If a legal disclaimer falls where nobody will read it, does it still make any statement?

Anyway, Mahou Sensei Negima! and UQ Holder are created and owned by Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.

Sister.

By OverMaster, with edits and proofreading by Shadow Crystal Mage.

"This is my brother's room!" Ayaka had gleefully boasted as she guided her stone-faced friend into the reserved bedroom. She showed her every toy, the cradle and everything else with far greater fervor than she had used at describing her own room, and that was definitely saying something. "Dad says he's going to be a businessman just like him, but Mom says that doesn't mean he'll be away as much as Dad. I bet he's going to be a very handsome man, too!"

"Yeah," was all Asuna had to offer back. Her face still as expressionless as ever, her mismatched eyes just as hollow and absent.

Sadly, even for those who have everything, not all things can turn out as they wish them to.

"What... What do you mean I can't see him?" With huge watery blue eyes, Ayaka looked up at her father that night at the clinic, gripping on the skirt of her gorgeous white dress, handpicked for the occasion. Her tiny hands trembled nervously, clawing at the cloth time after time.

Her father smiled at her, for once showing the girl some warmth and care as he crouched down to gently place his large hands on her narrow shoulders. "I'm sorry, Ayaka-chan. But—"

"Ah... Good morning!" Negi-sensei, wearing his usual formal suit ensemble, and as always carrying his bandaged staff around, bashfully greeted Ayaka, standing at her butler Sebastian's right. Behind them, Hasegawa Chisame, in a plain white shirt and blue pants, merely nodded her head once in the rich girl's direction. Hakase Satomi stood nearby, not looking at the hostess at all, clad in shorts and a black shirt, taking some samples of wood from a tree and carefully placing them inside of a small metallic container.

"Good morning, Iinchou-chan!" Shiina Sakurako, in a very short and tight skirt and sleeveless orange top, smiled at her, a red cap perched on the top of her head.

"Hello! You look very good today!" Konoe Konoka chirped, happy as a free bird, at Sakurako's left and sporting a pretty summer dress with sandals.

"You're looking a bit too fancy for a simple short visit, though..." Finally, the bane of Ayaka's existence, Kagurazaka Asuna, completed the group, crossing her arms and looking rather nonchalant in a simple but elegant ensemble of a light red blouse and a matching skirt.

"Wha-What are you all doing here?" a livid Ayaka aimed an accusing finger at her five classmates.

"He's still new here. He doesn't know the local bus routes yet," Chisame dryly answered.

"And besides, I heard it's dangerous to allow children to wander alone here," Asuna made the vaguest hint of a smirk.

"No, but it's dangerous to allow Kagurazaka Asunas to stalk around these premises!" Ayaka said with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "The guard dogs might eat them!"

"Come on, calm down, calm down," Konoka easily asked. "We're all friends here, aren't we?"

"Most of us, yes!" Ayaka kept her angry glare fixed on her rival.

"No discussion there," Asuna nodded. "Let's see, one, two, three, four, five, and six," she counted herself, Konoka, Sakurako, Negi, Chisame and Satomi. "Yep, a clear majority!"

Hakase finally looked at Ayaka when the sounds of heavy fighting had started. "Oh, hello, Iinchou-san! You do have some rather scarce species around here. I even collected some samples of the nearly extinct hunchbacked rhinoceros beetle of striped wings. Iinchou-san? Why are you fighting Asuna-san?"

"IF YOU AREN'T MY FRIEND, I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING HERE!" the heiress said as she attempted her best to land a kick on Asuna.

"BELIEVE ME, NEITHER DO I!" Asuna kept on dodging her, similarly failing at landing a punch on her face.

"Stop it, you two, please!" Negi flailed his arms around, trying to keep them apart from each other.

"Asuna! Asuna! Remember your promise!" Konoka also tried to interfere.

"I have the feeling this is going to end up becoming a live action game of Clue," Chisame moaned.

