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SECHSUNDFÜNFZIG
TIMELINE X + N + 1
Nagisa spent Friday huddled with Daddy, grieving in their tiny apartment in the sketchier far southwest of Mitakihara. When Mommy had stopped working, money had gotten tighter. They had sold their house and moved into a nice apartment back in Kinuma. When Mommy got so sick she had to be transferred to Mitakihara, Daddy had regretfully explained that while the government was now paying all of Mommy's medical bills, he couldn't find a good enough job in the new city to get a really nice apartment and they would have to eat cheap food that wouldn't be as good as she was used to. But that was okay with Nagisa as long as she could be near Mommy while she got better. Mommy said that when she was better enough to go back to work, they would be able to live somewhere nice again. And they would celebrate with Mommy's favorite cheesecake. The really fancy kind. The expensive kind. The kind they couldn't afford anymore. The kind Nagisa had wasted her wish on.
Now Mommy was gone forever because Nagisa was a stupid stupid stupid idiot and Nagisa and Daddy only had the ruins of their old lives falling through the hole the wrecking ball of Mommy's death had left in their family. The way Daddy kept breaking down crying was Nagisa's fault. Her Soul Gem was dimming again, but she didn't call Miss Homura. Nagisa probably deserved whatever would happen to her if it turned black so she didn't want to waste the older magical girl's time and Grief Seeds.
On Saturday, Daddy and Nagisa took a train east to the coast by Shinchi. They wandered the shore with Mommy's small metal urn until they found an abandoned pier. They spent a long time sitting on its edge, holding hands and looking out at the ocean even though the place made Nagisa's skin crawl as though something creepy had happened there. Mommy had loved the ocean. She had organized so many summer beach trips over the years. Daddy said they would take Mommy's ashes to the family grave back in Kinuma someday, but he wanted to take Mommy to the sea one more time. Nagisa hadn't known her heart could break even more than it already had.
So they sat and listened to the surf without speaking, the urn full of Mommy's ashes a loud presence cradled in Daddy's hands.
When they tried to go home at sunset, the direct route train was shut down because of an accident down the line. So they took the long way that looped up through Kazamino. When they got off to transfer to a westward subway, Daddy paused and cocked his head as though he had heard something. After a few halting steps, he turned away from the entrance and walked right past it.
"Daddy? Where are you going?"
"There's... something I need to do," he said distantly.
"Oh. Okay." Nagisa dutifully tagged along after him.
They zigzagged through streets and alleyways. Daddy stopped answering questions after a few blocks— or what felt like a few blocks; Nagisa thought they might be going in circles. She stayed quiet though— a lady at the hospital had told her Daddy might do weird sad things for awhile and that was normal so she shouldn't be scared. But she worried when Daddy stopped and stared at a bar. Then he stepped into the street to cross to it. Without looking both ways. Which he always, always yelled at her for doing. A car screeched to a halt and honked. Daddy just kept walking forward with the same uncertain steps. No reaction.
"Daddy?!"
No answer.
Nagisa bit her lip, looked both ways, and darted after him. Instead of going into the bar, Daddy wandered around its corner into an alley. If she hadn't been watching him so closely, she would have missed the mark on his neck as he turned.
A Witch's Kiss.
Nagisa whipped her head down to look at her ring. Her Soul Gem was glowing. There was a Witch nearby. She panicked and shouted, "Daddy! Stop! Come back!"
Not only did he not stop or answer, but he dropped Mommy's urn from limp fingers. It hit the pavement with a metallic clang and rolled away into some trash.
Nagisa's stomach lurched. "Daddy, no!"
A dark sigil wavered into existence in front of several crates of empty booze bottles. It looked like a blocky sketch of a bird whose head and tail were sticking out of a wire birdcage. And Daddy walked right into it. The sigil swallowed him and blinked out of existence.
Panic froze Nagisa. For a minute, all she could do was gape in horrified disbelief at the wavering air where the sigil had been. She then took a jerky step forward and brandished her Soul Gem to make the sigil appear again. Just to make sure it was still there.
