Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey
Chapter Eleven
It wasn't true to say that Fate had come to hate the smiling faces of his class. That would be both inaccurate and insufficiently specific. He had, on a fundamental level, always resented the smiling faces he saw anywhere he went on the Old World, so the smiling faces of these thirty young women were really only a subset of something he already disliked.
He was self-aware enough to realize that it was unfair to resent the happiness he occasionally glimpsed here. It was not the fault of any of these people that the Magical World had become what it was, and he suspected that if they had known, many of the more affluent people of this world would have volunteered some of their time and resources to help prevent it or assist it, just as they routinely offered material assistance to regions of their own world afflicted by natural disasters, when they were able to do so.
Further, he suspected that the resentment he felt was not so much his own as it was a lingering aspect of his creator's influence on his programming, and, having decided to oppose the creator's intentions on the grounds that his master did not fully understand the situation, felt obligated to to resist such lingering influence to the best of his ability.
But when that lingering influence coincided with a genuine feeling he had decided to allow himself, such as his resentment of these oh so very very very annoying young women ... he was willing to go with it.
And right at the moment, the smug smile he was seeing on the face of Kakizaki Misa was driving him crazy, particularly since he couldn't understand why she was smiling.
He'd called her and Kugimiya and Shiina-san aside at the start of homeroom, informed them that skipping out of detention was not going to be tolerated, that they would be getting an additional detention for the rest of the week ... and Kakizaki, speaking for the trio, had kept right on smiling as he'd done so, nodding politely and not raising any fuss over the subject. Kugimiya and Shiina-san had looked a bit more apprehensive, but they hadn't objected.
He was getting what he wanted, so why was she smiling?
She couldn't have -
No, he told himself confidently, silently, as he didn't bother to listen to Yotsuba doing her recital from the text. Negi-kun would not betray me like that. He promised he would not give them a pactio if they came to him, and he will keep his word.
He has to keep his word.
It's what a gentleman does.
As long as he is dealing with another gentleman.
He felt his teeth grinding.
Eventually, class ended, and he was able to retreat, away from those damnable smiles, to the teacher's office and peace and serenity and solitude and a paper cup on his desk.
Fate blinked. Why was there a paper cup on his desk?
"Excuse me," he asked one of the other teachers, whose name he'd never bothered to learn. "Did you happen to see who brought this in?"
"Oh, yes, actually," she replied. "I ... can't remember her name, but she's one of your class. They're sort of famous, you know," she added after the fashion of one revealing a great confidence. "Very nice of them, wouldn't you say? The latter day version of the apple on the desk."
"Yes," he replied, staring at the paper cup. "Thank you," he said absently.
The cup was warm to the touch, and he could detect a certain aroma from it. Beneath where it had been resting, there was a note.
Enjoy, it said, and then the name, Miyazaki.
He drank the coffee ...
... and discovered, somewhat to his amazement, that he could in fact hate her even more than he already did, for the coffee was everything that she'd said it was. It was as close to that first cup as anything he'd ever tasted.
These girls were going to pay.
Yue found herself reflecting that it was just like old times as she watched Fate nearly dash out of the room at the end of their English lesson. That had been the way that their teachers had generally departed towards the end of their tenure as instructor to what was then 1-A. Since she liked Fate no more than anyone else, she supposed that was a good sign. But the faint smile on Nodoka's face as she watched Fate go was enough to make her rather nervous, even though it was the same faint smile she often had as she -
Agh agh agh no bad thought no mustn't think about sexy times in class!
"Yue-chan, why are you blushing like that?" Makie asked her curiously.
"I'm having a bad reaction to something I drank this morning," Yue replied hoarsely. And now I'm lying! I, who seek only the love of truth (philos sophia), am lying!
"Ah," Makie said, nodding in complete understanding.
And lying successfully, too!
Then Makie frowned. "Nodoka-chan, why are you smiling like that when Yue-chan is so -"
Fortunately, Yue's prayers for dimensional invasion were both momentarily unheard and unnecessary, for another distraction presented itself. "Makie-san," said Chachamaru, walking up to the table where Makie and Ako sat together. "Might I intrude for a moment?"
"Ah? Oh, sure, Chachamaru-chan," the gymnast replied. "What's up?"
Chachamaru actually blinked at being addressed in that manner. There might, Yue thought, have been the slightest blush on those alabaster cheeks of hers. "In my role as Negi-sensei's personal assistant, I have been asked -" the gynoid began to narrate.
"What's that like?" Makie interjected.
"What is what like?" Chachamaru replied, blinking again.
"Being Negi-kun's personal assistant. Is it fun?"
"... it is somewhat trying, particularly the parts where I attempt to arrange meetings for him with certain people," Chachamaru answered with total honesty. "However, the emotional satisfaction of being of use to sensei is a considerable incentive. I wish that I could be of similar use to other persons for whom I care as much, but they are proving reluctant."
"Wow," said Makie, clearly fascinated. She glimpsed Chisame reading a text book upside down with somewhat shaky hands and wondered what that was all about.
"In any event, as I was saying, sensei has asked me to arrange a meeting between himself, yourself, and Akira-san." The gynoid paused, as though reflecting, and then added, "Ako-san, you and Yuna-san might wish to be present as well."
"Ah?" replied Ako, who had been doing her level best to pretend that she wasn't listening in on the conversation that was going on right beside her, and might possibly have convinced a small, not particularly clever child that she wasn't doing so.
"Matters of interest to all four of you will be discussed in the castle today after school," Chachamaru concluded.
Makie didn't like frowning, both because she was a naturally cheerful soul and because she'd heard that frowning put stress on the wrong muscles in one's face. But she was frowning now, at least partially because she had the sensation that she'd considered her reasons for disliking frowning fairly recently, and didn't want to get into a rut when it came to her thoughts.
"Makie, what's wrong?" Akira asked as the four of them walked through the forest together.
"Doesn't this seem a bit strange?" she asked, pausing to turn and look at Akira, Ako and Yuna. "If Negi-kun wanted to talk to us, why didn't he just come to us himself? Why go through this 'matters of interest' business with Chachamaru-chan?"
"He's probably just busy," Akira replied.
