Disclaimer: This is a nonprofit fictional story, a FanFiction based on Ken Akamatsu's Negima. I do not own Negima, or most of the other characters included in this work, excepting where it is stated in the author's notes. It is not intended or presented for any commercial profit or personal gain; it is simply a story written for personal fulfillment and presented for public enjoyment, and as an honest homage to the fine story conceived and written by Ken Akamatsu, as well as all the other (innumerable) works that find place herein (and their authors).

Chapter Nine: Looming Horizon

Kain settled down in front of the Urahara Shoten. He looked up at it in surprise for a moment before thinking about it logically. Yes, it did seem to far too small to house the number of visitors that Kisuke was likely expecting, but it's not as if he didn't have any experience with extra-dimensional spaces….

He entered the shop carefully and looked around. It seemed like one of any number of Japanese-style 'mom-and-pop' stores, this one focusing on candy, medicines and other such consumables. There was only one person present—Nodoka, who seemed to have been lounging around nervously. She turned as Kain entered, and, eyes wide, came running over to him. "K-Kain-sensei…thank goodness, you're all right…."

"I should be saying that to you," Kain retorted sternly, bringing the girl up short. "Why did you do something so reckless? You were up against—"

"E-eh! I'm sorry!" Nodoka declared, casting her head down penitently.

Kain softened considerably. "…I'm glad you're safe, though, honestly," he said. As Nodoka raised her head in surprise, he continued, "It was starting to turn against me…if you two hadn't shown up when it did, I might have been in danger myself. I must give you my thanks."

"Sensei…" Nodoka murmured, starting to blush from the attention.

Both paused for just a moment, Kain wondering if he should mention what he had just seen in the sky above, and Nodoka, of course, wondering if she should say anything at all, when a door at the back suddenly burst open, startling the two teens. "Oh, here you are!" burst out a huge man with glasses, short braided dreadlocks or perhaps cornrows, a thick mustache and a blue apron over his worker's clothing. "Urahara-san has been expecting you, Kain Lockeheart-dono. Everyone is waiting for you down below."

"Ah…thank you…" Kain replied, turning away from Nodoka to the man rather carefully, sizing him up.

"Excuse my manners. I am Tessai, the boss' assistant," the huge man elucidated. "Now that we've been introduced, if you would be so good as to follow me…."

He turned around and started through the doorframe. After turning to quirk a small smile at Nodoka, Kain followed, and Nodoka brought up the rear.

8-8-8

'Everyone' indeed, or close to it, was waiting down below. The stairs opened into a remarkably large chamber filled with couches and tables and chairs, with plenty of space for everyone to lounge about or stand around casually. Some had drinks or food that they were indulging in…a counter with shelves and cabinets behind it near one corner seemed to be the source of these. Someone seemed to have gotten hold of Fairy Tail and others, as the usual four (five including Happy) and Jade, all of whom had missed the recent fighting, were already present as well. Those off searching for the missing Gateport, however, were not.

Momo seemed to be making rounds, greeting all the members of the White Wings that had not seen her in so long…and a few others besides. Kain arrived just in time to witness an interesting scene….

"Ah, Del-chan!" Momo greeted the young swordsman. "I thought I saw you in that group before…what on earth are you doing here?"

"I'm just an innocent bystander caught up in it all," he declared. "I came for the Memorial Tournament, and just happened to run into some of your…classmates, I guess, while I was out training for it."

Momo giggled. "Really? Wow, you've really grown up, Del-chan! You're looking more like your father every day…I'm not sure if that's a bad or a good thing…."

"Yeah…me neither," Delryn muttered in reply.

"You…know Delryn-san, Momo-san?" Ami asked in surprise.

"Well, of course!" Momo declared. "Aiden asked me to train Del-chan in swordsmanship once he became a Soul Blade, since we're the closest people he knew to Soul Blades. That…was the original reason I was assigned to Kyoto on Earth, of course…."

"And you've been there pretty much all this time?" Delryn smirked. "Well, what an interesting thing. You haven't changed at all, of course…it looks like being a hinigami is the perfect way to stay young and beautiful forever…."

Momo glanced askew at Delryn for a moment, a small smile on her face, and then turned back to Aiden sitting across the way. "He really does take after you, doesn't he?" she called to the man.

