Kyoko's jaw dropped at Madoka's words. Her mouth was dry and not just from the moisture-sucking recycled air of the arcade. As her brain finished processing what she'd just heard Kyoko's dumbfounded expression transformed into one of complete horror.
Madoka wasn't meant to have been told everything. She wasn't supposed to have been told anything! Kyoko could see her plan unravelling in front her eyes.
"Kyuubey told you? When? Where is he now?" Kyoko demanded, shaking the girl roughly by the shoulders.
"Last night. He came to my room. I don't know where he went after that – uwaah," Madoka groaned as the shaking intensified. "Kyoko, please s-stop doing t-that."
Kyoko stopped. She swore long, furiously and with spectacular variety. Noticing Madoka's rather scandalised (And slightly curious) expression she quietened down.
Kyoko's anger was little more than the spillage of the fear erupting from her gut. Kyubey must have overheard more than they thought. She had to intercept it before it found Sayaka. Kyoko knew if that pale rabbit-faced bastard got to Sayaka first and ratted her out, it could well spell the blue-haired girl's doom. Sayaka would close off her heart for good and bleed away her energies like before, except this time there would be no bringing her back.
Kyoko took a deep breath. Her first instinct was to run, either to find Akemi and warn her or find Kyubey and pulverise it. However, before she made her hasty exit left, she needed to establish how much Madoka – and by extension Kyubey - thought she knew.
"You said everything, right?" said Kyoko, significantly calmer. "What does everything cover exactly?"
The corners of Madoka's mouth twitched downwards. Kyoko's barely disguised interrogation was obvious even to the naïve Pinkette, but Madoka answered her question nonetheless. "Kyubey told me you and Homura-chan are the ones who made Kamijo-san disappear." That was a kind way of saying I broke into his house and dragged him kicking and screaming from his bed, thought Kyoko wryly. "He also said you got into a fight with Sayaka-chan and... you really hurt her."
"Wow. He actually did tell you everything. That'd be a first for Kyubey," joked Kyoko, but she felt very disheartened. She'd got what she needed to know though. Kyoko was halfway standing, ready to toss Madoka a flimsy excuse to brush her off, when the next question rocked her back to the floor.
"Kyoko," Madoka said. "What do you intend to do?"
Kyoko was reminded of hearing a very similar question earlier in the afternoon at the church from another girl. Although Madoka could hardly be more different from that stone-faced doll.
"That's pretty obvious, ain't it?" Kyoko lied shamelessly.
"No, its not obvious at all. Nothing ever seems to be anymore," Madoka said sadly. "Maybe I'm being stupid, but I know I won't understand unless I hear it from you out loud, so I'm going to ask you again: What do you intend to do, Kyoko?"
Kyoko shrugged her shoulders, then put on a wicked grin, baring her canines. "Like I said, its obvious. I'm taking what I want and right now what I want is this city. Sayaka was in the way, so I dealt with her. How do you like that for simple?"
Madoka shook her head. "It doesn't sound simple to me. If that were true I don't think Homura-chan would be helping you. She's not that kind of girl, and I don't think you are either."
"For someone who barely knows me, you sure have a lot of faith in my good character," Kyoko observed drily.
"I don't know about that," said Madoka, smiling. "I just think ruling a city would be an awful lot of hard work, that's all."
"True, it would be a right pain in the – wait a second, are you saying I wouldn't go through with it because you think I'm too lazy?" Kyoko spluttered. Madoka responded to Kyoko's outrage with a slight giggle which soon had Kyoko laughing in turn.
Their laughter died quickly enough, but the heavy air between them seemed to have dispersed. It felt good to relax and Kyoko felt the tension which had been building in her since her fight with Sayaka ease off a little.
It returned full force with Madoka's next question. "What you're doing, it has something to do with Sayaka-chan, doesn't it? Threatening the city, targeting Kamijo-san, hurting me, you're making her really angry."
