Simulacrum
The girl pants as she runs, her breath an ephemerous mist quickly washed away by the sheer wind and pouring rain slapping at her face.
Her body
burns from exertion, her feet splahing on the cold, soaked ground again and again and again, unable to stop, unable to look back.
She's left nothing behind. No hopes, no future, not even revenge.
Only burnt bridges, crumbling under her as she runs for her freedom, for her
life...
A whoosh of air cuts across the heavy rain.
The girl gasps, her body convulsing- before she
sprints forward at maddening speed, the rushing of wind across her ears drowning out all sound. She hears not the rain, nor her lightning fast steps, nor the wraith breathing down her neck-
She slips.
For a moment, Kanna Hijiri glides in the cold, rain-filled air, yellow eyes widened in panic.
Then it all comes crashing down as she hits the ground face first, eyes scrunched up as she half rolls, half scrapes against the soaked paviment.
After a seconds that feel like minutes, she comes to a stop, breathing heavily, staring up at the darkened sky. Rainwater pours down - on her eyes, blurring her sight, on her mouth, washing away the salt in the air.
She doesn't wait, pushing herself up with one hand, the other one wiping at her eyes... She stops.
A roaring sound reaches her ears, the waves of the sea crashing against the shore.
Nowhere left to run.
In a split second, a surge of magic, lightning wreathes her frame- then flickers out.
There's no point. Hijiri sits still, head bowed under the heavy rain, her soaked clothes and hair clinging to her frame, the winds making her shiver, the sheer cold clashing against the burning feelings inside her chest. Hate. Anger. Resentment. Helplessness.
Shame.
The cloned Kanna shakes, listening to her beating heart, clouded eyes staring at nothing.
A heavy
flap of wings cuts across all of it.
Yellow, trembling eyes snap up.
Blue eyes stare down, trembling just as much. Not with fear, but with anger, sadness... vengeance.
The girl in blue looks awful. Her face is soaked, and the redness of her cheeks gives lie to any impression that it might simply be the rain. There's a rigid tension in how she holds herself - holds herself
back, as she comes to a stop before the shivering Hijiri.
The Kanna doesn't stand. She simply stays put, looking up and seeing an enraged dark angel, shaking with rage and wreathed in despair - the monstrous wings and the fuming black mist of
grief bearing down on her, promising revenge...
Or fair retribution, whispers a traitorous voice in Hijiri's head. She accepts it, then, powerless to do anything else. Her voice is quiet. "Just end this." She holds back a sob. If she dies here, it will be with some modicum of dignity.
But the seconds pass, and instead of the swift punishment Kanna dreads, Sabrina closes her eyes. She brings a hand to her face, taking deep, long breaths.
When she looks back at Hijiri, she's calm. Calmer, at least.
"You're a selfish, impulsive, spiteful
idiot," she spits at her.
Hijiri is slient, bowing her head down at the judgement.
"I gave you a
chance," Sabrina goes on, "let you go-"
"
I escaped," Hijiri's voice whimpers.
"
I let you go," re-asserts Sabrina, "hoping you would come around. Instead, you used your second chance to
hurt people. To hurt
me. And it
worked," she glowers.
The words hang in between them, louder than the pouring rain.
But rather than hardening, something in Sabrina's eyes softens.
"... I'm not going to hurt you back. I'm not even going to hate you for this, no more than I'll hate myself for giving you a chance.
That won't fix
her." Sabrina looks down, letting the rain wash across her frame. "It'd be too easy to hate you, to hurt you, to lose myself to...
revenge," Hijiri's breath stops. "... But I'm not going to do that. She wouldn't like that, and I'm not going to change because of
you."
Hijiri regains her breathing, and she looks up at Sabrina, who looks down at her... but not with rage. With something else.
"You're a magical girl," the white haired girl says, "and I set myself a task, when I was created."
She knows she shouldn't speak. The righteous wrath she had expected hasn't come down on her, what she imagined as a vengeful angel was just
talking, seemed to be composing herself just so long as Hijiri didn't open her mouth. But maybe that's
why she couldn't contain herself, just like before.
"A task was set
for you," she snarls weakly.
Sabrina looks down at Hijiri, and she understands the emotion in her blue eyes. Pity.
The tall girl shakes her head. "I was given
knowledge, and chances," she retorts. "Knowledge of the most terrible things in this world, that hope will drown in despair, that our reality is sustained by suffering. Knowledge that those around me were doomed to fates unimaginably worse that death... and the opportunity to change that. To make things better, if I really
wanted to."
The blonde girl's eyes scrunch in anger... jealousy. "You were
given everything you wanted-"
"I was given knowledge of
everything wrong," Sabrina stomps towards the sitting girl. "I knew, I know that I can't help
everyone. Sometimes I feel I can barely help the ones around me." She stops, only a feet separating her from the cringing girl on the ground. "I refused to accept that," she murmurs, before her tone rises once more, "I
refuse. I refuse to let people suffer when I can do something, anything about it. That's my
choice. Mine.
