You purse your lips in consideration. "That is an
excellent question," you say brightly, your Grief manipulations still for the moment, since Homura isn't clearing away the loaded guns. You wonder for a moment about making a gun out of Grief and just using real ammunition - it's not like that's much of an issue, really, and certainly that would be the
most concealable.
Homura shakes her head slowly, an expression flickering across her face. You might be wrong, but... you're pretty sure you saw the barest sliver of a fraction of a trace of an exasperated, amused smile there for a moment.
"OK... I'll keep it in my Grief cloud," you say thoughtfully, making a decision and pulling a few spheres of Grief over. Homura passes the rifle over to you, and you take it with a smile, checking the safety. You lay it on your lap, looking at the Grief spheres - you'll encase the AR-15 in an ellipsoid, you think.
You suit action to thought, Grief reaching out and sealing the rifle away. "Thank you, Homura," you say, smiling at her and squinting at the enormous ovoid of Grief containing the rifle.
She shrugs slightly in response.
Locking it away does rather beg the question of what happens if you're anti-magicked. Not that you really think best buddy would do that to you, but then again. You're
reasonably sure that Oriko's on your side, but not
absolutely sure. And-
You left the Feather with Mami.
Panic lances through you for a moment, but-
You're in Homura's timestop. You're... pretty sure you're safe her. You take a deep, slow breath, calming yourself down.
"Is something wrong?" There's a hint of concern in Homura's voice, her head tilted fractionally to the side.
"No... well..." You frown. "I left the Feather with Mami."
Homura frowns, too. "It's just a feather."
"I know," you murmur, speaking more to yourself than anything. "Just a feather. Nothing magical or Witch-y about it.
Just a feather." You sigh. "Just something that showed up to ratchet up my paranoia."
The two of you sit in silence for a moment, before you shake yourself, trying to divest yourself of the rather disquieting thoughts.
"Anyway... I'm just wondering, do you have anything smaller than the AR-15, Homura?" you say. You
are quite sure of things, but it doesn't hurt to be safe. "Something concealable, in case of, well, anti-magic or something like that?"
Faded lilac eyes meet yours for a long, long moment. You can practically see the wheels turning in her head, Homura looking right at you before she nods, breaking eye contact. Her right hand hesitates over her shield for a moment before she dips into it, withdrawing...
Withdrawing...
what
"
What."
Homura raises her eyebrows at you, holding the
pistol by its barrel and presenting it to you. It's a... distinctive weapon, from the exposed trigger group transiting into what you
know is a five round magazine, to the top-exposed bolt action slide, gliding onwards to a matte, blackened barrel. A
shortened barrel.
You stare at the equally sawn down birch stock of the
sawn down Mosin-Nagant rifle. A bolt action rifle converted to a
pistol that fires
7.62mm rounds.
"It's an
obrez," Homura notes quietly. She pronounces it correctly, too. She begins to reach into her shield again. "Do you want something smalle-"
"N-no!" you squeak, taking -well, snatching, really- the pistol from her and turning it over in your hands. An
obrez. It's on the larger end of concealable, but it's something you can fit into your bag if you remove some of the marbles. It's not like you'd expect to carry anything but a pocket pistol or something in your, well, pocket. "Where did you even
get this?"
Homura shrugs with one shoulder. "There's a magical girl who shows up infrequently."
"Ah," you say. Answer enough, you guess. "Well... thank you, Homura."
She nods.
You heft the pistol in your hands for a moment, before consigning it to the care of another blob of Grief, arriving obediently at your side like a well trained butler. You smile at Homura again, and look around the silent, grey room, with its denuded racks and frozen yakuza. "Say, Homura? Did you ever check if there's any repercussions of this theft?"
Homura shrugs neutrally, the simple, motion eloquently elucidating upon her extraordinary disinclination to care about any repercussions from this theft, which would suggest that nothing signifcant would happen to Madoka as a result. Not exactly the same thing as nothing significant happening period, but still. It's something.
"Well, OK then," you say. "I was thinking... maybe we could do more than just take their guns. Destroy all their stuff to hinder their operations?"
Homura looks at you. "There's no poin-" she cuts herself off, closing her mouth, and regards you contemplatively. "I... I am not opposed," she says carefully. "You can cleanse me afterwards, right?"
