Madonna was able to move through the halls unnoticed. That was trivial, she just didn't want anyone to notice her as she moved. It was one of the greatest parts of being one of the maiden demona, her will was reality. What she wanted, the world obliged, up to a point.

And that point appeared to be at free will, and loyalty. She had given those three eternity, and they wanted to throw that in her face after centuries. She protected them, kept them from the pain that the world was ready to force upon them. All because of that pathetic man.

She, had respect for the boy. How could she not, he had proven that he was powerful, but did not use it to force his will upon others. Nor did his father. Yet, he was willing to challenge her on how she had conducted herself. How she had treated those that came to her, and she had clothed, and she had taught to harness and control their power.

It no longer mattered to her what happened to the three traitors, they had made their choice. Two of them had excellent control over themselves, and Dibea was too weak to be of any danger to herself or others. Yet, she might have a chance to help young Utsuki to see the light, and to understand why they couldn't remain in this world of men.

She should have known, men always came around to how they could use them. To a degree, even Arthur had used her, but she hadn't cared then. Nothing had meant as much to her, as that one man. She had loved him enough that she would have given up eternity, had wished that she had given up eternity to be with him.

Anger flared in her again. Even her own partner, half of her own soul, had betrayed her. Pain couldn't even describe how that felt. He would be punished when the time was appropriate. Right now she had more important concerns to deal with. She had to protect Utsuki from being used.

One of the advantages of her age and experience was the knowledge she had withheld from others. Even the most experienced of her sisters, such as Agrea, did not know of them. She could feel the slightest differences in the powers between all like her, and she could find them. Before the spell that brought them to her, she had searched for them like this.

She glided through the halls. She saw not people, or equals, but those who cared only for themselves. She knew that given the chance, they use her and her sisters. They wouldn't turn down the chance for weapons, and ignore who they were. They wouldn't care that beyond the power they could give, beyond the demon bound to them, there was still a person who deserved care and respect.

She could feel Utsuki. She was near, in the teacher's offices. Hopefully she didn't resist too hard. She did not want to harm the girl, but she knew that if she resisted hard enough that she wouldn't have much choice. A moment of pain, was better than a lifetime. Was better than the many lifetimes that she had spent in pain.

She arrived outside a door, and could hear voices inside. She recognized the voices of Utsuki and Deesseedra right off, but the third took her a minute. Tamiko, Utsuki's mother. It wasn't really a great time to have her involved, but Madonna didn't have the time to wait for Utsuki to be alone. It was now or never, but she did wait to hear what they were talking about, hoping that it might give her an opening that would keep the chance of harm to a minimum.

"He really is Mom. This has been the happiest few weeks of my life, and I almost can't believe that it is actually happening. He finds a way to make me smile, with just the dumbest things. I can't even explain it. Do you understand any of this," something in the girl's voice ticked in the back of Madonna's mind.

"I do. Your father was much the same way. Though, not quite as tall and lean as Tekeshi-san is. Also without the musical side of things. He always could find a way to, I don't know how to explain it. I could be feeling like I wanted to throw myself in front of a train, and then he would just step up, and ask the most irrelevant, incredulous question. It would leave me stunned, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself from laughing," she heard Tamiko speak, and she couldn't really understand what she meant.

"I think I understand. Tekeshi, he has always had this way of putting on a crooked smirk, and just, saying something that makes my day better. That isn't even with how he just has this way of sweeping me into his arms now, I almost don't know how to believe this is reality. What made you fall in love with Dad, I mean the exact moment," Utsuki asked her mother with an airy voice.

Deesseedra spoke quietly in the background, "Ohh, I'm out of snacks."

"Why did I fall in love with him? It was, a little embarrassing, and just so stupid. We had a sociology class together. I had to take it for my degree, and he was just taking it to fill out his scheduling. I had been in the same study group as him for the class, so I knew him, somewhat. I kinda thought he was cute, and I knew had a little crush on me. I barely gave him a thought most of the time, he might have been cute, but he wasn't really that attractive being so short. I mean, if we stand facing each other, and look straight ahead, he has to look straight at my boobs. He doesn't have a choice. I'm getting off topic, but I fell in love with him because I forgot to do laundry. I was running late one day, and found that I didn't have any clean panties, and my pantyhose, were translucent and didn't have an opaque gusset in them. I didn't have a lot of choice, and the only bottoms I had were a skirt, thankfully not a really short one, but short. We were in class, and for some reason another student had brought a big, ancient video camera that had a light mount on it, and was just videoing the class for no real reason except the novelty of the camera. I hadn't slept well the night before, hence why I was running behind that day, and I was falling asleep and my legs fell open. Your father sat on the row below me, and turned around to wake me up, and he noticed I wasn't wearing panties, he saw that the camera was going to see, and then he suddenly started jumping around, yelling, and stripping. He made an absolute show of himself, acting like he was on fire, and somehow managed to wink and motion with his head at my lower body," the story sounded so ridiculous.

