Edit: My apologies to anyone who read the rather confused prior version of this, as I made several errors while compiling it for final release.

Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey
Chapter 18 and Finale

The future, Asuna had decided, kind of sucked.

When she had at last awakened from her century-long dream, she had found herself alone, beneath the World Tree. That she was there gave her the comfort of knowing that her sacrifice hadn't been pointless, that she had kept the tree alive in its moment of weakness. But that had been a momentary satisfaction in the face of her bewilderment at how she was alone. Why hadn't Negi, at least, been there to meet her?

From that, she had passed to wonder at the sight of the immense, towering space elevator, leavened with confusion at its presence here in Mahora instead of at the equator, and from there to shock at the realization, courtesy of a news broadcast displayed on a screen on one of the buildings, that she'd slept for thirty years longer than the outside of her expectations. What did that mean? Why had it been so long? Negi had said that they'd wake her as soon as the time machine was ready. Had it taken much longer than he'd anticipated?

Where was Negi? Where was Evangeline? She'd found the ruins of the cottage, but no one had lived there for decades, it seemed. Finally, she'd been driven by panic to do something she almost never did - she researched.

Stepping into something resembling an old phone booth, she'd figured out how to call up the computer system and do a search for the name Negi Springfield. The first thing that had came up was a Wikipedia site on him, which revealed that his whereabouts were unknown. She'd sighed with relief at the fact that he was still alive, but this put her no closer to actually finding him. Discovering a local directory, she'd started looking for the family names of people associated with the academy, like Konoe, or Yukihiro. She'd come up lucky on the latter, and promptly sought out one Yukihiro Koishiro.

The security guard on the professor's residence had been polite but firm. "I'm sorry, but I can't just let anyone in off the street to visit Professor Yukihiro."

"Okay, okay, but ... um ... could you tell him that I need to talk to him about, about Negi Springfield?"

"I'm sorry," the security guard had repeated.

And then, from behind her, Asuna had heard a young girl's voice. "Are you looking for Negi-san?" She'd turned to be amazed at the resemblance between Professor Yukihiro's only granddaughter, Aiko, and the girl she'd known all those years ago. Finally, she'd thought, things were going her way.

And now, here she was, standing before a grave which proclaimed itself the final resting place of Negi Springfield (1993-2065), and all she could think was that the future really sucked. "But ... but the computer," she said. "It told me that he was still alive ..."

"Oh, dear," said the young girl beside her. "I think you must be the last person on Earth to know how easily Wikipedia pages can be edited. Unfortunately, there's a small cabal of people who insist that Negi-san never actually died, and they frequently make edits to his page and those of his best-known associates to support that theory. I suppose matters aren't helped by the existence of multiple physical sites claiming to be his grave, but ... well, it can't be helped."

"So he died?" Asuna said, faintly.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't really know much about him, unfortunately, other than the fact that he was very close to my great-great-great-grandmother ... though she actually outlived him, since she passed away when she was 115, about thirty years ago. According to my grandmother, she lived so long because she hoped to be around when another friend of theirs returned. But those are surely just idle stories," the young girl said with a shrug.

"Uhhhh."

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I really must be on my way -" Aiko started to say.

"W-wait!" Asuna interrupted. "Um, your family's company -"

"Yes?" the girl asked.

"Uh ... did it, did it ever do any sort of ... really unusual, crazy, out there research, a-about - uh ..."

"Oh, are you asking about the time travel project?" Aiko asked. "I get asked about that one a lot, as well. Unfortunately, the answer is always the same - it never produced a working model, and it was finally shut down not long after Negi-san passed away. The expenses were just insupportable."

"No," Asuna whispered, horrified. "What ... what was the point, then? Why did I ... what was the point?" she finally cried out, dropping to her knees and starting to sob.

"Which brings to mind something that my grandmother said to me about one of my other great-great-great grandmothers," Aiko said, as she considered Asuna's sobbing form. "A favorite saying of hers, rather."

"What? What?" Asuna asked, through the tears.

"GOTCHA! Who's the queen of messing with people?" she quoted, pulling a watch out of her overcoat, holding it up so that Asuna could see the resemblance to a Cassiopeia, and smiling broadly.

Asuna stared.

An interval passed.

"Hee hee hee," Aiko giggled, despite her bruises and swollen black eye. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be laughing, but the analgesics my nanomeds are releasing have a slightly euphoric side-effect. And also I find your anger somewhat amusing for some reason. It's very wrong of me. Hee hee hee hee."

"Good for you," Asuna retorted, rubbing her knuckles with one hand while also holding the watch. "Thanks for reminding me why I hate kids!"

"You're welcome. Hee!"

She shook her head in annoyance. "So this works like a Cassiopeia would?"

"Almost," said Aiko, still chuckling a bit. "However, it's pre-set so that it will home in on one particular esoterrestrial discharge."

"... huh?"

"'Magical'." The girl made a gesture which Asuna took for air quotes. "Specifically, the surge of 'magic' that accompanied the Great Renewal, shortly after the turn of the twenty-first century."

Now Asuna nodded in understanding. "When I went into suspended animation and healed the World Tree's illness," she said.

"Actually, no," Aiko replied, shaking her head. "I'm not a historian, but from what my grandmother has told me, your situation didn't actually cause the World Tree to recover. I'm not actually clear what did. Everyone I've asked about it, recently, has just coughed and changed the subject. It's very strange."

"... how old are you?"

"I'm in my eleventh year. Why?"

"Never mind. I kind of have a hunch I know what it's going to be," she said, ruefully. "Okay ... so, I have no idea how I'm going to return this when I'm done with it."

"It's all right," Aiko assured her. "We don't use such things any more. After the breakthough that led to their construction, they were used quite a bit, which led to a great deal of chaos - the fixing of which is part of the reason you slept so long."

"Ah, right. I was wondering. All right. Um ... sorry about losing my temper just now."

"That's all right," the little girl said, smiling in an eerily familiar way.

"Right." Asuna took a deep breath. "Here we go."

And just like that, she was gone.

About one hundred and thirty years earlier ...

... it's closer to one hundred and thirty than it is to one hundred and forty, okay?

Cripes, you're picky.

The sun was starting to clear the eastern horizon.

"Any minute, now," Negi repeated once again. It had started to sound rather hollow quite some time ago. "Quite some time ago", incidentally, was also when Anya, Ayaka and Setsuna, who had both looked extremely broken up themselves, had helped a sobbing Konoka to walk away, without even once giving Negi a glance. It seemed likely that Zazie had also absented herself around the same time, though he had to admit that he hadn't actually noticed her departure.

Chao and Satomi had quietly withdrawn sometime after that, leaving Negi alone on the ground beneath the World Tree's sagging branches with Konoemon and Fate. Neither had said anything. Neither had reacted to Negi's periodic repetitions of his mantra.

Until now, at least. "Um ... Negi-kun, while I'm sure that whatever delay is preventing Asuna-kun's arrival is only a temporary one," Konoemon said patiently, "I should point out that we do still have to work today. While Fate-kun might not require sleep, he will need time to prepare his lessons for the day -"

Fate cleared his throat. "Actually, sir, I was hoping to have a word with you after the success of Negi-kun's plans, but under the circumstances -"

"Any minute now."

"- it would probably be for the best to get it over with," he concluded. "I am offering you my immediate resignation as a teacher at Mahora Academy. I have grotesquely violated the academic code of conduct, and will do you the courtesy of resigning rather than being fired."

"Violated the -" Konoemon started to say, the eyes beneath his bushy brows actually showing.

"I have had sexual relations with one of the students in my care," Fate confessed.

