Book 3 - The Merchant from the Depths: Chapter 31; Dastardly Negotiations

The screen turns on as the chapter title plays "Chapter - 31; Dastardly Negotiations".

Leona asks Azul "So, Azul… How about you and I make a deal?" continuing off from when it was last left off.

Azul is confused as he asks "I'm…sorry?"

Leona further clarifies asking him "What are you prepared to offer me if I return these contracts to you?"

Azul stutters out "I-I'll do anything."

He then gets frantic as he names off things he believes would be of interest to Leona in return "I'll give you all the study guides you want. I'll write your graduation thesis. I'll pad your attendance. Anything – just name it!" slowly getting more frantic as none of what he offers seems to really catch the attention of the lion.

Leona tells Azul "Interesting. That's a pretty tempting offer."

Azul then reaches his hand out and starts to take a step further to get his contracts back while saying "Then–"

But he stops and pulls back as Leona continues "Here's the thing, though. No offense, but none of that's gonna be enough to justify me returning these contracts."

Azul stops processing what's happening as he just asks "What?" in a deadpan tone with only a hint of heartbreak seemingly mixed in, but hidden well enough.

Leona then explains to Azul "See, Yuu's got me over a barrel right now. If I don't help Team Ramshackle dispose of these contracts, they'll make a huge racket outside my room every day until morning."

Azul lets out a confused "Huh…?"

While Leona continues "Basically, if you take their dorm away from them, they take my good night's sleep away from me. I want them gone from Savanaclaw, so these things have gotta go."

Azul then angrily shouts "THAT'S what this is all about?!"

Leona only smirks as he tells Azul "Sorry, Azul. You're just not quite as dastardly a villain as Yuu is."

Azul shouts panicked "R-ridiculous… Don't do it!"

But Leona only finishes his spell saying "Now… 'Kneel before me! King's Roar!'"

As Azul shouts "NOOOOO!!!" as he runs up frantically trying to save his precious contracts.

But he's too late as all of them turn to sand with a shushing sound.

Azul falls to his knees and grabs the sand, seemingly broken as he just shouts "Ah…Aaah… Aaahhh! My… My… My golden contracts… All…reduced to dust…"

He seems to be almost in tears as he grips onto the sands trying to force them back together again.

Ruggie then states "Azul's signature spell, "It's a deal"... Once the contract scroll is signed, it cannot be damaged, regardless of how many people try." Leona continues Ruggie "You made a show of how unbreakable it was several times, just to hammer that impression home… But there's no such thing as a spell that's completely flawless. From what I saw, it looked like they were impervious to damage only under specific conditions. Namely, either being in the VIP room, or being in your hands."

He then rather smugly finishes with "And judging by how easily my magic turned them to sand, I was right. The contract scrolls themselves are no stronger than any other sheet of paper."

Azul looks up saying "I… I don't believe this…"

Ruggie does his signature laugh as they leave Azul to wallow in his loss, he then elbows Leona in the side as he tells him "You could just knock Yuu into next week for trying to blackmail you. I've been wonderin' why you'd go to all this trouble, and I think I've finally figured it out."

Leona crooks an eyebrow as he asks "Oh yeah?"

Ruggie answers "You've made a contract with Azul before. This whole thing is a way for you to conveniently get rid of it."

Leona laughs lightly for a couple of seconds before elbowing Ruggie back telling him "Nobody likes a snoop, y'know." with a light, almost playful smile.

He then shrugs as he tells Ruggie "I'm just a nice guy who can't ignore a friend in need, that's all." but right after he started chuckling.

Ruggie laughs at him for a second before joking with him "Listen to you, laughin' at your own jokes. I should've taken a peek at what kinda contract you made before you sanded 'em down."

But it then cuts back to Azul who seems to be fully broken as he just repeats "Ah" in different ways over and over again, totally ignoring everything around him.

Leona even makes a "Hm?" noise.

But Azul only continues totally obvious to anything around him, before suddenly standing up and throwing his arms back screaming "NGAAAAAH! I HATE THIIIS!"

The sudden change surprises both Leona and Ruggie as they step back shouting "Huh?!"

Azul holds his face, fingernails pushing into his skin as he cries out "It's gone. My carefully amassed collection of magic… My omnipotent power…"

Leona is still shocked, eyes wide, as he asks "What in the world?" Ruggie essentially stutters out "Talk about changin' your tune…"

Azul then throws his hands back again as his head snaps over to the two and he starts shouting at them "All of it, up in smoke! How could you DO this to me?!"

He then looks down at his hands seemingly nearly in tears as he says "Without that, I… I… I'm back to being that "silly little octo-twerp" again!"

Actually tears start to fall as some natural ink surrounds him as he shakes back and further shouting "That's the last thing I want…! I refuse! I refuse! I REFUSE! I don't WANNA go back to being my old self again!"

Leona shouts "What's going on?! There's a black aura growing…" Ruggie shouts at Leona "This is your fault for gettin' his hopes up and then dashing 'em on the rocks, Leona!"

He then tries to take some careful steps towards Azul with his hands up and in front of him, as he tries to help calm him, telling him "Okay, Azul. Let's all just…take a deep breath and chill for a second. Okay?"

But Azul waves his arms angrily in his direction, causing ink to rush towards Ruggie as he had pushed it forwards shouting "SHUT! UP!!!" at him.

He then enters, full mental break-down state, where absolutely nothing will be able to get through to him.

Azul shouts with tears running down his face "You don't know me! You don't know my life! All that time I spent being roundly mocked for my weakness… My intellect… Nobody could EVER understand!"

At this point students had sensed something was wrong and had started to run out, to see what was going on.

Azul takes in a longs and out almost ghostly breath before starting to insanely chuckle.

His tears have stopped flowing as he clenches his fist in front of his face stating "Of course. It's so simple. If you lose something… just take it back."

He then seems almost drowsy as he says to everyone, every single student there "Give them to me. Come on. I want your powessses…"

Before he suddenly has an insane smile as he shouts "GIVE THEM TO MEEE!!!" As he turns, swinging ink around at all the other students as well.

It then cuts to Yuu who was still in the middle of keep-away as she gets another vision of the flat shadowy dusty gray-purple background as three more drops fall and make the puddle even bigger than before. Yuu comes to again.

The screen fades to black and "To be continued" plays before it fully turns off.