Chapter 3: Love Thy Enemy
Homura was floating among a sea of voices.
She tried to discern them as the ethereal words flitted past her consciousness, just barely teasing the confines of her perception. Enough of them passed through her understanding to be heard, but they felt disjointed, incomplete.
"Jesus Christ. What happened to her?"
"I don't know where we go from here."
"Four broken vertebrae, seven broken ribs. Major internal organ damage and incredible loss of blood. It's a damn miracle she's still breathing. Did you patch up her lungs yourself?"
"You fucking told me she was alright!"
"The Reapers have been bombing the Industrial again. They're getting closer."
"Kyouko, just calm down-"
"Shut up! I fucking hate you!"
"We've lost contact with the outside. I don't think anything's getting in or out of this city anymore."
"We saved another band of stragglers today."
"So, are we alone out here now?"
"We've always been alone.
"But we aren't alone together, not anymore."
Consciousness.
Her eyes slid open almost as if they had anticipated the movement and prepared accordingly. A blank white ceiling glared back at her, stained a mysterious black at the corners. She knew she probably should have been panicking at that moment, waking up in a strange bed in an unfamiliar room with a small army of foreign machines whirring around her. Something was keeping her grounded, but it wasn't a form of self control.
Her body was simply too exhausted to express fear.
The turbine. The flaming around whipping past her. Trying to fly and utterly failing-she remembered it all of course. Homura screwed her eyes shut when the memory of feeling her spine crunch against concrete returned to her mind. Her last thought had been that she was probably dead.
Speaking of which, why wasn't she?
Swallowing with a parched throat and looking down, Homura inspected her body. A thick blanket was covering most of her person, but when she tried to twitch she found that she could still feel her toes and shift her legs from side to side without pain. She wiggled her fingers and swiveled her head around experimentally, trying to pinpoint any lasting points of damage. When she tensed and spun her head to the left, she caught side of something that made her pause.
Kyouko was sitting slumped in a small stool beside the bed, fast asleep. The girl's chin was dropping down to her chest as she breathed, her inhalations almost matching the pacemaking machine sitting on the bedside table. It was then that Homura noticed the IV drip stuck in her left arm that was running up somewhere behind her head. She shifted; her school clothes were gone too, replaced by a simple airy gown.
Deciding she could iron out all the little details later, Homura instead focused on the redhead snoring before her. Something about her had changed. Kyouko's shoulders looked burdened, tense, even as the girl slumbered. Her hands were clenched into tight balls on her lap. Her entire body seemed to be on edge, as if she were afraid of an imminent attack at any moment. Homura twisted her neck a bit to peer up at her old friend's face.
She sucked in a quick breath when her violet eyes saw the deep cut running across Kyouko's jaw, starting somewhere behind her ear and snaking down to end under the chin. It wasn't bleeding, but the wound was still partially bandaged by thin strips of cloth. What had happened to her?
"Kyou...ko..." Homura tried to say, her voice rasping from apparent underuse. She tried to prop herself up on one elbow and reach out to touch the redhead's cheek, but her strength hadn't returned to that point yet, and she fell back to the bed with a loud grunt.
That was enough to wake Kyouko from her uneasy sleep.
"Homura!" The taller girl shouted when she spotted her friend struggling on the mattress. Leaping to her feet and kicking the stool over in the process, she leaned over the bed and grabbed Homura by the shoulders, squeezing firmly in order to calm the girl down. The time traveler involuntarily spasmed and struggled against Kyouko's efforts, as her body shuddered from processing the damage it hadn't been conscious to experience.
"Hey. Hey, just get a grip, okay?" Kyouko tried to say comfortingly, but knowing she had probably failed miserably. She cupped the injured girl's face in one palm and forced eye contact, murmuring "You're okay...you're okay, Homura. Just calm down. It's all right."
A few moments later, Homura stopped twitching and stared up at her friend with two scared violet eyes, chest heaving from the near panic attack she had just endured.
"Mami! Anna! Get in here!" Kyouko called over her shoulder before focusing on Homura again.
"You're fine," The redhead assured her, trying to keep her calm until additional help arrived. "That was a very normal reaction, actually. It's common to panic after waking up like that."
Homura tried to croak out a response but found she couldn't do that just yet. So she opted to nod instead, reaching up to weakly caress the hand holding her cheek.
The door at the other side of the room was thrown open, crashing against the adjacent wall. Mami strode hurriedly through the opening, closely followed by a girl Homura didn't recognize. The newcomer was wearing a blood splattered apron, and a pair of similarly stained goggles were hanging around her neck. She fixed her with a set of bright green eyes.
Mami walked up to the foot of Homura's bed, and a perpetual silence settled over the entire room. The blonde simply stood there and stared at the girl laid out on the mattress before her, at an apparent loss for words. Homura just stared back, not knowing what to say, or even if there was anything she could possibly say. She didn't exactly understand what was going on, at the moment.
Finally, the blonde bit her lip and fell to her knees, sagging back to lean against the nearby wall for support. "You're awake. Goodness, you're actually awake. You made it, Homura. You made it..." Mami got out before she began openly sobbing, the girl with the bloody apron leaning down to help her back to her feet.
"Ma...mi..." She barely managed to rasp out, trying to reach out and touch the girl, if only to establish some sort of connection.
"I would advise you don't try to speak anymore," The unknown girl cut in, striding across the bed to check the mass of machines clicking behind the mattress. "Your vocal cords were seared by the fires. I managed to put them back together, but they're still tender. Don't push your luck; lord knows you've done that enough already."
Homura, though not understanding everything the girl was saying, closed her mouth and nodded, trusting the expertise. It was obvious that this girl was a healer; she could feel the restoration magic seeping from her.
"Anna Engel, by the way," The healer suddenly mentioned, and for the first time Homura noticed her vaguely European features. The platinum blonde hair was certainly a tipoff. "I saved your life. It's nice to meet you."
"I wish you would stop being pretentious with everyone who's guts you put back together," Kyouko grumbled from her stool, which she had recovered and was sitting on again, arms crossed.
Anna shrugged. "Once I've brought someone back from the brink of darkness, I think I'm entitled to a little ribbing."
"Enough," Mami interrupted, sounding extremely tired. Homura's eyes flitted down and she noticed the bandages winding around the blonde's leg. "I'm sure Homura is exhausted. We should give her more time to rest."
"Though I agree, I think it's time I explain just what is I brought Akemi-san here back from," The healer rebuked as she shrugged off her bloody apron and tossed it into the corner. "It's best that she understands what's going on sooner than later. Calms the brain to have more information, you know?"
Mami sighed, giving in surprisingly easily. "Alright, fine. But make it quick. Kyouko and I have a lot to tell her too. In private, I mean."
"Duly noted," Anna breezed as she pulled up a second stool and sat down by the bed. Reaching over, she checked Homura's pulse and then the quality of her IV before making eye contact with the injured girl.
"Evening, Akemi Homura," The German girl greeted. "How are you feeling? Thumbs up or thumbs down, please."
Blinking at the girl's forwardness, Homura flexed as best she could and stuck her thumb out at a perfectly horizontal angle, favoring neither up or down.
Anna saw the sign and laughed at it, slapping her knee. "You've got a sarcastic one here, Mami. I do like sarcastic people. I'm glad I managed to save this one."
"Arrogant to the end, I see," Kyouko smiled, brushing Homura's bangs out of her eyes. The injured girl cracked a weak smirk in response.
"I'm assuming you weren't planning to take the express elevator down from the Sky Engine?" Anna continued, smirking at her own poorly veiled joke.
"Hilarious," Kyouko said flatly. "Could you hurry up, please?"
"Now then," The healer forged on, clapping her hands together. "I'm going to explain the extent of the injuries your body sustained, down to the last detail. Don't worry, none of the damage is lasting," She added when Homura began slowly checking herself for surgical scars. "But I do hope you aren't squeamish."
"I wouldn't be friends with her if she was," Kyouko commented.