"Colonel Mustard, with the knife, at the library!" Sakurako giggled. "I bet you forty on that!"

"Should I bring the crowbar to pry them apart?" the tallest of the maids who stood behind Ayaka asked, in an extremely dry tone.

"Cisneros-san, you know that's the absolute last resource!" Fubuki-san scolded her. "Go get the bucket of cold water first."

"Ho ho ho ho!" an eerily identical facsimile of Ayaka's Ojou laugh, but much higher pitched and childlike in tone, rang from the top of the mansion's entrance ramp. Negi followed the source of the sound with his gaze to find himself looking at a girl around his own age, who struck a remarkably similar appearance to Ayaka, only much smaller, and with her blond hair made into long twintails at each side. She wore elegant sandals with lovely small pink bows, plus a light white summer dress that perhaps showed off more of her legs than it should have. Evangeline would not have objected to wearing it, however. "So this is the boy, Negi Springfield? I will personally evaluate him! To see if he is worthy of being my husband!"

"H-Husband?!-?!" Negi yelled abruptly, almost leaping back while Chisame's eyes widened hideously behind her glasses.

Ayaka quickly pushed the still struggling Asuna away from herself and pulled back, assuming a stiff standing position and angrily glaring at the little girl over her shoulder. "Mizore!" she hissed. "That's no way to greet Negi-sensei into our humble abode! Look, you've just startled him with your tasteless jokes!"

Fubuki gestured towards the little lady, with the same utmost respect she showed for Ayaka. "For all those not in the know, you stand in the presence of Yukihiro Mizore-sama, second heiress of the Yukihiro fortune and honorable sister to Ayaka Ojou-sama."

Mizore shrugged carelessly at her big sister, haughtily marching down the front steps and ignoring the maid squad bowing for her. "Fine, fine then. I will personally evaluate him to see if he is worthy of being your husband. Isn't that much better, Onee-sama?"

"N-No, it isn't!" a crimson-faced Ayaka growled, tightening her fists as the short girl stopped right before the blinking, voiceless, now very pale Negi. "Show some manners, this is my teacher we are talking about, and more importantly, addressing, here!"

"He should address us back then," Mizora observed with a slight disapproving frown. "I thought he was perfectly fluent in Japanese? Then why hasn't he—"

"Oh! Ah, sorry, how could I forget! Yukihiro Mizore-sama! It's a real honor!" Negi fell to a knee before the little girl as she gracefully extended a hand towards him, one that he tentatively grabbed to place a soft, fleeting kiss on its perfumed back.

"You're overdoing it a bit, brat," Asuna muttered to him under her breath.

"Yes, for once I can agree with Asuna-san, offensive crass appellation aside. Please stand up, Sensei," Ayaka gently allowed as she stepped right behind him, helping him back up. "No teacher of mine should ever kneel before any of us."

Mizore smiled smugly. "Well, not that I would care if he did. At least he seems to know his place!"

"... wait!" a blank-eyed Chisame asked, holding her hand up. Then she looked at Ayaka in a highly confused and nearly helpless way. "You never mentioned you had a sister!"

"Didn't she?" Satomi blinked. "I'm quite sure she did, at the very least once."

"No, I'm pretty sure she didn't!" Chisame protested.

"I'm sure that's just you, because you're, well, Chisame," Asuna piped in, in that innocently insensitive way of hers. "I mean, if you weren't an only child and had a sister, I'm sure you wouldn't have told us about her either."

"I *do* have a sister!" Chisame protested.

"See?" Asuna said. "I'm proved right again!"

"You hadn't told your other classmates about me?" Mizore frowned cutely at Ayaka. "What, are you ashamed of me or anything?"

"Well—" Ayaka began, feeling rather tempted to be completely honest if not because of Negi's presence.

"I'm sure Chisame was the only one who didn't know about you yet, Mizore-chan," Sakurako reassured her. "Don't worry too much about it!"

