A few things had changed in Akira and Yuna's dorm room since all the secrets had come out. Most notably, Negi and Yuna no longer even bothered to hide the fact that they were sleeping together. On the other hand, when Akira was actually present, sleeping was all that they did. Negi thought they could probably get away with doing more interesting things if they just did them while Akira was in a fairly deep sleep, but Yuna had come to the conclusion that Akira did not sleep, but rather waited. Negi was of the opinion that this was ascribing just a few too many supernatural qualities to Akira, though he had to admit that would be a useful trait in a vampire's bodyguard.
Regardless, as this was another night when Akira had not been off on mysterious and dangerous errands for her master, it had been another night where Negi and Yuna just lay together in gentle intimacy and nothing beyond that happened. The only way that it had been out of the ordinary was the way that Negi found himself awakened slightly before dawn by an itching sensation on the wrist of his left hand. Opening his eyes and pulling his face away from Yuna's breasts, he looked blearily up at his wrist, and the delicate tracery of the three symbols now enscribed there.
He looked at that for a few minutes.
"What?" he eventually said rather sharply.
"Argghhllll," Yuna declared, in a sleep-filled voice. "Neeeeegiiii - wake a girl more gently that that if you want some noookiiiie."
"I should probably make some vague indication that I'm awake so you won't do that, shouldn't I?" asked a voice from the bottom bunk.
"I knew it!" Yuna snapped as her eyes came all the way open.
Mahou Sensei Negima Alter:
Anything That Burns
Inspired by OverMaster's Anything That Moves
Chapter Twelve: Rider
"So, is this some sort of mage VD?" Yuna asked, a few moments later, as they sat around the table.
"No, Yuna, there is no such disease, and if there was, I'm sure that it would have been cured thirty years ago when Professors Richards and Pym decided that such diseases should be eliminated. This is something much much worse than a disease. This is something that shouldn't be happening."
"Y'know, from a strictly materialist viewpoint -" his partner started to say, then broke off in a long yawn.
"What is it, Negi?" Akira asked patiently.
"Well, in brief, this is the mark which indicates that I'm a candidate to become one of the seven Masters selected to participate in the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, a very disturbing magical ritual that's been going on since the late 18th century. Which would be fine - well, not fine, because I wouldn't want to participate in a battle royale among mages under any circumstances - but for the fact that the previous Fuyuki Holy Grail War ended in a concerted effort to destroy the system, with my Uncle Kiritsugu joining forces with a local Yakuza family and my father to dismantle the magical geometry which causes - caused - well, still causes the Holy Grail War to start. This, then, is something that shouldn't be happening," Negi repeated, glaring at the marks on his wrist, as if pure indignation could make them disappear.
"Fuyuki," said Yuna, a bit more awake now. "That's that city that burned up ten years ago, right? When some serial killer set off a bunch of bombs rather than be caught?"
"That was the cover story Uncle and Father came up with," Negi agreed.
Yuna made a face, while Akira nodded. "I didn't know the details, but Mina told me once that was a good example of what can happen when magic gets out of control," said the werewolf.
"But at least we clean up our own messes," Negi muttered.
"Sorry?" Akira asked.
"Something someone told me recently. Anyway, I need to contact my mother and Aunt Irisviel, hopefully they've gotten in touch with Father and Uncle by now so they can advise me on what I should do about this. I'm not even sure if it's possible to refuse this particular summons or what will happen if I do -"
His phone rang. Blinking, Negi picked it up and stared at its face, which was displaying an instant message in a color which told him it was from Sakura. We have a problem, it read. Before he could start tapping out a reply, a picture appeared in another bubble of that color, depicting a wrist with a familiar set of markings on it.
Negi stared at the picture for a moment. "Well, shit," he said at last, then tapped out, We have at least two problems, and took a picture of his own wrist.
Well, shit, came Sakura's reply.
Yuna, who was now leaning over his shoulder, nodded slowly. "Y'know, the mage VD theory is looking better and better."
Who do we talk to about this? Sakura asked, oblivious to Yuna's verbal commentary.
She ground herself against the smaller girl beneath her, feeling the tiny little bumps of their clitorises pushing at each other over and over until at last she felt the surge of release run up her spine and the other girl let out a hoarse gasp that told her that they'd both orgasmed. With that, she let go of the leg that she was holding tight against her torso and flopped back onto the other side of the bed. "I feel like I should be smoking something," Akane said a few moments later.
"Uh?" Ranma mumbled. "Why would you -"
"I dunno," Akane admitted. "Dad smokes sometimes."
"Uh - d'you mean Tendo-san? Because yeah, our shitty father smokes, but I don't know how you'd know tha-"
"Just ... stop talking."
Ranma was obediently silent for a few moments, then spoke up, as Akane hadn't specified how long she was supposed to stop. "It's a filthy habit."
For the first time, Akane turned her head so that she was looking into Ranma's eyes. "Seriously?" she said.
"Well, it is. If you're gonna do that -"
"I'm not going to do that," Akane said, looking away again. "It was just ... never mind." She was silent again for a while. "I don't know if I believe that, anyway."
"No, it really is fil-"
"I don't know if I believe that my mother had sex with your father, and that I'm the result," Akane clarified in a tone which suggested she was dangerously close to losing her patience. "How would Kasumi know that, anyway?"
"She said that it was in your mom's secret journal."
"Right, and why would our mom put that information in a book that anyone could read after she was dead?" she said, holding up a thumb and then lifting her fingers as she continued to speak. "And why didn't Kasumi tell me about this? And where's this book now? And why did Kasumi find it and not our - Tendo-san?"
"You're saying you think Kasumi made the whole thing up?" Ranma asked, looking perplexed. "But -"
"- why would she do that?" Akane interrupted yet again. "Yet another good question."
"I certainly thought so," Ranma muttered.
Akane gave no sign of having heard that. "I love my big sister, but she is ... not right." She grunted. "Then again, now that I'm actually having sex, I have to admit that I understand her a little better." She glanced at Ranma. "I still can't believe you never did tribbing before."
"Well, I didn't," the redhead said defensively. "It wasn't anything Shanpu was into, and Haruna never - I'm still not sure what makes it 'hatesex'," she said, changing directions.
"The fact that I can do it without needing to look at your face, probably," Akane said blandly. "Certainly that makes it more appealing for me."
"... well thank you very much."
"You're welcome."
Ranma made a disgusted noise.
"Anyway, I think I've come up with an idea to get you out of Kasumi's scheme," Akane continued.
"Are we gonna tell your dad about the whole screwed up situation?"
That got Akane to turn and look at her bedmate with a genuinely appalled expression on her face. "Are you crazy? That would be the absolute worst thing we could possibly do! The shock would kill him!"
Ranma privately doubted that Soun was anywhere nearly that fragile, but didn't push the issue. Honesty and forthrightness were for chumps, anyway.
"Here's the thing - even if I get pregnant by somebody else, like Haruna wanted, Dad will still want you to marry Nabiki or Kasumi, and neither of us want that, me because I care about my sisters, and you because you're a selfish jerk, no offense. And regardless of that, Kasumi is going to keep scheming to either get you to marry her or get knocked up by Dad to suit her weird little fantasy scenario, and you don't want that, either, and not wanting this isn't nearly as jerky of you."
"None taken," Ranma said, a little belatedly and perhaps not honestly.
"So that suggests the obvious solution - if you get pregnant by someone else, all those problems are solved!" Akane said cheerfully. "And I know just the guy to do it!"
"... well, gosh, how can I possibly turn that offer down?" Ranma said a little dazedly. "Like th-"
"Plus, Fate-sama will probably also teach you to fight like he does," Akane added.
Ranma broke off in mid-denunciation and was silent for a very long time.
"This," said Konoemon, as he leaned forward, hands folded against his beard-covered chin, "is very troubling."
Negi and Sakura were both standing in front of his desk, holding up their wrists for his examination. The old man had simply stared at the markings for a brief moment before bringing his hands up to make his statement. They waited for him to elaborate on it. Eventually, it became clear that he had no intention of doing so.
"Yes, it is very much so," said Negi at last. "I suppose that this situation is every bit as much a mystery to you as it is to us, and the key questions - whether we can safely refuse this invitation, for example - will require some deeper research."
"That one, actually, I can answer," Konoemon said quietly. "It so happened that during the third ritual, in the decade before the War, one of the selected master candidates was a member of the faculty. He had no interest in participating, attempted to refuse the call, and also refused to pass it on to another individual. Within two weeks of his first awareness of the situation, his life force began to drain, and by the end of the third week, he had died. At which point, the summons passed to another individual who was more willing to go along with it, rendering the entire episode ... utterly meaningless." His eyes were lidded as he spoke, and there was just the hint of an ancient pain in his voice.
Negi glanced at Sakura, who met his gaze and subtly shook her head. Indeed, now was not the time to press for details. "Then, should either of us choose not to participate - as I would imagine that the faculty would prefer - we have to pass it on to someone else," he said aloud.
"Which is not without its own problems," stated Sister Hiroko, who had been quietly standing beside the Headmaster's desk all this time. "Chief among them is the fact that just how the transfer is done is a secret magic which was known only to members of the three original families, and a few individuals with whom they shared it, none of whom are still living."
Konoemon turned to look at the nun confusedly. "I was under the impression that the ritual had been shared with the Church. Certainly that was why I asked you to attend this meeting."
Sister Hiroko shook her head. "I thought as much. You have to understand that with the death of the Pope and most of the College of Cardinals during Second Impact, and the papacy's ... relocation ... to Madrid, the Church officially got out of the monster-hunting and grail-questing business. The involvement of one Father Kotomine and his ... subordinate ... during the Heaven's Feel of a decade ago was entirely of their own initiative, and was apparently intended to seize the Grail and 'make the Church great again'. Any records of their actions, and of previous involvement by the Church in earlier rituals, were lost in the disaster in Fuyuki." She spread her hands. "I've contacted some people who might have more information, and who happened to be in Japan on other business. They said they'd get back to me."
"I see. If the information is available to the original families, then, Negi-kun -" Konoemon began, turning back to the two youths.
Negi was shaking his head. "No, Aunt Irisviel has not passed it on to me. I sent her and my mother a letter by courier this morning, but it will take at least a week to reach them, and at least as long again for them to get back to me - and all that assumes it's not among the vast amount of information that was lost with the death of the Einzberns' guiding intelligence. We would do better to seek out survivors of the Tohsaka and Matou families."
Unnoticed by anyone, Sakura closed her eyes and bit her tongue.
"Well, in that case, there might actually be some good news," Konoemon said. "As far as I know, the Matou are extinct, but the last surviving Tohsaka is a student at one of the schools on Astraea Hill."
