The characters and situations of Magister Negi Magi are the creation of and rightful property of Ken Akamatsu. They are used here without permission. This story may be freely redistributed, but it should not be altered substantially or used for profit in any way. Original characters appearing in this fanwork belong to their respective owners, whomever they may be.
-MMR-
"Inazami! Pay attention!"
With a slightly startled gasp, the small girl playing amongst the yellow daisies snapped to and stared blankly at her wise keeper. Unlike the other people that lived in the area, the girl's hair was the color of the clouds in the bright blue sky, and her eyes sparkled an unnatural crimson like a ruby glittering in the moonlight. Pale pollen drifted lazily off her dark dress as she stood up and daintily made her way to the boy and his knee-high plant.
His traditionally dark eyes softened slightly against the girl's cool gaze, but his voice held an undeniably firm tone, "If you don't listen to me now, then you won't understand what to do later on when I'm not around..."
Eyes that looked like pools of blood blinked unconcernedly, "But Inazagi... won't you always be with me?"
---
The calmness of the spring was both beautiful and ethereal. Pretty flowers dotted the sides of the road and the flowers were blooming on every tree. Any breeze that chose to go through the Mahora area would immediately stir up the scents and wonders of the petals hanging heavily on the stems and branches of the fauna, teasing bypassers with their luscious aroma and lovely appearances. There was something sacred about the most simplest of flowers, a holiness to its appearance with all its imperfections.
For most people, however, the wonders of the season of life were easily ignored. Once the break that went along with the beginning of spring was over, the students no longer felt that the beauty of nature was quite as important as it once was.
Such a shame.
Like some sort of magic, the bright yellow of an innocent flower seemed to grow dimmer and convulsed erratically. Eventually the petals seemed to turn blue as icy tendrils coiled themselves around the unfortunate daisy. Despite the warmth of the day, the ice emcompassing the flower didn't seem to melt at all. Even as a young man quietly bent down and removed the flower from between the cracks in the cement, the icy prison didn't even seem to notice the warmth radiating from his fingertips.
"You are a creature of the spring imbued with the touch of winter..." like a teacher speaking to a dear pupil, he whispered, "I am yours if you are mine. Amor mei ferrum, contemno mei contego. Emergo mei amor."
His eyes narrowed with a mixture of compassion and disgust, like a man who's prizest possesion was also his most disgusting. To his eyes and his eyes alone, the cold spirit of the newly infused ice-flower quickly wrapped itself around his hand, down his arm, and seeped into the ground at his feet. Nobody noticed the thin layer of frost on the ground where the boy paused to look at a flower, and by the time anybody stood at that same spot, the only thing to indicate the boy's existance was the poor, broken stem of a once beautiful flower.
The rest of the young fellow's walk was largely uninteresting, and he only paused twice more until he left the Mahora district via train station, staring wistfully out the window of his compartment as the public transport slowly made its way away from the area.
"There he goes..."
Sakurazaki Setsuna slowly put the binoculars down just as her partner switched the safety on her gun. For the two of them, this was merely another day on the job, just another target. Unfortunately...
"What a way to waste our lunch period..." holding back a heavy sigh, one Tatsumiya Mana put down her M40 while aimlessly forcing a slightly deformed riceball to her mouth. With the alteration of her contract to now being paid only after the target's nuetralization, these waiting games have been quite a dagger to her money to time ratio.
The ponytailed swordswoman carefully set the small binoculars on the ledge of the railing, easing herself over in a relaxed posture, "Well, at least we know where its coming from..."
A grunt was the only reply.
Today's - and most of last week's - job was related to a series of strange happenings in the more crowded areas of Mahora: more specifically, the park and surrounding buildings. With the flowers and trees blooming and more and more people showing up to look at them, it's no wonder that at least one supernatural phenomenon would show up and cause a bit of trouble.
The Hibiscus genus in Japan usually flowers a pleasant pink color, especially the ones in the park, due to the Flower Committee's careful guidance and motherly nurturing. They've been healthy for years, thriving even when the winter chill lingers, blooming at just the right moment, and fancied as being some of the most beautiful shrubs in the district. This year, however, the startlingly bright, neon blue of the flowers attracted some... rather unwanted attention. Especially since - to a mage's eye - the flowers seemed to radiate with an alarmingly near-infinite well of pure magical essence. With the correct wavelengths, a child with the smallest spark of magic in their blood could easily become something far more disasterous than say... Asuna in a senior home.
Most of the problems only share that common root: having happened after the blooming of the unnaturally-colored flowers. Only a week after the blue phantasm's appearance, a few young girls went missing. A little while after that, Mahora Primary schools closed for a week due to a sudden outbreak of influenza - which eerily only affected the students. When a traveling musician vanished from the park bench where he slept, Setsuna and Mana were called in; that musician was a Kansai League Demon Exterminator.
"And on the third day, we still have no real lead..." Mana said with the slightest hint of irritation.
The two probably looked like an interesting pair, due to their rather obvious weaponry, now concealed in a couple of not-so-inconspicious guitar cases. Starting last semester, the Kansai League and the Kanto Imperial Magistrate began to run a series of control laws to keep mages under the thumbs of the regulators. Over the last year, the Human Realization Percentile has rose more than 300%, caused mainly due to these so-called "Vigilante Associations". On the top of that list... Mahora's Self Defense Team.
