CHAPTER 12: Mystery Spot
Homura cautiously approached the front entrance of the Mitakihara Mall, her eyes searching every little nook and cranny for the white-furred, red-eyed creature. It was dark, but her eyesight was enhanced by her magic. And there he was, nestled inside a potted plant beside a window, Kyubey. Homura knew he'd be close, undoubtedly attempting to ascertain the true nature of her powers and formulate a strategy on how to deal with her.
Kyubey was more than likely aware that Homura had already found him. Indeed, his perch was so obvious and in plain sight it was as though he were daring her to interact with him, so he could glean whatever valuable information he could about her capabilities.
Homura tossed her hair and stepped inside. She had no time to indulge him today, here at the mall she now had a place to escape his watchful eyes, now it was just a matter of making it there without betraying anything useful to him. She stepped on the escalator and rode up to the second level. There he was again, watching from the third level overpass. Watching from positions that were plainly obvious, but just beyond her grasp. It was pretty evident to her that his strategy was to provoke her into using her magic on him.
Homura politely waved at the polite elderly couple passing her by. The mall was a popular public spot for cosplayers, otaku,and their photographers, so no one around paid any real mind to the young lady in the strange costume with the metal shield bound to her wrist. She turned and walked amongst a group of chatting salarymen. They've been ritual nightly shoppers at this place, avoiding their home lives, punctual yet ignorant enough of her presence to serve as a brief visual cover. There he was again, walking alongside a young family unwittingly going about their business.
Homura stepped onto the next escalator. This time, he was watching from a catwalk situated above. There were many more than just one Kyubey, exactly how many Homura had no way to know for certain, but right now all that mattered to her was finding a way to avert those eyes and get to her destination.
There he was again, at the far end of the walkway, probably thinking she only had one direction to go from there: Towards him. Homura looked down over the handrailing. There it was, down on the second level, a nondescript vending machine situated between two dining businesses.
Kyubey puzzlingly tilted his head as he watched her walk his way very slowly. "Homura Akemi." Kyubey glared. "What are you planning?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" With one fell swoop Homura leapt over the handrailing, spunn her bucker and fell down to the other deck, landing right on top of her target. Moving just as swiftly she rolled off its top, landed on her feet, opened the door and slipped inside. A perfectly executed misdirect.
"Hello." A young girl stood there to greet her. "Want some cheese?"
"W- Who?" Homura slammed the door behind her. She transformed out of her magical girl attire.
"You know that 'something else' I told you I found?" Sayaka was reading her book while seated next to the TARDIS control console. "Her name's 'Nagisa'." She pointed at the girl with a breadstick she took from a plate collection sitting on the console.
"I… See." Homura flatly replied.
"Food synthesis systems are partially restored." Miss Jones was working at an open wall panel. "Figured the best way to test it out was to make some simple foods." She put down her multitool and nibbled on some cheese from a plate next to her. "Help yourself."
"You look like you were in a hurry." Sayaka closed her book and set it aside. "What's up?"
"Kyubey was following me around the mall just now."
"What? Did he see you come in here?"
"I managed to give him the slip."
"We'll see what he's up to." Miss Jones trotted over to the control console. "I may not be able to get a lifesigns lock on him." She typed in commands on the keyboard. "But the short-range visual scanner should suffice. Especially if he's within spitting distance." A live feed of the area around them in the mall displayed on the screen.
"Will it be able to see him?" Sayaka wondered.
"If I could see through his perception filter, my ship most definitely can." The visual feed panned around the mall walkway.
"There!" Homura pointed at a white creature just behind a display of Mitakihara City's mascot.
"Enhancing." Miss Jones zoomed in just as another white creature approached from a ventilation duct.
"There's two!" The little girl next to Homura gasped.
"Can you find out what they're saying to each other?" Sayaka got out of her seat.
"I'm scanning the standard psychic wavelengths." Miss Jones typed more instructions into the console.
"Three! You see? You see there?" The little white haired girl tugged on Sayaka's cuffs. A third Kyubey was visible in the reflection in a window. It promptly approached the other two.
"That's the most Kyubeys I've ever seen in one place." Homura commented. "He never shows more than one living body at a time to us." The three Kyubeys' eyes glowed and their rabbit ear-like appendages touched.
"But of course. He wants you girls believing that he's but a single, passive, benevolent emissary of magic, not one amongst a whole conniving race of alien overseers that he really is." Miss Jones stopped typing and stared at the screen.
The Kyubey's eyes and head motions were faster and much more jerky than the girls were used to seeing, for without anybody's eyes on them, they need not keep any pretense of being a benign lifeform. "Scaaaary." The white-haired girl reflexively hid behind Sayaka's back. Just as quickly as their meetup had convened, the three creatures dispersed. One went back into the ventilation duct, another jumping onto a window onto a ledge and up to the third deck, and the other continued walking the second level walkway.
"Damn. They work quick." Miss Jones turned a knob on the console. "Too quick to pick up anything on the scanners."
"Just once I'd like to know what's going on in his brain." Sayaka mused.
"That'll have to wait until we catch a specamine for study." Miss Jones watched the screen as she stepped back towards the wall paneling. "At least they don't appear to be aware of the TARDIS. Its ability to blend in should still far exceed whatever perceptual abilities they have. Even so, keep one eye on that screen, just to be sure. In the meantime, feel free to crash here for the night if you wish, Miss Akemi."
"More cheese, please?" The young girl gently tugged on Miss Jones's sweater.
"Why, sure thing!" Miss Jones waved her wand and on command a wedge of cheese materialized inside one of the circular indents on the wall. "How's that?"
"Mmmmm." The young lady pleasurably grinned . "Where's it from?"
"A far, far off world." Miss Jones tore off a slice of cheese for herself. "Wisconsin."
"I just do not understand." The Kyubey surveyed the mall walkway. "The magical signature of Homura Akemi abruptly terminates near here. What could possibly be the explanation?"
