To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
What if the hallway is a magi who wished to be a building? 🤔
[X] Prioritize Information.
I don't know if this is the right decision but info hopefully won't fight back like Oriko will and I feel it deserves more representation in the vote than its getting.
Something feels wrong. Something feels incredibly fucking wrong about this place. You can't put your finger on it but you don't feel alone. You look back to Erika. 'Sense anything?'
'No. Not in this room. There's someone else in the building but she's pretty far away right now.'
'And the bucket-hat girl?'
'She's further in. That'll take you closer to the guard...at least, I think she's a guard.'
'Is that the ten-foot-tall one?'
'Yes.'
Yuki interjects. 'Look, if things look bad, just cut your losses and get the fuck out of here.'
'I know what I'm doing.' You glance back on instinct. 'I have enough self-preservation to not fuck myself over.'
'You're also stubborn as hell and you really like biting off more than you can chew.'
Christ, you're just like your wife, aren't you. 'I'll make sure to escape, Yuki.'
You creep down the hallway. Tiles shift underfoot, pieces of ceramic sliding around as you try to keep your footfalls light and quiet. A quick turn around the corner leads to a different hallway, this one far wider and, more importantly, harder to hide in. You'll spot anything coming as soon as it enters, but on the downside, anything coming down there will notice you immediately.
'Okay, we're in the big hall.'
'She's on the second door to your right. Just past the boiler, before the servers.'
You get to the door she designated, which sports a smashed glass window just big enough to put your hand on top. It's a terrible-looking thing, and you're guessing it used to be someone's office once upon a time.
'I can keep watch from the door,' Ume says from just behind you, glancing your way as she stands at the corner. 'This place is giving me the creeps.'
You wrap your fingers around a doorknob. It's rusted; bits of the surface flake off as soon as your gauntlets brush against the metal. You keep your hand tight enough to pull the door open, but not so tight as to tear the handle from the wood and splinter the door. You take a deep breath and push.
The room is, as expected, an office. A decayed oak table sits in the center, rotten and moldy and covered in green, with a computer that's as old as the complex itself. There is a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, just bright enough to illuminate the room but not bright enough to make it look less dingy. Your eyes scan decayed papers and the occasional intact bankruptcy filing before you finally see her.
She sits on the floor, hands folded, eyes half-lidded. Her hat is large and bucket-like, as Erika said, but you thought it would be more like a Shako, rather than...well...whatever she's wearing. It's almost like a drum attached to her scalp, and her dress is splayed across the floor.
She looks up towards you. "Miki-Sakura?" she asks.
"Yeah. That's me." You take a quick look around. "I was expecting you to be somewhere fancier."
"I requested a room like this," she says, simply. "It keeps me focused."
You don't exactly see why that would help her, but you're not going to question it right now. "Okay, so, we're actually planning an escape-"
She interrupts you before you have a chance to elaborate further. "You better start moving. Saskia will be heading back."
"The fuck is a 'Saskia'?"
Ume keeps her head leaned out of the door. Suddenly, she moves back in. "I hear footsteps, we gotta move."
You grab Oriko by the hand and she follows without question She keeps close as you leave the room, past Ume's head of black hair, and keep looking back to the hallway. You quickly move past, through the janitor's closet. And just behind you, you continue to hear footsteps.
'She's coming your way!'
'Yeah, I fucking see that!'
You hear the distinct sound of a rusted, decrepit door opening, followed by a faint, quiet tsk. You quickly look back down the hallway.
You take a step backwards on instinct. You see the shadow in the room, a flicker in the gloom, and you can't tell if it's their power or just a trick of the light.
The sponge-opening on the wall ripples. You take a glance to the side as Ume shifts closer and Oriko glances between the two of you. 'Just break it open.'
Ume glances to the wall. 'They'll definitely know someone was here if that happens.'
'They'll know that if you leave a corpse!' You drop your body and plunge through the wall. And it's then that you realize what that sponge-wall was actually made of. The wall pulls apart not with the shattering of wood or the pulling of sponge.
What you hear instead is a very, very familiar sound of shattering bone and pulled flesh. You just plunged through a person's worth of meat and muscle and bone and tissue, bits of gore ripping apart as the metallic facade ripples on the ground. You, Oriko, and Ume are all coated in blood as you pull yourselves through.
"What the fuck," you hiss. You take a quick look behind you, then turn to the rest of the group. You consider having them move after you.