Kyoko paused. Nearby she heard the loud buzzer of a game machine giving up its tightly clutched prize and the happy woop of a small boy who proudly presented the boxed model of a car to his father for inspection.
"Kyoko?" Madoka asked with concern. Kyoko realised she'd hadn't answered Madoka's question and had instead been staring into space.
This was ludicrous, Kyoko realised suddenly. She had what she wanted, why was she still talking to Madoka? It was like her conversation with Kyosuke all over again. If she had any sense she would have gotten the hell out by now.
Kyoko found while she could boast many fine virtues - she had a fantastic right hook, a killer sense of humour, and was a half-way decent cook – she possessed about as much sense as she did patience.
"More like Sayaka's made it her crusade in life to ruin my fun," she said, still talking, still lying, to Madoka. "Y'know I can barely make it out of front door without that moron shoving her brown nose into my business. Your friend needs to be collared."
Madoka's eyes narrowed at Kyoko's implication, but she persisted in her questioning. "Then why is Homura-chan helping you?" she asked patiently.
Kyoko already had a comeback for that point though. "We've got a deal. Apparently there's some big bad witch coming to town, Walpu...something"
"Walpu-something?" Madoka repeated. Kyoko stared at Madoka hard, trying and failing to detect even a glimmer of sarcasm buried under her innocent bewilderment.
"I confess, I sorta stopped caring after the first two to three syllables," Kyoko admitted. "But from what Akemi says its a real tough bastard. It could level the whole damn town if it ain't stopped. Hmm, I see Kyubey omitted that little detail when he was telling you 'everything'," Kyoko noted with sour amusement at seeing Madoka's surprise. "I was planning on skipping town, but Akemi's pretty sure the two of us should be able to kick its ass back to neverland, provided we can work together without killing each other. The sum of it is, I help her with Whatever-the-fu...frick-its-called-Nacht and she helps me with your friend."
"Then why did Homua-chan save Sayaka-chan when you were fighting?"
Shit. Kyoko did not have a comeback for that one. She should have known Kyuubey had observed their little scuffle in the church as well. How could she be so careless? Madoka even mentioned being told Sayaka was badly hurt.
"Its all part of my plan," Kyoko said, aiming for enigmatic and wincing at a result so lame it even had Madoka raising her eyebrows in gentle scepticism.
It was Madoka who filled the silence again, but not with a question this time. "Do you know, Kyoko, Sayaka-chan's always been my hero," she began wistfully. "I remember one day, years and years ago, when we were both eight and we were walking back from elementary school together. I was going to visit Sayaka-chan's house, but her mum was busy with work so she wasn't there to pick us up. I wanted to wait but Sayaka-chan told me it happened all the time. She took my hand and dragged me out of school before I had a chance to say anything. I was so nervous to start with, just the two of us on our own, I thought we would get caught and end up in a whole heap of trouble.
"But it was such a beautiful day. It was May, I think; the sun was out, but it wasn't super hot or anything. We stopped by the river for a while. You should have been there, Kyoko. The water was sparkling so brightly it was like it was dancing. I've never seen anything so pretty."
"Not that your nostalgic flashback isn't lovely, but is this story going anywhere?" Kyoko interjected , feigning impatience to mask her own discomfort. Truth be told she remembered precisely what those days had been like, but she had left them behind a long time ago.
"Sorry, I got a bit carried away," Madoka rubbed the back of her head bashfully. "We lost track of time by the river and when we finally started to head home it was so late we could see high school students leaving school. We hurried back - Sayaka-chan's mum hadn't called so she wasn't at the apartment yet - but we knew she would be coming home pretty soon. We were two streets away, I could just see the top of Sayaka-chan's apartment block above the houses, when the biggest, meanest looking dog jumped out in front of us."
Kyoko couldn't help but laugh at Madoka's attempt to be impersonate the dog; the girl had raised both hands to mime the pouncing animal and bared her teeth.
