Flame of the West 2: The Chamber of Secrets
Chapter 1: Someone New
18th February 2006
"Come on, Harry, there's someone I want you to meet." They were currently floating across a rather large bay in the US using their ki like a cushion. Harry was having some trouble, the water being directly opposite to his own favored element, fire. On the other hand, he was frustrated that he wasn't allowed to simply call upon Reiketsu to fly him over. No, Tokiya insisted that ki floating was important, some life skill or other. All Harry saw, and grumbled about, was the lack of fun involved.
"Who is this person anyway?" Harry was really ticked off, splashing Tokiya with his foot. The master though, was unperturbed and avoided it with a mock yawn, "She's a dark arcane mage with a daughter who'll be attending Hogwarts this September with you. I want you to meet her so you can keep people from meeting their doom at her hands." Harry blinked and shrugged, "No biggie I suppose, what's she like?" Tokiya grinned, "Cold. Very cold. If you think I'm cold to others, I'm just an apprentice compared to her." Harry sighed, "I didn't mean the mother, I meant the daughter. And you still haven't told me their names."
They reached a nice, if small flat by way of an internal lift, as Harry completed his accusation, and the door opened of its own accord, "My name is Raven, since you were wondering. It is good to see you again, Mika." Harry gulped and Tokiya smirked, "And you, Raven." He grinned at her, "You look barely a day older than I last saw you, six years ago was it?" Raven snorted, "It really has to be the hood. Come on, Luna'll finish soon with her meditations and you two can go practice or something." Luna turned out to be very much unlike Raven with dark gold hair, and an aura of blank ignorance. Harry frowned, "She's a human paradox!" He then noticed he'd said it out loud, "Erm, no offense?"
Luna gestured with her hand and a glass of water appeared, "No matter, it must be the Narbles in your hair. It's really alright." Harry blinked, "Narbles?" Luna blinked right back, "Yes, Narbles. They're the direct cousins of Nargles, which infest snow and mistletoe." Harry groaned and Raven gave him a small consolatory smile.
………
"Here Harry, I have a few things to do and you can help me with them, or you'll get bored and the twinkle toad will get to you." Harry frowned but gestured for her to continue, "See, when I was born I was powerful, too powerful in fact, and I couldn't control it. Mother dear had to put blocks on my power so I wouldn't break things and kill myself. Kind of her don't you think?" Harry shrugged, "Between you and me I'd rather have no blocks at all." Luna smiled, "The secrecy tingle is still in our vault, there is no need for such agreements. Now, I'm going to meditate with the medials, so I need you to meditate and reach out to me." Harry nodded and closed his eyes.
He slowly reached out with his senses and found Luna just ahead, beckoning to him. He followed the welcoming sensations and found himself in a grassy plain, "Wow, I had no idea a mind could be like this, it's like it hasn't any barriers but then is too ordered to not have barriers." Luna appeared and smiled, but somehow managed to look not so vacant, "my mind has many barriers, this is my inner mind, where I can meditate quietly without imposing on my inner thoughts and processes." Harry cottoned on, "Oh? So this is yet another barrier in itself? A facade to make intruders think there's little to nothing in here?"
Several Lunas appeared, "Indeed, our new friend is quick." This Luna looked exactly like the original Luna except for the completely purple eyes, no pupils, just plain unseeing purple. In fact, all seven were like that, only the unseeing eyes differentiating them from the original and the eye color from each other. Luna smiled, "These are the different aspects of my being, as well as guardians of my mind. Harry, meet Wisdom aka Cunning, Knowledge, Love aka Lust, Jealousy aka Anger, Sadness aka Regret, Peace aka Serene, and Happy aka Joy." They each blinked as they were introduced and floated backwards into a circle before putting up a large green orb around them.
Luna smiled, "This will keep the rest of my and your mind safe if something goes wrong. Sorry, but the plungies do that sometimes." She smiled vacantly before waving her hand and dispelling a portion of the grass and dirt to reveal a large black circle. It was so black that Harry wasn't sure it was even a door, which is apparently was when Luna knocked it and it seemed to open up to reveal another black circle. This time though, it carried a rune of some sort on it. It mystified him, he'd seen and studied runes all over the world and even though he couldn't really work them beyond the basic runes he knew he'd never seen one like this before.
