Her Devil's Luck
As long as she had the right equipment, there was no target that Mana Tatsumiya couldn't hit. Her accuracy was referred to as the "devil's luck," the hundred percent hit rate whispered in the dark taverns that her targets frequented.
But it had all ended the moment he died. No, the moment he was killed.
Up in a tree, under the light of the night's pale moon, Mana gazed at the elegant yet simple card that held all the mysteries of her past. Arcana, it said, meaning secret. She let a small smile slip onto her face. Secret, as if that single word could encompass the countless things she had never told, and never would tell, anyone.
She leaned back against the tree trunk, sitting perfectly balanced on one of the more sturdy branches. The scent of carnage was still fresh on the wind that raked a hand through her long hair.
Absentmindedly, she rubbed the barrel of her sniper rifle with her free hand and cast a glance down to the base of the tree where a sea of corpses lay in an ever expanding circle around her. Her weapon had done its job well.
But her current favorite could never compare to the perfect heft and weight of her artifact, those magic pistols that were half of her devil's luck. Even now, she could almost feel their comforting grip in her hands. Her fingers still twitched at the thought. How she missed them.
How she missed him.
But those were the chains of the past, useless to her now except as a permanent handicap.
Mana shifted her position and winced. She touched her stomach and was reassured when her hand came back up without being bloodied. Fortunately, the wound had not reopened.
To say the least, it was a handicap she did not enjoy having around.
The mission tonight had been a psychopath's dream, a glorious bloodbath strewn with demon body parts torn to bits and pieces by the force of her enchanted bullets. The demons had been called to this plane of existence by a renegade magician, too far lost in the forbidden arts to be called human any longer. His body, too, lay somewhere along the endless planes of the rotting dead.
Mana frowned. The thought struck her as odd. Demons didn't rot; their physical forms fell apart and disappeared when they could no longer hold them together.
There was a loud crunch and then the whole tree shook. The violent motion nearly dislodged her from her precarious perch, but Mana was not shaken. She stowed away her pactio card and then proceeded to roll off the branch with a tumbler's grace. Without having to look, she reached up and grabbed the same branch as she leveled her sniper rifle at her target.
The large, misshapen shape of a head looked up at her with hungry eyes, mouth still clamped around the trunk of the tree. Mana blew it to pieces without hesitation.
Now headless, the demon's body flopped to the ground with a sickening squelch. Mana dropped to the ground and took stock of the situation.
The corpses strewn around her now began to rise with slow, lumbering movements that were quickly growing smoother. Mana stood in the middle of a rising army.
Needless to say, that was not acceptable to her.
Mana slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder and then loped through the ranks of the demons struggling to regain their former skins, intent on finding the perpetrator who had robbed her of easy money. She supposed the renegade magician had not used a body double or something of the like. She scowled. More work for her. This time, she was definitely demanding overtime pay.
Even though she had to adjust her pace for her wound, Mana's long strides would have left a normal girl panting to catch up. So by the time the tree toppled down behind her a few moments later, it was already only barely visible. Unfortunately, by that time, her slain marks had risen from the dead, ready to grasp their revenge.
Easier said than done.
Within the span of a second, Mana drew her pistols from their holsters and pulled the triggers. The following second, she trampled the smoking remains of a demon under her feet.
The movements of her hands became blurs as she fired left, right, forward, over her shoulder, behind her back, without once breaking stride. She walked through a maelstrom of claws, fangs, and blades without being touched once, leaving, in her wake, a trail of bodies mangled beyond recognition.
And yet somehow those mangled bodies followed her as if she was the pied piper and they were her children. They crept, crawled after her, writhing masses of blackened flesh.
Mana paid them no mind. Her target was near, she could feel it.
Then, she saw him, a tall, skeletal figure robed in the shade of the dead and decorated with a symbol that struck a chord in her memory. White butterflies—the crest of necromancy, House Loridite.
She came to a sudden stop. The demons surrounding her leapt at the opportunity.
All of a sudden, the demons closest to her burst into white flames. One moment, they were about to rip her to pieces, and the next, they were simply gone. The waves broke against the invisible force that consumed them with overwhelming finality. When it was over, a wasteland of burnt flesh extended from where she stood off into the horizon.
As the last cries died away, Mana let a singed slip of paper drift to the ground.
"That cost me five-hundred thousand yen," she said in the resulting silence.
"An exorcism slip." The Loridite mage sounded almost bemused when he turned and added,
"Unfortunately, I'm still human."
"You…" she began, but trailed off.
Her body shuddered involuntarily, and she knew he saw it; he'd always seen what others couldn't. After all, he was…
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
The Loridite mage smirked. "What? This face? Is it nostalgic for you?"
Mana's finger twitched and the telltale sign gave everything away. Before her arm had even begun to move, a platform of bone erupted from the ground under the mage. She found her pistol leveled at where his head would have been had he not been lifted up into the sky.
