ETA till homuhomu: Less than 24 hours (in universe that is. A fast writer I am not).
Her time will come. I have an interlude planned out for her already after one or two more chapters. The timing will be dependent on whether or not the next chapters ends up as one big chapter or if I have to split it into two.
Interesting. "Madoka wished good" is the obvious explanation for magical fixfic soulbonds, but in that case, why would Madoka feel like she's had these powers before?
Modaka's thoughts here are from trying to use telepathy, she feels strangely like she's done it before but something its different this time.
Which, well she has used telepathy before even is she can't remember that, she's used it in past timelines often without even being a magical girl. The reason it feels not quite the same here is because she plus her friends are unknowingly maintaining this nascent telepathic network themselves. Usually they have to run their brain-mail through Https:/Meguca.MessagingService.Kyu, which is maintained by admin [Contractual Cabbit]. But now they are both the users and the admins of their own small network.
If they can use telepathy without being contracted, i wonder if they can learn to use their other abilities as well?
Healing is always useful, as is the super parkour.
Her time will come. I have an interlude planned out for her already after one or two more chapters. The timing will be dependent on whether or not the next chapters ends up as one big chapter or if I have to split it into two
That's good to hear! All joking aside, I do hope that Homura's introduction into the rapidly expanding hugpile goes smoothly, but I just know it's gonna be a hell of a whiplash for her what with the soul connection and whatever else Madoka and her soulmates could do.
Https:/Meguca.MessagingService.Kyu, which is maintained by admin [Contractual Cabbit]. But now they are both the users and the admins of their own small network.
Kyubey is going to be so confused when he tries to talk to the nascent goddess and finds out he can't talk to her because he's not authorized to be on her network this time.
So as they are maintaining their own telepathic network, they should be capable of sufficient awareness of their own souls to preform magic. Unlike megucas, they have to deal with the limitations of the human body, but also unlike megucas, grief can go down without grief seeds and witch-out is impossible (probably on that last point).
The interior of the Mikuni Manor stood in stark contrast to the outside, wooden walls and fine paintings flanked the group as Oriko led them down the corridor. There was no graffiti or other signs of vandalism to be found, just a thin film of dust that was encroaching on the otherwise beautiful decorations.
At first, it appeared that the inside of the mansion had been spared from the Mikuni's fall from grace, but that was only at a glance. Looking closer Hitomi could see lesser forms of destruction, the dust for example, alongside the scattered cobwebs that hid in corners and floorboards that creaked and groaned underfoot.
These puzzling observations, combined with what little she knew about the Mikuni family, were beginning to form a dark picture. Hitomi couldn't be sure yet, there were after all a few different explanations for the Manors state of disrepair, but the more she saw the more she couldn't help but feel that something was terribly off about all this.
The corridor opened up into a modest dining room, well 'modest' by mansion standards. The walls were mounted by a mix of candle holders beside yet more paintings, with a singular grandfather clock ticking away languidly in the corner. At the centre of the room was the dining table, a simple rectangular design made of expensive wood and large enough to seat eight people quite comfortably.
"It will take a few minutes to prepare the tea." Oriko said, gesturing to the chairs with a placid smile. "Please, make yourselves comfortable, I will be with you shortly." She addressed them with a graceful nod before exiting the room, presumably to do just as she just said.
The three friends took to sitting together on one of the long sides of the rectangular table. They were quickly joined by the strange girl who had introduced herself as Kirika. She took an end seat with a wide smile stretched across her face, her eyes flickered about the room as if she was trying to memorize every detail of her surroundings.
"Right, so we got inside the big bad house of darkness." Sayaka transmitted, her mental voice accompanied a wave of confidence. "Step one complete, step two is to get the mastermind to stop her evil plan. So how do we do that?"
"…I intend to bargain for her silence." Hitomi admitted, tracing a finger across the table as she did so. "We were engaged in a battle of wits from the moment we step inside this place. Oriko will be looking to gain as many concessions as possible from me, while I must play damage control. Has either of you seen anything noteworthy? Something I might be able to use as leverage in the coming negotiations?"
"Er, well…" Sayaka trailed off, casting another glance around the room as she did so. "She really seems to like art I guess? Or is having so many paintings just a normal rich people thing?"
"Such large collections are usually the domain of the wealthy, but you are also correct that this much is considered excessive." Hitomi agreed, taking a moment of reflective contemplation before she continued. "The late Mikuni's were quite the art enthusiasts if I remember correctly, both painters and collectors. It is quite possible that we passed a number of their works on the way here."
"Does that mean…" Madoka bit her lip, fingers clasped together in a nervous yet thoughtful embrace. "She keeps the paintings up to remember her parents? Then… why are some of them so dusty?"
"That is…" Hitomi took a moment to remember their walk through the corridor. Madoka was right, many of the paintings had clearly been left to collect dust while only a small number had been kept clean. "…very odd. Perhaps she only has time to keep a few paintings in good condition?"
Before the group could explore that idea further, Oriko re-entered the room. A silver tray balanced between her hands, which was in turn laden with a finely crafted tea set. She placed the five steaming cups of tea on the table in front of each person before setting the tray down.
"Please." Oriko gave a shallow bow, her smile still unfailingly polite. "Help yourselves to the tea. I don't exactly get many guests, and it would be a shame to waste such an exquisite drink."
A reminder that they were guests, thus negotiating only at Oriko's pleasure, followed by a casual display of wealth. Hitomi processed it all before allowing herself to even touch the tea, instead, she let the brew's warm aroma waft through the air, her analytical thoughts mingle with the pleasant scent.
She took the cup daintily from its plate, and with a light sip let the hot liquid wash against her tongue. The flavour of Jasmine was unmistakable, and while it was not Hitomi's favourite blend her host was correct that it would be a shame to set aside such a drink-
*Slurp*
Hitomi's head snapped to the side, eyes wide in horror as she watched her friend commit a most terrible social blunder.
"Sayaka!" She mentally scolded, barely keeping a scowl off her face. "What in the world are you doing?"
"Uh, drinking tea? Like a normal person?" Sayaka projected back with a tingle of confusion. "We can't all be as refined as you ya know."
Hitomi almost dropped her tea as Sayaka pouted- No, she was sending the concept of pouting down the telepathic link. It was as ridiculous as it was relieving, that instead of making the expression she was using telepathy to pout directly into Hitomi's mind.
…Though past the tense absurdity of the situation, a small part of Hitomi had to admit that the whole mess was oh so very lovably Sayaka. Taking action with pride, and perhaps a slight lack of foresight.
Madoka must have felt similarly, as she was radiating a steady wave of loveaffectionworry as she attentively sipped at her tea. The pinkette was blessedly quiet in her indulgence, at least in comparison to her girlfriend's slurping.
Kirika didn't seem to notice the disruption, as her eyes were focused only on the brown liquid in front of her. The strange girl had the teacup cradled between her hands like the drink was some kind of precious treasure of great importance. So precious in fact that it looked like the girl had no intention of drinking it when she could simply stare at it instead.
And through all of this Oriko was still sitting there, being insufferably enigmatic-
"Miss Shizuki." Oriko's voice cut through the tension, her cup meeting her plate with an audible clatter, drawing all eyes to her. "Perhaps it would be for the best if we were to, as they say, cut to the chase?"
Hitomi nodded, slipping back into formal posture as she let all of her senses focus on her opponent.
Negotiations were about to begin.
"You have a bright future ahead of you, Miss Shizuki." Oriko continued, eyes fixed on the green-haired girl across from her. "Heiress of a respectable fortune, both well-educated and well connected. I'm sure your family must be very proud of you."
Oriko wasn't saying anything that they didn't already know. But that was the point, wasn't it? To remind Hitomi of how much she had to lose if the wrong information reached the right ears. An implicit threat, one she would have to counter.
"Such things are to be expected." Hitomi waved the false compliments away, exuding confidence and haughtiness that she didn't truly feel as she spoke, a familiar defensive measure. "It is easy to build such things upon solid foundations and unshakable ground. It also makes it much harder for simple mistakes or misfortunes to wash it away."
It was a dance of words, a balance of attack and defence. First a barrier of confidence to protect her own negotiating position, followed by a subtle strike, a verbal knife to the ribs through a reminder of how fast the Mikuni's had fallen from grace to unbalance her foe.
"Perhaps." If the attack worked Oriko didn't show it, her expression still calm and unruffled. "But even the sturdiest construction work may shatter under enough pressure. If the Shizuki family foundations are truly unshakable, then why did you follow me here in the first place?"
"Peace of mind." The weak lie slipped from Hitomi's lips as naturally as she breathed. "Private matters should best be resolved in private as well, don't you agree?" Her smile was as polite as it was false, a mask to hide the turmoil below.
That was the crux of the issue, there was a hard limit on how much Hitomi could downplay the threat Oriko's blackmail represented. Simply by coming to negotiate she had already shown her hand, because why would she be here if not to diffuse this potential danger? Why bother to negotiate at all if the blackmail was useless?
