Ako took another sip of her drink and picked up her cell phone. "Hello?"

'A-Ako-san? It's ah...it's me. Rale. Remember me?' the boy said tentatively.

Ako instantly smiled. She did indeed remember Rale; they had had a lunch date only the day before. He was just so young and lonely-seeming that she just couldn't leave him alone... His sheer awkwardness was adorable, too. "Of course I remember you, Rale-kun. How are you?"

'I-I'm fine. Um. I c-called because...um...would you...would you...'

Ako smiled softly. "Would you like to go out for lunch again today, Rale-kun?" However, instead of the joyful reaction she had gotten last time, Rale was silent for a long, long moment. She listened for a moment, wondering if her cell phone had lost its connection, when he spoke up again.

'Yes...I...I would. Um. The same place as last time?'

"That's fine," Ako replied, curious about the boy's strange pause. Was someone over there telling him what to say...?

'Thank you, Ako-san,' he said, sounding almost sad as he hung up.

Ako looked at her phone for a moment, lost in thought. Was someone picking on the boy? She hadn't liked the look of some of the people she had seen him with the other day...none of them had come close enough to her for her to make out any details and none of them had done anything to Rale-kun that she had seen, but still...she didn't like them. There weren't many people she disliked, especially on first sight, but that group was definitely among them.

In any case, lunch. Belatedly realizing she hadn't set up a time for the meeting, she tried calling back, but only got a message that Rale-kun's cell phone was either out of range or turned off. She stood up from the small outdoor cafe table, threw out her trash, and headed for Misa's apartment, where she usually stayed in the spare bedroom. She had a lunch date, after all; she had to get ready.

Why won't he stay down?

El Buho, the slim young masked woman who fought with a style somewhere between Lucha Libre and what one might find in MMA, stood back, panting, as her opponent stood up straight and shook his head to clear it before turning to look at her, grinning toothily to show the gap created by the tooth she had just knocked out.

"No one's hit me that hard in a long time," Rex said, cracking his knuckles as he took a step forward. El Buho stumbled back, tired and sore from the long, long match. She had known the man was dangerous, especially after what he had done in the first round against Miss Margaret, the janitor from school, but she had had no idea what sort of fear he could inspire just by standing ten feet away and grinning. Already she had hit him with knockout blow after knockout blow, but it had barely slowed him down and she was too terrified to close the gap between them long enough to attempt to lock in a submission hold. He had landed one glancing blow on her, early in the match, and it had left her gasping for breath, wondering if he had broken one of her ribs; even now her chest hurt whenever she made a quick movement.

To be honest, she was content to stay out of harm's way, but he kept forcing the issue by slowly advancing to close the gap and bring her into reach; the man was a master of footwork and strategy, and he was pushing her to her utmost limits just to stay out of his range. She had seen what he did to the janitor; she had no misconceptions what he would do to her if he got the chance. He made an odd little jigging motion to the side as he came on, and she moved to stay out of his range, only to find herself hanging halfway over the edge of the fighting stage. She barely had time to regain her balance, much less register the fact that he had tricked her before he lunged forward, intending to grapple with her.

She couldn't have that; he had a good foot and a half on her and was twice as wide...well over two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle. If he got his hands on her, it would all be over. He was too close and coming closer, so she did the only thing she could think of: she ran toward him, ducked a punch that skimmed the edge of her mask and almost ripped it off, and ran straight into a spinning kick. She reacted just quickly enough to avoid the full force of the blow, but even the glancing impact knocked her sprawling. Rex immediately moved to capitalize, and El Buho, with no time left to climb to her feet, took a page out of the class rep Nakamura Sachiko's book and pushed up off the ground, spinning around and kicking Rex's legs out from under him; at that moment, the utterly shocked expression on his face as he went down like a ton of bricks was the most delicious thing El Buho had ever seen. Even as he was falling, she shot to her feet, favoring her bruised ribs, kneed him hard in the head as he tried to get back to his feet, and quickly got behind him, where she buried a knee in his back, grabbed his arms by the wrists, and pulled back as hard as she could.

