2.3.12 - Hold The Key
Lepidoptera
Mother of Monsters, Unverified Impuritas Civitatis
- Location
- Indeterminate Unknown
Chapter 123 - Hold The Key
After a short trip back to the Library to get Kyoko a new disguise during which Angela stares at you the entire time with a look that's somewhere between exasperated and curious, you and the kids return to the apartment. Of course, the first thing Kyoko does on arriving is notice the general state of the furnishings.
To put simply, it's not salvageable. The burns have pervaded the framework of the furniture to the point where most of it would break if somebody put weight on it. That aside, there's ash flaking off of everything. It's mostly just irritating, but inhaling it could be harmful for Yuma or any other less survivable people who get invited over. In the end, you and Mami agree it all has to go. You call up your soldiers to help clean everything away, leaving the room rather barren. All the while, Kyoko is looking more and more ashamed.
"I'm so sorry, this is-" she begins, only to be immediately cut off.
"This is not your fault, Kyoko. You are not responsible for the fact that you have feelings." Mami says assertively. "Besides, I would probably have had to have these replaced eventually anyways. I simply didn't account for the possibility of having so many people over when I bought them."
Right. Between the five people living here, Madoka, Homura, Sayaka, Hitomi, and potentially people's parents, you could probably do with a larger couch and more chairs. Speaking of, Hitomi's parents really should be back from their business trip soon. You'll need to talk to them eventually, ideally before you need them to take shelter during the raid.
Kyoko still seems uncomfortable, but the brunt of her guilt appears to have been set aside for now and belaboring the point won't help now. Instead, you simply usher her and Mami to bed, wish them good night, and let the long day end.
—————————
The day's end does not mean the end of your work, as night is just as filled with things to do for you. Specifically, visiting Homura and making sure she's taking care of herself.
The time traveler in question is, of course, perched outside Madoka's house in a tree. She is using a different tree to the one she was using last time, so you'll give her a singular point for creativity before immediately deducting it for still hiding in a tree instead of talking with Madoka like a regular person. While you're fairly certain that regular people are a myth at this point who exist only in anecdotes and fairy tales, you feel as though your expectations aren't wholly unreasonable here. The Kanames are very much Madoka's parents, and would not be opposed to allowing Homura to stay overnight. While multiple consecutive days of this would probably lead to questions about her home life, that's more of a plus than anything else. Homura needs more responsible adults in her life that she can talk to than just you.
Hopping up beside Homura in her perch, you take a seat against the side of the tree and lie back in what would be a very precarious position for anybody without an absurd superhuman sense of balance. She doesn't react to your appearance, remaining still and staring out to the Kanames' house through the dark night. The only indication that she even noticed you is one end of the ribbon tied around her waist reaching out towards you, curled around the tiny silver key like a grasping hand.
"What, not gonna greet me?" you say jokingly. Homura still doesn't turn to look at you.
"There's no point to pleasantries between us. We don't need it. This interaction is to serve a purpose, and excess conversation won't help in that." the kid says flatly.
"It still feels a little rude, though. We're friends, aren't we? There's no reason we shouldn't be able to talk nicely with each other." you respond, rubbing the back of your neck in embarrassment while taking the key in your other hand.
"We are friends." Homura says, though she doesn't turn towards you. For a second you think you detect a hint of sadness in her voice, but it's buried as soon as you notice it. She turns her head away from you, exposing the keyhole in the back of her neck. Accepting that this conversation is dead on arrival, you place the key in and turn.
Ignoring the eerie tightening feeling that runs through your body as your infinite lifespan is siphoned to refill Homura's ever-decreasing one, you take notice of the details of Homura's distortion. It's less dramatic than Kyoko's or the Ensemble's, enough that she could easily be mistaken for a regular Magical Girl, but being so close makes that impossible. The artificiality of her body is clear, her false skin lacking any detail or irregularity like what you'd expect on a person's body. Her movements aren't stiff but instead extremely efficient, without a single hint of wasted motion. There is no little shifting or moving about as she sits still and waits for you to finish the rewinding, not even the slight rise and fall of the chest that one expects from anybody who is still breathing. She's practically a statue.
You will undo this, somehow. You promised Homura all those days ago that you would help her, as a mark of solidarity between those who have left the reaches of time. That doesn't just mean accomplishing her goal. It means giving her her life back.
"Say," you begin offhandedly as you finish the winding process, "I need to ask you a few favors. First off, I'm planning on telling Mami about where Witches come from. Everyone else, too. It's unlikely to stay a secret much longer, so I'd rather get it out of the way under controlled circumstances."
