Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 10
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Pouring Like An Avalanche Coming Down The Mountain
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Another afternoon, another day of school ended. Chisame headed back to the dorm as she usually did, almost tripped over some air conditioner repairmen in the hallway on the first floor, and trudged up the stairs to her floor. She unlocked the door to her room and entered, flipping on the light and tossing her bag lightly to the bed. A quick glance was all that was necessary to confirm that her new roommate was not present, and that put a smile on her face. She had been itching to update Chiu's website, but hadn't felt comfortable doing it in front of the other girl, so she had been putting it off. One quick clothing change later and she was seated in front of her computer, but was quickly interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" she called out.
"We were working on the air conditioner unit downstairs, and we need to check the airflow in your room. Can we come in?"
Annoyed, Chisame told them to wait a moment and quickly changed into something more…normal than her latest Chiu outfit and hid anything that might be embarrassing, then opened the door to allow the repairmen inside. Almost immediately, a hand was clapped over her mouth and she was shoved back into the room and pushed down on her stomach on the floor. Something jabbed her in the neck, and only then did the man let go of her. Almost immediately, her extremities began to feel cold and her mind started to drift.
'They injected me with something,' she thought as she watched the two men, who had left her lying in the floor, ransack the room until one of them dumped the contents of her bag onto her bed.
"Found it," he announced as he picked up the mini laptop she had taken from Iincho's room.
"Chisame-san, are you here? I…" Chisame distantly recognized Kugimiya's voice and tried to shout, tried to tell her to run away and get Negi-sensei. It came out something like 'wuhhh, wuth'. Her tongue felt like a balloon. The sounds of a struggle drifted to her ears, followed by a sudden gasp and the sound of a body collapsing to the floor. She tried to turn her head to see what had happened, but she didn't even have the energy to lift it from the floor.
The last thing she heard was one of the repairmen. "Ok, got both targets and the computer. Let 'em know."
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"Where are they all coming from?!" One of the magic students shouted over the din of battle. Just bare moments before school let out, a massive army of robots had come up out of the river and sewer system at the eastern entrance to the academy. The defenses were instantly put in place and all magic teachers warned of the attack, which sent them scrambling to stop the robots. Wards were quickly put up to keep the normal people out and block any sound or sight of what was about to happen, and the battle was joined as the first wave of robots was blasted back by the magic teachers.
Still, they were vastly outnumbered, almost twenty robots for every mage teacher present. The first responders were thus quickly overwhelmed by the robots that just kept pouring in by the dozens through the narrow entrance.
By the time Max arrived, the situation was dire as the second wave of mage teachers was forced back by hundreds of robots. He recognized a blonde woman he had seen around campus push Touko-sensei out of the way of a ponderous punch by one of the robots only to get hit herself; the low, echoing grunt she made was somehow more poignant than any scream could have been. She was promptly stepped on as the machines continued inexorably forward.
"Max-sensei, you have to use your fire, blow them all away!" a student from one of the fighting clubs called out desperately as he tried to avoid a robot that lunged at him.
"I can't, there are people in there!" Max replied as he looked grimly at the sea of metal and plastic. Several of them had picked up fallen defenders and held them up like shields. "Damn it!" he cursed as he dove in, magically-charged fists flying. He had changed, he told himself. He would never do things like that again. Those who were still capable followed his example and waded in swinging while others settled in for precision sagita magica. With wide scale magic out of the question, this was what it came down to, after all.
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Natsumi was shaking in fear. Seconds ago she had heard a scream from next door, followed by the sound of a short scuffle and the heavy thump of a body falling on the floor. Terrified and alone in the dorm room she shared with Kotarou-kun, Iincho, and Chizu-nee, she had opened the door to the hallway just enough to peak out.
The hallway had been filled with men in grayish blue coveralls, one of whom was dragging a heavy cloth bag with the unmistakable shape of a human body inside.
Natsumi had ducked back inside before any of them saw her, and looked around frantically for a moment for a place to hide. Someone turned the doorknob behind her, but she had thankfully had enough sense to lock the door when she closed it.
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The man in the hallway opened the door and pocketed his lockpicks before stepping inside. He looked in the usual places; under the bed, in the shower, in the closet, but the room was empty. He pulled out a walkie-talkie and pressed a button. "Eraser, this is Twenty-Two. Targets Code Life, Gold, and Black are not in primary location, over." He listened to the response. "I copy, over and out." He left the room after that, shutting the door carefully behind him.
After a moment, the lower cupboard in the bathroom opened up and Natsumi poked her head out and looked around. The sounds in the hallway were dying down now. There was no more muffled conversation, just the sound of someone walking quickly through the hallway toward the stairs; then silence. She curled up inside the cupboard again, pulled the door shut, and started to cry.
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Setsuna arrived at the site of the robot battle just in time to save Max-sensei from getting overwhelmed. Sliding Yuunagi from its sheath, she laid waste to the robots surrounding the PE teacher, then proceeded to cut a swath through those still coming on while Konoka stayed in the back, healing those injured by the fighting. Max limped back and joined the non-combatants to catch his breath.
He was absurdly glad to see the blonde woman who had been hit and stepped on earlier lying awake on a makeshift pallet, covered in bandages. She spotted him looking at her and gave a painful half grin and a truly ridiculous thumbs up, considering her condition.
Max couldn't help but grin back at her between big gulps of water. As grim as the situation could be, there were always moments like these that made one see the light at the end of the tunnel if one knew where to look for them.