And then you hear the stomping of footsteps from outside the janitor's office.
You glance between the wall in front of you, Oriko in your arms, and Ume. You nod to Ume once and she vanishes, after which you shove Oriko forwards. The spear-wall opens at your behest, exposing a terrified Erika and a wide-eyed Yuki.
You give them both a grin, then immediately pull out a spear.
"Rosso Fantasma Gemelli."
Your twins split. One, your halberd-self, stays outside. The scythe-self rushes backwards, pulling her way through your spear-wall. You've permanently blown your cover. Shit is about to go south real fast.
And then a hand stretches across the exit you just left. You take a few steps back as the bits of the flesh door ripple on the ground, as the bone shifts and slides across the floor, as bits and pieces of flesh and sinew slide their way backwards, as the hand pulls itself fully through.
The fingers are too long; they have four joints instead of three. The palm is too wide, the arm it's attached to far too long. Her sleeve is perfect for holding the arm, which is similarly far, far too long, as it pulls itself through; an extra joint upon the arm can be seen as she slowly creeps her way across. She looks backwards, up the tunnel, but upon seeing nothing there, she turns her gaze towards your halberd-self.
She smiles.
"You seem to have gotten lost, ma'am." You can't tell if she's being sincere or not. "I do hope you did. I do not wish to lose another one to the conflict between our towns."
The flesh worms its way around her neck, cracking bone and sliding skin upon knitting and unwinding cartilage and muscle. The sound makes you want to puke.
[] What do you do? (Write-in a plan of action. I will determine the difficulty)
Bet you that this Magi's wish was to acquire the abilities of a Witch while still nominally keeping her mind. Hence the ability to extrude flesh and make herself a Lair.
Bet you that this Magi's wish was to acquire the abilities of a Witch while still nominally keeping her mind. Hence the ability to extrude flesh and make herself a Lair.
I would say leave one of Kyouko's selves behind to delay the weird horror movie monster while the others escape but idk how much permanent damage losing a Gemini copy does-we know they share injuries and getting half your soul gem shattered is probably not great.
Soooo... what I'd be most wary of here would be to split up. We don't know how much control this girl has over our surroundings.
Splitting off the somewhat disposable clone would make sense, but since we don't know what Saskia can do almost at all, maaaaaaybe just use the clone to cover a fighting retreat? Just to keep all our firepower concentrated.
This is a Difficulty 1 thing. The Halberd-self is extremely distracting, and the scythe self is plenty-capable.
And while it's not going to be easy (and the halberd-self is very much probably going to die) having a gemelli's soul gem shatter will not be a death sentence; remember that one of Kyouko's halves deliberately shattered itself while fighting Mami during the Chapter 2 finale.
There's a chance you can get out without losing anyone. It's not a great chance, but it's better than nothing.
Current magi assets:
Erika: 300 meter radius awareness (probably good for helping evade further fights)
Ume: Predator-style invisibility-can only be identified by the faint distortion in air currents she causes when moving.
Yuki: Temporal reset-if he has to use this we're probably fucked anyway.
Oriko: ???
Hmm...we haven't seen her soul gem yet. I wonder if Erika could find it and then we just grab it and hope we can get out of her control radius? She's probably doing some level of remote animation for her creepy flesh walls.
[X] Fighting retreat. Stick together.
- [X] Anything that moves and isn't friendly, stab the absolute shit out of if doing so doesn't impede your retreat, or if doing so accelerates your retreat
[X] Fighting retreat. Stick together.
[] Tear up the building as you go, maximum collateral will probably strain the magi's attention more.
The magi might not feel pain from the walls and such (if she does, that's a bonus), but the more damage we cause to the area, the more they'll have to spend repairing it and/or keeping the building up at all. On the other hand, being too destructive might bring other magi right to us. Thoughts?
She pulls herself through the tiny hole in the wall.
Her limbs visibly dislocate themselves to fit her body into an opening that is clearly too small for her ten-foot frame, in a tunnel that's only barely big enough to hold her height. Her three-jointed arms crick and clack and slide into place, her flesh pool rolling across the ground as bits of and pieces of meat slide out of the hole in the wall. Only as the mass of bones and marrow and blood and muscle crawls to her side does the flow finally stop.
Your halberd-self takes a step back as the girl settles with one foot behind her and the other in front. The mass of flesh rolls under her, sliding the entire mass forwards as she looks down towards you with a polite smile.