"Her particular signature has a tendency to disappear in one place only to reappear in another in a matter of seconds. This incident would appear to fit into that pattern. Most likely a trait inherent to her magical power." A second Kyubey telepathically relayed nearby.
"Teleportation magic? That would appear to fit the evidence."
"Inconclusive. She was observed to be utilizing a device on her arm."
"Speculative. The device may serve an unrelated function."
"Possibly true. Ultimately, we can only wait until she appears again to base any explanation for this incident."
"The more prudent measure would have been to attempt a telepathic override of her Soul Gem's control of her body." A third Kyubey interjected.
"That would have been an unnecessary risk, without knowing the full extent of the subject's capabilities."
"It was effective on the subject known as 'Saya Otonashi'. Data was gained. Data we are still trying to analyze."
"But that did not ascertain the subject's identity. And such action subsequently resulted in that body's termination. The most valuable data was irretrievably corrupted by its premature termination."
"Indeed, we should refrain from such direct action in the future unless deemed by all consensus as absolutely necessary."
"Agreed."
"Agreed… For now."
"The strategy of bringing Kyoko Sakura back to this town for the purpose of cultivating further conflict succeeded."
"Affirmative. However, her subsequent interactions with Sayaka Miki may bear fruit as well."
"Agreed. Her previous evaluation as a mediocre magical girl still holds true, but her encounter with Kyoko has provided an opportunity to devise other strategies."
"Agreed. Their unexpected pairing should prove beneficial to us."
"The strategy of pairing Mami Tomoe and Madoka Kaname appears to be proceeding as planned."
"Affirmative. Sayaka Miki and Madoka Kaname are known to have an established peer relationship, correct?"
"Affirmative. However, presently neither are aware that the other is a magical girl candidate."
"That information could be used to drive further conflict in the future."
"Agreed. It remains imperative that Madoka Kaname make a contract, everything else is secondary."
"Agreed."
"Agreed. With her, we will have all the energy we will ever need."
"That tool that looks like a tuning fork… Hand it to me, please?" Miss Jones instructed Nagisa.
"What are you doing now?" Nagisa yawned.
"Examining the transmat system. I want to make sure it's totally unsalvageable before I even consider cannibalizing its parts."
"Oh. What is it?"
"That piece of cheese you just ate? A transmat can zap it out of your tummy and send it straight to the Moon."
"Oh. Why would you do that?" She yawned again.
"So you'll be hungry for more cheese. Now hand me that tool that looks like a kaleidoscope."
"Okay." Nagisa handed the tool over. "Is it working?"
"That's what this tool's designed to find out." Miss Jones stuck her eye in one end and rotated the cylinder.
"How long will it take?"
"Boy do you like to ask questions."
"Sorry." Nagisa apologized. "I ask questions when I'm nervous."
"No worries." Miss Jones assured. "Forty minutes or so."
"Oh." Nagisa yawned and stretched.
"The more pertinent question is, are you going to be awake enough to help when I'm finished?" Miss Jones put her hand to Nagisa's forehead.
"I'm not that tired." Nagisa said with her eyes drooping.
"When's your normal bedtime?"
"Eight."
"Homura, what time was it when you got to the mall?"
"I don't know. I think it was nine."
"Past your bedtime. Sorry." Miss Jones stood up and took Nagisa's hand. "You two… Stop watching the 'tube and do me a solid."
"What is it?" Sayaka sauntered over to them.
"I need to get a diagnostic started on these quantum energy crystals inside the transmat matrix." She pulled out a floor panel underneath the detached wall panel. "Each of these crystals needs to be checked for its energy storage capacity.
"How many are there?"
"Approximately five hundred of them." She removed a second floor panel. "Three hundred primary, two hundred redundant."
"Geez!" Sayaka slowly backed up. "That sounds like a lot of-"
"It's easy enough." Miss Jones flipped the kaleidoscope tool at her. "The tool's already calibrated to their resonance frequencies." Miss Jones guided Sayaka through the crystals in the slots under the paneling. "I want you to check, from left to right, row by row, from top to bottom, the status of each crystal. Once it's analyzed the crystal, the tool will flash you a color through that eyepiece." Miss Jones pointed to a large clipboard and booklet of stickers sitting on the control console."Green means it has energy capacitance. Red means it's busted. Homura, you mark the corresponding color to its crystal in the diagram on the clipboard. Working together. Easy peasy."
"Couldn't I use a marker?"
"You screw up, you can just swap out the sticker. With a marker, you gotta cross it out, write a correction, make a big confusing mess out of it. Bleh."
"Very well. What are you going to be doing?"
"I'm going to be tucking the little one into bed." Miss Jones lightly nudged Nagisa. "I'm sure she's had a long day." She smiled at Sayaka. "Longer than yours."
The door to the guest quarters slid open. Nagisa peeked inside and gazed at a crib on the right side.
"I'm not that little." Nagisa complained.
"Of course not." Miss Jones put her hand on her shoulder. "If I recall this was intended to be a guest room for brand new families." She pointed toward the larger bed on the opposite side. "You can have that big bed all to yourself."
Nagisa deliberately pulled out the covers and squished the pillow. "No one's ever slept in it."
"Quite correct. You'll be the first."
Nagisa slowly climbed in and pulled the covers over her body. She turned over and slid her hands under the pillow. A moment later she slung them down the side of the mattress. Then she tried resting them between her legs. She sat up and looked over at the crib.
"Can I have one of those toys?"
"Used to sleeping with one, I take it?' Nagisa shook her head. "You can have 'em all if it makes you more comfortable." Miss Jones fetched the small, stuffed creatures and brought them over.
"What's that one?"
"A striped pig bear." Miss Jones handed it to her. "It's native to the forests of my homeworld."
"What about that one?" Nagisa positioned it on one side of her body.
