*
Thankfully it didn't take long for her to wake up. Naturally she felt like a groggy mess with a headache. Considering that she might sleep for a more than a few days, an IV drip was set up. Fortunately enough, she managed to recover her strength without much complication, she still didn't have the energy to get up from bed, but she was eating well after waking up. In the end, Kaori went out immediately to buy some games to pass the time, and the entire grocery list that they might need, as well as any medication.
The medical industry hasn't fully recovered from The Great Disaster, but some progress has been made to produce over the counter general drugs, such as pain killers and other drugs that deal with symptoms like inflammations and colds. With most of modern technology destroyed, the biggest source of capital a faction can have is the people's healthy bodies. Maintaining health, gastronomy and culture is the key for a healthy society other than the extrinsic factors like shelter and wealth.
'YOU WILL REGRET THIS.' (?)
'SET ABLAZE AN IMITATION OF HELL. ' (?)
'THOUGHTS AND LIVES ALIKE, EXTINGUISHED. ' (?)
Another set of voices. Just like before, no one could hear them. Where are these voices coming from? They come and go like a storm, specifically harassing only a single person. Her radar is on at all times, and it's undetectable at the same time. Her range has now encapsulated the entire Sanctuary, yet she cannot find a single trace of these voices' origins.
Who are you?
Her thoughts were only met with an untimely silence. When she wants answers, they go quiet. When she wants to live her life, they arrive. Truth is, she knew that this phenomenon would only continue. She has a hunch of what it was, but nothing concrete enough to undergird her conclusion. Thankfully, all that has happened so far was some shouts directed at her. It distracted for a momentary moment as she was shopping alone, freezing her in the middle of aisle. There were a couple of other customers who were suspicious of her, but they ultimately ignored her.
It was only a small disturbance. For now, she should resume her shopping. She was had already purchased the pain killers, and some drugs that dealt with cold and cough, just in case. Her dainty fingers fished through the fruits, searching for those with vibrant skin and firm weight. Something sweet would be nice, wouldn't it? Even with her radar reporting the composition of the fruits, it was still tough to figure out which one was the best.
Fruits have tons of different chemicals and compounds that compose their structure, even if her passive reports the percentage composition of these compounds, the only names that she could recognise were sugar and some simple vitamins that were easy to remember. It wasn't easy to search up these compounds without the Internet...
With the scale of humanity's population, there were bound to be some educators and scientist who survived to pass on knowledge of modern humanity's latest endeavours and discovery. In the field of education, there was a certain worry that plagued at the back of Kaori's mind. Those people who would be born after The Great Disaster, let's hope they don't treat modern science like religion... Science is meant to be challenged and built upon.
Well, she wasn't an educator. She could only hope for the best that humanity would be able to catch up to its glorious past. Ah! these vegetables look amazing! She promptly picked the most fresh looking and went to the meat section. Shopping was a smooth experience, she was astonished to find the variety of foods she could buy multiply a few fold. A healthy veggy soup could be made, but she was planning on asking Myuu for help.
Even though she had already bought the food, cooking it still seemed too daunting for her, it's best if she got some professional assistance. Her legs picked up pace, weaving through the sky scraper height alleyways. The buildings in the labyrinth were roughly laid out like the squares on a waffle, distanced at regular intervals with an all encompassing road between.
The road was made to be especially durable and resist at least C grade strength. It hinges on the expectation that C grades and above can control their strength and discipline so as not to break property. It isn't strange for newly awakened newbies to lsoe control of their strength, but people typically awaken around E or D grade, and seldomly C grade. The only ones to awaken at B grade and above... Would have to be the ancient humans when gods were rampant and peace didn't exist.
Humanity's coincidental response of numerous magical girls awakening simultaneously is a response to a drastic change in environment or introduction of new danger. These events are indicators of danger to the human species, activating a gene. In other words, magical particles act as signals to activate the gene. That's why mundane disasters like earthquakes or floods to not cause magical girls to awaken. Only a magically induced disaster like The Great Disaster would.
Behind magic of such an enormous scale, it couldn't be chalked up to coincidence for this to happen only once in at least 2000 years. Intent, people have always been pondering about the cause of such a tragedy for a while now, the fact that it was a phenomena enabled by magic was both a fact and a mystery that supports this. The labyrinth buildings were distributed in this manner so that magical girls could easily traverse the land. They don't have to worry about crashing into a building as long as they ran straight on the road, allowing to run at full speed if they wished.
Of course, an accident might still happen every now and then. Hopefully magical girl accidents occur at a lower rate than car accidents. The inclusion of vending machines and external stalls might not help, she only noticed after returning to this labyrinth. Vending machines were a new addition to the labyrinth, with a few locally produced juice brands. She roughly skipped at a pace of 2 buildings per step, if she takes it too fast she's afraid the air might heat up or she might damage the ground...
After separating from Himei, her new body's augmentations roughly copied Kaede's. Her stats border on A grade. Another change was that the government issued magic device, a chip inside the body that allowed one to examine another magical girl's augmentations in the form of stats, has now advanced to a second more sophisticated version. Apparently it could now read far more information than just augmentations, but such details are only privy to the ArcMaidens.
This was just offhand information given to Kaori and the rest who were close to Himei's ruling structure, so that they would be aware and wouldn't freak out over the loss in privacy. What kind of information the device gleaned wasn't released, and as far as the layman knew, the chip was only updated like a software through magic means, so as to cut the lag and some bugs it might have...
