Chapter 159 - Reflecting Inward
You have a situation on your hands. Mikoto Sena's Soul Gem sits mere millimeters away from your fingers, pulsing with rancid, glistening darkness. Beneath it, her body twitches and thrashes in a manner consistent with a seizure. It's reminiscent of the scenes you watched in Homura's memories of Magical Girls hatching their Witches, but with a few key differences. The pattern of Grief expanding out of the Soul Gem is more structured, and the seizing is completely new. You don't dwell much on the subject. Whatever's going on here is going to be bad for you, Sena, or both of you. Probably the latter. So you need to stop it from happening as quickly as you can.
You have several theories on how to prevent a Witch from hatching, only some of which are applicable now. Most were intended for a controlled environment, which you never got the chance to set up and definitely haven't had the chance to test. Not to mention the ethical issues that would have been involved. The simplest way to stop a Witch from hatching, one that you already know to work, is to just destroy the Soul Gem before it can finish. It's simple, clean, and effective. It's also not an option that allows the girl to survive. Perhaps you're being foolish, denying yourself the easiest answer to the problem before you. Maybe one life, the life of an enemy, doesn't matter so much when how many thousands have already died in this city. It's possible you're going to pay for this very soon. But whatever the case, you will save who you can. And you can save this girl.
There are a few harder ways that still are available in your current circumstances. The first would be to just use Lobotomy. Forcibly purging the Witch from a Soul Gem as it forms is entirely within your power. At the moment, it's not the most favorable choice. To perform the necessary operations quickly enough would certainly have consequences for your long-term health and probably worsen it in the short-term, too. You can hardly afford to be incapacitated later today because you exacerbates your injuries here. On the opposite end, you could just separate the girl's Soul Gem from her body. It wouldn't cost you anything but a moment, and if has been some modification to the hatching process made that's affecting Mikoto then disconnecting her body and her Soul Gem might be able to interfere. The key word there being "might". It would mean gambling on a bunch of unknowns in hopes that all of them align favorably for you.
Instead, you choose to gamble on something with comparatively fewer unknowns. You summon your rapier, letting its physicality give way until it is an arc of blue-swathed starlight in your hand, and plunge it down into Sena's Soul Gem. The sword sinks down to its hilt in the jewel's surface. You watch with a steely expression as the outpouring of Grief from the girl's Soul Gem sputters and slows and her body goes still.
Weapons that deal White damage can be used to cure mental damage as easily as they can inflict it. It was common practice back in the Facility, since even all your planning couldn't always protect everyone and letting a panicked employee wander about was a recipe for disaster. You've had the idea to use the same method to purge Grief from Soul Gems for ages now, but it was far too risky a theory to test. Now, it's a gamble worth taking.
You step back from Sena's body, sword in hand and ready to dive forward again if anything goes wrong. Her Soul Gem continues to languidly splash Grief out across her body much the same way blood might spurt from a neck wound. The murky ooze slides across her clothes and down to the earth. It's not disappearing, but it does seem to be sinking into anything either. The outpour of Grief just pools under her body, again reminding you very much of spilt blood. The girl's Soul Gem is visibly clearing in the process, so you're cautiously optimistic about the end result. Pessimism wouldn't help right now, not with a situation so obviously unstable and nothing more you can do without potentially upsetting it.
You're considering the costs and benefits of possibly upsetting the situation by doing something else when the pool of Grief on the ground erupts. It's instinct alone that moves you fast enough to avoid losing your head. Threads of light flit through the air in an intricate spiderweb, carving apart the air as they go. One horizontal line brushes against your hair before abruptly shifting downward, forcing you further back to avoid being split in two. The Black Forest falls away at last under the assault, leaving you standing in the black and green marbled streets of the Emerald City along with your assailant.
The creature that rises up around Mikoto Sena's still-unconscious body can only be a Witch. Winchester's body is colorless and flat like a pane of glass. It winds its wiry frames around the Magical Girl, shaping them into a throne to hold her up and a horned crown atop her head. Below her sit two silhouetted faces in profile, hanging unmoving from the Witch's body. Long, segmented horns expand out from the center in all directions, curling inward in endless symmetrical spirals. Two thin winglike protrusions sprout from its sides, like billowing trails of fire and smoke frozen in monochrome stillness. It holds itself above the empty streets on six hinged, scaffold-like arms. The Witch's hands, as lacking in depth or dimension as the rest of its body, press unnaturally into the space where they meet the ground. Its fingers cannot curl around the tops of houses, and yet they do. Its arms cannot stretch across the artificial skyline, but they are there nonetheless. It cannot lean towards you, reaching languidly with an outstretched hand, but it does.
