Turns out, witch hunt isn't all that exciting. We're just walking around the town with our soul gem up to detect nearby disturbance. So far we've covered like five blocks and there's still no sign of witch.
"So, Mami, are you sure it's safe to bring Sayaka and Madoka along?" I looked at the girls walking beside us. "I mean, the power difference here is a bit... you know..." I pull up my hand to the sky and make some wooshing sound effect.
"They can be a backup if thing goes awry," Mami said. "Besides, they have one free wish right? If something went horribly wrong, we can use it," she explained.
Sayaka nodded a little in excitement. "Yeah! Don't worry, we won't get in your way," she raised her baseball bat menacingly. "We can probably help you too!"
I shrugged a little. "Well, a little help can't hurt anyone," then I looked at Madoka who's been quiet the whole time. "What about you Madoka? Are you interested in being a magical girl?"
Madoka blushed and nodded a little.
"Awesome! Just know that Homura will have my head if you decided to become one," I told her.
"What?" Madoka asked. "Why would she do that?"
"I have no bloody clue!" I exclaimed.
After a few more minutes of walking I finally get a read on my soul gem. It starts blinking like some metal detector, unlike Mami's that just glow brighter. "We got something," I looked around for any place that looks suspicious. "There!" I pointed at an old abandoned building in the distance.
"Oh? What makes you think it's in there?" Mami asked, though I can tell that she also agrees with me.
"Cause that place looks creepy?" I said. "Come on, it's obvious," I quickened my pace and everyone followed me.
There, in that abandoned building, I saw a woman standing on the roof. It doesn't take too much thinking for us to realize just what she's attempting to do. "Uhh..." I look around for anything to catch her with. Nothing.
The woman fell and a dozen ribbons caught her before she hit the ground. I sighed a little in relief and caught her from the ribbons. "She's alive, phew, convenient powers you got there Mami..." I said after checking on her breathing.
Then I noticed a black mass covering the side of the neck. "Is this the witch's kiss you told me about?" I asked.
Mami walked closer towards the woman. "Yes, it is..." she then pointed at the building. "It means that our target is very close, come on..."
With that, the four of us continued our way into the building.
The witch's labyrinth is probably what you get if your drug trip comes to reality. Checkered floors, alien geometry, paper cut reality, eldritch cute horror, and general amalgamation of stuff that makes no bloody sense.
Hundreds of mustached dandelion on a butterfly ambushed us the second we stepped into the labyrinth. Some flying thing that I'm not even gonna try to describe start flying away from us.
"Well, this is certainly up there on my top ten weirdest places I've ever visited," I commented while activating my plasma saber. A dozen ninja stars flew out of my back and start revolving around me, destroying anything that tries to get near.
Mami shot down a dozen things and used her ribbons to shield Sayaka and Madoka. "Wait till we get to investigate a bigger labyrinth," she said while batting away an incoming swarm of dandelion. "You won't be able to tell which way is up and which way is down."
I glanced at Sayaka and Madoka. The former is currently trying to bat away the incoming monster. Mami has already upgraded her baseball bat, though I doubt it would do much against these swarms.
After walking through the labyrinth, we finally found it; a gargantuan snail thing made out of a flock of butterflies, green goop, roses, and other random stuff thrown together. It roared when we gets near and the flying goop thing surrounding it stopped head-butting the monster.
"Okay, so..." I looked at the monster closely, trying to find any sort of indication of its vital organ. "Should we just charge in guns blazing?" About a dozen rifle materialized around Mami and start mercilessly shooting at the monster. "I'll take that as a yes."
The ninja star around me revolves faster and faster. It slices through the witch's minion like hot knife through butter. I activated double edged plasma saber and spread out my wings before soaring up to the sky.
It wails around in anger when I start slicing its body with hot plasma. A bunch of vines shot out of the ground and tried to grab my feet, but I just controlled a bunch of ninja stars to cut them off. "Come on buttercup! Is that all you got!?"
Then, the bullet rain stopped and a silhouette appeared above me. I looked up and saw Mami holding a huge gun aimed at the monster. "You want to step away from there Haios san!" She exclaimed.
I flew away just in time for Mami to start blasting off the witch. "Tiro Finale!" her voice echoes through the labyrinth as the canon obliterated the witch.
We landed on the ground right near Sayaka and Madoka. A cup of tea appeared on Mami's hand and the girl start sipping on it.
Damn she's so cool…
"Mami chan, Haios chan, that was awesome!" Madoka exclaimed in amazement.
"Yeah, you didn't even struggle at all, it was amazing!" Sayaka added. "That witch got nothing on you!"
Mami shook her head a little. "I'm supposed to show you the real dangers of being magical girls but…" she glanced at me a little. "I kind of overestimated this witch's power and underestimated Haios a little bit."
Reality turned back to normal and we found ourselves inside that abandoned building. A black thing appeared on the sky and Mami caught it before it fell on the floor.
"What's that?" Madoka asked.
"This is a grief seed," Mami turned back to normal and took out her gem. "Say, my gem looked a bit dimmer than it was before right?"
