Disclaimer: I don't own Negima! Magister Negi Magi or Ranma ½
Rise of Prodigies
Chapter Fifty Eight: At the Governor's Ball
Beta:
Ranma was seated across from Haruna as the two played a game of chess whilst the others trained in the dojo of the ship that she had crafted for her and their little group. She'd just put Haruna in check and her little sister was trying her best to figure out a way out of her predicament. Not that she really had one. Even if she escaped check this time, Ranma had set things up so that she'd have her in checkmate within the next ten turns at maximum. Something she was sure Haruna was realizing as her frown deepened the more she examined the board.
"Onee-sama, I'm going to lose no matter what, aren't I?" Haruna asked as she looked up from the board with a frown.
Ranma just nodded with a smirk.
"Since when did you get so good at chess?"
"It's something I play with my familiars in my Labyrinth to get them to stretch their intelligence and focus," Ranma said with a shrug. "I've had a lot of practice."
"Inside your Labyrinth?" Haruna asked with a cocked eyebrow. "You keep mentioning that but haven't explained what it means except it's inside you somehow, which nobody really understands. What do you actually mean?"
"Exactly what I said. I can't really explain it better than that."
"So is there a you out here, but also a you in there?" Haruna asked, as if it was the most critical of questions.
"You could say that," Ranma said with a nod. "I run quite a few instances inside my Labyrinth. I have hundreds of familiars to wrangle after all. One instance alone wouldn't be enough."
Haruna could only pout.
"Oh, I was wondering how long they would take to get here." Ranma said as she stood from the table and began walking towards the entrance to the ship as her omniscience detected something that she'd been expecting for some time.
"Onee-sama?" Haruna asked curiously as abandoning their chess game, she stood and followed after Ranma.
"We have company," Ranma explained as with a subtle twisting of space, she teleported both herself and her sister onto a freshly created observation deck of her ship which gave them a nice view overlooking their guests. Said guests consisted of a company sized force of fully armed Megalomesembria Confederation troops who despite their numbers were practically quaking in their armor as they stared up warily at Ranma.
"Onee-sama, I know you want to go all super hyper murder mode-"
"Okay that's demeaning."
"-But! They have a white flag." Haruna pointed out, gesturing to a large white flag that the Megalomesembrians were waving rather desperately. "So that means you really shouldn't kill them because that's just mean."
"I'm a literal demon god." Ranma retorted. Well, not technically. But that was what the locals called her so she was more than happy to run with it.
"Who is a kind and caring soul." Her sister rebutted.
"Oh fine~! Take the fun out of it, why don'tcha!" Ranma gripped with an accompanying roll of her eyes.
"Nah, I just know how to manage you." The green haired girl snickered.
"Whatever!" Ranma said with a huff, before turning towards the terrified Megalomesembrians who had quietly allowed the byplay to go on without interrupting them. "What does the Confederation want?"
Ranma hadn't needed to use the booming voice she had to address the Megalomesembrian soldiers but at the sight of the lot of them gulping nervously and otherwise subtly panicking, she thought her decision to do so was a good one. It certainly delivered entertaining results.
"Demon God Ranma Saotome, you are cordially invited to the Governor's Ball that the governor, His Excellency Kurt Godel, is organizing to commemorate the founding of New Ostia." The contingent of soldiers' leader said as he pulled a sealed envelope from one of his pockets and offered it to Ranma.
So they are conveniently leaving out the fact that the founding of New Ostia also coincides with the fall of the Ostian Kingdom? I guess the Megalomesembria Confederation doesn't like to bring attention to the fact that they built the city on the corpse of a fallen nation, huh? Ranma thought as she stretched out a pseudopod to pluck the letter from the soldier and after casting a number of diagnostic spells over it to ensure it was safe, handed it over to Haruna.
Her sister didn't need more prompting than that and immediately tore the envelope open to read its contents.
"It's what he said it is, Onee-sama." Haruna confirmed a moment later.
"I see," Ranma said with a slow, disinterested nod. "And why would I care to attend a ball?"
"I'd recommend you attend Ranma-sama." Herb-san said as she walked onto the observation platform with a towel around her neck that she was using to idly dab at her wet hair. Clearly someone had just finished a shower. "When a politician says they want to talk, it's probably best to just go see what they have to say. It's less troublesome that way."
"And why should I care what a politician has to say?"
"Would you rather have to deal with whatever nonsense they send your way if you don't at least listen to what they want?" Herb-san asked with a pointed look. "Even if it's just a nuisance each time, it'll stack up.
"Point taken." Ranma conceded with a sigh before she turned to the waiting Confederation troops. "Go tell your governor that I'll attend."
"Thank yo-"
Ranma was in no mood to entertain the man's pleasantries any longer however so she shot him and his troops a burning glare as she addressed them once more. "GO!"
In response to her display, the soldiers wisely feld.
"See? He only fled peeing himself! Onee-sama, your kindness knows no bounds!" Haruna cheered.
Her sister was just too much at times. The sheer level of optimism was unreal.
"Now, for Operation: Suit-Up!" Haruna declared, a hand on her hip while her other hand pointed at the sky, a megawatt smile on her face.
"Do we even have money for ball gowns and suits?" Herb-san asked, trying to pop her happy bubble.
But he failed! Instead, her smile just broadened as she flashed him a little black card.
His impressed whistle stroked her ego even more!
"Um, what's that?" Ukyo-san asked curiously, eyeing the card in confusion.
"Black cards are the most exclusive credit cards back on Earth." Ryōga-san, one of the most poverty stricken people she's ever met, explained. Something that surprised her to no end and almost, but not quite, popped her bubble. "The same thing probably applies to the Magical World."
Herb-san nodded.
"Wait, what? Haruna-san, where did you even get that?!"
"I turned in a lot of bad guys. Bounty hunting is very lucrative."
Onee-sama looked bemused. "Plus the guys at the bank saw my face and shat themselves. Literally."
"Puu! Stop spoiling my fun, Onee-sama!" Haruna said as she came to a stop so she could turn and send an epic pout her sister's way. Onee-sama just shot back a dull stare in reply.
She was going to get her an extra fru-fru dress for this!
"I can tell what you're thinking, Haruna." Onee-sama said as she walked around where Haruna was standing and began walking the last few feet towards the boutique that was their destination for the day. "And there's no way I'm letting you pick my dress."
"Gah! Onee-sama, no mind reading when I'm plotting. You know my mind is dangerous!"
"Only when you go Yaoi Mode." Onee-sama said, sniping her heart like a lethal assassin! "Besides, I didn't need to read it to know what you were thinking. I'm your sister. I know you well enough."
Drat!
"So Ranma," Ryōga-san said as following Onee-sama's lead everyone just started walking around the stationary Haruna, forcing her to get moving too or be left behind. Even Nodoka just walked around her, though her Ministra at least rolled her eyes at her as she passed. "How did you find out about this shop we're going to?"
"I love haute couture," Onee-sama admitted with a light blush. "Ever since I've arrived, I've been researching the best boutiques in Mundus Magicus in my spare time-"
"She loves to window shop." Haruna teased.
Like a physical attack against her slime body would, Onee-sama just let the tease bounce off her and continued as if Haruna hadn't said a thing.
"-to see if I could find something to add to my collection."
Boo! She wanted at least a little twitch.
"Collection, huh?" Ukyo-san said with a shake of her head. "That's one way to describe it alright. Another would be hoard. Seriously, Ranchan, don't you need to rent whole storage lockers just to have enough space to store all the dresses you own?"
"It is only right for someone of Ranma-sama's status to own a large wardrobe." Herb-san said in Onee-sama's defense. "She needs clothing for every occasion."
"Wait, can't she just store her clothes in her body now? Or heck, make new ones out of her slime based on what she sees?" Ryōga-san asked. That was pretty insightful, but then again it came from a guy who doesn't get it. A girl's gotta shop!
"I like reference material," Onee-sama said with a shrug. "And I got my collection before I gained my Labyrinth. I haven't got around to moving it in yet. I'll do that after I get back home. For now-"
"It's time to shop!" Haruna declared happily as Onee-sama pushed open the door to the high end boutique that they were shopping at for the day. A boutique that only ever sold bespoke pieces made by its owner using his unique brand of magic.
"I couldn't agree more, my dear." The store's owner, a fashionably dressed older gentleman with a formidable mustache, said as he and his two equally dapperly dressed female assistants greeted them with a formal bow. "And welcome to my humble shop, Demon God Ranma. It is my great honor that your august personage has selected my services."
"Huh!? There's no one else here?" Ukyo-san asked, eyeing the remarkably empty store curiously.
"We are closed to all other clients for the day." The gentleman replied with a small bow. "I wished to give Her Grace my undivided attention."
"I thank you for your thoughtfulness." Onee-sama said, offering the store owner a pleasant smile.
"Indubitably. Now! Would you please follow me to the lounge where we can discuss in more comfort what designs you would like me to produce for you?"
"Lead the way," Onee-sama said with a nod and followed the gentleman as he and his assistants began leading their party further into the shop.
"Hey Ranchan, think you can pull off this trick back on Earth and make it so we don't have to fight with anyone else for service when we visit shops? If you could, you'd be the best friend ever!"
"I think I could manage that, Ucchan." Onee-sama said shooting her best friend a murderous little grin. "I'm probably scary enough to pull some connections."
"Um, maybe we shouldn't do that?." Nodoka commented, ever the voice of reason. And mild boredom. "Terrifying people just to make our lives convenient is wrong."
Haruna nodded in agreement.
Onee-sama just pouted at them though. "Then what's the benefit of becoming some scary monster?"
Does Onee-sama think that's what she's become!? Haruna thought even as she felt like someone had just driven a stake through her heart. Sure her big sister had become a slime and was scarily powerful now… but she wasn't a monster!
Crossing her arms into an X, she let out a buzzer noise from her mouth. "Nah! Wrong! You are not a monster, Onee-sama! And don't ever say that again!"
Not even looking at her, Onee-sama addressed the store owner instead. "I hope you understand, sir, that I am not only looking for clothes for myself today, but for all my friends as well."
"Of course, Your Grace. I am more than happy to accommodate that."
A-Am I being ignored during a sisterly comfort moment?! Heresy!
"Onee-sama! Don't ignore me!" Haruna said, putting a hand on her sister's shoulder and pulling them to a stop. "You are not a monster."
Onee-sama just sighed at this before turning around to face Haruna at last. But she did so sporting not the normal simulacra of her old human face that she usually wore but instead one where half her face was transformed into slime and looked like it was melting. A terrifying look that had everyone but Haruna, yes even the usually unflappable Herb-san, flinching back in shock.
"You are not a monster." Haruna repeated adamantly. She wasn't backing down on this.
"You keep saying that." Onee-sama said as she reordered her face into its normal appearance.
"Because it's true," Haruna insisted.
"Then why is it that everyone but you flinched at just a glimpse of my true form and that everyone abandoned us because I did the smart thing?" Onee-sama said disbelievingly as she shook off Haruna's hold and gestured at the store owner - who, like his staff, had wisely kept out of the brewing altercation between Onee-sama and the rest of them - to continue leading the way.
"If I remember correctly, we were the ones to abandon them." Herb-san reminded everyone.
"They didn't follow us or try to stop us, did they? I think the abandonment was mutual." Onee-sama insisted, even as she walked into the lounge the store owner indicated and began surveying the dresses he had put on display presumably to serve as samples.
Herb-san shrugged.
"Ranma-san," Nodoka said as in a display of her increasing confidence and bravery, she stepped forward and taking a firm hold of Onee-sama's shoulder, spun her around to face her. "We left because we trust your leadership. It was you who gathered us up, not Negi-sensei. It was you who's willing to properly fight our enemy, not Negi-sensei. If these actions make you a monster? Then we might as well all be monsters."
Haruna had never felt more proud of her Ministra before that moment. She was going to hug the heck out of her later.
"And yet you flinched when I showed you a glimpse of my true nature just now."
Nodoka scoffed at that, her eyes narrowing behind her fringe. "Of course I did. Whatever else, Ranma-san, you're scary now. But that doesn't make you a monster. Negi-sensei is scary too when he's in one of his Magia Erebea (Dark Magic) forms but no one considers him a monster."
"Nodoka-san is right, Ranchan." Ukyo-san said as she stepped forward. "And can you really blame us for flinching when you basically pulled a jump scare on us?"
"Okay, all of you here might think that but the others-"
"Can go rot," Haruna cut in firmly. "If they think badly about my Onee-sama, they can go to hell. But I don't think they do. They're just rattled. They'll come around. Eventually. We've been through too much to not reconcile."
"Yeah, they probably will." Ryōga-san agreed. "They're all still living in a fantasy world where fighting is a clean, honorable thing. But reality will catch up to them eventually. Once it does, they'll realize that Ranma is in the right to do what she did."
"We just need to wait for the real world to bite them in the ass." Herb-san agreed.
"Let's not talk about that now," Onee-sama said with a sigh. "Right now, we have fine clothes to buy."
A few hours later and after some magically assisted fitting, Ranma and her party walked out of the boutique after a bountiful shopping trip. A demonstration of which being the fact that they walked out dressed in some of their new purchases.
Leading them out of the store was Ranma herself who was currently dressed in a stylish black gown with a sleeveless, plunging V-neck neckline, a crisscross detail at the front and a thin band wrapped at the waist where the skirt transitioned into a voluminous ball gown. It was a dress that her typical humanoid form could not pull off. She simply did not have the cleavage for it. However, her new nature made things easy on that front. All she'd needed was to modify her appearance accordingly, a fact that had pleased the boutique owner as it made things so much easier for him as she could simply modify her body shape and appearance to fit everything that he crafted for her. And her current dress was no exception.
Ranma was soon followed by Haruna, who was dressed in an emerald embellished jersey dress with a sleeveless, scoop neckline with thin straps, a fitted bodice, a lace up back and a skirt tailored in a full length trumpet silhouette with a slit and a sweep train finish. And following behind her was one of her sister's Shield Maiden golems that was carrying at least a dozen other dresses and outfits that their group had purchased in covers.
"Onee-sama, why are we wearing our formalwear before the Ball again?"
"Better to get used to them now then have to do so when at the Ball where a fight is likely to break out." Ucchan explained as she exited the shop behind the Shield Maiden dressed in a white kimono with a red obi and red swallow print.
