Sunday, July 12th, Afternoon
Student Number Eleven, Sophie Rivers, paused in front of the door to her dorm room and looked furtively down the hallway before opening the door. She quickly slipped inside, and shut the door after her.
"Hey, Sophie. What are you doing back so early?" her roommate, Student Number Twelve, Takahashi Shizuko, said from her spot on the top bunk as she put down the magazine she had been reading. "What's up?"
Sophie just blinked at her for a moment. 'How do I hide what I'm doing? Shizuko may be a little bit of an airhead, but she's not stupid...' "I'm...getting something I forgot," she said, hating how nervous she felt. Her roommate Shizuko was probably her best friend in the whole country other than that girl Maple Birdsong, who often met up with her out in the woods when she was doing her shaman thing; Shizuko didn't know anything about the things Sophie knew how to do as far as she could tell, and she wanted very much to keep it that way.
Here in Japan, Sophie was a foreigner; with her blonde hair and orange eyes, she stuck out from the Japanese population, even in a city as racially diverse as Mahora, not to mention the scar across her cheek...something she had received in a wild run through the forest to escape a vulture like those which plagued her thoughts and visions. She hated vultures...just the sight of a vulture circling high above was enough to send chills racing down her spine.
But, in spite of the fact that she would most likely have been made into an outcast in any other Japanese city of a similar size, in Mahora she might as well have been a local celebrity; for whatever reason, everyone seemed to know who she was, younger students seemed to look up to her, and strangers would strike up conversations with her in the street. She had never experienced anything like it. Back when she was under Cesar's training far, far to the west, she had had to dodge rocks and curses whenever she went into town; while they hadn't known about her secret, they had suspected, and that had been enough for them to treat her appearance as a bad omen. No one had spoken to her back there with anything but a curse. Here, though...
Sophie knelt down and reached under her bed, feeling around for the bag in which she kept the toolkit she had assembled with such care over the years. Her hand closed on a cheap nylon strap and she breathed a sigh of relief. She quickly pulled the bag out from under the bed and put it up on the bottom bunk, where Shizuko couldn't see it.
"Something wrong?"
Sophie was glad she wasn't facing her roommate, because her expression would have given the whole thing away. Shizuko was oddly perceptive...she had almost discovered Sophie's secret several times because of it, and Sophie knew Shizuko's curiosity must be eating her alive. It said a lot about the girl that she had never poked through Sophie's things. "Nothing's wrong, I'm just low on time," she lied as she unzipped the bag, rooted around inside for a moment, and zipped it shut again. "I'll probably be late coming back; don't worry if it gets dark."
She could tell Shizuko was looking at her, and tried very carefully to avoid thinking about shaman-related things as she hefted the backpack up and strapped it on. "Well, I'm off."
"Good luck," Shizuko said as she watched her go.
It wasn't until Sophie was out of the dorm building that she finally felt safe. She had almost run over the current dorm mother, a woman called Akashi Yuuna, on her way down the stairs...Akashi Yuuna was another dangerous one; the woman seemed to wear a knowing grin at all times, and Sophie's instincts screamed at her that the dorm mother was sharp as a tack, definitely no one to let down her guard around. But, once free of the dorm, Sophie was back in her element; she took off at a comfortable run for the woods, where she could disappear from just about anyone and, more importantly, where she commonly performed her shamanic rituals. She trotted through the undergrowth in near silence, her breath and the occasional scuff of a branch on cloth the only sounds she made in her passage.
Finally, she made it to the small clearing where she commonly performed her rituals. It was the work of minutes to prepare the site. She had just finished setting up the tiny campfire when another presence entered the clearing. A very brief pause was all it required to discover the identity of her visitor.
"Hello, Maple. Do you feel it too?"
Maple Birdsong, looking more haggard than ever, nodded in reply as Sophie looked up. "I do. I don't know what it is, but Trinity's upset," she said, shyly shifting the shovel she carried from one hand to the other.
"You won't need that," Sophie said as she dug out the small spice bottles full of the colored powders she used in her rituals. "It's a ghost thing, not physical."
"Oh..." Maple said, then thrust the point of her shovel into the ground so it would stand upright and out of the way on its own. "What is it?"
"I don't know yet, but I'm about to find out. Want to join me?" she asked, gesturing to a spot across the fire from her.
Maple hesitated a moment, then nodded and quickly sat down by the small fire, mimicking Sophie's crosslegged seating position. "What do I need to do?"
"Just sit there and concentrate on the drum; the ritual will do the rest," Sophie said as she sprinkled certain powders over the fire, making it flare up and turn different colors. Intellectually she knew the powders were just for show, but that sort of thing counted for a lot when dealing with spirits and the supernatural; she wasn't yet at the level where she could accomplish much without going through these rituals, either. There was a lot she knew...intellectually. It didn't do her a bit of good in actual practice, however. It would, in time; she had seen that much in her own visions. But now, in the present day? Not a chance.
She took out the tiny, tambourine-like drum she used as a tool to help her focus, and glanced across the fire at her friend Maple. She didn't know much about the other girl, but...she shivered as she again recalled the terrifying vision she had had when first meeting her, when she had seen Maple Birdsong standing under the protection of a shade of Death Himself, represented by a huge vulture with a skeletal head and glowing eyes. Sophie made a very small grin. In spite of the horror of that vision, she had quickly become great friends with Maple, a stronger friendship even than that she shared with her roommate Shizuko. They just...clicked. She supposed it probably helped that they were both far from home.
Maple looked up at her, and Sophie looked away. "Okay; let's start."
"What is going on...?" Student Number Twenty Five, Mori Kumiko, said aloud as she sat up on her bed.
"Huh?" her roommate, Kondo Kai, said as she looked up from the homework she had neglected to finish earlier. "Did you say something?" she asked, eager for something to distract her from the tedium of mathematics.
"It's nothing," Kumiko said as she got up off her bed and went over to the dresser. She opened a drawer and rummaged around for a moment while Kai watched, and palmed the special lens she had been looking for. She also grabbed her coin purse to provide a handy visual excuse for her actions, and headed for the door. "I'll be out for a while; do you want anything?"
Kai grinned. "Yeah! Bring me back a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream!"
Kumiko cocked an eyebrow in mock-sarcasm. "Get it yourself."
Kai stuck her tongue out at her, but laughed anyway. Kumiko couldn't help but grin at the familiar back and forth as well as she grabbed a pair of sneakers and headed out. Once out in the hallway, Kumiko's grin vanished. She paused for a moment, trying to figure out where the strange sensation she felt in her head was originating, and trotted down to the end of the hall, where a large window provided a good view of the surrounding area. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then pulled the lens she had taken from her drawer out of her pocket. She lifted it up to her right eye and spoke the activation phrase Ciel had taught her when she gave her the lens years ago. Through the lens, the world changed.
The usual, everyday world vanished when viewed through the lens; in its place was a world normally unseen by the living, the world of ghosts and spirits. In that world, things appeared differently than Kumiko was used to. Cars and signs and plants were indistinct, even large trees seemed unsubstantial...except for the world tree, of course. The living might as well have not existed for the most part, simply because the dead couldn't interact with them.
But all of that was swept aside when she saw the path of destruction through the city. It was hard to describe, really...more a lack of color and movement compared to the area around it than any physical damage, but it was obvious some ghostly thing had plowed right through the city, destroying everything it touched...from what she could see, it had left quite a wide swath of damage behind. Kumiko had lived in the United States for several years, and had once seen first hand the path a tornado had taken through a small town; this seemed much the same. Lowering the lens showed the living world to have been left untouched, as if nothing had happened at all.