We all closed in on her to get a better look. It's kinda hard to see the difference, but her gem does look a tiny bit dimmer.
"Is that a bad thing?" I asked her.
"Yes, but watch what happens when I do this…" the girl moved her soul gem closer towards the grief seed. Black evil cloud appeared from the gem and into the grief seed. "Now my magic is replenished."
Then Mami handed me the grief seed. "Here, use it on yours."
I turned back to normal and took out my soul gem. It's still glowing brightly as ever, I can't see much difference in there.
But just to be safe, I moved the grief seed close to mine. A little bit of black cloud appeared from my soul gem and into the grief seed. "Huh, guess I didn't put all that much effort on that one."
"That's not necessarily true," Kyubei said suddenly. "You just naturally have a powerful mental resistance. Thus your gem doesn't take that much power to keep you mentally stable."
"I don't think you've told me about this before," Mami said. "What are you talking about Kyubei?"
"Witch are creatures born from negative emotion. Magical girls are the opposite of that. When a witch and a magical girl fights, the positivity will be spent in the form of negativity such as fear, despair, and malice."
It took me a while to figure out what he's trying to say. "You mean like, I don't need that much grief seed because I don't have that much negative emotion?"
"That's right, your upbringing makes you essentially used to everything that nothing even bothers you anymore," Kyubei explained. "This makes you incredibly powerful and inefficient at the same time."
"Inefficient?" I asked.
"Inefficient for his own cause," a voice appeared from behind us. We all turned around and saw Homura walking towards us with that stone cold look on her face. "I want to have a word with you Haios."
I looked at Mami, she had a thoughtful look on her face before nodding a little. "Go ahead, we won't be far." Welp, guess this is one of those inevitable encounter. I'm just hoping that I can stand toe to toe with Homura in my current power level.
Homura led me away from the group and into the building. When far enough, she patted my shoulder once before leading me deeper into the building. Though, for some reason the already quiet and ominous building turned even more quiet and ominous.
"Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?" I asked the girl when she start leading me to the higher floor of the building. "I mean like, you seem to have this teleportation power or something, but I do have quite an experience in..."
My words faltered when we made it on the building rooftop. There was no blowing wind, no sound of traffic, nothing. Everything stopped moving, frozen in their exact point in space and time. It's as if time itself has frozen.
"Okay, you can stop time, that's uhh..." I cleared my throat a little bit. "A very powerful, broken, and over powered ability actually... You should be ashamed of abusing it."
Homura took a deep breath and gazed at me with her violet eyes. It's impossible what exactly is going on inside her head right now. Hope, suspicion, fear, anger, curiosity, and many more emotions were conveyed in one single stare.
How is that even possible?
"Haios, this is the first time I've met you," Homura said suddenly.
I shook my head a little. "Actually, I remember we met just yesterday when you tried to kill the plushy," me and my big mouth. Goddammit...
"I'm talking about this is the first time I've met you in all the time loops," she said, this time with a very noticeable desperation on her voice. "I've been stuck in this cycle for more times than I could count, so please... Listen to what I have to say..."
I nodded a little, half curious and half worried of what she has to say.
"A witch is a creature born out of fallen Magical Girls, when a Soul Gem is filled with grief it will turn into a grief seed and a witch is born," Homura explained. "I suppose Kyubei didn't tell you about this when you made that contract."
I shrugged a little. "Can't really blame them, I outright refused to hear about the consequences of being a magical girl just for the sake of surprises."
"But do you understand now? Kyubei created both magical girls and witches. He is planning something sinister, you have to understand," she explained. "The fastest way for him to accomplish that is to get Madoka to make a contract, we can't let Madoka become a magical girl."
I thought back about my first day here and how Homura headshot Kyubei who was about to sneak into Madoka's room. "I believe you, but I'm not gonna act until I hear what Kyubei has to say about this."
Homura sighed and looked away from for a moment. "I became a magical girl wishing to safe Madoka. From that day, time itself looped back and forth, forcing me through this days of first day of school," she lowered her head and her voice started to quiver. "It never worked, I watched them die again and again, there's nothing I can do..."
"Oh! I get it!" I exclaimed in realization. "Since I arrived here you're thinking if I can somehow free you from this loop. That's why you've been trying to get a hold of my wish; you want to use it to fix everything!"
"I'm also afraid that your visit here is truly temporary and beyond my power, I'm afraid that in the next loop you won't be here and I've lost my only chance."
I don't really know what to think of this, but I know for a fact that there's one thing I can actually help her with. "Say, Homura, you told me that nobody ever believed you when you tell them about anything right?" I asked her.
Homura nodded mutely, it seems like bringing that up gave her a dozen flashbacks or something.
"You've also tried to do things on your own, but it just doesn't work, right?"
Homura nodded once again and she started clenching her fist in frustration.
"Well then, if you can't tell the truth or hide everything, there's always one thing left you can do..." I smirked at her a little. "Tell me; just how good are you at lying?"