A/N: Not much to go around this time. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes, but I don not proof read my stories. I do edit them though.

Also, the Zero no Tsukaima series is not mine. If it were, Saito would've been a badass and not some masochistic idiot.

Previously, on Freedom's Chosen:

For one long moment, no one spoke, breathed or twitched. For one long moment, no one dared to break the silence that fell upon them like a lead weight. Then, the man moved, lowering his sword slightly, a gesture that lacked malice or ill intent, but wary and capable of untold things. He swept his gaze across the assembled students slowly, like a predator examining a live prey item, until they settled on Louise. And he spoke.

"Alright, where am I?"

Chapter Two: Clarification

"Alright, where am I?"

The students paled and Colbert's grip on his staff tightened. Behind his bespectacled gaze, his eyes alternated their sights between the pinkette and the armed man in the summoning circle. On one hand, Louise managed to successfully cast the familiar summoning ritual. On the other, she appeared to have summoned a man. A human. There have been no reports of anyone managing to summon a human as a familiar, not even one from the time of Brimir. This was a ground breaking breakthrough wrapped in one fine package. One the other hand, though…

Colbert was a Square class Fire mage, one of the best in Tristain. He could raze whole forests to the ground with one spell or melt the outer layers of a castle wall. Before taking up the teaching job at the Academy, he had served alongside Louise's mother, Karina Dizelin du Mayelliere, leader of the infamous Manticore Knights and famed bearer of the title 'Heavy Wind'. He had survived through many wars and committed so many atrocious acts that, by the view of humanity, would label him as a monster that needed to be put down. He had faith in his skill with the magic that brought him the runic name 'Flame Serpent'. He had years of experience and countless unmentionable accomplishments to back it up.

But this peculiar young man standing in the summoning circle… No, his wasn't any ordinary swordsman. He stood better, watched closer, and moved smoother than any swordsman Colbert had seen. Indeed, if he were to engage the boy in combat, he doubted he could afford to hold back.

Shaking away his surprise, Colbert cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention to him.

"Alright everyone, that's enough gawking around." He turned to Louise. "Miss Valliere, would you kindly finish the ritual?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the man said, raising his sword to a defensive position. "No one is finishing anything until I find out where I am and what's going on!"

The students immediately erupted into hushed whispers and wild accusations.

"Louise the Zero summoned a commoner? He doesn't look like one I've seen before."

"Yeah, I mean, look at his clothes! Maybe he's a mercenary?"

"And his hair, too. I don't think he's from Tristain."

"He doesn't look like an Albionese or Romalian. Maybe he's from northern Germania?"

"But look at his sword, though. It's so long."

"Is it a rapier or a broadsword?"

Colbert tapped his staff on a nearby rock. "Alright everyone, settle down! Settle down! You can continue your gossip elsewhere." He turned to Louise. "Miss Valliere, please, finish the ritual."

"Hold it!" the man slashed the ground before him, stopping Louise's advance and silencing the gossiping students. Colbert narrowed his eyes and readied a Fireball spell on the tip of his tongue. "I told you already, no one is finishing any sort of ritual until my questions are answered! And the first one is, where in the bloody Kaiser am I?!"

The gathered students burst out laughing.

"He doesn't even know where he is!"

"Perfect! A silly commoner for a silly mage!"

"He fits you well, Louise! A match made in heaven!"

The pinkette spun. "Shut up!" She screamed. "It was just a mistake! I didn't want to summon him in the first place!" she turned to Colbert, eyes brimming with tears. "Professor Colbert, please. Let me try again!"

The balding man shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that, miss Valliere."

"Why not?"

"It is strictly forbidden. When you are promoted to a second year student, you must summon a familiar, which is precisely what you just did. And besides, if I allow you to try the summoning again, then the being you had already summoned would be lost and may potentially die without supervision, and it also wouldn't be fair to the others."

"But I've never heard of taking a commoner as a familiar!"

The crowd of students burst laughing.

"That may be true, but as unorthodox as this may be, you cannot simply change the familiar once you have summoned it." Colbert gave the pinkette a pitying look. "Whether you like it or not, you have no choice but to accept him as yours, so please continue the ritual."

"Alright, that's it!"

It happened in an instant. The man, standing mobile and compliant for the duration their exchange, blurred into motion. Had he not been a veteran battle oriented mage, Colbert would've missed what happened next as the man ran forward, sword raised, towards him.

