Last chapter I said this would be the end of part one, but the chapter ended up being too long, so I'm splitting it into two. Again. This still has plenty of content and I'm sure you will feel it was worth the wait :)
Also, since chapters are getting longer, a friend recommended a program called ficsave which can copy the story into a document with page numbers which will make it easier not to lose your place if you can't finish it in one sitting.
You can find it here (exchange the 'dot')
ficsave dot com
Enjoy!
The break room was usually deserted at this time of night. The lab was mostly shut down aside from some guard personnel and a couple staff members in the control room. Subject One would be soundly asleep in her room at this time, and thus the nights were usually pretty quiet.
Kotaro Sakazaki had just finished his shift and was sitting with the two guards who would take over after him. Kotaro was one of the few guards who actually got a chance to meet Subject One, or Homura as he now knew her as, so the two guards he was sitting with were picking his brain for information about her. There were lots of rumors about her, silently spoken amongst the staff, but very little was generally known about her unless you were a researcher or part of the control room.
"So, you've actually seen her?" Hiroshi asked. He was a short blond haired guard who typically worked the night shift. "The… uh, I guess, test subject?"
"Seen her? Yeah man, I even talked to her." Kotaro had his arms folded as he sat at the break room table with his two co-workers.
"What's she like?"
"Pretty normal, actually. She looks that way at first anyway. I honestly had trouble believing there was anything special about her at all when I first laid eyes on her. I wasn't with her in the test room; they told us to stay outside, but I did get to see her transform." Both of them seemed intrigued by this.
"Transform?" The second mustached guard asked, leaning forward. His name was Murakami. "Like, how?"
"Not sure if I'm supposed to give details." Kotaro said, leaning back and rubbing his chin.
"Oh, come on man." Said Hiroshi "I'm pretty sure you already told us more than you are suppose to anyway."
Kotaro grinned and shrugged his shoulders. The truth was, he had a feeling the description of her 'transformation' would end up being a disappointment; all it really did was change her clothing. It was actually much more amazing than just that, though, but it would be a difficult thing to convey.
"Can you at least tell us what she looks like?" Murakami asked.
"Heh, yeah, is she cute?" Hiroshi asked, grinning perversely.
"Well…" Kotaro thought it over, "She's kind of young, but yeah, she's cute. She's tall, has really long black hair, like, jet black. Her skin is kind of pale, but it looks like, real soft, you know? Well, like I said, she just looks normal, not really my type anyway, she's way too young. She looks like she's probably only in middle school, or a highschool freshman at the most."
"Really? She's that young?" Murakami asked, and Hiroshi blushed and quickly tried to knock the expression off his face. "So, what exactly do they want with her?"
"Just studying her, I guess. As you know, she supposedly has magic powers or something. I'm sure you both heard about the two guards she took out a week ago. They were practically clawing at the door, begging to be let out when she went all crazy on them." Kotaro leaned forward, "And let me tell you something, you can just see it in her eyes, she's got this expression like… man, I don't know how to describe it, it's intense. That look she sometimes gets, specifically when she gets pissed off; it's like she knows she can just snuff you out like that." He snapped his fingers, "At any second, but she doesn't even bother because it's just not worth her time. Kind of makes me think of this samurai movie I saw a while ago. It's that kind of an expression."
"Wish I could see her…" Hiroshi said, "I mean, see what the big deal about her is. Just look at this place, they sure went through a lot of trouble to make sure she can't leave, you know?"
"It is interesting that all this would be for just her." Murakami agreed, "Almost makes me think there is something else going on down here that we don't even know about."
"What do you mean?" Kotaro asked.
"I'm saying, there are a lot of doors that none of us have ever seen behind. They can't ALL be test rooms just for this one girl. I never see or hear of anyone else going in or out of these other doors. It's like there is a huge section of this place that doesn't get used at all."
"Maybe they just haven't found a use for those other areas yet? This place seems pretty new after all, well the underground part anyway, and they didn't build it specifically for Homura."
"Homura?" Hiroshi asked.
"Ah crap," Kotaro facepalmed, "Don't let anyone know I let that slip!"
Then the door of the break room opened and Furuhata walked in. "What are you three talking about in here?" He asked, with a harsh voice. He was the other guard who was assigned to Homura, the normally silent companion that was usually by Kotaros side when they escorted Homura from room to room. He had been here longer than any of them, and took his job really seriously.
"Just chatting." Kotaro said, and pulled out an empty seat that was next to him. "Here, take a seat." Then he shot a look to the other two to let them know not to tell him what they were talking about.
"These two should be starting their patrol." Futahara said. He and Kotaro had covered the previous shift, and Murakami and Hiroshi were suppose to cover the night shift.
"Yeah, we're getting to it right now." Murakami said as he stood up.
Just then, the room flashed red, and a loud buzzer went off. They all looked up, having been trained in the evacuation procedure, but not knowing what it possibly could be about. "What the?" Hiroshi said, standing up.
Even Furuhata, who was usually a rather stoic character seemed startled for a moment, but then he held his radio up to his mouth and said. "Report."
Then, all four of their radios buzzed on with the same voice. It was Dr. Kaiji, the secondary lead researching of the subject one project. "Evacuate the building immediately! This is not a drill! I repeat, it's not a drill!"
They all nodded to each other and gathered their gear. They typically left their rifles by the entrance of the break room when they were on break, so they went there to gather them. Once they were all set, they went out into the hall, each walking with quick steps.
The evacuation procedure was simple. All doors to the staff areas would be opened, so everyone inside could just run straight for the elevator room which would only be a couple minutes walk away.
"What do you think's going on?" Hiroshi asked, following at the tail end of the group, Murakami a few steps ahead of him, and Kotaro and Furuhata leading the small caravan. Each of them walked at a quick pace, their guns cradled in their arms and at the ready.
"Who knows." Kotaro said, "I got a bad feeling about all this though. It feels like…"
"It's colder in here than normal isn't it?" Murakami asked.
"Yeah, but that's not quite right." Kotaro held his gun with one arm so he could use a free hand to pinch himself. "It's like it's under the skin… it's eerie."
"Would you three quit it." Furuhata said, turning his head just enough to look back at them through the corner of his eyes. "What the hell is wrong with you? Remember your positions, and act more accordingly!"
"Don't tell me you don't feel it too!" Hiroshi yelled at him, feeling a shiver go through his body which made him glance backwards. "Wait… did someone just…" Murakami looked at him strangely for a moment.
"What?" Murakami asked.
"I thought I heard… something…" He shook his head, "Nevermind, it's nothing."
"We were given orders to evacuate, and we all were taught the evacuation procedure, so let's just continue with that and quit with the superstitious nonsense." Furuhata said.
They approached a metal door at the end of the hall. Furuhata looked up at the camera and waved. After a moment without the door opening he said, "Is anyone there? We were ordered to evacuate." Still no response. He lifted his radio to his mouth and spoke into it. "Furuhata, requesting passage through Door Alpha Six."
All of a sudden, they felt the ground shake. The fluorescent lighting overhead flickered, and the hall was suddenly completely pitch black. A low grumbling sound echoed through the halls, as if an explosion had gone off somewhere far on the other side of the lab.
"W-what was that?" Hiroshi asked, putting his back against the wall to keep from losing his footing as the ground shook. After a few moments the shaking slowed to a stop, and everything was still.
"Felt like a bomb just went off or something." Kotaro said after a moment. It was dark enough that he couldn't see any of his companions. "Everyone alright?"