"A Yaddlefish. Nearly driven extinct in the wild, it's reputed their yaddling soothes the souls of younglings, upstanding parents would get their kids an aquarium full of them. '' Miss Jones set it on top of the headboard.
"And that one?" Nagisa pointed at the more exotic stuffed creature.
"That's a flubble. Another popular pet." Miss Jones stroked its stuffed fur. "I once knew someone who tried keeping one in secret at my old school. Set it free come mating season." She set it beside Nagisa. "Pity the poor service drones in the ventilation ducts."
"And a stuffed cat?" Nagisa grabbed it and examined it.
"And a stuffed cat." Miss Jones smiled. "We had our own evolution of them on my world, but we interbred with an introduced population of Earth cats. Eventually the two became physiologically indistinguishable from one another. Now they're the second most common biotype in the Universe, after Humanoids."
"'Kay." Nagisa slung her arm around it and turned over.
"Anything else I can do for you?"
"Uhm." Nagisa glanced at the pair of bookshelves that were flanking the bed. "Before she got sick, my mom used to read me bedtime stories."
"I see." Miss Jones scanned the titles on the shelf. "Although I don't know what would be appropriate, for a girl like you, amongst this selection." She scratched her chin as she parsed through the selections. "Most of these are pretty dry history lessons of other worlds." She looked over at the other shelf. "What fictional works there are, feature some pretty... Bleak endings."
"I don't mind hearing those."
"Oh, this one looks pretty Earth-centric." Miss Jones picked a large, encyclopedia-sized book off the shelf. "'Earth Fables, Fairytales and Folklore, Middle Humanian Era. Annotated Edition'." Miss Jones brushed off a thin layer of dust from its cover. "What a mouthful."
She opened the book in the middle and paged through a couple chapters. "Here's a story that's popular on the other side of the sphere. It's about a poor little boy and a girl who are abandoned in the deep, dark woods, where they are left to fend for themselves. Eventually they find a hou-"
"I know it. There's a witch in the house. They kill her. They shoved her in the stove. The end." Nagisa demurred. "I don't like it. If she could've eaten her candy house like they did, she would have done that." She said, "She's not a bad person just 'cause she's gotta eat people to live." She reasoned.
"That's some very unique logic." Miss Jones paged through some more chapters. "Okay then, here's one from your end of the world. It's got a cute princess and even has time travel. My specialty." She cleared her throat.
"Is it the one about the fisherman and the turtle?" Nagisa asked. "Because I know that one, too. He opens the box and becomes an old man and cries. The end." She yawned.
"As you wish." Miss Jones paged back a few chapters. "Ah! How would you like to hear the story of The Little Mermaid?"
Nagisa shook her head. "She turns into seafoam and dies. The end."
"But that's only in one version of it." Miss Jones pointed out. "There's also a completely different one where she ascends to the heavens as an angel." Nagisa still wasn't interested. "Or the one where she becomes a roaming spirit who does good deeds for the next three hundred years?" Utter silence.
"Fine." Miss Jones turned the pages on and on until she was practically at the end of the book. "This one I guarantee you haven't heard before."
"Once upon a time," Miss Jones began. "There lived a lonely young girl."
"Why was she lonely?" Nagisa interjected.
"Because she had a hard time making friends." Nagisa's eyes empathetically widended. "One day, she was specially selected to go to a very special school for very special people."
"Why'd she get selected?" Nagisa interjected again. "Was she a Princess?" She sat up. "Was it a School for Princesses?"
"Princesses?" Miss Jones politely pushed her back down. "Well, not quite." She immediately sensed Nagisa's attention waning. "Well, there were lots of silly-looking hats and irritatingly strict rules surrounding decorum. So yeah, I guess one could call it a Princess School."
She turned a page. "And one day on her long," She paused. "Quite unnecessarily arduous trek to her Special Princess School, she happened to see an unfortunate young child being picked on by a much larger bully. Being a good natured soul, she came to this child's aid and together they managed to send that stupid hulking bully packing."
"The princess fought the bully?" Nagisa asked. "Princesses can fight?"
"Never heard a rule that says they can't." She licked her finger. "So the two young souls discovered that they were going to the same Special School, and they got to talking, and the more they talked, the more they found they had in common." She flipped a page. "They had the same tutors, the same interests, the same hopes, the same fears, and above all they were both born into this Universe with a deep, unfathomable loneliness, a loneliness that would often cause them despair."
"What's despair?"
"It means that you're so sad that you're completely without hope." Nagisa understandingly nodded. "You know if you keep butting in with all these questions, this story's gonna take all night, and we need to rise early tomorrow." Miss Jones leaned closer. "So if you'd please, just listen, relax and let your imagination answer the questions for you."
"Sorry."
"That's how fairy tales change over time, you know. When the listener's imagination eventually goes and shapes another account." She flipped another page. "Where was I? Oh, the more and more time they spent together at that School, the more and more they bonded. Through the bad times and good, whenever one failed a big test, or the other got in trouble with the teachers, or one won golden trim, or the other earned their medallions, they need only look at the other and smile to know that everything would be all right in the end."
"Bestest friends." Nagisa yawned.
"Exactly," Miss Jones agreed. "Their feelings probably went even deeper than that. But tragically neither ever quite came to the point of confessing it," She paused. "Possibly because their similar personalities made them too stubborn to admit their feelings. Or possibly because they were still very young and thus didn't fully understand the true scope of their affections. Or possibly because they simply didn't want to risk spoiling their good friendship. Or possibly," She flipped another page. "Because there were terrible, dark forces that conspired to keep them from doing so."
She continued, "You see there was this cabal - er, that's a small group of powerful people who plot and scheme to keep themselves that way, who foresaw that the Lonely Princess and her bestest friend would one day get together and change the world. That they'd transform their whole world and its people a more loving, more just, fairer society. Of course, doing so would mean the end of this cabal's reign, so secretly, their Supreme Leader hatched a plan that would eventually drive the two bestest friends apart."
