Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2013-01-21 08:53 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2013-01-21 08:53 pm
Entry tags:
Madoka Magica | Madoka/Sayaka, others | PG-13 | Persephone's Waltz (17)
Title: Persephone's Waltz, Chapter 17: There's nobody else.
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, Junko, (skip) Hitomi/Kyousuke, Albertine
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.
With the clock ticking, it's training montage time for Sayaka in the last chapter before the final showdown begins.
This chapter draws on information from the PSP game, so heads-up if you're avoiding spoilers from that.
***
April 21
Thursday
A light wind tossed the curtains, revealing the sun-soaked landscape beyond. From this height you could see all the way to the shadow of the mountain; even in the heart of the city, only a handful of skyscrapers reached high enough to block the view.
"I really wasn't supposed to tell you." She was anxious, flush with emotion. "There's an ongoing investigation, they wouldn't tell me almost anything, but I thought, if anyone else deserves to know...."
"I understand." He covered her hand with one of his own — the good one, of course. "I won't say a word, okay? Thank you so much for telling me, Shizuki-san."
She nodded.
"I hope you won't stop visiting!" he added, taking his own turn to be somewhat flustered. "Even if you were only coming here in her honor...." (They've never said her memory, afraid to tempt fate. Looks like it's worked.) "...I really did like seeing you for your own sake. Of course, if you have to start up your lessons again, I understand...."
"No, it's all right!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. "I was going to stop anyway, with high school exams getting so close now. And...and even before all of this, I had been planning to...." The sentence trailed away, unfinished.
"I knew you weren't trying to replace her," stammered Kyousuke.
Hitomi nodded, wiping her eyes. "I'm okay!" she insisted, even as her voice careened up in pitch. "I just...I'm so glad they're alive!"
***
April 22
Friday
At first Madoka was only skimming the information, filtering through it and directing Sayaka to the most relevant parts. It didn't make sense for her to read more closely. She didn't need to absorb the information for her own sake, so there was no point, right?
Her attitude changed when she spotted the beginning of a single sentence jotted down the side of a page: Kyuubei says....
Anything Mami had directly experienced was probably trustworthy. Anything she had only accepted from the mouth of the Incubator...or brain, Madoka supposed, given that she didn't even know if its mouth opened...who knew?
From then on Madoka read everything. On a notepad filched from the last hotel room, she started a record of her own: everything "Kyuubei" had said, beginning with as much as she could remember about the way he had offered her a contract.
She was working on the project Friday evening, or trying to, while Sayaka called her parents again. Eventually Sayaka disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. Madoka tried not to listen too closely to the yelling.
"They've been coached," moaned Sayaka afterward, sprawling across the bed and covering her head with a pillow. "Wouldn't listen to a word I said about danger and storms, they just kept trying to sneak information about Akemi out of me...not that Dad was real subtle about it! I wouldn't say anything, not even that I think she's insane, but that only convinced them I'd been brainwashed into liking her too." She winced as soon as she said it, peered out at Madoka from under the fluff. "Not that you've been brainwashed! I didn't mean it like that."
"Mama was coached too," said Madoka softly. The chart of Mami's that she had been staring at for the past ten minutes lay open across her knees.
"Really? I mean, are you sure?"
"Well...she didn't promise to have the kidnapper tied up and launched off the top of the Tokyo Tower." (That got an appreciative smile from Sayaka.) "Someone whose opinions she trusted must have told her it would be bad for me."
"If only they could talk to some puella magi experts," grumbled Sayaka.
Madoka frowned. "Could they? They might be able to take advice from a magical girl who was close to their age, and appeared to know what she was doing...can you find someone like that, Sayaka?"
Sayaka let the pillow fall away and rose up ever so slightly on her elbows, her eyes taking on the distant look they often did when she was flexing her powers. A few moments later she shuddered and let herself collapse back onto the bedspread.
"Sayaka...?"
"There's one adult puella magi in my range," said Sayaka. "She's in the exact same place as Akemi."
Madoka's breath caught.
Sayaka flailed for words for a second, then settled on, "That creep."
There was nothing Madoka could say to that. Nothing she was sure of, at least.
"Aside from her," added Sayaka dully, "there's nobody else. I can't even find any magical girls older than twenty."
***
April 23
Saturday
In the dead of night they crossed the river.
The cables of the bridge stretched into the purple sky like spiderwebs, framing them, enclosing them. Madoka wanted to hold Sayaka's hand, but her arms were full of a bundle of laundry, her pockets stuffed with notes and hotel candy bars and the ragged stuffed animal she still couldn't bring herself to leave behind.
They had to do it. An arc of vandalized hotel rooms moving through Mami's part of town would be too predictable. Someone would look at the reports, put two and two together, set up a trap that would snap shut aroud them.
Sayaka wore her magically fitted uniform. Madoka wore borrowed (stolen) shoes, though they were starting to chafe.
On the opposite bank, as they walked past a playground, Sayaka stopped cold. Madoka tripped to a stop beside her. "Sayaka?" she whispered. "What is it?"