Homura and Anna both rolled their eyes. "Well, good." The healer reached into her coat and pulled out a clipboard holding a diagram of what looked to be a model of her patient's body. Homura stared at the symbols and markings on the paper but failed to understand any of it, even with her hyper organized mind.
"I wasn't there to witness the injuries take place, but Mami gave me enough information to imagine," Anna began, starting by circling a seemingly random spot on the diagram. "When she found you, the lower half of your spine was crushed, and most of your ribs were broken. You had suffered major organ damage, and blood loss had reached critical levels. I was told that Mami had to perform some emergency healing in order to be able to carry you here, lest your body fall apart from the movement."
Everyone else in the room cringed at the idea, but Anna kept talking. "Once you were under my care, you had four shattered vertebrae and seven broken ribs. Normally, I would have been able to heal even that much damage with my magic, but there were...complications."
Homura gulped, awaiting the explanation behind these "complications." Not that she didn't have any idea as to what it might be. But she didn't want her theory to be true just yet, not until she was forced to admit that it was. Underneath the sheets, she managed to clench her fist. Kyouko's hand running through her hair continuously helped a little, too.
Anna cleared her throat before continuing. "While I was working with you, something was blocking my magic. Something foreign, also magical in nature. It was almost as if you were contaminated by some sort of aura, one that muted all other powers within its vicinity."
Homura suddenly remembered those cobalt blue eyes, and shut her own again, biting her lip at the discomfort of the memory.
The healer noticed the movement but did nothing beyond arcing a single eyebrow. "Your body wouldn't have taken as much initial damage under normal circumstances," She said. "But your own regenerative abilities were stemmed by the same anomaly. Did something happen, before you fell from the turbine...?"
The injured girl looked into the healer's emerald green eyes, for a moment considering telling her the entire truth. It wasn't as if she was entirely mute, after all; they could still communicate through telepathy. But Anna hadn't pressed for that. The girl was actually more considerate than she let on.
Finally, Homura shook her head, hair falling back over her eyes.
Anna simply nodded, not pressing any further. "If you say so, then. I managed to reform your muscles and organs, but they're still sensitive. They've never been used in that state, after all. Get some rest, try not to speak for another day or so, and don't fall out of anymore buildings, if you can help it. Now, if you will excuse me, I have other patients." And with that, she rose and strode out of the room, leaving the metal door wide open.
Mami sighed at the healer's departure. "Sorry," She apologized on another's behalf. "She's always been like that."
Homura just stared at the blonde blankly.
[I suppose this is the part where I ask just what in the world is going on,] The time traveler finally murmured to them all.
Kyouko smiled bitterly. "I was hoping to avoid this part."
[You guys are all cut up,] The black haired girl continued, gingerly gesturing at the two of them. [Did something happen?]
The redhead sitting beside her sighed, a long, drawn out sound. "It's a very long story."
"Kyouko and I could send you a memory transfer, if you'd like," Mami offered, reaching down and picking up Anna's stool before sitting in it. "But I don't know if your mind is strong enough yet to absorb the information."
Homura winced at the idea and shook her head. Even telepathy was putting a strain on her mental faculties at the moment. [Yes, I would prefer spoken words,] She admitted.
"Okay," Mami agreed, as accommodating as ever. For once, Homura appreciated the blonde's motherly disposition. The blonde reached up to toy with her signature hair for a moment, as if to prepare herself for the words she was about to speak.
"A few minutes after I left the Sky Engine, someone attacked it. Someone with a contract."
Homura nodded. She was aware of them much. After that, though...
"I saw the missiles coming before they hit," The blonde said, regret lacing her tone. "I transformed and tried to cut them off, but I miscalculated. I landed three intersections away."
Mami pursed her lips as the memories played back in her mind again. "The turbine fell out of the sky. I tried to stop it, Homura. I really did..." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I couldn't stop the missiles. I failed, and now you're..." She gritted her teeth and gestured at her friend's person, eyes filled with obvious regret.
Homura didn't think anything back, but she did send a brush of forgiveness the blonde's way. She should have known that the older girl would blame herself for what had transpired; it was exactly like her.
"The Market District is a wasteland now," Mami said darkly, linking her fingers together and resting her chin on them. She looked tired. So tired. "I found you somewhere in the rubble, fixed what I could, and got the hell out of there. And I would very much like to say that the story ends there, but..." She turned her head and looked expectantly at Kyouko, who had uncharacteristically maintained her silence until now.
The redhead withdrew her hand from Homura's hair, which left an oddly empty ache where their skin had touched, but the time traveler wasn't about to ask her to stroke her hair again. Kyouko ran a finger through her own hair and undid the black ribbon keeping her ponytail back, shaking her head to let it all flow free. Homura found herself briefly distracted by the crimson locks. She'd always thought her friend looked better with her hair down.
"The explosions woke me up," The redhead began. "I tried to reach you but you were out, so I contacted Mami instead. I wanted to go over there and help, but she told me you were just fine." She spoke the last few words with obvious derision, throwing a dagger-like glare in the blonde's direction.
Mami frowned unpleasantly. "I did what was necessary."
"You lied to me."
"The stadium was under attack!"
"But she was dying, Mami!"
[Enough!] Homura forcefully interjected, the mental effort taking a lot out of her. She immediately began breathing more heavily from the subconscious exertion alone. The other two girls ceased their bickering abruptly, if only for Homura's sake.
"Anyways," Kyouko picked up where she had left off, "Mami told me to head to the Gathering instead and lock down the situation there. According to Eru, they were under attack. I thought it might be Demons or something, but when I got there...it was probably the last thing you'd expect."
A pervasive silence held the room in its grip for a moment, as Homura waited for the redhead to elaborate. Mami sat wordlessly as well, seeming strangely uninterested in the topic at hand.
Kyouko breathed out heavily through her nose. "Magical girls. Federation magical girls. They surrounded the whole stadium and started firing on the girls below them. The rest of them were like sitting ducks, stuck out on the grass like that. Eru and Shiro were in the control booth, but they were snuck up on too. They had to jump out the fucking window to make it out alive. It was a total surprise attack, Homura. Nobody knew how it happened, or even why. We still don't."
The injured girl clenched her teeth as she tried to calmly process the jarring words. [These...assassins...they were among the early arrivals?] Homura asked, eyes narrowing. She couldn't half believe what she was being told, but not much would come out of doubting the information she was given.
"They blended in with the crowd. There was nothing to distinguish them from the other girls, after all," Mami confirmed. Her eyes looked hollow. "The Gathering was meant to facilitate peace between magical girls. We had no reason to expect unwarranted violence."
"Eru noticed that about a thousand of the girls were missing," Kyouko growled. An obvious air of tension had settled over all three of them. "She tried finding them telepathically, and she did. But it was too late by then. I..." She paused, closing her eyes and reaching up to rub at her temples in distress. "I dropped down through the dome and threw up a barrier, but I couldn't save everyone. Someone else grabbed the strongest teleporter who was still breathing, and we all blinked out of there."
Still breathing... Homura thought, realizing the implications of the statement. Turning to Mami with eyes that were surprisingly sharp considering her physical state, she asked, [Were there...deaths?]
The blonde gazed back at her, twin molten irises filled with the first emotion Homura had seen in them today; sorrow.
"We lost eight hundred and seventy two girls in the stadium," The older girl ground out, the numbers grinding against all of their ears. "Plus injuries. Anna is taking care of those, mostly. I didn't know most of them, but..." The blonde's voice trailed off as she lost the will to continue elaborating.
She didn't have to. Homura visibly shuddered at the numbers. Eight hundred and seventy two. So many dead. It was a truly staggering sum. She thought of the ten thousand who had attended the previous Gathering and realized that nearly a tenth of them were now gone. The idea made her shiver again. Pushing the thought out of her mind, she tried to focus on something more immediate. Looking around, she took in the tiled walls surrounding her, and something suddenly occurred to her.
Frowning, she transmitted, [Where are we?]
Kyouko smirked weakly. "Finally asking the pertinent questions, I see," She quipped, but there was none of the familiar playful energy behind the remark.
