[A/N] Boy has it been a while since the last chapter released. If you're a loyal subscriber to the Girl Who Suck fanfiction, I suggest you reread the last chapter to get yourself all caught up before you start reading.
Sofia knew who Mimi was. Kyubey had given her files of all the magi in the Los Angeles area when she first moved there. When books got boring, Sofia read those instead. She knew all about her wish, her radar, and her favorite brands of shampoo. But they'd never crossed paths.
And now, Sofia laid on the dirty, restaurant floor. There were bloody gashes all over her back. It was like someone was fileting it with a dull knife.
Mimi's gem was just out of reach. It was so black that it became alien, like someone cut a gem-sized hole into the world. And Sofia did believe that the gem, no bigger than a quail egg, could contain an eldritch monster composed of unadulterated human despair.
Sofia needed to crush it.
Yeah, she didn't like being a murderer either, but you know what would be a real murder? Allowing a witch to hatch in downtown fucking Los Angeles. That wasn't going to happen, and as such Mimi needed to go. Unlike most of Sofia's bounties, Mimi definitely hadn't done anything wrong, but–
But what? How could Sofia stand here, and kill someone so completely innocent and pat herself in the back about it like she'd done some, some noble deed–
Sofia dismissed that thought. Innocent– that wasn't going to be true for much longer. And, kill– with a state of that gem, put out of misery would've been an apter term.
Sofia crawled forward, and caught the gem in her hands– but Mimi, screaming like a maniac, fired another volley into her back. The golden shell exploded into dollar bills. Razor-sharp dollar bills that sliced through her nightgown and cut into her skin–
The pain was immense, but nothing compared to Hazmat chick's pain magic. Sofia gritted her teeth, and held the gem tight in her hands, and smashed it as hard as she could onto the floor.
The gem cracked but did not break. She smashed it, again and again, until she heard the clink of shattering crystal. Shards of glass dig into her hands.
It was done.
Sofia let go.
But the broken shards did not fall to the ground. They remained floating right where her hand had been. Viscous black mucus materialized from the air around it, coating the shards into a ball of black nothingness. Before Sofia's eyes, it morphed into a definite shape and started to harden–
Into an inky black sphere with two needles sprouting vertically from both ends.
A grief seed.
Fuck.
An explosion rippled through the air and sent Sofia flying. The last thing she saw was Mimi's limp body lying on the ground, her eyes unblinking and dead.
Sofia woke up in the middle of a wide, spacious room.
The first thing Sofia noticed was the cold. It was like she jumped forward half a year had winter had come. The room was silent, too. The omnipresent Los Angeles urban chatter had disappeared. Meanwhile, the floor below was tiled in black and white marble like a chessboard. But rarely, a tile would be missing, allowing Sofia to look through the floor to see the black void below.
Sofia walked to the edge of the platform, marked by pillars of evenly spaced marble columns. Beyond those, Sofia saw nothing except more void space. She stared forward, at where the platform led, but black mist obscured anything more than fifty feet away from her.
This was Mimi's labyrinth.
Fuck.
Fuck.
God fucking damn it, if she was one second quicker none of this would have happened. Actually– wait a minute– if she had common fucking sense she would have just juiced herself up with super strength before trying the same thing that didn't work over and over again. She was so fucking stupid. The stupidest dumbfuck excuse of a magical girl to ever grace this planet. And, whatever streak of impeccable fortune that had led her to survive up to this point was ending soon, because she was completely and utterly fucked.
The whole reason Sofia became a CK was that her gun didn't work against witches. Unless she had powers from another magi, she was completely defenseless. For example, right now. All her mastery of Lucia's powers were completely reset because of Hazmat chick. Not to mention her gem was already completely busted.
She could do nothing.
God fucking damn it. Shew as going to fucking die here.
Well– that wasn't true. She could run the other way, pretend that she was never here, and wait for the other Los Angeles magi to clean up. Except if Mimi was to be believed, there were no other Los Angeles magi, was there? And not only that, this witch was in fucking downtown Los Angeles, probably in the top five densest population center in the entire world. How many would die if Sofia would wait?