"Witch trail," murmured Sayaka, hugging her own bundle of clothing against the Soul Gem on her chest. "It moved through here a couple of hours ago."
Madoka shivered. If it was still around, and Sayaka didn't go after it....
Sayaka bumped her lightly in the shoulder. "Come on. We have to make six more blocks."
She didn't say anything about looking for the witch, and Madoka didn't push.
***
April 24
Sunday
After his afternoon session of water-bound physical therapy, Kyousuke had a nurse wheel him to the bathroom (at least he had progressed enough to earn privacy for that), then back to bed. He asked the nurse to retrieve a book from the shelves for him, and settled in to do some reading. Although he was trying not to fall too far behind with schoolwork, he saved the weekends for novels.
He was turning to the second chapter when a shadow fell across the page.
Clouds did this all the time, so Kyousuke didn't look up. Even the tapping on the window didn't distract him at first. Tree branches had a way of doing that on windy days....except that he wasn't in his bedroom with the trees outside, he was in a high floor of a city building. And the shadow across his blankets was human-shaped.
It was so unexpected that Kyousuke didn't think to ring for the nurse. He pulled back the curtain instead...
...and stared.
Sayaka, kneeling in some kind of bizarre cosplay outfit on the narrow ledge outside, put a finger to her llps.
Mouth hanging open, Kyousuke nodded. (How could Sayaka have gotten there? What could she possibly be—?) She pointed to the far side of the room with a warning look, and he checked — the door was closed, there was no one there — to turn back at a sudden gust of cold air, and see her landing lightly on the floor beside his bed. "Hi," she said, with a shy wave.
"H-how did you do that?" exclaimed Kyousuke. "What's happened to you? ...Why are you in a cape?"
***
"Okay. I'll find a way."
Sayaka could have cheered. She hadn't tried to explain anything more to Kyousuke than she had to her family, but here he was, accepting the need to be out of the city before this week was over. All the risks she'd taken, leaving Madoka alone and coming here in broad daylight, had been worth it.
"I don't understand why this all has to be so secret!" added Kyousuke. "It isn't even on the news that you're alive. Shizuki-san had to tell me, and she didn't think she was supposed to."
Sayaka did a double-take. "Hitomi's come to visit you?"
"Mmhmm. She'll be here again tomorrow — do you want me to warn her about the storm? Then she can pass it on to other people, without you having to risk being out in the open any more."
It was a good plan. Sayaka was embarrassed she hadn't thought of delivering her whole message through Hitomi in the first place. "Will you, please? Even if nobody else believes her, at least you two and your families can be safe."
Kyousuke nodded. "Just leave it to me."
Sayaka smiled, then closed her eyes and checked for Akemi. Half a mile to her left. A safe distance. "I have to go now, okay? If everything goes well, I'll see you in May."
She put one gloved hand against one of the larger upper windowpanes. and the glass rippled before flowing out of the way, leaving a shield-shaped opening large enough for her to comfortably climb through. A cool wind blew through the room, tossing her hair and making the swan-white cape billow in her wake.
"One more thing," she added. "Tell Hitomi I said...I have to take care of Madoka now, so she had better take good care of you in my place, okay?"
Kyousuke took it with a good-natured grin. And why not? When you first learned that this world had magic, before you found out about any of the drawbacks, it was easy to be happy. "I will. See you later, Sayaka."
***
April 25
Monday
Sayaka cupped her Soul Gem in the palm of her hand and stared into its murky depths.
Madoka didn't have to ask what she was thinking. All the techniques Sayaka had been testing, from manipulating objects to scaling skyscrapers, had taken their toll. It wasn't long before she would need another Grief Seed.
"You'll take me with you," said Madoka, leaning over Sayaka's shoulders.
It wasn't a question, but neither was it one of those orders Sayaka jumped to obey. "You would be safer here."
"Loan me a sword. Any familiars get too close to me, I...I'll hit them over the head." Madoka nuzzled her cheek against Sayaka's neck. "Once we're in the center of the labyrinth, build a shield over me."
Mami had suspected that any puella magi could find a way to extend her powers into a shield or wall. For her, the building material was ribbons. For Kyoko, diamond chains. Sayaka's experiments had come up with crisscrossing silver wires, like an impossibly fine chain-link fence. As long as she was alive, it stayed in place whether she was paying attention or not, only dissolving at her conscious command.
"What if it gets me?" demanded Sayaka. "Any sword or shield you've gotten from me will fall apart. You'll be helpless."
"What if it gets you because a familiar sneaks up on you and I wasn't there to hit it over the head?" countered Madoka.
Sayaka groaned in wordless disapproval.
"I can't stay here," added Madoka quietly. "It isn't like when you go for food and things. I'd be left sitting alone, wondering what's happening to you, not knowing when or if you'll be back. I'll panic, Sayaka. I'll get sick, or...I don't know. The day Homura was late...." She shuddered. "It'll be so much worse. You can't leave me to that."
The sapphire jewel shifted back into a ring, freeing both of Sayaka's hands to wrap around Madoka's. "Then I'll just have to make sure not to lose."
***
They filled the time before sunset with...call it mutual reassurance.
