something to note here and I know it has brought up before but it never got a conclusive answer: Why dose everyone think Mami would go berserk and killing mode on lichbomb ( NOT and I repeat NOT a witchbomb). Yes I know that in one timeline Mami got freaked out when Sayaka turned into a witch but it was more to do with the fact that Puella Magi's ultimate fate means everything Mami worked for is worthless. I mean in the cannon ONLY Sayaka reacted badly to the news of Puella Magi being more or less lichs. I mean Koyoko did not react THAT badly to the lichbomb so why dose everyone think dropping lichbomb means game over. As currently Sayaka did NOT made contract I think it is safe to tell people about it someday. ( NOT right now but soon.)
 
We don't. Not on the Lich bomb. All of our arguments and fears have always been on the Witchbomb.
 
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huh... I remember reading some where people got freaked out at Mami discovering about Lich bomb... and I never understood why? As far as I am concerned only "Horrible truth" we should worry about is the truth about Witches... NOT about Lich bomb.
Also sooner we let Mami know about truth of Soul gem the better.
( In fact I think we should have done this SOONER.)
 
While I doubt that Mami will react too badly to the lich bomb on its own, isn't it possible for her to then work out the witch bomb? I mean, if she finds out that she is the soul gem, she'll probably question what happens when it goes all dark.
 
Maybe but then again... I think it is better for her to work it out in her own terms rather than just have it shocked down to her like in the anime... mainly because her mind is ready if she works it out by herself.
 
[q] Return the hug. Evil smile up to 11. "I've finally ... caught you."
-[q] Become the devil.
-[q] ???
-[q] Profit.


Alternatively,

[q] Return the hug. "Hey Mami, guess what I can do now!"
-[q] Lift off and fly away - accompanied by "Ride of the Valkyries" and Mami's terrified screaming.



[x]Ugolino
-[x]Break down wings into grief marbles.
 
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Surface Tension pt. 25
You hug Mami back, letting her reassure herself. "I'm sorry for making you worry - for making everyone worry, especially so soon after I promised you, too."

Mami shakes her head against her shoulder, her hair brushing against your face. "It's OK, Sabrina," she says. "It's... I just... I worry."

"I'm sorry," you repeat. "I'm... I'll be more careful when testing my powers in the future."

The blonde pulls back, holding you at arm's length and looking you seriously in the eye. "I'll hold you to that," she says.

"Yeah. I... really don't want anything like this to happen. Having a Witch hatch on top of a hospital..." you trail off with a little shiver. "Uh, on that note- Mami, can I bother you for help sometime? Enchantment, roofhopping, that kind of thing? I'm... not really good at those kind of things."

"Of course, Sabrina," Mami says with a smile. "You don't even need to ask."

"Heh," you chuckle weakly. "Thanks."

Her smile fades, and she pulls you into a hug again, before finally releasing you and stepping back. "I... guess we're done here," she says, looking around at the frozen world. "Homura?"

The time traveller walks out from little structure that conceals the stairwell down to the hospital proper.

"Ah... we're done," Mami says awkwardly.

Homura nods, and puts her hand to her shield. With a crank and the clattering of gears, the timestop ends.

"May I have a cleanse?" Homura asks.

"You don't even need to ask," you say, echoing Mami's earlier words with a grin and a wink at the blonde, who smiles in amusement. Homura nods, and produces her Soul Gem, filmy with corruption. A casual wave of your hand has the Grief floating free into the air, and you compact it into your Grief marbles.

There is somewhat more Grief than what you'd expect of day to day living, and you give Homura a questioning look, which she meets with her usual poker face. "Thank you," she allows as she reforms her Soul Gem ring.

"No problem," you reply. "Mami?"

"Um, sure," she says holding out her own Soul Gem.

You cleanse that, too, before turning your head to look at the wings, still rippling over your shoulders in all their eye-bending glory. "Hm. I need to do something about that." You focus your will on the constituent Grief, bearing down on it and forcing it to collapse. Tiny spheres form within the fabric of the wings, gradually growing larger and agglomerating into your usual marbles of Grief.

By the time you're done, you're orbited by another constellation of marble sized Grief spheres. Mami's looking on with awe as you carefully pack away the spheres in your bag - it's a good thing you can use your powers to lighten the load.

