I don't own these characters and franchises. Akamatsu Ken, Fujishima Kosuke, DC Comics, Takahashi Rumiko, Koshi Rikdo, The Walt Disney Company, Hasbro, Kodansha, 0verflow and many others do.
I make no money whatsoever from this story, which is absolutely not for anyone under eighteen.
All of the characters, franchises, situations, elements and events portrayed in this work of fiction have absolutely no basis on any real life counterparts unless for legally valid parody purposes.
Again, thanks to Darkenning, Shadow Crystal Mage, and all those others who inspired and co-wrote this.
The Best Laid Plans.
An Alternate Look at an Alternate Vision of an Alternate Reality.
Book One.
In the beginning, there was only one. A single black infinitude- so cold and dark, for so very long that even the burning light was imperceptible.
But the light grew, and the infinitude shuddered. And the darkness finally screamed, in as much pain as relief.
For in that instant, a multiverse was born- a multiverse of worlds vibrating and replicating... and a universe that should have been one, became many.
That was then.
Somewhere in Tibet.
The small fortress of thick black walls was half buried under a few feet of snow at the peak of one of the world's highest mountains. It was supposed to be a man's Shangri La. His last hideout from the cruelties of the world outside. It was his safe place. And he was, at least, relatively happy with it.
Then, why was he there, intruding, hunting for him? Couldn't he just leave him alone? Did he need to hound his steps through the world, right down to his last safe hiding place? What did spur him to do so? What?
It didn't matter. It wouldn't matter anymore, never. Now, he was prepared for him. As he heard him dispatch his guards, sitting behind his working desk inside of his office, and he watched him through his many TV screens, shooting his way through his troops, the scrawny, bespectacled man caressed the gun in his bony hands. He wouldn't take him this time. He would make sure of it, one way or another.
Did he have any idea of how much it had cost him to hire all those guards with the salary of a mangaka? He plowed his path through them as if he didn't have any care in the world, smiling with cocky confidence, every once in a while throwing a few grenades at them or pulling a bazooka out of his stupid brown hairdo to blow them up. It was all a game for him? Did he have such a low concept of him? Unacceptable.
He was getting closer. The sitting man already could hear the explosions near his door, complete with the desperate yells of the soldiers. It was time. Clearing his sore throat, he stood up and walked to the door, gun in hand.
"I'm waiting for you, SOB," he said then, with a voice that tried to sound cocky and defiant, yet only conveyed a strangled awkwardness.
An Elite Ex-Green Beret mercenary being thrown through his door into the office was his way of saying 'Here I am,' two seconds later. As the unfortunate man fell to the manga artist's feet muttering "He's crazyyyyyy..." very weakly, his tormentor, not bruised at all, stepped in to face him, fixing his tie with an air of complete aloofness befitting a cheesy action movie star from the seventies.
And yet, there was a grim resolve of his own in his eyes.
"Rikdo-san," he said, gravely. "We need to talk."
His old partner pointed his gun at his forehead, right between his eyes, under his huge afro. "The time for talking is over, Nabeshin. You'll never convince me to partner with you again!"
"Is that so?" he asked, critically, giving a long, cynical smoking of the cigarette between his lips. "You shouldn't be so obstinate. Everyone else already has given their approval."
"You lie," the man with the handgun growled. "You just want to trick me again..."
He shrugged, and before the other guy could react putting a bullet into him, he threw a few documents at him. "You can check these out and tell me if I lie..."
He distrusted, naturally. But still, he just had to know if he was being sincere this time. The curiosity got the best of him, and he quickly picked up the papers and read them with widened eyes behind his glasses. "Th-This can't be..."
"Oh, but it is. And if you don't want to take a part on it, you'll be the only one left out. Your call, Rikdo-san. But I'd suggest you to do it... even if it's only for the good ol' times... and the most important thing..."
"Do you mean-?" the scrawny man asked him, with some hope in his voice.
"Yes." He nodded solemnly. "Lots of money!"
The smaller man had to sigh in defeat. "Okay. You win, damn you. I'll do it... for the money!"
"I expected no less from you," Nabeshin sincerely said.
Rikdo pulled the old approval seal out of one of his pockets and held it over the expecting documents as he pronounced the old oath:
"I, Koshi Rikdo, hereby allow this to become the first episode of our massive group collaboration, the—what are we calling it this time?"
"The Best Laid Plans. Fitting, isn't it?"
"The Best Laid Plans, then!" Koshi Rikdo cried, slamming the seal on the documents.
*STAMP!*
Yggdrasil:
Amidst the absolute darkness, casting the shadows away, shone the regal gold of elaborated rings and pendants on the ears of a young and impossibly beautiful woman, apparently around twenty years old, who slowly opened her lovely blue eyes. She had long and smooth light brown hair, almost blond, reaching down to her knees' height. Her adorable, perfect face featured exotic, distinctive markings; a very small blue triangle under each clear eye, and a thin vertical blue line on the middle of her forehead. She wore a long and white ceremonial robe, with no footwear, with fine golden rings in most fingers of her delicate hands; aside from multiple collars, and the multiple already mentioned earrings.
She descended, floating in an elegant vertical line, silent and gracefully, through several levels of paradisiacal gardens, each one more luminous than the one before. Until she stopped, with the soft tips of her feet touching the surface of a pool of crystalline waters, surrounded by hundreds of rose bushes. And she looked down. Under the transparent surface rested a whole universe, and at the middle of it, there was a tiny, gorgeous blue planet.
This infinite universe is full of different lives. It is the source of all those lives, and it has been reborn time and time again through the never ending stream of existence. How was this infinite stream created? How is determined what will be the fate of those stars and lives that are created and destroyed?
Fate… Is a fate given to all those gifted with a life? In this small planet, so very many lives have been created, and they have been granted 'fates' of their own. As long as there are births, life will also have to reach a natural end. During those short spans of time, these lives must transpire as intended.
Guided by its wishes, mankind, largely on its own, has evolved. It has known prosperity, degeneration, discovery and destruction. Is it possible that the human race, responsible over all of that, is controlled by fate as well? And what if a person's fate were controlled by another, without taking their own desires into account…?
If the fates of human beings are determined by another… Who is that another?
"Did you know?" she asked him as she patted the sand into place according to a design she had not as yet seen fit to share with him, beyond certain directions she gave him with the casual expectation that he'd follow them exactly. (Which he of course did.) "They say that if two people who love each other enter Toudai University together, they will live happily ever after!"
"Ah?" he replied. It wasn't really what he would have wanted to say. Had he had his druthers, he would probably have asked sensible questions like, 'who says this?' Or perhaps, given that they were children playing in a sandbox, 'what the heck is Toudai University?' But he made a confused non-committal reply and he must live with that. But really, the fact that a girl had paid attention to him was too much to ask for, so he shouldn't expect for himself to have been a witty and charismatic superman.
"So then, when we both grow up, let's go to Toudai U," she said, right before she quickly pressed a kiss on his cheek. "I mean, assuming I don't meet a guy with really rich parents or something like that," the little girl completed, dusting herself off while standing up. "Well, looks like I've got to go," she gave a small sigh, seeing a woman approaching the sandbox. "Mom's here for me."
"Ah," Keitaro nodded dumbly a few times before realization sank in. "Wait! You're moving away-"
"Tonight," she said. "Didn't I tell you? A few times?"
