I'm Sorry
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It was raining.
The gathered pack of magical girls looked up at the sky, panting from exertion, but with smiles on their faces. A rainbow of hair colors all gazing at the miraculous rain above them.
It was raining. Raining Grief Seeds.
Kirika reached out and grasped Oriko's hand. Kyouko and Sayaka shared a victorious hug. Homura leaned against a wall, and against all logic, had a wide grin on her face, just watching the grief rain fall. All over, magical girls celebrated as the greatest witch in centuries was brought low.
And Sabrina ran, with worry on her face.
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"It's just taking the abuse! Fall back and regroup!"
Thunder crashed and a piercing cry ripped the air as Mami was tossed like a ragdoll. Sabrina roared in rage and ripped another gaping hole in Walpurghis, but the witch didn't let up, somehow keeping pressure on over thirty magical girls at once.
And through it all was that damnable laughter, howling like the wind after a bad joke.
Bolts of magic and mundane, High Explosive Missiles tore into the beast, and it still laughed.
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Wherever Mami had gone during the battle, she hadn't come back. The threat of Walpurghis Nacht had kept Sabrina from looking for her during the battle, but the witch was dead now. Or at least dormant.
It was half a city away, but Sabrina was a powerful magical girl. She ran fast enough that the concrete under her feet cracked from the force of it, and even with her augmented toughness she could feel her calves threatening to do the same under the pressure. But she pushed harder. If she got there soon enough, maybe she could save Mami. Maybe then Mami would be okay!
She had to start skidding to a stop a block away, and even so ended up drifting into the alley she felt the magic in like a street racer.
And even as she fell to, and scraped, her knees, she scrabbled forward with all the strength she had.
"MAMI!"
She met Mami's eyes, but... Mami didn't see her.
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"You'll never know unless you try, Sabrina." Madoka interrupted kindly. "Mami-Sempai can't tell you if she loves you because she's afraid her only friend will leave her. Even if you don't confess soon... how is the situation she's in right now any different from the one she'd be in if you confessed?"
Sabrina choked on her instinctive reply, desperately scrabbling for a rebuttal. But Madoka was relentless, powering on.
"It doesn't have to be tonight, or even tomorrow. But there's a big witch coming soon, right? It's why you've been flying around to other cities, fighting magical girls from all over japan, trying to make friends and stop fights. I know I can be naïve about things sometimes, and I'm not really very smart... But that sort of situation is dangerous, Sabrina. People die. Normal people and really cool, superpowered girls like you and Mami-Sempai. You can't confess right before it, and you can't fight it without confessing, because what if one of you dies? Do you want her last thought to be-"
"S-STOP!" Sabrina screamed, clutching at her head. "Okay! Okay, I get it, okay! Please don't... don't make me think like that." Sabrina took a shaky breath.
"I'm sorry. But is it really worse than what you were thinking before?" Madoka said. Her tone wavered between honest regret and a firm resolve Sabrina hadn't often seen from Madoka, but her words were solid, as if her mind was made up to say them, whether it hurt Sabrina or not.
And it did hurt. It hurt a lot, to think about Mami, her Mami, dying in the rain while regretting never telling Sabrina that she reciprocated her feelings. It was a sharp nail in her chest, in precisely the same way that the thought of Mami being unhappy with their relationship, feeling forced into it just to keep another of her Kouhai around did. And it almost made her need another cleanse - but that would Bother Mami, who no doubt already had sensed the last cleanse and was probably being a worry-wart back in the fluffy chair room.
Sabrina shivered, despite her warm pajamas. "What should I do, Madoka? You're older than I am."
"No I'm not." Giggled Madoka softly. "And the only one who can make that decision is you. And nobody knows which one is right. So nobody will blame you if you're wrong."
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"No... No, no no no no no-"
Immediately Sabrina started streaming grief away from Mami's soul gem. And yet the honey-colored topaz ornament didn't get any clearer. It was all she could do to stem the growth to a crawl... but it was already almost full.
"H-HELP!" Sabrina croaked, reaching out with her hands and not really expecting anyone to come help. "
HELP!"
"Sabrina?"
Mami's voice was faint enough that Sabrina could almost imagine she didn't hear it.
"Yes! Mami, I'm here! I'm here, don't worry, I-"
"I'm so sorry..."
Mami continued on in that faint, dying voice. Sabrina felt like ice-cold hands were gripping her heart, wringing it like a washcloth.
"Y-you don't have any reason to be sorry, Mami, we won-" Sabrina choked out among sobs.
"I wish I were braver..."
"You are brave!"
"I wish I were better..."
"You're the best, Mami!"
"I wish I had told you..."
Sabrina closed her eyes tightly, concentrating her entire will on clearing Mami's soul gem, but the grief was multiplying fast. It would only be a few seconds.
"HELP!" She screamed as loud as she could.
A single tear trickled out of Mami's eye, and for the first time she really seemed to look at Sabrina. "I love you. I'm so sorry..."
The tear dropped down and landed on Mami's soul gem, which shattered with the sound of shattering glass. Sabrina screamed in grief, even as the air around her whirled and Candeloro was born...
END
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For every bit of hope, an equal amount of despair is born. For every virtue, a sin is born. The universe maintains balance in this way. All things come down to cycles, every system devolves to entropy. The Incubators, in their folly, saw a cycle with little entropy, and believed it to be free of the laws that governed the rest of the universe. But the universe always seeks balance. It always seeks an end, to every cycle, to every imperfection. For every movement must come a time of rest.
And every time someone falls in love, someone has to die first.
~Sabrina Tomoe
"Is it better to have never loved at all?", Datalinks
