Blue XIV: Settling the Past
"Dammit, guess I won't be able to sleep after all," Ragna thought in annoyance as he laid in his guild bed. It had been a while since he last spoke to Terumi, tried to insist that he wasn't taking her along his upcoming travels… all to no avail. This journey was likely going to be filled with more headaches than ever before, but that wasn't what was bothering Ragna.
On one hand, bringing Terumi with him should've been a good thing given certain factors. This way he'd be able to keep a close eye on them and make sure that they weren't plotting the downfall of the Six Heroes (no telling if that group was still going to form in the bizarre world, especially with Jubei as a standard housecat and no sign of Hakumen) or… some of their other actions in his past life. Glancing at his still flesh right arm, Ragna almost felt like he was looking at a ghost (…almost, not that level just yet)
"…Well I'm not sleeping now," Ragna chided himself.
Here he was worrying over the past as if he hadn't already been around Terumi for the last few days. Still, it didn't hurt his caution that she was such a mystery to him, everything about her just screamed odd and he couldn't even tell how much his own bias was screwing with his present judgement. With too much on his mind, Ragna headed out of his room through the darkened hallways of the Mage's guild. Maybe the cool air would do him some good, though he'd be seeing plenty of it in the days ahead. He didn't get too far though before realizing that he wasn't the only one in the halls. Utilizing the same illuminating spell he'd seen Nine perform (it seemed useful so he'd picked it up while looking over the tomes), the sudden light caused his unintentional company to give a small shriek.
"Celica?" he realized as he looked down at the much younger girl that had been sneaking around. She seemed much less startled once she realized it was him, in fact she seemed pretty happy to see him as usual. "Seems pretty late to be sneaking sweets out."
"Sneaking sweets? I don't do that; my big sis does!" she insisted before realizing her mistake. "Eh… don't tell her I told you that."
"Honestly, she'd be angrier with me if I ever brought it up so it's in both our interests I keep this quiet," Ragna assured in a bit of a strange way. "So if you're not up for some late night snacking, why are you still awake? And why not carry a lamp to keep you from crashing into the walls?"
"For that second point, I never need a lamp. I know the guild like the back of my hand; that's my killer sense of direction for you!" …Ragna had his doubts. "As for what I'm doing, uh… do you know about my secret?"
"Your healing magic? Yeah, I know," Ragna assured her.
"Oh, that good! I probably couldn't have kept it a secret from you anyways," she giggled. Ragna hoped he was a special exception here since he knew how hidden Nine still wanted to keep her powers. "I'm practicing that! I sort of have to do it in secret since my sis doesn't want to me to use them out in the open. I can show you how I practice if you'd like."
'Now that I think about it, healing magic could seriously save my life or someone else's. I managed to use it that one time using the Azure when I was kid, but that a spur of the moment thing and I'm not even sure how I did it. Might be good to watch her and get a better understanding since she's such a prodigy.' "Well if you're offering, lead on. But are you sure it's okay that you practice more? You just came from training."
"You're leaving tomorrow so I won't get another chance to show you and everyone else in the guild has managed to teach you something… even if I'm not really sure if you're able to use healing magic." Ragna could at least afford her a little of his time and it wasn't like he could sleep now anyways.
"Okay, but how the heck do you still have so much energy during the day if you're staying up this late? You rise as early as any of us and you're getting a few hours less of sleep," Ragna questioned.
"I think that my healing magic gives me a strange sort of boost when I practice it," she answered. "It's like practicing the magic gives me back some of the energy I would've gotten through resting. I can't do it all night without sleeping though, I tried that once and I stuck in bed for a few days. My sister was really worried after I tried that."
"I'm sure she was. So since you're doing a little extra now, don't push yourself to hard; I won't be able to leave tomorrow if you get yourself bedridden."
"I promise!" Not a single scheming of keeping Ragna at the guild went through the innocent maiden's head… and Ragna already knew that was the case. "This way then."
Following Celica through the halls of the guild, Ragna came across a door that he often passed by but had never entered before. Apparently it was usually locked because Celica brought a small key out and used it to open the way forward. Inside the room was a massive collection of plants which made next to no sense to Ragna. He recognized that several of these needed a lot of sunlight and almost none of them would be able to survive the town's frigid climate. This lack of logic though… would be explained if there was magic involved.
"You… heal the plants?" he guessed, looking around and noticing how healthy most of them were.