Rex let out a roar that startled her so much she almost let go as he strained to get loose, but she tightened her grip before he could capitalize and leaned back as she pulled. He yelled again, this time in pain as his arms were nearly ripped from their sockets, and she pulled harder still, her whole torso in agony from the two hits she had taken, and then people were swarming around and the match was over and as she let go of his arms, she realized in a daze that she had somehow done it, she had won against a grown man three times her size who had, in the first round not long ago, beaten a notably tough woman half to death. Her legs were shaking so bad she had to be supported by one of the techs on her way back to the nurse's station, but it didn't matter; she had won.

"Wow, that was impressive...!" Misa said as she sat next to Madoka in the space assigned to her in the backstage area.

"Any idea who she is, yet?" Madoka asked, referring to the masked fighter. Misa shook her head. This 'El Buho' was insanely familiar to both of them, but neither one could put a name to the girl; she was obviously fairly young, extremely agile if not exactly an athlete, and had shied away from every attempt at an interview by the promoters thus far. "He'll be sore tomorrow, at least," Madoka said, nodding at the screen, which showed Yuuna climbing up into the ring with a microphone in hand while several others helped Rex to his feet, since he could barely move his arms.

Misa laughed lightly. "Konoka will fix him up; he's some kind of youkai, you know. Anyway, it's a shame about Lucy; I know you were looking forward to it," she said, referring to the girl who, had she not been hurt in her first round match against Fumika, would have faced Madoka in the second round. As it was, Madoka had been given a bye and was automatically allowed to proceed to the third round without having a match.

"Yeah...I kind of wanted to fight her again," Madoka said. The first time the two had met, Lucy had been under the influence of that vampire, Jonus Hart, who had gone to such great lengths to attack the city, a choice that, in reality, made little logical sense. After all, what did he think was going to happen after he took over, assuming he was able to? The country of Japan in the twenty first century was no place for a feudal lord, much less one who drank the blood of his vassals. In any case, he had been, if not captured, at the very least brutally beaten and forced to run away. And Lucy, after going all out against Madoka while under his control, had eventually burned off whatever force had been connecting her with the vampire as the two of them fought. It had been the first serious fight Madoka had had in a long, long time: matches with Kotarou or Negi or Ku Fei didn't really count since even at their most dangerous, they were still friendly matches, and the usual crazy person that showed up so often in Mahora couldn't take more than a couple hits before going down. Lucy, albeit powered up by Jonus, had fought her almost to a standstill, and had given her such a fight, especially after burning off the vampire's control, that the memory of it still made Madoka smile. A ringing cell phone interrupted her thoughts, and she glanced over at one of the competitors who had been eliminated in the first round, a big hairy man who had introduced himself as 'Cort', declining to give a family name. He listened to someone speaking for a moment, his expression changing from one of good natured fun to something altogether different, and he flipped his phone shut, quickly gathered his things, and left at a fast walk.

"What was that all about?" Misa said idly when he was gone. Most of the competitors who had already been eliminated had left, but a few, like Cort, had stayed behind to watch the matches; he himself had expressed an interest in staying to the very end. "Weird."

"Yeah," Madoka said idly. They had sat in a companionable silence for a several minutes, content just being in each other's presence, when Misa spoke up again.

"Hey, Madoka?"

"Yeah?" Madoka asked as she checked her hand wrappings.

"...you have to beat my sister, okay?"

Madoka gave her a look. "...look, what's this about? We don't even know if the two of us'll even meet up; she's on the other end of the bracket." The look she gave Misa said it all: Aren't you planning too far ahead?

Misa took up Madoka's roll of tape more to keep her hands occupied than anything else and fiddled around with it for a moment before she answered. "Just...don't lose, okay?"

The look on Misa's face was so torn that Madoka decided to just go along with it. "...okay. I promise I won't lose," she said, putting an arm around Misa, who leaned into her for a moment.

"Mm."

"Look, don't worry about me. Just worry about that sister of yours making it to the finals. I'll take care of my end, let her worry about hers."

Misa grinned crookedly and sat up straight again. "Yeah..."

"Don't worry! That's an order," Madoka said, grinning at her.

Misa smirked. "Aye aye, captain."

"And next up we have the girl who not thirty minutes ago defeated Mahora's own 'Street Sweeper' Urashima Taro, the girls' middle school class rep Nakamura Sachiko!" Yuuna said, waving her arm in the general direction of Sachiko, who blushed slightly at the sudden roar of the crowd, the first sign of embarrassment she had shown thus far in the tournament. After the last few cries of 'We love you Sachiko-sama' died out, Yuuna brought the microphone back up and whipped around to point at Sachiko's opponent. "And her opponent! The mysterious woman from Hokkaido who took out the infamous Narutaki Fuuka-"

"...infamous?" Fuuka asked, confused as she looked from Fumika to Kaede in the backstage area. Fumika and Kaede looked at each other, clearly trying to hold back laughter and failing miserably.