Negi, who showed no outward signs of paying attention to anything other than the World Tree, flinched slightly.

"You ... what?" Konoemon sputtered.

"I have had sexual relations with one of the students in my care," Fate repeated, on the assumption that the old man's hearing was failing him.

Konoemon stared at him, aghast. "Was it ... no, no, it couldn't ... please tell me it wasn't Konoka."

Fate actually blinked. "It was not your granddaughter."

"Good, good ... wait, are you telling me that because I told you to do so or because it's the truth?" the old man demanded.

"The latter," Fate confirmed, unsure how to take the Headmaster's obvious horror at the idea of him as his grandson-in-law. "In the name of protecting the victim, I would prefer not to go into greater detail. Nonetheless, it is clearly impossible for me to continue acting as a member of the faculty at this academy. I suspect you would ordinarily be filing criminal charges, but as I am a legal non-entity, that could be somewhat difficult. Therefore I will depart and continue to support the terraforming project - assuming that it can continue - from another location."

"... I suppose, on the whole, that would probably be for the best," Konoemon said, sounding as tired as someone who'd just spent the whole night standing outdoors should be.

"If you will excuse me, then, I will be seeing to Shiori's welfare," Fate concluded, bowing, and then turned and departed.

"... I honestly wonder which one it was," Konoemon mused out loud. "I'm a bit surprised you haven't reacted to this, Negi-kun."

"Any minute now."

"Or perhaps it's not all that surprising after all. Ah well. I'll leave it in your hands, then," the old man said vaguely, before heading off in the opposite direction from Fate.

"I honestly didn't see that coming," said Chamo, resting on Negi's shoulders, regarding him with quite a bit of concern.

"Any ... min ..." Negi said, his voice failing him at last.

"Aniki?" Chamo asked, as the artificially aged boy began walking unsteadily towards the tree trunk. When he arrived at last, he leaned forward to rest the palms of both of his hands, and the side of his face as well, against its bark.

"Why?" he asked, quietly. "What did I do wrong? I don't understand. Did I just not do it soon enough? I don't understand. What do you want of me? I don't understand. Why?" he finally howled.

"Negi-kun?" asked a voice from behind him.

With some difficulty, Negi managed to push himself back from the tree, then turned around to see who had addressed him. As he did, he vaguely realized that it was a bit strange that he hadn't recognized the voice immediately. Perhaps the roaring noise in his head was distorting his hearing. After all, there was no way that he wouldn't recognize this girl when she spoke to him.

"Akira-san," he said. Yes, the roaring must be distorting things. His own voice sounded almost unrecognizable for how unsteady it was.

Perhaps it was even distorting his vision, for Akira's usually stoic features looked utterly appalled at the moment. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "How are you? I mean, uh, I mean, why are you out and about so early?"

"I was jogging," she said, and indeed he belatedly noticed she was wearing a jogging suit. Yes, the roaring had to be messing with all of his senses. "M-Makie recommended it as a way to clear one's head, and ... Negi-kun, what happened?"

He searched for the right words for a moment. "I blew it," he said at last.

Yes, his senses were definitely distorted. That must be why it took until now to notice the absence of an actual weight on his shoulders. "Akira-san," Chamo was saying from the ground between the two of them. "I think maybe aniki may be having some kind of a breakdown. You might wanna get clear, I think this is gonna be seriously seriously bad on the landscape."

He watched Akira take a deep breath. "Don't be silly, Chamo-kun," she said, as she started to walk towards him. "Negi-kun would never hurt any of us. No, never."

"You didn't see him in the bath with Asakura-neesan, way back when!" Chamo protested. "And he wasn't nearly as over the top then, so, please -"

"What exactly do you mean, 'you blew it'?" Akira asked Negi, calmly meeting his thousand yard stare and firmly ignoring Chamo.

"I didn't save Asuna. I didn't save the World Tree. I didn't save the magical world. I haven't saved my father. I ... F-Fate has shown more integrity in one day than I have in weeks ..." Tears were starting to flow down his cheeks, but he kept talking. "I've debauched the entire class. I've perverted Makie into something ... something I don't even recognize, anymore ... and ... I ... broke ... your ... heart ..."

"... the whole class?" Chamo nearly shrieked.

Akira's steady pace towards Negi paused, and she took a single step back which - purely by coincidence, surely - resulted in her foot coming down where Chamo was standing. Crunch. Then she started walking towards Negi again.

"All this power," Negi said, gazing at his hands which he'd held up before him and which were faintly crackling with lightning. "All this power, and I can't ... do ... any-"

"Negi-kun," Akira interrupted sharply as she stood in front of him. "Do you know what the heart is?"

The sheer non-sequitur nearly floored him. "Huh?" he asked softly.

"Do you know what the heart is?" she asked again.

"Ah ... the, the feelings, the affections, I mean -"

"No," she interjected again, her own hands coming up to press against his cheeks. She might have flinched at the heat that was flowing from him, but now was not the time for that. "The heart is a muscle. When you damage a muscle, it scars and gets tougher. And you get stronger. More able to make yourself do what you need to do. When your heart gets broken ... it mends. And you realize what's really important." A deep breath. "Negi-kun. I love you. No matter what happens, what you do, I think that I will always love you. And no matter how much of a failure you think that you are ... you are never going to be a failure in my eyes."

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, again feeling the heat and again not flinching.

"I really ought to complain about animal abuse," Chamo brokenly observed as he regained consciousness, gazing at the two forms frantically kissing, caressing and oh my undressing before him. "But I'm just too damn happy right now ..."

Since arriving at Mahora, and especially since he'd found himself aged up, Negi had had the opportunity to learn many new things. Until now, however, he had never fully apprehended how difficult it could be to remove a pair of sweat pants without using one's hands - occupied as they were with the shoulder blades of the young woman whose sweat pants they were. Lifting one's foot to try and pull them down through rubbing at the ankle proved less than efficacious, perhaps because of their respective postures - him resting with his back against the tree, her pressed up against him with one leg lifted so that it might have wrapped around his hip had the tree not been in the way.

If the posture was the problem, however, then it was possible that a change in that posture might be a solution. If so, he was about to learn something even now.

Study, study, he told himself, then pushed away from the tree, slightly startling Akira - though not enough to prevent her from seizing the opportunity to perform the aforementioned 'wrapping' maneuver - and, with a pair of quick steps, reversed their positioning relative to the tree and pressed her back against it, kissing her soundly on the mouth as he did so. From the sounds coming out of her throat, she approved. That approval became more verbal as he began kissing down her jawline.

"Negi-kun!" she cried as he descended far enough to kiss her sports bra-covered bosom, and proceeded to tear the fabric clear with his teeth. It would probably have been simpler, he mused as he began to tease and bite at her now-exposed nipple, to use his hands to remove it, but he hadn't thought of it until afterwards. Never before had he so thoroughly given himself to the moment as he was now, not even in battle. All else outside of the moment was a blur.

Once he was done, and Akira's nipples both bathed in his saliva, he kissed down her long, flat stomach, briefly fucking her bellybutton with his tongue to her cries of rapture, before once again solving the problem of removing someone's clothes without the use of his hands through the employment of his teeth. First the pants, sliding them down around her knees, and then the bikini briefs beneath, pulling the strings taut until they snapped. He moved in, to repeat the action with the bellybutton with another, much more sexually relevant orifice.

"NEGI-KUUUUUUN!"

The sight of it snapped Chamo out of his daze. "What ... what am I doing?" he asked, as he watched Negi going down on a girl. "No, this won't do! Not at all! It's wrong on so many levels! I have to do something!"

With a flourish, he produced some magic chalk.