Luna smiled at him, "Don't worry, I'm pretty new to these as well. Mother dear has used serial rune sets, which makes it easier for us or me because then I just have to set in the reverse order of the runes. Unfortunately, a rune master would have been much more convenient because I could just channel power." Harry nodded, "Well then, lets get to it, we just blast it?" Luna shook her head, "No, you channel power into me while I set about the reverse rune order." Harry nodded and placed his hands on her back, calling up his magic and pushing it into Luna. She hissed in pain for a moment and Harry drew back, slowing the transfusion to barely a trickle.
Her breathing deepened and she nodded, signaling Harry to increase the power supply. Raising her hands into the air, she traced a circle of white glowing light, separating it into six equal segments, drawing a different rune into each of them. Watching carefully, Harry found nothing funny, or even amusing, but Luna evidently did and giggled half way through. Feeling her become almost a vacuum of power, he pushed his ki into his magic, merging the two and pushing it into her. Cradling the circle, Luna dropped it on her mother's runic circle before leaning away and waving her hands in some pattern or other and the black plate disappeared.
Sighing with exhaustion he decided to ask the burning question, "So what was it that was so funny? I almost lost concentration there you know?" Luna giggled again, "Mother must have mellowed, her original word was S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D, seven letters, and the reverse is D-E-S-S-E-R-T-S!" Both shared a good laugh and Luna pulled a tendril of white from the ground and gave it to Harry, "Here, I'll need a friend at Hogwarts, this way I can talk to you. Anchor it in your mind somewhere." Grinning, Harry thanked her and drew out of the grassy plains, watching the shield fade into nothing.
………
"C'mon Luna, surely you can do better than that?" Luna smiled her blank smile and fired off several more blades of white magic before switching and releasing a wall of black energy. Biting his lip, Harry crouched and pulled out his staff, "THEUR VAARN!" spinning it over his head he brought the end down into the ground with a deafening crack and a massive shield exploded around him, and Luna's attack broke, "Like water on rock, try this one." He dispelled the shield, leaping into the air and swinging the staff in wide sweeping motions, creating blades of air.
Luna studied the attack quizzically before throwing out two of her throwing knives and bringing her cloak around her, blocking the blades of air that weren't dispelled by her knives and recovering just in time to put up a hasty white magic shield that stopped Harry's downward swing. Jumping backwards, she stretched out her hands and formed white boulders, gripped them with her black power and hurled them at Harry. For his part, he didn't panic like many before him, instead putting away his staff and drawing his katana, expanding it to its maximum size and slashing the rocks apart, "My turn! Earthen Tomb!"
As he'd planned, Luna evaded quickly when he brought the blade towards her head, allowing him to force his ki and magic into the ground and forcing it into an orb around her, "I think I win." But it was far from over when Harry sheathed his sword and Luna blew the tomb open, "To me, my friend!" out of the rubble a maw opened and out sprang the largest live dragon Harry had ever seen, but knew of quickly, "A Hebridean Black? Reiketsu!" his own companion, the phoenix exploded into being behind him, "Not a Hebridean, that's a Nether Dragon out of the Nether realms. Nothing we can't handle, but a worthy adversary none the less."
Harry grinned, "Ok then, draw?" Reiketsu frowned, "why draw when you can win?" Harry shrugged, "I feel like having a swim later, and I need energy to get out from this place." Indeed, they weren't just on a large plain, it was a large icy plain somewhere in Siberia. Luna shrugged, "no problems." Their energy familiars dissipated and Aurora flamed in and took them away in another whirlwind of fire.
………
"Lucious…" A tall blond haired man rose from his chair and turned slowly, surveying his study. With all the wards on Malfoy Manor, nobody should have been able to enter without his expressed desire, including his son. "Lucious my servant…" Baron Malfoy froze, he knew that voice, but he was gone, he'd been assured of that. Nevertheless, if anyone could survive that catastrophe, his lord could. Kneeling he whispered reverently, "My lord, you have returned! I…" his speech was halted as the voice cut him off, "Never you mind. My old diary procured from that accursed half-blood, seed it in Hogwarts, and I shall rise again."
Lucious's mind was racing, Tom Riddle's diary? Where was it? Voldemort apparently read his mind, "It is in the grasp of the Claw of the Ether, bring it out and I shall show you how." Bowing low, Lucious hurried to the cursed claw, wrenching it open with all his magic and summoned the diary to himself before hurrying back. Voldemort's spirit had taken a misty form and Lucious bowed low again but the dark lord spoke first, "summon several elves, I shall create a first year student whom you will send to Hogwarts." Lucious snapped his fingers and several house elves appeared and cowered. The diary opened under Voldemort's influence and his spirit began to glow a malevolent red.