Homura smiled back to acknowledge the partial return to form.
Mami crossed her legs, and then her arms. "This is a worker's complex deep inside the Industrial District, close to the sea, in the middle of the Millenium Factories. I had Kyouko teleport the girls here, and we've been holed up in this place ever since."
Confusion crossed the time traveler's face. [Ever since...how long have I been out?]
Kyouko bit her lip. "One week."
Homura's eyes flew open in shock. An entire week? She had been expected two days, perhaps even three, but seven? She'd never been knocked out for that long before.
[Why...] She wondered, still struggling with the implications of all the time she had missed, [Why are we still stuck here? Is something keeping us from leaving?]
She noticed that the other two shared a glance, something unknown traveling between them. Mami reached forward and brushed the back of her hand along Homura's forehead, closing her eyes and probing the injured girl's levels of fatigue.
"You're tired," The blonde said, leaning back again. "We've dumped enough information into you for now. Get some rest, and we'll explain the rest tomorrow. I promise."
Homura wanted to protest, or say that she was fine, but then she would have been lying. Exhaustion was dragging its never ending claws through her bones. Anna was right; she may be physically sound, but her body was still worn from the abuse it had weathered.
[Okay,] She relented, mental voice already slurred by the need for sleep. [But you'd better tell me everything.]
Kyouko smiled softly down at her. Homura thought about how rare it was to see that look on the redhead's face. "I don't break my promises, champ." Homura's eyes fluttered closed.
She thought she felt a butterfly kiss on her cheek a moment later, but she couldn't be sure, because then the darkness took her.
The next time her eyes opened, she felt much stronger.
Blinking away the residues of sleep still clinging to the edges of her vision, Homura slid her elbows underneath her and found that she now had the strength to prop herself up. Looking around and noting that she was alone in the room this time, she took in her surroundings, have been too distracted to do so earlier.
It looked a little different. It must have been night the last time she awoke here, because now an obvious sunlight was filtering in through the small windows dotting the walls. Other beds lined the tiles in a row that stretched up before her until ending at the door. With a small measure of discomfort, she realized that the one furthest from her was stained with old blood. She could hear a muted roar coming from behind the closed door, the familiar sound of a thick crowd. The room looked very similar to the nurse's office at her school, to be frank. Without the curtains. Or the blood.
Tensing her muscles, Homura gingerly began to focus on moving her limbs. She didn't exactly trust her motor functions anymore. However, she was surprised to find that she could slide her legs out from under the sheets and onto the floor with relative ease. Deciding to push her boundaries further, she pushed herself off the mattress and managed to position herself on its edge, the soft surface creaking under her now concentrated weight. Her muscles twitched and burned a little at the exercise, but she otherwise felt fine. A wave of relief washed over Homura. Progress.
She was startled out of her thoughts when the door creaked open, and Kyouko stepped gingerly through it under the assumption that the room's occupant was still asleep. She stopped in her tracks, however, the moment her crimson irises made contact with a pair of violet ones.
"Homura," Kyouko said, sounding surprised. "You're up. And moving. Do you feel alright?"
"Yes, I feel much better," She responded, once again pleased to find that her voice had returned somewhat. It still sounded dry and hoarse, but it didn't pain her to speak. "Are you going to call Anna in here again?"
The redhead didn't move from her spot by the door, instead looking the other girl up and down thoroughly. Remembering how disheveled she must look at the moment, Homura felt slightly self conscious. "No. She said you'd be up by around now anyway. Besides, she has more important injuries to take care of."
Homura was about to ask just why others were injured even more badly than her, but Kyouko cut her off by finally crossing the room and standing in front of her, leaning down to gently grasp her shoulders. "Come on," The redhead murmured, her voice still enthused with that uncharacteristic gentleness. "Let's see if you can stand up."
The injured girl gulped slightly at the proposition. She didn't know if her legs held the strength to support her weight just yet. Then again, she wouldn't be getting anywhere without walking. Nodding in affirmation, Homura reached up to grab Kyouko's wrists for support before attempting to stand.
Thankfully enough, there were no complications. Homura wobbled a bit as she stood on her own heels for the first time in eight days, but Kyouko was there to grab and steady her. Another rush of relief filled her head. She didn't know why, but she had been terrified that she would be permanently disfigured somehow. A rare grin spreading across her face, Homura looked up and smiled at the redhead she was holding onto for support, feeling strangely giddy.
Kyouko, who was holding her at arms length, smiled back, but it was tinged with something darker.
"Jesus," She sighed. "Even after falling out of a fucking turbine, you're absolutely gorgeous."
"What?"
Kyouko didn't answer, instead tightening her grip on Homura before pulling the girl in for a tight hug. The formerly giggling girl could only widen her eyes in surprise when their bodies pressed together, the redhead's nose burying itself into her neck. She was also made uncomfortably aware of her lack of undergarments, seeing as her hospital gown was her only current attire.
"Sorry," The redhead mumbled against the exposed flesh she was breathing into. "I held myself back yesterday because I was afraid I'd hurt you, but...god, Homura, don't ever do that to me again."
Homura, feeling a bit awkward at the sudden gesture, didn't react at first. So Kyouko had been worried about her. She felt strangely happy about the revelation. But it was only natural, of course. They were close friends after all. She would have been hysteric should the same thing have happened to the fiery redhead, though she may have been a bit more reserved about her relief. Closing her eyes, she thought back to all the times she had woken up in a hospital bed with no one there to greet her, or to hold her like this. Having something like that...she didn't know why, but it comforted her confused soul immensely.
Reaching up, she surprised her friend by pulling her close with her own arms, hands twining around the redhead's waist. "Yeah. I know. I'm sorry."
"I didn't think I'd be that worried," Kyouko murmured quietly, sounding all too timid compared to her normally brazen attitude. "I was more hysteric that Mami was. I haven't been that scared to lose something since I lost my family."
Running entirely on instinct now, Homura reached up and drew her fingers gently through Kyouko's thick hair. "I'm sorry," She whispered again. A feeling of affectionate exasperation grew inside her chest, despite her best efforts. She was the injured one here, but here she was comforting her supposed protector.
You're always such a pain in the ass, She thought with a small smile.
Kyouko sniffed a bit before finally pulling herself back from her friend. "And now you're apologizing for something," She giggled nervously to herself, shaking her head. "Man, the world's really gone to hell."
Homura brought a hand up and drew her finger along the bandages running along the redhead's jaw, making the taller girl shiver. "Has it, really?"
The spear wielder frowned back down at her. Then she sighed. "Yeah," She said simply. "It has."
"Tell me."
"I will," The other girl assured her, letting go of her and taking a few steps back. "But first, a change of clothes. Then breakfast. You've had nothing but raw oatmeal teleported into your stomach for the past week. I think it's about time you had a proper meal."
Homura put a hand to her stomach and was shocked to find that she was starving.
"Is this how you feel all the time?" She asked dumbly, looking Kyouko in the eye.
The redhead cracked a wide smile, the best thing Homura had seen in a week.
"More or less."
Thirty minutes and a hot bowl of oatmeal later (Homura had never eaten so ravenously in her life) she felt a bit more prepared to venture beyond the confines of the hospital room. Kyouko had watched her in amusement as she wolfed down the bowl and resisted the urge to ask for seconds, even when they were offered. She felt strangely self conscious in front of the scrutinizing redhead, which was quite a silly concern in retrospect, since she probably looked less than orderly at the moment.
Shifting slightly, Homura picked at the clothes she had been given. Kyouko had tossed her a simply gray shirt and black cargo pants. The shirt fit her, luckily enough, but the pants hung on her slim waist. The redhead had eyed this detail and muttered something about those same pants fitting her just fine, but Homura had been too tired to make fun of her for it.
Turning, she looked at herself in the mirror.
I look like a freerunner, she thought absently. Well, besides the ribbon still miraculously clinging to her hair.
