The Iron Sole Alchemist and the Magical Girls (Chapter 2) Making Connections
by Howlin
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

Once back in my underground lab, I added more layers to the defensive spells. There weren't really any barriers that could stand up to the raw power I believed Homura had, but most of the protective spells I learned at Hogwarts were more about avoiding detection than standing up to brute force. Once I was as secure as I felt I could be, I sat down at a work space and got to work.

The first thing I did was create a Marauder's Map of Mitakihara. The enchantments would let me monitor the movements of everyone within the city limits. Once I'd laid the basic enchantment, the map needed to be physically taken everywhere it would be monitoring. Rather than take it around town myself, I constructed a small automaton to do the job for me.

The mapping drone took the form of a small metal rat. A compartment accessible on its back held the folded up parchment. The intelligence I imbued it with was simple, just enough to navigate through whatever area I told it to. I put a tiny invisibility cloak on it so it could avoid detection while it did its job. A small time tuner implanted in its chest caused it to go back in time every sixty seconds while on a mission so the entire mapping process would be done in one minute no matter how large an area needed to be mapped.

It took me three hours to design and build the drone, but when it returned with my fully filled in map, I considered it time well spent.

My next step was to get out a pensive. The rune inscribed stone bowl allowed a person to relive their own or someone else's memories from an objective third person point of view. Details that hadn't been noticed at the time could be discovered by reviewing the memories in the pensive. Using my wand, I drew a silvery thread out of my temple, the memory of today's encounter with Homura, and dropped it into the bowl.

Picking up a notebook, I prodded the penisve's contents with my wand until the scene began to play out. Touching the surface, I was drawn into the memory itself, physically present in the past scene, but unable to interact.

Reviewing the scene, I wrote down every word that had passed between us. The review let me notice something I hadn't before. When Homura got me alone in the hall, time stopped for everyone and everything except us. It was most obvious from looking at Loki, but a quick glance out the window showed it wasn't a localized phenomenon. When I went intangible and broke contact with Homura, time started moving again, but Homura shuddered slightly, leading me to suspect time had still been briefly stopped for her after I broke contact but before she deactivated her power.

Once I exited the pensive and put the memory safely back where it belonged, inside my head, I closed my eyes and turned my attention inward. Tsumi no Rensa, the spirit of my zanpakto, was not the only spirit that dwelt within my soul. Araña, my inner hollow, represented my baser instincts. While Tsumi no Rensa waned to see me grow and develop, Araña wanted to see me safe from harm and dominating my enemies. Unlike the other two avatars of my spiritual powers, the being I called Vaccine didn't originate as part of me at all. He was a soul fragment of an ancient evil wizard named Yhwach. Through the generations, Vaccine had been passed down from parent to child at the moment of conception, and had diverged considerably from the psychic copy he had started out as. Vaccine offered a wealth of knowledge I didn't already know and an outside prospective.

Each of my inner spirits had some insights to contribute, and in a situation like this, I could use all the help I could get. "Okay, guys. What do you think?"

"If you want to rescue Kyubey, it's as simple as killing his last body," said Tsumi no Rensa. "If you do, however, it will be nearly impossible to keep him contained. The one you'll be able to summon with your bankai will be in good health and will probably be able to make a new body immediately. Further, it will come with he risk, however slight, of spreading the Incubators to other worlds when you travel."

"We have spare souls," said Araña. "Getting our wish granted doesn't have to mean losing the progress you've made developing this soul."

"We never did find a way for someone to have a Sou Gem and spirit energy at the same time," I said. "If we go that route, I'll need to synchronize my memories and smash the Soul Gem, since I'm not going to keep being two people nad I'm not giving up my current powers."

"If you wish to confront Homura, you'll need to use the Oin," said Vaccine. "We expected to need its power to kill Kyubey, and she was already strong enough to do so on her own."

I looked at my foeglass, a magic mirror that showed me my enemies. For the first time in a long time, it was completely clear. Even Kyubey wasn't showing on it anymore.

"The foeglass suggests his offer was genuine," I said. "It'd get us what we came for and we'd be able to leave immediately, but if we don't finish off Kyubey, this could all happen again."

