Chapter 2

When Homura went into the train for Mitakihara, she chose a seat at random, as always. She could never bring herself to care about the spot she'd choose since it never really made a difference. Mao had already said goodbye to her since she had to stay in Tokyo for personal reasons. For the first time, she ended up beside a very short white haired boy who seemed to be around her age. He was obviously in a foul mood, though, because the second he realized she had looking intently at his hair (because of his hair color), he sent her a chilling glare. Homura immediately averted her eyes; now wasn't the best time for a disagreement.

She took out one of the muffins Mao had given her before leaving; this trip would take some time.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

Toshiro Hitsugaya was rather annoyed. His lieutenant, as always, had lazed off on the paperwork; as a result, he was forced to do it for her because it was due the next hour and by the time he managed to – just barely – rush to the headcaptain's office with the work on time, the headcaptain had immediately given him an assignment in the world of the living. In other words, he'd miss his daily nap. Ugh. Anyway, he needed to go to Nagasaki to get rid of a couple of Vasto Lorde that were randomly appearing in that area. Weird. He was pretty sure those were supposed to be some rather rare monsters. He decided to let go of that thought for the time being; being stressed like this certainly wouldn't help. Substitute Shinigami Ichigo Kurosaki was supposed to help him along with Rukia Kuchiki. The headcaptain puzzled him sometimes; why didn't he send another captain? Sure he had faith in the lieutenant, but this was a captain-class mission. It would have been safer and maybe more practical to call out her older brother for instance. Oh well…

The only good part about it was that if he managed to finish the mission early, he would probably be able to visit one of the cities nearby. Mitakihara seemed like a good choice; he hadn't gone to an especially modern city in a while.

He vaguely realized he had just glared at the poor girl beside him, but he didn't particularly care.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

Hours later, when Homura finally arrived at her destination and had gotten into her apartment, she immediately started planning the timeline. A new grief seed was in order; she had used up quite a bit of magic in her gambit to try to stop Madoka from turning into a witch (like she always would whenever she'd one-shot the Walpurgis). She was still disappointed with the fact that she had failed despite having brought Madoka back with her…

But she couldn't afford to dwell on that for long. But what next? Madoka would contract soon if she saw the stupid cat die… Perhaps she'd kill it before the pinkette would get to see it. Wait… no, no she needed to get rid of the more pressing threats first (namely Oriko Mikuni and Kirika Kure). The Soju twins wouldn't be a problem if she didn't attract the incubator's attention too much, but better safe than sorry. They were the cause of Mami's death and Kyoko's kidnapping last time after all. But then again… If the incubators caught on to the fact that she'd be the one to murder those girls, that news was bound to find its way to Madoka to make sure she wouldn't trust her. She decided to figure out all that and what to do about annoying Sayaka later; right now, she needed to go on a witch hunt. She couldn't risk turning or she wouldn't be saving anyone.

Minutes later, she was transformed and leaping across the rooftops. She had sensed a witch, one she didn't recognize, and it was trying to get away. She scowled. It'd probably be a better idea to go back, but she didn't want to run into a certain blonde as there was that looming risk of being forced to fight with the magic she had left… She crossed the city borders and soon entered Nagasaki; she had never ventured this far south before, but she really needed that grief seed. She shoved down her anxiety. She'd just have to watch her back; if another Puella Magi challenged her, she'd stop time and leave.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

Rukia Kuchiki could distantly feel Ichigo and Hitsugaya fighting off two Vasto Lordes. She figured they could handle them since they were captain class Shinigami, so she kept patrolling her assigned area of the city… that is, until she noticed something..or rather someone weird. A teenage girl with waist length raven hair wearing strange clothing was jumping across some rooftops as though searching for something, but what really caught her attention was that she couldn't sense her at all. Someone with abilities but no reiatsu to speak of? Or was she just concealing it? If so, why? What's more, shouldn't someone her age supposed to be at school?

Rukia knew that distracting the two other Shinigami while they were in battle probably wouldn't bring desirable results, but if she waited she probably wouldn't find the girl again. With this in mind, she followed her. If this turned to be truly important (and she had a feeling it definitely was), she'd report to her captain.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

Homura finally managed to catch up with the witch, and instantly went into its labyrinth. She was well aware that someone was following her – how could she not? This person literally had an aura on top of her presence! – but decided to just deal with that later. She briefly looked around. The familiars were ant-like creatures with human legs, eggs for heads, and scorpion tails (that had chainsaws instead of stingers). The floor had pink and green patterned tiles that seemed to have a bubblegum texture seeing how it would move and distort slightly when weight was applied. The roof…. Was pretty much the same. She took a pistol out of her shield and proceeded to shoot down any familiars that tried to attack her while using her soul gem to deduce the best path to the witch. Some got past her, to where she could sense the other individual, but she didn't really care. If the person was as strong as the aura suggested, then he or she'd be fine.

After about fifteen minutes of running, shooting, dodging and switching weapons, she arrived at her destination. It seemed to be some sort of endless tiled room; she couldn't see beyond a certain distance because of the mist that made everything seem to fade to an abyss. The witch was a giant wasp-like creature that had dragon wings, a chicken head, and frog legs. Familiars swarmed around it before seemingly noticing the two intruders and swooping in to attack. Homura wasn't keen on wasting time though, and fired a few RPGs at the creature. The labyrinth wobbled out of existence as the explosions ended.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

What. The. HELL?! Rukia was sure she just went insane. She was extremely confused – and a little disoriented – because of what she had just witnessed. Why and how the hell did she wind up in that place?! Who was this girl? Why'd she go in there? What was the black egg-slash-spindle doing on the ground between them? The list of questions in her head went on and on, and her headache only became worse when the girl pressed…that… on a gem on the back of her left hand, making a dark fog get out of the gem and into egg-spindle which made the gem brighter….

Whatever was going on, that place was infested with hollow-like reiatsu. This was definitely going straight to the headcaptain.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

Homura turned to leave. Apparently, this girl was probably a rookie who hadn't seen a labyrinth yet; but that led her to wonder: why hadn't the incubator appeared yet? Why did she have an aura with her presence if most girls only had a presence? Wait… could it be that she wasn't a Puella Magi at all? She hadn't spotted her soul gem, so it was possible….So many questions. She decided to ask an indirect question that would answer most of them.

"Do you have one of these?, she asked, gesturing at her soul gem.

-…Uh, what is that? And what was that? And who are you? What…"

Homura didn't bother to let the girl finish, and stopped time to leave. She had her answer. Since she wasn't a Puella Magi though, what was she? Well, she didn't think she'd see this girl again anytime soon so it shouldn't really matter…Before actually leaving though, she memorized the other person's appearance, just in case: chin length black hair, grayish-purple eyes, short stature, pale skin.

She'd probably deal with this anomaly later – she needed more bazookas and bombs.