Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights

CHAPTER 54: No God Above

Chapter 54: No God Above

La Fin de Toute

(Formerly Galactica Palace)

28th floor, Sector Epsilon

Why was she here? What could have possibly possessed her to do this? Sayaka Miki wondered if she really had lost her mind after all.

Maybe it was genuine concern. Misplaced concern, but still. Whether it was that or something else, it led her to spend time tracking Kanna down again after she healed her broken bones with magic. Searching for a while led her down to Floor 28, in the storage and manufacturing sectors. Floor 28 and its neighboring areas were where the unearthly splendor of the upper levels' cavernous high-ceilinged halls, giant doric columns, and polished ebony floors gave way to hall after hall of metal corridors lined with near-identical doors, distinguished only by the numbers stamped outside each one. From what Sayaka knew of the palace's history prior to Dead End's arrival, everything aboveground was the original structure, the home of the dreaded Sailor Galaxia and the living quarters for the highest-ranking soldiers of her army. From the asteroid's pockmarked surface down, the headquarters dug deep into the bedrock that the palace sat on. Those underground floors were Joker's doing.

"... but no, he actually said, 'We were all little kids when we were little!'" said Kanna Kise, Bad End Peace II. She sat cross-legged on the iron floor, waving her arms for emphasis as she regaled Sayaka with a rambling, nonsensical story. She appeared to be back to normal... by Kanna's exceedingly bizarre standards of "normal", anyway. No misery, no weeping, no sign at all of her earlier distress. She still claimed to have no knowledge of her breakdown, or of snapping Sayaka's arm.

If she went to anyone else in Dead End about it, Sayaka knew what they would say: Kanna made the whole thing up. It was a prank, or one of the vicious little games she was fond of playing, the games which made no sense to anyone but Kanna. Hell, the way things were going, Sayaka wouldn't have believed it herself if she hadn't seen it happen firsthand.

But. The seeds of doubt were there. Try as she might to tell herself that it was all lies or insanity, try as she might to put it out of her mind, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had glimpsed something real inside Kanna, clawing to get out. Even if it was just for a fleeting moment, she swore she saw Kanna the psychopath disappear and Kanna the real girl come back.

If that was the case, Sayaka couldn't just forget about it. She had to... she didn't know exactly what she had to do, but her best idea was to look for anything that would support her theory. Any tiny scrap of proof that it wasn't a fluke, any sign that the old Kanna was still in there somewhere, would validate her search for answers.

"... all covered in pig pucky and molasses!" Kanna finished with a schoolgirl's giggle. This didn't prompt the reaction she expected, so she hopped to her feet and snapped her fingers beneath Sayaka's nose a few times. "Oi! Stimulus, response! You got a big vacant space between your ears to go with the big vacant space between your beef curtains?"

"S-sorry, sorry," said Sayaka in a hurry. Precious little of Kanna's chatter ever made sense, so it was a habit to let her focus slip while she babbled on, and a hard one to break. It took her a moment to comprehend that Kanna had actually expressed concern—in her own inimitable, obscene way—as to whether she was paying attention or not. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Well, stop it!" said Kanna. She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, hands on her hips. "The last thing Master Joker needs is his commissar going all Section 8."