Foreword: Thanks once again for all the supportive reviews everyone. I apologize for up and disappearing after saying I was going to post the next update soon, but rain forced my school to close for a day, and to compensate, my workload was doubled the next few days. Well, I'm proud to present the fourth chapter in the story, and I warn you, this is where the story starts to become weird.

I don't own Negima; all of its characters and locations belong to Ken Akamatsu. However, Nanami belongs to me.

Chapter Four

Voices In My Head

Her heart was beating harder than she'd ever thought possible, and it sounded like a hammer was slamming repeatedly at her ribcage. While the tan-skinned girls eyes were closed and her blush was modest, her eyes were wide and stark and at least a third of the blood in her body must have rushed to her face – that would explain why she suddenly felt so weak in her knees. She'd have stepped back in the other girl's hands hadn't found her own and pulled her into the motion so quickly, and she had found herself effectively immobilized; her body refusing to respond in any way.

"F-Fei-chan i-is…"

"Hihao Sacchan…"

Fei's lips had left hers, and immediately Satomi stumbled back, wide-eyed in terror. Her first kiss had been stolen right out from under her; the kiss that she had imagined with Chao so many times. The familiar blush didn't rise to her cheeks; it was likely her heart had stopped providing the blood that would have been needed, and she could only gape as she continued to stumble away from the girl.

"S-Sacchan?" came Fei's voice, and Satomi could practically hear the worry dripping off of the girl's words. She didn't care though. Something was wrong with this world – she had known something was wrong and she'd still played along all day, why had she let it get so out of hand!? Fei's eyes were wide and frightened now, and she took a step towards Satomi, and in turn she took another step back.

"This can't be real, it just can't!"

She didn't have amnesia, but yet there was so much she didn't remember that she should have. It all had to be some sort of fever dream; something that she would wake up from and a moment's notice. Wishful thinking however, didn't stop her from turning and running full pelt away from her would-be lover. Fei could only stand by the fountain, staring after the girl in stunned silence.

"S-Sacchan..?"

"Can't be real…"

She wasn't waking up; all she was doing was stumbling down a pathway she had just walked up. It didn't matter that people were staring or that she finally realized her eyes were cloudy with tears; she just had to get away. None of it made sense; nothing was how it should have been. The tears were making it harder to see, and the distraught girl was stumbling even worse than before. She didn't slow down though, because slowing down would mean that everything she was denying would catch up to her.

Was she losing her mind? That hardly seemed a likely scenario; nothing had ever happened to her that could have pushed her that far, she had thought to herself. Then again, it would explain so many things. It was too easy a way out though, and couldn't possibly be the true answer behind everything. Something was happening; something that she didn't have any idea about, and she desperately wanted to know what.

"Hakase-san, what is the matter?"

Satomi was forced to a sudden halt when the gynoid's firm grip stopped her in her tracks, nearly taking her legs out from under her. Satomi whirled to glare at the girl left not five minutes ago, "Let me go!" she shrieked, struggling in her hold. Chachamaru didn't listen though, and did just the opposite, and maintained her hold, tilting her head in an expression of confusion. She did not understand; she had only left her, what could have possibly happened so quickly? Granted, Ku Fei may have lacked tact in some respects, but surely she couldn't be so bad as to warrant this much grief from her creator.

"Is there trouble with your-"

Chachamaru didn't get to finish her question as her vision was overtaken by a flash of white, and her arms went slack. Satomi landed in a heap, pulling herself up and running away from the gynoid and thanking whatever god or angel that was listening that she'd remembered Chachamaru's override code. Then again, it wasn't so hard to forget – the password was Chao Bao Zi, after all.

She could hear the gynoid call after her, and there was no doubt that Chachamaru was going to chase after her – the override program was temporary, of course. Wiping furiously at her eyes, Satomi ran blindly away from the lights, running down the path towards the station. Behind her she could hear the clacking footfalls of Chachamaru, and was thankful for the first time for all the people around – with them around, Chachamaru couldn't use her thrusters to chase after her.

