The night was silent as Sayaka dashed from rooftop to rooftop, searching for wraiths. The lights off the skyscrapers shimmered behind her as she completed her jump to the next residential across the street, a good thirty yards. "Yes!" she said, as she gracefully hit the cement below, "Sayaka NAILS the landing." She clenched her fist in triumph.
She made a light sprint to the other side of the roof, and rested on the edge. "Come on! There's gotta be something to do tonight!" she said as she scanned the streets below from her perch. "There's gotta be a wraith somewhere or something!" But the streets below, unfortunately, reported no signs of activity, aside from the occasional straggler wandering the sidewalks to who knows where. Sayaka eyes them suspiciously, but as much as she could discern they weren't up to anything sinister, just walking around at night. No crime there.
She sighed and put her hand to her cheek. "I know I should be happy that there are no wraiths," she said to herself, "but it feels like such a waste of time when there's no action!" Sayaka sat down, a little tired from her Spring-Heeled Jack routine, and let her legs hang loose above the streets.
She figured it was for the best anyway. After all, she had become a little jaded with fighting wraiths recently. It wasn't that she saw it as unimportant, she knew quelling the negative energy of the universe was essential to help the world and they did need the energy to recharge their soul gems after all. But she sometimes felt more like a farmer or a miner rather than a magical girl. They were harvesting energy for themselves, but for what real purpose? Just to have enough energy to go and harvest more energy? It seemed redundant when you really scrutinized it, and besides, no matter how many wraiths they killed, it never seemed to stop crime or anything like that from happening. And Sayaka desperately wanted to have a positive impact on the world. Yeah, she knew about the entropy thing, Kyubeh explained it to her a thousand times, and that was all well and good, but it's hard to get excited about something when you never experience the direct results.
"If we let the wraiths grow too far," as Mami once explained to her, "the amount of chaos in the world will grow to uncontrollable levels."
'Yeah,' Sayaka sighed, 'but what we do merely regulates the amount of crime and war in the world! I want to do more than that! I want to actively fight it!' she replied to the ghost of Mami in her mind's eye.
'I became a magical girl to fight in the name of love and justice! Like Sailor Moon or Fate or, hell, even like Starfire or Power Girl! I want to be a superhero, not a mere tax collector!'
She sighed again, and looked down into the street. It was empty but for a lone woman walking down the sidewalk. "Doesn't look like any action tonight! I guess I'll take off…", but as soon as she was about to turn around, someone cried out; a cry of distress!
"Aghh! Help!" yelled out the unseen victim, a woman from the sound of it. "Help! I'm-" then she was suddenly silenced.
"What!?" Sayaka shot up straight, her attention peaked. "That sounded like it came from an alleyway across the street!" she declared, and without hesitation she jumped to the building across the street and leaned over the side, right where she suspected the scene of the crime to be. Perched on the edge of the roof, she scanned the alleyway below and saw a young lady, not much older than herself being pressed to the side of the building by a man. With some scrutiny, Sayaka could spot a knife in the man's hand.
"Yell again and I'll have to hurt you!" she could just faintly hear the man say. "Now, just let this happen and it'll be better off for the two of us!"
"Oh my God!" Sayaka exclaimed. "An actual human crime! A mugging, or maybe worse!" she said, partially in shock but also partially in excitement. "And there's no police officer around to stop it! There's no other option but for Sayaka Miki to intervene and put this goon in his place!"
She very quickly mapped out a plan in her mind. She would swoop down from the rooftop, all Batman-esque, and slam on the asphalt below, her cape blowing in the wind as she rose up to face the fiend. The crook would be shocked by this sudden arrival, and croak out, "Who are you?" She'd smirk, and say, "Your worst nightmare," or something bad ass like that, before she rushed to attack him. "Oof! I've been defeated!" he would say before falling unconsciously to the floor, and she'd wrap him up in wire to keep him still until the police arrived to properly book him.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" the lady would say, clutching her arm, rubbing her head on her shoulder and arm. "You saved me! My hero!"
"Just doing my duty, citizen!" she'd say, again all cool and brazenly.
Sayaka blushed at the thought of it all as she sat there on that rooftop, but another yelp from the woman snapped her back to reality. "I said shut up," the man said. "I do not liking repeating myself! I DO NOT LIKE repeating myself!" the man repeated, the irony being completely lost on him.
"Okay, Sayaka, stay focused!" she prepped herself. She was a little nervous. This was her first time stopping a real human crime, so she was a little worried, but she was ready. "It's time for Sayaka Miki; Magical Girl Soldier of Justice, to put this scum in his place!"
And with that, she leapt from the roof and landed below on one knee like a professional superhero. As she rose up, grinning wildly as her cape draped over her shoulder and fluttered in the breeze just as she imagined. She opened her eyes, expecting to see a panicked and cowardly thug begging for his life staring back her. She opened he own eyes to meet his gaze, and saw him ... not looking at her. In fact, neither of them were regarding her at all; instead the crook and the victim continued their struggle as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
"No! No!" she cried as she vainly tried to wrestle free.
"Stop struggling and just lemme do this!" he replied.
"THEY DIDN'T SEE ME!?" Sayaka just stood there dumbfounded, a single bead of sweat descending down her face. "H-HOW did they not see me? I just did a thirty story drop!"