In spite of every sense you have telling you the creature cannot possibly reach you from where it is perched, you retreat. The Witch's hand crashes through the street where you stood a heartbeat later, cratering it in an instant. The pressure filling the air is unmistakable. It feels sluggish and sterile as you exhale, the ground under your feet becoming glossy and featureless with every passing second. This creature is a Witch, yes, but not like any you've seen before. The only point of comparison you can draw is one you've seen only in borrowed memories, a descending storm that leaves only ruin and death in its wake. This Witch isn't Walpurgisnacht, no, but it's something else. Something that you might not be able to take in a fight.
Sena stirs in her wireframe cage as the hand draws back to an idle position. Should you try to wake her? Or at the very least, separate her from Winchester's body? You fire a few experimental shots at the parts of the Witch connecting to her, only for your projectiles to stutter wildly in the air and disappear long before reaching their target. It's like watching a straw be displaced as it's placed into a glass of water a thousand times over until the original object can't be seen at all. In answer, Winchester raises one of its arms. Suddenly, you are surrounded by pearl-tinted silhouettes of men in long coats holding rifles. The silhouettes fold in on themselves like sheets of paper, their rifles discharging the moment the two edges meet. A single step takes you up out of the street and away from the encircling Familiars. The rooftops are already being posted with more strange, nameless soldiers, though without the element of surprise or advantageous positions their gunfire is easily avoided. Now you just need a way to strike back.
Winchester reaches for you again, and this time you wait until its grip is beginning to close before you slip through the Mirror Witch's fingers and to safety. The house you were perched on is turned to rubble under your feet, leaving you tumbling through the scattered debris. Before the hand can withdraw, Mimicry finds your empty hand and you swing it with all the force you can manage with such poor footing. Impossibly, the blade manages to miss the retreating limb completely. You grimace as you land in the wreckage, ducking through a shattered window and through the back door of a nearby building. The inside of the house is old and rotted, absent the glittering opulence of the Emerald City's exterior, but it makes a good enough shelter.
You can't land a hit on the Witch even when it's attacking you. If it's the same sort of protection that Sena was using earlier, you should be able to work around it just by moving in the right way. That was only a few layers, though, not however many you saw here. Magic Bullet might work? Maybe you could try progressing through them one at a time? That would work, yes, but slowly. The Witch has been oddly passive in attacking you so far, but you can't count in that lasting. You need a faster way to get past their protections.
You glance down at Leonie, still seated silently in your hand. "Can you..?"
The Distorted girl understands your intent immediately. "I can get to the inside, but I'll need to get the right positioning. It'll take a few trips, and I need specific entry points."
You nod. "Good enough for me. Just point the way." A nearby doorway takes you into a Route that you barely take notice of. You slip out onto a nearby rooftop, weapons drawn. The looming form of Winchester turns towards you. Lamp takes form at your hip, illuminating the glittering web of cracks and splinters in space folded around the Mirror Witch.
You glance down at Leonie, following her needle to a window on the second story of an apartment across the street. Easy enough. You draw Magic Bullet and fire at Winchester, not caring when your shots go wide. It would've been nice to have another way to strike your target, but you already have a plan.
A silhouetted Familiar appears in your path as you strafe across the road. A poor choice from the Witch, created too close to fire its rifle before you reach it. The unlucky minion is lifted bodily off the ground and held between you and the row of Familiars blocking off the end of the street. It's oddly heavy for how thin it is. The gunman shatters against their gunfire, but its brief existence provides you enough cover to make it across and to your destination. A simple hop takes you up through the window and in and out of the next Route.
You exit out under a bridge below Winchester's perch, already clogged with the strange pearly soldiers. A single pulse of Sound of a Star leaves them reeling, easily shredded by your follow-up before they can begin to fire. You check the positions of your own soldiers as you glance down as Leonie for the next target location. Still no sign of the target marker. You can't recall them, not without slowing your search to an unacceptable pace. Likewise, you must remain here until Winchester is gone. A Witch like this can't be left to wander while you're working.
