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 38:

The Shop of Wishes

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

With a weary groan, the young man managed to drag himself away on all fours, though it did him little good as a heavy lethargy soon overcame him, and he sat down upright on his rear, unwilling and unable to move any further. Everything was a haze to him, the world echoing with smells and sounds. Still, Keitaro did not feel the slightest bit threatened. It was all so much like a dream to him.

The "Enchantress" giggled bemusedly, the layers of her exquisite kimono rustling as she rose from the divan. Oddly, he could see her perfectly, even though everything else was a blur, which for some reason he did not mind at all. She was awfully beautiful. Of course, he had to wonder why the obi of her kimono, the belt sash tied in a butterfly style, was so huge! It looked awfully cumbersome and yet she moved gracefully without the slightest hindrance, barefoot no less.

She had wonderful feet too, each nail painstakingly manicured and painted to a divine finish.

"Moru, Maru, could you two be a dear and bring me a tissue? I think Urashima Kei-ta-ro-kun was very, very happy to see me."

A pair of bell-like giggles, the voice's of two children replied in perfect harmony, "Happy! Very happy to see you!"

Urashima Keitaro. Urashima --- oh yeah, that's right. That's my name, thought the bespectacled young man absently. He heard the rushed padded footsteps of the children scampering enthusiastically away to do the Enchantress' bidding, and he wondered if they were her children. I wouldn't be too surprised if they were. Girls, both of them; they sound wonderful, just like --- her.

"Now, let me see..." she murmured as she bent onto her knees beside him. To his heavy-lidded eyes, the woman appeared to be positively glowing a faint white light that brought out her exhilarating beauty even more, her soft slender hands settling firmly upon his face.

"Umm --- hey, uhh --- were those your..." Keitaro engaged her sluggishly in conversation. His voice was thick and slow in his throat, just barely responding, which was somewhat fortunate because his eyes had lost the power to wander as well. All he could manage now was obediently return the hypnotic sepia-eyed gaze of the woman.

"Fufufu; my aren't you a thoughtful little boy? You aren't thinking about other things already are you, hmm?"

The bespectacled young man blushed, although it was a touch disturbing thanks to the trail of blood pouring from his nose. "Well --- uhh --- huh?" What did she mean by that?

In fact, the blood was about to soil her hands.

Twin wailing cries of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" cut through the air, and before he knew it, Keitaro felt himself pulled back by a pair little hands as a wad of tissues was stuffed into his face. The Enchantress's hands were totally so safe in his opinion, a sentiment echoed equally by the two heroines "Phew! SAFE-FU!", but his strained back and neck objected to the notion. They further decided to point out from his current awkward sitting position that his glasses had become askew too.

"Mwoghghgamf..." the ronin groaned, his voice muffled by the wad of tissues that had soaked up his nosebleed.

"Mou; Maru-dashi, Moro-dashi, I wasn't done reading him yet," he heard the woman whine. It did not take much of an imagination to imagine that oh-so-deadly coquettish pout she probably had on her face. "Now, be good girls and get those tissues out of his face and give him back to me, okay?"

The twin voices, completely identical to each in their sweet pitch and tone, relented sullenly, "Okayyyy, Mistress."

Wait a second? Did she just say? Maru and Moro? Maru-dashi and Moro-dashi? pondered Keitaro curiously, as he felt himself being propped upright quite effortlessly by the small body behind him. The wad of tissues was removed, his glasses fixed, and once again he felt those familiar pair of slender hands grasping his face softly. "'Streaking' and 'Flashing'? ...huh?"

The woman flashed him a bemused smirk, which oddly reminded him a lot of somebody he knew, somebody close. Her hypnotic eyes were awfully familiar. "Fufufu, a word artist! Maru, Moro, he knows your names! Come; look! Isn't he sooooo cute?"

"A Word Artist! A Word Artist!" giggled the twin voices happily.

A remarkable change in their attitude from a moment ago as he felt the presence behind him fade away, only to have a pair of elfin faces crowd into his field of vision. Leaning over the shoulders of the Enchantress, they both bore glowing smiles that reached their eager eyes. Just as he suspected, they were twin girls, probably around seven or eight years old, the matching amber eyes, and the porcelain skin that was so very much like their "mistress."