He sweated sheer ice. "Y-Y-Yes! But, but I forgot, I'm sorry!"
She only sighed. "Keitaro, no matter what, don't ever forgive your promise, okay?"
"O-O-Okay! But...! But...!"
Then the woman opened her mouth and called for her, and the memories became nothing after that point.
Keitaro's mind had been after all, too busy not trying to forget the promise. And he managed to remember it to the letter. Now, the name of the girl, that had been another matter entirely...
That had been then.
Now:
The news still took Kagurazaka Asuna by surprise.
She had thought she had lost her capacity for shock long ago, after Arika Springfied-sensei invited her to her house one afternoon and then, behind closed doors, took off those glasses she always wore no matter what. Without them, Arika-sensei's eyes were not identically crystal clear blue anymore, but one was blue and the other one was emerald-hued, much like Asuna's own eyes. And then Arika-sensei had told her the whole truth.
Even now, thinking about it made Asuna flinch. It had hurt so much, all of it, far more than any physical pain. And she had cried, and cried, and raged, at first violently rejecting Arika's warm maternal embrace, and finally collapsing into it. For that strange woman was her mother after all, and all things considered, Asuna supposed she couldn't blame her over leaving her as long as she did. If her crazy story was true, and it was too crazy as to not be, then it hardly had been her fault; major factors beyond her control, and all that. And Arika had cried too, and she had sounded so sincere, just like now. Asuna guessed she just couldn't disobey the woman, eccentric and scary as she could be.
Truth be told, more often than not, Asuna only humored her. If any fraction of all that Arika claimed to have happened unto her had been true, then there was no wonder she was an itsy bitsy loopy. The 'dream for your son to marry your daughter so they get you lots and lots of grandchildren' loopy.
But until that day, Asuna had never thought the day really would come when her alleged mother would actually try and put those schemes into motion.
"He's going to teach here, for real? What are the odds?" the younger female asked, crytically, setting her now empty cup of tea down on the table.
Arika shrugged as she sipped. "What's so strange about it, when you stop to think about it? The spirits no doubt saw that was Negi's fate and sent him our way, as it had to happen eventually. After that, it was just logical for the Magus to send him specifically here, out of all academies in Japan. Konoemon is his best friend, and I am Negi's mother. Where to guarantee a better staying place for him?"
'When you stop to think about it'. That was part of the problem, actually. Asuna just hated to stop to think, especially to think about the kind of things her mother liked to think about. Okay, perhaps it was time for a little teen rebellion by now. It always seemed to work for Misa.
"I bet," Asuna murmured, resting her folded arms on the table and her chin on them, "they'd think different if they knew of your plans..."
"Asuna, that's no posture for a princess to assume at the table," Arika said, gently cupping her jaw and forcing it up. "As for them, they will see the light eventually. They are smart men, in their own ways, and they will have to learn to adapt eventually."
Asuna gave her a jaded glare. "Mom, we've gone through this before. I like older men. Even if that boy weren't my little brother, I wouldn't be interested on him anyway. I love you, well, I think I've come to, but couldn't you think this better? Like, during another two or three decades?"
"I doubt," Arika smiled angelically, "Takamichi will have married you even by then, unless you have followed my suggestions."
"Okay, I never wanted to tell you this, but... you're really kind of a bitch, Mom," Asuna grumbled.
Arika didn't sound offended, mainly because there was very little that offended it, and most of it came from Evangeline. "How rude. That isn't fitting a Princess either. What kind of example will you be setting for your little brother?"
"Hopefully, the kind of example where brothers and sisters don't sleep together," Asuna sighed, standing up from the chair. "Sorry, mom, it's been a great tea as usual, but I can't stay for dinner or I won't have any room for Konoka's. Besides, the news have spoiled my appetite."
"If that's the way you want it, fine," Arika said, following Asuna to her front door. "But at the very least, don't hold it against Negi, and do try being a good student and friend for him. He's also had a difficult life, and this assignment means a lot for him."
"Just like the post also meant a lot for Takahata-sensei?" asked Asuna, without looking at the tall blond woman.
"Far more," Arika answered. "Asuna, just accept it. The way things are now, Takamichi cannot answer to your feelings in the same way you do. Why won't you trust me on it?"
"We aren't having this discussion again, Mom. Bye," Asuna said, leaning back to give the woman a chaste kiss on a cheek after tossing her jacket over her other clothes. "I love you, but please do change."
"Same thing here, Asuna," Arika said, caressing the girl's cheek with a hand before a groaning Asuna just waved it off and trotted down the street, the officially labeled 'council session' over.
Arika exhaled sadly as she stood on the doorstep, watching her go. It was not that they ever touched or kissed passionately during sessions, far from it; she was saving Asuna's virginity for Negi, and Asuna was saving it for Takahata. But even so, their sessions still carried an ongoing, permanent undercurrent of the forbidden, since Arika was never supposed to reveal the truth to her. The last few years spent trying to teach Asuna on behaving like a lady and accepting the customs of the Royal Houses, even the most sordid ones, seemed to have yielded little concrete results; like with anything else but Sports or Arts, Asuna seemed remarkably obtuse to assimilation or acceptance of said knowledge.
Arika had to wonder if they just needed to proceed to practice to get her point across, but even now she remained wary. If Asuna reacted badly to it, their relationship might be broken beyond repair, and that was the last thing Arika ever wanted. Not only because of the plan, but because she had come to honestly love Asuna for what she was, in her own fashion. Not that it meant she wouldn't like for Asuna to change a little in a few fields, like her sexual reluctance. Or her ambitions, or rather her lack thereof.
In that, Asuna certainly was not like her father at all.
Which, perhaps, was a blessing, in the large scheme of things.
Somewhere else, far away, beyond the ocean, there was a dark city mostly sleeping under the full moonlight of a cold night.
A lithe, colorful figure graciously skipped through the night, moving with the agility of an acrobat from one shadow to another, until it reached the grounds of the local University. After a hard night of fighting crime, a boy who already was a growing legend in his own right moved undetected through the campus, slightly bruised but triumphant and satisfied. He climbed up his dorm building using a pipe, and then silently sneaked into his bedroom through a window, as silent as a ghost.
As silent as the person waiting for him inside, sitting on his bed.
Even for this Boy Wonder, there was little time to react, when faced with such an unexpected visitor in the darkness. The stranger was fast, with the trained skill of a professional, as he swiftly aimed a handgun at the masked youngster, and then pulled on the trigger.
The darkness became complete.
Three hours later, while returning to his ancestral home after a whole night of battling evil and insanity of his own, a Dark Knight found the package at the gates of his manor near the sea.
Down in the depths of the gigantic underground cave beneath the mansion, the Caped Crusader and his faithful manservant had unwrapped the package carefully, finding an all too familiar red, yellow and green uniform tucked and folded inside. Attached to it, a note reading four simple, deadly words.
We have your boy.
As Alfred Pennyworth gasped his shock, Bruce Wayne narrowed his cold, unforgiving eyes. His hands tightened into fists on the examination table.
The dawn was there already, all over the city. But the real stretch of darkness had only begun.
Academy City had earned its name shortly after the War, when Japan's reconstruction demanded for the creation of many educative and cultural centres, many of them heavily or partially influenced by the Westerners. Now, decades after, the metropolis had become the sociocultural epicenter of the rechristened Area Eleven, and its districts were each named after the Academy they had been built around.
