2018-10-14 - Again
I.
"It all keeps happening! It's happening again! Why did it have to happen!? Why!? Why - Why why why why WHY - I hate it, I hate it, I hate it I hate it I hate it!"
"What Madoka said... she wanted to make a better world, to protect people from Witches. Bad enough, wicked enough, cruel enough that she had to d-die from all of this but it's like some kind of awful joke. Like a twist ending, like some kind of - of - I don't know - it can't be how it really ends, can it?"
"This is Kozue's fault! Kozue encouraged her! I don't know if she's stupid or wicked and I don't think that it's either-or! If it wasn't for Kozue, then Sayaka would have just wept and wouldn't have, have left us before..."
"Shimanouchi did that. That awful, wretched girl. I should have stuffed that potting soil down her throat if she loves it so much. She felt sick, did she? After everything we did. Everything we bled for. All of it's just a hideous joke. All we did was get precious people killed. Now there's only two of them, three if you count Akemi."
"Akemi. By heaven and hell what a cruel and awful girl. I can't forget her eyes. She sounded so absolutely certain, so definitive. How could anyone be like that? To be like that you have to be a monster. I've never felt that certain about anything in my life. I doubt I ever will. And she said it all as bare as brass in front of Madoka..."
"Madoka had to see all of this... she's had to see so much... I... I don't know - do you think I should have done more? I don't know what more I could have done, everything is so confusing. There's nobody to tell me what to do, nobody to look to any more. Even Utena could have died there. The only reason the Shepherds didn't kill us all is because we have the Midchildians."
"I..."
"I wish I hadn't shouted at Sayaka... That was, was the last real conversation we had and she just took it so mildly. She must have thought I hated her, at heart... I...
"I could've... I coulda - I -
"It should have been me instead, but I can't... I just can't..."
Nori Ankou lapsed into something like sleep.
II.
The hardest part of this was the water, and Batiste wished, not for the first time, that he had brought more with him.
La Sirene de Diamant - Nori Ankou - Akai Mirai, and whatever other names were yet to come - was sprawled upon the modernist couch, the upholstry still in some disarray from where she had thrashed. When she had quieted and the sobs and steadied into something like the slow deep breathing of a sleeper, Batiste had moved, as he had before. But rarely had it been so involved.
He used the blanket Nori laid on to position her so she would not fall and awaken with pain. He had arrayed what he knew Nori would need when she awoke on a plate - a few dried figs and the strips of the smoked dried salmon they had both gasped over in the store a week or so previously.
But now! Now he had to fill a glass of water. And to move a pint of water was not an easy thing to do, even with the trailing tube they had set. Batiste did it by teacups, filling a fat handle-less tea-cup halfway and carrying it towards the glass. It would take two more fills, he thought.
As he poured water into the glass, taking care to avoid undue sound, he gazed on the face of his soi-distant cousin: he felt his duty, but there was more there, too. He had felt the seeds growing within his heart, but now, he knew with a sort of sad pleasure, it was certain.
And am I not, too, a Chevalier, he thought with pride, as he placed the teacup atop his head and leapt from the coffee table.
III.
The water glass sat, largely empty, as Nori Ankou chewed on the jerked salmon. She did not taste it, quite, but the taste had slid into her memory even so. She would want it again, later, but the future is often formed when you are not paying attention.
"I will review," said Batiste, wearing his brooch and holding the small pencil he used for stenography, "what we know."
"First: that according to the testimony of Madoka Kaname, Sayaka Miki's Soul Gem was seen to shatter. "Second: That this shattering occured without intervening force. "Third: That Sayaka's Soul Gem had become completely black, distinct from the traditional color which we had witnessed. "Fourth: That such destruction will slay a member of Sayaka and Mami's society."
Nori sniffed loudly, staving off a sob.
Batiste paused. Then continued:
"Fifth: That according to the testimony of Homura Akemi, Sayaka's Soul Gem passed a point of no return and became a Grief Seed. Subsequently, it hatched into a Witch. "Sixth: According to same testimony, such is the final secret of a Soul Gem. "Seventh: Homura Akemi testified further that the good which Sayaka has done will now be matched by the evil she will now do."
