trans_9 | The Ritual

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The Ritual

Evangeline had made her home on the ship at the Chateau d'If; not the dismal island fortress to which the name properly belonged but the private rooms of the author who had made it famous. Most important to the reclusive mage was the out-of-the-way location far from the most densely-populated parts of the city, but the history and style of the building appealed to her as well. It had a cute, compact appearance not unlike that of her residence on the Mahora grounds which, while in every way inappropriate to her fearsome reputation still suited her tastes just as well as the grand and imposing castles she had once raised.

But now the picturesque grounds were marred by the terrible light of her magic, flickering weirdly as it arced to and fro, and the air was filled with the strange keening wail of densely-accumulated magical power. And above that there was one more blatantly sinister sound: the recognizably human screams of the subject of the great spell, her luckless apprentice, Negi. The site of the ritual was no less alien; master and apprentice were both suspended in air above the great circle she had formed, Negi in his agonies and Evangeline in deep concentration.

She'd had ample time to consider her approach while the boy recovered to a state she thought sufficient to withstand the rigors she had most definitely intended to put him through, but she would not simply be implementing a preexisting design. She was dealing with a living system, in more senses than one, and though she was intimately familiar with the theory behind Magia Erebea she had never intended it for use by a human, or indeed anyone other than herself, and its expression in Negi was not something she understood in detail. She would still have to think on her feet, as it were... in fact, it would be as great a challenge as anything she'd done in decades, she expected. For that, the chance to revisit her greatest work, she could almost thank Negi.

[Though this is supposed to be somewhat out-of-the-way anyone who wants to come complain about Eva's less-than-stellar bedside manner/nuking small children is welcome]

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Sasami had been wanting to see more of the City and she opted that today would be that day. However, coming across Evangeline's location by accident may have been a godsend. Hearing Negi's screams, she raced inside out of concern and made her way to where they were.

"Wh-what are you doing?! Stop it! You're hurting him!" Sasami cried out in a panic.

Negi was screaming, and it hurt a lot. But he really needed this done even as his body seemed to be tearing itself apart, going from black pitches to white light and back again.

Evangeline turned slightly in the air to watch the approach of the intruder who'd passed through her wards. She wasn't surprised to have attracted a visitor; 'sparsely-populated' was not the same as 'empty' and there were many on the ship, she had little doubt, who had senses capable of picking her and her ritual out at a distance.

What was surprising was that the very first person to stumble onto the scene was that little girl who looked so favorably on her apprentice. Unexpected, perhaps even dangerous, but it was an opportunity to make sure the child saw exactly where Negi stood.

"It's you, hm?" Evangeline commented more-or-less to herself. "Just stand back and watch. This is a pain he has earned."

"A pain he has earned?!" Sasami said, confused. "What do you mean? He doesn't deserve anything to hurt him!"

She wasn't sure who this person was and where she stood, but she was willing to protect someone she cared for.

Arcane magic exploded around Negi as his body grew feral, his hair lengthening to a lash of angry violet as marks covered his body. From white to black his form flickered, and his voice never stopped filling the air with tormented screams.

It was difficult, but he would endure. He HAD TO.

And have big sister come by. She'd already been in the City talking to Cargn, but now heading back from that, she started to go to the WITCH bus when she heard the screaming. She headed toward the sound, curious to see what was going on. When she saw Negi suspended and screaming, with Sasami freaking out, Katara ran toward Negi, but stopped where Sasami was.

"What's happening?" Katara demanded. "Why is Negi screaming in pain?"

"And how would you know?" Eva asked disdainfully. "He gained this power-" she indicated Negi's rapidly-shifting form, "-by stepping into the darkness of his own accord, and gave up any grounds to expect to be protected from his own foolishness. This pain is the consequence of his own actions and serves his purpose, and that is already more than many can say."

For a second she looked and sounded almost proud, but then it was gone, and she was forced to deal with another interloper. "You too, don't interfere."

These girls would not understand, but neither did they seem ready to interfere just yet, and if that was the case the boy could sort it out with them however he wanted. Evangeline didn't like lecturing such untainted children too much.

Tsukasa was passing through when he heard the screams. After heading into the building, he leaned against a wall and took in the tail end of the conversation.

"You almost make it sound like he deserves that." He spoke up, wandering further in and approaching the group.

His form flickering between light and dark, Negi screamed as his back arched and a gush of blood exploded from his open lips.

"...he's just a kid, like the rest of us! You have no right to treat him like that! I don't care what you say, I'm not going to let you hurt him any longer!" Sasami shouted.

Reaching into her kimono, she pulled out the card she was given from her Pactio. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes - she'd never forgive herself if Negi was harmed worse.

"Stop it now, or I'll make you regret it...!"

"Sasami, wait!" Katara said, holding the girl's hand back. It KILLED her to hear Negi like this, but she had talked to him before. He was intent on conquering whatever it was he turned into, so that he wouldn't worry them again. More than anything, Katara understood Negi was doing his best.

