A/N: I don't own Negima. I do however intend to own a gerbil someday.
Chapters 20. The Jocks (The Big Dance Part 1)
Negi considered the idea of getting a mirror of his own, a non-magical one of course. He'd noticed that the girls had started using the reflection illusion on the mirror when they were getting ready as well. The little mirror in the bathroom was alright, but it wasn't nearly as effective as looking at your image in the large looking glass of the Mirror of Ebyam.
Negi fussed with his shirt trying to make certain that it was tucked in properly in the back. He then realized he was dealing with a reflection illusion and made a quick circle in the air with his finger so that the image spun around so he could see himself from behind.
As Negi was standing there the door to the room burst open and Asuna rushed into the room. "Alright squirt, I know you're responsible for this!"
"What are you talking about Asuna? I have no idea what you mean." Negi lied. He tried to paint on his most convincing I'm-an-innocent-ten-year-old-so-you-have-to-believe-me look. It had its usual effect on Asuna.
"Don't give me that crap you lying little runt!" Asuna fumed. "You told Takahata-sensei to ask me out."
"It's a Sadie Hawkins dance Asuna, you're supposed to ask HIM to the dance." Negi said calmly.
"I did, but then he asked me out to dinner afterwards." Asuna said still looking at Negi sharply. "Takahata-sensei has never asked me out before, so I smell a rat. Confess, did you tell him to ask me out?"
"First of all one does not tell Takamichi anything. However if you must know I did mention something to him about hoping to have some time alone in the room after the dance. I'm going to try to get one of the girls to come back here with me after the dance to do their futures." Negi explained. "Asking you out was his idea."
This seemed to mollify Asuna somewhat, but she still fumed. "But Negi, how can I face Takahata-sensei after what I saw in the mirror? I know you wanted me to ask to be his escort to the dance, and that's fine because the two of you will be busy with teacher stuff, but how can I face him in a date like this?" Asuna said on the verge of whining.
"You'll be fine." Negi reassured her. "I asked Konoka and Setsuna to go with the two of you for support. You can consider it a double date."
Negi wasn't exactly certain if the headmaster would be overly thrilled at the idea of Konoka and Setsuna going on a date together, but hopefully he'd be preoccupied with whatever it was that he was doing that evening. He'd announced to the staff that he was going to be too busy to help chaperone the dance this year, so maybe Setsuna and Konoka would be able to slip under the radar.
Asuna sighed and looked at her back in the mirror and adjusted her dress. "I guess it can't be helped then." She finally said in defeat.
"A week ago you would have jumped at the chance to date Takamichi." Negi observed.
"A week ago I didn't know that our love was doomed." Asuna said sadly.
"I keep telling you Asuna, the mirror isn't absolute. It's only a possible future." Negi repeated patiently.
"I know, but I keep thinking back to when we first met and you told me that I was destined to be heartbroken. For all I know, no matter who I end up with, they'll end up dying and leaving me alone." Asuna said sighing.
Negi tried hard not to gulp. He remembered the conversation that had gotten their relationship off to a rocky start. He then remembered the image Asuna crying over his own grave. "Don't worry Asuna; I'm sure that you'll have a wonderful future together. I'll make sure of it, and I'll do my best to help you protect Takamichi. Besides, if the outcome didn't matter, then you might as well hope for the best and go after the man you've always wanted anyway."
"Thanks, Negi." Asuna said before she bent over and straightened his tie. She then kissed him softly on the cheek. Negi was blushing furiously when Asuna stood back up.
"Hey don't get the wrong idea okay?" Asuna said with a huff. Negi wasn't certain but he could have sworn he saw her cheeks turn a little rosy. It must be the make up she was wearing.
"Anyway, did you get finished checking on Akira, Yuna, and Ako?" Asuna asked, changing the subject.
"Sort of." Negi said evasively. "I was able to see the futures of Akira and Yuna fairly easily. I can't eliminate either of them as possible progenitors. It was disturbing seeing Akira's future. It was similar to Kaede's in that I ended up with a beautiful family life. Akira is so quiet; I would have thought that she had no interest in me whatsoever. Yuna apparently has great potential for being a Ministra Magi. Her athletic ability makes her very able in combat. In her future, I ended up traveling the world with her much like my father did until we finally settled down and had a couple of boys back in the home country."
"What about Ako?" Asuna asked.