"I have to ask, however. What were you doing in our tunnels? I do not recall having an adult on the premises. Miss Emiko and Rider-chan had just left, and I was tasked with watching over the Oriko one."
You shrug. "Heh, I guess I got fuckin' lost."
"Is that why the Oriko is missing?" She keeps her smile as she moves forwards again, and the light around you is getting a little brighter as you reach the end of the tunnel. "I apologize, this is probably not very fun, but I was not born yesterday."
At the other end, your scythe-self begins to run. Erika glances between you, Oriko, and Yuki as you all rush ahead, through the drainage system. The tunnels here are unfamiliar to you, but you have a way out as you charge away from the worst of the area and into a massive cavern of concrete pillars and dripping water. It's big enough to drive a truck through, and just like the canal outside, it's filled with trash and graffiti.
Oriko takes a breath. "Saskia isn't stupid, and she surely knows that your clone is a distraction."
"Yeah, well, we can cross that bridge when we get to it," your scythe-self mutters. "Just keep fucking running."
Your halberd-self stretches her arms out as the girl in front of you keeps her smile courteous, small, and worst of all, sincere. She runs her hand across a wall as finally you hit the very edge of the tunnel. Of course, now you can see the soul gem on her neck. A perfect little garnet in her choker, set just above a half-cape and covered by one of her far-too-long hands.
"Do not stare at my jewelry. It makes me nervous."
You snicker in spite of yourself, in spite of the revulsion you're feeling. You take a quick look to the side, towards the tent city. The girl shrugs.
"You do not want to bring the fight outside, miss. I really do not want to use my strengths more than I have to."
"Fuckin' arrogant one aren't you?" You grin. "Well, let's give it a try, why don't we?"
Her smile flickers for a second before she opens bright, sinister pink eyes in your direction. "We shall."
And then a wall of solid bone atop a pillar of flesh shoots from behind her. You bring three halberds up on instinct, five hands on the spears and three reinforcing your grips, before the weight slams you out of the end of the tube at high speed. You scream backwards out of the tunnel, bounce against the concrete ground, and slam into the opposing wall.
The girl stares across the way, stretching out her hands. An arch of flesh extends across, one of the mouths facing her stretching its tongue and whispering evil. You pull yourself out of the wall just as she raises a hand and pulls a piece of bone from the mass of flesh.
You manage to dodge the attack, but the force is strong enough to crack the wall behind you and shatter concrete. Your eyes widen, and you grab a chunk of concrete with the head of the halberd and yank.
She grabs it out of the air and swings it aside, the momentum carrying it into the wall behind her before you come in with a stab. Her eyes go wide and she immediately moves the slab of meat around her. Four halberds impale the mound of flesh as the fifth spears her through the chest, directly into a solid sternum that doesn't budge under the force.
But you saw this coming. You press forward, your weapons ripping through the massive twisting flesh, and the fifth shatters her ribcage. But then she squeaks in pain. Her eyes tighten just a little as her face wrinkles. She sniffs once, then brings a hand to her chest.
And then the whole thing opens wide. Both the sternum and the halberd on top of it are spit out from her chest-mouth as the organs dangle inside. Her eyes are squeezed shut as drool seeps from her mouth and she struggles to keep herself awake, but it's enough to make you step back. You segment your spears into chains, jump back, and pull. The mass of flesh rips away from her, splattering across the ground as she forcibly knits her chest shut.
A quick transformation and she's covered, but blood still seeps from the wound. Her torso is misshapen now; she can control flesh, but it seems that she can't perfectly heal herself.
"I-I'm sorry," she hisses. "Y-you can't leave here alive. Miss Rin wouldn't want that." She looks to you...then she looks to the tent city before giving you a thin smile. Then she runs. Overly long legs pound the concrete floor as you whip to where she's heading. Your mind races at a mile a minute as you realize exactly what she might try to do.
"No, no, no no no NO NONONONONO!"
You charge after her, all halberds up, all weapons at the ready. She slides a hand across the ground and you immediately jump in front. Her hand slams into the blade of your halberd momentum ripping her arm in half.
Your face is splattered with blood and bits of flesh as her arm becomes two. She screams in pain as she presses herself all the way down, her shoulder finally slamming into the blade. You don't give her time to recover; you're already bringing three spears directly to her throat.
