“Human Resources” Shouldn’t Be This Literal: A PMMM/ProjectMoon Quest

Chapter 86 - Mother Knows Best

The moment of blinding light quickly passes, and you find yourself once again in your apartment. The midday's light trickles through the clouds and into the guest room where Yuma sleeps. The girl in question sits on the bed, scribbling drawings in the margins of her homework. It's yet another sign that Mitakihara is an equivalent to a Nest for this world. Only a Nest school would assign pre-calculus to an eleven year-old for homework.

You cough lightly, alerting your youngest daughter to your return. Yuma drops her pen and turns towards you, grinning cheerfully. In a few quick jumps, she's descended from the bed and rushed up to to. You catch your daughter mid-jump, offering a short hug which she returns before setting her back down on the ground.

You haven't been able to spend as much time with Yuma as you'd like to. Between keeping the Witch population at bay, searching for Abnormalities, and managing Homura, you don't see her much outside of preparing breakfast and dinner and ferrying her to and from school. You're uncomfortable enough just bringing Madoka along, even with the completely overwhelming firepower present, but you don't actually have the authority to just decide whether she can come or not without some conflict arising. Yuma, though, you've tried your best to keep separate from the whole Magical Girl business. That means leaving her out of the more involved group events. It's not a perfect solution, you'll admit, but nothing ever is.

"Mom! Mami and her friend are making in the kitchen! They're gonna bake a cake!"

"Are they now?" you say with a smirk. You aren't actually going to stop them baking, but neither can you be too permissive. Eating only pastries all the time sounds fun until you consider the consequences that most people have to face. Well, "most people". Mami's a Magical Girl and seems to have any potential maladies cancelled out by her passive healing, Kyoko is a Distortion whose true body is made of fire and so likely won't care what she eats, and you're not sure what happens to food when you eat it. Nothing normal, that's for sure. Only Yuma would actually suffer the effects of such a sugary diet. Still, it wouldn't be fair for her to have to regulate her intake while everyone else just eats whatever they want. You'll need to set up a meal plan of some sort later.

Just not right now. Kyoko and Mami could probably use it.

"Well, I suppose it's alright. But just because we're celebrating Kyoko coming back." you concede to the cheerful child. "So don't get used to having so many sweets. If you eat too many, you'll make yourself sick."

"Don't worry! Yuma won't!" your daughter assured you.

With that confirmation, you open the door out of Yuma's room and head towards the kitchen, the girl trailing close behind you.

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Mami rushes from place to place in the kitchen, moving in perfect choreographed motions as she goes. From the ingredients she's set out, it looks like she's actually preparing a whole cake. There's probably going to be some left over even between the five of you. More importantly, though, is the unnatural nervousness present. More than once, Mami opens a drawer or cabinet and closes it without retrieving anything. She's checked that the oven is heating at least twice in the few seconds since you started watching. And above all, she keeps looking back at Kyoko.

Kyoko stands awkwardly in the center, holding a bowl of dough and staring at it like it's a kid whose dog she just ran over. It's an uncanny contrast from how Nothing There had acted when imitating the girl, even more so knowing that was how she would normally have acted. Whenever Mami glances back at her, though, Kyoko switches to a casual, indifferent smile. As much as you appreciate her effort in keeping Mami happy, you're not going to let her avoid whatever issue she has forever. You'll allow some grace period, of course, but sooner or later she's going to have to confront it with or without your intervention.

"I see you're in the middle of something." you say, announcing your presence. Kyoko whips around to look at you, still holding the half-made dough. Mami jumps uncharacteristically in surprise, though it's understandable given she seems a bit on-edge.

This whole situation has been a mess for her. It's honestly quite impressive how well your daughter has held up so far.

"Hello Mom," Mami replies after composing herself. "It's nice to have you here again. I was thinking of ways to celebrate Kyoko coming back, so we're baking a cake together!"