Kumiko ran for the stairs, nearly bowling over the current dorm mother on her way down. She muttered a quick apology and continued down without waiting for an answer. A moment later she was out on the street, running in the direction from which the sensation that had so disturbed her all morning had come. As she ran, she looked around at the other people out on the street, enjoying this hot Sunday afternoon, utterly clueless as to what was happening right under their noses. When she was younger, she used to wish she couldn't see what she could see, or know what she knew. Kumiko made a rueful grin as she slowed to a more manageable pace. To live in a state of utter ignorance, where her view of the world was so narrow...? She shook her head. "Yeah right, like that'd be interesting at all," she muttered as she reached the area she had spotted from the window earlier. Looking around to make sure no one was looking at her, she took out the lens and held it up so she could see the destruction first hand.
She couldn't help but gasp.
Looking at it from that window was different from actually being there, right in the middle of it. Her earlier thought came back to her: it was indeed as if a tornado had come through. An area roughly thirty yards wide had simply been wiped clean; nothing was left, not even the spiritual representations of roads or old buildings, some of the most permanent unnatural things in the spiritual world, remained. There wasn't a ghost or spirit in sight, either.
Kumiko remembered belatedly to school her expression into one of boredom as she swiftly pocketed the lens and trotted off down the path of destruction.
"Move over to the other side," Ran said. Kazumi climbed over the bed to stand by the wall; Sayo stuck with her closely, glancing nervously back at Reiko, who had collapsed into a chair as soon as she returned to the room and hadn't moved since.
"What about me?" Asuna asked. "And you're going to explain all this to me after this is over!" she said. "And who was speaking a moment ago? That sure wasn't you."
"That was a friend of mine; her name is Kuroi Yuina. I'll explain who she is later...but that's not important right now. We need to get him back on the bed. Negi-sensei trusts you enough that even the ghost possessing him seems to sense it," Ran said. "See if you can get him back on the bed." Nodoka looked troubled at that statement, but kept her silence.
"Can't you just knock him out again?" Reiko said, sarcasm dripping from her voice as she sat in the chair. "I mean, that seems to be your default reaction whenever you meet someone new."
Ran spared Reiko a quick glance, one which held no malice. "No. The ghost must be awake for this. She must be awake. If not, she can't stop—" Ran cut herself off there.
"Yeah yeah," Reiko said, reluctantly accepting the younger girl's explanation. "She's almost got him there," she said, pointing at Negi and Asuna.
The ghost possessing Negi glanced at Reiko, saw her pointing, and flipped out. It shoved Asuna toward the bed, which she fell over backward with a yelp. Negi spotted the doorway and headed for it in a stumbling run as if barely able to control his own body, but Kazumi's instincts kicked in and she grabbed him from behind. Had Negi been himself, with his years and years of training and amazing reflexes honed by years of experience, she wouldn't have had a chance. As it was, with the ghost in incomplete control of his body and barely able to think, Sayo zipped into Kazumi, took brief control of her body, and lifted Negi bodily overhead in something not unlike a german suplex, throwing him onto the bed on his back.
"You! There!" Ran said, pointing at Reiko. Reiko had half a second to widen her eyes in surprise before some invisible force took control of her body and it threw itself on top of Negi before he could scramble off the bed.
Finding herself chest to chest and face to face with Negi, Reiko didn't have time to do more than blush before Kazumi threw herself over their legs and Asuna snagged one of Negi's arms before the ghost possessing him could do anything with it; Nodoka wrapped herself around his other arm and sent a sharp look at Asuna. Asuna, for her part, seemed surprised, then smiled and nodded at the other girl. An instant later, a weight came down on Reiko's back and she let out a pained gasp.
"I'm sorry Sakai-san, but please bear with it," Ran said as she settled into place on top of Reiko and leaned forward to put her hands on each side of Negi's head. "We need to calm her; this may take some time," she said softly, her long black hair hanging down like a curtain around Reiko and Negi's heads seemed to block out the rest of the world. Negi's eyes darted around wildly, but the ghost possessing him didn't try anything violent; if there was anything good about this situation, that was probably the extent of it.
'So that's the best that can be said for it, is it?' Kuroi Yuina said. 'Kind of kinky; I didn't know you were into that sort of thing. Of course, I suppose everyone experiments at some point...'
Ran blushed deeply, intensely thankful that her hair was hiding her face and her expression, which couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be embarrassed, horrified, or curious. She quickly shook it off, however; Yuina only ever said things like that when the situation was deadly serious, as a way of getting Ran to focus on the task at hand rather than whatever ideas were going through her head. Ran appreciated the effort; she just wished Yuina wouldn't be so embarrassing about it. 'Quiet, you.'
"Hurry it up," Reiko snarled. "This is..."
Embarrassing? Exhilarating? Ran didn't know, and Reiko didn't seem to want to say. Ran would have bet quite a bit that Reiko was thoroughly enjoying the fact that she was lying flat on top of none other than Negi Springfield, but she kept her comments to herself. Even though Ran didn't know Sakai Reiko as much more than a face and a name, she could tell the girl was crazy about the teacher, as was almost everyone else present, even herself, she supposed.
'Focus, Ran-chan.'
Ran shook her head to clear it, and got to work.
Mori Kumiko trotted along the invisible path of destruction, only occasionally taking the time to look through the lens for a peek at the spirit world as she went; there was no longer any need, now that she was so close to the source of the unpleasant sensation she could feel down in her bones. Finally she came out from between two buildings and into a wide open field she recognized after a moment as the one beside the school's administration building. Kumiko trotted out into the field and paused, looking around. The strange sensation was overpowering now, but...birds were singing in the trees, a squirrel was running around near the bushes, and a teacher was walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the field as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Kumiko's stomach felt like it was trying to do flips.
She supposed that was the difference between a Detector like her and a normal person: knowledge of hidden things, and ignorance. She just wished strong ghostly things didn't make her feel sick to her stomach. Detecting was a rare ability, especially when it came as strong as it did in her. She supposed that was why those rogue mages from the Ukraine Mages' Association had come after her and her family...she couldn't help but sneer at the memory of them, lying bloody and lifeless after their run in with her family's contracted guardians. The guardians were too late for her family, but...Kumiko had only been four at the time, so she couldn't recall much beyond blood and fire, and the sight of those rogue mages lying dead. The guardian creatures had left after avenging her parents' deaths...she thought sometimes about how convenient it might be to have a guardian creature or two of her own, but Ciel had always told her they often required a steep price, and were not the same as a real friend or even a pet. Still... Kumiko idly took the lens out of her pocket and lifted it up to her eye.
She bit back a scream and dropped the lens as she stumbled back.
It was huge, and it was right there. She dropped to the ground and scrambled for the lens. When she brought it up again, the...the thing she was looking at had moved over to the other side of the field, and seemed to be trying to push through some sort of barrier. It was hard to describe...it was a huge dark shifting shape hidden by a thick black haze that reminded Kumiko more than anything else of thick black smoke belching from the smokestack of an old fashioned steam train, like the ones she saw sometimes on TV. Flailing tube-tentacles emerged from the black cloud from time to time; anything they touched in the spirit world either crumbled away or was sucked up, and the field in front of the building was almost completely empty; even the spirit world's grass was gone.
