Still Waters 3, Book 1: Drift, Epilogue
Caro put Reiko down to stand on her own and the sickly girl staggered, reaching out blindly for something to stop her fall as her legs failed her. Her hand touched a wall, but her knees hit the ground an instant later.
'Ugh...what's wrong with me?' Reiko thought as her vision went hazy. It was now so late at night that it could actually be considered early, but she had pulled all nighters many times before; was her body really that weak at this point...? She was dimly aware of Caro frantically talking to her, and raised her hand to wave the girl off as she put her other hand on the wall to steady herself and forced herself back up to her feet. She stood swaying for a moment, almost collapsed against the wall again, and finally righted herself.
The captured vampire Jonus Hart stood beside Zazie, handcuffed, his feet tied with a magic rope just long enough for him to shuffle along unaided, closely watching the strange girl who had captured him. He knew she was a medium; the signs were obvious. But this level of physical weakness was inexplicable. Unless...
Ah, yes. Carrick. The ghoul must have infected her. In fact, if he looked closely, her skin seemed unnaturally pale and gray. The spread of the infection throughout her body was well under way; it was no doubt too late to save her at this point. Then again, if she had been infected by Carrick, the best ghoul his old friend Zeph Castor, first among the Great Vampire Lords, had ever created, well...it was amazing she had survived the first night. He carefully filed this information away for future use and followed as the girl, Sakai Reiko, he recalled, led the way into the building.
They found the headmaster in the secret sub-basement levels, overseeing the healing of half a dozen gang members who had suffered serious injuries in the fighting. Jonus glanced around, disinterested for the most part while they waited for the headmaster to finish his task. The men lying on gurneys had been injured due to his overzealous actions, true, but his mind had been influenced by the blood of those two sisters, Lucy and Possum Cade; he wouldn't make the same mistake if such a situation came up again. Much to his surprise, Reiko somehow managed to pull herself together before the old man noticed their presence, and had even pasted on a sarcastic grin, looking for all the world as if she hadn't almost fainted from exhaustion five minutes before.
"Hello," the headmaster said as he shuffled up, ignoring Jonus, Zazie, and Caro in favor of giving Reiko a quick once over to make sure she was okay; it was obvious he saw right through her charade. Only when he was convinced she wasn't about to keel over did he take the time to greet the rest of them. He smiled slightly and nodded at Zazie, who looked back at him blankly, and then moved on to Caro, shuffling her feet as she tried to avoid calling attention to herself. The old man smiled widely at her and asked after her health, and finally moved on to him. "And who might you be?" he asked, something in his eyes belying the ever present smile on his face.
Jonus looked the old man in the eye and knew he had found, at the very least, an equal. This man deserved the truth, he felt...this was someone who would understand. Jonus closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he had shed the pretense of the foolish, carefree wanderer he had always enjoyed so, so much and took on a persona he hadn't used in centuries, the real Jonus Hart. "I am a Knight of the Old Order, who rode with the son of The Dragon; the Betrayer, known in these days as Jonus Hart, and we have many things to speak about."
Old Konoemon's lips stretched to form a long, sly smile as he met the humbled vampire's gaze and returned it without flinching, something that few had ever managed to do when Jonus Hart got serious. "Indeed, we do. Run along, Zazie-kun, Caro-chan, and thank you for your assistance." He nodded at Reiko. "Come along. You may hear anything he has to say."
Reiko nodded wearily and followed.
Cult Godanger, leader of the so-called Hecatean Mafia, staggered through the doors of the tavern that he had fled in disgrace what seemed ages ago. He made his way to the bar, almost completely unaware of the dozen pairs of eyes watching his every move, and all but collapsed onto a stool. He leaned against the bar for a moment, a haunted look in his eyes, and finally looked up at the man across the bar.
Dorsey, the owner and head bartender of this particular tavern and a man with whom Cult had clashed with regularity in the past, cocked an eyebrow as if to ask 'what the hell are you doing here?' Cult had made a point, after all, of demanding protection money from him several times.
"...beer..."
Dorsey mentally shrugged, selected a glass, filled it, and set it before the man who seemingly insisted on being his enemy.
The tavern was so quiet one could have heard a pin drop as Cult stared at the mug for a moment, lifted it, and drained it in one long, slow, agonizing go. The others were murmuring by the time he put the glass back on the bar and wiped some spilt beer off of his chin.
