442/Hell Hath No Fury

Hell Hath No Fury
Date of Scene:	17 September 2023
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	One Puella Magi seeks vengeance. The other Puella Magi seeks salvation. Both get what they want in ways they hadn't thought they would.
Cast of Characters:	Teresia Kuefer, Homura Akemi

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Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    It has been a few days since Homura spoke with Madoka at the hospital. Teresia has agreed to team up with Homrua if they encounter each other, but she seems confident that she can deal with even two Witches simultaneously... While advising everyone else to be careful and never go into a Labyrinth alone. Hypocrite or not, her words brooked no argument.

    Unsurprisingly, the Witches have moved. The fact that the two are still entangled at this point is the surprising part. Teresia had Adalinda track them down, with her uncanny ability to find them even when there's no magical trace. But after that, she asked that Adalinda leave her to deal with it, much to her junior's discontent. "Sorry, Ada..." Teresia says in German. "I'm not risking anyone else on this fight." She is wearing her casual outfit, a rather stylish one that stands out in a crowd. So, not super casual. But casual for her.

    Where are the Witches now?

    Obsidian Tower.

    Not the front door, thankfully, some side door in a fenced-off concrete area with garbage bins and other stuff people put outside for someone else to deal with. That the overlapping Barriers are right here next to the tower is still concerning, even without knowing anything about Obsidian itself. For those who do know what they are really like, the circumstances probably do not inspire confidence.

    The tall blonde foreigner opens a path through the Barrier with the Soul Gem on her ring finger, and then ventures inside.

    The moment she is in, as reality reorders itself to fit the mindscape of a pair of creatures of madness and despair, Teresia transforms in a blur. In one moment she is Teresia Kuefer, in the next she is a magical girl. Long black gown with white fur trim, black leather boots, and a red-bladed scythe in hand. From there, everything seems to contract around her. There's various paraphernalia of a Labyrinth. The bits and pieces that mean something to the Witches, maybe, but are just decor and potential threats to a Puella Magi.

    Teresia pays them no mind. She is in a long hallway, so she lowers herself, puts one leg out behind herself, and holds her scythe horizontally parallel to her body. With time contracting to a fraction of its normal passage, she makes full use of her magically enhanced body to speed down the hallway and into the monster's den, bypassing Familiars and defenses as she goes.

    Unopened love letters, broken mirrors, train crossing signs, railroad tracks, stairs leading down into sketchy and dark subway tunnels, all manner of other weirdness... Unimportant, irrelevant.

    The heart of the two-fold Labyrinth is carved open with a quick slash that bisects a door that resembles a coal powered train's furnace. Within, one of the Witches, a pale, smokey, indistinct figure, appears to already be in the midst of combat...

Homura Akemi has posed:
    To say that Homura Akemi was in a foul mood after finding out that Madoka had been injured in a Labyrinth badly enough to end up in the hospital and the Witch or Witches that did the damage were still alive and kicking was an understatement. Having gone to see her afterwards had taken some of the pure rage out of her but the determination and focus to destroy whatever dared to hurt Madoka was still there.

    It had taken time to find the Labyrinth, but she had. Unfortunately it was in one of the worst places possible, Obsidian Tower. It wasn't bad because she was worried about members of Obsidian getting a small taste of their own medicine. It was bad because she planned on arriving in force, and the fine folks at Obsidian would probably take issue with exactly what she had in mind. In the end it wouldn't really matter. It'd change one aspect of her plan, but it wouldn't stop it.

    She'd found the labyrinth before Teresia and scouted, but hadn't engaged. She'd been fighting long enough that she didn't even need to enter even a confused twinned maze-like labyrinth to understand it-- at least not when the witches were active and fighting. She could feel their magic and understand what was happening without even going inside, so rather than unsealing the entrance she'd simply turned on her heel and walked away.

    Because Homura Akemi wasn't giving these Witches even the slightest chance of success. If they were focused on each other and hadn't been interrupted she was going to come screaming down upon them like an avenging angel crashing down from heaven with a flaming sword, and that wasn't even too strained a simile.

    As Teresia is making her first steps into the inner sanctum of the Labyrinth something strange happens. Something similar to what she might be used to, but altogether different. The embattled Witches don't merely seem to slow down in response to her power, they simply freeze in place, locked where they are mid combat. A moment later she'd likely realize that everything else had stopped too. Color seemed slightly drained from the world, magic allowing her to see when light itself had frozen in place. The only sounds that can be heard are sounds she makes herself as everything else holds in perfect stillness, even the vibrations of the air held in check. The sound of her own heartbeat in her ears might be deafening, if she hadn't experienced anything similar before.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Elsewhere, Homura Akemi had jumped into Tokyo Bay, arm held outstretched towards a murky figure nearly impossible to see beneath the waves. Just before her hips get wet her feet clang onto metal decking as a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force cruiser long since considered lost raises to meet her, it's entire form outlined in a shroud of purple magic. Her eyes narrow and her head turns towards Obsidian Tower, and she finally lets those feelings she'd been suppressing rise again and boil over.

    She jumps just in time for a hatch to open up beneath her. A loud rumble sounds beneath her as a rocket motor roars to life, the long, slender form of a cruise missile accelerating into the air, the veteran Puella Magi standing atop and allowing herself to slide along it's side as it tilts over and engages it's primary get engine. Beneath her the ship starts slipping once more beneath the waves, only to freeze in time again as she releases it from her magic as it slips away into hidden darkness.

    She stands in a crouch atop the missile as it accelerates towards Tokyo, reaching down with one hand to hold a deathgrip on one of the weapon's extended winglets. Her hair whips out behind her in a fury, her purple eyes staring forward at her destination. The missile arcs high into the air, leaving a trail of super heated gas and contrails behind it as the air starts to move out of the way, only to stop, the roaring sound of the jet engine over the city destined to be released as a single loud crack.