"I think he chose this," Katara said. "He's trying to control that way that he was earlier. Why else would he be this way?"

Tsukasa folded his arm, and watched. If this was Negi's choice, he was going to respect it.

"He is not a child any more, not like you are, and you certainly can't make him one again by force." She wanted to roll her eyes at the Pactio card; the boy was far too liberal with his provisional contracts for her taste; doubtless the influence of that stupid rodent at work again. But she was busy staring down the girl, daring her to take a shot.

The other saved her the trouble. "Yes, he chose this. If he didn't have the will to try to keep to the path of his choosing he wouldn't be my apprentice. And-" she looked to Tsukasa, "It goes without saying that he deserves the consequences of his choice. The more power you wield, the more you attempt to control your fate, the less right you have to complain of the results."

"Besides," she added, "Pain is fleeting." As if on cue there was one last great surge of magic, this time from Negi to Evangeline, and the spell cut out.

She bent, teeth gritted. She would not scream. Magia Erebea was her thing, what in Negi was corruption was simply the stuff of her soul. It would merely fall into a deeper darkness.

The landing from the spell cutting out was in no means a gentle one as he hit the ground, immediately rolling over and coughing up blood, splattering the floor with what seemed to be an enormous amount as he heaved.

His form flickered again, but this time instead of turning into the twisted black form his form vibrated into the white spectrum, his clothing and hair turning a violet-tinged color as his hair swished out behind him.

"I'm... okay, really..." he gasped out.

(http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g56/shaungarin/?action=view&current=negibleedingcopy.png)

And then he exploded in a shower of blood as a half a dozen cuts sprang open, having been opened up during the ritual and he cried out, falling over as he flickered back into the normal spectrum, groaning as he did so. "Ow... I'm okay...! I think... ow..."

And he exploded blood again, looking a little like a messed up Jack Rakan. "Ow that hurt bloody hell!" exclaimed Negi, unable to respond but just lay there going ow. "Little help...?"

It didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening, especially not by the way Evangeline was talking: she'd heard that way of speaking before. I may have been a little extreme, but there was no doubt about it, that was the way a teacher spoke. It looked as if his teacher was trying to help him gain control of the ability he'd managed earlier. This was far from what she wanted for Negi to be doing, but he knew his body and his magic better than she or Sasami, right?

At least, that was what she thought until just now. With that shower of blood, she had a REALLY good idea of what this was going to do for Sasami to see a person she cared that much about in that much pain and infliction. It might have been Renne or not, but the pain that was going through Sasami's head right now was ringing in her own. Without thinking about it, she spring into action, but not in the ways she expected.

Her hand went for her drawstring bag and she pulled out her Pactio card, raised it to her forehead and yelled, "ADEAT!"

A blinding flash and a moment later, Katara had something new (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://images.goantiques.com/thumbnails2/QGR9089/QGR908950294.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.goantiques.com/detail,salviati-dolphin-goblet,1451780.html&usg=__wZyMhVcY0OMmVJedpOCGiZI0AQM=&h=150&w=112&sz=5&hl=en&start=3&itbs=1&tbnid=AZZ53esmecfrqM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=72&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDolphin%2BGoblet%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1) in her hand. She had no doubt that it was her magical artifact, and she had an idea exactly what she would use it for. The water from her pouch seemed to react, like it wanted to be brought out and used. Katara had seen water like this once: it was in the spirit oasis, where she'd met Tui and La. The water in the goblet glowed, and she ran to Negi.

"Ancestors of the Northern and Southern water tribes, hear me," she whispered. "Heal this boy."

And while normally her healing powers would be at a disadvantage dealing with actual magic, with the artifact this was not so. Negi himself started to glow as the water worked on him, undoing the damage of his wounds.

"NEGI-KUN!" Sasami cried out, watching him drop down in pain. Her blood was almost ready to start boiling when she took up her own card. "ADEAT!"

In an instant, her usual kimono had shifted into the armor granted by her card. She extended her hand out at Eva. "I don't care what he's done - he didn't deserve any of that pain! NONE OF IT!" Muttering the incantation of a spell, she shouted out its name, unleashing a massive blast of energy at Eva.

"GAIA BUSTER!"

(OoC: And yes, Eva-mun, you have permission to set her straight.)

Edited 2010-07-08 04:49 (UTC)

Eva raised her arm and the blast parted on her barriers, doing no more than burning the extended hand. "So you're going to kill me in return?" The little vampire crowed mockingly, apparently heedless of the wound and the trail of smoke it left as she lowered the arm again. "You're harsh compared to most of the girls who follow him around. It'd be an improvement if you weren't so blind about it."

