Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2013-02-02 02:05 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2013-02-02 02:05 pm
Entry tags:
Madoka Magica | MadoSaya, Homura, others | R | Persephone's Waltz (18)
Title: Persephone's Waltz, Chapter 18: The time I try to keep her closest...
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, Homura, Walpurgis Night, (skip) Hitomi, Kyuubei
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.
Ich steige schon dreyhundert Jahr,
Und kann den Gipfel nicht erreichen.
I'm climbing now three hundred years,
And yet the summit cannot see.
—Goethe's Faust (tr. Bayard Taylor)
***
April 29
Friday
Hitomi had three books in her bag, and was running her hand along the spines of Kamijou's collection looking for the last one on his list, when the door swished open behind her. "Just a minute!"
Nobody answered. Strange. You would expect a nurse to say "okay" or "just hurry up" or something.
Sure enough, when Hitomi went to look, it wasn't a nurse. It was her familiar classmate with the long dark hair (no braids in it now, the two sections hanging loose and tangled) and cherry-red glasses, frozen and staring just outside the door of Kyousuke's room.
"Akemi-san!" exclaimed Hitomi. "You're okay! When you didn't come to school, we were all scared that maybe—"
"I had a relapse I am taking a medical absence," said Akemi automatically. Her perpetual stammer was nowhere to be heard. "Kamijou Kyousuke is...still here?"
"No, sorry. He's visiting a new nerve specialist in Asunaro City." Hitomi patted her bag. "I'm going up tonight to visit, so I'm bringing some of his books. Um, did you want to tell him something? I could deliver a message, if you wanted."
"This doesn't happen." Akemi was addressing the far wall, as if she had forgotten Hitomi was there. "He should be back in school he shouldn't be in treatment this is never how it happens...."
And then she was back to staring. Did her heart condition include something about seizures? "Are you feeling okay?" asked Hitomi, peering nervously at her. "Do you want me to call a doctor?"
"It's my fault," breathed Akemi.
"Sorry?"
"I've screwed it up, that's why, I changed too much and now who knows how many wild cards there are, I don't know how to handle —" Her head whipped around to look directly at Hitomi. "Sayaka with a contract and the boy still paralyzed it doesn't happen. Don't you see? Of course you don't, you're never any use — she's toxic either way but if you didn't push her — and after that it doesn't matter what you do, you might die every time for all I know —"
"Akemi-san! You're being very — very rude!" exclaimed Hitomi. None of her lessons had covered the elegant way to handle being insulted by a peer who was clearly going unhinged.
"But hey, you never know, this might just be the total change that does it!" She was breathing harder now, hands tensing, clawing at the air. "I can't imagine how — but what do I know? The whole universe would never have become the way it is right now if I'd had any clue how much it planned to fuck me over —"
She was distant again, her thoughts all somewhere else. Hitomi started inching toward the emergency call button.
"I've never lost her before." Akemi laughed, once: a short, dry, despairing sound. "The time I try to keep her closest ends up being the only time I lose her."
The wide red plastic button was an eyesore on Kamijou's carved wooden bed. Hitomi stood in front of it, nodding as if Akemi had her undivided attention, feeling for it behind her back.
"May as well go play this out this regardless," said Akemi hoarsely. "No sense in wasting good explosives, right?"
Two seconds after the button went down, she vanished into thin air.
***
There was a single police officer standing watch in the lobby of Sayaka's apartment complex, with at least two more watching the grounds.
Sayaka went in through the window.
The empty home didn't hold her long. Mami's notebooks went in a neat stack on top of her desk. The Grief Seed she had won got a place on her bureau. It was too full to use for any more Soul Gem cleansings; the scribbling witch would be born again if she tried. Later she could work on a safe way to dispose of it that didn't involve asking Kyuubei.
The last thing she did was shift out-of-uniform long enough to trade the borrowed clothes for a set of her own: a light blue patterned blouse, a navy pair of shorts, and comfortable, well-broken-in loafers. Until now she had never really appreciated the luxury of getting to wear a bra that fit.
Moving by night was second nature to her now. She slipped out of the complex unnoticed and cut a shadowy figure under the waning crescent moon, heading for Madoka's house.
***
April 30
The Night Before
The evacuation order had finally gone out.
A crawl was running at the base of every television, every channel. The big screen in the central metro station was playing the news, too, with the warning emphasized by the simple message scrolling repeatedly across the bottom: Flood warning for Mitakihara City and Kasamino City, April 30 through May 2. Residents should move to approved disaster shelters. For information about your local shelter, call....
In spite of this, the inter-city train platform was no more packed than usual, and it was a short wait in line to get to a ticket machine. Minor floods were common in the area, and plenty of people wouldn't even leave their homes for a warning like this, much less flee the region.
"I wish...I mean, if only we could get everyone to at least go to shelters," murmured Madoka, squeezing Sayaka's hand. The crowd was making her jumpy.
Sayaka harrumphed. "If they're not going to listen to the official disaster agencies, how are a couple of teenage girls supposed to get through to them?"
"That's true."
It did boost Madoka's confidence to be back in fitting clothes, even if the whole outfit was concealed by one of the hooded raincoats. The high-waisted dark rose dress went nicely with dark tights and lavender ribbons, and of course everything deserved to be paired with shoes that didn't chafe.
