Subsumption (PMMM Faux-Quest) (Witch MC)
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Imagine this from Hitomi's perspective--everything is fine and dandy until people keep going all Moby Dick on Ashtaroth until Bad Things Happen and everything increasingly goes to shit.
- Location
- Europe
My sympathy is limited. I'm pretty sure Ashtaroth explicitly told Hitomi that she didn't want to meet Mami, because she kills witches like Ashtaroth regularly. Unexpectedly inviting Mami the first chance she gets was bound to cause problems.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
But Hitomi didn't invite Mami? She didn't know her in the first place. She confided in Madoka about what happened to her best friend (which she arguably had the right to know), and Madoka turned for help to the only magical girl she knew (and possibly the only one in the city since Tira wasn't a resident). Hitomi tagged along as damage control.
Really, Hitomi's been one of the most level-headed characters in the story.
Really, Hitomi's been one of the most level-headed characters in the story.
Makes sense, but in that case what happens with Charlotte and Candeloro, who weren't subsumed?
Actually the first time Hitomi and Ashtaroth met Mami wasn't mentioned at all. Ashtaroth didn't even knew the name of Mitakihara's single magical girl (she learned the name through Sayaka later).
Ashtaroth's talk about Mami being very good at killing witches like her was the next day (earlier today), when Mami had already invited herself to the meeting between Hitomi, Sayaka and Ashtaroth.
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- Location
- Here
If Barriers sticking together (or Ashtaroth entering other barriers in general) is somehow specific to Ashtaroth's nature as the Witch of Subsumption, then I'd expect they'd break apart. If not, if it's just what happens when two Witches are in the same space... then I guess they stay there.
I tried to keep it separate and describe only my impression of the music, but I have seen YuYuYu, so there was likely some influence.
I noticed that. It's about equally strange.
That would be rather more blatant, yes. Though I was thinking unsubtle in a somewhat different sense, which I'm not sure there's a good word for. Peerless Blade, particularly the "capable of overcoming any other weapon" part, is… it lacks plausible deniability. You can't pretend that there's no reference there and the ability and phrasing are a perfectly natural fit. Contrast, say, the title of the most recent chapter, which makes sense even if you don't know what Homura's name means, or the setup I did to make "speak of the devil" seem like a natural thing to say when she showed up.
Mm, I'm definitely overstating things a bit. There is nontrivial information content; it's just generally non-unique in interpretation, and moreover those interpretations are heavily subjective. In hindsight I should have cut at least part of that from my post; people making assumptions about how much information is available to others and how easy it is to interpret is a pet peeve, and I can get rather more vehement than the subject really deserves. Sorry.
Maybe she cares about Sayaka. Maybe she thought she saw cheese. Maybe the clock struck eight. Maybe she wanted everybody to go away and stop making noise. The problem isn't that she's always homicidal, but that we don't know what flips that switch, so we'll always have to treat her as though she could become murderous without any warning—because it's true. Just because something's safe 99% of the time, that doesn't mean it's safe, unless you can recognize the 1% in advance.
Ooh, rocketry!
Or, you know, it's a play on Homura's name and collection of incendiary weapons. But I'll pretend that it's about Ashtaroth's explosion-fuelled ascent to the heavens.
Hey, they're effective weapons! That doesn't stop being true just because magic is involved.
I'd either delete the comma or put another before "surprisingly". (The latter is grammatically correct; the former reads better.)
I'm not sure how she accomplished that. If she'd shot them, there would be bullets flying. Did she go and poke each one with a stick in timestop? Did Ashtaroth just not notice the bullets?
"Transfer student" wasn't enough?
A cheap probing attack. Homura gets to see how tough you are and how you respond to attack, and all it costs her is some bullets. She'll move on to better weapons if your defenses prove effective.
Compound adjective hyphenation rule again.
Maybe this time it will actually help. Flight is such a useful ability for breaking an engagement, and it just keeps not working.
Interesting. What sense is detecting motion?