Speaking of which...
Name: Chu Qie
Title: None
Magical girl effectiveness level: C
Perimeters:
- Physical: B
- endurance: C
- speed: B
- will: D
- well: C
In front of her was a magical girl brazenly lifting a vending machine away. She leaped at full speed, but her right foot slipped and threw her at a lopsided angle. Kaori arrived in front of her, slamming her palm gently into her trajectory. With miniscule movement, the force exerted was many times what Chu Qie could muster, but she hadn't noticed. Her head landed on the palm and her body fell flat onto the ground, and though she was dizzy that was the full extent of her injuries.
She stumbled back up with a palm on her temple, her vision focusing on Kaori as she let's out a groan. She supposes the cameras only conducted surveillance over the teleport gates... Magical girls monitor each other so nobody committed crimes, as a result there weren't many fights, but there were constant reports of missing items.
Then... The first thing to do is to verify if she was a thief... Usually someone as high as a B or A grade gets a correspondingly high position and pay, they wouldn't resort to this sort of activity, they could just buy out what's inside the machine or buy their own vending machine... But a very real concern would be that they are stealing public items for fun...
This person was clumsy, they might sensed Kaori's presence. But how unfortunate, the thief was on the ground. Kaori easily towered over her fallen body. She squatted near her and materialised her rapier.
"... So what's with the rush? It's not too hard to execute you here and now, with your neck presented so neatly." (Kaori)
"hiii~!!!! Wait I can explain! Let me get up first, though! " (Chu Qie)
"Alright." (Kaori)
Kaori discretely snaps her fingers behind her back.
Name: Lemily Natafigia
Title: none
Magical girl effectiveness level: C
Perimeters:
- Physical: C
- endurance: C
- speed: D
- will: D
- well: C
"... Hah~?! You were some scrub carrying groceries?! I thought you were a powerful officer. Haa~then I dont have to worry so much.
Though I might have to make you disappear now. Gotta erase the witnesses, you know?" (Chu Qie)
This was a matter discussed with Himei before hand. ArcMaiden privileges, she can edit her own information. It was part of the update which involved a magic energy concealer and facade creation.
" A-a-ah... Wait... Noooo-" (Kaori)
Chu Qie closes the distance, her palm firmly pressed against Kaori's lips to stop her from screaming.
"Ah ah ah~ No screaming. It's so convenient to have someone on the inside who could cover for situations like this~" (Chu Qie)
She had short blond hair, a pair of greyish dark blue denim jacket and shorts and a white top. Her shoes were bright lime and had wings at the tip of her toes. Her jacket held a single wing of pure white feathers, and her fingers were covered by silky and velvety black gloves.
With all her speed and strength, she performs her strongest gut punch. Kaori could sense her skill activating, coating her fist in white aura before striking rather gut.
"[Divine intervention]!" (Chu Qie)
Her fist penetrates Kaori's torso, splashing her blood all over the street like a delinquent spray painting. But...
"GUAAGHH!!??!!!" (Chu Qie)
"Aiming for the gut...? Did you think I would faint from that?
Guess you weren't aiming to kill... So I won't kill you either. When killing a magical girl, you aim for the head, and if the opponent is weak, the neck is enough. Like this." (Kaori)
With a single arm, she lifted Chu Qie into the air after letting her punch hit. It certainly was interesting, [divine intervention] doesn't disable magic but it does ignore augmentations. In particular, it phased through any subconscious defense made by magic. So it could easily ignore the hardness of Kaori's body, she was fully expecting the opponent's wrist to break on her abs.
Magical girls don't exactly need air, but if they do forego oxygen, they would have to substitute with magical particles, straining their well and regenerative ability. Even without that, it's like dropping a newborn into a deep pool. The lower grade magical girls tend to be 'more human' and might not be able to fully substitute oxygen with magical particles properly. It's natural to fear asphyxiation, so it commonly becomes a psychological barrier.
Well, holding her this long should be fine. Coincidentally, there was no one else around. Of course, almost everyone in the immediate vicinity could have heard the exchange. But similarly to how they turned a blind eye to Chu Qie stealing the vending machine, they will turn a blind eye to this potential murder as well. Most magical girls wouldn't risk their lives to fight the criminal over a petty crime. It might be better to just let her have the vending machine if that could keel people safe.
It's similar to how the people in a certain country could be potentially armed... It's better not to engage and escalate, just to be prudent and keep on self safe. But Kaori wasn't like most people, that sense of self preservation might completely have vanished ever since she started her journey. Continuously throwing herself into the jaws of death and fighting other magical girls. In that case, the people in the vicinity might just have faith in her not to kill the small time thief, not that they would intervene otherwise.
She throws Chu Qie into the ground and stabs the rapier into her kidney from the front. The rapier smoothly slides into her flesh.
"GUAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!... Phfff?!! " (Chu Qie)
"Quit screaming. I need you to bring me to that 'insider'. Just 10 minutes is enough for clean up." (Kaori)
She jammed her foot into her mouth right after she screamed, her shoe roughly brushed against the surface inside her mouth after smashing in some teeth. Blood dripped out of her lips as the pain surged through her gums and torso. It might take a bit over 10 minutes to fully heal, but she should recover from the pain anytime now.