Under a darkening grey sky, the train pulled in.
They found a free high-backed bench quickly. Madoka slid in by the window, Sayaka next to the aisle. Madoka fished the phone out of her coat's inside pocket (not the one Panda-san was stuffed into, the other one) and checked the online storm tracker again. Sayaka retrieved one of the water bottles she'd been carrying and had a drink.
"What's the top thing you want to do when we get back home?" asked Madoka.
Sayaka started. "I don't know! Why?"
"It doesn't matter," stammered Madoka. "I wanted to talk about something, that's all. It can be something else if you want."
After another tensed moment, Sayaka let herself relax. "I miss having good speakers," she said. "Even when we had music, all we had was tinny laptop speakers. I want to play some songs and really hear the sound."
"That's a good one."
"So how about you? What are you looking forward to? Besides therapy, I mean."
Madoka giggled. "You'll think it's crazy, but I really do want to get back to school."
"...telling you, it's gonna be some kinda all-out gang war."
And there went the tension again, Sayaka perking up and pricking her ears at the two guys on the train seat in front of them.
"You are so full of it," said the second man. "Even the Yakuza aren't sticking around in the flood plain tonight."
"After the storm, you moron!" replied the first man who had spoken. "Or maybe in the next city over, who knows? Look, my cousin's in the JSDF, I hear things, all right? Someone's been making off with the big-time military hardware. Security people say it's like it's evaporating right outta the bases. Gotta be an operation behind that kind of work."
"Or maybe the JSDF can't keep its inventory straight," said his companion. "When was the last time you heard of any of those people being competent? Your cousin excepted, obviously."
"Hey, man, I'm just trying to warn you. If you don't have the sense to listen to good intel when you get it...."
"I'm going to be listening to my music in a minute."
The argument petered out, leaving Madoka to put her hand gently on Sayaka's knee. "Dear...."
"I guess school won't seem so bad now," said Sayaka, lacing their fingers together. "Wonder how many boyfriends Saotome-sensei's gone through while we were away."
***
The train was pulling into its first stop (at the northern edge of the city) when Sayaka excused herself to go to the bathroom. Madoka, now checking the directions to their parents' hotel for the umpteenth time, gave her a distracted nod.
A few minutes later, with the train humming along past trees and power lines and a nearby highway, Sayaka hadn't returned. And Madoka finally looked at what she had left behind.
The neatly folded note was held in place by the one remaining water bottle.
Madoka,
Guess I'm writing this, even if I haven't decided to give it to you yet. It still isn't too late to take the easy way out.
See, the thing is, I lied earlier. There was something that could have defeated Walpurgis Night. But I was selfish and a coward and I couldn't give it up. And if I take your hand and run away now, I can completely get away with it! How's that for justice?
If I leave this note for you, it means I decided not to run away.
Even if I can't defeat this thing, maybe I can save some people during the fight. They deserve at least that much from me, right? If I don't make it back, well, at least I'll have gone out feeling like less of a terrible person. Please remember me like that, okay?
And if someone else comes along one day who would do anything to protect you, please don't think I'll mind. Because that's what you deserve, even if it can't be me.
I love you so much. Please keep yourself safe. If you do that, I'll have no regrets.
<3 Sayaka
***
The clouds are black and steel-grey, racing across the sky under gale-force winds, their edges made razor-sharp with flashes of lightning. Water sluices and chops frantically at the banks of the river. The only lights on the streets are the flashing blue signals of a handful of emergency vehicles, fireflies sending out lonely pulses into the cold and the dark.
A dull miasma sweeps across open stretches of pavement. To most eyes it's no more than low-lying fog. Most ears don't hear the echoes of applause, or the pitter-pat of little feet that don't yet fully exist.
But no one, down to the least magic-sensitive of all humanity, no one with so much as a handful of sense wants to be out here right now.
***
(so it's probably a good thing she's fucking crazy by this point, isn't it)
***
May 1
The Morning Of
Sayaka made her way to the roof of the hospital.
She didn't have to do a search to choose the spot. The feelings of a witch trail were thick in the air, loss and hurt and hopelessness flowing forward in lazy spirals. All she had to do was follow them until the sensation got choking, then pick a perch and wait for all that despair to finish gathering.
It wasn't the greatest perch, no matter how thematically appropriate. The wind was at its hardest up here, and bitter cold as if it had come from the dead of winter rather than the start of spring. It whipped Sayaka's hair into a messy frenzy; it made her shorts and blouse snap around her skin. Her arms and legs were freezing.
Transfiguring her clothes would waste energy. Transforming too early would burn through even more....
(You have to take care of yourself, Sayaka, Madoka would have said.)
But a twist on healing magic...since she was healthy and whole to start with, that would be cheap. She dipped into the smallest fraction of her power, made her body work that much harder. Got her blood flowing.
(Other things she didn't dare waste energy on: checking to find out where Madoka was, if the train had arrived safely, if she was with her parents. Every drop of her magic could easily be drained on keeping track of those answers.)
