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industria-adastra · 10 months

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[Twisted Wonderland x Puella Magi Madoka Magica] - What to do when you reload in the wrong universe? - [HEARTSLAYBUL] - PART 2

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Note: For some reason, formatting on tumblr is indeed a pain in the butt. Other than that here's an update

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It’s LUNCHTIME. The time when everyone would fistfight each other for the special meal of the day. Tbh NRC has nice lunches; it’s a freaking buffet, for goodness sake.

The group goes to get lunch, and things seem relatively peaceful. So of course, Grim starts a touch of chaos the moment Homura thinks it’s safe to let him go. Should’ve just kept Grim in a death grip until you got lunch, Homura.

By a touch of chaos, I mean Grim breaks someone’s (an upperclassman) carbonara spaghetti egg. And because NRC students don’t know when to pick their battles, they attempt to start a battle in the cafeteria (an awful decision, really).

Is Homura going to intervene? Am I going to make her intervene?

Yeah but not exactly in the way you’re guessing

She’s going to try, in her own way, to defuse the situation. This means as per tradition she’s going to actually make it escalate because Homura and persuasive speaking are like oil and water. Or maybe even like a grease fire and water.

Homura tries to bring up how stupid it is to, you know, fight with underclassmen over slightly damaged egg carbonara, of all things. An appeal to common sense (and a poke to their egos). Besides, weren’t they going to break the yolk anyways, since they were going to eat it? It’s a small, paltry thing to get so worked up about, in her all too blunt opinion.

This absolutely does not make the situation any better. In fact, it makes it worse, because now the seniors think they’re being condescended by a child.

Ace and Yuu think they have never seen someone so bad at defusing the situation they turn the fire up to eleven. Ace, however, is a shining example of a pot encountering a kettle and not realising it has shared traits. Perhaps this is also foreshadowing for Ace’s later unfortunate choice of language.

Due to plot convenience, these guys have about one brain cell rattling around in an abstract, collective shared mind space. They take one look at this kid and go “Freshman. Small. CAN TAKE ON IN A FIGHT.”

Actually, canon does kind of actively shove it in our faces how extraordinarily eager delinquent-type NRC students are to fight literally anyone. So maybe I am justified in making them try and fistfight a middle schooler.

They try to engage Homura in a fight. Aka they’re doing that thing where someone puffs out their chest and squares up (literally). Homura is trying to back out because:

She’s shown to be rather non-confrontational in canon.

In her experience, ignoring these people often works because they’re at least more bark than bite. (Or rather, Homura has sort of thought that by clamming herself up—metaphorically speaking—things won’t affect her as badly because before things…never really changed no matter how proactive she was (I am referring to both her past as a bullied child over something she had no control over, and her long-term experience with other volatile pubescent girls)

Homura would really like to not get punched in a cafeteria.

One of them attempts to get physical with Homura, who’s darting away as fast as possible. She’s not looking for a fight and would like to not show up to her next class looking like she just got in one.

Yuu is not having it. Deuce is not having it. Grim is not having it because while Homura scares him a little (read: a lot) he’s not gonna let these guys push around his #2 Henchman (henchwoman?). Ace is seemingly vibing in the background but actually, he high-key wants to see the guys get pummeled it’s a case of fire meets fire. Like, he’s a jerk himself but these guys were also jerks (also Homura is a little bit baby to him so it’s completely justified in his honest opinion.

Yuu is putting that swim training to good use by yoinking the offender’s arms and going “DO NOT.” Grim bites one of them. I don’t think he has magic rabies. Deuce wants to clock them but doesn’t because he’s in the public eye, so he just allows Yuu to go to town on them. Ace watches on the sidelines, noting Yuu’s great attachment to the girl with the magical equivalent of an automatic gun. He also thinks it’s hilarious that the mages are being bodied by the new non-magical student—conveniently ignoring the fact that Yuu most definitely never skipped arm, leg, and the rest of his body, day.

