1959/Unravelling

Unravelling
Date of Scene:	19 September 2024
Location:	The Book Nook
Synopsis:	Twenty-one years ago, the Kiseru Lady, then known by a different name, betrayed her best friend in the most brutal way. With her absence from Tokyo, her old preparations falter, and that friend - the soul gem of a Puella long buried - finally hatches into a Witch. Luckily, Hope Blossom, Red, Stellar, and Jadeite are nearby. It's time to put this soul to rest.
Cast of Characters:	Fuyuko Yuuhi, Kyouka Inai, Jadeite, Madoka Kaname, Amanda Faust

---

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
It's evening in Juuban, school long let out, the night businesses accepting plenty of patrons - salarymen slipping into bars and restaurants for quick dinners and quicker drinks, street stalls winding down with the last of their offers. Kids and teenagers alike are starting to head home, and most businesses not of the refreshment variety are beginning to shut down too.

One of them has been closed for months, the shops proprietor nowhere to be seen. It's an odd little place, often rumored to be bigger on the inside, and the hidden rooms in the stacks of books and shelves certainly contributed to that. The mysterious owner, the Kiseru Lady, was away, and the hidden places - the real hidden places - in this shop could be found, if someone was willing to look.

Some of those places weren't even hidden that well. One of them is the back of the shop, the magical back of the shop, where far too many items were kept, stored, waiting for use. Most of them are stored in tiny little pocket dimensions, a flex of the Kiseru Lady's powers.

One of them is a soul gem, trapped in a pocket that exists out of time. The crystal is white, pure. The gleaming frame is bright gold.

The barrier has been weakening. It's been so many months since the shop's proprietor came by. So long since she's restored the power, kept things functioning.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

In the back storage room, there's an old, polished wooden clock, hand-carved long, long ago by someone gifted at the work. It keeps time beautifully, ticking and tocking and ticking and tocking and ticking and -

The barrier cracks.

The soul gem gleams. It practically sparkles. Once, twenty-one years ago, it had been cradled in the hand of a girl, but that girl is dead and buried and her soul is still here and the clock is ticking and tocking and her fear and her anger and her despair are still real and -

The barrier broke. The Soul Gem existed in real time, again. The Soul existed.

If a gem shatters and no one's around to hear it, does it really make a sound?

Anyone walking near the shop - or eating at the cafe - or just existing, with magical senses, will feel the bloom of wicked energy and intent, as a Witch is born. The inside of the shop is warped, as it's taken into her newly forming Labyrinth, and the sound of discordant giggles and wails and sobs seeps through the closed doors and walls, as Familiars begin to form outside for the very first time.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    There are few people in Tokyo who could have been said to really 'know' the Kiseru Lady, but of all those remaining, Kyouka Inai is surely one who knew her the longest. Over a decade ago, when she began her career as a magical girl, the Kiseru Lady was already running the Book Nook, and although it was well known that asking her for favors was dangerous and always came with a price too steep, there had been more than a few times over the course of the years that Kyouka had found herself in that shop for one reason or another.

    But now, the Kiseru Lady has vanished- Kyouka is too pragmatic to assume she's actually gone for good, but the shop has stood abandoned for months regardless. As a matter of course, Kyouka has made it a point to keep an eye on the place. It's not exactly easy to get into, but it can be done; as evidenced by she and Fuyuko doing exactly that, leading to their current lingering manifested embarrassment. There are far worse things hidden in that shop than a door which can manifest your memories, and so it seems like a wise course of action to at least pay attention to who might be coming and going.

    That's why when she senses that sudden explosion of negative energy from that direction, she drops what she's doing (which was eating ramen at a shop not-so-far away) and immediately exits the store, teleporting from the sidewalk outside to a rooftop overlooking the Book Nook. Appearing in henshin, a pensive frown creases her face as she looks down.

    She's not a Puella, can't really 'see' the Labyrinth the way one of them could, but she can sense the energy and she knows what a Witch smells like. She doesn't know the long history of this particular Soul Gem, of course, but a Witch bursting out of that shop is hardly something she would call surprising.

    Considering who might be able to best handle this, she pulls out her phone to send a couple texts..

Jadeite has posed:
Look. Tamaki is here to do live sketches of people passing the cafe and have a deliciously light dinner. He has been taking it easy after burning out after Beryl's death, and gripping onto normal life as tight as he can, and it has been - well, it's a work in progress, as many things are.

He's not thrilled that his dinner is being interupted by negative energy surging like water from a broken fire hydrant, but at least he's not on a date? He finishes the last bites of his food quickly, pays quickly, and henshins as he hops to the rooftop, joining - ah, he doesn't remember her name, but this is one of Usagi's allies, isn't it?

He joins Stellar as she texts, raising a gloved hand - "You up for a plus one to the party?"

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Kamiko and Lydian are hanging out a few blocks over, at a karaoke place, singing their hearts out all by themselves. How they manage to do business in a place like this when they are invisible to most is anybody's guess, but the two fairies have somehow managed.

    It's in the middle of a song that Kamiko suddenly goes silent. Lydian notices her sister's hesitation and also stops. "What's wrong, Miko-chan?"

    "A Witch just hatched, and nearby too," says the divine fairy, tapping her chin.

    Gasping, Lydian pushes Kamiko's shoulder and starts leading her out of the booth. "Well don't just sit there, go get Madoka-chan!"

    "But she's sleeping..."

    "At home?!"

    Kamiko shakes her head, "No... She's in the Nap Dimension."

    Lydian blinks. "You have a... okay, look, this is important! Go get her awake."

    Minutes later, Madoka is walking down the street in her pajamas with two Chara urging her along. The pink girl yawns and says, "Okay but couldn't you have given me a chance to change first?!"

    "No time!" insists Lydian. "Henshin with me if you want to change your outfit!"

    Thusly, Madoka does indeed Chara Transform with Lydian. Afterwards, Hope Blossom pats Kamiko on the head, smacks her own cheeks to wake up faster, and then says, "Okay! I'm ready. Where is the Witch?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy has heard mention of this amazing bookstore before, and now she's finally got a suspected location; Woogle Streets shows there's a store there and everything! Or maybe it has the whole storefront censored due to magic, which would *also* be an indicator.

    No one's free to go with her today, though, so it is that she goes alone, and finds...

    "It's closed?!"

    And it doesn't seem to be an hours thing, is the place just... abandoned? She shines a light through the front windows to try and see the state of the place.

    She puts her ear up to the glass. Does she hear a distant ticking, or is she imagining it?

    And then something feels wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG

    And she remembers--

    She'd just gotten off the train after giving two assholes a talking-to for their appalling misogynistic coments. Not that they listened to what appeared to be a mouthy tween girl, and she didn't dare transform, although some magic inside her was begging to be unleashed. She felt awful, and miserable, and ducked into the station bathroom and then it was worse and after Kyuubey was saying there was a Witch

    --It was not what she ate, or her anger, she knows now, because here it is again, separate from those. Like Dark Energy, like a Witch, but a surge of negative emotions and feeling so sick at the world...

