Chapter 140 - Can We Change Our Fates?
True to your word, you spend the remainder of the night watching the Miki house, ensuring nothing unnatural goes on. A nearby rooftop makes for a perfect angle to keep an eye on the entrances and a peek inside. Sadly it does mean you don't get to see if Homura took the chance to cuddle with her crush, but you have a feeling you'd just end up disappointed by the result. She wasn't the type to take the first step in a relationship like that even before becoming a Distortion. Luckily for the two of them, Madoka's a lot braver than she lets on.
The night goes on without incident, but Sayaka's parents don't make an appearance. You didn't scan Sayaka's memories very deeply during your operation on her days ago, but from what you recall this isn't anything unusual. Both their jobs involve irregular hours, and working overnight is pretty common. Still, you can't shake the feeling of unease as the moon falls and the sun rises. Nothing ever goes according to plan. Expecting no interferences to arise would be the height of foolishness. But so far, you haven't seen any hints of disturbance. Everything is peaceful.
Kyubey's finished some more prep work on your end, both for the raid and the eventual work you'll have to do on the cloning machines you've been planning. None of the more rare or exotic materials have arrived, but all the pieces you need now are in place. You could attend to them now, but at the moment keeping watch is more important. You promised Homura you would, and you'd rather not disappoint somebody who looks up to you.
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The morning comes, and you descend from your perch to wake the kids. The night was completely uneventful, and the greatest danger you managed to detect was the boredom that comes with sitting in a single place for hours on end scanning for the slightest sign of something out of the ordinary. Aside from ordering Kyubey around and worrying about the near future, there was nothing to distract you from the sheer tedium.
Oh well. Boredom is better than excitement in times such as these.
You knock three times on the front door, calmly waiting for a response. Just inviting yourself in feels rude, even if you know you're welcome. A moment later, Homura silently opens the door and then walks away.
Everyone has woken up by now, though not all of the children are morning people. Yuma is happily chirping away to an equally-energized Madoka while Hitomi, who still seems a little sleepy, sits beside them and occasionally nods. Sayaka has flopped over the back of the couch and looks half-dead. She barely reacts to the occasional prodding from Kyoko, who looks only marginally better. You just barely catch Mami, hair down and shambling into the nearest bathroom to begin her morning routine.
"Should I come back later?"
"Don't worry about it." Madoka says. "Sayaka's always like this in the mornings. I just didn't expect Mami or Kyoko to be the same way with mornings."
"We're normal. You're all just weird" Sayaka grumbles. Kyoko pokes her again. "And stop that."
Dissatisfied by Sayaka's unenergetic response, Kyoko continues. Sayaka slides forward off the couch and lands on the floor, just outside of the other girl's reach.
"It's nice to see Kyoko in good spirits." Mami says, having just returned from the bathroom looking not the slightest bit disheveled less than a minute after you saw her enter.
"This is good spirits?" Sayaka says doubtfully.
It's Homura who answers. "Kyoko's behavior since her restoration has been unusually subdued. Confrontational behavior like this is more expected.
"Just gonna call me out like that, huh?" Kyoko complains. "What can I say? I was bored."
Hitomi, not having lived with her for multiple weeks, is still staring at Mami and trying to figure out how she did her hair up so quickly. "Miss Tomoe. You were rather quick. I'll admit, I expected you to take much longer to ready yourself."
"I used some magic to speed things up. It's just a little trick I learned to save time." Mami admits bashfully.
"What, you had enough Grief Seeds to spare the magic for stuff like that?" Kyoko says. "And here I was barely scraping by. If I'd known the hunting was gonna be that good around here…." She pauses, realizing where her own joke was headed, and trails off. It wouldn't feel right to say something like that after everything. "Eh, you get the point."
"Mitakihara is a large area for a single Magical Girl to patrol. Even if it wasn't always quite so populated, it was more of a struggle to find Witches before they could do too much damage than at all." Mami says. A somber air has settled over the room, the early morning light feeling less gentle and more faded.
"Well, today's the last day before we head off, so there's a few announcements I need to make." you say, projecting your voice as you would over the facility speakers. The effect is immediate, calling everyone in the room to attention.
"First off, today will be a vacation of sorts for you all. There is a distinct possibility for the fighting to spill over from Kamihama to neighboring cities, so to be safe Kyubey's scheduling a full evacuation. As such, you won't have school today."
"Wait, a whole evacuation? Isn't that a bit excessive?" Sayaka asks.
"It's completely necessary. You remember your last encounter with an Aleph-class Abnormality, I'm sure?" you say, and she flinches. You might have won against Nothing There in the end, but that fight was brutal on all sides. "Nothing There was the most personal-scale Abnormality of its class. The others are expected to render the entire world uninhabitable if allowed to act uninterrupted. This is just a necessary precaution to prevent casualties." You turn to Hitomi, pull out your spare Invitation, and hand it to her. She accepts the small sheet practically unthinkingly, then stares at the elegant text with mild intrigue. "Hitomi. Will your parents be picking you up?"
