Disclaimer: I do not own Mahou Sensei Negima. I wish I could draw as good as Ken Akamatsu, but I can only draw stick figures. Nor do I own the Haruhi Suzumiya series. Those belong to Nagaru Tanigawa. The only things that are mine are any original characters. Resemblance of these characters to anyone or anything else, living or dead, is either a coincidence or meant as a respectful shout out.

A/N: This first chapter wouldn't be anywhere near as coherent if it weren't for the help of Muishiki, who ordered me to fix quite a bit of the opening. So, before anything is said, I must give thanks.
This idea came to me late one night after an utterly bizarre series of train-of-thought derailments. So, as a loyal follower of the TV Tropes website, I decided to do something with elements from two incredibly troperiffic stories, Negima and Haruhi.
I am a believer of the ideas of 'Sure, why not?' and 'Throw it in', so we may be seeing some of that shortly. In favor of some interactivity, I will be taking requests on some of the minor details. More on that later, when we get to it. On with the story!

Another door opens in a limitless multiverse...


Prologue

Things were not going very well, it seemed. The silent observer sighed. He could see his two targets ahead in the hallway. He could hear them, too.

I come to school late one day, and they get into an argument, he thought.

"If you're going to make another movie, fine. Just count me out of it this time." Kyon sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"You're a necessary part of the team! Who else is going to do all the errands?" Haruhi's hands were on her hips.

The observer wondered if he should jump in and stop this before it got worse. Mamoru, you idiot. He shook his head. They don't know me yet. I was going to introduce myself later.

Kyon sighed again. "That's the point. Why don't you ask Koizumi to help you? I'm sure he'd be willing to drop whatever he's doing at a moment's notice."

That might have been an understatement. Itsuki Koizumi was the type to agree to anything she suggested with a smile on his face, after all.

Kyon was continuing on wearily. "Better yet, if no one else will show up today anyway, why don't you take the opportunity to spend some alone time with a guy? Go find someone nice, it won't be that hard-" Kyon's face was unreadable as always, which meant he was saying far less than he was thinking. Again.

Damn. Could you be any more oblivious? Mamoru winced. Kyon was just being ridiculous now! He couldn't seriously not notice how statements like that affected her, could he? He was probably the only one who could keep her sane, so he just had to go out of his way to tick her off...

Just as he'd thought, that was enough for Haruhi. She stormed off furiously, nearly running Mamoru over in the process.

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened, nor would this be the last. But something was different. He'd been feeling off ever since she shoved him out of the way. No, since this morning. It was just worse now. And enemy activity had been up, unusually high for this instance.

Times like this, I really wish I could take a sick day. Under the weather or not, he knew what had to be done: protect the primary target first. Attempt to defuse the situation later. Reality warping could be eminent.

1-1-2-3-5-8-13

The bus rattled as it hit a pothole in the road. The sole male passenger, Negi Springfield, glanced around uneasily. Some of those girls were looking at him strangely...

"Do you see the little boy? He's so cute!" a teenage girl practically squealed. She nudged her friend and pointed.

"What's he doing here? The only stops left are Mahora and the high schools," The other girl replied.

"Well, Mahora did just open last minute applications for boys, but he looks like an elementary schooler. Hey, little boy, are you lost? The elementary schools are that way."

The small redhead just shook his head nervously. Just thinking about his new job terrified him. What if he blew his cover? Exposing magic was a horrible crime...

Suddenly a massive gust of wind blew through the bus. The embarrassed shrieks of girls shook the bus as they tried to keep their skirts under control.

"Next stop: Mahora High!" the bus driver shouted out.

"That's my stop," Negi declared.

"See ya, little boy," some of the girls called out as he walked off, taking his first steps into the place that would be his home for the next few months. He pulled out his assignment sheet the headmaster had given him when he'd graduated mage school.

Negi Springfield: A Teacher in Japan, his assignment said. But he hadn't expected it to be so crowded here. And why Japan, of all places? It was so far away from the U.K.

This is zero tardy awareness week. The bell for first period will ring in ten minutes, so pick up the pace. The voice crackled in from a loudspeaker. Hearing this, a crowd of people started sprinting toward the school building.

The street was packed with girls everywhere, running, jogging, skating. A boy with spiky black hair tore past him, practically dragging along his brown-haired friend.

"Come on!" he shouted. "We can figure everything out later. We're going to be late on our first day!"

To his right, another batch of girls passed by, followed by a girl with long black hair on rollerblades and a girl with orange hair tied off with little bells into two tails.

"...and the fortune book says if you say his name ten times, then bark like a dog, your love will come true."

The orange haired girl immediately began chanting "Takahata-sensei!"

