Still Waters 3, Book 2, Chapter 24: Catching Up
This chapter rated T for violence and ogling
Wednesday, July 15th, Midday
Nodoka paused in front of the apartment complex and looked up at the side, about where she thought the set of rooms used by Akira, Max, and Jennifer were located. It was a fairly cheap place, about the level of her own, really, and laid out in much the same manner. Still... She moved up to the front door and hesitated. Jennifer had asked her over to watch a movie like they used to do before Nodoka and Yue left for Tibet with Negi the year before, but...she couldn't help but be a little nervous. She had never really understood the way Jennifer thought, the way she made the decisions she made, the way she decided what to do next. She always seemed so...so sure of herself, especially in matters relating to Max and Akira.
Nodoka was just a little jealous; she wanted to be that open and sure with Negi, and the only way she could gain any information to work with was through rebuilding her friendship with Jennifer. She felt a little bad about her ulterior motive, but she really did miss watching movies with the woman the way they used to when she was still in high school...Jennifer had always seemed happy to have her around over the years, and Nodoka had always had fun; she just wished she could have gotten Yue to come with her this time, but the other girl was busy with the Special Defense Unit making some tweaks to the barriers after the incident the night before when they were all in the resort brushing up on their skills and working with the new kids, when a vampire entered the city without making an appointment first and caused some sort of trouble. Nothing had come of it and no one had been hurt as far as Nodoka had been told, but the theory and magic circle arrays behind the barrier needed to be fine tuned, and since Yue had been the one to pull the current barrier system together and actually get it working—a barrier system that, according to the accepted knowledge on barriers and the methods she had used, shouldn't work at all—it was up to her to fix it. Nodoka smiled at the thought of her friend. Yue's usual laziness in studying didn't extend to anything related to magic; the other girl was fascinated by complex magical systems, and could often be found hard at work with page after page full of complicated equations that made Nodoka's head hurt just to look at.
"What am I doing?" Nodoka said aloud. 'Wasting time, that's what. Come on Nodoka, she a friend!' she thought to herself. She shook her head to clear it and entered the apartment building.
A man seated in the back of a cab fumbled with an unlit cigarette as he watched the top of a truly enormous tree growing closer by the second. He was almost there...
The man who had for years been best known as Byron the Water Mage let out a tired breath and tried to ease his aching bones into a more comfortable position on the seat. His lower back twinged and he winced, drawing in a quick breath as he quickly readjusted his position. "Dammit," he muttered under his breath. He had never hurt like that until the day the sudden feedback from the link being severed had made him collapse at work...it had been days before he got out of the hospital. "Dammit girl! Why'd you have to go and get yourself kidnapped...?" he muttered again.
"Excuse me sir, are you alright?" the driver asked, glancing at him in the rear view mirror.
"I'm not, but it's nothing to worry about," Byron replied, his language translation spell taking care of the language barrier without the cab driver even noticing. "Just get me where I need to go, that's all."
The driver watched him a moment longer, clearly troubled by his passenger's odd behavior, before turning his attention back to the road. That was fine, as far as Byron was concerned. He settled into as comfortable a position as he was able to find and continued to watch the big tree as it got closer.
"How long are you planning to stay?" the young woman asked, clearly bored half out of her mind at being assigned desk duty.
Byron tilted his head gave her his best grin. "Just a few days; I've never been in this town before; do you know anywhere I could stay...?"
The girl loosened up a little and made a small grin herself. "Mahora is home to many fine hotels and inns. If you need help, there is a phone book on the table," she said, smiling at him as she tilted her head cutely.
Byron grinned wider and shook his head. 'Failed again; damn. Oh well, she looks pretty good...it was worth a try, anyway.' "Thanks. Do you need my I.D.?"
"Yes," the girl said. Byron dug his mage I.D. card out of his wallet and handed it over; the girl took it without comment, made a copy, and filled out a few more lines on the visitor form before handing it back. "Thank you, Mister-"
"Just call me 'Byron'," Byron said, leaning on the counter and grinning at her.
"Mister...'Byron'...okay then! Here are your papers. If you decide you need to stay longer, please return to this office and ask for an extension on your stay. If you fail to do this, you will be in violation of article nine of the Mage's Code, which dictates—"
Byron let the girl drone on about the various mage travel laws and the punishments for breaking them, as was required of her by, yet again, various mage laws. He heaved a sigh, breaking his flirty facade. The whole 'Mage's Code' deal had become a real pain in the last fifteen years... 'Listen to me, thinking like an old man. I'm only forty! I swear, if my hair hadn't gone gray after that girl got herself kidnapped...' Byron heaved another sigh. He was finding his old womanizing ways didn't work so well now that he had aged twenty years virtually overnight. 'Dammit girl, you're taking all the fun out of my life!' Well...fun of that particular sort, anyway. He sighed; his hair had gone straight past the salt-and-pepper stage he had been so looking forward to and into that terrible lifeless shade of gray he had always dreaded seeing in the mirror, all because that girl he had saved all those years ago decided to jump ship to the other world and give him a heart attack. Or three. Not to mention the blood pressure and near-failure of various really important organs. Even his eyesight was going bad! Great. Juuust great. Meanwhile, the girl at the desk had been droning on for several minutes about mage laws; he turned his attention back to her just as she finished.
"Do you understand the rambling and incoherent laws I just finished reading from these index cards?" the girl asked using the same professional tone she had used during her recitation of the laws.