It was only a relatively short train trip from the Mahora District to Furinkan District, one that Arika Springfield took very early the next morning, so she could arrive to her destination before breakfast. Classes still were a couple days away, so the youngsters she wanted to see should be at home, where she wanted them. And true enough, she saw one of them sweeping the front entrance of the old, mildly decayed, Tendou Residence as soon as she arrived. She was very beautiful, as expected from a daughter of Kimiko, even if her long, dark brown hair made into a ponytail tied up with a pink bow didn't match the black hair of both her parents. But Arika chose to blame receding genes. As far as she knew, Kimiko never cheated or dreamed to cheat on her husband.
"Good morning," Arika greeted, stopping before the front steps and the mildly surprised younger woman in the long blue dress and white apron. Arika herself had come sharply dressed, in an elegant black suit with pants and tie that made her look dignified yet feminine. She only was lacking a briefcase to look like a high level executive in a business visit. "You must be Kasumi. You've grown a lot. Is your father in?"
"Ah... good morning," the young woman replied, in a deliciously soft and sweet voice. "Excuse me, but do I know you? You seem familiar, Madame, but I'm afraid I can't place your face..."
"Tell Soun Arika Springfield is here," the blonde requested. "He'll understand."
"Arika..." the young woman mused, before setting the broom aside. "Oh! Arika-sensei! Now I remember! I hadn't seen you since... Mother's funeral..."
"I will always remember Kimiko fondly," the blonde honestly said, while a shorter and younger girl with long black hair wearing a white gi with black belt stopped behind Kasumi, looking over her shoulder, at the newcomer. "Oh, but if it's little Akane. Still with the same adorable eyes as Kimiko..."
"I'll go look for Father," Kasumi perhaps swallowed just a little, quickly heading inside. "It won't take long, please step in and make yourself comfortable. Akane-chan, please entertain our honorable guest, will you?"
Akane blinked while her older sister walked past her and out of sight. "Um, welcome?" she bowed, gesturing for the stranger to walk in. "Yeah, I'm Tendou Akane, and you would be...?"
"Arika Springfield, currently Konoe Konoemon's assistant at Mahora," Arika bowed at the breakfast table, sitting opposite the suddenly very pale Tendou Soun and his three teenage daughter, including the middle sister, the short haired, shapely and barely tank top and Daisy Dukes-wearing Nabiki, who looked critical and analytically at the visitor. "My husband and I were long term acquaintances of your parents, and that is what brings me here today, actually."
"Arika," the mustachoed man in the dark gi rasped. "You're welcome as always, but I must admit, it's strange to see you again, after so long... Might it be that Nagi-"
She shook her head. "Nagi's whereabouts remain unknown. Negi, however, has just finished his studies at Wales, and I hope you do remember what that means."
Soun swallowed a visible knot of saliva in his throat.
"Yes, you indeed remember, don't you," Arika hummed, taking her tea cup between her hands and then to her lips. "Hadn't you ever told them? For shame, man, although sadly, I can't say I find myself disappointed."
"What did Daddy do this time?" asked Nabiki, who always was cold and to the point.
"It's rather more about what he and Nagi did ten years ago, after our only son's birth," Arika sighed. "Shortly before leaving and never returning, my husband made an agreement of gentlemen with your father. They agreed one of you would marry Negi and bring our families together."
That made a long and unbearable silence reign over the table, which Arika made good use of to sip her drink before the questions started pouring down. Soun just looked down and braced himself for impact.
"Oh my," Kasumi finally said, a hand on a cheek.
"This is gonna suck," predicted Nabiki, clenching her teeth.
"WHAAAAATT?!" Akane slammed both hands on the table, cracking it by half without even realizing. Soun sighed deep and sadly; he had liked that table and lot, and so he liked his inner organs where they were, as well, which made their likely imminent removal all the sadder. "YOU MUST BE JOKING THAT CAN'T BE TRUE IT'S A VERY BAD TASTE JOKE WE AREN'T MARRYING ANY TEN YEAR OLD OR ANYONE WE HAVEN'T EVER MET BEFORE FOR THAT MATTER WE AREN'T IN PRE-WAR JAPAN ANYMORE WHAT WERE YOU GUYS THINKING NO NO NO!"
Then she sat back, seething and puffing, her face colored crimson, and drank a very long gulp of tea. "In short, I have serious objections against the idea!" she summed up.
"It never was my choice, either," Arika said, "but as one of the last wishes I ever heard from Nagi, I insist on it to be fulfilled."
"Arika, please..." Soun said, making a truly cringe worthy face. "Don't you think it's a bit too early to be bringing this up...?"
"When were we going to learn then, Daddy?" asked Nabiki. "When the kid is twenty and we are almost thirty, and you interrupt our weddings to tell us we've to marry him instead?"
Soun narrowed his eyes at her. "Why do you have to be so cynical and caustic over everything?"
"Why do you have to keep causing problems like this?" Nabiki asked in turn. "Why, if we had a dime for every time you goofed up in the past and your mistakes cost us dearly now..."
"Nabiki, don't talk to me like that, especially not before a visitor!" her father barked, streams of Manly Tears running down his face.
Nabiki huffed and folded her arms. "Saying it aloud or not won't change the facts, and you know it. Also, don't cry like that. That only humiliates you further!"
"... but we all do love each other. A lot," Kasumi told Arika.
Arika nodded. "I can tell. No, honestly. That's the discussion of people who is passionate over each other and care over their respective failures, not that of those who don't care, and those who don't care are those who can't love."
"Wow," Akane admitted. "That's really deep."
"So," Nabiki said. "When is he arriving to Japan, anyway? And, well, how much money do you have?"
"Direct and to the point. I like that sort of honesty," Arika nodded, "But sadly, our family lost the wealth it used to own. We are working on rectify that, however."
"Huh, good for you, then," an unimpressed Nabiki said. As for my other question, however-"
Arika was back in Mahora before lunch, stopping briefly at her small house to pack up several belongings, ones you should have expected for someone to carry in a expedition to the wilderness, into a large backpack she easily flung on herself despite its substantial weight. The woman then took a bus to the mountain pass between the woods of the Northern borders, and walked away from that station, heading straight into the hills.
She passed through a river of low, shallow waters, making little effort to cover her tracks. She felt reasonably sure no one was bothering to follow her around, and why would they? Konoemon trusted her for the most part, and Mc Dowell wanted to stay away from her as much as she could. The rest of them were too witless or self absorbed to suspect what she could have been doing. And very, very few knew about the secret passageway to start with.
She made it into the cave, passing by the wards that would have misdirected or stopped others. She had nullified them long ago, when she made her first trip through that forbidden, abandoned entrance. Never doubting or looking back, she walked into the darkness, marching steadily, through the tunnel that had once been used by smugglers and other outlaws before Konoemon had sealed it. Before long, she saw the small, faint and flickering light at the end of it, and she knew she had crossed through between the worlds yet again. She had been mildly concerned it might have stopped working, or that Konoemon would have wised up and sealed it back. After all, it had been too long since her last visit.
The light grew and grew as she approached it, until she emerged through the other end, and the light was clearly visible as the sun shining over the hills of another world, and the small valley that rested beneath them. And its market place, at the outskirts of a little town that barely remained a shadow of what it had once been, in the peak times of the local contraband and illicit commerce.
