A/N: I still think this fic could stand to be totally rewritten in order to improve consistency of style and flowing plot movement, but I just don't have time for that right now. And since so few people even bothered to read this anyway, I wasn't gonna bother doing anything with it. But I feel bad for those wonderful, kind people who actually reviewed. I know I hate it when a story I am reading just stops updating and leaves me hanging, so here's to you, Cynical Angel, and anyone else who actually likes this.
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"Nooo!" Lina's shout of concern was drowned out by the mazoku priest's own scream. It echoed all about the stone room and terrible pain contorted his face as his entire body was consumed by the Shadow. His hands twitched uncontrollably and his eyes glazed over. But Lina could see he was fighting it, resisting it with all his strength. And he was the fourth most powerful mazoku in the entire world... The sorcerer, meanwhile, looked on smugly.
Biting her lip with frustration, Lina dashed forward, miraculously avoiding the dark patches herself, swept right past the sorcerer – but not before knocking the amulet out of his hand – and made it to Xelloss' side. "Xel, be alive, c'mon," she muttered and without a second thought, forced her hand into the Shadow and grabbed Xelloss' arm, pulling on him as fast as she could before she began feeling very drained and she stumbled. Miraculously, Xelloss' body came out of the thing. He fell to his knees, panting, eyes squeezed tightly shut. The other humans in the room watched her in horror. "General Inverse!" the pageboy cried. But Lina had little time to defend her actions. With the amulet on the floor, the sorcerer was momentarily helpless. Xelloss, still crouched on the floor, suddenly began to laugh a bit manically. With a start, he leapt up, black lightning splaying from his fingers, eyes opened into wide slits that glittered with malice. Before Lina could react, every one in the room, except Xelloss and herself, was dead.
"Damn you, Lina Inverse!" he growled darkly. But then his demeanor changed. He began to laugh lightly. "Oh, Lina, you really got me this time. To think I, the trickster priest, was so completely had. I truly believed that you had no hand in the making of the shadow. I must have had a soft spot for you, after all. But now I see differently. Lina, you truly are my greatest adversary." He held out a hand to support himself, shaking slightly. "In thousands of years, no one has ever tricked me so perfectly. Beat me at my own game. Out manipulated me!" He laughed again. Then his closed eyes opened once more, dark, narrow eyes. "But now that your true colors are shown, I'm afraid we can no longer be allies!"
"Xel!" Lina coughed, still on her knees where she had fallen and helplessly watched the priest at work. "What are…you talking…about?" She was trying to unscramble her mind and force herself not to feel tired at the same time. "I…don't understand." She pressed her hands against her face from her own mental weariness, and brushed back her hair with a dead beat sigh. "How the hell… can you accuse me… of having betrayed you…with no evidence, I might add…after I trusted you…despite everything?" Lina struggled to her feet. Once there, she felt a bit better and stretched, beginning to feel a bit angry instead. But all her casual anger and half-built accusations were, however, covering up the sudden chill she felt at seeing Xelloss in his element. Those eyes never failed to unnerve her, just a bit, each time.
"No need to play the indignant innocent, Lina-san." Xelloss smirked. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? I've spent enough time around your damn bracelets and enchantments in the last 24 hours to have developed a very good idea of what L-magic feels like. And do you know what happened when I fell into that black patch? Nothing. It was like falling out of water into water! You made that one mistake when you hatched this plot. You forgot that I might recognize your style…and survive." Xelloss retrieved his staff from the floor where it had fallen and used it to support himself as he stood. For the first time since Lina had met him, he really was using it as a walking stick. She noticed that his physical form seemed slightly transparent , and from time to time it flickered, as though he were having trouble keeping up the illusion. But the deaths of the villagers and her own pain and confusion seemed to be nursing him back to health.
"And I even understand why you saved me," he continued. "It's no good that that idiot sorcerer pushed me in. You wanted to do it yourself. I'll bet you were elated when I came to ask your help with this. The perfect opportunity for you and me to be alone near these things. Of course, I'll admit I didn't really think you would sacrifice human lives, especially those of former comrades, but then you and Miss Martina never really did get along, did you?"
Shocked and furious at this accusation, Lina clenched her fists hard enough for her nails to leave red marks on her palms. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about, you lame-brain! I didn't create this thing! I had nothing to do with any of this!" Beginning to feel ill, Lina turned her back determinedly on Xelloss – not exactly the smartest thing to do – and made her way towards Marzipan and the girl's deceased parents, one hand braced against her cheek as though keeping her head on. She knelt beside the child and brushed back her hair, blinking in surprise when she noticed the child was alive, and safe. Somehow, she must have been outside the range of Xelloss' attack.
"Don't worry, hon, you're gonna be safe now. I promised Martina that much." She glanced over at the entwined corpses and chewed on her lip, wondering how she could possibly get them both back to Seyruun herself. Plus, Marzipan. "Alright, do me a favor and go glare menacingly at that naughty man over there while I figure something out – but don't get too close, and yell reeeally loud if you feel threatened." She pointed behind her – though for all she knew, Xelloss might already have left – and moved towards the couple.
Marzipan, having just woken up and being completely clueless, nodded and walked silently over to Xelloss. She plopped herself on the floor in front of the mazoku and proceeded to glare at him. Xelloss blinked and his eyes returned to their normal cheery state. "You sound angry, Lina-san," he commented casually. "Could it be that you're telling the truth? It would be ridiculously idiotic of me to fall for the same weakness twice, and Beastmaster would surely have my head, and yet…" He bent down and reached out a hand towards the child.
"When will my Mommy wake up?" Marzipan asked innocently. Having forgotten Lina's warning, she reached out and met Xelloss' hand halfway
"Oh dear, I'm afraid she's not really going to wake up ever again." Xelloss said bluntly. He reveled in the child's confusion and sadness.
