4. Battle of the Roses
- Location
- Earth
Diplomacy is worth another shot, perhaps another track will help
Yuki's eyes narrow beneath her blindfold. She is an advocate of resocialisation over harsh punishment, but she also knows the unchanging nature of Abnormalities. She has to see things from Gertrud's perspective and find a lever to use her own logic.
"Tell me more about the gathering process," she says. For now she needs more information about how this Witch thinks.
And Gertrud is happy to oblige. She begins swaying back and forth again, speaking at length of the various methods she came up with to extract energy from humans; Yuki gathers that this is likely their life force, sapped directly from their souls. Efficient, if nothing else.
Much like she expected, Gertrud is mono-focussed on her roses. She does not care for people or her surroundings, not even her own minions, beyond the benefits they offer her flowers. She only dives into populated areas when the roses lose their luster, then retreats once she took enough people to sustain them. The number is surprisingly low despite that.
"Just one or two at a time?"
"Indeed," Gertrud gurgles. "Those 'human' things are like sacks of energy, so I usually just need one or two. That much energy lasts me a fortnight, sometimes less if I make more seeds."
Yuki nods her understanding; this is still bad, but less so than she anticipated. "And how do you extract the energy, exactly?" she prompts next.
"Oh, I just snag and squeeze them. Without actually touching them, of course. Yuck. They don't even realise if I pull out their essence, but there's only so much I can take while they're alive. So I have Anthony cut them to size or something for the rest."
After what may have been an hour or two of gardening and useless avenues, Yuki finally sees an opportunity. She is starting to get tired of this dance, fingers twitching with unspent energy and very real anger. Gertrud's near-constant, callous comments do not help her mood.
"Your resource management is inefficient," she says, blunt as ever.
Gertrud stops wiggling in response and leans closer. "Oh? And how do you mean that?"
"While it is true you get more energy by wringing a human dry, you can still siphon some off without harming them. If you only take this much and let them go afterward, then you can take it from the same human again at a later time. Something like milking a cow. It keeps the population stable, no matter what."
Gertrud's head tilts further and further sideways, until she almost falls over. She eventually bounces back in the other direction, an almost hypnotic sway to her body. "Intriguing," she murmurs, glancing over to the vibrant roses still tended by a dozen minions.
"But the human population is stable anyway, isn't it? There are so many of them, they're everywhere and get anywhere if you let them. So why would I waste time extracting energy from more of them when I can just take it all? Not like one or two matter to the population as a whole."
Yuki's head tilts in tandem with Gertrud's, her countenance clearly unamused. "If we assume two humans per fortnight, that makes one human per week and thus fifty-two per year. A single human requires roughly fifteen to eighteen years to reach their physical maturity, not including the nine months' worth of gestation in the mother's womb. So in one generation of eighteen years, you will kill over nine hundred humans. Which makes nine hundred less who can themselves procreate, thus lowering the overall number of births in the following generation."
There are some more intricate considerations Yuki leaves out here, such as the ages of the victims in regard to having children. But she wants to get a point across, not write a thesis. The numbers seem to give Gertrud pause, if nothing else.
"Are they really that difficult to grow?" the Witch asks, a smidgen of curiousity shining through. "Even when there's so many of them?"
Yuki nods. "They are. And now imagine, for a moment, how you would feel if you spent so much time and effort to grow a rose, only for someone to walk by and trample it without regard."
Gertrud stills, shaking in barely controlled anger at the mere thought of it.
"I would be furious," she whispers.
"And you would go and kill whoever dared to do such a thing," Yuki continues, earning a bobbing nod. "Which is why only siphoning off some off their energy is in your best interest. Humans are a social species; a guardian will come sooner or later. But you can save yourself that hassle by not agitating them unduely."
She stops there, waiting for a response. Reading Gertrud's body language is difficult because she lacks familiar features, but the erratic flutter of her wings indicates that she mulls it over. Yuki dares to hope she got through to her when the silence keeps lasting.
