Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Antimagic, huh. It's not precisely a trump card of yours- hell, it isn't even yours, and therein lies more than enough reason for you to not immediately agree. Besides, it's a negotiation, and you have to presume she expects some back and forth.

You... kind of approve of the notion of the Fukushima girls having better ways to take down opponents rather than transforming into giant metal monsters and tearing up a few city districts, of course. And it's just not yours to give out. You need permission, and you need to not come off as grossly unprepared for this negotiation.

"I'll have to give the antimagic enchantments some consideration," you say. "In the meantime, how many would you be interested in acquiring, and in what form? We could talk about it while I see the, ah, facilities you propose? It may be preferable for you to guard Airi in Mitakihara."

And you stretch out with your mind at the same time, not letting any of that show on your face. "Kirika? Oriko? Are you there?"

"Certainly," Yuki says, motioning towards the edge of the observation deck. "Your associates from Sendai?"

"Of course," Oriko responds. "What do you need?"

"Good question," you say. To both, really, but you turn and raise your voice. "Uh, Rin, Sakura? We're going to see Miss Tsuruya's proposed location. Do you wanna come with?"

"Uh... well, the Fukushima Group's leader is apparently interested in getting antimagic for their own use," you tell Oriko. "Would Kirika be interested or willing to make a few? And let me be clear, saying no is perfectly fine. I'd negotiate something else."

Rin pushes herself up from the railing, glancing at Sakura, and shakes her head. "We'll find a coffeeshop or something, if that's alright? Give me a call when you're done."

"Ah, that's perfectly fine," you say, smiling at Rin. "Thanks for your patience."

"Sure I'd be willing!" Kirika chirps. "Whatcha need?"

"Of course," Rin says, waving. She grabs Sakura's arm and starts dragging her towards the path.

"Er... the idea is something throwable," you say. "Like... a bolas, or a length of chain, or a net or something?"

"Or a boomerang?" Kirika says. "I know there's one around here somewhere!"

"... er, yeah, something along those lines?" you allow. "Probably something more conventional, though?"

"I suspect the job of being a leader sounded easier before she took up the mantle," Yuki muses, toying with the end of her purple braid as she watches the Sendai girls leave. "Especially in such a contentious time."

"Yeah, sure, can do," Kirika says. "Though I gotta warn you, I can only make it general in this case. I have to tailor the ignore list and all."

"I'm a little worried about her." You sigh, nodding at Yuki. "She seems to be under a lot of pressure. Lead on?"

"I'll help Kirika with this," Oriko says. "It's something to occupy us while we wait for this situation to be resolved. I believe it would be best for such an enchantment to ignore all of us from Mitakihara, just as a precaution?"

"Might be good," you allow. "I'll give you a quick update as soon as I confirm all this. Thanks, Kirika, thanks, Oriko."

"Good fortune," Oriko says drily, and sends the call.

"Indeed," Yuki says, rolling her shoulders as she strides over to the railings that rim the observation deck.

With one issue handled, you pick up another, letting nothing of it show on your face. "Hey, Homura?"

"Yes, Sabrina?" Homura asks, nearly instantly.

Yuki transforms in with a blaze of light that casts stark shadows on the ground, forcing you to squint a little.

"Do you know anything about the Fukushima group's rates?" you ask, watching as Yuki's silhouette wavers and runs. "I'm negotiating for them to take custody of Airi, and hoping to parley them into helping with Walpurgisnacht eventually."

Yuki's transformation is over in a split second. The light fades to leave her in a hooded cloak, shimmering green under the sun. You spy the dark gleam of metal under the cloak, the overlapping plates of lamellar armour that flare out into a skirt and leggings.

She vaults the railing in a single fluid motion, darting off down the slope. You follow dodging trees as Yuki leads you down the mountainside, bounding from craggy rocks and darting under low-slung branches. The forest is alive around you, muggy air filled with the buzz of insects and smell of earthy loam.

"Their rates for Walpurgisnacht would be high, if they were willing to even try," Homura says slowly. "Most likely more than a hundred Grief Seeds."

You wince at that. Ouch. And she's couching it in less than definitive terms... eliding the fact that she's tried it before, elsewhen. She mentioned Ramiel -Koizumi Sasami- being useful for Walpurgisnacht before.

"And a Clear Seed?" you ask.

"I don't know how to value those," Homura says, matter-of-factly.

Your Grief seethes through the forest, hundreds of thousands of marbles churning along the ground on parallel courses to you. You try not to disturb anything, and try to keep the marbles low and hidden and away from any animal life, but you map the rocks and the trees and the terrain all around you, giving you warning enough to keep a sure footing.

"We're nearing the edge of the forest, going high," Yuki warns, not slowing her pace.

"Got it," you say, and watch closely as she hits the concrete of pavement and leaps, bounding high above an empty street for a building on the opposite side.