"Yeah, I'm ok." Murakami said.
"Me too." Hiroshi answered. "D-do you think we are under attack or something? I mean, that's not impossible, right?"
"It's possible," Kotaro answered, and started reaching around his belt to find his flashlight.
Furuhata started speaking into his radio. "Report. What just happened? Report!"
It was clear that Furuhata's radio wasn't getting through, so Murakami tried his. "Murakami, radio check, please respond." He waited a moment, "If anyone can hear this, please respond!" Still nothing.
Just as Kotaro found his flashlight, all the overhead lights flashed back on. "Heh, there we go, at least we're not… in the…" He looked around with wide eyes, "Dark…"
Their surroundings had completely changed. Where they now stood was vaguely similar to the white empty halls of the lab in terms of layout, but everything else about it had changed.
The floors were made of wood, the walls now had wallpaper with a flower design on them, and every twenty paces or so there was a picture hanging on the wall.
One benefit to this change of scenery, is the door that had been blocking them had now disappeared. There was just an empty threshold with a wooden frame as opposed to the full metal one the lab normally had. Kotaro looked between his companions, hoping one of them had an explanation, but they each looked just as confused as him. "What's going on here?" He asked.
They all just looked uncertainly between each other for a moment until Furuhata answered. "I suppose it's not too much of a stretch to assume the test subject might have something to do with this?"
"Can she really do things like this?" Murakami asked. "You two are the only ones who have actually seen her."
Kotaro and Furuhata looked at eachother for a moment, then each shook their heads. Then Furuhata said "We didn't get to actually see her powers in action, so we have no idea what she can do. However," He pointed at the empty doorway. "If her goal is escape, then this makes sense. If the entire lab had changed the way this area had, then that means there are no longer any doors stopping her." He lifted his gun into a more ready position. "Therefore, would it not be our duty to try and stop her?"
"We were ordered to evacuate." Kotaro said, "Did you already forget the way Dr. Kaiji sounded over the radio? My guess is there is something more going on here than a simple change of scenery. At least, it feels that way to me. I say, our first priority should be evacuation, including anyone else who might be here." Furuhata seemed like he wanted to argue this point, but Kotaro put his hand up to silence him. "If we come across the test subject, then of course we ought to stop her, but for now lets just follow our order."
Hiroshi and Murakami nodded their agreement with this plan. After a moment of hesitation, Furuhata agreed as well.
"Alright then," Kotaro said. "It's settled. As long as only the scenery has changed, we'll be back at the elevator in no time." Then he turned and started leading the way.
After giving the guards the order to evacuate, Kaiji tried to evacuate himself. However, he found himself just standing in front of a metal door, and staring up at a camera. The emergency evacuation procedure that he had set off should have opened this door, and several others, which would leave a clear path to the exit. Homura's section of the lab would not be opened freely like this, but the areas that the employees mostly stayed in should have already opened.
He took a step back and looked up at the camera. "Is anyone there? If so, open this door right away, and all the other ones we will need to get through."
It was late at night, so thankfully there wouldn't be too many people in the lab. There would be three guards near the elevator, who shouldn't have a problem getting out. Then, there was normally two more patrolling other areas of the lab, but according to the logs the two from the previous shift hadn't actually gotten around to leaving yet. So, that was a total of four guards in the staff section. Then, there was the control room, and the research area. There were usually two staff members in the control room, and Kaiji himself was the only person currently in the research area.
If something had malfunctioned in the evacuation procedure, then that meant there was a total of seven people, including himself, who would be trapped here right now. Even so, the control room staff should still be able to open the doors no matter what; so why wasn't the door opening? Also, why were they not responding? If they had tried to leave already, they would have ended up stuck here at the same door as him. He decided just standing here wouldn't do any good, so he backtracked to the control room. Worst case scenario, he could just open the doors from there himself. The problem is, several minutes had already passed and Homura said she would only give them five.
He didn't know what else she had planned, but he remembered that she said the bomb itself wouldn't end up hurting anyone. Yet, she seemed pretty adamant to making him understand that anyone who remained in the lab after the five minutes would be in danger, and he had no reason not to believe her.
Why was she doing this, though? She should still be locked in her own room one way or the other. If she simply wanted to strike back at them, then why give a warning? Simply striking back for the sake of revenge was outside her personality, though. Especially since it would only hurt herself in the end. She was smarter than that, more calculated. He supposed he didn't have much time to think about it right now. First, he needed to get out of the lab.
He walked down the hall, and through a door that didn't require a passcode. Then, he arrived at the control room. The control room was blocked off by a metal door, but it was the type which simply needed a passkey. He reached for the keypad, but paused. There was a glass window in the center of the door, foggy enough that it couldn't be seen through, but he could at least see if the lights were on inside or not. Right now, the lights were flickering, black and white, and black and white.
He quickly punched in his password, and after a series of beeps, the door hissed and started sliding open.
Something was wrong with the overhead lights; they kept on flashing on and off. Perhaps a short circuit? The flashes of black tended to last longer than the light; it was like three seconds of darkness, then a quick flicker of light. It made it hard for him to see. Kaiji squinted as he looked inside the room, and saw the two control room workers sitting in front of their computers. "What's going on in here?" He said as he stepped in, "Why haven't you evacuated? And what's wrong with these lights?"
No response.
Because of the lighting, he couldn't tell right away. The flashes of black lasted longer, with only a brief flash of white. But after a moment, it registered… he saw red. His eyes widened as he approached the two people who were hunched over in their chairs with their backs facing him. As he got closer, the lights flashed on for three seconds, and that's all he needed.
Each of them had a pencil thin circle cut around their necks, as if they had been strangled by razor wire. Blood had poured from the wounds all the way down their bodies, staining their shirts and leaving puddles on the floor around them. One of them stared back at him with dead eyes, mouth wide open as if the man had died screaming.
Kaiji involuntarily jumped backwards and gasped. He ended up tripping over his own shoes, and hit the ground hard. His feet kicked at the ground and pushed himself away from the two bloody corpses which still sat at their computers.
Did Homura do this somehow? No, that would be impossible; she was securely locked in her room!… but maybe…
He knew that Kyoko Sakura could change her appearance, so maybe there are more like her? If their group could have gotten Kyoko in as a psychologist, maybe they could get someone else in as a member of the guard staff? However, even that didn't add up. All members of the guard were currently accounted for: four were in the break room, and three were in the elevator room. The only other people in the lab were these two corpses and Kaiji himself. So who could have done this?
Well, someone had to have done it, and it was clear that they worked in coalition with Homura's own attack, so it made sense to assume whoever the intruder was, they were on Homura's side. If that was the case, then the goal was likely to break her out. He cursed himself… He never should have let Kyoko go free, what was he thinking!
Kaiji got back to his feet and slowly approached the computer terminal to the left. His hand flinched as he pushed the dead staff member on the shoulder to roll him and the office chair he was on top of out of the way. He swallowed, feeling nervous. Whoever killed them could still be close by, and if they had a weapon he would have no way of defending himself. His brother taught him a few hand to hand techniques, and he used one of those techniques on Madoka Kaname's father successfully. However, against someone who actually knew what they were doing, he doubted it would end up working out the same.
With a shaky hand, he reached under the computer screen and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Of course, the screens wouldn't have been turned off in the first place, so they were either broken or disconnected. He prayed for the latter. He could at least hear the soft hum of the terminal, so if he could turn the screen on, everything would be ok.
He reached around and felt for the wire.