"She will react poorly. They all always." Homura says.
"Maybe," you admit, "but we never got anywhere by expecting things to stay the same. Just think about it, alright? You've got more experience here than I do, so if you can think of any good ways to do this it's be very helpful.
Homura is quiet for some time. Right when you think she isn't going to respond at all, she says "I will consider what I know and inform you in the morning."
"Good to hear. For the second thing, I also need you to deliver a message to Madoka. One of my coworkers wants to see her in the Library after school tomorrow, so I'm bringing the two of you over."
"You could have told her earlier today. Why did you wait?"
"Honestly? It just never came up.
And at this point, you could use the chance to talk with her a little more." you say.
"She doesn't need to know me. It'll only make things harder." Homura retorts, still unmoving.
"Make what harder?"
"Madoka doesn't need to care about me. She'll only hurt and endanger herself unnecessarily." Homura explains, though her voice carries more exhaustion than she intended. You can feel the weight in those words, the accumulated experiences that drove such an idea into her head. Even so, you can't accept them.
"She already cares about you, Homura, and she's not gonna stop all of a sudden. Would Madoka really be who she is if she didn't care about you whether you thought you deserved it or not?" you propose. Homura remains silent.
"Look, she's gonna worry more if you keep your distance." you advise. "Talk to her. Let her know you're okay, and if Madoka thinks you're not, let her help you. Who knows, you might end up needing it more than you thought."
Not a sound passes through the cool night air. The leaves around you rustle back and forth, caught in the currents of a slow, silent wind.
"Just think about it, okay? I have to go attend to some family business right now, but don't hesitate to give me a call. I'll be there to help if you need it."
—————————
About half an hour later, and you and Angela stand together in the Library over the broken body of the Abnormality Schadenfreude. Its dull, cuboid metal body has cracked or broken in several places, letting a strange spongy flesh spill out. Spindly metal limbs that one might liken to a spider's are scattered around the Abnormality's domain, having been torn off by a Gold Rush-wielding Angela near the end of the fight. Your swords are currently both jammed into the solitary keyhole where the creature's eye normally pokes out, though currently all that can be seen in the keyhole is a small fountain of foul-smelling red-brown fluid that is just a little bit off from blood.
"I cannot help but feel like that was somewhat anticlimactic. I expected more of a challenge from such a malevolent Abnormality." Angela remarks, casually kicking aside one of the broken-off legs.
She's not entirely wrong. When you had first arrived, the scene of the bright steel hallways of the old facility bathed in red from the emergency lights and filled up to your ankles with blood was unnerving. The dismembered bodies scattered about that seemed to be inexplicably still alive only added to that impression. The Abnormality itself, though…
"Schadenfreude might've been one of the trickier Abnormalities to deal with on top of everything else that was going on, but in isolation it was never a challenge to put down once I got it figured out. Creepy as it is, it can't take what it dishes out unless you're looking at it." you assess as you remove your weapons from the Abnormality's disintegrating body. Fighting blind with a second person alongside you had been a daunting proposition at first, but between your emotion senses and your sister just being amazing it wasn't actually much of an issue. "It helps that you did really well. I already knew it, but you're kind of a badass when you want to be, Angela."
Your sister visibly freezes for a moment before continuing to investigate what's left of the Abnormality's chosen environment before it fades and you are ejected. She still isn't used to getting complements like that, huh? "Thank you, X. I am quite capable, as I have said before."
The two of you pause to appreciate a job well done as the world around you dissolved into Light, returning you and your sister to your office in the Floor of Geography.
It's nice to have simple objectives every once in a while. Find the hostile box creature, smash it until it stops moving, grab its associated concepts for a new weapon. Nice, straightforward, and simple.
But life can't always be that way. At least it's not boring.
———————————————
CRUELTY/WATCH/GLEE
———————————————
Tomorrow's Activities
[] Experimentation
-[] With what? How?
[] Search for Abnormalities
[] Scout Kamihama
[] Meet The Shizuki Family
[] Write-in.
———————————————
Der Freischütz's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Porccubus' Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Schadenfreude's Sapling - Observation Level 1/3
CENSORED's Sapling - Observation Level EXPUNGED/REDACTED
I was going to write a big fight scene for Schadenfreude, especially considering the showing it gave in Leviathan, but this situation is a lot different than that one. For one, Abnormalities in their books are still weaker than they would be at full power. Schadenfreude here is closer to how it was in LC than Leviathan. Second, Angela and X are familiar with it instead of it being a weird unkillable thing that got literally summoned from nowhere. Third, without its gimmick, Schadenfreude goes down pretty easily. It's actually weak to physical damage as long as you're not looking at it. So yeah, not exactly a dramatic battle.
