Mahou Sensei Negima! Fan Fiction ❯ Life In A Bottle ❯ It's Only Speculation ( Chapter 11 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

-----Author’s note: Far too long have I been silent! The story will now continue, no more ridiculous chapter droughts! Also, there are some big time spoilers for the Chao arc in here, so if you don’t want that, don’t read. You have been warned.

I do not own Negima!, but any other characters and ideas are my own. Enjoy.....-----


“But how is.....how is that possible? We were only gone-”

“A week, Negi. I know it’s difficult to swallow, but-”

“Why didn’t you come get us? Why didn’t you come get me? I wanted to.....I needed to be there!”

“By the time we figured out where you were, it was already over, and there was no way we could have gotten you out, anyway. .....It’s done.”

Negi stood up in anger, slamming a white-knuckled fist onto the table, “Then undo it! I will not accept this! I can’t!”

Takamichi rose to his feet, his fist snapping the table in half when it came down. He wasn’t angry at Negi, not at all. Sending the message that he was just as frustrated as the boy was his goal. The hanging light above the two swayed back and forth under the tension in the dark room, “You surely can’t think that this is how I wanted everything to turn out. What Chao did.....what she tried to do.....It was wrong.”

“She just wanted to.....It was the only way she thought she could make the world a better place! I don’t know what happened to her to make her think that way, but she thought she was doing the right thing!”

Takamichi stuck a cigarette in-between his lips, flipping his lighter open to light it up, “Negi, the ends don’t justify the means. Just because her heart was in the right place doesn’t give her the right to do as she pleases. You should understand that as well as anyone else.”

Frowning, the boy pressed, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Regretting the destruction of the table that had once separated them, Takamichi took a couple of steps off to the side, his free hand in his pocket as his other one removed his freshly lit cigarette from his mouth. Negi watched as a puff of smoke escaped the man’s mouth as he began to speak, “Two weeks ago we all took part in something.....something that I can’t really define. The things that we were confronted with, the decisions we made, all of it. When the Mother was poised to change the world, with pure intentions driving her, we didn’t allow it. Though neither you or I would have been around to enjoy it, what she offered was a utopia. We would not allow her to change the world, so why should we have let Chao?”

“The Mother was going to kill everyone! You can’t even compare the two!” The young teacher could hardly believe that Takamichi was trying to draw parallels between his student and a demon that had been bent on nearly eliminating humankind, “Chao just wanted to help people.....”

“Different people help in different ways. My way.....was to preserve our world. Had I faltered, she may have beaten me. I wonder if we hadn’t gone through what we did, would I have given her the opening she needed?” After taking another drag, the older man gave a half-hearted shrug, “Probably. I guess it’s not important.”

Hearing Takamichi use the words ‘not important’ in the conversation they were having stung. Negi was afraid for his student who, apparently, he was a progenitor of. His ties with his students had always been strong, but if he was really.....If she was his descendant.....

“Takamichi.....I’m sorry about.....I know that you didn’t ask for any of this. Chao is family, though, so I need to know that she’s alright. I want to see her.”

The man looked at the boy, and the boy back at the man. Takamichi couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking at an adult trapped in a boy’s body, sometimes. It was with a heavy heart that he shook his head ‘no’, “I’m sorry.”

“Takamichi, please,” Negi asked quietly, staring into his friend’s eyes, searching for some sign that he might break.

“The world is an unforgiving place, Negi. Every action has consequences, and we can’t avoid that. Even Chao couldn’t.”

“When can I see her, then?”

Takamichi’s cigarette seemed to dim, the red glow fading at these words, much like the owner’s spirits, “.....Never.”

“N-Never? What?” The young teacher stepped around the collapsed table to get in front of his friend, who’s somber expression didn’t tell him it had been a poor joke.

“That’s all. Just.....never,” The older one averted his eyes.

“She’s a member of my family at some point down the line, so you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think I’ll ever see her again! You can’t keep me from her, so wh.....What’s that look for?” The scarlet-haired boy managed to maintain himself enough to see the look of defeat in Takamichi’s eyes, which were now back on him.

“We’ve been having Misora keep an eye on Chao since her questionable arrival two years ago. With no information on her at all, it was a rather important task to make sure we monitored her. After all, she is a genius. As such, the blood tests we had done before had all been tampered with, and we never got solid reads. She’s definitely slick. After we incarcerated her, we performed some more simple tests, and now know that you are, indeed, of the same blood.”

“That means you know who the mother is, too, right? Who I.....” He wanted to say ‘marry’, because he didn’t want it to be a fling, but at the same time he was only ten, so he was confused and embarrassed as all hell.

“We do.”

“Well, who is it?!” Negi was practically ready to fall to his knees and beg for the information.