Every time the lighting flashed on overhead, he had to try his best not to take notice of the two dead faces who were staring at him, and with each flash of darkness he had to shake away the crawling feeling on his back that told him something was about to jump at him.
He found the wire, and pulled. It was still connected to the back of the screen, but it gave up too much slack on the other end; meaning it was just unplugged after all. He got down to his knees, trying to ignore the blood soaked floor he was now kneeling in, and crawled under the desk. His heart was racing in his chest.
He had attended a few funerals in his life, and one of his medical classes back when he was still studying required a live demonstration on a cadaver. So, it wasn't the first time he had been near a dead body. However, being in the presence of someone who had just recently been killed, and still had their blood spilling out of their bodies, was completely different. Now, his knees were wet with the warm liquid, and in some disconnected part of his consciousness, deep in the back of his mind, he wondered how it was he wasn't screaming.
He felt around in the dark, waiting for the flashes of light to help him, but not seeing much the first few times. Finally, after an extended three seconds of brightness, he found the plug, and quickly grabbed ahold of it. He guided it into the outlet with a shaky hand.
How much time had passed? Surely the five minutes were almost up. Maybe Homura was just bluffing. Unless that was a really powerful bomb, there is no way it would reach him all the way on this side of the lab, so that wasn't too big of a concern. As for the other thing she wouldn't tell him about— the supposed real threat; he prayed it really was a bluff.
He stood back up, and no longer had to rely on those brief flashes of light, because he now had the glow of the computer screen to see by. He should have gotten right to opening the lab doors so he and the guards could escape, but he stopped.
On the screen was the security footage of Homura in her room. She was still sitting at her table, looking up at the clock, and softly humming to herself. She was rolling something around in the palm of her hand.
"You wanted to learn about my power?" She said, seemingly more to herself than to anyone else. "Well… if you're lucky, one of these cameras might just get a glimpse of what real power looks like." She stood up, and her lips moved, silently counting down the last few seconds.
Then, it felt like the whole building was shaking, and Kaiji had to catch himself on the desk to avoid loosing his footing. He could hear the sound of the explosion coming through the computer, and it was echoed by a similar grumbling sound that came rushing up the hallway. The lights flashed black, and stayed black, the bomb had gone off.
He regained his balance and looked back up at the computer screen. Homura was now standing and holding her hand to her chest. Her hair was blowing around wildly as if some powerful source of wind existed inside her room. From this camera angle, Kaiji couldn't see the garbage disposal, but even the explosion wouldn't have been able to account for this much wind. The screen rippled with static, and it became hard to see.
There was a distortion a few feet away from Homura, like a magnet was being held against the screen, and strings of black lightning shot away from the center of it. Kaiji thought of the rainbow color that engulfed his phone earlier that day when he received a call from Leiko. The distorted area itself was difficult to make out, but the strings of black which emitted from it moved in the exact same manner as Leiko's rainbow static.
Homura walked toward the distortion. "It's been a pleasure, doctors. I hope we never meet again, for your sakes." Her hair whipped around more violently, and the entire camera image became engulfed with gray static, but behind the static, he could still see her silhouette, and traces of the black lightning. The lightning almost seemed to wrap around her, and cling to her as if it were a conscious existence which wanted to pull her in.
He wanted to just contributed all this to an issue with the camera; logic would dictate that the black lightning and its source were just the camera itself going haywire because nothing like that existed in reality. However, Homura walked right up to the source of the lightning, and reached into it.
He had forgotten about needing to open the doors. Instead, he tried to click around on the computer and go to a different camera angle. What Homura said about 'real power' was bothering him, and he had to know what it meant.
Then, Homura's silhouette disappeared, and the orb expanded so quickly it was like an explosion. Its dark color engulfed everything in the camera's line of sight until there was nothing but blackness under that constant layer of static which had taken over the screen.
The ground shook beneath Kaiji's feet, which forced him to step back, and his foot slipped on the blood which was pooled all around the computer desk. His feet came out from under him, and he fell forward, hitting his forehead on the desk. The lights stopped flickering, and the computer screen turned off; it was now completely dark inside the room.
"Ah… no…" He groggily muttered to himself as he touched the spot where he had just hit his head. The blow had opened a wound there, and it was already bleeding. It might need a few stitches but… why was he worried about that now? His life could be in danger; he needed to open the doors!
In the pitch blackness, he felt around for the desk, but his hands only grabbed thin air.
Where is it?
If he could find the desk, he could feel around for the computer terminal. He needed to get the doors open. Otherwise, leaving this lab would be hopeless. He felt all around, but couldn't feel anything—what?!—How was that possible? He had just smack his head on the damn thing! It should have been right in front of him!
Then, he heard a sound, and froze. It sounded like scratching.
The first time, the sound came from far away. Then it was closer.
Closer… there were two sources now, then three, from all different directions. His head shot around, back and forth; the scratching noises kept getting closer.
"Who's there?" He called into the darkness. "Speak! Who are you?" At the sound of his voice, the scratching stopped, but only momentarily. Then it started again, but this time it was slower, as if whatever was making the noise was moving more cautiously.
He heard a voice. It spoke in a hoarse whisper… "Baaaad... maaaaan."
Bad man? Kaiji swallowed, and cautiously spoke into the darkness. "H-Homura?" No, that wasn't possible! Why did he even say that? She was still locked in her room! Just like she always was.
"Nooooooo." The voice spoke again.
Then, he thought of that other voice, the one who had led him to finding Kyoko Sakura. That voice was different, that voice seemed to speak directly into his head, and there was always this cold chill in the air which accompanied it. Besides that, the earlier voice was distinctly female, either that or the voice of a small child… This voice that he heard now was completely different; it barely sounded human. When it spoke, Kaiji could feel its physical presence, as if he could pick out its exact location even here in the pitch dark.
The slow cautious scratching came closer and closer to him, coming from all sides.
"Are you the one who led me to Kyoko Sakura?" Kaiji asked.
"Nooooooo…"
The scratching was closer, and closer. He could sense them, less than five meters from him now… maybe even closer. "What do you want!" He shouted.
"Baaaaaad… maaaaaan…" Was that snickering? Laughter? "Does evil things… Makes evil things… Baaaaad things. Baaaad men… Make baaaaaad things."
"Damn it!" Kaiji screamed into the darkness, "Who the hell are you!"
"Eeeevil… knows it's evil… doesn't want to know… doesn't want to see…" Kaiji could see them now. Tiny eyes were staring at him from all sides, glowing in the darkness. Their tiny hands were scratching at the ground as they inched closer and closer. "Denies…" The scratching stopped. Kaiji looked toward the sound of the voice, and saw a bigger set of eyes. He could almost make out a face. It wasn't a human face, because the face itself was the size of a human body, and when it opened its mouth to speak, Kaiji could just barely make out the white of its fangs. "Denies… everything…"
"Oh god…" Kaiji fell to his knees and just stared. This was a nightmare, it had to be! This wasn't real!
"Shall I show you?" The face whispered to him.
Kaiji shook his head, dully. Whatever this monstrosity wanted to show him, he didn't want to see it. He just wanted all this to go away, he wanted to take back whatever sin it was that put him in this horrid place, and just go back home and be with his family. "Please…" Kaiji begged, and he could hear a tittering laughter.
"Shall I show you... despair?"
The room in which she had been imprisoned for the last three weeks twisted and folded in on itself. As if it were a plastic box that a giant pair of hands had grabbed onto from the outside, and started smashing together like a piece of trash which needed disposing. Homura looked down at her arm and saw it twisting in a similar fashion; growing longer as if it were made of rubber and being stretched out.
