Author Notes: Ahem. To all of my readers, please cease and desist. It is my unfortunate and displeasing responsibility to warn you of the dangers that accompany your foray into further reading this story. If you continue to do so, you will find a malice filled legion of hate adorned soldiers taking control of your body from within so that you may do unto me the most inexpressible forms of torture such that even the mention should send shivers up your spines… or whatever else it is you might have in their stead. The ending of this story will be so inconclusive, so anticlimactic, so horrible and so sudden that you will be forced to take my hands and break off all my fingers before doing the same with my neck. No, this horrid pessimism does not mean that Termination of Spirit: Contract's Initiation (a horrid title to be sure) will end this chapter. Instead, it will continue to languish on for two or three more depending on how much more junk will spread from my fingertips. No, this horrid pessimism does not mean that you'll be getting the end any sooner than I will. Considering that I have not written the end, though I know it will be of a bloodlust instigating quality, which is not in a good way, by the way, no one will be getting the ending, much less reading it, anytime soon.
On a lighter note, I've taken a card from the general idea of what horrid literature actually is and written a cliché into this chapter. See if you can spot it.
Okay, seriously now. Thank you for reading my work, undeserving though it is. I appreciate the support from my reviewers and anonymous readers. None of this, worthless thought it may be, could be done without the motivation I get from your praises – or criticisms, or hate, or neutral comments. This will be the last author note till the end. Good bye until we meet again, in this story (hopefully not, for both your sake and mine) or till the next adventure I pen and author.
-Eternal Longing
Notes:
"Speech."
Thoughts
"Spells."
Termination of Spirit: Contract's Initiation
Chapter Ten: Countdown
--
Risc sat alone at a table outside an ice cream parlor, drinking a clear liquid that the menu had labeled as soda, but in reality, tasted like a mix of water from the tap and water from the closest sewage pipe at hand.
Though the night was cold, she seemed not to notice the wind picking at her thin white jacket. She wore only a red, short-sleeved blouse underneath with a pair of gray pants that seemed just a tad too short for her.
"Oh, how I wish I could have some ice-cream instead of drinking this worthless stuff," she muttered, fingering her empty wallet. She stared at the dreadful drink in front of her with a disgusted frown. It looked like a poisonous snake, coiled and ready to spring, but in truth, it had already struck. With a sigh, she poked her wallet again.
"Curse this place and its overpriced stuff," she complained to herself. "Ice cream…"
She could almost see it: a misty white substance in an almost completely transparent silver-blue glass. The vivid image filled her mind so completely she could see nothing else, and as the girl stared blankly in front of her, the image started becoming clearer and sharper, more real by the second. So, when a thud reached her ears, she filed it as another piece of her daydream. But the image alone was not enough for her, it needed more realism. So Risc imagined what the waitress would say.
"Here's your vanilla ice-cream."
Risc smiled faintly and couldn't help but reply with, "Thanks..." It all seemed so real.
She touched the vision with a hand and was shocked to her senses with its numbing cold. Looking up, she stared at the waitress, who stared back with a questioning frown.
Then Risc exploded in the form of words. "Wait a minute!" she exclaimed to the waitress's fright. With one finger pointing at the offending object, she protested, "I didn't order this!"
Rather to Risc's annoyance, the waitress giggled and explained, "Of course you didn't, silly. That's from the gentleman over there who sends his greetings." The waitress pointed to a young man lounging against the store's glass display windows and, in an insinuating whisper, added, "I didn't know people still did this these days."
Risc grinned back, in a way that was not even remotely close to complementary, and said, "Then you're either an ignorant fool or you've never gone outside of the country before, in which case, you're just pitifully deprived." But the waitress didn't hear her; she was already walking away, out of earshot. It didn't matter to Risc that she didn't hear her scathing remark. That was the point.
Accepting for reality as it was, she smirked at the triumph and almost lazily spooned a morsel of the sweet and cold delight into her mouth as a reward. It was all she could do to keep from squealing in delight. Taking another bite, she sighed mournfully, "It's been too long."
"Yes, it has," a voice agreed to a backdrop of soft footsteps.
She sighed louder with regret – she knew who it was without having the need to look up and knowing who it was, she wasn't going to enjoy the ice cream nearly as much as she deserved.
"Fancy meeting you here Mr. Suave," she mocked around another mouthful of ice-cream. "I didn't think you'd ever leave that hidey-hole of yours."