"That's the biggest problem." Negi said sadly. "Right now her future is a complete jumble. I called the headmaster and he said that if I was getting a bunch of jumbled images it meant that I was quickly approaching a critical moment in that person's future. It means that tonight, something is going to happen that will determine Ako's future. This situation with her having fallen in love with an older version of me had me worried, apparently enough so as to do something desperate."
"Negi, you aren't making any sense." Asuna said in annoyance.
"I've spoken with future self, and not just in the mirror. Since Ako's future is to be determined tonight, apparently I decided, am going to decide, whatever, that I should travel back in time after the dance and let myself know what to expect." Negi said getting his coat.
"You mean there's going to be more of you running around at the dance?" Asuna said with a sick expression coming over her. "One of you is hard enough to keep out of trouble."
"Yeah, around three or four. Apparently, I'm going to get caught by Yue and Nodoka using the time machine, at which point they both asked me to the dance since theoretically I could be in many different places at once. I'm taking Nodoka to the Starlight Café after the dance and Yue and I are going to go take a moonlit boat ride out on the lake near the park. Since I'm going that far I also figured I'd use my last trip to bring someone back to the room and check their future. You girls do realize that between getting in extra days for training in Eva's resort and making these trips back in time I'm going to be older than you by the time you graduate don't you?"
"Suck it up, squirt. So what did you say about Ako?" Asuna asked.
"He told me not to worry about it, and that everything would be fine. There's still just one thing that worries me." Negi said seriously.
"One thing?" Asuna asked dumbfounded.
"Well, I'm thinking that if I interfered with myself in the past that it might have changed the future. I don't know, temporal mechanics makes my head hurt. Anyway, I'm just going to try to take things as they come and hope everything works out alright. I'm still kind of nervous about tonight." Negi said finishing his preparations.
Asuna thought about everything for a moment. "Wait a minute, if you're going to be going as your older cousin, where's your other tuxedo, and where's Chamo by the way?"
"He's already at the recital hall. He's got the candies that I'm going to need along with a few other things. He and Chachazero set up a kind of command center for coordinating all the different trips through time I'm going to be making, and since I'm only going to be in my older cousin disguise long enough to break it off with Ako, I'm going to use an illusion for the clothing." Negi replied.
Asuna sighed in defeat. "Well, Konoka and Setsuna are waiting downstairs. Let's go get this disaster over with."
XXXXXXXX
Sayo watched as the other girls gathered into a defensive pack. They had all encountered an unknown enemy… boys. The guys from the boy's academy were likewise standing around observing what had up until now had been a creature they had only really encountered in magazines and video games… girls.
Sayo watched sadly as the two groups eyed each other with a strange mixture of interest, longing, and stark terror. Sayo was an outsider to this little drama, but she floated over to the girls and 'stood' with them so she could at least feel like she was participating.
The boys suddenly parted making way for what looked like a strange combination of the tin man from the Wizard of Oz and John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. The young man in question was wearing big thick glasses, a white seventies style disco suit, and had wires and metal bands running from his head down to his arms and legs. Obviously they young men were attempting to distance themselves from what was probably about to be a social suicide.
"Daisuke! What in the name of all that's decent are you doing?" One of the boys asked.
"I have finally done it!" Daisuke replied confidently striking a triumphant pose. "No longer will men have to worry about their inability to dance with my latest and greatest invention. I have programmed the latest and greatest dance steps from the internet into this muscular coordination device that will transmit my mental commands and translate them into the correct muscular movements. I will now impress all these women with my superior dancing techniques!"
Everyone moved quickly away, but kept watching. It was much like a car wreck in that respect. The young man activated the device. As soon as the switch was thrown, the lights in the entire recital hall flickered as electricity jolted through the unfortunate inventory sending him into a brilliant display of multi-color lights and convulsions as his body jerked from the electricity coursing through his body and his suit attempting to make him perform all of the programmed dance moves simultaneously. A bolt of lightning probably would have been less brutal as Daisuke's only accomplishment was to invent a dance that was later to be referred to as the mating dance of the red-faced geek.
Mercifully, the young man finally collapsed into a heap of smoldering flesh, tangled limbs, and tangled circuitry that made it look like a cybernetic bad hair day. As an afterthought a thin wisp of blue smoke rose lazily from the young man who had nearly managed to supply Sayo with a ghostly date for the evening.
