Don't you love when the doc manager decides to turn your perfectly fine document into an indescribable mess of html? Cause I sure don't!

I'm so sorry that I didn't realize and fix this sooner!

The Ancient Magus Bride belongs to Kore Yamazaki

Chapter 1: Beyond the Dull Wall of Cement

Toes and pencil tapping furiously, she bore her eyes into the clock.

Two more minutes.

She ground her teeth as the professor droned on about whatever lesson it was now that she couldn't understand and didn't care to. It's not like she would ever amount to anything anyway, why did she even have to go to school?

Right, because that was respectable, what a proper young Lady was expected to do. And they were always promised a proper young lady. Not a fidgety dead-eyed freak.

One more minute.

Her eyes wanted to dart around but she forced them to stay still. The oozing globs of teeth and eyes would be there if she looked or not so she might as well spare herself the hateful stares of classmates.

Oh, they would stare anyway. But she wasn't going to draw the attention for them.

The bell screeched and she was out the door with a bag slung heedlessly over her shoulder before the teacher even finished his sentence.

Strides just slower than running, she powered down the sidewalk, eyes scanning but focused. Normally she wanted to drag out every second away from the suffocating apartment of judgmental glares, but she had seen the clouds roll in at lunchtime and heard the early tells in the last period. The apartment may feel like it wanted to spit her out at any moment, but at least there were walls that kept out most things that couldn't float through them and a ceiling to ward off the water.

Nothing had approached her yet. Sure there were little blips of gunk here and there, but those kept their distance most of the time. Rumbling crescendoed from the sky causing her whole body to seize in on itself, but she kept moving. One more street to cross through the park on the edge of the forest and then the big field near the family-owned electronics store before the final stretch. She could make it.

Blue brighter than the sun erupted so close she thought she'd be blinded followed immediately by a monstrous cacophony. A shriek shot out of her mouth, not of her own volition and she felt herself tripping and tumbling off the sidewalk into the grassy ditch that separated the end of the children's park and the beginning of the yet to be cleared forest land outside of the city. As soon as her body stopped rag-dolling she forced her legs to stand despite their protest of bloody knees and shins. Trees filled her view in almost every direction save one, where she had fallen from.

That view was filled by a hulking mass of oil, limbs, and fangs.

A fierce hiss erupted from an orifice and she bolted into the trees completely ignorant and uncaring about the direction or where she would end. Ragged breaths forced her feet onwards while sloppy pants sounded close behind her.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! She had been so close!

She had long since passed where the field became true forest untamed by civilization when her foot found loose earth and slipped too quickly for her upper body to correct. Her knee thudded hard into the earth followed by her palms as sharp stinging shot all the way up to her shoulders. The hissing was practically on her neck as misshapen limbs thumped closer to her. She brought her knees to her chest and her hands over her head in a feeble attempt at protection. Her eyes squeezed shut as drool dripped down her back.

The thunder rolled again. Except it wasn't thunder.

She could hear the monster hissing in pain and loud crashes before a piercing ripping filled the air. And just like that, the grotesque blight dissipated into ash sprinkling down on her prone form.

She wasn't safe yet. It was just as likely that whatever had rescued her had only chosen to do so to have her for itself. She flexed a little to test her stinging knee. No good yet. Her best bet was to stay a tight ball and hope she was overlooked.

Seconds passed. A soft shifting of silt but no footsteps.

Minutes passed. Soft breathing.

Five minutes passed. A small thump near her head.

Ten minutes passed. More shifting and her own heart hammering in her ears.

Eventually, a resounding boom forced a squeal out of her and she felt something on her back. She tensed. But the touch was…gentle? It raked across her shoulders in a brief imitation of soothing, then retreated.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she untucked her head from the ground.

She locked eyes with small embers sitting in their own personal pools of blackness.

The creature was unlike any that she had seen before, and given her wide library of blights that had sought her out over the years, that was quite a feat.

The creature was crouched on its knees in a mirror of her current position, its nose so close she could feel light breaths on her face. Its body was draped in a tattered cloth of blackness. Unlike the slimly gunk she tended to see in nooks and crannies, the cloth was almost like…smoke? Or maybe a shadow? It seemed to shift slightly, teasingly dancing between the light around it. At the ends of long thin arms clawed plum hands poked out of the frayed mouths of something like sleeves. Its deep purple neck bore a strange frill of some kind of cotton like fur. But out of all, what caught her attention most was the creatures head.

A long snow white skull bearing several pointed teeth, the teeth of a predator, and long curved brown horns, like those of prey, stared at her with small red lights in the sockets where eyes should've been.

For many long minutes, they stayed locked in each other's gaze. She knew that she should probably be frightened, yet her heart was steady and her breath was calm. Why? She had just witnessed this creature effortlessly destroy the one pursuing her leaving no question about its strength. So why did she feel no need to run?

Well, if it really wanted to eat her it had more than enough chance to do so… that had to be it.

Right?

She had no idea how long they had been crouched to the earth when the creature cocked its head it what appeared to be a curious gesture. Its jaw parted slightly and a deep voice rumbled, "Are you alright?"

She groaned sharply as grimace planted on her face. English?! Or as she liked to call it, her third worse subject. It turned its head again.

"Is something wrong?"

She grimaced again mentally replaying the words in her head. Flipping through the few English phrases she knew off hand she found herself slowly muttering, "Fine…tha-thank…you."

The creature nodded and rose to its knees easily towering over her even at half height. As it stood, a blue stone pendant swayed gently before resting against two strings on its chest. Slowly the girl uncurled her balled form to sit, wincing as her bruised and bloodied legs screamed for attention.

"You seem hurt." it stated plainly.

After a moment of silent translation, she answered. "Not bad."

Its shoulders rose and fell in a huff. "Sorry, but I am not able to heal those scrapes."

Before she could even begin deciphering, rumbling reverberated all around bringing out another squeal. Its bony nose pointed to the sky.

"It will rain soon, you should get home." it stood, it's full stature at least twice her height, and offered a hand to the shaking girl. She looked at it tentatively before accepting, letting the creature gently tug her to her feet. She nodded, somewhat uncertain of the creature's intention but recognizing the word 'home', and turned for the path she had trekked.

Stealing one last glance back into the forest heart where the kind fragment of night still stood, she called 'Thank you!' and resumed her journey home.