Flashes of color began to appear through the fog on the ground below, and in streamers leading up to the sky. Bright creatures, like circus clowns or puppets at a children's show. Although they looked like familiars, they registered in Sayaka's soul gem as no threat. Pieces of what would have been a barrier, nothing more. Cardboard cutouts to form the backdrop of the show.
Wide awake and burning with determination, Sayaka stood ready to play her part.
***
the sigil of the gate appears, with lines of rainbow banners streaming down from where it spins against the clouds
and then she's there
the debris of the city starts to lift (it's just the start, the sky will soon be filled with bits of buildings thrown around like so much trash), exploding into flames of red and gold and purple to announce her entrance
(she didn't need to do that: there's already a fifty-one rocket-launcher salute heading her way)
***
Sayaka heard it before she saw it. Shrieking, bone-chilling laughter with the echo of a deep well.
The witch was a blank-faced doll in a deep blue gown like a medieval princess, all white ruffles and bell sleeves and gold-braided trim, suspended from the bottom of a set of gears. It was impossible to tell the scale from here; it could have been the size of a blimp or a hundred meters high.
Sayaka's own outfit flashed into existence around her, not so different in the coloring, but with more armor, more leather.
Walpurgis Night shrieked and chortled and spat flame. More flames exploded from the far side of its dress — or were those exploding on the far side of its dress, some kind of ranged fire attack — stolen military hardware — but Sayaka couldn't worry about the details, not when she was trying to conjure a thousand cutlasses at once —
When the strain on her concentration was all but crushing, Sayaka sent the barrage forward. She hadn't made it to a thousand, but this shimmering volley of hundreds of magic blades stabbing it in the back would do for an opening move.
She didn't get to watch them all hit home, because a chunk of masonry was hurtling straight for her.
Sayaka's gloved hands closed around the hilt of a sword as tall as a house and almost half a meter from edge to back. The concrete sliced apart like butter, the pieces falling aside. It was followed by the twisted metal of a radio signal tower. This time Sayaka leaped, used the missile as a platform, and half-ran, half-flew across it until she had the right angle to leap to the next building closer.
Something a few floors below her exploded. Glass shattered; the side of the skyscraper belched thick smoke.
No time to worry about that either. If the building started crumbling, she could jump again. Right now — more swords.
***
her aim is off, she's making things blow up she didn't mean to
but honestly: Homura isn't trying to aim.
This isn't about winning, it doesn't matter if she wins because she doesn't know where Madoka is, this is about burning off as much rage as possible before she starts everything over so she has at least some chance of acting like a normal human after she wakes up tomorrow
Next time I'll do it right
she fires and fires and fires, watches buildings she's seen crumble in a hundred different ways find a whole new way to lie in pieces on the ground
No more wasting time with basements, dresses, furniture, no more trying to find the perfect explanation that will finally make her understand, no more dropping hints with that goddamn unwinnable game
(someone wished into existence in an irregular timeline seven years ago; she never found out what caused that one and she's never seen it repeated since)
her rhythm's off — it's drifted almost past the industrial park towers when she hits the trigger and the first one topples straight past it — with a metal scream it hits the chopping water
Next time I'll do the serious thing and flee the country
where no one, even Miki Sayaka, will have the luck to find her
she freezes time and races through the dim and silent darkness for the oil tanker
(unless it wasn't luck? oh hell that was her wish, Homura's sure of it)
the witch is passing by the bridge — the tanker races up the metal arches, soars, and hits it in the face as she leaps away and drops into the safety of the river — it explodes, a blinding flash, with glass and flaming rubble trailing past her — her kneecap takes a whack but then she's under water, there's a scraped and charred hole in her stocking but it isn't smoking, won't get worse —
would she buy that it was hopeless, and not even worth a wish, if what they found in the river was more than Madoka's shoes and phone?
(her healing magic's good enough to fix some serious damage in another person — say, regrow a hand)
she grabs a chunk of metal, searing, steaming, and propels it to the shoreline
but the witch's laughter now is joined by rows of girlish giggles: the familiars are released
and Homura's laughing too — the joke's on them, this is what she wants — forget trying to chase down the big boss, she's happy to blow up these things all day, so much more satisfying — these bitches have the sense to go down when they get a faceful of mortar
It's all your fault I have to do this whole damn thing again so COME AT ME
***
The first one caught Sayaka so off-guard that all she could do was stab. A dark shape shredded under her steel, its unearthly giggle erupting into a shriek.
Two more familiars bounced through the air above the overpass, as Sayaka sprinted down the median, flat and featureless as cutouts in the texture of the world. Except for the flashes of a starry backdrop on the other side, they were so dark that the air around them glowed in comparison —
— and they had the shapes of girls.
"Don't remind me!" cried Sayaka, lobbing another cutlass at the shape of a girl with a ruffled skirt and what was either a strange headdress or hair in two tight buns. "I know! Okay? I know, and there's nothing else I can do but this! I can't save you!"
The first shape tore apart with a screech, but the second, with twintails and bobbles on her shoes and what looked like a magic wand with a freaking ribbon on it, hit her head-on and sent her flying.
Sayaka screamed as she skidded across the pavement. The familiar twirled and danced for a moment, but when Sayaka rolled to a stop it was after her in an instant — she hurt too much to get up, and her healing magic wasn't that fast —
Choking back tears from the full-body pain, she waited until the apparition was almost on her, then made a forest of two-meter rapiers shoot up at all angles from the pavement.
