Stars and Fireworks in the Night Sky
A thunderstorm raged within this witch's labyrinth; the blackish-gray clouds towered high above the full moon, motionless at the top of the labyrinth. These clouds frequently produced bolts of lightning which always struck the stars that energetically danced atop the moon, making them shine even brighter. Shooting stars seemed to fall from above the thunderclouds, but despite their brilliant radiance, they produced no sound when they collided with the surface of the moon.
Two young girls stood on the moon, their heads tilted upward, staring at the thunderclouds above them. They both wore worried expressions on their light-skinned faces.
"Misha, what are you doing?" shouted the one on the right. She was a high school girl of average height (around five feet and four inches tall) with eyes like emeralds and leafy green hair. "It might be dangerous for you to go up there! You should probably come back!"
The girl with navy blue hair seemed to agree with her green-themed friend. "Yes, Rosine is most likely correct," she called to her airborne companion, who was flying at a high speed toward the onyx clouds. "If one of those lightning bolts strikes you, then you will surely be seriously injured. Please, fly down here again."
Misha chose to ignore the advice of her two friends and proceeded without caution toward the colossal clouds, riding atop her polka-dotted scarf. As she approached the clouds, she tightly grasped her trident and stabbed at one of the motionless objects with it. She then quickly flew downward, not wanting to injure herself in case the cloud exploded. It did explode, but the explosion only produced a bright blast of colorful light, and the lights did not harm the girl at all.
"Wow, it looks like fireworks," Misha commented to herself, her childish soprano sounding awestruck. "They're ugly and boring until I destroy them, and then they're beautiful." Her pink lips stretched into an excited grin as she happily exclaimed, "This means I get to watch a fireworks display for free!" She proceeded to destroy the next cloud, watching in amazement as it transformed from a monochrome object into a display of red, orange, and yellow lights. She giggled cheerfully and called to her partners, "Kirsten, Rosine, it's totally safe up here! These clouds won't hurt us!"
Kirsten and Rosine stared at each other for six short seconds, then they nodded their heads in unison and simultaneously closed their eyes. A laptop computer materialized in Kirsten's hands, and a watering can formed in Rosine's left hand. As Kirsten began to type on the laptop keyboard, Rosine slowly spun in a circle. Her watering can, tilted downward, formed a circle of celadon liquid on the lunar floor. A navy blue bow appeared beside Kirsten as Rosine murmured something incoherent—possibly in German—then her watering can transformed into a pair of gardening scissors. Holding them in her left hand, she lifted the scissors upward and yelled, "Rise above the ground, my rose garden!"
The floor started to quake, causing the stars to tremble, and the moon started to crack into craters. These craters produced jade-green vines with prickly thorns and red roses on them. The vines continued to grow, extending toward the clouds, and Rosine was carried by them. When the rose vines drew closer to the clouds, Rosine jabbed her right pointer finger at a cloud and commanded for the vines to attack it. They pierced it then drew backward, and Rosine experienced firsthand how bright and beautiful the fireworks were.
"Oh, those are quite lovely," she commented to herself, smiling a little, "but my rose garden is much more beautiful than such a simple display of lights."
Rosine heard a high-pitched giggle beside her, and she whirled her body to face Misha, who brought her hand to her mouth, hoping the sleeves of her dress would suppress her laughter. The gesture did not help, though; when the green-haired girl frowned in confusion at her pink-haired partner, the latter burst into laughter, much to Rosine's surprise and irritation.
"What in the world are you laughing at, Misha?" she angrily asked, her frown deepening. "Might you be laughing at me? Misha, why are you laughing?" When the shorter girl did not stop laughing to utter a response, Rosine tightly grasped her scissors and started to strike Misha with them, although the smaller girl did not seem to feel any pain. Sighing in irritation, Rosine stopped and muttered, "You are such a strange girl."
Another cloud exploded into bright lights, but neither Rosine nor Misha caused the explosion. Rosine averted her gaze downward to look at Kirsten, who held her navy blue bow in her hands. She pulled it back again, aimed for a different cloud, and shot a scarlet arrow at it. The cloud burst into emerald and ruby lights, and the navy-haired girl watched in silent amazement as the colors flashed before her eyes. When the lights faded, she looked at the next cloud and pulled her bow backward, preparing to fire at the new target.