"I suppose…" Oriko mussed with a placid smile. "That there is much to be gained from keeping this matter private. I'm sure that we can come to a… mutually beneficial privacy agreement."
It was a rather longwinded way of saying 'I'm going to blackmail you', yet it made Hitomi both more tense and relaxed at the same time. It was a statement that negotiations were possible… but that they would also be costly.
"Three favours." Oriko announced succinctly, a slight gleam of cold calculation leaking through her mask. "Three tasks for you to complete, to be called in at a time of my choosing."
"That seems awfully imbalanced, three favours for one little secret?" Hitomi argued, trying to run damage control while also scrutinising her opponents shift in demeanour. "A one for one trade would make for a far more balanced agreement."
"That would depend on how much you value your 'little secret'." The gleam in Oriko's eyes had grown, spreading onto her face in the form of a small yet triumphant smile. "Do you truly place so little importance on the matters of your heart, on the value of your love?"
"…What?"
Something inside Hitomi seethed, a burning hot fire that both was and wasn't hers. It took a moment to put the pieces together, to dig into the anger and separate it into component parts. There was pulsating shocktension from Madoka, mixed with a storm of angerfustration that poured from Sayaka, all coming together into a cocktail of pain and uncertainty that was born… from Hitomi's own fears.
"Two favours, then?" Oriko relented slightly, though didn't show one the smirk still affixed on her face.
"…Agreed."
Hitomi didn't want to agree, she also didn't really want to face what all of this wheeling and dealing meant to her either. The true reason why she was here in the first place.
She loved her friends.
That was never in doubt, she cared for Madoka deeply, loved every moment she spent Sayaka, she treasured the bonds she shared with them but-
That was all as friends, It had been a friendship flavoured love.
But then… the hospital had happened, then the sleepover and…
One night, a handful of hours and a few kisses had upended everything she thought she knew about her heart. She'd been floundering, still was in fact. It felt like she'd barely had a moment to breathe, to recoup and reorganise her thoughts and now…
Now she was here, being asked to put a number, a value on her feelings to be traded away.
How much did she love her friends? Not as she once thought she did but…
How much did she love them in… the way she wasn't supposed to.
How many favours were her feelings worth?
Hitomi didn't know, her eyes slammed shut-
Realisationworry-
Love.
Two pairs of phantom arms descended upon her. An embrace born solely from the concept of being embraced.
It felt completely… MadokaSayaka.
Hitomi relaxed into that feeling, tension and stress bleeding away, replaced by a familiar warmth.
The warmth of her Madoka/Sayaka.
The Madoka/Sayaka who she loved, no matter what.
…Was it really that simple?
"It feels scary." Madoka whispered through the ethereal embrace. "It's all so new and strange and none of us know how this is supposed to work but- I… I think it's okay not to know just yet, because part of being in love is figuring this stuff out, right?"
"Don't let her get to you Hitomi!" Sayaka shouted, her impassioned words brimming with strength and fire. "Who cares what this girl thinks? She's the one who's dumb enough to try and put a number on love. Let her be stupid, you have something she never will, us!"
A joyous sigh slipped out between Hitomi's lips. It was so cheesy, so open… so lovable.
Her friends truly were, at their cores, supportive lovable dorks with zero subtlety, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
Renewed and refreshed, Hitomi opened her eyes…
And saw the situation anew.
Oriko was no longer smiling, her face had returned to its enigmatic neutrality. But now Hitomi could see what she had missed before, her opponent's acumen for polite arguments, her propensity for masks… It was like looking in a mirror.
Oriko used masks like Hitomi did, to show people exactly what she wanted them to see. The blank neutrality was of course a mask, but the smile wasn't Oriko's true expression either, merely another mask, designed to unsettle and confuse.
Past all the masks, all the falsity and deception, there was a core that Hitomi could strike at.
Oriko had already landed such a blow, using her knowledge and leverage on the situation to strike past Hitomi's masks. It had worked… for a time.
Now Hitomi needed to do the same.
"Of course." She began again, taking a fortifying sip from her teacup. "Agreeing to favours without limit would be absurd. I refuse to partake in anything illegal or immoral, such things would create far more issues than they would solve."
Or, in simpler terms, there was no way Hitomi would agree to do something that would create even more blackmail.
Something in Hitomi's words seemed to affect Oriko, as the girl's gaze gained a new edge of discerning focus. It was like she was judging Hitomi, trying to measure her in a way she hadn't before.
"…You can rest assured, Miss Shizuki, that my favours will only be used towards noble ends." Oriko eventually answered, her words filled with an unusual level of gravitas.
"Noble ends? By whose definition of noble?" Hitomi challenged, placing her teacup down with a punctuating clink.
"Mine." The girl freely admitted. "Does that trouble you?"
"Duh, she's blackmailing us!" Sayaka grumbled, her mental voice painting a very disgruntled picture. "Good people don't use blackmail, that's like morality 101."
"…Noble ends." Madoka muttered into the empathic bond. "But she hasn't said anything about noble means has she?"
"I was thinking just the same thing." Hitomi agreed. "If she believes her end goals are good enough, they could be used justify any number of unscrupulous actions to achieve them."
"So, ends justify the means stuff?" Sayaka paused for a moment, before sending a mental head shake. "That still makes her a bad person then. Good ideas built on evil actions are still bad news."
"Perhaps I can prove my good intent?" Oriko spoke, unknowingly interrupting the mental back and forth. "That is if you are willing to look at these." The enigmatic girl reached below her seat and pulled out a thick vanilla folder, she gently placed the file on the table before sliding it over.
Hitomi gingerly picked up the file, she could tell at just a glance that it was thick with dozens of papers. The bulging folder practically exploded onto the table, disgorging its content in a flurry of black and white.
It took Hitomi a few seconds to pick a paper out of the pile, sifting through the mess alongside Madoka and Sayaka until they each had a document to look through. Hitomi had ended up with what looked like a compilation of finances, business expenses mixed with various notations in pen.
Those notations, combined with Hitomi's own maths skills, quickly painted an unfortunate picture. The numbers didn't add up properly, and some of the marked expenses were dubious at best. It bore all the hallmarks of creative accounting.
Her friend's papers were of similarly dubious content. Madoka had picked up a transcript of a seemingly innocent discussion, but on closer inspection had one party subtly threatening the other, while Sayaka had a grainy picture that seemed to be showing a deal of some sort, a deal that just so happened to involve a large number of guns.
Confusion/concern/curiosity reverberated through each of them.
"This is some really bad stuff right?" Sayaka asked, though her emotions implied that this was more of a statement than a question.
"…Do you think that all of the papers are like this?" Madoka mentally murmured, casting a tentative glance towards the remaining pile of documents.
"Like what? Really suspicious? Highly incriminating?" Sayaka answered somewhat sarcastically, her thoughts a potent mix of worry/excitement. "I'm thinking both, seriously this looks like something out of a crime movie! What is she doing with all this stuff!?"
Hitomi let the waves of her friend's concern wash over her, their emotions echoes of her own as she tried to puzzle out how this collection of documents was supposed to be 'proof of good intent' on Oriko's part.
"This would be the first of the two favours." The girl explained, gesturing to the open file with a glint of something sharp in her eyes. "It is vital that these people are brought to justice for their crimes… Unfortunately, I have reason to believe that reporting these to authorities would simply result in my evidence vanishing into the hands of the accused and their allies." Oriko opined somewhat bitterly.
"You, however, Miss Shizuki…" Her previously placid smile gained a visceral edge. "You have access, both through your own connections and those of your parents, to various people who could spread this information far and wide." Oriko tapped the file with her finger, the audible thumps punctuating her statement. "Spread this evidence, get it to as many people as possible, and I will consider it as one of the two favours fulfilled."
With that explanation, the die was cast. Oriko had set her conditions, the price for her silence, so the only question was…
Would Hitomi pay it?
"Uh… Oriko?" The slightly subdued voice of Kirika spoke up, drawing everyone's attention to her. The odd girl had at some point gotten up from the table and was now pointing at one of the papers, a blurred picture of two people in a wooden room. "Isn't this guy your grandpa?"
Hitomi peered closer, it did indeed appear to be a picture of the late Senator Mikuni's father, and through that connection Oriko's grandfather. The man was the face of the Mikuni family and had disowned his son after the now-deceased man's misdeeds had been brought to light.
"…Yes, that is my…" Oriko's mask cracked for a moment, her features twisting just slightly downwards into a pained grimace. "… Estranged grandfather. Most of the crimes here can be tied back to either his actions or others of the wider Mikuni family." Her expression evened out into inscrutable indifference once more, but everyone at the table saw the chink in her emotional armour.
"Wait, so the whole Mikuni families wrapped up in crime!?" Sayaka exclaimed, her telepathic 'voice' somehow managing to get even louder. "I thought it was only that senator guy who was doing bad stuff, is she saying her whole family was in on it?"