"You even knew each other?!" Chisame gasped at them.

Sakurako nodded, blinking. "Why shouldn't we? This isn't exactly my first time here..."

Mizore chuckled, leaning slightly towards Chisame. "I take it, then, you are the boy's guardian? The one Onee-sama's always jealous about? I would suggest you to keep him away from her! Onee-sama is dangerous!"

"... yeah, well, I'm well aware of that already..." Chisame confessed, sounding somewhat deflated and quite not sure what to make of the situation.

"Mizore-sama, please!" Negi objected. "That, that's no way for a younger sibling to speak of an older sister!"

Mizore turned back to him, laughing on his face. "Ah ha ha ha! How long have you been teaching her? She's a menace! A formidable predator sinking her venomous fangs on every cute boy who crosses her path! She truly is an enemy to all boykind!"

"Yeah, that's our Iinchou alright," Asuna sagely nodded seconds right before Ayaka, for once, ignored her to instead leap past the stunned and rattled Chisame and Negi, angrily pouncing on her little sister and taking firm, cruel hold of her cheeks. "Ah, why couldn't Mizore-chan have been the older sister and our classmate?"

"T-Take that back! Take that slander back, you little, ungrateful, Asuna-esque... ruffian! I will have to teach you a lesson!" Ayaka protested to her sister unit.

"Eeeee!" Mizore screeched, shaking her head to free it from the cheek-pulling grip of her sister, then spinning around to wrap her legs around hers in a tight lock, sending her down to the ground with her. "Not if I can help it, Onee-sama! Bad Onee-sama! You're just upset you lost to a pasty, pockmarked nerd and want to vent it out on meeeee!"

"Ch-Chisame-san is not pasty!" Negi cried, rushing past the twitching Chisame and to the sisters who now rolled across the grass in a madly agitating Big Ball of Tumbling Violence. "And please don't fight! Don't fight!"

"This is our house and we'll fight if we want to!" Mizore growled at him before having one of her wrists grabbed by Ayaka, who promptly held her back in a tight backbreaker from behind, straining herself to keep the shorter girl contained without pulling the wrestling move all the way out and really hurting her. "Ow, ow, not fair, he distracted me! Don't tell me he's in on it this time! Gigolo, you got yourself a gigolo!"

"Ojou-sama, please don't use that kind of dirty language, what would your parents say?" Siesta the maid softly chided her from the sidelines.

Roberta clapped twice, stoically. "However, I must congratulate you on your use of the Shundo and Kuzushi. You have made outstanding progresses lately..."

"She's still a hundred years too early to defeat me!" Ayaka huffed, pressing her already panting, flushed sister on her stomach against the grass, and standing up from her defeated form while straightening her own dress down with as much dignity as she could gather back. "Hopefully, that will remind you to never disrespect your family again just so you can look better!"

"Well, I wouldn't know about that," Asuna cynically observed. "In any fight between a girl of fourteen and a girl of nine, no way the latter won't end up looking better than the other..."

Ayaka blushed, angrily at first and then in actual shame as she looked at Negi's wide eyed, disappointed looking expression. She half muttered an incoherent, ashamed apology before quickly kneeling by Mizore's side and helping her back up. "Come on, come on, I didn't punish you that sternly. What will Negi-sensei think, if you—"

Mizore answered with a low grunt and a fist directly into Ayaka's face as she went back up to her feet.

Asuna nodded. "Yeah, having Mizore-chan as a classmate would have been the best."

"YAHOO!" Asuna laughed as she threw her blouse, the final piece left remaining of her outer clothes, aside and took a very high jump up into the mansion's gigantic pool with a splash, now reduced to a bright pink one piece.

"Here we go!" Konoka followed suit seconds afterward, now clad in nothing but a dark blue school swimsuit.

"It's party time!" Sakurako joined in, wearing a rather skimpy orange bikini with polka dot dark red spots.