Sakura's eyes flashed open. "She is?"
"Yes, I'm surprised that you didn't -" the headmaster started to say.
"Why should it surprise you, sir?" the girl asked, her usual equanimity restored in a moment. "After all, I have no connection to the Tohsaka family, and no reason to seek them out or be sought out by them. For myself, I was simply ... startled by the idea that the heir to the Tohsaka family wasn't a student at the Clock Tower. I was sure that was where a genuine magus would be."
A flash of pity suffused the old man's face for a moment, before he quietly said, "Yes, of course. But things are not always as we would expect, are they, Sakura-kun?"
"Sometimes they are not, no," she allowed.
An uncomfortable silence momentarily suffused the office. It was eventually broken by a buzz from the intercom. "Sir, two representatives from the Society of Leopold are here to see you," said Shanna's voice. "Should I have them wait until your current meeting is ended? Or longer?"
Konoemon glanced at Hiroko. "Your associates?"
"I'm startled that they came so quickly, they would have had to -" The nun broke off, then nodded.
"Send them in, please," the old man said into the intercom.
A moment later, Shanna opened the doors, and stood aside as two petite young women - the foremost with silvery-white hair, the hindmost almost golden blond, both dressed in clerical robes but without a nun's headgear - came into the office. Negi judged them both to be about the same age as Sakura, or possibly a bit older. While the trailing girl seemed fascinated by everything and everyone there was to see there, her leader's yellow eyes immediately focused on Negi and never left him as she came to a halt.
"I am Caren Ortensia," she said quietly.
Again, everyone waited for her to elaborate on that statement, and, again, it became very clear that she had no intention of doing so.
"Hello," Negi said to the girl who was staring at him so intently. "I am -"
"Negi Springfield," she interrupted. "It is fascinating. I have wondered for quite some time what I would feel when I looked upon the son of the man who killed my father. And now I know."
Negi swallowed. When he'd learned that Evangeline was here at Mahora, he'd realized that he'd be coming face to face with his father's past actions, and he'd readied himself for that. So this was just another way that he would have to deal with old business from his father's time, and he was - hopefully - ready for this, as well. So he replied, "And what is it that you feel?"
"Utter indifference," Caren said calmly. "Mixed with a certain amusement that you are drawn into the madness that is the Grail ritual, and are like to die as a consequence." She glanced at Sakura, then. "And the jest improves, as you find yourself alongside an heir of the T-"
"Itoshiki," Sakura interjected, sharply, while Negi gazed in a rather boggled manner at this strange young woman.
Caren let out a noise that could have been a sniff or a snort of laughter.
"Sister Caren -" Konoemon began to speak.
"Not Sister," she interrupted. "I'm under no vows, nor will I ever be offered the chance to take them. The same is true of my colleague, whom I suppose that I should have introduced earlier. This is Asia Argento. Say hello, Asia," she added in English.
"Hello!" sang the blonde girl, then spoke very slowly and very loudly in Italian-accented English. "I! Am! Asia! Argento! It! Is! Nice! To! Meet! You!"
"Doesn't speak a word of Japanese, alas," Caren supplied.
"I thought she was brunette," said Hiroko quietly.
"Eh?" said Caren while Asia blinked innocently.
"All right," Negi said, now past boggled at all of this. "Who are you?"
"... we just introduced ourselves," replied Caren, with an air of great concern. "Do you perhaps suffer from such failures of memory often?"
"No, that's not what I meant," he said, frustrated. "What is the Society of Leopold?"
"Ahhhh. Well, if one were to imagine the blessed Roman Catholic Church as a police department of the soul, then our small society would be its internal affairs division," she offered as an explanation.
"... all right, setting aside all of the logical problems attending that statement, why are you -" Negi began to ask.
"We are in Japan in pursuit of a criminal named Freyd Salazar, who sometimes uses the alias Freed Selzen," Caren answered promptly. "Considering my personal connection to your situation, we abandoned that pursuit in order to come here and offer our assistance. You are welcome, not that I require or expect any thanks.."
"Then you do know about the ritual to transfer the marks of Command to another individual?" asked Hiroko.
"Yes, I have that knowledge," the white-haired girl confirmed. "I am unable to use that knowledge, as I am not a mage. But I am familiar with the ritual in question."
"Then you could describe it to us, and we could work out the details for ourselves," Negi said, a bit of hope starting to dawn in his heart. "We would certainly welcome your -"
"No," said Caren.
"Excuse me?" he said.
"Ah, you suffer from occasional hearing difficulties, perhaps. No," she said a bit more loudly.
"Why not?" Negi asked.
"Why should I?" Caren answered.
"Because it would be a good work, without which grace is supposedly dead," he answered, recognizing that his tone was becoming a bit irate.
"Ah, yes, I suppose you would think of it in that way. In which case, still no. Professor Springfield -"
"I'm not a professor, as I am not a member of the faculty of a post-secondary institution," Negi said, very quietly.
"Nonetheless -" she began.
"I have not called you sister, have I?" he asked, still quietly.
She stared at him for a moment. "So you have not," she admitted. "Mr. Springfield, do you enjoy the use of the limb on which your Command Seals are marked?"
Negi blinked.
"You would most certainly not enjoy it after the ritual in question," Caren continued. "It is immensely damaging to the nerves of that arm. It would be kinder, in some respects, to simply remove your arm at the elbow, and arrange for its replacement with a prosthetic."
"Oh," said Negi. To his side, Sakura was also silently clutching her marked arm with her other hand, her face gone pale.
"As it happens, I am familiar with another option which would also remove you from this conflict," Caren added after a moment. "You need only summon your Servant, then use one of your Command Seals to transfer command authority over to another individual. That individual will take all the risks of fighting alongside the servant, ensuring that your lives are not in danger, which is of course the only thing that matters to either of you."
"That's not the only thing that matters to us," Sakura finally spoke up.
"Then prove it," Caren answered shortly. "I believe that there is nothing more that I have to say to any of you, so I shall take my leave. Miss Itoshiki, Mr. Springfield, Headmaster Konoe - may Almighty God grant you the wisdom to recognize the atrocity that is your lives and find a better path. Sister Hiroko ... we are watching you. Good day to you all. Come along, Asia, we're done here."
And with that, they left.
"He's an interesting young man," Caren mused once they were out of the building. "Very different from the stories about his father."
"He is very cute," Asia agreed, in accented but not particularly broken Japanese, as she trailed along behind her spiritual adviser. "Why did you lie to them about my speaking Japanese?"
"A certain delight in the telling of falsehoods and a desire to leave my options open. It's good that you find him attractive, though, as I think there is an excellent chance that you will end up in a sexual relationship with him before the end of the year."
There came a rather loud thumping sound from behind her. Caren paused, turned back to look at the uninteresting sight of Asia's collapsed, trembling form, then shrugged and continued on her way. Eventually her companion got up and chased after her, babbling questions that Caren chose to ignore.
The office was silent for a moment after the two clerics departed, with everyone present considering the implications of everything they'd been told.
"There's nothing for it, Negi-kun, Sakura-kun," Konoemon said at last. "Regardless of what we might prefer, the two of you will have to summon your respective servants. And soon," he added.
"Yessir," Sakura said promptly. "I'll go to my workshop immediately after classes today and perform the ritual as soon as possible. Negi-kun, once I'm done, you are more than welcome to use my -"
"Absolutely not!" interrupted Konoemon sharply.
The two young mages turned back to the headmaster with expressions of confusion. "Is something the matter, sir?" Negi asked.
"While I've never performed this particular spell myself, I've studied it in some detail," the old man said, looking sterner than either of them had ever seen before. "It is an incredibly dangerous spell, with potentially devastating consequences if it's performed incorrectly. Under no circumstances should it be performed in a borrowed workshop, with magical residue from another mage to interfere with the praxis. I'd sooner hand you a pistol loaded with bullets containing fissionable material and tell you to play Russian roulette, Negi-kun."
"Then what should I do?" Negi asked, feeling frustrated once more. "I don't have a workshop of my own, yet, and even if I were to be given one of those beneath the church for my own use, it would take at least a month of work to get it cleaned up and properly attuned to me, and that's time we don't have."
"Well, as it happens, there's another option. You're aware of your father's home in Kyoto, I hope?"
"Yes, of course I - oh!" Negi gasped, as his mind caught up to the thread of the conversation. "I'm such a fool! Of course it has a workshop!"
"Indeed, and your magical origins and affinity are very similar to those of your father," Konoemon confirmed. "As well, you have a particular connection to this particular workshop which should make matters even easier. You were born there, after all."
Sakura blinked, looking at Negi in surprise. He was no less startled. "I was born in Japan? I didn't realize that."
"One tends not to remember the circumstances of one's birth, Negi-kun," the old man said sardonically. "I suspect that's the reason you were given the Japanese word for 'leek' as a given name."
"It might also explain a few other things," Negi mused aloud, reflecting on the assignment the spirits had given him. He shook his head, choosing to focus on the immediate present. "I'll go there on my next day off, then."
"It occurs to me that there might be an easier way to do this than that, Headmaster," said Sister Hiroko, speaking up for the first time since Ortensia had given her farewell.
"Yyyyyyes," Konoemon said, eyes narrowing. "That might actually work rather well. You're aware that your class' school trip is coming up shortly, Negi-kun? I was planning on sending you and them to Seoul, but if they were to go to Kyoto instead, we could accomplish three tasks with one trip."
Negi blinked. "What's the third task, sir?"
"A relatively minor matter, but something I require a trustworthy individual to perform," said the Headmaster. "I am one of the directors of the Kanto Magical Association, and I need to send a message to the head of the Kansai Magical Association." He paused, glanced at Negi, and coughed. "This individual, incidentally, is Konoka's father and my son-in-law. I do hope, by the by, that Konoka has no suspicions about the existence of magic."
Negi blinked again. "Of course not sir. I can say that, beyond any doubt, Konoka-san has no such suspicions!" After all, who could possibly have suspicions when they had had absolute proof of the existence of magic demonstrated to them? And actually -
"Very well, then," said Konoemon, breaking Negi's chain of thought. "I will give you the package I need you to deliver on the day of your departure ... next week, I believe. You'll have three days in Kyoto, and that should give you more than enough time to deliver the message and then visit your father's home for the sake of the ritual. Sakura-kun, I leave it to your discretion as to whether to summon your own servant now, or to wait for Negi-kun."
"Thank you, sir," she said, bowing politely. "I'll give that matter appropriate consideration."
"I'm doing it after class," she said to Negi once they were out of the administration building.