"You can pay for that, right?" Dorsey asked, unamused.
Cult just looked up at him blankly for a moment without really seeing him. "I'm lucky to be alive," he stated to no one in particular. He shook his head to clear it of terrifying thoughts of that, that 'Fate', as he had called himself, and looked Dorsey in the eye. "I think...I think it's time we stop doing this," he began hesitantly, his gaze drifting around the bar, occasionally settling on one small thing or other as if he had never seen it before. Finally, his gaze returned to Dorsey. "Something's going on, something big, and we need to stop fighting or we're all going to die..."
Dorsey gave him a long, hard look, but ultimately nodded. "Explain."
At the secret gateport in the U.K., things went along as they normally did. Mages and tourists moved between the two worlds at intervals as regular as varying conditions allowed, and for the most part, everything moved smoothly. However, when the next group from Mundus Magicus came through...
"Excuse me, may I see your identification?" one of the mages who did security at the gateport said to a woman in a hood. Something about her furtive movements, or perhaps the manner in which she shot quick, nervous looks at every mage who happened to glance her way, had caught his attention. As he approached, he realized that something about her seemed familiar, even with her hood hiding half her face in shadow.
The woman stumbled, looked timidly at the guard as she clutched her cloak more tightly around herself, and backed up a step as he approached. Several other guards, quickly noticing the developing situation, materialized out of the crowd and began heading toward her.
"If you won't show me your identification, I am afraid I must ask you to come with me," the guard said as the others came closer and spread out to surround her.
The woman looked around frantically, the deep hood hiding her face showing nothing but an occasional glimpse of the bottom half of her face or the outline of her nose.
"Miss, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to remove the cloak," the first guard said. He thought he might have figured out where he had seen her before; one of the wanted posters they were regularly sent to every gateport in order to keep dangerous fugitives from fleeing between worlds had had a picture of a beautiful young woman wanted for hideous crimes against the government involving water magic. Another glimpse of her face as she turned her head confirmed it. The guard shot a quick look around the area and cursed under his breath. Some of the regular people were watching now; that made things dangerous. If this woman was a dangerous as they had been warned...
The guards closed in and the woman cringed away. The air itself seemed to vibrate for an instant, and then every person in a fifty foot radius around the strange cloaked woman clutched at their stomach and collapsed, vomiting. People began to scream, and the cloaked figure muttered a frantic "I'm sorry!" and took off running.
She made it to the edge of the forest and quickly darted in amongst the trees, her travel-stained cloak helping to hide her in the shadows under the great trees.
She ran for a good ten minutes before she stopped, panting, to listen. The forest was silent; any pursuers had lost her or given up and gone back for reinforcements. Catching her breath from the impromptu run, she looked around at the unfamiliar trees of the Welsh countryside, and shivered. This was a whole new world she had never seen before; she had always dreamed of coming here to Mundus Vetus of course, especially as a child, but as she grew up those dreams had faded away as the responsibilities of day to day life took over. But now she was here, in this strange land, and she just wished...
"Ruden..."
She wished with all her heart that he had been able to come with her.
The Golden Fox youkai O Masashi twisted to check how he looked from behind in the big mirror in his home in Mundus Magicus. He took a moment to straighten his sash, part of the usual sort of clothing for a young up-and-coming youkai of means. He turned to the other man in the room. "How do I look?"
"Like a clown," Rex replied as he propped his feet up on the table. "And your ponytail's crooked."
Masashi clenched his jaw as he looked at himself in the mirror, holding up a smaller hand mirror behind his head so he could get a clear look at his hair, mentally reminding himself that he needed this man's assistance. Rex was one of the greatest fighters of the Red Fox tribe; he would need to search far and wide to find the other youkai's equal in combat. He was a suitable bodyguard; something that any youkai in Masashi's position who wished to convey an aura of importance required. "It's not a ponytail," he said through clenched teeth as he untied the leather string holding it back and set about rearranging it.
"Ponytail, foxtail, whatever," Rex said, waving his hand absently to show he didn't really care; his own hair was cut very short, the better to avoid someone grabbing it in a fight. He took a gulp of wine straight from the bottle Masashi had provided and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I'll have you know this is the traditional manner of wearing one's hair in the Golden Fox tribe when-"
"Look, I don't care," Rex said good naturedly. "There are more important things to worry about. Are you sure that's the right sword?" he asked, pointing at the long katana in its excessively decorated sheath where it sat leaning against the wall.
