"Sigh... She's really..."
Shiro murmured after walking away from Madoka's house. Helplessness could be heard from his voice before his eyes sported a sharp look. In a carefree manner, he called out:
"We're not playing hide-and-seek, or are we?"
"Alright."
Not far from him, a one-tailed white fox with scarlet eyes sat beside the road. It didn't open its mouth, but it spoke out to him like a normal person.
Suddenly, Shiro said, "Your next line will be... 'What an interesting human.' "
"What an interesting-" The fox, Kyuubey, paused just before it could finish its words. "Do you have the ability to read minds, foreigner?"
"Foreigner?" He asked.
"You might not admit about this, but I saw through your strange aura the moment we met."
It was during the time Shiro clashed with Homura for the first time, and Kyuubey was 'badly wounded'. As a special race whose goal is to preserve and prevent the end of the universe, each of their powers are immense; thus, seeing through his real identity is not impossible for it.
"Most importantly... You three weren't supposed to be here." Kyuubey added.
Hearing this, Shiro's eyebrows rose as he tilted his head, looking at Kyuubey with his [Six Eyes] fully visible.
Beep-!
[Investigation—Universal Truth: 10/40]
Beep-!
[Official Quest: Midnight Encounter]
Details: Kyuubey, the Incubator overseeing this world, sensed your peculiarity and decided to meet you. Based from your responses, a set of appropriate actions will be dealt by him.
Objective: State your side firmly.
Reward/s: 200,000 Soul Points, 1 Appraisal Attempt (S)
Two consecutive notifications rang out, causing Shiro to pay attention here for a split second. This was caught by Kyuubey, however, as it drew some sorts of conclusion based on his reactions.
Truly, high-level fights are mostly made out of 70% deducing, analyzing, and planning, while the remaining 30% is the actual fight, which wouldn't last long if it's an even match.
Shiro also used this tactic on Homura and successfully drew many inferences and information based from her reactions alone. Though, it became possible due to his high Wisdom stats.
Realizing this mistake, he went back to his previous expression.
"About Witches and Magical Girls...I want to ask you about one thing."
"What is it?" Kyuubey disappeared from the side of the road and re-appeared on top of a lamp post.
"You're the one who contracted Magical Girls by offering Witches. If so... is the thing about Magical Girls being Witches your plans too?"
Tap-! Tap-!
Raindrops fell from the sky. With each passing second, it grew stronger. Though, what's strange is that neither Shiro nor Kyuubey got wet, with the former using a spell to ward off the raindrops on him.
"That's right."
Without hesitation, Shiro drew his [Cosmic Destroyer] from his [Dimensional Storage] and pointed it at Kyuubey.
[Time Accel]!
[Time Accel]!
[Time Accel]!
[Time Accel]!
[Time Accel]!
Thanks to five Accels that he casted simultaneously, Shiro managed to move his body faster than before. It can now follow with his superb perception that made his feeling of the world slow down. In this slow world, only he and his silver gun moved swiftly.
Then...
Bang-! Bang-! Bang-!
Bang-! Bang-! Bang-!
Bang-! Bang-! Bang-!
The bullets fired with the help of [Overload] streaked to Kyuubey, turning its body into one with bloodied holes in a matter of a second.
[+100,000 Soul Points]
'Is he... nope.' He thought as he saw the Chat Group panel, in which it showed his progress with the chain quest.
[Elimination—Kyuubey: 0/1]
Beep-!
[Quest completed. Rewards settlement...]
[+200,000 Soul Points]
[+1 Appraisal Attempt (S)]
Few more notices popped up, but Shiro chose to pay attention to the one-tailed fox that appeared not far from him once more.
"You're just like her." Kyuubey said while sitting right besides him. It looked at its 'body' filled with blood as it fell to the ground, tainting it with the color of red.
Fortunately, it's raining right now, thus the blood is soon washed over to the drainages.
