Still Waters 3, Book 2, Chapter 29: It's Time

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009, Two Days Before Negi's Scheduled Return From Participating In 'Operation Rescue Ako' In Mundus Magicus

Urashima Taro let out a sigh as she looked up at the dark evening sky high above. The stars would have been visible had the city lights not obscured them. She idly tapped the end of her baseball bat against the toe of her shoe, a fancy looking thing she had gotten from Kagami, and sighed again.

The bruised and battered young men lying on the ground all around her groaned and squirmed on the concrete.

She looked down at one lying nearby, but he flinched away upon meeting her gaze. The question Taro had been about to ask him died on her lips, and she looked away.

'I'm not a part of this anymore...' she thought sadly. Once upon a time, she had been the feared street fighter, Taro-kun, who had once beaten an entire motorcycle gang all by herself in a long running battle. That fight had taken a lot out of her...it had been the most difficult thing she had ever done. This time, however... Taro looked toward the sound of retreating motorcycles, but only caught a glimpse of the last few riders, all that remained of a great coalition between half the biker gangs in Tokyo and their allies and rivals in the surrounding areas. In the culmination of two years of planning, they had descended upon Mahora in order to settle the score from the last time. Twelve hundred bikers had roared through the city in search of none other than Urashima Taro. The Street Sweeper, as they called her. Taro knew Takahata-sensei's group had taken care of a few hundred and others were still fighting, but easily twice that many had found her in that park with Possum, Kagami, and Sachiko, and the battle had begun.

Taro sighed again. While she had gained so, so much from all the training she had done with the others in Eva's resort, it seemed she had lost something as well. What had once been her greatest joy—street fighting—was no longer fun. No one was a challenge anymore, not even several hundred bikers. She had also undergone another change, one that had happened so gradually that she hadn't even noticed it until today, during the new motorcycle gang's attack. While before, she had always fought with no thought of anyone but herself, now she found herself keeping in mind where her friends were, and had worked with them during the fight as often as not. It had been quite the shock to realize that fact, and, to Urashima Taro, who had been virtually friendless all her life, the realization that she actually had real friends she could depend on to watch her back when things went bad had made her get a little teary-eyed, though she would never admit it to anyone. Ever. She had known she could depend on them in an intellectual sort of way of course; they had all fought together in Eva's resort, after all. But Eva's resort was just Eva's resort, a place where they could forget their problems for a while and just play; Mahora was the real world, where they had to deal with boring classes and homework and other people outside what Taro had to admit-with more than a little wonder-was actually a pretty wide circle of acquaintances she knew from the resort.

She was starting to get downright personable.

"You lost the hat," Kagami said from nearby, out of breath.

Out of Taro's group of closest friends, Kagami was the only one who didn't excel at hand to hand combat, and now she had a bruise on her cheek to prove it. Nevertheless she had done quite well for herself in the battle, especially considering they had all been expressly forbidden from using flashy magic spells—the only kind of magic spells Kagami had—while Negi-sensei's group was gone to Mundus Magicus.

"It's because of you I had to wear the stupid thing," Taro answered roughly to hide the fact that she actually sort of liked the hat. The hat was a big, wide-brimmed, floppy white thing, like something a movie star would wear with big sunglasses and a little dress. And, thanks to a losing bet she had made with Kagami earlier in the summer, that had been exactly what she was wearing when the biker gang showed up. Taro's cheeks burned at the memory. Oh, how the biker gang had mocked her when they realized who she was...! They hadn't mocked her for long, however...Taro's fearsome reputation was well-earned, after all, and her friends were no slouches either. "Do you see it anywhere?"

"It's over by Sachiko," Possum said from where she sat panting against a tree nearby, pointing. Taro nodded her thanks and trotted over to where Sachiko stood, looking at the fallen gang members around her in surprise.

"There's my hat," Taro said as she knelt down to pick it up, careful not to mess up the dress Kagami had given her any more than she already had. She pulled the hat out from under a groaning gang member and sighed. "It's got a little blood on it!" she called back to Kagami, waving the hat to show the other girl the extent of the damage.

"That's never going to wash out, you know!" Kagami called back.

Taro sighed again and looked at Sachiko. "You okay? You're kinda spacing out..."