Rosine soon realized what Kirsten did not yet seem to understand: destroying the clouds would not cause the witch to appear. Five clouds had been destroyed, but new clouds were replacing the old ones, developing a monochrome appearance and blending in among the other clouds. When one of them produced a lightning bolt, Rosine realized what the new targets should be, and she ordered her rose vines to return her to the ground. When she reached the full moon floor, Kirsten stopped shooting her arrows at the clouds and turned to face her green-haired companion.
"Why did you return to this place?" she inquired, her alto sounding somewhat surprised. "Are you injured? Do you need me to heal you?" Rosine shook her head in denial, and Kirsten looked at the clouds, staring in confusion at the laughing Misha. "What is wrong with her? Did something happen up there?"
"I do not know what her problem is," Rosine replied as she frowned at Misha's distant figure, "but she is unharmed, so you can leave her alone." She then began to walk toward the dancing stars, and when Kirsten asked her what she was doing, she calmly said, "These stars—not the clouds—are what we need to destroy." The navy blue girl followed after Rosine and requested for her to elaborate on her opinion. "It does not seem as if the witch will appear if we simply destroy the clouds, as they are being replaced by new ones soon after the old ones are destroyed. Additionally, the clouds produce lightning bolts that always seem to strike these stars, and I am sure that this is not a mere coincidence."
Kirsten seemed to agree with her companion. She had not been paying attention to what was happening in the sky; she shot at the clouds without checking to see if new ones had materialized in their place. She mentally scolded herself for her own lack of observation and followed in Rosine's path, heading toward the group of shining stars.
As the two magical girls slowly approached the stars, a brilliant light reached their eyes and began to blind them. Rosine attempted to use her rose vines as a shield, but the light penetrated beyond the plants, rendering her shield useless. Although this greatly irritated Rosine, she could not think of a solution to the problem, and she stood motionless with her hands over her eyes. Kirsten, on the other hand, seemed to have thought of a way to bypass the blinding lights.
Looking away from the stars, Kirsten typed on her laptop keyboard, and two images of black sunglasses appeared on the monitor. She pressed the 'enter' key twice, and the images disappeared from the screen, but two pairs of sunglasses materialized atop her keyboard. She offered one of them to Rosine, who thanked Kirsten for thinking of her, then the green-haired girl placed the protective lens over her emerald green eyes. Kirsten did the same with her own pair, then she pressed the 'delete' button on the keyboard, and the computer vanished. When the computer was gone, she grasped her bow and set an arrow into it, then she pulled the weapon backward and fired the arrow at one of the stars.
The arrow was absorbed into the star, and although it did not stop moving, the star did lose a little of its shine. Rosine and Kirsten nodded their heads at each other, sharing the same thoughts: these stars were the new targets. Rosine thrust her hands forward, and the vines lashed at several of the stars, attacking them until the moving objects did not blind her anymore.
In the meantime, Kirsten was firing arrows at Misha, who laughed maniacally beneath the dark clouds. Misha was directly hit by several of the arrows before she realized she was under attack, and her head tilted downward, her cerulean eyes staring in confusion at Kirsten. Her mouth was moving, but she was not speaking loud enough for Kirsten to hear her; Kirsten shook her head at Misha and pointed her right thumb downward, giving the pink-haired girl the signal to return to the ground. Misha understood the gesture and flew downward, riding atop her polka-dotted scarf.
"What's going on down here?" she asked as she drew closer to Kirsten. "I was laughing at Rosine, but now she's attacking those dancing stars. Why aren't we destroying the clouds anymore?"
Kirsten looked at Rosine as she replied to Misha's questions. "As Rosine has pointed out," she calmly began, "there is no reason for us to attack the clouds. Although they produce beautiful bursts of various colors, new clouds are replacing the destroyed ones, so it does not seem as if the witch will appear if we destroy the clouds. We are now targeting the stars, as they are occasionally struck by lightning bolts from the clouds, which are—Misha, are you listening to me?"
"No, not really," she admitted, smiling cheerfully at her more serious partner. "All I really needed to know was what I'm supposed to attack, so I'll go ahead and beat the crap out of these stars now." Misha winked playfully at Kirsten before she rushed forward, stabbing at the stars with her trident. Rosine seemed somewhat surprised by Misha's sudden appearance, but she said nothing and continued to attack the stars with her rose vines.
