Hinote Kagari has a Grief Seed. He'd promised Homura Akemi a Grief Seed. He has one now. But it's Unique. It's weird. He's seen many. This one seems off. He contacted Mamoru, who contracted Homura, who contacted each other. Hinote relayed that it was left by 'That Flower Woman?'. Which is of immediate intrest most likely.
Hinote is dressed casually and has a bag of bakery items because when you are invited to someone's home you bring something. He politely waits at the door after knocking it and looks around.
Downtown is weird. He doesn't like it.
Homura's apartment isn't hard to find. She actually gave the address to Runealy, a long time ago, since Runealy promised to give her (or any other needy Puella Magi) any Grief Seeds they found. Homura had incentive to take her up on that, as stray Grief Seeds carry their own problems.
Not to mention Homura would've just given it to Hinote again after they texted each other on the phone.
After hearing the knock on the door, Homura opens up and says, "Hello... come on in."
She's trying to be polite, but... that Grief Seed might represent a threat to several secrets that she's been keeping. It's a struggle to pretend to be calm over it.
The inside of Homura's apartment stands in stark contrast to the outside. The building and most of the hallways between apartments are dark and dreary, but the inside of her apartment is almost completely white. Several broken concentric circles of couches are in the middle of the room, and a large white screen projects a pedulum going back and forth.
Her decor is actually a bit... surreal.
She turns away from the doorway and gestures to one of the couches, saying, "Please, have a seat. Make yourself comfortable."
Hinote Kagari blinks and looks around. This looks a lot like a strange foregin hotel he was in before. This is a not a strange foregin hotel, it is a normal apartment in downtown Mitakihara.
He has a seat and smiles, offering the bag. "Midori-ya Muffins." he insists. "I like them." he offers.
He takes a deep breath and crosses his arms. "Firstly. Thanks for having me over. Espcially, you know. After that thing." he referencing the whole bit where he almost killed her, yes. "Because I never told you in person. Secondly...."
He removes the Grief Seed from his pocket. It sparkles weirdly. He hands it over.
"....so why did that girl drop a grief seed when she die?" he asks bluntly. "That wasn't any witch I saw..." he mutters.
"Have you?" he asks, offering it forward.
Homura looks at the muffins briefly. She accepts one, since Hinote insists, but really her tension forces her focus elsewhere. When she hears him talk about almost killing her, she says, "Don't worry about that. It's fine."
As she's quietly chewing on the muffin, Hinote produces the Grief Seed. When she asks about why she dropped a seed, Homura gulps.
This is... exactly the question that she does not want to answer.
"Well... Witches are strange creatures. Not a lot is really known about where they come from or what their purpose is. Frankly I've never seen anything like Hana-san. I wouldn't call her a Witch, but she was very similar to a Witch in many ways, so it's not a surprise that she would drop a Grief Seed."
Homura produces a normal Grief Seed to compare. It's black, and certainly doesn't sparkle.
"I've never seen a Grief Seed like that before."
That much is actually true. Typically Soul Gems never get caught in any sort of in-between state like this, they just transition almost immediately into Grief Seeds.
Homura looks over it in her hand, studying it. Glaring at it, almost.
"You know... it would probably be best if people didn't know I had this. If the wrong person found out and forced this seed to hatch, we'd have to deal with the White Flower a second time."
Well, that's part of the reason why she wants to keep it a secret. She can hate herself for being a liar later, but right now she needs to deal with this. This and all of the problems it represents.
Hinote Kagari crosses his arms. "Well... alright." he says, tapping his far arm. He frowns. He fought a LOT of witches early on in this whole... magical life of his to feel maybe something is a little off, but he just brushes it out of his head. This isn't important to him- he's not a Puella. He just has to help them. The Princess has said as much.
"Erin seemed to be able to....do weird things with Grief Seeds. The Pri----. Runealy and I made sure she was safe when she ran away from her. She's gone somewhere else. I don't know the details. But that's her choice." he says.
"Well I'm not telling anyone else, and Chiba-san trusts you, I do, too- with that." he says.
He suddenly motions to the room. "You didn't seem the type for interor decoration. What's with the odd place?" he asks.
He trusts her? Right. Homura feels a bit guilty hearing that after lying to him, but... it's not like she isn't doing this for a good reason. She feels that her intent is trustworthy, at least, even if her words are hiding something.
"Thank you. Something like this... you did the right thing bringing it to me. I'll know how to deal with something like this. This more than makes up for... anything else."
Homura considers the seed for a bit longer. If she uses it like any other seed and hands it over to Kyubey, there's no telling what he'd do with it. No, this thing needs to be hidden. It needs to be hidden better than even her normal Grief Seed stash. For the moment, she henshins, and puts it in her shield. She'll have to figure out something more permanent later.
