Chapter Text
I'm scared.
This thought both mystifies Sayo and fills her with a sense of wonder. She's been scared often, of course. Anyone who thinks a heroine of justice is completely fearless is dismissing the internal struggles of every magical girl. To say a magical girl has no fear is to diminish the magnitude of them standing up and fighting on despite that fear. Their outer fearlessness is an act for the sake of onlookers; but it's their inner courageousness in spite of their fear that shines at the heart of every true magical girl.
Fear is their constant companion.
More constant, even, than their closest friends...or worst enemies.
But Sayo is scared, and she doesn't know how to gather up the courage to counter this sort of fear.
Will she accept me?
What will that look like?
But even these worries are merely distracting her from the real fears she holds.
If she accepts me...
Then what does that mean for my friends? My family? My future?
Sayo knows what she wants. She wants Baiser's touch, her caress...the sting of Baiser's lash against the tender parts of her body, coming when she least expects it, a wondrous delight of surprise and sensation.
But there's so much more within that want.
So much more she doesn't understand.
And oh...how she'd love to be taught...
She sighs, but just then a knock comes at her bedroom door.
"Sayo-chan?" Her mother's voice is the same calm and gentle tone as always. Throughout her life, Sayo has looked to her mom whenever she needed reminding of the kind of person everyone wanted her to be. Tranquil, elegant...humble perfection, meeting those in need with a kind smile and a guiding hand, and standing against the wicked with an unwavering resolve.
What would her mom think, if she knew Sayo's secrets?
"Yes, mother?"
"Your friends are here. Would you like me to send them up for you?"
"Ah...erm, yes, please. Thank you." Sayo had hardly eaten at breakfast, and though she'd asked for her friends to come over, she hadn't quite mustered up the will to fully prepare herself to meet company. Her outfit is a simple one for around the house, her hair is a mess...
All these worries, though...are they really her own? Or the echoes of those expectations she's fleeing from, into the arms of her twisted desire?
Another knock comes after a few moments, faster than her mother's, followed soon by Harka's worried voice.
"Sayo-chan? It's me and Kaoruko-chan. Can we come in?"
Sayo clears her throat and tries to sit more primly on her bed, though the thought of how she must look—an utter unkempt mess, trying to maintain good posture while holding a plushie dolphin —does make her wonder at the efficacy of such efforts. "Ah um, yes, please."
Haruka enters first, giving a little bow, followed shortly by Kaoruko, who gives the slightest of nods before closing the door behind her. While Haruka keeps up her bright, beaming smile, and while Kaoruko's lips are pulled into that trademark catlike smirk of hers, Sayo knows how worried they must be.
Sayo stands and bows, then motions to a short table where her friends can sit.
Haruka plops onto the ground beside the table with a sigh. "Gueh, things have been so crazy recently, huh? As if school and tests weren't enough..."
"Yeah," Kaoruko says with a shrug, sitting next to Haruka. "But what can ya' do? Just wish this new villain was a little less...fucking weird with her plans. Whatever the hell they might even be."
"Yeah...actually..." Sayo gulps, then sets her jaw as she sits back down on her bed. There's no easy way around this. She's only had a night and a bit to prepare for a talk she doesn't know the end of. She doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't know any path other than straight forwards. There's no elegant solution. No humble acceptance.
There's only the truth, plain and ugly as can be.
Sayo sighs. "Um...I need to talk with you two about...the new villain."
Her friends cock their heads. Kaoruko's lips twitch, no doubt about to make some hurtful comment about either Sayo's odd new inability to fight or some series of cuss words to berate Baiser with, but she holds back.
Haruka, on the other hand, keeps smiling.
"This...Magia Baiser," Sayo starts, already feeling the manic-panic thoughts filling her mind, thoughts of her friends' disgust, of their disowning her, thoughts of everything she's cared about and loved falling apart for a few feelings her body gives her...all these thoughts fill her, but she continues, using all that inner strength she's cultivated as a magical girl to propel herself onwards. "She does not appear to be attempting to eliminate us. She also...does not appear to be attempting to conquer the world, or leading a criminal syndicate in a crime spree...in fact, it would seem that her only goal is to give away her position and engage us in combat."
"Well," Kaoruko starts, her smirk going wider and her eyes gleaming, "If all she wants is to fight, that's fine by me." Her smirk falters though and she sighs as she goes on, "But I guess I wish she wasn't such a fucking perv about it."
Haruka groans. "Yeah, she really doesn't seem like the other villains we've faced."
"She is...unique," Sayo says with a chuckle, but she soon puts her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, leaving her plushie at her side.
She knows her friends won't understand.
She's not sure she understands it herself.
But this decision...must be made.