What was she supposed to do?!
Hyperventilating, Nagisa hugged herself and tried to remember Miss Homura's instructions.
Do not transform or enter a labyrinth unless you absolutely have to.
Well, Nagisa thought this qualified as absolutely have to.
Transform. Your first priority is to shield your Soul Gem. Your second priority is to flare your magic to attract attention to your location.
She could do that. She could do that. Yes, she could do that.
Your third priority is to run for the address I gave you and cross the property line. They know about magical girls and have protections.
She couldn't do that. Not when Daddy was inside the labyrinth.
The new magical girl stole Tomoe's Soul Gem in a fight last night. She set a labyrinth on fire and attacked Mami from behind.
She... she would have to be very careful. It was very dangerous, but she couldn't leave Daddy. Nagisa failed at saving Mommy because she was tricked, but she could never forgive herself if she didn't do better at saving Daddy. If Mommy was watching from Heaven, maybe she would be happy if Nagisa could save Daddy.
Maybe Mommy would forgive her.
Taking a deep breath, Nagisa transformed, flared her magic as much as she could— reached, reached, felt Miss Homura's magic flare in alarmed response from afar— blew a bubble for her Soul Gem, and entered the labyrinth on shaky legs.
§ x § x §
Hitsugaya slammed a hand on Homura's shoulder just as she was about to stop time and home in on where Momoe's magic had flared and disappeared. Homura snarled and tried to shake him off but his grip was like cold iron. She opened her mouth to yell at him but he shook her hard as his phone rang.
"Dammit, Akemi, you have allies to coordinate with now!" Hitsugaya snapped as he yanked his phone out of a pocket with his free hand. "Don't run off on your own without cursory communication so we don't trip each other up!"
He had a point, but this kind of delay was part of why Homura had once vowed not to rely on anyone anymore. It was faster to plan everything considering only herself. Besides, she actually had control of herself. She couldn't control allies, and that was a weakness that lowered the effectiveness of having allies.
Hitsugaya tapped his phone's screen to put the caller on speaker. Without any greeting, Urahara's voice barked, "Thirty-eight degrees northeast of your position. Fourteen-point-one kilometers."
Homura blinked and dully said, "What?"
"You didn't think I'd move up here and not deploy at least some sensors from the moment the wards were active, did you? I got even more online since the carousel," Urahara said mildly. "Look for a McDonald's—"
"A what?" asked Hitsugaya.
"Western food. Sign's a giant yellow letter M," Urahara explained. "Look for that, a bar with a blue neon sign shaped like a martini glass, and a red, white, and green convenience store sign. The signal was somewhere in between. I still have some tweaking to do to make triangulation more exact."
Homura stared at Hitsugaya's phone. That was... unexpectedly useful information.
"Anything else detected in the area?" Hitsugaya asked curtly.
"Aside from Momoe's transformation signature? Nope~!" Urahara sang. "Not that my current sensor array can pick up, anyway."
"Keep us updated," Hitsugaya said curtly, then ended the call. He turned to Homura and raised a brow expectantly, yellow magic flickering around his fingers.
Homura nodded firmly and froze time. They rushed through the washed-out city linked by the magic lasso spell, tersely calling out plans for working around each other once they figured out what they'd be fighting. When they found Urahara's landmarks, they stopped in the middle of their triangle and Homura dropped the timestop.
"I do not sense Sōju," Homura said as she cast about. She held up her Soul Gem and observed its glow. "There is a labyrinth nearby." They hopped around rooftops dowsing for the entrance. When they found it, Homura frowned at the sigil. Before Hitsugaya could ask, she said, "The Birdcage Witch. It is a giant pair of a woman's legs trapped in a birdcage. To defeat it, you must first break the birdcage. I can usually take it out with one grenade once the cage is out of the way. It can sling chains down from above. It is a very dim labyrinth. Familiars are birdmen who are vulnerable to fire. Generally not a difficult labyrinth, but if Sōju is inside..."