How many people would die because of her?
Well, if Kyubey was here, he would no doubt have some sort of genius plan. Some enlightening but foolproof machination that Sofia had no hopes of stumbling upon on her own but could execute with ease, leaving Mimi dead, her gem restored, and so many humans saved.
But Kyubey had given up on her, hadn't he? Telepathy girl was a figment of her imagination. Every single Kyubey Sofia had ever uttered this day had reached his ears without fail, from back when she first defeated Hazmat chick. Sofia remembered now– the conversation they'd had, after Sofia had beaten her and held her gem at gunpoint. Sofia had responded in telepathy, and Hazmat chick heard her fine.
Where Sofia then killed her.
No time to dwell on that. Kyubey had left her, and Sofia would be doomed to die in this labyrinth, doing something that she was destined to fail–
No. No. NO.
Kyubey did not leave her. Sofia refused to believe that. And– and, believe it or not, Sofia was NOT a delusional moron. Even if, somehow, every single moment Kyubey spent with her had been a lie, Sofia was still a profitable asset. A senior CK, two years under her belt, tons of confirmed kills. There would be no reason to change the status quo. Something else was happening.
And– and, not only that– if Kyubey had given her up, why didn't he listen when Mimi was the one who called? She had also been on the verge of death. Kyubey would definitely have intervened, then. She was a perfectly profitable magi who had done nothing wrong.
But he didn't.
This made no sense. No sense at all. None! No reason for Kyubey to pull this ridiculous stunt. No way he gave up on her. She was still his number one CK, best friend, and the only person who he trusted. Any time now, and by any time now Sofia meant any time now, his neutral, calming voice would echo in Sofia's brain, enumerating a perfectly reasonable explanation for his absence while begging on his knees for her forgiveness.
So what was the idea? Should Sofia just fucking, what, wait here for Kyubey to come and save her? The idea of allowing lying on the column and hibernating until Kyubey woke her up sounded appealing– a world without him wasn't very exciting anyway. Unfortunately there were lives at stake. Every second she spent was a second Mimi spent squeezing the lives out of god knows many people.
"Ughhh."
Sofia stood up. She had no plan. Wasn't like it was possible to make one yet, with her having no idea what Mimi's witch even did. She'll think of one on the way.
Sofia conjured her gem. It was blacker than when she'd last checked on it– but definitely not the blackest she'd seen that day. If she figured out a way to beat Mimi without using any magic, she won't be dying any time soon.
But soul gems also doubled as a witch radar.
Sofia concentrated, half wishing that it would fail, giving her an excuse to wait for Kyubey to tell her what to do. But nope– her gem glowed red and in the distance the witch glowed red too, a dim crimson silhouette, visible even through the objects obscuring it. A big, impossible to miss, red target for her to fight.
Well, then.
Sofia began the journey. She would have ran, but she needed to conserve all the energy she could, with so little left. As she walked down the corridor, the floor would randomly spawn a tile of sky blue marble amidst the chessboard pattern. These tiles were weird– they were shifting, the swirls on the marble dancing around all on its own. The movements were hypnotic and otherworldly, like someone had pasted a section of a nineties cartoon into real life.
All around, flyers the size of printer papers flew towards her, carried by a wind that she couldn't feel. Sofia grabbed one, out of curiosity, and found it to be a copy of the menu of the burger place she had just eaten at, with each word replaced with shifting gibberish. Until Sofia turned over the page, which said, in clean, English words:
TRY OUR NEW SPECIALS!
Maia Cheburger - - - 3$
Sofiaburger - - - - - - - 3$
Sofia huffed. A Sofiaburger would sell for way more than three bucks, this place ought to be shut down. With that in mind, this list was probably not a random jumble of names, since Sofia did remember a Maia Cheburg being mentioned somewhere. As for "Sofiaburger", Mimi probably had some sort of witch magic that took the name of whoever read and appended a burger pun after it.
Sofia kept walking. The strange blue tiles became more numerous, until the entire platform became coated in strange, animated stuff. And eventually, she saw it.