Which is when she hears it, barely audible. A gunshot. Then another, and another.
And they are coming closer before suddenly stopping.
Yuki's gaze slips to the entrance, only to return to Gertrud when she speaks up: "You might have a point. I will have to think this over more carefully. To that... hm?"
Her head turns to the entrance as well, as does Yuki's once again. The sound of a voice is audible now, announcing three figures stepping into the opening. Two wear school uniforms, flanking a young woman in fancier blouse and skirt, with a dark corset to match. A yellow Soul Gem gleams on her beret, which crowns a head of golden hair that runs into elegant ringlets.
"It seems we found the Witch," she says to her companions, grabbing onto an ornate club that the girl to her right holds. She slams it into the floor, which creates a semi-translucent dome of light around the other two. "Please wait up here while I deal with her."
"I am better at this than Oriko," Yuki mutters to herself as she stands, hands at ease. Of course a Magical Girl would show up just as she mentions them. Now she has to disarm this somehow, lest all her work go down the drain.
"Mind the roses!" she calls up, just as the blonde girl is about to hop down. Hearing Yuki's voice startles her badly enough to buy a moment's time. "She will do her best to destroy you if you harm those."
"They have an actual language?" Gertrud asks, even as she pulls her mass together in agitation. "Whatever. Tell them to go away."
Meanwhile, the girls up above have a whispered conversation Yuki is not privy to. She gazes up at them momentarily, already suspicious of the conclusion they will reach. And before she can say much of anything, the blonde confidently leaps forward, clearing a fifteen metres drop without trouble.
Right into the flowerbed.
Yuki winces. The way that girl crushes a handful of roses under her boots seems deliberate, the confident smile she bears unwavering. And the barrier around them shudders.
"My roses!" Gertrud shrieks, flapping her wings in agitation. Her voice echoes from every wall, even the various plants around them start wailing. "Anthony! Adelbert!"
Even as she calls to her underlings, she lurches, catapulting her couch toward the intruder. Yuki ducks under it, wondering if Gertrud even realises she just threw that at her own roses. It does not matter either, seeing how another gunshot cracks loudly and the furniture's center explodes. Shreds of dark yellow ribbons fly every which way, as does the eldritch wood and cloth.
Gertrud utters another gurgling roar and rips into her own minions' essence, transforming a number of them into thick, sturdy vines to strike at the magical girl. She dances out of the way with grace that speaks of experience, forming flintlock rifles in each hand as she does. The hammers fall and bullets rip into the vines, debilitating them. But more come while Gertrud flutters high on her wings, nimbly evading the barrage.
Yuki slowly steps aside, unwilling to interfere; she already suspects all her work will go down the drain after this, but she has no stake in this fight. If anything, a magical girl is similar to a guardian of this city; interfering with her work is the opposite of what she should do.
Then a bullet shrieks right past Yuki's ear, tearing off the skin. A singular drop of blood pools at its very tip. And when the blonde looks her way again, Yuki knows this was no accident.
She moves before the next gun is fully pointed, crouching low. The bullet misses and the girl pushes off. Soft soil crumbles beneath her feet as she surges forward, straight at the surprised blonde. Viridian chains emerge from the ground to entangle her on Yuki's order, but are matched by golden ribbons. Her opponent leaps high to dodge her charge, where a vine snaps around her leg and slams her into the wall. Magical stone shatters on impact, hanging limp in the surrounding vines.
Twin shouts of shock sound from above, but Yuki knows better than to think someone that confident defeated. Theoretically, she could team up with Gertrud now. But, as the voices from above just reminded her, that will doom those civilians.
So she rather pulls back and floats up to the entrance, masking her ascent as a jump. The blonde from before is revealed to be fine and cuts herself free; just as her companions notice Yuki, she manifests a massive cannon, so large she can barely hug the handle.
Gertrud could dodge this, if she were not bound by a myriad of miniature strings that emerge from the bullet holes.
