Anything That Burns

by Darkenning

In a very damaged world, a very different Negi Springfield comes to a very different Mahora Girls Middle School ... where girls start throwing themselves at him. Sometimes, the greatest difference is no difference at all. AU, Multiple Crossovers, Lemon, Massive Harem. Inspired by "Anything That Moves" by OverMaster.

17. Chapter 13

The nearly blinding radiance finally faded, and Negi blinked away the specks of polychromatic light that still lingered in his vision to confirm that the other Negi Springfield and the rest of the parallel world refugees were no longer standing with him and his companions on the hillside. He let out a sigh of mixed regret and relief, mostly to prevent himself from saying something obvious like 'it worked' or 'they're really gone'. With a glance over his shoulder, he reminded himself that such comments could easily offend one whom he did not wish to offend - for his own sake.

For as long as they'd been stranded on this world, Zazie had quietly been seeking out ways to get these nomads of the space-time continuum back to their world of origin. As she'd had many other tasks, it had taken her a while to finally uncover it. Perhaps that had been just as well, because by the time that she finally did find it, another group from that world had shown up, having come here to rescue Negi and his comrades and ending up equally stranded.

Fortunately, the size of the group hadn't mattered for the purposes of the method used to send them all home, when the magic blade wielded by their Yuuki-san had combined with something called up (and then thankfully put back down again) by the ally that Zazie had found.

Negi saw that ally seeing him glance at her, and decided that something more substantial was in order. He turned to face her and offered a fairly deep bow. "Thank you, Chiyo-san," he said.

"You are very courteous, Springfield Negi," she replied, smiling warmly.

He'd given up on trying to explain that, even if he had been born here in Japan, he shouldn't have his family name put before his personal name.

---

Mahou Sensei Negima Alter:
Anything That Burns

Inspired by OverMaster's Anything That Moves

Chapter Thirteen: Asuna

---

The ... person ... whom he was addressing currently resembled a Japanese lady of an uncertain but probably post-adolescent age, dressed in a long white dress and matching sandals, who was - as nearly all of the Japanese ladies Negi had encountered were - rather lovely. He was doing his absolute level best to forget that he'd just seen her looking quite a bit different, with horns on her head, hooved feet, hair that moved like a set of extra arms, and a necklace of very-organic-looking eyes around her neck.

"There's really no need to thank me," Chiyo continued. "I think that if I hadn't called on the favor that 'Umr at-Tawil owed me, by the time I finally did get around to doing so, she might have chosen to forget about the whole thing. Which would have been horribly vexing."

"Yes," Negi said, feeling horribly awkward. "I suppose ... uh ... isn't it ... Tawil at'Umr, though?" he asked, relying on his half-learned Arabic.

The elder sister-like one shrugged. "Either works. Both are names your people came up with for her, after all."

"Ah. And, that entity is ... female," he said in a way that didn't require a question mark for punctuation, since that might have suggested an aspect of disbelief.

To Negi's relief, she simply laughed, even bringing her hand up before her mouth as she did so. "Oh, you people and your categories!" She shook her head after she lowered her hand. "Well, my work here is done, so I'll be on my way so that I can get Yuu-kun home before dark." She offered Negi a bow, then turned to walk towards the boy - whom Negi thought was a few years older than himself - who'd come with Chiyo when she showed up earlier that day. Yuu-kun seemed relieved that his older-sister figure was no longer talking to Negi ... who understood the feeling, and was sort of relieved himself.

"That could have gone much worse than it -" he started to say to himself.

"Oh, Springfield Negi?" Chiyo's voice lilted from nearby. "The Gate and the Key no longer owe me a favor. You do." And she was clearly not smiling at the moment.

"... yes, ma'am," he peeped.

"So, that's bad, yes?" asked Yuna after a moment, when the other boy and the ... other ... had disappeared into the distance.

"Well," said Negi, somewhat ponderously. "It's possible that she won't remember that I owe her a favor until long after I'm dead. That could work out well for us. Maybe." He coughed. "All right, back to Mahora, then."

He started off, and Yuna followed close on his heels ... which left the third person who'd accompanied him on this quest still standing at gazing at where the other-dimensionals had been. Negi realized this, and paused to look back at her. "Sakura?" he asked.

"I'm just thinking about what she told me," Sakura said without looking back at him. "That girl, with the strange purple hair and eyes ... who was somehow supposed to be me ... and who loved her sister. And was loved in return." Now she did turn to look at Negi. "Do you think -"

"I think we should wait and see what happens when we actually meet the Tohsaka-san of this world," replied Negi ... who also thought that if this world's Tohsaka Rin ever gave even a second's thought about her sister, she'd have sought her out by now.

"Of course," Sakura said, because she thought the same thing.

---

As long as there was a Tokyo, there would also be a Harajuku. Actually, since there were technically three Tokyos, there ought to be an identical number of Harajukus. But since the original Tokyo was a quarantine zone, and the most recently built Tokyo heretically and deliberately didn't have a Harajuku, there was actually only Harajuku-2. Hither came a certain trio of cheerleaders, on that most glorious of missions - shopping.

"Ahhhh!" cried Shiina Sakurako to the sky. "Such great weather we're having!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's great," Kakizaki Misa said, with much less enthusiasm. The sun was bright, and the clouds weren't heavy, but even though she'd never known anything else, she wasn't inclined to view a red sky day as 'great weather'. On a handful of days throughout her life thus far, the sky had been purple, the blue that ought to be blending in to the bloody mess that was. Such was her notion of great weather. This was not it.

"Okay, ladies," Kugimiya Madoka said assertively. "Let's remember why we came all this way, and not waste our time just enjoying the weather." Since they all knew why they'd come all this way, she didn't bother to state it aloud, having of course no notion that anyone unaware of their goal might be observing their activities.

"Absolutely," Misa agreed, now more enthusiastic. "It's crepe time!"

"Yaaaaay!" Sakurako cried as she and Misa darted in the direction of a crepe shop.

"No. No!" Madoka groaned. "You idiots! We can get crepes at home! You're wasting our carefully nurtured budget! Every yen should be reserved for the outfits!"

They ignored her.

"Okay, whatever, I'll have what they're having!" Madoka snapped as she headed over to join them.

"Wow, three lichis crepes in one day!" said the server. "It's rare for us to sell even one!"

"Can't imagine why," Madoka grumbled as she bit into the incredibly bitter 'treat'.

"Just think of it as a good way to put some fat on that frame of yours," Misa advised her as the trio walked away from the store, eating their food.

"Why would I want to have -" Madoka started to ask.

"Tits," Misa answered.

"... why are we friends, again?" the taller girl asked, a touch plaintively.

Misa was about to answer that question in a somewhat withering manner when she saw something that drew her attention away from her never-ending battle against Madoka's self-esteem, the which was nobly motivated by a desire to give Madoka the tools to defend said self-esteem against genuine assailants, and certainly not out of envy for Madoka's height or the way that she could light up the room with her smile.

"Isn't that -?" Misa started to ask, then broke off.

"Eh?" Sakurako asked. "Isn't what what?"

Misa answered this inquiry by ducking herself and her friends behind a convenient gentleman reading a newspaper. "Over there," she whispered. "In that boutique, there."

"Could you be a tiny bit more specific? There's a few of those, you know," Madoka replied.

"True, true," agreed Sakurako, nodding sagely. "Only one where Negi-kun and Konoka-chan are shopping together, though."

"Ehhh?" Madoka gasped, incidentally alerting the newspaper-reading gentleman to the fact that three middle-school girls were using him as cover. Being of a relatively unfazeable temperament, however, his reaction to this discovery was to shrug and return to the consideration of his journal.

Meanwhile, the trio watched as Negi and Konoka considered a number of pieces of apparel, frequently pausing to exchange sunny grins and presumably-meaningful silences.

"Okay," said Misa after a moment. "We're not imagining this, right? This is a date that we're watching?"

"There was that bit a while back where Negi-kun asked Konoka to stay after class, remember?" said Sakurako. "Could it be? Could it possibly be that, alone, together, in the classroom, with no one else the wiser, they surrendered to unwholesome, forbidden-in-so-many ways passion and - did it?"

"Oh, wow, wow, wow, what strange narrative have we poor, innocent maidens stumbled into?" asked Madoka, sounding a bit faint.

It was at this point that the gentleman reading the newspaper finished, folded the paper up and tucked it under his arm before walking away, murmuring something about 'kids these days' as he went.

"Okay," Misa said, nodding soberly. "We need to contact the authorities." And with that, she flipped out her phone.

"You're turning them into the Student Executive?" Sakurako gasped in horror.

"Bitch please," Misa answered with a glare in the other girl's direction.

---

"I'm your huckleberry," Yuna answered the phone.

"What the hell kind of greeting is that?" demanded Kakizaki's voice over the line. "You know what, never mind! There's something going on that you need to know about! I'm sending you a picture now!"

"Okay," Yuna said agreeably, and pulled the phone away from her ear so that she could look at its screen, which promptly displayed an image of Negi and Konoka looking at clothes together.

"Did you have any idea this was going on?" Kugimiya's voice demanded.

"Yeah, I kind of had an inkling," she answered. She supposed that being told directly could be said to be constitute an inkling.

"And ... and you're okay with this?" Kakizaki asked.

"Well, she has more experience than I do," Yuna said with a shrug that they couldn't see.

"... O. M. G!" exclaimed Shiina. "She does?"

"... well, yeah, she's been living with Asuna for the last two years, of course she'd be a better pick to help Negi pick out a birthday present for her than I would."

Dead silence on the other end.

"What?" Yuna asked. "What did you think was going on, that they were dating or something?"

"Ahem," the cheerleaders coughed in unison.

"You three have really seriously dirty minds," Yuna said, then hung up and went back to simultaneously making out with and fingerbanging Makie, who was crouched above her as they lay in Yuna's bed.

"Ahhhhh!" Makie cried out in release once Yuna's hand, steeped in Makie's own juices, came down from blocking her mouth. "Oh, you've gotten so goooooood at this, Yuna-chan! Is Negi-kun going to fuck Konoka-chan, though? Is he?"

"Eh, maybe not today," Yuna replied before taking a bite at Makie's chin.

"Awwwwww!" It was strange how Makie could make the exact same sound into a note of enjoyment or unhappiness. "Well, can we fuck Akira if she comes back early from whatever Mina-chan has her doing?"

