Author's Note: Sorry this is slightly late, I was busier than I expected to be and had trouble finalising an ending. Anyway, here's the conclusion to Cleopatra's story!
Story Two: A wish to rule (Part Two)
It has been a good few years since I secured my contract with Kyubey, and with time I have managed to coordinate my powers more fluently. Conveniently, Kyubey has also been able to indulge me in some more information concerning the intricacies of the contract I made with him, including the importance of making sure my soul gem is kept purified.
But of course, as time has moved on, it is only natural that I have been forced further and further away from the ability to simply go wherever I please and hunt down a few witches here and there. So, to make sure I have a healthy supply of grief seeds, I have managed to orchestrate a secret society of magical girls. The girls themselves range from my nearest hand servants to random commoners off the street. Kyubey has never explained precisely why it can only be girls, or the manner in which he chooses the girls to make contracts with him, but regardless of this I have meticulously kept at least a dozen of the best currently operating magical girls in close contact at all times.
They are paid handsomely for their work, to keep their queen in peak condition, but are of course sworn to secrecy and I have not hesitated for a moment to silence those who have compromised the balance in the land that I am trying to maintain.
My meetings with my magical girl council occur weekly, exactly one hour after the sun has set, in a chamber far beneath the ground so as to ensure nobody might stumble across it. Nothing seems particularly amiss today as I collect up the grief seeds from them, except the fact that one of my poorer magical girls has been offering more grief seeds than the others for some time now. I pay them all and let them leave for their homes, bar the outstanding servant, bidding her to wait while I collect the appropriate sum of money.
"Tell me, what is your name?" I ask her as I walk into the back room where my valuables are safely locked away.
"M…marina, your majesty…" the young girl tells me, fiddling with her skirt nervously.
"What a delightful name!" I tell her, as I come back to meet her with a sizeable bag of coins and small jewels, "I must tell you, your work lately has been very impressive. I know, I should conduct myself more formally when addressing someone like you, but these circumstances are hardly ordinary." I hand her the bag, and she smiles as she opens it slightly to examine its contents.
"Y…you're very kind…" she says, looking frightfully pale as she avoids making eye contact with me on instinct, "but I'm just doing it for the money to be honest, I don't have many other options…" I take a moment to properly examine her appearance. She is exceptionally young for the standard magical girl, not much older than 11 at best, and her clothing is so worn and dust covered that I can't imagine her home being much more than a hole in the ground.
"Well…you certainly deserve the money; you're performing a very important duty after all!" I tell her, trying to smile since I haven't had to hold a conversation like this before.
"Thank…you…" She mumbles, swaying heavily. I reach out to grab her instinctively when I see her falling backwards, ignoring the dirt that now covers my arms as I hold her by her shoulders. The bag of coins falls out of her grip, scattering its contents across the floor with the clinking of metal on stone as I look down. I notice that from one of her limp arms hangs a necklace made of woven reeds, with a single large green jewel threaded into it. It is ashen grey across its surface, and my eyes open wide as I realise it must be her soul gem. It's far too tainted to be safe!
Before I can react, Marina's eyes glaze over, her soul gem shattering and splintering into the all too familiar shape of a grief seed. My body is sent flying backwards by the force of the transformation, slamming me into a wall and making me slump to the ground. The walls of the chamber begin to warp and meld from the two rooms that were there before into one small room with walls made of cream clay instead of chiselled stone. A small window appears to form in one wall, mostly obscured by a wooden board, allowing some faint beams on sunlight to cut through the room and pick out particles of dust in the air. Instinctively, I grab for my soul gem around my neck and transform into my magical girl form as I stand back up, to face the witch that has now appeared where Marina used to be.
The witch is…begging. She appears to be the silhouette of a young girl, kneeling with her arms outstretched as if to expect some payment. The coins that were on the floor before have disappeared, so there's nothing I can offer her except the jewellery I'm wearing. And I'm certainly not in a charitable mood for a witch. I stand there, awkwardly watching it from across the small room with my staff held tight between my two hands, waiting.
"You can just go; I won't hunt you." I tell the witch as we observe each other, "Move your labyrinth somewhere else and we can both be on our way."