Sachiko looked at Taro and quickly away, but not before Taro caught a glimpse of the excitement Sachiko was feeling. Taro wasn't very good at the whole 'interpersonal interaction' thing, but she did know Sachiko had been bothered by something for a long time. Her best guess was that it stemmed from the other girl's defeat at the Martial Arts tournament during the festival. Sachiko wouldn't say anything about it, however, and had tried to stay away from Taro and Kagami and Possum over the days between then and now, with varying levels of success. But whatever the case might have been, Taro knew what she had seen in Sachiko's eyes: the first signs of the girl becoming herself again.

"I'm alright, don't worry about me," Sachiko said as she looked away.

Taro smiled. There was nothing else in the world quite like bonding over the unconscious bodies of the motorcycle gang you had just beaten to a pulp together.

It was how she had met her best friend Possum, after all.

"You looked like you were having fun," Taro said. The way Sachiko had been spinning and jumping around had looked like something out of a video game...Taro had been impressed; she hadn't seen anything out of Sachiko on that level in the resort. Perhaps she had been holding back for some reason...? Taro didn't know, and she wasn't about to ask; even she knew that would be a bad idea, what with the way Sachiko had been acting lately.

"I...I guess I was," Sachiko said, finally turning to face Taro.

Taro smiled at her. She thought Sachiko looked almost like she was ashamed of enjoying the fight as much as she did.

Growing embarrassed at the attention being heaped upon her, Sachiko tried to deflect it with a sudden observation. "That dress is very pretty; I like the floral pattern."

It was Taro's turn to look away while Possum and Kagami snickered nearby.

"It's only because I lost a bet," she muttered. And she wasn't still wearing the dress and the matching shoes because she thought it looked pretty and made her feel pretty...an alien feeling to one such as Urashima Taro. No, certainly not because of that. Urashima Taro did not wear dresses; this was an incontrovertible fact. The closest thing to a dress that she had ever worn was her school uniform—which featured a skirt—and she always wore bicycle shorts under that. She did not enjoy the dress.

Definitely not.

No.

Even if she did find the way it flared out at the bottom when she turned quickly to be interesting.

"A-anyway, let's go before somebody comes," Taro said. Already she could hear police sirens in the distance.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Kagami said.

"Yeah...I think I'll go to the clinic under the administration building and get a blood pack," Possum said. "That took a lot out of me..."

Taro nodded in understanding. It had taken some time to get used to Possum as a vampire...Possum herself still wasn't used to it. But Taro had watched her, and Possum was the same Possum she had met back during the first biker gang incident, the same friendly girl who'd stick her neck out for someone she'd only just met. Only, now she had a thirst for blood that she was still struggling to get under control, hence the blood packs from the secret mage clinic. Taro wasn't worried though; if Possum could hold her thirst back during such an extended fight with a bunch of no-name idiots who attacked them for no reason, she wouldn't hurt her friends.

She turned her attention to Sachiko, who was still looking at the fallen bikers. "You coming?"

Sachiko looked up at Taro and the others, hesitated, and nodded.

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

"The biggest incident all summer, and I missed it...!" Student Number 23, Sato Gin moaned as she flopped down on her classmate Mako Sylvester's bed. Her oddly white hair was flared out prettily over Mako's pillow as she laid there, staring up at the bottom of their classmate Suzuki Keiko's bunk. Word had already gotten around about the previous day's incident with the enormous motorcycle gang gunning for Taro, and Gin had been complaining about being left out for the past ten minutes.

"You shouldn't be so eager to be involved...what if you got hurt?" Mako replied as she continued working on her summer homework. Summer break was almost over, after all, and, as usual, she had put her summer homework off too long. She told herself ever year that she would get it done right away so she could enjoy the summer, but somehow those plans always fell apart.

"They wouldn't have been able to touch me," Gin replied testily. Mako knew it was just bravado speaking; her Gin-chan was a proud girl, but the both of them knew Gin couldn't hold a candle to someone like Urashima Taro or Possum Cade in a street fight. Gin would have had to go all out, and someone probably would have died. As it was, there were on a few serious injuries and a lot of people in jail.

"Mm," Mako replied. She continued with her homework.

Silence fell over the room, broken only by the scritch-scritch sound of Mako's pencil on paper as she worked.

"Just one more day until they get back," Gin said musingly.