"A simple labyrinth is probably the best place to fight her," Hitsugaya muttered. "Would it have a lot of hiding places?" He rolled his shoulders and manifested an ice sword and a loose collar made of ice that confused Homura until she realized it would protect his neck if Sōju tried to slip behind him. He wouldn't be able to immediately heal a critical neck injury like Homura could.
Homura pulled a flamethrower from her shield and prepared it. "It is a very large... room or hall, and things tend to be obscured by darkness beyond a certain distance, but there aren't a lot of solid objects to hide behind. I would keep an eye on the bar counters, though."
"Bar counters, huh?" Hitsugaya said with a glance at the bins full of empty alcohol bottles by the back door of the bar. Taking a deep breath, he looked back to the sigil and said, "Shall we?"
As usual, the floor was lined in black lace and ambient light was provided by multicolored gemstones raining from the fathomless darkness above. The scents of spiced rum and cigarette smoke wafted through the labyrinth accompanied by the sound of chirping birds and rustling wings. Homura led Hitsugaya forward by the least-obscured path of lace as it meandered through the darkness. There were points where the distant walls narrowed enough for them to make out the glimmer of sheer, beaded curtains, shelves full of books, booze bottles, and neat displays of glassware— cordials, flutes, goblets, shot glasses, all manner of things to drink alcohol out of in style. A couple minutes in, they started to find islands of twitching feathers and masculine limbs in the darkness.
"Momoe must have managed to get through the first wave herself," Homura commented. "Unless it was Sōju. But I do not see burn damage or slices."
Hitsugaya hummed unhappily and peered into the darkness on either side. "That bar counter. Explosive damage without scorching."
Homura glanced to one side and saw a shattered bar counter in the distance, bar stools and shards of glass lying in disarray with dead birdmen slumped on the bar.
"Probably Momoe, then," Homura said.
They hadn't gone far when the abyss above them became dense with the sound of angry birdcalls. Homura aimed her flamethrower straight up just as the first Familiars descended. As usual, they were the bodies of muscular men with wings for arms and colorful bird heads with ridiculously oversized eyes. Once they were in range, Homura methodically swept a jet of flame over their heads. Burned birdmen dropped around them. She sprayed fire until the Familiars stopped coming. Hitsugaya dispatched any that survived their fall to the ground with quick stabs.
Hitsugaya glanced at her curiously as she lowered the flamethrower. "I've heard of those but never actually seen one," he said. "Where did you steal that from?"
Homura noted the lack of judgment in the question. As though the theft itself was unimportant. Good. "I took a train to a forest half an hour inland and got it from a rural firefighting regional headquarters," she said as she checked the weapon's integrity. "They stock them to set controlled back-burn fires to stop the spread of forest fires."
The shinigami tilted his head thoughtfully and said, "Back-burn...? Huh," before returning to scanning for enemies. The look on his face reminded her of when Urahara was fascinated by something she mentioned that made him want to do research. She began to understand an offhand comment Karin had made about her friend frequently prodding her with questions about things modern living humans did.
They proceeded warily, fighting off waves of Familiars until they heard popping, explosions, and a girl's voice making distressed sounds between high-pitched horn blasts. They increased their pace but didn't allow themselves to be distracted from watching for an ambush. When they reached a bend in the lace floor, they found Nagisa Momoe desperately fighting off a swarm of Familiars with her bubble trumpet, her fear plain on her face as she stood over a body. It took a moment, but Homura recognized the unconscious man as Momoe's father.
Well, at least Momoe actually had an understandable excuse for ignoring her order to not enter a labyrinth by herself. It was obvious that she was in over her head, though.
Exchanging a glance with Hitsugaya, Homura said, "I will use the flamethrower. You shield them and watch for ground attack." The shinigami raised a brow at her barking orders again, but must have found the plan reasonable as he gave her a businesslike nod and leapt forward at her side. Hitsugaya defended with horizontal slashes of his sword and arcs of ice while Homura concentrated on the birdmen from above. Homura noted the louder sound of clanging chains; they must be near the Witch.
