A/N: Well, November has come. And with it has come National Novel Writing Month. So this could be considered the first of possibly many fanfics and chapters provided courtesy of having to write 50,000 words in a month. I have no idea what'll happen, and this could end horribly for me, but otherwise, I hope you read, and enjoy.
Sayaka half walked, half stumbled along night shrouded streets, arms swaying as she moved and her expression a blank mask. She had no destination in mind, no goal other than to get away, to be anywhere but that park where she had seen him and her together and them smiling and laughing with each other, a sound that would have tore at her heart had she been able to hear it from her vantage point nearby. It hurt enough to just see it and know it was happening.
If there were other people about tonight she didn't notice. In fact, she probably could have walked in front of a bus and not noticed until she was picking herself off the pavement. Sadly, such an event wouldn't be fatal unless the gem containing her soul was shattered, leaving her to otherwise obliviously wander Mitakihara alone.
Mentally she was numb, preferable to the sensation of her heart imploding in on itself. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair and it wasn't right. She should have been the one sitting there with him, being with him, being close to him like they used to be.
But no, instead of Sayaka it was her, her former best friend, with him. She, who hadn't done a single thing to try and help him, earn his respect, his feelings. She hadn't gone to visit him in the hospital every week, hadn't become fairly obsessed with classical music and hunting down rare albums by soloists he liked, hadn't supported him in his darkest moments, hadn't sold her soul...
She paused, wherever she was, an alleyway, a park, a train station. That was right. She wasn't human anymore, just an empty shell made to fight Witches, one that could be disposed of at any time. How, how could she possibly deserve him when she was a zombie? A superpowered zombie that could spawn infinite swords, but she was hardly good enough compared to her competition, who remained a living being.
She'd been such a fool, and she could see that now as she resumed her movement towards nowhere. If only she hadn't contracted, if only she were better, stronger, if only she had said what she wanted to say. If only she hadn't saved-
Eyes widened as she chopped that thought off in mid sentence. No, she hadn't said that she did not just say that she did not just think it she would never she could never Hitomi was her friend and she would never wish that on anyone right?
Or would she? She...she didn't know. It seemed she didn't know a whole lot after all.
Dimly, in some corner of her mind she knew she had to purify her soul gem, that the darkness of her thoughts was because of the darkness weighing on her soul, but she took no action to do that. A nearby corner to that one said that she should go hunt Witches and Familiars and protect the city like Mami would have wanted her to, but she didn't do that either. If the transfer student and the veteran wanted this place so bad, they could have it. They'd at least do a better job than she did. It joined a growing list of things she needed to do, such as calling her parents, but that she didn't out of apathy and fear and self hatred.
To her eyes the world was painted in dull grays, color leeching away with her spirit. She'd made her wish, but now it came around to curse her in return. It was all she could do to strangle a laugh in her throat. Wasn't that just like her in the end? So brave, so bold, yet she couldn't save Mami, she couldn't defeat Kyoko or beat Witches by herself or even tell the boy she loved about how he made her feel all warm and jittery inside.
Still, she couldn't bring herself to end it, though it would have been so easy to do with her magical swords. Something kept her going and she didn't know what or why, could only walk listlessly about the empty streets and hope she would find some ending for herself soon.
It came, but not in the way she was expecting. Far from it. She had somehow gotten inside a mall, though all the shops were closed for the night, when she heard it. Music. The piano. Slightly off key, with a few errors, but piano nonetheless. And even though it was irrational because it reminded her of him, and his recitals and concerts and her sitting at his bedside listening to music with him in a way that made her eyes tear up, she turned and headed towards that almost captivating sound.
Emerging into the main plaza of the mall, she at last recognized the piece as Mozart's organ concerto K. 399 Ouverture in C Major, a courtesy of the education she had received with his tenure in the hospital. It wasn't being done by what she would call a master, but she could recognize the piece, and Sayaka lurched to a stop as the piano itself came into sight, letting her eyes drift shut as she swayed to the slow movement of the music.
She didn't know how long it was, but eventually the music came to a stop, though she kept moving like it was, not wanting the pleasant illusion to end just yet not while she could still pretend that her world wasn't collapsing down around her like a house of cards.
But what she heard next destroyed any possibility of that happening. "Pretty good for someone who ain't played in years, eh Blue?" Sayaka stiffened in surprise, taking a few steps forward in the process to clear the last barrier between her and the rest of the piano.
"S-Sakura," she asked, this being the furthest thing from what she had expected.
"Yep, that's the name, don't waste it," Kyoko confirmed with a lazy grin as she looked down to the blunette. "Don't be so surprised. Your boyfriend's not the only one allowed to play an instrument."