"It seems here's a choice to be made," said Tsumi no Rensa. "You can decide who your enemies are."

"Nothing is going to make me abandon a chance to get Sloth back," I said. "Not even my hatred for that creature. Even so, I don't want to act before I have all the information. That was our mistake last time and I'll be damned if I'm going to forget a lesson that harsh."

"Nagisa wasn't on Homura's list of people not to contact," said Tsumi no Rensa. "Odds are she can provide useful information."

"Okay, the Oin stays out of play until I make my final decision," I said. "Meanwhile, I'll respect Homura's request and not approach her friends. I don't want to be her enemy, and I don't want to be Kyubey's ally."

While I watched my map and waited for a moment when Nagisa would be alone, I set to work building a device I'd been designing in fits and starts throughout my time in the last world without Sloth. From a user interface point of view, it was very simple. It was a white box with a red button on top, a chute coming off one side, and a power cord compatible with standard wall outlets. When you press the button, the device manufactures and dispenses a Grief Cube.

The device worked in two stages. First, it produced a soul candy, a made to order artificial soul in the form of a small green pill. The soul candy had a simple personality imprinted on it that could feel emotions, but wasn't quite sapient. From there, the energies and emotions of the soul candy were drained in a technological emulation of the wraiths' abilities. Once the stable Grief Cube was formed, the drained soul candy was recycled for its raw materials and the Grief cube was dispensed.

I was carrying one of these devices with me when I walked into a cheese shop. My map had told me Nagisa had come here alone. Loki had to wait for me outside the shop.

"That's a lot of cheese," I commented as I approached, eyeing the overfull shopping basket.

She glanced at me, shrugged, and said, "I love cheese. It's my favorite food. And there's so many different kinds."

"I've never even heard of half of these," I said conversationally. "Do you think you can tell me about them? I can show you how this works in exchange."

"What is it?" she asked.

I shook a finger and smiled, saying, "Not unless you tell me about the cheese."

Nagisa rolled her eyes but smiled back and said, "All right."

After she paid, Nagisa, Loki, and I settled in at a table for an outdoor cafe. The young, white haired magical girl unwrapped her cheeses one by one, taking a small slice from each and tasting it as she chattered happily about its flavor, texture, and bouquet. She'd practically swooned over a particular desert cheese.

"That sounds really good. Let me try it," I said.

Clutching the piece to her chest, she said, "Get your own."

Drawing my wand, I said, "That's exactly what I intend to do." A quick multiplication spell caused the piece she was holding to become two pieces.

"You can do that?" said Nagisa, slowly offering me one of the pieces.

"Yep," I confirmed, trying the cheese. "Wow, this really is good."

"You're lucky," said Nagisa. "I can use my magic to make cakes, candies, and other sweets, but I can't make cheese at all."

"Is that what you wished for? To be able to make sweets? And only later you learned you like cheese better?"

"No," said Nagisa, lowering her head and closing up.

"I'm sorry," I said at once. "You don't have to talk about your wish if you don't want to. I know Sloth's wish was really personal."

"She had healing powers, right?" said Nagisa. "You usually get those if you use your wish to heal someone. If I was smarter, that's what I would have done."

"Sloth wished for the power to heal and the power to bring the dead back to life," I confirmed. "Something bad happened in her past that wasn't her fault, but she still felt guilty about anyway. She wished for the power so she could make amends and make things right."

Now Nagisa was in tears. "I wished for a cake," she choked out between sobs. "My mom was in the hospital dying of cancer and I wished I could share one last cake with her. I could have wished her better, but I was too stupid to think of it."

"Check your Soul Gem!" I said urgently.

Blinking, she complied, holding out her palm and transforming her Soul Gem ring into its egg form. The crystal in the center of the elaborate gold wire work was almost completely dark. On seeing it in that state, Nagisa took out a Grief cube and used it to draw off the black corruption tainting her Soul Gem, letting it shine a bright white.

Wiping her face on her sleeve, Nagisa said, "That always happens when I think too hard about my wish."

"I can see why," I said. "You do know that Soul Gem corruption is built up by negative emotional energy, right?"

She nodded. "Kyubey explained it when he went over how to use Grief Cubes."

