Ranbu Escalation (PMMM/Gaim)

[X] Not quite. Since the encounter with Sid, Madoka took an interest in learning more of what she could about Yggdrasil from her parents. They should know a lot about businesses, right?

Walking by the kitchen, Madoka took a moment to put a head in to look.

"How's dinner coming, papa?" She asked. "I thought I was going to be late coming back, but you're still cooking?"

"Ah, that's my bad." Her father replied. "I was talking with some friends at the store earlier, and they recommended a recipe. I misread the ingredients list so it took me a while to get everything ready..."

"Oh, something new?" Madoka asked.

"A Chinese dish." Her father confirmed. "I was thinking about experimenting with some foreign meals anyway. It's going to take a while..."

"I see." Madoka nodded. "Do you need a hand?"

"No, thank you." Her father smiled. "I think I've got this handled"

"Okay, then." Madoka replied, stepping away. "Just let me know if you need me to do anything."

Her father nodded, and returned to focusing on preparing dinner. Walking away from the kitchen, Madoka stepped around to the lounge room.

Her mother was sitting on the couch, watching what was probably the news, but was right now just advertisements. Madoka saw her little brother playing with blocks over at the side of the room, and waved to Tatsuya briefly before sitting next to her mother.

"Hello, mama." Madoka greeted her. "Anything important happen?"

"Not really." Madoka's mother replied, as the television started playing an ad for Yggdrasil's pharmaceutical branch. "Ugh, they're still playing this ad? I thought we were going to take it out of rotation..."

"Has work been a problem lately, mama?" Madoka asked, curious.

"...Not really." Her mother replied. "Just the same old. Some people who are slacking too often or missing the obvious. Annoying, but the more slack I pick up now, the more likely people are to see how much I do for the company. Gotta move up that corporate ladder eventually."

Madoka smiled, briefly.

...You know, it occurred to her. Madoka's teacher had said that Sid had claimed to have a Yggdrasil job, and he had referenced some kind of employer a few times when investigating the Strawberry Lockseed. Was Yggdrasil linked to Lockseed production, somehow?

...That would explain where it comes from, at least.

"What's it like working at Yggdrasil anyway, mama?" Madoka asked. She was curious to a degree, and maybe something her mother said could help her think some more about that question...

"What's with the sudden interest, Madoka?" Her mother asked, raising an eyebrow. "Already thinking about your career?"

"I-I'm just a bit curious." Madoka replied. "I think you've said a few times that it's better than your old job from back when I was young, even when you have days where you come home really annoyed. Is there any big difference between Yggdrasil and other big companies?"

"Well, there's one major one." Her mother replied, her face warping into a grin that immediately gave away that she wasn't going straight for an obvious answer. "The head honcho's all looks like freaking supermodels, Madoka. If I thought I could get Minato and the boss in for some advertisement, I'd switch tracks to being head of marketing department and just spend the rest of my life looking at pictures of those two."

"Mama..." Madoka sighed.

"You think I'm joking, but it's only half that." Her mother continued. "Seriously, at this point I'm half convinced that research and development has been keeping a bunch of beauty products hidden for the leadership positions, it's the only real explanation at this point."

"Again with the supermodels rant..."

"Hey, I know how to stop." The older woman interrupted. "I'm not drinking right now, so you know I'm right there."

...That was a fair point, come to think of it.

"Anyway, the thing about Yggdrasil is, once you get far enough, you get a lot of options." Her mother decided, getting serious. "Rumour has it that a bunch of management roles for the R&D department's are gonna open up soon, for instance. I could probably end up managing a few of the less important projects if I made an application. Really let's you get some kind of understanding on what the hell's going on in the company when you've gone around figuring out how to best organising basically every sector. Sure, I still have no idea what the big secrets in the research areas are, but I'm thinking I have a shot here to maybe end up in one of those comfy high-paying jobs in the next few years."