Soon, colorful banners and streamers became sparser, and as Satomi ran deeper into the business district of the city where celebrations rarely reached, the noise and light of the festival became merely noise in the background. Chachamaru couldn't be too far behind – with the night sky as cover, for all she knew, the gynoid was already in the air looking for her, and Satomi began ducking into smaller streets and alleys, running without thinking.

Even without the festive setting though, couples and students roamed around out here, turning to look as the sobbing girl ran past them. She didn't care though; this all was fake – every last bit of it. She wasn't sure how it was happening, but there wasn't any reason for her to give a damn anymore, not if caring only made her cry like this. She stumbled down a staircase, nearly knocking over a group of three she recognized as the cheerleader trio from her class. They all called after her, Sakurako even trying to catch up, but Satomi blundered her way around the corner and out of sight.

"Why am I running!?" she shrieked at herself out loud, even though she already knew the answer. It was because if she stopped, Chachamaru would catch her and make her face this reality that she didn't accept – this world where everything seemed perfectly normal to everybody but her. It wasn't reality, she screamed to herself, not sure if it was out loud or in her mind this time.

She wanted to scream for Chao. She wanted to beg the departed girl to come and make everything better like she always did. Whether it was a smile or a hug or one of her silly inventions to test on Fei, Chao had always made everything better. Even if she was hard at work in the middle of a project, she would have dropped everything and dragged her out to a movie if the bespectacled girl was feeling sad. Chao had been so caring it made Satomi's heart hurt and had driven the girl sick with love, and all of it had been scorched when Chao was forced to go.

All of those memories gone, like a single happy day in the sun…


The air was balmy and was perfectly complemented by the gentle breezes that rolled through the city. Satomi didn't have a preference in weather, it was all really the same in her opinion – it wasn't as if she intended to spend her day outdoors anyway. She'd much rather spend it indoors; perhaps unwrapping those sparkling new processors she'd bought for herself as a gift for First Place at the Robotics Meet, or maybe calling Chachamaru over and installing that emotion emulation software she'd just finished. Yet she found herself out in the city.

Perhaps it was because she was from the future, and life in Mahora must have been like an extended vacation to her, but Chao loved to walk around outside when the weather was nice. The girl who was the best at everything she tried couldn't help but put aside her work or her plans and slack off a little for once in her life whenever she heard of something interesting happening in the city.

"Interesting" by Satomi's standards, was a multi-organization mimetic organism.

The same word by Chao's standard meant a new dish at her favorite ramen parlor.

Satomi didn't know what the reason was behind Chao's love for ramen, apparently she'd never had a whole lot of it where she'd come from, and had fallen absolutely in love with it as soon as she'd arrived here. She was always eating it in the lab, much to Satomi's distress. Just one drop on the wrong console could send the entire lab up in flames within minutes. True to form though, she'd never seen the Chinese girl spill even a drop.

Such was the reasoning behind today's excursion into the city. Satomi had only managed to hear the words "ramen" and "stingray" through her faceplate and the roar of the welding torch, and had barely managed to intuitively shut the flame off before she was bodily yanked from her workbench and dragged from her lab. Her protests were met with Chao's reasoning that if Satomi didn't get some more sun, she'd test out her new tanning bed on her, and the flailing girl immediately quieted down – she didn't want to be the guinea pig for an invention that put her between what was basically two enormous waffle irons.

"What're you going to order?" Chao asked from her seat across the booth, chewing on a fingernail as she skimmed through the menu for the new dish.

Satomi pouted, still slightly annoyed that Chao had dragged her from a perfectly good day of slapping together old inventions in the lab into a new Nikuman-9500. She could have made her collection into a perfect dozen in just a few hours. Exhaling softly to release her tension like she'd seen in some documentary she couldn't quite remember, she glanced down at the menu. By the fifth item down, she found herself recoiling from the menu as if it had tried to write her.