"Are you ready yet, Max-sensei?" someone asked. Then another shout from farther away caught his attention. "They're getting too close, move the injured further back! Hurry!"
The fire elemental grunted as he stood up and dusted off his pants. Time to get back to work.
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Some time later, it was finally over. No one knew how many were dead or injured, and the last of the robots had retreated or been destroyed. Jennifer looked out over the field of battle with an exhausted gaze. Things had gotten so chaotic after the robots overran the front lines and swarmed through the back, where the injured had been taken earlier, that any semblance of order had been lost. For a while there, it had gotten down to individuals being forced to hold their own in a sea of machinery, some forced to climb up trees and light poles to escape capture. Few were uninjured, and quite a few people were still missing.
Even now, command had yet to be restored, and people seemed to be randomly wandering the battlefield, all staring at the ground. Someone started crying out beyond the dense smoke around the gate, and the sound was so lonesome that Jennifer shivered.
"They say that when you shiver like that, a goose stepped on your grave," Takahata said as he strolled up to stand beside her. His ripped clothing and the hasty bandage tied around his hand showed that he hadn't weathered the attack unharmed, but he was much better off than so many others. "I'm sure he's fine," he said after a moment.
Max hadn't yet returned.
Jennifer reached out and hesitantly took Takahata's uninjured hand in her own, and dragged him out into the battlefield. She didn't want to be alone in that field of death.
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"Come on, this isn't healthy, man," Gotokuji said. He had a bad burn on his arm and a very painful bruise on his stomach, but he was otherwise unharmed. The fighter had come upon Max just as the girl slipped away. "There wasn't anything you could do for her."
"I know that," Max snapped. He looked back down at the girl. Barely fifteen, just a kid. She had clung to him so tightly at the end…even now, so long afterward, her arms were thrown around his waist, her small fist was still knotted in the back of his torn shirt. "Will you help me with…?" he asked the other man, unable to say what he needed to say.
"Sure."
Together, they disentangled the poor girl's arms, and Max stood up painfully, the big bruise on his leg making itself known.
He had seen the girl take the robot's punch and the blood spray from her mouth, and knew he was too late even as he rushed to her side. He hadn't even known the girl's name, he had only seen her once or twice in all the time he had spent at Mahora.
She hadn't spoken a word, just looked up at him pleadingly with blood dribbling from her mouth, and he had pulled her into his lap and hugged her until she was gone, letting her know someone cared. It was more than anyone but Jennifer would have done for him, but he didn't care. The situation had just been so pitiful… She looked so much like his old friend Rikki, who had met a similar fate many years before. Not her face, exactly, but…that expression and her eyes. He forced the old memory down and returned to the task at hand.
He took off the remains of his coat and laid it over the girl, then took a good long look at the carnage all around. "Over there," he said finally, pointing to a nearby mound of broken robots and the injured man who sat leaning against them.
Gotokuji nodded and led the way.
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The next day, the students were told that there had been a terrorist attack on a facility bordering the school, and due to the investigation into the circumstances behind the attack, school would be canceled for the next two weeks until things settled down. The students were to return to their real homes if at all possible, though there would be special exceptions made for those with unusual circumstances.
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The list of dead and missing was passed out among the teachers early the next day, followed by much crying and gnashing of teeth as names were recognized and people were remembered.
Negi somehow managed to hold back his tears, but was lucky enough to have none of his students or friends listed as dead. Instead, nine of his students were listed as missing, all of them among his close circle of friends.
According to the stories of the survivors, Setsuna had been injured by an exploding robot and Konoka had run out into the battle toward her, neither was seen again. Ku Fei had dove into the battle and was quickly lost from sight due to her small stature…she hadn't been seen since. Kazumi, Yue, Nodoka, and Haruna had been on campus far from the battle, but had disappeared none the less. According to video from the security cameras, a group of people had infiltrated the dorms under cover as a team of air conditioner repairmen and captured several of the students, Misa, Sakurako, Chisame and Madoka among them. The other missing students must have been snatched as they moved around the campus. Others he had been familiar with were missing as well, including the magic students Takane D. Goodman and Sakura Mei, among others. Oddly, many of those who had been captured or used as human shields by the robots were released soon afterward…none of them remembered what had happened to them or why they had suddenly become aware while wandering around by the river, but it was generally thought among the mage teachers that these people were captured in error by badly programmed robots, and then hypnotized or drugged to forget what had happened.
Surprisingly, only four people had been killed…one student, one teacher, and two civilians who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were over a hundred injured, however, and another dozen or so other than Negi's students were still missing. Many of the injured were those who had been used as human shields by the robots; suffering bruised and broken ribs and arms for the most part. Apparently, some of the robots had been programmed to snatch anyone that came close. These people had been held hostage by the robots throughout the battle until they were dropped abruptly during the retreat at the end, or were found wandering around dazed later. The whole incident brought back uneasy memories of what had happened during the summer, and there were rumors of an impending mass exodus of students transferring out.
But still…
Negi's eyes watered as he looked over the list again. If he hadn't gotten them involved…
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Author's Note: Eh…was that okay? Anyway, that was a big battle, but it was only a diversion as specialized teams went and abducted various students. Pretty basic plan, there, but effective when your opponents don't have enough people to defend against the robots
Also, in case you couldn't remember, Gotokuji is the guy with the pompadour haircut that commentated alongside Chachamaru during the tournament at the festival in the manga.