"...Big secrets in the research areas?" Madoka asked.

That seemed like a curiosity. And if Madoka was right about her suspicions of Yggdrasil being Sid's source of Grief Seeds..."

"But really, aren't you a little young to be worrying about work just yet?" Her mother continued. "Like, maybe you could use a part time job when you get to high school in a few years, but I could probably find you one easily enough. Just focus on having fun and doing school for a while, sweetie. You're still enjoying the whole Beat Rider thing, aren't you?"

Ah, her mother had changed the subject. Madoka could hardly force it back the other way now without it seeming too pushy...

"Yeah, that's still fun." Madoka nodded. "Sayaka and Hitomi are really good."

"You're not bad yourself." Her mother replied. "I tuned into the show a bit during my lunch break. Saw Sayaka use some big Inves thing before your dance. What was up with that, anyway? It's been a while since I payed attention to the Beat Rider scene, is that new?"

Oh, she had seen that?

"I-It's a new Lockseed..." Madoka explained, briefly, hoping her mother wouldn't ask her to go into too many details. "Everyone will probably have one soon enough. We should probably make the best of our time with it, so we can make sure we get to dance a lot before the better teams start clearing the stage again..."

"Still having issues with that?" Her mother asked. "You know, I really don't understand why there's less stages than dance groups. Or why there's Inves involved at all. If you had to decide who was going to the ones dancing, wouldn't it make more sense to have an actual dance settle that?"

"That wouldn't really be much better for us..." Madoka noted sadly. "We're not that good at dancing compared to the other Beat Riders..."

"I dunno, I like what you and your friends have going on." Her mother argued. "The other teams are alright I guess, but they have a habit of having... Well, I feel like a lot of them fall into the trap of putting all the focus on one person in particular. Invitto's just a bunch of girls putting focus on the one guy in the middle, and even if Baron's good, last I checked they were always having that leader of theirs in the middle."

"That's just personal preference, isn't it?" Madoka asked. "Baron's definitely better than what we can do, and the only real reason to disagree with that would be if you don't like their style. So even if the Inves battle was replaced by a dance-off, the one's picking would have their preference getting in the way."

"I suppose you have a point with that." The older woman noted. "Still, it's not like that's that uncommon a thing. A lot of times, people only get things because of the preferences of other people, rather than any kind of merit. Being good helps there, but getting people to like you does just as much, I gather."

She took a moment to consider the topic, before continuing.

"But the, I guess it's hardly time for sage life advice about how this applies to real world situations." Maodka's mother shrugged. "The whole Beat Rider's a thing for fun for you, isn't it?"

"...Yeah, it is." Madoka agreed. "Being on stage with Sayaka and Hitomi is nice. Fun."

"So I suppose now's not the time to be talking about less fun stuff." Madoka's mother agreed. "Though to be honest, I've kind of lost my train of thought now. We shifted gears a few times there, I think."

"I think we did do that..." Madoka nodded.

The advertisement on television ended, and Madoka fell into silence for a bit as she watched the news alongside her mother. There wasn't too much of note, really, at least not to Madoka.

There was a brief missing person's report regarding a family of three, and there was a brief talk about Yggdrasil working on another project to start ensuring increased security, with speculation towards possible emergency shelters being put together to ensure the safety of Mitakihara City's citizens, but eventually the news went into another ad break, this time advertising Charmont. Madoka watched Oren step on screen for a second to talk about his shop before she decided to move on.

The rest of the night after that was uneventful, and eventually, Madoka decided it was time to sleep.

At first, class the next day seemed to pass like a blur to Madoka. She tried to pay attention, but one way or another, her thoughts kept on wandering.

At first, they wandered towards Yggdrasil, and a bit about the possible link to Sid and the Lockseeds.

...Madoka had forgotten, until now, but didn't Homura say that there were people in Yggdrasil who would be benefiting from whatever the supposed bad future was going to be? And Homura did say that they needed to gather Lockseeds for whatever the bad thing could be...