    And the world feels off, something is happening. Is there giggling from inside the shop? This is bad. Right by the door, Amy gets out her phone and starts typing.

    Too late, the world around her warps. No signal.

    Never enter a Labyrinth alone.

    Amy transforms. What will she do now...?

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Outside of the Book Nook, everything looks ordinary. A bookshop, with the curtains drawn, posters of various books on some of the glass show-cases, slightly dust-covered displays of offerings visible, in other windows - and the heavy sense of Something Wrong, in the air.

There are not passersby, which is a good thing.

The muffled sound of giggling, wailing, sobbing, still seeps from the doors and walls. The sound of weeping grows louder, and an arm waves from under the door, papercraft and multi-layered, thin. Inviting.

Where is the Witch?

Why, the Witch is in her Labyrinth - her Labyrinth is in the shop. Her Labyrinth - is the Book Nook, at least, for now. As soon as the doors are gripped, touched, approached in any fashion, one will be drawn into the Labyrinth, which looks just like the Book Nook... save for even more bookshelves, labyrinthine, winding, and the sound of crying, wailing, and giggling.

For now, Amy is the only one in the shop, and she'll find that most of the shelves are filled with books, still, but their titles have been replaced with Witch Runes. The signs that announce genres have been replaced, too, and the games and how to guides and everything, it's all reading in Witch Runes.

And every few shelves, instead of books, there's a Super Famicon system, and every few more, a Super Multitap, and sometimes, an old television, and two controllers, and the loading screen for Secret of Mana, waiting to be played.

The Familiars are Paper Dolls, standing on tabs, sliding across the floor as if pushed along. Some of them are a girl with blurry features, in a white and gold dress. Some of them are an equally blurry adult woman in low-cut, black clothing, a thin smoking pipe held in her hand. The girls weep and sob. The woman giggles.

They're not attacking, just sliding along the paths, though the girl-in-white-and-gold paper dolls collapse whenever they brush alongside the kiseru-wielding-woman dolls. They only get up when she's gone, and carry on weeping.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Putting her phone away, Kyouka glances sideways at Jadeite as he appears on the rooftop and greets her. "Ain't my party kid.. I don't have the ability to kill Witches these days. Somebody needs to do something about that though, or it's going to cause a lot of trouble." Who knows what other stuff might be in that store that could somehow enhance or bolster a Witch? Kyouka has no idea and she certainly doesn't want to find out.

    "I was just texting a few Puella I know but.." Grey eyes glance downwards, and she happens to spot Hope Blossom approaching down the street. "Well, that's convenient, at least. Come on."

    She grips Jadeite's arm and teleports them both, appearing on the sidewalk a few feet in front of the approaching Hope Blossom. "Hey," Stellar gives a casual salute to the girl. "I assume you're her because you felt... that." She gestures vaguely towards the shop. "You need to be careful though- that shop's bad news. I'm not sure what a Witch spawning in there might be like. Could be nastier than usual."

Jadeite has posed:
Jadeite eeps in surprise as they teleport,but the composes himself when they show up in front of - ah, didn't she help fight Beryl months ago?

"I don't konw if I can kill a witch, but I can help defend from other things in that shop,"he offers, snapping his heels together and saluting Madoka and Stellar. "Lead the way. If you focus on the witch, I'll work on the shop."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka Kaname never met the Kiseru Lady, or ever heard anything about her secret friend. Homura never mentioned her, and none of her memories of other timelines ever gave her any hint as to the significance of this Witch.

    Yet, Hope Blossom knew what Witches were, possibly more than most. She also knew that each Witch at some point, whether an original or an ascended Familiar, came from a Puella Magi, and that Puella once had a story. Thus it is that she marches forward with weight and gravity to every step, ready to find and, if possible, put another imprisoned soul to rest.

    She starts for a moment as Stellar and Jadeite appear in front of her, which is more than enough to wake her the rest of the way up. "Oh! Well... dealing with Witches is our speciality." She reaches up to her shoulder, where Kamiko is now sitting, to pat the fairy on the head to indicate who she means by 'our'. "Thanks for the warning. Witches are at their most dangerous when they surprise you, after all." As she passes by the two of them to approach the store, she says, "If you're worried, stick close to me. I can use the backup, and things might not go the way they usually do."

    She's not sure what she means by the shop being bad news. 'Good girls' like her don't tend to be privy to the darker secrets in a city. She does not want for bravery however, as she pushes the doors open and ends up--

    --In an entirely different world.

    Kamiko notes, "Wow, they weren't kidding. What were they doing in this library?"

    Madoka glances around at the vintage game consoles that are, frankly, older than she is. "I recognize that system... but that game... is that Secret of Mana?"

    Kamiko floats away from her Bearer to look at one of the screens. "Looks like it. This is an awful amount of clarity for a Labyrinth. There must've been a really strong connection to this game."

    Madoka stares at it flat lipped. "Maybe I'll take that as a recommendation..." Then she turns her head as she senses... something. "Did someone enter here before us?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy looks around. She's in a bookshop while title music plays in the background, as if waiting for her to start on a grand adventure. Her mind's eye can see the screen, a grand tree, birds flying across it.

    Why is she hearing that song here? Now?

    Amy pulls a book off the shelf to open it and check if the inside is witch runes too. Then, curious, she notes the positions of some familiar runes, flips the page, then flips back to see if the same letters are in the same position as far as she can tell, or if new unreadable text seems to have been generated. Then she closes the book and puts it back on the shelf, before curiously investigating the music.

    Yeah, that's Secret of Mana, just like she remembers it, but with the title illegible no doubt, and the controllers' face buttons are multiple colors instead of two shades of blue.

    Fortunately, the familiars she passes seem to be the small, non-fighting type. She feels bad for the white-and-gold-dress ones, since it seems being near the other ones hurts them.

    She shouldn't go far from the entrance -- although, the entrance probably moves -- and she certainly shouldn't go looking for the Witch, so maybe she'll stay here and investigate while she waits.

    She picks up a controller and asks one of the sad familiars, "Hey, um... do you want to play?" She presses start on one controller while holding the other out.

    Only then does this thought trickle through her brain:

    Isn't the name of this song 'Angel's Fear'? Isn't that kind of ominous in this situation?

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The text of the book Amy picks up has new, unreadable text, when she flips it back over. Nothing says consistent, page to page, or even glance to glance. The letters don't move while they're watching, but they shift around, whenever someone glances back, as if they're only meaning to convey the idea of a book, not the specifics.

This isn't the case for Secret of Mana. That game stays in perfect, pristine condition, every time they look. The song, the pixel art, every detail is exactly as the title screen should be, the way only a very, very dedicated fan would remember it.

As the group of new entrants move along the shelves, Kiseru Wielding Paper Dolls will occasionally stop to stroke the Super Famicon and Super Multitap systems, and their blurry faces will solidify into a twisted smiling emoji.

And Amy approaches one of the sad white-and-gold-dress Familiars, and the blurry-faced paper doll weeps at her, in apparent confusion.