"Are you sure it wasn't a poodle - or a chihuahua."
"It was a big dog, Kyoko." Madoka's indignant pout only elicited more laughter.
" So what happened next?" asked Kyoko, resting her chin on her hand.
"Sayaka-chan grabbed my hand again and picked up a stick from the ground. The dog hadn't moved, it just stood there, barking, with its fur all up. She led me round slowly and the moment we stepped past she threw the stick back down the street and yelled at me to run. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life. We ran all the way back to her apartment. By the end of it I was laughing and crying so hard I could barely breath. All I could think was how brave Sayaka-chan was, how I wished I could have courage like her instead of being such a big scaredy-cat.
"Then I felt her hand trembling in mine.
"I looked up and I saw she was shaking. She'd been crying just as hard as I had, but because she'd been running ahead, I never noticed. She hugged me so hard it hurt and she kept crying long after I stopped. I wondered afterwards how she could be brave when she'd been even more scared than I was.
"She's been running ahead of me this time too and whatever I do I can't seem to keep up. I think I understand her a little better now, though. I don't have to see her face anymore to know how hard she's been crying. Sayaka-chan's the kind of girl who'll do anything to help others. Even if she hates it. Even if it hurts her or makes her sad, she'll push it all down if it'll help just a little bit. Because she's a hero." Madoka stared Kyoko straight in the eyes. "But you already know that, don't you, Kyoko?"
Miki Sayaka was feeling anything but heroic. Firstly, because she was an empty doll masquerading as a teenage girl, who wasn't even capable of protecting the boy she loved. Secondly, she had accepted the help and - lest she forget - instruction, of somebody she had no reason to trust and whose intentions were murky at best. Thirdly, and right now the most personally important to her, she had just landed, face first, in a bush.
It was at least a very interesting bush. The twigs were copper wire, twisting together to swell into thicker branches; the leaves were a thousand dully shining gears and washers; the flowers gently spinning cogs. While certainly more unique than the regular foliage she'd stumbled through in her childhood exploration of Mitakihara's sprawling parks, it was also a lot harder, and Sayaka had been travelling very fast.
"Crap," she moaned, rubbing her forehead. Sayaka wasn't the type to normally use bad language, but she felt some situations warranted it, and one of them was being flung, full-tilt, at hard, spikey metal bushes. Even with her accelerated healing she was sure the bruise on her forehead would not be going down any time soon. And the bump she'd gotten in the park, face-planting into a bench after trying to grab Kyoko, had only just died down too.
It didn't matter, she told herself. She might be not be able to throw the pain away, as she'd proclaimed to Kyoko during their fight, but a blow like that was nothing to a monster.
A blocky shadow fell over her. Sayaka looked up to see one of the witch's familiars looming over her. From the proud black shako cap to the large windup key in its back, the familiar looked the picture of a traditional toy soldier, the sort you saw poking over the edge of Santa's sack, albeit this one stood taller larger than the average at almost seven feet. It was also, admittedly, rather more worn than the toys Sayaka usually saw in the Christmas cards; paint was peeling from the bright red uniform to reveal chips of dark metal like currents in a scone.
The soldier's face was painted in a stern expression of dutiful watchfulness, which was made a mockery by the thing's eyes. They were glassy and bulging, each moving independently of the other, twitching erratically with the soldier's every movement. Worse still was the noise. Over the disjointed whirring of clockwork and behind the single painted line of its mouth, Sayaka could hear a soft, gibbering moan.
The moan increased in pitch to a wail as both terrible eyes focused on Sayaka and it raised its rifle above its head in a single jerking motion. Light gleamed off the bayonet and Sayaka tried her best to gather her vaporised wits from where they'd contrailed behind her to avoid being impaled for the second time this week. However as she tried to rise the world spun violently and she was forced to her knees, feeling as if she were about to throw up. She squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for the blow to fall.