"Good to hear. I have to meet with Homura about her capacity testing, so I'll be out for a bit until that's finished. Do you think you can hold down the fort until then?"

Mami hesitates for a moment, uncertainty barely kept off her face as she answers. "Everything will be alright. I can manage things myself for a little while."

You linger in the kitchen, giving Mami a look of mild concern. You don't have much practice with this expression. Facial expressions in general are something of a weak point for you, given your history of limited face-to-face social interaction. It is, at the very least, good enough for Mami to pick up on. She walks over to you, standing on the other side of the kitchen entrance.

"Really, you don't need to worry. I just…" her voice lowers. "I'm worried about Kyoko. I can tell she's trying to act like she's not upset, but I don't know if I should press it. I don't want to ruin things between us again."

"Then let it wait for just a little while longer." you say softly. "I'll be back soon, and we can sort everything out from there."

Mami nods solemnly, and with that you step back into the hall and disappear.

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Teleportation is something you were working on for quite a while. It's a fairly common ability for Abnormalities, though the exact methods used differ from individual to individual. Blue Star's teleportation is a combination of its gravity-warping presence and space manipulation. Silent Orchestra's music passively reorders the area around it in accordance with its idea of a perfect performance, letting it move freely within that zone despite being otherwise immobile. Alriune allows its whole body to disperse and reform. The most powerful Abnormalities, such as WhiteNight, Apocalypse Bird, or yourself, can simply decide to be somewhere due to their unique relationship with existence. You will be using something a bit more normalized for this universe.

Magic.

The EGO gear of the Magical Girl Abnormalities normally confers only the simplest forms of their power. Your variant of EGO, formed through mutual understanding and acceptance between you and an Abnormality, expands upon that base to open up more utility. On its own, that would not be enough to learn teleportation. That necessitated better synch with the Knight of Despair to happen.

As it turns out, spending so much time sheltering and protecting Magical Girls does wonders for your ability to empathize with a being who spent most of their life doing the same thing for their companions. Thus, with a little bit of practice, teleportation spells became available to you.

It's still not perfect. Teleporting like this is slow, and requires you to focus on the spell in exclusion of all else. It would be useless in combat at this level. But combined with Homura's unique emotional signal, it does free you from having to scour the city for the wayward Distortion.

You arrive in a burst of starlight, constellations spiraling and collapsing into fragments all around you. The branch you appear on also fragments, only your quick reaction speed and a short hop saving you from an embarrassing trip to the ground. You stabilize yourself atop one of the tree's larger branches, hidden by the thick cover of leaves.

Homura turns slowly to greet you. Her movements are precise, efficient, without any wasted motion. Mechanical. Her face remains impassive and unmoving as she stares at you, a porcelain mask meant only to conceal the clockwork beneath. The exception to this stillness is the ribbon still tied in an oversized bow around Homura's waist, one end of which is wrapped around the tree's trunk for stability. You raise an eyebrow, but do not ask why Homura was sitting in a tree. You really don't have to.

"You've arrived."

"Yep." you say impassively. "You ready to do this?" Instead of a verbal answer, Homura sits down on the branch she was standing on, back facing you. The free ribbon brings Homura's key to you, pausing to wrap around your outstretched hand before releasing the key into it.

Homura remains perfectly still as you place the key into the hole in the back of her neck and turn. You feel the grip of her powers on your lifespan tighten with each turn, but pay it no mind. There is no amount of time that she could take that would hurt you. The key finally stops, having reached to furthest it can turn, and with it the cold grasp vanishes without a trace.

"How much time do you have now?" you ask. Homura's face remains unmoving, but you can feel her attention leave you to tally her reserves.

"Twenty-four years. My upper limit is up by two days since the last test."

That confirms it. You already had your suspicions when first discovering the maximum time Homura could store at once, but this increase tells everything. Homura's limit to her reserves is equal to the amount of time she's been alive, ignoring any interference from her powers.