"Yep! I can even accelerate their growth by quite a bit. It really helps Miss Trinity out too by providing her with tea ingredients and bits of extra food during the winter," Celica said as she looked at the plants. "There's not a lot more that I can do for any of these guys, so how about I start a new plant for you."
"Sounds fine to me," Ragna agreed. Celica smiled as she grabbed an empty pot, some basic dirt (Ragna could tell it wasn't soil by the smell) and a few seeds from a nearby pouch. It wasn't the only pouch there, in fact Celica seemed to be gathering quite the collection different seed types. "Does Nine bring these back for you while she's out on jobs?"
"Sometimes, but uh… most of these are actually from Miss Terumi." Ragna didn't not to react to that news. Celica looked like there was something that she wanted to say to him, but decided to stay focused on the task at hand for a moment. Placing a few seeds in the pot, she brought it over to Ragna and set it down. "So… this can't grow like this, can it?"
"Not a chance, and I say that as a former farmer," he agreed.
"Oh, I didn't realize," she said, happy to learn something new about the man she was so infatuated with. "The dirt doesn't have the right nutrients, there's no sunlight in here, and I haven't watered the seed at all. The more of these that are present, the easier it would be for me to grow the plant. At this point though, it's better for my training that I do as much of it as I can myself."
Ragna nodded in understanding as he kept his eyes fixated on the pot, watching intently for Celica to start her healing process. She soon complied and the familiar warm glow emerged from her and went into the pot. Immediately the seed started showing signs of sprouting and growing taller. Within a minute Celica had created a full grown pot of sage.
"Wow, that's pretty impressive," Ragna commended, leaving Celica's already shining smile to only brighten as he praised her. "So is that all there is to it? You just keep using the magic and feel out the channeling like any other spell?"
"That's all I'm able to do at least," Celica admitted. "I can't speak for any of the churches since they seem to keep all of their healing techniques a secret from outsiders so… I can't exactly go to them for help."
'She doesn't sound disappointed, guess she knows where things stand with her and she agrees with Nine to at least some extent,' Ragna thought before a thought formed regarding the plants. "So the other healers in the churches; do you know if their healing magic is able to effect plants like this?"
"I haven't heard about any of them doing stuff like this," Celica explained. Once she thought about it though, she crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side as she went into deep thought (an appearance Ragna considered rather kawaii). "But it's kind of weird if they're able to; I mean wouldn't something like this be really helpful for growing food? If there are people going hungry, this would be one of the easiest fixes out there."
"Yeah… it would be," Ragna responded, an underlying darkness in his tone.
Back when he was seven, he'd needed to start working the farmlands due to the dire situation the farmers had found themselves in. There wasn't any sort of proper explanation, but the fields almost appeared to be dying and were producing far less food. By some miracle and thanks to everyone's hard work no one had died from starvation but those long winters lacking food were some of the hardest Ragna had been through. It took seven years for the fields to return to normal (again, no one even knew what had healed it) and the idea that church could have helped them in that time and chose not to… Ragna shook his head.
"Must mean that they can't do it then; you're just one of kind," he said with a smile, complimenting Celica again and getting the girl to giggle. "But I think that we've both been up long enough; you've gotten all the practice you need in and more, meanwhile I'm going to need all of my energy just dealing with Terumi tomorrow."
"Can I… actually talk to you about that?" Celica asked. For a split second, Ragna grew deeply concerned as he wondered if she'd been put in any danger, picked up on strange signals, or… anything else considering her first death back in his world. "Do you think you could maybe try being a little nicer to Miss Terumi?" …Okay, not what he'd expected even given Celica's almost worrying good nature. "She's… a lot better than you give her credit for."
"…How so?" he demanded.
"I already told you how she's helping my training by bringing me back seeds, but it goes even beyond that. She's tried helping me with regular training too even after my sister tried to get me to stop seeing her… She very patient with me even though I haven't shown any form of results outside of healing magic. It's other things too; a while ago when Trinity had broken her glasses and couldn't see or repair them since she couldn't cast the magic, Miss Terumi acted as her eyes until she found a replacement set, but she's never brought it up since then. She helped Silvana with that protective enchantment on her hood and she'll even make pies for people on their birthdays."
"She does all of that?" Ragna hadn't been persuaded in the slightest as he tried to find the woman's angle in all of this. Celica picked up on that.