A shriek of metal on ice behind her made her instinctively dodge to one side. As she turned, she saw that Hitsugaya had blocked a blow from Sōju, who appeared to have struck from a downward angle through the air thick with roasting birdmen. The shinigami redirected the strike, released one hand's grip on the hilt, and punched at Sōju's face with a fist encased in spiky ice. She dodged backward and crowed, "Punto d'Infiammabilità!"
Hundreds of needles of flame lanced out at them. Homura conjured her swirling violet barrier as Hitsugaya countered with a horizontal sweep of ice. The projectiles exploded with blinding flashes upon impact with the ice, kicking up a huge cloud of steam. Sōju grinned and melted backward into the smoke and steam like a phantom. Momoe gave a delayed shrill of fright as the sound of Sōju's laughter echoed around them.
"You had to bring a boy into a fight between girls?" Sōju taunted airily. "Are you scared of little old me? I thought you were tougher than that."
Homura didn't bother responding. She stored the flamethrower and pulled a machine gun as Hitsugaya made ice race up from his hands to form bracers on his forearms and extended a ledge of ice down and back from his collar like miniature wings to guard his shoulders. They took stances on either side of Momoe, facing outward and scanning for Sōju in the darkness between falling gemstones.
"Not gonna talk? How rude. Maybe another sword through your skull will teach you some manners."
Momoe sobbed in fear and huddled over her father's body. "What do you want?! Why are you attacking us?!"
"Want?" Sōju echoed. "Your Soul Gems, of course!"
Her voice bounced around with a different quality. Homura figured she must be moving around. It was difficult to sense her clearly so close to the Witch, whose distant thrashing was making chains rattle above them.
"Why?!" Momoe squealed.
"Why?" Light laughter mocked her. "I collect them! They're unmatched in beauty because they shine with the light of life!" Her voice suddenly sounded closer. "Ooh, a white Soul Gem? That's uncommon. Here, let me show you!"
Small flashes of brilliant color and a few splashes of white light blinked into existence among the falling gemstones of the labyrinth. Dozens of Soul Gems sparkled all around them in the thinning steam. Dozens. Bile rose in Homura's throat. The theft of Mami's Soul Gem hadn't been a one-off strategy. This girl stole souls just like the Incubator did.
"What's your name, little one?" Sōju's voice cooed from yet another angle. "Gems need names, you know? I need to label my collection properly."
"You're sick," Hitsugaya said in a low sneer.
Sōju just laughed.
Momoe sobbed. "I don't want to be— I don't— Don't take my—"
"Then run away, little girl," Sōju said sweetly as poisoned honey. "Akemi's the one I want most. I'll be nice and give you a head start. I'll find you later. Take the boy with you."
"Run," Homura ordered.
Momoe whipped her head up to stare at Homura. "But Daddy!"
"Take him!" Hitsugaya snapped.
"B-but he's big and I'm little!"
Homura forced herself not to turn and glare at the girl, staying alert for attack. "You're a magical girl! Use your magic!" she snarled.
Momoe squeaked like a mouse, rustled around fretfully, then blew a big bubble with a shrill toot on her horn. Soon, Homura caught a glimpse of her in the corner of her eye as she ran away, pushing a bubble containing her father's senseless body ahead of her.
There was only the eerie rattle of chains for a long minute. At length, Sōju's voice huffed, "When are you going to kick out your boyfriend and fight me woman-to-woman?"
Homura's eye twitched in irritation. Hitsugaya muttered something under his breath.
Sōju sighed in false disappointment. "I guess we are more evenly matched this way," she declared. "Makes it more fun." Her voice shifted again. "Are you really going to shoot a machine gun around indiscriminately? With all these beautiful souls floating around? A good girl like you wouldn't want to hit any, would you?" Sōju finally stepped from the darkness further up the lace path, barely within sight. "Especially this one." She held an amber Soul Gem up between forefinger and thumb, licked it smugly, and cradled it right up in front of her own Soul Gem, a red spinel attached to the shoulder just above the white and purple ruffles at her left breast.
Mami. Mami's Soul Gem.