Masashi stiffened as he looked at himself in the mirror. To be honest, he wasn't sure, not really. He had expected the great sword of youkai legend, the Sword of Gathering Cloud, called the Grasscutter by the uninitiated, to have more of a presence, to, to react. He hadn't taken the sword from its sheath since the day he had stolen it from the Shinmeiryu and fled back home through the use of the mirror—the Eight Hands Mirror, the second of the three great youkai treasures and the only one that allowed teleportation from place to place, long passed down among his family before it was stolen by that Silver Fox tribe bitch youkai queen five hundred years ago and only returned to him when he raided the Silver Fox tribe's sacred storehouse—and thus far it had yet to give any indication that it was anything but a normal sword. Extremely well made, true, and it carried a magical aura as well, but he was deathly afraid it was a fake, even if he would never admit it aloud. But it looked the way a legendary sword should look; its elaborate decorations and the gems that encrusted its furniture reflected light in a variety of dazzling ways, truly a sword befitting a king! Not at all like the other swords he had seen there... He adjusted the leather string holding his noble foxtail back one last time, making sure his long golden hair fanned out prettily below it, and contented himself with planning the downfall of his enemies. The Shinmeiryu would have to go, but they were too large to deal with as he was now; he would have to wait until after he had claimed his rightful place as king of the youkai before he could face them. The Abe family in Kyoto was almost as bad with their control of the oni, but if he could locate the heir to the position of head of the family again and eliminate her, taking care of them was only a matter of waiting until the infighting crippled them. That damn Nakamura Sachiko, who had dared to kick him, him, of all people, back in Kyoto would have to die as well. Yes, yes. And that Silver Fox Miyoshi Youko, Youko Ninetales, his only true rival...he would have her as his concubine, humiliated before the world and with no chance of claiming his throne! Only then could he be truly happy, as king! He would found a dynasty that would outlast the ages, ruling over all the worlds until the end of time itself!
"It's almost time for your speech," Rex said, idly picking his teeth with the tip of a fine stiletto dagger he had picked up from an outcast Elysian noble years ago. The man hadn't been quite as good with a sword as he had thought he was. "Come on."
Masashi finished adjusting his hair and gave himself a good long look in the mirror, practicing his confident smile. He brushed his bangs to the side just so, and finally decided he was ready. It was time to declare his intentions to the Golden Fox tribe. He liked to think they would all be swayed by his overwhelming physical beauty and charisma, but he wasn't foolish enough to believe that their acceptance of his claim would be for that reason alone; most of them would just be happy to have a member of the Golden Fox tribe on the youkai throne again for the first time in almost twelve hundred years. He turned to Rex. "Come," he said. "Let us gain some followers." He would need them when he made his announcement at the rapidly approaching Youkai Festival, held every ten years on the holy ground back on Mundus Vetus.
In a large, heavily shadowed room lit by flicking candles and chandeliers dangling high above the enormous table, sat twenty two powerful vampires.
"So Chaser has been killed," Nineteenth Great Vampire Lord Judas Grimm said, his rough voice echoing in the chamber.
The others looked at each other. Among the three main factions of the Great Vampire Lords, Judas Grimm led the third, and his biggest supporter had been the Second Great Vampire Lord Chaser Felix, well known for his bloodthirsty manner of dealing with interlopers.
"We never replaced Marlowe after that incident in Rome in Mundus Vetus," Fourteenth Great Vampire Lord Renna Cross said, her voice like honey compared to Grimm's.
"Were you ever successful in contacting McDowell?" Twenty Fifth Great Vampire Lord Everitt Crowley asked, looking to the group's leader, First Great Vampire Lord Zeph Castor.
"No," Zeph replied with finality.
"And Jonus Hart has yet to return to us, correct?" Fifth Great Vampire Lord Sir Alexander Stratos, lately returned from Mundus Vetus, asked, smirking slightly as he watched Zeph Castor.
"That is correct," Zeph said, his expression showing annoyance as he drummed his fingers on the table.