Sayo glances up at her fellow magical girls, going on in a mumble. "I um...have something I want to talk to you two about regarding all of this, actually..."
"We're here for you, whatever it is!" Haruka says brightly, and at her side, Kaoruko nods.
My friends...
Sayo presses her lips together, looking down at the ground for a moment before squeezing her eyes closed.
My precious friends...
Of course they're here for me. They'd always be here for me. No matter what I'm going through...they'd always be here. And yet...
Here I am...having made a decision before even talking with them. Calling them here just to tell them the conclusion I arrived at without them.
Sayo opens her eyes, her hands going to the sheets on her bed and clenching tightly.
Maybe this is perfect.
Maybe...
I just really...
"I don't...deserve friends like you," Sayo mutters.
"Sayo-chan?" Haruka gets up and sits beside Sayo on the bed, laying a hand on Sayo's shoulder. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
"Haruka, give her a moment," Kaoruko mumbles, getting up and standing near Sayo.
Sayo takes in a long, shuddering breath.
This feels like a dream. Unreal. Like something she might start imagining and quickly stop, then spend the rest of the day questioning why she would have ever started down such a crazy line of thought. A delirious part of her wishes...
Well...
That Baiser was here to guide her, to command her...to tell her how to get through this.
Sayo is so very, very tired of doing this all on her own, yet on her own is the only way she seems to do things, when it comes to deep personal matters like this.
"I...met with Magia Baiser last night, for a duel."
Kaoruko's eyes twitch and her fists clench at her sides. "By yourself?"
Sayo nods, looking away.
"Well..." Kaoruko, amazingly, relaxes and lets out a little laugh. "I mean, yeah I get'cha. I did the same. But...ya don't exactly seem like it went too well..."
Haruka gives Sayo's shoulder a little squeeze. "Did she...do weird stuff to you?"
Ah.
Sayo's lips tremble.
Of course.
Haruka...sweet Haruka...gentle Haruka...
Innocent Haruka...
Kaoruko sighs. "Prolly, yeah. All I found out when I fought her solo was she's good at escaping, and she's a damned pervert."
Sayo opens her eyes, letting out a defeated sigh.
And Kaoruko...who tries so hard to keep that tough side of hers hidden...
She fought Baiser alone and she doesn't seem any different. Both of them dueled her on their own, now that I think about it. Whatever Baiser did to them...it didn't affect them the same way it affected me.
Sick of hesitation, Sayo speaks her truth in a whisper.
"I like it."
For a while, Sayo isn't sure she really said it. She thinks that maybe she only imagined it, or maybe she just said it so softly that neither girl heard her and both are still waiting in silence for her to tell them what's bothering her. But Sayo glances up at Kaoruko, and that look of blank surprise on Kaoruko's face makes it impossible for Sayo to believe she didn't say it.
Sayo can't imagine what Haruka's expression must be.
Probably still smiling, still certain that her friend Sayo couldn't possibly have said such a thing truthfully.
But surprising her once again, Kaoruko's face softens. "Eh, I mean..." Kaoruko sighs, scratching the back of her neck. "That's kinda what I figured."
Sayo blinks. She feels like she was standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down, but those words have suddenly jerked her away from the ledge. Not from the pwoer of some great revelation or a sudden heartwarming sense of togetherness brought on by an emotional outpouring, but from sheer, utter confusion. "Um...what do you mean?"
"I mean, c'mon Sayo," Kaoruko shrugs, crossing her arms across her chest, no longer meeting her friend's eyes. As she goes on, her voice is soft, almost shy, and the oddity of this hits Sayo harder than the words themselves. "You were getting hit by like everything. You spent most fights just tied up the whole time. I figured something was off, but...I dunno. Thought maybe you weren't taking this Baiser chick seriously or something, or you were having trouble concentrating. Like..." Kaoruko paces away, then returns, then paces away further. "These kinds of things aren't like something I'm super used to either but they're mostly just annoying. I wanna beat her ass and she just wants to tickle mine. But...like...is this what's been bothering you?"
"Y...yeah..." The tears come suddenly and Sayo is barely able to get her hands up in time to cover her face, shivers going all through her body. "D-do...do you mean to say you don't...think I'm disgusting?"
Haruka reaches down and takes one of Sayo's hands in hers. "Of course not! Just because it's not something I enjoy personally doesn't mean I think any less of you!"
Kaoruko sits on Sayo's other side, gruffly cupping Sayo's other shoulder with a palm. "Right. It just means we gotta find a way to help you deal with that, since that seems to be Baiser's whole thing."
"You two..." Sayo sniffles, trying to get herself under control, trying to bring herself back to that image of perfection she knows others expect from her.
