Still Waters 3, Book 2: Day to Day, Chapter 1, Death
Dreams of War, Dreams of Liars, Dreams of Dragon's Fire
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
The day after the vampire hunt that had turned Mahora on its ear, everything, strangely enough, was normal, much to the confusion of those who had never been involved in such things before. It was an old, well-practiced system put in place half a decade before and put into practice a dozen or more times since its inception; property damage was hidden behind excuses of 'Emergency Construction', mind controlled thugs were 'arrested', healed, and un-brainwashed, injured civilians, more this time than there usually were in such events, kept the mage healers busy most of the night, all of which was followed by a good dose of memory wipes all around. As far as the town as a whole was concerned, it was just another day in Mahora. Sure, lots of people reported trouble sleeping the next morning, but…overall, as far as most were concerned, everything was fine and the city was starting to gear up for the upcoming festival it threw every year in June.
Not everyone was happy though, and for good reason. Negi's kidnapped student, Possum Cade, was still missing, Asuna was still moping around, and the city had suffered quite a bit of damage.
Several strips of sunlight fell across a small room with two western-style beds crammed into it. The occupant of the bed closest to the window lay stretched out on her mattress with her eyes open. She was so still one might have thought she was no longer among the living but for the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
The occupant of the other bed, curled into a fetal position, twitched from time to time and occasionally let out a small moan, as if she might be having a nightmare. She had hours earlier kicked her blanket off, and it now lay rumpled on the floor at the foot of her bed. If one looked closely, one might see where tears had tracked across her face in her sleep.
The alarm clock on the small table between the two beds switched from 6:29 to 6:30 and abruptly let out a shrill ring.
The girl in the fetal position bolted upright, looking around wildly, but her sister in the other bed remained still.
Maple Birdsong reached out with a shaky hand and turned off the alarm and looked around at the familiar room. "Just a dream," she said to herself as she ran a shaky hand through her sweat soaked hair. It was starting to get long again. 'Almost time for another haircut', she thought in a sad attempt to distract herself from the nightmare the ringing alarm clock had saved her from. She stood up shakily and glanced over at her sister, then turned on the cheap radio she had found a few weeks before and tuned it to a station that played rock music. A moment later, her sister Trinity began to breathe faster as she slowly rose out of whatever fog she had fallen into in the night. She didn't come all the way up, she never did that, but sometimes her eyes would move a little or she would twitch her fingers, and once last week she had turned her head. Maple observed all of this with a sense of detachment. She was still fighting her way out of her own fog; the nightmares often remained fresh in her mind for hours after waking. Sometimes it was almost time for lunch before they departed completely.
She glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall and grunted. "Happy birthday, Trin. We're nineteen today." Trinity didn't respond.
Maple peeled off her sweaty clothes and threw them into the bucket that served the two sisters as a clothes hamper and went into the tiny bathroom to wash her face. She looked in the mirror tiredly, and didn't like what she saw. Eyes that looked rather sunken with bags underneath, messy, sweaty, gross looking dirty blonde hair, skin and face still pale from the terrors of her dreams…she shuddered and looked away. No time for that.
She leaned over and twisted the knobs in the shower to start the water and adjusted the temperature, then stripped off her underwear and stepped under the soothing water. As usual, the hot water didn't last long, but that was okay; she took fast showers.
She dried herself off and threw on some clean clothes, then went to the small table in the corner of the room and took a piece of stale bread from the bag there. She checked the miniature fridge, already knowing what she would find there, and closed it with a sigh when she found it as empty as she had expected. The bread was the last food in the tiny house; she would have to get some money somehow…
She looked at the bread bag again as she finished her breakfast, thought about taking the last two pieces, then thought better of it. Trin would need it more than she did. She put on her old, badly worn work boots and stood for a moment, listening to Trinity's breathing, barely audible with the radio on, even with the volume turned as low as it was.
"I'm checking on the garden, Trin. If you need anything, call me."
She waited a moment. Had Trinity's breathing changed…? Probably not. She opened the door and stepped out into the early morning sunlight and went around to the side of the dilapidated old house where she had planted her garden. The tomatoes were coming in nicely, but the watermelons seemed to be suffering…she would have to do something about that, but it would have to wait for later. First, she would get the paper.
She walked up to the road and spotted the corpse of a local cat that she fed from time to time. The poor thing had been hit by a car at some point early last night, judging by what she could see. She took the paper from its box and headed back inside, where she opened a drawer and rooted around inside for a moment before taking up a keyring. She grabbed a plastic grocery store bag and headed back outside and straight to the small tool shed she had built several years back with help from Negi, back in high school after she moved out of the dorm. She removed the padlock and opened the door, waiting for a moment as she took in the smells from inside. Apparently, she hadn't cleaned her chainsaw well enough; it still stank of those black creatures' blood from last night. Well, no matter. She wrinkled her nose at the smell as she went inside and looked at the row of long-handled gardening tools hanging on the left wall. She selected a shovel and went back outside, closed and locked the door, then went back to the house and peeked in.
"Trin, I'll be back in a while. Stay inside, okay?" As usual, there was no response. She closed the door and headed out to the road. That poor cat… She set about putting the remains of the cat into the plastic bag.
Negi finished calling roll and took up a piece of chalk. "Okay everyone, we've put it off long enough. And even though the festival is a week later this year, you need to start working on your class project soon." He waited a moment for the expected commotion to die down, marveling at the class's wild enthusiasm, a legacy carried down from his first class, apparently. "Today, let's decide on what the class will do. Any suggestions?" A dozen hands shot up at once. "Sasaki Rina-san?"
"Um…um…a maid café!"
That suggestion was followed by groans and complaints.
"That's so old fashioned. We should do something more modern, like a concert!" Kobayashi Ayumi, guitarist for the unfortunately named 'No Name Band', interjected.
"That would only be good for you. What about the rest of us?" another student asked curiously.
"What, you actually want to participate for once, Takahashi?"
