Still Waters 3, Chapter 18, A Ghoul

There was a small round light set deep into the ceiling panel above her. She had a killer headache and her whole left side throbbed in time with her heartbeat, one giant mass of dull pain. She couldn't feel her arm.

"Hurry! Where is the headmaster? Is he ready?"

The voice was familiar, but for some reason sound was roaring through her ears and she could barely make out the words, much less attempt to place the voice. Her mind wouldn't work right and she could barely think.

The ceiling blurred as the gurney suddenly started moving and accelerated until it was being pushed at a run through a long hallway. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly and Reiko's head fell helplessly toward the left a bit as they went around a corner. She watched the worried woman jogging alongside the gurney for a moment before realizing she was familiar. A few seconds later, a name floated up from the hazy depths of her mind: Shizuna-sensei. The fear in the woman's eyes when she looked down and saw Reiko awake and watching her was plain. It wasn't just fear though; there was a hint of something else in that look. 'Disgust?' Reiko wondered. It was very ugly in the woman's otherwise pretty face. Surely not...

They went around another corner, her stomach felt like it rolled over, and her head flopped to the other side, hiding the teacher from her sight. She watched the wall go by for a moment wondering what was wrong about what she was seeing until she suddenly realized that there was a hazy sort of gray colored frame around her vision. She tried to blink it away, but lacked the energy even for that; the most she could manage was a pitiful twitch of her eyelids.

A new voice spoke from ahead and then someone she recognized after a moment as being called Seruhiko-sensei was walking alongside the gurney, looking down at her. After a long moment's deliberation, she decided it was somewhat amusing that his face had gone gray and tight and bloodless; she recalled that Seruhiko-sensei had never been able to stand seeing blood, and she just so happened to be covered in it. She would have laughed if she had had the strength to make the effort.

Then the gurney stopped moving and Takahata was leaning over her, saying something she couldn't make out. Her vision swam and she fell into a sea of gray as her mind shut down again.

Seruhiko exited the makeshift operating room an hour and a half later and all but collapsed against the wall beside Takahata. "I…I think I'm gonna be sick," he said, his voice quavering weakly as he covered his eyes with a shaking hand. "My God…my God…!"

"Will she make it?" Takahata asked, his voice steady as he toyed with a cigarette. He tried to erase Seruhiko's haunted look from his mind and tried to focus instead of a small spot of discoloration on one of the ceiling panels above him. It looked like water damage.

"I-I think so, I hope they weren't too late. I…I've never heard of a case of it spreading so fast…my God…"

Takahata's neutral expression turned into a frown as his traitorous mind drifted back around to what the girl was going through. Ghoulification. The process of infection by a ghoul that led to becoming one yourself if not stopped in time. A horrible way to die. Hours of horrific agony, punctuated by heavy bouts of vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from various openings, and what the few recorded survivors described as nothing less than a maddening cold slowly creeping up from the extremities at a time when the victim was so weak from losing bodily fluids that they could hardly move. Ghouls created in this manner were invariably mindless beasts.

But the speed of it…!

"Is the ghoul contained?" Takahata asked as he focused his attention on the ceiling spot again.

For one horrible moment, Seruhiko thought he was referring to Reiko-the girl, he immediately corrected himself; if something bad happened, it would be easier to think of her as just…'the girl'-until he recalled the ghoul with the broken neck. "Yes, the team made sure he was secure while the others worked on the girl." He couldn't bear to say her name aloud. 'My God…'

They fell into an awkward silence broken only by the sound of rustling clothing as Seruhiko constantly shifted his weight. Takahata was glad the room they had set up was protected by sound-deadening magic; he was not particularly keen on hearing the deathagony of one of his allies, who also happened to be a friend and a former student. They had gone on patrol together many times; everyone had. Reiko's skills were of such a useful type that all but the newest members of the security teams had spent many a night patrolling with her. No matter what her age, they all saw her as a friend and ally, if often an irritating one. He sighed. This was the sort of thing he could never get used to. He had lost many friends over the years; you couldn't do what he had done all this time and not lose a few, it was just part of the job. A part spoken of rarely, but always present in the thoughts of every man, woman, and child thrust into this sort of thing. Any day could be your last, and any day could your buddy's last; often, strangely, that second part seemed worse than the first. If you died, it meant you had screwed up; if your buddy died, it meant you had failed them.