The three girls began to swim around and playfully splash each other as Chisame calmly removed her pants and stood in a simple dark purple one piece, shaking her head. "Honestly, you guys... The nerve of you..."

"Oh, come on, Chisame-chan!" Sakurako splashed in her direction. "As if you're any better! You brought a swimsuit, too!"

"You all but forced us to!" the hacker snapped back.

"Asuna-chan, Konoka-san, Shiina-san, wait for meeeee!" Mizore ran out of the manor and towards the edge of the pool, clad in nothing but a highly inappropriate black bikini that was clearly too skimpy for someone of her age.

A few weeks before:

Mizore looked towards the set of older girls who were trying swimsuits of their own a short distance away from them.

"I'm not trying to hide anything!" protested the one with long black hair in a white bikini, its lower half covered by a white and light green sarong. "It's just, it's just—!"

"Sorry for the wait!" interrupted a much older woman's voice, as a young lady who was much shorter than the other gathered girls stepped out of one of the dressing rooms. The girl's extremely youthful appearance and her quirky, somewhat strange voice did not exactly match at all, but what impressed Mizore the most was the girl's choice of swimwear. Clad in nothing but the flimsiest of tiny black bikinis, she was confidently stepping out, tossing her light brown twintails around with a sensual motion of her head.

"Oh wow," Mizore whispered to herself.

Oblivious to the elementary student looking at them, the almost naked girl told her friends in much more conservative swimsuits, "I was a bit disappointed they only have reserved designs, but I guess this is all you can expect from ready made clothes."

"How, how should I put it..." began the girl in the white bikini, unable of quite completing the sentence.

"As expected from Shirai-san..." sighed the girl with short black hair and a crown of flowers (?) on it.

"Individuality is important!" smiled the beautiful girl with wavy brown hair in a green bikini, bringing her hands together.

"Y-Yeah..." agreed the dark haired girl in the light blue one piece by her side, a bit more hesitant.

The girl in the dark blue one piece at the head of the group cringed as this 'Shirai-san' approached her enticingly, placing a hand behind her own neck and twisting her hips towards her suggestively. "This probably won't fulfill your desires, but please bear with it, Onee-sama!"

"N-No, I don't want any more anyway," mumbled the visibly disgusted target of her affections as the bold girl kept on turning around in place, wiggling her ass at her.

Mizore gulped, looked back at the stunned saleswoman who stood before her, and matter-of-factly requested, "I want one of those in my size!"

Laughing and being greeted with more laughs by the older girls, Mizore audaciously leapt into the water, joining Asuna, Konoka and Sakurako, and especially swimming quickly into Asuna's arms, to share a quick but strong sisterly hug with her, both young ladies giggling as one.

Satomi, on the other hand, was now in a light blue two piece made of short shorts and a brief sleeveless top which showed her navel area. She sat down next to the pool, barely dipping her feet in. Slowly, the genius sighed, feeling terribly bored already. After the discoveries at the front yard, the rest of the manor offered no excitement to her. She started to envy Chachamaru, who had gotten to stay at home under the pretenses of cleaning the apartment and then looking after the cats.

Then the scientist felt someone's gaze sharply fixed on her. She looked up to see Sakurako floating right before her, eyeing her like a mischievously crocodile stalking a prey.

"Is-Is there something wrong?" Hakase couldn't help but feeling slightly wary for some reason.

"Of course there is!" the cheerleader protested. "You aren't in here with us, silly!"

"I'm... not a good swimmer," Satomi averted her glare. "You know I have to struggle with it at classes."

"All the more reason for you to practice now, then!" Konoka pointed out.

"Yeah, Prof," Asun nodded. "Loose down just for once. It'll do you good!"

"I'm not sure..."

"Oh, for the love of—!" Sakurako grabbed her by an ankle and pulled her into the water with herself, gaining a brief shriek from Hakase. "You gotta stop overthinking everything!"

