fifth prayer

[prayed]

Characters: Kyoko Sakura and you.
Setting: Cathedral -> Restaurant -> Library
Format: Starting in prose, but I'll match!
Summary: Kyoko has been in the tower for 10 years now! Or at least, she thinks she has been. Despite still looking like a fourteen-year-old girl, she's actually matured quite a bit over the years.
Warnings: None.


Floor Thirteen
Kyoko could be found knelt at one of the center pews. It was one of those rare occasions where she wouldn't be found eating something. It was one of those rare occasions where her hair was worn down. The ribbon that might usually have held it in place, as well as a religious icon, were held between her clasped hands, giving the image of being deeply in prayer. The mumbling is nostalgic, although it feels incomplete without the sermon and hymns that might have accompanied it under more favorable circumstances. This wasn't her father's church, but she had taken to coming here all the same. It was the closest she could come to feeling as though she was back home and to God in Heaven, watching over them all.

It was certainly Him who had given her another chance at life, even if it was in a place such as this, riddled with torture, death and disappearances, but also filled with friendships could not have been fostered anywhere else. Friends that had been lost to her back home; and of course, the opportunity to follow the path of repentance and redemption that she had brushed off for so long.

Interrupt her?

Floor Twenty-One
The restaurant wasn't a place Kyoko visited often. The temptation of good food would often outweigh the risk of loosing an eyeball, a lung or a limb (even if such a thing could be recovered through the use of magic,) especially now that the monotony had grown so great. Besides, what was life without a few risks? Fortunately, payment this time around had been fairly easy (or rather, by a stroke of luck, something she was already in possession of--she'd taken to the idea of collecting unusual things in the tower and popping open prize pods on the rare occasion that they showed themselves.)

She could be seen walking towards the staircase with a small plate in her hand, spearing a piece of chocolate cheesecake and taking bites of it.

Floor Three
Reading wasn't a hobby that Kyoko had seen herself getting into, not outside of the occasional manga, but her time in the tower had managed to soften her up the idea. She still wasn't what one would call an avid reader, but occasionally something would manage to catch her eye. At that moment "something" happened to be closer to her teenage self's preferences: some sort of fluffy shoujo manga. The kind where love and courage would prevail in the end, justice would be served and the day would be saved.

So she stood there, not yet bothering to leave the aisle, leaned back against the bookcase, flipping through the pages. Kyoko appeared to be surprisingly pleased with her find. There was a stick of banana pocky clenched between her teeth. The manga itself was pretty good. Better than she expected, even.

Comments

[prayed]

"Kinda hard to start it up 'again' when I never liked them to begin with. It's not like I'm gonna start gushing over them or whatever, y'know." Kyoko waved her hand dismissively. She was smirking, though, and it was clear that she wasn't that bothered by it all. "But, it passes the time, so I guess they're not so bad every once in awhile."

[tohko_amano]

At that, Tohko sighed and scratched her head.

"Well, I wasn't expecting you to start gushing over them, but why didn't you like them? However..it is good to hear that your opinion of them has improved a little bit!"

[prayed]

"It's not exactly that I didn't like them, y'know." She rolled her shoulders. She had grown up with biblical tales and stories where love and courage won out; things that she loved even after being trapped in this place for ten years. "I never had time for that sorta thing when I was younger, y'know."

[tohko_amano]

Since Tohko was surrounded by books when she was a child and knew kids that read every now and then, Tohko was a little puzzled by that statement.

"I see..how come? Were you busy with other activities?"

[prayed]

"I got a job to help my old man and after he croaked it was just me looking after myself, y'know. It kept me pretty busy, but as long as I could take care of myself, nothing else mattered."

It wasn't strictly accurate, but she felt no need to recount her life story now. She had changed, and in doing so had made the decision to leave the past where it belonged.

[tohko_amano]

That earned Kyoko a pat on the head. Tohko had lost both her parents, and while she hadn't had to look after herself, she could understand some of what Kyoko had gone through.

"I'm sorry to hear that..really, I am. It hurts losing a family member, especially a parent."