"Tiro Finale!" she calls gracefully, and the hammer falls a final time. An ear-shattering roar follows as Gertrud is swallowed by flame and smoke. Her lair wavers, quickly losing coherence.
Yet it seems that in her spite, Gertrud wants to deny the magical girl what she can. Her Grief Seed, a cage of black steel with gleaming core, bounces off the ground at a naturally impossible angle; away from the landing girl and right into Yuki's hand. She does not even notice because she poses, daintily sipping from a teacup she summoned from nowhere.
They are back in the regular world, the area bathed in dusk's orange light.
"Who are you, anyway?" the blunette of the civilian pair asks suspiciously, only to be surprised when the magical girl cocks another gun. "Mami? So she's bad?"
Yuki stares down the barrel without flinching. Her gaze flutters to the young woman holding it, then she clenches the Grief Seed harder. A flare of ribbons is countered by her chains this time, the green steel wrestling the cloth aside. The other two girls leap away with worried yelps.
"You should stop while you are ahead," Yuki advises calmly. "I have no reason to fight you yet."
The girl's brow ticks up the faintest bit. "A likely story," she retorts. "Every Witch is an enemy to the innocent."
The response causes more shocked gasps from the peanut gallery, which causes Yuki to roll her eyes after all.
"I am no Witch."
She clearly does not believe a word Yuki says. The still gleaming Soul Gem on her beret may be related to that.
"Um, are you sure, Mami?" a more timid voice chimes into their standoff. It belongs to the last member of the trio, yet another pinkette. "She doesn't look weird at all, not like those Witches or familiars, right?"
Yuki's head turns further once the colour registers. She studies the regular girl momentarily, already aware of whom she faces. Even if she did not look exactly like the one in Oriko's picture, there is a palpable aura around her. An invisible pressure that covers the girl's surroundings like a blanket.
Madoka Kaname. The apparent cause of world's end.
A gun barks and Yuki reacts too late; the bullet takes her in the shoulder, tearing through her suit. The girls shriek in surprise.
A flash of pain runs through Yuki as she bleeds off her momentum in an involuntary backflip. The bullet dug into her flesh, if not deeply. It wiggles and writhes in there, at least until her blood turns corrosive and dissolves the thing.
"I assure you, miss Kaname, this thing is a Witch masquerading as a human," the blonde says evenly. "Her appearing so non-threatening is part of the trick."
"And next I chose green as my colour because it has a calming effect to deceive my enemies," Yuki grouses, the familiar anger once again bubbling up. She swallows it for now as she inspects her shoulder. The arm still moves without trouble and the bleeding already stopped.
She ducks under the next bullet.
"You realise that, if we are to fight here, those two will become collateral damage?"
She motions toward Madoka and her wary friend, prompting Mami's eyes to narrow. So she is aware; this is probably why there were only singular shots and ribbon traps so far.
Yuki's shoulder knits itself back together; even her suit quickly mends. The scarlet of fresh blood is swallowed by even fresher viridian.
"Why did you bring them into danger in the first place?"
"That is none of your business," Mami answers, her voice almost as even as Yuki's. Her feet are still planted firmly, but the lack of further attacks conveys her uncertainty better than any words could.
Then the sound of footsteps echoes into their stalemate. An even clack-clack that draws the attention of both non-combatants, though neither Mami nor Yuki take their eyes off each other. Madoka gasps in surprise, her friend snarls.
"Homura!"
"Transfer student."
The blunette almost hisses, clutching her club tighter. "So you're behind all this," she declares, as if she solved the world's greatest mystery.
A soft voice answers belatedly, toneless: "I never met this person in my life, Sayaka Miki."
"And why, exactly, did you reveal yourself at this point, miss Akemi?" Mami asks pointedly.
Yuki's brow arches at that; did this other person follow them?
"It's clear that the two of you are at a stalemate right now. Something has to give sooner or later. Regardless of what happens, I will ensure that Madoka Kaname and Miki Sayaka remain unharmed."