"She's kind of strange when it comes to taking credit for her kindness since most of the time she'll just blow it off and others try to help entirely in secret. I also understand that she's… not the easiest person to get along with most of the time. But she means well, I'm sure of it." She sighed. "Can you please just try to give her a chance while you're traveling together? I think it would be nice if you two could be friends."
'FRIENDS!? AFTER WHAT-!?' Ragna had to remind himself that he wasn't home and he didn't know how things stood with the enigma one way or another. But if he let on that he suspected them… "Fine, I can try to put the effort in if it'll make you happy. But there's only so much of her antics that I can take."
"Okay, that's fair. Thanks though, Ragna," she told him, pleased that things were at least moving in the right direction. "You're right that you should get to sleep though, it's probably going to be a long day of traveling tomorrow. I'm just to take a minute to make sure this plant is doing okay, you go on ahead."
Ragna nodded as he exited the secret garden before gently closing the door behind him. Not bothering with the illumination spell now that he no longer had to worry about Celica, he made his way down the still darkened halls back to his bedroom. Taking a brief chance though, he tried fiddling around with his azure flames to reflect Celica's healing magic and match her channeling.
'No real way of telling if this is working without using it on someone that's hurt. Maybe it can grow plants like Celica's does, but I'm hoping that's exclusive to her given what a prodigy she is with this kind of magic. Either way, I can't be without this if someone else is hurt or I can't regenerate in time. But there's this whole stigma around healing magic that's outside of the church. How can I-?'
His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden shift of movement in the dark next to him. He'd been so distracted by his thoughts, that he hadn't noticed their presence. Quickly turning the illumination spell back on he saw…
Nine… with different sacks of sweets in both of her arms as she carried the late night treats back to her room. The crumbs on her face made it clear that she'd already managed to snack on the confections a little since grabbing them. The two just stared at each other with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look to the both of them.
"…I saw nothing."
"You saw nothing."
The Next Morning -Outside the Guild-
"Ugh, my stomach," Nine groaned again. "I need some tea or coffee."
"Getting in the midnight snacks again, eh QB?" Terumi asked with a cackle that was rewarded by a glare from the pink haired woman. "I keep telling you to cut down; your waistline isn't going to stay in shape for much longer if you keep indulging yourself like that."
'And I'm supposed to get along with this chick,' Ragna considered. '…Even if she's totally right in this instance.'
"We still seem to be a couple of people short," Celica noted sadly as she glanced around. "I was hoping the entire guild would be here to see you two off."
"Our guild leader said that she had an important meeting with Governor Clover, so I don't think she's going to make it back anytime soon," Trinity informed. Right, Relius was in charge here. Yet another thing Ragna would have to watch out for.
"Clause in library…" Silvana explained. "Said he had… a breakthrough."
"Oh, well if that's the case we shouldn't bother him," Ragna answered reasonably.
"Eh, don't put too much stock in his words whenever he tells you that. With all of his claims, he's been having breakthroughs for the past five years at least," Terumi explained to him… for once, it didn't sound like she was joking.
"Look, this is as good as it's going to get," Nine groaned before approaching Terumi to say her goodbyes. "Behave."
"Never."
'Zero surprises there,' Ragna thought before Nine approached. Admittedly, he wondered what she had in store for him.
"Good luck in the Tournament, I hope you do really well and bring some notoriety back to the guild." Her expression hadn't changed in the slightest.
"…Make sure you take good care of your sister and Silvana," Ragna ordered as his parting words. Nine felt a little odd getting the Celica half of the advice, but nodded in affirmation.
"Safe travels to both of you," Trinity said kindly before handing Ragna a small sack. "There are some choice tea herbs in there. Just add some to a cup of boiling water and after a while you'll have a relaxing cup."
"Thanks, I'll use 'em whenever I can." 'Relaxing, eh? Wonder if she realizes taking Terumi with me is a big pain and she's doing this to help my mental state.'
"And try not to hurt yourself experimenting with new magics, please?" she begged sounding a little worried for his sake and knowing how he tended to recklessly approach the arcane ways. "I can't be your voice of reason if I'm not there."
"And I certainly won't be," Terumi conceded. "In fact I'd probably just goad him on and make it worse."
'At least she admits it,' Ragna sighed before answering Trinity. "I'll be okay; soon enough I'll be back and you'll need a new brand new set of tea for us to share."
"It's a promise," she said, certainly sounding relieved. Then Celica came up to the mint haired woman.
"Safe travels, Miss Terumi! Take really good care of Ragna for me!"
