The Demon and the Disciple
Chapter 1: The Demon and the Disciple
There was a large mirror like surface in the middle of a street, scurrying around it doing some strange poses that look remarkably similar to a monkey, was the one Joukyuu Kunitoshi recently rehired lecturer at Ryobu university. He was wearing his usual work suit and had plastered on his face a puzzled expression.
Right besides him was Kizuki Rin, sporting her school uniform and wide eyes beneath her short black hair, although it is not know from where did she suddenly appeared, since she certainly wasn't here a couple of moments ago, suffice to say it is not surprising for her to be attracted to weirdness, especially if said weirdness happens around her teacher.
The said teacher didn't even bat an eyelash to her presence choosing to continue in his examination.
"What's that?" asked Kizuki with some wonderment in her voice.
"Dunno, maybe it's CG? I didn't know we had that kind of budget for this series."
"Huuhh?" the bewildered girl responded.
"Look, there seems to be no wires." Two strikes lashed out, one below the mirrored oval and one above it in the air with a jump that seemed more like a float in it's lightness, rather then what can be attributed to that strenuous activity.
It was followed by three more strikes sealing the oval in a box like shape of strikes.
"Curiouser and curiouser, even I haven't seen something like this even as a master of Gravity. No, it's more like it is totally impossible." His eyes narrowed with the appearance of a frown on his face.
Curiosity is a powerful thing, second only to survival instinct, so it should not be surprising if curiosity would win out in the more innocent girl. By poking a very strange and possibly very dangerous object, or would it be better said phenomenon?
~Jab~
"It feels empty."
~Jab Jab Jab~
The evil man's face contorted in a semblance of satisfaction, a semblance of a smile, although I'm not sure that could be considered a smile since it looked more like a wide V shape, anyways his satisfaction appeared, having found a willing guinea pig to fulfill his curiosity of the strangeness, something with his instinct he could not do.
Her hand poked further inside and finally found something new to the experience that was only empty air a moment ago. Resistance, and not the resistance of finding something inside the mirrored phenomenon, but the resistance of trying to get something out.
"Huuhuuuaahh!?" Try as she might she couldn't get her hand out, distress clearly showed on with her eyes like a puppy who has been kicked. At the desperate effort the hand actually seemed to sink right now the mirror swallowing the arm just below the elbow.
"HEELLP!"
At this distress you would expect the man to show some empathy and help the poor girl. Not this man as his face contorted into wide grin, teeth showing in what looked strangely shark like, given the overall impression of a devil hunting it's prey. Perhaps he already understood that there is nothing he can do, and he himself knew full well the human limits and the danger of stepping into domain one knew nothing about, he was at the core a martial artist not a paranormal investigator. He also knew it was not his fault, it was fully the folly of the girl to take such risk. So the only thing that remained, the only thing permitted to himself, was this fascination with this strange phenomenon.
"Fool! Don't you have any sense of danger? Now you are going to be swallowed up by that black hole and be transformed into a speck of dust!" Maybe, deep down inside he still cared and that was his way of showing condolences to a friend he was about to lose. His cheery mood did not subside, he was certainly a strange man.
Kizuki Rin was certainly desperate, fear firmly gripping her innocent heart, the mirror was now certainly absorbing her, almost half her body was already gone, the only hope, the only despair, the only salvation lay in the foot that she still managed to keep firmly on the ground, if not for this she was sure she would be GONE, she was flaying widely like an inexperienced swimmer trying to keep their head above the water.
It was at this moment, fate, would be etched in stone. It was at this time a hand manged to grab the demon's tie and wrangle them both into to oblivion.
In an empty street without even the wind passing, a mirror like oval suspended in mid air closed like an eye, it's mission accomplished leaving only desolation behind.
Louise was desperate, with every summoning she tried her heart sunk a little more, a little more and she would break, that was why right now Louise was not Louise anymore, but a construct meant to cast the summoning spell over and over ad infinitum till the ends of time.
Or that was what she wanted to sink into, but she knew it would take more from her then that to summon a familiar. So she swallowed the bile rising from her stomach. CRUSHED any traces of water in her eyes and made her heart into STEEL.
"You may continue the ritual miss Valliere." professor Colbert said giving a helpful look.
The STEEL heart pumped with the power akin to a racing car engine, pure unadulterated will forced into a small wooden stick.
"Oh sacred familiar with its power unmatched, beauty divine, I, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière call you with everything that is in me, heed my heart and answer me!"
One BIG ASS explosion erupted, sending shock waves all around, sending a few closer students spinning, including one pink haired girl. But that was the least of her worries as her steely heart was crumbling like pillars of sand. She hoped the spinning motion would implant her head deep into the dirt, since she couldn't face her shame.