"Oh my god. You fell in love with Dad because he looked up your skirt? That sounds so stupid, but I love it," Madonna couldn't understand what the girl thought was so good about that.

"He came up to me a not long after, and gave me a bag of, rather expensive, pieces of lingerie. Then he said one of the corniest, but just so outlandishly romantic lines, that I had ever heard. 'Nakagawa-san, some flowers are too precious for the eyes of men, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve a beautiful pot to be planted in.' I should have slapped him so hard his head turned around on his neck, but I couldn't. He had made an absolute show of himself, so that a camera wouldn't get the same view he had. It was that moment, that I somehow knew I was going to marry him. I have honestly hated being without him since we came back to Japan. I know, he wants to make things right with the rest of his clan, but I wish that I was there with him right now. I know it may not have seemed like it, but even throughout the curse, thing, whatever it was, I would never have wanted to lose him," the sappy love story was enough to make Madonna gag, but at the same time, it reminded her.

It reminded her of an ancient clearing, and taking a bath at clear, cold river. Her enjoying the feel of the sun and water on her naked flesh, and then the disruption of a horse pounding through. Of opening her eyes, and moving to cover herself, feeling Rougar preparing himself to spring forward to defend her. Spotting the horse to only notice the shape of a man flying through the air to land flat on his back, and spouting the most unique strings of profanity as it seemed he should have been dying. She could even remember the next part.

"Oh, sard me. What a thousand bastards couldn't do, that forsaken horse has finally done. Still, if this is what an angel looks like, then God take me, I won't fight it," the battered, but rather attractive, man said as she looked down at him, before remembering she was still naked.

It was such a brief moment, that meant so much to her now. It didn't then. In fact she had promptly walked around to between his legs, and kicked him very vigorously in the crotch. She then dressed, returned to kick him again, and went on her way. Then promptly ran into him the next day, and he ran from her blabbering about devils, and nice tits. Men were always weird, and obsessed with breasts.

"So, this love thing is all about straight up idiocy, and sex organs? I can get behind half of that at least. The sex organs part, not the idiocy," the demon ruining the mood snapped her back to the present.

"Deesseedra, I don't know quite how to really explain it. Love is, something that goes beyond human comprehension. Yokai comprehension. Demo-, I almost forgot that you don't really do the emotion thing. During a biology class, the professor once said that love was the result of some factor of another person causing the body to release addictive feel good chemicals, and those overriding a person's higher brain functions. Horrible man, he got caught caught sleeping with students to improve their grades. Not even just women either. Big scandal there, but back to the topic. I don't agree with that, though it definitely plays a part. Love, is finding something that you could never replace, or live without, and the addictive feel good chemicals," she couldn't stand anymore, she had to break all this up.

Madonna entered the room rather suddenly, "Utsuki. Something has happened, and we need to return to the fortress. Now."

The three other women turned toward her, and Utsuki asked, "What happened? Is everything ok? Is someone hurt?"

"I can't explain at the moment, but you are going to have to trust me. Right now, it isn't safe for any of us to be here. I know it is hard for you to take what I am saying at face value, but there isn't the time to talk about it," she hoped that it wasn't going to devolve into a fight, she didn't know how long it would be before everyone else that had been in that room woke up.

"I can't though. I have responsibilities here, schoolwork and the like. Not to mention that I don't want to leave Tekeshi. Is he going to be coming with us," she could already see that an issue was going to develop.

"I'm afraid he can't. He might be part of the reason. Trust me, this will be for the better."

She could see the demon take a questioning look, "Great Mother, I thought that you said that Lovely Mistress and Delicious Bloodsucker couldn't be separated? Is he not her Heartsworn?"

Madonna had not thought about that fact in her haste. Technically they could be separated, it shouldn't cause them harm. The issue was the fact that he wasn't a simple human. He had the power to actually travel through magical means, and might be able to come for her. Except that he had said that he needed to know enough to transport himself to or from a place. He had never seen the outside of the fortress.

