Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 5
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How Many Roads
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"Greetings, young Negi, and welcome to my domain."
Negi looked around, taking in the vast columns and black and white marble that covered every surface…the style seemed vaguely Greek or Roman. "Hello? Who said that? How do you know my name?"
A man dressed in white and gold stepped out from behind a pillar. Even though his hair was silver, he had a youthful face. "My name is Ryvern; I am given to understand that you have been trying to contact me for some time. My apologies…I have been long asleep."
Negi looked at the man curiously. He wore a long, curved silver and white sword on his hip as though it were a part of his body. He was quite sure he had never met this man before, and his name was unfamiliar.
"I have protected you from the dreams that plague your allies," Ryvern continued, apparently expecting some sort of response. When Negi remained quiet, he frowned. "I grow weary of this. If you wish to ask questions of me, you know how to contact me," he said irritably.
Abruptly Negi sat up with a start in Asuna's bed, looking around with confusion plain on his face.
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"Listen girly, that other guy finally decided to wake up, and right now that goody two shoes is trying to turn the boy against me. We can't have that can we?" the man asked, looking at Asuna for an answer. When no reply was forthcoming, he sighed.
"Um…who are you again?" Asuna asked, yawning.
"Damn it girl…For the last time, my name is Malvrin. Ok? Malvrin. That's not too hard to remember is it?" the man asked. He was quite large, at least as tall as Max-sensei and much more heavily built, but not the least bit fat. He wore clothing made of stitched leather; not leather clothing in the modern sense, however, more like the Early Medieval European sense. He also wore a long black nodachi horizontally across his back on a sling like Setsuna sometimes did with Yuunagi. The oni horns on his head were unmistakable as well.
"You're an oni, right? Aren't you guys supposed to be red or blue or something?" Asuna asked sleepily, pointing out his perfectly human skin color.
"No. I am not an oni," he replied testily, as if they had been over this many times before. "An oni is a mythological creature in eastern superstition. I, however, am from what you people call the west. There. Question answered. Again." He put his hands on his hips and looked at her expectantly.
"…what?" Asuna asked.
"You really are clueless, aren't you?" the oni-man said.
Asuna glared.
"We're connected now, damn you. So you'd better shape up or I'll take over and kill everybody, got that?"
"Go away, I want some sleep," Asuna said, deciding to ignore the annoying oni-man, who stomped around and grumbled for a moment in frustration. Asuna turned away from him and climbed into the western-style bed that appeared suddenly beside her. "Turn the light off when you go," she mumbled sleepily.
Asuna suddenly found herself wide awake on the top bunk, with Negi clinging to her tightly. "Must've been a dream, I guess," she said aloud as she lay back down and pulled the blanket up.
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Days passed, and Negi's group continued their training, now commonly joined by Max, Jennifer, Akira, Yuuna, and Madoka.
"So," Kazumi said one day during a short break in training. The only ones taking a break were her, Kamo, Max, and Jennifer; everyone else was still training here in the forest or in Eva's resort. "Max-sensei, have you and Jennifer-san made a pactio?"
Kamo's ears perked up as he listened. Was there an opportunity to make a quick 50k here?
Max glanced at the woman beside him and smirked, then fished around in his pocket for a moment. "Does this answer your question?" he said, flicking a card at Kazumi, who plucked it from the air.
Kamo sighed in defeat…he had been too late.
She looked it over for a moment. "It looks a bit different from the others," she said after a moment. The picture was of Max-sensei in a mid length brown coat, jeans, and work boots with his back to the viewer, smirking over his shoulder while he held two oddly-curved swords...the overall effect made him look like a total thug. Kazumi grinned at that thought and turned her attention back to the swords. She supposed they might be some sort of machete, possibly. Unfortunately, she still didn't understand the significance of the numbers and bits of latin text on the cards, so she couldn't comment on that, much less read it.
"So Jennifer-san is the mage?"
"Honestly, both of us are mages, but she's the lead mage between the two of us. She may not look like it, but she's pretty strong," Max said, earning a smack on the arm for his troubles. "Violent too." Another smack.
'He is a different person when she's around,' Kazumi thought to herself. She had never seen him so…playful? Yes, that was the word.
"Don't pay any attention to him, Kazumi-san, he's an idiot," Jennifer said conspiratorially when she had finished with her domestic violence.
"Yeah, yeah. Idiot. I understand how it is, Miss D in English," Max replied. Jennifer stuck her tongue out.
Kazumi, not knowing how to respond to the odd behavior from the two before her, looked back down at the card and took a picture with the small digital camera she always carried.
"I suppose we could probably add Akira in, if she wanted. But she's so strong she doesn't really need it," Max said after a moment.