"I suppose that makes sense. We did have the store owner enchant it all so we could fight in them if need be." Haruna said with a nod. "Though are we sure a fight will break out at the ball?"
"Considering it seems Negi-sensei has been invited too? I'd say the chances are good." Nodoka-san said as she joined them on the street waiting for the others to exit the shop. "It seems that wherever he goes, a fight almost always breaks out."
As Nodoka-san walked over, Ranma couldn't help but admire her classmate's choice of dress. It was a midnight black short sleeved dress with a stand collar and a see-through mesh panel with charming feather and ruffle detailing that covered her shoulders. Haruna had wanted her Ministra to pick out something with more feather detailing, but the purple haired girl refused, arguing that she wanted a more mature look.
A decision that Ranma applauded. More than once in the past, Ranma had seen Nodoka-san let herself be bullied into doing things by Haruna. So that she had grown confident and assertive enough to make her own preferences clear was heartening. Even Haruna seemed delighted by the fact.
"Man, for such a polite kid he really does get into a lot of fights, huh?" Haruna pondered aloud.
"Sadly," Ucchan said with a nod.
"True," Nodoka-san agreed as she eyed Ucchan with a questioning look. "Ukyo-san, I've been wondering about this for a while. Why did you choose a kimono over a Western dress?"
"Well, we are Japanese aren't we?" Ucchan said with a shrug.
"But-" Nodoka-san said as she and Ucchan trailed off into a conversation of their own.
"Hmm, all of us girls are out already and the boys aren't?" Haruna asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion. "What's keeping them?"
"Don't be impatient, Haruna." Ranma chided her sister. "Here they are."
As she said this, Ranma gestured towards the front door just as it opened and Ryōga-san and Herb-san stepped out. Like the girls they were all dressed up in their formalwear, with the former dressed in a traditional black and white tuxedo and Herb-san in the traditional robes of a Tang Dynasty prince in white and light blue.
"Uuuh…" Ryōga-san said, as he finished exiting the shop and caught sight of Ucchan. Something that prompted him to behave like an utter idiot as he blatantly stared at Ranma's best friend like he just met her for the first time.
Ranma was about to call him out on it but was saved the effort when Herb-san bonked him on the head.
"Yeow! What was-" Ryōga-san snarled at the man, but Herb-san cut him off with a quick whispered reply.
"Don't stare like a gawking buffoon. Compliment her."
Ryōga-san nodded as if it were gospel and stuttered out. "Y-You look great, Ukyo-san! Da-Dazzling even!"
Ucchan's cheeks pinked at that, and she toed the ground with her geta. "Um, t-thank you. You look good too, Ryōga-kun."
"Onee-sama, should we leave these lovebirds alone or-" Haruna whispered in her ear but Ranma cut her off by using a pseudopod to pinch her arm. "Ow! What was that for?"
"Don't be nosy. Just let their relationship develop without interference." Ranma told her sister firmly.
Haruna pouted but Ranma ignored her.
"Come on, everyone. Why don't we head back?" Ranma suggested. "If we want to get used to our new clothes we'll need some time in the dojo, so let's go do that."
"That's a good idea, Ranma-san." Nodoka-san nodded.
"Agreed." Herb-san echoed.
Ucchan and Ryōga-san blushed but nodded too.
"Shall we walk back, Onee-sama? Or-"
Ranma's answer was to smirk and teleport them all back to the dojo aboard their ship.
"Let's get started with some sparring!" Ranma said with a bloodthirsty smirk.
Ranma and her party had scarcely arrived at the Governor's Manor where the Governor's Ball was being held, when she was greeted by a Megalomesembria Confederation soldier in his dress uniform.
"Lady Ranma, please come with me." The soldier said with a respectful bow. "Governor Godel would like to meet with you privately."
"Were you the last messenger?" Ranma asked with a touch of cruelty in her smile.
"No. He retired."
"Ah. Am I that scary? I'll have to let Eva-chan know." Ranma said with a smirk.
The messenger just offered a polite smile but Ranma could smell how his fear spiked at the reminder that she was the mate of the Dark Evangel. It was so cute!
"My lady, the governor is waiting." The soldier reminded her.
"Guys, want to join me? Or do you want to stay out here and enjoy the Ball?" Ranma asked, looking at her sister and friends.
"I'll stay." Haruna said with a smile. "This is the first time I've been to a ball and I want to see what it's like before the fighting breaks out."
"If Haruna is staying, I'll stay too." Nodoka-san said, shooting her Magistra with an exasperated look.
"I'll keep them safe," Herb-san said with a nod towards Haruna and Nodoka-san.
"Ucchan? Ryōga?"
The two exchanged a look before they both shrugged. "You need us, Ranchan? If not, we'd like to see what a ball is like too."
"Sure, stay." Ranma said, offering them a smile. "I'll be fine alone. Enjoy the Ball, guys."
She was met with a chorus of thanks at this that Ranma waved away before gesturing to the messenger to guide her to wherever the governor was waiting for her.
Nodding his understanding, the soldier quickly led her to a private room where as she stepped in, she found a suave, bespectacled man with hair that was parted down the middle that she recognised as the Confederation governor of New Ostia, Kurt Godel, seated at a round table. Sitting across from him were, as she had expected, Negi-sensei who was accompanied by Akashi-san, Asakura-san and Chisame-san.
"Springfield-san." She said to her sensei, her tone a touch cold.
"Ah, Ranma-san." Negi-sensei replied as he fidgeted a bit, looking uncomfortable in the suit that he was wearing.
"Ranma-san," Chisame-san greeted more warmly, dressed in a bright yellow glitter jersey dress with a shimmering effect while flaunting a sleeveless square neck with sparkling double straps on the shoulder and a fitted bodice sculpted with princess seams. A dress that had a flattering mermaid silhouette coupled with astonishing cut-out details at the back and ended with a dramatic sweep train.
"Ranma-san," Asakura-san greeted in a more lukewarm tone.
Said necromancer was dressed in a burgundy dress featuring a flattering off-the-shoulder bodice and a figure-flattering sheath silhouette. It also included a thigh-high side slit, a godet insert at the hem and a bare back. It was a fabulous dress that made her quite beautiful indeed.
Aisaka-san is almost certainly admiring the vision that her girlfriend is tonight. Ranma thought, knowing the spirit was lurking nearby. As Asakura-san's Guardian Spirit she couldn't stray too far from her anyway.
Unlike with Chisame-san and Asakura-san, Akashi-san didn't even bother to say anything in greeting instead choosing to just nod at Ranma coldly. Apparently, out of Negi-sensei's current party, she was the most miffed with Ranma. Something that the Outsider should've expected. Unlike Chisame-san who was Ranma's friend and Asakura-san whose morality was always a little more flexible and especially so since becoming a necromancer, the magical gunslinger had no reason to see things Ranma's way at all. That she came from a line of magical cops too probably didn't help. Her view of morality was probably completely black and white.
Though maybe some honest flattery will help thaw things with her a bit.
"You look good, Akashi-san." Ranma told her classmate honestly as she gestured at the aqua colored dress made of stretch glitter fabric that she was wearing. It featured a sleeveless, halter neckline, a fitted bodice styled with an open back, and a skirt that flattered the figure with its fitted silhouette and finished in a mid-thigh hem.
"Thank you." She answered stiffly. "You look nice too."
"You do too, Chisame-san, Asakura-san, Springfield-san." Ranma added as she sat down in the open seat next to Negi-sensei that Godel-san gestured at. "Where did you get your formalwear?"
"Ahem!" Godel-san clapped his hands to gain everyone's attention, a sleazy smile on his face. "Welcome every-"
Already he reminded her of her sperm donor.
"Cut the platitudes. What do you want, Godel-san? I have a terrorist organization to eliminate. Your little backyard party is eating my patience."
Between the distasteful similarity between this man and her sperm donor as well as her general disinterest in anything he had to say, unlike with Negi-sensei and her classmates, she was in no mood to humor him.
"Oh? You'd prefer if we get right to the meat of things? Very well. But before we do so, I will have to disclose an important secret to young Negi here. It's necessary context for the offers I am about to make you see."
"Yeah, sure. Whatever. Just be quick about it." Ranma said with a dismissive wave of her hand, her foot already tapping impatiently.
Offering her what he probably thought was an indulgent smile, but honestly came across as smarmy, Godel-san nodded and turned to Negi-sensei even as he tapped a machine that sat at the center of the table they were seated at.
"So Negi, before we proceed let me clear some things up." The older man said as an image of a blonde woman with a remarkable likeness to Kagurazaka-san was projected by the device he'd just activated. "I'm fairly sure that nobody has told you this, so let me. This is Arika Anarchia Entheofushia, your mother."
Negi-sensei gasped at this
"The Queen of Calamity… My mother is…"
"Yes, the last Queen of Vespertatia, also known as the Ostian Kingdom." Godel-san said with a nod. "The woman who destroyed her kingdom to use the power that kept its floating islands aloft to seal away the threat of Cosmo Entelecheia during the last Great War."
"Wait, so Negi-sensei is a legit prince?" Asakura-san asked, flabbergasted.
"Of a dead kingdom. His family is not viewed highly. In fact, it's what led to what happened on that snowy night that your hometown was destroyed, Negi." Godel-san smiled, looking far too smug as the image projected by the device shifted to an automatically looping set of pictures of a village being attacked by a host of demons. "You see, you were nothing but a loose end. And without Nagi around to protect you… Well, a decision was made to clean that up. As such, the Megalomesembrian Council worked with the remnants of Cosmo Entelecheia that Nagi and Ala Rubra hadn't snuffed out and launched an attack on your village. All for you. Everything else was mere collateral."
Negi-sensei just froze, stunned into silence by the news, prompting Chisame-san to worriedly turn her full attention to him.
"All so there would be no one to contest the Confederation's seizure of what remained of Vespertatia, I assume?" Asakura-san snarled, glaring at Godel-san who nodded as if he hadn't just admitted to his government having been party to mass murder in a bid to assassinate Negi-sensei.
"I am more interested in knowing why Negi-sensei's mother looks so much like Kagurazaka-san myself." Akashi-san asked with a frown.
"You mean the Third Princess? She is Arika-sama's younger sister."
Ranma had suspected as much, she hadn't forgotten what the Mage's minions had called the orangette during their last confrontation, but her classmates were stunned by the fact that the brash and violent Kagurazaka-san was a princess. To be fair, even she was a little startled by the confirmation. Inchou was going to flip when she found out. They would never hear the end of it if she did.
"And that explains why Cosmo Entelecheia's goons referred to her as Princess the last time we ran into them." Asakura-san said with a nod.
"The Ostian Royal Magic is strong, and hers is the strongest ever recorded. She would make the perfect weapon." Godel-san continued, making Ranma want to snap his neck. But she suspected it wouldn't be her place to do so, not with the dark magic that was beginning to waft around the still stunned Negi-sensei.
"Magic Cancel," Ranma said as the pieces fit together. "And Ala Rubra sent her to Earth to keep her safe from the Confederation?"
"I presume so," Godel-san said with a shrug.
"Y-You-"
"Negi-sensei?" Chisame-san asked, looking at him warily.
"You ATTACKED MY HOMETOWN!?" Negi-sensei shouted as he lost control of his Magia Erebea, causing shadows to spread all over his skin and hair, turning it pitch black even as he leapt to his feet and glared at Godel-san with eyes glowing an unnatural crimson.
"Yes," the Megalomesembrian confirmed with a grin that until now Ranma had only ever seen in anime or manga, that of a man whose plan had come together exactly like he intended. Which didn't make any sense to the Outsider as all his confession managed to achieve was having the transformed Negi-sensei lunge across the table at him.
"Negi-sensei!" Chisame-san, Asakura-san and Akashi-san all shouted in unison but otherwise proved themselves useless, leaving it entirely up to Ranma to restrain their out of control homeroom teacher through the use of a number of pseudopods that she shot out of the exposed portions of her shoulders and back. She didn't want to ruin her dress after all.
"You know, Springfield-san, your study of Magia Erebea almost reminds me of my own ascent into becoming an Outsider." Ranma said offhandedly as the currently almost demonic looking child teacher flailed around like a wild beast as he futilely struggled against the tendrils she'd used to restrain him. "The power it grants is incredible but it's easy to get lost in it, isn't it? To be corrupted by it? I sometimes feel like I forget what it means to be human, just like you seem to have now."
Even as Asakura-san and Akashi-san tried their best to calm Negi-sensei down with words, Chisame-san turned to shoot Ranma a dirty look. "Ranma-san, no offense. But how the hell does that help talk Negi-sensei out of his blind rage!?"
Ranma shrugged. "What gave you the impression that was what I was trying to do? I was just commenting on the similarities between me and Springfield-san."
"And the differences," Godel-san said, adjusting his glasses like some mastermind-style anime villain. "After all, where you have maintained control over yourself despite your power boost, poor Negi-kun seems not to have managed to do so."
"I'm curious, Godel-san." Ranma said, turning her attention towards the Megalomesembrian. "Why did you provoke the boy?"
Before the man could answer however, Chisame-san had marched up to Negi-sensei and grabbed the boy teacher's head in her hands, and ignoring how they burned slightly from the caustic magic that was surrounding his entire body, looked him dead in his eyes.
"Stop this right now, Negi-sensei!" She ordered the boy. "This isn't like you! You're sweet. Kind. Caring. Not a raving monster! So go back to being who you really are. The kind, sweet, caring boy that we all know and love. Please!"
By the time she'd finished her little plea, there were tears in the corner of Chisame-san's eyes. Tears that she let fall as she leaned in to press her forehead into Negi-sensei's own. "Please! I want my-our, Negi-kun, back! Please!"
I think I might have underestimated the depths of Chisame-san's feelings for Negi-sensei. Ranma thought as she watched as her friend wrapped her arms around a stunned but still demonic looking Negi-sensei and began weeping. Ranma wasn't the only one if the stunned look on Asakura-san and Akashi-san's faces were anything to go by.
"C-Chi-Chisame-s-san?" Negi-sensei sputtered out as the corrupting magic of his Magia Erebea finally began to fade.
"Negi!" The bespectacled orangette cried ecstatically as she hugged the object of her affections with visible relief now that he seemed to have come to his senses.
Releasing the boy from her pseudopods and retracting them back into her body, Ranma turned away from him and Chisame-san as they had a moment. They deserved a little privacy after what just happened, which was why as she pulled back her pseudopods, she had them grab Asakura-san and Akashi-san's heads and turn them away too. The damn voyeurs didn't seem to understand the concept of privacy!