"No, we have a driver. She should be arriving soon, I believe." Hitomi answers.
"When you get home, be sure to sign this along with your parents. It'll bring you to a secure location." you instruct. Though she hasn't done anything of the sort so far, you wouldn't put it above the Adult Who Tells Lies to take hostages. And knowing her, she'd absolutely pick somebody personal over a random civilian.
"As for the rest of you, you'll all be spending the day in the Library as well. No training unless you feel like it, just take the time to relax and unwind. We'll leave as soon as Argalia gets here to pick up Leonie. Does anyone have any questions?"
Argalia's definitely not welcome in the Library, and Leonie lacks the ability to sign an Invitation. While this does mean they'll be alone for the rest of the day, you're not worried about the pair of Distortions. If they were able to escape the Emerald City when hunting them was still a priority for the Adult, they'll be able to keep out of trouble now.
"Could you evacuate more people to the Library?" Madoka asks. "It's completely safe there, so wouldn't it be better to get as many people there as possible?"
You hmm to yourself. "It's a good idea, but not a practical one. Explaining the situation and the Invitation to everyone in a city neighboring Kamihama would be infeasible. On the other hand, you're right for people who already are in the know. Angela can send your parents an Invitation when we're there. And on a related note…"
Your attention turns to Sayaka. "When do you think your parents will get back? I really would prefer they know about all this before we head off."
Sayaka exhales uncomfortably. "I'm… not really sure. They don't usually work overnight, but when they do they come back pretty much any time over the next day. Oh!" She exclaims happily. "When the evacuation alert goes off, they'll definitely be back here to pick me up! You can talk then!"
Good to know. That might be after you've already left, but in the end satisfying this particular moral imperative at this time comes second to your duty of protecting people from Abnormalities. You can only hope the Mikis are as understanding as the Kanames, though asking for that feels like pushing your luck a few steps too far.
"'Nother question here, what's the game plan gonna be? 'Cuz I wasn't there for the fight with that thing," Kyoko chimes in, "but I remember it going pretty poorly even from my end, and it was holding back hard. How're we gonna stand up to something like that again?"
"You'll all be briefed when we get to the Library. There's a chance we're being watched out here." you explain calmly. It's funny just how quickly you switched back into your Manager role. Giving orders, delivering information, holding authority… it leaked into every facet of your life, and now you hardly feel any different acting like you're back at the Facility.
But now, things are different. You're not grinding along for a glimmer of hope anymore. You aren't seeking an ever-distant goal as a part of an endless cycle. This is it.
The end of the line.
"But don't think this will be anything like what happened with Nothing There. We'll be prepared this time, and you've all grown so much since then. Everything is going to work out. So just take this time to decompress, yeah? No use in getting wound up before it's time to go."
Your encouragement has the desired effect, washing away some of the tension that had been building. Today should be about resting, not stressing out about tomorrow. Is that a realistic thing to expect? No, but you can certainly hope.
So of course, that's when Madoka collapses.
Hitomi reacts faster than you'd expect from a civilian, catching her friend before she manages to hit the ground and scanning her with a nervous energy. When the pink-haired girl remains unresponsive, that nervousness quickly turns to panic and spreads through the room like a wildfire.
"Madoka? What's going on?"
"Is she alright? What just happened?"
"What can we do to help? Is there anything at all?"
A chorus of indistinct chatter sounds out as the girls crowd around Madoka's unconscious form. Homura is the first to her side, followed not far behind by Sayaka. Mami and Kyoko trail just a little further back, pulled forward by morbid curiosity. The cause is hardly a mystery, though, not with the dark green symbol glowing on Madoka's back.
"I- I think she's just asleep." Hitomi says shakily, dispelling one layer of fear but leaving the rest behind. "But why is this happening? Madoka wasn't going to fight, right?"
No, she wasn't. But this would hardly be the first time an innocent person has been caught up in a battle they weren't a part of.
And it seems like this battle has already begun.
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The Curse…
[] Remove it with Lobotomy
[] Direct Sayaka and Mami in trying to break the spell
[] Request Kyubey's analysis and act accordingly
[] Write-in
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Der Freischütz's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Porccubus' Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
Schadenfreude's Sapling - Observation Level 2/3
CENSORED's Sapling - Observation Level EXPUNGED/REDACTED
Hello friends and fans! It is I, delivering to you upon this fine (not) Night of Walpurgis a gift! (it's suffering) As you can see, the usual update schedule has returned and will remain as such until further inevitable interruptions occur.