There are ways to accomplish this geometrically, but it requires either the barrier actively changing its geometry in detectable ways, or making use of the 3+1-dimensional nature of the universe (i.e. curved spacetime, not just curved space). And in the latter case, I'd expect tidal effects.
What happens if you build a tower?
Agreed. Magical girls are ridiculous.
That's a good trick.
Huh. Sayaka's healing also puts out fire? Is it restoring paper faster than it can reignite? Or is it just her water theme acting up?
"Blinding", eh? It doesn't have the magical oomph that Mami's did, to actually destroy things, but maybe it's bright enough to damage eyes. Non-magical eyes, at least.
Heavily cracked surface? Is that just the form he's chosen at the moment, or has he been attacked? Difficulties with Candeloro, perhaps?
Not sure what silvery-yellow rock indicates. I can't think of any rock of that color, but I'm no geologist.
I don't know much about explosives, but rock is pretty tough, especially big rocks. Shemesh may have survived that.
Good choice. (What makes the surfaces mirror-like but not actually mirrors? And there should be a comma after "thousands", but this way may flow better.)
Given your history, this does not fill me with confidence.
Not that Ashtaroth's doing much better right now.
Is it illusory sound, or is it real sound bouncing off of illusions? If the latter, then the illusions are reflecting pressure waves, which would be interesting.
Reminder of the last time we tried illusory sounds:
The principle in situations like this is that the descriptor ("like Sayaka's") should not be attached to anything more strongly than it is to the thing it's describing ("is somehow echoing"). It's separated from what it's describing by a comma, so needs to be set off from what came before by something at least as strong as a comma. Otherwise the sentence parses as "The girl's voice is … like Sayaka's, …". There are some exceptions to this, such as such as commas acting as separators in lists mostly not counting, but it's usually accurate.
And she's stopped testing us.
It's possible that Ashtaroth could survive that; she may be made of paper, but she has three witches and two magical girls' worth of power, which may add something to her resilience. Not likely, though, especially since Homura's still around to finish the job.
If she did die, things get interesting. Recall this, from between Saar's death and subsumption:
It seems like the stabilization is a result of the barriers being attached, not of Ashtaroth's particular nature, and that this acts to prevent collapse into a grief seed. Which could mean that, unless and until Charlotte and Candeloro are killed, Sayaka will remain herself (her meat is probably not too injured), her soul still trapped in the barrier. If all the witches do die, or if Ashtaroth isn't stabilized by the others, then it will be interesting to see what comes out in the way of grief seeds. One for Ashtaroth? One each for Ashtaroth and Saar, and a soul gem for Sayaka and Tira? Some fused abomination? If Charlotte and Candeloro have to die, would theirs be separate?
The next two updates will answer a lot of questions.
I liked the choice of music. It's not exactly fight music, but then, this wasn't really a fight. Mami was like fighting a player who is far more skilled than you, but still playing the same game. Homura was like one of those levels where there's an invincible boss floating around and you're just supposed to survive—and then it kills you in the cutscene. Also, timestop isn't quite god mode, but it's pretty close for a lot of purposes.
Ashtaroth and Sayaka worked together pretty smoothly this time. This is probably a matter of experience and their tactics being pretty straightforward, but given their situation I'm wary of anything that might hints at further integration.
I'm pretty sure the Bad End version of this chapter is just
*Looks pointedly at Walpurgisnacht*
…why? This is exactly what they're for.
By the way, how do you go about searching for music? I've never been good at finding something fitting.
Or, as we just saw, you can bring incendiaries for maximum damage.
Their accuracy was impressive, but a significant part of their effectiveness was sheer quantity of firepower, both in number of bullets and the power of their larger weapons.
There really doesn't. There are several ways to make the barrier finite without having boundaries. Especially if uniform gravity is optional. Toroidal*, projective**, and spherical*** topologies are all pretty easy, though you might run into issues with spheres necessarily having curvature****. Also the fact that you should see ground in the sky.
There are also ways to allow arbitrarily large distances between objects in a barrier without the barrier itself being infinite—only the local environment has to actually exist at any given time, so you can just
*To imagine a 3-torus, picture the interior of a cube where, whenever you pass through one of the faces, you come out in the corresponding point on the opposite face.
