A Fateful Encounter: Chapter 14
James May has by now lost the title of Captain Slow and been overtaken by me, but most because
I started working on this chapter in the middle of Febuary, but that was because of pure laziness.
But at least it is a rather long chapter so at least something came out of this long wait.
But now, please enjoy!
Chapter 14: Medieval honor
After a nice Saturday evening they woke up on an evenly nice Sunday morning. At least Sayaka did, as Kyouko were quietly snoring as loudly as always. And as soon as Sayaka left the bed Kyouko swiftly rolled the cover all around her body until she looked like a cocoon. With a small laugh Sayaka prepared breakfast.
Today they planned to go out to window shop in the big mall in the middle of the city just because the weather was supposed to be great and they just wanted to spend some time outside. After they were finished with eating their breakfast they dressed up with cute clothes and went outside.
Once they stepped out of the door they were met with a gazing, ridiculously bright and hot sun. Sayaka quickly went inside to get a hat for Kyouko to wear and Sayaka picked a pair of sunglasses to herself. Since they were going to the shopping area they could enter a store to buy another hat.
On the way to the shopping area Sayaka closely inspected Kyouko with the hat and the white dress and thought that it was a perfect blend together with her wild red hair. She then turned her eyes downward and looked at Kyouko's legs. The dress stopped at the mid-thighs and from there the slender and slim legs were showing.
"What could fit better though would perhaps be a straw-hat to go with the shoes. Well, she is wearing sandals made out of straw so a straw-hat would probably be the best choice." She thought to herself.
"Umm, Sayaka? You are staring at me in an uncomfortable way and it is drawing attention." Kyouko quietly mumbled as she tried to cover her legs with the dress and she was a little bit flustered. They were now standing still in the middle of a somewhat crowded street so with Sayaka looking at Kyouko's legs like this attracted some attention by people walking by. Many guys their age stopped by and also stopped and looked at her legs.
Sayaka then broke out of her thought process and then looked around and also noticed the small crowd of boys they had attracted. "Uhh, oops…" were the words that left her mouth and her cheeks grew red with embarrassment.
Sayaka then quickly grabbed Kyouko's arm to get out of there and away from the small crowd. A few minutes later they were in the area where the majority of the shops were located. They had been running for a few minutes and running in this gazing sun is akin to torture, and they felt totally dried out when they finally stopped. Mustering their final strength they got to the café nearby, and as they got inside they were blessed by the almighty and godly fan above the entrance. Enjoying the cool air blowing from the fan they stopped and stayed there in the entrance.
Blocking the entrance was not very appreciated by the rest of the visitors who was trying to get in and out, and were soon asked to get out of the way and to buy something if they were to stay in the café.
After ordering two glasses of orange juice and two cups of ice cream they took a table outside with a parasol. The glasses of juice stood with their ice and straw in them, was causing them both to feel their mouth watering, and the cold water that slowly ran down the outside of the glass ever further made this single glass of juice seem incredibly beautiful in this hard-hitting sun. And each time the ice cubes clashed in the glass also released a wonderful sound.
The ice cream was also a beautiful sight, as Sayaka ordered blueberry topping on hers while Kyouko choose raspberry topping. By sitting outside, although in the shadow under a parasol, made it slowly melt. And the melting of the blue and red topping was another thing that was mouth-watering but still so good looking in this heat that they didn't really wanted to eat it up.
Nevertheless, the warmth couldn't really keep them from admiring the juice and ice cream and started to dig in. The sweet taste and the chill of the ice cream melting on the tongue made them both shiver in delight.
Kyouko looked at Sayaka's blue topping and she looked at Sayaka's hair. The color was very similar if not exactly the same, and now Kyouko became very keen on tasting her topping and if she also could perhaps eat from the same spoon as Sayaka, she should be happy.
"Umm, Sayaka? Can I taste some of your topping too?" Kyouko asked, fidgeting with her fingers a bit.
"Sure, but only if I get to taste some of your topping as well." She replied and just as Kyouko hoped, Sayaka used her own spoon and held it out for Kyouko.
With a small blush she closed in on the spoon and ate the bit of ice cream she was given. The blueberry topping was a little bit sweeter than the raspberry one, which Kyouko was fonder of. Then as she promised she would give some of her to Sayaka, so she as well took a spoon-fill of ice cream with the red topping and held it out towards Sayaka.
