Ch 38 Get What You Wanted
"Most hosts would offer tea to their guests. Are witches above courtesy, Ruby-dono?" Ria inquires professionally lecturing.
It took all of Mikogami's raven haired aide's restraint to not release all her pent up hell upon Moka's eldest sister without mercy. Everything Ria did, said, manipulated, controlled seemed to always twist well into her favor...at least, from what Tsukune had told her, it all seemed the more plausible by the minute. Lowering her chin till the front of her razor sharp cut locks straight over her forehead were hiding the shadows of her eyes, Ruby gestured with one hand that lit a burner with a tea kettle sitting on a it.
Silently, Toujou Ruby shuffled across the room to gather the tea leaves and other necessities for her uninvited and controlling guest.
Ria watched Ruby's sullen expression and her mood darken over her shoulder's like some cloud of depression.
Water was poured and cups were laid out. Spoons and containers with sugar and milk were set on a tray and properly offered to Ria as she sat, still quite comfortably on the witch's desk.
Red lips smirked as she watched the witch dutifully work as the vampiress expected. Ria had seen it happen over and over again, more then a thousand times, she was sure, that when someone was offered an item so valuable that made them blanch and crumble after it's offering that she had them settled right in the palm of her well manicured hands like puddy. It really was too easy once she knew what they wanted and how to manipulate what she demanded after a few push and pulls.
She hadn't been Issa's best if she hadn't been extremely successful after all these many decades upon decades.
"Sugar?" Ruby offered in a strained voice, her eyes glaring pools of liquid violet.
"You shouldn't make that face. It will stay like that and no boy will like you." Ria chided jokingly after watching a spoonful of sugar get poured into the cup by Ruby and stirred.
"Milk?"
"No, thank you."
Ruby offered a tea cup with a saucer to Ria and she graciously accepted.
Preparing her own tea cup, Ruby glared at her hands as they worked mechanically.
"To a beautiful partnership. I really think we'll have a fruitful union once you realize that I really am a generous person once we are working together. You have nothing to fear from me so long as you and I are on the same page. Your Master's land will be safe if you can just promise to leave Tsukune and Moka alone to handle their problems for as long as the trial exists." Ria raised her glass to Ruby in a sort of 'cheers' to accept the deal.
"So, if I allow whatever is to happen between Tsukune and Moka go naturally about it's course, and, even if he was to call me, I am to be busy or doing something that requires me to be away. That will suffice in your mother's and your view to give me the land that my Master lived on?" Ruby stirred a spoon in her cup, the edge of the blunt end scraping every so often against the porcelain.
"That will be more then sufficient." Ria agreed.
Exhaling in submission, Ruby gave just the barest nods. "Please, forgive me, Tsukune."
"This is for the best, Ruby-dono," Ria poised the cup at her lips, the brim steaming under her nose. "He was going to leave eventually and have to face our family without your aid. It is best to do it here and now while the trial is underway so that you can see we, as his new family, will take care of him now that he is one of our own."
Ruby's bare shoulders shrugged without enthusiasm.
"Silly girl, don't you see? I'm not your enemy. I actually want Moka and Tsukune to break up." Ria chided as she took a dainty sip from her cup.
Ruby raised her brows just enough to see Ria comment about the tea being a bit bitter.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll share a little secret with you," Ria beckoned with one fine manicured nail.
Ruby leaned forward. "I'm not allowed to touch or hinder Moka and Tsukune either. However, what if I could manipulate things on my end and, say, things were to work in your favor it would be more then enough to satisfy my want to hurt my darling sibling enough to sate my revenge."
The dark haired witch said nothing but wait to hear more.
"And how would things work in my favor?"
"Easy. Lets say that Tsukune does choose to leave Moka someone will need to be there for him in his time of need, hmm?"
Ruby nodded.
Ria poured a little more sugar into her tea and took a bigger drink. "Rather strong, isn't it?"
"It is. As you were saying?"
"My father won't allow Tsukune to leave the family. No matter what happens between him and my whore of a sister, his blood is ours and honor will demand that he stays in the family no matter what. Should he decide to find another mate other then my sister, the choices will either be one of his other daughters. I would very much like to be the one that is eventually chosen to be his mate after I have proven myself to him that I can be more then just his tormentor."
Ruby's brow lowered on her nose, her voice becoming hot with warning. "Stay away from him."
"Or what? You'll throw tea at me?" Ria chuckled as she downed the cup and hummed about it still leaving a bitter aftertaste.
Ruby put her own cup down, untouched, and shook her head. "You have no idea what I am capable of, Ria. Don't confuse my will or ability to that of Tsukune."
"Oh me, oh my, I am beginning to like you Ruby-dono. Even after knowing what you could possibly lose, you still have the courage to bare your teeth at me. I'm so glad to see you won't go down without a fight. Please, tell me what can you do to stop me?" Ria leaned herself comfortably on the flat of her desk while supporting herself with one hand.
Everything in the vampire's demeanor oozed confidence.
"You know magic," Ruby flicked her wrist, making her stave appear from out of the ether and solidify in her hands. "Those seals on my door were not something easily dismantled. I know because my master showed me."
Ria tapped one finger on her lips and considered it. "I dabble in the art enough to have a strong understanding of the fundamentals and it's branches, especially in invocation, summoning, and most of it's darker elements like necromancy. You're right, those seals were rather complex, but it's not difficult for someone who has had over several centuries of study to overcome. I'm sure for what little time you shared with your master, she did well to show you what she could in her time. I compliment you on your skill."