After a short trip back to the Library to get Kyoko a new disguise during which Angela stares at you the entire time with a look that's somewhere between exasperated and curious, you and the kids return to the apartment. Of course, the first thing Kyoko does on arriving is notice the general state of the furnishings.
To put simply, it's not salvageable. The burns have pervaded the framework of the furniture to the point where most of it would break if somebody put weight on it. That aside, there's ash flaking off of everything. It's mostly just irritating, but inhaling it could be harmful for Yuma or any other less survivable people who get invited over. In the end, you and Mami agree it all has to go. You call up your soldiers to help clean everything away, leaving the room rather barren. All the while, Kyoko is looking more and more ashamed.
"I'm so sorry, this is-" she begins, only to be immediately cut off.
"This is not your fault, Kyoko. You are not responsible for the fact that you have feelings." Mami says assertively. "Besides, I would probably have had to have these replaced eventually anyways. I simply didn't account for the possibility of having so many people over when I bought them."
Right. Between the five people living here, Madoka, Homura, Sayaka, Hitomi, and potentially people's parents, you could probably do with a larger couch and more chairs. Speaking of, Hitomi's parents really should be back from their business trip soon. You'll need to talk to them eventually, ideally before you need them to take shelter during the raid.
Kyoko still seems uncomfortable, but the brunt of her guilt appears to have been set aside for now and belaboring the point won't help now. Instead, you simply usher her and Mami to bed, wish them good night, and let the long day end.
—————————
The day's end does not mean the end of your work, as night is just as filled with things to do for you. Specifically, visiting Homura and making sure she's taking care of herself.
The time traveler in question is, of course, perched outside Madoka's house in a tree. She is using a different tree to the one she was using last time, so you'll give her a singular point for creativity before immediately deducting it for still hiding in a tree instead of talking with Madoka like a regular person. While you're fairly certain that regular people are a myth at this point who exist only in anecdotes and fairy tales, you feel as though your expectations aren't wholly unreasonable here. The Kanames are very much Madoka's parents, and would not be opposed to allowing Homura to stay overnight. While multiple consecutive days of this would probably lead to questions about her home life, that's more of a plus than anything else. Homura needs more responsible adults in her life that she can talk to than just you.
Hopping up beside Homura in her perch, you take a seat against the side of the tree and lie back in what would be a very precarious position for anybody without an absurd superhuman sense of balance. She doesn't react to your appearance, remaining still and staring out to the Kanames' house through the dark night. The only indication that she even noticed you is one end of the ribbon tied around her waist reaching out towards you, curled around the tiny silver key like a grasping hand.
"What, not gonna greet me?" you say jokingly. Homura still doesn't turn to look at you.
"There's no point to pleasantries between us. We don't need it. This interaction is to serve a purpose, and excess conversation won't help in that." the kid says flatly.
"It still feels a little rude, though. We're friends, aren't we? There's no reason we shouldn't be able to talk nicely with each other." you respond, rubbing the back of your neck in embarrassment while taking the key in your other hand.
"We are friends." Homura says, though she doesn't turn towards you. For a second you think you detect a hint of sadness in her voice, but it's buried as soon as you notice it. She turns her head away from you, exposing the keyhole in the back of her neck. Accepting that this conversation is dead on arrival, you place the key in and turn.
Ignoring the eerie tightening feeling that runs through your body as your infinite lifespan is siphoned to refill Homura's ever-decreasing one, you take notice of the details of Homura's distortion. It's less dramatic than Kyoko's or the Ensemble's, enough that she could easily be mistaken for a regular Magical Girl, but being so close makes that impossible. The artificiality of her body is clear, her false skin lacking any detail or irregularity like what you'd expect on a person's body. Her movements aren't stiff but instead extremely efficient, without a single hint of wasted motion. There is no little shifting or moving about as she sits still and waits for you to finish the rewinding, not even the slight rise and fall of the chest that one expects from anybody who is still breathing. She's practically a statue.
You will undo this, somehow. You promised Homura all those days ago that you would help her, as a mark of solidarity between those who have left the reaches of time. That doesn't just mean accomplishing her goal. It means giving her her life back.
"Say," you begin offhandedly as you finish the winding process, "I need to ask you a few favors. First off, I'm planning on telling Mami about where Witches come from. Everyone else, too. It's unlikely to stay a secret much longer, so I'd rather get it out of the way under controlled circumstances."
"She will react poorly. They all always." Homura says.