"It's...it's trapped," Kumiko said aloud, unable to hide the relief she felt at the prospect. But...if it was trapped, someone had to have created the trap. Curious, she held up the lens again to get a feel for the space the creature was trapped in. "Okay..." She paused, turning her head this way and that, the same way she had to find Possum after the other girl was vampirized. She supposed it wasn't unlike what blind people did to 'see' if something was in front of them. Possum Cade...she still didn't know how to act around the other girl; Possum certainly seemed like a normal girl her age, but...Kumiko shivered. She had watched Possum drain a rat of its blood in an alleyway the day before she had been found at the festival. Kumiko was aware of the others as well, Evangeline and Jonus, and Carrick, whatever he was. Not to mention the others in her class...there were a ton of weirdos in this town; for the most part she just tried to keep to herself and not attract any undue attention, but it was often difficult, and Eva at least had already shown that she knew exactly who Kumiko was, and that she knew she was from the Burial Agency as well, something Kumiko hadn't told anyone since arriving in Japan. It was scary...
"Found it," Kumiko said aloud as she looked at a magic circle drawn on a piece of paper that had been taped up on the bottom of a stone bench. She smoothed out the tape to make sure it was sticking properly, and stood up.
"You'd better be careful with that."
"Kyah!" Kumiko screeched as she whirled to see who had snuck up on her. 'Speak of the devil,' she thought despairingly.
Eva just stood there glaring at her, with their classmates Chachamaru and Rally Wheeler standing behind her. "You didn't rip it, did you?" she demanded.
Kumiko shook her head frantically. "N-no! I didn't! I was just fixing it! I-I don't want that to get loose!" she said, pointing at where she had last seen the creature through the lens.
Eva glanced over where Kumiko was pointing. "It's over there now," she said, pointing off to the side.
Kumiko took a quick look through her lens and adjusted her aim. Eva just looked at her until she felt foolish and stopped pointing. "What is it?" Kumiko asked after a moment. She lifted her lens up again so she could see it.
"Aisaka Sayo said it was a 'ghost eater'," Eva replied, evidently deciding it wasn't worth it to follow her vampirish tendencies and dismember Kumiko today as she settled her hands on her hips while she watched the creature without the aid of magical tools.
"'Ghost eater'...?" Kumiko asked.
"It eats ghosts," Rally added helpfully from behind Eva.
"I...I see," Kumiko said. Now that she thought about it, what were the class's two robots doing with the class's first vampire? And why were they dressed like maids? Did vampires have robot maids nowadays...?
"What are you staring at?" Eva asked irritably as she sent a halfhearted glare at Kumiko.
"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Kumiko said, holding her hands up to show how innocent of staring she was. 'Please, someone, anyone, help me... Eva's scaring the crap outta me...!'
She couldn't quite understand what was going on; she felt slow and stupid, as if she had been asleep for a long, long time, and then woken up before she was ready. The last thing she could recall, she had bid goodbye to her Max as he walked away from her favorite spot out by the ocean. And then...what? She had thought for sure she was moving on to whatever hell awaited her after all the bad things she had done, after lying to her friends for so long, but...she could recall brief glimpses of her brother—Jingle, they had all called him—in his workshop, working with his summoned demon, casting some spell over a small flat object like a card, and then...what? A chase. Blood; she could almost still see it, splashed on the sand, dripping from fingers. Then waves and water and salt? Storms and tropical heat as she floated against the current? It was a jumble of disorganized images, and none of it made any sense to her.
Now and again, she would drift off to sleep again, and dream dreams of huge stone temples like she had seen in Greece, and sometimes of a handsome young redheaded man, the opposite of her Max in looks if not temper. He was always sad in those dreams, thinking about his many friends or the few members of his family. Sometimes he would speak about them, though his words were often unfamiliar to her. She caught the occasional name, however; judging from what she could tell, he was speaking of Japanese people. The name 'Asuna' was mentioned often, as was the name 'Nodoka'. Others were mentioned too, 'Yue' and 'Misa' and 'Ayaka' among others.
She rather liked the red headed young man.
He was friendly and kind in spite of his sadness, and cared deeply for his friends and family. She wanted to hug him and tell him everything would be alright, but he couldn't see her; he couldn't hear her. And, for some reason, he felt more real than she did herself.
That little thought brought about a whole host of disturbing ideas, ideas which her strange difficulty in thinking made incredibly frustrating. She just didn't understand. Why should she feel more like the inhabitant of a dream than the red headed man? Why didn't he react to her presence? Why couldn't she think? She tried to speak aloud, but she couldn't make any sounds; she had no mouth.
She had no mouth because she had no head. She had no head, just as she had no arms or legs. She had no arms and legs because she didn't even have a body. The realization was terrifying, and it drove her to cling to the only thing that seemed real to her in the dream world in which she was trapped: the young red headed man. When next he appeared, she attached herself to him, clinging to him as well as she could. Her periods of waking were replaced by dreams until she was unsure which was which; the only constant was the young red headed man and the artificial nightfall her shadow brought over the world.
She clung to him, and she was comforted by his presence. He didn't know she even existed, but the warmth of his existence was enough to lull her back to an uneasy sleep, haunted by visions of a lost love and the beast searching for her.
Sometimes the nightmares would wake her up, only to reveal the young man to be more troubled than before. Other times she would fall asleep clinging to him as he walked through the dream, unaware of her presence. And then, after an interminable period of sleep broken only by the occasional dream, something new happened.
Darkness of a different sort than her own ripped its way into the world; the young man vanished in the midst of his dream, and she was left stunned, floating in the darkness with nothing left that she could see, and fear began to grow as she felt the presence of the beast grow ever closer. From fear grew panic, and she clung to warm memories of the young red headed man as tightly as she could until a pair of cold, skeletal hands gripped the sides of her head and she opened her mouth to scream.
She woke up.
The first thing she noticed other than those cold, dead hands gripping the sides of her head was the soft shape she was lying on and clinging to, and then the back of her fist struck the dead one, knocking her away. The next thing she noticed was how wrong everything felt. She looked down at her too-big hand, its skin oddly pale...far from her usual olive complexion. Her gaze trailed from her hand to her wrist and on to her elbow, her forearm—far too big—and from there to the rather feminine hip her elbow was resting on. Her eyes widening, her gaze shot up the strange woman's body to her face and her odd, different-colored eyes. The woman said something in a language she didn't recognize even though it sounded vaguely familiar, and her eyes widened further.
She shoved the strange woman away, ignoring her startled squawk as she hit the floor on her back, and tried to climb out of the hospital bed she realized she was lying in. Something was wrong with her body; her arms and legs moved strangely, as if they belonged to someone else, and she couldn't control them properly; instead of the agile escape from these strange people she had envisioned, she clumsily slid off the bed and fell flat on her face, letting out a cry as she hit the floor.
Another woman she hadn't noticed before by the doorway began babbling in the same strange language the other had spoken, and the dead one, the one she had knocked down first, began digging around in a large cloth bag lying on the floor.
Her mind strangely fuzzy and barely able to think, she tried to stand up, but again her limbs wouldn't cooperate; the best she could manage was to scoot back into the corner of the room, where she could see all three strangers. The one she had hit babbled something else she couldn't understand, and then...then she heard something she did understand.
"Adeat!"
Alarm bells going off in her head, her eyes darted to the one by the door, who had just summoned some type of magic artifact in the shape of a book. She looked at the redhead with the mismatched eyes again, then at the dead girl, and back to the redhead when she started speaking that strange language again in what seemed to be intended as soothing tones.
'Japanese, that's what it is,' she realized suddenly. It made sense to her addled mind; all three of the strangers had vaguely Asian features. But what didn't make any kind of sense at all, she thought as her gaze went warily from face to face, was how she had ended up in Japan. That, and whatever was wrong with her mind, not to mention her body; it felt huge and uncoordinated. Looking down at her hand, it seemed somehow unfamiliar, far too big and clumsy, and too pale. Understanding where she was helped her calm down, if only a little. The trouble, she reflected as she eyed the woman by the door, was that she had no way of communicating with these three beyond hand signals; she didn't have a single word of Japanese.