"No, no, I told you, she's off-limits." Yuna pulled her hand back to slap Makie's thigh as a way of emphasizing this.

"Well, can we fuck Ako?"

"... hmmmmm."

---

Madoka, Misa, and Sakurako stood crowded around the cell phone for a moment, staring blankly at its tiny display of the message 'Call Ended'.

"Well," said Misa at last. "Isn't it a good thing that I thought to call Akashi like that? Otherwise, we'd have been horribly embarrassed as we tried to follow Negi-kun and Konoka around on their not-a-date. Praise me for my insight, filthy minions!"

"Horribly embarrassed and in competition with that guy, too," Sakurako said agreeably.

Madoka half-nodded, then turned to stare at Sakurako, as indeed did Misa as well. "What guy?" the two of them chorused at the third of them.

Sakurako blinked. "You know, that guy over there in the trenchcoat and slouch hat who keeps stopping at the boutiques that are just to the right of the ones Negi-kun and Konoka stop at, never buying anything, and moving on immediately after the two of them move on."

The two of them turned to look across the street once more, this time noting the individual who fit the description Sakurako mentioned, who was indeed making a show of examining the advertised wares of a shop just to the right of the shop currently patronized by the boy teacher and the fortune teller. "How did you notice this?" Madoka asked after a moment.

"Just lucky, I guess."

"Okay ... so someone is already following the two of them. Either that person thinks that they are on a date," Misa said slowly. "Orrrr ... that person knows that they're shopping for Asuna, and doesn't like that."

"I think that's kind of a le-" Madoka started to say.

"Ladies," said Misa, eyes narrowed.

"Oh boy, here we go," Madoka whispered wearily.

Misa paid her no mind. "How many times in the last two years has Asuna had our collective and individual backs? Do I need to talk about the episode we never talk about? And now someone is potentially trying to work against an attempt to bring a bit of happiness into that girl's life? Are we going to stand for this? No. Freaking. Way."

She stretched her hand up to the sky, and almost immediately, Madoka and Sakurako did as well, as though holding imaginary - or, in Sakurako's case, actual and inexplicably produced - pompoms. "In the name of the cheerleaders," they chorused. "We will protect Negi-kun's attempt to do something nice for his big sister!"

"Excuse me," said a little old lady standing behind them. "You young ladies are sort of blocking the crosswalk."

---

"So what do you think he's going to get her?" Makie asked out of nowhere.

Even someone as sexually voracious as Makie needed to refresh themselves sometimes, and so she and Yuna had paused in their activities to get dressed and head down to the cafeteria to get some food and, potentially, try to find Ako so that they could eventually drag her off to have their wicked way with her. The latter part had been something of a disappointment, as their friend was nowhere in sight. At least the food was good.

"Makie, if I had any ideas on that score, I'd probably be shopping with him right now," Yuna answered, before stuffing her face with a sandwich.

"Do you think he'll get us something for our birthdays?" Makie asked.

Yuna, who was busily chewing on the sandwich, pointed irritably at her very full mouth as though to indicate the height of rudeness it would be to speak at the moment.

"I can wait," Makie said, sounding a bit put out. A moment later, she added, "No, I can't. Do you think we should get something for his birthday?"

Yuna swallowed what was in her mouth, then let out a sigh. "I'm pretty sure that we're going to give him something really nice for his birthday, yes."

"What?" Makie asked.

Yuna stared at her.

"Oh!" Makie said. "... but we do that all the time!"

With a shake of her head, Yuna pulled open her phone and examined the picture that the cheerleaders had sent her. Negi looked really happy just spending time with Konoka, and Yuna found herself wondering whether Makie was doing her wise fool thing again. Maybe the best thing they could do for him was to give him a day where he didn't have to worry about the glorious purpose with which his parents had burdened him, so that he could just be with the people he cared about.

Abruptly, Yuna realized that someone was standing behind her, as she was in the shade cast by them. "Hey, do you mind? I'm engaged in some pretty profound contemplation here," she said without looking back."

"So. I. See," said a very familiar voice.

Yuna closed her eyes. Aw, shit.

"Hey, iinchou! Hey, Asuna!" Makie said cheerily. As one without evil intent, she could no more perceive the rippling aura of that intent which presently surrounded the class representative than she could hear a dog whistle.

"Yuna-san," Ayaka demanded as Yuna slowly turned to look back at her - and incidentally at Asuna, standing just a bit behind Ayaka and blinking in surprise at the picture which had driven the tall blonde into a frenzy. "What is the meaning of that photo of Negi-sensei and Konoka-san engaged in what can only be considered a d-d-d-d-"

"Date," Makie helpfully supplied.

"Yes! That!"

---

Yuuki Nao hated having days off. Granted, she hated days on, but that was really more an annoyance than the much more visceral revulsion that she felt every time she was quote-unquote generously given a day where she didn't have to attend classes, and so couldn't lose herself in pretending to listen to the teacher for a few hours. Instead, she was left to her own devices, but couldn't do the only thing that made her life worth living, either. Not until nightfall.

The night time was the right time for her to be with the one she loved.

She supposed that she could have taken advantage of the extra hours to set up more appointments for the evening, but she was just one person, after all. It would take time to attend to each of them, and if she had to rush, she wouldn't be able to give each of them the personal service that they deserved, and then it wouldn't be as enjoyable for her. And so she was left with great gulfs of time in which she had absolutely nothing to do. So boring.

The notion of actually using this time to prepare for her class trip, which was going to Tokyo-3, didn't really occur to her. Nor was she aware of the idea that only very boring people got bored as easily as she did.

Nao thought all this as she ambled along the dirty paths of the Mahora campus, not wanting to head back home where she'd have to spend time with Riko and her weirdo girlfriend - the thought of spending time with Mikan didn't bother her so much - but not wanting to stay where she was, either. She experienced a momentary flash of insight that she didn't really want to be anywhere, and that she didn't really want to be, but she promptly forgot it when her eyes lit upon her favorite sucker.

Clearly, she wasn't the only person who'd found themselves at loose ends, and so she altered the path her feet were walking so that it took her to the bench where the other was sitting, and promptly sat down beside her. "'sup?" she asked.

"That means hello, right?" asked Minagi Mikoto.

"Mm-hm. You bored?"

The little barbarian gave a grunt that Nao took for an affirmation. Somewhat to Nao's surprise though, the other girl then used her words. "I'm ready for the trip, and, so ..." Mikoto trailed off.

"Yeah, me too," Nao lied. "Y'know, I could use your help tonight."

Mikoto blinked slowly. "You mean, help you with ... that?"

Nao nodded.

"... Mai said I shouldn't help you with that."

With great difficulty, Nao controlled her urge to sneer. "And you always do what Mai tells you?" she asked.

"Yes," Mikoto answered. "I'm scared of what she'll do if I don't."

That ... was a little unexpected. The question had been more or less rhetorical, intended to shame the girl into agreeing, and the answer she'd gotten threw Nao more than a bit off. "Well, we'll just have to make sure that she doesn't find out, then," she said, coaxingly. "Come on, Minagi, it'll be fun! And who knows, we might find your brother this way."

That clearly struck a nerve with the other girl.

"What exactly are you two talking about?" asked an unfamiliar voice.

Nao blinked. She'd been so focused on Mikoto that she'd completely ignored that there was another girl, dressed in the same school uniform as the two of them, sitting just a bit further down the bench from the two of them. The oddest thing was that the girl had reddish hair just a bit darker than Nao's own henna-soaked locks, and she was staring at them questioningly.

"Do you always listen in on private conversations?" Nao snapped.

"... when they take place in public, and right in front of me, yes," the other girl answered.

"Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"This is Fujimaru," said Mikoto. "She sits next to me in class."

"Hello," Fujimaru said with a wave.

"Nao really didn't know that?" Mikoto inquired, slightly confused.

No, because every other girl in our class is completely irrelevant, Nao thought but did not say. "Well, anyway, when a conversation doesn't concern you, you should pretend you can't hear it. Everybody knows that, right?" she asked instead.

"Clearly not," replied Fujimaru.

"That was a rhetorical question," Nao growled.

"No, not really. While people sometimes act like questions that they don't expect or want answered are rhetorical questions, the term really only applies to questions asked under circumstances where no answer is possible - when you're making a public address, for example."

"You're a total fucking nerd, aren't you?"

Fujimaru blinked. "I'll just assume that was another of what you think are rhetorical questions."

Ignoring that, Nao looked back to Mikoto. "If you wanna go out tonight, give me a call. I could really use your help." With that declaration, Nao got up and stomped away.

"Are you two friends?" Fujimaru asked after a moment.

"Sort of, yes," Mikoto answered.

"Must be nice. I've never had a lot of friends," said Fujimaru Ritsuka.

---

"I don't care how cute and sweet Konoka-san is," Ayaka declared imperiously as she stood ramrod straight in the train car that was taking them all to Tokyo-2. "Nobody in our class butme is allowed to fool around with Negi-sensei! For anyone otherthanme to do so is a serious violation of school regulations!"

"It's honestly sort of amazing how you can slip those 'butme's and 'otherthanme's into the sentence without making yourself sound any less serious," Asuna marveled as she leaned against one of the handrails. "But anyway, believe me, Konoka is one of the last girls you should be worried about on that score."

Ayaka opened her eyes and turned to glare at her nemelly. (Formed from "nemesis" and "ally", and thus slightly stronger in tone than "frenemy".) "And what exactly does that mean?"

With great difficulty, Asuna resisted the temptation to look at where Makie and Yuna were seated on the car's bench, and no doubt doing their level best to look innocent. "Just ... y'know ... she knows the school rules as much as anyone, and this is probably just ... uh ... her trying to be helpful in whatever it is he's doing. Whatever that might be," she added, conscious of how very very vague she was sounding.

"That should be Yuna-san or Akira-san's job," Ayaka said sternly. She turned her glare on Yuna. "Why is she doing your job?" she asked of her.

Man, I really really hate my life sometimes, Yuna thought as she tried to come up with a convincing sounding lie.

"Iinchou, you should really sit down," Makie supplied. "It's a long ride to Shin Harajuku. Scoot over, Yuna-chan, and make some room for Iinchou."