She licked her fingers and turned another page. "When the time came for the Lonely Princess and her bestest friend to be formally inducted into their Special Princess School, in a ceremony in which that wicked Leader personally oversaw, That Leader cast a most insidious spell, a spell that planted a most terrible idea into The Princess's mind." She sighed and itched her temple. "'Twas the spark of ambition, a piece of The Leader's very own greed and lust for power, that he planted directly into her. Seeded not just only the back of her mind, but also deep within the very core of her soul."
She briefly paused and turned the page. "As the two friends got older, the best friend realized that she had changed. You see, while the two were still young and inseparable, they had made a promise that once the day came when they had graduated from their School, the two of them would run away and explore together, to go everywhere imaginable, to travel everywhere travelable, to meet everyone who was meetable. For they'd believed that doing so would cure their loneliness. And so that day at last arrived, and the friend waited patiently for The Lonely Princess to come, and waited, and waited."
She wiped a small tear from her eye. "But alas, she never came. The seed that leader planted had bloomed, she had by then transformed into an incredibly self-centered fool, who by this point in her life was trying her damndest to be just like their wicked Leader." She continued, "Though spurned, her friend remained and tried to help her, to show her the errors of her increasingly aggressive ways. But eventually he had to give up. By this point, their paths had split, the friend had started a family, as did the Lonely Princess. But even the enormous responsibilities of a family were not enough to constrain the Princess's steadily beating ambitions."
She turned to the last page. "Eventually the friend did run away and fulfil their promise, but without her. And then she ran too, but not because of their promise, but because that spell of ambition had changed her into an evil witch on a quest for conquest and destruction. Naturally, this would lead to the two of them meeting again, but with their goals and ideals now so starkly different, the two former friends had no choice but to fight. And thus they fought and fought, time and time again at whatever junction they crossed paths. And the most tragic part was, it was all just going according to The Leader's awful plan. For The Leader knew that, if the two were always out there fighting, they would never come back together, and never challenge the cabal's power, never change their society."
"Has it gotten bleak enough for you dear?" She paused. "Well it's gotten a little too bleak for me." She continued on, "Eventually the curse of greed and ambition had been excised, the witch had been vanquished. She was the Lonely Princess again, but by then her friend was long gone. So she took to travelling too, forever chasing her friend, adopting his methods, hoping for that day she-" She was interrupted by Nagisa's snoring.
"Bored you to sleep? Can't say I blame you," She smiled. She quietly closed the book and left for the door. "Half-improvised, half-remembered side stories make for poor fairy tales. Good night and hopeful dreams, Lonely Princess."
"Number seventy-one, it reads…" Sayaka peered through the scanning tool. "Red." She noticed that Homura had not marked the scan result, as Homura was still gazing at the display screen. "Hey! Aren't you paying attention?"
"Huh?" Homura jerked her head around. "I apologize. You said 'red', yes?"
"Yup." Sayaka started scanning the next crystal. "Look, I get that this is boring and tedious. So if you want to just hand me that clipboard and the stickers, I can do it all on my own."
"It's fine." Homura sighed. "I've been thinking about something."
"What about?" Sayaka's eye glanced into the scanning tool's eyepiece. "Number seventy-two, is green."
"Green." Homura marked it with a green sticker. "About that young girl that you've brought here."
"Nagisa?" Sayaka moved on to the next one. "Why? Seen her around before or something?" The scan result flashed in her eye right away. "Number seventy-three, red."
"Red." Homura noted. "Perhaps."
"Yeah I think I have, too." Sayaka recalled. "Just can't quite flag where." She scanned the next crystal. "Lemme ask you something else. Has anything like this happened before?"
"You mean have I ever assisted you while we inspected a bunch of crystals and chit-chatted board an alien's ship?" Homura deadpanned. "No. This timeflow's entirely unique."
"Heh. Number seventy-four, it's green." Sayaka continued on. "Unique's a good thing, right?"
"Not in my experience. These timeflows make me anxious. They make me hesitate." Homura marked it with a sticker. "Then I start to second guess every previous decision I've made." She gazed at the partially-eaten pieces of cheese on the console. "Past and present."
"You think you'll get so bogged down by the past that you miss important details in the present?" Sayaka continued scanning. "Number seventy-five, is green."
"Yes." Homura stuck another green sticker.
"I've had trouble with something similar lately." Sayaka scanned on. "How do you cope with it?"
"I stop thinking, then I go out and I destroy a witch. Then I check on Madoka." Homura tilted her head. "What do you do?"
"Me? I read a few more pages of that crazy science book." She paused. "Then I get mad at Kyubey." She looked over at the plate of cheese. "I can't believe he'd leave her all alone in a labyrinth." She grit her teeth. "Dammit I can't believe he'd make her a magical girl in the first place."
"He doesn't take human values into consideration. He doesn't understand them. To him we're just useful resources."
"So I discovered. The hard way." Sayaka peeked through the eyepiece. "Number seventy-six, red." She moved on. "Did he ever try tampering with your Soul Gem? Or screwing around with your body or your mind?"
"No." Homura shook her head. "I learned quite early on to keep him at a healthy distance from me and my soul gem."
"Great to know." Sayaka rolled her eyes. "Whatever the timeline, seems I'm his favorite torture toy." The light flashed in her eye. "Number seventy seven, also red."
"Torture toy? Did something happen today?"
"He tried to hijack my body." Sayaka scanned. "Then he screwed around in my brain. Told Miss Jones about it already."
Homura stared at her. "Did he discover anything compromising?"
"I don't think so. But another moment or two, and we'd have been screwed. If it weren't for Nagisa," Sayaka scratched her cheek. "I owe her big time. Number seventy-eight, green."
"Still went better than my side of the mission." Homura put in a red sticker.
"What happened? Mami's alive, right?"
"Yes." Homura breathed. "But I miscalculated again."