That was exactly the wrong thing to say as mention of the violinist overrode her shock at seeing the irreverent self centered egotistical magical girl actually playing an instrument and not horribly butchering it in the process. She frowned, wondering momentarily if apathy would be preferable to rage, especially given that her previous encounters with Kyoko, the meeting at the church notwithstanding, hadn't gone that well for her in the past.
At last apathy won out, and the mask she wore resumed itself as she glanced away. "He's not my boyfriend," she muttered, though loud enough for Kyoko to be able to hear the answer.
If Kyoko had noticed her apparent mood though, she made no comment on that. "I'll admit, I don't really know how to play the piano. But a piano and an organ are basically the same thing, right? I mean, they've got keys and stuff, and I do know how to play the organ a bit." She pressed a few keys to emphasize the point, the last of which was off tune and not at all pleasant to hear, but that didn't make Kyoko back down from her assertion.
Sayaka just stared back at her, not showing any particular interest, and on the verge of just leaving. If there had been something here, it was gone now, and she wasn't going to waste anymore time around the self aggrandizing girl, tragic backstory or no. Not that she had more important things to do, but it was just a matter of preference, given her despondent mood.
The lack of fervent denial on the Kyosuke comment, and the lack of complaint on her blithe comparison of an organ and a piano (though it might have been true), at last drew Kyoko's attention to the fact that something was off, and she shifted on the black padded bench to look at Sayaka while frowning. "Yo, Miki, you alright? You don't look so good."
The inner Sayaka would scoff at that if she could work up the motivation to. Obviously she isn't fine, as anyone with eyes could tell. She's breaking into pieces with everything falling apart around her a monster that can only kill or be killed that can't love or be loved back just exist until she dies and it's not what she wanted when she made her wish but it's the only thing she can do when her dreams are being smashed on the rocks of reality and the only love she had is with her best friend and it is NOT ALRIGHT.
But on the outside she was Sayaka Miki, stubborn magical girl devoted to truth, justice, defending the innocent, and she had to act the part. "I'm fine," she replied, trying, and probably failing, to put some emotion into her tone, some indignation that Kyoko would even suggest that she has a problem.
But it seemed to have not worked as Kyoko frowned, practically glaring at her as she placed a Pocky stick between sharp teeth. "Really? Then lemme see your soul gem," she challenged, silently daring her to refuse or otherwise make things difficult. Maybe another fight would beat some sense into this girl.
Sayaka shook her head, or at least some attempt to do so, unwilling to give anything to the thieving redhead that she knew only wanted to take advantage of her and this city for her own ends. "I said I'm fine," she reiterated, a bit more snappy this time, even if she still felt like a shell of her former self.
Still, sudden action was not prepared for, and her mental state made her slower to react as Kyoko growled before jumping off the bench and swiftly crossing the distance between them. She flinched as the hand on which she wore her soul gem while it was in ring form was grabbed in an iron grip, Kyoko glaring daggers at her with bared fangs. "Show me it. Now," she threatened.
Part of Sayaka wanted to refuse, to get angry and break away and just leave. There was no point in being here when they would just fight again. But no, she wouldn't run either. She had nowhere to go, and there was always that Kyoko might kill her and end this so she didn't have to.
But such depths of emotion couldn't be reached past her shroud of despair, and she wordlessly complied, gem manifesting in her palm.
Kyoko did a double take at the sight of the sickly blue light that emanated forth, malevolent purple licking further up the sphere, and she had to resist the urge to hit Sayaka upside the head with her spear. "Idiot," she spat angrily. "What're you doing, letting your soul gem get this dirty?" Letting go, she dug through her pockets and quickly produced a grief seed, a small nimbus of black floating in the center of it.
"Here," she added, shoving the jewel at the blunette. "Use that before you do something stupid. You're not gonna help anyone by being half dead."
Sayaka glanced to the grief seed before looking back to Kyoko. "I don't want your charity," she replied simply, it having all the semblance of a tired refrain in her mind.
Expecting that answer given past experiences, Kyoko was ready with a carefully crafted response. "It's not charity. It's an apology for kicking your ass the first time we met. Now you gonna use it or what?"
Once more Sayaka looked down to the grief seed being offered to her. She should use it or else she'd die, she knew that. But at the same time, not doing so meant a step closer to the end , freedom from this twisted life she was not trapped in. Would that really be so bad?
A few seconds of thought and she turned, swung about, ready to silently walk away as her answer to that question. She didn't need help, not that kind of help. What she wanted her her soul back her life back her innocence her belief in a world where good always won and the guy got the girl or in this case the girl got the guy and wasn't left to suffer an eternity of fighting monsters while the world left her behind. And Kyoko couldn't help there.
