Note: I do not own Mahou Sensei Negima...
Howling at the moon
Chapter one:
Kotaro ran as fast as he could when someone kicked in the stomach, making him fly back ten feet.
Kotaro wiped of the blood from his face has he looked up at a tall man with long black hair looking sternly at him, growling.
"You are weak" the man said darkly and walked towards Kotaro "weaklings have no place our tribe" the man grabbed his head and lifted him up as he dragged him to the edge of the mountain.
"Good bye, weakling" he said raising him as he prepared to throw.
"No, please, don't, BROTHER!" Kotaro screamed as he was thrown away to the wild lands known as purgatory.
Kotaro slept on the sofa, images from his mind passed through his inner sight as he rolled uneasy, cold bullets of sweat ran down his face, he shivered from a non-existing cold as a warm hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him lightly, a sweet voice called to him "Kotaro-kun?"
He opened his eyes and a cute girl with short hair and freckles looked worried at him.
"Natsumi?!" he said suddenly and jumped up, the girl jumped back from the sudden movement of Kotaro.
"Did you have nightmare?" Natsumi asked him quietly "you looked so uneasy"
Kotaro looked at her for a while before he got to his tough act "Nightmares? Yeah right!" he said.
Kotaro got up to his feet "I'm going for a walk" he said calmly and walked towards the door.
"B-but" Natsumi stuttered as he opened the door, the boy turned around and smiled at her the widest he could "Hey, no need to worry about me! I'll be back around noon OK?" he said and closed the door and walked away before she could answer, the smile on his face was gone now.
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Mahora campus was always crowded with people on Sundays, but Kotaro wanted to be alone and therefore headed towards the forest.
Damn! He thought for himself, why did that dream come up? It's not like I need to remember that! Right of a sudden he stumbled on a root and fell to the ground.
"Crap!" He swore as pushed himself up "that dream is starting to have an effect on my senses as well!" He slapped himself in the face and continued walking.
After a while he reached a river flowing through the mountains, the sound of the running water made feel a little more at ease and sat down by the river.
He sighed as he dug his face into his knees "brother…" he whispered.
Suddenly two hands grabbed his shoulders "whatcha doin here Kotaro?" the voice of the ninja sounded.
Kotaro didn't turn around to face Kaede as he answered "what do you want, Kaede-neesan?" he tried to hide the trembling in his voice.
Kaede didn't seem to take any notice and said "you want to train, you look like you could use a workout, you know, let it all out" even though Kotaro couldn't see it, he knew she had that smile, saying that everything will be alright.
Kotaro began breathing heavily as he turned around to face her, with tears rolling down his eyes and his fangs showing "Leave me alone!" he yelled as he ran away, Kaede just stood there, not knowing what to say nor do.
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It was late now, and the sun was beginning to set, Kotaro stood on the peak of some mountain, grasping his, feeling it pulsate fast, he ran so fast for no reason at all, what was wrong with?
"I should go back home, Natsumi and Chizu-nee are probably worried" he said quietly as he felt a dark force behind.
He turned around quickly to see who it was and before him stood a gargantuan black hound, with red markings on his legs, it almost looked he was smiling.
"It seems you haven't grown at all Kotaro-chan!" the hound said as he sat himself down.
Kotaro looked stunningly at the large dog as he finally smiled and then went forth to hug the bearlike dog "Inuken! It's been so long!" he said happily.
"6 years is a very long time" Inuken said in affirmation of what Kotaro said.
"And you've grown so big!" Kotaro continued.
"Yes, it seems that way" then he took his right paw and pushed Kotaro back a little "listen, I didn't come here for a chat, I have something important I need to say to you"
Kotaro looked in the dog-demons eyes for a while then looked down on the ground "this has something to do with brother, doesn't it?" he asked.
"Yes" Inuken answered "he's coming here to test you"
Kotaro felt like he got kicked in the stomach and looked at his own friend with wide eyes "w-what?"
"You heard me, your brother has been sent to test your worth" Inuken said calmly.
