trans_9 | 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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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."

The Ritual

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