"But, I mean, if he was busy but still needed to talk to us, why not just use the Pactio to, to ... um ... what's the word?" she asked after some hemming and hawing.
"You mean, to contact us telepathically?" Ako supplied.
"Hwee, that's a whole phrase," Makie groaned. "Shouldn't there be a simple word for it? Anyway, yeah, that. He could have just done that if he needed to let us know something in a hurry."
Akira coughed politely.
"I mean, all of us have pactios and we all did that so we could help Negi-kun and -" Makie continued on heedlessly.
Now Akira coughed a little impolitely.
"Are you okay?" Makie asked, momentarily forgetting her own concerns as she became worried about her friend.
Why did I try to be subtle? Akira thought wearily. Why? "Makie," she continued aloud. "I don't have a pactio with him. Remember?"
"Oh, yeah," the gymnast said. Then blinked, grinned. "Well, that explains it then! He wanted to make sure that we all got the news at the same time but couldn't be there himself, and since he couldn't do a telepath thingy with Akira-chan, he had to use Chachamaru-chan to send it the old fashioned way! Makes perfect sense, don't you think?"
"I honestly didn't give it much thought," Yuna replied. Ako nodded.
"Well, however much thought you gave it -" Makie started to say, turning back to the pathway.
"YOU GOT THAT WRONG!" Haruna declared as she dropped down out of the trees to dangle upside down in front of them.
"GYAAH!" replied three out of four sports girls.
"Haruna ... what are you doing in that tree?" Akira asked after a moment of silent contemplation.
"Oh, just -"
"And please don't say 'hanging around'."
Haruna pouted. "I am attempting," she continued, with an air of wounded dignity, "to reclaim my dynamic entry schtick, that Nodo-chan has so cruelly usurped of late. How'm I doing?"
"... I'd give it an eight," Makie supplied.
"Harsh!"
"How the heck are you doing that?" Yuna asked, staring in amazement.
"Grace and skill!" Haruna replied proudly.
"No, not the, the hanging upside down bit, I'm pretty sure even Ako could manage that."
"Gee, thanks," said Ako, in a tone that was neither 'gee' nor very thankful.
"You're welcome," Yuna replied absently, and blissfully ignored Ako's Akira-interrupted attempt to throttle her. "Anyway, Haruna, I'm talking about your skirt! Why the heck isn't it dangling around your neck?" She pointed to where said garment's hemline was cheerfully - if a skirt could be said to be cheerful, which, given that it was Haruna's skirt and shared her tendencies, this one probably was - defying gravity and resting against Haruna's knees.
"Oh, that. Magic," Haruna replied, not-quite-so-proudly.
"Pretty convenient magic," Yuna said, a bit enviously.
"Isn't it though," Haruna nearly cooed, basking in the envy.
"I'm glad that we've got that settled," Akira said, raising her voice just a bit as she held Ako, who'd stopped struggling and was now just glaring and muttering. "Now, what do you mean, Makie is wrong about why Negi-sensei wants to see us?"
"Rejoice, for I bring you tidings of good news. For one of you, anyway, the rest are probably going to be all jealous and upset. Ahem." She resumed her oratorical tone. "In my very own hearing, Negi-kun has admitted that he has a favorite, a girl who commands his affections more than any others, and that he would be confessing his feelings to them today! And behold, has he not invited you four to attend him? Thus it must be that the girl of his choosing is ... one of you!"
Three out of four sports girls gaped.
"Wow, Haruna-chan, I can't believe you fell for that," Makie replied calmly.
Behind her glasses (as golem as the rest of her clothes and defying gravity in the same way) Haruna blinked. "Huh?" she said, still sounding oratorical.
"I mean, really?" Makie continued, shaking her head. "Think it over, will you? Do you think Negi-kun is dumb?"
"Well, he's emotionally stunted and has numerous blind spots -" Haruna began.
"But you don't think he's dumber than you?" Makie pressed.
"I don't think intelligence can really be quantified as such -"
Makie let out a long sigh. "Oh, Haruna-chan. If Negi-kun, who is way smarter than either of us, voluntarily admitted to liking someone in front of you, knowing what you'd do in response, don't you think he'd also arrange for some sort of distraction to keep you from interfering with the private meeting he'd want to have with that girl?" She shook her head. "Whatever happened to the clever and witty Haruna-chan of yesteryear? Where have you gone, Joe diMaggaggio?" she asked, sounding wistful.
"There's actually only one 'aggio' in that guy's name," Yuna supplied while Haruna gaped.
"Holy crap!" Haruna snapped, dropping from the tree and somersaulting in mid-air to land on her feet. "That's amazing, Makicchi! I can't believe I ... oh, sweet Nagai's pen! He could be confessing to Nodochin right now and I'd be missing it! Gyah!" she concluded, and then dashed off.
"You mean, we were just a distraction?" Ako asked, quietly.
Makie waited until she was certain that Haruna was out of earshot, then squealed. "I can't believe I just conned Haruna-chan!" She grabbed hold of Ako and hugged her. "It's you, Ako-chan! It has to be you!"
"What?" Ako asked.
"I just hope it's not me," Yuna said, shrugging. "That could really mess things up."
"Explain it to me again, please," Ako asked as they approached the cottage.
"Good grief, how is it that I'm the baka and everyone else has always gotten good grades?" Makie sighed. "As I said, three times now, you're the only one of us that Negi-sensei has spent a lot of time around when he was aged up like he is now. Since he didn't have a favorite before he was aged up, it must have been the aging up that made him have a favorite! So if he has a favorite, and it's one of us, then it's definitely definitely definitely got to be the one he'd spent the most amount of time around when he was the way that he is now. Honestly, Ako, are you fishing for compliments or something?"
Ako looked away.
"... oh my gosh, you totally are!"
It was time, Ako decided, for a change of subject. "Um, Akira?" she said. "Are you okay?"
Akira blinked, and then said the first thing she'd said since Haruna had made her revelation. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm fine." She nodded quickly. "I'm fine," she said yet again.
A quick exchange of glances among the other three established a consensus of opinion with regards to Akira's state of being fine. But when Ako spoke next, it was to discuss another matter. "Okay, then ... Yuna, what exactly did you mean by 'that could mess things up'?"
