Summoning

My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, the third daughter of Duke de la Vallière, and I was terrified. Today was the day second years were to summon their familiar, and I had made some foolish boasts as to what I would summon. I have never been good at magic, I always summon nothing but an explosion, but I told everyone I would summon something even better than everyone else's familiars combined.

In hindsight, that was stupid of me.

As I spoke the chant, everyone's eyes were focused on me, nobody seemed to know what to expect. I brought down my wand and, as was most likely expected by everyone, an explosion happened. I was knocked back and fell on my behind. Before I could see what happened, or even what anyone else thought, I felt metal pressed to my throat.

I looked up and saw that the metal belonged to a sword, a sword held by a girl who couldn't be any older than 13. She was standing in the middle of the crater that I guess my explosion made. She had long black hair that came down to her waist, and a pendant hung around her neck. She was dressed in a black shirt and pants, but I couldn't tell what they were made of. She was also wearing what looked like a long black coat. But what stood out most about her was her eyes. They were as red as a fire, and they were full of killing intent.

She glared at me. "Who are you and how did you bring me here?"

It took a few seconds before I realized what had happened. This girl, this fire-eyed girl, was what I had summoned. She was my familiar.

Her grip on the sword tightened. "Who are you?" She asked angrily.

"Be calm. I don't sense any killing intent from anyone, and they don't appear to be denizens," said a voice from nowhere. "Please miss, before she kills you, would you kindly explain what we are doing here?"

"M-my name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, and I think I just summoned you as my familiar."

Then the crowd starts laughing. "She summoned a commoner as a familiar! What a failure!"

Then the girl I had summoned glared at the crowd and they all fell silent. Mr. Colbert decided to speak up.

"Um... Okay, the ritual must continue."

I couldn't believe what he just said. "W-w-with her? B-but It's indecent!"

Colbert gave me his own glare, and I resigned myself to the fact that I had to do this. I turned to the fire-eyed girl.

"Please don't kill me for this, I don't have a choice in the matter," I say, scared of what the girl's reaction will be.

"What are you talking about?" She asks me.

Before she can ask anything else, I get closer, and press her lips to mine for a brief second. I pull away almost immediately.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO!" I recoil in fear at her reaction.

"I-I'm sorry! I had to complete the familiar contract ritual! There was no other way!"

The fire-eyed girl looks ready to drive her sword through me, but then she drops her sword, falls to her knees and grasps her left hand.

"What did you do to her?" Asks that voice from nowhere.

"It should be over in a minute, its just the familiar runes being carved," I say. I don't know who I'm talking to, but he doesn't sound like someone I want to anger.

Eventually, the girl stands back up and examines her left hand. I look at it and see runes I've never seen before.

"Um... Are you going to kill me now?" Considering how she reacted, I can only assume she's going to kill me now. Could that happen? Could a familiar turn and kill their master?

I see her lower her head and she appears to be deep in thought. "You will take me to your residence, and you will tell me what is going on," she tells me coldly.

I nod. "Yes. Yes I will."

She picker up her sword, and puts into her coat where it disappears without a trace. Then she takes off her coat, whips it around, and it too disappears.

She looks at me, and I notice her eyes have changed color. Now they're black, and they seem much warmer, though still very ready to strike me down if I'm a threat. "Well? Shall we go?"

I begin walking towards my room, and the girl follows me. I can't help but steal a glance at Kirche. She, and everyone, seems absolutely terrified at what just happened, and I don't blame them. Unless our eyes were deceiving us, I just summoned a noble for a familiar. Saying nothing, I simply kept walking towards my room.

"He was supposed to be my first," I hear the girl mutter to herself as we head towards my room. It might be my imagination, but I thought I heard sadness in her voice when she said that.

It was a few minutes before we reached my room. The girl walked right in and sat on my bed. She bounced on it a few times, and looked like she was enjoying herself. I almost smiled at seeing her act like a little kid, it was such a stark contrast to the girl who nearly killed me a few minutes ago. She remembers where she is and glares at me.

"Now tell me whats going on," she says in a tone as cold as ice.

"Um... What do you want to know?" I ask.

Her glare deepens a little more. "How did you bring me here, and what did you mean by familiar?"