    Obsidian Tower approaches at insane speeds but not so fast that Homura can't handle it. The missile itself is now glowing purple as she guides it in to it's final target. Her eyes narrow as she senses the portal to the Labyrinth is opened. It saves her having to do it herself, but the danger of collateral damage just increased significantly.

    Inside the Labyrinth everything changes two minutes after time froze. One moment there's pristine silence, and the next there's the scream of a jet engine and the sound of a sonic boom, appearing only after the shooting form of a black haired magical girl riding atop a cruise missile streaks past Teresia and directly towards the indistinct figure, screaming through the cleaved door.

    he figure drops to the ground and skids to an impossibly fast stop and immediately after there's an earth-shaking impact followed by the detonation of 1000 pounds of high explosives, a flash of purple surrounding the magical girl emanating from her shield, the bright shining purple gem on her hand immediately significantly dimming as her protective magic keeps her from reaping the same undesirable fate as the Witch behind her, her black hair whipping furiously in the wind that rushes out from the impact point as time is once more allowed to flow at it's normal rate.

    Once it settles down Homura reaches back and angrily flips it back over her shoulder, her fierce, narrowed eyes scanning for the inevitable changes in the Labyrinth as one Witch dies and the remaining asserts full control over the space.

    One down, one to go.

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    The smokey figure seems to flit to and fro, disappearing and reappearing in this cavernous, infernally-hot space at the center of the Labyrinth. There's a gigantic colorful flame eating up coal 'bonbons' from a stack of them, and using that to fuel a barrage of fireballs towards a distant tower. The way the two heart chambers blend with each other, with one being a super-heated metal box and the other being a snowy, forested landscape, with a white tower looming high above, is even more surreal than most Labyrinths.

    But it's all slowed down. In fact, it's all stopped. Teresia has tested the limits of the degree to which she can slow time. The most extreme was something like this. Color leeches from the world, everything basically stuck in place, light distorted, sound visible in the air as a disturbance, objects seeming to be multiplied or having after images of themselves because of the vibrations they were undergoing when everything stopped...

    The primary difference is that when Teresia did it, she kept pushing until everything went black, and she became essentially paralyzed, because the air around her was too solid for her to move through. Even before that point, the 'everything seems stopped' point, moving was like doing so underwater, and breathing was harder due to the slowness of the air until it entered her mouth. It was also extremely magically expensive. This is... Not that. She can move and breathe and see easily, even if things are distorted.

    Not taking this for granted, especially as a cruise missile flies towards her, Teresia backsteps and leaps away, the vault-like 'door' sufficiently severed into two peeling pieces of whatever passes for metal in a Witch's mindscape, so there's no worries of the projectile dinging on the edge and exploding prematurely or anything.

    Teresia doubts the Magical Girl responsible for this would make such a mistake either way.

    She is standing on a train platform, possibly the same one where Madoka and her crew first saw the madness of two Labyrinths clashing with each other. She's leaning casually on her scythe (the haft, not the sharp part, obviously). When Homura lands, and time resumes its normal rate of passage... It doesn't. It's still slowed to the extent that a time-lapse camera would be needed to make out the movements of Familiars. The destruction of the Witch is still ongoing as the explosion obliterates it -- the smokey figure being the Witch's' 'true' form, and the flames just being either a false form (where might Homura have seen that before?) or just a special Familiar. An explosion unfolding in slow motion is actually pretty cool to look at. Unfortunately, neither of these two girls has time (hah) to stand by and observe. At least Homura has plenty chance to check out the other Puella Magi. As the train-themed Labyrinth dissolves around them, collapsing and stretching until it shreds all at once, it's probably just the two of them, standing there, looking at each other.

    Then Teresia relaxes her hold over time. Her eyes are red, like the way that an animal's eyes are red in photographs. But they switch instantly to blue when time finally does resume its normal pace.

    The explosion and subsequent roaring death of the Train Witch, whose name was never even learned, assaults the two of them after the relative silence. Aside that sonic boom from before, obviously.

    "Akemi-san, I presume?" Teresia asks in German. Then in Japanese, "Kaname-san said I might run into you."

    The surroundings are being taken over by a breathtaking, chilly, expansive pine forest in some wintry region, with snow on the ground, and that lone tower, and mountains behind it... It looks like something off of a postcard. No sign of Familiars or traps at all. It's possibly the most peaceful Labyrinth Teresia has ever seen. Which is only because they don't have the Witch's attention yet. The death of a rival might be all it has attention for.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Things don't go entirely as Homura planned, but it's in a good way. As she skits to a halt and time moves forward at a slowed pace she has time to rise and walk forward. The lack of an immediate explosion behind her has her studying and assessing what's happening. Being a prodigious user of time magic herself, it's not all that difficult to decipher what's happening. Especially not when she could sense that there was someone moving inside the labyrinth while time was still stopped. Given she wasn't connected to them at the time, there's only one simple explanation for how that's possible.

    There's still a flash of purple surrounding her when the cruise missile finally detonates when time actually does its normal speed, but the drain required to shield herself isn't near what it would have. She was only close because of it, not Danger Close as she'd needed to be to ensure a direct hit.

    Some of the tense anger releases from her face as she's addressed, though the emotions are merely being masked. She's using that emotion as fuel, even if not in the way an ordinary magical girl might, and doesn't want to let it go entirely. "Yes, that's right. And that means you must be Teresia Kuefer-san. Madoka said you'd be looking to avenge your comrades as well." It's not the words Madoka used, but it's the meaning Homura feels right now, and she's pretty sure she's right.

    A brief wave of dizziness and confusion washes over her as the Labyrinth readjusts. She's used to the feeling so she doesn't let it show. It's still different from what she's used to; multiple Witches overlaying their personal worlds over one another; that's not something she wants to see happen often.

    She looks away from Teresia as the calm world fixes, and lock on the tower in the distance. The one the Train Witch was hurling fire at. "Tell me, Teresia Kuefer-san," Homura begins while holding her arm out in front of her, the face of her shield aimed skyward. She sweeps it, and a few dozen dull beige bricks with what appears to be small digital clocks attached falling out in a wide spread around her, "Do you know how to use C4?"

