Still Waters 3 Book 2: Day to Day

by RedPBass

Now that the festival is over, everyone is preparing for the big trip to the magic world. It's the first time the old 3-A has all gathered in one place since their graduation; what awaits them now? Alternate Timeline, OCs. The end of Book 2 nears. An incident in the magic world...? Chapter 29, It's Time, is up.

32. Ch 28 Countdown

Still Waters 3, Book 2, Chapter 28: Countdown

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Saturday, July 18th, 2009

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"Ahahaha! Do you feel my power? Do you?! AAAHAhahahaha...!" Eva cackled gleefully as the ice vines shot out across the battlefield, chasing down anyone they could catch.

"Keep it up!" Misa shouted to the others as she floated nearby, wearing the witch costume from the pactio card she had accidentally made with Eva and riding on the scythe that came with it as if it was a witch's broom.

"Chachamaru! Enemy location report, now!" Hakase shouted behind the magic shield bubble Misa had put up for her.

"Twelve subjects in a group one hundred and twenty three meters ahead hidden behind an outcropping of sandstone, seventeen degrees to the right," came Chachamaru's prompt reply before she refocused on the aerial dogfight against the flying probes that kept trying to get a lock on their location.

"Rally, remove level three locks! Permission code 993!" Hakase shouted to be heard above Eva's howling laughter and the sounds of battle.

"Level three locks removed!" Rally replied a few seconds later. "Permission to engage?"

"Permission granted!" Hakase replied. "Full artillery barrage!"

"What about Negi?!" Misa asked, horrified. "He's out there fighting...!"

"The boy can take care of himself!" Eva shouted gleefully as she dodged a massive ki blast and answered it with a wave of lightning arrows. "Besides, Chachazero's with him!"

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?!" Misa demanded.

"Calibration complete; a two minute cool down period will be required after firing is complete," Rally announced. Panels throughout her body opened, revealing a startlingly large number of missiles and oversized gun barrels. "Firing in three...two...one. Firing commenc-" The rest of Rally's announcement was lost in the deafening roar of launching missiles and automatic weapons fire.

A thick cloud of smoke rolled over the battlefield as the young gynoid continued to fire. The sound was deafening and muzzle blasts lit up the smoke cloud eerily as the barrage went on and on in a seemingly never ending cacophony of sound until the big guns finally began to stop firing one by one as they ran out of ammunition, until the last gun fell quiet and an eerie silence fell over the battlefield.

"Firing complete," Rally announced. Panels on her back hissed open, spewing steam. "Two minute cool down period commencing in three...two...one." Her eyes went blank and the sense of life and motion that set her and her sister Chachamaru apart from other robots vanished as she went into cool down mode.

Misa, kneeling down low to the ground to get away from the rising smoke, squinted. "I think I see something moving..." she said, peering into the smoke. "I think it's—"

Misa screamed in surprise and threw herself to the side as a figure hurtled through the smoke backwards, followed closely by another with long red hair and an enormous sword.

"C'mere, you...!" Kagurazaka Asuna cried out as she chased after Negi, each swing of her sword clearing great swathes of smoke. "I'll get you yet...!" Eva didn't give her a chance; four ice vines converged on Asuna an instant later. She destroyed the first with a wave of her sword, dodged the second and finished off the third with a blast of ki, only to have the fourth strike her dead center in the back, hurling her forward with a cry and knocking her off guard long enough for the one she had dodged to swing back around and bury her in ice. Eva's didn't have time to gloat, however, as the rest of the assault force arrived to exact its revenge for the earlier barrage.

A cyclops, ten feet tall and wielding a massive club, charged out of the smoke, swinging its club wildly as it looked for something to hit. It's eye focused on Misa just as she finished chanting her spell; a spear of shadow obliterated its head an instant later, accompanied by Haruna's muttered 'Hey! I liked that one...!' from somewhere in the smoke nearby. There was no time to celebrate, however, as Kotarou burst through the smoke next, a fist aimed straight at her and a grin on his face. Misa tried to jerk away to avoid him, but the dog boy was too fast and his fist caught her full in the stomach; her pactio outfit blocked any damage, but the force of the impact sent her flying and she lost her scythe. She heard Hakase call out something, and then Chachamaru swooped down to catch her in mid air. "Thanks!"

"Don't mention it," Chachamaru said before lowering her to the ground and releasing her. She promptly raised her hand up and held it palm out, and shot a laser at Kotarou that blasted him away, back into the smoke. An enormous jet of flame lit up the smoke cloud seconds later, and Misa's eyes went wide. All around her, the others were busy with their own fights. Eva, Negi, and Chachazero were nowhere in sight and Hakase was still hidden behind her protective bubble, while Chachamaru was now busy trying to fend off both Setsuna and the Narutakis, and doing quite a good job of it, considering how badly she was outnumbered. Rally was still out of commission, her 'Cool Down Mode' rendering her immobile in order to prevent internal damage. Misa was on her own.

A gout of flame lit the smoke cloud again, and Misa's eyes widened as she felt the telltale tug on her body that told her Akira was approaching and checking to see what water resources were available for her to use.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Misa said to herself as she looked around frantically for help. However, if anything, the situation had become more desperate; Kaede had joined in with Setsuna and the Narutakis in their assault on Chachamaru, who was really struggling by that point, and Asuna had somehow managed to escape her icy prison, though Misa had no idea where she had gone. 'Probably chasing Negi,' she thought as she looked around for somewhere to take cover. She hadn't expected to be facing Max and Akira, and, if her hunch was correct, probably Natsumi as well. "Oh crap oh crap oh crap," she repeated as she bravely ran away.

Once she had made her way to cover behind some rocks, Misa took stock of her situation. She felt bad for leaving Chachamaru to fight it out on her own against Setsuna and the ninjas, but she was strictly a long distance mage; she had no way to fight off that particular group that wouldn't be immediately fatal, and going that far would just be insane. Speaking of death... She had dropped her scythe somewhere at the beginning of the counterattack and didn't see it lying around anywhere nearby. "Dammit," she muttered. "Abeat." Her protective witch clothing vanished, leaving her defenseless in the street clothes she had worn coming into this training session in Eva's resort. "Adeat," she whispered, hoping the rocks would be enough to conceal the light show that tended to come with summoning a pactio artifact. A second or two later, she was again wearing her witch's outfit and holding her scythe.

"Are you ready now?"

"Eep!" Misa almost jumped out of her skin at the sudden voice, and turned to see her fellow shadow mage Naba Chizuru kneeling down at the edge of the rocks Misa had been using for cover. "...you want a shadow mage's duel, don't you?" she asked. The pleasant little smile Chizuru always wore widened slightly, and she dipped her head in a nod. Misa eyed the other woman nervously. Kazumi had told her Chizuru was stronger than her, but...Misa grinned back at Chizuru, fire in her eyes. A quick glance around showed her that, for the moment at least, the two of them were alone. Eva was bellowing insane laughter off in the distance, hidden by smoke and flying dust, and Chachamaru had decided to turn her four-on-one fight into a running battle, leading the ninjas and Setsuna away. The only ones around were Rally, still in her cool down mode, and Hakase, who was rapidly typing away on a computer and checking readouts on various complicated bits of machinery within her protective bubble. Misa met Chizuru's eyes, saw the woman's need to test herself in them, and her grin widened into a smile. Without a word passing between them, the two of them moved out into the open, facing each other across a fair distance. "I won't go easy on you," Misa called out.

"I'll do the same for you," Chizuru replied politely.

Both of them began chanting at the same time; Chizuru finished her chant an instant before Misa.

"Thirty Seven Arrows of Shadow!"

"Thirty Seven Shadow Arrows...!"

'Shit!' Misa thought as she frantically began a spell to counter Chizuru's attack but, again, Chizuru finished hers first.

"Fifty Three Arrows of Deflection!"

"Fifty Three Homing Shadows!"

Their counter spells took care of the first volley of magic arrows in a rare display of synchronicity, leaving Misa feeling unsure of her next move. Her hesitation cost her, however, as Chizuru promptly cast another spell.

"Seventeen Shadow Spears!"

Misa scrambled to chant a counterspell more powerful than her Homing Shadows, but had to abandon it halfway through in order to get out of the way of Chizuru's attack.

"Seventeen Shadow Spears!"

"Crap crap crap crap!" Misa screamed as she struggled to get out of the way again, narrowly avoiding the attack. She started chanting her next spell as she ran, hating the fact that she had let Chizuru get the better of her so quickly. It was one thing to be told someone else was better than you were; it was another altogether to see the evidence of such a thing yourself. Chizuru's spellcasting was faster than hers, more exact; Misa was one of the most powerful human mages in the whole of Japan at the very least, but she had allowed her skills to dull in the presence of overwhelming firepower. And yet, as she was rapidly discovering that, all else being equal, no amount of power could cover a general sense of laziness. In a straight-up mage's duel, she was powerful enough to overwhelm Yue despite the other woman's immense skill in magic; Nodoka and Kazumi and Makie and Ako all fared the same as Yue when it came down to structured duels and the like. Even Konoka, with her tremendous magic capacity, would fall easily...though Misa had to admit that that was mostly because Konoka's magic wasn't suited to attack spells so much as healing spells. She was regularly stomped by Negi and Eva and Akira and Max, and even Natsumi put up a valiant fight from time to time, but they weren't normal people; Eva was some magical uber-vampire, Akira, Natsumi, and Max were elementals, and Negi was, well...Negi. The others were all fighters or some variation on magic knight, so they didn't count. She would have sighed had she not been frantically trying to concentrate enough to properly cast a spell while running for her life. Another of Chizuru's spells hit behind her, throwing her through the air to land behind a pile of rocks. She cursed loudly as her spell fell apart, then cursed again and frantically began casting a counterspell.

"Twenty Three Arrows of Shadow!"

Thirty Seven Homing Shadows!"

Misa chanted her counter spell as quickly as she could, but Chizuru's magic arrows were too close by the time she finished, and several got through the barrage to strike directly at her. The first struck her in the shoulder, knocking her back and half spinning her with the force of its impact but leaving her otherwise uninjured. The second struck her in the side just above her hip, and the third and forth struck her in the back immediately after. Knocked off balance but otherwise protected by the defensive properties of her witch outfit, she fell to her knees, struggling to catch her breath after the three solid blows to her midsection. She clutched her scythe with both hands, using it to drag herself upright just in time to see Chizuru finishing up another spell. "Oh shi—"

"Bombardment of Shadows! Shadowfall!"

Misa's eyes widened in shock as dozens upon dozens of shadowy black spheres sprayed out from Chizuru's position, headed straight for her. Thinking fast, Misa launched her favorite counter spell and gripped her scythe tightly.

"Seventy One Homing Shadows!"

Her own shadows flew straight at the incoming spheres, disrupting those they hit, but there were too many of them moving far too fast for her defensive spell to catch them all. She gripped the handle of her scythe and brought it up, watching the incoming spheres, waiting for the right time to strike. The first arrived, and she swung her scythe.