"So, like I was saying, why were you provoking Springfield-san?" Ranma demanded of Godel-san whilst Chisame-san and Negi-sensei exchanged what she imagined were sweet nothings.
Actually, Mistress, I think Chisame-san is just asking if he's alright and he's assuring her that he is. Suramui informed her from the depths of her Labyrinth. I overheard some of what they said through your pseudopods as you withdrew them.
Suramui, do I need to remind you to not be a voyeur? Ranma warned.
Eh? But it's such fun~!
Zero-chan, punish Suramui for me. Ranma ordered, prompting the puppet to cackle and the sound of knives being unsheathed to fill her Labyrinth.
Yes, Mistress! Zero-chan replied with bloodthirsty eagerness.
Mistress! Please no! I'm sorry! Have mercy!
Zero-chan, you have ten minutes. Ranma said mercilessly. Have fun!
Eeeeiii! She's splitting me in two!
Ignoring Suramui's further pleas and Zero-chan's mad cackling, disciplining her familiars so that they behaved was essential for any mage who had them, Ranma waited patiently for Godel-san's answer. To be fair to the man, his reply was prompt. After all, her entire conversation with her familiars had taken less than a millisecond.
"I was hoping he'd attack me and I'd let him seriously injure or even kill me." Godel-san said with a shrug, seeming unconcerned about what he was saying. "In the aftermath of which, we in the Confederation would use his guilt over the action to persuade him into joining us in our effort to protect the humans of Mundus Magicus against its many evils. We were even considering restoring the Ostian Kingdom and making Negi its King to make things look even more appealing to the masses "
"That sounds… far too complicated to make sense. Did you ever think to just ask him? Talk about convoluted."
"Have you met the boy, Ranma-sama?" Godel-san asked with a cocked eyebrow. "Do you honestly think he'd agree to work with us in the Confederation without some coercion? You do realize what we represent, correct?"
Ranma honestly didn't. She hadn't actually bothered to learn all that much about Mundus Magicus' politics before. In the past this was because of a lack of interest or need. Since arriving on the planet, she'd simply had other more important things to distract her. Thankfully, not everyone there was as ill informed.
"What you mean is that you want Negi-sensei to help you destroy the non-humans of Mundus Magicus." Asakura-san said with a glare and causing a previously puzzled looking Akashi-san to gasp.
"What do you mean, Kazumi-san?" The magical gunslinger said, looking shocked.
"The Megalomesembria Confederation is founded on humancentrism. It regards all non-humans as threats, or as Godel-san here puts it, 'evil'."
"Human Supremacy," Ranma spat distastefully even as Akashi-san paled. "I see why you thought you needed something so convoluted to get Negi-sensei to help you now. You really are an idiot, huh?"
"How rude." Godel-san said with a shrug. "And you exaggerate Miss Asakura. The Confederation merely wishes to protect humanity on Mundus Magicus. It just so happens that most of the threats humanity faces stem from non-humans."
"And that justifies the pogroms the Confederation regularly conducts to eradicate non-humans in or around its borders?" Asakura-san challenged. "Or the multiple wars it has fought against non-human nations simply because of the nature of their population? Tch, talk about just another corrupt politician."
Godel-san grew quiet and tense at that and Ranma could see his usual calm visage crack.
"And have you bothered to research why the Confederation behaves the way it does!?" The Ostian governor spat back, veins pulsating on his forehead. "How for centuries the humans of Mundus Magicus were enslaved by non-humans? How even after gaining our freedom, we had to fight for centuries more just to keep it!? Of the millions of humans who died at the hands of non-humans during those struggles!? How our 'progroms', as you call them, and wars were provoked by heinous crimes against the Confederation and its citizens by non-humans!? Did you consider any of that!?"
Asakura-san recoiled as if struck, clearly not having expected Godel-san to have a counter to her accusations. Ranma though was uninvolved enough to see the flaw in the politician's argument.
"Has the Confederation considered that 'an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind'?" Ranma pointed out.
"And what do you expect us to do, Ranma-sama?" Godel-san asked with a glare. "Do nothing in the face of aggression by non-humans? Just let ourselves be enslaved once more? Or worse? Perhaps we should just lay down and allow ourselves to be subjected to genocide?"
"Ugh, you're such a zealot that speaking to you won't change a thing." The Outsider sighed.
"He certainly seems so," Negi-sensei spoke up, apparently finally having recovered his wits.
"Ah, so you're back to normalish. It's about time, Sensei."
Negi-sensei just offered Ranma an apologetic nod before turning his full attention to Godel-san, with Chisame-san standing supportively behind him, their hands clasped together. All in all, the two looked like a couple about to face a coming storm and had resolved to do it together. It was very sweet.
I think I'm going to get diabetes. Zero-chan said, gagging.
You're a doll, you can't get diabetes. Ameko told her, sounding confused.
I can still feel it, Jelly for Brains.
Hey! What did you call me!? Ameko shouted angrily as dozens of pseudopods shot out of her body and she leapt at Zero-chan.
Zero-chan, apologize to Ameko. Ameko, stop trying to kill Zero-chan. Ranma scolded her familiars. And all of you shush! I'm trying to pay attention here!
Ignoring as Zero-chan apologized to Ameko as she'd ordered and they both quieted down alongside the rest of the residents of her Labyrinth, Ranma instead paid attention to what Negi-sensei said.
"I will never agree with the Confederation's humancentrism!" The boy teacher declared with conviction. "I would never save only the human population of Megalomesembria and abandon the rest of the over one point two billion people who call Mundus Magicus home. I will save everyone!"
"Even in exchange for the lifting of the bounties on the heads of you and your friends?" Godel-san offered with a smarmy smile, as if he thought he could actually negotiate with Negi-sensei.
Yup. He's an idiot!
"Yes, even then."
"...You really are nothing but a naive child."
"And you're nothing but a xenophoic old man, but we can call each other names all day." Negi-sensei spat out. Actual loathing in his eyes.
Godel-san's fists clenched at that and he shot Negi-sensei with a look of pure hatred. "You have no idea what you're talking about, boy! You didn't need to bury your whole family because Hellas raiders came over the border and razed your family farm to the ground! To have all the strength and prestige of being a Hero of the World, of being a member of Ala Rubra, and come home to nothing but ashes! To rebuild your life afterwards, only to have it snatched away from you again by a horde of goblins attacking your home whilst you were away adventuring! You didn't have to see your lover hang herself because even though you rescued her from a goblin lair, she was too traumatized by what she went through to go on! Call me a xenophobic fool when you've had to live through the consequences of non-human predation!"
Chisame-san, Asakura-san and Akashi-san all paled, horrified looks taking over their faces at what Godel-san said. And even Ranma herself was unsettled by the horror story of his life that his brief rant painted. Negi-sensei however did not so much as frown. He just looked back at the older man with dispassion.
"Hasn't your government already done that to me?" Negi-sensei asked softly. "You massacred my hometown. A town of innocent people all for your own ends. Humans who you claim to champion. Doesn't that make the Confederation the same as the non-humans who did all those awful things to you? Like Ranma-san said, 'an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind'. Neither side is innocent in this. But does that mean we should keep perpetuating the cycle of violence?"
"You-!"
"I want nothing to do with you." Negi-sensei said with finality. "Good day to you, sir."
Negi-sensei turned to leave, his entourage following, and Godel-san made no move to stop them, instead turning to Ranma. "And how about you Ranma-sama? Are you amicable about coming to an arrangement with the Confederation?"
His question pulled Negi-sensei short and he and Ranma's three classmates stopped to look at her expectantly.
"Are you an idiot?" Ranma said, asking a question that she'd honestly been pondering for some time. "I'm not human and neither is my mate, Evangeline. Supporting you would mean supporting the genocide of non-humans. Considering my situation, why would I even conceive of accepting your offer?"
"But both you and the Dark Evangel were born human. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time that the Confederation worked with non-humans." Godel-san replied smoothly. "We are willing to forgive all your crimes and those of your mate, even your status as a demon god if-
"Oi oi, stop right there." Ranma said, putting a hand up to signal the man to stop. "Those double standards… Are you seriously going to be that hypocritical?"
"If it means bringing you on the Confederation's side as an ally? Certainly. Such is realpolitik."
Ranma rolled her eyes at that. "Well, too bad. I refuse. There is simply nothing that the Confederation has to offer that I want."
With this final dismissal, Ranma turned to join Negi-sensei and his group as they all moved to leave. But of course, being the sore loser that he was, the moment her back was turned Godel-san had pulled a sword from some pocket space or other and unsheathing it, launched an attack.
"Zanmaken (斬魔剣/Evil-Cutting Sword)!" He roared as he swung his katana at her, unleashing a wave of anti-spirit ki.
"Ranma-san!" Negi-sensei shouted as he leapt in front of the attack and without an incantation, cast a Deflexio (Wind Shield) barrier that despite its primarily anti-physical properties still managed to deflect the ki-based attack.
"Death by idiocy? You really are pigheaded. I'm not about to help you carry out your suicide by deity." Ranma said with a shake of her head even as she continued walking away, barely paying attention to how Negi-sensei had counterattacked against Godel-san by shifting into his Raiten Taisō from and landed a kick on the swordsman that sent him flying clean through the wall of the private room they were in and into the ballroom beyond. "I've got a ball to go see what's all the fuss about."
With that thought in mind, she walked out of the room and into the ballroom, ignoring how behind her, Chisame-san, Asakura-san and Akashi-san had used their Pactio cards to both summon their artifacts and also change into the combat outfits, or in Asakua-san's case only the former, granted by their contracts. Though much to her displeasure, seeing that a fight had broken out, most of the Ball's participants and its attending staff had started to flee.
Damn! I wanted to see what it was like to dance at a ball. Ranma thought with dismay as ignoring the continuing fight between Negi-sensei and Godel-san, which she noted with mild curiosity had yet to drag in anyone else, she made her way to the nearest refreshment table. Though the lack of new combatants might be because of Negi-sensei ordering his Ministras to keep out of it.
Might as well stay for the show. Ranma mused as she filled a plate of snacks with her hands whilst she extended a pseudopod to fill herself a glass of punch, all whilst she watched Negi-sensei fight Godel-san through her omniscience.
"Everyone! Stay out of it!" Negi shouted, directing his call to not just his Ministras but everyone in the ballroom where he now found himself fighting Godel-san, all whilst he narrowly avoided being hit by the massive ki wave that the swordsman had shot at him with his sword.
"Bold to fight me yourself, but you do love to play the 'honorable' sort."
Negi ignored his opponent's attempt at banter, instead taking the fraction of a second of breathing room offered by him wasting his breath to check that everyone had heeded his warning. He was relieved to see that they had. Back in the private room, Chisame-san, Kazumi-san and Yuna-san, although having summoned their artifacts and combat uniforms, had frozen at his words. As had the similarly armed and equipped Makie-san who hadn't been allowed to join them earlier and been left to mill around with the rest of the Ball's attendees. Even Haruna-san, Nodoka-san, Ukyo-san, Hibiki-san and Herb-san who had come with Ranma-san were likewise keeping out of the fight, though they looked tense and ready to jump in at any moment. Only Ranma-san looked unconcerned as she made her way over to a refreshment table.
"You are distracted!" Godel-san shouted chidingly, before he launched into another attack. "Zanmaken Ni-no-Tachi (斬魔剣・弐の太刀/Evil-Cutting Sword, Second Strike)!"
Yet another wave of ki shot at Negi and this time, despite the great reaction times and speed granted to him by Raiten Taisō, he was unable to get out of the way in time. And as a result, pain wracked Negi as the anti-spirit ki burned him. He did not, however, let the pain overwhelm him and pushing it aside, he leapt away in a bid to make some distance. So that's what makes the Shinmei-ryū style so dangerous. As expected of a sword style tailored for exorcism.
"You're not getting away that easily!" Godel-san shouted as he chased after him with a burst of whatever high-speed movement technique he used. "Zankūsen (斬空閃/Air-Cutting Flash)!"
Not being distracted this time, Negi easily used the incredible speed of having been transformed into living lightning by Raiten Taisō to evade the circular wave of ki that the older man shot at him.
"I'm not going to let you hit me again, Godel-san." Negi told the man as he blitzed behind him and fired off a burst of lightning at his opponent with a Fulguratio Albicans (White Lightning). "If you think that you can take advantage of the fact that Magia Erebea turns me into a pseudodemon and that your Shinmei-ryū is super effective against spirits, then you'll have another thing coming."
"Oh? And why is that, Negi?" The swordsman asked as he dropped out of the burst of his high-speed movement technique that he used to evade Negi's probing attack.
"Because you'll need to hit me for that advantage of yours to matter and like I've said, I'm not going to let you!"
At this declaration, Negi transformed himself into a bolt of lightning and zigzagged through the air towards his opponent.
"Um, Ranma-san, could you, I dunno, go help Negi-sensei?" Makie asked her currently not so petite, redhead classmate as the latter stood munching on some of the refreshments laid out for the Ball - a girl she only recognized for who she was because she had arrived earlier with Haruna-san - and watched Negi-sensei fight some guy she didn't recognize with a sword. And seriously! Why was Ranma-san suddenly looking all grown up? Did she use one of those Age-Deceiving Pills that altered how old someone looked? And why did she have to look so perfect as a grown up!? She looked just like that one beautiful woman she'd met at the Mahora Festival! She'd thought that woman was drop dead gorgeous back then but Ranma-san looked even better! All dolled up and wearing the incredibly flattering dress that she was, Ranma-san looked amazing!
Driven by the direction her thoughts had taken, Makie found herself looking down at her own body and couldn't help but sigh in despair. As a petite gymnast, she was never going to have Ranma-san's proportions! The kamis really were unfair at times.
Thankfully, Ranma-san didn't notice the direction her thoughts had taken. Makie would've been mortified if she did. Then again… Ranma-san was generous to her friends wasn't she? Maybe if she had and Makie asked nicely… No, no! That road led to damnation!
"Didn't you hear him? He told us to 'stay out of it'." Ranma-san said dismissively as she took a sip of her punch. "I'm just doing what he asked."
"Nah uh," Aisaka-san said as she materialized, already in all her creepy cute soul reaper glory, next to Makie, causing the gymnast to nearly jump out of her skin. "You just think dealing with Godel-san-"
So that's the swordsman's name! Thanks, Aisaka-san!