Taking a drag before replying, the man shook his head, “Negi, you can’t ever see Chao again because we’re not going to allow you to procreate with the female progenitor.”

Negi’s eyes widened, his mouth opening just a little as he stared at the man in white before him. Their eyes met, one pair shocked and distressed, the other sad and tired. The boy tried to speak, but couldn’t quite form the words.

“One simple incision in her family tree, and Chao will never be born,” The man continued, even if hesitantly, “It will be like she never existed at all.”

“But she did!” Negi exclaimed, his hands once again clenched into fists, “She did exist! You can’t take that away, you can’t! It’s like murder, you can’t do that! She has a life, sh-she has friends, and dreams!”

“Her dreams are what make her dangerous, Negi. She’s too smart for her own good, and this is what has been decided.”

“Why don’t you just erase her memory?” Negi suggested, desperately searching for a more desirable alternative, “Surely that’s better for everyone!”

“The council of mages has already made their decision, and they will not change it. Come on, don’t you think I tried? I don’t want this, either, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Now that the council knows who the progenitors are, there’s no way you will ever be able to get together. Since you don’t even know, any little nudge away from her by the council, and Chao’s gone.”

“It can’t be.....You’ve got to tell me! I.....” Negi grabbed Takamichi by the arm, though he was trembling and his grip was weak and loose.

“And what would you do with the knowledge? Run away with her and hide for the rest of your lives? That in itself would be an alteration in history, and there’s no guarantee that she’d be born, like that. No, you’re better off not knowing. Besides.....once you’re clear of the female progenitor, Chao will have never been born. That means she will have never come back in time, which means.....”

“I won’t remember her.....”

“None of us will.”

Silence fell over the two, but whether it was a mutual silence or a one-sided one was still in question. Takamichi had done more than enough talking, and would have been more than happy for it to be over. Negi, on the other hand, was full of questions and worries, the like that words were near impossible he was so overwhelmed by them. He didn’t want to do it, but there was just a little more he had to say before he could stop talking.

“Another reason we believed it to be important to watch her was that a certain spell was being tested those two years ago. Do you know what spell that was?” Takamichi knew the boy would know. Hell, everyone in the magic world had heard about it.

“You can’t be telling me that Chao is somehow related to that? To him?” Negi asked, his voice still louder than normal, so was his frustration with the entire situation.

“Would it be so farfetched? But, no, I don’t think Chao is directly related to him. I think, rather, that someone else is related to Chao.”

“.....What are you getting at?”

“Negi, do you believe in fate?” Takamichi asked, his cigarette finally dying out on him. He just went ahead and dropped the thing on the floor, a new one already lit up before it had even stopped rolling from the impact with the ground.

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” The boy replied honestly.

“Maybe.....it doesn’t. Or maybe it has to do with everything, I’m not sure, myself. This is just speculation on my part, Negi, but I think that there’s something deeper going on here than any of us know. I think that someone is trying pretty damn hard to wipe Chao off the map for good.”

“Tell me,” The boy urged, releasing his friend’s arm.

Nodding once before speaking, the man started slowly and gradually picked up speed, “It’s just too much of a coincidence that the interest in other worlds and making contact with them happened at the same time as Chao’s appearance in our time. Also, though it’s attracted much less attention than the world hopping issue, the mage’s council underwent a small series of power changes two years ago, introducing a few new faces. They’re all accomplished wizards, but shortly after the change there was a spike in the funding offered to those studying alternate universes and parallel dimensions.”

“For all of the interest that was being put into this research by the new members of the council, doesn’t it seem odd that they would drop it all and forbid it just as soon as success starts to show? They managed to pull a living, breathing, functional human being from another world into our own! Then they stop altogether, bury the projects, shred the documents, and seal their lips on the matter. Negi, we’re of the mind that Connor was pulled through the portal as the main object and that the Mother was a rather unintended parasite that tagged along, right?” He waited for the boy to agree, which he quickly did with a nod, “But what if we have it backwards? What if the Mother was the intended target, and Connor just got dragged along by accident?”

A few seconds of quiet passed by, Negi mulling over what Takamichi had said. Then he caught what might have been a fatal flaw, “But you’re assuming that there was a target, at all. That would be impossible, because we have no information whatsoever about where Connor comes from. We couldn’t know anything about what was out there, so how could we intend to take one thing, and not another? If anything at all?”

“That’s the interesting point,” Takamichi moved by Negi, returning to his seat. As he continued, Negi moved back to his own chair, “How would the council have been able to reach out across worlds and consciously grab something to take without first knowing it was there? They wouldn’t. That means that someone, or something, informed them of the Mother and what she was capable of.”

“Who? Who could possibly know something like that?”