The scythe cut through the sphere, disrupting it completely. Misa stepped out of the way of the next one, thankful that Chizuru's Shadowfall spell was more of an area attack type spell than a directed or homing attack type, and cut the third as she had cut the first. She dodged a few more, cut another one, and then realized which spell Chizuru was chanting. 'Oh crap oh crap gotta end this quick...!' she thought to herself as she cut the last few spheres headed her way and planted her feet, preparing for the attack to come. Chizuru, standing across from her, finished chanting her spell.

"Bow of the Moon!"

Misa's eyes narrowed as Chizuru held her left hand out before her as if holding a bow; the woman next reached forward with her right hand as if nocking an arrow. As she drew her hand back, a dark, shimmery shape coalesced into being; a shadowy bow twice as tall as Chizuru surged into existence, a shadowy arrow as long as she was tall was pulled back.

"Do you surrender?" Chizuru asked politely.

Misa couldn't help but grin. 'Well now, this is more like it; matching attack for attack is way better than getting overwhelmed by quick casting. And besides, I've still got an ace up my sleeve...' She stood up straight, brandishing her pactio weapon. "Never! This is the Reaper's scythe! The things it cannot cut are close to none!"

She thought she caught a hint of a smile on Chizuru's face. "Very well," Chizuru said. She loosed the arrow.

Unlike a real arrow, it flew straight and fast with no hint of an arc, covering the distance between them in less than a second, a six foot bolt of shadow powerful enough to penetrate all but the strongest of magical armors, a spell only those among the upper tiers of shadow elemental magic could even hope to cast, one so feared among mage culture that it was generally considered the most dangerous projectile attack spell a shadow mage could cast.

Misa swung her scythe.

The bolt hit the edge of the blade, pushed against it, and started to push it back. Misa let out a cry as she forced her body to fight against the forces pushing back, calling upon the power of the moon, waning as it was, to help.

And, miraculously, help it did.

The edge of the Reaper's Scythe started to dig into the bolt, splitting the end and disrupting the magic that held it together.

"GrrrRAAAAGH...!" Misa let out a yell as she poured everything she had into her swing and tore through Chizuru's spell, which came apart in a fantastic explosion. She had a scant few seconds to see the shocked expression on Chizuru's face before the downsides of her pactio artifact made themselves known.

The Reaper's Scythe, as pactio artifacts go, was quite an impressive one; its blade, honed sharp enough to split anything larger than a molecule, could cut anything its user desired, from physical objects to spells to curses and blessings...it was truly an incredible weapon. However, it was not an earthly weapon...it had been made for Death himself, a scythe created for the Reaper himself to battle with, should he have the need. As such, the strain on even a strong man using it was intense; the strain on a young woman not yet in her prime...

Misa dropped the scythe and fell to her knees, clutching her midsection as she leaned forward. 'Dammit...I'm still not strong enough...!' she thought, infuriated at the weakness of her body. Magic power only went so far; ki was better for strengthening the body, but that wasn't an option for her. She coughed once, twice, and fell over on her side, clutching at the burning agony in her midsection, clenching her teeth to keep from crying out. She coughed again, bringing up a few drops of blood, and growled as she pushed herself back upright. She felt hands steady her, and did her best to nod her thanks to Chizuru as the other woman knelt down beside her.

"Are you alright?" Chizuru asked softly.

Misa nodded, not trusting herself to speak yet. And, the truth of the matter was, she was alright; the vampiric regeneration provided by her pactio with Eva was already starting to kick in...though she was sure to get a lecture from Eva when she was healthy again. "I'm okay," she said, her voice low and ragged. She coughed again, spitting up a little more blood, but she could feel the curious burning, itching sensation of the regeneration starting to take effect.

"That looks like a useful tool, but you have to be careful; I don't want to lose you too," Chizuru said quietly as she helped Misa stand up.

"I know how dangerous it can be, believe me," Misa said. She wiped a few stray drops of blood from her mouth with the back of her hand and grinned crookedly at Chizuru. "Sounds like the battle's over," she said, looking over at the thick smoke cloud where she had last seen Eva. "Wanna see who won?"

Chizuru smiled at her and nodded.

---

"And that," currently trapped in Mahora Great Vampire Lord Jonus Hart said as he stood in front of a series of screens showing different views of a rocky, desertlike area filled with smoke and fallen bodies, "is why it's a good idea for the rest of us to stay as far away from Mahora as inhumanly possible."

Beatrice Honeydew, the youngest member of the Great Vampire Lords, also trapped in Mahora, nodded wordlessly, her eyes wide as she surveyed the destruction wrought by Evangeline A.K. McDowell and her hand-picked team during a mere training session, outnumbered twenty to seven with her opponents all wielding great magics and powerful weapons and artifacts, while Evangeline herself was unarmed and unarmored, wearing only the simple little dress she had worn coming into the resort. The dress was ragged and torn, but the rest of her looked just fine as she stood high atop a pile of moaning bodies, cackling evilly.

"...wow..."

"Terrifying, isn't it?" Jonus said. "The boy there at the top of the pile, Negi Springfield, defeated me with the aid of several of his young charges...none of them as well trained as any of these. And you will notice that on Evangeline's side, Hakase Satomi never emerged from her barrier and the robot Rally Wheeler was inoperable for a large portion of the battle, making the disparity in numbers even more overwhelming. Even with those three," he said, pointing out Max Linell, Okochi Akira, and Murakami Natsumi, all of whom were lying around in various states of consciousness, "couldn't do much about it. Of course, their presence was also most likely the reason she went all out from the beginning, but she did defeat three powerful elementals, as well as the rest." He paused a moment. "None of these, one on one, would be an easy fight under any circumstances; Evangeline truly is a monster."

"...wasn't he on her side? The Springfield boy, I mean," Beatrice asked as she eyed the screen.

"Every training session he participates in with Evangeline eventually turns into a battle between them, no matter which side he is on," Jonus said.

Beatrice looked from one screen to another, surveying the damage as Eva climbed down from her mountain of semi-conscious bodies and other people came out and started healing those who needed it. "That..." she said, looking at Eva as the diminutive vampire stood there, hands on her hips and a toothy grin on her face as she surveyed the destruction she had wrought, "is so cool!"

Jonus looked down at her as if she was crazy. "What?!"

"That's so cool!" Beatrice squealed in excitement. "I mean, the way she froze that fire guy, and wiped out that ninja girl's clones, and hit that dog boy sneaking up behind her without even looking at him! Oh! And those ice vine things too! They were all, like, woosh and whoom and then they hit that red haired girl and buried her and it was pretty cool that she was able to break out of it after that but still, those ice vine things were just amazing!"

Jonus bit back a sigh and reached up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. "Listen Beatrice, you were sent here for your protection, and I won't watch you—"

"I wonder if she'll train me if I ask?" Beatrice said, radiating joy at the thought. She was clearly not paying him any attention.

"...I doubt it," Jonus replied dryly. "She's not exactly known for..." he trailed off as his eyes strayed back to the screens. He had been about to say 'She's not exactly known for taking on students', but, judging by what he had seen since his arrival in Mahora, it appeared that she had changed her ways. After all, the actions of both sides in the battle he had just watched indicated that Evangeline had indeed begun to take on trainees; everything about it, from the fact that she didn't kill anybody to the presence of teammates on her side, indicated that she had, at the very least, become quite social. Jonus had done his best to avoid becoming involved in anything to do with the other vampire or any of Mahora's defenders after his unfortunate attack and subsequent defeat, but he was beginning to think that such a standoffish policy might have been a mistake; he hadn't known about this wondrous 'resort' of Evangeline's until he, along with all the others involved in defending the city, had been invited in revolving groups into the resort to go over strategy and defense plans in case there was an incident during Negi Springfield's trip to Mundus Magicus, during which he would take a large number of powerful and highly skilled people with him. Jonus had privately questioned the wisdom of such a thing, but neglected to speak his mind about the issue; now he saw that he had, indeed, been mistaken. While a good three dozen or more of the more powerful defenders would be gone for the summer, several hundred worthy people would remain, and others would come to Mahora over the coming weeks to fill out the ranks; the city was the biggest stronghold of magic in the country and, in truth, most of eastern Asia...none of the regional magic associations would be willing to risk such a powerful ally in such a strategic location.

Such amazing resources, and Jonus had blindly held himself separate. There would be so much to discover, so many skills to learn...Jonus had been many things during his long, long life: knight, traitor, toppler of kings and a king himself, and yet what he truly was when one went past the facade he wore to face the world, was a scholar. And, with the realization of what he had been missing in mind, he turned back to the young vampire he had taken under his wing.

Beatrice looked up at him, her eyes bright and excited. "Hey, you know Evangeline, right? You guys used to know each other a long time ago, right?"

"Well," Jonus said, a little taken aback at the girl's enthusiasm, "I wouldn't say we were ever on very good terms, but...yes, we crossed paths a time or two. Why?"

Beatrice grabbed his hands in excitement. "Great!" she said, beaming at him. "Introduce me! Please please please please please please PLEASE!"

Jonus, overwhelmed by the girl's enthusiasm, reluctantly nodded. 'She'll see what she's getting herself into once she meets Evangeline face to face,' he thought to himself. 'Surely she won't be foolish enough to continue with this...will she?' "...okay. But you must behave yourself. Evangeline is not like you or I or any of the other lords. She is extremely independent; I must admit I am in shock over how easily she allowed such a crowd into this place, which, from what I understand, is her private retreat from the world. You must do your best to avoid offending her."

"Okay! You can introduce me, right?"

Jonus sighed and rubbed his forehead.

---

Jonus walked with all the upbeat joy of a man being led to the gallows...not that Beatrice was in any condition to notice anything beyond her own excitement at what might happen when she finally met Evangeline. She kept babbling about vampires and magic and how Evangeline was 'awesome' and various other bits of inanity. Jonus soldiered on as one of the slave robots led them on toward their goal.

Even with such a sour mood, Jonus couldn't help but marvel at the magical wonder that was Evangeline's resort. Several dozen unique pocket dimensions, each stable and wholly contained within its own glass sphere... A stable pocket dimension wasn't unheard of, but finished with such a high degree of quality, and so many? Simply amazing. The magical drain to keep it stable alone must be tremendous...! He had no doubt she had somehow tied its magic requirements to the World Tree, quite the source of magic itself. There would be no other way to support such a thing other than a tremendous magic siphoning circle array, not that he could think of, and he had thus far seen no sign of any such thing.

"Please wait here; the mistress will arrive shortly," the maid robot said after leading them to the main gateway area.

Jonus nodded and thanked the maid robot, who bowed and turned away. He settled in to wait and let his mind wander while Beatrice bounced excitedly in place next to him, overjoyed at the prospect of meeting Evangeline. He couldn't help but smile; she had been so intent on rescuing him or, failing that, avenging him, when she first arrived...now, it was as if she'd forgotten she was just as much a prisoner in the city of Mahora as he was. Well, no matter; things could have been worse.

He could have been trapped in Mahora with Twenty Third among the Great Vampire Lords, Karina Dyne.

