Mahou Sensei Negima! is the creation and intellectual property of Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.
Fate Stay Night is the creation and intellectual property of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.
Boku no Hero Academia is the creation and intellectual property of Horikoshi Kohei and Shueisha.
Ranma 1/2 is the creation and intellectual property of Takahashi Rumiko and Kodansha.
Code Geass is the creation and intellectual property of Sunrise.
The Family that Grows Together.
Prologue.
"Kiritsugu," the blonde woman asked. "I know I'm asking for too much from you, but... please look after Negi."
The man with the haunted eyes sitting by her bed grabbed the woman's delicate hand. It hadn't always been that delicate; once it had been strong, and firm. Stronger than his, even. But now she was withering away, life drained from her. Ever since Nagi had disappeared, she had lost all will to live, and her health had deteriorated even faster than Kiritsugu's.
"I promise, Arika," he told her softly.
"I know it's going to be difficult for you... so I apologize," the woman with mismatched eyes wheezed. "I'm not going to ask you to abandon Hirou..."
"Shirou," Emiya Kiritsugu corrected her delicately.
"Shirou," Arika said after a moment. "Don't set him aside, he also needs you and I'm aware of that. But... I have no family of my own, and Nagi's niece is still only a child herself. I don't know what else to do, Kiritsugu..." she confessed.
"I can look after them just fine, Arika," he insisted. "Don't worry."
At least, he hoped he could. He only needed to last a few more years, until Nagi's niece was old enough. Then he could join Irisviel, Arika, and perhaps Nagi himself in that great unknown with a more or less clear conscience. That is, if whatever higher powers existed allowed him to be with them. Kiritsugu was not fooling himself about the kind of man he'd been.
"You can take them to Wales if you want, Nagi has some properties there..." Arika breathed in, trying to stay awake. "There, you can plan your next move... about Illyasviel..."
"Thank you very much, Arika. Please rest easy," he told the dying woman. "I'll do my best. I swear."
Arika smiled, nodded a sincere thanks to Emiya, and let go of his hand.
She died shortly later that afternoon. Emiya filled the paperwork in the hospital as best as he could and returned to his current rented home to rest at last, for a few hours until the arrangements could be done.
"Is she...?" the caretaker he'd brought from Japan asked him warily, seeing him splayed on the couch, with a forearm covering his face.
"Yes. She is," Emiya said sorrowfully.
Midoriya Rinko sighed sadly. "Poor woman. She once had everything..."
"No. She never had anything, other than Nagi," Kiritsugu reflected. "The only things she had were loads on her back. Now she's at peace, I suppose."
He glanced towards the next room, where a happy little boy with wild dark green hair and freckles was trying to cheer up a blandly sitting red haired boy, barely older than him.
"Midoriya-san," Kiritsugu told the woman. "Would you be interested on moving abroad for good?"
The woman blinked. "Eh?"
One year passed.
One rainy afternoon, Rinko went to answer a ring at the front door. She opened and found herself face to face with a gigantic, soaked panda bear standing on its hind legs on the doorstep. A tiny pigtailed girl with red hair sat on one of those massive hairy shoulders. She waved at Rinko.
"Hello! I'm Ranma!" she spoke in perfect Japanese.
Rinko turned around and ran into the house, screaming. "EMIYA-SAAAAAAAAAAN!"
Shortly after, Rinko stood as far from the table as she could, frowning and holding Izuku in her arms. She glared at where Kiritsugu sat sharing drinks with that man with glasses.
"So Nagi died..." the visitor hummed. "That's a pity..."
"Indeed," Kiritsugu said dryly. It was obvious he was not much more pleased by having him there than Rinko was. "But if you didn't know that, what brought you here, Genma?"
"Isn't it obvious? I wanted to see if Nagi couldn't take these curses off us," Saotome Genma answered. "If not him, some of his mage friends! Say, don't you..."
"Sorry, but I hadn't ever heard about a curse of that kind before," Emiya said. "Not my specialty. You might try knocking at Clock Tower mentioning Nagi's name, but that might just get you killed instead."
Genma flinched. "I thought so..."
"It's your own fault, for taking a five years old child to train in China!" Kiritsugu all but exploded. Rinko hadn't seen him that energetic for months. "What the fuck were you thinking!?"
"I was thinking of taking him there after he was a teenager, but then I thought, why wait?" Genma shrugged. He looked at where Ranma, now a black haired boy, was playing ball with Izuku and Shirou in the garden. Nekane sat on the porch, watching them and smiling, with Negi on her lap. "Man! Nodoka will kill us now, literally. If she doesn't, Tendo-kun will."
