Chapter Text
Homura knew something was wrong immediately upon registering she was awake. She was not in bed, neither the uncomfortable cheap hospital bed she began each loop in, nor the queen-sized bed in her apartment. In fact she was not lying down at all. She opened her eyes. As she did so, oddly, not a hint of reluctant sleepiness was released from them. It took her a few seconds to work out where she must be. It looked like nothing else other than a parking garage (replete with the muffled sounds of downtown, and the odour of concrete), which was mystifying and therefore alarming, because Homura could not remember having been in a parking garage recently, not once this entire loop so far. She also could not remember exactly how and where she had gone to sleep.
She quickly deduced the most likely reason for this, she is probably in a Witch's barrier, though she was familiar with no witch whose Labyrinth looked like this. Her next step was analysing the situation. Scanning around, her eyes came to rest on the other side of the drive way, where she saw a family of humans, or entities that appeared to be such, in the process of getting out of a large red vehicle. Three adults and three children, one a quite young girl, and girl and boy high schoolers, if she had to guess. They all had milky white hair, except for one of the two men, who had bright green hair (in fact it was extraordinarily bright, Homura had never seen anyone with hair that bright before, and assumed he probably dyed it, or was a memory of a real person who had), and the putative high school boy, whose hair was a softer green that felt more natural to her. They were not looking in her direction. She quickly ducked behind a van and transformed; then emerged to resume her observation. The entities continued to go about their business in the same way. She decided to approach them, and began making long, purposeful strides in their direction across the drive way, keeping her hand tucked behind her shield, ready to access a weapon or activate the shield at any moment.
As she got closer, several of them started to notice her. She observed that they looked European or American. They did not make any aggressive move, but continued to act as they had been, except for the youngest daughter, who pointed at Homura, and spoke to (probably her mom): "Look, a Huntress! What's her name?". The other of the girls interjected with "I don't know who she is. And I don't think she's a Huntress, she's probably a student. Not Pharos, so she probably goes to either Beacon or Signal".
Homura was stunned. She had never heard of any of those schools, and was incredibly confused about why they were referring to her as a "Huntress", this being an unhelpful accompaniment to the fact she was really not in the zone for social interaction right now, having come steeled to have to fight her way out of this encounter. After an awkward pause, she supplied her name: "I am Akemi Homura. Pleased to meet you", and curtsied. The high school girl immediately lept at her with "What academy do you go to? You look too young to be at Beacon, so probably Signal. I go to Pharos, I don't recognise you so I don't think you're from there. I don't know for sure though. Do you recognise me? Though maybe with a name like that, you might just be visiting here from Mistral instead. By the way, your weapon looks really cool. Is it just a shield or does it unfold into something else? What's it called? How did you get it? ..." Homura tried to remain outwardly impassive throughout this barrage but the woman must have been able to sense some of the stupefaction radiating from her because at this time she gently shut down her daughter's interrogation with a softly spoken "Dear, don't pester her. Miss Homura, I'm sorry for wasting your time. Have a good day!" (a weird thing to say given that Homura was the person who had actually initiated the interaction, almost as weird as referring to a stranger by her given name), flashed her a smile, took her younger daughter's hand, and started off down the drive way. The middle school-aged daughter gave Homura a pleading look, and then turned to follow after failing to recieve any kind of acknowledgement. The bright green-haired man, probably their father, gave her a look that was probably supposed to be apologetic before also heading on their way.
It occurred to Homura that her arms were both hanging at her side slack; she had let her guard down at some point. However it also occurred to her that these were either the weirdest familiars she had ever seen (in a deeper sense of the idea, in that their total presence of humanity was what was jarring to her), or this was not a Witch's labyrinth at all. It having caught her eye, she strolled over to the guard rail and looked outside to find a cityscape, with bustling rivers of traffic, buildings and skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, and thousands of people out and about. In the distance she could see a large river. The city resumed on the far bank, although there seemed to be fewer tall buildings there. It was really hard to imagine something like this being contained in a Labyrinth. She could not be sure of it, but given that she had never seen a Labyrinth remotely like this before, at this point that seemed unlikely as an explanation for what had happened. At first Homura was considering that she may have fallen asleep here on accident or something and maybe had a freak outbreak of sleepwalking, but as she paced about and analysed the situation, a few more things occurred to her:
The strangers she had just met spoke fluent Japanese, in fact they spoke perfect Japanese, to the extent that Homura had not registered this fact at all in the moment. Despite this, the woman had referred to her with her given name as Miss Homura (which she presumed was either because she thought "Homura" was her surname, or because she didn't realise it was impolite to call a stranger that), which had given her a bit of a jolt (partly because it was strange but also because the only person who had ever called her that before was Madoka, in certain timelines). Would a fluent Japanese speaker, even one for whom it was a second language, seriously do that?