She cursed her lapse in suppressing her emotions. Just because the mage was wearing his face, she had let herself get caught in his trap.
The mage hopped down in front of her gun with a self-satisfied smile.
Mana didn't pull the trigger; she couldn't. Her movements were arrested, and the reason became clear when a butterfly flew across her face, leaving behind a trail of glittering dust.
Paralyzing pollen, she realized. Just like all the other Loridite scum.
He circled her, looking intensely smug as he tapped her shoulder, waist, cheek, and she didn't react. Apparently satisfied, he stopped, once again, in front of her gun.
"When I heard the one with the devil's luck was hunting me, I knew I had to prepare something special to commemorate the occasion. After all, you've been most kind to my brethren."
He gave her an innocent smile and sent a spire of bone leapt from the ground into her side. Her body shuddered from the impact, but she gave no indication she felt anything.
Blood trickled down the spire, staining the white surface red. Mana stared straight ahead at the mage.
The mage frowned, but she was only half paying attention to him now. Her eyes saw more than what was visible to the naked eye.
A haze hovered behind him, waiting to devour him whole. She knew it for what it was. She had seen it too many times before.
Now, the mage lifted a hand to her face and caressed her cheek. "I've seen pictures of you before he died and you disappeared from our eyes… Your skin is still as smooth as ever."
His hand ventured lower…
"Stop."
He pulled back his hand and poked his cheek with a finger. "What? You don't like this face? It's rather handsome. Isn't that why you made a contract with him?"
She glared. "You coward, hiding behind the face of a dead person. It's not going to save you from the fate those make deals with demons."
He gave her a puzzled, questioning look, then suddenly clapped his hands together.
"Oh, you mean that," he winked, gesturing to the hazy figure draped over his shoulders. "That's my welcoming party."
"You don't know what you're getting into."
"Oh, believe me, I know. I'll be devoured, sure, but I'll be reborn as a demon, immortal, powerful, free from the restraints of a physical world."
Without warning, he stepped forward and kissed her on the mouth as chastely that a kiss on the mouth could be.
"And then I can bring back the past. I can bring back your devil's luck. I can bring him back."
And for just a moment, she wavered.
Was it really possible? Wasn't raising the dead a taboo because it worked? Was–
He lay dying in her arms. His last words: "Your fate to live, my fate to never live again."
The moment of hesitation ended.
Eyes flashing crimson, then violet, she spat, "The dead are meant to stay dead."
She pulled the trigger.
The bullet rammed into the mage's shoulder and exploded. With a cry, he lurched back from the impact and clutched the gaping wound.
He gasped, "The paralyzing–"
"I have some immunity. You should have done more research." Mana slapped a slip of paper onto the bone spire. The spire crumbled into dust. "That'll be another five-hundred thousand yen."
Her side was soaked in blood, but her stance was firm and her head clear.
The mage growled and began a spell incantation. Shards of bone, infused with the glow of magic, rose from the ground to hover around him. Behind him, the haze moved. It rolled forward and began to envelop his body. A tendril reached out and touched his wound.
The mage's scream was full of pain and fright. With a desperate motion, he launched his bone missiles at his hunter.
Her aim was impeccable. The missiles shattered into dust… all except one that was knocked into the ground by a glancing hit.
In an impossibly high voice, the Loridite mage screeched, "Ha, ha, ha! Devil's luck? What a joke?"
Shadows pooled around his feet, viscous, thick. From the pool rose dark tendrils that crawled up his legs, twisted around hands and neck and face. He was still human, but not for long.
Spikes burst from his back, dripping blood, steaming blood. Magic crackled and leapt between the spikes like lightning. He let out a roar that was almost a moan.
Mana holstered her pistol. With one hand, she took out an exorcism slip, and with the other, a five-hundred yen coin. Taking her time, she took the exorcism slip and folded it around the coin over and over until it fit near perfect.
She looked him in the eye. "Like you said, I've met your kind before. Both Loridites and demons."
Mana flipped the coin into the air. It made a perfect arc in the air as it reached the peak of its flight and began to drop back to the ground.
She took one last look at his face, then…
"Rest in peace."
In the split second that the falling coin crossed her path, Mana drew her gun and fired.
The coin hit him first.
The exorcism slip flared to life as it touched the twisted, demonic flesh. Fire ran all over his body, seeking out all the places where the demonic taint had touched. The fire elicited tormented screams, which were violently cut off by the bullet.
The Loridite mage let out a surprised grunt, and then the bullet exploded.
Mana kept her gun poised for a moment later, then drove it into its holster and turned from the smoldering remains.
"That'll be a total of one million and five-hundred thousand yen."
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Fin.
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The rights and properties of Negima and all associated versions of Negima are owned by Ken Akamatsu. All other elements are completely original.
Story written by Eternal Longing.