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Decadent Habits	By : OverMaster Category: +M to R > Mahou Sensei Negima/Magister Negi Magi Views: 8829 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don't own Negima. No profit at all is made out of this story.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
Once again, Darkenning wrote this.

Negima belongs to Akamatsu Ken, who has nothing to do with this parody. Thanks to my co-writers, and to all the reviewers. No more time to waste, let's get this thing moving.

Decadent Habits

Chapter 18: Evangeline

And so they set out.

Rakan and Mana walked a ways ahead of the others, both keeping an eye out for any potential threats. Had either spotted any, they would likely have unleashed a massive response that would show up on sattelite imaging. Fortunately for the peace of the world, they didn't. Pretty much the only person they met was a shocked looking Yuna.

"Hey, Gunslinger Girl," Rakan said with a jaunty wave.

Now looking a little confused, the girl returned the wave but said nothing in reply. That struck Rakan as being a little odd, but maybe she was just surprised to see him here in Mundus Vetus. Mana, more suspicious in nature as well as more aware of her classmates' bodies, noticed some other oddities about the girl, and discretely turned to keep an eye on her.

Despite her concerns, however, nothing happened as the girl walked past their charges, who were strolling along the path some distance behind them. Negi and Asuna were on either side of the shikigami duplicate of Arika, who tottered along with a bemused smile on her face, occasionally telling the two of them that she loved them. Negi's replies were polite, while Asuna frequently snarked.

"I think we're missing something," Negi murmured. "Something about these plans just doesn't add up."

"Maybe it's all just a trick?" Asuna said. "Maybe she's trying to teach you another lesson." She didn't want to believe that their mentor had reverted to her old habits so easily either. Eva had been cruel to her, but she'd usually had good intentions underneath it all, every time.

"I don't think that's it, but ..." her brother/nephew/lover trailed off, shaking his head. "We're definitely missing something."

Arika (the real one, this time) stood behind the concealment of a tree and contemplated the cabin in the woods. She spotted several easy points of entry. The windows were guarded by pretty potent warding spells, but she had ways of getting around those. In addition, there was a fairly obvious hidden exit to an escape passage off to one side of the clearing. Once she dealt with whatever defenses were in that passage, it would certainly be the safest, easiest route directly to the cabin's basement.

Seconds later, the front door was kicked off its hinges and she entered in a low roll. Doing this Nagi-style rather than her own was incredibly dangerous (since she wasn't quite in Nagi's weight class) but it would also be a lot more fun. At least, it would be fun as long as her beloved never found out. A second to think about their last passionate encounter, to let the warmth of that memory fill her usually cold heart, and then she focused on the business at hand.

No guards greeted her, and so she rose up and began walking in slow, cautious, circling steps through the cabin - circling quickly enough that her blindspot moved too frequently to be exploited, but not fast enough to make her dizzy. She had never come here - her one meeting with her husband's stalker had occurred in Konoemon's office, a more neutral location - but Negi's descriptions before she set out had been photographically detailed.

Arika made her way to the stairs leading down into the basement, but avoided using them, instead walking to the edge of the breach between the floors then dropping into it, catching the floorboard to give a moment of hangtime to survey the landing area, before letting herself fall. It was more dangerous, but paradoxically more cautious as well; had she herself been building a sanctuary like this and expecting company, she'd have put traps on the stairs.

Past rows of creepy dolls, she found the resort she'd been told about. Once, apparently, there had been satellite globes surrounding the central one, but those had been put away for the moment. Arika cautiously reached towards the globe with her hand.

"I wouldn't," said the cowled presence on the other side of it.

She let her hand drop and took a step back. "I'm amazed to learn that there's something you wouldn't do, Albireo," she said dryly.

"As am I, Arika. Are you going to ask?"

"It would be rude," she replied.

"Gracious even under these circumstances," Al said, clearly amused. "Very well. I swear to you, by the love I bore and bear for Nagi, the only thing I hold sacred, that I did not consciously betray either of you when they came for me." His mouth twisted. "They may have gotten your location from my mind after I lost consciousness, but I think that I managed to seal my memories before they could. I cannot say for sure, but there are other suspects, as you well know."

Her own mouth twisted, an uncomfortable reminder of how much she had in common with the saturnine mage before her. "There are. Two living, and one dead ... for my childrens' sake, as well as my own, I hope it was Gateau." Arika nodded towards the globe. "Do you know what that one's up to?"