The build that the witch lived in.
It was a burger joint.
In fact, the exact same burger joint that Sofia was in before Mimi witched out. Unremarkable green building, bits of paint already flaking off. The same steel-framed dirty glass door, a hanging sign with the same "APPLE PAN (Burgers & Grilled Cheese)"written on , when Sofia tried to look beyond the neon OPEN sign dangling from a coat hanger, she saw instead of tables filled with patrons ordering burgers, a purple void of nothingness.
This was it.
Unfortunately, the idea seeds she'd planted had not germinated into anything usable in the walk over.
Fuck.
Sofia stared at the door. One small push and she would be inside, with Mimi and all.
This was her last chance to turn back.
And Sofia entertained that thought for whole seconds before she realized that it was completely stupid. She wasn't going to turn back. There were lives at stake. Lives! Fuck all of her indecisiveness, it was time to get moving before she let any unnecessary people die.
The room inside was awash in a dim, purple light, like one of those bars in movies. Mimi had removed all the dividers and tables that didn't touch the wall, giving them a nice arena to fight it out. Otherwise, everything was the same. Identical fast food posters and basketball memorabilia decorated the beige wallpaper. The tables that had touched the wall were still there, too, and–
Oh god, Sofia'd found the civilians.
They populated the tables, filling most of the seats, sitting awkwardly straight as if at some sermon. They made no sounds or movements. In total, there were probably thirty people. That was a fucking lot. Yeah, even with the arena, Sofia did not have faith in her ability to avoid collateral damage–
And then, Sofia noticed a round, volleyball-sized object projected through the air. With one look she knew that it wouldn't be coming towards her, but through the dim light, she had to squint to be able to see it properly.
It was a fucking cheeseburger.
After the projectile reached grabbing distance, one of the humans– a plump old woman– snatched it out of the air in one swift motion like a pro basketball player. Then, she bent her jaws into impossible proportions, and stuffed the entire burger into her mouth in one single bite.
Sofia shivered in disgust. Her eyes darted to the place where the burger had originated–
And there was Mimi's witch.
She had been transformed into what appeared to be a bunch of human torsos stacked on top of each other. It went above the ceiling and below the floor. Each individual body was smooth and white, like a mannequin. Each of them had two arms that bustled with movement– Sofia could barely make it out. What was it doing? Working a grill, frying patties, roasting buns, and melting cheese.
She was fucking making burgers.
In an instant, a burger was done. With one fling of the spatula, the burger was thrown to another lucky civilian, who caught and ate it with grace and decorum comparable to the old lady.
And before Sofia could catch on, another burger had already been assembled and thrown.
And another one.
And another one.
Sofia was pretty sure witches were supposed to eat humans, not the other way around.
Mimi didn't seem to care about Sofia yet. But obviously that would stop the moment she decided to attack. How to deal with this?
Option 1. Kill Mimi in one shot.
That was impossible. Even for a normal magi, witches took a large quantity of shots and a catchphrased finisher to kill, neither of which Sofia had.
And, while Sofia hadn't thought of it yet, there did exist an option 2. And an option 3, an option 4, ad infinitum. All of which was just one good idea away. Kyubey, for example, could take one look at everything around her and rattle off at least fifty foolproof ways to kill Mimi and save everyone with ease. And– if Sofia could think of one, just one, she could win.
But her brain refused to work.
Why, god damn it? Kyubey stuck with Sofia because he thought she was smarter than the rest. But how smart was she, really, if she couldn't think to save a room full of people? But there had to be something in her brain. She had done smart things before. She had beaten Hazmat chick, whose powers countered hers. She'd beaten Lucia by turning her situation to her advantage. She was capable of thinking. So why wasn't she thinking now? What had happened?
Maybe this time there was nothing to think about. Sofia had finally gotten herself into a hopeless situation.
She should just leave. The witch wasn't attacking her yet. She could go wait in the corridor and pretend to not exist until someone with an actual chance came and did this for her.
