"Bah," you grumble, pursing your lips.
"She's not a magical girl," Homura says, pointing out the obvious. Her eyes seem tired, but something in the set of her shoulders suggests relief.
"Nope," you agree, lips twisting. "Ah, well. It was a long shot, anyway. I... Hm." You scratch at your head, eyeing Sasa Yuuki's frozen scowl for a long moment.
Homura exhales softly, a quiet huff just enough to draw your attention.
You raise your eyebrows at her, and she flicks her gaze over to the frozen girl - the one you've come all this way to find.
"I know, I know," you say, clutching at your head in annoyance. "I mean, it's good that she's not contracted, but it'd have made for a nice, easy explanation if she'd been behind the thing with Sayaka and Maria, you know?"
"Maria?" Homura asks, frowning. "The... Witch?"
"Yeah, I mentioned the name last time, right?" you ask.
"You did," Homura agrees, continuing to regard Sasa.
"Ugh," you grunt, coming to a decision after vacillating between dropping the timestop to talk to her and not. Ultimately, Mami's more important, you decide - you'd promised her you'd be
right back in the way only Homura's magic can make literal. "Yeah, we won't be talking to her now."
"Now?" Homura asks, eyes sharp.
"Yeah," you agree. "I... well, I promised Mami I'd be back, so..." You shrug. "I think Sasa needs someone to talk to her, though. Persuade her not to become a magical girl and stuff... probably right after lunch is actually over. I'll let you know."
"Of course," Homura says.
You give her a suspicious look. "'Of course?'"
She shrugs, the corner of her mouth making the very slightest of twitches upwards. "You're predictable."
You open your mouth to protest.
And then close it again with a click.
"... I suppose I am," you concede.
Homura shrugs, turning to head back to the exit. "Back to school."
"Ah..." you say, following her as you make your way carefully through the sparse crowds. "Actually, what do you think about checking for that Kuroki girl? Since we're all the way out here already?"
The time traveller's arm twitches a little - her left arm, her shield arm.
Her Soul Gem.
"Fine," she says, a moment later. "You'll cleanse me later?"
"Of course, Homura," you say, taking a quick few steps forward to touch her on the shoulder. "Hey. I promised, Homura - always."
She nods. "I know," she says, looking away, that faint smile gone. "I don't pay much attention to her," she says, frowning. "She might be in this shopping centre; have you finished checking it?"
"Pretty much," you agree. "I've scanned it quite thoroughly."
"Downtown, then," Homura murmurs.
"Downtown it is, then," you say, smiling at Homura as you head for the stairs. "You know, it's probably a good thing Sasa isn't contracted. I mean, she looks like a bloody banana peel in her costume."
Homura blinks slowly at the sudden change in direction of the conversation, her forehead creasing. "Banana peel?"
"... well, yes," you say, rubbing sheepishly at your nose. "I mean. You know what it looks like, right? Yellow and brown and kinda, you know..." you gesture vaguely in the shape of the girl's giant harlequin hat thing.
"I... suppose so?" Homura says, that crease between her eyebrows deepening in what's probably perplexity.
"Yep," you say, grinning at Homura as you bump the door to the stairs open and take them two at a time. "I'm just kidding, Homura. But really, that
abomination that is her puella magi costume is
ugly, don't you think?"
"It... is, yes," Homura agrees, following you up the stairs.
"Mmmmhm," you say as you step out onto the roof. You breathe deep - the timestop has this rather unpleasant side effect of making the air rather
stuffy. A wave of your hand reforms your MOF, and you step on before offering your hand to Homura with a grand, sweeping gesture.
She raises an eyebrow, but accepts said hand to step on.
You find yourself musing about Sasa and her banana peel costume as you lift the MOF into the air, vectoring it in the direction Homura indicated. Heh. "Banana," you say in English. It's really a rather silly word, if you think about it. "Banananananana."
...
You can
feel Homura's perplexed look on the back of your head.
"So, anyway," you say without turning to face Homura and raising your voice a little. "Where to next?"
"There," she says, lifting her hand to point. "You realise I don't have a very good idea of where she might be? She's not... important, and I never bothered to track her much."
"Meguca are for saving," you say, smiling at Homura.
"See above, regarding predictable," she says, shaking her head. She glances out at the time frozen landscape, sighing and leaning forward.
"Say, if you don't mind my asking, what
does happen to elevators when you touch them in timestop?" you say, not one to let the conversation die.
Homura grimaces. "Nothing good," she responds. "The people on the elevator don't get pulled in."
You wince. "... Ouch," you say. "That's... Uh. Yeah, ouch."
She shrugs. "I don't do it," she says simply.
"Right," you say, exhaling heavily. "Gotcha."
Homura sighs, looking around the cityscape. "Somewhere in this area," Homura says.
You look around, find yourself in the eastern part of the central business district of Mitakihara. You're not terribly familiar with the location, but you've been here before. Or at least, flown by - you can see that big Development Bank of Japan spire off in the distance. You set the MOF zipping across the area, skimming just above the roads and winding around the lamp posts.
Your mind drifts, wandering back to thoughts of Mami as you stretch your senses out, scanning and scanning for any magical girls or potentials. At this time of the day, though... there aren't many teenagers out of school, and you don't even see any potentials around the area.
You scrub at your face, cheeks warm under your fingers. Mami recruited a fair few puella magi herself, didn't she?
Then again, Kyuubey probably shepherded them to her, or at least pointed her in their direction.
Feh.
"Hm... Homura," you say, sobering. "Can you tell me about powerful meguca who'll be good to have on board against Walpurgisnacht? No, wait-" you raise your finger. "I don't just mean more bodies to throw at it. I'm sure that's helpful - but can you think of meguca who can truly contribute, won't get in each other's way, and have a decent chance of not dying?"
You close your eyes, taking a breath, and open them again, smiling at Homura. You try to put as much reassurance, as much
confidence in the expression as you can. "Give me names, locations, and I'll do the rest. Even the ones that might be harder to persuade - I have... a better chance."
Homura nods, violet eyes clear and sharp. "Good idea," she agrees. She purses her lips for a moment, looking out over the cityscape whizzing past as she thinks. "Tanaka Tamiko from Sendai. You've met her. She has very strong forcefields."
"Right," you say. "I can probably get Rin as well... and that probably means Sakura's coming along."
"It would have been... good to have Hamasaki," Homura says, frowning. "It doesn't matter. The ones from Fukushima: Akiyama, Koizumi and Nishimura. Taniguchi Emi from North Tokyo, she's a..." She trails off, pursing her lips.
"Homura?" you prompt, raising a curious eyebrow.
"Do you know... the Touhou games?" she says, slowly and hesitantly.
"... yes?" you say, second eyebrow joining the first.
"Taniguchi likes to pretend to be Yakumo Yukari," Homura explains, still hesitant. "Her powers are... not dissimilar. Within reason."
"... what, really?" you say, frowning in perplexity. A conceptual power over 'boundaries' - or at least, that's what the game character has. You rather doubt that the girl has enough power to control, for example, the boundary between life and death, but that's an interesting entity to style oneself after. "Does she have a Ran?"
"No," Homura says. She pauses for a while, obviously considering. "Sono Mako, Utsugi Karina, from Kagoshima. How far are you willing to travel?"
That's all the way to the southern tip of Japan, you recognise. On Kyushu island.
You sigh as you draw to the end of the grid search. It doesn't look like there's anything of interest in the here and now - not even any Witches in this area. You sort of doubt you're going to find Kuroki here.
Homura's still waiting for an answer, too.
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