Fate Stay Night is the creation and intellectual property of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.
The 100 Girlfriends who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love Negi Springfield.
Chapter Two: The Magic of Love.
"You mean you're gonna make me a babysitter?!" Akashi Yuuna said.
Her father tried to laugh it off. "Now, come on, Yuuna! This is a child prodigy, he's probably more mature than you..."
"So the baby is going to babysit me instead?" the young woman shot back. "Is that meant to be any better?"
"Yuuna, please," her mother said. "Don't make us look bad before the Principal."
"But why do we have to do this!?" their daughter argued. "Okay, so he can't stay with Despair-sensei or Tiger-sensei, that's the sole sensible thing! Even so, he can stay with Takahata-sensei, or Kirisu-sensei!"
"But we are a family," her father said, "and a child needs a family to look after him."
"Oh, so he's a child for that, but he's old enough to teach classes," Yuuna said.
"Basically," Akashi Yuuko summed up.
Yuuna sighed. "Why are you even consulting me, it's your house and you already made up your minds..."
"Look at the kind side, at least he isn't going to teach your class." Wataru-sensei smiled and played with her hair.
She smiled back. "You're right! Asuna hates children, and Iinchou loves them too much!"
So, that afternoon, Yuuna hadn't bothered to fancy herself up, just to meet some kid. She arrived home before her parents could, took a shower, dressed as casually as ever, and waited for him while checking her phone.
She was just lazing on the couch when the front door rang. Ah, that must be him, Yuuna thought, and got up to greet him.
She opened the door, looked down at him, and as soon as her eyes met his, she felt herself weak in the knees.
Yuuna had never felt that way for someone younger than her. If anything, her type was that of much older guys, and she'd been teased by many, including her mother, about being a bit of a papacon. But this boy, he was good looking. Given a few years, Yuuna could tell he was going to be devastatingly handsome. And the way he looked back at her, she'd impressed him in return...
But Yuuna forced herself to blink back to awareness. "Um, so, you're Negi Springfield, aren't you?" she asked.
He nodded mutely, and then blushed and bowed. "P-Pleased to meet you! I, I wasn't aware Akashi-sensei had a daughter!"
"They... They didn't tell you?" Yuuna said. Then she stepped aside and gestured at him to walk in, which he quickly did. Rasping, she closed after him and tugged down on her shorts, feeling woefully underdressed. "Sorry about this, I just got off the shower..."
"Ah, no, sorry for being so early. I... I had nowhere to go, I suppose." Negi coughed into a fist. He set his travel bags aside, keeping his father's staff in his hands. "What a beautiful house. Are your parents...?"
"They'll be here shortly," Yuuna said. "Um, please leave your shoes by the door."
"Oh! Oh, yes, naturally!" he said, quickly taking them off.
Yuuna moved to the kitchen and returned with a pitcher of juice and two glasses. "Soooooo... What's the walking staff for? Aren't you too young to need one?"
"Ah. This?" Negi chuckled nervously, putting the staff by a couch. "It's not like that. It's a memento from someone important... My father," he added after a moment. "I'm keeping it until he comes back."
"Ah," Yuuna said. She decided not to press on the issue yet. She filled a glass for him, and he accepted it with a thankful nod. "So, you are from... Ireland, right? Ireland, or Scotland, Dad told me..."
"Wales," Negi said.
"Wales! That's it!" Yuuna slapped her forehead. "Welcome to Japan. Did you already meet your students?"
"Yes. Yes, I did!"
"Dad told me you're teaching the class Takahata-sensei taught last year." Yuuna sat before her and poured herself a glass. Why was she so nervous? "One of the boys there, Emiya-senpai, lives a few houses from here."
"Oh, that's good to know," Negi said, still impressed at how cute she was. What was he supposed to do now? Then he got a good look at her shirt. "Do you practice sports?" he asked, trying not to admire her toned figure.
"Oh, yeah!" she brightened up. "I'm on the basketball team!"
"Seriously? That's great! Please tell me about it, Miss..."
"Yuuna."
