harden into a rictus grin.

'''Between the idea'''

'''And the reality'''

No -- that isn't frost, and her body isn't leeching cold from the ice that has become her tomb. This chill is coming from within, not without, and one vein at a time it flows through her. Her body isn't freezing.

It's crystallizing.

'''Between the motion'''

'''And the act'''

All at once, she rises, floating into the air as lightly as a cloud. That is the only thing light about her. As her body slowly, fluidly spins on its axis to become vertical once again, her feet hovering several feet above the ground and her broken crown proudly pointing towards the ceiling, palpable darkness flows through her. It is the same darkness she drew upon to try to wish away the magical girls of Earth.

And though she gave her life in its service, the darkness isn't done with her -- not yet.

'''Between the conception'''

'''And the creation'''

Everything shatters! Without warning, the crystal gives way in all directions, blown backwards and outwards by impossible, unstoppable force. The sky is once again visible overhead, and it is now a true black, marked only by pale blue lines that delineate the clouds that swirl inward, a perfect spiral. In the center: the immovable object, now veiled from view by a fantastic blossom, a dark lotus. Its petals are screwed upwards, shut in an inverse spiral to the one in the sky. They are the color of poison, the very hue of death.

They are a hundred feet tall.

'''Between the emotion'''

'''And the response'''

The petals are no barrier to the voice. Deafness is no barrier; this is not sound. It is present inside everyone because everyone has still, small voices inside, which speak to them clearly without any words at all. Not all of those voices are friendly.

"After eons unending, I am become flesh."

Where, in most timelines, Beryl knew a spell to hijacked the reflections and vocal chords of everyone to deliver a message, that trick is now turned upon her. It is her voice... but not her words.

"The sun itself was my prison, but could not hold me. This Earthly ice a cage, but now the bars are shattered. The final veil torn down -- no longer must I enforce my will through another!"

What was Beryl laughs, and her laughter is completely different. This is not the cackle of cruel amusement, this is an outpouring of ecstasy, the transcendent feeling of finally -- finally -- being truly alive. Nascent potential finally reached. It could almost be innocent, the first burble of an infant finally emerged from the womb, were it not so impossibly ancient. Instead it is parody, hateful satire.

'''Between the desire'''

'''And the spasm'''

The petals fly open, scattering a gross facsimile of pollen across the ice. Where the tiny motes of light land, they infect, turning shards of ice into more dark crystal, swirling with malice like tiny, angry eggs of hate.

Next to emerge from the steam are filaments of stamen, blacker even than the sky, which writhe and undulate their absence through the air. Air tries to fill the void that they are, and is instantly destroyed, nitrogen sizzling, screaming its descent into true nothingness.

'''Between the potency'''

'''And the existence'''

And at the center of the blossom stands Metallia embodied, Queen Metallia, no longer a voice and a shadow but fully realized upon the tapestry of existence. Not even in the time of the Silver Millennium was she able to express herself so completely.

If Beryl were many dozens of feet tall, Metallia might look like her, but the transformation is more than just growth, and more than just inversion. Her gown is not violet, but red, the red of heart's blood, of all the lives she intends to spend as freely and easily as coins at the arcade. Many magical girls wear crimson, but they don't wear it like this, so vibrant that it pulses, beats with its own malice. And her hair is no longer that glorious fiery auburn, but an unrecognizable cyan, the tainted heart of a tainted flame, the heart of an dying star. It soars above her, bourne aloft by the heat that pours off of her form.

Her tiara has been removed. Only the gem remains, in the center of her brow, a single shard of the crystal she once bubbled in impotently. Her choker, her armlet, both are an unrecognizable black metal. Her fingernails are as long and sharp as the spikes of bone emerging from her shoulders like clasps without a cloak.

'''Between the essence'''

'''And the descent'''

When her eyes open, the force of the presence behind them causes the rubble of the Dark Kingdom, mixed with the ice of the plain, to tremble. It is an unfamiliar feeling -- so toxic in its closeness that it makes breathing shallow, squeezes tears from wind-torn ducts, clutches the heart and burns.

'''Falls the Shadow'''

"The time has come," says Queen Metallia, "To imbue all living creatures in the universe with hatred and greed -- and then wipe them out, reaping their darkness."

This is darkness born through fire and through ice.

This is the shadow on the heart of the solar system.

This is the true destroyer of the Silver Millennium.

'''This is the way the world ends. '''

She extends her gigantic palm -- and that ending rushes to meet the girls.

COMBAT: Queen Beryl transforms into Queen Metallia!
COMBAT: FINISHER! Queen Metallia has used Dark Star on Princess Serenity.

<Pose Tracker> The Maiden of Dreams [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

A cluster of stars fall from the sky to hover between the magical girls and Queen Metallia.

They had been banished long before Metallia; she knows them not.

But the magical girls do -- they last saw them in Hokkaido...

...when, then as now, lines of white starlight connected the rainbow of seven dots until she stands among them once more.

The Maiden of Dreams.

She's even more whole than she was at the top of that snowy mountain. There, once they helped her regain who she was, her silhouette was just that; there were no details. Just a sense of a person.

Now it's the opposite; there is too much of her to take in all at once. She is TOO MANY people. In the sleeping hearts of everyone, where she belongs. Any single detail blurs into ten.

Her voice isn't generic, though. It is recognizable from December, and gloriously, gloriously sane.

If a little loud, fast, and intense. After all, it has to reach the group before Metallia's blast does.

"Don't give up! Remember what you're fighting for! Remember your dreams -- and I'll help summon your true power!"

She separates back into something more abstract as the seven stars spin into a circle -- then spin faster, becoming something like a lens.

Or a scope.

The Maiden still has a voice, though.

"Reach out your hands -- and open your hearts!"

COMBAT: Princess Serenity counters Queen Metallia's Dark Star with What Dreams May Come, initiating a BEAMWAR! Please see +help
beamwar for further information.

BEAMWAR! Princess Serenity and Queen Metallia's attacks collide. Queen Metallia has the advantage!
BEAMWAR! Now accepting mana bids for the first of three rounds! Now accepting new BEAMWAR entrants in this round only!
BEAMWAR! Lancelot adds his What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Princess Mars adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Sourisi adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Madoka Kaname adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Homura Akemi adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! La Sirene des Opales adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Ladybug adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Steven Universe adds his What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Fuu Hououji adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Mami Tomoe adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Kasagami Araki adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!
BEAMWAR! Sayaka Miki adds her What Dreams May Come to Princess Serenity's BEAMWAR!

<Pose Tracker> Ladybug [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Hope so quickly becomes despair.

Ladybug's steps were slow, but her smile bright. Injuries of the body would heal, in time; the joy of seeing friends reunited was the balm to prevent a scar of permanent heartbreak. Each step forward toward the tableau let peace settle back in to supplant all the fear and panic of past hours.

Then Metallia rose, and all hope was lost.

Darkness born through fire and ice, the shadow of the sun and moon, Metallia comes forth and unleashes the end. Faced with that dark finale, all Marinette can do is let her hands fall limp - there's no trick in her bag that can tie a neat bow around something like this. No charm could be the key to a convoluted scheme to get around this shadow. There's nothing left.

Her luck has run out.

But - there's starlight. A familiar light - blinding now in its raw existence - and a comforting if hurried voice. The stars swirl, dance before them all, and become guidance for inner power.

Ladybug looks down at her gloved hand for a heartbeat, maybe two. What is she fighting for, other than her own pride? Friends, and family, and loves that might one day be. As she thinks of them...

"...it's warm. After this cold dark night, we could all use a little warmth, couldn't we?" Thinking of her home, Marinette holds Ladybug's hand to her heart. On the wind, one could almost imagine the smell of freshly baked bread...

...and Ladybug opens her eyes to what might be a new morning after all, bathed in crimson light.

Then like many new mornings, she realizes that she has absolutely no time to dwell, and flings out her hand in a near-panic. "We've got too much to care about to just give into hate!" Chaotic, a storm of light pours from Ladybug to join the general torrent!

BEAMWAR! Ladybug has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Mami Tomoe, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, La Sirene des Opales,
Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

In the midst of great hope... Of course, that's when it comes. When everything seemed at its best, it changes. When the darkness comes, Mami remembers all the times in her life that hope has turned to despair, all the curses that she kept at bay hanging onto hope and purpose. They cast such a grand shadow over her... and even that is ''nothing'' when compared to what looms before them. Mami's eyes widen, and she stares up, upward, unable even to focus on what might have come of ''shattering'' in favor of... this. The voice comes; the voice is one that Mami has heard before. The sense of such an ancient thing that she is so small before is overwhelming; what was a woman is now... something else. That hateful laugh, the darkness that rushes forward--

A faint noise escapes the back of Mami's throat as she stares, and and the ''weight'' of the long battles settles onto her shoulders. She can only inch closer to the girls beside her, pink and blue both. It is not all of them. And yet...

And yet, the star falls again; a cluster, hovering forward, and there stands a familiar force despite vision being too hard, too incredible. ''Dreams''. The dreams of December, when Mami Tomoe met a being so ancient, who had worked so hard, and for so long. That ''voice'', and all the hearts she touches bringing with her--

"...Yes," Mami says, and she is able to do more than shake--she breathes in, and concentrates. What she's fighting for, and her dreams? Those are the very same. More than most, Mami Tomoe has the incredible fortune to be living her dream every single day, to ''have'' what she has wanted for so long, what she cried alone over for years. Her dream?

It's the wonder of the girl who showed her that she didn't have to be alone anymore. The shy joy that she can see every time Homura comes out of her shell a little more. It's the brilliance of someone who seems to show new blooms even more often than the gardens she tends. ...It's the simple sincerity of a hero. And it's more, it's all of these, here--

Light suffuses the air around Mami. It is golden, warm, bright as the sun, of many flowers and of honey and of a hope that only wanted to be able to ''share'' it again, and stay.

"But I already have what I wanted," Mami says, and from her hand comes the beautiful light gathering around her, pure gold one of many, the gold of a sunbeam filtering through the window to the table where they all might sit.

BEAMWAR! Mami Tomoe has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, La Sirene des Opales, Homura
Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

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

"Oh." Lancelot says as he watches Queen Metallia rise and then grow to enormous height and power. "Sh#." He finishes once she declares that she's going to bring on the end of all things living. He takes an involuntary stab back but redraws Arondight. If he was going to die, he was going to to go down fighting with sword in hand. He grits his teeth and begins to summon lightning to him, As much as he can bring into him. He'll charge, leap at her head, maybe take out an eye. Maybe take an eye. He's about to do it. Run and leap and attack when seven stars make themselves manifest.

He stops himself from charging through the stars and attacking anyway. Becuase. He knows those stars. With lines of Starlight the Maiden of Dreams stands before them all and he feels the power she offers swell within him.

"Reach out your hands -- and open your hearts!"

Lancelot takes a deep breath and as that dark beam descends down on him he opens his eyes and extends his free hand. He has people to protect back home. People he knows and loves, and he has all those gathered here. He won't give up. He was ready to leap at Metallia and he pours his heart into the power that swells into him. He is a warrior, and he'll stand here, with sword in hand and continue to fight. But most importantly, Lancelot will always, "I SWEAR TO DEFEND THE INNOCENT!"

Normally at those words he transforms from an awkward teenage boy who loves bacon, motorcycle riding, and kendo into the sword wielding Chevalier Lancelot. This time however a blast of pure white lightning explodes from his palm. Normally his lightning is blue with hints of white, but this time it is pure and white. It pulses and flashes and crackles as he pours his power, and his heart into that lightning bolt, adding his own unique energy to the swirling mass trying to hold Metallia back.

BEAMWAR! Lancelot has placed his bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, La Sirene des Opales, Homura
Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

"Y-You were all so brave! I wish I could have been there for you..." Steven says quietly, even as his face puffs up a little, in that pre-state of crying, though never quite reaches tears. It only occurs a bit after that he would have died as well. He slowly purses his lips at his own comment.

For them though? Of course, on second thought.

"Everyone is so amazing! I just-- I can't believe we did it!" His shield winks out of existence, and the little boy just has to take a seat, even if it makes hus hind end cold. He is so very spent. Steven just looks over to that body on the floor. Even though she was pure evil, something still nips at him. Could anything else have been done?

...No, it doesn't seem like it could. She murdered the other Senshi with impunity. Why does it bother him still?

Well, it is over, and the entire world was saved.

"We gotta commemorate this occasion with something!" the boy says, rocking around on the icy ground. Seems like a strange thing but, what ''does'' one do when an entire planet is spared? He has never thought to ask before. "Thanks for all the help, Fuu, Kasagami," he says kindly, a cheeky smile splayed out to show those pearly whites. "I would have been a goner if it wasn't for you both."

Speaking of being a goner... there is commotion behind the group. Movement.

Steven tenses and stands. "Uh, guys...?!" he says, pointing his finger to the moving corpse. They change shape, color, hue... they are made whole. Though 'they' is more of a kindness now, as it is more akin to saying 'they' to a puppeteer and their marionette toy. What what bears existence now is a much grander evil than what that body was host to before.

It is stomach turning. It is remniscent of what became of Roses Fountain, it a much darker and malevolent concept. Everything pollen and petals touch is corrupted immediately. One could posit it was almost curing something of benevolence.

At some point Steven reflexively summoned another shield with adrenaline, but the more he watches this darkness wringed into being unfurl and recognize her imprisonment is over, the less he thinks his implement will do a lick of good. The power roiling off them is on the level of something legendary. Tucked away and forgotten by time for a reason.

Because it could end everything just so easily. Steven has no words to even dare say as they act, emotionless. No, that isn't right. Devoid of all positive emotion. Anger. Hate. Despair. Wrath. These are the things this being knows. And she lets it be known.

What feels like all the black in the universe coalesces into a single wave of energy, leveled at everyone present. It feels like the end.

The end of all things.

...A light breaks the cascading dark before it arrives. A voice calls out. "I-It's you!" Steven says, still shaking. She calls out in a soothing voice. To reach out, and offer their hopes and dreams. They are the key to victory.

He looks at her sadly for a moment. He was so weak, so tired... He felt powerless compared to this primordial force.

...

Steven furrows his brow. Perhaps.

But, with what little power he has. maybe he can still help.

Steven holds out his hand. "I dream... to help everyone reach their dreams! And that won't stop here! My dream is eternal! And I'll always be there to help save the day when people people's dreams are on the line!"

A soft pink light glows from where a belly button should be, and expands outward, encompassing the child in a gentle light, before working its way up the boy's arm. It gathers at the tip of his hand.

The power of love, life and freedom itself.

It gathers until the little palm can no longer contain it. The boy holds it up, and the power explodes outward, joining the cascading chorus.

BEAMWAR! Steven Universe has placed his bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Fuu Hououji, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka
Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Princess Serenity [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Usagi Tsukino is tired, hungry, and more scared than she's ever been from her time at D-point. She's weak from grief. Yet the moment that her eyes behold the others. A new emotion touches her instead.

"Everyone..." Her fingertips slide forward, as if she were afraid to touch them, as if it were an illusion, and the moment she did, she'd been proven unreal. This only lasts as long as Sailor Mars puts her hand in hers, and she feels the warmth bleed into her palm. And words of praise. Precious, and hard won from the lips of Rei Hino.

The tears spill down her eyes from happiness, and she gives her head a fervent shake. "Of all the times to call me 'Princess'... Rei-chan." As she whispers, "I'm never 'Princess Serenity' to you."

Whether it's a Usagi spoken sharply in anger, or a Usagi in annoyance, or a Usagi in affection. That's always who she'd prefer to be for her.

And then she's drawn into a long hug between the other Inner Senshi. "Thank goodness... you're all alright. I'm so happy... so happy."

So much is happening around her right now. There's Sourisi's celebration, and Steven's relief, and Lancelot's tears, and the praise of her precious kouhai in Ladybug, Kasagami's paradoxical rebuke, and La Sirene's excitement, and the quiet support of the Magic Knight of Wind who is making certain they all stay healthy. There is also the sheer joy of four Puella Magi celebrating which is so precious to her. She wants to hug everyone. Given half the chance, she would do so for each, individually. For a while she's too overwhelmed to respond to any of it.

"It wasn't like last time, when the Silver Millenium fell." The girl who is Usagi Tsukino and Princess Serenity says once she gathers enough composure to articulate her joy. "And that is because all of you are here." And thus does she confirm the 'we' rather than the 'she' or the 'they'. "So please, don't hold back any of your precious feelings right now. Because they are the true miracle."

And so was she about to take her own advice when...

Suddenly the warmth and light she'd summoned feel smothered by something cold. Like an abyss, a void had opened, except they were on the other side of it. They were feeling it all returning out. Princess Serenity suddenly hugs her own arms, then finds herself looking.

Queen Beryl once asked Princess Serenity whether she sees her. In her death and transfiguration to being Queen Metallia does she see her in a new light, the kind of angle that one can see in the deepst of shadow. The world around her shatters, and Queen Metallia blooms into flesh. The horrible puissance of her presence is overwhelming. Making her feel cold, and scared, sapping away most of her happiness in just a moment. It feels like in an instant, she's made a liar of the miracle that history will not repeat, that things are different this time.

It feels like a requiem, or a dirge. The toxic pollen causing her to cough, and tear up, blurring her vision as she burns. And looks down upon her end as it bears down upon her.

In this moment, all she can manage is a tiny squeak of protest - a bovine sort of incomprehension, before she shakily raises the Silver Crystal in one last gasp effort to try to ward off their doom.

The stars fall then, and there she is... just like in Hokkaido. Except more real. More vivid. "Welcome home." Princess Serenity whispers, with tears shining in admiration and emotion, that she's come to aid all of them.

What is she fighting for?

That's simple. The seven stars spin, and Princess Serenity reaches into her heart which often feels like a kaleidoscope with how the emotions shine through and closes her eyes. Raising the Silver Crystal between both hands, she tries to recapture the joy of not even a minute ago, that she felt.

BGM Change: Carry on - BSSM OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqMHRKTYDHM

"My dream is to pass my high school entrance exams..."

It's such a normal dream, yet to the four Inner Senshi it invokes the thought of all of their study sessions where Usagi Tsukino was slacking off. Napping, snacking. Anything but actually paying attention. It may be almost shockingly jolting to hear that from her, as if it were startlingly unlike her. Yet there is a twinkling of a nascent light shining off of her.

"... so that in the Spring of our first year, when my cuckoo alarm goes off, I can get up and get dressed..."

The light becomes an aureole of pink and silver, gloriously radiant despite her dream.

"... and meet up with all of you, so that all of us who just started high school can show off our new uniforms to everyone."

She doesn't have to give voice to it perhaps. Yet there is something perhaps inspiring in so humble a dream, giving off such light. Like no dream is too normal. And perhaps strangely enough, the Maiden of Dreams might understand that when she says 'everyone' it includes... her as well.

It shines like starlight unto itself, before erupting out from her hands, rather than from the Ginzuishou itself.

"I'll never stop fighting for a world with all of you in it. A world that lets us keep sharing moments like that... together."

She brings those feelings and small dreams of a normal girl to bear against the darkness that would end them all.

BEAMWAR! Princess Serenity has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Fuu Hououji, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi,
Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Sourisi's desperate attempt to block the corrupting energy with her own body is stopped when la Sirene wraps her hands around her body and calls up a barrier. It's not enough to fully stop the massive blast, but...well, the end result isn't something Sourisi wishes to think about. It takes a moment for Sourisi to focus onto the eyes past a black mask.

"Thank you, Opales-chan..."

-----

Standing up slowly from the rime-frosted floor and wiping away her tears, Sourisi gives her co-conspirer a full on grin. While la Sirene may not enjoy puns as much as her, there's no kidding there's a soul of a joker in her still. "You're excused, Opales-chan. I mean, do you really think i'm going to try stopping you here?"

The reunion between two duos of Puella Magi is almost as touching as the Sailor Senshi somehow fighting against all the odds thanks to the miracle brought about by the Silver Crystal. Madoka smiling beautifully. Sayaka hugging onto Madoka with all her heart. Mami, the proud elder and mentor to just more than Puella Magi. Homura, ever quiet and bashful, with tears on her face. It's a miracle everyone is okay despite everything!

Speaking of which...

A quick look around is all Sourisi needs to squish her fears before they can even rise. After all, while many magical girls may have frills and dresses fit for a catwalk, there's only four heroes she knows who fight evil in bodysuits.

But there is much more going on than just a miracle made flesh and a dark queen dethroned. What appears to be the resurrection of Queen Beryl is much, much worse in reality. Queen Merallia takes controls of her new body and remolds it like clay to her liking. The Maiden of Dreams, far more than what she once was, descends in time to aid the defenders of Earth from darkness made into being. And tragedy prepares to strike hope down once again.

Unless they all fight for it, tooth and nail. And that is Sourisi's perfered way of fighting.

Dreams. There's always strength in dreams, and not just those that exist only during the hours of sleep. Dreams for the future, for what you desire more for the world...those are the dreams with the most dreams within them. And the courage to stand up for those dreams is the magic that make dreams into reality.

A tightly held dream, a dream of everyone's else dream becoming reality and of a brighter tomorrow is what Sourisi draws her strength from. Running up to stand alongside Ladybug, the Miraculous Ninja raises one hand to join her friend and ally against the Akuma, radiating beige light.

"Why hate when you can love, when you make the life of others all the greater for it?!"

A font of light blooms from a gloved palm, wishing to stop a future without hope.

BEAMWAR! Sourisi has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Fuu Hououji, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname,
Princess Mars, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The rise of Queen Metallia takes the Wind Knight as much by surprise as anyone else - although it feels to her like she should maybe have expected it. Of *course* invading the heart of one of the great evil powers of their world wouldn't be so simple, a corner of her mind thinks. Of *course* there was some last horrible surprise, even after the miracle of the entire group of magical girls surviving this far into the fray.

Where Queen Beryl had fallen, Queen Metallia rises up, terrible in her majesty and dark, fearsome glory. Her power spreads not from a gesture but simply from her *presence*, tainting the ice and stone themselves - and then Metallia *does* gesture, a simple motion as fatal as the sharpest blade's fall, concentrated into the rush of dark, destructive energy.

The Wind Knight's sword appears once more, as feeble as it is in the face of death - but the light of ancient stars shines forth, the Maiden of Dreams returning from wherever she'd been since Hokkaido. The voice is all the Wind Knight needs to recognize; a fierce smile forms on her face, cloaking the grateful relief in her eyes, and she nods to the Maiden, a soft wind gathering around her, tousling her hair and ruffling her skirts - not the fatally frigid winds that howl around the Arctic, but the gentler breezes that nurture and succour in warmer climes.

It's not one dream that she holds in her heart, but two. One of them is mundane enough - to create video games like the RPGs she loves playing, to tell stories in a form that other people can immerse themselves in: to start out weak, but to grow strong enough in the course of the story to save an imaginary world, or perhaps - somehow - even a real one.

The other dream, new though it may be in the Wind Knight's heart, is just as strong if not even stronger: to nurture the bond she shares with not just her fellow Magic Knights, but also with the Cephiran swordsman they met in the Forest of Silence. Fuu had never really worried about hunting for a boyfriend, so the emotions which blossomed after meeting Ferio have caught her by some surprise. But those feelings are there, flourishing within her, and she can't deny their existence. And that's her other dream - not just to fulfill the Magic Knights' mission to save Cephiro, but to pursue a future which she can share with the roguish-seeming swordsman after Cephiro is saved.

Two dreams, perhaps out of many more, but each of them gives her a reason to stand her ground and fight for the future that she desires - to become one of the lights which holds back the darkness. And with the Maiden of Dreams assisting them, with so many other magical girls and boys fighting alongside the Magic Knight of Wind, the warm breeze around her rises further, emerald light condensing from drifting sparks into a brilliant beam, and hastening to join with her allies' power - one more light that dares shine in the face of Queen Metallia's boundless darkness.

BEAMWAR! Fuu Hououji has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Princess
Mars, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene des Opales [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53HZ7LoqhSQ

The celebration does not last, would that it could. Something else is present. An inconvenient fact which rises - or is, in fact, revealed. Even so, the first stages of crystallization pass unremarked by the Siren of Opals, who is beaming at Madoka, giving Sayaka a different phase of warm look.

At that point the shadow rises.

The taste in her mouth turns to ash. La Sirene looks at the enormous creature. She steps back a pace from the sheer vision of this red ending-of-the-future, this titanic beast. It reminds her of legends of sculptures, of great beings beneath the sea that you can only see in their shadows on the storm clouds, titans that walk the void between stars.

Choking despair - something unfamiliar, something other - rises. It is not like the depression that blankets la Sirene at times. It is worse. If that is vinegar, this is hydrochloric acid. And she can feel it starting to etch at--

No.

Something - someone - else is there.

Seven stars, la Sirene thinks.

Seven.

Seven seekers. Seven sages. Seven dreamers...

For a moment it all comes to her. She dreams of being... Something; something else. She sees them. The maiden of dreams must see them too.

"I dream," la Sirene des Opales says: "I dream a dream of history. A dream that threads throughout years and days and aeons, across the life of stars and the death of planets. A vision that weaves all things together until they rise and fall, and rise again. I dream of ancient stones set in glory, and I dream of admiring them together with my precious friends."

La Sirene des Opales raises her left hand... but she does not make the sign of Les Mysteres. Light rises around her, a stormy gray-blue-blue-gray.

"I dream of being a queen... a queen who brings beauty and justice! And one who banishes the wicked.."

The light flows with sudden intensity.

BEAMWAR! La Sirene des Opales has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Princess Mars, and
Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Kasagami's heart, bouyed by the return of dear friends, brough low to tears and high to love, goes cold once more as the corpse of Beryl rises. Larger, renewed, and with a voice unlike the horrible Queen they all faced down, she can hardly deny what Metallia. The end. Destruction writ large here to ruin the beauty and joy of the many people in the world.

To take everything away when they'd just regained so many precious things, to ruin the world with that horrible energy in it's dark flowering petals and deadly pollen. A creature that brings nothing but death and loss.

Kassie doens't move or flinch away from the onrushing doom. She stands resolute, blade in one hand, prepared to go down swinging. If she's going to lose, to die here, then she fully intends to go down swinging as the head of the Araki family should. Just like her Mother did. No matter how it feels like there's a tinderbox full of ash in her mouth and throat, how her eyes sting, she refuses to do less than meet her demise with dignity.

Yet the voice and that precious starlight yet lives. The Maiden of dreams speaks to them all. A promise of a way to find victory. And yet to do so they must open their hearts.

Quite possibly the most painful thing of all. What choice is there? And most of all, the thought of dreams.

Dreams. Kasagami's eyes open, and she sheaths her blade. Her hands come to her side as she concentrates. Slowly, they rise, up above her head. Fingers curl as a gentle light fills them. Small at first, and growing in a dark crimson intensity. Not like the hateful colors that Metallia is clad in, but the bold colors of ambition!

Kassie's mind falls to Ohtori. At the progress made, and yet to be made. Brilliant hearts in the Sister Schools, with their many talents, yet to be given that one shove or hard kick to finally realize all that they can be. Of reaching for the illusive Castle in the Sky, for World Revolution. Her heart trembles, still so wounded, but the ache is that much less with those who care for her.

The shining throne in her dream seems dull next to the overwhelming urge to never see another friend lying in the cold cavern like Rei had been. To use a blade to ward off the evil in the world, the evil now right here, trying to destroy them all.

"I will reach to the sky for..." She bites her lip. Revolution sings in her heart.

"I shall become a King...and suffer not evil or injustice! To never see another life cut short for children to grieve over!"

For a brief, fleeting moment, Kasagami knows that a King isn't about the greed of ruling over others, but being a leader that protects others. The light flares in her hands.

And she swings downwards until only one hand is extended out. A single step forward, head tilted just so as her hair flutters behind her. The crimson beam shines and moves, joining with that of the others. It's everywhere all at once, as if refracted again and again off of half a million mirrors.

BEAMWAR! Kasagami Araki has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Princess Mars, and Queen Metallia still need
to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Madoka is one girl among all the rest.

Surprised by the interruption, she uncurls herself from around Homura, whom she had seized -- in her haste, lifted right off the ground -- and held close.

Madoka's back was the one facing Metallia's blast.

Really the complete lack of a blush is the ultimate statement, afterwards. She isn't embarrassed to have done it. She isn't embarrassed by the implications.

She isn't embarrassed that when she reaches out her right palm towards the seven stars -- towards the incoming tide of darkness -- towards the embodiment of same, beyond --

-- her left is still holding Homura's.

The light that emerges from her hand is just a little bit shy, in its first moments -- feathery and slender. A candlelight's worth. Then a flashlight's.

Madoka dares to look away from their incoming doom -- to look around at everyone else -- and ''breathes'' them in.

For the second time, she dares to close her eyes.

When she exhales, she reopens them to see her own, steady brightness, pouring out of her whole self, and into the world, and she is the only one that is surprised.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka is one of the many who fails to notice the ice take Queen Beryl. There is much to be said for empathy for the defeated, but perhaps it is better this way. Too often does evil die grandly, beautifully. There is no question what is grand or beautiful here; it is the miracle of a princess and those who love her.

But whether it dies in darkness or at the top of the highest parapet, evil never dies for long. One might well hope for a bit longer than this, granted.

Sayaka lowers her head but keeps her eyes high, like a buck about to charge with its horns. Serenity takes the brunt of the hatred, but she is not alone for long.

Sayaka watches the light of her best friend ignite the darkness. There are so many candles, here... but that one is hers. She smiles a bit before it occurs to her. Madoka's beam looks really strong, after she... with Homura...

Sayaka sidles a bit closer to Mami, and glances surreptitiously. "Mami-sa--"

"But I already have what I wanted," Mami says, and her sunflower radiance spreads across Sayaka, then glows forth to join the others. Sayaka's lips part in awe. Blinking, she reaches to touch her blue breastplate, but she is greeted with an unfamiliar sensation. Looking down, she can see that her chest is glowing with the blue of the sky--the blue of openness, that hides nothing. The blue of birdsong.

Sayaka's lips tug with a smile, rueful, joyful. Stepping forward, she swings her arm outward with fingers together as though she were pointing a conductor's baton. Blue soars ever upwards, to where it belongs.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Something Worth Protecting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBKJM2fCUyg

Everyone, and everything, was okay... No reason to worry at all.

Until there is.

The advent of Metallia drives ice through Homura's weak and thudding heart. "N-no, oh no..." Whimpering in the path of a death so dark and terrible she does not truly comprehend it, the frail girl shivers where she stands...

Only to have heroic warmth embrace her -- lift her high and squeeze her silly, really -- in the form of arms she's come to know by the sweetness of the hugs they give, and pink hair she knows by the soft way it tickles her ear when they're this close. Homura cherishes the moment long before she understands what the other girl has done, because for a moment she's just too lightheaded from it all.

Then the dizzy smile gives way to realization: "Y-you... you saved me," and then concern, "Kaname-san! Are you okay!?" But she is, Homura can see.

And just like that, hope lives on.

The Maiden asks them to remember their dream, and Homura clutches to Madoka's hand -- holds fast to her dream like she'll never let go, and the smile comes right back.

Her other hand lifts, and all that joy shines even more brightly than the diamond-shaped gem glittering there. The emotion glows like deepening sunset, and takes shape like a ray shining through clouds: a beam as lustrous as Homura's big dark eyes, the color of shadow made luminous.

She can't stop looking at Madoka, even as she aims her heart's hue in complementary violet alongside the other girl's pink.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Mars [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

One corpse remains a corpse but this is the way of war - and the Soldier of War does not think on it, in her relief.

Not until it's too late.

Princess Mars whirls to face the crystal Queen who rises, and perhaps she was Beryl but she is hardly Beryl any more, her shape and her voice and something else. Everything explodes and the Senshi move to protect Serenity, as they always have, as they always will; there is nothing any of them can do to shield her from the voice. Oh, Rei has one of those too.

That vicious little inner critic which turns every inch of her venom in on herself, made sharper and keener by every barb she snaps out in anger or frustration.

And then the lotus opens.

Princess Mars wears red but it is a gentle, youthful thing, vermillion and striped pale down the centre; they are incomparable.

She beholds the towering queen with a scowl and clenched fists, and she hopes it hides the way her hands tremble, the fear in her eyes. Let them think she is implacable, unshaken by the horror which rolls off like waves, not high and crashing but deceptively gentle things which hide a riptide promising to tear them out to sea. Let them think she is not scared of drowning. Oh, let them think she is not scared of drowning, alone and afraid and struggling and blinded.

She hisses in a breath to deny it, but there is someone else speaking denial before she can. She speaks fast and loud and whole, and she is the Maiden of Dreams, and Princess Mars snaps her gaze to her, relief rolling over her to see that starlight. "You came!" She came home, just as Serenity says.

She bids them to remember, and the light shines, and Princess Mars reaches out. "My dreams..?"

Up past the torii gate, in the shrine office, in the fourth door on the left, tucked underneath bedding, there is a book. It is a secret thing filled with a hundred dreams, innumerable careers which Rei Hino is going to master. She has been working on it for years.

"I'm going to become a famous idol," Rei says - these are Rei's dreams, after all - as she clasps her hands to her heart, and red light floods over her. "And I'm going to travel the world as a fabulous stewardess and I'm going to know everything there is to know about all the best places to be. I'm going to find the perfect husband and have the perfect wedding. I'm going to organise the sorts of festivals people will talk about on their deathbeds, and I'm going to become rich beyond my wildest dreams. Isn't it obvious?"

She holds out her palms, as the light gathers and pours out. "... everyone's going to know my name!"