When the headmaster finally opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, Seruhiko took one look at his exhausted form and rushed off toward the bathroom. Old man Konoe's apron 'what a thing to wear to an operation…!' Seruhiko had thought before fleeing, was covered in splotches of blood and bile and other fluids, and there were four deep scratches in his cheek. The topmost had missed his eye by a mere half inch.

Takahata took a moment to steel his resolve and prepare himself for what he was about to hear. "How did it go?" he asked.

Konoemon pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and patted the sweat from his forehead, and the blood from his cheek. It had not been easy, what he had just gone through. "She is stabilized, her wounds are closed," the headmaster said tiredly. "While healing magic proved to be of little value, we…managed to stop the infection before it got too far, but I fear she may regress at any time."

"Regress?"

"Become a ghoul. The poor girl was never strong in the first place, mediums almost never are," the headmaster said tiredly as he idly held the soiled handkerchief in one hand while wiped his other on a towel he had thrown over his shoulder a moment earlier. "But the sheer speed of the change, I have never in all my years seen such a thing. I should be most interested to speak with the ghoul when he has regenerated."

Takahata glanced at the old man again. "You're bleeding again," he said, then glanced at the door. Konoemon had left a bloody handprint on the edge of the door when he pushed it shut a moment earlier.

Konoemon let out another sigh and shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said as he held the handkerchief up to the scratches to keep from getting blood everywhere. "You may enter, if you wish."

Takahata nodded and watched the headmaster walk away, utterly devoid of the usual spring in his step. The door opened, and two of the headmaster's assistants stepped out and followed after the headmaster, wearing almost identical stunned expressions on their faces. He steeled himself and opened the door.

Inside, the room was a mess. Small splatters of blood and other fluids were all over the place, and broken monitors and other pieces of equipment were strewn about; it looked almost as if there had been a fight. As for Reiko, she was sleeping, strapped securely to an operating table in the center of the room, with several IV lines attached. There were the usual array of machines present to monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and the rest, though he didn't recognize more than a few of the dozen machines next to her. When he finally managed to tear his gaze away from the wounded girl on the operating table, he spotted Shizuna sitting in a chair with her head in her hands and walked across the room to her.

"How is she?" he asked quietly while Shizuna clung to his hand.

"She'll probably be fine," Touko, the head of security, said suddenly. It was a testament to Takahata's state of mind that he hadn't noticed her leaning on the wall by the door when he had entered the room.

"That's good," Takahata said, looking at the woman thoughtfully. There was only one reason to have one of the best swordswomen in Japan present at a time such as this. "Negi-kun will not be pleased…we should set a heavy guard on the contained ghoul," Takahata said after a moment as he looked at the student sleeping on the table. Something about seeing the normally arrogant, loud girl lying on the table like that, her body still as death but for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, seemed so utterly wrong in some fundamental way... Shizuna made a small noise and he realized he had been squeezing her hand too tightly. When Negi got back and heard about this, he would go after the ghoul that had attacked her; and, should he be allowed to do that, their only lead would be lost.

"Okay, I'm trusting you, Asuna," Negi said as he stood on the entry platform of Eva's resort alongside Max. They had been in the resort giving the four new girls a crash course on magic training for what had been, in the resort, fourteen days, but was in the real world a little more than half of a day. The girls themselves were sound asleep in the living quarters, utterly exhausted after two solid weeks of training. It had just taken a quick glance for the two teachers to decide to let the girls sleep rather than take them back to Mahora.

"Okay, I understand," Asuna said. She paused to yawn and rub her eye, the oversized t-shirt she used for pajamas all askew. It was no wonder she was tired, she had spent the whole time training hard as well; she and Max were still carrying the bruises from their latest spar session. Wooden blades, no padding. "Let 'em relax today, make 'em leave first thing tomorrow morning just in time to get to class without being late, got it. Now get out of here, I wanna go back to sleep."

Negi nodded. "Good luck, Asuna!" Max yawned and nodded at her, and the two teachers picked up their things and were off.

Asuna stood on the empty entry platform for a moment to make sure neither one needed to return right away, then turned to go back to the living quarters to get some more sleep.