When she holds out the controller, though, the paper doll picks it up. It decays in her paper hands, leaving just a wire, and she looks down at it sadly.

The opening story scrolls across the screen, the music changing to reflect that. The faint scent of smoke and the crackle of fire can be heard.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar simply nods her head. She's here to help, after all- it's kinda her whole gig. For once, she might not need to be summoned from afar. A glance is shared with Jadeite, making sure he's on board as well, but she just says, "Lead on," to Madoka before following after her towards the shop.

    As they are transported inside, she takes a moment to look around. She's actually briefly startled when she spots one of the gothy-lady Familiars, thinking for a split second the shop's owner had finally returned, and all sorts of 'this could be much worse than I thought' type notions playing through her mind. A moment later though, she realizes her mistake. "Interesting.." She mutters to herself.

    "Honestly this isn't that different from how it is normally.." She comments to Kamiko. "Though last time I was in here I could read the book titles, at least.."

Jadeite has posed:
Jadeite nods back to Stellar before they all are transported into the labyrinth in the shop. It reminds him of a low-budget horror movie, with the paper dolls and the dark corridors, and a quick sweep around reveals nothing seems to be actively attacking. Yet. (Yet is the key word.)

"Glory of the Snow," he casts, blocking up several aisles with icy shields; it will funnel any attackers through just a few easily watched corridors, and give Amy and any other people playing some space to investigate the, ah - the retro video game??

"Are we the angels, or are these beings the angels?" he asks Amy, prodding at one of the white and gold familiars with the toe of his boot.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    "Okay, this is bugging me," asserts Madoka, as her senses and pattern recognition nag at her. "Someone is in here besides us, and they are probably here alone."

    The Familiars don't seem directly hostile yet, though there are several of them for such a strange bookstore. Stellar's comments, and reaction, are noted. Madoka frowns as she considers both. Hope Blossom starts, "If this is close to how the bookstore is supposed to look, and if the game is accurately represented..."

    Kamiko finishes the thought, "... then this might be an original."

    Hope concurs, "It's very likely... But that would mean that someone Witched out right now?"

    Kamiko shrugs, "That, or this is a rehatch from the same Grief Seed." The fairy turns towards Stellar and asks, "Has this bookstore been like this for a while?"

    Jadeite notices Amy before Hope does, but the moment Blossom sees the other (actual) Puella Magi she says, "Amy-chan! You're not here by yourself, are you?" It's then that she notices the sad Familiar, and the wire that used to be a controller. "... I guess that means she couldn't play her favorite game anymore, but... this is an older game."

    Kamiko and Hope Blossom both tap their chins at the same time. Kamiko says, sounding impressed, "Wow. She must have lasted a really long time. Good on her I guess."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods to herself at noting the text change. Like in a dream, except she's conscious. Probably. She has had a few dreams about fighting youma, and some of them might have even been about facing Witches?

    Of course, if she's conscious in a dream, then the first order of business is... Well. Kind of already done. Also, she can remember clearly the events leading up to now, which seems like an indicator it's probably not.

    When the familiar is interested in playing the game, only to be denied by the controller disintigrating, she looks apologetic. "Sorry. I guess you wouldn't have been able to play until I got to the girl, anyway, and I don't intend to--"

    And then Jadeite's found her--

    "Hey, don't push her, she didn't do anything." Amy urges, remembering being a small doll for a few days.

    But then she smiles, stepping over to hug him and Madoka. And Stellar if she wants. "I'm so glad you guys found me! I wasn't sure how long I was going to have to wait, I... I came to check out the bookstore, but it was closed, and..." She looks around. "This Labyrinth formed on top of me. I think a..."

    Amy looks sadly down at the floor, and the familiars. "...I think this Witch just happened, yes. It felt like it did at the train station... but I guess this Witch isn't as eager to fight as Oktavia was."

    She looks back to the TV. "The books are like in a dream, but this? I think maybe we take a few seconds more and see what her saves look like. Maybe that will tell us something?"

    "Which of these is Continue or Load Save or whatever?" if Madoka or a fairy can read it well enough, she'll check that one, otherwise she'll guess the initially selected one. If she got it wrong she can restart quickly enough, after all.

    Oh right, he asked a question about her musings. "I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure there's another song called 'Where Angels Fear to Tread'... But there aren't any angels in this game. The statues you save at are statues of the goddess of mana. ...Maybe there were something called angels that weren't localized as angels in the English version?"

    She must have lasted a very long time. "This is a game from my childhood, yes. But she could have played it on a relatives' console or something, too." Come to think of it, she also glances at the console to see if it shows the yellowing of age or looks pristine and new.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Glory of the Snow, Jadeite calls, and those flowery shields fall to block the paths.

For a split-second, every single Paper Doll goes stiff and still as pressed paper, their flat, two dimensional eyes fixed in his direction. The weeping, the sobbing, the giggling, everything but the sound of Secret of Mana's opening cutscene music stops, and the distant crackle of flame is louder, easier to hear for the added quiet. Then, they return to what they were doing, weeping, sobbing, and giggling depending on their nature. The opening scene is a bit long - but it ends, allowing Amy to proceed with the game, if she'd like, though the sad Familiar can't play at all -

And then one of the white and gold Paper Dolls is nudged by Jadeite's foot, and in response a shiver goes through it, paper crinkling. And then it clasps its hands together, and pale blue motes of energy rise and swarm around Jadeite - doing no harm, but zipping all around, twining between his legs and around his arms and through the strands of his hair, as if intent on feeling and learning everything about him.

If that doesn't surprise an attack out of them, they'll see that the motes definitely don't do anything. They just swirl around Jadeite, and then float back to the Familiar in White and Gold, and the game is still tinkling it's music, ready to be played, at the first scene. They can restart the system, to check out the saves, but for now the game is fresh. The console itself is in great condition, but it's not pristine - it's a little yellowed with age, and there are old marks, the kind that came from actively being played - finger prints and little scratches and dents from being hastily carried and moved and dropped, even, maybe. But for all that, it's in great condition -

If there had been an attack, and even if there hadn't? There's a shift, behind them, and one of the paper kiserus is launched at Jadeite's head, from one of the kiseru wielding paper dolls.
R
If the kiseru touches Jadeite, his color will leach away in the spot he was touched, leaving a splotch of skin and hair an unnatural grey. There are more of those kiseru wielding familiars coming, paper dolls sliding across the floor with paper kiseru, and angry eyes.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar is still looking around with the air of someone in a familiar place which has become just a little bit unfamiliar. All the paper-doll Kiseru Ladies aren't helping her feel at ease though. She keeps waiting for one of them to uncomfortably hit on her. So far though it seems like they can't talk, thank goodness.

    Kamiko asks her a question, and she huffs a short breath. "Depends on what you mean by 'like this'. A Witch Labyrinth? No, that's new. But this has been a magic book store dealing in all sorts of unsavory enchanted and cursed items since I was a kid, at least. There's more dangerous magic stuffed into this place than almost anywhere else in this city, save maybe Obsidian Tower, and at least they probably have a better filing system."