Delryn shook his head. "Why does everyone say that?" he demanded disgustedly.

"Well, try to think of it as a complement," Kain said, chuckling as he approached. "I've been hearing that a lot, and a lot of 'he's nothing like him', all at the same time, and that kind of drives me crazy." He turned to Momo. "Momo…we're glad you're back, too, we were really worried about you. Now," he continued, turning to take in the Soul Reapers, "why don't you introduce me to all of your hinigami friends?"

Momo began to do so, and each of the black(and sometimes white)-robed Soul Reapers approached to introduce themselves. Shunsui Kyôraku began, and then Renji Abarai, Rangiku Matsumoto, and Jûshirô Ukitake followed.

"This is Shirô-chan!" Momo put in when the youthful-looking white-haired Soul Reaper failed to come forward in a timely manner.

Tôshirô glared at Momo a moment, then finally introduced himself as captain of the 10th Company.

Shinji finally followed suit. "Hirako Shinji, captain of the 5th Company…Momo's captain, obviously. I want to thank you for taking care of my subordinate all this time. And 'Shirô-chan' wants to thank you, too, for taking care of his childhood friend, but he's too shy to say it out loud." Tôshirô glared at the man, and Kain wisely decided to not interfere or comment on this interesting exchange.

Finally the last one present moved forward to present herself. "I'm Kuchiki Rukia, lieutenant of 13th Company," the raven-haired girl informed him. "I, especially, owe my life and more to your father, Kain Lockeheart-san…it's a pleasure to meet his son."

"Kuchiki-san…are you related to Kuchiki Byakuya-san, then…?"

"He's my nii-sama," Rukia confirmed. "I'm sorry he didn't come join us…."

"Kuchiki seems to have his own agenda at the moment," Tôshirô sighed. "I'm more concerned about the missing members of 11th Company…."

"Oh, I'm sure they just got bored and went around looking for things to fight," Shinji chuckled. "They came here to have battles, after all…."

"Or they're lost," Renji sighed. "Zaraki -taichô tends to listen to the instructions of his lieutenant, and despite her claims, she has a horrible sense of direction…."

"Hmm…speaking of horrible senses of direction, Isumi-chan is missing, too," Kajirô noted. "Well, I suppose they may have met up and gotten lost together…somehow, I don't think we really need to worry about any of them…."

8-8-8

The huge scarred man in the white haori ran through the trees, two little girls clinging to his back—one dressed like a Soul Reaper, with short pink hair, and one in a fine pink kimono with long blue-black hair. Running along behind were a bald Soul Reaper and another man with a strange mantle and a bowl cut. The pink-haired girl laughed as they ran.

"Hey, aren't we getting more lost?" demanded the bald Ikkaku Madarame crossly. "It doesn't seem to matter which of those girls leads!"

"Oh, shut up, Baldy!" the pink-haired girl, Yachiru Kusajishi, told him crossly.

As Ikkaku began to fume, Kenpachi Zaraki declared, "Bah, I really don't care. Once the fighting starts, we'll feel it well enough and we can go join in. For now, these forests in Arcanus Myrror are supposed to be full of nasty creatures. We'll get some fun in cutting them to pieces!"

"No, that will not do," murmured Isumi from his other shoulder. "These natural creatures should not be killed frivolously…."

Kenpachi did not look happy. "Ah…can we just cut them a little then…?"

"If we have to defend ourselves, of course we will," Isumi agreed seriously. "But we should try to preserve their life, not destroy it…."

"Ah, fine then! We'll go looking…for peace and quiet, but I'm sure we'll find fights…to preserve life!"

And so the happy party ran ignorantly around, out of trouble (for the most part)….

8-8-8

Urahara entered from a sliding door that had, at first glance, been just another wall, and slid it shut behind him. "Well, well, it looks like everyone is here," he said cheerfully. "Or at least almost everyone. Enough to get started with." He glanced around bemusedly at the assembled army and continued, "I know some of us have introduced ourselves, but while I don't like to seem like a primary school teacher, we should probably make sure we at least all know where we stand here...