"Yeah, as if!" the blunette, Sayaka, grouses. She pushes herself in front of Madoka, barring her from view. Yuki spies Kyubey on the pinkette's shoulder now, though; she wears them like a scarf.
"Alternately," Yuki speaks up to get the newcomer's attention, "you could arbitrate between the two of us."
"Or," Mami counters, "we could destroy this Witch together, miss Akemi. I would be happy to have you."
Yuki's grip on Gertrud's Grief Seed tightens further. The metal gives ever so faintly now. She tries not to spit acid at someone. Children are so annoyingly difficult to deal with once they made up their minds. And Yuki has precious few options now; she could bargain with Gertrud, so these girls may not be lost causes, but time is running out.
She could get out of dodge with teleportation. They have no idea she can do that, but using it will reveal the ability. Suddenly being somewhere else can be devastating in a fight, especially so when the other side never sees it coming. That approach is a last resort in Yuki's mind.
She could try to appeal to this Homura character, somehow. Perhaps that Grief Seed in her hand can even be used to bargain with one or both of the magical girls. Or she can break the stalemate first and attack Mami, banking on Homura protecting Madoka and Sayaka instead of interfering.
Or she could simply... walk away. And hope the arrival of Homura keeps Mami occupied long enough to get away. But that will only belay the problem.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mutrtPIlv8[/URL]
[] Wait and see what happens
weight: x1
[] Break the stalemate, attack Mami
-[] (optional) Write-in a battle plan
weight: x1
[] Try to bargain
-[] With Homura
-[] With Mami
-[] (optional) write-in a bargain strategy
weight: x1
[] Leave
-[] Just walk away
weight: x1
-[] Teleport
weight: x0.5
We have a six-hour Moratorium. Please do not vote for six hours!
Tomoe Mami
-Threat Rating: WAW
-Threat Assessment: Highly skilled, experienced, efficient, and cautious; her greatest weakpoint is her limited magic.
Akemi Homura
-Threat Rating: WAW
-Threat Assessment: Calm, composed, confident. Her powers are unknown.
Yuki's eyes narrow beneath her blindfold. She is an advocate of resocialisation over harsh punishment, but she also knows the unchanging nature of Abnormalities. She has to see things from Gertrud's perspective and find a lever to use her own logic.
"Tell me more about the gathering process," she says. For now she needs more information about how this Witch thinks.
And Gertrud is happy to oblige. She begins swaying back and forth again, speaking at length of the various methods she came up with to extract energy from humans; Yuki gathers that this is likely their life force, sapped directly from their souls. Efficient, if nothing else.
Much like she expected, Gertrud is mono-focussed on her roses. She does not care for people or her surroundings, not even her own minions, beyond the benefits they offer her flowers. She only dives into populated areas when the roses lose their luster, then retreats once she took enough people to sustain them. The number is surprisingly low despite that.
"Just one or two at a time?"
"Indeed," Gertrud gurgles. "Those 'human' things are like sacks of energy, so I usually just need one or two. That much energy lasts me a fortnight, sometimes less if I make more seeds."
Yuki nods her understanding; this is still bad, but less so than she anticipated. "And how do you extract the energy, exactly?" she prompts next.
"Oh, I just snag and squeeze them. Without actually touching them, of course. Yuck. They don't even realise if I pull out their essence, but there's only so much I can take while they're alive. So I have Anthony cut them to size or something for the rest."
After what may have been an hour or two of gardening and useless avenues, Yuki finally sees an opportunity. She is starting to get tired of this dance, fingers twitching with unspent energy and very real anger. Gertrud's near-constant, callous comments do not help her mood.
"Your resource management is inefficient," she says, blunt as ever.
Gertrud stops wiggling in response and leans closer. "Oh? And how do you mean that?"
"While it is true you get more energy by wringing a human dry, you can still siphon some off without harming them. If you only take this much and let them go afterward, then you can take it from the same human again at a later time. Something like milking a cow. It keeps the population stable, no matter what."
