got distracted by sonic frontiers: the final horizon and i swear that shit made me cry

The next night, Sora had decided not to go with Mami and the others on a Witch hunt. Instead choosing to do his own job and both fight Heartless and search for Kairi.

"Aw, you aren't lettin' Homura's words get to ya, right?" Jiminy had asked once Sora made his choice.

"I'm not." Sora replied. "Well, maybe I am a little..."

"Sora..." Jiminy sighed. "You've really gotta learn to stick up for yourself! Sure, we came here to find Kairi, and defeating the Heartless is your job, that doesn't mean you have to distance yourself from the others just to please one stick in the mud!"

"Yeah, maybe." Sora agreed. "But you said it yourself, finding Kairi and defeating Heartless is what I'm supposed to be doing."

"I'm just lookin' out for ya." Jiminy chuckled. "Speaking of looking out, baddies seven o' clock!"

Sora turned just in time to roll out of the way of the incoming Satyr, launching it into the air and slicing it up with his Keyblade. He cast Aeraga on the nearby Chief Puff (which was attempting to disguise itself as a giant puffball), and then used Thundaga to smite the several Puffballs that came off of it. He sliced through three Pogo Shovels as he ran towards the exposed Chief Puff, spinning into it and launching it into the air with a hefty smack, finishing it off with Firaga.

Sora turned to where the Satyr that started this skirmish had come from, finding only a small swarm of lower-tier Heartless: Neoshadows, Flutterings, and both Soldier types. Sora focused on all of them at once, and then let lose his Shotlock. The hailstorm of bullets ended up tearing the last of the stragglers apart, leaving Sora alone once again.

"Piece of cake!" Sora quipped, dissipating his Keyblade.

"It seems you're finally taking my advice." A familiar voice said from behind him, and by now Sora needed no introduction to Homura Akemi's tendancy to just appear out of nowhere.

"Yeah. Shouldn't you be doing yours?" Sora countered.

"Mami is alarmingly good at hunting Witches. She barely leaves any for me."

"No surprise there."

"Even then, I have more than enough Grief Seeds to last me a long time. Higher on my list of priorities..." She then pulled a pistol out of the shield on her arm. "Is getting answers out of you."

Sora, seeing the gun, summoned his Keyblade again. "So that's how it is? Surely we can just talk things out."

Homura squinted. "You brought up an 'Organization' earlier. Not to mention the 'Heartless' you were just fighting only started appearing when you did. Add on I've never... met anyone like you in all my time as a Magical Girl. And the last time I dealt with any sort of magical group, it didn't end well. Saying I have just a few questions is an understatement."

"...You're hiding something from me." Sora deduced.

"And you're hiding something from me." Homura countered. "And I intend to find out what it is. One way or another." And then she raised her pistol and fired. Sora was barely able to deflect the bullet in time, leaping back in alarm and casting Firaga. Homura easily blocked it with her shield.

"Look, there's a bunch I wanna tell you, but I'm not sure how much I can say." Sora admitted, knowing that Donald would never let him get away with this. "But I won't even bother trying if you keep trying to kill me!"

As Sora landed, he realized Homura was no longer in front of him. He felt a chill run down his spine and something cold press to the back of his head.

"Sora-!" Jiminy started, only to have Sora whip around and grab Homura by the wrist, throwing her shotgun blast off just barely and getting a decent slice in with his Keyblade.

"You're not alone." Homura remarked after hearing Jiminy, seemingly unfazed by Sora's attack.

"Another thing I don't know if I can just say."

"If you insist on being stubborn, I'll just have to force the answers out of you."

"You don't understand-!" Sora began, but Homura wasn't listening, firing another round at him, which he barely blocked with his Keyblade. Launching his Keyblade high, Sora cast Thundaga. Yet Homura was gone before the attack even went off, and that was when a blunt pain erupted in Sora's side, and he went airborne. Homura traded out her golf club for the shotgun once again, and landed a shot square to Sora's chest as he flipped around for an Aerial Recovery, making him vulnerable once again.

Pain kept flaring up all around Sora's body as Homura kept firing rounds into him. His magically-enhanced clothing protected him from any serious injuries, but that didn't mean the barrage didn't hurt.

Finally, the barrage of shotgun fire stopped. Sora assumed she needed to reload. So he used the opportunity to succesfully recover, chug a Potion, and think briefly of a plan. There was one spell he used to have that he knew would be perfect. One that he'd used very briefly during his squabble with the Raging Vulture back when he'd just escaped Davy Jones' Locker with Jack and the others.

Sora reached deep inside just for that one spell, and as Homura's shotgun pumped again, ready to fire another round, Sora let it go.

