Still Waters Another Turn, Epilogue
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Sittin In The Morning sun, I'll Be Sittin when The Evening Comes.
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Everyone returned to the campus and tried to take up where their lives had left off. There were tests to study for, events to plan for, and major decisions ahead of them, after all.
A month passed, then another and another and another. The rift between the cheerleaders healed, and a sheepish Madoka was welcomed back into the fold and moved out of Chisame's room, much to the hacker-girl's relief. Asuna continued her sword training with Setsuna, and even Konoka began to show an interest in at least learning the forms, since she still had the sword her father had given her as a gift.
Negi continued his training under Eva and Ku Fei, joined now by almost the entire class in one way or another. In the end, it turned out that not a single one of them was a normal person in the strictest sense of the word; each and every one possessed some unusual ability or skill or status. After the incident with Gaze, Negi went straight to Headmaster Konoe along with Konoka-san and Asuna-san and demanded to know the truth about his students. To his surprise, the headmaster had simply laughed and passed a very thick folder to him.
"I've been expecting this, I just thought it would have been sooner," the old man had said with a twinkle in his eye, laughing heartily.
Glancing through the contents of the folder back home in the dorm, Negi had been shocked at the connections some of his students had. Almost every one had a family history of magic-users of some sort, and more than a few had direct relatives living in the magic world even now.
Some, like Chizuru-san or Kazumi-san, were incredibly powerful in various ways, though untrained, while others like Misa-san had natural talents, such as animation and darkness magic. The cheerleader in particular had a history of western witches in her family tree…several direct ancestors had been burned or otherwise executed as witches. Upon hearing of her actions while kidnapped, Eva had recently taken notice of her, and Misa would soon begin training under her.
Speaking of cheerleaders, Sakurako-san was quite unusual as well. Her incredible powers of purification were the main reason that Gaze's dream manipulation hadn't had a stronger effect. If she had been born a few hundred years before, the girl would have been a very powerful miko or onmyouji.
Chisame's talents in particular were unique in this day and age, though rare people with similar talents were recorded in various histories in the magic world. Few people could access the place she described, most thought Hodge and his bar to be a myth if they even knew about it at all. Chisame knew the difference, however, and always kept the key with her on a chain around her neck.
Negi never could figure out how he hadn't noticed the strength of Natsumi-san before, it was so obvious once one learned about it, flowing out constantly and enriching the lives and health of those around her. It was no wonder her roommates all tended to become beautiful, healthy individuals. She was so unsure of herself, but she possessed perhaps the most sought-after ability in the class. 'She should have been a cheerleader,' Negi thought. The sheer amount of life force she radiated was enough to inspire anyone. The combination of her and Sakurako's unusual abilities had gone quite far in keeping the students sane (well, as sane as they were before Gaze started manipulating their dreams, anyway).
Zazie-san's family history had come as a total surprise as well, and even after being her teacher for so long he still didn't know how to act around her. For her part, she seemed unaware of any change in his actions toward her. But honestly…such a dangerous family tree!
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Graduation came, and Negi gave each student a choice. All of them made the decision he had hoped they would, all of them would continue their 'special' training. Iincho-san and Yuuna-san in particular seemed quite intense, and their enthusiasm spread through the rest.
On the day of graduation, he pulled Nodoka aside.
"Nodoka-san, I still haven't given you a proper answer to your confession," Negi began.
"Um…it's ok, Negi-sensei, I—"
"No, it's not proper for me to not give an answer," Negi said. "I don't understand liking a person in that way, so I'm afraid I can't give an answer now. I like you a lot, but I don't know if it is like that," he tried to explain. "Anyway," he said, pulling an object from his pocket, "They say that the artifact you get from a pactio reflects your own abilities. If that is so…" he paused for a moment. "I want you to have this," he said, pressing an object into Nodoka's hand. She inspected it carefully…it seemed to be a necklace with a charm of some sort.
"It's so pretty," she said, her eyes drawn in by the spiraling shape of the charm.
"It's a dreamgazer," Negi said. "It was in Gaze-san's pocket, I think he used it to give everyone those bad dreams. Ah, don't worry," he hastily added upon seeing the look on Nodoka's face. "It works according to the will of the user. I…I think it would be best if you were to have it. Anyway, good luck next year, Nodoka-san!" He left her standing there after that and ran away, feeling like a cad.
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Much to his surprise, Zazie pulled him aside one day as he passed. "Take this," she said, placing a small object in his hand. He looked at the smooth gray stone curiously and the unusual symbol carved into it, so she explained. "If you need help." Then, for the first time, she hugged him and quickly went somewhere else.
'Was she...embarrassed?' Negi wondered.