I gulp, despite looking pretty young, this girl could be very scary when she wanted to. "W-well, I used the summon familiar spell to summon a familiar. Usually it's an animal, like a dragon or griffon. I've never heard of a human being summoned before," then a thought hits me. "You are human, right?" I don't know why, but something about her doesn't strike me as natural.

"I was, but I wouldn't say that's what I am anymore," she tells me.

"W-what? Was?"

I hear the voice again. "She was a human, but she contracted herself to me, and is now a flame haze."

I look around, "Where's that voice coming from?"

The girl points to her pendant.

"Eh? The pendant can talk?"

"I'm not the pendant, I'm inside her, and I use the pendant to communicate with the outside world," the voice says.

I nod, and then I realize what was just said. "Wait, you're contracted to someone already? You're already a familiar? Then how did I summon you?" Could someone really be the familiar of two people at the same time?

I hear the pendant laugh. "She's not my familiar. Think of me as being her employer, and I gave her a job to do."

I kind of understand, but something bugs me. "That job is?"

The girl speaks up. "Eliminate the Denizens of the crimson world that want to feed on the power of existence and use it for their own means."

I stare blankly at her. "Um... Sorry but, I don't understand. Could you please explain?"

She sighs, almost like this brings back an old memory. "Sure, and please pay complete attention. This goes right over the heads of a lot of people because they don't bother giving their undivided attention."

*Scene Break*

"So, simply put, you're a bounty hunter who tracks down beings that try to disrupt the balance of the worlds?" My head was spinning from all the terms and things the girl said.

"Well... sort of. That's not inaccurate, but that's really simplifying it," says the girl.

"Does that mean you're not really from this world?"

She nods. "It seems so. I can confirm that there isn't a place like this back home. While unrestricted spells were common with flame haze, the general population was what you people call commoners."

I couldn't believe it. I didn't just summon a human familiar, I summoned a noble from another world. I almost fainted, but I realized that would make a poor impression.

"S-so what can you do? What magic do you have?" I silently prayed that she couldn't use it. I don't how I would react if my familiar was a better mage then I was.

She ponders for a second before looking at her pendant.

"Go ahead and tell her. From the sounds of it we have to protect this one, so it would be beneficial for her to know what we're capable of."

The girl looks down, like something about that sentence depresses her. I want to ask, but I'm too afraid of her possible reaction.

"I could tell you, but how about I show you?" She stands up and pulls her long coat out of nowhere. She puts it on, and raises a finger to the sky.

"Fuzetsu."

Then everything was suddenly tinged with a shade of red. The girl's hair and eyes had changed too. They were now a crimson red, and her hair almost seemed to shimmer, like a fire.

"W-w-what just happened?" I'm really scared. What did she do to everything?

"To put it in terms that won't confuse you too much, I removed the academy from the flow of time."

I stared at her blankly. I couldn't even come up with an adequate response. My familiar had that kind of power?

I must have been making a pretty good face because she actually laughed. "I guess that was a little too much. I'm just doing this so we can go outside and I can show you my capabilities without hurting anyone. She got up and walked outside and headed towards the courtyard. Almost as if in a trance, I followed her.

When we got to the courtyard, she pulled out her sword from her coat.

"How do you do that? Does the sword just appear when you need it too?" I ask.

"Actually, it's stored inside my coat using Alastor's inherent magic," She tells me.

"Who's Alastor?"

"That would be me," I hear the pendant say.

"The one she contracted herself to," I say.

"Yes. My name is The Flame of Heaven, Alastor. Other flame haze seem to consider me one of the most powerful beings, and my flame haze is usually feared as well."

I nod. That makes sense, if she had a powerful being inside her, it made sense that she could use magic like this. I look at the girl. "What's your name?"

The girl looks down. "I don't use a name anymore. The Flame Haze of Alastor is my title. At one time, if I needed to be differentiated from other Flame haze I was called Nietono no Shana."

"What?"

"The name of the sword I use."

I nod. "Then I'll call you Shana. Is that okay?"

She sits down, and I think I see tears roll down her face.

"S-sorry, did I do something bad?"

She shakes her head. "No, I'm sorry. Just a bad memory. Shana will be fine, I suppose."

Desperate to change the subject, I ask her to show me what she could do, though I almost wish I hadn't.