The second familiar was pierced and gone. The blades clattered to the ground. Sayaka gritted her teeth and threw everything she had into healing, as quickly as she could, before the next round pirouetted into view or another torn-off piece of skyscraper was thrown her way.
***
and the hell of it is that she knows these shapes, she's had a complete and numbered catalog for decades now, their silhouettes are as familiar as most of the puella magi she's ever met — sometimes she can even link them up to witches, that one with the wand and tail is Charlotte, this one with the long hair and wings at her heels is Elly — and other times it's easy since she's met them, the cloud-shaped headdress of Umika, the cat-eared hood and giant bow of tiny Yuma —
— she used to flinch at boots, puffed sleeves, and spiral curls, but now she doesn't bat an eye, not even at the ones with bows at heels and waist and twintails —
—You are a very unusual case, Akemi Homura.—
(she doesn't even look, just sprays a hail of bullets till the stupid chirpy not-a-voice shuts up)
***
Sleepy passengers filed off the train, alone and in groups, some dragging suitcases, most yawning. Even the new people boarding, who hadn't spent the last few hours trying to doze on a stiff cushion in a jumpy car, didn't have much energy. The attendant did a slow walk down the aisle, collecting tickets and checking for lost belongings.
He stopped at the last row, where the bench to his right was empty except for a couple of lonely items.
One was a phone. That was good. People came looking for phones, which meant the other things would get rescued as well. He gathered them up to put in a box for the lost-and-found, labeled with the trip number and the name of the station and everything.
After all, the poor kid who had lost this well-loved stuffed panda deserved to get it back.
***
Under a dead streetlamp in an endless row of dead streetlamps, Sayaka staggered to a stop, grabbing the metal post to keep from falling over.
The shadow of Walpurgis Night floated like a mirage down the roadway ahead of her, wider than its eight lanes. Mundane fires were starting to spring up in its wake, smoke drifting skyward from hotels and office buildings with their tops ripped off or holes gouged in their sides, ash joining the concrete and girders and glass already floating below the clouds.
And she couldn't keep up.
A familiar with frilly socks and a crown atop its massive puff of curls shot up toward her, cackling. Sayaka enchanted the lamppost. The base bent under her hand like tinfoil; the top whacked the star-filled silhouette to the pavement, its bulb leaving a starburst of shattered glass across the asphalt. Once it was pinned, a sloppily aimed dagger was enough to finish it off.
No kind of training could have gotten her in shape for this in two weeks. Her lungs were burning, seizing with every breath; her muscles were getting painfully stiff. She could pump more magic into them, but the blue shield on her chest was already roiling with darkness, and if she kept taking out familiars she would only keep falling behind.
She could stop. Give up on chasing the Big Bad, let the familiars come to her, maximize the number she wiped out before her soul gem went black.
But no. The laughing spectre with its rippling skirt and turning gears would only keep spitting out more of them. Sayaka had to take this thing out at the source, or die trying.
And even if that's my fate, I'm not going to despair.
Her mind was filled with Madoka's face. Madoka's laugh. The soft and heated and perfect touch of Madoka's hands.
Because I got to protect you, no matter what else happens, I'll have no regrets.
Drawing all possible strength from those memories, Sayaka poured it into this fragile body.
This time, when she ran, it was to leave the familiars in the dust. Six stories plunged down towards her, all with floor-to-ceiling glass windows; she leaped onto one corner and scaled it as it fell, launching herself from the roof. She touched down on the science center, made another flying leap to the iconic tiered roof of the Hanokage Building, dodged a stray flurry of what looked like office furniture, and kept right on going, closing the distance with every jump until she began to feel the heat of Walpurgis Night's flames.
For this one, I think I'll use cutlasses.
***
—I have no record of contracting you.—
(AK-47 to the gut; a white body collapses onto the roof of a smashed car)
—Your wish, the exact nature of your powers, are all unknown to me.—
(hand grenade in the face; the next fluffy form lands with a thump in the mud under a well-cultivated sidewalk tree)
—A fascinating case of—
(she goes for a rocket launcher this time, splatters red across the movie posters plastered on a wall)
—Could it be—
(why the hell is he so persistent, usually he gets the message after one or two explosions)
***
She still didn't manage a thousand, but it was pretty close.
As she fell, uniform dissolving into ordinary clothes, she saw pieces of the doll's fancy gown shredded and torn off by the first line of the barrage.
Something had flooded this area; the ground was awash with puddles, reflecting the clouds' sickly light. To Sayaka's dazed eyes it looked as if there was nothing for her to hit.
***
—that your wish had something to do—
(didn't even realize she still had this old pipe bomb)
—with the girl called Kaname Madoka—
(classic Beretta 92, they've never done her wrong)
—who is perhaps five blocks from where we stand?—
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, Homura, Walpurgis Night, (skip) Hitomi, Kyuubei
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.
Ich steige schon dreyhundert Jahr,
Und kann den Gipfel nicht erreichen.
I'm climbing now three hundred years,
And yet the summit cannot see.