Gertrud's head tilts further and further sideways, until she almost falls over. She eventually bounces back in the other direction, an almost hypnotic sway to her body. "Intriguing," she murmurs, glancing over to the vibrant roses still tended by a dozen minions.
"But the human population is stable anyway, isn't it? There are so many of them, they're everywhere and get anywhere if you let them. So why would I waste time extracting energy from more of them when I can just take it all? Not like one or two matter to the population as a whole."
Yuki's head tilts in tandem with Gertrud's, her countenance clearly unamused. "If we assume two humans per fortnight, that makes one human per week and thus fifty-two per year. A single human requires roughly fifteen to eighteen years to reach their physical maturity, not including the nine months' worth of gestation in the mother's womb. So in one generation of eighteen years, you will kill over nine hundred humans. Which makes nine hundred less who can themselves procreate, thus lowering the overall number of births in the following generation."
There are some more intricate considerations Yuki leaves out here, such as the ages of the victims in regard to having children. But she wants to get a point across, not write a thesis. The numbers seem to give Gertrud pause, if nothing else.
"Are they really that difficult to grow?" the Witch asks, a smidgen of curiousity shining through. "Even when there's so many of them?"
Yuki nods. "They are. And now imagine, for a moment, how you would feel if you spent so much time and effort to grow a rose, only for someone to walk by and trample it without regard."
Gertrud stills, shaking in barely controlled anger at the mere thought of it.
"I would be furious," she whispers.
"And you would go and kill whoever dared to do such a thing," Yuki continues, earning a bobbing nod. "Which is why only siphoning off some off their energy is in your best interest. Humans are a social species; a guardian will come sooner or later. But you can save yourself that hassle by not agitating them unduely."
She stops there, waiting for a response. Reading Gertrud's body language is difficult because she lacks familiar features, but the erratic flutter of her wings indicates that she mulls it over. Yuki dares to hope she got through to her when the silence keeps lasting.
Which is when she hears it, barely audible. A gunshot. Then another, and another.
And they are coming closer before suddenly stopping.
Yuki's gaze slips to the entrance, only to return to Gertrud when she speaks up: "You might have a point. I will have to think this over more carefully. To that... hm?"
Her head turns to the entrance as well, as does Yuki's once again. The sound of a voice is audible now, announcing three figures stepping into the opening. Two wear school uniforms, flanking a young woman in fancier blouse and skirt, with a dark corset to match. A yellow Soul Gem gleams on her beret, which crowns a head of golden hair that runs into elegant ringlets.
"It seems we found the Witch," she says to her companions, grabbing onto an ornate club that the girl to her right holds. She slams it into the floor, which creates a semi-translucent dome of light around the other two. "Please wait up here while I deal with her."
"I am better at this than Oriko," Yuki mutters to herself as she stands, hands at ease. Of course a Magical Girl would show up just as she mentions them. Now she has to disarm this somehow, lest all her work go down the drain.
"Mind the roses!" she calls up, just as the blonde girl is about to hop down. Hearing Yuki's voice startles her badly enough to buy a moment's time. "She will do her best to destroy you if you harm those."
"They have an actual language?" Gertrud asks, even as she pulls her mass together in agitation. "Whatever. Tell them to go away."
Meanwhile, the girls up above have a whispered conversation Yuki is not privy to. She gazes up at them momentarily, already suspicious of the conclusion they will reach. And before she can say much of anything, the blonde confidently leaps forward, clearing a fifteen metres drop without trouble.
Right into the flowerbed.
Yuki winces. The way that girl crushes a handful of roses under her boots seems deliberate, the confident smile she bears unwavering. And the barrier around them shudders.
"My roses!" Gertrud shrieks, flapping her wings in agitation. Her voice echoes from every wall, even the various plants around them start wailing. "Anthony! Adelbert!"