This wasn't an abnormal experience for her. Not all witches barriers had the same effects when entering them. Sometimes the entrance was more like a door. Other times, it just sort of appeared around you. The first labyrinth she ever experienced had the latter appearance method. That was before she was a Magical Girl herself, all those countless lifetimes ago, when she was a weak and unconfident child. She had only vague memories of that day, and that person who she used to be, but the one thing that stuck with her was being saved by Madoka. That was the first time she saw the true strength which was hidden behind the silly schoolgirl; and it was the first time she felt herself falling in love.
When the labyrinth finished appearing, she found herself in a dark room. Not much could be seen, but she could hear it. A quick, panicked scratching sound, like an animal trying to burrow its way out of a cage. She focused her magic into her own eyes and searched. She saw a set of long furry insect-like legs grasping the edges of a doorway, as the creature which was otherwise hidden by the darkness pulled itself through.
"Trying to run away, huh?" Homura said to herself, pulling a pistol from under her shield and taking a few shots in the creature's direction. They were just warning shots, to keep the creature scared of her. She didn't want to actually confront it yet; right now, she just wanted to keep some distance and follow it.
If Kaiji had taken her warning, and evacuated the lab, then the witch would be drawn towards the exit which the guards and other lab staff should be going out of. All she had to do was follow it there, using its labyrinth to pass through the fabric of reality, and thus get past the steel doors.
She didn't have much experience with GriefSeeds hatching into witches, but she had witnessed it at least a couple times throughout her many timelines. From what she could tell, when the seed hatched, it didn't hatch into exactly the same witch which had dropped it. They were usually similar, and had similar natures, but not exactly the same.
It was a similar scenario to when a witch's familiar breaks off and becomes a witch itself. The newly hatched witch was a combination of remnants from the old one, it's victims, and possibly even parts of the Magical Girls who had used its seed to purify themselves.
Luckily, this witch didn't seem to have an aggressive nature, because it was quick to try and run away from her without so much as a challenge. This was probably because there still lingered some memories of a previous encounter with a Magical Girl. This witch was an infant, but must have carried such memories over from it's predecessor, and knew that a Magical Girl would be a danger to it.
Homura followed it out of the doorway, brushing webs away from her face as she exited the dark room. After exiting the room, she found herself in a much brighter environment, and dispelled the magic she used to enhance her eyesight. She was now in a well lit hallway, the walls were covered in wallpaper with a light pink flower design, and the floors were made of wood. Every twenty steps or so, there was a picture hanging from the wall. She stopped at the first one and looked at it.
It was a picture of a field of red flowers, drawn at an angle so she could see the field stretch far over the horizon and meld with a bright blue sky. Somewhere in the center of the field, she noticed a spot of black. She had to squint her eyes and look carefully to see that it was a girl. She had long black hair, and sat facing the horizon.
Looking at the picture, Homura thought she could smell something, it was a familiar smell. Subtle, but sweet. She raised an eyebrow and slowly backed away from the painting, feeling a bit of discomfort. Then, she quickly started moving her feet again, to continue down the hallway. She told herself she had to keep moving so the witch wouldn't get too far away. In reality, she wasn't admitting to herself that the picture was bringing forth some vague memory, one that she knew she would be better off forgetting.
Witches don't usually target Magical Girls, being that Magical Girls are higher up on the metaphoric food chain which Kyoko use to like referring to so much. Given a choice between hunting rabbits and mountain lions, the obvious choice would be rabbits. That's why witches usually avoid provoking Magical Girls and only target humans. In most cases, it's not until the Magical Girl strikes first that the witch starts defending itself. Either that, or if the Magical Girl does something to disturb the witch's labyrinth.
Homura continued down the hallway until she stopped at the next picture. This one didn't have the same kind of familiarity as the first one, but there was something else strange about it.
It was a picture of a rocking chair. The chair sat atop a wooden floor, similar to the one in this hallway. There was a window in the background with a bright light coming through, and Homura noticed small patches of webbing under the chair. What was strange is, she thought she could see the chair moving very slightly, as if it had caught a small gust of wind.
She blinked, and then slowly raised her shield hand toward the picture. Her hand got closer, until the skin of her fingertips were so close they could almost feel the surface of the paint. Then, Homura saw the rocking chair move, and there was no mistaking it this time. She stopped, and took a step back. Her shield arm dropped back to her side. She raised her gun at the picture, and fired.
Black goo exploded from where the bullet connected, and she heard a monstrous scream. She jumped back and kept the sights of her gun focused on it. The image disappeared, and the picture sank into the wall, leaving behind a square hole. Then, four furry claws, similar to the ones she had seen before, reached out of the hole and grabbed around the edges. Homura fired her gun three more times, and the screaming stopped.
The grip the claws had around the edges of the hole loosened, and the creature they belonged to fell out and hit the floor with a thud. It was similar to a spider, but much larger. It had a total of eight clawed legs protruding from its body, and was covered in dark brown fur; \On its belly, the brown had different shades. It took a moment for her to realize it, but the different shades were in fact creating an image: an image of a screaming face.
She kept her gun focused on it as strings of light gray smoke rose from the bullet holes. When its body started to dissolve into black goo, she was satisfied that it was dead, and continued walking. When she was halfway to the next picture, she heard a sound, and she stopped. Something had hit the floor with a thump, and then there was the sound of dozens of small legs tittering across the floor.
She swung around with her gun at the ready.
More of those spider familiars were crawling out of the hole. It had only been a few seconds, but there were already a dozen of them, and more were coming. Some dropped onto the floor, others crawled along the walls, and a few even crawled all the way up to the ceiling before heading towards her. She readied her gun and started firing at them.
The first shot hit its target cleanly, and sent the familiar rolling onto its back with a scream. She kept her sight steadily aimed as she shifted to another, which was crawling along the floor at a quick pace and baring its fangs at her. She fired, and missed. Fired again, another miss, leaving a bullet hole just mere inches from the creatures feet.
Concentrate, she told herself. She steadied her aim, and on her third attempt, finally hit the familiar when it was just a few meters from reaching her. By now, at least a dozen more had dropped from the hole. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with them, and she quickly realized it would be impossible to shoot them all.
Just as one from the ceiling dropped down in a lunge, heading right for her face, she focused her magic and stopped time. The creature stayed suspended in the air, strings of green slime clinging to its open fangs less than a meter from Homura's face. She pointed her gun under its belly, and fired. The bullet froze upon contact
She started walking back towards the hole in the wall that had spawned them, sending a bullet at each familiar she passed, shooting from point blank range. She reloaded her weapon once during the process.
When she first started firing at the familiars, before time was stopped, she realized something was wrong with her. Normally, her aim was impeccable. This time, she had missed two out of four shots. They weren't the easiest targets to hit, granted, but on a normal day she would have been four for four. It was the drug… it had to be.
Aside from her aim being off, she could just feel it in her blood. Normally when she was in the heat of battle like this, she could feel her heart pumping in her chest, and her vision felt sharper. Her body would move naturally, making all the correct moves with barely having to think about it. This time, despite facing a horde of familiars, she felt slow and sluggish… She silently cursed the bastards who had done this to her.
