Friends
After coming back from Albion, Louise and I met with the princess. We told her what happened, and gave her the letter. She seemed distraught when we told her Wales was dead, and I can understand. I took my best shot at comforting her, and it worked surprisingly well.
For our efforts, Louise was made a chevalier, and I was given a bag of gold coins. I was offered the title of Chevalier, but I refused. Apparently the title of chevalier was only given to those who had done great deeds in service of the nation, and I didn't believe I had done any great deeds. That and apparently only mages could be nobles and, at least by this world's definition, I was not a mage.
After the meeting Louise and I headed back to the academy where we were immediately surrounded by students who wanted to know what had happened. Apparently rumors had spread of us going to Albion on an important mission for the royal family, and everyone wanted to know the details.
"Sorry, we can't tell you. It was a secret mission," Louise told the crowd.
Looking slightly dejected they started walking off.
"Oh well, it's not like it was anything spectacular. What could Louise do for the royal family?" Said the girl I recognized as Montmorency.
I calmly walked up to her and grabbed her by the neck of her blouse.
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that. What did you say about Louise?"
"I-I s-s-said it must have been a job of the utmost importance if the princess entrusted Louise with it!" She says scared.
"Thank you, that's what I thought you said," I let go and walk with Louise back to her room.
"You know, it was just Montmorency, you didn't have to threaten her," Lousie tells me.
I sigh, "You're probably right. It was just a reflex."
"Shana never was good at handling things in a nonviolent manner," Alastor tells Louise.
"Shut up."
As we head back to Louise's room we turn the corner and I accidentally bump into one of the school maids, knocking over the tray she was carrying.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention," I tell the maid while picking up her tray and handing it to her. I always had a soft spot for maids. They reminded me of Wilhelmina.
"No, it was my fault," She says while bowing. Then she looks at me and Louise. "Ah! You're miss Valliere's familiar."
I nod.
"Is it true? I've heard some rumors that you're a mage," She asks in a voice that clearly sounds like she's not sure if she should be asking at all.
Maybe it was the somewhat shy personality, but this girl was starting to remind me of Kazumi. Why was it so easy to find people here who were so similar to those back home?
"Well, it's not magic, but I can do some feats that normal humans can't." Despite what the people here may think when I used my powers, it wasn't quite the same as what they use. As Louise explained to me when I asked some time ago, the mages here used their internal energy to alter the landscape. I simply channeled Alastor's energy into forms I could use.
The maid tilts her head to the side. "But if you can do things that the commoners can't then you're using magic, and if you're using magic you're a mage, right?"
"Its not magic. I simply channel my internal energy into whatever form is appropriate. If you have enough energy to spare, anyone could conceivably do it as well," I tell the maid. "I once knew a regular human, nothing magical about him. After some incidents, he increased his energy to a point where he could do the same feats I could," I realize what I just said and fall silent. Why did I just think of Yuji? He doesn't have anything to do with this conversation.
"What? Really?" asks Louise and the maid at the same time.
Shaking the thoughts of Yuji out of my head, I continue the conversation. "Yeah. I can't advise trying to trace his steps. The incidents I referred to involved more than one brush with death. And having that kind of power isn't something I can advise. He wanted more power to accomplish a goal of his, and it led to his death."
Louise and the maid just look at me and I can't tell if they're shocked because of what I just told them, or something else entirely.
"Sorry for just going off on a tangent like that," I turn to the maid. "I don't believe you ever told me you name."
The maid still looks shocked, but she shakes it off. "I-I'm Siesta. What's your name?"
"Shana. Call me Shana."
Siesta bows and gives me a smile. "Nice to meet you! Sorry, but I have to go get these dishes to the kitchen. See you again!" and with that, she walks past us and continues on her way.
I stand where I am for a minute, reminiscing about Yuji, when Louise turns to me.
"Shana, you were talking about Yuji weren't you?"
I nod. "Yes. He needed more power to see his goal to completion, and that's what led him to betray us."
"Do you know what he wanted to accomplish?"
"Well, it may not have been entirely his goal. He fused himself with a powerful being," Alastor begins.
"That god that you mentioned during the fight with Wardes?" Louise asks.
"Yes. My understanding is that the being, known as the Snake of the Festival, had a negative view of the world. He wanted to destroy the world and then rebuild it into what he viewed as a utopia, a place where Flame Haze and Guze no longer needed to fight."
Louise looks a little shocked. "A-and why did Yuji go along with this? Did he really think that destroying the world was a good idea?"