"What an idiot." Asakura muttered next to Sayo.
"He's absolutely dreamy!" Someone squealed.
Everyone turned to see Hakase staring at the pile of debris that had formerly been a badly dressed human with stars in her eyes. She sighed, looking at the young man as if she'd just seen Patrick Swayze, or knowing Hakase, Albert Einstein. Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, Daisuke looked more like the later at the moment.
Sayo watched as Hakase ran over to Daisuke to help him up. Daisuke for his part looked up at Hakase and smiled weakly. "Looks like I royally goofed up again."
"Nonsense, you just had a cross-wired multiphase relay." Hakase said sweetly. "It happens to me all the time."
Daisuke looked up at Hakase as if he'd just seen some sort of goddess descending from heaven. "It does?" Daisuke asked stupidly. Sayo figured he was probably a straight 'A' student, but it never ceased to amaze her how the male brain seemed to switch off when confronted with a girl it found attractive.
Hakase nodded and held out her hand to the young man, and before anyone realized it, the two were making their way off to the dance floor talking about encephalographic wave generators.
Not to be outdone by someone they held in such low esteem, the rest of the boys quickly made their way over to start introducing themselves to the girls and asking them to dance. Sayo merely watched sadly, as the girls quickly found dance partners and wandered away toward the dance floor.
Sayo turned to float over to the chairs that had been set aside for the wallflowers, when she nearly ran into, or rather through, a young man who was watching her with interest.
"I take it you are the ghost I've heard so much about?" He said nervously.
Sayo looked at him stunned. "You can see me? How?"
The young man smiled sadly and reached out his arm, which quickly passed through a couple that were heading to the punch bowl. "I guess you could say I'm a ghost too."
Sayo looked at him in amazement. "I thought I was the only ghost in the academy."
"You probably are the only ghost at the girl's academy." The boy said smiling. "I attended the boy's academy."
"How long have you been here at the school?" Sayo asked in excitement.
"Since you were." The boy replied, quickly putting his hand to his mouth.
"Wait a minute, how do you know when I was alive?" Sayo asked pointedly. The young man was acting suspiciously.
The young man sighed with a blush. "No matter how much you practice what you're going to say… I attended the school when you did."
"Then why haven't I ever seen you before?" Sayo asked looking at him trying to remember his face.
"I… never introduced myself to you while you were alive, and then I didn't know you were a ghost until recently. Ever since I found out I've been trying to think of what I could possibly say to you." The young man said ashamed. "If I had known you were here I promise I wouldn't have let you be alone all this time."
"So who were you then?" Sayo asked, still trying to place his face. The suddenly it hit her. "Wait a minute… Ko-kun?" Sayo said uncertainly.
The young man stepped back in shock. "You remember me?"
Sayo smiled at the idea of finding someone she used to know. "Know you? Me and the rest of the girls in my class used to watch you at kendo practice from the windows of the gym. There wasn't a girl there who didn't have a crush on you."
Ko-kun blushed heavily and scratched the back of his head uneasily. "Well, the truth is I never managed to get up the courage to tell you this, but I liked you too."
Sayo floated there in shock looking at the boy she had spent many afternoons drooling over now before her in the flesh, well… sort of, you get the idea.
"I realize that it's about half a century too late, but would you like to have this dance?" Ko-kun said nervously. It seemed that decades of experience and a more than near-death experience couldn't prepare some men for asking the girl they liked to dance.
"I'd love to." Sayo said breathlessly (literally) before holding out her hand to her date for the evening.
The two of them danced, er, floated above the crowd dancing together and having the time of their lives, er, deaths, afterlives, whatever, as the night marched on around them.
XXXXXXXX
Shizuna quietly opened the door to the headmaster's office. Inside she saw the soft glow of a magic circle that could free the soul from its body. Inside the circle a young man was sitting wearing a school uniform that hadn't been used in many, many years.
Shizuna entered and picked up the vial with the anti-age candies in it, and placed it back on the headmaster's desk. She then straightened things up and quietly left the headmaster to his night of enjoyment before heading back down to watch the students in the recital hall.
A/N: I don't normally write stuff that is based in the anime as opposed to the manga, but this is an exception. In the anime, the headmaster apparently was alive at the same time as Sayo and liked her. I rather liked the concept, so I figured I'd do a Sayo/Konoemon pairing and see how it turned out. This wasn't something that was mentioned in the manga…