A/N: *hums cheerfully, cracks knuckles* Let's get this party started.
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NEUNZEHN
TIMELINE X + N
When the world stabilized around the shinigami, they were somewhere completely different. They were at one end of a massive, steep arena with thousands of seats filled with a wide variety of stuffed animals. Spotlights and searchlights of various colors pierced the night sky. At the far end of the field was a giant plush love seat with a heart-shaped back. Huge sweets of all kinds were strewn about it. Upon it sat a skeleton in a pink marching band conductor's suit complete with tall hat, tapping a sharp baton in time with the snare drum.
Fweeeeeeee fweet! Fweet! Fweet! Fweet!
A whistle blew an introduction followed by booming drumbeats and horns blasting a fanfare. Rin continued to stand in a daze, but Shino and Ryūnosuke looked down and noticed that the space between themselves and the skeleton was filled by a marching band positioned to put on a field show. The band was made up of identical wind-up dolls with braided brown yarn hair and button eyes. Each was crowned with a skull and a fluffy pompom. Their marching and formations were perfectly synchronized.
Shino and Ryūnosuke were still gaping in shock when the big skeleton lifted its free hand to make a beckoning motion. Rin immediately marched forward. The band's formation parted to allow him to pass.
"What are you doing?!" shrieked Shino. She turned to Ryūnosuke. "Draw your sword, idiot!"
"B-but what's going on?!" Ryūnosuke whined as he fumbled with his zanpakutō.
"Hell if I know! Rin! Hey, Rin! Wake up!"
Shino stepped forward aggressively. The band immediately closed ranks, a row of sousaphone players sliding in front. They simultaneously blew a long, low note with such force that the two Thirteenth Division shinigami were blown off their feet and into the concrete wall of the arena. The band advanced on them.
Gasping, Shino climbed to her feet and glanced at Ryūnosuke. "Get up! Fight back! Multiple target defense, like Lieutenant Kuchiki taught us!" She began muttering the incantation for a kidō.
Ryūnosuke wheezed and levered himself up with a wince. "First Way of Destruction," he gasped as he held up his free hand. "Shō!" he yelled, jabbing his hand forward, using the entire palm instead of the usual fingertip.
The first three lines of dolls were pushed back several yards, toppling into one another. Before they could recover, Shino finished her incantation with, "Sixty-Second Way of Binding: Hyapporankan!" A pale blue lance materialized in her raised free hand. She hurled it at the dolls. The advanced spell was intended to immediately replicate itself into a hundred lances which would immobilize multiple enemies. However, Shino was still young and inexperienced, so her spell only produced around four dozen rods. Even so, the toppled dolls were immobilized and an obstacle course was formed to delay the rest of the enemies. The two escorts took a moment to steady themselves, panting.
"Mission objectives," Shino said sharply, "Retrieve Rin." She glanced aside at the sensor slug. The importance of the data it contained struck her hard. If Twelfth had been looking for whatever the hell this was, that sensor was priceless. "Protect the data." Shino stared forward, scowling. "Ideas?"
Ryūnosuke bit his lip and scrubbed blood from his eyes. "I don't think I can run or move around much. Something in my left leg is grinding and there's something wrong with my hip. What if we put the sensor against the wall and I stand in front to defend, and you get Rin?"
"Because that will be so easy." Shino spat blood and a tooth on the ground and thought.
"You're the one who said the mission was too easy."
Shino cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. Breathing hurt like hell; cracked ribs? "Shaddap." She pointed her finger at the big slug and muttered, "Fourth Way of Binding: Hainawa." Sparking yellow energy danced from her fingertips and lassoed the device. She hauled it to the wall and canceled the spell. "Right. Hold your ground, Ryūnosuke."
"Be careful!" Ryūnosuke called as Shino darted forward with shunpo. He drew a deep breath and steadied himself as the musical dolls began to push through the makeshift barrier he and Shino had created.
Rin was already halfway across the field, the marching automatons smoothly parting in a wave around him as he progressed and flowing back into place behind him as though liquid. Shino hopscotched across the band, jumping from head to head over the crowd. Ahead of her, three rows of dolls knelt to expose a fourth row of clarinet players who simultaneously lobbed their instruments like javelins, each trailing glowing pink musical notes in its wake.