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    Teresia bows her head in acknowledgement that she is who Homura suspects her to be. "I've not had occassion to use it, but I tend to be good at most things I try my hand at. You could say it's a gift." That's as close as she can come to saying, 'Wish-based' without going against her magic that forbids her to reveal such things. Even that was an internal struggle, regardless of no signs of it outwardly. Homura is not the only one who is wearing many masks.

    "Hmm... For me, this is less about retribution, and more about preventative measures. As long as they were moving around, civilians or unprepared Magical Girls could potentially wind up inside the Barrier. On top of that, no matter which of the two won, in the end it would be a loss for everyone else." She stops leaning on her weapon, pulling it up out of the frozen ground that has replaced concrete. "It may seem a small thing to correct you about, but there is a meaningful difference between drive and duty. They may overlap, but they are still..." One of those weird artistic brief close-up shots of Teresia glancing towards Homura. You know the ones. They come with the soul gem. She's looking at the tower again. "...Distinct."

    She is silent for a little bit, just observing the scenery. Perhaps waiting for the self-defense measures to kick into gear. "Before you plant the explosives, would you indulge me?" She allows her scythe to disappear. Her eyes had previously turned red. This time they turn... Different. The pupils at the center of her eyes become white, the irises black, and the shape of them distorts until they look like... Gears. Miniature gears, on a white background, right there in her eyes. The gears move slightly, clicking into their next place. They make a sound when they do it, like the eyes are actually mechanical. It sounds like the tick of a grandfather clock. "A meter to your right. The terrain is reflected in a mirror. If you run into it, it will explode at point-blank range like a fragmentation grenade going off." Another tick forward. She has one arm up to demonstrate the path to take. "The fireballs weren't reaching the tower because they were just hitting mirrors... This Witch has a Barrier inside of its Labyrinth...?" The gears click forwards again. "Layers of denial... I see. Very fixated on defending herself from harm, but offense is weak as a result." She normally wouldn't narrate her observations like this. It's calculated. Part of the act. The illusion she must uphold, of being the perfect Onee-chan figure, the perfect rolemodel, the hero who will save the day, no matter how wrong or false any of these things may be. A slave to her own Wish.

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    "Running into something that becomes very sharp, even in limited time, can still inflict an injury. The momentum of running into something sharp that is stuck in time can be... Gruesome in its results." Senpai, senpai! Teach us about being a Puella Magi! You can slow time? That's so cool! Teresia-senpai, tell us a story! She wants to grit her teeth and resist, but she keeps going. "If you have any plan for how to approach with that information in mind, please let me know. I'll do everything I can to support you."

    She doesn't need my support, she might still make a mistake and die, but she probably won't, but I can't rely on probably, but it's fine it doesn't matter because I'll just wind up fixing it anyway if something bad happens, as a savior you should prevent that bad thing from happening, I AM NOT A FUCKING SAVIOR--

    Her irises become round again, like they should be, but they still remain a circle of black with white within and without. Just in case she needs to see ahead. Revealing such a trump card in front of an unknown Puella Magi would be a mistake in most other circumstances. But she's pleading that Homura Akemi will put it together, and realize from the sheer absence of context what she isn't saying.

    You use Time Magic too. You're used to thinking. Figure it out.

    Her red-lipsticked lips are still smiling beautifully, as she sweeps across the snow towards Homura, to stand nearby for this demolition job.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    "Good," Homura replies, "because if we destroy the entire tower in one fell swoop we won't have to bother worrying about whatever lies within." A gift. Gifts that Puella Magi have tend to come with costs, and from a specific source. She doesn't miss the subtext.

    The distinction between drive and duty? "That's probably true, but in my experience the two go hand in hand." The duty to destroy witches. The drive to protect Madoka Kaname. It's hard to have one without the other. She's recently been harshly reintroduced why letting any Witch at all exist while Madoka does is a mistake. And if Madoka isn't around? Duty evaporates with the drive. That isn't her battlefield, any more.

    Her own grand gesture of unloading the explosives proves to be a foolish one. It surely was theatrics, since even if that was her plan pouring the C4 out would have been wiser done near the target. It proves to be even more foolish as Teresia taps into her other power, as she inclines her head and listens to the explanation about the labyrinth. She starts picking the C4 up and replacing it in the shield even before the other Puella Magi is done speaking. Walking back and forth with explosive mines around isn't a great idea.

    Her eyes lid and the cold rage she was harboring calms, her mask of stoicism hiding the frustration she feels. "I was mistaken. I hit the wrong Witch with the missile. I expected one of the two to be one that drew others to it's center. Maybe the Train Witch was. This one... is a puzzle Witch." The description says it all. She can cut this Gordian Knot, but she can't just rush in and start shooting things. She can't even march calmly across the snow. She has to use her mind-- the one thing rage is incomparable with.

    She doesn't complain further. Instead she retrieves three mortars from her shield and sets them out, aiming one towards the tower, one to the left, and one to the right. She pulls out a pair of grenades and casually tosses one to Teresia. The other she pulls the pin of, and hurls ten meters to the side, away from the other Puella Magi. Rather than an explosion there's a hiss and obscuring white smoke starts billowing out from it.

    Smoke mortars are dropped into each of the mortar tubes, the angle is adjusted, and a two more are dropped in each, effectively filling the area with smoke. She's calm, quiet this entire time, pulling out a blue laser pointer. Technically visible in the air alone, but slashing a perfectly visible line through the smoke as it spreads throughout the entire labyrinth and begins to dissipate. "Watch your eyes. You don't want to stare directly into these, even if you can ignore the pain and heal the damage."