In two seconds, the man closed the distance between them and swung his blade. Colbert leaned back and jumped away, intent on getting enough distance to prepare a biding spell. But the stranger leapt after him and threw his sword as though it were a javelin. Colbert's eyes widened as his brought his sword to parry and knock the weapon away, only to find them widening even more as it punched through the reinforced, endowed steel cored staff and burying itself into his shoulder. The force of the impact sent him to the ground as the blade went through the other side of his shoulder and into the ground beneath him. The stranger landed on him a moment later, knocking the air from his lungs as a knife positioned itself at his throat.

"Certain people don't like to be left in the dark, sir mage." he hissed. "I asked you a question, I want answers. Tell me now, and I will not slit your throat. Understand?"

Colbert nodded dumbly as the stranger forced him to his feet. He idly noted that the sword in his shoulder had been removed and the stranger held the knife in a reverse grip.

"Now I'll ask one last time," he grit out. "Where am I?"

"Tristain Magic Academy." Colbert said in one breath.

"And where is Tristain?"

"In Helgakenia."

The stranger hummed in thought. "Okay. And what ritual is going on here that required you to repeatedly ask the pink haired child to finish?"

"The Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual. She had accomplished the first part, bringing her familiar here, now she has to bind it to a contract."

Instantly, the knife was removed from Colbert's throat and he found himself stumbling as the stranger pushed him away. Colbert turned to attack, in case he went to repeat the same experience on one of his students, but blinked and fumbled to catch his staff when the stranger threw it to him. A look of dissatisfaction on his face.

"There, see? It wasn't so hard now, was it?"

"You filthy commoner!" one of the students shouted. "You stabbed Professor Colbert! How dare you!"

The stranger, who at some point sheathed his sword without him noticing, crossed his arms and smiled dryly. "Did I now?"

"Yes you did! We saw you do it! All of us!"

Words of agreement spread amongst the students. Louise looked like a pale, gaping fish.

"Really? Then professor mage," he turned to Colbert, who took a step back. "Is there a wound on your shoulder?"

Colbert was about to shout his affirmation, when he realized the fact that there was no pain. Colbert was no stranger to pain, as he had felt it many times over the course of his career though training, battles or accidents. So it would not be so surprising that, when Colbert felt no pain from the shoulder that he had been certain had stabbed through and through, he ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and examined himself.

There wasn't even a drop of blood. Both on himself and his clothes.

Colbert cast a surprised look towards the strange man that Louise had summoned. His mind raced through countless possibilities. Was he a mage? Did he use an instant healing spell? Did he use a potion or some sort of magic artefact? Colbert couldn't sense magic from him, so it had to have been a potion or something of that nature. What exactly, he wasn't sure.

But he'd find out.

"But… But we saw you-" the student from earlier said, but the man cut him off.

"Are you certain you did? Maybe the blade went through his clothes instead?" he sighed exasperatedly. "Not many people are fond of liars, boy. Be careful of what you say when you lack the evidence to support it. Some people may find it insulting to have their word tested against them. Do not repeat that mistake." He turned to Colbert. "Good sir, I'm afraid, I cannot remain here. I have duties that require attending back in my homeland and must return. So if you would be so kind to open a portal back to where I originated from, I will be eternally grateful."

Colbert shook his head. "I'm afraid that is not possible, sir. Once the mage has summoned you for the ritual, there is no way for you to go back to where it was you came from."

The stranger raised a brow. "Why is that?"

"Because of the magic that brought you here." Colbert elaborated. "The magic that drives that of the summoning ritual is mysterious and not easily understood by many mages. Even I, a professor and teacher of magic, do not comprehend the forces that allow the ritual to function as it does. And even if we did, it would not be easy to send you back to wherever it was you come from. For all I know, doing the summoning ritual in reverse could kill you and the caster."

The stranger narrowed his eyes. "Are you certain of that?"

"Quite." Colbert replied.

"And if the duties that I needed to do were important?"

"Then you will not be able to do them." Colbert said simply. "I am sorry, but that is how it is."

"Surely, you jest."

"I assure sir, I am not jesting."

The man was silent for a moment. Before sighing heavily and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Eyes shut tight to ward off frustration and stress. Colbert didn't know what this man's duty or duties were, but he supposed he could relate to his plight, to some small extent. Sometimes he too had duties that he could not carry out due to thing that were beyond his control, but that was life. It never worked fair.

"So this binding ritual…" the man started again.

"Yes?" Colbert answered.

"You mentioned earlier that this Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual is divided into two parts. What are they?"

"Oh, well," Colbert cleared his throat. "The ritual is quite simple, really. The first part involves the mage drawing a summoning circle on the ground and summoning a beast that reflects themselves and the potential they have."