Partway through, Sayaka admitted to the effects of gentle fingers across the surface of her Soul Gem. It turned out the earlier incidental touch had only given her a shadow of how Madoka could make her feel when it was deliberate.
In the cuddling afterward, Madoka's arm curled around Sayaka's bare midriff with Sayaka holding her around the shoulders, she said, "Does it seem...brighter to you?"
Sayaka turned the egg-shaped jewel over, studying its glow. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought the dark swirls didn't seem quite so dark. "A little."
"I don't suppose...we could forget about the witch-hunting, and...." There was no way she was going to be able to finish that sentence. Her face had already heated up enough for Sayaka to feel the blush against her chest.
"It wasn't that good," muttered Sayaka. "I-I mean — as a strategy it isn't good, not that you weren't — um."
Madoka giggled. "It's okay, I understand. If it were an effective technique, you'd think some other puella magi would have figured it out by now."
***
Following witch trails with Sayaka's Soul Gem was slower than using her finding power, but according to Mami it wouldn't drain her magic, so trails it was.
She stopped at the mouth of an alley between two buildings of the Mitakihara Galleria, and Madoka got her first sight of a full-fledged barrier was a mandala unfolding in the air, a spinning mass of symmetrical scribbles with a star-and-diamond sigil outlined in the center. Sayaka shifted into uniform with a flourish, wordlessly handed Madoka a short sword, and pried it open.
The full thing was more disorienting than anything Madoka had experienced so far. A groundless field of green, yellow, and white light blossomed around them, littered with what looked like giant crayons and handprints left in paint. Liquid dripped from some impossible height down the non-walls around them, neon streaks in the shifting darkness. Looking from herself to Sayaka, Madoka realized they were casting mismatched shadows....
A flurry of motion appeared in the corner of her eye; Madoka squeaked and did an unhelpful flail with her sword. Familiars? No, the rubber balls bounced harmlessly past her....
Sayaka sucked in a breath, produced a dozen swords with a swirl of her cape, and hurled them one-two-three at a crayoned shape in the air.
The creature shrieked and giggled, pinned to a note-paper wall. It was like a child's drawing, bright orange face with green hair on a lumpy body that rode (grew out of?) a bright pink car: a crayoned outline somehow existing in three dimensions, before it burst into an explosion of color like a paintball hurled against the wall.
It was dizzying. It was visually wrong. Madoka had a headache already.
"Come on!" urged Sayaka, and she stumbled to follow.
More crayoned not-figures flooded out of nowhere as they descended: armless girls with green braids or purple twintails, giant tongues and sometimes tiny crowns, in planes, train cars, boats, automobiles. Sayaka dispatched them whip-fast with her standard swords, then began to experiment. A ten-foot broadsword tore through three familiars at once.
A blade sliced in an arc along the ground in front of her, tracing the base of lattice of silver wires that soared upward and swallowed two more foes. These didn't disperse, even when Sayaka tightened their prison to the size of a fist; she had to run a rapier through them to finish the job.
At some point, moving forward, she fell into a rhythm in which not one of her swords missed its target. Madoka, tripping along behind, didn't fully recognize it until she looked at Sayaka's boots. Step-slide-step. Step-slide-step.
She was waltzing with the enemy.
Scribbled cartoon doors began to appear on the walls. They all looked the same to Madoka, but Sayaka sword-danced in a decisive arc toward one, nodded to Madoka, and slashed.
The whole paper wall tore under her blade, shredding aside to reveal a new kind of room altogether.
"The witch itself will be in here," said Sayaka...then choked.
This was a full-fledged playroom, less non-Euclidian in its geometry, littered with alphabet blocks the size of armchairs (printed with no alphabet Madoka knew) and crayons as big as body pillows. Playing with one of the crayons, drawing a lopsided spiral on a sheet of paper nearly the size of a baseball diamond, was....
"They're not supposed to be..." Sayaka swallowed, hard. "They're not supposed to look human!"
It was the towering doll-shape of a young girl, maybe eight years old. Blonde curls were gathered in two puffs on either side of her pale, painted face; she wore an adorable patched pair of bloomer-overalls, and brightly-colored mismatched socks.
The witch raised its eyeless head and smiled at them.
Sayaka found her feet again just as the witch touched the paper, and a flurry of new familiars bounced toward them, giggles ringing in Madoka's ears. But her aim was faltering now. One shot in every two or three went wild, blades stabbing into the colossal toys that passed for scenery.
A familiar got far enough past to dive happily at Madoka — she brandished her own sword, only to be reprieved at the last second when a dome of silver filigree swirled up and around her. The creature smacked into it and wriggled for a moment before one of Sayaka's rapiers pierced it through.
When the last of the scribbles was dispatched, the witch was nowhere to be found.
But that, at least, was Sayaka's specialty. She drew from nowhere a two-handed broadsword, its blade longer than she was tall, and charged directly at a pile of building blocks. They exploded into splinters, revealing the hiding witch.
It took one slash from Sayaka's sword...and its porcelain face scrunched up, its painted lips wobbled, and tears began to roll down its cheeks.
