Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OCs, and know nothing.
Author's Note: My second story. Again, expect occasional grammar errors and similar mistakes.
Unconnected with my Negima fic, the Blood of Entheofushia.
Will be cross-posted in SB and SV.
Prologue
The Point of Departure
"Now it ends."
"No, now it begins."
The swordswoman and the director stood in the top office of the laboratory building; both clad in white, their backs turned against each other. High winds, coming through the shattered windows, blew off the fragmented particles with enough force to leave prickling sensations on exposed skins, howling against the ears of two occupants of the spacious room even as they passed them by. Except for the howling wind, a muted stillness has descended upon the office, in sharp contrast to the duel it had seen just a few moments ago. The battered and burnt office stood as the testament of its fierceness, as were the state of two figures: one female, leaning on her sword like a walking stick, with her physique ruined like the director's office, blood flowing out of her many wounds and marring her white dress and cracked body armor; the other, a gray-haired male in a suit, standing in a measured calm and subtle arrogance with no sign of weakness, only with few cuts and marks.
"' It begins.'? Do you think your treachery will prevail?" His voice was low and monotonous as was typical for him, almost inaudible in the howling wind, but carried a hint of anger and condescendence. "Do you think your few rebels can win without their leader? Your vain gambit against me has failed. Your misguided actions have only harmed the future of humanity."
"Spoken like a true Averruncus." The swordswoman replied, spitting out blood with each word, and drew in another ragged breath. Pain bloomed with every movement and exertion, but she could not help herself from speaking out. "So blind to anything outside of your view, Fate. So confident, that you are always right. Always your way, everything else is corrupt, weak, or wrong." When the last word came out, she was almost ready to collapse from sheer, burning excruciation. Only her blade, and her will, allowed her to remain standing up.
"Because I know, that I am correct."
The swordswoman didn't retort. With last remaining strength within her, she moved, turning toward him, intending to see the end of their fight. In a blink, Fate was upon her, she had barely raised her sword, her hands were sluggish, and felt like it was about to fall apart.
In the next moment, the director's pale hands tore her weapon from her hands. In a blink, with an unpleasant feeling of a foreign, metallic object being stabbed into her chest, she was forcefully pushed down to the floor. Her body was bled white of energy. It didn't hurt, which was a bad sign.
Lying on her back, the swordswoman looked at her own sword impaled over her heart. She was certain that it was embedded into the ground. A smile crept across her split, bloodstained lips as she felt a spark of embarrassment. What would Tsukuyomi say about this, being slain by your own blade?
The Sensei will probably laugh.
"Using the Magic Cancel Field was a stroke genius, I will admit." The director spoke, his hand holding the sword's hilt. "Forcing me to fight you in a more equal condition."
He looked down into her eyes, she stared into the face of her executioner. The gray met red. Two pale faces, one stoic, the other bloodied yet smiling.
"I will make one final concession, Touko Konoe. I will tell your sister and nephews that you died in a mission, not as a traitor to Ala Alba."
Touko spat blood again and managed to hiss out a word.
"Cutlass."
Fate Averruncus looked down, his eyes narrowed, annoyance and impatience visible. "Stop with your meaningless defiance and bitter hissings. I need to go, and you have tied me down here longer than it should have."
Dying under the gaze of the one she once called her superior, the Shinmei-ryu swordswoman of Ala Alba started laughing.
It started out as breaths. Her chest shivered slightly, almost invisibly, too broken for anything more. They came out as guttural noises, a mix of repetitive grunts and choking sounds, the laughter of a person drowning in her own lifeblood. They hurt, but not as they should have, just faint enough to remind the swordswoman that she was still alive, that she was going to die.
It did not quite distract the director. He was already moving when, with a blur, a sword sliced into his arm. He was created to be acute and sharp-witted, with decades of experience of fighting against the powerful and lethal beings of the Solar System, many years longer than Touko has been alive. However, the still-active Magic Cancel has temporarily deprived his web of foresight and sensory magics, and that gave the new arrival a fighting chance.
I told you, she mentally gloated, it begins now.
As the fighting renewed in the ruin of office, Touko Konoe laughed, still impaled on her sword into the floor. She was slurring out that drowning laughter until, at last, the blackness claimed her. Only then did the laughter and smile finally faded.
Touko noted, that she was lying on the mattress, and someone was cuddling her before her eyes opened once more.
The first thing she saw was a ceiling, then she moved her head to see who is cuddling her. A dark-brown skin and golden strands of hair came into her sight, and she found a girl sleeping next to her, hugging her left arm.