Sōju smirked and dipped her head down to touch the tip of her tongue against the floral ornament atop Mami's Soul Gem. Homura's blood sang in her ears with her rage, but she forcibly reined herself in. She couldn't allow herself to be prodded into the same kind of instinctively angry reactions that had cost her in their last encounter.
Homura scowled and stopped time. She turned to face Sōju and scrutinized the space between them. No clear shot. Not with Sōju using Mami's Soul Gem as the magical girl equivalent of a human shield.
"Akemi."
She glanced sideways at Hitsugaya, who had turned with her. His face was sharp and utterly without emotion beyond a cold glint in his eye. "We'll flank her. Push Soul Gems aside and loop around. Get out one of your small guns. I'll grab Tomoe's Gem. You be ready to shoot Sōju's as soon as I get Tomoe's clear, before Sōju has time to react."
Homura hated being ordered around but the plan was sound so she nodded, shoved the unused machine gun back in her shield, and retrieved a Beretta. They walked to Sōju with measured steps, the yellow rope spell glowing between their ankles expanding as necessary while they gently pushed aside Soul Gems as though parting curtains. When they reached the enemy magical girl, Homura stared at her face for a moment. She wanted to stab it as payback, but Sōju had proven to have quick reactions once exempted by contact. It would be too much of a risk for something so petty.
Beretta raised, Homura shifted around until she found a good angle and positioned the muzzle a bare centimeter from Sōju's spinel. She met Hitsugaya's eyes and raised a brow. He shifted around her and hovered a hand near Mami's Soul Gem.
"On three. One. Two. Three."
Hitsugaya clamped his hand over the amber egg and Sōju's fist and yanked to the side, away from Sōju's Soul Gem. The contact exempted Sōju from the timestop. She gasped but didn't have time to react beyond that as Homura's handgun immediately shattered her Soul Gem. Homura dropped the timestop and coldly watched the light leave Sōju's eyes as her battle costume evaporated around her. The empty body crumpled to the floor. Homura stared at it as the multitude of floating Soul Gems fell to the floor with a chiming series of pings.
Homura still wanted to stab Sōju's face.
"Let's collect all these Soul Gems," Hitsugaya said solemnly as he held Mami's out to Homura. "We can't just leave them here."
Homura took it and stored it in her shield with a sigh. "Yes."
They had turned, walked a few steps back, and were bent to pluck Soul Gems when unfamiliar magic exploded behind them. They whipped around to look just as Sōju's enraged voice roared, "Caso Freddo!"
Homura barely registered the words before a cold force slammed into her back like a wall of knives and sent her tumbling. She rolled to her feet and looked back again. Hitsugaya had large spikes of ice lodged in the ice armor over his shoulders and had bleeding gashes on the side of his head and various parts of his body, but he swung his ice sword with a roar and sent his own flock of dagger-like icicles flying back at Sōju. Homura caught a glimpse of Sōju in a different, red magical girl costume just before the girl swung her sword to block the icicles and shrieked, "L'Inverno sta Arrivando!" Hail and snow pelted them as the labyrinth filled with a dense, freezing mist.
Homura froze time and stared out into the fog as she and her ally broke chunks of ice off their limbs. Sōju had disappeared; the mist surrounded them with her magic and made it impossible to sense her position.
Hitsugaya lowered his blade. "The hell is going on?! I saw you break her Gem! Felt her reiatsu disappear! She should be dead!"
"She had a different costume," Homura muttered as she pulled a machine gun. "That implies a different Soul Gem." She paused in thought. "She is using a completely different sort of magic, too."
"Ice against ice. Great," Hitsugaya grumbled, also scanning the mist.
"Worried?" Homura asked lowly.
"Not particularly," he replied. "It'll just be annoying to calculate how much resistance she has to ice attacks and use just enough power to overwhelm her." He eyed Homura over his shoulder. "Does the Incubator come into labyrinths to possibly see me use more power than I show outside?"
"Sometimes," Homura answered. "Usually with a magical girl so it can observe her, but who knows what else it does."