All of that was driven from her mind, however, when something struck her a huge blow that she felt through her soul rather than the odd, awkward body she now found herself trapped in. She clapped her hands to the sides of her head and let out a blood curdling scream.
The agony quickly faded to a more manageable level, but it was all she could do to keep from screaming again as understanding of the horror of that sensation struck her. It was as if something had tried to rip away her very existence! It had felt, if but for an instant, that everything that made her, well, her, had been in danger of...of what?
She wrapped her too-big arms around her too-big body and shivered as she tried to press herself as far back into the corner as she could. She heard someone speaking and looked up just in time to see a new girl, thin, her long black hair tangled and half-blocking her face, stumble in through the doorway. The woman with the magic book started to speak, but the black haired girl pointed at her and she collapsed. The girl turned her attention to her, next, and she wanted to scream again, but the woman with the red hair shouted something and the black haired girl pointed at her...and paused.
She blinked. She didn't know what magic the black haired girl was using, but pointing at someone was a dangerous thing; it allowed power to be more easily directed and amplified, and she had known more than one mage who used such a gesture to threaten others.
Her rambling thought processes were interrupted when the dead girl confronted the black haired girl, and was swiftly knocked out in the same manner as the pactio book woman. The next few minutes didn't make much sense to her, even compared to what had happened earlier. There was a lot of talking back and forth, and then the red haired woman picked the black haired girl up against her will and held her kicking and screaming in the air, and then pinned her on the bed. The others spoke back and forth for a moment while she tried unsuccessfully to follow their conversation, and then the black haired girl pinned on the bed changed. Without warning, she heaved off the red head and darted straight for her.
She pressed herself as tightly against the wall as she could, but the black haired girl froze in place, looking down at her. A moment later, she saw why: the red head had drawn a sword and lain it alongside the black haired girl's neck. The girl turned her attention away, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
Sophie glanced over at Maple as they flew through the sky. 'How is she still in that form...?' she wondered, not for the first time. When Sophie had opened her eyes again in the spirit world alongside her friend Maple Birdsong, to call what she had felt upon seeing Maple in her normal human form 'shock' wouldn't have done it justice. Sophie had never seen anyone remain so thoroughly in the same form after stepping into the spirit world using the method she had used. Most people shifted into the form of their spirit animal when using the form of spirit walking Sophie was best at; those who didn't tended to become a sort of floating blob or vague humanoid shape instead. Not so, Maple. She simply stood there as she did when inside her body, looking down at Sophie as if she didn't even realize how bizarre it was that she could. Maple even took the time to brush her bangs out of her eyes; most people in spirit form didn't even have hair. It took her a few seconds to catch it, but Sophie felt like an idiot when she realized Maple would have had no way of knowing anything was strange; she probably thought Sophie's spirit form was weird.
She quickly found something else to worry about, however, when something struck her a tremendous blow that knocked her from the sky with a cry. Maple caught her before she could fall to the ground, but when she looked up to give the other girl her thanks—a fall in the spirit world would hurt just like a fall in the real world—Maple was instead looking off toward their destination with a cold, distant look in her eye that sent shivers all the way down to Sophie's tailfeathers. "Th—"
"Let's go," Maple said, her voice low as she cradled Sophie's spirit form close to her chest and rocketed off toward the disturbance with far more speed than Sophie could ever muster.
Sophie couldn't help but stare at the...the thing in front of the administration building. It was huge, hidden by a black cloud of miasma, and it bellowed as it smashed again and again into the barriers that had sprung up around it.
"Abomination," Maple growled as she slowed to a stop and released Sophie. Sophie settled down on the grass and gave her a sharp look, but Maple still had that faraway look in her eyes as she stared at the trapped thing in front of her.
"Maple...?"
"Abomination," Maple repeated through clenched teeth.
Sophie gave her a startled look. "Maple? What are you—hey! Wait! That's dangerous!" she squawked after her friend as Maple took off running toward the 'abomination'. Sophie started to flutter forward, but quickly stopped herself; trapped in her spirit form, she would be helpless against such a monster. She looked around desperately for anything that might have been of some use when her gaze fell on her classmates Evangeline and Mori Kumiko, who appeared to be watching the monster from the sidelines. She looked back at Maple just as she charged through the barrier without even flinching, and half-ran, half-flew toward her classmates.
"I must admit, that's impressive," Eva said, cocking an eyebrow as she watched the American girl dash through the barrier and head straight for the ghost eater. "Suicidally stupid, but impressive." Both eyebrows went up when, instead of devouring the girl, the ghost eater seemed to shrink away from her instead, as if it didn't want her to get close.
"Um...Eva-san?"
"Interesting," Eva said as her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "It almost seems scared of her. Very interesting." Her lips parted in a toothy grin that widened as she watched Maple's spirit form swing what had to be a chainsaw at the ghost eater, which let out a terrified roar and redoubled its efforts to escape the cage it had found itself in.
"Eva-san..."
"Hmm...what will happen if she connects?" Eva said, as if to herself. A moment later, the question was answered for her as Maple's chainsaw struck a glancing blow against the ghost eater's flank; the wound spewed black smoke for a moment before closing as the ghost eater swung the huge bulbous shape that seemed to serve as its head. "I see; it can be wounded by a spiritual attack..."
"Eva-san!" Mori Kumiko shouted.
Kumiko shrank back when Eva turned her glare on her, but pointed at the spirit world 'visitor' that stood in front of her, looking up at her with an oddly imploring look on its ugly little birdy head.
Eva looked at the spirit world vulture standing in front of Kumiko and shrugged it off. "Don't worry, she's doing fine," Eva said, turning her attention back to the one sided fight as Maple Birdsong tried to corner the ghost eater in its cage.
"What do you-"
"I'm not talking to you," Eva snapped, cutting Kumiko off so sharply she yelped. "I was speaking to her," she said, pointing at the ugly spirit world vulture standing in front of Kumiko. She turned her attention back to the scene inside the barrier just as Maple landed a terrific blow and buried her chainsaw deep into the shadowy miasma around the ghost eater and cut out a chunk the size of her torso. The ghost eater let out an agonized roar and hemorrhaged black smoke as it lurched away.
"Oh, she hurt it," Eva said as she made an expression that was, if not one of surprise, its close cousin, as she eyed the chunk Maple had cut out of the monster. Even as she watched, it began to dissolve into smoke and quickly disintegrated. "Interesting. Very interesting."
Kumiko whimpered next to her as she watched Maple Birdsong, a girl whose name she didn't even know, face the ghost eating monster. "She's getting tired...is she going to be okay?" she asked nervously. She didn't want to see anyone get eaten, especially not someone who was normally a living, breathing person.
"We will have to see," Eva said, sparing a small shrug and a sideways glance in Kumiko's direction. "Somehow, I don't doubt it."
Maple paused for a moment, eyeing the abomination as it finally found itself trapped against the wall and turned to face her. She didn't know why, but something about its very existence raised her hackles. She didn't even know what the big shadowy thing was, just that she hated everything about it on some deep, primitive level she didn't understand. Everything about it, from the greasy, unpleasant feeling of the space around it to the black miasma surrounding it in a cloud made her want to end it. It was just...just wrong.
Her grip on the chainsaw she had somehow taken out of thin air tightened. In this spirit world Sophie had let her enter, everything was strangely different, from the way she saw the world to the way her senses, not quite the same as they were in her real body, detected her surroundings. It was different, and yet...it felt familiar, as if she had been here a million times before, and this, this thing cowering before her...
