The Iron Sole Alchemist and the Magical Girls (Chapter 7) Aftermath
by Howlin
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)
The next morning, I laid out a delicious ham and egg breakfast with a side of waffles. Sloth was still reacclimating to corporeal existence, and a delicious meal was a good reintroduction. Over breakfast, we decided to wait on leaving this world until after the school let out for the day so the other magical girls could see us off.
While we waited, Sloth and I got started putting together my design for an alternate way to grant wishes. Based, in large part, on Kiske Urahara's hogyoku designs, my creation required spirit energy and particles harvested from a single donor under a wide variety of extreme emotional states. The quantities harvested at each stage were injurious to the soul in question, but weren't fatal. My notes indicated the whole process would take around six months, largely to give the soul time to heal. Sloth's healing powers that she was able to use freely massively sped up the process.
By lunchtime, I had seven shimmering orbs, each about the size of a golf ball. Each orb was inside a barrier that prevented it from interacting with the outside world while they awaited the remaining spellwork I had in mind. Over a plate of infinitely refilling roasted turkey sandwiches, I explained the design we were working on a little more.
"All seven of them are derived from the same person, and that combined with the stable and magically potent number seven should encourage the to behave like one object. While separated, none of the individual balls should be able to do anything on is own, so the only time a wish can be granted is when they're all together.
"After the wish is granted, the balls get rendered dormant and scatter across the planet, each going to a place where it gradually bleeding off negative energy from the wish will cause the smallest possible distortion. Over three months, they bleed off negative energy and by the time they awaken, they're safe to use again."
"That all makes sense," said Sloth, "but I still want to know where the dragon comes in."
"It's the user interface and security system," I said. "After you gather the balls, you have to say the dragon's name. The balls project an image of a huge dragon that you tell your wish to. It's the dragon's consciousness that interfaces with the balls to make the wish happen. Its mind is made such that it can understand a wish, refuse certain wishes, explain whether a given wish can be granted, and remember previous summonings."
"And why a dragon specifically?" asked Sloth.
"That's what it was in the manga I got the idea from," I said with a shrug. "I certainly wasn't going to use something that looked like an Incubator for the user interface."
"Fair enough," said Sloth.
After a few more hours of work, I put the finishing touches on my new set of dragonballs. The last thing I added was an illusion spell to conceal their inner workings and to indicate which state they were in. While dormant and bleeding off negative energy, they'd take the appearance of unremarkable, round, white stones. When awakened and ready for use, they'd take the appearance of glassy orange orbs with one to seven stars on them.
Eager as I was to try them out, I didn't want to do it on this world. Instead, I just packed the up and headed out with Sloth and Loki to say my goodbyes to the magical girls.
Things were still awkward between Homura and the others. Madoka was making an effort to include Homura in conversation, but it would take time before the magical girls would be completely comfortable around her again. Still, even Sayaka had dropped her hostility.
Sloth, Loki, and I were waiting on the path near the school and overheard some of the magical girls' conversation as they approached. The fact that Homura had Kyubey with her wasn't surprising. That the Incubator had been allowed to heal his injuries was. Homura saw my surprised look as the girls approached us.
"Madoka thought leaving him injured was needlessly cruel," said Homura. "I can keep an eye on him in multiple bodies and deal with him if he gets out of hand again, so I'm giving him another chance."
"Not an outcome I expected to be pleased with," I admitted.
"To be fair, we didn't expect there to be someone willing and able to keep an eye on him," said Sloth. "Killing him seemed like a more realistic option."
"Thank you for helping me and Homura reconcile," said Madoka. "It's been... nice being with my friends like this again."
"Not having to worry about Grief Cubes is pretty nice too," said Sayaka. "Nagisa and I got you this." She took out a gift basket filled with fruit, cheese, and candy.
"Thanks," I said, taking the basket, shrinking it, and putting it in my belt pouch. "Are you guys going to be okay with just the one Grief Cube machine? I can make more."