Arika walked down the hillside and promptly reached the market, which mostly slept peacefully at those early hours, waiting for the evening to fall and bring buyers and travelers alike. She went directly towards the modest house two stories high near the market's gates, where she found a short, grossly fat man with a bushy beard and a pair of thick glasses napping behind the sole desk in the reception area.
Arika, who had pulled a hooded white cloak on herself before leaving the cave, rang the bell on the desk. "MacTavish," she said, not loudly, but not low at all either. It was said in a tone and delivery that made it clear immediate attention was demanded for.
The small man woke up suddenly, rattled by the voice, and straightening up on his wooden chair as best as he could. His face went pale. Even with the hood obscuring most of her face, he recognized her as soon as she calmly pulled her glasses off, and those now mismatched eyes fell squarely on him. "It's... you," he said, his voice choked and tense. "W-We-Welcome, what a pleasant surprise, it's been a-"
"Yes, it's been," she agreed, not curtly, yet far from warmly. "I'm going to need your best horse, and no tricks. I promise you'll have it back before tomorrow night."
"Of, of course, Ma'am," he nodded, slipping out of his seat like a morbidly obese snake, wobbling on tiny legs that gave an impression of having been badly patched onto him. "Right now, Ma'am. Wouldn't you want for anything el-"
"That, and your confidentiality, is all I wish for, MacTavish," she said, opening her purse and placing four gold pieces on the desk. "You'll have the rest on my return. Make haste with my ride. I'm in a schedule."
The tiny man nodded quickly and headed down the back of the building, husking hushed and urgent instructions to someone out of Arika's sight. The woman remained alert and watchful until the small in all senses man returned, humbly guiding her towards her steed. Arika thanked him as honestly as she could and then rode for the East, spurring the horse to go as fast as it could.
Only once she was out of sight, MacTavish could breathe easily.
Tendou Soun finally walked out of the furo he had taken refuge into after Arika's departure, feeling somewhat ready to face his daughters again. It would be difficult, but it had to be done. Besides, he was getting hungry, and his skin was getting all wrinkly, and soon Akane would start knocking for her turn.
No! he chided himself while dressing up. I'm the father, and they're the children, why should I be scared of them? It has to be the other way around! It's up to them to respect and obey MY decisions, as the man of the house! What did Arika-sama think of me? That I'm a pushover, not even half the man Nagi was? I've gotta prove her wrong! From now on, no more Mr. Pushover Nice Guy! I'm going to impose the rules as I'm supposed to!
Nodding to himself, he slammed the bathroom's door open. "GIRLS!" he called out. "The bath's free now, you can go in and think about what you've do- Eeerrrgghh!" he recoiled, finding out that Nabiki, Akane and Kasumi had already been standing right there, waiting for him, fully dressed, and holding no bath baskets or towels. "What, what's wrong with you girls now?!"
A stone faced Kasumi handed him an envelope. "Father. I found this while cleaning the old front mailbox."
Soun blinked. "We still have a mailbox?"
"Shocking, huh?" Nabiki grunted. "Apparently there's still one bonehead somewhere out there who hasn't figured the term 'e-mail' out, and of course, it had to be a friend of yours..."
"Uhhhh..." Soun bravely imposed his rules with a lame gurgle as he stared at the envelope, which his precious angels had ripped open and whose contents they had read while he bathed, which probably helped explaining their silence all through that period.
Fearing the worst, he, too, read the letter someone had sent him, now.
Soun:
Coming from China with Ranma.
Get your daughters ready.
Please don't tell Nodoka or Haruna-chan yet.
There've been... problems.
"Well, Dad?" Akane icily asked. "Now what?"
"Oh. Shit," a highly pale Soun muttered, letting the letter drop from his fingers.
"Yeah, I imagined that, too," Nabiki sagely nodded her agreement.
Through the forests and narrow mountain passes, Arika rode, relentless, focused, sharp and silent, towards a secluded valley she had visited only once before, but which directions she had made sure of memorizing to the letter then. It was distant enough to be isolated from the scarce towns in the immediate vicinity, yet not enough for three older women to periodically visit said towns for supplies. Without using their magic.
It took her slightly longer than expected to get to her destination, but she was rewarded by, before anything else, the wondrous sound of a mesmerizing voice that simply had to be blessed by powers beyond mankind's reach. It was a young lady's singing voice, melodical and pristine like no other, leading Arika and her borrowed horse towards a small, peaceful clearing in the woods, near a small lake.
There, Arika stopped, halted by the classic, youthful beauty of an angelical creature in peasant's rags that, if anything, only increased her attractiveness. She was fairly shorter and lighter in build than the more mature and somewhat buxom Arika, and her hair of a lighter and shorter golden; her small feet were bare, and she moved with grace and agility as she sang, surrounded by small woodland beasts and birds that were as fascinated as Arika.
"I wonder, I wonder, I wonder why each little bird has a someone to sing to, sweet things to. A gay little love melody. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder if my heart keeps singing, will my song go winging. To someone, who'll find me and bring back a love song to me."
For a moment, the innocent beauty of that scene made Arika feel ashamed of herself. It was not an unkown feeling, that. Often, she had paused during her machinations, contemplated her ultimate goals, and felt scorn and disgust for herself, before shaking those thoughst away and rekindling her drive. However, being faced with that girl made those troubling sensations come back twofold, and Arika actually contemplated simply riding back unnoticed and abandoning her plans for good. The greater good.
But alas, even if that pondering had been honest and lasting, the younger woman prevented it from bearing fruit when she realized Arika's presence and mouthed a slightly shocked gasp. "Oh!" she backed away, for visitors were extremely rare, and she often had been warned about them. "My apologies, you have startled me! What... May I help you with anything, Madame?" she humbly asked, picking back up a basket with fruits she obviously had been collecting before distracting herself.
Arika steeled herself, once again dispelling the doubts in her mind. "Greetings, young Briar Rose. I am an old acquaitance of your aunts. I apologize in advance over my arrival with not prior warning, but I am in dire need of council with them," she formally exposed.
He sat in the darkness, alone except for the old man standing behind his chair, the cave's relentless blackness broken only by the shine of the gigantic screens of the four Cray super computers. On those screens, there was a parade of constantly flashing images of several individuals, ranking from the perfectly normal looking to the amazingly appealing to the hideously grotesque.
Criminals all, each one of them lethal in their own way, regardless of their appearances.
"Joker, Harvey, Doctor Isley, Crane, Nygma... most of the ones with the resources and skills to capture Dick and figure my secret out are still incarcerated in Arkham," the darkly clad avenger of the night mused, definitely brooding. "Only Cobblepot is out, and if this had been his handwork, his ego would have made him sign his challenge, one way or another. That only leaves me with two feasible options, out of a whole new player in the game."
The screens all showed a chain of profiles of a short, bald man with glasses.
"Professor Hugo Strange learned my identity during my first year of activities, but it's been years since I saw him plummeting to his death in the Stonegate Cliffs," the Batman reminisced.
"Still, they never found a body," the butler felt like pointing out.
"True. Sometimes, it seems like only the good die and stay dead in Gotham City," Batman clenched his teeth. "However, with no actual evidence of his survival, we must move on to our next main suspect..."
The screens next showed a string of shots of a hulking masked man in solid black, a mountain of hard muscle in human form.