"That is not quite right," Nori said mildly. "She was specific. The lives she saved can only equal the lives she will now curse. That's what she said."
Batiste scribbled on the sheet for a while. "And then finally," the otter said, "she spoke to Madoka."
Batiste placed his pencil down. His paws came together. Nori ate her jerky.
Silence hung in the air like cheap incense.
Finally, Nori spoke. "Could Homura have been lying?"
"Perhaps," Batiste says. "She is a mystery."
"Do you think she was just... doing this to bully Madoka? I thought perhaps, she- Homura, I mean - might have been one of the Brothers in disguise... Madoka has been through so much."
"I do not think so... she left. And she did this in front of everyone," Batiste said, though he was not wholly convinced. "Wicked and cruel it may have been but it held courage. A bully would have cornered Madoka and given her these statements alone. She did this knowing that you or Endo or Lera or Mikoto would lash out at her - perhaps wound her or kill her, in their cases."
"Mm," Nori said, chewing on her ish.
"I wonder if Kyuubey knows about this," Batiste mused.
"About Homura?"
"No," Batiste said, "about the Witches."
Nori frowned then. "But he opposes the Witches. He gives girls wishes and they become the 'Puella Magi,' right? And they have to hunt Witches. They *have* to."
Nori said after a few moments, as if to continue the thought, "Besides which, that was all that Shimanouchi was doing. She was raising up Witches from Familiars. So, can Grief Seeds really be what Homura said?"
Batiste didn't answer, before saying, "Perhaps we are seeing a breakdown in the system..."
"Huh?"
Batiste looked up from his notes.
IV.
"I have had some time to think about things, Cousin, and I put together some of what you said even before we went over it - before you had to sleep. About Witches and the Puella Magi. I had thought... well, I will illustrate here for you. How many people live in Tokyo?"
Nori blinked several times.
"I don't know," Nori said: "A lot?"
"There are over twenty million people in the Tokyo area, cousin. You remember Sapporo? Sapporo was huge, wasn't it?"
"Yes..."
"Sapporo is a little under two million. The entirety of the Sea of Tears does not have that many people of your tribe... But cities the size of Sapporo, these aren't too rare. But ones the size of Tokyo! Those are rare. Only on Earth in this time period, I think." Batiste looked at the paper. "I wonder... we had no records of Witches, but there were one or two strange accounts that might have been witches..."
"I don't get it," Nori said.
"If a city like Sapporo might support one Puella Magi, then that one girl, lonely as she might be, would have no problems - she might die in battle but there would be homeostasis, right? But in Tokyo - from the crowding - Witches can spread Familiars so much more readily..."
"Batiste..."
Batiste looked up, at Nori. "Yes?"
"... I want to ask you something."
V.
"Are you honest with me?"
Batiste was silent for a second or two. His belly tensed and his tail lashed in the air, once.
Nori continued. "I ask because... I know Kozue was trying to do something, with Sayaka. I don't mean make time with her, that made sense. I mean that she had to be doing something, she had to have had some reason. But the plan got out of control, if it was ever in control, and she came to great grief."
Nori leaned forwards, folding her arms. "Because there was this grand secret about the nature of the Soul Gem that Homura Akemi did not tell us. Because the Wolkenritter had a secret that they would not reveal - not just once or twice, but over and over. All of these things you are saying... they're interesting, and I know you're very clever... you're more clever than a lot of humans I know... and I know that you came to me."
"I want to know if there is another secret," Nori says, "another great secret you are hiding... because I have already lost two precious people. And wicked things so often come in threes."
Nori opened her mouth - and the mask cracked. Tears welled up in her eyes as she said, voice growing thready and breathless, "Batiste... I cannot do all of this alone... if; if there is some secret, or if you are trying to do anything, I will help, but you have to tell me, please, I cannot keep doing it like this..."
Batiste got down on all fours and moved forwards and Nori raised a hand: "No! No, don't get in my lap. I don't want that, damn you! I want to know I can trust you, that you aren't moving me around like some chess piece, that I won't wake up covered in Madoka's blood and with you sadly saying it had to happen!"
Batiste brought himself up sharply, claws skittering; he tumbled off the side of Nori's side of the coffee table, landed on his back, and looked upwards.
"Alright," he said: "I'll tell you."
