Chapter 3.
Negi stepped protectively in front of Yue and held out his hand. "Mea Virga!"
Magically the staff appeared at it's master's command. Negi had been becoming more powerful and Yue felt safe even with a powerful mage staring them down as long as Negi was between them.
"Where are Konoka-san and Nodoka-san?" Negi demanded.
"The two other girls you mean? Well they're much safer than you are right now I assure you." Demetrius said with a malicious grin. "My, but it seems they're teaching mages younger and younger these days. Such a handsome young little hero. Why, you remind me of a very young Diognis."
"Are you really Demetrius Phalereus?" Yue blurted.
"The only one I know of." The elderly mage said spreading his arms and giving a mock bow. "I really must thank you and your boyfriend. If you hadn't brought me here I'd have never gotten free."
"He's not my boyfriend!" The short philosopher retorted automatically with her face red.
"Oh? How odd. Seeing the two of you kissing like that one would naturally assume you were lovers. After he killed that other girl for you after all." Demetrius sneered.
Yue felt her stomach sink into her shoes. "Sensei?"
"Don't listen to him Yue, he's trying to confuse you." Negi growled. The boy mage tightened his grip on the staff and looked like a wound spring ready to strike in the blink of an eye.
"Oh, nothing of the sort. I have always been a staunch proponent of clarity of thought and purpose. When you nearly bashed that girls brains in with a club when she tried to create that dragon to kill your love I thought 'Now THIS boy must love that girl very much to be willing to kill for her'." The old mage continued to leer. "Then strangling her in order to break free of the prison I'd placed you in, what resolve."
Negi was grinding his teeth in frustration and looked ready to murder the old man. Yue looked at Negi's back. She remembered the old man using Haruna's pactio to make the clone to send out after Negi. The only way Negi could have gotten free would have meant... "It's okay Negi-sensei. It isn't going to work Demetrius. I trust Negi-sensei with my life. He would never harm one of us."
The old man grunted. "Not working? Oh well, the tactic was more for amusement anyway. Now where were we? Oh yes, you were about to come charging forward in rage for the pain I had made you endure in killing the image of your own partner. How quaint."
Negi did charge before Yue could grab him. Logic would dictate retreating to learn more about the enemy rather than charging in headlong, but Demetrius' goading had worked better on Negi than she liked to admit. Yue quickly flipped open her book. She was going to have to read quickly.
"The Book of Phalerum." Yue commanded the magical encyclopedia. Immediately, a short section of text appeared scrolling across the pages detailing the history of the book.
The Book of Phalerum: A magical tome so named for the arch-mage Demetrius Phalereus imprisoned within its pages. The book was created in 284 B.C. to imprison the arch-mage Demetrius Phalereus for his role in the destruction of the ancient island of Atlantis. The book is currently under the protection of Magus in training Negi Springfield.
Well sort of... Yue thought bitterly as explosions were heard a few sections over. Yue placed her forehead to her book and sent her thoughts to Negi. Sensei, this is apparently the same guy. It doesn't have anything specific on the book though.
Okay, I'm going to try to get him talking. See what you can find on Demetrius himself. This isn't going well. Negi replied back hurriedly.
"Why are you doing this?!" Negi demanded in the distance. Yue ran towards where the fight was raging to hear the conversation.
"What, toying with you? It's the most fun I've had in centuries boy." Demetrius chuckled as a hail of watery bolts chased Negi around, striking and freezing on impact. "You realize there's no way you can possibly beat me."
"Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before." Negi sneered. "And from more impressive opponents to boot I might add. You don't look that special."
"Oh really?" The old man replied with a raised eyebrow. Demetrius raised his arms as his body began to swell. Age seemed to fall away from him like a discarded garment as muscles rippled to life beneath his weathered skin, his short beard growing darker until is was as black as pitch. The man seemed to expand, growing nearly a foot taller and his voice booming until it echoed off the walls. "Does THIS then meet more closely to your expectations little one? Within this library my power is absolute. I have contemplated magic beyond your understanding for millennia. I ruled over the ancient world like a king! My power left a legacy for generations of mages to follow after. Your pathetic little magic world was made using MY knowledge. I was the first."