"Bane," Alfred whispered, with a shudder.
"He's still out there, with an ongoing vendetta against me," Bruce Wayne said of the other man who had learned his greatest secrets during the start of his crime fighting career. The clever brute who had placed him closer to death than anyone ever since. "But this doesn't fit his Modus Operandi. Bane's twisted sense of honor doesn't operate this way. And if he had ever wanted going after Dick, he would have done it long ago. He had every chance in the world. Why now of all times?"
A third voice, coming from the top of the stairs leading up to Wayne Manor, startled both them, speaking with a deep, low foreign accent. "Every clever man waits for the exact correct moment to act, Mister Wayne, even if it takes him years of waiting. I'm afraid, however, it's not Bane who has chosen seizing this moment as his own."
They looked up, to see a sharply dressed gentleman of mature, graying appearance, with a dark red regal cape wrapped around his shoulders, and the sharp, green eyes of a waiting feline. He seemed to lack eyebrows, but the pronounced, thick shape of his brow more than made up for it, tossing a disturbing shadow over those quiet, eerie eyes. Behind him stood a massive behemoth of a younger bald man, and four other, smaller men in black, whose appearance was almost stereotypically that of professional bodyguards.
Wayne recognized the man. Another ghost from his past. One of the many teachers he had in the arts and sciences of fighting, while he was preparing himself for his self imposed mission. "Henri Ducard?"
The man began slowly going down the stairs. "You always knew that was a false name, just like the one you went under while I taught you, Mister Wayne. We humored each other back then, but the times when we were boy and teacher have passed, and now we must treat each others as equals. You are a Detective, perhaps one of the best in this wretched world, so perhaps you already know my actual name. However, I shall introduce myself as a necessary polite gesture for your manservant. I am called Ra's al Ghul, and I need you help me find my daughter."
"She is a good, honest girl," the tallest of the three older women told Arika as the former Queen sat, taking wary eyes back to the dining room's closed door. "She is not going to spy or eavesdrop."
Of course, height is always a relative term, so even Flora did not reach to Arika's jawline.
"So, not much in the way of initiative, then?" Arika asked, evenly looking at the trio sitting across the table, facing her, within the small cabin in the woods. "I suppose that can be worked on later. You look well, Fair Ones. My congratulations on raising Aurora into a healthy young woman who stays out of her house when she's told to."
"And congratulations on staying alive this long, Queen of Calamity," bluntly said the shortest of the three, the one clothed in blue. "For once, you have rekindled my faith on the human race."
The graying fairy in green at her side discreetly elbowed her.
"It has not been without its difficulties," Arika allowed. "But thankfully, I have lived enough to see the day when my son was called back to my side. And so, the time has come to make good on the promise given to my father."
The three older women seemed perhaps more startled than they should have. "But... are you sure you would wish, to carry on any enterprise left behind by him?"
"King Stefan," added Merryweather, the shortest one, "seems to consider the treaty to have been between kingdoms rather than families. And now Vespertatia is not a kingdom, he plans marrying Aurora to Philip, Hubert's son."
"Isn't your son... too young yet?" asked a concerned Fauna.
Arika narrowed her eyes. "Regardless of my feelings towards my father, I shall not have an oath given to my house broken. Tell that to Stefan, if you please."
Merryweather's already stern frown grew fiercer. "Perhaps you should tell him yourself, Your Highness."
"Far from me," Arika replied, "pretending to use the Fair Folk as my messengers. But, seeing how Stefan has already seen fitting making you his assistants..."
"Thank to which," Flora replied, "your son's intended bride still draws breath."
"And I'm eternally thankful to you over it. But it doesn't mean you have the agency to decide on our children's destiny."
"Maybe..." Flora shyly pointed out, "that's something Rose, I mean, Aurora, should decide on by herself?"
Flora and Merryweather, normally polar opposites, coincided in their sharp glare at their mutual sister, who seemed to shrunk back from them.
"Now that," Arika said, "is a completely valid point. And so, Aurora should be allowed to meet Negi, to see for herself if he's worth her-"
Flora placed her hands on the table. "Your Majesty, even if we could or wanted to break our vows, Rose, that is, Aurora, could not pass through to your husband's world."
"That can be arranged for," Arika easily answered. "And you cannot deny, in that side of existence, it'd be far more difficult for her to find a spinning wheel with a spindle, nowadays..."
"No, she'd just be ran over by a horseless carriage, instead," muttered Merryweather, folding her arms and shifting aside on her seat.
Flora sighed. "One of us will talk with him on the subject, but of his reaction, we make no promises. The other two will have to stay. Every day must be one of vigilance and supervision."
"And before you ask, we have a surveillance spell on her right now!" Merryweather grumpily added.
Arika nodded. "As I would expect from ones as wise as you. My apologies if I have sounded insensitive or far too urgent. But from this day on, nothing will be denied to my children anymore, if I can help it."
"How is the Princess doing, by the way?" gently asked Fauna.
Arika sighed. "Strong and healthy as none other. However, I must say, her behavior occasionally causes me concern. She is so much more like Nagi than like me, despite him not being her father..."
"Well," Merryweather huffed, still looking intently aside, "isn't that just a relief?"
"Out on another Omiai, huh?" Asuna asked, as Konoka pulled a kimono out of their closet. "Mind if I tag along this time?"
"I don't think it'll be necessary," her black haired friend said, with a strangely absent air about herself. "This time, it won't be a pushy older guy, Asuna-chan."
"Is it someone we know?" Asuna asked, fishing for a final potato chip from her bag.
"Well, I know him. I don't think you've ever met him, though. He... studies in Ashford."
"Oh. It's one of those," Asuna sneered slightly, setting the empty bag aside and moving on to start helping Konoka dress up. "No wonder you're so blue. Really sure you don't need the help?"
"No, no," Konoka insisted, shaking her head. "He isn't... well, suffice to say, he's as uninterested on this as I am. I don't think we need to worry about him getting touchy."
"If it's one of those, he probably thinks it's below him to touch Elevens," Asuna rolled her eyes around. "Well, then why so down? It's because you're going to be bored? Take the portable console with you, then..."
"Asuna-chan," Konoka sighed. "I think this is THE Omiai."
Asuna's hands stopped on the kimono she was helping Konoka into. "What?"
Konoe Konoka nodded vaguely. "Apparently this boy... has a much more important position than I'd ever imagined. Gramps' taken a real interest on him lately, and, well... I'd never seen him that way before, Asuna-chan. He's really pushing for it. Sorry about tonight's dinner; I promise tomorrow I-"
"Screw the dinner!" Asuna said. "Konoka-chan, you don't have to go with it if you don't want to! Even if it's your family saying it! Stand up for yourself!"
"You don't understand, Asuna-chan," Konoka morbidly mused. Konoka, the always happy go lucky optimist. "Family involves many things, and many of those are compromises. You... well, everyone here's your family, but our situations... really aren't comparable, sorry. I have my duties..."
"No! If my mother, assuming I actually had one," Asuna said, grabbing Konoka's shoulders, "were to insist I'd have to marry my much younger brother to keep our powerful bloodline pure, for instance, I'd utterly reject her and continue aiming for Takahata-sensei, no matter how much I loved her!"
Konoka blinked. "That's... a strangely specific statement, Asuna-chan. Kind of creepy too."
"I know, and that's my point! We don't have to do creepy things imposed upon us by our families, like marrying Britannians!"
