Zero No Tsukaima Fan Fiction ❯ Zero No Tsukaima Darkness Rising ❯ The Book ( Chapter 6 )

The Book

 

The group decides its best to wait until night again to leave and also to let Zion and Tabitha have a day to themselves since they had become married. As Seth is packing up his tent he notices that Tabitha must've snuck the two items from the library into his pack because there they are, standing out against his supplies and clothing from earth and his new life, a leather book and a wand with a closed fist holding it.

I really need to check these things out, they have to be important since Griffin went to the trouble of stealing that sword that was with these two things.

The wand seems to not peak his interest in the least but the book, that book, just sitting in his pack not a sign a use, no designs or words of any kind, just a simple leather cover.

He picks up the book, everything around him seems to small comparied to this book, nothing but what is inside this book matters to him, how could it?

As if someone had put a soft hand to his cheek he feels, comfort. The longer he stares at the book the more it seems to call to him to open it, “What harm can there be in opening a book?” Seth moves his hand over the smooth material that makes up the cover and gently grabs the over hang of the cover. Like someone had hit him with a brick his vision goes blurry, his whole body begins to tremble, and his stomache feels like it has been turned upside down.

Seth drops the book and the cover closes, his body slowly return to normal

What was that, I felt so bad, but at the same time, it felt.......good? How could that be?

Though he knows what only opening the book does, he feels compelled to read it. He reaches back to the book and lifts it. With a deep breath he opens the book again, this time nothing, no pain, no sickness, just a book. The first page has nothing on it, seems like a pretty steep punishment before for opening a book with nothing on the first page. He flips the page and once again nothing.

HOW CAN THERE BE NOTHING IN THIS BOOK!!?

He begins to frantically flip through the pages

Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, NOTHING!? I don't get it, what did I feel before, if there is nothing in this book than what was the point of it being stored with that sword and......wand

Seth almost dives at his backpack and pulls out the fist held wand. “What should I do?” With an increase feeling of awareness around himself he puts it down on the ground and raise his fist.

With a powerful swing the fist shatters releasing the wand from its secure place inside of the hand. His breathing increases as he begins to become worried, “Maybe I should find Rain, or maybe even that old man Osmond......No he'd be of no help at all.”

Seth puts the book and the wand into his backpack and runs toward the academy to find someone who could help.

 

 

Airo and Hina are sitting underneith a tree that has flowers beginning to bloom.

Airo looks at Hina who is sitting beside him admiring the flowers her hand clutched to her heart, silently marveling at their beauty. Airo stands up and jumps up into the air, The fully bloomed flowers are much higher than the half way bloomed but the height doesn't seem to really matter as he reaches the top picks a flower and falls back to the ground. He lands on the ground and hands Hina the flower, his face growing red.

She smiles and takes it placing the flower in her hair and placing a kiss on his cheek, “Thank you Airo.”

Airo smiles and sits back down next to her his face still red, but recovering.

“HEY GUYS.........”

They look away from each other to see Seth running towards them, “Hey.....” As he reaches them he stops and rests his hands on his knees catching his breath, “Have...you....seen....Rain?”

“She was with a servant, Siesta, I think was her name.” Before Airo can say anything else Seth takes off towards the servants building.

“What was that all about,” Hina turns to Airo, “Should we follow him.”

Airo takes in an agrivated breath and stands up, “I suppose...” He helps her get up and they following Seth who is already far ahead of them.

As he reaches the servants building an explotion blows the door open but this time Seth jumps back and dodges the attack, just to be struck in the head by a pot that had fallen from window high above the door. He begins to curse under his breath as he enters the building following the sound of Louise yelling at Saito.

He reaches a middle level of the building which seems to be the main cooking area of the building as there are stoves and cooking utilities scattered all over the room.

Among all the cooks Saito, Louise, Rain, Zion, and Tabitha are all standing by a table with a three level cake resting in the middle of it.

A wedding cake?

Seth quickly remembers why he tried to find them in the first place, “guys I have something to show you!” He takes his back pack off and slams it down on the table, “Me and Tabitha got these from the underground library the night that guy beat the crap out of us.” Seth opens his pack as Airo and Hina both arrive and pulls out the book and the wand.

Louise looks at the two things that Seth had pulled out of the pack with very little interest, “Why are you so worked up over a book and a wand, all mages have wands.” Everyone but Tabitha nods in agreement as she was with Seth and saw how important those two things must be, though she does note that the hand that holding the wand is now gone.

Seth's face turns red as his seriousness is written off as nothing at all, “HEY!” Everyone stops their small conversations and turn back to Seth, “I'm serious, these where at the very back of that old library, that has to mean they have some kind of important. And let's not forget that guy that nearly killed me and Airo with a sword, that sword was also in the back of that library.” This brings everyone's attention to the possiblity of this being a very serious situation.

