All Purpose Negima Fanfiction Thread

Royally Messed Up Family

Nagi and Negi stood nervously outside the door of the room Arika and Yue were talking. 

"This is kinda scary," Nagi said.

"It's only Yue talking to mother," Negi said. "How could that be scary?"

"Some of the scariest things in the world have happened because of two women talking in a room," Nagi said. "I wanted to be an astronaut, but my aunt Hermione insisted to my mother I go learn to be a Magister first like my cousin Rose. I could have gone to the moon!" 

Both Springfield men sighed dreamily at the thought. 

The door open and Arika stepped out, adjusting her shoulder strap, Yue following behind. "You have my blessing in your pursuit, Miss Ayase. Good luck."

Yue finished wiping her mouth. "Thank you, Arika-sama." She nodded at the men. "Nagi-san, Negi-sensei."

The two blinked at her. "What was that about?" Nagi said as Arika made some notes on a clipboard. 

"Ayase, Farandole, Sevensheep, Monroe… oh, Yue-chan was just… convincing me to approve her request," Arika said with a bright, satisfied smile. "NEXT!"

Evangeline stomped into the room behind Arika. 

"Now, Miss McDowell, you've applied to be mistress to either my husband or my son…" Arika said as she closed the door. 

Negi looked even more confused. "Why did the Master have a can of whipped cream and chocolate syrup?"

Evangeline, The Undying Mage stood before what remained of the ice-covered battlefield. Cosmo Entelechia was defeated. Whether killed, surrendered or driven off, there were no more enemies left. But now, she had other business to attend to. “You!” she snarled pointing at Rakan. “Where is Nagi!?”

“No idea!” laughed Rakan. “And even if I did know, it’s too much fun watching your frustration for me to tell you!”

“Watch yourself!” Eva growled. “I’m already pissed off about that scroll! I should kill you where you stand! You’d better make up for it before my good mood ends! For now, I’m gloating. Once again, I’m free! Once again, the ground trembles before my feet! Bask in my glory! Boya! And you all too!” she pointed at Negi and her classmates. “Go ahead and bask!”

“The spirits consider this a field trip under the supervision of the Principal, Eva.” Konoemon explained. “Once I leave, you’ll be forced to return.”

“Then you’ll have to stay here, won’t you!?” snarled Eva as she spun towards him.

“I’ll lose my position of principal if I stay too long.” Konoemon replied. “Then you’ll be forced to return anyway. You won’t gain your freedom this way, Eva.”

“Then is killing the boy really the only way!?” asked Eva as she flung her arms out. “I was hoping that drinking his blood over a long period of time would work, but I’m still trapped!”

“Obviously that wouldn’t work!” Rakan laughed.

“What are you talking about?!” asked Eva as she turned towards him.

“I think that I’m about to earn that scroll!” he smiled. “Nagi told you to ‘live in the light’. You’ve been drinking blood to strengthen yourself. That’s an example of the path of Darkness! But the path of Light is to…”

“Rely on your allies!” Eva finished with widened eyes. “That would mean gaining a pactio! Sub-creature!” she called, pointing to Chamo. “Draw a pactio circle!”

“Y-yes!” Chamo agreed as he raced down Negi’s body, before drawing a pactio circle in one of the few areas left unfrozen. Eva stepped into the circle.

“Boya! Come here and kiss me!” she ordered.

“That’s not going to work!” laughed Rakan. “Nagi’s spell is too powerful to be disrupted by merely becoming one of a mage’s several ministrae! It requires the dedication to become a mage’s first minisra! However, as you’ve been drinking his blood, it should accept any mage as long as they have no other ministrae!” He stepped into the circle. “Rakan-for-the-laughs-Eva-freeing-sexy-kiss!” He pressed her lips against hers.

The only other thing that Eva was aware of was the sound of gasps and Chamo yelling, “Pactio!”

This was the first time Chizuru had been up close to a major magical battle while still conscious. She decided if she had any choice in the matter in future, she'd bring sunglasses. Good ones.

Alladia was hurling deadly spell after deadly spell at the three of them, only to see them all shut down by the counterspells that Eva fired off as easily as she breathed. Or rather, as easily as someone else breathed, since she suspected that Evangeline had left breathing far behind her.

