Witness to a Miracle
By: James D. Fawkes

I: Fate to Zero
— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière was a failure as a mage.

It was certainly true that she knew magic. It was certainly true that there was no one at Tristain's Academy of Magic who studied as hard as her, who mastered the theory as completely as she did, and who tried as much as she did. That much was definitely true, and Louise had some pride in being the top of her class, of her year, in the theoretical aspects of magic.

But Louise could not cast magic.

No, more than just that, Louise utterly failed at magic.

It might have been different, of course, if her spells just didn't work — if she said the words, recited the incantations, and nothing happened at all. But that wasn't what happened.

When Louise failed at magic, she didn't fail because nothing happened or because she was not a mage in the first place. When Louise failed at magic, it was because the spells simply didn't work. Everything she tried from every element, and even spells that didn't rely on the elements at all, did one irrefutable thing, and did it every time.

They blew up.

And it wasn't that they just fizzled and popped harmlessly. When Louise's spells failed, they failed catastrophically.

Thankfully, no one was ever seriously injured in those explosions, nor, Founder forbid, did anyone die, but Louise had lost more than one set of clothing trying to get her spells to work, and…

Well, failing to cast the spells was one thing, but infinitely more humiliating was walking around with her clothing in scraps and her underwear showing off for everyone to see. Those were times when Louise just wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole (whether because God had taken pity on her or some earth mage with a grudge had come to assassinate her, she wasn't picky).

At first, Louise had been more frustrated than anything else. Sure, she hadn't done much better at home with her parents' magic lessons than she did at school, but she'd been hoping, perhaps too desperately, that the Academy would have something to help her, something that would clear up whatever it was that was screwing up her casting ability. When it hadn't, she'd just wanted to scream as loud as she could and punch something, preferably Kirche von Zerbst's face.

But things never got better. In fact, the older she got, the more explosive her failures became, and the more and more Louise was starting to feel less like the daughter of a powerful duke and duchess and more like some kind of freak, like maybe her classmates were right and she really was a hopeless loser, a Zero.

That she didn't belong.

That she was a total failure.

That she would never amount to anything.

That she should just save everyone the trouble and just…disappear.

There were several nights where she had sat in front of her vanity with a steak knife she had pilfered from the dining hall and considered sliding the blade across her wrists. She even had a single, tiny scar, a barely visible white line on her left wrist, where she had tried it one night and lost her nerve before she could cut deep enough to do anything else.

Something, she wasn't sure what, had stopped her from going all the way.

Maybe it was Wardes, she thought sometimes, and the knowledge of how disappointed he would be if she had gone through with it. Maybe it was her mother, she thought at others, who had always taught her to be strong.

Whatever it was, it sustained her long enough to last her first year, where she aced the theoretical portion of her final exams and flunked the practical. After that, she learned that they would be summoning their familiars at the start of the next school year, and something inside of her had jumped up and coiled excitedly in her belly.

Hope.

If she could just summon a familiar, she decided, if she could just do this one thing properly, then maybe her luck would change, maybe she could start casting magic properly, maybe she could start earning the respect she so desperately craved…

Maybe she could stop being the Zero.

She threw herself into research after that, reading up on what kind of familiars were common, what familiars were connected to which of the four elements, what she needed to do to complete the summoning spell, what she could expect realistically as a mage…

And, most importantly, what the rarest, most powerful familiars were and how to improve her chances of summoning one.

Even during her vacation, she spent as much time as she could absorbing text after text dealing with familiars, until she could just about quote both the facts and the folklore off by heart. Before she knew it, school was starting up again, and suddenly, the day had arrived.

She was going to summon a familiar.

She was so giddy and so excited that she nearly didn't sleep the night before, and she had drawn practice circles on every spare sheet of paper she could find, just to make sure she wouldn't get it wrong the next day. When she woke up, even though she had only gotten a few hours of sleep, she felt refreshed, rejuvenated, and energetic, like she had a new lease on life and nothing could get her down.

The morning passed in a blur, and the mingled hope and excitement coiling in her center left her blind and deaf to the normal taunts and teasing that followed her around, and with every minute, the haze of anticipation made her head hotter and hotter as her stomach did flip-flops.

In truth, it was agony to have to wait until the end — for some reason, she was scheduled to go last, so she was forced to watch impatiently as her classmates all performed the ritual and called forth a familiar (though she did snort whenever someone got something incredibly common, like a cat or a sparrow).

And no, she wasn't jealous when that mysterious Tabitha summoned a dragon, nor when that cow, Kirche von Zerbst, summoned a salamander from the Fire Dragon Mountains. Nope. She couldn't be, because Louise was determined to summon something better than all of that, something that would put the both of them to shame.

Like a Rhyme Dragon (though those were said to be extinct).

Or…Or maybe some type of creature that was so rare and so powerful that no one had even heard of it before.

Yeah. That would suit her just fine.

Finally, though, it was her turn, and Louise carved the magic circle into the ground, pulled out her wand, and recited the incantation.