Sayaka leaped back to the high ground of a tall stack of alphabet blocks — shoulders heaving, no swords on her now, no more moves to attack — the witch wasn't countering, just looking pitiful with its ripped jumper and its lovingly arranged puffs and the hurt on its childish face....
"It isn't a child!" shouted Madoka. Had to snap Sayaka out of the trance she'd frozen into. Had to do it now. "It isn't human any more! It's hurting people. Killing people. The girl it used to be, the real girl, wouldn't want that! She would be praying for someone to help her stop!"
With a pained scream, Sayaka let loose a spinning typhoon of bright-edged steel. For a few seconds the dazzling volley of light was all Madoka could see.
Then the witch, its body full of grimy-edged holes like note paper smudged with graphite, snarled and threw itself into Sayaka's pile of blocks, and the battle was truly on.
A few more exchanges of blows, and it was settled. Sayaka dodged the massive weapons the witch hurled at her, tore and shredded its next sheet of massive paper before it could birth more familiars, sliced it with merciless hard edges and punched holes through it with stinging points. There was no mistaking it for a human now. With parts of its body hanging by threads, it moved like a shambling, bloodless parody of humanity, until at last it collapsed in the same way.
The barrier dissolved around them. They were left standing in an alley with an industrial feeling, pipes running all over the walls, but when Madoka looked at her feet she realized they were standing on smooth diamond-patterned stonework. This had been a well-kept place, once. Now it was dusty stone and groaning pipes and the shreds of forgotten posters still hanging on the walls.
Sayaka was on her knees twenty feet down, a lightly smoking Grief Seed embedded in the pavement not far away.
***
April 26
Tuesday
She had tossed and turned in dreams before, but this was Sayaka's first screaming nightmare. Madoka had get on top of her, shake her by both shoulders, and call for half a minute before she reacted: "It's okay, Sayaka, it's okay, you have to calm down! You have to be quiet or someone will hear us. You're safe, please, calm down!"
Sayaka's chest was heaving, her tank top and hair plastered to her skin with sweat. "Madoka?" she croaked. "H-hands...."
"It isn't real, Sayaka. It was a nightmare. There's nobody here but us."
"Have to...to wash my hands." Sayaka was trying to thrash against Madoka's grip, too out of it to make much headway.
Madoka gulped. "Look for people who were disturbed by the noise, okay? Then you can wash up."
The jewel in the ring sitting beside the bed flickered, like an LED in the near-darkness. "Can't find any," Sayaka panted. "Lemme go."
She ended up staggering still-clothed into the shower, only peeling the fabric off her body after it was soaked through. The wet clothes ended up hanging off the sink while she sat on the floor, hugging a towel around her body and letting Madoka comb her hair.
***
April 27
Wednesday
"We've booked a week in a hotel in Iwakami City. Up north, on the coast. Sayaka-chan's parents have agreed to come for a few days too."
Tearing up with relief, Madoka wrote down the address.
"Our precious things are being packed up to come along, too," added her mother. "Important papers, souvenirs, photographs, the laptops of course...and we've left space in the last suitcase. Is there anything from your room you want us to bring?"
"Um..." (The first room she pictured was the cell underground — it took so much effort to envision her own bedroom — and still the cell and this series of hotels kept bleeding through — but why would she need any of it — she'd been torn away from everything stable twice in the space of a month already — so why try to cling to things? — you'll lose them soon enough anyway — and can survive just fine without them!) "...N-no thank you, Mama. I'll be fine."
***
April 28
Thursday
A handful of bills fanned out in Sayaka's grip. Enough cash to buy two one-way train tickets to Iwakami.
"The last thing we'll have to steal?" said Madoka hopefully.
"The last thing we'll have to steal," agreed Sayaka.
Happiness looked good on Madoka. Granted, everything looked good on Madoka. But it was happiness that she deserved — a long, peaceful, cheerful life with good friends and people who loved her. What price was Sayaka willing to pay to give her that chance?
"Madoka, I...."
"Hm?"
Sayaka stared at her hands. They looked so clean in broad daylight.
"Sayaka? Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing." Sayaka shook herself off, gave Madoka a wan smile. "I didn't like having to do it...but there's no way I'll ever regret it. That's all I wanted to say."
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, Junko, (skip) Hitomi/Kyousuke, Albertine
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.
With the clock ticking, it's training montage time for Sayaka in the last chapter before the final showdown begins.
This chapter draws on information from the PSP game, so heads-up if you're avoiding spoilers from that.
***
April 21
Thursday
A light wind tossed the curtains, revealing the sun-soaked landscape beyond. From this height you could see all the way to the shadow of the mountain; even in the heart of the city, only a handful of skyscrapers reached high enough to block the view.
"I really wasn't supposed to tell you." She was anxious, flush with emotion. "There's an ongoing investigation, they wouldn't tell me almost anything, but I thought, if anyone else deserves to know...."
"I understand." He covered her hand with one of his own — the good one, of course. "I won't say a word, okay? Thank you so much for telling me, Shizuki-san."
She nodded.