She needn't have worried. There was a deafening staccato of gunfire and the familiar's head exploded, fragments of hot tin raining down around her, dissolving when it touched the ground like light snow. The thing fell to its knees, then collapsed sideways, revealing Akemi Homura standing behind it, holding an honest to god assault rifle. Sayaka wondered if she'd mugged a JSDF soldier. It would certainly explain where she kept getting all her weapons.
Akemi said something, but Sayaka, her ears still ringing from the noise of the gun, didn't hear a word.
"What?" Sayaka asked. Akemi flinched slightly and Sayaka realised she must have shouted the question.
"Miki Sayaka, can you stand?" Akemi repeated, raising the volume of her voice past its usual monotone whisper.
Sayaka wasn't sure she was able to stand, but on Akemi's words she forced herself to her feet. "I'm fine."
"Most of the familiars have been eradicated, do you require any assistance with the witch?"
"I told you I'm fine," Sayaka said through gritted teeth. "You just worry about the rest of the familiars. You're not gonna break your promise are you?"
It was the deal Akemi had struck with her when Sayaka had accepted her offer of training. Akemi had wanted her to concentrate solely on hunting witches, but Sayaka had refused to allow the familiars to run freely around town and keep hurting people; her stubbornness plumbing deeper depths than even her misery. Akemi had proposed to deal with the familiars herself to which Sayaka had reluctantly agreed. She had, Sayaka grudgingly conceded, been true to her word so far. Now it was time for Sayaka to keep her end of the bargain.
Sayaka took a step forward and stumbled, causing Akemi to raise an eyebrow. Inside the bizarre and upside down world within the witch's barrier Sayka couldn't tell if the ground was whirling because of her injury or due to the influence of the witch's strange, twisted logic.
This barrier had certainly been more infuriating than most. The others had been an ordeal in their own right. She well remembered her mauling at the sharp hands of the witch Kyubey had later told her was named Elsa Maria. However, the coldness of that black and white world had at least been simple: There had been a single ink-black hill, stark against the paper white sky and her foe had waited for at the summit.
This barrier had been more complicated. It had taken the form of a gargantuan copper armillary sphere suspended in nothingness. Glimmering in the distance she could see what looked like thin strands of copper - though in fact she knew they were thicker than her torso - curving to form the skeleton of the sphere. At the centre of the armillary was a single polished orb from which she could hear a dull, rhythmic thud. Sayaka herself was stood on one of the two great rings set around the central orb. She'd been stood on the inner ring originally before her impromptu flight. The rings were as wide as Mitakihara's soccer stadium was long and moulded into a picturesque landscape of molten metal rivers, tall spindly trees and very hard bushes.
All of it, the framework and the ring, were in constant motion so from one minute to the next left was right, up was down and backwards was forwards. Dizzying barely began to describe the sensation. Sayaka had to fight very hard for the first few minutes to avoid being sick. Akemi Homura had, of course, been completely fine. While Sayaka had been on her knees, almost hugging the ground, when they first came in, the raven haired girl had tossed her hair back smugly, tossing Sayaka a look of withering pity. Just once, Sayaka thought, I'd like to see something knock her off balance.
Irony was loathe to miss such a golden chance. Suddenly Sayaka felt Akemi's hand tug at the collar of her cloak, yanking her off her feet. Was she a mindreader too? Sayaka thought belatedly. She blinked and realised she was about twenty yards from where she'd been a moment ago, next to a tree with a gleaming bronze trunk constructed from a single great piston. Her former position was now covered with a cloud of fine dust and trailing sparks. She felt her collar being released and saw Akemi had her gun levelled at the dust cloud. Her purple eyes were narrowed in intense concentration as she sighted the assault rifle.
From the cloud emerged the witch. Like many of the witches Sayaka had faced there was something unsettling childlike about its appearance. This one took the form of a female doll, though made from porcelain rather than the cruder tin of its familiars, and was dressed in a frilly, white faux-Victorian dress which reminded Sayaka of the girls she'd seen in Harujuku on the school trip to Tokyo. Unlike the soldier the doll looked gentle, its mouth was smiling kindly and its eyes were warm and brown, inviting Sayaka to let her worries go, telling her she was safe.