—Goethe's Faust (tr. Bayard Taylor)
***
April 29
Friday
Hitomi had three books in her bag, and was running her hand along the spines of Kamijou's collection looking for the last one on his list, when the door swished open behind her. "Just a minute!"
Nobody answered. Strange. You would expect a nurse to say "okay" or "just hurry up" or something.
Sure enough, when Hitomi went to look, it wasn't a nurse. It was her familiar classmate with the long dark hair (no braids in it now, the two sections hanging loose and tangled) and cherry-red glasses, frozen and staring just outside the door of Kyousuke's room.
"Akemi-san!" exclaimed Hitomi. "You're okay! When you didn't come to school, we were all scared that maybe—"
"I had a relapse I am taking a medical absence," said Akemi automatically. Her perpetual stammer was nowhere to be heard. "Kamijou Kyousuke is...still here?"
"No, sorry. He's visiting a new nerve specialist in Asunaro City." Hitomi patted her bag. "I'm going up tonight to visit, so I'm bringing some of his books. Um, did you want to tell him something? I could deliver a message, if you wanted."
"This doesn't happen." Akemi was addressing the far wall, as if she had forgotten Hitomi was there. "He should be back in school he shouldn't be in treatment this is never how it happens...."
And then she was back to staring. Did her heart condition include something about seizures? "Are you feeling okay?" asked Hitomi, peering nervously at her. "Do you want me to call a doctor?"
"It's my fault," breathed Akemi.
"Sorry?"
"I've screwed it up, that's why, I changed too much and now who knows how many wild cards there are, I don't know how to handle —" Her head whipped around to look directly at Hitomi. "Sayaka with a contract and the boy still paralyzed it doesn't happen. Don't you see? Of course you don't, you're never any use — she's toxic either way but if you didn't push her — and after that it doesn't matter what you do, you might die every time for all I know —"
"Akemi-san! You're being very — very rude!" exclaimed Hitomi. None of her lessons had covered the elegant way to handle being insulted by a peer who was clearly going unhinged.
"But hey, you never know, this might just be the total change that does it!" She was breathing harder now, hands tensing, clawing at the air. "I can't imagine how — but what do I know? The whole universe would never have become the way it is right now if I'd had any clue how much it planned to fuck me over —"
She was distant again, her thoughts all somewhere else. Hitomi started inching toward the emergency call button.
"I've never lost her before." Akemi laughed, once: a short, dry, despairing sound. "The time I try to keep her closest ends up being the only time I lose her."
The wide red plastic button was an eyesore on Kamijou's carved wooden bed. Hitomi stood in front of it, nodding as if Akemi had her undivided attention, feeling for it behind her back.
"May as well go play this out this regardless," said Akemi hoarsely. "No sense in wasting good explosives, right?"
Two seconds after the button went down, she vanished into thin air.
***
There was a single police officer standing watch in the lobby of Sayaka's apartment complex, with at least two more watching the grounds.
Sayaka went in through the window.
The empty home didn't hold her long. Mami's notebooks went in a neat stack on top of her desk. The Grief Seed she had won got a place on her bureau. It was too full to use for any more Soul Gem cleansings; the scribbling witch would be born again if she tried. Later she could work on a safe way to dispose of it that didn't involve asking Kyuubei.
The last thing she did was shift out-of-uniform long enough to trade the borrowed clothes for a set of her own: a light blue patterned blouse, a navy pair of shorts, and comfortable, well-broken-in loafers. Until now she had never really appreciated the luxury of getting to wear a bra that fit.
Moving by night was second nature to her now. She slipped out of the complex unnoticed and cut a shadowy figure under the waning crescent moon, heading for Madoka's house.
***
April 30
The Night Before
The evacuation order had finally gone out.
A crawl was running at the base of every television, every channel. The big screen in the central metro station was playing the news, too, with the warning emphasized by the simple message scrolling repeatedly across the bottom: Flood warning for Mitakihara City and Kasamino City, April 30 through May 2. Residents should move to approved disaster shelters. For information about your local shelter, call....
In spite of this, the inter-city train platform was no more packed than usual, and it was a short wait in line to get to a ticket machine. Minor floods were common in the area, and plenty of people wouldn't even leave their homes for a warning like this, much less flee the region.
"I wish...I mean, if only we could get everyone to at least go to shelters," murmured Madoka, squeezing Sayaka's hand. The crowd was making her jumpy.
Sayaka harrumphed. "If they're not going to listen to the official disaster agencies, how are a couple of teenage girls supposed to get through to them?"
"That's true."
It did boost Madoka's confidence to be back in fitting clothes, even if the whole outfit was concealed by one of the hooded raincoats. The high-waisted dark rose dress went nicely with dark tights and lavender ribbons, and of course everything deserved to be paired with shoes that didn't chafe.
Under a darkening grey sky, the train pulled in.
They found a free high-backed bench quickly. Madoka slid in by the window, Sayaka next to the aisle. Madoka fished the phone out of her coat's inside pocket (not the one Panda-san was stuffed into, the other one) and checked the online storm tracker again. Sayaka retrieved one of the water bottles she'd been carrying and had a drink.
"What's the top thing you want to do when we get back home?" asked Madoka.
Sayaka started. "I don't know! Why?"