"Never fear, aniki!" he cried out. "Brother Chamo will attend to the critical details!"

Neither of them paid the ermine any attention.

"NYAAAAAACCCCKKK," Akira cried, not referring to the village in New York but rather releasing an unintelligible noise that happened to correspond to said village's name. Her left leg had hooked around Negi's neck, and the constriction of her knee as she shuddered in orgasm might have done a mischief to someone who wasn't practically invulnerable. "So good!" she cried out. "So very good! I ... I ... kiss them, who taught you, so good!"

Under other circumstances, Negi might have made a comment, either about how he had, frequently, or about how Akira was probably going to have the opportunity to do so, as well. But between the roaring in his head, which had only eased slightly once Akira had come into his arms, and the erection that he had exposed by pushing down his own pants, he was a bit too distracted to do so. Instead, as he began kissing his way back up her torso, he steadied himself to say something else, for what felt like the thousandth time.

"We doooooh fuck it," he said instead as he came face to face with her, seeing both the eagerness and the apprehension in her eyes. "Are you ready?" he asked, somewhat breathlessly, as he pressed the tip of his erection against her vulva.

"Yes," Akira whispered.

"Okay," he said, and pressed his lips to hers even as he pushed up into her, past whatever barrier remained after her athletic training.

"Annnnd Pactio!" Chamo cried out as the light surged up around the pair of them, not that they noticed, being fully engaged in the act. Nor did they see the card starting to emerge before the ermine. "Ah, how cute!" he said as he gazed at the picture of Akira in some sort of a mermaid costume. "I wonder what this one does and hey wait wait wait, why is there a silver border around this one?"

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

"Akira! Akira! A-KI-RAAA!"

Chamo's attention momentarily diverted from the card to the coupling lovers beneath the tree, and he gaped as he realized that the light of the pactio contract had not yet died down. That ... was unusual, even considering how he'd had to draw the circle all the way around the tree trunk in order to incorporate both of them. But nothing like this had happened when the other big circle he'd drawn, the one around the hotel that one time, had been completed. Chamo found himself becoming somewhat alarmed.

"Aniki," he called out. "I think I may have made a slight miscalcul-"

And then the light became all-encompassing.

Negi's eyes were shut. He couldn't see that light. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything. There was only the roaring in his head, growing louder and louder.

What do you want from me? he asked it, as he had before. I will give you anything if that's what it will take. I will give you everything if that's what it will take! Is that it? Take it! Take all that I have, all that I am, just please, please, please, help me to save her/them/all/everything/please!

The roaring stopped.

In the silence that ensued, for a fraction of a second, Negi heard a voice answering his own.

Thank you.

Then climax took him and his self-awareness ceased as surely as it had when Ku Fei struck him.

High above them, the World Tree soared. Until this very moment, it had also drooped. Branches that had formerly been firm enough for small children to walk along, if they were careful, had begun to sag, just as some lower branches had sagged enough that they broke loose from the trunk and fell to the ground. Leaves had dulled, past brown to almost gray. Death had been drawing closer and closer.

No more.

The light surged up from the roots of the World Tree, suffusing each branch. Leaves gone grey turned brown, turned green ... turned a brighter green than ever before. Branches straightened, extended. New leaves budded, opened, spread. And pollen exploded from each flowering bud, filling the early morning air, with new doses streaming forth every moment, like ... well ... like a boy spewing forth semen.

But sweeter smelling.

Slowly and sneakily, Misora crept into the front doors of the cathedral. She wasn't exactly praying that no one would notice that she was coming in so far past curfew as to completely redefine the definition of the word 'late', since, despite everything, she still held a few things sacred. But she really really hoped that no one would catch her.

"Misora."

Aw crap, she thought as she froze in place just a bit past the doorway. Maybe she should have prayed after all.

Sister Shakti, who had been standing right beside the doorway, hidden by the frame, walked up to the frozen girl and glared down at her. "Where were you?"

"... would you believe -" Misora started to ask.

"No."

"Well, then I'm not sure why you bothered to ask," the student nun said, avoiding her mentor's expression.

"Misora, this is not the 'you have pulled an amusing if rule-breaking prank and will now suffer the consequences thereof' angry face," Shakti said angrily. "This is the 'a student in my care was out all night and now I want to know why' angry face. Do not distort, do not ask rhetorical questions, do not make me any angrier than I already am! You, you -" To Misora's mild astonishment, the nun actually seemed to be stuttering in incoherent fury. "- I wasn't worried about you when you were on the magical world, because I knew that Cocone-chan would look after you and I knew you were in God's hands, not mine, but right now, you are in my hands, and I want answers!"

With the anger of the actually guilty, Misora studied the floor. "'In your hands,' huh?" she asked, a bit snidely. "What are you going to do if you don't like what I have to say, spank me?" What's that weird smell?

"Quite possibly!" Sister Shakti snapped. "Lord knows your butt is cute enough that it could stand to be a bit reddened!"

They stared at each other.

A few moments later, as Cocone came up to check on Sister Shakti, who'd been keeping a vigil all night while she - who was just as worried about Misora - was able to get fitful sleep, she was somewhat startled to find her partner and their mutual superior sprawled in a sexually-charged sixty-nine position in front of the door, Misora's reddened butt in plain sight, shrieking obscenities as their fingers and tongues worked each other over. Their cries stilled momentarily when they realized that someone was staring at them.

"C-cocone-chan, th-this isn't -" Shakti started to say.

Cocone nodded. "Okay. I'm going to go back downstairs and lock myself in my room," she declared quietly. And then she promptly turned and did so.

"What's going to happen to me?" Shiori asked, almost too quietly to be really considered speech.

"I don't know," Fate replied. "Most likely, if this truly is the end, you'll just ... cease."

The two of them were seated at the far end of the laboratory from Sakurako, who was trying to give them some space while she bit her lip almost enough to draw blood. She couldn't quite make out what Shiori was saying, but it was fairly easy to guess from Fate's replies.

"Will it hurt?"

"No," Fate answered definitely. "There will be no pain. I am certain of that."

"Gaahhhhh!" Sakurako finally semi-shrieked, drawing both of her companions' attentions. "No, this is nuts, there has GOT to be something we can do!"

"No," Fate said after a moment. "There actually does not have to be anything. Sometimes, even if you give it all you have, your efforts will come to naught. It is the unfortunate truth that heroes like Negi-kun will never understand. And sometimes, they even convince those of us who know better to believe in them. I truly thought he would be able to overcome this challenge." Fate actually sighed. "I imagine that will make for a nice epitaph."

"But - wait, epitaph?" Sakurako asked, eyes wide. "Are you -"

"No. Not directly. But as I've told you, I was created to save the magical world from destruction, and while I can stand the failure of individual attempts to do so, witnessing its actual destruction will likely trigger suicidal programming within me."

"Jeez, Fate!" Sakurako cried.

"We could stand his help, yes."

Then the door to the laboratory swung open. "Okay, I'm here, what's the matter?" declared Haruna as she stepped in.

"Haruna-san?" chorused Sakurako and Shiori (the latter very quietly.)

"Saotome?" said Fate, a half-beat later.

"Sheesh, what's with you?" Haruna asked, frowning. "Didn't you call me over here?"

"No, I called Bookstore and asked her to get hold of Konoka-san so she could help Shiori, and maybe Fate, now, too," Sakurako explained, frowning.

"... well, that doesn't make sense, why would Nodoka then tell me to -" Haruna started to wonder out loud, then paused, her ahoge abruptly twitching. "Let's set that aside, for the moment, and examine other questions, like, why am I detecting so much love reek in this room, and since when are you using yobisute on these two?"