    She sweeps the beam, finding where the mirrors are struck. It goes back and forth several times, and then Homura's shield rattles, the sounds of gears heard inside of it spinning quickly as mechanisms are locked. The shield itself rotates 90 degrees and the magical hourglass within is turned sideways, effectively stopping the flow of time.

    The laser pointer is raised, aimed at the location of one mirror. She turns the beam on, lets it cut out, aims at another mirror, and repeats. Soon there are lines of blue light hanging frozen in the air, each bounce showing the location and angle of each mirror. "Anything else you think I should know? I'd rather not make myself look like a fool blowing up a tower when the Witch is really an amalgam of those trees."

    It's half joke, but only half.

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    Teresia wants to scream. Homura is smart, thank God, but the most important part was missed, like it always is, no matter who she tries to tell. Maybe if someone found out how her magic works, she'd be able to regain self control in front of them. Then they could tell others, and she would be free to act even more often. As surly and frustrated and despairing as her true self is, she hasn't fully given up hope. This is possibly the closest she has ever gotten. Another Time Magic user. She won't lose this lead.

    Teresia observes the set up and nods approvingly. "Versatility is to be expected, but you are still well-accustomed to preparation for multiple scenarios. I already believed you would be competent and strong, but it's nice to see it confirmed. Kaname-san believed in you." Teresia smiles. "Anyone she believes in, I will believe in as well."

    Madoka is a good girl. Smart, brave, stronger than she realizes, and that's without factoring in the enormous magical potential she can sense. She has excellent emotional intelligence and is more perceptive than she gives herself credit for. Teresia has to believe in her, and Homura too, because they might be her only hope of getting her urgent message across.

    Teresia shakes her head, long blonde hair swaying back and forth. What's up with Time Magi and gorgeous hair? Must be a side-benefit.

    The matter at hand will have to be dealt with. It's unlikely Homura will be receptive to this maddeningly indirect way of not-communicating-in-order-to-communicate until the Witch is dead. Totally reasonable. And it would be unhelpful to distract her. So Teresia nods when she is asked if there's anything else. "Yes. I think the Tower is the Witch. It's how she sees herself: Isolated from everything, in an empty landscape." Does she know that psyche insight for a fact? No, but the same magic that binds her gives her excellent intuition. She can just tell somehow. "Once the defenses are bypassed, we can likely get in and do what we must before the close-range defenses activate. A rain of love letters from above. Undelivered, and never to be read by anyone. Alone no matter how much she might wish otherwise." She can at least lay some more groundwork for after this fight. There has to be some loophole she can exploit...

Homura Akemi has posed:
    "Preparation is one of my strong points. The more I know about a target the better my chances of being able to take it down," Homura replies. Normally she actually works to maintain her guise of the 'mysterious girl', but much of the reason for that simply doesn't exist around Teresia. The girl is immune to her time magic, so she's already keenly aware that Homura can stop time. That single truth is her ace in the hole, an almost unbeatable advantage that lets her effectively cheat her way out of having to struggle in most fights.

    As long as her opponent is unaware of it.

    She studies the mirrors in frozen time, trying to pick out any patterns just in case one mirror was hidden behind another. Either way when she finally starts walking she'll give them wide berths, doing her best to move directly between any two. Before that, though, she retrieves the mortar tubes, returning them to her shield. No reason to let them disappear with the Labyrinth.

    Then, as Teresia tells her more the dark haired Puella Magi stops, pausing when her foot lands and makes a soft indent in the snowy surface of the ground, and suddenly turns her head towards the blonde, eyes narrowed. "You seem to know an awful lot about this Witch. What else are you using? Mind reading..? That doesn't keep with the theme of time, though." Not that having a shield that can store a warehouse sized arsenal does. Halfway to the tower she turns, facing her ostensible ally. "Or maybe that's not it. Maybe you've fought this Witch before. Has it rehatched, withheld from Kyubey for too long?"

    She studies Teresia's face for a moment. It's theatrics; she's already made up her mind to explain her own powers. Again, there's no reason to withhold information from Teresia, when she already knows one of her two most important secrets. She looks around and gestures to the world, frozen in time. "Right now we're alone. As alone as it's possible for two people to be." She makes a show of waggling the laser pointer, and then tosses it towards Teresia, only for it to freeze in the air a foot from her hand. "I don't mind telling you about this because no one can hear us," she was already looking directly at Teresia, but somehow that purple gaze seems even sharper and more direct, "Not even Kyubey. Don't tell him; he's not even aware of the nature of my magic and I intend to keep it that way for as long as possible."

    Homura can't stop her if she wants to, of course, but she wants her feelings on the matter known. "Anything that touches me while time is frozen comes with me. Guns, laser pointers, people. I assume the same will be true for you. Working together, my power would become even more potent, because we could fight together in frozen time without needing physical connection." She lifts her hand, showing the back of it. Not her shield, but her soul gem. It's... not dimming noticeably. "It's very efficient as well, but I try not to use it unless I have to. I have many people under the impression I can teleport. I keep that secret so I can rescue someone about to die with only a moment to spare, or so I can blindside an insanely powerful enemy I couldn't otherwise defeat with a group of allies. But that will only ever work once."

    She inclines her head to the side the slightest bit. "That's how my power over time works. How does yours work, Teresia Kuefer-san?"

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    Her heart would leap at the fact that Homura has definitely noticed something is up and is taking measures to find out more information. But that would betray a physiological response, and Teresia can't have that. It would conflict with her image to be flustered. So instead, she stays the course. Time stopping. That makes sense. Very handy, especially if it's hyper-efficient, like Magda's healing.

    Being told that they are as alone as they can be makes the true Teresia want to laugh hysterically at the irony. All alone, except for you, Akemi-san.

    "Kyubey is a close friend of mine, or as close as his kind can be to one, but I would never betray a secret told to me in confidence. He doesn't need to know everything that happens." One small grace granted by the time stop. It seems that a small amount of control has been returned to the taller Puella Magi regarding her facial muscles. She is able to finally stop smiling. How long as it been since the last time she didn't have to smile? This shows in other aspects of body language. Poise, grace, posture, other small elements, all are relaxed to allow the scythe-wielder to be more... Neutral. Still not herself, but she's free to just not emote so extremely. Maybe this is a good sign.