"Miss Yuuna! Sorry!"
"Don't apologize, why would you? You know, you've got very good Japanese for someone so young. Anyway, there's not much to say about it, but..."
He listened to her in pleased satisfaction, learning that when it came to basketball, Akashi Yuuna actually had a lot to say. And then there was a click of keys at the door, and a good looking man with glasses entered the house, followed by a beautiful woman around his age, with long chocolate hair.
"Mom! Dad!" Yuuna said. "Look, it's Negi-sensei! He's a really cool little guy, you really undersold him!"
Negi got up quickly and bowed. "Professor! Professor! Thank you for taking me in! I'll do my best so I'm not much of a nuisance..."
"Don't say that, please!" the man laughed it off. He grabbed Negi's hand and shook it vigorously. "It's a real honor! Yuuko-chan and I have read a lot about your father..."
Negi blinked. "You have?"
"Oh, yes!" the woman laughed quietly. "A rather famous... scholar."
Negi blinked, looking at her face. The first thing he thought was he'd been lucky he hadn't felt the spark when he looked into her eyes. The last thing he needed at the time was falling in love with a married woman who also was the mother of the girl he liked, Then he caught on to what the woman had said, and realized that, while the couple knew about magic, their daughter didn't, and they didn't want her to know. That might be a problem later.
Negi nodded. "I see. Thanks..."
"I'll cook dinner, in honor of our guest!" Yuuna said happily, heading for the kitchen. "Don't worry, Sensei, I'm the best cook in the house!"
"That's not true, he is," Yuuko smiled at Negi, pointing at her husband. "I'm a disaster at cooking anything! But luckily, Yuuna-chan took after him there."
Negi smiled back. He even had great in-laws! Things looked really up on all fronts now. Who knew, maybe Chamo could fix the issues with his soulmates anyway, and he'd stand a chance of forging a happy life for himself with Yuuna, the way he'd always wanted to.
He was still a child. He didn't know that things rarely work out that way.
That evening, after dinner, Yuuna's father asked Yuuna and Yuuko to wash the dishes while he talked with Negi.
He took the boy outside, and they stood together in the front yard. "That was sexist of me," he allowed with a weak smile. "But I needed some private time with you."
"You don't want me to tell Yuuna-san about the world of magic, do you?" Negi guessed, lowering his voice.
"We'd prefer it if she never learned about it," Wataru-sensei sighed. "Five years ago, Yuuko was nearly killed. We worked together as field agents for the Mages' Association, and a mission in Mundus Magicus was sabotaged from the inside."
"Five years ago..." Negi mused, shuddering inwardly.
The village burned all around him and Nekane...
"We agreed that life was too dangerous for us, and the Headmaster let us have safe jobs here." The man looked at the city, prosper and quiet. "I... Sorry, Yuuko and I know what happened to your father, well, what is known to the public anyway, so I don't want to hurt your feelings, but... you of all people should know the risks. That's not something we want to expose Yuuna-chan to."
"I understand perfectly."
"Good boy." The man paused. "Thanks for being so understanding. You're very mature, much more than I was at your age."
"I try, Professor."
The man extended a hand. Another tiny drop touched it from above. "It's starting to rain. Let's go back inside. I'll show you your room."
Fujimura Taiga sneezed and hastened her steps.
Her shoes splashed on large puddles as she went down the sidewalks. The rainstorm battered down on her, and the umbrella she was using barely provided any protection.
"Stupid Kuzuki, if not for him..." the short haired woman murmured.
Her colleague had to take one of his extra assignments out of town that day, loading Taiga with his hours in addition to hers, so she had to leave the school late, and the rain had surprised her in the middle of her way home.
She supposed she could have called her grandpa, and he'd have sent a limo to take her home, but Taiga had her pride. She preferred to bother her grandfather as little as possible.
Well, she wasn't far from her house now, at least. Only a pair of blocks more and-
Then she came to a sudden halt, faced with a fallen body as soon as she turned a corner. Taiga winced, at first believing she'd run into a corpse. A more careful look reported that the person was alive, but barely; it was a woman, that much was evident, curled up on the pavement, hugging herself and trembling. Taiga looked in all directions wildly, but there wasn't anyone else around. Nobody with any sense was out at those hours, under such a heavy pouring.