Tabitha reaches for and picks up the book, before Seth can warn her she opens it and her glasses almost fall off her face, “Empty?”

Louise picks up the wand and just like Tabitha, nothing happens.

Seth practicly looses his mind when what he felt, what he knew happened didn't happen to either Louise or Tabitha.

Saito puts his hands behind his head and leans back against a stove, “So they are just a book and a wand?”

Seth can't find the words to back up his experience beyond, “I know what I felt.......”

Rain rests her hand on his shoulder and looks up into his hazel eyes, “Felt?..........Seth what color are your eyes?”

Seth finds the question very agrivating, “Green.....”

What kind of dumb question is that we've been married this whole time and she can obviously see my eyes right now, how dumb...

Rain takes hold of his head and pulls down on him so that he is eye level with her, “Seth your eyes are....Hazel.”

Seth pulls his head away from her grasp, “So what, I guess I was wrong, my eyes aren't green!”

Zion looks at his friend, “Seth your eyes, were green....”

“I'm sorry Zion you must be mistaken.” Seth's voice conveying his obvious anger and irritation, “Why does that even matter?!”

“Did you open the book too?” Tabitha keeps flipping through the pages, all empty.

“I already said I opened the book...” Seth voice is less angry towards Tabitha as her question actually has something to do with what he was so worried about in the first place. “I felt sick and fine at the same time when I opened that book, it was the strangest and most familiar kind of feeling I've ever felt.”

“Maybe your eyes have something to do with the book.”

“I doubt it Tabitha, I think you guys just forgot what color my eyes are, that can't have anything to do with what's going on.”

Zion looks sternly into his eyes, “I don't forget, I have the left eye of God remember? Your eyes, were green.”

Hina casually looks over at Seth and notices that she can see his runes faintly glowing through the black sleeve he is wearing over his left arm, “Ummmm.... Seth are you okay?”

Seth looks at Hina and notices the worried look on her face, “I feel okay, why?”

She points at his left arm, “Your runes are glowing......”

Seth looks at his arm and his face turns from curious to completely puzzled.

That doesn't look right.....

Seth grabs the top of the sleeve and rolls it down to his elbow, his eyes go wide as his looks down at his runes, “Those aren't supposed to be there!?”

Rain moves past Hina and looks at her husbands runes, the runes that he received when she sealed the contract with him as her familiar, “He's right, there are more markings now than there where before.

Everyone moves to Seth's left side and look at his arm symbols that look like Saito's are now surrounded by three circles with smaller different runes inside them all connected by a circle around the origenal runes.

Seth looks at Rain with worry in his eyes, “What should I do, is this bad?”

Rain looks at the other natives of this world and none of them can offer anything that could be of any help.

Saito puts his hand to his chin and then like he was suddenly shocked he looks up, “Professor Colbert can help, he is the one who did the research that lead to me finding out I'm like Gandalfer.”

Louise knocks him in the back of the head, “Baka you should also remember that he has taken his newest airship to Queen Henrietta, he's not here.”

“Does he have a lab,” Zion looks at the rune and then back to Louise, “me and Tabitha are good with books, I'm sure we'll have this figured out before long.” Tabitha contributes to the statement by pushing up her glasses and nodding.

“Yeah he does I'm sure he'll be fine with us using his lab,” Louise leads Zion and Tabitha out of the room, “BAKA come on!” Saito turn in the direction of the voice and follows after his mage.

 

Hina and Airo soon leave the room as well leaving Rain, Seth, and all the other worker who had not been paying any attention to their conversation in the first place.

“Rain, I'm not from here, I need to know what you know, do you think this is bad?” Seth sits down at the table and looks at the empty book and the equally useless wand.

Rain sits down next to him and rubs her hand on his back, “I don't know, these runes are different from the ones that are on Saito and the others. It stopped glowing at least.”

He smirks and looks at Rain with a side long glance, “Cause the books closed.......”

Rain frowns and thinks about what he just said. She reaches across the table and flips open the book. The new runes on his arm begin to glow. She closes the book and just a moment after his runes stop glowing. “How did you know that?”

Seth who hasn't even been paying attention looks at his wife, “Know what?”

Rain shakes her head and opens the book again. Seth's runes begin to glow and just as before as she closes the book the runes stop, “That is what I'm talking about.”

“Lucky guess?.......”

Seth takes the book and opens it the pages are still blank so he closes it. “So I guess that means that this wand is about as useless as a book with no words huh?” He picks up wand and he gets a sudden shock of light blue lightning making him drop the wand and the book, “OW!!!!” Seth picks up the wand and this time nothing happens, “What the hell do these things do one bad thing to me and then never work again?!” He slams the wand back down ontop of the book and he gets another shock, this one strong enough to shoot him out of his seat and down to the floor.

Rain can't do anything but watch as her husband stays on the floor long after his shock, apparently choosing the floor over sitting at the table with the wand and book. After a few more minutes she becomes irritated with his choice in seating and grabs his wrist, “Get up Seth....”

