Time and Space: the Nexus
by KiddyGrade8
FOREWORD
This is the revision of my second story, and I hope you enjoy it. With any luck, this second attempt will be superior to the first (as the first was admittedly terrible). If you have the time, I'd appreciate it if you'd take the time to review my story. Comments are warmly accepted, but I would prefer constructive criticism so that my writing may improve. And do not just try to dig at the story. If you have criticisms, do not voice them without suggestions as to how I should improve them. Senseless smashing will simply be ignored.
This story is the sequel to my first story and is a crossover of many series.
CHAPTER 1
A dense fog drifted gently over the early morning grounds of Mahora Academy, shrouding much from view. If one listened carefully, birds could be heard singing their sweet and gentle song somewhere in the distance while the sun broke the horizon somewhere beyond the milky veil. Not a single soul could be seen wandering the streets of Mahora Academy, save for one. A young red-headed paper girl jogged through the misty streets with her hair trailing behind her, memories of a recent nightmare plaguing her thoughts. Blackened streets painted with blood, buildings left in shambles, the giant bat-like monster…and the fear. The sheer overwhelming terror that had coursed through her body. Every so often these memories would superimpose themselves over the paper girl's reality, blacking out her world and submerging her in these wretched thoughts. They never lasted more than a second, but that second was never welcomed. They had been costing the paper girl much sleep lately. So much so that she had almost forgotten what "sleep" was. Every time she closed her eyes, she would be reminded of the Hell that they had all experienced that night. It was enough to make her cry. She'd lost count of how many nights she'd spent in tears, only her lover there to comfort her. That night…that black night…It had scarred her soul forever. She would never be able to forget the terror and the despair that she had felt that night.
As the paper girl jogged, lost in thought, she tossed a newspaper onto the doorstep of houses that she passed. She had no need to pay attention to where she ran. Her route had long-since been beaten into her head. Of course, the route was still severely damaged from when the monsters attacked. Houses still stood, yes; but most were not in prime condition. She wondered if there were even people still lingering in these shambles, or had they moved to a location of sturdier founding? It didn't matter. She did her job, and that is what mattered right now. As she reached into her bag for the next paper, she found herself brought to a sudden halt as she ran into someone. The paper girl picked herself up from the ground, profusely apologizing. She bowed deeply and paused as she began to notice what the man wore. She thought her heart stopped. He was moderately tall with silver-blond hair draping down just beyond his shoulders. His eyes were a dull red, yet reflected kindness, sincerity, and sorrow. He dressed well, with an air of elegance about wore a cloak, as black as a moonless night that nearly dragged the ground. His outfit (black, with a touch of gold) greatly contrasted with his snow white skin. Upon his hip, he carried a curious weapon: a sword with a grip like a rapier, yet with the blade of a long sword. The paper girl backed away, panicking. The man was familiar. He slowly walked up to her, crouching down to her level and telling her that all was forgiven. The paper girl avoided making eye contact with him, remembering what had happened last time. As she continued to back away, the man noticed that she moved with more fear than embarrassment and attempted to soothe her. This didn't work as well as he hoped, as she turned to run but found herself pinned against the remains of a wall. The man approached her silently through the mist. Again, he crouched down to her level, wondering why the paper girl was so terrified. As hard as she tried to avoid them, the girl still found herself drawn into his eyes and found herself reliving the moment she last looked into eyes like his.
The man stared blankly back into her eyes. It felt as though he were looking straight through her. After a terrifying minute passed, the man spoke softly and with understanding. He slowly raised his hand, gently informing her that he meant her no harm, and lightly place his forefinger against her temple. He muttered a few words in a foreign tongue and a faint blue glow appeared against her skin, causing her eyes to begin to droop. The glow faded away as he lowered his hand and tenderly caught the paper girl as she collapsed, unconscious. He whispered a small condolence to her prone form, he laid her out in a nearby patch of grass, taking care to not cause her injury, and disappeared back into the dense fog almost as suddenly as he had appeared.