"That's fair," you tell Homura. Your foot strikes the pavement, and you spring after Yuki. "Do you know what she'd want to guard a prisoner for a long time? And, uh, she wants anti-magic enchantments from Kirika."

"You're not paying them in Grief Seeds," Homura pronounces, less an indictment and more of a statement of fact. She's right, too. You could probably hunt down that many Witches, but not in the immediacy that you'd need to pay the Fukushima girls for this. "I would expect five Grief Seeds a week. Money is a useful bargaining chip. Anti-magic enchantments..."

You wait out the pause, staying hard on Yuki's tail. Fukushima's an old city, built in a basin and rimmed by mountains on nearly all sides. It's not the site of the nuclear powerplant meltdown from a tsunami that never arrived - that's far out to the sea, within the province but not the city of Fukushima.

"A useful bargaining chip," Homura decides at last. "If they are willing to accept it, there is no reason not to."

"Cool," you say. "Thanks, Homura."

Bounding over the rooftops, you can see a mixture of snow-caps and verdant hillsides rising in the distance... and there, in the distance, a volcanic caldera. Mount Azuma-kofuji, if you recall, and presumably where that supervillain group lairs. You should probably ask about them.

"You're welcome," Homura murmurs.

"Still, thanks, Homura," you say. "See you soon."

Yuki lands on the roof of an old office building, cloak fluttering around her. You can immediately feel the magic saturating the entire structure, tingling against your mind in intricate webs. They wind tighter, twisting into a dense nexus within the center of the building.

"Ah," Yuki says, smirking faintly at you. "Yes, the more sensitive magical girls notice that the first time they arrive here."

"Yes?" you say, raising your eyebrows. You can feel the magic rising around Yuki. Almost affectionate, twining around her, and the only word you can really use is that it's welcoming her back.

"This building is mine," Yuki says simply. "This city is mine."

"... Interesting," you say. You have this oddest feeling that anyone who might attack her here is probably in for a rather bad day.

"Rather," Yuki says, motioning towards the stairwell. "Feel free to remain transformed. There's no one else in this building, bar my friends."

"Oh?" you say, pulling your Grief into the building after you, hundreds of thousands of Grief marbles roiling through the air in a diffuse constellation to settle on the roof. "How are they, anyway? I... hope they don't hold grudges?"

Yuki pauses for a heartbeat.

"You scared the everliving shit out of them," she says, leading the way down the stairs. "And you hurt them. But these things happen when you're on the opposite sides of a conflict. That said, if you wish to meet them, we all live here. Moe and Atsuko are around today, though Sasami and Shinobu are out. I don't believe you've met the latter?"

"No, I don't think so," you say. It's actually a touch difficult to sense anything in this building - not so much that they're disguised. You can sense two presences in here, other than yourself and Yuki, but there's just so much magic they're almost unnoticeable against the background noise. "Are they OK, though?"

"They've recovered perfectly well," Yuki says, tone neutral. "We are magical girls, and we've all taken worse. Though perhaps not as comprehensively. Your chastisement... I watched the news."

She stops mid-stair, one foot on a lower step, and twists to look at you. "I think we all acknowledge that your point was well made."

"Right," you say. People died in the fight. Perhaps Atsuko hadn't intended to, and perhaps she'd even tried to avoid people, during her rampage - but it was a rampage, through the streets at rush hour. Simply panicking people had been enough.

Yuki shrugs delicately, and continues down the stairs.

"As you can no doubt tell," she says. "The entire building is fortified with magic. It's as secure a location as we can provide, and there are plenty of unused rooms in here. It's easy enough to have one furnished for someone to live in, and they won't be getting out without my say-so."

"... actually, how do you keep the building running?" you say, gesturing at the fluorescent lamps lighting the stairwell. "You have electricity, and I assume you have flowing water and so on."

"Of course we do," Yuki says, sounding faintly offended. "It's a collaborative effort between Shinobu and I. I control the building, she produces the smaller items we need."

"Huh. Cool," you say.

"It rather is," Yuki says with a grin back at you.

You follow her, soaking in the sense of the building. It doesn't feel hostile, precisely, but it feels deep and unyielding, like the enduring weight of a mountain powerful enough to weather out virtually anything.

You can feel Yuki's gaze flickering up to you as she rounds the stairwell for the next flight, thoughtful and interested.

"Do you feel ready to discuss more specifics of the antimagic enchantment yet?" she asks.

"Yeah. What form do you want them in? How many?" you ask. "Keep in mind that I'm not the one producing them - they're from my friend. Also, I should warn you that they'll disable magic on touch."

"How do you handle them, then?" Yuki asks.

"She can tailor it if she knows you," you say. "But you haven't met her, so..."

"Ah," Yuki says, nodding. "That would be... Mm. I would need it keyed to myself, at least." She motions towards the walls of the building.

"Right, then we'd have to work something out there," you say.