"Well, that's done," you say, looking around at Mami and Homura. "Shall we go?"

Mami nods, untransforming. "I'm sure Madoka must be waiting for us," she says. "Hm... we shouldn't jump off the roof here, people will see us." She suits action to word and walks over to the stairwell instead.

"Oh, by the way, Mami," you say as you follow the blonde, Homura following in turn behind you. "Kyuubey gave the OK for healing everyone, including Hitomi."

"That's great!" Mami says.

"Hmm," you hum noncommittaly. "He also erased Sayaka's parent's memories."

"He w-what?" Mami stammers. "He... m-must have done that to keep magic a secret?"

"That's what he says," you confirm. You can feel Homura's eyes boring into your back, and as you turn the corner down the flight of stairs, you catch her eye and quirk your eyebrows at her.

"I... s-suppose it makes sense," Mami stutters. "Magic should be kept a secret."

"Should it?" Homura asks quietly.

"I... suppose he must have his reasons," Mami says.

"If he has, he's unwilling to share them," Homura says. "I've asked before."

"I..." Mami trails off and bites her lip. "I'm sure they must exist. M-maybe magic would stop working if too many people knew about it?" she laughs weakly.

"Maybe," you say. "In any case, I told him not to do that. Mindwipe Sayaka's parents, I mean."

"Oh... Good thinking," Mami says uneasily. "Um, the lift is this way..." she adds, turning right.

"Sorry," you add belatedly as you wait for the lift. "I... didn't mean to upset you."

"It's OK, Sabrina," she says, moving closer to you. "I-it's OK."

The rest of the walk back to meet up with Madoka is spent in an awkward silence, with Mami wrapped up in her own thoughts and sticking close to you, and Homura... well, being Homura.

Both Mami and Homura perk up, though, when you catch sight of Madoka - Mami putting on a smile with practiced ease, and Homura... well, she straightens up a little, gait shifting subtly. You probably wouldn't have noticed if you weren't looking for something of the sort.

"Hello!" the pinkette calls happily when she sees the three of you, bouncing to her feet. "Did you find... whatever it was?"

"Yes, it was nothing major, in the end," Mami smiles. Homura nods in support of the blonde.

"That's good," Madoka says brightly. "Shall we go see Sayaka?"

"Let's," you agree, taking the lead. You know where they are, anyway.

"So, how was school today?" you ask as you walk.

"Oh, today we had math!" Madoka tells you. "And English."

"Mmm?" you say curiously. Switching to English, and speaking deliberately slowly, you ask, "How did that go?"

"It was, um, good," Madoka says, speech a little stilted, beaming at you nevertheless. "What... do you... think, Homura?"

Homura shrugs. "It was a good lesson," she says with relative fluidity. Still a bit of a stumble on the syllables, though. "How about you, Mami?"

The blonde flashes a smile -perhaps a little strained if you know what you're looking for-, and replies in nearly fluent english. "Today's lessons went well." She shifts back to Japanese and adds, "We didn't have english today, though."

"Your english is really good!" Madoka tells Mami. "You too, Homura!"

"Hey, what about me?" you say playfully.

"Oh, you too, Sabrina!" the pinkette says. "But... you're sort of cheating."

"Ehhhh, don't call it cheating, call it... natural advantages," you smirk back.

Mami shakes her head. "It's cheating. Don't you agree, Homura?"

The time traveller nods. "Cheating."

"Pfff, see if I help you with your homework when you need it," you say, mock angrily.

"No! You monster!" Madoka cries, equally melodramatic, before giving in and beginning to giggle.

Mami and you both start to giggle too, while Homura... smiles, the corners of her mouth tugging up ever so slightly.

The rest of the walk over to visit Sayaka is spent chattering away about little things that happened in school, even Homura injecting a few comments from time to time. You carefully steer the conversation away from anything magic-related, though, for Mami and Madoka's sake.

Eventually, you reach Sayaka's ward room, and, finding the door open, head in. "Hello!" Madoka calls, before looking around the room, pausing and half-bowing to Kenji and Miho, who's now awake. Sayaka's parents are sitting together, huddled over what you'd guess is a rental laptop and presumably discussing their next move. Sayaka's bed is empty.

