Disclaimer: Negima does not belong to me. It belongs to Ken Akamatsu. But he graciously lets all of us play with his characters and put them in situations much to our amusement.
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Chapter 1 Prelude
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I reject your reality and substitute my own. – Adam Savage
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Yeah! What he said! – Me
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Haruna was proud of their work, even if she was tired.
Between her, Nodoka and Yue, they had drilled a dozen holes into the trunk of the World Tree, with Yue doing most of the work. Now all that was needed was some taps with bucket golems attached. She immediately started drawing them, keeping in mind that they needed to exist for at least a full day to get any sap from the tree.
She was giggling to herself when Nodoka managed to get her attention. "Paru? Are you almost done?"
"I hope so. I'm tired of standing up here."
"Calm down Yue." Haruna said without looking up from her artifact. "I'm making sure these don't disappear during the day. Come forth!"
With a flash of light, twelve buckets and taps appeared on the ground by Haruna. As Nodoka grabbed two buckets and taps, Haruna stood up and grabbed two more to carry to the tree.
"Go ahead and lower the rope Yue." Nodoka called upward.
Nodoka's call was answered quickly by the end of a rope making its way to the ground like a snake crawling down the side of the tree. When it was low enough, Nodoka tied the buckets to the end, and placed the taps inside one of the buckets. "Ok Yue."
Yue pulled the rope as Haruna and Nodoka watched the buckets slowly rise into the air. A moment later, Yue's voice traveled downward. "How do I get these things into the World Tree?"
"Oh! You need a hammer to tap the taps in. Give me a minute."
Just like that Haruna summoned a hammer from her artifact. Before Nodoka could stop her, she tossed it up into the air. "Catch Yue!"
"What? OW!" cried Yue as Nodoka scampered out of the way to avoid the hammer's return to earth.
"You're supposed to catch that." Haruna called when the hammer landed several feet from her.
"I did catch it. With my knee. Let me lower the rope again and you tie it on there this time?"
"Try again. Catch!" Haruna threw the hammer upward again, only for it to return downward. Nodoka had moved to a safe distance from her friend and watched as the hammer landed with a thud.
"I can't move off this branch to catch it. Just tie it to the rope so you don't hit me with it?" The rope slid downward as Yue spoke.
"Oh, sure. Be that way." Haruna said with a smile.
After the hammer was tied to the rope and lifted up, Haruna called upward again, "It should only take a couple of hits to seat the taps into the holes Yue. The site I read said to be careful to not split the bark or else the sap will leak around the tap instead of going into the bucket."
"I'm still wondering why you are doing this at all." Yue said as she hung the bucket on the first tap.
"You'll see if this works as I hope." Haruna said.
Eventually, Yue finished hanging the buckets and dropped onto the air mattress that Haruna had drawn for her to land on. As she climbed off, Haruna looked at her with a thoughtful expression on her face.
Yue did not fail to notice this. "Do I want to know what you are thinking now Paru?"
"I'm thinking we are going to need a better way to retrieve the buckets other than climbing the World Tree again. It worked today, but that was only because we were drilling the holes. Tomorrow I am going to borrow a harness from the Library Exploration Club, so we can use it with the rope." Haruna replied.
"You mean the rope you 'borrowed' from the Club?" Yue asked.
"I intend to give them back, so borrowing would be the correct term." Haruna said.
Yue sighed, "Between you 'borrowing' things and the Artifact Abuse you've performed recently, I'm wondering when karma is going to catch up with you."
Haruna threw her arm around Yue's shoulder, "The Great Paru shall not be deterred by such trivial things as karma."
Nodoka watched her friends with a smile on her face. This had become part of the daily routine between them.
As the trio went back to the dorms with the gentle glow of the World Tree helping light the path, no one noticed the faint brightening of color at the very top that lasted for several hours.
Nimrod Notes
I will likely place Author Notes at the end of the chapter, much like this. I doubt that there will be much I feel like adding, but you never know.
For the record, this idea has been bouncing around in my head for a little while now. What I needed to start writing this was an opening. 'It was a dark and stormy night' might work for Snoopy of Charlie Brown fame, but not for me. When I reread Artifact Abuse by Japanese Teeth, it set things into motion. Japanese Teeth gave me permission to use that as a springboard for this story. Go read it as it is entertaining.
I will warn you now. There shall be Squick. Very graphic, extremely detailed Squick. The Squick will not start to seriously happen for a while yet, but it will happen. That is the reason for the M rating. Those of you with weak stomachs should stop reading now, and perhaps browse Ala Iridia's works, or my tamer material. They really are quite good.