"Tell me, Ria-sama," Ruby's voice become like ice, like murder and red hate. "Have you ever studied alchemy?"
As soon as the words came out of Ruby's mouth, Ria had only to glance at her empty cup and her host's untouched one to realize that there may have been a little more in the tea then just sugar.
Preparing herself for some kind of assault, Ria charged her youkai to it's demonic height...
"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!"
Lord Akashiya's most powerful daughter crumpled to the ground noisily, rolling off the desk in a graceless pile of papers and broken porcelain pieces with her blood red eyes and fangs exposed in a scream that no longer made noise.
Hands now smoking with brilliant white fire bearing claws and gouging the ground like steel as they tried to come to some kind of semblance of normalcy...
They found none.
Ruby was kneeling down in front of Ria, tilting her head with her scepter clutched in one hand while she reached out and grabbed Tsukune and Moka's tormentor with the other. "It's an interesting mix when not all the herbs in the tea are for the sake of flavor. Some have counter effects that actually cause the youkai in your body to turn upon it's own maker. There are some very rare herbs in there that do that can actually cause mana and youkai energy to damage the body as much as it would normally protect it. So, the more powerful you are is actually more damaging to your own self."
Lurching herself into a mess of fire and black form, Ria shut off the flow of youkai and fell into smoking twitches at Ruby's floor, panting as if she'd just been rescued from drowning.
Predatory eyes peeked out from under long lashes at Ruby.
"I don't need to be a vampire to kill you." She snarled when Ruby's gem lit up and Ria was in for another surprise.
Electricity danced about her body, making her convulse into fits at Ruby's feet.
"The sugar was actually only a third of the powdered content, one part was granulated pure sea salt that has been blessed by a bishop of true faith, and the rest is my own little concoction my master showed me to prepare for such events as this, making the salt sweeter in nature after blending it with different types of fructose. It has a purifying affect that is usually doused on the outside of a creature who is allergic to any kind of purifying solution such as vampires or the undead of most kind."
Letting Ria catch her breath, the smell of burnt flesh began to spread not only from Ria's clothes, but from the pores of her body and out of her nose, ears, and lips.
"I can't imagine what it must feel like to have it consumed and spread through you like some kind of holy penance. The pain must be unimaginable." Ruby shook her head as she walked away slowly, picking up the deed that was on her desk that held the title of 'Witch's Knoll' at it's top.
"Why would you do this?" Ria gasped once she was able to steady her voice and her breathing enough to speak in respectful acknowledgment to her underestimated torturer. "You know what I can do to your master's property-"
"I am doing this because of my master, Ria." Ruby's sigh came from the tips of her toes as she brought the deed to her lips in a gesture of farewell and dropped the deed for what it exactly was...
...just a piece of paper.
"My master taught me that nothing," Ruby kneeled down and gave Ria her most earnest and sincere glare, "Nothing is more important then family and friendship. She would turn over in her grave if she was to find out I gave up one of my most precious people for the sake of something as superfluous as land, even one as grand as Witch's Knoll. You wouldn't know anything about my views on true love and honor to those who mean more to me then my own worth. You say that he is part of your family and you will take care of him? Then also know that THIS is how I take of my family!"
Mikogami's aide stood proud and womanly before the creature in a cindering, smoldering pile at her feet.
"I am a witch, Sekitan Ria! You may know magic but you have never truly met a sister of the covenant like myself. I am Tojou Ruby, loyal friend and woman in love with Aono Tsukune and all of his friends and deadly enemy to all who wish to hold any of us in fear. Realize this! I will not be deterred from my duties! Not by you, by Moka, by Mikogami...no one!"
Respect and honest submission registered in Ria's eyes.
In the rare too few many times in her life, she had been defeated. This time wasn't by overwhelming brute strength as she had been with Akasha, but by guile and self confidence, simple science and magical tricks that she should have known as well.
It would seem that even those who were not elite monsters like herself were more then aware of the tricks needed to subdue someone as powerful as herself for the sake of those precious to them.
"You will not control me, Ria. I am Tsukune's friend and I. Love. Him. Nothing you can test me with, hurt me with, destroy under your name that is not mine of my own flesh, my own spirit, or my mind will prevent me from doing my part to keep him safe so long as I breathe life in me. Do you understand me? You may see him as a possession in your family because of his blood, but I see him in mine because of his spirit and his heart! Not even someone as special to him as his wife will keep me from my promise to protect him! Do you hear me, Ria? No one else's family is more important to me then my own and he is a part of it! No one!"
However, even with the most grandest of gestures must come at a price.
When Ruby flared her own mana to punctuate her rant, saliva and blood shot out of Ruby's mouth like a small fountain across the room to the base of her desk. The front of her dress was soon covered with speckles of froth and bloody bubbles as she heaved for air nosily, wetly.
"No," Ruby swayed as her scepter fell from her fingers and she clutched at the edge of her desk. Her hair stuck to her face and the scent of her her own bile reached her nose as a wave of nausea tripped over the edge of her skirt to fall on her side.
"Not like this...not this way...I can't...I...can't..."
The cold wet stone floor bruised her cheek and vertigo set deep within her.
It can't end like this! I have to stay up! I have to get back on my feet or...or...
A shooting stab of pain thrusted into her, pulling her out of consciousness.
Before darkness took her, she saw Ria getting back onto her feet and walking towards her.
Click...
Click...
Click...
Click...
Ria's heels echoed like taps of a hammer to nails in her coffin.
Her musical lilted sing song'd words like a herald of death when the dark haired witch finally lost consciousness.
"~Ru-by-do-no, come back, come back, from wherever you are.~"