"And then school starts up again two days after that," Mako said absently. She tried to hide her grin at the face she knew Gin was making at the unwelcome reminder that soon their lazy days of summer vacation would be at an end. Mako would miss these days too. Whiling away the time with Gin-chan wandering around the city, looking in the shops, eating those little cakes from the cake shop by the station...even just sitting around out in the woods, reading a book while Gin-chan practiced the martial arts style she had started to learn from Scary Max-sensei. It had been...Mako blushed. It had been the best summer of her life. She hadn't known what to expect upon coming to Mahora, but to meet such a good friend as Gin-chan...it was like a dream come true for Mako. She hadn't ever had any real friends before, not with her ability. The ability to read emotions and the occasional thought through touch had taught her just how scary the world could be at a very young age, and knowing what people really thought when they found out about her ability was enough to keep her away from others. But Gin-chan? Gin-chan had been so glad to find someone else with a weird ability that she hadn't cared a bit about the fact that Mako could read her emotions; they had clicked together in an instant, and that was all there was to it.

She sort of wished their summer vacation could just continue on, forever.

Right about then, her cell phone beeped, indicating that she had received a text message.

"Um..."

Kobayashi Ayumi hesitated just outside the open door of dorm room her former bandmate Kara Stride shared with Possum Cade. Kara glanced up at her, but quickly looked away.

They stood there for a moment, Ayumi standing just outside the doorway and Kara standing beside her bed, guitar magazine in hand, neither girl willing to meet the other's gaze.

Finally the awkwardness grew so thick that Ayumi couldn't stand it anymore, and felt like she had to say something, anything, as long as it broke the silence between them.

"Hey—"

"Look—"

They looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak again, and Ayumi had to fight hard to hold back the grin that threatened to show itself. Kara took a deep breath in preparation to speak, but Ayumi forged ahead and beat her to the punch.

"I'm sorry."

And there it was. She had actually said it. Despite nerves and bad timing, she had tried all summer to work up enough nerve to apologize to Kara for her actions before summer break, and she had finally, finally, managed it. It galled her to say those words, but even Ayumi herself knew she had been acting like a total bitch when Kara kicked her out of the band, with that thing with Caro and the scissors, and—Ayumi reluctantly admitted to herself—her jealousy over the fact that Kara had been invited to play with Dekopin Rocket up on stage at the festival instead of Ayumi. Kakizaki Misa was Ayumi's hero, not Kara's, and Dekopin Rocket was Ayumi's most favorite band in the world. Kara hadn't even known about them until Ayumi made her listen to some of their songs on CD...! But even so, Ayumi had pushed all of that aside to offer that apology...

And Kara was just staring at her.

Ayumi felt the familiar heat of resentment starting to build deep within her. Why didn't Kara say anything? Didn't she know how much it had hurt Ayumi to say those words...? Ayumi's eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched seemingly of its own accord. 'I hate this place. I want to go somewhere else. Anywhere. Anything at all would be better than this.'

And Kara just stood there, staring at her with that dopey look on her face.

"F—"

Ayumi's cell phone—a cheap one she had picked up at a clearance sale downtown—beeped and vibrated in her pocket. Putting aside the issue of Kara's inability to respond to an apology for the moment, Ayumi pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open as she turned and stalked away from Kara's room, leaving the other girl gaping at the empty doorway. To her surprise, she had received a text from a friend of hers she talked to from time to time when she felt the need to speak with someone outside the band...they had even gone to a few rock shows together. Ayumi hadn't seen or heard from the other girl in weeks though, not since the beginning of summer break. She frowned as she looked at the text message.

-Subject: It's been a while-

-From: Chisame-

-Hey, it's been a while. Want to meet up? There's a show you're going to love. We won't be able to come back today, so pack an overnight bag and meet me in the woods at that clearing I showed you that time. Don't get spotted. See you there.-

Ayumi, intrigued at her strange friend's unusual message, quickly typed out a response in the affirmative and sent it, and opened the door to the room she shared with her classmates Rosemary Dean and Watanabe Miyako, the latter of whom was also an ex-bandmate. To say the situation in the dorm room had been awkward after Ayumi was kicked out of the band would be like saying water was wet. But, luckily, neither girl was in the room at the moment, so Ayumi hurried to the closet and pulled out the backpack she sometimes used to carry a change of clothes whenever she was planning on attending a show somewhere.

She opened the pack and dumped its contents onto the floor of the closet and started grabbing clothes.

Kara, already thrown off balance by Ayumi's sudden, unexpected appearance, was simply stunned when the overly proud egotistical brat of a girl actually apologized for her actions over a month previous. Kara tried to think of something to say, but the suddenness of the situation had simply left her speechless. The absolute last person she had expected to see pop up in her dorm room was Ayumi, who had been avoiding her like the plague for the past month or more; and for her to not only suddenly appear outside her door, but also apologize for her actions? It was mind boggling; Kara couldn't remember the last time she had heard the word 'sorry' come out of Ayumi's mouth free of sarcasm.