Too many factors. Way too many factors. Sofia resisted the urge to tear Lucia's golden locks off her scalp. If she stayed she was fucked. If she left– well, then she'd be responsible for the murder of all these people, and she'd be no better than the magi on the bounty board whom she killed. In her indecision Sofia picked nothing, her feet glued to the ground, useless possibilities dancing around in her head–
Something pinged her projectile sense.
Sofia looked up and found a burger flying. But instead of the civilians, this one was flying directly at her.
Instinctively she took two steps backwards. And the burger landed where she had been a moment ago with a sad splat.
Sofia waited for it to explode, for a bloodshot red eye to open on the bun, for it to sprout french fries legs and crawl towards her like a spider. But nothing like that happened.
The burger stayed a burger.
Mimi didn't lock on to her or anything. She went back to flipping burgers and throwing them at other civilians.
And Sofia's stomach grumbled.
That made sense. She hadn't finished her burger before Mimi barged in and ruined everyone's day. But there was no fucking way she was touching food in a labyrinth, that wasn't going to happen–
But the burger looked– it looked good. Burgers didn't typically look good after they were violently thrown into the ground, but this one did anyway. The brioche buns glistened with butter. Juicy mushrooms. Caramelized onions. Pickles, lettuce, tomato slices. The patties shone in oil.
Sofia's mouth watered.
Okay. Well. It was, of course, completely idiotic to touch food conjured by a witch. But maybe it wasn't. Kyubey had told a story once. Some witch in Canada or whatever had a gingerbread house for a labyrinth, and the magi there survived for a month eating it and ended up completely fine. So– maybe it wasn't completely idiotic to eat conjured food. Plus, the bewitched civilians around her had been eating burgers and they weren't dying, or sprouting third limbs. Sofia could handle this.
Sofia swallowed bile. Her stomach grumbled again.
Here goes nothing.
Sofia bent down and picked the burger up with two hands. The bun squeezed between her fingers. It felt completely normal.
She brought it up to her nose and smelled it. God, it was amazing– the scent of beef grease and cheese grease, merging with the mayonnaise creaminess and mushroom earthiness to create the all-American burger fragrance that she'd only just rediscovered and quickly gotten addicted to.
This wasn't a terrible decision at all.
Sofia squeezed the burger too hard and spilled sauce all over her hands.
And suddenly Sofia realized that she was touching and sniffing a burger conjured by a witch. Was she a moron? Was Lucia's stupidity seeping through the brain pores and infecting her? In a panic, Sofia threw the burger at some random place, where a random civilian caught it and stuffed it into their mouth. But that didn't stop her spidey sense from tingling like crazy. Sofia scanned the room for any possible abnormality, and she found it.
A guy in an orange shirt opened his mouth.
Sofia had said that people opened their mouths into impossible proportions when they swallowed burgers. But god, this was more than that. Orange Shirt Guy unclasped his jaws so fucking wide, the top half of his head stared directly at the ceiling. Sofia could see the roof of his mouth and all the molars on his upper jaw.
But that wasn't all.
Something humanoid was pushing itself out. First a head, then a torso, dressed in a blue cloak and shawl and another mess of fabric that Sofia could not identify. The– thing– tumbled out of his mouth, rolled, and stood up.
Oh god.
Under its bird-like blue mask, Sofia glimpsed its face. No nose, no eyes, nor anything else. All it had was a snarling maw the size of its entire face.
Mr. Mouth Face was too– strange to be a human, and something that wasn't human and in a labyrinth was a familiar. Had Mimi finally decided it was time to attack? Sofia materialized Lucia's shitty cross shield and assumed a combat stance, which entailed bending her knees and preparing to run from anything that came for her at all.
But Mouth Face did nothing.
Instead, Orange Shirt guy moved. His mouth opened slightly, and a brown, fleshy tentacle the width of Sofia's forearm inched out his mouth and shot towards her.
Sofia conjured her shield to block– and somehow it did actually block. The tentacle struck it with a CLANG and knocked it out her hands, sending her flying with the faint scent of beef grease in her nose. She skidded on the ground until an instant later her head crashed against a table.
