Scraped from here.
God
TOC:
Chapter 1: Prolog Im Himmel
Chapter 2: Border of an Eastern...
God
TOC:
Chapter 1: Prolog Im Himmel
Chapter 2: Border of an Eastern...
God (Puella Magi Madoka Magica x Touhou): Thread II
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Hmm... might simplify to just "myself," but there's a loss of information there.dan-heron said:
Mmm... maybe. Just doesn't quite match the eldritch feel of Zalgo, though, and it doesn't work to well for short words.... h-- pa-- --lf is rather unclear...
Eh, whatever. It probably won't come up again, anyway
.
Eh, whatever. It probably won't come up again, anyway
.And by the way, for those of you who've played FSN: I was going for a "Servant" feel with the danmaku battle. Ridiculous, wondrous, impossible, awesome and terrific in their original senses of "awe- and terror-inspiring." How close did I get? I think I probably needed more details to really pull that off, but I wasn't all that confident in my ability to do it and not sound boring...
Shinji117
Endless Troller
- Location
- Rokkenjima (Sydney)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huzzah! for updates. And what an update. First proper danmaku battle for Madoka, and some mention of a not-entirely-insane Yuka. I like already!
As for the Servant vibe, you got some of the feel, but (as you said) you'd need more details to pull it off. Still, you did it better than most FSN fanfic fights I've read, which have an unfortunate tendency to be rather bland and unoriginal. You, however, manage to convey the sheer difference in scale compared to what Madoka was used to well, so congrats on that.
Sorry if I'm a bit incoherent. Just very happy to see such an awesome update.
S117
As for the Servant vibe, you got some of the feel, but (as you said) you'd need more details to pull it off. Still, you did it better than most FSN fanfic fights I've read, which have an unfortunate tendency to be rather bland and unoriginal. You, however, manage to convey the sheer difference in scale compared to what Madoka was used to well, so congrats on that.
Sorry if I'm a bit incoherent. Just very happy to see such an awesome update.
S117
Jonen C
F.M.D.G.
- Location
- Lincopense, Ostrogothia, Suecia
Adding my utter contempt for Zalgo to the choir of complaints.linkhyrule5 said:Mmm... maybe. Just doesn't quite match the eldritch feel of Zalgo, though, and it doesn't work to well for short words.... h-- pa-- --lf is rather unclear...
Eh, whatever. It probably won't come up again, anyway
As for good replacements for similar effect. Dunno. I just dislike Zalgo.
Maybe go the blind idiot translation/the universal translator is broken route.
Either run it through babblefish or get a thesaurus and do it yourself. Was thinking along those routes myself for a trans/post-human equivalent of the Orz: 4-chan in the age of postuploads. The lingo is so filled with obscure references, slang and shorthands that even the best universal translators just give up, leading to phrases being translated as:
"*Dine*, *excrement*? [Did] You *observe* [that] *excrement*? *Hidden Fun Stuff*! *Puppy*, I heard [you] like *bullet hell*, so I put *bullets* in [your] *hell* so [you] [shoot?] *bullets* while you *bullet hell*. *Law*, [it is as if] totally *nineball*. *Sauce inspires awe*."
(From: "'Sup, Dood? U c that shit? HFS! Dawg, I heard u like danmaku, so I put dan in ur maku so u dan while u danmaku. Lol, like totally ⑨. Awesomesauce.")
Unclear? If you're talking about [h-- pa-- --lf] beinglinkhyrule5 said:Mmm... maybe. Just doesn't quite match the eldritch feel of Zalgo, though, and it doesn't work to well for short words.... h-- pa-- --lf is rather unclear...
Eh, whatever. It probably won't come up again, anyway
her past self
Then again, if this won't come up again then it's pretty much a non-issue, so let us focus on other things like who else might show up in this fic.
*is totally not fishing for info here*
If it comes up, I'll try the spoiler text here, though if I ever post to ff.net I'll have switch to Zalgo again.
As far as speculah fodder goes: Like in HoS, the dream sequence is there for a reason. It won't come up for a long, long time, but it does have a purpose.
As far as speculah fodder goes: Like in HoS, the dream sequence is there for a reason. It won't come up for a long, long time, but it does have a purpose.
Robo Jesus
Your Mechanical Messiah
Heh, true, but Marisa isn't as good with the use of Slaves in her Danmaku style though, even if she is working on that.Zelinko said:
Minor edit to Chapter 5: added a bit on the end, to clarify something.
Chapter 6 is coming along. The danmaku-lecture itself is done, and the buildup to it is mostly done. I want to get through at least half the lesson in this chapter, if not the whole thing. It'll be out in a couple of weeks. (Sorry for the slow pace).
Chapter 6 is coming along. The danmaku-lecture itself is done, and the buildup to it is mostly done. I want to get through at least half the lesson in this chapter, if not the whole thing. It'll be out in a couple of weeks. (Sorry for the slow pace).
You're quite right. Marisa is a majo.
So is, say, Professor McGonagall.
Or Molly Carpenter.
Or Nimue, if it comes to that.
