Chapter 4: It's a Witch, Isn't It?
Homura was no stranger to balancing witch hunting and a relationship. It would be a new experience for Kyoko, but surprisingly it was easier this time than any other. She went to great lengths to prevent Madoka from fighting witches, but Kyoko fought alongside her earnestly. It was easier to make time for somebody when they spent so many nights of the week living with you.
Recently she'd had to hear Kyoko's complaints of there only being familiars around. With a group of four veteran magical girls cleaning the city up, there wasn't much room for a familiar to grow and become a witch, nor did newer magical girls run out of magic fighting too many stray familiars. Every few days, she would "accidentally" let one escape, and Homura would turn the other way. More than likely, Sayaka or Mami would find it before it could become a witch.
While those two disapproved of fighting for fun or allowing familiars to attack civilians, Homura knew they could only last so long without grief seeds. And if Kyoko wanted to spend too long kicking a familiar around, there was no harm as long as it was taken care of by the end. She called her off when she was wasting too much energy, and that was all that was important.
Tonight, her soul gem glowed brighter than usual when it picked up the trail. Kyoko noticed it, and a smile broke out on her face. "It's a witch, isn't it?"
"Most likely." It didn't matter to her either way. Her job was to stand on the sidelines and provide backup to Kyoko, conserving her remaining ammo.
"Hah!" She stretched her arms upwards and bent backwards as she walked, cracking her knuckles loudly. "Can't wait."
"Don't waste all of your energy before we even get there." Though she suspected it wasn't far if the soul gem was already this bright. It led them to a nearby hotel, a brightly-colored rip in the side of the building.
"Aw hell yeah!" Kyoko wasted no time making a running leap, transforming mid-jump before she made it in. Homura followed her in at a much more reasonable pace, having a concept of the word "patience."
Kyoko was already standing feet spread, weapon out, eyes up when she caught up to her. "You can feel it, can't you?" Her grin widened as she flashed her teeth. "It's already awake."
"Your move." She transformed and waited, watching Kyoko and her surroundings carefully. The room was mostly featureless and shapeless, or didn't have any shape that she could identify. Walls could have been anywhere from ten feet to a mile away from where they stood, every surface was just a pattern. Checkerboard, plaid, polka dots, stripes, just a mess, like she was trapped in a fabric store's scrap bin.
"We just gotta catch its attention and bring it to us. No need to waste time finding it." Homura assumed the bouncing white things an indeterminable distance away were familiars. Kyoko rushed the one closest to them, jumping high above it and coming down on it with her spear.
They were about the size of her torso, just as shapeless as the barrier, elongated blobs with paperclip-like legs and small top hats. The one Kyoko lanced was dead and dissolved before she hit the ground, and a small swarm of them gathered around her. Homura readied her basic energy bolt magic, keeping a Beretta in her left hand in case it wasn't enough.
She was doing well enough on her own, even with them slowly closing in. When one came in range, her spear segmented and wrapped around the familiar, and she threw it to the side into another that was approaching. The next one was at her feet, and she kicked it into the air as part of a fluid back flip, batting it away with the blunt end of her spear.
"Watch out!" One behind her was dangerously close, its mouth wide open as it tried to land on her head. At least, Homura assumed it was a mouth; it was a large, toothed opening across its belly almost all the way down half its body. She fired several energy beams into it, and it fell dead before in reached Kyoko.
"Thanks." Kyoko moved closer to stand next to her. "Feel like telling me why you can't do that freezing thing anymore?"
"Is this really the time?" With Walpurgisnacht's defeat, she passed the date of the original contract, but had learned to fight without relying on it in the following years.
"No fun if I don't give them a handi- duck!" She threw herself to the ground at Kyoko's warning, and her spear passed just over the top of her head to slice an incoming familiar in two. "That information you wanna tell your girlfriend?"
"The terms of my contract were completed, and I lost the tie to my wish." She moved behind her and pressed their backs together. It was a lie, but it was convincing. Kyoko had also lost her magic by rejecting her wish.
"Kinda dodging the question don't ya think? Can't tell me what that wish was?" Kyoko moved away from her long enough to stab another before coming back.
"It's my problem to deal with." She shot two more with the energy bolts, familiars were a waste of ammo now that it was so hard to get.
"Alright, if ya say so." The familiars suddenly stopped in their tracks and scattered, and the room warped. "Aha, it found us!" Kyoko stepped to the side and gripped her spear tight.
