"Kamina-san….why?" Mami asked, with tears in her eyes.
After the incident on the bridge, she and Kamina had taken everyone minus Homura and Kyoko back to their homes once the truth was found out about their souls. Kyoko and Homura had run off, while Sayaka and Madoka just wanted to leave. Kamina figured that taking Mami home would be the best option. She broke down as soon they got through the door.
"I made my wish so that I could escape from dying in that place!" Mami continued, struggling to maintain her composure. "But now I know that my soul was taken from my body! The one thing I've tried to avoid has happened to me from the start! Why would you not tell me this?!"
"First off, that fuzzball is the one that did that to you. Not me! If anything you should be blaming him!" Kamina shot back while sitting down on cushion. "Second, I didn't tell you because a leader doesn't mention these kinds of things if they want to keep their team's fighting spirit up!"
"Fighting spirit?!" Mami replied while holding up her Soul Gem. "My spirit is now inside a tiny shell! This body is only under remote control now! It has no fighting spirit!"
"DUMBASS!" Kamina shouted. He jumped back up and brought his foot down. "So what if your fighting spirit is inside that thing?! Letting yourself mope around because it's inside that thing is probably exactly what that fuzzball wants!" The expression on his face turned less angry and his voice softened a bit. "So don't go saying things like you having no fighting spirit! Don't forget that that's what saved us when we were trapped in the witch with Gurren Lagann!" He put on his glasses and started walking towards the door. "Besides. You had no other choice but to become a magical girl. How the hell do you think Sayaka's feeling knowing what that fuzzball did to her?!"
Mami stepped back in shock. She remembered what Sayaka's wish was. Sayaka willingly chose to go into this life. Mami thought how she would feel even worse knowing that it was her own fault for not thinking about it more.
"I'm telling you, that fuzzball is evil!" Kamina continued. "Now listen up! If you've got anymore problems with being a magical girl, you blame the fuzzball. You got that?!" He added with a smile on his face as he turned around and faced her. "So don't go thinking anymore crazy thoughts! Focus on what you want, and keep digging towards it without stopping!" He tossed her his Soul Drill. "When I'm part of a team, I trust my soul to everyone I consider a member!"
Mami looked at the Soul Drill in her hands and took out her Soul Gem. To her surprise, there was a strange green light along with the yellow light in it. She didn't understand it, but something about that light filled her with confidence, with hope, with a will to move on!
"You're…right. Kamina-san, I can't thank you enough for all that you've done for me." Mami replied, wiping the tears away from her eyes.
"There's gonna be lots of time for thanks when everyone gets themselves outta this mess!" Kamina replied, grinning. "Now tomorrow we gotta wake up bright and early this time so we can tell Sayaka the same thing!"
"Right!"
After a good night's rest and another pancake breakfast, they both hopped inside Lagann the next morning and Mami drove her and Kamina's way over to where Sayaka's house was. Mami had to admit, that strange light in her Soul Gem caught her curiosity. Kyubey hadn't said anything about a strange green light. But then again, she had gained a new sense of distrust for the little creature after finding out what he did to her and her friends. Eventually, they ended up at Sayaka's apartment, but someone they didn't expect to see was outside eating apples out of a bag.
"Kyoko-san…" Mami uttered, frowning softly. The last thing they needed was for her to get into another fight with Sayaka.
"Oh hey. You guys showed up. Perfect." Kyoko replied, with much less spunk and enthusiasm as usual. The instant she said that, Sayaka walked outside of the doors. The look on her face was nothing short of unenthusiastic. It seemed like she was shocked that Kyoko even had the nerve to come out of her house. "I wanna talk to both of you, as well as show you something." Kyoko added as she started to walk off. Mami walked up beside her with Lagann.
"You wanna show us something huh?" Kamina said as he looked at Mami. Mami nodded as she hopped out of Lagann's cockpit. "Well then hop in and take us to it!" Kyoko took one look at the ridiculous looking face with arms and legs that the magical boy asked her to drive and turned away.
"Pfft! As if! I wouldn't be caught dead running around in that!" She replied.
"Can we make this quick?" Sayaka asked. "I've got better things to do than be around you all day you know." Kamina and Mami were both really unnerved by how emotionless her tone sounded. How bad did she take this thing? Kyoko sighed and hopped in the cockpit.
"Fine. Let's just get this over with." Kyoko replied as she grabbed the two bars inside Lagann as they all went inside it. Four people was a bit much for the tiny gunman, but Kamina remembered Lagann holding him, Yoko, and Simon along with the black siblings and the kids before. So this was nothing compared to that. After getting over the fact that the thing had no steering wheel or gas pedal, Kyoko eventually figured out how to get it moving. Once she did, she ran really fast with the gunman. She turned somewhere down the line to a forest.
