Any and all C+C is appreciated. You can contact me at sommer@3rdm.net

Disclaimer: Mahou Tsukai Tai belongs to Satou Junichi, Ohta Tami, Mad House / Triangle Staff, and Media Blasters. Bible Black belongs to Kitty Media and Media Blasters.

Foreword: This is the result of a challenge someone made to me to write a fic using Bible Black in it. I accepted. However, as one might guess from the inclusion of the Magic User's Club and the emphasis on its characters, this is a humor-oriented piece rather than anything lemony (and it's probably vexing to the challenger, since he was sure it would have to turn out to be a lemon). There's only sexual innuendo in this one, and is much more in the Magic User's Club vein than Bible Black. I openly admit it's not my best work, nor even my best short fic, but every now and then I like taking on a challenge and try to flex my mental muscles, as it were. In any case, I'm not really as satisfied with it as I'd like to be, so if anyone can help with it…?

Sae Sawanoguchi's face glowed with a joy so great that even her lifelong friend Nanaka Nakatomi would have been taken aback. The reason for her effervescence was simple. When Takakura-sempai and Aburatsubo had left for some sort of retreat for the various presidents and vice-presidents of the high school clubs, he had left Sae in charge. She thought it was wonderful that her sempai had so much confidence in her ability to oversee things during his absence. While he ran things with machine-like efficiency, and she knew she could never hope to match his skills in either administration or magic, she'd try her hardest and do her best. She couldn't disappoint him. She simply couldn't. She'd attack every task relentlessly until they were made perfect, no matter how difficult they might be.

Her eyes pored over the letter that Takakura had left for her. On it were contained the instructions for what to do while he and Aburatsubo were gone. It didn't seem that difficult. The first thing was that she and the others had to move the rest of the club's belongings to their new headquarters. After months of putting up with the Manga Club constantly encroaching on the limited space of the Magic User's Club's room (which was little larger than a broom closet to begin with), they had finally been granted a new room by the principal. It was all due to Takakura's tireless efforts to improve the club's standing so they would be taken seriously. He was so forceful and resourceful. Sae sighed to herself as she envisioned the man she trusted beyond any other.

The only other instruction of note said they should look over the new material on magic that he had dropped off in the new room already. They were to study the material carefully, and if they felt confident enough, to try out the spell. It was so wonderful that Takakura was willing to trust Sae to attempt some magic on her own. She'd do it, too. There was no way she'd let her sempai down!

The door to the club room slid open, and a slender girl with dark hair that had a short, pageboy style cut to it entered. "Okay, Sae, I'm here. What did you want?"

Sae beamed at her best friend. "Nanaka, Takakura-Sempai left us instructions on what to do while he's gone." She waved the letter excitedly back and forth.

Nanaka rolled her eyes. "Cut me a break. He just wants us to do the hard work and move everything while he loafs around at that retreat. I say we forget him and ditch the club until he gets back, then he can break out in a sweat doing some of the heavy work."

Sae ran up to Nanaka until she was standing next to her. She was close enough that Nanaka had to take a step back to keep from being knocked over.

Tears welled in Sae's eyes. "But we have to do this! Sempai placed his trust in me, and I can't let him down!"

Nanaka unleashed a sigh of defeat, one that held the weight of being practiced on many occasions. "All right, Sae. Since you're my best friend, I'll help you out."

Sae wrapped her arms around Nanaka in a warm embrace. "Oh, thank you. I don't know what I would have done on my own."

"Right, right," Nanaka said tiredly. "Where's the new room? We'll check it out, then move this stuff into it. Then we can head out and have some fun."

"Actually, Sempai also wanted us to look over some material on new spells and try them out."

Nanaka slapped her hand to her forehead. "Come on, Sae, that's a terrible idea. You know how your magic goes all over the place when you get excited. We'd be better off waiting for the guys to get back in case we need damage control."

"I've practiced hard since our encounter with the aliens and our trouble with Jinno. I'll do it right this time," Sae insisted, determination etched on her features.

"No matter what I say, you're going to try it anyway, aren't you?" Nanaka sighed again, slumping her shoulders in defeat. "Okay, okay. Let's get it over with."

"Thank you!" Sae embraced her friend again. Unable to contain her enthusiasm, she rubbed her body up and down against Nanaka's.

Nanaka blushed furiously. "Knock it off, Sae. People will think you're coming on to me or something." She pried Sae off. "At least Takakura isn't here, or he'd get that hentai look to his eyes and nosebleed all over the place."

"What do you mean 'hentai look'?" Sae asked, mystified.

Nanaka shook her head sadly. "If you can't see it yourself, don't worry about it. Let's just head to the new club room."