"What a pain," Hitsugaya griped. "So much for releasing seals and snatching all the mist from her before she realizes what I'm doing."
"You can do that?"
"Of course. Hyōrinmaru gives me control of the moisture in the air. This mist feels like mostly natural moisture held by her reiatsu, not her reiatsu solidified. If her grip on it isn't strong enough, I can turn it against her. Without my limiters, that would be easy as breathing." He scowled unhappily. "That ability is limited in this gigai. There would be a delay before I could control all of it and with the limiter on me she may be able to... start a tug of war on it, I guess."
"Concentrating on that could delay her reactions to me, though."
Hitsugaya perked up and looked calculating. "Point."
After a brief discussion, Homura dropped the timestop.
"We weren't going to kill the boy, you know," Sōju's bitter voice echoed around them. "But now you've destroyed my precious Ayase. She was my greatest treasure. I'm going to make you suffer!"
"Talking about yourself in plural and third person now? You really are insane," Hitsugaya taunted as he held his sword out in front of him; tendrils of the mist crept along the ground, faintly swirled around his feet, and shimmered up his body. "Guess that's to be expected from a homicidal soul collector. Monster."
Harsh laughter rang around them. "You killed Ayase, not me."
"And who are you?" Homura asked.
"My name is Luca Sōju," Sōju's voice said airily. "You killed my sister. Prepare to die!"
Before she could attack, Hitsugaya made a yanking motion with his blade. The mist in a five meter radius was rapidly drawn to and around him. It condensed into icicles the size of bullets and he launched them in every direction with a shout.
A series of pings like breaking glass rang out around them. Much of the mist rapidly retreated, leaving a wide open area studded with floating colored sparkles but leaving enough to continue to conceal Sōju's location. Hitsugaya's grip on the mist had slipped in his horror at the realization that the enemy had sent the scattered Soul Gems airborne again and he had irrevocably shattered several souls.
"Who's the monster now?" Sōju drawled condescendingly. "At least I don't destroy Soul Gems. I treasure them for the precious life they are. You're such a cold-blooded murderer! And ruining my collection besides!" Her voice rose in a snarl. "Those were priceless, you bastard!"
"Then you should not have risked them like that in the first place, you idiot," Homura sniffed. Her eyes slid to Hitsugaya, who made a choking sound that edged into a hateful growl. "Do not let her get under your skin," she said emotionlessly. The glance he gave her started angry and moved into incredulous— accusatory— then bitter before he looked away again.
"Ooh, my precious Ayase was right! You are the stoic type!" Sōju's voice cooed. It immediately dropped into guttural rage. "I'll collect your Soul Gem if it's the last thing I do, bitch."
"Go ahead and try," Homura said lightly, face a cold mask as she continued to sweep her machine gun around warily. A large part of her didn't care about the other Soul Gems. Those girls were functionally dead anyway. Or would have been, without her new allies. The possibility of the souls being given those fake bodies made her pause, but eliminating Sōju was her first priority. The more the enemy's voice shifted back and forth between mocking cheer and dark fury, the more convinced she was that the girl was truly insane. It meant she was dangerously unpredictable, yes, but it also meant she was more likely to make a stupid mistake if they could taunt her enough to attack without thinking— the tactic she was trying to use on Hitsugaya. And so... "Your sister tried repeatedly and look where it got her. She is less than dust now. Would you like to join her? I am more than willing to oblige."
Sōju's voice gave a wordless shriek of rage and the floating Soul Gems flew toward one position in the mist. The mist dropped from around Luca Sōju, who stood firm with a sword brandished and had a thoroughly unhinged look on her face. The Soul Gems whirled around her billowing red dress in a tight orbit. It would be impossible to attack her without hitting a Soul Gem. Sōju threw her arms wide and screamed, "And how do you think you'll be able to do that without destroying these other beautiful souls? You wouldn't want to destroy them just to get me, would you?" She looked hard at Hitsugaya and bared her teeth in a mocking grin. "You wouldn't want to be a mass murderer, would you?"
