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The first time she hears her voice, they’re in the middle of a patrol.
She can’t make out what she’s saying. She can’t make out any of the syllables. It’s less of a cry and more of a whimper, the sound petering out through the abyss.
But she knows the voice. She’d know the voice anywhere.
Kyoko leaves Mami’s side wide open and Mami’s thrown to her knees in turn, blocking a scythe with the barrel of her gun.
“Sayaka!” Kyoko shrieks and the wind swallows her words and spits them back onto her face. “Sayaka! Where are you?!”
Homura’s face is impassive as she cleans up the rest of her mess–wiping out a row of Wraiths in the blink of an eye. Mami’s spitting curses as she dusts herself off to scramble back onto her feet. It’s unbecoming of her usual, carefully-composed self.
“I heard her!” Kyoko wrenches her head back to face them now, pointing up at the sky. The Wraiths’ corpses swirl around them in the empty air. “Didn’t you hear her too?”
Homura doesn’t bother dignifying that with a response, instead inspecting the metalwork of her gauntlet.
“Hear who?” Mami asks, sighing heavily.
“Sayaka!” she grinds out between her teeth. “She was right here. It was like she was whispering into my ear.”
Kyoko stomps her foot against the ground and the sound echoes in the empty train station.
“I’m going to go look for her,” she decides.
Mami watches her like she’s a ticking time bomb, like she’s four sticks of dynamite rigged to explode. She watches her and Kyoko can’t distinguish between the wariness and annoyance mixed into the pits of her eyes.
Mami watches her like a hanged man.
“Suit yourself,” she says finally and Kyoko ducks out the doorway back into the inky black sky of the night.
She does not find any traces of Sayaka that night. She finds a crowd of Wraiths instead and she has never been more grateful for the excuse to sink her blade into the cloth and tear viciously, mercilessly.
The next time she hears her, she’s back home. Not home- home, but home enough.
She’s sitting on one of the few intact pews, feet swinging above the tiles. There’s nothing to do between the Wraith-hunting at night and the renovations on the arcade. Time stretches like an endless void between day and night.
There’s not enough to do.
Kyoko likes to sit on the altar sometimes. It’s not really big enough to support her so she has to squeeze on the frame to fit, tuck her knees up to her chest. It has a little ring stained on the top from where her father always used to put his coffee cup. She hates altars but she likes this one.
She hates altars and what they represent. She’s always hated the story of Isaac and Abraham–what’s the point of having a kid if you’re willing to give them up on a moment’s notice? But her father always loved that one.
He told her that it was one of his favorite stories in the bible. She’d feel the sticks beneath her fingertips as he talked, feel the flames licking up her skin.
But she’s still her father’s daughter and so she would do it if brought before an altar. She’s done it. And look where that got her.
Kyoko sinks her teeth into the skin of an apple and lets the crunch drown out the noise in her head.
That’s when she hears Sakya’s voice floating in the air. Kyoko snaps her head up, the apple rolls onto the floor, forgotten, and she tears through the sanctuary, chasing the sound.
The stained windows are broken, light seeping in between the shards of glass but even broken, they are beautiful. Even shattered, they reflect the light.
Kyoko hangs on one such window now, the meat of her palm digging into the rough lining of the glass. She tosses her head out into the open air and hears the wind whistle by.
“Sayaka, where are you?!” she yells. “Talk to me!”
Silence is her answer.
Sayaka doesn’t show her face–or her voice, more accurately–for a number of weeks and so Kyoko goes to one of the recitals of that boy she liked so much.
She has a paper bag tucked tight under her elbow as she steps into the recital hall. Her nose wrinkles at the smell–it’s too nice and stuffy in here, all gold-plated seats and high boxes. She takes a seat on a cushion and kicks her feet up in front of her.
She sits through too many elaborate speeches that are twice the length they need to be before the boy walks on, carrying a violin.
He looks like a frail thing, paper-thin limbs caressing the wood. He looks like he’d fall over with the help of a gentle gust of wind and his nose is too large for his face. He looks very, very punchable.
Kyoko snaps a Pocky stick between her teeth and doesn’t care when her neighbor flinches at the noise.
In the second movement–or third, she’s lost count at this point–she lets her hand slide down into the bag she’s brought with her.
Kyoko lets a raw and ripe tomato sit heavy in the meat of her palm. She waits.
Sayaka comes to her.
She hears her on the strings and she feels her on her wrist. Kyoko sighs and kicks the paper bag deeper under her seat.
Kyoko and Homura have never gotten along particularly well but she’s restless and she’s desperate and the two of those things have never been a good combination. There’s at least precedence behind her insanity.
She slots a pocky stick in between her teeth and squats next to Homura on the side of the park.
“Do you hear them too?” she asks, resting her chin on her palm.
Homura doesn’t say anything in response, just picks up a nearby stick instead and starts tapping at the ground.
Is that a no? she wonders as Homura taps. Is that a yes?
It takes her a moment to realize that the lines Homura’s tracing in the dirt form a picture.
“You suck at drawing,” she supplies helpfully and Homura turns to stare at her blankly. She blinks once, twice, her eyes soulless.
“Thank you,” she finally says and taps the ground underneath her drawing. “This is Madoka.”
Kyoko struggles to place the stick figure with little tufts protruding out of her ears. She doesn’t remember meeting any magical girl like that–though from the crude bow in her hands, she supposes she is one.
“Who’s Madoka?” she asks plainly.
Homura rolls her shoulders, studying the drawing.
“Someone important,” she finally settles on, and the tip of her stick lingers like it’s caressing the silhouette. “She talks to me too sometimes.” Kyoko tugs her knees tight to her chest and studies her–really studies her.
The way she keeps the crude drawing framed in the center of her vision. The care with which she grips the stick. The softness carved into the line of her mouth. Kyoko swallows and feels it run down the length of her throat.
“Oh,” she says and feels the similarity sour in the pit of her stomach. She sits back down on the ground and doesn’t care when the dirt gets caught in between her skirt and her shorts. “So you are human after all.”
The words finally take shape on a night spent at the top of the church. Kyoko is dancing among the broken tiles, shoes scrabbling for footholds among the shards.
“ I’m sorry. ”
She turns even though she knows there’ll be nothing there.
“Sorry for what?” she asks the void.
“ I’m sorry. ”
“At least give me a proper apology,” Kyoko grouses, arms folded across her chest. “ Asshole ,” she says with no real bite.
“I’m sorry. ”
“Fine! I forgive you, I guess. You owe me dinner though–actually make that five dinners. No, ten!”
“ I’m sorry. ”
“Playing hard to get? I see how it is. Whatever, I’ll wait. I’ll wait any amount of time for free food.”
“ I’m sorry. ”
“T-That’s great and all, but can you tell me where you are?”
“ I’m sorry. ”
“Not even a hint?”
“ I’m sorry. ”
“ Please. Just an itty-bitty hint. I need help.”
“ I’m sorry. ”
“I need help. I need your help. Where did you go? Why did you leave?!”
“ I’m sorry. ”
Kyoko wonders when she started crying. She doesn’t feel the tears but her cheeks are wet and her vision is blurry and it’s getting hard to swallow.
“Don’t be sorry–just come home!”
Silence, and then–
“ I’m sorry. ”