"Come on," Kyouko said as she walked up to her. "We're going to the roof." Reaching down, she grabbed Homura's arm and slung it over her shoulder. The injured girl felt a little guilty about having to rely on someone else to move around, but it was more of an issue with her pride than anything else.
"Sorry," Homura muttered, if only to patch up the humiliation of not being able to walk.
"Easy," Kyouko said back. "You fell out of a Sky Engine. I think you're entitled t. A little coddling."
Shuffling to the other side of the room, Kyouko kicked the door open, revealing the hallway stretching ominously behind it. They began walking, making their way past the rusting, corroded metal walls. Dim lights illuminated the hallways at certain intervals, but the area was far from well lit. Homura tilted her head and strained to pick up other signs of life; she could definitely hear murmuring voices echoing somewhere else within the complex, but she couldn't discern who, or how many.
"Where are we, again?" She asked the taller girl, who seemed to be lost in thought.
"What?" The redhead blinked, looking down at her. "Oh. Well, like Mami said, this is a worker's complex in the Industrial. It was supposedly built to house a bunch of people while they were building a lot of the factories around here, since it was more practical than sending everyone home each night. Improved net efficiency, or something like that. Don't worry, it's abandoned now."
Homura nodded. She knew through inference that there must be a large number of magical girls here. It was relieving to know that there was no human presence around to endanger them further. But why were they endangered to begin with? That was the million dollar question at the moment, she supposed. She chose not to press Kyouko for further explanation, though. The redhead obviously intended to answer her burgeoning questions in due time.
"Through here," Kyouko murmured as they turned, and Homura found herself confronted with a flight of stairs. Gulping, she tilted her head back to figure out how far they went, and felt her heart skip when she saw too many steps to count.
Kyouko looked at her sympathetically, a realization that both irritated and indulged her. "This medical wing is on the second floor," She said apologetically. "The building has twelve levels, and the lifts are broken..."
"I..." Homura mumbled as she continued staring up. She hated herself particularly today. For crying out loud, she couldn't even ascend a set of stairs anymore! It needled her endlessly to truly understand how thoroughly weak she had become thanks to her injuries. She considered attempting to use magic to finish the rest of the journey, but a quick self-inventory told her that her powers were still locked deep within her soul, chained by whatever mysterious force Kota had unleashed upon them over a week ago.
Finally, Kyouko surprised her by sighing. "Hold still," She said, giving no further warning as she bent down and scooped the shorter girl clear off her feet so that she was being carried bridal style.
"Kyouko!" Homura exclaimed, her voice cracking in the most embarrassing way possible, though she furiously tried to convince herself that this was due to her damaged vocal cords. "What are you doing?"
"You aren't strong enough to make the trip," The redhead shrugged nonchalantly, but there was an obvious mischief layering her tone. "And I can't fly like you. But if you have a better alternative, I'd be happy to hear it."
Homura mentally stewed as Kyouko began carrying her up the stairs, her footsteps clicking against the studded metal steps. They both ascended in silence for a few more minutes before the injured girl finally sighed in defeat, making the redhead carrying her laugh heartily.
"Not a word about this to anyone, you hear me?" The time traveler glowered, the threat feeling half hearted even to her.
Kyouko smirked down at her, and Homura was made painfully aware of how close they were. "Oh come on. You know I'm great at keeping secrets."
"No, you aren't," Homura said bluntly.
The redhead just shrugged again, her textbook response whenever she lost an argument.
They made the rest of the climb up in silence, the only sound coming from Kyouko's footsteps and the continued murmured echoes ringing softly off the corroded walls. The stairs spiraled, and Homura realized that they must be heading up some sort of tower. She wanted to ask the redhead about it, but something compelled her to remain silent instead. Kyouko didn't seem to be having any trouble holding her for so long, though this could mostly be attributed to her magical nature. Still, she was the kind of person who would gripe about even the smallest inconvenience, so it surprised Homura to find that the redhead was being accommodating for her sake.
So she can be mature too, Homura thought, closing her eyes. They were already getting tired from staring at the light glaring off the walls. She suddenly felt somewhat miffed. Why can't she be like this all the time?
Kyouko's foot slipped on one of the steps at that moment, and a loud curse bounced off the metal walls, echoing up and down the entire chamber and shattering the peaceful atmosphere.
Well, I guess it wouldn't be special if she was.
"Stupid shoes have no traction," Kyouko muttered from above her. A few minutes later and she spoke again. "Homura, wake up. We're here."
"Huh?" The smaller girl asked, blinking. She hadn't realized that she'd dozed off at some point. The redhead's warmth was intoxicating.
"I said that we're here," Kyouko repeated herself, setting Homura back down on her feet. The injured girl stumbled for a moment before leaning against the wall the support herself. They had reached the height of the stairs, and now there was nothing but a thick looking door before them. "Don't worry, you can sit once we go out there. We'll be talking for a while anyway." The redhead eyed her friend for a moment longer.
"Brace yourself," Was the only thing she could think of adding before she shoved the door open.
It swung aside on aging hinges, the screech making them both cringe. The first thing Homura saw beyond it was a permanently gray sky, with thick clouds swirling around its circumference like a legion of brooding sentinels. Stepping gingerly out into the open, she realized that they were atop some sort of watch tower, several stories in the air. Turning to peer over the walls, she could see rows and rows of flatter buildings sprawling across the landscape, everything from apartments to storage facilities to food distribution centers. And beyond that, the ominous horizon of the factories, the Industrial District's identifying mark.
Kyouko crinkled her nose. "Even up here, the air is absolute shit," She grumbled to herself, turning to close the door behind them. Homura raised her nose and sniffed to find that the redhead was right. The atmosphere was clogged with the aftereffects of manufacturing.
"So," Homura initiated, having fully awoken from her stupor and feeling rather impatient to have the answers given to her, "Are you going to tell me why in the world we're all the way out here?"
Kyouko stared at her. "Go look over the edge, that way," She replied simply, pointing somewhere vaguely west.
Narrowing her eyes, Homura crossed to the other side of the watchtower, a rather simple feat considering that it was hardly ten feet in diameter. Reaching the other side and placing her hands on the chrome plated railing, she looked out over the landscape stretching out before her.
Her irises dilated when they understood what they were seeing.
Destruction. Everywhere. It had been blocked from her vision at first, but now there was nothing to keep her from taking in the burned out shells of buildings scattering the earth, stretching almost as far as she could see. Only the factories behind her were still operational, everything else in front of her blackened and smashed into rubble. They were surrounded by an effective wasteland. Smoke was still curling slowly out of some of the ruined structures, making Homura wonder if the sky was gray because of the endless fires which must have raged here. In the distance, where the metropolitan area began, she saw the carcass of a massive skyscraper, its windows and finishing stripped off, nothing but its crumbling superstucture left behind. It looked like a broken tooth standing jagged inside of a mouth ravaged by disease.
"No..." Homura whispered, absolutely taken aback.
"You don't have to look if you don't want to," Kyouko said, stepping forward to join her.
"What..." She searched for words as a gust of wind traveled past them, carrying ash and little bits of debris with it. "What happened here?"
The redhead took a deep breath, preparing to launch into a narrative.
"After we brought all the girls here," Kyouko said from behind her, "The same ones who attacked us grouped together with others. It was a god damn army of magical girls. They started attacking parts of the city indiscriminately, searching for targets. Federation members were still arriving to attend the Gathering, and a lot of them were caught out on the streets with no idea on what was going on. Mami organized some emergency volunteers and went out to reclaim some of them, but..." The redhead suddenly shivered, even though it wasn't cold atop the tower.
"They're targeting other magical girls, Homura. And we have no idea why. But the scariest thing is that they aren't even trying to be careful about it. They found a girl in a fucking skyscraper and they almost blew the whole thing apart trying to get her. And they did. I went with one of the retrieval squads, and the shit they did to kill her..." To Homura's great shock, Kyouko started trembling openly, clenching her fists.
"Kyouko..." She said softly.
