Chapter 119: Punishment

A/N: Some changes are applied. They're all listed on the notes in the end.

***

They all went silent once they saw his message.

Roman: "This seems... plausible? They cause despair, but the reason behind them isn't explained. Rather, they chose not to explain."

Touka: "Half-truths, the special skills of adults. If that Mami doesn't know, poor girl."

Madoka: "This... Shiro-san, is it true? That witches are former humans?"

Shiro: "It's a possibility, but I wouldn't recommend you taking up its offer."

Earlier, he knew that Kyuubey 'chose' both Sayaka and Madoka, with the two of them helping it escape the pursuit of Akemi Homura. The latter's hate towards it is unknown, but Shiro can tell that her intent to kill it is very strong.

Roman: "There's still the Chain QUEST, Madoka-chan. It's better if you don't get involved too much with her."

[Chain QUEST—Truth Seeking]

Details: Due to the unique circumstances surrounding this world, a special QUEST has been designated. The Participants has to investigate the said circumstances, and a completion percentage will be given that corresponds to their findings. Some other mission objectives will be given once the requirements are met. The rewards will be distributed once the mission ends.

[Investigation—Akemi Homura: 9/50]

[Investigation—Universal Truth: 3/40]

[Investigation—Witches: 24/30]

[Elimination—Gertrud (Witch): 0/1]

Current Total Rewards: 250,000 Points

Note 1: Total Rewards are distributed among the Participants. However, the main contributor of each mission completion will receive more than the others.

'Homura's Investigation going up is expected, but what about this "Universal Truth"? Does it mean the general truth about this world, or the truth about the Universe?'

Shiro had a sudden thought, but the talks went further....

*****

"Mn..?"

Shiro's eyelid twitched as he looked at an abandoned yellow building not far away from him. Upon digging deeper, he saw a fold of pocket dimension.

It is a labyrinth, the place where Witches reside. Since they can't come to the outside world, they stay inside it most of the time. However, they can still come in contact with a person nearby, marking them with a "Kiss of a Witch"—the sign that someone is mentally corrupted by a Witch.

"It's only been a night, yet I already encountered another one?"

A night had passed since their meeting, and they decided to split up to search for these "Witches". That, and their desire to know more information about this world's "unique circumstances". It also helped that they're strong enough to escape from such labyrinths.

Madoka: "Finding Witches is like using a GPS!"

Seeing this chat of hers, he murmured with a helpless expression, "This girl.."

Madoka's decision to join in the "Firsthand Magical Girl Experience" truly baffled every one within the mission. Even when they deliberately discussed everything with her, her choice remained unchanged.

"I bet they're going here..."

With a single 7th-circle [Space Jump] that allowed him to jump short distances, he appeared in the rooftop. As to why he chose to do so...

Creak-!

A woman in a business attire opened the rusty steel door. Her eyes is in a daze, showing that she's under a mental manipulation spell.

Fortunately, he wore his [Concealment Mask—Half Form], effectively reducing his dazzling presence. Unlike the plain mask form that it has before, it now looked like a ninja's mask that covered up to his ears, though it's not reduced in any capabilities; thus it's like wearing nothing at all.

Coupled with his [Special Sunglasses (SR)], he looked more casual than him wearing a [Blindfold], which definitely garnered many attention up until now.

If he went to Madoka's school, no one could guess just how much chaos he would bring with his appearance.

"You're here."

Suddenly, a voice resounded a few meters from his left. There, he saw the shield-wielding Homura looking at him with a strong gaze.

"It do sounds like you're expecting me here." He replied. "Let's get straight to it... what do you want from me?"

Hearing this, she didn't react strongly and asked, "Who are you?"

"Me? I'm..."

Just as he is about to do his self-introduction (Jidoshoukai), he saw the business attire lady going over the iron fences. With this action of hers, it takes nothing to understand that she's about to meet Death... through her own means.

Then, he noticed the three girls, one experienced Magical Girl and two in-training, just below them.

"Truly a coincidence. If that's the case..."

Since he's wearing his jacket right now, he pulled out his [Cosmic Destroyer] inside an inner pocket. The silver gun shone under the sunset, giving off an ethereal vibe around it.

[Mental Placation (9th-circle)]!

[Dispel Curse (8th-circle)]!

[Rejuvenate (7th-circle)]!

[Float (3rd-circle)]!