"-Is beneath you and that he's more on Negi-sensei's level. You think fighting him would be a good learning experience for Negi-sensei, don't you? It's not good to lie, Ranma-san."
"Even if that's the case, and I'm not saying it is, am I wrong?" Ranma-san asked, as she gestured at the fight where Negi-sensei seemed to have Godel-san on the back foot as he zipped around the swordsman, who seemed unable to land a hit on him at all. Though to be fair, his own attacks were failing to find their mark on the swordsman either.
"Okay, I'll give you that." Asakura-san said as she and Yuna made it over, both with frowns on their faces. "But couldn't you help against those?"
Those turned out to be the local guards and what looked like knight-like robots - Or were they golems? I'll have to ask Yuna later. - that were starting to flood the room.
"I mean, your group is helping." Asakura-san concluded, gesturing at how Paru-chan, Miyazaki-san, Kuonji-san and Hibiki-san were starting to wreck the knight thingies. Only Herb-san wasn't doing anything, but he was sticking close to Haruna-san so Makie guessed he was protecting her or something.
"True, but they can handle those guys easily. They don't need my help. Besides, instead of complaining to me, maybe you should go help them? Like Chisame-san is?" Ranma-san said, gesturing at their hikikomori classmate who was dressed in the very out of character Mary Little Lamb-style idol outfit that was her Pactio granted combat outfit and waving her magical girl scepter artifact around and shooting lightning bolts at the golems.
Where are those adorable spirits of hers? Did she send them to do something sneaky?
It would be just like her if she did. Chisame-san seemed to always be up to something. I mean, who knew what she did hiding in her dorm room all the time!
"We will," Yuna said, joining the conversation. "Just need to know if you'll be joining in the fight too. Seeing how OP you are, whether or not you join in changes things. A lot."
"Hm~ Nah." Ranma-san dismissed with a wave of her hand whilst her other one placed her now empty plate aside and she used a pair of pseudopods to fill up another plate of snacks. "Oh, cheesecake."
"C-Can you tell us why not?" Makie asked worriedly as Ranma-san idly cut a piece out of her slice of cheesecake. She had to admit, the cheesecake looked scrumptious.
"Sasaki-san, why should I fight Sensei's battles for him? I have better things to do."
"...Oh." The young Ministra replied, nodding in understanding.
"Giving up already?" Ranma-san asked, surprised.
"I mean, I can't really argue against you. Yelling at you wouldn't help. Paru-chan is really the only one that can get you to listen to stuff."
"That's true." Yuna said with a resigned sigh.
It was not however Makie's Magistra that rushed ahead first, instead, to her mild surprise, she was beaten to the punch by Kazumi-san. "Sayo! With me!"
"Skulls for the skull throne!" The reaper cackled, raising her scythe high into the air and flying after her girlfriend as she ran into the fight.
"Okay, we've wasted enough time! Makie, with me! We've got golems to wreck!"
"Right behind you, Yuna!" Makie said with a nod as she and her Magistra charged into battle as well.
The moment that Negi-sensei had let go of her hand and began calling on his magic to shift into his Raiten Taisō form, Chisame-san was likewise springing into action. Thus even as the boy teacher kicked the crazy Godel-san - Seriously! He had to be insane to pick a fight with Ranma-san of all people! - through the wall and out into the ballroom, she had already drawn her Pactio card.
"Adeat!" She whispered, transforming the dress that Negi-sensei and Chachamaru-san had helped her pick out - They had even complimented her on how it made her look, which had made her day! - and into the cutesy shepherdess outfit that was the combat outfit granted by her Pactio and summoned her artifact into her hands.
Thus even as Asakura-san and Akashi-san were still scrambling to pull out their own Pactio cards, and Ranma-san rather annoyingly, but understandably, walked out of the room unconcerned, Chisame had already rushed to the hole that Negi-sensei had created and took a good look as he fought the racist asshole that was Godel-san. A fight that Chisame quickly judged he could handle on his own, so she turned instead to observe the rest of the ballroom and was pleased to see it was rapidly emptying as the Ball's participants fled the fighting. Fighting that was spreading as with their leader under attack, the Megalomesembria guards and their security golems were moving to try and aid him only to run into Ranma-san's group intercepting them.
"Everyone! Stay out of it!" Negi-sensei shouted as he and Godel-san both recovered from the change in venue of their fight and prepared themselves for another round, reinforcing Chisame's decision to stay out of their confrontation.
Man, he's really going all machismo on this, isn't he? Too bad for him, I have a better idea. The hacker girl thought as flashing a feral grin, she did what she did best.
Waving Idolum Virtuale in a gesture that wouldn't have been out of place if she'd been some Mahou Shoujo straight out of an anime or manga, Chisame summoned her trusty electronic spirits and immediately began barking orders. "Kincha, Hanpe, Konnya, Chikuwafu, hack into their systems and take out those security golems! Negi, Daiko, and Shirataki, go take out the building's power so they can't activate more or trigger whatever other security systems they might have!"
"Yes, Mistress!" The seven spirits in the shape of talking, long-tailed mice chorused before they shot off to obey her instructions. Four of them transformed into bolts of yellow lightning that struck the nearest security golems, causing yellow static to arc all over the knightly robots' bodies for a moment before they finally shut down and her spirits moved on to their next targets. The remaining three spirits likewise transformed into yellow lightning but instead of targeting the security golems, they shot into the nearest wall where yellow static tracked their passage as they traveled through the electrical wiring built into it towards the computers that controlled the Governor's Manor power systems.
Having assigned tasks to her spirits, it was now Chisame's turn to take action. Thus sighting the scepter-like Idolum Virtuale at the nearest of the guards, she let fly. "Sagitta Magica, Series Fulguralis (Magic Arrow, Lightning Series)!"
At her invocation, a dozen bolts of lightning shot from her wand at the guard.
"Back off, fodder!" She snarled as the guard, reacting with remarkable swiftness, actually managed to bring up some kind of barrier in time to shield himself from her barrage and even return fire with some light spell.
"So you've shown your true colors! The Governor was kind enough to put a freeze on the executions of your warrants and this is how you repay him? Attacking him in his own home!? At a ball he's hosting!? You truly are ungrateful, criminal scum!"
"Keep flapping those gums, government cog! I'm sure it'll matter to someone!" Chisame shouted back defiantly as she used Shundō (Instant Movement) to evade the lasers being shot at her, hiding how his words stung just a little. Because she knew he was partly right. Whatever disagreements they had with the Governor, things need not have descended into violence. Though since Godel-san was the one who attacked first, and had even planned for everything to turn nasty, she didn't feel that bad about throwing his 'generosity' in his face.
"Fulgur Terra Mea (Lightning Land Mine)!" She incanted as she waved her specter, conjuring a magical mine right under the guard's foot as he moved it so he could adjust the aim of his pike-like focus to get a better shot. An action that triggered her freshly conjured mine and sent a surge of electricity surging through his body and knocking him out.
"That's one down, far too many to go!" Chisame said with a hiss of irritation as she looked around to reassess the situation. It seemed that instead of joining her in fighting the Megalomesembrians, Asakura-san and Akashi-san had instead gone off to chase Ranma-san to pester her to help them.
Fat hope of that. If she wanted to, she'd have pitched in already. Chisame thought with a snort as she idly shot a brace of Sagitta Magica, Series Fulguralis at a trio of guards that were trying to sneak up on Kuonji-san and Hibiki-san whilst they were fighting a couple of security golems. The spell wasn't enough to take them out but it did alert the two to their presence and prompt Hibiki-san to peel away from the fight with the golems to deal with them. At least her group is helping.
Well most of them anyways. With the notable exception of Herb-san, the others in Ranma-san's group - And Chisame couldn't help but find it a little unfair that the Megalomesembrians let her bring her whole group to the Ball. - were doing their part. As she'd mentioned earlier, Kuonji-san and Hibiki-san were in the thick of it already. And so were Haruna-san and Miyazaki-san who were fighting together like a well oiled machine with the former summoning her own golems by the dozens to fight their Confederation counterparts whilst the former used her fire magic to keep away anyone, golem or guard, that might get anywhere close to her Magistra. Though even if any did, Chisame doubted they'd be able to harm Haruna-san. Not when Herb-san was seemingly using the excuse of staying close to her to keep her safe to stay out of the fighting.
Which honestly just makes it all the more egregious that out of our side I'm the only one helping with the guards! Chisame thought as she cast another Sagitta Magica, Series Fulguralis to knock out a quartet of human guards that were too distracted fleeing from the fire blast that Miyazaki-san shot at them to even notice her.
Though if it was any consolation, Asakura-san and Akashi-san's actions weren't completely without merit. As it seemed that besides following Ranma-san to futilely badger her into helping when she didn't want to, they'd also used the opportunity to meet up with their respective Ministras. So that as they finally decided to join the fight, they did so as proper teams.
Still doesn't excuse the slackers from taking their own sweet time though!
With each pull of the trigger and shot fired from her artifact, the twin magic pistols, Iris Tormentum, Yuna felt her blood pumping with the thrill of battle. Especially when she got to combine it with some of the magic she'd learned to pull off some cool tricks!
"Deflexio!" She cast, conjuring dozens of the wind-based magic barriers all around her immediate vicinity that deflected the mana bullets that Iris Tormentum fired and had them flying in a series of hard to predict patterns.
"Gah! How is she-" A guard shouted, only for his comrade to cut him off as he conjured a Deflexio barrier of his own that deflected all of Yuna's shots away.
"Hunker down and let the golems take the first crack at her! Who knows what that artifact can do!" The man, presumably the commander of the group of five human guards Yuna was facing, barked, even as six of the hulking security golems moved in front of them and formed up like they were a defensive shield wall as the whole group advanced on her.
Yuna clicked her tongue. I figured that anyone assigned by the Confederation to guard one of their governors wouldn't be chump change, but I didn't expect them to be quite this good either.
Not that Yuna was worried. She wasn't fighting alone after all. Something that proved itself when with yellow sparks shooting out of their bodies, two of the incoming security golems suddenly shorted out. That was not all though and the explosive ball that was Makie's Bombus Globus, slammed into another, engulfing it in a powerful explosion that blasted it and the nearest other golem into pieces. With four of the hulking animated knights down, there was a perfect opening in the enemy's defenses that Yuna was only all too happy to exploit.
"Eat some Defense Suppression Bullets, you racist Confederates!" Yuna shouted tauntingly as she fired off twin bursts of her special defense ignoring bullets, which proceeded to fly straight through the enemy's Deflexio like it wasn't even there and took down two of the human guards before they could scatter in time.
"Defense piercing bullets? Take her down, now!" The commander shouted as he, his two remaining men and the two still functional security golems charged her at full sprint.
Only for his subordinates to run into a row of lightning mines that had spontaneously materialized before them courtesy of Chisame-san that shocked them into la la land. One of the security golems meanwhile had the honor of being bisected at the waist by Makie's Cleaving Ring whilst the other got caught in Yuna's Ministra's Liberum Lemniscus ribbon and was pulled away to be used as a bludgeon against the gymnast's own group of opponents, wrecking it in the process. This left only the leader of the guards to deal with.
This one is mine. Yuna thought to herself as she cast Festina (Haste) and Volant (fly) on herself, thus allowing her to move so swiftly that before the man could even react, she was suddenly right in his face.
The man seemed to expect it and gathered his magic presumably to use his own mastery of Volant to teleport away, but there was a reason that she'd cast Festina earlier despite not needing it to push her Volant to the point where she needed to teleport. Using the boost granted to her by the enhancement spell, she reacted with a speed that should have been impossible and before the magic of his spell took hold, she fired her pistols point-blank at the man. And as the Equus Calcitrant (Horse Kick) she cast struck home and the multiple bullets of raw kinetic bullets it conjured nailed the sucker, Yuna couldn't help but grin wildly.
"You s-scum-!" He choked out as he was laid flat by the blows.
"You're the bad guys here and you call us names? Geez, are all the bad guys on Mundus Magicus like this, Yuna?" Makie asked as she came over and secured the man and his unconscious subordinates with her capturing rope.
"Your guess is as good as mine, Makie." Yuna replied with a shrug. "So you're done on your end too?"
"Yup!" Her Ministra said, thumbing behind her to where she had a group of eight Confederation guards all tied up and rather vindictively had a number of her multiplying Frango Stipes juggling clubs repeatedly bashing them over the heads for some reason.
I don't think I want to know…
"See anyone needing our help?" Yuna asked as she began surveying the ballroom for herself.
Just in time to see one of the Megalomesembrian security golems which was ablaze, something she was fairly sure was the handiwork of Miyazaki-san, being sent flying over her and Makie's heads by a punch from one of Paru-chan's New Inferno Aniki DXs.
"Maybe, uh, no. I think they're good."
"Hey Paru! Watch where you send those scrap heaps will you!?" Kazumi shouted irritably at the golemancer as the wrecked Megalomesembrian security golem that Yuna-san and Makie-san had just seen getting punted across the ballroom literally sailed through Sayo's body as her girlfriend rematerialized next to her after a round of telefragging through the enemy's ranks.
"Sorry!" The greenette shouted back distractedly as she helped the fire mage that was Miyazaki-san in providing fire support to her own golem armies by blasting away at the enemy throngs with her Sagitta Magica Mini Gun.
"I don't think she'll listen, Kazumi." Sayo said, looking cross. "She seems a little too distracted to pay attention to things like friendly fire."
"Mors Maior (Greater Death)!" Kazumi cast, sending a magical bolt in the shape of a screaming green skull at a group of Confederate guards closing in on their position, who annoyingly ducked behind their golem escorts before her spell could hit. Golems who due to their nonliving nature were barely affected by the necrotic energies of her spell at all. "Yeah, yeah I can see that. We have too many trigger bunnies in our class. Sayo, I think we gotta step it up. With these many enemy golems around and all my attack spells being necrotic in nature, I'm not doing much damage."
"You want to summon your Skeletal Warriors? Or call Kitty?" Sayo asked as she teleported into the ranks of the incoming group of guards and swung her kama in one large arc, knocking them all out through the trauma of temporarily dragging their souls out of their bodies. That still left the eleven security golems that had been escorting them though, the swords of which Sayo had to teleport away to avoid being skewered by.
"No, we should use that."