    "My power is two-fold. First, I am able to slow the rate of time's passage around me, even to the point of almost stopping time... But the closer I get to that limit, the more strange phenomena occur. Unlike with your magic, the air becomes thick and hard to move through, or even hard to breathe. Light is no longer in motion so I lose the ability to see. Things like that. It is also very expensive to go that far. I've only tried once. Fractions of a second is already more than enough time for just about anything I could need it for, and is easily maintained, similar to your magic." Then Teresia's eyes go back to their original dark blue, normal-human-looking eyes. She doesn't need a visual aid for this. They are both Veterans and they are both intelligent young women. They can read between the lines. Thank God for that.

    "The second part of my power is that I can see into the future. It is not the same as prophecy... Perhaps precognition and extrapolation is more accurate. I can adjust how far into the future I see, but the further away from my current point in time, the more discrepencies or vaguaries are introduced. The future can be changed based off of mine or anothers's actions or inactions. For combat purposes and disaster prevention, the furthest ahead I look is five seconds. With the ability to slow time, and the speed I already have, I've never needed to look that far ahead in any battle." Now for the critical part. If she can't get control of her body back, she needs to at the very least be able to pass along her message. It is, no pun intended, time-sensitive. Can she do it? Will this Wish that is more of a Curse allow her to?

    Holding up a finger, she does say as though only just thinking of it, "Aah... But just as with my slowing of time, I also tested the limits of my future sight." Please, please, please.

    "Even with inaccuracies and discrepencies, I've come to realize there are temporal eddies, repeating patterns..." Her eyes narrow. "...And events with such far-reaching implications that nothing can be seen beyond them."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Homura doesn't speak as Teresia talks about her powers. She doesn't even nod, merely watching her and listening. She notices the change in expression, from overtly cheerful to something more subdued. Her eyes lid slightly more, because it reminds her of something. It reminds her... of herself. She wears a mask of stoic neutrality, a mask that hides her emotions, and a mask of actual motionlessness from neurons long since worn thin and nearly burned out after overuse. From 12 years of repeated horror, pain and despair she can't allow to reach her core and overcome her senses.

    It's a different mask than Teresia wears, there's no doubt of that, but when the girl calms she starts to notice that she's not the only one who wears it. Most of the time these days her own mask is merely a reflex; muscle memory that she'd beaten into herself for so long that she has to actually think to lower it.

    Right now, however, she's wearing it intentionally. It doesn't even show in her eyes, she's so good at it, the same calm, almost dull expression in her purple irises. Not that she feels much emotion, but she doesn't want to give away how her keenly trained mind and intellect are working. It makes sense to her. Teresia slows down time but finds it harder to move through the air. Is she slowing down time at all, or is her mind simply working faster? Does the air get thicker because her muscles can only push so hard?

    After all, acceleration is defined as a change over time. Perhaps Teresia's power is the ability to think at superhuman speeds and apply more force-- but the photons hit her eyes at a reduced rate to her perception, so her vision dims. Her ability to force more power from her muscles comes to a maximum, so even the friction of air becomes a prison. Just how fast and powerful would Teresia Kuefer be, in a vacuum, Homura wonders.

    Homura's power is different; that much will be obvious to them both. Whether she's correct about how Teresia's time slowing ability works or not, it will be clear to the other girl that Homura's power allows movement in a very different way. Because Homura's power isn't just the ability to manipulate time. It's the ability to travel through time itself. She didn't say she could reset the world and travel back in time; she's keeping her most valuable secret. She knows if she reset now, she would simply vanish from Teresia's sight. Perhaps the entire world would vanish out of existence instead. But if she took Teresia's hand? Yes. In that case, with time powers of her own, she might have enough of a connection with time to travel backwards in time with her.

    Which is fine if it's something Homura wanted, but it's nothing she's willing to let Teresia figure out for herself. Especially if her opinion of the other Puella Magi is correct, and she's even smarter than she'd been attempting to portray. Homura is hardly blind to the act. After all, she was herself trained by the beautiful, elegant, eternally heroic Senpai that is Mami Tomoe. She never idolized Mami like others did, but she was more than aware of her talent and ability. Unlike the others, however, she's seen the dark side of Mami Tomoe, the heroic Senpai who is among the weakest of all Puella Magi upon learning the truth of their nature. Who hides how terribly lonely she is, how fragile she is. A fine porcelain teacup that will shatter into pieces if dropped.

    Part of her is annoyed, because there are few who can get under her skin like Mami Tomoe can and having even a superficial resemblance to her brings up old wounds. She reminds herself, then, that those feelings are her past. She's tried to move past them, to something else. She'd already started the process of allying herself to Mami by letting her guide Madoka and fighting alongside her, and actively seeking a truce about the grief seed that was dropped, proving she wasn't a selfish girl out for herself.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    These thoughts come to an abrupt halt when Teresia 'suddenly realizes' an important aspect of her future sight. Homura's mask falters, as a tiny frown shows on her face. Then she heaves her head dramatically in three motions from three different camera angles. You know the ones. She turns her head swiftly as if to look at something behind her. She leans her head back and looks blankly up towards the sky. And she levels her gaze directly upon Teresia again and utters a single word with both complete casualness and enormous gravity.

    "Walpurgisnacht."

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    Finally. Finally, someone. The decision trees started and stopped, branches being snipped while others continue onwards, the pattern of finding the single perfect solution to a seemingly impossible problem. When that's not enough, you start more decision trees, more branching possibilities, if reducing the variables is a dead-in, then add in more, expand the potential outcomes to ones you might not have considered, think, and think, and think, and don't stop thinking, because if you stop thinking then you're dead, and everyone else is dead too.

