Chapter Text
kyoko sakura - defense
so they dug your grave / and the masquerade / will come calling out at the mess you've made - imagine dragons
the last kyoko remembers of her family is pain. she watched her father stab both her sister and her mother. she couldn't move out from hiding, not if she wanted to live. but she didn't have to wait very long. she watched him stab himself and fall to the ground.
she heard her mother scream for the girls to run, but young, naive momo was unable to understand the severity of the situation and fled to her mother. in her last moments, momo shielded her mother from their father, but was useless to try and stop death.
kyoko watched her father pierce her sister's back multiple times to ensure that only death was upon her. even in her final moments, momo was hugging her mother.
kyoko only emerged from hiding a few minutes after, but it felt like hours. she checked the pulse of both her mother and sister. there was no movement, but they were still warm due to only passing mere moments ago. there were droplets of water on both of the dead girls. kyoko almost wishes she was crying. she doesn't know why she isn't.
she didn't bother checking her father's pulse, if he wasn't able to accept her being a magical girl, he wasn't worth checking on.
she wishes she was brave enough to face her father like momo was. she wishes she could've changed their fate. the ending that the two didn't deserve.
she does not clean their bodies; someone will find them in due time but kyoko doesn't want to be there when that happens. she hopes that the authorities who investigate the crime learn the story. she hopes to never be found by them. she doesn't want to be in the public's eye for any reason, and she definitely doesn't want to be suspected of her family's murder.
she left to her room and packed her bag, the essentials only. her phone, food, some clothes, and as much money as she could. she grabbed their credit cards as well, but she'd only use her mother's. it's better to not risk using her dad's due to the names not matching, especially since kyoko is not a guy.
with everything in tow, she exits her home for the final time and does not look behind her.
she decides to reside in her father's old church, the one that she loathes. technically the family still owns it so she's not trespassing.
she sets her stuff down in the secret part that only she knew about, it's barren and a bit boring but the government won't find her here. not for a while at least. the window has a tint to it, she can see out but no one can see in. she can watch for witches without needing to show herself to the world.
she later goes out and buys red and brown hair dye to darken her hair. she likes her red-magenta hair but changing it just a little won't cause suspicion when she's out in the town.
she waits, she fights, she eats, she sleeps, she retreats. wash rinse repeat. she doesn't care that her life is the same every day, she likes the feeling of fighting. she likes the adrenaline from using magic and fighting life and death in the process.
kyoko didn't like school so dropping out didn't hurt her. she didn't have friends to leave and guys barely noticed her. it was easy to fall through the cracks and abandon school entirely. she wasn't missing out, she got straight c's and found school to be the worst thing in the world. being confined to rules and having no freedom was the worst for kyoko.
what intrigued her was not her studies, but a girl of blonde hair in pigtails that coiled.
mami tomoe makes kyoko think for the first time.
kyoko has always been a wreckless girl, making her own spontaneous decisions that didn't matter if they were morally right or wrong. she left home without a second thought and barely thought twice about her wish for her father.
however kyoko is now stuck in her head because mami tomoe is the strangest girl that kyoko has ever seen.
call kyoko a creep but watching the blonde brought her entertainment in her life. now that she wasn't going to school, kyoko became an observer. she watched as the teen studied at school, talked with the friends she had and then watched her from afar late at night.
watching her fight felt like watching a dancer feel the beat of the music. from the way she stepped to the way she held herself upright, kyoko knew that mami was a dancer in her previous life. she had the true grace and beauty of a magical girl after all.
kyoko watched mami bring in two new girls into her apartment for refreshments after school. she sees kybey on the pink haired one's shoulders.
they too, are magical.
she listened to mami teach them about the world of magical girls and the toll that it can take on a person. she warns them to think carefully about their wish and if they even want to become one at all.
kyoko wishes she had gotten that warning. it'd be nice to be back with her family but she lacks the ability to change the past.
the blue-haired one is interesting. she's fierce and full of energy. she wants to be a magical girl and she wants to save girls from their own sorrows.
kyoko soon learns that their names are madoka and sayaka.
kyoko is reminded of her younger self. she feels like she's staring into a mirror when she looks at sayaka.
madoka is all the more strange to kyoko, she doesn't quite understand her. she knows that she has a good heart but wonders about where her priorities lie. she does not have a love interest like sayaka, nor does she have a career or subject or even an idea of life that appeals to her. like she is meant for greatness elsewhere.
madoka is weird, kyoko decides.
and then all at once without warning, the girl that kyoko had blissfully watched for months had disappeared.
perhaps she was sick that day.
but as the days passed by, kyoko grew more and more anxious. she knew that mami did not live with her parents but instead had moved out long ago.
it takes her two weeks to open her phone and read the article about her disappearance.
it was then when kyoko realized. mami did not disappear. she had lost her life to a labyrinth created by a witch. a cousin or sister of a magical girl one could say.
kyoko's attention shifts to sayaka and her first interaction with her isn't pretty.
they fight, not because they want to but because it's the only thing they can do without killing each other.
kyoko grows more and more exhausted but yet for some reason, she watches sayaka press on. she fights like her life depends on it and losing is equivalent to impending doom.
she stops throwing attacks after a while and only dodges and blocks. sayaka probably needs to let her emotions out. perhaps she needs to spar for that to happen.
homura steps in only for a brief moment but it breaks up the fight just in time.
sayaka practically collapses in madoka's arms and kyoko scurries away, only after making a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure that sayaka isn't dead.
she's not, she just wore herself out.
at least that's better than the alternative.
sayaya makes her way into kyoko's life suddenly. she may not have had kyoko's immediate interest like she did with mami but she's just as invested in her.
the way she fights is unique to her, she takes the full force of the attacks and does her best to stop for no one. she doesn't stop until the job is complete.
her excess use of her power is debilitating. a grief seed is not always enough to fully clear her soul gem, when she uses one at all.
she lets the dark magic build up within the tiny compartment and only releases it just before she loses her mind.
kyoko thinks she likes it that way because it reminds her that she faces the consequences of her own actions every day.
using power while your gem is dark hurts, making the user feel pain like never before. even so, kyoko must watch sayaka press on.
sometimes kyoko feels different, she thinks it's not the true sayaka. she feels the same way with homura but kyoko feels that way with homura all of the time. it's nothing new for those two.
one day sayaka feels and looks different. her skin is pale and she's covered in bruises. kyoko doesn't want to know. she doesn't know what could put her into such a state even though soul gems have the power to heal anything physically felt from the user.
oh.
sometimes kyoko is an idiot.
it's the soul gem that's the problem.
her gem is completely black and yet she is somehow still alive.
but not really.
by the next week, sayaka is gone for a day and then comes back the next day only for her to be her old self again.
kyoko asks if she was sick last week and the reply is a bewildering one.
sayaka tells kyoko that she doesn't remember last week.
impossible.
but kyoko is smart enough to not press any further.