Chapter 7 - Memories
(Negi's Group)
The return to the inn was accompanied by a calm and relaxing silence.
As they flew over the walls for the second time that night, they noticed that the black coach and his unsettling coachman had disappeared.
As they entered the inn they were greeted by a tense silence, replaced by dismay on the faces of the students as they see their friends bruised and covered with blood.
Immediately they went to help them, but after that was insistently assured them that there was nothing serious, apart from Arthur, they calmed down a little.
Were explained in detail all the events of that long night, omitting only the elements in the view of the gruesome massacre.
At the presentation of Eva, Negi made it clear to his increasingly amazed students with an eloquent glance that they should preserve their questions for later, when they would be alone.
Ako and the young girl were cleaned in a tub of warm water and changed from their classmates, only to be laid on small beds in the room of which it gave the door in front of the fireplace.
Finished the report, a nervous silence fell in the room.
"Excuse us..." Negi began after a minute of reflection.
"Mr. Richard, Mr. Marcus and Mr. Arthur... here... you could leave us alone for a few minutes? Not to sound rude, but we would like to discuss among ourselves about our future..."
He smiled the irony of the phrase just spoken.
"Of course, we understand. Do not worry. If you need us, we are in real inn." Richard said serene "So we will take advantage as well to medicate Arthur."
"Uh? Real inn? Was not this?" Chao asked in astonishment.
"No, no..." Marcus said, chuckling, "This is just a fictional place created by us as not to be found in case of problems. To enter the real inn you just get out of here and re-open the door without first hit it with the wand."
Told this, the three got up and went out.
After a few moments of silence, Chachamaru spoke.
"Excuse me, professor, but what you meant to do before, calling that little girl as my master?" she asked in a interrogative voice.
"Absolutely nothing. That, simply, is her name. And now she's a vampire. Look at her carefully: they are identical! There can not be a mistake."
Sceptically, all the girls stood around to Eva, watching her.
"Indeed it seems she..." Chisame said amazed.
"She can not be her, she looks so sweet!" Asserted Kotaro.
"Instead she could, considering the time travel. But this would mean that she's really ancient." Chao considered.
"Yes! She must be her! She told me just yesterday, after the tournament in Mahora who had lived in this period!" Setsuna confirmed, amazed at how little had passed by their disappearance.
"So... this... This means that it is my fault if she is now a vampire and has suffered centuries for this!" Negi paled, realizing what he had done subtracting her twice over the death.
"No, professor. It is not your fault. If we had not intervened, there would be dead an innocent child. If you really want to be accused of something, can say that you saved her." The swordswoman corrected him gently, trying to calm him down.
"And now? What do we do?" she continued.
"We find a way to return to Japan, I guess." Chisame proposed.
"I basically repaired Cassiopeia... I fear, however, that can hold a single jump, ne!" Chao intervened, showing the clock.
It had not a great look, with some dials dismantled and a hand missing.
"Now we just have to find the nearest of the Twelve Sacred, theoretically Points." ended the inventor.
"Sacred Points?" Chisame repeated skeptically.
"Yes, there are particular points of the globe in which flows a strong magical power, like that of the World Tree to Mahora. Cassiopeia can only work with those." Negi readily explained.
No one in the group would have bet a dime on the machine, but they decided to trust, given the concrete, albeit very small, representing chance to go home.
"And what do we do with her?" Chisame asked, pointing with his thumb toward the small figure of Eva "And what do we say to Ako?"
"We will tell the truth. It would be pointless to keep her hidden magic, now that we're here. Regarding the Mast... Eva we will carry her with us until we have the chance to return in our time. We can not abandon her to herself, especially now, which has not centuries of experience and power to assure her an existence in these dark times." Negi replied resolutely.
"I understand, Aniki. But what you say to her? That you are her classmates from a distant future? I thi..." Kamo was wondering when he realized that the eyelids of the girl in question were beginning to quiver "...Aniki! She's waking up."
Slowly, the blue eyes of Evangeline opened, sleepy.
With an air dazed, the girl watched one by one the many faces bent upon herself.