Byron grinned crookedly; the girl may not have invited him into her bed, but he found that he liked her anyway. He peered at the nametag attached to her shirt, taking a moment to leer in a manner he had found girls her age tended to find amusing from someone like him, and looked up to meet her eyes. 'Nice. Very nice...' "Sakurako, huh? That's a good name; it fits you. Yes, I understand the rambling and incoherent laws you just finished reading from those index cards," he said, all seriousness as the girl snickered. "Hey, you don't suppose..." he trailed off as the girl beamed at him, but shook her head. "No, I thought not. Hey, it was worth a try," he said, giving her a winning grin.
"Good luck Mister Byron," the girl said as she handed over his papers. "Don't have too much fun~!"
Byron raised a hand in farewell and exited the registration office to find himself standing alone on a sidewalk, watching the locals walk by. He put his sunglasses back on. 'What to do, what to do...well, I suppose I should look up our current agent for this city...'
"And that is how you make a CD player into a phaser," Margaret Gunther, janitor for Mahora Girls' Middle School, first round loser of the Mahora Festival Martial Arts Tournament, and agent of the American Division said as she held up the laser device in question. It didn't have enough power to do much more than burn a piece of paper a little before the batteries ran out of juice, but that was beside the point. The point, in her mind, was that having a Start Trek style phaser was freaking cool.
"Well, if it isn't the biggest nerd in Omaha," Byron said, grinning as he winked at the woman.
"Ah...maybe you should go, Mari," Margaret said as she ushered the girl she had made the phaser for out of the Janitor's Office. She shut the door, paused to take a deep breath, then whirled on him. "What the hell are you doing here, Byron? You're supposed to be in the hospital! What would happen to all the new kids back home if something happened to you? And this is a girls' middle school! What if someone saw you sneaking in?"
Byron cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? And what are you trying to do, turn another innocent kid into a trekkie? Nice going by the way, teaching her to make laser weapons before she's in the tenth grade."
"This is Japan, remember? You mean 'before she's a first year in high school'," Margaret snapped back. She heaved a sigh and swept the rest of the CD player she had just dissected into a trash can and sat down on a stool. "What are you doing here, Byron? I don't think you've got enough pull with the higher ups to get them to agree to send you to do anything in your condition if someone else could do it instead."
"'In my condition'?" Byron repeated. "You make it sound like I'm pregnant!" Margaret just looked at him, so he relented. "Okay, so my back's killing me from the plane ride over and I look like I aged half my life in a few weeks, but still. I'm the only one who has all the information, but I do need some help. Do you know where Max lives?"
Margaret eyed him uncertainly for a moment before answering. "...it's probably best if you don't involve him in whatever you're doing."
Byron shook his head. "I have to; it involves him directly. Him and Rikki and Guy, and guess which one of the three is still alive?"
Margaret went white as a sheet. "...he lives in an apartment here in town. Byron...Jennifer lives there with him."
Byron went a little pale at that, himself. "J...Jennifer, huh? Well I don't think it could get much worse than that, could it?" he said, trying to sound light-hearted but coming across more as nervous.
Margaret sighed. "She's not the only one there, Byron. Okochi Akira lives there too."
Byron leaned against the side of a building, one hand fumbling with an unlit cigarette as he watched the apartment building across the street. He knew Max's apartment number and was even pretty sure he had worked out its location in the building, and yet he hesitated to go closer.
True, his first reaction when he learned that his old pal Max was currently living with not one, but two women was one of jealousy; having a harem of his very own had always been his dream, not Max's. Max had only ever seemed to care about Rikki, up until she died and the American Division saddled him with the psycho instead. And now he got to live with two women? Where was the justice in that? Admittedly, one was a total psycho and the other was capable of destroying a city if she got mad, but still!
Where was justice in the world...?
'Might as well get this over with,' he thought to himself. He heaved a sigh, shook his head to clear it, and did a few stretches to limber up in case he had to run. He shook his head ruefully.
"Now what did I just think to myself? Idiot," he said aloud. He glanced both ways, then trotted across the street as fast as his aching bones would let him and headed for the steps. He had to pause a moment halfway up to catch his breath. "Damn I'm getting old..." he muttered, bending over as he leaned against a bit of safety railing. As he straightened up, something in his back popped and he cursed under his breath again.
It took him a moment, but he worked his way up the remaining stairs and soon entered the building's lobby, where two choices awaited him: the stairs, or the elevator. Cursing under his breath about the necessity, he hobbled over to the elevator, glaring at a young man who appeared ready to offer him assistance, and pressed the button. "I'm not that old yet," he muttered to himself as he waited for the elevator to arrive.
It had been a rough couple of weeks for Byron; when his connection with the girl had been abruptly cut off, the feedback had almost killed him. Actually had, in fact...he had been told his heart had stopped for two minutes during the trip to the hospital, and he had suffered through a short series of heart attacks immediately upon resuscitation. After that had come the extreme magical wear on his body as the steady flow of magic it had produced for the past twelve years or so, first feeding the girl's recovery and later something else, suddenly had nowhere to go and quickly built to insanely dangerous levels until the team of specialists working on him managed to halt the buildup. The end result was a forty year old man who looked sixty and felt like he was approaching eighty. He had been assured that a good portion of the damage would heal with time and the special magic treatments he had been prescribed, but he would never again enjoy the good health and youthfulness he had been blessed with for most of his life, nor would his hair ever regain its black luster. He heaved a sigh; his advances on the female sex since the incident had been uniformly laughed off, and he had jokingly been called a 'dirty old man' several times...it was quite a blow to his pride. The massive, massive magic capacity he had built up over years of channeling magic 24/7 was nice, but still...
His dreams of building his own harem were further away than ever.
Byron heaved another sigh just before the elevator beeped, signaling its arrival. The door opened, and he hobbled into the elevator, favoring his left leg.
One short elevator ride later, Byron hobbled out of the elevator and made his way along the open walkway that ringed every floor of the building, finally pausing in front of a particular apartment door with his hand on the doorknob.