"Class, quiet down please, quiet down," Negi said, unconsciously using his charm to get them to obey. "Iincho-san? Please come up here and write the suggestions on the board. We will take a vote when everyone is done."
Sachiko approached the chalkboard without comment and took the piece of chalk Negi offered.
The class murmured for a moment.
"Well, I suppose a maid café is one of the basics, after all," Mochizuki Kagami said, barely holding back a yawn. She was still exhausted from the events of the night before, but somehow not as much as her roommate Endo Haru, who had been too tired to get up this morning. She knew Haru had been involved somehow, but no one had given her any details. "How about a haunted house or a cosplay café?"
"Fortune telling," Ono Ran said after a moment's thought. "What?" she asked when everyone looked at her warily.
"Well…I'm kinda scared of what you'll predict," the transfer student Rosemary Dean said; others nodded in agreement. Ono Ran was known for the accuracy of her predictions, and what she predicted was mostly bad.
"Does anyone else have a suggestion?" Negi asked when the class had fallen silent. "Last chance…"
"A survey!" someone in the back yelled. This was followed by more groans and sighs.
"A scavenger hunt!" someone else said.
"No, let's do a yakisoba stand."
Negi raised his hands to quiet the class, but by then it was too late; the beast that was class 2-A had been let loose.
"Baseball game!"
"Stuffed animal café!"
"No, I've got it! A haunted stuffed animal café! There'll be lots of dogs and cats inside, and they'll all be dead!"
"Uh…"
The discussion went on and on while the suggestions got worse and worse.
"Bat catching clinic!"
Negi sighed wearily and glanced at the board, where Sachiko was scribbling furiously with the chalk in an effort to keep up with the flow of suggestions.
And then…the chalk snapped. A small chunk flew off and smacked Sachiko in the face, while the majority of the piece fell to the floor and rolled away.
Sachiko stood frozen in place for a moment, facing the chalkboard, still holding what remained of the piece of chalk up.
"Videogame tournament!"
"Hey, that one's actually pretty good…"
"No it ain't, let's do a beauty parlor, but for cats!"
The sound of a piece of chalk being ground into the chalkboard brought Negi's attention back to Sachiko, who still hadn't moved. "I think you can sit down now, Iincho. It doesn't seem as if-"
Sachiko whipped around, dragging the chalk across the board with a horrible chalky squeal that drew cries of agony from the class and left a streak of white halfway across the chalkboard. She swept the classroom with an icy stare, ending the chatter in an instant. Then she spoke two words:
"Art gallery."
"Art gallery? Why would we do an-ack!" Ayumi said, interrupted as a flying piece of precision chalk drilled her in the forehead, knocking her backwards out of her seat.
"Art gallery," Sachiko said again, daring anyone else to speak out against her suggestion.
There was utter silence for a full fifteen seconds before Negi realized he should probably say something.
"So, who wants to do an art gallery for the class project?"
Of the twenty one students present, not including the class rep Sachiko and the now unconscious Ayumi, twenty one hands went up, albeit hesitantly.
"Okay, art gallery it is," Negi confirmed. "Will someone please help Ayumi-san up?"
"Hey, you."
Haru looked up from her homework and glanced over to Kagami's bed, where a large white wolf-like creature was lying comfortably on its back with its legs poking up in the air.
"What?"
"So...is there anything to do around here?" it asked as it looked at her.
Haru just blinked a couple times. "...excuse me?"
"Well," the wolf thing said as it rolled over on its side and looked at her. "It's just that I've been asleep so long, I was at least hoping there was something to keep me entertained around here. Are there any rabbits?"
"...no," Haru said, turning back to her homework. What time was it anyway? She looked at the clock, but it was only noon.
"Come on, I need to blow off some steam," the wolf thing said, rolling back and forth on the bed. "Hey, this bed smells good. Any chance I can eat whoever sleeps here?"
"...no," Haru said again, mentally cursing herself for laying out of school today. She was exhausted from that mess the night before, it was no wonder she had fallen asleep—wait. "Oh, I get it," Haru said.
"Hmm? Get what?" the wolf thing asked, sounding for all the world like a curious child.
"This is just a dream!" Haru said triumphantly as she looked down at her homework. "I can throw this out the window and nothing bad will happen! Yahoo~!" she said as she opened the window, scooped up her textbook and homework papers, and tossed them out, laughing. "Ha ha ha!"
"...you know, sometimes I wonder about your sanity," the giant white wolf-like creature currently rolling around on her roommate's bed said.
"Heh, I can just sit down and fall asleep at the desk too~!"
"Yeah...you do that. See you later, Haru," the wolf thing said.
"You too, Haru~" Haru said to the wolf thing as it faded from sight. She crossed her arms on the desk and laid her head down. 'Ahh~ so comfortable,' she thought to herself as she drifted off.
"That…was kind of scary," Kondo Kai said aloud as she walked alongside her bandmate Watanabe Miyako at lunch time.
Miyako nodded. "I didn't know Iincho-san could be so scary. I mean, everyone said she kicked that scary guy that hit Makie-sensei a while back, but...wow."
Kai sweatdropped. 'Girl, you don't know the half of it,' she thought. Miyako hadn't seen Sachiko beat the living hell out of that fox youkai back in Kyoto, either. "I know, right? I had a feeling she was going to throw something at the next person to say something, and she did!" Kai smirked. "Ha, good thing it was Ayumi. She's got a hard head."
"You shouldn't say things like that about her," Miyako said, smiling at the comment in spite of knowing she shouldn't.
They walked in silence for a while, just enjoying the day.
"So, are we going to do anything at the festival?" Miyako asked after a moment.
"Yeah. Ayumi's getting the paperwork to let us play on the big stage they're setting up. It'll be awesome, even bigger than the battle of the bands we went to a while back!"
"…big…stage…?" Miyako asked as her knees started to shake.