Sayo, her bubbly spirit friend, looked giddy. "Yes, yes, yes! Merge me with your body! Make us one!"
Oi, don't make it sound so suggestive! Kazumi thought with a blush, even as she apologetically shook her head. "You know we haven't mastered that version just yet. I was thinking we could use the Shinigami."
"Aw, well, okay." Her ghostly girlfriend said as she kicked the air with a pout in a fit of childish pique that did not at all befit her being nearly a hundred years old.
Smiling in amusement at her Guardian Spirit's antics, Kazumi summoned her Pactio card with her aforementioned Ministra. "Sayo, you ready?"
"Absolutely!"
"Over Soul: Shinigami!" Kazumi cast, using her magic to draw Sayo into the card that was the proof of their Pactio and using it as a catalyst, allowed her girlfriend's power and her own to mingle and create a metaphysical construct that wrapped around her body. Said construct took the form of her partner's pink, flowery cloak and large kama. And as it finished taking shape around her, her entire body took on a shimmery, ethereal glow and she floated into the air.
"Time to reap some machines!" "Yeah, scrap 'em!"
The Confederate golems did not reply of course. Kazumi seriously doubted they had the computational capacity or programming to even reply to enemy taunts. Not that she cared either way. So instead of waiting for a reply or a reaction, she slipped into the ethereal realm and popped back out again in a teleport that brought her right into the automatons' midst.
The machines responded by trying to run her through with their swords but the semi-ethereal nature she possessed when using Over Soul: Shinigami meant that their blades just went harmlessly through her. In stark contrast, her own scythe blade wasn't quite so ineffective. Oh, it phased through the armor of the machines like any ethereal object interacting with the material plane would but once it was past that… well, its semi-ethereal nature allowed it to selectively interact with the material. Thus it was that with only a few wild swings that left the golems' exterior completely unscathed, Kazumi completely wrecked their internals and rendered them inert.
"Take that, you glorified tin ca-"
"Kazumi, watch out!" Sayo shouted, her voice coming out normally despite her currently being part of the Over Soul that Kazumi had equipped, as she abruptly dragged them away in a teleport narrowly avoiding a beam of magic that would have washed over their previous position.
As they rematerialized a short distance away, Sayo began ranting. "Damnit, Kazumi! Don't get distracted! Being semi-ethereal doesn't make us invincible! Magic can still hurt us!"
"Right, sorry. Got a bit caught up in it." Kazumi apologized as she looked around to see who had attacked her and found that a new player had joined the fight in the form of shadow constructs swarming in from every entryway into the ballroom. Constructs that were similar to those she'd seen the shadow mages Takane D. Goodman and Kagetaro conjure, though these looked more powerful than anything either of them could create and were many of which were armed with some kind of key shaped staves. And most annoyingly, she noticed that leading these newcomers was Fate Averruncus of Cosmo Entelecheia.
"Oh come on! These guys are showing up now?" The necromancer grimaced. Now we have to fight on two fronts?
"Kazumi, switch O.S.!" Sayo urged as she teleported them further away from the incoming enemy, buying them some time to figure out how to properly respond.
"Huh?"
"Look at the number of those shadow constructs! Do you want to fight that swarm in close combat?" Sayo explained with a hint of exasperation. "Besides, Shaeiki is better at crowd control."
"Point. Alright. Switch up! Over Soul: Release!"
As she said the incantation to release her spell, the cloak and kama that it had created faded, leaving her back in her ballgown and the blue coat granted to her via her Pactio with Negi-sensei, the card for which she quickly pulled out even as she put away the one for her contract with Sayo.
"Adeat!" Kazumi incanted, summoning both the handheld camera and the six small camera drones that were the artifacts of her first Pactio. "Sayo, you ready?"
"Let's do this!"
"Over Soul: Shaeiki!" Kazumi cast, infusing Sayo's power and her own into the artifacts of her activated Pactio, but seemingly causing no change whatsoever. But they'd been changed alright and she was just itching to show Cosmo Entelecheia just what they could do. Especially since some of their constructs had split off from the rest of their horde and were now making a beeline towards her.
"Let's get that good side, alright?" She said, holding up the handheld camera with a grin. Aiming the large camera, she let the shutter fly as she repeatedly started snapping shots of the shadow constructs attacking them. "Give me some angry, you losers!"
"You really get into this, huh?" Sayo commented idly even as with each snap of the shutter, a large chunk of the very energies sustaining the constructs was abruptly drained away. A phenomenon that manifested in the constructs looking increasingly wispy with each snap of Kazumi's shutter, until by the third shot they blinked out of existence altogether.
"Hey, what's wrong with having fun on a photoshoot?" Kazumi replied with a smirk before turning to her waiting camera drones who had been hovering above her awaiting orders all this while. "Now then, my lovely assistants, spread out and get me some beautiful shots! And remember! It's all about the expression!"
"Well, so long as you're having fun, I guess it's alright." Sayo said with a resigned sigh as Kazumi's loyal drones flew off to do her bidding and drain the life out of the enemy in the name of photographic art.
"Haruna!" Nodoka shouted at her Magistra as she cast Apes Igniferae (Crimson Bees) to conjure a swarm of wasp-like projectiles that zipped through the confusing melee of Haruna's golems and the Confederation guards and security golems to zero in on the newly arrived army of Cosmo Entelecheia's shadow constructs. "I'll shift my fire to target the shadow constructs, can you handle the Megalomesembrians on your own?"
"Yeah! Leave it to me, Nodoka!" Haruna replied as she summoned a fresh batch of Shield Maidens and New Inferno Aniki DXs, whilst upping the rate the fire from her Sagitta Magica Mini Gun as she tracked it over the Confederates to pick up the slack as Nodoka shifted her spellfire elsewhere.
As her Apes Igniferae slammed into the front ranks of the group of the shadow constructs that had detached from the main horde to advance on Nodoka and Haruna, they detonated in a series of decent sized explosions that served to dispel a good number of the constructs, stalling their advance. And whilst that was a good thing, it was not being repeated throughout the ballroom. Some spots with like where Asakura-san was were holding the line well, with the necromancer somehow using the artifact granted to her by her Pactio with Negi-sensei to drain the energies sustaining the constructs in her area to the point of dispelling them, thus effectively stalling their advance there. Akashi-san and Sasaki-san were working well together too and having dealt with the Confederates around them had smoothly pivoted to fighting the shadow constructs without any difficulty. And Hasegawa-san was just supporting everyone she could from the rear with her lightning magic. Ukyo-san and Ryōga-san were still bogged down with Confederates but they weren't looking hard pressed even as the shadow constructs made their presence known, so Nodoka wasn't worried.
She was a little worried about Negi-sensei though since that Fate boy was making his way to join the fight that her homeroom teacher was still engaged in with Godel-sama, but Nodoka had faith that the child teacher could handle himself. No, what had her really worried was how the shadow constructs were just steamrolling over the Confederates with the beams they fired out of the staves some of them were equipped with seemingly just deleting the Megalomesembrian security golems out of existence. A feat which stunned the human guards, leaving them distracted and allowing them to be easily taken out. That was bad enough but many of the groups Confederates had been defending and trying to escort out civilian stragglers, the Ball attendees and servers who hadn't been able to make it out, and with the former's defeat were now left undefended and left to Cosmo Entelecheia's nonexistent mercy. The humans among them got off easy, being summarily knocked but the few unlucky non-humans? They shared the fate of the security golems and were deleted from existence, leaving behind piles of empty clothes in their wake.
Firing off another Apes Igniferae to help thin the horde of shadow constructs as much as possible even as next to her, Haruna was cackling like a madwoman whilst she treated the idiot Confederates attacking them to a taste of bullet hell, Nodoka tried to find someone among the Megalomesembrian ranks that wasn't an idiot. Seriously! They were being attacked in the rear by people who could literally delete things out of reality and they were still trying to attack them!?
There has to be at least one reasonable one, right? She thought as she desperately searched the chaotic ballroom. If they wanted to fight off Cosmo Entelecheia and keep the remaining civilians safe, they needed to work together and she needed to find a Confederate officer who could see that. It took her a moment and several more absent castings of Apes Igniferae but she eventually found someone that looked promising.
"This isn't working! Regroup! From up on me so we can regroup! " One of the Megalomesembrian officers halfway between Nodoka and Asakura-san shouted at his countrymen, causing the mindreading fire mage's eyes to home in on him like a laser. The source of the voice turned out to be a man who was struggling to at once gather together what Confederate forces he could whilst simultaneously trying to defend a group of civilians who were cowering behind the small squad he had under his command.
Okay, time to check if he's worth working with. Nodoka thought as she leveled her magic ring, Comptina Daemonia (Demon's Lullaby), at the man. He seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and would probably at least understand the logic of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' but Nodoka wanted to be sure. Letting the guy and his men get close enough so they could work together and then have him turn on them later was a bad idea.
"What is your name?" She whispered as she channeled her magic into her ring, causing wispy strands of energy to pour out of the gem mounted on it that quickly arranged themselves into the man's name: Ernest Valkas.
Nodding at the knowledge, Nodoka cast an extra large volley of Apes Igniferae that would pick up the slack for the break from providing fire support so she could pull off what she needed to. That done, she proceeded to summon her Pactio artifact, Diarium Ejus. Attuning it to Valkas-san's name, she was pleased by what she learned.
"Screw capturing the fugitives! Right now, we need to focus on protecting the civilians and fighting off these shadow constructs!" Nodoka heard via Auris Recitans (Reading Ear), the bluetooth-like earpiece that thanks to a clip that came with said artifact which she'd attached to Diarium Ejus allowed her to listen in on the thoughts of those minds that her Pactio artifact were reading.
I can't guarantee he won't backstab us later but at least I can be sure his priority is defending the civilians and that's good enough. Nodoka concluced.
"Valkas-san!" Nodoka shouted at the man, causing him to turn towards her, even as, according to Diarium Ejus, he was startled that she knew his name. "Over here! Bring the civilians over here! I have a plan!"
"Isn't she one of the fugitives?" Nodoka heard Valkas-san think and she almost thought her faith in him was misplaced but was relieved a moment later when he quickly dismissed his concerns about her fugitive status. "Screw it! We need their help!"
"On our way!" He shouted back before turning to his men. "Follow me!"
A number of his men looked unwilling and so did a few of the civilians but a few sharp looks from him and one of the shadow constructs almost getting through their defenses as they dithered quickly convinced them and they hastily began moving towards Nodoka. Not that Valkas-san was the only one who had to deal with skepticism about their temporary alliance from their own side.
"Nodoka, what are you doing!? They're the enemy!" Haruna hissed as she finished knocking out the last of the Confederates attacking them and turned to look at Nodoka in exaggerated horror.
"His group didn't attack us," Nodoka shot back as she used Flagrantia Rubicans (Red Blaze) to shoot out a burst of flame to scorch a group of shadow constructs who exploiting Haruna's letting up the rain of magic bullets as she turned to talk to her, tried to get past the line of golems that were keeping them safe. "And don't stop shooting!"
"Sorry!" Haruna sheepishly apologized and proceeded to once more rain hell on their enemies with her Sagitta Magica Mini Gun, which in conjunction with her golems served to force the shadow constructs back. "But-"
"The 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Just trust me." Nodoka said, cutting her Magistra off whilst she simultaneously fired off a Apes Igniferae to help clear the path of enemies for Valkas-san and his group.
The detonations of which proceeded to disperse a group of shadow constructs that had gotten dangerously close to Valkas-san's group. Blasts that were close enough to the party-goers that he was defending to have them start screaming in fright.
"Move! Move!" Valkas-san shouted at one particularly terrified civilian who had collapsed to her knees as he roughly pulled her to her feet. "If you want to live, move!"
"Haruna! Give them some cover!"
"On it!" Nodoka's Magistra shouted back as letting go of her Sagitta Magica Mini Gun for a moment, she pulled out Imperium Graphices and with a few hasty strokes of its quill pen against the sketchpad, the artifact conjured a squad of Shield Maiden around Valkas-san's group. Golems that materialized just in time to block a barrage of shadow bolts shot their way by a pack of shadow constructs.
"Keep moving! Just keep moving and you'll be safe soon!" Valkas-san shouted as he dragged the woman after him whilst absently firing off an unfamiliar spell that shot lasers of raw mana at the incoming pack of shadow constructs. A barrage his men and Nodoka added to, and under the combined firepower of which the monsters were dispersed. Thus the group were able to cover the last stretch to the safety of Haruna's ring of golems in relative safety.
"Thank you," Valkas-san said as he led his men past the perimeter of Shield Maidens around Nodoka and Haruna's safe zone, the squad of said golems that had shadowed his group over the last stretch joining up with their sisters in the outer circle as he did.
"You saved our lives." She heard him think via Diarium Ejus though he couldn't bring himself to say it.
Nodoka just nodded distractedly, too focused on casting the spell she needed to set her plan in motion. Gathering her mana, made burning hot due to the nature of her spell, into her palms, she bent down and slammed them into the floor, pouring it into the floor. "Moenia Sulphureos Inferni (Brimstone Walls of Hell)!"
In response, walls of black brimstone rose up out of the floor, their surfaces crackling with the immense heat that they were imbued with by her magic. They seared anything they touched as they soared at high speed until they slammed into the ceiling of the room, blocking off the endless waves of enemies that had swarmed the ballroom, save for a single point.
"Defensive line! Get in formation!" Valkas-san commanded as he charged towards the front of the chokepoint, the other soldiers following. "This is it, we can buy them time now. It has to be enough for the civilians to escape!"
Nodoka could feel the shadow creatures slamming into her constructed walls only to be burned by the hellish heat they were charged with in retribution. It was a steady drain on her mana but she held on. She could do this! Especially as realizing the futility of attacking her walls, whoever in Cosmo Entelecheia was controlling their constructs finally did like Nodoka hoped they would and redirected them to try and swarm through the choke point she'd created instead.
"Haruna!" Nodoka said, turning to her Magistra. "I'll help Valkas-san and his men hold the line here. Escort the civilians out of here."
"Nodoka, are you sure?" Haruna asked, shooting her an uncertain look. "Can you tru-"
Not letting her best friend get back to that minefield of a topic, Nodoka once more cut her off. "Go! Between your Sagitta Magica Mini Gun and golems, you should be able to handle anything you come across. If not, Herb-san can handle it."