"I guess I'd better hold up my side of the bargain," I said, changing the subject. I found an outlet and plugged the device in. I pushed the button and Nagisa's Soul Gem pulsed an instant before the new Grief Cube was dispensed.

"Did you just make a Grief Cube?" confirmed Nagisa.

I nodded. "After losing Sloth because there was no way to get Grief Cubes without human suffering, I made it a priority to find another way. I can explain how it works if you're interested. Either way, I brought it as a gift. I'm sure you and the others could get a lot of use out of it."

"Why are you giving me this?" she asked.

"Sloth never liked living at other people's expense," I said. "I don't figure you guys like it any more than she did."

"Before... you wanted to know about Kyubey," said Nagisa. "None of us has seen him. He disappeared around the same time these weird creatures showed up."

"They're called familiars," I said, indicating a small group of them nearby. "I've encountered them before, but they're acting odd. I'm used to them trying to kill anyone they can get their hands on but the only ones I've seen fight at all were going after a wraith."

"As far as we've been able to figure out so far, there's two types," said Nagisa. "One set attacks wraiths. The other type attacks the first type of familiar and ignores wraiths. Neither of them attack anyone or anything else. Some of the smarter wraiths have taken to retreating from familiars that attack them toward other groups of familiars for protection."

"You know, it occurs to me that without Kyubey around to dispose of them, you must be building up a lot of filled Grief Cubes," I said. "I know a way to empty them safely so they can be reused."

"How did you get all these powers?" asked Nagisa.

"Some human souls naturally generate something called spirit energy. With training, you can learn to use it for all kinds of things. After Sloth was taken by the Law of Cycles, I went to a place where they had spirit energy down to a science. Unfortunately, what Kyubey does to magical girls' souls means they can't use spirit energy."

"Figures," pouted Nagisa.

"If you want, I can turn you back," I said. "Well,not exactly back to normal normal, but you could stop being a magical girl and start learning to use spirit energy. Fair warning, though, spirit energy is a lot less intuitive than magical girl powers."

"Can I think about it?" asked Nagisa.

I nodded. "The offer's open as long as I'm still in this world. And I don't plan on leaving until I finish what I came here to do."

"To kill Kyubey," said Nagisa.

"Sloth wanted revenge on the lying little rat," I said. "She thought what he was doing to magical girls was callous, cruel, and needed to be stopped once and for all, but it's more than that."

"So explain it," said Nagisa.

"The Law of Cycles isn't natural," I said. "Someone wished it into existence, and that wish retroactively changed the past. Before the Law of Cycles, when a magical girl's Soul Gem became fully corrupted, she turned into a dangerous monster called a witch. Sloth turned into a witch and I ended up crossing worlds and storming the gates of heaven to find a way to bring her back to herself. I succeeded. Then Kyubey granted that wish and now it never happened. I never got her back because she was taken by the Law of Cycles instead."

"So, what are you planning to do?"

"I haven't decided yet," I admitted. "What I want is Sloth back and Kyubey unable to reach out across universes to take her away again. How exactly I'm going to accomplish it, I don't know."

After Nagisa had gone home, I took Loki and tracked down a lone familiar away from populated areas. This was one of the giant cotton balls with mustaches. The butterfly wings I remembered from my first encounter with them in the other timeline had been replaced with a blue fish like tail. The fins were arranged side b side like those of a dolphin, but the tail was covered in scales instead of skin. I unhooked my substitute soul reaper badge from my belt and addressed Loki.

"I thought the familiars were Homura's, but Nagisa said different groups of familiars are fighting each other. I was hoping mundane methods of information gathering would do the job, but it looks like I'm going to need to go to the source."

The squashed pentagon of wood in my hand was surrounded by flickering green flames for an instant. The next instant, I was no longer holding my badge. I was holding a curved short sword with the badge acting as a cross guard.

Seeing the weapon, the familiar panicked and tried to flee. I snapped the fingers of my left hand that wasn't holding the sword and cast a quick spell that outlined the familiar in an aura of green light. At the same time, I told Loki, "Hold him still, boy."

Now able to see the familiar's outline, Loki closed his jaws around its fish like tail. The familiar struggled frantically in a futile effort to free itself.