Sayaka's eyes were drawn lower though. The witch's dress had a low, lacy décolletage, revealing a heart shaped hole where its sternum should have been. Inside Sayaka saw cogs and gears whirring but not a hint of anything alive. The Witch titled its head in genteel confusion at seeing Sayaka and Akemi alive. As the last of the cloud cleared Sayaka could see a dented crater where she'd been standing seconds before. If not for Akemi, Sayaka realised, she would have been pasted across the ground.
Thanks. Somehow the words wouldn't leave her lips.
They stood motionless; a perfect tableau of three clockwork girls, thought Sayaka.
The witch shimmered forward. Its dress trailed behind it weightlessly as it flowed towards them, giving its body all the pale substance of sunlight breaking through thick clouds.
Akemi opened fire again, trying to catch the Witch as it cascaded from one point to another. The next thing Sayaka knew Akemi was standing next to the witch, the pistol in her left hand pressed against its forehead. The shot sent the witch reeling off balance. Sayaka had seen Akemi's little teleportation trick plenty of times now. She wasted no time gawping, instead gathering magic at her feet like a springboard, before hurling herself at her enemy.
The witch's smile cracked open, paint ripping apart as it unhinged its jaw, giving Sayaka an unwelcome glimpse of its innards. She saw a dark hole lined with hundreds of needle-like teeth, backlit in red by a hellish, molten glow.
The witch screamed.
Sayaka thought Akemi's rifle had been loud, but it was like comparing an alarm to a bomb siren. The noise didn't just blast her hearing away, it left her vision blurry, her teeth rattling and her bones creaking.
It didn't matter.
Deaf, dumb, half-blind and still hurtling towards the witch Sayaka drew deep from the wells of her power. All Magical Girls could speed up their recovery, but as far as Sayaka knew no-one possessed her almost instantaneous regeneration rate. Her application was sloppy, she knew she was burning off far more power than she needed to, but it worked. She felt her eyes clearing and strength returning to her arms.
Matching the witch's scream with a battle cry of her own she swung her sword into the left side of its ribcage. Her blow tore through the effervescent material of the dress, smashed its porcelain skin and ploughed through the Daedalian machinery within, leaving a furrow of torn wire and twisted gears. Just as her sword was about to touch the witch's empty heart it disappeared in a burst of mist.
The witch wouldn't be gone for long. Sayaka knew because this was the third time she'd landed what seemed like a fatal blow only for the witch to vanish. She had no doubts it would appear again in a few minutes, just as it had the last two times. At least she was able to land a hit on it. Accepting the Grief Seed had been difficult, but a part of her rejoiced in her own rejuvenation.
Sayaka also relished the simplicity of her task. True, she was fighting desperately for her life, in a world which defied her comprehension, against an enemy who wouldn't die, but on this battlefield Sayaka knew who she was: She was a magical girl and her purpose was to defeat an even bigger monster that threatened the lives and happiness of every human it came near. There was no one here to disturb the muddied waters of her heart, just Sayaka, the witch and a girl more hollow than both of them.
The girl in question stepped beside her as softly as a whisper. Around them the armillary world continued to spin.
"Your analysis, Miki Sayaka," Akemi demanded.
Sayaka considered the question. "That witch is a real pain in the butt."
Akemi sighed. "And..."
"And, what? It won't die no matter how many times I take it down. Honestly, I'm stumped, unless you've got any bright ideas?"
"I have a credible hypothesis regarding the impotence of your current tactics."
It was a relief in a way, Sayaka reflected for a moment. This morning, when she'd first woken accompanied by her defeat, she wouldn't have had the capacity to be mildly put out by such a remark. Now she felt reassuringly annoyed.