    She doesn't need to see outwards evidence of that to recognize it. It's going on inside of her all the time. She may not have overused her neurons the same way Homura has, but she spends months in a row with time barely crawling forwards, just trying to figure out the answer, running simulations, seeing what factor will finally allow her to avert the destiny she sees before her.

    So, finally, after all of that, Teresia closes her eyes and lets out a slow breath she didn't know she was holding. It doesn't fix everything, but it's a possibility she hadn't considered until confirming thaat Homura Akemi uses Time Magic too. All that time spent looking for the perfect solution, and all she really needed wss to meet the right person. Her failed attempts to recruit other Puella Magi teams in the past still weigh heavily on her. The mercy killings she has had to provide to girls who looked up to her, as they writhed in agony, their Soul Gems dark and malevolent, begging with their eyes for their Hero to save them.

    And all she could do to save them was to raise her scythe, and bring it down. Again, and again, and again. Soul Gems shattered, hopes destroyed, girls gone forever. She has never let them progress past that point, so she doesn't know about the 'truth'. But she knows about Soul Gems. And she knows about killing Puella Magi. And she knows about Witches and Labyrinths and all sorts of things that are different and not as expansive as what Homura knows, because Teresia is forced to be in that leader position even when she would much rather try to solve it all by herself.

    Her smile is relieved now as she opens her eyes again. Two young women, with years beyond their ages in experience. Different experiences. Different goals. But there is one that is now confirmed to be shared.

    "So, you've met her too." she says in a very, very tired tone of voice, that is nonetheless happy, even if that happiness is bitter-sweet. She can finally, finally give her message.

    "The Time Remaining Until The End Of The World: Eight months, nine days, twenty-five minutes, and three seconds."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    A look of relief as Homura speaks the name. The purple eyed Puella Magi looks... the same as ever. "I have. She's more than one Puella Magi's white whale. Now you know one of the potential targets I'm saving my trump card for. As much as I'd like to take Walpurgisnact on myself, I don't have the power to do it alone. But if I find allies, especially those among the other magical girls, my success against Walpurgisnacht is all but assured."

    She flips her hair, showing a quiet expression of supreme confidence. She knows this as much as she knows anything. Why? Because she's done it before. The problem is, of course, "Unfortunately, if you know about the Super Witch, I'm sure you're also aware of all the other threats lying just out of sight. I don't envy you, Teresia Keufer-san, for stepping foot in Tokyo. If you wish to keep your sanity intact, you may wish to return to Germany." A short pause, "Not that Germany is safe from all here what seeks to destroy everything, but it might be less a constant pressure on your mind."

    Wait, aren't they supposed to be doing something? Fighting a Witch, that large tower in the distance? Frozen blue laser light still reflects off microparticles of smoke. For now that Witch is all but forgotten. It's not important anymore, compared to what they're discussing now. It's destruction is a foregone conclusion. Teresia can probably see that already. It will happen. That Witch is dead, it just hasn't been killed yet.

    Homura considers for a moment before adding, "And you can spare me the hero act. Don't tell me that you couldn't possibly cut and run now that you've realized the danger, that you have a duty to protect the world and a stronger duty to protect your kouhai. I know that song and dance routine well enough. I've met your type before and I know that the brighter your smile is and the softer your words are the sharper and deeper the pain your using them to hide is." She looks away. It's not just Mami Tomoe and leaders that can act like that. It's all Puella Magi. She's different herself, but that's only because she's found a different way of hiding and locking away her pain.

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    "I understand your perspective and your advice is good. There are certain issues with going back now, however." She's not going to lecture. Neither of them needs a lecture. But she's never been this close before. She has to keep trying while the threads of fate are almost within her grasp. "If I had a choice in going home, taking my juniors with me, I would stay because I cannot choose otherwise. If it was just me, even if I wished to stay and fight, I would find myself in another team. I cannot choose otherwise." The strain of forcing out these blunt words is showing, despite her magic's resistance. Muscles twitching, fingers tensing around the haft of an invisible weapon, sweat beading on her brow.

    "My destiny is bound to this city. There are many disasters in the future, that is true. But I need to prune them each away, one by one, until the end that I cannot see beyond is changed in some way. If it does not change no matter what I do..." She doesn't know. She doesn't know if she would be free then, or if she'd have to be the chaplain to other magical girls, to help them find peace before the end. But she calls back to the words she used earlier. "...The possibility exists--" Let me speak, damn you. "--that--" the empty air starts to fill in with black as the weapon that had been hidden shows itself gradually. "--I might..." Throat closing, the compulsion to cough politely and excuse herself, no, no, no, but maybe that's the only way now, maybe she can leave it here and let Homura Akemi leave her with the knowledge given so far intact. If she keeps pushing, she knows what will happen, the same thing that always happens when she can't fulfill her assigned Role. "...be f-free..." The scythe manifests fully, and despite fighting it both hands go to grip the polearm and ready it for combat. "...from my d-d--" Say it, say duty, don't attack her, keep control, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it--

    Slowing time won't do her much good here, just as the time stop won't help Homura overly. But there's the environment to consider. Once either of them stops, the threat of the Witch will become a factor again, and whoever isn't maintaining their magic runs the risk of getting hit by whatever the other Puella Magi has chosen to allow to act normally. Bullets, Familiars, bombs, blasts of raw magic, anything in their arsenals. Can she take out Homura if she stops resisting now? Probably not, she has telegraphed enough that something is wrong. Even reluctant, the threatening physical movements would have clued anyone but a rank amateur in.

    She needs to both eliminate Homura Akemi and slay the Witch at the same time. Can she arrange it so that it looks like an accident? Pretend she's preparing to finish off the Witch because of some disastrous future she foresaw, redirect the defensiveness over her hostility towards the mutual threat, and then cut down the other Puella Magi at an opportune moment? No, she'll be on guard. What if breaks the Labyrinth and uses it against Homura? That's a trick that as far as she knows she's the only one to have discovered.