Maple sneered at the ghost eater. "You are an abomination," she said, all but growling the last word, wondering why she had even spoken. She had a feeling...
The enormous black mass cornered before her lunged forward, but she brought up the chainsaw and hacked away at it, cutting out chunk after chunk, each of which fell hissing to the ground. The monster again cowered back, creeping as far back into the corner as it could without actually touching the barrier, and Maple found herself staggering back a few steps herself.
'Why am I so tired...?' she wondered, then glanced down at the chainsaw she held. It felt thin, tenuous...as if it could fade from existence at any moment.
"Still incomplete..." she muttered aloud, startling herself. She was exhausted, more exhausted than she had ever been before. She looked back up at the ghost eater, visibly smaller than it had been when she first attacked it, as it cowered in the corner. She barely noticed when the chainsaw faded into nothingness, replaced by a long shadowy shaft. "You..." she muttered, watching the ghost eater. It jerked when she spoke. She stepped forward, taking the shaft she carried in place of the chainsaw from earlier in both hands. The ghost eater let out a shriek and tried to dart to the side to escape her advance, but she brought the shaft around in a vicious arc; the blade that had sprung into being on the end ripped through the ghost eater's body without resistance.
"This is getting more interesting by the second," Eva said, her grin wider and more bloodthirsty than ever.
The ghost eater shrieked as the black miasma surrounding its body parted, revealing the horrific gash Maple's scythe had opened in its side. As it thrashed in agony, a handful of translucent blobs with glowing blue cores fell out through the open wound and plopped down to the ground, where they lay quivering. Each was perhaps twelve inches across, and they resembled the monsters known as 'slimes' from a certain popular video game franchise.
Kumiko was horrified. "What are those?! They're...they're horrible!" She shivered as she looked through her lens at the blobs of translucent material lying on the ground beside the ghost eater as it thrashed in agony.
Eva spared her a glance. "They're ghosts it's already eaten, of course. What else would they be?" she said as she turned her attention back to the ghost eater. "They'll recover, in time. But more importantly, Maple Birdsong...how does she have that?" Eva said, speaking as if to herself. "That scythe...very interesting. I will have to find out," she said, her expression that of a predator watching its prey.
But that one swing of the scythe seemed to be all Maple could manage; visibly struggling, she fell first to one knee, then to her bottom on the ground. She dropped the scythe as she fell, and it vanished before it reached the ground.
"H-hey...!" Kumiko said, taking half a step forward before her fear of the ghost eater's frightening appearance stopped her.
"She should be fine," Eva said, then glanced down at the spirit world vulture pacing around in front of Kumiko, clearly disturbed as it watched Maple finally collapse to her side and abruptly vanish. "She went back to her body. You should probably do the same thing before she falls into that little cigarette lighter you call a campfire," she said idly, focusing her attention on the quivering, half-digested ghosts that still lay on the ground. The spirit world vulture left at a stumbling run before finally taking off and flying off toward the east. As for the ghost eater, it seemed uninterested in anything but staying as far away from where it had been injured as the barriers around it would permit, which was a blessing of sorts...for the ghosts it had eaten, anyway.
"Come on, there isn't much time," Ran said as she staggered out into the hallway and all but collapsed against the wall.
"Hey...! But what about..." Asuna said, trailing off as she looked at the figure lying on the hospital bed.
Ran waved off her concerns. "It's fine...just bring her along. She shouldn't put up much of a fight, not once she figures out what to do," she said, struggling to find the energy to keep going. She had had a long, exhausting week, and this day, the climax she had been preparing for, had nearly killed her already. Her most recent trial, taming the ghost that had taken up residence in her teacher's soul...she shivered and Nodoka had to rush to her side to keep her from falling to the floor as her knees collapsed. With nothing hurt but her pride, she reluctantly allowed the woman to steady her. Miyazaki Nodoka...now there was a strange one. Ran had rarely seen such perversion in a person with such a pure heart; the fact that the woman's wish to share the teacher with all her friends arose out of said purity made her even stranger in Ran's eyes, but she didn't voice such thoughts. She had no doubt that the woman who was currently dating Negi-sensei was well aware of her own situation. She shook off that train of thought and tried to focus on the task at hand. She sighed, wishing yet again she hadn't taken a look at the way Miyazaki Nodoka's mind worked; she had been distracted ever since. She glanced back into the hospital room and nodded when she saw Asuna helping the teacher's body off the bed. The hesitant, clumsy movements of his limbs and the uncertain way his body swayed, as if he was struggling just to maintain balance, were quite normal in his situation; ghosts tended to have trouble steering strange bodies around, after all...especially if they were so different from the ghost's original body.
Ran staggered on toward the stairway with Nodoka helping her along, cursing her own frailty the whole way.
'What...'
For the first time in a long time, she could think. For the first time in a long time, her mind was clear. She could feel; she could feel the sensation of cold air blowing down on her from the vent high up on the wall. She could feel the scratchy feeling of the hospital clothing on the body she was inhabiting.
She could feel the emptiness of the thing outside the building.
She sat up on the bed, looking curiously down at the body of the guy she was using. 'How...?' She couldn't quite recall how she had ended up like this; everything from the moment her Max had finally given her up in California to now was little more than a jumbled mess of wildly charged emotions and confusing flashes of memory that she couldn't understand. The one thing from that time she could recall with any clarity, however, was her fear of the thing outside, and the emptiness it left behind. She recalled its name, and shivered.
"Ghost Eater," she said aloud, and shivered again, wrapping her temporary arms around her temporary body.
The red headed woman standing nearby said something that sounded like a question, and Rikki looked up at her. The redhead gestured to the open doorway, and Rikki nodded. 'Okay then, let's see if I can make this body work,' she thought to herself as she swung her borrowed legs over the edge of the bed, blushing slightly as she became abruptly aware that she was, indeed, inhabiting a male body. She shook her nervousness off and slipped off the bed...and stumbled right into the wall. She would have fallen had the other woman not rushed to support her, but she soon regained her balance enough to stand properly. The redhead spoke again, but Rikki ignored her for the moment as she tried to figure out what had gone wrong. "Is it because he's so tall...?" she said aloud. The redhead started to ask her something else, but she waved her off and stretched out her borrowed arms. Sure enough, one hand bumped into the wall before she was ready for it. She took a few hesitant steps, and then took a few more with more confidence as she worked to get used to working with a body that was a good eight inches taller than what she was used to. A moment later she looked up at the redhead and nodded as she headed for the door.
Rikki blinked in the sunlight as she stepped outside the building. Those stairs...if she had thought learning to walk with a body that was too big was a hassle, learning to climb stairs with it had been a nightmare. But...her body froze as she laid eyes on the monster, the Ghost Eater, and her lips curled up in a snarl of their own accord.
The Ghost Eater, the nightmare monster that had been sealed away back in the Mediterranean centuries ago...
"Bastards," she said, growling the words. How could they have been so stupid? Didn't they realize what they had done...? Was their need to eliminate a deserter like her even after her death so powerful that they would go so far as to unleash such a horror upon the world...? She could clearly recall the corrupted officials in the higher ranks of the Istanbul Magic Association, the ones who had sent her and her brother to infiltrate the American Division, the ones who had stubbornly clung to power and worked their hardest to keep anyone who didn't share their views down...no magic association was run by angels, but few were so corrupt. It wasn't as bad as the Soviet magic associations—the earthly standard of mage association corruption—had been forty years before, but it wasn't much better. It was no wonder the two of them had defected as soon as they hit foreign soil...