The redhead shook her head violently, slapping herself on the cheeks. "It's okay. I'm fine," She said, her voice regaining that hard edge. "Anyways, that's why we're still holed up in this worker's complex. If anyone steps a foot out of this place, they're likely to get vaporized within the hour. We have girls with illusionary magic working around the clock to keep this area off the radar, and so far it's been working. They bombed some sectors close to here, but they never came much nearer than that. We think they're focusing on getting to the girls still trickling in who don't know about the situation."
Homura's mind was struggling to remain calm in spite of the horrifying information she was being presented with. So the federation was under attack by a force they knew nothing about and had no countermeasures against. Their only known goal was the extermination of other magical girls, and for that reason they were unable to move from their current position, for the sake of safety. She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples, another habit she had picked up over the years, her brain throbbing. This was all getting to be a bit much for her.
"Is all of Mitakihara...?" She trailed off, looking at the redhead and hoping she would pick up on her meaning.
Kyouko looked up and shook her head. "No, the entire city hasn't been affected yet," She said. "Mitakihara's massive. Heck, it's pretty much its own state. There were a shit ton of them, but not nearly enough to lock down the whole city. Based on what we've seen, they're only focusing on the areas along the coastline, probably because that's where they think they'll find more of us. But that's still a seriously big area."
"What about the government?" Homura asked, starting to feel angry at the gravity of the situation. "I doubt they'd sit back and let some invisible army wreck the city. They'd send in the army, they'd send in guns. Where's the iron? Why aren't they trying to do something about this?"
In response, Kyouko pointed in the distance, far beyond the ruined tooth-like skyscraper. "Look," She spoke, waiting for the other girls to figure it out.
Homura turned and stared in the direction she was being shown, her enhanced eyes straining to make out details. Finally, she saw something that answered her question.
"Miasma," She muttered, gritting her teeth.
The redhead nodded solemnly. "Right. But it's different, somehow. Like it's separate from the kind that the Demons produce. It's acting like a wall, compelling regular people not to go past it. That kind of mental persuasion isn't quite strong enough to deter the army, of course, but anyone who tries to make their way through the fog always finds themselves in the same place they started. This applies to both sides of the miasma, although humans seem to be able to leave, and just that. Believe me, we've tried to solve it. Barring something magical, nothing's getting in or out of this part of the city."
Homura gripped the chrome plated railing as hard as her weakened fingers would let her. "How large is the radius of the miasma?"
She heard Kyouko hesitating to answer, but the redhead responded honestly anyways. "Around two hundred square miles."
The injured girl's breath caught in her throat. "Impossible."
"Well, we had our best far seers measure it," Kyouko sighed. "So I'd say it's pretty accurate."
"There's never been one that large before," Homura found herself growling, spinning around to glare at the redhead. "The biggest one was twenty square miles, at best. You're telling me this one's more than ten times that? There's no way Demons could muster something this big."
Kyouko stared back at her almost impassively. "Who said it had to be Demons?"
"Then who else-" She began to counter, before the answer presented itself to her.
"The Incubators," Homura breathed, fists going slack.
The redhead nodded gravely. "No one's seen Kyubey since the day before the attack on the stadium," She said darkly. "And none of the other girls have been able to contact their own contractors through telepathy. That's quite the coincidence, isn't it? Their entire fucking race cuts us off, and the next day a literal army of magical girls descends on Mitakihara. It's obvious that the Incubators are behind this, and I'd be willing to bet that they're responsible for this ridiculous miasma, too. They're fencing us in, Homura. Why, I don't know. But I sure as hell know that they have no qualms about killing us for their own needs."
"But what could they possibly gain from slaughtering magical girls?" Homura demanded, not satisfied with the logic behind her circumstances. "We're the ones hunting demons and supplying them with Grief Seeds. If their aim is to combat entropy, it doesn't make any sense..."
Kyouko sighed, that tired raggedness coming back into her tone again. "Do think we haven't already thought about all that already?" She asked softly. "We have no idea why any of this is happening. All we know is that they kill their own kind, take the Soul Gem, wash rinse and repeat."
"The Soul Gem?" Homura asked, stiffening. "What do you mean?"
The redhead closed her eyes in deep thought and dragged a hand through her hair. "Oh, right. You don't know about that yet. You haven't ever seen a magical girl die, have you?"
Homura was about to rebuke the girl for how ridiculous that statement was before she realized that no, she hadn't. At least, not in this timeline. Except one.
"What about Sayaka?" She asked.
Kyouko pursed her lips at the sudden reemergence of a bitter memory. "That's different, I think," She said. "We've never been able to explain why she suddenly disappeared, but the logical conclusion is that she's dead. Normally though, when a magical girl is killed while she's using her magic, her Soul Gem is usually left behind."
"How do you know that?" Homura frowned.
The redhead ran another finger through her locks. It must be her equivalent to rubbing her temples, Homura thought. "I've seen plenty of girls die in the past week, Homura. In fact, I don't know how I'm still sane after seeing all that. But it has given me experience. Unless the body is totally obliterated, the Gem will survive its owner's passing. The only trend we've managed to decipher is that the Gems are always taken from the corpse before they move on."
Homura shut her eyes. "Any reason why they might be doing that?"
Kyouko spread her arms wide, a universal gesture of ignorance. "No idea."
Shaking her head, Homura turned back to stare out at the wreckage littering the ground before her, but found that she couldn't look at that either without coming up with questions she couldn't hope to answer. Turning back around and falling onto a bench that was bolted into the floor by the wall, she stuck a hand to her forehead and tried to think, tried to make some sense of the mess of information. But no matter how hard she focused her tired mind, she couldn't come up with a solution. She knew too little, there was too little, heck, even she was too little. Just a speck dirtying a vast universe that seemed to be totally against her happiness. If only she had a clue, something to start with. But there was nothing of the sort. Unless...
She paused. It had been beyond her comfort zone to bring up the topic in front of Mami and Anna, but it might finally be time to tell someone about it. Something inside of her wanted to keep the information hidden for the sake of her own personal comfort, but Homura knew that wasn't an option anymore, not when a mysterious army was killing the federation off one by one, not when they were trapped in a never-ending miasmic bowl with no help in sight. No, she had to cast aside her demons, even if it meant the worst. She believed in sacrifice, after all. Everyone knew that much.
"Kyouko," Homura murmured suddenly, not looking up from her head's bowed position.
The girl in question crossed her arms again and leaned back against the opposite wall. "What?"
She paused again, hesitating for a moment before forging on. "I don't know if this will help to figure anything out," Homura began, "But I just feel like the others should know about it. In fact, now that I think about it, this will probably add more questions than it erases, but I wouldn't be comfortable keeping it to myself. I couldn't bring it up in front of Mami earlier, but..."
Kyouko watched her, waiting for her to continue.
Homura bit her lip. "Before the turbine fell, I ran into Kota."
The redhead's eyes went wide immediately, and her skin paled. Reaching out behind her, she grabbed onto the railing for support.
"No," She muttered. "There's no way. You're telling me she's mixed up in all this shit?"
"She cornered me when I wasn't paying attention," Homura continued, painfully disregarding her friend's obvious shock; it was best to get al her words out at once. "She grabbed me and locked my powers so that I wouldn't be able to fly. Then she blew the whole place up."
Kyouko bared her teeth as she put two and two. "So that's why your body was so heavily damaged," She seethed. "And why it took you so long to recover. Jesus, I never thought we'd have to deal with that one again. If she was at the Sky Engine, it's obvious that she's part of all of this. Though it doesn't make sense for her to be there by herself."
"Of course it does," Homura replied miserably. "The attacks were organized, but one rogue girl wouldn't be accounted for. Besides, she wasn't alone. At least one other girl was there to bring down the turbine. This was all about a personal vendetta. It just happens to be tangled up with...whatever it is they want."
Kyouko just shook her head in disbelief. "Well, you were right," She admitted. "That just confuses this whole thing even further. But I'm happy you told me. You normally wouldn't have."
Homura managed a small smirk. "Our circumstances aren't exactly normal, at the moment. Will you be relaying this information to Mami?"