"…It could be falsified." Hitomi considered the ideas for a moment. "But there is a large amount of evidence here, she would had to have prepared all of this over multiple weeks, she couldn't have done it in only the hour she had since she saw us. So, either Miss Mikuni had a dossier of false evidence for this exact scenario, or…"
"Or it's the real deal." Sayaka finished for her. "And she's planning to… what? Blow the lid on the whole thing? Get her family brought to justice? Execute some kind of revenge thing?"
"Revenge?" Madoka inquired thoughtfully. "Why do you think she wants revenge Sayaka?"
"I mean, she's living alone in this big house, right?" Sayaka asked rhetorically, punctuating her explanation with a telepathic image of the Mikuni Manor. "With how defaced and dusty everything is, her super-rich family must not be taking care of it. Oriko said she's 'estranged' somehow, and there's definitely some bad blood there… So maybe she wants revenge for being pushed away?"
The empathic trio went silent, letting their emotions reverb off each other in streams of contemplation/unease/agitation.
"Or, you know, maybe I've watched too much anime." Sayaka admitted with a phantom shrug.
"You could be right." Hitomi assured her a wave of affirmation/affection. "Even outside of fiction revenge is a powerful motivator, it would certainly explain why Miss Mikuni is willing to resort to blackmail to achieve her ends. If her family truly has such connections on both sides of the law, then it would also explain why she expects reporting the evidence would do nothing."
"So… Are you gonna do it? The bluenette asked with a rush of excitement/caution. "We could do some real good here, get a whole lot of bad guys arrested if we get this to the right people."
"But what if it's all fake, what if I spread this around and it's all a lie?" Hitomi mentally transmitted, her words pulsing with worry/agitation.
"Then we tell everyone the truth, that Oriko tricked us into doing it, made us think it was real." Sayaka replied confidently.
"Right…" Hitomi trailed off. "And this is supposed to stop her from unleashing her blackmail on me how exactly?"
"Uh…"
"And what if it is real?" Madoka cut in, drawing both of her friends' attention with an agitated mix of anxiety/fear/protectiveness. "What if this really is evidence of horrible illegal things, being done by horrible people who don't want them getting out? What if you try to spread this stuff, only for the people behind it to trace it back to you?"
It took Hitomi a moment to realise what Madoka was saying but once she did understanding hit her like a brick. Even if all this proof was real, that only meant that spreading it around held an equally real risk.
"Yeah, okay that's a bad idea, let's not draw the attention of a bunch of dangerous influential criminals." Sayaka backtracked, her words laced with a nervous edge. "Out telepathy powers are cool and all, but they don't block bullets."
"…We need to learn more." Hitomi concluded. "Or rather, we need to push Miss Mikuni for more information, that means we need leverage but…"
"We don't have any." Madoka agreed, before falling into contemplative silence of conflict/worry/resolve. "But we might just have a way to get it."
"How?" Hitomi responded with a flurry of frustration/curiosity."She's practically a brick wall for all the emotion she shows… Except for that instance earlier when she mentioned her family."
"Then that has to be our opening." Madoka explained, hesitant yet picking up speed as she went. "I don't think she likes her family, doesn't even like talking about them, but she has to now that she's made them a key point in the negotiations. We… we can use that, make her talk about her family and hope that her own bad feelings put her off balance."
"Damn Madoka, that's cold. Using her own family against her?" Sayaka sent out a mental whistle, along with a complicated bundle of emotions. "…Then again, she did try to take advantage of our love, and she's blackmailing Hitomi…" The emotional storm quickly dissipated into Righteousness/anger/justice. "I take back what I said, let's hit her where it hurts!"
"She… she brought this on herself." Madoka said, mostly to herself even as her thoughts reached both her friends, thoughts of conflict/protectiveness/love."She shouldn't have threatened my Hitomi, this is just defending ourselves against her threats."
Hitomi let out a telepathic hum of agreement, even as she pushed away from the part of her brain that noticed the almost certainly unintentional 'my Hitomi' as this was very much not the time to follow that train of thought.
"We are in agreement then." She replied instead. "We cannot allow Miss Mikuni to hold all the cards and continue to pressure us into a metaphorical corner."
Even with her focus on the telepathic conversation, Hitomi had kept a careful eye on both Miss Kure and Miss Mikuni, though certainly more of the latter than the former.
Kirika had taken the tables collective silence as approval to look at more of the papers, going through them one by one before stacking the papers she'd finished within a neat pile. Though judging by the frown on Kirika's face the contents of the documents were anything but 'neat'.
Oriko had simply watched on in silence, her gaze flickering between the silent trio and Kirika's organising efforts. She'd left for a moment to refill the teapot, but otherwise seemed content to let the table remain silent. Oriko hadn't taken into account, couldn't take into account, that her opposition were collectively communicating and plotting her downfall through telepathy of all things.
Hitomi took a moment to bask in that minor victory, that silent advantage she and her friends held over their opponent, before diving into her attack.
"I do say, Miss Mikuni, that this is quite the ambitious plan of yours." Hitomi mussed, barely keeping an insidious smile off her face. "I wonder, what would the rest of your family think of your schemes… Your Father, for example."
It was a simple response, more of an offensive probe than outright attack, an attempt to feel out more of Oriko's true feelings, poking a sore point to get a reaction to build upon for future strikes.
The probe certainly got a reaction, though not quite one that Hitomi was expecting.
At first, Oriko seemed taken aback, her eyes flashed in surprise, her dull smile gained a confused twist at its edge. It took her a few moments to fully comprehend the sentence, but soon the surprise faded to be replaced by… mirth?
It was a sardonic sort of joy, marked by a thin smile and what Hitomi swore was a barely contained chuckle. Oriko clearly found something about what Hitomi had said to be surprisingly amusing.
"My Father?" Oriko mussed, taking a moment to glance at something behind Hitomi. "I'm sure my father would be most proud of me, or at least he would surely approve of my methods, I learnt from his example after all. Perhaps he would also approve of my goals, perhaps he would not…"
Hitomi felt a shiver go down her back as Oriko's voice took on a tone that was just a touch too pleasant, almost painfully sweet with a twinge of something raw and very real. It felt like she'd stepped on a landmine in the shape of a girl, and was mere moments away from being caught in the blast.
"But my Father…" Oriko paused for a moment and took a sip of her tea, an action that only seemed to make her mood even worse. "He does not matter here, nor does whether he would approve or not. My plan has no impact on the dead, and the dead cannot interfere with my plan, he is irrelevant to this."
Her words were well-spoken, her expression a painfully thin line of a smile, but what stood out most of all was her tone. It was defensive, with an extra note of finality, a warning not to continue that line of discussion.
Which was exactly why Hitomi had to push on. There was something there, hidden beneath Oriko's claims of irrelevance, a weakness to strike at. But trying to strike at the same target twice in the same way was too predictable, Oriko would see it coming and fail to react.
An image from the telepathic link appeared without warning, it was a portrait of a smiling woman, a painting that sat at the back of the dining room covered in a thin film of dust. The woman bore more than a passing similarity to Oriko, though obviously older and with slightly sharper facial features.
"This is what Oriko was looking at behind us, when she started talking about her Papa." Madoka explained quickly. "It's one of the dusty paintings but… I think this one is of her Mama."
Switching to pressing about Oriko's mother… That could work. It was related to the previous familial line of attack but not quite the same vector by virtue of being a different person. Hopefully pressing that line of attack would trick or force Oriko into revealing more of her plan, her personality, her anything that Hitomi could leverage.
Perhaps, if things had been different Hitomi would have hesitated at the thought of pushing onwards. She had been taught to push every advantage she could find in an argument but leveraging her opponent's dead parents against her felt… distasteful to say the least.
Normally, she would have backed down, but right now… The idea of holding back repulsed her. Oriko had leveraged Hitomi's fears against her, tried to blackmail her into a dangerous deal, and by proxy threatened the two dearest people in her life.
So, with Madoka and Sayaka by her side offering unwavering support and calls to fight on in turn, Hitomi could only choose to go on the attack, her heart would accept nothing less.
"I'm sure Mr Mikuni would be very proud if he could see that his daughter was following in his criminal footsteps." Hitomi feinted a verbal strike, an attempt to make it seem that she was continuing the same Father based line of attack.
As she expected, Oriko was ready for her to try the same trick a second time. The girl had managed to restore her previous impeccably polite demeanour and responded to the attempted provocation with nothing but a slightly harsher than usual glance and a raised eyebrow.
That was fine, because Hitomi wasn't done yet.
"I'm also sure that your Mother would be proud as well." Hitomi took a stab in the dark. "Some of your inclination towards illicit pursuits must have also come from her, correct?"
Oriko's face twisted, consumed in a riotous storm of emotions that struck in thunderous waves. First was naked confusion, widened, glazed eyes as if her brain couldn't quite comprehend what had just passed through her ears. That state of disbelief couldn't last forever though and soon it was swallowed…
Replaced by a visage of burning rage.
A face that had before only shown a slight frown at most turned to a vicious snarl, jagged and ugly and hurt all at once. Oriko's eyes blazed with raw incandescent fury, so bright that for a moment Hitomi feared that she would try to leap across the table and strangle the source of her pain.