Kara had just about worked up a response when she looked Ayumi in the eye and suddenly recalled what had happened the last time she had interacted with the girl, right there in Kara's very own dorm room not four feet from where she was standing, and her mouth snapped shut as her brain ground to a halt and she felt her face heating up.

She could tell Ayumi was getting angry and she dearly wanted to respond to her apology, but she was just so embarrassed and awkward and she couldn't seen to make her mouth work, not that she could think of anything to actually say. Here was a rare chance to make things right between them, and she was just standing there like an idiot, barely able to think, while Ayumi was getting angrier and angrier... She had to say something, anything, to keep Ayumi from getting the wrong impression...!

But, just as Kara started to speak, Ayumi's cell phone beeped and the chance was lost as Ayumi turned and stalked out of the doorway, leaving Kara standing alone in the room, one arm outstretched as if to stop Ayumi from leaving.

"But...but..."

Kara stared at the empty doorway, her eyes going wide as she started to realize the extent of the mistake she had just made. She rushed to the doorway and looked up and down the hallway outside, but Ayumi was gone without a trace. Kara reluctantly took a step back, then turned and wandered over to the bottom bunk, where she sat down heavily and put her head in her hands.

"What do I do now...?" she said mournfully. Almost as if it had heard her question, her cell phone beeped from where it had been left forgotten on the desk, indicating that she had received a message. She went over and picked it up, looking curiously at the small display on the front cover before flipping it open. Her lips tightened to a thin line as she read the message. Seconds later, she was already in action, pausing only long enough to throw some things in a bag and to grab her cane sword from the dresser drawer where she kept it hidden.

"Crap crap crap!" Kara muttered to herself as she pulled the blade halfway out of the cane, tested the sharpness, and then shoved it back in. "When did mama come back to Japan? She just left!" Left unvoiced were Kara's nervous thoughts on just what sort of terrible situation her mother could get into that Kara could possibly hope to overcome when the woman herself could not? It sent chills down her spine, but that message she had just received had said her mother and sister were in danger, so Kara had to do her best to help them out; she wouldn't be able to look at her own face in the mirror tomorrow morning if she didn't.

They came from all over, singly or in groups of two or three as they filtered through the woods, dressed in their street clothes or whatever they had been wearing when they received the message that had brought them to the well known clearing near Eva's house, each carrying a travel bag or a backpack or similar, as if about to go stay somewhere else overnight. Many of them were pleasantly surprised to see the others there in the woods, while others reacted with suspicion or confusion. The babble of voices grew overwhelming as twenty five girls filled the small clearing and questions and accusations flew.

Hasegawa Chisame watched the scene with an unreadable expression on her face. She had befriended many of those girls milling around in the clearing, carefully cultivated them to get them to this point in time, using her permanently youthful appearance to appear as if she was the same age as they were, all the better to gain their trust. It hadn't been easy; being the person everyone went to for advice or to kill time with was difficult when juggling the attention of over a dozen people, not to mention all the others in Mahora that had to be nudged this way or shoved that way. It hadn't been easy, but she had done it nonetheless, and now...

It was time.

Chisame strolled up out of the woods, doing her best to look casual. Many of those who were present knew she had gone with the rest of Negi's group to Mundus Magicus, while most had no idea who she really was.

"Chisame-chan!" Sasaki Rina squealed excitedly as she squeezed through the crowd. Several heads turned upon hearing Chisame's name, but she ignored it and focused on Rina; somehow, seeing the girl tended to bring her back down to earth for a time. An unfortunately short time, true, but all the same, she couldn't help but like the girl.

"Hello, Rina-chan," she said, smiling at the girl.

"Why didn't you tell me everyone was going to be here?" Rina asked, pouting at her.

Chisame marveled for a moment on the easy familiarity with which Rina addressed her, this girl who had only lived for a little over fifteen years while Chisame herself had lived for thousands by this point, though she had regrettably lost track somewhere back among the line as she trekked from world to world, ever pursuing her quest. She smiled gently at Rina in the way that always made the girl cheer up, but someone interrupted before she could speak.

"Yeah, that's what I want to know," Kobayashi Ayumi said irritably as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Why did you have to go and invite everybody? I thought it was just us going to that concert!"