"Shō!" Shino called out, cutting the spell's incantation short. It diminished the spell's power, but served its purpose and knocked the clarinet-javelins off course. Shino kept running across the band. Two big drums suddenly came spinning at her from forward and to either side. With her next step, she launched herself vertically to avoid them. The drums exploded upon impact with one another and blew her back a bit. She grit her teeth, landed on a doll's shoulders so hard it crumpled beneath her, and slashed the other dolls nearby while she recovered from her landing. They collapsed with the sound of rattling bones.
Panting angrily and fending off dolls with her blade, Shino stood and snarled, "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Thirty-First Way of Destruction: Shakkahō!"
The spell, powered by a full incantation and rage, blasted a smoking path through the ranks of the dolls. Shino wasted no time and rushed through it with shunpo. When she neared the end of the extended blast crater, she threw another Shō in front of her and used the collapsing dolls as a foothold to get above the band again. Shino saw Rin when she was about three quarters of the way across the field. Face determined, she screamed, " Fourth Way of Binding: Hainawa!" Once again the yellow energy struck out, this time lassoing the errant scientist and yanking him off his feet.
Shino had a single moment to revel in success before the big skeleton leaned forward from its throne and stabbed Rin through the chest with its sharpened conductor's baton. Rin showed no reaction, as doll-like as the marching band. Shino watched in horror as the skeleton tugged at the end of her spell, snapped it, and lifted Rin toward its skull. The skull's jaw opened, then the skeleton put the end of the baton in its mouth, bit down, and ate Rin whole like the last dango on a skewer.
Shino had never seen death in battle before. She froze in terror until a doll stabbed her in both shoulders with a pair of drumsticks. Shino shrieked and dove forward, hitting the ground hard and immediately moving into a leg sweep to trip the dolls around her.
We need to escape with the sensor, Shino thought frantically. She'd have to fight her way back the way she had come. Was there an exit there? Not that she had seen. Glancing up at the skeleton, which was slowly moving to stand, she wondered if they needed to defeat the ruler of whatever twisted domain they had fallen into in order to escape. How could the skeleton be defeated, though? It felt a lot like a Hollow, but didn't have a bone mask. It was made entirely of bone, though. Maybe if she broke its face? That would be like breaking a mask, right? It was her only idea, so she went with it.
Shino charged forward, repeated her Shō-skip-jump technique, and took progressively higher leaps. When she reached the end of the band, she launched herself up at the skeleton's face with a roar, blade at the ready. The skeleton swatted her like a fly, batting her back across and through the entire band until she was mere yards from a tiring Ryūnosuke. His swordsmanship and kidō were getting weak. Shino writhed, rolled to her elbows and knees the best she could— poorly— and screamed in agony as she threw up. She started hacking and dizzily wondered if the blood was from her lungs or stomach as she distantly heard Ryūnosuke scream her name. The hand that wasn't a shattered mess scrabbled around the ground for her blade, but it was lost.
Suddenly, all the dolls stood still and held their instruments in the air. The shinigami watched in confusion as the instruments formed a stream in the air and flew toward the now standing skeleton, the dolls collapsing when their instruments were gone. The instruments were caught up in flowing, glowing pink musical staves and were soon bound to the skeleton. There was an overwhelming flash of light which dimmed to reveal that the skeleton had transformed.
The skeleton itself had shrunk and its uniform had turned red and featured images of bones, making it a skeleton wearing a skeleton suit. Its skull had sharpened and gained pointed sunglasses and its body had extra appendages that looked like wing bones, a pair at its shoulders and a pair at its hips. It was perched in a glowing crevice in the center of a bizarre heart-shaped machine. Shino deliriously wondered if Rin could have identified it had he been alive to see it. It hovered in the air using thrusters that spewed pink light. The skeleton raised its conducting baton and jabbed it at the shinigami as though ordering an army to advance. It blasted the arena with a sonic attack strong enough to crumble the stands and blow the shinigami into the cracked concrete wall once more.
Shino and Ryūnosuke fell to the rubble crumpled and broken. They lay there and looked at each other in fear, unable to move.
Thanks to their burst eardrums, they never heard the barrage of recorder-shaped missiles coming.