The vampire was easily tanking the fallen king's spells with one hand, while countering with her own spells with the other. Though impressive, the spells only seemed to equal Alladia's and that didn't really square with Evangeline's reputation. They also didn't seem to be doing much good. It took a while to realize, since Alladia's spells were blindingly bright (again, very thick sunglasses), Chizuru soon saw that Evangeline's spells seemed to disappear some distance from Alladia.

As she watched, he called up another spell that further scorched the floor around him before he sent it flying towards Evangeline, who effortlessly batted it aside. What had he invoked with that spell? Why was it affecting the walls and floor despite the artificial Magic Cancel? Chizuru went back over the words faintly heard ...

Photos? Doesn't that mean light?

She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but realized that Evangeline seemed well aware of the situation, if her frown was any indicator. "Clever," she said, sending dozens of magic arrows at the area around her foe, watching them describe a roughly spherical area centered on Alladia. "Instead of a mere shield, you've placed yourself within an Anti-Magic Bubble the dissolves all magic but your own. You haven't been reading the Epic Level Handbook, have you?"

"What in Hecate's name are you babbling about?" Alladia hissed. "Did you truly think that I wouldn't take the possibility of your betrayal into consideration?"

"Try certainty!" Eva snapped back.

"Indeed, I see now that was bound to be the case. You are as unworthy as all the rest. Only I am worthy of my love!" And he threw another spell, not light based this time, but crackling with fire.

"Resigned to a life of masturbating, are we?" Evangeline dispersed it just as easily. "Eventually, you're going to run out of energy, you know. Unlike me, you can't do this all day."

"Foolish vampire wench!" Alladia sneered. "I —

"Did you really just call me a wench?" she yelled.

"I have taken that into consideration, as well. I tap the magical energy of my homonculi for my own purposes, and a new one emerges from the laboratory below every minute! I will never run out of power! I will outlast you, wench! I am the King of Day! Let your darkness wither before my majestic brilliance! Seek as hard as you are able! You shall not overcome my light!"

"He did it again!" Evangeline seemed more amazed than angry.

"Do you possibly know a man named Dynamis, father?" Arika asked.

He ignored her. "Surrender! Bow to me, vampire, and I shall be merciful!"

"I bow to NO ONE!" Evangeline snarled. Her foot stamped hard onto the floor beneath her, shattering it with the blow. It was guarded against magic, not pure kinetic force. "You are a brute, germ, but I am a monster. You think you're the first who's sought to trap me? There is a difference between brutes and monsters, speck. Brutes know only strength. Monsters ... monsters know cunning." With a daintiness and dexterity that had Arika blinking in amazement, Evangeline's toes picked up a head-sized chunk of debris and flipped it up to her now-free hand, no longer striking at Alladia with magic. "Let's get old-school, you arrogant, deluded whelp!"

Maintaining her defense, she threw the chunk at Alladia with an off-hand gesture. The chunk spun like a meteoric discus, streaking almost as fast as one of Eva's spells.

The move surprised Alladia, and he instinctively raised a hand to ward off the projectile, reacting to survival instincts more ancient than magical combat reflexes.

The chunk slammed into his forearm full on, and a loud, bloody snap echoed through the air a beat before Alladia's inhuman howl of agony as both bones in his forearm shattered.

Evangeline laughed. "Mortals. For all your magic and power, you all react the same when someone throws a rock at you. " Her foot slammed onto the ground, tearing out another chunk. She threw it at Alladia. He barely managed to shield against it, and it shattered to dust on his shield. He tried to retaliate, but Eva threw another rock as he cast, and he had to use his spell to blast it apart. It fragmented, peppering him with debris, and he let out a hiss of pain as some hit his arm.

"Even with your Royal Magic, that won't be a picnic, " Evangeline purred as she slowly began to stalk forward, tearing out another chunk and throwing. "Your arm is shattered, halving your casting ability. The fragments digging through your flesh must be agony. But you seem to be going into shock, so I expect it's starting to feel better…"

The distance between them shortened inexorably ...

---

When the Chao Bao Zi hove into view above them, Negi let out a sigh of relief. Clearly, Satomi and Mana had made it to the restarant in time to help the chef get it in the air. "Setsuna, with me!" he yelled, then mounted his broom to take flight up to the flying car. Setsuna followed him, keeping an eye out for flying enemies while his were fixed on their target.