Shiori's nostrils twitched.

"I see no point in hiding the truth," Fate said blandly. "I have engaged in sexual misconduct with Sakurako, and have already resigned my position as teacher over it."

Haruna stared.

Shiori's eyes blinked.

"Sha-na-na, sha-na-na, hey-hey-hey, goooodbye!" Haruna abruptly sang, then burst out into manic laughter. "Oh, man, Asuna vanishing or no Asuna vanishing, this is the best day of my life!"

"Haruna!" Sakurako cried, getting very angry and standing up.

"And you? Oh wow! Y'know, I always had the feeling you were going to fall for someone really weird, but this takes the cake! Well done, Sakusaku! Well done!" the mangaka said, clapping her hands loudly. She paused. "How come the love reek's getting stronger?"

"That. Is. IT!" Sakurako shouted. "You're damned right I fell for someone weird, but since that was you, DUMBASS, you really shouldn't talk!"

"... what?" Haruna peeped, eyes gone tiny.

"And, and, and - ARRRRG!" Sakurako shrieked incoherently, as she ran over to grab Haruna and slam their faces together, lips first.

"... what an odd development," Fate commented.

"I feel really really good," Shiori declared, and grabbed him.

In their bedroom, Nodoka was busily being the passive partner in tribadism while Yue actively scissored against her, almost all thoughts of how she'd talked her friend/lover into sending Haruna to deal with Sakurako's issues utterly vanished from her head.

Almost.

In Ayaka's room, it was unclear who was feeling more annoyed - Chizuru, who was, somewhat implausibly, still tied up and gagged, or Natsumi, who had to suffer the (subjectively) much greater indignity of watching her boyfriend sexually entangled with Mei Sakura and Megumi Natsume. The two juniors, along with their magister - presently having very loud hate-sex with Ayaka in the next room - had shown up to have a few choice words with 3-A's class representative about the flying restaurant operated by a member of her class, and had coincidentally arrived just as everyone's libido went crazy. Natsumi supposed that she could have joined in on the girls' furtive experiments with Kotaro's aged up form, but then she'd have to be in contact with them, which would be just awkward. Particularly since the two of them weren't awkward with each other, occasionally exchanging sloppy kisses as they went down on Kotaro.

Kids these days, thought the disgusted girl who'd been a virgin up until a week ago.

"Could you please untie me, now?" asked Chizuru, very approximately.

"When I feel like it!"

Elsewhere, Anya was in a state of terrified panic, totally and utterly unmixed with any bizarre arousal. (Noooope!) No sooner had she and Setsuna-san gotten Konoka-san back to her room, and settled down enough to start telling uplifting stories about Asuna - with Anya finally admitting to having developed a vague, grudging respect for the girl during the month they'd spent imprisoned together - than, before she could say anything, Setsuna and Konoka had been all over each other like ... like ...

... well, okay, she was a little deficient in the analogy department! So what!

Anyway, the two of them had been so focused on each other that Anya had been able to quickly make her escape from their room. But that had only been the beginning of the terrifying and totally not-at-all-arousing (Noooooope!) situation that confronted her. For, from the other rooms on the floor, she could hear moans and groans and sighs of ecstasy just like the ones coming from Konoka and Asuna's (former) room! Clearly, whatever spirit of perversion had infected Konoka and Setsuna had spread to others, like ... like ...

... something ... that ... spreads. Analogies were not Anya's skill! So what!

But there had to be a way to escape! Surely, she told herself, surely she would be safe in the company of her flat-chested fellows, even though she herself was no longer exactly flat-chested thanks to the age-up pills! Yet since she was utterly unaffected by the strange malady, finding it frightening rather than sexually appealing in any way, shape or form, which it was not (Nooooooooooope!) the same resistance should apply to those who were as poorly developed as she would be under normal circumstances!

That made sense, right? Right?

So she ran to Nodoka and Yue's room, flung open the door and cried out for their aid.

That was five seconds ago.

"Oh, holy fucking fuck!" Anya screeched as Nodoka's fingers reached up into her vulva, tearing back her hymen and interrupting the pleasure of having Yue noshing on her tits for a few moments, before further ecstasies descended on her brain. Oh well, she thought. At least I didn't give it up to Chamo like I always sort of expected ...

After they'd made their discreet exit from the gathering at the base of the world tree, Chao and Satomi had wandered somewhat aimlessly for a while, before their steps took them to the Chao Bao Zi, where Satsuki was busily getting ready for the breakfast crowd. She had been very pleased to see Chao again, and had suggested that Ku would likewise be pleased. Agreeing, they'd given her a call and given her the good news. Fei, for her part, was utterly thrilled to hear that Linsheng had returned, and promised to join them very shortly.

Before departing, of course, Ku Fei had proceeded to call the martial artists she'd occasionally sparred with, the captains of the various clubs, and told them to assemble around the Chao Bao Zi to be given a demonstration of true martial arts mastery. She took it somewhat for granted that this was to be the sparring match she'd been promised by Chao as the future girl departed, rather than anything silly and pointless like a convivial discussion between friends. Perhaps Negi was still beyond her mastery, but by a simple sorting algorithm, Negi had beaten Chao, so Ku might just possibly be able to do the same!

"Chao!" she cried as she arrived, a few moments after the martial artists had assembled there. "I chall-"

And then the World Tree had lit up, and a very strange odor had filled everyone's nostrils.

At the moment, the door to the Chao Bao Zi and its windows were closed and firmly barricaded while Chao, Satsuki and Satomi twisted into a miniature daisy chain. (In the handful of the moments of conscious thought that she experienced while this was going on, Satsuki found herself slightly torn between her vague memories of telling Negi that she wanted a single partner and the thrill she was experiencing.)

Outside -

"MORRRRE!" Fei shrieked as she yanked her mouth away from Gotokuji's cock, which had been down her throat a second ago, glaring back at Yamashita and Nakamura, who were respectively up her cunt and ass. "MORE DICK IN ME!"

"But Ku-taicho!" Gotokuji protested. "We -aaaaah!" He broke off as she slid her lips up the length of his shaft and teased it slightly with her oh-so-deadly teeth. "We are filling all your holes!"

"FILL WITH MORE!"

They could but obey her demands, as Daigoin proceeded to slide himself up into Fei's vulva alongside Yamashita ...

"This ... this cannot be happening," Nitta gasped through a dry throat as he gazed in stunned horror at the teacher's lounge, and more specifically at the goings-on in the teacher's lounge. Every teacher had been contacted by the Headmaster early in the morning and told to assemble in the lounge in preparation for bad news. Nitta had obediently shown up promptly on time, just as the strange scent had begun to make its way into the building.

And now? Now, in the center of the room, Shizuna lay on her back atop one of the desks, her skirt and shirt both pulled up and bra and panties pulled aside while Takahata, fully dressed except for his unzipped pants and face set in an expression of grim determination, pounded away between her legs, and Gandolfini, face torn between horror and arousal, shoved his own member into Shizuna's mouth as her neck dangled over the desk's edge. Meanwhile, Ninomiya was shrieking as she rode a startled but not terribly upset Seruhiko in one of the lounge's chairs.

"It is happening," Nijuuin confirmed as he stumbled towards Nitta. "Can you not feel it yourself? The nearly irresistible urge to throw oneself at another, regardless of emotional connection, and begin mating?"

"I ... can feel it," Nitta answered through gritted teeth. "But ... it ... can be resisted!"

"I am in awe of your willpower, Nitta!" Nijuuin cried out. "My own is not nearly so mighty. It is with immense difficulty that I have not seized upon the opportunity presented by Ninomiya's obviously available rear entryway! Only the thought of my daughter has kept me from doing so ... and as I say that, my thoughts of her begin to turn salacious!" he concluded with a shriek.