"I hope you won't stop visiting!" he added, taking his own turn to be somewhat flustered. "Even if you were only coming here in her honor...." (They've never said her memory, afraid to tempt fate. Looks like it's worked.) "...I really did like seeing you for your own sake. Of course, if you have to start up your lessons again, I understand...."
"No, it's all right!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. "I was going to stop anyway, with high school exams getting so close now. And...and even before all of this, I had been planning to...." The sentence trailed away, unfinished.
"I knew you weren't trying to replace her," stammered Kyousuke.
Hitomi nodded, wiping her eyes. "I'm okay!" she insisted, even as her voice careened up in pitch. "I just...I'm so glad they're alive!"
***
April 22
Friday
At first Madoka was only skimming the information, filtering through it and directing Sayaka to the most relevant parts. It didn't make sense for her to read more closely. She didn't need to absorb the information for her own sake, so there was no point, right?
Her attitude changed when she spotted the beginning of a single sentence jotted down the side of a page: Kyuubei says....
Anything Mami had directly experienced was probably trustworthy. Anything she had only accepted from the mouth of the Incubator...or brain, Madoka supposed, given that she didn't even know if its mouth opened...who knew?
From then on Madoka read everything. On a notepad filched from the last hotel room, she started a record of her own: everything "Kyuubei" had said, beginning with as much as she could remember about the way he had offered her a contract.
She was working on the project Friday evening, or trying to, while Sayaka called her parents again. Eventually Sayaka disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. Madoka tried not to listen too closely to the yelling.
"They've been coached," moaned Sayaka afterward, sprawling across the bed and covering her head with a pillow. "Wouldn't listen to a word I said about danger and storms, they just kept trying to sneak information about Akemi out of me...not that Dad was real subtle about it! I wouldn't say anything, not even that I think she's insane, but that only convinced them I'd been brainwashed into liking her too." She winced as soon as she said it, peered out at Madoka from under the fluff. "Not that you've been brainwashed! I didn't mean it like that."
"Mama was coached too," said Madoka softly. The chart of Mami's that she had been staring at for the past ten minutes lay open across her knees.
"Really? I mean, are you sure?"
"Well...she didn't promise to have the kidnapper tied up and launched off the top of the Tokyo Tower." (That got an appreciative smile from Sayaka.) "Someone whose opinions she trusted must have told her it would be bad for me."
"If only they could talk to some puella magi experts," grumbled Sayaka.
Madoka frowned. "Could they? They might be able to take advice from a magical girl who was close to their age, and appeared to know what she was doing...can you find someone like that, Sayaka?"
Sayaka let the pillow fall away and rose up ever so slightly on her elbows, her eyes taking on the distant look they often did when she was flexing her powers. A few moments later she shuddered and let herself collapse back onto the bedspread.
"Sayaka...?"
"There's one adult puella magi in my range," said Sayaka. "She's in the exact same place as Akemi."
Madoka's breath caught.
Sayaka flailed for words for a second, then settled on, "That creep."
There was nothing Madoka could say to that. Nothing she was sure of, at least.
"Aside from her," added Sayaka dully, "there's nobody else. I can't even find any magical girls older than twenty."
***
April 23
Saturday
In the dead of night they crossed the river.
The cables of the bridge stretched into the purple sky like spiderwebs, framing them, enclosing them. Madoka wanted to hold Sayaka's hand, but her arms were full of a bundle of laundry, her pockets stuffed with notes and hotel candy bars and the ragged stuffed animal she still couldn't bring herself to leave behind.
They had to do it. An arc of vandalized hotel rooms moving through Mami's part of town would be too predictable. Someone would look at the reports, put two and two together, set up a trap that would snap shut aroud them.
Sayaka wore her magically fitted uniform. Madoka wore borrowed (stolen) shoes, though they were starting to chafe.
On the opposite bank, as they walked past a playground, Sayaka stopped cold. Madoka tripped to a stop beside her. "Sayaka?" she whispered. "What is it?"
"Witch trail," murmured Sayaka, hugging her own bundle of clothing against the Soul Gem on her chest. "It moved through here a couple of hours ago."
Madoka shivered. If it was still around, and Sayaka didn't go after it....
Sayaka bumped her lightly in the shoulder. "Come on. We have to make six more blocks."
She didn't say anything about looking for the witch, and Madoka didn't push.
***
April 24
Sunday
After his afternoon session of water-bound physical therapy, Kyousuke had a nurse wheel him to the bathroom (at least he had progressed enough to earn privacy for that), then back to bed. He asked the nurse to retrieve a book from the shelves for him, and settled in to do some reading. Although he was trying not to fall too far behind with schoolwork, he saved the weekends for novels.
He was turning to the second chapter when a shadow fell across the page.
Clouds did this all the time, so Kyousuke didn't look up. Even the tapping on the window didn't distract him at first. Tree branches had a way of doing that on windy days....except that he wasn't in his bedroom with the trees outside, he was in a high floor of a city building. And the shadow across his blankets was human-shaped.
It was so unexpected that Kyousuke didn't think to ring for the nurse. He pulled back the curtain instead...
