A Tale of NeverBeens
Tale Two: Luck
Mei Sakura had always known that danger dogged her every step—being a mage was a danger in its own right—but the danger that followed her now seemed less a result of who she was than what she was.
Mei Sakura was lucky.
As a child, she had been tested for magic and found to hold potential. After preliminary training, Luminarium Academy in America accepted her with a full two-year scholarship. Then, having gone to Luminarium for less than a year, she was picked to be the apprentice of Takane Goodman, eldest daughter of one of the most prestigious magic families in the world. The two's accomplishments in their missions had given Mei, if not fame and prestige, the respect and friendship of her colleagues.
Now she trained in Mahora Academy which was one of, if not the, most well known schools of magic research.
Without a doubt, Mei was lucky, but Takane was the polar opposite. Embarrassing situation after embarrassing situation, accidents that evaded logistics, but even so, Takane still felt like an older sister to Mei.
But now, this very same sister lay lying on the ground in front of her in the middle of a small but growing pool of blood.
"Takane-neechan…"
She stared past her spattered red hands at her dear friend's still body, and fell to her knees, then to her hands. Her blood-soaked hands slapped into the red liquid. Tears dripped from her eyes.
She had stolen all of Takane's luck.
The zing of a bullet startled her. Above her, a still-spinning bullet hung arrested in mid-air. It began to vibrate, and Mei scrambled backwards with a cry. She made out the barely visible tint of Takane's summoned shadow. Metal pushed valiantly against magic, but in the end, magic won.
The bullet hit the ground with a clink, joining the sea of metal cylinders that surrounded her on all sides.
She shuddered and the panic returned.
"Takane!" She shook the wounded mage. The blood staining her hands only served to increase her efforts.
Takane grimaced and groaned, eyes clenched shut. Mei jumped back. She gasped. "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm sorry, just… please wake up!"
She buried her face in her hands, crying, not caring that doing so made red rivulets run down her face.
---
"Takane-neechan, how do I look?" Mei asked, clutching a white dress to her chest. She spun around, giggling.
It was not often Mei got to go shopping with Takane. In fact, she could count the number of times they had done something frivolous together on her fingers. Well, if she had three hands, but that was beside the point.
Takane scrutinized the dress. "It's nice, proper for a girl your age. I approve."
Mei whirled to a stop, rosy cheeked and smiling. Takane smiled back, but she seemed distracted, like something was on her mind.
"What's wrong?" Mei asked, but the answer was, of course, that nothing was wrong. A little hurt that Takane still kept things from her, she pouted, "You never tell me anything."
Takane laughed lightly, covering her mouth with a hand. "If you knew what I knew, then you'd be the master and I'd be the apprentice."
Mei stuck out her tongue.
Her master lifted and eyebrow. "That's not proper behavior for a lady, Mei."
Mei rolled her eyes. "Yes, sensei."
Takane rapped Mei lightly on the head and began giving Mei a lecture about proper attitude, but then, without warning, she stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes narrowed and she looked left, right. "Mei, stay behind me."
The transition from smiles to dead seriousness startled Mei, but her training took over. She stepped behind Takane.
All of a sudden, she realized that there was no "behind" in the open plaza. She realized an even more alarming fact: the shopping plaza was empty.
Mei mimicked Takane, eyes darting left then right. There was not a single soul around. Not even the lady who had, only moments before, shown her the dress she was still holding.
"Mei, down!"
Shadows rose into the air around them. Mei flattened herself against the ground, but Takane remained standing.
Thinking back, Mei would wonder if it would have gone any different if Takane had taken her own advice.
There was a sharp whistle, and then a ping. A bullet rolled to a stop in front of Mei's face. Mei touched the bullet, recoiled from the heat. There was a blur of red where she had touched it. She held up her hand. It was covered with flecks of red as if from a paintbrush. She touched her face, and came away with more of the warm, sticky stuff.
Mei looked up. Takane gave her a weak smile and collapsed. There was a heavy thud, and then the shadows rose up around them on all sides, a final bastion.
And that was how an ordinary shopping trip had segued into a living nightmare.
---
Mei wiped her face, only slightly calmer. Slightly meant that, while she was no longer screaming, it was all she could do to sit there, shaking.
"Princess, you can't hide behind that shield forever. You know what I want, and it's not you." A voice, echoed in the empty plaza.
Mei quickly put two and two together. Takane's family was famous and such a family had countless enemies.
Another bullet, but this time the shadow didn't stop it completely. The bullet nicked Mei's cheek, drawing blood. She touched the wound and flinched.
Where was the assassin? She searched the surrounding buildings, every window, every rooftop, all to no avail.