Even as she calls to her underlings, she lurches, catapulting her couch toward the intruder. Yuki ducks under it, wondering if Gertrud even realises she just threw that at her own roses. It does not matter either, seeing how another gunshot cracks loudly and the furniture's center explodes. Shreds of dark yellow ribbons fly every which way, as does the eldritch wood and cloth.
Gertrud utters another gurgling roar and rips into her own minions' essence, transforming a number of them into thick, sturdy vines to strike at the magical girl. She dances out of the way with grace that speaks of experience, forming flintlock rifles in each hand as she does. The hammers fall and bullets rip into the vines, debilitating them. But more come while Gertrud flutters high on her wings, nimbly evading the barrage.
Yuki slowly steps aside, unwilling to interfere; she already suspects all her work will go down the drain after this, but she has no stake in this fight. If anything, a magical girl is similar to a guardian of this city; interfering with her work is the opposite of what she should do.
Then a bullet shrieks right past Yuki's ear, tearing off the skin. A singular drop of blood pools at its very tip. And when the blonde looks her way again, Yuki knows this was no accident.
She moves before the next gun is fully pointed, crouching low. The bullet misses and the girl pushes off. Soft soil crumbles beneath her feet as she surges forward, straight at the surprised blonde. Viridian chains emerge from the ground to entangle her on Yuki's order, but are matched by golden ribbons. Her opponent leaps high to dodge her charge, where a vine snaps around her leg and slams her into the wall. Magical stone shatters on impact, hanging limp in the surrounding vines.
Twin shouts of shock sound from above, but Yuki knows better than to think someone that confident defeated. Theoretically, she could team up with Gertrud now. But, as the voices from above just reminded her, that will doom those civilians.
So she rather pulls back and floats up to the entrance, masking her ascent as a jump. The blonde from before is revealed to be fine and cuts herself free; just as her companions notice Yuki, she manifests a massive cannon, so large she can barely hug the handle.
Gertrud could dodge this, if she were not bound by a myriad of miniature strings that emerge from the bullet holes.
"Tiro Finale!" she calls gracefully, and the hammer falls a final time. An ear-shattering roar follows as Gertrud is swallowed by flame and smoke. Her lair wavers, quickly losing coherence.
Yet it seems that in her spite, Gertrud wants to deny the magical girl what she can. Her Grief Seed, a cage of black steel with gleaming core, bounces off the ground at a naturally impossible angle; away from the landing girl and right into Yuki's hand. She does not even notice because she poses, daintily sipping from a teacup she summoned from nowhere.
They are back in the regular world, the area bathed in dusk's orange light.
"Who are you, anyway?" the blunette of the civilian pair asks suspiciously, only to be surprised when the magical girl cocks another gun. "Mami? So she's bad?"
Yuki stares down the barrel without flinching. Her gaze flutters to the young woman holding it, then she clenches the Grief Seed harder. A flare of ribbons is countered by her chains this time, the green steel wrestling the cloth aside. The other two girls leap away with worried yelps.
"You should stop while you are ahead," Yuki advises calmly. "I have no reason to fight you yet."
The girl's brow ticks up the faintest bit. "A likely story," she retorts. "Every Witch is an enemy to the innocent."
The response causes more shocked gasps from the peanut gallery, which causes Yuki to roll her eyes after all.
"I am no Witch."
She clearly does not believe a word Yuki says. The still gleaming Soul Gem on her beret may be related to that.
"Um, are you sure, Mami?" a more timid voice chimes into their standoff. It belongs to the last member of the trio, yet another pinkette. "She doesn't look weird at all, not like those Witches or familiars, right?"
Yuki's head turns further once the colour registers. She studies the regular girl momentarily, already aware of whom she faces. Even if she did not look exactly like the one in Oriko's picture, there is a palpable aura around her. An invisible pressure that covers the girl's surroundings like a blanket.
Madoka Kaname. The apparent cause of world's end.
A gun barks and Yuki reacts too late; the bullet takes her in the shoulder, tearing through her suit. The girls shriek in surprise.