"Kya! No!" Hakase waved her hands around, struggling to break free and return to dry land, but the (even if only marginally) stronger cheerleader wouldn't have anything of it.

Mizore paused in her horseplay with Asuna and Konoka, blinking at the sight of the two girls' shared moment. "Wow," she quietly mouthed out. "Is she like Shirai-san, then?"

Asuna paused as well, mildly perplexed. "Who?"

Mizore blushed, then quickly waved a hand around. "N-Nobody, don't mind, Asuna-san! I was just thinking of someone I met recently, that's all..."

Negi, in the meantime, was walking out of the dressing room for men clad in sandals and boxers, shirtless, and smiled warmly at seeing his students playing amongst themselves. However, he still remained as quiet as he could before any of them thought about dragging him into the... water...

Then he felt the door of the other dressing room behind him being opened, and he looked back with a gentle grin. "Ah, Iinchou-san! Thank you very much for... for..."

Wearing an elegant but pretty revealing white biniki, her pale feet bare, her gold hair waving loose behind her at each step, the Class Rep looked down at the suddenly silent boy. "Yes, Sensei?" she sweetly asked.

"No, nothing!" he hurried to complete the sentence, wondering what had just happened to himself. "Just wanted to give you our thanks for your hospitality!"

"Oh, it's my pleasure!" the vision of beauty laughed it off. "It's the least I can do for you!"

"Hey, Iinchou!" Asuna called out from the water. "Wanna go for a race?"

"No, thanks!" the heiress huffed. "There's no way I ever could beat a kappa monster in its element!"

Asuna seemed offended for a moment, but she let it to slide.

Mizore stuck her tongue out at her sister. "Blah! You're only all too aware Asuna-san will win every time because you're a slowpoke! Why don't you race against me, then?"

"Whatever gave you the impression I was talking about Asuna-san when I mentioned the kappa, Mizore-chan? Come on, let's leave the children to their games, Sensei," Ayaka said as she lured Negi away from the fuming Mizore, until they both took chairs around a large beach table with a colorful umbrella on top. "Truly, they're are so immature for their ages... while you are so mature for yours," she lovingly sighed.

"Oh, no, not at all," he denied.

"And so modest, as well!" she cooed. "Do you want more cookies?" she grabbed a bowl of them that was at the other side of the table and offered it to him. "I made them myself!"

"No, you didn't!" Mizore said from the pool. "Give Siesta-san her credit! Relationships built on lies won't last!" Mizore chided loudly, holding a pointer finger up in faux-sagedom.

Ayaka blushed intensely. "What, what in the world are you trying to say with that?! What are you implying?!"

"She knows you far too well..." Asuna snarked with a sly grin.

"Please, let's just enjoy this afternoon in peace, okay?!" Negi requested, his voice pitched up in what almost was a tired whine.

At the mansion's kitchen, meanwhile, Siesta sneezed loudly all of a sudden.

The black haired maid rubbed her nose with a tissue. "Ojou-sama must be taking credit for the cookies again..." she guessed.

"There," Sakurako's smile took a warmer, softer and less hyper appearance as she finished tugging the little bands keeping Hakase's braids tied off, allowing her black hair to cascade down her shoulders. "You look much cuter with your hair long! Maybe in a ponytail, too..." the cheerleader commented, running her right hand's fingers thoughtfully through the shorter girl's ebony wet hair.

Satomi only managed to blurt an insincere "I'll think about it," out.

From where she quietly swam a few feet away, Chisame had to silently disagree. Hakase did look cuter with her hair made the usual way...

Wait, had she really just thought that? Ugh. Way too much sun, no doubt. Way too much sun. See, this is why she stayed indoors.

Meanwhile, Negi was finishing his cookies while Ayaka watched him, oblivious to everything else, a dreamy smile on her face.

"They're very good, Iinchou-san," he made a cute satisfied sound after it was over. "You really should have eaten a few, too."

"Negi-sensei..." Ayaka softly said.