Chisame changed her gentle smile to a carefully practiced rueful grin as she turned to look at Ayumi. "Sorry about that, Ayumi; I didn't think you'd come if I mentioned it..." she said, pitching her voice just so to leave the girl a little less tense than before. Ayumi was a real bitch to deal with, but, like the others, she was necessary.

"You're supposed to be with them," a new voice growled, and Chisame turned to find Urashima Taro trying to loom over her with her friend Mochizuki Kagami right beside her, both of them looking at her suspiciously while Nakamura Sachiko and Possum Cade stood nearby.

Chisame mentally cursed at Taro's unexpectedly sudden interruption and decided to switch gears. Normally at this point she would engage in a whole series of questions and answers designed to calm everyone and get them easier to handle, but, every once in a while, maybe once in two or three dozen worlds, Taro would interrupt her before she could get going. The easy way to deal with it was to tell the truth. Or part of the truth, anyway. The hard way involved fire. Lots and lots of fire. And that never helped anything. She knew. She had tried it.

"I was, and that's why I'm here now," Chisame said sharply, meeting Taro'sdeathglare and holding it with ease, much to the other girl's surprise. Taro didn't know a thing about her other than that she had been picked to go along with the rest of Negi's group; the girl had no way of knowing that Chisame had looked much worse things in the eye than Urashima Taro, though the girl was far richer in power than she realized, both physically and in other terms...but that was for later.

"Now help me out or stand back and shut up; the choice is yours." Without giving Taro a chance to reply, she turned around and found everyone looking at her, confusion and suspicion in the eyes of most of them. Those who knew her as a friend were mostly confused, wondering why she was acting so strange, while those who knew her only as a fellow denizen of Eva's resort were generally wondering why she was being so chatty. A flash of irritation came over her at their murmurs and Chisame stood up tall, cast a small sound amplifying spell, and let loose on them. "SHUT UP! Everyone, shut UP!" She waited until everyone had gone quiet before continuing. "Most of you know me, but for those who don't, my name is Hasegawa Chisame. I'm a friend of Negi Springfield." She waited until the expected hubbub had died back down. "Everyone knows he went on a trip at the beginning of summer break, correct? Well, he needs help, and you are the only ones who can help him. So stand in a circle! Quickly! There isn't much time..."

Kobayashi Ayumi glared at the girl she had thought of as a friend, what she saw as Chisame's betrayal ('How DARE she trick me like this?!') burning in her mind, distracting her from what she was feeling about Kara. She almost wanted to stomp over there and slap her in the face, but that goon Urashima Taro was standing between them, and while Ayumi might have been hot headed, she wasn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination. So, instead of freaking out, screaming, and hitting the girl, she did as she was told, and moved to stand between her classmates Sasaki Rina and Yoshida Ume, two of the few she wasn't annoyed with at the moment.

"Is everyone in place?" Chisame asked as she looked around at everyone from her place in the circle. "Okay! Everyone hold hands!"

Ayumi just looked at her blankly from across the circle. '"Hold hands?" What is this, preschool?' Ayumi thought, sneering at the idea as she looked away. Just then, she felt someone watching her and looked up to see Chisame looking at her from the other side of the circle, suddenly seeming quite scary. Ayumi took Rina and Ume's hands.

"This is stupid," she muttered, quietly enough for Chisame not to hear. Chisame had blown it, as far as Ayumi was concerned; she'd never trust Chisame ever again. Never ever.

"Is everyone holding hands?" Chisame asked as she scanned the circle. "Good. Now whatever happens, don't let go. If you get scared, just remember: it's only CG, right?" she said, making a crooked grin that wasn't the least bit amused.

"It's...only CG?" Rina repeated under her breath as she squeezed Ayumi's hand. Ayumi shot the girl a glare; Rina was such a crybaby, Ayumi didn't see how she had any friends.

That was the point where the wind kicked up violently and weird lines and weird squiggles and circles appeared on the ground, shining so brightly Ayumi let out a startled cry and shut her eyes. Rina let out a shriek on one side of her, a sound that cut through Ayumi's sudden panic. She looked to her left at Yoshida Ume, and was surprised to see the girl clenching her jaw and standing steady while everyone around her panicked. Ayumi quickly looked around the circle at the others, and was surprised at just how many of them didn't seem scared...that simple fact helped to calm her down quite a bit, even though Rina was practically crying next to her.

"Hold each other's hands! Don't let go!" Chisame shouted, her voice somehow loud enough to be heard clearly over the wind. Ayumi almost let go of Rina and Ume's hands just to spite her, but Rina was frantically squeezing her right hand and Ume, though she looked quite calm, had Ayumi's left hand in a death grip.

