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Confringentur, Mk.2; a Madoka Magica / Fate/Stay Night crossover

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Day 20 Chapter 19.3
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    • [X] Inform Mikuni of how your reflection was somehow able to continue operating in stopped time, despite that being an impossibility. If this were just an illusion or machination of the Witch then the Witch would have to be able to make the reflections act or create the magical copies, or manually be manipulating your perceptions magically, and shouldn't be able to see nor manipulate such things while stopped in time.
    -[X] Tell Oriko your guess is that the only way to attack the witch is by making your mirror images do it since the witch is either the mirror or in the mirror, but... you haven't spotted it yet.
    ​

    "I think I see it now, Akemi-san," Mikuni Oriko says, looking at you with a confident smile; a rare first for her, that doesn't make you fear for Madoka's safety. "What about you? Can you see it?"

    "I think so," you respond. "When I stopped time earlier, I saw my reflection moving with me. "I've never seen that happen before, and I don't think that's actually possible. If our reflections were just illusions created by the witch, then the witch would either need to be moving the reflections or be actively manipulating our perception. But no matter the case, the witch shouldn't still be able to act on or influence us while time is frozen."

    You look again at the frozen disc floating in midair where your arrow and your reflection's arrow collided. It doesn't make sense to you. If one arrow had frozen the other, or both had deflected against one another, then there shouldn't be a frozen disc floating in midair. The only possible explanation has to be...

    You reach out your hand, and your reflection does the same. Instead of feeling warmth, as you would expect from touching another person; or at least some feel of fleshy tissue if not warmth; you feel smooth, and cool to the touch. A mirror... Of course.

    "The only possible explanation is that, either the witch is in the mirror, or it is the mirror."

    Mikuni Oriko nods, saying "My thoughts exactly. But..." She stares at her reflection, and is stared back at. She repositions her drones, looking to you as though she is trying - though failing - to find an angle where her reflection does not perform the same exact motion. "... How are we supposed to defeat it? Any attempt we make to attack the mirror, will just be deflected by that attack's mirror image. So what are we supposed to do?"

    You mimic Mikuni Oriko's actions, positioning yourself as necessary in an attempt to find an angle where your reflection cannot see you or copy your movements. "I can only guess that we have to trick our reflections into attacking themselves, somehow."

    But, do you know how you can accomplish that?

    [ ] Yes
    [ ] No
    [ ] Wat do?​
     
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    • This particular witch battle raises an interesting point that I want to address. According to canon, Homura's reflection does in fact move during timestop, as seen here. However, if I'm understanding the actual physics of the matter this should be impossible, because if time were to be completely frozen then light would be unable to move, meaning that there wouldn't be a reflection at all. In fact, according to real-world physics, Homura shouldn't even be able to see while time is frozen, since there wouldn't be any light reaching her eyes.

    It's a good thing, then, that her time-stop is magic in nature, and somehow allows light to continue moving even when everything else has stopped.
     
    [X] Maybe
    [X] First verify, while either of them are out of sight of a reflection, if their duplicates stick around or disappear or not by checking for Oriko's when she's out of sight of her reflection. If they do verify if they still move or not. If they don't move, suggest that you shoot an Isa arrow in a way that your duplicate will hit Oriko's.

    Just throwing out a reminder to everyone that they plan to kill another Witch after this one. So yeah, this may a long day.

    Also any suggestions for if this specific situation doesn't apply would be helpful.

    EDIT: Grammar & clarification.
     
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    NMS said:
    [x] Stab yourself in the heart.

    Homura is a magical girl. She doesn't need those organs, but does the Witch know that?
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    As hilarious as that would be, I'm fairly certain that if a Puella Magi takes damage that'd be fatal to a regular person (such as being stabbed in the heart or shot in the head) that said Puella Magi will no longer be connected to said body and they'll be stuck as a stand alone Soul Gem.
     
    [X] Maybe
    [X] First verify if, while either of them are out of sight of a reflection, if their duplicates stick around or disappear or not. If they do verify if they still move or not. If they don't move, suggest that you shoot an Isa arrow in a way that your duplicate will hit Oriko's.
     
    Enetious said:
    As hilarious as that would be, I'm fairly certain that if a Puella Magi takes damage that'd be fatal to a regular person (such as being stabbed in the heart or shot in the head) that said Puella Magi will no longer be connected to said body and they'll be stuck as a stand alone Soul Gem.
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    Their bodies aren't really "alive" anymore, and part of the point of Soul Gems is the preservation and the continuance of existence beyond the point which a mortal body could sustain. Unless the puella magi in question didn't know this, and thus "tricked" themselves into thinking they were dead even when they weren't, I don't think there would be any consequence to sustaining a formerly-fatal injury outside of the cost of mana and time to regenerate from their injury.