"Don't sweat it," said Sayaka. "It turns out the super advanced magic alien's actually pretty smart. Kyubey figured out how it worked and how to make as many as we need."
"We'll be making sure the other magical girls out there get one for themselves while we work on eradicating the wraiths," said Mami.
"Just make sure you don't let Kyubey make any 'efficiency improvements'." I said. "That device produces artificial souls as part of how it works, and I went to a lot of trouble making sure those souls weren't fully sentient."
"So those inefficiencies in the production process were deliberate?" asked Kyubey.
"And... now I need to go smash that first batch of machines Kyubey made and make him start over," said Kyoko. "Good thing we hadn't started using them yet."
"That crisis averted," I said, "for those of you who are interested, this is your last chance to take me up on my offer to let you stop being magical girls. After we leave, there's no guarantee we'll be coming back to this world."
Sayaka came up to Sloth and said, "Magical girls really don't age, do we? You look like you should be in kindergarten, but you're old enough to be married. Does that get awkward?"
"Sometimes," said Sloth. "With enough practice, you can use your powers to change how you look if it bothers you. I've found most people don't make that big a deal about it once they know what's going on. I figure occasionally having to answer awkward questions is better than changing how I look to make people who would keep making a big deal out of it comfortable."
"That's a good way of looking at it," said Sayaka. "And that's why we ask for advice from our seniors. I think I'll keep my Soul Gem."
"What it means to be a magical girl is changing," said Mami. "If it were still the old, desperate struggle to survive, I'd take your offer in a heartbeat, but now, I think I'll be okay as a magical girl."
"Anyone else?" I verified. When no one stepped forward, I clapped my hands and said, "All right. Goodbye everyone."
A blue transmutation circle drew itself int he air above Sloth,Loki, and I. As the circle swept down over us, we were transported before the Gate. After navigating through the metaphorical space filled with golden light, we reached a clump of Gate Children standing watch over the passage to the world we were headed toward. Sloth and I easily kept the Gate Children form grabbing at us as I opened the Gate on the other side and the three of us appeared in Liore.
My home town was a desert city on the eastern border of Amestris called Liore. This place had seen civil war, interdimensional invasion, and had even been destroyed utterly by an alchemic reaction in an effort to create a Philosopher's Stone. We'd rebuilt, and I'd put everything I had into developing its infrastructure and protecting it fro future violence.
Liore now served as a vital manufacturing base for producing red stones. The red stones produced here in industrial quantities were used in alchemic research and multiple military applications nationwide. The red water was mixed inside large chemical plants in the city itself by trained alchemists. The stones themselves accumulated inside the thick stems of a specially designed plant called a philosopher's flower. Fields of philosopher's flowers were out in the desert, tended by animated suits of armor that weren't effected by the toxic gasses that wafted off the fields.
A significant fraction of the city's population had been covertly converted into homunculi thanks to a collaboration between myself and our mayor, Rose. Human transmutation was illegal in Amestris, even though we had the head of the civilian assembly, Roy Mustang, also known as the Flame Alchemist, lobbying to change the law. With everything this city had been through, both at the hands of the central government and at the hands of hostile invaders, Rose had decided it was safer to convert as many people as we could into super strong, regenerating immortals now rather than risk the possibility of being attacked without that advantage while we waited for laws and public opinion to change.
The final key to Liore's defense and prosperity was the sprawling campus of the state's only magic school. School textbooks and supplies I'd brought back with me from my time attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry formed the base of a magic curriculum. The school wasn't fully up and running yet, but when it was, it promised to add another truly indefensible aspect to this backward desert town that had once been literally wiped off the map.
Ordinarily, after an expedition through the Gate, I would meet with Rose and go over what I'd learned that could be used to help the town prosper. If the Elrics happened to be in town, we'd invite them to join us. Otherwise, we'd make plans to travel to their home town of Risembool to share the stories of our adventures.
