Mostly Reformed Necromancer, MRN for short, stretched out his joints before he sat down before his PS2. The former necromancer was pleased with what he had accomplished in the past year. 2015 had been a monster that claimed his father's life had left him an emotionally atrophied wreak and he still had an irrational fear of both doctor's offices and hospitals to this day (ironically enough, he had no problems letting the med students at school use him to get practice drawing blood).

2016 hadn't start off to well either and his laptop's hard drive died in the middle of year, just as he building up steam to do... something, he couldn't remember what…

But 2017 appeared to be turning a curve. His sessions with his consular were going well, the burnt out hard drive had been up graded for a new solid state drive, and he was on his way to getting a degree in Information Tech. But best of all he had managed to fulfill his dream of getting his hands on a copy all three Xenosaga games, which meant it was time to fulfill another dream, back to back Xenosaga play through.

As he sat in the den playing the first Xenosaga game he was rudely distracted by the sound of a phone ringing. After pausing the game, he answered the phone to find that it was an old friend of his. After talking for a while about minor topics, girl he affectionately knew as "Rat" commented, "Hey, Snake, did you know that site you used to watch anime on, has started to add the lost season of Yu-Gi-Oh! Gx?"

"I'm not Snake anymore Rat," the reformed black magic user reminded his friend before smiling at the news, "No, I didn't know that. Good to know I won't have to go to shady sites to watch those episodes anymore."

"Yeah, you were a rabid fan back in the day." Rat ribbed good naturedly, "You even had that crossover fanfiction thing going for a while."

MRN frowned the comment as he asked, "'Were," "had;" As in past tense?"

"Well, you haven't posted anything new in two years, so that makes it safe for most of us to assume that the story is dead." Rat explained as the sounds of people began to become audible over the phoneline, "Hey, it's been great talking to you but I got to go."

After the abrupt fair-well the recovering dark mage, turned to his laptop and upon checking discovered that the last time he had updated his story was October 6, 2015!

"Huh, I guess Rosario Cards is dead…" he muttered, somewhat shocked at discovering how long he had neglected his story. But his shock soon vanished as he started gathering any paper drafts that hadn't been lost along with the data in his old hard drive. Dark energies starting crackling off his form like black lighting, as he smiled and said with full confidence in his own craft, "Guess it's a good thing I'm only mostly reformed."

x-x

I LIVE!

Sorry for my absence, but now I am back and ready to go.

I had to skip over showing the battle of Witch's Hill, since I have been stuck on it for so long now that was sucking my new-found drive when I tried to write it down, but don't worry this chapter will disclose everything that happened.

P.s. I have missed all of you reviewers and silent fallowers, but just a reminder to all flamers, you're just wasting time and increasing the number of reviews in the box.

x-x

I do not own any of the franchises used in this story. The people and events and people in this story are completely fictional.

Qui manducat carnem Dryadesque

As Oyakata's eyes opened, she noticed that every part of her hurt. That fact was unescapable. The centuries old witch also couldn't help noticing how alien her body felt to her. As her sight came into focus on world bathed in a strange red tint, reviling that she was in a hospital ward somewhere, she tried to remember how she got there. The last thing she remembered with clarity was calling her hanabake horde to kill the young umberlist and his group. After that her memory start to become uncertain, but flashes of resurfacing memories raced through her mind as images of her using the forbidden magics to fuse with her forces, Ruby sacrificing herself in attempt to stop her, but failing and being consumed. She pushed such thoughts aside however as she noticed the young man who had lead the charge against her plants, Jaden if she remembered right, standing at the foot of her bed.

"Can you hear me?" he asked, a tone of concern lacing his voice, "Can you speak at all?"

"Ruu-by… i-is-" the matron of Witch's Hill croaked in a broken voice as she tried to ask where her apprentice was, if her memories were right…

"Ruby is fine." Jaden assured her as he pointed to her left. Craning her head to the side, Oyakata saw her apprentice sleeping in a chair next with a blanket wrapped over shoulders and smiled at the sight as she remembered the times a much younger Ruby would fall asleep in her study while she worked.

"It's been eight days since we fought at your farm, and she's spent every second she could by your side, she wanted to be here when you woke up." The voice of the young umberlist brought the witch's attention back to him as a serious look encroached on his face and said in a grave tone, "During the fight between you and my group, you did something insanely stupid and that's coming from the amateur practitioner of the umberlist arts."

