Chapter 145 - There's Nobody To Blame This Time
Your old office was functional above all else. The walls were plain grey metal, cold and unyielding to the touch. A single door opened in plain view of the sparsely-decorated desk that sat in the center, occasionally covered by mountains of paperwork that you would quickly clear away and have sent off. The only real furnishing of note was your computers and the massive nine-paneled observation screen that dominated the wall opposite your seat. Through it, you watched the Facility. Your kingdom, for what it was, a labyrinth of steel and circuitry made to house monsters that defied reality.
The office of the Floor of Geography is similar, and yet different. The walls at first appear a plain, slate-grey that imitates the lifeless metal of your old domain, but a closer look at the marbled surfaces shows the same delicate, swirling patterns that fill everything in the Library scribed into it. Your sister's apparent aesthetic sense is ever-present, adding little flourishes and decorations to your sparse furnishings. The screens that once occupied one wall have erupted into a blooming mass of shining glass, filling nearly half the room and jutting out at bizarre angles. Through them, you see all of Library. Tiphereth, gesturing wildly at a whiteboard filled with neat text too small to possibly be legible in front of Kyoko. Sayaka, pacing endlessly back and forth in the entry. Roland, staring awkwardly at Homura standing stock still in a hallway. Your Agents, now Librarians, milling about through the boundless halls of your sister's EGO. Everything laid bare before you once again.
The screen are blank now, and you sit with your back to them to face the entrance to your office. Across your desk are two people, a woman and a man both the same age that you appear, with dull pink hair. The man is strained, his polite and friendly expression worn and nearly devoid of warmth. Not by willing coldness, but because that warmth is being slowly strangled by fear. Beside him, the woman is tired. She sits straight and at attention, ready for business in spite of her casual dress, but there are little signs of discomfort already having themselves known. Her hair was clearly done in haste, and she moved with hesitation as she lowers the now-empty cup of coffee you summoned.
"Again, I must apologize sincerely for this turn of events. Containing and managing Abnormalities is my responsibility above anyone else's, and that one has been able to cause such damage is a failing in my part." you say. Having to report your failure to somebody else is uncomfortable. It's not as if it never happened before, but it was only in the earlier iterations that you ever kept attempts that suffered this much. If something unavoidable did occur past then, entreating the respective parties for forgiveness was never pleasant.
At least the Kanames are taking things much better than the average person would. Screaming and crying would've been a reasonable response, and dealing with that would have been exceedingly awkward for all parties involved.
"But you're certain Madoka isn't hurt?" Tomohisa asks. Your first thought is to lie outright. Considering the obviousness of the truth, it would be more a gesture of comfort than a real deception. On the other hand, the Kanames are peers of a sort and as such deserve full clarity of information. Anything less would be an insult.
"I can guarantee that she is alive. It would be illogical to go through the difficultly of capturing a person only to kill them. You will see her again, if that I can be sure." you say. You're admittedly unsure if stark professionalism is the right tone to be taking, but you also feel that a more emotive response would seem insincere to people you have only spoken to once before now. This isn't about you or your feelings anyways.
"I see." Junko answers as her husband leans back, not at all relaxed by your answer. "May I ask a question?"
"Of course. I will answer to the best of my ability."
"Was Madoka taken-" Junko's voice hitches on that word. "-because she chose to get involved?" She breathes a slow, shallow breath. "If she hadn't joined in, would she still be safe?"
You don't answer right away. But the answer is certain from the start. "I don't believe so. Madoka was kidnapped due to her incredibly high natural potential for magic. No course of action would have changed that." That leaves out Homura's part in things, but you can only say so much right now. As entitled to the truth as the Kanames are, you don't know that Homura would have wanted them to know everything.
But there's more to this question than just that.
"You didn't make the wrong decision." you say quietly. Junko holds back a sob, almost too short to notice. Her husband leans into her. "It wasn't a mistake to let her go. She would've fought to do something regardless, and it was better for her to be prepared than not. It was the right choice."
It's a meager assurance, you know. But you can't offer anything more.
Nothing more than quiet, and the belief that it wasn't a mistake.
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Roland stared at the girl in front of him.
And it really was a girl, too. A kid, that is. Roland had met young fighters before, but you couldn't legally become a Fixer until you were of age and most important Syndicates respected that limit for the most part. Even with that unspoken agreement, there were always those who chose to break the trend. Whether out of a need for fresh fodder, some specific requirements, or simple malice, children somehow found their way into battlefields anyways. It wasn't often they looked so like soldiers, though.
The way the kid was staring at him was just… well, calling it creepy felt rude but it was at least unsettling. Nobody so small should look so detached from everything. He's known in advance that Angela's new sister had some kids who wound up Distortions, but knowing it and seeing it up close were two totally different things.