"Yes?" he asked.

She handed him a small lotion bottle and turned around, then, with a blush, began unhooking her bikini top down. "Could you please rub some sunblock on me? I can't reach all the way...".

Negi's eyes became huge totally white circles. "Wh-Wh-What? Iinchou-san! I possibly couldn't—!".

"Oh?" mercifully for him, she hooked her top back in before it was fully undone, then turned around again. "Ah, I understand. You don't know how is it done, do you? You come from a region with no beaches, after all. Don't worry! I'll do my best to teach you!" she beamed.

"The-There's no need for it, I—" the boy began to shake his head, but the blonde gently, yet firmly, laid him down facefirst into a nearby long beach chair, then knelt down over him, a leg at each side of his body.

"Just relax and enjoy..." she purred melodically. "I'll be your dear big sister while you're here..."

"Uh, well, I don't know—" he shivered as her hands began to rub the lotion all up and down his back, massaging all the way from his shoulder blades to his ribs, and then along the spine. "Somehow, I don't think this is—this is—" he doubted.

"Oh ho ho ho!" Ayaka laughed. "Leave everything to me, Sensei. This is your day. If I'm going too rough, please do tell me...".

Her touch became softer, but also more teasing and playful, her soft hands roaming his back and massaging all the right points, plus a few ones he thought might be not so right at all. He had to admit it felt good, and yet... and yet...

Then he had a mild shock when her hands went perhaps a bit too low...

"NOT TOO ROUGH, BUT TOO FAR!" Asuna had suddenly jumped up from the pool to land with a kick straight into Ayaka's face, sending her stumbling a few feet away from their teacher.

Indignant, the heiress rubbed her now bright red left cheek. "KAGURAZAKA! WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS, YOU— YOU STUPID APE!"

Then she doubled in on herself as Mizore cannonballed into her, headbutting her in the stomach while crying "YUKIHIRO PROJECTILE OF GREAT JUSTICE!"

"OJOU-SAMA!" Cisneros suddenly fell down from a tree's top, her eyes glinting madly behind her glasses, her teeth clenched, and with a black umbrella in a hand. "ARE YOU OKAY? JUST TELL ME THE WORD AND I'LL—".

"Stay out of this, Roberta-san!" Angry enough to spare her the more formal last name treatment, Ayaka proudly humphed, standing straighter while pushing Mizore off herself and aside. "It's nothing I can't solve by myself!"

"I can't believe you!" Asuna yelled in her face. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes without you forcing yourself on the brat!"

"What are you talking about?" Ayaka yelled back. "I was doing nothing of the sort!"

"You were about to touch his butt!" Mizore argued.

"No, I wasn't! I just was rubbing his lower back!"

"Not only are you a pedo, but a liar, too!" Asuna said.

Mizore nodded vigorously. "That's right, you tell her, Asuna-san! She's a menace, I don't know how she can be my sister...!"

Chisame warily looked at them, then even more warily to the towering maid with the web of bulging veins now on her forehead. For some reason, that woman gave a metric ton of terrifying vibes. Even her Mary Poppins umbrella looked highly suspicious.

"At least I'm not a lover of old men, unlike a few others I could mention!" Ayaka furiously snapped.

"Takahata-sensei is not an old man! And what do you mean by 'lover', anyway?" the redhead growled.

"If you get offended, it's because there's something else to it than what I intended!" Ayaka fumed in her face.

"Okay, that's it! Mizore-chan, leave this to me!" Asuna warned before throwing the first punch. And it only went downhill from there.

A few moments later, both fighters panted and huffed after reaching another stalemate; Negi stood at a side completely ignored and defeated once more, and Roberta was barely being held back by Minazuki, Siesta, Sebastian, Fubuki and Iglesias from behind. Chisame sighed and shook her head.

"Out of my house! Out of my sight! Out of my life!" Ayaka pointed away as she remarked every word to her nemesis.