Put simply, Shana was amazing. She could freely control fire, jump incredibly high, and even sprout wings, all using her fire powers. I can almost feel my inferiority complex about my magic grow about three sizes. After the demonstration, she raises her finger to the sky and everything goes back to the way it was. She turns to me.

"Its late, I think now would be a good time to sleep, don't you?"

I nod. We went back to my room after making sure that everything was as it previously was.

We didn't spend to much time worrying about things like sleeping arrangements. We were both girls, so neither of us saw that much a problem sharing a bed. Shana fell asleep within minutes. I didn't have that much luck. I felt horrible that my familiar as such an amazing mage, when I was a complete failure. Horrible? No, the word was jealous.

I sit up and look at Shana. I admit, she looked a lot cuter when she was sleeping. She didn't have that killing intent she sometimes had, and she seemed a lot more at peace.

"No... Yuji, don't. Don't leave!" I hear her mutter in her sleep.

What? Who's Yuji?

"You must be curious," I hear Alastor say.

I'm shocked that he knew I was awake. Did he just never sleep?

"To answer the question you are must likely wondering, back in our world, I was the equivalent of a god. I have no need for things like sleep."

"Oh," that explains it. "Alastor, do you know who Yuji is?"

"Ah, you want to know about that." It might just be my imagination, but Alastor almost seemed a little bitter when he said that.

"Yes, please."

Alastor is unresponsive, probably wondering how much to say.

"Yuji was the person Shana fell in love with," he says eventually.

"What?" I whisper. I didn't see Shana as the type of person to fall in love.

"After Shana saved his life, we discovered that he had a powerful object inside him. We decided to stay near him to protect him in case anyone tried to kill him and take the object."

I nod to show that I understand.

"I'm sorry for how she's acting, she hasn't acted this way since we first made contact with Yuji," Alastor says.

"So she used to be nice?" I ask.

"Yes, before meeting Yuji, she was much like she is now. Cold and distant. After meeting him, and everything they went through, she opened up."

"Where is Yuji now?" I ask.

Alastor pauses. Apparently he doesn't want to talk about it much. "He's dead."

I almost feel my heart stop. "He's dead? What happened?"

Alastor sighs. "I don't like talking about it so I'll keep it brief. Due to unforeseen events, he betrayed us. He allied himself with the enemy, and we had no choice but to fight against him. There were heavy losses on both sides, but we were able to win. After Shana killed Yuji."

I couldn't respond to that. Shana had to kill the one she loved? That more then explained her attitude. I thanked Alastor for the information and tried to go to sleep.

"I miss him," I hear someone whisper.

"Shana!" Apparently she woke up sometime during the conversation.

"I'm sorry," Shana says while sitting up.

"What for? You have every right to behave the way you do. I don't know what I would do if I was in your place," I say, almost whispering as I sit up to face her.

"Still, that's no excuse. What I did in the past is the done, there's no changing that. Yes, I loved him, but he betrayed all of us."

"Do you regret it?"

She sighs. "Every day."

She desperately looks like she needs a hug, so I give her one. "I'm sorry for having to bring this situation up. I know its hard."

"I've been rude, I never asked for your name."

"Louise. Call me Louise."

She nods.

"Thank you Louise."

We both go to sleep, but I still think. As much as she tried to seem tough with her sword and powers, she was still a little girl at heart. Is this what being a big sister feels like? I think back to all the times Cattleya comforted me when I felt down. I begin almost feeling a sense of responsibility towards her. I didn't want to see her sad. I wanted to help her. I just didn't know how.

*Outside*

Unknown to either Shana or Louise, a girl with long whitish-blonde hair was sitting on the railing of the balcony, absentmindedly swinging her legs over the edge, just outside the window to Louise's room.

"And so here we go," the girl said to herself. "I should make sure those two arrive on schedule. Don't want anything going overly terrible. It's far too early for that."

With that, the girl slides herself off the railing, and floats gently to the ground.

"Okay, where's that list again?" The girl says as she rummages through her pockets. "Ah! Okay. She'll be showing up a bit later, so I'll just observe until then. Gotta make sure those two show up at the right time, as well. Gah! This whole thing's way more complicated then it seemed at first!"

The girl sighs. "Ah well. It's important, anyway. See you soon!"

Then the girl disappeared in a blink, and the night was entirely still.