To her credit, Yuna recognized that Ako was trying to give Akira a moment to calm down before returning to the discussion of Akira's obvious not-all-that-fine status. It was a good tactic, and Ako deserved praise for it. However, Yuna felt it would have been a much better tactic if Ako had decided to pick on Makie. "Well, it, it would, uh, mess things up, y'know?"
"... no, I don't know. That's why I asked."
"Okay," Yuna sighed. "Cards on the table. I don't like Negi-kun the way that the rest of you do."
"Of course you do," Akira said rapidly. "Since all of us just want to be good friends with him, and so do you, right? Right?"
Not such a good tactic, after all, Yuna mused. "Right," she said aloud. "Anyway, so if he likes me, that's going to be tricky, since I just want to be good friends. And I think I can do better."
Akira broke off in mid-nod. It was honestly a bit frightening to see someone do that.
"You can do better?" Makie asked, astounded. "What the heck? It's not like you've ever actually had a boyfriend!"
"Maybe I have one and just didn't tell you," Yuna said, sniffing a bit.
"Of course you'd tell us!" Makie replied, incredulously. "You tell us everything!"
"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," Yuna added, sniffing a bit more.
"Yes, you totally do, and -"
"Fascinating as I find this discussion," interjected a voice from the cottage's front door, "could you four hurry up and get in here already."
They looked up.
"... wow, Eva-sama, do you really wear that sort of thing in public?" Makie asked. "And why do I keep calling you Eva-sama?"
For her part, Evangeline considered the sundress she'd thrown on when she went to go wait for the sports club girls to be perfectly suitable for public display, if a little lacking in the frills and lace department. Then again, she was vaguely aware that her standards of modesty were somewhat divergent from social norms. Then yet again, the social norms of what she still viewed as a prison of sorts were not really something she chose to consider, very often.
"Yes, I do," she replied to Sasaki's first block of spoken words. "Congratulations on getting out here without Saotome managing to follow you here, I guess." She was out a few meal tickets on the wager she'd made with Kagurazaka, who'd had the temerity to suggest that Sasaki of all people would get Saotome off their backs. If that absurdity had actually happened, she honestly didn't want to know about it; losing money on their unaccompanied arrival was bad enough.
"Is Negi-kun already here?" Sasaki asked.
"He's in the basement," Eva replied, with a jerk of her head back towards the building.
"... you have a basement?" Sasaki, Akashi and Izumi chorused in amazement. Okochi might have looked a bit perplexed, but even after three years it was hard for Evangeline to read that girl. (She probably would have found it easier if she gave a damn, but alas.)
"Oh, that's right," she said with mock surprise. "You don't know about all of that yet." Frankly, the sheer amount of 'all of that' that these silly girls didn't know about could fill volumes, trips to Mars notwithstanding. She supposed that them not knowing about how she'd used them as her slaves was what even she had to consider a 'good' thing, even if Sasaki's annoying innocent references to that episode never ceased to frustrate her. Well, they were about to take another step into a much larger universe -
"Um," Okochi hemmed, interrupting Eva's internal lead-up to an external rant. "You ... don't have sensei tied up in your basement, do you?"
Everyone stared at her.
"No," Evangeline answered precisely if not completely. A complete answer would be 'not any more.' On learning that her pupil had genuine romantic feelings for someone, she had quite naturally set out to discover the identity of that someone, solely for the aesthetic joy of learning the truth and not with any ideas about exploiting whatever bonds might exist for any sadistic purposes whatsoever. And she had used various tactics towards that end, but, to her deep frustration, none had worked. The boy had insisted that the girl in question would be the first to learn the truth, and she had had to settle for knowing only that it was one of the candidates who had been invited to her home this day - which had included a few girls besides these four already.
That said, she was quite sure that no confession had yet been made. As she led the four girls into her home and down the stairs into her basement, conscious all the while of the expression on Okochi's face which suggested, even to her unlearned perceptions, that the tall girl suspected the worst of her - how refreshing! - she honestly wasn't sure that one of them was to be the one.
She'd honestly expected it to be Chachamaru, but surely he wouldn't employ her in his plans if that was the case.
"Um, Evangeline-san?" Akashi asked as they walked down the hallway. "Are you sure you don't know who it is?"
"Ah, so you know what this is all about, then?" she asked carelessly. They knew that, but not - honestly, it was getting to the point where even she needed a scorecard to keep track of who knew what. "No, he won't tell me."
"Huh. You think maybe it's you?"
Evangeline tripped over a sunbeam and fell facefirst on the cement flooring of her basement corridor of dolls.
"I guess not -"
A terrible sound came from the girl who was lying down. It took a while for them to recognize it as an attempt at laughter.
"Oh, wow," Evangeline said after a moment, rolling over onto her back. "Thanks, Akashi, I didn't even know that I needed that. Hilarious joke. Yeah, no that could never happen. Hehehehe, him in love with me, schnrk." After that odd noise, Evangeline started to get up.
"I wasn't -" Yuna started to say, then found it hard to speak with Akira's hand over her mouth.
Nono, nono, Akira's head shook rapidly.
"So ... he's in there, waiting for us?" Makie asked, staring at the globe.
Evangeline frowned. Show the girl a masterpiece of magic, and what did she want to know? Whether a boy was there. So annoying. "Yes, him and a few of your classmates who were already in on this particular secret. You might want to hurry, otherwise whichever one of you it is might end up having him stolen from you by a more pushy person.."
"Like who?"
"MORON! Chisame shrieked at a Negi-shaped hole in the wall.
"You're taking this better than I thought," came the weak voice from the other side of the hole.
"Okay," Chisame growled, eyes fixed on a point on the wall behind the hole she'd just made. "Okay. I suppose I can't really blame you for Asakura. In fact, from what you're saying, someone might even argue that ... that ... was ... my fault," she concluded, very slowly.
"I wouldn't say that," Negi said, peeking up from the bottom of the hole.
"I said someone might!" Deeeep breath. "And I guess that I can't really blame you for Miyazaki and Ayase. Or even Ku or Nagase. Or Iinchou, though that's realllly pushing it." Yet another deeeep breath. "But Saotome? Aisaka? All three cheerleaders? And Saotome? And Chachamaru?!"
