Disclaimer:

Love Hina and Mahou Sensei Negima is the creative property of Ken Akamatsu, who created this wonderful anime/manga series. Shingetsugan Tsukihime and Fate/stay night is the creative property of TYPE-MOON. Anything not attributed to Akamatsu-san or TYPE-MOON belongs to their respective owners, such as references to Cowboy Bebop (the Swordfish II) that is a creation of Sunrise and Shinichiro Watanabe, BLEACH is a creation of Kubo Tite, and vice-versa. This story is written purely just for fun, guys; please for God's sake, don't sue me! I'm just a high school student with too much free time on his hands! On the other hand, any specific author created characters I created for this fic (despite how unoriginal they may be at times) are mine. So without further adieu, let's get on with the show!

The Surgeon General's Warning:

Read at your own risk. Multiple pairings inside folks, with KanaxKei and KanaxNegi, just to name a few! You never know what you're going to get so read on (I might even do some alternative stuff, if you know what I mean).

Blue Blue Glass Moon, Under the Crimson Air

I Wanna Go To A Place...

Chapter 09:

Class 2-A: Reflexes

A Love Magister Hina Negima! fanfic by James "Ray" Edwards

Setsuna Sakurazaki was not amused.

Never mind that her normally peaceable routine had been completely shattered this morning by a new glaring thorn that had ensconced itself firmly into the hearts and minds of the entirety of her fellow classmates. Never mind that the new glaring thorn had played a dastardly hand in making the most important person to her cry with great anguish (although she would see to it --- personally to right that particular wrong very shortly, indeed). Never mind that the new glaring thorn had masterminded and set into motion already some insidious plot. Never mind many things, in fact.

However, what she could not stand was the brewing tension in the air, a rope held sickeningly taut on the verge of snapping.

If there was one thing she knew she could count on, it was Takamichi Takahata to be punctual. Takahata-sensei was never late; he just liked to make a grand spectacle out of his entrance. To see the day that he was TEN minutes late to class (and counting) was simply much too disturbing.

It seems I'm going to look forward to cutting the root of that evil flower, the raven-haired girl mused to herself, taking a brief stealthy glance back at her target. With her book bag set on the floor beside her, the nameless mastermind appeared to be off in meditation, leaning back coolly against the wall in the back of the classroom by the windows.

Normally, she would not have cared for such a trivial concern. Such things usually took care of themselves in their own due time; however, this girl had made a serious error by involving her charge. Though the girl could not even remember her (or so it seemed), it was probably for the best that she could not in the long run. The job of a Yojimbo was a thankless and lonely, and best conducted out of impersonal anonymity. She was still amazed that the clan leaders chose her to see to this tremendous task.

What were their intentions? Were they testing her loyalty? What could it be?

Or perhaps, was she just a decoy?

Setsuna shook her head, berating herself for having such disloyal suspicions. I've already been on this mission for three years, and nothing beyond the norm is going to happen! I'm lunging at shadows over nothing. The spirit activity in Mahora-ku is the same as it always has been. The Great Seal and the auxiliary seals are still in place. There is nothing to fear, absolutely nothing.

Nothing.

"Hey, look! Someone's coming in! Quiet down, girls!" shouted one of her classmates excitedly.

Finally, Takahata-sensei decided to show up. He must have been preparing quite a while for this year's "First Day of Punctuality Week Baptism Prank." The dark brown-eyed girl wondered if he would be able to manage another of his most curious dodges to date yet, and this year's prank was an infernal multi-stage trap too. She would wager this would at least be somewhat entertaining.

Then again --- there had been plenty of entertainment this morning alone already.

The door opened loudly with a crisp slide, baring exactly the sort of confident energy that the bespectacled English professor would have used on any given day. As always his cordial greeting would echo through the air as he stepped into the classroom in the same deft motion; however, it was precisely here when disaster struck. Instead of Takahata's easy and often playful baritone, a voice that they had come to know by heart...

...A young boy's tenor called out to them, sending all eyes towards the door.

"Good..."

It was like watching a movie in slow motion. The sorrel-haired --- child stepped through the door, bedecked with a pair of small spectacles, a matching set of blue trousers and a tailored blue suit fit for his small frame, and beige colored dress shoes. He could have been Takamichi Takahata Jr. for all they knew, and a certain extra dusty blackboard eraser was falling fast on his unsuspecting head, guided by the sure hand of gravity.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the Big Lady upstairs had other plans in mind.

"...Morning..."

There was a cutting whistle of air, something moving swiftly, across the classroom. A silvery gray blur that glimmered briefly as it flew by towards the opened door, so fast that Setsuna could barely see it at all. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end, her instincts smashing roughly against the hastily constructed cage of self-restraint. She could feel cold chills running up her, as the speeding object seemed to appear right before the boy, her mind racing what she should do. There was no way she could possibly...

