You glance at Oriko, and then unceremoniously drop the thread holding her in the timestop. She freezes out, whites and sickly browns turning to grey.
"No, I don't. Nothing she has to say is going to change my mind. But if she has any
excuse for all of this, I want to hear it," you reply, looking steadily at Homura. "Though... now that I think about it, you could hang on to her Soul Gem, too. Separating it further from Oriko just makes it harder for her to do anything."
You hesitate, and stand, offering Homura a hand up. She gives you a long look before accepting it, and you pull her to her feet, before motioning her to step around a broken wall, more for peace of mind than anything. It's sort of weird, with Oriko there and frozen, mouth half open.
After a slight mishap with the rope getting snagged on a jutting piece of rebar, the two of you are safely ensconced behind the wal. You reach up to the jeweled pin on your chest that is your Soul Gem, and carefully unfasten it, before holding it out to her. "Just in case she somehow does something."
She
twitches, staring at the Soul Gem in your hand. Her jaw works, as if she can't decide what to say.
"Look, Homura," you say, gently reaching out and taking the pistol from her hand. She lets you take it, fingers slack, and you press your own Soul Gem into her hand, and close her small, cold fingers around it.
My life in your hands. "It'll work out, Homura, and we'll get you, and Madoka, and Mami, and Sakaya and Kyouko and everyone else your happy endings. The question
here is whether Oriko and Kirika will be there to see it."
"Why are you giving
her the chance?" Homura asks. Her left hand, holding Oriko's Soul Gem, hangs freely by her side, in contrast with yours, held out between you like a warding shield.
You look away, casting your gaze out over the rusting machinery and old buildings around you. "I don't want to kill her. I... you saw how she reacted to what I told her about Margot. She doesn't known everything, and she
can be shaken. If I can... I'd rather talk her down."
You take a deep breath, and meet Homura's eyes. "But if we can't, then as I said, I'll help you. My mess, my responsibility."
She shakes her head slowly. "You can't be this naive."
"I'm making progress," you argue. "You
saw how she reacted!"
"She could be acting," Homura counters.
"Could she?" Your eyebrows arch high. You certainly don't think she was.
Homura's lips twist, but she seems to concede the point.
"So, if she'll only talk if you can't hear, then I'll humour her. But in any case, Homura, I'd feel a lot safer if you could take overwatch. If she does anything funny, well..." you gesture at Oriko's Soul Gem. "We need to be connected, so I could use my Grief to form a trail to connect us?"
She nods slowly, letting the hand holding your Soul Gem fall to her side. "That won't be necessary," she says, carefully untying the rope from around her waist. "I have a longer rope." She lets go of her end of the rop-
-e. You grimace. "Ugh. Never going to get used to
that." Homura's tying a brightly coloured length of rope to the one currently bound around your waist, and you follow
that rope with your eyes - it trails across the landscape, reaching to the top of some old, half built structure, all exposed steel and I-beams. Homura nods at you, finishing the knot, and then lets g-
-o again. "Argh," you mumble into the floor.
Wait, why are you on the floor?
You push yourself up, off the floor, and look at the old structure where the rope led to... where the rope
doesn't lead to.
...
At a guess, Homura misjudged the distance? She's now set up on a nearer building, and is waving an arm so that you can see her. You wave back at her, and she puts her hand down.
Well. Nothing for it, then.
You take a deep breath, and walk back over to Oriko, grasping the thread and bringing her back into the timestop.
Colour blossoms across the seer's body, and she blinks in disorientation, looking around in mild confusion before focusing on you.
Heh. So that's what it looks like from the outside.
"So. Homura's out of earshot, now," you snap at her. "What's so earthshattering that you can't let Homura hear it, then?"
Oriko takes a shuddering breath, closing her eyes before looking at you again. "She's making things
worse," she says in a low voice. "Kyuubey already knows, and if he tells her that, she will despair. You have to stop that from happening."
It's your turn to laugh. Loudly, and in her face. "That's
news, Oriko? That's your great secret?
That's what you did all this for?" you say when the laughter subsides. "You... megalomaniacal, delu-"
Oriko makes a cutting gesture with her hand. "That's not why I'm doing this - it's what
you need to know," she says, fast and low.
[] Write-in
=====
You've done well, Akemi Homura. You've raised Kaname Madoka to be the most powerful Witch that will ever exist.
