"Get ready, she might strike anytime soon."
Yume focused her gaze at the mysterious mahou shoujo, and assumed a defensive stance. Others almost took the same action, preparing their weapons. Homura, in particular, reached for her shield, and took out a shotgun, more specifically, a Walther P22 Q pistol, and held it in her right hand – the same hand her shield was it.
Homura quickly pushed herself several meters, and focused her gaze at the girl Kazumi Sakura.
"Ready…"
"Set…" Kazumi grinned.
"Go…!"
As if signaling fireworks, several sparks flew around the baseball stadium, none touching the lines that made up the base of the stadium. With a speed undermining that of a bullet train, several after-images flashed onto the spectators eyes, all picturing Homura's and Kazumi's light-sabers clashing against each other, creating a yellowish spark between them. Wait…
"Since when did that girl have a light-saber?!"
Yuma's lifted eyebrows threw in the notice of the other girls.
"Does it count just as suspicious that they can both move at supersonic speeds while we can't?"
Minna was worrying about something different; it was a total understatement, in reality. All throughout the Magical Girl Exchange's history, there had been around a thousand magical girls who had such a similar ability. Their wishes were very different than from what today's magical girls had signed up for, however: one girl wished to be as fast as the Flash, and that didn't turned out quite well for her – one of the witches she had encountered was a trap maniac, after all. Another simply wished to be fast, and so did her lifespan. Another girl, around 2 years ago, wished to travel to the anywhere while being able to go back home, but that turned out to be something different, after all. Either way, man … women had wished to be faster than anyone else, because people will always believe that speed is better than having the strength to do it.
"It's quite weird," Mami speculated. "That almost suddenly that girl has one. It's very similar to Homura's too. Was it a power related to her wish somehow?"
Kyouko nodded.
"It sounds weird already, but," Kyouko commented. "It seems that she seems to be on par with Homura. Heck, here am I… thinking only Homura could have that kind of goddamn power…"
"No," Hikari corrected Kyouko. "I think everything… that has happened since the last minute is part of the wish magic."
"Wish magic huh…?" Mami pondered. "You can say it's my first time hearing it like that…"
"Well," Hikari commented with a smile, as she glanced at the still-staring-at-the-fight-as-if-she-was-actually-following Mai . "If you have enough experience with other mahou shoujos and how they use their powers, we would eventually come up with something like that: wish magic – basically the mahou shoujo's soul's natural power."
Without warning, a several sparks flew over the commentators, images of an soulless Homura parrying off several of the girl's frightening combo assaults, sent several of them stepping several steps back, Yuma particularly tripping over a small pebble and falling over backwards in an awkward position.
"W-W-Wha…!" Yuma's words were more than enough to express her utter surprise.
"We should rather…" Mai finally spoke. "Think about saving Sayaka over there…"
The rest nodded in agreement, as they finally made up their minds to cross the mirage-filled battlefield.
(Play Connect ~TV Size~)
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Episode 11
"It's my decision,"
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Zwwwish…
The sound of clashing light-sabers kept on ringing on Homura's ears with vastly different pitches, one after another, in this accelerated field. Without them knowing, it had already started to drizzle, but, however, to the two duelling, it looked more like dramatically falling teardrops, whose appearance could clearly be seen as falling spheres of water with its own as a small tail.
Zwaaaaam…
Again, that familiar sound flashed through her ears, along with the small whispering splashes of water. Only this time it had a rather different sound. She might not know how light-sabers like this one were made (it was an conception of her wish though – this lightsaber was made to counteract almost any mahou shoujo or witches made from the past up to the present.), but it weights quite light compared to the machine guns she was holding during the old days.
She spun 180 degrees towards the party, and dashed with the speed of a bullet. It was slower than usual, but enough for Kazumi Sakura to miss them long enough to catch a glimpse of her own light-saber.
Within just around 20 milisceonds, the enemy's light-saber's flaring "blade" was already closing in on Homura's wrist joints. With all her might, she twisted her arm in response to this insanely lethal attack, allowing for an exotic light-saber spin and quick grip change.
Zwaaaaaak…
Homura had expected a successful parry from that girl. However, she was one step closer, letting go of her sword. Her wrist magically twisted back, holding the sword again before even the gravity or Kazumi's parry were able to push it away, providing time in terms of milliseconds for her to turn her awkward defensive position to a direct thrust at Kazumi's chest.
However, the figure dissipated with the same timeframe, her right foot kicking the ground and purposely putting her off-balance to allow for a measly escape. She grounded her left foot backwards off at the base and rushed back towards Homura again. Again, Homura was able to parry its attack, just by blocking it with her shield.