"I'll start. I'm Urahara Kisuke, formerly a shinigami of Soul Society, and now a simple candy shop owner...but I assisted Kalan Lockeheart in the war twenty years ago (after he did the same for me and the Soul Society), and now that the Obsidian Star is at it again, it's up to all of us to stop them. Otherwise, all our worlds could be in danger. I would imagine, at least, that whatever motivations and personal vendettas each of you hold, you are here because you're willing to fight against them.

"Our shinigami friends here are obvious...like me, they owe Kalan Lockeheart a great deal for his efforts of twenty years ago, and have been sent to help Kain Lockeheart, the son of Kalan Lockeheart, whom I sure each of you know, at least by reputation. Most of you already have ties to one or more members of his White Wings, the party he's formed largely from his students and friends at Mahora Academy. They came here with the simple desire to learn more of the past and possible present location of Kalan Lockeheart, but were immediately attacked by the Obsidian Star upon their arrival, at the same time that they destroyed the Gateports. Their primary objective, of course, is simply to safely return home...to that end, certain of their number are even now searching for Orimus' Gateport so that they can reactivate it and make the transfer back to Earth. However, when given an opportunity to do so by the Obsidian Star, their illustrious leader instead opted to refuse to sacrifice Arcanus Myrror for their benefit and went to war against them." Kisuke smiled kindly and mischievously at Kain.

A few actually applauded at this, and Kain laughed sheepishly. "Don't congratulate me for that. Lina and Mai were the ones who really broke down the negotiations. But anyway, because of that, we can be sure that we'll probably have to go through the Obsidian Star before we can make it home...but my main priority is still, at the very least, getting my uninvolved students—meaning the six who sneaked into Arcanus Myrror without knowing what they were getting into—back home to Mahora safely."

"As Urahara-san said, we each have our own motivations," growled Zelgadis Greywords, who then introduced himself. "I personally have my own vendetta against the Obsidian Star, as you say...I don't necessarily consider myself your friend, but I know that fighting them will take an army of at least this size, so until I get what I want from them, I'll work with all of you."

"That's fine," Shunsui said casually. "We've pretty much established that this patchwork group is full of independent minds. But now that we're officially 'at war', we should be planning out our strategies and objectives. I'd first like to hear more from Kain Lockeheart, who, of course, is responsible for this little army gathering here in the first place."

Kain sighed as he was made the center of attention again and smiled grimly. "As Urahara-san explained, and as most of you are well aware, we were scattered at the Gateport in order to escape the Obsidian Star's forces. In order to gather our party back together, particularly the, ah, 'stowaways', or whatever you want to call them, I had to find a way of communicating with everyone...particularly after finding that we had been framed for the Gateports' destruction and had the authorities and bounty hunters of the entire world after us. I also found four of my students in slavery because of their early misfortunes, and had to find a means of rescuing them.

"For these reasons and others, I entered the Granicus gladiatorial league and began to fight with the eye of making it here, to this 'Memorial Tournament', using a special disguise to keep myself hidden...and, as I'm sure you've all heard, with a rather audacious name to attract attention. Most of my objectives in doing this have succeeded—minus only a very few, whom we should hopefully meet soon, my class and our friends are all here, and I've taken the other steps I needed. However, I still have to win this tournament in order to get the funds to buy my four students out of slavery—by far the easiest way to rescue them, although I have fallback options if necessary.

"For whatever reason, the Obsidian Star is also gathered here at Orimus at this time. We can only expect that they will find other moments to interfere with us...and we will have to take any opportunities we can to interfere with them as well. It would help if we knew their objective..."

"A-actually, we do," Nodoka quavered. She blanched as she felt the force of the entirety of the room's attention on her, but she bravely wandered over to Chisame, who was holding Nodoka's book for her with a blank look on her face. Chisame handed the book over to Nodoka, surprising the girl somewhat—apparently Nodoka had hoped that Chisame would take the burden of explaining the matter for her—but she took her artifact and turned back to her audience. "My artifact, 'Diarium Ejus', relates to me the mind of any person whose name I call, if I know their real name and can hear my words. I learned the real name of their apparent leader, Eminus, using this 'Demon's Lullaby'—his true name is 'The Remnant'."

"'The Remnant'..." Jûshirô murmured. "Of course, those of us who participated in the last war are familiar with the Eminus beings, but a name like that...seems a little off..." He shook his head. "In any case, Miyazaki-ojô-chan, I assume from your earlier comments that you were also able to read the mind of 'Remnant' Eminus?"