Fuck.
Sofia felt her head was being repeatedly kicked by someone wearing soccer arms and hands stung with wounds, too, but that was negligible. She opened her eyes and found her vision doing backflips. The world became monochrome. Normal head trauma shouldn't have been this bad– it must've been her gem. Her life support was going offline. Her body was falling apart.
CLANG
Fuck, she needed to wake up. The tentacle– it had to be on her trail still.
CLANG
She had no energy. And her senses were fucked. Any moment now, the tentacle was going to arrive and bitch slap her to death. She'll die here.
CLANG
What was taking it so long?
Her vision was inching back to normal. Objects gained enough definition to be told apart. Sofia saw the tentacle wasn't going after her anymore. Instead, it was repeatedly banging
itself on her shield.
It was too dangerous to run to her shield and dematerialized it. Passively managing a weapon didn't take any magical strength anyway.
Sofia pushed herself upright. The tentacle– even though it came straight out of Orange Shirt guy's mouth– radiated heat and smelled of sizzling beef.
It was made out of burger patties.
And back then. Mouth Face first manifested when Sofia touched a burger and squirted sauce on her hands. And now it was attacking her shield– why?
Sofia checked her hands. They were pretty fucking bad, covered in gashes of all shapes and sizes, like someone had gone crazy on them with a red marker. Bits of skin were flaking off.
But the sauce was gone.
And, when the tentacles struck the shield, if tiny bits of patty meat had stuck to it in the process–
So that was how Mouth Face tracked people. If you were touching any burger material, it would know where you were. Made sense. Earlier, if Sofia had given to her base impulses and eaten the burger– touching burger material with her digestive system probably counted too.
And Mouth Face wouldn't have lost track of her.
And she would probably have died.
Shit.
Mouth Face seemed to have realized that Sofia's shield was a bust. The tentacle retracted back into Orange Shirt guy.
Sofia pushed herself upright. She found a vacant seat near her, and sat down.
She surveyed the room. Bewitched Los Angelesers from all walks of life, enjoying a nice Saturday afternoon before the ground collapsed from under them, revealing Mimi's gigantic maw that swallowed them whole. A complete list of everyone who was going to die if she were to run.
But it was also a list of everyone who was going to die if Sofia didn't run. Well, no. To complete it, you would need to add Sofia herself. Because, in all honesty, Sofia could never beat Mouth Face. Even if it didn't have a way to track her down, something was bound to go wrong eventually. And that was not to mention however many more goddamn familiars Mimi had up her sleeve.
The choice was simple. Either these civilians died, or these civilians and Sofia died. No other option. These kinds of stories were ones Kyubey told Sofia often. A promising magi, through some lapse of judgment, put themself into an incredibly risky but easily avoidable situation, and died having accomplished absolutely nothing. Was that what Sofia was going to do? Was she really going to die like that, her only legacy being a place in Kyubey's vast compilation of human stupidity?
Fuck no.
Sofia was getting the fuck out of there.
It was the only logical solution. If Kyubey was in her position with all the information she had, he would have done the same thing. Maybe she was responsible for all of their deaths, but just Sofia had done the best of her ability to prevent that from happening and wouldn't make this kind of mistake ever again. She didn't owe these people anything.
YEAH. She wasn't leaving them to die. She was saving herself.
Sofia turned around to leave, but instead of the blank expanse leading to the door, and came face to face with someone.
Sofia's heart jumped so far up her throat that she almost spat it out. There was a person, standing literally right behind her, have been for god knows how long, Sofia didn't notice them at all–
Wait.
The person, actually probably a familiar, wore its greasy blonde hair so it completely covered its face. It also wore a gigantic mushroom cap, blood red with white polka dots, also a sleeveless white dress that went down to its thighs, fly agaric shelf mushrooms growing out of it.
It was her costume.
