A/N: Okay, now let's ready. This will be a short, maybe very short chapter, but just so that this arc will be complete. Also, just because I based "Bardas" on my own clothes, doesn't mean that he looks like me.

Chapter 7: You!?

Haruna and Yue were looking through their room to see if there was anything left of what Fashtar's men had taken with them. Apparently, they had taken the opportunity to steal most or all of Nodoka's possessions as well with her. It felt a bit bad for them that they had done such a thing, but in Nodoka's case, it would be a very good thing, since Fashtar probably didn't know what they could do. For now at least…

"Have you found anything yet?" Haruna asked Yue, who was looking for a little box where Nodoka kept her magical items. Haruna was looking for her mundane items, such as journal, books to read, and a custom made dougi (1) they had bought together for when they were going through close combat training with Setsuna, Ku Fei and Kaede. Being a disciple of a mage doesn't mean you can't skip combat training in martial arts too.

"No, they took the box. Even her pactio card." Yue said sadly after looking everywhere.

"They even got her dougi. They really did take everything." Haruna said after confirming the absence of Nodoka's aforementioned outfit.

"They certainly knew when and how to strike at us." Yue said with her stern look.

"What do you mean?" Haruna asked with a metaphorical question mark on her face.

"At the start of our encounter, Fashtar-san underestimated us and sent in well-trained but weak units to get Nodoka. They hadn't checked out our own strength and thus we sent them running back to their commander. What did Fashtar-san do? He then had the knowledge of our strength and sent in the best troops he had with him. And they used the best items they had available against leaving us incapacitated. But he hadn't seen Negi-sensei in action with his Magia Erebea, so he had to fix it himself. And then there's the little bag he left us."

"What about it?" Haruna asked again.

"I tried my best all night trying to open it, but it was enhanced with heavy magic, and every time I tried to dispel it, it would backfire on me." Yue responded, pulling out her artefact. "I tried looking it up in my artefact, but there were no matching articles on it at all."

"Hello, alien item, do you think your book would cover that as well?" Haruna aksed this time sarcastically. Yue merely huffed and supposed not.

"By the way, did you also sense it?" Yue asked this time about something.

"Sense what?"

"Bardas-sensei. I sensed that he had magic energy." Yue said.

"Well, it shouldn't be any surprise there at all. Nearly half of the teachers here are magi to begin with." Haruna said, shaking her head at her friend.

"True and his wasn't over the usual scale. I suppose he is just an ordinary mage like the others." Yue said.

Meanwhile, at the university's festival scene, Bardas ran up the stairs there that lead away from the scene and quickly dove into cover behind one of the pillars. Good grief, he though to himself. He could barely keep it up anymore, that acting stuff. Fortunately, Negi was very gullible for taking the bait. Bardas could have easily have dodged Kagetarou's shadow lances, but that would have ruined the whole ambush. But it worked at least.

Negi-kun nearly found me out there. Good thing that the timing was perfect. Now let's see if Negi-kun is willing to listen to my real me…

"Could you have kept it up a little longer? It was fun to watch." A voice behind him said as Bardas removed his glasses and his grey eyes showed themselves to behold Wilhelm Josef von Hermann, a certain demon with whom he had worked together with before.

"Wilhelm. I told you that it was strictly professional with the disguise." Bardas said as he ruffled his hair around and it turned snow white and spiky.

"Well, it was good to watch anyhow. I saw the party they held for you. You must have had espionage training or something, since Negi-kun bought it too." Wilhelm continued. Bardas merely looked back at him for a while.

"One of the things I was created for. But Negi-kun wouldn't have bought it for long. I reckon he would have found out tonight or tomorrow if I kept it up."

"That explains why it had to happen tonight. Should I get down there and help the others while your disguise wears off?" Wilhelm asked his apparent employer in disguise.

"Go ahead." Bardas said, removing his necklace. "I'll catch up." Wilhelm dashed off to where Negi was fighting Kagetarou. Bardas' face changed slowly as well as his clothes until they had a dark blue colour on them and it was shaped into a Japanese school uniform for all-boys' schools.

Negi had to admit this. Kagetarou picked the best chance to ambush him. They haven't entered close combat at all, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was a good thing because it made sure Negi's arm would heal just in time for him to beat these guys if he got away. The bad thing about it all was that it was apparently Kagetarou's specialty and his friend had guns.

"I'm impressed, kiddo!" he cried out to Negi. "Even with my bullets being guided telepathically, you're the first one to actually dodge them!" Here's what he looks like. This one is dressed neatly in Victorian dressing, clad in a charcoal suit with leather riding boots, along with a red bowtie, covered in a long red overcoat. Also, he has a red fedora hat with a short, sloppy brim. He carries a pair of Sig-Saur p228 pistols (2) as his weapons of choice.

"I might actually get a little serious on this!" He continued as he fired the four final rounds of his two guns. "Damn, ran out of ammo…"

"Raziel! Don't take that boy lightly! He's the one who beat Rakan!" Kagetarou shouted at his red dressed companion while trying to ensnare Negi with his shadows.

"Wait, he's that guy?! Well that changes things!" Raziel, apparently the one dressed in red said as he pulled out a pactio card and said "Adeat." Out came another pair of pistols. When he grabbed them, they changed somehow, into a single firearm mounted on the arm with dual muzzles and no apparent magazine holder.

He's got an artefact!? Negi thought as the firearm fired in auto fire. Fortunately, Negi was quick to avoid the shots, and Raziel was probably aiming to distract him, so Kagetarou could get him instead. Only, it wasn't the latter that landed a punch on Negi's face, it was a newcomer. And the punch was very powerful for Negi to be flung backwards and land on his back. His arm in splint wasn't injured.