Her other chores for the day finished, Maple walked along the sidewalk, carrying her shovel in one hand and the tied plastic grocery bag containing the cat's remains in the other. She absently flicked her head to the side to throw her bangs out of her eyes, but as they usually did when her hair was too long, they drifted right back where they had been. While the locals usually avoided her, today a few had the guts to greet her or attempt to make small talk. Unfortunately it was almost all of the 'Hey, Maple-san, where are you going with that shovel and that bag? Did something bad happen? I don't need to call the police, do I?' sort. She tried to reassure them, but as usual they seemed to take it with a grain of salt, so she decided to just ignore them as they appeared and continue on her way.
"Have you heard from Negi-sensei? Did they find her yet?" Taro asked Kagami, referring to her friend Possum as she caught up to the other girl beside one of the vending machines just after school had let out. At first she hadn't been very worried; Possum was tough and smart and could take care of herself. But as morning turned to full-on daytime and then started to fade into afternoon and the other girl still hadn't shown up, she had started to get worried.
Kagami shook her head. "No sign of her so far. Her big sister Lucy doesn't remember anything that happened since she came to town."
Taro fell into a troubled silence at that. Surely the vampire hadn't…hadn't killed Possum, had he? Eva had said he wasn't the type to randomly kill people, but after that mess last night… She felt bile rise in her throat and did her best to keep from vomiting. If Possum was...was dead, then...
"Kagami-san! Hey, Kagami-san!"
Kagami turned to see who had just called out her name, and spotted one of her classmates jogging up from behind.
"Ume? What is it?" Kagami asked as the girl approached. Yoshida Ume was a member of the Cooking Club alongside Kagami, but it was weird for the girl to speak to her outside of club meetings. They weren't unfriendly with each other, just…different.
Ume trotted up and doubled over, putting her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath from the run.
"Is something wrong?" Kagami asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Ume stood up straight and looked back and forth between Taro and Kagami. "The Cooking Club president wants to speak with you, something about you doing stir fry at the festival. Come on," Ume said, taking Kagami's hand. "We need to hurry, you know how the president is."
Kagami sighed. Indeed, she knew just how the president was. The president was an irritating jerk, but she knew how to pull strings and get things done.
"Okay, fine. See you later, Taro-chan," Kagami said distractedly as she followed Ume away.
"Later, Kagami." Taro absently watched them go for a moment, her mind scrambling for a way to deal with the problem of her missing best friend. She set off in the opposite direction from that which Kagami and Ume had taken and continued on her way alone. After a moment, her thought processes found something else to latch on to in her pitiful attempt at distracting herself from Possum's disappearance. "The festival, huh?" she said aloud. No doubt the Fighting Club would want to hold a few exhibition fights too. They'd probably want her to take part. Taro sighed and stuffed her hands in her pockets as she walked along.
She walked for perhaps five minutes before she got to the point where the tingling sensation in the back of her neck that indicated someone was watching her finally made her snap.
Taro stopped walking, carefully pulled her fists from her pockets and straightened out her fingers, took a few deep, calming breaths, forced herself to smile, and turned to face the person that had been stalking her.
"Can I help you, Rally?" she asked, a nerve twitching at the edge of her eye and another at the corner of her mouth. She knew better than to yell at the freaky robot girl for following her around; she had been chewed out for it several times already.
Rally just looked at her shyly and clasped her hands together in a demure manner.
"Come on, spit it out," Taro ordered. Rally could be so painfully shy at times…it really annoyed her; but it did distract her even further.
"But I have nothing in my oral cavity to expel," Rally said, confusion plain on her face.
"…" Taro didn't say. 'What. The. Hell.' Taro sighed yet again. 'So freaking stupid too.' "That's not what I meant. What did you want to say?"
"Will you allow me to walk alongside you?" Rally asked quietly, looking at the ground.
Taro just looked at her for a moment. ...that was it? That was all she wanted? 'She didn't have to ask, she should've just done it,' Taro thought. "Fine. Whatever. Come on, I'm going down to the festival grounds to look at the preparations."
"Is that so? Then allow me to join you as well," Negi said as he strolled up and stood before the two girls, both of whom quickly averted their eyes. Taro shot a surprised look at Rally, but was quickly distracted by Negi's smile before she could say anything.
"Is it okay if I join you?" Negi asked again, smiling pleasantly.
Taro nodded dumbly.
Sophie Rivers had skipped school and gone out into the woods.
The events of the night before had bothered her a lot; had she come to Mahora only to be exposed to this sort of thing…? Black, shadowy creatures running wild in the streets, attacking innocents? Whatever was going on had ended after about an hour, and so far she had seen little evidence of the night's events. No one she had run into had mentioned anything either, all of which indicated one thing: This town was weird. And not just normal weird, but weird weird. The sort of weird where you say hello to Cthulu on your way to school in the morning and have afternoon classes with Nyarlathotep.
She shook her head to clear it and finished driving the short pole into the ground so it would stand firmly upright. She went back to her pack and took out a ball of twine.
"Weird town, I don't know why I even came here in the first place…" she grumbled as she unrolled the ball of twine around the series of poles, forming a rough circle.
"Bunch of weirdos."
She took one last look at her work and removed a tiny drum from her bag. It looked less like a drum than a miniature tambourine, but it would work just as well; she had used it many times before.
She removed a lighter, a scrap of paper, and a small pouch from her pocket and sat down beside a small specifically arranged pile of sticks. She lit the paper on fire and poked it into the middle of the pile, where the dryer lint she had collected earlier quickly caught fire.
"I don't understand these people, they're all weirdos."
She let out an irritated puff of breath and opened the pouch. She dumped a small measure of some coarse mixed powder into her hand and sprinkled it over the fire, which burned a deep blue for a moment before returning to its natural color. She sat down and began to tap the small drum in a slow, steady beat, closing her eyes as she did so. She settled down into a trance the way the old man back home had taught her and set her body on autopilot while she took a look around to see what she could see.
The first feeling upon leaving her body was sheer elation at the utter freedom of no longer being tied down, free of the tyranny of a physical body. She soared upward, holding her wings out and riding the updrafts until she was circling lazily in the sky high above Mahora, looking down at the people and spirits wandering around so far below.