"Gotta give whoever made this thing credit." She thought to herself. "I don't get how it works, but it's like I'm one with this thing when I'm inside it." Having thought that, she remembered why she came here with them. "So I guess you guys are really regretting making the contract huh?" She spoke to them. Sayaka's expression didn't change from the only slightly angry face that she wore. Kamina just looked slightly confused while Mami just looked sympathetic. "You know, the whole "becoming a zombie" thing must be really bothering you all right?"
"I was at first Kyoko-san. But under the circumstances, I have no room for regrets." Mami stated, remembering Kamina's words and the fact that she was forced into this kind of life.
"No regrets here." Kamina stated while smiling. Sayaka remained silent. Kyoko looked at Kamina with confusion for a moment before continuing.
"Well, looks like I'm not alone regarding that!" She replied smiling. "I mean, I got what I paid for. So I'm not exactly holding what happened to me against anyone. When you think like that, you can take almost anything down."
"Huh. I didn't think you thought about it like that kid! You've got a lot of spunk!" Kamina replied. "But don't you think you're stooping a bit low? You gotta dig a lot harder if you want to get somewhere!" Kyoko didn't understand what he meant by that and just continued to focus on driving. Thankfully for her, he didn't respond as they arrived at a massive dark building. There were all these weird designs all over it. It was shorter than the hospital but way wider than it. Kyoko got out of Lagann, and kicked the front door down. Kamina chuckled at that. "Hey redhead, ever hear of knocking?"
"Shut up." She replied as they walked inside. When they went inside, Kamina had to admit it was kind of creepy. Not to a point where he got scared, but there definitely was an unsettling feeling to this place. They walked over wooden planks up a huge wide set of stairs. The windows on the inside had these crazy multicolored designs on it. Kamina couldn't even describe what they looked like as most of them had been shattered.
"Well we're here. What did you bring us all the way out here for?" Sayaka asked with a grunt.
"Sayaka-san, please. She just wants to talk." Mami replied. She was putting her faith in her former friend that she would keep true to her word and do that. Kyoko reached into her bag of apples and tossed one to each of them. Kamina and Mami accepted them, while Sayaka just threw it away. Mami almost had to restrain Kamina when she saw Kyoko grab Sayaka by the neck after doing that. She knew about Kyoko's love for food and how she despised anyone who wasted it. Thankfully, it was resolved very quickly.
"This place…was my dad's church." Kyoko stated.
"What the hell is a church?" Kamina asked.
"Have you been living under a rock or something pal? How crazy are you?!" Kyoko shot back as she glared daggers at him. What kind of demented person would ask something like that?
"As a matter of fact I have!" Kamina confirmed much to her shock. "So what's a church?" Kyoko grunted. She couldn't believe she had to explain this. Since she wanted to get to the main event quickly, she gave him the bare-minimum explanation.
"It's a place where a bunch of people go to listen to someone preach about how things go in a religion." She replied, assuming this guy came from some kind of atheist family.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. But what does that have to do with anything?" Kamina replied.
"It has to do with everything." Kyoko responded. She then went on to tell them the story about her life. How her father tried to change things up in this "church" of hers. How it forced her family to a point where they didn't have enough food to eat. How she changed it all with her wish, how her father found out, and how her entire family got killed by the insane man when he realized the truth. Mami knew the story well. She had to struggle to hold back the tears as she remembered when it all happened, and how Kyoko completely changed that day.
Kamina was disgusted by her father. From the way she spoke of him, he sounded like that priest man back in Forehead boy's village. Remembering how that guy would just send people up to the surface when the underground got too full really pissed him off. He was going to say something about him multiple times during the story, but Mami stopped him from doing so and just encouraged him to listen.
"You get it?" Kyoko finished. "My wish destroyed everyone in my family. I didn't know what he really wanted but I made the wish anyway. That's why I think using magic for anyone other than yourself is dangerous. It was because of my wish that everyone suffered."
"Whoa redhead! How the hell was any of that your fault?! If anything you should blame that no-good father of yours for not being grateful for what you did!" Kamina shot back. Kyoko's face immediately angered.
"Were you not even listening? If I didn't make the wish my dad wouldn't have killed everyone!" She shouted at him.
"If you didn't you and your entire family would have died of starvation! That asshole of a dad did that to your family, not you!" Kamina shouted back at her. He was really getting pissed off at what that dad of hers did to her. Who knows what other screwed up things he drilled into her head?