Beatrice's opposite in every way that mattered short of magic power, she was extremely abrasive where Beatrice was sweet and childlike, needlessly cruel where Beatrice was kind. She also blew through her victims a dozen at a time, keeping them in chains in her mansion until they died from abuse or lack of blood. That was no way to live as a vampire, Jonus knew. Karina was walking a fine line, and it was only a matter of time until some great hero or vampire hunter tracked her down and put her out of her misery. Kasuga Misora could have done it, he thought; she had already defeated Chaser Felix and Dexter Marlowe...

There were quite a few other people waiting in this area as well, Jonus noted as he looked around. Several were members of the staff at the middle school, while he had seen most of the others during the regular meetings the magical defense teams held, though he couldn't recall many names. There were some new faces this time, however...across the walkway from him stood a large male robot with spiky blond hair and sunglasses next to a man in a leather jacket with a pompadour haircut, for instance. A little further down, a woman with long blonde hair seemed to be practicing some sort of disappearing trick with shadow magic; something about it reminded him of a certain acquaintance's style...he briefly wondered what Kagetaro was up to these days, but dismissed the thought. Across the way, four youkai—two cat and two black fox, if he wasn't mistaken—argued about something or other. He had seen them in the company of the Konoe heir from time to time. He sighed and settled back against the railing to wait.

---

"There she is!" Beatrice said excitedly some time later as she grabbed his arm.

Jolted out of his pleasant daydreams of days gone by, Jonus was a little irritated. Looking down at Beatrice's bright, excited eyes, however, he found that he couldn't hold on to his annoyance. Who could, in the face of such joy? He stood up from the railing and straightened his waistcoat as he watched the group exiting the teleporter. Sure enough, there she was, grinning in satisfaction at an amusing spar session, no doubt.

"Introduce me, introduce me!" Beatrice whispered to him frantically.

Jonus sighed. "This is your last chance to back out," he whispered back as he looked at Beatrice. Judging by the confused look on her face, she had no idea what he was talking about. He sighed again and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Very well," he said as he moved out into the walkway, Beatrice following along behind. 'What have I gotten myself into...?' he wondered briefly before catching Evangeline's eye. "Evangeline...!" he called out. The other vampire paused, looking at him more intently, before changing course and heading his way, several others following.

"What is it?" she asked, standing before him in her childish form, her expression alone enough to tell him 'this had better be good!'

Jonus moved to the side, motioning for Beatrice to move forward. "May I present Beatrice Honeydew, Twenty Fourth among the Great Vampire Lords. She wishes to train under you."

Evangeline's eyes went from Jonus to Beatrice, looked her up and down as she bounced excitedly, and lingered on her hat for a moment before returning to Jonus with one eyebrow raised. "And? If she wants me to train her, she's got to impress me," Evangeline said matter-of-factly.

"And how is that done?" Jonus asked.

"What's her specialty?" Eva asked.

Jonus looked at Beatrice, who seemed too awestruck to answer for herself, and bit back another sigh. "...magic combat," he reluctantly stated.

A slow smile spread across Evangeline's face; it was a smile a tiger might make as it stumbled upon a helpless young deer. Jonus couldn't help but start to feel a little nervous upon seeing that smile.

"Okay then; she'll spar with me."

---

'How did I become involved in such a thing...?' Jonus thought to himself as he stood as far away from Beatrice as he possibly could. His whole life had taken such a bizarre turn...listening to the request of his old friend Zeph Castor, leader and First among the Great Vampire Lords, had been his first mistake; allowing his thirst for blood to overcome his good sense first with the blood of that girl Lucy Cade and then later with the even more delicious blood of her sister Possum had been his second...and now here he was, trapped as a guardian of Mahora, his very soul held hostage by that sickly girl who could see ghosts, Sakai Reiko. He, who had once been a king...!

He heaved a sigh. 'Oh, how the mighty have fallen...'

He took a good long look around the sandy desert-like area, and couldn't help but notice all the others watching as well; there were dozens of them...people he recognized from the defense meetings and others from around town, and a few he had never seen before. 'Well, I suppose it isn't every day where one gets to see Evangeline A.K. McDowell herself face off against perhaps the most magically gifted member of the Great Vampire Lords in a generation,' Jonus thought to himself. Still...

"Okay!" the redhead he knew as Kagurazaka Asuna called out. "Here are the rules! This is a one on one spar! No trying to kill each other, okay Eva?" she said, looking at the shorter vampire. Eva simply shrugged her shoulders, looking bored. "No wide area spells are allowed!" Asuna continued. "First one to give up or be seriously injured loses! Do you both understand?"

Jonus got the impression Asuna was announcing all this for Beatrice's sake; as haphazard as the place seemed to be run, he got the impression they took their training very seriously, and expected everyone else to follow their rules. He didn't have a problem with it; he just hoped Evangeline would remember them and refrain from ripping Beatrice apart..

"Okay, go!" Asuna said, and promptly ran away as if the devil itself were chasing her.

Eva watched Asuna go, a smirk on her face, before she turned her attention back to Beatrice. Jonus whispered a silent prayer of thanks to any deity who might have been listening that Beatrice hadn't decided to attack while Eva's attention was focused elsewhere.

It might have annoyed her.

"So," Eva said dismissively, putting her hands on her hips as she looked Beatrice up and down. "Which one were you again?"

Jonus, not a particularly religious sort, found himself praying again, this time that Beatrice wouldn't say something to make Eva angry.

"A-ah!" Beatrice said nervously. "I-I'm Beatrice Honeydew! I'm number Twenty Four of the Great Vampire Lords—"

"No, that's not what I'm asking," Eva said, annoyance starting to come through in her tone. "Who's your sire?"

"Oh..." Beatrice said. Jonus could tell she was still hesitant to talk about her sire and what had happened to him; the girl was still too soft; he just hoped her hesitation wouldn't aggravate Evangeline.

Eva rolled her eyes. "Spit it out," she snapped.

"A-Atton Bright!" Beatrice said. "He was my...my sire..."

"...oh," Eva said. Jonus watched her closely, but Evangeline's face had become an expressionless mask. "Atton. I actually liked Atton, except for all that ideological nonsense about helping mankind reach their true potential and the rest." She smiled evilly at Beatrice. "This is a dog-eat-dog world, little girl; the strong eat the weak! The big crush the small! Everyone must fend for themselves! No one will help you, little girl!"

Jonus listened to Eva rant for a moment. 'She says such things, and yet she's helping those humans she claims to despise...how amusing; I wonder if I should point that out to her some time?' He paused for a moment. 'I wonder if I would survive it?'

"SHUT UP!" Beatrice bellowed after Eva's lecture on the nature of reality had gone on for several minutes and she had had enough. "Don't talk bad about Atton! He was a nice man!"

"Oh? A 'nice man', huh? Is that why he's dead?"

Beatrice clammed up and tilted her head forward; the brim of her hat covering most of her face. "He's dead because he wouldn't go along with someone else's schemes," she muttered. She then reached up and took the thick deck of cards bearing small magic circles from their place in the ribbon tied around the base of her witch's hat.

Jonus looked from Beatrice's shaky hands to Evangeline, and sighed. 'You really have changed, Evangeline...making her angry so she will go all out rather than holding back; that is only safe as long as you are the stronger one.' Beatrice wasn't stronger than Evangeline, but he had no doubt that somewhere, someday, Evangeline would meet someone capable of doing to her what she commonly did to everyone else; there was always a bigger fish, and the sooner one realized it, the better they could be prepared when the time came to face it.

He figured she'd figure something out and come out of the hypothetical incident smelling like a rose. She was irritating like that.

"Come on, little girl. Impress me," Eva said dismissively.

Beatrice didn't reply. Instead, she removed six of the cards from her deck and tossed them up in the air around her, where they stuck. She concentrated for a moment, pouring power into the cards until they started to glow. She turned side on to Eva and held out her arm dramatically. "Spark Times Six!" she called out.

If Jonus hadn't seen Beatrice's 'Spark' spell before, he might have been surprised; certainly his sensitive ears picked up confused and excited mutters from some of the others watching. There was no long incantation, no real buildup to the spell short of charging the cards with power; the magic circles drawn on them took care of that. The thick beam of crackling yellow light that shot out of each card seemed more powerful than he remembered from the last time he had seen it, but that wasn't surprising; he'd last seen her use her Spark spell several years before, after all; Beatrice was always looking for ways to become a better mage.

The beams were directed at Eva, but she held her ground, a sneer barely hiding the interest he saw hidden in her features. Her shields took the full force of the beams and blocked them.

Beatrice, unlike many others in her position, didn't believe in doing things halfway. Whether it was being a mage or being what she thought a vampire should be, she tended to go all out; she was already throwing more cards into the air. The first six beams were finally dying out when she started the next wave. "Spark Times Six! Gatling Spark Times Four!"

Jonus couldn't help but grin at Beatrice's innovative use of her Spark spell. 'Gatling Spark'? 'Interesting...' he thought. It was based on the Spark spell, but instead of operating like a laser beam, it was more like a machine gun, each card emitting shorts bursts of power, resulting in a multitude of beams roughly six feet long streaking through the air; the beams weren't very powerful individually, but when there were a hundred of them flying at once... There would be no dodging such an attack, not with four of them going at once as Beatrice was doing now. Still, however, the beams couldn't make it past Eva's shield.

When the light show and explosions finally faded away to reveal Eva standing there behind her magical shield, Jonus let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding. Eva seemed interested, but if Beatrice's spells had actually broken through...that would have just made her mad.

"Is that it?" Eva called out. "Just a handful of card-assisted beam spells? They aren't even directed! Surely you don't think this level of—"

"Spark Cannon!" Beatrice called out.

Jonus' eyes went wide; he hadn't heard anything about this spell...!

The dozen cards floating in front of Beatrice in the shape of a circle glowed with a brilliant yellow light before a beam, bigger and more powerful than any single beam he had ever seen cast by a mage, exploded outward with tremendous speed, shattered Eva's shield spell, slammed into her, and slammed her all the way back against the wall of this section of her resort...and the beam continued to fire. For a minute and a half.

When it was finally over and the beam died away, Beatrice collapsed, drained. Jonus looked at the blackened body of Evangeline, plastered against the far wall of the desert environment, and ran to Beatrice's side. "Come along Beatrice, it's time to leave," he said as he pulled her up into a seated position. She had a silly grin on her face and her eyes were unfocused. "W-we must make haste..."

"Spark Cannon, I actually pulled it off this time! Hehehe..."

"Not now, Beatrice," Jonus said a little frantically as he tried to pull her to her feet; she collapsed again from magic exhaustion as soon as he tried to get her to support her own weight. He growled something about little girls being foolish enough to drain all their magic in a single attack and again tried to drag her to her feet.

"It's strong, hahaha..."

"Beatrice?" he said, deciding to try a different method. "You just used Spark Cannon on one of the strongest vampires in existence, do you understand? It would be wise to flee before she can recov—"

"GREARRGH...!"