Although Mana's mind was filled mostly with anger and remorse over the new regulations of operating mercenary groups, Setsuna's was pondering over her partner's last statement.
"Well that boy seems strange enough. Only after he showed up did the flowers bloom. We could incapacitate him and wait for any change."
Half a laugh burst from Mana's lips before she managed to hold it in reign, "That'll only work if he's working alone. Otherwise, the abnormalities will just continue. Then what? We still wouldn't know. We'd just have an unconscious mage hostage." She stroked her throat with the back of her hand, sighing as she did so, "Damn rules."
"It really was easier just a year ago..."
Something that looked far too dangerous glinted behind Mana's soft brown eyes, but disappeared before the calm swordswoman could say anything. Under heavy, scutinizing watch, the two were like mice in a cage, yet expected to go about their daily routine as though nothing were wrong at all. How could they work under such ways!?
Even now, there was a feeling of the two being watched by an unknown third-party. A patsy of the government trailing their tail like a sort of unwanted, irritating shadow. This was something that Konoemon warned them about.
"The Kanto Imperials and Kansai League have both sent in specialists to help you. But..." The old man suddenly laughed, his outrageous head bobbing slightly, "They're not very good at the teamwork business... Just make sure you get the point across: we're the good guys, too."
"If we were the good guys," Mana said sullenly as they turned the corner and beheld the school gates welcoming them, "Why don't those guys show themselves?"
"Because," said a masculine voice behind the two, "We were instructed not to."
Without hesitation, Setsuna's sword was already unsheathed, its marvelous blade whistling through the air. With a threatening whisper, the gleaming metal stopped only a breath away from the outsider's throat. The clicking of a weapon's safety switch also added to the situation, although only Mana's collected, mercenary face seemed to give away that she had a concealed weapon out.
The man's smiling face made it seem as though not a thing was wrong on this splendid spring day. He was dressed awkwardly, not blending into the scene at all well. The brown, patched cap was tilted strategically over his right eye, revealing a dull, mischevious brown orb that twinkled playfully in th sunlight. Hanging loosely over his shoulders was a thick brown coat, long and reduced to a patchwork, appearing to be something for more use in the winter time... the rest of his attire was concealed within the folds of the large coat, although his arms were raised slightly out from the inside, as though to signify a rather pitious surrender.
When he opened his mouth, his voice took a drastic change from the cold, calculative and demeaning to... rather nasally, weak, and almost pathetic. His smirk, on the other hand, retained his first voice's attributes, "I see I've stumbled upon Mahora's guards... be nice to poor Jonah, huh?"
Mana kept her face still as she motioned to the gates with outstretched arms, "After you, sir. I'm sure you were coming this way to meet the Dean..."
As Setsuna's hilt nudged his side, the man quizically looked around and grinned, "Yes... the Dean... yes."
The sword slid stealthily back into the guitar case. It's owner didn't hide her displeasure, "So why are you sneaking around here? Don't you think we'll assume the worst?" She grit her teeth in an unladylike demeanor when a shrill bell echoed through the campus. "And now we're late for class..."
"I'm sure Negi-sensei won't mind..." Despite the delicate situation before her, the gun-toting mercenary seemed to finally take on an air of enjoyment. She had long awaited this inevitable moment of contact with another party. If violence was involved... all the better.
It may have been a lucky thing that classes began. Due to this, the odd group could very easily manuever through the halls without any fear of interference. While Mana enjoyed the lessened chances of accidental meetings, Setsuna grew unnerved by it. The silence of the hallways were... far too unnatural... especially for a girls' school. At the very least, there should be a patrolling teacher checking for tardies.
"Say, Mana..."
"Yeah?"
A bird chirping at the edge of the window nearly made the sword maiden forget about her disturbed feelings, but when the presently harmless prisoner began to wriggle slightly in his coat, the paranoia reached a new height. "Something doesn't feel right..."
Something inside their pitiful companion's coat exploded, sending the man reeling backwards as Mana and Setsuna scrambled for cover. Although the direction of Jonah's body indicated that the attacker came from further down the hall, the next explosion came from directly behind.
Just as Mana was flung forward by the explosion set upon her back, Setsuna turned in time to catch another magical bomb in the face. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt at all. The worst of it ended the moment she stopped sliding on the ground, much like a rough push.
Jonah, now revealed to be something more than a mere spy, moved erratically from within his dark coat. His face was contorted in a mix of great amusement and concentration, a glint of madness as his arms moved to collect the strange purple essence that seemed to ebb into existance from the strange cylinder attached to his wrist. The moment his fingertips touched the gaseous color it solidified and immediately took itself to be launched in the direction of the two girls.
With the expertise and accuracy of a professional gunslinger, Mana shot three of the purple orbs out with a harmless air gun, smirking as she did so. They moved slowly, to her eyes. Far too easy to be any trouble. They seemed to exist only when their molecular structure was closely intwined, so the smallest disturbance - tiny, hard pellets, for example - would cause it to dispurse into oblivion.
Within a few seconds Jonah's onslaught of attacks ended, caused by his being knocked senseless via tiny plastic ball to the temple. As he staggered he seemed to laugh at his own predicament, but the only intelligible words that came out of his mouth was, "Ow."
Swordsgirl and Gunner each took an arm and easily lifted the man. With a look of inner warmth, Mana turned to her battle-wearied partner, "Well, this could be fun."