"It won't cause them any pain, but there are issues that I don't have time to explain right now. I will explain them when we arrive, but we must leave now," she knew that she was going to have to prepare for conflict.

The next word from the young girl surprised her, "No."

"Utsuki, I am afraid this isn't a choice. We have to go," she didn't want to do too much damage, especially since the girl wasn't severed from time like she was.

Utsuki didn't, "I'm not leaving. I'm not one of your, sisters, disciples, whatever you want to call them. I never joined you, you came here to teach me. I don't want to leave Tekeshi. I don't want to leave the twins, Harumi, or Machiko. I don't want to leave my mother. I'm not going."

There was nothing for it.

"Miss Madonna, I know that we don't really know each other well, but if my daughter doesn't want to go, she won't. You won't force her," a mother's love was something so pure, but little more than an annoyance.

"Silence," she made a simple, but unneeded, motion with her hand, and the woman flew back against the wall, "I would have rather avoided force, but it looks like I have no choice."

"Mom," a look of concern mixed with absolute fury took over Utsuki's face, "What did you do to her?"

"Sleep," she tapped the girl's head, but she wasn't prepared for what happened next.

"NO, get away from me," at the girl's word she went flying.

The wall that stopped her only did so due to reinforcement that Tsukune had done, trying to reduce the repair frequency that he remembered from his school years. Any other of her order would have been sent to the state they went into when they should have died, but she was strong enough to remain, barely, conscious. What she couldn't understand was how Utsuki was awake. She should have dropped like a stone.

Nothing was making sense to her anymore. There was no maiden demona as strong as her. She was the oldest. She was the strongest. She was the first. Why was this child, a mere child, able to resist her. Able to overpower her. What was different about her, that she could be this powerful.

"You ok Mom, you are the last one to wake up," Tekeshi helped his mother to sit up from where she was laying in the floor.

She blinked as her vision started to clear, "Tekeshi, what happened?"

"Moka, are you ok? Anything wrong, any pain," she loved when her husband did this, even when he knew how resilient she was.

"I'm fine, what happened? I remember Tekeshi challenging Madonna, but then everything went blank. Is everyone else ok?"

Tsukune let out a deep breath, "Yeah, everyone is ok. A little muddled, but ok. Ruby, you gasped right before we all got knocked out, what was wrong?"

"Give me a second. My head is ringing like a bell, and I don't have quite as great a self recovery ability as you vampires do. Ok. Tekeshi-kun, what was that name you used right before," Ruby asked as she shakily drug herself back into her wheelchair.

"Morgause. It's her real name. Madonna was a name that a man she was in love with called her, and she kept it after his death. Rougar told me about it, I think so that I wouldn't fight Utsuki staying at their fortress," Tekeshi stepped over to help her.

"Tha old bitch didnae even use her own name? Color me unsurprised, now wo'ld someone tell tha damn room to stop its infernal spinning. I feel like me breakfast is about to have an encore," out of everyone, Anne seemed to be the worst off.

"That can't be. Morgause was the name of the mother of the first witches. She would be, almost five or six thousand years old. I can't believe that would even be possible, especially not looking like she does," Ruby shook her head as she spoke.

"Is it possible that she was just given the name? I kinda agree with you, I don't think that humans looked that close to modern humans that far back," Tekeshi sat on the arm of the couch in next to Ruby's chair.

"I knew that Madonna was old, but that is, unreasonable, in almost any case. Tojo-san, I don't know much about witches like you, but what do you mean by the mother of the first witches," Tomoe had recovered before anyone else.

Ruby took a deep breath, "Witches weren't spontaneously brought into existence. We were born to humans that made contracts with demons. The first were born to a woman known as Morgause. The name never comes up again, but it is recorded that her children was among the most powerful to have ever lived. Legends say that they could turn to a mountain, tell it to fall, and it would. Just, I don't, it can't be. I thought that you couldn't have children, due to not being connected to time."

"Aye, not being subjected to the rigors of time killed our wombs. Yet, even tha ones who are, they live much longer lives. There be a possibility she is indeed that old. Would explain that soured out personality of hers'. Oh, no. Where is the old hag," Anne started looking around.

"She did something that knocked us out, and I guess she split. I don't know where she might have gone," Tekeshi told the woman.

"Tsukune, she could be much more dangerous than I could have dreamed. If she is 'THE' Morgause, and the children of a Witch of War is as powerful as the first witches are claimed to have been, I have no clue how powerful she could actually be," Ruby said.

"I hate people talking about my age, but I, I'm not as powerful as I once thought."