Her head tilts up slightly, so that her sunken eyes meet mine. There are tears streaming down her shadowy face, like two clear streams which drip onto the earthy floor below. She's sobbing now, her screams worse than the wails of an infant, but just before I am able to cover my ears her arms break away from their begging position and surge towards me. They latch onto my staff, violently trying to tug it out of my grip.
I dig my feet into the ground and wrestle with the witch, keeping a firm hold onto my staff so that I won't lose it. She jumps up to me in an attempt to knock me over, but I simply kick her squarely in the chest as she comes closer, sending her sprawling across the room. My fighting style is completely unsuited for close range combat, but with the labyrinth in such a confined space I simply have no choice in the matter. I swing my staff upwards and summon one soldier to fight for me, so that I don't have to take direct blows, and order him to charge at the witch as it rises to fight again.
In an instant, her spindly arms are wrapped tightly around my servant like ropes, preventing him from moving whatsoever. I swish my staff around to make him disintegrate, creating a new one just next to the one that had been destroyed. The witch's reaction times aren't quite fast enough and she receives a solid punch across her face, which throws her completely off balance. I manage to coordinate my servant around her attacks and soon enough I manage to pin her against a wall so that she cannot send her arms out to attack me.
"I told you, we didn't have to fight…" I tell her as I walk towards her, the base of my staff raised to waist height, "and I'm sorry, I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to."
I stab my staff cleanly through the witch's chest, the end of it sticking out the other side as she screams, with tears spraying in all directions. Her body begins to wither and melt, and I call away my servant as the walls of the labyrinth begin to fade away.
Soon enough, I am back in the chamber I was before, and a grief seed lies amongst the scattered coins on the floor. Marina's body is gone, mercifully lost inside the labyrinth. With a sigh I reach down and collect everything up, using the grief seed to slightly purify my soul gem from the battle. Once that is done, I walk into the back room and retrieve my 'special' box. It is an ordinary looking wooden box, with a golden catch that flicks up easily from the force I exert with my thumb. Inside, it is brimming with an assortment of grief seeds of all shades and shapes. I add the new grief seed to the collection, and close it back up as I hear the door to my chamber creak open slightly.
"Your actions always intrigue me, Cleopatra..." Kyubey says from the doorway as I turn to face him, "You have known the secret about the grief seeds for some time now, and yet you still choose not to inform the other magical girls. Not even these girls you have selected to be your elite, they are as oblivious as the rest. Why is that, I wonder?"
"It requires an understanding of emotions, Kyubey. That's why you don't get it." I respond, coldly, "Finding out that the witches and the magical girls are one and the same is not a remotely pleasant discovery. As you have made it clear that the process of a soul gem becoming a grief seed is sped up by negative emotions, I am ensuring that process takes as long as possible and the overall suffering of my people is at a minimum."
"Hmm, I see." Kyubey says as I move to leave. I begin to ascend the stairs back to the outside so that I can go to bed, and Kyubey follows on behind me as I do so.
"Even so," Kyubey continues, "you WOULD get more grief seeds, so I don't see the issue in ensuring the continuation of your life by comprising those of your people."
I swiftly kick a leg backward so that it connects with Kyubey's face, sending him hurtling down the stairs as I leave him behind, wiping a single tear away as I go to bed.
I become a lot more cautious with the magical girls I enlist after the incident with Marina, including check-ups on everyone's soul gems in our weekly meetings, and although the grief seed count obviously decreases somewhat it still makes me feel like I'm doing my duty to my people.
With less grief seeds, comes less ability for me to use my magic to guide my people, so it becomes clear that I have to try some alternative method. I choose to ally myself with the Roman Empire, because their considerable might was definitely something I would want on my side as opposed to against me.
The strategy is somewhat successful when I seduce Julius Caesar; our son even being able to rule alongside me, but of course everything falls apart when Caesar is assassinated. Despite my best efforts, my people are clearly swayed given the image that my allegiance has changed to that of the Romans, so in an attempt to counteract things I side with Mark Anthony and turn so that we are now fighting against those who were supporters of Caesar.
The situation is only escalating from there, and now all-out war has become inevitable. And so, the Battle of Actium is upon us.