Homura is left wondering about the feeling one gets when people are willing to stand up for you. (She’s also left wondering if highschool would ever be as ridiculous as the one she was experiencing right now) Perhaps it’s a completely out-of-place feeling to be felt when watching someone body two people for you, but human emotions are irrational. To her, it’s a warm sort of feeling, even if she thinks she could’ve just dealt with it herself.

Mostly, I think Homura needs a few scenes to be protected, rather than constantly trying to be the strong one.

The fight is resolved, and everyone’s hungry. Yuu has an allowance for food and other necessities here because Crowley would get Mcmurdered Mcssasined in his sleep if the staff knew he basically dumped off a bunch of otherworlders into a large shack and called it a day. That and I ooc-ed him a little into someone that sees these kids/Homura and goes, ok maybe they need a little something, at least.

Just enough so that there are no additional PR problems. Or so he says to himself. Oh, he boasts about it for sure, but it sounds as phoney as always.

Elaborating on this: Crowley often boasts about his kindness/generosity when he’s…definitely not being generous. So I think when he is doing something because he actually cares, then he justifies it weirdly to himself. Of course, this is simply pure imagination, and not strictly in line with his canonically displayed personality.

I call it the “Homura sympathy effect”. When you see this emo little kid you just invite yourself in as her family/friend because it’s actually kind of depressing watching Homura if you observe carefully enough.

They finally buy lunch. Homura gets a plate of omurice. Yuu says it’s because Homura is a growing child. Homura is suddenly violently reminded that, yes, she can actually grow right now.

She does her best to not choke on her food. This means she instead stares blankly at her food as if she’s been confronted with a crisis of unimaginable proportions.

Oh god, Homura thinks, Madoka doesn’t exist. Oh god, she continues to monologue in her head, I can’t access my powers anymore.

(She can’t go back if something goes irreversibly wrong, wrong, wrong—)

The omurice, to her, tastes really good. The egg is fresh and creamy; the rice combined with the demi-glace sauce and the soft vegetables should be normal on her tongue but maybe it’s been years and years, and sometimes she’d find that food tasted like nothing at all.

(Distantly, Homura thinks that Madoka will never be able to eat something like this ever again. Distantly, Homura wonders when the taste of fresh food ever become so foreign to her.)

But I suppose any kind of actually fresh food would taste good if you’ve been sustaining yourself off determination and cup noodles.

Just the bare minimum so you don’t waste magic making up for hunger.

Yuu carefully watches her eat as he does so himself. Ace and Deuce are bickering in the background and Grim is tearing into his own food with gusto. Homura mechanically eats her meal with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a machine. He hopes that Homura liked the meal. He wonders what Homura would normally eat, all alone by herself.

Yuu gets the feeling that Homura hasn’t really been eating well for quite some time.

And then Cater shows up.

Who is this guy? Homura has zero ideas. The rest of the group has many violent ideas. Oh, they tricked Yuu (and the others) into doing his work for him. Hm. (Down goes a couple of points for Homura’s opinion of Cater. While I’d say Homura does try her best to be not as judgemental as possible because goodness knows how much she herself has received, these are people she’s bonded with on some level, so a little bias (TM) comes into play. Even if Ace can be a jerk, and Grim's basically a bratty kid)

Ever the conversationalist, Homura’s as quiet as a church mouse. But that’s fine, since Cater’s deadlift the majority of the conversation anyways.

Cater is already evaluating the new member of the group aka Homura. He remembers Riddle complaining about certain people breaking school rules during the assembly. He is kind of surprised she's still here though, since knowing the headmaster Homura should've gone home by now. So there must be something…

She’s definitely a little…quieter, and more solemn and serious than he expected a fourteen-year-old to be. Cater definitely remembers his sisters never being like Homura. But it’s probably a personality variation thing. After all, everyone’s different, and Homura's no exception to the individuality of people in general.

Yet her eyes still unsettle him, ever so slightly. He's not sure if the freshmen and the other unsorted student(?) realize it, but Homura's eyes… There’s a hardness in them, and an emptiness that lingers. (He wonders if she was ever forced to grow up too quickly, forced to understand certain hard truths of reality too quickly.)