"He said he wanted to do it so that we could be together forever," I tell Louise, the sadness in my voice painfully obvious.
Louise looks at me stunned. I get that reaction from everyone I tell that too, even if I have only told a few people about it.
Without saying a word I start walking back to Louise's room. I pass through the courtyard and notice something sitting in the middle of the courtyard. I stand still and look at it.
"What's that doing here?" Alastor asks.
"I don't know, but someone has to."
"Shana? What's wrong?" Louise asks before noticing the airplane sitting in the middle of the courtyard.
"What is that? I've never seen anything like it before."
"It's an airplane. It's from my world. More specifically, I believe its called a zero fighter," I tell Louise.
I see Mr. Colbert talking with the headmaster. I run up to the two of them.
"Hey! Where did you find this?"
They look startled then turn to me.
"Ah, you're miss Valliere's familiar, right?" Mr. Colbert asks.
"I wouldn't say that's important right now. Where did you find this?" I ask them angrily. I don't even know why I'm angry. Maybe it has something to do with finding an artifact from Japan. The fact that its here could be potentially dangerous. If an airplane could be here, then there was a chance that a dangerous treasure tool could already be in someone's hands. This could be very bad.
Colbert takes a step back. "I-I found it in the town of Tardes. Why do you ask?"
I ignore him for a second and step up to the plane. I place my hand on it, and I notice a glow on my left hand. I see the runes that were put on my hand when the contract was formed are currently glowing. Suddenly information starts flooding my brain. This was definitely a zero fighter. It was in working condition but need gasoline. Several of the parts were also in less then perfect condition. How did I know all this?
I turn to Colbert and the headmaster. "This is a zero fighter. I asked where you got it because its not from this world. It's from mine."
Colbert gasps, and the Headmaster just looks a little shocked. "Wh-what? Another world?"
I nod. "Yes. This is a plane. In my world its used to fly. Before you ask, no it can't fly at the moment. It needs gasoline, though I suppose you wouldn't know what that is."
A smell I recognize reaches my nose, and I investigate where the planes fuel tank would be. I notice a liquid is dripping out of it.
"Anyone got an empty bottle of some kind?" I ask. Colbert hands me a flask and I use it to catch a solid amount of the gas leaking from the Zero Fighter.
I hand the vial to Colbert. "Here. If you can make more of this, than we can get the Zero Fighter to fly. If you're really curious about this thing, then I suggest you get working on it."
Colbert turns around and runs off. Headmaster turns around with the intent to walk away, but he's not getting off that easily.
"You stay right there. I have some questions for you."
"Shana, you can't just interrogate the faculty like that, especially not the headmaster!" Louise says.
"No, no. Its quite all right. I think I already know what that question is. You want to know about those runes on your hand, don't you... Shana, was it?" The headmaster says.
I nod. "As soon as I touched the zero fighter the runes lit up and I instantly knew everything there was to know about it. I may not know what powers a familiar gets when they form the contract, but I know that this definitely isn't something that happens often."
The headmaster nods. "Indeed. Those runes of yours are special. They are the Gandalfar runes."
"Gandalfar?" Asks Louise. "Wasn't that one of Founder Brimr's familiar? Are you saying Shana is Brimr's familiar?"
"Shhh," Says the headmaster. "Not so loud, we're trying to keep this a secret. Anyway, no. She's not the Founder's familiar. She simply has the same capabilities as the previous Gandalfar."
"Those capabilities being?" I ask while raising an eyebrow.
"If the legends are to be believed, then Gandalfar could use any weapon with ease. When he picked up a weapon, the runes would glow and he knew just how to use the weapon. That's why you knew about the zero fighter just by touching it. Anyway, like I said, this is secret information. Try not to tell anyone." Then he turns around and walks away.
*Scene Break*
About two weeks passed since Louise and I became familiar with the Gandalfar runes. Louise took the news pretty well. She only freaked out about having the most powerful familiar in existence for the first day or two. I spent a good part of those two weeks testing to see the extent of the Gandalfar powers.
It turns out, they were pretty potent. I never noticed, but now when I held a weapon, my base speed increased several fold. Also, the headmaster wasn't kidding when he I should be able to use any weapon with ease. Nietono no Shana wasn't a good example, considering I had been using it for years so I already knew a lot about it, but Blutsager and the zero fighter confirmed it. I even borrowed a few knives from the kitchen to check if they were considered weapons. Apparently they were, and I knew just the right way to use them.