~Cough~Cough~Cough~
"What is it with this blasted smoke! With all this smoke I'll become a shriveled old man and die! I require compensation!"
Louise stood straight ramrod, blatantly ignoring the laws of physics to get from the previous position, strands of hair still floating upward from the sudden motion.
She stared at the center of the smoke that seems to dissipate in slow motion, although it was unknown if it was because of a skewed sense of time or because the smoke disappeared just that slow.
In the center stood a man, eyes narrowed that seemed to scan environment, he was wearing a untucked striped shirt with a black jacket, trousers and tie. So of course the design of the clothes were out of this world.
The audience was enrapture by the strange state of the clothes, especially by the white panties behind the shapely legs spread wide for the whole world to see.
A collective Wait what? seems to spread in the audience breaking the spell that seem to gravitate around those white panties and those shapely...
...Finally the girl manages a sitting position, hiding her modesty behind the pleated skirt. Dark puppy like eyes that promises to spill there contents in a flood, below a dark cut hair that just reaches shoulders.
The audience promises to remember this scene for the rest of their short life.
"They're actors!" one accusation flies from a nameless mage that will be sure to be used as cannon fodder later in the series.
"And they are lousy actors at that! They even botched the illusion that was supposed to fool us!" another nameless mage added, not knowing that his fate has been sealed.
"As expected of Louise the ZERO! Not only does she has zero talent at magic, she has zero talent at character judgment."
The crowd began to laugh and sneer at the petite pinket that seems to go wobbly.
"SILENCE!" Colbert shouted, silence descended on the whole court.
"I can assure as an instructor supervising the sacred ritual summoning of our founder Brimir bless his soul, that no such thing has happened. Accusing one of desecrating such holy ritual is like accusing of blasphemy and it is a very, serious, matter. I will hear from you three later in my office. Now if you please miss Valliere continue the ritual"
"But professor! I have never heard about summoning two co-commoners! Can't I redo the summoning?!"
"I will hear no buts, now please finish the ritual."
Louise let out a resigned sigh and sent an angry look at the pair of commoners she has managed to get stuck with, she let out another even deeper sigh.
"I am so happy for you Louisee. You finally managed to summon something and you even got a discount! After all you know what they say, two heads are better then one." a busty red hair said.
The wind seemed to whisper 'Better then one', probably from a certain blue haired magic girl riding on top a dragon in the skies.
"Shut UP Kirche! I'm sure you know all about heads!"
The foul mouthed void incarnation strode forward determined look on her face.
The man was standing with both hands behind his back and leaning a bit forward and having a stupid look on his face, 'stupid familiar' said Louise to herself.
She was now in front of him, the man raised his hand with the ring finger and pinky behind the middle one, he made a serious and determined look and said.
"Klaatu Barada Nikto"
"Huh?! What's that?"
"Klaatu Barada Nikto"
"Stupid stupid familiar! Stop spouting nonsense and get down here!"
The man leaned closer, his hands yet again at his back, his head at an angle with a huge grin spread out, his eyes opened wide, giving him a look like a devil staring at his prey.
"Stupid familiar! You should count yourself lucky for a noble like me to do this for you."
"I Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers; bless this humble being and make him my familiar."
She closed her eyes unable to look at his stupid face anymore and continued inch her way to seal her kiss and the contract with it.
Any moment now...
She will seal the kiss and begin properly disciplining this familiar...
She did not know why this moment keep going on, it seems she was more reluctant than she expected, but it would be any moment now...
OK something was definitely wrong so she snapped her eyes open.
A visible nerve tick pop up on her face as she took in the hand positioned on her pretty little pink hair that kept her from closing in on that stupid face that was now positively sneering at her.
"What are you doing? Let me kiss you so that the contract will be complete."
"No."
"What do you mean no!" another tick appeared and now she was practically channeling the rage of the universe in that slight form of hers.
'If you are not going to I'm going to make you' she thought as she began to strangle him by the neck.
~Whosh~ the hand attempting the grab only met air.
"You're making fun of me!"
She tried desperately to grab ahold of him to no avail, every time making a stupid monkey pose to mock her even more.
Two flails up, two sweeps down, left, right, left, right, one kick another a punch all to no avail. Be we on the other hand know this was the secret technique to unlock the demon's infamous 'butt mode'.
"You! stop moving around!"
The desperate flails multiplied tenfold, only for her vision to be increasingly be eclipsed by his damn butt!
She paused for a second, one to catch her breath since she was getting tired at the continuous outburst, and second because she realized that it wasn't going to get her anywhere.