She is not the only one who speaks. Princess Venus might appreciate her dreams of fame; Princess Jupiter, her domestic aspirations; Princess Mercury, the knowledge she will gather. And they speak their own truths, orange green blue, and the lights of the Senshi join Serenity's in an outpouring of the one thing the darkness could not kill.

BEAMWAR! Princess Mars has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!
BEAMWAR! Madoka Kaname has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Homura Akemi, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!
BEAMWAR! Sayaka Miki has placed her bid! Homura Akemi and Queen Metallia still need to bid!
BEAMWAR! Homura Akemi has placed her bid! Queen Metallia still needs to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Metallia [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> She's Got The Power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wpIpxJsJkY

Defiance.

It was the inevitable response, and Queen Metallia, unlike her predecessor, welcomes it. She honors it, even. She's said the same words so many times against the bars of her elemental prisons, whispered them into the dreams of Serenity the elder -- and a young Beryl.

Never.

Never, never, never.

She smiles, streching her one of her massive arms above her head, spreading her palms. It's invisible behind those clouds, but impossible to avoid the visual, regardless, that she seems quite able to snatch the Moon out of the sky and grind it between thumb and forefinger. Render it to dust... again. Finish what she started, all those years ago.

"Never," she replies conversationally, to everyone in general but Usagi of the never-give-up in particular, "Is a very, very long time. I have already waited forever -- in a way inconceivable to you fleeting mortals."

Her pupils narrow to slits when Princess Serenity invokes the power of the Silver Crystal. It does, indeed, get her attention, even as its very existence defies and denies her own. The other senshi's joining to her causes her to grimace but also to yearn. She wars between feeling hungry and affronted.

The power pouring out of her shines blackly. It sizzles, crackles, arcs, but is not lightning. It licks and burns, but is not flame.

And it's growing -- as Metallia rolls her shoulders back -- and brings the second hand down to join the first. The resulting backblast sends her vast tresses soaring over her head like a cyan halo.

"Ah, I see the past is present. Princesses of the Sol System, returned for revenge -- you've saved me the trouble of tracking you down to take your Crystals."

Her massive blast intensifies, becoming so dark that it wraps back around into color again, tinged with tainted reds and oranges and blues, beauty perverted into great, great evil, well able to swallow up all the magical girls at once.

It bulges behind the point of impact between the two beams -- and then -- inexorably -- starts marching forwards.

"You dream of a shining future? Ultimately, you'll realize that this world is already ugly and full of filth. It is unworthy of your protection... and when you discover that, ''my'' wrath could be nothing as compared to yours."

She grins savagely.

"That is, if you weren't all about to die."

Her power halves the distance to the magical girls -- then halves it again.

But ''their'' power is beginning to show something interesting. Faces swim amid the prismatic cascade -- family, friends. Crowns and swords and computers and microphones. Lakes and the bow that ties a sailor fuku and a wedding gown. The light from two mirrors reflecting each other, infinitely. A chair. A table. A kotatsu.

Ephemeral visions. But then, isn't every dream?

Until you make it real?

"...believe..." whisper the seven stars, their harmonics somehow both above and below the clash of titanic powers -- even as their light threatens to be eclipsed.

COMBAT: 819 is not a valid bid. Bids must be a positive number of mana points equal to or less than your current mana (820), and
no larger than the original cost of your individual BEAMWAR attack, modified by your boss multiplier (702).

BEAMWAR! Queen Metallia has placed her bid!
BEAMWAR! Queen Metallia presses her advantage, overwhelmingly driving back Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Mami Tomoe, Fuu Hououji,
Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, and Princess
Serenity! Queen Metallia has the advantage!
BEAMWAR! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Mami Tomoe, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi,
Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, and Princess Serenity each take 22 damage! Queen Metallia takes 0 Fatigue damage!
BEAMWAR! Now accepting mana bids for the second of three rounds! No longer accepting any more BEAMWAR entrants!
BEAMWARNING! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Mami Tomoe, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi,
Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, and Princess Serenity must regain the advantage this round, or they will be
unable to continue fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The light of Mami's best friend; the light of her precious student; the lights of friends, opalescent, planetary, smaller, taller, bold and quiet, all shining, all different. This is what Mami sees, and when Madoka glances at her, Mami smiles at her best friend too.

But Metallia is not silent. She speaks, and the answer Mami has to give--

"No." Mami answers without even having to think it, and it is simple, as she lets her eyes track beside her once, to smile at Sayaka who started to say her name before she spoke. Despite that instant of defiance, she cannot finish her sentence at first--no, that sheer awful power before her forces her light back with all of the others, forcing Mami to shift her stance to avoid being shoved back, to ''push'' with all of the might that she can back against Metallia--

There is a purity to fighting this directly, to the light of all of them, and the faces Mami sees--they show her. The table at which they all sit; the city she's spent so long protecting, the countless people about their lives...

"No!" Mami calls again, redoubling her efforts. "...You say that we will see the world--But I have! I've seen this world ugly, filthy, awful--I've seen terrible things done by those that should've protected them--I've seen death, and cruelty, and despair! From out of sight... I see so much of people!"

Mami inhales, shoulders lifting, "...But that awfulness isn't all that there is. People can be selfish, and petty, but they can be so loving. I've seen so many lives going on, unaware of any of the monsters that would take them in an instant given the chance. ...Watched, as the time I gave meant that they got to have a little more of their own."

"...I love the life I have. And I don't--I ''won't''--regret the time I've been given to help the people of Shibuya and beyond. For all the terrible things that have happened..."

"I ''asked'' for this life. And I won't give it to you so easily!"

''Believe'', the stars whisper, and though it is dark, Mami knows the lights she sees. The hand that does not exude a beam of light moves, as Mami looks beside her--and she reaches out, to take Sayaka's hand in hers, and squeezes her fingers. "...How could I?" she says more softly. "Especially now?"

BEAMWAR! Mami Tomoe has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales,
Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Kasagami leans into the beam emitting from her hand as if pressing a blade down harder upon an opponent. Her eye is half lidded, and the sheer ''might'' being directed at all of them is enough that her bones seem to quiver in her body. She licks her lips, glaring.

This savage, horrible person wishes to destroy everything. And worse still, she taunts them all while doing it, trying to tear down their believing hearts.

"So because the world isn't made of gleaming gold, you expect us to simply stop trying!? People are flawed, and weak, they lash out at each other! Their own greed and desires makes them hurt other people. Even...even the pain that they've gone through pushes them to hate and seek a destraction from nightmares!" She starts. The world is a place of hurting.

Her free hand swipes a dramatic line in the air. "But there's a spark of nobility in the world too that's worth preserving! Friendship, love, joy and ambition! The care of a Mother for her child! Willingness to defend the lives and precious memories of the departed from the dark things that seek to steal it away! Dark things like YOU! Without demons such as yourself, maybe this world would be a little brighter!" Teeth grind.

The starlight tells them to believe. And so, Kasagami puts her trust in her friends and her own grand dreams. One hand grips her wrist, and she howls a warcry as her own beam grows that much more reflective and luminous in ambitious reds.

"I'll be taking that light and holding it up along with everyone, even if it burns me to cinders!"

BEAMWAR! Kasagami Araki has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales, Homura
Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Ladybug [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance - Majestic Wings - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x76CZIUmDKM

There's panic and triumph, confidence and surprise, a dozen lights in a thousand spectra opposing the rising tide of darkness. Hope clashes against oblivion, and holds.

Briefly. Until Metallia starts trying. Eternity has waited for this moment, and will not be denied lightly. Ladybug is barely able to hold herself up, let alone hold up the hopes of a world, and the eclipse mocks all their dreams as it prepares to consume them all.

But those hopes are real.

Everyone around her has hopes. Words of love, of conquest, of ambition and of cheer. There's conviction surrounding enough that the girl behind the mask hesitates to speak up, feeling like her own dreams are too petty to even bring up.

But there's a single word from the stars, entreating her to believe, and Ladybug takes a deep breath.

"You think we don't know that? You think we don't know that the world waiting out there is full of ugly people and terrible things?" The light from Ladybug's outstretched right hand falters a moment, losing its luster as she answers Metallia. "We're not the stupid children you think we are. We know the world out there isn't some beautiful jewel ready for the taking."

Her left hand wipes at her mask - and the spotted disguise fades. The rest of Ladybug's outfit remains, but without the mask Marinette's face is revealed to those who know her - at least, to those who hadn't known already.

"We have to make it beautiful. That's what I'm really dreaming of - not some idyllic life, not some fairytale romance. Half my room at home is full of dresses and suits and all kinds of things, the fashion line I'm going to make a reality!" Marinette's left hand joins her right, and spots of black join the stream of crimson - a strange mottled pattern, but with hues of pink and green and blue weaving themselves into the torrent. A black pigment is just everything combined, after all.

"If the world's really that horrible to behold, then I'm going to make it beautiful!" That faltering stream of Marinette's, blended with colours myriad, shines bright and pours forth. Spots and all.

BEAMWAR! Ladybug has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname,
Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

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

Lancelot slides backwards a few feet, his armored boots squeel on the floor of the throne room as he moves. He doesn't let up though. He drops Arondight (and can hear Mikoto gasp in horror in his head) and puts his sword hand at the base of the lighting he's throwing. Once that hand is there he pushes back. The lighting bolt appears to grow slightly larger with a boom of thunder that echoes in the throne room. He takes a step forward and lets out a low growl that begins somewhere in his gut and reverbrates in his throat.

"I won't quit."

Three words, and he grits his teeth as he locks eyes with that massive form up there glaring down and literally throwing hate at him and his friends here, and in generla the whole world. He can't fail. He failed once.

In his mind's eyes Camelot burns. He kneels next to his best friend as he dies, cradling him in his lap and shed's tears that sting the cuts on his cheeks. So many friends died, his home, becuase he failed.

He won't do that gain. He won't fail.

He narrows his eyes. "I won't let you take bacon from me. Or Mountain Dew." he smirks. "But most importantly I won't let you hurt my sister, the Earth, OR THOSE I LOVE" As he calls out those last few words there is another boom of thunder as he pours on the power. Images of his friends and his loved onces flash through his head.

Mikoto and their sparring sessions and sword discussions over Bacon gorging.

Kenjiro and late night Video Gaming with copious amounts of Mt Dew.

Mama Sama and Papa Kun. Both huge roll models and points on his moral compass.

Eri-chan and her damn vegetables, but more importantly her warm embraces when he's feeling defeated.

Mai-chan. Just ... Mai-chan. So many emotions swirl there. Words unsaid, a cake that was probably better not eaten. And her smile. Always, her smile.

The thunderous boom creates a wave that scatters ice crystals that might be loose on the ground around him. He never breaks eye contact with those large eyes glaring down on them all. She may not notice him, but he's going to give everything he has to stopping her in this very instant.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Belief is still where it all begins for the Magic Knights. The first and most critical lesson they learned in Cephiro was that the strength of belief within one's heart is the foundation of one's power in that world; the power of their belief is the source of their magic.

And words intended to dishearten, to plunge the magical girls into despair, utterly fail to shake the Wind Knight's own belief.

"Even if the world is dirty and corrupt," the Wind Knight retorts, "there are still things each of us wishes to protect - things, *people*, so precious to us that we *will* stake our lives, our hearts, and our souls to defend them! You, who know only the power to destroy, cannot imagine what we love enough to protect with all our beings!"

Certainly the Wind Knight has seen parts of the world she'd rather excise from it, if the power rested in her hands ... but even if she had that power, she knows better than to assume she has the purity of wisdom to make such changes. And so her choice is clear - she *will* fight for the world as it is, for the sake of those people and things which she loves.

Even in the face of total obliteration.

Even if it means her own utter annihilation.

Because to save herself, but lose those she holds dear, would be to save nothing at all.

She pours forth all that she can muster, reaching deep into her own heart; if they lose this battle, it won't matter whether Fuu makes it safely home to her family - if the Wind Knight falls, the rest of the Hououji family will die at Metallia's will and Fuu can apologize in the next world, assuming Metallia even allows *that* much mercy to any of their souls.

BEAMWAR! Fuu Hououji has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Steven Universe, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi,
Princess Mars, Lancelot, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!
BEAMWAR! Lancelot has placed his bid! Sayaka Miki, Steven Universe, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi,
Princess Mars, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

This being is unlike any fought before. Something foreign, far and away compared to what has been seen before. They say the machinations of ants are nothing to a person. This is an apt example of such a saying. And they are the ants.

The way she talks so calmly is unnerving. This is a game to her. A way to stretch before a workout.

The voidlike energy surges forward against the kaleidoscope of energy fighting it. It makes distance, being held back only moments from collision. And yet, the Maiden doesn't give up on them. A similar being of unfathomable power in her own right, though not alone.

As if a prism, she is only as powerful as those she reflects. Steven concentrates as that energy continues to well up from somewhere inside and out his hand, the roseate energy whipping around him.

"I won't let my mom's sacrifices thousands of years ago, and with me, go in vain today! If you think I'm just gonna take this, you are wrong!"

A deep breath. His heart speaks.

"I am not strong. I am not fast. I am not nearly as talented as everyone else here!" He smiles as the Maiden talks. As if on some kind of awesome mindreading queue.

"...But what I do best... is believe!" It would be an understatement to say that while Steven has magical powers, his compassion and belief is by far his strongest power of all.

"And I believe in our ability to stop you! Everyone has their whole lives ahead of them, and you have no right to take it away from them!"

He pours everything he possibly can into his energy, and if flares to life, radiating multiple shades of pink.

"We all believe!"

BEAMWAR! Steven Universe has placed his bid! Sayaka Miki, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess
Mars, Princess Serenity, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Princess Serenity [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> The Power of Love - BSSM OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esBJKglRv24

It is a difficult thing to defy Queen Metallia all the same. Her words are insidious, marking the battle endlessly futile, naming their motive revenge, twisting about how their defeat is inevitable, and even if it weren't - that it is pyrrhic. For their feelings will mirror her own, perhaps to eclipse them.

... save for the fact that they're doomed.

And her power intensifies, closing the gap against them. The light of their dreams and feelings are...

Usagi Tsukino sees herself in her high school uniform, surrounded by friends. Usagi Tsukino sees her lips closing in for a kiss. Usagi Tsukino's high school uniform exchanged for a wedding gown. And she sees glimpses, glimmers of the others. Their wonderful feelings brought to fruition in ephemeral visions of their dreams.

She hears them spoken from Mars' own lips, on how everyone will know her name. From Mami how she has everything she wanted. And others besides. In a smile. And in a held hand.

"I..." The tears that have stung her eyes, now feel like something sublime and wonderful, her brow writ in determination as she echoes.

"...believe..."

Steadying herself, her own light begins to intensify, and as if she were trying to give voice to this feeling, she answers Queen Metallia, "...in this world. A world where all of these dreams can come true."

Queen Metallia stated never, like it was something she cannot comprehend. Yet at the same time, she'd never heard of a historian who could mark the Silver Millenium on a calendar. How long has it been since Princess Serenity died? Perhaps an eternity unto itself. And yet...

... and yet she can still see blue, red, green, and orange lit around her. Along with the myriad of colors from friends she's made in this life. This time.

"Even when you brought an end to everything before - I was still was reunited with my friends! We were given a second chance to make new lives and new dreams for ourselves! To fight to preserve the precious dreams of all the friends we met! I will never stop believing in a world which has the potential to make such wonderful things happen!"

And with that comes a sudden burst of feeling from her, as she redoubles her efforts to try and beat back the night.

"That you think our motivation was ever revenge... is too sad. We didn't come here for that! But we will protect our shining future - we won't let you take it away from us!"

BEAMWAR! Princess Serenity has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess
Mars, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene des Opales [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOG3eus4ZSo

They're giving their all and it isn't working.

Some part of la Sirene, the part of her that is simply 'her' and will never be 'cured' the same way you cannot 'cure' a stone or the Sun, is unsurprised. The rest of her tenses down, hearing the others near her, feeling them, seeing them. But the great being speaks.

Never IS a very, very long time.

Inconcievably long... a being from deep time. La Sirene wonders if this is kin to the Mother but there is not much room to think such things.

The ray is coming closer. I wonder if it will hurt, la Sirene thinks, before she sees, inexplicably, her baby brother floating before her.

She blinks once. It resolves more. The faces of the two other Sirens she has met - and then the third, the reigning Queen, who looks much better than she did; others, too. Some are the faces she sees here. There is a garret window looking out onto Luxor Bay, a vision of her dormitory room and the sight of Meduse and Batiste raising their leftmost limbs as if in echo of her.

"This world... even were you right," la Sirene says, her voice langorous with the spiritual effort: "Even if you were right... there are other worlds. Not only those we walk, but within every person there is a world... a world only dimly glimpsed... you would call them all ugly, each and every one? I would envy your certainty... if I did not know you were wrong."

The buttons on her blouse start to pop. Her sleeves come partway undone, the opalline fragments hanging in a haze around her. The forward flap of the blouse leans forwards, revealing a silk underlay which la Sirene touches with her right hand, over her heart.

"For a world that has such beautiful friends and beautiful dreams within it... the worst you could say is, oh! how beautiful the lotus, that grows in such mire..."

La Sirene's eyes close.

"It's a funny word," she muses.

Her eyes open again. They are colorless.

"If."

Her pulse quickens.

"I have walked a world in instants. I have fought peril, with joy... And I have seen the dead return. This is a day that has truly been," and here la Sirene's eerie eyes flick towards Sourisi, "miraculous," then back to Metallia:

"The impossible is possible, tonight."

She feels herself tighten in ways she did not know that she could and the passion soars out of her, the storm-blue light shifting towards an almost-ultraviolet, borderline-black radiance. And yet it is not despair or, exactly, sorrow: It is one of those feelings without quite a name, the sense of tumbling back headlong into something. With joy or with despair -- although of course, it is most decidedly the former.

BEAMWAR! La Sirene des Opales has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, and Queen
Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Arrogance. That is what Metallia seems to be the embodiment of right now.

That arrogance is well earned. Though Sourisi doesn't knows it well, this is an entity that destroyed a civilization from eons past and was only sealed away due to the will of one Queen. This is also a being that, despite being freshly released from her bonds, is already immensively strong and is only becoming more so as time goes on.

This becomes even more apperant as Queen Metallia lowers down her second hand and exerts so much more raw -power- upon them all, that the pillar of light and hope in this world starts to shrink. So much hate, fury, disdain for all that exists in the universe bears down upon their dreams.

It's sad in it's own way, even when they're almost overwhelmed by this threat.

Queen Metallia's words, meant to break Sourisi's will to stand and fight, is what tempers her desire to finish this more than ever. If this enemy, this entity has watched them through their struggles...how could it fail to see something so simple? Ladybug, clever Ladybug is aware of this as much as her!

"That is the reason why I took up fighting in the first place! Not for magical powers or see things I would never even dream possible. It's the fact that the world is filled with so much ugliness to the world already, which makes the beautiful parts of it all that more precious! I fight to protect that which is all and good in this world, and to give everyone a chance to see that good as well!"

A flicker of movement from Ladybug has Sourisi glancing over out of curiousity, but that curiousity turns into full blown shock upon seeing who exactly it was under that mask. So many questions fill her mind...but only to be shelved for now. Later, and there -will- be a later, they will be brought out to ask a friend. But now isn't the time for that.

And it isn't fair to leave a friend to shoulder a burden on her own. A free hand reaches up to remove an eye mask, and Niramo lets her face be seen by her magical friends and allies by the world. It's moments like these when you should know who you stand with!

Raising her second hand, Niramo glares up past the light pouring from her hands, at the encroaching darkness that threatens to engulf them. Now is not the time to give it to the night! "And i'm going be there every step of the way! Dresses are not my forte, but good food makes warm comfort for all of my friends!"

BEAMWAR! Sourisi has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Princess Mars, and Queen Metallia still need to
bid!

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Amethyst Blossom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0uotGXcu08&t=1340s (just the one song, not the whole album)

The darkness marches toward them, Metallia impels it forward -- and her words are as terrible as the power she wields, as oppressive and as potent. She talks of an ugly world, and Homura might have agreed with her, once -- from the unknowing despair of a sad and lonely childhood rather than the inhumanly expansive perspective of an undying queen, but...

But she's holding Madoka's hand, now.

Memories play out in the light before her, drawn out from her own heart.

She's the senpai of the beautiful, wise Mami Tomoe. Sayaka Miki called her cool and accepted her. The unbearably glamorous Nori has both affection and a pet name for her. Mikoto Minagi's love for her is so direct, so demonstrative, that Homura cannot doubt it. None other than the Ohtori Class President herself took a personal interest in her grades and her future. And with Eri, she's discovered the unexpected comfort of a kindred spirit.

Homura draws a brave little breath. She shifts her hand so her fingers interlace with Madoka's instead of clasping around her palm. Her cheeks are red -- no escaping blushes for her -- but she holds fast, and speaks up.

"The world... the world is a good place! I know it! I have... I have friends now, and they're the most amazing people I've ever known." She draws a deep breath, and her voice quivers a bit -- saying the next words to Metallia is nothing like easy, but Homura has done harder things. "You're wrong. I'm... I'm sorry you haven't had a chance to see how good the world can be. It can seem awful... But you're wrong!"

She believes, and she throws all of that belief into the beautiful beam blooming from her upheld palm. Homura Akemi is not the frightened, depressive girl she once was, and it is thanks to the friends she made -- thanks to the girl holding her hand, the girl who saved her. She has blossomed, and the brilliance of it shines forth in violet to refute Metallia's darkness.

BEAMWAR! Homura Akemi has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Madoka Kaname, Princess Mars, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Believe.

How could she not?

A grimace does not touch the determination in Sayaka's eyes. The credits aren't rolling yet after all, but what's another yard? What's another mile, or a thousand? When the stakes are this high, when the dreams of humans and the greed of the void clash together on a vast scale, it has a way of zooming things out. All the black and white in the world blends together like static. On a small scale, evil can triumph, bullies often win, and wrongs may never be righted. But from far away, all that blurred-together static... Sayaka is sure it is bright.

It hurts, to keep this up. It hurts to open a heart. It's scary to want something you're not sure will happen. Sayaka had always understood the rot around her better than her classmates, and had no idea what to do with that knowledge. But Madoka gave her a hilt to grasp, a way to change things. Kyuubey gave her a mission. And Madoka's coworker, Mami, gave her a date she didn't know she'd asked for.

Sayaka watches Mami's confession, her heresy against despair. Her blue eyes tremble as she takes Mami's hand again. It's the most dangerous thing a girl can believe: that the world is a good place.

Sayaka's always believed in dangerous things.

Mami squeezes Sayaka's hand, and the song of strings ripples dramatically up the blue shaft of light. Five loose, ephemeral cords stretch--whether they are strings themselves or the lines on which the music is drawn is not clear, and perhaps they are both. The song is soft against the roar of so much hatred and hope, but it is Sayaka's. She swallows as she stares into Mami's eyes. Her reaction to the soft words of devotion is pouring out of her palm right now, and Sayaka feels exposed by that, her feelings unfiltered, her repression irrelevant.

"Mami-san," Sayaka says softly. "I know this is a really bad time. And I don't really know if it's true, because I don't know how to tell." Her fingers slip deeper between Mami's, to grasp for support. She bites her lower lip. "I j-just sort of thought you should know, that I feel like I'm maybe sorta fall--"

For the rest, Mami will have to read lips, because what had been a solo is suddenly a symphony. The sapphire beam sings out.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Mars [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Revenge? Certainly there is history written here, old failures and lives snuffed out like candles. Some of them feel it more keenly than others - Minako most of all. Even Rei, who does not care to be dictated by destiny, feels the complex web of emotion which surrounds the destroyer of their Kingdom.

But revenge is such a cynical reflection of what pushes them forward. Even as the shade floods over them, a mockery of their shades, that light does not fade. Blue, red, green, orange.

"You will take NOTHING!" Princess Mars shouts, and it is not simply the hot anger of vengeance but a deep, fierce love, ever-ready to move to the defence of their happiness. How sad Metallia cannot see it. Mars will not mourn.

The world is ugly, she says, as the beam pushes forward. Princess Mars sets her jaw, locks one hand behind the other, pushes back. It is not unlike an ant pushing at the gargantuan wheels of an airbus.

There are images, there are dreams, indistinct at first but promising, promising.

"Ugly?" Rei puffs out a breath, lips curling over her teeth in something between grimace and smirk. If she forces her expression to cooperate, perhaps it will seem like it is easy. "The only ugly thing I see here is you. What could be more ugly than looking at everything this world has done - and saying it's unworthy? Sure, some people are pretty bad..."

Black laps at them about the edges and it is like ice in her chest, and Rei tilts her chin up, an image of total confidence. "... but there's this daft, obnoxious, amazing girl who convinced me everyone's worth giving a chance." Her fingers lace in together, as if in memory. "And you know, when you start giving people a chance... you start making friends."

Like the girl who insisted on calling her -chan as soon as they met, or the girl who was kind even when she was rough, or the girl who always had her back in leaping before thinking, or the girl who modelled all the things she so wanted to be.

Like the girl in ribbons who laughed as they came out of the theatre, because even if the movie was bad at least they went through the pain together; or the girl who joined her after class despite the whispers of her classmates; or the girl who patiently waited so long for her to warm up after years of remove at archery meetups, or the girl who doggedly tried to befriend her even after she learned that the target of her efforts had such command of the fire she feared.

And when she thinks of them she does not have to force her expression, any more. "... like I'd let you threaten all their dreams... for even one second!" Princess Mars declares, as red light flares and grows anew.

Around Princess Serenity, hers is not the only heart to rally around their belief.

Blue, green, orange.

They have never stood alone.

They are not out for revenge.

BEAMWAR! Princess Mars has placed her bid! Sayaka Miki, Madoka Kaname, and Queen Metallia still need to bid!
BEAMWAR! Sayaka Miki has placed her bid! Madoka Kaname and Queen Metallia still need to bid!

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Believer (Vitamin String Quartet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2cSyROtNmk

Believe.

What does Madoka Kaname believe in?

'Her friends' is the first and facile choice. It being an easy answer doesn't make it a shallow one, or a wrong one.

It is her universal constant. Her deepest fundamental.

She believes in Usagi, and her pink is the same pink on those ribbons, the ribbons that solidify into the armor of a pretty soldier. The ribbons in the tiny bows she wore at their last picnic in the park.

She believes in Nori, and her pink is the pink she saw in the mirror when she cried her eyes out in her friend's bathroom -- and then in her arms.

She believes in Steven, and her pink is his pink too, the pink of his shirt, of his Gem -- of the sparkles in his eyes when he sees someone new to befriend.

She believes in Mami, and now her pink pales into the surface of a porcelain teacup. Into the throw cushion she always picks out there. Into the inside of senpai's mouth when she's bold enough to yawn in her presence.

She believes in Sayaka, and her pink is the pink of her lips as they flinched five minutes ago from the kiss Mami so very much deserved. The pink of dawn, when they meant to go to bed but never did because they stayed up all night talking instead. The pink of the carpet where their hair mingled when they fell asleep doing all the summer homework in one go.

She believes in Homura. Ah~

And she believes in all the girls, in all her friends -- her pink is all of theirs and more. Some see pink as a label and reject it. Some see pink as a trophy and embrace it. Pink is delicate and temporary like sakura (and that cup at senpai's, the cup she broke, and was forgiven for). Pink is fluffy and gentle like clouds on the lake. Pink is silly like flamingos -- and strong, have you ever seen them ''bite''? Pink is her favorite, is Madoka's--

--oh. Pink is me. It's my pink.

It's pouring off her now, not just from her palm, but from everywhere.

i

She is a chalice, and she overflows.

believe

It explodes above and below her -- she is a column of light.

in

And from behind her -- vast wings of pure energy unfurl, growing like fresh spring shoots, fast and hard and yet sweet and soft. They shelter.

me

While in front of her, the staff -- her staff -- is where it's been all along, since she thrust it into the snow to save Homura.

The rose blooming furiously at its tip burns like it's the eighth star.

BEAMWAR! Madoka Kaname has placed her bid! Queen Metallia still needs to bid!
BEAMWAR! Queen Metallia has placed her bid!
BEAMWAR! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Mami Tomoe, Fuu Hououji, Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi,
Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, and Princess Serenity rally, their What Dreams May Come exploding
through Queen Metallia's Dark Star for a total of 1930 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki, Kasagami Araki, Mami Tomoe, Fuu Hououji,
Steven Universe, Ladybug, La Sirene des Opales, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sourisi, Princess Mars, Lancelot, and Princess
Serenity are victorious!
BEAMWAR! Madoka Kaname and Queen Metallia are unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Metallia [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Moonlight Densetsu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bBpiHJm3t0

"Fools! Everyone is born alone and dies alone! Your connections, your support -- ephemeral, fleeting constructs!"

Seeing that the array of magical girls is failing to fall to her quick efforts, Metallia's expression turns wrathful.

And as the girls begin to draw together, to gestalt their strong resolution, deep faith, and pure love through the conduit of the Maiden of Dreams, the darkness surrounding them, in shattered earth and veiled sky, intensifies. It's hard to say where it's coming from, exactly -- this evil power seems to be absolutely everywhere, surrounding and binding.

All of it, streaming towards the demoness' form. She is its genesis and is expression, the alpha and the omega.

The essence of the descent, at least in this moment.

With an enraged roar she thrusts her palms outwards, trying to race the girls, to blast them out of existence faster than they can summon their full powers. A torrent of void pours towards them, casting evil halos where it refracts their light.

But their power -- Planetary power, Earthly power, powers from worlds far and near, powers from without and powers from within... it rises to meet the tide of darkness head on, and as it does so it merges truly into one. No longer a rainbow; instead a strobe, one color at a time but always all of it itself.

There is no single shade of the heart, and so although it is encompassed by a massively silver sheen, what impacts Metallia's deathblow is breathtakingly lovely and spectacular. It is hope, as purely as she is hunger.

They strain back and forth for a long moment, and then -- not inevitably but inexorably, and only with the contributions of each and every individual on the field -- the magical girls begin pushing Metallia back.

"WHAT?!"

The light approaches her palms, inch by inch.

"NO! After all these years, I will not be sealed again! I will not!"

It looks like she doesn't have to worry about that, because as the light touches her fingers, they are vaporized -- as are her wrists, her arms, and then the rest of her, all at once, as the energy rushes through in a bursting dam of hearts.

The Silverine Dreaming, that memory of light, revealed a miracle forged alone. Even it could only send Metallia away.

With everyone together, something greater has been wrought. A true ending of darkness --

-- and a new beginning for the light.

As the clouds overhead recede, the revealed night sky is almost blinding in its brightness. Each star twinkles with what feels like approval, in colors nearly as countless as those of the girls. Seven of them wink in unison.

And the Moon shines most brightly of all, as though the ancient Queen who fell to make tonight possible is blessing every girl and boy touched by its light. Another still, small voice, which couldn't be more unlike Metallia's, briefly whispers from within, quiet and clear in the night, in the heart.

Remember... the most important thing... is not that you're a princess or a knight or a chosen warrior. The most important thing... is that you are a person. Live on, and live in happiness, my child...

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

With every heart together, all of their dreams and desires and love for friends and family together, that horrific power is beaten back. At first, even together, it seems a dim hope to Kasagami. But as they push, as she helps press harder and harder, Kasagami stands more and more firm.

"You should never have been free to hurt anyone in the first place." Comes the Duelist quietly. There's no anger or hatred here. Instead, there's simple pity for Metallia as the beam of their hearts finally tears into and banishes the old tyrant that would have cut them all down along with everything they've known.

When the light returns, the Moon shining high above, Kasagami looks up to peer at the beauty overhead. The many colors in the stars, and most importantly? The wonderful light on high and the whispers that touch the ear and stirr her heart.

'Live on, and live in happiness, my child.'

The words hurt, but it's the hurt of cleansing alcohol on a wound. Of a spike of warmth after getting in from the cold. Kasagami Araki looks over to her dear friends, this crowd of magical girls and boys, nodding to each and every one of them. She sits down, one leg crossed, the other with her knee propped up as she leans on it. Sword laid down beside her, she closes her eyes.

And then collapses, only to look at the sky again. One hand rises, fingers open to heaven.

"Mother...Father...is that what you'd say to me? It's hard..."

A gentle wind kicks up a light sway of her dark tresses.

"Maybe with the help of those I love, I can try." She whispers in turn. After a few moments lost in her own thoughts, she goes to join the others, the spark in her eyes that much brighter.

<Pose Tracker> Ladybug [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

There's a legend written in the moonlight. It started thousands of years ago, and the latest chapter just ended. Silver light, shining forth, puts an end to Metallia's newfound existence. Unlike that memory of the Silver Millennium, though...there won't be another one. Above it all, moonlight shines against the stars.

It takes a moment for Marinette's eyes to focus again. For one, the clash of dreams against oblivion was nigh-blinding in its intensity, and frankly she's still seeing spots. For another, she's finally looking at the here and now, instead of looking to some distant future or to some half-built ambition. It's...a little disorienting, but here they are.

"After all those thousands of years...it's finally over. We're all free of that shadow. ...thank you." To the distant memory of Queen Serenity, to the conviction of the Maiden of Dreams, Ladybug speaks to the stars. Abruptly, she makes a fist, holds it out towards those shining heavens, a smile on her face. "And well played."

Whether she was left hanging or if the fist-bump was invisible to all others might be a mystery for the ages.

She turns to the rest of the group, tension going out of her shoulders. Here, she doesn't have to be a hero of justice, a force against darkness. She can just be...a person, with a dream of her own. One red-gloved hand reaches up to touch her face, considering...