The redhead wasn't about to accept that though, and she lunged forward, arresting Sayaka's forward motion as she grabbed her swaying arm. Somehow she had the feeling that leaving Sayaka alone right now wouldn't be the smartest idea, and she didn't need to have more problems. "Alright, what happened," she asked. "You wouldn't be like this if things were fine, so spill it."
It was a question that made Sayaka want to scream. What happened? As if Kyoko didn't know. Not only was her crush going out with her former best friend, but her very soul had been stuffed inside a gem smaller than her fist. How was the other girl unable to see that?
Those thoughts went unvoiced as she stumbled forward, pulling at her arm but held in place by brute force. "S'none of your business," she replied weakly with her head bowed.
"The hell it ain't, you made it my business when you walked in on me practicing." Kyoko acted then, yanking Sayaka's arm and twisting it behind her back in a way that would have hurt if Sayaka wasn't disassociating herself from physical sensations at the moment. "Now tell me."
Se could struggle, but fighting wasn't worth the effort. And still she wasn't going to trust her innermost thoughts to someone like Kyoko, who couldn't understand and didn't seem to get that they weren't people just puppets with invisible strings monsters zombies in clothing. How could she be so calm when she knew that and had seen it for herself first hand?
A breath was taken instead of mocking laughter. "Doesn't matter, does it," she said back softly. "We're all gonna die eventually anyway. That all we are right, soldiers to fight Witches. No one will miss us when we're gone. So might as well vanish."
Well, Sayaka certainly seemed like a ball of sunshine and rainbows today, Kyoko thought to herself as she held on to the blunettes limp form. "Yeah? What about your family, friends, that pink haired kid, or your boyfriend? At least you've got people to care about you." As opposed to herself.
"Heh, they could never care for a monster like me," Sayaka replied, face twisted to a cruel smirk. "Not my parents, not him, not even Madoka, though she'd try. That kind of thing's reserved for humans, not us."
Kyoko frowned, really resisting the urge to beat some sense into the other magical girl. Honestly, whether or not they did think that, at least she had people who could care if they knew. And yet here she was bemoaning how terrible her life was. Honestly. Sayaka should try living in her shoes for a few days. And it wasn't like she hadn't been warned this would happen. Multiple times.
"Fine then, what about me," she said with an inherent sigh, hold not relaxed.
Sayaka blinked in confusion, some emotion breaking through that Homura-esque exterior. "Huh? What about you?"
Kyoko did roll her eyes, though she knew Sayaka wasn't exactly able to see her do that and appreciate it. "Yeah. Let's see...Also a magical girl, watched her whole life go to hell after making a selfless wish and now makes a living stealing from convenience stores and sleeping in third rate hotel rooms. Think I can empathize a bit, don'cha?"
"We're nothing alike," Sayaka replied defensively, also as an automatic response. "And why would you want to help me anyway? The sooner I'm out of your hair the better, right?"
Kyoko clicked her teeth, grunting as Sayaka threw her own words back at her. Talk about obstinate, would you? "Because there's hardly any magical girls as it is, and while I like to hold on to what I got, even I have enough principles to not want you dead because you were an idiot." There were a few other reasons, but she wasn't about to out and out admit anything more private to the moronic blunette.
Sayaka once more restrained a chuckle. This, coming from the person who had indeed nearly killed her the first time they met? "Yeah, I bet that helps you sleep better at night, doesn't it?"
Kyoko growled, her grip tightening as she glared at the back of the other magical girls head. "Watch it," she warned. "I've done some stuff I'm not proud of, but at least I'm not wallowing in self pity. Things went to hell for yah, get over it. You sure ain't had the worst life in the world, not by a long shot."
"Well what am I supposed to do about it," Sayaka asked weakly. "I can't fight Witches, I'm not strong enough to protect people, and I just watched the person I wished for be snatched away. I really am useless."
That definitely explained a lot. So, she was in a funk because Kyo-whatsisface got taken by someone else? Kyoko wasn't a Mami level therapist by any stretch of the imagination, but she had her own tricks. "Don't sell yourself short. Those first two things are just cause you're an idiot who doesn't know how to fight. Not all of us can start out awesome."
Small comfort in typical Kyoko style, but while what she said made sense, Sayaka found it hard to take solace in that. After all, it was likely that she wouldn't survive long enough to get the kind of experience Kyoko was talking about. Not if she wanted to hold to her ideals. "So I could beat you someday," she asked with veiled sarcasm.
Kyoko snorted. "Don't count on it. But even I had to start from somewhere, y'know? You're just in the training wheels stage."
Leaving aside the comparison between fighting eldritch abominations and riding a bicycle, Sayaka turned to the other issue as she slumped once more. "Still doesn't change the fact that I threw away my wish for someone I can never be with."