Mark Anthony is in charge of our forces, but I have been given the duty to provide the actual power for the confrontation. I give him all the man power I possibly can, as well as the transport for them to reach the opposing Empire. I stand at the highest point of the Sun temple, just able to see the fleet out at sea as they enter the battle. I close my eyes and concentrate, able to feel my magic just reach them.
It's not right for me to just stand here as my people fight…so I guide them. I attempt to manipulate the battle that rages on miles away, coordinating my men as if they were the servants I have summoned many a time when combatting witches.
...But the Romans are something, something far more than the might of any witch… I don't know what it is the makes them so formidable, maybe it's because their scale of attack is so much larger than the witches, or that their strategies are so much more intricate…
Whatever it is, there is no way that I can control a battle of this scale. Even attempting to control the men as groups, on the individual ships, is a pointless effort because the Romans organise themselves so much better than us. Within minutes our fleet is encircled by their boats, and although my men flee to underneath the waves when their boats are being rammed, it is clear that the situation is far too dire.
Tears stream down my face as my concentration breaks, opening my eyes to see my soul gem reaching a jet black. I rush over to my chest of grief seeds, ripping my soul gem from around my neck and stuffing it into the layers of black jewels. I can feel the impurities drain from my soul gem and I sigh with relief as energy floods back to me, quickly shutting my eyes once more to reconnect with the battle.
The ships are all ablaze, and my men have scattered like frightened fish as the enemy massacres them from the safety of their boats. I take a deep breath, and with all the energy I can muster I force my men to rise out the water and onto the enemy boats. Countless men die attempting to climb the ladders but I push on, allowing the bodies to cover the waters and the blood to paint the battlefield crimson just so anyone can stand and fight on top of those boats.
But even on level ground, my remaining army lacks any weaponry. This isn't like the witch battles; I can't just summon more men… I can hear their screams in my mind as I send them to their deaths, barely denting the opposition with their bodies in my last futile attempt to deal a blow to them.
They're…dead. They're all…dead. I killed them all…
I fall to my knees as my powers leave me, my chest of grief seeds scattering across the floor along with my soul gem, which is just as dark as they are.
"Quite fascinating…I have never met a magical girl who tried to use as much power as you. It was certainly a valiant effort."
I merely scream out in agony when I hear Kyubey's voice, beating my arms against the cold stone floor and send the grief seeds flying in all directions. Many roll off the edge of balcony, cascading like water down the side of the temple as I fall to the ground in agony.
"Shut up, you beast!" I roar, unable to look up as my tears splatter and form a puddle around my soul gem, "You have talked highly of me all these years, like I was more important than the other magical, but I'm just another idiot that accepted your contract!"
Kyubey shakes his head as he approaches, collecting up the remaining grief seeds in turn and absorbing them through the red ring on his back as he circles me.
"That isn't strictly true, you are royalty after all." Kyubey says, "And your power is quite something…you could even make the claim that I'm 'excited' to see the witch that will hatch from you."
My tears stop and I put a hand to my mouth in shock as that realisation clicks in my head about my imminent fate. I swing my arm down and clasp my soul gem tight in my hands as I get back to my feet.
"No, I will not allow that to happen." I state, glaring at Kyubey, before I make my way back inside the building. I run to my chamber and pull out a vial of poison from underneath my pillow, something I had kept tucked away for this very occasion.
"What are you doing?" Kyubey enquires with a cocked head as he enters my room, watching me down the poison in three quick gulps, "You know full well that you can't kill yourself like that, your life force is in the soul gem now."
"I am merely providing some evidence…" I sigh, letting the empty bottle fall out of my hands and shatter on the floor, "My people will want some explanation about how their ruler killed themselves."
I make my way over to a chair and slump into it, hanging my head back over the top of it and breathing deeply as I delicately handle my soul gem one last time. I place my soul gem down on the ground, by my feet, and let it settle while I eye up the trickster that started this painful reign of mine.
"Goodbye, Kyubey…" I say, closing my eyes as a smile starts to spread across my face, "It hasn't been pleasant."
And with that, I slam a foot down over my soul gem and grind it into dust, my body exploding in pain as my life disintegrates around me…