"Majo" is just Japanese for "witch." (Technically, it just means "bad woman", but turned into "woman who uses black magic" and then "magic woman"). PMMM just repurposed it.
Now, whether Marisa is a capital-W Witch... that's a much more interesting question.
.
And since I'm posting here anyway:
Next chapter is coming along, but it's slow going. For one thing, for some reason writing drunk characters is difficult for me. Especially Suika. For another, college apps. Gaahhh....
Anywho, I'm aiming for November 8, but I'm not sure if I'll make it. Figured you guys deserved a status update, though.
So is, say, Professor McGonagall.
Or Molly Carpenter.
Or Nimue, if it comes to that.
"Majo" is just Japanese for "witch." (Technically, it just means "bad woman", but turned into "woman who uses black magic" and then "magic woman"). PMMM just repurposed it.
Now, whether Marisa is a capital-W Witch... that's a much more interesting question.
.And since I'm posting here anyway:
Next chapter is coming along, but it's slow going. For one thing, for some reason writing drunk characters is difficult for me. Especially Suika
. For another, college apps. Gaahhh....Anywho, I'm aiming for November 8, but I'm not sure if I'll make it. Figured you guys deserved a status update, though.
I return, at last!
I'm very sorry for letting this drag on so long. My excuses all basically boil down to "college apps, after which I was just too tired for write for a few weeks." All that is over, but more stuff is coming up: there won't be nearly as long a delay as this one took, but it still probably won't be done until near the beginning of March.
The good news is, after this last few (five) weeks, I turn into a lazy second-semester senior for a year, which means I'll have plenty of time to write, so look forward to that!.
Also, I'd like to give a big shout-out to whoever recommended this story on TVTropes. Thank you guys, thank you so much; I'm honored by this, I really am.
Another shout out to harouki, who betaed this chapter.
And now, without further ado: Chapter 6 of God.
I'm very sorry for letting this drag on so long. My excuses all basically boil down to "college apps, after which I was just too tired for write for a few weeks." All that is over, but more stuff is coming up: there won't be nearly as long a delay as this one took, but it still probably won't be done until near the beginning of March
.The good news is, after this last few (five) weeks, I turn into a lazy second-semester senior for a year, which means I'll have plenty of time to write, so look forward to that!
.Also, I'd like to give a big shout-out to whoever recommended this story on TVTropes. Thank you guys, thank you so much; I'm honored by this, I really am.
Another shout out to harouki, who betaed this chapter.
And now, without further ado: Chapter 6 of God.
Chapter 6
Studies in Conceptual Mechanics
Madoka sat up, yawned, and stretched.
"Mmm... all just a dream," she muttered, blearily opening her eyes slightly and hugging her teddy-bear hug-pillow, closing her eyes just a few moments more before getting up for school.
Pulling aside the covers, she swung herself out of bed and –
WHAM.
Painfully smacked her heels into the floor that was a lot closer than she remembered it. And more wooden too, now that she thought about it. And last she checked, she was pretty sure that her door was made of wood and set into a wall, not of Eastern-style paper …
Oh, right, she was in Reimu's room.
Oh, right, she was a sentient concept.
Oh, right, she was an omnipotent goddess who had just wiped out every Witch in the universe with a single arrow –
Madoka had to bite down hard on her pillow to keep herself from shouting as the memories of the past... time/day/thing rushed back to her. Homura-chan's a thousand years old? Youkai exist? An omnipotent boundary being is my sensei? Kami, Danmaku?!
After a moment, the migraine subsided, and she managed to stop hyperventilating. It was odd, how waking up made it feel like all that had happened at once – she had taken it much better as it was happening. But then, as it was happening she had just saved the world, several thousand magical girls, and her own self, and then stayed awake for the better part of a day stumbling about Gensoukyou, so... maybe a little delayed reaction is justified.
Madoka closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She yawned again, cutely, before finally getting up out of bed.
Weird or not, it's something I need to deal with now. Oh Kami, Marisa. I have to go talk to Marisa. If she can live without any Grief sinks... maybe there's a way to retire after all!
She stopped for a moment.
Wait, if I'm not at home, what did I hug?
She turned back towards her bed.
Her bed, where a short blond girl, dressed in a stained sleeveless and skirt, was lying under the covers.
She also had foot-long crooked horns.
I see, I hugged an oni.
… I bit an oni.
Carefully, Madoka backed out of the room, and closed the door.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
"That's mean, Reimu."
They were in Reimu's sitting room, sitting around her table on a tatami mat. Well, Madoka was; Reimu was laughing far too hard to sit up straight, and was currently rolling around on the mat.
"Reimu, please, it's not that funny."
Reimu continued to vehemently disagree, nearly knocking over her morning tea as she pounded her leg into the ground.
"You could have at least warned me about her. "
"Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoooo...." Reimu finally slowed down. "Heh. Yeah, maybe, but in my defense, it was late and I kinda forgot. Besides, it's not like Suika comes by daily or anything."
"You could have at least told her then!" Madoka insisted.