Ghosts were gathering around the front of the school for some reason…probably something to do with that really strong one that liked to hang around the classroom during school hours, or the one that wouldn't let go of the teacher. She moved on toward the world tree and circled the top a few times, looking at the usual abundance of nature spirits living in the tree. The tree itself had always interested her; it was obviously hugely powerful, but seemed to be dormant for some reason. She had never come across anything like it before.
She realized that weird light haired girl that liked to sit in the tree was looking at her again, so she moved on toward the lake…but something tugged at her consciousness, a sure sign that something was about to disturb her body back at the ritual site, so she fled back as quickly as she could.
Maple walked into the clearing and paused. A strange girl had constructed a magic circle of some sort with a small campfire in the middle, and currently sat inside the circle with her back to Maple, beating lightly on a small drum.
"Hello?" Maple asked. The girl remained still except for the movement of her arm. Maple cocked her head to the side. Some sort of trance…? She decided to wait and see what would happen.
Sophie snapped back into her body and stopped beating the drum. It took her a moment to get her senses back in order; it always did when one went gallivanting around without their body to contain them, after all. Something was wrong though; some immense pressure was pounding down on her from a place perhaps twenty feet behind her. She opened her eyes and looked straight ahead, sighing sadly as her senses dulled down to a level her body could handle and the sheer euphoria of being truly free departed. It was always a little sad, even though she knew logically that she could do this sort of thing any time she wanted. The pulsing pressure changed frequency and she jerked back to reality.
"Who's there?" Sophie demanded, suddenly terrified for some inexplicable reason. She knew it was crazy, but she couldn't help but feel as if the vulture that often interrupted her visions was standing behind her, just waiting for her to turn around. Not just a vulture, but the vulture; the vulture of all vultures. She shuddered in disgust and more than a little terror.
"Just me," a tired sounding girl replied. "Who are you?"
Sophie forced herself to stand up and wiped the grass and dirt from her shorts, carefully avoiding the urge to turn around and look at the thing that seemed to be a girl.
"I'm just a student here," she said, and mentally congratulated herself for managing to keep her voice steady.
"Well I could tell that," the stranger said with tired good nature. "Why don't you turn around so we can see each other?"
Sophie stood still for a moment, working up the nerve to look and telling herself she was an idiot for hesitating. What was the worst that could happen? Her life was worthless; there was no point in worrying about it.
"So…" the stranger said, sounding confused.
'Oh fine, whatever,' Sophie thought, then turned around.
It was an image of death. A great black vulture a dozen feet tall stood on the ground before her, feathers darker than the cloudiest night except for a ring of bloody red down around the place where a skeletal neck emerged naked from the great scavenger's body, rising up to support a head that was nothing more than a great bird's skull, glowing points of red light deep in the darkness of the cavities that should have held its eyes. It moved its wing a little and she could see a one eyed girl there, ragged and beaten bloody and yet seeming somehow triumphant, standing in the safety of the vulture's protection.
And then the vision was gone and the pressure faded and she saw a tired looking girl a few years older than herself, holding a shovel and a plastic bag.
"Hello," the girl said cautiously.
"…hello," Sophie said shakily, still pale and far too shaken up from what she had seen to even begin to consider how she must have looked to the other girl. The scar on her cheek, the one she had received on her wild run through this same forest the last time a vulture interrupted her ritual, was burning.
"My name's Maple. Maple Birdsong. And you are…?"
Sophie gulped. "Sophie Rivers. I'm a student here." 'Birdsong...!' she thought, horrified.
Maple nodded. "You said that before. What are you doing?" she asked, indicating the circle Sophie had set up. "Some kind of witchcraft? Or…?"
Sophie shook her head to clear it and set about putting the small fire out. It looked like, if nothing else, this Maple Birdsong was aware of magical things. "Well, I guess if it's anything, it's a shaman sort of thing," she said absently as she tried to order her thoughts.
"Oh."
Sophie broke the circle and wrapped up the twine, and only then did Maple come closer. Sophie nodded in approval; it was rude to break another person's circle, and it could be dangerous too.
"So…what's in the bag?" Sophie asked as she finished packing up her materials. Somehow, now that she could see the girl, her previous terror seemed a little absurd.
Maple looked down sadly at the bag she carried. "A cat. It got hit by a car. I need to bury it."
"Oh," Sophie said as she a sudden thought crossed her mind. "Do you do this often? Burying dead animals here, I mean," she said as she carefully filed away the details of the vision she had had for closer examination later.
Maple nodded. "I always use this place because it…it feels different," she said awkwardly as she moved further out into the small clearing before carefully selecting a spot. She placed the bag on the ground and with the shovel expertly removed a chunk of grassy topsoil, which she placed to the side.
"I see," Sophie said, watching closely. She had always liked this clearing because it felt so pure; she had had no idea that it was a graveyard for poor animals that were only loved by this girl. 'That would explain why my spiritual magic works so well here...' she thought as she watched.
Maple quickly dug the hole, putting the dirt in a neat pile beside it, then carefully removed the poor dead cat from the bag and placed it into the hole. She prayed over it for a moment, soft words Sophie couldn't quite make out, and then pulled the dirt over it, finishing by replacing the chunk of topsoil, which only poked up a little. If she hadn't seen the other girl dig the hole, she would have had no idea the cat was buried there at all.
Seated on a bench outside of a small cafe, the Mahora Girls' School P.E. teacher Max Linell frowned more deeply than usual as he thought about what Asuna had told everyone the night before, back at Eva's resort after the fight against the vampire and his minions.