"Good evening to you too, Risc-chan," he replied easily without bristling at her derision, but before he could say anything more, his acquaintance jabbed him in the stomach, hard.
"Didn't I tell you to stop calling me that?" the girl asked innocently around her spoon.
Through the pain, he choked out, "I knew I shouldn't have given you any sugar."
Enjoying her ice-cream too much to speak, Risc only raised an eyebrow.
Slowly, the youth straightened and, as he did so, smoothed out the part of his shirt where Risc's fist had made a small indent. A sudden gust of wind sent his dark black hair flailing wildly and he wrapped his jacket more tightly around him to shut out the night's fell wind.
Then, he asked, "Why do you always have to be so violent around me?" Despite the mirth she knew existed behind his carefully prepared expression of woe, he sounded almost sad.
Undeceived, Risc only smirked back.
He sighed raising his left eye – his right eye was covered by a patch – towards the heavens with a shrug. Then, he lowered his gaze, winked his good eye at her, and asked, "How goes your task? Is everything moving along as planned?"
"Not only is everything going along as planned," the girl pointed the spoon at him, "but things are going even better than I had expected. That boy's too trusting."
He grinned and teased, "Everyone's too trusting for you, Risc. It almost seems you'd rather be betrayed than be the betrayer."
"How cynical of you, but could a hardened heart ever trust someone who had once been its enemy?"
"A pointless point to be made," he told her whimsically, "but I'll pointedly yield to you in this point." Then, he cast a gaze around at the streets bursting with people and asked, "Where's your brother by the way?"
"He's not my brother," Risc dodged the question, frowning more at the question than at the questioner.
But her acquaintance wasn't about to let her off so easily however. Crossing her arms, he pouted, "Then why do you call him that?"
Continuing the game of thrust and parry, cat and mouse, she turned away with a disdainful sniff, giving him a meaningful sidelong glance as she said, "The feelings of a woman are incomprehensible to stubborn men like you."
"Risc," he frowned again, but this time, his eyes told her he was serious, and that seriousness made her shiver. Having no words to offer, she remained quiet, but like always, he out-waited her.
"It's… complicated, all right?" she finally answered.
Firmly, but gently, he demanded, "Where is he?"
"Hunting," Risc replied simply. "You can hear the music if you listen."
"You can stop with the vagueness, Serin, no one is going to overhear our conversation."
"Serin…" the girl's eyes narrowed. "Don't, use, that, name," she hissed, emphasizing each and every word. "Not here, not now, Andaer!"
"Fine then," he answered with cheerful grin but his lone eye was cold and hard, crystal-like. "But that goes for you as well, Ms. Risc."
A deadly silence hung between the two as they stared at each other, one looking down, the other looking up. One seated, the other standing, and between them flowed a wealth of emotions though not a word was spoken.
In the end, she was the first to look away.
"What about the Watcher?" Risc asked softly without sparing a glance in the other's direction.
"Stopped for the moment," he replied easily as if there was not a problem in the world. "I'm not quite as clumsy as you think me, sister."
Risc scoffed at that, but she was satisfied. "You're not my bother either," she said, settling back into the game of words. "But you have something for me, right?" she added, not quite hiding a sudden spike of anxiety from her voice.
To her evident unease, he gave her head a pat and rolled his eyes.
"Of course, why else would I leave that 'hidey-hole' of mine as you so put it? Here, I've disguised it well enough that no one should notice."
"Don't use my words against me," she muttered as he reached a hand into his jacket. It was one thing she had always hated about him.
Still, one didn't choose one's relations, and just like a brother and sister, though she denied this bond, she loved him despite the perks that could sometimes outweighe this simple love. Such thoughts were banished however when he handed her a long, black, and rectangular card that, in one quick motion, she took and slipped into her own pocket.
"Thanks," she muttered sullenly. "But note that I don't like being indebted to you anymore than you like sugar, though everyone knows you need it."
He laughed at that. "Everyone is limited to two people, and I'm not going to be one of them. It's no problem at all, Risc-chan."
Risc growled at the honorific as if she could dispel it with her irritation, but it was, of course no use. He had already left.
--
Excitement was a plague that night, and Negi took it all in with amusement.