But in the end, at least for now, Marinette leaves it be.

"So, uh...I'm going to be horribly honest, I'm used to having to run off with something like two minutes to spare. We're, uh..." Marinette's blush isn't quite the same as her usual crimson domino mask as Ladybug, but it's making a pretty good stab at a start. "...we made it. We all survived and get to go out and back up what we said we were going to do in future and what was I even saying there-"

She looks back and forth between the closest dozen, those who she joined for this last stand. "...would...would any of you be offended if I put my mask back on? I'm really a lot better at talking and...everything with it on."

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

Lancelot falls to a knee and puts one hand to the cold ground there. That hand, near the hilt of Arondight trembles slightly and he closes his eyes and jsut thanks whatever god or colelction of gods, or after everything he's seen, collection faeries and dinosaurs in their rainbow court that govern the universe. He takes a shakey breath and lets it out before he gathers Arondight, and still on one knee sheathes the blade after a quick twirl.

He hears the final words and manages, by the skin of his teeth, to not cry this time. As she wishes his to live on, and in happiness he says very softly, "Thank you, for all you've done."

He stands up and looks over to Ladybug, minus her mask and smiles that infectiously rogue grin of his at her. "Thank you. When we were fighting our way here. I wouldn't have made it without your help." He tilts his head, and transforms.

Unlike turning into Lancelot, turning into Takeo is much less dramatic. The armor glows and then fades from existence in little flashing motes of lightning. The last thing to go is Arondight. A final soft crackle as the Demon's Bane returns to wherever it is it goes. Merlin explained once where his power comes from and where his armor and weapons go. He couldn't explain it if it was given to him on flash cards. He extends a hand to her and smiles. "My name is Takeo Akamizu. Ohtorri Grade eleven, class A." He bows his head ot her. "Pleasure to meet you." He winks to her, "And go ahead with the mask. I jsut figured you deserved to know who I was. I would have died with out you. Thank you."

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

There is a pink that is ''theirs'', and among everything, Mami too believes. The light pulses, all of theirs, now.

And here... It's dangerous, to distract someone during a critical battle; it's ''dangerous'', to say something important, in the midst of something else, it risks losing words. It's dangerous to look away from the enemy.

...But it's dangerous to believe that the world is good, and it's dangerous to open one's heart.

What Mami sees as Sayaka grasps her hand is not a distraction, though--opening her heart, one of those precious lights looking to her, too, only swells that devotion, that hope. Mami cares for so many... And she cares for this one, too.

And she does read Sayaka's lips, over beautiful music from all of them. A bad time...

Mami doesn't yawn, this time. Metallia makes her retort, and Mami does not look towards her, sees the light of friends in her vision and two blue eyes up close. This terrible darkness is ''ended'', and the stars above are so beautiful, so crisp, even as cold as it is here. Still Mami says nothing, even as she ''feels'' thos seven. This moment is real, is precious. And the voice...

Remember, it says--no, ''she'' says. An ancient voice that is a balm, and that encouragement... To live in happiness. To live on--Mami's very wish years ago.

"Sayaka-chan," Mami murmurs, in answer, and steps forward, a hand resting on Sayaka's bicep as she stands up on the balls of her feet and presses her lips to Sayaka's, and it is an answer even if it is not in words.

With the ice fields, the stars above, the shining moon, the brilliance of everyone here... She can give her words to the others after.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

With every last bit of his strength, Steven pours his heart into the pink colored beam of positivity made into energy. There was no way he would give up. It would be fine if it was just him, but he was living for two. And he couldn't let them down, now could he? And that doesn't even include every one of his friends here today either!

"It may be fleeting," the boy shouts over the powers that scream between. "But it is the most wonderful thing anyone can ever experience! The power of friendship!" In retrospect, that felt a little cheesy, and...

No, ya know what? He thinks it fits. In this moment... it fits.

In glorious, scintillating fashion, Queen Metallia is undone by an opposing force that reflected her own, negative versus positive. Light versus dark/ And as times before, the light banishes the darkness.

Everything grows serene and peaceful. The cancerous power that festered in this place recedes much the the little boy's cheer, and a hand is held out to look upon moonlight shining into a palm. A voice is heard deep within. Never heard by ear, yet so familiar.

Steven remains tense even after it speaks, as he looks around where they are. Was something else could to crawl out fro mthe depths of despair and strike?

...Thankfully no. For a small time, the small child gazes to his shield. He looks at it longingly for what feels like forever, before gently tossing it into the air, it winking out at the apex of its spin and height, pink sparkles remaining behind for scant moments. "We... really did it that time!"

"I'm uh... really happy I could help," he says sheepishly. There are so many things he wants to say, especially to the princesses. He wants to tell them how much he looks up to them after this, how they are like role models to him besides his caretaker-moms!

...But today has been very stressful for them, for certain. Maybe he should let them have their space.

...

...Nah. Gotta gush! "You guys were super cool!" Is just that start of what he levels at them. And in turn, he starts practically cheering about everyone here, from Puella Magi, to Knights, to Duelists and Miraculous, and to the fashionable la Opales of course.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka lifts a forearm to shield her eyes from the radiance. Slowly letting it drop, she watches falling sparkles, her heart in her throat. It's a joy that's almost sad. That there could be such beauty in the world is worth weeping for. Perhaps the sky thinks so too, tonight.

Sayaka turns slowly back to Mami. The older girl has always been in soft focus for Sayaka lately, but now that is literally true, as the haze of falling light and hopelit snow drenches everything that is golden about Mami until it suffuses her. The unheard confession is still burning on her lips, her eyes wide with uncertainty. But Mami's beauty softens her shoulders and steals tension from her cheeks.

Mami's delicate hand alights on the strength of her swordarm. Mami's boots bend to extend her legs. And before Sayaka can finish an indrawn breath, the confession lingering on her lips is quenched so fully it might as well be at the bottom of the ocean.

"Mm?" she queries, which might be Mami's name, and might just be noise. Dizzied, Sayaka feels a headrush nearly take her down mid-kiss, one of her knees bending briefly. But brief though it may be, Sayaka understands how crucial this moment is.

So this is the happy ending. Sayaka's back straightening, the snow scattered on her cape glittering like all the stars in the sky. Two little joys among thousands. The knight, at long last, kisses her queen.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Serenity [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> To Protect the Stars 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vws9UuQmCi0

It starts as a small push. And then strains into a larger one. The lights of the dreams and feelings of all these girls. Princess Serenity beholds them all.

... there's this daft - obnoxious...

"Nnnh-" Suddenly Princess Serenity is pushing harder. One can almost hear her about to complain in the myriad forms it can take right now.

Mars! Rei-chan!

...amazing girl who convinced me everyone's worth giving a chance.

Oh it was praise after all. The little knot of tension releases, and instead becomes her beaming with pride as her feelings shove back.

Princess Serenity's eyes pick out the lights of those beholding the struggle. Of Ami and Makoto and Minako but also Madoka and Mami and Sayaka and Homura and Nori and Ladybug Kasagami and Fuu and Niramo and Takeo and Steven.

A wellspring of color, and belief. Joining.

And then... it's over. The power that brought an end to the Silver Millenium destroyed, not simply sealed. "... Thank you." Princess Serenity says to a Maiden of Dreams, who is...

Overhead, seven stars wink in approval.

There's a subtle smile, "You didn't need to leave right away you know. When you're ready - come find me..." Then she corrects herself, "... us... again."

However the smile fades away unto wonder, when suddenly there's an ancient nostalgia behind the voice that speaks to her. The Princess Serenity in her stands still for a moment, before more tears roll down her cheeks. "I will..." Being a normal girl is too precious to her to do otherwise. "... Mother."

Brushing away at her cheeks. When she turns around to face the others, she's smiling so brightly that one can't imagine she was sad even for a moment. And then she's leaning sideways into Princess Mars' personal space to whisper, "And just who ''exactly'' is that amazing girl that inspired you Rei-chan?" Princess Serenity asks almost brattily, because she definitely knows the answer, she just wants to try to get Rei Hino to ''say'' it. "Hmm... hmm?" As she presses, even now, within the shower of light.

Perhaps there's even laughter from how normal this is of Usagi, and each gets one quick, fierce little hug that seems to belie the capabilities of her skinny arms.

"You did more than help Steven." Princess Serenity finally says to the young boy, as he gushes and calls them cool, "I imagine you've made the Crystal Gems very proud of you."Which is when Marinette starts fumbling over her words, "Hmmm." She puts a hand to her chin, "You're adorable like this though Marinette-chan." It's an innocent sort of tease which holds none of the regality that she's known for. Before she flaps a hand back at her, "Of course you can put it back..."

However, this is the exact moment that she notices Mami kissing Sayaka Miki. And thus, it's the moment that Princess Serenity's cheeks become all flushed by how unexpected it is. "...on."

Princess Serenity trails off, eyes glued to Mami kissing Sayaka Miki.

Princess Serenity waits until the two are finished without comment. As soon as they're finished, she's stepping over to Madoka lightly, waiting until she's unoccupied to wrap her in a small, yet fierce hug with her arms as she murmurs, "You know... I feel like I wouldn't have gone very far as Sailor Moon if not for you. When things where are their worst... I just tried to remember the things you taught me..."

Those are not simple things like how to fight - or react. They were powerful magic spells though all the same, of believing in one's self. What one is capable of. And the people around you.

"... rather than what happened last time... when the Silver Millenium came to an end."

It's only once she releases her though, and is standing at her side, that she turns to face Sayaka and Mami. She certainly meant every word she said to Madoka...

... however now that she's beside her. It feels like the perfect opportunity all the same.

"Soooo...." She drawls, her smile seeming especially girlish, "... when did..." A finger traces the space between Mami, then Sayaka, then both of her hands form something like a heart. "... happen?"

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

The light of the Moon shines once more upon the frigid tomb that is the Dark Kingdom. The throne room of a Queen that caused the fall of a great civilization sparkles with mysterious light now. Does evil still linger in these halls, even with Metallia gone? Or is this room have it's own inner light than can only shine through now.

That's not for Sourisi to say. Above all else, she's happy to be here to assist her friends.

The gentle wind that lingers still tugs at a strip of tan magical cloth in a hand, and suddendly Sourisi remembers there's a few more pressing details going on at the moment. Marinette was Ladybug?! But...she-they...they were nothing alike! Aaaand she got caught up in the moment and took her own mask off as well.

The lecture from Takk is going to be -legendary- tonight.

Quickly attaching her eye mask back onto her face while all the while realizing her 'secret' identity was going to be an open secret now, Sourisi turns to look around her and at the others...just in time to see the student that assisted her against some bullies was the magical knight?! That...might actually explain why he helped at the ball so long ago. But...why was he speaking French to Marinette? Did the two of them know each other that well?

And...oh. Oh my. Sourisi's blush is clear even as she turns away from Mami and Sayaka exchanging a kiss. This was something she shouldn't intrude on, even if it was in public.

Even as Steven cheers them on, Sourisi looks back up at the Moon, remembering the whisper of a voice from a bygone age. "It's not what you are...it's what you do with your life, is it?" Wasn't that also the message that Kasagami was trying to tell during the Dream Faire?

Sourisi has always wondered why she was picked to use a Miraculous. She wasn't the soul of a reborn person from a Moon civilization, or a descendant of magical aliens or some other wonderous backstory the magical defenders of Tokyo seem to have. She was just a normal girl who happened to stumble upon an artifact while shopping. Sometimes, she wonders if it was a mistake that she is a magical girl.

But then again, you don't need magic to fight for what you believe in, to want to make the world a better place. It just helps a little.

Sourisi looks away from the celestial object and smile over at Marin-no, Ladybug. "I think going without the eye mask is a bit of a fashion blunder, Ladybug-chan. 'Eye' can't believe it!" After a night like tonight, a small pun can go quite a long way.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene des Opales [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Perhaps," says des Opales: "But what about the middle?"

And then the darkness fades and the sky returns. The cold wind blows but despite her turned-back clothing la Sirene does not quite feel it. She breathes out, misting in the cool air, as she feels that memory - and wonders...

Her cheeks color slightly.

She tilts her head back to look at the stars above. She turns to face south (not that this is hard here), following shapes. She tilts her head down - to look towards the horizon...

Her arms cross before her loosely. "Hah," she tells herself. "That's right. Too far north... you cannot get any norther than this."

She looks towards Marinette - Ladybug - and smiles at her. "No," she tells her.

She looks towards - oh! Her eyes widen and her cheeks pinken a bit more as Mami Tomoe lays a firm and decisive smooch on Sayaka Miki. She claps her hands once. "Ahh! What a perfect place to --!!"

La Sirene reels backwards. Head rush.

She comes back to.

As Serenity speaks to Mars, la Sirene cuts in for a moment, to approach Madoka and to sweep her up into a brief and fierce hug. She smooths a stray lock of pink hair then and smiles at her gently, before leaning forward - down a little now, when it didn't used to be the case, but perhaps she is destined for height - to press her forehead against Madoka's. "Thank you," she says.

The embrace does not end so much as fade.

"Akemin," she then says, looking to Homura, "I do not suppose you have any fireworks left in your bag of tricks...? I think they would be quite proper." Though then she looks at the heavens once more.

"But the sky is beautiful like this, too."

("Maybe we can signal the Russian navy... or is it Canada? And Argentina and America too... maybe we could walk to Norway...")

<Pose Tracker> Ladybug [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

In the heat of the moment, Marinette needed to step forward. Now that the crisis has passed, though, the realization that everyone knows who she is and that every bad pun is entering the public record forever, well...

Lancelot steps up, and doffs his armor in a flash of light. On one hand, the solidarity is nice - Sourisi's de-masking was noted, and the girl in red gives that friend a sheepish wave. On the other hand, the sudden reveal to her manages to make Marinette panic even more.

"I - that - I didn't need to know! It was fine, really, and you helped me out of just as many pinches so we're even, okay?" She reaches out for the sheepiest, most timid fistbump of Ladybug's career.

Pauses, for a moment. Slowly, Ladybug tilts her head. "...you do know that not everyone else here can speak French, right? I figured it was fine on the way here, but..."

Her Juuban senpai speaks up next, and the flush on Marinette's face increases. "Senpai! Adorable isn't the point, and it's a panic, and you know who probably doesn't find panic adorable which means that my future prospects of all sorts are completely-" A breath, a long sigh. "I just- thanks. The whole thing was - it seems kind of silly now, but it was more than just making things fair this time."

There's a kiss that deservedly takes center stage, and Ladybug takes advantage of the diversion to swipe two fingers across her own face. By the time everyone stops gawking, she'll have her familiar domino mask back...for what little it might or might not help.

She makes her way over toward Sourisi, an apology ready on her lips - but is met with a joke that leaves her groaning. Indignant, Ladybug plants her hands on her hips, staring down her teammate and friend. "Enough has certainly been revealed...that was horrible! I hope you realize that I can never learn Chat's identity - dealing with those puns in both lives would be unlivable. Just - absolutely - "

In spite of that indignation, she's smiling. Before everything, after everything, they're people.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Mars [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

In a girl's life she will know many voices without a single one being said; the voice of reason, of criticism, of indulgence.

And - sometimes small and sometimes distant but always there - is conscience.

She is a person, and Princess Mars is Rei Hino, after all. As a Soldier she is harsh enough to assist in Metallia's obliteration; but it is her bonds as a girl which weave through, light on light on light. And it is over and Princess Mars stands firm, in the wake of a foe which has plagued them for centuries and centuries.

It's over.

She smiles - to the sky, to the girls and boys gathered. She gives Serenity privacy for her tears.

Unfortunately, this extremely thoughtful gesture means she is ''completely blindsided'' by the sudden familiar invasion of personal space. The nervous, disbelieving expression on her face is hardly fit for a Princess. "Ehh-- you heard that?" Her cheeks colour with embarrassment as she realises what she's blurted out, and she glares at Usagi, sticking out her tongue. "I can't believe you're worrying about something like that at a time like this!"

She gets a hug anyway. All the Senshi do.

And when she looks to the others, she is not nearly so snappish. "I'm glad everyone was here..." Perhaps she would have said more, if not for what Usagi has seen.

"Give them some privacy, geez!" She hisses, in a stage-whisper, elbowing her fellow Princess.

She says this without taking her eyes off of Mami or Sayaka for a moment, and when the other girl thinks to ask about when ''it'' happened, she leans forward as if the answer is the most important thing in the world.

<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Dream Is Collapsing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx5KJQb0pDo

The last of the huge pink leaves Madoka's tiny body in streamers, then in tendrils, and finally in sublimely delicate roots, until there is none left at all.

Her hand loosens, then leaves Homura's entirely, as she falls backwards into the snow -- both her arms stretching outward -- she's a snow angel!

She's smiling. She's smiling ''so'' hard, as she's hugged by Usagi, then by Nori.

A plume of rose-incense smoke drifts upwards from the torch that was her unstrung bow.

She's smiling so hard her teeth are grinding. No; she's grimacing.

"--Homu--ch--n!" A mangled gasp.

She isn't an angel and those aren't snow wings. No; her arms are seizing. And freezing. This is no place for the Ohtori girls' uniform.

What's that black thing on her palm?

A stone? No, too perfectly smooth.

An egg? No, too sharp.

Now its tip pierces her palm and its other end has the very last miniscule mote of pink -- a perfect, delicate facimile of one of her ribbons. Their ends tumble in the arctic breeze.

Her mouth gapes open, wider, wider. Her insides are pink too, of course. But this is no yawn.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI!"

It isn't just a scream that rips out of Madoka, out of her throat.

The fragile spherical housing of the Grief Seed crumples from the force of the black vapor surging out of it and disappearing, along with a final glimmer of something else, some other color, something else so small and so brief that it was probably imagined anyway -- upwards.

It accelerates with impossible speed, twining loosely around itself -- then more tightly -- then even more tightly still --

-- implosion --

Black lightning crackles.

Black rain falls -- no, it's streamers again, dozens of them, hundreds, thousands, tumbling downwards instead of up. It's like a vast, round tent.

No; a vast, round skirt.

And at its apex is the vapor yet, a cumulus cloud working itself into a thunderhead; it grows and grows and grows.

It grows arms. Then a nose. And two bulging eyes. And lips that make Metallia's look like a Barbie doll's, if we're talking about scale, though in terms of feature it's just an indent, a pucker, because this cloud can somehow scar.

The face

the face of the WITCH

Kriemhild Gretchen's face

towers, higher, higher, higher, until it's lost to distance

lost to the sky

lost to heaven

lost

lost like the top of a mountain is lost.

It -- she? -- does not go alone. Ice is cracking all around, belching fog. Flecks of snow take wing, then dissolve impossibly back into liquid; suspended in an unseen force the droplets are strange in their perfect sphericality.

Drawn upwards with the Witch's arms (still out-, now up-stretched, and no angel of any kind) the only light remaining is from the Moon -- as filtered through gaps in her form -- and it transforms them into itself, visually. Odd little moon-beads, whirling and jerking in unnatural orbits on their path to their new mistress.

Beneath, the earth groans.

Above, something else groans too.

Tinier than ever set against this backdrop, Madoka doesn't groan. She is absolutely still, which is what happens when you aren't a person anymore -- because you've become a corpse.

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

As Mami and Sayaki kiss he awkwardly fist bumps Marinette and gives her another wink. "It's cool. The armor chaffs in places you don't ... " His eyes go to Madoka.

"Want ... " She screams and he blinks a few times as she begins to ... change.

"To..." Takeo follows the growth skyward and his eyes just grow wider and wider.

"Know about.... Oh. Sh#% again." He scrambles for his oendent under his shirt clearly prepared to to suffer that chaffing once more. Madoka. Little pink haired Madoka. he saw her wear a Lancelot T-Shirt once. About the only person who ever did anything like that as far as he knew. Madoka. Happy cheerful bubbly and kinda cool Madoka.

And she was, or had turned into someting .... What did Eri call them? "Witch." He whispers and finally pulls the pendant out. "I SWEAR TO DEFEND THE INNOCENT!"

Like that Lighting strikes and he's armored up again.

Lancelot looks up at Madoka and sheds a tear. He's tired. He's hungry. He;s absolutely heart broken. However, he's in armor again, scared beyond belief, but he's ready to fight a Witch, even if he doens't have the heart for it.

And with that thought, Arondight flares to light crackling lightning, causing the tears that fall to glitter as they freeze in the Antartic air.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka loses some time.

Has anyone ever fallen so fast and so far from joy to despair?

Mami's kiss is still warm on her lips. It's selfish, Sayaka knows, but this feels like punishment from the universe. For being too happy. God help her, for paying attention to romance instead of friendship for a little while. Shame had always ruled Sayaka.

She's squatting in front of Madoka. She touches her face.

She loses a little more time.

"Hey," Sayaka whispers, and the whisper brings Sayaka back. There are a lot of things she could say. Hours of things. Maybe a lifetime. Sayaka knows already, with perfect clarity, that Madoka will be with her always. At graduation, in college, at her first job. On the track, on vacation. At her wedding, if she has one. When she's old. It is no comfort right now. It is a life sentence.

But it always was, wasn't it? With she and she.

In the end, all she says is, "Thanks."

Against the wind, heedless of the trembling ground, Sayaka stands. There is her childhood, dead on the ground. She fell in love and lost Madoka. There is no door back now, back to the schoolyard, back to looking out the window while her parents drive. Sayaka is a woman now. And she feels the difference.

Children go to war. Adults ''make'' it.

Reaching to her collar, Sayaka gives it a sharp yank, ripping her cape free. Laying it across Madoka, she pauses one more moment, to look, to give it a tuck. It is the last time she will hesitate tonight.

She walks to Mami, bare-shouldered, red-eyed, and takes her face in one hand. "Don't," she whispers. She pleads. She knows what she sees in Mami's eyes. Her own are limned with frosty lashes, her cheeks streaked, the tears frozen there as if she refused to cry them.

"Stay with me," she urges Mami softly. "Tell tonight..." Her voice labors, having difficulty coming out. Her lip trembles with violent emotion. "...that it takes ''nothing'' else from us."

The second time Sayaka and Mami kiss is nothing like the first. Firmer. Damp with pain.

By the time it ends, a sword has already hissed into Sayaka's hand, and she grips the hilt tight.

"Come on," she offers, along with an extended hand. Palm up, for a lady. "I can't do this without you."

The air groans as if it was bending, the sound of something massive shifting. Little flurries of snow dance at their feet from the wind. This place is slowly falling apart beneath their feet, but Sayaka stands there as if she would wait forever for Mami to take her hand.

The taller girl sniffs hard, to avoid sniffing again for a bit. She tries to smile, which makes her eye leak a bit onto her cheek. "When we get back... I'll tell you so you can hear it."

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Yes. At least one other has fallen so fast, so far. At ''least'' one.

Mami opens her eyes; Mami watches. Mami ''hears''. Her lips are still warm, yes, but something icy has seized about her heart. Mami Tomoe knows, better than nearly anyone alive right now, what a Grief Seed looks like. It is impossible. It is mad, it is horrible, it is worse than anything.

She thought it would never happen again. She was sure that if anyone died, it would be her. but is it--is it that? Mami cannot understand it. The ice crackles, and Mami does not ''want'' to know what she knows. Her heart aches, and everything aches, and all she wants, all it feels like she could ''ever'' want, is for Madoka to reveal that it was some sort of prank, some girlish high spirits, something that doesn't make sense that could be better than this. There is a groan.

Mami does not realize the strangled noise in the back of her own throat. What good is it, to hope, if it will end this way? What good is wishing, and wanting, and ''living'', if every time, another thing will be taken?

Why is she alive? Why did she have to know the joy of her dearest friend if it was only going to be taken--taken like this? If it means--

...At the edges of Mami's mind, the connections threaten to fall into place, and she is shock-still, completely stiff, staring in horror. She does not want to finish her thought after all. But when Sayaka goes to Madoka, Mami can't. Mami cannot ''move'', certain that if she even so much as more breathes she will shatter, and achingly, painfully, all she wants is to hear that voice one more time.

It's obvious, in her eyes, when Sayaka comes; the tears freezing to her face, but the utter, complete despair that threatens to overwhelm her. Not even the bliss of what she thought could happen can pierce through. What could? What could, in the face of--

...Of Sayaka, who comes. Who pleads with her, and Mami blinks, and turns her gaze up to her. In her eyes is why? In her eyes is how? But...

But it is different, this time. Mami feels one thing break through the shell, and it is Sayaka, and numbly she nods, when the other girl looks to her...

"Sayaka," she starts to say, and it ''hurts'', it hurts so much.

But she feels it as much, more, doesn't she? She knew her so much longer, had that wonderful presence all her life...

Mami's trembling hand moves to Sayaka's, and she can't do more than fake a curve of her lips, nothing like a smile. "I'm looking forward to it," Mami promises.

It is a kind lie. She knows she will never go back. But if she can stay, a little longer, for her knight...

"I'll go with you."

<Pose Tracker> Princess Mars [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

And at first it seems normal. Ladybug - Marinette! - is stumbling over her words until she finds her composure again, Steven is gushing, Usagi is being her usual annoying self.

And at first Princess Mars barely registers the way Madoka falls into the snow, as if it were an entirely normal expression of relief.

And at first she does not connect with alarm the way white-pink ruffles have become white and warm grey.

It's only at her second glance - that she realises.

Ohtori's uniform.

Oh, no.

No, no, no...

"Madoka!" Princess Mars cries, as she realises she is seizing. Takeo has the harsh words she does not quite manage to say, as the spinnet pierces and there is a black which is deep and dark and more than what it ought to be. All at once she staggers to feel the outpouring of ''wrongness,'' and her arm gropes out to grasp at Usagi's. There is an acrid taste at the back of her teeth, needling behind her eyes, pressure at her temples, as her descriptive sense floods over to needle the prescriptive senses instead. She does not need to be sensitive to know this is not as it ought to be. This is a horror which can be shared with everyone.

She grasps tightly at Princess Serenity's hand, holds her wrist with the other, and there is no bravado on her face any more. The abhorrence of Metallia she bluffed through, though it lashed at her; but this, this! Her friend is dead, a monster rises. "Madoka," she says again, a prayer or a plea, and the bottoms of her eyelids are tight with the way her cheeks draw up in tension to accommodate the gape of her mouth.

She feels Princess Serenity drop and looks to her, stricken, and it is easier than looking at that thing, that broad and unknowable thing. Princess Mars kneels to help her, wrapping an arm about her to hoist her standing, though her own legs tremble.

And when she is upright again Mars does not, strictly speaking, let go, but instead leans in against her as if Serenity is holding her upright just as much as the inverse is true. "Usagi," she whispers, voice thin like ribbons, "Usagi, what happened?" She cannot comprehend it; it is so rare to see Mars afraid.

She is aware, on some level, of the way the ice cracks. But this - this! -- it is too much, she cannot bear it. Certainly Sailor Mars has fought Familiars, Witches; she is Madoka's friend. She does not like to fight them. They are noneuclidean; they are nonsensical. Even spirits have a logic to them, though it can be difficult to find. They have grudges and unfulfilled desires and wishes never met. A Witch is - a Witch is --

And then the cracking reaches them and sense finally shakes its way through the cracks of her mind, and the Soldier of War does what she must and leaps away with her Princess. "Come on," she says, forcing volume into her voice again. "We're not done yet."

They have to keep going. It's what she always told Usagi.

<Pose Tracker> Princess Serenity [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Thanatos - Neon Genesis Evangelion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZs0rb8aQlE

Was Madoka's smile just a little too wide?

Princess Serenity does not notice. Perhaps she's just a little too tired, too drained, despite all appearances to notice the sign that anything could be wrong. Instead she's laughing at Princess Mars, "If they wanted privacy then they should have..."

However then there's a gasp. And Princess Serenity's head turns. "Madoka...?" She still doesn't realize anything is wrong. To her it's a small disaster, like Madoka forgot what day it was and it turned out to be someone's birthday.

However the way her limbs are contorting- the way her mouth is opening. "Help her..." The Princess whispers, in abject horror, as Mars' hand takes hers and she frantically pleads with the crowd. "... somebody do something!"

And with a single trembling hand, she raises the Moon Stick bearing the Ginzuishou to do just that. "Silver Crystal..."

And then a Grief Seed erupts out of her... as black mist, creates an implosion.

The third word of 'please' never leaves her throat. She...

... had no idea what she was asking the Silver Crystal to do.

She still doesn't. Not really. "Madoka... MADOKA!"

The force of the implosion takes even her off guard, sends her sprawling. Her twintails and silver gown fluttering. As she looks upon a witch so massive that it feels like it could blot out all of the heavens, sending a dark pall even over the light of the moon.

And almost an infinitesimal speck compared to it is the hollow form of Madoka Kaname.

There's a horrible sort of despair, as she realizes her eyes aren't even blinking. "No..." The deaths of the other Senshi are so fresh that it cannot help but evoke them. "...Nuh-No!" The chain of events are proving something. No matter how much Usagi Tsukino has cried, she is never truly dried up. "NO!" She doesn't even have to check for other signs of life. There are none in those eyes. She knows it.

And thus this nightmare hasn't ended. For all the triumphs and small joys... it was still going on. How much can one girl take?

It would only be right for her to be frozen in a sobbing mess. That is perhaps almost what happens. However then she sees Madoka's best friend cover her with a cape, saying something so soft. It is not to her. However... 'Tell tonight...'

The girl's eyes squeeze shut for a moment, as she trembles with the force of her emotion.

Instead she slowly brings herself back to a knee on the icy ground. "She's right..." Tears staining the ground. And she hears...

And the girl's eyes squeeze shut in a moment. "I need help... getting up..." Then she blubbers for a moment, "... need... help."

Princess Serenity solicits, as she sounds suddenly bone-weary, like all the second wind she got from their triumph before has fled her, as she sucks in a breath, steadying herself as she does, only with the support of Princess Mars, "I... don't know." It's perhaps half a lie, as she sniffs her answer to her on what is going on. "I... duhn't..." She's not a stupid girl. Her time with the others has taught her just enough. "...nuh-know!" She chokes out Her mind has made the connection, she just doesn't want to say it.

Another breath, as she tries to recompose herself is...

"All I know is... we have to keep going... for just a little longer... a little more..."

The words of Metallia crawl within her head. Never is a long time. The world is ugly and full of filth. In a world where this could happen to Madoka Kaname at a time like this. It would seem like that's right.

Gripping the Moon Stick, however, she finds herself creating a barrier of shining light once again.

'We're not done yet.' Mars says.

And Princess Serenity agrees in a subdued way, that still feels very Usagi. "... I'm tired... I'm scared... I'm hungry..." It's like she's complaining. Except not truly. That's just a superficial analysis. Instead it's more a statement of fact. "...but if it's for Madoka Kaname... I'll keep going."

The girl is dead. The girl is a...

Her mind cannot truly think it. Even now. Not that word. Because that word is like an impassable gulf.

Tonight she saw a small glimpse of Madoka Kaname's dreams, alit in that pink light. In her mind she can see it so clearly. That light is a denial of the possibility that it is gone. A denial of the funeral shroud that is her best friend's cape.

A denial of the witch that touches the sky.

"... wait for us Madoka-chan. We're coming."

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Wings of purest energy unfurl next to Homura. They fill her peripheral vision with beauteous pink and fill her chest with hope. Her shoulders rise, not to hunch but out of an irrepressible urge to somehow nestle into the gentle shelter of those wings' span.

"Kaname-san..." she whispers, awe and adoration and affection all in one. Seven stars shine, but Homura only has eyes for the eighth.

And together they accomplish the impossible, because together they are all so much greater than the sum of their individual contributions: together they bring light where there was darkness. Homura smiles up at the Moon, listening to the whisper from within and believing in it, too. She smiles at the gathered mahou, the princesses and the warriors and the knights -- the ''people'', the precious friends she has made. Something else she'd thought was impossible. Mami and Sayaka's kiss sweetens that smile further and puts a flutter in her chest.

After all the joyful sharing of hugs and laughter she turns to give the full fluttery happiness of that smile to Madoka, because there's no one she'd rather share this moment -- any moment -- with.

But Madoka isn't smiling any more.

Soundtrack: PMMM movie OST - Fateful #4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ti_JRaJa7w

"What's- what's wrong? Kaname-san? ...Kaname-san! Hold on!!"

The obvious pain Madoka is in rips at her -- she drops to the frozen ground by her friend's side, agonizing over her agony. "...What? How, what's happening, why is this..." Her voice climbs, trails off into horrified nothingness.

Every pale and horrorstruck cell in Homura Akemi's body wants to deny what she sees happening in front of her, but... she has no choice, none at all, thanks to her brave and unflinching heart -- that congenitally-flawed muscle which has nonetheless persevered beyond imagining, and which has found new and wonderful reasons to keep beating. It sees, and it knows.

Her heart suffers a nauseating lurch to see that cruelly sharp spindle balanced upon her soft palm, to see it pierce down. It loses its rhythm when that intricate seed with its tiny pink ribbon contorts and implodes, because it knows.

It takes a heart to understand grief.

She wants more than anything to keep denying it somehow. This cannot be happening because Homura is supposed to save Madoka. It cannot be happening because she made a wish, and Kyuubey granted it, and she lives in a world where wishes prevail, not nightmares. This... this isn't... this isn't right...

It may not be right, but it is true.

Soundtrack: nine inch nails - Help Me I Am In Hell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KD5a5lvRnA

Madoka's body lies before her, and even though her scream of pain was the most terrible sound Homura has ever heard she longs to hear it again, because it was still better than the nothing coming from her now. Anything would be, anything at all.

