You growl into the roof. It is, just about literally,
just a flesh wound. You aren't going to die or even be seriously inconvenienced by something as minor as this. Grunting, you plant your right hand on the roof and force yourself to flip over, rolling on your left side to avoid grinding dirt from the roof into your mangled right hip. Your right leg flops, muscles unresponding to your mental commands.
Face up, you can see the glimmering cloud of shrapnel and fire of the explosion, frozen in the midair of Homura's timestop, like a deadly flower. There's a section simply
missing from the explosive blossom, corresponding roughly to where you were.
"Sabrina- your
leg," Mami whispers, face drawn into a rictus of horrified panic. She kneels beside you, hands already glowing with her trademark golden radiance, and she applies them to your mangled leg with alacrity. The bleeding is already slowing down. Luckily, it doesn't look like the bone was actually damaged, merely that your flesh was turned to minced meat.
"I-it'll be OK, Sabrina," Mami says urgently, reaching out one hand to grip yours tightly. Her hand is icy cold, and shaking violently. "Don't panic, I'll heal you, OK?"
Homura kneels opposite to Mami, the purple glow of her magic filling her hands. She lends her aid to the healing process, a scowl set hard on her face.
You blink slowly, and push yourself up to a half seated position. "No, don't move, Sabrina!" Mami says, trying to push you back down.
"Let me help," you protest, dredging up the instincts you have for healing. Magic rushes to your hand, and you draw forth a gentle white light that you
know can knit together flesh and even mend broken bone, given time.
"N-n-n-" Mami stutters, staring at you with wide eyes. Her trembling grip on your hand, already bone-crushing, tightens further. "S-Sabrina, it's
OK, there's no need to push yourself!"
You meet Homura's flat gaze, and then look back at Mami's
terrified gaze, before subsiding back against the rooftop. "Let me help you cleanse your Gems, at least."
"Later, Sabrina," Mami says, turning her attention back to your leg.
You lie back in silence for a few minutes, mind churning. Even if you can't feel the
pain, you can feel the odd squelching and movements in your leg as Homura and Mami carefully work over your leg with their magic. A while later, Homura grabs Mami's hand by the wrist and forces it up. "Mami. You need to cleanse, now."
"I-it's OK, I can just use a Grief Seed," Mami says, flustered.
"I can handle it, Mami," you insist, lifting your head slightly to look at her. The blonde frowns unhappily, but detaches her Soul Gem for you.
You gasp softly when you see it. You'd judge that it's almost half filled, and you hurriedly gesture at it, pulling all the corruption free to form a fairly substantial cloud. Mami, against her will, sighs in contentment as she is freed of the Grief. Homura holds up her own Soul Gem, and you cleanse that too- you'd judge that her Gem was maybe a fifth filled, at worst.
You grip Mami's hand firmly. "Mami, you don't need to push yourself so hard, either. You said it yourself, I'll be OK. Take your time, OK?" you smile at her.
"O-OK," Mami says shakily, putting on a smile and returning her Soul Gem to her hairpin.
As they return to healing your leg, you collapse the tremendous cloud of Grief down as far as it will go, forming a double handful of marbles. You have no idea what to do with these, so you just let them hover in a ring slowly orbiting around you.
"You know," you comment at the air as she returns to healing your leg. "I can't believe Oriko
did that. She made a damned
landmine and deployed it
here, in a residential area. I mean, yes, she set Sayaka's house on fire, but... if she wanted Sayaka
dead... She's been threatening, and dangerous, but..."
"Oriko is ruthless," Homura growls. Absently, you note that her healing seems to be
significantly more effective than Mami's- where her purple coloured magic falls, the layers of flesh seem to weave themselves back together far more quickly than Mami's. It's still extraordinarily slow, though.
"Yeah, I guess she is," you admit. "Still... if she wanted us dead,
any of us dead..."
"She is not infallible," Homura says.
"Good," Mami adds, a flash of fury crossing her face. Her healing hand remains steady, though, making its slow sweep across your leg. You shiver briefly at the unaccustomed expression on her face- and it's not like it's been in short supply ever since the fire.
This is not the warm, kindly and gentle Mami you've become used to.
This is the veteran magical girl, who has survived and defended her territory, solo, against all both Witches and magical girls alike for perhaps
years.
As her hand tightens briefly against yours, and she turns to smile comfortingly at you, though, you're forced to amend your statement. No. That's the Mami that
Oriko is seeing.
You sigh. "Where else should we search? From here to Oriko's house, and Kirika's? Maybe we should check our home, and Homura's as well?" you suggest. "I mean, areas of personal significance, right?"
"Yes," Homura agrees. "However, given that these are the
obvious locations, Oriko may avoid them instead."
"Good point," you say. "Hm. School, perhaps? Mitakihara and Shirome? And, uh... one idea I had. If she's hiding from us, then my detection range is the largest, with my power... She could hide inside a Barrier, and I'd have trouble detecting her. With Kirika, she'd be basically safe inside a Barrier."
"Possible," Homura allows. "Cleanse, Mami," she adds sharply.
Mami sighs, and holds out her Soul Gem. It's not as bad as the previous time, only about a third, but it nevertheless forms a fairly substantial cloud, and combined with the Grief from your own and Homura's Gems, you have another handful of Grief marbles to add to your orbiting ring.
It takes past an hour and several more cleanses to heal your leg fully- that mine had made an utter
mess of your leg. Homura did the majority, though not by much, of the work, her healing seemingly far more efficient than Mami's, who simply brute forced it. You speculate that perhaps Homura simply had more
time to hone her skills.
The healing and one last cleanse finally done, you flex your leg, followed by your toes. Everything seems to be working fine, and you smile gratefully at Homura and Mami. "Good as new," you say. The pant leg is completely shredded, but your leg is whole and working perfectly again.
Mami stares at you, emotions mixing on her face, before giving in to her impulses and dragging you into a tight hug. "You were so
brave, Sabrina. H-how do you
do it? It's like you weren't even
worried about your leg. T-the last time I broke my
arm..." she trails off.
[] Write-in
=====
There is quite a bit of dissonance with Sabrina's leg being utterly mulched, and her blithely talking about other things as if she doesn't care.
You now have a hundred seventeen Grief marbles, twelve of which are in your pocket.