With a little blush herself, Sayaka gladly ate the ice cream Kyouko gave her. And she felt that the raspberry topping was a little more sour than her topping but it was tasty nonetheless. After swallowing the ice cream she noticed that once again they had attracted a few onlookers, and realized that as of now and before they had more or less looked pretty much like a couple, at least to some. And she also suspected and noticed that Kyouko attracted some stares just considering how pretty she was.
Trying to ignore that for the rest of the time they sat there, they had a quite a nice time small talking while relaxing for a little bit, but soon left to go around in some of the stores around the mall.
The mall was the biggest one in the city with many stores inside the mall, and quite a few outside, but Sayaka knew that the best and cheapest stores for students were in the mall, so she led the way. Kyouko had only been here a couple times but never going around casually like this, and now she could actually enjoy it.
As they walked in the store Kyouko ran away from Sayaka to run around and look at all the cute clothes that were on display. She got especially stuck at a mannequin doll wearing a cute, white, open long-sleeved shirt that reached a little past the chest, with an equally cute light-pink top underneath.
"Sayaka, Sayaka, can I have these clothes? They are so cute and I want to have them." Kyouko said with a really excited voice and her eyes were sparkling, but she noticed that Sayaka didn't seem too keen on that idea. Sayaka agreed to herself that it was a cute shirt and a cute combo and that it would most probably look incredible on Kyouko. It wasn't that expensive since there were no fancy brand or anything and it was on sale, but they had been a minute into the first store and she had already been sold on the first piece of clothing she saw. "Please, please, please?" She asked again and also kneeled on the ground, using one of her most dangerous weapons of cuteness, puppy eyes and looked at Sayaka.
"Now look, I do agree that it is very cute, but I think that buying the first thing you see, is a bad idea. But I think that we should look around a bit before we buy anything. You might find something that is even cuter than this. Don't you think that that is a better idea?" The blue-haired girl replied, forcing herself to not give in to the puppy-eyes.
Kyouko looked at the dress with a sad face and then pouted slightly before nodding at the suggestion. So going around the mall for like two hours straight watching almost exclusively at clothes and some and a little bit at jewelry, but Sayaka was dead set at not buying any jewelry no matter how much Kyouko and herself wanted some of it, because it was far more expensive than the clothes that Kyouko watched at earlier.
But after going through all those stores, Kyouko didn't find any other clothes better than the ones in the first store, at least putting aside the dresses with price tags that made Sayaka nearly faint. But they went back to the store to let Kyouko test out the clothes that she wanted so bad, so she picked the ones with her size, a pair of pants similar to a pair Sayaka had at home, and went into the dressing room.
Sayaka waited outside the dressing room for and after about a minute, Kyouko opened the curtain and walked out. Sayaka's mind had frozen, and she was just about speechless. Even though it was just a simple long-sleeved shirt with a top under with a pair of tight jeans, Kyouko looked truly gorgeous.
"Sayaka? Sayaka?" Kyouko asked a few times before grabbing her on her shoulders and shook her which made Sayaka to come back to reality. "Are you okay?" She then asked and looked a little bit worried.
"Aah, it's nothing really, it's just that… you look really good in those clothes." The blue-haired girl said and looked away while looking fairly embarrassed.
Kyouko was taken aback a little bit by that blunt remark and her cheeks became red. "Ah…" She lost anything she was about to say as she didn't find any words to reply with.
They didn't exchange any words for a brief period, but right when Sayaka was opening her mouth to say something, one of the store clerks told them that it is early closing time since it is Sunday, and they had to finish up so they could close up for the day.
After changing back to the dress, Sayaka agreed to buy those clothes, but not the pants, since she had a similar pair at home. And after they paid for the clothes and left the mall since it closed as well, they went to one of the parks nearby to enjoy the rest of the day, out in the heat under the shadow of a tree.
"Ooh, Sayaka-chan and Kyouko-chan, what are you doing out here today?" They heard a voice say from behind. And as they turned around they saw Madoka and Homura walking by holding hands.