"As expected," Negi said.
"I don't have any intention of fighting you, Negi, but who knows how many other Masters have already summoned their servants?" she elaborated.
"And there's one in particular you are probably worried about, I think?" he asked quietly.
Sakura looked away. "I have no idea what you are talking about." After a moment, she looked back at him. "Doesn't it bother you to lie to the headmaster like that?"
"Not when he keeps asking me to lie to him. And besides, this time he has to know that Konoka has had the basic facts of magic exposed to her - he was the one driving the golem I told you about, after all. I suspect that he doesn't actually agree with the notion of hiding the truth from her, but has to go along with her parents."
"So if you do it, he can disclaim responsibility. You're a deniable asset," she said, clearly disapproving.
Negi shrugged. "Who do you think you'll summon?"
"Given my magical origin? Assassin, probably - that's the class where most of the legendary political intriguers end up. And you?" Sakura asked.
"Caster," he answered firmly. "And I'm sort of hoping it will be my father."
She stopped in her tracks. "But your father's alive!" she said.
"But he's bound to end up in the Throne of Heroes, and it's been theorized that people who will end up in the Throne can be summoned before they end up there, due to its temporal peculiarity, so -" he started to rattle off.
"For someone who didn't think this was ever going to happen, you've put a great deal of thought into it!" she said, in mock exasperation.
Negi couldn't really argue with that, even though he actually thought that he'd only put as much thought into it as he'd put into several different unlikely scenarios.
When he made the announcement of the class trip's destination, pretty much every one in the class was quite happy to hear it. He noted in passing that Chisame looked annoyed at the idea of losing out on a trip to Seoul, though. Unfortunate, even though he didn't really have enough time to consider why he thought of it that way, as the class representative was giving a speech in support of the trip to Kyoto, and he felt obligated to thank her for her support, much to her obvious enjoyment.
As class began to settle down again, Negi found himself musing on the subject of Yukihiro Ayaka. Her attraction to him was blatantly obvious, and yet he hadn't acted on it and brought her into the collective, even though she had talents and resources that his family would find incredibly useful. What was holding him back? Giving their interactions to this point and the various hints that had been dropped about her by other members of the class, he eventually decided that it had to be his suspicion that the representative desired an exclusive relationship with him, something that he couldn't give her.
Until such time as he was ready to make matters clear to Ayaka-san, it would be a mistake - a cruel mistake - to take advantage of her attraction. So he would just have to be patient with her. It was a genuine pity, as she really was one of the most beautiful members of the class, reminding him of his mother in many respects.
Well, be that as it may, there were more immediate things he needed to focus on. "All right," he said at the end of class. "Nobody needs to stay for supplementary lessons today -"
The class cheered.
"- but I would appreciate it if Konoka-san remained behind so that I could have a few words with her on the subject of Kyoto," he concluded.
Konoka looked a bit surprised at this, but promptly nodded agreement. Negi noted that Asuna was giving him a look which spoke eloquently of the agony awaiting him if he tried anything, and flashed her what he hoped she would take as a reassuring smile. Doing so distracted him from the way another of his students had started to gaze at him, as though considering his likely tolerance for pain.
Eventually the room cleared, and he and Konoka were left alone together.
"IIII'd be happy to tell you all about my hometown, Negi-kun, but I think that was just an excuse, right?" she asked with a sweet smile.
"Well, only sort of," he hedged. "I do hope I'll be able to do some actual sightseeing, but I have some business in the area, and - anyway, is there a Japanese saying equivalent to 'in for a penny, in for a pound?'"
"乗りかかった船," Konoka answered.
"Okay, then," Negi said, nodding. "When I was discussing our trip to Kyoto with your grandfather, he asked me whether or not you had any suspicions about the existence of magic."
Her smile got just a tiny bit naughty. "And you lied using exact words, right, Negi-kun?" she asked.
He coughed uncomfortably. "Well, yes. But in the process, I found out something else, that puts the Headmaster's decisions in this area in another light. Basically, your father is apparently one of the leaders of the magical association in Kansai province."
Konoka's smile went away entirely. "Oh," she said. After a moment, she nodded slowly. "That ... does explain a few things. I knew that Daddy was involved with the government somehow, and this ... this isn't what I was expecting, but like Yue-chan said that time, this makes a lot of things start making sense."
Negi sighed. "I wish I could give you more time to reflect on this, but that's really just a prelude to what I wanted to talk to you about. Most of your classmates who went with us to Library Island have already made a decisions, and I think it's only right to offer you the same opportunity."
"Ah ... are you talking about the sex thing, Negi-kun?" she asked innocently.
His eyes bulged widely, and he coughed even more uncomfortably. "Ahh," he said cleverly when he could finally talk. "I didn't know that you knew?"
"Well, I'll admit that I'm not all that smart," Konoka said, smiling humbly.
"... I'm familiar with your test scores, you're in the top 100 students of your grade and that's without trying very hard," Negi reminded her.
She regally ignored this. "But I think I'm pretty perceptive, and when the same sort of thing is happening to Nodoka-chan, Yue-chan and Haruna-chan, and it's also happening to a lot of other girls, I think I'm going to pick up on it. Is that what you wanted to talk about, Negi-kun?" she asked, all innocence. "Are you seeking to tarnish my incomparable purity?"
"Ahh," he said. "Well, I mean, that's, ah -"
"No, I suppose that it isn't really nice to tease you like this, Negi-kun. I'm sorry, but my heart already belongs to someone else, and one of the reasons that I want to go back to Kyoto is that it would be a good chance to see her again," Konoka admitted.
"Oh," Negi said. "Well, that's all right, and I was actually just going to offer you the chance to make a magical alliance with me and gain supernatural powers from doing so."
Konoka proceeded to look at Negi in much the way you can imagine someone looking at another person who had offered them the opportunity to eat unlimited chocolates without any health risk. "Squee!" she declared, clapping her hands together.
Some simply obtained reagents and an easily memorized set of verses, which could be in any language the celebrant spoke ... Sakura found herself a bit concerned at how easy the summoning rite appeared to be, given its power and how rarely it was used. On the other hand, the instructions she was consulting also stressed the importance of having a catalyst, something associated with the Heroic Spirit the Master intended to summon. She had actually contacted Tokita to see whether her family had something in that line, but the Itoshiki's collection of such materials was more or less limited to the Heroic Spirits of Japan, who apparently could not be summoned in this ritual conducted only in Japan and devised by two Japanese people.
Well, paradoxes were the soul of magic, weren't they?
She shook her head, stepped away from the instructions spread on her table, and tried to tell herself that the catalyst didn't matter. No one else would have one either. Especially not any Astraea Hill students she was not thinking about. With a deep breath, she bent down to take off her shoes and socks before walking into the center of the workshop.
When she'd partnered with Misora, the younger girl had been full of questions about her magical workings. One of them, asked while stammering and blushing brightly, had been about whether she ever got naked to do these things. She'd smiled and told Misora that she didn't, which was true ... but it was only because none of her practices required it. After all, where was the sacrifice in being without protection from the elements in a tropical nation like this? But when she did complicated workings here in her laboratory, she sought to have nothing between her feet and the rocky floor beneath them, for she drew power up from the stones themselves.
Sakura found herself wishing that Negi hadn't agreed to give her space to conduct the ritual without his presence. It would have been good to have someone watching her for signs of danger, no matter how much of a distraction they would have been. A comforting distraction, though.
She breathed in, breathed out, found her rhythm, synchronized with her pulse, and began to speak.
"For the elements, silver and iron. For the foundation, stone and the Archduke of Contracts. For the ancestor, m- the great master, Schweinorg."
And as she spent a dizzying moment watching the circle light up and deciding that the spirits must not have cared about that near slip, Sakura experienced a sensation where she felt as though she'd just had a load of bricks dropped on her from above.
Something was terribly wrong. She'd experienced this level of sudden energy drain after pushing herself to her limits casting a spell, but never during the casting. It didn't make sense, she was supposed to be tapping into the Grail's energy to make this all possible, not relying on her own reserves, and yet it felt like that was exactly what was happening.
"Close the gates of the cardinal directions," she managed to say through parched lips. "Come forth from the Crown, and follow the forked road leading to the kingdom."
What if Negi's father had succeeded in disrupting the Grail, leaving it with just enough power so that it could signal the start of the ceremony, but not enough to support the summoning? The words of the headmaster about how it sucked away the vital energies of the mage who'd refused to play the game echoed again in her mind, and she had the terrifying feeling that it was doing it to her now.
"Fill ... fill ... fill ... f-f-fill ... filllll ... repeat now, five times. But. When. Each. Is. Filled." A gasp of purest pain. "Destroy it. Sssset!"
The bone-cracking agony was greater than anything she'd even imagined feeling, and her eyes were clenched shut, unable to see the changes in her surroundings that should be happening. Unable to know if the spell was doing what it was supposed to, or if all this suffering was just suffering. But she couldn't stop. At this point, stopping the ceremony would be every bit as dangerous as ... as ... she struggled to imagine something as dangerous, but couldn't find it.
"Heed my words." How was she even saying this? "My word creates your body, your sword creates my destiny." She could feel her throat choking on hot air, and yet the words were still coming out. "You, heeding the call of the Holy Grail and obeying my will and reason, answer me." It hurt so much! It shouldn't be possible to feel this much pain and still be conscious!
"I swear ..." Why me? "... that I shall be all that is good in this world ..." This isn't what I want for my life! "... that I shall defeat all evil in the world ..." I just want to live! "... you seven heavens, clad in the three great words of power ..." I'm just sixteen years old, I shouldn't be going to war! "... come forth from the circle of binding ..." mommymommymommymommyhurtshurtshurts!
"Guardian of the Scales."
That couldn't be her voice, at the end. There was too much power there, and Sakura knew that she couldn't even whimper as she felt her legs give out beneath her and collapse to the floor, trying and failing to remember exercises to begin the restoration of her vital energies. She had the distinct feeling that, if she didn't do that soon, she was going to die here, on this floor, alone.
And then her eye opened, and she saw the booted foot nearby.
"Hello," said a voice in perfect Japanese that was definitely not her own voice. "Are you going to be okay?"
Sakura managed to lift her head enough to see the rest of the figure - black boots that reached up to her hips, beneath a reddish brown skirt and a girdle laced in the front that supported a large pair of breasts - larger than Sakura's own - beneath a European face with bright blue eyes and red hair drawn back in a pony tail. Sword in one hand, shield in the other.
"... aren't ..." Sakura asked, before her voice dissolved in coughs. Once they passed, she pressed on. "Aren't you supposed to ask if I'm your Master?"