With Sōju's position revealed, Homura raised her shield with a sneer to freeze time and pluck the Soul Gems from the air. Which they should have done in the first place, damn it all. Sometimes she hated hindsight.
FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
A stream of bubbles flooded at Sōju from behind. Some hit her and exploded, but most flowed around her and encased each Soul Gem then spiraled upward and behind Sōju as she whirled to look. There stood Nagisa Momoe, shielded in cleared air by a bubble at the edge of the mist, looking utterly terrified as she continued to blow her trumpet. The Soul Gems shielded by her bubbles flocked around her. Sōju roared in rage and charged at the girl, sword raised for a strike.
Homura stopped time.
"The little idiot," Homura hissed.
"I dunno, seems to have worked," Hitsugaya said grudgingly. At least he was also unhappy.
Homura drew a steadying breath and suppressed her anger. Later. She could deal with the little twit later. "Let's finish this."
They stepped up to Sōju and stood on either side of her. They found Luca's white Soul Gem on the opposite shoulder Ayase's red one had been on— encased in thick ice that glowed with her magic. Homura clicked her teeth in annoyance and Hitsugaya huffed in frustration.
"Looks like she picked up your trick," Hitsugaya said with a glance to the barrier Homura held around her own Soul Gem.
"Use your magic to remove the ice."
Hitsugaya frowned and held a hand near the lump, gauging it. "It's her ice, made of her reiatsu— magic. Damn near fused to her actual soul. I can't control that. It's not truly moisture."
Homura's lip curled into a snarl. "Stab her in the face while I drop the stop and shoot her ice at close range. She— or her sister— had unusually fast reactions to exemptions from the stop, so your job is to sabotage that. Pull back and I will freeze again. I will aim again. Stab her somewhere else. Dismember her if you must. We will do it as many times as it takes for me to chip through her ice." She was pleased that he nodded and got in position to do as she said.
The first four repetitions went well; the ice shield was stubbornly resisting much of the impact and ricocheting bullets glowing with Homura's violet magic off into the misty darkness, but Homura managed to chip away half of its thickness. On the fifth repetition— probably about two seconds' time from Sōju's perspective— the lump of ice exploded outward in spikes with Hitsugaya's next stab at her abdomen. Aim ruined, Homura fell back with an icicle through her left eye socket and right clavicle as the barrier over her Soul Gem took a direct hit but stayed intact. She heard Hitsugaya curse and cough wetly, then the clang of steel on ice somewhere to her left as she reeled and took stock of her head injury. What kind of contact did Sōju have with Hitsugaya to be able to move? Unimportant. One eye was hit but both eyes were blind. The icicle was angled through her optical—
"Drop the stop and heal faster, Akemi!" Hitsugaya roared, voice rough and almost gurgling. Punctured lung? "I've got this!"
Homura ground her teeth but obliged. The sound of sword battle and the sting of cold moved further away, joined by the sound of birds. They had moved far enough along the path to trigger another wave of Familiars. Fabulous.
"Momoe! Shield her!" Hitsugaya ordered with undeniable authority.
The little girl gave a startled squeak. Momoe's trumpet trilled. Homura felt herself surrounded in magic— one of Momoe's bubble barriers. The whole thing was infuriating. It would allow her to focus her magic and heal with greater efficiency, but she hated it.
She should have just bombed Luca Sōju when she was standing out in the open, Soul Gems be damned. Should've killed Ayase in the alleyway at their first meeting instead of trying to figure her out.
Should've, should've, should've. Always should've.
Enraged, Homura gripped the icicle through her eye socket and yanked it out. She flooded her brain and eyes with magic— again, damn Sōju and her— their?— head shots— as she tugged the other icicle out of her chest. It took but a moment to stem the blood loss there and snap her clavicle together like a jigsaw puzzle. Several moments more and Homura's sight was restored, her magic then shifting to repair the rest of the wound.