"You said Saotome twice -"
"She's at least twice as bad as anything else, with the possible exception of Chachamaru!" Chisame roared.
"It's so nice that you're concerned for my virtue, Chisame-san," said gynoid commented as she returned from the brief excursion to pick up building materials she'd had the foresight to take when she'd heard Negi telling Chisame he had something to tell her. "Negi-sensei, if you will please step out of the hole in the wall, I will get to work on repairing it."
"Oh, yes, of course," Negi said, and promptly did so.
"What virtue?" Chisame demanded belatedly. "And how did that even happen, for pity's sake?"
"... would you like a demonstration?" Chachamaru asked as she picked up the trowel, with a brick in the other hand.
"No!" Chisame snapped. "Hell no! If there was something stronger than hell no -"
"Fuck no?" Chachamaru suggested.
Chisame stared in stunned silence.
"It would seem to fill your requirements."
"Gyaggghh," Chisame replied. "What the hell happened to you? You said that you couldn't do that kind of thing!"
Having opening the jar of enchanted mortar - guaranteed to remain wet until applied to brick, and then quickly setting - Chachamaru shrugged. "Kaede-sensei guided me to a superior understanding of the the processes involved."
"You ... I ... what?" Chisame's words finally stumbled to a halt as she gaped some more. "Kaede-sensei?" she finally repeated.
"She certainly taught me a few things," Chachamaru mused aloud as she began applying the mortar, setting the brick down once she judged there was enough. She then gave Chisame a look. "Are you sure you don't want a demonstration?"
"No!"
"You're not sure?"
"Yes I'm sure! Keep it up and you're next on the 'going through the wall' list, robot chick!"
"No fight- oh, who am I kidding?" Negi asked wearily.
"All right, fine, whatever. The past is the past," Chisame said, irritably watching Chachamaru brick up the hole. "But you went and invited those four here ... why exactly?"
"I need to talk to them and ... well, try to explain this situation." He took a deep breath of his own. "And ... Akira-san made it clear to me that Makie-san and Ako-san were in love with me, so I think I need to resolve that, one way or another -"
"'One way or another'," Chisame repeated, sarcastically, without looking at him.
"- before I'm ready to tell ... the girl that I like the most ... how I really feel," Negi concluded.
Chisame said absolutely nothing. She stood there and watched Chachamaru doing brickwork without any sign that the robot girl had heard anything. She's probably good at that, Chisame thought. Or maybe she can actually turn off her own audio receptors. Lucky wench. "And?" she prompted after a long moment.
"And?" Negi repeated confusedly.
"And who is she?" Chisame asked, still not looking at him.
"I made a promise to myself that I'd tell her first, and that I wouldn't do that until -"
"You've got a whole long checklist worked out, don't you?" she interjected, finally deigning to glance in his direction.
"Not ... a long checklist," Negi protested faintly
"Whatever," Chisame replied, turning away again. "You've fulfilled this step, so -"
"Not quite," Negi interjected right back, then hesitated for a while. "Chisame ... I think that there's a good chance that the girl in question will, once she knows the whole story, be disgusted with me. And ... if that happens, I might ..." He trailed off.
"You've got a backup plan?" she asked, still not looking at him.
"It seemed like a good idea."
Chisame just shook her head. "Of course it did. Of course you do." She let out a gust-like sigh. "Okay. Whatever. Go kiss your problems into submission, or whatever it is you think you're going to do."Another long pause. "I'll be waiting to help you pick up the pieces afterwards."
"Thank you, Chisame," Negi said softly, then turned and left the room quickly.
Chachamaru finally turned to look at Chisame and opened her mouth.
"Not one word from you."
The gynoid considered, then placed a hand over her mouth. "Muhmbuhs uhnt wuhds," she mumbled. "Oooooo luuhgh huhm."
"Overly literal -" Chisame began to roar.
What Negi needed was a moment to decompress after that emotional confrontation and the start of the next one. Actually, what he needed was a trip to a magical land where no one's feelings were ever even in the slightest danger of being hurt and the ability to stay there for all time. (Of course as he thought this, his inner Evangeline drop-kicked the rest of his consciousness for even momentarily imagining such an absurdity. His inner Evangeline was startlingly like Chisame in her younged-down form.) Be that as it may, what he needed (or just plain wanted, if we were being totally honest) and what the universe was giving him were two very different things.
This was promptly demonstrated demonstrated by the way that, after leaving the hallway where he'd been speaking with Chisame and Chachamaru, he arrived in the castle's entryway where Evangeline was escorting the four sports girls into the inner circles of her inner home with the faint superior smile she usually had while showing it off for the first time. They, of course, were gawking like tourists - except for Akira, also of course, who was keeping her own gaze firmly focused on the back of Evangeline's head. To Negi, it looked like she was regarding a rare and dangerous animal whose behavior was not at all friendly.
"Ah, thank you, Master," he said, drawing all their attentions to himself.
"Negi-kun!" Makie promptly cried out, and before he could even remotely prepare himself, she dashed across the hall to where he was standing and grabbed hold of him in a tight hug, pressing her face against his upper chest.
"Goodness!" he said, genuinely startled, though not enough to stop him from hugging her back. "Makie-san -"
"I'm so happy to see you again, Negi-kun!" she exclaimed. "I was so worried when you didn't even try to get involved in the festival! I thought for sure that we must have really upset you with what we did to Fate-sensei, so much that you'd decided that you didn't want anything to do with us after that!"
Negi flushed. Of course, he had tried to get involved in the festival, but just of course, there was no way that Fei or Kaede or any of the others would have revealed what had been going on behind the girls' backs. "No, no, I'm not mad about any of that. I'm not happy," he added quickly. "But I'm not mad, either. And I hope that you're all doing your best to try and get along with Fate."
"Um," said Yuna, who'd broken down and asked Nodoka why she was smiling so much, and found what she'd been told to be just freaking hilarious.
"Um," said Ako, who was staring at Nagi - no, Negi - no, technically, both and didn't honestly give two hoots about getting along with Fate.
"Um," said Makie, who wanted to fit in.
