Sadly, I own neither Naruto nor Negima, in any of their variations.

I'm not Bach either, but I'll use his song for the chapter. Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

NOTICE: You may wish to re-read the story; not only has it been a year since my last update (I'm so sorry!), but I also went back and re-did parts of it. Not a lot of big changes, but I made it flow better. For instance, the conversation between Naruto and Takahata is much better, as are a few other parts.

There was one major revision, though—the language-learning issue is approached differently, and better sets the stage for the future of the story (and hints at a bit of the history, too). Also, I managed to get the Greek letters to show up for the potion name, finally.

Enjoy!


Chapter 7:

Toccata & Fugue

Naruto shrugged uncomfortably in his restraints. It wasn't the first time he'd been caught by someone, but it was certainly the first where he was bound by a layer of ice. It wasn't as bad as it could be, but the ice coating his arms and torso was more than enough to make him shudder from the chill.

His captor noticed his movement. "Are you uncomfortable, Naruto-sensei?" A girl who Naruto thought might be named Chacha… something-or-other asked. Naruto would have called her voice emotionless, but there were undercurrents to the sound, just barely present, that prevented him from doing so. She reached around from her position behind his chair to press her fingers against his forehead.

Naruto tried to pull away from his student's touch, but being frozen to a chair put a limit on how much he could move. His breath caught and a quiver ran down his spine as she touched his head. Her fingers were precisely of room temperature (shouldn't they be warmer?), but Naruto couldn't help but think of them as brands against his skin.

"Get away from him!"

"Don't touch it!"

A deep and dark chuckle, like the sound of falling mountains, before tendrils of black and red flowed across Naruto's body, raising blisters and cracking his skin where they touched him.

He shuddered at the foreign touch and the memories it brought, but Chacha-something pulled away soon enough. "Elevated heart rate, quickened and shallow breaths. Temperature higher than the human norm, despite the restraints." She walked in front of him and peered into his eyes. "No pupil dilation." She looked at him, her face unchanged, but Naruto had the impression that she would have been frowning. "Are you ill, Naruto-sensei?"

He wouldn't call himself an expert, but this wasn't exactly how hostage situations typically turned out. Naruto was pretty certain that after being captured, his captor wasn't supposed to look so concerned over his well-being. Although he didn't entirely understand why he thought she looked worried, with her face being so unemotional. "No, I'm fine. The ice was just cold, that's all."

His strangely polite captor didn't look like she believed him, and leaned closer to him again. Naruto flinched away in anticipation of her fingers again—but she didn't touch him. She nodded slowly, her eyes widening ever so slightly. "I see. You dislike physical contact."

"I think anyone would have a problem with touching from the person who attacked them from behind," Naruto shot back. Not that he really had a problem with ambush tactics, but it was the principle of the matter.

His jailer was dressed in an odd dress, entirely black and white with frills covering many of the edges. It was… pretty, he supposed, even if it wasn't something Naruto had ever seen before. Light green hair fell down her shoulders, but it was her ears that truly caught Naruto's attention, unusual as they were. They might not have been ears at all—they were large, angular, and smooth, with a metallic appearance, nearly a foot long. Naruto had thought that they were just something that people in this world had, but if she had ambushed him they might not have been normal.

The strangely-dressed girl folded her hands together and bowed. "Please forgive me, Naruto-sensei, but my mistress wished to speak to you, and felt that it would be appropriate to be cautious." She straightened and pulled the broken remains of a glass vial from a pocket in her clothing, shards of ice clinging to the pieces of glass. "She was the one who created the potion that currently binds you."

She bowed again, a smooth and obviously well-practiced motion. "Please, forgive me again, for I have not introduced myself properly, classroom aside. I am Karakuri Chachamaru, prime model of the Karakuri gynoid line. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Please take care of me."

Naruto had no idea what "prime model" and "gynoid" meant, but wasn't it rather out of place for the captor to ask the captive to take care of them? It was still nice of her, if more than a little strange.

He thought he should be angrier at her, but it was hard to keep hold of his anger when Chachamaru was being so polite and apologetic. She really didn't seem to be a bad sort at all, despite have hit him in the head. But who was this mistress she spoke of?

"You couldn't have just asked me to come here?"

'Here' was one of the oddest rooms Naruto had ever been in. Not because of the shape or materials—it was a perfectly ordinary, although well-furnished, wooden house—but because of what covered nearly every flat surface in the building. Toys—dozens of dolls, shaped like people and creatures Naruto had never seen before, each of them seeming to peer at him with their fake eyes. Stuffed animals, with beady eyes of glass or buttons, stared down towards him, and Naruto had the uncomfortable feeling that if he moved, the toys would turn their heads to follow him. They sat on the chairs, on the tables, and peered at him from shelves lining the walls.

It was distinctly disturbing.

Chachamaru drew his attention back to her as she shook her head. "I'm afraid that Mistress would view such a request as a sign of weakness. My apologies, Naruto-sensei, for attacking you."

'Why is it so hard to be angry at this girl? Stop apologizing so I can be mad at you!'

"Just forget it!" Naruto found himself saying, one of his brighter smiles sliding onto his face. "What already happened, already happened, and we can't do anything about that."

Naruto's grins must have started working properly again, because Chachamaru looked (almost) relieved when he finished talking—even if he hadn't meant to say it. He tried to say something hurtful, but the words just didn't come out. It was just too hard to stay mad at her.

Ah, well. It wasn't like this was a completely strange idea, anyways—even under the Sandaime Hokage, shinobi that needed to give sensitive reports were occasionally brought to the Torture and Interrogation Unit. They weren't tortured, obviously, but all interrogations—friendly and hostile—took place there unless they fell under police jurisdiction. It was the information center of Konohagakure, and no-one was permitted to know its actual location outside of Anbu, so most people brought there were unconscious or blindfolded.