Someone exclaimed something loudly in a foreign language, and she snapped back to the present and shot a quick, sharp glance at her surroundings, taking it all in. It seemed everyone was looking at her, from the redhead, the ghost, the two mediums and the dark haired girl who had helped return her to herself to the other two girls standing a fair distance away. The short blonde one stalked over and paused in front of her, her hands on her hips as she stared coldly into Rikki's eyes.
Rikki gamely held her ground for perhaps ten seconds before she started to falter, and the blonde girl smiled. "Be careful with that body; it belongs to me," she said in English.
"R-right," Rikki said in the same language, one of the few she knew. "B-but first, where are we? And...and how long has that been loose?" she said, gesturing at the Ghost Eater.
Eva cocked an eyebrow. "Mahora, in Japan. And as far as I can tell, 'that' has been loose for several years, probably since shortly after you died," she said.
Rikki just looked at her as dawning comprehension turned to horror. 'Several years'...how many ghosts had been devoured in that time? "Those bastards...!" she growled out again as she turned her gaze toward the ghost eater with an intensity that immediately drew its attention. Finally sensing her presence, it let out a roar and charged full speed straight for her until it hit the barrier with a tremendous impact. Rikki started forward until she felt a hand on her arm.
"Wait," someone else said sharply in English. Something in that voice sent shivers running up down Rikki's spine. "There is a proper way to do this, and rushing in headlong is a good way to get both you and him killed."
Rikki turned back to see who was speaking, and was surprised to see the frail, dark haired girl from earlier. "What are you-"
The girl grinned, her eyes strangely old. "Ran's only a child; as powerful as she is, she still lacks training. I, on the other hand," she said, looking over at the Ghost Eater, "know exactly what I am doing." She turned to the two mediums and spoke in Japanese for a moment, apparently giving them instructions, as they quickly trotted off to stand on opposite sides of the barrier.
"I don't understand, what are you-"
"Just a moment," the girl replied, then spoke for a long moment with the others who were present while the Ghost Eater's efforts to get at Rikki became even more frenzied. After a moment, she turned back to her. "The barriers Ran put up won't last much longer; this will have to be quick. First," she said, holding up one finger, "the Ghost Eater can only be hurt by ghosts or powerful mediums. Luckily, we have two of each here," she said, gesturing over to the ghost and two of the others. "Second: for ghosts, the barrier is one way. Once you go in, you can't come out until the barrier falls. Once we start this, we have to see it through to the end."
"Okay," Rikki said. She took a quick glance back at the Ghost Eater as it through itself into the barrier again and again. "Anything else?" she asked.
The strange girl gave her a measuring look. "How good are you at using your element?"
Rikki stiffened. 'How can she know about that? How can she know?' she wondered, horrified. Nobody knew about...about 'it'.
"Don't give me that look," Kuroi Yuina said through Ono Ran's mouth. "I knew your predecessor; we were rivals. And," she added reluctantly, "though both of us would have denied it, we were also the best of friends. Have no doubt: I know the look. You are the Queen of Shadow."
A secretive look passed from one dead woman to the other, and Rikki finally nodded. "I am. I have been since I was a child. Are you going to tell the others?" she said, glancing over at the motley crowd of girls and women talking strategy nearby.
Yuina smiled. "No; it's not something they need to know. There is something you need to know, however...the Elemental Kings are gathering. You know what that means. There are three others in this city now. The Queen of Water, the Queen of Light...and the King of Fire."
The last evidently had the effect she wanted on Rikki, for she made a knowing smile and turned away. "Don't forget; you have something to live for," she said over her shoulder, then made a wry grin at her joke and turned her attention back to the others.
For Rikki's part, had she still had a heart, it would have been racing. 'The King of Fire...that...how is he here? It can't be...does she mean Max?...Max is here?' Happy thoughts of their impending reunion were quickly spoiled, however, as she recalled some of the things he had said on his visit back home to California some time ago. He had loved her, but he had moved on...she was dead, after all. He probably didn't even know she was still around...
She didn't have long to ponder the disturbing revelation before Yuina turned back to her and spoke again.
"It's time; good luck."
"Th-thanks," Rikki replied, still shaken. "Wait!"
Yuina, wearing that girl Ono Ran's body, turned around yet again. "Yes? Is something wrong? There isn't much time, you know..."
"Why are you going over there? If you...if you were rivals with my predecessor, you were strong, right? Why don't you help?"
Yuina smiled with Ran's lips. "I am strong, oh yes. This girl, however," she said, gesturing down at her body. "This girl is strong as well, but her body is weak; I don't dare to take any risks with her health. It's up to you and Aisaka Sayo," she said, nodding to the other ghost, who was hovering nervously behind her. Sayo saw Rikki looking at her and bobbed her head, a worried expression on her face. Rikki nodded back. "So...good luck," Yuina said, then turned away and strolled over to where those who wouldn't be involved in the fight were watching.
Rikki and Sayo looked at each other for a long, awkward moment before Sayo floated a little closer and bobbed her head again. Rikki could tell the other ghost was just as nervous as she was about what was about to happen; Rikki was just glad the Ghost Eater seemed to have calmed down, though she could feel all its attention bearing down on her back. She saw Sayo glancing at it past her head and shivered as the terror in the other ghost's eyes. "H-hello," Rikki said in English.
"Ah...ano...'Hello'," Aisaka Sayo replied in the same language, albeit heavily accented. "You...ready for...you are? Fight?"
Rikki's face flushed in embarrassment and she quickly looked down at the feet of the young man whose body she wore, nodding. Absurdly, she noted the main difference between this ghost girl, Aisaka Sayo, and herself, was the ghost girl's lack of legs and feet, and the wispy tail...thing...that had replaced them. 'I wonder why?' she thought. 'Are all the ghosts around here like that...?' She herself was fully intact, down to what had been, in life, her favorite set of clothes. She shook the thought off, mentally prepared herself, and turned to face the Ghost Eater.
Eva watched from the sidelines, her expression impassive.
The plan of attack was simple: While Reiko and Kazumi, two of the most skilled mediums in the region, would go to opposite sides of the Ghost Eater's cage and focus on hindering its movements, Sayo and Rikki, still wearing Negi's body, would enter the cage to do battle with it. The brief attack by Maple Birdsong, in spirit form, had not only proven that it could be hurt, but had greatly weakened it as well; the question now was whether Sayo and Rikki could destroy it before the two of them ran out of power or got eaten. Once a ghost passed into that cage, there was no coming out until the barriers had either been lifted or destroyed. Once they went in, they were in until the end. There was no way to get help at the scene in time, either; the barriers were already weakened tremendously and would fail soon.
She watched idly as Reiko and Kazumi moved to their positions and began setting out focus objects and the various other tools of the Medium's trade. Eva snorted. The best mediums didn't need those things; the smallness of a medium's toolkit was a sign of their skill and power. Those who carried large toolkits tended to be weak or amateurs...or show offs. The corner of Eva's mouth quirked upward. Sakai Reiko, while ridiculously powerful, certainly fit that last category; Asakura Kazumi, on the other hand, was well on her way to becoming a proper medium. Eva knew Kazumi had the power and experience to work without all the little gewgaws and ceremony of a TV medium, though the girl herself didn't seem to realize it quite yet. 'She'll shape up eventually. Unless she dies first,' Eva thought idly. She glanced back at the Ghost Eater, which foolishly ignored the two mediums and focused instead on the ghost inhabiting The Boy's body whose name, Eva understood, was Rikki Suvari.