"At five in the morning," Reimu asked, raising an eyebrow. "While I was still sound asleep?"
"... well, okay, but – wait, don't you have barrier wards?"
"Yes. They're designed to keep out enemies. Suika there is not an enemy."
"Yep! A friend absholutely YAM!" said the oni drunkenly leaning against the door.
"I suppose that's why I wasn't warned of malicious intent..." Madoka sighed. She blinked before doing a double-take towards the oni. "WAUGH! When'd you get here?"
"Just a moment ago, why?" Suika replied, suddenly sounding much less intoxicated and much more sprightly.
Madoka blinked again and shook her head, giving up on understanding this mess.
"Uh... alright..."
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
Breakfast consisted of light meal of warm porridge and a few cups of truly awful tea. (Madoka resolved to help Reimu get her tea back as quickly as she could.)
"So," Reimu began, after she drained her cup. "When did Yukari say she'd meet with you again?"
"Oh, uh... I don't think we really agreed on a time," Madoka admitted. "I had assumed that since she was sending me to a place I could stay, she would come contact me – uh, Reimu?"
Reimu lowered her hand from where it covered her eyes, just enough so that she could give Madoka a rather tired look.
"Madoka?"
"Yes?"
"Go ask her right now."
"I – uh, wouldn't that be rude?"
"Madoka," Reimu said again. "Yukari sleeps for months at a time. If you don't ask her now, she'll never get around to it."
Madoka blinked.
"Oh...but wouldn't that take a while? It's a couple hours walk from –"
"Well, yes, if you walk."
"...I forgot about that. I guess I'm kind of new to this power. Um..."
She closed her eyes for a moment. Reaching out into concept-space, she took her "movement" attribute and replaced "standing" with "flying", and then flicked it into existence -
CRASH-WHAM. Thud.
- and proceeded to demonstrate all the speed – and, if the large hole in the wall and the creeeaaak-crash of a falling tree was any indication, all of the fine control – of a plane.
"On second thought, maybe I should take you," Reimu said as she stood over the goddess of hope. "At least until you figure out a way to fly."
"Oooh... hey, look, it's a Witch of pretty stars, pretty stars... Hi Homuuuuu..." thud.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
It took a while for Madoka to stop swaying on her feet, and even longer for Madoka to discover that putting Yukari's door in Reimu's front yard didn't bring her house with it (unless she actually tried to move the house, which she felt was rather rude), but eventually their were on their way, soaring effortlessly a half-mile over the forest.
Well, Reimu was soaring effortlessly. Madoka had a death-grip on Reimu's hand and was forcing herself to look down in an attempt to acclimate.
"... uh, Reimu?"
"Hm?"
"Why isn't there much wind?"
Reimu raised an eyebrow. With a wave of her hand, a sphere of kanji lit up in orange around her.
"Ah! How does it... wait, actually, I think I might be able to tell."
Reaching out into concept-space, Madoka looked at the sphere. The world rendered itself down to concepts for her, matter condensing into linked concepts that spiraled and whirled around her.
"What the... Oh, I see! You're blocking 'wind' but not 'air', somehow..."
"You have the general idea. It's more complicated than that - I'm guessing you have some form of magic sight? Good, that will serve you will in this Land of Illusion - you might be able to tell, but it's really just running interference. It'd be simpler to just wall off wind entirely, but I like the breeze and anyway it's rather unnerving to speed through the air without some sense of movement, nevermind nauseous."
Madoka nodded, hesitantly. It occurred to her that she could do well learning from such spells - after all, though her power provided massive simplifications, the general idea was essentially the same: linking active units in a way that produced a usable effect. Keeping her concept-sight on, but adding a "restriction" to "wind-shield" "Reimu's", she took a closer look.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
Several hours later, they touched down at last, Reimu immediately barging into Yukari's house without so much as a knock - "It's not like she doesn't know we're here anyway."
"Indeed I do," said a voice behind them. Turning, they met the master of the house, half-out of one of her trademark gaps.
"Now, what brings you to my humble abode?"
Reimu snorted. "I believe you owe this girl some lessons."
"Lessons? Do I, now..."
Madoka broke in. "Uh... yeah, you said you would teach me yesterday... unless you ch-" Reimu slapped a hand over Madoka's mouth.
"Yes, you did."
Yukari cocked her head. "Huh. I don't remember doing anything of the sort – Ow!"
Yukari stepped out of a second gap, her parasol held at her side after it had hit Yukari in the forehead. "I was wondering when this would happen..." she muttered, before pointing at Yukari. "Oi. You're about ten years off. Right timeline, but you're twisted three-sixty degrees, so you'll tie a knot in the weave if you stick around.
Yukari narrowed her eyes, examining a border in front of her face (a quick check with concept-sight determined it to be the border between truth and lies) before nodding once, and stepping back into her gap.
Yukari clapped her hands. "Well, now that that's over with, what brings you to my humble abode?"
For the umpteenth time since she had met the pinkette at her side, Reimu's hand met her face.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
"Since Reimu came with you to my house, I'm going to assume you haven't figured out rapid travel yet."