Shaking her head in annoyance, Ayaka nonetheless sat down between Makie and Yuna, her frown deepening a bit as Makie proceeded to shift in her seat so that there was much less space between them.

"Iinchou, has anyone ever told you that you're really very beautiful?" Makie asked abruptly.

The daughter of the Yukihiro family blinked. "Yes, I get such compliments quite frequently. Why do you ask?"

"Noooo reason," Makie answered as she started to cuddle up to Ayaka. "Noooo reason at alllll."

Asuna took advantage of this rather distracting moment for Ayaka to subtly beckon Yuna to come and have a little chat just outside of the class rep's earshot. "Okay," she muttered so only Yuna could hear it. "Just so I know how black my tongue should be turning right now, Negi isn't actually fooling around with Konoka, right?"

"No, as far as I know, that's not happening," Yuna muttered right back. "Don't you think she'd tell you if that was going on?"

"Well, she's still a little bit upset about that whole 'I'm hiding magic from you' business, and anyway, that photo was the first news I got of them spending the day together," Asuna replied. "I mean, normally I wouldn't think it was the sort of thing that could happen, but this is Negi we're talking about?"

"What do you mean by it couldn't happen?" Yuna asked.

Asuna let out a sigh. "She's gay. She told me that the day we started living together. But this apparently didn't stop him when it came to the Veep, and ... well, she's been spending a lot of time lately talking him up to me, and now I'm starting to worry that she's building up to the revelation that she's in his harem -"

"Collective," Yuna corrected reflexively.

Asuna proceeded to give her a very disgusted look.

"Whatever. She's not." After a moment of struggle, Yuna found herself unable to stop adding, "Yet."

"Yet," Asuna repeated, shaking her head slightly.

"Makie-san, why, exactly, is your hand on my thigh?" Ayaka asked behind them.

"Well, it's crowded, and I need to rest my hand somewhere," Makie answered.

"... there are three people in this car other than the four of us. What nonsense are you spouting?"

"... Chizuru-chan really does have it rough," Makie muttered.

"Eh?" asked Ayaka.

---

Bazett Fraga McRemitz breathed deeply as she sat by her campfire in the dust that was a city named Fuyuki - specifically the yard of what had once been a church - staring at an earring held in one of her gloved hands.

This was the moment. This was what all the struggle, all the pain, all the confusion, all her life really, had been for. Alone among the mages chosen for this unexpected Holy Grail War, Bazett had a summoning catalyst, found years ago and saved for just this occasion. In a moment, she would set it down, speak the words, and be in the presence of the one who'd worn the earring. Giving up the earring so that it was lost forever with the magic was thus a necessary, even desirable step. She should do it right away, rather than waiting. There was nothing to wait for. And yet there she sat, staring at the earring that was her link to him, held in her hand.

She drew in one last breath that was not at all a sigh of grief, and reached out to set the earring down in the middle of the summoning circle.

It was at that moment that a tiny stone flew out of nowhere to smack dead center against Bazett's forehead. Her eyes crossed, and she fell forward to the ground, slightly disrupting the circle she'd drawn.

Another woman, with long purple hair and bright red eyes, dressed in a black body-stocking and mask, appeared not far away and walked up to the campsite. She stooped to pick up the earring that Bazett, remarkably, had still not dropped when she lost consciousness.

"My need is greater than yours," she said to the earring, then pocketed it. That done, she pulled up the sleeve of Bazett's jacket to reveal the place where the command seals were supposed to materialize, and swiftly drew a series of runes in the air over the other woman's arm. Markings that looked for all the world like command seals blossomed on Bazett's wrist.

The masked woman nodded as though pleased with the work of her hands, and then carefully trampled on the summoning circle Bazett had drawn. And then, as anyone embarked on a strategem must, she waited.

Bazett awoke after a minute or so, hand flying up to her forehead and muttering in Gaelic.

"You're awake, Master?" the other woman asked, trying to sound solicitous of Bazett's welfare and not really succeeding.

Bazett's head jerked up. "What?" she asked. "Who -"

"It is as I feared," the masked woman lied, nodding. "Immediately after you summoned me, an enemy attacked you, knocking you unconscious. While I was able to dispatch them before they could claim your life, it seemed likely that their method of attack would reave away several minutes of your memories. So, if you will permit me to repeat myself - I am your Servant, of the class Lancer." She summoned up her long red spear. "And you are my Master."

Bazett's jaw had dropped steadily through this explanation, and as she stared at the spear, she knew it couldn't get any lower. "I know that spear," she said, dazedly. "I was trying to summon ... I had his earring -"

"They, and this, were mine ere I gave them to him," the woman told her.

She was wrong about her jaw. "Then you must be - but no, that's not possible. You're supposed to still be alive, in your Land of Shadows!"

Scathach, for indeed it was she, solemnly shook her head. "I know not what to tell you, Master," she lied some more. "It may be that the Land of Shadows was not spared the disasters that have lately rocked this world. It may be that all things do in time die, and that I have been summoned from some future Throne of Heroes. I cannot say, for the legend I recall does not speak of how I met my end."

Bazett shook her head. "This wasn't what I wanted," she said, just a bit plaintively. Then she steeled herself. "But it is what it is, and I am pleased that you have come at my call, Lancer. I'm sure that our wishes for the grail will be compatible."

"As am I," said Scathach ... telling her biggest lie yet.

---

It hadn't seemed like a very long day. All they'd really done was stroll around various boutiques, enjoy sharing a beverage, talk about various irrelevancies, and eventually find the perfect present. And yet, here they were, as the sun began to slowly sink in the west, her seated on the steps of an otherwise deserted plaza, and him lying down beside her, with his head in her lap.

It didn't really make much sense for things to be winding down in this way, Konoka thought. From the vague hints she'd gotten from Nodoka and Yue (and the not-even-slightly-vague more-guidebook-than-hints that she'd gotten from Haruna) she knew that Negi had a great deal of stamina. She'd even seen him staying active for longer times under much more strenuous conditions, during their adventure beneath library island. And yet there he was, all tuckered out.

She absent-mindedly petted his head for a moment.

Maybe he had to draw on his magical energy reserves for those sorts of activities, and he'd chosen, for whatever reason, to go through this day without using any magic at all, perhaps out of some misguided notion of having a fun time with her that didnt involve magic. Or perhaps he'd been all the while using his magic for some other purpose, and now both his physical and magical reserves were depleted.

She had a notion of what that purpose might have been. When he'd told her that they were being followed, it had been a real struggle for Konoka to avoid wildly looking around in all directions in order to spot whoever was trailing them. Negi had quickly assured her that he didn't feel any hostile intent. (Konoka wasn't sure if she should be thrilled or horrified that her life had become one in which people could feel hostile intent.) If Negi had quietly kept a watch on their pursuer all this time, then things became a bit more understandable.

It was another real struggle for her to resist looking all around to see if whoever had been following them was still there.

---

"I can't believe we lost that guy," Misa growsed as they lurked in the bushes not too far from where Konoka was being used as a lap pillow. "Where is your luck now?" she asked Sakurako.

"It's just luck, Misa-chan," Sakurako said defensively. "If everything worked out in my favor all the time, don't you think I would have been carted off to Kibogamine by this point?"

"Okay, enough," said Madoka. "Let's look on the bright side. If we're this close to those two, and we can't see that guy, then he has to have given up or gotten bored or something and he's not following them anymore. Right?"

Sakurako and Misa regarded her with silent skepticism.

"Of course right," Madoka answered her own question. "So we have successfully upheld the name of the cheerleaders. Yay us."

"Well, whatever," said Misa, returning her gaze to Negi and Konoka. "I am soooo jelly right now."

"Oh, seriously?" Madoka groaned. "You can have your boyfriend do that whenever you like. You have no reason to be -"

"Imprimis - we broke up last week," interjected Misa.

"Really?" peeped Sakurako. "You never said anything."

After briefly favoring Sakurako with a scorching glance, Misa pressed on. "Secundus - the idiot was waaaaaayyy too macho to ever do anything as cute and sweet and vulnerable as lay down in public in my lap. So I have lots of reason to be jelly, and I choose to indulge in being -"

"Wait, what's she doing?" asked Madoka, who'd stopped listening at 'imprimis'.

---

Konoka shook her head. Even if she did look, she wouldn't know what to look for. The world was a dangerous place. She'd known that since she was a child and -

For a horrifying moment, she was drowning again, the blood red waters swallowing her down.

The moment passed. Her heart rate began to slow down, her breathing stopped being hyperventilating, and she rested a hand on Negi's head as he made gentle sounds in his sleep. She was in the presence of a powerful ally who wouldn't allow any harm to come to her. And she had a sign of their alliance.

She pulled the card out of her pants pocket. It was strange that she'd been carrying it there for a while now, and it hadn't gotten folded up like paper in her pockets tended to do. But then, it was magic, after all.

Healing powers, Negi had said. She wondered if that included soothing a little boy's fatigue.

She lifted her head, and casually looked around. She thought they were alone now. There didn't seem to be anyone around.

Well, then.

"Adeat," she said. One light show later, she was garbed in a miko's robes, and holding a fan in each hand. "All right," she murmured to herself. "Let's see how this -"

And that was when Misa, Sakurako and Madoka fell out of the bushes nearby.

Konoka stared at them. They stared at her.

"Oh feathers," Konoka said at last.

"What - what -" Misa started to stammer as she pushed herself up from the ground where she and the other two cheerleaders were landing.

Whether fortunately or not, her question went unasked, for it was at that very moment that a voice everyone recognized cried out. "Konoka-san! What are you doing, permitting Negi-sensei to employ your lap as a pillow in such a luxurious and enviable manner?! Trade places with me at once!" This rather excited utterance was followed up by a much more quiet one. "And what is that thing you are wearing?"

Konoka closed her eyes for a moment, and quietly murmured to herself. "Father of Lies, if ever you have looked fondly on me, do so now."

Negi began to come around and lift his head from her lap. Konoka gently pushed it back down again. With that out of the way, she opened her eyes and turned to smile sunnily in the general direction of Ayaka (regarding her with envious outrage), Asuna (regarding her with startled confusion), Makie (regarding her with envy and, judging from the way she licked her lips, something else that Konoka chose not to examine) and Yuna, who just looked a bit dismayed.