And like everything else she'd tried to do with magic, it exploded.

Worse still, Louise discovered with a plummeting stomach, nothing had come through.

"Miss de La Vallière," Mister Colbert had started.

"Let…let me try again!" Louise said, a little more desperately than she'd intended.

For a moment, Colbert looked like he would refuse, even as her classmates began to jeer, but then he sighed and gave her a nod, so Louise tried a second time.

And then a third.

And then a fourth.

And nothing came through.

"Miss de La Vallière," Mister Colbert started again, sounding regretful.

But Louise couldn't stop. Even though the beginnings of disappointment were starting to overwhelm her earlier excitement, she couldn't stop. This was her only chance — her last chance. She couldn't fail.

She couldn't.

Because…if she failed, then…

Then…

"My servant!" Louise began again, talking over Colbert. She ignored the way her voice had cracked and soldiered on. "My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe!"

Save me!

The magic circle engraved in the courtyard began to glow, as it had the other times. There was no reason why it should work this time when it hadn't the others.

"Just give it up, Vallière!" someone said.

"Yeah! It didn't work the last four times, either!" someone else shouted.

Save me!

But Louise couldn't fail, because something terrible awaited her if she did.

Because the scar on her wrist told her what would happen if she did.

So she did the only thing that she could to make a difference — she poured as much of her Willpower as she could into the spell, so much that her wand grew hot in her hand, so hot that it burned, and it was only because of the terror of failure that she managed to hold onto it, even though it felt like the skin of her palm was boiling.

"My divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant!" she continued desperately. "From the very bottom of my heart, I call for you!"

Save me!

"In the name of the Five Great Powers," she raised her voice over the pounding of blood in her ears, "in the name of the sacred Pentagon, abide my will and reason…and answer!"

Please, save me!

For a long moment that stretched into eternity, nothing happened, not even the explosion of the other times. The last note of her incantation hung in the air, ringing throughout the courtyard, and fell into crushing silence. It seemed that she had failed.

And then, it happened.

And then, like the heartbeat of an old god, pulsing with power as he awoke from an eon-long sleep…

Something thrummed.

In answer to Louise's call, something thrummed, something so basic and so primal that it resonated inside of her chest. It was like she was being filled, filled with something unnamable, something that was so old and so rudimentary that it had no name. It was powerful, powerful beyond anything Louise had ever known, beyond even her mother, the legendary Karin, whose wind magic was considered the pinnacle of the modern era.

And in that moment, Louise knew she had succeeded, and a thrill of victory made her heart skip a beat.

And then it exploded.

The ground shuddered underneath the pressure of the wave of heat and force that blasted out from the summoning circle, sending Louise stumbling backwards as cries of alarm arose from her classmates. Immediately following it was a cloud of smoke and debris that expanded like a balloon filling with air, covering the courtyard with a black haze.

"Geez!" someone said. "That was even worse than before!"

"You should just quit, Louise the Zero!" someone else called.

"Just give up already!"

"Yeah!"

But Louise was not paying them any mind, even as Colbert called for quiet. She could not pay them any mind. To begin with, their ramblings and ravings weren't even important.

Because she had just proved them all wrong.

She couldn't see it, she couldn't hear it or smell it, but she knew, with the same surety that the person she saw in the mirror was herself, that her familiar, the being she had summoned, the wonderful, divine, beautiful servant who had answered her call, was standing in the summoning circle, blocked by the smoke.

And the sweet taste of victory was to her the same as a glass of water to a man dying of thirst.

I did it, was the only thought in her head.

And then the smoke cleared to reveal a tan-skinned man with red-streaked white hair wearing outdated clothing…and the entire world fell out from under her.

In that moment, Louise wished that she had never been born.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

II. Omens

Tabitha had known for a while that her classmates were ignorant and pampered, that not one of them knew the world and just how ugly it was as well as she did. Oh, Kirche was a bit of an exception, to be sure, but even Kirche could be naïve and childish — Tabitha did not cherish her friend so greatly that she was also blind to Kirche's faults.

To begin with, she would not have survived as long as she had if she ignored things like that.

Considering her uncle and the devious mage to whom he was enthralled, she would have died long ago otherwise.

That was why, while all of the other students jeered and tossed insults at the strange man who had appeared from Louise's summoning, Tabitha instead observed him warily.

Because there was only one other person Tabitha knew who had summoned a human as a familiar.

At first glance, though, the strange man didn't seem like the sort of person who would bewitch his master and manipulate her to his own ends. In fact, considering the way he stood, the way he dressed, the strange sword sheathed at his hip, and a million other little things that she had observed about him, Tabitha thought that he more resembled some honorable knight from a bygone era than anything else.

And the way he talked, the calm, self-assured confidence that vibrated in his voice, made Tabitha want to believe everything he said.

Unlike her uncle's familiar, who used him like a puppet and ruled Gallia in all but name, there was something…heroic about the strange man with his white-and-red hair and his tanned skin. Something that made Tabitha feel like he would be there if she fell, that he would catch her, that even if she didn't want to be, he would save her.