"Well, I suppose that I could," the figure above her replied. "But you're the only one here, so I don't really see the point. Can you get up? You're strong enough to get up on your own, right?"
She supposed that was respect. With difficulty, and with the feeling that she was about to fall over yet again, she got up on her knees, and then on her feet. The renewal exercises were finally kicking in, it seemed.
"Well done, Master," the Servant said once Sakura stood before her. "I am Rider."
Sakura briefly considered asking where the horse was, then, but decided it was a question for later in their acquaintance.
It might have been better, Negi reflected as he drew the circle, if Chamo was there. But he was still uncomfortable with the idea of bringing his friend and familiar to class. Later, maybe, when everyone in class already knew the truth, when they realized that the ermine wasn't a pet but a fellow sapient - if one who was perfectly willing to exploit people's ignorance of his sapience - things might be different. For now, they would just have to trust that he had the circle right and, if not, then do it over again.
And really, what was a little inefficiency between very very good friends?
"So all I have to do is kiss you and I get my own tarot card?" Konoka asked, eyes still gleaming as she stood in the circle. "This is really cool magic, Negi-kun. I mean the feather fall thing was kind of cool, and the flying looked like so much fun, but this is the kind of magic that I really really like!"
"Yes, that's how it works," Negi agreed. "Just to clarify, though, it needs to be a kiss on the lips - a cheek kiss will just produce a botched card that would, um, well, just turn you into a funny animal if you ever tried to use it."
Konoka, who'd been bending down to give Negi a little smack on the cheek, paused. "Oh," she said. "That's good to know. Ummm. But I mean, it's no big deal. I mean, hah hah hah, it's not like this is my precious first kiss or anything like that."
Bewildered by this sudden hesitancy, Negi failed to pick up on the subtext. "Of course, I was presuming that you'd kissed your friend in Kyoto. I really don't mind, Konoka-san, a number of the members of my collective have that sort of relationship with each other."
"Yes, I definitely did that with my dear friend and - they are?" she asked blinking.
He nodded.
"Soooo ... in that case ... if, hypothetically, my friend and I were both part of your collective, then we'd sort of be married to each other, as much as we were to you?" Konoka pressed.
"Well, not formally, but you could look at it that way," Negi agreed. He wondered if he should tell Shizuru and Natsuki about that interpretation. He thought they'd probably like it. Not so much Risa and Mio.
"Ahhhhh," said Konoka, smiling a very strange smile. "Food for another day's thought, perhaps." And with that, she bent down and kissed him soundly, without nearly as much in the way of tongue as he liked, but she was perhaps a bit shyer than he'd realized.
A few moments later, she stood gazing at her card. "I look like I'm a priestess about to do some sort of kagura," she said. "So cool! What do these words mean?"
"Queen of Medicine," Negi explained. "I think those fans likely possess some healing magics. Treating anything other than minor injuries is very rare, so this is a quite potent -"
"And I'll be happy to use it to help you and the rest of our friends when they get hurt," she assured him as she tucked the card away.
"Thank you," he said, meaning it. "Especially with - well, I'll have to explain that to everyone later, so I'll save it for then. I'll be using the card's communication function to set up a meeting, probably tonight, and you should come to get in some practice with your card." Negi coughed. "Of course, as these tend to turn to something else, you'll probably want to leave part way through."
"To something -" Her eyes went wide. "Oh. You, um, all together like that?" she asked, blushing brightly.
"It's the only way to make sure everyone is being treated the same," he answered.
"Haaah," she said, nodding, eyes still wide. "Um ... so if I were to join this thing, I'd also be sort of married to Paru, Nodoka and Yue? And Asuna, eventually?"
"Yes to those first three, but no, Asuna's not ever going to be involved in this," he told her. "She finds this whole thing very disturbing, she loves someone else -"
"Takahata-sensei."
"You said it, I didn't," Negi replied carefully. "- and she's not even a little bit interested in me, so it's never going to happen."
Konoka looked at him oddly. "You think Asuna doesn't care about you?" she asked, very quietly.
"Well, she cares about me as a member of her family, and maybe as a teacher, but no, she's not romantically interested in me," he said, wondering why Konoka was making a big deal about this.
Then the girl smiled. "Okayyyyyy then," she said cheerfully, nodding. "Hm-hm, hm-hm-hm-hm-hm."
"What?" he asked, genuinely bewildered.
"Oh, I'm just thinking about how smart you are, Negi-kun," she said with total honesty. "Let me know when you want to have that meeting. I'll be in your care. Bye now." And with that, she almost seemed to skip over to the door and then out through it.
Negi took a moment to regain some equilibrium and gather up his teaching notes before following her path out the door. That had been a rather bewildering experience, but it had all worked out, and he could imagine some very useful things to do with a healer in the party. It would allow all of them to take more chances, and -
Less than a moment after he was out of the classroom, a black bag descended on his head and was pulled tight around his voice box. He could breathe, but speech was impossible - and even if he'd been able to choke out a spell, he wouldn't know where to target it.
"That," said a silky voice from behind him, "was acceptable because it was intended to awaken ojosama's magical talents, which are her birthright. Lay a finger on her again, much less a lip, with even the slightest sexual intention, and you will spend a very short time regretting having done so." The voice, which he couldn't identify, stopped talking and the pressure on his throat cut off his breathing as well.
A few moments later, Negi woke up in the boy's washroom, alone, and unmarked by his experience ... but very conscious that he was getting further involved in matters of no small import.
"So what's the good news?" asked Risa as she cheerily breezed into Mikado's consultation room, having received a cell phone summons that took her away from clean-up duty (which was nice) and attempts to get up into Riko's skirt (which was not so nice.)
Mikado locked the door behind the high school girl, then came over to take a seat at her desk and activate a stealth field that at least doubled the unlikeliness of anyone overhearing anything that was discussed in the room.
Risa might not have known what was going on, but she recognized these efforts for what they were, and grinned widely. "Ooh, is this going to be a kinky consultation? Ever since this whole thing started, I've wondered how many of the rumors about you dragging guys back to your place -"
"Momioka-san," Mikado interrupted. Having done so, she just stared at the teenaged girl without an expression on her face, watching the nervous excitement she could see on Risa's own face slowly bleed away into apprehension and concern.
Eventually, Ryoko spoke again. "Okay, I should probably start by explaining something to you. Just like anybody else, I use certain personas in my daily life, different faces for different purposes. Sometimes I'm a flirty doctor. Sometimes I'm a dedicated revolutionary. Sometimes ... many different faces. Right now, in this conversation we are having, I want you to try and forget that I'm a woman you find attractive, a woman with whom you've had sex and whom you've seen having sex with others. Right now, I'm just a doctor, and you have a medical problem."
Risa swallowed. "O-okay. There's something wrong with the baby, is that what you're saying?"
"No," the doctor said. "There is no baby. That's what we need to talk about."
The girl frowned. "I swear, I stopped taking those pills. You said they'd take a while to wear off, though, so maybe it's just taking longer than you thought."
"It's not about the pills," Mikado said patiently. "You stopped taking them at around the same time that Mio did, and she hasn't had this difficulty. I wouldn't normally mention this, but the two of you are especially close, and she gave me permission to tell you when I spoke with her last. I've examined you a few times, and I believe that it's something else. Momioka-san. You once indicated that you lost your virginity at the age of eleven. Was that a joke?"
"Um," said Risa. "Well. Yes and no? I was kidding around, but ..." She trailed off.
"Whatever you choose to tell me, now, will not leave this room. I will not discuss it with Negi or with any other person without your express permission. I would appreciate as full an account as possible."
Risa closed her eyes. "I ... I was going on twelve. It was in the summer, May, I think. I was playing in the backyard of this kid I knew, in his sandbox, and we started playing doctor because ... why not? And then just as I was pulling down Mitsuo's shorts, that's when his brother Takehito showed up. And Mitsuo ran crying into the house, and Takehito was staring at me ..." Her voice trailed off, her eyes opened up, and she spoke much more quickly. "And then he pulled down his shorts and grabbed me, and that was that."
"How old was Takehito?" asked Mikado.
"He was maybe two years older than us, I think. Are you going to try and -"
"As I said, nothing you say will leave this room. But his age does fit with what I think happened."
"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" Momioka asked after a long moment.
"It's not until age fourteen that boys and girls in this country are given the set of injections that immunize them against all bacterial, protozoal, parasitic and viral sexually transmitted infections," Mikado said, sounding more clinical than Risa had ever heard any doctor, much less this one, speaking before. "In most countries, even the Brittanic Empire, it's given much earlier, but this is a moral nation, after all, as the Prime Minister is fond of saying."
"What -" Risa asked, but couldn't bring herself to continue.
"Your reproductive system shows signs of having suffered from a case of asymptomatic acute trichomoniasis. The protozoa would have been eliminated from your system when you received your own injections, but the damage had unfortunately been done over the previous two years."
"You're telling me that I can't have children," the girl said dazedly. She let out something someone might have mistaken for a giggle.
"No. That is not what I am leading up to," said Mikado, very firmly. "You are going to find it difficult to have children, and you are definitely going to have to resort to the fertility treatments I mentioned in passing some time ago. And you should probably start thinking in terms of 'child' rather than 'children'."
"Oh. Oh-okay, then," she said, and kept staring at Mikado for a few moments more.
"Do you want the number of a sexual assault counselor?" the doctor asked, to break the silence.
"No!" Risa snapped. "That's not, I - I am not the way that I am because of what happened. I didn't go running home in tears, I'm not some sort of -" She broke off, then spoke much more quietly. "I don't need any counselors."
"All right," Mikado replied indifferently. "In that case, I guess we're done here."
Nodding firmly, Risa stood up and walked out the door, after unlocking it.
Alone once more, Ryoko raised her hands to her eyes and breathed heavily for several moments. With her spare hand, she reached out to pick up her cell phone. "Negi, it's me," she spoke into the phone without lowering her hand. "About the meeting you were planning to have tonight ... yes, ah, feel free to use my house, but I'm going to be out this evening, on some other stuff. No, nothing you should worry about ... I just need some 'me' time. Yes, that's not a very Japanese thing, but neither of us is ... oh were you? That's interesting, if not actually relevant. Anyway, I will go with you to see Shanna tomorrow, all right? Okay, until then."
After she hung up, Mikado continued to rest her hand against her eyes for quite some time.
And Risa, walking quickly but not running, found her thoughts filled with images of girls with orange, pink, dark brown and bluish hair – and also with a terrible resolve.
"The stress of your regard begins to annoy me," said Rider as she finally met Negi's searching gaze. "I feel a strange urge to say, 'Take a picture, it will last longer.'"