"What do you mean?" Sayaka stopped her scan and stared at her.
"I tried to predict where she would be based upon her typical daily routines. So I visited a tea shop. Typically she buys the tea, goes home, eats dinner and makes her tea, then goes witch hunting. But today she deviated. I should've factored Miss Jones keeping Madoka after school into the equation."
"How so? What'd she do instead?"
"I think she skipped straight to witch hunting. When I finally sensed her, she was engaged in a fight with another magical girl." Homura took a long, melancholy breath. "It was with Kyoko Sakura."
Sayaka's jaw dropped. "She's here? You've gotta be kidding me!"
"Their fight was that outburst of magical energy we felt this afternoon. That was their battle."
"Holy crap!" Sayaka set the tool down. "You mean that's what a clash between magical girls feels like?"
"Between two powerful ones, yes." Homura added. "Particularly when the girls are as emotionally fraught as those two."
"Oh. So that's why you try to be such a robot all the time?"
Homura's eyes showed the briefest glint of annoyance before she continued talking. "I was too late to put myself between them. By then Mami had already triumphed. Kyoko barely managed to retreat."
"Aw, dammit." Sayaka shuddered. "I admit that I've fantasized about Mami and me teaming up to kick Kyoko's ass, but…"
"Actually," Homura tensed. "From what I read from the situation, it looked like that other version of you had gotten involved, too. Somehow, as Kyoko's ally."
"No way!" Sayaka suddenly became exasperated. "What? Oh, my god! How the hell did that happen?" She grabbed Homura's uniform, and then grew even more exasperated. "Sh- She didn't make a contract, did she?"
"No." Homura removed Sayaka's hand. "I sensed no magic from her. She was also only armed with a bat." Homura added, "Fortunately, she escaped alongside Kyoko."
"Any ideas where they could have gone?"
"I have a guess."
The abandoned church they'd found in the woodlands looked to Sayaka like it was in a state of terrible disrepair. "Are you sure about this place?" Sayaka asked the barely-conscious Kyoko. Kyoko weakly pointed to the small, equally-ruined residence attached beside it.
"Bedroom… Toward the east…" Kyoko breathed.
"But the door's been barricaded shut." Sayaka thrusted her body futilely into the residence's front entrance.
"Church door…" Kyoko struggled to speak.
"Don't die on me now!" Sayaka picked her up and they walked slowly around the building to the church's front entrance.
"Bust it open." Kyoko wheezed. The large church door surprisingly collapsed inward on Sayaka's first kick.
"It's too dark to see." Kyoko pointed towards the right side of the room.
"Doorway." The two felt their way along the walls, crunching their feet on broken glass strewn along the floor.
"Is this it?" Sayaka felt a doorknob poke her in her side. She turned the knob. "It's locked!"
"Key." Sayaka heard Kyoko's hand scratch along the floor. "Take it." She slipped it into Sayaka's hand.
"Now where?"
"Bedroom." Kyoko weakly tugged Sayaka toward her desired direction. The two girls felt their way along the walls from room to room, from the living room, to what appeared to be the dining room, along the hallway until they came upon an open doorway, with its interior dimly lit by the weak moonlight.
"We're here." Sayaka could barely make out a pair of unmade beds by the window. "Now what?" Kyoko promptly lurched towards the beds and fell on top of the mattresses. She slid her arm over the edge and changed her Soul Gem into its egg form, where it dropped and rolled over to Sayaka.
"Holy crap. It's really cloudy." Sayaka picked it up. Its red glow was obscured by a pulsating malstrom of darkness surrounding its core. "What does that mean?"
"Need magic." Kyoko murmured. "Under… Floorboard."
"What?" Sayaka leaned in.
"Underneath." She huffed. "Floorboard."
Sayaka stepped forward. The floorboard she'd stepped on sounded noticeably different from the others in the room. She kneeled down and inspected it, using Kyoko's gem as a dim light source.
"Oh. I get it." She felt along the board for a spot to lift it up, surely enough her intuition was correct. Underneath the floorboard was a small storage space. She shined the gem lower, lighting a closed shoe box. She opened the box.
"Grief seeds! There's three of them!" Sayaka picked one up. "Is that why you wanted me to bring you here?" Kyoko didn't respond, having succumbed to unconsciousness from her injuries.
"Crap! I don't know what I'm supposed-" Kyoko's Soul Gem flashed as Sayaka had unintentionally brought it close to the Grief Seed in her other hand. She reflexively dropped the Grief Seed to the floor, then picked it up. "That's how you do it? That's easy?"
"Were you expecting the purification process to be something more elaborate, Sayaka?" Kyubey appeared in the outside windowsill, his glowing eyes providing a little extra illumination to the dark night.
"There you are! Where the heck have you been all this time?"
"My apologies. But with the number of magical girls out there, I don't have the ability to be around and supervise them for every single moment of their lives. Nor do they expect me to."
"So I just put these two things together?" Sayaka tentatively slid the Soul Gem and Grief Seed closer on the floor.
"Yes. A witch's egg will naturally purify the Soul Gem. All it takes is proximity between the two."
"Nothing else? No special spells or incantations?" She looked at a broken cross on the floor. "Or prayers?" She moved the two closer and closer until the glow in Kyoko's gem flashed again.
"Some magical girls do indulge in such rituals. But it is not necessary to carry out the process." Kyubey watched as the darkened energy scattered out from Kyoko's Soul Gem and leapt into the Grief Seed. "You've done it. Her Soul Gem is purified. Though I admit, this is not how I pictured how your first Soul Gem purification process would be carried out."
Sayaka picked up the Grief Seed. It was even darker than before, a shade of black even bleaker than the night around them. "Ewwww." Sayaka said repulsively. "It's so dark."
"And now it's dangerous. If it's tainted any further, a witch might hatch." Kyubey pawed at the window. "Don't worry. If you let me inside, I will take care of it." Sayaka took the Grief Seed, got to her feet, reached over Kyoko's sleeping body, and unlatched the window.