"Y-yes...however, even as I did so, he attacked me, and while I was saved by Kuchiki Byakuya-san, my book was turned to stone as well..."

She held the book up, and continued, "Because it's stone, I can't turn any of the pages, but what was written here is still plainly visible."

"Were you trying to kill yourself, Nodoka!?" Lina burst out upon hearing this. "Getting close enough to the big villain like that." She shook her head and smiled. "Still, I'm sure you've heard enough of that from Kain already. Well done, in any case. What does it say?"

She laid in down on a small table in the middle of the room. Many people wanted to gather around it, but by unspoken agreement they finally allowed Kain to kneel closest in front of it with Shunsui, Kisuke, and Lina close enough to read over his shoulder. A few others gathered on the other side, trying to read upside down...

The usual childish pictures of Eminus adorned the top of both pages. The Eminus on the both pages had speech bubbles: 'My goodness' and 'You're quite the fool. Just call me Eminus, or Pakrov if you must. I hate the 'name' 'Remnant',' said the first page. 'Pakrov-kun's Battle Plan!'and 'Beware of spoilers,' said the other.

Then there was the entry line: Remnant, November 13th'. The first page told of Eminus immediate perception of Nodoka: 'It's not my intention to involve humans from the old world, but I simply can't turn a blind eye to you and the danger your artifact poses. I apologize, but you'll have to make your exit here.' The next page, under the 'Battle Plan', was, finally, the actual plans, in bullet point format:

Primary Objective: fuse the seven worlds of this Reality Sphere together into a new home for the Obsidian Star. Remaining humanoids will be put to rest within the Cosmo Entelecheia, maintaining the new world's semi-mortal existence.

To accomplish this: Step One: Destroy all active Gateports in the world – Completed.

Search the surroundings of Orimus for the Old Gateport, and secure it – In Progress.

Capture the Crystal Princess, Bonus Objective – Failure.

Render the son of the hero, Kain Lockeheart, Powerless – Failure.

Create a diversion to restrain the powers of each nation – In Progress.

Rebuild the Obsidian Palace – Completed.

This was the end of the page. "As you can see," Chisame remarked from the side as they read, "it's quite lovely, but those drawings really kill the tension level..." Nodoka apologized for their appearance.

"Seven worlds!?" Lina burst out. "What do they mean, seven!? Even if we go beyond Arcanus Myrror and Earth...are we talking about Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, too? But that's only four, even so! Where are these other worlds coming from!?"

"I see," chuckled Xellos, finally making his appearance as he manifested, floating the air near the ceiling. "I apologize, Miss Lina. I really underestimated their knowledge and their capabilities—and their audacity. It's the same plan that I suspected and explained to you, but the scope is far greater."

He introduced himself as 'Xellos, the Roguish Priest', and continued, "The 'Reality Sphere' refers to all worlds within a certain dimensional distance of each other. The actual definition varies from world to world, distance-wise...in this case, there are seven mortal worlds, not spiritual planes like Soul Society or purely magical realms like the abyssal home of the mazoku you all know, in close proximity to each other, close enough for the Obsidian Star to pull off this plane—because of Arcanus Myrror. Well, I think that that story is one we should save for another time; just think of these seven worlds as being in a kind of magical 'solar system' equivalent. The important point is that the Obsidian Star has the potential to bring these worlds into contact with one another and fuse them into a single world—causing untold chaos and destruction across all seven in the process, naturally. Even if they are mortal worlds, it's hard to say what kind of impact that will have on Soul Society and the rest...in any case, it's a disaster that must be avoided."

"Yes," Shunsui murmured. "This is even more serious than we thought. Obviously a plan like this would have to have a lot of variables and requirements...I'd daresay that it would take something like the Crystal Princess to pull off this plan, but apparently they have only been targeting her half-heartedly...? It would be nice if we could read more than this..."

"Nodoka, can you dismiss and re-summon your artifact?" Lina demanded. "Wouldn't that cancel the stone effect?"

"We've thought about it, but we figured it would lose all the information," Chisame sighed. "Like re-booting a computer from a forced shut-down, in the middle of a data freeze or something."