"Hey! It's not that funny!" Fuuka wailed.

"-in a single move, Kakizaki Hatsune! Let's go!"

When Yuuna had climbed down off the fighting stage and the match had started, Sachiko took a long, wary look at the tall woman standing opposite. She could often predict a person's physical abilities and even their fighting style just by watching them and paying attention to the way they moved when they walked, the way the stood, the way they noticed little things around them...the woman standing across from her was like a blank slate.

For someone who was so adept at deciphering the fighting styles of other people, it was incredibly disturbing, and Sachiko found herself starting to question everything she had learned about the art of reading people; after all, if the skill she had developed so far that it surpassed even that of the man who had trained her couldn't help against someone like this, then...what use was it?

And, almost as if sensing Sachiko's disquiet, Hatsune...grinned.

It was a small grin, little more than a slight, very slight upward turn at the edges of her lips, and it scared the hell out of Sachiko.

Most of those Sachiko had faced up to now could be called, for the sake of simplicity, normal; they took familiar stances, they shifted their weight in the usual way, they moved in the same patterns fighters had used for centuries. The were...predictable. This woman, this Kakizaki Hatsune, took everything Sachiko had been taught, everything she had learned on her own, and threw it all out the window, and she hadn't even moved yet. She was terrifying.

Hatsune's grin turned into a smirk, Sachiko realized she was being dismissed as a competent fighter, and her fight or flight reflex flipped on her and suddenly she was angry; she was more angry than she had been as a child when another kid stole her lunch, she was more angry than she had been when she caught an older cousin talking bad about her grandfather and beat him unconscious, she was more angry than she had been in her previous school when that stupid boy had tricked her into following him into a deserted area where his friends had been waiting to ambush her...she had been on the verge of murder that time, and only the timely intervention of a teacher had kept those boys from severe injuries and long, long hospital stays, and quite possibly something even worse. It was a side of herself that she was ashamed of, that she had always struggled to control, to push back.

And this woman was really starting to piss her off.

The woman shifted her weight slightly and Sachiko shot forward, swung a fist that Hatsune easily dodged, and rode the momentum to spin in place, her leg coming up high for what should be a horrific, bone-crushing kick to the face that would have sent Hatsune into emergency surgery...had it connected.

Sachiko, horrified at her attempt to destroy the woman's face, was shocked even further when the kick missed its target; with her heart beating wildly and interweaving waves of hatred of her opponent and horror at what she had just tried to do, she was in no condition to control her own momentum...her foot dragged against the surface of the fighting stage and she overcorrected, lost her balance, and fell in a clumsy heap.

"My my, is it okay for you to be here?" Hatsune asked, her voice dripping with disdain. "Shouldn't you go back home for your afternoon nap, little girl?"

Sachiko shot up, trying to ignore the laughter of the audience, and her vision went red as she saw that woman standing there, smirking at her. She went at her again, but Hatsune slipped aside with an ease that Sachiko's mind simply refused to comprehend. She recovered and went to sweep the woman's legs out from under her, but by the time her kick arrived, its target had shifted aside just enough to cause her to miss.

The scene repeated itself again and again, with Sachiko's attempts becoming more frenzied, more clumsy as the match went on, while Hatsune smirked, bated her with sarcasm, and even laughed at her attempts.

Almost five minutes later, Sachiko was left hunched over, breathless and exhausted, standing on her side of the fighting stage while Hatsune stood straight and tall on the other side, not even slightly winded.

"Hah...How...?" Sachiko managed.

Hatsune's smirk widened. "'How?', you ask? Well...to be honest, I recognized your fighting style. A...singularly sloppy form of capoeira, useful only for showing off in movies or to the inexperienced."

Sachiko let out an enraged scream as she ran toward Hatsune. How dare she insult her master? The nerve...! Sachiko spun around, fully intending to kick Hatsune in the throat, but Hatsune easily slipped aside, avoiding the attack entirely, and gave her a slight shove as a parting shot, exactly timed so as to cause Sachiko to again fall in a clumsy heap on the fighting stage.