"Why, hello, everyone," Konoka said, all innocence. "Is it not amazing the places in which old friends meet? And this is cosplay, Iinchou."

Ayaka blinked. "Cosplay," she repeated.

"Yes, cosplay."

"I see," the tall blonde said, nodding slowly. "Well, in that case, I would appreciate it if you would explain something to me."

"If I can, I certainly will," Konoka assured her, pressing Negi back down again as he tried to sit up.

"... what is cosplay?"

Konoka laughed merrily, the sound faintly drowned out by the noise made by almost everyone else in the plaza falling down. "Oh, now, Iinchou, you shouldn't make self-deprecating jokes like that! Someone as worldly and sophisticated as you must know allllll about cosplay. Only someone simple wouldn't know about it, isn't that right, Maki-chan?"

"Well, I can't say that the subject is one of my areas of expertise," Makie replied as she brought herself back to a standing state.

"See?" Konoka asked, smile faintly gleaming.

"Ah," Ayaka said, a bit faintly. She shook her head, coughed a bit, and then repeated herself much more loudly. "Ah! Of course, yes, you're engaged in cosplay. I suppose it should have been obvious, but I was just a bit distracted by the way that you still have Negi-sensei's head in your lap!"

"No I don't," said Konoka, this time 'helping' Negi's attempt to sit up, in such a way that he looked a bit dizzy when he reached an upright seated position.

"Yes, you di-" Ayaka began to sputter.

"Oh, dear older sister!" Negi interjected quickly, producing a small box from inside his jacket. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"I bet you weren't," said Asuna.

"I don't know what you could possibly mean by that," Negi said lightly. "Well, in any event, this isn't quite how I envisioned things working out, but, clearly now is the right time to do it. Ahem. Happy birthday, dear sweet older sister," he concluded, offering the box to her.

Asuna blinked. "What? It's not my birthday."

"You're right, that's tomorrow, but we'll all be very busy tom-"

"No, no, it's not for -" Asuna broke off her own interjection, and furrowed her brow. For a moment her finger came up and poked at the air in front of her in the manner of someone consulting a calendar. "Oh wow, it is tomorrow, isn't it?"

"Yes, and please accept this gift from me and Konoka-san," Negi said, extending the box.

"It's a tiny music box that plays 'Tubular Bells'," Konoka explained. "I thought it very appropriate for you."

"That's, that's ..." Asuna stammered as she took the box in her hands. And then, as a tiny smile spread across her face, she murmured, in tones that no one there had ever heard her use, "Thank you, Negi, Konoka. Thank you very much."

"... a birthday present?" Ayaka said blankly, eyes turned into large black dots. "That's what this was all about?" she added as she slowly turned to stare black-dottedly in Yuna's direction.

"Yyyyyyep," Yuna replied shortly.

"... why didn't you just say so in the first place?" Ayaka continued to say blankly.

"Well," Yuna said at length, "there was the thing where the person for whom it was supposed to be a surprise was there the whole freaking time. That was kind of an influence on the way my thoughts trended. Of course, there were many other factors as well, such as -"

"Ahem," Ayaka coughed, then spoke very loudly. "Well, my work here is done."

"You didn't do anything, though," Makie pointed out helpfully.

Ayaka stared at Makie for a moment. When the other girl obnoxiously failed to burst into flames, Ayaka coughed again. "If you'll all excuse me, I have a strange urge to go stuff my face with chocolate. Good evening, everyone." And with that, she strode away. Striding. Definitely not running away in mortification.

"Well, I hope you also appreciated my cosplay," Konoka said to the cheerleaders, who'd been watching this in silence all the while.

"Okay, I'm neither as smart nor as sheltered as Iinchou, so don't try and pull that sort of nonsense on me," Misa replied. "This is more of that magic crap, isn't it?"

Silence once more descended on the plaza. The moment passed when Konoka turned to look at Negi. "You didn't mention that Kakizaki and the others were part of your collective," she said mildly.

"Colle- ahem," Negi started to correct reflexively, stopping himself midway. "And they're not."

"What the heck is a collective, and why does Negi-kun have one?" asked Misa, eyes wide. Then those eyes slammed shut as one of her hands slapped against her forehead. "Doy! Of course Negi-kun is tied into all this magic stuff, just like his sister! I can't believe I didn't think of that until just now. I'm such an idiot!"

"Tell me you got that on video," Madoka quietly asked Sakurako.

"Yep!" replied Sakurako, luckily holding up her cell phone to record Misa's history-making statement.

"Wait, his sister?" asked Konoka. Her head whipped around to stare balefully at Asuna. "You told Kakizaki about magic before you told me?"

"And it was such a nice day, too," Asuna groaned while avoiding Konoka's gaze.

"Hey, Konoka, go easy on her," said Makie of all people. "Remember what Negi told us? It's probably the same for Asuna - if a lot of people find out about her, she'll get turned into an ermine."

"'turned into an ermine'?" Madoka repeated. "Asuna told us that someone would come and tear out her -"

"Now is not the time to dwell on stuff like this!" Negi interrupted, just a bit frantically, as he flinched from the accusatory look Yuna was giving him. "While I admit to being curious as to the circumstances which could have compelled Asuna to break the most fundamental law of the magical community -"

"Sorry, not happening," interrupted Misa with a firm shake of her head. "This is something we swore never to speak of again!"

He blinked. "Really?" he asked Asuna.

Asuna opened her mouth, then closed it as she spent a moment in thought. "Actually, come to think of it, I never did take part in the agreement that the three of them made. Basically, what happened is this -"

---

Around two years ago.

"I know it's before the full moon," Evangeline sneered as she sat atop the roof of the dormitory pool's hot tub, with Karin, Misa, Madoka and Sakurako surrounding her, all of them dressed in elaborate French maid costumes. "But tonight, we're going to settle this once and for all! I'm going to take as much of your blood as I need, daughter of Nagi!"

"Okay, you are one seriously messed-up little girl!" Asuna declared as she stared up at them, wrapped in her towel. "Taking control of the cheerleaders is a total jerkass move!"

"Think you so?" asked Eva as, at her gesture, the three cheerleaders leaped from the rooftop to confront Asuna directly. "Well, what else you should you expect of an evil mage! Seize her, my minions!"

---

About ten seconds after around two years ago.

"Right then," said Asuna as the the beaten and unconscious bodies of the cheerleaders floated on the pool's surface surrounding her, with nary a hair out of place on her own person. "Shall we get to the main event?"

"... what's wrong with you?" a shocked Eva demanded. "How can you so easily beat up your friends like that?"

"Well, you know, I get along well with Kakizaki and the others, but I wouldn't call us particularly close friends or anything," Asuna said defensively.

Karin shook her head. "We should have enslaved Iinchou, master. I told you that from the start. Why didn't you listen to me? Why don't you ever listen to me? Blah blah blah lonely path blah blah blah only true companion blah blah blah dust in the wind blah blah blah."

"Why are you wasting time giving exposition like that when you could be bringing down my enemy?" Evangeline snapped. "Are you waiting for an invitation or something?"

"... well, one would be sort of nice."

"Attack already!"

---

Maybe half an hour after ten seconds after around two years ago.

"What?" asked Misa as she regained consciousness at the pool side. "What happened?"

"Okay, this is going to be a complicated explanation," said Asuna, her towel long gone and looking a bit beat up.

"Ahhhhh!" Misa shrieked. "What am I wearing?"

---

A little less than two years after half an hour after ... em, never mind. Now, again.

"The colors!" Misa sobbed as she held her hands to her face, seated on the plaza where Konoka had been seated a few minutes before. "The colors!"

"So ... the whole enslaved by a vampire thing doesn't bother you nearly as much as the fact that she made you dress up in a uniform that clashed with your hair?" Yuna asked.

"Aw, I'm sure that you were much hotter in that outfit than I would have been, Kakizaki!" Makie said consolingly as she sat beside Misa and gave her a nice soothing hug and felt her up.

"Well, yes, that goes without saying, but still -" Misa agreed through her sobs.

"This has been a very interesting afternoon," said Konoka, nodding soberly. "I think Asuna-san and I need to go and have yet another discussion about the obligations and responsibilities of being someone's best friend."

Asuna just let out a sigh in response.

"All right, but please keep in mind what we've been told about that person who was following the two of us," said Negi. "Whoever it was seems to have stopped at some point, but -"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Konoka told him, sounding a bit weary. "I have a fairly good idea who that person was, and what that person was after."

---

Several blocks away, Sakurazaki Setsuna took off her slouch hat as she walked briskly towards the train station.

---

It had already been a rather profitable and enjoyable evening, and, from the looks of things, the good times were only just getting started. After some hesitation, the little barbarian had agreed to take a turn luring one of the prey to their doom. Nao was watching this from a safe distance, fairly certain that Mikoto was going to screw it up, but looking forward to enjoying the results either way.

As the target ambled past Mikoto in a semi-inebriated daze, the smaller girl spoke up to attract his attention. "Oy," she said. "I've ... uh ... got nothing to do right now." This was delivered in a monotone utterly at odds with the way that Nao usually delivered the line. Even worse was Mikoto's follow-up. "So ... so ... um ... would you like to ... play ... with me?"

The guy stood still for a moment, no doubt stunned to have been the subject of the worst pick-up line in the history of pick-up lines. Nao forced herself to resist breaking out in laughter until he actually refused.

"Just ... give me a moment, okay," said the guy, pulling out a cell phone.

Nao blinked.

"Hey, sweety," he said into the phone. "Papa is gonna be a little bit late, tonight. Wait for me, okaaaay?"

Papa? Nao mouthed.

"Lead the way," the guy declared, smiling broadly at the middle school student who'd just propositioned him. Mikoto turned on her heel and led him further into the cul de sac from which she'd emerged.

Nao found herself shaking her head. "This one's the dumbest one yet," she announced, then headed down the alleyway after the two of them, catching up fairly easily.

"Huh? Who the hell are -" the guy said as Nao approached him.

She proceeded to make her hand whole, five beautiful reddish-black claws exploding from her fingers. "I am your wet dream become your worst nightmare, little man," Nao told him with her best Freddy Krueger smile.

"Oh, fuck," gasped the guy, legs gone weak beneath him so that he collapsed onto the pile of left-over construction material that filled up the end of the cul de sac. "Nobody ever said there were two of you!"