When Sakura had informed him of her success with the summoning, Negi had invited her to join him at Mikado's house a bit earlier than the rest of the collective. So she'd come, and now sat in their usual living room watching him and Rider interact, with occasional confused glances at the other woman present.
"My apologies," Negi said - though somewhat unusually for him, he didn't sound genuinely apologetic as he said it, though he did take a step back and stop studying the Servant so carefully. "This is a very rare opportunity."
"It is that," Rider said agreeably, then turned to look at Sakura. "Master, I should point out that killing a prospective master before they can summon a servant is a perfectly acceptable tactic in this war."
Sakura sighed. "I told you on the way here, Negi is my friend and ally. We're not going to fight him, much less murder him."
Rider gave Negi a dubious look. "Very well, but know that there can be only one -"
"The situation is actually a bit worse than that," Negi interjected.
The red-haired warrior woman cocked an eyebrow.
"So ... just so that I'm clear on this situation," said Shizuru, leaning back in her chair and sipping at the tea that had been set out for them. "Sakura-san and Negi have been recruited to participate in a magical battle royale, and my goodness there's a lot of that going around, but in this particular case you two will summmon magically-empowered warriors from across history to battle on your behalf, and this Rider person is one such."
"Correct, though you'll understand why I don't go into detail about which Heroic Spirit I am," Rider replied promptly.
"No, not really. Your motivation in doing so - not doing so, rather - is somewhat opaque."
Rider coughed. "If it were known, my potential enemies would be able to prepare defenses against my magical abilities, which can be deduced from my legend. And I have a somewhat larger pool of potential enemies than my master might prefer," she added, with a look at Negi.
"I've already worked out who you are," Negi said, now sounding a bit apologetic.
"Have you indeed," Rider said icily.
"Well, there aren't that many famous warrior women, and your class title narrows it down even further. Rider, one who rides or employs other means of transportation in their legend. Such as, for example, a red-haired queen who was famous for her many royal progresses, and who was also one of the last Brittanic monarchs to lead her subjects personally into battle. You can only be she who was called Rosalind, later Victoria, first of that name, great battle queen and conqueror of Ireland," he concluded.
"... so close and yet so far," said Rider. She took a long look at Negi as he pouted in reaction to this, then turned to look at Sakura again. "You say he's your friend, but I have the distinct impression that you have coupled with this boy. Not so?"
Sakura blushed, and Shizuru let out a polite cough.
"Both of you?" asked the Servant, then shook her head rather than wait for an answer. "Wherever you hail from, you're as decadent as any Roman, boy," she said to Negi.
"I don't agree with that characterization, and as to the implied question, do the words 'Cymru am byth' mean anything to you?" Negi asked, in as grim a tone as any of those present had ever heard him use.
"As a matter of fact," Rider said, smiling quite suddenly, "they mean quite a bit. Regardless, boy, don't even dream to add me into whatever harem you're making for yourself, and I expect that we'll get on fine until I have to finish off your servant."
"I didn't have any such intentions in the first place, and -" the boy started to reply.
"All right," interjected Shizuru. "Negi, could I ask why you had me come here to witness all this?"
With some clear reluctance, Negi turned away from Rider and came over to stand before Shizuru. "There's a good reason - at least I hope it's a good reason - that you're here, learning all this. For some time now, I've been trying to decide who should be the one to give directions to the collective, in my absence, since Yuna has said that she can't do the job. Of everyone I'm close to, you have the most experience as a leader, Shizuru."
Her jaw dropped. "Well!" she said.
Sakura coughed. "Not that I was consulted about this development, but I have to admit that I voted for you in the Joint Student Council elections. I'm not sure how much actual organizing you've been doing as Vice-President -"
"Then I've been doing it successfully, since most of what I've been organizing has been covert resistance to the President," Shizuru said a bit dazedly.
The mage let out a faint, startled gasp. "That's - that's -" Sakura stammered.
"Resisting a tyrant?" said Rider, smiling warmly. "I'm growing a better opinion of you, young lady."
Negi blinked. "Oh, of course!" he said. "I apologize for confusing you with Victoria, Rider, you're obviously Grace O'Malley! It must have been awful to be mistaken for your -"
"Him I still think we should probably kill," Rider added. "And you're getting cooler, boy, not warmer."
One pactio ceremony later ...
"I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a picture of myself in my school uniform and wielding my Element was definitely not it," Shizuru said as she examined the card.
"It wasn't what I was expecting, either," Negi agreed with a frown. "Could you call up your weapon, please?"
She promptly formed the naginata in one hand, then rested its shaft in the other. "Didn't have to say that magic word you mentioned," she noted. "What was it, abeat?"
Absolutely nothing happened, and a moment later Negi spoke up. "That's actually the word to send it back, and it doesn't seem to have done anything, either. Despite its appearance on the card, the Element clearly isn't an artifact. Maybe it just appears because it's closely linked to your true nature?" he guessed.
"Maybe," said Shizuru, sounding unsatisfied, but nevertheless sending the naginata back to whatever elsewhere it normally inhabited. "Well, I still don't know if I'm the best person to do this job, Negi, but I will give it my all, for you and for all the girls in this collective of ours."
"Well, should we tell Rider about the curse on the Grail, now?" Sakura asked.
Rider blinked. "Curse?"
"I think we should probably start with the way the whole thing was rigged from the start," Negi replied.
Rider blinked even more. "Rigged?"
"It's going to be nice to not be the least informed person in the room," Shizuru mused aloud.
"So if I have the right of it, not only has this ridiculous melee never been about rewarding the Heroic Spirits who come to take part in it, but also any two-timing, four-flushing magus who actually wins the damned thing will be rewarded with straightforward chaos and tumult instead of whatever they're on about?" Rider asked, fists clenched at her sides. It might have been Negi's imagination, but her long red hair seemed to be growing slightly, as though about to break free of its ponytail ties.
"That latter is what my Father, Aunt and Uncle discovered in the previous war, ten years ago, and the former ... was always known to the three families that started the ceremony," Negi admitted.
"I do not think very highly of these families at the moment, and it is well for you and my Master that you have at best tenuous links to them," Rider bit out.
"Or no real links at all," Sakura said quietly. "It's not a very good situation -"
"It's an obscenity, is what it is!" Rider snapped. "Who is it that runs the Throne of Heroes, that it sends us out as sacrificial beasts for this ceremony? Are we birds for haruspicy? Fattened calves for a feast? Are we just weapons pointed at the enemy so someone else can claim a victory?" She paused, breathing heavily. "That last is almost an improvement on the actual situation, so I'm not sure where it came from," she admitted, after a moment. With that, she stomped over to stare angrily at one of the wall hangings.
"I don't understand any of this," Shizuru said at last, when it became apparent that Rider was not about to say anything more. "The people who came up with this ... thing ... wanted to use it as a short-cut to gain infinite knowledge and power. But surely they should have realized that nothing as finite as a human being could contain that! I'm not even a mystic and I understand that!"
"Arguments much like yours were part of the reason my magical tradition split from theirs, centuries ago," Negi said heavily. "The other side of that dispute had a different view of the finite nature of humanity - or at least of their own ability to transcend such finite limitations."
"Hubris," the pale girl said, as she facepalmed. "Utter, utter hubris."
"I'm not about to argue against such judgments," he replied.
"While I find myself pining for the days when all I worried about was how to combat the influence of a girl with too much power borrowed from her family fortune," Shizuru quietly complained.
"You can probably expect quite a bit of that in the days to come," he told her sympathetically.
"So then what is your plan, magus?" Rider said at last, voice a little calmer as she finally turned away from the art she had been considering. (Negi made a note to ask Mikado about that piece, if it had such soothing properties.) "Your type always has a scheme."
"Mage, not magus," Negi corrected, choosing to let the comment about 'your type' slide for now. "And while it's subject to revision, I think I do have a plan of action. It's basically an enhanced version of what was used to destroy the corrupted grail ten years ago. A single servant's Noble Phantasm, amplified by a Command Seal, was enough to accomplish it ... so what if we were to use the mightiest magics of all seven servants to that end? At a bare minimum, I think it would ensure that the current incarnation of the grail ceased to be, buying more time for us to come up with a better solution for the next event."
Rider nodded slowly. "And to do this, you must make allies out of the other Masters, as you've already started to do," she said, with a glance in Sakura's direction. Her mouth, if not her eyes, smiled. "I remember making alliances," she said. With a sharp nod, she looked back at Negi. "I've only one more question for now. This battle of ours ... it won't take place in this Academy City?"
"No. Most likely we'll be drawn to the ruins of Fuyuki when the time comes," Negi answered.
"Ruins," the Servant said heavily. "In my time, no matter how ruined the town, there were always a few people lingering there. Is that still so today?"
Negi and Sakura exchanged a pained glance. The girl was the one who spoke. "Officially, there are no legal residents in the Fuyuki area," she said. "Unofficially ... there are still some living there who either returned or journeyed there after the evacuation, people who have nowhere else to go. So I suppose that, yes, it is still so."
"I'm going to do everything in my power to get those people out of harm's way, before the war begins," the boy said quietly.
"I may be able to lend some assistance to that project," Shizuru added, receiving a sharp nod of appreciation from her magister.
Rider let out a chuckle. "I finally understand why you're here. You're something of a princess, aren't you?" she said at Shizuru.
Shizuru answered with a sigh "That which I am, I am."
"Much does still abide," Rider said quietly, then briskly spoke up. "I would hear no more children screaming in terror because of my actions. If you can prevent this, boy, know that you have my sword."
"Well, now we only have to worry about recruiting the rest of the Masters and Servants to our plan," Negi said lightly.
"A greater task than you're implying," Sakura said with a shake of her head. "Especially when one considers how many of them are likely to be magus rather than mage."
"Even a magus wouldn't -" he started to say.
Sakura held up a finger. "'Oh Holy Grail, it is my wish that I be given access to the Root. Cause as much destruction here on Earth as you need in order to grant that wish of mine.' I have no doubt whatsoever that the heir of the Tohsaka would make such a wish without blinking an eye."
Weary from yet another day of avoiding attempts to 'persuade' her to act as one of St. Miator's candidates for Etoile - and incidentally being an honor student, which was at least 90% of the reason she got targeted for the aforementioned 'honor' - Tohsaka Rin began to wend her way homeward. She supposed that she should be grateful that Rokujou-sempai confined her low-grade harassment of the prospective candidates to school hours. That sort of gratitude wasn't really in Rin's nature, however; necessarily a believer in the principle of equivalent exchange, the notion of giving something for the absence of something else made very little sense to her mind.
