Tsukaima no Chrono

Chapter 3: First kiss!

A cloud of dust, similar in appearance to the aftermath of an artillery barrage begins to fade revealing a silhouette of two figures one crouching over the other.

On closer inspection, we see two blond haired blue eyed youngsters, the male speaking to the female with a great deal of concern. "Are you alright, Montmorency?"

Seeing the girl Montmorency staring at something in bewilderment he asks "What's the matter." The girl lifts her hand and points somewhere in response.

Turning his head to look in the same direction he focuses on two figures, very ordinary in our perspective other than the hair colours and the girl blurts out "A human?"

Now most ordinary people would wonder why a human would be startled at seeing another human, but let us remember that this is the scene where just moments prior to an explosion, wondrous and magical creatures were summoned in an event for young mages to gain their eternal partner, think a witches black cat, better known as a familiar. Gaining a better view of the human the blond kids are referring to, it is a sleeping Chrono Harlown, dressed in nondescript clothes, consisting of a blue shirt, blue trousers, belt and black boots. TSABs off duty uniform.(1) In front of which stands our main heroine Louise who is dressed in the uniform of the Tristain Magic Academy.

"No matter how you look at it he's just a commoner. Yes, just a commoner" the blond boy narrates.

"This… this… is my holy, beautiful and above most, powerful…" Louise stutters out in a manner that seems both disappointed and agitated at the same time, you'd think she is about to cry. It is about this time that Chrono stirs and opens his blue eyes and sees Louise in all her pink haired pink eyed glory.

"Who are you?" is the question posed by Louise "It seems there is a language barrier. Where are you from, commoner?"

Chrono was unable to comprehend what Louise was asking, after all at this current point in time, it made as much sense as the French language from Nanoha's backwater planet Earth did without his translation matrix, he draws upon his training and gathers as much information about his current status as possible before moving.

Looks like my translation matrix isn't working, must have been damaged along with my storage devices S2U and Durandal when their auto protect features activated to defend me from that explosion, I seriously hope this place has at least Earth's level of technology or it's going to take a long time before they regain functionality. 60 and 40 percent respectively it seems from my mind link, at least their auto repair abilities are working. I think I'm out of luck, no sign of electrically powered machinery anywhere. Trying to feel the status of his magic his thoughts continue. Magical and dimensional teleport operate in two ways, magical works by creating a bubble between the two points that ignores physical laws transporting you from one end to another and dimensional, by aligning your magic field to the environment you are intending to travel to which then via your concentration of magic like a magnet, snaps you to that point. I have never heard of anyone ever high jacking an object out of either methods of teleportation but it must be why my magic hasn't returned yet, the greater the distance the longer it takes for your field to readjust itself.

This lengthy internal analysis merely took a few seconds to the crowd gathered around him who only saw him look left then right in complete confusion.

What sounded like suppressed laughter came from out of his field of vision as its fiery redhead owner, Kirche Zerbst, strolled towards Louise.

"Well at least it met your big declaration! Summoning forth a commoner." Kirche taunts, then begins to laugh out loud with the rest of those gathered.

"I just made a small mistake!" Louise desperately tries to defend herself.

A round fellow standing behind her replies jovially "It's just like you Louise the Zero. You always surpass our expectations!" garnering more laughter at the unhappy Louise.

Looking around Chrono continues his internal analysis. All of these magical creature gathered in one place, perhaps this is one of those archaic familiar summoning events that I've read in our history books, maybe I've really travelled back in time instead, my inter-dimensional chronograph says otherwise though…

Studying the girl in front of him he notices how close their positions are and that she is lacking a strange creature that should be her summon. From the laughter directed at this person, she looks like the class clown or loser, kinda cute to be one though, so why was she the one to speak to me? No way… I couldn't have been summoned by her right?

"Shut up!" Louise screams at the laughing crowd.

Stalking her way towards the tall, bald Professor Colbert she gains his attention "Professor Colbert!"

Colbert stoically replies "What is it?"

Begging, Louise requests "Please allow me to summon once more!"

Colbert shakes his head in a denying manner. "I cannot allow that."

"Why!" Louise continues to beg.

"This ceremony is a holy ritual that decides the respect of a mages life, asking to redo it is a disgrace to the entire ritual. Whether you approve of it or not, it is decided that he is to be your familiar."(2) Colbert replies sternly.

I wonder how far space-time wise I am from Mid-childa. If this girl was the one that caused an explosion powerful enough to damage my devices to this extent, it might actually be possible that she summoned me. A world this primitive definitely is a non-administered planet and being that this looks to be a summoning event means that this race is magically aware so I should follow the prime directive and hide both obviously advanced technology and magic as not to influence this worlds development. Chrono's internal debate continues unabated and uninfluenced by the ruckus surrounding him.

"But I have never heard of using a commoner as a familiar before!" Louise spitefully states, only to cause another round of laughter amongst the crowd.

Colbert replies exasperatedly. "Whether he's a commoner or anything else, I accept no exceptions."

In a commanding tone he then tells her. "Continue with the ritual."

Louise pokes Chrono with her wand waking him up from his thoughts and exclaims unbelievingly "Eh! With this?" proceeding to poke Chrono several more times causing his eyebrow to twitch, but he was trained to have patience.

"Hurry this up! Or do I have to really expel you?" Colbert threatens.

The crowd joins in with a cheer "Yeah, Yeah!"

Crestfallen Louise responds with a defeated "I understand…"

Sensing a disturbance in the force… cough… Chrono looks up to see Louise moving closer to him.

The crowd cheers "Go Louise!" followed by a series of wolf whistles.

Looking down at Chrono with a slight blush on her face, Louise pridefully says "Be grateful. Getting this from a noble generally never happens in ones lifetime!"

Louise the raises her wand and begins to chant. Recognising it for what it is, Chronos mind begins to race. No! This is not good! That's a forced contracting spell for familiars, who knows what will happen if I get hit by that.

Chrono desperately searches for someway to escape. Can't fly, surrounded, no magic to defend myself with, I'll most likely be killed with this number of opponents if I strike, not that I can really strike a girl that isn't trying to hurt me in the first place. I sense no ill will from this one.

"My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière." Continuing to chant while she points her wand at Chrono, she then kneels down beside him. "To the pentagon that holds the five powers, bless this one and yield this as my familiar…" grabbing Chrono's head, who unable to move due to his panic, she slowly bends towards him, giving him a mouth to mouth kiss.

Knocked out of his stupor by the sensation of soft lips against his, a reaction usually belonging to young girls runs through his mind. My first kiss!

-Author's Notes-

Hello yet again! Hope you enjoyed chapter 3 of TnC! I looked at my traffic stats today for the first time and I'm surprised I had visitors to my story already, especially Australians. Both Nanoha and Zero no Tsukaima while having a following in Japan were to my knowledge only recently licenced in America and not at all in Australia so I was thinking it might not have been read at all. Which brings me to my second point, I am looking for a beta reader to improve my writing, Being an accounting graduate and working as a financial controller, I have always had high marks for writing essays and reports, but this is a rather rare attempt at dialogue for me so I do not have much confidence in it. If you're interested in beta reading for me, send me a message via my ffnet profile, I'll get back to you ASAP.

As for the numbers in parenthesis, these are points that I thought I should make but would interrupt the flow of the story.

(1) I refer to Chrono's appearance in episode 3 of Nanoha A's where he visits Admiral graham with Nanoha and Fate.

(2) The sentence sounds wrong, but the Japanese words meiji means respect/honour.

Sorry for the long authors note. Look forward to the next chapter of TnC. I'll be following ZnT the anime's path very closely so expect the fabulous bedroom scene.