"Negi-kun!" Makie yelled from the cable car's window, waving frantically.

"Makie-san! And Asakura-san and Sayo-san, too!" he added, seeing them in there with her. "Thank goodness you're all right!"

"For a certain value of all right!" Asakura shouted, surveying the tower. "What the heck's going on, Negi-kun?"

"It's more of the same stuff as yesterday, I think!" he replied as he swept forward to speak into the car's control booth. "Satsuki-san, what did you mean by other systems?" he asked the chef, who was at the controls.

Satsuki looked uncharacteristically grim as she explained that he was about to get a demonstration of what she'd meant by that remark. She turned to look at Satomi, and nodded once.

Satomi drew in a deep breath. She couldn't see what Satsuki was so upset about. This wasn't violence, this was simply demolition. She wasn't trying to harm anyone. And unless there was someone behind the wall she was about to shoot, she wouldn't hurt anyone.

But what if there was?

She silenced the voice that asked that treacherous question, and pushed the firing studs of the Chao Bao Zi's twin guns.

A repulsor works by directing a stream of compressed and ionized air before it, then sending a stream of charged neutrons through this medium. At the time of this incident, the system's inventor had only theorized about using it as a means of propulsion, rather than as an offensive weapon. But Chao had seen what came from his ideas, and implimented them.

A pair of thunderbolts hit the side of tower, and its wall crumbled.

---

As the wall burst open, Alladia started in surprise, and once more instinct betrayed him. He turned, even as he called defensive shields to protect him from the debris and Eva's missiles. It was a mistep, and from the look of things, he realized it almost at once. But by that almost, it was too late.

The ground beneath her exploded from ruthlessly transferred kinetic energy as Evangeline streaked forward, claws extended. She moved not by shundo but by the mere inhuman force of her slender legs.

One claw slashed open Alladia's back in a spray of blood as another as the other dug its nails into his skull. There were cracks and pops as she dug into the bone, drawing back his head and fully exposing his throat.

"You want to have me, fool?" she whispered. "You wish to be together? Very well. Let me know you ... intimately."

Her free hand brutally pierced through the back of his rib cage, tearing through the front clutching his still-beating heart. Her other hand tugged further back.

Chizuru averted her gaze, but she knew the sounds alone would haunt her nightmares — in particular, the hiss of disappointment a moment later, as the corpse collapsed to rot in Evangeline's hands.

"I ache all over," Misa complained as she allowed her fall into bed, on her back, in a long blue sleeping robe.

"Me too," Sakurako plopped on the other bed. "When I started doing training for the cheers, I though the coach was harsh and asked for too much too fast, but this... this is even worse..."

"I doubt you had it worse than me," Misa groaned. "I hate that little pervert's guts, and for once I don't mean Chamo. She's some sort of magical being with powers all her own, isn't she? I'll bet she never had to train for anything herself..."

"If you're really that tired, just sleep already," Chisame mumbled, lying down as well, with her back turned on Shiina. "When I'm busted, I don't feel like complaining."

"You aren't busted too often, are you?" Kakizaki snarked.

"If I felt like I could move my arms, I'd hit you," Chisame said.

Then she felt Sakurako poking her in the back. "Now what?"

The cheerleader whispered in her ear, "Ne, Chi-chan, what if you sleep with Misa and let me spend the night with Satomi-chan? I've never slept with her, and... well, it'd be nice..."

"Eva forbid it, remember?" Hasegawa sighed.

"Eva won't know..." Sakurako's whisper became a plea. "Pretty please...?"

"No. Eva has told us she has eyes everywhere, and I believe it," Chisame snorted. "Moreso in her own house. You can bet she's hearing and watching us right now, hoping to find anything to exploit against us tomorrow."

"I wouldn't put it past them, yeah," Misa rolled around in the bed, looking at Hakase, who stumbled out of the bathroom pulling her pajama pants back up, yawning and blinking sleepily. "How you feeling, Prof?"

"Spent. Sore. Weakened. Unable to think of more related terminology, which must mean I'm truly in a sorry physical condition," she chewed the words, falling on her face next to Misa. "Good night, Chisame, Sakurako-chan, Kakizaki-san."

And then, just like that, she was giving the tiniest snores ever.