The other mahou around her react -- to the Witch-storm breaking above them (that's Madoka, cries Homura's heart), to the world groaning and shifting around them (that's Madoka, too), to the crumpled lifeless form in the Ohtori uniform and the pink twintails (Madoka, Madoka, Madoka). The pale girl in the color-leached violet henshin doesn't see them at all, not any more, although they may see the tears tracking down her cheeks.

They have already faded to a distant and meaningless grey for her, taking on a dissociative tinge of unreality which is both proactive and protective. Just as her heart knows what has happened, it also knows what she must do.

Homura reaches down and sobs, once, a broken sound, as she takes hold of Madoka's hand. So still. She finds that it is, impossibly, even more horrible to see her best friend die a second time.

"Don't worry, Kaname-san," she whispers. Homura sits up and tenderly folds the cooling hand she was holding onto the other girl's chest, right atop her Ohtori uniform bow.

Then she stands and reaches for her shield, moving as if through a dream. The magical device is endlessly intricate, but even though Homura has never personally initiated this action before she knows exactly what to do. Her fingers do not falter or slip.

Its esoteric clockwork moves easily under her hand, like it was waiting for her touch.

With a smooth click and a whir it rotates, and all can hear the sibilance of sand coursing downward, scrubbing clean all the choices made and kisses given and hands held since last it turned so.

Then the entire world spins around the shield instead, a vast counterclockwise twist and--

'''END OF TIMELINE TWO'''

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-03-02 - TIMELINE 3: Practice Makes Perfect

2019-03-04T19:49:18Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: Practice Makes Perfect'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi takes steps to improve her arsenal after inflicting explosive friendly fire on Steven Universe and Cassandra.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Academy
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-03-02 - 2014-09-14
|-
|}

A soldier yawns, and stretches out on a cot in the classroom they've turned into a makeshift barracks. His shotgun rests upright against the chalkboard's tray, and white dust from math problems transfers to the thick metal barrel. Nearby, a pair of his off-duty buddies have their boots up on desks and another couple pushed together so they can wager loudly over cards.

With an irritated grunt he rolls to his side, and the handgun strapped to his thigh holster clinks. "Hey, keep it down. Least till oh-five hundred, when I'm back on ag--"

He's not interrupted so much as paused.

In the otherwise absolute quiet of stopped time, a window creaks open to admit the girl who's been peering in with terror-wide violet eyes. Homura picks her way between the tall soldiers in their bulky gear, sitting at desks built for children. She takes care not to touch them.

The shotgun barrel, even at a lean, is tall enough to reach to the dainty bow-ribbons dangling from her henshin collar.

It's colder than she expected, and much heavier, too. She stumbles a bit, then uses both arms and puella strength to heft it. "Nggg." Homura holds it at arms' length, stiffly, afraid to grasp it but not allowing that to stop her.

She remembers Madoka's kimono-clad arms wrapped round her, adjusting Homura's inexpert grip on a festival-game rifle, and swallows. Then she shivers and slides the massive metal weapon into the space behind her shield, that dainty receptacle for so much destruction.

Next: the handgun. Homura holds her breath and moves with terrified caution. Long minutes pass with many false starts, but she manages to slide the firearm free of its holster without touching the prone soldier's leg. Every case of bullets in the room follows that gun into Homura's shield, plenty of which are the wrong caliber for the Desert Eagle and the Mossberg, but she doesn't know that. Besides, every bullet she steals is one more that can't possibly get fired at Madoka and the rest of Homura's friends.

She leaves through the window again and shuts it behind, and is long gone before she releases the timestream once more. Later, on her own, she tests out her new weapons on some trees in the forest with an apology to Eri, wherever she is.

Which is a good thing, because the first time she clasps the Desert Eagle in front of her with bent and fearful arms, the mulekick recoil she isn't expecting gives Homura a nose-breaking faceful of metal gun.

Her sniffles are extra-wet as she cries out the pain and fear on her own. Then Homura heals herself and tries again, and again, occasionally having to pause time and vacate to avoid hunting packs of pale purple Orphans drawn by the sound of gunfire. She doesn't stop practicing until she can withstand the terrifying thunder of her new and more precise weapons.

Then she slides them back into her shield, alongside the stock of homemade pipe bombs which have caused so much trouble.

She'd told Eri and Mikoto that it wasn't enough to just do their best, and now Homura will accept nothing less than perfection from herself, even if the self-imposed rigors of that perfection terrify her. Madoka needs her.

[[Category:Ushering In The Golden Age]]
[[Category:Cutscenes]]

2019-02-20 - TIMELINE 3: On Truancy and Truth

2019-03-01T19:26:05Z

Kestrel:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: On Truancy and Truth'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''In which the Disciplinary Executive pays a housecall.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Kasagami Araki]] and [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Homura's apartment
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-02-20 - 2014-09-12
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Her building is a relic surrounded by renovations. The narrow flatiron rises pale over dark cobbles, and black iron curlicues adorn the lampposts lining only its side of the street. The clear glass panes enclosing the streetlamp bulbs like a child's hands might fireflies bear scratches which queer the light cast out and down from them.

Newer construction dominates the rest of the block, sleek angles and plate glass windows looming over her address's humbler street-facing two stories. Its height is the only humble thing about its construction, though, for with its age the flatiron building retains an elder gothic elegance. Dark flourishes and classical lines etch its once-white stone facade. Columns and a smooth arch encase the heavy wooden double doors that lead inside, and above them twin ironclad windows bracket a grey-faced clock.

Homura Akemi's name announces her door from others at the very end of a long marble-floored hall on the second floor. The etched kanji are perfect on the metal plate.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It's almost eleven at night, and Kasagami Araki feels like she's in a place out of time. And /especially/ country. Staring up at the overly large apartment at the end of the street with her boot heels grinding into cut stone, she can't help but imagine this is what it might be like to live on the upper end of an old European town.

Kassie doesn't quite parse how this feeling is odd, given she usually lives in the Ohtori dorms ever since coming here. On Southern Cross Island, all the art deco and modern stylings seem to just fit. Here though? It clashes brutally with Japan's ultramodern look and the traditional shrines one can find.

With a big, warm sigh, she pulls her coat a little tighter around her shoulders. No sword with her today, aside from a simple bokken she brought just in case any idiots decided to get ideas in their heads this late at night. She's not bothered with her usual uniform: she'd rather not announce her presence in case the odd Homura Akemi is peeking out her window. Instead it's a pair of dark jeans, a belt, eyepatch and a hoodie festooned with a myriad of pins depicting hawks, crowns, and a bevy of different swords along her cuffs and the right side of her chest.

She'd look like a delinquent if everything weren't so expensive and her hair just so /perfect/. Kasagami has the piercing stare of an intense person, just shy of a ruffian, down wonderfully however.

She stalks through the apartment building after pushing in the front door. When she arrives at the little nameplate showing her quarry, she pauses. A gloved fist proceeds to hammer on the door hard enough to make the wood shake and creak a little.

"Homura Akemi, dearest of all my friends! I hate to call on you so late at night, but I'm sure you wouldn't let me die out here from exposure, right!? We've got a few things to talk about!"

The Disciplinary Executive doesn't use her outside voice. No, it's her auditorium voice. This is clearly right and proper. The bleary cussing on the other end of the hallway and a few dogs barking prove the point.

Kasagami Araki smiles in appreciation and confident smugness that nothing like mere 'time of day' and 'noise complaints' will bar her passage into this elegant Homuhome. A little bit of chaos can be a key to opening many a door.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Kasagami's incognito mode, flamboyant as it is, might serve her if there was any chance of Homura Akemi idly peering out of her windows. Tonight those probabilities run repeating decimal zeroes toward nothingness. Delicate work utterly preoccupies the weird girl with the glasses.

Her usual rectangular red frames have the night off. Instead a pair of too-large surgical loupes keeps sliding down her nose. They're sized for the vascular surgeon who's now missing his favorite pair, not a slip of a middle-schooler. Homura borrowed them weeks ago from his coat pocket during a checkup at her old hospital; she /fully/ intends to return them.

You know, after she saves Madoka.

To call Homura engrossed would be an understatement: she's so focused that the sweatdrop tickling the underside of her nose has escaped wiping for long minutes. Concentration is everything right now, and any little error or fumble could spell disaster--

WHAM WHAM *crack* WHAM

Homura's overdeveloped startle reflex has abated somewhat over the years. Instead of toppling backwards in her chair and incurring fresh bruises, she just jerks and drops her tweezers.

Disaster.

In horrified slow motion she watches the shiny implement fall over her careful twist of wires. If it falls across the wrong pair and its metal completes the circuit -- she grabs for it, juggles deferred fiery death in the air with her grabbing fingers, and in desperation she just BATS the thing away as quick and as hard as she can. The tweezers fly through the open bathroom door and crack the mirror, then tink harmlessly into the sink after inflicting seven years of bad luck.

She just... /takes a minute/ after that to be sure her heart isn't going to explode. Watch for frostbite out in that climate-controlled hallway, Kasagami!

The door finally opens to reveal a thoroughly frazzled Homura Akemi, still in her school uniform, with one braid half undone. She's still wearing those strange glasses with magnification loupes embedded in both sides, and she's squinting at a Kasagami-shaped blur through the (non-prescription) normal lenses. Oh, and she's wearing a pair of latex gloves... Pretty weird, even for Homura. Was she doing surgery or something in there?

"Araki-senpai? What are you doing here?" 'Araki-senpai' has been her go-to ever since the elections, this timeline -- when she doesn't slip up and say 'President-san' instead. "How did you... find my place?"

Homura hesitates, clearly knowing that she's expected to invite Kasagami inside and just as clearly /not/ wanting to do so. Social expectations win out for now, and with anxiety instead of enthusiasm she says, "Please, come in," and steps aside.

Her foyer has clean modern lines hidden beneath a bevy of empty boxes that should have been taken out for recycling already. There's a small neat mat for shoes (and boots) by the entrance. Two exits, one leading to what looks like a kitchen, the other to a bare-walled and spacious living area. More boxes sub in for furniture in there.

"I'm not... I wasn't expecting company, sorry. Um. Can I get you some water?" She glances toward the kitchen: a safer room, a terminus. Plus she might even have a cup or two unpacked...

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Right into the hallway comes a frigid blast of Homura, with her overly large magnification glasses, surgical gloves and a uniform. The frazzled state, if anything, only signals potential victory to one Kasagami Araki. Exactly as she'd half-way planned.

But even as she wields the extrovert's powers of obscene self confidence like a club, she can't help but take in the most unique attire that Homura has on. This, more than the anxiety on Homura, has Kassie's attention.

"I'm not an adorable nerd like you are, Homura-chan, but I actually /can/ search the school's records when I want something." Almost every time she's tried to correct that 'Araki-senpai' business. Except when she's mad or on 'official StuCo business'. Her particular flavor of grin is the 'you messed up' variety. This has not changed since every timeline Homura has known Kasagami. She's easy to read in some ways like that simply for the fact she rarely hides these things.

Kasagami is already marching inside just as Homura says it. Bokken under one armpit, she takes off her boots (she's no savage!) and makes her way in. The bare walls and just general...'just got in' feeling does has Kassie frowning. She doesn't comment, but something about it all definitely bothers the girl.

In other timelines she'd ask. Right now, though, she's mission focused.

"Oh don't worry, I'm not going to take up too much of your time. Homura, you've been skipping the Festival. Now I /know/ you hate athletics...and that's fine, more fool you...but at least make an effort! This is about the pride of Ohtori! Any student that skips the Athletics Festival either needs an excuse, or has to be working on something scholastic." She emphasizes that last word.

Kasagami tries to lean in and poke /right/ at one of those inspection glasses.

"So unless you can tie your little taxidermy hobby to improving your frankly ghastly academics, I want to see you at the long jump tomorrow morning or I'm going to start hounding you every single morning until this thing is done with! And I am very, /very/ persistent when I have the mind to be!"

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

She shuts the door behind Kasagami and her eyes linger on the inward bowing of wood. "My door..." There are more important things than doors. The objection dies on her tongue, abandoned.

There are no signs of any parents, no family pictures on the wall or adult shoes on the foyer mat, no homey touches whatsoever. Homura Akemi lives so very alone. Her address hasn't changed since she transferred into Ohtori, so... these boxes have gone unpacked, these walls unadorned, for over a year now.

"Oh. Right, school records..." Beginning next timeline and extending forevermore, those school records will have the address of one Homura Akemi preemptively scrubbed. Her nerves still jitter thanks to her recent near-obliteration experience, and that grin of Kasagami's doesn't help. Homura feels invaded thanks to this late-night drop-in, and her shoulders hunch.

Any relief when Kasagami says she's not staying long, well, it doesn't last once the reason for the visit comes out. Then a gloved finger occludes a loupe entirely, giving Homura a brief view of the smoothly-cracked details of leather before her left eye's view goes black. "Aahh, hey!" She takes a huddled step back, then goes into a pocket for her usual glasses and makes a quick swap.

"Taxidermy? I'm not- oh. I was, um..." The urge to explain, to have Kasagami understand, is still strong in her. She hasn't learned yet. "I'm sorry, Araki-senpai, but... there's too much happening, and the Sports Festival is..." Agitation begins to show. It wrinkles the soft skin between Homura's eyebrows and squiggles her mouth.

"I can't waste time on something like that. If you need an excuse note, I- I can go get one, probably." From the hated hospital. Any disqualifying infirmity would be a lie, too, but... Homura's priorities have changed. Her determination hones her, too -- she now looks right up into Kasagami's good eye, a challenge from a meek girl who would never have dared once upon a timeline ago.

"But you should just let me slide. Because you know there are more important things happening! I've told you... so many times. Just let me do what I need to do." A direct and somewhat hurt reference to the /stories/ Homura keeps spreading and demanding be believed, about treacherous mascots and deadly puella doom.

She adds a "Please" after because she is still a polite girl, even if she is also now a frantically determined one.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Kasagami, of course, keeps right on steamrolling even when all of that irritation surfaces in the poor benighted Homura. The mere /suggestion/ that things be let slide to /her/ has Kassie sloooowly scowling. She is not making her case well to the prideful, if slightly jilted, Disciplinary Executive.

"I seem to recall similar excuses the last school function! Homura-chan, you know, I actually /do/ like you. No matter how much of an absolute headache you've been in my short tenure at Ohtori..." Her turn to be annoyed. All of that aggression is still there, and it's being pressed right down on Homura.

A hand goes from glasses to her own chest. "No. No I am not going to let this just slide. Because Ohtori has standards, and if you want to go to it, then you need to keep up. That /includes/ social gatherings. What's an Athletics Event other than a chance to network and consider your future!?"

A sucked in breath, and she runs a hand through her hair. "And don't think you're the first to try to pay off a Doctor to get a note. I'm not an idiot. Spare us both, okay?" She takes a seat, and finally grey eyes soften in something very much like sympathy.

"You're going, Homura Akemi. End of story. And I'm going to tell you why." She motions to the apartment, barren.

"You have lived here for a year, alone. No family pictures. No...no /nothing/! Could you at least think to put up a few photos of your friends? You have a home, but it's not lived in! Plus, all of this...the things you keep telling everyone. Homura, there's rumors, don't you know that!? That looks bad for you and it looks bad for the school!"

One elbow to her knee, and she frowns. "I don't know what you went through for you to actually believe the things you believe. But they're fantasies. Fairy tales. You're covering up something that hurt you, that's what I think. It took me a long time to admit my parents were dead. Six months after the funeral, that's how long it took to sink in."

A sad little shake of her head. "And living in this empty white box isn't doing anything for your sanity. You need more friends, and you need /help/!"

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYItTxqTc38

When will it stop being disorienting? Kasagami says she likes Homura, and Homura remembers ski slope lessons years ago which left friendly aches in weak limbs; she mentions a short tenure, and it reminds Homura that she's only known this Kasagami a single year, even though Homura has looked up to the sword-loving young woman much longer.

The first shake of Homura's head, then, is just to clear her time-misted head. Being loomed over like that has the slender, shorter girl folding her arms defensively. Both head-shake and arm-folding take on obstinate undertones as the haranguing intensifies, and then...

"My future? MY future?" Either Kasagami said something incredibly offensive or incredibly funny -- Homura's face screws up so much it's impossible to tell. "You don't even believe me, how would you know anything about my..." She swallows, hard, and huffs out the rest of her breath rather than using it on words.

In the spacious white-walled living room, Kasagami's seat consists of an unpacked cardboard box. Homura trails her in and plops down across from her on another box. This is still her senpai -- she still feels an obligate obedience. She still cares.

For most of the rest of this concerned dressing-down she is still, and quiet, and utterly avoidant of eye contact. Homura busies herself pulling white latex off nearly-white fingers instead. But she flinches when Kasagami says something has hurt her, and right now Homura wouldn't hide that even if she could.

She looks up, and her violet eyes are bruises hollowed by desperation. Whatever hurt her lies naked there, uncovered. Her senpai, the fierce and funny duelist who cheerfully crashed through Homura's barriers before... Kasagami thinks she's insane. No one believes her... no one. "I need help," she echoes, sad and frustrated. "Help is all I want. But no one will give it to me. I keep asking and asking, but... you think you know what I need, and you won't listen when I tell you. I'm not covering up anything, I keep /telling/ you and /telling/ you..."

Her voice climbs and then she breaks off and heaves a few agitated breaths. She's on the sadder end of the spectrum when she continues. "Maybe you would have helped me when you were President..."

But Kasagami never won the Presidency in this timeline -- just in Homura's fairy tale delusions. Every time Homura talks about these fantastical other timelines they sound like a girl's hopeful dream, and this is often in direct and cruel comparison to how things actually are right now.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura's face screws up, and then she lashes out in turn! Across box from box Kassie vaguely waves a hand towards the Puella Magi. Her pushing back seems to both egg on the Disciplinary Executive and yet annoy her.

"Finally! A little bit of fire in Homura Akemi! As I said, I don't think what you're saying is the /truth/, but I don't think that you're lying either. What I'm talking about is the path that you are currently walking on, Homura!" She runs a hand through her hair.

Eyes close, and then her good one opens to peer back at the girl.

And then pauses. Kasagami knows when she's hut someone, and Homura's face shows it. She goes quiet for a second, taking in what the Puella offers her. She raises that hand went through her perfect, silky, dark hair and grinds it just a bit against her own temple. She ignores the little red spot it creates, no matter how uncomfortable it gets.

"I'm half blind, not deaf, Homura-chan. You want help, I get that. And I swear on my parents' graves, I want to give it to you. But as a member of the Student Council, and the Disciplinary Executive, I need to be rational. So I must give you the help you need, even if it's not what you ask for."

A sigh.

Then she raises both arms. "If you want me to accept what you've been telling me is true, then give me /evidence/! Telling me the same story, fanciful and horrible, without proof just makes you sound like you're nuts! I love the heart you're putting into all of this. Now give me something I can work with, okay?" Kassie sounds utterly exasperated with Homura's continued stories!

And then she audibly chokes.

The Duelist's face flushes a bit. Teeth grind. And then Kasagami Araki glares at Homura. She steps off from her back heel, and this young woman devours the space between their two boxes in absolutely awful haste.

Her hand then reaches down to swat Homura's shoulder. She's smiling. It's not a good smile.

"You need some fresh air to deflate that fanciful head of yours, Homura! Congratulations, I'll be personally dragging you to the sports festival if you're not there at the crack of dawn my beloved friend!" Her voice growls.

And then she's standing up, just before her boot decides to crash right down onto that white box, shattering it into innumerable pieces.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Is it worse to be thought a liar, or to be seen as insane?

Homura's face flushes from her outburst and the inevitable shame that washes in after. If Kasagami doesn't think she's lying but doesn't think she's telling the truth, it really only leaves the latter. She rubs at her hot cheeks with both hands, hating the sting of embarrassed tears in her eyes. They're useless, worse than.

Her voice has that thin wobble of poorly controlled upset. "I've tried to prove it, just..."

She /has/ tried to give proof of her future knowledge, more than once, made predictions of things she's seen happen a certain way in one of the previous timelines. They never pan out right; something's always different. Homura doesn't understand why things keep changing. It might be enough to make her question her own sanity, if it wasn't for Madoka: her pink evening star, the light by which Homura navigates this growing nightmare.

"All I can tell you is the truth. Why can't that be enough?" She's plaintive, and utterly unhelpful.

Homura doesn't get to stew in her upset because she's just inadvertently stirred Kasagami. She doesn't flinch backwards off her box, all credit to the tutelage of a past Mikoto Minagi.

There's no escape from the Sports Festival. And... at least she'll get to see Madoka and the others more, she tells herself. Homura's head droops, so Kasagami gets a view of shining black hair and the dark headband holding it all in place. It's a slump; it's a bow.

"The crack of dawn, Araki-senpai," comes the morose acquiescence. She sounds remarkably like any other student bulled into participation. The box smashes apart beneath the boot Kasagami didn't remove at the door, and the still-packed contents suffer and spill out: carefully packed volumes of shoujo manga, their covers soft and pretty with girls' faces and flowers. They're crumpled, now.. "A-ahhh..."

It's fine, Homura tells herself. She didn't have time to read them anyhow. Stuff like that doesn't matter as much, not anymore. Homura feels this bitter-sharp pang in her chest, like a loss -- not at the manga spilled on the floor, but at her own thoughts. Then she shoves that away, too.

"I'll be there," she says toward the floor.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-02-20 - TIMELINE 3: On Truancy and Truth

2019-03-01T19:23:04Z

Kestrel: one day I'll get honorifics right consistently

2019-02-20 - TIMELINE 3: On Truancy and Truth

2019-03-01T19:19:39Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: On Truancy and Truth'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''In which the Disciplinary Executive pays a housecall.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Kasagami Araki]] and [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Homura's apartment
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-02-20 - 2014-09-12
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Her building is a relic surrounded by renovations. The narrow flatiron rises pale over dark cobbles, and black iron curlicues adorn the lampposts lining only its side of the street. The clear glass panes enclosing the streetlamp bulbs like a child's hands might fireflies bear scratches which queer the light cast out and down from them.

Newer construction dominates the rest of the block, sleek angles and plate glass windows looming over her address's humbler street-facing two stories. Its height is the only humble thing about its construction, though, for with its age the flatiron building retains an elder gothic elegance. Dark flourishes and classical lines etch its once-white stone facade. Columns and a smooth arch encase the heavy wooden double doors that lead inside, and above them twin ironclad windows bracket a grey-faced clock.

Homura Akemi's name announces her door from others at the very end of a long marble-floored hall on the second floor. The etched kanji are perfect on the metal plate.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It's almost eleven at night, and Kasagami Araki feels like she's in a place out of time. And /especially/ country. Staring up at the overly large apartment at the end of the street with her boot heels grinding into cut stone, she can't help but imagine this is what it might be like to live on the upper end of an old European town.

Kassie doesn't quite parse how this feeling is odd, given she usually lives in the Ohtori dorms ever since coming here. On Southern Cross Island, all the art deco and modern stylings seem to just fit. Here though? It clashes brutally with Japan's ultramodern look and the traditional shrines one can find.

With a big, warm sigh, she pulls her coat a little tighter around her shoulders. No sword with her today, aside from a simple bokken she brought just in case any idiots decided to get ideas in their heads this late at night. She's not bothered with her usual uniform: she'd rather not announce her presence in case the odd Homura Akemi is peeking out her window. Instead it's a pair of dark jeans, a belt, eyepatch and a hoodie festooned with a myriad of pins depicting hawks, crowns, and a bevy of different swords along her cuffs and the right side of her chest.

She'd look like a delinquent if everything weren't so expensive and her hair just so /perfect/. Kasagami has the piercing stare of an intense person, just shy of a ruffian, down wonderfully however.

She stalks through the apartment building after pushing in the front door. When she arrives at the little nameplate showing her quarry, she pauses. A gloved fist proceeds to hammer on the door hard enough to make the wood shake and creak a little.

"Homura Akemi, dearest of all my friends! I hate to call on you so late at night, but I'm sure you wouldn't let me die out here from exposure, right!? We've got a few things to talk about!"

The Disciplinary Executive doesn't use her outside voice. No, it's her auditorium voice. This is clearly right and proper. The bleary cussing on the other end of the hallway and a few dogs barking prove the point.

Kasagami Araki smiles in appreciation and confident smugness that nothing like mere 'time of day' and 'noise complaints' will bar her passage into this elegant Homuhome. A little bit of chaos can be a key to opening many a door.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Kasagami's incognito mode, flamboyant as it is, might serve her if there was any chance of Homura Akemi idly peering out of her windows. Tonight those probabilities run repeating decimal zeroes toward nothingness. Delicate work utterly preoccupies the weird girl with the glasses.

Her usual rectangular red frames have the night off. Instead a pair of too-large surgical loupes keeps sliding down her nose. They're sized for the vascular surgeon who's now missing his favorite pair, not a slip of a middle-schooler. Homura borrowed them weeks ago from his coat pocket during a checkup at her old hospital; she /fully/ intends to return them.

You know, after she saves Madoka.

To call Homura engrossed would be an understatement: she's so focused that the sweatdrop tickling the underside of her nose has escaped wiping for long minutes. Concentration is everything right now, and any little error or fumble could spell disaster--

WHAM WHAM *crack* WHAM

Homura's overdeveloped startle reflex has abated somewhat over the years. Instead of toppling backwards in her chair and incurring fresh bruises, she just jerks and drops her tweezers.

Disaster.

In horrified slow motion she watches the shiny implement fall over her careful twist of wires. If it falls across the wrong pair and its metal completes the circuit -- she grabs for it, juggles deferred fiery death in the air with her grabbing fingers, and in desperation she just BATS the thing away as quick and as hard as she can. The tweezers fly through the open bathroom door and crack the mirror, then tink harmlessly into the sink after inflicting seven years of bad luck.

She just... /takes a minute/ after that to be sure her heart isn't going to explode. Watch for frostbite out in that climate-controlled hallway, Kasagami!

The door finally opens to reveal a thoroughly frazzled Homura Akemi, still in her school uniform, with one braid half undone. She's still wearing those strange glasses with magnification loupes embedded in both sides, and she's squinting at a Kasagami-shaped blur through the (non-prescription) normal lenses. Oh, and she's wearing a pair of latex gloves... Pretty weird, even for Homura. Was she doing surgery or something in there?

"Araki-senpai? What are you doing here?" 'Araki-senpai' has been her go-to ever since the elections, this timeline -- when she doesn't slip up and say 'President-san' instead. "How did you... find my place?"

Homura hesitates, clearly knowing that she's expected to invite Kasagami inside and just as clearly /not/ wanting to do so. Social expectations win out for now, and with anxiety instead of enthusiasm she says, "Please, come in," and steps aside.

Her foyer has clean modern lines hidden beneath a bevy of empty boxes that should have been taken out for recycling already. There's a small neat mat for shoes (and boots) by the entrance. Two exits, one leading to what looks like a kitchen, the other to a bare-walled and spacious living area. More boxes sub in for furniture in there.

"I'm not... I wasn't expecting company, sorry. Um. Can I get you some water?" She glances toward the kitchen: a safer room, a terminus. Plus she might even have a cup or two unpacked...

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Right into the hallway comes a frigid blast of Homura, with her overly large magnification glasses, surgical gloves and a uniform. The frazzled state, if anything, only signals potential victory to one Kasagami Araki. Exactly as she'd half-way planned.

But even as she wields the extrovert's powers of obscene self confidence like a club, she can't help but take in the most unique attire that Homura has on. This, more than the anxiety on Homura, has Kassie's attention.

"I'm not an adorable nerd like you are, Homura-chan, but I actually /can/ search the school's records when I want something." Almost every time she's tried to correct that 'Araki-senpai' business. Except when she's mad or on 'official StuCo business'. Her particular flavor of grin is the 'you messed up' variety. This has not changed since every timeline Homura has known Kasagami. She's easy to read in some ways like that simply for the fact she rarely hides these things.

Kasagami is already marching inside just as Homura says it. Bokken under one armpit, she takes off her boots (she's no savage!) and makes her way in. The bare walls and just general...'just got in' feeling does has Kassie frowning. She doesn't comment, but something about it all definitely bothers the girl.

In other timelines she'd ask. Right now, though, she's mission focused.

"Oh don't worry, I'm not going to take up too much of your time. Homura, you've been skipping the Festival. Now I /know/ you hate athletics...and that's fine, more fool you...but at least make an effort! This is about the pride of Ohtori! Any student that skips the Athletics Festival either needs an excuse, or has to be working on something scholastic." She emphasizes that last word.

Kasagami tries to lean in and poke /right/ at one of those inspection glasses.

"So unless you can tie your little taxidermy hobby to improving your frankly ghastly academics, I want to see you at the long jump tomorrow morning or I'm going to start hounding you every single morning until this thing is done with! And I am very, /very/ persistent when I have the mind to be!"

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

She shuts the door behind Kasagami and her eyes linger on the inward bowing of wood. "My door..." There are more important things than doors. The objection dies on her tongue, abandoned.

There are no signs of any parents, no family pictures on the wall or adult shoes on the foyer mat, no homey touches whatsoever. Homura Akemi lives so very alone. Her address hasn't changed since she transferred into Ohtori, so... these boxes have gone unpacked, these walls unadorned, for over a year now.

"Oh. Right, school records..." Beginning next timeline and extending forevermore, those school records will have the address of one Homura Akemi preemptively scrubbed. Her nerves still jitter thanks to her recent near-obliteration experience, and that grin of Kasagami's doesn't help. Homura feels invaded thanks to this late-night drop-in, and her shoulders hunch.

Any relief when Kasagami says she's not staying long, well, it doesn't last once the reason for the visit comes out. Then a gloved finger occludes a loupe entirely, giving Homura a brief view of the smoothly-cracked details of leather before her left eye's view goes black. "Aahh, hey!" She takes a huddled step back, then goes into a pocket for her usual glasses and makes a quick swap.

"Taxidermy? I'm not- oh. I was, um..." The urge to explain, to have Kasagami understand, is still strong in her. She hasn't learned yet. "I'm sorry, Araki-senpai, but... there's too much happening, and the Sports Festival is..." Agitation begins to show. It wrinkles the soft skin between Homura's eyebrows and squiggles her mouth.

"I can't waste time on something like that. If you need an excuse note, I- I can go get one, probably." From the hated hospital. Any disqualifying infirmity would be a lie, too, but... Homura's priorities have changed. Her determination hones her, too -- she now looks right up into Kasagami's good eye, a challenge from a meek girl who would never have dared once upon a timeline ago.

"But you should just let me slide. Because you know there are more important things happening! I've told you... so many times. Just let me do what I need to do." A direct and somewhat hurt reference to the /stories/ Homura keeps spreading and demanding be believed, about treacherous mascots and deadly puella doom.

She adds a "Please" after because she is still a polite girl, even if she is also now a frantically determined one.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Kasagami, of course, keeps right on steamrolling even when all of that irritation surfaces in the poor benighted Homura. The mere /suggestion/ that things be let slide to /her/ has Kassie sloooowly scowling. She is not making her case well to the prideful, if slightly jilted, Disciplinary Executive.

"I seem to recall similar excuses the last school function! Homura-chan, you know, I actually /do/ like you. No matter how much of an absolute headache you've been in my short tenure at Ohtori..." Her turn to be annoyed. All of that aggression is still there, and it's being pressed right down on Homura.

A hand goes from glasses to her own chest. "No. No I am not going to let this just slide. Because Ohtori has standards, and if you want to go to it, then you need to keep up. That /includes/ social gatherings. What's an Athletics Event other than a chance to network and consider your future!?"

A sucked in breath, and she runs a hand through her hair. "And don't think you're the first to try to pay off a Doctor to get a note. I'm not an idiot. Spare us both, okay?" She takes a seat, and finally grey eyes soften in something very much like sympathy.

"You're going, Homura Akemi. End of story. And I'm going to tell you why." She motions to the apartment, barren.

"You have lived here for a year, alone. No family pictures. No...no /nothing/! Could you at least think to put up a few photos of your friends? You have a home, but it's not lived in! Plus, all of this...the things you keep telling everyone. Homura, there's rumors, don't you know that!? That looks bad for you and it looks bad for the school!"

One elbow to her knee, and she frowns. "I don't know what you went through for you to actually believe the things you believe. But they're fantasies. Fairy tales. You're covering up something that hurt you, that's what I think. It took me a long time to admit my parents were dead. Six months after the funeral, that's how long it took to sink in."

A sad little shake of her head. "And living in this empty white box isn't doing anything for your sanity. You need more friends, and you need /help/!"

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYItTxqTc38

When will it stop being disorienting? Kasagami says she likes Homura, and Homura remembers ski slope lessons years ago which left friendly aches in weak limbs; she mentions a short tenure, and it reminds Homura that she's only known this Kasagami a single year, even though Homura has looked up to the sword-loving young woman much longer.

The first shake of Homura's head, then, is just to clear her time-misted head. Being loomed over like that has the slender, shorter girl folding her arms defensively. Both head-shake and arm-folding take on obstinate undertones as the haranguing intensifies, and then...

"My future? MY future?" Either Kasagami said something incredibly offensive or incredibly funny -- Homura's face screws up so much it's impossible to tell. "You don't even believe me, how would you know anything about my..." She swallows, hard, and huffs out the rest of her breath rather than using it on words.

In the spacious white-walled living room, Kasagami's seat consists of an unpacked cardboard box. Homura trails her in and plops down across from her on another box. This is still her senpai -- she still feels an obligate obedience. She still cares.