Then a flash of terror crossed her eyes, and with a sudden jerk she backed away, dragging on her elbows, trying to put as much distance as possible between her and strangers.
"NO! LET ME GO!" she cried protecting her head with arms, crouching as much as possible and starting to sob.
"Get off me! Father! Father..." she continued more and more feebly.
(Eva's Group)
"LEAVE ME!" Evangeline shouted, opening her eyes filled with tears.
Her companions turned toward her, worried.
Panting, she looked around. She was in a room of modest size, over a large four-poster bed.
A cool breeze was emitted from the air conditioner installed above the window, to combat the heat of the summer.
Some confused memories began to surface in her memory: as when Mana had opened the door, and as there was no one waiting for them at the foot of the plane.
The last thing she remembered was that she had set foot on the first rung of the ladder, then it had done all dark.
Until she had seen him. The being who had cursed her with vampirism, killing his relatives and forcing a painful and lonely existence.
But she still could not understand how she had save herself from his clutches.
She had the memory of some men, and some guys... but the faces of the latter were hidden by a thick fog...
"Are you okay Eva?" Asuna asked worriedly, approaching.
"Y-yes." The vampire replied, stunned "What... What happened?"
"As you set foot off the plane, you fainted. We've brought you here at the hotel in a hurry, where is twenty minutes you desperately muttering and appoint a certain 'Lord Herbert'..." Mana replied, quietly.
"We tried to wake you up, but none succeeded. What happened to you? Who is this Herbert?" then asked, looking inquisitive.
Blushing furiously, Eva mumbled an unconvinced "No one..." when she saw that all her companions were piled behind Nodoka, intent on reading from a big suspended book, with finely engraved the title 'Diarius Ejus' on the rib.
"Hmm... I understand." said the mercenary after reading, without changing expression, while the blonde girl in the bed remained stunned with his mouth wide open and hands outstretched towards Nodoka.
"Poor Eva..." Konoka said with tears in his eyes.
"But who were the people who helped you? Some seem strangely familiar..." Yue asked curiously, looking at the pictures in the book.
"I... I do not remember. Rather, I can not remember. Also seems to me to know them, but as I try to focus, their faces darken more and more. In addition, all the memories where they appear are as faded, incomplete. Before finishing with a big empty." said the vampire.
"It 's so frustrating! But most of all I do not understand why these particular memories come right now, they should be buried from a piece..." her eyes landed on her first doll, slumped at the foot of the bed.
"Chachazero! Do you remember anything? If I'm not mistaken you have been given to me at that time."
"My builders have placed on me seals of interdiction, Master. I can not have access to the memories of that period until I am subject to the appropriate counter-spell." replied, the cheerful doll, like reciting an old nursery rhyme.
"However, Eva if you're able to walk, we would like to start looking for Chachamaru." Kaede informed her, interrupting the abrupt replies that the girl was about to inflict on the puppet.
"Yes, of course. Let's go." Evangeline agreed, getting out of bed.
The Turkish city was very crowded.
On the secondary roads bazaar of all sizes and with all kinds of merchandise opened like multicolored flowers.
Like real tourists, often the girls stopped to buy trinkets and souvenirs, or take pictures of the ancient Arabic and Roman buildings.
As they arrived in front of the lush gardens surrounding St. Sophia, Mana ordered them to wait for her to come back there with the guide who would show them the catacombs.
Eva was both excited and worried by that improvised 'holiday': they had not yet met magicians, so they could enjoy their visit to the city in peace, but that did not mean that they were not keeping an eye on.
After a few minutes, the mercenary returned accompanied by a man of small stature, in her twenties, with an olive complexion and blacks hair cut short.
He wore a pair of jeans and an orange shirt, on his shoulders a simple red poppy bag.
Mana introduced him as Abid Haanari and just as she did with him, speaking in Arabic.
"Good! If we want to go... this way!" gunslinger translated the words from the mouth of the guide.
Without waiting for an answer, Abid walked to a small structure hidden in the middle of a small grove of trees.
With an old key he took off the deadbolt on the door, and invited the girls and the professor to go down the small ladder that was behind.