All of the license plates she was walking past were definitely not from Japan. She also vaguely felt like the cars were unfamiliar, and didn't recognise any of the brands once she thought to stop and glance at them.
The city she saw outside could not possibly be Mitakihara
Homura reverted back into her casual form in order to not draw attention to herself, and kept walking, deciding to go in the same direction as the people she had met, where presumably was the exit. She came upon a stairwell, and descended what proved to be three floors, and then exited the building, passing a few smokers hanging out in the entrance lobby. They were also European-looking, and gave no sign of acknowledgement of her. Two of them were talking to each other, and Homura realised they were speaking Japanese too. Leaving the building, she found herself on a sidewalk along a major street, filled with cars. There were a lot of pedestrians as well, including the family she had encountered. She noted that it appeared to be dawn or dusk. Glancing down the length of the road, she saw the Sun on her left, low in the sky, which meant the road ran east-west, although she wasn't sure which was which. Something else that struck her were the several flying vehicles drifting through the sky. It seemed paradoxical, this couldn't be Japan, yet she also couldn't think what country it might be. She noticed that many of the people she saw were dressed quite gaudily in bright and contrasting colours, to the extent that her magical girl clothing would probably have hardly stood out.
She decided to walk in the direction of the sun, not really having any idea where she was going, but hoping to find more information. She noted that the street signs had unfamiliar designs, yet they were all in Japanese too, somehow.
Homura noticed a bus stop on the other side of the street and was in the process of calculating how to get over to it, hoping she could find some tourist brochures or something, when she heard a terrible noise that sounded like an explosion. It seemed alarmingly nearby. A few moments later, the air was pierced by blaring sirens, which were so loud they completely drowned out the ambient noise of the city. For a few moments the city seemed to be frozen in fear, people nervously covering their ears, hanging around unsure of what to do, talking to each other urgently. Homura overheard some people discussing the situation but couldn't make out what subject they were mentioning. But nobody was dashing towards any shelters or anything. Homura was not sure whether to feel panicked or reassured by this. Was the emergency sufficiently nonthreatening to not merit any evacuation or was it just that they were sufficiently unprepared that nobody had any idea what to do?
Seeking to figure out what was going on, Homura quickly took action and ran over towards the source of the noise. There was a cloud of smoke drifting into the sky from behind some buildings, which she took to indicate the target of interest. As she ran, she heard commotion up ahead and began passing people who seemed to be fleeing in terror, from something. In a few moments the atmosphere of the city had completely changed, people were definitely running for safety now, though not seemingly in any coordinated direction. She pressed on, rounded the corner of a building into a large plaza partially covered in rubble, and saw a striking sight: a horde of black monsters running amok, the thing from which all of the people in the vicinity were fleeing. All of the creatures seemed to have white, skull-like heads on their black bodies. Most of them looked a bit larger than humans and shaped sort of like bears or maybe dogs (though they didn't really look like anything), but there were a few immense creatures the size of houses, one the form of a serpent, another a scorpion, and several others that looked like bears. Some more creatures that looked like gigantic birds which seemed to be another form of the black creatures were circling in the air just above the chaos. Homura was not really prepared for this sort of situation. She never fought witches in the open under the gaze of people, and had never been required to. She also was not sure what she was faced with right now. It seemed unlikely these creatures were more dangerous than a witch, but she did not know how they behaved or where they came from, and more importantly, she thought it was pretty unlikely they had grief seeds. Homura therefore decided it would probably be best to leave the scene along with everyone else, and not draw attention to herself. She had no real reason to get involved in whatever this was.