Although, maybe at least one of them realises it, seeing as Yuu’s practically hovering over her like an oversized mother hen. Well, it’s not really his problem to deal with anyways.

Cater laughs and smiles, acting casual and playing the perfect role of a relaxed upperclassman. He’s pretty sure it does nothing to ease their earlier grudges (which, well, fair enough—most NRC students aren’t really the forgive and forget type anyways)

And just in time for him (Cater’s one-hundred percent sure they’re all starting to get annoyed with him), Trey enters the scene, wielding his nonchalance like a well-sharpened sword. He’s polite, calm and collected—acting as a voice of reason even though he’s just slid to their table knowing full well their…colourful reputations in this school. (She had heart problems, not hearing problems)

Homura’s sorely reminded of Mami with this third-year, and his verbal slip regarding his less-than-stellar opinion of Ramshackle dorm (even if arguably justified) is one that has her also putting her opinion of him on the fence.

Cater brings up getting their numbers

The numbers are incompatible rip Cater (Homura simply didn’t bring up the fact that data roaming wouldn’t even apply in another world—he’d figure it out on his own later anyways. Or hear it from someone else. Whichever comes first.)

It’s not like isekai (aka inter-universal/inter-universal/inter-whatever) services are included in standard sims provided in Japan—no matter how prevalent the isekai genre is

But also I ask you all to imagine Cater looking at Homura’s utter desert of a contact list.

There’s like maybe three tumbleweeds and it’s:

The hospital she lived in for years on end

Her uncle(‘s secretary) — anyone who hasn’t read ANAI aka “As N Approaches Infinity” is missing out also screw Homura’s uncle in that fic he sucks

Mitakihara Middle School’s front desk

Yuu, in comparison, has like a bajillion phone numbers. All with their own little nicknames such as “Core day every day”, “Down bad for pixels”, “(Putting) The L in LGBT”, or “Mission control centre” (That actually refers to his family phone’s number)

Very awkward for Cater, and Yuu, who are either starting to get or are getting more information on how socially disconnected Homura might’ve actually been

Briefly, Cater wonders if Homura was homeschooled

Trey is having ✨flashbacks✨ to Riddle’s own upbringing and wondering if there’s any connection to the few phone numbers and an implication of a lack of friends. He puts that thought out of his mind because he’s not really in any position to pry (and we all know how well the first and last time he tried turned out)

Then Trey starts giving an intro on the dorms like a tutorial menu narrator

Of course, when the obligatory ‘Epel is as pretty as a girl” statement pops up, Ace can no longer call Grim and Deuce morons as NRC is no longer an all-boys school with the inclusion of Homura

Anyways, Lilia shows up(side down)!

Bat Gramps gives everyone a heart attack!! Homura wonders if this is how it feels to be on the other end of a time-stop

When Lilia says that Diasomnia is very hospitable and welcoming, instead of Silver and Sebek being 🗿 they are carefully inspecting (read: Silver is concerned but he looks dead serious. Sebek is less concerned and more “????they haven’t sent the tiny human back home??? Suspiscious.”)

Actually Sebek is both a little confused and a bit like “wow this new human child must be very good to still be here in a uniform”. Unfortunately for him he… looks more like he’s glaring.

Homura is 🗿 tho. She just wants to have a peaceful lunch what on earth is happening

Ofc since Homuhomu is here, canon diverts as in Lilia stays a little longer and flits around Homura like a bat from hell.

“My oh my, it’s you again. How have you been, young one?” (coming from someone who looks no older than 18)

“...I am…fine.” (be easy on her Homura’s doing her best)

Yuu just slides closer to her because who is this weirdo why is everyone in this school so weird maybe that’s what Magic highschool(™) actually does to people

To Homura, Lilia feels…odd. It’s not quite like Madoka (The Law of Cycles now), so young yet so wrapped within aeons of time; a newly born law, yet with a history beyond time. He feels more like Walpurgisnacht. There is an unspoken history behind this highschooler, and he’s just focused on her ring. Lunchtime was turning out to be terrible. Maybe it was a good thing she often skipped lunches at Mitakihara Middle School.