"My dad didn't do it because he wanted to you know!"
"If he didn't want to do it all he had to do was NOT DO IT! Just who the hell do you think I am redhead?! I'm Kamina! The mighty Kamina would rather die than do something he doesn't wanna do!"
"Kamina-san that's enough!" Mami shouted. They turned and looked at her. She was clenching her fists and trying to hold back her tears. "Please…you don't know what it was like for her…" Kamina clenched his teeth and grunted. It really was like that village all over again.
"I just don't get it." He thought to himself. "I don't get it not one damn bit!" Kyoko sighed. If he really didn't know what a church was, she guessed that it was only natural for him to not understand.
"Whatever." Kyoko continued. "All I'm saying is, that if you wish for hope, you're gonna get despair along with it. It's how everything stays in balance in the universe." That did it. Kamina brought his foot down at that.
"Who the hell told you that you should give a crap about balance?! I say screw all that and keep going down a path that YOU actually give a damn about! Why the hell are you letting some stupid laws of "balance" get in your way?" Kamina replied.
"I DO give a damn about the path I'm on now!" Kyoko retorted. "Don't you get it?! I don't want to hurt anyone else! So I'm fighting for my sake alone! This is the path I chose and I'm sticking to it! You should do the same if you know what's good for you!"
"Can you just tell us why you're telling us all this?!" Sayaka interrupted. Kyoko noticed her impatience and remembered why she brought her here in the first place. She immediately calmed herself.
"I brought you guys here because you guys should join me and do whatever the hell you want. You guys are making the same mistake I did."
"Kyoko-san, that's…" Mami was about to tell her that she wasn't at fault, but Sayaka interrupted.
"I was wrong about you." Sayaka replied, once again losing any sense of emotion in her voice. "But even still, I don't regret my wish at all." Kamina noticed her clench her fists as she said that. "I'm going to continue fighting for justice as a magical girl. I won't regret anything anymore to make sure that the feelings I made my wish with remain true!" She turned around and started walking out of the church.
"Sayaka, where the hell are you going?" Kamina called out to her.
"I'm gonna rest today. We can fight a witch tomorrow, all right Kamina, Mami?" She asked. Kamina didn't answer her with words. He simply nodded at her as she walked off as Kyoko cursed her. She screamed at her how different magical girls were from regular people and that there was no one else like them as she left the building without taking Lagann.
"That girl doesn't know what the hell she's doing." Kamina stated. "She's got a lot of faces, that girl, and that sure as hell ain't a good thing."
"Lots of faces?" Kyoko replied, biting into one of her apples. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"She doesn't have a damn idea of what path she wants to walk down." Kamina replied, his tone sounding stern. "Sayaka wants to love that friend of hers, and she thinks she wants to fight for justice. She's stuck in between two paths that's going to end up leading her nowhere!" Kyoko looked at him with a dumbfounded look.
"But…aren't you exactly the same as her?" Kyoko asked. Kamina gave her a questioning look, wondering what she meant. "Didn't you make your wish just so you could fight for the sake of others?"
"No." Kamina replied bluntly. Mami gave him a questioning look. Didn't he make the wish to save her? "Blondie, saving you was part of it. But the more I think about it, the more sure I am that this is what I wanna do. I'm not fighting for the sake of others; I'm fighting for the sake of my fighting spirit." Kyoko and Mami looked very confused at that. Kamina caught on to it and explained it. "When I was living underground, going to the surface was always my priority ever since my dad showed it to me. On the day we finally made it there, how the hell do you think I felt when I realized it was a place where people were attacked all the time?"
Mami remembered his story and nodded. Kyoko just looked confused at what the hell he was talking about. As far as she was concerned, he was a nutcase to her at this point. That is, until he said the next thing.
"I felt I needed to do something. My dad had gone and died not too far from where my village was, and I decided to set the surface free! Now that I'm here and all these witches are running around, I still don't think my job is done yet." Kamina continued as the smile on his face grew bigger. He whipped out his glasses and put them on his head. "So until the surface becomes a safe place for everyone, team Dai-Gurren will never give in and never surrender!" He shouted as he motioned for Mami to leave with him as they walked out.
Kyoko looked at him with a strange curiosity. Any normal person would deem this man insane and crazy. But for some reason, there was something different about him than Sayaka. He showed no regret for his decision and seemed to enjoy pushing forward. She took another smiling bite out of her apple as she thought this. But as she did that, both Kamina and Mami turned around and looked at her.