"I do not," he replied, shaking his head. "Kitty and I are not on speaking terms at the moment. Projecting this image is taxing my abilities, but I believe that I can also alter the teleportal spell so that it won't deposit you in the same cell as Negi's two students. I cannot hide the alterations from Eva, nor can I offer you any assistance once you're inside."

Arika nodded sharply. "I came here expecting to have no assistance at all. Thank you, Al. I will see what I can do to speed your healing once this is done."

"Eh, don't bother. I kind of enjoy snoozing in my pavillon." Al raised a hand and began a quiet chant in Latin, invoking a spell of metamagic. "Tis done," he said. "But if you would repay me, Arika, try to be kind to Eva. She is a better person than she realizes."

"Some have said that about you," Arika said as she reached for the globe.

"Liars and knaves, the lot of them."

"Indeed." And then she was gone.

She found herself in a castle hallway, surrounded by a dozen or so robots in maid outfits. Clearly, Eva had been expecting Al to offer his assistance. (Either that, or they were in on it together. It was so hard not to be paranoid sometimes.) She slowly turned in a circle, evaluating her opposition. Matters didn't look good.

"None of you is the actual Chachamaru Kurukuri, correct?" she asked.

"Please surrender, Arika-sama," one of the robots said politely. "Our instructions are to avoid causing you harm if at all possible, but the Mistress recognized that you might make that difficult."

"I would appreciate an answer to my question before I give any thought to your proposal," Arika answered brusquely.

"Very well," said the robot beside the one who'd spoken earlier. "You are correct that none of us are the prototype Chachamaru Kurukuri, the mistress' primary partner and member of Class 3-A of Mahora Academy Junior High School for Girls. We are mass production models running a more limited version of her operating system. Regardless of this -"

"Oh, I think that this is pertinent. I am given to understand that my son is quite fond of that particular construct, and I would hate to do her injury and thus hurt his feelings. So I'm glad she is not among you." Arika stood with her hands open and ready.

"Please be reasonable, Arika-sama. Do you really think that you are our equal in strength or speed? You are well-known to be a capable general and warrior, but do you think that you are superhuman?"

"No," Arika answered.

"Then you must surrender."

"No. And I think that you have misunderstood my earlier refusal of your request for me to be reasonable to be an answer in the negative to your two successive questions." She turned her wrist slightly, and her Pactio card slid out of it into her hand. "Adeat," she said. A pair of gleaming knives appeared in her hands, and at once, she began the Human Killing Dance. That it was now used to destroy the false life of pantomines of humanity in no way detracted from its terrible, savage beauty.

In a way, it was funny, she mused as her blades sliced through phoney flesh and plastic and metal, drawing on the almost unlimited power behind the pact to enhance her strength and speed far beyond what the robots could do. The picture of the woman warrior always had her armed with a sword; even her own daughter used one. Swords were the noble weapon, or so the grand lie proclaimed. The irony was that a sword was a defensive weapon - the reason for having such a long blade was to keep opponents at a distance. In close-in fighting, which was what almost all battle came down to in the end, that length was a disadvantage, preventing you from putting your strength behind the blade's point.

For close-in fighting, to protect herself, a girl needed a knife. And she had hers.

In more time than it took to tell it, the robots lay in shattered pieces all around her. She was not unmarked, however. Sparks had scorched her leather, lubricants stained them, and one of the robots had managed to cut her cheek before she sliced off its arms and legs. But she was alive, and they ... had never been, but were no longer functional, and that was how she'd wanted it.

"Got any more of these dolls, Dark Evangel?" she called out.

"As a matter of fact, I do," a voice echoed through the halls. "It will take some time to bring them online, however. So why not skip ahead to the boss stage? Just follow the sound of my voice, and it'll lead you right to me. Assuming that this isn't a trap, of course."

"I think I'll take that chance, obaasan," Arika replied as she started running down the hallway, keeping an eye out for the aforementioned trap or traps. As well as other things.

"What do you just call me?" the voice asked, sounding startled.

"Obaasan," she repeated, articulating each syllable. "Aunt, or technically great-aunt, with a few more greats in there. You're not the only one well-informed, Queen of Puppets. I have heard stories about the first, failed attempt to breed someone with Magic Cancel. How they thought they had a real prospect on their hands, and so she was hidden away in a castle on Mundus Vetus. How someone objected to the plan, and so worked a magic to turn their prospect into a Shinso. I know about you," she concluded.

