This is a rough draft that I thought up and hasn't been looked at by my beta, there will be mistakes.

Edit: Has now been looked over by my beta vaguekiwi!

A Zero of Many Masks.

The organ's keys reverberated through the great hall, the chants of the choir entwining with the notes as the crowd followed along as best they could. None in the great cathedral knew of one guest that was listening to the choir far closer than any other, nor that its presence was blasphemy of the highest order.

The creature pulled its scaly neck back from the small hole it had been listening through, shaking its head at the discordant tone that had shot through the massive room with only a single flip of the organist's fingers.

It had been trapped in the ceiling of the cathedral for nearly five years now, and it had long since memorized every song the ones below had in the books they read from in between eating any mice or rats that found their way to it. It hissed as its claws scraped the stone.

It wished for freedom, to find the places their songs spoke of, to find more of the songs to bring back to its kin and share them amongst the others its kind called friend. It was the calling given to it by the faceless one, after all.

Or Malassa, as the worshipers of Elrath called her.

Tristain Academy of Magic-Night before familiar summoning.

"There has to be something! Something more than this!"

The shrill cry from an isolated room caused not a stir in the silent dormitory, the wards of silence placed well beforehand by a teacher working perfectly.

Inside, a girl who appeared to be in her early teens was seething at a book that held incomprehensible symbols to all but her. She brushed her strawberry blonde hair out of the way and began looking over the marks once more.

After another bout of silence, she groaned and finally slumped down onto her desk, exhausted. She couldn't find anything. Her runes for the summoning were about as perfect as they could be without the founder himself drawing them.

Sighing, Louise François de la Valliere rose from her seat and prepared for bed, even as the moons began to descend in the sky.

Tomorrow was her last chance. The Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual was her final chance to prove to everyone, including herself, that she was a mage. One worthy of her bloodline and not the one that had been given that horrid nickname for all her failures at magic, explosions and all.

Zero.

Forcing away the voices that rose up at the very thought of her nickname, Louise finished her preparations and lay down to sleep. Anxiety ate away at her until she finally, fitfully, fell to the mocking dreams that haunted her.

She woke slowly the next day, soft sunlight brushing her eyes until she sat up groggily. After a moment of considering going back to sleep, her mind snapped back to clarity with a simple realization.

"I'm late!"

She hurried around her room, pulling on her uniform with all possible speed while attempting to gather all the materials she needed for the summoning, especially the rare dragon blood and ground unicorn horn she'd procured at great cost. Gathering everything together after what felt like far too long, she bolted from the room in a disheveled storm.

The snickers she heard from her classmates, tormenters really, did little to assuage her mood, making her ever more sour and frustrated as she rushed out of the academy's gates. She just barely caught up with the group of second years as they made their way to the ordained site, trying her hardest to ignore the malicious whispers around her.

'Please let Zerbst be up front, please let Zerbst be up front.' She thought as she slowly collected her breath. As usual though, the fates were in no mood to comply.

"Why Louise! You actually showed up! And so disheveled at that. Did you find some poor sap to comfort you?"

That sultry, mocking voice made Louise's ire fly to near boiling before she was able to force it down.

"I don't need to hear anything about looking disheveled from you Zerbst. I just woke later than I would have preferred."

Kirche Augusta von Zerbst: Louise's primary rival and tormenter. Whereas Louise was petite, pale, and rather lacking in bust size, Zerbst was tall, tan, and voluptuous with melons that Louise had claimed were fake on more than one occasion.

Kirche folded her arms under said chest, drawing the eyes of every male in the crowd while Louise could only growl. "You should have just kept sleeping Louise; we all know you can't use magic, so what's the point? You'll just blow everything up again like always."

Louise did not deign to respond to that barb, even as everyone else around her chuckled. Instead she turned on her heel and marched through the crowd to find Professor Colbert, their instructor for this year, completely missing the flash of concern that flew across Kirche's eyes.

"Not time. Important things first." A quiet voice whispered, drawing Kirche's gaze to the small blue haired girl next to her.

She made to respond but the girl had already moved forward with the others.

"Geez, Tabitha." Kirche pouted as she followed. "No need to make it worse ya know."

After another few minutes of walking, the second years reached the summoning plane, a circle in the earth marking where summoning's had taken place over the years.

"Alright everybody!" Professor Colbert shouted over the student's mutterings, silencing them. "It's time to begin the Springtime Summoning Ritual! Are there any volunteers willing to start us off?"

No one came forth for a moment, until a brave soul eventually volunteered and the ritual began in earnest. Louise hung back from the others, nervous and angry at the same time as the number of students yet to summon slowly shrank.

Her ire spiked at seeing Zerbst summon a fire salamander of all things and her haughty gaze only served to make her start steaming. She stared in awe when Tabitha, the only one that didn't mock her as far as she knew, summoned a young blue dragon to her side and stared in confusion at the appearance of what Professor Colbert called a 'bugbear'.

Eventually though, she was the only one left.