“Oh? Is that…?”

Homura has just given up and pretended she does not see™. If she tries to hide it she’ll draw unwanted attention. If she tries to explain she’ll give it unwanted attention and there was no guarantee her explanation would be credible enough. So she just… Did not see. If the others are interested they’ll watch anyways so it’s better to just pretend to be completely disinterested in the fact that Batman lite is staring at her literal soul—pretend it’s no biggie.

Of course, her body language has completely closed off, and now Yuu’s gently pushing away Lilia.

“Hey, maybe not so close, alright?”

“Of course, forgive me for that—and for disrupting your meal. I do hope we can converse again. ” He looks at Homura, Yuu, and Grim, before adding, “Especially the three of you.” Then he peaces out aka teleports back to his lunch

Of course, Ace still slanders Riddle at lunch like in canon. Even if Yuu frantically made abort motions. Homura just stares at the scene, already knowing how it’s probably going to pan out.

No one likes being talked about behind their back like that. She’d know a lot about how that felt like. After all, that’s what happened to her.

And wuh-oh wouldn’t you know? Riddle’s right behind Ace. Deuce puts Ace out of his misery. Yuu has his head in his hands. Homura quietly sighs and continues eating her lunch. Cater and Trey have stiffer smiles than overmixed egg-white mixtures. As Ace continues to dig his own grave—going past six feet and beyond, Homura takes the chance to observe Heartslaybul’s Housewarden.

Her first impression is that: He’s…not that much taller than her at all (Riddle is 160 cm whilst Homura is about 158 cm). But he looks incredibly prim and proper—definitely the image of what someone expects of a Dorm Leader.

Her second impression is that Riddle is rather strict. And very used to having authority, if the way Cater immediately folds to his words is any indicator of that trait. Perhaps Ace wasn’t completely wrong about his dorm leader being rather unyielding, personality-wise.

However, Ace…isn’t doing himself any favours at all, so Homura also chalks it up to Ace having zero brain-to-mouth filter.

Grim identifies him as the guy who sealed his magic, and Riddle, in turn, identifies them as the students who nearly got expelled + singles out Homura like Why are you still here??? Presumably as a student too if the magestone is any indication. To him, it breaks the rules and sets a bad example.

In fact, Riddle even starts a little speech about how rulebreakers only cause chaos, and shouldn’t be, under any circumstances, tolerated.

Aaand now Riddle’s reminding Homura of Sayaka, in a bad way.

So she goes: There is nowhere for her (and Yuu by extension) to go in Twisted Wonderland. They’re not inhabitants of this world (in case he uh, forgot that like how the story seems to often do that whenever you don’t know Disney/Japanese-inspired tradition #659 like an idiot because you come from planet Earth), therefore NRC kind of does need to bend the rules for them unless they want bad PR (She’s seen enough of what her Uncle used to get up to in the hospital through magazines, social media and the television. He flung around money and time as if there was nothing else to live for but his own hedonism.)

Riddle, of course, at this stage of the story, rejects that notion because he thinks there could be other alternatives. Bro is debating with a 14 year old.

Yuu, as nice and kind as he is, also gives his two cents. As in, “I sure hope you can get Crowley to reconsider then.” He says this with a singular (1) eyebrow raised whilst wiping Homura’s mouth.

Homura is blue-screening for a hot five minutes because wow ok that was ???? Yuu asked, “Is anyone gonna take care of this kid?” and did not wait for a single reply.

Ace tries to get his collar removed even though he shit-talked Riddle in front of his face. Ace has balls bigger than Jupiter I guess. Not that it’s helping him or anything.

Homura also bears witness to Riddle’s ability to memorise rules. Not all 810 of them but he definitely knows his rules if he’s jumping from rule 271 to rule 339. He still reminds her of Sayaka in a bad way though. All too unyielding to others.

Hopefully for him, it won’t be to the very bitter end.

Oh, and she also learns that Trey is vice-housewarden, which… She supposed there probably was an alternative reason as to why Cater and Trey approached them—seeing the way they interacted with Heartslaybul’s Housewarden.