"Well... no?"
"Tried flying yet?"
Madoka flushed at that, hiding her cheeks behind the cup of tea that Yukari had pulled from one of her gaps. (She had decided not to ask where it came from.) They were currently in what was probably best described as a Western sitting room – in fact, the cracks where the room used to be joined to the rest of its house were still visible.
"I did try flying earlier, but I … lost control."
"Oh, did you?" Yukari asked with a smirk. Then, much to Madoka's embarrassment, she proceeded to open up another gap, through which Madoka's inelegant exit from the Hakurei Shrine could be seen, frozen in time.
"So, what did you do?"
Composing herself, Madoka explained: "Everything has a... slot, for lack of a better word, for a concept that describes their movement. I just switched mine out for 'flying'."
"Yes, that would do it." Yukari nodded as she giggled. But when she saw Madoka's confused expression, she began to clarify herself. "When youkai use their powers, they usually don't think through the entire mechanics of what they do. They give a general impression of what they want to happen, and their subconscious does the rest, unless they take manual control – which is something near the top of the list of things I'll teach you."
She sipped her tea, waving her hand around as if dismissing what she had said as unimportant. "Anyway, that's why you generally succeed at whatever you try. Unfortunately, you're a bit too smart – you tried to figure out your powers, so you manually set your 'movement' to flying. Which meant you started flying like... oh, I'll guess that you imagined a plane – immediately."
Madoka blushed, but nodded.
Yukari tossed her empty cup over her shoulder, where Ran, appearing out of a gap, caught it on the empty tea-tray she was carrying, fumbling the catch slightly as she stepped back out of surprise, before walking out of the room..
"Anyway, in the end that's a minor detail. More important is you getting a handle on your mechanics - once you've done that flying will be a cinch. That's what I'll teach you today." She muttered under her breath: "Really, a lot of powers could approach omnipotence if their wielders would just bother to figure out how it works..."
Ran walked in, bringing more tea with her on the same tray. Madoka took a cup with a bright "Thanks!"; Yukari just grunted and waved a hand, opening a gap that swept her up – from the other side Madoka could hear Yukari begin, "Anyway, in the end that's a minor..." and the clink of cup against tray. Catching Madoka's confused gaze, Yukari shrugged. "More convenient than calling for her."
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
Reimu walked up to Yukari's door, humming softly. Pausing before knocking, she cocked her head and listened.
"... no explosions, no gaps, that's a good sign..."
Suddenly, an elephant trumpeted within the building.
"... that's not."
Closing her eyes, Reimu clapped her hands together as if in prayer, and began to float in the air. For a moment, she simply hovered, before fading out of existence.
As a Hakurei Miko, she possessed an innate power, granted her by the nature of the family of miko's relation to Gensoukyou: the ability to float above the ground. Like most powers, it was very much a metaphorical power – Reimu used it most often to "float above" the ground-truth, making impossible leaps of intuition, but a few years of training had allowed her to float first in the air and then away from reality. (It had taken her many years before she could handle seeing four dimensions without giving herself a migraine, but now it made her one of the most defensively powerful inhabitants of Gensoukyou, which was rather saying something. Worth every minute.)
It also made snooping on people much easier, since walls tended not to exist "above" reality.
Reimu opened her eyes to "see" Gensoukyou as a flat plane below her. Well, as flat as it got – she could see the way it curved around, a sphere with a circle cut out where Gensoukyou met the Outside World. "Above" her, the Barrier spiraled, enveloping her like a soft blanket - but unlike a blanket, solid: there would be no penetrating the Border even from outside reality.
Careful not to look down at herself – not necessary, but seeing herself "flattened" as a three-dimensional object in a four-dimensional space was rather headache-inducing – she examined Yukari's door, giving it a poke. Where she touched the door, a silver barrier appeared, her touch rippling outward as if through water.
Drawing an ofuda from her pocket, she tied it over her eyes. For a moment, all went dark, before the ofuda's writing glowed slightly, rendering it transparent – and rendering the magic around her visible, her own version of magic-sight.
(Well, a heavily filtered version, at any rate. Gensoukyou being what it was, there was enough magic around her to render her completely blind if she didn't filter most of it out.)
Now, she could see the barrier that Yukari had erected around her house, a solid border not only of the house, but between things-that-could-enter and things-that-cound-not, a perfect ward that prevented all entry. Unsurprisingly, it left the plane of Gensoukyou's reality – hence why she couldn't pass through, at least without invoking the Border, which would be rather petty for something like this.
Somewhat annoyingly, that would also be pointless: the barrier had a large, Reimu-shaped hole in it, complete with triangles for her headdress.
Sighing, and resisting the urge to facepalm, Reimu slipped through the barrier into Yukari's house. Dropping back down into reality, Reimu padded softly over to Yukari's sitting room...
and nearly ran into a life-sized pink elephant that appeared out of nowhere. It regarded her, confusedly, for a long moment, before disappearing.
"Awww, so close!" came Madoka's voice through the door.
"There's not really a 'close' or 'not close' with this exercise. Either you get it, or you don't," Yukari replied.
