I'm glad it's not over. I'll await your next challenge, meanwhile, Negi will continue his training, as will I continue mine. Don't take too long forging your new weapon now. The next few chapters of Young Negi shall, indeed, show great progress for my little friend, both in the storyline and in his potential, yet, that will only make it more fun in the long run. Archangel, I know the problem now. Like Galerians claimed, you cannot put a multitude of zeros in a review, more than two, for the site rejects it as spam. It also calls non terminating decimals spam, so if I were to place pi or "e" to the ninth decimal place here...(Yes, I know pi and "e" to the ninth decimal place, aren't I sad?) It would generally cut it down to two. I think it did that in one of my chapters already. It created a line separator...but I understand what you want. A two thousand word challenge, correct? You know, an idea came for this the moment I thought how I was going to accomplish it? The scene may seem familiar to you...no time limit huh? Angst..changing emotions like a boiling pot.

Also, a new rule, as proposed by Archangel already.

"If you want me to use my Negi, please type Young Negi, or simply "YN" if you feel lazy. Hey, I'd take YNegi too."

It has one life death situation, and in the end, the life and death situation switches. You know it well...

What, you want a theme for the chapter? I have none...fine. It doesn't fit the story though, but I used "My Immortal" from Evanescence to write this. Try and get the rock version. It's not entirely rock though, only a small piece.

+---+

Challenge Six: Servitude

A lone figure walked into an empty circle. His eyes narrowed as they were cast in my direction. His foot connected with the barrier in front of him, and it fizzed. He stepped through without a care in the world, as it bent to admit him before it became solid again. In here, there was no wind. No sound could penetrate these walls.

I clutched the bars of my cage tightly. It was him. Just a boy. That's what he looked like, and she realized this just before his power hit her full on. Just a red headed boy with burning eyes and the voice with the inflexions of an adult. The power came then, washing over me, trying to drown me in its encompassing might.

This is what made the boy a man. This power. He breathed in once and tossed his head, the bundle that held his long hair flew back as far as it's constraints allowed before snapping back. He came towards her, his eyes fixed upon hers. My hands feel as if they are glued to these bars. I can't remove them.

If I could, I could look brave, give him what little strength I had so he could fight, but I can't. I can only look weak, absorbing the strength he would send my way. How much could he send before he ran out of it? Before he fell?

His eyes burned. An odd stare, full of conviction, loss, care, annoyance....oh there was too much to count in those eyes. They gave you the feeling of being dunked in ice water, burned by fire, swept away in the highest of winds...all at once. Those same eyes wandered, relieving me of their stare to fix upon the judges, each getting equal treatment before he faced forward, away from me.

No longer could I try to give him what I had, I had nothing, and he couldn't take it now even if I did. It was far too late for that. Another aura of power came, and this one was far more steady, far more overbearing. This was the power of the other, laid bare for all to feel. She walked in, slowly, in-exonerably.

There was no stopping her now, not once her foot entered that circle and the barrier slammed up around them, glowing an affirmative. It was now that they would fight, now that my fate would be decided. Negi's body stiffened and his head dipped forward, his body was ready as hands came out and chants began. Power coursed through both of them, as two mastodons prepared themselves to lock horns.

Only one would survive.

Anya looked on, Negi was faster, but he spoke slowly in the beginning. At first, he sent up a simple Deflexio, but then, out of nowhere, with no chanting at all, even as both of his barriers were destroyed, he sent two different types of arrows crashing down upon her.

He continued unleashing two spells at once, shattering Anya's fear. He was...winning. He was breaking all the rules she knew, making up ones of his own, sending spell after spell at his opponent, two at once, pummeling her, breaking her down, he seemed unbreakable, unstoppable, his power infinite as he slung spells like one would pop skittles in their mouth.

She could feel nothing but awe. He dodged like a tree in high wind, struck like a snake, and his strikes had the power to shatter boulders. He was perfect, and yet his opponent battered him, bringing him down, until the boys spells shoed visible weakening. Her heart could only fall then.

Swallowthorn...what she had seen, what she had lived. She could not go through that again. the woman had no love in her for Anya, she only wanted to hurt Negi, only wanted to play, and have toys to do it with. She only cared for herself in the end, and her enjoyment. How could someone like this win?