'Fine if you aren't going to let me kiss you I'll swallow my pride, the ritual must be completed, it doesn't matter where I kiss you, I'll be content with an arm or a foot or even your damn b-b-butt!' a dark giggle escaped her mouth, the giggle grown to full sinister laughter promising pain, torture and suffering of the highest kind.
Steely determination in her gaze, target locked on his left arm her charge resumed thirty-fold.
Only to be reunited with his butt, that was fine, she was prepared for this, she was going to take what she could get and repay back thousand-fold once he was under her command. So she ~CHARGED~
…
The butt was gone and in its place was the collision course to a girl sitting dazed on the earth that was still in her thoughts.
To the observers in the court it is good to note that the man seemed to float upside down above her head having made a backflip at the last moment.
Anyways, like a homing missile the girl's lips traveled and met the other girl's lips into a deep kiss, partly because of the momentum and partly because there was a compulsion placed in the spell to help the more shy students get it over with. However while the compulsion stopped there the momentum did not and both were now on ground in a compromising position with Louise on top.
Her silky pink hair was flowing down like a waterfall, her flushed face from the strenuous activity and her glazed eyes from the to many things that were going right now in her head painted an image of a lover's embrace.
The other girl, just surprise and a face lit like a tomato.
~Whistle~Whistle~ "Do go on, this is where it gets interesting." the devil, which now has clearly identified by all as a devil, or at least Louise, spouted its vile tongue to encourage to do very indecent things that were very very inappropriate.
For the second time that day Louise spring up like a puppet who's strings just had been pulled.
While the girl below crawled with her elbows, like a spider, back.
"YOU! YOUUU!" the incarnation of pure rage bellowed wand in hand channeling explosion after explosion at devil in human form. Devils after all were beings of evil, and evil things must be exterminated.
The devil was managing to dodge them pretty well, no matter she would just have to make them bigger, and if that doesn't work make them gigantic, she would destroy the whole school if it meant she would get that devil.
Meanwhile in the audience who were still dazed, absorbing the hijinks that they see, Jean Colbert was prepared to intervene since things got far out of hand, he quickly chanted the spell of levitation.
~Scream~ and was promptly interrupted. At least the scream managed stop the onslaught and doze the hotheads for a while.
The audience manage to pinpoint the center of the scream at the girl that kept slipping from everyone's mind, like some side character in the background, they should pay more attention since she is from now on Louise's familiar forever and ever.
"OK That's enough of you two." Colbert arrived standing between the two troublemakers.
"Louise if you continue like this I will be very disappointed in you."
Louise barked at his words like an arrow pierced her heart, it wasn't supposed to end like this.
"As for you I'm pretty sure you had your fill of fun for today."
'Tch' was the only sound escaping the devil in human form.
Joukyuu Kunitoshi the aforementioned devil was walking toward Kizuki Rin the now mentioned familiar.
Kizuki innocent puppy like eyes began their watery ways that even the blackest hearts in the deepest pits of hell couldn't resist.
"Master! What's going on here?!"
"Shush Shush Everything is going to be alright." putting a hand on her shoulder and contorting his mouth like an anteater, still the look give an impression of caring.
~Whoop~
"Like hell I'm going to say that!"
Kizuki Rin found herself face in the dirt after suddenly being flipped.
"Get yourself together, you're pitiful, and you even dare to call yourself my disciple. Even disciple Nr: 3(Bull) has more backbone than you. Man if I knew you were going to be such a disappointment I should never had bothered."
Kizuki slowly got up on her own two feet and straightened herself, her eyes still a bit moist.
"Alright this will take a while to get things sorted. CLASS DISMISSED! And you three, don't think I forgot about you, in my office after school is over." the teacher addressed the still dazed audience.
The students began to scurry around, floating upwards to their next class.
Colbert took a deep sight and began to gather the energy needed to solve this mess.
"I am sure there has been a lot of confusion on your part, so let me explain things properly. Usually the ritual is more straight forward and we let students sort things out themselves, but in this case it can't be helped" replied the professor.
"I am Jean Colber of the Tristanian Academy of Magic and this is my student Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière who summoned you in our most holly ritual as a familiar"
Joukyuu eyes narrowed at the mention of magic, although he could take things in strides it was a little jarring getting involved into something that should be by all means impossible.
"I am a familiar?" asked Kizuki, the concept in her mind came from the picture books she used to read about the fairy tales and knights in shining armors, her own sense of duty came from them.
"Yes. You have already bounded to miss Valliere here."
Louise decided to nod in silence, she would introduce herself properly to her familiar later, but for now she let her teacher put some sense into her other familiar.