    She greets Amy but refrains from hugging, a bit too on-edge for that sort of ease. She doesn't know enough about old video games to comment, but any chance to do so is cut off as one of the Kiseru familiars tries to reach out and hurl its projectile at Jadeite. Before it gets the chance, Stellar's arm, suddenly crackling with golden energy, sweeps through the intended arc of the thing, and the Familiar's 'weapon', such as it is, is deflected into a nearby bookcase. "Smoking is bad for you." She says, as if she doesn't go through a pack a week at least. "Watch it kids, these things have remembered they're not friendly."

Jadeite has posed:
Jadeite pulls an ice shield out of the air when the paper doll familiar begins sparkling at him,but he does not attack - instead watching the sparkles with curiosity, then spinning to block -

But Stellar beats him to it. "Thank you," he says, nodding his head at her - he owes his boyfriend to not get any more head trauma, thanks! - and starts pulling more ice shields out of the air.

"We've ot you covered, Amy. Madoka, Stellar, Kamiko, I'll pull up more shields to help funnel these dolls - that should hopefully help you two take out more of them by limiting where they can attack us from. Most of my attacks don't have a lot of finesse, so I'll be focusing on defense right now. Watch my back and the offense going!"

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka happily hugs Amy for a moment, just relieved to know that she's safe and that getting ambushed by a Labyrinth didn't result in some sudden, unstoppable tragedy. "If it's a recent Witch, then we should look for a body, but..." Hope Blossom trails off.

    Kamiko hms and says, "I'm not... sensing anyone here besides us. I'm not sure how we'd find her mortal shell if it still exists." Upon request, Kamiko floats over to the screen and reads the Witch Runes. Then she moves aside to stop blocking the view, and points at one of the options. "It's that one!"

    Would she have formed a strong attachment to a game from a previous generation, owned by a relative? Maybe... "Well, we might have a chance to ask her."

    Kyouka answers the goddess fairy's question, and the tiny Kamiko wonders out loud, "Cursed items? With like actual magic?" That's another clue filed away in her mind.

    At first the white and gold Familiar's reaction gets a bit of worry out of Hope Blossom, but she chills out long enough to realize that it's not an attack. The thrown kiseru, on the other hand, is far more of a concern. Even with Kyouka's timely deflection. The Kiseru Familiars are forming up and gathering. Approaching. Hope Blossom reaches out with one hand and forms a branch bow.

    Hope comments, "Well... it was only a matter of time. Be careful, everyone!" She hops onto the top of one of the bookcases and then leaps an aisle over. She kicks over some of the books to draw aggro, because nothing pisses off a book lover like disrespecting their personal library.

    As the Familiars get funneled through Jadeite's ice walls, Madoka focuses her spread fire arrows onto the choke points, using her vantage point to get a clearer view of the battlefield while Kamiko watches her back and warns her of threats from behind.

    "Sorry, Amy," she says. "I guess we don't really have time to look around."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Unless the opening cutscene is not obviously about the Boy -- Amy doesn't think he ever had a name in the US version, she always named him after herself, although she's vaguely aware that apparently the canon names are Randi and Purin or something, or was Purin the sprite? It has been awhile since she cared -- out playing with his two friends and finding a sword, Amy cycles the power to choose load game this time and see what the saves are.

    Stellar mentions that this has always been a magic shop. "Seriously?! The whole time I've been in Japan, there was a magic book store and--"

    And then a kiseru is flung at Jadeite. "Guh, playtime is over, I guess."

    Still, they're here, may as well check if the save screen has information before they move on. Just a few seconds, right? Kamiko can read it, right?

    Without really thinking about it, whichever hand doesn't need to press a button at the moment conjures a gyrojet pistol to shoot the kiseru-wielding familiars.

    When Hope Blossom kicks over a shelf, Amy starts to object, "Hey! ...Oh, right, Labyrinth."

    She wonders if it will get the Witch's attention, though...

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
There's just enough time to power cycle the game, and there's only two other saves. One is the near the end of the game, the last option to save before taking on the final boss, with hundreds of hours of play time, with the player character having been named KAORI. The other is stuck before the Mana Beast boss battle. The player character on this one has been named RIKA. It too, has plenty of time logged, as though someone had played but kept coming back to this one fight. T

And then the fight breaks out. The kiseru-wielding Familiars don't hit on Stellar. That's probably nice, right? They just giggle, mischievous and cruel, and they throw things at her - wait, have they just swapped out hitting on her for hitting her?

Well, at least they're trying to hit everyone, and anyone who is hit finds their skin and clothing and hair going grey, their minds going slightly fuzzy.

As Paper Dolls, they're able to slip through any narrow crack, and they do, coming one after the other until Jadeite has layered enough ice that they can't squeeze through, and they're set aflame easily enough.

When they go up in flame, the white and gold Paper Dolls cry out in grief and horror and rush forward, blue motes of light spiraling around the burning. They try and put out the flames, and they fail, because the Kiseru Paper Dolls burn, once they're set aflame. Their white and gold dresses are stained with smoke, and they look at their hands in horror.

Madoka kicks down a book shelf, and one of the white and gold familiars beside her kicks another down, as if copying her. More and more do, and there's a thud thud THUD THUD THUD THUD of shelves falling like dominos, like a rockslide, and the ice starts to crumble as the shelves teeter and collapse onto it.

They should probably run. It's a good thing Jadeite left several clear paths.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar would almost rather someone attempt to hit her than attempt to hit on her. She's much better at dealing with that, both emotionally and physically. As projectiles are thrown her direction, she swats them out of the air with movements that look casual but actually require a fair bit of concentration. That concentration is almost second nature to her, but doing so, trying to keep as many of the things from hitting their targets as possible (not just herself, but the others too) is preventing her from doing much in the way of exploring the situation otherwise.

    When Hope Blossom kicks over a bookshelf, and then some of the Familiar start to imitate the action, she gives a faint grunt of dissatisfaction- not at Hope Blossom's actions, but rather at their current situation. "We.. probably want to get out of the way." She says, reaching out to tap Jadeite on the shoulder and make a 'that way' gesture with her head assuming he looks back.

    Following her own advice, she does her best to scamper back out of the path of the collapsing book-cases towards whereever it appears clear space exists, even if that's on top of bookcases that have already fallen over. "At least this should make it easier to find the Witch.. right?" She's no expert on Labyrinths, after all, but it makes sense to her.

Jadeite has posed:
Welp! Time to abandon these shields and run with the girls!! Jadeite loves avoiding cranial trauma for him and his loved ones, and he'll be throwing "Glory of the Snow!" up over everyone else, too, trying to block the rain of Kisaru Ladies that seems excited to both hit and hit on all the adult women in the shop.

