Chapter 156 - What Can You Live With?
The presence at the edge of the Black Forest moves slowly. Its pace is inconsistent, mostly still with occasional bursts of movement. The pattern of behavior speaks to cautions, uncertainty, nervousness. High tensions. Probably a low state of panic. This is almost certainly one of the Adult's recruited Magical Girls, judging by their fear and ability to act on it. You have frustratingly little information in that particular portion of the Adult Who Tells Lies' forces, though what you do know implies that they're subtly being kept in a state of distress and not particularly close with each other.
Their timing is incredibly extremely specific. It seems probable that they were waiting for you to defeat Judgement Bird before attacking. You might've been safe thanks to Leonie, but anyone else walking in on that battle would've had little to no chance of surviving. You know that some of the Adult's forces already met an unfortunate end in the Black Forest. Even knowing- or at least suspecting- that you've defeated the Abnormality that did such a thing, you would understand hesitation when asked to tread the same path that got so many killed.
Alternatively, they might very well be afraid of you. You know little of what the Adult has told the children under her employ of you, but the picture she's painted was intended to make it impossible for you to reason with them. The worst part is, she could've easily done that just by accurately describing your real self. You don't know how much she knows about you as an Abnormality, but even basic information would be enough to poison the well. You indirectly created one Distortion, directly created another, and are working with two more. One of those two is Argalia, who is hoping that you'll turn the rest of humanity into Distortions at some point. That's not even touching the existential horror that is the existence of an ability like Lobotomy, though you haven't used it in some time. Isabeau's children were at least vaguely aware of it considering what they requested of you, so it should follow that the rest of the Adult's faction would have at least similar information.
They're not moving very quickly, so you have some options in how you want to approach this. You're much faster than the average Magical Girl is. The Black Forest isn't built in a way that makes sneaking easy, but if you stuck to the higher parts of the trees is would be easy enough to take them by surprise and end the fight before it even begins. As long as her Soul Gem remains intact, it's probably safest to fatally wound her body. You don't exactly have a way to hold prisoners at the moment, so it would probably be safest to just take their Soul Gem and leave the body anyways. Ideally you'll be able to finish before the decay progresses too far.
At the same time, the idea feels unappealing. The Magical Girls the Adult is employing aren't evil, they're being lied to. Whether you expect to succeed or not, you have an obligation to at least try and resolve things peacefully.
Even if you won't succeed, it's still wrong not to try. You need to at least offer a chance.
With a lazy gesture, you call your conjured soldiers to attention around you and then send them off. They can search the Black Forest for the marker as easily as you can, and once they find it it's just a matter of holding the position until the moment comes and then detonating. As long as interference is kept to a minimum, that should be enough. All you need to worry about now is attending to your reception.
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You approach slowly, picking a path clear of trees so that the girl can see you coming. A poor choice tactically, but surrendering some control over the situation will hopefully be an appreciated gesture. Besides, it'd be much worse to surprise the girl.
You catch sight of her before she spots you. The Black Forest's sky has begun fading to a dull green, providing barely any more light than the perpetual dusk it held when it was fully intact. Her outfit is something between a maid uniform and a priest's garments, black and white but for some dark blue accents and dustings of bright crystal blue that matches her hair. Her eyes are the same color, glassy in a way that goes beyond metaphor and into the realm of the unnatural. A dark oval gem, her Soul Gem, lies set into the fabric low on her chest. In one hand, she holds a small ornate hand mirror. It's probably her weapon. Even if you can feel her anxiety, only a small part of it is fear of you. None of it shows on her face. She smiles placidly as she makes her way through the shadowy trees. Her skin is a touch paler than what seems natural. Her proportions are mostly obscured by her uniform, but from what you can see she looks small for her height. It reminds you first of Kyoko, then further back of Lisa and Enoch when Carmen first found them. Long-term malnutrition, enough that its effects have been internalized and are no longer healed magically.
"Hey!" you announce the moment her eyes land on you, waving at the Magical Girl through the trees. "I'm X. Any chance we can talk for a moment?"
The girl startles, then raises her mirror and turns it towards you. You step forward and weave through the shotgun-like spray of light that follows. Undeterred, she fires off another ray of light that is this time turned aside by your sword's edge. Even if you don't plan on attacking with it, Justitia's broad shape makes it excellent for defense. While Mimicry would normally serve that purpose even better, it's also not the most comfortable thing to look at.
"I know it may be hard to believe," you say, pausing only to step away from the path of another spray of light that this time strikes the trees around you before bouncing inward to assail you from multiple angles at once. "but I really don't have any desire to hurt you. I'm just trying to save somebody who the Abnormality ruling this place has taken."
The girl only frowns, flicking her mirror down at an angle and sending a wave of glass-like arrowheads soaring up at you from the same path. A few swift movements reduces them to tiny shards, but before you can say anything else the sound of movement draws your attention to where the imagine of the same girl is standing in the distance to your left, holding her mirror towards you. You tilt your head to avoid the thin point of light that shines from it, watching the beam disappear into the forest's depths. That one very nearly hit you. You feel nothing from the image, so it's either an illusion or some sort of construct. If you had to guess, you'd presume it to be a "mirror image" of some sort. Magical Girls, like Abnormalities and Distortions, tend to have their abilities centered around a theme rather than a specific capability.
"Would you at least tell me your name? I've introduced myself, it's only fair." you say. A second image circling around your right launches another spray of silvery light. It's not directed towards you, but instead bounces off the trees in a consistent pattern to form a web that leaves very little room to move. The image to your left raises its mirror again for another shot while the presumably-real girl directly ahead sends a spread of glowing spheres of energy flying towards you.