And it's then that the two halves of her arm wrap around your neck. You have no time to react as they tighten, the blood on your face suddenly turning razor-sharp as they dig into your skin, as knives of bone begin to pin their way into your neck, as a thumb reaches towards your halberd-self's soul gem.
Then they twist.
The worst pain you've ever experienced rips into your neck as your head is severed from your body, as a breath is torn from your lungs and all feeling drops below the neck. Your armor collapses on the ground, the soul gem glimmering as she pulls it out of your chest.
"Thoughtful, are you," she says. "Attempting to play the hero?"
You smirk, despite yourself, despite being nothing more than a head. You look her in the eye.
'Ain't no 'attempting' about it. But I gotta tell ya. Civvies don't have anything to do with us. Leave 'em be.'
She tilts her head. Her smile doesn't leave. "Why? They do not have much worth in the grand scheme of the world. This way, they are granted something new. Something worthwhile." She opens her eyes, and what was once a terrifying grin becomes a sad smile. "They would be more than another corpse on the road. They would be a part of the Lady's plan."
'The Lady's plan is batshit crazy.'
"Perhaps to you, it is." She presses the edge of her bone closer to your soul gem. Just a little closer...come on... "Perhaps to someone who understands, it is worthwhile."
'I fed people to familiars once.' You give her a thin smile. 'I know it. I get it. But then I got better. I got way better.' Your smile widens just a little bit. You're gonna have a hell of a time explaining this to your wife; your clone probably lost her head mid-run. 'How old are you? Sixteen? Fifteen?'
Her eyes widen. Then they narrow. "I know what I'm doing."
'Sure you do.' You hope that she's going to step on your gem. To bring your selves back together. 'But let me tell you a factoid. I've lived this life before. And you don't need to know what you're doing when you're so-'
She doesn't let you finish, and you get exactly what you wanted. She raises her foot and a stiletto made of bone rams itself into your halberd-self's soul gem. And the last thing your clone sees is the look of shock on Saskia's face as it dissolves in her arms.
[=]
Your scythe-self was on the bridge between Kasamino and Mitakihara when her head suddenly rolled off of her shoulders and her body collapsed. Erika screamed in shock as Yuki grabbed your head and Ume grabbed your body and started to move.
And you can tell that your clone was killed because your soul gem blackens and the memories of your last conversation come flooding in. Ume doesn't waste time pressing a grief seed into your gem as your body oozes blood and your head grimaces.
There's nobody following you; Saskia was focused on your halberd-self in the short time it took for you to escape through the waterways and across the bay.
And frankly, that's fine. You stare upwards at the night sky as the stars pass overhead, as the air grows cool. You close your eyes.
'Try and make sure Mina doesn't see me like this.'
"No promises," Yuki mutters. "The first thing we need is to get your wife to heal you."
You try to groan, but it's hard to do that when you don't have lungs . You take a look up and grimace.
'Ah, Christ, she's gonna fucking freak.'
[=]
Your name is Minako. And the first thing you saw when you and your mom left your grandmother's was the Kasamino team with a brand-new magical girl in tow and your mama with her head in Yuki's arms.
And, well, you didn't even stick around long enough to see your mom heal her neck and scream at her wife for leaving for something so obviously dangerous. You press your hands against your temple, take a deep breath, and shake your head.
You have seen a lot of distressing shit ever since you became a magi, but that's going to rank up there. Right now, you're in the bar of the halfway house that Tatsuya runs with a glass of milk in front of you (because you're far too young to drink). You trace your finger atop the glass, take a look at the drink, and take a deep, deep breath.
You're glad that your mama's alive, at least. But god, that was...something else.
But now there is a new magical girl to acclimate. It took you no time to rid her of Rin's influence. In fact, if anything, it took less time than usual. She was shockingly compliant, distressingly easy to deal with.
And you're not sure why.
In fact, she's sitting just a across from you now. Your parents are at the stairwell leading up to the lobby of the halfway house, probably discussing what they saw.
CHOOSE ONE
[] Eavesdrop on your parents; you'll probably learn about what your mama saw later.
[] Talk to this 'Oriko' girl. Understand her a bit more.
[] Go upstairs and check on Mami. You don't want to deal with this situation right now.
[X] Talk to this 'Oriko' girl. Understand her a bit more.
We have a full Mikuni set, but I'm not sure they're matching pairs and I want to know why. Did they both lose the other? What motivates them? Oriko seemed very ready to flee, but why didn't Rin influence her more?