The dragon man who had up till now been Haruna's silent, stoic shadow, raised an eyebrow at this but Nodoka just shot him a look and he shrugged.
"But-"
"Haruna!" Nodoka shouted, starting to lose patience with her Magistra. "Look at these people! We need to get them to safety!"
Haruna turned to the civilians then, a mix of party goers in their fancy dress and servers in their uniforms. All of whom were looking terrified.
"Okay! I get it! Stay safe." Haruna asked in a pleading tone.
Nodoka gave her a firm nod, giving her partner her bravest face. "I will. Now go!"
Haruna nodded and turned to the civilians. "You lot, follow me! And stay close!"
With that the greenette golemancer had her golems form up around her and the civilians protectively before she led the group towards one of the ballroom walls. One which Haruna promptly used one of her New Inferno Aniki DXs to punch a hole through, producing an exit that she led the civilians through.
"Herb-san, what is it?" Nodoka asked the man when he didn't immediately follow after Haruna.
"Don't die." The man said as he turned and walked off after Nodoka's Magistra at last. "If you did, Haruna-sama will be sad and that will make Ranma-sama furious. So for all our sake, don't die."
Nodoka snorted at that. "I'll try."
"Thank you, that'll make my life easier." He said with a smirk and moved to follow Haruna.
Rolling her eyes at the crazy dragon man, Nodoka chanced one last look at Haruna and was pleased to see her ushering the last of the civilians out of the ballroom. Breathing a sigh of relief that her best friend was safe, she turned to see Valkas-san and his men valiantly fighting to hold the choke point created by her brimstone walls.
Let's give them a hand.
"Incendium Gehennae (Hellfire Conflagration)!" Nodoka cast, summoning a vicious storm of hellish fire that shot over the heads of her temporary Confederate allies and into the tight ranks of the shadow monsters trying to force their way through the passage Nodoka had created, whereupon it transformed into a tornado of black flames that reduced all it caught within it to ash.
"Got your wind back, girl?" Valkas-san asked as Nodoka walked up to him.
"You noticed?" Nodoka asked, cocking an eyebrow at the middle aged man.
"Unless you're a real monster of a mage, summoning these walls like you did," the Confederate said as he gestured at the brimstone walls of her Moenia Sulphureos Inferni. "Would've at least winded you. And as powerful as you are, you're not a monster."
"Not when compared to the real monsters at least." Nodoka agreed with a nod towards the center of the ballroom where she imagined Negi-sensei, Godel-sama and the Fate boy were engaging in their fight. "But I think our break is over."
She was right as that was just about when the fire tornado created by her Incendium Gehennae faded away and the shadow constructs once more began pouring through the gap in her Moenia Sulphureos Inferni.
"Once more into the fray! Men! Fire at will!" Valkas-san shouted and his tired men obeyed, sending various spells downrange at the oncoming horde of shadow monsters with Nodoka chipping in with a Flagrantia Rubicans of her own. "Hold the line!"
"Holy shit! Did that lady just get zapped out of her clothes like from the War of the Worlds movie!?" Ryōga couldn't help but gasp out as he saw one of the shadow constructs use its key shaped staves to shoot a beam at a beastwoman server and the poor woman disintegrated, leaving only a pile of her empty clothes behind.
"I think so!" Ukyo-san said as she swung her katana so swiftly that it looked like it was a lightsaber with how swift her swings were as she used it to slice apart any shadow constructs that got within the reach of her blade. "And which movie? There are like a dozen War of the Worlds movies."
"The Tom Cruise one from 2005." Ryōga replied as he used Tetsu Nuno (Iron Cloth) to turn a dozen of his bandanas into razor sharp missiles that he tossed at a group of shadow constructs charging at him whilst he casually evaded the shadow bolts they shot his way. Missiles that easily cut the wraith-like constructs to pieces and dispersed them.
"I don't really keep up with movies that much." Ukyo-san confessed with a cute blush of embarrassment as she rolled away from an attack by a shadow construct with a sword for an arm. Her counter was flawless as she took out not just her attacker but two more along with it. "How do you know about it anyways?"
"My curse likes to drop me off at cinemas for some reason," Ryōga said with a shrug after using a Shishi Hōkōdan (Lion Roaring-Bullet) to fire a blast of ki from his palms that disintegrated a whole pack of wolf-like shadow creatures. "I think it's a bit of a movie buff."
"Are you saying your curse is aware enough to appreciate movies?" Ukyo-san asked as she gracefully spun out of the way of a brace of shadow bolts shot at her by a group of witch-like shadow constructs before she summarily destroyed them with a volley of her Spatula Shuriken.
"Why not?" Ryōga said as he finally activated his Ōdōtai Buta Ryu (Zodiac Pig Style) and shrouded himself in a ki aura in emulation of the youki of the noble boar youkai of the wild forests, allowing him to possess a fraction of their strength. Strength that he combined with a burst of Shundō (Instant Movement) to charge a group of shadows that looked like men-at-arms from medieval Europe at superspeed, and using the tusks that the aura gave him to gore and disperse the lot of them. "I mean, there are stranger things out there."
"True," Ukyo-san said as she turned her attention towards a group of ogre-like monsters that were advancing towards them.
Ryōga opened his mouth to reply but found himself unable to speak a word as he stood mesmerized by the sight of Ukyo-san suddenly using her Shinsoku (Godspeed) to blur into the midst of the group of monsters before she began to spin on her heel, the momentum and centrifugal force of her spin adding to the strength of the sword swing as her katana lashed out at the monsters all around her and slicing them into ribbons.
"Ryūkansen (龍巻閃/ Dragon Coil Flash)." She whispered the name of the technique she'd just employed as she came to a stop and with her all dressed up in her kimono, looking like Tomoe Gozen reborn.
His throat felt tight as he watched the graceful dance of death Ukyo-san had just performed. Correction. As she continued to perform. For even as he stood there flabbergasted, the swordswoman elegantly moved to engage one group of shadow after another, destroying them with little difficulty. He couldn't look away. The beauty, the poise, the grace! It was just sublime!
"You're amazing." He breathed out in awe even as he absently used a ki charged kick to obliterate several shadow constructs that had thought to sneak up behind him in his distraction, his eyes never straying from his appreciation of Ukyo-san.
Ukyo-san turned to him, eyes wide as her cheeks turned pink. "W-What?"
D-Did he say that out loud?! He'd goofed! He'd messed up! His lips flapped, but he couldn't make a sound. Say something you fool! Don't look like a schmuck!
"You're really pretty!" He blurted out like a hapless, moronic idiot! Pretty? Really pretty? That's the best you can do, brain?!
Ukyo-san blushed scarlet, but even in her embarrassment she still somehow managed to perform a perfect backflip that allowed her to get above a giant humanoid shadow with otherwise indiscernible features and slice it from head to toe as she landed. And as she landed soundlessly, she turned to him with sparkling eyes as she asked. "Are you serious?"
He'd blew it. He was done. How could he ever recover from this?!
Wait, his Master! His stupid, lecher of a Master! His wisdom, while sketchy at best, held a kernel of truth.
"Ukyo-san!" He shouted at her, standing straight before he offered a deep bow that had him bending a full ninety degrees. "Will you go out with me?!"
And no, his voice did not crack! Not at all!
"I-!" The sword maiden stammered, as she nervously shuffled her feet and Ryoga felt his palms grow sweaty as he refused to rise from his bow. "I-If you're asking…"
Suddenly, a massive shadow dragon roared and they both turned to it in annoyance, menacing auras surrounding them that hissed and crackled ominously.
"Do you mind?!" The two snapped in remarkable unison and they prepared their attacks. "We were having a conversation!"
The dragon just roared its disregard for their feelings and breathed a stream of black flames at them, something which just annoyed them even more.
"Yōkainagashiryū (Apparition Banishing Dragon)!"
"Shin Shishi Hōkōdan (True Lion Roaring-Bullet)!"
The wave of anti-spirit ki energy that Ukyo-san's battoujutsu unleashed mixed with the ki sphere that Ryōga's improved Shishi Hōkōdan fired from his palms and merged into a single beam of ki that slammed into the torrent of black flames that the dragon shot their way. For a second, the two attacks strained against each other, each trying to overpower the other. But soon Ryōga and Ukyo-san's combined attack won out and blasted its way through the opposing black fire to shoot through the dragon which had conjured it, dispersing the fell construct.
"So, um…" Ryōga began nervously as they both turned away from the monster they'd just killed.
"I, I would love to." She said, a finger curling a lock of her soft brown tresses even as she swung her katana one handed and cut a avain shadow construct that had tried to dive bomb them in half.
"..." Ryoga said nothing. He just smiled so wide and brightly that it lit up his surroundings like a second sun as he returned his attention to killing the shadow constructs.
Banzai! His time had arrived at last! And nothing, especially not a bunch of stupid shadow creatures, was going to ruin the moment!
Despite the chaos that the Ball had predictably descended into, Herb was having quite a relaxing night to be honest. The enemies that had presented themselves, be they the Confederates with their guards and security golems or Cosmo Entelecheia and their shadow constructs, didn't really pose enough of a threat for him to feel the need to step in. So instead as Ranma-sama's sister and companions stepped in to give the upstarts the thrashing that they so rightly deserved, he'd just hung back and kept an observant watch over Haruna-sama. Because someone had to. If anything happened to the greenette, her sister would lose her cool and the destruction of the world would likely be on the table. And he liked to keep living, thank you very much!
"Keep moving!" Haruna-sama urged the civilians she'd taken to shepherding through the halls of the New Ostian Governor's Manor to the dubious safety of the outdoors, even as her golems, with the occasional burst of magic bullets from her minigun, fended off the stray shadow constructs that prowled the building. The majority of the creatures might have converged on the ballroom but they had nevertheless ran into small groups of them as they made their way out of the structure.
"Are you sure the outside is safe!?" One of the civilians asked, sounding hysterical. "What if they're even more of them out there!?"
"We'll have to risk it!" Haruna-sama told the panicked civilian. "The evacuation area for emergencies is outside isn't it? We'll head there first. If it is overrun, which we have no evidence for, then we'll find somewhere else. But for now, that's our best bet. So keep moving!"
The same civilian from before was about to protest again but thankfully one of the other civilians stepped in. "Just shut up and follow the nice girl who is keeping us from being killed, Maira!"
"But-"
"Oh, gods dammit! Just shut up and do what you're told or gods help me I'm going to carry you!" The frustrated man told the Maira woman.
This seemed to finally shut her up and gulping she nodded and obediently allowed the man to grab her arm so he could drag her along towards the exit Haruna-sama was herding them to. A series of events that seemed to amuse the golemancer immensely if the smirk she shot Herb's way was any indication. He just nodded distractedly and instead turned his attention back down the corridor they'd just walked through where there was a powerful presence unhurriedly making its way towards them.
"Herb-san?"
"Please go ahead, Haruna-sama." Herb said in reply as he stepped away from his charge. "It appears we have company."
"Wha-"
"Take the civilians and run." He clarified. "Now!"
Despite his forceful tone, the greenette still hesitated and glanced repeatedly between him and the now extra terrified civilians for a long moment before finally making up her mind. "Catch up to us as soon as you can, Herb-san."
"I will, Haruna-sama. I promise."
Haruna-sama nodded before she hurried the civilians away. And the group was barely around a corner of the hallway just ahead when a pack of what could only be described as dragon hounds made of shadows charged around another corner in the direction of the incoming presence, no doubt in pursuit of Haruna-sama.
Like I'd let such pathetic creatures get past me. Herb thought with a snort as he casually flicked a finger in the direction of the incoming shadow monsters and unleashed dozens of pellet sized ki bullets that proceeded to dispel the constructs.
"Thou art quite a warrior, aren't you, Herb, prince of the fallen Musk?" A masked and robed mage said as he stepped around the same corner the shadow constructs had come from. "To dispel my creations so easily is no easy feat."
"Could've fooled me." Herb retorted even as the other man's shadow lightened unnaturally and shot towards him, prompting him to respond by unleashing a salvo of supersonic fists that wrecked the corridor between them and disrupting the shadow mage's magic. Of course this just had to cause some of the water pipes to burst and shower him in cold water that transformed him into a woman but that was neither here nor there.
"Thou vigilance of the younger Saotome is admirable. Thy vassal position suits thee." The shadow mage said with so much smugness that Herb didn't need to see his face to see the guy's smirk. "Thou hast even given up speaking doth native tongue to adopt that of your new lady, thou are truly a devoted servant."
It was irksome at how happy he sounded at that. As if he was talking to an equal or something.
"Hey, the little things count, you know." Herb said with a shrug as she used Xūkōng Shùndòng (Void Instant Movement) to teleport above and behind the mage and try to cut the man in half with a ki blade she'd conjured. "If picking up the Japanese language and manners means I don't offend Ranma-sama, it's a small price to pay when the alternative is pissing her off and having her write me out of existence."
"Indeed! Tis good thou pride doth not interfere with thy new duty. To serve an Outsider is a great honor." The shadow mage chuckled ruefully as a knight construct formed out of his shadow whose blade parried Herb's ki blade.
Using Xūkōng Shùndòng, Herb teleported out of the way as the knight construct grew a third arm which swung its blade at her but not without shooting off a ki blast that dispeled the pesky thing. Rematerializing in front of the shadow mage, Herb just shrugged. "Not sure about the honor part of it, I'm mostly doing what I'm doing 'cos I'm afraid of Ranma-sama."
"Hm, hm, it seems thou lacks understanding regarding the context of thy position."
"And I'm sure you'd love to fill a 'kouhai' in?"
"Gladly. But before I dost, I must ask, will thou continue to oppose me in my attempts to offer an invitation to the younger Lady Saotome?" The shadowy figure mused as he hovered forward, halting a few meters away from Herb. This gave her a good look at his near blank face mask, save for two slits for eyes and the dark fabric robes he wore. How melodramatic of the villain to dress in such a dour way.
Honestly, the lack of taste… It almost made Herb feel bad for him.
"Yeah." Herb confirmed as she backed away from the creepy mage. Really, did he need to get all in her face like that!? "If you want to get to Haruna-sama, you'll need to get through me first."
The shadow mage sighed at this and backed off, though that might have to do with Herb trying to reduce his body to mush with a flurry of supersonic punches.