The man nodded. "And the second?"

"Once the beast has been summoned, the summoner will bind it to a lifelong contract of servitude and loyalty that is broken only when either the summoner or summoned dies."

The man fell silent for another long moment as he contemplated this slice of information. "Let me get this straight," he said slowly. "That girl," he pointed at Louise. "Summoned me," me point at himself. "to turn me into her glorified slave?"

Colbert thought about it and attempted to come up with a response that denied that claim. But he couldn't. The stranger was right, the branding of familiar runes upon a summoned familiar was slavery.

"Well, when you put it that way…"

"No." the man said.

"Sir-"

"No."

"But-"

"Absolutely not." He glared at Colbert, and the man fidgeted under it. "I am a fully functional, fully capable human being, with the Kaiser given right to live free and unbound to anyone like a piece of property. I am a man of my own free will and the only way for anyone to bind me into anything is to either chain me to a steel cross and break me under torture, or incapacitate me long enough to accomplish the binding."

"FIREBALL!"

At that precise moment, an explosion rang out through the clearing. The shockwave was strong enough to send Colbert staggering back a few steps as the spot where the summoned man once stood was covered by smoke and dust. He turned to the side to see Louise with her wand drawn and panting. Apparently, she had put a lot of willpower behind that spell if it was enough to make her pant. Either that, or she was letting out a bit of anger when she screamed the spell's name…

The smoke cleared and revealed a crater, with the summoned man's smoking body in the center. His eyes were glazed over and the front portion of his armored coat was blackened and cracked in several places, but it looked strong enough to remain functional for the time being. Perhaps a good smith could repair it…

Louise turned to Colbert and smiled tiredly. "My apologies, Professor." She said, her head bowing down. "It seems I have summoned a rather… Tenacious, familiar. I honestly didn't think a mere commoner would be so… um… What's the word? Hateful? Grudging?"

"More like dangerous…" A student snorted from within the crowd, spurring forth giggles and chuckles.

Colbert cleared his throat. "Regardless, I do believe we have stalled long enough. Miss Valliere?"

Louise Francoise de Blanc la Valliere nodded at Professor Colbert's words and strode into the crater, towards the downed man she had summoned. Honestly, a commoner of things. Why? Why did the Founder Brimir find it fair enough to provide her with a commoner as her chosen familiar being? Was it because of her inability to cast any spells properly? Was because of her small stature, in both size and ability, when compared to her peers? Was because of her reading-

She shook her head as a blush suddenly appeared on her cheeks. It wasn't her fault she found the book so interesting to read. Whoever the author was, he or she was brilliant.

But she put all other things in the back of her mind as she reached her downed summon. So it was to be a commoner then? An ordinary human being with nothing extraordinary or majestic that was actually worth noticing to anyone? Louise held back a bitter chuckle. Well, a familiar reflects the mage that summons them afterall.

"You should count yourself lucky," she said, watching as her soon-to-be familiar struggle to his knees, one hand on his temple as he tried to re-orientate himself. For some reason, Louise found the sight before her a bit sad. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a commoner."

Louise raised her wand. "My name is Louise Francoise de Blanc la Valliere. Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers; grant your blessings upon this humble being and make him my familiar."

She tapped her wand onto the man's forehead, who winced when contact was made. She closed her eyes tightly and, without a moment's hesitation, pressed her lips against his.

She pulled back and opened her eyes in time to see him scurry back, eyes wide in shock and mouth gaping.

Then he screamed.

He gripped his right hand until it bled as runes burned themselves into his skin. Louise watched in horror as the man before her writhed and tried to reign in his pained screams, managing to do so with no small degree of success. The burning on the man's hand intensified as smoke began to rise, and Louise pinched her nose as the smell of burnt human flesh stung her nostrils.

After what seemed like an eternity, the man stopped screaming as the runes ceased branding themselves into his hand and Louise released her grip on her nose when she was certain the horrible smell had dissipated. Internally, Louise snorted. Really, just how painful was it having familiar runes branded in one's skin? None of the other familiars thrashed in pain when their masters placed their runes on them. Perhaps the man she had summoned had a low tolerance to pain or something.

But still, to see him on the ground like that, screaming…

Perhaps she should apologize to him later.

Maybe.

Afterwards, Colbert catalogued the runes of each student's familiar and ordered them all to return to class. Louise, for all her pride and grandeur, watched on in envy as the rest of her peers took off with a simple levitation spell back to class. She would've followed them on foot, had it not been for the fact that her familiar was still struggling to stand from the crater he was in.