"Oh, hi. I see you are having a nice time out today. Is everything alright?" Sayaka asked, inviting them to sit down next to them on the bench. "We were just out to window-shop a bit, although we ended up buying a shirt and top we found in one of the stores in the mall. It was fairly cheap and it looks great on Kyouko too. So what have you two been doing?"
Madoka glanced at Homura and blushed a bit. "Homura invited me out to the cinema for a movie we both wanted to see later tonight, so we thought to go out to enjoy the weather while it lasts. We still don't have any words on when we will be able to go back to school, and they still haven't found some leads or anything, they apparently didn't even find something of a suicide note. So I guess we will be on a break for a little while longer and we want to use this free time as much as possible together." Madoka said and rested her head on Homura's shoulder.
Sayaka and Kyouko looked at each other quickly before Sayaka decided to answer. "Y- Yeah, I hope they will find some clues soon enough. I don't feel very safe at school knowing that something like this has happened and there still is unknown what had caused it." She answered, although it didn't sound too convincing, but as naïve as Madoka was, she seemed to accept it. On the other hand Homura, who was a little more perceptive, looked at them with doubt.
"Are you sure you really have no idea?" The black-haired girl asked and Sayaka especially was not ready for a counter to what she said. And the stare Homura was giving her showed that she was rather suspicious.
Madoka looked surprised at Homura's reply. "Homura-chan, what are you implying. You can't possibly think that Kyouko-chan and Sayaka-chan have something to do with this, right?"
Madoka then looked at Sayaka who looked almost just as puzzled. "I-… Ehrrm… W- What are you implying exactly?" Sayaka's voice started to sway a bit and her eyes lost focus.
"It just seems to me that your voice, eyes and stuttering to Madoka's remark shows that you seem to withhold some information. I might not imply that you are responsible for the incident in any way, but it seems like the way you reacted to what she said, I might suspect that you know something about it."
Sayaka was just stunned by Homura's breakdown on her situation. She was not known to be a good liar but she didn't think she was this bad. Or perhaps it was more that Homura was more perceptive than she had originally thought. It was though necessary since Madoka is so pure in her mindset, she can be a little too naïve sometimes, but Homura can be there so Madoka won't be taken advantage of.
Homura just took Sayaka's gaping mouth as a sign that she was spot-on and stopped looking at them like that. "Nah, it just seemed to be something I imagined. I don't accuse them of anything." She then said to calm down Madoka and then gave her a hug.
Kyouko looked just as stunned as Sayaka. Both of them were sure that she said these last things to Madoka was just to console her and to not think that there would be a quarrel, since there is nothing she wants more for people, especially her friends, than to get along.
They managed to get their act together before Madoka turned back to them. "So what are you planning to do now, before the movie then?" Sayaka asked and tried to change the subject to end this gloomy defeat by Homura, and the depressing topic.
After a while they had completely forgotten about the discussion by talking about a whole lot of other things, and soon after Madoka and Homura left to go to the movie.
Looking at her phone, Sayaka noticed they have been talking for roughly one and a half hour, and it nearly felt like just half an hour, but it is always a joy to talk to Madoka and Homura. Unless you have to lie and Homura has to call you out on it.
But staying out that long in the heat, they felt that their throats and mouths were really dry, so they went to a convenience store nearby, and bought a can of soda each and a small bag of cookies. To enjoy a few moments more of the warm sun they went back into the park and went down by the small lake in the middle.
Having the small bag of cookies between them, they sat with their feet in the water, looking over the park in while the sun very slowly went towards the end of the sky. Sitting and small talking for a good while, they soon felt that it might be a good time to head back home.
While going back on a relatively empty street Sayaka noticed that Kyouko's red soul gem around her neck started to pulsate. "Kyouko, your soul gem, isn't that the warning sign that a witch is near?" Sayaka asked and Kyouko quickly held it up and clicked her tongue.
"Tchh, I seriously can't get no break, can I? I didn't think that I would face them so often when I subscribed to this. They come in droves." Kyouko complained. "And I didn't want something like this to ruin our day. But somebody got to take care of this, and I feel strong today so I don't think it will be too much of a bother." She cockily said with a confident smile.
Out of nowhere a white creature popped out and wore the usual smug smile on its lips. "I see have gotten used to your job as a magical girl."