If the previous line of attack had revealed a landmine, then this second strike had revealed a burning sun, and every second it felt like a miracle that they weren't being cooked alive by her hateful gaze.
But Oriko was no sun, and her rage was far from infinite. Another wave of emotion washed over her face, diluting the raw fury as the girls previously ironclad self-control tried to reassert itself. Tried and failed, as the battle between discipline and emotion was still very clear on her face.
The difference was like night and day, Hitomi reflected. With Oriko's masks broken down reading her was as easy as reading an open book. A book that had just had something very fundamental ripped out from under it.
It was clear every little twitch or minute motion she made that Oriko was facing a dilemma, that Hitomi's attack had brought into question something that Oriko had never really wanted to consider.
Hitomi knew that feeling, knew the expression on Oriko's face, because it was identical to what the girl had forced on her when she had asked Hitomi to place a value on her love.
Worry/sadness/resolve
Justice/stress/resolve
Hitomi frowned, with how focused she'd been on Oriko she hadn't noticed her friends shifting emotional states. They were both completely committed to stopping Oriko, but…
Madoka was never one to ignore the pain of others, even an enemy, and while Sayaka wasn't going to baulk at bringing down a 'bad guy' it was clear her girlfriend's tumultuous feelings were starting to make an impact.
Her friends would support her no matter what, but seeing such pain being inflicted was starting to take a toll on them, a toll in moral certainty.
Hitomi's frown hardened, such a state of affairs was completely unacceptable.
She'd have to finish this quickly.
"Y-you-" Oriko half stated, half sputtered through clenched teeth. "You don't know a thing about my Mother!" She verbally clawed, trying to both resize control of the conversation and reaffirm whatever part of her world view Hitomi's attack had damaged.
"I don't." Hitomi freely admitted, and she really didn't, how could she when she'd never met the woman? But much like how Oriko had put together an attack based on watching just a few seconds of a kiss, Hitomi could put together the context clues for her own strike. "Though judging by your reaction, I was completely correct."
"And I should know." Hitomi continued, cutting her adversary off before she could offer a rebuke. "If I'm going to get involved in this campaign against your family then I should know about them, their skills, goals and whatever assets they could marshal against me…"
"But I don't." She gave Oriko her best 'disappointed look', both scolding and demanding combined into a single glance. "I don't know any of those things… So, you are going to tell me everything about your family."
Oriko grimaced, then seethed, then grimaced again, a writhing mess of emotions so potent that Hitomi would swear she could almost feel them-
She embraces the broken girl.
Something clicked into place.
AngerstressconfusionlossOriko
She felt something.
All three of the girls did.
A bundle of emotions accompanied by an unknown feeling of someone. A glowing sun, tarnished, bleeding and burning with drivefocussacrificerighteousnessOriko.
It was… distant was the best word to describe it. The someone felt much further away from them than the trio of old friends did from each other, not physically but in some mysterious other way. It was like that person was yelling their feelings from a great distance, and even with their senses combined Madoka, Sayaka and Hitomi could only just make out an echo of that person's self.
They'd barely had a second to try and comprehend what had just happened, when-
RageprotectivenessobsessionloveKirika
A second someone clicked into place, this one just as far away, just as difficult to hear, yet somehow almost as close to the first someone as Hitomi was to Madoka and Sayaka.
The two someones came without warning, they were new and unknown and-
"Stop hurting Oriko!"
Suddenly Hitomi didn't have much time to think about the two mysteries in the network, as a pair of arms lunged out from behind her chair.
For a single heart-stopping moment, the arms passed around her neck. A spike of fear spread as Hitomi took a desperate reflexive gasp of air, as two hands passed by her precious windpipe… and kept going.
Instead, the hands wrapped firmly around Hitomi's mouth.
A distant part of her brain calmly noted that her assailant had thankfully chosen the less harmful of two methods to silence her. A much larger and louder part of her brain was drowning that line of thought out by shrieking in absolute panic.
Hitomi was admittedly ill-equipped to deal with this sudden physical confrontation, she'd never even tried to punch or kick someone before. Then there was Madoka, whose Surprise/horror blared like a screaming siren, while the girl herself was frozen in shock by the abrupt assault.
Sayaka on the other hand…
She was like a coiled spring, agitated by the worsening mood of the meeting and primed to get moving at the first sign of trouble. Out of the three friends she was also the most used to violence, even if what little she knew was from striking at rowdy kids and teens who upset her friends.
So, when Kirika went to grab Hitomi, Sayaka sprung into action.
"Let her go!" She shouted, grabbing for the nearest throwable object and hurling it with anger/protectiveness/panic empowered force directly at Kirika's head.
Rage-filled eyes snapped towards the direction of Sayaka's shout, just in time for Kirika to see a porcelain projectile be lobed towards her. With a startled sound that was one-part gasp two-parts squeak Kirika jerked to the side, throwing herself and Hitomi to the floor.
The two landed in a tumble of limbs, a mad scramble that set Hitomi's heart pounding in her ears, she could barely hear the ceramic teacup shatter on the wall behind them as she flailed wildly at her assailant.
Kirika responded with a reflexive shove, sending Hitomi into the legs of a neighbouring chair. Madoka's chair, it turned out, as the pinkette quickly grabbed Hitomi by the arms and pulled her away from Kirika's follow up punch.
Sayaka, either deciding that the punch was a step too far or that the teacup had been thinking too small, grabbed her chair and with a great heave lifted the entire thing over her head to bring down on-
"STOP!/STOP!"
The nearby/distant shout washed over the room, urgent and pleading in equal measure. To the trio, it felt like a request, a gentle tug on the sleeve to turn them away.
For Kirika, it struck like a hammer blow, the flailing girl physically lurched as if knocked aside by the force of the scream.
All four of them stopped.
"…Oriko?" Kirika muttered in dazed confusion.
Frazzled, tense and completely off-balance, those were the first words Hitomi could think of as she stared at the previously inscrutable girl. Oriko had rushed up from her seat, arms thrown downwards as they'd slammed them against the table, she was visibly shaking, shivering from the rush of adrenaline and panicworryshockfear.
"That's quite enough of that." Oriko commanded with false confidence as she glanced between the floored Kirika and Sayaka looming over her with chair in hand. "Please put the chair down Miss Miki, there will be no more violence at this table."
"Wha-" Sayaka sputtered incredulously, lowering the chair but not quite releasing her grip. "But she started it!"
"No, I didn't!" Kirika protested mulishly, pointing a finger at Hitomi. "She did, she hurt Oriko!"
"Hitomi didn't try to punch someone, unlike you!"
"Verbal punching is still punching-"
"Miss Kure." Oriko interrupted, though the artificial sternness in her voice failed to mask the undercurrent of worry that accompanied it. "This is not a problem to be resolved with violence. While I have great admiration for your drive to defend me from harm, please trust that I can defend myself against a handful of words."
"Of course!" Kirika assured Oriko with a rapid, almost babbled response. "Of course I trust you Oriko! You're awesome and cool and kind but that's why I need to help you! Because you're you!"
Paniclovedevotionabsolutetrust
"That is…" Oriko verbally stumbled as she tried to find the right words in the face of such an open declaration. "…Thank you, Miss K- Kirika."
Surpriseaffectionworryuncertainty
Madoka, Sayaka and Hitomi shared a considerate glance, with the immediate danger passed they had time to think. Specifically, to think about the new pulses of emotion that had been flowing through the similarly new distant bonds.
"Do you think that…" Madoka transmitted the idea of the two other girls. "They're doing this?"
"I… I don't think it could be coming from anywhere else." Hitomi agreed, still somewhat taken aback from the attack, but recovering admirably.
"Well, there's one way to find out." Sayaka responded, finally releasing the chair before addressing both Kirika and Oriko.
"Hey!" Both girls turned to Sayaka. "You two still have some explaining to do!"
"…The two of us?" Oriko inquired, still obviously trying to find her balance as she faced down Sayaka. "Miss Miki, I have barely spoken to Kirika before today. I can assure you that she knows nothing about the contents of that folder."
"…Erm." Sayaka glanced down at the papers on the table, blushing slightly as she did so. "Right forgot about those, you'll need to tell us all about this evidence stuff too."
"In addition to…?" Oriko asked, blatantly fishing for an answer while Kirika watched on with undisguised curiosity.
"You need to explain everything about your mystical telepathy powers!"
The room went completely silent.
For about three seconds.
"What." "Eh!?"
Author's notes: Well that took much longer than I wanted, but it's done now. Hope that was at least a little enjoyable, because between consecutive writer's block incidents and life interfering this was still pretty fun to write.
Hopefully, the next chapter, which is an interlude, will be faster to write. But seeing how long the lost one took and how busy things have been, I can't make any promises in good faith.
This chapter ended up being quite long, so if you have any questions, criticisms or comments I'd be happy to see/answer them. Really happy actually, it's great to know what people think about my writing.
Eyyyy it's great to see that this is back! Hope life's treating you well.
It's interesting that O+K don't seem to realize that they've been folded into the network. Does that mean that these telepathic bonds are one-directional by default...?