"What's wrong?" Chao asked, acting completely the opposite and leaning in to read the ingredients for each dish in the fine print.

"Chao-chan, I remember this place! Half of this stuff has given me food poisoning!"

Indeed, the first time she should have seen it coming. Satomi had never been able to stomach ginger very well, and back then was before the menu printed its ingredients below the dishes. The ginger broth had made Satomi sick to her stomach, and Chao had put her on bed rest for a week – in her room, no less! She'd missed her lab like a mother would a child, but Chao was an unrelenting nurse, and Satomi had made it a promise to herself not to catch a stomach bug on her watch.

The second time had been the chef's fault actually, and everyone but Chao had gotten sick from the bad stock of beef. Chao's stomach had to have been lined with steel or something of the sort, because when Satomi had half-finished her bowl and decided to order a bowl of rice instead, Chao had finished her serving off as well. This time it was just some stomach cramps, but Satomi had come not to trust the food at this restaurant.

Somehow Chao had convinced her to come along again, and everything had gone well until what must have been the eleventh or twelfth time. The restaurant had just expanded, and even she had been looking forward to some new dishes. The chef had been getting better, and she and Chao had begun to share a preference for the same dishes. The food was fine, this time it was the tea, which had a had a garnish of ginger than Satomi had mistaken for a lemon, and she had been lucky that Chao had been there to catch her when she suddenly blacked out on the way home.

Since that incident, she'd always ordered rice at the ramen bar. Chao had said time and time again that she was fine with trying out a nw place to eat, but Satomi stubbornly insisted that she was fine. In truth, she really didn't care all too much about the food – she just wanted to have a good time with Chao. If Chao wanted to eat ramen, so be it then, they'd go to the ramen bar.

"Hm? So?"

"The new stuff sounds even worse! What exactly IS liver-chop surprise and why does it say not to lay down for at least an hour after consumption!?" she squeaked, reading over the ingredients incredulously to make sure she hadn't hallucinated the ridiculous item. Looking up, she felt her stomach churn when she saw Chao staring at the same item, all but drooling onto her menu.

Satomi felt ill, even though she'd ordered the same dish as always and actually rather enjoyed her meal. It hadn't been until she looked up to find Chao indulging herself in a third bowl of the forebodingly churning maroon broth did she feel her stomach twist into a knot, and once the smell of burnt rubber and fish reached her nostrils, Satomi gave a groan of pain and excused herself from the restaurant, staggering to the door.

City air was never fresh – as beautiful and open air as Mahora was, this was doubly true near a restaurant, and Satomi could smell the pollution of civilization at work. Still though, even the impurity of auto exhaust was nothing compared whatever it was Chao was eating. Breathing slowly, Satomi pressed a hand to her stomach. She'd always had a stomach that got upset easily, but she couldn't understand how even the strongest stomach could survive the battering Chao's eating habits gave it. Suddenly, the bell above the door chimed, and Satomi looked to her side as her companion exited.

"Aaah…that was nice You okay?" Chao asked, patting the girl's back. Satomi nodded, then scowled, flicking what looked like a bit of raw pork off of her friend's cheek.

"Heeey, I would have just eaten that if you'd told me…" grumbled Chao, actually casting the bit of meat a forlorn look. The Chinese girl quickly burst into laughter at the indignant scowl on her friend's face, and without another word, grabbed Satomi by the hand and hauled her off again.

Moments later Satomi found herself sitting on a bench in the courtyard surrounding the World Tree. With a good-natured sigh, she looked over to Chao. The Chinese girl sat to her right, licking contentedly at her ice cream and staring up at the monolithic tree. She quickly jerked her head back when she saw Chao looking back at her, and focused her eyes on her shoes as if they were the most interesting things in the world, letting her hair fall forward to hide her blush.