"Kyuubey, huh, well, I get it is sort of a responsibility that I have taken upon myself when I protected Sayaka. And I suppose I must collect the grief seed to cleanse my soul gem."
"It's nice to see humans take their jobs so seriously. I just stay here in the background while you fend it off." It said and stood a little bit behind Sayaka.
Sayaka wasn't as optimistic as Kyouko but she still thought that Kyouko could pull through. "Just don't do anything stupid."
Following the pulsating glow from the gem, they found the way to the entrance of its lair. With her transformation, her spear materialized and with a slash at the crack in front of her, an opening big enough for them to go through appeared.
As soon as Kyuubey jumped through the portal, the opening behind them disappeared. They had ended up in a large hall made out of stone that stretched out over a really long path. The walls had torches placed all the way down the hall, and they still couldn't see the end. It was eerie quiet aside from the sparks from the torches, so they were pretty sure that nothing would just come out from nowhere to attack them, but it was still pretty uncomfortable.
"Well, we just have to defeat this witch and we'll be out of here again." Kyouko said and they started to walk down the hall.
Sayaka got some flashbacks back to the time where they met the paper-craft dragon as they ran down a very long hall way just like this one. The difference was that they didn't hear anything like a twisted laugh or disturbing drawings on the wall. She got a chill down her spine as she felt like something would be similar to that time, but she hoped with all of her heart that she was wrong.
After about 10 minutes of walking, listening only to their footsteps and Kyouko's occasional slam in the wall with the tip of her spear, they reached a massive gate that was roughly 10 meters high and about 4 meters wide. Both girls were really nervous about what they could meet inside. Considering what kind of witches they had met before it could really be anything.
Mustering her courage, Kyouko walked up the gate and tapped on it lightly with the tip of the spear and it very slowly opened up to a very large dark room. As they walked inside the torches lit up, revealing a massive room resembling a cathedral hall. To the other side there were about 100 meters, the width were near 50 meter and the roof about as high. Pillars were positioned parallel through the hall and right there in the front were a big statue of a knight kneeling down facing the altar. Above him were a big beautifully painted window, and it looked like there was the moon that shone from behind. The long walls also had quite a few statues of knights, albeit smaller than the ones in the front, but they seemed to be of accurate height for a grown man. Also from the long walls there were similar painted windows with just the same light coming from them. Over them on the roof there were rather big and beautiful chandeliers hanging all over the roof. Behind the chandeliers they saw a large painting picturing a medieval battlefield that probably is supposed to include these knights that are here as statues, which is odd that a witch lair is supposed to have a history reaching back about 1000 years in human history.
Sayaka spent her time looking around in awe at this brilliant structure. Kyouko on the other hand were more interested in where the light from behind the windows came from. With a nimble jump she reached the first window on the long wall and with a powerful swing she hit the window, and it didn't do anything besides making Kyouko lose balance completely and fall down to the floor from the power striking back from hitting something and not affecting it one bit. She looked up at the window and not a single scratch.
"I don't think we are meant to be able to break them." Sayaka said as she walked up to Kyouko after she had landed after the fall from the window.
Kyouko then stood up trying to find her balance again. "It still annoys me. But let's see who this witch is and if it will show up." Kyouko said and they walked towards the altar. "This building resembles my father's church quite a bit. Just remove the statues, a lot of the smaller details, make it smaller and voila, it nearly is a copy of his church. Though I'm not sure what kind of god they are supposed to worship here. Probably the Christian god or something, considering the knights and all that stuff."
"I suppose that it is European knights since I can't think of another civilization that had knights like this. So I suppose that it would be the Christian god. But isn't it weird if it would be the Christian god or any god at all, since this is the lair of a witch? Do you think they have any knowledge of the faith of humans?" Sayaka asked.
As soon as they reached the middle of the hall, they turned around as they heard the gate behind them slowly close and lock itself with a giant lock mechanism. They now realized that the only way out of here now was to beat the witch. As they turned back from the door a stone knight stood in front of them in a defensive fighting stance.
Kyouko took her fighting stance as well in a way that might counter him. She looked around the walls and saw that one of the statues was gone and it was the one in front of them. "Oh no, I think I see how this is going to be." She quietly complained and gritted her teeth since the odds didn't seem to be in her favor.
