Sayaka had just finished up checking Cal's vitality when one of the two armored knights, part of the late arrivals, came marching to her with a large, goofy grin.
"Hey Mon'keigh girl next to that unconscious one! Yeah, you! You wanna get out of this white boring as the warp piece a khorne dick room? Let's go!"
"Great, another eloquent speaker." As she rubbed her aching forehead, she exhaled another sigh. This place would run her breathless by the end of the day.
"Erm, look," she began while putting on her warmest smile, "I'm a bit busy at the moment looking for a way out of here. The one who brought us here wouldn't just let us off the hook that easily, but that doesn't mean we should just fool around and do nothing. You can come with me if you want to. I could use any help getting these people out of here."
Having said that, Sayaka swiftly walked past the warrior without waiting for an answer, the friendly grin still hanging from her face. After a couple more steps, however, she was forced to a halt once more, this time by a familiar voice coming from inside her head.
"Many people would have done the same thing, Sayaka. You did not commit something anywhere near as heinous as you imagine."
She half-smiled at the kind words, but the grimace that was quickly becoming a trademark of hers resurfaced on her face. "Maybe..." she replied in thought, unsure of the technicalities of telepathic communication, or whether if her wise friend would even hear the reply, "but I can't just let it go, not like this. They were my sins... Whether I was at fault does not matter; their blood was on my hands. And that's that. It is not a matter of self-loathing; it is a matter of duty."
Sayaka moved on, trying her best to put the conversation out of her mind. She was grateful for the feline's words, and she knew that her self-blame was nonsensical, given that when a magical girl falls into total despair, she would have no control over her transformation into a witch. It was an inevitable fate all magical girls had once shared till the grace of Madoka saved them all. Given all of that, she could not let it go, and especially not now. Such internal conflicts and moral dilemmas were better left for another time if they ever escaped this place.
After being held back more than a handful of times, Sayaka finally came upon the other side of the room. And she was at awe. A theater a bit larger than a football field appeared right before her eyes, with rolls of high class seats aligned across the entire area, and at the very back, a breathtaking movie screen sitting grandiosely above a stage.
It had been a while since Sayaka visited a theater, a decade even. She would always attend every performance of her childhood crush, Kyousuke Kamijou, watching him playing that violin. But after the accident that took away the motor control over his arm, Sayaka had not visited a theater since. The painful history that would lead to her contract as a magical girl was one that she had long moved on from.
Shrugging off the annoying recollections, Sayaka swiveled around and surveyed the room, memorizing the layout in case it became helpful. While doing so, she noticed that Ib had arrived before her, probably when she was held back by her new companion and her telepathic conversation with Darkhunter. From afar, she could observe that Ib was trying out the exits labeled with the blatant neon signs, and while she too wish that it was that easy, she too knew as Ib knew that the result of such an attempt would probably be disappointing. And as it turned out moments after the twisting of those knobs, it was.
Another sigh. Had she a yen for every of these she breathed out, she could probably bribe her way out, and probably even everyone else's too.
Exasperated, Sayaka slumped down a random seat in the room, her chin resting upon an elevated palm. In her idleness, however, she failed to notice the pistol-boy from earlier opening one of the doors Ib had tried earlier. He was sucked in, and the door closed up immediately. Sayaka jerked out of her seat.
"What... what the hell...?" was all she could articulate.
It took her seconds to comprehend the situation. Another one was gone. Another man she could have saved. Another weight on her conscience. "Goddammit..." she cursed bitterly, a clenched fist slammed onto the seat in the row before her. And then she looked around at the eyes that she had attracted, and she wondered how pathetic her state of anger must had looked. She heaved another sigh and began marching across the theater. "There's gotta be a way out. Time's running out."