Max opened the door of Eva's cabin and stepped aside. Something about the air felt a little off, but since a quick glance around showed nothing amiss, he brushed it off as unimportant. Negi stepped outside a moment later and locked the door, and they walked down the path in near-silence, just enjoying the early morning silence of the small forest and thinking of how to deal with the four new mage trainees.

When they made it to the edge of the trees, Max paused. "Hey Negi, go on ahead, I need to drop this stuff off at my apartment," he said to the younger teacher, hefting a backpack and carefully wrapped bundle that contained several of his swords.

Negi nodded. "Okay. I'll see you at school," he said as he glanced around. He paused a moment. Something seemed...wrong? It seemed almost as if he could smell something out of place in the air... He glanced back at Max to ask his opinion, but the other man had already started down the path in the other direction and had covered quite a distance, so he decided not to bother him about it and started on his way. He was probably just imagining things anyway.

'Urashima Taro would be best as backup for the front line,' Negi thought to himself as he slowly made his way to the classroom. The girl's combat sense was top notch, and if the stories he had heard about her previous fights in the city were true, then she must have possessed the sort of on-the-spot tactical genius that few could ever hope to achieve. Leading a supposed biker gang on an hours-long running fight and actually winning was proof enough of that. She was, however, still green; the incident where she had been cut some weeks ago was proof enough for that. In a few years though... 'She should be strong enough to fight alongside Asuna,' Negi thought to himself. He smiled at that. The two were quite a bit alike in temperament, and even after such a short time spent training, their combat styles already seemed to complement each other.

"Heh!"

Negi grinned as he flipped the class roster open and clicked his pen and began writing. He paused after a moment to look at what he had written beside the girl's picture. 'Asuna Junior'...she wouldn't take it very well if she ever saw it, so he flicked the roster shut as a few early students passed him in the hallway. Now, Mochizuki Kagami...he pushed open the classroom door and flicked the lights on to reveal an empty sea of desks, just as he had expected. Homeroom didn't start for another hour or so, after all. He sat down at his desk and laid the class roster open on it so he could review what he had written.

Half the pictures already had little notes, from Rosemary Dean's 'Watch this one' to Takahashi Shizuko's 'Does she ever pay attention?' and 'Peaceful' to Taro and Possum's doubled-sided arrow and 'Thick as Thieves'. This class was quickly proving to be far more eccentric than any other he had taught except perhaps his first. Now, for Mochizuki Kagami...

He frowned. The girl certainly had a knack for magic, often picking up the simplest of spells with ease after a single demonstration while the others, Nakamura Sachiko and Urashima Taro in particular, took far longer. But, for some reason, she had trouble with any spell whose incantation was longer than a line or two. Thus far, her most complex spell was a single lightning arrow; anything else fizzled out or failed to form at all. Peculiar, but not unexpected. Yue had been very quick to pick up spells as well, though not as quickly as Kagami did. But then again, Yue had always been far more driven to learn magic, while Kagami still seemed to view it as some sort of game...they would have to break her of that. He hated to do it to the girl, but letting Eva loose on her might go a long way toward fixing that problem.

Now, Possum Cade... Negi sighed and started to rub his forehead, but couldn't help but grin. She could be a serious girl, true, but she was very good natured and loved to pull harmless pranks; she also seemed to be Urashima Taro's only real friend in the whole class. He had not really expected her to get along well with Max, but, much to his surprise, the two of them could sit in comfortable silence for hours. Everyone seemed to like the girl, and Yuuna had loudly declared Possum to be her favorite student in Negi's new class. She formed friendships with an unusual ease that could be startling. Even Eva seemed amused by her once they had spoken, and that was a very rare thing. Something about her magic seemed off, though. He couldn't put a finger on it, but he had the feeling she was hiding something important from him, and might already have had some magic training at some point in the past. He didn't know, and she wasn't talking. None of it made any sense; why did a seemingly normal girl like her have no problem accepting the reality of magic? Why did she, despite her apparent knowledge, not know the simplest incantation? What was she even doing in Japan in the first place? Her Japanese was good enough for casual conversation, but was terrible in every other sense. Her knowledge of the Japanese writing system was incredibly spotty too; she could read the common symbols well enough to understand most of her schoolwork or get around town, but anything specific gave her a lot of trouble until someone explained it. She had obviously never been taught textbook Japanese or even how to read Kanji or Kana, and yet she had managed to pick up enough to get around comfortably in little more than a year. The whole situation was very peculiar, and parts of it reminded him rather unsettlingly of his own situation when he had first come here, though he had picked up most of what was needed to speak the language properly in a few weeks rather than a month or two. Perhaps she was some sort of genius...?