    That being said, I don't think that Homura shooting herself in the head a la Rebellion would actually work as intended if she tried that in real life. It wouldn't kill her, true, but until the shot-out brain matter regenerates she'd be walking around more than a little half-baked, if you know what I mean.
     
    SVS said:
    Their bodies aren't really "alive" anymore, and part of the point of Soul Gems is the preservation and the continuance of existence beyond the point which a mortal body could sustain. Unless the puella magi in question didn't know this, and thus "tricked" themselves into thinking they were dead even when they weren't, I don't think there would be any consequence to sustaining a formerly-fatal injury outside of the cost of mana and time to regenerate from their injury.

    That being said, I don't think that Homura shooting herself in the head a la Rebellion would actually work as intended if she tried that in real life. It wouldn't kill her, true, but until the shot-out brain matter regenerates she'd be walking around more than a little half-baked, if you know what I mean.
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    Depends on what a soul in pmmm means

    Still a cool party trick tho
     
    Day 20 Chapter 19.4
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    • [X] Maybe
    [X] First verify, while either of them are out of sight of a reflection, if their duplicates stick around or disappear or not by checking for Oriko's when she's out of sight of her reflection. If they do verify if they still move or not. If they don't move, suggest that you shoot an Isa arrow in a way that your duplicate will hit Oriko's.
    ​

    "I can only guess that we have to trick our reflections into attacking themselves, somehow."

    But, do you know how you can accomplish that?

    It's a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, you've come up with something that might work. You turn away from your musings back to Mikuni Oriko, saying "I have an idea, but whether it works or not will depend on how this mirror, and our reflections, actually work." Mikuni Oriko nods.

    "When we entered, it looked like our reflections were already here before us. But we don't know for sure that that's the case, and that's something we have to verify before we can put into action any plan that we make." Your eyes dart around the room for any place where you might be afforded cover from the mirror witch's gaze. "If it is, and our reflections were somehow already here before we arrived, then the mechanics of what we're dealing with are completely different from an ordinary mirror."

    "But, if our reflections only appeared when we did, then it's possible we might still be able to manipulate the situation to our advantage by attacking from the witch's blind spot?" Mikuni Oriko phrases her sentence in such a way that it seems more a question as a statement of fact. "That's what you're thinking, right; that we try to attack from the witch's blind spot where it can't form a reflection of the one attacking it."

    You nod your head. "And if our reflections were already here before us, we can take cover in those same blind spots, and attack in such a way that we force our reflections to attack each other."

    You have your plan - two, in fact - and now it's time to see which one will work given the mechanics of the witch in question. "I need you to leave the room for a few seconds so we know what we're dealing with." Mikuni Oriko nods, complying with your request. She turns to leave, and her reflection does the same, the both of them exiting at the same time as the other. "Alright, it looks like our reflections don't stick around after we're gone."

    "Then, we'll attack from the witch's blind spot."

    "Right."

    [ ] Wat do?
     
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    • [X] See if you can't position yourself in a way that Oriko would be able to see your reflection from the Witch's blind spot. If you can, have Oriko blast it with her beams of magical energy, though time-stop away if things backfire.

    I'm assuming that such positioning is possible, however if anyone has any ideas for if it isn't feel free to chip in to the vote.
     
    Enetious said:
    I'm assuming that such positioning is possible, however if anyone has any ideas for if it isn't feel free to chip in to the vote.
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    It would be easier to figure this out if I had done a better job of describing the room we're in, so let me rectify that now.

    The hallway just before the room is fairly wide, with large double doors at the end that open outwards into the banquet hall. Once the doors are opened all the way, there's a bit of space between them and the near corners of the banquet hall that are obscured and not visible to the mirror witch, and in addition the space in the hall between the door frames and the wall corner are also blind spots to the witch. If we hadn't blown up the table with our explosives, we could have also ducked down behind the table to get into another blind spot, but as it is now there isn't a large enough chunk left for us to hide behind where the mirror witch can't see us.
     
    [X] See if you can't position yourself in a way that Oriko would be able to see your reflection from the Witch's blind spot. If you can, have Oriko blast it with her beams of magical energy, though time-stop away if things backfire.
     