"Hmm. Makes sense. Damn! This is super-important information! What else is required to actually pull this off? The need to distract the powers of this world shows that there's things we can do to interfere, that it's not foolproof or in the very final stages, but still..."

Kenjirô was inspecting all of the book except its writing. "Wait," he said. "I think I see a small crack here in the next page—a small gap, like it was turned to stone while a little loose, with one page just starting to turn." He manifested a tiny knife and tried to slide it into the gap. "Lucky break! I might be able to pry this loose..."

With a final twist of the knife, the page broke, coming loose of the rest of the book. There was a brief half-excited half-afraid cacophony from the crowd, but Kain carefully picked up the page and inspected the other side. The words were hard to make out, as the page had been stoned stuck to the page on the opposite side, but he managed to read just a little...

'You're reading this, aren't you, Kain-kun? Regardless of being created for this purpose, I don't care...' 'My only wish is to fight against you...' '...Since the Grand Archmage and I defeated each other ten years ago...'

Kain's eyes widened in shock and he instinctively crushed the page to pieces in his hands. As the group around him yelped at this development, Kain, ignoring them all, turned his gaze to Aiden, who had been sitting placidly by the bar, slowly and casually drinking a glass of spirits.

"Aiden," Kain said. "You've been quiet a while, but something about Eminus bothered you. What is he, exactly?"

Aiden chuckled and set down his glass. "Well...I'm not really sure. As some of 'em said, as Kamo's surely told you, he's not the first 'Eminus' we've encountered. From what some of them said, the real Eminus was an Obsidian scientist who created these elemental-golem weapons. We fought a few back during the war...but they all looked pretty much the same, same size, same build, only the hair and eyes differing because of their elemental affiliation. When Kamo first started telling me about the kid 'Eminus', I dismissed the thought; I figured he was just some new recruit taking the name for himself to be tough or something. At least unil I saw him. This one is the real deal, but...he's different in some ways. He shouldn't look like such a kid—all the rest were adults. I'm not sure that an Eminus should have been able to make contracts, but the fact that he can is interesting all on its own. And with a name like 'The Remnant'—I somehow think the implication of a name meaning 'what's left over' is referring to the ashes left after a fire. He could be worse news than I thought.

"Anyway, now that we've come this far, I guess I have no choice. I'll tell you a little something...about the Red Wings and the Obsidian Star. Some personal spoilers..."

The group stared in shock. Aiden directed everyone to assemble themselves together in the back of the room; as Aiden continued to explain himself, Kisuke went to fiddle with things behind the counter. "If you guys are seriously going to fight these guys, I guess I should at least tell all of you who they really are...at least as far as we figured everything out. However, the great treasure hunter Aiden doesn't like talking so much about the old days..."

"Liar," Delryn muttered under his breath, but loud enough for most of the room to hear.

"...So I'll have to resort to these right here." Aiden removed a collection of discs from his coat and held them up like a hand of cards. He smiled. "Special limited-edition films of the adventures of the Red Wings!"

"You had those prepared all this time, just waiting for the right moment, didn't you!?" Chisame cursed him angrily.

F I N

Author's Note: Soul Reapers and Flashbacks

This is just an ending chapter, kind of an introduction before heading into 'Aiden's Story' and tying up the loosest ends here—Kain and Nodoka, Kain and Momo (and everyone else) the arriving Soul Society, and our estimation of the villains—their tactics and some scary thoughts about them.

Some of the Soul Reapers with the biggest connections to Kain and his friends (including Momo) were chosen to make this attack force, as described in 11's Prologue—Kyôraku is the leader of this force, with his own buddy Ukitake (who is also Rukia's captain), Byakuya's lieutenant Renji (also Momo's classmate and Rukia's best friend), Momo's own captain Shinji, and Momo's best friend, Tôshirô, and his lieutenant Rangiku. In addition, we have the wild 11th Company, but they, uninterested in old stories and missions and such, are out looking for fun, and it's amusing to think that lost little Isumi would meet up with them and try to make them more lost. And Isumi, being a cute comedy character/powerful spiritualist, is someone even Captain Zaraki can't say no to (and Yachiru can get along with her fairly well, too).

So, this should be enough: we're having a flashback mini-Act, then moving on to the tournament in Act 13! Away we go!