"Hooh? Do you feel like sharing, teacher?" Sayaka threw as much sarcasm into the title as she could.
"No."
Yes, thought Sayaka, very, very annoyed.
"I offered you my assistance moments ago and you turned me down, that offer included my mind and my knowledge," Akemi elaborated. "If you truly desire to face down a witch with your own power you must do so with your own wits too."
"I thought you were supposed to be instructing me?" Her annoyance was tinged with curiosity. Akemi had been the one pressing hard to teach her, but she had offered almost no guidance, only the odd vague question and several condescending remarks.
"I am." Akemi said firmly. "Examine the facts. Why do you think you are failing?"
Sayaka stared for a long moment. She was feeling childishly sullen. Sayaka had always been sensitive about her academic record, especially when growing up next to Kyosuke led to inevitable comparisons, seldom in her favour. The last person she wanted to be upbraided by about her lack of smarts was Akemi Homura.
"Does it matter? It'll run out of lives eventually. I just have to keep killing it," she said coldly.
"And if you are wrong and simply exhaust yourself pointlessly, what then? You will have thrown away your life for no useful purpose."
Sayaka shrugged.
Akemi pinched the bridge of her nose. "Very well. We shall retreat for today."
"What!?" Sayaka yelled.
Before she had a chance to protest further she felt a tug at her collar and they were both suddenly at the edge of the witch's barrier.
"Get off me!" Sayaka swatted away Homura's hand. "There's no way we're leaving yet. I still have to kill that witch!"
Sayaka felt another tug and they were both back to reality. Sayaka felt a little wobbly, taking a moment to readjust to a world where the ground was steady and the ramen shop next to her was not rotating over her head.
The hour was late, but not that late, and there were still a couple of people walking by in the gloom. None of them seemed to notice anything odd about the two girls who had just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the street.
As soon as she felt like she could step forward without falling over Sayaka stalked up to Akemi. She was standing so close they were almost nose to to nose.
"Why did we stop?" she demanded.
"The training has served its purpose for today. Fear not, Miki Sayaka, the witch will still be there for you to destroy tomorrow."
If the shorter girl was affected by Sayaka's outrage it certainly wasn't showing, which only served to make Sayaka angrier.
Sayaka threw her arms out in frustration. It was the most animated movement she'd shown in a while. "And in the meantime that monster is free to hurt whoever it likes." She fell back on her usual insult. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you!"
"Whomever," said Akemi.
Sayaka stared at her. "What are you talking about?" she said.
"That monster is free to hurt whomever it likes." Akemi noticed Sayaka's slackjawed expression. "It was a joke," she clarified. "To lighten the mood."
Sayaka felt so off-balance it was like she'd just been thrown back into the armillary world. Since when did Akemi Homura, the living robot, start making jokes?
Akemi, however, seemed satisfied her joke had worked as Sayaka had stopped yelling and continued, "I will contain the witch, as per our agreement. We can recommence your training tomorrow."
"No, you should kill it now. My training can't be more important than people's lives," Sayaka said, latching onto her disagreement both out of moral principal and as a welcome lifeline back to – relative - normalcy.
"When you accepted my offer of training you told me you were willing to become a monster more terrible than a witch if it meant saving Kamijo Kyosuke." Akemi countered coolly. "Do you still stand by those words, Miki Sayaka?"
Sayaka's fist tightened by her side, clenching her hands so tightly her arms were trembling. "It different," she muttered, "This and that are two different things."
"No, it is not. If you try to protect everyone, in the end, you will protect no-one."
This time the flash of anger Akemi sparked within her did not die out, but ignited. "So what? I can still damn well try!" Sayaka yelled. "I am a monster - so help me, we all are now. And when I find Kyoko, its a monster she's gonna face all right. But I won't drag innocent people into this. I won't!"
Akemi gave her an appraising look. "You are angry," she stated. "You have not thrown away all your emotions away then?"