Once more, the weakness, the helplessness, it slammed down upon her. He was going to lose and die, leave her all alone. Why?! What did he do to deserve that? He was the good one, it was her who had done the wrong...

No, it was not what he had done, it was what she had done. This was for her sins. Her cheating, her destruction, her fear, he was paying for her sins. He was the angel who would be sacrificed for her. What did she do to deserve that? He was her friend, she didn't want him to be hurt because of her..

He was just a proxy, a sacrificial headdress placed on a person doomed to die. He was simply tossing himself off her and into a fire. No longer would she be the target, but he. He was willing to die, to save her. How? She could never do that..could she?

She couldn't help but speak, and her mouth could only form the name. His name, the name that was tied to this all. It came out weakly, yet still all heard it, even over the clamor of the war in the hemisphere. Yet, she heard it, and it sparked in her a madness.

She snapped out her hand, and it clutched tightly upon air, as a sharp sound came from her mouth, a small Latin word. She felt her cage lifted up, and she lost what little ground she had in standing. Falling to the floor, she watched as her vision shifted and then stopped.

Slowly she fell, her cage turning on its side to hit the barrier. She couldn't scream, she was far to freighted for that. Yet, at the same time, she felt a measure of peace. Here was the answer. She would not have an angel sacrifice his life for her, she would pay for her own sins.

Yet still, some part of her still kept her trying to run along the bars, keep from the burning barrier, even as it began to eat at the cage like a slow moving pool of acid. Her feet would still slip uselessly along them. Yet still, she couldn't help but get one last look at the boy who had gone so far.

He was angry. His fists clenched. She slipped and her shoe caught on the barrier. She could not help but yelp at the pain, as it almost instantly burned away that part of the shoes and kissed her toes with its acidic tongue.

His power was gone, he should accept it and let her die...but he was angry and as she watched, she felt a twitch. Something was happening to the barrier, to her, to everything around them all. A curious draw of power. Her eyes widened, was it hope again? No.

His fists began to glow, and he began to speak out in a voice, in English, saying words she did not quite understand, but as his glowing hands spread up, making all of his visible veins glow, she could only stare. His power was climbing again. Back up to normal and then...and then beyond.

The other paled, yet she seemed rooted to the spot. She could not move to stop him, he was a bomb about to go off, and she had no idea what wire to snip to disarm him, and if she did, it would not have mattered, she had no means to snip the wire.

He actually began to shine, the power coursing around him, the divine force about to unleash it's might upon the earth. His skin became blood red as he became all the darker to contrast the light around him, it was all encompassing, and in the final moments of it, Anya had to let go, finally falling to the barrier, throwing up a hand to cover her eyes, just as he spoke the final words.

"END OF THE WORLD!"

Ice, glorious, beautiful ice, filled and broke the barrier, sending her flying backwards in her cage to slam into a wall, the cage now proving her protector in its final moments. The ice encompassed all, and a scream was issued from inside the sphere, another word, as the pain raked her heart.

In the end, the angel had sacrificed himself after all...

"Catastrophe!"

The ice exploded into trillions of pieces, falling down upon them all like snow, terrible, final snow. In the middle, there was only him, the other was gone, broken up into a million pieces, part of the ice around them. He was lying face down, his body red, sore and terribly disfigured with channels that flowed under the skin, far too large to look normal.

In lying there, he looked at peace...perhaps that was why he did it. It was his way to finally have peace. In a world that had hurt him so, this was his way out, a fight to the death in which one would survive, only now, no one was to survive...or was it? The magus approached him, but the others held him back. He had to get up himself they said.

If one always listened to what they said, they'd be like Anya, locked up in the cage, listening to what they said swirl around in her head...the time passed like nothing, it had no effect on her. One second, she was looking down at the broken form, the next, he was in bed, and she was being told to go to sleep.

When he finally woke up, she was there.

She would serve him now.

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Word count: 1603

Also, a Negi and Ayaka fiction, in which the boy loses control? Oii. Hmm…get back to me on that one, I have to give in this chapter. I'll see what I can do for the next one with that. I'm not ready for two challenges in one again, yet. Still, send in your challenges. I might make a two in one or more next time.

Do you know Young Negi's next chapter, chapter twenty six, is already at 45KB out of goal fifty? Interesting huh, considering I submitted the last one, just yesterday!