"No!" Nitta replied, appalled. "Fight it, Nijuuin! You know that to be an abominable act far worse than anything we have already witnessed!"

"I do, I do, and yet - and yet!" Nijuuin agreed, tears flowing from his eyes. "All I can do is hope that I encounter some willing person between here and the kindergarten! Farewell, Nitta-sensei. I will most likely kill myself if I am unfortunately unable to encounter some willing person ... afterwards," he added gloomily.

"Wait!" Nitta shouted, interposing himself between Nijuuin and the door. "Have you truly considered all options?"

"I - are you suggesting -"

"Wouldn't it be better than molesting your child?"

Nijuuin sucked in a breath, then nodded. "For the sake of my daughter," he said, and then pulled Nitta close to him. Things I gotta go through to get laid these days, the closeted gay teacher thought wearily.

"I think maybe we should stop having sex," said Yuna.

Her father, having just kissed the inside of her thigh and begun moving in to perform cunnilingus on her, paused and looked up at her in shock. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I think maybe we should stop having sex," she repeated. "Geez, Dad, are your ears going, too? I've been thinking you need a stronger prescription for a while now, y'know."

"No, no, my ears are - oh," he said, breaking off abruptly, and nodding a sudden weary understanding. "You mean, stop it for now, because you want to get some sleep."

"Um ... well, yeah, that too, but I was actually talking about stopping permanently."

Wataru gaped up at her. "I ... I don't ... really?" he concluded, after reaching the conclusion that saying 'I don't believe it' would not go over all that well.

"Well, yeah. You know how I was saying that if we hooked up with Negi-sensei, that would help keep everything a secret? Well, even though that's working just as well as all of my ideas do - could you not cough there, Dad? I don't want my coochie to catch your germs."

"Sorry, sorry," he said a bit hoarsely.

She continued after a suspicious stare at him. "Even though ... I kinda found myself feeling a little bit jealous while I was watching you schtupping Makie, and Misa, and a few of the other girls at that goodbye party. And I don't like feeling jealous -"

"You followed me half-way across Mahora when you thought I might be dating Donet-san," her father was moved to observe.

That got her to slam the side of his head with her knee. "Because I was unhappy about how jealous I was feeling, obviously!" she said heatedly. "And just like then ... the answer to the problem of my jealousy is the same. Dad, we should stop having sex, and you can go have sex with whoever you want and I'll do the same." Yuna nodded firmly.

"Well ... all right then," Wataru said once the ringing in his head stopped. "I ... I see your point. And ... I guess that I'm proud of you, actually, for showing this kind of aaaaaaaaahhhh my little girl is growing upppppp!" he abruptly started sobbing.

"Oh, geez, Dad, that's creepy under the circumstances!" she said, pulling away.

The doorbell rang.

"Okay," she said, getting out of bed and marching over to pick up a dressing gown. "I'm gonna go answer that while you pull yourself together. Do it quick."

"Mm-hm, mm-hm," said the sobbing naked man.

Sheesh, Yuna thought as she walked out of the bedroom towards the front door, past the firmly sealed windows. I hope it's not one of his colleagues, this could be hard to -

She'd opened the door only a crack when it was slammed the rest of the way open and a frantic-eyed Donet McGuinness shoved herself in. "Yuna!" she cried. "Thank God! I wasn't sure what I was going to do if you weren't here!"

"Dwah?" Yuna asked in the fraction of a moment before she was firmly and deeply kissed.

"You taste just like your mother," Donet told her huskily as she started to pull open the girl's dressing gown.

"Dwah?" Yuna asked again, now that her lips were free and Donet was licking and biting on her nipples in a way that suggested great familiarity with the methods of doing so.

"So lovely, just like her," Donet moaned.

Holding a towel around his waist, Yuna's father stumbled out into the hallway. "Yuna, what in the world -" he started to ask, then fell silent as he gaped at the woman proceeding to make out with his daughter right before him.

"Gasp!" gasped Donet, as she looked up from Yuna's supine form. "Yuna, can it be that you have seduced your own father into decadent habits?"

"Ah, ah, well -" the teacher started stammer out.

"That's so hot!" the magical warrior said admiringly, in much the same tone of voice worthless heiresses might use. With a quick yank, she pulled her skirt up to reveal that she wore no panties beneath. "Fuck me, fuck me tooooo!"

Wataru met Yuna's bewildered eyes ... and shrugged. "Well, we have to buy her silence," he said with a shrug, as he dropped the towel.

"Ahhhh!" Donet cried out as her back arched a moment later. "So goood! So much bigger than the Magus!" With that exposition out of the way, she dived down between Yuna's legs.

"Dwah?" Yuna asked for a third time.

"Nawaki!" Eiko, leader of the Black Lillies, cried out in ecstasy, as her boyfriend pounded into her on that very dodgeball court where, months before, her team had known the humiliation of defeat for the first time. It had seemed as good a place as any for her first time in another area.

"Eiko-samaaa!" he answered her cries with one of his own as he released his load within her.

"Oh, Nawaki," she groaned. "I love you so. You are so wonderful, so vigorous, so manly. You're ready to go again, right?"

"Uh, well, I will be ready when you are -" he said a bit hesitantly.

"Oh, not with me, silly," she reassured him. "I'm a selfish, spiteful person, but I'm not selfish or spiteful enough to refuse to share something as wonderful as your manhood with my teammates. Do I seem like that sort of a person?" she asked, tilting her head a bit.

"Of course not, Eiko-sama," Bibii said quickly as she sat naked before her.

"Not at all, Eiko-sama," Shii concurred as she likewise crouched naked beside Bibii.

"No, no, indeed, Eiko-sama," chorused the rest of the naked Black Lillies who had never been fortunate to be named in the text.

"... I'm going to die, aren't I?" Nawaki said quietly.

His doom, if doom it was, drew nigh.

Saotome Haruna had been very comfortable in her bisexuality for some time - comfortable enough to have casual conversations referring to it with a certain aged-up boy teacher, at least. And she had been likewise comfortable in her self-definition as someone who was sublimely indifferent to the sex of a potential romantic partner, as long as that hypothetical partner was interesting, cute and fun. Especially fun.

Then she'd actually gotten fucked and come to the rather startling conclusion that she liked cock better than she'd realized. Even as she'd rampaged through her suddenly available classmates, she'd always been looking for opportunities to get a man's phallus - any man's phallus - up in to her vulva. Why, just the other day she'd schtupped a somewhat annoying wolf-boy whom she would actually have preferred to pair with Negi under normal circumstances, and been unfazed by said wolf-boy's girlfriend refusing to put out for her. Clearly, she tended more towards the heterosexual spectrum of the rainbow.

And yet, here she was, getting fucked by Sakurako and having her mind blown by how good the girl was at it, and how easily her fragile self-definition could shift!

"Wha-wha-wha," she gasped out as Sakurako violently scissored against her.

"Wha-what?" Sakurako snapped.

"No," Haruna gasped. "Not wha-what. Wha-why! Why didn't you ever say any-"

"Because I am a shy and retiring maiden!" Sakurako nearly shrieked, grinding against the girl on the floor on each word.

"Ghahggg!" Haruna riposted. "Nuh-no ... no! You're a cheerleader! And you just fisted me not five minutes ago!"

"Agggh! Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!" Sakurako actually did shriek.

Elsewhere, Tsukuyomi, heavily bound and gagged as she sat in a cell beneath Mahora's church, felt a strange and mysterious sensation of annoyance over and above how she felt about being unable to do anything while she helplessly watched Touko and Katagiri violently coupling before her tender maiden eyes.