The mist was gone but there was ice everywhere. Their entire group had wandered far enough for the chains above them to be low enough to be visible. Icicles dangled from every chain, some glowing faintly blue and others glowing faintly white. Birdmen were encased in boulders of ice in a winding trail along the lace floor. Hitsugaya and Sōju were engaged in vicious sword combat, each using their ice in dirty tricks to surprise the other. Both were bloodied, but every wound they had was iced over. Sōju was worse off and on the defensive, backing deeper into the labyrinth with many of Hitsugaya's strikes.
"Remove your barrier," Homura ordered Momoe without looking at her. She watched the two combatants intensely, waiting for an opportune moment to stop time— looking for a good opening on that goddamn Soul Gem.
"B-but—" Momoe stammered.
"Do it!"
Momoe squeaked; the bubble popped harmlessly as Homura stalked forward, waiting for the perfect moment. She didn't have to wait long. The next time Hitsugaya and Sōju locked blades, the shinigami conjured a spike of ice on his knee and rammed it up into Sōju's stomach. The girl shrieked and jerked just enough for Hitsugaya to force her blade aside and slide his sword down toward her left wrist. Sōju let go of her blade with one hand, flung the hand behind her, then thrust it forward in a palm strike at Hitsugaya's brow. Hitsugaya's eyes widened as he saw the imitation Grief Seed flying toward his face, snapped the ice spike off his knee, let go of his blade, and dodged back awkwardly while making the ice bracer on his forearm expand into a crude shield to block the—
Homura stopped time with a click as soon as Hitsugaya had no direct or indirect physical contact with Sōju.
Even as he stumbled back, Hitsugaya opened his hand and made another sword of ice. He fell into a ready stance with it and an armored forearm blocking his face, hyper-focused on Sōju as he panted heavily. It took several breaths for him to process the timestop and relax. He turned to see Homura prowling toward them with one hand deep in her shield.
"Akemi—"
"Shut up." She hauled out an RPG launcher and shouldered it. "Chop that hand off, grab that thing, and get back."
Hitsugaya's brows arched toward his hairline, but he turned back to Sōju with his face settled into arctic lack of emotion. His blade quickly severed Sōju's hand— the one holding the fake Grief Seed. Sōju was exempted from the timestop for only the span of a breath before freezing again. Lowering his sword, Hitsugaya plucked the object from the severed hand's palm, encased it in ice, shoved it in his pocket, fell back, and took a defensive pose between Sōju and Momoe.
Homura stopped ten meters from Sōju. She shot the RPG at the girl's face. Pulled another and shot it at her abdomen. Pulled another and shot it at the Soul Gem on her shoulder.
Time started up again with three simultaneous explosions. Homura stood firm in the backwash, glowing violet, and raised her shield arm to conjure her swirling barrier and whirl it outward to clear the smoke. She froze time again as soon as she could see Sōju, then walked closer. The enemy had been blasted back and was frozen in a tumble, thoroughly maimed but Soul Gem intact.
The ice around the Soul Gem was gone, though.
Homura stared at it hatefully for a moment before pulling a pipe bomb from her shield and dropping it from a height that would cause it to freeze in the air in the path Sōju's body was taking, in the perfect place to be hit by the shoulder the Soul Gem was attached to. She half expected Hitsugaya to discourage her, but he remained silent. She stepped back as she palmed the remote detonator, then released the timestop and clicked the button. Homura used her magic as a buffer against the explosion and savored the faint shattering sound that accompanied the final destruction of Sōju's second Soul Gem.
This time, Homura let the smoke clear naturally as she stood and stared at Sōju's mangled corpse. Hitsugaya stepped up next to her and stabbed his sword straight down into it, encasing it in a miniature iceberg. They stared in silence, waiting for some unlikely counterattack. The only sounds were chains, distant birds, and Momoe's still-frantic gasping.
"It's done," Hitsugaya murmured a good five minutes later.
Homura let her eyes close and sighed. "Yes."
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A/N: Punto d'Infiammabilità and L'Inverno sta Arrivando are attacks I made up based on TV show shout-outs like the manga does. They mean Flashpoint and Winter Is Coming, respectively. Or so Google Translate says.
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.