Misa gaped at the monitor she was watching with Madoka. What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? She turned to look at Madoka and snapped her mouth shut as she saw the expression on her best friend's face.

She hadn't seen that particular expression on Madoka's face in quite a while; not since the incident that had started the whole 'Ace of Spades' thing, in fact. Madoka looked at her, and for a moment Misa was shocked by the anger in her eyes.

"This..." Madoka seemed to want to go on, but instead turned back to the screen, where Hatsune was taunting Sachiko mercilessly while the girl tried to fight her. This was no longer a match; it was a bully picking on someone who could no longer defend themselves. It was obvious Sachiko was exhausted and close to tears, and the brief glimpses they got of her face as she moved showed a hint of something else that neither one had ever seen in the girl's expression before: fear.

Hatsune looked dispassionately at the exhausted girl in front of her. She was obviously struggling even to stand up...she almost pitied her. "Well?" she asked. "Is that it? Are you done yet? Does your resolve only go that far?" The girl looked up at her, fear in her eyes, and Hatsune sighed. "Guess so." She stepped forward and buried her fist in Sachiko's stomach before the girl even realized she had moved; Hatsune stepped back, spun around and slammed her leg down over Sachiko's back as she doubled over with all the force she could muster. Sachiko hit the ground with a sharp, echoing bark, rolled over on her side and curled up, and laid still.

For her part, Hatsune stepped back and waited for the announcer to declare the match over, then climbed down and headed for the back room without looking back at the poor broken girl lying motionless on the fighting stage. She ignored the shocked and horrified expressions of the audience members as she went by, but she paused when her little sister stepped into the entryway to the waiting area, blocking it.

"Hatsune!" Misa said, her voice quivering with rage. "What the hell was that? She's just a kid!"

Hatsune fixed her with a glare, but when Misa refused to back down, Hatsune easily pushed past her and paused, looking back over her shoulder. "I'm the 'bad guy' in this little farce, correct? Come here to your pretty little town to carry you away against your will? Then I will play the part I have been given, little sister, and I will play it well."

She walked back to her assigned area, easily ignoring the glares she could feel from Misa and quite a few of the other people backstage. This place was starting to aggravate her... Once settled in, she took up her copy of the tournament bracket and scribbled out Sachiko's name. There was only one more match left in the second round; the semifinals were next. She took a drink from a water bottle and settled back comfortably to wait.

When the fighting stage was cleaned up and ready for the next match, the next two contestants came out and stood across from each other while Yuuna introduced them. When the match started, the two stood there for a moment.

"Cocone," Ayaka said by way of greeting.

"Ayaka," Cocone replied, her voice low and deep for a girl.

"I won't lose."

"Neither will I."

Ayaka smiled slightly, and Cocone replied in kind, and they went at it.

Ako, dressed in a cute t-shirt and jeans, made her way to the world tree plaza and paused for a moment, looking around for Rale. She was a little troubled; something had seemed...off...when she spoke to him earlier on the phone. 'I hope he isn't getting sick...,' she thought, clutching her bag. She looked around for another minute or two before deciding to sit down on a bench to wait. She had just checked her cell phone for the time when she spotted Rale walking stiffly out of an alleyway, straight toward her with an oddly worried expression on his face. She cocked her head to the side slightly as he walked up, took her hand as she stood up, and promptly set off into the city at a brisk pace, pulling her along behind him.

"U-um, hello, Rale-kun...are you alright?" she asked as she struggled to keep up with his lanky form as he strode along.

Rale's whole body jerked and he looked back at her guiltily, though she couldn't tell what he might be feeling guilty about. "No, I'm just...I'm fine. Um..." he said, pausing beside a clothing store. "I, ah...where do you live, Ako-san?"

Ako blinked at him a couple times, her brain trying to get itself going again and only succeeding after her mouth, that treacherous fiend, had already told him how to get to Misa's apartment. The look of hope and happiness on his face dried up any protest she might have made at the way he had been pulling her along almost too fast for her to keep up, and then he was off again, still holding her hand and leading her along, though more gently this time.

'What am I going to do...?' Ako thought worriedly. Rale-kun was most definitely bothered by something, or he wouldn't be acting so strangely...her cheeks heated up as she finally realized he was taking her to her home. Why had he wanted to know where she lived...? Her whole face heated up as the possibilities paraded through her thoughts. "U-um, Rale-kun?"

