[X] Plan: Ah, How Awkward
"So, how did everything go on your end?"
"Where the heck are we?"
"What are you doing in my bedroom?"
You can feel the migraine coming on even before your hand reaches up to apply pressure to your forehead. "Of course," you say. "Of course you would have landed right in Madoka's bedroom." You're almost jealous; you wish you could be spit out into Madoka's bedroom after dealing with a labyrinth. "So what happened next? You landed in her bedroom, so why didn't I hear anything about this from her earlier?"
You check your phone, just in case you did hear something about this from her earlier, but to no avail. "Damn, the battery's dead," you say to yourself. You thought you charged it last night, but apparently it didn't charge enough.
"Archer, is the battery on your phone also dead?" you ask, turning your head towards your father. "Mine is, so I don't know if Madoka tried contacting me about this. But maybe her parents tried contacting you?"
Archer checks his phone, but replies with a negative. "Nope, my phone's all green," he says. "Nothing from the Kanames, though. Maybe they tried calling our landline, and don' realise that we're not home? We should check our messages before we go back."
"No, it's not that," Kazumi says. "Um… The truth is…" Furtively, Kazumi's eyes dart over to her Lancer servant, who also looks away. "Well, we didn't know she was your girlfriend at the time, so…"
Those words set off alarm bells in your head, and you lean over, leveraging every centimetre of height you have over Kazumi to make yourself appear taller than her as you ask "What did you do to Madoka?"
Seeing the way Kazumi cowers, you almost feel like you went too far. Almost. If she did something to Madoka, it won't be far enough. There won't be a far enough. If something happened to Madoka, you'll… "Lancer hypnotised her into forgetting we were there!" Kazumi squeaks out. "We didn't hurt her or anything, promise! I swear, I didn't know she was your girlfriend at the time, or else we would have-"
"Enough." It's a simple word. A single word. But it's enough. Kazumi comes down from her high, and you back off, forcing yourself to breathe steadily. Madoka isn't hurt. She just won't remembering seeing those four. You can live with that. "As long as you didn't hurt Madoka, that's all that matters."
"Actually, they may have even helped her," Archer says. "The way Kazumi was describing that bright light, and how cleaning up some of the dark magic inside the labyrinth made it brighter, I think what they might have been seeing was Madoka's soul. They might have actually been cleaning up some of the corruption inside of her."
You see Kazumi's face brighten up, and the faces of Scáthach, AsamI Saki, and Wakaba Mirai lighten. "I'm glad,' Kazumi says.
Now that you know that Madoka is okay, and have had a few moments to take all of this in, it's actually kind of funny, in a way. Kazumi and her team really travelled through a labyrinth to clean up part of Madoka's soul. It's almost sweet; and it makes you totally jealous, because it should have been you.
Except, given a few minutes more to dwell on, you're actually kind of concerned about how all of this played out. If that really was Madoka's soul they encountered-
"I'm concerned about something," Archer says, mimicking your sentiments. "If that really was Madoka's soul you saw, then that mean Sidonia's theoretically got a direct route to it. Which is concerning in its own right, but it's also probably how she was infected in the first place."
"Okay, that all makes sense," Wakaba Mirai says, "But, I feel like you're not telling us everything. I get why you'd be concerned about Sidonia having a direct line to your girlfriend's soul-" Wakaba Mirai leans over and gives a demonstration with AsamI Saki that's sickeningly sugar-sweet. You aren't jealous that you and Madoka can't do that yet. "-but like, tactically speaking, who cares? Who cares if she's got a direct line to your girlfriend, or Saki, or someone else's girlfriend's soul, when she's got plans to do wa~ay worse than just make some random girl sick with Grief poisoning?"
"Actually, for that matter, why was any of what we just went through possible in the first place?" asks AsamI Saki, prying her girlfriend from her side. "I've been in some weird labyrinths before, but never have I been through one of them that just…" She shakes her head, adding with disbelief as you hear her voice straining "Had some random girl's soul waiting for us at the end. Like, just imagine if we'd been able to go through Michiru's labyrinth, or Satomi's, and been able to clean their souls up and turn them back to normal?" By the end of her sentence, AsamI Saki is almost to tears, but she manages to choke out "Why's this girl get to be the exception?"