The house elves surrounded the open diary and a light poured forth, absorbing the elves into it along with the diary, leaving a naked young man with dark features and bright red eyes, "master, what would your bidding be?" Voldemort's voice came again, "I am tired now, go with Lucious, he will guide you from here. Go to Hogwarts castle and open the Chamber of Secrets. After the monster inside has grown in power, inform me and I shall come to claim a new body. Lucious, I am him and he is me, obey him as you would me, but guide him as you would your son." The mist dissipated and the boy turned to Lucious, "Lucious, lead the way."
………
"Ok Harry, you're doing very well in your sword training, but there are times when a sword is just unavailable." Harry nodded, "You gonna teach me unarmed arts? Or are you going to teach me more on the staff?" He'd been through staff training as basic to weapons training and Tokiya hadn't taught him more than the basics. The swords' master grinned, "Neither, I have something that I have to do, and you can't come. I have to do it alone, but I'll see you before you leave for Hogwarts again, don't worry. That and Kagehoushi is always nearby, as you remember.
"No, I'll be sending you to an old friend of mine. He has some strange ideas for training, but he's among the best out there. I've asked him to teach you something I've started but haven't the depth of knowledge he does, ki." Harry blinked, "I thought you already taught me ki usage already?" Tokiya smiled, "True, I was able to teach you to channel ki because I use it to control water in the ice sword, but he's a Grand Master of ki and unarmed combat, and uses techniques I haven't been able to use as yet. He has a magical son under the tutelage of one of his in-laws so don't worry about mentioning Hogwarts." Harry frowned, "Ok, how am I getting there?" he noticed the shadows were twitching, 'it must be something big.' A long way away, a panda in a zoo sneezed violently, but nobody noticed, he tended to sneeze for no apparent reason, besides, he had all those female pandas to take care of him.
Aurora flamed onto his shoulder and crooned a highly affronted note. Tokiya smiled, "That's how you're getting there. I've spoken to Aurora and though I can't communicate directly with her I believe she knows where to take you to. Now go through your kata while I make dinner, you leave after that." Harry grumbled about ice cold teachers and slouched off while Aurora laughed. Kagehoushi faded in using her usual style and Mikagami sighed, "I know, but it has to be done." The older woman nodded gravely, "It's a real pity, why did she have to do that anyway?" Tokiya shook his head, "Domon again, if she'd just kept her head it'd have been fine. It's strange though, it's usually Recca who loses his head and then Yanagi makes him calm down." Kagehoushi bowed her head.
…
He arrived outside a large house in the middle of nowhere. It had three stories and a tower out the side like Hogwarts would have had. It was mostly white but with other colors too, and he absently wondered how it was kept clean. A eerie female voice came out of everywhere, "Your first lesson is to find me, just within this courtyard." Harry stretched out his ki senses and gazed around, his surroundings were all alive with ki, amazingly, and made it difficult to pinpoint his target.
Something flew by, probably a bat he thought, but it distracted him nevertheless, and he restarted his scanning. Frowning he suddenly remembered that the bat pinpointed its own surroundings by sound, which meant negating the use of ki. Stretching his hands out sideways, he focused his ki into his ears, enhancing his hearing to the point that he could hear the crickets nearby and then brought his hands together. The sound reverberated and came back to him, telling him he was surrounded by walls, that the short grass at his feet was cut too evenly to be possible, and that there was something muffling the sound behind him.
Spinning round, he launched his kodachi at whatever was muffling sound with deadly accuracy, hitting it with a dull thud. Frowning, he plucked the blade out and noticed it was more a cushion than anything else. Sighing he decided to take a different approach and expanded his senses to search for magic. Unfortunately, whoever was testing him was not directly affected by magic, and he sighed again. Flopping on the ground in frustration he pounded the ground with his fist, only to hear a yelp of surprise to his left and a flare of ki where there hadn't been before. Flowing in that direction, Harry drew his staff and swung it in a downward arc, only to have it stopped halfway by a hand.
Flood lights came on and an older man laughed, "Well, I'm glad he isn't quite like Tokiya. That man really needs to open up." He jumped down from one of the lights and approached smiling, "Hi there, I'm Ranma Saotome. The lady who would have killed you if you were someone else is one of my wives, Nabiki." Harry blinked, "Wives?" his eyes rolled up into his skull and he dropped like a rock. Nabiki chuckled, "Definitely not his teacher."