"…Why for you in particular?" Nine demanded, glaring slightly at the Reaper who tried not to look her in the eyes.
"That's a pretty tall order; guy looks like he's the exact type that constantly lands himself in trouble." Ragna couldn't even argue with that. "But I'll do my best, Yuuki Terumi guaranteed."
"Does that come money back?" Ragna felt the need to ask. Now Celica was pouting slightly at him given their conversation from. "Kidding, I'm kidding." 'Totally not.' "Just… she seems the type to enjoy a good joke like that."
"Oh, you finally noticed," Terumi cackled. "Does that I have permission to run some of my best by you while we're on the road?" Ragna (still trying to keep his promise to Celica) took the neutral approach.
"Promise you won't go overboard?"
"Fine, but you saying that reminds me of a couple of good pirate jokes. This one starts with-"
"NOPE! NOPE! Ragna's the one that has to put up with them, leave the rest of us out of it!" Nine demanded, actually succeeding in shutting the prankster down.
"…Probably for the best, that one's pretty dirty."
'And you were going to tell it in front of two kids?' Ragna thought with some ire before Celica came up to him. "You gonna work hard and listen to your big sis?"
"Yep!" Celica promised proudly. "Soon I'll have learned enough about magic that I can start leaving town with her on jobs!"
Ragna had been trying to keep a smile, but now that had faded as he glanced around to make sure it was only guild members here. He knelt down for a moment to get to Celica's level. "Listen, there's kind of this odd feeling I have about your magic."
"Odd?" she repeated. Nine didn't stop whatever he was about to say, though she did reserve judgement until she heard it all.
"Yeah, it's like you've got so much aptitude in that one kind of magic that you might not have any for anything else." It was a lot to set the record straight like this and Nine didn't even glare at him for doing it, knowing she likely would've had to have it if he didn't. "I'm telling you to be ready, because that's really what it looks like… and even if that wasn't the case, I don't think you'd ever have it in you to fight someone."
"So… you're saying I can't help with my magic?" Celica said, sounding pretty down herself. "That I'm… kind of worthless?"
"…No, I'm saying that you're the most important person here." She was clearly taken aback at the sudden shift, but Ragna knew full well what he was talking about. "I've only been here for a short while but I can already see it clear as day; you're the center of this place."
"W-Wouldn't that be our guild leader?" Celica asked again.
"She's just who runs the place; you're the one that makes everything work," Ragna assured her. "You're what keeps us all together here; the one with kindness in her heart no matter what, the one who keeps everyone else in a good mood with a smile on her face or giggle in her voice. Just being here and being you is more important than any magic out there. And… if things do go bad for any of us? We'll always know that you'll be ready to help us out in any way you can. We're all counting on you for that."
The rest of the group was at a total loss of words at his reveal, but the Reaper didn't care. He'd already lost his chance to say these words to the one they were really meant for… he'd be damned if he lost that chance a second time.
"Okay, I can still do that for everyone," Celica promised him. "But I think I still owe it to myself and my sister to at least try for other forms of magic. Even if it doesn't work, I still want to put the effort in."
"And I'm not saying you can't," Ragna said with a laugh as he returned to standing height. "Go ahead, make me eat my words. I'll look forward to seeing it for myself."
"Yeah, just you wait!" Celica promised.
'…Can't help but respect him for that,' Nine admitted before noticing that Silvana seemed rather hesitant to say her goodbye. "Go on, you'll feel better once you talk to them… and awful if you don't say anything."
"Right… Thanks for the… hood," Silvana said to Terumi, still unable to get a string of four or more words together.
"No big deal, and you'll get the way of speaking down soon enough," she answered before slyly whispering something in her ear. Thanks to his own enhanced hearing, Ragna could tell what she was saying. "Just keep practicing those speaking lessons I taught you; you'll be forming full sentences before you know it."
'So she really is helping her out and keeping it a secret. There's no way the Terumi back home would've tried something like this,' Ragna thought as Silvana came up to him. "Good luck here, kiddo; I'm gonna miss you for sure, but this is the best place for you right now. Go and get stronger, maybe you'll head out with me next time."
"I will," she said with determination in her eyes. "See you soon, Ragna."
"Wait, that was finally four words!" Celica exclaimed. "Silvana, you did it! Can you do it again!?"
"I don't think… I can," she admitted, a little disappointedly.
"Probably could only do it now because Ragna's name was the last thing she said," Terumi rightfully assumed.