"I'd be willing to travel to Mitakihara for this," Yuki says, and grins faintly. "An opportunity to visit Tomoe Mami's redoubt shouldn't be passed up, regardless."

"Mami's pretty awesome," you agree, matching her grin. "That said, uh... I'll have to check that with my friends, so I'll get back to you on that."

"Of course," Yuki says. "I'd like to request three antimagic enchantments. If you can shape them, something like a frisbee or a weighted string would be best."

"Right," you say. "Tabling that for a moment, what else would you ask in payment? Again, I can offer a Clear Seed, as well as cash or gold."

You reach out mentally as you speak. "Kirika, still negotiating and just checking - would you mind meeting someone so you could key the antimagic to them?"

"Eh? 'course not!" Kirika says.

"Our standard fee is typically Grief Seeds," Yuki notes. "Most magical girls don't have much spare cash to pay with, so cash is more than welcome. We are self-sufficient, but luxuries paid for by money..."

She shrugs delicately, purple braid bouncing behind her as she takes the last step down to the next landing. "Right this way."

"Right, thanks, Kirika," you say, following Yuki through the stair lobby.

It's the same floor the other two magical presences -Moe and Atsuko- are on, but Yuki leads you down the corridor past that door. It's very definitely a former office building, carpeted with Standard Grey, Grey, and Gray Office Patterning™ and walls painted white. But it's bright and cheerful and clean, splashes of green in the form of potted plants everywhere, and it smells lived in rather than the existential despair of officework.

Yuki nudges open a mahogany door to reveal what must have once been some executive's luxurious, personal office, a gigantic wooden desk dominating the room, in front of a glass display cabinet. Opposite is a huge window, commanding a soaring view of the city beyond.

"One moment," Yuki says, pausing at the door and frowning. You feel the magic ripple through the building, almost shuddering through your senses as the entire room melts and runs like hot wax.

You blink, watching as curtains draw themselves across the huge window, and the glass-fronted display cabinets wavers into, well, actual cabinets. The wooden table dissolves into a bare bedframe, sturdy and grand, while the office chairs skid across the room and reform into small, comfy-looking sofas.

"Do you think that will suffice?" Yuki asks, blinking huge green eyes up at you. "Shinobu will provide an actual mattress, sheets, pillows and such, of course."

"Yeah, more than sufficient," you agree. Barring the fact that it lacks a Mami for you to share it with, it's nicer than the room you share with Mami back home. On a purely technical level, of course.

Out of curiosity, you check Yuki's Soul Gem. Transmuting an entire room seems to have barely taxed her at all.

"Excellent," Yuki says with a nod. "As to payment... we'd be happy to accept a Clear Seed and cash."

"Gold?" you ask, raising your eyebrows.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, gold is harder to spend than money," Yuki says. "We'd accept it, but in commensurately larger quantities."

"Then let's talk numbers," you say, shrugging. You're willing to be generous here, really.

Yuki frowns, waving you inside the room. You follow her obligingly, sinking into the sofas as she does.

"Clear Seeds and cash are gladly accepted," she says slowly. "But I don't suppose you'd be interested in a mutual defense pact?"

You raise an eyebrow, interested.

"Oh?" you say.

"Yes," Yuki says, crossing one leg over the other, drumming her fingers on her thigh. "I suspect you appreciate honesty, and so: With your Clear Seeds alone, it's clear you intend to upset the balance of the world. Even if you should vanish off the face of this earth tomorrow, potential disruption you have already sown would cost us less than a long-term partnership of some variety."

"About that..." you say, rubbing at your nose. You're kind of pleased she offered, truth be told. She's an interesting person, and shrewd to boot, and in more immediate terms, Homura wants them on board for a certain upcoming Queen of Witches. "You should know that Walpurgisnacht is due to arrive in Mitakihara in a matter of weeks."

"Ah." Yuki falls silent, frowning.

"I have to ask if your friends would be alright with that?" you say. "I mean... I've already dealt you one defeat, and I suspect you know my stance on rules of engagement and so on."

"As I said, a mutual defense pact," Yuki says. "I think... How much time do you have, Miss Sabrina?"

You reach for your flip phone, checking the time. "About an hour to go," you say. "Why do you ask?"

"I would like to take your measure in combat," Yuki says, leaning back. "In a location I choose."

[] Spar
- [] Agree
-- [] Rules of nature engagement
--- [] Go all out (barring gem shots)
--- [] Barring Gem theft
--- [] Barring dismemberment
--- [] Write-in
-- [] Lose
--- [] How?
- [] Disagree
-- [] Why?
[] Business
- [] Agree to defense pact
- [] Turn down defense pact
-- [] Attempt to enlist their aid for Walpurgisnacht regardless
- [] Agree to provide antimagic enchantments
-- [] Bring Yuki to Mitakihara now
- [] Ask about quartering Airi in Mitakihara
[] Vote in abeyance
[] Write-in (word count limit: 200 words)


Have another big update.