Just as you've located the next entry point, an alleyway wedged between two especially tall buildings, the bridge above you is torn away. The rain of debris does little to obscure Winchester's looming, two-dimensional shape hanging above you. Sena's eyes are half-open, staring down at you expressionlessly. An invisible pressure gathers in front of her before bursting like a shattered mirror.
Thin traces of cyan light, nearly invisible from all but the most specific of angles, scar the ground like fingers of lightning reaching down from the clouds. There's no time to move out of the way. Justitia appears in your hand, held vertically to cover as much of your body as possible, but to no avail. The cracks streak through the weapon without slowing, tearing holes in your body. Two in your chest, one in your right arm. Nothing disabling, but painful. So, so painful to have pieces of you that where there one moment disappear the next. Satisfied with the damage it has caused, Winchester draws back and waits.
You stare at the Witch's retreating form as your wounds begin to close. If Sena's still in control, she must be unfamiliar with fighting like this. If the Mirror Witch were fighting like the Magical Girl had earlier, weaving traps and constantly pressing the advantage to try and overwhelm you, you might very well have already lost. Instead, it seems content to attack and then wait for what you'll do next. Perhaps this is just a behavioral quirk of the Witch itself? Whatever the case, you need to keep moving.
Crossing the block over to the entry point is a nightmare. Winchester's strange gunmen might be poor shots, but they make good enough chaff to block your way. The towering Witch harasses you as you push forward, striking out with its arms or slicing through space to wound you. Avoiding the Witch takes priority over everything, even if you take a few gunshots in the process. They'll bruise at worst, but you can worry about that later. You duck and roll under another burst of cracking space, sliding cleanly into the alleyway and back into the safety of another Route.
While you'd like to take the time to heal and catch your breath, you cannot afford it. You ignore the hotel-like interior of this Route and exit back into the Emerald City.
Winchester is on you the moment you emerge atop a glassy tower, tearing the building apart with its hands. Sena's eyes are open, though her stare is blank and lifeless. You kick off a falling chunk of steel just in time to avoid the jagged lines carving through it, letting Sound of a Star light up beneath your feet mid-air and throw you down to the ground. Pieces of the building rain down around you as you scan for your next target location. You know better than to expect them to provide safety, but they should at least hide where you are.
The next burst rips through the falling debris, leaving lines of clear air in the clouds of wreckage as it goes. You step to the side to avoid being torn open again, only to notice movement out of the corner of your eye. Leonie's needle, pointing directly towards the cracks in space.
You stifle a laugh. Why didn't you think of that?
Before the gap can disappear, you leap bodily through it. Instead of tearing you in two like it was supposed to, the thin rip in space is just enough to bring you to a moment's safety. "How many more?" you whisper to Leonie.
"Three. Less if you can get more cracks like these."
That brings a smile to your face. You'll be able to make good time after all.
The pattern is easy once you get used to it. In and out, as soon as Winchester starts their attack. A Magic Bullet or pulse of Sound of a Star to cull the numbers of Familiars before they accumulate while you're out. Dance between the falling lights, through the cracks in the world.
You emerge for the final time, the fractal web shrouding the Mirror Witch pushed away at last. Winchester thrusts a hand toward you, over the rooftops. You sidestep calmly, as you have a dozen times before. A dance you and Sena have learned well by now. But this time, you've added an extra step. Mimicry forms in your grip and, with a clean, vertical slash, you strike the Mirror Witch.
Shiny metal fragments spray from the wound. Your sword cut a meter-deep gash into the Witch's wrist, bleeding a deep cyan. Winchester shrieks, a horrible sound like glass grinding on glass, and pulls back its arm. Another hand swings down, but the motion is slow and telegraphed. You draw Pinks, flooded by your power, and open fire. Viridian light sears the descending limb long before it smashes the building you are no longer standing on. The cloudiness clears from Sena's eyes, and you meet her frightened expression with your own determined stare. You want to call out, to tell her to just surrender, but the time for words has passed. This is a battlefield, one which demands a victor.