There were only three things that really set them apart (though he would have liked to know why he could only see them and the Enchantress perfectly, and nothing else in this room). Maru (he assumed) had seriously, seriously fluffy purplish-blue hair, and it was really long, so long that she had her hair up in two partially braided ponytails, which somehow managed to not unravel completely. Her clothes, a velvety black and plain white, had a noticeably devilish slant, with sharp angular "batty" cuts on the trim, not to mention little bat wings on her coat; oh, and the black socks.

On the other hand, Moro (again, he assumed) had super curvy pink hair, reaching down almost to her shoulders, that framed her face. In fact, it was so curvy that some of her hair curved all the way into a pair of small buns, and what she wore for clothes was decidedly angelic. A pure white dress with puffy shoulders, tiny feather white wings on the back, a soft trim, and a black ribbon tied into a bow around her waist. For some reason, her skirt was a little bit short in the front, so it was easy to see the white bloomers she wore poking out, black socks...not that he had a problem with bloomers.

Keitaro made a face. O-kay, I think I'd better step away from that. Haitani and Shirai are seriously starting to become a bad, baaaaaaaaaaaa-ad influence on me. "Um, excuse me, but-"

"Ichi-ha-ra. Yuu-ko. Ichihara Yuuko," she answered, her smirk deepening into a full blown grin.

"Ahh, umm, Ichi-hara-san, wha-" I wonder how she knew I was going to ask that question?

"Of course, that's an assumed name, you know."

The ronin blinked. "Say wha-" So she's saying that she's lying on purpose?

"And you've already met these children, my two darling assistants! The black one's Maru-dashi, and the white one's Moro-dashi, aren't they just so adorable?"

"Well --- yeah, but why 'Streaking' and 'Flashing'?" I wonder if she's got some kind of hidden exhibitionist flair?

"Yin and Yang; the symbol of T'ai Chi, as you've probably already noticed."

"Yin and Yang!" the twins parroted enthusiastically.

"And, no; I don't have an exhibitionist flair, you naughty little boy."

Come to think of it, I was going to say that about the symboli-! What? HUH? How the-? "Uh, anou, uhhh-!"

"Hitsuzen."

"Huh?" What's she talking about now? I mean, she just-!

"Hitsuzen: One. A naturally foreordained event. Two. A state in which other outcomes are impossible. Three. A result which can only be obtained by a single causality and other causalities would necessarily create different results. So reads --- the Kodansha Japanese Desk Dictionary, second edition."

Keitaro stared --- dumbly in complete stupefaction. Maybe if he was not getting high off the sweet mollifying fumes her incense candles were giving off, he might have been able to comprehend what Ichihara-san was trying to get across to him. He would have liked to know, too, how this wonderful woman was reading him like an open book.

"...So you're saying," he managed, "it's like --- destiny or fate that we met?"

"Hmmm..."

"Ehehe, don't you think this is pure --- pure --- uhhh --- coincidence? I mean, I only came here because-"

"I already told you once, Keitaro-chan. 'Hitsuzen.'"

What the? 'Keitaro-chan'? Why's she getting all familiar all of a sudden. Wait-! "Huh, how-"

"There is no such thing as 'coincidence' in this world. The only thing is --- Hitsuzen."

Keitaro flabbergasted could only stare.

"Oh, and your name was written on the package too. Give my regards to Yumi-chan for his excellent work as always, won't you?"

Ohhhhhh! So that's how she did it, but that still doesn't explain... "Umm, okay, but-"

"You're here in my shop, aren't you? Or are you not?"

"Well, I'm just a delivery guy," he explained to her, "and --- well, I know it sounds silly, but when I reached for the door..."

"It flew open on its own, smacked you on the head, and knocked you out cold, am I correct?"

Whoa, I think that's pretty much exactly what happened. "Yeah, isn't that crazy? I was just reaching for it and it flew out at me. And now that I think about it, I don't think I could've stopped if I wanted to... My body...it was just moving on its own."

"Hmm, when did this start?"