    Day 20 Chapter 19.5
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] See if you can't position yourself in a way that Oriko would be able to see your reflection from the Witch's blind spot. If you can, have Oriko blast it with her beams of magical energy, though time-stop away if things backfire.
    ​

    "Alright, it looks like our reflections don't stick around after we're gone."

    "Then, we'll attack from the witch's blind spot."

    "Right."

    Like that, you have an understanding of how the mirror witch operates, and you've figured out that you can more than likely exploit its blindspots in order to defeat it. Your partner is positioned in the hall outside, and now it's up to you to figure out the best angle from which to attack. "I'm going to try taking up a few different positions," you say to Mikuni Oriko. "Let me know when I'm in a position where you can see my reflection, but not me."

    "Understood. I'll let you know."

    Outside you can hear the hum of your partner's weapons, silver spheres which she manipulates like radio-controlled toys. When taken as a large number, her cloud of drones buzz loudly like a swarm of ōsuzumebachi, waiting to unleash the magical energy building inside in the form of a million stings. From the rising noise outside, you can tell that her army of drones is swelling to tremendous numbers. You hope that the witch has little chance to survive.

    And yet, the math isn't adding up to you. For her to be able to create, and to control, so many drones at one time, the individual mana cost to each must be incredibly small; and spread out over such large numbers, the additional mana spread out over the entire lot that would enable them all to attack must also be equally small. Will they actually be able to deal any significant damage to the witch?

    Either her mana will be spread so thinly throughout her swarm that her attack will be useless, or else... Just how much mana does Mikuni Oriko have at her disposal, where employing a tactic like this is a viable strategy?

    You shrug off your concerns, and have no choice but to - against the better judgement of all your past experiences - place your faith in your partner and hope for the best.

    You have been moving around the room for a minute or two now, trying out various positions and testing those positions at different lengths from the mirror, when you receive the signal you had been waiting for. "Akemi-san, you're in position."

    "Then you have the green to give the witch everything you've got."

    "Right. You might want to close your eyes."

    Hesitating, knowing full well what the Mikuni Oriko of a previous timeline would have done given that suggestion - and what fate would befall the current one were she to attempt the same - you take your partner's advice. You clamp your eyelids shut tight; but even that is not enough to hide the brilliant golden burst from you, turning your vision crimson as the light shines through even closed eyelids. For a few seconds, your world is nothing but the red of your illuminated eyelids and the roar of a million stinging insects all at once.

    And then everything is silent, and red fades to black; the signal that it is safe for you to open your eyes again.

    The mirror is shattered, with a two-meter wide hole punched straight through it and a spiderweb of cracks blossoming outwards in all directions. A few loose shards of silver-backed mirror fall to the floor at your feet, and the labyrinth fades from existence, leaving behind nothing but a single Grief Seed for your troubles.

    [ ] Who gets the Grief Seed?
    [ ] Wat do?​
     
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    • [X] Plan Seven Years of Bad Luck
    -[X] Who gets the Grief Seed
    --[X] Oriko, while reminding Oriko that she best keep an eye out for corruption in her Soul Gem in the future. No one wants to find out what kind of Witch would result from her falling into despair. Begrudgingly tell Oriko they make a good team.
    -[X] Exit the Labyrinth and ask Mikuni Oriko
    --[X] How her Soul Gem got so corrupted without her noticing
    --[X] Why she let her Soul Gem get so corrupted in the first place
    --[X] Why it took two Grief Seeds to cleanse the corruption
    -[X] They're done for the day. Head on back and reconvene with the others and ask how their hunts went. Ask Archer for a status report.
    -[X] Switch perspectives to Archer if applicable

    EDIT: Added a little positive reinforcement
    EDIT2: Changed Grief Seed going to Homura, not that it really matters who gets it in the end. Looks at the 30+ each of them have
    EDIT3: Reverted EDIT2.
     
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    @Enetious, wouldn't it be better for Oriko's feeling of self-worth if Homura takes it and counts it as one of the two Oriko owes us?

    If we do that for both Grief Seeds tonight, she'd be out of the debt and wouldn't have to worry about yet another thing she has to make up for.
     
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    Nachtigall said:
    @Enetious, wouldn't it be better for Oriko's feeling of self-worth if Homura takes it and counts it as one of the two Oriko owes us?

    If we do that for both Grief Seeds tonight, she'd be out of the debt and wouldn't have to worry about yet another thing she has to make up for.
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    Fair, edited. Also in my vote they're calling off the hunt after this one Witch as they wasted a lot of time from Oriko's outburst and the unique nature of the Witch they just defeated.
     