It's like someone stole my schtick, she thought. But how? How?

In the interim of that digression, Sakurako had rolled Haruna over so that the artist was crouched over her while her hands clenched Haruna's shapely buttocks. "You are a bad girl!" Sakurako cried, spanking firmly.

"Well, yeah, no argument," Haruna dazedly agreed.

"And do you know what bad girls get?" Sakurako demanded.

"... uh," Haruna said, suspecting the answer but not really sure.

"Bad girls get fucked up the ass!" said Sakurako, and pulled Haruna's cheeks to the side to expose said ass to any onlooker.

Any onlooker in this case, was Fate.

"Gahh!" Haruna gasped as she was vaginally penetrated and felt her self-definition starting to shift again.

"Fate! I said her ass!" Sakurako shouted.

"She hasn't douched," Fate explained patiently.

"That's not the point! I'm making a literary reference, here!"

Shiori, once more fucked into semi-comatose status, giggled faintly from the other side of the room.

"And then we'll have all the obnoxious guys from Kanto, and all the obnoxious guys from Kansai, come in here, and I'll take them all two at a time - maybe more if any of the girls on either side want to join in," Kouko enthusiastically proposed as she lay flat on her back on the bed in the Konoe's cabin, generously donated to them by the academy.

"Uh-huh," grunted Eishun as he pounded away between her legs, enjoying the distraction that the sex act made from the rather disturbing ideas that had been babbling out of his wife's mouth since the weird scent descended.

"I'll become the living embodiment of the peace treaty!" Kouko continued as she swiveled her hips to meet his lunges. "Everyone on either side will be linked by having been up me at some point! Nobody will be able to fight after that, they'll all be too embarrassed! It's the perfect solution!"

"What if they start fighting over the right to get another go at you?" Eishun asked wearily.

He was apparently not the only one who was distracted. "Perfect solution!" Kouko repeated, eyes sparkling in a way that reminded him very much of their daughter, uncomfortably at the moment. "And then we'll have the non-committed sides join in as well, and you can take care of Tsuruko-chan and Motoko-chan and Setsuna-kun and -"

"Setsuna-kun?" Eishun asked, pausing in his labors. "Am I going to have sex with her and Konoka in this affair, too?"

Until this very moment, he had not realized just how sharp his wife's fingernails were - not until they wrapped around his ears. "Of course not!" she shouted, clearly no longer lost in weird political and sexual delusions. It was sort of extraordinary how she could come back to reality so quickly. "There are limits!"

He thought that was a little unfair, coming from her, but he also didn't want to lose his ears. "Got it," he peeped.

Mana walked aimlessly across Mahora, her half-demonic nature providing her some shielding from the sexual haze which had descended on the campus. Some shielding, in that she was able to resist the urge to throw herself into every coupling that she observed. Some shielding, in that she didn't really want resist that urge ... but she did, nonetheless. She'd casually shot knock-out darts into those few individuals who'd extended her invitations that had been just a bit too fervent for her liking, and walked on.

She'd crossed the whole campus, and seen things she had never imagined. Boys & girls, boys & boys, girls & girls, grown men and women and adolescents, all fucking as though their lives depended on it. Only the very young were immune. In some cases, their caretakers had had the presence of mind to shield their charges from the sights and sounds which were about to occur, before they joined the orgy. In some cases ... that presence of mind had not been present. There would likely be a number of rather traumatized children after this day was done.

Mana might have mourned, but she of all people knew that innocence was too fragile to endure in this world.

She walked aimlessly, or so she thought, but eventually she realized that her steps were leading her in the direction of the biathlon club's training range. And that they were growing quicker. She smiled faintly at her unconscious as she walked along. She wondered, in a vaguely amused way, if he'd managed to remain faithful.

"Eh?" Captain Serizawa shrieked as the door slid open and he saw Tatsumiya Mana glaring down at him like the wrath of an angry god. "Tatsumiya-san?! But then who are you?" he demanded of the tall, dark-skinned woman astride his naked form.

"Nin nin!" she replied in Mana's voice, as she made hand gestures before her breasts. "I was keeping him safe for you," the still tall yet very different woman who was revealed a moment later. "Aren't I nice?"

"You're incredibly nice," said Mana, and raised her gun. THWIP! went the dart.

Kaede's eyes actually opened completely when the dart struck Serizawa in the head and he fainted dead away, unable even to express his final thought before darkness took him. (It was, of course, "Again?!")

"Uh," she said in the suave tone of a highly trained ninja.

"Okay," said Mana, hair gone white, eyes gone gold, robes gone ... somewhere else. "You want to fuck me? Then we're going to fuck!"

"Eep de gozaru," said Kaede.

Outside, a certain pair of ninja cadets were too engrossed in their dealings with each other to pay much attention to the rather loud noises coming from within the building, which included frantic sounding attempts to open a door for whatever reason - doubtless to let in some light rather than anything silly like escaping. One of the ninja cadets did happen to notice a pair of odd looking animals coupling in the bushes not far from them, and cheerfully took this as evidence that nature itself was embracing the same urge as they.

(One of the pair of shapechanged princes from the magical world thought the same thing, incidentally.)

In his office, Konoe Konoemon was busily channeling the erotic energies coursing through even his elderly form into writing the letter of resignation he had a sneaky suspicion he was going to be asked to submit once word of what had happened to his campus got out. Hopefully, the names that were named and the locations and identities of the buried bodies discussed therein would get his job offered back to him shortly thereafter, but that didn't really matter. Happily, no one had come into his office yet to try and seduce him.

Which was sort of annoying, actually.

And then, quite abruptly, the door opened just a bit. A short drum sequence ensued as a stockinged female leg rubbed up and down its inside, and then Sayo, dressed in lingerie borrowed from Evangeline, danced into view as an electric guitar riff joined the drums. "Hello, Kokkun," she purred as an American singer began to chant about the joys of both the simple and the rock-star life.

"Ghgl," said Konoemon, and bounded over his desk.

"This is really, really wrong!" moaned Kazumi as she held up the CD player's speakers while watching a ninety year old man fuck her girlfriend. How was she supposed to masturbate while her hands were full?

And then she was back.

Asuna looked around at her surroundings, judging it to be a few hours after her departure. Nothing looked to be on fire, so things seemed to be going rather well, given the givens. And the World Tree, which had looked so droopy and fragile, was flourishing, glowing with vitality and probably magical energy. It seemed to her that the branches of the tree shifted slightly in a way that resembled a wave of greeting to her, so she answered it with a wave of her own.

"Okay," she said, still looking around. "A little later than I was expecting, so I guess everyone's gone home. Looks like I get to do the 'rumors of my demise' bit. I guess that's kind of -"

"Asuna-san!" called a faint voice from somewhere not too far away. Asuna found herself bracing to receive a hug delivered by dynamic entry. When it became obvious that nothing of that nature was forthcoming, and the cry was followed up with, "Help!", she started walking towards the World Tree, as the voice seemed to be coming from that direction.

She blinked as Chamo's crumpled, unconscious form came into view, and quickened her pace ... though it only took a moment for her to see who was calling for her. "Akira-san?" she asked, amazed. And then she stared.

"Thank goodness!" Akira said, expressing more emotion in that one moment than Asuna had ever seen from her. "Something's happened to Negi!"

"Uh ... yeah," Asuna agreed, still staring. "Something other than the obvious, because, y'know, that has been happening a lot. What ... what was it?"

"I don't know! We were ... and then ... he -" Akira looked to be on the verge of panic. "And he won't wake up!"