He himself had been taken in once, to document his innocence after Kumo tried to kidnap a Hyūga, even if he had been so young he hardly remembered it. So it wasn't as though a so-far-harmless confinement like this was necessarily a bad thing. Just annoying and decidedly inconveniencing. And cold. Very cold.

Although he'd be damned if he didn't get a good explanation for why his student did this.

"Are you looking forwards to the field trip, Naruto-sensei?"

Naruto gave Chachamaru a disbelieving glance. Was she seriously trying to strike up a conversation about school while he was trapped in an icicle?

Yes. Yes she was—there was nothing in her face, even as motionless as it was, to suggest that she was trying to be funny. Naruto thought it was a wildly inappropriate conversation topic, all things considered.

But he had nothing else to do. "Yeah," Naruto admitted, "I am. I've never been on one before." Not that the Academy hadn't offered them, but it was amazing how the timing for his detentions seemed to line up.

Wait. He shouldn't be sounding like the kid in this situation! He needed to sound like a teacher. "I think it will be a great time for the students to bond together..." He trailed off, unable to complete the sentence as he listened to what he just said.

Bond. It was amazing, how much impact the word had, now that he had friends. It was an intoxicating thought, something he had never considered to be a possibility outside of childish dreams. But here in this world, during the field trip—surely, that would be the best chance. Even something like him could make friends here. Naruto shivered again, but the ice surrounding him had nothing to do with it.

Forget sounding like a teacher. The bonding was for him too. The question was, how?

Chachamaru nodded her head, still looking at him. Naruto wondered how she could stare at him for so long without blinking. "The Mahora Love Research Association agrees with your assessment. Statistically speaking, both friendly and romantic bonds are made more easily during field trips and similar excursions. As such, it is inordinately likely that you will form ties of companionship despite your limited time teaching here, taking into account the days leading up to the trip."

Naruto looked blankly at his student, trying to figure out what she said.

The silence that followed was distinctly uncomfortable.

Chachamaru cast her gaze around the room, before resting her eyes on something that lay behind him. "Would you like some tea, Naruto-sensei?"

Naruto was starting to get the impression that Chachamaru didn't know what she was supposed to do now that she had captured him. Their conversation (such as it was) felt awkward, even to him, and Naruto had to admit that he wasn't as very good at talking with people.

"I don't think I could drink tea," Naruto said, wriggling under the ice. It felt somehow looser than it had before, and he could feel trickles of liquid falling down his back. "I can't hold the cup with my arms frozen like this."

'Is the ice starting to melt? I know my body is hotter than a normal person's, but could I be warm enough to work my way out of this?' While Chachamaru didn't seem that bad at all—certainly not what he had been afraid of once he woke up—Naruto couldn't forget that he was still her prisoner. Sure, it may not be as bad as he had assumed, but that didn't mean he was going to just sit there.

Naruto experimentally flexed his arms. There was a little bit of room—enough to move an inch or two—but the ice felt like it was still thick enough that he might not be able to break it. He pressed closer to the ice and tried not to wince from the chill along his skin, hoping that his body would melt the ice faster.

"That isn't a problem," his captor said, her voice still that oddly pleasant monotone as she turned to walk to the kitchen. "Mistress is often ill, so I am accustomed to feeding someone who cannot feed themselves."

Chachamaru walked into the small kitchen next to the room he was in, her shoulders just barely within his peripheral vision. Was it insulting to be compared to a sick person? Naruto didn't know, but it certainly wasn't a comfortable comparison.

A cheerful voice pulled Naruto's attention away from Chachamaru.

"I hope you die!"

Naruto whipped his head around to stare to his left. "What the hell? Who said that?" he asked. His gaze darted about the room, trying to find the source of the sound. But there was no one else in the room, only row upon row of eerily staring dolls.

"Wow! You startle easy, don'tcha?" the voice giggled, "You're pretty fun. I wish I could move so I could kill you." She laughed again, sounding like a child that managed to get her hands on something she shouldn't have.

Naruto's brow furrowed as he tried to ignore how disturbing the voice sounded. It was definitely coming from over there, but he didn't see anyone that could—

No.

A little doll sat on a shelf, looking straight at him with an open-mouthed smile. "Hi!"

There is a large variety of possible responses to being spoken to by a psychotic, green-haired doll holding a knife. Several options ran through Naruto's head at that moment, before he chose the most suitable for the occasion.

That is to say, he screamed like a little girl.

"What the hell is that?!"

Chachamaru walked calmly back into the room holding a tray with the tea and cups on it, ignoring Naruto. "Chachazero, I was under the impression that you were not to speak when we had guests, unless Mistress gave you permission."

The little doll chuckled, flopping her head to the side to look at Chachamaru. "I sure am! But he's not a guest, he's a prisoner! That's two entirely different things, li'l sis."

"What the fuck…I… why is it talking?!" Naruto cried out, pushing the chair away from the wall with his feet to get away from the doll.

"I'm made out of your nightmares."

Chachamaru shook her head. "Please ignore her, Naruto-sensei. She is my…" She paused, trying to find a word that would describe their relationship. "I suppose you could call her my predecessor, or perhaps my older sister. Neither is entirely correct, but they work well enough."

Chachazero giggled. "Come on, of course I'm your older sister! By a couple hundred years, sure, but it's the thought that counts."

The taller of the two ignored the shorter, instead setting the tea down on a nearby table to pour the liquid into small cups. "Chachazero is a magical construct my mistress created long ago. Again, please, ignore her—she isn't able to move without Mistress's magic, so is not a threat to anyone."

Naruto stared wide-eyed at the small figure. Her doll-eyes glistened in the light as she stared at him without blinking. He swallowed, wondering if he really wanted to see the person that would make something like that.

It—she—wouldn't stop giving him that psychotic smile. Naruto glanced away from the doll, focusing on Chachamaru as she held up a cup of tea for him to drink from. But that ended up being a bad idea, too.