    "Exit the Labyrinth"... that's unnecessary since "the labyrinth fades from existence".

    "Why she let her Soul Gem get so corrupted" is probably a very uncomfortable topic, since the answer is either guilt for having used soul gems as a power source, that she no longer values her own life, or both.

    If we just aborted our hunt now, Oriko would probably blame herself for not doing enough to make up for her sins, and for her earlier outburst slowing us down.

    [X] Plan Agency
    -[X] Mikuni Oriko takes the Grief Seed.
    -[X] Ask Mikuni Oriko:
    --[X] How her Soul Gem got so corrupted without her noticing.
    --[X] Why it took two Grief Seeds to cleanse the corruption. Does she have exceptional mana capacity?
    --[X] Whether she wants to continue the hunt.
    -[X] Once they're done for the day, head on back and reconvene with the others and ask how their hunts went. Ask Archer for a status report.
     
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    Nachtigall said:
    @Enetious, wouldn't it be better for Oriko's feeling of self-worth if Homura takes it and counts it as one of the two Oriko owes us?

    If we do that for both Grief Seeds tonight, she'd be out of the debt and wouldn't have to worry about yet another thing she has to make up for.
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    Enetious said:
    Fair, edited. Also in my vote they're calling off the hunt after this one Witch as they wasted a lot of time from Oriko's outburst and the unique nature of the Witch they just defeated.
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    You've got a good idea going here, but she already paid us back right after we said she owed us-
    "You owe me two Grief Seeds," you say, handing the emerald jewel back to its owner. Mikuni Oriko nods, taking back her Soul Gem and handing over two of her own Seeds as compensation. You stare at them, turning them over in your hand a few times as you wonder whether these are Seeds that were earned by Mikuni Oriko, or whether these are Seeds taken from one of her victims.

    "Akemi-san, is there something wrong with them?"

    In the end, it doesn't matter to you where they came from. "It's nothing," you say as you pocket the Seeds.
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    Plan reverted to giving the Seed to Oriko.
    WanderingTwix said:
    ...

    Oops. :thonk::facepalm: Guess I'll wait for someone to edit their vote, because when do I ever come up with something original :V
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    Don't put yourself down too much. You've occasionally contributed to votes in the past, and really all you need to do to help out in the creation of votes is to discuss your thoughts on the situations at hand which will cause others to create or edit votes based off that input. "Discussion is the best thing since sliced bread" is, after all, a tag for this quest, and it helps a lot when people give their own perspectives on the situation.
     
    Day 20 Chapter 20
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    • [X] Plan Seven Years of Bad Luck
    ​

    You walk towards the Grief Seed left by the defeated witch and pick it up, before tossing it over to Mikuni Oriko. "It was you who actually defeated the witch, so you should have this," you say, carefully eying her Soul Gem as she pockets the Seed. She's built up some corruption since your cleansed her, but you're surprised to see that it isn't more, given the magnitude of her last attack. "However, in the future I want you to keep a closer eye on your Soul Gem. We've already got enough trouble on our hands as-is; I'm not too keen on adding your witch to my list of problems."

    "Of course," Mikuni Oriko says, closing the distance between you and she. "That, and Kirika would never forgive me if I abandoned her to my own despair like that."

    "If you don't mind me asking, how did your Soul Gem happen to get so corrupted in the first place?"

    Mikuni Oriko sighs, sitting down and motioning for you to do the same. You comply, and once you are seated, she says "When I first made my contract, back in January, I found myself unable to control my precognitive powers. Even with Kirika doing everything she could to keep my mind focused elsewhere, I just couldn't turn it off, even when I tried to sleep. The constant strain to both my mana and my mind made it almost impossible for me to function, and so for the first few weeks I had to rely on Kirika to acquire Grief Seeds for me. During that time, we also found that we-" Mikuni Oriko's tongue stumbles over itself for a moment, before she continues speaking. "-We found that we could transfer mana between one another."

    What? Transferring mana? That... Is that possible? You didn't think so, and in no other timeline was the ability to transfer mana something that you had encountered or explored in-depth. But this timeline has already thrown so many curve balls at you, so what harm could one more do to your understanding of the way things work?

    "And so now, with the amount of mana that it's taking her to regenerate her legs, as well as the toll that commanding Berserker enacts on her, I've been trying to pay her back for all the help she gave me earlier by giving her as much of my mana as I can, whenever I can. I guess I was so worried about her, that I never stopped to check on myself, and the deeper I dug that hole the less I even cared to check in the first place."