"It doesn't matter," stammered Madoka. "I wanted to talk about something, that's all. It can be something else if you want."
After another tensed moment, Sayaka let herself relax. "I miss having good speakers," she said. "Even when we had music, all we had was tinny laptop speakers. I want to play some songs and really hear the sound."
"That's a good one."
"So how about you? What are you looking forward to? Besides therapy, I mean."
Madoka giggled. "You'll think it's crazy, but I really do want to get back to school."
"...telling you, it's gonna be some kinda all-out gang war."
And there went the tension again, Sayaka perking up and pricking her ears at the two guys on the train seat in front of them.
"You are so full of it," said the second man. "Even the Yakuza aren't sticking around in the flood plain tonight."
"After the storm, you moron!" replied the first man who had spoken. "Or maybe in the next city over, who knows? Look, my cousin's in the JSDF, I hear things, all right? Someone's been making off with the big-time military hardware. Security people say it's like it's evaporating right outta the bases. Gotta be an operation behind that kind of work."
"Or maybe the JSDF can't keep its inventory straight," said his companion. "When was the last time you heard of any of those people being competent? Your cousin excepted, obviously."
"Hey, man, I'm just trying to warn you. If you don't have the sense to listen to good intel when you get it...."
"I'm going to be listening to my music in a minute."
The argument petered out, leaving Madoka to put her hand gently on Sayaka's knee. "Dear...."
"I guess school won't seem so bad now," said Sayaka, lacing their fingers together. "Wonder how many boyfriends Saotome-sensei's gone through while we were away."
***
The train was pulling into its first stop (at the northern edge of the city) when Sayaka excused herself to go to the bathroom. Madoka, now checking the directions to their parents' hotel for the umpteenth time, gave her a distracted nod.
A few minutes later, with the train humming along past trees and power lines and a nearby highway, Sayaka hadn't returned. And Madoka finally looked at what she had left behind.
The neatly folded note was held in place by the one remaining water bottle.
Madoka,
Guess I'm writing this, even if I haven't decided to give it to you yet. It still isn't too late to take the easy way out.
See, the thing is, I lied earlier. There was something that could have defeated Walpurgis Night. But I was selfish and a coward and I couldn't give it up. And if I take your hand and run away now, I can completely get away with it! How's that for justice?
If I leave this note for you, it means I decided not to run away.
Even if I can't defeat this thing, maybe I can save some people during the fight. They deserve at least that much from me, right? If I don't make it back, well, at least I'll have gone out feeling like less of a terrible person. Please remember me like that, okay?
And if someone else comes along one day who would do anything to protect you, please don't think I'll mind. Because that's what you deserve, even if it can't be me.
I love you so much. Please keep yourself safe. If you do that, I'll have no regrets.
<3 Sayaka
***
The clouds are black and steel-grey, racing across the sky under gale-force winds, their edges made razor-sharp with flashes of lightning. Water sluices and chops frantically at the banks of the river. The only lights on the streets are the flashing blue signals of a handful of emergency vehicles, fireflies sending out lonely pulses into the cold and the dark.
A dull miasma sweeps across open stretches of pavement. To most eyes it's no more than low-lying fog. Most ears don't hear the echoes of applause, or the pitter-pat of little feet that don't yet fully exist.
But no one, down to the least magic-sensitive of all humanity, no one with so much as a handful of sense wants to be out here right now.
***
(so it's probably a good thing she's fucking crazy by this point, isn't it)
***
May 1
The Morning Of
Sayaka made her way to the roof of the hospital.
She didn't have to do a search to choose the spot. The feelings of a witch trail were thick in the air, loss and hurt and hopelessness flowing forward in lazy spirals. All she had to do was follow them until the sensation got choking, then pick a perch and wait for all that despair to finish gathering.
It wasn't the greatest perch, no matter how thematically appropriate. The wind was at its hardest up here, and bitter cold as if it had come from the dead of winter rather than the start of spring. It whipped Sayaka's hair into a messy frenzy; it made her shorts and blouse snap around her skin. Her arms and legs were freezing.
Transfiguring her clothes would waste energy. Transforming too early would burn through even more....
(You have to take care of yourself, Sayaka, Madoka would have said.)
But a twist on healing magic...since she was healthy and whole to start with, that would be cheap. She dipped into the smallest fraction of her power, made her body work that much harder. Got her blood flowing.
(Other things she didn't dare waste energy on: checking to find out where Madoka was, if the train had arrived safely, if she was with her parents. Every drop of her magic could easily be drained on keeping track of those answers.)
Flashes of color began to appear through the fog on the ground below, and in streamers leading up to the sky. Bright creatures, like circus clowns or puppets at a children's show. Although they looked like familiars, they registered in Sayaka's soul gem as no threat. Pieces of what would have been a barrier, nothing more. Cardboard cutouts to form the backdrop of the show.
Wide awake and burning with determination, Sayaka stood ready to play her part.
***
the sigil of the gate appears, with lines of rainbow banners streaming down from where it spins against the clouds
and then she's there
the debris of the city starts to lift (it's just the start, the sky will soon be filled with bits of buildings thrown around like so much trash), exploding into flames of red and gold and purple to announce her entrance
(she didn't need to do that: there's already a fifty-one rocket-launcher salute heading her way)
***
Sayaka heard it before she saw it. Shrieking, bone-chilling laughter with the echo of a deep well.