She walked back to the hole in the wall, shot the last of the familiars, and produced a grenade from behind her shield. She pulled the pin, and waited a few seconds before tossing it into the hole. Then, she continued on her path, and resumed time once she was halfway down the hall. There was a series of screams from the dying familiars, and then an explosion as the grenade went off. She glanced back to make sure no more were coming, and all she saw were black splatters all along the walls and ceiling, and a hole with fire coming out of it.
She had taken care of all the familiars for now, but she had another problem. If she looked further back the way she came, she saw the wooden floors and wallpapered halls were disappearing and returning to the more familiar sight of the labs white walls and tiled floors. That meant the witch was on the move, and it was going fast. Already, it had moved its barrier far enough ahead of her that she risked being left behind if she didn't hurry. She had a simple remedy for that, however, and let the gears of her shield spin to stop time once again.
As she continued, she would glance at each of the pictures along the way. One that caught her eye looked like a high definition photo of a spider web which was taken after a light rain fall. There were tiny beads of water hanging onto the web, and they glistened as they caught a bit of sunlight.
Homura slowed to a stop and stared at it; the quality was so good that she had the impression she could stick her hand right past the frame and actually touch it. However, using a spider web as a trap was just a little too obvious, even if she hadn't already confirmed that the witches familiars live behind these pictures. If the picture itself was connected to the witch's consciousness, Homura risked pulling the whole labyrinth into her time flow which would not only drain her magic very quickly, but also take away her biggest advantage.
After crossing another threshold, she glanced back and saw that the labyrinth was no longer fading. She had purified her SoulGem very recently, so it was in good shape with only a slight hint of fog, but she still wanted to play it safe and conserve her magic. So she resumed time, and continued.
A few minutes later, and another two thresholds crossed, she looked back and saw that the barrier's edge wasn't catching up to her. She knew the witch moved much faster than her, so she should have at least seen small traces of reality bleeding through by now. This could only mean two things: either the range of the barrier was expanding, or the witch had stopped moving. Both of those possibilities would be a problem.
If the barrier was expanding, that meant the newborn witch had found nourishment in the form of a human who didn't take her advice to evacuate. It would be hungry for its first meal, but if it got its fill and no longer had an appetite, it would stop trying to chase the humans out of the lab, and the plan would be ruined.
This plan failing would mean her death. She gave little credit to Kaiji's words; Endou or no Endou, she was a Magical Girl and she could not survive in this place forever.
She had already gotten a small taste of their secret drug, and even now she felt its effects coursing through her body. That was done to her with little justification, simply because she would not cooperate with her captors.
She had been playing the sheep these last three weeks. She may have attacked a few guards and stubbornly disobeyed their rule, but this whole time she had been hiding the truth of just how powerful she actually was. Surely they knew that now. If they had known from the very beginning what she was really capable of, there is no doubt she would have been drugged right on the first day she was brought here. Her hand was now shown, and thus there would be no mercy. After tonight, she imagined even Kaiji himself would agree she needed to be sedated. Therefore, there was no room for failure. She had to get out.
She had to…
The four guards continued down the hallway. Kotaro at the head, and Furuhata just a few steps behind. Hiroshi and Murakami took the tail of the group.
Murakami kept checking the radio every couple of minutes, hoping an answer would come. "Murakami, radio check, if anyone can hear this please respond. Murakami, radio check, please respond."
"It doesn't seem to be working." Hiroshi commented.
"Yeah no kidding." Murakami said with some annoyance in his voice, as he stuffed the radio back into its holster. He took a double take on their new surroundings to confirm what he already knew, and said "Damn it! What the hell is going on here?"
"That's the million dollar question right now, my friend." Kotaro said under his breath, leading the group. His rifle had been at the ready ever since the lights turned back on and they found themselves in this new place. "I want to say that this is definitely still the lab, at least."
"What makes you say that?" Hiroshi asked.
"Either that, or somehow we magically tele…" Kotaro trailed off as he slowed to a stop. He shook his head and laughed. "Teleportation, I heard a rumor that's what Homura's power is. Never saw it myself."
"Sakazaki!" Furuhata spat at him, "That's classified information!"
"What? Some rumor I heard?" Kotaro asked with a raised eyebrow as he turned to his coworker. "I have no idea if it's true or not, therefore it's not a breach of protocol."
"The test subjects name…" Furuhata pointed out, patiently.
"Jesus man," Kotaro said, letting his gun sling to the side, abandoning the battle ready posture for the first time since all this started. "I think we've got some slightly bigger issues to worry about right now, don't you?" Then Kotaro shrugged and scratch the side of his nose, "Besides, I kind of let that slip already, anyway. And it's not like these two aren't a part of the staff in the first place. I'm sure that simply knowing her name isn't a problem."
Furuhata narrowed his eyes, then turned away. "We should keep moving." The rest of the group followed him.
They had been walking for a while now. None of them seemed to want to point out that if they were indeed still in the lab, as they had hoped, they would have reached the elevator room long ago. It was becoming apparent that the physical appearance of the walls were not the only thing that was changing.
They had passed at least a dozen pictures by now, most of them were either pictures of spider webs or rocking chairs, but even when a rocking chair was the focus of the picture, there was still some traces of a spider web somewhere within the image.
Every once in awhile they would pass a picture that didn't fit with the others. Kotaro slowed to a stop at one such picture… it was a picture of a swimming pool. Murakami and Hiroshi stopped right away, but it took Furuhata a moment to realize his group trailed behind him.
The swimming pool Kotaro was looking at was taken from an overhead angle. Half of the pool had a bright blue glow coming off it, as if there was some blue light source hitting it which originated from behind the view of the camera.
On the other half, the half of the pool he was more focused on, he noticed a shadow under the water. As he focused on it, he noticed movement. He blinked. It was just a picture, but he saw something move. The shadow under the water's surface was turning, and there was red leaking away from it, slowly changing the color of the water.
His eyes widened, and his hands loosened their grip on his gun. Something about this picture was disturbing him… making him remember something. The shadow turned more, and he looked closer… it was a person… with long blond hair which separated into a mess of disconnected golden threads under the water's surface. When the shadow finished its rotation, he saw a face. He suddenly took a step back and gasped.
"Kotaro, you alright man?" Hiroshi asked, and hearing the voice of one of his comrades seemed to bring him back to reality. Kotaro still felt cold sweat on his face, and he imagined his face was a shade paler than normal. He looked at his companions, and back to the picture, and saw that the shadow under the water was gone. It was just an ordinary picture of a swimming pool again.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Kotaro said as he repositioned his gun in his hands. "Let's hurry up and get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps." Hiroshi looked at the picture Kotaro had been staring at, but all he saw was a normal swimming pool, with no explanation for why his co-worker had become so fixated on it. He just shrugged and looked back towards his other co-workers who were moving along once again. Before following them, he took a double take on the picture… and saw that it had changed.
Now, Hiroshi saw a picture of a tree with a tire swing hanging from it, and a lake in the background. That lake was familiar to him… This picture was of his uncle's farm, and that lake always had a way of bringing up a certain memory of his. One he partly cherished, and also despised himself for… staring at the picture he could see the tire swing slowly start to rock back and forth… and he could hear her voice calling to him, just like she did all those years ago...
"Yo Hiroshi." Murakami shouted back at him. "You coming or what?"
Hiroshi shook himself out of it. "Yeah! Right behind you, man!" He took one last glance at the picture to see that it had changed once again. Now it was back to the more consistent image of a spider's web that was seen in the other pictures in the hall. His feet moved slowly at first as he walked away, then he eventually sped up his pace to catch up with his comrades.