"H-Hey, are you conscious?" she asked, crouching down and touching the stranger's shoulder carefully. "Can I help you? I could call for an ambulance...!"
The other woman glanced back at her, over her shoulder. She had a delicately gorgeous face, fair skinned and framed by a dark hood, thin locks of purplish hair soaked on her cheeks. "A-Ambulance? N-No.-.. Please..." she begged weakly.
Oh, crap, Taiga thought. Must be an addict on the run...
Even so, she couldn't leave her alone there. Something must have been rubbing on her from Shirou. "Can you get up?" she asked, starting to propel the woman up on herself. "C'mon, you'll catch your death from a cold here..."
"Haaaaa..." the stranger wheezed, limping clumsily while Taiga helped her down the street. Somehow, they arrived at Taiga's large house in a matter of minutes, although the teacher was already soaked from toes to head by then.
The short haired female set the other woman on a couch in the living room, pulling her hood back. "Here, you'll breathe better this- What have you done to your ears?" she wondered aloud, getting a clear view of her features. "You had them sharpened or something?"
"Thank you, but... I'm not going to make it," the other woman coughed. "Too weak... need... mana..."
"You need what?" Taiga said. She reached for her phone. "No, forget it, I know what you need. An ambulance, hold on there, it's not like you're bleeding or-"
"My ailment... isn't anything your doctors can cure," the stranger lamented.
"Say what?" Taiga arched an eyebrow.
"I am... a creature of magic."
"Sure you am." Taiga began dialing.
"I need mana or I'll fade," the woman moaned. "My Master died and I've spent hours... so many hours... without an anchor."
"Uh huh," Taiga humored her. "Hello? Nine One One? My name's Fujimura Taiga, I want to report a-"
"I had to kill him..."
Taiga lowered the phone. "What!?"
The woman coughed again. "Surely, you... you have heard about the recent... disappearance of young women all across this city. My Master was behind them..."
"Oh my God," Taiga breathed.
"I had to kill him, he was a monster, I... he... he made me to... to...!" her hands wringed madly, as she spasmed in place.
"Hey, whoa there!" Taiga tried to hold her steady. "Calm down, please, you'll hurt yourself!"
"I'm so sorry! But I need this! I want to live!" the other woman said, with crazed new strength gained from desperation. She threw her arms around Taiga's neck, pulled her to herself, and deeply kissed her mouth.
"MMMMPPPPPH?!" Taiga's eyes shot out of their orbits. She struggled hard against the madwoman, but for someone who was dying, she was shockingly strong, and before long Taiga was not minding that much in either case.
Neither of them had ever thought they could be into women. The thought had never crossed their minds before. But as the thunder roared and the water pummeled Taiga's windows, they started hugging and squeezing and kissing, and they went on to rip each other's clothes, and then and then and then and then and then and then.
They kept on going all night long, all control of their passions gone, and when dawn arrived and they finally were sated, they rested next to each other, naked, on the floor and staring at the ceiling.
"What... What kind of creature are you?" Taiga panted, bite marks all over her. The woman was not a bloodsucker, but she was fond of using her teeth, one way or another.
The purple haired lady sat up, fixing her hair back with great composure. Her voice was steady and clear now. "I am a Servant of the Caster class. Anti Heroic Spirit from the Era of Gods."
"Ah, that explains everything..." Taiga groaned. She put a forearm over her own face.
"No. But perhaps this will," Caster said.
And she proceeded to explain what was absolutely necessary at the time, no more and no less, with easy to grasp detail. By the time she was done, Taiga stared at her in perplexity, resting on her side in the nude.
Caster made a small apologetic smile. "Will you help me, Fujimura Taiga?" she asked her. "Will you give me the chance to call you Master?"
Taiga decided she could not tell Kiritsugu, Irisviel or Shirou about any of this.