"Ah, Madoka!" Miho greets with a wan smile.

"Mrs Miki, Mr. Miki," Mami greets in turn with a similar half bow, Homura a belated second behind.

"Ah, you must be Sayaka's school mates," Kenji says. "And... Sabrina, right?"

"Yes," you confirm.

"Sayaka went for a walk," Kenji informs you. "She shouldn't have gone too far, maybe you could go and find her?"

"Ah, OK," Madoka agrees readily, and the four of you troop out of the room again.

Sayaka, as it turns out, is walking around the patient's lounge on the floor, and the bluenette immediately brightens upon seeing you.

"Madoka, Mami!" she calls happily. "Sabrina! ... transfer student." Her face sours as she catches sight of the last member of your party.

"Sayaka..." Madoka says. "Homura came to visit you, too."

"Fine," Sayaka pouts. "Hello, Akemi."

"Miki," Homura says politely.

"Hello, Sayaka," Mami smiles. You gesture at the soft chairs arranged around the lounge, and take one for yourself.

"How are you, Sayaka?" the pinkette asks anxiously. She sits next to Sayaka, directly opposite the small table in the center of this particular arrangement of chairs. Homura, of course, sits next to the pinkette, to your right, and Mami sits on your left.

"I'm fine!" Sayaka says, puffing out her cheeks in indignation. You can't help but raise an eyebrow at that, which she turns her nose up to. You roll your eyes.

"Oh, hey, Sabrina," Sayaka addresses you, seemingly remembering something.

"Mmm?" you look at her inquiringly.

"Did you tell Hitomi about, well, my situation?" Sayaka asks you.

"Um..." you think back. "Yeah, I guess I did?"

"Well, thanks for that," the bluenette says happily, slapping you on the back with some force.

"Uh?" you say eloquently.

"You don't know?" she asks. "Hitomi got in contact with her parents, and they're helping us out."

"Oh," you say. "Um... no, that was entirely Hitomi's doing. I didn't say anything about that to her."

"Oh. Huh." Sayaka blinks. "Well, thank her for me when you see her, would you?"

"Sure!" Madoka says. You nod in agreement.

"It's good to hear you'll be getting help," Mami says.

"Yeah," Sayaka grins.

The five of you chat for a while, before deciding it's about time to go to see Hitomi. Before you go, though...

"Hey, um. Sayaka," you say quietly.

"Yeah?" the bluenette looks at you.

"Um. You know how your parents don't remember?" you ask cautiously.

"Yeah, it's kinda weird," Sayaka nods.

"Kyuubey did it," you tell her bluntly. "He wiped their memories."

Sayaka's face cycles through incomprehension, then shock, then anger. "He what?" she shouts, voice rising. Madoka, beside her, looks utterly dismayed. "That's terrible," the pinkette says.

"Sayaka!" Mami soothes, glancing around at the rest of the lounge - people are looking. "I-I'm sure he had his reasons."

"Yeah? I'd like to hear them," Sayaka snaps. "That's not nice!"

You sigh. "What's done is done. I've told him not to, though - tell me if you even think it happened again. And the same goes for you too, Madoka."

"Y-yeah," Madoka shivers. "H-he really did that?"

You nod, and sigh. "I... I'm sorry I just dropped it on the both of you. But... it's kind of important that you know."

"Um. Thanks, I think," Sayaka says.

An awkward silence falls. "A-anyway," Madoka says eventually. "We should go and see Hitomi now..."

"Oh, one last thing," you say. "Don't worry, this one's happier," you add with a smile. "We're going to tell Hitomi that we can heal her - you want to be there, right?"

Sayaka frowns, thinking about it. "Yeah, I would. Um, I'm supposed to stay around here, though."

"Ah," you say.

"Maybe another time?" Mami offers.

[] Another time
[] Tell Hitomi without Sayaka
[] Go see Hitomi
[] Write in conversational topics with Hitomi
[] Write-in


=====​

You have one thousand and thirty one Grief marbles in your sling bag, and two Grief Seeds in your pockets. Still plenty of room in the bag, by the way, a thousand plus marbles sounds like a lot, but isn't actually, volumetrically.
 