Around 20 seconds had passed. Nothing has penetrated the girl's infamously speedy attacks so far. As Homura continued on parrying and providing a counter-attack to the girl's attacks, she just seems to parry hers almost instantly. Would this exchange of attacks come to a close? She dashed several meters towards the center and changed her stance to someone like fencer, she then fired the pistol she had still been holding from her hand.
It will work. Homura figured, as the girl had already dashed in so close.
"Do you think anything you'll do will work that easily… Homura-chan!"
"…!" Her now shining eyes widened as she fired the trigger of her pistol towards herself, and at the same time, she threw her light-saber mid-air, caught a hold of her shoulders, and spin jumped. Her shoes, which looked like middle-school black leather shoes caught her light-saber, which had not even touched the tip of its gravity-affected path.
"Genius."
Ruby-colored glitters encircled a portion of Kazumi's arm, materializing into a round shield similar to Homura's own round shield. Just before the bullet from Homura touched her skin, her entire position changed. Homura's eyes blinked as the bullet hit its after-image instead, in an appearance that would seem as if he hit a ghost. After a millisecond, the after-image had disappeared completely.
"You don't think you could just waltz in and simply rescue the Pleadies Saints from danger would you?"
She "teleported" back to the intruders, who had almost untied Sayaka from her chains. While her shield, which had materialized completely, had an insanely similar appearance to hers, only, rather than a full grey with purple gems in it, lined with a glittering purple light, it was colored similar to the glitters she saw earlier – a bright shining ruby, with a lining design that could be mistaken for the number eight.
"Go ahead," the girl smiled. "I have already done my job here for her."
Yuma eyes fixed upon the girl who had imprison her friend's "friend", but, rather than an evil smile, as she would have expected for bullies like her, she caught a glance of her silent, nearly sad, yet resolving eyes with lips that leaned downwards. Her eyes did not blink, or rather, she couldn't stop staring for just one more second at her particularly suspicous expression. Her eyes leaned right, as if glancing at the one at hers – Kyouko.
"I have to do this…" The girl's final whisper crept into Yuma's petite ears. "Sorry, Kyouko-chan."
Just… Yuma muttered to herself, being careful to not let anyone but herself hear. Who is she?
Without her noticing, Sayaka had already been unchained. In a matter that would have fooled anyone, no marks had permeated the tough girl's otherwise frail skin. There were no such marks of force, nor any attempt for Sayaka to even consider standing up any time soon. A few precious 5 seconds had passed before she finally stood up, and turned her back on the girl that had forcefully took her out of nowhere.
"You know…" Sayaka's words echoed. "…we could help you."
Tears welled up Kazumi's eyes. However, no one, except probably for Sayaka, could tell them if they were tears… or teardrops that had fallen on her cheeks. She wore the mask of contempt, and stared at the central figure who Mami and Hikari had already been untying.
"She…" Kazumi's words were like a chick trying to speak. "… is more important."
Her eyes turned around to Homura's.
"…than any of you."
Leaving with these words, a shadow quickly moved towards her faint one, and just as easily disappeared without a sound.
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90 seconds left.
But it was more than enough.
"Mai."
Homura's words reached Mai's ears without any other word, and had already held onto each other's hands.
"Pleadies Saints, the girls who tried to do the impossible… in so many ways," Homura's voice passed through the others. "Have already done it. However…"
"Even theirs was fabricated, wasn't it?"
As she stepped forward, both their cheeks touching each other, water splashing only served to ricochet everybody else's attention over Sayaka's daring statement.
"Yes."
There was nothing else to say than that.
"Clearly," Sayaka shuddered. "There's a way… that girl… didn't have to suffer."
"I understand somewhat," Homura explained. "But her suffering… would be unbearable, even for herself. It must only be that faint hope of puella magi finally counteracting Kyubey's cruel loop that she's able to go on, and so was I."
Homura caught Kyouko's particularly clueless expression, and frowned.
"It still pains me how many times I've experienced Madoka's suffering… and Kyouko… and Mami."
A silent gaze befell upon the group, as Mai's incantations have almost been completed. Unfortunately, for such a big party as a large group of mahou shoujos, something called preparations need to be done to create a large magical circle fit enough to teleport everyone to San Francisco. Just within the distance, Hikari and Minna, with unkept faces, have almost finished bringing every single body of the Pleiades Saints over to the magical circle, which was at the pitcher's stand.
"Oi, oi," Minna pointed to a hole in one of the girl's suit. "None of these girls have their Soul Gems!"
"Eh?!" Hikari was the first one of react.
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20 seconds.
"Hikari! Minna!" Homura's two hands gripped upon the two. "Where…?"
With gazes fixed on each other, then back to the wide stadium.