**For (real) projective 3-space, picture the interior of a sphere such that, if you pass through a point on the surface, you come out at the opposite point.
***For a 3-sphere, take two balls, and connect corresponding points on their surfaces.
****That is, if your (Riemannian manifold) universe is topologically a sphere, then it has positive total curvature, so space must be curved—and, on the rather small scale of a barrier, this curvature might be noticeable, if only by distorting your view of distant objects a la gravitational lensing. This is not true of tori or projective space.
Well…
Ashtaroth steals others' stories to build her own, growing out of the blank pages of reality (see also her witch symbol (search "insignia")). Should she retreat entirely, she would withdraw her story from the world, leaving only REALITY, bare of any narrative to grant it meaning.
Yup. If the barrier is a (Riemannian) manifold (with or without boundary), then so long as it's compact, it will be finite in extent, and there are many compact 3-manifolds without boundary. You can also have non-compact Riemannian manifolds of finite volume, though there are compromises involved. And if you don't insist on a manifold structure, you have even more options. (Including the temporal structure to make a Lorentzian manifold would unlock some additional options, but not, I think, very many useful ones.)
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hillo315
Intact but Tactless
- Location
- Somewhere. Somewhere else.
Who says she doesn't?
Okay, now I think I understand where this is going. *rubs hands together conspiratorially*
If "Sayaka" can use memories from Sayaka or Homura, it isn't. That isn't really the case, of course, but Homura didn't know that."Transfer student" wasn't enough?
It could include a "cure status ailments" effect.
Difficulties with Charlotte, because the moon is made of cheese.
It could be his natural color: a planetoid reflecting light, as seen from afar.
Looking at Confrontation 5, I'm guessing the sound is illusory. The only complication is that, unlike images, the sounds need to make sense. Hypothetically, Ashy should be able to produce illusory speech if she also makes an illusory mouth to speak with.
Two witches and two magical girls, including herself. The other two witches are doing their own thing.
The only problem was that Homura did not have enough dakka to escalate. The plan itself was perfect.
And then the barrier would die, because narrative is the linchpin of REALITY.
Deep.
Omake: Time-Loop Tag-Along Temptation
unObservant
Just drifting along, really
- Location
- USA
This'll be my first omake… ever, I think, but I stumbled across the idea this morning and kept coming back to it.
Time-Loop Tag-Along Temptation
Homura gazed upon the frozen forms of Sayaka Miki and the newly rehatched Book Witch, surrounded by bullets, and thought about her next move.
At some point during the loops, she'd picked up the habit of allowing Grief Seeds to hatch at least a few times before she disposed of them. It saved time otherwise spent hunting, denied the Incubator at least a small bit of energy, and any new tricks or increased power the Witches exhibited… didn't tend to matter when they died instants after their rebirth.
The reappearance of the previous loop's Miki still attached to the Witch was definitely one of the more unusual deviations she'd seen, but a successful career as a Magical Girl tended to get one used to unexpected developments. And, ultimately, Miki's presence wouldn't stop her from getting this Grief Seed back- she was already running dangerously low.
Her conscience rankled a bit at the expression of growing recognition and panic on Miki's face, but she placated it by firing a few more times to ensure she would receive a clean death even if the Witch controlling her survived the initial volley. Best to make sure, after all.
As she reached for her Shield, however, an unprompted, idle question about this particular deviation's limits briefly made itself known... before Homura ruthlessly stamped it out and continued her motion.
...
…Before she ruthlessly stamped it out.
Ruthlessly stamped- was she actually considering this? Really?
Was she truly willing to risk at the very least this current loop gambling on being able to control an unknown Witch? Let alone one she still had incomplete information on, that for all she knew could rapidly become as big a problem as Walpurgisnacht itself!
She was hardly out of options or ideas at the moment. She'd already set up a meeting with a promising foreign Magical Girl yesterday, and in the last loop had finally confirmed the location of another armory only slightly too late to justify visiting it then. This Witch may have been an anomaly to her loops so far, but those happened far more frequently than she would have liked. Surely it would just be a matter of time before she encountered it again, this time better prepared?