"Calm down," I said as I casually approached the panicked familiar. "This sword is more than capable of cutting you down, but what purpose would that serve?"

Faster than the familiar could react, I slashed through the center of its body. If I'd been using a normal blade, that would have been fatal, but I had the ability to keep this weapon from leaving physical wounds. Instead of cutting its body, I cut its past, inserting myself into the familiar's personal history.

In the new past that was now shared between the familiar and I, I was there when it came into existence, hidden under an invisibility cloak. Taking care to stay out of the way, I watched without interfering. Once I'd seen enough, I returned to the present where Loki was still holding the struggling familiar in place.

"You can let it go now, boy. We have what we need."

I headed out. Loki let go of the familiar and fell into step behind me. The sword in my hand was briefly enveloped in green flames, turning it back into a badge, which I clipped back to my utility belt.

* * *

The sun had set for the evening. Homura was seated at a cafe table set up on a cliff overlooking Mitakihara. Kyubey laid limp in the grass a short distance away, a quivering wreck. A popping noise announced my arrival on the scene. I had a hand on Loki's head so that I could take him side along when I apparated here.

"Giving Nagisa that box was a nice thing to do," said Homura without turning around.

"I told you, I don't mean your friends any harm," I said. "Jury's still out on you, though."

"Oh?" asked Homura serenely.

"I didn't really understand exactly what you did to the Law of Cycles. Not yet. But at this point, I'm more concerned with why."

"What do you know about the Law of Cycles?" asked Homura.

"I know it manifests in this world as a force that causes Soul Gems to disappear when they become fully corrupted. I know that the Law of Cycles isn't a natural phenomenon. It is the result of a wish made by Madoka Kaname, probably in an ill advised attempt to save magical girls from becoming witches."

"Madoka's wish turned her into the Law of Cycles. She made a wish so selfless that she stopped existing as a person. What I did was selfish. I broke the part that was Madoka off from the Law of Cycles so she could be a person again."

"How is that selfish?" I asked.

"Madoka's wish gave all magical girls a chance at salvation. I risked ruining that because I wanted someone I cared about back. What would you call it?"

"Love," I said.

"Same thing," said Homura.

"Considering what I came here to do, I can't fault you for Madoka," I said. "Can we talk about Nagisa and Sayaka?"

"What about them?" asked Homura.

"They weren't ordinary magical girls," I said. "They could use witch powers. Half the familiars running around were made by them before you erased their memories and took away their powers. How did you do that? And why did you take that away from them?"

"Nagisa and Sayaka were dead," said Homura. "They'd been taken by the Law of Cycles. Kyubey decided to run an experiment. When my Soul Gem became corrupted, he tried to cut me off from the Law of Cycles and observe me turning into a witch or observe Madoka come to my rescue. Either way, his goal was to restore the old witch system."

"Got anything to say for yourself?" I asked Kyubey.

"It was what we learned from that experiment that caused us to conclude human emotions were too unpredictable to be used as a power source," Kyubey said telepathically. "My offer to grant your wish if you rescue me still stands."

Turning my back on the Incubator, I asked Homura, "Where to Nagisa and Sayaka come in?"

"Madoka was smarter than Kyubey," said Homura with a small smile. "Instead of coming for me alone, she brought the two of them with her. They had all their memories from the other timeline and could use the powers of the witches they would have turned into were it not for the Law of Cycles."

"And you took away those memories and powers," I said.

"They couldn't accept what I'd done to bring Madoka back," said Homura. "I gave them the happiest lives I could in this new world."

"I think I understand," I said. "You had someone you love taken from you and you did whatever it took to get her back. I hope you understand when I feel the need to do the same."

I started to cast a spell at Kyubey, but suddenly, Loki, Homura, and I were no longer on the cliff. We were again outside the school with Kyubey nowhere in sight.

"I do understand," said Homura. "I hope you find a way, but Kyubey is mine."

Then she was gone again. I called Loki and headed for home. It was only when I was back behind my wards that I let myself smile.

Author's comments:
Now, Greed is starting to get an idea of what happened, who was involved, and how he might be able to set things right. Given the powers at work here, he's treading carefully.