"They seem to like knocking this down! Do you want me to attack the bookshelves, try and destroy more of them??"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Names. Hundreds of hours logged. This does suggest friends who played together. Or sisters? Or relatives? Or one is the original owner's save from their own childhood, and the other, the girl who became a Witch? "I don't know what I expected to learn, honestly. I guess now we have an idea about her name--"

    A kiseru hits her chestplate. No damage. But it only had to hit touch AC. "Guys? Um..." Amy frowns. What was she about to say? They're going now. Somehow the thought of what happens to things from here if taken outside is the thought that surfaces through the fuzz, and she yanks the cartridge and puts it in one of her pouches. She pulls out the frag grenade to make room and yeets it in the direction of the largest concentration of dolls before running after the others.

    Easier to find the Witch? Amy furrows her brow. "Or for her to find us. I don't think it's an issue of um, um, geography. Geometry? Space. It's, uh, it's a story. Like a cutscene. We do this level, then we get to the next stage, and eventually one of them is the boss fight." She feels like that didn't get across right. She tries again. "It's like... we have to turn the pages to the end of the book. It doesn't matter how far the characters in the book go, they get there when we turn the page!"

    Apparently she's satisfied with this, and, even fuzzy-brained Graymy can 1. follow friends 2. avoid obstacles 3. shoot enemies. It's basic video game reflexes drilled into her over the years!

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Kamiko gets hit by a stray smoking pipe projectile, and while being An Existence Beyond Mortal Ken has certain advantages when it comes to durability, she's also just small enough for her entire form to get hit by the grayed out effect. Her eyes become spinny spirals as she wavers in the air.

    Hope notices and immediately grabs Kamiko out of the air. "Oh no!" She glances between her Chara, the chain effect of many Familiars pushing over bookshelves, and the approaching hostiles then makes the split second decision to shove Kamiko through her own portal and into the safety of her Paradise. She can always pull her out again later.

    As the call to retreat is made, Madoka flees with Kyouka by jumping from toppled book case to toppled book case, turning around when landing in order to fire another spray of homing arrows into the Familiar crowd before spinning on her foot to jump further away. The added shielding from Jadeite is appreciated, since it does end up taking a hit or two for her sake.

    "If nothing else, it's probably to our advantage if the battlefield is as open as possible, but... Like Red-chan said, these places don't always follow the logic you'd expect."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The bookshelves thud thud thud behind them as the group flees, and once every shelf is down, they burst into flame. Flame, all around, smoke in the air, heavy, not just wood and paper but chemicals and gun powder too, and the bookshelves are gone, replaced by metal shelves and tall wooden walls, a factory ground -

There are the shadows of bodies, paper dolls on the ground, and the kiseru wielding familiars are gone. It's just the white and gold dressed Familiars now, scurrying through the burning building, motes of light leaving their hands and flying through the flames.

The building is strange - like bad CGI, like an attempt at computer generation - but the flames are seemingly ordinary, and real.

The sobbing is back, deafening, because it comes not from a Familiar, but from the Witch herself.

Every Witch is strange - she is no different. Her title card reads: OPHELIA in Witch runes, and her form is that of the shoulders, neck, and head of an oversized mannequin that seemed to have been painted into the world, skin a ghastly white.

From the bridge of the nose and down, the figure was that gastly white, details blurring as though the artist had grown tired of painting them the further the piece deviated from the neck. From the bridge of the nose up, however, was a cage that extended infinitely up, to the endless reach above of the Labyrinth. Inside, the etched together semblance of a girl lay in the fetal position, weeping wordlessly.

The Witch does not seem to have noticed them - the mannequin like head's lips did not part, and it had no ears through which to hear. It hovers in the air at the back of the flaming factory, motionless but for the shuddering sobs of the imprisoned girl-shape. The Paper Doll Familiars keep walking through the flames, searching, searching, searching, endlessly.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    The bookshelves /bursting into flame/ once they hit the floor sure makes this situation a lot more interesting. It effectively removes them as safe standing places, at the very least, and although this liminal space is far from confining, in a physical sense, the air being full of smoke and burning stuff is not going to be doing anybody's health any favors.

    "Well, at least the damn door in the basement should feel right at home now.." Stellar mutters to herself, as the landscape begins to resemble a rather literal hell.

    The sobbing draws her attention to the Witch itself, and it seems like even though Labyrinths are not bound by the same physical laws as our reality, in this case knocking down all the bookshelves did indeed clear the path to make finding her easier. Witches are always strange, even a casual Labyrinth-raider like Stellar knows that much, and this one is no exception. Her eyes narrow upon the thing as it... does nothing but continue to cry and wail pathetically. Even the aggressive Familiars have gone, leaving only the ones who seem more interested in wrecking the place than fighting the intruders.

    "This seems a bit... anticlimactic." Stellar mutters, moderating a thought the younger version of herself would have actualized as "it's no fun when they don't even fight back."

Jadeite has posed:
This will make a good tale for Mamoru and Usagi, Jadeite thinks as he runs through the burning bookshelves, if only because Usagi loved creepy video games that were exactly like this. Like, what was it, Ai Oni?? But sligthly cuter. When Amy gets hit, he grows another shield and throws it behind them to give them all more time to run, to get ayead of those strange, greying ccreatures -

And then they're here, in front of what would be a delightful art piece if it wasn't an entire monster. Hm. This is another one for Mamoru and Usagi, maybe, artistic inspiration, trapped in your own head.... But hedoesn't have time for that right now.

"Glory of the Snow," he casts, pulling out shields for the five of them - just in case! - and then pulls his arm back.

"Snow Thimble," he says, and an enormous white foxglove made of ice manifests, pulls back like a catapult, and STRIKES. Bellflowers made of ice slam and shatter against the bars of the cage and it's face; snow drifts down over the fetal witch, and icewater drips down the curve of the giant face's cheek.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Hope Blossom watches as things fall apart all around her. The trend she's set has led to everything being knocked over, set on fire, and now suddenly getting replaced by metal shelves and a factory-like setting. "Oh geeze!"

    As Hope looks around, she hears the sobbing now much more loudly, coming from the Witch. "A girl in a cage?" Well that is some imagery. It's something that she doesn't really have time to think about, something she'll likely consider later in the nightmares she's pretty sure she's going to be having again tonight.

    Considering the state of the bookshelves, Madoka is now standing on the floor, frowning up at the Witch with a pink arrow knocked. "Don't worry!" she says in a tone of voice that is actually very sincere not at all sarcastic. "You wont have to cry any longer."

    Determined to end this as quickly as possible, she follows the Sans strategy and opens with her strongest attack. There's no telling how long it will take before something else nasty happens, and her actual finisher is with Kamiko right now.

    "CHERRY BLOSSOM BLAZE!" she declares before nocking back her arrow, charging it in an instant in a method that's pretty rough on her energy levels but also doesn't require her to stay still for several seconds. When she releases, the arrow splits into many, and those in turn split into many more, each of them weaving amongst each other like a pink, sparkly Itano circus. Each arrow explodes when they get close to the Witch.

    Then she reaches into thin air and pulls Kamiko out of a portal. The poor divine Chara is still greyed out and spinny eyed. "Wake up, Miko-chan!" shouts Hope Blossom. "We're up soon!"