Both Kazumi and Wakaba Mirai are there to place a hand onto Asami Saki's shoulders. She's lucky. You didn't have anyone else to support you when you watched the people you love turn. But you don't envy her, not now. Because the people you love are still with you now. You won't let that change. You can't.
You and Archer look to each other. No words need to be spoken; you both just nod your heads to one another, and you say to Asami Saki "I guess the cat's out of the bag, now."
It doesn't do enough to bring her all the way back, but it does give AsamI Saki enough of herself back that she's able to pay attention, to turn her head to meet yours and ask "What do you mean?"
"What I mean is… The truth is…" you say, "My girlfriend is a goddess; and I'm not just saying that because of how special she is to me. I mean she is literally divine."
"What?"
"How?"
"You're so lucky!"
You look to Archer; he's better at explaining this sort of thing than you are, so you'll let him take over from here. "Do you girls remember what I told you about leylines earlier?" he asks. AsamI Saki nods her head; so does Scáthach. "Leylines are the World's way of transporting magic from place to place, in short. Madoka, as it turns out, is basically a leyline crammed into the shape of a person. The how is irrelevant. But what it means is that she has access to enough magical power that, if she ever unleashed her full potential, would cause her to become a god. That's no exaggeration, but it's also why this is so concerning to us."
"Sidonia has been busy poisoning the city's leylines in order to take control of them for her own purposes," you say, reiterating what you went over with the Saints last night and earlier this morning. "That includes Madoka. We've got it under control for now, but if Sidonia were able to claim control of Madoka…"
"She'd be unstoppable," Wakaba Mirai says. "Oh… Oh, shit, now I get it."
"Do you?" From the sound in her voice, it sounds as if Wakaba Mirai does, in fact, get it. Like she didn't get it earlier when you told her to mind collateral damage around the houses near the park. "All right. So, while it was… Surprising, at first, to hear that the four of you had fallen from a labyrinth into Madoka's bedroom, I'm not actually mad at you. You probably found the channel that Sidonia's been using, and you did a good thing, cleaning up her soul."
Even if it should have been you. If you'd only known…
"It's actually kind of funny, in hindsight." Kazumi says exactly what you are thinking. "I remember wondering which house belonged to your girlfriend, and, well, I kind of ended up finding out, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did," you say. "Madoka's adorable, isn't she?"
"Maybe, but Niko's more adorable-er."
In the interest of being diplomatic in the face of everything these girls have done to help Madoka, you're going to ignore Kazumi's comment. Of course the scruffy emo she's dating isn't more adorable than Madoka. You know that, and after seeing her for herself there's no way Kazumi doesn't know that. But after helping to save her, you're going to let Kazumi off without a warning. This time. Next time, there'll be a penalty for sure.
"So… What are you going to do about this?"
Asami Saki's question takes you by surprise, because you don't know what you're going to do about this. You don't know what you're supposed to do about this. "I don't know." You don't know. "I… Wasn't prepared to have to answer that question. Archer, Lancer, and Nurse Ortensia have done what they could for her to keep the corruption at bay, and it sounds like you four did a decent job cleaning up her soul while you were inside the labyrinth-" Which is a sentence you never thought you would have to say, "But I don't know how I'm supposed to seal her soul off from Sidonia's ability to access it."
You don't know if there even is a way to do that. You're completely in the dark, here. You turn to Archer for help, to Matou Sakura, who- "Akemi-san, I hate to be a bother, but could I perhaps borrow either of your team's Lancer or Assassin servants?"
"Huh?" It's a question you're taken aback by, because you weren't expecting to hear from Matou Sakura so suddenly. "I can ask Oriko or Nurse Ortensia if they'd send one of them over," you say. "It'll probably be Lancer. I don't want Assassin to kill me for giving her more work." Matou Sakura nods her head, and you ask "Why do you need them?"
"I'm almost done rerouting Niko's mana so that she's properly supplying her servant again, but in order to seal Sidonia off from tampering with her, I'll need one of your servants who knows the runes. They'll make the job of sealing her off go that much more smoothly."
"I can help you with that," Scáthach offers. "Anything my sister can do with the runes, I can also. Just show me what you're trying to accomplish."
Matou Sakura nods her head, and gestures for Scáthach to join her. "You mentioned your sister?" Matou Sakura asks. "Is that your sister, as in, Akemi-san's Lancer or Assassin servants?"