At this point however, she was distracted by something. She noticed the monsters had stopped chasing the civilians and were forming up all around the centre of the plaza. In the midst of their encirclement were four young women. They were clearly not normal civilians and were all pointing weapons at their attackers, but they also did not look like magical girls. At least, Homura had never seen any magical girls who looked remotely like this. They all had bright, contrasting clothing. One was wielding something that looked like a giant scythe larger than her body, another a rapier. Homura couldn't make out what the other two had exactly. Another few moments later, the horde of monsters charged at the four girls, who lunged in to attack. The black monsters' number seemed like their only advantage, as the four girls quickly slaughtered dozens of them, leaping through the air, twirling around to spray their shots (some of their weapons seemed to shoot projectiles despite not looking like guns) at groups of opponents, and delivering whirls of blows and slashes. Homura considered that these people were probably what "Huntresses" were. She silently thanked them for the distraction but before she could leave, she processed something worrying. Not all of the monsters were focused on the four girls, partly because there were so many of them, but while she had been standing there gazing at the four warriors, a group of beasts including a giant bear seemed to have refocused their attention on her, or at least were looking in her direction. She decided that she had definitely overstayed her welcome by now. There were a few other people who were also cautiously standing around watching the show, who seemed to be coming to a similar conclusion at the same time.
Homura made a move to slip in with them, but as she turned around she saw one of the giant birds diving in toward her from this direction. Homura and the other people all broke into sprints and scattered, but the terrifying bird seemed to be homing on her in particular for some reason. At the last second she engaged her transformation and at the last second made a superhuman leap to get out of the way, landing on the side of the road next to a tree. She turned around and produced a submachine gun from her shield, just in time to brace herself for the impact of one of the mid-sized monsters charging at her. Homura took a deep breath and calmly activated her shield. The beast came to a halt a few metres in front of her, stuck in the frozen flow of time. Up close and giving her a good look at it, it looked horrifying. It body was covered in spikes and its skull-like face had demonic red eyes and patterns on it. She observed that it was the leading member in a whole phalanx of seven identical creatures charging at her. She jumped aside and took up a new position ten metres away, perpendicular to their motion. She reminded herself not to make any more mistakes, be careful to focus on all of the threats, and keep her distance from them.
She resumed time and opened fire on the seven attackers. Immediately noticing she had vanished, they screeched to a halt like a train struggling to apply its brakes. They looked around frantically for her, but none were able to resume their charge, crashing to the ground in a pile of claws and spines as Homura's hail of bullets pierced their bodies, before evaporating into black mist. Seven down, but there were many more to go, and she didn't know where the birds had gone. She lept up to the low roof of a nearby building, which the horde of monsters approached cautiously. One by one, they jumped up to her, and Homura dispatched each with pistol shots, before being forced to dodge again as the bear slammed its claws onto the roof. Homura evaded its strike, which struck the building so hard it caved most of the roof in. She was able to avoid falling in, but at this point one of the birds came up to her from behind, and Homura dropped down in order to evade it. She landed on a mess of overturned clothing racks, and behind the shelves she could hear snarls indicating the monsters had were hunting her in here. She was on the right side of the store, blocked from view by the shelves. She advanced toward them, tracking them by their snarls which enabled her to stay out of sight behind some shelves (Homura was not really sure what purpose it served for them to make so much scary noise). She kicked over a heavy shelf of bicycles onto a group of the creatures which roared in anger and began struggling to get out. While they did so, she calmly took aim and took out five more monsters prowling on the left hand side of the store near the checkout counters, reloaded, and then finished off the struggling monsters beside her. Another monster, somewhat larger than the others, lept at her from behind, issued a threatening roar at her while preparing to lunge, and recieved two shots between the eyes for its trouble. She reloaded again and moved deeper into the store, taking out more and more beasts. She began to feel more comfortable about this. There was nobody else watching her and she was starting to get used to the patterns of the beasts.
Really, Homura was not impressed so far with these unknown opponents. After dispatching several more waves, she walked again to the front of the store, where she saw her path barred by a massive bear-like creature. It stalked towards her, and Homura shot it in the face. It roared and lunged forward as Homura continued to unload her magazine into its face, and was unable to reach her before collapsing to the ground with a thud. Homura walked up to it, and felt a familiar sensation in her soul gem. She looked at it and confirmed something interesting, the body of the monster functioned in the manner of a grief seed, drawing the pollution out of her gem. But this lasted only a few moments before its body evaporated.