Eyyyy it's great to see that this is back! Hope life's treating you well.
It's interesting that O+K don't seem to realize that they've been folded into the network. Does that mean that these telepathic bonds are one-directional by default...?
Thanks! Life's been ups and downs for me, but I'm as always hoping to see more ups in the future.
As for the telepathic bonds, they're a two way street. If one of the girls can 'hear' another's emotions then the same is true the other way. So Kirika and Oriko are getting blasted by each others feelings and can faintly 'hear' Madoka, Sayaka and Hitomi's cloud-selves in the 'distance', just as the trio can faintly feel them in return. Hence part of the reason Oriko was thrown off by Kirika's deceleration, she could literally feel her devotion for the first time.
But joining the network/getting the telepathic link doesn't come with a welcome message and handy-dandy guide explaining the power, so both O+K are in the 'I'm feeling emotions that aren't mine and concepts that might be people WTF' phase of things. They need to explore and learn about their newly acquired abilities in order to figure out what's going on, they haven't made the jump from 'I can taste the concept of obsession' to 'I have a magical a telepathy/empathy/soul link'.
M+S+H have an advantage in figuring out what just happened, as they've had experience with what the link feels like and can logic out what two new distance 'presences' might mean. Sayaka's made a false assumption however, that O+K already had a link with each other before getting linked to the wider network, which they... kinda did? It was a half formed one, a vestigial link akin to what M+S+H had before the end of chapter 3, something that activated sporadically and faintly.
"But I don't." She gave Oriko her best 'disappointed look', both scolding and demanding combined into a single glance. "I don't know any of those things… So, you are going to tell me everything about your family."
Madokami damn, that is some smooth operating. Manipulating Oriko into giving up information on her family, which could then be used as blackmail to counter Oriko's own blackmail, in a Mutually Assured Destruction sort of way. Of course, Oriko's probably decently suicidal at the moment, going by what I remember from her backstory, so MAD has a decent chance of not working with her.
At least Sayamadotomi will be able to figure that out fairly easily now.
It's good to see this back! Good chapter as well! I really enjoy seeing the main trio interacting, and now having O+K introduced to the soul cuddles should be really interesting! Take as long as you need, I shall be waiting patiently for the next chapter.
In a simpler time, there was a small family that lived in a large house.
Hisaomi Mikuni was a wealthy man with a rich heritage, descended from a long line of merchants and career politicians.
His wife, Aiko Mikuni, was a travelling artist, living off her passion for painting and what little she could scrap together from selling her talents wherever she could.
They met at an art exhibition; Aiko was there for her work while Hisaomi visited to indulge in his painting hobby. They bonded over their shared interests, then interest turned to affection, and affection turned to love.
One whirlwind romance later and the loving couple had a mansion to call their own, and more importantly, a daughter to dote upon.
Oriko Mikuni didn't know much when she was young, she didn't know how her Father's love for her Mother had seen him cast out from the Mikuni clan, didn't know of cruelty or betrayal.
But she did know that she had the most amazing parents in the world.
They were always affectionate, as open with their love for each other as they were with their love for her. But more than that, they were always in motion, moving from one idea to the next, from paintings to politics to picnicking and back around again in just a single afternoon.
Oriko didn't understand much of it at first, how her parents could turn a bunch of random colours into something beautiful, how a few lines on a canvas could capture her mind for hours. She didn't know how they did it, but she wanted to do it too.
Her parents were keen to indulge her interest in their shared passion. Her Mother brought her a special set of pencils while her Father went straight for watercolours.
They could have hired a tutor for her as well, but Oriko didn't want to learn about art from a stranger, she wanted to learn from her beloved parents.
So, she did. She produced jagged half-formed sketches at her Mothers knee, listened in awe as her Father showed her how he made the colours blend.
When she was older, Oriko and her Father worked together to make a sketch of her Mother, a truly great work, her parents called it.
But Oriko's parents weren't just painters, something she was reminded of whenever they started talking about her Father's actual work. They spoke of figures, concepts and ideas that went right over her head.
When she first asked them about what the 'polly-tiicks' stuff was about, her Father just smiled and told her:
"It's something that's not doing much good right now, but when we're done, it's going to help so many people."
Then her mother giggled and kissed Hisaomi on his cheek.
Oriko didn't understand it at first.
But she wanted to.
Politics, as it turned out, was harder for Oriko to learn than painting. Her parents were willing to teach, and she was willing to learn, but it was an arena that she was ill-prepared to enter.
But painting had taught her diligence and patience in equal measure, so bit by bit she chipped away at the mountain of knowledge she needed to learn.
She was taught poise and politeness, how to act, stand and even eat around important people.
She learned of people's wants, what drove them to the ballot box in the first place, and the desperate measures people resorted to when politicians failed.
She was told how people lied, cheated and twisted others to meet certain goals,
She learned how to manipulate, how to play on fear and take credit for joy.
Step by step, she began to understand the political system, and how her parents planned to change it for the better.
Oriko was introduced to important people, businessmen and rich families with power and influence. A prodigy, they called her.
Our beloved daughter, her parents said in return.
That was how things were for a time. Oriko spent most of her days with her parents, painting and politicking where she could, enjoying almost every moment she spent by their side, becoming just a little bit closer to them with each passing day.
Then, the accident, the car crash.
The day her Mother died.
Oriko understood death, academically as something that happened to other people.
She didn't understand it personally, as something that could happen to her family, to her parents.
Yet in only a single day, death had come into her life and ripped half of it away.
Oriko grieved, then distracted herself from that grief by throwing herself into her schoolwork, by pouring over every textbook until she fell asleep seeing pages on the inside of her eyelids.
But it wasn't enough, she needed to do more, she needed a goal.
A purpose.
So, she turned to her father, who much like her had distracted himself from his wife's passing by focusing almost entirely on keeping busy. Though unlike her, his was the domain of politics and paradigm-shifting schemes.
She needed to be a part of it, she begged and pleaded to be a part of it, to truly learn how to be a key piece of the great plan that had been so much of her Mother's work before she'd died.
So, her Father agreed to teach her even more about politics, to truly bring her in on the grand workings that her parents had dedicated their lives to.
Smiles, promises and betrayals, the mainstays of the politician's toolbox, her Father's toolbox, and now hers.
Soon, she was no longer merely tangentially involved in her parent's campaign as she once was, a cute face for people to talk to and say 'oh isn't she so clever and polite! You've raised a fine daughter Mr Mikuni'. She became a force of her own.
Talks, deals, a flattering word here, a nasty rumour there.
Many called her inexperienced, far too young to be acting on her Father's behalf in such matters. Many more tried to take advantage of that inexperience to pursue their own ends.
Oriko welcomed their attempts, their pride and blind dismissal of her abilities made them so much easier to verbally parry and riposte.
Others simply smiled and 'indulged her attempts to learn about the old man's game'.
To those, she was unfaltering polite, and played them all like fools.
There were sleepless nights and midday naps, skipped meals and snacks on the go, she shook hands with people whose oily words sent shivers down her spine and laughed when she wanted to scowl.
She hadn't picked up a paintbrush in months, not since…
…
But when Oriko looked at her Father, dressed to the nines and ready to go out for his final speech before voting began, she knew that it had all been worth it.
She'd hugged him, tears glistening at the edges of her eyes as she smiled and echoed to him the words from oh so long ago.
"We're going to help so many people."
They both cried that day, hers were tears of joy.
His were tears of shame.
Soon after, the first accusation came.
An associate of the campaign came forward, claiming that the now Senator Hisaomi had accrued a number of illicit funds to pay for his successful campaign.
The Mikuni campaign was no stranger to rumours and falsehoods, Oriko recognised that such scandalmongering was simply a part of the political system. That the accusation came from a contributor gave it a little more staying power than usual, but like others before it the lie was sure to pass in time.
To Oriko's surprise, it did not.
The accusation seemed to gain traction where most had fallen short, soon other parties were coming forward either to reinforce the falsehood's legitimacy or to further add to the growing pile of accusations levied against her Father.
Blackmail, bribes, unscrupulous favours and Yakuza connections, in only a handful of weeks Hisaomi had gone from being portrayed as the media's golden child to a diabolical criminal mastermind.
It was like the world had gone mad.
So Oriko declared war on the world.
She spoke up for her Father at every possible turn, using clever words and logical arguments when they worked, tearful eyes and appeals to good character when they didn't. She pulled out every trick in her playbook.
Even as the rumours turned to calls for removal and trial, Oriko fought on. They'd come so far, so close to fulfilling her parent's dream, her dream…
In the end, it didn't matter.
Senator Mikuni was removed from office, placed under house arrest while investigations were run and evidence collected for trial.
On the first day of the house arrest, Oriko visited her Father in his office. She ranted to him about how terrible his mistreatment was, assured him that justice would prevail and that once the trial was over, they could simply rebuild and try again.
But when Oriko spoke to her Father, she saw no hope on his face, no twinkle of cunning in his eyes.
The fire had gone out, and all that was left inside him was despair.
With trembling words and harrowed eyes, Hisaomi told his daughter the truth.