"Yes, but I thought I had almost stabilized..."
Madoka and Yukari were in Yukari's own sitting room, currently taking up both of Yukari's oversuffed purple armchairs (stolen from Outside, of course). Madoka had her eyes closed and her face screwed up in concentration; Yukari, meanwhile, caught Reimu's eyes over Madoka's head and waved cheekily.
Reimu sighed, quietly. Okay, so apparently –
"DRRUUUUUUUUUUEgh!"
– apparently, teaching Madoka her manipulation involved the occasional conjuration of a large pink elephant.
The shrine maiden stepped into the sitting room and, brazenly interrupting, asked: "What, exactly, is going on here?"
Madoka started in her chair, nearly dropping another elephant on Reimu before regaining control. "Ah! Sorry, sorry! Auuu, I lost control again." She pouted, slightly. "Yukari's trying to teach me to be able to think about using my power without actually using it – it's the old 'don't think about a purple elephant' trick, except in this case it's more 'don't accidentally create a pink elephant.'"
"... why pink?"
Madoka shrugged. "I like pink. Anyway, it's to prevent things like this morning happening. Oh! That reminds me, Yukari – I need to learn to switch the seasons back soon."
Yukari laughed, full-throated, and replied, "Not if you want me to teach you. I hibernate in winter for a reason, you know."
Reimu interrupted. "Right, because it's too cold, even for important things like teaching new omnipotents."
Yukari beamed. "Excellent, so you do understand! Good, good –"
"I was being sarcastic."
"I wasn't."
"Yes, I gathered that. Regardless, I'm heading over to Marisa's, so I should probably bring Kaname-san with me. I'm going to need an early start if I'm going to calm down Letty and Cirno..." Reimu didn't even try arguing with Yukari: nothing short of a spellcard duel could convince Yukari to work in the cold months, border-manipulation or no, and frankly, though she felt confident she would win, she didn't feel like it. Beyond which, there was the fact that Yukari was liable to interpret a loss as "bound to teach her for one day, as measured by some planet which rotated three-sixty degrees in an hour."
Yukari pouted. "Oh, very well... Madoka, I think you've figured out flight by now?"
"I... think so?"
"I suppose you'll find out, then," Reimu interrupted. "Why don't we test it on the way there."
Madoka blinked a moment, then nodded, getting up and brushing herself off. Stretching (Reimu got the impression that she had been sitting in that chair for many hours), she wandered tiredly up to Reimu's side, and they walked out of Yukari's home.
(Through the door, this time.)
Studies in Conceptual Mechanics
Madoka sat up, yawned, and stretched.
"Mmm... all just a dream," she muttered, blearily opening her eyes slightly and hugging her teddy-bear hug-pillow, closing her eyes just a few moments more before getting up for school.
Pulling aside the covers, she swung herself out of bed and –
WHAM.
Painfully smacked her heels into the floor that was a lot closer than she remembered it. And more wooden too, now that she thought about it. And last she checked, she was pretty sure that her door was made of wood and set into a wall, not of Eastern-style paper …
Oh, right, she was in Reimu's room.
Oh, right, she was a sentient concept.
Oh, right, she was an omnipotent goddess who had just wiped out every Witch in the universe with a single arrow –
Madoka had to bite down hard on her pillow to keep herself from shouting as the memories of the past... time/day/thing rushed back to her. Homura-chan's a thousand years old? Youkai exist? An omnipotent boundary being is my sensei? Kami, Danmaku?!
After a moment, the migraine subsided, and she managed to stop hyperventilating. It was odd, how waking up made it feel like all that had happened at once – she had taken it much better as it was happening. But then, as it was happening she had just saved the world, several thousand magical girls, and her own self, and then stayed awake for the better part of a day stumbling about Gensoukyou, so... maybe a little delayed reaction is justified.
Madoka closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She yawned again, cutely, before finally getting up out of bed.
Weird or not, it's something I need to deal with now. Oh Kami, Marisa. I have to go talk to Marisa. If she can live without any Grief sinks... maybe there's a way to retire after all!
She stopped for a moment.
Wait, if I'm not at home, what did I hug?
She turned back towards her bed.
Her bed, where a short blond girl, dressed in a stained sleeveless and skirt, was lying under the covers.
She also had foot-long crooked horns.
I see, I hugged an oni.
… I bit an oni.
Carefully, Madoka backed out of the room, and closed the door.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
"That's mean, Reimu."
They were in Reimu's sitting room, sitting around her table on a tatami mat. Well, Madoka was; Reimu was laughing far too hard to sit up straight, and was currently rolling around on the mat.
"Reimu, please, it's not that funny."
Reimu continued to vehemently disagree, nearly knocking over her morning tea as she pounded her leg into the ground.
"You could have at least warned me about her. "
"Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoooo...." Reimu finally slowed down. "Heh. Yeah, maybe, but in my defense, it was late and I kinda forgot. Besides, it's not like Suika comes by daily or anything."
"You could have at least told her then!" Madoka insisted.