"We need to find Akane. We're supposed to practice the new stuff together," Sae insisted.

"She's not going to want to do it. She'll have some excuse and run off, like she usually does," Nanaka warned.

A light, airy voice from behind said, "I'm here. When do we start moving things?"

Nanaka nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned to see the attractive, disgustingly well built, — if somewhat flighty — white-haired Akane standing directly behind her. "How long have you been there?"

"Since Sae was rubbing you with her body," Akane said pleasantly. "You seemed to be enjoying it, so I didn't want to interrupt."

"I was not enjoying it!" Nanaka insisted.

"You don't like it when I hug you?" Sae asked, hurt on her face.

Nanaka held her hands up defensively. "It's not that I don't like you being friendly. It's just that rubbing your body up and down people is too friendly."

"I don't think it's too friendly." Akane moved next to Sae and embraced her, rubbing her body against the more demure features of her upperclassman.

Nanaka's eyes bulged at the display. It was times like this where Takakura would show up, misinterpret things, then have some hentai fantasy about it. But the boy hadn't shown up. It was sort of weird, having it happen when he wasn't around. It was like something was missing.

***

"So where is this new club room supposed to be?" Nanaka asked as she looked around the hallway.

Sae, who was in the lead, looked back toward the two girls following close behind. "It should be right around here. Sempai said it was in the basement, four doors down from the stairs."

"To the right of the stairs or to the left?" Nanaka asked, pointing out the fact that there were an equal number of doors on either side of the stairwell.

Sae gnawed on her fingernail. "I'm not sure. He wasn't that specific."

"The empty one will probably be our room," Akane pointed out.

"Right. It used to be the old Film Club's room, but they got a new place, so we got their old one," Sae said.

"A hand-me-down room. Nice to see we're so prestigious," Nanaka said dryly.

Sae headed to the door toward the left of the stairs. "Let's try this one." She opened it, discovering a dimly lit second set of stairs that led downward.

Nanaka stared at it in distaste. "I can see we got stuck with a real winner here."

"It probably has lots of room," Sae said hopefully, though there was a touch of trepidation in her voice.

The trio walked down the second stairwell, the air taking on a chill that made them shiver slightly.

"You think they could afford some heat," Nanaka said testily.

"It's a move up for us," Sae said, trying to be upbeat.

Eventually, they arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Before them was a wooden door, a large padlock, aged brown with rust, affixed to the handle.

"I can't believe those jerks locked the door behind them," Nanaka said.

"Sempai must have forgotten to give us the key. Now we can't get in. I've failed in the duties that were left for me. Sempai will never leave me in charge again," Sae wailed.

Akane pursed her lips in thought. From within her purse, she pulled out a stick with a small wooden duck attached to the top. She pulled out a card and placed it in the duck's bill. Closing her eyes, she concentrated. A blue nimbus of magical energy surrounded the card.

She began chanting in measured, dulcet tones, "Aefirium portus neopen. Aefirium portus neopen. Aefirium portus neopen."

The lock clicked open, flecks of rust falling to the floor.

Both Sae and Nanaka looked on her in awe.

"How did you do that?" Sae asked.

"I locked myself out of my apartment once. I mentioned it to Sempai, and he gave me some private lessons on how to open locks."

Satisfied by the explanation, the trio entered, Sae taking the lead while Nanaka and Akane stayed close behind. They entered a large chamber, ten meters long and as many wide. It was made with paved stone that reeked of age. The air was thick with mustiness, and a healthy coating of dust was layered on the floor. Wrought iron candle holders lined the walls. A huge stone slab, similar to a table, dominated the center of the room.

"You think they'd have cleaned up the place before we got here," Sae said, coughing on a cloud of dust her entry kicked up.

Akane cast another spell to ignite the candles that were still in the holders. The low level of illumination cast dancing shadows across the walls. The patches of darkness seemed to move independently of the light, lacking rhyme or reason to their movements.

Nanaka examined the chamber with a suspicious eye. "Sae, I don't think this is the right room. It looks like it hasn't been used in years. And what's with that giant thing?"

Sae examined the large table closely. "It looks like someone spilled red paint on it."

"Perhaps they were shooting a movie with a Goth theme before they left?" Akane suggested.

"Well, maybe," Nanaka said. "I'm still not sure this is the right place, though."

Sae shook her head. "I'm sure it's the right room. There's a feeling of magic about it."

"Oh." Nanaka conceded her friend's superior abilities when it came to magic. "Say, wasn't our esteemed president supposed to leave some magical stuff for us to practice with? I didn't see any around."

"Hmm. He wouldn't give us an impossible task. They must be in here somewhere." Sae began searching around the room.