And that brought his mind back to his class representative, Nakamura Sachiko. Entirely too serious, she had watched every spar session, every practice fight, every demonstration with an intense gaze, as if she was trying to permanently etch the deteails into her brain. It could be quite unsettling. She was a very quick learner when it came to the martial arts, though magic was another thing entirely. The poor girl could barely make a simple flame, even after two weeks of training. Her close combat, however, had improved by leaps and bounds; she had even managed to land a hit on Asuna on her fifth day in the resort. Asuna had taken it as a sign to pick up the pace, however, and the poor girl hadn't been able to repeat her feat, though she had come close a few times. She was still the only girl her age that Negi knew of who could beat Taro in a fair fight, and that was saying quite a lot.

Someone slammed the classroom door open and he jumped, startled back to reality by the sudden sound.

The girl stopped when she saw him seated there and bobbed her head in a brisk mockery of a bow. "Heh, sorry sensei, didn't mean to startle you. I didn't know you were in here," Miyoshi Youko said, reaching up to flick a stray lock of silver hair out of her face.

"Oh, don't worry about it Youko-san," Negi replied as he closed the class roster and opened his briefcase to shuffle through some test papers. "I should have been paying better attention."

Youko just stood there for a moment watching him, then smiled brightly and strolled across the room to his desk. He gave her a curious glance as she stood, hands on her hips, looking down at him with that strange grin and her eyes far too bright.

"Youko-san...?"

Her grin widened and became toothy. "You can just call me Youko, if you want," she said as she sat down on the edge of his desk. She caught his gaze with her own and held it.

Negi throat went dry and he started to get nervous. "Um, Miyoshi-san, please get off of my-"

"So what, you don't like me?" she said, grinning and looking at him with her too-bright eyes. "How about...this?" she said, snapping her fingers.

Negi jerked back a few inches as Asuna grinned knowingly at him from where Youko had been an instant before. She was wearing something that was...well, he had never seen anyone wearing something like that before and suffice to say, she must have been quite cold. He realized of course that it was Youko; there was no way Asuna would ever wear something like that in front of him, whether he asked for it or not. No! That wasn't it! Youko had been there an instant before, the question of whether or not the woman (No! Ex-student!) he was currently living with would wear something of that nature for his sake was completely irrelevant to the situation. Of course, all of that meant nothing next to the fact that he was still in his teens with no experience in matters of the flesh beyond the kiss required to make a pactio. "M-M-Miyoshi-san-!"

"Hmm? You don't like this one either?" she said, climbing up on his desk, where she stopped on her hands and knees to provide quite a view.

Negi gulped and looked away.

"Huh...maybe this one then?"

She reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand, and he found himself unable to resist looking as Konoka knelt in front of him in an apron and nothing else as she moved in close to sit on the edge of his desk, her legs hanging over the edge, one on each side trapping him in his chair as she leaned forward. "No?" Setsuna, with nothing but a casually placed wing between them. "Not her either? Oh~ I bet I know what you're into~" she said as she moved in even closer, now looking like Tsuruko in a dominatrix outfit. She moved to crack a whip and Negi shot up from his chair, tumbling the girl to the floor.

"Miyoshi-san! This behavior on the part of a student is unacceptable!" Was that his imagination, or did she actually look surprised...?

Youko, back to herself now, looked up at him from where she had been dumped on the floor. "You...but..."

"Miyoshi-san, please stand up! Your actions this morning have been utterly improper! Explain yourself immediately!" he demanded, mentally congratulating himself for even being able to speak; he was out of breath, his legs felt like jello, and his heart was beating so fast he was afraid it might burst. But...was that a hint of newfound respect he saw in her eyes?

Youko just looked up at him for a moment from where she sat sprawled on the floor, her eyes open wide for once and her face growing darker red as she blushed, then scrambled to her feet and bowed low.