"At five in the morning," Reimu asked, raising an eyebrow. "While I was still sound asleep?"
"... well, okay, but – wait, don't you have barrier wards?"
"Yes. They're designed to keep out enemies. Suika there is not an enemy."
"Yep! A friend absholutely YAM!" said the oni drunkenly leaning against the door.
"I suppose that's why I wasn't warned of malicious intent..." Madoka sighed. She blinked before doing a double-take towards the oni. "WAUGH! When'd you get here?"
"Just a moment ago, why?" Suika replied, suddenly sounding much less intoxicated and much more sprightly.
Madoka blinked again and shook her head, giving up on understanding this mess.
"Uh... alright..."
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
Breakfast consisted of light meal of warm porridge and a few cups of truly awful tea. (Madoka resolved to help Reimu get her tea back as quickly as she could.)
"So," Reimu began, after she drained her cup. "When did Yukari say she'd meet with you again?"
"Oh, uh... I don't think we really agreed on a time," Madoka admitted. "I had assumed that since she was sending me to a place I could stay, she would come contact me – uh, Reimu?"
Reimu lowered her hand from where it covered her eyes, just enough so that she could give Madoka a rather tired look.
"Madoka?"
"Yes?"
"Go ask her right now."
"I – uh, wouldn't that be rude?"
"Madoka," Reimu said again. "Yukari sleeps for months at a time. If you don't ask her now, she'll never get around to it."
Madoka blinked.
"Oh...but wouldn't that take a while? It's a couple hours walk from –"
"Well, yes, if you walk."
"...I forgot about that. I guess I'm kind of new to this power. Um..."
She closed her eyes for a moment. Reaching out into concept-space, she took her "movement" attribute and replaced "standing" with "flying", and then flicked it into existence -
CRASH-WHAM. Thud.
- and proceeded to demonstrate all the speed – and, if the large hole in the wall and the creeeaaak-crash of a falling tree was any indication, all of the fine control – of a plane.
"On second thought, maybe I should take you," Reimu said as she stood over the goddess of hope. "At least until you figure out a way to fly."
"Oooh... hey, look, it's a Witch of pretty stars, pretty stars... Hi Homuuuuu..." thud.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
It took a while for Madoka to stop swaying on her feet, and even longer for Madoka to discover that putting Yukari's door in Reimu's front yard didn't bring her house with it (unless she actually tried to move the house, which she felt was rather rude), but eventually their were on their way, soaring effortlessly a half-mile over the forest.
Well, Reimu was soaring effortlessly. Madoka had a death-grip on Reimu's hand and was forcing herself to look down in an attempt to acclimate.
"... uh, Reimu?"
"Hm?"
"Why isn't there much wind?"
Reimu raised an eyebrow. With a wave of her hand, a sphere of kanji lit up in orange around her.
"Ah! How does it... wait, actually, I think I might be able to tell."
Reaching out into concept-space, Madoka looked at the sphere. The world rendered itself down to concepts for her, matter condensing into linked concepts that spiraled and whirled around her.
"What the... Oh, I see! You're blocking 'wind' but not 'air', somehow..."
"You have the general idea. It's more complicated than that - I'm guessing you have some form of magic sight? Good, that will serve you will in this Land of Illusion - you might be able to tell, but it's really just running interference. It'd be simpler to just wall off wind entirely, but I like the breeze and anyway it's rather unnerving to speed through the air without some sense of movement, nevermind nauseous."
Madoka nodded, hesitantly. It occurred to her that she could do well learning from such spells - after all, though her power provided massive simplifications, the general idea was essentially the same: linking active units in a way that produced a usable effect. Keeping her concept-sight on, but adding a "restriction" to "wind-shield" "Reimu's", she took a closer look.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
Several hours later, they touched down at last, Reimu immediately barging into Yukari's house without so much as a knock - "It's not like she doesn't know we're here anyway."
"Indeed I do," said a voice behind them. Turning, they met the master of the house, half-out of one of her trademark gaps.
"Now, what brings you to my humble abode?"
Reimu snorted. "I believe you owe this girl some lessons."
"Lessons? Do I, now..."
Madoka broke in. "Uh... yeah, you said you would teach me yesterday... unless you ch-" Reimu slapped a hand over Madoka's mouth.
"Yes, you did."
Yukari cocked her head. "Huh. I don't remember doing anything of the sort – Ow!"
Yukari stepped out of a second gap, her parasol held at her side after it had hit Yukari in the forehead. "I was wondering when this would happen..." she muttered, before pointing at Yukari. "Oi. You're about ten years off. Right timeline, but you're twisted three-sixty degrees, so you'll tie a knot in the weave if you stick around.
Yukari narrowed her eyes, examining a border in front of her face (a quick check with concept-sight determined it to be the border between truth and lies) before nodding once, and stepping back into her gap.
Yukari clapped her hands. "Well, now that that's over with, what brings you to my humble abode?"
For the umpteenth time since she had met the pinkette at her side, Reimu's hand met her face.
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
"Since Reimu came with you to my house, I'm going to assume you haven't figured out rapid travel yet."