"Surely thou know'st how high in their esteem one must be for an Outsider to deign to regard a mere mortal as a servant?" The shadow mage asked even as his shadow bubbled and writhed as a horde of goblinoid creatures tore their way free of it. "They can create servants suited to their needs as easily as a sculptor works clay, thus to stand out amongst their creations and enter their service is beyond difficult."
Ah, his man. His way of thinking was so warped that he was nothing but an extension to his master's will. How crazed could the Mage of Beginning be to earn such slavish devotion?
"So what? You're saying your Outsider creates the minions he needs and you had to, like super stand out of the crowd to get his attention and make him pick you to serve him?" Herb asked even as she blasted the goblin horde into oblivion with a series of ki blasts.
"Yes." The shadow mage said with a nod.
"First off, that's creepy as hell. Making custom minions? It's like he treats them as disposable robots or something." Herb commented as she charged at him in a blur and tried to cut him into pieces with a ki blade. "Second, Ranma-sama thankfully isn't like that."
"Thou should stay thy tongue." The shadow mage shot back as he casually used his flight magic to make sure he was always just a hair's breadth ahead of Herb's blade.
"No."
"Then I shall teach thou some manners, fallen princeling." The shadow mage said as he conjured a shadow blade and locked it with Herb's own ki blade.
"Good afternoon, Negi Springfield, Governor Godel." Negi heard Fate Averruncus say as he shot a barrage of stone spikes at himself and Godel-san. Negi was easily able to avoid it thanks to being in his Raiten Taisō form but the swordsman had a slightly harder time of it and even after evading with a high-speed movement technique, he was still forced to deflect a couple of the spikes with his sword.
"Fate! What are you doing here!?" Negi demanded even as out of the corner of his eye he saw throngs of shadow constructs that hadn't been there just a moment ago start to fill the ballroom, forcing the Confederate forces and his students alike to turn their attention to them as they attacked indiscriminately.
"Merely following my orders."
"And what does Cosmo Entelecheia gain from attacking the Confederation?" Godel-san asked the gray haired boy as he launched a ki wave at him that was casually blocked by a conjured wall of stone. "Do you intend to declare war against the world again!?"
"As a matter of fact-"
"Dynamic entry!" Rakan-san's familiar voice shouted suddenly as out of nowhere he burst through one of the ballroom windows and shot towards Fate's stone barrier like a bullet with his right leg fully extended. His kick landed against the barrier with enough force that it not only shattered the stone wall but also Fate's formidable magical barriers as well, and all whilst still leaving enough momentum so that when it made contact with the boy it managed to send him flying. Negi could only watch as Fate was sent tumbling through the air, smashing through the ballroom wall and then several more behind it before finally rolling to stop on the outdoor terrace that wrapped around the New Ostian Governor's Manor.
A-As expect of Rakan-san.
"Ah~! I always wanted to do that." Rakan-san said as he gracefully landed on his feet and straightened into a normal standing position. "Yo, Negi, Kurt, how are you hanging?"
"Please keep the property damage to a minimum, Rakan." Godel-san asked in a long-suffering tone. "My repair budget for this event will be large enough as is."
"Tch, you ask a lot for a punk, don't ya, Kurt?" Rakan-san asked, picking his ear with a finger.
"Rakan-san, you two know each other?"
"Yes, they do, Negi." Takamichi said as he and Tatsumiya-san teleported in to join them with some high-speed movement technique. "Rakan-san, Kurt and I were all part of Ala Rubra with your father."
"Takamichi!? Tatsumiya-san!? What are you doing here? How are you here?" Negi asked, flabbergasted at the presence of his colleague and friend from Mahora and one of his students from 3-A, both of whom should have been stuck back on Earth and most decidedly not here on Mundus Magicus.
Ignoring him, Tatsumiya-san just drew a pair of handguns and started shooting at the hordes of shadow creatures, dispelling them with every hit presumably due to some kind of anti-magic or anti-spirit enchantment on her bullets. Rakan-san meanwhile had put an arm around a suddenly very pale Godel-san's shoulders and dragged him off to a corner to seemingly have a talk.
"C-Can you not drag me around like some school boy?!"
"How else will a punk like you listen, you damn brat!" Rakan-san snapped back at the Governor.
"Uh, Takamichi, should we, um, do something?" Negi asked, gesturing at Rakan-san and Godel-san nervously.
"Nah, let Rakan-san talk some sense into Kurt. It's long overdue." Takamichi said with a sigh with a long drag from his cigarette. "Like seriously overdue. Since he was the only one of us in Mundus Magicus, Rakan-san should've done this when Louisa died… But yeah, better late than never."
Louisa? Negi almost asked, but stopped herself when he recalled how Godel-san mentioned how his lover had hung herself after suffering the depredations of goblins… Had Rakan-san left him to handle that alone!? Okay, that sounded like Rakan-san. He didn't sound like he was the best at consoling people… But still!
"So, um, how did you and Tatsumiya-san get here, Takamichi?" Negi asked as he desperately, uncomfortably tried to change the topic.
"We managed to use the Megalomesembria Gateport-"
"It's been repaired?" Negi asked as he shot off a brace of lightning javelins he conjured with Iaculatio Fulgoris (Lightning Spears) into the horde of shadow monsters, thinning their ranks out.
"Partially." Takamichi nodded as he followed Negi's lead and used his Kankaho to launch blasts of mixed ki and magical energy at the constructs. "They managed to set up a temporary connection with Earth and me and Tatsumiya-kun used it to cross over. Sadly, it failed shortly afterwards."
Negi's shoulders slumped at that. He had been hoping that if the Gateport was repaired that maybe he could contact and get help from Konoe-sama. He was sure that with the help of the leader of the Kanto Magic Association, he'd be able to clear up the misunderstanding that had made him and his classmates fugitives. But if the Gateport was still down… Help from Earth was still out of the picture.
Damn…
"Anyways, once we'd arrived on Mundus Magicus, we rushed over to Ostia from Megalomesembria right away and got here just this morning where we met up with Rakan-san."
"Wait, Tatsumiya-san came willingly?"
"No." Takamachi looked pained at that, a thousand-yard stare in his eyes before he shook his head. "It doesn't matter for now. We have other priorities."
Negi nodded and turned his attention to the battlefield. As he did so he noticed something very worrying. Where was Fate?
Sadly, Negi was right to be worried about the fact that the gray haired boy was missing as the other boy's voice suddenly filled the ears of everyone in the ballroom.
"Heed the contract and serve me, oh King of Hades." Fate said ominously in what was clearly the first verse of an incantation for a powerful spell. A spell that Negi knew he had to disrupt at all costs.
Thus leaving Takamichi behind, he zipped out through the hall in the building Rakan-san had kicked Fate through and found the other boy just as he finished the second verse of his incantation. "Come, cracking of the Earth, torrent of scorching heat engulfing the furthest reaches!"
"Dios Tukos (Ax of God)!" Negi cast hastily, forgoing the spell's full incantation, as he made a downward-sweeping motion which combined to allow him to unleash a powerful electric burst that shattered the mandala-like barriers that were Fate's default defense.
Unfazed, Fate just kept chanting. "Seethe and surge forth, Earth God of burning ruination! Terra Fin-"
Negi didn't let him finish though as shooting toward him as a lightning bolt as allowed to him by the powers granted to him by his Raiten Taisō form, he shoulder checked Fate. But he didn't just slam his shoulder into just any part of the other boy's body. No, in a moment of uncharacteristic vindictiveness left over from learning the truth about the attack on his hometown, Negi had hit the gray haired jerk in the nuts.
As the fighting in the ballroom devolved further with the arrival of Cosmo Entelecheia and their army of shadow constructs, Ranma finally decided it was time to join the game. So abandoning her sampling of the refreshment table and zeroing in on the leader of the accursed Mage of the Beginning's forces this day, that Averruncus boy again, Ranma cast Impar Deperditionem Hortus (Depletion Garden) on herself as she began making her way towards the gray haired boy. The entropic power of her spell creating an aura around herself that caused all the enemies in her way, be they Megalomesembrian or those of Cosmo Entelecheia, to crumble away into nothingness or in the case of the few Confederation guards in her way, to fall into unconsciousness.
Thus unhindered, she made her way towards the gray haired boy as he made his way to join the fight between Negi-sensei and Godel-san. That the boy hadn't chosen to try to fight her was wise on his part, Ranma was sure she could kill him handedly, but also mildly insulting. So deciding to return insult with insult, she finished off the last of the food on the plate she had carried with her from the refreshment table and tossed it in the direction of Averruncus' head. Sadly, her insult failed to connect when a trio of twisted Metapod-like monsters that fit the description Ranma had gotten from Konoka-san about the Mage's beast that had previously attacked her, Sakurazaki-san, Kagurazaka-san and Nagase-san appeared out nowhere, though these looked smaller than the one her classmates had fought with these being small enough to not only fit in the ballroom but from a distance seemingly disappear in the sea of Cosmo Entelecheia shadow constructs that filled much of the hall, and her plate shattered against the green chitinous exoskeleton of one of the monsters instead of her intended target.
"Tsch! The adult forms couldn't hack it against me and the Mage sends the chrysalis stage instead?" Ranma snorted as she idly used Scutum Et Putredo (Rot Shield) to create a polygonal matrix made out of panels of raw entropic energy with an area of one square feet that proceeded to shield her from the chunks of earth that the trio of monsters were shooting at her.
Rather than replying, the trio of Pokemon ripoffs just pooled their powers together to conjure a massive wave of mud that they sent hurtling at Ranma. In response, the Outsider just sighed. Did the beasts honestly think that would be enough to get through her Scutum Et Putredo? It had the power to disintegrate anything that touched it! The best that the mud wave could do was bury her but even then all would take was a single spell or just her walking her way out of the mud and let her surrounding Scutum Et Putredo or heck even her slower working Impar Deperditionem Hortus clear a path for her. That said, Ranma did not fancy being buried so with a wave of her right arm and a wordless casting of Flamma De Rasura (Erasure Flame), she sent her own wave of entropic energies shaped like flames that easily consumed the monsters' mud and negated their attack.
"You three are in the way." Ranma told the three silent abominations as unfazed by her neutralizing of their mud, they instead began conjuring ever larger boulders that they proceeded to hurl at her. "Sphaera Ex Putredine (Sphere of Rot)!"
Her spell conjured a orb of entropic energy to appear right where the trio of chrysalis monsters were and rapidly began eating away at their bodies, but even as the sizable amount of magical energy that Ranma invested the spell with ran out and the sphere flickered out of existence, the damned things still lived. They looked very much worse for wear from the experience, with their exoskeletons cracked and whole layers having been stripped away, but the infuriating abominations still lived. Even more annoying they looked like they were regenerating!
"Okay, I get why the Mage sent you three now. You might not have as much attack power as your adult forms but you've got defense in spades, don't you?" Ranma noted with a curious frown. "Though I wonder… Just how tough are those defenses of yours really?"
With that thought in mind, Ranma, safely ensconced against counterattack inside her matrix of Scutum Et Putredo, began raining spell after spell against the Mage's pets. She started small with some good ol' Sagitta Magica, Series Obscuri (Magic Arrow, Dark Series) and Sagitta Senium (Decay Arrow) that rained down dark magic and entropic arrows on them before slowly escalating to her more powerful spells like Pluvia Acida (Acid Rain) and Radius Mordax Tempestate (Corrosive Ray Storm) which saw them pummeled by entropic lances and rays. But amazingly, through it all, they endured. Their exoskeletons cracked open to spill clay like bodily fluids and their bodies deformed under the onslaught, but despite it all, they lived and slowly but surely regenerated from even the most grievous wounds that Ranma's spells dealt them.
"Wow, you guys are really tough!" Ranma praised as she used Stella Tenebris Shuriken (Dark Star Shuriken) to conjure a trio of black holes that hovered expectantly above and behind her, poised to shoot at the Mage's creations. "But are you tough enough to survive this?"
At that, she sent the three waiting black holes flying the short distance towards the three monsters whose defenses finally seemed to fail them as they were pulled in by the attractive power of the singularities, during the process of which they were ripped to shreds by the insane gravitic forces they brought to bear and were consumed by the unique entropic powers inherent in the black holes that Ranma had created. And thus at long last, after what was a good few minutes of experimentation, the Outsider had finally finished off her opponents. Just in time to hear Averruncus, who had incidentally ended up outside the ballroom at some point, begin the chant for some powerful spell or other and to see Negi-sensei shoot away as a bolt of lightning to go stop him.
Okay… Why do I get the feeling that I missed a lot of stuff whilst I was busy having fun? Ranma thought with a frown as she used her Origin Sight on the ballroom to spy on the timeline of recent events. Apparently, whilst she was distracted by the Mage's chrysalis monsters, everyone, both her group and Negi-sensei's companions for the ball, had split up into small groups and were fighting their own small battles. And along the way, Rakan-san, Tatsumiya-san and Takahata-sensei had arrived and joined the fun, the latter two all the way from Mahora no less. And the latest development was that-
"In the name of the New Ostian Truce and with my authority as a commander of the official Ariadnian peacekeeping force for the Ostian Festival, I demand that everyone stand down! Now!" An Ariadnian knight shouted as she led a small army's worth of her fellow mage knights as they blasted a hole into the ballroom with some beams before they flew in on their brooms.
"So the peacekeepers are finally here, huh?" Ranma noted with a sigh and a disappointed shake of her head, even as after their leader repeated her command and was summarily ignored, the Ariadnians joined the fighting. "Late as always."
Though her shaking head allowed her to catch sight of something that she'd missed when the broom mounted mage knights had made their dramatic entrance, namely that one of their number was none other than Yue-san! Unfortunately, her realization came only when across the whole length and breadth of the ballroom from Ranma's current position, the aforementioned purplette and the blonde haired, green eyed beastgirl that Ranma's scrying of her sister's best friend's time in Ariadne informed her was Yue-san's closest friend in the city-state were being ganged up on by an overwhelming number of Cosmo Entelecheia's shadow constructs. The witch-like constructs in the mixed group they were facing had shot them off their brooms with a withering barrage of shadowbolts and left them to their knight-like peers to finish off as the two girls crash landed.
"Farandole!" Another blonde beastgirl from Airadne with her hair in pigtails shouted at the sight as she and her buddy, a reserved looking human girl with dark blue hair and brownish orange eyes rushed to the two downed girl's sides.