"I-I'm sorry!" she said frantically, then ran to the door, threw it open, and dashed out into the hallway, almost bowling over several students as she went.

Negi collapsed back into his chair and leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands on his desk. What had that been all about? Had she been testing him? If so, why? What was the point? But in any case, it had been close... too close. For a moment there...he shivered. "So this is what it means to have a fox youkai in my class..." he muttered to himself as he focused on controlling his breathing. He had thought all those old stories had been just that, stories. Old wives' tales. But Youko...he sighed; he felt a headache coming on. Again. He had to make himself remember to take her more seriously; she wasn't a fourteen year old girl, she was over three hundred years old...but she was also his student, and he couldn't, he wouldn't let any base urges take over, no matter how old she was or who she made herself look like...! But it wasn't something he could afford to dwell on at the moment, the other students were starting to arrive.

Homeroom was fairly normal for once, and he was pleased to see Asuna had gotten the four girls back to Mahora on time, though the way Taro kept grinning so hugely was a little worrying. Overall, though, everything went smoothly.

It wasn't until Takahata pulled him aside while he was eating his lunch several hours later that he found out about Reiko.

"Where is she?" Negi demanded as he burst into the room he had been told Reiko had been moved into after the operation the night before.

"Sir, please lower your voice-" a nurse said.

"Don't tell me that! Where is she?" he said.

"Sir...!" the woman said, shooting him a scathing look. She knew who he was of course, everyone did. But one couldn't simply be allowed to rush into a very sick patient's room, yelling, and expect to get away with it! Even if he did happen to be the incredibly hot son of the most famous mage ever... Why, he looked as if he had just run a marathon! His suit was in disarray, he was breathing heavily, his hair was disheveled and sweaty...

"Hey, Negi, keep it down okay? I've got a terrible headache." The voice came from behind a heavy curtain partition.

Negi immediately started toward the curtain, but the nurse grabbed his arm and pulled him out into the hallway, shutting the door after him.

The nurse took a deep breath. "Please Mr. Springfield, Sakai-san needs a lot of rest. You must calm yourself and speak quietly if you want to see her," she said with an air of finality. "She needs a lot of rest, but seeing the connection the two of you share, I suppose I can give you a few moments of privacy, but please remember that she desperately needs rest! If I hear you have upset her in any way, I am afraid I will have to have you ejected from the building. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Negi said distractedly as he looked at the door.

"No, look at me," she said, stepping in front of him. "Do you understand?" Negi looked at her and nodded, and she nodded back, apparently satisfied. "Very well, you may go in. But remember what I said!"

With the nurse gone, Negi was left alone with the suddenly daunting fear of what he might find beyond that door, behind that curtain. He hesitantly opened the door and stepped inside, pulling it shut after him with a soft click. "...Reiko-san?"

"Are you coming over here or what?" Reiko asked from the other side of the curtain, her voice falling far, far short of its usual lively tone.

Negi moved over to the curtain, put his hand on the edge, and hesitated. 'What if she-' He cut that thought off halfway through and pushed the curtain aside. His jaw tightened at what he saw.

"What's wrong, never seen someone on the brink of death before?" Reiko asked tiredly, a faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "You're depressin' me, cheer up."

"…Reiko-san…" Negi whispered. He wiped the building moisture from his eyes as he looked down at her. Compared to the loud, lively girl who walked around in the middle of the sidewalk all the time and acted as if she owned the place, the Reiko here in the hospital bed in front of him was just a shadow of her former self. Her skin was pale with a sickly, fishbelly appearance, her breathing was ragged, and her eyes seemed to have some sort of grayish film over them as they drifted over the room, stopping here and there to apparently look at things that weren't there before snapping back. She looked pale, washed out. And now that he could see her clearly without the façade of healthy young womanhood she normally showed the world, he could see just how bad her condition was. She was practically skin and bones…! And there was no way to ignore the straps holding her to the bed. She looked so small...! "Reiko-san, what happened?" he finally managed to ask. Surely she hadn't been this way before, and he just never noticed, right? That was impossible, right?

"It was a ghoul," Reiko said. "I never saw one before, but I knew what he was right away. I sent Sayo-chan to get Shizuna and Takamichi, but they didn't get there quick enough, I guess," she said as she slumped a bit further into the bed, weak as a kitten. After a moment, she summoned the energy to continue. "I held him off as long as I could, but he got me and I had to ask Tetsuo for strength. I think I crushed his neck, but I don't remember."