"B-but w-why?" Kotaro stuttered out as bullets of sweat run down his forehead.
"A war is about to break out between the demon-clans, and everyone is arming themselves with as much power as possible, they free the damned ones, they call those that have shamed the clans, they even hire impure mercenaries, just in order to get more power." Inuken said but continued "that's why Kyobi, lord of the fox branch, has ordered to test the half-breeds, and take in those who are worthy"
"But why doesn't he just let in all of us back instead of doing these tests?" Kotaro asked, this was sounding strange, but he was still trembling at the thought of having to fight his brother again.
Inuken sighed and said "You know how prideful the fox branch is, being the strongest branch among the noble dog families? Do you think they would let their repetition get dirtied because their half-breeds are weak?"
Kotaro looked down, the words weaklings have no place in our tribe came to his head "No, they wouldn't"
Inuken sighed and a portal opened "okay then, you brother will come in two days, should you fail the test, you will be thrown in the deepest pit of purgatory and everyone you have made bonds with shall be executed" he said.
Those words made Kotaro look up at him with his eyes widened "what!?" he screamed in shock.
"That way you will have no one to turn to except the tribe, if you survive" he said and turned to the portal and took some steps in it "Kotaro, I'm really sorry, please don't hate me for doing my job, GOOD LUCK!" he yelled out those two last words and the portal disappeared, left was only Kotaro.
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It was now another Tuesday morning, and the ten-year-old teacher opened the door to his classroom and stepped inside, now obviously there should be a horde of girls attacking him screaming "NEGI-SENSEI!" but today Negi was early and therefore sat by his desk and awaited the arrival of his students.
He went through the study plan and sighed, they were pretty much after the schedule; they would need some sort of miracle to get them catch up, sometimes they weren't fifteen-year-olds, for Christ sake, their teacher was in many ways more mature than them, and that's not a good sign.
Negi sighed once again, oh well, 3A will always be 3A, he thought as the door opened, in came Murakami Natsumi together with Naba Chizuru and Nagase Kaede, they all greeted each other as Natsumi and Chizuru went forth to talk with their homeroom teacher.
"Umm" Natsumi said nervously and scratched her arm "have you seen Kotaro-kun? He hasn't come home the last two days and we're worried"
Then Kaede came in to the discussion "Oh is that so? Cause Sunday afternoon I found him acting strange, I tried talking to him but he ran away"
Negi looked blankly at the girls while his mind went on fire, the fact that Kotaro had been missing for two days and him having a strange behavior did not look good together, something was happening.
He snapped back to reality, Chizuru and Natsumi had to take back from the sudden movement.
Negi grabbed his staff and went for the door "Call me in sick I'm going to look for Kotaro!"
Kaede wasn't far behind him "I'll go to" and smiled to Natsumi "don't worry, everything will be alright" and disappeared.
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It was closing in to dusk, Kotaro sat on the peak of the mountain edgily, soon he will come, he thought.
As the sun was shining its last beam of light upon the world, two massive energies were behind him.
"Really Kotaro, you made everyone worried" a calm female voice sounded, Kotaro did not turn to face Kaede and stayed silent.
"Kotaro, what is it that you are hiding, and why didn't say something before disappearing?" Negi asked him.
Kotaro stood up, but still didn't turn to face them "Negi, Kaede" he said "It has been fun being with you and training and all that, but" he stopped for a moment, it almost looked like he shivered "this friendship is over, I'm ending it" he said.
"WHAT!?" Negi and Kaede said in shock, this was not something they had expected.
"I would appreciate if you could tell Chizu-nee and Natsumi to forget me, the same to you" he continued.
"Wait, why are you doing something like this, has something happened?" Negi said walking closer to Kotaro.
"Just" there was a moment of doubt "just see this as a precaution" he answered.
"A precaution?" Kaede said "for what?"
At that moment a large portal opened in midair, a few meters away from Kotaro.
"For HIM" he said darkly.
Then a terrible aura showed itself, everything was cold as a tall figure came out of the portal.
"Hello brother" the figure said coldly.
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And now the fun begins...