The skies over Tokyo have cleared up with a surprising speed. Triage is still going on near the harbor, where magical girls are saving the lives of those who were injured. But not all of the magical girls who were present make it to the triage point.
After being caught too near the destruction of Walpurgisnacht, Anshi fell deep into the harbor, dragged all the deeper by the skyscraper-sized wrecking ball attached to her neck by a metal collar.
The cold, wet of hitting the water woke Anshi from her unconsciousness, but she was already too deep. She sputtered and inhaled water, then began choking on it.
It's an odd thing to choke on something that can't kill you.
Anshi panics, and the wrecking ball shrinks to keychain size.
Still gasping for air in a medium that has none and unable to stop herself, Anshi kicks for the surface. She bobs up near a pier, coughs up water, then goes right back under as she fails to coordinate her arms and limbs.
Anshi's theatre gloves are ruined; only bare scraps of cloth remain at her biceps and on two fingers. Her bodice is atatters, as well; the lacing is gone, the boning is barely held in place. There's no ruffles. Her shorts have smoking holes in them, as do her stockings and her boots. The pink overskirt she wears is simply gone, save for a few shreds of bow on her back.
She's choking, but not dying. She's suffering, but not crying. Victory. Walpurgisnacht is dead. Just as soon as she finds air again she'll probably go back to smiling.
With the crazy weather and the weird magic in the air and the creepiness, this night has been all sorts of bonkers for anyone not directly tending to Walpurgisnacht. The city might have been given the evacuation orders by the government, but some people have found reasons to stay behind.
For Greta Legend, that reason is to helping crowd control, saving stragglers caught in the thick of the weather, and even vanquishing the odd monster that decided that this was a good opportunity to wreak havoc while the city was in a heightened state of panic.
"~THE MAGIC ANOMALY HAS DESPERSED.~" One of the voices to Tri Soul speaks up, just as Greta hefts her Tomahawk Form device over her shoulder. She hrmss and looks over to where she was told the anomaly originated, "Looks like the weather's letting up too..." She sighs, "If I hadn't been so far away, I could have helped."
Tri Soul's calmer voice pops in, "/MASTER. A LARGE OBJECT HAS BEEN DETECTED ORIGINATING FLYING FROM THE EPICENTER, FALLING FAST TO THE WATER. POSSIBLE MAGIC SOURCE. INVESTIGATION IS RECOMMENDED./"
Greta blinks a little and turns her attention towards that direction, and her eyes widen as she sees the size of the ball and chain, even from the distance that she's at. "What the hell...?" She shakes her head, and calls out, "Let's fly."
At that prompt, the third voice of Tri Soul speaks up, "-GRETA WING-" And the magic of her device manifests a bright yellow cape that adds onto her uniform, and with practiced ease she leaps into the air and soars towards the object where it splashes down.
Once she's arrived, she hovers in the air, looking for the object in the water, "Where did it go... Something that size should still be visible--"
Then something pops out of the water, Greta blinking before realizing it was a person, and upon closer inspection, her eyes widen in recognition, "ANSHI!!" She cries out, before darting right down and diving into river, before swooping up grabbing Anshi in her arms along with, hauling her out of the water. She makes a point of getting her quickly onto dry land, and setting her down on her back, and panics for a bit, "Oh god, oh god! Please don't be drowned!" She drops down to her knees at Anshi's side, trying to think of steps, while not neccessarily paying attention to the fact that Anshi might not be actively drowning.
Anshi doesn't speak when Greta hoists her out of the water. Speaking requires air, and she has none of that. She does, however, vomit a not insignificant amount of water on the magical girl. When Greta lays her down on dry land, Anshi begins spewing out more water.
Water dribbles from Anshi's nose and from her mouth. She's drenched in seawater, but she's also still spitting it up when her stomach should already be empty. It's as if she literally filled her stomach and her lungs, both, completely with water, and her body can't retain it all. Getting it out of her might be a good idea.
Greta is borderline flailing without the active flailing. It's a mental flail, "Oh god! Okay, think Greta, think!" She takes a breath, and goes over mentally some details she learned about CPR. She's not trained, obviously, but it's one of those things she learned because she was really bored once and read her set of encyclopedias several times over.