'I really don't want to do this...' he muttered. He took a deep breath to prepare himself, let it out, took another, let that one out, and was on the verge of taking a third when the doorknob turned under his hand. He had no time to react as a tiny blur buried its foot in his gut and he doubled over; the next thing he knew, something grabbed his head and arm and he hit the floor inside the apartment on the back of his head, his whole body protesting at its rough treatment, and then something came down on his neck, holding his head down with uncomfortable pressure. He very—very-carefully brought his hand up and took off his sunglasses, looking from the shoe pressed down on his neck to the rather shapely calf and up the equally shapely leg to where the thigh disappeared into a short pair of shorts, then up to the shorts themselves and the hips they covered, where his gaze paused for an instant before moving up the flat stomach to the woman's small breasts, where his gaze lingered again before finally moving up to her face, and the scarily blank expression it held.
"...nice to see you too, Jennifer..." Byron croaked.
The woman didn't respond.
"...though I must say I'm not really into this sort of thing; I mean it's been years since we last saw each other and I haven't even bought you a drink yet—ow! Hey! Urgh! Urk!" The woman let him flail for a moment before releasing some of the pressure on his neck.
"Why are you here, Byron?" she asked, her voice as cold as the Yukon in winter.
Byron had to gasp for breath before he could answer. "It's about Max! Max and—gargh!"
Jennifer let him suffer for a long, long moment before releasing just enough pressure to let him breath again. "If you're here to hurt him..." she said, letting her voice trail off. When he managed to catch his breath again, Byron shivered. 'Forget the Yukon, she's as cold as freaking space...!'
"I'm not!" Byron gasped out.
Jennifer let up a little more pressure, but not anywhere near enough to let him escape, not in his condition. "How do you expect me to believe you, after all you people have done to him?"
"B-believe me! Believe me!" Byron pleaded. 'Dammit you psycho, quit stomping my neck...!' He didn't think actually saying that last part out loud would have any sort of positive effect on the current situation however, so he refrained from speaking it aloud. It didn't stop him from thinking it, however, along with all sorts of other unpleasant words.
Jennifer looked away from him and he realized for the first time that there was someone else in the room. She was pretty, in a simple kind of way; she looked timid, however, as if the current situation was a little out of the norm for her. It seemed, then, that unless Okochi Akira had undergone some serious plastic surgery and shrunk about six inches, that Max had somehow gained a third member to his harem. Bastard. Byron wasn't particularly surprised when she pulled out a pactio card.
"Adeat."
"Shit..." Byron muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" Jennifer asked, putting more pressure on his neck.
"Urk! Nothing, nothing!" he said, taking the opportunity to check her out again when her attention went back to the other girl. 'This is actually a really good angle...' he thought as he peered up at her. 'Man, she really DOES have nice legs...! Just the right sort of athletic, without going overboard. ...still not nice enough to make me forget the minor detail that she's a complete psycho, though. Man...Max must be pretty desperate.'
"Stop that," she said, pressing down on his neck again.
Byron spluttered and gagged until she released some of the pressure again. "Dammit woman! Don't do that!"
"Stop looking at me like that," Jennifer growled, fire in her eyes as she glared down at him.
"Fine, fine, I'll stop," he said, then took the first chance he had when she looked back to the other girl to ogle like there was no tomorrow.
"What's his name?" the pretty girl said as she held the book she had summoned.
'And that would be...what was her name...Madoka?' Byron thought. 'No no no, Madoka's the butch one. Nodoka! That's it! And that must be her mind reading artifact...' "Er...Can you by any chance not tell her...?" he asked. In response, Jennifer pressed down on his neck again. "Urk. Thought so..."
"Sydney Byron Babcock," she said as she turned to look back down at him. Luckily, he caught the motion of her head in time and looked away from her body before she could see him looking.
Byron winced at the mention of his full name. There were two good reasons he commonly went by 'Byron the Water Mage' instead of his real name; one was 'Sydney', and the other was 'Babcock'. He let out a sigh, waiting for the inevitable storm of laughter. To his surprise, it didn't come. Evidently, the inherent humor in the name his parents had saddled him with didn't cross the language barrier, though with the way Jennifer was smirking down at him, she knew it bothered him.
"He's telling the truth," Nodoka said. "And...and he thinks you have really nice legs," she said, her face turning red as she turned her book to show Jennifer the detailed images drawn in the book.
Byron tried to smile placatingly, but Jennifer ignored him and continued to look at the book, her eyes running back and forth as she read the text being presented. Finally, she heaved a sigh and removed her foot from his neck and stepped back, giving him space to stand up.
"Make this quick," she said, crossing her arms as she glared at him.
Byron took his time getting up not out of spite or any intention of being contrary, but because his body was aching all over. When he was finally up on his feet again, he leaned backward until his back popped, then heaved a sigh of relief. "Damn that felt good," he muttered. He turned his attention to the two women. "The way my back popped, not your foot on my neck," he said, raising an eyebrow as he eyed Jennifer. He turned his attention to Nodoka. "I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself yet," Byron said, putting on his best suave smile for Nodoka as he held out a hand. "I'm Byron the Water Mage, but you can me Byron," he said, pouring on the charm.
"A-ah...I'm Miyazaki Nodoka," she replied, gingerly taking his hand. He grabbed her hand and shook it; she quickly shrank back out of reach when he released it.
'Damn, failed again.' "So," he said, looking at Jennifer. "What, no hug? It's been years since we saw each other last!" Jennifer just crossed her arms and stood there, giving him The Look. She had always been good at that; probably had something to do with being a total psycho.