'I've had terrible dreams about things I've done in the past, things that happened in my childhood…things I saw done and things I did myself…' Asuna had paused at that point and looked around the small circle of her closest friends before working up the nerve to continue on. 'Horrible things that I know I couldn't have possibly done. And yet, I remember doing them. Malvrin, he's the spirit sealed in this sword' she had explained, holding up the black sword she had carried for six years, 'he says the dreams are probably old memories that are being released by some steadily decaying seal, held together by the magic circle on my back.' Things had gotten crazy for a moment there while Negi threatened whoever it was that had manipulated Asuna that way while the others worked out suitably vague and terrible punishments to be heaped upon the villain's charred remains after Negi was through with him. Max had simply clamped his teeth together and crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair to think. No one who knew him could doubt his loyalty to his friends, though to anyone but a select few outside of that small group he simply would have looked bored.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Max shook the disturbing thoughts from his mind and glanced up at the newcomer. "Hello, Akira."
"Hello, Max-sensei," she said, grinning crookedly as she sat down next to him on the bench. Akira had always been an attractive girl, and now at twenty plus the time spent in Eva's resort, she had become a very attractive woman. With her looks, had she wished to do so, she could have had virtually any guy she wanted; she was far too down to earth for that sort of behavior however, and had opted instead to continue her studies in magic, mostly under the tutelage of Max, the only other elemental in Mahora who could train her. Not that either one of them minded.[';
They sat in companionable silence for a while, simply enjoying the relative peace and quiet of the small patch of grass and trees while they waited for the others to appear.
"It's kind of like the old days, isn't it?" Max asked, his deep voice rumbling. "Huh…I sound like an old man."
Akira smiled a bit. "You're not an old man," she said, grinning playfully at him. "And it really is sort of like the old days, with everyone coming back now. It's nice to see them all again." She leaned back to look up at the sky, displaying some of her rather pleasant assets.
"Yeah," Max said. Though everyone still persisted with those irritating rumors…
"Hey! Why, if it isn't Max-sensei and Akira-chan, sitting together on a bench in the shade! You aren't cheating on Jennifer, are you?"
Max grunted. Speak of the devil… "Hello, Yuuna."
"Hello Yuuna," Akira said, smiling at the energetic woman.
"Heya. So, when are we gonna get this meeting started?" Yuuna asked as she plopped down between the two and ruffled Max's unruly black hair, much to his chagrin.
"We'll start when the others arrive," Akira answered. "How is your father?" If anything, Yuuna's physical maturity had far surpassed Akira's own…though she still seemed to like her father too much.
"Eh…he's fine. He finally married Donnet last year, you know? They're pretty happy I guess."
Max paid little attention to the chatter between the two girls; instead, he was watching a suspicious young girl who appeared to be attempting to hide behind a trashcan across the road from where he sat. She seemed to be wearing clothes that were two or three hundred years out of date.
"Right, Max-sensei?"
"What?" Max asked, turning to look at Yuuna and Akira, who were looking at him expectantly. "What was the question?"
"Gasp!"
Max raised an eyebrow. Yuuna had actually said 'gasp'.
"He is ignoring us! Here we are, two beautiful girls with nothing to do but sit next to Max-sensei, and he ignores us! Hey Akira, isn't that terrible? It's…"
He tuned Yuuna's voice out and tried to find the suspicious girl again, but she was gone now; there was nothing but a little silver tabby cat sitting next to the trashcan, staring across the street at them.
"Look! He's doing it again!"
"What's Max-sensei doing?" Makie asked as she walked up, having arrived fifteen minutes late.
"Makie! It's terrible! Max-sensei is ignoring beautiful girls like us! Is he…do you think…batting for the other team?" Yuuna asked, turning an overblown, teary-eyed stare at Max, who sighed wearily. Honestly…Yuuna never changed.
Makie seemed to ponder Yuuna's playful accusation for a moment.
"Nope!" she said, grinning wickedly.
Yuuna and Akira looked at each other in stunned silence. Then at Makie. Then at Max, who was looking across the street again, then back at Makie.
"You didn't…!" Yuuna said.
"There's no way…" Akira said, trailing off.
"Didn't what?" Makie said with an excessive display of innocence.
Max just shook his head in resignation. None of Negi's old class ever changed, apparently. Not in that way, anyway.
"Is Ako coming?" Makie asked after a moment as she made herself comfortable on the now quite crowded bench next to Max. Back before everyone graduated, Ako had often hung out with them. In fact, the group had become quite close; Makie and Yuuna would run around and do stupid things, and Akira or Ako always had to bail them out. And wherever Akira went, she dragged Max-sensei. And of course wherever the big P.E. teacher went, his partner Jennifer, who herself seemed much younger than she actually was, wasn't far behind. The whole thing was ridiculous and looked incredibly suspicious to outsiders, but that was just how it had turned out. And this was to be their first meeting with the whole lot of them together in the same city since the younger members of the group's graduation…
Yuuna shook her head. "Nah, she's abandoned us for Misa's band. That's just so mean you know? I feel so alone," she said, putting a hand over her heart and pretending to cry.
"Yeah yeah, scarred for life, I get it," Makie said, waving her hand dismissively. "What about Jennifer-san?"
"What about me?" Jennifer asked as she finally arrived. She had just gotten through her first day of work at her new job at a jewelry store in the city. "Hmm?"
"Don't worry Max-sensei, I won't tell her about us," Yuuna said in a stage whisper.
"Ugh."
"What are you whining for?" Jennifer asked, playfully smacking the back of Max's head. "You're surrounded by beautiful women. Let's go!"
For some reason he didn't quite understand, Max soon found himself in a small clothing shop, holding three purses (Yuuna didn't carry one) while he waited for the girls to finish whatever it was that took women so long to do inside a changing room. Glancing around the store, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face outside on the street through the big glass windows in the front of the store and almost immediately, the girl's eyes met his and she waved. He nodded in return, and couldn't help but sigh in mild annoyance when the girl headed for the door. He knew this particular student fairly well, and he wasn't looking forward to quelling whatever rumors she might start up if one of the others pulled something...
"Heya Max-sensei. What's up?" Rosemary Dean, one of several American transfer students in Negi's current class, asked a moment later as she approached. "I didn't expect to see you in this place," she said, referring to the clothing store, which was particularly well known for selling trendy clothing for women.