It wasn't as though she wasn't flattered at the idea of being regarded as the ideal student of all of the schools of Astraea Hill. If that had been all that the position entailed, Rin would have been more than happy to accept the nomination, then follow Hanazono-sempai's example in dumping all the formal duties of the position on someone else. But there was the other side to the post, that it was shared with a colleague, in a way that was very much like a marriage ceremony. And even though it was constantly repeated by the nuns that this should not be considered as an intimate relationship ... she doubted that anyone ever really believed that.
The notion of being partnered up with Mitsuzuri Ayako - who was as close of a friend as Rin allowed herself - was not exactly abhorrent to her, and she well-remembered how Ayako had laughed at the idea the first time it was broached to her. Ironically, Rin had the distinct impression that if she gave in and allowed their names to stand for the position and then won, the relationship between the two of them would be as straightforwardly chaste as the nuns pretended every Etoile partnership had ever been. Ayako might flirt with girls, since she had no other options, but Rin had a fairly good sense for when such flirtation was sincere, and it wasn't, with her.
But whether or not Rin desired a close relationship (and as soon as she considered this, a vision of golden drill-like curls spread across a pillow surged up from her subconscious and was almost as quickly banished) she knew that, regardless of the familiarity of such a partnership, she would have to share the secret details of her life with the person who, however briefly, shared that life. And the notion of revealing magic to Ayako - inflicting magic on her, to be honest - was not one that she would voluntarily choose.
Magic had cost her much, and would cost her much again. In the end, she was perfectly aware that magic would cost her everything. And, knowing this, she would not choose another path.
Eventually, her path - her actual physical path, rather than the metaphorical path that she'd been grimly contemplating while walking the former - led her to the cottage she rented. She noted that the realtor's sign had been taken down from the neighboring cottage, and idly wondered who would be moving in next door. Hopefully, it would be someone as quiet and asocial as Rin herself.
She went indoors and noted with some distaste that the ... thing attached to the foyer's telephone to record its messages was blinking. Rin thought that the message she'd recorded to play for someone who called her was perfectly clear. "Hello, you have reached the home of a student. Do not leave a message. What is wrong with you, calling a student during class hours? Call back later, when the student in question will be at home. Or don't. I'm sure that any important messages will be delivered face to face." And yet, despite this well-reasoned argument, people persisted in leaving messages. With a sigh of profound distaste, Rin pressed the button marked 'Play'. (Why wasn't it 'Repeat'? Why 'Play'? This process had nothing to do with amusement.)
"It's me," said a voice that she recognized. "The Itoshiki heir has summoned a Servant. So has Animusphere. The current Einzbern proxy will no doubt do so shortly. You might want to hurry." And there the message terminated.
Unbelievable. The sheer insult of suggesting that she should hurry her efforts, that she should perhaps conduct a summoning before obtaining the ideal catalyst for her to summon the ideal (for which read Saber-class) servant so as to fight the ideal war. It was infuriating, and she considered the worth of wrath against this person who had dared to warn her.
"... screw it," said Rin, and trooped downstairs to the basement to set things up for the ritual.
One moderately painful magical working and the sound of an explosion on the floor above her later, Rin dashed up the stairs and into her living room to find a blond man wearing trousers but stripped to the waist, sitting in the ruins of her living room.
She stared at him.
He stared at her.
She stared at him some more.
"Yo," he said at last. "Servant Berserker. True Name - oh, wait, we're supposed to keep that a secret, right?" he asked.
Somehow, Rin found herself able to nod.
"Right," the Berserker said, nodding in response. "... screw it. I'm Beowulf. Let's go beat some things up, Master." A beat. "You are my Master, right? Not just some chick who happens to live here?"
And that was when Rin started screaming.
It seemed a lot had happened in the last little while, he thought, as he made his way from school to his sister's apartment. He'd promised her that once he graduated he'd move in with her so that they could be together all the time, and yet things had not worked out that way. He'd failed his university exams, leaving him with no choice but to stay in high school and keep on living with their father, while she -
He frowned as he considered his recent past. Something seemed off about what had happened, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Well, as long as he remained a first year high school student, he couldn't exactly move out on his own, and had to settle for the occasional visits he paid to the apartment his sister rented. Like the one he was paying today.
But as he arrived at the grounds of the complex in question, it became clear to him that he wasn't the only one who had important business there. A young woman - slightly older than he himself, of course - was walking purposefully up towards the staircase. She had hair that was just the slightest shade oranger than his sister's, but had the exact same look of being fully aware of how beautiful she was. There was something naggingly familiar about her features, but he couldn't quite place them.
Well, regardless, she was heading in through the building's front door, while he went up the back staircase, thanks to the key his sister had given him. (The elevator was unbelievably slow, so the staircase was actually faster.) He expected that his sister would still be at work when he got to her room, so he'd probably make her some dinner and then spend the time until she actually arrived playing video games ... or more likely jerking off over videos of her. Well, regardless -
Whatever he might have been thinking was lost when he turned a corner in the apartment's hallway and found himself face to face with the beauteous creature from earlier, who was reaching out for his sister's buzzer. They both blinked at the sight of the other.
She recovered first. "Oh ... you're Minako's little brother, aren't you?" she asked.
And then he knew her.
"Yes, that's me, all right," she agreed a few moments later as the two of them sat on the beanbag chairs of the apartment and examined a DVD whose cover depicted her cuddling up against his sister, clutching his sister's topless breasts.
"Miku Kirino," he said, almost breathlessly, as he contemplated the legend of the adult video industry in whose presence he was currently present.
"Not my real name, but close enough," she said, looking around. "Y'know, for someone who makes as much money as Minako does, you'd think that she could furnish this place a little better than she has. It's like something out of an old movie ... from the 90s, even!" Having made that observation, Kirino returned her attention to him - and saw that he was still gazing in mild shock at the DVD. "You're gonna make me start blushing, and I haven't done that in ages," she said.
"Well, I'm sorry, but ... I mean, I have some friends who say you're one of the best AV stars in history," he told her.
"Well, I'm glad your friends like my stuff," Kirino told him, crooked little grin telling him that she didn't buy it.
She was right not to do so. Out of all the videos in his collection, he'd watched this one over and over. In this particular video, the girl in front of him had a violent, passionate sexual encounter with his sister ... and then, of course, seven guys had come out of nowhere to gangbang the pair of them, so that no one could possibly conclude that the pair of them were actually lesbians or anything disgusting like that.
He had been somewhat lost in memories of that scene for a few moments when he realized that he was no longer graced by Kirino's physical presence.
"Holy shit!" her voice echoed from somewhere nearby. "This must be where all her money went! You could fit a dozen people in this tub and still have room for a floating drink tray!" Quite suddenly, there came the sound of running water.
He got up and headed towards the bathroom. "Ah, Kirino-san, what are you doing in there?" he asked as he pushed open the half-open door.
She was halfway to being undressed when he arrived. "... you seriously have to ask that question? Come on, get in with me."
"Wha-what?" he gasped, pulling back from the doorway.
"Come on!" she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the bathroom. "It's a waste of water for just one person to use this thing!"
A few moments after that, he found himself covered in embarrassment and a tiny towel over his crotch as he sat facing away from Kirino in the tub. "This is so fucking pointless," she told him. "You and half the country have already seen all of me in my videos, you know." She reached out one foot, ran the tip of her big toe up and down his spine.
"Well, I just don't want -" he stammered out, then trailed off.
"I think it's pretty obvious that you kinda do want," she said, gliding forward to press those breasts up against his back. "Are you trying to be faithful to Minako?" she asked, sliding up and down as she spoke, her nipples hard against his glutes. "That's so fucking cute."
"Uh ... you, you know about -"
"Mm-hm, she told me allllll about it," Kirino confirmed. "I think she is so lucky to have a cute little brother like you, instead of a useless jerk of a - well, never mind that now." She pushed herself even closer against him, so that her mouth was up against one of her ears. "Look, could I possibly be making it any clearer? I. Want. You. To. Fuck. Me." Her tongue licked against his cheek.
Well, really, what could he possibly do in this situation? She was a guest in (what would one day be) the home he shared with his sister/lover, and he had to show hospitality, after all.
He soon found himself pounding into her from behind, her breasts hanging over the bathtub's edge, and contemplating the differences between Kirino's vulva and that of his sister. He suspected, with that small part of his mind able to engage in reasoned speculation, that Kirino must do some sort of special exercises, as he found her to be even tighter than his sister, despite knowing that they'd probably been with about as many men.
"Ah, yes! Fuck me!" she cried. "Fuck me big bro- I mean little brother! Right there! Your cock is amazing! And I don't say that to everybody who does me!"
... okay, he knew that was not true, but he kept on slamming into her regardless.
"Yes! Yes! Oh, god, I'm coming! Come with me! Come inside - wait, was that the front door?! It was! Oh, god, pull out, pull out, stop fucking me like the naughty wench I am and pull out! Minako is going to -"
His seed pulsed up into her as he slammed against her in syncopation with the bathroom door being slammed open as a half-naked Minako burst in. "Kirino," she said quite loudly, hair gleaming golden. "I would have words with thee."
In less than the blink of an eye, Minako pounced on the two of them, shoved him back against the far side of the tub, and turned Kirino's hips toward her face - which was promptly shoved into the other girl's genitalia.
"Oh, fuck!" Kirino gasped, bending backwards with the sensation running up her spine from where the other girl's tongue was hard at work. "You're, you're sucking the ... god, you and Kuroneko ..." Just what she was referencing went unsead as she collapsed into the water once Minako let go of her hips.
Licking her lips, Minako spoke quietly into the relative silence of Kirino's gasps. "Okay, little brother, here are some ground rules," she said without looking at him. "You can fuck whoever you like. Girls, boys, transitionals, the occasional sheep. But your cum belongs to me. Are we clear on that?" With that, she cast her blue eyes back at him.
"Yes, ma'am," he gulped.
"Goooood. Now. I was planning on fucking your brains out this evening, since I'm really horny after the five guy creampie scene I did today, so get ready for rounds two through six."
Well, really, what could he possibly do in this situation?
"Shouldn't we be heading over to Mikado's place?" Yuna asked Negi, looking up at his back as he sat in his nook.
He didn't answer; didn't, in fact, show any signs of having heard her, instead being thoroughly engrossed in whatever it was that he was reading.
Yuna's eyebrow twitched. She didn't care to be ignored by anybody, and liked it from her partner/lover least of all. Thus, with grim purpose, she climbed up the ladder to the nook, and quietly walked up behind Negi, leaning over him to see just what had his attention. It was a book of some sort, of course, and Yuna found herself making a face as she considered the pictures of people having sex with animals that were on the pages presently open to her. Frustratingly, however, Negi continued to be oblivious to her.