"Cla-!"

Thunk!

The bespectacled boy clamped up suddenly with a flinch, his entire body tensing up, his shoulders shrugging up rigid. It was almost like a gunshot --- that terrible noise. He held his breath, his face a mask of anxious terror, not wishing to know what had happened. Was he dead? Was he alive? He did not want to know. The boy wanted to cling onto the illusion that this moment was an instance of eternity, a moment where time stood still.

Slowly, his senses returned, inch by inch. There was the cool feel of ambient air being fed into the room by the air conditioning ducts against his hot trembling skin. Something soft and small, lots of them, like particles brushing against his flinching face. He could hear his heart again, blood pounding in his ears, a hushed wheeze emanating through his nostrils, taking brief gasps of air. There was not a sound, not a sound at all, except one thing.

There was a persistent ringing hum in the air, to his right and above him. It was like... It was like something vibrating really quickly, a bizarre harmonic rhythm that was slowly --- slowly dying down. What could it be he asked himself?

Intrigued and a little frightened as he really hope it was not his head or something worse hanging there, he pushed forth with his wavering sense of mortality and peeked out with the corner of his eye. The transformation from cold fear to the stunned awe that the students sitting in the classroom shared was instantaneous.

Embedded into the section of the wall beside the door, having penetrated straight through the painted over plywood and the concrete base beneath, was a polished gray steel ruler. Minutes after its bone crushing impact, its length still undulated with what little energy it retained from its forceful flight, and skewered on the end of it was a dusty blackboard eraser, clouded with a puff of white chalk. This was the sight that left so many speechless and slack jawed in stunned wonder.

Amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

Fast.

So very fast.

Setsuna had never seen anything like it as she sat stock still at her desk, with a rare astonished look that spoke a thousand words on her normally reserved face. What power; what speed; and most importantly, what control! It would not have mattered if the thrower had all the power or all the speed in the world. Too much power would have sliced the eraser in half or caused the steel ruler to deflect itself upon impact. Too much speed would have dealt an ineffective blow that would have scattered the chalk in the filled dusty eraser into a huge fine mess.

Without control, everything else was meaningless brute force.

This was true grace, and amazingly accomplished with such a clumsy tool too. Steel rulers had a tendency to bend and wobble when force was applied or by the virtue of their inherently flexible construction. The lack of an aerodynamic shape did not help matters either. Whoever threw this was no ordinary student that much was for sure. Now the question was, who could have it been?

Fei Kuu, Student #12, who sat two seats behind her, was absolutely out of the question. Even though she had the honor of being dubbed as part of the Martial Arts Elite Four of Class 2-A, the copper-skinned girl was a reputed Chinese martial artist who excelled in hand-to-hand fighting. She had excellent motor reflexes and control, but this sort of a feat was beyond her expertise. Besides, the steel ruler had come flying through from Setsuna's left and not her right.

Was it Student #20, Kaede Nagase? She had heard rumors about the laidback girl reputedly being a ninja of some sort, not to mention she too had been dubbed as a part of the Martial Arts Elite Four of Class 2-A. Her vision, in fact, was perfect. Growing up apparently, she picked up a strange habit of keeping her eyes closed or squinting like a kitsune quite often. The Elite Four, of course, was something of an ongoing and off-going joke. Some people really needed to stop playing Yu-Gi-Mon so much.

What about the direction of where the steel ruler had come from exactly? pondered Setsuna as her expression melted back into its familiar reserved contemplation. Nagase-san could have certainly thrown it since she was sitting from to my left, three seats over. No, it couldn't be her either. The angle is too shallow, which leaves...

Mana Tatsumiya, Student #18; Mana was a --- touchy subject. The raven-haired girl had picked up something of an off-the-wall rivalry with the only daughter of the Tatsumiya family who also ran the Tatsumiya Shrine right here in Mahora City. She supposed that if she did not have long outstanding debt accumulated in the tens and thousands of yen with Mana, they might have gotten along just fine. Together, they could spend hours arguing the finer points of swordsmanship and marksmanship, battle tactics, and such, like a bunch of old comrades from some distant war.

The debt, however, was a sour point, not to mention Mana's strange, hypnotic amber eyes... Or were they lilac-hued now? Ugh, the girl absolutely gave her a headache! Still, she was the closest thing to a colleague around here, so the yojimbo was thankful for the small graces. Mana had a penchant for darts, billiards, anmitsu, and --- well, puppies. The girl sat four seats to the left and three down from Setsuna's left, and she had been dubbed one of the Martial Arts Elite Four of Class 2-A.