"There several ways to merge with other living beings, but the method that you used is undoubtedly the riskiest." Jaden lectured the witch in the hospital bed on the dangers of the spell she had used, "Normally, there's no returning the witch who used it to her previous state. Which means you should still be a thirty-foot chloroform colossus and Ruby's vitality would have been completely absorbed."

"But fortunately for both you and her, like any umberlist worth mentioning I can make use of talents that are many consider abnormal." The young practitioner of forgotten arts said proudly as his eyes glowed with otherworldly yellow energy, but that light and pride soon fade as he looked at Oyakata form "However, my powers are not infallible, and I have never performed a de-fusion in such an uncontrolled environment, complications were unavoidable, so to prevent you from injuring yourself on awaking I had the medical staff administer a mild paralytic."

'Complications?!' Oyakata eyes flew wide open at that implications of that statement.

"Now I understand your concern but your condition is stable and isn't life threating, so please do not panic. The is plenty of time for regain your strength before we need to discuss those details." Jaden said trying to keep the witch claim as he continued, "Let me explain what exactly happened after you and Ruby were separated."

'I'd rather you tell me about those "complications" you just mentioned.' The witch thought but given how much trying to talk earlier had hurt she was forced to listen to whatever the umberlist had to say. "After the battle, we took you and Ruby here for medical treatment and began the process of shutting down the construction scheduled to happen at the ranch, but one of the complications I mentioned earlier was an unexpected exothermic reaction" Jaden said hoping that the witch wouldn't realize what he meant.

'Exothermic…AN EXPLOSION!?'

Seeing the look in the witch's eyes told Jaden in great volume that she had completely understood. Rising his hands in a placating manor as he continued to explained, "While it wasn't big enough to cause any lasting damage it did gain the attention of several environmental protection agencies who proceeded to shut down all plans the city had for Witch's Hill."

'Humans… shut the plans to turn my home into a garbage dump?' Oyakata was shocked at the discovery. It completely defied her worldview of humanity.

"Lady Oyakata, you're awake?" Ruby's voice called out from where she had been asleep as she stirred from slumber before she turned to Jaden with a pout said, "You promised to wake me when she woke up."

Jaden just chuckled at the younger witch's expression and said "Sorry, about that but I thought you could use the sleep. Plus, I kind 'a wanted to clear up a couple of things while I had the chance."

'Sure, after all there is nothing like a captive audience' the immobilized witch thought dryly.

x-x

Jaden left Ruby to spend to time with her mentor while talked to Sam about the results of the tests he had her run on Oyakata.

"So, based on her DNA tests, I think it's safe to assume that your theory is correct. What that means for her ability to use witchcraft is unknown." The medic said as she handed over her report to her boss read over them before asking, "What about the more obvious physical changes? Is there a way to suppress them like we talked about, give her a normal appearance?"

The poison bird yokai shrugged as she admitted, "I don't know, the tests were inconclusive. Some say that certain compounds might have the desired effect but are contradicted by others that say the same compounds may be lethal to her. For all we know she may develop the skill to mask herself like other yokai on her own."

"Okay, I understand." Jaden sighed, as he wished that he had more good news to give Oyakata before telling Ruby's mentor the details of her fusion's aftereffects, but the best he could do now was break the news a gently as he could, "Can you get me the images from her scans, a little visual aid may help explain what has happed to her?"

"Sure, I'll go fetch them."

x-x

When he reentered the room where he left Ruby and Oyakata, Jaden found the younger of the two embracing the other after they clearly made amends. He debated leaving them alone for a little longer when the elder of the two called out in a raspy voice, "You, Jaden, as the drugs have worn off, the more I have felt how alien my body is to me."

Ruby flinched at her mentor's words as she had asked her about it but had been insistent that she wait for Jaden's more informed explanation since he could explain what happened better.

"Umberlist, tell me what happened to my body." Oyakata insisted on an explanation, her eyes hard as steel.

Jaden sighed, there was no avoiding it now. Motioning for Ruby to help him sit her mentor and began to disclose what had really happened to the former matron of Witch's Hill, "Now, what I have to tell you is going to be very shocking, but while your condition is unprecedented as I said before life isn't in any danger so please don't panic. You are in a safe place and both Ruby and myself will be here to help every way we can."