A lance of irritation momentarily broke through the worry that clouded Negi's mind upon hearing the ghost's name. Tetsuo had been a very strong and dangerous ghost, and he had almost killed Reiko when she and Negi caught him together several years ago. He hadn't known she still had the eraser the ghost had been sealed into. "Reiko-san, you were supposed to hand that over to the mage teachers," he said disapprovingly, clutching at anything to distract his mind from the sight before him.

Reiko's gaze drifted up to the ceiling and she let out a deep breath. "If I had I would be dead by now, or worse."

"Reiko-san…are you really okay?" Negi asked after a moment. He just couldn't stay mad at her, not when she looked like...like this.

"I'm doing as well as can be expected. You know. Surviving a ghoul attack like I did."

How could she speak like that while on the brink of death?

"Oh stop making that face, Negi. It's not that bad. If I end up dieing, well…it's just death," Reiko said, looking out through the window. There were thick bars on the inside.

"Reiko-san!"

"Don't worry, Negi. Now go away, I'm tired," she said as she turned her head toward the wall and shut her eyes. "If something happens and you blame yourself, I'll come back and haunt you forever."

Negi frowned. "Reiko-san-"

"Shut up and go away, I need some sleep and you're disturbing me."

Kagami shuddered as she got the story from Misa. "That's terrible! Is she going to be okay?" She didn't know Reiko as anything more than another face that she sometimes saw around Negi-sensei, but still... A ghoul? What was a ghoul? Something mean enough to tear up Reiko, anyway. She carefully avoided the thought that it had been lurking around while she was running around like an idiot cosplaying as Magical Girl Kagamin.

"I don't know. I wanted to go over there and vaporize the ghoul, but apparently they need the stupid thing," Misa said, irritated as she rolled over in the grass. She barely knew Reiko either beyond a few security patrols spent with her before the band really took off, but the girl was a part of Ala Alba. You didn't mess with a member of Ala Alba and expect get away with it. 'Fricken ghoul's lucky it has been ripped apart yet,' she thought to herself. Few of their friends would be able to leave this alone...maybe Nodoka, or Satsuki? No, Satsuki could be terrifying when necessary, though Nodoka would probably just give the ghoul a tearful look and make it die of guilt.

Kagami yelped as the spell she was trying exploded at the tip of her wand, breaking off Misa's increasingly vengeful line of thought. "Keep practicing until you can do it with your eyes closed," she instructed.

Kagami nodded and went back to practicing the spell for magic arrows. After a few minutes, however, she turned back to Misa, who was now lying flat on her back with her arms outstretched as she contemplated the clouds. "So what is a ghoul, exactly?"

Misa sat up and assumed an exaggerated thoughtful expression for Kagami's benefit. "Eva said that they're the creations of vampires or necromancers, like some sort of movie zombie, I guess. Well, most of 'em are, anyway. I read in one of her books that really powerful vampires can make intelligent ones to act as servants or guards or soldiers or whatever, and it looks like that's what this one is."

"Oh," Kagami said, mystified. She tried the spell again. It fizzled.

"I wonder if they're anything like golems…?" Misa said aloud a moment later and scrunched her face up as she thought.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"So," Eva said, forcing her way into the headmaster's office while a secretary squawked at her. "Where's this ghoul I'm hearing so much about?"

"Evangeline, how nice of you to join me. Would you like some tea?" the headmaster asked, gesturing to an empty cup as he took a sip from his own.

"Don't play games, old man. I want to see the ghoul," Eva said, crossing her arms and glaring in a way that was quite amusing to see on her ten year old body.

He closed his eyes and grinned. She never changed, and he hoped she never would...the world needed people like Evangeline A.K. McDowell, strangely enough. He stood up and downed the last of his tea. "Takamichi is with him now. I am curious about some things myself; would you accompany a frail old man?"

"Frail my ass. Don't give me that, come on," Eva ordered.

He couldn't help but laugh.

The ghoul's cell was located in the depths of the secret underground mage laboratories under the administration building. Takahata was waiting for the two of them when they arrived.

