Chapter 21
Understandable Misconception
With a look of intense concentration, Sayaka considered. Doesn't look like it will fit, she thought doubtfully, flexing her arm. Still, since Kyoko asked...
She'd just gotten out of the shower, alone... and although she'd made her needs clear to her partner, she hadn't quite ever gotten around to locking the door. After drying her hair, uninterrupted but vaguely disappointed, Kyoko had rushed over to her with a look of desperate yearning.
Having offered to "help," Sayaka felt a little trapped as the older girl stared at her with wide, expectant eyes. She shrugged as her partner met her gaze. Get on with it, her look said.
Sayaka took a breath, inserting her fingers into the hole. It was... very confined.
Kyoko grunted, her shoulders tensing. Come on...
Twisting her hand, still trying to gain entry into the confined chamber that was her sole focus in the world... that and the treasure that lay inside, the blunette squeezed her fingers together, pushing...
Maroon eyes narrowed, glistening wetly as Sayaka's arm slid in. She's in! Relief and expectation warred for supremacy within the red-head's thoughts. So close!
Sayaka's face had taken on a disgusted, slightly dismayed appearance. Squirming, she felt a brief wave of icy fear wash over her, head to toe. "I... I think... I'm stuck."
"Wha-? You got in, how can you not get out? Did you find it?"
Sayaka looked over her shoulder, staring at the veteran with mixed feelings. "No, all I'm feeling a disgusting squishiness that I'm trying not to think about... but not what you're hoping for." She'd wanted to help, but obviously...
"Dammit. Godamnit! It was the last one, too!"
Sayaka couldn't help rolling her azure eyes, pausing a moment at the apex to glance appealingly to the heavens. "Who drops their lollipop in the garbage disposal, anyway." Still trying to extricate her hand from the drain, she couldn't help wondering aloud, not quite to herself, "Who'd want anything that had been down this disgusting thing anyway? Anything edible, at least," she amended, remembering her mother's panic when she'd noticed her ring missing after doing dishes one evening, years ago. The drama that had caused...
Kyoko grabbed something from a cupboard behind the blunette, who still struggled to get her hand out of the narrow chute. The slimy, squishy stuff was really starting to gross her out. "What the hell is in here?"
Kyoko leaned on the counter, her long red ponytail hanging down behind her back. She held a bottle in her hands, label faced away, some kind of oil. She looked up and to the right with an exaggerated look of innocent consideration. "Well, I'm guessing it is probably all the napkins that got stuffed down there."
"N...napkins?"
"Yeah, especially since they were wet. Or, possibly, some of those little decorative animals that used to sit on that stand by the entryway there. It might be chopped up pieces of the boxes and bags... see how well I cleaned the place?"
Sayaka, looking around, did indeed notice that much of the garbage that had accumulated during their last sixteen hours spent in this luxurious penthouse suite. Her frown twitched, but remained... she was still stuck in a drain.
"Kyoko... I can't decide whether I need to ask you for help, or want to ask why the hell someone would put things like that down a sink!" She squirmed again. "A little help, here?"
The older girl unscrewed the cap, dumping copious amounts of think, clearish-yellow oil onto her friend's arm. "It was garbage. That's a garbage disposal. Do the math, pretty girl." Sayaka, almost laughing out loud at the condescending wisdom of the older girl, instead felt the stuff flowing down most of the length of her arm.
"Hey, its not my elbow that's stuck. Sheesh. Ugn, what is this stuff? Its so thick..." She felt Kyoko grab the trapped arm, the strong, rough grasp sliding right off the slippery forearm of her partner. She grunted, gripping with both hands this time, yanking. "Ow! What are you doing?" Twisting her hand, feeling the oil seeping down her aching wrist, Sayaka finally pulled herself free. Her hand was covered in glistening oil, sticky white fluff, bits of earth-toned debris... disgusted, she flicked her hand at the sink, reaching to turn on the faucet.
The she noticed... picking something off the disgusting mess that was her hand, she held it before Kyoko's maroon eyes, pinched between thumb and forefinger. "What is this, Kyoko?"
"Ummm... looks like a... button?" Kyoko gave her younger partner an obviously fake look of anger. "What is this, school?" The blunette was undeterred by the posturing.
"What it is... is... a button from the remote control we were using earlier. The television remote. One of its buttons. In the garbage disposal?" She waited, but the red-head wouldn't meet her gaze. "Kyoko, can you not see the questions this makes me ask? Like... how did a remote get in the garbage disposal in the first place?"
"What is this, the Spanish Intermission?" Kyoko growled defensively. "I got bored... and, well. That thing is powerful, Saya!" Her mood shifting at the remembered excitement of watching the drain gobble up whatever she stuck in there, tearing it to shreds. "You should have seen it rip-" She paused, frowning and possibly a little hurt, as she heard the blunette's disappointed sigh.
Sayaka couldn't help feeling a twinge of guilt. Her partner had obviously been... entertaining herself as best she could. She got that. She also understood some of the desire that burned within the red-head... an urge to tear things apart, the thrill of destroying something with her own hands...