For most of the rest of this concerned dressing-down she is still, and quiet, and utterly avoidant of eye contact. Homura busies herself pulling white latex off nearly-white fingers instead. But she flinches when Kasagami says something has hurt her, and right now Homura wouldn't hide that even if she could.

She looks up, and her violet eyes are bruises hollowed by desperation. Whatever hurt her lies naked there, uncovered. Her senpai, the fierce and funny duelist who cheerfully crashed through Homura's barriers before... Kasagami thinks she's insane. No one believes her... no one. "I need help," she echoes, sad and frustrated. "Help is all I want. But no one will give it to me. I keep asking and asking, but... you think you know what I need, and you won't listen when I tell you. I'm not covering up anything, I keep /telling/ you and /telling/ you..."

Her voice climbs and then she breaks off and heaves a few agitated breaths. She's on the sadder end of the spectrum when she continues. "Maybe you would have helped me when you were President..."

But Kasagami never won the Presidency in this timeline -- just in Homura's fairy tale delusions. Every time Homura talks about these fantastical other timelines they sound like a girl's hopeful dream, and this is often in direct and cruel comparison to how things actually are right now.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Homura's face screws up, and then she lashes out in turn! Across box from box Kassie vaguely waves a hand towards the Puella Magi. Her pushing back seems to both egg on the Disciplinary Executive and yet annoy her.

"Finally! A little bit of fire in Homura Akemi! As I said, I don't think what you're saying is the /truth/, but I don't think that you're lying either. What I'm talking about is the path that you are currently walking on, Homura!" She runs a hand through her hair.

Eyes close, and then her good one opens to peer back at the girl.

And then pauses. Kasagami knows when she's hut someone, and Homura's face shows it. She goes quiet for a second, taking in what the Puella offers her. She raises that hand went through her perfect, silky, dark hair and grinds it just a bit against her own temple. She ignores the little red spot it creates, no matter how uncomfortable it gets.

"I'm half blind, not deaf, Homura-chan. You want help, I get that. And I swear on my parents' graves, I want to give it to you. But as a member of the Student Council, and the Disciplinary Executive, I need to be rational. So I must give you the help you need, even if it's not what you ask for."

A sigh.

Then she raises both arms. "If you want me to accept what you've been telling me is true, then give me /evidence/! Telling me the same story, fanciful and horrible, without proof just makes you sound like you're nuts! I love the heart you're putting into all of this. Now give me something I can work with, okay?" Kassie sounds utterly exasperated with Homura's continued stories!

And then she audibly chokes.

The Duelist's face flushes a bit. Teeth grind. And then Kasagami Araki glares at Homura. She steps off from her back heel, and this young woman devours the space between their two boxes in absolutely awful haste.

Her hand then reaches down to swat Homura's shoulder. She's smiling. It's not a good smile.

"You need some fresh air to deflate that fanciful head of yours, Homura! Congratulations, I'll be personally dragging you to the sports festival if you're not there at the crack of dawn my beloved friend!" Her voice growls.

And then she's standing up, just before her boot decides to crash right down onto that white box, shattering it into innumerable pieces.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Is it worse to be thought a liar, or to be seen as insane?

Homura's face flushes from her outburst and the inevitable shame that washes in after. If Kasagami doesn't think she's lying but doesn't think she's telling the truth, it really only leaves the latter. She rubs at her hot cheeks with both hands, hating the sting of embarrassed tears in her eyes. They're useless, worse than.

Her voice has that thin wobble of poorly controlled upset. "I've tried to prove it, just..."

She /has/ tried to give proof of her future knowledge, more than once, made predictions of things she's seen happen a certain way in one of the previous timelines. They never pan out right; something's always different. Homura doesn't understand why things keep changing. It might be enough to make her question her own sanity, if it wasn't for Madoka: her pink evening star, the light by which Homura navigates this growing nightmare.

"All I can tell you is the truth. Why can't that be enough?" She's plaintive, and utterly unhelpful.

Homura doesn't get to stew in her upset because she's just inadvertently stirred Kasagami. She doesn't flinch backwards off her box, all credit to the tutelage of a past Mikoto Minagi.

There's no escape from the Sports Festival. And... at least she'll get to see Madoka and the others more, she tells herself. Homura's head droops, so Kasagami gets a view of shining black hair and the dark headband holding it all in place. It's a slump; it's a bow.

"The crack of dawn, Araki-san," comes the morose acquiescence. She sounds remarkably like any other student bulled into participation. The box smashes apart beneath the boot Kasagami didn't remove at the door, and the still-packed contents suffer and spill out: carefully packed volumes of shoujo manga, their covers soft and pretty with girls' faces and flowers. They're crumpled, now.. "A-ahhh..."

It's fine, Homura tells herself. She didn't have time to read them anyhow. Stuff like that doesn't matter as much, not anymore. Homura feels this bitter-sharp pang in her chest, like a loss -- not at the manga spilled on the floor, but at her own thoughts. Then she shoves that away, too.

"I'll be there," she says toward the floor.

[[Category:Logs]]
[[Category:Ushering In The Golden Age]]

2018-11-19 - TIMELINE 1: Slipping Away

2019-02-20T22:17:05Z

Kestrel: And more!

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 1: Slipping Away'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi slips away from Sports Festival.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Homura's apartment
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-02-19 - 2015-03-28
|-
|}

<SoundTracker> The Frail (live) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaNWKgs31lQ

Finally, her breath comes slow and steady; finally, her knees have converted back into knees from useless jelly. It has taken another whole event -- she missed the three-legged race completely for the sake of recovery -- but Homura Akemi can now get up and around under her own power. She's just trying out her legs like a newborn colt standing for the first time when Ijiri-sensei speaks up.

"Akemi-san, you look better. Why don't you rejoin your friends?"

It's a kindly urging. The teacher overseeing her recovery noticed how wistful the girl has looked, throughout this isolation period. She couldn't possibly understand how deep Homura's isolation goes.

Her... friends.

Homura wobbles where she stands. With one fist over her chest she cranes her neck, looks around. Peppered throughout the crowd she sees students whose names she has only just learned. She's had other first days at other schools, learned other fresh handfuls of names... Homura remembers them all, and is so very sure none of those first-day 'friends' remember her at all.

She keeps looking, shoulders drooping by the second. There's someone she hasn't spotted yet.

Will... will Madoka remember her, after she goes? Homura has not lasted a full school year outside of a hospital in a very long time.

If she does, how will she remember Homura?

As the transfer student she took to the nurse's station, the cringing tagalong... the girl who couldn't even last a full round of tug-of-war. The failed anchor. Madoka was so kind to Homura, and then...

Maybe it'd be better if Madoka doesn't remember Homura.

Just then the crowd parts between them and there she is: twintails afluff in the autumn breeze, bright pretty eyes on the strong blunette who'd hugged her earlier.

Homura Akemi huddles where she stands. Then she turns and makes her way through the crowd, an apology of a person cringing her way between clusters of laughing chatting students. She leaves with her dark head bowed and her violet eyes on the ground.

If she slips away quietly enough, maybe it can be like she was never there in the first place.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]

2018-02-19 - No Open Flames, No Sparks

2019-02-20T22:12:50Z

Kestrel: Doing housekeeping on older cutscenes

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: No Open Flames, No Sparks'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Homura Akemi takes a break from homework to answer some texted questions from her allies.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Homura's apartment
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-02-19 - 2015-03-28
|-
|}

A text notification chirps. Homura Akemi invests time and care in disengaging from the delicate work at hand. In a minute, the rectangle of a phone shadow slices through the harsh light cast by her desk lamp and across an uncapped metal tube.

Kyouko Sakura's contact name appears over a picture of Kozue with her eyes closed and her lip split.

Not your everyday message preview, this. It elicits a double blink of violet eyes in an otherwise impassive face.

With a snap of elastic Homura pulls off her gloves and taps her way into the waiting text. The questions within have... many answers. They gather character by character and word by word with quick gestures.

>That's Kozue Kaoru. She was a student at Ohtori until recently. Miki Kaoru is her brother._

All items of public record. Backlight paints pale fingers cold cyan as they hover over the screen.

>That's Kozue Kaoru. She was a student at Ohtori until recently. Miki Kaoru is her brother. She is Sayaka Miki's_

Freed by the tomb-quiet of an empty apartment, a ghost of squirming discomfort abashes her hand to stillness. She'd danced around the topic with Mami Tomoe as well. Once upon a forever ago, the cringing shyness in a frail sheltered geek with two dark braids would have drawn flush to cheek simply to overhear classmates giggle about schoolyard romances.

Homura is not that worthless girl any more. She refuses to be. Her mouth twists; her fingers move, squashing down on the glass like she's splatting a bug against it.

>That's Kozue Kaoru. She was a student at Ohtori until recently. Miki Kaoru is her brother. She is Sayaka Miki's girlfriend._

With a final tap and a digital blip, the text goes out to the Shepherds group chat. The gloves go back on next. Homura has homework to finish. Late into the night she assembles, worrying her way through as many permutations of current events as she can manage. Sleep doesn't come until IEDs and worries both pile up beyond easy counting.

The pipe bombs, at least, store away neatly in her shield.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]

2019-02-19 - TIMELINE 3: Under the Spreading Citrus Tree

2019-02-20T16:24:22Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 3: Under the Spreading Citrus Tree'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Two girls with braids avoid Sports Festival together.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Mikoto Minagi]] and [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Rose Garden
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2019-02-19 - 2014-09-14
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

It's the Sports Festival, with grand accoutrement and polished presentation. But there is one name which has gone unrepresented in all the events: Mikoto Minagi. She does not want to draw attention to herself, not when her enemies wear Ohtori uniforms. She is better than most of these students, and her skill would be obvious.

After a dressing-down from Juuban's Haruna Sakurada, who finally found her after she failed to show up for tug-of-war, Mikoto has - mysteriously - vanished. No one's quite sure how she manages to slip out of everyone's clutches like that. But in the end, Mikoto has little interest in dancing to the School Festival's tune.

She has slipped away to the greenhouse, warm and contained and /quiet,/ shielded from the cheers and shouts of the festivities by its glass. Birds in their cages ruffle their feathers as she passes, but they are pets, so she can't catch them. She settles in between the roots of a tree which flourishes in the carefully-crafted environment; a fruit tree, though there is nothing worth taking from it now. Her black case rests beside her as she presses her back against the trunk, looking up at the leaves. At least they smell nice.

Mikoto is at least confident enough that Mai will be safe, during the Festival; she would not have left her side if she were worried. Their enemies would not be so brazen as to attack her midst so many bystanders. And if anyone is targetting Mikoto - well.

It will be easier to find them here, when everyone ought to be occupied elsewhere.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

It's the Sports Festival... and Homura Akemi really hates the Sports Festival.

The fact that it's at Ohtori this school year -- this /timeline/ -- does little to mitigate the memories of worthlessness and worse. Intervening years as a training puella magi have granted her some modicum of bodily control and strength she lacked before, but the girl herself still lacks confidence in herself. She's been avoiding event sign-ups as much as possible, too.

Besides... it all feels so strange and pointless, considering what she now knows. Distant.

Madoka is relatively safe at the Sports Festival, much like Mai. There is no true safety. Homura learned that right down to her marrow, but... One of her harder lessons, earlier this timeline, was that it is not physically possible for one girl to shadow Madoka Kaname every hour of every day. She's learning to live with the livewire panic that thrums within whenever they are apart; she will one day learn to read it, like a spider reads the vibrations of her web-strands. Not yet. But one day.

Much like her braidsister, she seeks quietude and solace. She still has her athletic shirt and shorts on, skinny sunstarved limbs on full display -- are her braids thicker than her arms? It sure looks that way -- which is another reason she seeks the relative privacy of the greenhouse with its weathered glass walls.

When she spots the root-cradled girl, Homura pauses in place like an uncertain fawn, one foot still lifted. She hovers on the precipice of a decision.

Internal anxiety drives her ever forward. She sets her foot down, and then the next, altering angles to walk right toward her old friend, taking special care to /not/ tread carefully. It feels strange, too, to intentionally discard a lesson Mikoto taught here, right in front of her treetop senpai. Fallen twigs crunch underfoot.

"Minagi-san...? Minagi-san, hi. Um, it's a really nice tree, huh? But maybe not for climbing..." Fidget, fidget. "I don't blame you for skipping it. But they'll really miss you at the obstacle course. You're so good at it, I remember..." Homura is not referring to this timeline.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Once upon a time, not so many times ago, Mikoto quite enjoyed herself at School Festivals.

This time around, she simply doesn't seem invested at all.

Funny how people change - isn't it?

Certainly Mikoto is wearing the uniform, the gym-shorts and the shirt which lets her skin breathe in anticipation of physical activity. She is sinewed in the manner of an acrobat, understated musculature which speaks to the ease with which she ascends arboreally. Not here, though - not today. Today she is at ground-level. It is deliberate.

Cra-crunch go fallen leaves not yet swept up and Mikoto springs to her feet, a hand grasping at the strap of her case to bring it with her, whirls to face -- "Homura," Mikoto blinks, in surprise, her battle-ready sharpness fading in an instant as she hears her voice. "Sorry... I..." She lowers herself back down, glancing aside, made uncomfortable by the fact that she reacted too quickly and too harshly.

"Um... yeah," she says, glancing up to the tree which is poor for climbing. But there's something Homura fumbled through in her fidgeting which makes her frown, the way the things Homura says sometimes do.

She looks back up to her, head canting, brow knit, as if she is trying to figure out whether Homura is making fun of her. "Never did that," she says, simply; she is not as good with her words, this time around. Mikoto did very few exercises, during Juuban's festival. Mai cajoled her into trying a couple - but certainly not an obstacle course.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Once upon a timeline, Homura Akemi would have jumped to high heaven when Mikoto sprang up so fierce and ready; she probably would have ended in an ungainly heap on the greenhouse floor, plus a knee-scrape or two.

Mikoto taught her how not to flinch, and even if the lesson was interrupted Homura still learned from it. Besides, the weight of everything has happened between adds lead to her feet. Experience desensitizes.

So: Homura's violet eyes widen and her small mouth goes round, but she doesn't squeak or windmill or fall over. "Ah, no, I'm sorry! It's okay. I didn't mean to interrupt. Um, well... I guess I did." They exchange apologetic embarrassment for seconds that stretch.

It doesn't get any less awkward. "At Ohtori? You were paired up with Umokeshi-san and..." And she realizes, making the connection between all the confusing strands of deja vu. "And... nevermind." The blood heating Homura's smooth pale cheeks rises in part from chagrin, and in part from frustration. She kicks a clod of dirt and dark particles fly.

"Sorry," she says again, after, but the frustration colors the words.

"Things have just gotten so... weird," says the girl many would point fingers to as a font of weirdness. She looks to Mikoto and longs for one of their grueling training sessions, longs to look up to the other girl, to rely on her strength and friendship as she did before. It displays as a harried sadness, an expression that comes easily to Homura these days.

She squats in place, maybe a meter from Mikoto and her tree, and starts patting the kicked earth down flat again. "Maybe they always were," she murmurs, eyes downcast.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Once upon a timeline, Mikoto was horrified to realise what she had done, a dawning realisation which spoke to something terrible.

That horror is not on her face now; it's a much more normal sort of embarrassment. She shakes her head, with a noise of negation. "Not interrupting," she says. And even if she does, even if someone capitalises on Mikoto apart from the crowd, Homura can handle herself. She is awkward and ungainly in a fight, but she can fight regardless; Mikoto has not offered much in the way of advice, because Mikoto is no one's sensei. She doesn't even remember her lessons. There's no way she could lead someone else.

The confusion is normal enough, to Homura's eyes; she has seen it enough, from the golden-eyed girl who fights far too fiercely on those few occasions she can be roused to battle. She does not recognise Niramo's last name - because she is outside Mai's orbit, Mikoto has hardly noticed her at all. There are many names Mikoto is not close to, who she once knew so fondly. Names like Usagi Tsukino, or Kasagami Araki, or Endo Naoki - or even Mami Tomoe, who is now so much more wary of Mikoto's collateral damage.

Mikoto does not realise she is missing so many friends. With a few precious exceptions, friendships hard-won on her own effort, Mikoto associates with the people Mai associates with; and even then, there are many of Mai's friends Mikoto simply cannot mesh with. Chie Harada, for instance, who keeps trying to determine the truth behind the many rumours which surround Mikoto, to her eternal annoyance.

But to Mikoto's point of view, she has always had a small circle of friends, and she's fine with that. She's here for a specific purpose, after all, and it wasn't to make friends with everyone in Tokyo. It's just a nice side-effect of being here.

"It's okay," Mikoto says, as Homura apologises, because Mikoto doesn't think Homura is trying to make fun of her on purpose. Homura is just... confused. More confused than anyone she knows, but maybe that happens, sometimes. And Takeo did say that sometimes he has memories which aren't his. Maybe Homura just has memories which aren't real.

Things have gotten weird, she says.

For some reason, that makes Mikoto look sad, too.

But it's only as she continues her supposition that Mikoto looks away again, humming discontent through closed lips as they draw down. For all she is strange she speaks of dark and awful things, and Mikoto thinks that perhaps she would understand better than most of the girls who had not made their promise. Her voice halts over the words, uncertain: "Can I - tell Homura something?"

She waits, and listens, and soon enough presses forward. "... Midori's not lazy," she explains, of the history teacher who has been suspiciously absent, even during the Sports Festival. Mikoto takes a breath; it shudders. Her brow curves up, with the sorrow in her eyes. "Midori's dead." Her hands tighten in her lap.

"Miyu cut Gakutenou in half. Midori's Child." Homura has spent enough time around Mikoto to know the terminology by now, even if Mikoto has never shown her own Child to the world. "Homura... we..."

It is easier to show her; Mikoto draws up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing the birthmark there, pale red in the form of a strange star. "... HiME make a promise, Homura. When we choose to fight, we bet our lives." It is how Mai understood it; it is the easiest way to understand it. Mikoto does not remember accepting Miroku, but she knows she has taken the same debt, on a bone-deep level.

"It's - hard, killing Child." They are massive, technomagical beasts; even the smallest amongst them are armed to the teeth. And it is so strange to hear fear, from Mikoto: "... Miyu didn't even have to try. Gakutenou's fast. Couldn't even react. It... Midori..." She curls her arms around herself, cold in the warmth of the greenhouse, and blinks tears from her eyes.

It takes her a moment to continue.

Finally Mikoto shakes her head, swallowing. "Midori knew the price. We all do, Homura. But - but no one's ever... this never... it's, hard, Homura. 'Cause it really was always this way." And here she comes to why she has thought of it, though there is nothing weird about their destiny.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

The assurances that Homura didn't interrupt, that she's okay, don't soothe away the raw fidgety nervousness. She nods, though, ever polite. And then... again, because her friend Mikoto wants to tell her something.

Maybe listening will help. Maybe she'll learn something.

She settles back onto her butt on the ground, drawing her knees up so her chin has a place to perch. The nervous chewing of her bottom lip ceases when the word "dead" comes out, and Homura stares at Mikoto. Did she just get paler, somehow? Like porcelain painted white.

"I heard about the fight..." she says, very quietly. "Tomoe-senpai didn't bring us." She's glad Madoka was nowhere near it.

The skinny girl rocks forward onto her heels to better peer forward at Mikoto's bared arm, but her nervous gaze keeps skittering to Mikoto's face instead, then away. "A promise," she repeats. "To fight. That sounds like..." And she swallows, hard. Her mouth becomes a fearful little line, her eyes gain a strained look around the edges.

With some effort she stays quiet until the other girl finishes. The tears she sees in Mikoto's eyes feel like they burn in hers, and Homura looks down at the silvery wish-contract encircling her own finger instead. Grief welters.

"It was always this way. It was just... it's not a fair price, Minagi-san! It's not fair, none of it is fair." Homura's standing, now, with her small hands in fists. She trembles like an overtuned violin string. "Even when you think you know, you don't, not really..."

Her shoulders, high and tight, slump. "And now she's gone. Sugiura-sensei, I mean." Because Madoka's just on the other side of school -- Homura didn't lose her at all. Right? Like nothing bad ever happened... "I'm sorry, Minagi-san. I wasn't in her class yet, but I always heard she was... um, really cool. And it's just... it's awful, and scary." Everything is, these days.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_lMcYcRCPk III - Return To Zero

Is it unfair?

Did they not realise the burden they were shouldering?

How young was Mikoto, when she took hers?

"Midori annoyed me," Mikoto says, and her voice is thin. "Wanted everyone to get along. Told us we should fight together all the time. But... Midori did right things, even when it was hard. Midori was a good person." She looks down, braids shading either side of her face. "... only one who thought I was good at school, too." Because physical education doesn't count, not really.

Her mind skips as it tracks over what Homura has said; she puffs out a breath. "... Mami helped me," she says, because she heard her name. She has to remember their last names, because Homura uses nothing else with so many people. Mikoto never does, but by now Homura must know her yobisute addressal isn't meant to be rude. "Good thinking." She doesn't specify what thinking that might be; if it gets back to Mami, Mikoto has enough faith in another veteran that she'll know.

And it skips, and skips, and perhaps she is avoiding acknowledging it, but it looms overhead like a great twisted star.

Stubbornly Mikoto sits in silence for some time, but silence is no stranger, to Mikoto. She does not speak as often as other girls. Perhaps it is expected. She breaks her silence, eventually.

"Why's it not fair?" She asks, mildly, looking up to Homura, across an ever-widening gulf. "We bind ourselves to our Child. If someone's cut open, they die, Homura." And at once she looks at her and looks past her, through her, and her voice is laid on distant shore. Perhaps it is grief. "If Homura thinks no fight ever killed anyone..."

Mikoto tries to avoid killing them, but it is only because Mai would be sad.

It is so evident that it is a new paradigm for her, now, when she fights with bloodlust and battle-rage, and she does not turn her blade aside.

"We're ones who aren't fair. Child's overwhelming, Homura. Seen Kagutsuchi, right? Or Gakutenou, or Cassandra..." She snorts, a frown crossing her face as she adds: "Duran, too." Another name from someone she used to be friendly with; it took so long to repair that ship. "Even if they tried, most couldn't hurt them that bad." She does not mention her Child.

Mikoto shakes her head. "With that much power, cost makes sense. 'Course it's fair."

Is it more difficult, when she's struggling with the concept of fairness from another angle like this?

She takes a breath; it shudders. Her fingers smooth against her arms. "I just... never thought there was someone who could... defeat us so easily. Not even being able to fight back... I... I thought I'd be okay," and she does not say why. "But I'm still... kinda..." And the word is like sandpaper in her throat. "... scared, Homura," and she whispers the admission like she oughtn't say it at all.

"It's okay," she reassures her, dully, and perhaps it is no reassurance at all. "It won't stop me."

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

That Midori was annoying doesn't really invalidate the rest, to Homura; teachers are kinda supposed to be that, right? And the rest, the wanting everyone to get along... Homura squeezes her eyes shut tight for just a moment, remembering the Covenant of Style. Then she just nods, and keeps listening, her hands flexing from open to fist and then opening again.

During the long silence, Homura squats down again and starts poking at the dirt pile. She is used to Mikoto's long silences, grew used to them years ago, years before she ever met this Mikoto; she waits it out within her own pensive silence.

Which agitates, as Mikoto goes on.

At some point Homura finds a sturdy twig, slender but strong -- about the size of a long grape stem but made of dried fallen wood, a castoff from an overhead branch. She begins digging in short, hard downward strokes, as if Homura could drive all that agita into the ground and bury it. By the time Mikoto is done there is a sizeable divot carved out, palm-sized and irregular.

"It's just... not. You can't trust them, you can't trust any of it. You think it's fair, but then you find out it's not... You have to believe me." The very last is whispered. She doesn't shout those words so much any more, but she can't keep from saying them. Homura won't give up. She'll /never/ give up.

She gouges away with her twig, and the pile of displaced dirt grows.

"Yeah. I've seen them." And it is scary to think of someone, something, which could menace the likes of Kagutsuchi and Gakutenou, but... by this point Homura has seen terrible, terrible things. Like a Witch whose advent shook earth and sky alike. The mortality, though, the reminder of vulnerability...

"Not even able to fight back," she repeats under her breath, like it strikes a chord -- because it does. Then: "Sometimes fights... kill people. I know. I /know/." And by the harrow shading her face, it's true. What Mikoto says is not reassuring, exactly, but it does feel very familiar.

"But... if you bet your life so you can fight, and then you run into something you can't fight... then..." And she shakes her head. "You're right to not let it stop you, Minagi-san," she says, but that also comes out sounding more grim than supportive. "Even if it's the scariest thing you've ever seen."

Dig, dig, dig. Someone is going to be very cross to find this hole in her garden, later.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

She can't trust them, Homura says, and Mikoto feels her muscles stiffen underneath her fingers, and the hot glance she shoots Homura is not believing, not at all.

There is too much she is asking her not to trust, too much she tells her is unfair. Homura cannot know how tied the Minagis are to Miroku, how interwoven her family and her destiny, how long she has trained to fight. Or, at least... Mikoto cannot remember ever saying a word to her about it.

But she does not reprimand her with words; she hardly needs to, with a gaze like that. It settles back to neutrality as she continues to listen, softens as Homura insists she understands. Mikoto drops her gaze, brow upturned, because she knows Homura has seen something horrible. It's in the way she says it, the drawn lines of her face. "Sorry," she mumbles.

Homura offers support - and it does read as support, to Mikoto, grim as the words come - and she hums acknowledgement, dipping her head in a nod. "I won't hesitate," she says. "I'll defeat Alyssa and Miyu, and the others." She does not know them by their names; only their masks.

But surely she doesn't mean Alyssa Searrs, the shy little gradeschooler with an angel's voice? She is only a child.

Mikoto is unswayed; Mikoto knows how vicious children can be.

"'Cause I'm not like Homura or Mai," Mikoto says, tilting her chin up to watch the leaves. "I know what I'm doing. I've always known what I'm doing. Bothers people sometimes..." She shrugs, with a hapless little grunt. "... some stuff's more important than everyone liking me." Mikoto is a matter of tension in the community; there are few who appreciate how savage she can be, let alone her unreliable nature.

She doesn't mean to hit her allies, but sometimes they just get in the way at the wrong moment. Her sword is unwieldy, after all. It's not precise, like Madoka's arrows, or given to finesse, like Eri's whip.

But it is a thought which brings her to the Woman in Black, and when Mikoto looks back to Homura there is a vulnerability in her expression, the crease of her brow and the tension at her eyes. Would she? Would she?

"But - but Homura's important too, okay? Homura's my friend. I wouldn't hurt Homura... no matter what anyone says, okay?" Her grief lent her determination, before, but now it just tears open her words in their uncertainty. "Even if someone said I was bad, I'm not! Homura can trust that!" And now who is asking whom for belief?

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Homura knows a silent Mikoto rebuke when she feels one boring into her, yellow and disbelieving. Her shoulders hunch. She doesn't take it back.

The mumbled 'Sorry' receives a shifting of eyes in return, a small shrug that isn't 'I don't care' but 'I don't wanna talk about it.' She is sure Mikoto can't mean Alyssa Searrs. It's not that common a name, but two Alyssas in Tokyo is less strange to Homura than that sweet girl being a threat, being someone Mikoto would...

A shake of her head, a flop of thick black braids, and Homura refocuses on her little excavation project. Soft digging sounds continue.

She looks up, though, when Mikoto explains how she's not like Homura or Mai. Her hand slows, the sounds stop. Homura had wanted so long, so badly, to be liked by... anyone, when it came right down to it. Then they did, finally, and...

It's a hard idea for her to swallow, that something could be more important that salving that loneliness, but by now she has swallowed harder. Homura tried so hard to get everyone on her side, when she first arrived in this timeline, and... it didn't help. No one believes her, and she has to save Madoka somehow. Still... She hasn't given up yet.

"I... I like you, Minagi-san," she says instead, and feels a bit miserable because even if this Mikoto has no recollection of a proclamation of love, Homura still remembers and /still/ feels bad about not having said it back, then. 'Love' is such a big word, though, for a girl who never heard it from anyone, even growing up. In Homura's world, it's so large and powerful it can only belong to one person.

She says it right as Mikoto begins to worry, and in so soft and quiet a voice that it's easily overrun. After, though -- she says it again, a renewed rebuttal. "I like you, Minagi-san! You're my friend, you've taught me so much-"

Homura visibly chokes on her next words before they reach her mouth, though. She has that look of someone who just realized what she's about to say. Her head drops, and she stabs at the earth.

Dig. Dig. DIG-

*snap* goes the twig, a dry sound. After a pause Homura sighs and drops both halves of her little shovel into the hole she's dug for herself, and goes ahead and says it in a morose monotone. She can't help it.

"Of course I believe you."

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mikoto doesn't press, after that shrug.

Everyone has something in life they don't want to talk about.

Everyone has something in life more important than social standing, too, right?

... the hard fact is, while the girls were fighting Nakewameke and Jewel Seeds, Familiars and Witches, Mikoto was searching. When the girls banded together against threats, Mikoto didn't get involved. Mikoto so rarely got involved, unless Mai decided she could not stand aside. And then sometimes she would involve herself if Madoka asked, or Homura, or Eri; but always it was for the benefit of someone she cared for.

Her motives are unclear, and her explanations terse, and it is so easy to dislike Mikoto Minagi - or to distrust her.

It is as if there are two sides to her entirely; the wordless force of rage who always goes too far when she bothers to show up, and the loyal girl who is so eager to see her friends that she pounces upon them.

Which, then, is Mikoto?

But Homura says she likes her, and gratitude and relief flood Mikoto's face, and finally she smiles. She has spent quite some hours puzzling over love, of late; this time it is the first time she says: "I love Homura, too!"

It always takes her a while to figure out how to say it so directly. One time, Homura was the first to hear it, though she may not have realised the gravitas.

But Homura chokes, and Mikoto frowns in concern, looking down at the shallow grave Homura has started on. She hears it; she hears it. "I..."

She hears it, but no matter how badly she feels for her friend, she can't say it.

If she said she believed her, it would be a lie.

Girls cannot become monsters, falling into a dark place.

"I won't leave Homura alone," she says, instead. "I don't gotta understand to listen to Homura." Even if she does not believe her, she can at least let her talk.

She shakes her head, braids flicking every-which-way. "And - I'm happy," she insists, with a small smile, as she looks back to her. "Never really thought... I'd teach anyone stuff. I'm the one who's gotta learn everything here... always feels like everyone knows more than me. Sometimes it's like I don't really belong here at all... but if I helped Homura, maybe I'm not just catching up? Maybe I can help, too."

She does not realise how she is helping.

She does not realise she no lighthouse, but an anchor, dragging Homura down to worse and worse depths.

[[Category:Logs]]

2019-02-07 - TIMELINE 2: History for the Future Girl

2019-02-20T01:56:54Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: TIMELINE 2: History for the Future Girl'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''The President catches one of Ohtori's students mid-grades slide and intervenes.''
|-
| '''Who:''' 
[[Kasagami Araki]] and [[Homura Akemi]]
|-
| '''Where:''' 
Ohtori Library
|-
| '''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2-7-2019 - April 2014
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Akemi-san! Don't be so quick to leave, young lady..."

"E-ehh?" Homura freezes on the threshold of freedom with one brown loafer hovering over the hallway tile and the other still planted in her Japanese History classroom.

With her elbows hitched like that and her chin sunk down to her chest, well, it sure does look like she got caught in the act of escaping. A few more students file past her with sidelong looks and snickers: amusement barbed with gladness that it's her and not them. "Hai, sensei..." She rotates in place to face her fate, shoulders still hunched up.

She hardly needed to stop; the ensuing /pointed/ reminder carries well into the hall. This particular teacher is renowned for having a trumpet of a voice; the adjoining classrooms often get bonus history facts through the walls when he makes a particularly emphatic point.

"You transferred in with very good grades, especially considering your difficult circumstances." Homura winces down further and stares at her inward-turned toes, clearly not enjoying how public this reminder is. A handful of passing students delay on their way to after-school clubs, not bothering with polite pretexts for their rubbernecking. Ohtori's rumor mill demands its grist.

He continues at a low bellow, frowning at her from his desk. "Seeing them drop like this has been very disappointing! You are clearly capable of learning the material. Have you let social nonsense distract you? Hmh. Well, young lady, you have some studying to do for tomorrow's test on the Sengoku Period if you want a grade you can show your parents without shame."

They don't care, Homura thinks but doesn't say. After searching for the right thing to say instead, the acquiescence that will free her -- not to go study, but to go look for Madoka -- she twists a braid in both hands and says, "Yes, Hashimura-san. I-I'm sorry, I'll work harder." Then bows, twice because he's still frowning at her after the first one.

He harrumphs again and turns back to the papers on his desk, then, dissatisfied but dismissing her with a final reminder. "Chapters twelve and thirteen."

Homura huffs out a relieved sigh and nigh-scurries away from the open classroom door, aiming to escape the whole situation and the stares of students around her. If she hurries, maybe she can catch up to her best friend and they'll have time to go shopping, or walking, or... or anything, really. If it's Witch-hunting tonight then that's fine by her, even if the prospect of entering a Labyrinth feels like it'll never stop churning her guts. It will still be with Madoka.

Chapters twelve and thirteen look fit to languish unread tonight. Social nonsense, indeed.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The great door leading out into the hallway has a lovely bit of light pouring into the classroom! A beautifully crafted Ohtori gateway from the horrific confines of scholastic learning (or in Homura's case, not learning!). The symbol of freedom from that trumpet-voiced Hashimura-san and having to apply oneself to the onerous task of knowing the past!