Why risk it now?
Homura strode towards the airborne bullets.
Time-Loop Tag-Along Temptation
Homura gazed upon the frozen forms of Sayaka Miki and the newly rehatched Book Witch, surrounded by bullets, and thought about her next move.
At some point during the loops, she'd picked up the habit of allowing Grief Seeds to hatch at least a few times before she disposed of them. It saved time otherwise spent hunting, denied the Incubator at least a small bit of energy, and any new tricks or increased power the Witches exhibited… didn't tend to matter when they died instants after their rebirth.
The reappearance of the previous loop's Miki still attached to the Witch was definitely one of the more unusual deviations she'd seen, but a successful career as a Magical Girl tended to get one used to unexpected developments. And, ultimately, Miki's presence wouldn't stop her from getting this Grief Seed back- she was already running dangerously low.
Her conscience rankled a bit at the expression of growing recognition and panic on Miki's face, but she placated it by firing a few more times to ensure she would receive a clean death even if the Witch controlling her survived the initial volley. Best to make sure, after all.
As she reached for her Shield, however, an unprompted, idle question about this particular deviation's limits briefly made itself known... before Homura ruthlessly stamped it out and continued her motion.
...
…Before she ruthlessly stamped it out.
[An army of Magical Girls ready and waiting in her Shield, added to and carried between loops,]
[So very, very different to the few volunteers or mercenaries she occasionally convinced to help,]
[A wide array of powers and skills, worth it to finally end the ultimate Witch.]
[So very, very different to the few volunteers or mercenaries she occasionally convinced to help,]
[A wide array of powers and skills, worth it to finally end the ultimate Witch.]
Ruthlessly stamped- was she actually considering this? Really?
Was she truly willing to risk at the very least this current loop gambling on being able to control an unknown Witch? Let alone one she still had incomplete information on, that for all she knew could rapidly become as big a problem as Walpurgisnacht itself!
She was hardly out of options or ideas at the moment. She'd already set up a meeting with a promising foreign Magical Girl yesterday, and in the last loop had finally confirmed the location of another armory only slightly too late to justify visiting it then. This Witch may have been an anomaly to her loops so far, but those happened far more frequently than she would have liked. Surely it would just be a matter of time before she encountered it again, this time better prepared?
Why risk it now?
[Countless, endlessly repeated hours spent training, hoping the next smidgen of skill would be the one to carry her past the roadblock,]
[Fighting against friends turned enemies through no fault of their own, over and over and over and over,]
[a smiling face.]
...[Fighting against friends turned enemies through no fault of their own, over and over and over and over,]
[a smiling face.]
Homura strode towards the airborne bullets.
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Glad to hear! There are definitely some original things I'd like to get to that don't revolve around canon proper, which the initial draft was indeed going to be a lot quicker in getting to. I ended up feeling like I needed a stronger base to work off of however, and as Mitakihara was always part of the plan anyways, this rewrite happened. As important as it is though, it was definitely never the plan for this fic to spend ALL it's time in this one city --- the fact that we're at 100k words and are still here is honestly a little baffling to me. I may need some lessons in literary succinctness.
Maybe obliged isn't the right word then so much as... advised? Not quite right either, but closer. The point was more that unlike a book, fanfic necessarily pauses at given points and essentially forces readers to form opinions before actually seeing what comes next. This can be an advantage in some ways, but a disadvantage in others, as seen here.
This is indeed basically how I've been writing Ashtaroth's labyrinth (see Emergence 11 or 12, I think) --- go far enough and you end up doubling back on yourself while still moving forward. The problem with doing this for going upwards is that it's difficult to envision "reversing" direction while going up and not noticing, and as you can't see the ground above you, breaking through the bottom isn't really doable either. @beth2 is right that there are ways to make it work regardless, but this just seemed easier to visualize.
This is officially my favorite interpretation.
(She then subsumes me, and writes the rest of her story herself with her newly-gained author powers. We'll call that the GOOD alternate end.)