But that brings it all back.
If I stay...
Nothing will change. I'll always be like this.
Unable to be myself...unable to enjoy what I enjoy. Here, with my friends, surrounded by their kindness and love...but never feeling fulfilled. Never feeling...right.
"I..." Sayo breaks down completely now, her facade of grace and composure melting away, like ice undone by a summer sun. "I..." She has to say it.
Has to.
Because if she doesn't, then it'll all stay the same, forever.
Might even get worse.
The desires she holds within...
If she stays here, as she is...
What's to say things won't get worse? What's to say she won't prioritize her repression of her innermost wants over all else? Becoming someone who sees freedom in denial...whose only response to pleasure is to resist it, to refuse it, to twist it into something it's not...
That just seems so...
Tragic.
Haruka squeezes her shoulder again. "It's okay, Sayo-chan. Take your time."
But Sayo doesn't take her time.
Of time, she's taken enough.
"I can't be a magical girl anymore." She ends this with a chuckle.
She doesn't know how.
Perhaps it's the delirious sense of relief that starts to flood through her once those words are finally spoken out loud to those who need to hear them most.
Perhaps it's the irony, though maybe she doesn't know what irony really is.
There's so much she doesn't know...but the knowledge that from here on out, she won't have to know more, won't have to 'find a way' to overcome anything, won't have to be the hero in everyone's life but her own....the knowledge that her Mistress will free her fills Sayo with such a spark of joy.
Kaoruko cocks her head. "Uh...I mean, it's not that serious. I'm sure we can find a way to counter her. And even if ya aren't really bothered by the stuff she does, there's definitely a way we can use that to our advantage."
"Sh-she's right!" Haruka says brightly, but Sayo sees her wipe a tear from her eye.
Kaoruko sees it too.
"Whoah...Haruka?" Kaoruko comes up and lays a hand on Haruka's shoulder. "You alright?"
"No," Sayo says softly, looking down as she lifts a hand to where Haruka's is, on her shoulder. "Because...she knows I'm serious. Right, Haruka?"
"Y-you...you can't though..." Haruka squeezes Sayo's shoulder more tightly. "You can't really mean it, right? This is just...some minor thing! A new villain with a strange tactic! We can overcome her! If we work together, we can beat her!"
Sayo shakes her head before Kaoruko can join in with her own attempt at motivation. "Haruka...Kaoruko...you two are my most precious friends. The time I spend with you as a fellow magical girl is priceless to me. But..." She squeezes Haruka's hand, atop her shoulder, and looks up at Kaoruko with tear-filled eyes. "Please, understand. It's not about thinking I can't take it. It's not about failing before a challenge."
"Then what's it about?" Kaoruko says through a sneer. Sayo sees the tears in Kaoruko's eyes, which explains it all. Faced with this pain, this betrayal...what else is Kaoruko to do, but turn to anger?
"The things she does to me...I like it...I genuinely, truly like it. Because it's the one thing in my life that..." Sayo's brow furrows and her lips twist as she tries to find the words for the feelings filling her. "It's...the one thing in my life, where I'm allowed to fail. Where I'm supposed to give in. You say I can learn to fight against it but...it's not that I can't. I just..."
"You don't want to." Kaoruko's voice is cold and low. "What the fuck is this, Sayo?"
"Kaoruko-chan," Haruka says softly, holding her free hand up to her chest and clenching it nervously at the collar of her blouse. "Maybe Sayo-chan needs more time to think about things. It'd be...it'd be crazy to think she'd..." Haruka sniffles and wipes at her eyes.
Sayo puts both hands in her lap, sighing, ignoring the tears rolling down her own cheeks. "To tell you the truth...I'd rather not delay this decision. Whenever I think of staying...of trying to go on, as I have..." She puts her hands up to her chest, folding one over the other. "I feel so hollow inside. All my life I've been...this one way. The way you've seen me be. And while I've had so much happiness in my life...this is something else. It's like there was something precious in me that I've been stuffing down and trying to ignore, but now I see it and it's...it's me. It's crazy, maybe it's sick, but it's...it's me."
"So, what? You get felt up by some crazy bitch and that's it? Everything that came before just doesn't fucking matter?" Kaoruko is nearly snarling now, the facade of the calm, unyielding shield of Tres Magia thrown to the side in favor of the fury and passion burning within.
Burning within and having been held deep down, for so long, against her will.
"I'm like you," Sayo says faintly, her eyes wide, not realizing she spoke aloud at first. But once she realizes what she's done, and though her cheeks are burning red-hot, she pushes further. "You always have to stuff down that part of you. The part that wants to fight...the part that loves to play rough and curse and...and be yourself...your own wonderful self..."