For Tabitha, that was dangerous.

Because she could only rely on herself.

That was the way it had always been, ever since her mother had been poisoned and gone mad. The only one who would be looking out for Tabitha was Tabitha herself. There was no one else to stand beside her.

So Tabitha simply watched silently, peering surreptitiously over the top of her book, as the rest of her classmates jeered and threw insults. Beside her, her familiar, the Rhyme Dragon she had named "Sylphid," gave an uneasy squirm, which only solidified the ominous suspicions Tabitha had had about the man in red.

When the class was dismissed, Tabitha left with the rest of them only because she could not think of any excuses to stay and did not want the man in red to notice that she was wary of him. However, on the way back to her room, she made sure to cast a spell on Louise's door that would alert her when they came back and the moment someone left again.

After that, she went back to her own room, got Sylphid settled in, picked up the book she'd been reading before, and sat down, thumbing to the next chapter.

And then, she waited.

And she waited.

And she waited some more.

After the first half an hour or so, the spell on the door alerted her that Louise and her familiar had returned from outside, and maybe an hour after that, it alerted her again that someone had left. Marking her place with a bookmark, Tabitha set her book down on her nightstand and quietly peeked out of her door and down the hallway.

It was the man in red, looking serious and dangerous and hiding his tension so completely that Tabitha almost couldn't see it. He strode away from Louise's door and, not noticing her spying on him, left down the staircase.

Suspicious, Tabitha thought.

She backed away from her door and roused Sylphid, promised to make it up to her new dragon with an extra treat later on, and quietly and carefully snuck up to the roof of the tower. She peered down over the edge, shushing Sylphid, who was keening in a way that would have been impatient whining in a human, and watched with a wind spell to enhance her vision as the mysterious man walked back to the scorched spot that had been his entry point into this world.

Leaning back, Tabitha murmured a few orders in Sylphid's ears, then hefted herself up onto her dragon's back and gently kicked her heels into Sylphid's shoulders. With a mighty push, Sylphid lifted off of the ground and into the air, then, flapping her large wings like some kind of bird, started to climb higher into the sky and towards the two moons.

When they were safely gliding high above the Academy, Tabitha adjusted her glasses, leaned over the side of Sylphid's neck, and used a spell to enhance her sight and hearing. When she blinked again, she could see down the 470 meters to the ground, where the mystery man was holding a strange, jagged dagger that looked as though it would break the first time it was used in battle.

An athame? Was he about to engage in some sort of Protestant ritual?

For a long moment, he didn't move or do anything at all, just gazed at the dagger in his hand. Tabitha's shoulder was starting to get sore and numb from the position she was hanging in, but she did her best to ignore it and kept her focus entirely on the strange man so that she didn't miss anything he did.

Then, as Tabitha watched on with surprise, the crooked athame vanished into motes of golden light and disappeared like vapor.

"Sorry, guys," the stranger murmured into the wind, "it looks like I'll be gone for a while."

A brisk wind suddenly caught Sylphid's, and Tabitha was jostled about as Sylphid flapped her gigantic wings and dove through the breeze to keep herself from losing stability, but it was enough. The stranger startled far below and looked up — sloppy, Tabitha scolded herself, if she would've heard that, then he most certainly did.

The stranger looked up and said something, but Tabitha's concentration had already been broken, so her spell had sputtered and failed and she couldn't hear him.

But there was no way she could ignore it as he lifted a hand, pointed up at her, and mimed pulling back a bowstring.

"Child's play," she saw his lips form.

A jolt of panic shot through Tabitha's belly, and she leaned closer to Sylphid's ear.

"Back," she muttered urgently.

Sylphid keened lowly, then banked left and turned around, back towards the rampart they'd taken off from, back behind cover from the stranger, who Tabitha was now sure was much, much more dangerous than Uncle's familiar.

Sheffield might have bewitched Gallia's king and turned him into her puppet, but at least she didn't bother to hide her true nature. This stranger was hiding behind a veneer of nobility and generosity, so completely so that he radiated a feeling of safety and security that had nearly fooled Tabitha herself.

That made him much more dangerous.

And Tabitha could do nothing about it.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

To be continued

So, here it is, the first part of Witness.

In case it's not obvious, these are side stories — or more accurately, alternate perspectives — to scenes from Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken. That's mainly what will be going on, here.

On the other hand, I'll also be adding in some funny, non-canon clips, what the fanfiction community refers to as "Omake." Those ones will be clearly marked as separate with an [Omake] tag. In that vein, I'm also accepting Omake submissions, so if you have a short you want to write and have posted, please feel free to forward it to me. Just make sure it's shorter than 2000 words.

I should note, however, that not everyone's omake will be accepted, so please don't feel bad if yours isn't.

Also, I was thinking of adding that first scene to the actual MoZ story at the beginning of the first chapter. Let me know what you think of that idea.

As always, read, review, enjoy.