She took a deep breath. "No, dad, put down that gun! It was my idea, not Negi's!" she shrieked.
"What?!" Negi gasped, jolted out of his contemplation. He whirled around to find Yuna looking down at him.
"So nice to know that you still have the ability to feel guilt," she purred. "What kind of weird porn are you reading, anyway? I've been trying to get your attention for the last ten minutes." (So what if it had only been two or three?)
"Oh," the boy said, abashed. "I am sorry. Getting wrapped up in these sorts of things is something I should really work on ... it's not pornography, though, it's a grimoire I found when we were trapped under Library island."
Yuna frowned. "You found another magic book there besides the Malecrazydick?"
"Melchizedek, and yes. There were actually a number of tomes down there that captured my interest, but this is the only one that I brought back up with me. The fact that it was chained shut was particularly intriguing."
"Aaaand of course you wouldn't take that as a hint," she said, shaking her head. "So this one isn't in Greek?"
"No, mostly Medieval French and Latin," he answered. "With a few passages in Greek, Aramaic and ... I think it's Gaelic, but I'm not sure about that. Anyway, I can make much more sense out of it than I could out of the Melchizedek."
"And, lemme guess - from this you're learning how to knock up the rest of the animal kingdom?" Yuna asked.
Negi sighed. "No, those images aren't meant to be taken literally, they represent - well, never mind what they represent. I actually haven't learned much from this tome at all. It starts out with some fairly simple spells that pretty much any one, mage or mundane, would be able to learn. What's different about this book, when compared to the texts I learned from, is that it's designed to be very easy to use ... which is not how magic is supposed to work. I think this book is designed to seduce people with promises of godlike power."
"But it didn't work on you. Right?" she asked, putting more than a bit of edge in that last word.
He laughed a bit. "Oh, I'm not immune to the temptation of power, Yuna. Not by a long shot. But this book ... it's aimed at people who don't already have magic in their lives. The more of it that you have, the less you'll find in here that you haven't already gained through your own efforts, and the more likely you'll see ways that you can improve on the rituals it describes. In my case, some of the more advanced spells seem intriguing and useful ... but not immediately so." He turned the pages to a pair that were covered in a reddish-brown stain. "I really would like to know what's under this," Negi mused aloud.
"That's blood, isn't it?" asked Yuna, feeling a bit queasy.
"Among other things," he agreed.
"Ghgh."
He smiled just a bit maliciously as he closed the book and began to chain it up again. "I will consider that sufficient payback for the business about your father and the gun." He paused. "Though on reflection I should probably have wondered where he would have gotten a gun in Japan."
It could be fairly said that being on patrol at night was a dull experience. His body kept reminding him that, by rights, he should be asleep in bed, and occasional sips of coffee from the flask at his hip only helped a little. It was also a lonely experience, as he hadn't seen another human being all this while.
Well, thought Haruno Yoshiyuki, that just means that everyone is staying where they belong. Or at least that people aren't bothering to stray out after dark, just like so many of them don't bother to leave their homes during the day. What a bleak yet troublingly accurate thought. Yoshiyuki, in his mid-twenties, didn't have a very clear set of memories about what his hometown had been like before ... before, but he could see the way things were trending as well as anyone else. Saga Prefecture, like most other parts of Japan outside of the capitol region, was slowly but surely dying, and probably would have been even in some better world where Second Impact never happened.
It didn't matter, in the long run. As long as his job with the police lasted, he'd keep watch over the area, by night or day, depending on his duty assignment. And when the local department shut down, he'd either get transferred to a different prefecture to watch over its slow death, or, more probably, be fired long before he qualified for any sort of pension. There was nothing he could do to cure these circumstances, and so they had to be endured. Can't be helped, he thought.
Well, he supposed that there was something he could do. He could end up being the horribly unlucky police officer who discovered and was destroyed by a threat to Japan long before anyone else found out about it, like in so many stories. That would simplify matters quite a bit, he thought, and laughed a bit at the idea. Very morbid, but what could one expect from people who viewed themselves as the walking -
Hey, was someone over there?
Welcoming the distraction from his dreary thoughts, Yoshiyuki walked his cycle in the direction of the movement that he'd glimpsed. Sure enough, he began to make out the shape of a girl, standing a bit awkwardly by some signage naming the Machida River. "Well, good evening, young lady," he said. "What seems to be the trouble? You know that you shouldn't be out this late, right?" Best odds, she'd been out with a boyfriend and had a fight that ... wait, why was she bandaged up like that?
The girl turned as he spoke to her, and started running in his direction. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you," she gasped. "You have to help me, I just got away from a -"
And then he got a good look at her.
"Gaaaaaaaaaah!" he shrieked, falling back away from his cycle.
"Eh?" peeped the girl, whose green-gray skin was a remarkable contrast to her red hair and the eyes that were only a bit brighter colored, with a deep scar running down her face between her eyebrows.
Yoshiyuki went for his sidearm - but stopped himself just in time. This ... this wasn't anything that he'd been trained for, and yet he knew what he had to do in this situation.
"Ah," he said, as he pushed himself to his feet. "Ah-ha-ha-ha," he attempted to laugh. It sounded horribly false, but it was the best that he could do. "D-dreadfully sorry about that, ma'am. It's just, just the first time I've actually seen one of your sort in the fuh-flesh, I guess, instead of on TV."
"My sort?" the girl said.
"You know, extraspecies," he said, because it sounded so much nicer than 'monster'. He began to recover his poise. "Even so, you shouldn't be out this late, and you really shouldn't be away from whoever's hosting you. Is something the matter at home?"
"I-I-I don't," she replied, shaking her head rapidly - and then pausing as she caught sight of her own reflection in one of the reflector signs above the road. It seemed to capture her attention. Maybe her particular kind of monster was vulnerable to that sort of thing. She had to know what she looked like, after all.
"Really, what's the matter?" Yoshiyuki pressed. "Am I gonna have to call the department that handles your cases? That's probably gonna be a lot of paperwork for me, so maybe it'd be better if we handle things easiugh." He broke off when he felt a sudden blow to the back of his head. It was really quite painful, and holding onto the threads of his consciousness proved impossible. He slumped to the ground in a heap.
The individual who'd just struck the police officer with the back side of a shovel coolly regarded the girl who'd turned back to look in this direction at the sound of the blow. "I'm sure that you have many questions," announced the tuxedoed man wearing sunglasses at night.
"Eh?" she replied calmly.
"In brief, you are a zombie," he said.
"... eh?"
"It would probably somewhat simplify matters if you were to faint," he added.
The girl seemed to consider this for a moment, then sort of shrugged as if to suggest that this wasn't the sort of thing she could do on demand.
"Suit yourself," the man said dismissively. "A detailed explanation will be given back at the house. Follow me or don't, your choice." And with that he started walking away from her, along the route she'd followed to get to this point in the first place. After a moment of further consideration, she headed after him.
"Please accept my apologies, Saotome-san," Negi said as he looked Ranma's female form up and down. "This isn't quite how I envisioned our first meeting."
Ranma let out a grunt of disgust. "Saotome-san is my shitty father. I'm Ranma. As for the other thing - didn't you say you had meetings in some doctor's house?" she directed the question at Haruna, standing beside her. For her part, Akane wa seated at a nearby table.
Her youngest sister (that she knew about) shrugged, making her bikini-clad boobs jiggle. "She asked for some space, and Negi's such a swell guy that he gave her some." In one hand Haruna held a kettle, in the other a pitcher of ice water.
"Swell guy," Ranma repeated, looking over the bath house where they were holding converse, currently filled with fifteen girls in various stages of dishabille, some in the water and some on reclining chairs, some just chattering and giggling and some, she saw, starting to kiss and carress each other. Having never been much of a voyeur, she promptly jerked her eyes back to the boy in trunks and a t-shirt before her.
"If you're concerned about our security, Sa- Ranma-san, you should know that I put up a bounded field around the bathing area." The look of blank incomprehension on the red-haired girl's face prompted Negi to press on. "Erm, I mean, are you perhaps familiar with the concept of kekkai?"
"During my years of nomadic martial arts training, it formed the sole topic of conversation," Ranma answered blandly.
"Oh, good," Negi answered. "In any event, nobody can get in, and no sounds will get out. Now ... I should tell you that I'm not actually detecting any magic active on you at the moment, aside from the small enchantment on your hair-tie that you already mentioned."
As Ranma opened her mouth to assert that she really was cursed, Haruna silently poured the kettle's contents over Ranma and thus made such assertions superfluous. Negi's eyes grew wide behind his glasses as he watched the transformation. "Well!" he said quietly.
"Kinda the opposite atchally," said the taller, older black-haired boy before him.
"Something definitely just happened," Negi mused out loud.
"Y'don't say," Ranma drawled.
"Ah, sorry, I mean I think I saw something that helps me understand just what's going on with your situation," the boy teacher said quickly. "Sakura, could you come over and - oh, she's busy," he concluded as he turned to see Sakura in the middle of a violent makeo-out session with Shizuru in the deeper end of the pool, having finished tearing each other ouf of their swimsuits and moved on to trying to devour each other's faces. (Natsuki was seated on one of the chairs watching this with an unreadable expression while Asakura was sitting behind her and feeling her up.)
"Is that what they call it these days?" asked Akane, leaning forward with her elbows on the table, in a way that drew the eye towards the way her school swimsuit showed off her bust.
"I ... actually think 'getting busy' is a fairly old term for that," Negi replied. Before Akane could reply in turn, Negi turned back to the only other male present. "Ranma-san, I have the start of an idea of how to help you, but I'd want you to talk to Mikado-sensei before I go any further with it."
"That's the doctor, right?" Ranma confirmed with a frown. "What's some sawbones gonna do to help me?"
"She's an extraterrestrial with access to medical technology far in advance of our own."
"... I guess that could help a little," Ranma admitted.
"In the meanwhile, you're more than welcome to join us," Negi concluded.
"... uhhh ... join us, as in join -" the boy started to ask, only to be interrupted as icy water poured down from above, resulting in the girl concluding, "- us?"
"I think it's kind of obvious what he's saying, oneechan," commented Haruna as she casually tossed the now-empty jug in the general direction of the pool, where it splashed Fumika and Fuka as they molested Misora. Her now empty hand proceeded to slide down into Ranma's trousers. "Come on, it's been a while since you've had some cock in here, right?"
"Well, actually -"
"Are you seriously going to do this right in front of me?" asked Akane, sitting up straight.
Haruna gave her a sultry look. "Not if you join in, oneechan."