"What is it, Ako-san?" he asked, looking back at her and smiling that same smile that had so caught her attention on their first date yesterday. He abruptly darted into a side alley, pulling her in with him, and wrapped his arms around her as he pulled her down with him as he knelt down behind a dumpster, his arms wrapped tight around her, holding her close as he looked up and down the alley.

Ako's whole face blazed red. "W-what-"

"Don't worry about a thing, Ako-san! I'll take care of you!" he said, clearly determined to do so. The fiercely protective expression on his face as he peeked around the edge of the dumpster, still holding her tight, sent her heart beating even more wildly than the boy's startling actions had already caused, and she realized for the first time that calling him a mere boy didn't do him justice.

"R...Rale-kun..."

Rale stood up, bringing Ako up with him, and pulled her along, blushing fiercely, to the far end of the alley, which opened up on another street, where he turned his attention forward and pressed on, faster than before, pulling Ako along behind him.

'What am I going to do?' she thought helplessly.

Misa's apartment was actually very nice, a benefit of being part of a really quite successful rock band, along with the fact that she had three roommates, one of whom was certifiably rich, one of whom was incredibly lucky, and one of whom was, well, Ako, who constantly received presents from suitors of all kinds. Misa hadn't had to buy a kitchen appliance or television set in years.

Ako fumbled with her keys for a moment while Rale shifted awkwardly behind her until her frantically shaking hands finally managed to put the key into the keyhole while she tried to figure out how to tell Rale that she couldn't do...whatever it was it seemed like he wanted to do. 'I-I-I can't do this! I really can't! What would my mother say...?' Ako thought frantically as she nevertheless opened the door and allowed the young man behind her to enter the apartment. He stepped right past her, causing her to let out a startled squeak when his arm brushed against her. He moved out into the center of the entry room, looking at the various doors, before turning back to her, her mind, already in overdrive, turning his expression into something totally different from what it was.

"Which one is your room?" he asked.

Ako thought her heart might explode.

Rale walked over to her and took both her hands in his as he looked into her eyes. "Ako-san, please; we need to hurry."

Ako's mind took one look at the image her eyes were sending, took note of the fact that Rale was holding her hands in his, observed how close they were standing, and finally tried to process the fact that he wanted to go into her bedroom...and promptly keeled over, leaving her defenseless as her hand jerkily pointed to one of the doors on the right. Rale smiled at her, enough of a shock to her already overworked system to send her mind back into paroxysms of confusion, and then Rale was leading her through the doorway into her room.

Her frantic imaginings ran into a brick wall, however, when Rale grabbed a large bag from its place on a chair and thrust it into her hands.

"Wha-"

"Here, put anything you might need in here. We have to hurry!" he said, looking around the small room stuffed full of guitars.

Ako just stood there, gaping, as she held the empty bag.

"Hurry, Ako-san! We don't have a moment to lose!" Rale said as he pulled open one of her dresser drawers, revealing rows of undergarments, the sight of which left him frozen in place as he suddenly realized he was standing in a girl's bedroom. And not just any girl, no, but Ako-san...! Ako-san's bedroom! Where she slept! And then Ako was pushing him out into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

Ako pushed the door shut until it latched and leaned against it, trying to figure out what had just happened. Obviously Rale-kun had something on his mind...Ako was not unused to the need to rapidly flee a location; she was a part of Ala Alba, after all, and she knew what it meant to be forced to leave a place quickly. "Rale-kun?" she asked through the door.

"Yes, Ako-san?" came the hesitant reply from the other side.

"Is someone after me?" Ako asked. She heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the door, but no answer. "If someone is after me, I need to know, Rale-kun," she said, more softly as her mind finished rebooting and decided it was ready to try and process reality again.

"Y-yes."

"And they're here? In Mahora?"

"...yes."

And now for the moment of truth. "How do you know?" she asked. There was a long, long pause from the other side of the door.

"I-I just...know. Come on, we need to hurry..."