Akemi's words brought Sayaka back to that night in the church. Back to Kyoko's vicious mockery. Back to her helplessness and her pain. The fragile barriers she had began to construct snapped and the tides of her despair came flooding back in.
She span on her heel and began to walk away. She'd had more than enough of Akemi's mockery for today. So she did what she always did when she faced a problem she didn't what to do with: She ran away.
Akemi suddenly appeared in front of her.
"It was not a criticism, Miki Sayaka. We are magical girls after all. It is our honest feelings which give us strength."
Sayaka walked past her. "Stop talking to me like that. I've already heard enough of that patronising garbage from Kyoko."
"It is the truth. Both you and Tomoe Mami were strongest when you were following your code of justice. Sakura Kyoko remains strong because despite everything she has lost, she still believes in salvation."
Sayaka didn't trust Akemi wasn't insulting her in some way she hadn't figured out yet, but she did stop.
"Kyoko's fighting for salvation?" Sayaka gave a short, bitter laugh. "If you expect me to believe that, I suppose you think I'll believe you're getting power from your emotions too. Tell me, what honest feeling are you supposed to be fighting for?"
"Hope," said Akemi simply.
Sayaka turned around. She scrutinised Akemi's face, looking for a single sign she was lying: A hint of a smirk, a shadow of a raised eyebrow. When nothing revealed itself she tried looked into Akemi's dark eyes, expecting to see the usual hollowness. There was no emptiness there though. Akemi just looked tired.
For the first time since the aloof transfer student had walked through the door Sayaka wondered, properly wondered, what Akemi Homura's story was. Homura couldn't be any older than either her or Madoka, what tragedy had befallen her to leave her this way? Had she lost somebody important to her as Kyoko had?
Her thought of Kyoko stirred Sayaka's curiosity further. "How do you know Kyoko lost her family?" she asked.
Homura shrugged. "We have worked together...before. We learned a little of each other. I was planning on partnering with her again, but that is no longer an option, which is why I now require your assistance."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"It was not relevant."
"Like hell it wasn't!" Sayaka almost screamed.
"I needed you to trust me. You never would have accepted my help if you knew I had history, in a manner of speaking, with Sakura Kyoko."
"I don't trust you," Sayaka snapped back on instinct. She did not completely dismiss Homura's words though. The way she had been...perhaps Homura was right. If Sayaka had known she may well have refused the grief seed Homura had given her. She would have died that evening at the hands of Kyoko, and Kyosuke likely along with her.
She said none of this to Homura though, instead glowering at her more fiercely. "What makes you think I'm ever going to trust you now?"
"You are here and you are still talking to me," said Homura.
"That doesn't mean anything," Sayaka shot back.
"It means something," Homura insisted. "And while communication is still an option, tell me this: What can I do to allow you to trust me?"
This gave Sayaka pause. What did she want from Homura? She thought of asking for the truth, she could tell Homura was hiding something, but the truth had not been kind to her lately. Rescuing Kyosuke was the biggest priority right now, could she afford to satisfy her curiosity if what she heard rendered her useless? Perhaps what she wanted wasn't for Homura to give up all her secrets, but to see if she was capable of any honesty.
Sayaka took a deep breathe to calm herself, then spoke in a far more level tone. "I want to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer them. No half-truths or riddles either, just simple, direct answers. Think you can manage that?"
"Very well," Homura agreed. "Tomorrow I will be happy to -"
"Not tomorrow," Sayaka cut across her. "Now."
"This is hardly an appropriate locale," Homura mildly protested.
"I know just the spot," said Sayaka, nodding towards the comforting, greasy smell of the Ramen store.
Sayaka stopped at the store's entrance when she saw Homura wasn't following her.
"Hurry up, I don't know about you but I'm starving," Sayaka said, flashing a grin at the other girl, and for a brief moment, framed in the warm, beckoning light of the doorway, stood the loyal, kind-hearted girl of the month before, smiling without a care in the world.