The glass front of the store was completely destroyed, and having cleared the building of opponents, she was able to walk back into the plaza freely. Given a moment to collect herself, Homura became aware of the defeaning noise of jet engines, and gazed out at the rest of the plaza. It was surprisingly much less full of monsters than it had been, which she took to mean that most of the beasts had been killed and evaporated. Homura noticed a lot of warriors who had probably arrived in the meantime, but what really was gathering her attention was the giant flying vessel, much larger than any of the ones she had seen before, suspended above a neaby building and surrounded by a swarm of smaller ones, which was evidently where that noise was coming from. There were soldiers simply jumping off the ships and landing on the ground, joining soldiers and warriors already there. The soldiers were tearing through the monsters with gunfire, while the warriors used a combination of swords and guns to work through them. One woman was just beating them to death with a suitcase.
Homura's attention however came to fix on the giant scorpion, which was nearby, ripping through soldiers with each strike of its claws and tail. As she watched, the upper half of one soldier landed with a thud in front of her, and Homura realised it was actually an android, but she had no time to dwell on it, as the giant arachnid turned towards her suddenly. She was next.
The scorpion's tail come down with a wham, slicing through a space Homura had been just a moment before. She jumped up and used the tail as a springboard to fall upon the scorpion's body from above, shooting it repeatedly. As soon as she landed she had to jump away to evade its claws. Homura fired at the joint attaching the claw to the scorpion's body. As she landed, the scorpion's claw lunged to catch her, and she rotated in midair in order to land with her shield impacting the claw, bouncing off it without being grappled. She realised the scorpion's armour was preventing her from doing significant harm to it with her pistol. She continued to dodge attacks. As she did so, she considered that its eyes and mouth might be a weak spot, but the area immediately in front of the scorpion was also where she was in the most danger from it. She produced a large rifle from her shield, and backed away to be able to take a better shot. She hit both of its primary eyes, provoking an furious scream, and then aimed at the right series of its legs, the creature's frailest appendages. As the scorpion charged at her, she took the shots and it suddenly toppled over, wounded. However, seemingly with great difficulty, the scorpion slowly began to stand up again, still crying out in pain or anger. Realising she needed to take the opportunity, Homura snatched a hand grenade from her shield, sprinted toward the scorpion, and threw the grenade into its bellowing mouth. She leapfrogged off its tail, flipped, and landed gracefully on her feet as the scorpion exploded into a shower of black mist and white shards behind her.
Homura stood up and looked forward to notice, for the first time, her audience. The beasts had all been eliminated, and many of the warriors who had shown up were just chatting with each other. She noticed some androids escorting a handcuffed man in suit and top hat with flaming orange hair into an aircraft. She noticed that the plaza had somehow been cleaned of rubble and indeed seemed perfectly intact with the exception of two benches and a lamppost, reduced to twisted metal, in front of her that she recalled had just been ran over by the scorpion. That scorpion she had just killed was probably the last monster to go down, so she had inadvertently been drawing a huge amount of attention to herself. Staring at her were the four warriors she had originally seen, as well as a group of three more with smug expressions: a woman with black hair and clothes and yellow eyes, a boy with gray hair, eyes, and clothes, and a girl with light green hair, red eyes, and dark skin, and in addition to them an older woman, with a scowl on her face, wielding a wand, with blonde hair, a high-waisted black skirt, dark stockings, and a white blouse, as well as some other people behind them, one of whom was the suitcase-wielder (although she was currently leaning on a huge yellow rotary machine gun). The yellow-eyed woman started clapping, soon joined by the black haired scythe girl (who was smiling), which Homura would have been preoccupied with being uncomfortable about if the older woman was not currently advancing toward her. The woman flicked her wand, which caused the destroyed benches and lamp pole to reconstitute themselves and leap back to their original positions, leaving the plaza nearly good as new. The woman stopped in front of Homura and said tersely: "I don't believe I recognise you. You're not a student at beacon. Are you from Mistral?"
Homura considered this for a few moments and came to the conclusion that if people were going to keep assuming she was from Mistral it might be advisable to simply act the part (perhaps she was in some kind of strange fantasy universe where Mistral was the equivalent of Japan, although that wouldn't explain why everyone here spoke Japanese) So she said "Yes ma'am, I am". Unfortunately this did not seem to satisfy her inquisitor, who seemed to be waiting for Homura to add onto that statement. But she had nothing. After a few seconds the woman said "Are you enrolled at Haven? Do you have a Huntress' license? Please show it to me."