Sofia stared intently at the place where this costume thief's eyes would be, and found herself unable to look away. And, for some reason, within her veins welled up a sense of pure dread. Dread that cycled through her circulatory system, turning everything it touched into solid lead until Sofia sunk through the ground, dragged to hell by the weight of her fear–
This thing needed to die now. Provoking a familiar with a witch looming over definitely wasn't a good idea, but fuck good ideas, there was only one good idea and it involved this thing dying right fucking now. Sofia tried to conjure Lucia's shield to bash its head in– but found that she couldn't move.
No, she actually couldn't move. Her muscles responded to every command, but it felt like something was there, physically pressing her arms into place, as if she was stuck within a steel cast. There was nothing she could do but watch as her copy extended a pale, spidery hand to its face and parted its blonde locks like drawing up curtains. Except, instead of a face, underneath her hair, there was—
Sofia blinked. Her copy wasn't there anymore and she was staring at nothing. In a mixture of relief, fear, and confusion, Sofia got down on one knee, sucking up air in great gulps, urging her brain to figure out what was going on–
Knowing labyrinths, that was probably not some kind of hallucination. She had just been attacked, and just because she didn't feel anything strange, doesn't mean she was fine. The plan had not changed, Sofia needed to get out of there as soon as possible, screw everything–
Something pinged her projectile radar. She looked backwards and found that Mimi had thrown five burgers in quick succession, to the spot a couple of feet in front of her. Sofia took a step back to avoid it.
The burgers landed. Perfectly, on top of each other, in an uncanny stack. This trick wasn't going to work on Sofia again. She knew what happens when you touched the stuff inside the bun. Other than that, she doubted they had any other abilities. There was nothing preventing her from turning around and making a run for it–
But then, Sofia noticed it.
The smell.
The burgers. They had smelled good. but now it was like that smell had magnified itself five million times. It felt like heaven. No, it was better than heaven. Like someone took the entirety of heaven and condensed it into a burger shaped piece of perfect flawless ambrosia.
Sofia forgot about escaping. In fascination, she dropped her shield to the ground, and walked forwards to grab the topmost burger in her hands.
And it looked— it looked so fucking good.
The patty was a whole slab of beef, barbecued to perfection and dripping with tender fat, with a huge slice of buttery cheddar on top of it, saturating the beef with delicious cheesy essence. The mushrooms and pickles and lettuce and tomatoes were still fresh and juicy, like they had just been picked out of a vineyard. Sofia could already picture how it will feel like the moment she puts it into her mouth, all the different ingredients melting in an explosion of flavors, her taste buds singing a beautiful symphony into her soul–
Sofia squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.
This was her copy's attack. She hypnotized Sofia, made her obsessed with the burgers or something. But surely, surely, nothing bad would happen from eating something that smelled so good shut up. Sofia literally knew what will happen. The tentacles notice her and she instantly dies. Isn't it worth it though? You'll never get the chance to eat this kind of ambrosia ever again Shut up. SHUT UP.
Sofia wanted to open her eyes and bask in the burger's aura of deliciousness. She wanted it, more than she wanted to live. It was going to save her life, make all of her troubles go away, and allow her to restart her life anew. To know that there was something so utterly perfect in front of her and that she was not allowed to perceive it? What was her life compared to the quintessence of human existence right in front of her.
Fuck this shit. Sofia opened her eyes, and took a sniff.
It was like someone was pouring honey into her nostrils. Salvation had finally come to humankind, in the shape of a burger. The nagging voice of dissent disappeared. Finally, there was nothing to worry about, she was going to be alright–
Sofia opened her mouth wide and swalled the burger in one bite, closing her eyes to savor the pure bliss her taste buds were about to be afflicted with–
But she felt nothing.
The burger was– it had no taste. It was like a eating solid pieces of water. The wonderful scent of deliciousness had disappeared, too, not from the burger, but from everything around her. Suddenly she smelled nothing at all.
She'd been tricked.
Sofia spat out the half-chewed burgers out, but it was too fucking late. She definitely remembered swallowing something.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
Already she showed up on Mouth Face's radar. Orange Shirt guy's mouth opened again, and the tentacle was slithering out.
Oh god she was going to die oh god.