"Make. It. Quick." Jennifer said, something in her voice telling him that any more foolishness would be a very bad idea indeed.
"Fine," Byron said as he sat down in a nearby chair to let his sore knees rest. He glanced over at Nodoka again and saw her eyes glued to her book, no doubt reading every stray thought that crossed his mind. He sent a couple thoughts of the more interesting sort her way, and grinned when her face reddened. "First off, I'm not here to arrest, attack, kill, ogle, or bother anybody, all right? Those last two are just bonuses; I think I've earned the right, after what I've been through the last two weeks."
Byron took in a sharp breath as Jennifer's gaze sharpened immediately. "What about the last two weeks?" she asked, something incredibly dangerous in her tone.
Byron sighed and rubbed his forehead. This wouldn't be pleasant. "Do you see the way I look? This hair was black last month without a sign of gray; now look at it! Do you see these wrinkles? Did you notice the way I move? Jennifer, I've aged decades in two weeks! It's a miracle I'm alive at all!"
Jennifer frowned, though her eyes softened a little. "What is this about?" she finally asked.
Byron sighed. "This is about a girl named Izumi Ako, and what happened on a mission twelve years ago."
Jennifer's frown deepened as she watched Byron for a long, long moment, then turned to Nodoka. "Please call the others; I think they should hear this."
Twelve years ago...
Twenty-year old Max Linell, fire mage and agent of the American Division, stood with his squadmate and long-time rival, Guy Sculler. They were positioned on the ground floor of a building opposite the office building where the terrorist cult had holed up, waiting for the signal to move.
Other teams were set up in the same building and the surrounding area; there were eight in all, but Able Squad, the one Max and Guy were part of, was to lead the infiltration.
The cultists had kidnapped a group of visiting Japanese tourists, claiming, according to various listening devices, that a certain young girl among the group was some prophesied ruler or something like that. Max didn't particularly care about that at the moment, however; what bothered him was something different: they had Rikki. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had been scooped up with the Japanese tourists.
Max and Guy and Rikki had known each other as long as they could remember, even back to the days when they were all taken care of by Father Brian, before he died. Max and Guy both loved her, but she only had eyes for Max...a source of tension between Max and Guy. Normally, such a personal situation would have resulted in the two of them being assigned to something else, but both Max and Guy were well known for their professionalism while on the job, regardless of how they behaved off the clock. It helped that their old friend Marlin had acquired enough pull with the higher ups in the American Division to pull some strings to get them put on the mission; it also helped that they were among the best agents available at the time and worked together all the time.
The recon and espionage teams had the office building mapped out, down to the room in which the cultists were hiding the prisoners. Everything was planned out down to the last detail; all that was left was to break in, catch or kill the cultists, and save the prisoners. It should have been simple.
It wasn't.
The first cultist they came across was a freckled woman a few years older than they were who obviously had no clue how to deal with an enemy attack. She just gaped at them until Guy, always deadly serious during a mission, cut her down before she could alert anyone else. Normally, Max would have protested such an action. Not on that day, not with Rikki held prisoner. The woman's dumbfounded expression would haunt his dreams for years to come, but at the time he counted her as an enemy combatant; judging by the wand and pactio card she carried, that was exactly what she was, even if she hadn't managed to bring them into play. A man, the woman's pactio partner they would later learn, bellowed in rage in another room as his pactio partner died, and everything fell apart as the cultists rushed into action.
The situation rapidly deteriorated from an infiltration and hostage rescue into a bloody free-for-all as both sides battled for control of the first floor of the building, claiming a room only to be forced out of it by an attack from a side entrance a moment later. The floorplan made the place seem like a maze, and in the chaos of mage-to-mage battle in the tight confines of the office building, their elaborate battleplan fell apart.
Nevertheless, in the end, Max and Guy found themselves approaching the room where the prisoners were being held, with no sign of either enemy or ally until they went around a corner and stumbled right into a group of ten cultists. Max dove into a room to the right and Guy ducked into a hall to the left as the cultists attacked, magic arrows and magic binds flying until they were silenced by a deafening blast of thunder and a burst of swirling, hurricane-force wind. Max, already on his hands and knees, was bowled over as people shrieked in agony in the room he had just fled. Walls came apart, furniture furniture went flying, and the whole building shook as Guy's burst of elemental wind tried to rip it apart from the inside...and then it was over.
Max just laid on the floor under a piece of drywall for a moment, listening for any sign of movement from the enemies he had left in the other room, but he heard nothing, not a single moan or sob. He lurched out of his hiding place, a chill creeping over him as he looked around at the transformed office building. A large area, perhaps a hundred feet square, had been hollowed out by Guy's wind, leaving behind piles of debris and only those support beams strong enough to withstand the damage. There was no sign of the cultists. Guy stood in the middle of it, untouched, as he looked off toward Max's right. Feeling dead inside, Max turned to see what Guy was looking at, and saw, at the edge of the destruction, a room with with most of the wall torn off; inside was blood.
Heedless of the danger, Max lurched toward the room, limping on a leg he hadn't even noticed had been hit by a piece of debris, and staggered through the opening in the wall. He froze.
Inside, the room was coated in blood. Guy's wind had taken up every loose item in what appeared to be a room used as a supply closet and turned it into a meat grinder. A body lay by the far wall, flung with great force. Another lay half underneath a twisted shelf, arms and legs flung out in a grotesque manner. Still another lay crumpled in a corner, its head and neck at an impossible angle. The top of a particularly familiar head of pretty black hair poked out from under a pile of debris; Max stared for a moment. The sounds of battle restarted behind him as the mages and cultists began to stumble across each other again, but Max barely even noticed. How could he when Rikki might be dead, lying under that pile of debris...? The fate of the Japanese tourists didn't even cross his mind, not until later.