"Give it to me." Sayaka handed it to him, where he promptly flipped it with his tail, landed it on top of his head, flipped it again, and caught it inside an opening on his back. He contentedly stretched and wiggled his tail.
"You... Ate it?"
"It's one of my duties."
"Is she going to be alright?" Sayaka checked Kyoko's pulse.
"Magical girls recover from injuries at a much faster rate than humans." Kyubey looked at the wound on Kyoko's leg. "And Kyoko I've personally witnessed survive injuries far worse than this. Her ability to survive is her most distinctive trait. I am confident she will make a full recovery," He tilted his head towards her glowing gem. "So long as her Soul Gem remains purified."
"That's good." Sayaka took a deep, relieved breath. "I wonder how late it's gotten." She felt through her pockets searching for her phone, quickly realizing that, in her rush out the door this morning, she had completely forgotten it. "Damn. Left my phone at home. My parents must be worried sick about me." She checked Kyoko's wound. "But I can't just leave her here like this."
"She's likely going to remain unconscious and vulnerable for a while." Kyubey said. "Fortunately for her this location is rather remote. It's unlikely anyone or anything will come along and threaten her."
"I'm going to stay with her. Just in case. But I've gotta get in touch with my parents." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "A payphone." She snapped her fingers. "Yeah! There was an old payphone back where the railroad intersected with the road. I'll tell them I'm at a friend's place. They're sick and I'm helping them out." She felt Kyoko's forehead. "Not really a lie."
"What you do next is entirely up to you." Kyubey leapt back onto the windowsill and outside. For the time being, my business here is done. That is, of course, unless there is a wish you would like granted." He looked back and twitched his tail.
"If I do eventually go through with it, you can be sure I'll do it when I'm damn good and ready." She stared at Kyoko sleeping on the bed. "Or when she needs me to be."
"Admittedly, I'm not privy to all the details." Homura stopped. "Kyoko doesn't seem to open up to me, the way she opens up to you." She then paused and thought of what she could remember. "But from what I've pieced together, she was Mami's first magical girl student. And soon after her friend. But as Kyoko's wish went wrong, Mami couldn't abide by Kyoko's changed worldview, and the two suffered a falling out."
"And they've suffered an unhappy reunion." Sayaka sighed.
"And I get a feeling that Kyoko partially blames Mami for how her wish turned out. But I could be wrong."
"Number seventy-nine, red." Sayaka continued working while she processed their conversation. "Maybe we should tell them both about Walpurgisnacht. Maybe they'll put their differences aside for the greater good."
"When I tried that, it typically made them suspicious of me and my motives."
"Maybe it's better to have their targets painted on our backs than on each other." Sayaka looked through the eyepiece. "Number eighty, it's green."
"That tactic could easily backfire, too. While I'm confident enough in my own ability to evade their attacks separately, if they united, I'm not at all confident that I could prevail."
"I'd have your back." Sayaka continued working. "Number eighty-one, green."
"You wouldn't be enough." Homura marked it down.
"Gee. Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"It's just an honest assessment of our abilities compared to theirs."
"Yeah, I get it. You're being candid." She chuckled. "I know I'm no great help. Just the glorified extra."
"Now you're the one being hard on yourself."
"It's true though. This isn't a world where I belong." She examined the next crystal. "I mean, let's be total optimists for a second and assume that we're completely successful from here on. Madoka's saved, Walpurgisnacht is defeated, witches gone, Kyubey's captured and Miss Jones frees us from relying on Grief Seeds. What then? What comes after? Have you thought about it?"
"I can't say that I have." Homura admitted.
"Number eighty-two, red." Sayaka continued. "I've thought a little about it. I can't go home. Can't crash at Madoka's. And those few days I had of living like Kyoko out on the streets almost killed me." She looked at her reflection on a metal bar below the floor. "And I'm not gonna keep pretending I'm this 'Saya' girl. There's nothing keeping me here. And I'm just not cut out to be a magical girl." She pensively swayed her head toward Homura. "Do you think Miss Jones would be open to me staying with her? You think she mind me tagging along?"
"I don't know." Homura marked the reading with another sticker. "But I know it's not something to be asked of her on a whim. Explain yourself. She was the one responsible for your situation. I'm sure she understands that much."
"You're right." Sayaka half-smiled. "You're right. Number eighty-three, red." She sighed, then checked out the next crystal in the series. It was completely charred black and had a broken tip. She put down her tool and reached for it. "Well I can already tell you that this one's going to read as- Guuuuyyyyaaaaahhhhhh!"
"Sayaka!" Homura shouted as brilliant sparks of energy shot out from the compartment.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-" Homura raced over to assist her screaming companion. "-ccccckkkkkkkkk! That hurt!"
"That hurt you?" Homura examined Sayaka's hand. "You still haven't figured out how to block such pain?"
"Nooooooooo!" Sayaka jerked it away and bit her lip. "Everytime I try to think of how I did it, it's like something's blocking me! Shiiii..." She stuck her burned fingertips in her mouth while she muttered another English profanity under her breath.
"Blocking you?"
She took the fingertips out of her mouth. "It's like, when Miss Jones rebooted my brain or something, I think she blocked the memory where I figured out how." She gave her hand back to Homura to examine.
"You think she may have brainwashed you?"
"No, nothing like that. I think she was just trying to help me feel human again." The burns on her fingers were already fading, the pain by that point was just a sharp tingle. "To be honest, I'm not sure I want to relearn it. Not if it's going to turn me into a stark-raving mad brute again."
"How's it been coming along?" The interior doors slid open as Miss Jones came back into the room.
"We've inspected eighty-four crystals so far." Homura handed her the clipboard.
"Excellent."
"And the last one burned my fingers when I touched it." Sayaka added.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine. But you could have told me the damaged ones could be dangerous."