Kirsten watched as her companions attacked the stars, observing how the objects reacted to being assaulted. They lost a little of their shine and slowed down after each attack, but it did not seem as if they could be physically destroyed. The navy-haired girl reasoned that they probably did not need to be destroyed in order for the witch to appear. Most likely, the witch would appear after all of her familiars—the dancing stars, she assumed—lost their shine.
She was correct: after the last star no longer sparkled, the full moon floor began to shake and quake, leaving more craters on the surface of the moon. Misha and Rosine appeared on either side of Kirsten, assuming the witch would rise from beneath the full moon. As they predicted, a giant thundercloud soon shot upward and rapidly headed toward the clouds above it, flying at a lightning speed.
Misha and Rosine immediately followed after the large cloud, but Kirsten did not bother to follow in their path, since creating a pair of working wings would use up too much of her time. She readied her bow for an attack and aimed at the thundercloud, waiting until it stopped moving before shooting at it. The arrow flew past the giant cloud and struck one of the smaller ones above it, causing the cloud to explode into purple and blue fireworks.
"Did I miss?" Kirsten muttered as she prepared to attack the thundercloud again, but she stopped when she heard Rosine shouting at her. The green-haired girl was vigorously shaking her head at Kirsten, telling her not to attack the witch. Kirsten did not understand why until she looked at the witch, who was slowly shrinking in size, and she realized that she must be charging up for an attack.
Once she was the size of her familiar, the witch started to fire streams of stars at the three girls, who all moved out of the way. The stars exploded into lights when they collided with the solid surface of the full moon. The witch shot several more of these stars at the girls, but they continued to avoid the attacks, letting the stars slam against the moon.
After a while—several minutes passed by—the witch stopped firing the stars. The three girls stared in silence at the witch, who somehow seemed exhausted, then they all attacked her at once. Misha jammed her trident into the cloud, Rosine thrust a wall of rose vines at it, and Kirsten hit it with four of her arrows. Their combined attacks caused the thundercloud to shrink to an even smaller size, then she and the clouds above her all exploded into fireworks, leaving behind an extremely bright and colorful fireworks display.
The full moon floor completely collapsed, taking the stars with it and leaving behind a black hole, which Kirsten then fell into. Misha and Rosine followed after her, but when they entered the hole, they found themselves in the same place they had been when they discovered the witch's labyrinth.
Kirsten held the grief seed in her right hand, and Misha and Rosine headed toward her, wanting to examine the grief seed. There were clouds and lightning bolts covering the round area of the seed, and a single star proudly stood atop a lightning bolt that extended outward at the top. It was a beautiful grief seed, and the girls almost did not want to use it, but they could not replenish their magical power unless they sacrificed the seed, so they tapped their soul gems against it until it was almost black, returning color to their gems.
"I think Rosine and I can both agree that Kirsten was today's most valuable magical girl," Misha told the navy-haired girl as she undid her transformation. "She found the labyrinth, she figured out a way to prevent us from being blinded by those stars, and she caught the grief seed."
Rosine nodded her head once, agreeing with Misha, and she also reverted into her human form. Kirsten did the same, still holding the grief seed in her hand, and she smiled at her two companions.
"I thank you very much for your compliments," she told them in a cheerful alto, "but you two definitely worked as hard as I did during this battle, so you should receive the same amount of praise—"
"Geez, you give us too much credit, Kirsten," Misha interrupted, wrapping her arms around her friend's neck. "I wasn't even paying attention half of the time. I was distracted by the fireworks, and then I was laughing at how tsundere Rosine is."
"Who is tsundere?" angrily asked the green-haired girl, who glared at Misha with irritation evident in her emerald eyes. "I was only stating the truth. My flowers are much more beautiful than such a transient beauty as those fireworks. They are to be admired, yes, but my roses can—"
"Yeah, whatever," Misha teased as she extended her tongue toward Rosine. "You just don't wanna admit that flowers aren't the only beautiful things in this world." She released Kirsten and smiled gently at her two companions, who were quickly becoming irritated by her somewhat self-centered behavior. "I gotta finish a science assignment, so I'm gonna head home. I'll see you two in school tomorrow!" She waved her hands at them before running in the opposite direction, leaving Kirsten and Rosine in front of the observatory.