Konoka smiled and placed a soft, small hand on Asuna's cheek. "Asuna-chan," she fondly said. "That's why I love you so much. Please don't ever change."
And then she went to her Omiai anyway.
Asuna had to wonder if her mother's hand was in that as well.
It was late at night by now, and things at the Tendou household had calmed down enough for Tendou Soun to finally slip out unnoticed by his daughters. Or so he expected, at least. At the very least, they probably would be too angry at him to care where he went anymore.
The man walked a few blocks before looking back to check no one had followed him, and calling for a taxi, despite of how much of a cheapskate he was (in this, Nabiki had taken after him, but with a much higher sense of enterprise). He whispered a few directions to the driver, and the man chuckled and nodded, taking him all the way across Academy City, to one of the seediest districts near the slums.
The cab left him by a bar of dubious reputation and branded by several colorful neon lights, promising 'GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!' and 'AMAZING SHOWS!' Shaking his head to himself over the sad disarray of today's Japan, Soun tightened the neck of the conspicuous black coat he was wearing around his throat and approached the hulking bouncer at the front door.
The bouncer was somewhat stupid. Mentioning Tomaru's name didn't convince him. Neither did showing him the card Tomaru had left more than two years ago. He claimed not recognizing the name 'Tendou Soun', and after growing tired of Soun's protests, he chose tossing him out.
That was a bad idea, since Soun still was, for all his faults, an accomplished martial artist.
"Good evening, Tomaru-sama. You'll have to fire the cad at your doorstep," Soun grimly told the man in the backdoor office once he got there, closing the door behind himself. "He didn't want to let me in."
"I'll do something better than that, Tendou," the man sitting behind the desk nodded, gesturing for Soun to take a seat. "You still look fine. And to what do I owe this visit? Have you thought my offer on your daughters better."
"It's Arika-sama," said Soun, who didn't want to stay in that small, decadently decorated room, full with pictures of people best left behind and mementos and trophies from ill gained achievements, for any longer than he absolutely had to. "She has returned to our lives, she's just told me Nagi's son is coming from Wales, and he wants me to honor on our promise..."
The sharp eyes of the other man shone with interest. "Don't you tell me. Of course, you can't just refuse her, so you come to me to bail you out."
"Whatever you decide to know with that knowledge is no matter of mine," Soun piously said, "but I'd like to think, in this matter, your interests and mine coincide."
The other man laughed, cold and humorless. "Soun, Soun, Soun. I feel hurt you would know me so little, so badly. My ultimate goals are far closer to hers than to yours. Do you really think I would be contented always living for the moment, like you? No. Like the old man and his dear child, I always think of the future. That's why I've lasted this long."
"You already have your immortality. What else do you need?" Soun protested. "Why to risk it all to let her play her hand? Aren't you aware she would crush you as soon as she could?"
"Let her try," his host replied. "This," he mused, caressing in a hand the medallion that hung from his chest, "is not enough. It'll neve be enough. True men of vision never have enough. Or else they stagnate, and end up losing everything. You should learn that once and for all, Soun."
Even the medallion won't last forever. Even the Pits it was forged from won't, either. If I am ever going to reach the true secrets, I must gain control over the roots of our bloodline, and all that implies, the man behind the desk thought. Out a corner of his eye, he watched over the nearly sobbing nervous wreck of a lesser man sitting across him. He knew he was no physical match for Soun, that if Soun wanted to, he could just jump over the desk and crush him. But even Soun was not desperate and stupid enough. At least not yet. And so he wouldn't be, Tomaru would have to supply them with some measure of hope. The carrot to his donkey.
Tomaru's smile became more benevolent. "One daughter for Genma's son, one for Arika's, the third one for me. Let us reach that agreement, on which I am being rather generous, and you will be rewarded as you deserve. And so will they, I promise."
"I... I can't, I couldn't ever possibly, they-"
"No, Soun. You CAN do it. What you just CANNOT do is NOT doing it. And you know it. You don't have any options. You never did. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."
A tear escaped off a corner of Soun's right eye. "But Kimiko..."
Tomaru placed a hand on his shoulder. "Kimiko would understand. She always did," he softly reassured him. "Soun, my friend, my comrade. I'm doing this for you and your daughters. So you can reap the results by the time the tribulations start. Won't you let me?"
Tendou closed his eyes and lowered his head, looking as if the whole world had just crumbled down on him.
In a way, it had.
Late at night, MacTavish was woken up by one of his employees (in truth more a slave with a token minimal salary to make it legal), who told him of Arika's return. That saved the boy a good slap in the face, and helping MacTavish back into his pants in a hurry even guaranteed the boy would be treated decently enough the next day.
"You have your pants on backwards. Why?" Arika asked as she handed the small fat man the reigns of his horse.
Well. Perhaps the boy wouldn't be treated so fairly after all.
"I'd have loved waiting in waking expectation for you return, My Lady," MacTavish offered, "but sadly, a combination of my age and my duties has dented my body's endurance. Was your enterprise fruitful?"
"More than expected, you could say," she said, placing a small bag heavy with coins on the man's extended chubby hand, whose fingers quickly wrapped around it, his eyes shining greedly. "Of course, I expect this to stay between us and nobody else. Or else, my hand might be forced from generosity to animosity."
He nodded eagerly. "Our house's lips are sealed. Shall we be having more of your presence in the near future?"
"Yes, you shall be having more of my money in the near future," the woman answered his true query. "My errands are far from being over yet. Thank you, MacTavish," she added, her tone softening down just so slightly. "After all, my enemies' gold is as good as my own."
""Your enemies' gold comes along with betrayals," he muttered, pocketing the bag in, "while yours doesn't. I might be an exploitative cheater, Your Highness, but long ago, I learned true evil only devours its own accomplices."
She only nodded in a thoughtful silence before gently waving her goodbye and starting her march back towards the tunnel.
Further North in the World of Magic, this was happening:
In the beginning,she read, a tiny light shining around her the horn on the middle of her forehead being the sole thing dispelling the grim and rancid darkness of the chamber littered by the dry bones of countless adventurers prior her, the Lifemaker, the Mage of the Beginning, created Mundus Magicus and all there is on it. But eventually, he had to leave, and so, he divided the world between his loyal followers, between all the races to rule equally and fairly. Over the Equestrians, he placed the two sisters, both powerful and wise. They had a major responsibility, not only over their subjects, but over all of Mundus Magicus.
The older sister controlled the Sun, or rather, the spans of time when Mundus Magicus would receive its light. The younger sister was given control over the twin moons and the nights that came with them. For hundreds of years, they carried their duty successfully, united by bonds as unbreakable as their hearts.
However, over time, the creatures of Mundus Magicus began straying into evil and malevolence. The guilty and the cruel ones took refuge in the night, the time when they would go out to commit their misdeeds, hidden by the shadows. They began thanking the younger sister for her unwilling protection, to the point of worshipping her. And all across the lands, even the honest and fair began associating the younger sister's name with corruption and evil, while the wicked declared themselves her followers.
That infuriated the younger sister, whose intention had never been to protect evil with her darkness. The night was supposed to be a time of peace and rest from the hardships of life, not a time to commit sins and prey on the weak. She turned to her sister, demanding to trade places, so most creatures would bask in the darkness while the light of the day became blinding, forcing all creatures to hide all day long. But the older sister reasoned that was impossible, and would shift the balance of nature and existence beyond repair.