"Well... no?"
"Tried flying yet?"
Madoka flushed at that, hiding her cheeks behind the cup of tea that Yukari had pulled from one of her gaps. (She had decided not to ask where it came from.) They were currently in what was probably best described as a Western sitting room – in fact, the cracks where the room used to be joined to the rest of its house were still visible.
"I did try flying earlier, but I … lost control."
"Oh, did you?" Yukari asked with a smirk. Then, much to Madoka's embarrassment, she proceeded to open up another gap, through which Madoka's inelegant exit from the Hakurei Shrine could be seen, frozen in time.
"So, what did you do?"
Composing herself, Madoka explained: "Everything has a... slot, for lack of a better word, for a concept that describes their movement. I just switched mine out for 'flying'."
"Yes, that would do it." Yukari nodded as she giggled. But when she saw Madoka's confused expression, she began to clarify herself. "When youkai use their powers, they usually don't think through the entire mechanics of what they do. They give a general impression of what they want to happen, and their subconscious does the rest, unless they take manual control – which is something near the top of the list of things I'll teach you."
She sipped her tea, waving her hand around as if dismissing what she had said as unimportant. "Anyway, that's why you generally succeed at whatever you try. Unfortunately, you're a bit too smart – you tried to figure out your powers, so you manually set your 'movement' to flying. Which meant you started flying like... oh, I'll guess that you imagined a plane – immediately."
Madoka blushed, but nodded.
Yukari tossed her empty cup over her shoulder, where Ran, appearing out of a gap, caught it on the empty tea-tray she was carrying, fumbling the catch slightly as she stepped back out of surprise, before walking out of the room..
"Anyway, in the end that's a minor detail. More important is you getting a handle on your mechanics - once you've done that flying will be a cinch. That's what I'll teach you today." She muttered under her breath: "Really, a lot of powers could approach omnipotence if their wielders would just bother to figure out how it works..."
Ran walked in, bringing more tea with her on the same tray. Madoka took a cup with a bright "Thanks!"; Yukari just grunted and waved a hand, opening a gap that swept her up – from the other side Madoka could hear Yukari begin, "Anyway, in the end that's a minor..." and the clink of cup against tray. Catching Madoka's confused gaze, Yukari shrugged. "More convenient than calling for her."
----------/人◕‿‿◕人\----------
Reimu walked up to Yukari's door, humming softly. Pausing before knocking, she cocked her head and listened.
"... no explosions, no gaps, that's a good sign..."
Suddenly, an elephant trumpeted within the building.
"... that's not."
Closing her eyes, Reimu clapped her hands together as if in prayer, and began to float in the air. For a moment, she simply hovered, before fading out of existence.
As a Hakurei Miko, she possessed an innate power, granted her by the nature of the family of miko's relation to Gensoukyou: the ability to float above the ground. Like most powers, it was very much a metaphorical power – Reimu used it most often to "float above" the ground-truth, making impossible leaps of intuition, but a few years of training had allowed her to float first in the air and then away from reality. (It had taken her many years before she could handle seeing four dimensions without giving herself a migraine, but now it made her one of the most defensively powerful inhabitants of Gensoukyou, which was rather saying something. Worth every minute.)
It also made snooping on people much easier, since walls tended not to exist "above" reality.
Reimu opened her eyes to "see" Gensoukyou as a flat plane below her. Well, as flat as it got – she could see the way it curved around, a sphere with a circle cut out where Gensoukyou met the Outside World. "Above" her, the Barrier spiraled, enveloping her like a soft blanket - but unlike a blanket, solid: there would be no penetrating the Border even from outside reality.
Careful not to look down at herself – not necessary, but seeing herself "flattened" as a three-dimensional object in a four-dimensional space was rather headache-inducing – she examined Yukari's door, giving it a poke. Where she touched the door, a silver barrier appeared, her touch rippling outward as if through water.
Drawing an ofuda from her pocket, she tied it over her eyes. For a moment, all went dark, before the ofuda's writing glowed slightly, rendering it transparent – and rendering the magic around her visible, her own version of magic-sight.
(Well, a heavily filtered version, at any rate. Gensoukyou being what it was, there was enough magic around her to render her completely blind if she didn't filter most of it out.)
Now, she could see the barrier that Yukari had erected around her house, a solid border not only of the house, but between things-that-could-enter and things-that-cound-not, a perfect ward that prevented all entry. Unsurprisingly, it left the plane of Gensoukyou's reality – hence why she couldn't pass through, at least without invoking the Border, which would be rather petty for something like this.
Somewhat annoyingly, that would also be pointless: the barrier had a large, Reimu-shaped hole in it, complete with triangles for her headdress.
Sighing, and resisting the urge to facepalm, Reimu slipped through the barrier into Yukari's house. Dropping back down into reality, Reimu padded softly over to Yukari's sitting room...
and nearly ran into a life-sized pink elephant that appeared out of nowhere. It regarded her, confusedly, for a long moment, before disappearing.
"Awww, so close!" came Madoka's voice through the door.