Greta reaches down and presses against Anshi's chest, to try to get chest compression going. After several pushes of the chest, she reaches up and opens Anshi's mouth to open her airway, and after a bit of observation, she gulps a bit... "Next step..."
She then pinches Anshi's nose shut, before taking a long breath and then leaning down and planting her mouth over Anshi's, and blows as much air into the girl's chest, to try to get her right proper breathing. She parts for a moment and takes another breath, and then plants back down, once more blowing the air in.
Poor Greta. The chest compressions help, a little, as Anshi's lungs shove the water out. The attempt to breathe for her, however, backfires, as Anshi's body rejects the oxygen in favor of spewing up still more water, straight into Greta's mouth.
Ew.
Luckily, however, it seems Greta's efforts were not entirely in vain, because Anshi begins coughing and hacking up water. And then, very suddenly, she takes a deep breath and sits up, eyes flying wide open. "Holy crap," she says, voice hoarse and still very, very rheumy from the seawater "I just dreamed we killed Walpurgisnacht, and then I got a kiss for my bravery?!"
In hindsight, the compressions should have been more than enough, but one couldn't blame Greta for at least trying to get her only real friend in a long time to breath. The second the water is ejected into her mouth, she flinches back and gags, spitting the stuff right back out off to the side. "PFFT! Ew...!"
When she hears Anshi speaking, though, Gret forgets about the grossness of it all and turns to latch right onto Anshi, hugging her tight, "ANSHI! Thank god you're alright! You fell into the water, and it looked like you were drowning, so I pulled you out and---" At the mention of the kiss for bravery, she blushes hot red while she's still engaged in hug mode, so hopefully Anshi couldn't see. "I-I wouldn't know about any of that, that must have been some dream..." She pulls away and grabs Anshi's hands, "Anshi, what happened? Your outfit is all... Wrecked... Are sure you're okay?"
Anshi squeaks as Greta hugs her from behind. Memories of the last few hours hit the Puella like a ton of bricks. She wobbles, and then suddenly Greta isn't holding onto Anshi for a hug so much as because if she lets go Anshi will fall over.
"Oh god it wasn't a dream," she says, face going pale. Anshi begins to shake, and she turns around to lean heavily on Greta. "Walpurgisnacht," she says quietly. "I got caught ... my chain got caught in the gears." She makes a soft noise of uncertainty, then explains, "All I could think was that if I don't kill it, Sachiko would be in danger. So ... I killed it anyways. And I didn't worry about me. And it kinda blew up with me under it." She looks down at her decimated outfit, then shudders again.
"But ... it was worth it, right?" Anshi asks Greta. "Everyone lived, right? Everyone's okay. We did good ... we killed the witch. Right?"
Greta squeezes her friend as she spills her heart out like that, and as she listens, she can't help but wonder, but she shakes her head, "Never mind all that... You're okay, that's all that matters right now.." She smiles and gazes into Anshi's eyes, "It took a little bit to get you breathing proper, but that's alright, at least you're breathing now."
She hmms a little and turns her eyes to where she saw Anshi flying from, "So, that was the event you were talking about the other day that everyone was getting ready for?" She hmms a little, "It's certainly important that it didn't cause any lasting harm..." She turns her attneion back to Anshi, "But... These witches are like Monsters right? If they're hurting people, and talking them out of it isn't possible, then vanquishing them is probably the best course of action..."
There's a pause, "Unless there's something about them that's making you doubt things..."
Is she okay? Anshi blinks at that question uncertainly, then looks away from Greta's piercing gaze. Okay? No, okay is what she was before she made this wish. She should be dead right now.
"It was the right thing to do," Anshi says, then laughs a little, but it doesn't sound like her heart is in the laughter. "Witches don't talk. They just destroy and take and kill. This one was huge, Greta-chan. It was ... it was ... the size of the city. And I literally stood on it. I stood on it. And then ... and then .." she trails off and starts to shake.
Maybe not so okay. Anshi's shivering turns to a little giggle, and then there are tears pouring down her face. She's still giggling, but now she's also crying at the same time. "I should be dead," she voices aloud. "And I don't even know if Sachiko is safe. I asked a neighbor to make sure she evacuated. To make sure mom evacuated. But I'd promised Mami I would be here for this. So I don't know if they got out."
This was starting to really worry Greta, just the way her friend was freaking out. The blonde girl reaches down and grabs Anshi's hands and squeezes, trying to get her friend to focus, "Of course they're okay, Anshi! There's no doubt, they'd get your family out! They'll be fine!"