With a quick charge from Kyouko, she opened the fight with a quick faint to the neck and cancelled the attack and used the handle of the spear to get it between its arms and lock him so he couldn't swing his sword around very easily. She used this opening to try to knock the sword away from his hands, but managed to at least get him to let go of his sword with one hand, but in a response to that he used the free hand to grab one of Kyouko's legs, and threw her away into one of the pillars. She managed to lessen the impact slightly by landing feet first but the force of the throw still was powerful.
She landed on the ground and the knight went after her directly, not letting her have any time to rest. With a powerful blow towards her, she had just enough time to parry the blow away from her, making his blow hit the ground. In that small timeframe she kicked him in his chest to throw him of and thrust her spear into the grille of the helmet. And as she drilled deeper through the helmet, the statue's body struggled more and more before it just fell over and turned into dust.
With a heavy breath she stood up in the dust, and she heard the sound of something coming from behind one of the pillars. After a few seconds another one came forward, and he just like the first one took on a defensive stance. Kyouko took her time quickly counting how many of the smaller statues there were, and she saw 8 of them.
"Oh boy, this will totally suck!" She mumbled to herself as she with just a flick with her wrist turned her spear to the whip totally surprising the statue, and even though she aimed for the same spot as for the first one, this one managed to barely dodge so the spear glanced off the side of the helmet. The statue charged at her in response to this and to Kyouko's surprise didn't limit itself to its weapon and did a sweep with its foot that connected, making her fall backwards. As a follow-up it did a thrust attack to catch her with it in-air. She caught her fall with her hands so she could quickly tumble out of reach of the knight, but the thrust nevertheless made a small connection to her left arm where it made a deep gash. She made a rather clumsy stop as she got away from his reach due to the injury.
In her fall she accidentally dropped her spear which now lied by the feet of the knight. Much to her dismay he picked it up, held it in his hand, trying it out. He tried the flick of the wrist like Kyouko did but nothing happened. But nevertheless he was going to use it against Kyouko trying to use it with a single hand as he held his sword in the other. Kyouko was now struggling to find a way to find an opening. She had never taken on a dual-wielding opponent, much less bare-handed and with a foe made of stone. But as she looked up she saw something that she could use to her advantage.
She winked quickly at Sayaka. "Run over there and I will promise that I will not let you get hurt no matter what." Kyouko said and pointed to the direction she wanted Sayaka to run to.
Kyouko then made a quick sprint and disappeared from the knight's sight. Out of sight from him, Kyouko jumped up on the pillars until she quietly sneaked up on one of the chandeliers. She hated herself for this using Sayaka as bait but she needed the knight to move a bit in her direction. As she had gotten up on the right chandelier, she waited a short while for the knight to stop looking around for Kyouko, and walk a little bit towards Sayaka. During this time she made short preparations. Several seconds after he stopped looking around for her, he did just as she hoped for, and walked towards Sayaka who, to no surprise, were scared as hell. But Kyouko had to do this as she didn't have any weapon to attack or defend with.
Just a few more meters… and… Now! As he was in the prefect spot she released the chandelier from the roof as she still hanged on to the chain up in the roof. She watched as the roughly 100 kg chandelier dropped from 50 meters height and totally smashed the knight to dust as well.
Kyouko then quickly jumped down and landed just before Sayaka, and before Sayaka even had the sound to say anything, Kyouko gave her a big and comforting hug. "I'm sorry to having to do that, but I needed him to walk in that direction. I won't ever do that again, and I wouldn't let anything hurt you, ever! You hear me? Ever!" Kyouko almost screamed out, but her feeling pulled through, and Sayaka could feel the sincerity from her words, and she felt a great comfort hearing it with that sincerity.
Another noise and it was the next opponent who was getting ready. Starting off in the same way as the other two he also got into a defensive position. Kyouko let Sayaka go and told her to back off by the door.
Kyouko took her sweet time to pick up her spear since the knight didn't do anything until she attacked him. Before she took a stance she healed her wound in the arm and it was surprising that the knights let her do that without interfering, and to calm herself down she took a couple of deep breaths, and then she took a battle stance as well before she charged in.