"Seven Layer Shield!"

Jonus just barely got his favorite shield spell up in time to block Evangeline's wild punch. Even so, her attack easily destroyed the first five layers and almost broke through the sixth. Jonus quickly renewed the shield...a good thing too, as Eva promptly tried to punch his head off. He was ready for her now, however, and his Seven Layer Shield was one of the best pure shielding spells in existence.

"N-Now now, Evangeline, this was only a test, remember?" he said, standing between Evangeline and Beatrice. Evangeline gave him a death glare that made him want to run screaming to hide in the deepest hole he could find, just to get away from her. He gamely held his ground. "She broke through your shield, correct? Surely such a feat makes her worthy of training under you rather than being killed here, correct? And what about your other students? They're out there watching you." The last one seemed to give Eva pause, and the rage left her eyes, replaced by a calculating look as she turned her attention back to Beatrice, who was by that point babbling something about falling stars and something called bullet hell and making the occasional giggle.

Eva looked at him long and hard, then turned her attention back to Beatrice, and the tension seemed to go out of her shoulders. "Okay then," she said, then looked back at Jonus. "I'll admit it: she has potential. That...what was it, 'Spark Cannon'? It's strong. Pick her up and get her some rest. Training for her starts tomorrow at five o'clock," Eva said, strolling away toward the exit. "Don't be late; there isn't much time left until the boy goes to Mundus Magicus," she said over her shoulder.

---

As artificial night fell on the first day of training and strategy meetings in the resort, Asuna headed off to bed in the room she had reserved in the dormitory building Eva had added to the resort several years before, when it became clear that people would be staying in the resort for extended periods of time...not to mention the fact that Eva herself got sick and tired of people getting in the way lying around in sleeping bags in her own personal castle.

Asuna unlocked the door and stepped inside, and couldn't help but grin at the room she was presented with. It was highly reminiscent of the dorm room she had once shared with Konoka and Negi, though it had a single bed rather than the bunk beds she and Konoka had once used, and a computer sat upon the desk in front of the window. Asuna shut the door behind her and locked it, then dropped her pack on the floor before wandering over to the bed and flopping down on it with her sword.

"Aahh~"

It was a hugely comfortable bed. She rolled over on her back, looking up at the ceiling, and let out a sigh of relief as the tension slowly bled from her body. She was exhausted; she had been training her body nonstop in the resort for two weeks...roughly fourteen hours out in the real world. She, like many of her old friends and classmates, had long ago lost track of her true age...one didn't often count the occasional two or three day visit to Eva's resort when planning a birthday celebration, but they definitely added up over time; she didn't think she was that much older than her official age would suggest, but she had to admit that the idea was troublesome. Her traitorous mind flirted with the idea of staying in the resort long enough to age up until she was even with Takahata-sensei, but it was only an idle thought; her old crush was pretty blatantly dating Minamoto Shizuna...Asuna wasn't even on his radar anymore, if she ever had been. She flopped an arm over her face and let out a sigh.

"Ugh...I stink," she said aloud as she caught a whiff of herself.

She heaved herself upright and walked over to the dresser opposite the bed, and began rooting around in the drawers, looking for some underwear. She removed the articles in question and grabbed an oversized t-shirt as well, something she had taken from Negi and often used in place of a real set of pajamas, and headed into the bathroom attached to the room.

She emerged twenty minutes later, smelling of soap and shampoo and wearing Negi's oversized t-shirt, and again collapsed into the bed, burying her face in her pillow.

"Much better..." she mumbled to herself. She lay there a moment, her long red hair flung around her haphazardly, and rolled over onto her size, facing the middle of the room. "Lights off!" she stated; the magitech device controlling the room's lights detected her command, matched it with its known list of commands in its memory, and promptly shut the lights off, leaving the room in near-total darkness.

Asuna laid there on her side for a long moment in the silence of her room, limbs sprawled out, before pulling the blanket up over herself. She drew her legs up against her chest under the blanket, then pulled the edge of it up further, leaving only the top of her head uncovered.

---

Like before, the dream seemed to start as soon as she closed her eyes. Again, like before, she found herself standing on a storm-battered shore, watching as the waves dug deeper into what remained of the small strip of land remaining between the sea and the enormous stone wall behind her. Already the beach, as she had seen it upon first having the dream, was gone, washed away by the storm; there had once been several acres of land between the sea and the wall, with the ruins of some temple located in the middle of the field, making for quite the picturesque scene. Now the temple ruins were gone, collapsed into the sea as the land was washed away by the waves. There was scarcely an acre of ground left...soon there would be no place to stand. She didn't know what would happen if there was no land left the next time she had the dream, but...she peered down into the water.

She didn't know, and she wasn't very keen to find out.

"What do you think, Mal?" she asked.

The only other occupant of Asuna's dream realm, the devil Malvrin, glanced up at her. He was a tall man who could have been considered ruggedly handsome if not for the long, sharply pointed horns sprouting up out of the top of his head. "I think you should take a look at that wall, myself," he said from where he sat cross-legged nearby, gesturing up at the huge wall behind her. "The ocean might not be an issue much longer."

Asuna, cocked an eyebrow at him and turned to face the wall. What she saw left her staring.

Huge cracks had appeared all over the wall, radiating out from one main split that ran vertically up the wall, presumably all the way to the top, so far up she couldn't make out any details. "What in the..when did this happen?" she asked. She hadn't seen anything like it before; she had just assumed the wall was an unchanging aspect of her mental world representing some aspect of her personality, such as her devotion to her friends...dream worlds were all about symbolism, after all. Or so psychiatrists said. She had to admit, the sight of those cracks running through the wall was strangely disturbing; it left her feeling somehow vulnerable, or weak. She wrapped her arms around herself as she looked at the wall.

"They've been there a while, you just never noticed," the devil said, watching her idly. "They weren't that big a week ago, though. Somethings happening to you...tell me, have you wondered what was behind that wall?"

Asuna looked up at the immense structure, uncertain of her thoughts. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't ever thought much about the wall itself past her first time in her dream world...which, now that she did think about it, was really strange. What was the wall? She had assumed it represented something, but did it really...? What if it really was just what it seemed? What if it really was a wall, meant to keep something out? Was it meant to protect her, or was she the one it was trying to stop? She frowned as she eyed the base of the crack, where several small chunks of rock had come loose and fallen out of the wall.

"Be careful," Malvrin warned.

Asuna ignored the devil's advice and poked at a piece of cracked stone about the size of her fist, lying wedged in the crack. To her surprise, it came loose in her hand; she pulled it out and looked at it closely. It was just a rock...gray, a little heavy for its size, possessing a fairly sharp edge where it had recently broken off, but not sharp enough to cut skin, not by a long shot. She tossed it behind her, where it rolled down the gently sloped hillside and finally plopped down into the ocean.

She reached into the crack and pulled out another.

---

"Okay everyone, look over here!" Kamo said as everyone filtered into the large cafeteria the next morning. "It's that time again!" he called out, waving his arms while two of Chachamaru's sisters rolled a large screen into place behind him.

Misa blearily rubbed her eyes. "Can't this wait until after breakfast...?" she muttered.

"No can do," Kamo said, shaking his head. "You need to know where you stand in relation to the rest! You can eat as you watch. Chachazero!" he called out.

"Right here!" the evil doll said as she hopped up onto the podium another of Chachamaru's sisters had provided. Kamo climbed up onto another one while the last of the latecomers filtered into the building and looked around, curious as to what was happening.

"Okay!" Kamo said happily as he pressed a button behind him and the screen flashed to life, a frantic-sounding song blaring over the speakers while some weird music video with people standing on desks showed on the screen.

"This! Is! Your Twelve-month Power Levels Report!" Kamo and Chachazero shouted into their microphones, Chachazero waving her hands excitedly while two of Chachamaru's sisters knelt down, one to each side of the screen, waving lit sparklers in intricate patterns.

Eva groaned from where she leaned on a wall nearby. "Not this useless nonsense again...!"

"Ehhh? Aren't you curious as to where you stand?" Kamo asked, leering at her. Eva crossed her arms and looked away with a 'hmph', a light blush on her cheeks.

"I already know where I am on that list," she said irritably.

"Well then, how about those students of yours, hmm? How about your 'best student'~"

"This is pointless; your power levels are meaningless in any real-world situation. A complete waste of time..." Eva replied, looking away. She didn't leave, however.

"Get on with it!" someone yelled in the back.

Kamo heaved a sigh and took out a collapsible pointer, which he smacked sharply against the podium. "Okay! For those of you who are new to this," he said, looking at several of the students who had only recently been introduced to the secret training sessions in Eva's resort, "this is how these rankings work..."

---

Kakizaki Misa barely listened while Kamo explained his power rating system in a comedy-duo format with Chachazero providing crazy or sarcastic comments with excellent timing; instead, she focused on sitting at her table and sipping away at her cup of that nectar of the gods known as coffee.

"-let me congratulate Kazumi on raising her power level an additional twenty points since the last-" Kamo said, droning on.

"Ugh..." Misa moaned as she rested her forehead on the table.

"That's what you get for drinking the night away," Madoka said as she sat down opposite Misa. Her food tray bumped the table and Misa winced, jerking her head up a few inches.

"Oww..." she moaned as she gently lowered her throbbing head back to the tabletop.

"Some of the new kids' numbers are pretty impressive," Madoka said as she began to eat.

"How's Kagami-chan?" Misa asked, still face-down on the table. 'Ugh...I'm never drinking again. Never ever.'

Madoka grinned wide, though Misa couldn't see it. "You're not going to believe it."

Misa tried to focus on something other than the way it felt like her brain was bouncing around in her head as she looked up at Madoka. "What's her ranking?" she asked. While Mochizuki Kagami spent a lot of time training as a group with her classmates Urashima Taro and Nakamura Sachiko under the others, Kagami had been and always would be Misa's primary magic student. Misa herself had helped Kagami develop most of the unique spells she used, and Misa was usually the first one Kagami came to whenever she ran into a magical problem she couldn't solve on her own. She couldn't help but feel nervous as she watched Madoka grinning wide at her.

Madoka held up two fingers.

"...two?" Misa asked. "Are you messing with me?"

"Well, I guess I could throw a few zeroes in behind it to make you feel better," Madoka said as she turned back to her breakfast.

"A few zeroes?" Misa asked, her eyes widening as her heartbeat picked up and she felt a sensation that she supposed could best be described as 'teacherly pride'. "Kagami-chan's power level is two thousand?! That's awesome!"

"That's what comes of practice," Madoka said, then looked sharply up at her. Misa wilted under her disapproving stare.

"Yeah yeah...I'll practice more..." Misa said, laying her poor aching head back on the table. "I can't let Kagami pass me..."

"Yeah, she's catching up fast," Madoka said cheerfully. Misa shot her a glare, but Madoka only laughed and Misa collapsed back down to the tabletop. "Chizuru's right on your tail too. Plus she's got a lot more skill and can also use some ki. She taught herself kanka."

"Ugh..." Misa moaned.

