A/N: You wouldn't believe how hard this chapter was to write. I must warn you ahead of time that this story concerning Zazie is purely conjecture. Since nothing has been written much about the girl I'm flying solo here. And in case any of you caught amnesia since last Saturday, I don't own Negima.
Chapter 28. Zazie
It took Negi a while to recover from the shock of seeing himself murder Natsumi. It left him feeling uneasy. Haruna had insisted that it must have been some sort of play they were doing or something, but Negi really didn't want to reactivate the mirror and find out. Maybe later, after about ten years of therapy, he would go back and check to make sure.
Fortunately, the girls had been relieved to see Asuna return. The scene had shaken them up as well, and the really didn't want to see anymore futures. Therefore Asuna had been given the express privilege of chaperoning Negi through his encounter with Zazie.
Negi had to admit that he STILL didn't know very much about the girl even having sat through the nightmare circus. He knew she was an accomplished juggler and acrobat and had performed brilliantly, but the girl was still an enigma to him.
Negi sat at the table with Zazie while Asuna studied at the desk. Zazie handed him back her questionnaire and Negi looked over her answers trying to get to know the girl a little better. "So Zazie, what is it you want to do after graduation?"
"Go home." Zazie said simply. She stared at Negi with that blank unnerving stare that made him feel uncomfortable.
"Don't you enjoy being here with your classmates?" Negi asked in concern.
"Yes." Zazie said in her eerie monotone.
Negi waited for a moment for some other sort of comment, but the girl just continued to stare at him calmly. In his class he had a robot, a vampire, a mad scientist, a ninja, a half-demon, mages, scores of hyperactive chipmunks posing as middle school girls, and until recently a Martian. On top of all this half of them seemed to earnestly believe he was put on this earth to fulfill some sort of dark twisted need of theirs to fondle little boys and commit other acts of pedophilia, not that he really minded the attention of course. Why then when faced with a young woman who had been nothing but quiet and unassuming and who had never once tried to rape, molest, strip, fondle, caress, harass, hit, threaten, beat, kiss, hug, or otherwise act unseemly towards him in any way was he getting so utterly exasperated?
Negi finished the spell that activated the mirror and sighed in defeat. He wasn't about to crack the Zazie code here today it seemed. "Well, I guess if there isn't anything else you can get on with your day then Zazie. Remember; if there's anything you have a question about don't hesitate to ask me or the twins who are currently eavesdropping outside the window."
Negi heard a satisfying yelp as the two interlopers skittered away to try to find a new hiding spot. Negi had been taking steps to make certain the two resident spies in the dorm were occupied while he was working at the mirror. Negi thanked goodness he only had one window to worry about.
Zazie nodded and got up to leave. Negi walked her to the door and wished her farewell, and for his effort received a polite nod and bow before the girl disappeared down the corridor. He then returned to his notes.
"You know Zazie sure is a strange one." Asuna said from her desk.
"You realize that in our class we are hardly in any position to pass judgment on normalcy." Negi said flatly.
"That's what I mean. Aside from being interested in performing in the circus, she has absolutely nothing about her that seems as unusual as we are. That in itself is odd." Asuna said scratching her head.
"Chisame is pretty normal." Negi said offhandedly.
"Maybe in the magical sense, the girl has WAY too much of a preoccupation with her alter ego on the internet to be fully normal." Asuna said suspiciously.
"Well, I went ahead and requested Zazie's file since we know so little about her." Negi said opening up the documents.
"So what's with the girl?" Asuna asked.
"Well, part of the reason she doesn't speak much is probably because Japanese isn't her first language." Negi said scanning her profile.
"So what is her native language?" Asuna asked.
"I don't know. It only says here that she's European." Negi said looking over the records.
"Well, then you can speak English to her." Asuna suggested.
"Not necessarily." Negi said patiently. "Great Britain is only one small part of Europe. Depending on where she is from her native tongue might by Greek, Slavic, French, German, and even Turkish."
"You mean she talks to turkeys?" Asuna asked stupidly.
"Remind me to hold you after class for a geography lesson." Negi said sourly. "No what I'm saying is that she could have any number of different native tongues, that I don't know how to speak. Since she doesn't speak Japanese as a native, it's little wonder why she has such trouble in class since I'm teaching English while speaking Japanese. If she speaks neither, it makes things difficult."
"Why isn't she with the Baka Rangers then?" Asuna asked.
"Well, while she does have trouble with the language, her test scores indicate she is an exceptionally gifted young woman. She wouldn't have been able to keep up at all otherwise. The intelligence is there, it just looks as if she hasn't had the best of education up until two years ago. Since coming to the academy her scores have steadily begum to climb. I assume it is due to her becoming more comfortable with Japanese." Negi said looking over her file. "Now this is interesting."
"What's that?" Asuna asked.
"It's a report from Takamichi. Apparently he asked that Zazie be watched, thinking that she might be starting to become aware of magic." Negi said as he read the report. "It seems that Zazie was hanging around close to where some magical disturbances had taken place. Seems he thought she might have been spying on what was going on."
"You think she might have been in league with Chao too?" Asuna asked in concern.
"I doubt it. She didn't appear to have anything to do with Chao at all. They moved in totally different circles. Plus, Takamichi eventually removed the watch from her." Negi said laying the report aside. "I only wish I knew where she was from originally."
"As near as we can tell, she was born to gypsies in Yugoslavia." Someone said.
Negi looked at Asuna and then looked around the room.
"I'm over here in the mirror, kid." The voice beckoned.
Negi quickly removed the illusion to see a grizzled man in his late thirties with a patch over one eye. He was tall and broad in the shoulders and muscular. He looked like a tank with a bad attitude. It took Negi a moment to realize he was looking at himself.
"You can't be…" Asuna said as her jaw dropped.