And judging from the loud displays of dismay from surrounding Heartslaybul students, not only is Riddle a strict and unyielding dorm leader, but he also has his dorm students under an iron-clad grip.

Trey tries to do a little damage control after low-key informing everyone of Riddle’s extreme magical prowess (strong enough to become Housewarden before the end of his first week at school). He does so by attempting to soften the blow of Riddle’s actions by basically saying: he’s not a bad guy and everything he does is because he thinks it’s better for the dorm.

Which, to be honest, Homura has heard many variations of that. Hell, she’s basically done outwardly terrible actions in the name of the greater good (for her friends). (Not like it ever worked)

She can get that.

But Riddle still did mildly get on her nerves, even if Homura would never show that in a million years or resets.

Grim, thankfully, raises the question of the ethics of Riddle collaring anyone as he pleases—although it’s less that and more him airing out his own grievances with getting collared and having his magic sealed too.

Both Yuu and Homura are quick to remind Grim that it was kind of his fault for, you know, setting the hall on fire.

Diverging from canon again, this time it’s Ace and Deuce who ask about Unique Magics and thus Riddle’s particular Unique Magic. Now that they re-explain what Riddle could do with his Unique Magic… Homura is sure she’ll have to be careful around him.

She doesn’t want to know what would happen if she gets collared.

Would there be a way to learn how to prevent it from being applied to someone?

Of course, back to the story: Riddle’s loud and clear live demonstration of “Off With Your Head” does him no favours in portraying him as someone wanting the best for his students.

And as we skip past the further dialogue on Grim’s opinion of the Unique Magic’s name (i.e. completely bonkers and terrifying), Cater’s explanation of why exactly it feels so terrible to have a collar (mostly for Yuu’s benefit), and Trey attempting to downplay it by going “As long as you follow the rules, you’ll be fine. Riddle isn’t that scary.”

We stop at Ace asking if he legitimately can’t be let into the dorm if he doesn’t get a replacement tart for the one he ate.

He can’t. In addition to that, it’s also an established rule. Homura thinks that’s kind of a stupid rule. Yuu outright says that it’s kind of a weirdly harsh rule. I mean, replacing what you unfairly took is important, but taking away your room whilst you haven’t…didn’t sound like the best rule.

Ace would like to add that it is, in fact, a really harsh rule—since he’s the one getting collared and being left without a place to sleep in (something that could’ve happened if Ramshackle wasn’t inhabited by Yuu, Homura and Grim, who tidied up some part because they are on another level of homeless)

Trey and Cater… definitely realise this, but currently at this part of Heartslaybul’s book, they don’t actually have the power to tell this to Riddle and not expect to be reprimanded or worse. So they just awkwardly laugh. Cater just tries to transition to telling Ace that Riddle usually looks forward to the tarts, and they’re hand-made by Trey—Ace just needs to replace the tart he ate with another one and things will be fine after that.

Homura…isn’t sure about that, but if it’s all about following the rules then the logic seems sound? But if not then… Ah well, she’ll see what happens then and take action from there.

A little segment of Trey hand-made the tarts??? Those really good-looking really tasty-looking tarts??? (Ace’s words)

Yeah he’s from a baker's family lmao (Just for you guys who can’t read my mind: this is Cater)

“Aren’t tarts like that extremely expensive?” That is true Deuce. “Ace, why don’t you try doing it by hand? It’ll be cheaper that way, although I’m not sure about the quality,” says Yuu. Wow Yuu, lots of confidence in Ace there.

But Yuu is correct. Ace can’t bake.

Well, perhaps Trey could help? He is the vice-housewarden. And the one who baked the tarts—so he’s well acquainted with Riddle’s tastes. That’s what Homura adds to the brewing discussion.

At that moment, Kalim and Jamil FINALLY ARRIVE ON THE SCENE… While the Heartslabyul dudes start talking about making a tart from scratch.

Kalim’s like “Oh hey Homura!!! :D” He did say he’d find her and he did!!! Kalim’s so happy to spend the rest of his lunchtime with his new friend.