"Hmm...come to think of it, Setsuna's pretty far up too, isn't she?" Madoka continued on, as if musing to herself out loud. "She's up above three when she goes all out with all that Shinmeiryu stuff, and Konoka's always been way up there...I guess that's awesome genetics for you. And practice," Madoka added. Misa groaned again. "Yuuna's kid, that Possum girl, she's really jumped up too since she turned into a vampire. She still can't control herself well enough to get a good reading, but Kamo told me the other day she spiked to seventeen fifty. It was only for a second or two, but she's gonna be great some day."

Misa groaned yet again. "Man, everybody's catching up~!" she whined.

"Practice," Madoka said. She said it like a judge announcing a criminal's sentence. "You don't even wanna know what that Beatrice girl's power level is."

Misa groaned. Ever since Eva had decided to train Beatrice Honeydew, she had been Misa's biggest rival. "I guess you'd better tell me."

"Thirty seven hundred."

Misa just stared at her.

Madoka nodded and took a sip of her coffee.

"At least I'm still stronger than Asuna," Misa finally said; the whining tone had not quite left her voice.

"On paper, anyway," Madoka allowed. It was obvious to both girls present that Asuna, with her training and skills, would wipe the floor with Misa and Madoka both in a straight up serious fight, despite the rather extreme difference in power levels. Asuna had only just broken eight fifty recently. Madoka's twelve hundred or so, all from ki rather than magic, would certainly help, but it would only delay the inevitable.

"...I guess Kamo's power levels are useless after all," Misa said, grinning at the prospect of less work.

"Nah, they're a good tool, but I wish he'd go further and take other things into account," Madoka said as she finished up her coffee.

Misa sat up and took a sip of her own coffee. She made a face; her coffee had gone cold. She set it down and looked over at Madoka. "Like what?"

Madoka paused for a moment, looking at the piece of toast that was all that remained of her breakfast. "I dunno. Something like 'combat efficiency' or...or something." She glanced back across the room to where Kamo and Chachazero were finally winding down to a close. As she had expected, the new kids were all crowded around the screen, looking at their power level rankings. She couldn't help but grin...she had been the same way. Still was, actually, only she had enough self control to not crowd around with the rest. Watching your power levels going up through time and training was fun.

"Or something, right," Misa said. "Or some kind of videogame class system! I'd totally be a black mage, right? And you'd probably be a monk, ha!"

"Yeah..." Madoka said, rolling her eyes as she turned back to face Misa. "I guess that means I've gotta stick around you then; you've probably only got ten h.p.," she said, the corner of her mouth creeping upwards in a smirk.

Misa stuck her tongue out at her and took a bite of her toast, and Madoka's smirk froze. She looked down at her plate, empty of all but crumbs, then back up at Misa, who popped the last of the toast into her mouth and smirked back at her. Madoka heaved a long-suffering sigh. "It's amazing what I'll put up with..." she muttered.

"Well of course, I'm the black-mage-slash-love-interest, aren't I?" Misa asked.

Madoka just gave her a blank look. "Black-mage-slash-love-interest? Those exist?"

"Yeah! Of course they do!" Misa shot back.

"Name one."

Misa looked back at her blankly as she tried to think of an example of that rare creature. "Like...uh...Lulu!"

"She wasn't the love interest; she just ends up with the idiot who attacks with a soccer ball," Madoka said dryly.

"No way!" Misa said. "I distinctly remember seeing Tidus get all huggy with her in that one scene if you were nice to her!"

Madoka frowned as she tried to recall which particular scene Misa was talking about. "...really? I don't remember anything like that."

"Th-then Arche!"

"She's more of a witch, and Cress liked Mint more anyway."

"V-Vivi!"

Madoka just looked at her sadly.

"Cortana!"

Madoka sighed and stood up, taking her empty tray with her. "Yeah...I'm gonna go now."

"But...but..." Misa said as Madoka walked away. She heaved a sigh and collapsed back on the tabletop as her headache roared back with a vengeance. "Gah..." It took her a moment to realize Madoka was still standing there. She looked back up at the other girl, noting the somewhat worried expression on her face. "What?"

Madoka hesitated. "...you're going to go back and pick up the Birdsong girl, aren't you?"

Misa stiffened up. Nobody trusted Maple Birdsong at all...they were all too paranoid, in her opinion. Maple just needed time and kindness, that was all. Sure she was kinda creepy when beating a construct half to death with a shovel or chopping one up with a chainsaw, but nobody was perfect, right? 'Besides,' she thought to herself, 'chainsaws are pretty cool anyway.'

Misa figured Madoka had expected her reaction, as she continued on. "Just be careful, alright? I keep thinking about what happened when they first came..."

Misa relaxed a little at that. When Maple and Trinity Birdsong had first arrived in Mahora, there had been several...misunderstandings. One such misunderstanding had ended up with Misa stuck through with an uprooted fencepost. It had legitimately been an accident and Maple had scared half the city carrying Misa's bloody body around while trying frantically to find Konoka, the only healer in the city she even knew of, but several of the others had taken it personally, and just about everybody was nervous around the poor girl after that. Everybody but Misa. Perhaps it was because Maple had accidentally impaled her during an argument (and you didn't get much closer than being impaled by someone, Misa reasoned), but Misa felt close to the girl, close enough to try and be her friend despite their rather inauspicious start. It had taken time, but she felt like Maple was finally starting to accept the fact that she, too, could have friends. To be honest, it made Misa feel all warm and fuzzy inside that Madoka was worrying about her. Once she got past the annoyance, anyway. She sighed.

"Look, it'll be alright. I'm just going to check up on her and try to get her to come here for the city defense meeting. Like it or not, she's really effective, right? We can't just leave her out..."

Madoka looked torn, but hesitantly nodded. "You're right...I'm sorry. I'm just worried, you know...? She never even told anybody what made her sister like that, or why they came here in the first place. You're always going over there...I just keep thinking what if something comes looking for them, but finds you instead...?"

Misa grinned. "A hundred and seven magic arrows to the face, that's what," she said. "Or a shadow lance to the heart!" she said, grinning as she pointed her finger like a gun at Madoka's heart and winked.

Madoka blushed and quickly looked away. "...idiot..."

"Don't worry Kugimin," Misa said, grinning at the silly nickname. "I'll be fine. I'll probably be gone an hour or so, so...see ya tomorrow?" she asked. An hour in the outside world was roughly a day inside Eva's resort...that fact was a big part of why Negi's old students had gotten so strong in such a short period of time compared to the rest of the world. The fact that most of them were probably a year or two older than they technically should have been was a bit of a downside, though...

"Don't call me Kugimin," Madoka said, still looking away.

Misa reached out and ruffled her hair until Madoka swatted her hand away, and grinned. "See ya!"

---

Kara Stride, Kondo Kai, and Watanabe Miyako, three quarters of the No Name Band, all sat together at the same table looking sheepishly at each other while everyone ate breakfast around them.

"I...I guess I've been keeping a secret from you," Kara said after an awkward moment. Kai made a crooked grin and Miyako blushed.

"Same here," Kai said, unable to stop her awkward grin.

"Me too," Miyako said, looking down at the tray that held her breakfast.

Silence fell over their table as the three girls looked down at their breakfast, a little embarrassed to have been caught holding back on such things as being a super-acrobatic, quick thinking genius, being an oni, and being some sort of music-mage-swordsgirl with the ability to make people fall in love by looking at them.

"Heh."

Kara and Miyako looked up at Kai, who quickly looked away.

"I was wondering what Ayumi would think, if she new the truth," Kai said after a moment. She picked up a piece of toast and took a bite, more to give her hands something to do than because she was hungry.

Miyako made a rueful grin, one which Kara mirrored.

"Ayumi..." Kara said, looking down at her plate. Kara had been the one to kick Ayumi out of the No Name Band after the stunt she pulled with little Caro...the horrified look on Ayumi's face at the time still haunted her. She felt someone touch her hand and looked up at Miyako.

"It's alright; Ayumi is getting better," Miyako said with a certainty Kara didn't feel. Ayumi was one of Miyako's roommates...the American transfer student Rosemary Dean was the other. "I know she wants to come back to the band; she's just too stubborn."

"Yeah..." Kara said, looking back down as Miyako released her hand.

"S-so!" Kai said in a desperate attempt to break the gloom that had fallen over the table. "Kara-chan! You can make people fall in love with you, right?" she asked.

Kara nodded hesitantly. "That's why I'm wearing these glasses...Mama—my mother said they help block the effect—hey!" As she spoke, Kai reached over and yanked Kara's glasses off. "Don't look at me!" Kara wailed, covering her face with her hands.

"Come on, I've seen you lotsa times without glasses. You never even wore them before now, right?" Kai said as she inspected the pair of glasses for a moment, then put them on.

"I used to wear contacts," Kara said, squinting so she could see between her fingers. "Something happened and the effect got a lot stronger..."

Miyako looked from Kara to Kai and back, and cocked her head to the side. "What is it like?"

Kara seemed to shrink in on herself as she kept her face covered. "...it's scary. I didn't even know what I was doing after it started; I just remember-" she abruptly cut off; Miyako could see her ears turning red, though her face was hidden.

"What do you remember?" Kai asked as she looked around the room through Kara's glasses, then took them off and blinked, shaking her head. "Wow you have bad vision!"

It took a moment for Kara to work up the nerve to answer. "I...I was in the bathroom in my room—I remember I was having headaches all day that day—and then..." she trailed off, lowering her hands from her face as she looked at her breakfast tray.

Miyako felt her cheeks heating up as she looked at Kara. It occurred to her a moment later that Kara's power was starting to have an effect on her, so she grabbed Kara's glasses from Kai and handed them back to their proper owner. Kara took them with a thankful smile that made Miyako's heart race, but the effect started to fade the instant she put the glasses back on.

Kai stuck her tongue out at Miyako before turning her attention back to Kara; she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary at all. "What happened next?"

"Well..." Kara said, trailing off as her face turned a more intense shade of red. "Ayumi came in, and...well..."

"Come on Kara, spill it!" Kai said excitedly. Miyako leaned in close. Something had happened between Kara and Ayumi that day that had really shaken Ayumi up; whatever it was, Ayumi had been strongly affected by it as well.

"I..."

Miyako and Kai leaned in closer.

"I-I felt all warm, and my heart was racing, and when I saw her I thought...I...Ikissedher," Kara said quickly, and slouched down further into her seat, hiding her face again.

Miyako just stared at Kara a minute, wide eyed, before looking over at Kai, who wore a similar expression, though her mouth was open. Kai shut her mouth and looked over at Miyako.

"So that's it!"

"So that's why..."

"Um, so...uh...d-did you like it?" Kai asked. Miyako gave her a horrified look for asking such a question, but, to be honest, she was a little curious as well.

"I-I dunno," Kara mumbled.

"Wow...that much, huh?" Kai said in a teasing tone.

Kara slouched down further, barely above table level by that point. "...I want to die..."

