If she could help it, Sayaka would never condone murder - regardless of the victim's nature and morality. With a flash and a bang as dramatic as the events that had taken place in this room, the giant whom Sayaka had thought she was going to fight had been vaporized into non-existence. Once again, the unpredictable powers that be of this place had left her gasping for breath. She stumbled back against the wall. She was stunned by the sudden turn of events, but was nevertheless well aware of what had occurred.

"Hey! Come back!" she shouted at the voice whose prior statements had implied that the source belonged to the one responsible for trapping them here, as well as dealing whatever karmic fate onto that barbaric creature. "Who are you?! What did you do to that ogre?!"

Sayaka grinded her teeth. Three more beings were materialized into the room - two of them another pair of armored knights, one of them a cyborg with a metal arm - but all of the chaos that had taken place all at once left Sayaka disoriented and fatigued. She felt helpless about the two deaths, the same helplessness she had once felt when she had to watch her friend die before her, the helplessness of bearing the heavy responsibility of justice but being too weak to carry it out.

That was when the memories came back to her, memories of her killing all those witches in the name of justice, of the revelation that those very same witches were once magical girls like herself before they fell into despair, much like she did.

[i]"What are you so worked up about, you hypocrite?"[/i] she berated herself. Another sigh was breathed from her exhaustion, and a palm was raised to support her heavy head.

A dewdrop began forming in the pit of her eye, on the side of her face her hand was not covering. It was not until when it came pouring out down her cheek in a thin stream of tears that she realized what was happening. She swiftly shifted her hand onto the other side of her face as she turned it away from both Ib and the jaguar. Her breathing had to be regulated once again to suppress the sniffling that was taking place.

[i]"Dammit, how many times are you gonna cry per day, you idiot?"[/i]

Having wiped away the embarrassing self-pity off her face, Sayaka relaxed her hand and returned her gaze back to the little girl, a forced smile across her lips. Ib was tranquil again, and the jaguar seemed friendly enough not to protest against her usage of him as a pillow.

With another deep breath and two light slaps on her cheeks, Sayaka smacked the last of her moodiness away to ensure she was stable enough to make rational decisions. She swiveled her eyes to the other side of the room, where the hallway she was to enter resided.

[i]"I need to get home,"[/i] she reminded herself as she stared blankly at the lonesome archway leading to another room. It was a simple matter of walking down that pathway to find the exit, and yet there was the looming threat of their omnipotent host wiping out whomever that tried. She surveyed the surrounding people once again, paying heed to the distinctive traits each of them had. Aside from the few like Ib and the unconscious Cal, most of them seemed more than capable of handling themselves. However, the same could be said for that gargantuan behemoth that had just been dematerialized. [i]"I need to get home, but I can't just abandon these people..."[/i] 

She might not be able to prevent more killings from being done here, and she might not be able to help the people here. It was painfully obvious that she was dealing with powers beyond her control. But despite all that, she wanted to do whatever her capabilities allowed her to, whatever she could do to help. She was raised that way, having an obstinate moral obligation of black and white. And if she walked away from these innocence, she would consider herself a 'black,' a contradiction of everything she had stood for. She did try to see things in grey for a while now ever since her impossible self-demands had cost her sanity, but after all this time, she could still not remove her obsessive urge to do good. Perhaps, after that period of insanity, the trauma had sealed away any possibility of freeing herself from the obsession.

Or perhaps it was simply due to her principles, she rationalized. "Principles" was a word that carried much weight for her. It was due to her principles that she remained stubborn even when she understood the dangers of her non-compromising views. It was who she is, and her heart was content with her way of living, even when it had caused her nothing but endless suffering. She couldn't live with herself otherwise. She did not choose to remain a magical girl because of some petty guilt or self-pitying trauma, she chose to because it was a simple matter of principles.

And now, live or die facing their kidnapper, she had no other choice but to stay.