"Mn... While I'm not considered a sane person in this society, I won't stoop so low as to turn young girls into those abominations." Shiro said while looking down, both literally and figuratively, at it.
"They wished for something; I gave it it them. Isn't it fair?"
"Fair? More like, you're asking a child to sign up for a black company contract."
Right after saying this, he went silent. Unlike the other hot-blooded anime protagonists that he binged, he's aware that there are more things to do if he wants to prevent the birth of Witches from happening again.
Even now, he's drawing his plan, all the while he decided to use the appraisal attempt that he got just now.
[S-ranked Appraisal Attempt used. Showing information of the entity 'Kyuubey'...]
============
Name: Kyuubey
Age: >5,000,000
Species: ??? (Modified)
Affiliation: Incubators
Physique: 50 (>4,000,000)
Dexterity: 50 (>4,000,000)
Stamina: 50 (>4,000,000)
Wisdom: >5,000,000
Authority: Causality
Level: >Ascendant God
Authority: Partial Omnipresence
Level: >Ascendant God
[??? More Authorities]
Abilities:
[Contract Creation]
[Telepathy]
[Karmic Eyes]
[Energy Conversion]
[Parallel Self Summoning]
[??? More Authorities]
Current thoughts: "Someone not bound by the karma in this universe... He might be a key to our preservation."
============
'F*ck*ing...' He exclaimed inwardly upon seeing Kyuubey's stats. He became more surprised when he saw it having two or more authorities!
Just like in Fate Universe, Authorities are the one that makes up a god. If someone ascended with an Authority related to Fire, they would have more control over it. As for Kyuubey?
Just the [Partial Omnipresence] alone is enough to shock him!
Basically, one of the three requirements to surpass the realm of Chief Gods, which is Main Gods in his power system, is to have the three Creator Attributes: Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence.
Roman, who possessed one of them through his [Clairvoyance - EX], can be hailed as the King of Mages. Furthermore, it allowed him to prepare for a failsafe for Goetia, in which it really worked when he was summoned by Chaldea. Strange enough, [True Magic] covered everything about this.
The Second and the Fifth for Omnipresence.
The Fourth for Omniscience.
The First and Third for Omnipotence.
EVEN IF that Authority is only a Partial one, something that can be compared to a fake, it still possessed huge amounts of power that his current self couldn't handle.
As for its stats? It reached Ascendant God level at the very least, which is also the lowest realm for a god in Shiro's power system. Up there is the Main/Chief God.
While the lowest, an Ascendant God could possess an attribute no lower than 1 million, with 5 million being a threshold for the Main/Chief Gods.
Seeing this creature that matched a Chief God, it's a miracle that Shiro could act nonchalantly.
'The 5 [Time Cards] and the [Tail Gear] is my only insurance now.'
"Anyways, why did you come here?" Shiro asked this terrifying creature besides him.
"To check on you."
'Heh. Check on me..? More like, check on someone else...'
Earlier, Shiro chatted with Touka and knew that the latter saw a boundless light when her [Tyrant's Eye] is active. Since it involved destiny plus Kyuubey's Authority that is related to Causality and the fact that Kyuubey seemed close to her, he reached an unimaginable conclusion...
'Madoka-chan is not simple as she seems...'
*****
A/N: Take note that out of Five True Magics, only three had been confirmed. The First and Fourth can be considered as non-canon until further information is released. (Said this to not confuse the readers who saw something from other fics)
Fact #75: Did you know that Perfumer (Arknights), Mashu (FGO), and Megumin (Konosuba) has the same voice actress? I felt that Mash and Megumin sounded kind of similar when I rewatched Agateram yesterday, plus Perfumer's voice lines when I'm playing.
PS: Really loved Mashu's meeting with Lancelot. That "Otou-san!" of hers really killed Lancelot's heart out of fluff lmao.
At last reached this point took quite a while to get here but I enjoyed the story so far, even made me consider reinstalling arknights to do ch 8+ and fgo to finish the lostbelts
Hmm? Is Denial of Nothingness fanon?