These weren't ordinary times. Even though I had Sloth back thanks to Madoka, history had still been altered for the worse across multiple worlds. I needed to fix that before we could think about a return to normalcy.
After quietly dropping Loki off at the small house Sloth and I maintained here, I took Sloth by the hand and apparated us out to the middle of the vast fields of philosopher's flowers outside town where no human could survive. Then I took out seven golf ball sized orange balls with stars on them and arranged them on the ground.
"Assuming I did everything right, these dragonballs will be linked to my karmic potential," I said, looking down at my creation. "If I die properly, that potential zeroes out and they'll be useless, not that I'm planning on that happening, mind you. Hopefully, I have enough karmic potential to restore the good you did in the other timeline."
"You talked down a pair of warring goddesses, linked Kyubey's continued survival to how well he conforms to your will, and you remade two different afterlives into a form you found more pleasing," said Sloth. "I think you've impacted enough lives to build up more karmic potential than we'll know what to do with. Go on. I want to see this dragon."
"You're right. I'm just nervous." I turned to the dragonballs, held my hands toward them and called out, "Eternal Dragon! I summon you forth by your name! Shenron!"
Black clouds gathered and darkened the sky as the seven dragonballs on the ground pulsed with bright light. Then, a blast of lightning shot straight up from the balls, twisting and curling until the lightning transformed into the long, snakelike body of a massive, green scaled dragon. The creature loomed over us and stared down with glowing red eyes.
"I am the eternal dragon," rumbled the massive creature. "I will grant you one wish. Speak now."
"Very theatric," said Sloth.
"I don't think wishes should be low key," I said. "Can you imagine someone summoning Shenron and wishing for a cheesecake?"
"Not really, no," admitted Sloth. "What's with the antlers and the tentacle mustache?"
"They were in the manga I got the idea for dragonballs from in the first place. This is what Shenron looked like in the comic."
"Excuse me," rumbled the dragon looming overhead. "Did you have a wish or not?"
"Right, sorry," I said, returning my attention to the dragon. "Sloth's history was altered, and a lot of the good she did in the original timeline was undone. Can you restore the positive effects from that timeline for all the worlds that were effected by that alteration?"
Shenron's eyes glowed brighter for an instant, then he said, "Your wish has been granted. Farewell."
Shenron vanished in a flash of light. The seven dragonballs rose into the air then streaked off like comets in seven different directions. Finally, the clouds dispersed and the sky brightened again.
"If everything went well, we'll find Senna back in town," I said. "We'll need to stop by Ichigo's world to make sure everything got fixed there too, but we'll need to do that anyway to let them know you're back alive."
"While we're out, we can finally make good on our promise to attend Ginny and Luna's graduation," said Sloth.
Seeing Senna was a massive relief. Her unusual nature and her connection to the Valley of Screams where we were building our new afterlife meant she would be one of the hardest people to restore without the aid of a wish. Rose had called both Senna and the Elric brothers into her office once Sloth, Loki, and I arrived.
I'd previously shared bits and pieces of what I'd learned in the worlds of the Incubators and the soul reapers. This time I told the full take from beginning to end. Sloth had a good deal more to say on the Incubators and their magical girl system than I did, while I had a lot to say about the process of spiritual growth I'd undergone.
Shaking her head, Rose said, "We've barely gotten started making use of those magic school textbooks, then you showed up and dropped an afterlife on us to manage. It sounds like these mod soul copies of important soul reapers you brought will be able to help some, but to be honest, I'm getting a little overwhelmed. Whatever you guys bring back next might cross the line of what I can handle."
"Actually, I was thinking about staying to help out with the integration for a while," I said. "The cloned mod souls are no joke, and you'll need someone stronger than them to keep them from remaking our world in their image. Without me here to help manage them, they'd probably end up doing more harm than good.