Chachazero looked like something out of one of the horror movies he used to sneak into the theatre to watch, the sort that didn't let him go to sleep that night. In moments, Naruto found himself staring back at her again. Not being certain that she was still in the same spot was more disturbing than looking at her and her creepy eyes.

"Hah! You're funny. Scared of a doll that can't even move! I can't wait until you meet Mistress," she said, chuckling.

Naruto glared at the stupid doll of the stupid shelf. He wasn't scared. She was just creepy, that's all. Anyone would think the same, after having to listen to her talk.

He twisted in his seat, managing to hook a foot under one of the chunks of ice that had fallen around the chair. He couldn't stand her looking at him like that. Naruto snapped his foot up, sending the ice across the room to smack the doll in her never-ending grin with a wooden thunk. The doll teetered in place for a moment, before falling off the shelf onto the floor.

"Aaaah! Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

"Shut up, you psycho!" Naruto yelled at the doll, trying to get his foot under another piece. He snarled at her—she wasn't half so highbrow or scary (not that he was scared) when she was lying face down on the ground.

He had just managed to get another bit of ice when Chachamaru poked it out of his foot with a broom. "Please refrain from further violence in this house, or I will have to restrain you further."

"No need, Chachamaru. Even if he were unbound, I doubt he'd be any sort of threat to me," someone said from behind him as they pulled open the door to enter the house.

Naruto turned as much as the ice would allow him, but he could only catch a glimpse of blonde hair and black fabrics. "The Headmaster wished to speak with me again." The new girl said, laughing. Her voice was familiar, but Naruto couldn't tell where from. "I'll have to thank you for catching him when you did and sparing me another of his tedious conversations."

Her feet stepped lightly on the floor as she moved close to him, so softly even Naruto could barely hear them. She sighed as she stepped in front of him to look him in the eyes. "After setting all those magic traps, Chachamaru ends up catching you while she was feeding her little animals. You're a rather troublesome one, aren't you, sensei?"

"Evangeline?" Naruto asked, although it wasn't much of a guess. As short as she was, and with wavy blonde hair dropping past her waist, she wasn't exactly difficult to remember. Naruto had seen more blond people in this world in a week than he had in his entire life back home.

Evangeline A. K. McDowell smirked at him. "So you've heard of me? Good, that will make this much easier." Of course he heard of her, she introduced herself in class. She made a beckoning motion, and in a moment Chachamaru returned with an elaborately decorated leather chair. Evangeline splayed herself across it, her legs sticking out over the arms of the seat—although not very far. She was much too short to do the pose justice.

"Mistress!"

The girl started. "Chachazero? What the hell are you doing on the floor?" Evangeline asked, leaning over the edge of the seat to pick up the doll. A shard of ice was imbedded in the wood above her right eye, but Chachazero's smile—no, her smirk—was still decidedly in place. Evangeline righted the doll on her lap and tugged out the offending shard.

"I was sitting with the mindless dolls, but your sensei got his legs free. I'm afraid I took a nasty fall because he kicked the ice at meeeee!" Chachazero sing-songed. Her voice sounded pretty (for an evil puppet), but even Naruto could tell that her rhymes were awful. She didn't seem like she cared in the least, though.

She paused, her smile changing from 'murderous psycho' to 'happy psycho', which wasn't an improvement. "Can we keep him? I bet if I had blood I would have died by now!" she said in a voice more appropriate for talking about a pet than unfortunately-not-lethal wounds. "I like him!"

Naruto gave Chachazero an askance glance, trying not to freak out. There was something seriously wrong with that puppet. Something about her made him want to scream—or at least turn her so that she wasn't looking at him. But it was easier to deal with her, now that he had seen her lying face-down on the floor.

His eyes went up from the doll to her master. Evangeline wore a dress, entirely in black, with intricate designs worked in with lace and velvet over the surface of it. It ended just above her knees, small tassels hanging every few inches, each tipped in small sparkling gems. Her arms and shoulders were bare, the dress held up only by a strings wrapped around a small, tasteful collar on her neck.

Naruto wasn't an expert when it came to clothing, but in Tanzaku one could see clothes from across half the world, and he knew what sorts of people wore which sorts of garments. The style was different from what his world would have, but Naruto could tell that what Evangeline wore was expensive. She could probably sell it and live comfortably for a month.

She was obviously rich—but why live in this small cabin?

Evangeline smiled as she petted the dolls green hair. It looked rather like Chachamaru's, come to think of it. It made her look the part of Chachamaru's sister, although Chachazero certainly didn't look like the older of the two.

"Made that much of an impact on you, did he?"

"Yep! I wanna kill him!"

Evangeline laughed again, high and soft. She sounded almost delighted as she looked at Naruto. "She likes you! It's been a long time since Chachazero took a shine to anyone."

Naruto didn't want to respond to that. He did not want to think about that puppet liking him. "You know, you could have just asked to meet me. I'm pretty certain teachers are required to be available for their students."

She sniffed and gave a sharp shake of her head. At some point she had taken a cup of tea, which she took a delicate sip of before gracing him with a response. "This is hardly related to school, Uzumaki. Believe me, there is nothing that I would ever need a teacher's help for." Evangeline smirked at him—again. It seemed to be her natural expression. "And even if there were something, however small it may be, do you really think that I would ask for help from someone who can't even read?"

Naruto bit back a growl. It had been a long time since anyone had given him an insult that stung like that. But more importantly, how did she know about that? Naruto was certain that Negi hadn't mentioned it to anyone, and the two of them had made the class plans so that it wouldn't be noticeable. The fact that she looked younger than he thought he was just made it worse.

"Then what did you want to know? If you don't want the answers to next week's test, I don't have much for you." Which was true—he knew nothing about this 'Mundus Vetus', and if Evangeline wanted to know about his own world… well, Naruto didn't exactly have all of the secrets of home wrapped up and tied with a bow, either.