Chao tilted her head, but shrugged and returned to her ice cream. "It's going to melt if you don't eat it." she said. The sudden slick cold feeling along her hand was right on cue, and Satomi squeaked, hurriedly licking at the sides of the melting treat, blushing embarrassedly.

By the time Satomi had reached the cone Chao had finished her ice cream altogether, and let out a happy sigh signifying that she was finally full. With a lazy smile she leaned back in the bench, staring up at the branches of the tree. She loved how the leaves would flutter in waves in the ever-present breeze around the tree.

"You know…I didn't really like the outdoors back in my time." Chao suddenly said.

Satomi looked quizzically at the girl, ice cream smeared slightly over her face since she'd rushed to finish it. Chao closed her eyes in thought and continued, "I like it here because…it's so different, you know? You'd probably be the same if you'd gone to my future."

Chao's words hung in the air, undisturbed except for the rustling of another breeze stirring the leaves above. Satomi found words in her throat, though she was struggling not to say them. However, the silence got the better of her, and she managed to stutter out a response.

"N-No…" she said, her cheeks flushing just lightly enough for Chao not to have noticed, even if her eyes were open. "It wouldn't be any fun without Chao-chan to show me everything."

This time it was Satomi's voice that lingered, and Chao cracked an eye open and grinned. "Oh? That's not like you Satomi-chan, although I admit that I do brighten the place up quite a bit." she said with a wink.

Despite her blush, this sent Satomi into a peal of giggles, and Chao, grinning impishly, hopped to her feet. "I'll teach you to laugh at me!" she proclaimed, "Come on – to my favorite spot!" The girl pointed up at a branch high above them, surrounded by a nest of leaves the formed a half-dome over it, almost like a small cave of vibrant greenery.

Satomi had calmed down and tilted her head in confusion. "Huh? How are we going to get up there?"

Chao stuck out her tongue, "Like I said, I'm gonna teach you for mocking me." She said with a grin Satomi knew to mean nothing but trouble. "Don't scream," she added, and grabbed Satomi's hand.

It was fun, even when Chao was teasing her, but she still screamed when she suddenly found herself high above the ground. It was scary, being this high up, but Chao had a firm grip, and whatever invention she was using to jump this high, Satomi was sure that if Chao could trust it, it wouldn't let them down.

Even before her feet touched down lightly on the branch, Satomi was breath-taken by the view. The leaves formed a bubble around them from which they could look out at the entirety of Mahora. Satomi could see Library Island and the clock tower in the distance, and over in the courtyard she could see Satsuki and Chachamaru manning the restaurant cart. Everything looked so small from up here, like toys in the chest of some diminutive god.

Somehow she'd managed to tear herself away from the view, and glanced over to Chao, who was staring out across the grounds with a serene expression. The corners of her mouth were raised in a calm smile, and her eyes were gentle – more like the lull of an ocean than the crack of lightning and maelstrom intent she usually had. For once – just once – she looked at peace.

"Chao-"

She was cut off. Chao hadn't said anything or grabbed her and pulled her along or anything of the sort. Rather, Satomi found herself immobilized by nothing so large as the presence of Chao's slender arms wrapping around her The hug couldn't have lasted more than a second, and as Chao pulled back Satomi couldn't see any blush on her cheeks or love in the girl's eyes, but it still stunned her.

"Thanks for always being my friend, Satomi-chan."


A loud snap broke her out of her thoughts, and she was aware she no longer felt the ground under her. She was facing the sky, or rather, the glittering branches of the World Tree, decorated with thousands upon thousands of lanterns stretched out like cobwebs from what must have been over every single one of the street lamps that lined the walks around the tree. It was like a spiraling cone of light, drowning out the stars in a canopy of merrily dancing flames as her dimension of sound was swallowed up by the sound of rushing air. She felt weightless.

"I'm falling…" she realized. High heels weren't made for running, after all.

