A/N: Hey there! I'm Rosamei, as you more than likely didn't pay attention to, and this is my first FanFiction for and anime that has found its way into my heart, which is Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I understand that there is currently, on this website, a story with a similar idea, but to that author and the watchful reader, I assure you that I did not "steal" the concept, for I thought of it while bored one dreary summer day.
Please, do enjoy the time you spend reading "The Climb of Walpurgis Night!"
The sun methodically rose above the eastern sea, surrounding itself with swirls of color and illuminating the growing town of Mitakihara. If one were to listen closely to the silence, they would hear the rustling sheets and disgruntled sighs of newly awoken people.
Minute after minute, the sun's artistic creation in the sky faded to its usual blue, and the sun rose closer to the silver gates of heaven. By the time the clocktower chimed out to signal seven 'o clock, the entire town was bustling about busily, with the children dressing for the new school year, while the adults readied themselves for yet another mundane day at their respective offices of work. But, one girl had not yet fretted over her hairstyle or confirmed that she held all the needed objects to leave.
And that particular child was Sachiko Tategami.
Sachiko sat at the desk located in the confines of her small room. In front of her lay a piece of paper with many crossed and scribbled out doodles, as well as what appeared to have once been lines of words and sentences. A purple pen with black ink was being held firmly in between her fingers. A frustrated expression lay evident upon her pale facial features, and her deep green eyes danced about the page in a nervous fashion.
Sachiko's tender hand gripped the pen tighter and tighter, until her entire body began to shake with rage. She threw the pen to the ground and slammed a heavy fist down onto the innocent cedar desk. "Dammit! Why can't I do this! Why, Why, why!" Sachiko's outburst was accompanied by small whimpers that threatened to transform into a greater show of emotion. Her eyes grew heavy with tears as pure as a child's heart.
She threw her head against the hard surface. Her curly green hair bounced along with her head, then laid itself around her upper body, creating the illusion of a small bush.
Giving up her held-in emotions, Sachiko allowed the tears to run down her face, leaving streams of glimmering water plastered wherever they passed. The teardrops landed, one by one, on her now-ruined piece of stationary. They muddied the lines, filling the paper with exactly what Sachiko was feeling in every crevice of her soul.
A heartbroken shade of black.
She truly had not one bit of a clue as to the amount of time she lay there and wept, for her mind had left her body and was wondering about aimlessly.
Even though Sachiko no longer lingered in her personal quarters, the small fan sitting nearly beside her whirled oblivious that its services were no longer appreciated. The fly that had drove Sachiko to the brink of insanity hurriedly flew between a stack of birthday cards and a rotting apple. Sachiko may have been dormantly resting her head on the cedar, but the world around her continued to move, despite her absence in it.
In a surprising change of events, Sachiko practically catapulted from her strange postion, causing the fly to become frightened of the unexpected movements and fly around hopelessly, looking for that single safe spot.
Truthfully, not even Sachiko knew what had awoken her from this zombie-like state, and never did she ever find out, but whatever shook her up to the level where she would actually stand up straight, it had to have been a realization, either one of great importance, or one of her impending doom. If asked, she would cock her head to a sideways position and smile, without another word on the subject.
The room's stale air seemed to begin its flow once again, decreasing the tempature dramatically. Those moss-like eyes had a red tint from the shedded tears and stayed wide open as goosebumps slowly formed on Sachiko's slender limbs.
"C-cold..." she mummured, with the fan's gentle hum almost masked her words entirely. Almost instinctively, Sachiko crossed her arms underneath her breast, all the while heading for her space-consuming dresser.
With a shaking arm, she outstretched her right limb in a motion that seemed like desperation. After a failed attempt to grip the dresser's circular, bronze-tinted handles, Sachiko finally succeeded in opening the short, yet wide drawer.
Something clanked against the newly opened drawer as the air that was trapped inside of the drawer filtered out, only to be filled with fresh air. The sound was harmonious with the fly's buzzing and the fan's occasional clicks, yet profound enough to catch Sachiko's undivided attention.
With an easily readable expression, Sachiko's mind was filled with pure curiosity. She slowly moved her head towards the steady noise.
Before her was a school uniform, dangling pitifully off of a metal hanger.
Sachiko slowly connected the uniform with the bits of light streaming out of her curtain's small holes. Her sight lingered there for a second, for she thought she saw a figure shrouded in shade, but eventually danced over to her plain, overlookable wall clock.
She squinted at the roman numerals and took time for the infomation she was seeing to process through her mind. This allowed the sunlight to shine on her face, revealing the trails left by the tears she would claim to have never shed. After an eternity of pondering, three numbers popped into her mind.