She snorted. "Answers to—you're a cheeky little brat, aren't you?" she said, ignoring that she might actually be shorter than he was. "Hardly anything so quaint. I want to know what you're hiding."

"Could you be more specific? I'm afraid I might have forgotten to tell the class about my sixth birthday, if that's what you're looking for."

Evangeline didn't dignify his comment with a response. In her situation, Naruto wouldn't have either. "How did you do it? You slipped right through the wards, and each time I tried to focus them you managed to slip away, only to pop up somewhere else. I've watched you since Takamichi found you, and I've seen you train."

"I've never seen anything like it before. One moment I feel nothing, then I can feel quivers of youki running through your body. And there's something… else. Something that's almost demon energy, but not quite—when I try to look closer it slips away as though it were fog."

Evangelion hopped out of the chair to loom over him as effectively as someone so small could—which was, Naruto granted, more than he would have expected her to. "I want to know what you are, Naruto-sensei."

'What', not 'who'. Naruto felt the stirrings of mocking laughter, but didn't let it out. Some things just weren't appropriate. Evangeline had no idea how apt her choice of words was.

'So she wants to know more about chakra? I can't think of what else she might mean, because I certainly don't know anything about any wards, and I certainly didn't think anyone was trying to find me before Takahata managed to do so.'

So he explained. It was nothing he hadn't told Takahata already. How chakra worked, mixing the power of the body and of the mind, and the types of training one needed to do to make each more powerful. He spoke of the Rikudo Sennin, the Sage of Six Paths, who shaped the world and created the first jutsu. He told her about the different sorts of things one could do with chakra—from elemental techniques to summoning to illusions. He told her about the difference between mere martial arts and taijutsu techniques, and about the Kekkei Genkai, the bloodline traits, that was so often the deciding factor in village politics.

Answers about his power in turn led to more questions, and he ended up speaking again of how he came to this world, vague suggestions of politics—few enough facts that it looked like he was keeping something hidden, but enough of them for her to come to her own conclusions. Much as he had told Negi—when he learned the conclusions Takahata had come to with his pieces of the truth, Naruto had decided that he would run his own future explanations along the same lines. Consistency was the key in keeping any fiction alive.

Of course, he didn't say everything. He couldn't. How he had lived in Tanzaku—the real reasons why he had fled there—and how he had been treated in Konoha… these were matters that Naruto would never tell anyone, not without having it forced out of him. Not here, not to his students (to anyone, in this world or any other). And the very idea of discussing the demon was laughable at best.

"Fascinating," Evangeline mused as he finished talking. "Absolutely fascinating."

That seemed to be a common reaction, Naruto thought as he slumped in his cold prison. He looked as though he were exhausted (which he was—the last few days had been entirely exhausting, with way too much talking), but the motion served to press him further against the slowly melting ice. Naruto thought he could almost feel his temperature rising from the contact—for all that the fox's viciousness, it wouldn't hesitate to take action to keep him (and thus, it) alive and free.

"You have an absolutely fascinating ability," she ground out in frustration, "to say things that I already know!"

'Wait, what?'

His short student got to her feet and threw the nearest object at his head. "I'll say it again—what are you hiding?" Evangeline repeated, stepping over a giggling Chachazero (the aforementioned nearest object) to glare at him, only inches away from his face.

"You are hiding something. I'll admit, I haven't the faintest idea how—but believe me, I am very, very interested in how you managed to trick the Οἴνος Τοû Ἀλήθειας."

"Did you think I wouldn't drag answers out of that idiot Headmaster? He may think he's old, but he still makes the same mistakes all you young people do. Namely, that Konoemon still thinks he can afford to trust people. A child's error."

Young? The Headmaster? Naruto opened his mouth to protest—but the look in her eyes forced him to quiet.

He believed her. The idea was ridiculous, but he could see centuries reflected in her eyes as easily as he saw the moonlight reflected in the same.

"H-how? Who are you?"

Evangeline continued as though he hadn't spoken, "No one has ever managed to resist the potion before, but I could tell you were keeping something secret as soon as the old fool finished telling me about you." Naruto could hear the mocking insult in calling the Headmaster old—the sarcastic bite she added to the word that he couldn't imagine anyone younger than she would be able to add to her voice. "Spend enough centuries in lies, and they become as transparent as glass."

"Why were your 'Anbu' chasing you? How did you survive breaking your neck in the forest today? Where is that demonic power coming from? I can tell there are a dozen upon a dozen other secrets you're keeping—tell me! What are they?" Evangeline demanded. Each question was louder than the next, each punctuated by a sharp, suffocating increase in killing intent. By her final demand, Naruto was pressed as far away from her as the ice would permit—not far away enough by half.

But Naruto lived each day with one that possessed a pure, unreasoning thirst to slaughter. Even as great as the pressure Evangeline forced upon him was, it was nothing in comparison to the demonic hate that oozed, a putrid miasma, from the fox.

He said nothing.

Evangeline scowled at him as she pulled away, the crushing atmosphere easing. "Hmph. I shouldn't have expected it to be so easy, considering the circumstances," she said as she stepped back to look him up and down. "But I think you might have preferred it if you just told me. Chachamaru?"

"Here, mistress," the strange girl said, reaching into a pocket to pull out a small glass tube and hand it to his other student.

Evangeline pulled the stopper from the tube and downed the clear liquid inside. "I didn't want to use this—it takes forever to brew—but answers are a bit more important, now aren't they? Let's see what sort of threat you pose…"

She reached out, ignoring his attempts to pull away, to brush her fingertips against his forehead. "Don't fight this. It will only hurt if you do." There was a sensation—probing, prying, searching—against the edges of his mind, edges that he had never imagined existing before their boundaries were touched. But Naruto could feel the presence of her mind touching his own. There was a coiling, a breathless pause—

And just like that, Evangeline slipped into his mind.