"I wish I could help you," the Magus Killer said, "but I'm too busy right now. I still need to see how I can save Illya from Justabeicht, but maybe you could help me and I'd help you later."
Genma blinked, looking back at him. "Wow. You must be really desperate if you're willing to ask for my help!"
"I sort of am," Kiritsugu allowed.
"Why don't you ask Eishun?"
"It'd start a war between the Einzberns and the Kansai Association. I already messed up once, I'm not going to bring disaster to anyone else ever again, if I can help it."
Genma thought it over. "On the one hand, it's a suicide mission against a ruthless German dick living in a fortified castle," he said. "On the other hand, it may save me from my wife's wrath."
"No discussion, then," Kiritsugu said.
"You have the word of honor of a Saotome!" Genma said stoically, extending his hand over the table.
That wasn't much, but it was all Kiritsugu had at the time. So he shook the hand he was being offered.
That didn't go so well.
Another year later, Rinko, now visibly fatter and with larger bags under her eyes, opened the front door again. "Yes...?"
There stood a young, black haired woman in the uniform of a French maid, holding a wheelchair where a diminutive, scrawny girl with long wavy hair shivered in the early December cold. A boy, not that much older than the little girl, stood by their side, frowning at Rinko in a hostile way.
"Is this the residence of Mister Emiya Kiritsugu?" the woman at the door asked with an accent Rinko recognized.
Rinko blinked. "Are you Japanese?"
Kiritsugu came over, now supporting himself on a cane. "Is something the matter, Rinko?" Then he stopped, staring at the visitors. "Oh... Oh."
The maid bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Emiya-san," she said formally. "My name is Shinozaki Sayoko. These are young Master Lelouch and Miss Nunnally. I have been asked to deliver them to you, as a favor to the memory of their mother..."
"I never had any dealings with their mother," Kiritsugu said in Japanese.
"I do know the language, you know," the little boy said icily, also in Japanese. Ranma, Shirou, Negi and Izuku were coming from the next room to look at them curiously. The little skinny boy shot them an angry glare.
"Arika-sama did," the maid said politely. "And since you are the current manager of the state of Arika-sama's husband..."
Kiritsugu sighed. "I'm too old for this."
Emiya Kiritsugu sat on the porch, staring at the full moon.
"Do you feel better now?" Lelouch asked him.
Kiritsugu smiled sadly and nodded. "Yes, thank you."
"You need to take better care of yourself," Shirou said. "You aren't a young man anymore, you know!"
Kiritsugu tried to laugh. "You're right! There's a limit to all of us." His lips tightened. "There's nothing that can be done about that."
"Now you're getting all moody and emo again..." Ranma said, swinging his legs back and forth on the porch.
"Sorry to be a bother," their father said quietly.
"Don't worry, Emiya-san!" Izuku said. "If you can't be a Hero of Justice, we'll be heroes for you!"
"Yeah! A superhero team, like the Justice Society!" Shirou said enthusiastically.
"Don't lump me into those weird plans of yours!" Lelouch scoffed.
"And Lelouch will be the Batman, all grim and angsty and with a stick up his-" Ranma began.
"You always think you're so funny, don't you!?" Lelouch growled.
"Of course you aren't Batman, Batman works out," Shirou said.
"You too!?" Lelouch said. "Even you!?"
Kiritsugu noticed Nekane's hand on his shoulder.
He looked at the young blonde. "Uncle," she told him. "Are you sure you won't want to go inside? It's getting cold..."
The man considered that, and shook his head. He looked at the silver moon, which reminded him of Irisviel, so much. "No, thank you, Nekane. Not yet."
He put a hand on Negi's head as the youngest of all the boys chewed on a candy bar. "I'm proud of all of you," he said. "Knowing that the future belongs to you, I can be in peace at last."
Emiya Kiritsugu closed his tired eyes.
Yet another year passed.
The village burned, and Rinko hugged her bawling son. Sayoko threw another enchanted knife at the throat of another incoming minor imp. She was running out of them by now, and she knew that soon enough they would fall to the demons. But she would die fighting for those she loved.
There was fire everywhere, and Shirou was shuddering, with wide fixed eyes, sitting on the grass while Ranma tried to protect him as best as he could.
Then, a gigantic winged demon descended upon them, setting its wide crimson eyes on them. It opened a wide mouth full of long fangs, and prepared itself to roast them all alive.