Akira just kept staring at the back of Evangeline's head. For her part, Evangeline was finding it very hard to resist the impulse to turn around and, in full scary-face style, tell the girl to take a picture as it would last longer.
"Well, I'm glad we've got that settled. Now ... I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you here." He winced inwardly at the cliche, and took a moment to glance at Evangeline, giving her a thankful look which also tried to communicate the notion that he wanted some privacy.
She returned it with feigned obliviousness, fluttering her eyelashes.
He shifted momentarily to a pleading expression.
Shaking her head, Evangeline announced, "I think I'm going to leave you five to it, then. I'm going to go have a swim. In my very large private pool that I hardly ever let anyone else use, unless they kiss my feet. You know the one, right, boya?" The sheer bliss she felt from the strangled noises she could hear Okochi making almost made up for not being able to watch the conflagration about to erupt.
"Thank you, Master," Negi said, with genuine gratitude, as she left the foyer. "Okay ... I need to come clean with all of you, and I should warn you that I've been doing things that you might think are ... well ... bad."
"Oh, come on, how bad could it possibly be?" Makie asked cheerfully.
There was a long pause.
"Um ... Makie-san, I know that you're smarter than that, so why did you say that?" Negi asked.
"I don't know, it just seemed appropriate," the girl admitted, looking horribly embarrassed.
"Wow," Makie said several minutes later, as she stared at the whiteboard that Negi had found somewhere when he decided he needed to illustrate certain aspects of the situation. "That's really bad." She had the odd feeling of having done this before, even though she was also fairly sure that she never had.
Negi looked at the whiteboard, looked away again, and nodded. That seemed weirdly familiar, too.
Beside Makie, Ako and Yuna were also gaping at the outline of the situation. So was Akira - sort-of. Nobody who didn't know the tall swimmer really well would have thought that her jaw was perfectly steady and that her face was maybe just a touch paler than than ordinary. But Makie, who did know Akira really well, recognized the signs of shocked horror in her eyes and in her face.
Ironically, the quietest of them was the first to find her voice. "You ... you did it with all of these girls?" Ako asked.
"Yes," Negi admitted. "Though not all at the same time. Yet," he added somewhat involuntarily.
Years later, Makie would swear that she hear something actually literally snapping right before what happened next. "Not yet?" Akira shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Yuna said, trying to calm their friend down. "He was just making a pretty bad joke, weren't you, Negi-kun?"
"Well, no, I -"
"How could make jokes about this, sensei?" Akira cut him off with another shout. "How could you - how could you do any of this? You've betrayed your responsibilities as a teacher! You've shattered the innocence of so many of these girls! You've broken -" And then, quite suddenly, Akira fell back, almost collapsing to the floor.
"Akira-san!" Negi cried as he reached out for her.
"Don't touch me!" she yelled without looking at him. "I ... I can't even look at you right now!" Unsteadily, Akira pushed herself back to her feet and half-ran, half-stumbled towards the exit from the hallway that Evangeline had used.
Negi's hand, extended towards where Akira had been up until a few moments ago, stayed in that position for several moments. "No," he said softly. "Oh, no no no."
"It's, it's okay, Negi-kun!" Yuna said, trying without a whole lot of success to sound reassuring. "She's just upset! I'm sure she doesn't really hate you!"
"Oh, no no no," Negi repeated, hand coming up to cover his face.
"That's not really expressing a great deal of confidence in me, you know!" Yuna groaned.
"Oh," said Makie, who, like Ako, had only been able to watch all of this in stunned silence. Akira never lost it like that. It was beyond shocking to watch. And even more than that ... "Ohhhh," she said again, turning to look at Ako. "I am so, so very sorry, Ako."
"Huh?" Ako gasped, meeting Makie's gaze. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
"Because I was wrong," Makie admitted. "I was so sure ... but I've been completely misreading the situation, and I got your hopes up for nothing. I'm so sorry." She shook her head, then walked over to where Negi was standing, with his hands still over his face.
"Negi-kun," she said, sounding more serious than any of them had ever heard her sound before now. "I need you to look at me, okay?"
He lowered his hand and his devastated-looking eyes met hers.
"Yeah, I get it now," she said, nodding. "The girl you were going to confess to, the one you really love ... it's Akira. Isn't it?"
"... no," Negi said, and prepared to say, It's you.
Before he could do so, however, Makie bopped him on the head. "Not the time to be lying about this sort of thing, Negi-kun!" she said, sounding rather irate.
"But I -"
"It's obvious! It's obvious to everyone how much you feel for Akira!" She looked to Ako and Yuna for confirmation, and took their silent blank gazes as examples of it. "See?" she said triumphantly.
"Well, yes, I do have such - but -"
"I know, it's hard! It's sad, even! I bet you didn't even realize how you really felt until recently, didn't you?" As Negi gaped at this bizarre combination of accuracy and its opposite, Makie pressed on. "And so it isn't even really your fault, the way that you've blown it with that girl. Didn't you hear her saying that her heart was broken?"
"I don't think she did," Negi weakly replied.
"She was going to, as sure as eggs are eggs." Makie paused, becoming briefly uncertain. "It's not 'as sure as eggs is eggs', is it? That doesn't sound right."
"The former is more grammatically correct," the English teacher said dazedly.
"Whew. Anyway, yeah, Akira is heartbroken, and you should apologize and try to make it up to her, definitely, but you have to accept that you've probably blown your chances with her. It's a sad thing, like I said, but it is what it is. And maybe you should give her some space, too, so she can be mad at you in peace." Nodnod.
"... okay, then."
Makie now took a deep breath. "And ... while you're giving Akira some space ... even though you're not going to be able to make it work with her, you might just possibly be able to make it work with someone else. Someone else very close to you. Someone who has been watching over you with fond eyes for so long. Someone with pink hair."
"Makie!" Ako was finally moved to interject.
"Or blue," Makie continued as though she'd always intended to add that addendum. "Or, um, Yuna, would you say that your hair color is hazelnut?"
"Uh -"
"Yeah, hazelnut." She kept her eyes firmly on Negi's the whole while. "Someone who will love you no matter what."
"Yeah, 'bout that -" Yuna continued to interject.