You let Sound of a Star pulse, and its tug is felt by the world around you for a moment. A moment, but more than enough to pull the web of light around you out of position. Passing through it wouldn't be impossible, but you prefer to take the path of least resistance. Besides, you're still feeling the effects of Judgement Bird's attack. Complicated motion should be kept to a minimum. You draw Beak and shoot down the balls of light before they can reach you, then raise Justitia to intercede between the beam fired from your left and your chest. It splits into a rainbow's worth of colored rays, tearing through the trees nearby without resistance.
You let your weapons fade, standing unscathed in the wake of the coordinated attack. The girl stares at you, still frowning, then sighs. "Sena Mikoto."
"Right, then. Miss Sena, what exactly would I have to do to convince you to go on your way? This isn't a fight worth risking your life in." you say. Another barrage answers, adjusted slightly from the last. You have to admit the kid has a good eye for combat and some commendable tricks, but aside from Sayaka having trouble closing distance you can't imagine her winning in a fight against any of your children. Against you, none of it matters because she's just too slow to hit you. You might have some trouble getting into melee range without taking hits, but you don't need to get into melee range and you can afford to be injured. As it is, this fight is a foregone conclusion.
Normally that would mean you should end it while it remains so overwhelmingly in your favor, but you would rather not decapitate a child even if you know they'll live through it. Something is going to have to happen to the kids the Adult recruited after she falls, and that can't be "keep them separated from their body in their Soul Gem forever". This conversation will need to happen eventually. This is your chance to make a first impression, one that isn't overwhelmingly hostile.
"You're not going to trick me that easily. I know what you're really after." Sena says coldly, sending off another round of attacks. You're surprised by a flashbang being added into the mix, but the tiny moment of disorientation it buys isn't enough to impair you.
"Do you?" you ask.
"You want to use that girl like a weapon. I won't allow that." Sena answers. Her voice is passionate, but without heat. It's closest to Angela's tone, with a little of Mami's and Homura's added in.
"I don't want to use Madoka for anything. If I wanted her to make a Contract to accomplish something like you're implying, then I wouldn't have waited." you explain, dodging another round of attacks. This time, as you step out of the way of another sniping shot, you find yourself not quite where you expected to be standing. The blast strikes your shoulder, producing a sound like shattering glass as it impacts. You frown and try to ignore the pain. It's not anything critical, but you would prefer to avoid being injured.
"Then what about those other two girls? Why did you turn them into monsters?" the Magical Girl accuses, arranging another attack. A third image has joined the previous two, and you're starting to notice something irregular in the space around you. Little slips, just enough to set something where it wasn't a moment ago.
"Homura and Kyoko aren't monsters," you reply, and your calm breaks to let loose a faint snarl as you speak. You dodge into one of the cracks in space, using it as an entrance to one of Leonie's Routes and emerging already in the motion of reducing the first mirror image to fragments. "and I didn't want them to become Distortions. I am trying to help them return to normal, but it's not that simple."
"Why should I believe you?" Sena says, too quickly to maintain the illusion of composure. Another mirror image is shattered, but quickly replaced.
"What do I get by lying about that? Why would I want the people under my care to suffer?"
"Because it makes them easier to control. It makes them stronger, so they're more useful tools for you." Sena recites. An arrow of light slips past your defenses, scraping against your skin just below your eye. She's getting more reckless with her magic use. It's working, barely, but she's getting close to running out. You don't know what method the Adult developed to handle Witches, but you'd rather not learn it like this.
"Is that what you believe, or what you've been told?" You seize one of the nearby trees, tearing it from the earth with a single hand, and swing it horizontally across the battlefield. The resulting scatter of wood and dirt as trees crash against one another gives you more than enough clarity on where space has been altered. Lamp can serve that purpose just as well, but summoning it just yet is unnecessary.
The debris still filling the air works well enough as a smokescreen while you reduce Sena's mirror images to mere fragments.
"Tell me, Miss Sena. Why are you here on your own? I know that the Emerald City isn't short on defenders. It doesn't make any sense to leave you to face me alone like this." Sena steps back, her mask of calm determination cracking under the strain. But only for a moment, before she steps forward again and prepares another attack.
You don't give the girl a chance. Her Soul Gem is nearly blackened, and you aren't in the mood to gamble with how many spells she'll be able to manage before the Witch hatches. You dart through another Route and emerge behind her, Lamp in one hand and sword in the other. This is over.
The person you'd believed you were talking to is, in fact, another mirror image. Lamp's gleam makes that clear enough. The real Mikoto Sena is hiding behind several layers of space folded over on each other in such a way to make moving through almost impossible, her position both overlapping with the image's and not. You shatter the image just to be safe, then your sword darts through the layers of disruption in space. You feel a jolt of surprise as the weapon's tip pierces the back of her neck, severing the spine cleanly and painlessly. The folds in space snap back into their proper places as Sena crumples. You catch the girl before she can hit the ground.
Her transformation has held. Her Soul Gem is intact. You can feel the dull hum of an unconscious mind within your reach. Mikoto Sena will live, you know this as a fact. None of it detracts from the uncomfortable feeling of holding a technically dead body belonging to a young teenager who you just stabbed.
Well, you don't have time to waste. You reach out to remove the kid's Soul Gem, only to be stopped by a sudden flash of light. The Magical Girl's Soul Gem, already nearly full, has suddenly begun to overflow with Grief. The sickly, rotting texture of it assaults your senses as it spills from the Soul Gem and out into the world in thin, orderly streaks.
And despite everything, the fallen Magical Girl's body begins to twitch.
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Porccubus' Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Schadenfreude's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
CENSORED's Sapling - Observation Level EXPUNGED/REDACTED
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