Their shout caught the attention of the witch-like shadows though and they turned their attention towards the two airborne trainee mage knights, hurling an awesome rain of shadow bolts at them. In a show of surprising skill, they mostly evaded the barrage but the salvo had only been the prelude of what the shadow constructs had in store. Thus even as Yue-san and her buddy were doing a good job fending off their assailants and Ranma was struggling to make her way through the hordes between them, the two airborne girls were hit by the beam shot off by one of the key shaped staffs that some of the shadow constructs were equipped with. A beam that disintegrated the pigtailed blonde straight out of her clothes, which alongside her broom proceeded to fall to the floor of the ballroom like some sick memorial of her passing.
"EMILY!" The dead girl's buddy shouted in horror.
She wasn't the only one horrified however as her cry caused Yue-san and her companion to also turn away from their fight to see what had happened, creating an opening for one of the knight constructs they were fighting to bring its own key like staff to bear against them as well. At the same time, the witches exploited the bluenette's distraction to aim a powerful beam of dark energy that they'd created by combining their powers.
"Not on my watch! Not to one of my friends!" Ranma hissed to herself as deciding at last that walking was taking too long, she teleported in between Yue-san and her buddy and the beam that was headed their way. A beam which was easily absorbed by her Scutum Et Putredo defense matrix even as she extended out a pseudopod that batted aside the beam the witches shot at the bluenette, who she used a second tendril to pluck off her broom so she could join Yue-san and her friend behind her where they'd be safe.
"Thank you!" Yue-san said, turning to look at Ranma as her buddy took the sobbing bluenette from Ranma's pseudopod and began comforting her. "Thank you for saving Beatrix."
"Don't mention it, Yue-san." Ranma said distractedly as finally done with all this madness, she finally decided to get a little serious and silently casting Nigrum Draco Waltz (Black Dragon Waltz) alongside waving her left arm, she unleashing a dozen constructs in the shape of Eastern dragons made of what appeared to be black lightning that proceeded to, within seconds, sweep aside the vast majority of Cosmo Entelecheia's shadow constructs in the ballroom before dissipating.
"Wait, how do you know my name?" Yue-san guessed, confirming the observations Ranma had made via omniscience, that the other girl was really suffering from amnesia.
"We're in the same class. You really must have hit your head." Ranma replied distractedly as she surveyed the ballroom for any remaining enemies. "My Tempore Mutationem (Time Reversal) might cure it, but it would also erase all your memories since the injury that was responsible for your amnesia so it's not a good fix. I'll have to work on a spell that will work later or have Konoka-san do it."
"What kind of school did you go to?" The sheepgirl who was Yue-san's Ariadne buddy bleated as she looked at Ranma's classmate with wide eyed panic.
"I don't know." Yue-san shrugged as she fired off several lightning javelins from her wand.
Yue-san and her buddy got into a bit of a minor argument about the former's past all whilst they worked as a well-oiled machine to shield their still mostly insensate bluenette friend from the remnants of Cosmo Entelecheia's army. It was rather bizarre to see the usual lazy philosopher girl being so active outside of Library Diving but Ranma barely paid it any attention. Her focus was instead drawn to Rakan-san who was striding purposefully out of the ballroom in the direction that Negi-sensei had shot off in earlier.
It didn't take being a genius or her Origin Sight to figure out where the legendary member of Ala Rubra was heading. The sound of earth and lightning clashing from outside was enough of a clue that he was about to join in whatever epic fight Negi-sensei was having with Averruncus.
Oh, no you don't! I'm not letting anyone but me kill that brat! He's the Mage's chief minion! He's mine! Ranma decided as she marched off after Rakan-san.
"Stay there and look after your friend!" She shouted absently over her shoulder at Yue-san and the sheepgirl. "I've got business to attend to."
Ranma didn't bother to listen for a reply and seeing Rakan-san disappear through the first hole in the wall that Negi-sensei's exit from the ballroom earlier had created, she teleported ahead of him. Like hell was she going to let him beat her to the punch!
She rematerialized in the battle scarred terrace of the New Ostian Governor's Mansion where a short distance away, Negi-sensei and Averruncus were still duking it out. Smirking at having beaten Rakan-san to the main event, she was about to attack the gray haired boy when the heavy thumps of wingbeats caught her ear and she turned to see two butterfly dragons skimming along the ground, their snarling maws spread wide at her as they flew at her intent on swallowing her whole whilst three other slower ones were airborne, wind picking up from each flap of their insectile wings as they closed behind the first two.
"Grh! That tears it, I'm done with all these damn fodder getting iN M̶̻̏̂͐̆̋̃̈́̄͌͝ÿ̵̺͎͓̣̞̙͖̥́̅̾̆ ̶̺̮͙̜̀͝w̵̢̠͍̻̩̲̯͈͖͙̏̿̐͑̀͒̅̆͒̚̕͠ã̵̡̧͓̰̰̌̉͐͊̊̈́́͐͌͘͝͠ȳ̷̢̨͚̯͉͕̲͔̖̥.̸̙̭̝̣̒̋̿̀̚͜!" Ranma shouted, her bloodlust flooding the air around her and causing anything of weak will around her to collapse from the pressure of it alone.
Pseudopods erupted from her shoulders. Tendrils that divided over and over again, with each newly formed pseudopod swiftly swelling in mass until it was as broad as its parent before it too split. A process that soon flooded the entire terrace in her tentacles.
"D̵̩͚̹̼̩̗̲̓͌̋̋̊̆ͅĬ̷̢̛͇̗̙̦͖̠͉̥̺͋͘͜Ĕ̴͗̆̈́̚͘͜͝!̷̢̗͈̼̖̝̟͚̪̂̅̃̍͌͋̐̕͠͠" The Outsider commanded as with a thought Erugo Radiors (Corrosion Ray) shot from each tentacle by the dozens. Entropic beams that remorselessly brought about a gruesome end to these filthy cretins that dared to bar her path!
Oh, try as they might, the butterfly dragons attempted to evade her beams of death. But agile thought they were, it was simply not enough when Ranma's deadly magic filled the entire sky. Against such an onslaught, they could do nothing but be reduced to dissolving riddled husks.
But even with their demise, her rage only grew. How long was that damned Mage going to send his wayward pets to protect his dolls?
No more!
Thus with that determination in mind, she reabsorbed her pseudopods and rushed through the decaying corpses, intent on bringing about the death of that gray haired brat. Only to halt her advance as she watched mildly stunned as there in the middle of the battlefield that was once the terrace of the palace but which had been torn asunder and riddled with craters, was Rakan-san - Grinning like a fool - as he was erased from existence by the doll's key like staff. One that was more elaborate than the ones the shadow constructs were armed with and which her Origin Sight helpfully informed her was Grand Master Key that granted its user what amounted to administrative aspects to the Grand Illusion of Mundus Magicus and thus could be used to erase aspects of Mundus Magicus from existence itself.
How- How did he get ahead of me! He shouldn't even be here yet! Ranma thought as the last remnants of Rakan-san flickered from existence, but not before shooting her a look that wordlessly communicated that his death wasn't her fault. That he had cut ahead whilst she was distracted and got into this mess of his own volition. Even in last moments, the legendary beastman was a Man Among Men and chose to absolve everyone but himself from the guilt of his death.
It was such a heroic display that despite never having never been all that close to the man in their short acquaintance, Ranma couldn't help but feel a small ache of loss at the loud, boisterous and powerful man's departure.
It was official, Fate had to die. And he had to die hard.
"F̵̪͖̍̄̈́̕Ḁ̶̜͆̀̽̋̋̈́̽͗̍̋́̕͠͝͝T̶̨̡̯̗͔͉̮͈̺͚̗̩̗̃̐͑̅͋̃̔͋̀̍́͗͜E̴̮̼͉̬͚͍̩̘͊̅̈͛̒̐̀͠!̶̤̤͔̥̳̫͓͐̏͜" She howled, the air vibrating from her inhuman rage.
"...It seems I may have erred." Averruncus confessed, yet his face was still that annoying serene calm he normally gave off.
"R-RakAN-SAN!" Negi-sensei roared as for the second time since the ball began, he lost control of his Magia Erebea and with shadows spreading to cover his skin and hair even as he was still transformed into lightning, he lunged at Averruncus.
Dammit! Can't Sensei stay in control for once?! Ranma thought with irritation. This was her kill blast it all! Sensei couldn't even control himself!
"S̴͚͗͆t̸̳̽̓á̸̯́y̶̼̹͑ ̶͈̅a̷̪̱̍̓w̵̨͊a̴̯̎y̶̧͝ ̷̢̼̌̃f̴͍̑r̴͍̻̈̊o̷̞͆̓m̶͑͝ͅ ̵̱̜̌͒m̶̌̚͜y̴͖͌̿ ̴̛̩͊k̷̘̔i̴̯̹̔͒ĺ̴̩̫̚l̸̯͊̎!̴̖̻͝!" Ranma all but snarled and kicked her demonic sensei away with annoyance, sending him through a nearby wall. Her head snapped towards Fate's direction and grinned widely, showing multiple rows of teeth.
However before she could attack the gray haired doll, Negi-sensei shot out of the crater in the wall that Ranma had kicked him into and tackled Fate away from her.
"̶͔̦͘Ĭ̸̢͓̣͔̿ ̸̬̹̋̈́s̴̖̻͕̀̕ã̵̰͆̊̉i̷͇̬̞̲̽̅̿̓d̶͖̣̳̓̉͜͠ ̷͚͚̝̀̃̃s̶̺̯͛̈t̵̗̐͒͑a̸̛͉̗̟̻̽͋y̶̖̞̞͌ ̷̯̼͙̳̓͘ấ̵̲̝̫̒̍w̵̡̦͝à̸͈̙̲̺̂y̶̖̘̚ ̴̟̭͂̕͘͜f̶̨̛̪̱̽̄r̶̢̤̤͍͊̾͗o̸̝̩̾̈̏̓m̴̘͉͒̍̃̇ ̵̬̻̣̀͐̎m̶͔̰̓̓ÿ̷̖͒ ̸̨̟͑k̴̘̯̜̱̀͂́͘ì̶̱͒́l̵͙̮̯̱̈́̈́̒ĺ̶̦̱͛͝,̶̱̼̄͛͆ ̷͓̞̰̍̓͂Ś̵̭̏̍e̶̢̥̬̣͂̄̈́̌n̷̖̯̲͐̈͂s̷̢͎̦̓̿́e̷͕̝͖̐i̴̜̿́̽̚!̶̤͌"̴̨͎̪̆̿̽͝Ranma shouted as she reached out with a forest of pseudopods and pulled Negi-sensei off Fate. She would have done more when the unexpected happened.
"Negi! Stop!" A familiar but unexpected voice called out from behind them and Ranma and even the berserk Negi-sensei jerked their heads to its source only to see a half rematerialized Rakan-san floating over the spot where he'd been disintegrated. He was naked, his clothes having not been touched by the power of the Grand Master Key, and he was only really just his head, his arms and upper torso, but he was nevertheless a sight for sore eyes.
How in the world-!? Ranma was flummoxed how anyone could come back from erasure from existence!
"R-RAkan-san?" Negi-sensei stuttered out as he regained his senses and the shadows that had enshrouded his body retreated, and his Magia Erebea failed entirely causing him to revert to his human form.
"You can't beat Fate yet, Negi. Much less Ranma." Rakan-san said as Ranma cautiously released her hold on her homeroom teacher. "So stop fighting her."
"I-I-"
Ignoring Negi-sensei's blubbering as he once more began to fade, his fingers having already disappeared as he had been speaking, Rakan-san continued. "You two should be fighting together. Combining your power and talents. You can take on Fate and the Mage's followers and open a path for Ranma to gut the bastard mastermind. I know you can do it! So stop bickering and work together, you reckless brats!"
"I will." Negi-sensei promised whilst Ranma just shrugged. She wasn't convinced but she wasn't about to disrespect the last words of a dead hero.
"That's all I can ask." Rakan-san said with a tired sigh as he faded entirely, but not before leaving some final words that lingered on the wind even as he disappeared from existence. "You're a couple of good brats."
"Rakan-san!" Negi-sensei cried out as he suddenly tilted forward and collapsed, the strain of everything that had happened today finally catching up to him.
"Sensei!" Chisame-san shouted as she, Akashi-san, Sasaki-san, Asakura-san and Aisaka-san rushed over just in time to distract Ranma again and give Fate the chance to discreetly make his escape. "Ranma-san, what happened?"
"Rakan-san died and Springfield-san lost control of his Magia Erebea again. Oh, and thanks to that, he let the Fate boy get away." Ranma told her bluntly as she used a pair of pseudopods to pick up their unconscious homeroom teacher and deposited him into her friend's ready arms. "I'm leaving now. But do me a favor and tell the brat one thing when he wakes up, will you?"
"What is it, Ranma-san?" Asakura-san asked in Chisame-san's stead as the other girl was almost in catatonic shock at news of Rakan-san's death, which was surprising to Ranma who hadn't thought them that close. And especially when Chisame-san had the object of her affections in her arms to distract her.
"Tell him that he needs to keep his anger on a shorter leash. If he loses control again, I might not be around to save him."
With that final warning, Ranma teleported away to collect her group and head home. The ball had been a total downer and it was high time to head home to unwind. After the long day, they deserved it.
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless as always!
Yes! It is done! My lordy, was this a long and tough one folks! So, so many fight scenes. Hope you enjoy each and every action packed moment, because whoa did we put our backs into it!
Nameless: Yup. I really do hope you guys like the direction we're taking things for some of the crew. Like how we gave Kazumi Shaman King style Over Souls. Also hope that you enjoy how utterly nonchalant Ranma is about the opponents that she was confronted with. Considering what she is now, could she be anything but?
I think it's impossible to break down each fight. Though honestly, I think my favorite one would be the one between Herb and Dynamis. Their verbal sparring and accompanying physical bout was fun to write. Felt very JoJo in a way oddly.
Nameless: If we're talking favorites… Hmm… I guess mine would either be Nodoka's or Chisame's. It's a nice demonstration of their growth into formidable fighters. Considering Nodoka started out as an insecure wallflower and Chisame was in denial of her having become a mage, their growth is just so fun to showcase.
Oh, those are good ones. Yes, best girls showing their stuff was a lot of fun. Hm, sadly Rakan is gone now, but the dude gave his last words and even temporarily came back from erasure to do so, so, yeah. That's the BS that is the Invincible Idiot.
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!