"R...Rikki?" he asked, barely able to get the word out.
The head of hair moved. There was a horrible gasping sound, but he ignored it as he started throwing debris off of the woman he loved.
"Rikki! Rikk-"
His voice cut off and he knelt there dumbly, a chunk of drywall held forgotten in his hand.
He saw blood. Lots of blood. Unbelievable amounts of blood. And...and guts. He felt his stomach lurch, and barely turned away in time before he vomited.
Rikki lay there, her arms wrapped tightly around a young pale-haired Japanese girl, perhaps six or seven, who was staring at him with wide, vacant eyes; blood poured from a horrible wound in her back. A distant, coldly logical part of his mind told him that this was probably the girl the cultists had been looking for, but he shunted that aside; he had eyes only for Rikki. Her dull gaze drifted over to him and sharpened, and she smiled despite the horrible wound in her stomach and the shocking paleness of her skin. He became aware that he was crying a moment later, and then she was weakly raising her hand toward his face, and he took it in his own.
"Rikki..."
"Shit!" someone shouted nearby. Other people began shouting and Max realized he could no longer hear the sound of mages doing battle, but his mind quickly went back to Rikki. People began swarming around the two of them a moment later. Someone performed some sort of magic ritual with the little girl, then took her away, and still Max held Rikki's hand, felt it grow cold as her eyes lost their vibrancy, their life, and slowly glazed.
And over this scene stood Guy Sculler, watching dispassionately as the woman he, too, loved, died.
Present Day...
"Oh my God..." Negi said, his face pale.
Akira looked at Max, who stood off to the side, looking out the window. He didn't move, but he didn't let anyone see his face, either.
"That was terrible..." Asuna said, her face pale as she looked wide-eyed from Byron to Max and back. The story Byron had told, with occasional additions from Max, had been anything but what she had expected to hear. "The little girl was Ako?" she asked.
"That's right," Byron said, nodding.
"This cult...are they the ones who took Ako?"
Asuna turned to see Misa looking uncharacteristically serious as she waited for the answer to her question. Sakurako stood to her left, her perpetual smile gone, and Madoka stood to her right, expression closed off and fists clenched.
"They are," Byron said as he nodded and shifted his position to something a little more comfortable. "That girl was the one you all know as Izumi Ako, and the only reason she survived that wound is because Rikki performed an illegal ritual and bonded with her, supporting her life with her own."
"...she knew she didn't have much time left with that wound in her stomach," Max interjected, still looking out the window, "but she knew the girl could still be saved."
"That's right," Byron said. "She bonded her, and then she handed the bond over to me." The room fell silent as everyone present except Max looked at Byron.
"And when they came and took her again at the festival..." Negi said.
"The feedback from having that magic bond you've held for twelve years cut off nearly killed you," Misa provided.
"Got it in one," Byron said, smiling at the pretty young woman. She didn't return the smile. "Even with all the power I pumped to her in the early years, she was still sickly; from what I could tell from the information they gave me, she barely managed to pull through; she didn't become really healthy until the last couple years. You have to understand, I was pumping magic to her constantly for twelve years; my body had gotten so used to it I couldn't cut off the flow on my own, and my magic capacity's so big now that they don't have anything that can really measure it correctly...they have to estimate. They say I'm probably the fifth strongest mage in history," Byron said, smirking a little. "All of that, and she took all that power in without a problem. There's something more to her than meets the eye."
"Why didn't she ever tell us any of this? I mean, we've all seen that scar on her back, but she never..." Misa said, trailing off as she seemed to realize something.
"Memory suppressing magic," Byron said. "Imagine growing up as a kid with that sort of nightmare floating around in your head? She was in shock after the accident, not to mention the fact that her whole family was dead, so the people in charge took the opportunity to wipe her memory and gave her a bunch of pleasant memories of living with some perfect little family back here in Japan. The scar was explained away as happening in a car accident as a baby. As for her surrogate family, they had recently lost a child of a similar age to a vampire attack, and they were easily persuaded to raise her. I won't say it was right to manipulate the girl like that, but the alternative was unthinkable."
The room fell into a thoughtful silence for a moment as Ako's friends thought about what she had been through and what she was probably going through right then.
"This cult...do they have a name?" Negi asked.
"The Children of Gilgamesh," Max said, finally turning around. "They think they own the world."
"Literally," Byron supplied. "Something about how, since they're descended from Gilgamesh, who did own the world, that it should belong to them; they just have to take it."
"So why do they want Ako?" Misa demanded.
A Meeting Room, Deep Within the Mountaintop Fortress of Aradove in Mundus Magicus...
"...I'm sorry, could you repeat what you just said?" Ako asked, her mind racing as she carefully watched the group of seven men and women who sat before her in the council chamber she had been brought to. She felt that showing any sign of weakness in front of these men and women would be a very bad idea, indeed.
"You are The Daughter," a woman with an aristocratic air said, repeating what she had spoken just a moment before. Ako thought she had heard one of the others call her 'Arlana', or something like that. "Destined to lead us to greatness, as foretold by the secret words of Gilgamesh himself, recorded by his most loyal scribe shortly before his death."
"That's-" Ako said, only to be abruptly cut off.
"You are the Daughter," Ari Sigurd, the man who seemed to be her primary guard, said from beside her, his deep voice booming in the conference room.
"No," another man said. Ako thought he must have been important, since he sat in the center chair, which was raised slightly above the other six. "She is not the daughter. Remember your studies!" he said sharply. "She is merely a vessel; she carries the daughter within her, and has since her birth. It is important to understand this; the vessel is not the same as its contents," he said. Ako didn't like the way he looked at her, as if she wasn't even a person, just some tool to be used and discarded... She focused on keeping her face from showing the fear he inspired in her. She forced herself to meet his eyes across the space between them, and held his gaze for a long, long moment before he nodded, apparently satisfied, and looked back at the sheaf of papers on the table before him, as he had throughout the meeting.