The raven-haired closed her eyes, masking the deep frown that was no doubt surfacing in them. But Tatsumiya-san wasn't the one either; I know it. The angle is too shallow still and I've seen her go to work before. She certainly likes difficult shots, but this borders on the absurd. By observation, Tatsumiya-san is in the correct relative area, except the show was taken back even further. Which means-!

Setsuna swiveled about in her seat, long since free from the lethargic limbo of stunned awe that her classmates were in and gazed at the unfeeling face of the culprit. Any doubt she might have had about today getting anymore interesting were dashed right then, a look of wide-eyed surprise echoing on her face despite her best efforts to stem her emotion.

This was simply unbelievable.

It was the sinister Nameless Girl, with raven hair much like herself except she preferred red ribbons and had tied her long hair into a ponytail from the nape of her graceful neck. She stood completely still, like a statue with its right hand drawn out in a perfect throw, her opened satchel lying discarded by her feet. Her face was an emotionless mask, hazel brown eyes betraying nothing and colder than death.

"Hey, it's her! She's the one!" shouted a voice.

Suddenly, it was like a repeat of some odd twenty minutes ago, all over again. All eyes clamped down immediately on the quarrelsome mystery girl, a majority of students actually standing up from their seats in order to get a better look. Everybody wanted to see the person who had managed this feat as the din of discussion and pointed whispers drowned out the once stilted ambience. Even Student #3, Kazumi Asakura, had gone as far as to dig out her brand new camera, snapping photos at a kilometer per minute.

Little did they all know that the person who was most surprised was Kanako Urashima herself. There was terrible war of hearts and minds being waged for control of her very soul within her own body, each sided using more horrible weapons than the last. Ethics and morals, compassion and logic; why did she intervene? Her body had moved on its own accord before she even realized it. She knew that it was a relative custom for students to prank teachers, and she was going to take such a thing to a whole new level.

Then this little boy showed up out of nowhere.

Most girls might have professed adoration for children, but the raven-haired girl's case, she had no such infatuation for them. She had been one herself and children could be just as rotten as adults. There was no difference. It was simply just a matter of thinking on a different scale. So why did she expose herself so foolishly by intervening now? How could such an absurdly righteous action serve her purpose to bring Mahora Academy to its knees?

What was wrong with her?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why couldn't she find the answers?

I have to leave this place now. I have to go now! thought Kanako sharply with increasing agitation. She could feel it, the sound of her heart picking up the pace with each excited thud, as the eyes of these girls tried to pierce the cold armor she wore. They'll see right through my mask, if I don't leave now. I want them to hate me, to fear me, dammit! That's the role they're supposed to play. I'm the enemy and they will try to destroy me. They will because this is the way it has to be!

Out of the corner of her eye, the raven-haired girl could see Evangeline watching her closely with a most disturbing expression. She had changed completely from her initial awe and reclined smoothly into a silky smile, an unerring gleam in her indigo eyes. The foreign girl had seen something she had liked without a doubt.

Kanako inwardly cringed at the ugly thought, as she lowered her arm and strode forwards with a smooth, graceful gait befitting of a dancer. Had she given away too much? It was bad enough that a severe crack had opened up in her assumed persona, but had she also shed light on matters forbidden to be spoken of outside her family as well? Would her dear brother be angry? Would they have to move again?

Moving away from Tokyo, huh? Suddenly, the thought of moving away from this wretched metropolis did not seem such a bad idea anymore. She was sick of it all, sick of hiding, sick of running, and sick of living up to the "Great Expectations" set forth by the people of this wretched land. All Kanako wanted was to be herself truly and stay by her brother's side, together always, just like they had promised.

The world be damned for she cared nothing for it.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes:

See, I told you guys I'd be back again in a few days. The war goes on and Negi makes a big appearance at last! And where will we go from here? Well, that's something only I know to be exact, but you guys got plenty of rail left to ride on, I assure you.

I'd like to thank the readers once more who have read and/or reviewed thus far. There wouldn't be much fun in writing a story if nobody's paying attention to what you got to say, so thank you all for your support. As before do not hesitate to drop me a line or a review anytime. You can even use the reviews as a way to discuss the plot thus far, if you wish. I don't have a problem answers questions as long as we don't go into spoiler territory, if you know what I mean. The Big Man upstairs is listening very keenly and he wants to know what's on your mine. Big shoutouts here to His Lordship namaru (psst! Did you get my e-mail) and to the man Sir Havenoname!

Anyways, look forward to the future! I'll be back in a few days, same interval roughly; you get the picture!

But before I vamos out of here...

Omake!

Naze Nani Glass Moon Desu

Episode Preview!

Chapter 10:

Class 2-A: Got NERF?

"Wow. Well, at least, they're original."

Tsudzuku!