Gold and Crimson ||Puella Magi Madoka Magica||

Stupid Idea

Old ash and dust fell down from the rafters of a burned down church, falling onto the blackened stone floor. Among the ruins, two girls sat back to back, leaning on each other as the first rays of the sunrise shone on them.

"Before I bleed out... You were right, this was a bad idea... Thanks for coming with me..." gargled out the girl in a red dress, holding a large cut on her throat.

"You'll live." The other Magi calmed her down. "If you can still speak it means the talons missed your jugular. Keep up the pressure and don't move your head. Blood will coagulate and magic will do the rest."

"It'd be a bad moment to find out I'm a haemophiliac." Kyoko tried to joke, but instead of laughter what came out of her mouth was more blood.

"Try not to speak, you're going to make it worse." Said Mami, and her partner fell silent.

She herself was now putting pressure on a wound on the left side of her torso. Those claws of the monster they just felled were razor sharp, and they pierced the reinforced corset she was wearing over her white shirt like it was nothing.

"We need to wait a few hours so that we can regenerate," Resumed Mami after a while. "Then we'll catch a bus back to the city and pass the school for today."

"Mhm," Nodded her partner, especially content with the last point.

That was the plan, yet at the same time, she wasn't sure she would live to see it. She was losing blood, lots of it and fast. Her healing magic seemed to be losing the race to close the gaping hole in her side, perhaps due to the magical nature of the wound. The chills and shivers she was getting now weren't a good sign either.

"Been through worse, no?" The blonde girl asked rhetorically, trying to get her mind off of it. "Remember that time when we hunted for that Witch in the sewers? We couldn't get rid of the smell for a week!" She chuckled. Yes, that case was definitely worse.

She knew it was a stupid idea. If something had managed to survive multiple stabs to the heart, being burned with fire, and partially buried, it's best to leave it alone. What point was there to hunt a Witch prowling somewhere in the middle of nowhere beyond the city limits?

It was like asking, no, begging for trouble. She should never have agreed. Then again, she knew how important it was for Kyoko. For her, this monster wasn't only out here, but rather inside her mind, constantly taking up her thoughts and keeping her up at night. It took everything from her, and as long as it lived she would never feel at peace.

It was only a matter of time before she would decide to do it on her own. She had to help her, even if it was going to be the last thing she would do. That's what friends do for each other, right?.

Except they don't. Not always. Was dying in this hellhole at the ass end of the world in the name of friendship even worth it?

Of course it was, why was she even pondering that? The red-haired Magi was the first and only person so far she could call a real friend. Without her, she would have just been alone again. Alone and permanently broken.

And with her and because of her, she would now be dead.

But that was just fear speaking for her. The self-preservation instinct pondering on what might have been, at the point where it clearly was all past.

Yes, it was. No use dwelling on it. Whatever was ahead, she would be ready for, not showing any fear and doing everything to bring both of them back home.

The girl behind her back went into a coughing fit, spitting out blood she was choking on, while the world before the blonde Magi eyes only kept growing darker and more blurred.

"And do you remember that time, when...?"