The redhead rolled that around in her head. "I'll have to. It might end up helping us understand what's going on, after all." She paused for a moment to make eye contact with her friend. "But I won't if you don't want me to. I know this really bothers you."
"Of course it does," Homura snorted. "But I'm not very important in the grand scheme of things anymore, am I? I know that it's necessary. You should tell Mami."
Kyouko eyed her for a second longer, seeming to ponder something.
"I think you're important," She said simply, standing back up and walking over to Homura. "And I also don't think you should be so quick to bury what you want. Sometimes it hurts other people to see you do that. And besides...you never know when you'll get another chance."
Homura looked up at the redhead and suddenly thought about all those boxes sitting stacked against the walls of her home, assuming they were still there and not burned to dust. She thought about all the cities she had wanted to visit, and all the things she had wanted to experience there. A dream that had seemed so imminent, barring a few complications, that had suddenly become virtually unreachable, because here she was again. Trapped by her obligations as a magical girl. Had she been a normal human, she would have had every reason to run, because she wouldn't have known about the Incubators, wouldn't have known the federation, and most importantly, wouldn't have known Kyouko. But did she really want that? All she wanted was an escape, yet she was trapped by both the things she loved and hated about herself.
Forcing her exhausted legs to stand, Homura surprised Kyouko by reaching up and pulling her in for their second hug that day. It wasn't tight, and there was nothing desperate or emotional behind it like the last one, but light, almost fragile. After a moment of confused flailing, the redhead responded by holding her and patting Homura awkwardly on the head, unaccustomed to shows of affection that she hadn't initiated.
"Hey," Kyouko muttered, running a finger through the shorter girl's midnight locks. "Are you feeling alright? We should go back, if you aren't."
Homura didn't answer, instead letting out a pent up breath she had been holding ever since falling out of the turbine. If she couldn't guarantee her own happiness, she could at least secure another's. She had been foolish to tell Mami that there was nothing left for her in Mitakihara anymore, and the blonde had been right to tell her that she was wrong. Kyouko was the one thing she had left to stand for, here in this city filled with living nightmares and their hunters, and despite the redhead's earlier criticism of her habit of self sacrifice, Homura quietly resolved to protect her from any future harm. Her life as a magical girl had already taken two of her loved ones from her.
She wouldn't allow it to take another.
"Speaking of which," Homura spoke suddenly, looking up at Kyouko, "Where is Mami?"
The redhead blanched slightly. "She's...busy, at the moment."
"So, are we going in or what?" Shiro asked, filled with restless energy.
"Shush," Mami quieted the girl, holding a finger to her lips. "They haven't made a move yet. We'll lose the element of surprise if we strike first."
"Who cares?" The half blind girl muttered to herself, flexing her gloved hands. "We can take them."
The four of them were currently sitting in a room on the highest floor of an apartment building on the edges of the Industrial District, fairly close to the miasmic wall surrounding the metropolis that hugged the coastline. Mami truly lamented her choice to take shelter in the worker's complex far deeper within the District; their position effectively sandwiched them against the sea, with no other avenues of escape. It had been exceedingly difficult to make it even this far from the coast, deep behind enemy lines.
"They've been sitting around doing nothing for quite a while," Murmured a third voice. Eru. The electric girl was sitting under a window overlooking the street below them, peeking just over the sill to eye a building cross the street from them. She had to strain; the entire room was filled with dust and debris, and the window was less than clean. "Do you think they're waiting for orders, or something?"
"Could be," Said a fourth voice, a teleporter named Maki. None of them were in battle form just yet, in an effort to disguise their magical signature from the enemies sitting on the rooftop across from them. "Maybe they're afraid to hurt civilians?"
Shiro snorted softly. "As if. They've had no qualms about killing innocent people before. What makes you think they'd start restraining themselves now?"
Mami pursed her lips at the unfortunate truth behind the statement. The Reapers truly didn't seem to care if anyone was caught in the crossfire when they attacked, a disregard which had resulted in countless human casualties in the past week alone. It had horrified the blonde to realize this, but now she could only sit and mull numbly over it, another problem in a life filled with endless complications.
Putting a hand to the floor, Mami joined Eru in peeking discreetly through the window. She quickly spotted the muted silhouettes atop the nearby rooftop, apparently inactive. It was a group of hostile magical girls, sitting atop a building housing about forty people, according to Shiro's rough estimate. Once the miasma had gone up, effectively trapping everything within its range, magical girls hadn't been the only thing it netted. Several thousand civilians had been caught up in the rush as well, and many of them were either missing or in hiding. Mami tried not to think about the ones who weren't accounted for, instead focusing on the ones who were most certainly alive, such as the ones cowering in the building across from them.
Of course, they also had a second objective.
There was a magical girl, somewhere among the crowd of forty people. Another one of Shiro's plateau of perceptional gifts was the acute ability to sense magic, and the girl had quickly located their target, thus leading them to this apartment building. However, a complication had presented itself, that being the kill squad sitting on top of the building in question, which had forced Mami's own group to hide in the building across the street until an opportunity presented itself.
It had been Mami's idea to form groups of girls to go out and rescue possible stragglers within the city, and she had been pleased to find plenty of volunteers to choose from. Her only concern was that a strain of bloodlust seemed to run through most of the girls who volunteered; Mami hoped to establish peace between themselves and the Reapers if possible, and wanted to prevent violence as much as possible. An endeavor which was proving to be increasingly difficult, considering the enemies' apparent disregard for collateral damage.
"They're moving," Eru said suddenly, squinting through the stained glass in front of her.
Mami looked up to confirm what the younger girl had said. It was true; the silhouettes were now moving around rapidly, heading for the edges of the roof.
"Get ready," She said to Maki, who nodded and began to concentrate, preparing to jump them into the building when told to. Mami palmed her own Soul Gem and stared intently out the window, watching the shadows.
"Finally, some action," Shiro grumbled, and Mami didn't have the patience to rebuke her.
One of the girls in the distance signaled something, and suddenly all five of them leapt down, crashing into the building through the windows. Screams suddenly began piercing the cold morning air as the attack began, and lights began flickering on in every floor.
"Go!" Mami said urgently, and Maki took a deep breath before blinking them into the building.
The world twisted around them, and when Mami opened her eyes she found herself standing in a room on the top floor of the human hideout, standing directly behind one of the attackers. The girl before her whirled around, hands sparking with dark energy, but not before Mami immediately tackled her, sending them both to the ground. Before the other girl could fight back, she summoned a cloud of ribbons and wrapped her into a tight bind, effectively mummifying the girl. She checked to make sure the rest of the floor was empty before standing back up.
"They have fanned out through the rest of the apartment," Shiro said, eyes closed. "Our girl is three floors below us. We'd better hurry; the Reapers are already two floors down."
"Come on," Mami shouted, and the four of them swept down the halls and down the stairs, Maki already charging a second teleport for when it became necessary. Shiro, leading the charge, fell from the nearest banister and crushed a second attack under her weight with little resistance. Mami, though discomforted by the excessive use of force, quickly wrapped Shiro's latest victim up in her ribbons before proceeding.
"Only three more enemies left," Maki panted as they ran past a knot of terrified civilians and down the next set of stairs.
"Crap!" Shiro yelled when she turned the corner and was immediately assaulted by the third Reaper, who had been crouching behind the door in anticipation of them. The two girls fell to the floor in a tangled knot, the second attempting to behead her foe with a magically charged tomahawk, snarling and swinging her weapon downwards only to just barely miss Shiro's head and bury the axehead deep into the wooden planks instead. Shiro took the opportunity to kick the girl's legs out from under her before socking her across the jaw, sending the Reaper reeling. Before any recovery could occur, Mami's ribbons quickly claimed their third victim, leaving only a struggling golden mummy on the floor as they sped past it.