About an hour later, the last spec of dust had fallen of the last knight that she smashed against one of the pillars, and Kyouko fell to her knees. The knights weren't just fighting on their own merits. She noticed that with each one of the knights she fought, they had learned about her abilities and physical attributes. But they on the other hands were their own persons. They had their own fighting style so Kyouko had no idea how they would attack. So she was now exhausted though and through, and this was just the minions. Never before had she been this tired before, but no matter how much back-up she needed she couldn't let Sayaka become a Magical girl to help her out.
Sayaka ran up to Kyouko as she sat there on the ground. "Kyouko, are you okay?" Sayaka asked and she was truly worried about Kyouko, and Kyouko saw it in Sayaka's eyes. Sayaka could see the bruises and wounds Kyouko had taken from the battle and she had not found the time to heal until now and she could also see how Kyouko's arms, hands and knees were trembling. Her hands were covered in blisters and her hair was a mess.
"If you want I can transform too I can try helping you out as mu…" Sayaka said before she was cut off.
"NO!... Just NO! I can't let you transform, you hear me? I shouldn't perhaps let you follow me into these lairs. It is too dangerous to not have any powers in here, but I can't let you transform. It is a curse, and it hurts… it hurts so much, and that's why I cannot let you put yourself into this as well." Kyouko said and she almost cried now. Tears were slowly streaming down her cheeks and a faint sobbing could be heard.
Sayaka closed in and embraced Kyouko and let her rest on her chest if she wanted to. Kyouko did just that and she felt like it was safe to cry. Just a few moments later she burst out crying against Sayaka while Sayaka gently patted her head until Kyouko had stopped crying and began breathing steadily again.
After a minute of crying and sobbing Kyouko had calmed down, and she sat up straight again. "Sorry for my little outburst. I just lost it a little." Kyouko apologized quietly.
Sayaka just smiled gently at her. "I don't blame you one little bit. I probably would have wanted to cry out like that after what you have been through. And doesn't it feel better now when you have let it out? You have stopped shaking as well." She asked.
"Yeah, now I feel a lot better. I hope it will go better at the witch compared to the minions. Hehe, yeah, like it would be that easy!" Kyouko said and stood up and started to heal her injuries and set up her hair in a ponytail again and turned against the witch who still had not moved yet.
Kyouko felt Sayaka's hand on her shoulder that turned her back to face Sayaka who then put her hands on Kyouko's cheeks and gave Kyouko a deep and passionate kiss. Kyouko's heart was not prepared for this and she didn't know where to go or what to do. But either way, her heart was racing so fast right now and it felt so good.
After a few seconds Sayaka let go and her face were deep red, but couldn't compare to Kyouko's cheeks. It looked as if every single drop of blood had rushed up to her head, so her face had the exact red color as a tomato. It took a few seconds before Kyouko could answer at all. "Wha…"
Sayaka then flashed her a happy but embarrassed smile. "I hope it will help to motivate you."
The smile and comment really hit home and Kyouko really looked more motivated than ever, and she looked happier than Sayaka had seen her be in a while. "I will win this, you just wait." Kyouko said before walking against the altar with confident steppes.
"She kissed me, she totally kissed me! I can't believe it, and it felt so good and I want to do it again! And I also feel so strong because of it." Kyouko though to herself, and she happily made small jumps forward to the altar.
As she got close to the altar she also got a true perspective of the statue in the front. While the minions were about the size of a grown man, this statue was nothing of the sort. She knew that it was bigger but this could be problematic. But the upside would be that it most likely was slower than the minions.
She walked even closer since nothing has happened yet and she was prepared to defend herself if anything should happen. When she took the first step on the first steppes of stairs up towards the altar, the ground started to shake violently. So much in fact that one of the pillars in the room fell apart and one chandelier fell down from the ceiling. During the quake, Kyouko saw that the great statue started to move and stood up.
She got that it was big but not that big. Standing up tall, it reached a little past 10 meters. While the minions used swords made out of stone as the statues themselves were made by, their swords made more bash damage than slash damage, but the sword the witch used were made of hard, cold steel that could probably cut through mostly anything. And it wasn't just that the sword were made out of steel. It was a long sword, which in total are about two thirds of an average grown man's height. And counting in that this statue is about 10 meters tall, its sword must be around 7 meters long if it followed proportions of a human, and it looked like it was around that length.