...and stared.
Sayaka, kneeling in some kind of bizarre cosplay outfit on the narrow ledge outside, put a finger to her llps.
Mouth hanging open, Kyousuke nodded. (How could Sayaka have gotten there? What could she possibly be—?) She pointed to the far side of the room with a warning look, and he checked — the door was closed, there was no one there — to turn back at a sudden gust of cold air, and see her landing lightly on the floor beside his bed. "Hi," she said, with a shy wave.
"H-how did you do that?" exclaimed Kyousuke. "What's happened to you? ...Why are you in a cape?"
***
"Okay. I'll find a way."
Sayaka could have cheered. She hadn't tried to explain anything more to Kyousuke than she had to her family, but here he was, accepting the need to be out of the city before this week was over. All the risks she'd taken, leaving Madoka alone and coming here in broad daylight, had been worth it.
"I don't understand why this all has to be so secret!" added Kyousuke. "It isn't even on the news that you're alive. Shizuki-san had to tell me, and she didn't think she was supposed to."
Sayaka did a double-take. "Hitomi's come to visit you?"
"Mmhmm. She'll be here again tomorrow — do you want me to warn her about the storm? Then she can pass it on to other people, without you having to risk being out in the open any more."
It was a good plan. Sayaka was embarrassed she hadn't thought of delivering her whole message through Hitomi in the first place. "Will you, please? Even if nobody else believes her, at least you two and your families can be safe."
Kyousuke nodded. "Just leave it to me."
Sayaka smiled, then closed her eyes and checked for Akemi. Half a mile to her left. A safe distance. "I have to go now, okay? If everything goes well, I'll see you in May."
She put one gloved hand against one of the larger upper windowpanes. and the glass rippled before flowing out of the way, leaving a shield-shaped opening large enough for her to comfortably climb through. A cool wind blew through the room, tossing her hair and making the swan-white cape billow in her wake.
"One more thing," she added. "Tell Hitomi I said...I have to take care of Madoka now, so she had better take good care of you in my place, okay?"
Kyousuke took it with a good-natured grin. And why not? When you first learned that this world had magic, before you found out about any of the drawbacks, it was easy to be happy. "I will. See you later, Sayaka."
***
April 25
Monday
Sayaka cupped her Soul Gem in the palm of her hand and stared into its murky depths.
Madoka didn't have to ask what she was thinking. All the techniques Sayaka had been testing, from manipulating objects to scaling skyscrapers, had taken their toll. It wasn't long before she would need another Grief Seed.
"You'll take me with you," said Madoka, leaning over Sayaka's shoulders.
It wasn't a question, but neither was it one of those orders Sayaka jumped to obey. "You would be safer here."
"Loan me a sword. Any familiars get too close to me, I...I'll hit them over the head." Madoka nuzzled her cheek against Sayaka's neck. "Once we're in the center of the labyrinth, build a shield over me."
Mami had suspected that any puella magi could find a way to extend her powers into a shield or wall. For her, the building material was ribbons. For Kyoko, diamond chains. Sayaka's experiments had come up with crisscrossing silver wires, like an impossibly fine chain-link fence. As long as she was alive, it stayed in place whether she was paying attention or not, only dissolving at her conscious command.
"What if it gets me?" demanded Sayaka. "Any sword or shield you've gotten from me will fall apart. You'll be helpless."
"What if it gets you because a familiar sneaks up on you and I wasn't there to hit it over the head?" countered Madoka.
Sayaka groaned in wordless disapproval.
"I can't stay here," added Madoka quietly. "It isn't like when you go for food and things. I'd be left sitting alone, wondering what's happening to you, not knowing when or if you'll be back. I'll panic, Sayaka. I'll get sick, or...I don't know. The day Homura was late...." She shuddered. "It'll be so much worse. You can't leave me to that."
The sapphire jewel shifted back into a ring, freeing both of Sayaka's hands to wrap around Madoka's. "Then I'll just have to make sure not to lose."
***
They filled the time before sunset with...call it mutual reassurance.
Partway through, Sayaka admitted to the effects of gentle fingers across the surface of her Soul Gem. It turned out the earlier incidental touch had only given her a shadow of how Madoka could make her feel when it was deliberate.
In the cuddling afterward, Madoka's arm curled around Sayaka's bare midriff with Sayaka holding her around the shoulders, she said, "Does it seem...brighter to you?"
Sayaka turned the egg-shaped jewel over, studying its glow. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought the dark swirls didn't seem quite so dark. "A little."
"I don't suppose...we could forget about the witch-hunting, and...." There was no way she was going to be able to finish that sentence. Her face had already heated up enough for Sayaka to feel the blush against her chest.
"It wasn't that good," muttered Sayaka. "I-I mean — as a strategy it isn't good, not that you weren't — um."
Madoka giggled. "It's okay, I understand. If it were an effective technique, you'd think some other puella magi would have figured it out by now."
***
Following witch trails with Sayaka's Soul Gem was slower than using her finding power, but according to Mami it wouldn't drain her magic, so trails it was.