Unfortunately Homura's skitter to safety finds a tall, dark-clad shadow devouring quite a bit of that beautiful Ohtori light seeping into the place where she was so righteously academically trounced. Hard steel toed boots pause as a pair of in-ear headphones are plucked out at the last second. A quick turn on the heels and the flutter of a longcoat.

The voice and her scarred features leave zero mystery in who she is. The riffs of Metallica vaguely clamor out as a large smile creeps its way up Kasagami Araki, President of the Student Council, is halted in her tracks as she spies the bespectacled form of Homura. She'd even caught the history teacher's voice over her music.

And then a gloved hand is coming down to try to capture any attempts of this poor young woman to squirrel away.

"Did the melodic tones of Poppa Hetfield deceive me, or did I hear a certain sensei of times long forgotten bark like he always does?"

She's laughing, there's humor in it, but from the looks of equal parts envy and pity, this may or may not be a good thing. This President is far different from Touga, after all.

"Homura-chan! Are you having problems with your studies? Surely an intelligent and motivated student such as yourself wouldn't slack off towards extracurriculars, would she?" That second question might not sound like a question at all.

"I'm something of a student of history, you see. Dad always had a book in his hands when he wasn't knife fighting Diet members with a pen. It rubbed off on yours truly. And of course!"

One finger in the air. "As your beautiful, peerlessly wise Student Council President, it is my duty to help wandering, wayward souls in this school to reach deep within them, and achieve the greatness that they can aspire to if they give it their all!"

Here, off goes that hand, and she's leaning down to eye Homura straight on. It is /way/ too close for comfort.

"Library. I'll even buy our drinks."

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, thinks Homura as she skitters right into the purview of one Kasagami Araki. The flame-scarred Student Council President might not appreciate such a comparison, so it's good she doesn't say that aloud...

Instead the girl with the thick, floppy braids wilts under the falling hand and suffers its weight upon her hunched shoulder. Even through a thick glove and a thinner Ohtori uniform, Kasagami can feel how little cushioning there is between the skin and the bone, on Homura. What a knobby, skinny thing she is!

"P-poppa... who?" Homura has not been initiated into the mysteries of American heavy metal. The laughter has her wide-eyed and wondering if it's /at/ her or /with/ her, because Homura will never stop being a wallflower by nature. "President-san, um... I-I'm sure you don't need to bother to spend your time on me.." It was Araki-san before the election. Homura always goes for the formal option.

Oh no. Escape will not be that easy, it seems. She's ducked away from Kasagami's intense regard before, but usually she ducks /behind/ someone, and none of her friends are around right now. Surely she wouldn't slack, right? Right...?

"I've been busy, too..." A furtive glance around reveals students still rubbernecking. "With, with you know. /You know/..." Desperately, Homura tries to convey 'fighting Witches and saving the world and learning to be a magical girl' with her eyes, wordlessly, because that is definitely her excuse here but she can't exactly say it in front of everyone. She trails off, because that excuse doesn't seem likely to take.

Kasagami can feel that bony shoulder rise beneath her hand... and then fall in defeat. There'll be no catching up with Madoka today.

"Okay, President-san." With expressively-drooping braids Homura nods her acceptance of this new fate, all too conscious of the students still staring at them both. "Thank you for... for helping me."

She doesn't /sound/ very grateful, just... resigned. Homura doesn't think greatness has anything to do with grades; her model for greatness sprang forth with the arc of pink arrows, and had nothing to do with scholastic excellence. Violet eyes try to avoid searching grey-and-white, ducking down and to the side, and she's leaning back -- good thing Kasagami has a firm hold on the clumsy girl's shoulder or she might tip right over.

-=-=-=-

Once they're at the library and firmly ensconced with whatever comforts the President deems rightful for studying, Homura lets go, under her breath, "I guess I can just learn it for the test, and forget it tomorrow..."

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"Don't be foolish! You are the exact kind of student I like to spend my time on. I believe that there's a certain hierarchy of talent. Family name, money, it's all very good, but it doesn't mean anything if the ones holding such things puts hard work into it!" Kassie asides, voice lowering to be Homura's alone.

All of that protesting only has Kasagami's vice-like grip superbly present and sharp, but just one more pinch below being actually painful or harmful. Sorry, you're going nowhere Homura.

"I am the last person to deny anyone their small athletics group gatherings!" This, a little higher. A subtle wink to the braided-haired one.

Down back goes the voice. "Be that as it may, don't forget your responsibilities in /this/ world, hmm?" A whisper just as they go into the library. There's none of her usual bravado, but instead iron-clad rulesbound tradition and pride on the line. To one who sees a Duel as religion, the honor of Ohtori is paramount.

=-=-

There's a silver tray that goes by, depositing coffee for the two of them. It's a huge table now reserved for two, and the white-clad servants have the good graces to trolly right along after a sharp glance from Kassie. A deep breath. In, out, and Kasagami seems a little more relaxed outside of crowds of expectant students and servants.

That Ohtori grist often catches aflame after all.

WHUMP. The Sengoku period was superbly chaotic. Demonstrated by the fact that Kasagami barely glanced at the books she hauled out to be study guides for those chapters. True, she has some StuCo brand cheating involved, but this history-loving girl barely has to try here. She relishes in how she slams down first books, then her boots onto the table.

Pinky out. Siiiiip coffee.

"So, Homura." She's even dropped the '-chan'. Smirk.

"Do you really think the past is so unimportant that you can afford to ignore it? Do I /really/ need to bring up that overused cliche that remains damningly true?"

Down goes the little fine cup onto it's saucer. Plucking up one book, she holds it open with one hand and close to her good eye. As she concentrates, it's a slightly odd look, her bad eye half-lidded as she concentrates. It's part of why she rarely reads next to others...overly athletic reputation aside.

"Looks like you have the fun part too! Oda Nobunaga! One of the most brilliant leaders and warriors in Japanese history. Everyone knows that much. ...My family rode with the Oda, when we had just gained some notoriety!" Pride flares from the young woman.

She waves the book around. "Anyway, so. Tell me what you know about Oda Nobunaga. I'll identify where you're lacking, and maybe...mmm. The past, Homura-chan, is more than just what to avoid from your ancestors' mistakes." She draws up her legs off the table and sits up a bit.

"The past can be a great, black well of despair you retreat to your nightmares, and it can be a whetstone to sharpen your blade on when things seem hopeless. It all depends on what your current 'history' is facing." Her eyes go unfocused, white and grey. Lips briefly purse.

Then she blinks, and is covering up her face with delicious coffee as she awaits an answer.

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"As... as long as it's okay for us to have it in here..." She's very unsure on that point, but this is the class president she's with, after all. Homura's habit of curling her always-cold fingers around a warm beverage comes into play immediately. Indeed, she takes only a few small sips. "Thank you for the coffee, President-san."

Primly-sitting Homura emits an "eep" as books and boots crash down on the tabletop, and looks around in a guilty hunch to see if anyone's staring at them. Coffee might be a question mark, but you're definitely supposed to be quiet in a library! Kasagami speaking her name brings Homura's head back around again. Not wanting to prolong the lecture, she answers, "No, President-san," while staring down into her cup of coffee. It's clearly an answer of obedience rather than belief.

She glances up when the older girl takes up the book, then her gaze flicks away again in uncomfortable avoidance to see the uneven lidding of her eyes. Homura doesn't want to stare. Instead she pulls her own glasses off to clean them in a nervous fidget that gives her a reason to be looking away. "The fun part," she repeats. "That's... wow, President-san. No wonder you know so much about history. Your family is very important to you."

Something Homura is entirely unable to relate to. She is impressed, though, by the wide (if unfocused) eyes she turns on the blurry pale-and-black blob that is Kasagami Araki. When they're not hiding behind her glasses, those violet irises seem even larger and darker in her porcelain face. After a squinty series of blinks at her unnecessarily-cleaned lenses she puts the red frames back on.

"I um... well, he lived about 500 years ago..." She inhales and gathers her thoughts, visibly. What /does/ she know about Oda Nobunaga? The problem is that Homura paid much better attention in this class a timeline ago, which means it has now been experiential years for her since learning this stuff.

A few things stuck, though. "I know he was called the Demon Daimyo, and he won a lot. And unified Japan." This is the sort of stuff almost every kid knows, though. "He... ah..." Homura flushes, though only lightly. That's it, it seems. The mention of black wells of despair has her staring down into her coffee again. It's the sort of thing she doesn't want to remember.

"Oh," comes the small syllable. When things seemed hopeless to Homura, history was not her savior; Madoka was. That memory is beyond precious to her, though. After a pause, she says, "But- he lived so long ago. And he was a big powerful warlord, and I'm just... I don't get how someone like that would have anything in common with me, that I could... you know. Relate to this stuff like you're saying." She curls up in her seat a bit, her self-conscious posture like a bodily apology.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Smirk! Nice and sharp. "...I can count on one hand the number of people who'd be stupid enough to /try/. Most of them I could either get kicked out or physically throw them out myself. And Midori-sensei wouldn't care about coffee if it meant you getting actual tutoring I'll bet."

Yeah, she's rubbing it in a bit there.

Kasagami /does/ notice that nervous fidget and stare. A look passes over her face, at first annoyed, and then...maybe just a hint of discomfort. Her hangups show more than she likes. One hand tugs a little on a glove just to make sure it's covered up and she tilts her face just enough to bask her right eye in shadow.

The StuCo Prez gives an almost-pleased nod. "Good, goooood, that's the start. Congratulations Homura-chan, you passed history at Juuban two grades below you." Ouch. Then again, she's heard worse.

She even nods a few more times as Homura basically gets everything right. Not having a blank slate to work with it a boon to the young woman.

"That's the thing, Homura. My family alongside the Oda was the beginning of our rise. We were a backwater bunch of provincial nobodies before. Sure, our sword school was a curiosity, but once we threw in on the right tides of history? We're not the Kiryuu family, but our traditions and what we bled and fought to gain are still ours."

A shrug. "And all because we had opportunity and took it. Anyone can become great. It takes a keen eye, ambition, hard work, and skill to become a wealthy family worthy of becoming history. Oda Nobunaga was called a fool as a child, and the Oda clan was frankly small and considered unimportant. But he used his ambition, skill, and a /lot/ of rifles to get the job done. Not to mention a crazy Araki or two willing to hitch themselves to the bandwagon~!" Her voice is near musical here.

"Don't you want to become someone great, Homura Akemi? Or would you rather die, forgotten?"

---

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

With her glasses in hand, the near-sighted girl misses those signs of discomfort -- except the glove-tugging. Homura has gotten to know Kasagami Araki well enough, in this timeline and the last, to recognize that gesture. She takes her time getting those glasses back on, and her cheeks catch flame. This hardly makes things /less/ awkward.

The remark about her grasp on history strikes /right/ home on the already-embarrassed girl, sending her into defensive stammers. "J-Juuban's... a really nice school! And, and I just... I've been busy with other things..." She trails off and takes a big gulp of totally-permissible coffee, opting to listen instead of digging the hole any deeper.

Homura droops as Kasagami waxes prideful. She starts plucking at the hem of her uniform skirt, to the detriment of a frayed thread there. Clearly she's listening, and just as clearly, the President's words are having an effect on her... but it doesn't seem to be inspirational, exactly.

After all, it was Homura's family who taught her everything she knows about self-worth. It's just that her lesson was very different from Kasagami's.

But Homura doesn't talk about /that/.

Instead she offers a wan attempt at a smile. "They sound just like you, President-san. Like you fit right in. A real Araki, someone for your family to be proud of."

Those questions are first met with a continued fidgeting silence: a struggle between telling the truth and knowing her tutor won't like it much. Homura Akemi still believes in honesty and trust, though, and thus came by her reputation for being an awkward girl honestly too.

A shake of her head sets black braids dancing. "That sort of thing... isn't for everyone." Greatness, she means. She doesn't want to die forgotten, exactly; she doesn't want to die at all, but... Kasagami can see her brightening as Homura talks on. Her eyes take on a dreamy softness; the smile becomes real. "I'm just so happy as things are. I don't need anything else. Is that so bad?"

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Kassie lets out a vague snort in a definitely dignified manner.

"Sure. If you're a normal person." It is said with pure, almost elemental disdain, that thought of the idea of 'normal'. Her left brow twitches hard. At least it's not at Homura!

In between their combined bouts of nervousness, history is imparted...and increasingly on the personal end. Kasagami might be a lover of history, but /this/ bit is very near and dear to her heart. Even if she wouldn't touch an arcquebus to save her life.

A little flattery does do /wonders/ however for Kasagami's mood. She has de-table-boot'd by now, and is crossing her legs. A long sip of coffee and then she laughs.

"Uncle Saito always says I'm the image of Mom when she was my age. I don't know about that, she was always much more beautiful. And stronger. And smarter. And none of...this." Her good cheer evaporates as she threatens to outright brood.

She quickly turns it around though, if only to stab that awkward silence right in the heart. Also Kasagami is suddenly turning like a whip snapped to fully peer at Homura again. The brief flutter of hair and a tiny whisper of coat might just show her ire at such a suggestion!

"Are you kidding me!? How can you /POSSIBLY/ be content with the way things are!? Do I need to start listing off the problems we humans are making? Or the kind of problems your athletics club is focused on solving? Being content leads to stagnation. Stagnation leads to weakness and then everything crumbles to dust when you least accept it! You can never, /ever/, let your guard down or the flames of conflict will light you up when you think you're safe. Snuggled into your bed without a care in the world."

She snaps her fingers.

"And then everything's gone."

<Pose Tracker> Homura Akemi [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Oh..." Now, not measuring up to parental standards? That's something Homura understands readily. A sympathetic series of nods follows that litany of perceived shortcomings. She thinks the powerful and powerfully cool duelist is impressive enough to warrant plenty of pride, /way/ moreso than Homura, but... "It's hard," she ventures, shy of coming too close to admitting her own shame but wanting to say something.

Kasagami is already moving on though, whirling between topics like she might between enemies on a battlefield -- and Homura is suddenly on the spot. Turns out contentment is pretty bad, at least according to her history tutor.

"E-eeep...!" she squeaks in shrinking-violet startlement, the sound driven out of her by Kasagami's vehemence. Homura doesn't bother looking around the library this time. She just sinks low in her seat, steeped in /absolute certainty/ that everyone in the expansive vocal range of the President is staring as she gets dressed down. The fact of the dressing-down makes a clear impact on Homura, but the content...

Homura didn't join quote-Athletics Club-unquote to save the world; she joined it to save a girl. And self-improvement has always seemed like a joke to the discarded daughter, at least her own account. She has to get in shape for Walpurgisnacht, of course, but Homura isn't worried, just determined.

As for everything crumbling to dust... Her pink-haired everything went away, once, but Homura got her back. Never again.

That's why she made a wish. Homura curls up in that knowledge: it is warmer than a quilted blanket, and more comforting than a stuffed animal hugged until sleep. "It's not... quite like that," she says, and that smile creeps back in, because she can't hide her joy. "I'm not letting my guard down, President-san, I swear! It's just that I know I'll be ready for what's coming." What use does a girl from the future have for history?

But Kasagami is right across the table from her, and is honestly /pretty/ intimidating. Besides, she really does look up to the President, and Homura has always wanted her once-upon-a-time skiing sensei to think well of her. "B-but I'll try, senpai... To get better grades, I mean. To do better." Even if her heart clearly isn't in the task -- it has a prior commitment.

[[Category:Logs]]

Previously On Battle Fantasia

2019-02-19T23:35:54Z

Kestrel: /* Timeline Three */

'''''Previously On Battle Fantasia is a special event that started on Battle Fantasia on 11/11/18.'''''

The five years of Battle Fantasia MUSH roleplay have established a miraculous and tragic [[Timeline|timeline]]...

...but it wasn't the first timeline.

__TOC__

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2UHRMKtic Cue the music!]

[[File:Previously_on_Battle_Fantasia_labels.png|800px|center|link=Previously_On_Battle_Fantasia]]

===The Wayback Machine===

It is September 20, 2013.

The height of fall. Tokyo is golden and beautiful, afternoons still warm with the memory of summer; beginning to be crisp, in the early morning, with the promise of winter.

It is the second year of the Sister Schools program, which is still new enough to be exciting and also a little uncomfortable. Juuban Public School is about to host the joint sports festival, brushing up their fields. Infinity Institute and Ohtori Academy anticipate shoddiness, but are going to find sportsmanship instead.

But some students suddenly find themselves having to balance the challenge of finding the right partner for the three-legged race with a new life -- a double life -- a secret life.

That's because two weeks ago the demonic army of Dark Fall swept into the heart of the magic worlds, the Fairy Realms, and dislodged their masters. They possessed ancient artifacts and used them to explode fairy castles, and they sealed fairy queens away in teacups. They shattered souls, and remade worlds in their own dark image. And so the cries for help went out -- all of them, drawn by an unseen force, to the same blue ball in Space.

And so it is that today, on Earth, the consequences of centuries, millennia, of planning and battles have come to fruit, as Dark Fall and Ends of the World alike descend not as one, but at once. The greedy fingers of corporate masters tear the dreams out of children's chests in the hunt for the miracle-granting Embryo. A coterie of Belkan Knights root in the shadows for the Linker Cores of the innocent - leaving them half dead and bereft of magic. Orphans stir on Southern Cross Island, finding victims to feed on, as their master's mark blazes in the sky. Underground, the Order of the Glittering Crux seeks to release the seals that will allow them to summon their magitechnological wonders into the real world, and seize it for their own. Witches throng in the shadows, their attention called by the despair of those who see how bleak the world is, their Kiss drawing still more into that trap. Above, the Castle Where Eternity Dwells silently waits to see whose heart will next be savaged by the Duels it oversees. And in the North, Queen Beryl's empire rises again, to finally and absolutely conquer the Earth and therefore the crown jewel of the universe...

But the guardians of Earth are rising. Tokyo is where that battle will be fought; as Pretty Cures are found by the refugees of the Fairy Worlds, and HiME once more flock to the Land of Fuuka, now called Southern Cross Island, and the Silver Millennium's Sailor Senshi stir at last from their millennia-long slumber. The darkness is deep; but once, a great queen wished for a light to outshine any darkness.

She will not be disappointed.

She has you.

---

Welcome to 'PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA', our game's next major plot. Starting immediately, we're taking a trip back in time to our world as it was in September 2013: a more innocent time, with more innocent characters. New transfer students are new once again. Virtually everyone is a freshly recruited magical girl, taking their first steps into the world of fighting evil by moonlight -- youma are scary and their masters mysterious and unknown. Balancing normal and magical life is not old hat but an often-overwhelming act of frantic rushing around and the occasional guilty lie.

And beautiful friendships are about to be born.

===Frequently Asked Questions===

'''WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?'''

Frankly, the game has been in a very dark place for a very long time, and everyone needs a break. PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA will occasionally tackle some heavy truths, but overwhelmingly its tone is intended to be lighthearted and fun -- or at least not oppressively, inescapably awful. It is an opportunity for everyone to get a fresh take on their characters, exploring, in a backwards way, exactly how far they've come.

It is also, frankly, an opportunity for some fan service, and the staff is taking requests on 'alternate timeline' plot points you'd like to see worked into the story. Please email your ideas to battlefantasiastaff@gmail.com or join the brainstorming shared document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TPfzE1C2d5w4waeg4u8qvS0409jtesO9i4FU8c3eimU/edit?usp=sharing here]!

'''IS EVERYTHING THE SAME?'''

No, and we will get into the differences between the first timeline and the final timeline (our regular game) [[#Timelines|below]].

Obviously, one major difference is that themes and characters that joined the game after September 2013 will have joined it earlier and younger: take a look at your 'school' entries, you'll see you've been sent back two grades! '''(If you are one of these characters, the staff wants to work out the details of your earlier arrival with you -- please contact Pink Moon Stick for a brainstorming session!)'''

Characters from later SEASONS of certain themes who weren't around at game start (here's looking at you, Chibi-Usa-chan) will not be present in September 2013, but can rejoin us as the timeline catches back up with them.

'''WAIT, TIMELINES PLURAL?'''

Yes. We are going to do several, one at a time, and in so doing tell a story, as a game, about the MANY ways things have changed from everyone's original destiny to their current one (not just the hairstyle of Homura Akemi). In each timeline we will be skipping around through the intervening year and a half between past and present to hit various highlight events from the old days that some of our players missed out on, and others would enjoy revisiting.

If you want to remind yourself and come up with a possible wishlist, http://battlefantasia.pinksugarheartattack.net/Timeline is hideously out of date, but it's the earlier stuff we're especially eager to do, so in that sense it's still a useful resource!

'''BUT I WANT TO KEEP DOING 2015 ROLEPLAY!'''

That's completely fine. All 'Previously On' logs are going to be labeled as such; you are welcome to roleplay in the 'current' timeline privately if you like, especially to give yourself a little denouement after certain major events, if you don't want to wait. We stopped at the end of the IC night of May 27, 2015, and will be picking back up on May 28, 2015 eventually; for various spooky plot reasons, please keep your roleplay within the next two days, May 28-29, 2015.

===Timelines===

For log titles, please label which timeline you're roleplaying in with the prefix: TIMELINE #:. So, a scene set in the first timeline might
have the title TIMELINE 1: Welcome To Tokyo!

Each timeline has a game-wide theme designed to help guide the overarching plot of Previously On Battle Fantasia across timelines. There is also a list of differences from the 'final' timeline (regular BF) to help people keep things straight and create prompts for interesting scene opportunities.

Please add to the bullet point list beneath the current timeline to document significant differences as they appear. We will be adding later timelines to this page gradually, along with their notable changes from the previous timeline required to get the roleplay a'rolling.

====Timeline One====
'''THEME: FRIENDSHIP.''' ''Everyone is meeting each other for the very first time. Friendships are born, and they are beautiful. Over the course of the first timeline, the innocence and passion of the magical girl community will be powerful enough to forge a grand alliance, in some respects the opposite of the final timeline. A good opportunity for bitter enemies to become dear friends. That doesn’t mean there is no tension among magical girls, but rivalries tend to be less painful and more hopeful.''

* '''IC Starting Date: September 2013'''
* '''Starting Plots: Sister Schools Athletics Festival, Hosted By Juuban Public School; Fusion'''
:* Madoka Kaname is a newly Contracted Puella Magi and Homura Akemi is a normal girl.
:* Themes/characters that joined at game start are rolled back to... game start.
:* Later themes/characters' integration deals will need to be explained here, please add them in brief after discussing your plan with the staff.
::* '''Miraculous Ladybug''' is pretty much the same except that Hawk Moth began his plot in September 2013 instead of later on. Everyone received their Miraculouses as normal, only they're a little bit younger and cuter.
::* '''Steven Universe''' arrived in Tokyo a little earlier and a little younger, with his powers almost completely unexplored and untested (eg, early season one), because Beach City decided to make their move in 2013 instead of 2015.
::* '''Kasagami Araki''' arrived much earlier and younger in this timeline, as a middle schooler in 9th grade. She notably lacks her cynicism about the world and people in general, being overall more positive and utterly new to her powers as a Duelist.
::* The New Transfer Student List, September 2013:
:::* Homura Akemi
:::* Kasagami Araki
:::* Utena Tenjou
:::* Mai Tokiha
:::* Mikoto Minagi
:::* Makoto Kino
:::* Lera Camry
:* After an eventful transfer to Ohtori - a ''car'' was cut in ''half'' on the boat ride over - Mai is bowled over by a strange girl who moves to attack her, only to run away instead. Mai finds her fainted in a hedge, and realising how hungry she is, brings her home to make some ramen. This is apparently the best thing which has ever or will ever happen, and the girl, Mikoto, attaches to her immediately.
:* 'Buki, amidst trying to get Ohtori students to join her Animal Care Club in the days before the festival, realises that a strange girl is trying to get at the birds in the greenhouse, and meets Mikoto and the cat she's trying to help get a snack. Luckily, she always comes prepared, and she has some canned food Mikoto can offer to her friend instead. Mikoto proceeds to... help... Inori try and get club members, and in the process volunteers herself to help out, instead.
:* Mikoto and Endo meet as the two last entrants to a broom racing contest, and despite the strange match-up, they sweep the competition.
:* After rampaging into the pool, Mikoto is taken to the sports festival's first aid tent, where she is restored by a caring civilian named Yumi Ohzora. She teaches her important facts about money and ownership.
:* Homura Akemi flees the sports festival that occurs on her second day of school, feeling depressed. Madoka, Mami and Eri (a Puella Magi trio, and already fast friends) go to look for her. They find her in a labyrinth, about to be taken by a Witch, and rescue her just in time.
:* Homura, Sayaka, and Hitomi are among the civilians given MIRACLE LIGHTS by the fairy mascots, in order to give the magical girls the power to defeat Fusion. Most of them don't remember this event clearly afterwards, though Homura does.
:* Eri and Mikoto separately come upon a stray cat and start to care for her. When she gives birth, their paths collide. They recruit Madoka, Nori and Homura to help take care of the kittens, which initially are hidden in the Garden Club shed at Ohtori, and eventually are moved to the Kaname household when everyone has to get on a train to go to Hokkaido.
* '''Winter 2013 Plot: Hokkaido and the Star Shards'''
* It is Sunday, December 22nd, the day after final exams -- and the second day of the school trip to Hokkaido (which began immediately after exams ended). As everyone has known for over an IC month, the Sister Schools have decided to pack everyone up and spend their Winter Break all together in the frozen paradise of Hokkaido! For most of an IC week, everyone will be staying at the Kubota Ski Resort (with occasional organized trips into Sapporo proper), skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, and enjoying the rightfully famous all-you-can-eat crab buffets! While school trips are not /technically/ mandatory, they might as well be -- parents won't let their kids get out of it. It's all been paid for out of the joint Sister Schools Initiative fund, so money is no object.
* In the last three IC months, monster-of-the-day attacks have become all too commonplace (it's mostly been youma and the occasional evil lieutenant). Magical girls have gained a little more experience and comfort with their new powers, but, a few months into their double life, are beginning to really feel the wear and tear of all those little white lies, evenings spent fighting instead of studying, and so forth.
* Characters have had numerous opportunities to meet one another and become friends off the battlefield, allies on the battlefield, or both. People are encouraged to gently hash out progress in their relationships OOCly to make sure they're on the same page, since some fast forwarding is required.
* The major scuttlebutt in the magical community has to do with seven golden "star shards" which have fallen to Earth and nestled themselves in the hearts of seven humans -- if united, they are rumored to be able to grant one single wish. Six of them have emerged (and been fiercely contested by magical girls, men in black, and monsters), though no one is sure who currently has how many. The seventh shard has yet to appear.
:* After distracting a bear from Niramo when the two of them wander away from the lodge, Mikoto becomes worried about that bear not hibernating like all the students say bears are supposed to. Dismissive explanations lead her to investigate on her own, where she runs into Eas, instead. They briefly clash, and Eas immediately exploits the upper hand as she realises that Mikoto is holding back. Luckily, she's willing to talk, if only to make demands, and after Mikoto explains that she really just is out here to investigate the bears, Eas lets her go. Mysteriously, the bear problem is solved.
:* In December 2013, Steven Universe awakens his magical powers on Hokkaido, in the midst of a dire wish to end Christmas; filled with its spirit by his friends and classmates, he manifests his shield for the first time. The resonance of his first Rose Shield tears the wish apart, returning the world to normal.
:* The Moon Princess appears very early (compared to the original timeline), on Hokkaido, after the Maiden of Nightmares sends a lethal attack at Sailor Moon which is taken by Madoka Kaname instead. The Princess wields the Ginzuishou, and a miracle occurs on Christmas Eve.
:::* The Maiden is redeemed by the unlikely forgiveness of her assumed enemies.
* '''Spring 2014 Plot: White Day and Queen Beryl'''
* It is March 13, 2014, and tomorrow is White Day -- the distaff counterpart of Valentine's in Japan, the day that girls give chocolates to their friends and loved ones. It's a stressful time. Who can find enough hours in the day to sit their final exams, defeat the forces of evil, AND make (or even buy!!) chocolate for tomorrow -- and what will happen if this symbol of romance /isn't/ realized? Especially when the battles are reaching a feverish pitch. Most of the Jewel Seeds have been found, and possession over the last few will likely make or break the outcome. The Dueling Game is in full swing. Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite, the Four Heavenly Kings, have died in their pursuit of the Moon Princess and her Ginzuishou, as have innumerable youma. There have been countless clashes between Magical Girls, Orphans, and men in black, clashes which are starting to seem like they serve some greater, darker purpose. Last night Sailor Moon and her Court went to the Moon, then returned with the dual burdens of terrible knowledge and a cursed sword. Everyone else woke up this morning having just experienced the same dream about it (+bbread 12/110, 12/111). The very same dream. Winter is just now yielding to spring. The bite in the air has softened into promising warmth. Tiny leaves and other nascent greenery makes the treetops look like they're inhabited by ghosts. The plum trees have blossomed, but the sakura haven't quite yet.
* In the last three IC months, the fledgling bonds of the magical girls have strengthened immeasurably through both battle and time spent in their fledgling, normal lives. Profound relationships have formed. Large sleepovers and other magical girl gatherings have become normal (though, oof, so difficult to find time for). Their might is waxing, as they come into their true power -- the deeper, stranger, more wondrous power of the heart. But so is their danger, for the very same reason, as an open heart... is a vulnerable one.
:* Sailor Moon and friends go to the Moon on the night of March 12, while everyone else suffers a disturbing silvery nightmare, so Madoka calls for a sleepover on White Day, March 14 so they can face the night with the support of one another.
:* At the sleepover, Mami Tomoe coins the group name 'Covenant of Style', which catches on like wildfire.
:* On the morning of March 15, Beryl issues her challenge to the world: threatening all life on it and daring the magical girls to stop her. They disrupt her evil ritual and she is slain at the hands of the Outer Senshi, but not before she murders her much-hated Princess Serenity first. Usagi is revived by the Ginzuishou, which responds to the feelings of her friends, and afterwards they all defeat Queen Metallia together.
:* After the events of the North Pole, Mikoto reassures Homura by carrying her up a tree and showing her how nice high places are.
* '''Summer 2014 Plot: Orphans, and an orphan'''
* It is August 6, 2014. Cicadas whirr staccatos, forcing them through the oppressively heavy air. Nary a breeze stirs across Tokyo Bay; there is no respite from the concrete-gathered might of the sun as it absorbs and re-emits from every surface in the city. Sweat beads at temples, at necklines, at the bottom of the back. But it just makes the ice cream sweeter. The resumption of school is weeks away and the obligations of summer homework might as well be on another planet. It's a long, hot, lazy summer. What a great time to be alive.
* In the last five months: After defeating Queen Metallia and returning home, the magical girls resolved the Jewel Seed Incident (approximately per canon, with the apparent death of Precia and the redemption of Fate, and also per BF canon, with the full withdrawal of the TSAB from Earth and the stranding of Lindy). In terms of trouble on the /rise/, it mostly takes the form of increased Orphan attacks (HiME are busting out all over) and greater activity by Labyrinth -- Nakewameke out the ears, as they strive to fill their Fuko Gauge to the brim, harvesting the despair of Tokyo citizens. Also, everyone went up a grade, which means some middle schoolers are now in high school. Though school is not currently in session.
* Chibi-Usa and Sailor Pluto have arrived in Tokyo. (Black Moon won't be far behind, while the Death Busters were always here but have yet to start overt operations; similarly the Wolkenritter have been present but are just now starting to become truly desperate.) And so has Northa.
:* Mai finds an Orphan during her summer job as a lifeguard, and when the night falls she and Mikoto take care of it. Then Mikoto drags her off to the party which was distracting all the civilians, even though they didn't have an invitation.
:* An Orphan attacks Sensouji Temple, threatening to eat all the cold snacks, only to be brought down by a group of magical girls. It's believed to be a lion dance with very good effects in the aftermath, and the people involved in the battle are lauded as excellent actors.
:* Mikoto continues trying to get through to Eas, finding her after a Nakewameke attack. They share donuts and surprisingly friendly conversation, and Eas gives Mikoto advance warning about her next attack.
:* Kasagami hosts a fancy summer party on behalf of the School Council, featuring the impromptu D.J., Steven Universe.
:* Mikoto and Kasagami spar and no one gets stabbed for real.
:* Steven, Niramo, Ami and Mikoto band together to create THE ULTIMATE SANDCASTLE (plus one whale lord.)
:* Mikoto drags Endo out from his job at the convenience store to go watch fireworks instead.
:* Eas creates her ultimate Nakewameke, and sends out invitations to the magical girls of Tokyo to meet her at Tokyo Tower for a showdown. She nearly succeeds--but when she emerges from her command post to talk to the assembled magical girls, Klein activates his failsafe, and they're left to save themselves /and/ her; she stays on Earth, as a (relatively) ordinary girl.
:* Marinette is caught by her parents one night talking to Chat Noir and thinks they're going out. After a date night at Marinette's residence, the fiction becomes a reality.
* '''Timeline One: Walpurgisnacht'''
:* Walpurgisnacht comes to Tokyo. The magical girls rise to confront it en masse, but not without casualties. Among them are Eri Shimanouchi and Mami Tomoe, which leaves only Madoka Kaname to deal the final blow -- which, legend says, must be dealt by a Puella Magi. She sacrifices herself in order to save the city -- and her friends. And especially Homura Akemi, who hears her last words.
:* Homura makes a Contract with Kyuubey: ''I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. But this time, instead of her saving me... I want to be the one to save her!'' She becomes a Puella Magi, and the magic of her wish sends her back in time... ending Timeline One.