The next few days felt like blessed ones.
Yuuna and Negi had struck a solid, quick friendship, at least from Yuuna's perspective. As for Negi, he was finding out that keeping magic a secret from her, necessary as it was, also was making him feel like a dishonest heel. This bothered him, but he put on a happy face as she told him about her team and the games of the next week.
He'd never needed to hide his magic before. In his tiny village, almost everyone was in the know, and then he spent years on Merdiana, where everyone was a student at magecraft and mysteries. Not telling Yuuna was taking a toll on his heart, feeling that he wasn't being himself. He wondered if the Akashi couple also felt that way, to any degree.
The situation was mostly good at the academic front, and while the boys could be a handful, most of them meant no ill. After a week had passed, and dismissing the latest class, Negi gestured to a few of his students to stay. "Harima-san, Saotome-san, Saruyama-san, Mamiya-san, Moroboshi-san, could I speak with you for a while, please?"
"What's up, Teach?" Ataru approached the desk, hands in his pockets.
"It's more of a matter of what's doing, namely your grades," Negi said, adjusting his nose pincer diminutive glasses while looking at the papers in his hands. "The five of you have the lowest grades in the class by far."
"Well, that's why we're the Baka Rangers." Saruyama shrugged.
"The what?" Ranma asked.
"You know, the super awesome Sentai Team of Rebellion against the System," Saruyama said. "You're the hotheaded Red, Harima's the independent Black, Otaru's the sensitive Pink, Ataru's the potentially treacherous Green, and I'm the all around nice guy Yellow."
Mamiya blinked. "Why... Why am I the girly one!?"
Harima took his sunglasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "That's the dumbest crap I've ever heard..."
"Where's the intelligent Blue?" Ataru asked, apparently not bothered at all by being called treacherous.
"There's none," Saruyama said. "That's why we're a team of idiots."
"I'm not an idiot, I'm just not motivated," Ataru yawned.
"Boys, please! This is a serious matter!" Negi said. "Your academic and professional futures hinge on your performance!"
"I wanna be a professional martial artist, not a bean counter," Ranma said. "I've got great PE grades, don't I?"
"What if you lose a leg or an arm, you'd need to rely on your academic preparation then!" Negi told him. "That's no excuse! Sado-san is very athletic as well, and Emiya-san's an Archery star, and their grades are much better than yours!"
"You have very morbid thoughts for a child," Otaru said. "Why would any of us randomly lose a leg or an arm?"
"We hang around Bakugo, maybe one of these days he'll bite one of them off," Ataru said. "Maybe he's got a point!"
"Hah! Good one, but I'd bite his head off first, and he knows it!" Ranma boasted.
"Anyway, starting next week, I'm putting you on an extra study plan after classes," Negi said. "We'll visit the Library every day and go over your weaknesses, until you have reached an acceptable level."
"Oh man, do we really need to hit the island?" Otaru winced.
"Island?" Negi asked.
"You haven't been there yet? Library Island!" Saruyama said. "The library takes over the whole of that island over there!" He pointed out through the window. Negi blinked at the small island at the middle of the nearby bay, linked to the mainland by a long bridge.
"I had no idea that building was reserved for the local library..." Negi said. Yuuna was no Baka Ranger herself, but she didn't like to talk about studies either."
"Well, the library's full of cute girls working as staffers, so there's worse ways to spend an afternoon!" Ataru grinned. "Looking forward to that, heh heh!"
"One of those girls is my sister!" Ranma reminded him with a growl.
Ataru blinked. "You need to stop being so protective of Haruna-chan, my friend! Let her choose her boyfriends already!"
"She'd never choose you anyway, you weasel!"
Negi sighed and felt a headache coming. Funny, he'd never suffered from headaches while in Wales...
"I'm home," Negi said, and then he smiled to himself, realizing how true that sounded already. Home. He had found himself a home away from home now, along with a new family of sorts, and even a-
"Oh, hey, Sensei, look!" Yuuna waved at him from where she sat with three girls her age. "I invited my best friends for dinner!"