"But shouldn't you ask for permission to do something like that?" a sense of anxiousness permeated her.
"That is true in the case of animals the bond comes more natural, but you have to understand that a summoning familiar ritual selects the best candidate for the mage and as such it is linked to fate itself"
"So I am stuck as a familiar?" horror was now clearly heard in her voice.
"I am afraid so, the bond does not break until one of you dies, but you don't have to think of it that way, think of it as an opportunity to discover something new, I am sure miss Valliere will take good care of you."
"So this is slavery? Were the strong subjugate the weak and helpless and make them do all the dirty work. As expected of a medieval level society with a power trip. Dangerous! Dangerous. I almost got dragged into something troublesome, woe is me! Well good luck Kizuki in your new life in bondship and other kinky stuff. Got to go."
"And were do you think your going familiar?!" asked Louise fuming in anger.
"Women. Definitely have to sample the local cuisine of those luscious bodies. Then go back to normal society, home, whatever." Joukyuu answered with a lecherous smile on his face.
"I am afraid you can't do that. Having been summoned as a familiar the ritual will have to be completed, it is our most sacred ritual that is legacy from the founder himself" Colbert spoke.
"Shouldn't it be fine? You already have Kizuki over here firmly in your paws." Joukyuu said in a bored tone.
"That is not the case. All that has been summoned had their contract completed and entered in service and companionship. The familiar is a mirror of the magician, its bond is not one of slavery but of partnership. In the long history since its foundation there has been no exceptions, despite the reluctance at first of more intelligent or powerful beasts, all had completed the contract and in the end have found happiness." the professor motioned in a lecturing to impart understanding.
"Is that so?" that was the words the demon spoke, the words he spoke before he disappeared.
"That is unfortunate. Then all I have to do is snap the neck of this miss here? If that happens the bound where one of us has to die will break."
The demon was holding Louise by the neck from the back.
"Master don't do it!" Kizuki screamed in horror on what master was about to do to the girl.
A shudder went over Louise, never before had she been so afraid, in a small part of her mind she thought it was funny, this day the only fear that should have been was the fear of not summoning anything, the fear of being cast aside and let to rot, she thought then it would be better to die then not summon anything, how naïve, she should have known the fear of death would be something more instinctive, that would make anyone an animal, now here she was sweating and so terribly cold. But she did not give in, no matter the circumstance it was her familiar, her responsibility, for the first time she thanked the Rule of Steel that has been instilled in her by her mother. She knew she could do nothing, she could only accept whatever fate awaits her with calm composure.
Jean Colbert stood in horror, all his instincts as a soldier shot up in that instant, but it was already over, he should have prepared spells to go in an instant and ensure his student's protection, but he knew that even with that it would have been to late. His mistake was when he let him this close in the first place. He racked his brain at any possibility to save his student, but he knew there wasn't any. The only thing he could do was nothing, not move, not breath, nothing to provoke the demon that appeared, but then nothing will be solved.
"I understand." Colbert spoke in calm methodical tone.
"The ritual will not be continued. I will ensure there will be such an exception. This I promise. Please." the last word seeping with desperation.
"Is that so?" the tone was bored.
"I do not mind. Whether this missy tries to finish the ritual, or another decides to finish it in her stead. It does not matter, who ever challenges me. I will CRUSH." a wide grin spread that showed what looked like razor teeth of a shark even if it should have been normal human teeth, a trick of light?, eyes in clear satisfaction, this should have dispelled any doubts that this could not be a human, but a devil in disguise.
Louise fallen down on her face in the dirt like puppet who's strings were cut, she did not get up, she was dead, at least that's what the audience feared, she was merely unconscious, if people took the time they would see that she was still breathing, but there was no time, only the shock of seeing a person who was a moment ago conscious now collapsed, in the end it didn't matter the state of Louise, only that it was the trigger for battle.
The audience wasn't only limited to Kizuki and Colbert. Unbeknownst to them, Kirche and Tabitha was secretly watching Louise and the familiars she summoned, in the case of Kirche to find something interesting to tease Louise with. Strangely rather than usually being dragged by Kirche, Tabitha also showed surprising interest on the familiars.
They were spying with a wind spell that would take the sounds and move them in the wind, it was a spell used for communicating at even long distances. When they saw what happened, they prepared their spells but they could do nothing, he was too close to Louise so neither sniper fire, wind cutter or icicle strike would help, they simply didn't have that pinpoint perfect accuracy of a bullet from a sniper rifle, even that would have been risky.
They could only wait in frustration, when Louise fallen like a corpse their emotions flared. Kirche with the burning anger of a new born sun. Tabitha's icy coldness of a killer. The battle was about to begin.