Souls to Ash

Chapter 2

10 days until the skirmish

"Get your butts in gear, let's go, ladies!" I shout as I stand at the starting point of the track field with a clipboard in hand.

"Why don't you join us?" says Reiko nonchalantly as she jogs past, not even breaking a sweat.

"I've already done my morning work out." I reply, writing down Reiko's time for her second lap. Maki runs past me, determination in her eyes and I write down her time for her third lap, "One more, Maki, you got this!"

"I think Miyoko needs some help, Kame." says Emi as she jogs past me on her second lap, worry in her eye.

"I'll see how she's doing." I nod, walking over to said girl, whom is struggling to finish her first lap, her face red with strain as her breathing comes out as sharp breathes. "How are you, Miyo?" I speed walk beside her, being sure to keep an eye on the starting line.

"Dying." is all she manages to choke out.

"Why don't you sit out for a few minutes?"

"No... I need to... finish."

"Seriously- great work, Maki! You're done!" I call as she finishes, only for her to shake her head.

"I'm gonna... do one more!"

"Don't overheat yourself!" she nods and continues on and I focus back on Miyoko, "Sit out for a minute or two, Miyo, we still have more to do, I don't want you to overdo it." she looks up at me before nodding and almost collapsing into my arms. I guide her over to the benches and get her a water from the cooler. "Here," I sit down and give her the bottle, to which she drinks almost half, "when you finish, just do one more lap, take the water with you and speed walk." she nods and I look up just in time to record Reiko's time for her third lap, "One more, Reiko, keep it up!" she flashes me a thumbs up and continues on.

"How are you girls so good at this?" Miyoko asks me.

"Years of practice."

"... Kame?"

"Yeah?"

"What did you wish for?"

"My wish..." I trail off, memories flashing before me.

"You don't have to tell if you don't want to!" she says quickly.

"No, no, you should know, you're apart of Namari, after all." I smile, "My wish wasn't big or anything like that. My older sister was a magical girl." Miyoko's eyes widen.

"You have a sister?"

"Yeah, I had a sister. She was all I had, our dad left when I was born, our mom couldn't care less about us, thought it was our fault our dick of a dad left. Pardon my language. Our family outside of our mom and dad didn't want anything to do with us 'cos our mom was a failure, they thought we were too. I'm not even sure if our dad's family knew he had kids. She got an apartment when she turned eighteen and she took me with her. She always told me to ignore the white creature that used to torment me."

"Kyuubey?"

"Yeah. He really wanted me to become a magical girl, I didn't even know what that was at the time, just that my sister was one. I started having nightmares about this creature, a witch, killing my sister. It was the same thing every night, I'd often wake up screaming, I just lied to my sister and told her it was a dream about mom and dad, she never asked after that. In every dream it was always on the same day, dark outside. So, on that day, I followed her to the witch's labyrinth. Sure enough, it was the same witch as in my dream."