Homura was pretty sure she did not. This interaction was rapidly becoming the worst one yet today. She didn't know exactly what this was all about, but she inferred that not being able to produce one would probably lead to her being interrogated and concievably imprisoned by the authorities, of which this woman was possibly a representative (she did not look like it, but the only occupation her clothing suggested was "stage performer" which Homura was coming to gather was probably just how everyone in this country dressed). Homura stepped backward defensively. The woman stepped towards her again. Homura considered using her shield to simply vanish and escape, but after a few moments reconsidered her situation. For one thing, she must not reveal her power. It was an advantage to be conserved and used only when she needed it absolutely. This was not that. If the worst came to worst she knew she would always have a route to escape, but unless it got to that, she reasoned that being taken to the authorities would probably solve her crisis of not knowing where not on earth she was.
So Homura stepped forward.
__________________________________________________
"Ozpin? Ozpin!"
He turned in his chair toward his desk to face the computer screen. "Yes. Councilmen?"
"You've left us with no choice. The Vytal Festival tournament cannot be broadcast, let alone held, if we are unable to ensure the safety of the citizens!"
Ozpin sipped from his coffee mug. His gaze did not rise off of the floor.
Councilman Gray cleared his throat aggressively "Therefore! We have reached out to the Atlas Council, and together have decided that the best action, is to appoint General Ironwood as head of security for the event"
This was an interesting way to put it, considering that the Ironwood's fleet with its legions of soldiers and androids, the world's most powerful military force, had been hovering ominously in Vale's skies and patrolling its streets for months up until now. This might untactfully be described as an Atlesian coup. But the circumstances it reflected were just as much the honest degradation of Vale's trust in their local Hunter leadership as the Atlesian incursion.
General Ironwood himself, who was also in the video call, enjoined with: "Thank you councilman. Our kingdom is happy to lend as many troops as it takes to ensure that this event runs as smoothly, and safely, as possible". Ozpin finally looked at the screen.
"And we thank you, General"
"Will that be all?" Ozpin interjected
Councilman Gray responded "For now. But, after this festival comes to a close, we are going to have a serious discussion regarding your position at Beacon Academy. General Ironwood's reports of these last few weeks have left us somewhat... concerned. I'm sure you understand"
"This is the right move, Ozpin. I promise. I will keep our people safe, you have to trust me" said Ironwood.
Ozpin looked away again. The Council members disconnected from the video call, followed by Ironwood. He relaxed in his chair somewhat. This situation was tense but not actually very threatening. He knew James Ironwood personally and did not fear him. He did think the Council and Ironwood were to some extent downplaying the risk of public unrest, but mostly he was worried about complications that might happen if the Council attempted to replace him. As he pondered about concievable precautions to take, he the elevator arrive, followed by the door opening.
He was already expecting the first to enter, Professor Glynda Goodwitch (who also happened to be the specific person he intended to succeed him if he had to step down as Beacon headmaster), but not the second, a girl whom he had never seen before. She had black hair and dark eyes, and was wearing a white and grey dress and black tights, and had a weapon fastened to her arm that looked like a round metal shield. On the back of her left hand was a large jewel that seemed to glow with purple light. Her expression somehow felt both melacholic and serious. The last time him, Glynda, and a teenager had been the only people in a room together, that girl was Ruby Rose, whose disposition could not more contrast more with the aura this person emanated.
"It's been cleared up. Ironwood's robots helped us. I was impressed by how well Team CVFE and the other students performed" Glynda reported.
"That's good to hear" Ozpin said.
"However," she continued, "while repairing the damage, I came across this young lady."
"Hello, I am Akemi Homura. I am honoured to meet Headmaster Ozpin" said the aforementioned young lady. She then bowed. Ozpin to raised his left eyebrow slightly.