Fortune telling? Maybe I could help. Anya taught me a few things before I left. It would be his first helpful act as a teacher. Negi activated his physical ability boosting charm and quickly caught up to the two.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

1-1-2-3-5-8-13

Well, that had been a disaster. Not only had the girl, Asuna, not taken his attempt at fortune-telling very well, but after she'd started angrily shaking him, he'd lost control of his magic and stripped her to her underwear right in front of his friend and contact, Takamichi. British gentlemen should never get themselves into situations like that! That was just inappropriate for a teacher.

Can I really handle a class of students four or five years older than me? Negi was starting to feel nervous as he approached the door, his class roster clutched in his arm.

The boy mage was so distracted by the massive class that he noticed half a second too late the falling eraser trap. He disabled his shields as quickly as he could. Nobody would notice how the eraser had hovered for that split-second, would they?

Negi took a step forward and fell for a second trap, a tripwire that dropped a bucket on him. He did an astonishing series of flips forward before crashing into his desk.

The laughter stopped. The class was silent for a moment.

"Oh crap, it's a kid!" a voice shouted. The girls seated in the front rushed forward to remove the bucket.

"So sorry. We thought it was the new teacher," one apologized.

The guidance counselor, Ms. Shizuna, stepped in. "No, this child is your new teacher. Allow him to introduce himself."

"I'm...my name is Negi Springfield, and starting today, I'll be teaching you English."

The class stared at him. Then, almost as one, half the class declared "He's so cute!" and mobbed him. The lucky few who got closest seemed to be competing over how hard they could squeeze him, all while demanding to know his age, how smart he was, and whether he'd really be staying as a teacher. Ms. Shizuna just watched with a slight smile on her face.

Negi felt welcome at least, if not completely safe.

After finally escaping from his student's clutches, there was a brief bit of trouble with Asuna demanding to know what he'd done with the eraser. That girl was already noticing too much. If he didn't do something, and his cover was blown...

Thankfully, the class rep, Ayaka Yukihiro, had stepped in. Of course, that had led to a brawl in the middle of the classroom, but Ms. Shizuna had broken that up.

Finally, there was calm. Negi took the opportunity to open the class roster. There were so many of them! Thirty four students...Narutaki, Izumi, Tatsumiya, Saotome, Ayase, Hasegawa, Miyazaki, Kuro-

Wait a minute! What's this?

The last two students were left nameless. The pictures were of two boys wearing a school uniform that was definitely not Mahora's. Takamichi had scribbled by their pictures: last minute transfer students.

"Excuse me. Could the two new students in the back please introduce themselves?"

Number 33 stood up. He cleared his throat and got as far as "My name is-" before the boy next to him stated "Everyone back home called him Kyon."

The boy called Kyon grimaced and shot a glare at the other boy. "...that's right," he relented.

Negi filled in the name next to the picture. "And your name is?" he asked number 34.

The boy remained seated. He ran a hand through his spiky black hair and yawned before answering. "Mamoru. Utsuro Mamoru."


Arc 1: Convergence

Chapter 1: Integration, pt. 1

Mamoru looked around. He was in an unfamiliar schoolyard, wearing an unfamiliar uniform. What? I was just in the hallway...

One moment he'd been walking toward Kyon, the next moment, he'd felt a strange tug and found himself here. I've Slid into another instance?

And he'd just joined the last one! He hadn't traveled dimensions unprovoked like that for years. So much for the power being under control.

A groan came from by his feet. A brown-haired boy was unconscious on the ground.

Oh crap. I've screwed up big time! This is entirely my fault-what do I do-Kyon-kun...

He fought off the urge to yell loudly. He took a breath. Now, time to think things through. If sci-fi novels had taught him anything, it was that bringing things to other times was very bad, and could destabilize the local time plane. Certainly the same applied here, to dimensions. Dammit, bring him back, bringhimbackbringhimback!

Now that was a reasonable thought. No need to panic just because he'd done something stupid like drag the person he was supposed to protect to another dimension. He grabbed Kyon's hand and prepared to slide. He felt the sensation of slipping through the world's barriers, but he was dragged back as though weighed down. He felt like he'd just run a marathon.

Mamoru couldn't bring him back. He had thought it impossible to bring anything with him, after all. He dropped the hand and stepped through by himself.

The slider was thrown back instantly. He fell to him knees, gasping for breath. He just didn't have enough energy to slide. They were stuck here. And he could feel that this world was different than theirs.

He didn't have any knowledge about this world at all! How different was it? Japan could've been conquered by Britain or something for all he knew.

Kyon was starting to move. Mamoru swore under his breath. Now what? Kyon was waking up!

He shoved his doubt down and put on a smile.

"Greetings, Kyon-kun. It's so great to meet you at last!" Mamoru said, grinning.