Nao frowned. She hadn't expected there to be any rumors about her. For that to happen, these losers would have to be talking about how a girl beat them up, and she'd expected that they'd honestly prefer to just keep their mouths shut. Clearly that was not the case. "Yes, there are, and now you're going to get what's coming to you," she said.

"Ah, Nao?" Mikoto asked as she stood by, holding that sword bag of hers. "Do we really have to do this?"

"Remind me again which one of us lured this waste of human flesh to his doom?" Nao asked cheerfully.

"That would be Mikoto who did that," said a voice from Nao's right. "You did good, Mikoto."

Slowly, Nao turned. There she was, as big as life and twice as ... well, Nao couldn't quite bring herself to the hypocrisy of claiming that she found Tokiha Mai to be physically unattractive, but obnoxious and annoying? Oh so very much. "Oh, look, Mikoto, it's your nursemaid!" was what she chose to say, ignoring the weirdness of the high school girl's opening statement.

"Yes, it is," Mikoto said, an odd mixture of relief and regret in her voice. And then, as Nao watched in confusion, Mikoto walked over to stand beside Tokiha, who favored her with a nod.

"Oookay, then," Nao said after a moment. "You," she directed at Mikoto, "really do do whatever she tells you to do, and you -" That went to Tokiha. "- told her to tag along with me."

"It seemed the best way to get you in a position where we could talk," Tokiha replied with a shrug. "Familiar, too."

Familiar? Nao thought. What she said was, "What the hell do we have to talk about? Are you going to give me some spiel about how I shouldn't use these powers this way?"

"Well, as it happens, I do happen to think that using a cosmic entity to shake down men for money is a bit of a waste," Tokiha said. "And I also don't think it's really getting you any sort of revenge on your actual enemies."

Nao flushed. "And what the hell would you know about my actual -"

"A bunch of men broke into your house and assaulted your mom while you hid in the closet," Tokiha interrupted. "They got sent to prison but that didn't satisfy you. Since you only ever talk about your mom, I'm assuming that there's some daddy issues mixed in with all this, but never mind that now." The woman paused. "Do you want them dead?"

"What - how -" Nao stammered. Spite, as ever, proved to be her savior; the halo of contempt stiffened her spine. "I suppose you look down on me for that, right, because we should forgive our enemies and -"

Quite abruptly, Tokiha was hovering in mid air, magatama whirling around her wrists and ankles. Flames lashed out from the flying girl's hand toward the guy who'd started this whole encounter. He screamed shortly as he turned to ashes.

"No," said Tokiha. "That was an offer."

"Mai!" Mikoto gasped, staring up at her in shock.

Nao stared at the ashes. "You killed him," she said, as one stated what others might not realize.

"Yes, I was there when it happened. Now, do you want the people who hurt your mother dead?" Mai asked.

"They're dead," Nao said in the same dull tone as she kept staring at the remains of a perverted asshole she'd planned to beat up. "Kira killed them years ago."

"Oh, come on," Mai groaned. "Death Note is real here, too? Fine, whatever, do you want revenge on Kira for taking your opportunity for vengeance away from you?"

That finally got Nao to look away from the ashes, and she stared up at Mai in confused horror. "What?" she asked.

"I'm asking what it's going to take to get you on the same side as the rest of us, instead of your own little dumbass corner of the war," Tokiha bit out. Then she shook her head. "Oh, duh," she muttered, then spoke up. "Do you want your mother back?"

"What?" Nao repeated herself.

"Stop making confused exclamations, Nao!" said Tokiha. "Your mother. She's in a coma. Would you like her to come out of it?"

"... you can do that?" Nao asked faintly.

"Maybe," Tokiha replied, waving her hands. "Who knows what I can do? I've done all sorts of things I shouldn't be able to do lately. I've traveled between worlds, stopped time ... what's healing injuries by comparison? I would be willing to try if it would mean that you stopped being a petty little shithead!"

"I-I-I," Nao stammered, finding herself unable to find words.

"This has just been one of the more fascinating conversations that I've overheard recently," said a voice from behind Mai.

Mai rotated fast enough that she would have become dizzy at the start of all this; of course, by this point, it didn't affect her at all. Standing at the entrance to the cul de sac was a man with orange hair, just a bit brighter than Mai's own, that could be seen beneath his bowler hat. (Mai blinked. Yes, he really was wearing a bowler hat. What a messed-up world.) He wore a long white coat and rested both his hands on the handle of a cane.

"Good evening," the cliche said affably.

"And you would be -?" Mai asked after a moment.

"Many things," he answered. "For the moment, though, what concerns us is the fact that I was the employer of the individual you just atomized." He lifted the cane and helpfully pointed with it in the general direction of the ashes.

"Oh," said Mai. "That phone call that he made. It was to you, wasn't it?"

"Indeed it was. There's been something of an epidemic of brutal death afflicting my people, recently, and even if your henna-worshipping associate over there wasn't nearly as … annihilating, let's say, when she killed the last one -"

"Hey what?" Nao interrupted. "I've never killed anybody!"

The hatted man paused to shake his head. "Nnnot really a credible claim from the girl with the claws. I don't really care, you know. I was probably going to have to kill that one myself, eventually. So you really just saved me the trouble."

"I don't even know what the hell you're talking about!"

"Still don't care," he replied airily. "It's just that it looks bad, you know, when one is trying to rule the city and one's people keep getting killed. No matter how much I don't care, I have to give the appearance of doing something or they'll start getting silly ideas like being better off without me. And so here we are!"

"Well, I'd say that you've given that appearance by showing up and yelling at us," said Mai, just a little wearily. "I mean, I could do you like I did your employee, but I only did that to prove a point to someone whose opinion I actually care about."

"Gee, thanks," said Nao.

Mai paid this no particular notice, focusing her attention on the criminal before her. "If you walk away now -"

"No, no no no," he said, shaking his head. "If I start backing down just because someone has a bit of magic on their side, I won't get anywhere. Fortunately, a solution to the problem you pose is available to me, and actually quite eager to make your acquaintance."

"'A bit of magic?'" Mai repeated, staring down at him from within her nimbus of fire.

"Mai, this one might actually be worth fighting. Can I fight him, Mai?" Mikoto asked, holding Miroku steadily.

He let out a snicker. "Now, you remind me of another girl I know. 'Bout your age, too, I think ... anyway, the problem you and Claw-Girl pose is even more easily solved."

And then another figure stepped out from behind him, even though Mai could have sworn that she was looking at the man in the white coat at such an angle as to make it impossible for there to be anyone there. Especially anyone with an appearance as distinctive as a petite young woman with hair colored pink-and-white on her right side and brown on her left. Wearing an outfit of pink, white and black, she carried with her an umbrella that she casually rested against her shoulder while walking, almost sauntering, towards where Mikoto was standing. There was a cheerful smile on the young lady's face.

Mai blinked as she realized something. The girl's appearance - both in the terms of the way she'd seemed to come out of nowhere and the way that she looked - had distracted her from the sounds of footsteps approaching the entrance of the cul de sac. Now the source of those footsteps came into view, in the form of another woman, this one with curly coal black hair and dressed in a long red dress.

The man in white glanced towards this new arrival. "And you said I'd never show you anything interesting."

"I usually hate being wrong," the woman said silkily as her amber eyes gazed hungrily up at Mai. There was something strangely familiar about her. With a start, Mai found herself realizing that this woman reminded her of Haruhi, for some reason.

"Like I said, a solution to the problem," the man continued, returning his gaze to Mai as well. "To fight a warrior, get a warrior. To fight a wizard, get a wizard."

"I thought they didn't use that word," Mai said.

"Oh, they don't," said the woman, as a fiery glow appeared around her eyes. "But I do. I wonder what your powers will do when they're mine."

---

In the midst of answering one of Kakizaki's increasingly vehement questions about the practices and activities of a collective, Negi's head jerked to the side perhaps a second or so before the explosion of flame lit up the sky not too far from the plaza.

---

The phone rang, and Juri felt a surge of tension as she looked across the kitchen to see that the call display was indicating that the call came from an unregistered number. Which could mean that it was a telemarketer calling ... but, given the givens, probably not. The smart thing to do would be to let the machine take it.

Cursing the fate which kept her from doing the smart thing, Juri picked up the phone on its second ring and brought the handset to her ear. "Hello," she said, in an unwelcoming tone.

"Remember," said a quiet female voice which was notably lacking in signal distortion.

And Juri proceeded to do so. In particular, she remembered the sweet, smiling face of a girl offering her a flower ... which she'd restrained herself from hitting nearly as much as she'd wanted to do. And she remembered being the girl who'd done that, and feeling completely justified in doing so ... and, at the same time, feeling sickened at her own anger and cruelty.

"Just a moment, please," she said, glancing at Maya as her lover watched a sketch comedy show on the television. She quietly walked to their bedroom, shutting the door behind her, before sitting down on the foot of the bed. "Yes," Juri said at last. "I remember you."

"I need your help," the voice replied without further preamble.

Something like a laugh almost bubbled up out of the pit of Juri's stomach. After suppressing it, she replied, "I'm ... a bit stunned that you'd turn to me for help. You and I -"

"You were not my first choice," the voice interrupted. "But my first choice drowned fifteen years ago."

For a dizzying moment, it seemed to Juri that the room was filled with red water, and she sat, watching the body of a man with long red hair, his eyes already gone still in death, float slowly upwards and away from her. By the time she caught her breath, the vision was gone.

"And whatever you may think of my powers, I cannot restore life once it has passed away. I can hold back death for a time, to give someone more time on the stage, but once the curtain falls, it will never rise again," the voice added.

Juri found herself remembering something else, then. "That was you," she said. "You did that."

"Yes," answered the voice. "If you are expecting an apology, you will be waiting a very long time."

The same sick, helpless fury that she'd felt talking to the one who called himself Akio filled her once again. "I see," she said aloud. "You should know that your brother told me that you'd be calling. He wants me to help you in a way that suits him."

"I am unsurprised," said the voice.

"Yes, I bet you are. I should also tell you that he offered certain incentives," Juri continued. "If I help you, will you help me to -"

"No."

The flat negative left Juri speechless.