Negi launched himself forward, changing into his lightning form to drill into Demetrius only to be stopped short as the now massive wizard caught his fist in his palm. "You have no idea, the power you are facing."
The blow was horrendous. One moment Negi was standing there with his magic coursing through him and the next he was sailing backwards through bookshelves, walls and anything else that got in his way.
Yue raced to where Negi had fallen finding him beneath a crater in a solid concrete wall. As the girl helped him to stand, Demetrius strolled towards them nonchalantly. "I told you, give up. I control all power while within this library. All reality bends to my will here."
"How?" Negi spat grasping his ribs as Yue helped support him.
"I was the first mage to understand the nature of existence. All things exist." Demetrius said proudly.
"Congratulations, how long did it take you to figure that one out." The young mage replied sarcastically.
"Ah sarcasm, I've missed it so." Demetrius said waving a hand in Negi's direction that knocked him and Yue off their feet.
"Perhaps a demonstration is in order." Demetrius said looking around. He quickly picked up a book and thumbed through it's pages. Then in an instant, with a flash of light there was a ninja standing between him and the two young magi.
"Recognize him? It says here he's a popular character in one of your 'television' shows." Demetrius read aloud as the ninja began to advance on the two of them.
"Nice illusion." Negi spat as he jumped up and attacked. The ninja began to spar with Negi as Demetrius looked on in amusement.
"You still don't get it do you boy. This is no illusion." Demetrius lectured as Negi drove his fist into the gut of the ninja. Blood spurt from the mouth of the fighter as he fell to the ground. "You see the power of the human mind is infinite. Everything that has ever been imagined exists somewhere in the universe. I was the first to realize this and I built the great library of Alexandria to help unlock that power. All the human thought gathered in one place in the writings of all those men. It was there I was first able to reach out into the cosmos and learn to summon forth differing realities. A perfect society was within my grasp. Anything the mind could create, if it was imaginable."
"Nonsense." Negi spat again driving towards the mage. "There are always limits."
"Not to me." Demetrius said as their surroundings shifted. Negi and Yue found themselves standing out in a meadow. Demetrius snickered as he looked around. "Look at this place. It exists only the mind of the author that created it, but in so doing he actually created it somewhere in the universe. That is the power of this magical library. The strange geography is made real here by books on geography. This place was made using the power that I pioneered and now I am going to use it to be free again."
Negi launched himself at the mage again and Yue watched helplessly as the boy swung again and again only to miss repeatedly. "I won't give up!"
"Very well, the exercise will do me good." Demetrius reasoned with aplomb moving and weaving around Negi like he was doing calisthenics.
Yue opened her book and whispered the mage's name. Searching through the text she found the entry.
Demetrius Phalereus: Arch-mage, born 356 B.C., ruled Athens for ten years before fleeing to Thebes and then to Alexandria where he created the great library at Alexandria. He was the student of Aristotle and the apprentice of Theophrastus his successor. The most powerful mage of his day and is credited with magical research in the existence of alternate realities. See also references on...
Yue scanned desperately for some clue of how to get the mage back into the book, trying to find how the ancient mages could have imprisoned him in the first place. From what she had seen of his power it was difficult to believe ANYONE could overpower the mage.
As Yue searched their surroundings shifted once again, pulling them back into the library. Demetrius was laughing as Negi attempted to use nearly every trick he knew to destroy the man.
Think, Yue, think! The young philosopher chided herself. You are a librarian and philosopher too!
Alright let's consider this rationally. Demetrius is a philosopher, mage, and the greatest librarian in the history of mankind. How could he have been trapped in that book?
One. He was forced into it. Unlikely since he was the most powerful mage of his day with magical understanding far beyond his time. It would have taken so many mages that the resulting battle would have been recorded elsewhere in the history.