    And what the hell is she thinking!? Her Magic is affecting her mind now too? Desparation and despair swirl together inside of her at the thought that the one person who can actually do something about this might wind up her next 'mercy kill' just to cover up the fact that she's not the perfect Hero, and that she might even plan out how to do so, is almost enough to make her lose her sense of self.

    Teresia Kuefer is made of sterner tough than that though.

    She stops trying to talk. She just holds her clearly combat-ready position, doing all that she can to do nothing. To buy time. To silently plead for her fellow Time Magi to figure it out. Homura has done so well thus far, this might be her last hope of ever being free again!

Homura Akemi has posed:
    This time Homura lets the annoyance show on her face. It wouldn't be the first time someone she thought might be a potential ally up and attacked her in a Labyrinth. The fact that it was often Mami Tomoe doing it and she's just vocally drawn direct comparisons between the two makes it even more annoying. "Tch." Oddly, she doesn't draw a weapon of her own instead she lowers herself a little, a slightly paranoid glance around her as if she's worried tree roots from the surrounding 'forest' would suddenly spring up around and attempt to bind her.

    Or ribbons.

    Even so, the sudden sense of battle readiness doesn't make her miss the importance of words being spoken. Teresia will likely get what she's after, because she speaks one word that carries with it immense context, when spoken from the lips of a veteran. 'Cannot'. Not should not. Not will not. Can not. Which speaks to inability. Inevitability. With so much talk of prophecy the mind goes to ideas of fate and destiny. That's not what Homura thinks of though, because it reminds her of something else. Someone else, and their story.

    Despite herself Homura actually lets out a bark of laughter as a sense of realization comes over her. "Let me tell you a short story, Teresia Kuefer-san. There was a girl I knew, who grew up in hardship. A pious girl whose father was a preacher. That preacher had new ideas, and those new ideas were heresy in the eyes and ears of his congregation and his superiors. So his congregation left. Even if his ideas were good, he was left alone, and no one listened. So what did his pious daughter do when Kyubey showed himself? She made a wish, a simple wish that people would listen to her father's words and give them a chance."

    She makes a small motion, a flick of her wrist. "So they did, and the church flourished. She fought Witches and he preached the truth, and everything was good. Until it wasn't. Because eventually she told her father, and everything she knew was destroyed by his hands. Why? You already know the answer. Because he saw the wish for what it was: mind control."

    She watches Teresia carefully, but curiously. "What did you wish for, Kuefer-san? What could be so important that you'd try so hard to tell me, but you'd have to kill me for it?" She almost laughs again, "I'm going to be disappointed if it's only that you 'can not' stop fighting even if you wanted to. You do realize that's true for all of us, once we consign our souls to Kyubey's contract? You surely know enough that that path leads to eventual death as our supply of grief seeds run out. Maybe you should teach your kouhai that true honor is supplying their senpai with a tithe?"

    She can't help stopping the rueful smile she wants to make, out of old habit. "I'm glad time is stopped. I'd be upset if I was the one that put the idea of a Puella Magi Pyramid Scheme into Kyubey's head."

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    Yes, yes, yes. The right track. Almost. Is that enough? Can she relax? She was worried when it looked like Homura was preparing to fight too, but it seems she has clued in. Was 'mind control' the right term?

    Not exactly, but close enough. It's the question of what she Wished for that gives Teresia Kuefer her opening. She does not miss the chance. "I wished for maturity. To be someone admirable, who others could look up to. Someone who could accomplish anything she put her mind to. Like my older sisters. Three geniuses and beauties who were always being talked about for their achievements, while I was relegated to the common 'there, there' and 'of course you did' platitudes when I tried to show initiative. I wasn't jealous. I wasn't envious of my older sisters. I just loved and admired them so much, that I wanted to be ike them."

    Teresia gasps as she falls to her hands and knees, her scythe actually dispersing into black mist this time instead of just turning invisible. "I wanted to be needed by someone. As Kyubey put it, I wanted the benefits of maturity without the responsibilities -- itself an incredibly immature, childish desire. Now, I'm trapped in the body of an adult, who continues to act out the Role I was given, without my say so, without my input, without any freedom of choice. And if that Role is ever threatened, the scythe comes down on the same people who looked up to me, to keep the illusion from breaking."

    It's word vomit. Eloquent word vomit, but still word vomit. She can't help the eloquence. Her magic hasn't been stopped, just breached. Forcing herself up to her feet, the tall blonde woman who looks to be 18 or 19, even if she is officially recorded as being '16', looks at Homura with tears in her eyes, her face red with emotion, finally able to look dissheveled and human and fallible and not-perfect. "I made my Wish two years ago, but I've been living and fighting for so, so, so much longer than that. You have too, haven't you?" Teresia moves to approach Homura, forgetting any possibility of danger, but reality catches up with her all too soon, and she almost-stumbles in her heeled boots in the snow. One arm crossed over her midsection, her hand graspin her other arm. She looks uncertain, vulnerable, and suddenly so very, very young. "I don't think I have enough words to fully express my gratitude. You've saved me from having to fight potentially forever by piercing the illusion of a person who doesn't exist. I want to go home. I want to see my family again. My mother and father, and my sisters. They didn't recognize me after my Wish, because I aged so much. They still think I'm missing or abducted. Everyone else has someone. The girls who rely on me have families, and each other. They have friends. They have me. But I had nobody, because I couldn't even tell them who I really am."

    She hesitates, looking around the doubly-frozen forest. "I can't go home until at least Walpurgisnacht is dealt with. She destroyed our home town once before. The others won't agree to come with me without a flawless explanation, and perhaps not even then for some." The image of Linda, Wishing to essentially become a predator that hunts Witches, comes to mind. "If you'll still have me... I want to fight alongside you, at least for that battle."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Homura can't give herself the freedom to break down and cry with Teresia. She may also be trapped in a hell of her own making by the words she spoke when cracking reality like an egg and forcing her will upon it as she signed her contract with Kyubey, but unlike Teresia she spoke words that were true to the actual needs and desires of her heart. It was probably luck, but a girl wishing to protect the one girl she considers a true friend has a hard time backfiring when the girl is as kind and worthy as Madoka Kaname.