"None… it's not here." The two nodded, again and again as they turned around looking for what seems to be nothing. "Could it be with that girl?"
"Wait!"
Hikari's words pierced Homura's ears.
A lone girl got up at the stage. Her supposedly "cool" clothes were ragged. If it wasn't for the torn out clothes that had partially revealed her chest and body, she would have had a long dark brown back coat, and something that could be mistaken for a tam o' shanter, and quite a cute one at that, contrary to her dejected expressions. However, Homura and the others did not care about such a thing, only that one shining gem that continued to glitter and that darkness that continued to swirl half of it.
"I-It's…a mahou shoujo!"
Mami was the first to notice.
"E-Eh?!" Hikari thought for a moment. "I-I thought everyone within the Japan region should have fled right now?"
"No…" Homura shook her head to make herself redundant. "She was… a pawn in her own little revenge: a day dreamer in this forsaken garden."
The girl was almost ready to break down, and fall to the ground with a hysterical depression, as the border had already passed the wide open highway into the outer depths of the city.
"We should-"
Before Mami could finish her sentence, Homura had made her move, and without a single sound, she had already brought the distressed girl over to the circle, as if to save her.
"Now!"
"Roger!"
Mai's signal enlightened the magical circle, and made a faint swish as the resulting gust swirled around the resulting pillar of pink and purple light. Within a second, the light quickly contracted, and so did their bodies, as they were caught by the pillar of light and took off.
At almost the same time, a gigantic border made of scribbles engulfed the stadium.
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"Gah!"
The cold night wind encompassed everyone's entire bodies as they descended with a bright purple light, piercing the darkness of the night. As this pillar of light dissipated, the gang's figures widened up until it had fully assimilated itself with the surrounding skyscraper lights. Within a relatively tall skyscraper, Mami, Kyouko, Homura, Mai, Hikari, Minna, a mysterious girl, and the entire Pleadies Saints had already torn through the limits of their speed to travel to a relatively far place. However, Homura's eyes focused on the surrounding skyscrapers instead of any of the other girls.
"Akemi-san?" Mami was the first to ask.
"Do you feel it? It's that girl's magical trace…"
Homura took out her own Soul Gem and used it as a magical girl compass, hoping to detect the wavelengths of other magical girls that had made their living here for a while. Hikari sighed at the pitiful sight (doesn't she already knew that she can search for anything or anyone?) and started pinpointing other magical girls nearby with their Soul Gems. Minna had started healing the other bodies of the Pleadies Saints, which are still unconscious, most likely because of the fact that their Soul Gems were already taken, most likely by that mysterious girl who battled with Homura.
"Just who… is that girl?!" Mami flabbergasted at the thought of the impossible power. "Not only was she able to match Homura completely, but also able to teleport here?"
Sayaka stared at Homura for a few seconds, waiting for a response. Homura shook her head.
"I had already determined her power…" she declared to the gang.
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Kazumi Sakura
Weapon
Various
Specialty
Create fake objects, laws, realites, and identities
Nationality
Japanese
Description
Kyouko's long forgotten little sister. The once proper, considerate, and beautiful sister had already turned into an "emotionless mastermind", although her relationship with Kyouko still haunts her until today, whose past was meant to be forgotten by everyone including herself. She cannot fathom the probability of her emotions getting in the way of her plans to purge the Kyubeys and get rid of the current puella magi system that had resulted in her family's destruction. She had loved everything before, but now… she doesn't even know herself, except for the defining hate that had remained in her heart all this time, and her remaining love for Kyouko.
For now, she has "imitated Asunaro City's Kazumi's appearance", mostly due to her powers, although she has retained some of her original pink hair, due to the "basic limit of her power" – she cannot imitate anything perfectly. She has create several of these kinds of clones long around the same time that the Pleiades Saints had started cloning them (presumably around a year ago after the incident with Kyouko). As the one responsible for many of the events that had befell upon the Pleiades Saints, including the creation of Juubey, the being whom she created with as "fake Kyubey" but with the mental sickness called "emotions", she also created the being called Kazumi by providing a wild predicate to their experiments, which were the results of hers. So in a strict sense, she is "Kazumi's creator." To distinguish herself from the other Kazumi though, she wore a black cape, which had more often than not covered her face, most especially to avoid unnecessary contact with fellow puella magi. Most of the time, though, the cape alone is enough for anyone not to make such similarities between the two.