"And doubtless find the story funny," came the angry hiss of the voice as she reached a turn in the corridor.

No, not here. "Not for the most part, no. But I have to admit that I find the part where you swear vengeance on the one who did this to you, and possibly even accomplish it, to be quite a laugh. So self-absorbed, you never even realize that he did you a favor. Or does the prospect of spending centuries in suspension, waiting to be hauled out to be used as a weapon, have some perverse amusement for you?" Like the first Asuna. Like what they'd wanted to do to her baby.

"Shut up," said the voice, now in a snarl. "Do you have any idea -"

"No, and I don't care!" Arika snapped. Yes. There. "You've had a hard life. So have I. So has everyone else in the world, but most of them don't choose to sit around on their asses playing video games and talking about how rotten they have it. And they don't kidnap the children of their stalker-like fixation as part of some sort of twisted plot against him." She reached the bend, and paused there. "My daughter actually thinks you deserve to be happy. Rest assured, I don't share her naivete. You can rot, for all I care."

Silence from the speakers, and for a moment she wondered if maybe she'd driven the vampire into some sort of silent frenzy. Then the voice began again. "You're jealous," she said, with a tone of disbelieving wonder. "But that doesn't make any sense. You're not jealous of the other women he took to his bed, and why should you be, when you've done as many men and women alike. But you're jealous of me. Because you know that I could have given him something you never could. And that terrifies you, because you know you would have lost him to me."

Fury almost made her ruin her careful work. "He never would have taken your sick offer, Mage of the Evil Dead! His was the flame of life, not to be consumed by some sick parody of it -"

"I suppose that we will yet see, won't we? But in the interim, why don't you come down here, to the end of the hall, and we will settle this, face to face."

"Suits me fine," Arika said, and set herself to walking.

She headed down the corridor, knives ready at her side, until she reached a doorway marked with the words, Lasciate Ogni 'Speranza, Voi Ch'entrate. without hesitation, she passed within ... to find Evangeline, dressed in lingerie and her cape, lounging on a dark throne and delicately sucking a lollypop in the center of the pitch black room beyond. Chachazero mimicked her mistress' posture on the throne's arm.

"Fool," the vampire said, and behind the woman in yellow leather, a wall of thick iron slid down to block the door. Behind it, locks could be heard engaging. "You walked right into the trap. Now, even if you somehow go beyond the impossible and defeat us, you will never be able to escape from this place. Even those blades you carry won't cut through that, not without years of work."

"And we're going to kill you before that happens," Chachazero interjected. She looked up at her mistress with something sickeningly like hope on her unchanging features. "I really do get to kill her, right? No more capture games? I get to cut her open and bathe in her blood and viscera? Like the good old days?"

"Yes," Evangeline confirmed, her eyes little more than white pinpricks in a sea of red. "Well, Queen of Calamity? What have you to say to that?"

"Never use an ace when a two will do," the woman replied, in a much higher than usual voice. Then her eyes went blank and her head tilted far to one side. "You make love like a god, Nagi-kun," added the skikigami in Arika's form.

Eva bit the lollypop cleanly in half.

Arika (the real one, again) ran headlong down the corridor, turning aside to the branch that came just before the marked doorway that had sealed itself off. She had been tempted to go down to face the vampire in person after that last calumny, but self-control had saved her once again, and so she'd stood in the blind spot in the castle's security network, and created her shikigami duplicate. The point of this exercise wasn't to confront Evangeline, it was to rescue the girls. Her pride could wait another day.

But that day would come.

She slowed as she saw that the hallway came to an end with a locked and barred door to one side. Nor was it unguarded. One more maid robot stood there, clearly waiting for her. Somehow, Arika knew that this was not one of the drones. "Chachamaru-san, I presume," she said. She didn't banish the blades just yet, but she was wiling to try sweet reason first.

"Indeed, Arika-sama. I am pleased to finally meet Negi-sensei's mother, though I regret that it occurs under these conditions," the robot said, and there was a distinct timbre to her voice that was utterly absent in those she'd fought. "My orders from my mistress are to prevent you from entering into this room."

"I see. And do you intend to follow those orders?"