Reflect put up its barrier of light around Sora just as the blast reached him. The pellets bounced off the reflective shield and right back to sender. Homura cried out in pain as her attack meant for Sora hit her instead. Sora, now with plenty of time to counter, rolled over to Homura (since it was quicker than running) and launched out three Keyblade strikes, and was about to start a combo when someone spoke out.

"Sora! That is enough!" Jiminy scolded. "Look at what you've done!"

Sora stopped. "What I've... Done?"

And that's when Sora noticed something gleaming on his Keyblade, and his nose caught a more foul smell among all the gunpowder. Sora pulled the blade closer to himself to examine what it was.

Blood.

Sora's eyes widened as it hit him: He'd drawn blood during the fight. It never occurred to him that Homura might not have the same defenses as his friends or the Organization. Things that would normally only cause some discomfort for them could be vastly different for a Magical Girl. Taking his eyes off the red liquid that stained his Keyblade, he then looked towards Homura, and the sight made him regret chugging a Potion as fast as he did during the fight.

Multiple holes and four giant gashes, all leaking blood (which was now pooling on the floor) riddled Homura's body. Her left knee, for what little Sora could see of it through the bullet hole, was completely destroyed Not to mention her left trigger finger was nowhere to be found. Half of her face was covered in crimson, and he couldn't see one of her eyes beneath it all. Had that one Reflect caused that much damage?

And yet, despite everything, Homura was simply sucking some air in through her teeth, small, pained noises coming from her.

"Oh my gosh!" Sora cried. "I'm so sorry! I didn't-"

"I- It's fine..." Homura muttered. "I'm a M- Magical Girl... I've been through worse..."

Sora immediately blew his remaining magic on casting Curaga, which patched up Homura's slash-marks and bullet holes, alongside cleaning up the blood. But her knee, eye, and finger were still either damaged or gone.

Sora then effortlessly picked Homura up bridal-style and launched back for Mami's apartment, not slowing down until he was at the door (having completely skipped going up normally since the door was on a section of the building that was open to the outside), throwing the spare key into the lock, and rushing inside.

He set Homura down on the couch, and was about to ask Jiminy for advice on what to do when Homura sat up, facing Sora, the cold glare back in her one violet eye.

"Woah, I don't think you should be doing that." Jiminy advised, hopping out of Sora's hood and onto the glass coffee table. "Especially with your injuries-"

"It's okay." Homura said calmly. "My magic will have fully healed me by morning. Like none of this ever happened."

"Wow..." Sora whistled, finally stopping his frantic movements. "Seriously? I wish my magic did that."

"Doesn't it already do that?" Homura wondered.

"Not automatically." Sora explained. "I have to cast a specific spell to heal myself, and it uses all the magic I have saved up. If I could just heal whenever I got hurt, my life would be a lot easier."

"I see..." Homura muttered. "Since we're here, we may as well answer each other's questions."

"That's what I was trying to do..." Sora groaned, sitting down across from Homura. "I'd make us some tea if I knew how..."

"Don't bother." Homura stated. "I don't need any refreshments."

"Oh, okay."

"Before we begin. I believe we should make introductions."

"But, we already know each other?"

"I wasn't referring to you." Homura said. "I was talking about you." She finished, her gaze turning to Jiminy.

"Oh, me? Well, I'm Jiminy Cricket! I've been Sora's guide ever since he started his journey! It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Akemi."

Homura remained silent, unsure of how to react to Jiminy.

"Yeah, I expected that..." Jiminy sighed, hopping back up onto Sora's sleeve.

"With that out of the way, I should tell you one thing before we begin."

"Oh?"

Homura looked around the room warily, as if trying to find if anyone else was listening in. "I'm a time-traveler."

"...Huh?"

"My magic is time manipulation. During our fight, it must have looked like I was teleporting around, correct?"

"Yeah, it did."

"Every time I did that, I would freeze time and move to a new position. I cannot actually teleport."

"Oh, that makes sense. But, why didn't you just freeze time and dodge my attack when I first hit you?"

"My time-stop takes a second to activate. And even then, anything I touch moves with me in frozen time. Even if I had been able to freeze time before you hit me, it wouldn't have been effective."

"Okay, one last question before you can ask some of yours: You mentioned before our fight that you hadn't met 'other people like me', what did that mean?"

Homura sighed, and Sora guessed that she had been expecting this. "What I mean to say is that you haven't been in any previous timelines."

"Timelines?"

"You said your last question would be it."

"Sorry, sorry."