Me."
They stay still for a moment. The blue coated girl looking down, the pigtailed girl bowing her head, not daring look up. Shivering. There's only the sound of rain and wind.
Hijiri flinches as a dark stream of grief pours out of her Soul Gem, the purple black miasma joining that coming from Sabrina's white Gem, the combined Grief rising to dissipate into thin air.
Slowly, the Kanna looks up. She feels nothing, not even relief. Numb, but still defiant. "You were
made that way. Made happy and willing to...
play your part."
"
Then I was made with a conscience!" Hijiri shrinks as Sabrina's face suddenly looms inches away from hers. Her intense, almost unhinged stare fills the pigtailed girl's vision. "If I had
chosen to not help, to dismiss those feelings,
then I would be less than a person! If I could just ignore what was wrong in front of me,
then I would be just a machine!"
Hijiri flinches, scrambling back weakly. But the maddened angel stays just as close, following with contemptuous ease. Finally, a pale hand reaches out-
-Hijiri's eyes shut-
-to hold the blonde girl's soaked shirt.
"I don't really understand you, Hijiri." Kanna opens her eyes, panting. "Taking the chances you're given... Taking the chances
I was given doesn't make me a
puppet. And neither are you. Tossing everyone who loves you away doesn't make you more real! You're hurting those who care-"
"It's fake! All of it!" cries Hijiri suddenly. Her hand claws at Sabrina's, holding it in a crushing grip. She's not sure who she's trying to convince. "They don't love
me. They're not
my-"
"They do care. All of them." Sabrina's words cut across Hijiri's rant, across the winds and rain with such a deep seated surety, the grieving girl believes them for a moment.
"T-they won't- accept me," she stutters, and if some of the drops trailing down her cheeks aren't rain, she doesn't notice. "If they... found out I'm not..." She wants to leave. She wants to stay. She has nowhere to go.
With a grunt, Sabrina lifts the girl up to her feet, letting go once Hijiri steadies herself, barely, still trembling.
"You're afraid," Hijiri cringes at the accusation. "But for all you've done, I haven't given up on you. What makes you think
they will?"
A sob. "But they're not- not
my family. It's- it's all
hers..." she cries, letting the tears fall free at last. "W-why would they- why do
you-"
"No," Sabrina shakes her head, prompting Hijiri to look up. "No matter what Niko intended, they
are your family."
The blonde looks away.
Sabrina reaches out once more, to grab her shoulder this time. She waits for Hijiri to look back at her.
"I didn't always have my friends," she speaks quietly, wistfully. "I only knew
about them, when I first woke up. And it scared me... It scared me to tell them the truth," Sabrina frowns. "I was afraid they'd reject me."
Hijiri's hands shake, droplets spilling off her loosely hanging fingers.
"But they didn't." Kanna looked up with a hurt, questioning gaze. "Because the time we spent together was
real," the tall girl's lips curl just a bit. "What I knew about them
beforehand was just that, stuff I knew
about them. The time we spent together... lived and laughed and cried together... that's what made them accept me... and the time you spent with your family... that's real, too."
"I..." Hijiri falters, at a loss for words. "I, I- I don't-"
"They'll take you back," answers Sabrina easily. "They
are your family, and they love you." The total certainty in her tone grinds away at Hijiri's doubts. "I'm sure of it."
Yellow eyes stare up. "But... but her, your friend-" Hijiri's voice falters as Sabrina's grip
tightens momentarily.
"You can't..." the white haired girl starts, before rethinking. "Maybe you
can help there. Would you?"
The Kanna's eyes widen slightly. And then she breaks. She sobs into the night, taking great, heaving breaths. "W-why? Why d-do you- why would t-they-?"
Sabrina turned away, staring into the shifting peaks and valleys of the stormy ocean. "...It's never,
ever, wrong to have hope. And just because something is flawed, that doesn't mean that it's not worth fighting for."
For all things in the world, if they are just left alone and paid no attention, are bound to advance in a negative direction.
No matter what we do, we can't stop the universe from getting colder, either, and on the same principle. This world is only maintained in existence by a series of logical, common-sense processes; it can never escape the bondage of its physical laws.
Therefore, in order to write a perfect ending for a story you must possess the power to break the chain of cause and effect, invert black and white, and act in complete contradiction to the rules of the universe. Only a pure and heavenly soul, a soul that resounds with genuine praise for humanity, can save the story.
Special thanks to
@Onmur for his major editing input. Additional thanks goes to
@Godwinson ,
@Kaizuki , and
@Firnagzen for providing beta reading. This has been lingering in my drafts file for over a year, so I figured it was high time to finish and publish it.