In the lead, Asuna and Konoka were bickering again, a patient Setsuna mediating between the two. Ever the outgoing one, Haruna had dragged Chisame alongside Yue and Nodoka. The latter two watched with smiles as Chisame struggled to get away from the enthusiastic girl and failed miserably. Yet the noise was not all bad. For one, Negi could forget about all the heaviness recent events had pushed onto him. As an added bonus, their trek was not troubled by any wandering creatures as Negi was sure no animal would be anywhere close to them, much less willingly, especially with Eva in such a mood.
Beside him, Eva sulked. Occasionally, she would raise her head from the ground and glare menacingly at Haruna in front of her before dropping her gaze once again. In it all, she pointedly ignored both him and Chachamaru, who followed diligently.
Despite Eva's sulky silence beside him, the night felt perfect. Moonlight danced softly among the trees, the moon itself a radiant circle in the sky. A cool wind blew, and with it came the fresh scent of the woods. He wished he could share the feeling of peace with his master, but he didn't think she would take well to it. However, the tension she cast about like a poisonous touch was almost too much to bear. "Uh, Eva-san?" Negi spoke, half to start a conversation and half to fill up the silence in between them.
To his surprise, she replied. "Yes, boya?" She even deigned to turn to look him in the eye. "Is something the matter?"
Negi caught his breath. He didn't know what to say; he had never imagined she would answer. So he blurted out, "What would you do if you were free from your curse?"
Oh great, opened that can of worms, he berated himself, but to his surprise, Eva gave no sign of irritation.
"That's a strange question to ask," she commented. Flashing a grin at the sky, she shrugged and said, "I'd hunt down Nagi of course, what else?" Her wistful gaze lingered on the moon, crystalline eyes reflecting the orb's glow until their blue irises faded to white.
"Oh… is that all?" Negi smiled uneasily. "So, if you could, you'd just leave Mahora and go find my father?"
Eva slowed to a stop, forcing Negi to stop with her and Chachamaru to wait attentively behind.
After a moment's pause, the vampire glanced back at her partner, who acknowledged her master's wishes with a nod. Bowing to Negi, Chachamaru walked back to the cottage saying, "Good night, Negi-sensei."
As for the majority of the group, they went on without noticing the trio's absence. When their voices faded to a dull murmur, Eva turned back to her patiently waiting companion and asked, "If I didn't chase Nagi, what else would I do?"
"I don't know," Negi admitted after a second, "it was just a thought. But isn't there anything her you would miss?"
"You mean you?" Eva raised an eyebrow. Ignoring his spluttering response, she said, "No, there's nothing that would keep me here. I don't even have to stop and think to tell you that, boy. You, too, aren't important to me," she told him bluntly. "All you are is a stepping stone for me to reach Nagi, and in the meantime, entertainment, but I'd be lying if I say I'm not fond of you and your idiocy. You asked me if there is anything I'd miss. I say yes, but would that be enough to make me stay? No, not even close."
Negi was careful not to let the pain to show he forced a laugh and said, "Yeah, why would you stay?" It hurt to hear her say that he wasn't important, especially after all they had been through.
Eva crossed her arms. "Why the sudden interest in my freedom, apprentice? You wouldn't have found a counter-curse, would you?" she mocked, but Negi could almost believe her smile was a tad apologetic.
Almost, but not quite.
He was saved a response when Asuna chose to look back and found him far, far behind. "Oi, Negi-bozu! Hurry up! We're going to the city of lights!"
"All right, Asuna-san. I'm coming!" Negi yelled back. Then, turning to Eva, he said, "There's no one to stop you from going back to your cottage now. See you tomorrow?"
"I don't feel like going quite yet," his master disagreed.
"Are you sure, Eva-san? This isn't very like you…" he pointed out cautiously. "N-Not that I don't want you with us but..."
Placing a hand on Negi's shoulder, Eva shook her head with a smile that he could tell was full of pity. "Reserve your judgments, everyone does things differently, everyone has their own reasons. That's a life lesson, boya," she said. "But you're right, I'm too old to go romping around with you youngsters blowing out each others ears with your shrieks."
Negi could only blink in confusion.
She sighed, then fixed him with a piercing stare. "In the morning, before the sun rises," his master barked. "I expect you here without my having to send Chachamaru to fetch you like the dog you are."
"Y-Yes, sir," he saluted quickly and she sighed again.
"You spook too easily. Show some backbone, your master demands it of you."
Negi chuckled uncomfortably and bid her good night. Then, he raced back to the front to rejoin his partners where he was met with a smack to the head.