But then.
A man appeared between it and them.
A tall, lean man with dark red hair, holding a long, bandaged, beaten up wooden staff. Rinko's eyes bugged out, recognizing him from the pictures Emiya-san had shown her. So would have reacted Nekane, if she hadn't been unconscious and injured on the ground.
The man raised an arm, pulled it back just as the draconic winged demon lunged down at him, and-
He
Punched
It
In
The
Snout.
The beast exploded.
Ranma gasped in awe. "So cool...!"
"It, it, it, it, it's the coolest thing I've ever seen...!" Izuku hiccuped through his copious tears.
Shirou stirred visibly, reacting at last. "Uhhhhh...?"
"N-Nagi-san?" Rinko babbled, going unheard over the howls of the furious demons approaching, and the noise of the crumbling burning houses. "Springfield-san...?"
When it was all over, the flames dying down, the man finally turned back at the smallest of the boys. "Negi," he said, his voice distant and soft. It was very unlike the voice Rinko had imagined coming from him, from Emiya-san's tales.
"Ahhh... Ahhhhhhh!" Negi whined, tears flowing down his face.
The man gently put his staff in Negi's hands. "When you are old enough, please look for me." There was a long pause, as he looked at the child in a concerned way. "And kill me," he finished, but softly enough Negi couldn't hear him. Rinko did, or she thought she did, though, even though later she'd try to convince herself she'd misheard.
"E-Eh?" the woman said, blinking while Nagi Springfield vanished like a mirage in the light of the dawn.
The long night was over.
Five more years passed.
"I tell you, I don't feel like I belong here..." Ranma said, loosening the collar of his suit again.
"We know!" Lelouch hushed him under his breath. Nunnally sighed. "Be quiet, it's his turn now!"
The gigantic main hall of Merdiana Academy was bathed by a clear light shining through the large stained glass windows. Nekane exhaled lovingly, seeing her little cousin advancing towards the elder Headmaster, under that white light.
Negi took his pointy hat off and bowed to the white haired man. "Sir," he told him.
"Negi Springfield, the top graduate of your class. I am proud of you, son," the Headmaster said. "And no doubt, so are your relatives."
"We areeeeeeee!" Izuku said, bawling along Rinko. "We love you, Negiiiiiiiiiiii!"
"Shut up, you two!" Lelouch said, trying to pull them back down to their chairs.
The audience clapped, and the ten years old in a long robe turned back to them and bowed. Nekane wiped a single tear from her right eye.
"This is the happiest day of my life!" she declared.
Several minutes later, she was gasping loudly. "What?! Japan!? No! This is the saddest day of my life...!"
Negi sighed. "Big Sis, please..."
"Headmaster, there's got to be a mistake here!" Anya Cocolova, the small, red haired classmate and fellow graduate of Negi, argued with the old man. "No way a clueless brat like Negi could look after himself in a foreign nation!"
"Well, if the spirits of magic themselves are saying it, who am I to rebuke them?" he shrugged, looking at the graduation scroll in his hands. He gave it back to Negi. "Good luck, dear boy! I'm sure you'll be a very efficient educator!"
"It's not so bad, we can go with him, Ranma, Izuku and I grew up there after all," Shirou said. "It's not like we have anything better to do here, do we?"
"I barely remember anything about Japan, to be honest," Izuku said.
"Me neither," Ranma added.
"You... You don't have anything better to do here?" Nekane asked in disbelief. "Oh, Shirou! Sometimes I don't know what to think about you!"
"Well, we can continue our studies there," Shirou shrugged. "Dad had a house in Fuyuki, maybe we can move in there?"
"I can't! I have a job here!" Nekane lamented.
"Well, then we'll see you again this summer," Ranma offered. "It'll only be a few months, Sis!"
"Someone has to look after our house in our absence, I suppose..." Sayoko pondered.
Nekane sniffled. "You're all so heartless!"
"Please, Sister, don't try to guilt trip Negi," Nunnally requested. "He's a grown up with responsibilities now."
"You're thinking of going as well, Nunnally?" Anya asked.
"Of course I am, I'd never let Lelouch go anywhere without me," Nunnally said matter of factly.
"You're being the same thing you're accusing her of being!" Anya pointed out.
Negi read the scroll once more.
A teacher in Japan, read his assignment.
Negi smiled to himself. "I'll do it, Father," he mused. "And I'll be a Hero of Justice, just like you and Uncle..."
And so our story starts.
To be Continued.