Once Oyakata was sitting up in her bed Jaden moved to an x-ray light box that was hanging on the wall opposite of her and cleared his throat before he continued, "I have performed hundreds of successful fusions and de-fusions of spirits in Shadow Games where there are set formula for such things. But separating you and Ruby from the thing that you had become was the first time I attempted such a thing on a creature born of this world and witchcraft, and I hadn't ever tried to perform a de-fusion outside a Shadow Game, so there was a lot of guess work at the exact mechanics at play. But, I had to move fast or risk psychical matter at play becoming unstable and interacting with the powers I was using and taring my soul a part."

"Wait, what!?" Oyakata and Ruby both cried out, "Why would risk something that?!"

"Okay, I didn't know that was a risk at the time, that was only a danger since witchcraft and the umberlist arts are such opposites." Jaden said, holding up his hands in surrender as he quickly explained, "I didn't know that was a problem until I was actually using the power of the umber to map out how to separate you and while I could have safely backed out I couldn't leave either of you like that."

Still shocked about the risks he had taken on to separate her and her student, Oyakata motioned for the Umberlist to continue.

Acknowledging her prompt, Jaden did so, "Now, while Ruby's body hadn't been fully assimilated by yours, you had absorbed a large chunk of her vitality. That is the root cause of all the ensuing problems."

"If I had tried to extract Ruby without restoring her vitality, she would have suffered decades of premature aging so I was forced to extract both." Jaden explained before a grim look crossed his face, "Now that complicated your separation from the main mass since your body had already adjusted to Ruby's vitality and wouldn't be able withstand losing it again, so I had to make up the difference with… what was available."

"Wait, you don't mean…" Oyakata's voice trailed into silence as she realized what he meant by "what was available." She hoped that wasn't the case but Jaden nodded, confirming her fears.

"I suspected that the hanabake vitality might cause some mutation to accrue… but, I never anticipated how much you would actually experience." Jaden said as he switched on the light bock he was standing next to and placed several scans on it.

Oyakata starred at the scans in horror. The images were horrible depictions of what looked like parts of a hanabake's body, including the same tail with the wheat straw like tip, but the x-rays showed that unlike the plants that she had grown, the limbs had solid bone structures, and the three claws on the feet were shorter than the normal length of two feet by seven inches, and the chest seemed too… feminine…

Her breath caught in her chest as the umberlist put a final slide in place, the teeth were too long, too pointed to be considered normal but the was no mistaking it, it was a human skull. 'Or the skull of a mutated witch...' Oyakata thought in silent horror as she realized "whose" scans they were.

"You have become a true hybridization of plant and animal life, and have inherited a lot of the same traits as a hanabake. Honestly, that's the real reason that the paralytic was administered. The headmaster didn't want to risk you having lost your rationality and attacking people." Jaden confessed before he took a breath and gestured down at the immobilized woman's body, "These changes have become a part of your genetic structure, meaning that there is no way to change you back… you should look now… start to come to grips with what has happened."

Oyakata fearfully flowed his instructions and looked down at her body and saw that while her body was covered by young healthy smooth skin it was primal pale green color and her hands had become clawed like the monster plant's.

Tearing of the bed covers she found she had been dressed in a hospital gown, but more important than that her lags where a match to the scans, and she didn't need to see her eyes to know they had become the same reflective scarlet as the hanabake's.

"I am sorry, but you can no longer be classified as a witch. You have become something akin to the dryads…" Jaden said, trying to keep his voice claim and soothing, "…Something new…"

Jaden walked over to the newly created plant hybrid as she took notice of the black hair cascading down her shoulders and placed a reassuring hand on her arm, "You are the genesis of a new species. One that the medical team took to calling "Qui Manducat Carnem Dryadesque", or "Dryad That Eats Flesh.'"

'Fits me, I slow ate Ruby's and now my body matches my cannibal nature' Oyakata thought as she made no sign of hearing Jaden until he spoke up again, "But that name doesn't fit the woman who took in a young girl after her parents died, so I chose a different name to define your new species. So, hold your head high Oyakata, first "Angelus Poterant Herba'."

Oyakata's face flushed as heard the young umberlist say the translation of the name he picked.

"First "Angel of Carnivorous Grass'."

Next Time: Red Tape

I know that skipping the battle of Witch's Hill was kind of a lame move on my end, but I couldn't bring myself to do it and needed to get the ball rolling or it would be another two years before I ever updated.