This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.


"… Well then… It was a heart attack and a half to get out of there… Thanks to you two idiots deciding that being suspicious of each other was better than being safe…"

Kamijou said this loud enough for the two in question to hear her as she quickly ran out of the way of the translucent cafeteria doors she had just come out of, a rather buff student right behind her taking up a majority of the door way. After she was out of the way of a horrible death by crushing, Kamijou leaned herself against a wall and took a look at the two 'idiots', who had completely ignored her complaints.

The red haired magician stood in the center of the hallway, practically looming over the prisoner she had just captured inside of the cafeteria, an intense killing aura emanating off of her and keeping the prisoner in place out of fear of death or worse.

The prisoner, who Kamijou had yet to get a good look at, was leaning against the wall in a similar fashion, their head tilted down and their hands still raised above her head. From what Kamijou could see of the prisoner's face, there was a clear look of worry on her face.

The prisoner looked to Kamijou to be a perfectly ordinary student, around Kamijou's height, with long black hair bound up into two braids that went down her back. A pair of thick glasses hid the prisoner's eyes when they were in direct light, keeping some of her expression hidden. The girl's uniform consisted of a cream colored top with a red bow around her neck, with a black patterned skirt, and black tights underneath.

After taking a few moments to take in the appearance of the prisoner, Kamijou could only sigh, and have her mind wander as to the magician's abilities of deduction.

If I were the observing the scene from before, I would have just guessed that this girl was completely normal compared to everything else. I can't even begin to think up a way that this stupid magician was able to figure out that this girl was on our side of the barrier. She said something like… 'The girl was just too normal for the scene'… or something like that? I think the true answer is that she just randomly guessed that someone was an enemy and got it correct.

Sighing again, Kamijou returned her attention to two other girls, who seemed to have chosen to completely ignore the student, regardless of what she thought or said. The magician stared down at her prisoner, who, either out of fear or defiance, choose not to return the gaze. The magician continued this stalemate for a few seconds more, before sighing herself, and launching into the interrogation.

"So… Now that the fear of death is no longer lingering over our heads… Well, for some of us anyway… How about you start chatting with me for a bit? I assure you that I am an excellent source of communication."

The prisoner looked up at the magician, her face the picture of one who could see through a stupid offer. The magician continued to stare at her prisoner, a sinister looking smile slowly forming on her lips.

"What, not in a mood to talk? Does a cat have your tongue or something? I'm sure that if you tried your hardest you could probably find it in yourself to put forth some effort to speak."

The magician's prisoner continued to look up at the magician with an untrusting expression, clearly displaying her unwillingness to talk, before looking down at the ground at the magician's feet.

Kamijou cracked a smile at the scene before her, astounded at the defiance the prisoner was showing towards the magician.

Looks like Miss Rune Magic doesn't get her way all of the time. I wonder how in the world she'll deal with this.

Kamijou turned to look at the magician, fully expecting for the girls face to be as red as her hair, but was disappointed at the sight that awaited her.

The magician looked like the picture of serenity, the sinister smile still on her face, and a hand pinching the bridge of her nose in a single gesture of annoyance. After a few moments of standing in this position, the magician lowered her hand from her face with a sigh.

"Well… You can't tell me later that I didn't try to be civil."

Kamijou tilted her head in confusion at the magician's choice of words, but instantly gained insight as to the magician's words.

The magician reached up and grabbed the back of her prisoners head, and before the other student could react in any way, Kamijou saw the magician pull the prisoner's head down and simultaneously bring her knee up.

The resulting force of the hit sent the prisoner slamming back against the wall and slowly slid down in a daze. Blood was freely flowing down the girls face from an obviously broken nose, and the magician looked down at the dazed prisoner with an annoyed glare, stretching as if her muscles were somehow tired.

"Now then… Do you feel at all chatty now? I won't say that I will cease any physical persuasion at my disposal… But I would like you to either understand, or at the very least remember what your position is."

A tiny bit of light returned to the prisoner's eyes as the magician said this, and after a moment of apparent contemplation, the prisoner narrowed her eyes at the magician in further defiance.