He had taken illicit funds.
He had blackmailed people, bribed and illegally manipulated them into endorsing him, he'd even called in criminal favours.
It was all true.
To ensure his political success, to gain the power he needed to make change, her Father had broken all the morals and ideals he had once held.
He betrayed everything he had claimed to work towards, everything her Mother had worked towards, everything Oriko had worked towards.
She felt sick, her stomach churned and heaved in protest to his every word. Her eyes burnt so much it was as if they were bleeding.
Her heart pounded in her ears; cries of disbelief died in her throat as she could only stare at the hollow shell of a man she thought she once knew.
She screamed at him, in rage, in pain, in the kind of hatred that only came from an intimate feeling of betrayal, of loss.
He said nothing in his defence.
Once her voice was too raw with pain from screaming at him, she left, unable to bare the sight of him any longer.
He didn't try to stop her.
…
It took two hours.
Two hours for Oriko to regain anything close to a rational thought, to push her head up from the sea of hurt that she was drowning in.
Two hours for her to admit to herself, that everything she had been working for had been a lie.
A lie that needed to be answered for.
She had questions, her very soul demanded for it, to understand why her Father had done it all.
She marched back up to his office, forced the door open and-
Her father was there, on the ground, hands clenched around a sword-
He was lying in a pool of blood, his blood, blood from where the sword-
His eyes- cold- lifeless-
Staring ahead-
Staring at her.
Her Father was-
…
The telephone was in her hands, she didn't notice when she'd picked it up.
After the ambulance arrived, they told her that he'd been dead for over an hour before they reached him.
The cause: Suicide.
It was all a blur, the world moving around in vague flashes with nothing to cling to for hope.
Lawyers came, they said that her grandparents were handling the funeral.
She didn't attend.
Alone, in the big empty house, she turned to the sky, to the uncaring void, and begged.
She begged to understand, to know why any of this had happened, to learn the meaning behind it all.
Of course, nobody answered her plea.
One week later, she received a moderately large sum of money along with some news from her grandparent's lawyers.
She had been emancipated.
They handed her the money, made vague allusions to keeping quiet and out of sight, then left without another word.
Even in her diminished state, Oriko could tell that something was very rotten.
So, she investigated, first by researching emancipation, how long the process took, how one qualified for it and so forth.
What she found was very clear, her emancipation was an impossibility, it should never have been on the cards at all.
And yet here she was, technically an emancipated minor.
Somehow emancipated by her extended family…
Her Father's side of the family.
The idea twigged something in Oriko's brain, a breaker that once pulled switched her thoughts from sluggish doldrums to a keen calculating edge.
Her Father had a number of contacts, both legal and criminal. Could the rest of the Mikuni Clan have such connections as well?
If they did, that would explain how they managed to emancipate her. A few favours called in, some bribes thrown around and the system could have been bent into pretzels.
The lump-sum of money, the hint to stay out of the way, even the sudden legal (and illegal) move… It all pointed towards one thing.
The Mikuni Clan had cut her off.
She was tainted by the association with her Father, 'damaged goods' so to speak. After her Father's death, the guardianship would have gone to someone in the family, but if the Mikuni Clan didn't want to associate with her then…
Emancipation followed by a 'severance package' to stay quiet about it.
Or perhaps… to stay quiet about other things.
Her Father had been accused of quite a bit of blackmail… Perhaps some of it was connected to the rest of the family?
There was only one way to find out.
Oriko searched around the Manor, looking through the various little hiding places she'd learnt over the years, and when those failed her, she scoured a few places she'd never dared check before.
Her Father's office, and the master bedroom.
She struck gold. There was so much illicit evidence to be found… It was as if her Father had been specifically stockpiling blackmail against the Mikuni Clan.
Oriko went through it all, page by page she discovered the legacy of her family.
A legacy of crime, a legacy of betrayal, a legacy of absolute scum.
…She wanted to do something about it.
She had to stop them, these people who bore her blood, who acted just as her Father had.
Oriko's plea still hadn't been answered, she still didn't understand why her Father had turned on everything he believed in… but now she had something else.
A purpose, a truly noble goal, an untainted end to work towards.
She would rip the root of her evil family out of the system, if it was the last thing she ever did.
And with her Father's papers, she had the pieces to bring about their downfall.
With evidence in hand, Oriko set about her scheme.
Some of the evidence needed extra verification, research on numbers and figures to be matched against public records. There was a chance her family were tracking the manors wifi illicitly, So Oriko's search would require some leg work.
Every day she went out somewhere, to discreetly check digital and physical records alike. She also went out to eat, away from the oppressively empty halls of the Manor.
It was on one such day that she ran into a girl with black hair.
Almost literally.
"Ah!" The girl cried as she stumbled past Oriko, barely catching herself before hitting the floor.
Their near collision stemmed from a simple error of coincidence, two people trying to round a street corner at the same time, neither able to see the other with the corner in the way until too late.
Oriko had halted immediately upon realising she was about to slam right into another person, but the unknown girl had only managed to twist past her at the last second, which led to the sudden fall.
"Are you alright?" Oriko asked as she leaned over to offer the girl her hand.
"What does it mean to you?" The girl immediately snapped back, twisting on the floor until she could see Oriko's offered hand. "Uh, I mean… not sure I need one of those, already got two myself." The strange girl waved her hands as she spoke of them.
The oddly timed joke sent a light giggle running through Oriko, much to the girl's surprise.
The stranger took her hand, and the two girls made eye contact for the first time.
At least, Oriko thought this was the first time she'd met this girl, she couldn't recall ever seeing her before.
But as she saw Kirika's the girl's face, something pulsed.
LoveobsessioncomfortKirika
Something like deja'vu, as if Oriko had met the girl before, many times even.
The beloved girl blushed as her eyes locked onto their intertwined hands.
"Mhph…" She murmured. "…You look really pretty andyourhandfeelsupersoftandthatsoundsweirdnowthatIsayitourloudokaybye!"
Surprised and more than somewhat flustered, Oriko was too slow to respond as the blushing girl suddenly released her grip and ran away as fast as her legs could carry her.
That was not the last time that Oriko would see the mystery girl.
Indeed, from that day onwards, Oriko would often find herself accompanied on her 'lunch breaks' by a distant companion.
Which was in truth the polite way of saying 'stalker'.
The girl ate at the same restaurants as her, but never at the same table, and always suspiciously at the same time. She also tended to follow Oriko home, but never entered the manor itself.
It probably should have worried Oriko, and normally it would but-
Every time she looked at the girl, she couldn't help but feel a silly little smile come to her face.
After a few days of this had passed, the two of them had effectively turned the whole thing into a bit of a game. Oriko tried to spot her devoted watcher, while the girl tried to stay hidden.
It even got to the point where late at night, when the girl thought Oriko was asleep, she'd approach the mansion with cleaning supplies and spend hours washing away the graffiti that had accrued outside of it.
Being something of a late-night workaholic, Oriko was often awake for these little cleaning trips, so the girl's attempts to remain anonymous benevolence were quickly foiled.
Her antics were a welcome distraction, for a time.
But after weeks of making progress, Oriko hit an unforeseen snag.
Distribution of the evidence.
There were simply too many ways for the Mikuni Clan to make the evidence disappear if it went through the regular legal channels. Oriko couldn't take the chance that all her ammunition would simply land on the wrong desk and be disposed of.
She needed a way to spread the proof around so virulently that her opposition would have no chance to contain or counter it. Which meant she needed connections, reporters, journalists or even better, influential people willing to speak on her behalf…
But she didn't have those sorts of connections anymore, her pariah status would work against her if she tried to approach a reputable source.
So Oriko tried to brainstorm a solution over breakfast.
She sat down to eat at one of her preferred cafes, a quaint little place that offered foreign dishes for reasonable prices. She had just sat down and was about to order when she performed her regular sweep for her Kirika's stalker's presence when she spotted something that caught her attention.
It was a trio of girls sat on an adjacent table, all talking to each other, not unusual in and of itself but as Oriko's eyes passed over them she was once more hit by a strange feeling of familiarity.
It was nowhere near the strength of what she had felt with Kirika the stalker, but it was still there, like she'd met them in passing now and again, even though she'd never seen the three before today…
No, that wasn't quite true, on closer examination Oriko could recognise one of the girls from something more than just a vague feeling. Her political training and experience required memorising important faces and names, a skill that served her well now as she managed to recognise the green-haired girl as one Hitomi Shizuki.
The only daughter of the Shizuki family was involved in politics by virtue of her association with her parents, in the same way that almost all wealthy heirs and heiress were. She focused on her academic pursuits, while her parents touted her accomplishments as a sign of their family's greatness.
Very standard, and not much for Orikio's goal-oriented mindset to pick apart as anything more than a minor breakfast curiously…
…Wait, what were they-
Oh.
They were kissing…
As Miss Shizuki and her pink-haired… friend?
Girlfriend?
As the two locked lips, Oriko stared, unable to bring herself to look away.