You have one thousand and thirty one Grief marbles in your sling bag, and two Grief Seeds in your pockets. Still plenty of room in the bag, by the way, a thousand plus marbles sounds like a lot, but isn't actually, volumetrically.

Well it kind of is. At the 8.58cm^3 I calculated earlier and factoring in that the limit for sphere packing is ~74% efficiency means a thousand marbles takes up 11,595cm^3.

To make that easier to visualize that's 11.6 liters or 3 gallons.

For comparison the capacities of a a couple (only ones I could find with volumes listed) of sling bags from Amazon:

Everest Sling Bag - 730 cubic inches = 11,963cm^3 = 96.9% full
Port & Company Honeycomb Sling Pack - 1,326 cubic inches = 21,729cm^3 = 53.4% full
Everest Luggage Sporty Hydration Rugged Sling Bag - 850 cubic inches = 13,929cm^3 = 83.2% full

And from what I can tell most of them are around that same size. So even in the best case the sling bag is going to be over half full and from what I can tell this are adult bags and Mami probably has a smaller child version.
 
[x]Maybe we could all meet up in the lounge?
[x]Go and meet up with Hitomi, and, after a while, bring up that thing we talked about we wanted everyone to be there for. It is really important. It's a bit of a walk, but...
[x]Grab Kyousuke too and a wheelchair. If he asks questions, tell him it's to do with his friends and his injury.
[x]To the lounge!
-[x]Telepathy Madoka or Sayaka to see if they want to start it off...
-[x]Let Mami take over if she seems to want to.
-[x]But if no one else does...
--[x]Demonstration. Nothing too flashy. Maybe just a transformation or grief marbles.
--[x]Magic exists, and it can do impossible things. The three of us are magical girls who've made contracts- we need to fight creatures called Witches because of our magic. Since Hitomi and Kyousuke are friends of our friends, we were planning to use our magic together with Mami and Homura to try healing Sayaka and both of them.


We have absolutely no reason to be concerned about secrecy- and we can call Kyubey out if, say, nurses or Sayaka's parents stumble on our little Q&A and he wants to go full MiB on them again.

"Yes, we're just giving a demonstration of magic and explaining the truth about the world. Would you like to listen in, or do you want the ambiguous alien mascot to mindscrub you after we're done?"
 
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[x] Ugolino

----

Maybe we should make them cubes for better stacking

Apparently, actually, the best way to pack things in 3D is hexagonal polygons. Basically, construct cells of honeycomb and then compress everything together that way. I'm just quoting from Wikipedia, so people who know math and work out the proof can discuss in more detail. Link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb
 
Apparently, actually, the best way to pack things in 3D is hexagonal polygons. Basically, construct cells of honeycomb and then compress everything together that way. I'm just quoting from Wikipedia, so people who know math and work out the proof can discuss in more detail. Link below.

If we can control how they pack, then any shape that can tesselate will perform equally well. If not, then I'd recommend the Rhombic Dodecahedron, whose space-filling tesselation is arranged the same as the most efficient packing of spheres but also filling the extra space.

Or we could, you know, make one giant one that is shaped exactly like half of the interior of our bag.
 
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If we can control how they pack, then any shape that can tesselate will perform equally well. If not, then I'd recommend the Rhombic Dodecahedron, whose space-filling tesselation is arranged the same as the most efficient packing of spheres but also filling the extra space.

Or we could, you know, make one giant one that is shaped exactly like half of the interior of our bag.

Honestly I prefer the latter. It's much easier. I also favor the Giant Spahder. Actually can we make grief jewelry? That would be cool, having a grief spider hanging out in our hair.
 
Grief Legos. Then we can build castles and things if we get bored. :D

*Upon exiting one long, long, long time stop*

Mami: "Um... Sabrina? Why is there a 100m tall Lego Castle in the park?"

Sabrina: "I was bored. Really bored. Don't worry. I'm sure QB will stop buy and eat it sometime soon."

*Awkward pause*

Sabrina: "Well... Hopefully before it turns into a Lego Castle Witch..."
 
A witch of LEGO must be one of the most terrifying things I've ever read in an internet forum.

Great work guys.

[x] Ugolino
 
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