"Ah," Asuna said, nodding. "This, I can do something about." Deep breath. "You dummy! Why are you crawling into my bed again!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Negi immediately woke up. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so-" he started repeating, then broke off in mid-apology. "Asuna?" he asked tremulously.

"Sure looks like me to me," Asuna replied, idly patting herself on the head and shoulders.

"But ... but when did you get so tall?" he asked. "And ... and why can't I see you clearly?"

"I didn't get tall," she told him. "As to the other -" She produced a pair of spectacles from nowhere in particular and set them on his nose. "Is that better?"

"Much!"

"Okay," she said. "So ... how did you do this?"

"Do what?" Negi asked, then looked down at his ten-year old form, and murmured a confused, "Oh".

"Indeed, 'oh' would seem to be the appropriate reaction," Asuna said, starting to unhook her skirt.

"Asuna-san!" Akira gasped. "Surely you don't intend to -"

"Huh?" Asuna asked, dropping the skirt to reveal that she'd picked up Setsuna's trick of wearing bicycle pants underneath.

"Oh," said Akira.

"See, even Akira thinks it's the appropriate reaction. But you should probably just call me 'Asuna', since we're pole sisters and all," she added to Akira.

"I thought you used the expression 'eskimo sisters'," Negi replied a bit dazedly as he stood up and shuffled off his trousers, danging around his left foot and now miles too big for him. So was the undershirt he was still wearing, but that was a lesser problem at the moment.

"And I thought you said that was a bad word and those people preferred to be called Aleunuit, or something like that," Asuna replied absent-mindedly as she slid the skirt up around his legs and cinched it around his waist, like a kilt.

"And I thought his relationship with Evangeline-san was very strange, but this takes the cake," Akira observed, dressing herself while listening.

Negi and Asuna each gave her a look - one apologetic, one vaguely amused. Then their attention returned to each other.

"So I guess this wasn't part of the plan?" Asuna asked.

"- part of the - Asuna, every single bit of my plan went out the window as soon as you didn't appear again within a few moments of your departure. I'm not sure what happened, but ..." The boy trailed off, turning to look at the flourishing World Tree. "I'm not sure," he said, in a much more hesitant tone, as if he was somehow unsure of his lack of surety.

"Maybe he can help explain," Akira said, having walked off to pick up Chamo's unconscious form and carry the ermine, gently, back to where Asuna and Negi were standing.

"You think?" Asuna asked, dubiously.

"Chamo-kun?" Negi asked, taking his friend's body from Akira, and petting him gently. "Please wake up, now, we need your help."

"We're just that desperate," Asuna added.

"Asuna."

"Aniki," Chamo said, starting to come around. "You would not be-lieve the dream I just had. You'd grown up, see, and you were getting it on with all your girls and making a -" By now, of course, the ermine was completely conscious, and his fur stood up on end. "Uh ... hang on a second," he said, then reached behind himself to pull out a pactio card, depicting Akira in a bikini top and a mermaid's tail. A line of bright silver ran around the card's edge.

"... where was he holding that?" Akira asked.

"That's your takeaway?" Asuna asked in turn. "What's the deal with the silver lining, Chamo?"

"Uhhhh," he said. "It - uh - well ... it's a permanent pactio," he admitted, then looked up, from Akira's face to Negi's. "Mazel tov?"

"Mazu ... what?" Akira asked, bewilderedly.

"Yiddish for 'congratulations'," explained Asuna.

"... how do you know that?" Akira asked, bewilderedly.

"She just knows stuff," Negi said faintly, staring at his hand for no readily apparent reason. "Um ... could all of you please step back a bit? I need to check something."

Blinking, Asuna proceeded to guide Akira back a few steps, carrying Chamo with her as she did. The boy took in a deep breath, and murmured, "Ras tel Ma Scir Magister. Sagita Magica." With that, a tiny ball of light appeared over Negi's hand - a single magical arrow of no specified elemental type. He took in another deep breath, then let it all out in a single short phrase. "Stagnet. Complexio, Supplementum pro Armationem!"

Absolutely nothing happened. With a sigh, Negi banished the arrow. "I don't have Erebea, anymore," he announced.

"What?!" Asuna and Chamo chorused. Akira looked completely unmoved by this revelation, which meant that she was somewhat surprised as well.

"When I ... I offered the World Tree anything that I had, and it didn't only take the spell that I'd already loaded - the age-up spell of the pill - but also the whole structure behind it," he continued, sounding very, very tired. He looked up at the flourishing tree above them, and smiled faintly. "I guess that was the answer. I guess that was what it was going to take."

"Okay," said Chamo. "So ... now what?"

Negi shook his head. "I haven't the faintest idea, Chamo-kun. I imagine ... that's it's going to be interesting finding out, don't you?"

"Great attitude!" Asuna said, covering up the ermine's mouth before he could respond to that. "Oookay, let's let the happy couple have a moment or two of privacy -"

"Happy couple?" Negi and Akira chorused in mutual confusion.

"No, no, Negi-kun, I mean, even after what we did, I-I-I'm sure that he still loves Makie more -" Akira continued after the moment that the two of them spent staring at each other, post-chorus.

"No," Negi admitted quietly. "I still care about her, I still cherish her, but ... she is not the person whose face comes into my mind when I think of love," he added.

"Well, but, I mean, there's, there's no way -"

"Yes," he interjected again. "There seems to be a way, and - "

"Like I said, a moment of privacy," Asuna added. She was well aware that neither of them was likely to actually hear her, under the circumstances, but that wasn't the point.

"You're really okay with this?" Chamo asked as she carried him away.

"I don't like him that -" she began to repeat herself.

"Asuna," Chamo interrupted, for once not using gangster language. "Don't try and grift a grifter, okay?"

She coughed, uncomfortably. "Never mind that, now. That reaction, a while ago, that you had, wasn't just about Negi's permanent pactio. It was way too extreme for that. What else happened?"

With a glance towards Akira and Negi, who were still communicating in interrupted sentence fragments as they slowly walked towards each other at a pace which would have them embracing sometime around the turn of the year, Chamo coughed uncomfortably. "Well ... yeah." He shamefacedly pulled out a second card and held it out for Asuna to take.

Asuna stared at it in silence.

"Charta Ministralis, Negi Springfield?" she read aloud.

"So ... who is aniki's Magister?" the ermine asked, sounding almost panicked.

"That's a very good question," Asuna agreed, gazing up at the tree in bloom.

A few hours later ... after Asuna's bone-crunchingly huggy reunions with Konoka, Setsuna, Ayaka, Makie and, well, most of the class - Evangeline stood sneering in a way that might have fooled a small, not particularly clever child as to her pleasure at Asuna's return, and Chao just smiled enigmatically in a way that might have made a certain twin-tailed girl want to punch her very very hard - and also after everyone else on campus had calmed down and started to return to their original business, accompanied by a faint ukulele rendition of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' ... the Headmaster called an assembly - of every class, every school, every person in the Mahora district.

They gathered underneath the World Tree, serving as the largest open space in the area and also (unconsciously, in most cases) linked in the public mind with recent events. A platform had been hurriedly set up, with several of the senior members of the Faculty already standing there as Konoemon approached the microphone-equipped speaker's pulpit.

"Ahem," he began, his voice magnified many times over. "It has been an interesting day, hasn't it? Many ... unusual and uncharacteristic things have happened. I'm sure many of you are quite confused by recent events."

"Damn straight!" echoed more than one voice in response.

"And I'm sure many of you would like an explanation."

"YEAH!" again the voices echoed.