Miyako gave Kai a scathing look while trying to think of something to say to help Kara feel a little better. But for Kara to kiss Ayumi...! That was certainly unexpected! "W-well! I'm sure it was due to your ability, right?"

Kara looked up at her hopefully. "Really?"

Kai nodded. "Yeah, Miyako's probably right. Since you don't even seem to know why you did it, it's probably because of that. I asked Takahata-sensei about what happened, and he said it's the sort of thing that's almost impossible to control; you really couldn't help yourself, I guess."

Kara still looked troubled, so Miyako decided to change the subject to one that was guaranteed to take Kara's mind off of what had happened that day in the dorm when her powers went out of control. "Who's better? Negi-sensei or Kotarou-san?"

Kara clammed up right away and turned a vivid shade of red.

"That's right!" Kai said suddenly as she picked up on Miyako's intent. "Which one do you like best, hmm~m?"

"..." Kara muttered something too quietly for Miyako and Kai to hear.

"Wha~t? I couldn't hear you," Kai said, grinning.

Kara shrunk down in her seat again and looked down at her lap as she poked her fingers together. "...Negi..." She covered her face again in embarrassment.

"Ah I see, I see..." Kai said, nodding sagely. "You go for the super-hot pretty boy type, right? And that scar on his cheek really makes a great contrast. How 'bout you? Who do you like?" Kai said, grinning at Miyako, who shrunk down a little herself. "Come on, spill it!"

Miyako looked down at her breakfast tray shyly. "...Negi-sensei."

"And another one! Poor Kotarou-san," Kai said, waving her arms theatrically. "Though to be fair, I've gotta say I prefer Negi-sensei too," she said before either girl could ask.

With the moment thus lightened, their conversation soon turned in other directions such as the ridiculous amount of summer homework they had been assigned, and Kai breathed a sigh of relief. Negi-sensei was good and all, but he was just too pretty, in Kai's opinion. So was Kotarou-san, when it came to that...oni girls tended to look for someone big and strong and tough rather than prettyboy types, and their was only one big, strong, tough guy around who didn't look like a...well...a sissy. Kai felt bad for thinking of Negi-sensei and Kotarou-san in such a way, but... She hadn't started to look at the man she was thinking of that way until recently, but...she spotted Scary Max-sensei sitting at a table in the corner by himself as he ate his breakfast, and couldn't help but blush.

---

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

---

The sun was high in the sky on a bright summer day with only the occasional small puff of cloud high above, the air miraculously free of the stifling humidity often found in the region in summer. Birds were singing in the trees and the high heat that normally oppressed the city's inhabitants in late July was softened by a brisk breeze that blew ignored through Misa's hair as she stood on the steps leading up to the front porch of the small house, dread clutching at her heart as she looked at the front door, moving softly on its hinges in the breeze. She could see the empty hole where the doorknob had been before something broke it out of the door. She took a hesitant step up onto the narrow porch and leaned in close to the door, listening for any sign of life from inside the house.

She heard nothing but the creak of the door shifting in the breeze.

"...Maple? Are you there?" she asked, then waited a moment. "It's me, Kakizaki Misa..."

A faintly unpleasant odor drifted through the crack in the door, and Misa wrinkled her nose. It smelled like rotten food... She moved forward and gently pushed the door open, holding it in place with her hand. The heat that rushed out to greet her made her grimace. "...Maple? Trinity? Is anyone there?"

When no response came after a few seconds, she stepped inside and immediately spotted the shattered remains of the doorknob lying on the floor, broken into several pieces. The whole interior of the house was hidden in shadow; she searched the wall for a light switch, and flipped the lights on a moment later. She moved through the small entry room and paused again, looking at the mess that had been made of the little house. A mostly empty can of beans lying on the floor was the source of the smell she had detected earlier, and the cupboards stood open, their former contents, sparse as they were, scattered over the floor. She moved further into the unnaturally silent little house and approached the bathroom.

A peek through the doorway was all it took to see the sorry state the room was in; it looked like someone had torn it apart. The bedroom was no better; the bedroom door lay on the floor inside, while various items were strewn about and left lying broken on the floor; Trinity's bed was bereft of blankets and the little radio Maple had been so excited to find a few months back lay in pieces by the wall; she could see the mark on the wall where it had been thrown. Misa turned around, marched back out of the dead little house into the sunlight, and pulled out her cell phone. Her hands were shaking so badly it took her a moment to dial the number, but Takahata picked up after two rings.

-Takahata here.-

Misa couldn't seem to get her vocal cords working properly; she opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

-Hello? If this is an emergency, please respond.-

"T-Takahata-sensei?" she finally managed.

–...Kakizaki-san? What happened?-

She paused again, trying to figure out what to say, but all she could come up with was "I'm at Maple's house. Something happened; they're both gone."

There was a long pause on Takahata's end.

-Stay where you are; a team will be there soon.-

"O-okay." Misa shut her cell phone as she looked back up at the little house. What had happened...? Someone had broken in, obviously, but...there was no blood. If there was nothing else good about the situation, there was at least that. She shivered.

Who had been crazy enough to break into Maple Birdsong's house, and what had happened to the Birdsong sisters...?

---

Monday, July 20th, 2009, Evening, Eva's Resort

---

With the imminent departure of the group that would accompany Negi to Mundus Magicus both in response to the challenge issued by Fate six years previous and for the mission to rescue Ako, who had been kidnapped during the festival in late June, one final planning session had been called in Eva's resort to finalize the details of the mission as well as see to the defense of Mahora until Negi's party's planned return at the end of summer break, and to discuss what to do should they fail to appear at the scheduled time.

Only those who held positions of authority—official or not—and those in possession of important information had been invited to the well warded inner meeting room hidden within the bowels of the castle Eva had built in her resort, and they sat, now, around a table, looking at computer screens installed by Chisame and Kazumi.

"Let us deal with the more immediate concerns first," Takahata, current head of Special Defenses for the city of Mahora, said as he brought up a list of people officially registered as members of Mahora's defense force. He pressed a button, and a large number of names were highlighted in red, including many of Mahora's most powerful citizens. "These are the people scheduled to follow you to Mundus Magicus," he said, looking at Negi. "This will raise havoc with our teams. We will need to rebuild two thirds of our defense teams and appoint new leaders for roughly seventy percent of them; this can't wait any longer."

"We have a similar situation within the Special Operations division," Kuzunoha Touka, member of the Shinmeiryu and head of Special Operations for the city added. She didn't have anything so fancy as Takahata's little powerpoint presentation to show the others present, but there was no question that the sudden loss of such a large chunk of their fighting force was a dangerous thing.

"It should also be noted that, with the absence of both Asakura Kazumi and Sakai Reiko, the city will be left without the services of a powerful medium," Sir Leonard Reilly, an old friend of the headmaster from Europe, said, his cold, measuring gaze sweeping the table. After the incident with the Ghost Eater, it had been decided to create a new division to deal with ghosts, spirits, and other things of that nature; as someone who had often dealt with similar issues in his youth, he had immediately been called out of retirement and put in charge. He had promptly set about running emergency drills and enforcing discipline upon the people assigned to him. It had been observed that Reiko didn't seem to like him much, but she didn't really like anyone, so her grumbling and complaints about 'that slavedriver' were ignored. Kazumi seemed to find the situation amusing...except when she was caught trying to skip out on training.

Those not directly involved in running the defense of Mahora waited patiently while the issues were ironed out and the available personnel were spread more evenly among the various divisions as need dictated until finally the final team had been rebuilt and the last resources had been doled out.

"So," Eva said, clearly bored out of her mind by the administrative discussions that had just ended, "let's move on to something a little more interesting, shall we?" Takahata smiled slightly, while Touko and several others simply looked offended.

"And that would be...?" Sir Leonard Reilly asked, raising an eyebrow as he made an expression that would have made anyone under his authority cringe. Eva just glanced at him.

"Storming the castle, rescuing the princess, and defeating Negi's eternal rival, of course," Eva said, meeting his disapproving gaze with ease. They locked eyes for a long, long moment before Sir Leonard's lips curled upward in a smile.

"Ha! I see someone here still has some spirit left in them," he said as he stood up. "Come along, Touko; I believe we have done our part here. Are you coming, Takahata?" he asked while Touko spluttered indignantly.

Takahata let out a small laugh and stood up from the table, gathering his notes. "Yes; let's leave this to them. Come with us, Touko," he said, looking back at the woman. She let out a sigh and stood up.

"Fine. Let's just get out of here," she said testily as she stalked to the door.

When they and the others whose only concern was the defense of Mahora had left, the remaining group seated around the table turned to the next order of business.

"So," Chisame said, speaking for the first time since the meeting began, "you have some information, don't you?" she asked, looking over at Sakurako, who grinned and nodded.

"Yep!" she said, moving up to stand beside the table, where she laid down the thick folder she had been carrying. Negi and Asuna crowded close around her as she opened it and began passing out bundles of paper to the others seated around the table; a moment later she unfolded a large map and laid it flat on the table.

"Mundus Magicus?" Negi asked as he peered at the map, which showed one enormous oddly shaped landmass taking up the middle and top of the map, and another that looked roughly like Antarctica at the bottom of the map, both continents drawn simplistically. It looked like something out of a child's geography book.

"M-hm," Sakurako replied as she took out the collapsible magic wand Negi had given her years ago and began to use it as a pointer. "These cities are where the gateports are," she said, pointing to several spots on the map, "and this is where I think the headquarters of the Children of Gilgamesh is," she said, pointing to a spot on a peninsula northeast of Ostia. "Ako-chin will be held there."

Everyone started talking at once, but Negi bent down and looked closely at the map while questions were thrown too fast for Sakurako to answer.

"Quiet," Eva said loudly. It took a moment, but silence again fell over the room.

"If I remember correctly, this peninsula...I can't recall its name, but it's quite mountainous, isn't it?" Negi asked, frowning.

Sakurako nodded. "I've narrowed it down to an area about a hundred miles across—"

"You'll need to search by airship, then," Chisame suddenly said.

Negi smiled up at her. "Yes, I believe that would be the best way." He looked back down at the map.

"It won't be easy finding them that way, either," Asuna said thoughtfully as she looked over the map. "A hundred miles is a huge area, and even if we get close they'll probably have their own methods of defense, not to mention wild dragons and stuff like that." Everyone looked at her for a moment, surprised. "What?" she asked defensively.

"I think we're all just a bit surprised at you of all people offering something useful," Kazumi said, grinning at her. Asuna just rolled her eyes in response.

"The easiest way to find their location would be to speak to the locals; a large group that goes around kidnapping people should be easy enough to find unless the locals are cooperating with them. Barring that, we could look for well traveled roads; it would take a lot of supplies to keep any sizable group fed and clothed high in the mountains, not to mention other things, such as entertainment, work-related supplies, and any number of other things...they probably make quite the economic impact on the surrounding villages. Assuming they've thought to hide their methods of getting supplies, an aerial search really is our only option." Yue frowned thoughtfully as she looked at the map, then began thumbing through the bundle of paper Sakurako had given her. It contained smaller maps of the region as well as information on the climate, wildlife, locals, and other subjects that might be good to know if one was planning to spend some time there.