Nanaka and Akane joined in. It was while probing the base of the table that Sae stumbled upon a secret compartment. She opened it up, and pulled out a black book. It had some sort of magical symbol on it, and a pentagram-shaped bookmark affixed to the spine.

Sae held it up for the others to see. "Found it. Sempai must have stuck it under there to keep anything from getting on the pages." She placed it on the stone table and opened the book.

Nanaka looked over her friend's shoulder. "Hey, it's in a language I can't read."

Sae continued leafing through book. She grew increasingly frustrated until she came upon a section that had kanji written in pencil next to an incomprehensible passage.

"Here we go. Sempai must have translated this part because he wanted us to study this ritual and perform it." Sae read the translation our loud. "Hmm. It says we need an altar. Where would we find one of those?"

Nanaka rapped her fist against the stone "table".

A knowing light formed in Sae's eyes. "Of course, I should have known Sempai would give us the proper tools to cast the spell. What else do we need?"

They continued reading in silence. Nanaka was the first to finish the next part. "Hey! It says we have to perform the ritual naked! I knew it! This is all a stupid plan by that pervert Takakura to see us nude! Well it won't work! No way am I stripping just to do a spell!"

Sae immediately leaped to Takakura's defense. "Sempai would not do such a thing! Besides, how could it be a plan to see us naked if he isn't here to see us perform the ritual?"

"That is a good point," Nanaka reluctantly admitted.

"If the ritual has to be performed naked, that would mean Aburatsubo would have to be naked as well," Akane said pointedly to Nanaka.

The girl's blustering suddenly ceased. "Um, well, yes, I guess it would. But that wouldn't concern me. Although if we were to take things seriously, I guess we would have to perform it after all." Suddenly, there was hope, rather than fear, in her voice.

Sae continued pondering the matter. "You know, the truth is, we're all naked under our clothing. So if you think about it that way, we wouldn't have to remove our clothing to perform the ritual, since we're all really naked to begin with."

Akane placed her finger to her chin in thought. "When you put it that way, it does make sense."

"Um, yeah, it does." While it actually didn't, Nanaka agreed with the train of thought since she had no desire to perform any magic in the buff.

With the decision unanimous, Sae continued reading. "It says here we need a sacrificial dagger."

"Why?" Nanaka asked.

"So we can sacrifice something," Sae said happily as she continued reading.

"Sacrifice something?! We can't do that!" Nanaka spluttered.

Upon Nanaka's utterance, the words sank in for Sae. "Gee, that does seem a bit odd. Why would we have to sacrifice something?"

"It's because Takakura is a weirdo," Nanaka said.

"He is not!" Sae retorted. "He didn't make up the spell. He has to follow the rules the same as us."

"Then why is he having us try to cast this spell?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons. He's never led us wrong," Sae insisted. "Sempai put his trust in me. I'm not going to fail him, no matter what. I'm going to cast this spell even if I have to do it alone."

Nanaka felt worried over her friend's uncharacteristically firm stance. "Sae, listen to reason. There's something funny going on here. I don't think—"

"Does it specify what needs to be sacrificed?" Akane asked.

The interruption made both the girls lose track of the argument neither wanted to begin with. Sae looked it over. "No. It just says 'sacrifice'. It doesn't say what."

"How about if we sacrifice a spider?" she scrunched up her face. "They're yucky. I step on them all the time. I don't think stabbing one with a dagger is any different from squashing them with a foot. A dead bug is a dead bug."

"And there are plenty around here." Sae pointed to the various cobwebs clinging to nearly every surface in the room. "I think that will work. We'll perform the ritual naked with our clothing on, and sacrifice a spider on the altar."

"We don't have a sacrificial dagger," Nanaka pointed out.

Akane dug through her purse, then pulled out a small object. "I have a pen knife."

"That'll work," Sae said before Nanaka could argue the point.

Akane clapped her hands in delight. "This is much neater than most of the spells we usually cast."

"Sempai probably thinks we're good enough now to cast the really strong magic," Sae said.

Nanaka shook her head pitifully. It was obvious Sae was determined to see this through, and Akane seemed interested in it as well. It was going to happen no matter what. The only decision was if Nanaka would turn on her heel and walk out, or help participate in it.

Past experience had taught her the brutal truth that it was better to err doing something than to err by not doing it. No matter how the situation with Aburatsubo turned out, she had been better off knowing his feelings rather than wondering what might have been. Even if it did hurt.

"Let's do it," Nanaka said. What was the worst that could happen anyway? They'd make another giant tree or something?