Negi blinked, walking closer. All three were very pretty, although only the tallest one, a shapely girl with very long black hair made into a ponytail, could be called 'beautiful' over 'cute'. The other two were shorter than Yuuna. One of them had very short pale hair and the pale skin to match, and the other one was a perky, slim ball of energy with pink hair, all but hopping in place where she sat.
"Oh, nice to meet you, ladies," he said, setting his staff aside. "I'm Negi Springfield, and-!"
He froze, his eyes locking with that of the tallest girl of the quartet. Her eyes widened just as much, and she straightened her spine almost painfully, jerking back.
The spark. Again. Chamo hadn't fixed anything!
To be fair to the ermine, he'd never promised he would...
"O-O-OOkuchi Akira!" the girl gasped, trying to regain her wits. "I'm in the same class as Yuuna-chan... and the swimming team..."
"I'm Sasaki Makie, their classmate!" the pink haired one giggled, walking up to him and shaking his hand. "So you're Negi-kun, the famous child teacher! I'm so glad to meet you, Negi-kun, I'm-!" Her jaw fell somewhat loose, as her pupils and Negi's matched.
Doki, doki, DOKI DOKI DOKI! Makie's heart went.
Thump, thump, THUMP THUMP THUMP! Negi's heart went.
Yuuna and the fourth girl frowned, looking back and forth between them. Akira was still too flustered to notice.
"I am, I am, I am, heeee, I'm so, so embarrassed, I don't know what came to me, Negi-kun..." Makie slurred, eyes narrowing dizzily, and pink hearts floating around her.
"Maki-chan, please, is rooming with Iinchou rubbing on you?" the fourth girl asked her diplomatically. She came over to Negi, and bowed. "Sensei, I apologize in the name of my friend. She can be a bit spacy at times! My name's Izumi Ako, and I'm the manager of the local football team."
"Ah, ah, the pleasure's all mine, Izumi-san," Negi blushed, ashamed of himself while shaking the steady hand Ako offered him. They shared a look with no other reaction. The streak was broken for the moment. "Will you, will you be staying over after dinner?"
"We are!" Makie jumped on the chance.
"What? Maki-chan! You can't break the curfew! The Dorm Mother will be mad!" Yuuna said. "And besides..."
"Dinner's ready!" Yuuko-sensei said, walking into the room. "Oh, Negi-kun, you're back already! Go wash your hands, will you? You have met Yuuna's friends already, haven't you?"
Negi nodded, still blinking several times at the bashful Akira and bedazzled Makie. Ako raised an eyebrow, frowning slightly.
"You'll have a lot to talk about, I'm sure!" Yuuko said. "Wataru's attending an important call, but he'll be joining us before long..."
Standing behind the house, the head of the family frowned over the call. "Are you sure it was him?"
"Completely," Takahata's voice answered. "Clock Tower itself confirmed it. The dental and blood records are categorical. It's Atrum Galliastra."
Professor Akashi sighed, exasperated. "A Heaven's Feel. Here. Forty years early and in the wrong place. The timing couldn't have been any worse!"
"On the plus side, we just learned who was behind the disappearances. On the other hand, whoever killed him is still out there. We can't say for sure that the disappearances will stop now."
"A Servant. We aren't equipped to deal with a Servant!" Wataru said, starting to pace around.
"Or a Master who escaped with Atrum's Servant. If only we'd found his workshop before..."
"A Servant, the Master of a Servant, for all practical purposes it's the same. We can't deal with this shit, Takamichi, we just can't. The old man should just evacuate the school..."
"Under which official excuses?"
"I don't know. I don't know! Look, I need to go. Negi's back." He glanced into the house. "Keep me posted, okay?"
"Fine. Take it easy. We won't get anything from panicking now."
"I'm not panicking. I never panic," Wataru said, reentering his house.
He closed the door after himself.
The full moon had just appeared in the sky.
Wataru-sensei looked at the clock on the wall. "It's too late," he said as his family and guests finished dinner. "Girls, you should stay over for the night. We'll call the Dorm Mother and tell her you're here."