Ako wasted no more time, and opened the bedroom door. "The pantry is through there," she said, pointing to another hallway. "Take a shopping bag and put some canned food in it; a can opener too." While Rale ran down the hallway to do her bidding, Ako switched her cute shoes for something a bit more practical, opened her closet door, and took up a handful of shirts, which she carefully placed into her bag. She followed this up with some pants and shorts, as well as undergarments and various articles designed with hygiene in mind. She took a wad of cash from its hiding place under the bottom of the dresser and put what would fit into her pockets, stuffing the rest into her bag. A moment later, Rale rushed back in, ran to the window, and forced it open.

"Come on! We have to go through here!" Ako wasted no time in argument; she simply nodded and climbed out, carrying her bag with her. The two of them climbed down to street level and took off at a run, Rale leading the way with his hastily filled bag of groceries.

"Ooh," Albireo said, wincing as Ayaka landed a vicious blow on Cocone and rushed to grapple before she could recover. The taller woman quickly bore her down to the ground, but Cocone managed to slip away before Ayaka could take advantage of the opening. "Pretty close, wouldn't you say, Kitty?"

Eva sipped her tea and gazed blankly at the display. "This match is boring."

"Come now, don't say that!" Al said jovially. "Just look at Ayaka-chan's footwork! Truly masterful for one so young."

"Psh. Ku Fei's better," Eva said absently. She put her teacup down and yawned. Of course, Ku Fei was better than just about everybody...this didn't bear mention. "Besides, it's obvious who's going to win."

"Oh? Would you like to make a be-"

"HELL NO!"

Al continued smirking at her, unruffled. "Is something wrong, Kitty?" His grin widened amazingly.

Eva looked at the screen in order to avoid the urge to wring the big twerp's neck just in time to see Ayaka land a tremendous kick to Cocone's face, sending her staggering back and half turning before collapsing, ending up flat on her face. Eva yawned again as the last match of the second round ended and everyone, Ayaka included, rushed to help the girl. "See?"

"You should've made the bet-"

"Damn it Al, no means NO! And I swear if you ever try to make me agree to a bet like that again you will come to know why I am named the Dark Evangel, Maga Nosferatu, the Visitation of Woe! The Lord of Darkness! The Tidings of Evil! The Apostle of Destruction! The Disciple of-"

Al calmly took another sip of tea and grinned winningly while Eva continued ranting, and made a mental note to do this more often. "Yes, Kitty."

Negi rushed to the location Reiko had given him in her phone call, and found several others already waiting there in the otherwise deserted park. "Where is she? Has there been any word?" he asked as he trotted up, spotting Reiko seated on a bench. The kidnapping of his student, Possum Cade, had hit him extremely hard; especially so since it was largely due to the fact that his sudden appearance at the time had startled Possum into taking her attention off of the vampire she was barely managing to hold off long enough for him to capture her...

Asuna shook her head. "No one knows," she said, then turned her attention back to Reiko. "Are you going to call anyone else, or is this enough?" she asked.

Reiko looked around at the dozen people standing around. "This should be enough. Someone should record what I say, because I'm not going to repeat it. Nodoka-san, I give you permission to use the Diarium Ejus. Now," she said, when everyone was ready, "first of all, there is something you all have to understand: I have Jonus Hart." She waited a moment while the uproar died down. "I have his soul in this," she said, holding up a small glass perfume bottle. "As long as I have this, he can't get away with doing anything I tell him not to do, within limits."

"Where is he?" Negi asked coldly.

Reiko looked at him, met his cold gaze with her own, and said "He's tucked away somewhere safe, for now. Something you should know is that he is sorry for his actions." She turned to Nodoka. "Tell them."

Nodoka read over the contents of her mind reading artifact and nodded in surprise. "She's right. Reiko certainly believes he is regretful." This brought up a round of thoughtful murmurs. If Reiko, who notoriously didn't trust anybody believed the vampire Jonus Hart was sorry, she was almost certainly correct.

"That doesn't change the fact that he kidnapped one of my students," Negi said, his voice cold as ice.

Asuna gave him a wary look, then directed her attention back to Reiko. "What does that change?"

"Nothing," Reiko replied. "He kidnapped a young student, used magic to perform mind control on dozens of other people, let all those shadow creatures loose in the city, and of course there was the damage resulting from all of that, as well as the battle between him and you," she said, looking at Negi, who had certainly caused no small damage on his own in that fight. "From what he tells me, something about Possum and her older sister Lucy's blood is like..." she paused, trying to recall exactly the way he had described the effect. "Imagine the most delicious food you've ever eaten," she finally said, and paused for a moment. "Multiplied by twenty. He said it was incredible in every way, and left him feeling young again, as if he could do anything."