Not even a mile from where the red-headed paper girl lie in slumber; another, younger, red-headed girl was finding herself inexplicably busy on her first day of work in a campus shop. To top it off, she was also gut-wrenchingly worried about her "Oneesama," whom she had not heard from since the day before last. Every time she paused in worry, her supervisor had to bark orders at her to get her to resume stocking the shelves in the store. Though her missing "Oneesama" was a major concern of hers, she also found herself worrying about the abundance of disappearances all throughout the academy and couldn't help but fear that the one she was missing most was among them. The girls of the academy were talking, as schoolgirls often do, spreading stories such as demons rising from the darkest pits of Hell to snatch up victims for their meals. Another common story was a rather old one, a tale of a vampire living on the school grounds. The clerk had heard many of these stories and couldn't help but worry about the validity of them, her timid and worrisome nature obstructing her sense of reason.
She jumped quite noticeably with the ringing of the doorbell that heralded the arrival of a customer as it jolted her from her mullings. Peeking around the corner of the shelf to see who had entered the small shop so early, she saw her supervisor talking to a man who seemed very out-of-place. The clerk felt as though she were looking at someone who had leapt straight out of the pages of a history book.
But that wasn't all.
She felt something from him. She wasn't exactly sure what it was, but it was something she'd never felt before. Not even when they were trapped in Mundus Magicus. This was something…more. The clerk thought that she could feel traces of evil from the man, but dismissed the feeling thinking it just her unease. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. It lingered there, like the line to a song that she couldn't quite recall. He looked too much like he belonged in an old European portrait, even the color in his face seemed to be faded with time. The way he moved even seemed too fluent to be real. Too precise. She watched from behind the shelf as the man bowed politely to her supervisor and left. Even after his departure, the clerk remained troubled about him. She exhaled nervously, her breath condensing darkly as it left her mouth. She watched out the window as the enigmatic newcomer paused outside to converse momentarily with the hot-blooded reporter that was passing by just outside. From how he dismissed himself, the clerk guessed that he was asking the reporter about the same topic he had discussed with her supervisor. Even as she merely watched through the window, he still scared her. It took her a moment, but she recognized the reporter. It was one of the girls in the young teacher's class, the teacher whom her Oneesama had quite the closet crush on.
Through the window, the reporter seemed to be more than willing to be of aid to the stranger. She chatted politely and pointed off in the direction of Library Island. She held her finger thoughtfully to her lips before pointing off towards her school building. The clerk watched as the man bowed politely to her, in a notably European fashion, and walked off into the fog. The reporter, on the other hand, walked over into the store next door. The clerk toyed with the idea of going to talk with her momentarily before the bell on the door of her own shop rang, signaling a customer and nicely throwing a wrench into her idea. She quickly looked from the window to watch a black-haired punk, her own admitted crush, walk into her store. Before the door even closed behind him, she grabbed his arm and dragged him off to the side to talk to him. The clerk asked the punk if he'd been feeling anything strange in the air that day. Consciously or not, he glanced off in the direction that the man had left and nodded nervously. The inquisitive clerk tried to probe deeper, but the punk refused to speak further. The clerk could have sworn that a bead of sweat dripped down the side of his head as she hesitantly released the shoulder that she had been gripping. She looked out the window with a terrible feeling of dread filling the deepest pits of her stomach as she prayed that another nightmare would not befall these tattered ruins of an academy.