"Okay! I don't need to be told twice!" Asuna spun on her heels, grabbed her clothes, and began stomping away.

Ayaka then turned her vitriol-filled glare towards Mizore. "And you! Each and every time, siding with her over me, your own flesh and blood sister! How could you, Mizore? I bet... I bet our brother wouldn't have done this to me!"

And that, right there, shook Mizore to the core, making her back away as she paled horribly.

Negi and Chisame blinked, completely stunned.

Konoka breathed out, then walked past the others and made an apologetic smile at Ayaka. "S-Sorry about that, Iinchou. I guess you'll prefer being left alone..."

Ayaka's expression softened only a bit. "You don't need to go..."

"Forgive me," Konoka gave her a hug, then bowed. "Asuna-chan needs me, too. See you tomorrow, okay? See you later too, Mizore-chan."

She began walking after her friend, just as Sakurako walked over to Ayaka and gave her a tighter, stronger hug as well. "We all love you, Iinchou-chan," the shorter girl confided, before patting her shoulders down and following her other two oldest friends.

"I guess..." Satomi awkwardly pulled herself out of the water, "I guess we should leave as well.." She gave Ayaka a hopeful look up. "Can I keep the samples, please?"

The millionaire exhaled a sigh. "Yes, Hakase-san, you can."

Hakase then looked down at Mizore, who simply nodded stiffly, looking on the verge of heroically held back tears.

"Thank you," she bowed clumsily, then took after Sakurako.

"Sensei," Chisame got closer to Negi, patting his head down slightly. "I'll go on ahead. You stay with Iinchou and Mizore-san a while longer, will you? I'll be waiting for you at the gates."

"Yes," he obediently nodded.

"Iinchou," finally, Asuna made a brief stop and looked back at the blonde, now with a more subdued, nearly regretful, expression. "I'm sorry. Fine, maybe I overreacted. I'll grant today's victory to you, okay?"

The rich girl just blinked. "Asuna-san?".

"Bye," Asuna lowered her head and walked out of sight. "See ya, Mizore-chan!"

Before Ayaka could react, Chisame formally bowed to her as well. "Sorry for all the inconvenience. For what it's worth... I had a pleasant time here. You people have a beautiful home," she had to admit.

"Hasegawa-san?" Ayaka said.

For the first time in her life, Chisame smiled at her, or something like that. It was tiny, uncomfortable and embarrassed, but at least it looked vaguely like a smile. "They are crazy, aren't they? I guess we have to learn how to cope with them..." She pushed her glasses up. "... Don't think too badly of Kagurazaka. Actually, she... only wanted to make you feel better". She bit her tongue. "Ah, what the hell. Forget I said anything. Goodbye."

She walked away, giving Negi a brief look before disappearing from sight.

Ayaka stood wordlessly there, alone with Negi, her sister and the servants.

"Hasegawa-san's right," the boy softly said. "It was Kagurazaka-san's idea originally. She didn't think too much of it herself, but Konoe-san clung on it and got the ball rolling."

"Huh?" his student looked down at him.

"They... only wanted to distract you up. They said I could cheer you up. Sorry... It seems I have failed miserably..." he sulked.

"Don't say that," she knelt down to pass a hand over his left cheek. "You have made this the happiest anniversary I've ever had..."

"Iinchou-san, I..." his voice trailed off.

"They told you about the anniversary, didn't they?" she seriously asked.

He had to nod, reluctantly.

"Ever since that day..." Mizore mused while sniffling, wetness peeking into the corners of her eyes, "Onee-sama has had a void inside of her that couldn't ever be replaced. Stupid Asuna-san. Thinking you could fill that void."

The teacher and his student looked at her in silence.

"When... When even I couldn't do that..." Mizore broke down into further, small sobbing, lowering her head miserably.