    You nod your head, saying "Letting all that grief take hold for so long can really do a number on a puellla magi's mental state." You've seen it happen all too often. "You're lucky that I was here; it's almost impossible to come back by yourself once you're that far gone. Though now I'm even more curious- It's been almost a week since that day, and I'm going to guess that you haven't cleansed your Soul Gem once in that time period. On top of that, you've been constantly giving mana to Kure Kirika - a process that I didn't even know was possible until just ten seconds ago - and still somehow had enough mana to hold out long enough for me to cleanse you."

    "I have to know- Just how is all of that even possible?"

    Mikuni Oriko unclasps her Soul Gem from its place at her battle dress's collar, cradling it in her hands. "When I was... Doing, the things that I did, I learned that not all Soul Gems have the same amount of mana in them. Some have more, some have less. With just a little experimentation, I was even able to figure out a way of precisely determining how much mana was contained in a Soul Gem. The average Soul Gem has between five- and six-thousand units of mana in it. Mine..." Mikuni Oriko sighs, tightly gripping the emerald jewel as she says "... Mine has well over twenty-thousand. It's a freak; an aberration of everything I thought I had learned about the way Soul Gems worked, and it means that I can continue to function well past the point where any normal puella magi would have had to cleanse themselves several times over."

    Over twenty-thousand units of mana at her disposal... Well, that would explain why it took you two whole Grief Seeds to fully cleanse her Soul Gem to zero, and how she can command such a large stock of drones without sacrificing in terms of power. If you - by all accounts a below-average puella magi in all but one regard - could expect two cleanses from a fresh Seed, then someone like Mikuni Oriko, who by her own words almost certainly has over four times the mana that you do, would logically require two fresh Seeds in order to cleanse the same amount.

    "And yet, I'm sure that having such a large amount of mana helped keep you going when you were unable to do anything without Kure Kirika's assistance."

    Mikuni Oriko nods, and returns her Soul Gem to its proper place at her collar. "Of course. Despite being a chore to cleanse, I'm rather grateful for my abnormally large stock of mana, because it means that I have even more to give to Kirika than if I were normal."

    Of course; trust either of these girls to take anything said to them and relate it back to the other. "We... Don't make for a bad team. I'd be willing to work alongside you again, until Kure Kirika's legs are regenerated."

    Mikuni Oriko smiles, and the two of you stand, ready to return to base for the night. "As would I, Akemi-san."
    ​

    "... And so then, once I had the witch trapped up real good, Mami comes in and blasts the thing's head clean off!" Kyouko's entire body is part of the performance as she wildly waves her arms and legs in every direction as she recounts her version of what happened. "I tell you, I didn't know that witches could bleed, but damn, that fucker was gushing! Had ta be, like, thirty liters of blood, or sumthing."

    "It was hardly that much blood, Sakura-san," Tomoe-san "corrects" her partner as she sips a cup of tea. "You don't have to exaggerate for our friends."

    "Well, if I told the story like you would, then it'd be all boring and they wouldn't want ta hear it. Besides, it's not like theirs was any better, anyway."

    "Sakura-san, the point was to share mission reports about our hunts, not to keep one another entertained with exciting stories."

    Kyouko shrugs off Tomoe-san's words, saying "Yeah, yeah, sure; whatever."

    Of the five people present in Mikuni Oriko's living room, only one does not have her own version of the night's events to share. Kure Kirika is is seated at Mikuni Oriko's side, and has been glaring at you ever since you walked in. The reason why is obvious, but you're going to be bigger than her and not rise to her childish aggression. Instead, you're going to get one last status update before you decide to call it a night.

    "Archer, how is everything going where you are?"

    "What, you mean here on the roof? Boring. Really boring. There's absolutely nothing to do up here but watch the snakes."

    McRemitz-san's familiar had been eaten by a snake earlier in the day; you remember that, but you would have guessed that no more than one snake might wander that far from their normal territory. "You mean there's more of them?"

    "Yeah, a whole nest of them in fact, just hanging out. There's been no movement at the Church, so watching them has been the most exciting part of the day."

    "No movement, at all?"     That's surprising to you. Given how late it is, you would have thought that Father Despair and Sister Hope would have gone home by now, but apparently not. "Are you sure?"

    "I've been up here all day. Unless they've got invisibility cloaks or an underground tunnel, they haven't gone anywhere."

    Do you
    [ ] Tell Archer to return for the night
    [ ] Tell Archer to stay out and continue watching
    [ ] Change perspectives to Archer (and do what?)
    [ ] Other (write-in)
    ?​
     
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