Jennifer laughed. "That's true. Akira-chan's so strong, I'm tempted to ask for a pactio myself," she said and smiled at the girl in question, who was practicing her basic magic on the other side of the clearing. Oddly enough, Akira could incant spells in plain Japanese…Eva theorized that it had something to do with being able to use magic naturally, rather than being trained into it the way most mages were. It was very uncommon, but not unheard of.
"Eh…?" Kazumi's open mouthed look of surprise caught the two Americans off guard.
"What is it?"
"You would kiss Akira-chan?"
"…what?"
"For the pactio," Kazumi explained hesitantly. Was she missing something?
Max and Jennifer looked at each other and Jennifer laughed.
"There are other ways to make a pactio than through a kiss," Max said as he noticed a certain ermine slowly edging away from the scene.
"There are?"
"Well, most of them involve formal ceremonies, but yes," Jennifer said, then took a dainty bite of her sandwich.
"Kissing's probably the quickest," Max said thoughtfully. "But yes, there are other ways. Any sort of…ah…" he glanced at Jennifer. "Swapping of bodily fluid will work as long as the pactio circle is present. Other than that, there are about half a dozen different ceremonies I know of that you can use, though they're almost like marriage ceremonies when you think about it." He sat back and took a sip of coke. "That's what's generally used for two people of the same sex, though I suppose kissing would be easier. You can do the whole 'blood brothers' thing and swap blood too, but that's a bit unsanitary."
"I see…" Kazumi said, scrunching up her nose in thought. It seemed as though this whole pactio business was much more complicated than she had originally thought. She passed the card back to Max. "Can I see it?" she asked.
Max nodded and stood up. "Adeat." And suddenly he was wearing the clothing from the card in place of what he had worn before. He offered one of the swords hilt-first to Kazumi, who accepted it carefully. She had never been a weapon person, and was wary of cutting herself accidentally.
"It's light," she said in surprise. "lighter than it looks, anyway," she added after a moment.
"It's called a Falcata. The way the handle is made distinguishes it from other types with a similar blade shape," Max explained. "These are a bit different from the real thing, though. They're longer and wider for one thing, and the balance is quite a bit different."
"I see," Kazumi said. She quickly passed the blade back and wiped her hands off on the grass. She didn't like handling that sword.
"Abeat," Max said with a wry smile. He had seen the look Kazumi gave the two weapons, and knew quite well that it was a look they well deserved. His missions with the American Division hadn't always been peaceful after all, and those two swords were wickedly sharp.
"Here comes Akira, time to get back to practice," Max said as the group got back to their feet.
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Roy Wheeler was a fugitive.
He had desperately downloaded a copy of Rally and then done what he could to delete it permanently from the company's servers; he had then formatted his own personal workstation before he left the lab for the last time, but he had been discovered and that bastard Donner had ordered security to arrest him. He had somehow managed to slip away, bluffing the guards with a modified laser his team had been developing for the robot project. The guards had assumed it was dangerous, but Wheeler was well aware that the laser would have had trouble heating anything bigger than a piece of toast. But nevertheless, he had made it to the parking lot and escaped in his car.
So here he was almost a week later, parked in a deserted camping area with his account frozen and barely a thousand yen left in his pocket. His car was almost out of gas, and there was nowhere to go. He couldn't go home, the apartment complex would be watched…not that there was anything for him there anyway. Not since Rally. He carefully unwrapped the candy bar that was his lunch as he considered his options.
He had been here since sunset the day before. He had had to sleep the night in the car and had gone out into the bushes to relieve himself when he awoke. It was uncomfortable, but he had spent many nights curled up on an office chair or slumped over on a desk, so it wasn't as if he couldn't cope with it. At least there were some vending machines nearby.
He had no family here, no friends that he could trust. The head of the Yukihiro Group was an old friend, but the company had probably already been notified of his 'crimes', and would promptly have him arrested if he showed himself. He would have left the country if he had had the funds, but he didn't have enough left to do anything but buy a cheap dinner. His thoughts returned to Ayaka-chan; for some reason, she had been targeted by one of the robots in the latest test. He had always thought of her as another daughter, giving her presents when he visited her father on business from time to time. It was odd…even after not seeing her for three years, he easily recognized her.
Maybe she could help somehow…? He pulled out his roadmap and searched for Mahora, wishing again that he had thought to grab his cell phone before his escape.
He was so intent on his search that he didn't even notice the robot approaching until his window shattered under the weight of its fist.
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Chisame grumbled to herself again. She had been feeling quite paranoid lately, what with having that Kugimiya girl forced on her. She hadn't slept well either. The cheerleader had been very quiet for a change, but that didn't help much when one considered that she had been reassigned to Chisame's room, when Chisame was someone who loved her privacy.
Then there was the whole Chiu issue. She still wasn't comfortable doing that with another person around, much less an ex-gossip like Kugimya. But she had no choice, her fans wanted more, and she was bound and determined to deliver.
She knew Kugimiya had her own issues, but still…couldn't they have put her somewhere else?