Scáthach nods her head. "My sister is their team's Assassin servant," she replies. "Have you been made aware of our identities?"
"I don't believe so," Matou Sakura replies. "I know Archer, and I'm aware of a different servant who wears the same face as their Caster servant, but aside from them and the Saints' Assassin servant, I don't really know any of the servants on either side."
"I am Scáthach," she says, "My sister, and Akemi's Assassin servant, is Aífe. If we have the time later, I can introduce you to Rider and Berserker as well." Matou Sakura's eyes go wide, but before she can ask the question you already know is on her lips, Scáthach stops her, saying "Do not bother. Not all the stories you have heard about me are true. I am here, are I not? That enough is the proof you need."
"But… How?" Matou Sakura asks, as though she hadn't just been told not to. "I can… Clearly, see that the stories aren't true, but I can't help but be curious where they went wrong."
"Is it enough to say that the stories of my immortality were greatly exaggerated, and leave it at that?" Scáthach asks. Matou Sakura nods her head. "I was blessed with long life, and incredible martial and magical skills, but even I was not immortal. I met my end one day, the same as any other hero." Notably, Scáthach keeps the truth to herself, choosing to spare Matou Sakura the knowledge of what she really was, or how she really died. "The people of my time misinterpreted what they saw, and passed those misinterpretations down as legend, which somewhere along the line became confused for the truth."
"Regardless, I can help you with what you are trying to accomplish," Scáthach says, getting their conversation back on track. "Just show me what you need, and I would be glad to help."
"Right." Matou Sakura nods her head, and points to a diagram that she's drawn up. Really? She's only been at this for as long as Kazumi's been telling you what happened, and she already has diagrams? Just who are the Tohsaka sisters, anyway? "So, basically, what I'm trying to do goes something like this… That's where you come in…"
You stop paying attention to what Matou Sakura and Scáthach are saying when the door bursts open, and in strides the third and final team, led by Maki Kaoru. Her face, along with the faces of Misaki Umika, Kanna Niko, and your Aunt Illya, are covered with the black stains of soot. Maki Kaoru has a look of intense enthusiasm on her face, and as soon as the four of them have found their way inside proper, she proclaims "Man, that was intense!"
"It looks intense," Asami Saki says. "What happened? You and Niko said you'd found some of Sidonia's bombs when Kazumi and I tried talking to you earlier, so…?"
"Yup!" Maki Kaoru makes a big demonstration with her hands, proclaiming "Went right off in our faces, too! Good thing Akemi's aunt had her servant with her, or we'd have been goners. Well, I mean, not me, of course, but the rest of them would have been goners for sure if that huge guy hadn't shielded her from the blast."
"Just her?" Asami Saki asks. "So… How'd Umika and Niko get out, then?"
"Well that's just the thing," Maki Kaoru says. "Sure, maybe he was only trying to shield her, but he's just so freaking huge that he was shielding them, too. You should have seen him, Saki- It was like a whole-ass mountain got crammed into a person's body! Never seen anything like him before in my life! That guy could probably give me a run for my money in the toughness department."
"Not to be rude or anything, but that was obvious from the start," Aunt Illya says, beaming with pride. "After all, Berserker is the strongest there is."
"I don't know about that,' Maki Kaoru says. "My Berserker's pretty strong, too. I wouldn't go counting her out just 'cause yours is taller."
All it takes is another beaming smile from Aunt Illya to silence Maki Kaoru. She knows she's been beat. "Anyway, that's all from us," Maki Kaoru says. "Akemi, great call on asking your aunt to come with us, by the way. She's really cool, even if all that magic stuff she and Niko talked about went wa~ay over my head."
"I'm glad to hear that," is about all you can say. Frankly, as of this moment, Maki Kaoru and her team know your aunt better than you do. You turn to the aunt in question, and ask her "Still, I'm sorry about sticking you on a team of complete strangers. Did you at least enjoy yourself?"
"I guess so?" You aren't sure if that was supposed to be a question or not. "Niko's really smart, but even still, I wasn't able to get much out of her regarding how she makes her homunculi."
"Don't count on getting any more from me than that," Kanna Niko says. "I already told you, I don't want to talk about how I made Kanna or Kazumi."
[ ] Wat do?