Evidently the man carried a lot of weight; the other people present, the two men and the woman in almost priestlike robes seated to his left and the man, woman, and elf—an elf! Ako couldn't help but stare at his pointy ears—seated to his right wearing more of a military-style uniform not unlike what the guards she had seen moving around always wore, all fell silent and waited, all but the elf watching him as if waiting for instructions. The elf simply watched her. Ako did her best to keep from shivering under that distant, searching gaze.
"When was the last time she was fed?" the elf asked suddenly.
"...are you stupid?" Arlana snapped at him. "We are discussing far more important issues here than whether anyone threw the urchin her slops today!" Ako watched curiously as the elf simply looked at the woman, who bit her tongue and glared back. A few seconds later, she turned away, unable to continue. The elf wasn't like the woman; he didn't gloat over the minor victory. He simply turned the weight of his attention back on Ako, and she couldn't help but flinch. And she had thought staring down the important man in the middle was tough...! She felt like a piece of livestock being sized up.
"She appears thin and unnaturally pale, most likely malnourished; has anyone performed any sort of medical check on her?" he demanded, looking again at the others. Arlana continued to sulk while one of the robed men and the woman in the military uniform both looked a little sheepish, while the other robed man gave her a measuring look and the uniformed man seated next to the elf turned to smirk at her. "Has anyone even performed any scans to ensure she is free of disease?" The elf continued, becoming increasingly indignant.
"Peace, Beccan Bloodleaf," the important looking man said, his voice cutting through and causing the other humans to sit up straight and focus their attention back on the issue at hand. The elf nodded respectfully and sat back in his chair.
"She eats the food she is given," Ari said from his spot next to her in the silence that followed.
"As should be expected, Warden," the important man said as he straightened his papers. "You," he said sharply, looking at Ako. Ako met his gaze again and again managed to hold it. "Why did you request the presence of one of our initiates, a young man called 'Rale'? Are you hoping to woo him?"
Ako just blinked at the man, trying to get her brain working again. He thought she was trying to 'woo' Rale-kun? She hadn't ever thought of it that way, but she supposed she would be lying if she denied his question completely. She was still trying to formulate an answer when the man spoke again.
"You are free to do such a thing if you wish, Vessel. I am just curious as to why you would choose an initiate when there are others far more suited to one of your station. Rest assured, your existence as The Vessel will only continue until The Rebirth; we would never deny one so important and short-lived the earthly pleasures, if she so desired. You need only ask."
Ako felt her face growing hot and had to look away, her gaze sweeping toward a window so she wouldn't have to look at that man. She caught Arlana's smirk at her discomfort as she turned away. She knew it was rude to think such a thing after a first meeting, but she really didn't like that woman. She didn't like any of these people! It wasn't like she and Rale-kun were dating or anything! Really!
"I must warn you, however," the important man said, staring her down, "any attempts at using Initiate Rale in some ill-conceived escape attempt will result in a quick death for the boy, and your remaining freedoms greatly restricted. This fortress is built to be as inescapable as it is impenetrable; if you make an attempt, you will be caught. Do I make myself clear?" he demanded.
Ako looked the man in the eye, doing her best to appear as arrogant and regal as they seemed to think she was, and nodded.
The man nodded in return. "Very good. Warden, you may return her to her room."
"I do not follow orders from anyone but the daughter," Ari said from his spot just behind her. Ako looked back at him. His tone of voice had betrayed neither irritation nor arrogance; he had just stated a simple fact, one which the important man seemed to understand perfectly. She had already noticed the friction between the robed people and the uniformed people; was this a third faction...?
"I see," the man said. "We no longer require her presence." Ari nodded at that and took her by the arm. Doing her best to pretend to be an arrogant aristocrat, Ako jerked her arm away, stuck her nose in the air, and stalked to the door. She thought she heard Arlana snickering behind her, but trained her gaze on the door. Like every door in this place, it was built solidly of some heavy wood, decorated with simple lines except for the stylized image of a bull carved deep into the wood. She had seen that particular image everywhere in this place, from statues to paintings to carvings in the doors; she supposed it was the cult's symbol.
When the two of them were alone in the hallway, heading for Ako's prison in the tower, Ako paused, looking out through one of the many windows that lined the hall. "I want to see Rale," she said, her tone sharp, making it an order.
Ari grunted in acknowledgment, and the two continued on down the hall.
Once in her room, Ako moved to stand by the window, doing her best to look bored while Ari sent a servant to fetch Rale. 'I can't let him know how much that meeting bothered me...' she thought, eyeing the wide courtyard below. Any attempt to escape through the courtyard would be quickly spotted; many, many windows had a great view of it, and guards patrolled regularly. Climbing out of the tower was a no-go as well. On her trip back from the meeting, she had caught a glimpse of it through a window...the top of the tower where her prison cell was bulged out; if she were to somehow squeeze between the bars of her window and tried to climb down, she wouldn't have anywhere to put her feet, assuming she could even find any handholds in the brickwork. She thought she might be able to climb down a rope, but after descending a certain distance she would hanging in the air with nothing to lean against until she was almost down to the ground. Trying to climb down a rope would be very difficult in itself, and she would run a very real risk of falling to her death; she had never really been an athletic person, not like her friends. Speaking of which...