While she can only create fake laws or objects, that itself is her biggest advantage. Through experience, she has been able to copy any puella magi's power or weapon, as long as it only does 95% of the original power. Her entire existence lies on deceit, so much that she can create fake memories for anyone whom she use her powers on – the very reason why Kyouko had presumed that her sister was dead. Also, for the most part, most of her "imitations" have become exact copies of the same thing, except for minor details. Considering many other puella magi have considerable earth-shaking powers, such as Homura's unique ability to be able to defeat any puella magi or witch, or Kazumi's ability to bend reality and/or the special rule of many composite magical girls (ie Asunaro Kazumi) to absorb others' magic.
Because of her connection to Kazumi, she herself may have such a power, a power given by her creators, which includes herself as a predicate. However, there has been no proof of her powers reaching Kazumi's.
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"What?!"
Now it's Mai's turn to be astonished.
"She must have already imitated mine, Mai, and Sayaka's power." Homura deduced. "The only limit she has is within her Soul Gem, which I had analyzed to be 60% and accelerating."
Mami had an idea what needs to be done next.
"We…" Homura paused before continuing. "… must capture her, and… cleanse her Soul Gem as soon as possible."
「Kazumi's Soul Gem: 61%」
"Ughh…"
Kazumi disgustfully stared at the thing called a Soul Gem, her hands holding the cursed thing by the hand.
"The plan still isn't done…"
Kazumi's pitched lowered. Jumping from the skyscraper down to a nearby witch barrier, her teeth clenched, bearing the vague, unidentifiable pain that had coursed through her body.
"…I need to keep her… from knowing the truth… just yet!"
A mirror like portal swallowed the girl whole, entering the witch's barrier.
「Kazumi's Soul Gem: 65%」
Kazumi kept on falling, as she would have expected from a sewer-based witch. The pit itself was an endless one, extending towards a blank void. The dark green mucous walls itself reek a smell, which had proven to be a mix of human manure, toxic gases, rotten eggs and methane. Cut pieces of strange flying slime creatures passed the girl without a single notice.
A word never escaped her, in spite of the seemingly nostalgic scent coming from her complex expression, but proceeded to assume a diving formation. Materializing a red lightsaber from her left hand, she threw it towards the endless void.
"DIE!" Kazumi shouted with all her might, while at the same time, her eyes started glowing a bright golden aura. The dark pit, as if responding to her words, flashed several times, before illuminating the entire pit with a pulsating light-green tint. She had finally reached the ground, which had shaken the second she dived towards it. A large crater was left in its place, along with an unshaken figure, which had miraculously stood in spite of the colossal pose she assumed. A small round shield had assumed its position in one of her arms, while another light-saber had materialized yet again in her left hand.
"… Oi oi." Her shadow echoed. "Are you sure you want to do this alone?"
"Oh," Kazumi had stared walking towards the sea urchin like figure. "I thought I had already told you to shut up before we got here."
"I am, somewhat." Her shadow responded. "It's just that…"
"Don't worry," Kazumi responded. "… this Grief Seed isn't for me."
"Eh?"
Kazumi chuckled.
"I am a Type 2." Kazumi declared. "I don't need such obscure things."
『To Be Continued...』
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Author Notes:
Hello, guys! To those who had started following me (specifically the author), thank you for your patronage. To those who had started following my story, thank you as well! (Although an author follow would still be nice, considering it would have saved me the effort of advertising. Yes, I'm advertising my own fic within my own fic. It's a fic-ception. ) Actually, I was supposed to advertise the upcoming project supposedly after this: which is about SAO and Accel World. Do you watch those anime, btw?
Anyway, I had quite a hard time getting the right words for this chapter, as I wanted it to be emotionally fitting. This day isn't gonna end soon, in spite of being around more than 10 chapters. Oh wait… *computes time* geez! If you think about it, it's already around 1 AM in Los Angeles at that time! XD
Anyway, unfortunately, this fic still won't end too soon. *sigh* So many to reveal: and a whole day everyone doing everything as soon as possible. If I were to be in such a situation, it would still be pretty easy for me to forget some things. I also find the need to fix some things in the previous chapters (mostly because of Kazumi's new chapters – the proof of a Real Life Writes The Story) , but it's probably not to trivial, and I already speculated most of Kazumi's properties – most especially the fact that she's *shot by Spoiler Police*
I'm going to admit: I find it hard to write after this, mostly because of the emotional rollercoaster that will be coming within days. However, that same emotional feeling that I want to portray to my readers is the only other thing that makes me get my laptop and just write to the bitter end, taking note of every single detail. However, I feel that I'm bound to fail in my research sooner or later. I really hope not. DX
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Preview:
"As the final preparations finish, and the final trump cards uncovered, an innumerable obstacle trying to stop me from the plan that will turn the world upside down will overturn all the despair in this world into a sure hope. She has already done more than what she would have done a week ago, and… for the first time… I'm actually proud of being part of it."
Next episode: "That one remaining hope is enough."