    After Teresia tells her how Kyubey explained the flaw in her wish Homura shakes her head, "I'm surprised you still consider him your friend, after that. Of course he'd have seen the flaw in the Wish before you spoke the words." She stops short of going further and telling Teresia just how little Kyubey can be trusted and why. That's something she deserves to find out on her own, and going to far, too fast is a sure way to make an enemy out of a potential friend.

    She listens, nodding and letting her own mask slip some. It hurts a little, because she doesn't feel as much emotion as she knows Teresia would like. She's seen so much, heard so many stories that things like this aren't surprising or shocking to her anymore. They're expected.

    'You have too, haven't you?'

    "Twelve years."

    She'll give Teresia that much, but not more. Yes, Homura has been through a lot. A lot a lot. It probably explains why she isn't reacting very much to such an outpouring. "Not everyone. There are many who you haven't met who've had or tried to fight alone. To be so alone while surrounded by allies for so long might be unique, though. I haven't met someone with a similar," she has to stop herself from saying 'curse', "...condition."

    As Teresia says 'If you'll still have me' Homura gives her a briefly incredulous look, before letting her eyelids droop slightly once more. She steps forward, crouching down and holding her hand out, to help the Puella Magi up. "That's the biggest flaw in the kind of thinking that produced your wish, and the thinking of others who shroud themselves in the cloak of a hero. Opening up to someone isn't going to destroy their image of you, Kuefer-san. It's going to make them think you're all the better for going through everything you had while hurt and afraid. Or at least, the people who truly matter will."

    Only one person really, truly matters to Homura, but the words are no less true. The people that will really matter to Teresia will feel the same, she's sure. "I'm sorry," she says, with a small shake of her head, "I'm not good at this. But I know someone who is; you already met her. Madoka Kaname. She'll listen to you and understand you, and be able to show you the comfort you need. Even if you can't tell her."

    She reaches back after helping Teresia up and flips her hair, "But I'll try to help you in another way. Your Wish binds you to act the part of a woman who doesn't exist, because that was your vision of maturity at the time. I'm telling you now: that's a false vision. Maybe now you've learned that real heroes and leaders who deserve being followed are softer than that. That they're flawed like everyone else. Try to convince yourself that a real 'maturity' is the ability to be open and honest and that even the adults who say otherwise are deluding themselves so they can keep their own illusions intact, magic or otherwise. Do that, and you might be able to enact and see the change you need to survive. To act of your own honest will."

    Another dismissive hand gesture. "So yes. Of course I'll fight along side you, Kuefer-san. Knowing this about you makes me trust you more, not less."

Teresia Kuefer has posed:
    "He is as much of a friend as he can be for one of his kind. I accept him as he is, and that he cannot reciprocate on the same emotional level that we can." Teresia explains, allowing her arm to drop to her side. "Even if the consequences of our Wishes may not be what we expected, he is, without a doubt, granting a miracle: something that cannot be gained through normal human action no matter how much time or effort is put into it. For some, a single life is a cheap price to pay for that." She sighs and looks towards the tower in the distance.

    "Even so, if I had understood then what it truly meant to wish for a miracle, I wouldn't have made one. There was no miracle that I had any business trading my life for. I have trained the other girls to think that way too. I don't encourage them to make a contract with Kyubey, but I do recommend that if they have the capacity to become a Magical Girl of some kind, and save lives, that they seriously consider it. I did the same for Kaname-san. All the girls I've trained would likewise recommend that if there is no miracle worth trading one's life for, then don't do it. There are other ways to help. There is good that can be done with human effort and one's own hands. Kaname-san has already done so much good without any magic at all." Teresia smiles. She's actually proud of the pink-haired girl, even if she hopes the latter has decided whether to become a Magical Girl of some kind or not before thinking about going into any more Labyrinths. There won't always be somone like Homura or Teresia available to protect her, as evidenced by this most recent encounter.

    The smile fades though as she turns to focus on Homura, takes a breath, and lets it out. "I'll talk to her. If you prepare her so that I can speak without the restrictions of my magic preventing me, I would be glad to have her advice. She has not just a good heart, but a sharp mind, and great empathy. She may yet see possibilities that I have not, and help my metamorphosis of intention. We'll see, then, if a change of internal definition of maturity has any affect on the illusion of it. I don't want to be the hero who everyone looks up to. I don't want that burden. But I've had to shoulder it, because nobody else knew what I did."

    The blonde meets Homura's eyes. "Not until I met you. There are so many endings coming, timelines starting and stopping, jumping all over the continuum... The one I can't see beyond, the wall of termination beyond the other endings, is still my primary concern. But we have to stop the others too, or else we won't be here to face that apocalypse. Perhaps it is Walpurgisnacht, or perhaps it is something even worse than her." A vision of an ending that she hopes has been subverted somehow skitters across her mind in jagged fragments. Something about Walpurgisnacht and Adalinda... She hopes it has already passed. That dream was a bad one.

    "I wonder how many other Time Magic users there are," she says thoughtfully as her scythe appears in her hand again. "For karmic destiny to be so..." She thinks carefully, as if the word she uses next truly matters for something other than this one conversation. "...'Askew'."

    Then she grins at Homura. "Thank you again. Let's protect our girls together, shall we? Starting with this Witch. You asked how I knew so much about her. Some of it is Foresight, but also Kyubey and I discussed it beforehand. A new Puella Magi wished for the friend of Kaname-san's, Haruko Hara, to fall in love with her, not realizing the student she wanted to date was not the gender she thought she was. Her life ended in this Labyrinth, in the depths of despair. Haruko-san won't truly be free of the curse of this Witch until we put her to rest."