> Ask Hitomi if she has any suggestions.
You try a few more times to comfort Sayaka, but she's either ignoring you, or just too lost in her personal horror to respond. Eventually you end up turning to Hitomi, deciding that she's a lot more likely to be successful at consoling her friend than you.
"Er, any idea what might help here? I get the feeling I'm not particularly good at this sort of thing."
"Ah... well..." Hitomi starts weakly, before taking a deep breath and firming her expression, "If you could relinquish your control again, for a start? Your... presence within Sayaka-san is likely not helping."
...fair enough.
You oblige, and Sayaka immediately collapses to her knees.
"Kyubey... he
can't have..." she mutters brokenly.
"Sayaka-san, listen to me." Hitomi says, crouching down and putting her hands on her friend's shoulders. "I'm sure we can fix this if we work together, so if you can just-"
Sayaka pushes her away mid-sentence.
"F-Fix this?" she chokes out. "Not only am I some sort of zombie, but Kyubey made me one on
purpose, by turning my soul into a
rock. Then, a witch that says it was once a magical girl stole it, so now it can just... take control of me whenever it wants. And apparently, I can never, ever get away from it. You really think this is
fixable?!"
Well, when she puts it like
that...
"This can't be real... it can't be. It's all just... one big nightmare..." Sayaka whispers, letting out a hollow laugh that trails off into a near-manic cackle. "Which means... maybe I just need to wake up from it!"
She holds out her right hand, and a sword appears within it. Reversing her grip so the blade points back towards herself, she raises it high-
You frantically grab back control before she can bring the weapon back down.
"What the hell are you
doing?!" you yell, tossing the sword away.
Stupid question; it's pretty obvious what she was doing, but still, holy... you realize you peeled away the shiny veneer of the magical girl system rather quickly and all, but you didn't expect
that.
<STOP IT!> Sayaka mentally rages.
<JUST LET ME WAKE UP!>
You stand, grimacing as you wipe away tears that aren't yours and turn back to Hitomi, who looks utterly stricken. You suppose that's not surprising — even disregarding what Sayaka just attempted, you're sure the sudden "mood swings" her body keeps going through are extremely jarring from an outsider's perspective.
"Shizuki-san, we-"
You pause, a slight movement in the periphery of your barrier-vision alerting you to the fact that you seem to have gained a few unwanted spectators — there's a family of three getting into a limo a few doors down the block, who seem to have noticed the oddly-dressed girl having intermittent conniptions at the mouth of the nearest side street. Wonderful, not only is Sayaka in such a bad headspace at the moment that she just tried to shove a sword through her stomach, but now you're attracting attention from random bystanders as well. This isn't working...
You run down your options again, doing your best to push down the uncomfortable pit forming in your metaphorical stomach as Sayaka's psychic screams deteriorate into anguished wailing. She's too upset to listen to you or Hitomi, and as you apparently can't trust her not to attempt amateur seppuku the moment you release your control of her, she's definitely not fit to go home right now. You're not willing to just dump her body on the ground and pretend it's not your problem though, because you are
not a monster, no matter how much Sayaka may think you are. Grief seeds might help, but even if you had any they would only be a temporary fix, and you can't actually even
reach her soul gem right now anyways.
So, if all those options are out... you think that pretty much just leaves waiting for Sayaka to calm down and pull herself together on her own, or at least waiting until the initial horror has worn off before trying to talk to her again. Would that work?
...you think you might just have to try it and hope.
"Okay, new plan." you announce. "Shizuki-san, I can't stick around, but I can keep an eye on Sayaka until she's slightly less... demoralized. Could you maybe call her parents and tell them she's staying with you for the rest of the day, with potential plans to sleep over or something? That should cover for her until at least tomorrow morning; we can meet back up then."
You'd offer to just stay close rather than try to regroup later, but that could potentially just make an already disastrous situation even more so. Eventually some magical girl from this city's evidently far-greater-than-estimated supply is
going to zero in on your near-stationary magic signature, and given that even being completely out of reasonable reach didn't protect you yesterday, you desperately need to stay on the move. That Sayaka will be stuck coming along for the ride isn't ideal, but... well, it is what it is.
Hitomi still hasn't responded, continuing to simply stare at you, or rather you operating Sayaka's body. Her mouth opens, then closes, as if she just thought better of something- then she does it again. And again. And again.
"Shizuki-san?"
"...h-huh?" she finally replies.
You repeat your proposal, explaining your reasoning as you do so. Hitomi seems to follow along easily enough, but progressively begins to slump, as if all the energy is rapidly draining out of her.
"We can work on getting her separated from me after that." you finish. "Sound like a plan?"
Hitomi nods stiffly, her expression almost blank, yet still managing to express her obvious dejection. You suppose you can't blame her — Sayaka obviously has it worse, but Hitomi has had a huge amount of highly upsetting information pushed on her within the span of just a few hours, if that, and experienced far more than someone not actively involved in all this really should have. While she's not technically your problem anymore, you do hope she'll be okay... maybe-
"You... could also come along, if you want." you offer somewhat hesitantly. "Once Sayaka calms down a little, it might help to have you nearby."