Naruto didn't feel the pain at first—he was the medium through which it was channeled, the slightest opening eagerly pounced upon—but he could hear Evangeline cry out, feel the heat of burnt fingertips, and the shadow of scarlet wisps lancing out into her mind.

Had Evangeline been a lesser being, she would have pulled away. But the Maga Nosferatu had survived every challenge the world had thrust upon her; the red rush of pain and resistance she felt only served to focus her will and determination, and she reached up to clutch at Naruto's head with both hands.

Laughter, impossibly deep and impossibly vile, resounded through their minds—the groaning deaths of mountains, the weeping chorus of fading stars.

Tendrils of thought, red and black and full of screaming hatred forced their way through Naruto's mind and into Evangeline's. Memories fled from their touch in reflexive fear of contamination, but not all could escape—wretched recollections repainted under the eye of the demon, made warped and haunting and foul from its grasp. But this did nothing to slow the prying, as the Kyuubi no Youko forced itself into Evangeline's mind.

Though Naruto could not see into her, he could feel. He could feel the twisting threads of hate dive into the forefront of her mind, only to try to burn into the shadowy corners a moment later, moving with no other purpose than to cause pain. He watched helpless for a dozen eternities as it forced its way through him into his student—but no, it was only seconds, for he could dimly make out the tatters of moments wrapped around the jagged, miniscule fragment of the demon that had escaped its confinement.

But Evangeline was strong—so much stronger than anything Naruto had imagined a person could be—and fought them, shattering the spiteful shadows and driving them out, untangling herself from his mind, so much as she was able. The hateful piece of the Kyuubi, shadows dispersed and with nothing to hide its horrible glory, struck out against her, tearing at the most basic structure of her mind, and for a horrible moment he imagined that it had destroyed her.

Echoes reverberated throughout the minds of the two, resounding atop one another to form a chorus of darkness. Shadows—not the hideous things the monster possessed, but pure reflections of the night—rushed from the seeming ruin of Evangeline's psyche. The demon fragment was wreathed in blackness for a moment, and there was a twisting, a rending, before it was flung back into Naruto's mind, reduced to naught but ashes.

The onslaught repelled, Naruto could feel Evangeline turn onto her own mind. Pillars rose up, collected from rubble and pieced together with nary a seam, standing upon a fundamental, unblemished mandate. "Survive". He could but watch in amazement as she constructed again her mind, building it along paths and structures that had endured for centuries.

But she was not content to merely rebuild—recognizing, perhaps, in her combat with the demon seed, that greater measures were need. She prowled through her mind as she recreated it, hunting down and crushing every remaining mote of crimson that had dared to try to taint her mind. In the destruction, finding the corrupted memories was easy, and Evangeline quarantined these behind walls of ice.

The fortress of Evangeline's mind was forged anew from the chaotic ruin. And none too soon, for ashes coalesced into demonic form once more, and blades of crimson coursed through Naruto. But this time, the Kyuubi had no hold over her, and nothing to bind her to its prison.

Still the beast laughed, even as the girl-who-was-more-than-a-girl tore herself away and out of Naruto's thoughts.

The first thing he noticed as their minds separated is that they were screaming.

Naruto couldn't see, at first—shuddering pain still coursed through his body, burning and piercing remnants of the Kyuubi's assault. Touch was sensitive, though, in counterpoint to the pain. Under his convulsions the ice cracked, and he felt more than heard the impact of a small body against the floor.

A hand as hard as steel smashed through the ice and into his chest, and Naruto found himself launched across the room. Chachamaru's blow and the impact against the wall shattered the remaining ice around his body, dropping the boy to the floor. He lay there for long moments, grasping at the floor and chunks of ice for something solid, something he could affect more than the doings of his mind.

"Mistress! Mistress, are you alright?" Chachamaru asked with almost desperate urgency. It was the most emotion he had heard from her.

What happened to Evangeline? He had never… he… no one had been there before! Was she alright? Naruto forced himself up onto his hands and knees, even as tremors ran down his arms, pain and leaden weight as though he had been exercising for hours. "Ev-Evangeline? Are you… hck!"

He had to stop as a deep, almost retching cough forced its way through his throat. A small spray of blood fell to the ground, accompanied by his rough hacking. Naruto hung his head, fighting the need to collapse back to the ground. Crimson splashed over shards of ice, the blood marred by specks of black—whether it was ash from the burning sensation (did it truly burn him?) or simple taint from the Kyuubi's activity, he didn't know.

With a groan Naruto pushed, managing to maneuver himself into a sitting position so he could see his students.

Chachamaru knelt on the far side of Evangeline, her eyes focused on her mistress—but even from his distance Naruto could make out the worry in her face, despite the near-emotionless of her features. The cause for her concern was obvious, for the smaller girl lay unmoving on the ground, her head now supported by Chachamaru's hand.

The effort felt that of a titan's, but Naruto staggered to his feet despite the pain. His short moments of rest had been enough for the fox to beginning patching his body back together, and he was able to stumble back over to the students. "Is she… alright?"

Chachamaru's head shot up to glare at him. "You tell me! What did you do to her?" she demanded. Naruto had the distinct impression that she would have leaped to attack him if she weren't holding onto her mistress.

"I-I didn't! I wouldn't do that to—hck!" Naruto fell again, only narrowly avoiding landing upon the smaller blonde. He clutched at his chest and throat at the burning, tearing sensation—but less blood coming out, and more black. That was good—the fox was getting it out of his system. Wouldn't do it any good if he died, after all.

He wasn't looking up, so didn't see his student's eyes widen as far as they were programmed to go. "Sensei!"

Her arm—but a shade softer than solid steel—reached out to grasp his shoulder, pulling him over so she could look at his face. She gasped at the dark fluid covering his lips, exclaiming, "Your… what happened? What is… what is this?!"

