Chapter 5
Ein Gefallener Engel
A spark of crimson and glimmer of turquoise glinted deep from within the cavern mouth, bobbing slowly, red hovering slightly above blue. An emerald crescent moon provided little to illuminated the smooth-walled cave, but after a few moments the pale colors resolved into dim shapes, slowly making their way forward. Soon a white cape over blue outfit could be made out, and a red silk dress beside it. As the girls passed through the cavern mouth, the low-hanging moon glinted off the weapons the pair held so casually, a long wide-bladed spear to the right and a shimmering curved sword on the left.
Reluctantly, Sayaka let go as her red-haired friend unclasped her own hand, pulling her arm away. Kyoko stuck her spear under an arm, rubbing her hand vigorously to restore the circulation. The blunette smiled in chagrin, turning away tactfully to rub her own aching fingers over the pleats of her short skirt as her companion scanned the horizon for the next monstrosity they would encounter in this labyrinth that seemed utterly different from any she had previously encountered.
"Ever seen anything like that?"
"Honestly? No. Those things were messed up."
Sayaka admired Kyoko's penchant for understatement when it came to her analysis of danger. They'd made their way into the tunnel they found underneath the twisted church, "back on the surface," as the girl had become used to thinking during the hours they'd spent descending ever downwards, surrounded by a nightmarish cross of insect and leech: writhing black worms taller than a man, covered with wicked-looking mandibles as long and sharp as daggers.
For the most part, they'd walked in silence, hands clasped tightly-the pale glow of Kyoko's Soul Gem providing a small circle of rose-colored light. It felt like they had been walking for days, having decided it was too dangerous to stop and stick around the things for too long, in case they responded to their presence like the shadow-men from above had.
Sayaka was startled, after her long descent, to look up and see the sky above her once again-and froze. Staring, her arm seemed to move of its own accord, reaching out and finding her companion's-
"Hey, hands off!" the older girl began angrily, her long ponytail swishing as she jerked back in surprise. She glanced at Sayaka, noting the look of dawning horror on her face, and followed the direction of her gaze, looking up at the immense green moon overhead.
A horrific crescent face seemed to glare at them from above. A titanic eye, yellow and bloodshot, seemed to scan the ground aimlessly with two misshapen pupils until it seemed to notice the girls. An immense scar along the bottom portion of the thing seemed to split open, revealing rows of jagged, shark-like fangs. It remained in profile the entire time, but that hideous eye continued to stare at them from far above the world.
Suddenly the fanged mouth got wider, and Kyoko was in motion even before the long, streaming geyser of pink fluid erupted from the moonstrosity's mouth, arching through the sky. A second later she realized she was alone.
Sayaka stood, mesmerized by the sight of a celestial body appearing to watch her hungrily a second too long. The tendril of fluid became a pillar of wet, sticky flesh that hurtled down from above. She raised her cape at the last moment before being engulfed by the putrid smelling liquid meat.
"SAAYAAAKAAA!" Kyoko screamed, leaping forward with a powerful bound. As quick as she was, the thing was quicker. It drew the blue-haired Magical Girl up into the air, back toward the gaping mouth of the evil moon. It's eye was leering at her ravenously. She saw white boots pumping furiously, but the rest of the girl was completely enveloped by what seemed to be the moonstrosity's tongue-a tongue being drawn back into the beast like frog catching a fly.
The red-head had never been an exemplary student, and had missed over a year of school since becoming a Puella Magi. She didn't stop to think about the impossibility of jumping from the ground to the moon-partly with good reason, since Witch's labyrinths didn't necessarily-or even usually-correspond to what a more dedicated student would understand as conventional physics. But the split second decision with no hesitation or doubt or even conscious thought was what made her one of the strongest and longest-lived veterans around. She'd learned from experience, there were two kinds of Puella Magi: the quick, and the dead.
It rarely paid to overthink.
Rocketing into the air, Kyoko gnashed her teeth in rage. Stupid to let go of each other, she thought. Her experience should have allowed her to pull the girl to safety, instead of ensuring she was was the only target. She was tired; conserving the remainder of her magic for the witches, she'd been reluctant to use her Soul Gem to remove her fatigue. Duirng the long trek through the tunnel, they'd decided not to risk overt use of their powers-a tactic that had kept them hidden from the leech-things and presumably the Witch, as well. She was paying the price, but remedied her condition as her Soul Gem flashed with ruby light.
Seconds into her incredible jump, still hurling forward with full momentum, the red-head wondered if this thing in the sky was actually the Witch. They had encountered several types of familiar already-the shadow-men on the surface, and she assumed the leeches were some kind of familiar as well. They had begun in an old-fashioned cityscape, quickly turning into the crumbling metropolis of stone they had fought the shadow-men in. The ever-spiraling cave had seemed to last forever, and now there were in this cold, dark wilderness. They had to be approaching the end-Witches the veteran had encountered in the past typically had only one or two unique areas of their labyrinths...
All that passed through her mind in a moment; she was a quick thinker, just not always a deep one. She knew this about herself, and preferred it to the alternative for reasons obvious to herself, although unspoken. She flew past the titanic crescent-shaped face, staring down a cyclopean eye the size of a small house. Still... not as big as I thought. Movement in the distance caught her eye-she could see a flock of winged shapes approaching from the distance. Her jump had carried her so far up that she could make out a green lake stretching out below her, bordered by a forest on one side and a swampy marsh on the other. What the hell is this place? Where does it end?