Akane considered this for a moment as Haruna effortlessly pulled Ranma's red shirt up out of the girl's small black pants to expose those absurdly large tits of hers. "Good point," she said, then promptly pounced from her chair onto Negi. "I'll get Fate-sama ready," she helpfully explained as she pulled the boy teacher's shorts down and began sucking at his dick.
Negi though he heard a faint mewl of dismay from behind him, but his focus was entirely on what was ahead of him, as a somewhat disombobulated Ranma was brought to the tile floor with Haruna crawling over her and diving down between the smaller girl's legs. There then ensued some rather noisy licking - which Negi suspected was probably more for his benefit than anything else - before Haruna's juicy face looked up with a smirk. "I think she's ready."
Akane pulled back, but not before giving Negi one last lick. "I think he is, too."
"Well, then come on, Negi-kun, come knock up your third Saotome sister," Haruna cooed.
Negi obliged, fucking into Ranma's warm and - unsurprisingly given her strength and toughness - very tight pussy. He let out a surprised hiss as Akane pressed up against his back and twisted his nipples, while Haruna, still sitting on Ranma's face, bent forward to give him yet another of her hungry kisses. Behind him, Nodoka let out another mewl, but was somewhat distracted by the attention being paid to her by Mio and Risa - who found the library girl more than a bit reminiscent of one of the girls on her hit list.
The situation both was and was not novel for Ranma. Her first experience with group sex involving both genders had happened swift on the heels of her first experience with sex involving her own gender, when Shan Pu had shown up as their father was giving Ranma a good seeing-to on the night of the old man's marriage to the young amazon. Shan Pu, unaware of the relationship between Ranma and her new husband - to say nothing of the relationship between herself and her new husband - had suffered an anxiety attack over the fact that Genma still had enough left after exhausting her to go fool around with his slave girl, and proceeded to join in to show that she was a willing wife.
And things had gone from there, and they weren't that different from what was going on right now, as Ranma felt Negi pounding away between her spread legs while Haruna held her up, kissing at her neck and squeezing her tits and nipples from time to time. There was a bit of a difference in the way Akane, crouching behind Negi as Haruna crouched behind Ranma, sometimes reached out to hesitantly grope at Ranma's stomach and hips ...
But the real difference was the way that Negi fucked her. It was closer to the way her shitty father had done it than the half-terrified way that their tour guide had fucked her while Genma was taking a nap that one time, and definitely more like that than Lord High and Mighty Quick-Shot Kuno. But there was something that had never been present when Genma had used her body to satisfy his needs.
Like the way that Negi, just now, had bent forward to rain kisses down on Ranma's tits, since he couldn't quite reach up to Ranma's neck, much less her face. It tickled a bit, despite how tough her skin was even in this form, and it was something that Genma would never have done. But even though she'd come to the realization that her shitty father was probably not just an annoying person but probably some sort of monster, Ranma found that she didn't really care for the difference.
It was like she still believed that a guy should just take whatever he wanted, and not bother to show any kindness when doing so. Which was weird, because that wasn't really what she wanted to believe. Not even when she was he did either of them behave as callously as they'd been taught to act. Regardless, what she felt when that happened was just sort of … strange.
Negi was gasping a bit, now, and muttering something in American or whatever it was that he spoke. Then, he pushed deep up into Ranma and let out a hiss as he released his load. Well, they were back to the familiar – in this, at least, the little weirdo was no different from any other guy.
And then unfamiliarity intruded once again as Negi, pulling back and thus sliding out of her, proceeded to direct a rueful smile up at her. "I'm sorry," the boy said.
"Ehhh?" Ranma asked, blinking. "Whafor?"
"You, you didn't –" he started to explain.
"Oh that," the genderbender said when she realized what was being brought up here. "I usually don't."
"The hell are you talking about, idiot?" asked Akane, staring over at her from where she was absent-mindedly wanking Negi. "I gave you a few just this morning."
"With guys, I mean, I don't get that kind of rush when I'm with guys, unless they do me for a few hours or so," she elaborated.
"Well, if you'd like, I think I'm ready to go again, and it should probably last longer this time and –" Negi started to offer.
"A fine thought, but it's not happening," Haruna said, and promptly poured the contents of the kettle on Ranma.
With what he was sure had to be greater confused bewilderment than he'd ever felt while expressing his usual crie de coeur, boy-type Ranma proceeded to exclaim, "Whatchadothatfor?!"
"Yeah, what did you do that for?" Akane demanded, a bit more grammatically, if no less angrily or befuddled. "The whole point of this thing was to get Ranma's girl form knocked up by Fa- Negi. If he turns back into a boy, he's not pregnant any more, now is he?"
"Maybe he'll get m-pregnant," Haruna observed somewhat airily as she slid down Ranma's still-supine form.
"Guh?" Ranma inquired.
"M-pregnant?" Akane repeated, sounding disgusted. "What in the world is -"
"Maybe he's become an Omega, able to both inseminate and give birth," Haruna replied, giving Ranma's semi-erect penis a few short strokes.
"All right, if you're going to just make up ridiculous bullshit -" Akane started to say.
"I don't think what Haruna's describing is possible," said Negi, raising his voice just a bit to pull the attention of these two young ladies back on to him. "But it is possible that changing Ranma back into his male form doesn't have any effect on whether his female form has been impregnated."
"Hah?" asked Akane, Ranma and Haruna in chorus - with Haruna continuing her efforts to make Ranma erect.
"This is what I was talking about when I observed the transformation, and, like I said then, I want Ryoko to confirm my suspicions. But ... well, it really doesn't matter whether I'm right or not," Negi admitted with a shrug. "If she's not pregnant yet, we can fix that in due course, and I suspect that Ranma would prefer to be in male form at the moment."
"Uh," said Ranma, eyes gone very tiny. "Are you, uh, I mean, are you coming on to -"
"Oh no," Negi quickly replied, not seeing Haruna's grin start to expand beyond the limits of her face and then rapidly contract once more. "You're not at all my type."
Ranma found himself a bit confused by the emotions that response provoked in him, as he was inclined to view himself (and herself) as somewhat irresistible.
"What I meant was, you might want to enjoy yourself with some of the other ladies of our collective, and they with -" the boy continued.
"He and they can do that later," Haruna interrupted, and proceeded to pull herself up so that she was seated on Ranma's lower abdomen, all the while still maintaining her hand's grip on her brother's erection. With a moment's effort and some sudden exhalations of uncertain portent, she had it stuck into her anus.
"Heyyy, Negiiii?" Haruna asked, just a bit tremulously. "Ever fucked a girl while she's getting fucked up the ass?"
"Guh?" asked Akane, jaw dangling a bit.
"No, no I have not," said Negi, eyes twinkling a bit.
This lacunae in Negi's sexual experience was quickly eliminated, with Haruna letting out gasps that were maybe one-quarter scream as she took her first double penetration before the startled and perhaps even horrified eyes of the rest of the girls of the collective - okay, the rest of the girls minus Kaede, who simply smiled at this naive, amateur attempt at Miroku style.
"... my little sister is a pervert," Akane said dazedly.
"... is this seriously news to you?" asked Yue.
The home she had known, as a girl and later a young woman, had been cold and unwelcoming, but seldom quiet. When Arika Anarchia Etheofushia had set out to make a home for herself and her family, she had deliberately shaped it to be the exact opposite of that palace. She took a measured amount of pride and pleasure in the fact that Irisviel, whose "childhood" had been spent in a place that was equally cold and unwelcoming but also managed to be quiet, found their residence an appealing blend of the familiar and the novel.
Still, Arika mused as she lay in bed, since Negi's departure, she had begun to find the quiet a bit overwhelming. Their 'guests' had been a breath of fresh air, but they'd been gone for a while now, and the quiet had resumed. Some music might be a welcome relief from this stultifying -
A very masculine scream, echoing through the house, broke her out of that chain of thought.
She dashed through the halls, murmuring a handful of protective spells to cover the fact that she'd had no time to dress and barely enough to grab her sword. By the time she reached her destination, Leysritt was already at the door in question, her halberd at ready. At a nod from Arika, the girl kicked open the door and went in with a pair of smooth motions, Arika following close behind.
Shiro was lying flat on his back in bed, one hand clenching his chest as he stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavily. Seated on the foot of the bed was a dark young lady with shoulder-length white hair and some familiar-looking facial tatoos, quite naked, using a file on her nails and showing absolutely no interest in the presence of two armed women.
"An explanation would seem to be in order," Arika said after a moment.
"Poyo," replied the young lady without looking up.
"You have been welcomed here as a guest many times," Arika continued. "I hope that this has not given you the false impression that you are permitted to drop in unannounced, and take advantage of our children."
Now the young lady paused in her manicure, but still did not look up. "Is that privilege yours alone poyo?" she asked, in a quiet and untroubled tone.
"What did you do to Shiro?" Arika demanded, choosing to ignore the implications of that remark. "He is -"
"I'm okay," Shiro said, managing to awkwardly sit up. "She didn't hurt me. If anything ..." He closed his eyes, shook his head. "... I don't think I've felt this ... I don't think I've felt, in a while, like I do now."
When he spoke, Arika's gaze remained locked on the demon. When he said that last, however, her eyes darted quickly in his direction, met his gaze, and saw something there which had been absent for far too long. She took a breath, suppressed her happiness, and returned her attention to the young lady seated on his bed. "You healed him," she said.
"... I put what ails him in abeyance, poyo," the crown princess of demons replied. "It shall return. Poyo. Nothing can stop this, poyo." She made a mild shrug. "Or almost nothing, poyo."
"Why did you do this?" demanded the Queen of Calamity.
The answer, when it came, was in Italian. "Vuolsi così colà dove si puote/ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare."
"That which willed it clearly does not know me very well," answered Arika.
Now Poyo looked up to meet Arika's gaze, and it was the golden-haired queen who looked away first.
"Poyo-sama," Shiro said, then. "Is there something I'm supposed to do with this ... extension of the time I was given?"
She kept staring up at Arika, before she finally turned to look at him. "Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth/And, O ye Dolphins', waft the hapless youth," she answered.
"... okay, even with my soul put back together, I've never been a very poetic person," Shiro replied after a moment. "The implications of that are lost on me."
Arika opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Irisviel and Ilya both arrived at the doorway. "All right, what new disaster goes on here?" the younger of the two demanded.
"Hi, Ilya," Shiro said with a soft smile.
The pregnant girl stopped dead in her tracks. "Shiro?" she asked, voice trembly.
Irisviel stared at him, then silently stared at Arika.
"We are going to Japan," Arika announced.
To Be Continued