The magician saw the defiance in the prisoner's eyes, and, after sighing to herself in annoyance, reached out and grabbed the collar of her prisoner, lifting her up so that they were staring eye to eye.

"Listen to me… Do you think that you are going to get away with everything you have done in here? You may be a member of this city, meaning that I have very little jurisdiction about your fate… but that is only once we are free from this place. In here… No one would really know or care about your fate."

The magician locked gazes with her prisoner, whose blood was still freely flowing, the gravity of her words slowly weighing down the atmosphere of the scene. Even though the words were not even directed at her Kamijou could not help but shiver in fear.

Sh-She's being very convincing with that bad guy act… isn't she? I-I mean… She isn't really going to… She can't… Can she…?

The magician began to speak again, not even realizing the thoughts going through the students head.

"So… Tell me… Are you now ready to work with me… or are you prepared for the consequences of not talking."

The prisoner calmly stared at the magician who quite literally held her life in their hands, and closed her eyes.

The next moment, without any warning or indication of doing so, the prisoner spit directly into the magicians face, the mass of saliva splattering over the red haired girls face.

The magician released her prisoner from her grip, letting the girl fall to the floor in a heap, slowly bringing her now free hand up to her face and wipe away the saliva from her visage. The second most of the fluid was gone from her face the magician calmly looked down at the prisoner, a blank expression on her face. After a moment of deathly silence over the scene, the magician reached into her robes, and slowly pulled out a card from a hidden pocket.

Suddenly, as if pushed forward by some unseen force, Kamijou found herself in between the magician and the magician's prisoner. She did not know exactly why she had dove into the firing line of the magician, but remembering the damage just one of those rune cards could do somehow made her feet move on their own.

Kamijou simply stood in the middle of the two girls, waiting with baited breath for what was going to happen next. She did not have to wait long.

"What in the world are you doing, you complete and total fool?"

Kamijou slowly looked up at the magician who was glaring down at the student with a gaze that might have killed a normal human. Underneath this heated glare, Kamijou desperately stumbled over the words for an excuse.

"We-Well… If I say I accidently tripped into your line of fire… would that cause you to calm down and… not kill someone in my presence?"

The magician continued to stare at Kamijou with the same heated glare, and the student instantly knew that the magician wouldn't accept a half assed excuse like that. Knowing that, Kamijou began to fumble into some sort of explanation.

"T-The thing is… I… just got tired of the way you were treating her is all. It… It just doesn't make sense to me. From what you told me in there, about how the alchemist might have destroyed the cult, and killed some of its followers… I just thought-"

The magician held up her hand, signaling for the student to stop talking while reaching up with her other hand to pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration. A moment of silence hung over the scene before the magician began to speak again.

"Let me guess… After everything that I told you… You think that this girl is a victim now… don't you? Of all the conclusions that you could have come up with… this is the most ridiculous thing I can think of."

Kamijou dry swallowed once the magician had completely guessed the intentions behind her actions, but still she stood, waiting to defend her position.

"Even though it might be ridiculous… surely you have heard the saying 'you get more bees with honey rather than vinegar' right? The only reason you aren't getting anything out of her right now is that you are being an overly aggressive jailor."

The magician lowered the hand pinching her nose and looked at the student with a slightly cooled look, but Kamijou could still feel the anger underneath it.

"I doubt that I will be able to convince you of this… but just so you know… that girl… and anyone who was involved with that cult… I wouldn't even begin to consider them as a victim. After all, had we come here before the alchemist had destroyed the cult, they would have been the perpetrators."

Kamijou bit her lip as she knew that the magician had a point that she could not argue against, but she knew that if she gave way now, the prisoner would die for no reason at all.

"I… I understand that they might have done something horrible… but surly killing her isn't the best solution to her not cooperating? Surely you could just let her go…"

The magician raised her hand to silence the student, and Kamijou had no choice but to shut her mouth. The magician had her eyes closed for a few moments as if she were contemplating something difficult, but once she opened her eye she looked directly into the prisoners eyes instead of Kamijou's.

"You had better be thankful to this idiot here for your life, because she just gave it back to you… at the very least for now."

Kamijou instantly cracked a smile at the words that the magician said, but as soon as the magician's gaze passed over to her, the smile vanished in an instant. The magician gestured at the prisoner before she began speaking.