"I-I'm not letting you take Takane away from me!"
"Seems like it's only a matter of time, princess. Why don't you give up now? I might be a professional killer, but I don't believe in unnecessary bloodshed."
A bullet hit the ground near her feet, sending up a spray of red. She was kneeling in a pool of blood.
Something in her snapped.
"Hypocrite!" she screamed and shot to her feet.
She pulled out her wand from her pocket, leaving a red smear on her pants. Magic swirled around her, fiery red, a vortex of raw emotions. A chorus of bullets sang out, but Takane's shadow knocked them off course so they gouged stone instead of flesh.
Mei, power coursing through her body, saw the faint flash of a gun atop a faraway building.
"There you are!"
The vortex of magic erupted out and up, into the air, taking on the shapes of arrows mid-flight. They drew an arc in the sky, then fell like a hail of missiles on the building. The roof was consumed by a massive explosion.
When the dust cleared, nothing remained of the top floor. The heat of the flames had melted the stone smooth.
As she stood there, breathing heavily, the shadow, with the last of its strength used up, disappeared. The roar in her ears faded away. Mei clutched her wand and shook.
The whistle of a bullet shattered the silence.
Pain ripped through her leg. She screamed, clutching her leg, falling onto her back. She screamed until her voice cracked and splintered. Tears blurred her vision. It was all she could do to remain conscious.
"Displacement magic charms. Useful things, but they cost quite a pretty penny."
Mei looked behind her, teeth clenched to keep from crying out.
The assassin held a burning scrap of paper and watched it disappear in a wisp of smoke. Lips distorted by the blur of her tears smiled. It was a tight-lipped smile, no teeth. It was a hateful smile.
Mei whipped her wand at him. There was a bang and the wand leapt out of her hand before she could even open her mouth.
"Like I said, I don't like unnecessary bloodshed." He lowered his rifle and walked over to her. With a sigh, he squatted down in front of her.
Mei bristled. She lashed out at him, but he caught her hand effortlessly.
Using the barrel of his gun, he tipped up her chin so they were eye to eye.
His eyes were light blue, almost white, and cold, with a hard edge. Mei didn't look away. She hated him too much to be afraid.
"So," he said, "are you going to be a good girl and let me do my job, or do I have to pull the trigger?
She said nothing.
"So… gonna be a good girl?"
Mei smiled and spat in his face.
"When hell freezes over."
"I see."
He made a show of standing, taking every movement exquisitely slow. Then, reaching full height, he spun and kicked her with his heel. The impact snapped her head to the side and threw her back. She slid until she crashed into a crate. Its contents were sent clattering to the ground.
"I don't feel like satisfying your suicide wish, princess." He cracked his neck. "There's no bounty on your head."
Mei groaned and lifted her head. The assassin aimed his gun at Takane's prone form. Fresh tears leaked from her eyes. Her vision blurred again.
Why was she so powerless? All the things she had learned, useless. She clenched shut her eyes.
"Yo, big guy with the gun."
Mei snapped open her eyes.
"Picking on girls, what kind of man are you?"
She caught a look of bewilderment on the man's face before Kotaro was upon him.
Kotaro gave the assassin a good, hefty kick in the side that knocked him off his feet and into the air.
The assassin regained his feet, but in that moment, Kotaro's fist sent him flying again. His response was a series of gunshots, but Kotaro evaded the bullets with inhuman speed.
"You monster!"
"Why thanks," Kotaro smirked and launched a blurred mass of black energy at the assassin. The energy resolved into the form of a black wolf.
A second before the wolf tore him into pieces, the assassin vanished, leaving behind only a burning slip of paper drifting to the ground.
Kotaro spun around, but he was too late. A trio of bullets pierced through Kotaro's back. The boy collapsed onto his knees, fell forward, and hit the ground face first.
"Kotaro!"
The assassin wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth. "That'll teach you to mess with me."
"Ho, that was close."
"Wha…?"
The assassin took a step back from the three Kotaros that had appeared out of the blue, one squatting, one looking over his shoulder, and one resting using his shoulder as an armrest.
"But what was that? Instant movement?" they spoke in unison. "You really are something, aren't you?"
"What? How did you–?" he began, but the one behind him clamped a hand over his mouth and held razor sharp nails to his neck.
The other two Kotaros crossed their arms and said, "One wrong move and he'll—I mean I'll skewer you."
Mei closed her eyes in relief. She felt herself begin to drift. Her body was one aching mass of pain and her head felt like it was about to split apart.
"Mei."
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. Kotaro stood over her with a concerned look.
"Are you all right, Mei?"