"You did good kid, fessing up like that." He said. "Listen carefully; if there's a wall in your way then you smash it down! If there isn't a path then you carve one yourself!" He pointed his finger towards the sky as he shouted that. "Whenever you decide to kick logic out and do the impossible, just come and find us!" Just after that, only the sounds of Lagann's feet running away from the church could be heard getting softer and softer. It went like that until there was no more sound in the abandoned church. Kyoko took another bite out of her apple and smiled.
"Jeez…that guy's a moron." She said to herself. "But he sure ain't no regular moron."
The next night, Kamina and Mami went to go pick up Sayaka for their scheduled witch hunt. However, Kamina knew something was wrong the instance they went to their apartment that night. When they showed up in Lagann, Sayaka had been sobbing on Madoka's shoulder. Kamina asked what was wrong, only for her to quickly wipe away her tears and say she was fine. She insisted that they go along with their witch hunt. So they did, and they found themselves at what looked like a big construction area with strange looking machines around. When they found the entrance to the labyrinth, Sayaka insisted that she stay in Lagann.
They walked inside the labyrinth and noticed the creepy visuals. Kamina noted to himself that this definitely was not cannon-fodder this time. He enlarged Gurren and hopped inside as they all looked for the witch. Everything on their bodies had turned dark, and Kamina could barely make out the features on magical girls. Kamina made another mental note to have this witch finished off as fast as possible. Sure enough, they found the witch shortly. It's body was dark as well, and Kamina could barely make out the features on it too. The only thing that really stood out about it was its long massive arms. When Sayaka and Kamina combined and activated Gurren Lagann though, is where everything started to get crazy.
"Sayaka! You gotta get a grip!" Kamina cried out to her in Gurren. When Sayaka combined with Gurren Lagann, she went berserk on the witch. She whacked it away with Gurren Lagann's arms. Sayaka knew the enemy in front of her and was determined to take it down. At least that's what she kept telling herself. She stomped on it like a madman. The gauge in Lagann's cockpit kept fluctuating up and down inconsistently.
"Monster! Monster! MONSTER! MONSTER!" She shouted as she smacked the witch's arms away again as they tried to grab the giant mecha.
Kamina looked around inside Gurren. The lines that indicated where the fighting spirit was going out through the mecha was all over the place.
"You're fighting spirit is all over the map kid! You need to cool your head and focus!"
"I'm not backing down!" She shot back as a green light appeared in her Soul Gem. "I'm putting all my fighting spirit into this Kamina! ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU WANT?!" As she screamed this, that same green light seemed to be exploding from underneath Lagann.
"You're pushing it too hard! You need to control yourself!" Kamina shouted at her as he growled. Mami and Madoka were busy watching the berserk mecha relentlessly assaulting the witch. They were so focused on what was happening that they didn't even notice that Kyoko had appeared behind them.
"So that's Gurren Lagann eh?" Kyoko noted, marvelling at its size. She looked at how the green energy was emanating from the top of its body. "I don't think just sitting back and watching them go berserk on that thing is a smart move Mami. Can you not see how nuts they're acting?"
"Kamina-san isn't doing that Kyoko-san…" Mami replied softly as she watched the mecha with fear. "Sayaka has gotten control over it." Madoka gripped Mami's hand and closed her eyes, unable to watch.
Sayaka's attacks were getting more and more relentless. The more Kamina shouted at her for her to calm down, the more reckless she got. She jumped into the air with the mecha and brought its foot down on it hard, finishing the witch off. She then started laughing as the labyrinth disappeared. Not a cheerful laugh, a wicked laugh. As she did this though, Kamina noticed the energy inside Gurren Lagann was now building up towards Lagann.
"Sayaka! Its over! You need to get a hold of yourself!" Kamina screamed as he saw a green circle going up where Lagann was. The green light then started coming out of Lagann's mouth.
"What the hell?!" Kyoko cried out. "Is that thing…puking?" It certainly looked like that at first glance. But then the green light was exploding from all over Gurren Lagann's body!"
"KID!" Kamina shouted. He was starting to get angry and frustrated. "You need to get a grip right now! Your fighting spirit is-HEY!" Kamina shouted as he saw Lagann's drill shoot out of Gurren. Before he could do anything, Sayaka had burst out of Gurren while still inside Lagann as the green light continued to spray from Lagann's mouth. Mami and the others had to dodge out of the way to avoid her as the energy stopped coming out of Gurren. As Mami and Kyoko went to help Kamina with Gurren, Madoka looked in the direction her best friend ran off in. Tears started forming in her eyes.
"Sayaka-chan…what's happening to you?"
Do I even need to mention which episodes Gurren Lagann inspired this chapter?