Chisame sighed. "Good night," she said, reaching for the lights and turning them off.

"Same here," Misa said, sounding somewhat downcast now. "Say, Chisame..."

"Oh, what's the problem now?" the hacker asked.

"That brat told me partners almost never marry their Magistra. Who do you think is right, she or Chamo?"

"Neither," Chisame snapped.

"But..." Misa doubted.

"I wouldn't trust either of them on anything," Hasegawa humphed, tightening the blankets around herself. "What does it matter, anyway?"

"... You know I'm serious on my plans for him," Kakizaki whispered, sounding strangely vulnerable all of a sudden.

Sakurako blinked. "For Chamo-kun?"

"For Negi!" Misa raised her voice.

"Oh," her best friend seemed relieved.

Chisame made a face. "You're crazy. And you never could be serious about anything, much less something demanding long term commitment."

"I am serious!" Misa declared strongly. "I don't care what you and Kuro may think, I'm not going to quit on that goal, no matter what!"

"Good for you, I guess," Chisame muttered. "Can we just sleep already?"

Misa huffed. "Sure, if that's all you care about!"

"Right now? Hell yes!" Chisame shot back.

Misa was about to retort when she felt something encircling her waist. "Chisame!"

"What?-!"

"Hakase is hugging me!"

"That's a bad habit she picked from Negi," Hasegawa shrugged. "Just let her be. She won't try to kiss you in her dreams or anything. She only wants body warmth. I suppose her parents didn't hug her enough."

Misa clenched her teeth. "I must have done something really horrible in a prior life..."

Sakurako turned around to look at them in the darkness, with longing. "No, it must be more like your karma and mine were switched accidentally...!"

"This one was a homonculous, too," the little vampire muttered. "Where's the original?"

"For all we know," Arika replied angrily, "the original died with our kingdom, eighteen years ago. Your charming little antics are —"

"Magnificent," Alladia's voice issued from a concealed speaker somewhere in the room, as his face appeared on the last remaining monitor that hadn't been shattered by the magics exchanged in the duel. He looked strangely rapturous. "You would have been a perfect bride," he added, clearly directing this remark at Eva.

"I think it's pretty clear that ship has sailed, moron," Eva snarled in reply.

"I think it's pretty clear that he wouldn't bother to put an audio pick-up here," Arika sneered.

"I think it's pretty clear that you two should get a room," Chizuru mused as she headed over to the large hole in the wall. Sighting Negi flying near the floating Chao Bao Zi, she waved a bit frantically to attract their attention.

As Eva and Arika traded revolted expressions that they eventually directed at back of the youngest woman present, Alladia continued to speak. "Coward, you call me?" he said, clearly working from a script that Eva hadn't seen and so didn't bother to follow. "No coward I, but a king. Should a king face his foes when there are armies of his servants to do so for him?" His tone changed, then. "But rejoice, Maga Nosferatu, for you have driven me at last to an extremity I would have preferred to avoid."

"Rather than just wanking, you're going to try auto—" Evangeline started to ask, but the transmitted version of Alladia's chant interrupted her, and she frowned. "Wait a minute," she said. "That spell ... no, that can't be right, that spell doesn't work, it —"

"What is he doing?" Arika asked, appalled, as she watched Alladia start to melt. Not decay, as his homonculi did so rapidly when slain, but melt. His skin bubbled and slid off his frame, revealing the naked bone and muscle, which in their turn transformed into oozes that dripped down, dragging his liquifying organs with them as they went. The last part of him to remain solid were his brain and spine, with the still open eyes glaring out at them in a way that somehow suggested immense satisfaction, before they too oozed and fell from view.

"He got it to work," Eva said, clearly amazed. "He must have employed light magic in the design, that's why I could never ... wait, if he — oh no."

"Master! Mother! Chizuru-san!" Negi cried out as he flew right up to the hole. "What happ—"

"Get out!" Evangeline interrupted, roaring at the top of her lungs. "All of you, get out of here, now, before —"

Two things happened then. First, the edges of the hole in the wall began to shift and pulse, as though they were living tissue starting to heal the great gash shut. Secondly, the floor shifted, tilting slightly.

Just enough to pitch Chizuru, standing by the hole, out through it, faster than even Negi's enchanced reflexes could hope to catch her. She was too startled to even let out a cry as she plunged towards the ground.