Turning on the faucet, she rinsed the muck off her hand and arm.
Sayaka totally got it. She felt that way herself, sometimes. It was so much easier to destroy something you hated, resented, or just didn't care about, than it was to create something of value, something you were proud of. And even when you created something, you had to watch as others mocked or misunderstood it, as it slowly crumbled while time continued to advance, marching pitilessly ever onward...
Maybe I'm looking in to this a little too deeply, she acknowledged. Out loud, she said, "Alright. Show me."
Kyoko looked at her with those expressive maroon eyes... even if those expressions were typically of frustration, annoyance, anger or smug self-satisfaction. I can't think of anyone else with more right to be smugly self-satisfied, the blunette reflected, admiring the way her partner's face lit up as what Sayaka had said dawned on her. Like a little kid, her beautiful face filled with such uncharacteristic carefree glee, making the younger girl's heart skip a beat.
"Okay this is gonna be so cool you gotta see this," Kyoko said, rapid-fire, as she grabbed a handful of napkins-unused-from the counter. "You just shove 'em in here," she continued, then reached over a switch on the wall, stopping just before her finger flipped it. Instead, she turned, graciously offering to let Sayaka start the entertainment. "Eh... you should take a turn. I got in a lot of tries while you were in the shower. Forever," she added with playful recrimination.
Sayaka didn't take the bait, she knew she hadn't been showring for a suspiciously long time. She hadn't needed to be-most of her... dirtiness had been washed away in the bath last night. She leaned over, smiling at her friend's generosity, and flicked the switch.
A soft thrum, a gurgle, a sputter. But otherwise, nothing. Hmmm.
"-the hell?" muttered the red head.
Sayaka flipped the switch up, then down again.
CCCCRRRARANNANAAGGGG! The hideous, grinding, metal on metal screech grated on her nerves, a shuddering thrill of fear at the unexpected and hideous clamour. Panicking, she brought her hands to her ears, seeing the sink appear to vibrate as the noise continued, jagged stabbing sounds working their way past her hands and into her head.
Kyoko was shouting, wide eyed. Sayaka felt the urge to flee, but instead collected herself. Her hand darted out, flipping the switch again. The noise died with a deathly rattle, a sound of precision-machined parts hopelessly bent and twisted, grating against each other in a dance of destruction, shredding itself apart while it did exactly what it was designed for.
"What... the hell... was that?" Sayaka's breaths were coming in shallow gasps... stupid jump scares were worse than fighting Witches! Her ears rang. Kyoko's face was pink, turning crimson. Oh no...
"Ah... that might have been the knife I was using to try to get my sucker back."
"You stuck a... and didn't take it..."
Kyoko was looking slightly abashed again. "Well, it kinda got away from me, and then you got out of the bathroom... I just thought, with your tiny little hands..."
"My hands are just about as big as your's are, Sakura Kyoko," Sayaka pouted, taking her partner's hand in hers and placing them palm-to-palm. "See?"
"Dainty, girly little fingers..." Kyoko mused, staring.
Sayaka looked for something she'd missed. As far as she could tell, the hands were just about the same. Kyoko's fingernails, however, were quite a bit more jagged. Better trim those before they get near anywhere near me, she thought, resolving to have a manicure/pedicure session with her partner later on, recalling some sharp pokes she'd received during her latest nap.
"I've got girly for you right here." The red-head's eyebrows rose as Sayaka extended a slim finger in an archetypally rude gesture. Mouth open, the older girl's expression of incredulous outrage turned into a sort of horrified bemusement, eyebrows climbing higher still as the blunette added another finger to the gesture, accompanied by some suggestive motions that made Kyoko's cheeks flare red.
Two can play at that game, the red-head thought, undeterred. She, too, raised a pair of fingers, making a "V" and doing something with her tongue that made Sayaka sputter, flushing violently herself.
Swallowing, the older girl made a show of stepping back to look out the windows. Darkness had fallen over the city they found themselves in.
The city of Motogawa. Population: three times as large as Mitakihara. Location?
Ninety eight kilometers away from where they'd entered the barrier.
"I got us tickets for the morning," Kyoko began, trying to change the subject. Damn that blunette and her distracting... awesomeness.
"Well, I missed school again, but at least it's the weekend," Sayaka mused. She'd forgotten tomorrow was actually Friday. "Tomorrow is the earliest train we can take?" This, she thought halfheartedly, for some reason-despite her desire to reunite with Madoka-she wasn't eager to leave this place. She felt like... like she'd lived an entirely new life's worth of experiences since parting with her friend... only last night? Her blue hair spun through the air as she shook her head, disbelieving. It felt like forever.
Glancing at the younger girl, Kyoko remained silent, recognizing the contemplative look Sayaka had acquired as she appeared to stare into the distance. Her blunette had a tendency to get side-tracked, that overactive brain jumping around from thought to thought... and hopefully would forget that last question. Of course there were trains running, all this afternoon, this evening, even at two in the morning they could head back to Mitakihara.
