You awaken with a gasp, laying in your bed to see Sakura and Medea looking down at you with concerned yet stern faces. "Onii-chan... Are you OK?"

"I... I am, yes, Sakura... But..." You reach up to your neck, feeling something strangely clasped around it, and a strange inability to feel... well, any magical energy within your body at all. Right now, you're just as magically powerful as a completely mundane person!

"It's not too tight, is it? I didn't really want it to come to this, but... well, Medea and I sort of realized that no matter what your intentions might be for the start of the day, you're... well, you're the sort of person who simply can't put himself before other people, aren't you? Mordred is happy about what you did for her, but... I don't want you to keep putting yourself in danger, Onii-chan... I'm really really sorry..." Sakura apologizes profusely to you for something.

You reach a hand around your neck to feel a band of metal with a certain rock embedded in the center of it. "No way... you didn't..."

"I really didn't want to..." Sakura looks guilty. "But, if you don't stop going at the pace you're going, you're going to end up breaking yourself..." Sakura sounds downright miserable as you realize just what it is that has been done to you while you were unconscious. The piece of magical energy draining meteorite has been embedded in a band of metal around your neck. It's not at all tight or uncomfortable, but you're very much incapable of using any of your own magical energy.

Part 36