[prayed]

Kyoko shook her head in response. Her hand waved in a dismissive gesture. "It's fine, y'know. Even if I were to regret it, it's not like it'd change anything. Besides, I'm different now. I can take care of myself just fine." Though to say that she didn't regret it was a lie, though. The pain of losing her family due to her own selfish wish never went away, never would go away. It was like any old injury, sometimes almost forgotten, but other times it would flare up and it would feel as though it were her very first day alone once more.

[tohko_amano]

Well..that didn't help get rid of Tohko's concern, but it did make her puzzled about something.

"Just because you can take care of yourself every now and then doesn't mean that you can't rely on others to help you along. And..why do you talk about your father's death as if you caused it?"

[prayed]

Kyoko shrugged, as though the answer were no big deal. It wasn't as though there was any point in hiding it, not now, not when it was so many years into the past. Certainly not after knowing Tohko for so long; the girl was a bit nosy, but she was kind enough that Kyoko didn't feel much of a need to hide things from her. She bit off a piece of pocky before beginning her explanation.

"My old man was an excessively kind person, too honest for his own good. He read the paper each morning with an expression of sympathy. He took everyone's concerns seriously. He was a priest who believed that a new creed was necessary to save a new era. He even went as far as to preach things that weren’t in the doctrine. He was excommunicated. My old man was scoffed at, our family was left with no food. Even though if anyone would have just listened, they would have seen that the things he said was correct!" She snapped off another piece of pocky. Her voice started to rise, frustration building up, before she settled back with a bit of a chuckle. "Of course, that’s normal, right? Anyone would turn their nose up at such a shady-looking new religion religion."

"I found a way to change that. To get people to listen to stop and listen to my old man. I thought that since it was something that only I could do, everything was fine." She shook her head, held her hands out in front of her, as though scooping up the air. "That makes you laugh, right? That was my first mistake. I made the decision to fix another person's circumstances by myself. " The pocky stick was gone now. She reached into her pocket, pulled out another, clenched it between her teeth before holding the box to Tohko, encouraging her to take one. "In the end, my entire family died because of my foolishness."

She chose to left out the bits about being a magical girl, Kyuubey, and contracting--it wasn't that she had some need to hide it anymore so much as that it would only serve to make her explanation more confusing and more unnecessarily long-winded than it already might have been.

[tohko_amano]

As Kyoko explained herself, Tohko sighed in the back of her mind, and took a stick of pocky. However, she didn't eat it just yet.

"I-I'm sorry to hear that..really, I am. I know words might not mean anything right now, but..I am sorry that happened. But..I don't think that it's normal that your father got ignored. It's a crying shame, a tragedy!

And..I don't think that the fact you tried to help is funny. And..while I'm not sure why your whole family died because you tried to help, I can sympathize with what you did. I've..done something similar in the past."

Tohko sighed as she gathered her thoughts and what she wanted to say.

"Before I came here, I was involved with a girl named Chia Takeda. She said that she was in love with a boy and wanted my and my friends help with writing love letters to him. Wanting to help and keep up with my studies, I forced my friend to work while I played back-up and found out more information on the boy she loved."

Tohko then sighed again before eating the stick of pocky. It tasted like sand, but that was normal for her. She smiled as she spoke.

"In the end, Chia fooled us all. The boy she was in love with committed suicide ten years ago, and since Chia felt the same way he did, she almost managed to kill herself. If we had been a moment too late, she would have died..and while we were snooping around for answers about the boy she loved, my friend almost got stabbed by someone who had information and was scared. If I had been a moment too late..he would have died too."

[prayed]

Kyoko listened to Tohko's story intently. It was...nice to hear somebody say that she was right for once. That her father had been right. That was all she wanted, even now: for people to listen to him, to accept him and her as well. But as her circumstances, as well as Tohko's tale, clearly demonstrated, such things simply didn't happen. She polished off her pocky stick, leaned her head back to stare at the ceiling for a moment.

"That girl sounds like a real piece of work. It's kinda funny how the people you wanna help most are always the first to betray you, y'know." She closed her eyes for a moment, recalling those painful days before locking them away once more. She didn't need to think about them. "Still, you managed to get out of it without losing anyone important to you, right? That's all that really matters."