She stopped at the mouth of an alley between two buildings of the Mitakihara Galleria, and Madoka got her first sight of a full-fledged barrier was a mandala unfolding in the air, a spinning mass of symmetrical scribbles with a star-and-diamond sigil outlined in the center. Sayaka shifted into uniform with a flourish, wordlessly handed Madoka a short sword, and pried it open.
The full thing was more disorienting than anything Madoka had experienced so far. A groundless field of green, yellow, and white light blossomed around them, littered with what looked like giant crayons and handprints left in paint. Liquid dripped from some impossible height down the non-walls around them, neon streaks in the shifting darkness. Looking from herself to Sayaka, Madoka realized they were casting mismatched shadows....
A flurry of motion appeared in the corner of her eye; Madoka squeaked and did an unhelpful flail with her sword. Familiars? No, the rubber balls bounced harmlessly past her....
Sayaka sucked in a breath, produced a dozen swords with a swirl of her cape, and hurled them one-two-three at a crayoned shape in the air.
The creature shrieked and giggled, pinned to a note-paper wall. It was like a child's drawing, bright orange face with green hair on a lumpy body that rode (grew out of?) a bright pink car: a crayoned outline somehow existing in three dimensions, before it burst into an explosion of color like a paintball hurled against the wall.
It was dizzying. It was visually wrong. Madoka had a headache already.
"Come on!" urged Sayaka, and she stumbled to follow.
More crayoned not-figures flooded out of nowhere as they descended: armless girls with green braids or purple twintails, giant tongues and sometimes tiny crowns, in planes, train cars, boats, automobiles. Sayaka dispatched them whip-fast with her standard swords, then began to experiment. A ten-foot broadsword tore through three familiars at once.
A blade sliced in an arc along the ground in front of her, tracing the base of lattice of silver wires that soared upward and swallowed two more foes. These didn't disperse, even when Sayaka tightened their prison to the size of a fist; she had to run a rapier through them to finish the job.
At some point, moving forward, she fell into a rhythm in which not one of her swords missed its target. Madoka, tripping along behind, didn't fully recognize it until she looked at Sayaka's boots. Step-slide-step. Step-slide-step.
She was waltzing with the enemy.
Scribbled cartoon doors began to appear on the walls. They all looked the same to Madoka, but Sayaka sword-danced in a decisive arc toward one, nodded to Madoka, and slashed.
The whole paper wall tore under her blade, shredding aside to reveal a new kind of room altogether.
"The witch itself will be in here," said Sayaka...then choked.
This was a full-fledged playroom, less non-Euclidian in its geometry, littered with alphabet blocks the size of armchairs (printed with no alphabet Madoka knew) and crayons as big as body pillows. Playing with one of the crayons, drawing a lopsided spiral on a sheet of paper nearly the size of a baseball diamond, was....
"They're not supposed to be..." Sayaka swallowed, hard. "They're not supposed to look human!"
It was the towering doll-shape of a young girl, maybe eight years old. Blonde curls were gathered in two puffs on either side of her pale, painted face; she wore an adorable patched pair of bloomer-overalls, and brightly-colored mismatched socks.
The witch raised its eyeless head and smiled at them.
Sayaka found her feet again just as the witch touched the paper, and a flurry of new familiars bounced toward them, giggles ringing in Madoka's ears. But her aim was faltering now. One shot in every two or three went wild, blades stabbing into the colossal toys that passed for scenery.
A familiar got far enough past to dive happily at Madoka — she brandished her own sword, only to be reprieved at the last second when a dome of silver filigree swirled up and around her. The creature smacked into it and wriggled for a moment before one of Sayaka's rapiers pierced it through.
When the last of the scribbles was dispatched, the witch was nowhere to be found.
But that, at least, was Sayaka's specialty. She drew from nowhere a two-handed broadsword, its blade longer than she was tall, and charged directly at a pile of building blocks. They exploded into splinters, revealing the hiding witch.
It took one slash from Sayaka's sword...and its porcelain face scrunched up, its painted lips wobbled, and tears began to roll down its cheeks.
Sayaka leaped back to the high ground of a tall stack of alphabet blocks — shoulders heaving, no swords on her now, no more moves to attack — the witch wasn't countering, just looking pitiful with its ripped jumper and its lovingly arranged puffs and the hurt on its childish face....
"It isn't a child!" shouted Madoka. Had to snap Sayaka out of the trance she'd frozen into. Had to do it now. "It isn't human any more! It's hurting people. Killing people. The girl it used to be, the real girl, wouldn't want that! She would be praying for someone to help her stop!"
With a pained scream, Sayaka let loose a spinning typhoon of bright-edged steel. For a few seconds the dazzling volley of light was all Madoka could see.
Then the witch, its body full of grimy-edged holes like note paper smudged with graphite, snarled and threw itself into Sayaka's pile of blocks, and the battle was truly on.
A few more exchanges of blows, and it was settled. Sayaka dodged the massive weapons the witch hurled at her, tore and shredded its next sheet of massive paper before it could birth more familiars, sliced it with merciless hard edges and punched holes through it with stinging points. There was no mistaking it for a human now. With parts of its body hanging by threads, it moved like a shambling, bloodless parody of humanity, until at last it collapsed in the same way.