    Kamiko starts shaking her head and trying to wake herself up. Oh geeze oh geeze this is no time to get knocked out.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    While fleeing, Amy switches weapons to shoot at the familiars, she tries to use some high-tech-looking rifle thing and gets knocked on her ass by the recoil. That can happen when she tries something new without really thinking about it. She gets up and keeps running after the others.

    And then she hears... sobbing. She should do something about it. Through the brain-fuzz, she fumbles for what to do about it and grabs whatever thought she can find. "I hear a Witch! Don't startle it!" Thanks Graymy, you're a big help.

    But before anyone can fully process how nonsensical that was, the boss appears. Is it the head, or the crying girl in the cage?

    "I see her! Wait!" Thinking along the same lines as Madoka, that she has to hit with a huge attack first, Amy stands, bracing herself and summoning her artillery cannon. Wait, no, she switches to the Boom Gun recreation, but she does it right this time.

    The sound of explosively firing, and the sonic boom of the projectiles, echoes out across the whole area.

    A couple hundred tiny flechettes moving insanely fast try to swiss cheese the crying girl, while Amy drops the weapon and covers her ears, "Owowowowowowowowowowow!", regenerating burst eardrums. Ow.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The attacks strike the Witch, newly born, weak, and indeed, as some might say, anticlimactic... or pathetic...., and she screams. Ice that shatters and crashed through bars, slicing at the watercolor figure of a girl in the fetal position, and smash the cheek of that mannequin head. An arrow that becomes many, and which then explode, shattering the weakened bars, burning. Fletchettes, finally, cutting through the Witch, and she doesn't hover, anymore.

The mannequin collapses. The cage, shattered and burst open, strikes the ground, making new sparks. The girl inside the curls up on the ground, her form pitted and grey in every place she took injury.

She could get out. The cage is open.

She doesn't, though. She tucks her head against her knees and weeps.

All around them, the fire continues to burn. She didn't even fight back. She doesn't even fight back. The nature of a Witch is despair, which manifests differently for everyone. For this Ophelia, that despair is an utter withdrawal.

At least Kamiko won't face any resistance.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar hangs back as the younger mahou attack the Witch. She has nothing to offer here, her ability to contribute to the offense sealed away as a condition of her being here at all. She remains alert for any attacks which might be thrown back in their direction but frankly at this stage of the game, that seems unlikely.

    Then again, you never know.

    She observes the destruction of the mannequin and the girl's figure curled on the floor with eyes which are, if not cold, neither as sympathetic as some others likely would be.

    'We all have our cages, kid,' she might have told the girl. 'but being locked away is no excuse to stop fighting'. She has no faith the Witch would understand any words she chose to speak though, so she says nothing.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy misses the scream while regenerating her eardrums. When she looks back at the Witch, it's still

    Crying.

    She's still crying.

    Amy's thoughts go in a different direction, now. She approaches. "I'm sorry. Rika, is it? I love games too. If you're in there..." She approaches the cage, pulling the cartridge from her pouch and holding it out. "Can you... remember... good times?"

    "It will... be over soon..." Amy tries to say reassuringly, but her voice chokes in the middle and her eyes tear up. "You... you were... ...Know that we got here before you could hurt anyone. And we know. You were a... You're a person, in there, somewhere. A... A Puella Magi and a goddess of Witches are both here to see you off." She has to blink away the tears,.

Jadeite has posed:
This had been a girl once.

It's not the same as Jadeite's corruption by Beryl, but his heart twists nonetheless. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't have been hurt. But she has been, and she will hurt others if things escalate, and they all have a responsibility. Both to her and to the world.

"Rest in peace," Jadeite says, bows. Then he half-turns and offers his hand to Madoka, giving her access to his well of magic if she wants a little more oomph for her big finale.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Hope Blossom watches as their all-out attacks all hit the Witch at once, pushing her to near defeat almost instantly. Then she feels pity for the poor thing. Was that even necessary? Was it even... going to fight back at all?

    She glances at the fires behind and around them, then frowns back at the Witch, before turning back to Kamiko and gently pinching her tiny fairy body between her thumb and index finger to lightly shake her awake. "Kamiko... I kinda feel sorry for her. Let's just get this over with, okay?"

    Kamiko responds by spinning around in place, saying, "Round and round we go, round and round. Ready whenever you are, Doka-chan. Round and round and round."

    Hope Blossom sighs, and then repeats her henshin phrase while making the unlocking hand gesture. "My Heart: UNLOCK!"

    Amy may perhaps be the only one who has seen this before, but it's not that different than it was with the Lego Coral Witch. Madoka doesn't so much henshin as she does... just... vanish.

    There's a strange phenomenon that is often rumored to occur in the human mind during moments of near death while surviving in extremely harsh conditions. Referred to as 'Third Man Syndrome', the mind often tricks itself into thinking that there's another person there with you, a friend who helps you, encourages you, and tells you that everything is going to be alright. Only for that person to then vanish and for you to realize that they were never there.

    Madoka, of course, is real and has always been there, but there's a distinct feeling that she isn't. In truth, she has left reality, and has done so out of necessity due to the nature of her powers. It is also a mercy, for one should not try to comprehend the true form of the Queen in Pink. Instead, a manifestation appears, and Hope Concept is hovering before the Witch, slightly translucent but very much Present. Her hope, her optimism, and her caring nature can be felt throughout the whole Labyrinth.

    She glances down at the offered hand from Jadeite, and with a smile she takes it, and though her hand has no physical mass there's still a feeling of being touched by a being of pure kindness. Her other arm extends outwards to the Witch as she calls out to this lost soul. "Please... don't cry anymore. You don't have to stay like this. You don't have to remain a Witch. You deserve so much better than what happened to you. Please... hear me!"

    Thusly does Hope Concept reach out for the Witch, to rescue the lost girl within from her horrific purgatory, in a way that only she knows how.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
There's no sanity in a Witch, just endless despair and id, the final gasp of something that had been human, had been a person, had been capable of more than wanting and satiating despair. This Witch, like Basu and Masako, has never killed. Has never had the chance - her freedom and her birth had been the same breath, the same action, after all.

She weeps because it is her nature to be a prisoner, imprisoned, betrayed, and she weeps because she loves the person who hurt her and she weeps because she hates her. And at the sound of Rika's name, she screams. It's wordless, because Witches cannot speak, have minds that work and warp in endlessly interestingly inhuman fashions, but she knows that name and she it torments her.

It might have even been enough to finally provoke a response, but there is the Queen in Pink, there is the Third Man, there is - Hope Concept, extending her hand, in kindness, and there is a shudder, from the Witch who cries, and a hand that reaches out.

There is the shudder, as the Labyrinth creaks and cracks, and light splinters the sky, taking away the flames, the factory, the smoke. Instead - afternoon light, shining through a window. The sound of Secret of Mana's OST, playing gently. A Super Famicon, with two controllers, and a child's bedroom, and there is a girl with them, and she still cries, but not so piteously, so desperately.

She's wearing a white and gold dress, and a barrette in her chin-length brown hair, and she wipes at her eyes, struggling to stop.