Ahhh, I see. I was actually kind of tempted to make a witch based somewhat on the Vertex at one point, but I figured that would be too derivative.
Glad someone noticed.
When I get the chance for titles with double meanings, I try to go for them.It feels like it reads better as is to me. Gonna leave this one alone.
Ashtaroth didn't notice them. They're too small in comparison to her to see easily, and the sound of the bullets whizzing by was covered by the sound of the shatterwords themselves blowing up. The initial sound of each shot wasn't heard either, since they were done in timestop.
Fixed, but I left the which, since "every which way" is just a common phrase/idiom for "every direction".
It has to succeed some time, right? (^_^; )
Recall his state when we last saw him.
The type of rock is irrelevant --- I'm no geologist either. The color does matter to an extent though.
Fixed.
Glad I did better on this one than the previous one! And yeah, that's pretty much what I had in mind. Mami and Tira were technically at least a fight; this was an attempt to escape being slaughtered.
Eh, just feels too... overused, I suppose? You're right though, that is why they're there, so maybe I shouldn't mind so much.
Depends on what the scene's for. The chapters I've used music for so far have mostly been fight scenes, so the most important part for those is that it actually sounds like a fight. I already have a fair few songs on my phone to choose from, so I start with those. If none of them seem right, I head to youtube and search for battle/anime/video game music there, narrowing the search by adding keywords I associate with the location/characters. Once I find something I feel is tonally fitting, I then actually listen to it while reading over the scene to see if I can envision the scene's "beats" matching up to those of the song. This part I think is the most important, so I spend a while on this. This is also why Mami and Tira got SMT IV's Battle B2, despite it having no real thematic connection to them --- it wasn't even in consideration originally, but it seemed to work so well when I read it that I went with it anyways. Sometimes I'll cut ahead to start the song at a better point, like I did here, and at the end of it I hopefully have a piece of music that I'm happy with.
There's also music for non-fight scenes of course, though the process is mostly the same. Fitting the beats to the scene isn't as important in that case, so there's more flexibility. Character themes haven't been a big thing in this fic yet, but it's generally easy enough to associate someone with characters from other media based on their personality/powers, and then look up music relating to them. I also just save music for later if I think it sounds like something I might use at some point (I have WAY too many "space battle" themes in my favorites right now), so that helps.
...you never cease to impress me with stuff like this. I don't think I took advanced enough mathematics/physics classes to learn about these things in college, but I kind of wish I had.
Well, if we're going by video game logic, Sayaka can grant "survive" to herself in Magia Record.
*gasp* An omake! Excellent timing, the marriage license I got with @Tempestuous was about to expire. 🥳 Threadmarked!
(I really do love the idea of omakes, no matter whose fic they're for. They're probably my favorite thing about reading and writing on a forum like this --- that people who aren't the author can write little scenes about a fic or quest they like, and share them with everyone else reading it in the same place. I wish I could offer some sort of reward for ones for Subsumption, but this isn't a quest, so I suppose that wouldn't really make sense... still, please know that you've made my day by writing this, @unObservant .)
Side note, I'm loving the speculation on what's going to happen next update/what happens if Ashtaroth dies. It's a ton of fun to read, even if it makes me worry that I'm inevitably going to end up disappointing at least some people. Though I must say, some of it has hit remarkably close to the mark for... well, something else.
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Ashtaroth's theme is subsumption. That's why she's called the witch of subsumption.
Or did you mean a musical theme? Because very few authors use those, even among the fanfiction community.
Tempestuous
Words are wind, so I write.
- Location
- CA
Huh, I wonder why I came up in convers—...oh, divorce papers. Lovely.Sufficient Velocity said:
WanderingTwix
Posting something good once in a full moon
- Location
- United Kingdom
Top 10 anime betrayals
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Haven't searched one out for her, but if she was slightly more evil, it'd probably be the English version of Outer Science:
The marriage license is expiring, not the marriage certificate. Don't worry, I still love you too Tempest!