Work was over and Negi was by all appearances being well tended to by the wiser of his current crop of groupies; she could afford to play with this girl a little now. Until the ship decided otherwise, at

Tsukasa sighed and placed his head into the palm of his hand. Kids these days... After lifting his head back up, he raised the volume of his voice so Sasami could hear and said, "Little girl, wouldn't the simplest solution to your situation be to simply ask Negi about what's been going on here? I think he's being healed up even as we speak." He motioned back toward Negi and Katara.

"It's okay... Sasami-chan, I asked for this..." said Negi, struggling to get up to his feet. "Master don't hurt her too badly!"

He groaned and slumped back down to the floor. Ow, ow, triple ow. Goddamn it hurt everywhere.

Katara sighed, shaking her head. Of COURSE Sasami was going to react this way: she cared about Negi in a way that was different from all of them, and she wondered if Evangeline knew that. She brought Negi down.

"Stay down," she said, none of the usual gentleness in her voice. "You'll just get hurt more if you don't, ok? I'll try to handle this."

She stepped over to where Sasami and Evangeline were and cleared her throat. "Look, there's been a misunderstanding. What say we all calm down and talk about this a minute?"

Sasami huffed a bit, trying to calm herself. She could hear their words, but she was angry at what had been going on. Before long, though, the girl started to calm down.

"...okay, I... wh-what's going on?" Sasami said.

Evangeline 'hmphed' at the less-than-entertaining winddown to what had looked like a promising bit of diversion. Now that Sasami had taken a shot at her pride demanded she at least scare or humiliate the girl a little, but thanks to the others it looked like she'd been robbed.

"I was talking," she declared pointedly.

Negi winced just a little as he sat up in a lot of pain. "Sasami-chan please... I was asking Master to... take care of my Magica Erebea problem. Which I admit I brought on myself but um yeah."

"Sorry if it scared you."

Katara sighed. So much for trying to get people to calm down. She really didn't get why all of this had to happen, especially when she understood already what Negi was trying to do. Why Sasami and the other girl were trying to pick a fight was beyond her.

She took her Pactio card and put it to her forehead. Are you all right Negi?

"Wait.. Magica..." Sasami stammered. Then, she remembered. Negi had mentioned it earlier, after the fight with the Ohm.

She had attacked without real provocation. Yes, she was defending Negi, but it was something he had wanted to do. She dropped to her knees and hung her head.

Congratulations, Eva. You did get your humiliation.

Interesting that she collapsed so quickly (and so literally) faced with the truth. It would have been more normal, to Evangeline's thought, to resist a conclusion that placed one's self solidly in the wrong. Physical violence especially both demanded and built a protective layer of self-righteousness and thoughtless aggression that usually delayed such regrets, if it allowed them at all.

A true innocent; a true idiot. Funny how many she'd run into, the last few decades.

"Nothing better enables evil than a clear conscience and a strong sense of justice, girl. You ought to realize that if you're going to wield that kind of power," Evangeline, denied the chance to teach a more object sort of lesson, began to lecture.

Negi winced as Evangeline started in on her lecturing. It was bad enough that Sasami over-reacted and she was really feeling lousy for it.

Negi resolved to get her a hug later.

"It's alright, I'm more or less better now," said Negi as he got to his feet shakily. His legs felt like jelly but he forced himself to stand as he staggered over to Sasami and pulled her into a hug. "Sorry... for worrying you."

Katara, however, was not so easily led away by these things. She could already see Sasami trying to beat herself up, and Negi beating himself up. They were both strong, but when it came to someone that would be an enemy, one that actually did things with a cruel sense of purpose, they couldn't go about things this way.

She would make them both understand what went wrong.

"Negi," Katara began, "the next time you do something this dangerous, let Sasami know. She's your pupil now, and the bond between those two are scared: when one hurts, so does the other. Don't allow her to see you doing something like this without letting her know what's about to happen."

She turned to Sasami. "You showed great compassion for Negi, Sasami. It's not a bad thing but a good one, and I don't think that's bad. But something Negi hasn't shown you yet is that you have to look quickly and carefully at a situation where you get involved. You can't fight blindly: for all you know, Negi's mentor could have seriously hurt you. I know the pactio is a powerful weapon, but you can't use it lightly."

She took out her card, saying, Abeat, and her artifact disappeared. THAT was something she'd have to think about later.

"Hmm...that's an interesting point little miss," Tsukasa said to Evangeline. "And while your point about those who 'have a clear conscience' enabling evil, I've heard of people with a great sense of Justice not enabling evil. In fact, they would disable it whenever they found it. So, isn't your argument a little too...black and white for the situation?"

"Just as she was ready to end me?" Evangeline laughed harshly. "A just man is only the one that tramples every other ideal so thoroughly that only his own remains. He will destroy evil, but whose?

She smiled at him; holding forth on her unencouraging moral views was one of Evangeline's favorite and oldest non-violent hobbies. "Rather than black and white, the world is black. All men do other men's evil."

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The Ritual

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