"Am I - am I dead?" There's hope in her voice, whisper thin. "Am I finally dead? Did she - did Rika finally let me go?"

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Hope Concept is confused for a moment as the Labyrinth goes away. This... doesn't look like the bookstore in the real world, not that she'd know the interior, nor does this look like anything on the inside of a Labyrinth. Perhaps this is that mental space one layer deeper in, further inside than the Labyrinth, inside the mind of the Witch herself?

    That place where she once, in another timeline, held the whole world in her hands. And watched it crumble, despite her every effort to the contrary.

    "You became a Witch," says Concept, releasing Jadeite to clasp her hands in front of her chest. "From here, you can pass on if you want to, but... if you have a body nearby, maybe we can put you back inside of it? We can undo what Kyubey did to you when he made a contract with you, and let you be a normal human again. You only Witched out recently, so it should be possible?"

    Poor Madoka does not fully understand why she can't find this girl's body. Or maybe she's refusing to process something that cruel. Inhuman intelligence is apparently not the same thing as omniscience.

    Lydian, having swapped places with Kamiko during the henshin change, hovers nearby. The art fairy speculates, "So if you're not Rika, then you must be... Kaori? What did Rika do to you? We didn't find anyone in the bookstore other than you."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    There's that strange sense that Madoka isn't real, like an imagined, mythical being. And for the second time -- but this time, while feeling sympathy for the Witch rather than focused on winning a fight -- Amy watches as someone is released from suffering.

    Not to X-Paradise, or to any afterlife as far as anyone knows, but released from despair.

    Amy's not religious, but the idea that one day it may be her turn, that if she finds herself in such despair and suffering, a friend -- who at the moment feels more like a mythical character or a story -- will come for her to at least give her peace, may stick in her mind, and she struggles to speak and to stem the tears running down her face.

    But they're in a vision. There's something she should do here, right?

    "I'm sorry, Kaori. You'll... I wish I could say you'll be remembered, but we barely know you." She takes a breath, barely controlling it to not come out as a sob. "I don't know who that is, but..." that time she can't control it. "...This is the end, yes. I don't know where or if you'll go next, or... if it ends."

    Amy takes another breath. "Do you have any... last wish? Anything we can do for you after you go?"

    Hope Concept offers life, and Amy looks at her in wonderous surprise. They can do it this time?! They might be able to save her?

Jadeite has posed:
Jadeite looks at the ancient (to him) game console, to the bedroom decorated with the brilliant colors of the past, to the dress that looks like something out of a movie he'd watch with his mother. He wonders if he ought to be more moved by this, more upset, but - even if this is not a fight anymore, there is still work to be done. Madoka is asking a question that makes his stomach twist; if she does not realize the issue, he will bring it up.

"We cannot answer for Rika, but we can set you free," he tells the girl. "What is the last year you remember?"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Lydian draws her attention, if only because she's cute and small and asking questions that Kaori can actually answer. She became a Witch. She became a Witch. "She took my soul gem," the ghost of a girl who was once named Kaori Hashimoto says, her face crumples again and her voice is tight with emotion and sorrow. "For a game. For a game. I would have given it to her, if I knew it was that important -"

And for a long moment, all she can do is shudder with emotion.

The only boy in the room speaks up, and asks a question that brings her back to focus, and she answers quietly, "2003. It was April."

The Super Famicon had been her older brother's, but he was in college and had a PlayStation 2, so he didn't mind his little sister having control of the Super Famicon. Her eyes stray to it, and the save screen, and the boss fight she'd struggled her way through again and again with a girl who had been her best friend.

"It was 2003. They buried my body. It's not here. They thought I was dead, and they gave her my games, and she gave me grief seeds and said it was a good trade."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Hope Concept frowns as she considers Jadeite's question. Yes, that was the detail she was refusing to consider. What she was hoping would not be true. When the answer is given...

    Oh, that is terrible. That is just too terrible. Her Eternal Fluffiness gives the girl a wide-eyed stare.

    "I mean... didn't you have emulators back in '03?! Nevermind I'm pretty sure they've re-released that game a few times since..."

    Such a ridiculous act. So pointless.

    Her golden eyes close. She tilts her head down and lets out a sigh. "I'm sorry... I was hoping that wasn't the case, but... if it's been that long... then there wasn't ever any chance of bringing you back. Your body probably rotted away long ago. It's 2024 now. You were in the ground before I was even born..." Her eyes open again, and she looks at Kaori apologetically. "I don't know what happens after this. My influence over the human soul ends at the proverbial banks of the river Styx. I can only promise you that this torment, at least, will come to an end."

    Hope Concept's winged slippers touch the ground, and she strides towards Kaori trailed by her starry, ruffly dress. Kneeling by the girl, she says, "We found you only after you had turned into a Witch. To think you had been trapped in a Soul Gem all this time..."

    She shakes her head, and then offers her hand. "Any last regrets before you go? Any request you'd like us to fulfill? This is it. There's no turning back from this point, so think it over."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Words and thoughts reel through Amy's mind.

She took my soul gem.

For a game.

    Amy can barely begin to process the horror--

I would have given it to her,

    What, how could anyone--

    Didn't you offer to die for Hannah? To fight Otto to the death, if it came to it?

    Well, that... Amy clutches at her own soul gem, presently on the back of her left wrist. That train of thought descends into a fuzziness that feels wrong, somehow.

    Kaori's spirit continues. Twenty-one years. This girl has been imprisoned since Mallory was sixteen. And it speaks of a potential terrible fate for herself, she has to ask, even if it's selfish, "We're... aware, in our soul gems? It's not... like ceasing to exist until..."

    Hope Concept asks about the technology of the day, and Amanda just gives a quick nod in answer.

    And then

There's no turning back from this point, so think it over.

    Amy bursts out laughing for a second, with a tinge of sadness. Then she nods towards the TV, another tear still running down her cheek. "I'm sorry. That sounded like something an NPC would say right before the last boss."

Jadeite has posed:
It's a horror story. This is, perhaps, a benefit to being a former dark general; his face stays steady even as his heart twists with sympathetic pain. Trapped for so long, and for what? A game?

He doesn't know if he can really comfort her like Amy and Madoka can - he doesn't know what it's like to be a Puella, and the horrors of time that he faces manifested very differently - but he is still Usagi's boyfriend-by-proxy, and has certain other advantages due to that. He digs through his pockets and pulls out a box of strawberry pocky.

"Here. Have a snack while you think it over. There's no wrong answer."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"...will one of you take my games?" Maybe it's a silly thing, a wasted last wish. But she doesn't have anything else. It's been so long. "I don't want her to have them. I don't want her to - play them, anymore. But someone should, someone who'd like them."

Her hand comes up, wipes the tears from her cheek.

"I've been hoping for this, for a long time. It's - whatever comes next, it has to be better than what it was, right?"