A young librarian sat behind her desk in the early hours of this dreary morn, whittling away the hours before class going through the books from the return box. Her job was tedious, sure, but she always found pleasure while surrounded by these countless numbers of books. Even in this environment, she still found it hard to slake her thirst for knowledge. Today, however, she found no pleasure in the books around her. Her mind was distracted by and incident not-too-long passed, where someone dear to her heart found himself badly injured and has sported a series of three parallel scars across his face since. She knew that there was nothing that she could have done to help him, yet she still felt pained because of that. While the librarian was lost in thought, her young scholarly friend next to her tried to reassure the librarian that his injuries weren't her fault and that she shouldn't let it bug her. In spite of the scholar's attempts at consolation, the librarian was still upset by the feeling of uselessness. She slowly opened the book in her hands, marked it as "returned," and placed it into the pile of returned books.
The scholar closed the book she was holding, loosed a sigh under her breath, and spoke in a tender (yet stern) voice. She told the librarian off, telling her that senseless worry would not get her anywhere, that if she were truly concerned that she would work as hard as she can so that she would be able to protect him next time. The librarian paused. She knew that the scholar was right, but she still felt an unbearable fear whenever she thought back to the incident. The sky itself had fallen to utter darkness as its master wreaked havoc upon the school and she, herself, found that she had been made a puppet, if only for a brief moment. She felt a gut-wrenching pain whenever she thought back to the sight of he loved one, battered, broken, and bloodied, laid out in an unconscious slumber in the infirmary. Before she knew it, she felt anger boil up inside of her. She slammed the book shut and shouted at the scholar that she wasn't amazing like their sensei, that she wasn't powerful or talented, that, ultimately, she didn't have what it takes to keep up…that, in the end, he would leave her behind and forget about her. She gripped the skin over her heart tightly in pain as she thought about that.
The scholar was silent for a moment, then opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't find the words. The outburst was very out of character for the librarian, who silently spoke the scholar's name, followed by a quiet apology. The librarian trembled where she stood before vaulting over the desk and running off amidst the endless sea of bookshelves, the scholar calling out after her. The librarian ran, heartbroken, through shelf after shelf passing by her. She could feel a tear slip mutely down her cheek as her grief finally conquered her. She was so wrapped up in her dreadful thoughts that she ran full-force into a patron, the two of them collapsing to the ground the moment their balances were disrupted. The librarian fell backwards, landing roughly on her posterior, while the gentleman she nearly tackled merely staggered a few steps. She stood up quickly, apologizing profusely and bowing deeply, her hair draping down over her eyes and obscuring her vision of the man. He patted her tenderly on the head, lightly ruffling the girl's purple-colored hair, telling her that she had no reason to apologize, that it was nothing more than a simple accident and that everybody had them.
The librarian apologized again before she dusted herself off and started off to disappear among the shelves again, but stopped as he called out to her wanting to pose a question. She turned around as he slowly and nervously when he asked if she knew of a girl he was looking for. She did. She was the one he was looking for. She quietly affirmed this for the man, asking what he needed her for as she looked him over for the first time. She knew who has was and heaved a heavy sigh of relief that did not go unnoticed to the man, who proceeded to ask if she were alright. She glanced up quizzically before she realized that she'd sighed noticeably. Flustered, she explained herself to the man; who was surprised to learn that she knew who he was.
The fog of worry lifted, the librarian was much more willing to help the gentleman with anything he needed and gladly gave him the information he sought. Specifically, the location of a person. He bowed to her in thanks and she bowed back, explaining that the pleasure was hers. Though the girl knew he was no enemy, she thoughtfully brushed a stand of lavender hair from her face as she wondered just why such a distinguished figured wanted with her teacher. She glanced quickly at the clock that sat silently on the wall, watching all, and jumped when she realized that she was late leaving for class. In a panicked hurry, she rushed to the desk she sat at not long before, fetched her bag from behind it, and scrambled out the door.
Morning was now coming into full swing over the campus of Mahora Academy as the mysterious visitor stood silently before the forest of the World Tree. A dark and heavy fog had settled around the forest, and he could feel a malicious miasma emanating from deep within its opaque depths. However, he could also feel a strong magical presence. Left with no other option, the elegantly dressed gentleman inhaled deeply and stepped foot within.