"It is protogenoi. A lord of the ninth layer," a soft voice replied.

"Mistress!" "Evangeline!"

The blond girl chuckled. The motion made her wince, bringing a hand up to her mouth. Blood—thankfully not flecked with black—stained her mouth, and fell onto her hand. Naruto stared at them with an ill feeling. He had not noticed the smell of burnt flesh, but he couldn't imagine how. So close to her, the scent was overwhelming. Her hands were but claws of meat and bone.

He felt like he would be sick. Naruto stumbled back from her, stammering to find something to say, but unable to find words that would convey… what? That he was sorry? That she shouldn't have gone into his head? That he hadn't meant for that to happen? He didn't know.

"Haha. Out of words, sensei?" the girl said with a small laugh—this time, without the reflexive recoiling of pain. She saw his gaze drawn to her hands. Evangeline looked down, slightly taken aback by their appearance, but only shrugged. "I've lived seven hundred years. Worse has happened, so don't worry your pretty head about it. They'll heal."

They'll heal? That's all she had to say, after that… that… torture? Naruto knew what it felt like to have the demon rummaging about in his head—but it was under no obligation to heal what it had done to Evangeline. How could she be so calm about it?

Chachamaru started fussing over her mistress as she helped the slip of a girl return to a sitting position. "Mistress, what happened to you? How did… what was that? I've never seen you like—like this," she said, waving her hand at the battered state of her charge.

Evangeline batted the hand away. "Bah! I'll be fine. Believe me, it could have been much worse. Be glad you didn't see me after Dagon was driven back into the Trench." She paused. "Well, that was three hundred years ago. You wouldn't even have even existed then."

"Mistress…"

She rolled her eyes at her servant's insistent fussing, but let the gynoid attend to her. "But I can't blame you for not recognizing that unique," here Evangeline paused, letting the last syllable hang on her tongue as she tried to find a suitable word, "presence."

"But what happened? What did he do to you?" Chachamaru asked. She sent another glare Naruto's direction, but there was little heat in it.

A corner of Evangeline's mouth lifted. "And to himself, right?" she said, giving the boy a quick look-over. "Nothing. He didn't do anything. It, on the other hand… Tell me, sensei, what is its name?"

Naruto could only stare at the girl. How did she… from what she was saying, it sounded like she recognized what the monster was. But none of the Bijuu had ever left his world (that absence would have surely been noticed). And Evangeline had certainly never visited his own—did that mean there were more of them somewhere?

The very thought brought a foul taste to his mouth.

But she wanted a name, and so he would give it to her. But to say it aloud… Naruto had never done so. He had only learned about it when the Hokage had told him, and he had certainly never shared the secret with another.

Naruto got closer to her, leaning in to whisper it into her ear, careful not to get so close that he touched her. He cupped his hands around her ear so that the sound would travel no further than to her. "The Kyuubi no Youko," he murmured.

The name defiled the air, and he half-expected the sound to leave a dirty sensation on his flesh. The name echoed—even though it shouldn't have—and he could feel the sound's presence weighting the air, grasping at them in anger before fading. No sooner had the word left his mouth than Naruto wished that he had not said it—that he had kept that, at least, a secret.

Evangeline only nodded and leaned back into Chachamaru, a pensive look on her face. She was silent until the green-haired girl asked, "Mistress, is he… dangerous?" Chachamaru didn't sound very certain of the question, although Naruto still could only hear hints of what might have been emotion.

"Everyone's dangerous, Chachamaru. Some more so than others." Evangeline turned to give Naruto a sly grin. "But you, sensei? You're no more dangerous than a puppy."

The comment took a moment to get through to Naruto (who had rather been expecting Evangeline to try to kick him out of the city). "E-Excuse me?" A puppy? "You aren't serious, are you? I felt what it did to you! You can't… you can't just…"

She could not simply dismiss that like it was nothing! The stark odor of burnt skin gave a plain reminder to what happened. Even a normal person could clearly smell that!

Evangeline shook her head and laughed. "I can't believe you don't get it."

Using Chachamaru's shoulder, the girl pulled herself to her feet. "You've caged it, haven't you?" Evangeline smirked at his shocked expression. He was really starting to get annoyed by that. "Oh, don't look so surprised, bōya. I got a pretty good measure of it during that little tête-à-tête—enough so that I know if it wasn't bound, everyone here would be dead."

Naruto gaped at her statement. "That's—that's over-simplifying things! It wasn't me that put it there! You can't—you can't seriously be betting your life on 'he's got it caged', can you?"

Evangeline sniffed and flung a lock of hair over her shoulder. "Of course not. You're ashamed of it—that's why you hid it. Not that anyone could blame you," she said, a strange look in her eye that Naruto couldn't identify, "but the question is, why?"

"The obvious answer, and probably the right one, is that you didn't want it—a burden you didn't ask for. So, why do you have it in the first place?" Evangeline continued.

"Shut up."

She ignored him. "You were running from someone when you came to this world—the ones that forced it into you? Or simply someone who tried to use its power? It hardly matters—what does matter is that you didn't want to help them. Which in turn leads us to the main point here—why you are harmless."

"I said shut up."

"You're ashamed of it. You ran from people who wanted to use your power. You haven't killed anyone in the city. I could give a half-dozen other reasons, but they all lead to the same answer—you can't stand what is in you. And so you won't use it, because you—"

"SHUT UP!" Naruto screamed, launching himself at Evangeline. Why couldn't she be quiet? Why couldn't she stop her stupid, knowing smirk? Why couldn't she stop looking at him like that?

Driven by his anger, Naruto snapped out with his fist, jabbing into Evangeline's face. For a single, satisfying moment he felt the impact of flesh on flesh.

But as the girl fell backwards, he felt a hand grasp his arm, another grab his shirt. He had only enough time to realize that shouldn't have happened before he was on the ground, arm pulled too far across his back.