A grin breaks out on your face. "Yeah. Of course," you say. "Shall we finish the rest of the loading, then get to it?" You present the latest set of loaded weapons to her.
Homura nods, claiming them and refreshing the pile. It only takes you a few more minutes, filled with the loud clattering of metal on metal.
You roll your neck, as the stream of weaponry comes to an end, absently riffling through that
awareness at the back of your head of your inventory of Grief, checking that everything's where it should be. Grief spheres by the dozen, lurking in the corridor outside, ready at your beck and call, check. One particularly large blob of Grief, with a rifle shaped cavity inside, and a normal sized sphere with a notebook shaped hollow for Homura's notebook, another for your obrez... check and check and
check. And lastly, the ring still sitting on your finger, which is, in turn, pleasantly and distinctly un-dissolved and uncorroded.
Homura stands, unfolding gracefully from her crosslegged seating position while you heave yourself up with considerably less poise. She glances at you, quirking an eyebrow microscopically.
You smile at her. "Shall we go, Homura?"
She nods, tilting her head towards the door and starting out. You glance back at the rifle you'd handled, still sitting on its rack. It has your fingerprints now, doesn't it? At a thought, Grief swings in, wickedly sharp blades forming and hammering into it with whickering chimes of steel as you slice it into so much metallic confetti.
Homura glances back at you with another raised eyebrow as the two of you head down the corridor.
"Fingerprints," you explain with a shrug.
Homura considers that, and nods. "This way," she says, turning down another corner. "They keep their money in the upper floors," she notes.
You turn into a large room. At the far end, you can see a wall knocked out, and replaced with a steel shutter, presumably leading to an underground loading bay. Stacked against the walls are long tables, sealed lockboxes arrayed in neat rows.
"Drug cache," Homura says, gesturing around the room.
"Hmm... I can work with this," you say, reaching out with your mind and sweeping tendrils of Grief. Deep purple filaments spear through the lockbox lids, revealing crystals and powders, all enclosed in neat, tidy little bags. "Homura, I'm going to do something, OK?" you warn.
Shredding isn't enough. At Homura's nod, you focus for a moment - and Grief
ignites, dozens of magnesium-white flares blazing to life, burning with vicious hunger.
You hum, grinning in the stark white light of narcotics going up in... well, not even smoke. There's no smoke, not if you don't want there to be, just perfectly clean burning will-driven, Grief-fuelled magical fires that renders
everything down to nothing but carbon dioxide, water vapour and various other oxides.
A thought strikes you as the sensation of
Witch sings against your senses - well, more than one thought, really, like Yakuza time-ninjas attacking you. Or, like, necrons. What if you'd wished to summon Warhammer figurines? Then again, why stop at
Warhammer figurines?
Surreptitiously, you look around just to be sure that there
aren't in fact any time-Yakuza ninja or necrons around. Or was it Yakuza time-ninja? Is there a difference? Well, yes, there is, but is there a
relevant difference? How wou-
You shake your head. Focus!
"Hrm. Sasa Yuuki," you mutter out loud. Relief sings through your veins that you didn't blurt out anything about waaaaghs or the Emperor or the Greater Good or glories of Chaos or something.
Homura turns her attention from the dancing flames to look at you, silence inviting her to continue.
"Do you know her?" you ask, eyeing the fire. "Sometimes magical girl, blue eyes, brown hair cut into a kind of hime cut? Also, I think we can head upstairs now?" You eye the scorched puddles of metal, all that remains of the lockboxes.
She frowns, turning to head out of the room. "Yes. She doesn't show up very frequently."
"Yeah," you agree, following. "Still... Her powers would fit the odd Witch behaviour, don't you think? Controlling Witches and all, right?"
"Why would she go after Sayaka?" Homura asks, glancing back at you as she reaches a set of stairs.
"Yeah, I was thinking that too," you say, taking the stairs two at a time. "That much doesn't make sense. But... I'm going to see whether I can find her. If she became a magical girl... well, I'll figure that out then. Burn that bridge when I get to it, as it wer- no wait
cross that bridge,
cross that bridge, not burn it."
"Noted," Homura says. "Would you like me to come along?"
[] Write-in
=====
Wheeeeee, long-ish post.