Interlude: Numbness
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Homura silently watched on as the real world wavered back into existence, her impassive expression perfectly disguising her true vexation.
When Madoka had failed to show up to school that morning, she had of course been concerned. However, it was only after Sayaka and Mami also turned out to be absent that Homura had decided to cite her illness and quickly excused herself from school for the day, all but certain that something was wrong. Searching Mitakihara in its totality would have taken far too long, even with her rather unique advantage in that regard, but that ended up not being necessary, as she'd eventually found Madoka just outside an otherwise empty café close to Hitomi's house.
...she'd been significantly less pleased by what else she'd found there, however. Hitomi herself was also present, as was the Incubator, who had been actively trying to push a distraught-looking Madoka into making a wish at the time. Homura had only barely managed to stop herself from putting a bullet through its head long enough to interrupt them in a way that wouldn't just make things worse… but by the time she'd gotten a summary of what was going on, announced that she would take care of the problem herself, and actually entered the nearby barrier, it had been too late.
A small sigh escaped Homura's lips. Less than two weeks into this loop, and both Sayaka and Mami were lost, along with an unknown magical girl who had apparently been present as well. She hadn't been planning on trying to team up with either of the former two this time around anyways, but if she had, it would have been rendered moot by this. Worse, she'd never even seen that witch before — a rarity, at this point — so there was nothing she could have done to prepare for it ahead of time.
A surge of anger ran through her, her teeth unconsciously clenching together in frustration. She couldn't even begin to express just how much she hated these occasional deviations. Not only did they seem to occur totally at random, they made it impossible for her to perfectly plan things out, despite having literal time travel on her side. She'd let the fight drag out long enough to get a decent grasp of most of the witch's abilities, so she was fairly sure she could take it down without issue before it made a problem of itself next time, but that would still necessitate keeping an eye out for it.
...and wasn't it depressing that nowadays, she tended to just automatically assume a "next time" was inevitable.
Discarding that train of thought for the moment, Homura looked from side to side, scanning for the grief seed that had presumably dropped while she was lost in thought. The barrier seemed to have drifted down to the street at some point during the fight, which wasn't all that uncommon, but the witch's core was nowhere to be seen.
Homura frowned. Damn, she'd lost it... not that she didn't have plenty already, and she could easily raid Mami's supply from her apartment now that the other girl was gone, but the seed might end up re-hatching if it wasn't found. Given how dangerous that witch had the potential to be, being able to both control magical girls and utilize their abilities for itself, that couldn't be allowed. She'd have to locate it later.
Right now though, she had bigger concerns.
Dispelling her transformation, Homura turned and began walking towards Madoka, who was still standing just off to the side of the nearby café. The Incubator thankfully seemed to have left, likely due to the barely veiled threats Homura had leveled at it before entering the barrier, as well as the more explicit one posed by how she'd been repeatedly hunting down and killing its bodies for the past week or so. Hitomi, however, was still present. Unfortunately.
Homura shook her head in annoyance. She wasn't exactly fond of Hitomi — the girl had only ever proved to be a constant thorn in her side, her actions unwittingly prodding Sayaka further down her inevitable destructive spiral in nearly every single timeline. The fact that she had somehow become directly involved in magical affairs in this one was a definite cause for concern, but not the most immediate one — that honor fell to explaining what had just happened to Madoka, and how to break it to her in a way that wouldn't simply push her right into the Incubator's waiting clutches. Handling this incorrectly could lead to utter disaster, long before it was doomed to occur regardless.
After several moments of deliberation, Homura concluded on a course of action: she would describe to Madoka what she had witnessed in full, sparing few, if any details. It was brash, but there was hardly any way of avoiding it at this point anyways, and though it would crush the other girl to hear, perhaps the simultaneous loss of both her friend and her mentor would be enough to convince Madoka that the life of a magical girl was not something to be yearned for.
The world seemed strangely still, as if taking a moment to mourn the lives just lost. Approaching the pair of girls, Homura opened her mouth in preparation to speak-
A barrage of splintering blackness suddenly struck her from behind, simultaneously sending her sprawling and lacerating her from head to foot. What-?!