She tried to move her other arm, to embrace the girl but instead hissed in pain. Looking at her right arm, she saw a multitude of tubes and needles stuck into her.
Someone had heard her hiss and opened the bed curtain.
"You are awake," said her wife. Her voice was subdued, but her pointed canine ears were trembling, indicating her emotional turmoil.
They did not speak much. Words could not describe their joy and relief at seeing each other again, and they did not wish to wake up their daughter. Touko managed out a whisper "Kiss me.", which her wife gladly delivered.
Then, her daughter awoke from her sleep, too.
"Dad?" She whispered, sleepily at first, then her eyes widened at realization. "Dad!"
Her daughter then hugged her fiercely, and now that there was no worry to wake her up, Touko's wife joined in too. Soon, all three of them were crying as nothing held their emotions back anymore.
"Cutlass, my daughter." Touko managed to say, despite another flood of painful sensations. "Ayane, my love." And the family hugged and let out tears of happiness for a while.
After that emotional moment, Ayane Murakami sent away their daughter to fetch some drinks and food, before delivering the bad news.
"The Averruncus escaped."
"I see." Touko let out a sigh. "How's the Ala Alba?"
"For a moment, the troika of myself, Miss Evangeline, and Miss Amater are leading the organization. We managed to subdue the Averruncus loyalists without too many personal losses, and the rest have accepted the change in management, but…" Ayane made a face before continuing. "Our former director absconded with a lot of resources, and I am not talking about just the money. And that's just our resources, I can only guess his personal, undisclosed assets. Coupled with the effects of our uprising and the need to clean the house, I think Ala Alba will have to scale back the operations for a while."
"Unfortunate, but that was the risk we knew and took. It could have gone much worse." Like us being dead, she thought, with the Averruncus running Ala Alba unopposed in the name of the greater good and the end.
"Speaking of the leadership, I want you to become the next director."
"Why?"
"No one else I asked wanted it. Miss Evangeline is busy with her own organization, the UQ Holder. Miss Amater, in her usual way, said 'I am Merlin, not Arthur, I do not yearn for the kingship.', I think that means 'no'. Your sister feels that she is unworthy, in the light of the cloning project. Miss Ayaka told me she's too old, and other elders rejected my offer with similar sayings."
"No."
Ayane looked startled at her curt rejection.
"Why? It was you who led us to today, organizing the individual resistance into an uprising against the Averruncus and his perversion of Master Neg's ideal. If anyone deserves to carry the founder's torch, it's you."
"I don't 'deserve' anything. I am a born-and-raised hunter of monsters, a fine field operative, and a good mid-ranking commander, perhaps. But you know how I am like. I will quickly grow bored of office work and likely go out into the fight rather than doing my job. Tsukuyomi-sensei corrupted me."
Of course, Touko did not believe the last part. Instead, she believed that Tsukuyomi allowed her to be finally liberated from the fetters she bound upon herself, to embrace her nature, and to laugh as she kills.
"Then, who is supposed to be our new director?"
"I think it is obvious."
Blink, two more, then a realization. Touko smiled at the flabbergasted face of Ayane. Her wife's jade green eyes were wide, and her salmon-red canine ears, the same color as her hair, were standing up and forward in surprise.
"Me? Really? But... I need to think. I also need to consult with others. Meanwhile, please reconsider."
"I think you'll find the same answer."
Touko let Ayane contemplate what she had said. The awkward silence followed, and Touko already felt the urge to run out from the infirmary bed, spread out her wings, and fly into the battle and match her blade with another blade. She knew that she will always find an enthusiastic partner in form of Tsukuyomi and Ayane, but she'd have to be discharged before that.
Ayane finally broke the silence.
"So, this is the end of this chapter of Ala Alba's history. Glad that it ended."
"No, nothing ever ends," Touko said, "Every moment is the new beginning."
Miscellaneous Note:
Touko Konoe: OC. Clone-daughter of Setsuna and Konoka. Looks like Setsuna, but acts more like Tsukuyomi. Is called the dad/father because of her role in the family.
Ayane Murakami: OC. Daughter of Kotaro and Natsumi. Considering Kotaro's backstory as an outcast abandoned as a child, I thought it makes sense for him to take his wife's family name. I also think those two deserve more love, which is why I am making their kid a successor to Negi.
Cutlass: Or Cutlass Konoe, adopted daughter of Touko. The same Cutlass from UQ Holder, still a bellicose cyborg-shapeshifting warrior, but far less villainous here due to the above two's nurturing.
Amater: Is a canon character, albeit heavily reimagined by me. You will see her in my other story as well.