A flash of pain runs through Yuki as she bleeds off her momentum in an involuntary backflip. The bullet dug into her flesh, if not deeply. It wiggles and writhes in there, at least until her blood turns corrosive and dissolves the thing.
"I assure you, miss Kaname, this thing is a Witch masquerading as a human," the blonde says evenly. "Her appearing so non-threatening is part of the trick."
"And next I chose green as my colour because it has a calming effect to deceive my enemies," Yuki grouses, the familiar anger once again bubbling up. She swallows it for now as she inspects her shoulder. The arm still moves without trouble and the bleeding already stopped.
She ducks under the next bullet.
"You realise that, if we are to fight here, those two will become collateral damage?"
She motions toward Madoka and her wary friend, prompting Mami's eyes to narrow. So she is aware; this is probably why there were only singular shots and ribbon traps so far.
Yuki's shoulder knits itself back together; even her suit quickly mends. The scarlet of fresh blood is swallowed by even fresher viridian.
"Why did you bring them into danger in the first place?"
"That is none of your business," Mami answers, her voice almost as even as Yuki's. Her feet are still planted firmly, but the lack of further attacks conveys her uncertainty better than any words could.
Then the sound of footsteps echoes into their stalemate. An even clack-clack that draws the attention of both non-combatants, though neither Mami nor Yuki take their eyes off each other. Madoka gasps in surprise, her friend snarls.
"Homura!"
"Transfer student."
The blunette almost hisses, clutching her club tighter. "So you're behind all this," she declares, as if she solved the world's greatest mystery.
A soft voice answers belatedly, toneless: "I never met this person in my life, Sayaka Miki."
"And why, exactly, did you reveal yourself at this point, miss Akemi?" Mami asks pointedly.
Yuki's brow arches at that; did this other person follow them?
"It's clear that the two of you are at a stalemate right now. Something has to give sooner or later. Regardless of what happens, I will ensure that Madoka Kaname and Miki Sayaka remain unharmed."
"Yeah, as if!" the blunette, Sayaka, grouses. She pushes herself in front of Madoka, barring her from view. Yuki spies Kyubey on the pinkette's shoulder now, though; she wears them like a scarf.
"Alternately," Yuki speaks up to get the newcomer's attention, "you could arbitrate between the two of us."
"Or," Mami counters, "we could destroy this Witch together, miss Akemi. I would be happy to have you."
Yuki's grip on Gertrud's Grief Seed tightens further. The metal gives ever so faintly now. She tries not to spit acid at someone. Children are so annoyingly difficult to deal with once they made up their minds. And Yuki has precious few options now; she could bargain with Gertrud, so these girls may not be lost causes, but time is running out.
She could get out of dodge with teleportation. They have no idea she can do that, but using it will reveal the ability. Suddenly being somewhere else can be devastating in a fight, especially so when the other side never sees it coming. That approach is a last resort in Yuki's mind.
She could try to appeal to this Homura character, somehow. Perhaps that Grief Seed in her hand can even be used to bargain with one or both of the magical girls. Or she can break the stalemate first and attack Mami, banking on Homura protecting Madoka and Sayaka instead of interfering.
Or she could simply... walk away. And hope the arrival of Homura keeps Mami occupied long enough to get away. But that will only belay the problem.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mutrtPIlv8[/URL]
[] Wait and see what happens
weight: x1
[] Break the stalemate, attack Mami
-[] (optional) Write-in a battle plan
weight: x1
[] Try to bargain
-[] With Homura
-[] With Mami
-[] (optional) write-in a bargain strategy
weight: x1
[] Leave
-[] Just walk away
weight: x1
-[] Teleport
weight: x0.5
We have a six-hour Moratorium. Please do not vote for six hours!
Tomoe Mami
-Threat Rating: WAW
-Threat Assessment: Highly skilled, experienced, efficient, and cautious; her greatest weakpoint is her limited magic.
Akemi Homura
-Threat Rating: WAW
-Threat Assessment: Calm, composed, confident. Her powers are unknown.