Near the top of the enormous liquid tongue's arching path back into the awaiting maw of the moon, Kyoko finally caught up, the tip of her spear radiating a crackling, meter-long red beam. Spinning in midair, she brought her spear about in a tight circle, hacking through the mass engulfing Sayaka multiple times, separating it into foot-wide pieces of gelatinous pink slices. Almost immediately, the stuff began to move flow back together... but the multiple cuts prevented the end from reattaching. It slowed its ascent, then began to fall, semi-solid bits of matter dripping away to expose the slime-covered form of Sayaka.
Kyoko used a little magic to propel her towards her falling companion, who was busy wiping muck out of her eyes. Girl gets dirty, the red-head noted. She caught the girl in her arms, impressed that the blunette wasn't retching her guts out. It smelled like the house of the crazy old lady who'd lived across the street from her family, after she'd been found after being dead for a week and partially devoured by her cats.
"Thanks," Sayaka gasped, spitting out a mouthful of something foul. She turned, eyes frosting over as she regained her composure. The panic at being completely immersed in that disgusting stuff, desperately shutting her eyes and clamping her mouth to avoid the wriggling fluid that had tried to squirm inside her. She nodded to her companion, raising her arms to summon a burst of swords-
-when the scar across the face parted further, the tongue disappearing in the razor-toothed maw, and the thing began to make a deafening, wet slurping sound. The Magical Girls were inexorably pulled toward the thing's mouth. The pair rocketed into the gaping orifice, a football field wide trench filled with hundred of rows of triangular fangs and terminating in a hole of utter darkness.
Sayaka grabbed Kyoko's spear with both hands, letting her sword dissipate. Her white cape fluttered, pristine and apparently impervious to the sticky goo that still covered much of her skin. Get ready, she thought hard at Kyoko-the slurping sound had grown so loud that her ears were ringing.
Approaching the lip of the thing's mouth, Sayaka tried to time things just right. She pulled herself into Kyoko, placing her feet on the sole's of the other girl's boots. She waited until the other girl was in the right position, and pushed off.
Kyoko was pushed up and out of the immense crater of teeth, skimming over the cracked green landscape that glowed with an unnatural, diseased luminescence. Sayaka had aimed her towards the thing's huge eye. An aura of red translucent flame began to engulf her, growing in intensity as she gathered her power.
Sayaka knew full well that by pushing Kyoko up, she herself would be pushed down. She reformed her sword-but with a blade some 20 feet long. She marveled at the ease with which she was able to adapt her abilities-she hadn't felt like this before meeting Kyoko. At least her friend was out of the frying pan, she thought as the gaping maw began to slam shut on her.
Kyoko was on fire. A burning red comet streaking across the pocked and jagged face of the moon monster, she approached what she hoped was the weak spot filled to near-bursting. She saw the thing spin, tracking her with its double-pupilled eye, great veins of red seeming to pulse within.
Sayaka slashed furiously with her six meter blade, cutting great swaths of hard, crumbly flesh from the edge of the thing's mouth as the jaw snapped shut, succeeding at gouging out large portions of teeth.
The red comet impacted upon the great yellow eye, Kyoko's inertia carring the spear she held before her right through the eye-and her with it. She sensed several immense spears she'd created impact the surface immediately after, and unleashed the pent-up energy she'd accumulated in a fiery burst. Jabbing and slashing violently with her spear, with the intention of turning the thing's brain into soup, she was momentarily distracted by a muted but unmistakeable sensation of agony. Sayaka! She thought desperately.
The blue haired girl continued cutting with her sword, her movements slower and less precise. Looking down at the foot-long teeth imbedded in her torso, she felt strangely calm looking at what she assumed were her intestines poking out of the lacerated skin. Lips pressed tightly together, she kept slashing, her movements slowing down further with each moment.
Something changed. The titanic entity Kyoko had cut her way into began to change, losing its solidity before disappearing into a ghostly after-image, a Grief Seed appearing and dropping towards the shore of lake below. Below her, she saw two objects fall from the sky-even from this distance her keen eyes could make out the blood trailing behind.
Powering down to the falling figure, the veteran Magical Girl was sickened to see that the smaller of the falling pieces was one of Sayaka's legs. She caught up to the girl before they'd reached the ground, muscles in her arm bulging as she held her friend, using the other to hurl the spear downward and catching herself with the chain net it burst into.
Sayaka's eyes were open, staring. Kyoko knelt down, heart hammering furiously, noting the gaping hole in her companions chest. Something horrible was spilling out of the wound below Sayaka's navel, and her left leg ended just above the knee, a ragged mash of flesh and splintered bone. The younger girl blinked slowly, blue-grey eyes clouded, before her lips began moving. With a dull voice, she said "...not... so bad..."
What do I do? wondered Kyoko, unable to speak. She grinned weakly at the girl's upraised face, vision blurring for a moment as she blinked furiously. She stood, transfixed, as she watched the pale blue light of the Soul Gem darken.
No... no no no no nononononononoonoonoooooooooooooo
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to give me feedback: Otaku4eva, Kyosayalove, Angel0wonder and especially ShadowStealer for the layout suggestion. If you hadn't let me know about that, there'd be a dozen bite-sized chapters and I might written it quite differently. Knowing there's some kind of interest, and even better-why-is so helpful in motivating me. I hopefully get across my love for this series-the 11 year old who wrote I Heard Kyousuke Kicked the Bucket introduced the series to me a few weeks back: "Wait, a caterpillar bit her head off?" Her explanation of the whole "drunk on friendship" thing and what exactly were the motivations of the sinister Kyubey were amazing philosophical discussion to be having with a 6th grader-so many great and intricate things in this series. If you get the chance check out her story as well, and please if you have the least inkling to do so, leave a comment to let us know how we're doing. One thousand thanks!