"Yeah, you were pretty dumb there," Kyoko agreed with a nod. "Hey, I told you this would happen, so don't gimme that look. You just gotta move on past violin boy and hope yah find someone better. 'There's more than one fish in the sea' right?"
As it were, Sayaka found an easy flaw with that sentiment. "I can't. Not like this. Not as some soulless...thing."
Exasperation kicked in, and Kyoko spoke without thinking. "Fine then. What about other magical girls, like me? You know, being monsters and all." At that point her mind caught up to her mouth and she realized what she had said, cheeks blushing as red as her soul gem as she let go of the blunette and sprang back. "N-Not that I like yah like that or anything. I'm just sayin' that you're not alone, and I wanna help you out, even if you don't swing that way."
That succeeded in getting a reaction from Sayaka as she blushed, shocked by what she had just heard, though she was unsure if she should take it as Kyoko actually expressing interest, or just being an unthinking motor mouth. She looked away, though she turned to the other girl.
"I just...I don't know why to keep fighting, when we can never win, when the happiness we were promised isn't there anymore," she admitted, while at the same time remembering what Kyoko has said about happiness and despair equaling out to zero eventually. If that was all there was left of them then why bother going on?
Kyoko shrugged nonchalantly. "Personally I enjoy living, but you gotta find your own reason. What about all that truth and justice and protecting people stuff?"
It was a reason, Sayaka would admit, but was it enough to carry her through this to the end? She wasn't sure. She'd wished for him to be healed, so he could play against and be happy and maybe then she'd be able to work up the courage to tell him how she felt only to have it go so horribly wrong.
But she hadn't wished for love, had she? She'd wanted something else. In the end she wanted him to be able to play again. She'd wanted music. And as that realization dawned she looked at Kyoko with a glimmer in her eye. She wanted to hear that again. "Hey Kyoko, you think you could play for me again?"
Kyoko was confused by the request, and it showed on her face, but she ceded with a nod. "Hm? Sure," she replied, hopping back up to the piano bench before she cracked her knuckles and turned to the piano itself.
Sayaka sat down nearby on a wooden bench as Kyoko began to play for her. Her eyes drifted shut as the music filled the air, melodies, rhythms, chords, mostly church related or classical, but still beautiful nonetheless. For her troubled soul, it was like a warm breeze, a calm inside the storm.
For her part Kyoko played with hitherto unfelt emotion, doing so for an audience now, and not just because she felt like it. After all, Sayaka had wanted her to do this for some reason, and while she might be self centered, she was trustworthy. She made mistakes, but was grateful for all the services and practice she had gotten on the organ, that came forth once more.
Time passed by unbidden as the music went on, Kyoko switching between songs with as little downtime as possible, a medley of swelling highs, deep lows, powerful and moving. It filled up the void inside Sayaka, her shell of apathy falling away under the deluge. It was just the two of them, but there was nothing wrong with that.
At last Kyoko's fingers began to get tired, and she switched to what she deemed was her final piece, moving into Ave Maria. Hearing that Sayaka's breath hitched, memories of Kyosuke rising to the fore once more, and she realized that she was...happy. Happier than she had been in a while. With her eyes closed she could imagine that it was just her and him, picture the two of them alone and him playing for her, exemplifying all the reasons why she cared for him so much, as he used all his skill to create those filling tones.
But it wasn't real. The song would end, and she would have to go back to the cold reality that he was with Hitomi and not her and while he would play it would never be for her she would never be the one he thought of when he played Hitomi would be and it hurt it hurt so much.
And yet, at the same time, he wasn't the one playing. Kyoko was. And as that realization came a dawning came in her mind as well. Maybe...maybe she could move on. So long as she found someone who could spark the same emotions, the same feelings, then it was okay if it wasn't Kyosuke, wasn't it? It was painful to even think that, but think it she did.
So as the climax was reached and the music lit up the air, she began to cry, small tears pattering down her cheeks in choked sobs, crying for all she'd lost, her soul, her humanity, her normal life, and she bowed over as she shook. God, why did it have to be so hard?
Sometime, she didn't notice when, the redhead had stopped playing the piano, and Sayaka was embraced with unexpected warmth as an arm wrapped around her shoulder and Kyoko pulled her in close. "There yah go. Don't worry. We'll work this out somehow. Trust me."
Eyes red and sparkling, Sayaka glanced up at Kyoko, expression almost pleading in it's neutrality. "Really?"
Kyoko nodded confidently in response. "Yeah. We're magical girls, right? We gotta stick together. Now let's go. I bet your folks are worried sick about yah." With some effort she hauled Sayaka to her feet, supporting her as the two departed the mall and into the future. Things weren't going to be perfect. Far from it. But at least it was a start.