The lattice of cracks that had once shielded Winchester from harm begin to shift, rearranging themselves to spread across the Emerald City. The surroundings are divided into sections, like shards of glass fitted into a shattered mirror. Winchester's hands sink into the seams, forcing new cracks to spread and divide the landscape further. The Mirror Witch raises one free arm and swings it towards you with a speed and intent absent from even the smallest of its movements until this very moment. You barely clear the rooftop before the hand descends, only for something to rush up from behind you and close around your body. Another wireframe hand, emerging from who knows where, lifts you into the Emerald City's sky before hurling you down with all the force of a falling star. There is no time to try and respond, only the earth crashing against you. You push yourself back onto your feet, standing at the bottom of a crater deep and wide enough that you can't see past its edges. Destruction rains from above, ivory lights slicing into you before Leonie can turn them into a path to safety.
You pause within the Route, a small garden filled with pastel-colored bushes, and let Sound of a Star's light wash over you. Its pale glow is soothing as your bones force their way back into place and your flesh knits back together. What was that sudden burst of speed? You would've been far more defensive if you knew the Witch could move like that, let alone attack from completely different angles. Why didn't it do that earlier?
The interruption is soundless, without feeling. Only the faint rush of air filling gaps accompanying a flare of washed-out blue light from your right. You don't even feel it cutting through you. Only the faint stinging of air against exposed flesh as your arm falls to the ground. The pain comes a moment later, rushing through your nerves and screaming into your mind. It's only a signal, you remind yourself. Just information. You can tune it out.
As you try and steady your breathing, staring at the severed limb sitting on the ground, the air shatters behind you. You turn to see Winchester's outstretched, open hand forcing itself through the Route towards you. You roll back, barely slipping past the closing fingers, and half-step half-fall through a gap in the bushes and back to reality.
In the brief moment you were resting, everything has changed. The shards of cityscape carved out by the Mirror Witch have been folded inward into a sphere, a microcosm of the Emerald City's design outside. In every direction, streets and buildings sit silently within their jagged segment of space. Peeking out from the cracks are endless, unknown vistas. Temperate jungles. Sunkissed beachfronts. Fields of molten rock under a rain of fire. Winchester waits at the center of each partitioned zone, reflected into each slice of reality they've made. Gravity has completely surrendered, leaving a floating cloud of displaced stone and masonry occupying the center of the sphere. You find yourself standing on a wall with a broken window, the worn black material gleaming under the dull blue light that shines from every direction.
"Why?" Sena screams, her voice raspy and booming. "Why are you still pretending?" Winchester's hands grasp from all directions, breaking open the air and forcing their way through the gaps they make only to emerge elsewhere with a sickening shattering sound. Clutching Leonie in your remaining hand, it's all you can do to avoid being struck down. The ostentatious veneer of the Emerald City peels away bit by bit around you all the while, revealing the moldering remains of Kamihama underneath. Your feet ghost across a rotted cabinet for a few steps before kicking off to land on a torn-up couch nearby, slipping between the lightning-fingers of Winchester's continuous assault.
"You're a monster! You can't trick me! So why?" A row of Familiars appears in front of the image of Winchester above you, but before they can fire the Witch's hand sweeps down and slams into them from behind. The gunmen are sent flying through the air like buckshot. You swing around to the bottom of the couch you were perched on, placing it between you and the projectiles before kicking out. The unlucky piece of furniture is reduced to fluff and sawdust while you land safely on an errant sheet of roof tiles. Of course, the moment you do a flash of glistening sparks erupts from your left. You have no choice but to abandon your foothold or be cut to ribbons with it. Even so, one line manages to brush against your side. It slides through cloth and then flesh without effort, leaving a spiraling trail of blood to float through the air in your wake.
"Why keep acting like you're a person?" Sena cries as Winchester reaches for you. Suddenly, it makes sense. Winchester wasn't fighting like this before because it doesn't fight like this. As powerful as the Mirror Witch clearly is, far too strong for you to defeat like this, it didn't know how to fight. Didn't have the motivation, the intent. It was just running on autopilot, because a minute ago you stabbed Sena in what was basically her brain with a weapon intended to do purely psychological damage. It was blunted because you weren't trying to cause damage, but the effects would still be overwhelming. She's just now working up the motivation to fight you properly.
Unfortunate, because it means this fight isn't getting any easier and quite frankly, you don't know if you can win this. Maybe if you'd gone for the kill earlier, when Winchester was still vulnerable, but now? You didn't plan for this. You didn't know Witches could even get this powerful, let alone that the Adult Who Tells Lies would be able to find one in a form she could control. You can't run, can you? The Witch has already shown it can reach into Leonie's Routes, and there's no other way out that you can see. You're trapped.