The witch was a blank-faced doll in a deep blue gown like a medieval princess, all white ruffles and bell sleeves and gold-braided trim, suspended from the bottom of a set of gears. It was impossible to tell the scale from here; it could have been the size of a blimp or a hundred meters high.
Sayaka's own outfit flashed into existence around her, not so different in the coloring, but with more armor, more leather.
Walpurgis Night shrieked and chortled and spat flame. More flames exploded from the far side of its dress — or were those exploding on the far side of its dress, some kind of ranged fire attack — stolen military hardware — but Sayaka couldn't worry about the details, not when she was trying to conjure a thousand cutlasses at once —
When the strain on her concentration was all but crushing, Sayaka sent the barrage forward. She hadn't made it to a thousand, but this shimmering volley of hundreds of magic blades stabbing it in the back would do for an opening move.
She didn't get to watch them all hit home, because a chunk of masonry was hurtling straight for her.
Sayaka's gloved hands closed around the hilt of a sword as tall as a house and almost half a meter from edge to back. The concrete sliced apart like butter, the pieces falling aside. It was followed by the twisted metal of a radio signal tower. This time Sayaka leaped, used the missile as a platform, and half-ran, half-flew across it until she had the right angle to leap to the next building closer.
Something a few floors below her exploded. Glass shattered; the side of the skyscraper belched thick smoke.
No time to worry about that either. If the building started crumbling, she could jump again. Right now — more swords.
***
her aim is off, she's making things blow up she didn't mean to
but honestly: Homura isn't trying to aim.
This isn't about winning, it doesn't matter if she wins because she doesn't know where Madoka is, this is about burning off as much rage as possible before she starts everything over so she has at least some chance of acting like a normal human after she wakes up tomorrow
Next time I'll do it right
she fires and fires and fires, watches buildings she's seen crumble in a hundred different ways find a whole new way to lie in pieces on the ground
No more wasting time with basements, dresses, furniture, no more trying to find the perfect explanation that will finally make her understand, no more dropping hints with that goddamn unwinnable game
(someone wished into existence in an irregular timeline seven years ago; she never found out what caused that one and she's never seen it repeated since)
her rhythm's off — it's drifted almost past the industrial park towers when she hits the trigger and the first one topples straight past it — with a metal scream it hits the chopping water
Next time I'll do the serious thing and flee the country
where no one, even Miki Sayaka, will have the luck to find her
she freezes time and races through the dim and silent darkness for the oil tanker
(unless it wasn't luck? oh hell that was her wish, Homura's sure of it)
the witch is passing by the bridge — the tanker races up the metal arches, soars, and hits it in the face as she leaps away and drops into the safety of the river — it explodes, a blinding flash, with glass and flaming rubble trailing past her — her kneecap takes a whack but then she's under water, there's a scraped and charred hole in her stocking but it isn't smoking, won't get worse —
would she buy that it was hopeless, and not even worth a wish, if what they found in the river was more than Madoka's shoes and phone?
(her healing magic's good enough to fix some serious damage in another person — say, regrow a hand)
she grabs a chunk of metal, searing, steaming, and propels it to the shoreline
but the witch's laughter now is joined by rows of girlish giggles: the familiars are released
and Homura's laughing too — the joke's on them, this is what she wants — forget trying to chase down the big boss, she's happy to blow up these things all day, so much more satisfying — these bitches have the sense to go down when they get a faceful of mortar
It's all your fault I have to do this whole damn thing again so COME AT ME
***
The first one caught Sayaka so off-guard that all she could do was stab. A dark shape shredded under her steel, its unearthly giggle erupting into a shriek.
Two more familiars bounced through the air above the overpass, as Sayaka sprinted down the median, flat and featureless as cutouts in the texture of the world. Except for the flashes of a starry backdrop on the other side, they were so dark that the air around them glowed in comparison —
— and they had the shapes of girls.
"Don't remind me!" cried Sayaka, lobbing another cutlass at the shape of a girl with a ruffled skirt and what was either a strange headdress or hair in two tight buns. "I know! Okay? I know, and there's nothing else I can do but this! I can't save you!"
The first shape tore apart with a screech, but the second, with twintails and bobbles on her shoes and what looked like a magic wand with a freaking ribbon on it, hit her head-on and sent her flying.
Sayaka screamed as she skidded across the pavement. The familiar twirled and danced for a moment, but when Sayaka rolled to a stop it was after her in an instant — she hurt too much to get up, and her healing magic wasn't that fast —
Choking back tears from the full-body pain, she waited until the apparition was almost on her, then made a forest of two-meter rapiers shoot up at all angles from the pavement.
The second familiar was pierced and gone. The blades clattered to the ground. Sayaka gritted her teeth and threw everything she had into healing, as quickly as she could, before the next round pirouetted into view or another torn-off piece of skyscraper was thrown her way.