Kyon was not grinning. He opened his eyes slowly and stared blankly at his surroundings. "This isn't North High." He looked over at Mamoru. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mamoru. Actually...I'm the slider Haruhi was waiting for. So, I haven't met this version of you personally, but trust me. I'm a friend, and I think I can explain."

Kyon's expression suggested that he was thinking things over, and that he didn't trust him quite yet. Introducing himself to versions of people who didn't know him was never easy. If this situation hadn't been forced on him, Mamoru might have had time to prepare, but you couldn't prepare for Haruhi. Around her, the best-laid plans fell to pieces regularly.

He ran his hand through his hair in an unconscious stressful reflex. At least his hair was spiky again. This world seemed to be one of the ones where people's every single loose strand of hair came to a spiked point. Mamoru loved those worlds the best. It made him feel like a video game hero or something.

"No, really. I've been there on all the crazy things that have happened. Just in other dimensions. I've done just as much to keep Haruhi from going Armageddon on us as anyone else." Mamoru had a sudden flash of brilliance. "Will you believe me if I say that I know that you're John Smith?"

Kyon once again took a look at the unfamiliar surroundings. "Haruhi destroyed the world, didn't she?"

"I don't think so. I believe we're in another dimension. I know Sliding, and what happened felt just like it. I'll have to explain Sliding for you to understand."

"Explain things to me, then." Kyon leaned back against a nearby pillar. "Better get comfortable. This is going to be another giant infodump session, isn't it?"

"I'll try to make this simple. Skipping over all the boring details," and the painful ones, he added silently. "I discovered this ability some years back and wound up joining the SOS Brigade as your Kohai. I swore to help and protect Kyon-kun, so I've been Sliding ever since. For me, jumping through different instances of the same world is simple instinct. Just a matter of extending my senses and following the pull of an alternate world."

Kyon nodded and said nothing. Audibly anyway.

"I'm sorry to say that this is entirely my fault. Back in your home reality, something went wrong, and I found myself uncontrollably Sliding with you along for the ride. This has never happened before. I've never taken anything more with me than the clothes on my back. Also, the feel of this instance is fundamentally different than the others. All I can think is that we've been sent to another world very little like our own. I'll know more when I synchronize."

"Synchronize? You're starting to sound like Nagato. You want to find a computer?" He gestured at the school in the distance. "Or maybe a book?"

Mamoru laughed. Kyon seemed to be adapting, as he always did. The boy's dry comments were what Mamoru missed most in worlds where the SOS Brigade had different personalities.

"Now comes the most complicated part of Sliding. Fitting in to the new instance. It would be really bad to not know what's different in the new instance, or what my story is. I mean, I could get arrested for some stupid little thing. So, the synchronization fills in the blanks. I get some pieces of memories, personal traits, backstory, whatever, dumped right into my subconscious. Just enough to get by. I can only hope it still works in a world where there's more than a few small differences. And speak of the devil, here it comes. Catch me, Kyon-kun!" With that, he simply fell over on Kyon. Mamoru's eyes rolled back into his head. He just laid there, not moving a muscle for nearly half a minute. A crowd of girls walking by gave him weird looks.

"Is he going to be alright?" a tall girl with a concerned expression asked.

Mamoru jumped to his feet like nothing had happened. "I'm fine."

"Come on, Chizu-nee! We're going to be late." The girl's friend waved at her. She smiled and ran back to the other girls.

Mamoru swayed. A thin line of blood trailed from his nose. That's it? Where's the important info? Where are we? What's unique about this world? All I get is a vague date and that we have to go to school! I could've figured that one out from the uniforms, thank you. Give me some answers, gorram subconscious!

His subconscious, of course, didn't answer.

"I've got almost nothing. I have no clue how this world works. But I promise I'll get you home."

He took a steadying breath.

"Here's what I've got about our situation. This school, whatever it is-"

"Mahora," Kyon offered helpfully, gesturing at the sign behind him.

"-Mahora is a girls school, but has for some reason has opened its gates to boys this year. Conveniently, if you notice, we already have the uniforms. We're supposed to go to class 2-A at the middle school. And I think we'd better play along with where we've wound up until I can get the time to figure out how we're getting back."

"Oh well," Kyon said wearily. "Playing along is something I'm good at. Sometimes, I wonder where I went wrong with my life..."

Mamoru shivered at the sudden breeze. "Also, I think it's February in...2003."

Kyon seemed to pick up on something. "Wait, we're second years? But we're in high school."

Mamoru wiped the blood away and stood more firmly. That was a lot worse than usual.

"That's the thing I should've mentioned earlier. Not all dimensions lie on the same time plane. It's not 2003 back home, you know. Part of the process involves aging up or down accordingly. Not sure exactly why that one works, maybe there's some entity helping us when we portal in or something. Anyways, I feel about fifteen, and we're about to enter year three, so we've become roughly the right age, see. My memories imply it won't be a problem if we're a little too old."