"McDowell must join us," Eleventh Great Vampire Lord Caster Reed said in frustration. "She is the only one-"
"-who is worthy?" Sixth Great Vampire Lord Arturia Sader cut in sharply. "She is unpredictable, untrustworthy. She has nothing but disdain for our grand work."
Karina Dyne, Twenty Third among the Great Vampire Lords, rolled her eyes. "Your 'grand work' consists of nothing but hot air and false promises, Sader. You people only want to whittle our power among the mortals down to nothing. If your faction ever gains control I swear I'll-"
"You will what?" Zeph Castor said quietly. Something in his tone instantly quieted those who had been about to raise their voices.
Karina stuttered over her words as Zeph stood up and began to stroll slowly around the table toward her. The others nervously looked at each other across the table as he went.
"I-I'm sorry, I spoke out of turn, I-"
"Yes?" Zeph said, moving to stand behind her chair.
Karina shrunk down a little in it, clenching her fists in frustration, but maintained her silence while he stood there, ominously watching her with no expression on his face. When Zeph decided he had made his point as First among the Great Vampire Lords, he turned and strolled back to his seat at the head of the table with Judas Grimm to his left and Sir Alexander Stratos to his right. He sat down and slouched comfortably in his great chair.
"We must keep our heads in these trying times. I will not suffer internal conflict to continue in this manner," he said, his voice low and dangerous in a way most of those present had only heard a few times in the past. It was a far cry from the man's usual jocular, almost idiotic manner of speech, a manner of speech so prevalent in the man that it was easy to forget he was First among the Great Vampire Lords for a reason. They looked around the table, only fleetingly meeting each other's eyes before quickly looking away.
"We have lost two of our own, and perhaps a third," Sir Alexander Stratos said in the silence that followed, the earlier jabbing tone gone. "We are left with fewer active members than we have had since our founding. We must do what we can to locate Jonus Hart, as well as find suitable replacements." There was a general murmur of approval up and down the line. One of the few things they could all agree upon was the need to keep their numbers up. This need was so pressing, in fact, that they had made several additions recently that they never would have considered even a hundred years ago. Beatrice Honeydew, for example, was inducted after her sire was killed by some hero or other three years before. She was only a little over a hundred years old, still a baby, by vampire terms, idealistic and foolish to the core, and yet she held a great deal of power, even among vampires. Karina Dyne was another; cruelty and spite ran through her veins, and she and Beatrice got into fights almost any time they were in the same room. Everitt Crowley, an old vampire with a taste for the more obscure and perverse sorts of art and literature, had only joined up on the promise that he could look at all the stone age pornography he wanted, as long as he attended the meetings, joined them in the theoretical instance that they went into combat, and voted when called upon to do so.
Zeph looked out over the table again, mentally weighing the vampires under him. Barely half were trustworthy, but none present were as trustworthy as Jonus had been, or as much a friend. Sir Alexander Stratos and Judas Grimm were incredibly competent, but he didn't trust either one of them any more than he would trust a rabid dog. Each had a large following among the Great Vampire Lords, though Alexander's was the larger, almost as large as Zeph's following, in fact. Zeph mentally rolled his eyes. Sir Alexander wanted to pursue living openly among the mortals in peace, in peace! The man was a fool. The mortals would simply wait until the vampires had grown complacent and then doublecross the lot of them. Judas Grimm's ideas of returning the world to a state of fear, where vampires 'assumed their rightful place at the top' as he so often put it, was ludicrous as well; such a state of being had never existed, and never would. If such a state ever did come to be, Zeph well knew some hero would rise up and cast down the vampires. No, ruling or living openly was a mistake. The way to do it, Zeph thought, was to do it from the background, pulling the strings of world leaders from so far back in the shadows of the stage that the mortals didn't even know you were there. That was the only way to ensure continued survival, as Zeph's own long experience had shown.
These thoughts and more ran through Zeph's head as he listened to the arguments and back and forth as the others tried to come up with names of suitable vampires to join their ranks. It was a pity Evangeline wasn't interested, he thought to himself. She would have been a great asset, one of the strongest among them. 'I should never have sent Carrick,' he thought bitterly. The loss of his most competent servant had been a shocking mistake on his part, a mistake on a level he hadn't made in centuries, easily on par with some of the monumental blunders he had made when he had first been turned and sought revenge. Carrick had been far more than a mere servant; he had had a hand in backroom politics and had been present at every planning session, real or intentionally misleading, that Zeph had held for the past two hundred years. The ghoul was a tremendous resource, a powerful ally and trusted adviser unlike any Zeph had ever known. And now he was gone, lost in a foolish attempt to raise their numbers.
