oo2 | But those days are gone forever

[carabina]

Characters: Mami Tomoe and anyone who wants to see a suffering girl (aka YOU)!
Setting: Backdated to the 17th, the day after her network post. Floor Forty-eight in the morning, Floor Six in the afternoon and various monster-infested areas at night
Format: Action, but I'll match!
Summary: Mami snaps. In a Network post, she finds out about what Soul Gems and Grief Seeds really do, and the fate of all magical girls. Oh, and that conversation with Lancer didn't help at all.
Warnings: TL;DR because meguca feels. Violence, suffering, the usual! Also spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched Madoka Magica.

Graveyard
[ To anyone who knows Mami Tomoe, they would find the air around her to be warm and inviting. Not today, however. Today was different - very different in fact.

One could see that Mami was leaning on one of the gravestones. Besides the leaning, her posture was stiff and the air around her was depressing overall. Like she just found out something awful. Well, that's actually not far from the truth.

Her ring transforms into her Soul Gem and she stares at him. The emotionless look turned into a more horrifying one. The fate of Magical Girls was to grow into witches. The very thing she hunted. She was killing people like her.

She didn't want to cry. Didn't want to regret. So her eyes cast downwards and her expression changed to a tired one. ]

Forest
"Did you find anything else out? Anything.... Jyuubey failed to tell you?"

"Yes. The truth about Puella Magi. About Soul Gems."

I should have guessed this. To think it took me ten years to figure this out.

[ Mami was out hunting.

Not for food or anything like that, but she needed to calm herself. If she didn't, she would lash out at people. She didn't want to hurt anyone. She didn't want to hurt any of her friends, even if it could save them.

Lifting her musket, the magical girl aimed at an unsuspecting deer. There was silence as she concentrated on her target, wanting to think of nothing but shooting it down. She was a master at this, not even needing to venture too far from the staircase to spot her target. ]

"That we grow up to be witches."

[ The trigger was pulled, and after a few shots the deer withered in pain before passing on. She dropped the gun and suddenly began to cry. It was hard to determine what she was crying about, but she couldn't stop.

This feeling was bothering her. ]

Various floors
[ Mami's movements were slow, so she didn't make it back to the dorms in time. The ambush of Monsters was great, but she was a veteran at this. She was bloodied after killing them, something she still wasn't used to. After all, witches didn't shed blood. Even if they were once people.

People like her.

She seems to be in a daze and certainly not scared to raise her gun once she hears footsteps. She wasn't sure what was this feeling was, but her finger was placed on the trigger. ]

It's dangerous here. I advise leaving.

Comments

[carabina]

[ He was right. Mami couldn't help but ignore the grey creature wandering through the graveyard. She didn't move, though, only letting her eyes study him. She had seen similar creatures wandering around the tower and they seemed like kidnapped residents, like many people here, so she had no real reason to be hostile to him.

His question did catch her off-guard and she jumped in surprise. Was she OK? She'd like to think that maybe before learning the truth, she was just a bit. ]

I don't know...

[geometry]

[As common as trolls were in the Tower, Equius was never surprised when anyone couldn't stop staring at him. (Or, he was as part of the current event, anyway.) Dealing with trolls was one thing, but dealing with trolls who were twelve feet tall was another.]

[He looked down at her with a completely unreadable and blank expression, and then kneeled down, so that he was significantly closer to her height. He looked at the name on the gravestone (and didn't recognize it), but then turned his gaze to Mami.] Because of them?

[carabina]

[ She almost forgot she was leaning on the gravestone and quickly leaned away from it. She wasn't the type to lie so she shook her head. ]

No. I mean... I am sad for them but... Th-That's not the reason.

[geometry]

[Something else, then. He couldn't blame her. The graveyard floor was a very good place to brood in peace, because no one ever bothers you... but usually Equius made it a habit to sit somewhere away from the gravestones themselves, like against the wall. Don't want to get in the way of people actually grieving the lost ones.]

What is the reason, then?

[If she feels like talking about it, of course. He'll back off if she doesn't.]

[carabina]

I... Just found out something that was kept secret from me.

[ Of course, he could probably tell that the secret was pretty big for her. To find out that she would turn into the very thing she hunted... It was a pretty big deal for her. She knew she would never have a normal adult life, but she never thought she would mature into a witch. ]

[geometry]

[That made two of them then, Equius thought before he could stop himself. He sighed heavily, though whether it was at Mami or himself was unclear.]

I'm sorry.

[Of course he didn't know what secret had been kept from this girl, nor did he have any reason to, but he could sympathize. While his problem was far more... mundane than Mami's, it did still upset him in a way that he wasn't quite able to articulate. Having your boyfriend cheat on you with literally the only person in the Tower that you can say you hate does that to people, sometimes. And then there's the unfortunate matter of what happened afterward.]

Keeping secrets is quite possibly one of the worst things you can do to a person.

[carabina]

Sometimes we keep secrets to protect each other, or we're forced to keep quiet.

[ Mami was starting to calm down and think clearly. Her friends weren't trying to hurt her - she knew that well - but she wondered why they didn't tell her aft all of these years in the tower? Her head was hurting and she quickly gripped her forehead, wincing. ]

I just wonder why they kept it from me. It was something we all should have known. It's... It's not fair!

[geometry]

[Protect each other... hm. Equius shook his head, unable to comment at all on the fairness of it all. What she mentioned about it being the right thing to do... it made him wonder. Without knowing what she’d been kept from, there was no way he could agree with her or not. So he simply moved on to the next logical bit of conversation. If she wanted to share, she would.]

What is your name?