"You're a monster! I'm not going to let you hurt anyone here!" You ignore Sena's ranting and let go of Leonie, if only for a moment. Mimicry appears in your hand before splitting in two, hearing your unspoken command and responding eagerly. The detached piece anchors to the stump of your arm and digs in, tying itself to veins and sinews and filling in the space where flesh and bone should be. Skin folds over it like a flower blooming in reverse, and you have an arm again. You snatch Leonie out of the air and resume your movement in time to flip up over Winchester's outstretched arm.
Now with a free hand, you call Justitia and slam it down on the Witch's wrist under your feet. By fortune or coincidence, it's the same arm you struck earlier with Mimicry. The heavy blade slams into the Witch's wrist, widening the cracks and bending its metallic frame.
The Witch recoils and pulls its hand out from under you, forcing you into a rolling leap to safer ground. You only land for a heartbeat before your destination is smashed to pieces by the hand suddenly emerging from above you. It slams into your undamaged side, sending you tumbling down to the street level beneath the Witch's watchful gaze.
"You won't take this away from me!"
The Magical Girl's wheezing screams are nothing like her controlled, detached prose when you spoke earlier. Controlling a Witch, a monster born of everything you wish was not you, can't be easy on the mind or the body. Could you outlast her? Sena will get tired eventually, and you won't.
The ground erupts into fragments of shining glass, revealing a sea of fire underneath it. You are thrown back into the air along with a cloud of pavement, an easy mark for the Witch and its reflections perched like spiders in crystalline webs. A quick kick off a nearby rock takes you from the path of one scattering flare of energy, but another pierces through your thigh and takes with it a clean cylinder of your flesh.
No, you can't outlast this. Not unless you can find some way to be able to block Winchester's attacks, not when the battlefield is under your enemy's control, not when you are surrounded and outnumbered. Not when a single lucky shot would carve open your shell and let the monster they think you are spill out.
Did you miscalculate, make a mistake somewhere? Or was this just something you had no control over? No, you could have just killed the girl earlier. Would that have been the right decision? Would that have even worked?
Sound of a Star flares under your feet and pushes you out of the path of another grasping hand, landing you on a floating chunk of wall. Justitia appears in your open hand just in time to sweep aside a round of gunshots in a crackling pale arc. The air pressure behind you shifts abruptly, too fast for you to move out of the way. You turn just in time to see the jagged lines is space shooting toward you with lightning speed.
An idea pops into your head, and you raise a hand towards the approaching danger. Sound of a Star wraps itself around you, space twisting under its pale blue gleam. The lines of emptiness tracing through the air meet the ripple head-on and bend, twisting from their intended course through your body to merely graze your skin. Despite yourself, you smile. It's not nearly enough to guarantee victory, but it's a chance.
A silent order to Leonie turns the lingering tear in space into a doorway. You dive through, taking a moment to observe the endless grey mesa you emerge in. The telltale sound of shattering glass alerts you to the hand reaching in after you, no longer a surprise. A single step takes you just beyond the reach of its grasping fingers. From there, you break out into a sprint down towards the base of the titanic limb, dragging Justitia along its side all the while. You turn aside another burst of torn space, wincing as a gunshot you didn't notice makes its way through the mess and catches your still-injured leg. You barely catch yourself from tumbling to the ground, knowing full well how that would be a death sentence. To stop moving means becoming an easy target.
Reality cracks open again to herald Winchester's continued pursuit. The emerging hand slams into you and sends you skidding across the Route's featureless expanse. You draw Magic Bullet and fire as you tumble through the dust, knowing the cursed round will hit its mark no matter where you aim. Your back hits something hard before you have time to steady yourself, and you find yourself falling back into the Mirror Witch's improvised arena in the Emerald City.
Not a moment later, and the air is filled with serrated lines converging on you from every direction. Even with your new trick, it's too much to escape unscathed. Maybe it would be easier with two hands free, but that would mean losing Leonie's assistance. The lines cut mercilessly, not forgiving even a light brush against them. A lucky shot manages to pierce your chest, and when your next breath is shallow and wheezing you know it hit one of your lungs. It's fine, you remind yourself. Only a shell, not your real body.
Seeing you stumble, Winchester reaches for you a final time. You don't move away, not this time. Instead, you pocket Leonie and rush forward to grab hold of the base of the hand. Playing defensive won't give you victory. You need to be proactive.