Mei sniffed, nodded, and took his proffered hand. Her leg screamed as Kotaro pulled her up and helped her stand.
"Ouch, ouch, careful. Whoa–" Mei wrapped her arms around Kotaro's neck for balance.
At that moment, the assassin slammed his head into the Kotaro clone behind him hard enough to send it flying away. He spun, slapping away another clone with his gun.
"Like I'm going to–"
Words turned to a scream. He swung the barrel of his rifle at the last clone, whose hand had impaled his side. As the clone was knocked away, its entire hand came out of the assassin's wound with a slurp.
"–to just let it end like this," he finished, staggering. "It's not over, you little brats!"
The assassin turned his gun on them. Kotaro narrowed his eyes and Mei could feel him tense.
The assassin laughed. "Die!"
A giant fuuma shuriken struck the ground just as the assassin pulled the trigger. The bullets pinged harmlessly off the weapon. A figure landed behind the shuriken.
"Sorry it took us so long to get here. There was a barrier we had to break through."
"Nagase-san?"
"Yo. You're late, Kaede-neesan."
On the other side of the impromptu shield, the assassin cursed as he reloaded his weapon. "That guy didn't tell me–"
A single, sharp crack of gunfire cut him off. He was thrown backwards off his feet, blood spurting from his head. He hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Mei gasped.
"Don't worry; he's just unconscious," Kaede said. "Mana doesn't shoot to kill."
"But… all the blood."
"Hey, he'd bleed too if I socked him in the head," Kotaro swaggered.
"Ah, there they are."
"They?"
A group of mages in white robes arrived on the scene. One of them began shouting orders and within moments, the group had the assassin in custody. The man wasn't in much shape to retaliate, but they took no chances, handcuffing him, paralyzing his body with magic, the works.
Two cars drove into the plaza: an ambulance and a police car, both emblazoned with Mahora Academy's emblem.
Kaede gave Mei a wink. "I'm going to go keep Mana company. You rest well, okay?"
Mei nodded.
"See you around," said Kaede, and then the girl vanished.
One of the mages broke off from the rest of the group and came over to where Kotaro and Mei were standing.
"Did you do something again, Kotaro-kun?'
Kotaro crossed his arms. "It's not my fault this time."
The man ruffled the boy's hair and laughed. "Well that's good. You cause us enough trouble as it is. At least you're on our side this time."
Mei took one hand off of Kotaro's neck and gripped the man's robe. "Please," she said when he looked at her. "Please, help Takane-neechan."
He smiled. "Of course. The healers are already on it. You should get your wound looked at too."
True to his words, a three of the mages were bent over Takane. The warm glow of healing magic enveloped her body.
"Feh, campus security," Kotaro growled. He raked a hand through his hair. "I can't stand those guys."
Mei watched as the healers wrapped Takane up with careful motions and then slowly lifted her up into the ambulance. When Takane was tucked into a stretcher, she sagged against Kotaro, relieved and exhausted.
"Hey, hey, wait. You're going to make me fall."
One of the nearby mages helped steady the pair and took over the job of keeping Mei upright. A healer soon came to her and attended to her leg wound. She looked away as the mage drew out the bullet and sealed up the wound.
"Think you can stand?"
"Yes. Thanks."
The healer smiled and walked away.
"Here, take this," Kotaro said all of a sudden, and tossed her a shiny object.
Mei turned it over in her hands. It was a hairpin, nondescript except for its vaguely flower-shaped design.
"What's it for?"
"A good luck charm. I just happened to have it." Kotaro rubbed his nose. "Natsumi-neechan was going to throw it away, but I thought it looked good, so…" He trailed off.
"Uh… thanks," she murmured.
Mei looked down, very aware that she was blushing.
Fortunately, one of the healers chose that moment to come over and tell Mei, "We're ready to go. Would you like to ride with Goodman-san?"
She nodded.
Kotaro cleared his throat. "Uh, well, I'll see you around then. Hope your sister gets better quickly."
"Th-thanks."
As Mei got into the ambulance, she saw Kaede reappear next to Kotaro. "Good work today, Kotaro-kun," she said.
"Ha, it was nothing."
"Training tomorrow, same place, same time?"
"You got it, Kaede-neesan."
Kotaro…kun, eh?
She blushed and shook her head. She turned her gaze to where Takane lay, no longer in any danger, and let a small smile slip onto her face.
As the ambulance sirens began to blare, Mei couldn't help but feel that maybe it was all right to be lucky.
~Fin.
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The rights and properties of Negima and all associated versions of Negima are owned by Ken Akamatsu. All other elements are completely original.
Story written by Eternal Longing.