"Hurry up!" she cried. "We'll be late for class if you don't get up and move, familiar!"

The man in the crater growled and forced himself to stand, grimacing through clenched teeth as he struggled to walk out of the crater towards her and stumbling every few steps along the way.

Louise fought back the urge to help him. He was a familiar, and one of the Valliere family no less. Familiars of her family were strong and capable of handling themselves if needed be. She had personally seen her mother spar with her manticore on a few stray occasions and not once did the great beast touch the ground throughout the entirety of the match to catch its breath. If a mere manticore could stand up to her mother in a spar, then surely, her familiar could stand up to one of her explosive spells every now and then.

Granted, the great manticore could easily shrug off a Triangle level Lightning spell or two and her familiar was only a commoner, but still…

After a long minute, Louise's familiar reached the crater's rim, panting and sweating like a pig. Louise brought her hand to her nose. "Disgusting! A short trek up a crater and you're already out of breath and smell horrible!" Louise turned and marched off towards the Academy classrooms. "Go find the familiars stable and get yourself cleaned! I will not have a familiar of the Valliere family present itself so poorly to my peers. I will find after classes are over and bring you to my room tonight."

It may have been her imagination, but Louise felt an uncomfortable weight place itself in her stomach as she marched on towards the Academy, her new familiar hot in her heels.

A few hours later found Louise with her roughed up familiar, now looking less dazed and smelled less sweaty than he did earlier that day, but she could care less. A commoner was still a commoner no matter where they came from or what duties they had. There were plenty more out there that could replace the ones that were not suitable for the task.

It wasn't as though they would revolt and pick up arms. If they did, then they would be slaughtered like pigs. It had happened before.

Now, as the sun began dropping down below the horizon and day turned to night, Louise led her familiar to her quarters in the girl's dorms. It was a well decorated chamber, with a sturdy candle lit desk on one side, a closet nestled in a corner and a luxury bed with fine silk sheets and covers. Louise entered through the door, frowning and brow creased in frustration. Her familiar came in soon after, looking tired and down right miserable as he closed the door behind him. Louise paid the man no heed as she laid down on her bed and went through the day's happenings.

"A commoner of all things. A commoner!" she grumbled. "I wanted a dragon, a griffin or a manticore. But nooo, I had to have summoned a lowly commoner as my familiar! Why? What did I ever do to deserve this? I've been a good girl, I've been praying and keeping good grades. Why couldn't I have-"

The man cleared his throat. Louise glared.

"What is it commoner?"

"Pardon my rudeness," he said sarcastically. "But I do believe a bit of clarification is in order."

Louise groaned. "How stupid are you that you need clarification on the obvious?!"

"I'll let that slide because you don't know who I am," the man started. "As for your question, I am not from here."

Louise blinked. "From Tristain?"

"From Helgakenia."

Silence. Then Louise threw her pillow at him.

"You lying familiar! Don't spout such ridiculous tales!"

"Now why would I lie about something true?"

"Because it's ridiculous!" Louise threw another pillow. "How could anyone not be from Helgakenia? That's stupid! You should say that you don't come from Tristain! A country! Not a world!"

"That's what I said! I'm not from this world!" the man defended, but Louise waved him off. She had enough of his stupidity for one day, and she was tired. She needed her sleep.

"Alright, that's enough of that, familiar." The pinkette sighed tiredly and stood from her bed. "If you are going to keep telling me lies, then there is no need for you to speak any longer."

She strode over to her closet and began undressing herself.

"Sweet Kaiser above, what are you doing?!" the man cried. "Have you no modesty as to change in front of a man?!"

"You are not a man!" Louise said, as though she was stating the obvious. "You are a familiar! That puts you beneath even common servants! Therefore, there is no need to worry about preserving my modesty, seeing as there is no man here to be embarrassed about!"

Louise threw her panties over her shoulder, taking a smiling at the audible 'bleh!' her familiar made.

Louise slid herself into her nightgown and fell into the bed, sighing in contentment.

"You know," her familiar stated, though she could not see him. "I am tempted to slit your throat as soon as you're asleep, but I can't seem to move my hand to draw my sword."

Louise laughed into her pillow. Really now, her familiar thought that he could kill her? The Master? Ooh, he was due for a rather nasty surprise.

"Of course you can't! Those runes make the familiar obedient to the summoner and prevent them from doing harm to them!" Louise rested her chin on the pillow, looking entirely too smug for her familiar's liking. "Like Professor Colbert said, the familiar is bound to the master via a contract of servitude and loyalty. So in other words…" Louise paused, savouring the twitching eyebrow and hands. "You, good sir, are my plaything."