***

It didn't take long to draw the elaborate magical symbols on the floor, centering it on the altar. There was plenty of chalk in their club room for writing such things, and the only other item they needed was Akane's pen knife.

Akane and Nanaka stood at opposite positions of the symbol. Sae stood next to the altar. Akane's pen knife in hand. A spider rested stationary in the center of the stone, Nanaka being the only one with the courage to capture it and place it there.

"Let's do it," Sae said, firmness in her voice.

The trio began slowly, uttering the chant that was contained within the pages. Like most of the spells they had previously cast, they had no idea what the words actually meant, only that they were supposed to repeat them exactly as they were written. The air seemed to take on an electrical air as a scent, like ancient ozone, wafted to the girls' nostrils.

At last their chanting reached a crescendo. Sae held the knife high, poised above her head.

"Nolostrus!" she shouted the final word, then plunged the pen knife toward the altar.

Nanaka looked around. "Nothing happened."

Sae stared sheepishly at her friend. "The spider moved."

Nanaka let out a disgusted sigh. "Do we have to go through that again?"

"No, I'll get it," Sae promised. She stabbed downward again.

"Almost got it that time." She repeated the action.

"Oh, it's fast."

And again.

"I got one of its legs. Only seven more to go."

And again.

"Darn it! I never seen one skitter around like this."

And again.

Nanaka was ready to walk out of the room when Sae finally huffed out. "Got it!"

As she did so, a glowing blue portal suddenly formed in the air at the head of the altar. The air went from being permeated with ozone to a humid smell of decayed flesh and fresh blood as it belched forth from the portal.

Lumbering through the gateway was a man, or something that resembled a man. It stood seven feet tall, its shoulders were inhumanly broad. It wore a cloak, hood drawn up, but enough of the face showed that bluish black flesh and yellow feral eyes glimmered from behind the darkened shroud. Pointed horns poked out from the forehead, just beyond the edge of the hood.

It strode toward Sae, moving with surprising grace for something so large. In the blink of an eye, it was next to her, towering over her diminutive form.

Akane just stared while Nanaka drew back in fear at the inhuman creature.

Sae's only response was to smile warmly and say, "Hello. I'm Sae Sawanoguchi."

The being stared at her a moment, then slapped her across the face, sending a resounding crack that filled the room.

That snapped Nanaka out of her stupor. Seeing her friend hurt, she charged forward, her own safety forgotten as she shouted, "Hey, you! You can't do that to her!"

The being thumped her on the head with her fist.

"Oww!" Nanaka complained as she held her now sore cranium. Despite the obvious strength of the creature, the blow was like something her mother might do if she had stepped badly out of line.

Sae was holding her cheek, which, while it had turned red from the slap, was not truly harmed. "What did you do that for?" she blubbered out.

"Silence!" the being commanded. He glared at the trio of girls. "I don't believe you little idiots! If you're not going to take the ritual seriously, don't do it!"

"But we did," Sae insisted, hurt at the idea she wouldn't take Takakura's instruction seriously.

She received a slap to her other cheek.

"Hey!" Nanaka repeated, then received another thump on the top of her head. "That hurts!" she complained.

"Good, it's supposed to," the being stated. He began pacing back and forth in front of the altar, his voice taking on a lecturing tone. "This is so typical of you teenagers today. Always doing things half-assed, not taking any pride in your work. What did you think you were doing?"

"We were just casting the spell." Pavlovian reflexes taking over, Sae tensed for another slap.

Instead the being bent lower and laughed in her face. "Ha! You're clothed, you don't even have a decent sacrificial dagger, and you killed a spider. A spider! No one cares about insects! You're supposed to sacrifice an animal, preferably something cute and fluffy, or if you want to try for the big leagues, a — *gasp* — human being."

"Spiders are part of the animal kingdom," Akane pointed out from the edge of the symbol.

"Don't you start, Missy." The being wagged its finger in her direction. "The point is, you didn't follow the intent of the spell, and instead tried to do the minimal amount of work necessary to summon a demon."

"You're a demon?" Sae gasped.

The demon rolled its eyes. "Duh! What do I look like? A car salesman?"

"I thought a demon would be more… red," Sae admitted.

Thoroughly disgusted, the being proclaimed, ""I am a one-hundred-percent full-blooded sex-demon." Here, let me prove it. He pulled aside his cloak, revealing a mouth and a set of sharp teeth in the arc of his crotch. From within the toothy maw, several phallic-shaped tentacles burst forth and began waving back and forth in front of him.

"Ah!" Sae and Nanaka held each other tightly in fear.

After a moment of staring at the mass of writhing appendages, Nanaka slowly detached herself from Sae and began to move her hand forward as she stared at the cluster in fascination. "Are those things for real?"