"You deserve to know. Especially with how much of an anomaly you are, even to me. I don't feel like delving too deep into my past just yet, but know that I've gone through this single month countless times, all in hopes of saving the life of Madoka Kaname."

"So that's why you were trying to kill Kyubey back when we first met!"

"Indeed. I have determined that a scenario where Madoka does not become a Magical Girl is more likely to result in her survival than one where she does."

"Yeah, I get it."

"In any case, I believe it's time for me to ask a question of my own." Homura said. "Just who exactly are you? And why are you just now showing up?"

"Well, I..." Sora looked to Jiminy for advice on what to say. If he said he was from another world, it would put the order in jeopardy. However, the cricket simply nodded his head. "...I'm from another world."

Homura's good eye widened slightly. "Excuse me?"

"The reason Keyblade Wielders and Magical Girls haven't met is because they're not from the same world. Or, at least Keyblade Wielders haven't come to this one yet."

"Yet?"

"Right. A big part of wielding a Keyblade is the ability to travel between worlds. Honestly, I'm not even sure how much I can tell you without screwing up the order, but considering nothing bad has happened yet, we might be okay."

"Carry on."

"Right. Since you don't want to explain your past, and I understand that, I won't, either. What you need to know is that there was this big battle against Organization XIII, the one I mentioned earlier. Their goal was to forge a powerful Keyblade known as the x-blade, and then use it to open the door to a place called Kingdom Hearts. From there, they would use its power to spread darkness throughout the worlds in hopes of creating one where light and dark were equal. Normally, that wouldn't be that bad, but doing so would require destroying all the worlds and resetting everything to zero. Thankfully, we stopped him."

"Interesting..." Homura muttered. "And how did that lead you here?"

"Kairi... She was struck down, and I had to use this power-the power of waking-to try and find where Xehanort sent her after that. And that's how I got here."

"And you believe Kairi is in this world, and not somewhere else?"

"She has to be! Why else would I be brought here?"

"You're naively hopeful." Homura remarked. "Hold on to that hope. Now that you're involved with Magical Girls, it won't last long."

Before Sora could question what that meant, the apartment's door opened, and in stepped Mami, who took one look at the scene.

"Sora...? Why is she here? And what happened to her?"

"Uh, it's a long story. Basically, we got into this fight, and one of my spells accidentally made her shoot herself, and then I brought her back here because I was panicking and then we actually had a decent talk-"

Mami held up her hand to stop him. "Talk? About what?"

"I'm sorry. But that's between Sora, Jiminy and I."

"Who's-"

"Right here!" Jiminy said, tipping his hat. "Jiminy Cricket, at your service!"

"I have so many questions..." Mami sighed. "How long is she planning on staying here?"

"I'm sorry to have intruded. I'll be leaving now-!" Homura said, standing up slowly, only for her knee to buckle and to fall back down on the sofa.

"No, stay here and rest. At least until your magic heals you enough to walk again." Mami conceded. "Hopefully we can cooperate a bit more after this."

"Fine..." Homura reluctantly agreed, laying herself out on the sofa.

"So, that's all well and good, but... Where am I supposed to sleep now?" Sora asked.

Mami hummed in consideration, only for her face to go slightly red. "Well, you could... Stay with me tonight..."

That offer then had Sora's face go bright red. "A- Are you sure? You don't have to-"

"It's okay." Mami said. "I figured that the injuries you gave Homura weren't exactly pretty, and that you might... Need help sleeping tonight."

"I- I mean, if you're okay with that..." Sora decided.

"Well, in that case. I suspect I'll be keeping watch over Miss Akemi here."

"Are you implying something...?" Homura asked the cricket as Sora and Mami walked away.

"I think you know what I'm implying."

Homura gave the smallest of smiles. "I think it's good she has someone to keep her company now."

"That's Sora for you. Always helping those in need."

And that night, feeling the warmth of Mami's body and the mere fact that, even now, in this world that he wasn't even sure he'd get home from, that he had friends to fight alongside him. Despite the fact that he may have just thrown world order into jeopardy and almost killed someone, Sora found himself sleeping better than he ever had before.

haha hate to ruin the moment but we've got some woorld builldiiing

Keyblade: The Eternal Keyblade - A Magic-based Keyblade unlocked by defeating Homura. It's adorned with gears and circuitry resembling Homura's shield. The color scheme is black, white, and purple.

Strength: 5-9

Magic: 6-13

Special Attribute: Unlocks Stop, Stopra, and Stopga depending on Sora's current Magic level and the Keyblade's current level.

Formchanges: Time Shield. Turns the Keyblade into a modified version of Homura's shield. Similar to to the Hero's Origin's Counter Shield.