"Well, thinking back, I think it actually started as soon as I got past your gate. I probably didn't notice, hehehe, because your mansion was so --- creepy. No offense, but the fog and all the..."

"Kekkai ('Ward'): One. A restriction placed on an entrance so as not to interrupt Buddhist training. Two. A set of boundaries. Three. Inner sanctum and outer nave. Four. Exit and entry forbidden. So says Kondansha's Japanese Desk Dictionary, second edition."

Keitaro paused in rumination, his forehead creasing with the lines of thought, until at last his eyes brightened with inspiration. "Sugee! So you're saying I liked crossed a magical or spiritual boundary between two worlds, and that your mansion is like a shrine or temple that really shouldn't be here, but IS here nonetheless?"

Now, it was Yuuko Ichihara's turn to be surprised, a sentiment echoed by the twins' gasps of wonder at the bespectacled delivery boy. This was the first time she had ever gotten that sort of a comprehensive response from a client, and for the first time in a long time, a certain enticing, prickly haze of uncertainty hovered in the air that made her heart leap with excitement. Keitaro Urashima was proving to be a very interesting boy indeed.

"My, my, you have a good temper, don't you?"

"A good-tempered kid! A good-tempered kid!" the twins laughed merrily, "Not like Watanuki at all!"

Watanuki? I get the feeling I know that name from somewhere, though I got to wonder why she's still holding onto my cheeks. "Ehehe, I've been told that from time to time. Umm, say, when you mean 'Watanuki,' is it Kimihiro Watanuki? If I remember right, he was one of my juniors from high school."

"Fufufufu, it's a small world, isn't it, Keitaro-kun? Yes, he's my part-time helper around here. Oh, and I like to touch your face because it's so cute and cuddly! Isn't that right, girls?"

"Haiiii-­i! He smells just like a boy too! A boy!"

"Ah-ha-hahah..." Keitaro sweated, wondering whether that was supposed to be a complement or otherwise. Still, she managed to read me again. What's with her, I wonder? Is she a psychic or --- better yet or worse yet --- a magi?

Yuuko grinned toothily at him. "So, what's your wish, Urashima Keitaro?"

"Huh? My wish?"

"You do know what this place is, don't you?"

"Umm, not really. I just-"

"A store. A shop --- where wishes are granted."

She said it so casually, so naturally, so confidently that any thought she might have been certifiably crazy was dashed from his mind. Keitaro was just that kind of guy, and considering the background he grew up in, he had very few doubts about the occult and the supernatural. His only silver of doubt lay in whether he should put Yuuko's supposed ability to the test. Then again, his only real wish right now was to...

Suddenly, with a forlorn sigh, the raven-haired woman removed her hands from his face. The abrupt loss of her soft feminine touch sent a shiver of something --- odd up his spine. Could it have possibly been disappointment? No way, it was absolutely ridiculous notion, and... Wait a minute, had she not --- a woman, a female --- been physically touching him for the past --- oh, he did not know how long, but she had touched him! Somehow, all the blood in his body had not exploded out of him as a result of his "condition"!

"Ichihara-san?" Keitaro addressed her in a tentative tone of voice. He watched her rise, the children making way for her solicitously, and glide gracefully back to her divan, where she promptly threw herself onto in a most undignified, childish manner. Her actions contradicted everything he had seen in her just a minute ago!

Yuuko pouted at him and waved him off nonchalantly. "Oh, go on already, bouya. You've got better things to do, don't you? Besides, you're not ready yet."

"Huh? Ready for what?"

"You don't have a wish, or more precisely, you don't know what you want to wish for, silly! Who knows? Maybe you really don't even know what you really want."

I don't know what I want to wish for? I don't know what I really want? That's crazy! Of course, I...don't I? thought Keitaro bewilderment as he felt his mind and body "awakening" rapidly with an electrifying sensation. The nostalgic convivial haze that had arrested previously had lifted, and now, he could think and respond clearly again.

What was going on?

"Maru, Moro, could you two please show Megane-kun out the door, please? I think another customer is waiting for us, and we wouldn't want Watanuki to see Megane-kun, do we? He might get --- jealous, fufufu."

What the-? 'Megane-kun'? Glasses-kun? Is she talking about me? Ack!