In a split second, he casted three high-level spells and one low-level spell successfully. Since he used a mana bullet instead of a physical one, it wouldn't be harmful to the target.

Bang-!

A white bullet passed through her body before its effects took place.

Crack-!

A sound of something cracking down came from her. The curse that the Witch had implanted to her disappeared—the mark on her neck disappeared.

Still, she began free-falling to the ground. Thanks to the [Float] spell, it's considerably slow, and Shiro could remotely control it if Mami doesn't make it.

And so she did.

Transforming to her Magical Girl form, she created dozens of strings that caught the woman.

"There, it's settled." Shiro shifted his sights to Homura once more and continued, "My name's Shiro, a magus. I don't know how old am I, but I'm not one of your 'enemies'."

"...So you won't admit anything." She coldly replied.

"What..?"

While confused, he suddenly felt that the flow of time is disorganized. Then, he saw more than 5 hand grenades thrown at him. At the same time, the front of Homura's shield opened up, revealing gears of clock that's active; it rotates counter-clockwise when time stops.

[Space Imprisonment]!

This time, Shiro casted the spell himself. It resulted to a cubical space that contained the hand grenades.

BOOM-!

With ease, he remained unscathed from Homura's probing attack. A second later, his mana fully recovered.

"You're not present before." She murmured before appearing in front of him with double M4s beneath her shoulder.

A cacophony of bullet rounds rained in his face. Without even the chance to explain, Homura attacked him fiercely. If not for the fact that they're not inside a Witch's labyrinth right now, she would've brought out the heavy explosives inside her specialized storage.

Just as the bullets are about to touch Shiro's skin, Infinity did its job and fended them off. Using a [Space Jump], he created some distance with her—not like it mattered, however.

"Stopping time..?"

The moment he realized Akemi Homura's true power, the Chain QUEST went up.

[Investigation—Akemi Homura: 25/50]

Fortunately, his reaction time is insane enough to be able to react to her [Time Stop]. Based on their fight, he deduced that she's able to move around objects, but not living beings. That, or she needs to touch an object before she can use it in frozen time.

This is the reason why more than half a dozen's worth of bullets flew at his face when it's humanely impossible.

"Jou-chan, that's a bad manner, isn't it? Why attack the clueless me?" Shiro said light-heartedly, but he determined that she has a strong killing intent, which showed how she killed others.

This girl, not older than 13, killed dozens to achieve this...

"You're still pretending. Are you an Incubator?!" She said.

"Incubator?"

Seeing his perplexed eyes under his glasses and his tone of genuine confusion, she doubted if he's not a part of them.

"You're not?"

"No. What are Incubators, anyways?"

[Investigation—Universal Truth: 5/40]

Shiro looked at the prompt before realizing that just the mention of "Incubators" alone made it rise.

"If you're not one of them, I apologize." Homura said, walking to the rusty metal door to leave.

"Ahem. You ought to have some punishment. Y'know, you would've killed me if not for my strength?"

She paused upon hearing that. Her intuition sent out warning bells before she looked back, only to see Shiro with a strange aura around him.

[Time Accel]!

[Time Accel]!

[Time Accel]!

[Time Accel]!

[Time Accel]!

It's not strange, considering him casting five Accels consecutively, bringing his reaction time and speed to an all-time high. Before she even realized, he disappeared from the spot like a ghost.

Homura then found out that she's been carried by him under his arms...

*****

A/N: Slight Correction. Upon watching Madoka Magica once more, Homura's ability is actually like this:

1. She can interact with stuff that she holds, keeping them off from the frozen time.
2. She can use guns during frozen time, but the bullets would freeze after a second or two (basically they stop when they're out of  her hands).
3. She can only stop time BEFORE 45 days had passed. Once that allowance is spent, she wont be able to stop time and has to revert time once more. The tomoe-like design on her shield works like an hourglass, with the tomoe above showing how much time is left until she couldn't use time stop. Once the upper tomoe empties itself, she'll have no choice but to reset time to 45 days ago to regain her time stop. (Her Time Stop ability gets locked at this state so she'll be left and the time reversal will be the only one that's left)
4. It is shown that Homura has a spacial storage for her weapons, which is because time and space are interconnected. That's why there's some circumstances where she can destroy a part of space along with what is in there.
5. As for her Time Stop Ability and Shiro's assumption on it, I changed it again to be more vague :v My brother sent me a detailed picture on how Homura's shield works, so some of my confusion prior to writing this chapter was cleared up.