Chapter Four: The Aftermath. Who's Kera?
There was a colossal explosion and Kera had to shield herself by casting Raywing. When the dust cleared, the damage was absolute. Her eyes wide with horror, Kera surveyed the landscape. There were no buildings of any height still standing for a radius of about a mile. The palace and city were almost completely destroyed. A large sweatdrop forming on her head, Kera sighed, shaking her head in vexation. Lina and the others were nowhere in sight. A figure moved in the rubble. It was Martina Zoana Mel Navratilova.
The exhausted, wretched-looking, green-haired princess was dragging herself out of the debris. Kera flew down to land her a hand since it seemed that they had a common enemy. After Martina was finally out of the rubble, she dusted herself off and promptly vowed vengeance on Lina Inverse for wrecking her home and city. Once she had done this, she was about to thank Kera when it seemed that she saw who her rescuer was for the first time. "You! Where were you when that witch destroyed the place? You and Zelgadiss were supposed to help us fight them!" Martina screeched.Looking contrite, Kera smiled and said, "I'm sorry, but I couldn't do anything about it. That spell was too powerful."
"Hmmph! I'll bet you just didn't want to," muttered the princess. "Seeing how that Zelgadiss betrayed us, you're probably just as untrustworthy too."
Kera kept silent and did not point out the fact that it was Martina's father who had first lied to Zelgadiss. "So," continued Martina, looking intently at Kera. "What are you really after? Why didn't you leave with Lina and the others?"
"Lina Inverse is also my enemy," explained Kera. "She destroyed a large portion of the village I was living in with another Dragon Slave spell and… and…" Kera hesitated, then said softly, "She also killed both my parents."
Martina's face softened, seeing that Kera was really telling the truth. She placed a sympathetic hand on Kera's shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said, looking apologetic. "I shouldn't have asked."
Brushing away tears, Kera smiled at Martina and said, "It's all right. I've gotten over their deaths already. Sort of… Anyway, what do you plan to do now?"
"Well, I was sort of thinking that I will go after Lina to make her pay for what she's done to my father's kingdom. In the great name of Zoamel Gustav, I will punish her for her evil doings," said Martina, striking an Amelia-type pose.
A gust of cold wind suddenly came and she shivered, dropping the pose. Kera nodded and said, "We'll better get you a cloak or you'll catch cold, dressed as you are."
As they walked off, Martina said, "What's wrong with my clothes? I like this costume! Don't you think it looks very nice? … When it's all nice and clean, that is."
"Never mind," sighed Kera, sweatdropping. She rolled her eyes as she thought, what have I gotten myself into? I wonder where Zel and the others are now.
- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
During this time, Zelgadiss was wondering the same thing while Lina, Amelia and Gourry gorged themselves. "When are we going to leave? This is exactly why I prefer to travel alone," he muttered. "You guys waste too much time eating. If I was with Kera instead, we would have been gone hours ago," he said, thinking aloud.
Amelia paused between mouthfuls to ask, "Who's Kera?"
"A girl of about Lina's age who I met on the way to Zoana," replied Zel. "I travelled with her for quite some time. She's quite skilled with both swordplay and magic. And she eats an incredibly little amount of food."
"She must be as skinny as a stick, then," laughed Lina.
"No, she isn't," disagreed Zelgadiss, annoyed. "She's only a little thinner than you are, Lina. And much, much more mature."
"She must be a really terrific girl, if you have nothing but praises for her," said Lina, her eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me…"
"Lina-san!" Amelia burst out.
"What?" Lina said, looking at the younger girl strangely. Gourry and Zelgadiss also stared.
"Er… nothing," murmured Amelia, blushing.
"Then don't interrupt me when I'm talking!" Lina exclaimed. "Where was I? Oh yeah, we were on the topic of that girl, Kira or whatever her name is."
"It's Kera," corrected Zelgadiss.
"Yeah, whatever. Why did she want to go to Zoana anyway?"
"How should I know?"
"Hey, you were the one who travelled with her, Zel. You mean you didn't even ask her?" Lina asked incredulously.
"Well… I think that when I met her, she had recently gone through some sort of trauma, so I didn't want to make her feel worse," said Zelgadiss, blushing a little with embarrassment. "She was being attacked by a Mazoku when I rescued her. That's enough to traumatize anyone."