He settled back into a more comfortable slouch in his chair, turning his attention back to the others. It looked like they would go on all night, and so much the better. When one became tired and frustrated from hours of argument, one tended to say things one might have wished to keep hidden. That was a major part of why he held these meetings, in fact. He was surrounded by naïve fools and idiots, and this was by far the best way to keep an eye on them. And they played so entertainingly off of each other as well...
Cleaned up and now recovered from the incident in Vairocana, Fate climbed the front stairs of a particularly tall office building in Megalomesembria. He had been here many times before and, he had no doubt, this would not be the last time.
Inside, the clerk at the desk waved him through to the elevator, and he soon found himself on the twenty-first floor, where he made his way through the hallways until he arrived at the office of a man he had known for years, yet who was still a mystery to him. He pressed a button on a box mounted on the wall beside the door, and a bored sounding woman replied almost instantly.
"Yes?"
"My name is Fate, I am here to meet with Ocali Kaunt," he said.
A moment later the woman replied. "Mister Kaunt will see you now," she said, and the door opened.
Fate stepped through, ignored the secretary in the outer office, and entered the door to Ocali's larger, inner office, the one where he conducted business matters. Fate had been to several of his other offices as well, his senate office and his home business office, and all of them gave off the same sensation of utter averageness; Fate couldn't decide if the man did it on purpose or not. He walked up to within five feet of the front of Ocali's desk and bowed quickly. "I am ready to make my report."
Ocali swiveled his chair back and forth a few times, creating an extremely irritating grinding noise; it appeared he would need a new chair soon. "Very good. You may begin."
Fate started with the most important part first. "We have captured the leader of the group that has been harassing your agents for quite some time."
"Excellent. Bring her to me for execution immedi-"
"That is unacceptable," Fate interrupted, carefully schooling his face into an utterly neutral expression. After what Hasegawa Chisame had told him...
Ocali just looked at him for a long, long moment. Never before had Fate interrupted him in such a manner, never before had anyone. "Explain," Ocali demanded.
Fate's unflinching gaze sharpened. "There are...issues with certain people in certain...positions of power," he said, unsure of how to answer the man without giving his new mission away.
Ocali's near perpetual small, false smile went away, and Fate found himself shifting slightly to better defend himself should the man attack. He didn't know why he felt this sudden sense of danger—after all, Ocali was aging, somewhat overweight, and seated in a chair on the other side of a desk—but he sensed danger nonetheless. Nevertheless, he continued. "Due to these circumstances and others, I have been forced to take her into protective custody," he said. "She is at a secure location of my choosing, safe from anyone who would attack her, and fully prevented from escape."
"I will find her," Ocali said, his voice utterly dead and emotionless to match his expression.
The sense of danger in the room multiplied tenfold, yet Fate refused to back down. "No, you will not. She is secure, she will not do any more harm to your agents."
"That is irrelevant."
"She is under my protection."
"Will that be enough, I wonder?"
The two of them stood staring at each other across that desk for several long, long minutes before Ocali finally sat back in his chair and began swiveling it slowly back and forth, grinding the ruined bearings together in an intensely irritating manner. "Very well; if you so choose, it will be. However, I will not forget your disobedience," he said, his tone surprisingly light. Any onlooker would have taken the threat for a joke, but Fate knew it was no joke. Ocali was always serious.
"If you insist," Fate replied, maintaining his calm expression only through long years of practice as he moved on to the next item of interest. "We suffered losses; Second among the Great Vampire Lords, Chaser Felix, was killed, the demon Foloren Doubt was defeated and sent back to the demon world to recover, and several of my other allies were badly wounded and are receiving care; they will not be available for further missions for quite some time." He didn't blame Ocali for this, not really; he simply hadn't done as much research as had been necessary, and his allies had paid the price. He would not let it happen again.
An hour later, Fate stalked out of the building, brushing past a young girl with startlingly red hair who grinned as she looked at him with cold, dead gray eyes. When he was out of sight, the girl turned and headed the other way, stepped into an alley, and vanished.