Less than a second into her descent, though, a ribbon — one significantly longer, she thought, than regulation probably required — soared through the air towards her. Chizuru desperately reached out with both hands to grap it, just narrowly managing to hold onto the last foot or so of its length.

Above, on the back of the Chao Bao Zi, Makie let out a shriek as the sudden weight on her ribbon almost pulled her off her feet. "Little help please!" she cried out, as Asakura and Ku Fei both quickly wrapped their arms around her to hold her in place.

Once she saw that Chizuru was out of immediate danger, Arika immediately leapt through the hole to land behind Negi, wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace. "I am so sorry," she whispered into his ear.

"Eh?" he asked, startled. "Why?"

"I —" Arika paused as she saw Eva flying out of the hole without even a glance in her direction. She knew that she ought to tell him. He needed to know. But the battle wasn't over yet. Indeed, as she turned to look at the tower, she knew it had barely begun.

For the tower was shifting, and twisting, and bending ... and then, quite abruptly, it no longer resembled a tower at all, but a colossal humanoid form. One that she knew rather well.

"Now," said her father's voice from the colossus' mouth. "Now, let us settle this."

And Eva might be Ostian Royal.

Rakan's Tale of Troublesome Trollery — Segment Ten

The pizza delivery was sadly soon aborted and left to rot on the street as, for no reason at all, when a sudden loud squealing came up and a man flew into the door for no reason whatsoever with such force that the door broke and he landed against the wall on the opposite side of the room. Moments after he came through, another ear-shattering squeal came out and in the doorway appeared a boar easily as tall as Chad...'s elbow.

Uryu was the first to react after Yoruichi had hissed and sprang with claws extended onto his leg, hopping up and down and cluchting at the scars in pain, while his friends ignored him and stared at the man as he dusted himself off. He had on a bandana, a large pair of square glasses, and wore it all with an ego that was nearly visible to the naked eye.

"Huh. Guess I got thrown off my boar again."

---

The man rose triumphantly, and even as the ginger girl with the creepily large rack began to voice a questioning noise, he held his hand up with such imperiousness that the girl fell silent. At the same time, a low buzzing sound began making itself heard, and all bar him glanced at the girl, as if she was making the noise.

Strange. Nevertheless, the tall man removed his glasses to send perfect eyes roaming more clearly across the room, taking in the area before alighting on and narrowing at the orange-haired idiot in the bitch shihakusho.

---

Ichigo noticed that the weirdo's face turned from self-aggrandising smugness to a scowl of dislike that performed miracles for his face, somehow making it even uglier. He sighed and looked at the ceiling, determined not to start a fight with everyone in Soul Society. he had to save some beatings for the shinigami, after all.

---

The punk-ass shinigami looked pointedly away from the majestic man of mystery (well, except to the elder, who probably knew him), obviously scared and intimidated by his awesome. Nevertheless, that punk-ass shinigami couldn't be allowed to get away with his various and vague crimes even if he did acknowledge the man as his utter superior.

He stalked closer, leaning down to the carrot-head's face and scowling into it quite handsomely. "What's a punk-ass shinigami like you doin' here?"

---

Ichigo pointedly stared past his ear and at the wall. His friends edged away slightly, even Uryu having been on the receiving and of a Kurosaki Kracking of Sanity before. Yoruichi groaned mentally and hoped that at least the house would be spared. They did not have time to spare to play Fix-The-House-The-Protagonist-Broke-During-A-Bonding-Experience.

---

The man sneered again and began poking and prodding at the shinigami's face, as the weirdo's eye twotched more and more. Tough luck, because even a nervous habit wouldn't save him fro an ass-whupping at this point.

"I asked you," he said, enunciating clearly and yet gloriously. "What. Is. A. Punk. Ass. Shingami. Like. You. Doin'. Here?"

---

Orihime, meanwhile, sensed a strange smell in the air. It was reminiscent of the previously-unmentioned-but-still-here-anyway-because-the-author-said-so fireplace, and her nose detected, in the middle of that scent, a faint hint of...

...Bacon?

On the ground below, the rest of Ala Alba had watched this mid-air rescue in horrified silence, and then (for the most part, with Ayaka excepted) been distracted from it by the transformation of the tower into its humanoid form. In the process, its formerly jet black walls had lightened slightly, to the point where they were perhaps best described as slate grey. That wasn't the distracting part.