"Help me, or do not help me. I did not call you to bargain or to bribe, Arisugawa Juri. The one thing I will give you, if you will not help me, is the promise that if you do not, you will forget all of this, both the memories I gave you back, and those that he did." And now there was just the slightest lilt in the speaker's tone. "Including the memories of any hostages he holds, so you can return to blessed, comfortable ignorance."

"... you're a monster," Juri finally said.

"Yes," said the voice. "What is it to be, then?"

"I'll help you," she heard herself say.

"Then be at the front gates of Otori tomorrow morning. You may want to pack some changes of clothes. Until then." And with that, the phone clicked off.

Juri sat in the shadows for what felt like a very long time, listening to the sound that told her that the line had been disconnected. Eventually, she got up and walked out of the bedroom.

"So who was that?" asked Maya over her shoulder, still watching the television.

"An archive in Changwon," Juri replied as she put the handset back on its charger. "Some documents I need to consult have finally become available."

"Hm."

"I'll be leaving tomorrow morning, and I may be some time away," she added.

"Okay."

"I love you," she added, moving from absolute lies to half lies to the truest thing she knew.

"Ditto," replied Maya, without taking her eyes off the TV set.

---

It was not a fight like any Mai had ever fought before. Fighting Orphans was like solving a puzzle - eventually, you figured out how to put the pieces in the right places, and then it was over. Fighting the Childs of her fellow HiME had, appropriately enough, been much like fighting the Orphans. And anytime she'd fought a human being had been a total curbstomp.

So finding herself on the defensive while fighting this lady in red was a new and frankly unpleasant experience. Mai's force field was soaking up all the gouts of flame that her enemy was throwing at her, but the light that it gave off in doing so grew fainter with each strike. She didn't know if her shield could break, but the possibility that it was about to do so was rather concerning. As was the fact that the other woman seemed to be easily deflecting almost every fire bolt that Mai sent her way, and just ... taking those that she didn't manage to deflect.

And she was so fast, too! Mai's flight was basically not all that much faster than her walking speed, and the way that the enemy levitated suggested that she wasn't actually much of a flyer, either - but she somehow managed to combine the ability to hang in the air with dazzling leaps and bounds off of any surface she could reach. And certainly her reactions were much faster than Mai's were.

Mai's only real advantage was Kagatsuchi, and she couldn't summon him in such a confined space as this. Retreating upwards, to a place where that problem wouldn't apply, would mean abandoning Mikoto and Nao, and Mai couldn't assume that her enemy would follow her rather than backing up the man in white and the woman with the two-toned hair. She spared a glance in the direction of her fellow HiME.

Mikoto was even more outmatched than she herself was. The strange woman who was fighting with an umbrella was too fast for the younger girl to get a blow in. Even when Mikoto's frustration grew enough for her to use Miroku's secondary attack and slam the blade into the ground, making black columns burst up from the ground before her, the dust settled to reveal her opponent sitting pretty atop one of those columns, one leg crossed over the other and looking down at Mikoto with an incredibly superior smile. And as far as Mai could tell, the pink-and-brown-haired woman hadn't made a single noise throughout the entire exchange.

Nao, oddly enough, wasn't fighting. She was just trying to make an escape, which was more cowardly than Mai would have expected. (She could say a lot about Yuuki Nao, but she would never have suggested that the other girl was reluctant to throw down.) But the man in the bowler kept pointing the butt of his cane - which was apparently some sort of gun - in her direction, firing shots at her whenever she got close to a potential exit. Why wasn't she calling up Juliet and fighting back? It didn't make any -

"You should really focus on your own problems," said Mai's opponent, as she launched yet another attack on Mai, this time striking with a pair of swords that appeared in her hands and then disappeared again as soon as they'd slammed against Mai's barrier.

"If I did that, I'd be like you," Mai retorted as she directed more bolts that were promptly deflected. "And I don't even know who you people are!"

"You will have no use for that knowledge in a moment," replied the woman. Then her head tilted slightly. "On the other hand, I suppose you should know the name of the one who destroys you. I am Cin-"

"I don't even care!" snapped Mai. "You know what I do want to know? That spinny thing you do every time you attack - you do understand that it exposes your back to me for a good second or so? Are you really counting on me to be chivalrous enough not to shoot you in the back while you're doing that?!"

"... you're quite mad, aren't you?" asked Cinder Falls, for indeed it was she. "On with your demise, then."

"Stop this at once!"

The voice was strangely high-pitched, and yet there was power behind it as well, such that Mai and Cinder, in near unison, turned to look down at its source.

Negi was standing at the entrance to the cul de sac, his wand unsheathed and ready, with Asuna at his side, her sword likewise readied. To one side of the two was Yuna, gun pointed in the general direction of the man in white ... and to the other side, Mai realized with a start, was Natsuki, her gun pointed in the direction of the two-toned girl.

"Boy, this really is no concern of yours, so perhaps you should just run along and -" the bowler-hatted man began to say.

"Flans Exarmatio," Negi interrupted.

"Well, really," the man snapped a moment later, as he glared at where his cane and hat had, rather noisily, impacted against one of the back walls of the buildings that lined the alley.

"I know you," said Cinder, staring down at the small party of reinforcements.

"I'm pleasantly surprised, but I hope that knowledge will persuade you that this fight should -" Negi began to orate.

"Not you," Cinder snarled, though in fact she was regarding him in a way that suggested that she found something familiar about him. "The one who works for the Dark Evangel, beside you."

Negi made an annoyed and unhappy noise.

"If she's taking an interest ..." the woman in red said slowly, before trailing off. When she spoke again, it was rather more brusque. "Fine. We're leaving. Try and stop us, and I'll send you back to your master in pieces."

She made a gesture, and her two companions were lifted up from the ground to float near her.

"This is not over, though," said the man in the white coat, trying (and failing) to cover up his obvious discomfort at being flown around like this.

His two-toned companion held up a sign that read, "Suck it up" before tossing him the cane she'd managed to retrieve. The hat went on her own head, and she smiled as though to suggest that she found it a rather pleasing addition to her wardrobe.

"Fine, fine, I have others," the man grumbled as the trio began to pull away into the evening sky and out of sight.

When they were gone, Mai coughed. "I hope you're not expecting a thank you, Negi-kun, because your help was neither invited nor needed," she said, still hovering in mid-air and glaring down at him.

"I wasn't trying to help anyone, Mai-san. I was trying to end a fight that was far more public than anyone should want," Negi retorted, glaring right back up at her.

She didn't bother to respond to that, turning to look at one of his companions. "Natsuki," Mai said, much more calmly than she'd been speaking up until now. "I'm not sure what you're doing here -"

"He brought me here," Natsuki admitted uncomfortably.

Mai froze. "Excuse me?"

"I said, Negi-kun brought me here," the biker repeated. "I'm working with him, and I think maybe you ought to consider -"

"Okay, before we all start sitting around a campfire and singing 'Kumbaya', there's something you people - whoever you are - should probably know about this psycho," interrupted Nao, still clinging to the side of one of the buildings. "She just killed somebody for no reason."

This revelation provoked a long moment of silence.

"Nao," Mai said, very quietly and very deliberately, "right now is not really the time to be airing our dirty laundry in public."

"What's this 'our' crap?" Nao snapped, slowly descending the wall. She cast a glance in the general direction of Negi and his comrades. "Oy, gunslinger girl - are you with her?"

"Nnnno, I don't -" Yuna started to reply.

"She's talking to me," Natsuki quietly interjected, not taking her eyes off of Mai. "And I ... thought I was. Mai - what happened here?"

"It was a complicated situation, all right?" Mai finally replied after a few false starts. "I was trying to convince Nao that she's better off working with us than off doing her robbery scheme."

"Robbery scheme?" Asuna muttered sideways at Negi.

"Wait," he counseled sideways back at her.

"And you killed someone to intimidate her into doing that?" Natsuki asked, just a touch of horror starting to come through in her tone.

"No," said Mai, holding up a finger. "No, no. There were circumstances -"

"You said you did it to make me understand that you could kill the guys who beat up my mom, is what you said," Nao interrupted again, as she started to make her way to where Negi and the others were standing.

"Nao, really, seriously, shut up," Mai said as the junior high girl moved into her line of sight.

"Or what, you'll kill me too?" Nao sneered up at her.

Mai just stared.

Nao's bravado vanished in a twinkling. "Oh, shit, you would, too." Without another word, she darted to hide behind Yuna. "What the hell is going on in your head?" she tossed up at Mai before ducking completely behind the slightly taller girl.

"FYI, I'm not fireproof," Yuna tossed over her shoulder.

"Indeed, the question of what is going on in there is one to which we return and return, isn't it, Mai-san?" Negi asked, hands clutching his wand tightly.

"This, all of this - I mean, none of this is any of your business, okay?" Mai replied. "You are intruding on someone else's story, and -"

"What in the world are you saying? What is going here is not a story," he interrupted. Asuna and Yuna both blinked, more than a bit startled at how rude Negi was being. "It was bad enough hearing that you don't care about the people here who aren't the ones you knew, but now you don't even think they're real?"

"That's not what I meant!" Mai nearly snarled. "Natsuki, what do you mean you're working with this little twerp? Why would you do that? How can you possibly trust -"

"Because Shizuru does," Natsuki interrupted.

Mai's eyes went wide. "Shizuru - she - that doesn't make any damn sense!" Her voice was almost a shriek as she let loose that last. And then, just as suddenly, she was icily calm. "Fine. Fine! Mikoto, we're leaving."

"No," Mikoto replied quietly.

"What," said Mai.

"No," Mikoto repeated, shaking her head as she kept looking up at the other girl. "Mai ... Mai has been scaring me since we met, and now you killed that man for nothing. He was just a weak person, not a fighter. And you killed him. Mai ... you are a bad person." She delivered that last as though whispering a secret, for all that it was spoken loud and clear.

Mai kept on staring.

"Mai-san, I'm going to make the same offer I made you before," Negi started to say.

"Okay," Mai said quietly.

"Thank you, I'm glad that you're seeing reason and -"

"Okay," Mai said much more loudly. "None of you have any right to judge me." And with that, flying much more swiftly than she ever had before, Mai shot up out of the cul de sac and away into the night sky.

"Damnation," Negi swore as he readied his wand for flight.

"Don't!" Natsuki warned him. "She's already high enough that she could call up her Child, and none of us can fly after you, Negi-kun."