Jamil helped a lot. And by a lot, I meant he went through statistical analysis inside his head that culminated into nothing because Kalim rolled a nat20 on luck and perception.

Oh who are these people? Well, Homura introduces them as “My upperclassmen: Al-Asim— (Oops nearly used Last name–First name format) Kalim Al-Asim, and Jamil Viper.” With her soft, serious tone, it sounds less like she’s introducing potential new friends she made and more like management introduced new colleagues. Having around five (5), and quite possibly fewer, friends + her entire background makes this very much a work in progress.

She’s picked up on the fact that Twisted Wonderland uses the ‘First name–Last name” format instead of ‘Last name–First name’ like Japan. Although, Homura did noticeably stumble. But hey, she caught herself in time.

Yuu confidently says, with his whole chest out (figuratively), “Izumi Yuu, nice to meet you.”

I finally thought of a last name for Yuu, so he’ll be known as “Izumi Yuu/Yuu Izumi” from now on. I figured that if I’m also going to build Yuu as a character by adding information here and there about him, then he might as well get a last name.

Ace: “Wait your name was Izumi this whole time?”

Yuu: “Oh no that’s my surname. I’m Japanese.” (Which sadly explained nothing)

Ace & Co: “???”

Yuu: “Ah. Right. Forgot about that.”

Homura: “From where we came from, it was common to introduce ourselves using our last names first, instead of our first names.”

Kalim’s actually wondering what they were discussing earlier. They were discussing Trey helping Ace bake a replacement tart for the one he ate.

Trey can bake? Jamil’s also good at that!! Jamil corrects that he’s only mediocre at pastries/baked goods like the ones Trey makes (Which are more “Western” in design)

Trey would like to see how good Jamil is at baking. His glasses glint as his fingers lightly grip one of the sides again. In fact, speaking of baking, he could help Ace with the baking. But he’ll need something in return.

No one does anything for free in NRC, after all— No it’s not cash Ace.

Trey wants chestnuts. Two hundred to three hundred of them. Boiled, shelled, and pureed. Riddle wants a chestnut tart so… Kalim thinks that sounds fun! Jamil is quick to tell Kalim that, no

Kalim, you have a meeting later Kalim you can’t go.

Maybe next time Kalim

Ace, Deuce and Grim are out though no labour for them no siree

Homura calmly sips on her tea and states that Ace doesn’t have much of a choice.

You’re right, Homura, but you could’ve said that a bit nicer lmao

Now Ace has to confront his unwanted reality aka he needs to go get two to three hundred chestnuts and prepare them for baking.

And then Cater and Trey team up to make them want to bake. The killing blow is being able to eat a tart after baking them. Hook, line, and sinker; just like that, they’re in.

Yuu’s in for it—He’ll make sure Grim doesn’t act out. Also, tart.

Homura…would like to study more ways to leave Twisted Wonderland. But then Yuu looked at her like he fully wanted her to join and ok she caved.

Mostly everyone is discussing chestnuts now. Where to get them? botanical garden? Alright. And Trey’s baking skills. And tarts. Mostly tarts.

Oh and Kalim’s plans to have Homura over for a mini-party aka eat Jamil’s food. Everyone in this group right now is also very much invited because the more the merrier!!!

But why does he want to throw a mini-party for Homura? Because one she helped him and two she’s baby. He does not say this outright but he basically implies she has a kicked wet puppy aura mixed with her serious aura and that’s no good for someone who helped him out :(

It’s a mini-party because Kalim mostly just wants to get to know potential new friends this time. He can throw a spontaneous dorm-wide party next time!

Kalim decides to walk Homura to class again, because why not? She’s a new student and Kalim likes her—which means a potential new friend in his books! (And Jamil remembered her schedule + their classes aren’t too far away so Jamil’s fine with it) This time though, Yuu, Grim, and the rest of the Heartslaybul boys (minus Riddle) decide to tag along. It’s probably more entertaining than a normal day if they follow, especially for Trey and Cater.

Jamil just wants a (Twisted Wonderland) Ibuprofen.

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