With some luck the witch moved slowly, but suggesting that the boss, or in this case, the witch, are supposed to be stronger than the minions, she doubted that the witch would be that much slower or slower at all. In a slow fashion it turned around to face Kyouko and did she feel small in the shadow of this massive moving statue?
Considering that it was the witch, she was surprised that it wasn't really that many differences between the minions and the witch, setting aside the size. Its helmet was similar but had horns on the sides. The breastplate, shoulder plates and gauntlets had more complicated patterns than the other knights and the edges of the armor parts stood out more. From the waist and downwards, it had a long skirt under its plates down the legs that stopped by the ankles. Its greaves followed the pattern the armor had on its upper body.
As slowly as it turned around it started to walk down the stairs, while Kyouko walked backwards instead. If she were to lose focus right now, she could be in grave danger. Any hit from that sword could prove to be disastrous.
"Sayaka, back away as far as you can and stay there! This could be really, really dangerous!" Kyouko screamed and didn't let her eyes move away from the statue. Sayaka did as she were told and stood as far back behind a pillar.
"If I'm in luck, it can't move around as freely as I can. I should suppose that it doesn't care about causing damage to this room, and if it does care, the better for me. I should just keep it occupied to keep it from going the furthest back in the room to avoid getting Sayaka in trouble."
She now had backed off at least twenty meters from the altar and the statue had just walked off the stairs down from the altar. Annoyingly in a way, it just like the other knights, the witch as well took on a defensive stance. She had the first move, but it wasn't always a good thing, since the witch can move accordingly, and now it knew all her secrets that she had been forced to use against the minions. But even though it was a witch, she found it odd that even a monster had a sense of honor. And as she had the first move, what could she possibly do against it? The previous knights she had been able to defeat of stabbing them through the holes in the helmet, and one she took down with a chandelier. She supposed that this one as well could be defeated with a deep stab though the holes in the helmet, but the question were how to get up there.
Not seeing its eyes were kind of distracting but she could see the helmet slowly turning her way in whichever way she went. Taking a deep breath and then exhaling, she took a powerful and fast leap, aiming for its waist as she saw a small opening between the breastplate and the armor plates on its hip that could be a weak point. As she were just about to hit, it took a quick step to the side, making Kyouko fly past him while he had the upper hand and swung its sword in her direction. In a flash she made her spear into a ship and threw it to hook it to the altar, and she pulled herself toward it to avoid its swing.
Her heart were beating too fast right now, she was a few centimeters from being sliced in two. She didn't really realize how something that big could move so fast. She needed to find some way to not get hit and do something about him. It was not like she had any time to do that as he was already ongoing with another swing pointing at the altar. With a fast jump from there, the altar was now a pile of rubble. It charged another swing as it chased her. Trying to hide again she tried to find shelter behind a pillar, and as the sword hit the pillar, it was cleaved in two and fell apart.
Again jumping away from the rubble that is falling down from the pillar, she had to get on the offensive. After landing the evasive jump, she took hiding in the dust that quickly filled the scene, to then quickly charge in and she got up behind the witch and started climbing up its back. It was actually quite easy to climb up on the witch due to all the armor parts that worked great as stepping stones to jump up with. Using those armor parts she quickly reached the shoulder and it was then the witch noticed her.
Kyouko had at least found one weakness that she could try to exploit if she could. Being made of stone, the witch had very poor sense of feeling, as she did not feel Kyouko climbing up at all, and the witch kept searching the area. The thing that tipped her of was by mistake making a small sound by bouncing the spear-tip against the armor.
By noticing Kyouko on its shoulder, it reaction was quite appropriate as it started to flail a lot and Kyouko started to lose footing. While Kyouko was distracted by finding balance again the witch got its hand around Kyouko and kept her in a tight grip, and it was one of the most painful things Kyouko had suffered physically as of yet as every bone and organ in her body screamed and pleaded for mercy.
"KYOUKO!" Sayaka screamed and started to run towards Kyouko and the witch.
"DON'T COME OVER HERE! STAND BACK!" Kyouko yelled over the room. Sayaka could see even from the other side of the hall that Kyouko was in excruciating pain as she gritted her teeth as Sayaka had never seen her do. Kyouko's eyes started to water up and tears started to fall down the cheeks from the agony.