Misa sat on the couch in the apartment she shared with her three best friends, watching Madoka with a vague sense of apprehension as the short haired woman answered questions on the telephone with short, concise answers. Something in the set of her jaw, in her too wide eyes and the way she gripped the receiver more tightly than she ever did under normal circumstances held Misa's attention.
"Yes. I un-understand," Madoka said.
Misa blinked. Madoka stuttered? Madoka never stuttered...!
"Alright then. I...do you need me for anything else, or...? Or..." Madoka trailed off for a moment, listening to the person speaking on the other end. "Oh...okay then. I'll ah...I'll be at this number, if you need anything, or...anything. Okay. Yes, thank you for telling me. Bye..." She pressed the button to end the call and dropped the wireless phone on to the tabletop next to its charger without even seeming to notice she had missed. She looked slowly around the room as if she had never seen it before, her eyes wide and unseeing and growing increasingly more watery by the second until they locked on to Misa's face and tears began to run down.
Misa, for her part, was utterly flabbergasted. She had never seen this sort of behavior from Madoka, ever. Something was seriously wrong here, and yet she couldn't seem to get her mouth to work properly.
Madoka felt the wetness on her face and reacted with surprise, all but jumping as she started trying to wipe the tears away. "I-I don't know what's...why...M-Misa..."
Hearing her name spoken in that pitiful tone broke her paralysis, and Misa was up off the couch and throwing her arms around the other woman as she broke down. Madoka clamped on to her and Misa gently guided her back to the couch, thanking every deity she had ever heard of that Sakurako had taken Ako out to get something for lunch earlier; she didn't want anyone seeing Madoka like this, even her other friends. She settled her down on the couch and tried to get back up for a box of tissues, but Madoka wouldn't let go of her so she settled back hesitantly. The sleeve and shoulder of her shirt were getting soaked by Madoka's tears, but she didn't have the heart to push her away, so she settled instead for patting her gently on the back.
"Madoka?" Madoka didn't respond for a moment, so she repeated herself. "Madoka? Can I ask what happened?" Madoka stiffened and buried her face further into Misa's shoulder; Misa waited for a moment for a response that didn't come, so she was about to try again when Madoka finallyspoke, still hiding her face.
"R-remember that guy that blew up our cafe?"
It took Misa a moment to figure out what Madoka was talking about. A guy that blew up their cafe...? Her eyes widened when it suddenly hit her: six years ago, back before either of them had thought magic was anything but silly cartoon stuff, when all those people were after their classmate Akira, one of those strangers had decided to go around the city, destroying random buildings with fire magic, one of which had been their favorite cafe at the time. Madoka had later beaten this same man unconscious in retaliation for what they had thought at the time was the murder of their classmates, and he had been taken away by the authorities. To be honest, Misa hadn't thought about that man in a long time; she had just assumed he had been sent off to jail somewhere when he recovered. These thoughts went through her head in the space of a second. "Yeah?"
"He died."
"..." Misa sat there, stunned. He died? What was Madoka talking about? "What-"
"After I beat him up, he went unconscious and never woke up, he's been in a coma ever since. Now he's dead. I-I'm a muh-muh-murderer!" Madoka said, her voice hitching as she tried to speak the last word.
Misa's mouth opened and closed like a fish as she tried to think of something, anything to say to comfort her, but nothing came. She had never had anything like that happen before...sure, she had blasted people with magic until they passed out, but they had always woken up, even that one mage who had somehow managed to capture Madoka that time and tried to use her against her. No one had ever... She abruptly realized that nothing she could say would help Madoka in any way. She could say any number of kind things, but that couldn't change the fact that the man Madoka had fought that time had died as a direct result of her actions; nothing could make Madoka forget that fact, either. She knew Madoka wasn't a murderer; Madoka had only been trying to defend her town and her friends. None of them had known that the bodies they found in the lake back then were fakes until much later, after it was all over. Overzealous vigilante, yes, but a murderer? No, never. She hugged Madoka back and sat there with her in silence on the couch, listening while she cried.
Author's Notes: Well that was a bit of a downer. But anyway, this chapter marks the end of Still Waters 3: Book 1 – Drift. I am simultaneously posting the beginning of Book 2, so please continue reading the ongoing adventures of Negi and all his students and friends as they face new enemies, find new friends, and prepare for the school festival and summer vacation!