"Woo hoo," taunted Lina. "The knight in shining armour, eh? So did she offer to repay you or something?"
"She did thank me, but she learnt more from me than I did about her," said Zel. "Would you believe that she actually learnt the Ra-Tilt after watching me cast it the first time?"
"No way!!" Lina yelled, standing up. Everyone in the inn stared at her. "That's not possible!"
"Possible or not, it happened," said Zel stubbornly. "I saw her cast it."
"Maybe she learnt it before she met you?" Amelia suggested.
"No," said Zel, shaking his head. "She's an amateur black magic sorceress. That was why I had to rescue her from the Mazoku."
"Oh. So she doesn't know Dragon Slave yet?" Lina asked, sitting down again.
"I'm not sure," admitted Zelgadiss. "She's a nice girl and doesn't like to cast spells that cause a lot of damage, unlike someone we know…"
"Hey! Just what are you implying?" Lina retorted. "What is it, Gourry?!"
"Er, I don't understand something," interrupted Gourry, scratching his head. "How come Kera can't learn the Ra- whatever spell if she's a black magic sorceress?"
"The Ra-Tilt is a spirit magic spell. It can only be easily learnt by those specialising in spirit magic or white magic. For a person who practices black magic, it is extremely difficult," explained Lina. "Believe me, I've tried. Learning the Elmekia Lance alone took me two whole months."
"Oh. So does that mean Kera is better than Lina in magic?" Gourry wondered aloud.
Lina's fist crashed onto the top his skull. "How dare you say that?" Lina shouted. "We haven't even met her yet!"
Sweatdropping, Zelgadiss and Amelia looked on while Gourry got severely beaten by Lina for that remark. Finally, Amelia dragged Lina away while Zelgadiss pulled Gourry out of reach. "What did I say?" asked a dazed Gourry.
"Something you shouldn't have," said Zelgadiss as he sighed.
After Lina had cooled down and Gourry had recovered, they went back to eating.
Zelgadiss sighed and continued to watch them eat.
- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the meantime, Martina and Kera were walking through the same town that Lina and the others were. "I'm hungry," complained Martina, who was wrapped in a dark brown cloak.
"Be patient," said Kera. "We'll have find an inn to stay for the night, then we can eat."
"You're so nice to me," said Martina, looking at Kera with tears brimming in her eyes. "How can I ever repay you?"
"Don't be too happy just yet," warned Kera. She jingled her purse and continued, "I'm running out of money soon. We'll also have to find work to earn more money."
"Me, a princess? Work?!" Martina exclaimed, outraged. "I've never worked in my whole life!"
"Well, it looks like you'll have to learn soon," said Kera. "I'm certainly not going to slog the whole day just to earn money for you to spend recklessly."
"Fine, fine," grumbled Martina. "But since you have money now, you're going to pay for me, right, Kera-san?"
"I don't have a choice, do I?" sighed Kera.
They entered an inn that was coincidentally next to the inn where Lina and the others were staying. The two girls found an empty table and sat down. After a waiter took their orders, Martina asked Kera what she was going to do now. The blue-clad sorceress thought for a while, then said, "Lina's looking for the Clair Bibles, right? So… if we follow the rumours about Clair Bibles, we'll be sure to find her there too," she said. "Anyway, I'm quite interested in the Clair Bibles myself."
"Why? What's so interesting about them?" Martina asked.
"The Clair Bibles contain a whole lot of information about the world we live in," explained Kera. "As far as I understand, they were originally the Water Dragon Lord's knowledge about the world. But they continued to exist after his defeat."
"Oh. I see," said Martina, even though it was clear that she did not quite understand. Kera sighed and explained further. "The legend says that they can reveal any knowledge possessed by the Gods. Wouldn't you want to know stuff that a god would know?"
Martina's eyes widened and she nodded excitedly. "How come you know so much about it?" she asked suspiciously.
~ ~ ~ The End of Chapter Four ~ ~ ~
Phew…that's a tough question to answer. If you're wondering where I get all this information from, it's from http://www.inverse.org/e/ It's a great site that has got all sorts of stuff on the characters, anime synopses and magic spells from Slayers. However, the part about spirit magic and how black magic mages are not able to learn spirit magic spells so easily is just pure guessing on my part, so if I'm wrong, I'm very sorry. ^_^"