This is zero tardy awareness week. The bell for first period will ring in ten minutes, so pick up the pace. The loudspeaker blared overhead.

Mamoru dragged Kyon to his feet. "Time for class. We've gotta hurry." He grabbed Kyon's tie and took off running. The other boy loudly protested as he tried to follow.

Mamoru barely noticed the small boy they passed. He seemed even more out-of-place then they did. The long staff hanging from the boy's pack sparked something in his subconscious. No time to think on that. "Come on! We can figure everything out later. We're going to be late on our first day!"

1-1-2-3-5-8-13

Class, he found out, wouldn't be starting for a while. A new teacher was coming, and had to meet at the office first.

"Excellent," Kyon said drily. "I love running for no reason."

"Sorry, Sempai," Mamoru said. He smacked himself on the head. "Wow, this is weird being in the same year as you! I'm almost always a year lower..."

They walked down the long hallway. 2-A was way down by the end. A few students were still entering their classrooms.

My memories shouldn't be this fragmented. I can't seem to really remember anything. Is it just the world is too different, or... A short girl with long blonde hair was standing around in the hallway. One look and Mamoru knew that he knew her.

"I'll be just a second," he found himself saying. He took a step toward the girl, and she looked up. Her expression turned stony so fast that Mamoru couldn't recognize the one it covered.

"Go away," she said. Mamoru took a step closer, still not knowing exactly what he was doing. "I don't want to talk to you."

The girl turned away and began walking. Mamoru simply sped up his pace and slid around her fluidly. He bent down to her level. His face was right in front of hers, now.

"So you do remember me?" Mamoru asked.

"We don't know each other any more. Leave me alone, Mamoru," she said rudely. She tried slipping past him, but the way Mamoru was blocking the hallway wouldn't allow that very easily. One step forward led to her lips brushing his cheek.

Mamoru grinned roguishly. "My, you're forward, Eva-chan."

The girl scowled briefly, before leaning in and letting her lips brush lightly across his. "No, this is forward." The girl stepped back, leaving Mamoru blushing. "What? It was just a joke. I'll be taking payment for that when the full moon comes out tomorrow. I don't have any fangs until then." She pulled her lip back, revealing perfectly ordinary teeth.

She slid around the stunned Mamoru successfully this time. "And don't call me Eva-chan. It's Evangeline. No one refers to me in such a familiar manner. Goodbye, Utsuro Mamoru."

Evangeline entered the classroom. Mamoru stood there wordlessly.

I guess I must know her somehow. But how? Mamoru's ties to the instances he went to were always minimal at most. Never before had anyone in a new instance recognized him.

"What the hell just happened?" Kyon asked, walking up to the slider.

"I don't know," was all Mamoru could think to say.

1-1-2-3-5-8-13

"You know what? I think we lucked out. It's February 15th. Imagine being surrounded by all these girls on Valentine's Day. Though that leaves me wondering what we're going to do on White Day..."

Things had been...interesting enough entering the class to find that they were the only two guys out of over thirty people. Supposedly there were more boys somewhere in the school, but the 2-A girls had crowded them like the oddities they were.

Mamoru had been right about not looking too old. His new classmates ranged from 'looked like an eleven year old' to 'no way in hell they're not high-schoolers'.

The door creaked open, the teacher walked in, and the eraser fell. Mamoru had missed the prankster setting it up. Shame. He wanted to congratulate her on the excellent job.

Then the second trap was triggered. He really wished he knew who'd done it now. Very impressive.

His idle thoughts were distracted by the strange way the eraser had fallen. Magic, his subconscious whispered. That was new. Aliens, time travelers, and espers were things he'd dealt with, but actual magic didn't exist back in the original worlds. Haruhi would really get a kick out of it, though.

"Excuse me. Could the two new students in the back please introduce themselves?"

The teacher is the boy I saw earlier?

Kyon stood up to introduce himself, but Mamoru beat him to it. No one here knew his nickname after all. Best to get that out as soon as possible.

Kyon glared at him. Mamoru was glad for once he couldn't hear his Sempai's thoughts. He'd probably thought he could escape his nickname for once...

"And your name is?"

Mamoru didn't bother to get out of his seat. All this slider business was tiring. "Mamoru. Utsuro Mamoru.


A/N So, this brings us to the end of the first half of the beginning. Chronologically, we've only reached about the halfway mark of the long first chapter of the Negima manga. Pt. 2 should bring things to a close.
Not much to say, yet. Slow beginnings are slow. And it turns out this thing really eats up your formatting, so I had to get a little creative with the page breaks.

Next time: Snarky comments! Exposition! And a party.

...be sure to close the door when you leave.