"Don't turn this around on me!" Kaoruko clenches a fist in front of her, her other hand furiously gripping her purse. "This ain't about me having to play nice to get Vatz to piss off! This is about you, fucking loving when that fucking pervert psycho Baiser ties you up and fucks with you!"
"Kaoruko-chan," Haruka tries to cut in, her voice carrying the gentlest chiding tone, but Kaoruko isn't having any of it.
"Haruka, don't you get it? She's leaving us! She's giving up!"
Sayo looks down.
She hadn't known how it would go.
But this...
A sad smile drifts across her lips.
This almost makes it easier...
"She's—!" Haruka starts but Sayo interrupts, lifting Haruka's hand off of her shoulder and placing it down on Haruka's leg.
"That's right," Sayo says, turning that sad smile up to Kaoruko and looking her dear friend straight in the eyes as she goes on, "I'm giving up. I'm done. I won't fight her. I don't want to. Even if I could learn how to, someday...that wouldn't be..."
Kaoruko's eyes flash with fury like Sayo's never seen, and though Kaoruko's eyes are tearful, there's not enough pain in the whole of anyone's heart to mask such a rage. Kaoruko says nothing more.
She turns.
She leaves.
She's gone.
Sayo turns now to Haruka, sweet Haruka, gentle Haruka, who looks at her apologetically, as if there was any other way that could have gone.
"Sayo-chan," Haruka starts, her voice wobbly. She sniffles as more of her own tears come, but she doesn't let that stop her from trying her best to help her friends....trying her best to fix the problem. "Um...I don't know what all you're going through...but please...don't feel like you have to make a decision like this so soon. Please...give it a little more time..."
"I can't." Sayo sighs and starts reaching up to lay her hand on Haruka's, but Sayo thinks better of it and instead wrings her hands together in her own lap. "Haruka. I never knew about this side of me. And I feel...that I would be very...that I would..." She shakes her head, trying to clear the emotions from her mind to help her see the line of logic that led her here.
But there was never such a line.
Never such a logic.
All that brought her here to this moment was emotion, the movement of her heart—bedecked in cold chains that know nothing of her or her desires—now finally beating hard enough to break her free, finally beating in tandem with someone else's tempo.
Did she choose who to feel this for?
No.
But does anyone?
Sayo goes on, looking into Haruka's eyes, but seeing the pain in her sweet friend's gaze nearly crumbles Sayo's conviction right then and there.
Nearly, but not quite.
"Haruka. It's not as if I don't want to still be your friend. Of course I still want to be. I just...can't be a magical girl anymore. Not now, that I've found these...feelings, inside myself. Please...I can't fight an enemy I don't want to fight. I can't avoid attacks I long to take. I can't...pretend to be someone else, now that I finally know who I really am."
"Do you know?" Haruka's eyes narrow for a second, but Sayo's sudden look of surprise seems to break whatever had taken hold of Haruka and Haruka blinks, looking just as surprised herself. "Ah! Um...I'm sorry, I didn't...I don't know what I meant by that."
"No, it's—" Sayo starts but Haruka stands up, wiping at her eyes, and heads towards the door of Sayo's bedroom.
"Sayo-chan," Haruka says, turning a sad glance back at Sayo, "Um...text me, or call me...or talk to me...or anything, really...if you need help, or if you change your mind, or...or if you just want to hang out...um...please. I'll...I'll see you later..." Haruka sniffles and turns away, leaving through Sayo's bedroom door and closing it gently behind her.
After a few moments, into the silence of her bedroom, Sayo says, in a whisper, "Goodbye."
For hours, she hardly moves, only stares at that door, the memories of her time spent together with her friends flooding through her mind. She cries, sniffling softly, barely able to get up the energy to wipe her tears away. Many dry on her cheeks, and still, she stares at that door, though as time goes on and as her hopes of her friends returning to try again finally fade in full, Sayo's gaze becomes less morose and more anxious, wondering when—refusing 'if'—the one she's gone through this pain for will come through that door.
As her hope for her friends flickers and fades, her hope for her Mistress sparks to life, burning bright, burning dangerously...a flame in the wind, fickle yet stubborn, fighting to live against the very enemy that gives her life.
Pain.
There are so many kinds.
This pain...of loss, of failure...I've known and feared this pain so long.
The pain she brings though...
Heat burns in her cheeks as Sayo thinks of her Mistress.
I will be hers.
Or I will be...nothing.
With a smile under sad eyes, Sayo awaits her Mistress, knowing in her heart that when it comes to the question her Mistress is pondering, there's only one answer Sayo will accept without question.
And once that answer comes, all this pain...will have been worth it, to feel her touch.
To be at her mercy...
And to pray she has none.