As he caught up to them, he tightened his gun to his chest and rubbed his arms, feeling that cold feeling from earlier. "Man, it sure is cold in here." He said.
Kotaro raised an eyebrow and looked back at him. "Think so? Feels fine to me."
"Seriously?" Hiroshi asked, and started glancing around as if he had heard something. He frowned when he decided it was nothing. "I'm freezing."
Murakami looked back at Hiroshi and noticed something. Hiroshi had a tatoo on his neck that Murakami had never noticed before. It took the shape of a blue spiderweb. Murakami opened his mouth to say something about it, just as Hiroshi absentmindedly put a hand over it. When Hiroshi's hand lowered again, the tattoo was gone.
"What's up?" Hiroshi asked, noticing the way Murakami was looking at him.
Murakami rubbed his eyes, and looked closer, verifying that the tattoo was gone. He figured he must have imagined it, and shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, it's nothing."
After another few minutes, and passing two more thresholds, they finally arrived at something new. There was now a crossroads in the hallway. There were now three paths they could choose from, left, right or continuing forward.
Kotaro sighed, "Now what?" As he glanced down each. They each just stretched as far as the eye could see, with no change in scenery from the wooden floors and wallpapered walls they have been stuck in this entire time.
Furuhata seemed to have come to a conclusion. "We keep heading the same way." He said, pointing down the path in front of them. "Our goal is to reach the elevator room, and we all know that it should be this way."
"That's if the elevator room even exists in this place…" Murakami pointed out. "I mean, we should have reached it like half an hour ago if it did."
Kotaro rubbed his temples. "Man, this place is seriously messed up." He took a moment to sooth his frustration, then slowly took a look down each path. "I guess we have to pick one though, no point just standing here… and I guess Furuhata's right, the forward path is probably the best."
"Hey guys…" Hiroshi said slowly, with a small quavering voice which seemed far enough away from his normal personality that everyone looked at him with a concerned expression. He had his arms tightly huddled into his body, his gun cradled within his grasp.
"Hiroshi?" Kotaro asked, "You good man? You're white as a sheet."
"Yeah man!" Hiroshi answered with a grin. His smile seemed humorous but his eyes were heavy and exhausted. "I was just thinking… maybe we should split up."
The other three looked amongst each other. Furuhata was the one to answer, "I think that is a bad idea. We don't want to end up losing each other in this place. And what if one of us finds an exit? We have no way to tell the others, our radios are not working."
"Yeah, I'm with Furuhata on this one." Kotaro said, "Let's just go up the north path."
Hiroshi shook his head and turned to the right path. "Alright, you guys go that way, I'm going this way." And he started walking.
"Hiroshi!" Murakami called after him, "Keep your head and stick with the group! What's the point of us splitting up?"
Hiroshi turned back with a dark scowl on his face. "I'm going this way, alright!" He yelled, "And you're not stopping me!" He pointed down the path, "Look, she's going to show me how to get out of here!"
"She?" Murakami asked, and looked at Kotaro and Furuhata. Hiroshi was pointing at something, but there was nothing there.
"Hey… Hiroshi… That tattoo on your neck…" Kotaro pointed out, cautiously. Murakami's eyes widened when he saw it too, realizing he hadn't imagined it after all.
Hiroshi grinned and put his hand over it. "It's fine, man. Look, I'm going with her, alright?"
"Hiroshi!" Furuhata yelled with a commanding voice. "You've lost your head, there's no one there!"
"Riiiight…" Hiroshi said with a small chuckle. "She said you guys might not be able to hear her. She's the reason it's so damn cold in here too. She apologised for that though, so it's cool. Anyway, see you guys later."
Furuhata turned to Murakami. "Retrieve him." He said.
Murakami nodded and started following after him. All of a sudden, Hiroshi turned with his gun held firmly in his hands. And he fired.
"Gaaaaah!" Murakami screamed and fell back. The bullet hit him right in the shoulder, and he instinctively put his hand over the wound. Kotaro and Furuhata both raised their guns.
"What the hell, man!" Kotaro shouted.
"Just stay back alright!" Hiroshi said. Then, he suddenly seemed distracted. His gun shifted away from the group which made them relax at least a little. "What's that? The picture?" He grinned, "Heh, alright then." He pointed his gun at a picture of a spider web to his right, and fired.
They all heard a high pitched screech echo through the hall, as if it were created by a wounded animal. Then, Hiroshi turned and started walking away.
Kotaro moved to chase after him, but stopped when he noticed furry brown claws grab the edge of the picture frame. Actually, it wasn't a picture anymore, it was just a hole in the wall. "What the hell?" He said under his breath.
All of a sudden, the claws tensed their grip, and all at once the creature they belong to sprung out of the hole. Kotaro reflexively swatted at it with the barrel of his gun, and knocked it out of the air. It hit the wall, and fell to the floor, but continued to crawl after him. It looked like an oversized spider. It's mouth opened, revealing a series of sharp fangs which none of them had ever seen on any spider before.
Kotaro lifted his boot and stomped on it as it got closer. There was a disgusting hissing noise, and the creature dissipated into black goo.
"L-Look!" Murakami shouted. Kotaro glanced back to the hole in the wall and saw more of those giant spiders falling out of it, one after another. It had only been seconds, but there were already dozens of them! Murakami scrambled back to his feet, and Furuhata started firing shots at them.
"Hiroshi!" Kotaro screamed, "What the hell is this!"
"Don't worry, man." Hiroshi said with a smile, he was now separated from the group by a wave of spiders, none of which seemed to pay any attention to him and instead focused on his three co-workers. "She says she'll come back for the rest of you." His eyes darkened, "So it's all good."
Then, he walked up to the wall and… walked right through it! As if there was no wall there at all. Next thing Kotaro knew, he was gone.
"HIROSHI!" Kotaro screamed again, continuing to fire his gun at the endless horde of spiders.
Homura started making a habit of planting C4 near the spider web pictures as she passed them. Most of the pictures were either of spider webs, or a rocking chair, and these are the pictures she targeted. Every once in awhile there would be a variation, usually something to do with red lilies. These, she would just take notice of for a moment, but leave alone. After each threshold she passed, she would set off the C4 she had lain in the hallway, and look back to see the small bodies of the burning familiars fall from their holes.
She had been continuing without her time-stop magic for a while now, and it disturbed her that the witch's barrier had seemed to stop moving. She was worried that something may be going wrong with the plan, and wondered if she should have given them more than five minutes to evacuate. She thought that would be plenty, but now she wondered.
She walked through another threshold, and saw spiderwebs clinging to the top corners of the hall. The wall paper in this new area had a dirty brown color, and was torn in some places. She readied her gun and proceeded with caution, and used her SoulGem to check for the witches presence. She could feel its pulse, and it was indeed closer than it had been, but she felt something else… It had a similar feel to it, but weaker. It was most likely a familiar, a more powerful one than the ones she had faced so far, one that could possibly become a witch itself one day.
Not always, but sometimes in labyrinths she would cross such a familiar. She would say that it was at least fifty percent of the time that a witch had a familiar who sort of like its second in command... if that was the right term to use. Looking down the hall, she saw a doorway off to the side, and spiderwebs clung around its frame with more density than anywhere else she had seen so far. She put her back to the opposite wall, and slowly inched closer to it with her gun at the ready. She could feel the pulsing of the familiar's presence through her SoulGem. There was no doubt about it, it was in the room.