Both fell silent at the end of the explanation. Louise looked smug and happy, satisfied that she had taught her familiar how superior she was as the mage and his master. Her familiar though…

If one had ever seen a person try so hard to hold down the overwhelming urge to literally strangle a person that they hated with every fibre of their soul, then one could easily picture the man's expression.

"Alright then, master," he grit out and Louise smiled happily. "What chores would have this lowly commoner do for the night while you sleep comfortably under those warm sheets?"

Louise made a show of humming in thought as she wrapped herself with the silk covers. "Well, there is a basket of clothes that require washing. Go find a member of the castle help is you need to know where the scullery is. After you're finished, you may go and familiarize yourself with the castle grounds. Be sure to wake me at dawn tomorrow."

Louise watched as her familiar bowed and turned to leave her room, but stopped at the door.

"A question, master," he said. "Where will I be sleeping?"

Louise pointed at a small mound of hay in corner of her room.

The man's smile was strained. "Alright then. Thank you for answering."

The door closed, and Louise laughed. Oh, how good it felt to be the one in control.

Words could not describe the pure, unfiltered rage Saito was feeling at the moment. How dare she? That smug little brat! Damn her and this land's magic! To think that a child could act so… So spoiled and arrogant… She had to of nobility, she had to be! No child in their right mind would treat their elders with such blatant disrespect and flippancy as she did. At least, no child he heard of until now.

Did the girl even notice his clothes? The armored coat and the sword? Really, how unnoticeable were his things?

And the strange runes on his hand. They weren't like any he had seen before. There were no symmetrical lines, no pulses of magic or anything similar. But when he tried to draw a knife and kill the pinkette for belittling him, he found his arms unable to move. As though they were weighed down by heavy stones.

Then he remembered how these runes got on him in the first place and he wanted to kick himself.

He let his guard down for just one moment and got hit with some sort of concussive spell that literally drove him into the ground, and maybe crack a rib or two, with a loud boom. Saito had experienced a fair share of explosions in his time, but after surviving one that detonated on his chest, the young man suddenly found his respect for Khan rise. Of course, the man who was crazy enough to charge into explosions head-on deserved some large degree of respect.

Then the girl who had nearly turned him into a pile of freshly ground meat, had kissed him. Kissed him, for Kaiser's sake! She looked more like a child than a teenager and Saito himself had been in his early twenties already. He would not degrade himself to the point of allowing be romantically involved with a child! He had more self respect than that! He was just about to berate the girl for doing that to him, when the pain set in.

Blinding, unfiltered agony, the kind he had not been subjected to since the two years he spent rotting in that hellhole called Vorkuta in the Northern Plains, coursed through his veins. It was as though the burning whip of that accursed warden hit his back again, only this time it was everywhere at once. Agony he had thought he would no longer be subjected to, anyone would no longer be subjected to, coursed through his veins and every fiber of his being for a long second. Then it stopped, and everything throbbed.

He could not feel his feet, his arms, his body or hear his mind think. But through the temporary ringing that robbed him of his hearing, he could feel his heart beating in his breast. So long as that kept beating, he would continue to live and fight through any obstacles life may throw at him. But for the moment, he'd have to find out what in the bloody Kaiser had he been forced into, because he refused to believe that he had been forced into being a slave to a horrible excuse for a child. More importantly, he had to find a way back to Brittania. If the people of his homeland could break the dimensional barrier with magic, then why couldn't the people of this one? The military training exercise would take place in a week's time, and he had to get back before then, which meant he had to go through this Academy's library.

He knew it couldn't contain the answers he was looking for, but if he could find any records of mysterious travelers or strange magic being used for any purpose by anyone, then that would be proof enough that there was a way. Sure, it didn't show how, but at least there was one. Better to have some hope then none at all.

But first, he had to send these filthy clothes to the scullery. He could have just left them on the ground somewhere and let his pink haired summoner deal with it, but he was not that petty. He had his pride as Brittania's Silver Slasher, after all.

Chapter Two, End.

A/N: Chapter two ends with that. As usual, feel free to review if you wish to point out any flaws or mistakes. Also, to clarify some things; no, Saito can't use magic. He was reading the book on advanced spells and casting for another reason.

Until next time folks!

Next time:

Beneath the illumination of two moons, a man's watchful gaze sweeps the sleeping school. In the darkness he contemplates and plans, all while keeping an eye on a particular blue haired mage and the winged beast she rides.