From the way his jaw was set, it was fairly clear to everyone present that he found that argument less than persuasive. But he did move his wand back into its upright position. "Okay. It's now essential that I talk to Sugiura-sensei," Negi said, mostly to himself. He looked over at where Mikoto was still standing and staring up at where Mai had passed out of sight. "Minagi-san?"

The short-haired girl blinked, then, as though remembering that this was in fact her name. "Yes?" she asked.

"You live with Mai-san, correct?" Negi asked.

"OMG, don't tell me he has everyone's rooming assignments memorized, too," Yuna said in a strangled tone.

"No, I told him," Natsuki replied just as quietly.

Ignoring this byplay and focusing on Mikoto's hesitant nod, Negi continued. "It may not be safe for you to return there. Yuuki-san, do you live in the dorms?"

"Uh, no, I live with my uncle and his family in a what the hell am I doing?" Nao demanded sharply. "I don't need to answer your questions, I don't want anything more to do with any of this! Good night and good luck, folks, and don't call -" she began to say as she turned towards the cul de sac's exit.

"Yuuki-san, are you familiar with the term 'felony murder'?" Negi asked, in much the same tone he'd used while talking to Mai.

Nao froze.

"I'm fairly sure it would pertain to someone involved in a 'robbery scheme' that resulted in someone's death," he continued.

Slooowly she turned to give Negi a brief but very scorching look, then turning around to face her classmate. "... okay. Hey, Mikoto, how would you like to spend a few nights with me and my cousins? They'll love you, I'm sure!" Nao said with the most transparently fake enthusiasm imaginable.

"... all places are alike to me," Mikoto replied quietly.

---

Juri slept poorly after she and Maya settled down to bed at last. Part of her had yearned to draw her younger lover closer to her, so as to have some comfort before she set out on a journey that, something told her, might be the end of her. But the knowledge that she had lied to Maya made her hold back, and instead she found herself watching the student sleep before she passed out herself.

She already had a bag packed, ironically, because she actually was waiting for permission to access a number of archives all over the world, which could possibly come at any time. So when morning came, long after she'd awakened, it was a simple matter of dressing herself and snatching a quick breakfast, rather than taking any time to pack. She paused long enough to kiss Maya's still-sleeping forehead before she left the bedroom, and then the apartment, behind.

Even at this early hour, the campus was filled with people going to early morning classes. She experienced a dizzying moment when she realized that she was moving against the current of this river of humanity by walking towards the front gates with the intention of passing through them and moving out into the world beyond. Even if she'd been asked to do this, it seemed that some aspect of this school's mystery didn't want her to leave.

She did not allow this to slow her pace.

Eventually, she broke free of the crowds and passed through the gates, looking about without any real expectation that she would see the woman who'd summoned her. And, of course, there she is,Juri thought almost instantly.

The woman in question, dark skin shining in the shun, was dressed in a bright green dress and hat that matched her eyes, but not her wild, unbound purple hair. She wasn't smiling as she met Juri's gaze. That, more than the hair, spoke eloquently of the changes the other had gone through, for all that she could have stepped out of a photograph of their school days. There had always been an empty, vacant smile on that face.

"Himemiya," said Juri as she crossed the distance between them.

The other woman shrugged. "I have no particular attachment to the name, but it will serve."

"Let me guess, I couldn't pronounce your actual name."

"No, it would be quite easy for you. I just will not give it."

Juri let that pass, and turned to examine the vehicle that Himemiya was standing by, a long, old-fashioned cherry red automobile. "This looks sort of familiar," she mused aloud.

"It belonged to my brother. I stole it from him a while ago. You may have seen it in his possession at some point," Himemiya admitted calmly. "Before we get going, there's a question I should probably ask you."

Juri waited to be asked about her intentions.

"Who is that?" asked Himemiya, pointing over Juri's shoulder.

Juri blinked. After a moment of hesitation, she looked where Juri was pointing.

"Morning," said Maya, dressed for travel and with a suitcase of her own in her hand.

Juri stared. Maya smiled.

"So, about that question," Himemiya prodded patiently.

"Ah, this, this is my assistant and associate, Ibuki Maya," Juri said, faintly.

"Pleased to meet you, Himemiya-san," Maya said with a tiny bow that conveyed no real subordination. "I'm coming with."

"You were not invited," Himemiya replied after a moment.

"I know."

"You are not needed."

"I know."

"You are not welcome," Himemiya added, finally speaking with a bit of heat.

"I know," repeated Maya. "I'm coming anyway."

Himemiya stared at her for a moment, before turning to look at Juri. "She is your problem," the young-looking woman declared. As though waiting for just that declaration, the rear trunk of the car popped open, and Himemiya proceeded to walk around the car, open the driver's side door and sit down in front of the steering wheel, while Juri and Maya somewhat awkwardly put their respective bags into the trunk, which closed automatically as soon as they were done.

"So," Maya said cheerfully as she settled in to the back seat while Juri took the front seat beside Himemiya. "I'm ... guessing that you're not actually going to Korea."

"Correct," replied Himemiya, as she turned on the ignition and the engine began to purr. "I have already looked there. When I left this place, I went as far away from it as possible before beginning my search. That search has lasted until now, and so I will be searching a number of places in these islands - with your assistance," she added to Juri.

"It would helpful if I knew what exactly it is that you are looking for," said Juri.

Himemiya's eyes were on the road as she shifted gears and pulled away from the sidewalk. "Tenjou Utena."

Juri nodded slowly. "... I have no idea who that is."

"Of course not."

---

"Oh, fuck the hell yes!" Misa shrieked as her hips pumped up to meet Negi's hips pumping down, knees tucked up under the boy teacher's arms and toes pointed up towards the dorm room ceiling. "Fuck me! Fuck me hard! Like I always wanted to be! Fuck me, my baby boy!"

"What do you mean, you're not coming?" Yuna asked over the phone as she sat naked at the dorm room table, watching Negi pounding away at Kakizaki up in his nook. "It's the class trip, you have to come."

"No, actually, I don't," Akira answered over the phone. "The vampire elders are coming here to Japan, and Mina's going to need my help to deal with them, even if she's being an idiot about it and trying to keep me away from that meeting. So mother agreed to ask the school to give me an exemption. I don't think Evangeline-san or Yuuki are going to be going either, so it's not like it's completely unprecedented."

"It is for you!" Yuna protested. "I was looking forward to having fun with you ... and, y'know, everybody else!" Wow, that was a weak afterthought, she thought to herself.

"Are you talking about what you do for fun these days?" Akira asked suspiciously.

"No," Yuna said, aware that she didn't sound very convincing. "I meant -"

Whatever she was about to say was broken off when Misa demonstrated yet again that she was a screamer.

"... what was that?" asked Akira, sounding as though she already knew the answer, at least in general.

"That was Kakizaki, doing what I do for fun these days," Yuna answered in a vaguely defeated tone.

"Ahhh," said Akira, and Yuna could see her friend nodding slowly as she said that. "Well, I suppose it really was only a matter of time before the cheerleaders joined this thing of yours."

"You shouldn't talk about them as though they were a group mind, you know," Yuna said reprovingly.

Beside her, and equally naked, Madoka lowered the large bottle of water from which she was drinking and pointed at her own nose. When Yuna nodded, the other girl shrugged and said, "It's not that big a deal."

"But they are all three of them there?" asked Akira.

"Well, yes," Yuna admitted, glancing over to where Makie and Sakurako were enthusiastically eating each other out in Akira's own lower bunk. Despite everything that had happened, despite all the times she herself had been in that position with Makie, it was still incredibly disconcerting to see how enthusiastically the pink-haired girl had taken to sex.

"Just change the sheets before you leave, please, against the unlikely event that I end up spending time there before you get back?" Akira asked.

Yuna opened her mouth with the full intention of giving an argument that Akira should accompany them instead of taking that chance. What she said, eventually, was a weak and weary, "All right, I'll do that."

"I ... wish we could have fun in Kyoto, too," Akira replied after a moment. "I'll see you when you get back. I hope."

"What do you mean you hope?" Yuna asked the call ended noise. With a grunt of annoyance, she set the phone down on the table.

"So ... were you talking about this kind of fun with her, or sightseeing and stuff like that?" Madoka asked.

"A little from column A, a little from column B," Yuna answered without looking away from the phone. She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Maybe she'll change her tune when we get Ako into this."

Madoka made a snorty noise. "Yeah, lotsa luck on that. She's got a boyfriend, you know?"

Yuna felt her eyes go wide, which was kind of freaky. "She's got a who where what now? Since when?"

The tall cheerleader blinked. "You really didn't know. Huh. Well, apparently she confessed to some guy on the boy's side after we did so well in the exams, and they started dating right after. She let it slip when Misa was talking about her boyfriend issues one time. I really thought she would have told you three before she told us."

"We're not a group mind, either," Yuna said, even though she thought the same thing. Is this what Konoka felt like when she found out her best friend was hiding stuff?

"AHHHHHHH!" shrieked Misa once more as Negi's ejaculation poured deeply into her. "Mmmmmmmm! I'm gonna have my baby boy's baby boy," she nearly cooed as Negi lay panting upon her. Her smile went a bit twisted. "Maybe I'll even have our baby boy, too."

"Uhhhh," said Negi, who found this bit of post-coital speech just the tiniest bit more disturbing than Fumika's daddy complex or the sight of Haruna's aggressive bisexual incest.

---

School had become strange for the last two weeks. Well, to be honest, Shinji had always found his current schooling arrangements to be a bit strange, but that was because he had been told certain truths about them. But with the disappearance of Nebukawa-sensei, the old man who 'taught' (for which read supervised) their classes, and the way he had not been replaced, it seemed that the rest of the class was starting to catch on to the strangeness.

In the mornings, every day, a teacher would come in briefly to tell them to engage in self-study, and then promptly flee the classroom for the remains of the day. For the first few days, the students had silently obeyed that instruction, as though expecting a new 'teacher' to show up at any moment. When it finally became clear to them that nothing of that sort was likely to happen, the classroom had begun to disintegrate into an endless lunch period. The class representative struggled heroically to ensure that the conversations that the kids fell into didn't get too noisy, but her efforts seemed foredoomed.