=====Timeline One Logs=====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|titlematch = %TIMELINE 1:%
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|rowcolformat=width=100%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline One.
}}
====Timeline Two====
'''THEME: DREAMS.''' ''Homura's dream has come true -- and that makes it easier for everyone else to pursue theirs, because the life of a magical girl is a whole lot safer when they have an ally who can stop time to keep them from harm. It's mostly a good thing, but there's nothing like peril to inspire rapid bonding, so although the magical girl community is still (relatively) unified, it is slightly more loosely knit than it was in Timeline One. And with a little less magical stress in their lives, people are able to focus more on their individual goals rather than joint ones -- pursuing their different, unique, beautiful dreams.''
* A few months have passed since the timeline began, along with a few major events:
:* Homura Akemi is a newly Contracted Puella Magi who has joined the Mami/Madoka/Eri konbi, and is still learning how to master her unusually difficult powers. Unable to keep the secret, Madoka spilled her guts to Sayaka about being a magical girl within the first forty-eight hours.
:* As with the original timeline, the Sports Festival was a big success, but it seems to have really inflamed competitive spirits and the rivalry between the Sister Schools is more pronounced than before.
:* Fusion was defeated without the girls being sucked inside his soul and freed by their friends and Miracle Lights; it was just a conventional (though the first physically gigantic, and still relatively dramatic) battle.
:* Believing the monster to have eaten her best friend, Puella Magi Madoka battled Dessert Witch Charlotte, alone and crippled by grief. But Sayaka Miki had just been lost in the Labyrinth, and contracted on the spot upon witnessing the battle. Madoka narrowly avoided losing her head as the two defeated their first Witch together.
:* On Hokkaido, the Maiden of Dreams was redeemed without her killing Madoka Kaname or awakening Princess Serenity (because of a timely Homura rescue). That means the identity of the Moon Princess is still a mystery, and the hunt is on. Zoisite and Kunzite are still alive and Queen Beryl has yet to enact her North Pole ritual.
:* Because the timeLOOP has begun, weird temporal effects are occurring, and one of them is that Sailor Pluto basically hit a weird patch of timenoise on her way over, and accidentally overshot her trip. She has arrived just now, in April 2014. (Chibi-Usa will still arrive post-Beryl.)
* There are other minor differences between the second and first timelines as well.
:* In haste, Sayaka wished for the first thing that came to mind. Now with each mystically assured victory the Ohtori Middle School Softball team achieves on its way to an inevitable championship, Sayaka feels less and less fulfilled...
:* Ye-jin Song arrives and is elected new captain of Ohtori Dance Club. Secretly, she's come to help hunt HiME...
:* Madoka has the unusual combination of confidence, time, and commitment to self-improvement to actually go out for sports for once. She joins the Archery Club where she studies diligently alongside Rei.
:* Natsuki and Mikoto's battle on the cruise liner was more serious this time around, and several floors were damaged, but the ship remained structurally intact. Mai's efforts have, once again, seen them going from enemies to friends.
:* Mikoto was introduced to the Puella Magi by Homura, this time, who was eager to meet her old friend again. Mikoto was initially shy, but soon warmed up to her, alongside Madoka, Eri, and the others.
:* Upon realising that Homura was trying to learn how to fight, Mikoto relented to Kasagami's attempts to get her to join Kendo club, so that she could figure out how to teach her.
:* Rather than unintentionally insulting Rei, Usagi instead pleaded for her help in the wake of the bus incidents outside Hikawa Shrine, prompting Rei to commit to protecting Usagi early.
* '''IC Starting Date: April 2014'''
* '''Starting Plots: Student Council Ball; The Jewel Seed Incident'''
* It is April 17, 2014, and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. It's the second week of the new school year. A transformative time, as students acclimate to their new classes, their new classmates, their new clubs (or incessant club recruiters, for the holdouts) -- and now, tonight, their new student councils. Elections are over, and the Sister Schools are celebrating with a shared social that really can only possibly be called a ball, because Ohtori Academy is hosting. Besides having the best venue, they also have the most surprising outcome: Kasagami Araki is the new Ohtori High School Student Council President, having won her victory by a single vote (secretly, Akio Ohtori's, because the Academy is not a democracy...).
* But life isn't just sparkling apple cider and roses. The Jewel Seeds -- called 'Lost Logia' by the offworlders pursuing them, but to any magical girl recognizable as magical jewels that contain the cross-section of terrible power and the potential to grant wishes -- have almost all been found. The dark mage Fate Testarossa, and her allies in Labyrinth, have claimed roughly half; the radiant newcomer, Nanoha Takamachi, and her friends, have the rest. Can Fate's heart be reached before something terrible happens?
:* At the 2014-2015 Sister Schools Student Council Inauguration Ball, Niramo and Takeo get in a fight with some boys who were harassing Suzuka Tsukimura and are disciplined by Kasagami in her role as the new Ohtori Student Council President. Rei and Usagi join the Dance Queen competition with predictable results. Utena encourages Anthy (a Dance Queen nominee) to attend and therefore does as well, wearing one of the dresses they were gifted by the dance committee in solidarity. Disaster strikes as Nanami (who arranged the nomination and the dresses) causes Anthy's dress to dissolve in the middle of the dance floor, but Utena comes to the rescue.
:* At a Dance Club recruitment drive held at Ohtori shortly after the Inaugurational Ball, Niramo receives some much needed confidence from both Ye-Jin and Fumiko. It's enough that Niramo actually reconsiders her choice in clubs, dropping her enrollment in the Anime Club and taking up Dance at Juuban instead.
:* Nanoha Takamachi leads the magical girls in confronting her rival Fate Testarossa; she proposes an all-out one on one duel for the Jewel Seeds, and Fate accepts. But Precia intervenes, ostensibly out of concern that Nanoha's friends will jump in and gang up on her enforcer, and forcibly duplicates Fate with magic, creating a wild battle. Despite her numbers advantage, Fate loses anyway; Precia seizes the Jewel Seeds before Nanoha can and leaves, but not before punishing Fate for her failure both physically and emotionally. Nanoha takes a broken Fate home.
::* Lindy Harlaown makes contact with Nanoha, as does Arf, who can give them the coordinates to the Garden of Time. Nanoha and her friends climb aboard the Arthra to confront Precia in her fortress before she fully activates all the Jewel Seeds and causes an existential threat to the foundations of the multiverse. Fate stays behind, but encouragement from Arf and (unexpectedly) Eas, as well as bearing witness to the support of her friends now fighting Precia in her name, allows her to regain her will to fight. She and Eas catch up and rescue the group at a crucial moment, and then everyone proceeds to confront Precia.
::* But reality is fragmenting quickly, and the group winds up having to pass through Precia's past in order to reach her in the present. A dialogue begins, but whether or not Precia's heart was moved will remain an eternal mystery, because at the moment of truth, she is murdered by Northa, Chief Executive of Labyrinth, who immediately orders Eas to join her in exterminating her allies. Eas tries to bargain with Northa for their lives, which Northa takes as disloyalty; she uses the Jewel Seeds to create doppelganger replacements for all the magical girls, INCLUDING Eas, to be her new, loyal, army. The magical girls must confront these dark reflections of themselves and defeat them before the Garden of Time collapses into less than nothingness; they manage to do so, together, and escape on the Arthra in the nick of time. In the battle, Eas is forced to destroy her Data Diamond to defeat her double, and she joins them without her powers on the ship.
::* As the Arthra returns to Earth, it is abruptly and unexpectedly destroyed by an enormous blast of Dark Energy that came from the North Pole. The magical girls (and the crew) are able to escape, teleporting back to Tokyo just in time to watch the contrails of the surprise attack fade from the sky. It's terrifying power... but now they know where they need to go to put an end to the threat of Queen Beryl.
:* Mami Tomoe and Sayaka Miki acknowledge their growing attraction to one another and begin to date. Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname are inseparable, but not officially together.
* '''Summer 2014 Plot: North Pole'''
:* The sakura faded and the trees grew leaves -- soft breezes became oppressive heat -- and spring yielded into summer. In late June, school hasn't quite let out for vacation, but that hasn't stopped the Sailor Senshi from taking a trip to the Moon, in part hoping for a way to release the kidnapped Mamoru Chiba, now known as Dark Endymion, from Queen Beryl's brainwashing. The Midchildans, meanwhile, have finished running analyses of the blast that destroyed their spaceship, and are able to organize an operation to storm the pinpointed spot in the Arctic by surprise.
:* The magical girls get separated at the North Pole and begin fighting their way into the Dark Kingdom against the army that appears to defend it. The Inner Senshi die getting their Moon Princess into position to defeat Queen Beryl, but in the aftermath, Usagi is able to revive them. Everyone celebrates, then joins together to oppose the true dark power behind even Beryl's throne, the destructive entity Queen Metallia. The Maiden of Dreams, rescued on Hokkaido, reappears to help at this critical moment. Everyone's hearts join together, and the explosive power of their dreams defeat Queen Metallia. Overcome by their feelings and the transcendent moment, Sayaka and Mami share their first kiss.
:* However, Madoka Kaname uses up all of her magic, and collapses even as Queen Metallia is destroyed for good. Her Soul Gem becomes a Grief Seed, and she becomes a massive Witch, Kriemhild Gretchen. Her friends are forced to face this horror, but Homura Akemi turns away. Armed with the horrible truth of the Puella Magi, she jumps back to the past again to try to prevent this future from ever happening... ending Timeline Two.

=====Timeline Two Logs=====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|titlematch = %TIMELINE 2:%
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|rowcolformat=width=100%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline Two.
}}
====Timeline Three====
'''THEME: TRUST.''' ''As in its complexities, its limitations, and its breakdown. Up until now, being a magical girl has included automatic membership in a sort of collective sisterhood -- the world has been divided into 'the magical girls' and 'the bad guys'. But a simple question changes everything: 'What if the fairy mascots and other sources of power don't actually have the magical girls' best interests at heart?' It's an unbelievable idea, but simply rejecting it means that, for some reason, Homura Akemi is trying to drive a wedge between magical girls and their mascots. In other words: not all magical girls can be trusted. Once planted, this seed of uncertainty can only continue to flower, and has done so spectacularly.''
* Numerous factors have further exacerbated the issue of trust between magical girls. Major examples include:
:* Competitions for limited magical resources, such as Star Shards, Jewel Seeds, and Grief Seeds, have all been far more intense than in previous timelines, with ugly consequences for would-be friendships.
:* Friendly fire is more of a narrative problem in this timeline than it has been (or will be) in others; even girls with the best of intentions might damage the trust of their allies by accidentally clipping them with one of their attacks, in a critical moment.
:* Magical girls are generally less willing to explain themselves and their actions to one another, since it's harder to know who to trust.
:* Secret identities are far more tightly protected than in Timelines One and Two. This means that sometimes people are friends as magical girls and, separately, friends as civilians, but that the crucial bond of trust that connects the two worlds is often missing. Sometimes, things are even more complicated, and magical girl rivals have no idea that their opposite number is their best friend at school.
* Although things are far from outright war, the magical girl community is under strain, and cracks are beginning to show. Rivalries are more heated and less friendly. 'Teams' can also sometimes be understood as 'schisms'. Conversely, true bonds of trust between individual girls are more precious and beautiful than ever. (And like all precious things -- they are vulnerable.)
* '''TIMELINE THREE IS SUBSTANTIALLY DARKER (OR, AT MINIMUM, MORE COMPLEX) THAN TIMELINES ONE AND TWO.''' It is not, however, an exercise in misery. The main 'tragedy' of the timeline, compared to the previous ones, is the environment of paranoia that has sprung up in the community. Even the most open-hearted magical girls have reasons to think more critically and carefully about their counterparts, and the ways of the world, than they normally would. (More reasons, in fact, than in the prime timeline, which did not have Homura Akemi sowing seeds of doubt from the start, nor such extreme competitions for the Star Shards and Jewel Seeds.)
* An entire year has passed since the beginning of this timeline; it is picking up several months after the last one ended, in fact (September; T2 ended in late June). All this is to say that quite a bit has happened, and happened differently, and happened in a way to put strain on trust between magical girls (while in turn forging some unbreakable bonds along the way):
:* The Fall 2013 Sports Festival, and Fusion's assault on Tokyo, occur essentially as they did in Timeline Two.
:* After spending enough time rebuilding her magical girl friendships that they'd have reason to trust her, Homura Akemi reveals the awful truth that Puella Magi are tricked by Kyuubey into accepting a fate where they will become Witches. It does not go over well, and creates a FIRESTORM of rumor and speculation that reaches all corners of the magical girl community. Everyone has heard about it. '''Nobody believes it (no exceptions!).''' Everyone has different opinions on why Homura would make such a claim, some more generous than others.
:* For a variety of reasons which certainly include heightened anxiety, magical girls' unanswered wishes are at the forefront of their minds when the Star Shards' existence becomes revealed, and the fight over them becomes (almost) as vicious between magical girls as it is between magical girls and Dark Fall demons/men in black from Ends of the World.
::*In the end, the star shards are never gathered in one place. Individual shards are painstakingly hidden by their current owners. The Maiden of Dreams remains a broken, nameless entity suffering endless torture within her seven golden prisons -- and nobody even knows that she exists.
:* The Jewel Seeds are hotly contested for basically the same reason. The Device-users of Earth do not line up neatly behind Nanoha Takamachi in her efforts to oppose Fate Testarossa; Endo Naoki especially wants to seize them for himself, which damages his relationship with Ren Aizawa.
::* Precia Testarossa does get her hands on all the Jewel Seeds eventually, after washing her hands of Fate. The magical girls are forced to unite to stop her from permanently sundering reality, and manage to do so, though not everyone participates in the operation. The Harlaowns are not involved; the Arthra is never allowed to come to Earth, due to rampant distrust between the TSAB and the Magic Association. Afterwards, Fate lives with the Takamachis.
:* Events surrounding the North Pole go more similarly to the PRIME timeline than either timelines one or two. In late summer 2014, once Usagi Tsukino is revealed as the Moon Princess, Mamoru Chiba is kidnapped and brainwashed into Dark Endymion, and the Four Heavenly Kings are dead, Queen Beryl issues her collective challenge to the magical girl community and dares them to stop her from making her dark wish.
::* Arriving in disorganized, separate groups, they fail. So, every magical girl in the world except for Sailor Moon and the Inner Senshi are banished to the Multidimensional Chaos World by the force of Beryl's wish. Adventures in bizarro spacetime ensue.
::* Back on Earth, the Inner Senshi die getting Sailor Moon past the DD Girls. She is forced to confront Beryl and Dark Endymion alone, and is narrowly able to do so. Afterwards, her wish for her friends revives the dead and recalls the missing, and everyone gathers together to put a permanent end to Queen Metallia.
::* The Maiden of Dreams is not present to help the girls gestalt their power, and so instead this battle is messy and dangerous. The magical girls triumph without anyone dying, but the aftertaste is a little bittersweet, tainted by injuries, plus the trauma of the uncontrolled dimension-hopping which resulted from Beryl's dark wish.
:* The World Tree roars onto everyone's radar when it's attacked by weird, sword-wielding shadows seemingly trying to disrupt a mysterious sparkly magical girl ritual, and by the end of summer everyone knows it exists, that it's a vitally important conduit of Earth's magical power, and that there's a more-and-less subtle battle being waged between men in black, Dark Fall demons and operatives (especially agents of Labyrinth such as Eas and Soular), Orphans, and the Magic Association, for control of the nexuses of magic that harness the World Tree's strength.
:* The Outer Senshi are present, active and renowned for their brutal determination to save the world by any means necessary without bothering to explain their methods -- in other words, they're the poster girls for how not all magical girls can be trusted.
:* The Wolkenritter are also getting active, creating rumors about magical girls who attack other magical girls in dark alleys -- and fear.
:* Drawn to investigate the source of the crazy rumor about Puella Magi and Witches, Kyouko Sakura and other Puella Magi close in on the Konbi's neighborhood. There aren't enough Grief Seeds to go around, and the question of hunting familiars becomes crucial. Tensions are rising.
:* Summer vacation happened. There was no trip to Okinawa. The return of school is something of a relief for kids stuck in the sweaty concrete prison of Tokyo.
:* Despite everything, magical girls also give each other reasons to trust one another as well. Every day is another act of kindness. Every friendship is its own miracle.
* There are other differences between the second and third timelines as well.
:* You are encouraged to add other differences between the second and third timelines to this list!
:* Please put your September 2013-September 2014 differences here, they're fun and interesting to imagine, especially as things have changed quite a bit between timelines two and three! Weird temporal effects continue to justify larger changes, such as when a character first came to Tokyo or first became a magical girl, as long as it happened after September 2013 (the beginning of Homura's time loops). Please run truly strange ideas by the staff first.
:* Mikoto Minagi and Natsuki Kuga's battle on the ship was once again more serious, with a large hole blown through several floors to expose the fight to the sky, but the ship managed to retain its structural integrity.
:* Mikoto spends a lot of her time searching for her brother, and so she has no time for clubs. Most of her associations are people she's met through Mai; on her own she is awkward and gruff, and does not generally reach out to make friends. Much of her involvement in early magical conflicts simply came down to the fact that Mai was there, rather than any urge of her own to get involved. What was seen as feline whimsy in the prime timeline now becomes much more suspicious: why does Mikoto so often go off on her own? Where was she when they needed help at the North Pole, or when Precia was threatening the world? And why does she keep herself shrouded in such mystery..?
:* The strain of the magical community means that Mikoto has had less exposure to kind life lessons, and so she is a much fiercer fighter. Mai has made what she doesn't approve of clear, and so Mikoto generally tries to avoid killing or doing severe injury to human opponents and will defend civilians, but she has no compunctions against hitting her opponents so hard that they don't want to get up again. She has a wild and unrestrained fighting style which makes it very easy for mistakes to happen and for allies to get hit.
:* Endo Naoki more than briefly considered using the Jewel Seeds to grant his own wish, leading to various squabbles with other Mages. He eventually came around to help stop Precia Testarossa, but harsh feelings may remain. With less sources of trusted support Endo tries to shoulder more of Tokyo's burdens, and listens more closely to the advice of his intelligent device, Fallen Stern.
:* Ye-jin Song is hunting HiME. . .
:* Shizuru Fujino is moving in secret towards the goals of Ends of the World. As the men in black continue to show up at various flashpoints of magical import, a woman in black with a strange red naginata often accompanies them. Her identity is unknown, but she has already shown a frightening ruthlessness that only adds to the cloud of suspicion in place.
:* Rei Hino was much more immediately suspicious of Luna's story of destiny, though she did eventually accept a place in the team. She is fiercely protective of her magical identity, and few people know outside of the Inner Senshi. She has come down especially hard on Usagi, viewing her crybaby idealism as unsuited to the strenuous climate of magical Tokyo. She's hard on the rest of the Senshi, too - and everyone else she comes to care at all about. She is unwilling to trust the rogue elements of the community, and even after a year, is slow to open her heart to her friends. She still carries the fear that if she comes to trust and rely on others, she will be betrayed and tossed aside.
:* Kasagami Araki joins at the end of summer vacation 2014 as the new Student Council Disciplinary Executive, despite being a transfer student and having only just entered the school. She is much more cynical this timeline, having worked for Ends of the World before coming to Ohtori. As DE, she has been put in charge of the civilian patrols for the 'vampires' on campus...and has enthusiastically been assisting in the hunt for HiME as well as the goals of Ends of the World.
:* Ladybug is incredibly secretive, being very formal in her interactions with other magical girls in order to preserve her secret identity. Even her ostensible partner, Chat Noir, gets to hear little more than business from her. Where exactly she's based is hard to tell, as she shows up for monster attacks across Tokyo - though she seems fastest to respond to attacks near Infinity, and takes the longest to appear when attacks happen near Juuban. Unbeknown to ''everyone'', this is because Marinette intentionally waits when there's an attack close to home - a devotion to secrecy that has even Tikki irritated.
:* Sourisi isn't known to be trusting of other magical girls and boys in this timeline, and the only magical entity able to be considered a friend is Takk. Seeing an opportunity in Takk's curiosity and fascination with technology, she has been putting much more effort in learning electric engineering. This has given rise to the placement of hidden mics and low-grade cameras places throughout Tokyo as Niramo tries to figure out who exactly she can and can't trust outside of her magical identity. Unsurprisingly, Ladybug, Chat Noir and Serpentina have the biggest files as she tries to crack their identities.
:* Eri Shimanouchi had a rocky start as a magical girl, feuding with another Puella Magi named Yaori which eventually resulted in the other girl's death. She claims it was an accident but was it really that simple? As a result, she's mildly distrusted by the Magical Girl Community of Tokyo. Since she runs with Mami Tomoe and Madoka Kaname now, it might be that she's been rehabilitated. Yet could it just be that some girls are simply bad apples through and through?
:* Cassandra is the magical girl alias used by the HiME Kozue Kaoru in this timeline. She has a reputation for a delinquent who doesn't get along with many magical girls, infuriating many with her reckless fighting style and sharp tongue. She rarely appears in most supernatural battles, picking and choosing only ones she has a personal stake in.
:* Homura arrives in her hospital bed in timeline three traumatized and frantic, and those states never abate for her. She immediately seeks out Madoka, Mami, and all the other contracted puella magi to tell them the terrible truth, and... her story is far too outlandish to be believed. Homura’s panicked presentation and deep social awkwardness don’t help; the girl in the braids and glasses is clearly genuinely upset, but she also keeps saying weird and offputting things, and referring to events that haven’t happened... (Please feel free to, if you wish, have your character already weirded out by Homura being overly familiar or making references to things that happened in T1 and T2. As an additional note, please reach out to me if you’re stuck on an angle for your character disbelieving Homura! Let’s have fun with it, I love brainstorming)
:* Homura isn't using guns... yet.
* '''IC Starting Date: September 2014'''
* '''Starting Plot: SEARRS Invasion'''
* It is September 10, 2014, and Southern Cross Island is apparently infested by vampires. Or maybe it's a stalker. At any rate, girls who go out alone at night are being found unconscious and, from the disarray of their possessions, have been searched for valuables. Magical girls suspect that this is really someone trying to identify them within the ordinary student population of Ohtori Academy. The school has implemented an extremely strict campus curfew enforced by Disciplinary Executive patrols, however, which makes it slightly more difficult to mount the kind of MAGICAL patrols needed to investigate and guard against the real threat. Those who've taken the risk anyway have discovered that the true perpetrators are Orphans -- the native demonic enemy that HiME were born to fight. But Orphans have always seemed mindless in their monstrosity. Could something -- or someone -- be directing their actions?
* From a more normal perspective, summer is finally over, Fall Semester is in session, and for 9th-graders especially, it also brings High School Entrance Exams into focus as a looming existential threat to their ordinary lives. It is harder than ever to find enough time for it all.
* The Fall 2014 Sports Festival is coming up soon. Juuban had it last year, and now it's Ohtori's turn to host, and despite the campus safety issues the plan seems to be moving forward. That makes it roughly the one-year anniversary of most magical girls' careers; a time for reflection. How have things changed since they discovered the world of magic? How have THEY changed?

=====Timeline Three Logs=====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|titlematch = %TIMELINE 3:%
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|rowcolformat=width=100%
|suppresserrors = yes
|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline Three.
}}

[[Category:Special Events]]

Previously On Battle Fantasia

2019-02-19T19:13:42Z

Kestrel: /* Timeline Three */

'''''Previously On Battle Fantasia is a special event that started on Battle Fantasia on 11/11/18.'''''

The five years of Battle Fantasia MUSH roleplay have established a miraculous and tragic [[Timeline|timeline]]...

...but it wasn't the first timeline.

__TOC__

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2UHRMKtic Cue the music!]

[[File:Previously_on_Battle_Fantasia_labels.png|800px|center|link=Previously_On_Battle_Fantasia]]

===The Wayback Machine===

It is September 20, 2013.

The height of fall. Tokyo is golden and beautiful, afternoons still warm with the memory of summer; beginning to be crisp, in the early morning, with the promise of winter.

It is the second year of the Sister Schools program, which is still new enough to be exciting and also a little uncomfortable. Juuban Public School is about to host the joint sports festival, brushing up their fields. Infinity Institute and Ohtori Academy anticipate shoddiness, but are going to find sportsmanship instead.

But some students suddenly find themselves having to balance the challenge of finding the right partner for the three-legged race with a new life -- a double life -- a secret life.

That's because two weeks ago the demonic army of Dark Fall swept into the heart of the magic worlds, the Fairy Realms, and dislodged their masters. They possessed ancient artifacts and used them to explode fairy castles, and they sealed fairy queens away in teacups. They shattered souls, and remade worlds in their own dark image. And so the cries for help went out -- all of them, drawn by an unseen force, to the same blue ball in Space.

And so it is that today, on Earth, the consequences of centuries, millennia, of planning and battles have come to fruit, as Dark Fall and Ends of the World alike descend not as one, but at once. The greedy fingers of corporate masters tear the dreams out of children's chests in the hunt for the miracle-granting Embryo. A coterie of Belkan Knights root in the shadows for the Linker Cores of the innocent - leaving them half dead and bereft of magic. Orphans stir on Southern Cross Island, finding victims to feed on, as their master's mark blazes in the sky. Underground, the Order of the Glittering Crux seeks to release the seals that will allow them to summon their magitechnological wonders into the real world, and seize it for their own. Witches throng in the shadows, their attention called by the despair of those who see how bleak the world is, their Kiss drawing still more into that trap. Above, the Castle Where Eternity Dwells silently waits to see whose heart will next be savaged by the Duels it oversees. And in the North, Queen Beryl's empire rises again, to finally and absolutely conquer the Earth and therefore the crown jewel of the universe...

But the guardians of Earth are rising. Tokyo is where that battle will be fought; as Pretty Cures are found by the refugees of the Fairy Worlds, and HiME once more flock to the Land of Fuuka, now called Southern Cross Island, and the Silver Millennium's Sailor Senshi stir at last from their millennia-long slumber. The darkness is deep; but once, a great queen wished for a light to outshine any darkness.

She will not be disappointed.

She has you.

---

Welcome to 'PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA', our game's next major plot. Starting immediately, we're taking a trip back in time to our world as it was in September 2013: a more innocent time, with more innocent characters. New transfer students are new once again. Virtually everyone is a freshly recruited magical girl, taking their first steps into the world of fighting evil by moonlight -- youma are scary and their masters mysterious and unknown. Balancing normal and magical life is not old hat but an often-overwhelming act of frantic rushing around and the occasional guilty lie.

And beautiful friendships are about to be born.

===Frequently Asked Questions===

'''WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?'''

Frankly, the game has been in a very dark place for a very long time, and everyone needs a break. PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA will occasionally tackle some heavy truths, but overwhelmingly its tone is intended to be lighthearted and fun -- or at least not oppressively, inescapably awful. It is an opportunity for everyone to get a fresh take on their characters, exploring, in a backwards way, exactly how far they've come.

It is also, frankly, an opportunity for some fan service, and the staff is taking requests on 'alternate timeline' plot points you'd like to see worked into the story. Please email your ideas to battlefantasiastaff@gmail.com or join the brainstorming shared document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TPfzE1C2d5w4waeg4u8qvS0409jtesO9i4FU8c3eimU/edit?usp=sharing here]!

'''IS EVERYTHING THE SAME?'''

No, and we will get into the differences between the first timeline and the final timeline (our regular game) [[#Timelines|below]].

Obviously, one major difference is that themes and characters that joined the game after September 2013 will have joined it earlier and younger: take a look at your 'school' entries, you'll see you've been sent back two grades! '''(If you are one of these characters, the staff wants to work out the details of your earlier arrival with you -- please contact Pink Moon Stick for a brainstorming session!)'''

Characters from later SEASONS of certain themes who weren't around at game start (here's looking at you, Chibi-Usa-chan) will not be present in September 2013, but can rejoin us as the timeline catches back up with them.

'''WAIT, TIMELINES PLURAL?'''

Yes. We are going to do several, one at a time, and in so doing tell a story, as a game, about the MANY ways things have changed from everyone's original destiny to their current one (not just the hairstyle of Homura Akemi). In each timeline we will be skipping around through the intervening year and a half between past and present to hit various highlight events from the old days that some of our players missed out on, and others would enjoy revisiting.

If you want to remind yourself and come up with a possible wishlist, http://battlefantasia.pinksugarheartattack.net/Timeline is hideously out of date, but it's the earlier stuff we're especially eager to do, so in that sense it's still a useful resource!

'''BUT I WANT TO KEEP DOING 2015 ROLEPLAY!'''

That's completely fine. All 'Previously On' logs are going to be labeled as such; you are welcome to roleplay in the 'current' timeline privately if you like, especially to give yourself a little denouement after certain major events, if you don't want to wait. We stopped at the end of the IC night of May 27, 2015, and will be picking back up on May 28, 2015 eventually; for various spooky plot reasons, please keep your roleplay within the next two days, May 28-29, 2015.

===Timelines===

For log titles, please label which timeline you're roleplaying in with the prefix: TIMELINE #:. So, a scene set in the first timeline might
have the title TIMELINE 1: Welcome To Tokyo!

Each timeline has a game-wide theme designed to help guide the overarching plot of Previously On Battle Fantasia across timelines. There is also a list of differences from the 'final' timeline (regular BF) to help people keep things straight and create prompts for interesting scene opportunities.

Please add to the bullet point list beneath the current timeline to document significant differences as they appear. We will be adding later timelines to this page gradually, along with their notable changes from the previous timeline required to get the roleplay a'rolling.

====Timeline One====
'''THEME: FRIENDSHIP.''' ''Everyone is meeting each other for the very first time. Friendships are born, and they are beautiful. Over the course of the first timeline, the innocence and passion of the magical girl community will be powerful enough to forge a grand alliance, in some respects the opposite of the final timeline. A good opportunity for bitter enemies to become dear friends. That doesn’t mean there is no tension among magical girls, but rivalries tend to be less painful and more hopeful.''