Naruto bit back a scream of pain from the dislocated joint as Evangeline sat on his back. "You shouldn't have done that—although I must admit, you're rather fast for a brat."

"But…" With a pop and a scream, Naruto's arm was pushed back into its place and the girl rose off of him. "I think I'll let you go—extenuating circumstances and all that, right? Besides, since when does a level 99 boss seriously fight someone at level 1?"

What the hell did that even mean? Naruto had no idea, but he pulled himself up to a sitting position anyways, rubbing his aching arm. Maybe it would make sense if he asked someone else.

Evangeline nudged him with her foot. "Go on, get. Out of my house."

Naruto pushed her foot away and stood. "That's it? Just 'go'? No more demands for explanations or… anything?" There was something missing. Something he wasn't seeing here—she was letting him leave too soon. Too easily. Why?

"Let's dissect him!" Why couldn't the little monster have just stayed silent?

"Chachazero? Be quiet. Chachamaru? Escort the bōya out."

The strange girl nodded. "Yes Mistress. Please come this way, Naruto-sensei."

Naruto opened his mouth to object on principle—he was her teacher (fact that she was far beyond him aside) and she couldn't dismiss him like that!—but his common sense reared its head for once.

'This is what you wanted, remember?' it said. His common sense had a point—hadn't he been trying to leave from the beginning? But now that she ordered him to, he felt like digging his heels in and staying.

He shook his head. He was being stupid. "Alright. Where are we, Chachamaru?"

Evangeline sighed when Naruto finally walked out the door. She had worried for a moment that he was actually going to stay.

Moving with slow and deliberate movements, she plucked Chachazero from the floor and walked to the cushy chair in the living room.

She collapsed into it with a soft cry of pain—appearances or no, it wasn't possible to brush up against a true god and walk away unscathed. "Damn the Thousand Master. Without magic, this body really is worthless."

But her regeneration remained, even if it was less than it once was—she could feel her hands slowly starting to heal. But it would take some few days.

She would use the time to think. Evangeline had seen more in the boy's mind that he thought she did—but only enough to know that she needed more answers than he had.

And she knew where to get them.


The sun had been down for quite a while by the time Naruto got back to the dorms. Not that it had bothered him—he could see quite fine in the dark. Still, he would have preferred it if he could have gotten back to his room before it got so late—he might attract attention, and he could only imagine much trouble he would get into if the students tried to follow him when he went to train.

He padded quietly through the halls, trying to avoid waking the students there—although Naruto needn't have bothered. While at least a good half of the students seemed to be asleep, he could hear that the other half decidedly wasn't.

Naruto considered tell them to get to bed, but decided it wasn't worth it. After all, tomorrow was Sunday. They had earned the right to stay up late and sleep in even later by surviving the past week of school.

He slipped into his room, opening the door slowly so as not to create much noise. Naruto hadn't heard anything from inside, so he hoped that Zazie was asleep—but she was always so quiet Naruto wasn't able to tell if she was asleep, awake, or even in the room at all.

He gave the room a quick glance. The lights were off (which wasn't a surprise—over the past few days Naruto had noticed that she liked the dim light), and he could make out a form under the covers on the top bunk of their bed.

Naruto sighed in relief as he slid the door shut. It wasn't that he disliked his roommate, but she could be uncomfortable to be around. The way she never said anything, and her expressionless face… he always felt like Zazie was holding a secret over him, that she knew something he didn't. It made things… awkward.

Naruto chastised himself for the thought as he approached double bed. 'Thinking about it that way makes her sound awful. She isn't, really. She's just… quiet.' That she was. Aside from when she was required to talk in class, Naruto hadn't heard her make so much as a peep.

He yawned when he reached the bed. Hot air whiffed against his face. Naruto snapped his eyes open to see Zazie's face, hanging upside down, less than an inch away from his own.

Naruto cried out as he fell back, landing on his ass. "What the hell, Zazie?" he demanded, glaring at the girl. She looked… exactly the same as she always looked, actually. Next to Zazie's face, Chachamaru positively emoted everything she felt.

"…" Hanging upside down off the edge of her bed didn't seem to disturb Zazie at all, nor interrupt the stare she sent his way. She was always staring at him, it seemed.

"…" Her stare seemed different this time, though. Harder, almost a glare—but not quite. Did Zazie glare? Could she glare? Naruto didn't know, but he had a hard time imagining her being anything other than expressionless.

Naruto swallowed. It made him uncomfortable sometimes, how she always seemed to be looking at him. He wasn't the sort of person people stared at—not in this world, at least.

"What is it? Do you need something?" he asked, trying to see what she wanted.

"…"

"Are you… upset?"

"…"

"Worried?"

"…" The way she stared at him was almost… miffed. But she nodded.

"About me?" Naruto guessed, although he couldn't understand why she would be.

"…" Somehow, it seemed to be the correct answer, though Naruto couldn't explain how. He certainly didn't know why she would be worried about him, but her nod said that she did.

"Because I was back late?"

"…"

'So that's it. But why would she get upset about it? I mean, even if I stayed out late, there's no classes tomorrow so it wouldn't impede me at all. Is she worried about the class trip, maybe? I know a lot of the students are supposed to go shopping tomorrow—am I expected to accompany them as their teacher?'

Naruto rubbed at the back of his head and gave her a sheepish grin. "I'm sorry about that. I met a few people today and stayed around to talk with them." Naruto gave an apologetic bow. "I didn't mean to make you worry."

Zazie stared at him before giving him a slow, drawn-out nod. Naruto hoped it meant she approved of his apology.

Still hanging upside down from the edge of the bed, Zazie reached up and pulled an envelope from under her pillow. She looked decidedly odd with her hair hanging straight down like that.

"…" She held out the envelope to him.