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3-A moved on to high school and Negi was assigned to a new class. He couldn't help but feel they were a bit subdued compared to his original class, but they were a good group of students in any case. And again...few of them were normal students. There were various incidents of course; there always were. But for the most part, it was a relaxing year.
He was finally assigned a room in the teacher's dorm, and though he missed living with Konoka and Asuna, he had to admit that he felt more like a real teacher now. And who would know or care if he accidentally summoned Asuna sometimes in his sleep when he was particularly lonely? She didn't seem to mind much, after all, as long as he didn't do it too often. None of the other teachers ever seemed to notice, though he was sure Takamichi at least must have known about it.
Eventually, that class graduated and moved on as well. Negi's training had made him powerful, and the time spent in Eva's resort left him much more mature, physically and mentally, than his official age would lead one to suspect.
Time passed, and his power grew to a level high enough to fulfill a promise he had made a long time ago.
He freed Eva from her curse.
She had been stunned to feel her power return in its entirety after all that time, and stunned again at the trust Negi placed in her. And in spite of her protestations that she was an evil mage who would go out and do terrible things, even a child could tell her words lacked the bite they would have had even a few years previous. In the end, she left Mahora with Chachamaru, Chachazero, and, surprisingly, Yotsuba Satsuki. The group traveled all over the world, stopping for a time here, making a short visit there, and overall simply going on an old fashioned 'Grand Tour'. She returned to the academy a year later, claiming boredom with the world and curiosity about how her various apprentices were doing; especially Misa, who had been doing quite well with darkness magic before Eva left.
When Negi's first class finally graduated high school, many things changed. Konoka, Setsuna, and surprisingly enough, Asuna, all went to the Konoe estate in Kyoto. Apparently, Eishun had fallen sick and Konoka had to go back to help run things while her father couldn't. Makie was set up for an arranged marriage and had to balance her gymnastics with the future prospect of a married life.
Chisame abruptly disappeared one day at the beginning of summer vacation and remained gone for three months. When she returned, she told wild stories of other worlds where albino zombies ran rampant and strangers wandered the campus, among other things. Tales of worlds much like her own, and tales of worlds drastically different. She had been many places and had many adventures before she found her way back to her own world, but was hesitant to tell any details.
Max Linell stayed on at Mahora as a PE teacher, while Jennifer and Akira worked in the city. Shortly after graduation, Akira moved into Max and Jennifer's shared apartment. It was rumored that they had a Ménage à trois type of arrangement, but everyone concerned denied it utterly. And besides, it wasn't as if people at Mahora wouldn't take a rumor and run with it.
The young gynoid Rally Wheeler became a common sight around campus, and during the time Chachamaru was off exploring the world with Evangeline and the others, she sent many letters and postcards to the younger robot, which Rally dutifully took great care of.
Hakase wrote a series of controversial papers on the nature of reality, and made a name for herself as someone who bucked the established scientific and mathematical system, and became one of the youngest people ever to win a Nobel Prize. She credited her amazing breakthroughs to a series of odd dreams she had had while in Negi's class.
But most of the others remained close to Mahora and Negi when they weren't off gallivanting around the world, and Negi trained hard every day, never forgetting the words Fate Averruncus had said.
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Six years after the defeat of Gaze, an attractive young man walked through the halls of Mahora.
The first year female students stopped and stared, and many of the second and third years did as well. Cries of 'Wow!' and 'He's so hot!' would allow one to follow his progress through the hallways, if one so wished.
He stopped in front of a particular classroom and took one last glance over the new class roster. 'Looks like an interesting class again this year,' he thought to himself as he recalled the words Takamichi had said moments ago: "Be careful, Negi-kun. This new class will be a lot like your first one."
Judging by the pictures and names of the new students, that was definitely so.
He abruptly flipped the class roster shut and opened the door, smoothly sidestepped the falling eraser, which he caught, and approached the podium. Stepping over the three tripwires, he placed the eraser on the rail at the bottom of the chalkboard and turned to face the class, casually sidestepping the suction cup arrow that thudded into the chalkboard and became stuck there. Looking over them, they really did remind him of his first class. In fact, Evangeline was smirking at him from her old seat, while Chachamaru sat calmly in front of her. He recognized the other gynoid, Rally, the ghost Sayo-chan, and a few other students he had seen near the dorms or around campus the past few days. He smiled, and most of the class swooned.
"Hello everyone, I will be your teacher this year. My name is Negi Springfield."
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Author's Note: That's the end of this part of the story. If you're interested in the future, keep an eye open for part 3, which I should start posting before too long. Be prepared for all sorts of insanity as students new and old find new ways to drive Negi insane as he prepares for the his showdown with Fate.