Your current foothold, an especially tall building that somehow manages to escape the chaos undamaged up until now, squeals in protest as you pull against the Witch's body. Winchester jolts from the sudden exertion of force, its thin body not built for such a head-to-head struggle. The air fills with the sound of metal scraping against glass as Winchester braces itself against the seams of its hole in space. Sound of a Star flares and pushes back the barrage from the Mirror Witch's other images, turning what would surely be fatal strikes into shallow wounds. Some strike the building beneath you, ravaging its structure by sheer accident. Time to hurry up.
Your false arm peels back to show your Mimicry's true face, churning flesh beneath dull brown chitin with thick amber eyes clustered within. It erupts out into something less like a sword and more the limb of some monstrous insect, digging into the wound you have already torn into Winchester's wrist. With a hideous, howling screech, the Witch's hand is torn free of their arm. Held in the monster's core, Sena's breathing tightens and her gaze becomes unfocused.
You toss the oversized appendage aside as it dissolves into murky purple sludge. Your breath is shallow, the edges of your vision are starting to blur, and the only parts of your body that don't feel like they're burning from within are those that have lost all feeling, but you still can't help but smile.
Of course, this small victory is short-lived. Wounded, the Mirror Witch draws back and falls through a crack in the air like a spider. Even before it has re-emerged, you feel the air come alive with static. The cracks encircling the world widen, and deep white flames pour from the gaps. All around, the air pressure shifts wildly. Space is unraveling at the seams. Within the gaps, something moves in the corner of your eye. You whirl around just in time to see something emerging from the crack when the whole world lights up.
Mimicry unfolds into an improvised shield between you and the flash that erupts from beneath you. All around, you see everything consumed by pure white. Only a thin slice of space, sheltered behind Mimicry's canopy, remains safe. Safe but not untouched, as licks of colorless fire wash in and out. Where the flame touches you, your skin blackens and boils. You can't move out of the way, not when it's taking everything you have just to hold back the tide of pearlescent fire with your own strength. The flames lick at your arms, your legs, your face. You fall to one knee, still holding your shield. The rushing wave pushes you back across the ground, bit by bit. Your body screams in protest, but you ignore its cries. It's only a shell, you remind yourself again. Your pain is not real.
The pressure lessens for just a moment, then all at once, and you nearly pitch forward. It's the only thing that saves you.
As the last echoes of the assault fade, revealing the aftermath, a line of twisted space darts out towards your head. Your sudden, stumbling movement stops it from striking dead-center. Instead, it's a little to the right.
It doesn't even hurt when the colorless light rips through your eye. Perhaps you've finally convinced yourself to ignore that feeling. Still, your body responds to the sudden wound. You press a hand up to where the hole should be, only to find something poking out in its place. Something long and feathery, curling up past your scalp. Soft and warm, yet cold and metallic all at once. Your hand brushing against it feels oddly uncomfortable.
It's an antenna. Your shell is starting to fail.
Can you retreat, take the time to repair yourself? You've taken more damage than this without falling apart. But wherever you go, Winchester can follow, and you can't bring any of the children into the line of fire for a fight like this. Maybe Homura's powers would be able to end this fight, but you'd have to reach her first.
Would it have been better to kill Sena when you had the chance? Would she have been an acceptable casualty? You don't want to say yes. Accepting losses wasn't what gave you victory back in the Facility. If it was within your power, you would drag each and every person forward with you. But is this something you can change? Do you have the authority to decide if an enemy should survive?
Maybe not. This isn't the Facility, after all. You don't have the last word on what does and does not happen. Your will alone cannot determine the course of fate.
But, you think with a smile on your face, this is not the Facility. Anything you let go will be gone forever. So why wouldn't you reach for everything? Why not make the best world you can, no matter what it costs you?
And more importantly, it means you can ask for help.
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Once again, you are surrounded by Light. Floating weightlessly in the infinite sea of thoughts and feelings.
"Ah. Did it not work?"
Forcing a connection with EGO was really more of a gamble than a proper plan. You knew that, at least in theory, it should be possible. But there's a reason that even things that work perfectly in theory need testing. You hadn't expected this to be the consequence, but you suppose it wasn't entirely impossible either.
Now, how do you get out? Angela needed somebody else to drag her back, but you were able to land in Mitakihara on your own.