"She's on the next floor!" Eru said as they took the final set of stairs. Mami was just starting to allow a burst of hope to enter her heart when Shiro suddenly fell to her knees and scrambled back, bottlenecking the other three. Looking past her, Mami saw the plume of fire rising up to meet them. The entire floor below them was ablaze, cracking pieces of wood falling from the roof into ashes. Before the flames could consume anyone, Maki grabbed them and teleported the entire group past the flames, landing them on the third floor down. Stumbling at the sudden gravitational change, Mami looked up and saw the last two Reapers cornering a girl against the wall. The girl was dressed in deep red armor and had flames licking up her arms, a desperate look on her face.
Damn it, The blonde thought. So she started the fires.
One of the Reapers turned when she heard them land, snarling at the new arrivals. The red girl, panicking at the sight of yet another group of unfamiliar faces, instinctively shot a gout of fire at Shiro, who had materialized closest to her. Lunging forward, Mami just barely managed to form a wall of ribbons to take the brunt of the attack, the magical fabric quickly burning away. But it bought Shiro enough time to scramble to safety.
"God damn it!" The perceptive girl shouted, batting the flames off her pants leg. "We're here to help you. What the hell do you-"
The rest of her words were cut off when the first Reaper drew a sword and attacked her. Shiro, having no magical offensive capabilities herself, desperately pulled out a long knife and narrowly blocked the oncoming blow. Eru shouted something and was about to strike the attacker with electricity when the second Reaper levitated a burning plank off the floor and hurled it at her, forcing the girl to dive away to keep her own head. An electric shield flickered to life around her person as the Reaper began throwing all sorts of burning debris against the defense, trying to break through and char the sensitive body beneath.
Mami bared her teeth and was about to join the fray when the girl with the flaming hands suddenly scrambled to her feet and bolted down the stairs in an obvious attempt to flee.
"Hey!" The blonde shouted, reaching out after the girl.
"Don't worry, I've got her!" Maki urged her before blinking out of sight, presumably in pursuit of their target. That left Mami to focus on helping Shiro and Eru, who were still struggling to fend off their opponents. Biting her lip in sudden nervousness, she summoned a single musket and pointed it straight at the Reaper crossing swords with Shiro, shouting. "Stop, or I'll shoot!"
The enemy in question paused in initial surprise at the threat, giving Shiro the opening she needed to tackle her around the waist and bash the butt of her knife against her temple, making the Reaper slump unconscious. Cringing at the unseemly, but necessary, show of strength, Mami then pointed her musket at the second attacker, who was still keeping Eru pinned down with her projectiles.
The second girl just laughed when she turned and looked down the barrel of the gun aimed straight for her heart. "Oh come now, Tomoe. I know you won't shoot. You're famous for your obsession with peace, after all."
Mami cringed at the stinging words. She actually recognized this one; they had met while preparing for the Gathering and had spoken briefly. "It wouldn't do for you to underestimate me," She growled back, but even she knew that she didn't have the guts to shoot another magical girl through. Around them, flames still licked at the walls, and another particularly large wooden beam fell from the ceiling above them, crashing to the floor in a torrent of fire. Eru screamed when a sheet of flames struck her barrier, making it flicker dangerously. The moment her defenses failed, the Reaper would send a wall of flaming debris in her direction, but Mami couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger. They were at a stalemate.
Or so she thought, until Shiro lost patience and hurled her knife at the second attacker, the serrated blade plunging into her left thigh and burying itself up all the way to the hilt. The Reaper screamed in agony and collapsed, the burning bits of wood she had been keeping in the air falling to the ground with her. Seeing her chance, Eru quickly dissipated her shield and scurried behind the other two magical girls, one of whom was reeling with shock.
"Shiro!" Mami yelled furiously. "What in the world made you do that?!" Beside them, the Reaper moaned as blood ran in rivulets onto the floor, staining it a color akin to redwood.
"What would you have done if she killed Eru?" Shiro snarled back, equally upset. "Would you not have pulled the trigger, even then? She'll live, Mami. Any one of us can regenerate from a knife wound. It's not as if I killed her."
Mami was about to shout something back when Maki's voice echoed loudly through her mind, pushing its way to the forefront:
[Help! We're under attack!] The teleporter's voice cried out desperately. [We got it wrong, there's a sixth girl! She's too powerful, I can't hold her off-] The transmission suddenly died out, like a phone being abruptly slammed against its receiver.
Completely abandoning the argument at hand, Mami whirled around and dashed down the nearest set of stairs, in pursuit of the source of the mental plea. She heard the other two scrambling to chase after her but didn't wait for them to catch up, instead running down two floors down and casting about, searching for Maki. The fires hadn't completely consumed this level yet, but flames were starting to seep through the ever thinning plaster above her, and she could hear crackling beyond the ceiling.
Charred, black bodies were slumped against the walls, beyond saving. But Mami pushed those out of her mind. There would be time for mourning later.
There was an audible crash from the room three doors down the hall. She stormed towards the source of the commotion and kicked the burning door off its rotten hinges, cocking a musket and aiming it at whatever revealed itself to her on the other side.
The first thing she saw was Kota tearing the Soul Gem off of the crimson girl's dead body, the bloodred jewel sparking with a final dying light as it was separated from its catalyst.
"No!" Mami screamed before she squeezed the trigger, sending a blast of musket fire straight at the murderer's heart.
Quicker than her enhanced eyes could process, Kota ducked under the spray of bullets, the projectiles instead striking the wall and tearing a partial hole in the surface. Before Mami could load a second shot, the cobalt blue magical girl darted forward and drew a one handed straightsword, holding the jagged edge to the blonde's throat so fast that the blade sang. Behind them, the dead girl's body slumped to the floor, hitting the wood with a dull thump.
"Fancy meeting you here," The sword wielder grinned wickedly, reveling at the utterly shocked look crossing the blonde's face.
Mami was absolutely flabbergasted. "I...you..." She mumbled, taking several steps back when Kota pushed her back with the point of her blade, until she was pressed against the adjacent wall. "What are you doing here?"
The murderer laughed, a cold, snakelike sound. "Involved?" She repeated, sounding thoroughly bemused. "I'm the instigator, Mami. None of this would have happened without me." To emphasize her point, the girl gestured broadly at the fires raging across the building around them, the darkened ruby sitting in her palm gleaming with a sick light.
Breathing heavily in the smoke clogged air, Mami's eyes darted around the hall, trying to locate a means of escape. Maki seemed to have disappeared, hopefully having teleported to safety; the girl's body was nowhere to be found, after all. She suddenly wondered why Shiro and Eru hadn't caught up yet, but a glance at the stairwell she had used earlier told her than the roof had collapsed on top of it, effectively sealing off this floor from conventional access.
Kota laughed again, her sword pricking the blonde's neck and making her flinch when a small trick of warm blood appeared to stain her collar. "Don't even bother, Mami. You're going to die, here, today. Some memories can't be buried forever."
Gritting her teeth when the sword point buried itself deeper into her skin, Mami gasped out, "Kota, please. It doesn't have to be like this-"
"Of course it does!" The other girl snarled, as the flames around them suddenly intensified. This was getting bad. The smoke was almost impossible to see through by this point, and the floor was cracking underneath them. If something wasn't done soon, Mami would die, regardless of Kota's presence or not.
"You couldn't have seriously expected this to end on peaceful terms," The cobalt blue girl continued softly, leaning in to flash her fanged teeth at her. Her eyes were like unforgiving glaciers, freezing everything, even comprehension. "You knew I'd be back one day, and you knew that lives would burn once I did. Yet you still hoped for peace. For friendship. You truly are a fool, Mami Tomoe. The world will be better off without you."
[Not if I have something to say about it,] A voice growled into both of their minds.
Before Mami could recognize the voice's owner, there was a loud bang from the room they had just been in, and Shiro crashed through the wall that had been previously weakened by Mami's errant shower of bullets. Not waiting for either of them to react, the girl used her momentum to crash into Kota and send them both bowling over, freeing Mami from her pinned up position against the wall. The blonde fell coughing to the smoldering floor, but Shiro didn't have to luxury of allowing her to recover. Grabbing the blonde and hauling her up, she screamed, "Maki, let's go, let's go!"