"Keep calm!" Chisame called out over the wind. "It's only CG!"

"It's only CG, it's only CG, it's only CG," Rina repeated under her breath as she squeezed her eyes shut. Ayumi was about to tell her to shut up when the shiny lines on the ground got a lot brighter and the roar of the wind got so loud she couldn't even hear herself think. The air itself glowed so brightly that she felt she had to clench her eyes shut or go blind. She distantly heard someone screaming, and then everything changed.

With her eyes shut and the wind blowing and people screaming around her, the first thing she noticed was the smell. It was...different in a way she couldn't explain. It was as if something that had always been there had been suddenly taken away without warning...and then a sudden blast of thunder shook the ground hard enough to knock her down and Ayumi opened her eyes on what had to be a battlefield.

They were trapped between two opposing armies lined up to do battle. A little voice in the back of her mind, trying to make sense of the insanity that had entered her life so suddenly, insisted that they had to be cosplayers, but all it took was a glance to see that they weren't.

"Ambush...!" someone roared, and the scene turned to chaos. Rina started screaming, and then the world exploded under Ayumi's feet. There was a brief moment where she felt weightless, and then she saw the ground rushing up to meet her. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, but other than the ringing in her ears she was unhurt. There wasn't any time to recover, however; people with swords and spears and weird looking staffs sticks were rushing around, the air was full of the smell of ozone, and the very earth itself seemed full of static.

Ayumi got her hands under her and pushed herself up off the ground, only for some soldier to charge by and strike her head a glancing blow with his knee. She hit the ground and let out a cry. She was dimly aware of a great deal of movement and noise going on all around her, but everything was fuzzy, indistinct...she shook her head to clear it and looked up just in time to see a soldier running at her, his sword held high. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she struggled to get up and run away, but her body didn't want to obey her; her arms were too weak to lift her and her legs were shaking too badly to support her weight. She tried to scramble back, away from him, but she couldn't seem to find purchase on the ground, and he was right there. Someone grabbed her left arm and Rina started screaming in her ear.

She saw every detail of the soldier's face, from his scraggly barely-there mustache to his bright green eyes, and realized he couldn't have been much older than she was herself, and yet here he was, trying to kill her, and she couldn't even get away. He stopped right in front of her and raised his sword high. She opened her mouth to scream, and then she was there. Ayumi was struck silent in awe as a stunningly beautiful girl stepped in front of her and, with one quick flick of her wrist, cut the young man across the neck with a long, straight sword and he fell back, his eyes bulging as the stared at her and fell backward. Kara turned back to look at her, worry in her eyes, and Ayumi's gaze locked on to the girl's face. '...doesn't...doesn't she hate me...?'

But it didn't matter. Ayumi saw movement behind Kara, saw a man appear over Kara's shoulder, but she couldn't seem to make her voice work to scream out a warning. Nevertheless, Kara seemed to realize something was wrong; she whirled again, blade flashing in the sunlight, and cut the man across the face. He screamed and fell back, but before Kara could recover the man behind him lashed out with his own sword, slashing Kara across the face.

Ayumi watched, horrified, as Kara screeched and blood flew and she arched backward and fell on Ayumi, dropping her sword as she slapped her hands over her eyes, screaming. Ayumi caught a glimpse of Kara's face before she covered it, and that was enough to finally snap her out of it.

Ayumi screamed and shoved Kara out of her lap, unmindful of the girl's blood all over her clothes, and shook Rina off her arm. She scrambled to her feet and looked for a way out, some way to escape the insanity of the world around her, but all was chaos around her.

Ayumi looked around helplessly; Kara was squirming on the ground with her teeth clenched, but she was at least no longer screaming. A quick look around showed her that the fighting where she and the rest of her class had been brought to this horrible place appeared to be picking up, though no more soldiers came near them. Ayumi didn't understand why that might be so, but she decided she didn't care so long as they stayed away. She looked down at Rina, who had latched on to her leg, and then down at Kara, who had finally managed to sit up, though she still had a hand pressed over her eyes while her other hand patted the ground, as if searching for something while her body shook with muffled sobs. 'She saved me,' Ayumi thought, mystified. And since when could Kara use a sword? Ayumi hadn't ever seen her practicing with it or anything like some of the clubs did... Ayumi spotted the bloody sword Kara had been using lying in the grass nearby and nudged it closer to Kara with her foot; she didn't want to touch it with her hands. The other girl's hand found the blade, paused, and quickly wrapped around the hilt and drew it close.