"And usage rates?" you inquire, though it's mostly just a formality. You don't expect how costly Homura's abilities are to use to change at any point even as her capacity to use them. Not without training or outside influence, at least.

"Base consumption is still the same. One second per second. It rises to one day during full time stop. I have been keeping to dilation instead while hunting to conserve power." Homura reports. Her manner is somewhat more clipped than it was even back then. Militaristic, even, like a soldier relaying the results of a scouting mission to a superior instead of a person discussing themself.

"You know, you don't need to play so conservatively with your reserves. Not that you should just burn through everything right away, but you can always call me for a recharge. It doesn't cost me anything, after all." you insist. You want to help Homura, but that's only possible if she lets you.

"I will be sure to remember that." Homura says in a tone that speaks less of actually agreeing with you and more of wanting to end this line of conversation as soon as possible. The two of you stare awkwardly at one another before your fellow time-traveller breaks the silence.

"I've been making progress with Parallels." she says, the sound of clockwork echoing out before you can respond. Purple sands rush like streaming blood visible through the cracks in Homura's body, shrouding her in an amethyst glow that peels away from her and condenses. A roman numeral "I" flashes for a mere second, before shifting to a "II", a "III", and finally pausing on "IV" before disappearing amidst the faded purple gleam. In its place is a second Homura.

Well, that's what you could say. But while the Wind-Up Soldier may be hard to tell apart from a human at a distance, there is no mistaking the Parallel for what it is.

The false porcelain skin that is cracked and damaged on Homura's body is in far worse condition on the Parallel's. Massive gashes are torn through its chest, arms, and neck, and its face has completely shattered to reveal the intricate mechanism beneath. Two glowing purple orbs gaze out from a nonsensical mess of gears and connectors that seem like they shouldn't even fit together, let alone be part of something so complex. Masses of purple sand spill out in frozen arcs around its body from each wound, the shapes having an uncanny resemblance to sprays of blood. The pink ribbon is notably absent from its waist.

"A minimum of two years is needed to create a Parallel. All injuries are passed on to it, without inhibiting its function. This one only has four years."

Four years. Four years of time, given up just like that. That leaves Homura with twenty, and if she's using them up this quickly that won't last. You'll need to re-wind her after this testing session is over. Instead of pushing on that point right now, you stay on task.

"Is your attention split between the Parallel and you? Do they act on their own?"

Though neither body moves, you can hear the Parallel speak this time. Its voice is slightly garbled, filled with static and clicking interrupting its words.

"I can control either one or both at once. I don't feel any distraction or loss of attention on doing so."

Well, that's convenient. Some sort of network between them? The Parallel contributes enough processing to offset any concentration lost by managing it. It's not an independent creature, you can tell that much. Perhaps the name is indicative, and it really is an alternate version of Homura. But that wouldn't make sense, considering the shared consciousness. Unless that's an effect of her Distortion, synchronizing Homura's mind between different timelines. No, it doesn't fit with the main pattern of Homura's abilities. She affects the flow, the passage of time, not possibilities. Vertical movement, not horizontal, to put it one way. So perhaps-

"She still talks to me sometimes."

Homura's words cut through your train of analysis. You inhale, then exhale slowly, gently removing your hand from the new hole you made in the tree trunk you had been resting it on.

"She doesn't say much. But she agreed to warn me if Madoka was in danger."

"Did she say anything about telling people about her?" you ask carefully.

"She said it would make things more complicated, but that it was my choice." Homura states cleanly. "There is somebody she would like us to meet someday."

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Tell Homura…
[] She shouldn't listen to Carmen.
[] You won't stop her from listening to Carmen
[] Write-in.

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Der Freischütz's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Porccubus' Sapling - Observation Level 2/3

Update schedule will be slowing to a 2-Day Voting period followed by a day before the update, in order to give people more time to respond to new chapters. I don't have much else to say here. Oh! I'll be posting a Chesed CharSheet soon, just to give a sense of how BS the Library can get.