"Maybe," you admit, "but we never got anywhere by expecting things to stay the same. Just think about it, alright? You've got more experience here than I do, so if you can think of any good ways to do this it's be very helpful.
Homura is quiet for some time. Right when you think she isn't going to respond at all, she says "I will consider what I know and inform you in the morning."
"Good to hear. For the second thing, I also need you to deliver a message to Madoka. One of my coworkers wants to see her in the Library after school tomorrow, so I'm bringing the two of you over."
"You could have told her earlier today. Why did you wait?"
"Honestly? It just never came up.
And at this point, you could use the chance to talk with her a little more." you say.
"She doesn't need to know me. It'll only make things harder." Homura retorts, still unmoving.
"Make what harder?"
"Madoka doesn't need to care about me. She'll only hurt and endanger herself unnecessarily." Homura explains, though her voice carries more exhaustion than she intended. You can feel the weight in those words, the accumulated experiences that drove such an idea into her head. Even so, you can't accept them.
"She already cares about you, Homura, and she's not gonna stop all of a sudden. Would Madoka really be who she is if she didn't care about you whether you thought you deserved it or not?" you propose. Homura remains silent.
"Look, she's gonna worry more if you keep your distance." you advise. "Talk to her. Let her know you're okay, and if Madoka thinks you're not, let her help you. Who knows, you might end up needing it more than you thought."
Not a sound passes through the cool night air. The leaves around you rustle back and forth, caught in the currents of a slow, silent wind.
"Just think about it, okay? I have to go attend to some family business right now, but don't hesitate to give me a call. I'll be there to help if you need it."
—————————
About half an hour later, and you and Angela stand together in the Library over the broken body of the Abnormality Schadenfreude. Its dull, cuboid metal body has cracked or broken in several places, letting a strange spongy flesh spill out. Spindly metal limbs that one might liken to a spider's are scattered around the Abnormality's domain, having been torn off by a Gold Rush-wielding Angela near the end of the fight. Your swords are currently both jammed into the solitary keyhole where the creature's eye normally pokes out, though currently all that can be seen in the keyhole is a small fountain of foul-smelling red-brown fluid that is just a little bit off from blood.
"I cannot help but feel like that was somewhat anticlimactic. I expected more of a challenge from such a malevolent Abnormality." Angela remarks, casually kicking aside one of the broken-off legs.
She's not entirely wrong. When you had first arrived, the scene of the bright steel hallways of the old facility bathed in red from the emergency lights and filled up to your ankles with blood was unnerving. The dismembered bodies scattered about that seemed to be inexplicably still alive only added to that impression. The Abnormality itself, though…
"Schadenfreude might've been one of the trickier Abnormalities to deal with on top of everything else that was going on, but in isolation it was never a challenge to put down once I got it figured out. Creepy as it is, it can't take what it dishes out unless you're looking at it." you assess as you remove your weapons from the Abnormality's disintegrating body. Fighting blind with a second person alongside you had been a daunting proposition at first, but between your emotion senses and your sister just being amazing it wasn't actually much of an issue. "It helps that you did really well. I already knew it, but you're kind of a badass when you want to be, Angela."
Your sister visibly freezes for a moment before continuing to investigate what's left of the Abnormality's chosen environment before it fades and you are ejected. She still isn't used to getting complements like that, huh? "Thank you, X. I am quite capable, as I have said before."
The two of you pause to appreciate a job well done as the world around you dissolved into Light, returning you and your sister to your office in the Floor of Geography.
It's nice to have simple objectives every once in a while. Find the hostile box creature, smash it until it stops moving, grab its associated concepts for a new weapon. Nice, straightforward, and simple.
But life can't always be that way. At least it's not boring.
———————————————
CRUELTY/WATCH/GLEE
———————————————
Tomorrow's Activities
[] Experimentation
-[] With what? How?
[] Search for Abnormalities
[] Scout Kamihama
[] Meet The Shizuki Family
[] Write-in.
———————————————
Der Freischütz's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Porccubus' Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Schadenfreude's Sapling - Observation Level 1/3
CENSORED's Sapling - Observation Level EXPUNGED/REDACTED
I was going to write a big fight scene for Schadenfreude, especially considering the showing it gave in Leviathan, but this situation is a lot different than that one. For one, Abnormalities in their books are still weaker than they would be at full power. Schadenfreude here is closer to how it was in LC than Leviathan. Second, Angela and X are familiar with it instead of it being a weird unkillable thing that got literally summoned from nowhere. Third, without its gimmick, Schadenfreude goes down pretty easily. It's actually weak to physical damage as long as you're not looking at it. So yeah, not exactly a dramatic battle.
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