"Yes, Negi-kun," Ako interrupted, coming forward to stand beside Makie. "There are girls like that in the world. Many of them. Many of them, here. Girls who appreciate your honesty, and -"
"Just a moment," Negi said, raising his hand. "Um ... is this going where I think it's going?"
Ako and Makie exchanged a look, then turned back to him, nodding rapidly.
"Of course it is," he sighed. "Oh well." He reached out around their shoulders and pulled them close to him, embracing them both tightly. "You are amazing," he said.
"Ooookay, then," Yuna said, as she watched the sucking of face commence, and began backing rather quickly towards the other end of the hallway. "I think someone really ought to go be, uh, perturbed, yeah, perturbed with Akira, and since I don't really want any ... yeah, I've got a boyfriend, you see, and -"
"Oh you do not," Makie said disgustedly as she pulled back from the deep kiss so that Ako could get some as well.
"Yeah I do, I just haven't - oh, screw it, include me out!" And with that, she departed.
"Oh, Negi-kun," Ako moaned, heedless of Yuna's departure. "I wish you'd had this realization when you were pretending to be Nagi-san. That would have been so much sweeter."
Negi blinked in confusion, unsure of what she meant by that, since he couldn't see how it would have made a difference to the heartbreak Ako had endured then. Well, now wasn't the time to address the matter. He kissed Ako back, hand moving down her back to gently caress her buttocks. Doing so made her moan into his mouth.
Meanwhile, Makie had generously and not out of any selfish intent to do anything with Negi before Ako could, kissed her way down his chest until she was kneeling in front of his trousers, then started undoing his belt and pulling aside his boxers so that she could -
Well, whatever she had been planning to do, what she did was gape, and, in the sort of tone normally reserved for utterances of profound religious truths, say, "Homina homina homina homina."
Ako rolled her eyes as she kissed Negi, annoyed at Makie's exuberant overreaction. "Oh, come on Makie, how big could it possibly baaaaaahhhhhhhh?" she asked as she pulled back and looked down and saw the answer to her question.
"We don't have to do anything if you don't want to," Negi said, sounding vaguely bored.
"Huh?" Ako said, head jerking up to stare at him. "Negi-kun?"
"I'm sorry, it's just that I nearly always say that in these situations, and it never makes the least bit of difference so I don't know why I bother," he answered sadly. "It's really starting to get to me, a little. I'm sorry," he repeated himself.
"Oh, Negi-kun," Ako moaned. "You're so sweet."
"And savory, too!" Makie chimed in, eyes dancing. The surprise had been considerable, but now that she'd had a chance to examine the member that would be parting her folds, surprise had been superseded by excitement. It was wayyyyy bigger than the baton she'd used to masturbate that one time, and warm, too. And - lick! - yep, savory! Without further ado, she took it into her mouth and began sucking with the same enthusiasm she confronted everything that interested her.
Now Negi moaned into Ako's mouth, which startled her enough to pull back from the kiss she was presently sharing with him to stare first at him, and then down at Makie. "Wha - Makie, how are you -" she stammered.
"Schlorp!" replied Makie, hands working on the portions of the shaft she couldn't fit into her mouth and going back to tickle the dangly bits behind it. She pulled back to give a somewhat more coherent answer. "Come on, Ako-chan, it's not rocket magic!"
"R-r-rocket magic?" Ako repeated.
"Magic trumps science, rocket science is the toughest kind of science, so rocket magic is the toughest kind of magic," Makie "explained". Then went back to sucking dick.
"... is that true?" Ako asked Negi.
"Maybe," Negi blissfully replied.
"Maybe?" Ako mouthed back at him. Then shook her head, wondering what she was thinking. Makie often had that effect on her, she wearily realized. Judging from the expression on Negi's face, she was having a similar effect on him, if not one that left him even less aware of the world around him. Really, she'd been lucky to get even a 'maybe' out of him.
Well, then, her course was clear. So she kissed him once more, for luck, and then dropped down to where Makie was kneeling and -
Whatever she'd been planning to do, what she did was gape as Makie let it drop from her mouth, licked her lips and breathily declared, "I think it's ready. Negi-kun, will you please make me a woman?"
"Ahhhh," Ako managed to say.
Makie blinked. "Oh," she said. Then, more sadly, "Oh ... yeah, you're right, Ako-chan."
"I am?"
Makie nodded, then looked up at Negi again. "On second thought, you should do it with Ako-chan first. She liked you first." She nodded somberly.
"No, no, that's not right, you liked him before I met Nagi and -" Ako said reflexively before the saner portions of her mind could shriek at her to stop.
"Oh! That's right!" Makie said, cheerful once more, and promptly stood up and started pulling down her panties. "Thank you, Ako!"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA went Ako's internal monologue.
Moments later, as Negi was pumping into Makie forcefully, with her back set against the hallway wall, one of her legs wrapped around his back while the ankle of the other was wrapped over his shoulder, in a way to give most gymnasts fits, Ako found she had recovered enough poise as to understand her own internal monologue.
- don't understand it, that's what was supposed to happen in these situations, back and forth and back and forth like table tennis balls, until finally someone gets tired of listening to humility one-upmanship and just makes a choice, but it wasn't supposed to be her choice but his and now he's doing it with her right in front of me while I sit here on the floor and watch with googly eyes and listen to her squealing like that and AAAAAAA -
Well, it was understandable for a while, anyway.
"So pretty," Negi gasped. "So, very, pretty!"
"Ahhh!" Makie cried in release and genuine appreciation. "Thank you, Negi-kun! Am I as pretty as Akira? Am I?"
"I - really - don't - want - to talk - about - her!"
"Oops!" she giggled, not sounding terribly apologetic, but he supposed that sexual ecstasy didn't combine very well with that in any event. (Did that mean that lust meant never having to say you're sorry? That would explain a few things.) "Ahhhh!" she wailed a moment later.
"Makie - I'm going to - going to -"
"What? What?"
And with that he groaned and spewed up into her.
"Ohhhhhh," Makie moaned in pleasure at the new warmth within her. Then a realization, and a somewhat shorter, "Oh! You were asking if ... oh. Oh. Um ... you'll take responsibility, right?"
"Of course," Negi assured her.