8:42.
Panicking, Sachiko pounced onto her uniform and rustled into it in a hurried manner. She had already proven to be a bit over an hour late to school, and on the first day no less.
Her entire wardrobe for the school year looked as if a three-year-old just learning how to dress herself hopped into Sachiko's current clothing. Her ribbon was messily tied, appearing a bit more like a rushed knot than an elegant addition to her attire. One of her stockings was higher than the other, streching it out a considerable distance.
Sachiko ran for her make-up stand and peered into the fingerprint-laden mirror. The bags that lay underneath those clouded green eyes seemed to grow more pronounced by the millisecond, and her usually beautiful light green hair was a greasy, sickly shade that matched her eyes in a horrible way.
Looking into the reflection, she felt as if she was not residing in her own body. The way her fingertips moved, her exterior features, even the dry state that her tongue was in felt foreign.
As if the solution lay in man-made creations, Sachiko's foreign fingertips reached for her vast array of beauty items.
She literally smeared layers and layers of multiple cover-up brands, eye shadow, and even mascara, onto her exhausted face. But, much to Sachiko's dismay, her features, fingertips, and her tongue still felt as if they did not belong to her, like a puppet on tight strings of steel.
Gazing once again into the mirror that now held even more fingerprints and splashes of make-up, Sachiko saw a face that appeared like a whorish woman, with her make-up being caked on and the bags remaining visible despite the millions of attempts at hiding them.
If she had not previously cried all of her emotions out, the tears would have once again left solemn trails down Sachiko's filthy skin. Instead, the emotions were released in yet another fit of rage.
"Y-you," Sachiko called out to her reflection with her hands clenched into trembling fists, "Why do you keep looking at me as if you pity me? Don't pity me. Do something about the thing you see in front of you."
The room was silent. Not even the fly dared to move a single muscle. The girl in the mirror replied with not one syllable. Sachiko never answered her own question, and she never needed to. Because she knew the answer already.
Without a sound, without a single audible breath, Sachiko took her left fist and threw it against the lifeless glass. A shattering sound broke the silence as hundreds of shards rained down upon Sachiko's wooden floor. Each one was accompinied by a small ding, like the sound of chimes on a windy afternoon.
A fourth of the glass stayed in it's original location, but these bits were coated with a new addition to their deep layer of filth. And this was the red, red blood of Sachiko Tategami.
The girl stood there, holding her bloody hand with her only other available hand. The blood seeped from the wound, dripping onto the glass-covered flooring in tiny drops.
The pain grew too great for one female teenager to handle. She ultimately collapsed onto her knees in pain, landing on a couple shards of the very mirror that had caused her this intense pain. A paring shot, if you will.
And there she sat, for what seemed like a lifetime, feeling true physical pain for the first time in her existence. Her mind might as well of shattered at that moment along with the mirror. 'Would someone come help me? No... Mother has been at work since six... Dad...? He's asleep, right? Would he wake after hearing the crash?' Her mind repeatedly asked the question of whether or not her father cared enough to come searching for his only daughter.
"I-If only I was brave-ave, like, like, like, Mother..." Sachiko sputtered out as she watched the blood slowly drip from her hand, joining the growing puddle underneath her hand.
Movement near her window caught her now dull eyes. The figure she had seen earlier, that's what this appeared to be. It was white, and pranced straight to Sachiko's throbbing wound.
The being cocked its head and, with a sickening smile, asked her a single question;
"Would you be willing to assist me in exchange for this thing you call 'bravery?'"
So, I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter of "The Climb of Walpurgis Night!" I worked very hard on it 0.o I hope to convey Sachiko's character very well, and as you would imagine Walpurgis Night to be like!
Let me say, I am aware that there are many different opinions on exactly who, (Or what, for that matter), Walpurgis Night is. I personally thought up the idea of her actually being a very old witch, one from the days before Mitakihara was the huge city that it is conveyed as in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and that has had many years to build up her immense power.
I am very sorry that the first chapter doesn't include any witch-huntin' bad assery, but please bear with me, for I hope to describe my idea of Sachiko's first encounter with what she will one day be in the next chapter!
If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to review this chapter or PM me, if the suggestion truly is one of great mind. Constructive criticism is encouraged, but overly harsh things over silly little one-time typos is not. Please keep in mind that I am just a thirteen-year-old girl, not Kami Madoka! D:
Thank you for giving my story a chance, and I hope you continue reading until the very end.
With fresh hopes for the future,
Rosamei, June 2012