Eva sneered. It seemed some foolish idiots in Istanbul had stolen the Ghost Eater's sealing vessel from its millennia-long resting place and released it. The Ghost Eater was a well known monster in certain circles; it had caused quite the fuss until it was sealed away centuries upon centuries ago. From what little she knew about it, the legends said it should have simply been a mindless eating machine; it was intriguing that it seemed so focused on the ghost that had been hanging on to The Boy for the past few years, but she didn't know enough about the monster to know if that was normal behavior for it or not, something she intended to rectify soon. Eva knew that if she was in the Ghost Eater's position, she would have gone after the strongest ghost first, which was without a doubt Aisaka Sayo...this obsessive focus on one ghost in particular from what was most likely an unthinking bundle of instincts and hunger simply didn't make sense.
She glanced around at the others watching the scene with her, her former classmate Miyazaki Nodoka and two of her current classmates Mori Kumiko and Ono Ran, neither of whom seemed to be of much use at the moment, and, of course, Chachamaru and her little sister Rally. Kagurazaka Asuna was still inside the building, as her Magic Cancel ability had a high chance of interfering with the barriers currently keeping the Ghost Eater in check. Miyazaki Nodoka had only moments ago called a representative from the church's exorcism and spirit squad as a backup measure in case something went wrong and both ghosts were devoured; even now Eva spotted Sister Shakti and two others from the church approaching the field at a run. Eva yawned and glared up at the sun. "It's hot today," she said idly. Chachamaru promptly produced a parasol and held it over Eva's head.
"That's a little better."
Rikki shivered when the short blonde girl put up a second barrier around the field to keep other humans out. No matter how she looked, the girl was strong. To tell the truth, up to that point Rikki had thought she was just a know-it-all sort of half-genius mage; she hadn't had any clue the girl actually held that level of power or the skill to make use of it so quickly and easily.
She shook it off; this was no time to be worrying about something like that...this was a matter of life and death. In a manner of speaking, of course. She shivered again and walked up to stand in front of the barrier with the Ghost Eater looking down at her and shifting back and forth in what she thought was surely anticipation.
There was no telling how many ghosts it had eaten since it was released. A quick glance over to the side gave her a good look at the pile of half-digested ghosts, and what could very easily happen to both her and the friendly ghost girl who had disappeared from the Ghost Eater's sight.
Rikki took a few awkward, shuffling steps to the side, wondering if she could slip past the Ghost Eater into the barrier so she could fight, but it moved along on the other side of the barrier, easily keeping pace. 'I'll have to be careful once I go in,' she thought nervously. 'There's no way I'll outrun it in this body...' She bit her lip nervously and waited.
She didn't have to wait long.
"Sayo Beeeaaaam!"
The orange beam of energy that blasted into the Ghost Eater from behind shoved it hard into the barrier, which bulged out visibly and began to flicker. Rikki couldn't see immediately what damage Sayo's surprise attack might have done, but the Ghost Eater let out a horrifying roar as it lurched back away from the barrier. It was only then that it turned its back to Rikki and she saw what Sayo had accomplished with her surprise attack: the miasma around the rear of the Ghost Eater's bulk had been blown away to reveal the blackened, ephemeral surface of its skin, from which a huge chunk had been blasted. Even as she watched, the edges of the wound began trying to close.
There was no time to stand around watching.
Rikki scrambled through the barrier, let out a nervous breath she hadn't been aware she was holding, and shook her head to clear it. 'Come on Rikki! This is no time to hesitate!' She brought her right arm up and held it straight above her head, clenched her eyes shut, and focused on gathering power. It was strange, she thought; she hadn't quite known what to expect and had half-expected that it wouldn't even work, but something about the body she was wearing made gathering shadow easy...almost as easy as it had been back when she was still alive. She didn't know much about the young man whose body she was borrowing, but her shadow magic suited him perfectly; the only way it could have been better would have been if she had had her old body back. She shook her head to clear it and whipped her hand toward the Ghost Eater, flinging a wave of shadow magic at it. She frowned as the wave hit the Ghost Eater and continued on through it; it had little effect other than to make the Ghost Eater stop and shake its bulk, like a wet dog. Still, the attack distracted it enough to allow Sayo to blast it again, this time from the front. It let out a roar that shook Rikki down to her bones and began lashing out with its tentacles in an attempt to grab Sayo.
Rikki looked down at her hands. Her shadow elemental magic didn't seem to work well against the Ghost Eater...perfectly understandable, when she took the time to think about it. Ghosts and spirits and their relatives were highly resistant to magic. Granted, shadow magic was more effective, but that wasn't really saying much. She frowned as she looked back up at the Ghost Eater, which was on the verge of trapping Sayo against the heavily weakened barrier. Rikki half ran, half stumbled closer and shot another blast of shadow magic at the Ghost Eater. Its tentacles flailed in the air as it stopped to shake itself off again, and Sayo darted away out of its reach before it could recover.
"Okay, I can work with this," Rikki said to herself. Sayo blasted the Ghost Eater again and, judging by the particularly loud roar it let out, managed to really hurt it. Rikki nodded to herself, wishing, not for the first time since awakening, that she could speak the local language. 'Good job Sayo, keep going!' she thought as she heaved another elemental attack at the Ghost Eater. Finally seeming to remember who it had hunted across two thirds of the world, it turned its attention away from Sayo and started toward her.
Rikki turned to run. While she didn't think it could do anything to her while she was in Negi's body, she didn't want to take any chances. She made it perhaps ten feet before she tripped over her awkward, borrowed feet and hit the ground so hard it had to hurt, even though she couldn't feel much of anything from the body she was using. She mumbled thanks for the fact that she couldn't feel the damage as she scrambled back to her feet and risked a quick look back. The Ghost Eater seemed to have lost the vast majority of the speed and agility it had shown before the fight started; she supposed that was the work of the two mediums standing outside the barriers. She wished she had caught their names, but as she wasn't familiar with the language, Japanese names when spoken as part of a sentence had a tendency to merge into the sounds around them. Sayo shouted at her, a hint of panic in her voice, and Rikki took off again in a stumbling run for the far end of the field while the Ghost Eater lumbered along behind, far too close for comfort. Rikki risked another attack with shadow magic, but just as before it had little effect on the Ghost Eater, and blasted through the barrier on the far side, tearing a hole in it.
"Dammit," she muttered in English as she looked around the area enclosed by the barrier. 'Its a good thing whoever put this together thought to give us plenty of space to move around in,' she thought. At no point inside the barrier could the Ghost Eater, large as it was, force her or Sayo into a corner. The only way it could get close would be if one of them got caught against the barrier itself.
Sayo blasted the Ghost Eater again from behind and it heaved itself upright, letting out a roar as it swung its body around, enraged. Sayo darted off to the side before it could catch sight of her, and its attention fell on the medium standing just outside the barrier. Rikki had a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach as one simple fact rang out in her mind, one of the most basic of rules when dealing with ghosts or spirits: If you can see ghosts, ghosts can see you.
The woman standing there looked to be in her early twenties with long red hair tied up behind her head so it stuck out. From what Rikki could see, her eyes were closed; she was completely focused on suppressing the Ghost Eater's power. She started to scream a warning, but it was too late.
The Ghost Eater charged headlong into the barrier and through it, shattering the whole thing, and swatted the red head with a tentacle. The woman let out a breathless scream and crumpled to the ground on the spot, whether unconscious or dead Rikki didn't know. Sayo let out a horrified scream and flew as fast as she could over to the fallen medium, but the Ghost Eater was already there.
"Sayo...!" Rikki screamed as she broke into a run.