"Good, good ... um, what does that mean, though? I've just heard it on soap operas, and they never really explain -"
Whamwhamwham went Ako's head over the sounds of Negi explaining what it meant.
"Wow, really?" Makie asked.
He nodded.
She smacked him on the head. "Negi-kun you dummy! I'm fifteen, I don't want to get married yet! Sheesh! I mean, I wouldn't mind the wedding dress thing, or the introducing you to my parents bits, or - but that's not important right now!" Makie quickly continued once she realized that Negi was starting to look just a bit panicky. "What I mean is, when you do it with Ako-chan, you shouldn't do that! And you should, very soon - well, I mean, you shouldn't do that when you do everything else, which you should, very soon - just as soon as I wait wait wait why isn't it going down?" she asked after clambering off of him and gazing down at his still-present erection.
"Well -" Negi started to reply.
"It's supposed to go down," Makie said, then lifted her face to look at him uncertainly. "It is, right? This isn't something that gets left out like the meaning of taking responsibility or just what you do with the feather duster once you've got it, right? Negi-kun, is there something wrong with you?"
"... I honestly don't know how to answer that question," the emotionally disturbed and prematurely aged superhuman undying immortal replied. Before Makie could express further concern, however, he coughed and continued. "What I mean is, this is pretty much how things work for me."
"But ... I mean, that's not right," she said. "Ako-chan, back me up here."
Ako was lying face first on the ground nearby and didn't immediately respond.
"Ako-chan?" Makie repeated, turning to look at her.
"Hm?" Ako asked, looking up to show a mild bruise on her forehead.
"What happened?" asked an appalled Makie.
"Oh, I slipped," Ako lied. "What were you asking?"
"Uhh," Makie hesitated, looked at Negi, then looked back at Ako. Now, she decided, was perhaps not the best time to seek medical advice. "I, I was just saying that it's your turn, now."
Ako rose from prone to crouch rather quickly. "Really?" she asked anxiously.
"Of course!" Makie assured her. "Who do think I am, Yuna?"
Negi sighed and shook his head. "I wish you girls wouldn't be as mean to each other as you can sometimes be. You're all supposed to be friends, not people who just know and tolerate each other. How would you like it if someone said things like that about you, behind your back? That isn't a friendly thing to do. All the fighting and backstabbing and cruel jokes that have been happening lately are really doing bad things to your group dynamics, and it all makes me very unhappy in the bargain. So please stop doing that sort of thing," he concluded, nodding and in the process bumping his head against the floor. "Wait, wasn't I just now standing up? How did I end up lying on the floor like this?" he asked.
"We moved you to that position while you were lecturing us on morality," Makie cheerfully informed him as she knelt with her knees on either side of his head while Ako moved over him. "It must have been very distracting for you."
"I guess so," Negi replied as Ako slid herself onto him, letting out a tiny cry as her maidenhead ruptured.
"Silly Negi-kun," Makie said fondly, tapping his noise with her finger. "We can do all that stuff because we're true friends. True friends understand that pointing out each other's flaws isn't hurtful, it's helpful. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously. It clears the air! It relieves tension. It's wonderful. Wow, I bet I could really help a lot of people who have problems making friends. Maybe I should write a book or something! What do you think, Ako?"
Ako, who'd just had several orgasms and provoked another ejaculation from Negi, thought (again) that she really was doomed to be a supporting character. So of course what she said, a bit dazedly, was, "Great idea, Makie."
"Aw, thanks! But - ahhh!" Makie cried once she realized what had just happened. "Negi-kun, you did it again!"
"I'm sorry, I was sort of distracted by the lecture on friendship I was receiving," Negi replied, honestly and maybe just a bit snarkily. He had been around Chisame quite a bit recently, after all. "Ako, I -"
"That's all right," Ako mused absently as she leaned over him, absent-mindedly drawing designs on his chest with her fingernail. "I'm sure you didn't mean to get distracted by Makie."
Makie's face was a picture, likely to be titled 'The shock' when displayed in a gallery. "You mean it's my fault?" she peeped.
"Maybe ... maybe to make up for it, we could do it again?" Ako asked speculatively. "Um ... not, not right away," she added quickly. "In a little bit, I mean."
Negi nodded. "Of course. Um, if you wanted to, you and Makie could enjoy yourselves together while I -"
"Ew!" Ako exclaimed, pulling away. "Negi-kun, I know you've probably been spending a lot of time with Konoka-san and Setsuna-san, but not all girls want to do stuff with other girls!"
"... really? That hasn't been my experience at all," Negi replied.
"Well, they don't!" Ako repeated. "Makie, tell - argh. Makie, snap out of it!" she yelled at Makie, who'd gone off to sit in a corner, curled up in a ball facing away from the two of them, murmuring something about it being her fault.
"Nyah?" Makie asked, lifting her head and turning to look back at them.
"You don't want to do sex stuff with me, do you?" Ako asked sharply.
"... I'm good with it," Makie answered bewilderedly.
"See, she doesnnnnnnwha?" Ako triumphantly told Negi, until the actual nature of the answer she'd just been given registered.
"You're cute, so why wouldn't I want to have sex with you?"
Ako tried, for a few moments, to process that remark ... without notable success.
"If I might make a suggestion," Negi said diffidently. "I think there's a way for us all to be happy."
Moments later, as Ako was lying on her back on the floor, with Makie crouched on top of her, writhing against her, while Negi was behind the pair of them, pushing his member up between them, into the 'bowl', she guessed it could be called, made by their abdomens pressing against each other ... she was still trying to process that remark. As Makie, driven to ecstasy by the sensations she was feeling, bent down to press her lips to Ako's, the blue-haired girl decided she was never going to be able to manage it, and just gave up.
Makie had that effect on her.
She'd just ran.
She didn't know this building. She didn't know where she was going, or what was in her way, or what hidden horrors she might stumble onto - though she doubted that anything she might find would upset her anymore than she already had been. She only knew that she could not be where she was, and so she ran.
She was vaguely aware that the course of her run took her past Evangeline, but aside from a flutter of recognition, she hadn't even paused at the sight of the other girl. She had no idea what she would have said to her if she had - accusations that all of this was somehow her fault, perhaps. Unfair, but nothing save that girl's hair itself seemed all that fair at the moment. No, it was better that she'd kept right on going, not even glancing in Evangeline's direction.