"You did fine, actually. You're only passing through here, but I wanted some time to talk." a voice confirms from behind you. Though you've never heard it before, it is a voice you know well. Brimming with warmth and understanding, brighter than sunshine. When it fell silent, your father could no longer bear to stand in the daylight. Not when it reminded him of her.
Carmen looks no different than she did when she was alive. Pale skin, dark brown hair pulled back in a long ponytail, deep red eyes. A single button-up brown shirt over a black skirt, with a white coat over the top. She doesn't look like the sort of person who would inspire a rebellion against the highest powers of mankind. She doesn't look like someone who would engage in horrific experimentation for the hope of a better tomorrow. She doesn't look like the voice whispering in the ears of the broken and afraid, beckoning them to abandon reality. She just looks kind.
Maybe that was all it really took, in the end. Someone kind enough to make a change where nobody else would.
"And how long, precisely, do we have to talk? I have a lot of work to get back to."
"As long as you want. Time doesn't work normally in here." Carmen answers. It's odd, hearing her talk so casually. Your memories of her are filtered through Ayin's perception, and the Sephirot spoke of her as a nearly sacred figure. You always knew she was just a person like anyone else, but knowing and experiencing are two entirely different things.
"Then I want to start with some answers. You were the one who brought the Abnormalities here from the Library, weren't you?" you accuse.
Carmen closes her and takes a breath, still smiling. "Yeah. I found the Abnormalities who were willing to make a connection and tied them to this world."
Your voice hardens. "Do you have any idea what you did, letting those things go free? People are dead."
Judgement Bird was locked away in the Emerald City, but the other two were running free for who knows how long. You personally saw the aftermath of one of their massacres. Der Freischütz was relatively calm, but Nothing There spent nearly a week actively hunting Magical Girls and killed who knows how many civilians in the process. Hitomi, Madoka and Sayaka's friend, was attacked by Porccubus and ended up stigmatized because of it. You saw the Adult using the remains of Kamihama's population as a weapon the last time you fought. That's millions of people dead on its own. And that's not even getting into what the Abnormalities you haven't found yet are doing. You know that the Snow Queen and Burrowing Heaven are missing, and both of those Abnormalities could wreak havoc if left unchecked.
Carmen's smile dims under your glare. "I didn't intend for any of that to happen. By the time I realized there was interference, there was nothing I could do. A bridge built steadily can't be easily broken."
"So I suppose it was all somebody else's fault, then?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. Still, a part of your mind can't help but jump to the obvious conclusion. An Abnormality like you has never existed before. If anything would cause a disturbance in Carmen's intended plans, an unknown variable like that could. And wouldn't it be just natural for you to be the one responsible?
Fortunately, your mother's answer is quick to dismiss those thoughts. "It was because of Witches. Creatures made from falsely extracted emotions, with the power to create their own worlds. I never could have predicted that something like that would exist, or that it would interact with my way of connecting the Abnormalities in that way."
"So it really is only making contact with a Witch that lets Abnormalities escape, then." you confirm. "But what's your angle on this? Ayin had absolute faith in you, but I've got the benefit of hindsight and I know what you were planning with Argalia. Hell, you're still talking to him, aren't you?"
At that, Carmen's smile brightens once again and she shakes her head. "He and I just happen to want the same thing. And I think you want it, too."
"What, turning all of humanity into Distortions? Sorry mom, but I passed on that once already. Just because I'm willing to tolerate Argalia in exchange for his help doesn't mean I agree with him or you." you reply. For some reason, Carmen's whole face lights up. "What's with that look?"
"It wasn't exactly a priority, but I think it would've been nice to be a mother. After everything that happened, I wasn't expecting to have any chance of hearing it." She laughs, cheerful and clear. "But you probably already could've guessed that, right?"
In retrospect, it's rather obvious. It wasn't like Ayin was the one to suggest taking care of Lisa and Enoch. But Lisa never considered Carmen a mother, and Enoch never got the chance to build much of a relationship with her.
"I was surprised to hear you talk about me and Ayin like that. And Angela, for that matter. Not everyone would think of us as your family the way you do." Carmen adds.
"What else could we really be? You and Ayin are responsible for mine and Angela's creation. We're made from parts of you two. We lived together for who knows how long, and we've experienced the same suffering and happiness. If that doesn't make us family, I don't know what would."