"Asuna-san!" he exclaimed, wiping the tears out of his eyes.
She placed her hands on her hips and said, "You let the crotchety old bat get away!"
"That doesn't mean you should hit me," he muttered, rubbing his head resentfully.
--
"We're lost, aren't we?"
"Yeah, we're lost."
Haruna pulled at her hair as she groaned, "I knew we shouldn't have taken that shortcut!"
"Hey! It said 'To the city,' all right?" Asuna frowned, as she swiveled her head like an owl in search of prey. In this case, the prey would be the road they had been following for the last ten minutes. Now, it had been completely covered up by the dense undergrowth of the forest.
"How did you know it was a shortcut anyways?" Konoka asked and stepped closer to Negi and Setsuna.
Inwardly, Negi had the same doubts but he was too polite to mention them. Instead, he detached from the group of girls and scouted ahead.
Behind him, the girls continued their bickering.
"How was I supposed to know that this stupid road's older than I am?"
"That's exaggerating just a little bit…"
"Either way, it wasn't my fault!"
Setsuna's voice pointed out stoically, "No one ever said it was your fault."
"Negi-sensei? Where are we going?"
Craning his head around, Negi found Nodoka dogging his every step like an adoring puppy. Her eyes, hidden behind her bangs though they were, had a sparkle to them that gave Negi both a pleasantly queasy feeling and a queasily queasy feeling.
It was in this way that the group of eight entered a large clearing.
All of a sudden, the dense tangle of branches over head disappeared and out of the emptiness overhead came a brilliant array of stars like chandeliers hanging from a tall ceiling painted black. Such sights did not captivate the audience however, who merely didn't bother looking up and instead focused their attention on the landscape.
A river ran through what was gradually beginning to resemble a park, judging by the old brick bridge that traversed the flowing liquid. Other smoothed spots on which the moonlight shone revealed the remnants of an old stone path slowly taken over by green life. In the night, the slightly protruding blocks cast shadows several times longer than their own meager height creating a desolate mess made gloomier by the varying shades of gray.
Or so it seemed to its beholders.
"This place is weird"
"It's just a bit too silent."
"Well, it is abandoned," Asuna pointed out matter-of-factly.
Yue sounded just a touch drier than her usual monotone when she replied, "Thank you for that lesson in the obvious."
"Chisame-san, where are we?" Negi cut in.
"How would I know?" the girl exclaimed, throwing up her hands in reply, "I'm not a walking map!"
"Actually, you kind of are," said Konoka, pulling out her own pactio card to prove her point.
As Chisame pulled up a map with her artifact and the others continued their light banter, Nodoka drifted off to the side for a more realistic view of the park than what had been thought up by their over-imaginative minds. So it was that she was the first to stumble across the only building standing in the clearing. At first glance, it seemed almost part of the park's sloping hills and mixed in with the background of trees, the number of which was sparser than the forest but still plentiful.
It was a crumbling old thing, with only one wall still standing. A combination of moss and vines had completely taken over this last monument of the structure. Nodoka walked around it, picking her way through the rubble left behind from the caved-in roof and tentatively touched a patch of bare stone. It was smooth to her touch, worn – a reflective and bright white in the dark night.
But despite how much she looked, she couldn't imagine what the building might have been built for. With a slight frown hovering on her lips, she walked away.
She had not gotten more than a few steps when a voice called out from high above. "The skies are beautiful when there is nothing to block it. Why then, do humans never look up?"
Nodoka let out a yelp in her surprise, and spun around like a mouse caught outside its hole. There was nothing behind her but the old wall, of course, but a moment of confused staring later, her mind caught up with her ears and her head snapped up.
Her eyes reached upwards and were instantly locked into two orbs glowing with black fire.
A series of images flashed before her eyes – a room full of books, dimly lit by dying candles; a tall spire adorned with strange protruding blocks of metal and other things that she didn't understand but made it seem a contraption; a sphere, cobalt-blue glass.
"Nodoka-san, what happened?"
In the instant the words registered in her mind, Negi's voice became the lifeline that Nodoka mentally grabbed to bring her back to reality. "Negi-sensei!" she cried in relief. "Look up there!"
Obeying, Negi looked up and saw a child, wrapped in a black jacket, staring back down at him atop the white wall. Seeing none of what was even now fading from Nodoka's mind, Negi's first thought was for the boy's safety. He yelled, "Hey, get down from there! It's dangerous!"