"That kinda goes without saying, doesn't it?" Miss Jones strode over to the microwave. "Now pick one of the green crystals, the good ones, and bring it over to me."
"Any in particular?" Sayaka looked down at the crystals.
"Eh, number seven." She looked at the clipboard. "Yeah. Lucky number on any day."
"Care to explain what you're about to do next?" Homura requested.
"Certainly!" Miss Jones hung her coat on the rack. "A transmat system works, in simplest terms, by taking matter from one position, then dismantling and 'teleporting' the matter's 'data' into these crystals, where they're held in suspension for a microsecond, then sent to their target destination where the matter is reconstituted into its original configuration in a practically-instantaneous voyage."
"So you're attempting to teleport the darkness out of our Soul Gems." Homura surmised.
"To where?" Sayaka asked as she picked the seventh crystal from its slot and brought it over.
"Nowhere." Miss Jones replied. "The ectomatter is far too dangerous to exist in our reality untethered, it would cause disruptions in space-time that would make those witch barriers look restrained by comparison." Miss Jones took her wand out and started working. "Instead, I'm hoping we can keep the ectomatter in suspension within these crystals, where they'll be contained. In short, my transmat crystals, I'm hoping, can serve as near-term substitute Grief Seeds."
"How long can the crystals contain it?" Homura asked.
"Don't know. Hopefully indefinitely. But that's what this next test is going to find out." She pressed a button, and a slightly charred helmet descended from the ceiling. "No worries," She whispered to Homura. "No biological component needed this go 'round." She polished the helmet with her sleeve, turned the hemet upside down and slotted the crystal inside.
"Step two: Place your Soul Gems inside the microwave." Homura immediately complied. Sayaka, however, was a little more reluctant.
"I used a Grief Seed today. Mine's clean enough."
"Just do it." Homura glared at her. She gulped, reluctantly stepped forward and placed it inside.
"Set the timer." Homura set it to two minutes, and pressed the button on the microwave. Lasers flashed into each Gem, repeatedly in series, until the darkness inside was agitated into orbit around their gems.
"Ectomatter's separated." Miss Jones pointed at the big red button next to Sayaka. "Now, prepare to engage the final step." Sayaka nervously picked up the tablet with the button. "Hit it!"
In a brilliant flash of light, the darkness was teleported out of the microwave.
"Di- Did it work?" Sayaka asked, rubbing her eyes. Miss Jones peered tentatively into the helmet. She tried to pick it up, then immediately dropped it to the floor. "Hot?"
"No, it's cold." Miss Jones bent over and picked it back up with her sleeve. "Damn cold." She scanned it with her wand. "Hmmm." She studied the crystal and arched her brow.
"What is it?" Homura and Sayaka asked simultaneously as they leaned closer.
"I have some good news, but it also looks like there's bad news."
"What's the bad news?" Sayaka asked.
"What's the good news?" Homura asked at the same time as Sayaka.
"The good news is, the energy transfer was a success. The transmat crystals will indeed function as replacement Grief Seeds."
"So then what's the bad news?" Sayaka apprehensively bit her lip.
Miss Jones scanned up and down the crystal with her wand as she gauged its energy readings. "It's not doing as good a job keeping the matter in suspension as I'd hoped." She tapped on her glasses. "There's a small, but detectable cascading reaction happening within the crystalline matrix."
"What does that mean?" They asked in tandem again.
"It means that we're going to have to dispose of this thing, because it's going to erupt.
"What?" They exclaimed.
"Yup." She scanned one more time with her wand. "Confirmed. The reaction's accelerating, exponentially." She lifted her glasses above her head. "Fortunately, the crystal's quantum-shifting nature is going to suppress virtually all of the ectomatter's reality-disrupting properties, we should only be in for a good ol' fashioned, big-ass explosion when it goes.
"How large will the explosion be?" Homura asked.
"How long 'til it blows?" Sayaka's eyes widened.
"Let me run some calculations." Miss Jones took out a pencil and scribbled a set of equations on the back of her clipboard. "Let's see… Carry the three." She nodded. "Four minutes, give or take a couple seconds. Honestly math was never my strongest subject. As for the scale..." She sighed. She scratched her cheek with her glasses as solved the next question. "How big was that bomb that destroyed those cities in Japan in that war a few years back? Somewhere around that neighborhood."
"Holy crap!" Sayaka slapped her forehead.
"No call for panic." Miss Jones reassured. "This is one of the experimental outcomes I anticipated. I prepared for it."
"What do you plan to do?" Homura asked.
"Send it down to one of the lower levels." Miss Jones approached the control console. "I'm thinking one of the paludarium levels. One of the desert sectors." She typed on the console as images of a jungle, a beach, and then a desert flashed on the screen. "Sector Eleven. No bioforms detected. Nice and deserted desert."
She typed further instructions into the console. "Should be enough power for a site-to-site transmat of a nonliving object." She flipped a switch on the console's underside. "Homura, do me a favor and set the crystal inside the round-thingy next to the microwave."
"This one?" Homura set it in place.
"Yes. Thanks." She flipped the underside switch again. Nothing happened to the crystal. She tried again, to the same non-result. "Hmmmm. That's odd."
"What's odd?" The two other girls uttered in unison.
Miss Jones dislodged a keyboard from the console's underside, and pecked away. "Ah, crap. An eleven-oh-three, dash four-seven-one error. Damn. I should've anticipated that."
"What's that mean?" Sayaka read the screen.
"It's a safety feature." Miss Jones explained. "There's a risk, however small, that the transmat energy required to send the thing away could also serve as the energy catalyst that would trigger the chain reaction. Thereby blowing it up right in our faces. Which would be bad, so the TARDIS refused to do the transmat."
"Crap!" Sayaka shouted as she clutched the console.
"I could disable the safety protocol and try it anyway." The screen flashed over to a long, unending line of computer code.