"Now… I hope that you will remain quiet for the rest of this. Just so you know, I refuse to put any stock in your complaints, because you have absolutely no idea what you are doing in here. You just don't have the experience for me to take anything you say seriously, but this is the one time I will accept your way of thinking."

Kamijou reluctantly nodded at the magician, knowing beyond a doubt that she was correct in her assumption.

Of course I don't have any experience in this sort of thing; I've never done anything at all like this! Though at the very least I saved this girl from burning to death.

Almost the second that Kamijou thought this, she heard the magician address her prisoner yet again.

"Now then… stand up and put your hands behind your head where I can see them. And just so you know if you make one move out of the ordinary… I won't hesitate to burn you alive."

Kamijou's gaze instantly shot up as she heard the magician say this, and almost opened her mouth to ask why the magician was taking the prisoner with her. However, at the last moment, Kamijou contained her question so as not to be talked down to by the magician.

Instead, Kamijou switched her question to something more reasonable.

"What in the world is ordinary for a person who is a prisoner to a magician? Is there a set routine for that situation?"

The magician sighed in annoyance at the student as she watched the prisoner stood up, her gaze never letting the prisoner out of her sight.

"Do you have to ask every inane question under the sun, or do you just like to piss me off?"

Kamijou didn't say a thing in response to that, and instead watched as the prisoner stood up, hands behind her head as instructed. The prisoner then began to walk forward in stoic silence, the blood from the earlier injury now dry on her face.

The prisoner looked reluctantly at the magician, as if she was dreading the next thing that the red headed girl was going to say. The magician simply pointed forward, in the direction that she and Kamijou had yet to go down.

"Go on… You're going to be our guide for the rest of our visit… Well… At least until you make a mistake, or figure out some way to escape."

The prisoner rolled her eyes at the magician, and then took a slow measured step forward, obviously taking as much time as she could to move forward. The magician obviously gave this little thought, as she continued to watch the prisoner with a hawk like glint in her eye, as if she were waiting for some sign to attack.

Kamijou, who absolutely had no idea what to do, turned her gaze back to the doorways lining the hallway, letting her mind wander in the silence.

Well… At the very least… things are calm for now...

As if her very thoughts jinxed the situation, the prisoner suddenly stopped in her track, her entire body going instantly rigid as she continued to look forward. The magician raised an eyebrow in a perplexed confusion, and began to speak as she leaned to the side to look in front of the prisoner.

"Why in the world did you decide to stop? Did you finally give up and want to-…!"

The magician suddenly fell silent as if she was surprised, and it only took Kamijou a turn of her head and a moment to figure out why.

Standing five or six meters in front of the prisoner, in the direct middle of the hallway, was a woman. This woman was dressed up in an all gray suit with a tight short skirt, and a black tie. The woman's black hair was bound up in a tight bun, and the woman's hazel eyes were hidden behind a pair of red framed professional looking glasses.

In a normal situation, Kamijou would have not paid a single thought to this woman being in a cram school such as this one, probably thinking that the woman was a teacher or involved in the management of the school.

However, there was something that made it irrevocably clear that the woman was dangerous to the three girls who stood opposite her.

The gaze of the woman which slowly moved between the faces of the girls directly opposite her, and an aura of sheer killing intent which came along with it.

After a few moments of silence and the woman shifting her gaze between the three girls, the woman sighed aloud and reached her hand up to her face.

"So… It seems that three little mice have decided to crawl out of the woodwork to cause problems for me I see. Well… This is just typical, isn't it? Just when everything was going so well for me, something had to go wrong."

The woman shook her head in dismay as she turned her head to the ground, but almost instantly the woman's gaze returned to the group opposite of her.

"But… As I think about it… You appearing out of thin air and causing problems for me…. That just seems to be the way you regularly work… Isn't it, Styx?"

There was less than a moment of silence that hung over the scene after the woman had spoken, and in that next instant the magician, who was apparently named Styx, snatched a card out of a hidden pocket in her robes, and swung her arm in a horizontal line in front of her.