Glynda produced her scroll and showed Ozpin a video that appeared to depict Miss Homura taking on a Death Stalker and killing it, all by herself, by disabling it and tossing some sort of device into its jaws. He noted that her shield, which she was also wearing in the footage, did not seem to be a weapon in its own right but instead functioned as a storage device from which she produced her actual weapons, which included the small device she had used to finish off the Death Stalker as well as a variety of guns, which were all black and rather simple in design. It was also surprisingly difficult to tell what kinds of dust rounds they used. He decided this was probably more of an indicator of advanced rather than primitive workmanship, since in order for those weapons to fit in her shield they had to be built to fold up very efficiently.
"Akemi" (for some reason Akemi flinched when she said this) "says she's from Mistral, but doesn't seem to be enrolled in Haven Academy. She has neither a Huntress' license nor a student's license. She might be a member of a bandit tribe, or possibly a criminal group. But she seemed like she wanted to meet you." Glynda said.
"What does she have to say about that?" asked Ozpin
"I am not a bandit nor am I a criminal" said Akemi, who was doing a good but not perfect job of suppressing her indignation.
Ozpin did not answer this directly, being as there was something else about Akemi, that he knew even Glynda couldn't perceive, that intrigued him immensely. "Glynda, you might be interested to know that her Aura isn't unlocked"
Glynda gasped. "That can't be true. How can she possibly be able to fight Grimm like that without aura?"
Ozpin continued: "Akemi-"
"I'd kindly prefer if you referred to me as Miss Akemi" she interrupted.
Glynda glared at her, but Ozpin smiled good-naturedly and resumed. "Miss Akemi, could you explain to us why your aura is not unlocked?"
"I'm, I don't wish to say" Miss Akemi replied, nervously. The intensity of Glynda's death stare increased, but Ozpin just laughed softly.
"Well, it seems we have a mystery girl with mystery abilities. Please understand, I mean you no harm. We're merely curious about you." He paused. "May I ask who you are and why you are in Vale? How did you get here?"
She took a moment, and produced a photograph from her shield and showed it to Ozpin and Glynda. It depicted a girl, probably the same age as Miss Akemi, who also looked distinctively Mistrali, and whose pastel-pink hair was tied into pigtails on either side of her head by a pair of red ribbons. She was smiling in the photograph, only subtly, but doing so in such a way that gave the impression of boundless goodwill and pure innocence, although Ozpin thought that Miss Akemi could make any human being alive seem positive and vibrant if they stood in the same room together. "I am here to find Kaname Madoka, who is my beloved friend" she said.
"If I see any sign of her you may be assured you will be the first to know. I have something else to ask you, though. How old are you?"
"...14" Homura said, after thinking for a bit.
Ozpin was somewhat surprised. She looked young, but maybe not that young. Perhaps her disposition made her seem more mature. "You seem quite the skilled young lady. Although you would need to wait for the next school year, and even then would possibly be our youngest student in history, I would be honoured if you were to enroll at Beacon. I have confidence you could thrive there and earn your Huntress' license. Also, as you know, the Vytal Festival is only a few weeks away. I am very much inclined to invite you to the tournament"
"No, I have no interest in either of those things." she responded. "I am only interested in finding Kaname Madoka. I would be eternally grateful if you could assist me."
"Well," Ozpin replied, "I could ask General Ironwood for a favour. Or I could ask Qrow, whenever he gets back, if he's seen anyone like your missing friend. It will also be complicated for you to go about as you have been without a license. Unfortunately, I don't think I can allow you to do any more of that until this issue is resolved. I might be able to arrange for license exam to be administered to you, although it must be said, with the City being the way they are right now, they might object if they catch word of it."
Homura considered this, and ultimately just said "Could I have somewhere to sleep tonight?" she asked.
Ozpin laughed. "Oh, that much, I have no trouble providing." (Glynda looked a bit dubious about this) "There are some unused staff dormitories in this tower a few floors below. I'm sure we will have no trouble accommodating you in one. Feel free to stay as long as you like. And if you need something, just ask me."
Miss Akemi, face flushed, looked equally as dubious as Glynda about the Headmaster's unconditional hospitality, but simply gave a bow and said "Thank you". Ozpin gave her directions, and she rushed to the elevator, and Ozpin and Glynda listened as it descended.
"I understand why you want to keep her close enough to monitor, but why let her go without pressing her on any of things she refuses to explain? Surely it would be better to know sooner rather than later?" Glynda inquired, turning to look out at the setting sun.
"If Miss Kaname really is anywhere to be found in Remnant, we'll know who and what she is well before she reaches her goal"