Hitomi looks down and shakes her head in refusal, seeming pained.
"I would like to, Ashtaroth-san... truly, I would. As things stand however, I do not believe there is anything I can do or say that would be of any real benefit. My attempts to help thus far have either been unsuccessful, or only succeeded in upsetting Sayaka-san further. I... I seem to only be making things
worse..."
Her voice breaks, and you see tears brimming at the corners of her eyes again. Sayaka is evidently not the only one who has officially reached her limit.
"...okay then." you say gently. "I'll... can I come over tomorrow morning? I know it's a school day, but..."
Hitomi sniffs and nods.
"Alright. See you then."
You move your barrier back into the alley, walking Sayaka's body towards it as you reopen the entrance portal out of sight of the street proper.
"Shizuki-san?" you say quietly, not turning around. "I know I said it before, but... I really am sorry about all this."
You have Sayaka jump inside, and take off into the sky without looking back.
A few minutes later, once you've put a fair amount of distance between your barrier and Hitomi's neighborhood, you bend your neck down in the best approximation you can do of hanging your head. You wonder, could that have POSSIBLY gone- no, no, that's never a question one should ask; of course it could have gone worse... though admittedly, you're not exactly certain how.
Turning in place to face Sayaka, you're immediately distracted by the realization that you've yet to close the entrance portal. Oh come on, how did you-?! Ugh, hopefully no one you need to be concerned about noticed the six-foot-wide glowing circle flying over the city...
You make to finally dispel the hole in your world, but pause for a moment as you take notice of the design emblazoned on it for the first time. As with essentially all witch insignia, it's strangely artistic-looking, with a ring of vibrant, multicolored tulips serving as the outer edge, and thin streaks of the flowers' hues gradually bleeding off of them to create a smooth, stylized inward spiral. At the center of that spiral is a book, presumably meant to represent either Tome or Novella, with small black witch runes reading "REALITY" written across its open pages... as well as what appears to be a tiny plant sprout poking out of the middle for some reason. Weird, what's with the floral bits? Must be because your barrier got fused with Saar's...
Dismissing the train of thought as unimportant for the moment, you close the portal and turn your attention back towards Sayaka, who's been strikingly silent for quite a while now. Walking her body towards you, you have it jump up onto one of nearby twisting roads, hop from there to Novella, and turn to face you.
"Hey... you okay in there?" you ask, forgoing shatterwords for the moment.
<...>
"Sayaka, I know you can hear me. It's not like you could have left."
<...>
"Sayaka, come on. Please just say something… think something. Whatever."
<...>
You sigh. Hopefully she's just ignoring you. You'd much prefer the silent treatment, or even a total mental shutdown, over the idea that Sayaka somehow figured out a way to mentally off hersel-
<…you won't get away with this.>
-oh wait, there she is. Still doesn't sound happy, but she's not crying or screaming anymore, which you'll take as a good sign. What's this now though?
"Get away with what, exactly?" you ask.
<Mami-san will find you eventually.> Sayaka replies, electing to ignore the question.
<Then it'll all be over.>
Another reference to this mysterious Mami-senpai. You'd really like to know who exactly that is, beyond just the obvious hints you've been given, but somehow you doubt you'll be getting a particularly helpful answer out of Sayaka if you ask her right now.
"Look, as much as it may seem it, this isn't the end of the world, okay?" you tell her. "If it helps, you probably can't turn into a witch anymore, since it... most likely would have already happened, otherwise."
<...>
...annnnnd she's gone mute on you again.
You throw your arms up in the air, exasperated. Alright, building any sort of rapport with Sayaka is obviously out for the time being. You get the feeling if you don't give her something else to occupy herself with, she's just going to sit and silently contemplate death in a mental corner, leaving you stuck playing suicide watch for her forever. Time to find something constructive to do.
You move further out into the city, considering your next course of action. It does occur to you that with the ability to act through a proxy, finding someone to make a wish for you might actually be somewhat feasible now. However, you somehow doubt encouraging people to become magical girls for your sake would exactly improve Sayaka's mood, particularly since you'd be using her to do it.
You suppose you could go back to your witch sapience investigation... or maybe just plain go witch hunting? You imagine Sayaka could really use a win right about now, and based on what you've seen of her, just doing something "heroic" might be a major help too. You'll first have to
find a witch obviously, and you're not just going to throw Sayaka at them without checking for sapience beforehand, but you think that could work.
"What do you think about going witch hunting, Sayaka?" you ask.
<...>
...you're going to go ahead and take that as tacit approval.
[-] Check for witches near…
[-] the tops of some of the city's many, many tall buildings.
[-] hospitals and clinics.
[-] the subway tunnels.
[-] the factory district.
[-] Write in.
[-] See if you can use Sayaka's soul gem to locate a witch. Sure, it's inside of you, but it can still open portals, so maybe there's still a way?
[-] Just sweep the city in a grid pattern. If all witch barriers radiate their presence as strongly as Saar's did, you doubt you're likely to miss them.
[-] Write in.