A few students did seem to be keeping to their books. Ayanami, for example, who spoke with no one and with whom no one spoke. Shinji had a hunch, however, that if he'd actually looked at the book she was reading, when she didn't spend time staring out the window, it would turn out to be something rather different from the text everyone else was reading. A technical manual, most likely, of the sort that probably shouldn't leave Nerv's headquarters.

Right at the moment, though, Ayanami wasn't at her desk. He wondered where he was, then shook his head as he reminded himself that she was, after all, a girl, and probably needed to visit the rest room just like anybody else. And that he definitely, definitely shouldn't be having the thoughts about that particular subject that he was currently having.

"Hey, Ikari," said one of the girls in the class, somewhat out of nowhere. She was the one who'd been identified by the code name Akebono on the files he'd been shown, but he had no idea if that was her actual name or something else. With her was the one code named Ushio, real name also not known to him.

"Yes?" Shinji asked, not wanting to seem to eager for a conversation but definitely eager to have any distraction from the disturbing way that his thoughts

"There's this rumor going around, and we decided that we should ask you about it," Akebono continued. She paused, looked around, then bent closer to him. "Is it true that you're the one who piloted that robot?" she asked quietly.

Sharp stabbing pains in the stomach. "Ahhhh," he temporized. "I'm not sure that I'm supposed to talk about that."

She stared at him. "That's a yes," she said. "That's a way of saying yes without actually saying yes, isn't it?"

"No, it's a way of saying that I'm not supposed to talk about it," he continued to weasel.

"But why would you be forbidden to talk about something unless it was actually true?" she pressed.

"That's ... interesting logic," Shinji commented, visualizing himself digging a hole deeper and deeper.

"What was that monster the robot fought?" asked Ushio. "Was it a Brittanic secret weapon?"

"IIIII don't know why you'd think I'd know anything about Brittanic secret weapons," he said, spreading his hands. He cocked his head slightly to the side. "I sound like some sort of computer program," he muttered mostly to himself.

"All right, that's enough," Hikari said, interrupting yet another breathless question from Akebono. "Stop harassing Ikari."

"But he's the pilot!" protested Akebono.

"And he just said that he can't talk about it, so the right thing to do is to delicately drop the subject," the class representative said in a way that wasn't particularly delicate.

"Actually he said he wasn't sure if he could or not," replied Ushio.

Hikari stared at her.

"Well, that's what he said," she added defensively.

"How about you sit down and shut up?" Hikari asked cheerfully.

As the two young ladies began to very reluctantly do just that, the classroom door slid open. Shinji turned to see who it was, expecting Ayanami. Instead, a clearly male figure with light brown hair dressed in a gym suit shambled into the room.

"Suzuhara?" gasped Hikari. "Where have you been for the last two weeks?"

"Elsewhere," snapped Suzuhara, code-named Sakura in the documents, as he stomped towards one of the empty desks. "I awready went t'ru all dis wit' da teachers, an' I ain't goin' t'ru it again wit'chu." His Osakan accent was very strong.

"Hey, guess what, Toji?" asked a kid from the other side of the classroom, who wasn't in Shinji's immediate line of sight. "That's the pilot of that robot!"

Suzuhara blinked, and focused his gaze on Shinji. "Dat was you?" he asked.

"I, uh, can neither confirm nor deny," Shinji replied.

"Dat's weasel words for yes, ain't it?" the much taller boy said as he began to stomp towards Shinji's desk.

Why is it that nobody can take anything at face value anymore? Shinji thought, just a bit angrily. Then he reflected on his situation and decided that was really dumb thing to think.

Meanwhile, Suzuhara had parked himself in front of Shinji's desk, and reached down to slam his palm against its top. "You was the kid what piloted dat giant robot, wasn't you?" he asked.

"Well, in as much as it was piloted, I suppose that you could say -" Shinji began to reply.

Quite abruptly, Suzuhara's other hand reached out to grab him by the shoulder. "You saved my sister's life, you awesome kid!" the young man said in an almost teary voice.

"I did?" asked Shinji. He definitely didn't remember anything like that.

"You did! She was all about dat robot and how it fought the screwy monster while I was visitin' her in da hospital! She even drew pictures! You're a goddamn hero! Gimme a fistbump, kid!"

Utterly bewildered, Shinji raised his left hand in a halfhearted fist, and promptly witnessed its knuckles being bumped by those of Suzuhara's fist. This was unlike anything he'd ever expected. Curiosity, sure, he could see that coming, but gratitude?

"Well, this is very heart-warming, but you should really get back to your seats and keep studying," said Hikari.

The door slid open again, and Ayanami entered, moving surprisingly briskly for someone still heavily bandaged.

"That goes for you, too, Ayanami, you shouldn't take such long trips away from the classroom," Hikari told her as the blue-haired girl walked past her. "Annnnnd you're not even bothering to pretend to listen to me, are you?" the class rep asked wearily.

"Ikari," she said as she reached Shinji's desk. "We are called."

"Oh," Shinji said, feeling sad nostalgia for sharp shooting pains in his stomach. "Okay, let's go then," he added as he got up.

"Oh, gawd," said Suzuhara, watching all this at close range. "Is dere anudder monster?"

"Maybe," said Shinji as he followed Ayanami to the door. "I just go where they tell me, you know?" And with that, they were both gone from the classroom.

---

"Should I have told them about being a pilot?" Shinji asked as he followed along behind Ayanami as they descended the stairs, glimpsing the transport that would take them to Nerv through the window as they went.

For a wonder, Ayanami chose to answer the question. "Why would you even bother to talk to completely irrelevant persons?"

"... because they might become relevant later on," he answered after a moment of consideration.

She either didn't have an answer for that, or didn't consider it worth further conversation.

---

Despite spending the night and much of the morning engaged in pleasant disport, Negi had insisted that everyone inolved should get packed for their trip before all that. So it was that they all arrived at the train station more or less on time.

"So your class is taking a trip as well?" Negi asked Ranma and Akane as they stood together amidst the chaos created by several different classes from several different schools combining on the platform.

Akane nodded, her face set in the glum mask that had been her usual expression at the start of all this. "Yeah, our school's principal owns some land on one of the southern islands that hasn't sunk yet. Yakushima, I think the name was. There's supposedly some beaches there," she added dryly.

Ranma whirled one finger in the air and made a "woooooo" noise.

"Yes, I can imagine that's not so appealing," Negi agreed. "But try to have some fun, regardless, and at least take pleasure in the fact that that Kuno person isn't there -"

"All ye of Furinkan, harken unto me!" called out a stentorian voice in the distance. "Verily shall we gather and take our leave of this place upon the vessel that is, even now, pulling into the station! Wherefore gather! Gather all!"

"For whatever reason, the principal picked him to act as one of the trip's chaperones," Akane said into the silence.

"I see," said Negi, nodding slowly. "Or rather I suppose I hear. Well, try to have fun anyway, and remember that when you get back, we're going to start taking steps to relieve your curse," he told Ranma, reaching out to press his hand on the other boy's wrist.

"Well, thanks, kid," Ranma said roughly, clearly a bit embarrassed at the familiarity.

"Sensei," Negi reminded him.

"When you've kicked my ass, I'll start calling you sensei," Ranma told him. "And you, y'know, you take it easy too."

Negi laughed a bit. "With everything I have to do, that's not really an option," he said, glancing over his shoulder at the collection of other Mahora teachers who were accompanying the middle school classes headed for Kyoto and Nara. At one particular teacher in particular.

Sugiura-sensei noticed his regard, and turned to meet it. Their eyes locked for a moment, before they both broke away.

"So much to do," Negi muttered to himself once Ranma and Akane at last took their leave of him. Shaking his head, he lifted his voice. "All right, all of class 3-A please start assembling in their groups. We'll be departing very shortly."

With much excited conversation, the girls of 3-A began to do just that. As it happened, though, one of the groups consisted of exactly two people, as the other four members had excused absences from the expedition. And almost immediately, the one remaining member drifted over to join the group where Yotsuba Satsuki was cheerfully selling meat buns, leaving only the group's stern captain. Doubtless she would be assigned to some other group, but until then, she would stand alone and unmoved, a bastion of -

"Why, hello, there, Setsuna-san," said a voice from behind her.

Sakurazaki Setsuna made a faint but aubible noise to register her disbelief that someone had managed to sneak up behind her, then turned to regard who it was. "Ah -" she started to say.

"You're all alone, Setsuna-san," said Konoka with a huge and blatantly false smile on her face. "That won't do! It just won't do at all! Why don't you join my group, Setsuna-san? Then we could sit together on the train and have a little chat." That last was delivered in much the same way that someone might say, 'kill you by the death of a thousand cuts'.

"Ah -" Setsuna said again as Konoka took hold of her wrist, and dragged a being able to lift many hundreds of times her body weight along behind her as they headed for the train.

When they were seated, and had a bit of privacy, Konoka's smile melted off her face as she regarded her seatmate. "Don't ever do that again," she said, very quietly.

"Don't do what?" Setsuna replied, vaguely proud of being able to string together a complete sentence, and unaware that questions didn't actually constitute complete sentences according to some rules of grammar.

Konoka actually frowned. "And don't do that either."

Setsuna swallowed. "I'm just trying to protect you -"

"I don't need a protector," Konoka interrupted. "In particular, I do not want you as a protector. I did everything in my power to make you understand that I wanted you as a friend. But for whatever reason you will not discuss with me, you aren't willing to be my friend. If that's how it's going to be, then that's how it's going to be. But you do not get to follow me around and control my life from the shadows, either."

"I'm not trying to -" Setsuna started to protest, only to be cut off by Konoka's waved hand.

"We're going back to Kyoto," she said. "It's a wonderful opportunity to return to the scenes of our youth, and reconnect with friends and family. Don't wreck this."

"All right," Setsuna said in a tiny voice.

"All right," Konoka said in one not nearly so diminuitive.

They sat together in silence as the train began to move.

Several seats away, in between Yuna and Chisame (and Chisame's laptop, to which she was glued) Negi felt relief that everything was going so well. Surely if things began this well, they would continue in much the same way, with no unexpected difficulties or -

His phone rang. With a frown, he pulled it out and answered. "Springfield," he said. Then, "What is it, Kyonko?" Then, "What do you mean, she's run off to Tokyo-3?"

To Be Continued