"Hello Dean. I'm just waiting for the others to finish up in there," he said in a curt tone, jerking his thumb back toward the changing rooms. The girl laughed and took a seat two chairs down from the teacher.
They sat in a fairly comfortable silence for a moment; while Rosemary wasn't particularly close to the teacher, each appreciated the presence of someone else from the same culture. Once in a while, it was nice to take a step back from the sheer insanity that was Japan and remember that, somewhere else in the world, all of this outlandishness was actually recognized as such.
"Is this your cat?" Rosemary asked a moment later as she reached down and picked up a silver tabby that had been hiding half under a chair, watching Max. He recognized it as the cat he had seen across the street earlier.
"No," he said as he reached out and rubbed its head, eliciting a loud purr almost instantly.
"Oh…she likes you. Do you get that reaction often?" Rosemary asked, grinning wickedly.
"Rosemary-san, you shouldn't tease your teachers," Makie explained in a teacherly tone; she had just exited the changing room in a trendy and somewhat revealing skirt and shirt combo.
"M-Makie-sensei, you and Max-sensei are on a…a date?" Rosemary asked as she lurched up out of her chair, her eyes comically wide. The cat she had been holding hissed and jumped down from her arms.
"Hmm? What's this?" Jennifer asked as she came out wearing a simple dress that clung to her hips and had a low cut neck. "How's it look, Max-sensei~?" she asked, walking with a very distracting sway and ending with a pose from a fashion magazine.
"Wha...wh-who is that?" Rosemary sputtered, then froze in place as someone very obviously female draped herself over her from behind.
"It's better if you don't ask~" Yuuna said breathily into Rosemary's ear. The effect was ruined when Akira came out and smacked Yuuna in the back of her head.
"Idiot."
Max was not amused.
Rosemary Dena sat licking her ice cream cone on a bench in one of Mahora's many parks as she considered the information. "Okay, so you're Max-sensei's wife," she said, pointing at Jennifer, who mentally shrugged. It was close enough to the truth, so... "You're a co-worker and old student," she said, pointing at Makie. "And you two are just old students," she said, pointing at Akira and Yuuna, neither one of whom looked quite happy with the line 'just old students'.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Okay, fair enough. So who is that?" Rosemary asked, pointing at someone else.
Everyone turned to look.
The girl standing behind them was fairly short. She wore rather odd traditional Japanese clothing of the sort a servant of some noble family might have been expected to wear several hundred years ago, topped off with a large straw hat that seemed almost comically out of place in such a modern city. She looked back at everyone staring at her, backed up a step without meaning to, and began to look as if she might cry.
"Yeah, who are you?" Yuuna asked as she pushed the brim of the girl's hat up with her finger to get a better look at her face, accidentally revealing the cat ears hidden underneath. She quickly pushed the hat down again so Rosemary wouldn't see. 'So that's it, huh? A shapeshifting cat girl. A nice addition to the harem,' she thought, unable to hide her grin.
"I'm sorry!" the girl said, then dropped to the ground and started kowtowing toward Max. "I'm sorry I'm sorry!"
Jennifer elbowed him in the ribs. "So, care to explain who this one is?" she asked in a terrifyingly pleasant tone.
Max sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, I've never seen her before." That wasn't altogether true, since he had seen her across the street a little over half an hour ago while waiting for the girls to show up.
"I'm really sorry for following you, but you have to help us! Me and my brother need you to hide us! Masashi-sama doesn't know we came here, so please!" the girl begged, still prostrating herself on the ground.
"…'Masashi-sama'?" Rosemary asked curiously.
Max sighed. 'Great. Another one to add to the fold…' "Okay, I'll help you. Just…just get up off the ground," he said awkwardly. He then turned and fixed a baleful glare on Rosemary. "Dean, not a word of this to anyone. Not unless you want to scrub every pool, bath, and toilet on campus every day after school until the day you graduate. High school. Understand?" His tone hardly changed from the bored sound it almost always had, and that sort of bothered her.
"Okay, fine," Rosemary said in a huff. "Never get to have any fun around here…" she muttered as she walked away.
"I feel kind of bad for her," Makie said as she watched the student leave. It was a shame they had to threaten her, but the threat of work was the only sure way to keep a girl like Rosemary quiet.
"So, Ryoko-chan, why didn't you just go to Negi?" Jennifer asked. The group was now seated in a coffee shop Max sometimes used when meeting up with Negi or others he knew.
Ryoko, the young girl in the weird clothing who had been following them, took a sip of tea awkwardly before she answered. "I don't know who Negi is. I was looking for Sachiko-sama."
"Negi's new class rep?" Yuuna asked. Nakamura Sachiko was the only Sachiko she could think of that might be related in any way to Negi. Ryoko shook her head.
"I don't know. But she is tall and pretty and really really strong. She beat up Masashi-sama once, so I know she can do it again," Ryoko said cheerfully.
"So how did you know to come to me?" Max asked after a moment. "I don't think I've ever seen you before."
"Well…I recognized you from Aoyama-sama's stories. She sometimes talked about Max-san, who was a huge foreigner with black hair and pale skin, like a zombie or something. She said you were dependable and strong, and I couldn't find Sachiko-sama anywhere and I saw you on that bench, so…" Ryoko said, trailing off as she looked down at the table.
"Like a…" Makie began, stunned.
"…a zombie," Yuuna finished. The two of them looked at each other, then burst into laughter while Max and Akira sighed and rolled their eyes in sync and Jennifer grinned.
"Motoko or Tsuruko?" Max asked when Makie and Yuuna had been quieted.
"You mustn't call them by their given names!" Ryoko said fearfully.
"Okay, but which one?" Max pressed. It was obvious that this Ryoko girl respected the Aoyama sisters immensely…what exactly had happened in Kyoto during the class trip?
"Um…Aoyama Motoko-sama. She was nice to me and Kichirou-nii. She let us work in the Konoe house as repentance. She locked up Masashi-sama too, but he broke out and stole something valuable from them. He called Kichirou-nii a traitor and killed a guard trying to escape. Kichirou-nii felt bad, so he followed him to find out where he would hide, but Masashi-sama hurt him too."