"For me?" Naruto asked, wondering who it could be from. Everyone he knew in the world lived on campus, and relatively closely, at that. "Did you see who left it?"

Zazie shook her head. Whoever had put the letter in their little mailbox must have done it while they were out, then.

The sender of the letter was revealed as soon as Naruto tore open the envelope. Wads of paper money dropped from it, along with a letter. It fluttered to the ground, falling open, and while Naruto couldn't read the words he could make out the crude drawing of the Headmaster's distinctive head.

"I'm getting paid already? I thought I would have to be here longer before I would actually get paid for this. It's only been a week," Naruto wondered aloud. He dropped to his knees to scoop up the money and fold the paper yen into small portions, which he slipped into his toad wallet. Gama-chan was bulging by the time he was done.

"Wow. I didn't know I could fit that much into Gama-chan at once. Then again, I haven't had this much money to put in him before."

"…"

Naruto returned Zazie's stare. Did she have an issue with him naming his wallet? He hoped not—Gama-chan was an awesome name, and he wasn't going to change it.

Oh. Right. He had to be polite. "Thanks for bringing me the letter, Zazie."

But Zazie wouldn't stop staring at him. Naruto wondered if anyone had ever told her that staring was rude—not that he was one to talk, considering that he was staring back at her. Did she eat enough? She looked pretty thin in the clothes she was wearing, although Naruto did suppose that she would have to be pretty skinny for the Acrobatics Club.

There was a long and uncomfortable silence—uncomfortable on his part, at least. Naruto couldn't tell how she felt about it.

The silence was broken, not by words, but by the sound of Zazie rolling off of the bed. She tucked her knees in and, no longer supported by her legs, fell off of the top bunk. Like a falling cat, she rotated to land on her feet.

Naruto had to admit to being impressed. Her head was maybe three feet off of the ground at the highest, the way she was hanging like that. From what he'd seen of this world, that sort of athletic ability wasn't very common at all.

Zazie walked over to what Naruto remembered Negi calling the 'microwave' and punched in some numbers. Naruto wondered if she was hungry, and if she was… "Why didn't you put anything in the microwave first?"

She turned around to look at him, then turned back to the counting down numbers on the microwave. Apparently, his comment didn't warrant a full-fledged stare.

Naruto shook his head—he felt stupid for saying anything when Zazie acted like that. He sat down on the couch—he was tired, but he certainly wasn't going to lie down and possibly fall asleep while she was still up and about. If Zazie was awake, she'd find out what the fox did to him in his sleep all too easily.

Her textbooks were neatly piled on the small table in front of the couch, alongside a not-quite-as-neat stack of papers. Naruto gave them a quick glance—he could recognize just a couple words from the instruction Negi had given him, but not nearly enough. "The", "her", "why", "English".

He also could understand some of the kana she used in the Japanese parts, though. Negi hadn't taught him that—but it was something he had discussed as a possibility after the first lesson. Spoken English and Japanese were completely different, with drastically different rules—but Naruto understood them without having to study them.

It had made sense, Negi had said, that the same may be true of reading and writing the languages, but only so long as he knew how to read in the first place. It was a relief to see that Negi was right. He would have to tell him that, later.

BEEEP!

Naruto jolted at the sudden noise. His heart thudded rapidly in his chest until he calmed down, realizing that it was only the microwave. He hadn't been aware that they were so loud. Actually, a lot of things in this world seemed to be noisy. Maybe that was just something that came with not having shinobi?

Zazie didn't seem surprised by the noise at all, and simply opened the machine and pulled out a small tray with her food on it. And not just any food, either. The smell of ramen made Naruto acutely aware that he hadn't had an opportunity to eat since getting out of school. A quick glance showed that she had only made a single bowl—nothing for him, then.

Naruto sighed, and returned to looking blankly at her homework. He couldn't even tell whether she had done well on it or not. But the delicious ramen taunted him, preventing him from focusing on that, either.

He was about to get up, leave the building, and go find someplace that would serve food this late when Zazie slid the bowl of ramen in front of him.

"For me?"

Zazie nodded.

"I'm… I… I mean, thank you."

She was quiet as she watched him eat, and he said nothing as he dove into the ramen. The silence was not so uncomfortable, this time around.


Author's Note:

I would like to apologize for taking so long to get this chapter out. I had… real life problems. I actually had this part finished half a year ago, but I was intending for the chapter to extend all the way to the train trip to Kyoto: however, if I did that I would have had a disgustingly huge chapter.

Thank you so much for reading this.

Interesting fact: the term "Fugue" in music originates from the Latin terms for "to flee" (fugere) and "to chase" (fugare).

And thus, the first instance of mind-reading to show up in the story. Since she's so weak, Eva needs to use a potion just to do skin-contact-based mind-reading. Normally, a mage of her caliber wouldn't need to touch at all (see: Jack Rakan reading people's backstories). However, within her own mind she remains as powerful as ever.

Dagon: Dagon had his mythological origins as a god of fertility for the Assyro-Babylonians. In time, he developed into a Semitic god of grain and agriculture, and due to the similarity of his name to the old Hebrew word for fish into a god of fish and fishing. Modern interpretations of Dagon, however, owe much of their perspective to one H. P. Lovecraft. This Dagon is a maddening god of the sea, an aquatic being of terrible and mind-rending power; it was this entity that Evangeline drove off hundreds of years ago, described here because he will probably never show up again.

Unlike you may have often come across before, Happy Families Are All Alike does not have "demonic chakra". Instead, it has youki, which is something entirely different. Thank goodness Asuna doesn't know much about any sorts of special powers at all; the Kyoto Arc gives an excellent opportunity to explain some of the questions that the story has created so far.

If you have any specific questions though, please feel free to ask! I can't promise I can answer all of them without ruining the story, but some of it I just haven't had an opportunity to explain in-story yet (although I intend to. It will just… take time to get to a point where that fits in without sounding forced).