"Still, you'll get it soon," Ragna encouraged. It was then that he realized that Silvana (while not motioning for one) looked like she needed a parting hug. "Heh, get over here you." It certainly a tight embrace on both ends as Ragna leaned down.
"…Miss you too," she whispered. Parting, Silvana looked a little teary eyed but held herself back from crying…
"…Later then." Their goodbyes said, the two headed off… and now Ragna was truly stuck with Terumi.
"So… about those hundred or so dirty pirate jokes I promised you?" she asked with a cackle.
"Is the innuendo sea man used at all?"
"…There goes a good half of them."
"HALF!?"
Ragna stayed silent while Terumi simply considered her next move in the form of joke telling. She must've wanted to make quite the impression with her joke because before she'd even started telling one, the two had stepped out of the town and into the world as a whole.
"And thus starts the Legacy of Terumi and Ragna!" she declared mischievously. "So… how long before you'll want to kill me?"
'Been there, WAY past that,' Ragna considered angrily… but remembered his promise to Celica. "Since we'll putting up with each other, I got a request."
"Oh, that's a first. Gonna set some jokes or antics off limits?" she guessed.
'Would you even honor that? Probably only insofar as you find a way to work around it to piss me of even more.' "No… I just want to call you Yuuki from here on out."
"First name basis already? That's a bit shocking," she teased.
"Ugh, nothing like that; I just don't like the name Terumi. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth." Truthfully Yuuki wasn't much better for him, but it at least had a somewhat stronger disassociation from his old threat. "Shouldn't be too bad for you, right?"
"If that's what you want," she conceded before smirking wickedly at the man. "So does this mean I can come up with something else to call you? Fair is fair after all."
"Not a damn chance in hell." Terumi… Yuuki pouted, but continued following closely behind. 'The only reason you're getting this chance is because of Celica, you better not throw it away.'
Author's Note
Let me explain! So I know that some of you might be more than a little upset that I'm putting out a chapter that's this short and believe me I get it. Originally this was supposed to be a smaller Celica intro with Terumi coming in later so I can finally establish the proper duo. The thing is, if I tried to continue this after writing the last chapter the whole project would come off more as two separate chapter smashed together.
I'll ask that you be patient with me, but in exchange I won't have you waiting as long. After I post my mid April chapter of Grimm Reaper's of Remnant (check the poll before the 31st) the following chapter of this which be Ragna and Yuuki (Terumi) focused will be next and unlike this shorter chapter I promise to have it closer to the usual 10k ballpark if not longer.
That's my excuses out of the way, I still hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let's move onto the reviews… oh, one more thing. I've been going back to make edits in all of my stories and while most of them have been smaller changer and grammar fixes, I think for this one I'm going to make a major change and write out the massive 6'10" Ragna that I created. Instead he'll grow to his usual 6'1" and stay there, so yeah… kind of a big switch there.
Anyways, NOW ONTO REVIEWS!
Yuki terimi: It's fun to play with.
Vanitas50: Terumi was kind of guilt tripping him at the end there, but we don't know by how much.
The Unplanner: We never saw Ragna's magic without the unlock yet, so there's no telling if he could have improved or at the very least broken his previous barrier. And yes, the Realm of Departure reference was strong.
Wlyman2009: Ragna would probably go 'you can have her.'
Dr. Slump: Hey, he gets plenty of dates! …According to him that one time.
W. Athor023: Your comment of original characters has been correct so far, but considering most of them started as children it would be difficult to bring them around on such a harrowing journey. Maybe once they reunite they'll have a more permanent role depending on how they're received… or at least have a mini-arc dedicated to them.
Temsen: Hopefully this one was fun as well.
BlitzNeutral69: Woah there! No wedding bells in their future, at least not at this rate.
Galiono: Two steps outside of the city and he's barely managed.
ArmantusCumPinnae: Eh, I for one appreciated Ragna's final ending though it's still a little unclear what really happened to him. If Dark War had lasted we may have gotten some clarification.
ImmaNumer1: Thank you!
NiceScourge: Hopefully you enjoy this tie-in chapter as well.
Guest (1): Poll? Been a bit then.
Garyt237: Well thanks to Celica, he may have to put in the effort.
Yagami Kuzuki: Not looking like this story will be one, though Ragna might just be popular in certain settings.
ScruffinMcguffic: Thanks!
Kgtab: In order, hopefully never and way off on the horizon if ever.
See you guys here in a month or so! Ciao!