This was nothing like battle scenes on TV or in movies, from what Ayumi could see. And the stench...! It was terrible, like blood and sewers. Ayumi dearly wanted to run away, but she was completely surrounded; men were fighting to the death all around them and explosions were happening all over the place, throwing men and chunks of earth high into the sky. The noise was deafening. What just had to be a lightning bolt struck close by, making her hair feel as if it would stand on end and leaving behind the strong smell of ozone, and Ayumi shrieked and stumbled backward as the earth exploded upward fifteen feet away. With Rina still clutching her leg, she lost her balance and fell flat on her back...and stared.

There, up in the sky, was a witch riding on a broom.

The image was so striking in its very plainness that Ayumi couldn't even bring herself to try and deny it. The witch was nothing like what she might have imagined: there were no sparkles, nothing obviously magical like on TV...it was just a girl in a pointy hat and cape flying along on a broom, as if riding a broom was a perfectly legitimate mode of transportation. The witch girl circled around the area they were in, then swooped down toward them and landed softly on her feet.

"What are you doing here?!" the girl demanded as she rushed over and knelt down beside Kara.

"Wha-?!" Ayumi asked, taken aback.

The witch girl pulled Kara's hand back from her face and Ayumi's stomach lurched; she quickly turned away, her eyes wide. She wouldn't forget that sight, not in a hundred years...! The sight of Kara's otherwise pretty face, cut right across the- Ayumi shook her head to clear it of that horrible image, but it didn't work.

"Ayase!" Taro called out as she rushed up.

"What happened? Why are you here? How many are there?" the girl demanded of Taro as she unslung what Ayumi thought looked like a messenger bag from over her shoulder and sat it down on the ground beside her. "I need Konoka here now!" the girl abruptly shouted, apparently at herself for all Ayumi could tell.

"Chisame," Taro growled as she watched the girl tend to Kara. "Hasegawa Chisame brought us here; the whole class, so it should be twenty five altogether since Eva and Rally and Chachamaru left with you. Kagami and Sachi both say they got a message on their cell phones, calling them out into the woods near Eva's house...I got the same message. She said to bring whatever we would need for a trip, and that Negi-sensei needed our help. This is...this is Mundus Magicus, isn't it?"

Ayase looked up at Taro, confused, the small box she had just taken out of the bag left forgotten in her hand. "That is correct. But I don't understand; Chisame is supposed to be doing research for us in Tristan. As for needing help, things haven't gone according to plan but they're not so desperate that we need to bring all of you into it, especially those without training," she said, briefly eyeing Ayumi. "Also, Chisame shouldn't have the sort of power necessary to operate the kind of teleportation array required to move so many people in the first place! That is extremely high class magic that usually requires at least a dozen powerful mages working together and following very strict rituals."

"Tell that to Chisame," Taro said, her expression conveying everything one might want to know about her opinion on Hasegawa Chisame at that point in time.

"Is she..." Ayumi said when the other two finally stopped talking about boring things she didn't understand. She look down at Kara, her mind a confused swirl of thoughts. She didn't even really register the comments about magic; she was still trying to catch up to 'suddenly being surrounded by soldiers'. "Is she...is she all right?"

"She will be," 'Ayase' said with a confidence Ayumi wished she could feel as she sat the box down on the ground and opened it to reveal a collection of bandages, ointments, and several test tubes of colored liquid. Ayumi eyed all this uncomprehendingly. She thought she might have seen the witch girl somewhere before...it struck her a moment later that she had seen her working the desk when everyone went to Library Island to get resources for a report they had been assigned in class. "Nodoka! I need Konoka or Natsumi here immediately! It's an emergency; I have badly wounded over here," Ayase said, again seemingly to herself as she knelt down and placed a pad of rolled cloth over Kara's ravaged eyes and then tied it in place with a strip of clean cloth that she wrapped around Kara's head like a blindfold. With that done, she picked up one of the test tubes and pulled the stopper out of the top before putting it to Kara's lips. "Drink this." Kara made a face at the taste, but did as she was told, and Ayase put the empty test tube back and started dabbing at the blood that covered the girl's face. "Please, sit still, help will be along in just a moment," she said to Kara as she worked on cleaning up her face. "Correct; it looks like the whole class is here," she said a few seconds later to whoever she had been talking to before.