"Like it made him drunk," Makie said, fresh from the tournament.

Reiko nodded. "He said word of this must not get out, or other vampires will want to try it. And if Eva gets wind of it..."

Everyone shuddered at the thought of Eva, possibly the most powerful vampire in existence, drunk, and with the bad decision making skills that came with such a state.

Negi shook his head to clear it of the terrifying image. "But what about Possum-san? Is she okay? Does he know where she is?"

Reiko shifted to a slightly less uncomfortable position on the park bench. "He doesn't know where she is. The last time he saw her," she said, raising her voice to cut off the angry words in Negi's throat, "the last time he saw her, she was in his hotel room. He even gave me the room number in order to confirm we had the right one. He said if she wasn't there, she must have escaped; he insisted over and over again that she wasn't the sort of person to take lightly, and I'm pretty sure he's right."

"So...we have to find her. Have you been able to find any clue as to where she might have gone?" Chizuru asked; it was the first time she had spoken up since arriving with Asuna.

Reiko shook her head. "He seems insistent that she is still in the city; he says he can 'feel her', whatever that means."

Chizuru nodded in response.

"Master told me once that vampires have a connection to those they've turned," Negi said slowly. "Even temporarily, like what happened with you, Makie-san," he said, referring to the infamous 'Vampire of Sakura Lane' incident, which had resulted in Makie and several of her classmates becoming magically enslaved to Eva for a short time back in middle school, when he had first arrived.

Reiko nodded. "He says she's here, somewhere, and she probably needs our help. If she's..." She trailed off. She didn't really know Possum beyond a 'Hey, how's it going' 'Fine, and you?' sort of way, but still she found the idea of Possum stuck alone somewhere, slowly turning into a vampire and helpless to do anything about it extremely distasteful.

"We need to find her now," Negi said. He looked at Nodoka. "Can you set up-"

"Already on it," she said quietly as she opened more copies of her book.

"We need to secure this park-"

"Already taken care of," Reiko said, waving her hand to show it was nothing much. "Magic circles. Nobody else can see us, and anyone who tries to come through will end up going around instead."

Negi nodded, his mind working fast as he ran through his rapidly expanding mental list of things to do.

"How about the ghosts?" Asuna asked, prompting several of the others to look up. "Can't you ask them if they've seen her?"

Reiko frowned and shook her head. "Normally I could, but you have to understand, ghosts see things differently than we do. To them, Negi-sensei is 'A King', you're a black hole, Makie-san's a sunflower...you get the idea."

"A...black hole...?" Asuna asked, unsure of what to think about that.

"How about new ones? New black holes or sunflowers or whatever," Makie suggested.

Reiko's frown tightened, but she turned to the empty space on her right. "How about it?"

"Is that...Sayo-chan...?" Makie asked, squinting at the empty air. She thought she might just barely be able to see a shape there, but she couldn't really tell-

"Yeah, it's Sayo. She came a while ago to tell me Kazumi-san has duties at the tournament and couldn't make it," Reiko said. "Now be quiet, I'm listening." Everyone leaned in close, waiting, until Reiko sat back, her head cocked to the side and a curious expression on her face.

"Well?" Asuna asked.

"She says...there's a big yellow cat wandering around down below, in the storm drains," Reiko said, clearly puzzled. "But there are others too; there's a big vulture that's always flying around, and a fireball," she paused for a moment. "She says like 'Scary Max-sensei', but smaller," she added, unable to keep from smirking at the big P.E. teacher's nickname, even among the ghosts. "A bunch of wild animals too. I guess those are probably the youkai who are here for that big festival they have. It's not really much to go on..."

"But it's a start," Negi said, taking on a confident expression for the first time in quite a while, now that he felt he was making actual progress. "And with the festival going on, we have more people working security than any other time of the year; we should be able to find her as soon as she comes out in the open." He looked over at Nodoka just in time for her to open her eyes and make a satisfied smile.

"Everyone knows to watch for her," Nodoka said, a small smile on her lips betraying the happiness she felt at being of use to her friends.