"I'm Negi Springfield, at your service little lady, Asuna, unless my memory's already gone." The hulking barbarian said to her. Behind him a fire blazed in the fireplace of what looked like a hunting lodge with the trophies of various magical creatures decorating the walls.
The huge man carried the familiar staff across his back and a large sword on his hip. Negi gulped just looking at the man who looked like lethal malice had taken physical shape.
"You look less like me than any of my other future personas." Negi said seriously.
"Those guys probably stayed panty-waste magi too." The large man snorted. "Anyway, you were asking and the closest we can tell, Zazie was born in Yugoslavia. Her parents are gypsies, so we never found out exactly where they were when she was born. She might be Russian for all I know."
"So this is the future where I end up getting together with Zazie?" Negi asked.
"If by 'getting together' you mean 'did I bang her', then yeah, this is it." The older man said rudely before breaking out in laughter.
Negi was blushing heavily. "What kind of twisted universe ever turned me into you?" Negi asked in dumbstruck revulsion.
"A very unforgiving one. Look kid, I've lived as a warrior here in the magic country for decades now. I've seen wars that would make Takamichi wet his britches. You'll forgive me if I'm a little rough around the edges. You were the one who decided to be a combat mage type after all. And if it makes you feel better, Zazie and I were married before I banged her." The grizzled old warrior said spitting something into a spittoon.
Negi just shook his head and then looked at Asuna. He could tell from the love struck gaze that she had once again seen a scruffy older man that she believed to be the hottest thing since Prometheus. Negi just sighed and tried to get things over with quickly.
"So tell me, is Zazie Chao's ancestor?" Negi asked.
"No, and I can guarantee that." The old man said knowingly.
"How, no children?" Negi asked.
"Nope, plenty of kids, it's just that Chao never showed any trace of carrying on Zazie's bloodline." The warrior said seriously. "Zazie has dragon blood in her you see."
"Dragon blood?" Negi asked incredulously in unison with Asuna.
"Yeah, like I said her parents are gypsies. They also have knowledge of magic, though they have no formal allegiance to the mages here in the home country. They wander freely back and forth between the worlds as they please. Zazie's father was a dragon who took human form and ba… 'got together' with her mother while they were traveling through the magic dimension." The manly version of Negi said seriously. "Any female descendant of Zazie's would carry a portion of that blood, and as such would carry a lot of magical power with her. Chao simply didn't have that power."
Negi nodded. "I see. So what is our Zazie doing here?"
"Well, I shouldn't go telling you this, but she came to Mahora looking for someone to teach her. She's already skilled in the basic mysticism of the gypsies, and she is also an accomplished acrobat, as you've probably already seen. What you don't know is that she is also a silver glove Savate, that's a master in French martial arts." The older Negi said proudly.
A door behind the man opened and the graceful form of Zazie moved into the room. She looked much as she did now, but her hair was much longer, allowed to flow freely over her back. Her willowy and delicate form was a stark contrast to the large burly form of her husband.
"Hello dear, I was just talking to myself again." The old warrior said breaking out into laughter.
Zazie merely smiled and set about making some tea. Negi watched her moving around and turned back to his older self. "She still doesn't talk much does she?"
The old warrior seemed to grow distant for a moment and then looked at Negi very seriously. "You are still too young to understand anything more than the 'puppy love' you've experienced from the little girls you've been teaching so far, so I don't expect you to understand, but for her sake I'm going to try."
The old warrior looked at the woman behind him and then cleared his throat. "Negi, some people never have to say a word to tell you how much they love you. It speaks in their eyes, and in their actions toward you. Zazie discovered I was a mage and after seeing what I was capable of, came to me and asked me to teach her. I took her on along with some of the other girls from class as not only an English teacher, but also a magic teacher. For years, I thought like you did. I thought that love meant constantly rattling of some sort of love poem or constantly saying some sort of litany like a spell to make people understand your feelings. It wasn't until years later that I realized that while it might make you feel good to tell someone how much you love them, true love shines through action. People can lie when they tell you how much you mean to them, but when someone lays their life on the line for you time and again, what need is there for words?"
Negi absorbed this as Zazie moved gently to the older man's side and set the tea down in front of him. He watched as her hands moved gently over his shoulder as she leaned down and how it lingered there. What struck him even more was how gently the old man patted her hand with his own calloused one.
"Negi don't make the same mistake I made. I spent years ignoring what I felt for Zazie because I assumed she didn't love me because she had never said so. I was a fool who didn't look at what was right in front of me. Don't do the same thing." The old man said wearily.
Zazie gently moved her hand up to the old warrior's cheek and pulled his eyes over to look deeply into her own. It seemed to Negi that volumes were being exchanged in that glance. She looked at him questioningly, and with worry, and what almost looked like s shy smile, all in her expression. The old fighter smiled and nodded.
"Now if you'll excuse me, Zazie is reminding me that we're going to be going on a nocturnal raid tonight against some demons and I need to get some sleep. You remember what I said now, and by the way boy it wouldn't hurt you to go start doing some working out you know." The older Negi said as the mirror went dark.
"Man, you looked totally hot!" Asuna said emphatically.
Negi didn't reply as he mulled over what he had just absorbed. If what the old man said was true then…
Negi's thoughts were cut short as a pair of short hit him in the back of the head. He turned around to see Asuna rummaging through a drawer.
"What are you doing?" Negi asked.
"Since the only one we have left is Misora-chan and she won't be here until after lunch I figured we'd go to the gym before we ate." Asuna said getting out her own shorts along with a spots bra. She then tossed Negi his t-shirt.
"Besides, your older self was right, it wouldn't hurt you to work out a little more." Asuna said grinning.
A/N: Personally, I think she just wants to turn him into a buff stud-muffin like what she saw in the mirror…