Fighting it wasn't an option. But she could make a run for the front door. No chance she could spare a Pearl for it, her gem definitely wouldn't be able to handle that–
And at that exact moment a lightbulb went off her head. Not just a way to escape Mouth Face. But– if Sofia was lucky– a way to defeat the witch, altogether.
And all she needed was–
Sofia dragged the civilian sitting next to her and made a break to the door. The tentacle crashed into the place she had been a moment ago and immediately course corrected towards her again–
The tentacle was fast. Sofia wouldn't be able to make it in time if she just beelined to the door. She ran for Lucia's shield instead. That stupid cross shaped scrap metal was still where she'd left it, covered in burger material just as Sofia was. She reached it, kicked in a random direction, transferring enough momentum so that it approximated her own speed, and immediately changed course towards the door.
As far as decoys go, this was not a good one, and the only thing left to do was to pray. Sofia prayed that she didn't somehow mess the maneuver up. Prayed that Mouth Face didn't have some hidden power allowing it to kill two things at once. Prayed that, even if all the preconditions returned true, Mouth Face wouldn't simply guess correctly on which of two dots in its burger-touch radar was actually her.
And Sofia, still dragging the random civilian along with her, heard that deafening CLANG echo from the back of the room.
It fucking WORKED.
Sofia half-run-half-crawled her way to the door, each one of her muscle cells working well beyond full capacity, her entire being zeroing in on her goal. She was so close. But she could feel the tentacle approach her, feel herself sweat as the heat it radiated grew closer and closer. But she ignored it and kept moving. The goal was in reach. Nine feet– six feet– three feet–
Sofia grabbed the doorknob and swung the door off its hinges. And she jumped through the purple barrier, and burst out into the world outside Mimi's hideout, and collapsed face down onto the floor.
SAFE.
Even after all that, escaping Mimi's hideout only did anything useful if Mouth Face couldn't move its tentacles outside. Sofia stared back at the door, waited for it to explode in a cloud of dust, revealing the tentacle, Mouth Face riding it, its oversized maw twisted in amusement at Sofia's pitiful escape attempt.
But no such thing happened. The door remained a door.
She was safe.
Sofia regarded her surroundings.
Ah yes. Mimi's ancient temple funhouse corridor. The same animated blue marble floor. The same burger fliers advertising three dollar Sofiaburgers floated up from the void. Where things made no sound, where chilling but silent winds pricked at her exposed skin, and the air reeked of sensory deprivation.
No place had ever been more comforting.
Sofia collapsed face down onto the ground. She almost kissed it, but decided against exposing her innards to witch marble. And she laid there, felt the sweat dripping down her head and saturating her cotton pajamas. Felt her pounding heart beat slower and slower as her subconscious caught up to the fact that she was safe.
Safe. Safe. Safe. She etched this moment into her mind, marked the relief surging through her bloodstream into her memory. This was, as all good things in her life, temporary. She had come up with a plan.
It was not an elegant plan. Not anything Kyubey would have come up with, if he was here– but he wasn't, was he? And so Sofia would have to make do on her own.
Sofia kicked off her tennis shoes and took off her sock. On her index toe was a plain silvery band, with a pure amber gem encrusted on the top.
Lucia's soul gem.
Sofia removed the ring, and found the civilian that she had randomly grabbed in the panic. He was shuffling around in a circle, drool coming out of his mouth. About Arnie's age.
Ew, it was a guy. Guys were weird. She'd possessed one, once, and it really wasn't that great. But possessing a guy was preferable to grabbing another civilian, so it'd do.
Sofia grabbed him and placed Lucia's ring in the pockets of his beige cargo shorts.
"What you doing," he slurred.
Sofia ignored him and gritted her teeth. In a flash of spores and a wave of migraine, her gun manifested.
Ah fuck. That's getting difficult.
Sofia blinked hard, once, twice, three times, until her vision corrected itself. She was fine. She was fine. She was going to be fine. This really, really wasn't the most foolproof plan, but if it worked, everything would work out.
Sofia pointed her gun at the civilian.
And fired.