* '''IC Starting Date: September 2013'''
* '''Starting Plots: Sister Schools Athletics Festival, Hosted By Juuban Public School; Fusion'''
:* Madoka Kaname is a newly Contracted Puella Magi and Homura Akemi is a normal girl.
:* Themes/characters that joined at game start are rolled back to... game start.
:* Later themes/characters' integration deals will need to be explained here, please add them in brief after discussing your plan with the staff.
::* '''Miraculous Ladybug''' is pretty much the same except that Hawk Moth began his plot in September 2013 instead of later on. Everyone received their Miraculouses as normal, only they're a little bit younger and cuter.
::* '''Steven Universe''' arrived in Tokyo a little earlier and a little younger, with his powers almost completely unexplored and untested (eg, early season one), because Beach City decided to make their move in 2013 instead of 2015.
::* '''Kasagami Araki''' arrived much earlier and younger in this timeline, as a middle schooler in 9th grade. She notably lacks her cynicism about the world and people in general, being overall more positive and utterly new to her powers as a Duelist.
::* The New Transfer Student List, September 2013:
:::* Homura Akemi
:::* Kasagami Araki
:::* Utena Tenjou
:::* Mai Tokiha
:::* Mikoto Minagi
:::* Makoto Kino
:::* Lera Camry
:* After an eventful transfer to Ohtori - a ''car'' was cut in ''half'' on the boat ride over - Mai is bowled over by a strange girl who moves to attack her, only to run away instead. Mai finds her fainted in a hedge, and realising how hungry she is, brings her home to make some ramen. This is apparently the best thing which has ever or will ever happen, and the girl, Mikoto, attaches to her immediately.
:* 'Buki, amidst trying to get Ohtori students to join her Animal Care Club in the days before the festival, realises that a strange girl is trying to get at the birds in the greenhouse, and meets Mikoto and the cat she's trying to help get a snack. Luckily, she always comes prepared, and she has some canned food Mikoto can offer to her friend instead. Mikoto proceeds to... help... Inori try and get club members, and in the process volunteers herself to help out, instead.
:* Mikoto and Endo meet as the two last entrants to a broom racing contest, and despite the strange match-up, they sweep the competition.
:* After rampaging into the pool, Mikoto is taken to the sports festival's first aid tent, where she is restored by a caring civilian named Yumi Ohzora. She teaches her important facts about money and ownership.
:* Homura Akemi flees the sports festival that occurs on her second day of school, feeling depressed. Madoka, Mami and Eri (a Puella Magi trio, and already fast friends) go to look for her. They find her in a labyrinth, about to be taken by a Witch, and rescue her just in time.
:* Homura, Sayaka, and Hitomi are among the civilians given MIRACLE LIGHTS by the fairy mascots, in order to give the magical girls the power to defeat Fusion. Most of them don't remember this event clearly afterwards, though Homura does.
:* Eri and Mikoto separately come upon a stray cat and start to care for her. When she gives birth, their paths collide. They recruit Madoka, Nori and Homura to help take care of the kittens, which initially are hidden in the Garden Club shed at Ohtori, and eventually are moved to the Kaname household when everyone has to get on a train to go to Hokkaido.
* '''Winter 2013 Plot: Hokkaido and the Star Shards'''
* It is Sunday, December 22nd, the day after final exams -- and the second day of the school trip to Hokkaido (which began immediately after exams ended). As everyone has known for over an IC month, the Sister Schools have decided to pack everyone up and spend their Winter Break all together in the frozen paradise of Hokkaido! For most of an IC week, everyone will be staying at the Kubota Ski Resort (with occasional organized trips into Sapporo proper), skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, and enjoying the rightfully famous all-you-can-eat crab buffets! While school trips are not /technically/ mandatory, they might as well be -- parents won't let their kids get out of it. It's all been paid for out of the joint Sister Schools Initiative fund, so money is no object.
* In the last three IC months, monster-of-the-day attacks have become all too commonplace (it's mostly been youma and the occasional evil lieutenant). Magical girls have gained a little more experience and comfort with their new powers, but, a few months into their double life, are beginning to really feel the wear and tear of all those little white lies, evenings spent fighting instead of studying, and so forth.
* Characters have had numerous opportunities to meet one another and become friends off the battlefield, allies on the battlefield, or both. People are encouraged to gently hash out progress in their relationships OOCly to make sure they're on the same page, since some fast forwarding is required.
* The major scuttlebutt in the magical community has to do with seven golden "star shards" which have fallen to Earth and nestled themselves in the hearts of seven humans -- if united, they are rumored to be able to grant one single wish. Six of them have emerged (and been fiercely contested by magical girls, men in black, and monsters), though no one is sure who currently has how many. The seventh shard has yet to appear.
:* After distracting a bear from Niramo when the two of them wander away from the lodge, Mikoto becomes worried about that bear not hibernating like all the students say bears are supposed to. Dismissive explanations lead her to investigate on her own, where she runs into Eas, instead. They briefly clash, and Eas immediately exploits the upper hand as she realises that Mikoto is holding back. Luckily, she's willing to talk, if only to make demands, and after Mikoto explains that she really just is out here to investigate the bears, Eas lets her go. Mysteriously, the bear problem is solved.
:* In December 2013, Steven Universe awakens his magical powers on Hokkaido, in the midst of a dire wish to end Christmas; filled with its spirit by his friends and classmates, he manifests his shield for the first time. The resonance of his first Rose Shield tears the wish apart, returning the world to normal.
:* The Moon Princess appears very early (compared to the original timeline), on Hokkaido, after the Maiden of Nightmares sends a lethal attack at Sailor Moon which is taken by Madoka Kaname instead. The Princess wields the Ginzuishou, and a miracle occurs on Christmas Eve.
:::* The Maiden is redeemed by the unlikely forgiveness of her assumed enemies.
* '''Spring 2014 Plot: White Day and Queen Beryl'''
* It is March 13, 2014, and tomorrow is White Day -- the distaff counterpart of Valentine's in Japan, the day that girls give chocolates to their friends and loved ones. It's a stressful time. Who can find enough hours in the day to sit their final exams, defeat the forces of evil, AND make (or even buy!!) chocolate for tomorrow -- and what will happen if this symbol of romance /isn't/ realized? Especially when the battles are reaching a feverish pitch. Most of the Jewel Seeds have been found, and possession over the last few will likely make or break the outcome. The Dueling Game is in full swing. Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite, the Four Heavenly Kings, have died in their pursuit of the Moon Princess and her Ginzuishou, as have innumerable youma. There have been countless clashes between Magical Girls, Orphans, and men in black, clashes which are starting to seem like they serve some greater, darker purpose. Last night Sailor Moon and her Court went to the Moon, then returned with the dual burdens of terrible knowledge and a cursed sword. Everyone else woke up this morning having just experienced the same dream about it (+bbread 12/110, 12/111). The very same dream. Winter is just now yielding to spring. The bite in the air has softened into promising warmth. Tiny leaves and other nascent greenery makes the treetops look like they're inhabited by ghosts. The plum trees have blossomed, but the sakura haven't quite yet.
* In the last three IC months, the fledgling bonds of the magical girls have strengthened immeasurably through both battle and time spent in their fledgling, normal lives. Profound relationships have formed. Large sleepovers and other magical girl gatherings have become normal (though, oof, so difficult to find time for). Their might is waxing, as they come into their true power -- the deeper, stranger, more wondrous power of the heart. But so is their danger, for the very same reason, as an open heart... is a vulnerable one.
:* Sailor Moon and friends go to the Moon on the night of March 12, while everyone else suffers a disturbing silvery nightmare, so Madoka calls for a sleepover on White Day, March 14 so they can face the night with the support of one another.
:* At the sleepover, Mami Tomoe coins the group name 'Covenant of Style', which catches on like wildfire.
:* On the morning of March 15, Beryl issues her challenge to the world: threatening all life on it and daring the magical girls to stop her. They disrupt her evil ritual and she is slain at the hands of the Outer Senshi, but not before she murders her much-hated Princess Serenity first. Usagi is revived by the Ginzuishou, which responds to the feelings of her friends, and afterwards they all defeat Queen Metallia together.
:* After the events of the North Pole, Mikoto reassures Homura by carrying her up a tree and showing her how nice high places are.
* '''Summer 2014 Plot: Orphans, and an orphan'''
* It is August 6, 2014. Cicadas whirr staccatos, forcing them through the oppressively heavy air. Nary a breeze stirs across Tokyo Bay; there is no respite from the concrete-gathered might of the sun as it absorbs and re-emits from every surface in the city. Sweat beads at temples, at necklines, at the bottom of the back. But it just makes the ice cream sweeter. The resumption of school is weeks away and the obligations of summer homework might as well be on another planet. It's a long, hot, lazy summer. What a great time to be alive.
* In the last five months: After defeating Queen Metallia and returning home, the magical girls resolved the Jewel Seed Incident (approximately per canon, with the apparent death of Precia and the redemption of Fate, and also per BF canon, with the full withdrawal of the TSAB from Earth and the stranding of Lindy). In terms of trouble on the /rise/, it mostly takes the form of increased Orphan attacks (HiME are busting out all over) and greater activity by Labyrinth -- Nakewameke out the ears, as they strive to fill their Fuko Gauge to the brim, harvesting the despair of Tokyo citizens. Also, everyone went up a grade, which means some middle schoolers are now in high school. Though school is not currently in session.
* Chibi-Usa and Sailor Pluto have arrived in Tokyo. (Black Moon won't be far behind, while the Death Busters were always here but have yet to start overt operations; similarly the Wolkenritter have been present but are just now starting to become truly desperate.) And so has Northa.
:* Mai finds an Orphan during her summer job as a lifeguard, and when the night falls she and Mikoto take care of it. Then Mikoto drags her off to the party which was distracting all the civilians, even though they didn't have an invitation.
:* An Orphan attacks Sensouji Temple, threatening to eat all the cold snacks, only to be brought down by a group of magical girls. It's believed to be a lion dance with very good effects in the aftermath, and the people involved in the battle are lauded as excellent actors.
:* Mikoto continues trying to get through to Eas, finding her after a Nakewameke attack. They share donuts and surprisingly friendly conversation, and Eas gives Mikoto advance warning about her next attack.
:* Kasagami hosts a fancy summer party on behalf of the School Council, featuring the impromptu D.J., Steven Universe.
:* Mikoto and Kasagami spar and no one gets stabbed for real.
:* Steven, Niramo, Ami and Mikoto band together to create THE ULTIMATE SANDCASTLE (plus one whale lord.)
:* Mikoto drags Endo out from his job at the convenience store to go watch fireworks instead.
:* Eas creates her ultimate Nakewameke, and sends out invitations to the magical girls of Tokyo to meet her at Tokyo Tower for a showdown. She nearly succeeds--but when she emerges from her command post to talk to the assembled magical girls, Klein activates his failsafe, and they're left to save themselves /and/ her; she stays on Earth, as a (relatively) ordinary girl.
:* Marinette is caught by her parents one night talking to Chat Noir and thinks they're going out. After a date night at Marinette's residence, the fiction becomes a reality.
* '''Timeline One: Walpurgisnacht'''
:* Walpurgisnacht comes to Tokyo. The magical girls rise to confront it en masse, but not without casualties. Among them are Eri Shimanouchi and Mami Tomoe, which leaves only Madoka Kaname to deal the final blow -- which, legend says, must be dealt by a Puella Magi. She sacrifices herself in order to save the city -- and her friends. And especially Homura Akemi, who hears her last words.
:* Homura makes a Contract with Kyuubey: ''I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. But this time, instead of her saving me... I want to be the one to save her!'' She becomes a Puella Magi, and the magic of her wish sends her back in time... ending Timeline One.

=====Timeline One Logs=====
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====Timeline Two====
'''THEME: DREAMS.''' ''Homura's dream has come true -- and that makes it easier for everyone else to pursue theirs, because the life of a magical girl is a whole lot safer when they have an ally who can stop time to keep them from harm. It's mostly a good thing, but there's nothing like peril to inspire rapid bonding, so although the magical girl community is still (relatively) unified, it is slightly more loosely knit than it was in Timeline One. And with a little less magical stress in their lives, people are able to focus more on their individual goals rather than joint ones -- pursuing their different, unique, beautiful dreams.''
* A few months have passed since the timeline began, along with a few major events:
:* Homura Akemi is a newly Contracted Puella Magi who has joined the Mami/Madoka/Eri konbi, and is still learning how to master her unusually difficult powers. Unable to keep the secret, Madoka spilled her guts to Sayaka about being a magical girl within the first forty-eight hours.
:* As with the original timeline, the Sports Festival was a big success, but it seems to have really inflamed competitive spirits and the rivalry between the Sister Schools is more pronounced than before.
:* Fusion was defeated without the girls being sucked inside his soul and freed by their friends and Miracle Lights; it was just a conventional (though the first physically gigantic, and still relatively dramatic) battle.
:* Believing the monster to have eaten her best friend, Puella Magi Madoka battled Dessert Witch Charlotte, alone and crippled by grief. But Sayaka Miki had just been lost in the Labyrinth, and contracted on the spot upon witnessing the battle. Madoka narrowly avoided losing her head as the two defeated their first Witch together.
:* On Hokkaido, the Maiden of Dreams was redeemed without her killing Madoka Kaname or awakening Princess Serenity (because of a timely Homura rescue). That means the identity of the Moon Princess is still a mystery, and the hunt is on. Zoisite and Kunzite are still alive and Queen Beryl has yet to enact her North Pole ritual.
:* Because the timeLOOP has begun, weird temporal effects are occurring, and one of them is that Sailor Pluto basically hit a weird patch of timenoise on her way over, and accidentally overshot her trip. She has arrived just now, in April 2014. (Chibi-Usa will still arrive post-Beryl.)
* There are other minor differences between the second and first timelines as well.
:* In haste, Sayaka wished for the first thing that came to mind. Now with each mystically assured victory the Ohtori Middle School Softball team achieves on its way to an inevitable championship, Sayaka feels less and less fulfilled...
:* Ye-jin Song arrives and is elected new captain of Ohtori Dance Club. Secretly, she's come to help hunt HiME...
:* Madoka has the unusual combination of confidence, time, and commitment to self-improvement to actually go out for sports for once. She joins the Archery Club where she studies diligently alongside Rei.
:* Natsuki and Mikoto's battle on the cruise liner was more serious this time around, and several floors were damaged, but the ship remained structurally intact. Mai's efforts have, once again, seen them going from enemies to friends.
:* Mikoto was introduced to the Puella Magi by Homura, this time, who was eager to meet her old friend again. Mikoto was initially shy, but soon warmed up to her, alongside Madoka, Eri, and the others.
:* Upon realising that Homura was trying to learn how to fight, Mikoto relented to Kasagami's attempts to get her to join Kendo club, so that she could figure out how to teach her.
:* Rather than unintentionally insulting Rei, Usagi instead pleaded for her help in the wake of the bus incidents outside Hikawa Shrine, prompting Rei to commit to protecting Usagi early.
* '''IC Starting Date: April 2014'''
* '''Starting Plots: Student Council Ball; The Jewel Seed Incident'''
* It is April 17, 2014, and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. It's the second week of the new school year. A transformative time, as students acclimate to their new classes, their new classmates, their new clubs (or incessant club recruiters, for the holdouts) -- and now, tonight, their new student councils. Elections are over, and the Sister Schools are celebrating with a shared social that really can only possibly be called a ball, because Ohtori Academy is hosting. Besides having the best venue, they also have the most surprising outcome: Kasagami Araki is the new Ohtori High School Student Council President, having won her victory by a single vote (secretly, Akio Ohtori's, because the Academy is not a democracy...).
* But life isn't just sparkling apple cider and roses. The Jewel Seeds -- called 'Lost Logia' by the offworlders pursuing them, but to any magical girl recognizable as magical jewels that contain the cross-section of terrible power and the potential to grant wishes -- have almost all been found. The dark mage Fate Testarossa, and her allies in Labyrinth, have claimed roughly half; the radiant newcomer, Nanoha Takamachi, and her friends, have the rest. Can Fate's heart be reached before something terrible happens?
:* At the 2014-2015 Sister Schools Student Council Inauguration Ball, Niramo and Takeo get in a fight with some boys who were harassing Suzuka Tsukimura and are disciplined by Kasagami in her role as the new Ohtori Student Council President. Rei and Usagi join the Dance Queen competition with predictable results. Utena encourages Anthy (a Dance Queen nominee) to attend and therefore does as well, wearing one of the dresses they were gifted by the dance committee in solidarity. Disaster strikes as Nanami (who arranged the nomination and the dresses) causes Anthy's dress to dissolve in the middle of the dance floor, but Utena comes to the rescue.
:* At a Dance Club recruitment drive held at Ohtori shortly after the Inaugurational Ball, Niramo receives some much needed confidence from both Ye-Jin and Fumiko. It's enough that Niramo actually reconsiders her choice in clubs, dropping her enrollment in the Anime Club and taking up Dance at Juuban instead.
:* Nanoha Takamachi leads the magical girls in confronting her rival Fate Testarossa; she proposes an all-out one on one duel for the Jewel Seeds, and Fate accepts. But Precia intervenes, ostensibly out of concern that Nanoha's friends will jump in and gang up on her enforcer, and forcibly duplicates Fate with magic, creating a wild battle. Despite her numbers advantage, Fate loses anyway; Precia seizes the Jewel Seeds before Nanoha can and leaves, but not before punishing Fate for her failure both physically and emotionally. Nanoha takes a broken Fate home.
::* Lindy Harlaown makes contact with Nanoha, as does Arf, who can give them the coordinates to the Garden of Time. Nanoha and her friends climb aboard the Arthra to confront Precia in her fortress before she fully activates all the Jewel Seeds and causes an existential threat to the foundations of the multiverse. Fate stays behind, but encouragement from Arf and (unexpectedly) Eas, as well as bearing witness to the support of her friends now fighting Precia in her name, allows her to regain her will to fight. She and Eas catch up and rescue the group at a crucial moment, and then everyone proceeds to confront Precia.
::* But reality is fragmenting quickly, and the group winds up having to pass through Precia's past in order to reach her in the present. A dialogue begins, but whether or not Precia's heart was moved will remain an eternal mystery, because at the moment of truth, she is murdered by Northa, Chief Executive of Labyrinth, who immediately orders Eas to join her in exterminating her allies. Eas tries to bargain with Northa for their lives, which Northa takes as disloyalty; she uses the Jewel Seeds to create doppelganger replacements for all the magical girls, INCLUDING Eas, to be her new, loyal, army. The magical girls must confront these dark reflections of themselves and defeat them before the Garden of Time collapses into less than nothingness; they manage to do so, together, and escape on the Arthra in the nick of time. In the battle, Eas is forced to destroy her Data Diamond to defeat her double, and she joins them without her powers on the ship.
::* As the Arthra returns to Earth, it is abruptly and unexpectedly destroyed by an enormous blast of Dark Energy that came from the North Pole. The magical girls (and the crew) are able to escape, teleporting back to Tokyo just in time to watch the contrails of the surprise attack fade from the sky. It's terrifying power... but now they know where they need to go to put an end to the threat of Queen Beryl.
:* Mami Tomoe and Sayaka Miki acknowledge their growing attraction to one another and begin to date. Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname are inseparable, but not officially together.
* '''Summer 2014 Plot: North Pole'''
:* The sakura faded and the trees grew leaves -- soft breezes became oppressive heat -- and spring yielded into summer. In late June, school hasn't quite let out for vacation, but that hasn't stopped the Sailor Senshi from taking a trip to the Moon, in part hoping for a way to release the kidnapped Mamoru Chiba, now known as Dark Endymion, from Queen Beryl's brainwashing. The Midchildans, meanwhile, have finished running analyses of the blast that destroyed their spaceship, and are able to organize an operation to storm the pinpointed spot in the Arctic by surprise.
:* The magical girls get separated at the North Pole and begin fighting their way into the Dark Kingdom against the army that appears to defend it. The Inner Senshi die getting their Moon Princess into position to defeat Queen Beryl, but in the aftermath, Usagi is able to revive them. Everyone celebrates, then joins together to oppose the true dark power behind even Beryl's throne, the destructive entity Queen Metallia. The Maiden of Dreams, rescued on Hokkaido, reappears to help at this critical moment. Everyone's hearts join together, and the explosive power of their dreams defeat Queen Metallia. Overcome by their feelings and the transcendent moment, Sayaka and Mami share their first kiss.
:* However, Madoka Kaname uses up all of her magic, and collapses even as Queen Metallia is destroyed for good. Her Soul Gem becomes a Grief Seed, and she becomes a massive Witch, Kriemhild Gretchen. Her friends are forced to face this horror, but Homura Akemi turns away. Armed with the horrible truth of the Puella Magi, she jumps back to the past again to try to prevent this future from ever happening... ending Timeline Two.

=====Timeline Two Logs=====
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====Timeline Three====
'''THEME: TRUST.''' ''As in its complexities, its limitations, and its breakdown. Up until now, being a magical girl has included automatic membership in a sort of collective sisterhood -- the world has been divided into 'the magical girls' and 'the bad guys'. But a simple question changes everything: 'What if the fairy mascots and other sources of power don't actually have the magical girls' best interests at heart?' It's an unbelievable idea, but simply rejecting it means that, for some reason, Homura Akemi is trying to drive a wedge between magical girls and their mascots. In other words: not all magical girls can be trusted. Once planted, this seed of uncertainty can only continue to flower, and has done so spectacularly.''
* Numerous factors have further exacerbated the issue of trust between magical girls. Major examples include:
:* Competitions for limited magical resources, such as Star Shards, Jewel Seeds, and Grief Seeds, have all been far more intense than in previous timelines, with ugly consequences for would-be friendships.
:* Friendly fire is more of a narrative problem in this timeline than it has been (or will be) in others; even girls with the best of intentions might damage the trust of their allies by accidentally clipping them with one of their attacks, in a critical moment.
:* Magical girls are generally less willing to explain themselves and their actions to one another, since it's harder to know who to trust.
:* Secret identities are far more tightly protected than in Timelines One and Two. This means that sometimes people are friends as magical girls and, separately, friends as civilians, but that the crucial bond of trust that connects the two worlds is often missing. Sometimes, things are even more complicated, and magical girl rivals have no idea that their opposite number is their best friend at school.
* Although things are far from outright war, the magical girl community is under strain, and cracks are beginning to show. Rivalries are more heated and less friendly. 'Teams' can also sometimes be understood as 'schisms'. Conversely, true bonds of trust between individual girls are more precious and beautiful than ever. (And like all precious things -- they are vulnerable.)
* '''TIMELINE THREE IS SUBSTANTIALLY DARKER (OR, AT MINIMUM, MORE COMPLEX) THAN TIMELINES ONE AND TWO.''' It is not, however, an exercise in misery. The main 'tragedy' of the timeline, compared to the previous ones, is the environment of paranoia that has sprung up in the community. Even the most open-hearted magical girls have reasons to think more critically and carefully about their counterparts, and the ways of the world, than they normally would. (More reasons, in fact, than in the prime timeline, which did not have Homura Akemi sowing seeds of doubt from the start, nor such extreme competitions for the Star Shards and Jewel Seeds.)
* An entire year has passed since the beginning of this timeline; it is picking up several months after the last one ended, in fact (September; T2 ended in late June). All this is to say that quite a bit has happened, and happened differently, and happened in a way to put strain on trust between magical girls (while in turn forging some unbreakable bonds along the way):
:* The Fall 2013 Sports Festival, and Fusion's assault on Tokyo, occur essentially as they did in Timeline Two.
:* After spending enough time rebuilding her magical girl friendships that they'd have reason to trust her, Homura Akemi reveals the awful truth that Puella Magi are tricked by Kyuubey into accepting a fate where they will become Witches. It does not go over well, and creates a FIRESTORM of rumor and speculation that reaches all corners of the magical girl community. Everyone has heard about it. '''Nobody believes it (no exceptions!).''' Everyone has different opinions on why Homura would make such a claim, some more generous than others.
:* For a variety of reasons which certainly include heightened anxiety, magical girls' unanswered wishes are at the forefront of their minds when the Star Shards' existence becomes revealed, and the fight over them becomes (almost) as vicious between magical girls as it is between magical girls and Dark Fall demons/men in black from Ends of the World.
::*In the end, the star shards are never gathered in one place. Individual shards are painstakingly hidden by their current owners. The Maiden of Dreams remains a broken, nameless entity suffering endless torture within her seven golden prisons -- and nobody even knows that she exists.
:* The Jewel Seeds are hotly contested for basically the same reason. The Device-users of Earth do not line up neatly behind Nanoha Takamachi in her efforts to oppose Fate Testarossa; Endo Naoki especially wants to seize them for himself, which damages his relationship with Ren Aizawa.
::* Precia Testarossa does get her hands on all the Jewel Seeds eventually, after washing her hands of Fate. The magical girls are forced to unite to stop her from permanently sundering reality, and manage to do so, though not everyone participates in the operation. The Harlaowns are not involved; the Arthra is never allowed to come to Earth, due to rampant distrust between the TSAB and the Magic Association. Afterwards, Fate lives with the Takamachis.
:* Events surrounding the North Pole go more similarly to the PRIME timeline than either timelines one or two. In late summer 2014, once Usagi Tsukino is revealed as the Moon Princess, Mamoru Chiba is kidnapped and brainwashed into Dark Endymion, and the Four Heavenly Kings are dead, Queen Beryl issues her collective challenge to the magical girl community and dares them to stop her from making her dark wish.
::* Arriving in disorganized, separate groups, they fail. So, every magical girl in the world except for Sailor Moon and the Inner Senshi are banished to the Multidimensional Chaos World by the force of Beryl's wish. Adventures in bizarro spacetime ensue.
::* Back on Earth, the Inner Senshi die getting Sailor Moon past the DD Girls. She is forced to confront Beryl and Dark Endymion alone, and is narrowly able to do so. Afterwards, her wish for her friends revives the dead and recalls the missing, and everyone gathers together to put a permanent end to Queen Metallia.
::* The Maiden of Dreams is not present to help the girls gestalt their power, and so instead this battle is messy and dangerous. The magical girls triumph without anyone dying, but the aftertaste is a little bittersweet, tainted by injuries, plus the trauma of the uncontrolled dimension-hopping which resulted from Beryl's dark wish.
:* The World Tree roars onto everyone's radar when it's attacked by weird, sword-wielding shadows seemingly trying to disrupt a mysterious sparkly magical girl ritual, and by the end of summer everyone knows it exists, that it's a vitally important conduit of Earth's magical power, and that there's a more-and-less subtle battle being waged between men in black, Dark Fall demons and operatives (especially agents of Labyrinth such as Eas and Soular), Orphans, and the Magic Association, for control of the nexuses of magic that harness the World Tree's strength.
:* The Outer Senshi are present, active and renowned for their brutal determination to save the world by any means necessary without bothering to explain their methods -- in other words, they're the poster girls for how not all magical girls can be trusted.
:* The Wolkenritter are also getting active, creating rumors about magical girls who attack other magical girls in dark alleys -- and fear.
:* Drawn to investigate the source of the crazy rumor about Puella Magi and Witches, Kyouko Sakura and other Puella Magi close in on the Konbi's neighborhood. There aren't enough Grief Seeds to go around, and the question of hunting familiars becomes crucial. Tensions are rising.
:* Summer vacation happened. There was no trip to Okinawa. The return of school is something of a relief for kids stuck in the sweaty concrete prison of Tokyo.
:* Despite everything, magical girls also give each other reasons to trust one another as well. Every day is another act of kindness. Every friendship is its own miracle.
* There are other differences between the second and third timelines as well.
:* You are encouraged to add other differences between the second and third timelines to this list!
:* Please put your September 2013-September 2014 differences here, they're fun and interesting to imagine, especially as things have changed quite a bit between timelines two and three! Weird temporal effects continue to justify larger changes, such as when a character first came to Tokyo or first became a magical girl, as long as it happened after September 2013 (the beginning of Homura's time loops). Please run truly strange ideas by the staff first.
:* Mikoto Minagi and Natsuki Kuga's battle on the ship was once again more serious, with a large hole blown through several floors to expose the fight to the sky, but the ship managed to retain its structural integrity.
:* Mikoto spends a lot of her time searching for her brother, and so she has no time for clubs. Most of her associations are people she's met through Mai; on her own she is awkward and gruff, and does not generally reach out to make friends. Much of her involvement in early magical conflicts simply came down to the fact that Mai was there, rather than any urge of her own to get involved. What was seen as feline whimsy in the prime timeline now becomes much more suspicious: why does Mikoto so often go off on her own? Where was she when they needed help at the North Pole, or when Precia was threatening the world? And why does she keep herself shrouded in such mystery..?
:* The strain of the magical community means that Mikoto has had less exposure to kind life lessons, and so she is a much fiercer fighter. Mai has made what she doesn't approve of clear, and so Mikoto generally tries to avoid killing or doing severe injury to human opponents and will defend civilians, but she has no compunctions against hitting her opponents so hard that they don't want to get up again. She has a wild and unrestrained fighting style which makes it very easy for mistakes to happen and for allies to get hit.
:* Endo Naoki more than briefly considered using the Jewel Seeds to grant his own wish, leading to various squabbles with other Mages. He eventually came around to help stop Precia Testarossa, but harsh feelings may remain. With less sources of trusted support Endo tries to shoulder more of Tokyo's burdens, and listens more closely to the advice of his intelligent device, Fallen Stern.
:* Ye-jin Song is hunting HiME. . .
:* Shizuru Fujino is moving in secret towards the goals of Ends of the World. As the men in black continue to show up at various flashpoints of magical import, a woman in black with a strange red naginata often accompanies them. Her identity is unknown, but she has already shown a frightening ruthlessness that only adds to the cloud of suspicion in place.
:* Rei Hino was much more immediately suspicious of Luna's story of destiny, though she did eventually accept a place in the team. She is fiercely protective of her magical identity, and few people know outside of the Inner Senshi. She has come down especially hard on Usagi, viewing her crybaby idealism as unsuited to the strenuous climate of magical Tokyo. She's hard on the rest of the Senshi, too - and everyone else she comes to care at all about. She is unwilling to trust the rogue elements of the community, and even after a year, is slow to open her heart to her friends. She still carries the fear that if she comes to trust and rely on others, she will be betrayed and tossed aside.
:* Kasagami Araki joins at the end of summer vacation 2014 as the new Student Council Disciplinary Executive, despite being a transfer student and having only just entered the school. She is much more cynical this timeline, having worked for Ends of the World before coming to Ohtori. As DE, she has been put in charge of the civilian patrols for the 'vampires' on campus...and has enthusiastically been assisting in the hunt for HiME as well as the goals of Ends of the World.
:* Ladybug is incredibly secretive, being very formal in her interactions with other magical girls in order to preserve her secret identity. Even her ostensible partner, Chat Noir, gets to hear little more than business from her. Where exactly she's based is hard to tell, as she shows up for monster attacks across Tokyo - though she seems fastest to respond to attacks near Infinity, and takes the longest to appear when attacks happen near Juuban. Unbeknown to ''everyone'', this is because Marinette intentionally waits when there's an attack close to home - a devotion to secrecy that has even Tikki irritated.
:* Sourisi isn't known to be trusting of other magical girls and boys in this timeline, and the only magical entity able to be considered a friend is Takk. Seeing an opportunity in Takk's curiosity and fascination with technology, she has been putting much more effort in learning electric engineering. This has given rise to the placement of hidden mics and low-grade cameras places throughout Tokyo as Niramo tries to figure out who exactly she can and can't trust outside of her magical identity. Unsurprisingly, Ladybug, Chat Noir and Serpentina have the biggest files as she tries to crack their identities.
:* Eri Shimanouchi had a rocky start as a magical girl, feuding with another Puella Magi named Yaori which eventually resulted in the other girl's death. She claims it was an accident but was it really that simple? As a result, she's mildly distrusted by the Magical Girl Community of Tokyo. Since she runs with Mami Tomoe and Madoka Kaname now, it might be that she's been rehabilitated. Yet could it just be that some girls are simply bad apples through and through?
:* Cassandra is the magical girl alias used by the HiME Kozue Kaoru in this timeline. She has a reputation for a delinquent who doesn't get along with many magical girls, infuriating many with her reckless fighting style and sharp tongue. She rarely appears in most supernatural battles, picking and choosing only ones she has a personal stake in.
:* Homura arrives in her hospital bed in timeline three traumatized and frantic, and those states never abate for her. She immediately seeks out Madoka, Mami, and all the other contracted puella magi to tell them the terrible truth, and... her story is far too outlandish to be believed. Homura’s panicked presentation and deep social awkwardness don’t help; the girl in the braids and glasses is clearly genuinely upset, but she also keeps saying weird and offputting things, and referring to events that haven’t happened... (Please feel free to, if you wish, have your character already weirded out by Homura being overly familiar or making references to things that happened in T1 and T2. As an additional note, please reach out to me if you’re stuck on an angle for your character disbelieving Homura! Let’s have fun with it, I love brainstorming)
* '''IC Starting Date: September 2014'''
* '''Starting Plot: SEARRS Invasion'''
* It is September 10, 2014, and Southern Cross Island is apparently infested by vampires. Or maybe it's a stalker. At any rate, girls who go out alone at night are being found unconscious and, from the disarray of their possessions, have been searched for valuables. Magical girls suspect that this is really someone trying to identify them within the ordinary student population of Ohtori Academy. The school has implemented an extremely strict campus curfew enforced by Disciplinary Executive patrols, however, which makes it slightly more difficult to mount the kind of MAGICAL patrols needed to investigate and guard against the real threat. Those who've taken the risk anyway have discovered that the true perpetrators are Orphans -- the native demonic enemy that HiME were born to fight. But Orphans have always seemed mindless in their monstrosity. Could something -- or someone -- be directing their actions?
* From a more normal perspective, summer is finally over, Fall Semester is in session, and for 9th-graders especially, it also brings High School Entrance Exams into focus as a looming existential threat to their ordinary lives. It is harder than ever to find enough time for it all.
* The Fall 2014 Sports Festival is coming up soon. Juuban had it last year, and now it's Ohtori's turn to host, and despite the campus safety issues the plan seems to be moving forward. That makes it roughly the one-year anniversary of most magical girls' careers; a time for reflection. How have things changed since they discovered the world of magic? How have THEY changed?

=====Timeline Three Logs=====
{{#dpl: |category = logs
|titlematch = %TIMELINE 3:%
|notcategory = News Files
|notcategory = cutscenes
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
|rowcolformat=width=100%
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|noresultsheader=There are no logs on this wiki for Timeline Three.
}}

[[Category:Special Events]]

Homura Akemi

2019-02-15T23:29:23Z

Kestrel:

{| class="toccolours" style="width: 24em; float: right; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align: left; font-size: %110" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%; " align="center" colspan="2" | '''Homura Akemi'''
|-
! colspan="2" align="center" | [[File:homuraprofile2.png|310px]]
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''IC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Full Name:
| Homura Akemi
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Aliases:
| Transfer Student; Time Criminal
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Gender:
| Female
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Species:
| Human
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Age:
| 14
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Hair Color:
| Black
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Eye Color:
| Violet
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dossier'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Organization:
| None
|-
! style="text-align:left" | War affiliation:
| [[Shepherds]]
|-
! style="text-align:left" | School:
| [[School: Ohtori Academy|Ohtori Academy]] (Grade 9)
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Favorite subjects:
| The classes Madoka is in
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Least favorite subjects:
| Guess
|-
! style="background:#CFCFCF; border: 2px #C7A5D8 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''OOC Information'''
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Source:
| [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]
|-
|}

__NOTOC__

::''"I won't rely on anyone anymore!
::''I don't need anyone to understand me, either!"''

[[Image:01-overview-65.jpg]]

A girl of exceptional and practiced grace, with long black hair and pale skin like bleached bone. When she transferred to Ohtori Academy there were rumors about her medical history, but Homura demonstrated such coolly effortless perfection that the student populace has mostly moved on to praising her. From afar. With that cool perfection comes a firmly enforced social and emotional distance that rebuffs familiarity and resists forming bonds. Those who know Homura Akemi as a puella magi encounter the same distance, and she even seems to have the strange and miracle-granting Kyuubey intrigued. She's renowned for unbelievable speed in combat, perhaps the result of some strange technique... When Homura thinks no one is looking, she can be caught staring at Madoka Kaname from across their classroom. Often Madoka is the one who catches her at it.

[[Image:02-history-65.jpg]]

(In progress, literally)

[[Image:03-abilities-65.jpg]]

[[Image:itsasecret.png]]

[[Image:04-relationships-65.jpg]]

(In progress, also literally)

[[Image:05-gallery-65.jpg]]

<gallery>
File:chocolates.jpg|A gift for Madoka (and Pink) <3 Commission done by MadamMeatball on DA
</gallery>

[[Image:06-logs-65.jpg]]

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|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
|notcategory = News Files
|ordermethod = title
|columns = 2
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[[Image:07-cutscenes-65.jpg]]

{{#dpl: |category = cutscenes
|linksto = {{PAGENAME}}
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[[Category:Characters]][[Category:Ohtori]]

File:07-cutscenes-65.jpg

2019-02-15T09:10:46Z

Kestrel:

File:06-logs-65.jpg

2019-02-15T09:10:30Z

Kestrel: