Her familiar was just always so damn prim and proper. Not to mention a bit of a prude, judging by her reaction to the Contract Servant spell. Every order was met with a simple "yes, master" and followed without a hint of complaint. Even when she was forced into the humiliating position of serving meals, she kept the same placid expression on her face. Louise just didn't understand how a mage could do such things.
Louise herself had been in a state of near panic ever since she had seen her familiar perform magic on the night she was summoned, pulling a camp bed out of nowhere. She didn't know how her reputation in school could sink much lower, but she had a feeling she would find out if word ever got around that her familiar could perform more magic than she could. She could almost hear Kirche's voice trying out the nickname "Louise the sub-zero," or questioning whether it was really Louise who should be the familiar.
Every night, Louise had thrown herself into her studying with new fervor, desperate to surpass her familiar. She saw no results-perhaps one could say that twice the studying had led to twice the successes, but twice zero was still zero. Every night she wondered if it was the night when her familiar would finally insist on being treated as a mage ought to be. To find out instead that the girl was some kind of master thief had really caught her wrong-footed.
Right now Kirche was looking like she had been caught rather wrong-footed as well. The usually vivacious redhead was standing in the middle of the room where Louise had released her, still staring at Louise in shock.
"This isn't the kind of conversation we should be having in the hallway, Zerbst." Louise hissed. "Which reminds me-what were you doing eavesdropping on my private conversations?"
Faced with the familiar sight of Louise in a snit, Kirche regained some of her composure. "Well, I couldn't help being curious. You were shouting so loudly I could almost make out what you were saying in my room."
"That's no excuse for skulking about in the halls like a thief in the night!" Louise exclaimed, outraged.
Kirche chuckled. "I guess you would know all about that, ne?"
Louise's face reddened, but she could think of nothing to say. Kirche waved her hand magnanimously.
"But enough about that," she continued. "You say this man to be executed is known as Osmond the Blade?"
Louise nodded. She was surprised to see Kirche's eyes light up as the redhead clutched her hands together over her chest. "The Osmond the Blade, from the tale of Osmond the Blade and the Temple of Doom? And Osmond the Blade and the Vengeance of Rabeed? And the battle with Akim the Terrible?"
"I don't know about that," Sakura spoke up from behind the Germanian. "But he did call himself the greatest swordsman in the greatest company-"
"... in the second greatest division of the Germanian army!" Kirche finished together with Sakura, then wheeled back to face Louise. "Oh, to think that the hero from my childhood bedtime stories is in Tristania."
"And he's in peril!" Kirche continued, dramatically throwing the back of her hand against her forehead. "Louise, you must come foreward and prove his innocence."
"That would be difficult." Sakura said, interrupting again. "There's no evidence left behind. Besides, he really did resist arrest. I heard he broke the back of one of the members of the city guard."
"Then we have no choice!" Kirche declared, turning once more to face her rival. "Louise, we must save him!"
"Are you mad, Kirche?" Louise asked, flushing. "He's being held in Genoa prison. We'd never be able to get him away from there, it's too risky."
"Well then," Kirche said, leaning forward. "Maybe I'll have to tell the headmaster what you've been up to, hmm..."
"This is blackmail!" Louise sputtered angrily.
"Such an ugly word... but yes." Kirche said. "So what will it be, Zero?"
Louise was brought out of her anger by a sudden prickling feeling in the back of her mind. She was suddenly very aware of the fact that Sakura was standing behind Kirche, and that she could not see her familiar's left hand from where she was standing. Sakura had not moved, but her posture had shifted to the sort of ready stance Louise associated with her mother, Karin of the Heavy Wind, right before the beginning of a duel. Her familiar's eyes were locked on her own, eyebrow raised to ask an obvious question.
"All right, all right, calm down." Louise said, waving her hands placatingly while shaking her head. "I was always going to help, but I couldn't just say yes to such a crazy idea. Learn some subtlety, Zerbst."
"So it is decided!" Kirche declared, ignoring the rebuke. Flinging her hair back over her shoulder, Kirche marched over to the door, before turning back to address Louise and her familiar. "The Day of the Void is the day after tomorrow... we can meet after classes tomorrow to plan. Then, we act. It will be Osmond the Blade and the Ardent Sorceress!"
ooOoo
Sakura and Louise looked at each other without saying anything for a moment after Kirche's departure. It was Louise who broke the silence.
"Could you, do something..." She said, then trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the door.
Sakura nodded, catching her master's meaning. Walking over to the door, she bit her thumb, formed a few hand seals, and pressed her palm up against the doors. A short stream of seals appeared, crawling up the doorframe and over the adjacent wall, before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
"That's pretty low level, but we shouldn't have to worry about any more accidental eavesdroppers." Sakura said, smiling.
She was taken by surprise when Louise responded to this statement by clutching her head and sinking onto her bed with a groan. "Oh, why can't I have any good surprises today."
"Master, what's wrong?" Sakura asked, puzzled.
"What's wrong? You can do magic!" Louise responded.
"What does it matter what techniques I can perform?" Sakura asked, worried that she may have demonstrated knowledge of some forbidden secret.
"To have a noble as a familiar... it will be a scandal! I could be expelled." Louise explained.
"Oh." Sakura said. "But Master, I'm not a noble."
"Really? What are you then?" Louise asked sarcastically.
"I'm a chuunin of Konohagakure." Sakura said, as she had on the night she arrived in this world. Seeing that Louise was waiting for further explanation, she continued. "My primary focus is on medical techniques, although I have also been trained in earth elemental techniques."
"Hmm..." Louise replied, still unconvinced. "Can you show me an earth technique?"
"I suppose." Sakura replied. Frowning for a moment, she focused on the castle around her. All of the nearby stone had been hardened against manipulation, so she turned her attention within. After a moment of concentration, she was able to convert some of her chakra into a ball of earth in her hand. This was an intermediate level control exercise-Sakura would never have the reserves to throw around mud dragons or giant mud walls like some ninja, but her impeccable control had allowed her to progress on her elemental training despite an already demanding schedule of medical training.
Once the ball of dirt was in her hand, she turned her attention to the shaping exercise. This was a little trickier, but she soon had a reasonable likeness of Louise's face formed out of earth. Finally, she focused on hardening the dirt. Once it had taken a stone-like texture, she tossed the little statue over to her master. Louise caught it and studied it carefully before placing it on her desk with a sigh.
"Those other things you did, maybe they were just tricks or something. But that was definitely an earth spell." Louise said. "You must have been a noble, unless... you weren't some kind of criminal, were you?"
"No, definitely not!" Sakura replied forcefully. "Chuunin are more like soldiers. In Fire Country, nobles... usually can't really fight at all."
"Why do you keep arguing with me about this?" Louise asked. "Don't you want to be a noble?"
"I don't care about nobility! I want to go home!" Sakura explained. "It's not like I can walk there-back home, we only have one moon."
Both girls sat in silence for a moment, thinking, before Sakura continued, speaking more softly now. "Tell me, am I more likely to find my way home as a landless noble out roaming the countryside, or here, in the Academy, with you?"
"Hmph," Louise responded, throwing herself back on the bed. "Still, someone like you, the familiar of someone like me... it's a bad joke."
"What?" Sakura asked, offended.
"You know my nickname, right?" Louise asked.
"Yes. They call you Louise the Zero." Sakura replied.
"But do you know why they call me that?" Louise asked.
"Hmm... where I come from, you have to kill a lot of people before you get a nickname. Konoha's Yellow Flash, the Demon of the Mist, the God of Shinobi... those names were written in the blood of hundreds of enemies." Sakura mused. "I thought you had carved a similar path through your classmates. The zero refers to the survival rate of your opponents, maybe?"
Louise held a pillow over her face and groaned out loud, before sitting up to fix Sakura with a heated glare. "They call me that because the success rate of my spells is zero!"
Sakura blinked. "But I heard you sent one of the teachers in for medical treatment?"
"Yes, because my spell exploded!" Louise exclaimed.
"I thought you said all of your spells failed?" Sakura asked, puzzled. "Explosions can be very useful, you know."
"Not when you're trying to transmute a rock into metal!" Louise seemed perversely determined to demean her abilities. "I'm the number one student in the class in written tests, but when it comes to practical work I'm a complete failure as a mage!"
"Maa, maa, you must be good at something to survive this long, right?" Sakura asked, trying to cheer up her master. "One of my friends in Konoha had a condition that prevented him from projecting his chakra at all, but he just worked hard on his hand to hand fighting. Now he's one of the strongest ninja his age!"
"Hand-to-hand fighting? Do I look like a soldier to you?" Louise asked.
"No, but... they must teach you that sort of thing here..." Sakura said uncertainly.
"No, definitely not! This is the Tristain Academy for Magic, not some kind of boot camp." Louise replied.
Sakura's eyebrow twitched slightly as she processed this information. Suddenly the events of the past week took on an entirely different meaning, and "Operation: Kill Master and Run for the Hills" was a viable option once more. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself. She had actually been telling the truth to Louise earlier-all she wanted to do was get home, and she had no idea how to do it on her own. It seemed unlikely that she would find a better place for magical research than a school dedicated to magic.
However much of a zero Louise might be magically, she came from a rich and powerful family. Putting on her friendliest smile, Sakura couldn't help laughing a little to herself. Negotiating with Louise... it really would be like dealing with the nobles back home.
Louise had shrank back somewhat when Sakura unconsciously released some killing intent into the room, but was drawn forward by Sakura's smile.
"You know, Louise, I think we could help each other out." She said, cheerfully. "How about I help you improve that success rate of yours and you help me find a way back home?"
"You... you think you could do that?" Louise asked, hope shining in her eyes.
"Sure," Sakura said, shrugging. "How hard could it be?"
Louise slumped back. "Come to class with me tomorrow before you say that."
ooOoo
The next morning Sakura hung around Louise's room after helping her master get dressed. Louise seemed uncomfortable, fidgeting for a moment before gathering the courage to speak.
"You know," she said, "yesterday... I saw how you were looking at Kirche. In class today, I don't want there to be any violence."
"But Louise," Sakura replied, nonplussed, "part of my duty as your familiar is to help you destroy your enemies."
"Your job," Louise growled, "is to PROTECT me from my enemies!"
"The only difference is a matter of timing." Sakura replied, unphased.
"No! I will not have it!" Louise said, then sighed. "Look, I've been going to school for a year now and nobody has attacked me in class. If there's any kind of real confrontation, it's just going to take longer for me to get my magic working and for you to get home."
Sakura finally relented and nodded in agreement, and the two girls headed off to class together.
ooOoo
Louise had told Sakura that Kaita was an unpopular professor, and it only took a few minutes in his classroom to see why. He walked into the room with a sour look on his face, and seemed to feel horribly put upon to have to explain anything to his students. After taking roll, he began the class by asking Kirche what the most powerful element was.
"Isn't that the 'Void' element?" Kirche asked in reply.
"I'm not asking for something out of legends." Kaita said, disdainfully. "I want something realistic."
Kirche smiled and confidently answered "That has to be the fire element, Professor Kaita."
Sakura couldn't help but snort derisively at that answer.
Kirche turned towards her with fire in her eyes. "Do you have something to say to me, Zero-oh my goodness, there are two of you."
Indeed, with Sakura dressed in her nicest available civilian clothing, she did bear a striking resemblance to her master. The primary difference between the two of them, besides their eye color, was that Sakura did not have a cloak on. She had considered putting on her traveling cloak earlier, but it was a rather practical and weather beaten thing, not suited for wearing among the upper class.
"Zerbst, please pay attention to me when you're speaking in class." Kaita scolded her. "And Valliere, does your familiar have something to contribute to the class?"
A titter of laughter ran through the classroom, as though Kaita had suggested having an animal come up and continue his lecture. Sakura was hardly going to take that sort of thing lying down, so she began to speak, ignoring the elbow Louise had jammed into her side.
"Each element is weak against one other element, and strong against one other elements. The elements are in balance, as nature is in balance, and as we should be in balance. To walk the path of balance is our goal in this life." Sakura said, quoting the Sage of Six Paths. She then continued in her own words. "One mage might be stronger than another mage who uses a different element, but that's because of the strength of the mage, not the element."
"That's... absolutely correct." Kaita said, writing something down in his notes. The man may be a jerk, but he clearly knew quality material when it had been handed to him. "Zerbst, let's have a practical demonstration. Attack me with your best fire elemental attack."
Kirche started in surprise. "It won't be a simple scald, I'm warning you."
"No problem, give me your best shot. Don't tell me the flaming red hair of the Zerbst family is there just for looks?" Kaita taunted her.
Kirche's usual smile disappeared. She took on a much more serious demeanor as she drew her wand and aimed her other hand at her teacher. She waved her wand, and from her extended right hand appeared a small fireball. As Kirche chanted her spell, the fireball expanded, resulting in a huge flaming sphere three feet in diameter. Her wrist turned forward and she released the spell.
Kaita made no attempt to dodge the giant sphere of fire heading towards him. He raised his wand and made several sweeping motions in front of himself. A raging gale suddenly began and instantly scattered the huge fireball. It even knocked down Kirche, who was standing on the other side of the room.
Sakura was impressed. Kirche's attack hadn't really been anything special, but to neutralize a fire attack using wind despite the elemental disadvantage, that took skill.
"Everyone, you see why you should be careful when you are up against a wind mage. A strong enough wind can sweep up everything." Kaita announced, before pausing. "Yes, Valliere?"
"Professor," Louise asked, "could I try casting a spell?"
"Eheheh," Kaita chuckled nervously, "after last time, I don't think that's a good idea."
"But Professor," Louise insisted, "how can I improve if I don't try?"
"Fine." The professor yielded to her request. "But you shouldn't just jump into casting against a live target."
Kaita made a gesture with his wand, and a straw dummy burst out of a storage closet and floated down to take a place next to him in the front of the classroom. When the dummy was in place Kaita moved out of the way, ducking behind the solid oaken desk in the front of the room. The other students also scrambled under their desks in a panic. Soon, only Louise and Sakura were visible.
"Ok, here we go! I'm definitely getting the fireball right this time for sure." Louise announced, and began waving her wand.
Immediately Sakura could tell something was wrong. For the first time since she had entered this world, she was sensing somebody else's power from a distance. Nothing of the like had happened when Kirche created her fireball, so Louise must be doing something wrong. Not only that, but the power she was feeling felt unbalanced and... unclean. When Sasuke had tapped into the power of Orochimaru's cursed seal had felt similarly disturbing, but at least that evil had a human component to it. This feeling coming from Louise felt completely alien, and left Sakura wishing she could give her soul a bath somehow. Teaching her master how to harness something like this... Sakura sighed internally. Continually reevaluating her master's danger level was becoming troublesome.
Louise finished preparing the spell and thrust her hand forward, shouting the final incantation. Predictably, no fireball materialized. Instead, the power she had gathered spread out and advanced forward, before converging together in a small ball centered on the target dummy. Once the power had compressed to a critical point it exploded outward, scattering school supplies and flinging Louise back against the far wall. Only Sakura's quick reaction in ducking beneath her desk spared her a similar fate.
Kaita stood up from behind his desk, shaking his head. "Well, Ms. Valliere, it looks like the same results as last time... and I think it will be the same punishment as last time as well."
As the other students filed out of the classroom, Kaita waved his wand a final time. A mop and bucket floated out of the classroom and gently came to rest at Louise's feet.
ooOoo
Sakura and Louise were both thoroughly sick of cleaning by the time they returned to Louise's room. The dour instructor had supervised the entire detention, leaving them unable to speak freely about Louise's trouble with magic. The cleaning itself had left Louise exhausted. Although Sakura was as physically affected, she would be just as happy not to see a scrub brush for a long time.
"Well," Sakura said, turning to her master, "I can definitely tell that something is going wrong."
"No kidding!" Louise shot her a weak glare before collapsing onto the bed. "I think everyone in the school could tell that something went wrong."
"No, no," Sakura said. "I could feel something going wrong as soon as you started casting the spell. To fix it, we're going to have to start at the beginning."
Sakura put her finger up in a lecturing pose, and then caught herself. "Heh, I don't have my teaching material with me. Do you have something I can write on?"
Louise roused herself off the bed and pulled a blank sheet of parchment off of her desk. She wrapped in around her pen and threw them both in Sakura's direction. Sakura caught them easily and quickly sketched out a diagram of the chakra circulatory system.
"Chakra is a form of energy produced by all living things. It is composed of both physical and mental energy. Physical energy comes from every cell in your body, while mental energy comes from exercise and experience." Sakura began. "The two different types of energy are combined in your chakra coils and circulated throughout your body. In someone with the right genetics who goes through enough training, excess chakra can be used to perform useful ninjutsu, what you call spells."
"That doesn't sound right." Louise interrupted. "When we learned the basics of magic... hmm..."
The young mage stood and rummaged through the books stored on top of her desk, finally pulling out a slim volume that looked like it had been well used. Finding the page she was looking for, she began to read aloud.
"The true nature of magic remains a mystery. The Legendary Founder, Brimir, explained it to us as follows: 'When we combine the light of our souls with the music of nature, magic is created. If you sing the right tune, you can change the world.'" Louise said, then looked up at Sakura. "There's more in there about how different souls naturally call out to different elements, but nothing about this physical or spiritual energy."
"Hmm..." Sakura thought aloud. "Here, let me try something."
Walking over to stand next to Louise, Sakura cupped her hands together and began channeling chakra. When enough had built up to project a soft blue glow into the room, she looked up to address her master.
"Does that feel like magic to you?" Sakura asked.
"That doesn't make any sense! Magic doesn't feel like anything until it comes together in a spell." Louise responded, clearly upset. "That's like asking what the color blue tastes like."
Further discussion on the topic of magic was cut short by a knock on the door.
ooOoo
"Kirche the Ardent has arrived!" Kirche announced, sweeping into the room. "Now we can begin to plan our adventure!"
"Kirche the Ardent seems to have a tagalong." Louise said dryly, eyeing the blue haired girl trailing behind Kirche with her nose in a book. "If you keep pulling our classmates into this our mission won't stay secret for long."
"Bah, Tabitha goes where I go." Kirche said, waving off Louise's concerns. "Besides, her familiar should prove most useful. Imagine me, riding a dragon through the night sky, red hair blowing in the wind, cradled in the arms of Osmond the Blade. Then he..."
Kirche trailed off, blushing, as she lost herself in her imagination. After a moment Louise threw a pillow at the girl to snap her out of it.
"Enough, you can go have perverted daydreams on your own time, Zerbst." Louise scolded her. "This is serious! How are we going to break somebody out of Genoa prison?"
"Well, we..." Kirche began speaking, then trailed off in thought. "Ne, what do we know about Genoa prison?"
"Solid." Tabitha spoke for the first time. The blue haired girl had settled herself on Louise's bed without looking up from her book. Despite that, Sakura had a feeling that Tabitha was a lot more serious in her training than the other girls. Watching her keep track of everything that was going on in the room without looking up from her book was actually making Sakura feel a little nostalgic.
"Yes!" Louise exclaimed. "The prison will be solidified against earth techniques, so we won't be able to break in that way. Not that we would anyway, since... hmmm."
A silence fell over the group as it became clear that none of the mages had any idea how to put together a prison break on such short notice. Sighing, Sakura pulled out a pair of scrolls from her belt and unrolled them on the floor.
"Genoa prison consists of the two floors mapped out here. The internal walls, external walls, doors, bars, ceilings, and floors are all hardened against earth manipulation. Eight guards are on duty at all times. During the day the guard rotation is bumped up to twelve guards, but at night eight off duty guards sleep in the on site barracks. Two guards are assigned to patrol around the outside of the building, while the remainder remain inside.
"The main entrance is comprised of two sets of locked doors. The interior guards stay behind the second set of doors, which is never unlocked until the first set of doors is locked. The identity of all people coming into the prison is verified visually before the doors are opened. All guards must remove their helmets at that time.
"Two other guards are assigned to patrol the cells inside, while the remainder usually stay in the barracks area, which is located about one minute away from the cell block and one minute away from the entrance.
"Osmond the Blade is likely being held in the high security cells on the second floor. To get there you have to go in through the main entrance, proceed through the guard's break room, and up the internal staircase. The staircase contains another checkpoint where visitors are screened visually.
"To break out of this prison... is not an easy task."
Sakura finished her repot and sat back, satisfied. At that point she noticed the shock on the faces of Kirche and Louise, along with an evaluating glance being directed at her by Tabitha.
"What?" Sakura said, slightly defensive. "I haven't just been twiddling my thumbs when I go to town, you know."
Whenever ninja were sent on a long term infiltration missions, one of the highest priority pieces of information for them were the details of the local jail. It was only common sense to figure out that kind of thing in case you became a guest in such an establishment. Ideally, the information would be provided by the home village before the mission started, but that was not always possible. Gathering such information could be pretty hair raising, since the hidden villages were aware that it was a high priority.
In Tristania it hadn't taken much more than a few sob stories. Sakura, like most ninja, could cry on command, and most soldiers had a hard time resisting the urge to comfort a tearful girl afflicted by nightmares of escaped, revenge-crazed criminals. The individual guardsmen probably didn't realize how much information they were giving up. She hadn't needed to talk to many of them before she had gathered a pretty complete picture.
"Ok!" Kirche said, trying to regain her momentum. "This is some good information. With this, we should definitely be able to come up with a foolproof plan!"
Again a silence settled over the room. Sakura waited until it became clear that nobody else was going to speak before she sighed again.
"If I might make a suggestion..."
ooOoo
Sakura, Louise, and Kirche entered the main square of Tristania shortly before sundown. All three girls were dressed in rather drab traveling clothes and wore scarves to conceal their distinctive hair. Sakura was not thrilled with the modifications that the mages had made to her plan, but she hid her unease behind a professionally blank expression. She figured if worst came to worst it would be pretty easy for her to disappear in the pandemonium that was likely to break out tonight, but she was actually starting to feel a little attached to Louise. The girl wanted so badly to prove herself that she was taking a terrible risk, getting in over her head on a mission... it struck a chord with Sakura.
Louise herself was still bouncing with excitement after her very first dragon ride. "I have to admit, Tabitha's familiar is pretty cool. That was way faster than riding a horse out here-I see why you hang out with her, Zerbst."
"Hey," Kirche replied, stung. "That's not the only reason, you know. She's a good friend."
"Yeah, yeah." Louise said, settling down. "Nothing to do now but wait, I suppose."
The three girls wandered through the streets as the night gradually deepened. Sakura kept them away from what she had previously identified as the particularly bad parts of town-not that the three of them would be threatened by a group of thugs, but the fewer witnesses with reason to remember they were here, the better.
They drifted from inn to inn as the night darkened and the crowds thinned, appearing to any curious bystanders as if they were just headed to their lodgings for the night. Finally, once the streets were deserted and the city was lit only by the light of the moons, Sakura brought the group to a halt.
"This is it." She warned the two mages. "From now on, there's no backing out."
"I know." Louise spoke quietly, but firmly. "But this is something I have to do."
Kirche nodded her agreement, and the trio headed out towards the prison. The two mages stopped in an abandoned alleyway a block away while Sakura continued onward. Disabling the outer guards was simple enough, and she soon had them buried in the ground up to their necks under hedgerow. The two would wake up in the morning with headaches, but no permanent damage.
She soon returned to the alleyway with the guards' armor, tossing it to her companions. Louise and Kirche stripped down to their underwear and donned the stolen armor. Louise was finished quickly, while Kirche had more trouble.
"Hurry up, Zerbst." Louise whispered. "Maybe you should stop pigging out on those pastries of yours."
"That's not the problem," Kirche replied, struggling to pull on the upper body armor. "These things aren't made for somebody with a womanly figure. You might understand some day."
Louise shook her head, but said nothing further as Kirche finished equipping herself. Sakura approached the duo, who looked rather odd in their misfit armor.
"Even without having to transform your clothes, this technique is only going to last about half an hour." Sakura said, making a last ditch effort to change their minds. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"
Louise sent Kirche a significant look. The Germanian nodded and walked away from the pair, giving master and familiar a modicum of privacy. Due to the cramped confines of the alley, she actually wasn't standing much out of earshot at all.
"Sakura, I know you're the one who's more cut out for this," Louise said, speaking in a low tone of voice. "But when you talked about killing those guards... you said before you were a soldier. I think killing comes easily to you-or at least, it does now."
Louise shook her head sadly, then looked around the alley. After pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts, she continued.
"This whole thing started because of my neglect, I have to be the one to fix it." She said, speaking with conviction. "If a loyal Tristanian guard were to die because of a botched escape attempt, that would be my fault too. You could promise not to kill anybody, but if the situation is dire, I can't expect you to ignore all of your training on my say-so."
Sakura nodded, reluctantly. Her master had her pegged there. She was actually a little touched that Louise was working so hard to be considerate of her feelings.
"Besides," Louise suddenly smiled impishly, "if things do go wrong, I'll have you outside, watching my back."
Sakura started as she heard the subtle emphasis put on the word "my." Thinking over the conversation, she thought she recalled a similar emphasis on "loyal Tristanian." Her mind whirled, trying to figure out what Louise was trying to say. Everything fell into place as the girl directed a significant glance over at Kirche, and Sakura smiled at her master, honestly impressed. To put such a plan together on the fly and communicate it despite an inability to have a truly private meeting... it was more than she could expect from her teammates back in Konoha, frankly.
Of course, there was always the possibility that she was reading too much into things, and Louise genuinely wanted the prison break to go well. Still, a good idea was a good idea, and she would be able to push Louise into playing the right role without too much trouble if she had to. Sakura smiled conspiratorially at her master and gestured her closer.
"Louise," she said, digging into her pouch and removing a small ceramic sphere, "take this. If things get desperate, break it when you hear me yelling."
Louise nodded uncertainly and pocketed the sphere. As she turned to walk back towards Kirche, Sakura placed a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
"You know," Sakura said conversationally, "Shinobi Rule 22 says that a ninja has no friends, only temporary allies... but I always have a hard time following that rule."
"Sakura," Louise paused as she was briefly overcome with emotion, "Sakura, I think of you as a friend, too."
Smiling at each other, the pair made their way back over to their red-headed companion. Sakura handed the two mages the identity cards that went with their armor, and then formed a few hand seals as she stood in front of her master. Carefully molding her chakra, she released it with a whispered "Hito no Henge." There was a tiny puff of smoke, and in Louise's place stood the exact image of the guard whose stolen armor she was wearing. Kirche shook her head at the sight.
"You know, Zero, I still have a hard time believing your familiar can pull off such a high end water spell." She said, raising an eyebrow.
"I told you, it's not-" Sakura said, then caught herself. "You know what, I don't care. Believe what you want."
Sakura performed the technique on Kirche as well, and gave the pair one final warning before bidding them farewell.
"Remember, if anybody hits you, the transformation will disperse. If everything goes well, you have half an hour. Be careful, you two."
"We will." Louise responded. "Just stay out here, watch our backs, and don't hurt anybody."
"Don't worry master," Sakura said, smiling. "I'll be on my very best behavior."
ooOoo
Captain Luc Reno of the Night Watch was a busy man. Although he was proud of his position, he sometimes thought back fondly to the days when his nights had been filled with patrols through the city street and the occasional battle with criminals, instead of near-constant battles with paperwork. He hated to have his time wasted, but he would be lying if he said he was completely unhappy when his aide interrupted his work to lead a small pink haired girl into his office.
"What's this about, then?" Captain Reno asked.
"Sir!" The aide saluted. "This girl claims to be the familiar of Louise Francoise le Blanc de la Valliere."
"A human familiar?" The captain asked, looking the girl over. "Those kids over at the Academy just get stranger every year."
"I can prove it, sir." The girl spoke up. Her voice was trembling, but she made a visible effort to control herself and held a sparkling ring up into the light. "My master's ring."
Taking the ring in hand, Captain Reno examined it closely, confirming that it did indeed bear the crest of the Vallieres.
"You're with the Vallieres, all right." He said, then fell silent. After a moment had passed he cleared his throat. "Well, what's this about?"
"Oh," The girl jumped like a startled bird. "Oh, sir, it was so terrible, this woman threatened my master and she went along with it but she sent me to find you and I was so scared and I didn't know where to go and-"
"Enough!" Captain Reno interrupted her. "Get ahold of yourself, girl! What did Valliere send you here to do?"
"She sent me to tell you..." the girl said, pausing to gather her nerve, "that Kirche von Zerbst is here tonight to break Osmond the Blade out of Genoa Prison!"
ooOoo