She knew, intellectually speaking, that such relationships happened. She also knew that in certain circles that they were only supposed to happen behind closed doors.
If such a kiss as she was staring at right now were to happen in too public a place, it would be a scandalous event, especially with such a wealthy heiress involved.
Her mind was already picking over the scene, her political training pushed her to consider how it could be used to further her goals. This was blackmail material, or at least it could become such if Oriko leveraged it correctly.
What could she gain from leverage over the Shizuki heiress? How could a connection to the Shizuki family help bring down her own family?
It…
It could solve her current problem.
The Shizuki family had contacts, they had money, they had respect in both the political scene and across various business enterprises. If they put such weight behind spreading the incriminating evidence, there would be no easy way for the Mikuni family to cover it up.
Just as Oriko began to consider that idea, the blue-haired girl, the only of the three not involved in the kiss, turned around and noticed Oriko's rather undisguised staring.
Oriko blushed, both because she'd been caught but also because, well, it had been quite the enthralling sight.
…Oh, now all three of the girls were looking at her.
Oriko broke eye contact, evacuated her seat and retreated from the café.
She could grab a bite to eat later, when she didn't have so much work to do.
Her walk home could hardly be called such, more of a barely contained run as the burning desire to fulfil her purpose drove Oriko onwards.
Once she was back at the mansion, she dove into what records she had of the Shizuki family, old notes and observations made on their political stances and affiliations.
Her search was almost immediately fruitful, not only was the Shizuki family well connected, they also had a record of staunch commitment to 'noble values' such as statements decrying 'indecent and childish' relationships.
A stark contrast to how she'd caught their daughter acting…
Oriko paused for a moment to consider the deeper implications of her nascent scheme.
The Shizuki Heiress would be caught in this, she'd be collateral damage as the blackmail target of the plan. Oriko would need to threaten her to gain leverage, let her know that her secret was at risk so that she would fall in line.
It was very much a half-formed plan, in desperate need of refinement-
There was someone yelling outside.
"Hey!" The brilliant voice echoed through the manor's windows. "Vandals aren't welcome here!"
Kirika.
Oriko looked outside to see the café trio in a confrontation with her stalker.
She'd run out of time to scheme. She hadn't expected her blackmail target to chase her down, to confront Oriko in her own home.
Staring down at the three girls who she was about to attempt to threaten, Oriko felt a twinge of worry, she was somewhat outnumbered.
Which is why she invited Kirika her self-admitted stalker inside with them, because she was far more likely to side with Oriko than these strangers because she could always trust her Kirika.
When the girls had introduced themselves, that strange feeling of phantom familiarity grew, as if Miss Miki and Miss Kaname were more than just the names of strangers but-
Then there was Kirika.
A name that was like music to her ears.
The girl's name was Kirika how could she have forgotten?
She wanted to talk to Kirika, wanted to get to know her again in a way that she'd never felt before.
But fulfilling her purpose had to come first.
So, she pushed the desires of her heart aside and focused on working towards her greatest labour, the destruction of her evil family.
The negotiations began, and…
Miss Shizuki was good, she was clever in her defence and showed more experience in such matters than Oriko expected.
She still had an extra edge over the heiress though, not just through the threat of blackmail but also a willingness to fight dirty to win the verbal battle.
The attack on the value of Miss Shizuki's love was a cheap shot, an effective one though and that's what mattered. It won a concession that Oriko might not have gotten so easily otherwise and put her foe on the back foot.
Yet Miss Shizuki recovered, and slowly clawed her way back into the fight.
That continued until the truth behind the folder was revealed. Putting the evidence out in the open was a somewhat direct play, but a necessary step towards acquiring Miss Shizuki's cooperation, unfortunately, it also brought the topic of her family to the forefront.
Such was inevitable, it would be nigh impossible to get Miss Shizuki to distribute the evidence without the unfortunately observant girl noticing that all the papers just so happened to relate to the Mikuni family.
The problem was how the conversation almost immediately turned to Oriko's Father.
The comparison was sickening, not because Oriko hadn't seen the parallels herself, she knew that such a criminal tactic as blackmail had been a staple of her father's work. But the fact that even a stranger could make such a connection, could look at Oriko and see the looming influence of her Father's crimes…
It was infuriating, maddening… but Oriko wouldn't be brought to self-destructive rage so easily-
"I'm also sure that your Mother would be proud as well." Miss Shizuki struck. "Some of your inclination towards illicit pursuits must have also come from her, correct?"
…
Hatred.
How dare- how could- Her Mother was good and kind! She had nothing to do with her Father's misdeeds! She had no hand in the rest of the family's crimes!
…Right?
Her Mother was a good person… right?
She'd only taught her good things… right?
…
Oriko's world tilted, and she struggled to breathe as doubt overflowed her.
She hated her Father, hated his side of the family and all the evil it had wrought. Hated how he'd twisted her Mother's ideals, how he'd twisted her to help him do it.
She loved her mother, loved how she was the root of her good memories and morals. Loved to think of how proud she'd be that her daughter was still trying to do the right thing.
…
What if that was wrong? What if her Mother had played a part in the darker side of the family?
Oriko looked back, searched through her memories of happier times, of the days when she was just beginning to learn of politics. When her Mother had taught and encouraged her nascent passion.
Had her actions been pure? Or had her Mother been shaping her into a tool for the campaign, for the cause, just as her Father had?
…
Oriko didn't know.
She couldn't know, the memories were told old, too biased, too-
Much.
She was shaking, sputtering objections that went nowhere, she could barely hear Miss Shizuki's answer, but she recognised when the girl started making her demands-
Something clicked into place. A feeling beyond touch, a sound beyond hearing.
RageprotectivenessobsessionloveKirika
The rush of Kirika hit Oriko like a hammer, a collision of everything she was all her struggles and pains were embraced by a seemingly endless sea of Loveobssession-
"Stop hurting Oriko!"
Then Kirika grabbed Miss Shizuki.
Madness ensued.
It all happened so fast, a flailing of panicked limbs and thrown porcelain.
Distantly, she noted that the shattered teacup was one of her Father's favourites…
Good.
But now Kirika was on the floor, Miss Shizuki's blue-haired friend looming over her with- she'd picked up a chair!?
Oriko's heart leapt in her chest.
No.
A scene flashed before her eyes, a sight so visceral, so real that it couldn't have been anything but a memory.
Kirika, lying on the ground, smiling, gasping, dying-
Dead.
Gone.
No no no no-
"Stop/Stop!"
The scream ripped its way out from Oriko's throat, from her soul, a plea of desperation, embedded with the fear of losing something she'd only just realised she had.
Or rather, losing someone.
Her hand came down on the table, palms shrieking in pain as they impacted the wood with audible force.
And…
They stopped.
Seizing on the opportunity, Oriko worked to de-escalate the situation.
To save Kirika.
Who was in turn still trying to protect Oriko, still staunchly supporting her even with the threat of an imminent chair to the skull looming over her.
She was so honestdevotedlovingopen that it made Oriko's head hurt, and her heart flutter.
…
There were those strange feelings again.
The emotions that weren't hers. Oriko thought she'd been imagining them before but…
What on Earth was going on?
"Hey!" The blue-haired girl… Miss Miki began speaking again. "You two still have some explaining to do!"
"…The two of us?" Oriko responded, confused by the sudden shift in conversation. "Miss Miki, I have barely spoken to Kirika before today. I can assure you that she knows nothing about the contents of that folder."
"…Erm." Miss Miki looked downwards… blushing? "Right forgot about those, you'll need to tell us all about this evidence stuff too."
"In addition to…?" What could she be demanding information about if not the topic of Oriko's family?
"You need to explain everything about your mystical telepathy powers!"
"What." "Eh!?"
Oriko was confused, as was Kirika… Well, actually she was confusedagitateddevoted-
How did she know what Kirika was feeling? She hadn't even looked at her face…
"Huh." Miss Miki continued, only mildly surprised by the duo's response. "You guy's really haven't noticed?" She paused for a moment, eyes drifting slightly as if she was focused on something a great distance away, before she looked back to Oriko. "Yeah, you guys are way too confused. You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?"
"Sayaka…" Miss Shizuki sighed in fond exasperation before her face narrowed into a much more serious expression. "Have you felt anything strange recently? Like flashes of thoughts that aren't your own…"
Miss Shizuki stopped suddenly, instead she turned to look at Miss Kaname. The two proceeded to either gaze lovingly into each other's eyes or hold an entire conversation using only small facial twitches.
Then again… Hadn't Miss Miki mentioned something about telepathy?
She must have been joking, the idea that they had some fictitious communication power was absurd.…
Yet when Oriko glanced at the ball of WorryeprotectivenessobsessionloveKirika by her side, she couldn't help but think that it was the wonderful kind of absurd, the kind that some part of her wanted to be true.
"My friends have convinced me to take a more direct approach." A strange not-sound brushed against Oriko's mind, yet she knew with a strange sort of certainty that it was Miss Shizuki, it feltturnedmoved like her, as impossible as that seemed.
Impossible, because Oriko had just 'heard' Miss Shizuki in her head, even though she hadn't opened her mouth.