"Is that everyone?" Professor Colbert called over the din of familiars and excited students.

"Louise hasn't gone yet professor!" A blonde girl shouted back, shooting Louise a mocking smirk at her shocked face.

Louise glared at the girl, Montmorency, before stalking forward as jeers rained on her until Professor Colbert silenced them with a stern glare.

"Go ahead Miss Valliere, take your time. We don't have any other plans for today."

Louise nodded slightly in appreciation but quickly set to work, making her runes as perfect as possible while slowly expanding her complex summoning circle, before sprinkling her reagents here and there, with the dragon blood and powdered unicorn mixed in the center.

After nearly thirty minutes of work, she was satisfied. Taking her place in the circle, she began her chant.

Cathedral of Elrath-Moments before

The song they sung now was boring, it decided with a rasping sigh, pulling back from its hole. There had been some spice earlier when a group hailing from the south had come in and led a song in a different tongue, but the song was dutifully memorized and now it was bored once more.

After a moment's thought, it turned back into the hollow it had made for itself in the cramped confines when an eerie melody entered its mind. Stunned, it looked around for the source of the music, before it finally spotted a green light near its listening hole. Curious, it moved forward.

The music grew louder as it grew closer, eventually consuming its mind with the cacophonous sound until the light surged forward and swallowed it whole, only a shrill screech marking its departure.

Louise

She had failed, this time for good.

After she had finished her chant and flooded the circle with her willpower, the runes spat a violent purple and red light before unleashing an explosion eclipsing any she'd created before. The force was enough to send everyone sprawling, with only Tabitha and Professor Colbert remaining where they were.

She sunk to her knees, tears threatening to spill as jeers and insults began to rain on her once more as the class picked themselves up. Colbert was swiftly at her side, offering what comfort he could to the despondent girl before a shriek shattered the scene.

Colbert turned back to the smoke where the shriek had originated. He used a wind spell to dissipate the fog and reveal the source of the cry.

The class gasped as they beheld the beast: a massive lizard with blue-black scales, and four thick legs that ended in wicked talons. The tail ran for almost two meters before ending in a sword like point, sharp spines running along the length of its back.

Yet, the class began to laugh again as the head came into view. While it's underbelly could now be seen, decorated in scales resembling moonstone, the head was crested with a large bone that resembled a large purple helmet, spikes covering it and leading down to a mouth filled with razer teeth.

But, the class was laughing at the ragged tear that separated the head from its body.

"You killed your own familiar! That's just like you Zero! Even when you succeed you fail!" Came a cry from the peanut gallery, though Kirche was not a part of them for once, looking to Louise in worry.

While Louise tried to pull herself back together, Colbert studied the creature closely.

'I don't recognize this creature at all. If anything the face doesn't betray a hint of surprise like the others.'

He moved a bit closer to the corpse, leaving Louise to be comforted by Tabitha of all people, and got a closer look at the wound.

'It's dissolving,' he observed with some surprise, watching as the ragged edges of skin and sinew quickly disappeared before stopping at the body. 'Is it a defensive reaction?'

His thoughts were put on hold when the body began to move.

Without a head.

"Get back!" He called to the students who were just now noticing the large creature standing up. "There's some kind of spell on it! Move away!"

He needn't have said anything as the student's familiars had long since begun to drag, or attempt to drag, their masters away from the standing corpse.

Colbert had his staff trained on the body, ready to burn it to cinder, when the neck began to, for lack of a better term, bubble.

The bubbling started slowly but swiftly grew frantic, drawing horrified calls from the students as they saw the disgusting roll of flesh before the mound of skin burst.

Two heads matching the one on the ground sprang from the mess.

All activity stopped as the heads hissed and sputtered, coughing up the fluids and excess that came from their birth, before regarding the congregation before them curiously.

"Brimir's beard," Colbert swore, looking to a shocked Louise. "Lady Valliere… please continue with the contract."

Louise felt elation rise in her chest for a moment before an earlier lesson sent her mind back into the dark.

Only Brimir had the right to regeneration from death, any creature or magic that could cheat death aside from his own was considered blasphemy and was rewarded with incineration.

And she just summoned something that could.

Her thoughts were so jumbled at the revelation that she didn't even register walking up to the great beast, waving it down, finishing her chant, and binding it with a kiss on the snout.

The creature shot back at the contact, surprise showing on its face, before runes began to etch themselves onto it's right leg. It screamed in pain, the noise shrill and painful. The runes finished and one final surprise revealed itself.

The creature looked at her, golden eyes shining in both heads before the left one… spoke.

"Hiyo kuumiza ndogo moja." (1)

End

This means 'That hurt little one' in swahili. Thought it'd be fun to have a hydra speak that way at first.

This... is something that has been sitting in my head for a long time. I always wondered how a hydra would be received in the Zero no Tsukaima universe but this is more to gauge general interest in the idea as I would like to finish my other story before I did this one.

That's... really all I have so I'll leave this to you guys. Have a good day.