Two. He was tricked. Slightly more likely, but still, due to his understanding of the manipulation of reality it would make putting one over on him extremely difficult much less being able to contain...
Yue gasped at the only other possibility. There was one possible answer but it seemed so outlandish as to be absurd. The young librarian turned in her book to the section on Aristotle and started reading. There in the words she found what she was looking for.
The young mage apprentice jumped up and raced toward Negi and the battling Demetrius. Things weren't going very well for the boy mage and it looked like Demetrius had bloodied him up pretty badly as Negi flopped through the air to land in a tangled heap in the center of the bridge overlooking the Great Precipice. Yue ran to him hoping he was alright and got between him and the older mage.
"Stop. I will be your opponent Demetrius!" Yue shouted in challenge. She hoped she was right or else this was going to be a VERY short fight.
"Get out of the way little girl, I have business to finish with your master before I banish him into a book for all eternity. Maybe something by Ken Akamatsu perhaps." Demetrius said dismissively.
"I said that I was your opponent Demetrius, face me! I too am a philosopher." Yue repeated adamantly.
"Yue, run! You can't beat him!" Negi pleaded weakly behind her.
"He's right you know." Demetrius said smugly. "Nevertheless, how then little one do you intend to do battle with me?"
"With logic." Yue replied shortly.
Demetrius' laugh reverberated all around the library, bouncing off the walls and filling her ears. "Well then let's see what less than a score of years can teach a young girl that would escape a man of over two thousand years experience."
Yue gritted her teeth and went for broke. "You were right. We can't beat you."
Demetrius snorted and rolled his eyes at her. "You have a talent for stating the obvious."
"I'm not finished." Yue pressed. "I was looking for a way to exile you back into your book, but I couldn't find anything listed in my encyclopedia. There was no one of your day powerful enough to seal you away in a book like that, much less keep you there. That was when I began to understand. You were sealed because of the destruction of Atlantis. I then read the teachings of your master and his teacher Aristotle saying that only an educated judge could apply just decisions to any case of particular justice. And that's when I guessed it. You didn't mean to destroy Atlantis. Even after you had, there was no mage qualified to pass judgment on you, much less consign you to that book. So you did it yourself."
Yue stared at the old mage and put on her best straight face. "Master Demetrius, please return to your book."
"Why you little..." Demetrius roared.
"Enough Demetrius!" The headmaster interrupted. Demetrius whirled around to see the headmaster standing there with Evangeline, Haruna, Konoka, and Nodoka. "They've figured it out. You've lost."
Nodoka and Konoka raced to Negi's side as Yue continued to stare at Demetrius. She'd been grasping at straws, surely it wasn't going to be that easy. The mage returned to his old and withered state to look at her balefully. "The boy didn't figure it out, she did."
"It doesn't matter." Konoemon asserted. "His ministra may assist him in the test, those are the rules."
"It was... a test?" Negi sputtered incredulously.
"Yes." Yue agreed. "You had absolute power over all the books here. You could have sent me or Negi into space with a thought, but you didn't. You could have taken over control of my magic book as well, but you didn't. This was a test to see if we could figure it out."
"I did take control of your book. I left enough for you to figure out what you needed to know though." Demetrius confessed. "This was a test of logic. Any fool can become powerful by straining his body to the breaking point, but it takes a true mage to use their mind."
"What happened?" Yue asked simply.
"I lost." Demetrius muttered.
"You know what I mean."
Demetrius looked at her morosely and then pulled up a chair to sit. "It was all my fault. The power I unlocked at Alexandria was immense. I believed I was the most brilliant mage in the world. Master Aristotle was long dead, and Master Theophrastus tried to warn me but I would not listen. I was drunken on the power I had learned to command. I could summon anything from thought to my side. I could enter the realms that had only ever been spoken of in stories. I thought I could do anything, even create... Utopia."
The old man's eyes began to water as he recollected the ancient days of myth. "I used my power to create Atlantis. An island nation built out of my own mind. I conjured it in the ocean, and set out to build the perfect society."