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A white creature perched on the roof access shack and calmly groomed its fluffy tail. After awhile, it tilted its head as though listening to something, then stretched and hopped off the roof. There was no longer anything to observe.
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Homura didn't recall ever having so much trouble tracking down a Witch. She figured she'd wait until Friday to push the subject of doing a night hunt.
In the meantime, Homura was having the most pleasantly mundane week she'd had in years. Sure, she was still hunting Witches, plotting how to save Madoka, and trying to not reveal her true powers, but she was also sitting around a table going over homework at night, eating meals in a family setting, helping with chores, and was often in the presence of an adult who actually demonstrated concern for her without being clingy. That last one was something rare for her. Her uncle was one extreme while her parents had been the other. The only other adults to be moderate were Madoka's parents in one timeline during which Homura had stayed at their house. Maybe it was because they weren't actually related? She was still unsure how to handle it, but it was mostly nice. She had even made new friends for the first time in dozens of timelines. It was something she hadn't allowed herself since the timeline in which Mami had found out about Witches in the worst possible way and plunged into homicidal insanity. But the twins, while upset, had rolled with the punch and stood to fight on— possibly even more determined than before. Strange. The whole situation was surreal on many levels. But it was novel and generally pleasant, so Homura cherished it despite the uncertainty.
On top of everything else, Karakura was an Incubator-free zone. That made it heaven on earth even with the presence of Hollows. The absence of beady red eyes following her and trying to figure her out was a relief.
Speaking of Hollows, Homura encountered one herself during her wanderings on Wednesday afternoon soon after having lunch with Isshin. She was pacing the tracks again when she felt that strange magic Karin had called a Garganta followed by the presence of a Hollow magical signature. Reiatsu. Whatever. It was actually very close to her. Karin had said people with higher reiatsu attracted Hollows; Homura wondered if she should expect to see more Hollows as she wandered around with her soul out in the open.
Homura allowed her Soul Gem to return to ring form, summoned her shield, and waited. A Hollow soon peered around the corner of a building ahead of her, sniffed, and moved into full view. It looked like a lithe, bipedal dinosaur about eight feet tall, bearing a spiked tail and a mask that looked like a fossilized dinosaur skull. Its short arms extended into leathery vestigial wings, uselessly small. A hilariously lurid shade of orange showed through the fossilized bones decorating its body. It cast about and locked onto her. Homura raised her shield and stood her ground, face set in a hard frown of concentration. The Hollow screeched and advanced on her rapidly. She readied her shield, left arm held horizontally in front of her face as she bent her knees and leaned forward. At the perfect instant, Homura used a magic-enhanced leap to jump up and meet the oncoming Hollow while swinging her shield in a tight, backhanded arc. The glowing metal impacted the side of the Hollow's mask with the perfect velocity, causing cracks to spiderweb across its face. Homura used the point of impact as a fulcrum to spin in a clockwise circle and brutally slam her magically-hardened right elbow into the center of the mask before she could fall back to the ground. The Hollow gave one final shriek and dissolved, its shape becoming more human as it faded. Homura stood and watched the black butterfly rise into the sky, ferrying the freed soul to the afterlife.
Homura smiled slightly. That actually felt really rewarding.
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Kisuke sat on the edge of a tall building some distance away, absently rolling a stick of Pocky around in his mouth and swinging his legs while he watched Akemi with high-power binoculars. When the girl gave a satisfied little toss of her hair and resumed her mysterious search, Kisuke lowered the binoculars and sat back.
Now that had been something approximating shinigami shunpo. Completely different from however she had moved that morning.
So she could manifest a weapon. A shield was unconventional, but hey, every soul had different priorities. Zanpakutō could be rather revealing in their form sometimes. Psychologically, the girl was definitely guarded. Was she also very protective at her core? He wished she had held still enough for him to really look at the decorative designs on it. And it was interesting that he should instinctively relate her weapon to a zanpakutō. He'd have to poke at that more.
Moving on. How were the jewel, the ring, and the shield related? Was the base form the ring, and it turned into whatever tool the girl needed? Was there a set number of things it could turn into, or was it more versatile? The jewel had transformed into a ring before she manifested the shield, but it had then glowed with the same purple light as the shield appeared. Her hand had been hard to focus on from his angle so he didn't know if the ring was still on her finger as she fought. If they were all the same item, did what he had witnessed imply that the tool had to return to a base form before assuming another? That would be inconvenient. Also, an interesting check on her power.