"You would? Oh, thank you very much, Sensei," Akira said demurely.
"Yay! Yuuna-chan's papa is awesome!" Makie thrusted a fist up. "See, Yuuna-chan? I told you we should have a pajama party tonight!"
Yuuna sighed. "Well, things always go your way after all, Maki-chan!"
"It's an advantage of living well and with an honest heart!" Makie giggled, winking at Negi, who sat next to her, and hitting him with her elbow. Negi laughed awkwardly, nodding at her.
Ako looked at them in silence.
The married couple went to bed early, while Negi locked himself up in his room as usual- he didn't want to sleepwalk into anyone's bed while there, after all. He knew himself and he'd gotten in problems in Merdiana because of that. Ako, Akira, Makie and Yuuna were in Yuuna's bedroom, chattering and spending their time as best as they could and wanted to before hitting the bed.
Wataru rolled on his.
"Takamich's right, you can't crawl up the walls for this," his wife patiently told him from his side. "The Headmaster will take care of everything..."
"A Grail War. That's a potential city destroyer here, Yuuko," Wataru said. "I was in the Fuyuki cleanup crew. I saw things nobody should ever see. What good was bringing Yuuna here if that kind of trash follows us here!?"
"We'll think about that tomorrow," she said. "It's been only ten years since Fuyuki, maybe it's all a misunderstanding and Galliastra was full of shit. There's no way the Grail could manifest again so soon."
"I hope you are right, you... you... What the hell is that!?" he asked, jolting up on the bed right before something, heralded by a loud whistling sound, flew in through their window, shattering it and filling the room with knockout gas.
Outside, across the street, from a rooftop, someone made a quick call. "It's done. You may move in now, Master."
"Excellent," a voice replied. "Stay on the lookout. Over!"
"Negi-kun's really cute, isn't he?" Makie snickered, all four sitting in a circle on Yuuna's top bunk; the lower one was reserved for visits such as these. "I mean, when he's older, he's gonna be a heartthrob!"
"I knew it, you're thinking about him that way," Ako said. "Maki-chan, please...!"
"Hey, there's no harm if I only look! Right, Akira-chan?"
"Why, why are you asking me about that?!" Akira gasped.
Yuuna sighed. "Don't even think about that, guys, Mom and Dad will kill me if- What the heck is that?!" she screamed abruptly, hearing the noise of broken glass and the subdued gasps from her parents' bedroom.
"I, I don't know!" Ako gasped. "A gas leak!?"
"I have a bad feeling about this!" Makie gulped.
And then their window exploded from the outside as well. "KYYYYYYYYAAAAA!" the girls shrieked, shielding each other as best as they could.
A figure floated in through the broken window. A tall, voluptuous, sublime figure wearing black lingerie, her shoulders wrapped in a ragged black cape. Long golden hair trailed behind her.
"Don't worry about them, children," a husky, sultry voice rang from this vision, as if mocking them. Actually, it was mocking them. "Rather, worry about yourselves! Or more specifically, worry about delivering Negi Springfield to me!"
To be Continued.
Author's Notes:
I'm not much of an Ako person.
Negi's not going to zing with any married woman, but there's no guarantee that women canonically married necessarily have to keep their living husbands in this continuity. Just sayin'.
Evangeline's not giving warning this time. Attacking girls in Sakura Lane for days before targeting Negi is somewhat pointless since it paints a target on her for the Mahora staff, and theoretically speaking Konoemon can just set guards around her all day long, while she is powerless, as soon as she walks away from her cabin. True, she could sic Chachamaru on them, but at this point Takahata still can take Chachamaru down. After she gains a satellite that can knock Fate out, not so much, but that's far into the future. Eva can take on all of them in a full moon night, but Konoemon could just move Negi out of her reach before then, and without access to Negi, she gains nothing from kicking them all around.
But canon Konoemon is an idiot.
Or is this Chachamaru? The figure on the rooftop might be Karin here, for all you know. Or it might be someone else altogether. Then again, maybe it is Chachamaru.
Be good!