But that just raised further questions. What was the link between this bad thing that was going to happen and the Lockseeds? If there were people in Yggdrasil linked to the bad thing who were going to make it worse, why would they bother selling Lockseeds through Sid? And the Lockseed dealing had to be linked to the bad guys Homura had warned her about. Why else would Homura have reacted the way she had to Sid and the references to his boss yesterday?

...Well, that was assuming Madoka was right about the link to Yggdrasil and the Lockseeds, and while she suspected that to be the case, the fact was that, if there was a link, if there wasn't a link...

Either way, Madoka just had more questions.

...If only Homura was able to talk more about the future she came from. Madoka understood that Homura wasn't dealing well with whatever had happened in the future, but she was starting to feel overwhelmed with just the sheer amount of questions were being raised with the information Madoka did and didn't have.

How did Magical Girls play into this? What secrets was this Kyubey thing holding? What did they want that could be helped along by the bad thing that was coming? What did the people in Yggdrasil want that would be helped along by this?

Perhaps Madoka should take it slowly, she thought. Just not wonder too much about this until it became relevant. But at the same time, that seemed like a bad idea. She was fretting about it now. What if the bad thing happened and she wasn't ready for it, because she didn't know enough? What if not being prepared and questioning everything now makes things bad when they eventually happen?

Maybe not having the answers now was just causing her stress, but if she tried to stop thinking about it, she'd just stress herself out more.

Eventually, lunch time came, and Madoka was almost welcome for the chance to stop trying to focus on what was going on in class. She noticed Homura rushing out as soon as lunch began again, and as she left the classroom, Madoka followed her.

Homura was on the roof again when Madoka caught up to her. Not surprising, considering it was where Homura had come to talk in private yesterday. Madoka cleared her throat, to get Homura's attention, before stepping closer.

"How are you?" Madoka asked, as she moved to sit next to Homura.

"...I'm okay." Homura replied, looking down. "...J-just had some bad dreams last n-night..."

...Oh. The bad thing that was going to happen must have had an impact on her eventually, didn't it?

"...Do you want to talk about it?" Madoka asked. "I mean, do you think it'll make you feel better if we talk?"

"...I don't think so..."

Homura's voice was quiet, and the girl herself had huddled into the fence behind her, trying to make herself look smaller.

"...I'm sorry, Homura." Madoka stated softly. "I... I wish I could help you. More than I am, I mean."

"...I w-wish I c-could t-too..." Homura stuttered. "I'm... W-Why c-can't I t-tell you? Everytime I just t-think about it, I... I'm p-pathetic..."

Her voice wavered, and Madoka heard the beginning of a sob as she trailed off, so quickly put an arm around Homura.

This entire situation was...

Well, it felt weird, but that wasn't important right now. What was important was that Homura was barely holding it together, even now, and Madoka didn't know how to help her. She was trying her best, but...

...Maybe if they started doing more, Homura would be able to talk more. If Madoka was able to do something big enough to prove to Homura that she was going to take the information she was giving her and use it to help, then maybe Homura would be able to find the courage to talk about just a bit more, let Madoka help her that little extra bit.

The Lockseed thing that the group was doing would help there, but one win had kept Homura cheery for about a day, before this morning led to...

...Madoka had to do something more. She needed more things to happen. She just wished she knew a little bit more, so she could do a little bit more.

As she gave Homura a shoulder to cry on, Madoka looked at the girl, and desperately tried to think of something she could do.

[X] She asks if Homura knows anyone who Madoka could get to help, any Magical Girls they might be able to trust, even with just a little.
[X] She thinks back to seeing Homura's injured arm while fighting the Witch, and tries to think of suggestions to avoid another injury next time.
[X] ...She wasn't coming up with any ideas. Maybe they would just need to keep trying to gather Lockseeds until Homura was able to explain more.
[X] Write-in.