"There's not really a 'close' or 'not close' with this exercise. Either you get it, or you don't," Yukari replied.
"Yes, but I thought I had almost stabilized..."
Madoka and Yukari were in Yukari's own sitting room, currently taking up both of Yukari's oversuffed purple armchairs (stolen from Outside, of course). Madoka had her eyes closed and her face screwed up in concentration; Yukari, meanwhile, caught Reimu's eyes over Madoka's head and waved cheekily.
Reimu sighed, quietly. Okay, so apparently –
"DRRUUUUUUUUUUEgh!"
– apparently, teaching Madoka her manipulation involved the occasional conjuration of a large pink elephant.
The shrine maiden stepped into the sitting room and, brazenly interrupting, asked: "What, exactly, is going on here?"
Madoka started in her chair, nearly dropping another elephant on Reimu before regaining control. "Ah! Sorry, sorry! Auuu, I lost control again." She pouted, slightly. "Yukari's trying to teach me to be able to think about using my power without actually using it – it's the old 'don't think about a purple elephant' trick, except in this case it's more 'don't accidentally create a pink elephant.'"
"... why pink?"
Madoka shrugged. "I like pink. Anyway, it's to prevent things like this morning happening. Oh! That reminds me, Yukari – I need to learn to switch the seasons back soon."
Yukari laughed, full-throated, and replied, "Not if you want me to teach you. I hibernate in winter for a reason, you know."
Reimu interrupted. "Right, because it's too cold, even for important things like teaching new omnipotents."
Yukari beamed. "Excellent, so you do understand! Good, good –"
"I was being sarcastic."
"I wasn't."
"Yes, I gathered that. Regardless, I'm heading over to Marisa's, so I should probably bring Kaname-san with me. I'm going to need an early start if I'm going to calm down Letty and Cirno..." Reimu didn't even try arguing with Yukari: nothing short of a spellcard duel could convince Yukari to work in the cold months, border-manipulation or no, and frankly, though she felt confident she would win, she didn't feel like it. Beyond which, there was the fact that Yukari was liable to interpret a loss as "bound to teach her for one day, as measured by some planet which rotated three-sixty degrees in an hour."
Yukari pouted. "Oh, very well... Madoka, I think you've figured out flight by now?"
"I... think so?"
"I suppose you'll find out, then," Reimu interrupted. "Why don't we test it on the way there."
Madoka blinked a moment, then nodded, getting up and brushing herself off. Stretching (Reimu got the impression that she had been sitting in that chair for many hours), she wandered tiredly up to Reimu's side, and they walked out of Yukari's home.
(Through the door, this time.)
lifelink
Highschool Mew
- Location
- The Velvet Room
Yukari is a woman after my own heart she is. I wonder if Reimu will let Madoka handle Cirno and Letty's inevitable rage at having their winter unexpectedly cut short?
Will Yuuka browbeat the budding goddess into changing seasons so she can appreciate the different seasonal flowers at her leisure? Oh what joys the Eastern Wonderland will bring
Will Yuuka browbeat the budding goddess into changing seasons so she can appreciate the different seasonal flowers at her leisure? Oh what joys the Eastern Wonderland will bring
That's mostly due to causality errors. Mess with a universe too much and it cascades into oblivion. She's perfectly capable of saving Sayaka, it's just that she couldn't do it without ripping spacetime to shreds, and porting the universe somewhere more robust would change history unpredictably. Alternatively, she could hold the universe together with pure will, maintaining a stable paradox with her power, but then she couldn't really do much else, like continue to save the Puella Magi before they Witch.
I hinted at this last chapter, but under certain conditions concept-warping requires continued effort. You could pin a rock in midair, but if you held it there with no magical support you'd have to keep thinking about it. Same concept, universal scale.
I hinted at this last chapter, but under certain conditions concept-warping requires continued effort. You could pin a rock in midair, but if you held it there with no magical support you'd have to keep thinking about it. Same concept, universal scale.
Indeed it does!
(And if you find a flaw in the above argument, please tell me, because it's kind of important. If I ever write a sequel set in Mitakihara I'll need a reason for Madokami not to simply omnipotent the cast out of problems, beyond "mysterious godly non-intervention because they need to help themselves" which would be massively OOC.
(And if you find a flaw in the above argument, please tell me, because it's kind of important. If I ever write a sequel set in Mitakihara I'll need a reason for Madokami not to simply omnipotent the cast out of problems, beyond "mysterious godly non-intervention because they need to help themselves" which would be massively OOC.
Hours. It took the better part of a day to walk. Gensoukyou is big.
Maybe I'll change it to a single hour, though.
And Yukari gave her empty cup to Ran, who appeared out of gap. A few minutes later, Ran appears to give her another cup, at which point Yukari brings her back in time. Can't really explain more without a monologue, which I'd like to avoid.
Maybe I'll change it to a single hour, though.
And Yukari gave her empty cup to Ran, who appeared out of gap. A few minutes later, Ran appears to give her another cup, at which point Yukari brings her back in time. Can't really explain more without a monologue, which I'd like to avoid.