“Hm.....” Was the meager response the boy got from Takamichi as another cloud of cigarette smoke escaped into the room.

“But why would the council want to unleash a demon like that on us? They protect people, they wouldn’t intentionally endanger us all like that!” Negi pointed out, his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, his brow furrowed in thought and confusion.

“There’s another point of interest. Don’t you find it odd that though the portal was opened up two years ago, that it took the Mother up until just recently to make any sort of move? Just prior to the festival and Chao’s plan? I think that the council contained and studied her until they saw fit to use her. I think that they knew the effects she would have on us in Mahora and, consequently, Chao and her plan, beforehand. Maybe without this intervention on their part, Chao would have succeeded. Who knows how different things might be had we never had to deal with the Mother, or had Connor never shown up?”

“Can we assume that they could know these kinds of things based solely on the fact that some of them may have come from the future, like Chao? It’s all feasible, but.....you’re doing a lot of guesswork, Takamichi. Who would want to do these things to make sure Chao’s plan failed? And then to go so far as to want her to never be born.....”

“I don’t know why Chao wanted to change the world, Negi, but she might just have some ruthless enemies who have some lofty connections. .....I don’t think this is over, yet,” The man said so low it was almost a whisper. He plucked his cigarette from his mouth, looking the boy in the eyes, “Monsters never die.....”

“You think that....?” Negi frowned, hoping that Takamichi was talking about something else. Anything else, would be better.

“Shizuna’s aura is back. She’s had the dream,” Takamichi confided in Negi, who practically fell off his chair.

“When did this happen? I haven’t seen her in a while! Are you sure that it’s.....she’s dead! I saw her dead body with my own eyes! Connor killed her!” The boy stated, his arms fumbling around the edges of his seat as he steadied himself and stopped his fall.

“It came back during the week you were gone. Another student in the academy has had it, as well. Don’t worry,” He raised a hand at Negi’s alarm, “It’s not one of yours. All of this is tied together in some way, I’m just not sure I’ve got all of the pieces. If something should happen to me, you know as much as I do, now.”

“Why would something happen to you? The dream.....that’s right. That means that we’re all at risk, again. If it really is the same thing.....”

“Go and speak with the headmaster. I believe he wanted to teach you something that you might find very useful in the future. God knows we’re going to need all the preparation we can muster.”

“Takamichi,” Negi muttered, rising to his feet, “It’s been two weeks since she died. Why would it come back now?”

“I wish I knew, Negi. I wish I knew.....” The mentally weary man sighed as Negi left, taking a deep breath of smoke from his almost finished cigarette as the hanging light above him began to flicker. The temperature plummeted, and he could feel the goose bumps rising all over his skin. The light above him died, and his cigarette went out a second after.

“How very astute of you,” An emotionless voice came from a few feet in front of him, though he couldn’t see the person in the pitch black.

“I appreciate what you told me before I confronted Chao, but you gave yourself and the council away from minute one,” Takamichi held back the quiver in his voice, intent on hiding any and all anxiety while in the presence of the Wanderer.

“Did I,” Serac stated more than asked, now several feet away to Takamichi’s right.

“Yes. I don’t understand why you’re going through all of the trouble of this just for Chao, though.....”

“I care not for the girl,” The voice came now from his left, “But for the continuation of things. This is how they continue, and thus I am content.”

“But to use the council, put the world in danger, manipulate countless people.....For what?”
“For the sake of the game,” Serac replied quietly, back on the right, “Puppets are made to be manipulated for the entertainment of their master and those who watch. You would do well to understand that everything you do, you do because your strings are being pulled.”

“Is the Mother really coming back?” Takamichi forced himself to ask, though he felt he wouldn’t get a very good answer.

“Time will tell what I will not,” Takamichi jumped when the voice came from below him, his chair clattering noisily onto its side.

After looking around in the darkness for a few seconds, he managed to ask another question, “Is Connor alright? It’s been over a week since he left.”

This time, the voice came from over his shoulder, so close that they were almost touching, “He does as instructed, as he knows he should. I have brought another to fill his space, however, so you need not concern yourself with such matters.”

“A-Another? What do you.....” The light flicked back on as the door to the room opened up, Seruhiko looking in to see what was going on.

“You ok in here, man?”

Takamichi, covered in a cold sweat, nodded a little, exhaling deeply, “It’s been a long day.”


-----Author’s other note: I’ll be damned that was tough. It didn’t come out the way I originally intended it to, but it had been far too long since I updated, and this is just what came out. Here’s hoping I still have more than three readers after not updating for over a month. And that I didn’t chase those three readers away with this really thought intensive/confusing as hell chapter. Oh, and as tomorrow morning it will be Valentine’s, happy Valentine’s day!

Thanks for reading.....-----