"So, Takamichi, have you learned anything?" Konoemon asked as they walked.

"Nothing useful, no," Takahata replied. The ghoul was proving very stubborn, refusing to answer any questions or offer any information at all. He looked at Eva. "Your particular talents may be of more use here, Eva."

"Oh. Goody," she stated, utterly deadpan. "How far is it?"

"Not too far now," Takahata said. He led them down a couple hallways, through some heavy doors, and finally to the high security level, where the cells were massive things, built more like bank vaults than prison cells. He stopped in front of a thick vault door covered in magic symbols. "He's in here. He seems to be the most powerful ghoul we have on record. Reiko crushed his neck you know; he healed completely in six hours. His physical strength is immense; he broke loose from his restraints and tried to kill one of the assistants earlier."

"Did he have anything with him?" Eva asked as she looked at the door.

"We found several items in his clothing, but nothing that would allow him to pass the barriers the way he did."

"I see. I'll look at that stuff later." Eva motioned for the headmaster to step aside as Takahata unsealed the door and pulled it open enough to let the automated mechanism open it the rest of the way. Almost immediately, something slammed into the door from the other side and the computer automatically halted the opening process. Takahata looked at Eva, then moved away to give her enough space.

"Looks like he's loose again. Are you sure you want to do it like this?" he asked. Eva just nodded. The ghoul slammed into the door again, popping it another six inches out. "Everyone, get back," Takahata ordered as various mages and assistants scrambled to leave the hallway and set up wards at either end in case the ghoul, by some slim chance, managed to slip past Eva, Takahata, and Konoemon. The ghoul slammed into the door twice more. "Next time should do it," Takahata said.

Eva's expression became distant as she watched the door and waited. The door popped open and the ghoul jumped out straight toward Eva, a hissing, growling beast in human form, enraged at its imprisonment.

Eva barely even moved. She just reached out, plucked the ghoul out of the air by its head as though snatching a fly, gave it a good shake, and threw it back into the cell, where it hit the opposite wall with a sickening thud and fell to the floor. She looked back at Takahata and the headmaster. "Watch the door. I'll be done in a minute." Then she stepped into the cell, pulling the door shut behind her.

Takahata grunted in amusement.

"I never get tired of that," the headmaster said in response.

"So," Eva said, sitting crosslegged on the narrow cot in the ghoul's cell. "Who are you, and who sent you?"

The ghoul glared at her and growled. Eva reached out, grabbed his arm, and twisted it until bones popped. The ghoul winced, but kept his silence.

"If you would like to be permanently silent, I can rip your tongue out," Eva said conversationally.

The ghoul gave her a disbelieving look. "I'm a ghoul you twit. If you do that, it'll just grow back."

Eva cocked her eyebrow as she looked at him. Not too long ago, she might have taken someone apart piece by piece for saying something like that; now...it was just mildly annoying. She wondered briefly if she might be going soft, but brushed it off. "I could just do it over and over until the end of time, salting the wounds and making it as unbearable as I possibly could until you want to talk," she said idly.

The ghoul frowned, but remained silent.

"Talk. Who are you?"

"Who wants to know?" he taunted.

Eva stood up, put a hand on her hip, and grinned evilly. "Do you really want to know? They call me many things, but some of my more common names are Maga Nosferatu, the Dark Evangel, Evangeline A.K. McDowell," she said, seeming to loom over the ghoul. Of course, she was standing on the cot, and he was seated on the floor. She could never manage to loom otherwise without using illusion magic.

The ghoul just gaped at her, the expression more than a little disturbing on his bloodless face. "But you're just a brat! The Dark Evangel is…is…"

Eva grinned not at all pleasantly. "The Dark Evangel is…?"

"She…is a monster. One of the strongest vampires alive; I was told Evangeline McDowell is a master of…of illusion…" the ghoul said, trailing off.

Eva grinned wider and still less pleasantly.

The ghoul quickly knelt down and bowed his head. "I offer my apologies. My name is Carrick, I am a servant of the Great Vampire Lord Zeph Castor. I was sent to deliver a message to you, my lady."

"Zeph Castor? What does that old washout want with me?" Eva asked as she sat down on the bed again and made herself comfortable. The ghoul remained kneeling on the floor with his head down.