Something else came through her SoulGem, with each wave of the pulse, she could hear sounds… words being spoken directly into her head. There was at least a dozen disconnected voices, and each of them held a distinct tone of negativity.
'Sorry kiddo, not going to be able to make it to the-''but you promised!''look bro, he's a good cop, he just made a mistake so help me cover this up and-''you seem troubled I wish you could-''Galazadrine? Where'd you get that name from?''testing successful, let's celebra-''where do you go? It's like you're here, but-''we just want to help her''SHE NEEDS TO BE CONTROLLED!''is this really ok?''I'm not like them… I'm a murderer''I'm going to die here''This is wrong! It's all wrong!'
Homura shook her head and released her focus from her SoulGem and silenced the voices. Right away she knew what this was, and it meant exactly what she had feared had come true. There was at least one person who hadn't made it out of the lab, but thankfully it was only a familiar who had captured him.
Homura's first choice would be to toss a grenade inside before running in herself, guns blazing, but if someone was trapped inside there, which seemed to be the case, she would risk killing an innocent person… Well, maybe innocent was a bit of a generous term, but she still wasn't the type to kill needlessly.
She had a couple flashbangs stored in her shield space, but they usually didn't seem to have much effect on witches. That was an item she kept as a nonviolent means of solving a confrontation with another Magical Girl. Mami had been the most common recipient of that little toy in her past time lines. Usually it was to prevent her from being decapitated by a certain witch who had an affinity for sweets.
She raised her hand to her shield, deciding the only way to proceed cautiously would be to do so inside her own timeflow.
Then, something jumped down from the ceiling. She didn't have time to react, and her field of vision was taking over by the sight of hissing fangs before the creature latched onto her face with its brown claws. She screamed, and batted it away, but it had already managed to dig its fangs into the side of her cheek. She dropped her gun and grabbed it with both hands, forcefully ripping it away from her. She succeeded, but lost a good chunk of her cheek in the processes, and was left with a few deep scratches on the sides of her head from where the creature had clung on.
Holding it in the palm of her hand, she swung it around and slammed it into the wall. There was a sickening crunch as it was crushed under her palm, and its fangs let out one last hissing screech. Just as she let the creature go, so it could drop to the ground, she stopped time.
Then, she felt something bite into her ankle. She screamed and kicked it away. At least six more of those spider familiars surrounded her, and each of them had a thick string of web wrapping around her ankles. That contact would be plenty for them to remain in her timeflow. She mentally cursed herself as she put her back to the wall and tried kicking them away. How could she have not noticed them before? She partly blamed the drug; she was less observant, and her reaction time was slowed. Normally, she would have easily been able to swat that first one out of the air before receiving such a gruesome wound on her face.
One had already clung to her leg, but she was successful in kicking away the others so far. For now, she had ignore the fact that her leg was being gnawed on, and produced an uzi from her shield space. She riddled the ground around her with bullets, firing in a blind panic. It managed to kill at least two of them, but another two managed to evade the spray of bullets and latch onto her. There was now one of each leg, and another digging its fangs into her stomach.
She dropped the uzi and produced a knife. She stabbed the one that was latched to her stomach, the blade going clean through and puncturing her own flesh. She pulled it out, and stabbed it at the familiars on her legs, managing to avoid cutting herself along with those two. The dead creatures fell away from her body, and she joined them as she fell to her knees, gasping to catch her breath and tried to slow her racing heart.
Don't lose focus. She told herself, after only a moment of rest. She quickly grabbed the uzi that was to her side, and rolled over onto her back. Two more familiars were lowering themselves down from the ceiling. She put her finger on the the trigger- and…
She laughed, and let her arm fall to her side. Those two that were above her were simply frozen in time. She focused on her SoulGem, and let her healing magic cover her body. The previously throbbing pain from her bites and scratches was replaced by a warm refreshing feeling as the wounds closed.
Familiars… familiars did this to me… How could I be so weak?
Once she was healed, she got back to her feet and considered the doorway. She couldn't see through because of all the webbing. The witch wasn't behind it, but it's likely a much more powerful familiar than the ones she had faced so far. She worried that this familiar had already caught a victim, and if that were the case it couldn't be left alone. Not just for the sake of its victim's life, but if it got a good enough fill of grief, it was entirely possible it could evolve into a witch itself. Another witch running around this damned place is the last thing she needed right now.
She had to be careful of the webbing. Her time stop magic was powerful, but it had one glaring weakness: anything that was in contact with her would be pulled into her timeflow as well. In all her countless repeats, there was only one opponent who would consistently take advantage of this weakness, and that was Mami Tomoe.
With Mami, any contact with her ribbons would be sufficient for the effect, whether the ribbon was physically attached to Mami or not. If these webs worked the same way, then she would pull its owner into the timeflow along with her and she'd lose her advantage. She didn't know how smart this witch was, or how well its consciousness was connected with its familiars, but it would be wise to assume that her opponent had discovered this weakness already. The fact the the familiars who she had just defeated exploited it was proof enough that she had to be really cautious now.
She returned the uzi to the shield space and replaced it with a flame thrower. It was small, with a half liter fuel tank attached, but it should be plenty for this purpose. She unleashed the flames onto the web, spraying its stream back and forth until there was a big enough opening for her to duck under. The upper part of the web still had motionless flames clinging to it, but once she resumed time it would finish the job.
She ducked down and crossed the threshold, careful not to touch any of the remaining webs, and then found herself in the most disturbing environment this labyrinth had yet offered.
The walls raised high in the air, with layer upon layer of webbing covering the sky above. If Homura looked through the webs, she could see the sky of the faux dimension; it was an unnaturally dark shade of blue which emitted more light than its dark color should be able to. It gave everything in the room a disturbing blue tint. Littered amongst the webbing were lumpy black sacks, which Homura recognised to be spider eggs.
If even one of the eggs hatched, she imagined she would have thousands of tiny flesh eating spiders to contend with, but there were simply too many for her to destroy. She would have to finish her business here and get out right away, before this situation became more dangerous than it already was.
Her target at least was in plain sight, and with time stopped, destroying it would be a simple task. It was huge, towering over Homura by at least ten meters, and it was fat. It had eight spiny legs protruding from its body, and it sat upon its fat abdomen. Its face was somewhat more human-like than the other familiars. It was distorted though, with a long jaw that hung far below its beady, multicolored eyeballs. It's mouth was wide open, revealing a series of long white fangs which looked sharp enough to slice through solid steel.
Homura produced a pipe bomb from under her shield. She stared into the creature's gaping mouth and grinned. Sometimes it's just too easy. Although, she did feel this method was a bit anticlimactic. Mami or Kyoko likely would have gone with something a little more theatrical, but Homura was always one for practicality.
She armed the pipebomb and carefully set it inside the creature's mouth. Now all she would have to do is leave the room, take a few steps down the hall, and resume time, then this oversized familiar would no longer be a problem for her.
She dropped the pipe bomb into the creature's mouth, then prepared to leave, but something caught her eye. In the back corner of the room there was a tightly knitted cocoon, lumped up on the center of a thick spider web. She walked closer to it, and her eyes widened. Her hand slowly reached under her shield and produced a handgun, and she aimed at the head of the cocoon.
The web was tight against the man's body, and she could see the outline of glasses upon his face. Just killing him now would be the merciful thing to do. Undoubtedly, the voices she heard earlier, from outside of this room, were the voices of this man's despair. At least the familiar who would have fed off of him would be killed soon. If she just left him here, however, he might end up attracting the witch. Not only would that hurt her own chances of escape, that would also be an even worse fate for this man.