Konoemon began stroking his beard, maybe just a touch nervously. "But ... if you think about it ... would an explanation really make a difference? Understanding the past does not always lead to a greater degree of contentment with it. As someone once said, 'when ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise!' If one considers that, one might come to the not-unreasonable conclusion that forgetting all about it and never speaking of any of this ever again might just be a better course of action than giving or receiving an explanation."

"This is seriously what he's going with," Kouko, standing with the other teachers, said to Takamichi.

"Well, whatever works," Takamichi said.

"Now, some people, even clever and gentle and wise people, might not agree with this notion," Konoemon continued, otherwise showing no evidence of hearing anything that went on behind him. "And so the faculty will be available for private discussions about recent events. Simply make an appointment, and a member of the faculty will come to discuss these matters with you at their soonest convenience. I'm sure that once you've had this opportunity, any difficulties you might have with things that might have happened lately will soon be a faint memory. Or even no memory at all."

"And there's the stick," muttered Kouko.

"Well, whatever works."

"Ahem. Oh, one more thing. In light of recent events, any offers of resignation that my office might have recently received are going to be disregarded as one more example of events that we'd all be better off forgetting. Classes will resume tomorrow. That's all. Good day to you all."

"... my life sucks," said Fate, in the middle of the crowd.

No one paid him any attention, of course.

"So I'd say it all worked out well in the end," Negi commented, later that evening, in their room.

"Except for the part where you're mortal, now, and may or may not have the stamina to complete the terraforming project," Asuna said from the other side of the table, where Konoka, Setsuna and Ayaka were, once again, hugging her - as they had been since their reunions with her. Yes, even when. "And the part where Fate is still stuck teaching the class despite his best efforts to get out of it."

"No situation can possibly satisfy everybody," Negi said piously. "As to the other," he continued, just a bit more soberly, "I will still give it all that I have, and rely on my friends and allies to do the parts that they can do, rather than trying to do everything mysel- Asuna, stop laughing."

"I give it a week," she said, through chuckles.

"That's mean, Asuna," Konoka told her reprovingly.

"Thank you, Kono-" Negi started to say.

"He'll probably last two or even three weeks before he starts micromanaging everything again. Wouldn't you say so, Setchan?"

"I confess that I have a higher estimate of Negi's ability to learn his lessons than you, ojousama."

"Let me guess, you think I'll be back to my usual neurotic self in a month, right," Negi said dryly, chin pressed on the palm of his hand as he leaned on the table and gazed at the four young women.

"See?" said Setsuna.

"You're all wrong," Ayaka declared. "Negi will rely on me-I-mean-us, for I know that he knows that I-I-mean-we are ready and able to face down any challenges that come our way, whether they are villains, monsters, or swimmers who have oddly hydrodynamic hair! You can rely on me-I-mean-oh-who-am-I-kidding-I-mean-me, sensei! I'll be waiiiting for youuu! Here inside my heart -"

"Okay, Ayaka, I love you and all that, but if you start singing Celine Dion lyrics while you're hugging me, it is so over between us," Asuna told her.

"... well, things are back to normal, I guess," Negi said cheerfully, deciding to just forget about the disturbing lack of faith that the girls were showing in him. "And -"

Whatever else Negi might have been about to say was lost to history as there came a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," said Asuna, somewhat to Negi's surprise. She got up, carrying the other three with her, and walked to the door. "Hey ... oh, I was wondering when you were going to show up."

Slowly, Negi turned. Who could it be? Akira? Makie? Nodoka? Chisame? Shiori?

Right on all counts, he thought, startled, as he saw all five of them entering the room in their pyjamas.

"Uh, good, good evening," he said, confused, as Asuna closed the door and firmly locked it. "What, what brings all of you here -"

Silently, Shiori held up a pill of age-changing pills.

"Oh," Negi said. "But ... I mean ... I hoped you'd understand that I, I have made a commitment, now, and -"

"Negi," Akira interjected. "Do you remember what I said about hearts healing and growing stronger?"

"Eh?"

"My heart has grown strong enough to take this," she told him.

"But ... but I ..." I'm not sure mine is!

"We worked out a system," Nodoka explained, patiently. "I get tonight, and Yue gets tomorrow night, and Anya gets the night after that, and -"

"Anya?" Negi squawked.

"Where do you think we got the age-up pills?"

"I guess that was a silly question," Negi said.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Makie cried aloud, eyes sparkling. "I'm so happy that things worked out for you and Akira, Negi!"

"... yeah, great," he said. "Um, you girls do understand, I'm not ... quite ... as super as I used to be, right? So ... possibly I might not be able to do the 'he goes for hours' business, or -"

Shiori, still silent, held up another jar filled with a different kind of little blue pills.

"I see you thought of that," Negi said. "Oh well. It can't be helped." He stood up to start taking off his pants.

And then the pyjamas came off, but the time had come to leave Negi and his friends to his own devices, and so we move away from the sweet sounds of girlish laughter, sighs, and rhythmic beat of flesh on flesh.

Epilogue

"It's time, Asuna," she said, gazing down at the nude, somewhat indistinct form curled up in a ball on the beach before the surf.

The form muttered something in response, which could perhaps charitably be taken as a query concerning the time.

"Yes," she confirmed. "It's surprising that you've lasted so long." It really was.

"... 'm tired," the form said. "Go 'way 'n lemme sleep."

She considered this request, considered the many ways that she might answer it. There were all sorts of resources available to her, all sorts of way to rouse the sleepy form before her.

She kicked the other girl, sending her flying. Rather than getting up and starting shouting, however, the other girl just lay where she landed, unmoving.

Now she was becoming concerned. "Asuna. You need to wake up now. If you do not wake up now, you will never wake up at all."

"... uh-huh," said the other girl, growing hazier and less focused with each passing second.

Concern was quickly turning into terror. "Don't you remember your promise? The reason you endured all this for so long?" she asked, coaxingly.

"Yes," the other girl said, quite clearly. "I remember -"

"Then -"

"- it was kept."

For a moment, she was at a loss for words. "That, that wasn't you, Asuna. It was you, I mean, but it wasn't you, and you -"

"I'm done," the other girl said, voice growing very quiet, even quieter than her own. "I lived, I loved, and now I'm done. It's your turn now, Asuna. Goodbye."

Quite suddenly, Asuna Vesperina Theotanasia Entheofushia was alone on the beach.

"No," she whispered. "No, I can't, I'm not, I don't know how ..."

And then she woke up.

She was in the place from which that other girl had disappeared, more than a century before, staring down at hands much too large for her self-image, a costume she'd never worn, and feeling a panic unlike anything she'd ever imagined feeling welling up from a heart that had, she thought, turned to ice long before.

"I'm afraid," she confessed. "I don't ... I can't do this alone."

"But you're not alone," said another voice.

She turned, and saw that there was a girl standing not too far away, dressed in a costume not that different from her own, with long hair and an unfamiliar face that grew more familiar with each moment spent looking at it. Pieces of faces from borrowed memories could be seen there. Konoka, Chisame, Sakurako, Misa, Madoka, many others. And one more face, in particular.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Sanjou Kozue," the girl said, smiling warmly. "And I've been waiting for you, Asuna." She extended a hand towards Asuna. "So have a lot of people."

Slowly, Asuna stood up, and took the offered hand. "I'm not -" she started to say.

"I know. Come on. We've got a lot of catching up to do." Slowly, patiently, Kozue began to guide Asuna towards the light which could be seen at the bottom of the hill.

"Are you ... related to Negi?" she asked.

"Yes," Kozue admitted. "Please don't ask how. It's sort of a complicated bloodline, a long story for another day."

The End ...
For Now ...