"We don't have time!" Sayaka exclaimed.
"I agree. That's way too much code to parse through in two and a half minutes." Miss Jones nervously bit her lip. "I could try erecting a containment field around the crystal itself. Constrain the explosion into a tiny glowing clump." Miss Jones input the calculations into the computer. "And wouldn't you know it, we're right below the minimum power threshold needed to pull that stunt off." She scratched behind her back, and desperately whispered "Shoot."
Sayaka was staring at her, visibly panicked. Even Homura was showing a hint of exasperation. "If push comes to shove, we can wake Nagisa and flee to the back-up control room. Even in low power mode, there are still plenty of damage control systems that'll contain the blast to this level." That was little reassurance to the two girls.
"Ah, the toilet!" Miss Jones snapped her fingers.
"What?" Sayaka exclaimed.
"Yeeeaahhh. That could work." Miss Jones started pacing. "Flush it down the toilet, then erect the containment fields around all the plumbing systems. The waste disposal system is heavily isolated, although I'd have to resort to using public restrooms for the next few… Years."
"There's no need for that." Homura flashed her Soul Gem and changed into her magical form. She quickly grabbed the crystal from the circular indent and shoved it behind her buckler. Just as quickly, she changed her form back. Miss Jones and Sayaka both stared at her with their mouths hanging open, completely speechless. "What are you looking at?" Homura flipped her hair. "It's not like that's the first time I've disposed of a defective bomb."
"T- Th- Tha- That magic sleeve of yours…" Miss Jones's stuttered. "How did I not put it together before? Y- You keep everything you've ever acquired inside there, don't you?"
"Yes." Homura slightly tilted her head.
"Bombs and guns and Grief Seeds and stuff?"
"Yes."
"Did you keep that other multitool of mine in there as well?" The look of an epiphany all over her face.
"I did." Miss Jones instantly jolted over and giddily tugged at Homura's sleeve. "What are you-?"
Miss Jones's eyes widened with an unabashed glee. "Could ya' fork it over?"
"Didn't you say the battery was dead?"
"Not dead, per se, just drained to a point where I couldn't do anything useful… That is, beyond making a few passive environmental scans." Miss Jones corrected. "Which I already had it set to do."
Homura waited for the detonation moment to pass, pulled her sleeve away and flashed into her magical form. She paused for another moment, then tossed her hair and took the multitool from behind her buckler.
"Ssssssssplendid!" Miss Jones gleefully cheered.
"You can stuff anything you want up that sleeve of yours?" Sayaka asked.
"Anything that'll fit." Homura changed back.
"I think I got shafted in the magical powers department." Sayaka sighed.
"Never mind that. Never mind that." Miss Jones merrily skipped over to the control console. She stuck the wand into its slot on the console. "There should've been enough juice left to maintain a passive scan cycle for at least a few hours. Which should be more than enough to get a reading on what it's like inside that sleeve of yours."
"Why is that important?" Homura walked over to the console.
"Because if my itty bitty hunch is correct, then that little ability of yours is, in fact, the power to create a mini-portal to a parallel dimension. One not only of sight and sound, but hopefully, of its own physical laws not dissimilar from our own."
Homura and Sayaka simply stared at her, bewildered.
"Don't you get it? It would solve the biggest issue we have when it comes to creating an alternate means of Soul Gem purification: What to do with all that depleted ectomatter generated by your magic." She typed scan instructions into the computer as she explained. "Remember that I told you that Ectomatter is some very highly potent stuff?" She pointed at Sayaka.
"Kind of." Sayaka rolled her eyes.
"So potent that, really, it shouldn't exist on its own in our Universe without proper containment, otherwise it'll have adverse effects on the environment around it. In the case of the Depleted Ectomatter, that's even more true… As we almost just experienced firsthand."
She continued on. "Think of the Grief Seeds as, say, something akin to nuclear waste storage casks. They contain all sorts nasty stuff that would pollute the reality around it." She turned a set of knobs and dials and pressed a button on the control screen. "You follow?"
"A little." The two girls said together.
"If her sleeve really is a portal, and a portal to an entirely segregated dimension, then that solves the issue of where to put all that excess Ectomatter. We can sidestep the issue, simply send it over and dump it in that other dimension. If it's not in our Universe, then it's no longer our problem. Now do you get it?"
"Wouldn't you be making it the problem of whoever lives in that other dimension?" Sayaka asked. Homura and Miss Jones turned and simultaneously stared at her. "What? Stupid question?"
"No, it's a perfectly valid question." Miss Jones glanced at Homura. "I guess we're a little stunned by who's asking it."
"Hey! I am actually reading it, you know." Sayaka folded her arms and blushed.
"The odds of it being an inhabited Universe are somewhere akin to say, being struck by lightning while getting abducted by aliens after winning the lottery that day." She tilted her head back whimsically. "Which is also your birthday."
"For what it's worth, the one time I tried putting something alive in there, it… Didn't live long enough to tell me what it experienced."
"It was Kyubey, wasn't it?" Sayaka prodded. Homura's only answer was a small extremely satisfied grin.
"Basically, we're doing what I was doing with my Grief Seeds already."
"Yeah," Miss Jones admitted. "But hopefully on a wider, eventually more readily distributable scale." She started typing commands into the console. "It'll take some time to determine the exact quantum signature on which that universe resonates. Then eventually I'll be able to replicate the conditions of your portal, and calibrate it to attract Depleted Ectomatter specifically." The screen displayed the results, which prompted from her a wide smile. "But not with any of the local tech. I've pushed that as far as it will go. If I'm going to free you guys from Kyubey's system, then it's imperative that we break out of this causal loop. We have to defeat that Walpurgisnacht." She turned around and put her hand on Homura's shoulder. "That's our next goal."
"Which has to depend on both Mami and Kyoko surviving." Homura's eyes shifted over to meet Sayaka's. "We can't do this without them."