But before he could figure out a way to help him climb down, the child slipped off the wall, the jacket clasped round his neck fluttering in his descent like wings spread out to catch the air, almost as if he was a hatchling just learning to fly. His drop was so quick and so unexpected that not even Negi's ingrained reflexes could react in time.
He landed on the ground with only slight tap.
"Things are not always what they seem," the boy commented nonchalantly before all color was replaced by grey.
Negi quickly covered his mouth but the dust was permeating and he couldn't help but cough as it got into his nose and throat. He couldn't tell what it was that had created the cloud of dust but that didn't matter when compared to Nodoka's safety. With that though pushing him on, he ignored the burning in his eyes and throat and leapt through the veil and threw his hand forward.
He touched something soft and smooth and instantly grabbed it, but as he did so, something struck his face followed by a second hit in the stomach that launched him backwards out of the cloud. Negi hit the ground hard, gasping for air and fighting to keep his stomach from heaving up all its contents. In his hand, he clutched a ripped sleeve.
Pulling himself up with sheer determination, he looked up just in time to ward off a circle of magic missiles with his hand and a burst of magic. Sitting partially up, he glared at the boy who he now was convinced had been the boy who had sparred with Mana.
"Let her go," Negi growled as he pushed himself off the ground.
The boy only smiled back. Next to him, Nodoka shook in her bonds, black glowing strips rooted in the ground that bound her body so that she could not even turn her head. The only thing that she could move was currently in the grip of the mage. Fingers clasped with hers, the boy swung their arms to and fro in a contentment that scared Nodoka more than the magic that crawled over her body.
"Negi-sensei, help," she tried to whimper but found that her voice had deserted her. She was not sure whether it was a result of magic or her own fear.
Hearing the explosion's roar had brought the other girls running, but Nodoka's capture now brought them all to a skidding halt.
"Let Nodoka-san go," Negi demanded again. His fists were clenched so hard that he had to force them apart before his fingers completely went through his palm.
"Pay my price," the boy simply replied.
"What do you want?"
"Whatever you have in your pockets."
Negi gaped, yet before he could ask how the mage could have known about the contents of his pockets, Setsuna leapt into action, unsheathing her sword in a movement too quick for the eye to catch.
"Zankuusen! – Air-Cutting Flash!"
With inhuman reflexes the boy jumped away with a speed that rivaled Setsuna's, acting before her blade had completely cleared its sheath, and threw Nodoka, bonds and all, into its path.
But to both Nodoka and her captor's surprise, the strike ripped through all her bonds without touching a patch of skin and slammed directly into the mage. He staggered back, jacket in tatters though he himself seemed to be unharmed. Then, before he could regain his bearings, he was attacked again.
Negi flashed in front of him, fist already pulled back, and let loose a massive, magically-charged punch into his face. The explosion of magic lifted both of the mages off of their feet though one landed lightly a few feet back and the other was blown into the sky.
All of it had happened in such speed that Asuna and the others could only gape and look on in confusion. By the time Yue decided to help a nearly collapsing Nodoka, Negi had begun charging another volley of magic arrows.
Disoriented, his target hung in the air, the edges of his body strangely wavering and vibrating like the blank grey static of a broken television screen, but Negi paid no mind to the little details. With another flare of power, he shouted, "Sagitta Magica, Series Lucis – Magic Archer, Arrows of Light!"
Orbs of bright light danced a ring about his body before rocketing forward into the air towards the opposing mage like fireworks at the stars. He could tell that his spell did not come as a surprise, but there was no doubt in his mind that it would hit.
Then, a harsh whistle broke open the air, cracking it as if it was an eggshell. A large, flat blade appeared in front of them and swung in a half-moon arc completely deflecting all of Negi's arrows into the ground. A moment later, the hand gripping its silvery hilt appeared out of the night, followed by the body possessing the hand, and last of all, glowing, golden-green eyes.
"You cut it a little close, Sagio-sama," greeted the hovering magician.
"Sagio…" Negi breathed, staring up at the boy in incredulity.
As if there was nothing unusual about standing on empty air, Sagio raised his massive blade in front of him. The movement produced a low whistle considerably gentler than the screaming that had marked his appearance.
"Negi Springfield, we meet again," he said. "And this time, there will be no holding back."
--
- To be Continued…