In a moment, everything opposite of the group was consumed in flame, forming a giant wall of flame that reached up to the ceiling. Kamijou felt all of the oxygen and moisture of the hallway disappear instantly as the heat began to beat down on her.

With an almost shocked look on her face, Kamijou turned to look at Styx the magician, and tried to keep herself from grabbing the red haired girl in a panicked rage.

"What… What in the world did you just do!? Why would you… I mean… Are you fucking insane?!"

The magician named Styx looked over at the student with a bored expression, almost as is she was completely downplaying what she had just done. She watched the flames with a glare, as if expecting something to happen to it.

"Why in the world are you asking such a silly question all of a sudden? Whoever that woman was, she somehow knew my name without me ever giving it to her. Do you think that someone who you never met before knowing your name is a good thing?"

Kamijou did not even begin to ponder the magician named Styx's question, and gestured at the wall of flame that had gotten, if anything, more intense.

"Did you really have to create a wall of flame to kill some random person who happened to know your name? Couldn't you just have-…!"

The continuation of Kamijou's argument suddenly got stuck in her throat as she heard a voice ring out from opposite her.

"Really now Styx… Is that how you choose to greet after we haven't meet for such a long time? How in the word can you be so cold to me Styx?"

There was the sound of breaking wood, concrete and fabric from the opposite side of the wall of flame, and all three of the girls instinctively dodged in every direction. The moment after, huge chunks of building flew down the hallway toward the group of girls, each one barely dodging out of the way of the projectiles.

As a particularly huge chunk of building flew over Kamijou's head, she felt as if her heart had stopped for a moment, and one of the clearest thoughts she had ever had pierced her mind.

I'm… I'm actually going to die here… aren't I?

When the sound of the large projectiles slamming into the ground behind her reached Kamijou's ears, she looked up at the scene that had now been formed by the attack that had been flung at the three girls.

The wall of flame which had completely blocked off the opposite end of the hallway had almost completely vanished, only scarce bits of flame lining the corners of the area were all that remained.

The woman in the suit stood in the exact same spot as she had done before, in the exact center of the hallway, standing there without a single visible wound on her body. Her clothes were in a pristine state without any sign of soot or burning, and the woman's expression was one of extreme boredom mixed with disappointment.

"You really need to work on that attitude of yours Styx, especially considering all the wrong that you have done to many different people, me included."

The woman in the suit gestured toward the magician, who had yet to respond to her or even make an effort to make eye contact.

"I mean look at what is going on here! You refuse to even respond to me when I'm talking to you, yet here I am letting it go as if it were nothing! You should look at me while I'm talking to you at the very least considering how much I am letting you get away with."

The magician, whether through the goading of the woman in the suit, or through an actual need to look at them, turned her head to look at the woman in the suit with an expression of angered confusion.

"... Would it be alright if I were to ask you a question? The only reason I am asking is that I am getting the feeling that you would be offended by the question I am going to ask you."

The woman in the suit shook her head in an annoyed fashion, and sighed in a similar way.

"Are you asking me if you can say something offensive to me now? Styx, after everything that you have done to me previously, there is nothing that you can say now that could possibly offend me."

The magician named Styx gave the woman in the suit a dubious look, but she then sighed and put a resolute glare on her face.

"Well then… I guess since you gave your consent, I can ask you without fear of retaliation, can't I?"

With yet another sigh, the magician named Styx asked her question.

"Just…Who the hell are you anyway?"

The woman in the suit, who had been staring at the magician with a mostly calm demeanor, raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"…I'm sorry, but I must have hallucinated for a few seconds there while you were speaking. Because from what I heard… It sounded like you asked me who I was."

The magician named Styx nodded her head in an affirmative, crossing her arms as she glared over at the woman in the suit.

"Oh don't worry, you weren't hallucinating at all. I really did just ask you who the hell you are."

The woman in the suit narrowed her eyes at the magician, a clear aura of annoyance given off by the woman's gaze.

"…I see then…Well then… could you please tell me what in the world caused you to ask that question Styx? Have you taken a bad hit to the head recently, or some other stupid reason that would cause you to lose your memory? Or are just trying to piss me off?"

The magician named Styx shook her head at the woman in the suit, still glaring at them in a confused rage.