The younger sister, feeling denied and betrayed, grew irate and accused her sister of protecting the evil. Not listening to any reasons anymore, her heart became twisted, as did her reasoning. And she said that, if all creatures nocturnal and diurnal alike were evil after all, she would be the most evil of them all, and would reign supreme over everypony as she was fit to do.
With great sorrow in her heart, the older sister had to resort to use of the Seven Elements of Harmony to gain an edge over her sister and her followers of darkness. She used the power of the Elements to imprison her sister in the bigger moon forever, and took over the weight of controlling both day and night for everyone's sake.
But it has been foretold, when the darkness returns to the Magical World, and the collapse stands on the brink of falling over us, the powers binding Nightmare Moon, the Queen of Darkness, will falter, and she will break her binds and descend upon us to bring an eternal night. And only through the seven Elements, and a direct descendant of the Lifemaker himself, she could be vanquished for good...
There was a smile on her lips as she reached the end of the tale. She lifted her head back from between the dusty pages, and her eyes sparkled with vivacity. As she stood back, the purple and starry wide cape around her shoulders fluttered slightly, with the weak whiff of air coming from the tunnel she had opened to enter the tomb. "All right, " she told herself. "This will be the Great and Powerful Trixie's ticket to big-time!"
Either the biggest con of all times, or something that would make her the greatest champion of her race, hailed and beloved forever.
There was no way to lose!
Area Eleven:
Itou Makoto had never been called to visit his father before. His mother had discouraged him from ever trying to contact the man, and whenever he had tried it on his own behind her back, Sawagoe Tomaru had rebuffed his communication attempts rather coldly. He had expressed a heavy interest on not only meeting, but taking custody, over Makoto's little sister, however, something Makoto's mother opposed to fiercely. Sawagoe was very wealthy, so it had been an uphill legal battle, but eventually, Makoto's mother got help from a benefactor Makoto never met face to face, and just as soon, Sawagoe dropped the case like a hot potato.
It had been four years since, and during that time, Makoto had never tried to get close to his old man either, until now, when he had suddenly decided calling him instead. Even more strange, Makoto's mother had decided, and rather quickly, allowing him to go. And so, despite not really wanting the meeting anymore, now Makoto was there, being led towards the luxurious inner chambers of the Sawagoe Manor.
"Are you going to die?" he asked the man who now sat before him in the library, after dispatching the servants away. The man wore a rather stupid looking tiger-striped robe and slippers, the kind a woman might have found sexy... in a cheesy porn from the seventies. The same decade that Makoto guessed had spawned the ridiculous gold medallion the older man had hanging over his hairy chest.
He shook his head. "Far from it, Makoto. And yet, the time has come for you to become my heir."
"Are you going to renounce all your material belongings and move to a monastery in the Tibet, like Mom says you should?"
"She really says that? Why, that-" He rasped in his right fist. "Ahem. No. Why would I do such a stupid thing? I've worked far longer than you could ever imagine to amass my fortune, why would I abandon it, even on the aftermath of my greatest misfortune? So I can experience even more disgraces? No, thanks."
"Uh-huh. Well, if you aren't going to give me your money, why am I here at all?"
He placed his big, cold hands on Makoto's shoulders, and the boy felt a slimy, icy sensation sliding down his spine. He'd have to take a shower as soon as he got home. "I want you to continue our bloodline."
"Uhhh... if I'm not mistaken, don't you have enough descendants as it is?"
"Many more than you'd imagine," he said, without a hint of shame. "But they're all incomplete. As you are, but I yet place faith on your children being what I've been looking for, all through these years. Perhaps you'll succeed where I failed."
"On being a decent head of a family?"
"Of course not! What kind of romantic nonsense has your mother been pouring in your head? Children nowadays. I mean, on siring the perfect child of our bloodline! The one who can display the lost traits of our ancestors!"
"... you lost me. Explain further," the boy said, with eyes turned into dots.
"See, that's what I'm talking about," Tomaru wept, tightening a fist. "That adorable boyish cluelessness, masking the lady killer charm of a sexual predator! That's a true sign of a man from our bloodline! Why, you remind me so much of myself, when I was your age..."
"Eeeehhhhhh..." Makoto made a face.
"Anyway," Tomaru regained his prior cool pose, "Basically, I'll bankroll your youthful escapades of hot blooded vice and depravity, where you'll be able to satisfy all your teen-aged desires for the world of the flesh. But only if you sire several grandchildren for me in the meanwhile."
"..." Makoto said.
Tomaru arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that a generous enough offer? Or are you gay?"
"... you're bullshitting me, aren't you?"
"I'm not. Would I waste my valuable time by stupidly pranking you, boy?"
"I guess not, Mr. Important," Makoto dryly told him, "But it still doesn't make any sense. Why it's so important I give you grandchildren? Don't you have enough already with- whoever happen to be your other children?"
"Gods, you are dense. Of course I do, as we've already made clear, but AGAIN, none of them has what I'm looking for. You could call it a matter of genetics. I have to keep trying and trying until I have found the perfect descendant!"
"... fuck, old man, you're crazy. Okay, I guess it's a generous offer after all, but... why not doing it yourself? You're not that old. Doesn't even Viagra work anymore?"
"Technically, I'm much older than you'd suspect."
"Uh-huh. And now you'll tell me you just led a healthy lifestyle."
"Hardly, but even so, until recently, I was in a perfect shape to continue this project on my own. Regrettably..." He shuddered. "Tragedy struck at me, and now I'm forced to rely on a witless boy..."
"Alright then, enlighten that witless boy on why you couldn't-"
Makoto was left speechless when his father stood up and let his robe slip down, showing he had been wearing nothing underneath.
"- you have no balls!" Makoto gasped.
Tomaru lowered his head, humbled, even weakly blushing. "I was dealt the ultimate blow to my manhood when a shrieking harpy-"
"Holy shit, you have no balls!" Makoto repeated, yelling like a Bobobo character.
"- looking for retribution after the admittedly regrettable but unfortunately unavoidable demise during childbirth of my latest-"
"You have no balls, no balls, no balls!" Makoto slapped himself on a knee several times. Then he pulled his cellphone out. "Oh, this shit's so going viral..."
Tomaru bitterly cursed inwardly. Oh, if only Ayumu hadn't rejected his offer, now he wouldn't have to rely on this-
"Son," he tensely said, grabbing Makoto's cellphone and easily crushing it between his fingers, "I *am* being generous with you. Many would kill for this privilege. And yet, you still would look to humiliate your poor, troubled father in his hour of need?"
"- you owe me a phone," Makoto warned.
Tomaru tried telling himself the perfect pureblood he was aiming for couldn't possibly be as idiotic as this stray from the family tree...
The surface of Venus had been left barren long ago, in the war for supremacy between demon factions after Lord Morningstar stepped down. For centuries, the battles between powerful contenders like King Krichevskoy, Overlord Zenon and Stephanie Meyer raged with no end in sight, ending with the disappearance of one, the death of the other, the creation of the most evil book of all, plus the bloody demises of several minor lords. After the almost complete dismantling of Old Hell, a coalition of the survivors had been established, with Lady Hild as the supreme ruler, keeping a precarious balance with other members of the demonic council, like the Malebolgia, Neron, Ishihara and that fellow who was so creepy even the other devils refused to utter his name, referring to him only as… well, Him.