(For her part, Evangeline had felt something strangely familiar as she'd glimpsed the girl running with a look of unspeakable sorrow on her face. How many times had she found herself running away from something unspeakable in just that way? Almost, she'd reached out to her. Almost, she'd considered offering some vague, empty solace. What would have happened if she had? Most likely, she told herself later, that gesture would have been repaid with anger and dismissal, as it had on other times she'd reached out to another in empathy. Most likely. Most likely.)
And then she could run no more. Not from fatigue, but from lack of room to run. She supposed that she could have flung herself out from the platform where they'd appeared in this strange little world, but she found that she didn't want to test the possibility that this was in fact just a horrible dream from which she'd awaken to something better. So she reached that edge and then stopped herself, standing there staring out over it for quite some time, and then crumpling to the floor to continue doing so.
There did she abide a while.
Eventually, her empty, thoughtless observation of the patterns of the tides in the false sea was interrupted by a voice. "Akira-san?" he asked from behind her.
She tensed. Slowly, she turned. "Negi-kun, you -" she began to say.
Then she saw what he was doing. Down on his knees, face and palms of his hands pressed to the ground, the savior of two worlds genuflected towards her. "I am sorry," he said. "For what I have done, for destroying your good opinion of me in doing it, I am profoundly and utterly sorry."
"What are you -"
"I know that I can never apologize enough. I know that you probably hate me now. I know -"
"I don't hate you," Akira interrupted. "I ... I don't hate you. I -" - love you, she wanted to say, love you still, love you helplessly, love you more than I can ever say. "- hurt," she said instead. "I am hurt by all of this, but I don't think I ever could hate you, Negi-kun."
He lifted his head enough to peek up at her. "Really?" he peeped.
"Really," she echoed, holding in a squeal at how cute he was acting right at the moment.
He let out a shuddering sigh. "Thank you, Akira-san," he said as he rolled up from his supine pose to sit seiza before her. "You can't imagine how much that means to me. Out of all the girls in the class, you were the one I least wanted to disappoint or upset."
Akira's heart stopped beating.
"I mean, I really, really like Makie," he continued, shattering what had just stopped. "And I respect her. She's just ... amazing, the way that she understands people - something I've had to learn the hard way, which she seems to have always just gotten - so, of course, I respect her. But I have to admit that I was a lot more concerned about the possibility of losing your good opinion than I was about the idea that she might not return my feelings. You're so much wiser than the other girls in our class, almost as wise as Satsuki-san ... I didn't want someone like you to hate me."
"Uh-huh," said Akira, to whom the prospect of stepping off the edge of the platform was looking better with each word uttered by the boy. She forced herself to ask a question. "Did you tell Makie -"
"I didn't get a chance," he admitted ruefully. "She's ... there are holes in her understanding of people, I guess, but no one is perfect, right? So she thinks that I'm actually in love with you. She just wouldn't let me tell her the truth." He shook his head. "I think ... I think I'm going to try again when you graduate. Maybe things will work out better, then."
"That's a good idea," Akira told him softly.
"You think so?" he asked. "Yes, that's the best option. Thank you, Akira-san. I hope I can repair your good opinion -"
"Don't ... don't talk about that, right now," she asked him.
"All right," he promptly agreed. "Would ... would you like to come back to the resort, with the rest of us?"
She shook her head. "I think ... I need to spend a little more time in private. Okay?"
He nodded. "All right. I hope that you'll join us for dinner, in a bit. Thank you again, Akira-san." And with a deep bow, he backed away and turned to go.
She opened her mouth to say it. But it still wasn't coming out. She turned around again, looking out over the edge, staring at the waves she knew to be as false as her stoicism, and, at last, began to weep.
Sixty-three minutes and eighteen seconds after they had disappeared in a faint haze from the basement of Evangeline's cabin, the sports girls (now sports women, in some cases) reappeared there. Well, some of them did.
"- can't believe this," Yuna was saying as she rematerialized. "Why's she want to keep Makie there for another day?"
"I think the answer to that is sort of obviouh," Akira replied, being cut off at the end by Ako grabbing her in a tight hug. "Ako?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," Ako said.
"Oh," Akira said in response. "You knew?"
"I figured it out. It's sort of funny, in a not-very-funny way," she added quickly. "Makie thinks it's you, and yet it's her, and ... oh, Akira, I am so sorry. I wish everything was different."
Akira at last folded her arms around Ako's much smaller form. "That's too much to wish for," she said sadly. "Much too much."
"... why am I the only one who isn't getting hugged at all lately?" Yuna asked, watching all this uncomfortably.
Ako made an irritated noise as she pressed the side of her face against Akira's breast. "Go hug your boyfriend you didn't tell us about."
"You've got a boyfriend?" Akira asked, blinking but otherwise looking completely unsurprised. "I'm shocked."
Yuna growled and started stomping towards the staircase. "Yeah, yeah."
"When did that happen?" Akira asked, as she and Ako stepped apart and began following Yuna.
Yuna didn't look back as she replied. "During the big victory party, okay?"
"Huh?" Ako said as they climbed the stairs. "I didn't see you with any guys, then. After your dad showed up, it seemed like you were spending the whole time with him, bending his ear about not telling you about the magic and -"
"Well, anyway!" Yuna said rather loudly. "I'm going home, why don't you two go console yourselves by eating too much ice cream or something? Or get a haircut! Or something. I'm going home now, see you tomorrow, byeeeee!" And with that she departed in a hurry.
By the time that Ako and Akira reached the door leading out of the cabin, Yuna was already a dust cloud in the distance.
"She was certainly in a hurry," Akira said. "I wonder -" Then her jaw dropped.
"What?" asked Ako, startled.
"Ako ... you don't think ..." Akira asked.
Ako blinked ... then abruptly a few pieces fell into place in her mind. "... Yuna ... and ... her boyfriend ... at the party ..."
"... where she was mostly with ... her father ..." Akira said slowly.
"Naaaaaah," they chorused after a moment.
There then ensued a silence that went on for far too long.
To Be Continued.