Homura switched the handgun out for a Howa, something much more effective against witches. Conserving ammo wouldn't be important if either of them were dead. The rooms rushed past them, like being under a large patchwork quilt and having it pulled away.
This witch seemed familiar for once, it was rare for her to recognize them as the years went on. Although it had been too long for her to remember its ability, witches were often too distinct to forget. She was one of the taller kinds, solid black made of female torsos stacked on top of each other with a blank mannequin face. Her only eye was mounted on a red sunhat, and she stood unbalanced on short legs as thin as her own.
The biggest concern wasn't any part of that, it was her arms. In place of human arms were poleaxes as long as her body. Getting close would be hard because even if one could get past the axes, large spikes stuck out of her in almost every direction. The Frankenstein assembly of human body parts always made the most grotesque witches.
Kyoko, rather than acting disgusted or even excited, was caught in uncontrollable laughter. "It's made of boobs!"
While it was true that the torsos assembling the witch's body were all from...rather well-endowed females, Homura didn't see the humor in it. This witch had been a magical girl at some point, most likely a veteran if she had seen it before. She had to remind herself that in the final timeline, she was the only one who knew the truth about witches.
"Just focus and don't get killed." It wasn't worth explaining if her only intention was telling Kyoko she had a terrible sense of humor.
"You want me to penetrate the boob witch with my spear, got it." She stifled her giggles and took an offensive stance.
"Kyoko that's not what I..." There was no point in correcting her. She took off, jumping over a familiar and bringing her spear down on top of it. The pole bent, and when it straightened flung her into the air like a catapult, at head level with the witch.
She lost her momentum when she held her spear sideways, blocking a fatal blow from an axe. The second one came crashing down where she stood, and it would have cleaved her in two if she hadn't dodged to the side at the last second. She jumped on top of the pole, using it as a ramp to reach its weak point.
Before it could shake her off, she jumped and slashed at its face, but Homura was sure that was the wrong move. She ran closer, staying just out of range of its arms and picking off the familiars before they could reach either of them. Kyoko nearly impaled herself on one of its spikes on her way down, at this rate she might need her to jump in and save her.
"Attack the hat, you can blind it." If Kyoko needed to sate her bloodlust in a fight against a witch, she could show the decency to not get herself killed.
"How'd you know that?" She reached her head again to do just that, and Homura assumed she found the eye. "Oh, I see it now."
Before she could attack, the witch bent backwards at an angle she thought would be impossible with the multiple twisted torsos. Kyoko was lined up perfectly to land on one of its spikes. She rammed the blunt end of her spear into its body, pushing herself out of the way.
Homura ran forward when she saw one of the axes raise. Halfway there, she went from sprinting as usual to feeling like her blood was replaced with cold molasses. Running was hard, and she had to push herself to run even at half speed. Given Kyoko's shocked face as she looked up at the axe, she couldn't move properly either.
With her head start, Homura was able to shove Kyoko out of the way and kick backwards as the axe crashed between them. She could barely hear, "What the hell!?" over the collision.
"Slowing magic, I assume. This is bad." Both of their strengths were in speed rather than raw power, as long as Homura wasn't resorting to blowing it up. This was a rare time she wished she had Mami there to attack it from a distance.
"What's your plan?" Kyoko carefully dodged around the next axe that came down to stand out of the way with Homura. "Runnin's out of the question."
"We're still better off if we blind it. Can you do that?" They were slowed, but Kyoko was still fast, hopefully fast enough.
"Heh, just watch me." With a wide, cocky smirk, she made her way towards the witch. Given her ability to still jump at inhuman heights, it was only slowing magic, not increased gravity in the labyrinth.
She watched Kyoko as she rushed in, carefully waiting until each axe was too close to change trajectory to lean out of the way. Her finger rested on the Howa's trigger, aimed at the witch to settle her haywire nerves. In true Kyoko fashion, she never took a hit, even when hindered like this.
Everything went smoothly until she reached the head. Last time, she had a clean opening to the witch's eye, but she must have expected that. An axe was headed directly towards her side.
"I'm sorry." Homura pointed the gun's muzzle directly at the hat.
"What are-" Kyoko didn't finish the thought, she screamed and dropped out of the air as Homura pulled the trigger and fired a portion of the magazine at the eye.