There was silence for a moment as everyone thought this over. So, whoever this 'Masashi-sama' was, he had somehow escaped from his cell in the Shinmeiryu headquarters, broken into their vaults and stolen some unknown but quite possibly very powerful artifact, and escaped alive? 'He must be a real monster,' went through all their heads almost at the same time.
...and Negi's class rep Nakamura Sachiko had beaten him?
"Is your brother here, in Mahora?" Jennifer asked.
Ryoko nodded.
"Show me," Max said.
Kichirou winced and shaded his eyes as the garage door rolled up noisily, letting in a sudden glare of bright sunlight. "Ryoko…?" he asked weakly.
"It's me, Kichirou-nii. I found someone that can help."
"Is it Sachiko-sama?" he asked, his voice hitching for a moment.
"Is this him?" Max asked as he stepped inside the run down storage building, his deep, rough voice booming in the small room.
Kichirou tried to scramble to his feet, but doubled over and fell painfully to the ground before he could do more than stand up straight. Max walked over and pushed him carefully to the ground, flat on his back and motioned Yuuna and Akira over.
"Hold his shoulders down," Max said.
"Who is it?" Kichirou asked as the two girls quickly moved to hold him down, looking at Ryoko with feverish eyes as he struggled feebly against them.
"Sit still. I need to look at your wounds," Max said.
"It's okay, Kichirou-nii. He said he would help," Ryoko said worriedly as she watched her brother's struggles.
"He's got a high fever," Jennifer said as she wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
"Mm," Max grunted in response as he pulled out a small hunting knife from a hidden sheath and began cutting Kichirou's shirt away from his wound, where it had become stuck with dried blood and pus. He carefully tugged the last shreds of cloth away from the wound, revealing the cat man's injury. Makie made a whimpering sound as she watched.
"How long ago did this happen?" Max asked, gently poking at the wound. It looked like a wound from some sort of blade, but it had become an ugly mess, red and inflamed with streaks forming around it. If they didn't get him some help soon…
"A few days, I guess," Kichirou said, his breath ragged.
Max nodded. "Akira, I need some water," he said as he gently probed the wound with the tip of his knife.
Ryoko watched, confused, as Akira took a dusty bucket from the corner and passed it to Max. She peeked over his shoulder and was even more surprised to see it was suddenly full of water. "What…?"
"I need space," Max said gruffly, startling the cat girl.
"I'm sorry," Ryoko said as she backed away. She could see the water was boiling now, even without any way of heating it. What had she gotten her and her brother into?
"Does anyone have a napkin or some cloth?" Max asked after a moment. Yuuna passed him a handkerchief, and he knelt back over Kichirou. After a moment he sat up straight and dropped the bloody cloth into the bucket of hot water and took up his knife again, an eight inch survival knife of the sort that one might use for anything from chopping wood to gutting a deer. "This will hurt," he said nonchalantly to Kichirou, whose eyes widened.
"H-hey, do you know what you're doing with that?" Kichirou asked nervously as his feverish eyes darted from the knife to Max's face and back to the knife again.
"Akira, Yuuna, hold his arms. Makie, Jennifer, hold his legs." He waited until they were in position, then looked the cat man in the eye with a deadly serious expression.
"What? What is it? Am I going to die?" Kichirou asked.
"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
Kichirou blinked once, twice. "Wha-AAAAAAARGGHH…!"
"Ew, I think I'm going to be sick," Makie said as she joined Akira outside. "That was so gross!"
Akira nodded. "It was infected, and he had to cut away some dead tissue. There was no other choice."
"I know, but…ew." They stood in companionable silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of the others moving around inside the storage building. "So where did Max-sensei learn to do something like that?" Makie asked, referring to the temporary patch-job he had performed on Kichirou. She had never seen him show any medical knowledge at all beyond rigging a splint or arm sling.
Akira shrugged. "He told me once that the missions he went on were often dangerous and there were times when no mage healer was available, so he taught himself. And it's not like magic can do much against infections anyway."
"Well, that's done," Max said wearily as he exited the building a moment later, followed by Jennifer and Yuuna. "He's out of danger, but we need to get a doctor here soon." Easier said than done, since few doctors would (or could) work on youkai. He knew the people at the school would probably help, though. In any case, someone needed to see to the injured youkai; he was in pretty bad condition and probably shouldn't be moved.
"So, now that the festivities are canceled, care to tell us about this 'big secret' of yours, Max?" Jennifer asked.
"Secret? What secret?" Yuuna asked excitedly. "Tell me, tell me!"
"Well, apparently Eva thinks it'd be a good idea to make our little arrangement official," Max said stiffly as he fished around in the pocket of his old leather jacket for something. He pulled out a small leather bag a moment later and dumped its contents into the palm of his hand. "This is the symbol of your membership in the Cerulean Guard," he said, holding his hand out. There were several small blue badges shaped like shields, and Makie picked one up carefully.
"'Cerulean Guard'?" she asked.
"Eva chose it, not me," Max said as the others each took a pin as well. "Named after Akira, I guess."
"What about Ako?" Akira asked when everyone had their pin. "She's one of us too."
"There's a pin for her too, but I think Eva has another plan for her."
"What, does Eva think she's a general?" Yuuna asked jokingly.
Akira smiled. slightly. "She might as well be." After a moment's thought, the others nodded in agreement.
"What's this?" Madoka asked, taking the pin offered by Misa. It seemed to be a skeletal hand, its fingers in roughly the position of the metal sign. Or the sign to ward off the evil eye, if one preferred.
"Dead Man's Hand," Misa said, grinning. "Aces and Eights."
"So I guess you and me are the aces, right?" Madoka asked. "I've already got that title, thanks to you," she grumbled. She would never live down that stupid story about the Ace of Spades. Not with the way Misa liked to tell it to anyone who would listen…
Misa nodded. "Ako and Sakurako are the eights."