The world wavered again, the image of Madoka and Hitomi winking out of existence as the surrounding buildings collapsed back into blank white void. The barrier- the witch was still-?!
Homura suddenly found herself flying through the air, an invisible force pulling her off the ground and sending her soaring backwards. She frantically transformed again, calling her shield back to her arm, but even as she did so her back struck a sheet of heavily burnt paper and quickly began sinking into it. It was too late; she had no choice!
Homura gave her shield a full turn, and agony ripped through her. For a moment all she could do was scream, feeling as though she was being torn apart-
And then she was lying on her back in a hospital bed, staring up at a blurry-looking ceiling.
Panting heavily, Homura reached upwards to fix her vision and heart, the quick applications of magic all but automatic to her by now. Forcing her breathing to slow and her heart to calm, she slowly sat up from the bed.
…it had been a long time since she'd come that close to dying.
She wouldn't underestimate that witch again.
When Madoka had failed to show up to school that morning, she had of course been concerned. However, it was only after Sayaka and Mami also turned out to be absent that Homura had decided to cite her illness and quickly excused herself from school for the day, all but certain that something was wrong. Searching Mitakihara in its totality would have taken far too long, even with her rather unique advantage in that regard, but that ended up not being necessary, as she'd eventually found Madoka just outside an otherwise empty café close to Hitomi's house.
...she'd been significantly less pleased by what else she'd found there, however. Hitomi herself was also present, as was the Incubator, who had been actively trying to push a distraught-looking Madoka into making a wish at the time. Homura had only barely managed to stop herself from putting a bullet through its head long enough to interrupt them in a way that wouldn't just make things worse… but by the time she'd gotten a summary of what was going on, announced that she would take care of the problem herself, and actually entered the nearby barrier, it had been too late.
A small sigh escaped Homura's lips. Less than two weeks into this loop, and both Sayaka and Mami were lost, along with an unknown magical girl who had apparently been present as well. She hadn't been planning on trying to team up with either of the former two this time around anyways, but if she had, it would have been rendered moot by this. Worse, she'd never even seen that witch before — a rarity, at this point — so there was nothing she could have done to prepare for it ahead of time.
A surge of anger ran through her, her teeth unconsciously clenching together in frustration. She couldn't even begin to express just how much she hated these occasional deviations. Not only did they seem to occur totally at random, they made it impossible for her to perfectly plan things out, despite having literal time travel on her side. She'd let the fight drag out long enough to get a decent grasp of most of the witch's abilities, so she was fairly sure she could take it down without issue before it made a problem of itself next time, but that would still necessitate keeping an eye out for it.
...and wasn't it depressing that nowadays, she tended to just automatically assume a "next time" was inevitable.
Discarding that train of thought for the moment, Homura looked from side to side, scanning for the grief seed that had presumably dropped while she was lost in thought. The barrier seemed to have drifted down to the street at some point during the fight, which wasn't all that uncommon, but the witch's core was nowhere to be seen.
Homura frowned. Damn, she'd lost it... not that she didn't have plenty already, and she could easily raid Mami's supply from her apartment now that the other girl was gone, but the seed might end up re-hatching if it wasn't found. Given how dangerous that witch had the potential to be, being able to both control magical girls and utilize their abilities for itself, that couldn't be allowed. She'd have to locate it later.
Right now though, she had bigger concerns.
Dispelling her transformation, Homura turned and began walking towards Madoka, who was still standing just off to the side of the nearby café. The Incubator thankfully seemed to have left, likely due to the barely veiled threats Homura had leveled at it before entering the barrier, as well as the more explicit one posed by how she'd been repeatedly hunting down and killing its bodies for the past week or so. Hitomi, however, was still present. Unfortunately.
Homura shook her head in annoyance. She wasn't exactly fond of Hitomi — the girl had only ever proved to be a constant thorn in her side, her actions unwittingly prodding Sayaka further down her inevitable destructive spiral in nearly every single timeline. The fact that she had somehow become directly involved in magical affairs in this one was a definite cause for concern, but not the most immediate one — that honor fell to explaining what had just happened to Madoka, and how to break it to her in a way that wouldn't simply push her right into the Incubator's waiting clutches. Handling this incorrectly could lead to utter disaster, long before it was doomed to occur regardless.