"He sends an invitation to join the Great Council in Mundus Magicus. Should you accept, you will be given-"

"I refuse."

Carrick's head jerked up and he looked at her, aghast. "You...you refuse?" he said in stunned confusion. "But why? It is the greatest honor-"

"That so-called 'Great Council' is just a bunch of old fogies that never get out in the sun and actually do anything. They just sit around in their castles or mansions or wherever it is they stay and get moldy in and go on and on about their idiotic 'Grand Stage' or whatever they call it. I could wipe out half of them without even breaking a sweat. Now tell me, ghoul, why I should even consider joining them?"

"W-well…because you were invited," the ghoul said lamely. He was still stunned that she would say such things about his master and the Great Council.

Eva laughed dismissively and move on to a subject that she actually spared more than an instant's thought for. "Now, tell me why you attacked the medium."

Carrick, suddenly back in familiar territory, shrugged. "I was hungry, I needed to eat."

"Wrong answer, Carrick," Eva said cheerfully as she hopped off the cot.

Takahata and Konoemon turned to face the door as it opened, revealing Eva and the now blood-and-chunk spattered room. The other mages that had gathered tensed, but Takahata just sighed.

"...it will be difficult to question him now, I see."

"Eva-san, what did you do...?" one of the school mages said, horrified. "Takahata-sensei is right! Questioning had barely even begun!"

"Hmm? Oh, I just ripped him apart. He was a tough one; magic based, not alchemy based. A proper ghoul...you can't kill that kind by ripping them apart, and they aren't very susceptible to torture. You wouldn't have gotten anything out of him no matter what you tried. It doesn't matter though; he was very well made, he should recover in a month or so. But anyway, I got the information you needed," she said as she turned to the headmaster. "Some idiot in the magic world sent him here."

"Now why would he do that?" Old Man Konoemon asked, looking at the vampire.

Eva sighed and rolled her eyes. "Apparently, those moldy old fools that call themselves the 'Great Vampire Lords' are pulling some political maneuver, and Zeph Castor wants me to join them," she said, finishing with a sneer at the thought of the other vampire.

"Will you join them?" Takahata asked as he fished out a pack of cigarettes, still eyeing the mess Eva had made of the ghoul.

"Hmph. They're weak," Eva said, scoffing at the very idea of such a thing. What sort of idiot vampire drew attention to themselves by joining a council, anyway? It was a good way to pointlessly make yourself a target, in her opinion. She abruptly turned to the headmaster. "My advice is this: Strengthen the barriers, triple patrols, and have them call for backup if they see anyone unfamiliar. There are a couple dozen of those idiots in the other world, and they'll probably try to outmaneuver each other by all doing the same thing. If you don't want your students and teachers to die, heed my words old man. Oh, and here, you'll probably want this," she said, holding out a small metal charm. "That was in his stomach; it's what allowed him to bypass the barriers. Pretty strong stuff, that." And, with that, Eva turned to go.

"Wait, Eva," Takahata said suddenly. Eva stopped and looked back. "Why are you helping us like this? What is Reiko-san to you?"

Eva grinned crookedly. "She amuses me. Now go draw up some plans, there will be others coming," she said as she walked away with a spring in her step that had been missing for quite some time.

Author's Notes: You know, writing Eva having 'fun' is scarily fun in and of itself.

Stories about Fox Youkai: Fox Youkai were pretty well known for seducing people and/or taking advantage of them. In many ways.

Narutaki Fuuka - Failure Older Sister

Born - 12/6/1988

Height - 5'1"

Likes: Kaede, climbing, practicing ninja skills, teasing

Dislikes: Being teased

Little Known Facts: Only passed her Ninja Rank Test on her third try (her sister passed on her first try)

Narutaki Fumika - Victorious Younger Sister

Born - 12/6/1988

Height - 5'1"

Likes: Kaede, tea ceremony, happy people

Dislikes: Frogs

Little Known Facts: She is secretly ridiculously proud of the fact that she finally beat her sister in something.

Nagase Kaede - Ninja Tree Addict

Born - 11/12/1988

Height - 6'

Likes: Simple things, relaxing

Dislikes: big cities, smog

Little Known Facts: She once accidentally got stuck tied hanging from a tree branch and had to wait six hours while everyone in the secret ninja village came and took pictures and laughed.