Bewildered and a little disheartened, Sayaka coughed to try and get their attention. "Ahem!" The guy continued to wrestle the girl against the side of the building.
"AHEM!" Sayaka coughed again, noticeably louder this time, and finally caught both of their attention.
"Huh!?" the man sighed in confusion as he looked towards Sayaka.
Sayaka, slouching a bit since she noticed the pair weren't paying heed to her, quickly tried to fix herself back into a fighting stance. "Uhhh," she awkwardly mumbled, "UNHAND that maiden, uhh, you villain!"
'WHAT!?' she chastised herself, 'Unhand that maiden, villain!? THAT DIDN'T SOUND COOL! THAT DIDN'T SOUND COOL AT ALL!' She ignored her sense of awkwardness; and tried to maintain some aura of menace. She focused on her fighting stance.
The man was more than a little unimpressed and confused. "Huh!? What the fuck!?" he said. He loosened his hold on the woman, although he didn't completely relinquish control over her. She probably could've broke free and escaped if she was so inclined, but she was too paralyzed with fear and confusion from this encounter with her attacker and this spontaneous appearance by this costumed teenager.
"Uhhh," the teenager muttered again. "Unhand that maiden, you villain!" Sayaka decreed, "Or I will have to take action on you!"
'I SAID THE MAIDEN-VILLAIN LINE AGAIN!' Sayaka was beginning to realize just how lame and unintimidating she was sounding and appearing, and so she lept into a superhero pose of some kind in an effort to strike some fear into the thug and some hope into the victim. It … still didn't really work. She threw her legs into a sort of V power stance and she awkwardly withdrew her cutlass from its holster, pointing it at the guy.
"Wuh…?" he muttered, far from the response that Sayaka would've found ideal, "A….a girl!? In cosplay!?" he said. "What is this? Halloween!?"
"Halloween!?" Sayaka replied, noticeably irked, letting her sword down a little. "NO! It ISN'T! I'm being serio-"
"Listen, girlie!" the guy said.
'GIRLIE!' Sayaka was really beginning to get pissed off now. 'This guy is a COMPLETE CHAUVINIST, TOO!'
"What I'm about to do is no sight for kids!" the thug continued. "So, why don't you just rush on back to your home or to your anime convention and forget you saw this!" Still lightly grasping the victim's wrist, he redirected his knife toward Sayaka. "I don't want to have to hurt a kid! This here is REAL STEEL!"
"Plea-please, kid! Listen!" the victim squeaked out, still horrified, but didn't want to see any harm befall a junior if she could help it. "This guy is serious! Please just get out of here!"
Sayaka didn't hear her. Her attention was completely preoccupied with taking down this crook once and for all. "Yeah?" Sayaka said to him, indignation obvious in her tone, "Well, I hate to tell you something, my friend, but this thing here isn't a toy!" She re-brandished her magic blade, and held it expertly.
"For justice!" she said as she charged at him full speed, taking the criminal completely by surprise.
"Wuh!?" he yelped at the unnatural speed which this girl charged him.
Sayaka roared as she took her saber, rose it up and SLASHED at the man's knife hand FULL FORCE, completely disarming him. She landed, and whisked a loose hair out of her face and back onto her head. "What do you say to that?" she asked.
There was a brief, brief moment of silence, and then Sayaka heard nothing but yells of pain and horror! "AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!" the man roared his lungs and guts out in sheer agony and shock! The damsel in distress screamed, too, from the blood and the macabre!
"What the hell!?" Sayaka said twice, first out of confusion, and again once she discerned the source of the horror. "OH MY GOD! OH SHIT! OH GOD!" she herself cried as she looked at the ground. She had disarmed the man, but not just in the metaphorical sense. No, she had quite literally disarmed him, for next to the knife that she had smashed to the ground sat the man's entire bloody arm which she had lobbed clean off his body and now rested on the dirty, dusty asphalt below.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!" Sayaka yelped again. "Oh my God! I'm so sorry! I'm…."
The man paid no notice of her or anybody else. He just desperately clutched at his limb while staring down at was once one of his members. "He was foaming at the mouth and his eyes had glassy, gazy look to them. "UAagghhh….uujujuuujjck!" he began to garble.
"Uhhh…., "Sayaka moaned, herself in a state of shock. She had no earthly idea what to do next. This situation had completely ran away from her! In some effort to maintain a degree of control, she turned away from the goon and his rotting arm to the victim, herself in an apparent state of hysterics. Sayaka reached towards her to at least check and see if she was alright. "A-are you-!?" Sayaka mumbled, trying to approach the lady with as much gentleness and care that she could possibly muster, as if she were compensating for her overzealous attack.
"Are, um, are you okay?" She reached a hand out to her, patiently, compassionately, and cautiously as she desperately tried to comfort her without further agitating here. However her best effort, it didn't work. The young woman panicked as she noticed Sayaka's arm encroaching upon her. "AHHHGGGHHH!" she yelled in utter horror. She fled from Sayaka and the alleyway in fear for her own life.
"Ummm….okay! St-stay safe!?" Sayaka yelled after her as she turned back toward the recently one-armed man. He had collapsed onto the floor now, and he rested against the wall, passing out from the loss of blood. He grasped his dismember limb in his other hand as he bled out.
"This….," Sayaka stated to him and to herself, "...this is NOT how this went down in my head!" The man only made some guttural gargles in response.