She slowly put her finger on the trigger, feeling her heart starting to race inside her chest. She had never killed someone before. Throughout her many timelines, she had done many horrible things, she had betrayed her closest friends, and plenty of other sins she would rather just forget… Murder however… and murder of a defenseless man, an ordinary human. That is something she had never done before.
Her hand shook, and she raised her other hand to the handle of the gun to help steady her aim. Her grip tightened, and her finger pulled down a quarter inch on the trigger.
She let out a frustrated sigh and her gun lowered. "Damn it…" She whispered to herself. "I can't do it." She glanced back at the oversized familiar, then back to it's victim. What was she suppose to do? Try to drag an ordinary human through this godforsaken place? The familiar had already gotten to him, his mind was probably already damaged beyond repair… but… the word probably still inferred there was a chance that might not be the case, and maybe this man could be saved.
The second she tried to tear the webs away from him, the witch's consciousness would probably be pulled into her timeflow. At the very least, that would be the case for familiars that occupied this room… If she did just let this man die though… Madoka would never know about it, but none the less Homura would never be able to face her again with something like that weighing on her conscious. At least when she repeated time she could tell herself she had undone her sins. This time, it would be permanent, and she would have a hard time ever forgiving herself if she didn't at least try. There was no choice, she had to at least try to save him.
She returned the gun behind her shield, and reproduced her knife. Then, got closer to the man and prepared to cut him free. She was keenly aware of the horde of unhatched spider eggs that hung above her, so she would have to be quick.
The gears spun, and the metal casing of her shield snapped shut. Time resumed, and she started slashing at the cocooned man. As soon as time was back to normal, the man started squirming around, she could hear his screams and saw the outline of his mouth through the webbing. "Hold still!" She shouted at him, trying her best to cut the web away without cutting him as well, "I'm going to save you!"
She didn't look back, but she knew the giant familiar was turning around. She heard it let out a loud hiss, then she ducked her head down in anticipation of the explosion.
A massive shockwave ripped through the room, Homura could feel the heat on her back. She, and the cocooned man were splashed with black goo. The man started shaking around more violently, screaming even louder. Overhead, she heard the screeching of thousands of small voices, she almost thought she could make out their words. 'Faaaaatherr! FAAAAAATHER! Killlerr! Yoooouuu killll!"
After a few more slashes with her knife, the web was weakened enough that the man's arms broke free. As soon as his hands were mobile again, he started ripping the webs away from his own face. "Oh god! Oh god! Help me!" He screamed as he fell out of the cocoon, landing on his hands and knees by Homura's feet.
"Come on! Get up!" Homura yelled, pulling him up by the collar and glancing overhead, seeing the eggs starting to crack open. "We have to run! RIGHT NOW!" There was still enough webbing stuck to the man that he would transfer the witch's consciousness if she tried to stop time. She raised a hand and slapped the man across the face. "Pull yourself together, damn it! And we might make it out of this alive!"
The blow seemed to have brought him back to his senses, and he looked up at her, actually seeing her for the first time. "H-Homura?" He said, adjusting his glasses with one hand.
She recognised his voice, and looked down at him with narrow eyes. "You're name is Kaiji." He nodded, and Homura gritted her teeth. Of course, of course it would be him!
She pulled him up to his feet. "Come on!" She said to him and pointed up. Kaiji looked up, and his mouth dropped open with terror. There were thousands of silk threads descending from the ceiling, each held a spider with sharp hissing fangs. "We have to run!"
Homura grabbed Kaiji by the hand, and they both bolted for the door.
Creeeeek… Creeeeeek…
"This is it?" Hiroshi asked, as he stepped into the room. "I thought you were taking me to the exit."
The blue lipped girl looked back at him and smiled. Her lips moved as if she was talking, but not a sound came out… instead, Hiroshi could hear her voice in his head, as if she were speaking directly into his mind. "You need to see something first."
Hiroshi looked around. The room had the same wooden floors, and wallpaper on the walls, but there was also a window with a blue light coming through it. The top corners of the room were riddled with spider webs… and there was a creaking noise coming from somewhere… like squeaky wooden hinges. He looked around, and noticed something in the back corner.
A rocking chair, and a long legged woman sat atop it. Her face was veiled under a scarf, but Hiroshi could at least see her hands. Long, bony fingers, with gray wrinkled skin which clung tightly to the bone. "What… are…" The more Hiroshi stared at the old woman, the more he got the impression that something was off about her. She kind of looked human, but the proportions were all wrong. Her legs and arms were way too long, and her torso was tiny. Same thing with her fingers. Her hands were tiny, yet her fingers were far too long to belong to a human being. He looked closer, and realized the backs of her wrinkly knuckles had brown fur on them. When he looked up at the old womans face, he saw two red orbs peeking out from behind the veil, and he gulped.
Hiroshi looked back to the other girl, the one who had led him here. She was strange too, but she was a lot more pleasant to look at. Her skin was literally white as a sheet of paper. Hiroshi had seen girls with pale skin before, but this was just inhuman. Her hair was also white, but aside from her odd coloring, she was really cute. Her gold and blue tunic covered her breast, but left her navel exposed, and her bottoms only covered the bare minimum, leaving most of her legs unclothed. She wore boots of the same blue and gold color.
She pointed at something in the center of the room. Hiroshi looked down. It was a photo album. He looked back up at her, and saw her mouth move. Whenever she spoke, a cold chill ran through his body. "I'm going back for your friends now."
"Woah, hey, wait!" Hiroshi said, reaching after her. She turned as if she planned to walk right through the wall on the opposite side of the room.
She just turned and pointed at the photo album once again. Her blue lips pushed up into a smile.
Hiroshi understood she wanted him to look at the photo album, so he kneeled down infront of it. It looked to be made of blue leather, and there was a black imprint of a spider web on it. He flipped open the cover, and saw pictures from his childhood. They were from the summer he spent on his uncle's farm, when he spent every day playing with his cousin Haruka. A tear touched his eye, as the memories flooded back to him. He loved her, he really did, but he knew it was wrong. And after his uncle found out, he was never aloud to come back, and he never saw her again.
People knew, and he was ridiculed behind his back for years to come. For his one true love, and his greatest shame. He felt himself reliving those memories which brought him so much pain.
A tear fell inside the photo album. "Haruka…" He whispered. He looked back up at the blue lipped girl.
Half her body was inside the wall. The other half looked back at him. Where her face seemed warm and inviting before, it was now twisted into something more sinister. Her lips moved. "You're disgusting."
"W-what?" Then, she disappeared through the wall.
Creeeeeek...
More tears fell into the open photo album as he leafed through.
Creeeeeek...
A black shadow rose over him. The old lady in the rocking chair, but she had changed.
By the time he noticed, and turned to look at her, all he could do is scream, helpless to defend himself as sharp fangs bore down upon him.
Thanks for reading! Last part in 2-3 weeks.
Also, to answer some questions about Perfect Crime. I have not abandoned it, and even started working on a new chapter. I have every intention of finishing that story, but put it on hold to focus on this one for a while. Once the next chapter of TSO is complete I plan to put more time into Perfect Crime. I also am planning to go back and do some editing on the first 5-10 chapters of Perfect Crime, since my writing style has improved a lot since then and I think I'll be able to improve its quality.
Thanks again for reading!
And a huge thanks to my beta readers, Axius27 and Danny. They are a big help and I'm sure their work has added to the quality of this story greatly!
-Atomyst