[Got it!] The teleporter shouted a second before she blinked into existence in front of them. The girl grabbed them both and unleashed the second teleport she had been saving, immediately pulling them out of the burning wreckage of the building, exactly three seconds after Shiro had crashed in through the wall.
Mami's head swum, and she collapsed to the asphalt that appeared beneath her once they materialized on top of the remains of a collapsed bridge, a hundred yards away from the burning apartment. She fell to her knees and watched the world tilt dizzyingly around her as her body struggled to recover from the choking, and then the sudden teleportation. The apartment was still burning in the distance, a pillar of smoke blackening the sky.
"How much longer until the next jump?" Shiro asked Maki urgently, who had sat down cross legged on the smashed concrete of the bridge and appeared to be concentrating intensely.
"One hundred seconds," The teleporter murmured before falling silent again, focusing on gathering her power as quickly as possible.
"Eru, the shield," Shiro then signaled, and the timid girl nodded determinedly and raised her arms above them, a electric shield sparking to life around the four.
Mami coughed violently as she forced the last of the smoke and debris out of her system, finally managing to sit up on her elbows as she watched the other three magical girls go to work. She briefly wondered when these girls had gotten so good at planning rescue missions.
"Hey, you're good," Shiro assured her, kneeling by the blonde's side and helping her sit up. "A little smoke never killed anybody."
[I'm surprised you didn't kill anybody, either,] Mami transmitted sarcastically in order to avoid using her raw vocal cords.
The half blind girl snorted and raised her hands. "Hey I try my b-" She suddenly stiffened, tilting her head.
Mami frowned, a little concerned. [Shiro...?]
"Get down!" The girl grunted, throwing herself to the floor and dragging the blonde with her.
A second later, Kota warped into existence just outside the borders of Eru's barrier, making the electric girl recoil towards the center of her defenses, instinctively pouring more energy into strengthening the shield. Flames were coiling around the cobalt blue girl's arms, and a sick feeling suddenly dominated the pit of Mami's stomach.
"Oh, this isn't going to be good," Shiro muttered.
With a twisted yell, Kota reared back and hurled a torrent of flames at the electric wall, the waves of fire smashing against the solid surface and splaying everywhere. Anything they had been able to see through the transparent shield was immediately engulfed in a searing red, reaching over and surrounding them in a crimson dome. Shiro swore and shuffled over to protect Maki, who was unable to move from her current position as she focused the next jump that would secure their escape. The heat levels inside the barrier immediately began to soar, and Mami was painfully reminded of a similar experience she had gone through.
"Shit!" Shiro swore when another ball of flame exploded against Eru's defenses. "She couldn't do that before. How come she couldn't do that before?!"
Suddenly, Mami thought about the crimson Soul Gem Kota had torn from the dead girl's body, and realized that the bloodred ruby was nowhere in sight.
Eru screamed when another blast struck her defenses, the weakened supports of the bridge below them shuddering under the explosive pressure. The girl's electrical shields were generated directly from the electricity pulsing through her brain, so every missile that struck her walls send a lance of pain running through her consciousness, as if Kota were battering at the confines of her brain directly. Mami looked beyond the flames and saw that Kota's eyes were now painted a deep red, a startling departure from her previous blue irises.
[How much longer?] Mami yelled over the mental network, as Kota started igniting cars and hurling them. The charred remains of a Honda crashed into the shield and blew apart, bits of tires and fenders raining down around them in a hellstorm of chaos.
[Twenty seconds,] Maki answered almost serenely, though it was mostly a lack of emotion stemming from her intense levels of concentration.
Abruptly, the torrents of fire ceased. Looking up in confusion, Mami's heart dropped when she saw that Kota was instead scorching the beams keeping their part of the bridge attached, steadily melting the chrome plated supports into liquid metal. Their end of the bridge shuddered, and their stomachs dropped when it shifted and tilted downwards, the beams failing as they were burned away.
Baring her teeth as sweat poured down her face, Mami summoned two muskets and fired them blindly at their enemy, but the magical bullets simply burned into nothing once they got too close, completely melted by the heat radiating off the girl's body. Another one of the supports fell apart, and their end of the bridge sunk a little further.
[Ten seconds,] Maki updated them tensely.
Eru was crying, tear streaming down her face as her shield flickered on and off dangerously. "We're not gonna make-"
There was a terrific roar, and then the grinding screech of metal. Having lost too much solid mass, the beams keeping the bridge upright finally collapsed, sending the entire highway plummeting two hundred feet down to the solid road below. The sky spun around Mami's field of vision as the ground literally fell away beneath them. Mami flailed as she tumbled, trying desperately to grab onto something even when there was nothing stationary to grab hold of. She saw Shiro leap forward, beyond the front end of the shield, in an attempt to return to stable earth, but was blasted back by a wall of fire and sending tumbling past the blonde. Her heart leapt and began to choke her when she realized there was nothing solid beneath her feet anymore, and then there was just air as she dropped like a brick, down to the unforgiving earth.
Gasping as the wind whipped through her hair, she spun and blindfired a ribbon somewhere above her, hoping desperately that it would wind around something.
Miraculously, it did. The ribbon caught on something, and the blonde suddenly stopped falling, her shoulders yanking painfully at the sudden end. She looked up but was immediately forced to screw her eyes shut and tuck her head in as the rest of the road crumbled down around her, chunks of metal and asphalt crashing past her as she prayed desperately not to get struck by the falling rubble.
Finally, the dust cleared, and Mami looked down to see the other three girls hanging on for their lives on the end of the second ribbon she had summoned. Luckily, they had been resourceful enough to grab onto the golden string and hope for the best. Maki was dangling at the far end of the rope, clinging to Shiro's hand with her eyes still closed, in an impressive show of unbreakable focus.
Mami felt a flood of relief wash over her chest when Shiro transmitted something to them.
[Um, guys,] She said nervously, [I'm glad we're alive and everything. But I think Miss Human Torch is still trying to kill us.]
Looking up, Mami was shocked to see a red light streaking down towards them. It was Kota, surrounded by a ball of fire, coming after them.
[Maki,] She voiced nervously, eyes glued to the sky as she watched the threat approach. Her clothes were caked with dust, and her arms were burning as they struggled to keep their grip on the ribbons. As they were now, dangling precariously off the edge of a blown up bridge, they had no means of self defense.
[Three seconds.]
[Maki,] Mami said again, more urgently this time.
[Two.]
The first ribbon keeping them all afloat suddenly lost some of its grip, dropping them another five feet and making Eru screech in terror as she almost plummeted to the ground.
[One.]
"I fucking hate heights," Shiro muttered to herself.
Kota was so close by now that Mami could see the flaming swords she had drawn as she bore down on them, looking for all the world like a vengeful comet, come to destroy them for their sins.
[Maki!]
"Got it!" The teleporter hollered, a nanosecond before Kota blasted one of her flaming swords at them, aiming for the ribbon attached to what was left of the bridge. The corrosive blade cut through the yellow string and sent them all plummeting down at the mercy of gravity. Mami felt space time starting to bend around them again as Kota rocketed down towards them, one remaining sword raised above her head as she prepared to strike. Everything seemed to slow down, whether due to the teleportation magic or her own panicking brain, the blonde couldn't tell.
Kota roared and swung her weapon a millisecond after Maki's black light engulfed her, and the girl's face was so close to Mami's that the blonde could see the anger screaming in her eyes.
This isn't over, They seemed to tell her.
Then time sped up again, and the sword slashed forward. Maki's magic finally took effect, and Mami was dragged into the blink, the edge of the blade slicing off the last inch of her bangs.
She thought she heard Eru screaming something in panic, but she was too befuddled to piece it together. Absently, she hoped that it wasn't anything too serious.
There was a deep rumble, and then nothing.
A single golden ribbon was the only thing left to mark their presence, fluttering in the wind like the flag of a fallen empire.
Next time: information dump. Because it's probably about time people started understanding what the hell is going on.
Please leave any thoughts in the reviews.
~Banshee