"Tee hee hee! Jealous! Jealous!" the twins giggled in reply from behind him suddenly. To his awe and surprised, they seized him easily, a pair of small arms hooking underneath each of his arms to which they gave a gentle insistent tug. "Let's go! Time to go home, Megane-kun!"

"Whoa, chotto-! Just a second here! Ichihara-san!"

"Shoo, shoo; don't worry, we'll see each other again sometime, bouya," Yuuko waved him off with a yawn, "you'll be back before you know it; count on it. After all, I can already see it."

"Wait, but what did you mean by-!"

She smiled.

"After all, the bonds of fate that bind us have already been tied."

Slam!

Keitaro stared blankly, wide-eyed at the silent double doors, like a man who had been robbed, as he stood outside the mansion on the front yard. In one foul swoop, Yuuko Ichihara had succeeded in completely turning his world upside down. She had touched him, held him, and spun him around on his head, stealing away that precious peace of mind away from him. Questions and accusations screamed through his mind like bullets, leaving trails of bloody trauma across his consciousness, and yet he could not work up the slightest feeling of bitterness about his current predicament.

Privately, it amused him to think that his life had become something of a metaphor for a ship lost in a hurricane.

Reaching into his jacket, he procured his cellphone and glanced at the readout on the tiny digital screen, confirming that he still had another two hours left to go pick up Kanako. The ronin wagered he still had plenty of time, but looking up at the heavens, he noted that the sky had become eerily pitch black. A bad sign for sure, and now that he thought about it, he really wanted to go pick up his little sister quickly. There was no way he was going to let her wait out for him in this kind of ominous weather, which he hoped would not arrive in Mahora City too.

Knowing what he had to do, though he still had his lingering doubts, Keitaro made his way towards the front gate. The curious sight of another bespectacled young man, clad in a black seifuku, running past him with an older girl cradled in his arms, registered in his mind somewhat. The young man had black hair, Japanese features, which clashed rather sharply with his foreign, panic stricken bright blue eyes, while the girl --- no, young woman --- was out cold with blood seeping out of her nose, a goofy grin on her face. Her long dark brown hair was quite pretty, twisting into a natural braided ponytail of sorts.

He could have sworn he saw a turtle flying right behind them too.

"YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-KO!" the young man, only a year or two younger than him, screamed at the top of his lungs. "IT'S TROUBLE! TROUBLE! OPEN UP THE DOOR, DAMMIT!"

Funny; Keitaro had the feeling he knew both of them from somewhere.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note

Wow, we're finally coming down the turnpike into the 40s. You guys and gals still with me? If you are, feel free to drop a review to let me know because we are getting close to the finish line for all this exposition stuff. This is episode 38, and by golly, what's all this jargon and stuff being thrown around for? Hitsuzen? Bonds of fate? A ward that separates worlds? Keitaro doesn't know what he wants? Is he really going to come back? If so, when will he come back? Who's this girl Watanuki just came screaming back with? A flying turtle?

Sheesh, there's so many things moving around us, a world woven with plot and intrigue, as all does not appear what it seems to be. Was Yuuko really putting the moves on Keitaro? Is he a closet pervert but won't admit it? What kind of future does the famed Space-Time Witch forsee? Are we going to get anymore answers here?

(The Powers That Be are apparently out to lunch.)

Well, maybe we'll find out on the next episode Glass Moon-desu!

Reviewers and readers alike, I'd like to thank you all very much for your continued patronage. Remember, I always encourage each and everyone of you to feel free to comment, review, and/or discuss the story. Your comments can really make a difference, I assure you, and if you're up to it, feel free to ring me up on AIM, or even send me an e-mail (although you really don't need to boost my ego too often). You know how to get in touch with the maestro here.

So without further adieu, that wraps it up, folks (see you again around the usual time): CHARGE! CROMARTIE HIGH!

Omake!

Naze Nani Glass Moon Desu

Episode Preview!

Chapter 39:

Rain and The Warrior Woman

Would he make it in time? Could he make it in time? Was this something he could do on his own? He did not know, did not have a clue, but he could not stop now! He was already here, running as hard as he could. He had to make it, somehow!

Tsudzuku!