trans_9 | One more reason to keep on going

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One more reason to keep on going

Irma was gone. Matt was gone. Just about everyone from their universe seemed to have been podded, and Kaya decided, in the wake of this, that she should still make sure the classrooms were kept clean. The place she was staying, Will's room with all of the gymnastics, had been clean after Kaya ad attempted a fairly rigorous workout. She had made sure that Matt's wares were stocked, the common room swept and cleaned, so that when the other came around, they would have a nice place to sit and talk.

First there was Cornelia's room, with all of its earth nation goodness and flowers, making sure that the architecture was carefully polished and everything watered so nothing was neglected. She couldn't help passing by this room and thinking of Toph.

Then she moved onto Hay Lin's room, which never failed to remind her of Aang with all of its wind implements, very much something an airbender would have loved: she would have to make sure to tell both Aang and Nima about it if they had the chance to visit. It always seemed so big and grand and open to her, as she thought the element air should anyhow.

Tarnee's room, while once making her wary with its affiliation for fire, was gotten over once you stepped inside: it was kept in balance with all of the books and the globes that were a representation of energy everywhere. She always loved coming here to expand her mind a bit, and it was a perfect reflection of an intellectual girl Kaya never had the pleasure of meeting.

And then, of course, there was Irma's room. She knew there was an obvious bias here, stepping into the room that reflected her best, with all of its watery element and the ability to swim in and out of the water that surrounded the room. She was cleaning here a little, and then could not help herself: she discarded her clothing, wrapped only in her underclothes and jumped in, allowing the underwater environment to envelop her. Perhaps her favorite thing about this place was how she could still breathe underwater.

She was so entranced, she did not notice anyone coming in.

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The deliberate language wasn't lost on Kaya.

"I never do this on the first date," she said in a faux shy voice, then closed her eyes, her hands apart. "Adeat."

The air around them seemed to shimmer, and Kaya's blue water tribe wear was replaced with white robes, the emblem of the water tribe stamped on a glittering gold chalice. It lightly fell into Kaya's hands, and she looked over at Morgan, a serene look on her face

"This is my artifact."

Hey, he can't help it. He's a flirt. And her playing along got a laugh out of him.

"Now that's curious." That invocation seemed downright Hermetic, and a chalice quite the unusual artifact for a professed martial artist. "What does it do?"

He'd ask to look at it more closely, but of their own volition his hands had started carving that roast with all haste.

Oh, Kaya got that all right, and there was no problem with her playing along: it was fun, and he reminded her a little bit of Julian in a way.

"It helps to heal, actually," Kaya said. "It's a skill I actually have without the chalice, but the chalice does it almost instantaneously, and can even take care of magical injuries. But enough showing it off. Abeat."

There was a flash and the chalice was gone, as was the white robes, leaving her blues again. "I guess you were hungrier than I thought!"

"Now that's useful," he said, and meant it.

"It may be just psychological," he continued as he cut. "I know I'm in good nutrition and all that, despite -- or because of, I hate to say -- that slop. But I haven't neglected my training just because of all of this, even if it has taken different forms, and there's just something... unsettling about not eating properly, you know? "

He hadn't forgotten his own promise, though! Reaching behind him, he hooked a thumb under the crosspiece of his sword, and with a swift motion jerked it out of the sheath. As it began to fall forward, he caught the hilt, then smoothly drew it out the rest of the way, turned it sideways, then flipped his hand under it so he held it out to her balanced on the back of his hand. An invitation to take it if she so desired.

"This sword is made of Primium," he said, nodding to the dull-gold blade with a curious sheen. "It's a metal so infused with magic that it is actually more, literally real than anything. That means it can cut through magic and the patterns of creatures effortlessly."

"Thank you," she said. "I wasn't sure what would happen when I made it, but now I'm very glad I did: it come in handy many times, even brought some people out of peril."

She laughed. "Look, I'm as well trained to eat well as any other martial artist, but I like what I like! Slop is still sort of gross. I prefer some nice cooked fish, or a really well made hearty soup any day, maybe even with some potatoes!"

When he flipped the sword out in that way (which she certainly wasn't expecting, of course) she did take the sword in hand, gazing at it in awe.

"Wow. I wonder what Nanashi would have said about this."

Strictly speaking, it was hand-and-a-half length, intended to be used with two hands, possible to be used by one. Despite its composition, it was quite light and perfectly balanced for its type, weight tending more towards the point.

"I carried around a very specific one for a long while, for complicated reasons. One of my best friends made this for me in its memory."

She handled it with both hands, still unused to handling blades of this level: her master training her with this had only gone so far, after all. She could tell it was a special blade, especially after what he said it could do though.

"What happened to the one you used previously, if you don't mind me asking?"

Oh boy, where to start.

"It was -- okay, backstory time, there's an organization called the Traditions. Nine different allied paradigms of magic, basically."

He paused to finally take a bit of the roast -- then paused again, shutting his eyes against the sheer pleasure of the taste. Stasis they might have been in, but his body knew it had been without real solid food for a very long time. "My god, this is good."