The witch held Kyouko in front of its helmet. Kyouko noticed some light from behind the bars that most probably was the witch's eyes. From what she could tell it was a very smug smile it wore right now, but at the moment she cared more about not get broken from the grip it had around her. It seemed as the witch were having a blast as Kyouko could make out some sort of dark laugh that sounded amused.
It continuously kept holding her like this and was monitoring Kyouko's mental state. It had been several minutes now but it felt like an eternity and Kyouko was at her limit and she started to lose consciousness. Her vision was flickering and her mind felt like it was about to shut off. Her lungs were really under pressure as she was not able to take proper breaths so she started to suffer from oxygen deprivation. She had yet been able to stay awake by pure willpower, but even so, she was at her limit.
As her eyes were to shut closed, the witch made a screaming noise and with a wide swing threw Kyouko with incredible force into the wall on the other side of the room where Sayaka was standing. The impact in the wall left a crater and Kyouko fell down and a whole lot of rubble fell down with her. With fear in her eyes Sayaka were running towards a nearly unconscious Kyouko who was almost buried by rubble and heavy candle holders from the wall. But before she even managed to close in she heard the witch closing in with heavy steppes from the other side of the room and the witch came running after with the sword grind the floor on the way.
The witch closed in with frightening haste with its long legs and as it were close enough it raised it sword. Kyouko didn't have any strength left to do anything. Her muscles wouldn't even as much as let her lift a finger. The rubble didn't help her case but no matter what, her body was clearly broken after being held by that witch with that strength. All she could do was to watch her life come to a gruesome end and to leave Sayaka to the same fate. No matter how much she wished for it she could not gather any strength to do anything. She talked so cockily before they entered that it would be a walk in the park and then ended up being tossed around and played with like a small stuffed toy. Besides just letting herself down she had as well let down Sayaka, Madoka, Homura, Mami, Aoi and Mitsuki in particular. If she could choose what the afterlife would be a like she hoped it would be a void, since she couldn't be able to watch Sayaka in the eyes after this, but in reality she would like to stay with her after this whether it was in the real world or in the afterlife.
Kyouko closed her eyes just before the sword came down at her. The sword slammed down in the ground and the wall, creating another big dust cloud and the ground started to shake violently from the strike. In the dust cloud there were several sounds that could be heard of steel hitting the ground.
Opening her eyes, she was somehow still alive, and as the cloud has cleared up but and she could see the witch's sword missing her and nearly touching her arm. "How the hell could it miss me as I was stuck here?" She thought to herself with her heart beating with an intense haste. Next to Kyouko's legs she saw three swords lying on the ground and she also noticed a few scratches on the witch's sword. As the cloud cleared she looked at the opposite direction from where they came from.
Her eyes started to tear up and tears fell down her cheeks. Lowering her head she started to sob and broke out in a cry. She had really let herself down beyond what she could take. No matter what could happen she had told herself more than anything not to let Sayaka transform into a magical girl, to protect her and to not drag her into this horrible fights.
Now there stood a new magical girl with blue shoes, leggings held up by straps just past the knees. A blue skirt that became longer to the right side compared to the left, a white top but with blue color covering the chest, and with a small space between the skirt and top were now a blue soul gem placed. The arms were clad with blue sleeves and the hands were clad in white gloves. From the neck fluttered a cape that reached down to the back of the knees. Each hand held a sword just like the ones next to Kyouko.
"Kyouko… I'm sorry!"
Chapter 14 End
*I didn't know how to describe Sayaka's "leggings" in her magical girl form, and couldn't find a description better than that, but I hope you understand what I meant at least.
Also, the first part of this chapter, was not as fun to write as the last part. The part in the lair were much more interesting to write. And I had though about the part where Kyouko would be thrown into the wall before I wrote this chapter but it ended up more violently than I predicted so my improvisation keep overwriting anything else.
But I hope that the next chapter will be out in a much shorter timespan than it was with this chapter, as I have already begun writing on the next chapter as it stopped in a place where I find it interesting to write so I think I can get it out pretty quickly. At least for my standards
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a comment if you liked it or not, and favorite and follow as well if you liked it.
Bye for now!