But every time Kyoko thought about the place, a crashing weight seemed to crush down on her, multiple sources of worry and fear oppressing her spirit. She was anxious; afraid of losing this intimate bond she was seeming to develop with her amazing new companion. An almost spiritual connection, she reflected, this coming from someone who'd put the superstitious beliefs of her father's religion far from her mind, disdainful and disbelieving. But that was how she felt... a spiritual connection.
This past day, even with the crazy ultraWitch experience, the close calls, the triumphs, and failures, and triumphs that seemed to dissolve into failure... What are we going to do with those Soul Gems? I might have to make the hard call... This past day had been one of the most magical of her life. And, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, she never wanted it to end.
Here, in some nameless city, they were away from all the other things in the world that would demand her new friend's attention. School; her teachers, her peers, her damn homework gobbling up precious hours of her day. Parents, asking questions, imposing rules and limits... Friends. Madoka. The way things were...
Selfish, she thought, not quite able to feel ashamed at her feelings. Who am I, to think I can have someone all to myself... it's not fair... to either of us, really. But, although she recognized her friend might-probably did-need those other people in her life... she herself needed no one. That she had no one else only proved the point to herself. She didn't want or need anyone.
Except her blunette.
One more night, she justified to herself. We need the rest... Okay, so that was a blatant lie. But hey, we definitely could use a little psychic recuperation, a mental sick day... so one more night wasn't so bad. Sayaka had even told her father not to expect her back tonight... it's probably what she was thinking all along...
"Walpurgisnacht..."
"What?" Kyoko watched Sayaka break out of her reverie, glancing in her direction curiously.
"Something... something Homura said. I told you a little about it before. Its... it sounds like some kind of super-Witch..."
Fine blue eyebrows knitted together, the younger girl muttered, "I hate that creepy bitch. She's... crazy."
"Yeah, well, good thing I'm the picture of mental stability myself," Kyoko grinned in a rare moment of self-depreciation. "I don't trust her either, but... she seems to know something about what's coming. We might need-"
"No! I won't have anything to do with that freak. She tried to kill me, Kyoko? You remember, it was you who saved me..."
"I'm sure you'd have handled her yourself. Her power... her speed doesn't seem to work if you've got a grip on her..." Kyoko broke off, remembering the other girl's response when she'd grappled her, allowing Sayaka to make a painful, lurching escape. "Still crazy as fuck, though... she pulled a grenade on me!"
Sayaka's eyes were narrowed, focused, the glint of a predator stalking its quarry in her suddenly cold, crystal blue eyes.
"Two weeks, she said..."
"Well, that's not so bad," Sayaka announced, stretching like a cat. She was eager to go... do something. "Lots of time to get back, get ready. Let's go out, Kyoko. I wanna go get something to eat that I don't have to make. And then..."
Kyoko didn't want to think about how long ago that conversation had been. "We should scout around for Witches, as long as we're here... we should start stocking up Grief Seeds for... the future." She'd almost, almost said our future. Weird.
"Okay, but if we see any Familiars, I want to take care of them as well." She gazed passionately at the blank face that confronted her. "You know what they'll do to people who wander into their path! We can't just let them kill-"
"You can't save everyone, Sayaka! You know as well as I do most people aren't exactly up to your high moral standards... who care's if some goons get destroyed during the night?" Despite the seriousness of her expression, she was just playing with the blunette, provoking her. Adding in that jab about dead goons in the night may have gone a little too far...
"You can't ignore a danger, an evil, just because it might not be killing whatever qualifies as an 'innocent' being!"
Kyoko held up a hand, smirking. "Relax, Saya, you win. We'll be the good guys, but only if we're getting the seeds we'll need to keep fighting. Remember that: priorities. It's your lesson of the day."
"Lesson of the day? What is this, school?" Sayaka couldn't resist throwing one of the red-head's own protests back at her. "Is this something I'll be treated to every day?" Kyoko was nodding, looking rather pleased with herself. "Well, o wise one, what, pray tell, was yesterday's 'lesson'?"
She expected a smartass remark so typical of Kyoko, but seconds ticked by as the red-head seemed to think. Sayaka was just about to repeat the question, when her friend looked up and answered.
"I guess, the lesson was: Don't give up. Things get better." Or you die, and it doesn't matter, Kyoko thought but didn't say.
Sayaka's mouth, partway open, moved silently.
"That... was... beautiful." Sayaka dabbed at an eye.
Suddenly awkward, Kyoko put an hand on her friend's shoulder, enjoying the accompanying jolt that seemed to sharpen her senses. "Let's go eat. Then we hunt."
More fabulous reviews, I appreciate them so much. I hope nobody feels offended I don't often directly reply; if you definitely want me to address your comment add a "I demand a rely" request in there somewhere... I'll do it! But there are so many clever people out there whom I don't want to confirm or deny potential ideas for... suffice it to say I utterly love the speculation, and even the noticing of the occasional odd things...
Very gratified (heh) by the response to the lemonade. I'm sure some things will continue to happen behind closed doors as the series continues...
Otaku, I apologize if you were dismayed when you started reading-I tried to warn you, but apparently not clearly enough. So sorry!
Psycho I'm going to use part of your review for the summary. Thanks.