"Never again?"
"Nope, never." He sounded disturbingly cheerful about the fact. Marzipan sniffed and looked back at Lina.
Lina glanced up and smiled – though it was only a shadow of her usual grin. She stood and pocketed something, walking over to Marzipan, "Good job, hun, how about we get out of here and go meet a nice lady who'll give you lots of food?" Food, of course, being the most important thing to everyone, as we all know.
Marzipan nodded eagerly, her black ringlets bouncing. "If only the kid could fly…" Lina mused. "I could take one of them, but I would have to rest a lot… what did you say before, 6 days or something flight?"
"Could it be possible you are actually unaware of what you've done?" Xelloss pondered quietly.
"I don't feel I have to defend myself to you, Xelloss." Lina retorted without bothering to favor him with so much as a sideways glance.
"Fine then." Xelloss sighed, unconcerned. "There are other ways of finding out the information I need. Perhaps I should pay a certain blond swordsman a visit. If the Shadow doesn't affect him, I'll continue to believe you created it. If it does, I'll believe you when you say you didn't create it, as I am fairly certain you would never willingly hurt him. A foolproof plan!" Xelloss winked at Lina, looking very pleased with himself.
Lina instantly dropped Marzipan's hand and grabbed Xelloss' collar, standing on tip-toe in order to look him in the eye. "Don't you dare hurt Gourry!" she hissed, "I don't really care if you believe me or not, but when you start including my friends, that's a bit too far, buster."
"Oh, you'll care," Xelloss informed her. "If you don't convince me that you're innocent, I will hurt your friend. Or attempt to anyway. As I said, if you're lying, he shouldn't be any worse for the wear." Xelloss vanished from the physical world, just to prove to Lina how ineffectual her grip on him was. His voice, however, continued on. "So, maybe now you're more interested in discussing the matter with me?"
"What's there to- oh, nevermind that," Lina kicked a nearby bedpost, just to hurt something. "What do you want? Proof? Something besides hurting my friends that will convince you…" she glanced around, trying to think of something to hold off the trickster from carrying out his plan, "Ah, ah…hey, what about me? If I made it, would it hurt me?"
"All right, Lina-san," Xelloss agreed amiably, reappearing in front of her. "It's a deal. If you jump in and it kills you, I'll believe you."
Lina stiffened, but turned to face the horrible creation with a grimace, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "Damn you, Xel."
"If you deny my accusations, then I must confess I don't know why you should risk your life to save me," the damnable monster in question reminded her. "But the most important question is: have you ever felt L-magic? I mean, have you ever cast it or a variant of it on yourself?"
"No, it's not like I've ever needed to drain myself of my energy." Lina shrugged, glancing over at Marzipan and a bit torn. "Damn it, I promised Martina. Jeez, Xel, I don't know. I guess I saved you because…well, that's what people do when their pals are in trouble."
"Pals, hmmm?" Xelloss repeated but didn't push it. "All right then, indulge me. Cast L-magic on yourself. It is designed to drain black magic only, so it will not destroy you, only deplete your resources. And I know you have black magic in you, so don't deny it. Go ahead."
"Like I'd bother denying something stupid like that," Lina muttered, calling upon the words for her L-magic. Although the amulets automatically drained any nearby mazoku, she had made sure that their effect on humans was null. Even a student of the dark ways would have felt nothing at their nearness. And though L-magic would cancel out any black magic attack Lina used, she had never felt it herself. It was a strange thing, to cast an attacking spell on oneself, but Lina shrugged and obliged Xelloss.
Almost instantly she felt the strange sensation—one of being sucked dry. The spell was absorbing her dark magic, draining her energy; she felt tired and weak, like something was eating her slowly from the inside out………and she recognized the sensation.
It was identical to that which she had felt both times when she touched the black shadow. True, this spell was much weaker, and focused only on black magic as opposed to one's very life force, but it was definitely the same thing. And not just the effects, but the feel, the signature of the two magics, was the same as well. Although the shadow gave off no magical aura, it had the lingering aftertaste of a spell.
"Do you see what I mean now?" Xelloss asked smugly, sensing Lina's confusion and growing doubt. "It's very familiar, no? You didn't recognize it before because you had never experienced the feel of L-magic. I myself had not had enough exposure to it to notice the similarity either. But lately, I've grown to know the feeling quite well. And I instantly recognized its magical signature when I touched the Shadow. And you are the only one strong enough and experienced enough to use L-magic, is that not so?" Xelloss leaned casually against the wall and drew a hand through his hair. "What I mean, Lina-san, is that whether or not you meant to, you created this thing. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether you purposely attacked the monster race with it, or whether you created it quite by accident."
The mazoku general folded his arms across his chest. The fact that his accusations had not been ungrounded after all and were apparently at least partially accurate gave him a condescending air. Marzipan, who had been watching everything intently, began to bore of the conversation she could never hope to understand. She wandered over to her mother's fallen form, curled up beside her, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and closed her eyes tightly.
"I… I created it?" Lina muttered, hands falling limply to her side, "I killed Martina and Zangulus." She looked over at the two bodies, and the child curled up with them. "I don't get it, what… how could this thing come into existence, anyway?" she backed up a bit and set herself down onto the bed wearily.
"That's what I intend to find out." Xelloss announced. "And anyway I'm feeling under the weather, so to speak. I think I'll be making my exit now. Take care, Lina."
"Wait, Xel…" she stood earnestly, "Will I… see you again?"
"Lina, Lina, that is a secret!" And he was gone. And Lina smiled, because that was the response she had been looking for.