Okay. Focus, Morgan.

"Anyway, the sword I had was the symbolic blade of a different Tradition than mine. They wanted it back very badly. Badly enough that once we got my soul out of the damn thing, a friend of mine helped me hide it. Sort of a quest for a worthy soul to find it, you know? They wanted it too badly to be trusted with it."

Ok, she was so not understanding the story already, and he hadn't even gotten that far yet.

There was an organization called Traditions, magic users, and he had a sword that was a different sort of magic that they wanted. But then his soul was involved somehow?

"Wait, I think you might need to explain this. Why is your soul in a sword, and why did they want the sword so badly?"

It's a lot to take in, and he knows it. But she's feeding him. She can ask ANYthing.

"At the time, we had no idea at all. It just was. It turns out it -- I -- was actually being used by a fragment of an Archmage's soul, to reunite all the pieces of his soul together. As for why they wanted it back..."

He pointed his knife at the sword. "Symbols are powerful. That one, very powerful indeed. It's an ancient legacy. For some punk kid from another Tradition to be using it, and to refuse to give it back to its rightful owners... Might as well have been spitting in their faces."

Well that was helpful at least, although she was still a little iffy when it came to people taking about souls as if they were something tangible. What, she wondered, would Aang have made of that?

"So they were upset you were using something that did not belong to you, and I guess that included trying to kill you then. You're still alive, so what ended up happening with the sword?"

"Kill, torture, harass, ostracize. All in the name of the greater good, of course; I'm only one person, not of any particular note, so any of my suffering would be outweighed by the gain if they got the sword back from me." He kept smiling, kept his voice deliberately light. "When I finally succeeded in reuniting all the soul-shards of the Archmage, the one in my sword left it as well, and then it was no longer bound to me. That's when I hid it."

"Well it doesn't sound like anything remotely resembling good to me," Kaya retorted, wondering how going around and hurting people ever became a thing that resembled goodness in the first place. "Well, at least you kept it out of their hands: if they were willing to kill you to get it, they couldn't have had good intentions with it in the first place."

"You know how fanatics can be," he returned, "and anyone who can alter reality by force of will is a fanatic by definition. But enough about my sordid past, what about your artifact? How'd you come by it?"

That'd buy him enough time to wolf down some more of this delicious, delicious food.

Kaya nodded eagerly. "I do, all right. They can be some scary people, with the things they want to levy on others. We had some crazy people like that where I'm from."

Well, that would be a rather interesting thing to explain. "To be honest? I had to kiss a boy."

He paused, whatever this vegetable-thing was halfway in his mouth, before he bit it in half, chewed it, then swallowed.

"What an odd way to get a chalice."

She laughed. "It wasn't quite that simple of course: he's actually quite the accomplished wizard. In his world, the way you become stronger is by getting people to make a Pactio with you, but its a mutually beneficial thing too. When you make a Pactio with the wizard, you get a magical artifact that grants you power. To make it though, you do have to exchange a kiss."

Kaya chuckled. "Which is awkward, since the boy in question is ten and pretty much like a younger brother to me."

Huh. "Awkwardness aside, what's the catch? Seems to me like if that's the only price, people would be lined up for miles to lock lips with wizards there." Especially people with no magic of their own or who wouldn't otherwise have access to such artifacts. A healing chalice was fairly potent after all...

"He doesn't do that with many people," Kaya said. "Only ones he trusts. He knows that every time he makes a contract, the person can potentially be in danger. That person has to accept that and be strong enough to help, as only then would Negi even consider it."

Besides, from what she recalled people who didn't know about magic weren't supposed to know about magicians like Negi.

That made sense, but... "Kind of a moot point with that whole 'war against existence' thing we're tied up in, I'd guess. Hard to imagine the danger getting much bigger, right?"

Despite the serious turn of topic, he kept smiling. Can't let even the dark subjects get too dark.

"Exactly," Kaya said, "but he also knows enough that these have to be people he can trust. Entering into a contract with a wizard isn't something anyone should do lightly. Danger is one thing, but with a magician? Considerably worse."

The smile was reassuring (and only slightly creepy). At least he didn't seem too bothered.

He didn't know much about Hermetics, so he supposed he could be wrong, but... "It's not something I've ever heard of in so direct a term. I can see it working as a sort of magical connection ceremony, but an artifact is a remarkably difficult creation to make no matter what your paradigm. It speaks highly of him that he can do it so readily."

Kaya was lucky she was not hearing into his head: she would ave had no idea what any of the terminology was. This was probably one of those things that Negi needed to be around for to explain. Much of what he did was still a bit of a mystery to her anyway.

"I guess so," she said. "I don't know too much about magic, I just know about what I'm able to do."

"That sort of magic is completely different from what I'm used to, honestly. But we all try to use some common terminology, just so different Traditions can work together. Or at least TRY to work together." She can guess his opinions on how often it really worked.

"I'll take your word for it," Kaya said, still somewhat mystified. How often are these other traditions able to work together? Is the magic that incompatible?"

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