Seth gets up though having his wrist tugged on didn't help at all, it made it more difficult to get up, “Okay, okay I'm up but I'm not touching that wand or that book, they both hate me......”

Rain smiles at Seth's beilief that two inanament objects have begun to harbor a hatred for him, 'I wonder why he says these kind of things, it must be because of where he came from that, America.'

Seth opens up his back pack and pulls out two headbands that he wraps around his hands and picks up the book and puts it back and then the wand, which does nothing.

Rain gigglies at seeing her husband so deeply flustered by a book with no words and a wand that seems to be only able to shock him.

“I'm telling ya, they hate me.”

“They didn't shock you this time, the book never did.”

“Yeah the book just forced my eyes to change color and burned new runs into my skin that only glow when it's open.”

Rain's eyes seem to light up, “Take out the wand,” Seth gives her a very tired looking face and opens his pack and carefully removes the wand. “See nothing happened.” He nods an uneasy look on his face, “Now pull out the book,” Seth puts the wand down and reaches into the pack, “No keep the wand in your hand...” Seth looks just as agrivated as anyone could as he picks the wand up in his right hand and reaches into his pack with his left.

He grabs the book and is instantly shocked again sending him crashing back to the floor, “OWWWWW!!!!!!!!!”

Rain looks at the wand and the book, “They only shock you if you are holding both, that is strange.”

Seth from the floor only grunts out his agreement with how strange it is though his mind is wondering in the direction of strange only he gets shocked. “Rain please put the wand back into the pack, I've had enough fun for one day............”

She complies with his request and they leave the building to find where Colbert's lab is located.

 

 

After searching for some time Rain and Seth find Kirche and she leads them to the lab. As they walk in only Zion and Tabitha are reading Saito is lying on the floor holding his, privates and Louise is standing over him he hands formed into tightly clenched fists and her face completely flush.

“Have you guy found anything out?” The reply to Seth's question is just simple silence, beside Saito's moans as he slowly rocks on his side on the floor. “I'll take that as a....”

Tabitha looks up form her book, “Yes,” she hands the book to Seth and points to a paragraph half way down the page, “Here.”

Seth looks at the book, “The mark of the 'Seer' has only been bestowed upon one person, believed to be dead long before Gandalfr came to this world. Though no solid evidence beyong the marking that appear to have been burned into the arm bones of the man once known as the worlds greatest philosopher Haimere.” Further down the page there are pictures of the bone put in various formations making rune-like shapes, one of them is the exact same as the new runes on his arm. “So what does that mean, I have the same runes as this Haimere guy, he was just a philosopher right?”

Zion puts a book back that he was reading, “It is widely believed that he was a prophet of doom or soothsayer. The library that you and Tabitha went into, accourding to this book is made up of many of his books.”

Seth shrugs, “So he was 'believed to be this' and he collected a bunch of books and put them into a library doesn't really seem very interesting to my current problem.”

“Maybe that book and wand were his?” Louise boots Saito in the gut making him shut up.

“Shut up BAKA!”

Zion opens another book seemingly indifferent to Saito's pain, “That might be right, if he contributed to the library then maybe those are his things.”

Seth crosses his arms, “What about the sword then, why would he have a wand and a sword.”

“Maybe he had a familiar from earth like us?”

“BAKA!”

Before Louise hits Saito, Tabitha looks up from her book, “That might be true.” She keeps flipping through the pages, “After all before Louise there were othere true Void Mages, and like her perhaps they had summoned familiars from........?”

“Earth” Saito chimes as Tabitha seemed to have forgotten.

Seth walks over to Rain who has remained quiet the whole time, just absorbing what has been said, “So is there anything to worry about?” She leans back and rests again Seth's abdomin, “I mean what could be the trouble of having the same runes that a guy held in such regard. Maybe this is a good sign.” Seth begins to rub Rain's shoulder making her relax and close her eyes a very content smile adorning her face. “Besides we should stop this, we have to start traveling for Germania tomarrow.” Tabitha stops reading but Zion seems oblivious to what Seth said, “Zion, you have more important things than books today.”

Zion closes the book he had been previously reading, a some what self-satisfied smile growing on his face, “I guess you are right Seth, thanks for reminding me.” He puts the book back and takes Tabitha's hand, “I have been a rather bad husband already, I mean to make tht up to you.” She smiles and they leave together.

Saito finally is allowed back up by Louise as they both watch in a sort of amazment of how far Tabitha has come, from the girl that barely said anything to the new married and, though not very much, outterly emotional.

Louise and Saito catch each other looking into the others eyes and both there faces turn red.

Louise shakes her head and turns around, “Come on Saito.”

For the second time in the day Seth and Rain where left alone in a room.

“Should we go....” Seth stops rubbing her shoulders.

She reaches up and takes his hand, “No...”