Chapter 2: The Replacement
Negi sprinted down the sidewalk. He hadn't been this late in months. He glanced at his watch and shuddered. Class was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago, and he wasn't even halfway there. He had stopped by one of the offices to drop off some paperwork only to run into Takamichi.
"Negi! Come here, I need to talk to you!"
"What is it?"
"Someone's been messing with the school barrier! I need you to go down to Sub-basement 4 room 307 in Library Island and reverse the polarity or the campus could be in danger!"
"What! Really?" He was shocked, the school barrier had all sorts of fail safes, and had never failed as long as he had been at Mahora. Something had to be terribly wrong. He had sprinted off towards Library Island. He was nearly halfway there before he realized that he had no idea what Takamichi was talking about.
He had been to Library Island a few times, but he had no clue where Sub-basement 4 would be. And he had no idea how he was supposed to "reverse the polarity" or how that was supposed to solve the problem. And there was no indication that there actually was a problem.
If the barrier really was in danger of failing, an emergency broadcast would almost certainly have been sent out. He pulled out his cellphone. No messages. He had received notifications for much more benign occurrences; the monorail being out of order, students climbing the World Tree, someone (probably Haruna) slipping age-changing pills into the soda machine in the food court... No way the barrier was failing.
He had no clue what Takamichi had been thinking. The man knew Negi's schedule, that he would be on his way to class. Why the wild goose chase? He gave Takamichi a call. No answer. Made sense, Takamichi had class now too, and usually turned his phone off during that time. What was going on?
Negi finally reached the classroom. He leaned against the door for a moment while he caught his breath. He dreaded to think about what the girls were doing; when you got them all in one place and left them unattended, bad things tended to happen. He took a glance through the window to let himself know what he was going to be dealing with.
To his surprise, they were all sitting quietly, staring toward the front of the room with attention that they rarely even paid him. Maybe one of the other teachers had noticed his absence and had someone cover for him. He looked toward the front of the room. There was indeed someone at the front of the room, lecturing the class.
And that person, against all logic and reason, was himself.
Whoo cliffhanger. All will be (mostly) explained in the next chapter.