"Yes, I am speaking directly into your mind-"
"Wow!" Kirika interrupted; she popped up from the floor like a jack in the box. "That's so- How are you doing that?" She pointed at the now confirmed mystical girl. "Are you some kind of witch?"
The three… witches? witches in training? Whatever they were, took to glancing at each other in a moment of shared consideration. Then, with near-choreographed synchronicity, the three girls shrugged.
"We don't have a name for it. This is all really… new." Miss Kaname admitted sheepishly, her fingers pressed together with a light flush covering her face.
It took all Oriko's significant self-control not to break down in maddened laughter.
Magic was real.
Magic was real and she'd tried to blackmail three magicians, witches, magi- whatever they were. What horrible things had she done in a past life to deserve this?
…No, this chain of events was but the blossoming of seeds that she herself had planted. She had set the wheels of consequences in motion the moment she had decided to blackmail Miss Shizuki. That the victims of her machinations had abilities beyond her capacity to predict or control was but a karmic retribution for her crimes.
She deserved this.
Concernworryuncertainty.
The waves of emotion washed over Oriko, mostly from Kirika, but a few distant waves reached her from Miss Kaname. Even Miss Miki and Miss Shizuki, openly and understandably disgruntled with her behaviour as they were, seemed to shift towards concern.
The… connection, as strange and fantastical as it was, seemed to flow equally between the linked parties. Oriko could feel the nature of the quartet around her, and they could understand her in turn.
What did they see in her, that even her enemies would be driven to worry?
…When had Kirika latched on to her arm?
Kirika, who was shaking, holding tightly as if Oriko was about to disappear at any moment.
Loveworryloveworryloveworry-
"I see… That I am very far out of my depth." Oriko admitted to the trio, her fingers forging soft traces through Kirika's hair- not that could remember when she'd started doing that.
Not that she intended on stopping either.
"It's been a time of uncertainty." Miss Shizuki said tersely, the unspoken accusation of 'and that's your fault' left to hang heavy over Oriko's head.
"Let us dispel some of that uncertainty now." Miss Shizuki continued, her words slow and carefully selected. "Neither I nor my friends will be used as tools to your end, no matter how noble you may claim said ends to be. We will not be blackmailed; do you understand and agree with this?"
Oriko could hardly bring herself to protest, all her goals, the trails she had faced and overcome, the accumulation of her knowledge and experience. It all felt so very small now.
She nodded, an acquiescence to her opponent's demands.
Miss Shizuki accepted her concession with a nod in return, her confidence building as Oriko crumbled.
"You will not pursue further actions against us, that includes leveraging your knowledge of our relationship in any way that would bring about harm of any kind, whether that be physical, mental or social."
What could she do in the face of these revelations? With the knowledge that there was so much she didn't know about the world, about magic, about… her mother.
What could she do but agree?
"Ugh!" Miss Miki groaned in exclamation, cutting through the tense atmosphere. "Why does this mystic emotion stuff make it so hard to hate you!?"
Everyone turned to see the outburst, not that such attention was enough to dissuade Miss Miki, who had clearly grown tired of holding back her thoughts.
"You're the villain here!" She shouted, gesturing wildly around the room as she did so. "You were sitting here in your big evil house with your big evil plans and- good people don't blackmail that's like morality 101!"
"Hey!" Kirika snapped back. "Don't say things like that about Ori-"
"Then!" Miss Miki continued, verbally barrelling through Kirika's objection. "You turn around and try to blackmail us into doing something good!" Her fingernails dug into the tablecloth as Confusionfustrationangerindignation-
"If your family really did all this bad stuff, then why do you need to do even more crime to stop them? Why did you need to hurt us to stop them?" She asked through clenched teeth. "Why did you decide to be a villain in all this?"
It was strange for Oriko, to have her morality reduced to something as simple and childish as 'villain' or 'bad guy'. The reality of politics had long since done away with such notions, the means to accomplish something mattered little compared to the ends…
…No. That mindset, that belief, her father had held it too.
What good had it done for him?
Oriko was aware, distantly, of a telepathic conversation between the three Magi. The words were beyond her, too distant and not meant for her ears. (not that this strange phenomenon seemed to work through her ears anyway.)
She didn't try to intrude, instead letting herself backwards into a seemingly endless sea of DevotionprotectivenessobsessionloveKirika.
It wasn't infinite, intellectually speaking Oriko knew that nothing truly was. But for a moment-
Oriko let herself believe that Krikia's love went on forever.
She was only brought back to reality by the faint sound of a palm striking a forehead.
Miss Shizuki, apparently, had decided to slam her own hand against her own face. She looked disgruntled yet her exasperationamusementfondness told a different story, as did the faint muttering under her breath of "What did I ever do to deserve you two."
"It appears that this will not be the last you see of us Miss Mikuni." The Shizuki heiress rose from her chair, any trace of her previous break in composure gone in an instant. "You have to provide reparations for your transgressions against us after all, we may soon be back to collect this." She tapped her finger against the folder containing the Mikuni family's criminal evidence.
Oriko's voice caught in her throat, she watched as three girls bowed in eery telepathy-assisted synchrony. Then marched out of the room-
"We're not paying for the teacup!" Miss Miki turned to shout over her shoulder.
"…I would pay for you to break the rest." Oriko muttered, not that any of the trio heard her, now a good couple of rooms away and soon to exit the manor.
So much had happened in so little time, Oriko's world had been flipped around twice over, her hopes enriched, crushed, then resurrected in turn.
Oh yes, and telepathy was real, somehow.
It wasn't even lunchtime yet.
…
"Bed." Oriko announced to the not quite empty room. "I need bed."
That wasn't what she'd meant to say, but apparently her verbiage had finally given up after one too many shocks to her proverbial everything.
Thankfully Kirika, her sweet, wonderful Kirika, understood the request and wrapped her arms around Oriko to whisk her away to a restful sleep.
Or she tried to, at least. Kirika wasn't strong enough to lift Oriko like they'd done before to their combined disappointment. So instead, she simply supported her all the way to the bedroom.
The duo collapsed into Oriko's bed, the owner of said bed committed to sleeping away her problems until tomorrow, when she would hopefully be better mentally equipped to deal with it. She needed to make up for the many sleepless nights she'd had researching her family's misdeeds anyway.
Blackmail, magic, adorable black-haired limpet girl. They were all problems for tomorrow.
In a very complicated time, two girls fell asleep in a large house.
That night, they dreamed of magical girls falling through the sky.
So, uh. Wow writing this got majorly delayed.
I'd be surprised if anyone even remembers this story.
Well, it's here now. I hope anyone who managed to make it this far enjoyed the chapter(s). I'd promise more but if past experience is to go by you can expect something in a year or so... Sorry.
If anyone's willing to leave comments and likes and so forth, I'd greatly appreciate the feedback.
So, Oriko stumbling across her dad's massive pile of blackmail has prevented her spiraling into the "I have no purpose" thing that made her a target for Kyubes...
I love it! Oriko and Kirika are adorable. The slow pace doesn't bother me personally, you clearly care about the story so it's unlikely to die. I love that they seem likely to help Oriko with the distribution of the evidence too.
So, Oriko stumbling across her dad's massive pile of blackmail has prevented her spiraling into the "I have no purpose" thing that made her a target for Kyubes...
Oriko doesn't contract in most timelines, the question is then raised: What does she get up to in the timelines where she isn't a Magical Girl? Where precognition powers don't give her the answer to her 'what was the point?' question.
Here, she latched onto a new purpose, just as she latched onto her Father's political campaign when her Mother died. Oriko is very much someone who finds a goal and then prioritises it above all else, which makes her an interesting complement/mirror to other characters, such as Kirika and Homura, who found a person and placed said person above all else.
As for the diary, she did find it but couldn't bring herself to read it once she realised it was her Father's personal life info instead of more blackmail. She's since used the 'I need to focus on my new purpose' excuse to avoid reading further. She has it, but that particular bomb has yet to be dropped.
I love it! Oriko and Kirika are adorable. The slow pace doesn't bother me personally, you clearly care about the story so it's unlikely to die. I love that they seem likely to help Oriko with the distribution of the evidence too.
Thanks! It's hard to put into words how much it means to me to know that people are enjoying this. Oriko/Kirika is a fun write and I'm glad that came across on the other side.
As for the evidence, Madoka and Sayaka have too much of a 'be helpful' and 'be heroic' complex respectively to really put aside a situation where they can do a good thing. That doesn't mean all is forgotten and forgiven, Sayaka is perfectly capable of bearing a grudge against someone she's helping and Hitomi is mostly on board because her crushes/friends convinced her that they should try and do something. Madoka is the most immediate supplier of second chances, but that doesn't mean she's forgotten what Oriko threatened to do. She's just the most willing to believe that the girl won't follow through or attempt anything similar again.
I can't wait to see how Homura gets involved in all this. Is everyone gonna wake up one morning and be like *oh* when they sense there's another one, or is she gonna have to wait to join the cuddle club? Or what if we get Moemura?