"Besides, I think I need a vacation. After needing to deal with cosmic horrors like the Incubators, super powered evil geniuses like Aizen, and living goddesses like Homura and Madoka, I'd like to be able to spend some time consolidating our gains and just living among friends and family."
"The pace of the last couple worlds was intense," agreed Sloth. "Spending some time home teaching and processing everything wouldn't be bad."
There was a lot to do. The first order of business was to secure the hogyoku and the Oin behind fideleous charms. Edward and Alphonse acted as the secret keepers for the hiding places of the two artifacts.
Once the artifacts were locked away, the next step was to produce a set of reigais and bring the mod souls out of stasis. I'd given the mod souls too little credit. As copies of the captains and lieutenants of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, they were used to answering to a civilian authority. A democratically elected assembly wasn't that different from the nobility appointed chamber they'd been answering to all their careers.
Since Head Captain Yamamoto hadn't been among those cloned, the mod souls decided to appoint Shunsui Kyoraku their new head captain. Kiske Urahara had chosen to remain a simple shopkeeper in his world, but here, his mod soul duplicate took up one of the open captain positions and set to work building a new Department of Research and Development.
Maes Hues, who had been managing the provisional government among the souls in the Valley of Screams, was used to a military structure where individual soldiers could qualify as living weapons of mass destruction. Whether those individuals were high end soul reapers or state alchemists didn't change much. Normal soldiers were used to handle investigation work, hold territory, and interact with the population to free up the ones with exceptional abilities to act where they could do the most good. They gelled pretty well, especially after I armed Hues and his troops with the weapons and equipment I'd provided to the Rukon Militia back in the Soul Society.
When things were basically settled with the mod souls, Sloth and I took Loki with us through the Gate so we could check in with Ichigo and the others, let them know we were okay, and make sure our wish had worked. As we'd hoped, everything had been restored to the way it was in the first timeline. Ichigo and Uryu had their families back. Kaien Shiba, Rukia's part hollow siblings from the Rukon district, all four bounts, and countless low ranking soul reapers were all alive.
The friends we'd made in that world, both those among the living and those inhabiting various afterlives were glad to see Sloth alive and well. The fact that Kon, Nozomi, and the other mod souls were integrating well in their new home with Senna was a welcome bit of news as well. None of that completely made up for the sore feelings about me going after the Incubators alone, but it did help them get over it faster.
While we were here, Sloth and Orihime collaborated with Captain Unohana on developing a permanent cure for Captain Ukitake's illness. The white haired captain had developed a lung disease as a child and his parents bartered away his ability to ever be cured of it in exchange for ensuring he wouldn't die from it. Sloth's idea was for Orihme to use Book of the End to insert herself into Ukitake's past and cure his illness before his family took him to that god of stasis. It took some additional work to keep the treatment from interfering with his memory, and the effects would reverse upon Orihime's death, but the procedure was a success. It even had the unexpected side effect of turning the captain's hair black by undoing the long ago fit of illness that had turned it white in the first place.
After saying our goodbyes, Sloth and I didn't return immediately to Liore. Instead, we made a stop at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly to make good on our long delayed promise to attend the graduation of our friends Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley.
Before going to the school itself, we made a brief detour to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. While there, Sloth used her Incubator granted healing powers to restore Alice and Frank Longbottom to sanity. They accompanied us to the graduation where they had a tearful reunion with their son Neville.
After the ceremony, we got the chance to talk with our friends from this world in detail. Things were pretty quiet on their end so Sloth and I did most of the talking. In addition to giving blank zanpaktos to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna, I also gave Ron a notebook. It contained a summary of what I'd learned about the spirit energy that defined the difference between wizards and muggles as well as detailed instructions on how to transfer it. Everything they would need to grant magic to any muggles they chose.
We promised future visits and wished our friends in both worlds well. Finally, Sloth and I returned home to Liore to begin the work ahead of us.
Author's comments:
Much of this has been waiting for several worlds worth of exploration. Only now has the urgency finally run its course and the details can be sorted out and resolved.