Amy speaks with horror, one of these younger girls, who came and stopped her from doing anything terrible, anything awful, and Kaori has given her nightmares, and she looks up to her -

"She talked to me, and she gave me grief seeds, whenever she did. This was - I think this was the first time I was out, without a Grief Seed to drain away my...grief."

Her lips twitch, in the faintest smile, at that laughter. The strawberry pocky is accepted, and she opens the box with delicate hands, and takes a bite. It's sweet. It's the same. Somethings, like commercial snack recipes, really don't ever change.

"If you think about it, I'm the NPC, aren't I? And you four are the new generation. If I could play NPC for anyone, I'm glad that it's you, Hope-sama, and your friends. I'll drop a grief seed, won't I? That's my other last wish. I'll be selfish, and ask for two: please, as my kouhai Puella, use my grief seed, and stay safe a little longer."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Concept blinks at Amy's sudden laughter, before realizing the joke that she unintentionally made. "Eheh... well... I didn't mean it that way but... kinda yeah I guess. This the point where the game tells you to settle your unfinished business."

    So, the request is made. Not one, but two. Hope Concept smiles and shakes her head. "It's not too selfish. You can have both wishes." She taps her chin and says, "Though... only Amy-chan here is an actual Puella, so she'll probably be the one using your Grief Seed, unless there's someone else who needs one." Hope gestures to herself and says, "While some consider me an honorary Puella Magi, I don't really need the Seeds once the soul is removed."

    She glances back to the others and says, "I suppose that means we'll need to find those games. Maybe they're in the bookstore? The one in the real world I mean."

    Turning her golden gaze back to Kaori, she tilts her head to the side and smiles. "I'm glad we got to meet you. I'm sorry things went so terribly for you, but... that's often how it goes for Puella Magi. Don't worry about us. We'll continue to protect people, and keep ourselves safe, for as long as we can."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy is surprised by the request, but the reasoning makes sense. Amy nods. "I'll take them to the videogames club at Radiant Heart Academy. It's a... a school with a lot of nice people, not like her, and a lot of magical girls go there. It turns out there are many kinds, besides us Puella Magi." The Shed is also a good suggestion and in the spirit of the wish, so Amy will totally go with it when pointed out.

    I'm the NPC, aren't I? "You shouldn't be. No one should be an NPC," and she inwardly cringes at the times she's felt she needed to sacrifice herself for the younger generation. "I'm around your age. But... some things happened, and my story didn't start, until a year ago." She blinks. "I guess... I need to find a story to have, after the magic's over... but I don't know how."

    And, another wish only she can fulfill. She nods again. "I'm Amanda." She shows her soul gem, then holds out her hand to shake. "It was nice to meet you, even so briefly."

    A story comes to her mind to share, that Kaori might understand the connection to, just a little, but time is short, so she keeps it brief. "...Did you ever play the sequel? I named one of the characters Amanda, back then, after myself. That save file is the oldest record I have of ever using this name. I'd almost forgotten. I suppose I should finish it so I can see her ending."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Amanda offers her name, and her hand, and Kaori takes it - and hugs her, gentle, tight, and releases her with a wet laugh. "I did! I definitely did. I played all of them. Square was always my favorite... I still can't believe they decided to merge with Enix..."

The last of her tension fades. Her form starts to fade with it, softening at the edges, as she looks at the three of them.

"I'm glad I met you all too. Thank you, for stopping me before I hurt anyone. My wish... it was to not leave a single person behind, and now... I didn't get left behind."

Oh. It's - nice. To realize. To think about. She's such a crybaby, because tears roll down her cheeks, again.

"Make sure to finish Amanda's game, Amanda-chan. It might give you ideas for how to finish your story."

And then she's gone, and the Labyrinth too. They stand in the Book Nook once more, among perfectly normal shelves, and all the doors in the back of the shop are open. They really shouldn't just grab any old thing, but if they follow the doors, they'll find a small room with the feeling of magic, and two well-preserved but nonetheless very old video game systems.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Kaori moves on, and Hope Concept sends her off with a smile. "Madoka," is the name she offers. It's... is that really her name right now? Well, it is if she wants it to be, she supposes.

    As everything fades back to the Book Nook, Hope Concept stands there glowing and translucent. She frowns slightly, feeling melancholy in light of everything that just transpired. Turning to everyone else, she says, "This is a place of magic. We have every right to take the games that were left to us, but we ought not touch anything else. There's no telling what curses we might trigger, or what bad things we might bring on our own heads."

    Her form lifts off of the ground, and she starts floating through the doorways. She does this with a level of grace and ease that should, frankly, be impossible considering how wide her wings are, or how much hair she has, or how big her dress is. She follows the trail laid out for them, and finds the games. "We should take them to RHA. Maybe your video game club might like them. Or... also, there's The Shed, I suppose. Either way, I'm sure someone will enjoy these."

    She frowns as she looks around the store. "I wonder if 'Rika' is the one who owns this store."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy is kind of surprised Kaori can actually shake her hand, and at the hug, and hugs her back, tightly.

    She's surprised at those last words, and can't help another laugh, shorter and lighter this time.

    And then she's gone, and Amy looks around the bookstore, and picks up the grief seed, slipping Kaori's empty shell into her belt pouch alongside Macrina Scylla's.

    She's considering taking a book off the shelf when Hope tells her not to, and Amanda yanks her hand back as if she almost touched a stove's burner, and nods.

    She follows Hope into the back, looking around curiously, and finding boxes to pack up the games in. She's not super neat about it, but practiced in making sure to have all the parts for family trips to see distant relatives, way back when.

    "I'm not actually in the videogame club. I barely have time for the RPG club and kinda phone it in to the Computer club, what with our after-school activities and reading manga. The Shed... there, people could know... that these were passed down from one magical girl, to her brothers and sisters in the future. I think... that would have more meaning, if anyone will play old games like these."

    "...Probably. She said Rika was using grief seeds to... keep her. If Rika... sold her, or died, she would have Witched then, right?"

    After a moment, Amy continues, "...It was Riesz. My first playthrough was as Hawkeye. The thief. He set off on his quest to impress his girlfriend or something, but she was evil and betrayed him? I don't really remember. It felt shallow. The other guys were Duran, the knight, whose story I forget, and... Kevin, the werewolf prince, looking to prove himself."

    She continues packing. "The female protagonists are Charlotte, the immature brat channeling divine power, Angela, the spoiled princess of the Witch kingdom who runs away from home, and Riesz, the princess of the Amazons. Riesz's little brother was kidnapped by the bad guys, who also killed the rest of her people. Honestly, her quest was the one I sympathized with the most. Selfless, she just wants to save her kid brother, even over revenge, or proving herself, or anything."

    Still packing the games up. "I guess I was projecting on her a little. It would've felt weird to give her... the old name, even if it was gender neutral. So I named her the name I would use if, haha, I ever needed a girl's name for some reason. I guess in that way I still named her after myself..."

    "There." Amy closes up the boxes and looks to Tamaki, rubbing the back of her head and grimacing. "Okay, I know it's stereotypical to ask a guy to carry stuff, but it'd be really heavy and awkward to try and carry all of it at once myself..."