"Everyone is together," the class rep said as she trotted up. "Abe-san put a barrier up but I don't know how long it will hold." She seemed to notice Kara's injury just then and froze in place, staring. "Is-" And then...she wasn't there anymore. Ayumi blinked, looking at the spot where Nakamura Sachiko, class rep of Negi Springfield's current class, had been standing mere seconds before, but there was nothing there. Taro was looking blankly at the empty spot as well, her mouth hanging open.

"What did you say?" Ayase asked, looking back at where Sachiko had been. She, too, froze, staring in wide eyed surprise. A second or two later, a quick moving bolt of light flew right past Ayumi's face and struck Taro in the chest. And, just like that, Taro was gone too. Vanished, right before her eyes. Ayumi stared for a moment, then Rina shrieked and Ayase tackled her to the ground as another bolt shot through the space where she had been an instant before.

"Gin-chan!" someone shrieked behind them. Ayumi looked back and saw her classmate Mako Sylvester, fallen to her knees, staring at a spot on the ground.

"What's going on?!" Rina screeched.

"I am under attack! I am under attack!" Ayase screamed as she tried to cover both Ayumi and Rina with her body. "We have taken casualties, I need assistance immediately!"

Ayumi shoved the witch girl aside and reached for Kara's arm to drag her closer when she saw Chisame come stalking up through the battlefield, a cold, distant expression on her face as she ignored the soldiers fighting all around her and focused on Ayumi's group. She lifted her hand, pointed at Kara, and a bolt of light shot from her finger, hit Kara in the midsection, and Kara was gone without a sound.

Ayumi looked at the place where Kara had been lying and screamed. There was nothing there. There was nothing there. No body, no extra blood, no...pieces...lying around...it was as if Kara had never existed.

"Chisame...? No...no way..." Ayase said. "Why are you doing this? Why are you—"

Chisame didn't even bother to give her a response; she raised her hand and blasted her with a bolt of lightning. Ayase let out a cry and was sent flying.

"Ch...Chisame...I-I...I..." Ayumi said as she tried to scoot back away from the friend who had suddenly shown a whole new side of herself that Ayumi had never seen before. 'Kara! Oh my God Kara! She's gone! She's just GONE!' "Wh-what are you...are...are you going to kill me...?"

Chisame smiled; somehow Ayumi preferred the coldness of her previous expression to that sad, cynical smile. "You probably don't understand...don't worry. None of them do. Just be a good girl and take it, will you?" she said as she raised her hand. "Oh, and watch out for the octopus, okay?"

Ayumi heard someone shout, saw the surprise and sudden spark of interest in Chisame's eyes as she whirled to face none other than Akashi Yuuna, the previous dorm mother of the girls' dorm rushed in. Too shocked and confused by the situation to even wonder why Yuuna was there on a battlefield, Ayumi took the opportunity to scramble to her feet and run with Rina following right behind her. Ayumi glanced back over her shoulder, saw Yuuna try to tackle Chisame only to get a bolt to the head for her troubles. Ayumi screamed again as the woman she had thought of as the coolest dorm mother she had had since coming to Mahora vanished without a trace. Chisame turned back to face her, and Ayumi did the only thing she could think of: she grabbed Rina's wrist and yanked the other girl into the path of the bolt Chisame shot at her.

Ayumi looked in Rina's eyes as the bolt hit her, saw the surprise and accusation in them, and then Rina was gone. Ayumi screamed again and scrambled back into the mass of panicking girls that Chisame had brought to this horrible place, doing her best to keep someone between her and the crazy girl. Everyone was screaming and pushing, but some were trying to play hero and go after Chisame; Ayumi saw Takahashi Shizuko, Mochizuki Kagami, and even that goody-two-shoes Hayashi Fujiko among others all try to rush her, only for each one of them to get deleted or disintegrated or whatever it was Chisame was doing to everyone. 'Oh Kara...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...! I wish I could have told you before—' Ayumi screamed again as another bolt missed her face by a hair's breadth, and dove into a group of panicking girls. She ran straight into her ex-bandmate Kondo Kai, and then screamed as another bolt hit Kai in the face and she vanished before she could speak. Finally breaking free of the crowd, Ayumi turned tail and ran as hard as she could, screaming, her fear for her life so powerful she couldn't even think.

She ran and she ran and she ran, screaming the whole time, heedless of where she was going so long as it was away from Chisame. 'Oh my God oh my God oh my God...!' She was just beginning to think she might have made it when a bolt of light shot past her, and then something that felt like a white hot blade struck her in the back and everything went black.