No need to answer - googled it. It seems making Denial of Nothingness the First Magic is fanon. First Magic is really undefined, and Denial is something else - though it's very probable DoN is part of it. Because you can't actually create something from nothing with Magecraft, as it's the domain of True Magic. Second is Kaleidoscope, Third is the Materialization of the Soul, Fifth is the Blue. Fourth has something to do with time I think?
@BlaszczeM I don't know about the canon, but I've heard that the Fourth has something to do with Perception; The Blue is the one related to time.
@IdleYoungMaster Maybe, but it's still weird. I did find it one the wiki, that The Blue is capable of manipulating time. Supposedly it has something to do with "advancement of civilization" at the core?
Well, I was more focused on the fact that Aoko is known for being a wrecking ball dragon, going around and blowing things up with excessive force. There is no overkill, only just-enough kill
If you remember the talk between kyuubey an himura about himura's circumstances and why madoka can always just manage to defeat strongest witch and die right after every time, is that every time himura time travels, more fate is entangled with madoka as the center of every iteration (cuz himura time travels so madoka don't die) which also strengthens her every iteration. Which points out that the progression in puella madoka is linear, not parallel like steins gate. So everything that happened in the past which is re-written by time travelling still matters. And it is said that the strongest witch is the accumulation of all the witches existed. Notice the connection? While madoka is getting stronger every iteration due to himura, the strongest witch is also getting stronger by the same principle. Compared in the sequel of the series and no strongest witch existing(i don't remember it right or it was just not mentioned), madoka is only just above the average level as a magical girl.
Also in the sequel, you can say that madoka can only survive if everyone in the group survives also... (A theory why himura always fail to save madoka, maybe because someone, or some people always die before or during the strongest with event. Or the strongest witch just don't exist in the sequel's timeline)
I saw an interesting scene when I was rewatching the anime. There, Homura stated that: "Madoka would die if she chooses to defeat the Walpurgisnacht. But, Walpurgisnacht would destroy the city, which will also prompt Madoka to become a Mahou Shoujo and eliminate it." In the 1st iteration, only Madoka is left to kill that Witch, and she did manage to do so at the cost of her life. This confirmed what you've said about Walpurgis Night becoming stronger - they did defeat it due to the fact that its in the 1st iteration where there's no Time Travel stuff. Though, we can see that as the iterations pass by, Madoka becomes more than just an above-average Mahou Shoujo, just as how Walpurgis became stronger where at some point, it couldn't be defeated by 50+ Mahou Shoujos (Magia Record).
"The fate of several worlds are bundled together. For you, the singular point of their karma, no matter what kind of ridiculous wish you have, I believe it can be granted." (Kyuubey)
This showed me one thing: It's only until the 100th something time did Madoka have enough power to become a concept. Because if she had this power, the anime wouldn't have happened.
PS: I understood it as Homura repeating back time and since Madoka is the sole purpose of hers for doing so, she inadvertently became the center of everything. Though, the final scene of the anime (Homura having Witch-like wings) is a foreshadowing to Rebellion, so you can expect something interesting when we reach that point :)
@AlmouthyKing Yup. Madoka can only defeat Walpurgis by exhausting her life (Impurity-filled Soul Gem). Meanwhile, Walpurgis would kill many people if it remains alive. Since Madoka would inevitably sacrifice herself for the others, Homura kept failing.
@IdleYoungMaster if you watch the third movie for puella madoka (storyline still on the 1st series), spoiler alert: homura did became a witch and then literally became a concept opposite to homura just to bring her back to the surface world (since madoka became too busy and restricted in saving magical girls to notice and remember homura anymore). In end... Don't push silent girls too much, they're yandere material.
@AlmouthyKing Yep, she literally overlapped the entire universe with her labyrinth that made her similar to multiversal-level beings, allowing her to rewrite reality however she wants.