The colossus was anatomically correct.

As it happened, Haruna found her voice first. "I am never going to be able to draw the male nude again, am I?" she asked faintly.

Ordinarily, that would have prompted a snarky response from Yue, perhaps along the line of every dark cloud having a silver lining. At the moment, all she, as well as Nodoka and the other girls who had never been exposed to male nudity before this, could do was stare in disturbed horror up at the thing between its legs.

"Scatter!" Asuna shouted suddenly. "It's going to start moving, soon, and its feet are going to — scatter!"

Sure enough, the colossus did indeed lift one of its feet and shift its posture so as to take a step forward. The girls promptly darted in various directions, all trying to move away from the prospect of being stepped on. Except for Asuna, who held her ground even as it became clear that the foot was coming down directly towards her.

"Okay," Asuna whispered. "I guess I'm a caltrop, then." And as the foot came down towards her, she thrusted the point of her sword upwards with all of her strength. The colossus let out a grunt of pain and flinched back, before coming down again just in front of her. The impact knocked her off her feet, but she she got a clear enough glance at the foot to see that it wasn't 'bleeding'. All she'd done was cause it some surprise and pain, not injury.

Up above, Negi was quietly freaking out. "It's immune to all magic, and now it's moving around. How does it do that —"

"He's merged his flesh and soul into the tower's stone," Arika told him. "I don't how that works, but —in any event, it's not immune to all magic, there's one kind that —"

"Light magic," Eva said, looking at her disciple for the first time since his arrival. "The kind you can't use, boya. Not anymore." Her tone was flat and emotionless. "I have a plan. You just need to keep it in check for about five minutes. If this doesn't work, you need to tell someone that light magic will take it out."

"Master, what are you going to do?" Negi asked frantically. "You can't use that kind of magic either!"

Now she looked away from him. "These last few months ... haven't been bad. That's all I have to say to you, right now." She looked down, watching the Chao Bao Zi lower itself and its lone dangling passenger safely to the ground. It only took a moment to spot Chachamaru, approaching one of the colossus' feet with her arm blades out.

Chachamaru, she sent, using the abilities of her doll contract for the first time in quite a while.

Master, the gynoid replied, halting her charge. What is your command?

This may be the last order I will ever give you, Eva sent ... and having said so, found herself at something of a loss to decide what it should be. Live, she decided at last.

And with that last command, she turned and began to fly up and away.

---

Can't use that kind of magic?

Nothing is ever that simple. There's no rule that says that shinso and other creatures of darkness can't learn that kind of magic. It can be used to harm as well as heal. It was power, and I wanted to have all the power there was.

Knowledge is never harmful. Corruptive, yes, I will grant you. But simply learning to cast a certain spell will not ever hurt the one who learned it.

Using it is another matter.

It's not a matter of can't, with me. It's a question of, can't safely. If I use such spells, I will harm myself. Since I don't want to harm myself, I don't cast those spells.

And so here I am, at the end of the journey that began not too far from here, that day when you cast that random incantation on me. I am soaring up, up higher than I have been wont to fly in the past, as high as Chao flew for her battle with your son. And when I reach my apex, I will cast a random incantation that I've developed over the years, a few odd moments at a time. What goes around, comes around, I suppose.

Why am I doing this?

I regret nothing. I am not atoning for anything. Every vile deed I have ever done has been born of necessity, or was thrust on me unwilling, from the massacre I perpetrated in the moment of my awakening as a shinso, to my most recent murder.

So then why?

Only to you, who are not actually present, but who have never been far from my thoughts in all these long, lonely years, will I admit the truth.

I do this for love.

I love this place. I love the people here. Now that I can leave, I am faced with the fact that there is nowhere else I want to go. Now that I must leave, I only want to stay. I love my classmates, I love my teacher. I love the late nights spent playing go with the old man. I do not love your wife, but she will, I am sure, live with the loss.

And yes, I love you.

I wish I loved myself.

---

"What's she doing, running away?" Haruna shouted as she ran behind Nodoka, who'd started to use her knowledge of Evangeline's true name the instant the vampire began to fly upwards.

"No," Nodoka said softly, staring up in wonder and horror. "No, she's not."