No, NOT Shadow Crystal Mage, whom they found too weird even for them.
The demons and devils under Hild's rule now lived in floating surfaces over the half-scorched, half-molten surface of Venus. Thanks to technology purchased from the Deviluke Galactic Empire, who hailed from the demonic denizens of Venus themselves, the demons had boosted their formerly exclusively magical means of survival and maintenance with highly advanced scientific systems. That meshed well with Hild's pragmatic viewpoints, since she was a liberal progresist and a moderate in her dealings with mortals and even had her two youngest daughters, the Zazie sisters, studying in the mortal realms.
The flying vessel had left Elsea De Lute Irma at one of said hovering islands of the North East of Venus, near the dark and ominous tower of the Department of Renegade and Runaway Spirit Retrieval. The young and perky female in black paid her driver with thirty silver coins and a bright, wide smile. "Thank you, Lord Charon!" she waved him away before the sharp boat took off into the distance, and then she entered the building, passing clearance with the card Lady Hild herself had given her.
She was led to the 666th story, finally using up all the Biblically significant numbers, where she passed her old friend Haqua on her own way out, holding an envelope with a skull label and her own assignment inside. Elsea was about to greet her cheerfully, but Haqua only smiled at her before the guard Oni leading Elsea around pushed her towards the Director's office, rather roughly.
The Director sat behind her gigantic desk, which was thrice as tall as Elsea herself. In contrast, the diminutive black robed figure of the Director seemed almost laughable by comparison. The fact she had a cartoony skull for a face peeking from the depths of her hood didn't help matters, although everyone knew better than to laugh at her appearance. Even Elsea.
"Well," the Director sighed after checking the documents the young and lovely looking minor demon had brought her. "If it's a direct recommendation from Lady Hild herself, there's nothing I can do against it, of course. Obviously, she saw something in you the rest of us cannot. And for you to be assigned to the same area Zazie-chan is at the time… the Queen must have absolute trust on your skills, indeed."
The short but well-shaped girl blushed in an adorable way. "Oh, why, thank you, Lady Dokurou!"
"Still," the Director said, "why do you still carry that broom around? It doesn't fit your future duties. It's hardly an implement that will inspire any sort of respect from your associate."
The girl hugged the old broom against herself. "Oh, no, do I have to leave it here? Please don't say so! It's a very dear gift from—!"
Dokurou sighed despite her lack of any lips, and most likely any lungs either. "Fine, fine. Don't say more. Even we have our loved ones, after all." She took a brief look at the family portrait on her desk. It had her standing with a much taller hooded skeleton, plus a thin and nervous looking young man in black and two smiling girls in red shirts, jeans and cowboy hats.
Elsea looked at the same time, as best as she could from below, thrusting herself up on the tips of her sandaled feet. "Aaahhh, Kid-kun's grown a lot lately, hasn't he?"
The Director sighed again. "Taking a picture with him is a torture, and I don't mean the good kind. He's always complaining about how his father and me make for such an asymmetrical couple, and— But I digress. Elsie, are you really sure you wish to do this? Do you know the price for failing? We could always relocate you in an area better fitting your skills, like Maintenance of the Beelzebub Net."
"I'm sorry, Director," she lowered her head. "But this is what I want to do, what I have waited for all my life! Please try to understand, I'm sure you have also had a dream that you cherished over everything else…"
Dokurou briefly imagined herself surrounded by a Speedo-wearing Tabris, Zauriel and Lamington serving her cocktails at an Acapulco beach before saying, "Indeed, like everyone else. But chasing such dreams is often folly. However, I suppose nothing will dissuade you from yours as long as you are young. Anyway, we're demons. We can't very well tell our people to NOT go single-mindedly after what they want and screw everything else. We wouldn't have an immoral leg to stand on!"
Elsea, called Elsie for short even though it was just the same length, smiled even more as the envelope with her assignment was handed over to her, and her heart patted much faster. She hardly could wait.
Opening the envelope, she silently read her target's name and smiled to herself.
This time, she would get things right.
One way or another.
In the basement, one of the many separated secret chambers with stone walls deep under one of Academy City's many schools, there was only decaying, corrupted, vile darkness broken only by the flickering light of a few candles; and a black marble altar stained with many a dry crimson spot; and two gorgeous women standing and facing each other before said altar.
"Human sacrifices?" the tall, buxom, white haired woman with the chocolate brown skin sneered the words with an air of disbelieving reluctance.
"W-Well, yes... That's what you're going to ask for, isn't it? For the blood of virgins spilled in your name, over the pentagram, in front of your dark altar?" The blond, short haired human wearing the open white coat over her skimpy black leather clothes began gesturing with her hands for a greater effect of dark, dramatic emphasis. "Like any other Demon Lord, you do feed on human suffering and death as much as you feast on lust, don't you?"
The dark skinned woman in the highly tight, scandalously cleavaged, crimson dress and the very high heels pondered, for a moment, planting one of said heels on the woman's face. And then sinking it in, if she wanted so much blood. "See, there's where you have a very grave mistake in your hands, to begin with. And it's a crying shame, because I was starting to think we could get along famously," she sighed, folding her arms right under her large breasts. "I'm not like any other Demon Lord. That's why I managed to rank above them all. Dear, dear, you have a lot to learn about Nifelheim's structures, although I'm sure you'll have all of eternity to learn after your demise. Back in the old days, yes, we were barbaric and demanded for blood sacrifices, but that's exactly what led us to the Great Demon Wars. And you know what? I quelled those wars and took over by being smarter and more civilized than that. Oh, true, I won't mind if you humans want to bombard and stab and shoot each other and corrupt your souls, all the more power to us, but including that in our contracts... it doesn't make for any good business sense, you know? Yggdrasil and their agents start meddling them, and the deal was, they would stop the Age of Miracles and wouldn't send any more prophets to talk sense into your pretty empty heads only if we stopped making whole cities burn by setting you one against other."
The human blinked several times, in shock. Had she lost her bargaining chip, then? She was truly lost now, wasn't she? Maybe she should have become a flight assistant like Mother wanted...
"However," the Demon Queen smirked, once she had savored enough of the woman's wide eyed and mute terror for the time being, "That's not to say there's nothing you can offer me to make up for making a busy woman like me come here. I believe on sin as an ongoing enterprise. You have a lovely place brimming with magical energies here, and to be honest- this once- I've had my eye on it and what it has to offer for quite a while now. I only needed an opening, and you might be able to provide just that. So, what do you say, Kitami Reika? What will it be? Yes, or not?"
"What will happen to me if I say 'No'?" asked the beautiful blonde, cautiously.
"Why, I'll skewer you alive, of course," Hild, Queen and Mother of Demons, casually replied.
"But, but you just said you abhorred violence...!"
"I never said that, I just said it made no good business sense, and that only when it's widespread. I doubt very much Yggdrasil is going to move a finger to punish a high ranked devil who smoked the foolish summoner who somehow managed to bring her along to kill others. Do you even suspect what The Spectre, the Big Man's Wrath, would have done to you if you had carried on that little plan of yours? Good isn't Always Nice, you know," she chuckled, with a hand on her own hip.
Kitami Reika stared at her, frozen with apprehension, for a moment, before nodding slowly.
And that was how it started.
To be Continued.