The two girls let out a sigh in unison as they headed in a different direction, matching their steps as they walked. Kirsten still held the grief seed in her hands, unsure of what to do with it. After a few moments of silence, Rosine started a new conversation.
"That witch was fairly weak," she said. "None of her attacks hit us; we were not injured at all. Even though we were not fighting at full power, we easily defeated her." She let out a satisfied sigh, staring upward at the stars in the sky, and she calmly added, "I want to be like that. I do not want to harm anyone when I become a witch."
Kirsten was also looking at the stars, comparing them to the one atop the grief seed. "Yes, I would rather be a harmless witch than a dangerous one," she told Rosine, a sad smile forming on her lips, "but perhaps I will not have a choice. I can only hope that my labyrinth will be as beautiful and expressive as the one of the witch with whom we battled just now."
"That sounds more like a desire than a wish," Rosine commented, scoffing at her companion. "Would you trade away your life to make that wish come true?"
Kirsten turned her head to stare at Rosine, sadness visible in her scarlet eyes. "How can I do that?" she asked, her voice quivering and her eyes losing focus: she was on the verge of bursting into tears. "I have already transferred my life into my Soul Gem."
"As have I," Rosine angrily added as she flipped her green hair aside, nearly hitting Kirsten in the face with it. "Kirsten, if you could rewind time, would you still choose to become a magical girl?"
The navy-haired girl sighed in an attempt to suppress the sorrow that she was currently experiencing. "Of course not," she murmured, "and neither would you, but our pasts cannot be modified. There is nothing we can do to change what has already happened and what will happen to us. We became magical girls, and we will eventually become witches. It is impossible to alter that fact."
They walked in silence for a few minutes, passing three middle school girls who were having a lively discussion about romance and beauty. One of the girls stopped walking to stare at Kirsten, whose eyes had begun to form tears, but upon receiving an irritated glare from Rosine, she quickly returned to her friends.
Kirsten restarted the conversation after the three girls were out of range. "Do you think we should tell her?" she wondered aloud, referring to Misha. "She might be too young to fully understand, but I think she has the right to know."
Rosine shook her head, disagreeing with Kirsten's opinion, and she confessed, "I did not realize exactly what was going on when my sister transformed, and I was a year younger than Misha is now when that event occurred. I do not think we should tell her—rather, I think we should allow her to experience it herself. One of us—you or I—will soon become a witch; when that happens, she will be able to understand, having seen it for herself." Kirsten opened her mouth to speak, but Rosine cut her off by continuing. "If watching the process causes her to transform into a witch, then she is not emotionally strong enough to be a magical girl."
The navy-haired girl frowned a little but did not disagree with Rosine. They parted at the next intersection; Rosine continued walking in the same direction, but Kirsten turned to the left. She walked through the city streets, passing various shops and stores, ignoring the voices of other pedestrians. When she stood in front of an abandoned factory, she sped up her footsteps and raced into the building, then she closed the door behind her and seated herself on the floor. She looked around, checking to see if anyone had followed her inside, but the factory seemed to be empty, devoid of any other signs of life.
Kirsten exhaled a sigh of relief and sprawled on her back, staring upward at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and smiled slightly as she whispered, "Mom, dad... I am home."
Author's Notes: This is the longest one-shot fanfic I've ever completed, and it's also the first one that wasn't a request from someone, so I'm very happy to have completed it. I'm posting it on here because of what I added to it-the last ten-or-so paragraphs-because my witch kiss fanfic won't make as much sense unless my backstory for Elly is explained.
By the way, in case it wasn't obvious (maybe it wasn't?), all three of these girls are witches in the anime. Misha is Charlotte, Rosine is Gertrud, and Kirsten is H.N. Elly. Madoka and her friends (Sayaka and Hitomi) made a brief cameo near the end; I wonder if anyone even noticed it. XD;
As always, I'd appreciate it if you [the reader] would tell me what you think about this story. Did the witches seem canon enough? Did my own, created witch (her name is Claire) seem like a real witch? I'd like to read your opinions, so please tell them to me. I'm always appreciative of honest, sincere criticism.