"Thank you, Nodoka," Negi said, smiling at her. He turned to look at the others. "Let's work out a search grid. Reiko-san, I want you to check with the ghosts and make a list of anything strange; the rest of us will check them out, one by one if necessary. Or maybe the ghosts can help us, how many-"

"That probably won't work," Reiko said, interrupting him before he could get his hopes up. "For some reason, there are a lot more ghosts than usual. I mean, just around us right now, there are something like a dozen just wandering around this park."

Negi blinked. A dozen...? In this tiny park? There were barely a dozen in all of Mahora when he had first arrived...! "Reiko-san," he said very calmly as his skin prickled at the thought of all those ghosts hanging around, watching. Had they seen the various embarrassing incidents he had suffered since Asuna had started living in his apartment...? How humiliating...! "How many, ah...how many ghosts would you say are in the city now?"

Reiko scowled defensively as everyone turned their attention on her. "What, you guys didn't know? They're everywhere. There are thousands of them...didn't Kazumi say anything?" she demanded, clearly irritated.

Makie, who had gone pale at the mention of thousands of ghosts, shivered. "N-no! She didn't say a word!"

Reiko rolled her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose. "Okay, look. They're just ghosts. They can't hurt you. The most they can do is knock down the occasional vase. Quit being an idiot," she said sharply, then turned her attention back to Negi. "They've been building up for the past year or so, but they haven't done anything bad, and most of 'em seem to be scared of something, or embarrassed. They won't say a word to me, but they'll sometimes talk to Sayo." She looked at the empty air to her right again, and sighed in annoyance. "And even that's not very useful. Look, these new ghosts don't know me, most of 'em probably aren't even aware I can see 'em. They're just about useless, and this whole thing is really getting aggravating. Now I need to get back home and get some rest, so do the rest of your damn planning without me!" she said peevishly as she took hold of her cane and struggled for a moment to push herself up off the bench, a simple task that had suddenly become very complicated and painful after she had been grievously wounded by a ghoul back in May. She gave Negi a withering scowl when he moved to help her up, pulled herself up the rest of the way, and hobbled away, looking as if she could keel over at any time.

"Well," Asuna said when Reiko was gone, putting on a brave front and trying to ignore the idea that thousands of ghosts might be looking at her, "we've got a lot of work to do. Let's get to it!"

Ako followed along as Rale darted through alleyways and across streets apparently at random, trying to escape from people Ako didn't even know enough about to be able to recognize if she saw them. As they went down one particularly long alleyway, Ako watched him running in front of her, marveling at the drastic change that had changed the shy, awkward teenage boy of yesterday into this semi-heroic man who was intent on saving her...and couldn't help but blush a little as she clutched her bag to her chest with her free hand.

They ran up to the end of the alley and paused while Rale peeked out around the edge, and then darted out onto the sidewalk and took off again. They were about to run past a cafe when the door opened and one of the men Ako had seen Rale with that first day, a big, rough looking man with black hair, stepped outside, took one look at Rale and Ako, and bellowed "I found 'em!" in a voice that must have echoed halfway across the city. Rale skidded to a halt and tried to punch the bigger man, but was swatted aside with ease. The big man stepped forward and looked down at Ako. She shot a quick, worried glance at Rale, who was pushing himself up off the ground amid his spilled bag of groceries, and then back to the big man, who gently yet relentlessly took her bag away. She heard shouting from down the street and turned to see half a dozen others coming up at a run, and then Rale was up again.

"No! Cort, you can't do this! You have to let her go!" he said frantically in as low a voice as he could manage under the circumstances. "She doesn't deserve this! It's...it's not right!"

The big man scowled at him, and yet Ako thought she could detect a hint of regret buried in his expression as well.

"Don't fight; it'll be easier on both of you if you just give in," he said a low, rumbling tone that she would have expected to come out of a bass amplifier rather than a human mouth. "Believe me, Initiate, this is for the best," he added. He gave Ako one last look before turning to what was obviously the leader of the newcomers as he trotted up, out of breath after his run.

While the two spoke quietly, Ako looked over at Rale again, noting the frustrated helplessness in his expression, the regret he was feeling, and understood the truth of what he was and what he had been trying to do. She moved to stand beside him and took his hand. He tried to fight back the tears that were starting to spill out, and she squeezed his hand reassuringly as the strange group came to take the two of them away.

Author's Notes: Trying to get a once-every-two-weeks update schedule going here; we'll just have to see how it holds up.