"What happened?" Yue asked gently.
"There is a reason that the term 'Utopia' is translated into your language as 'nowhere'. Just as existence is created with conscious thought, the power to manipulate it and maintain it is also just as unstable as human thought." Demetrius lamented. "Forty seven thousand, nine hundred twenty seven souls. That's how many died that day. I was in Thebes visiting colleagues, my mind preoccupied with some new magical problem that had attracted my attention. I didn't know. I didn't know."
Yue calmly put a hand on the old man's shoulder as he cried. "I was there when they pulled the bodies of the children out of the sea. All those people, drowned in the middle of the ocean when their homes and land disappeared out from underneath them. Nobody knew. Nobody knew but me what my own arrogance had done. That's when I called the mages together. I had to confess my crime, and to seek atonement for what I had done. You were right, I exiled myself to the book. But when I heard of what had happened in the magic country, I knew I had to return. I had to tell you. I had to... teach you what could happen if you let your own hubris cloud your vision."
"We understand." Yue said calmly. Demetrius faded, his quiet cries growing lighter until he was gone and all that remained was a large familiar book where he once stood.
"Well done, all of you." The headmaster said solemnly as he accepted the book back from Yue. He then looked toward Negi who was looking ashamedly at Nodoka and Yue.
With a brief jerk of his head, the headmaster rounded up Haruna and Konoka and headed for the door with the book. "I'll speak with you later Negi-kun. Once you're free."
"That was amazing Yue." Nodoka said once they were alone. "You figured out how to defeat Demetrius!"
"I didn't really defeat anyone. It was just a test of our ability to think." Yue mumbled in embarrassment at the praise.
"No, Yue-san. It was a victory, and the only way we made it through was because you knew what to do. I was so bent on defeating him for what he did that I... I failed you. Both of you."
"Sensei..." The two girls whispered in unison looking at their shared crush.
Negi looked ready to cry. It was easy to forget he was only a young boy when he was fighting, teaching, and otherwise saving them and the rest of the world from harm. But underneath it all, under the power, and the wisdom beyond his years, still beat the heart of an innocent young boy. It was the thing that made their hearts both love and bleed for him when they saw him like this. Yue and Nodoka both instinctively drew near, knowing that he needed them both right now.
"Nodoka-san... I..." Negi began as tears began to form around his eyes.
Nodoka's soft touch covered his lips before he could continue. "It's okay sensei. It wasn't really me. I know you'd never hurt me."
"Master is always telling me that I try to think so much it keeps me from acting, and now I find I'm acting without thinking. Every time I think I've determined the right track, I find I've messed everything up again. I just wish I knew which path to follow." Negi cried into Nodoka's shoulder.
"Negi-sensei, you must follow both." Yue counseled her young teacher. "One of the teachings of Aristotle was that there exists what is called 'The Golden Mean' as the true path toward happiness and enlightenment. It's the middle ground between two different paths. He defines courage as the average between fear and confidence. Too much fear will lead to cowardice while too much confidence will lead to recklessness. In the same way, the correct path will often be an average of deliberation and action."
"The middle ground between two paths..." Nodoka whispered with a far away look in her eyes. Tears began to form in her eyes and before Yue knew what she was doing, Nodoka reached out to grab her arm and pull her into her embrace.
Yue balked for a moment as she was drawn into a group hug, until she felt Negi's arm encircle her waist. The three of them stood there, holding each other. Negi still seemed upset, though and it was clear that something was bothering him.
"I don't know what I'm going to do when graduation arrives." Negi confided as he bowed his head. "You say I'll never hurt you, but there's no way I'll be able to keep from it if I choose between you girls."
Nodoka bowed her head as well until it rested against Negi's forehead. From the corner of her eye she looked at Yue until she too bowed her head until the three of them all had their foreheads touching. "I have been doing a lot of thinking myself." Nodoka started. "And I've decided to confess something to the two of you. Before the summer started, I used my artifact to look into my own heart..."