Her goal was accomplished, the witch's eye was no longer open and the slow spell lifted. She ran forward while it was flailing around to catch Kyoko, who was shouting obscenities and sporting a gushing shoulder wound. "What the fuck, Homura!"
"You wanted to give it a handicap." She resorted to speaking telepathically, doubting her voice would be heard over the witch's shrieking.
"Now I've got three new holes in my shoulder!" Kyoko, conversely, was loud enough to talk verbally. She kicked herself out of Homura's arms.
"And now you have none." They healed quickly, her own magic aiding the process. "But now the witch is blinded and we're at an advantage."
"Yeah screw you." She was already cooling down, which was impressive considering she had just been shot. "You got a plan then?"
"Get behind it." Kyoko began to run a wide circle as Homura continued her instructions. "I'm going to lure it towards myself. When you see an opening, kill it."
"How are you going to do that if it can't see?" The spell was coming back, Kyoko's pace dropped. Homura switched the gun out yet again, a Desert Eagle she hadn't touched for years.
"I'm sure that it can still hear." The gun was strong, but inaccurate, with too small a clip to be any real use. But most importantly it was loud, and she wasn't concerned with saving the ammo for fighting. She fired it twice into the air.
The witch must have heard it, and began stumbling towards her. Kyoko was closing in and she shot once more, stepping back from the wildly-swinging axes. It was close, she trusted her to get there before she was hacked in two.
Closer. Another shot. Kyoko jumped up and let her spear split apart, lashing it like a whip around the witch's neck. She jerked it down, pulling herself upwards like it was a grappling hook, and the sharp edge of the spear unraveling around her neck cut a deep gash as it pulled away.
It wasn't enough to behead the witch, but she did stop in her tracks and nearly fell to the side. Kyoko, still high in the air, recombined the spear into one piece and brought it down directly into the nape of her neck.
As she fell out of the air, the spear dragged a long cut down every single torso all the way to the bottom. The shrieking stopped, their surroundings wavered one last time, and a grief seed appeared in her place.
"Hell yeah!" Kyoko jumped in place and threw a fist into the air. "Finally!"
"Quiet, we'll be heard now." Homura used the grief seed to take the edges of darkness out of her soul gem before transforming back and handing it to Kyoko.
"What are they gonna do, call the cops? Tell them they found some magical girls and we need to be arrested?" She pocketed the grief seed and grinned. "I'll take my chances."
"We're going home, that's all we're finding tonight." Usually they would cut it off early after encountering two familiars, or one witch. Otherwise they would spend all night outside, like Mami and Sayaka did. The only exception were the nights Madoka tagged along, and they suddenly became more diligent.
"Nah, not yet." Kyoko broke her spear down and flicked her wrist, wrapping it around Homura completely. She pulled her close before she could break out of it. "I got things ta do."
"Stop fooling around." They could have died back there, this wasn't the time to goof off.
"Nope, you're mine." Her breath still had the unpleasant scent of fried snacks on it.
"Let me go so we can leave." Sometimes Kyoko's misunderstanding of social situations was amusing, but right now it was just annoying.
"I'm gonna kiss ya and you can't stop me," she teased, leaning in close. Homura knew full well she could stop her, but she stood up on her toes to reach when Kyoko pulled her in by her collar. They were both drenched in sweat, and being this close didn't do anything to cool her down. She couldn't tell if sweat had dripped down her face and into her mouth, or if Kyoko's tongue tasted like salt from her diet.
When Kyoko held a hand on her back to hold her upright, she tried to hug her back, but her arms were bound by the spear. It was frustrating, and she instinctively pulled against it. She found it difficult to both return the kiss and struggle against it.
Kyoko let her go before long, dematerializing the spear. Her serious demeanor fell and she put on a goofy smile. "You're buying dinner, right? Make up for shooting me."
She didn't feel guilty about it, but it wasn't worth the fight over wounded pride. "Of course, it's on me."
If you want to see the witch and its familiars, look up Margot from Oriko Magica on the wiki. There really is a witch assembled from torsos and breasts. (If you're avoiding spoilers for that spinoff, don't look it up.)
And this chapter came out a little later in the day, since I ran through it much closer to double-check active voice on the pronouns (or whatever grammar jargon I'm thinking of), thanks for the crit guys! (I also rewrote some things, since Homura seemed colder than I intended. She's not heartless, she just knows what Kyoko can and can't take, so I hope it came across more like that.)