And he hadn't felt a trace of the Hollow-like reiatsu rise in battle.
So many questions, so few answers.
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Homura met the Kurosaki sisters outside the gate to their school as they had agreed to that morning. The three bought drinks from a vending machine and repeated their eastbound search of the railway corridor. Another day, another bust. It was getting seriously annoying. When they reached the edge of town without finding anything, Karin snarled and kicked a rock.
After visibly forcing herself to calm down, Karin grudgingly said, "May as well detour up to Urahara Shop as long as we're this far over. Make it look like we're not hiding anything with our wandering around."
The other two girls had no objections, so the trio wandered northward. When they entered the little courtyard, they found a boy practicing swings with a baseball bat while a girl diligently swept the front porch.
"Hey, Ururu," called Karin. The girl nodded a greeting at her, eyes sliding to Homura in curiosity. "This is Homura. We were here the other day, but I don't think you got to meet."
Homura and Ururu murmured quiet greetings and bowed politely. Karin started to walk to the shop.
"Oi! Kurosaki! Not gonna introduce me?!" bellowed the red-haired boy.
"Why would I introduce anyone to you, Jinta?" Karin drawled.
Just as the boy looked like he would burst with rage, Yuzu waved and cheerfully said, "Hello, Jinta!"
The boy immediately backed down and looked bashful. "Uh, hi, Yuzu. H-how are you?"
Karin and Ururu looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
When the girls entered the shop, they found a mountain of a man tending the counter. Homura couldn't recall ever seeing such a tall person.
"Hi, Tessai," the twins said.
The big man nodded cordially and said, "Good afternoon, Karin, Yuzu." He dipped his head at Homura. "Good afternoon, miss."
Homura was gravely returning his nod when Urahara swept in from the stock room. "Hello, hello, hello! What can I help you girls with?" he sang. He waved his fan around, indicating shelves. "Hollow-repellent key chains are buy two, get one free today! Once opened, each is guaranteed to work for a whole month! Available in five different mascot designs! Also, imported European candy is half-off due to overstock!"
Karin started out uninterested but perked up. "Are those Italian Glitterati things included in the sale?"
"Of course!" Urahara waved his fan at one particular shelf.
Karin crowed "Score!" and rushed over to it.
Urahara looked at Homura as though searching for something. She stared right back at him, unfazed. Urahara tipped his hat to her. "You've had quite the week, Miss Akemi. As an apology for my slow progress in this investigation, please help yourself to whatever you want from the candy section. Consider it a gift."
Homura tilted her head and kept staring. She wondered if he was being genuine. He was hard to read. It unsettled her.
"C'mon, Homura!" Karin called. "Usually I'd say don't take candy from strangers—"
"Heyyyyy."
"—But Urahara stocks the good stuff and can't mess with it because he sells it to the normals, too."
Urahara pouted dramatically. "You wound me, Karin."
Karin rolled her eyes. "Psshyeah, right. Come on, Homura!"
Homura slowly walked over to Karin, glancing over her shoulder at Urahara. She was uncomfortable leaving her back open to him. Karin grabbed her hand and yanked her over to the candy. "Choose!"
Homura stared blankly at the literal wall of candy.
Yuzu leaned forward and smiled over her tins of Flavigny anise drops. "Do you have a favorite foreign candy, Homura?"
Memories of her late mother taking her to a fancy candy store on the way home from the Nutcracker ballet every Christmas swam up into her conscious mind. "Marzipan," Homura said softly. Just as softly, she immediately tucked away that set of memories. She knew better than to dwell on them these days.
The sisters made identical hums of thought as they searched the shelves. Karin jolted and darted a hand out. "Aww, yeah, he has it! This is it, right?"
Homura hummed agreement and gently took the box from Karin. She stood by the door with her box of marzipan and stared at Urahara while the sisters purchased their own candy. Urahara stared evenly back at her.
She really didn't know what to make of the man.