The demon slapped her approaching appendage away. "Hands off the merchandise, you flat-chested little twit! You want a piece of this, you sacrifice something with a wee bit more vigor than an ant."

"It was a spider, not an ant," Akane pointed out.

"Spider, ant, who cares? It's the principle involved," the demon muttered.

"I am not flat-chested," an indignant Nanaka insisted.

"Only compared to your friend in the training bra." He pointed at Sae.

"I do not wear a training bra!" Sae said, then added softly. "Anymore. Besides, some girls are just slower in developing."

"You're barely going to manage B-cup. Believe me, I'm a sex demon. I can tell these things." He slapped Nanaka's curious hand away a second time.

Nanaka cradled her sore hand. "You're not acting very sex-demon-like. Aren't you supposed to be ripping off our clothing and ravishing our bodies with your inhuman-like girth, length, and stamina?"

The demon sniffed disdainfully. "I'm not in the mood, and that's because I'm very insulted. I came here expecting to see a bunch of hot-looking naked women with huge racks and lose morals, and instead I get a couple of prepubescent teens — still clothed, mind you — that grease a bug and expect me to jump through hoops for them. The only vaguely attractive one is your friend, who's refusing to fully enter the circle."

Akane waved happily at him, but remained where she was.

He wagged his finger at the pair of girls in front of him again. "Let me tell you something. You ain't nothing compared to the last magic-using club at this school. They were something else. We're talking amoral sociopaths who became intoxicated with their magical abilities and were ready to do anything for the chance to gain even greater powers. And they were so damn hot! We're talking tits out to here." He held his hands out from his chest, as though he was clutching a pair of invisible watermelons. "The redhead was the best of the lot, though that psychotic dyke had some seriously nice knockers too. It was an unparalleled orgy of seduction, rape, and murder. It made me proud to be a sex demon." He sniffled and wiped away tears that formed in his amber eyes.

Sae tried patting the demon on the back, but he batted her hand away. "It's too late to suck up now! You treated demonic forces far beyond your mortal ken shoddily, and thus you don't get anything from us. Give me that book!" He snatched it away from the table.

"Wait, we'll do better next time!" Sae promised. "We'll get a real knife to sacrifice things with. Umm."

"A Ginsu," Akane said.

"Right! A Ginsu," Sae said. "And we'll sacrifice, umm, sacrifice…."

"A tarantula," Akane suggested.

"Two tarantulas," Sae said in earnest.

The demon just shook his sadly head at her. "You just don't get it." He threw his hands up in disgust. "I'm out of here. But first." Grabbing the edge of the altar, he employed his tremendous strength and flipped it over on its side, shattering the stone table into a hundred smaller pieces of rubble. "That'll teach you to not take us sex demons seriously. Try summoning anything more dangerous than an imp without a decent blood-stained altar." To add insult to injury, he gave them the middle finger before ducking into the glowing portal. It disappeared the moment he was clear of the aperture.

"I don't think that went quite the way it was supposed to," Akane said.

"I bet you he was impotent." Nanaka sniffed in derision at the demon's attitude. Her breasts were perfectly fine, as Aburatsubo would have discovered, if he wasn't gay and everything.

Sae looked mournfully at the crumbled remains. "We lost the spell book, angered the forces of Hell, and probably destroyed the only altar in school. Sempai is going to be so disappointed in me when he gets back. He'll never let me in charge of anything ever again!" She had just entered a case of full-blow wailing when she spotted the edge of something black and rectangular sticking out of the rubble. Curiosity aroused, she pulled it out, revealing it to be a book, obviously ancient judging by the withered cover, and with an odd feel to the pages.

The others moved closer to Sae as she began poring over the text. "This is in a language I can't read either."

Akane said, "According to the cover, it says it's 'The Necronomicon'."

"You can read that?" Nanaka asked in surprise.

Akane nodded. "It's in Arabic. I took it as my foreign language this year."

Sae became excited as she handed Akane the book. "What's it say?"

Akane looked over one of the pages. "It mentions something about performing a ritual that can summon a Great Old One."

Sae clutched the book to her chest. "That sounds great. I bet you if he's old, he'll have plenty of good advice to give us."

"And won't have a major attitude," Nanaka seconded.

All eagerness now, Sae asked Akane, "How do we go about summoning him?"

Akane began reading aloud, "First, we have to find a religious symbol dedicated to someone named Dagon…"

Author's notes: That's that. And no, there's no chance of a Lovecraftian sequel, though the idea of Sae with a Cthulhu-plushie instead of her teddy bear does strike an amusing image in my mind.

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: May 21, 2007