Once in the tunnels, thanks to a flashlight and a powerful GPS, he began to lead them through a maze of tunnels covered with niches.
In some still lay their ancient guests, in the form of skeletons.
After a few minutes of walking, the guide suddenly stopped, beginning to indicate a mosaic wall and speak in a calm voice.
"He says that the coordinates we have provided him indicate a point behind this wall: there's probably a room." was translated.
"So we just pull down this wall, right?" Simply asked Asuna.
"Well... yes. But I doubt that the gentleman wants th..." Takahata began to respond.
With a sharp crack, the wall crumbled to pieces when Ku, Asuna and Eva hit him with their means, respectively.
"Just what I wanted to avoid..." Takamichi said nervously turning with hands in his pockets to the guide, paralyzed from the scene.
Looking closer, he noticed that it was not that, however, the cause of his immobility, but a small dart stuck in the neck.
"Look into his pockets, Professor." advised him Mana, behind him with the gun still in her hand.
Takamichi did so, and with a half smile pulled from the trousers a little wand and some phials.
"A magician eh? Thanks Mana. Great job, as always."
The girl replied with a gesture of her head, and slipped off the GPS to the guide and picked up the torch.
The dust of the collapse finished settling.
Besides the hole there was indeed another room: perfectly circular and the floor covered with dust.
In the center stood a large stone throne, with a figure sitting motionless above.
How was lit, it turned out incredibly similar to a dummy with threadbare clothes on and stringy hair now without a color, due to the obvious prolonged lack of light.
Despite this, the girls recognize in it their friend Chachamaru.
A slight 'beep' was repeated rhythmic, coming by the android.
Asuna tried to pass a hand over the eyes off her friend.
No reaction.
"Chachamaru..." Eva stepped into the room, and gently stroked the cheek of the partner with one hand.
"What happened to you?" she said in a whisper, to no one in particular.
The room lit up suddenly.
A big magic circle drew itself around the throne, sweeping away the dust over its lines.
Chachamaru suddenly blinked her eyes, watching the vampire with a surprised look, as his body began to be reduced to dust.
"Ma...ste...r..." she whispered with metallic voice and a hint of a smile sweet as she had ever done.
Then her face was destroyed in the hand of Eva.
"Chachamaru!" the girl cried, gasping with her arms where until a few moments before sitting the android.
There was no more.
She was simply gone.
"Guard seals numbers one, two, three: disabled. Block canceled. Identification intruders... confirmed. Reactivation magic circuits:... completed." A familiar voice rang through the room.
"Welcome, girls!"
All those present recognized it: it was the voice of Negi.
"I guess you're wondering where me and the girls disappeared from Mahora are..." said the voice of the teacher.
"Well... we have limited time... and the story is long. Too much for the residual battery in the Chisame's computer. First of all, do not worry: we're all fine. There are... A lot has happened, here. I will explain better in person when we meet again. I left all the necessary instructions for our return to Chachazero. Enough that she enters the room and her seals will be broken. I'm sorry, but there was not an easier way..."
"Hey! Brat! What the hell are you saying? Where are you?..." Evangeline began to cry out to the recording, with voice full of concern of which she herself was surprised, before being silenced with a hand over her mouth by Takamichi.
"Kotaro asks you politely to say to his roommates, especially Natsumi, that he's fine. And tell that her Setsuna Konoka can not wait to see her again" the magician was continuing in the meantime in an amused voice, while various noises similar to a thud and chatter could be heard in the background.
"And... if you're there, Master..." the boy resumed in a serious voice after a brief pause "Here... I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry. Now you do not understand, but know that it was better that way. Greet Takamichi and the other from us, and tell them that we will never forget them."
Then everything turned off.
-Chapter End-
Wow, first of all thanks for following me this far!
I hope that the story is clear for now, as my English.
Well ... is not that I have much more to say ...
As usual, if there are errors / inconsistencies or you want to let me know your idea write me Pm or review the story!
I will be glad to answer and I am well disposed to constructive criticism, so no fear! XD