The hard concrete was unforgiving as the girl's head slammed into it with her entire body's weight behind it, and the sound of the air was replaced with a sickening crack that seemed too loud to be real. Her entire frame stiffened, and far away she heard herself scream. It didn't hurt though; she didn't even feel an ache; all she felt was as if she was laying in a pool of warm water, though the far-off screams she made out probably meant something else entirely.

She couldn't remember what she had been thinking about a moment ago; all she knew that she was a lot calmer now having forgotten about it, and so she let it go for the moment. For some reason, it felt right to be laying here; her body didn't want to move and she couldn't object to its reasoning, she was feeling absolutely exhausted. Part of her was aware that she couldn't feel anything and that she should be worried, but the other part was aware that her body was still and probably ached something awful, and told her it was alright to just lay there a little longer.

It was becoming harder to think as her head lolled to the side, and her glasses slipped off her face, making a wet sound when they hit the ground. She didn't care, she couldn't exactly find anything in particular she wanted to think about. By now she could make out nearly a dozen pairs of legs out of the corner of her eye, and felt hands gingerly touching her, worrying and fretting over something her sluggish mind couldn't quite keep up with at the moment.

Something made the people around her move to the side, and she could see the hem of a familiar dress before its owner crouched down, touching her cheek with her hand. She could feel the stiffness of Chachamaru's hand on the back of her head, and heard the distant murmurs of Chachamaru saying something she couldn't quite understand. Chachamaru was crying – gynoids can't cry; try as she might, Hakase had never been able to finish that emulation program. It was just reticular cleaning fluid leaking through the ducts at the base of Chachamaru's eye sockets. Chachamaru couldn't be sobbing; it had to be a glitch that made her body heave like that as she rubbed at her eyes.

"Silly…" she thought to herself as she saw the red dripping from the cybernetic girl's hand before it returned to cradling her head. Machines don't bleed – only humans do; the android shouldn't be getting all worked up - it wasn't as if she could bleed to death. Chachamaru was saying more things, but she couldn't listen, and simply stared wherever her eyes were facing; it was all she found she could do.

She could see the trunk of the World Tree from where she lay, thankfully unobstructed by the throng of legs around her. Her ears were ringing now, and she accounted it to the pain in her head for causing this discomfort. She felt horribly tired too, and even though the middle of a walkway was no place to be resting, her eyelids wanted desperately to shut, but she forced them to stay open for just a minute longer.

She saw something.

Up in the lowest branch of the tree was a cross; a speck in the distance from where she was, but a cross. Without her glasses, for some reason it was clearer to her than even her arm laying inches from her face. A halo of light was around it; the lanterns, bathing it in a golden glow as if it were some deity come down to claim her, and she was unable to tear her eyes away from it. Even when the blackness began to creep in at the edges of her vision, the cross was as clear as if was right in front of her nose.

That was it. That was what had been wrong this entire time. So used to seeing that one spot in the tree every time she looked at the great plant, that without realizing it, the simple, easy to overlook presence of that cross had been driving her crazy. A simple little speck in the distance – all of her confusion could have been solved if only she had seen it sooner. She didn't know how she knew – only that it was all she knew now. The cross was why she was here and why this world was the way it was.

How did she know that simple cross was so important?

"That's where Chao-chan-"

Her eyelids fell shut without warning, and the ringing stopped. With a mirthless giggle within the recesses of her mind, she noted that she in fact hadn't seen her entire life flash behind her eyes. Her thoughts became lost in the inky blackness before the entire world faded away, and with it so did Satomi Hakase.

Author's Notes: Well, I feel comfortable with Satomi's character, so now is when I begin to shape it to my own vision. Don't worry, she's not dead - obviously - but don't go making assumptions about anything just yet. Actually, when you drop a review for the chapter, if you feel like taking a guess, post it as well. Anyone who is remotely close will get a cookie. Ja