Chachamaru looked away. "I am torn," she said quietly. "On the one hand, I truly believe that the mistress deserves my unquestioning support. On the other hand, I know that Negi-sensei would not approve of this, and as he is my teacher, my partner and one of the dearest people to me, I do not want him to have cause to be ashamed of me."

"That is what it is to have divided loyalties," Arika agreed. "I can well imagine how I would feel if I were to be faced with a choice between my loyalty to my husband and my loyalty to my children. You have my sympathies. But you must make a choice."

"That is so. I can choose to betray one of those whom I owe loyalty ... or I can choose to do nothing, and by inaction betray them both," Chachamaru mused aloud. "Either way, I damage my self-esteem. I do not like this."

"I can tell you comforting lies about forgiveness, if you'd like?" Arika offered.

"No. I think I know that which I must do. I will obey another loyalty altogether," Chachamaru said, shaking her head once. Then she turned and lifted the bar holding the door closed out of its holders, set it against the wall, and stepped back. "I will remain, and face the consequences of my actions," she added.

"I see," said Arika, who didn't, and wondered what on Earth the creature was talking about. But she went over to open the doors nonetheless.

And coughed as she watched two of the girls getting dressed quickly. "Chisame-san and Ayaka-san, correct?" she said. "Where's -"

"Chizuru was hurt attempting to save us, I believe that she has a broken wrist," Ayaka interrupted, pulling on her shirt and standing up. "She passed out from the pain a while ago. Can you help her?"

"I am not a healer, and no potion I have will cure a broken limb," Arika replied grimly, impressed despite herself by the girl's cool head. It reminded her of her own. "I do have one that will act as an analgesic and bring her around. Then I will have to carry her -"

"I will carry her," Ayaka interrupted again, her face stern and set. "She has carried me often enough."

Arika smiled. For the first time, she wondered what it would be like to take one of Nagi's other children as a lover. The one time she'd met one before this, when they'd been living with Nekane, the girl had not been in the right frame of mind to accept her attentions. (And of course, there had been no way of being sure that she was Nagi's daughter. She could simply be his neice, despite his cuckolding of his brother.) It would be interesting, she thought. "As you wish," she said aloud.

She brought the potion, which was one of those which worked through scent, up to Chizuru's nose. The girl came awake slowly, and looked up blearily. "A rescue, au secours," she said, wearily.

"Indeed so. Chisame-san, are you ready to depart from this cheerless place?" Arika asked as Ayaka began lifting her friend into the fireman's carry.

"Yeah, I guess," the girl in glasses and a bikini muttered, not looking at her.

"Is there something you'd like to ask?" Arika replied, just a little sharply.

The girl hesitated, then looked at her angrily. "You know who I am. You know who we are. Why are -"

"Because you are who you are," she answered the question before it was asked. "You are my son's students, and more than that, you are his friends and companions. And, yes, you two are the children of my beloved. That makes you dear to me, as well. Especially you, who are so much like him," she added.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chisame cried, eyes wide. "I'm nothing like -" She waved a hand wildly.

"I have no time to explain this now, Chisame-san," Arika answered, shaking her head. "We have to leave now, before Evangeline is able to escape from her own trap. And you are the only one who can get us out of here. I have been here only a few hours, Ayaka-san and Chizuru-san somewhat longer. You're the only one who can open the teleporter to escape from here. Now come on."

They went out of the cell, to find Chachamaru still standing there looking at them ... correction, looking at Chisame. The robot seemed about to say something, but Chisame looked away furiously, and whatever might have been said went unsaid. But Arika finally understood what other loyalty the robot had spoken of, and finally felt a bit of genuine pity for her.

But only a bit.

They raced through the castle halls, finally emerging on the bridge that led out above the waters. "Be careful, I cannot fly, if you fall, I cannot rescue you," Arika warned them. "Everyone hold hands with Chisame-san." That should not be a problem for Ayaka, given that they had clearly been past that point by the time she entered the room, she thought slyly.

And just as Evangeline burst from the door leading into her resort, screaming curses ... the teleportal opened, depositing them in the basement of her cabin. Chizuru let out a sigh of relief as they landed.

"No time for that," Arika snapped. "She could follow at any time. Up, up and out." But within her heart, she was exultant. She'd beaten her. She'd beaten the witch.

On the bridge leading up, Evangeline looked up at the false sky ... and smiled. "I win," she said.

NEXT: Madoka
- 17
- 18
- 19
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Decadent Habits