"No I haven't lost my memory in some freak accident, or trying to piss you off. I am genuinely asking you who the hell you are. You act like you know me and have a personal connection with me, yet I don't even have even the faintest idea about who you are. So I ask again. Who the hell are you?"

The woman in the suit intently stared at the magician named Styx for a few moments, her glare almost looking like it could pierce through steel, and after that time, the woman in the suit sighed in annoyance. She then began to speak in a slow and controlled tone, but one could easily tell the thinly veiled rage behind it.

"… Are you seriously trying to say that you don't know me? Am I supposed to accept that kind of stupid excuse at face value?"

The woman in the suit's gaze rapidly turned from one of quiet anger to one that did absolutely nothing to hide the insulted rage that the woman's visage showed.

"Tell me! How in the world could you possibly forget about me Styx?! Me, Trisha Elric, the woman whom you have wronged so grievously!?"

There was a moment of silence that hung over the scene, one that was so frigid and hostile, that Kamijou could not help but shiver in fear from it. The magician's prisoner was sweating in a panic at the feeling in the air, and she looked around the hallway, as if she were looking for some quick way out of the situation.

The magician blankly stared at the woman who had named herself Trisha, her face completely bereft of emotion. The woman named Trisha glared over at the magician, her face looking like she was only a single word away from going into a rage.

It was a moment after this, without any wind up or apparent cause, the magician began to laugh in a very loud and obnoxious manner. Styx reached down to her stomach and nearly bent over in a breathless manner.

The woman who had named herself Trisha ground her teeth in a rage, the sound being audible to Kamijou who was standing a considerable distance away. After listening to the magician laugh for a few seconds more, the woman began to scream red faced at her mocker.

"What the hell do you find so funny Styx!? Did I make some sort of joke or some sort of simple mistake!? Why don't you stop laughing and tell me!?"

The magician named Styx reached up to her eyes and began to wipe away the tears which had resulted from the laughing. After taking a few moments to compose herself and allow her face to return to its non-red state. Once she was calm again, the magician named Styx grinned over at the woman named Trisha, who continued to stare lividly at the magician.

"What is so funny? Do you really need to ask me that, or are just trying really hard to sell this to me? I mean… A lie like that is so bad that no matter how much you try to convince me of it, I won't believe you."

The woman named Trisha glared lividly at the magician, her face slowly turning a strange shade of purple out of anger.

"What do you mean lie!? What have I said to you that is even remotely close to a lie? Have you gone crazy in our time apart Styx!?"

The magician named Styx began to chuckle but not as much as she had been previously.

"Have I gone crazy in our time apart? I seriously doubt that, considering that we have never met at all. So I guess… the crazy person in this situation is you."

The woman named Trisha looked at the magician with a blank stare, and slowly began to let out a low, guttural growl in anger.

"What do you mean we haven't met before Styx!? Do you have an extremely bad memory now or something?! Can you not see that I am-…"

The magician instantly pulled out one of her hidden rune cards, and swung her arm vertically, muttering as she did so. A large amount of flames launched themselves away from the magician and directly towards the woman in the suit.

The woman in the suit did not wait for the flames to strike this time to do anything about the attack. She tapped her foot to the ground, and several pillars rose up to surround her, just in time for the flames to hit them and disperse across them. The next moment the pillars fell back into the ground, revealing the woman in the suit with a displeased look on her face.

"Well then… I guess that being reasonable with you is impossible Styx, though I had assumed that the moment we began talking. You obviously have a few screws loose, so I guess I'll have to knock them back into place."

The magician grinned over at the woman in the suit, and began to talk to Kamijou without even taking her eyes off of the woman in the suit.

"Listen… I don't know how much you pride yourself in your survival skills, but… I would suggest that you run away for now. Because the way I am right now…"

Kamijou did not even need for the magician named Styx to finish what she was saying to realize that she would die if she didn't run away right now. The look of bloodlust in the magician's eyes could not be mistaken for anything else.

Without saying another word, Kamijou grabbed ahold of the prisoner's hand, and, with the cooperation of the prisoner, the two of them ran off from the woman in the suit and the magician, just as the flames began to fly and pieces of building began crashing down.