Chisame glanced up from her computer screen to where the other girl lay curled up on the bed, covered by the blanket so that only the very top of her head was visible. She cried sometimes at night, muffling her sobs with her pillow until she woke up and stopped. Apparently Kugimiya was taking this whole 'Magic Is Real' thing pretty badly…
It never crossed Chisame's mind that the other girl was more concerned about dreams of the man she had almost killed with her bare hands months ago than the existence of magic. When she thought about the incident at all, Chisame figured that it been necessary, so it wasn't an issue.
The other girl was a hard worker, even Chisame would admit that. But still…she wasn't a child anymore. There was nothing to cry over, here.
That long haired cheerleader, Kakizaki, had come by once during the day when Kugimiya was out and asked about her. Apparently, Kugimiya had been avoiding both of the other cheerleaders, and they were worried. While Chisame had told them Kugimiya was fine, she hadn't mentioned the crying or blank staring the other girl would often do when she deigned to come to the dorm room. Kugimiya spent very little time in the room other than to sleep, and there was no need to make the cheerleaders worry needlessly. It wasn't as if Chisame were cruel, after all. Just annoyed. Vastly, greatly, annoyed.
Kugimiya made a weird sucking noise, and Chisame knew the other girl was about to get started again, so she put on her earbuds and turned on her mp3 player. It would be another long night.
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A vague feeling of doom flowed throughout the dorm. Things seemed bad, friendships were dying, and people who had previously been on the same road were now forced to walk separate paths.
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Ayaka frowned in concentration as she sat in bed, considering what she knew. That violent monkey Asuna-san was hiding something from her that involved Negi-sensei and several of their classmates. It wasn't so much the fact that they were hiding things from her as the errant sense that they thought she couldn't take it, that she couldn't handle the truth of whatever it was. Well, Ayaka was no shrinking violet or fragile glass rose. She could take it, she could take anything. Well, almost anything, she amended, thinking of Negi-sensei. She resolved to face Asuna-san the next day after class and make her explain things. The girl had no right to keep things from her. She was her eternal rival, after all.
"Iincho…?" Natsumi asked sleepily from her bunk. "Why are you up so late?"
"It's nothing," the blonde said as she lay down and pulled her blanket up. "Go back to sleep."
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Misa and Sakurako looked at each other as a deep feeling of loss drifted heavily through the room. Madoka's absence was a black hole, sucking up all light and energy to make them focus on her empty bed and the drawers where she had previously kept her things. Madoka had left almost a week ago, but they were still feeling her loss. They had always been three, ever since the beginning. Each one of them secretly hoped they always would be three, even after school or college. But that hope…
"She'll be ok," Misa said after a moment to break the silence and immediately regretted it.
Sakurako just gave her a sad look from where she was sprawled lifelessly across her bed.
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Long after Chisame logged off and went to sleep, Madoka lay half awake. She knew Misa and Sakurako had been hurt when she left the dorm room so abruptly, but she couldn't help it, she had to get away from them. She saw the look Misa gave her from time to time, remembered well the look of horror on her friend's face when she had beaten that man with a baseball bat, or when she had almost killed the other one with her fists. She had discreetly asked Max-sensei once about that one, but the PE teacher had just shook his head and told her the man was still in a coma.
And somehow, the looks Sakurako shot her once in a while were far worse. Those glances just screamed 'I know what you did, Madoka, but it's ok.' She knew the other girl was trying to comfort her in her own, odd way, but…Madoka didn't think she could stand the pity she thought she saw in the other girl's gaze any longer. It dug at her mind like some kind of weird…mole. Or something. 'I need to get some sleep,' she thought in a daze as she realized how weird that previous thought had been. That was immediately followed by a mental image of one of those moles with the nose-feelers and Sakurako's hairstyle. 'I definitely need some sleep.'
She didn't want those two involved in this dangerous place she was now a part of, either. Misa was just a normal girl, after all. And Sakurako was too pure-hearted to be exposed to something like that.
Madoka turned over on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. She had little appetite and hadn't gotten much sleep lately, and it was starting to show. Her grades were slipping dangerously, for one thing, and she often found herself staring out the window at nothing during class, not even thinking. Once, while picking at her lunch alone, she had actually passed out. No one had found her, and she woke up after a moment by herself, but the fact that such a thing had actually happened had been quite terrifying…she had never done that before. Her life was rapidly coming apart, and she had no idea what to do about it.
She shuddered and turned over again.
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Author's Note: *sigh* Downer ending, emo crying, and misunderstandings all around. What else could you ask for? Also, Madoka went all depressed on us. Who knew almost killing a man could cause someone to have a breakdown like that? Chisame's clueless, and Iincho's feelings are hurt. Incidentally, Wheeler's car is an R34-style Skyline GTR, which he bought for the interior space. *headdesk*