***
and the hell of it is that she knows these shapes, she's had a complete and numbered catalog for decades now, their silhouettes are as familiar as most of the puella magi she's ever met — sometimes she can even link them up to witches, that one with the wand and tail is Charlotte, this one with the long hair and wings at her heels is Elly — and other times it's easy since she's met them, the cloud-shaped headdress of Umika, the cat-eared hood and giant bow of tiny Yuma —
— she used to flinch at boots, puffed sleeves, and spiral curls, but now she doesn't bat an eye, not even at the ones with bows at heels and waist and twintails —
—You are a very unusual case, Akemi Homura.—
(she doesn't even look, just sprays a hail of bullets till the stupid chirpy not-a-voice shuts up)
***
Sleepy passengers filed off the train, alone and in groups, some dragging suitcases, most yawning. Even the new people boarding, who hadn't spent the last few hours trying to doze on a stiff cushion in a jumpy car, didn't have much energy. The attendant did a slow walk down the aisle, collecting tickets and checking for lost belongings.
He stopped at the last row, where the bench to his right was empty except for a couple of lonely items.
One was a phone. That was good. People came looking for phones, which meant the other things would get rescued as well. He gathered them up to put in a box for the lost-and-found, labeled with the trip number and the name of the station and everything.
After all, the poor kid who had lost this well-loved stuffed panda deserved to get it back.
***
Under a dead streetlamp in an endless row of dead streetlamps, Sayaka staggered to a stop, grabbing the metal post to keep from falling over.
The shadow of Walpurgis Night floated like a mirage down the roadway ahead of her, wider than its eight lanes. Mundane fires were starting to spring up in its wake, smoke drifting skyward from hotels and office buildings with their tops ripped off or holes gouged in their sides, ash joining the concrete and girders and glass already floating below the clouds.
And she couldn't keep up.
A familiar with frilly socks and a crown atop its massive puff of curls shot up toward her, cackling. Sayaka enchanted the lamppost. The base bent under her hand like tinfoil; the top whacked the star-filled silhouette to the pavement, its bulb leaving a starburst of shattered glass across the asphalt. Once it was pinned, a sloppily aimed dagger was enough to finish it off.
No kind of training could have gotten her in shape for this in two weeks. Her lungs were burning, seizing with every breath; her muscles were getting painfully stiff. She could pump more magic into them, but the blue shield on her chest was already roiling with darkness, and if she kept taking out familiars she would only keep falling behind.
She could stop. Give up on chasing the Big Bad, let the familiars come to her, maximize the number she wiped out before her soul gem went black.
But no. The laughing spectre with its rippling skirt and turning gears would only keep spitting out more of them. Sayaka had to take this thing out at the source, or die trying.
And even if that's my fate, I'm not going to despair.
Her mind was filled with Madoka's face. Madoka's laugh. The soft and heated and perfect touch of Madoka's hands.
Because I got to protect you, no matter what else happens, I'll have no regrets.
Drawing all possible strength from those memories, Sayaka poured it into this fragile body.
This time, when she ran, it was to leave the familiars in the dust. Six stories plunged down towards her, all with floor-to-ceiling glass windows; she leaped onto one corner and scaled it as it fell, launching herself from the roof. She touched down on the science center, made another flying leap to the iconic tiered roof of the Hanokage Building, dodged a stray flurry of what looked like office furniture, and kept right on going, closing the distance with every jump until she began to feel the heat of Walpurgis Night's flames.
For this one, I think I'll use cutlasses.
***
—I have no record of contracting you.—
(AK-47 to the gut; a white body collapses onto the roof of a smashed car)
—Your wish, the exact nature of your powers, are all unknown to me.—
(hand grenade in the face; the next fluffy form lands with a thump in the mud under a well-cultivated sidewalk tree)
—A fascinating case of—
(she goes for a rocket launcher this time, splatters red across the movie posters plastered on a wall)
—Could it be—
(why the hell is he so persistent, usually he gets the message after one or two explosions)
***
She still didn't manage a thousand, but it was pretty close.
As she fell, uniform dissolving into ordinary clothes, she saw pieces of the doll's fancy gown shredded and torn off by the first line of the barrage.
Something had flooded this area; the ground was awash with puddles, reflecting the clouds' sickly light. To Sayaka's dazed eyes it looked as if there was nothing for her to hit.
***
—that your wish had something to do—
(didn't even realize she still had this old pipe bomb)
—with the girl called Kaname Madoka—
(classic Beretta 92, they've never done her wrong)
—who is perhaps five blocks from where we stand?—
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-02-03 02:59 am (UTC)(link)The "dear" moment... Jeez, that's such a cute old married couple thing. Why can't they just be happy?
I guess they were doomed by this point anyway, since if nothing changed Homura would reset under the assumption that she'd failed.
I really hope you don't subscribe to the idea that the doll is a fake and only the big gear is the real witch. Although that would be perfectly typical for Sayaka. Perhaps she should have enjoyed her last few hours with Madoka instead?
-Fish
no subject
They can't just be happy because being meguca is suffering!
Hm. I don't think the doll isn't "really" part of the witch, but some parts of witches are more important than others. The main body of Oktavia seemed perfectly happy to carry on after Kyoko lopped off its arm. It's possible that the gears might keep functioning if the doll "appendage" was destroyed. (Or vice versa.)
Likely she should have. But that's Sayaka for you. Why do something comforting and happy when you can run off and torture yourself with guilt instead?