Though perhaps winding up in this Hellhole for years would have made it a hollow victory. Kyoko preferred not to think too hard about that possibility.

[tohko_amano]

At those words, Tohko sighed again.

"I don't think that's always the case..while that might happen every now and then, there are a lot of stories where that doesn't happen at all."

She then sighed again.

"That's true..but..I just hope Chia hasn't done anything foolish while I was gone. I made her promise to read all sorts of books and write a ten-thousand page paper on them..but if that doesn't hold, she may try to die again..and I'm not sure if my friend alone will be enough."

Even though Tohko wished and hoped it would be..there was no way to tell if it actually would be enough until she got back to her own home world and found out.

"Hopefully it will be though.."

[prayed]

Kyoko paused. They'd both been gone a long time now. Ten years. Long enough that, if their worlds were still around, Walpurgis Night would long since passed. And Kasamino...

"No point in worrying about it now. Even if our worlds are still there, there's no telling how much time would have passed, y'know. Who knows, maybe we'll get back and find that everything's exactly how we left it."

[tohko_amano]

Of course, to Tohko, only a few month had passed since she had been here. Time was flowing normally for her. However, she sighed and nodded as she thought.

"That's true..the amount of time that goes on here may be different to the amount of time that goes on over there. It could be like Narnia, and almost no time will have passed, or like a fairy circle, and ten years have passed. But..even thought I don't know how much time has passed, I'm still going to worry about my friends."

[prayed]

"Heh. I don't blame you. I entrusted Mitakihara to somebody who I knew would protect it, you know, but if my home town's still around it's probably stuck with some newbie looking out for it." She laughed a little. "My old man's church, too. I always watched over it for him, you know, even after he was gone."

[tohko_amano]

Despite the situation, Tohko couldn't help but smile a little bit at that.

"Well, as long as that newbie is doing a good job protecting your city, everything should turn out alright. At least..that's what I think. And it's great to hear that! I'm sure that would make him happy."

Tohko then sighed to herself, thinking.

"..I did the same thing with the publishing and editing company my father worked at. After he died, I kept tabs on it for a little while."

[prayed]

Kyoko returned Tohko's smile. Even though their circumstances were too different for them to truly understand each other (the only one who could truly understand her was Sayaka,) it was sort of nice to have someone try--someone who could relate, even if it was just a little bit.

"Your father worked in that kind of field, huh. That explains why you love books so much."

[tohko_amano]

At that, Tohko nodded.

"Yup..and my mother wrote for a book magazine. I guess some of my love of books came from them..but it's not like I enjoy them just because they did. I just grew up in a house filled with stories, so it was hard to not enjoy them too."

[prayed]

"Isn't that the same thing? 'Cause it sounds like your parents are the only reason you were surrounded by books."

[tohko_amano]

"That's not quite true. There were some books we didn't have, so I would sometimes go to the library and read. And, even after my parents died, I still surrounded myself with stories. After all, they're pretty wonderful things."

[prayed]

"Sure, but it sounds like they're the ones that got you started on those things. 'Cause they made sure you were surrounded by books from the start."

[tohko_amano]

"Well, it was chance that they liked books too..but even if I wasn't surrounded by them, that love probably would have been born due to a library or a school."

[prayed]

"You'd probably be a totally person though, don't you think? 'Cause you'd have been raised in a completely different kind of environment. Like, all the kids here. I bet they would've turned grown up to be totally different people if they were still back home instead of being trapped in this Hellhole." And, needless to say, she believed they would have turned out to be better people. Like America. He wasn't a bad kid, but this place had really screwed him up. He wasn't the only one either.

[tohko_amano]

At that, Tohko sighed.

"..I probably would have been a little different, but I don't think the changes made would have been for the better. And while this place is pretty terrible, it does have it's good points to it. It's not all bad."

[prayed]

"It's not all bad, it's not exactly child friendly. People like you and me know how to handle the bad things that come around here, but there are kids here who're just starting elementary school. They don't deserve to be stuck in a place like this."