After several moments of deliberation, Homura concluded on a course of action: she would describe to Madoka what she had witnessed in full, sparing few, if any details. It was brash, but there was hardly any way of avoiding it at this point anyways, and though it would crush the other girl to hear, perhaps the simultaneous loss of both her friend and her mentor would be enough to convince Madoka that the life of a magical girl was not something to be yearned for.
The world seemed strangely still, as if taking a moment to mourn the lives just lost. Approaching the pair of girls, Homura opened her mouth in preparation to speak-
A barrage of splintering blackness suddenly struck her from behind, simultaneously sending her sprawling and lacerating her from head to foot. What-?!
The world wavered again, the image of Madoka and Hitomi winking out of existence as the surrounding buildings collapsed back into blank white void. The barrier- the witch was still-?!
Homura suddenly found herself flying through the air, an invisible force pulling her off the ground and sending her soaring backwards. She frantically transformed again, calling her shield back to her arm, but even as she did so her back struck a sheet of heavily burnt paper and quickly began sinking into it. It was too late; she had no choice!
Homura gave her shield a full turn, and agony ripped through her. For a moment all she could do was scream, feeling as though she was being torn apart-
And then she was lying on her back in a hospital bed, staring up at a blurry-looking ceiling.
Panting heavily, Homura reached upwards to fix her vision and heart, the quick applications of magic all but automatic to her by now. Forcing her breathing to slow and her heart to calm, she slowly sat up from the bed.
…it had been a long time since she'd come that close to dying.
She wouldn't underestimate that witch again.
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I mean, do we go here again or is the story going to continue in the "abandoned timeline"?
Though when one Madoka ascends, I think they all do, so she'll be disappearing soon as well. And then reality will be rewritten so that witches no longer exist in any universe and.... I'm not sure how this is going to work, actually.
Though when one Madoka ascends, I think they all do, so she'll be disappearing soon as well. And then reality will be rewritten so that witches no longer exist in any universe and.... I'm not sure how this is going to work, actually.
- Location
- Earth
that sounds like Homura was midway inside the absorption book.
Has our little witch come along as well?
unObservant
Just drifting along, really
- Location
- USA
Obviously, our endgame is befriending Madoka. It'll be hard to do so while avoiding Homura and not knowing that we should, but I believe in our ability to stumble into the one thing that could save us!
"I want to erase all witches* before they are even born. I will erase every single witch in every universe, past and future with my own hands..."
*(Except my best friend Ashtaroth. She's cool.)
- Location
- Terra-Luna
My, my... now this is intriguing. It certainly appears as though Ashtaroth was in physical contact with Homura when she initiated time travel; given how her magic works with regard to touch and stopping time, I do believe she just brought along a very confused passenger, not least of which for potential weirdness of the actual details of Homura's temporal reversion putting her back where and how she once was. That said, if Ashtaroth did manage to capture some pieces of Homura, it might offer some information in a data entry to possibly clarify things... asuming that she even has such a record anymore in the first place.
Indeed. Is Sayaka actually Sayaka, per se, or just part of someone else? Are there two Sayakas now? Homura might kill us just for that, once her brain finishes rebooting.
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- Location
- Australia
The biggest question I have is, if this has turned out how it seems, did the clock turn back for everyone else?
What I mean is, there isn't two Homura's running around so it's more of a 'knowledge is sent back' sorta deal. Was Ashy a witch or was she still a Magical Girl when Homura contracted, and if she was still an MG, what does that mean for alternate Sayaka?
There are definitely a few fun ways this could go.
What I mean is, there isn't two Homura's running around so it's more of a 'knowledge is sent back' sorta deal. Was Ashy a witch or was she still a Magical Girl when Homura contracted, and if she was still an MG, what does that mean for alternate Sayaka?
There are definitely a few fun ways this could go.
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