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When the girls were gone, Kisuke went to his lab to look up the results of the passive scan he had run a second time to verify the previous results. He was understandably quite surprised to see that the results were very different from Sunday. Yuzu and Homura were completely free of the Hollow-like reiatsu, while the concentration of it in Karin's soul had lessened. Kisuke frowned and scratched his head.
He really didn't know what to make of those girls.
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When Homura approached the gate of the twins' school on Thursday afternoon, she found Karin's white-haired shinigami friend already leaning against the wall. She slowed, unsure whether she should stay or leave. It would probably be suspicious to leave, she supposed, so she stepped up to the gate and positioned herself across from him with a quiet, "Hello."
He glanced up from his cell phone, apparently in the middle of texting. "Good afternoon," he said politely. "How are you... holding up?"
Homura looked down and smoothed her skirt demurely while she decided how to answer. "Well enough, I suppose. Karin and Yuzu are good company."
The shinigami hummed in agreement. "I'm glad to hear it."
Both stood in companionable silence until the bell rang, neither feeling a particular need to talk to the other. They were aloof in the face of the students streaming out the gates until the Kurosaki sisters approached.
"Well, looky here," exclaimed Karin. "It's our good buddies Stoic and Stoicker."
"That's not a real word, Kurosaki," Tōshirō drawled. He nodded hello to Yuzu.
"It's a word if I say it is," Karin said snobbily.
"Who died and made you god-queen of the dictionary?" Tōshirō asked, mildly caustic.
"Who said you could go back to calling me Kurosaki? Brr, Tōsh, I feel the chill."
Tōshirō lazily rolled his eyes and Yuzu giggled. Homura felt like some kind of inside joke had just gone over her head.
Karin smirked. "Hey, Homura, you remember my buddy Tōshirō, right?"
"Hitsugaya," Tōshirō corrected without much enthusiasm, as though knowing he was already defeated.
"Tōshirō," Karin reaffirmed with a glare his way. "He's kind of a stick in the mud, but he's a decent guy. Great at soccer, at least."
Expression flat, Tōshirō droned, "Stop, you're making me blush."
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Hitsugaya," Homura murmured with a bow.
Tōshirō nodded. "Likewise." He turned to Karin and held up one hand to draw attention to Homura. "Do you see how easy that was, Karin?"
"Eh," Karin replied with a careless shrug. Tōshirō sighed.
The four began walking away together. When they were an acceptable distance from other people, Yuzu asked, "How did your mission go, Tōshirō?"
Tōshirō's face twitched, probably at the informality. "It went well. I think I only need to split one patrol area into two. The officer there is handling the increased population all right but I'd feel better about it if he wasn't pushing himself quite so hard. He has done his duty quite well under duress so I'm going to give him leave when I split the patrol in two and let him choose which half he wants to serve in after he's rested."
"Ooh, you're such a considerate commanding officer, Tōshirō," Yuzu said sunnily.
Tōshirō blushed slightly and scratched a cheek with one finger. "Anyway, I finished sooner than I had expected so I have a few days left in the World of the Living. I figured I'd use it as a little vacation. Play some soccer or something."
"Aww, yeeeahhhhh," crowed Karin.
Witch hunting was abandoned for the day in favor of hours on a soccer field. Karin had scrounged up her soccer buddies (or minions, as Tōshirō muttered to Homura under his breath) to fill out some teams. Having been ill much of her life, it was the first time Homura had ever participated in a team sport. She could see why it was so popular now— it was fun. Even if Karin's minions were distasteful little trolls. It would be so much more fun if Karin's minions were replaced by the Mitakihara magical girls. Homura's earlier thought about playing soccer with everyone when she finally won became more solid in her mind's eye.
It would happen one day. Absolutely. She had to have faith in that.
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WITCH DATA
MARCIA
The Conductor Witch with a sassy nature. Her personal mission is to always put on a good show. Even battle is symphonic for her.
Minion: Cecelia, whose duty is to perform perfectly.
A/N: Witch Marcia is a fairly direct cameo of Nonon Jakuzure from Kill la Kill. She actually has a bizarre battle form I didn't have to tweak much to make into a Witch.
This chapter was replaced with an edited version on November 1, 2019. Reviews with timestamps before that date refer to a slightly different version of the chapter.