"Isn't that kind of rude?"
"Not really. I think the eight is supposed to be like the infinity sign or something. Seems kinda weird to me, but Eva insisted. She says the two of them are ridiculously strong, world breakers even, if they ever learn to properly control their abilities."
"…'world breakers'?" Madoka asked, raising her eyebrow. Misa said a lot of crazy things, but this was a new one.
Misa grinned. "Something Eva says to refer to people whose powers are strong enough to actually change the world. Kinda scary, isn't it? You wouldn't think it, to look at the two of them."
Madoka nodded and looked back down at the badge. "Dead Man's Hand, huh? Not half bad…"
"Chizu-nee…?" Natsumi asked. The whirlwind of events in the past few months had left her timid, and she knew it. She hated it too, and was doing her best to recover. She had a restaurant to manage after all; she didn't think Ayaka would forgive her if she let the place get run into the ground.
"It's okay, Natsumi-chan," Chizuru said, holding out her hand so everyone could see.
Kotarou and Ayaka looked at each other and each took a pin.
"It's…kind of cool. I guess," Kotarou said, looking at it.
"A black wing," Natsumi said curiously. It looked just like the old White Wing badges for Negi's group from years ago, but colored black instead.
"The Black Wing, the dark side of Negi's group…" Ayaka said, trailing off. She grinned after a moment. "I can live with that."
"Well, since you three are still members of the group even though you spend most of your time in Kyoto…" Kazumi said, grinning as she held out her hand toward Konoka, Setsuna, and Asuna. "We worked out the designs with Chachamaru."
"The Kyoto branch of White Wing, huh?" Asuna asked as she took the pin. It looked like the originals they had received years ago, except the wing was reversed to point the other way.
"Fine by me," she said after a moment. She looked at Setsuna and Konoka as they took their own pins and couldn't stop the grin that came to her face. These two…the three of them worked well together.
Dear Journal,
Today I had a disturbing experience.
I had gone out to the woods to spirit walk like usual, but this time I was interrupted right away. When I came back, I saw what I believe now is the being known as the Vulture King, a shade of Death himself. Normally the closest I can see to Death is a little black smoke following someone around when they're in danger of dying, but this time was different. The vision was one of the clearest I ever had, even more than when Old Cezar died. It was terrifying to see the Vulture King, even though I didn't know who he was at the time. From my research, it seems that Death only sends a shade of himself to collect the truly wicked or truly great. But what bothers me is that, unlike every other time I have seen death following behind someone, this time the Vulture King was standing beside the victim with his wing wrapped around her, almost protectively. This was not the usual sort of vision I see in dreams, and is the first waking vision I have seen in months. I am afraid.
What is that girl?
All I know is that her name is Maple Birdsong, and she lives just outside of the campus. She seems nice, so I think I wouldn't mind becoming friends with her. Other than the vision I had, she seems more normal than most of the other people here. I can't help but feel nervous because of the vision, but we seemed to get along well in spite of it. I am curious.
I usually can't talk to the ghosts that live here, but maybe that strong one in the classroom knows something about her? I will update tomorrow.
Good night.
S. Dream Journal
Omake
Haru jerked as she snapped awake and looked around the room blankly. Huh...the window was open and it was getting dark outside. 'Must've been asleep for hours...' she thought as she got up and moved to shut the window just as Kagami opened the door.
"Hey Kagami," Haru said sleepily as she locked the window. "What've you got there?" she asked, glancing at the book Kagami was carrying.
"Oh, this is yours, I guess," Kagami said as she held out the textbook. "It's got your name in it. But you know, it's the weirdest thing...I found it in the bushes outside the dorm a few minutes ago...how'd it get there?" she asked.
Haru's mind went blank for a moment. No way. No freaking way. "Uh...Haru?"
"Yes?" a voice in her head replied.
"Did you say something?" Kagami asked, looking up from where she had put her bag on her bed.
"What is it?"
Haru paused. "Uh...nothing, Kagami."
Kagami turned to continue what she had been doing and paused. "Hey...did you do something to my bed? The blankets are messed up."
"Oh, so that's the one I wanted to eat, huh? She's pretty strong, I bet she'd be delicious! Not like that mousy girl last night at all."
"Shut up!" Haru yelled.
Kagami just looked at her roommate for a moment, wide-eyed. "What's that all about?" she demanded.
"Yeah, definitely looks delicious. Oh well..." the other Haru said forlornly.
Haru tried to think fast, a difficult feat with her sleep-addled brain. "Er...I was...talking to...myself?" she tried hesitantly.
Kagami relaxed, but raised an eyebrow as she looked at her roommate. "You know Haru, sometimes I wonder about you."
Haru tried to scrounge up the good grace to look embarrassed as she rubbed the back of her head. "Heheh...yeah..." she said, trying to ignore the other Haru's wildly amused laughter in her head.
Author's notes: I swear I wrote the chalk throwing bit over a year and a half ago, I didn't steal it from the manga. But anyway... So yeah, I suck at naming groups. Anyway, about Dead Man's Hand…the name is thought to come from the poker hand Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was killed back in 1876. Supposedly, it contained the Ace of Clubs, the Ace of Spades, the Eight of Clubs, and the Eight of Spades, hence "Aces and Eights". People argue about the identity of the fifth card, and even about the validity of the whole Aces and Eights thing, but…yeah. I like the sound of it, and I already had the whole 'Ace of Spades' thing going with Madoka from before. Anyway, there's a short write-up on wikipedia about the Dead Man's Hand if you're curious.
As for Kichirou and Ryoko... If you don't remember who they are, please see the Kyoto Field Trip way back in Chapters 8 through 12.
Akashi Yuuna - Laughing Dual Gunner
Born - 6/1/1988
Height - 5'5"
Likes: Guns, magic, explosions, excitement, her apprentice
Dislikes: Dull, day to day work, the fact that her apprentice is still missing
Little Known Facts: She was thrown out of several museums on her tour of Europe and America because she couldn't keep her hands off the exhibits.