The barrier dissolved around them. They were left standing in an alley with an industrial feeling, pipes running all over the walls, but when Madoka looked at her feet she realized they were standing on smooth diamond-patterned stonework. This had been a well-kept place, once. Now it was dusty stone and groaning pipes and the shreds of forgotten posters still hanging on the walls.
Sayaka was on her knees twenty feet down, a lightly smoking Grief Seed embedded in the pavement not far away.
***
April 26
Tuesday
She had tossed and turned in dreams before, but this was Sayaka's first screaming nightmare. Madoka had get on top of her, shake her by both shoulders, and call for half a minute before she reacted: "It's okay, Sayaka, it's okay, you have to calm down! You have to be quiet or someone will hear us. You're safe, please, calm down!"
Sayaka's chest was heaving, her tank top and hair plastered to her skin with sweat. "Madoka?" she croaked. "H-hands...."
"It isn't real, Sayaka. It was a nightmare. There's nobody here but us."
"Have to...to wash my hands." Sayaka was trying to thrash against Madoka's grip, too out of it to make much headway.
Madoka gulped. "Look for people who were disturbed by the noise, okay? Then you can wash up."
The jewel in the ring sitting beside the bed flickered, like an LED in the near-darkness. "Can't find any," Sayaka panted. "Lemme go."
She ended up staggering still-clothed into the shower, only peeling the fabric off her body after it was soaked through. The wet clothes ended up hanging off the sink while she sat on the floor, hugging a towel around her body and letting Madoka comb her hair.
***
April 27
Wednesday
"We've booked a week in a hotel in Iwakami City. Up north, on the coast. Sayaka-chan's parents have agreed to come for a few days too."
Tearing up with relief, Madoka wrote down the address.
"Our precious things are being packed up to come along, too," added her mother. "Important papers, souvenirs, photographs, the laptops of course...and we've left space in the last suitcase. Is there anything from your room you want us to bring?"
"Um..." (The first room she pictured was the cell underground — it took so much effort to envision her own bedroom — and still the cell and this series of hotels kept bleeding through — but why would she need any of it — she'd been torn away from everything stable twice in the space of a month already — so why try to cling to things? — you'll lose them soon enough anyway — and can survive just fine without them!) "...N-no thank you, Mama. I'll be fine."
***
April 28
Thursday
A handful of bills fanned out in Sayaka's grip. Enough cash to buy two one-way train tickets to Iwakami.
"The last thing we'll have to steal?" said Madoka hopefully.
"The last thing we'll have to steal," agreed Sayaka.
Happiness looked good on Madoka. Granted, everything looked good on Madoka. But it was happiness that she deserved — a long, peaceful, cheerful life with good friends and people who loved her. What price was Sayaka willing to pay to give her that chance?
"Madoka, I...."
"Hm?"
Sayaka stared at her hands. They looked so clean in broad daylight.
"Sayaka? Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing." Sayaka shook herself off, gave Madoka a wan smile. "I didn't like having to do it...but there's no way I'll ever regret it. That's all I wanted to say."
no subject
The wording on Sayaka finding the adult puella has me wondering whether she actually means adult, or if the "over 20" qualifier applies to her whole search or just the second part. While the wording as-is doesn't really seem to mesh with it, one one hand I'd imagine it being Kyoko, in the other, I've seen a few fics where Madoka's teacher or a different adult was a magi, so I'm open for clarification (or surprise, since I haven't really gotten into the spin-off/game lore to draw upon.)
And I see that Madoka's realizing Mami didn't really know a whole lot w/o the help of the Incubator. About time, but who knows how much help any of that information will be against something like Walpurgis. I suppose Kyubei wants the girls to win, only if to better propogate the fight against entropy, but that he's been absent for so long, especially with his interest in Madoka and finding Sayaka so easily, seems odd to me. Either Homura's running interference (purposefully or not) or something else is afoot.
Hmm. Hypothetically, if everything doesn't go well against Walpurgis, I'm kind of wondering on whether Godoka will show up, take Homura, and bail out. Homura's replacing/overwriting her consciousness could mean that each universe is happening simultaneously, but I suppose that may be out of the scope of what this fic is trying to do.
Also, half a mile isn't that far away Sayaka. If she's that close to the hospital, she's probably watching you with a sniper scope. But at this close, Walpurgis takes precedence, esp. given Homura's also probably seen Madoka's family packing.
Great work as always, I'm hoping for some epic confrontation soon!
no subject
The searches aren't meant to be too mysterious: Sayaka's first one was for something like "puella magi who are at least as old as Madoka's parents," and the second one for "puella magi who are older than twenty."
Time travel and its complications are one of my favorite things to read and write about, so no promises one way or the other about how this is going to end XD
Homura will have been checking up on Madoka's house, but as for Kyousuke's hospital room...she still thinks Sayaka's wish got him out of there, and no more surveillance is necessary.
Epic confrontation coming right up. Hang in there :D
Review-Question
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