Carmen's laugh fills the empty Light once more. "When you say it like that, it just seems obvious."
"That's because it is obvious." you say with a smirk. "My little sisters deserve somebody to look after them, after all."
Carmen's eyes narrow, and her smile turns teasing. "Aren't you the youngest out of everyone? If anything, you're the little sister."
"Nope!" you declare authoritatively. "I'm taller, so I'm the big sister. It's not like counting by our ages would make any real sense at this point."
"I guess it wouldn't, huh?" Carmen admits. It's nice, just talking with her like this. Perhaps you'll have more time later. But even now, you have work that needs to be done. You can't waste time seeking your own satisfaction when people are relying on you.
"Getting back to business," you say, letting your amusement fall away to leave only stern calm behind. "What was your actual plan with me? If you claim you never intended to release the Abnormalities."
"I just wanted to give you some guidance, like I did for Angela." Carmen says.
"And what exactly were you hoping to guide me towards by dragging a bunch of Abnormalities into a highly populated area?"
Carmen ignores your accusatory tone and continues her explanation. "To be honest, I was hoping it would take you longer to figure out what had happened to you. The idea was to let you connect with whatever Abnormalities you felt drawn to and then eventually learn that you were one of them. But when you did, you'd already be used to thinking about the ways Abnormalities can be human. That way, you wouldn't feel so much discomfort just from being yourself."
You stop yourself from rolling your eyes. That would be rude and unnecessarily confrontational, especially considering how genuinely nice Carmen's proposed plan seems. Expressly manipulative, but nice. "I know where Abnormalities come from. There's nothing in them that didn't come from a person."
Carmen shakes her head, still smiling. "Knowing something and understanding it aren't the same thing. And knowing yourself isn't easy."
"I know myself well enough." you say, the words leaving you breathless and tired as they pass your lips. "I'm satisfied with who I am and what I have to do. Hell, I've gone far past what I thought I'd be. I don't have the right to demand more from the world."
"Everyone has a right to live as themselves." Carmen replies, her voice still gentle and bright but suddenly utterly unyielding. Those are the words of the person who could draw some of the brightest minds of the City into a plan bordering on madness. The strength to reject the way the world is in favor of how it should be.
But in the end, some things don't change. "If I let myself out like you're suggesting, it won't just be my life that it'll change. I can't live as myself without dragging who knows how many people down. And I'll never accept that. I was made to help people, and it's what I chose to do for the rest of my life. Becoming an Abnormality is the furthest thing from what I really want."
"And you're completely sure about that? That whatever happens, you want to keep going down this path you've chosen?"
You sigh. You really do wish you had somewhere to sit down. "We'll see. Strange things have happened already, so maybe I'll stumble on a miracle. But if my happiness costs somebody else their own, then it's not worth it. I can be satisfied enough knowing my sacrifices were worth it."
Carmen stares at you for a moment. Her smile loses some of its intensity, becoming more of a friendly grin. "As long as you're sure of what you want and who you are, I'll support you. And don't forget, it's not just me! You've got plenty of people willing to accept whoever it is you decide that you are!"
You snap your fingers. "Ah! That reminds me, I should probably thank you."
Your mother blinks at you. "What for?"
"See, I've got a pretty good memory. And I happen to know what was and wasn't in that Script that Ayin handed Angela." You sigh deeply, closing your eyes for a moment before regaining your composure. "As much as I hoped, I know Angela wouldn't have chosen to save the Sephirot. Even if she really wanted to, it's not the sort of choice she would've made in her own. Somebody definitely talked her into it." You point a finger at Carmen, who remains placid and unaffected by your proposition. "That somebody was you, wasn't it?"
Carmen smiles and looks down, though she offers no denial. "It was what Angela really wanted. All I did was help her decide what she was looking for."
"Still, it was because of you. I-" your voice catches on nothing. "It wasn't my place to decide what happened after. But I wanted them to be happy, whatever it was. So thanks, mom."
Carmen says nothing, but her smile grows a fraction wider.
"Unless you have anything more to ask me, I've said my piece. You can go back whenever you'd like. What happens now is up to you."
You return your mother's grin. "To start, I think I'm going to take advantage of the situation at hand."
: As you say. It is the most obvious thing in the world huh?
: As I said X. I only helped Angela take steps that she wanted to take herself.