She had to calm Anshi down some more, and Greta says, "Look, you're exhausted and I bet you're hungry. How about we gett you something to eat! That'll help you calm down! I know I could use something!" She smiles and says, "Everything's going to be fine now!"
"Food," Anshi says quietly, then swallows and nods slowly. "Yeah, yeah, I'm hungry," she agrees. "And ... and they won't answer if I call right now, right?" she says to Greta quietly. "Probably safe and sound in a shelter. And ... and ..." the laughter only resumes, here, and then she takes a deep, stuttery breath before leaning away.
She doesn't say anything, though; just sits there staring towards the ocean as she begins to drift towards catatonic. She's physically here, eye sopen heart beating. But mentally she's starting to slip.
Greta's heart is sinking as she just hears her friend starting to just lose it, and she looks about to check Anshi's condition proper, before remembering something Anshi had said some days before, "Soul Gem...! Where? Where is it?" She searches Anshi, trying to find her friend's Soul Gem. She had to find out what condition it was in, maybe it wasn't too late to get her to recover.
As she searches, Greta says, "Come on, Anshi, you're going to be fine... Your family is okay, and you survived the fight... You're going to be okay... You're going to be okay!" She keeps repeating, a mantra of her own as tears start spilling from her eyes, "You've got to be okay... You're my friend, you're going to be okay... You can't not be okay, you're the only friend I've got... My only friend..."
She growls and digs about, "Where IS it!?" Trying to find the damned gem.
Anshi blinks as Greta begins pawing all over her, hunting for a gem she'll never find. But the words slowly sink in, and she risks a smile that doesn't quite reach those soft brown eyes. "I'm okay," she promises Greta.
What a hollow promise. But she does grab Greta's hands very gently, and then suddenly it's there, in Greta's hands: a small little golden baubble, like what perfume might be stored in. It's cold to the touch, and Anshi shudders violently even as Greta's hands close in on the gem.
It's still glowing, just barely. But the brilliant apricot hue that it once held is nearly entirely choked out by the black sludge that in Anshi's soul gem. "I'm okay," Anshi says to Greta. "See? There's still a little left. I'm not dead, yet."
Greta goes wide eyed as she sees the gem appear in her hands, and trembles as she holds and inspects it. Everythign was off. "A little bit..? Woah woah, no no, we can't have just a little bit. We're going to clean that up, and you're going to tell me everything about how this thing works -exactly- so we don't have to worry about that again..."
She looks into Anshi's eyes and smiles, "You're going to get better, you're going to find your family again, and everything's going to be fine..." She holds Anshi's hands around the gem, and squeezes, while leaning in and pulling her close for a hug.
The gem shrinks back into its ring, and Anshi leans into the hug. "Hey, Greta-chan," she mumbles. "You're too worried," she says to her friend. "I'm ... I'm fine," she says, laughing a little. "I'm fine," she whispers, then lets out a long low sigh.
She's so not fine.
"I need to go find Tomoe-senpai," Anshi says to Greta. "I can't ... my family will be okay. But I promised her I'd be her partner, and I don't know if she's okay. Will you help me? Will you help me make sure my partner is okay?"
"P-partner..?" Confusing choice of words, though Greta shakes her head a little to get her head cleared up. It probably meant nothing more than a partnership in work. Of course it had to be. She rubs her eyes dry and nods, "Of course. We'll go and find Tomoe-san together!"
She then smiles brighter, "Come on, we can do it together. Tri Soul keeps saying that 'when the hearts of humanity unite, anything is possible,' so we're going to do it!"
"Partner," Anshi says with a half-manic smile. "She's my senpai," Anshi explains, as she lets greta help her to her feet. "I'm her kohai. We watch each other's back. She told me to keep a grief seed on me ... but I used the last one I had," she explains.
"I'm sure she has more," she rambles, as she starts staggering back towards the main area. "I'm sure everything is fine. Sachiko is fine," she reassures herself quietly.
"Of course she is, and why wouldn't she be?" Greta grins, "Come on, let's fine Tomoe-san, we'll sort this all out." She pushes herself up and pulls Anshi up to her feet, taking this moment to prop Anshi over her should to keep her standing. "Come on, let's go..."