With the Grief Seed out of sight, Homrua does relax a bit. When Hinote asks about the interior decoration, Homura glances around at her walls.
"A lot of this was put together during a time when I had a lot of information to process and look over. I needed a large screen to display things and a lot of empty space in case I needed to spread documents out or whatever. It's... no longer necessary for me to do that, but I guess I've grown used to the look."
Hinote Kagari sort of places a hand under his chin. "Information? What for?" he asks. "You know what. Forget I asked." he says placing his hands on his lap. He watches her henshin and blinks a moment- ask she puts the Grief Seed someplace safe. He shoves a muffin into his mouth. He lets this all sink in a bit.
"I don't know too much about Puella Magis." he admits. "I really only know what Runealy has told me, which is that you guys need Grief Seeds to recharge yourself, and it's always a struggle." he crosses his arms his arms again.
"Is that all there is to it? How do you even get roped into something like that?..." he asks. He seems to be thinking back a good many six months suddenly. Yeah. How does someone get roped into this?
Homura actually could answer that, but it might involve bringing up Hannah Sharpe, and last she heard she and Runealy were on bad terms.
"No, there's a lot more to it than that. We become magical girls by making a wish, and having a creature named Kyubey grant the wish for us. The wish can be almsot anything, but there's a limit on scale depending on the girl's potential. A girl with weak potential could ask for someone's arm to be healed, for example. A girl with strong potential could make a wish that changes the world."
Homura keeps eating her muffin, explaining this as if this was normal. It isn't the first time she's had to tell this story, after all.
"However, there's a dark side to it. Making a wish forces you into a lifetime of fighting Witches, in order to get the Grief Seeds we need to life. On top of that... making a Wish using this method tends to have... an equal and opposite reaction. The more good your wish does, the more you'll have to suffer."
"It's not in any way a good deal. You pay for what you get, and at the end of it all you'll probably die."
She keeps eating her muffin. It's a depressing story, but she was asked, and unlike Kyubey she feels a need to warn people away from becoming Puella.
Hinote Kagari is precluded from becoming a Puella because, well. Boyness. "Huh. Wow that makes him a lousy piece of shit then, doesn't it?" he asks as he takes a bite of another muffin. "I dunno. I met Runealy and Gaofelle in my secret spot where I practiced. They seemed to need some help so I helped. I was taking Runealy down the road to eat and---- we walked into some freaky melty castle- and- that was a Witch. Runealy transformed- and I threw rocks because that's all I could do. I pushed her out of the way because she tried to---do something that didn't work. The secret was out so she told me the truth about what was goin on. I wanted to help, so---"
He sighs and crosses his arms he does this a lot when he feels guarded or contemplative.
"Yeah. Does Runealy know this? I can see why she wants to help them a lot now. I think I feel I want to, too." he says.
"But..." he says.
"That's not unwanted, is it?" he asks.
Homura's immediate response is, "I know, right? I mean... what an asshole!" She says this without hesitating. "Yet some people still want to act like he's nothing more than this cute cuddly little creature... because they don't believe he's as evil as that. It makes me sick."
Homura finishes off the first muffin while hearing what Hinote has to say. "I don't remember how much I told her about all of this. I try to be informative because people's lives are in danger, so I probably told her a number of things."
"As for help..." Homura reaches out to take another muffin, studying it while she speaks. "... well, very few Puella Magi would turn down help from someone who doesn't need Grief Seeds. I certainly wouldn't mind it if people want to help us stay alive and stop the Witches from getting out of control. However, we Puella don't really... coordinate... or get along very well, so I can't really speak for everyone."
Homura takes a bite of her muffin, chewing and swallowing before saying, "Still, it wouldn't hurt."
Hinote Kagari hehs. "Well, you trick girls into making wishes so they can handle your problem- but they need things to gas them up all the time or they die?---- when there's a bunch of other people you could go beg that don't need wishes? Sure. You're a piece of shit."
He nods. "Alright, so you guys don't get along, but like help. I'll be sure to remember that. I seem to get involved with Witches a lot anyways, so."
He stands up. "Well!" he says. "That's all then. Thanks for taking care of that. I think I learned my lesson about weird magical devices the last time." he says with a wink. "And thanks for answering my unrelated questions. Unless there's anything else you wanna hold me up for, I can see myself out if you want." he says.
Homura nods. "That's right. That's about how it is. He's just a creep."
As Hinote talks about leaving, Homura stands up from the couch and says, "Thank you for bringing it to me. It's a very important thing, and not something that I'd trust just anyone with."
At the mention of magical devices, Homura smiles.
"Sure, I don't mind telling people... at least some basic things... and no, I can't really think of anything else to talk about. Take care of yourself, and thanks for the muffins, and again for bringing this to me."