Ako frowned, thinking. 'What would Madoka do?' That one was easy; Madoka would punch out Ari, kick down the door, and storm out, beating up anyone who got in her way. Misa would do the same, only with magic; she would also probably do her best to level the whole place, just because. Sakurako...she would pretend to seduce the people around her, then leave them tied up in closets or under beds while she skipped away, probably whistling one of the songs they wrote. Sakurako could use the same method of escape as Misa and Madoka, but Ako had no doubt she'd go the fake seduction route because she'd think it would be more fun.
The image that last thought brought to her mind was so amusing Ako couldn't help but let out an amused sound, immediately bringing Ari's attention back to her; he had remained in the room after sending the servant to get Rale, and currently sat in his usual chair, in his usual spot. Ako quickly schooled her features into a scowl and glared at the man for a moment. As always, he took her scowl and looked back at her until she turned back to the window. As much as she hated to admit it, that was actually pretty impressive; Ako had learned how to scowl from Eva herself.
Ako didn't know what to do about Ari; he was a bit of an enigma. His actions showed he was in charge of her, but during that meeting, he had said he only took orders from her, as if she was his boss. He seemed to get uncomfortable whenever she yelled at him, but she hadn't been able to get him to leave her alone in the room for several days; the only time he left her side was during trips to the bathroom, when a group of female servants watched her instead. She still wasn't used to that bit of awkwardness yet. A hesitant knock on the door brought her mind back to the present, and she looked up to see a servant open the door, allowing Rale to enter.
The boy was almost a foot taller than she was, his reddish hair contrasting with his light colored servant's clothes. Ako paused, cocking her head slightly. Rale's face was red. Was he...blushing? Ako felt her face start to go red as well and quickly looked out the window as the servant left, leaving her alone in the room with Ari and Rale.
Ako and Rale stood in awkward silence while Ari sat back down on his chair, which creaked under his weight. A long moment passed in silence while Ako looked out the window to keep from looking at Rale-kun. 'Am I going to do this or not?' she demanded of herself as she tried to work up the nerve. She clenched her fists and kept her eyes trained on the mountains outside her window.
"Rale-kun! Come here now!" The words came out more sharply than she had intended, and she caught sight of both Rale and Ari jumping at her sudden order. Rale was by her side an instant later.
"Y-yes?" he asked, clearly confused about the situation. So confused, in fact, that he yelped when Ako abruptly turned to him, looked him in the eye, reached up to put her arms around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss.
Three seconds passed where no one moved, and then Rale's hands fumbled their way around Ako until he held her in a tight hug as he clumsily tried to return the kiss.
Ari stared, watching from his chair, his eyes just a little wider than usual.
An indeterminate amount of time passed as Ako kissed him. And kept kissing him.
And kept on kissing him.
It was only when one of Rale's hands went a little too far down that she recalled what she had been trying to do by having Rale brought to her. Nevertheless, it took a supreme effort of will to muster the mental strength to break away from the kiss. It took a moment, but Rale seemed to sense her desire to stop and reluctantly broke away, his hands sliding down Ako's back and sides to her waist, where they came to rest naturally on her hips. The two of them found themselves staring into each other's eyes, and that was when Ako realized Ari was still watching them. She pushed herself away from Rale, her mind a chaotic whirl of emotions, and turned her fury on Ari.
"Get out! Get out get out get OUT!" she bellowed at him, snatching up a pillow from the bed and throwing it at him with all the force she could muster.
Ari nearly stumbled over his chair on the way out.
When the door shut behind Ari and his chair, her legs almost collapsed under her as she stumbled into the side of the small table under one of the windows, leaning on it for support. Rale was there an instant later, hesitantly putting his arms around her again. Ako clung to him, letting her head rest against his chest while she tried to get herself thinking normally again. She hadn't counted on that kiss having that much of an effect on her; she had only been trying to get Ari out of the room...! Her heart was pounding...! As, she realized a moment later, was Rale's. Her eyes went wide as she realized what had just happened. She put her hands on his chest and gently pushed the two of them apart so she could look up at his face, and he reluctantly let go of his hug, again letting his hands move to rest on her hips. They stood that way a moment, looking at each other like two doe-eyed children, and then Rale moved back out of her reach.
"You..." he trailed off, seemingly barely able to speak as he looked off to the side. "Y-you did that t-to get him out of the room, right?" he asked, his wavering voice letting her know just how shaken he really was.
"I..." Ako's eyes widened as she realized just how shaken she was herself. She hadn't ever really kissed anyone before, not like that, anyway. There had been a couple of boys she had kissed back in high school, but they had both turned out to be creepy stalkers, and Madoka had taken care of them. Before that, she had kissed another boy, but they had both been children at the time, playing at being adults. None of those kisses had been anything like this one... Ako shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. "I...I didn't know..." she mumbled to herself before shaking her head to clear it. "I'm sorry, Rale-kun. I really like you, but...you're right. I wanted him out of the room." Rale nodded, a resigned look on his face.
"You're...you're the first girl I ever kissed," he said hesitantly, turning away in an attempt to hide his face, which had gone completely red. Ako couldn't help but stare; the boy's reactions made her feel all warm and fluffy inside and, as always happened when she was around him, a little ashamed of herself for...doing what she had done. She was the older one, after all...she should know better than to take advantage of him like that...! She shook her head to clear it again.
"Rale-kun," she said. When she knew she had his attention, she continued. "I was just brought back from a meeting...do you know anything about it?"
Rale reluctantly met her gaze. "Can you describe it?"
Ten minutes later...
Rale and Ako sat side by side on the edge of the bed, Rale listening as Ako finished her account of the meeting.
"That sounds like the high council," Rale said, impressed. "And you were right, the priesthood doesn't get along with the councilmen; they say they're not devoted enough."