"That'd be rough," Asuna said. "Expensive, too."

Yue nodded. "We would need as many airships as we could get," she said, looking at the map from the other side. She had to climb halfway up on the table to get a good look. "Ideally, several dozen would be best, covering ground in an organized manner...it shouldn't take too long to spot them, unless they're located in some sort of cave system—"

"The Children of Gilgamesh are based out of a big fortress," Sakurako said with a surety that was surprising to the others. "I don't know where it is, but it's built to be impenetrable."

"Impenetrable? That just means we have to set Eva loose on it instead of Misa," Asuna said. Some of the others giggled at the comment, and even Eva smirked a little. "Do you know how many people there are? What kind of fighting force they have?"

Sakurako shook her head. "Hundreds, maybe even a few thousand. It's a big castle."

Yue looked at her for a moment, then turned her attention back to the map.

"How do we know they brought her to this castle of theirs?" Yue asked after a moment, effectively silencing the room.

Sakurako grinned crookedly. "They did."

"How do you know?"

"I have a reliable source."

Yue and Sakurako looked at each other for a moment.

"How reliable?" Yue said, looking Sakurako in the eye. "This is a good friend we're talking about."

Sakurako made a gentle smile and closed her eyes. "Very reliable. There's nothing to worry about; they definitely took her there." She met Yue's gaze with a smile, and Yue looked away, back at the map.

"We'll probably have to do an infiltration instead of a regular attack," Asuna said.

Negi nodded. "We don't have to forces to face a thousand people behind castle walls; it will have to be a surprise attack. I just wish we knew more about the castle, so we could plan ahead..." He looked hopefully at Sakurako.

Sakurako held up her hands and shook her head helplessly. "Sorry. It's a big castle designed to hold off an army, that's all I know."

Negi frowned, concentrating on the map. "I will need to visit the library today; I want to see some better maps of this area, and to see if there are any hints as to the fortress's exact location..."

"I'll join you," Nodoka said, speaking up for the first time; she had been rapidly scribbling notes throughout the meeting.

"Me too," Kazumi said. "And how about you, Chisame?" she said, grinning over at her old friend.

Chisame glanced over at her. "...sure."

"Great! Maybe this won't take so long after all. Sayo can even use that mannequin they keep in there and help us too."

"Ugh," Asuna said, shivering as people started filing out of the room. "That giant doll thing is creepy..."

After a quick glance at Sakurako, who was folding up her map, Yue followed the others outside, but stopped and leaned against the wall just outside the door while the others kept going. Eva gave her an odd look on her way out, but just shook her head and continued on, leaving Sakurako alone inside the room. Yue only had to wait a moment longer before her target exited the room.

"Heya Yuecchi," Sakurako said, grinning at her. "Did you need something?"

Yue decided to get straight to the point. "How did you know about that castle?"

Sakurako looked surprised, but shrugged. "I did some research."

Yue looked her in the eye. "There is no information on the headquarters of the Children of Gilgamesh, not even in Library Island. I know. I checked."

Sakurako's smile slipped a little. "There are other ways to find things out, Yuecchi," she said, waving an admonishing finger.

"Such as?" Yue asked, giving her a level look.

Sakurako looked back at her, and they held each others' gaze for a long moment before Sakurako sighed and the smile left her face completely. "You know this?" she said, wiggling her fingers in the air; Yue blinked as Sakurako's pactio card appeared in her hand.

Yue nodded, wondering where Sakurako had hidden it; the woman couldn't have stuck it up her sleeve, they barely went down to her elbows.

"You remember its effect, right?"

Yue nodded again, frowning. Sakurako's pactio card featured a picture of Sakurako in a cheerleader's uniform; the effect was basically the equivalent of a temporary stat boost in a video game, only it worked for everyone around her.

"Well, I have a friend with a certain ability, and I boosted her with this! That's all," she said, making the card disappear. She smiled brightly and started walking, but Yue snagged her by the wrist before she could escape.

"Sakurako..." Yue said, her mind racing. Sakurako was definitely hiding something...! "You and I both know your artifact doesn't work that way. I helped you test it, remember?" She again met Sakurako's gaze, and the woman looked away after a few seconds.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Yuecchi, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..." Sakurako said, smiling as she turned back to Yue, clearly trying to turn the whole thing into a joke.

Yue wasn't having any of it. "I fail to see what a line from Hamlet has to do with you answering my question. What did you do, Sakurako? No one even knew about that castle until you brought it up; there is no mention of that cult's headquarters in any of the books about them I was able to find. Even my artifact doesn't have any information about it. Nobody knows except the people in that cult. You didn't...you didn't make a deal with a demon, did you?"

The fake smile Sakurako had plastered on faded, only to be replaced by a real smile.

Yue looked at Sakurako nervously. "W-what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're so close to figuring it out, aren't you?" Sakurako asked, reaching out and drawing Yue, protesting, into a hug. "Don't worry," she said softly into the top of Yue's head as the shorter woman reluctantly returned the hug; Sakurako was really quite huggable, after all. "I didn't do anything bad; there weren't any demons. I just can't tell you until you figure it out, okay?"

"That doesn't make sense," Yue muttered from the region of Sakurako's collarbone. "Why can't you tell me?"

"I can't tell you why; it would spoil the surprise. It may not make sense right now, but it will once you figure it out, right?" Sakurako replied. "You're so amazing, Yuecchi; you almost have it. I can't wait!" She held Yue out at arm's length, beaming at her. "Keep it up! You're almost there, Yuecchi! Now~" she said, a mischievous look on her face.

Yue tried to back away, but Sakurako held her shoulders firmly. "W-what?" she demanded, wondering what new trick Sakurako was about to play on her.

"Hu hu hu~" Sakurako laughed, then quickly leaned forward, brushed Yue's hair out of the way, and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. "Hehehehe, that's for luck~" she said as she darted away from the protesting girl and skipped down the hall. She paused and turned around to look back at Yue's glaring face. "Keep it up Yuecchi! Let me know when you figure it out, 'kay? See ya~"

Yue glared at Sakurako as she skipped off down the hall, and wiped her forehead where Sakurako had k-k-kissed her. "Ugh..." she muttered as she looked at her hand. She really didn't get Sakurako sometimes; she was even worse than Misa...! 'At least she wasn't wearing lipstick,' Yue thought to herself as she rubbed her forehead. Having the other girl kiss her, even if it was just a teasing peck on the forehead, had been embarrassing enough; if she had left a lip-print behind...Yue shuddered. She wanted some boiling water and a whole mountain of soap.

"Ugh."

---

The few remaining days before the scheduled departure of Negi's group passed swiftly, with everyone who was going doing their best to tie up loose ends and say goodbye to their loved ones. Some focused on training in Eva's resort, while others indulged in the food and activities they wouldn't find in Mundus Magicus, and still others procrastinated until, suddenly, there was no more time left.

---

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

---

"I wish I could go with you..."

Misa grinned over at her one and only mage trainee, Mochizuki Kagami. The girl had chosen to wear the blue shirt and short black skirt Misa had picked out for her on one of their shopping trips, along with a pair of those long black socks she had that went most of the way up her legs; this pair stopped just short of the bottom of her skirt. Misa's grin widened as she reached out and tousled Kagami's hair; Kagami had worn those socks like that every chance she got since the time Misa had complimented her on the look. 'Man this is great; having someone looking up to you makes a girl feel all warm and fuzzy inside...' "Honestly, I kinda wish you could too, Kagami-chan. But it's just too dangerous over there...what would I do if you got hurt?"

Kagami's face fell, and Misa's heart felt like it was about to burst. 'Moe! So moe! Gah...!'

"But..." Kagami trailed off, and Misa knew what she was about to say.

"I know you've been training extra long in the resort," Misa said as she walked along on the sidewalk a step ahead of Kagami in her own shirt-and-skirt combo. They were about the same height, but Misa was most definitely a woman while Kagami was just still on her way. "But the answer is still no...I'm sorry, Kagami-chan."

Kagami followed along in silence for a moment, and when Misa glanced back at her to make sure she was okay, she saw Kagami staring at her shadow. Kagami looked up at her, and Misa made a bright smile at her. Kagami blushed and looked back down at the sidewalk.

"...but I'm strong," Kagami said a moment later, disconsolate.

"I know you are," Misa said, trying to sound reassuring. "You're all strong," she said, referring to Kagami's training group, which consisted of Urashima Taro, Nakamura Sachiko, and sometimes Possum Cade, when she wasn't training with Yuuna. Misa knew Kagami had taken the news that she couldn't go to Mundus Magicus badly, even moreso than the others; Misa hadn't been able to bring herself to actually say the words, but Kagami had understood anyway and had been moping around and looking pitiful ever since. Misa just wanted to just hug her forever and die, but if she did that Madoka would get jealous, so she had settled for arranging a lunch date with Kagami to cheer her up. And, lo and behold, Kagami had shown up at their meeting place in the cutest outfit she had ever seen her in...Misa had almost squealed in glee at seeing her in it, but had somehow managed to hold it back.

"I don't understand..."

Misa fought down a powerful urge to grab Kagami and take her home with her, and instead led her into a nearby cafe, where they could talk in relative peace and quiet. Misa thought the atmosphere was quite nice, almost like a date, and the food was excellent even if the silence of the girl seated across from her made it a little quieter than what Misa was used to. Still, it was incredibly fun; Misa even got a chance to fulfill one of her life's goals when Kagami got a little icing from a piece of cake stuck on the side of her face. When Misa spotted it, she reached over, wiped it off with her finger, and stuck it in her mouth. Misa barely managed to suppress a delighted squeal when Kagami looked down at her plate shyly, blushing in response to Misa's actions.

'-moe moe moe moe moe moe moe moe SO MOE I COULD DIE~kyaa-'

Soon they left the cafe and made their way to a little-known park nearby filled with those pretty blue flowers she knew Kagami liked, and settled down on one of the stone benches that had sat there for years. A long moment passed in silence while they sat there side by side, until Misa felt Kagami take her hand in hers and looked over at her.

Kagami turned over Misa's hand and started tracing the lines on her palm.

"Oh what's this? A palm reading?" Misa asked, interested. She had never put much stock in such things, but it seemed fun...

"...this line says you're selfish in love," Kagami said quietly as she traced a line across Misa's palm. Kagami's finger traveling across her hand left Misa's skin tingling. Misa grinned crookedly. She knew she was selfish in love...Madoka was all hers and she would never let anybody else have her! "You should be willing to let the other person live their own life," Kagami said quietly.

"What about the life line?" Misa asked, wanting to change the subject. Volumes could be written on what she didn't know about palm reading, but she did know there was something called a 'life line', that was supposed to tell how long you lived. Or something. 'I really should've paid more attention when Makie was into palm reading back in our first year of high school...' Misa thought to herself as Kagami shook her head.