The weeks went on and nothing else happened. I noticed for the first time that almost all of the student body tried to avoid me as much as possible whenever I was walking around the academy. Why could that be? I haven't tried to kill anyone yet, so I didn't really see a reason they should be afraid. The only students that actually seemed intent on seeking me out were the ones that went with us to Albion. Those four being Kirche, Tabitha, and Guiche and Montmorency. These four were the only ones who didn't seem to be terrified of me, a fact that greatly pleases me. I hate it when people seem terrified and I never even threatened them.
I wasn't too fond of Kirche, I found her constant blabberings likening herself to a passionate fire to be almost a little blasphemous all things considered, but I liked Tabitha. She was quiet and only talked on an as needed basis. I found it all rather comforting that there was someone in this world other than Louise who I could have a nice, albeit one-sided, conversation with. Guiche still seamed a frightened of me, but as far as I could tell he was only trying to get Montmorency to love him, so I had no reason to try and kill him.
Speaking of whom, Montmorency wasn't that bad either. She seemed almost like a regular girl from back home. I could easily see her being friends with some of the people back in Misaki City. Still, there was someone I wanted to talk to.
"Hey, Louise, do you know where Siesta lives?" I don't know why, but I felt really comfortable when I was talking to her. Maybe it was the feeling of familiarity.
Louise didn't even bat an eye at my rather abrupt question and started pondering. "Um... I think heard one of the chefs say she went home to Tardes."
"Isn't that where they found the Zero Fighter?" Alastor asks.
She nods. "Yeah. Do you want to go visit her?"
Before I can respond someone knocks on the door.
"Its open," I tell them.
Mr. Colbert walks in. "Louise, the Headmaster requests your presence. He says it's urgent."
Louise and I get up and head towards the Headmaster's office.
*Scene Break*
"Well, at least now you have an excuse for ditching classes and heading for Tardes," Alastor tells Louise.
"Right, I'm sure all the teachers will except 'It was for inspiration for the edict!' as a valid excuse," says Louise.
We were currently on our way to Tardes to visit Siesta. The headmaster had given Louise the founder's prayer book, and told her that she was picked to write the edict for the princess' wedding. We used that as an excuse to leave the academy and head for Tardes. We had ridden on horseback for about 3 hours and were now walking towards the village on foot, since we were almost there. It wasn't much longer that we saw a village. We approached it and saw Siesta almost immediately.
"Miss Valliere! Shana!" Cries Siesta as soon as she sees us. "I got a letter saying you were coming to visit!"
"Yeah. Louise has to write an edict for the princess' wedding, so we decided to travel around for inspiration. I suggested we stop by here for a bit. We thought maybe you could help us out," I tell her.
Siesta smiles, "I'd love to help! Though I'm not very good with poetic things, I can do my best!" I really did like talking with Siesta. She was just such an easy person to talk to.
However, the conversation never quite went anywhere. Right after Siesta said that, an explosion went off somewhere in the village.
*Louise POV*
"What was that?" I ask, scared. Were we being invaded? Apparently it was the day of the harvest or something, because no one was in the village. Good, if we were being invaded then it's good that no one was here.
"I'm going to go investigate," Shana says while calmly walking towards where the explosion had gone off.
"Hey! Is anyone there?" I faintly hear someone shout out from the direction Shana was walking towards.
Shana freezes in place.
"Shana? What's wrong?" She looks somewhere between terrified and sad.
"It can't be," she says almost to herself.
Without even bothering to answer my question, she starts doing her super jumps to cover ground more quickly. I don't know why she's acting the way she is, or what caused the explosion but there's something about the whole situation. I have a feeling that things aren't going to be pretty. Unsure of what to do, I run after Shana, leaving Siesta behind to wonder just what was happening.
*Elsewhere*
"I'll admit, I feel a little sorry for the guy," A whitish-blonde haired girl with mismatched eyes said to herself. "First the summoning, then the other summoning, now this. Well, sorry, but it's kind of something I had to do. I'm sure none of you will mind. Heck, if you knew me, you'd probably thank me later. As it stands, I'm currently just the girl talking to herself and pulling the strings from behind the curtain."
From the midst of the explosion, a giant smoke cloud was formed. As the dust cloud formed, the girl saw the figure of a man wearing a familiar jacket stand up. Then a girl with burning red hair, wearing a black coat jumped up from behind a building, landed in front of the man and pointed a nodachi at his throat.
The girl with the mismatched eyes laughed to herself. "And a beautiful first impression! This'll be fun."