"So who are they?" Ako asked. She had been wondering about them...the more she knew about these people who had made themselves her enemies, the better she'd be able to deal with them. She didn't feel comfortable around anyone here but Rale; he was the only one she could ask these questions.
"Well..." Rale said, glancing at the door, no doubt wondering if they would be overheard.
"Go ahead," Ako said.
"The three members of the priesthood you saw were probably Arlana, Rudolph, and Peter. Arlana...well, you know about her; I don't know what she does other than boss people around. Rudolph is like a businessman more than a priest; I think he's in charge of the treasury, but I could be wrong. Peter is the head priest; he's an ex-thief, but he doesn't want anyone to mention it. He likes to pretend he's a good, law abiding person, but I've heard stories..." Rale trailed off, looking troubled for a moment before going on. "The council members you saw are Edie Blythe, Braden Xyrely, and the elf, Beccan Bloodleaf. Edie's in charge of spying and things like that; the servants pretty much all report to her. Braden's kind of strange...he seems all right, but I can't help but get nervous when he's around, you know?"
Ako nodded; she had been around people like that before. They almost always turned out to be really bad.
"Braden's in charge of the guards and soldiers. Beccan Bloodleaf...I don't know what he's doing here, but he scares the crap outta me," Rale said nervously. "Everybody says he'll kill someone at the drop of a hat, and I'm inclined to believe 'em."
"Who was the other man?" Ako asked. The important man who had sat at the center of the table, elevated above the others, had scared her even more than the elf.
"That was Regis," Rale said reluctantly. "He's the leader here. He keeps the others in line and makes sure this place runs smoothly. He...holds executions sometimes, to keep the rest of us from breaking the rules."
Ako sat silently for a moment, looking down at the floor. She wanted more information about them, but she knew Rale was telling her everything he knew...he was a lowly initiate, after all, and a young one at that. He was so strange...He was the youngest person she had seen here; everyone else she had seen looked at least five years older, and seemed completely loyal to the cult. She frowned and drifted off into thought.
"What are you humming?"
Ako jerked back to reality and looked over at Rale, then away. "It's a song I like," she said, faintly embarrassed as she looked over at the window. "It's called 'Drift Away'."
"Can you...can you sing it for me...?" he asked shyly.
Ako smiled and nodded her head.
A haggard girl wearing wrinkled clothes who had gotten no sleep the night before slipped into the middle school and made her way up a stairwell, passing a few late students on the way. All it took was one glare and they shied away, allowing her to move past. She kept going until she reached the top floor, where she paused, looking at the final set of stairs. She climbed up them and stood before the door that led out to the roof. She paused a moment, trying to get her mind into some semblance of working order so she could face the one she would find there, and took a moment to straighten her clothes and push her overgrown bangs out of her eyes, but, as always, they fell right back, covering one eye.
Maple Birdsong pushed the door open, and stepped out onto the roof.
The one she had been looking for was seated there on a bench, facing the door as she looked down, typing on her laptop computer. The light from the setting sun struck her from the side, leaving half her face in shadow as she looked up at Maple, waiting.
"A demon took my sister," Maple said, her voice hoarse.
"I know," Hasegawa Chisame said.
"I want her back," Maple said, her fists clenched as she stood there, her voice wavery with emotion.
"I know," Hasegawa Chisame said again as she looked back at her laptop, typed for a brief moment, then gently pushed it shut. She slipped the laptop into the bag beside her and stood up, facing her. She held out her hand. "Come with me."
For a brief moment, Maple hesitated, but the mental image of some demon coming into their home and stealing her unresponsive sister away flared to life in her mind. She shook her head to clear it as indignation and rage took over, and she snarled.
She stepped forward without trepidation and took Chisame's hand, looking her in the eye. "You can take me there, right?"
Chisame met her glare easily, and a small grin stole over her face. "I canl take you exactly where you need to be. Are you ready?"
Maple Birdsong, self-made outcast, guardian of her sister, and what would one day become one of the most terrifying forces to ever walk any of the worlds, nodded.
Chisame's eyes narrowed as her lips twisted into a knowing smile.
Author's Notes: Keep in mind, Nodoka, here, never went to the Magic World in the summer of her third year of middle school. She never explored the ruins with the treasure hunting group, never fought Cosmo Entelecheia, never got forced to become self-reliant. In the Still Waters Universe, Nodoka stayed in Mahora resolving incidents with the rest of the class, growing stronger but relying on others to fill in the gaps when she found herself in over her head. She hasn't had the opportunities Manga Nodoka has had to prove herself, though she has had a lot more training in Eva's resort and has all but mastered her pactio artifact's possibilities for communication. Still, she has yet to prove to herself that she's not a burden. As for getting that chance in the future...well, a lot of characters will have to prove themselves in Book 3.
As for Ako and that brief mention of 'Magic Eater', it's the ability she's had all her life which allows her to absorb, or 'eat' all kinds of power from the people around her, from magic to ki to youkai and demon power, and even something like 'life force'. If Ako was a ruthless murderer, she'd have freed herself already, but she's one of the most gentle members of the old class and hates hurting others, so in her cell she stays. Also, it seems The Warden, Ari Sigurd, who only takes orders from The Daughter, is immune to Magic Eater...interesting. Is this power what kept Ako alive for all those years through that link Byron had with her...? For a (very) little more information on Magic Eater, you can read Ako's part near the beginning of Chapter 11: Festival Second Day pt 4 Final Round of SW3: Book 2. You can also read about what happened to Byron when their connection was cut off in that chapter.
As for Maple Birdsong, well...you'll just have to wait and see. "Most Terrifying Forces"...Heh, there are half a dozen "Most Terrifying Forces" featured in this chapter alone!