"Not yet," Kagami said. She traced another line, and Misa shivered; she couldn't help it. "This one says you love life. You have a short attention span and are inconsistent. You need to focus more," Kagami said as she moved to trace another line. "This one says you're full of energy, but..." Kagam trailed off, looking troubled.

"What is it?" Misa asked, troubled by Kagami's expression. She felt the warmth of Kagami's hands on hers, and again had the urge to hug the girl, but fought it off.

"There will be a sudden change in your lifestyle," Kagami said, looking up at her. Their eyes met, and Misa was struck by just how innocent Kagami was. She knew Kagami's past, knew she had been what amounted to a yakuza princess before being sent to Mahora for her own protection, and yet...she shivered and looked back down at her hand.

"Was that the life line?" Misa asked.

Kagami nodded. "One more to go..." She looked down at Misa's palm and paused, her expression growing more troubled than before. "This one..."

"Yeah?" Misa asked, smiling at the girl to cheer her up. "What does that one say?"

"Th-this one..." Kagami said, again pausing. "The 'fate line'...i-it says your life..."

"Yeah?"

Kagami looked up at her, clearly troubled. "It says you aren't in control of your fate...please be careful over there, okay?"

Misa saw the worry in the girl's eyes and felt a strong need to reassure her. Kagami was just too cute...Misa didn't want to make her worry about anything. "Okay, I promise I'll be careful. There's nothing to worry about; Madoka's gonna be with me the whole time, right? Besides, it's just a palm reading...they've been known to be wrong before, you know?"

Kagami reluctantly let go of Misa's hand and looked down at her lap. "I hope you're right. It's just...I'm worried about everyone... What will we do if you don't come back...?" she said as her fists clenched on her knees.

Misa looked at her for a moment, surprised, and finally grinned as she reached over and pulled Kagami into a hug, which the younger girl quickly reciprocated. "It'll be okay," she said into Kagami's hair as the girl clung to her. 'Huh...she uses the same shampoo I do,' she thought, absurdly, as she felt Kagami's warmth seeping into her. She smiled at that familiar smell, and then held Kagami out at arm's length. "And hey, if something does happen, then you'll just have to come and rescue me, right?" Kagami's eyes widened in sudden hope, and Misa couldn't help but laugh. "And if you do, be sure to bring that little cat of yours, okay? I bet it'd have a lot of fun in the Magic World. Now come on, I've gotta get back to Madoka and Sakurako; we're supposed to put up charms to protect my place and Madoka's house while we're over there and we only have a couple hours left before we have to go. Wanna help?"

"Really?" Kagami asked reluctantly, trying desperately to hide how much she wanted to be involved.

Misa smiled brightly at her. "Yep! Come on."

---

Everyone met at the airport, where Ayaka's private plane waited on the tarmac. Goodbyes were given, tears were shed, and promises to follow the strict rules put in place for future training sessions and restricted usage of the resort were reaffirmed as those who were leaving filed onto the plane. The plane lifted off moments later on the first leg of its journey to Negi's hometown, and those who would remain behind in Japan drifted off to nearby restaurants and stores to drown their sorrows in milkshakes and new clothes before heading to the station to catch the next train back to Mahora.

That night, the dorms were a very quiet place, something that those few students who weren't yet involved in magical matters didn't understand. Even the most dense-headed girl there could tell most of the others were upset, and soon they, too, were silenced by the overwhelming aura of disappointment and depression.

That night, three girls gathered together in one room to keep each other company in their loneliness at being abandoned, however temporarily, by those who were their trainers.

---

"This sucks," Urashima Taro said, looking up at the ceiling of her room. Dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of sweat pants, she lay flat on her back on the floor, her arms flung out to the sides.

"I know, right?" Possum Cade, her best friend and newly-turned vampire, said as she focused on the television screen in front of her, her fingers deftly manipulating the buttons on the videogame controller she held. She sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the TV in her own version of pajamas, a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Her character was hit by a fireball, and she groaned, dropping the controller. "Aw man, that was my last life; it took me three hours to get that far...!"

Mochizuki Kagami, lying on the bottom bunk of Taro's bed, heaved a depressed sigh. She wore an oversized T-shirt and a pair of shorts as well, albeit a set picked by her trainer, Kakizaki Misa.

Taro mirrored Kagami's sigh as she looked up at the light fixture over her head.

"Come on, it's not that bad," Possum said as she scooted back to lean against the bed. She reached out and took Taro's left hand, and then Kagami's right. "They'll be back in a month, and then we can all go back to driving them crazy, right?" she asked, grinning. Her canine teeth were a little longer than average, but that was the only visible sign that she had become a vampire. The sunshine was a little too bright for her eyes and she sunburned more easily than she had before, but a pair of sunglasses and some sunblock or long sleeved shirts took care of that; the thirst for blood was harder to deal with, but Possum's own willpower and the easy availability of bloodpacks from the hidden mage clinic took care of that as well, and Yuuna's training had shown her how to work off her excess energy a feeding.

Taro tried not to smirk in response to Possum's comment, but her face betrayed her.

From up on the bed, Kagami muttered under her breath "...couple of dorks..." but smiled anyway.

"So where's Sachiko?" Possum asked.

Silence fell over the room as the previous good feeling leeched out again.

"She said she doesn't feel good," Taro said, rolling over onto her side to look at Possum.

Possum cocked an eyebrow upon seeing Taro's troubled expression. "She hasn't been looking too good lately; did something happen?"

"Kai beat her in a spar the other day," Kagami said from Taro's bed. Possum looked up at her, but Kagami hadn't moved; she was still staring up at the bottom of the top bunk.

Possum just blinked at her for a moment. "Kai? Kondo Kai? She beat Nakamura Sachiko, the class rep, in a spar?"

"'fraid so," Taro said, frowning as she recalled the incident. Taro had had the hardest time sparring with Sachiko...the other girl's movements were pretty much completely unpredictable; Taro had finally been able to defeat her for the first time a few weeks past, but...

"...wow," Possum said as she leaned back against the bed again. "Kai's a terrible fighter."

"I know, right?" Taro said. "I'm a little offended she beat her so easily; it took me months."

"Maybe she wasn't feeling well?" Possum ventured. "I mean, she hasn't been doing very well for weeks."

"Ever since that Misa's sister beat her in the festival tournament," Taro said as she angrily flopped back onto her back on the floor.

Silence again fell over the room while the three girls contemplated their absent friend and the way Misa's older sister Hatsune had treated her at the festival tournament. Possum wasn't as close to Sachiko as Taro and Kagami were, but she liked her nonetheless, and before Possum was kidnapped they had started to become pretty good friends.

"I hope she starts feeling better soon..."

---

Days passed and Kagami's hopes of being sent to Mundus Magicus on a rescue mission grew fainter and fainter. A week passed, then two, and she realized with a start that summer vacation was already over half over. A few planned study sessions with the others let her finish up her summer homework early for the first time in her life, and then, again, the monotony of days without serious magic training settled in. Sure, Kagami would sometimes call up Taro and Possum and Sachiko and go out into the woods to train with them—though Sachiko would almost always decline the offer—but it just wasn't the same as a real live training session with Misa or Eva. They weren't learning anything new, and Kagami felt as if the whole lot of them were just wasting time, running around in the woods like a bunch of brat kids. The stick-sword fights Possum and Taro often had, laughing like a couple of idiots, only reinforced the idea.

They weren't even allowed to go into Eva's resort without being accompanied by someone chosen from a very select list of people Eva had deemed trustworthy, and even then they weren't allowed to spar or go all out in case of unexpected injury since, with both Konoka and Natsumi gone, they only had access to lower-level magic healers and civilian hospitals. It was the sort of thing most mages just had to deal with, but the young mages of Mahora felt it more keenly than most, mostly due to their unusually high power levels and the violence of the sparring and training methods they had picked up from Eva, along with the fact that, for the first time in years, if someone received a fatal injury it would actually turn out to be fatal.

In short: No Serious Training Allowed.

Kagami hadn't been able to cast a Twilight Breaker in weeks!

The long, hot summer days slowly crept by with no word from Misa or any of the others that left, and then, with three days of summer vacation left, one day before Negi's group's scheduled return, Kagami received a text message.

---

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

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Sprawled out on her bed, Kagami flipped her cell phone open and frowned. The text was from someone called 'Chiu'. She didn't know anyone who went by that name, but she selected the text in question anyway. The message was short and to the point, and the first sentence left Kagami's eyes wide. A moment later, she was down on the floor, throwing her things into a bag. Shortly after, she closed her bag, grabbed her staff—carefully wrapped in the mage cloak Misa had bought for her—from the closet, grabbed the box containing her playdoh cat from under the bed, and was out the door and on her way to a certain clearing she knew in the woods, her cell phone left behind forgotten on her bed, still open to the text that had gotten her moving in such a hurry.

-Subject: Read This Immediately-

-From: Chiu-

-They need your help. Pack everything you'll need for a few days in a small bag and go to the clearing with the stump near Eva's house.-

-Hurry.-

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Author's Notes: What's this? Plot? Not in MY slice of life Negima alternate timeline fanfiction with a million characters...! But yeah, stuff's about to happen. Are you excited? Am I gonna be a bastard and leave you with a cliffhanger for a month before the next chapter? 'I hope so', and 'probably' are what I'm thinking at the moment, though I'll try to make it less than a month this time.

In any case, I think it'd be a good idea if I made a list of who all went with Negi. Be prepared; it's a pretty big list.

First, the old class. All of them. Except for Chao of course, and Satsuki, who stayed behind to help deal with any issues that might crop up related to those who left, as well as to help coordinate any rescue efforts if needed. Sayo stayed behind too, to help with any supernatural incidents that might occur; her decision was brought about by the realization of what would happen to all her ghost friends if another incident on the scale of the Ghost Eater Incident happened. She is one of the strongest ghosts around, maybe THE strongest ghost in all of Asia, and she is Mahora's only real means of supernatural defense now that both Reiko and Kazumi are gone.

Second, some of the other students Negi's taught over the years. This includes Sakai Reiko (sickly though she is), Nelle (the mute girl with the poncho and the machetes), Liliana Rosario (Madoka's student, the girl with the knives, who has a big brother she's looking for in Mundus Magicus)

Third, those who are friends or allies of Negi and his old class. This includes Max Linell, Jennifer Minindry, Chachazero (with Eva), Kotarou (with Natsumi), the Yagi siblings Ryoko and Kichirou and the Blight brothers Onyx and Morrison (all youkai with Konoka), the elementals Ava Grace (with Akira) Cyrr (with Max) and Linda Cale (with Natsumi), Chachamaru's sister Rally Wheeler from the new class, Anya (who refused to be left behind), Kamo, and Negi himself, of course.

I think I've covered everyone there. I THINK. If I realize I skipped someone or added someone who stayed in Mahora, I'll update the list, but as far as I can tell it's correct as it is. Everyone else in Mahora who's not on the list stayed behind. This includes Takahata, the other magic teachers, the new class, Cocone, the vampire Jonus (who is magically bound to Mahora at the moment), the vampire Beatrice (who is not), Carrick, and all the rest.