"We just want to talk, Negi-kun, that's all." Wilhelm's voice was heard as Negi tried to rise up from his position.

"Even Wilhelm-san. How come you're here in the first place?" Negi had to ask this time. Wilhelm looked first at Kagetarou, then at Raziel and finally at the exit of the festival stage, then turned back to Negi.

"I'm not the one pulling the strings here, Negi-kun. We were just told to make sure that you listen to what he has to tell you." Wilhelm said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Who?" Negi asked before feeling a hand on his head.

"Me." An all too familiar voice said from behind. When Negi tried to turn around, he felt a powerful punch to his ribcage, making him fall down a good six feet away from where he stood. But he managed to get a view of who punched him when he landed.

"Out of everybody that I've faced, it just had to be you, Fate." Negi said in anger as he stared at Fate Averruncus, the same geomancer he had encountered and been beaten by several times, until Ostia. Fate merely looked back at Negi's defiant eyes.

"One last time, what are you doing here?" Negi asked all of them. Fate closed his eyes for a moment and then responded.

"Before your encounter with them, I ran into these humanoid creatures as well. After a brief encounter with them myself, I learned that they had plans for our own world. Normally, I wouldn't care about this sort of thing at all, but since it would interfere with my own plans, I intend to stop them." Fate said calmly at the angry request from his enemy.

"That's why I gathered up Kagetarou, Wilhelm, Raziel and others to prepare for a war if it comes to it." He continued.

"So how come you're here at Mahora, practically a magic fortress, where dozens of mages can come down on your heads?" Negi asked this time, curious at their presence.

"That's very simple. You are also needed for this." Fate answered bluntly. "The other teachers except Takamichi-kun don't know, and the headmaster has given me permission to be here as well. Evangeline-san is also in on this."

"Who?" Raziel asked his employer.

"The Doll Master, Gospel of Darkness, Disciple of Destruction, call her whatever you wish." Fate answered back, making Raziel shiver upon hearing few of many titles Evangeline has had through the centuries. Through the clattering of his teeth, Negi saw that Raziel was a vampire as well. Though possibly not a Shinso vampire, hence why he appeared at night.

"So let me get this straight, then." Negi said sternly, trying to rise up. "You came all this way, from Mundus Magicus to Japan, to fight off an alien incursion, and you want my help to do it?"

"That's correct, Negi-kun. And although you would say that you do not have a reason to help us…" Fate said before performing a shundou to appear in front of Negi. "Now you do. I know about Miyazaki. It's become personal for you in this. Deny it as much as you want to, but you and I are comrades in this situation right now. I don't know when they will strike, so I do not plan to be caught on the bed rise as they pillage Earth and eventually find Mundus Magicus. What do you say?" Fate eventually reaches out a hand, probably for Negi to shake it.

Negi had to think deeply about this. Fate was right. It was personal for Negi, since Fashtar had abducted his student, friend and partner Nodoka, actually one of few he would consider going on a date with if he wasn't a teacher at Mahora. But that it was personal didn't mean as it wasn't for Fate as well. He was clever covering up his personal matter in it by saying that they would screw up the plans of Cosmo Entelecheia, and it was true. Negi began to raise his hand but stopped just their hands made contact. "I only got one question."

"Yes?"

"If it wasn't personal for me in the first place, why me?" Negi asked his opponent, leaving him with his 'puzzled' look. Meaning, his eyes widened slightly.

"Well, saving the world runs in the family, doesn't it?" Fate responded after a while. "You can't help being the little saviour of the world. Simple as that."

Negi frowned on those words, but in the end, Fate was right yet again. So Negi slammed his hand into Fate's. "Fine. But don't expect me to do everything you say."

Negi noticed a very faint smile on Fate's lips. "I never thought of it that way, you little rebel."

Roughly two days later

Nodoka woke up in a strange room with soft violet lights on. The smell was very sweet, very nice. Petals of an unknown flower or flowers were spread all over the place. It was like a princess' room in a palace.

But then she began to remember. What had really happened to her. This wasn't a dream. It was real, the attacks, her abduction, all of it. She found that she was naked as well. Do these aliens take no heed to privacy at all!? She quickly covered herself n case there was a peeping Tom nearby. Even if she wasn't well endowed, one could never tell with culture differences.

A small probe hovered in midair, giving off a small buzzing sound. She looked at it, as it hovered towards her, then producing a soft hologram resembling a rectangle with a small orb made of large pixels that presented a purple cube. This confused her. The orb in the hologram repeated the action. Eventually, Nodoka understood the trick and pressed on the cube. It presented her with the purple cube along with a yellow next to it. She pressed first the purple one and then the yellow one. This time, a red one appeared as well. When she pressed the red cube after the first two, a final blue cube appeared after the other three. When she completed the code, the hologram shut and in big letters in English, the probe wrote: 'WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME'.

Nodoka just had to say this for once in her whole life in which she hasn't found a situation to say it, but now it was a very good opportunity since nobody was around. "Fuck."

A/N: Did you honestly believe that Bardas was an OC? I mean, really, did you? Oh, don't sue me, please. I for one can see Negi and Fate, if their goals are common, work together. Furthermore, my pen seemed to have dried up at the moment, so let's call it a pause here. We will see how things go for Nodoka in the next chapter, so stay tuned. I got studies to do!

1 Essentially an outfit for learning martial arts in Japan. By the way, they haven't had their practical CC training yet.

2 These are the official firearms for several police forces in Europe. Look them up on the Internet.