She tripped again and fell flat on her face and quickly scrambled back to her feet, cursing her uselessness in the young man's body. She was dimly aware of screams and blasts of magic flying through the air, all aimed at the Ghost Eater, but it ignored everything and neatly speared Sayo out of the air with a single tentacle.
"No!" Rikki screamed as she drew all the raw shadow elemental power she could and launched it at the Ghost Eater, too late. She stumbled to a stop, watching in horror as the Ghost Eater swiftly did its work, and then turned its attention toward her.
At that moment, the other medium ran past her, cursing and screaming at the Ghost Eater, but just like before, it swatted her with a tentacle mid run and she collapsed as if the life had been sucked out of her.
"No...no...!" Rikki said, numb with horror. The Ghost Eater again turned its attention toward her. She was dimly aware that somewhere off to the side, a girl was screaming while someone else kept launching magic spells at the Ghost Eater, all of which went straight through it with no effect.
Rikki stumbled backward as the Ghost Eater approached, and tripped yet again. She scooted backwards, desperately trying to gather enough shadow elemental power to force it to back off, but the body she was wearing suddenly convulsed and fell onto its side, curling up and clutching at its stomach of its own accord. It coughed, and blood flew from its mouth. Rikki looked, wide eyed, at the splatter of blood on the ground right in front of her borrowed face and then up at the Ghost Eater as it approached. She didn't want to think about what was about to happen to her, and maybe to the body she was wearing, too. She had seen what happened to Sayo... She tried again to gather more shadow power, but the young man's body convulsed again, more strongly this time, and she cried out helplessly. She dragged herself up to her borrowed hands and knees and finally up to her feet, and stumbled away from the Ghost Eater, the young man's body swaying dangerously. The fastest she could move was at a pace easily matched by a shuffling ninety-year-old with arthritis. The body she was wearing was in bad shape, and the Ghost Eater was bearing down on her, speeding up now that the two mediums were no longer holding it back.
Rikki's gaze darted from one medium to the other; both now had people tending to them, but no one was coming to help her. The blue haired woman who had been casting spells earlier had stopped, and was now watching the scene in horror, her hands covering the lower half of her face. Rikki thought suddenly, absurdly, that the girl was really quite pretty. Then something jolted her borrowed body and she looked down.
A long, slender tentacle was protruding through her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out and she felt the body she had borrowed falling away as she was lifted up high into the air. She grabbed the tentacle with both hands and pulled, trying to dislodge it, but it was no good. The end of the tentacle curled back toward her and poked at her left hand. She felt a horrible sucking sensation and she tried to scream, but her hand was already inside and she looked back at the others, desperately trying to deny what was happening to her. The only one watching her was the short blonde girl from before, the one who had surprised her with her power and skill. The blonde was just standing there stiffly, watching, with her fists clenched as Rikki was slowly sucked up into the tentacle.
The Ghost Eater turned, and the rest of the battlefield was again brought into Rikki's line of sight. The two mediums had been carried out of the way, and the pretty spellcaster and the redheaded swordswoman from before were carrying the young man's body away from the Ghost Eater. Again, no one wanted to look up at her but the three people from the church, two of which were running off to the sides in a repeat of what the two mediums had done earlier to prepare for the lost battle that had just taken place. The head nun raised a crucifix and began speaking, but suddenly Rikki's vision was covered by a translucent purple veil, and she realized that her head had just been sucked in. She opened her mouth to scream.
Eva watched the disaster unfold, her supercharged senses taking in every little detail, and completely unable to do anything about it.
The way it had almost swatted Asakura Kazumi's soul out of her body.
The way it had swatted Sakai Reiko's soul out of hers, confirming something Eva had suspected for some time.
The blood spurting from The Boy's mouth when the strange ghost that had been attached to him tried to use her elemental magic one time too many, and the way The Boy's body had lain there until the ghost dragged it upright by sheer willpower.
The fear on Aisaka Sayo's face as the Ghost Eater performed the act it was famous for.
The look on the other ghost's face when it realized the situation was falling apart and the way their eyes had met across that expanse of space before the ghost's head was sucked into the tentacle.
She watched, engraving every little detail of the scene into her memory. This battle was a failure, a failure she blamed entirely on herself. Two ghosts had lost their lives, three of her allies were on the verge of losing theirs, and the legendary monster known as the Ghost Eater was free. Sure, that nun from the church was trying to do something about the last part, but Eva had her doubts about Sister Shakti's effectiveness in such a situation. Eva's teeth clenched more tightly. 'Again, I discover that I have become complacent,' she thought bitterly. Somehow, the sound of her classmate Mori Kumiko vomiting into the bushes behind her made for a fitting end to the battle. Unless someone else who could deal physical damage to ghosts suddenly showed up, the battle was indeed over. Eva waited a long moment, just in case, but no one came; no hero showed up to save the day. Instead, the Ghost Eater continued sucking up the strange ghost, taking its time as it ambled across the field toward the southwest.
The Ghost Eater had almost completely sucked up the other ghost when it suddenly froze in place, the suction apparently stopped. It swung its miasma-cloaked head back and forth in apparent confusion, and shuddered. A moment later, it whirled around as if to try and catch something behind it, but there was nothing there.
Eva watched the scene closely, her slightly raised eyebrow was the only outward sign of her surprise. Her lip abruptly curled and she smirked as she realized what was happening.
The Ghost Eater shook its head back and forth, and then its whole body jerked. It let out a startled roar, its tentacles flailing, and reared up just as its right side exploded outward. Eva grinned, showing far too many teeth.
"I knew it."
Sayo glided out of the severely wounded Ghost Eater and looked around in a daze. 'What happened...? Is Kazumi okay? Reiko...?' "Kazumi-san?" she called out, looking around. "Reiko-san?" She caught sight of Sister Shakti, Misora-san's superior from the local branch of The Church, gaping at her, her eyes bugging out. The nun quickly shook off her surprise, however, and pointed at something behind Sayo.
Sayo turned around, raised her right hand, palm out, and blasted the Ghost Eater's head off its body as it lunged at her.
"You..you big meanie!" she shouted at it as its headless body lurched backward and turned, falling onto its wounded side as its tentacles flailed. She spotted the tentacle that was in the process of sucking up the strange ghost that had attached itself to Negi-kun, and darted toward it. Gathering power in her right hand, she sliced through the tentacle a hand's breadth from where it sprouted out of the Ghost Eater's miasma-swathed body and caught it as it fell. It was the work of seconds to free the other ghost from the confines of the tentacle and move her unresponsive form out of the way. That done, she turned her attention back to the Ghost Eater as it stumbled around the field. It had eaten her, tried to eat that other ghost, and had no doubt eaten millions of ghosts before it even made its way to Mahora. But worst of all...
Worst of all, it had hurt Kazumi and Reiko!
Sayo bit her lip, puffed up her cheeks, and charged.
The Ghost Eater, headless now, down one tentacle, and with a huge hole blown in its side, didn't even seen to be aware of her presence until she blasted its front half again. It's huge body swiveled toward her, but Sayo was already moving, gathering the power she would need for what she planned to do next.
The Ghost Eater turned toward her. It didn't stand a chance.
Sayo darted in, orange power glowing around her, and planted both hands through the swirling black miasma onto the front of the Ghost Eater's body. "Apocalypse Beeeeaaam!"
The power transferred from her body to that of the Ghost Eater and, for a long, long moment, nothing happened.
The following spirit-world explosion could be seen for miles all around.
Author's Notes: How was that? Next up will be some side stories for a few weeks, and then the final chapters of Book 2 will wind down and we can go on to Book 3, in which people go to the Magic World to face Fate and try to save Ako from the Children of Gilgamesh, among other things.