"Hello." the child said, her voice stilted and abrupt.
"Uh, hey. How's it going?" Roland replied, trying for a casual smile and probably failing to conceal his less pleasant feelings. The kid didn't deserve any flak for what happened to her, and Roland would probably die of shame if X didn't kill him first if he made his discomfort her problem.
"I am uncertain." she said in that same robotic tone. Roland winced.
"Well, what exactly isn't making sense?" That was a good place to start most of the time.
"The current course of action is logical. It has been clearly explained that gathering our strength and planning the assault on the Emerald City is the most effective course of action to rescuing Madoka." the girl recites. Roland nods and gestures for her to continue. He doesn't know exactly what's going on over where Angela's sister lives, but he had enough details to put it together. "There is no course of action more advantageous than waiting at the moment. Despite this, it still feels insufficient."
Yikes. How was he supposed to deal with that? Roland could barely sift through his own emotional baggage. If the planner over there really thought that regrouping was the best choice, Roland wouldn't contest them. Assaulting an entrenched enemy wasn't the sort of thing you do lightly no matter what the stakes. But dealing with feelings of inadequacy? Angelica had always been much better with all the feelings stuff than him. Her and Astolfo. And Olivier. And pretty much all the Sephirah. Point being, it wasn't his strong suit.
"If you're already doing what you're supposed to, what else really is there?" Roland said. The kid looked at him, and despite the fact that her face hadn't moved an inch even to speak since they met he could still get the sense that she wasn't very impressed with his reasoning. "Look, you trust the people in charge of the whole plan you've got going on?"
"Yes." Homura said curtly. Wow, not even a little hesitation either.
"Then just trust that whatever they decided, it's gonna be okay." Roland assured, finally managing to find something he could say with confidence. Once you find somebody you can believe in that much, sometimes you're just going to have to follow where they go whether you can see it or not. "If they were certain of the course, and you're sure you can walk along with them, then that's just what you've gotta do. Especially when you're not sure yourself where to go next."
The pair stared at one another for what felt like forever in the brightly-lit hallway. Eventually, the girl turned her head down.
"I still can't stop thinking about it." She definitely didn't sound like it, but between the words and the body language Roland was pretty sure the kid was embarrassed. Guess he really was just awful with kids. Maybe another angle would work better?
"Well, maybe a distraction would help?"
"What do you propose?" Homura asked.
"How about…" Roland scrambled for a proper distraction. This kid was basically a Fixer, and a veteran one at that. What did he usually talk about with his colleagues? Not much, in the end. Roland had never been a social butterfly either, that was more Angelica. Even then, she tended to default to… "weapons? I know you're a fighter, what're you carrying?"
The Distortion paused, and for a second Roland thought he had pushed into personal territory too fast. He almost panicked when the girl reached back behind herself and somehow pulled out a shotgun nearly half her size. Fortunately, it wasn't being pointed at him.
Hesitatingly accepting the offered firearm, Roland looked the weapon over. He couldn't tell the manufacturer, obviously. It was both an item from another world and something a Distortion summoned out of thin air. Despite that, he could still make out the basics. "Seems pretty impressive. By the look of it, if I saw somebody carrying this around back home, I'd think they had a Wing backing them. This is for tagging small targets?" With a shotgun, it's either that or taking a chunk out of somebody up close, and the way this one's made it didn't look like the pellets would be tightly-packed enough for that.
Homura nodded, and when Roland blinked the gun disappeared. Before she could reach for another, Roland interrupted.
"Hey, how many of those do you have?"
"There is no set number. When I require a weapon, it is provided." she answered calmly, to Roland's surprise. He had thought it was something like the Gloves of the Black Silence. But she could just make whatever she wanted?
"That's pretty impressive. Got anything for close range?"
"I can only create firearms and explosives." Homura lists off. Roland nodded. He could work with that. A flash of silver, and a gleaming silver rifle sat in his hands. Let's see if he could remember everything Angelica had said…
"Right. I've never been much for guns myself, but…"
And for a little while, the two of them talked without a care for anything else.
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In the Library…
[] X…
-[] …visits the Black Forest .
-[] …consults WhiteNight for guidance.
-[] …speaks with CENSORED seeking answers.
-[] …reunites with Nothing There.
[] Sayaka Miki…
-[] …ends up in a room filled with clocks.
-[] …stumbles into the tail-end of a math lesson.
-[] …is hoping to get in some last-minute training.
[] Mami Tomoe…
-[] …runs into a familiar face in the lounge.
-[] …nearly trips over a man asleep on the floor.
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Der Freischütz's Sapling - Observation Level 3/3
Porccubus' Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Schadenfreude's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
CENSORED's Sapling - Observation Level EXPUNGED/REDACTED
Not much to say here.