"I'm sorry, Ayaka-chan," her father crouched down to envelope her into a hug. Roberta watched from afar, feeling the tragedy of death for the first time in many long years. The Señorita's cries hurt her ears, but mostly her soul, despite all she had believed she had been used to it. "But—" he softly continued, rocking his baby back and forth against her, "you'll have a little sister instead, to make up for it..."

After that, the Señorita had retreated into the empty room for days, curled up and crying to no end. Sebastian's best attempts to reach to her had no effect. Neither had Sakurako and the Konoe girl's. Much less Señor Yukihiro's attempts to endear Ayaka over to her half sister, the newborn daughter of his mistress. Those, Ayaka had violently rejected them all. The child had no way of knowing or resenting part of the reason behind her mother's miscarriage had been the stress brought along by her husband's extramarital affair, but she had still quickly grown to dislike the idea of having a sister instead of the long promised little brother.

At first, Roberta was convinced the Kagurazaka ruffian wouldn't do any better.

But then she had just kicked the Señorita in the head. "CHEER UP!" she had commanded, as brash and crass as ever. "YOU NEED TO LIVE!"

"ASUNA-SANNNN!" the Señorita had growled, tears of rage replacing those of sadness. "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS!"

And the chase had been on, much to Roberta's shocked dismay.

"Wait until I get my hands on you, monkey!"

"You'll never catch this monkey, you snail!" the redhead dryly mocked her, and damn she was fast. "Yes, follow the tinkling of my bells, that's all you can do… "

Roberta was about to take after her to give her a few spankings, but Sebastian had managed to stop her.

"No, no," he had quietly said. "Leave them be. It's better this way."

Even now, however, she had problems following that advice. She never had been a forgetful or forgiving person, and the Kagurazaka girl still unnerved her almost as much as she did her mistress.

And much like Mizore still unnerved her sister, even more regrettably.

Negi was heartstruck at that unexpected statement, and was ready to move in to comfort Mizore-chan until, one second later, Ayaka walked up to her before he could. She crouched down, much like her father had all those years ago, and gently kissed her sister's forehead.

"No, that's not right," she told the smaller girl. "You may drive me insane on a regular basis, and we might never see things on the same level, but you shouldn't see you as a replacement for our brother. I don't do it, and—"

"But... But that's the only reason why Father brought me here in the first place," Mizore mumbled sorrowfully, "and—"

"No!" Ayaka gasped. "Who ever told you that lie?!"

Mizore gave her a wounded, tearful stare. "Don't give me that, Onee-sama, you know it as well as I do."

Ayaka paused, opened her mouth to give a heated retort, then closed it back with a sigh. "Even if that had been Father's original intent, we all have grown to respect and yes, love you dearly as your own person. In truth, both you and Negi-sensei are something completely different to me than he was. Just as important, if not more, but different all the same. Mizore, Negi-sensei, neither of you will never be able to replace my brother, but you still mean the world to me."

Mizore pouted angrily a few times, slammed a weak fist into her sister's collarbone, and then buried her head under Ayaka's throat, collapsing into continued sobbing.

Ayaka caressed her scalp, cooing soothingly while Negi cracked a sad half-smile, with a fist on his heart. "There, there... I'm sorry I lashed out at you over your friendship with Asuna-san. You have every right to make friends out of anyone you want, of course..."

Siesta wiped a tear off her right eye's corner.

Roberta only stared with a neutral face on.

"But she's only known him for what? Three weeks?" Iglesias mumbled under her breath.

Minazuki was bawling her eyes off.

Fubuki grabbed Minazuki by an ear and began pulling her away. "The Ojou-samas will want some privacy!"

"I concur," Sebastian directed the other maids away as well. "I believe we all have better things to do elsewhere, ladies."

Roberta nodded mechanically before following him. Her mind, however, was elsewhere. And at another time.

Back when she still was a newcomer to Japan, and the Yukihiros' second child was on the way.

Half a hour later, Roberta sat next to a window of the manor's upper floor, with the jaded look of a stalking coyote, silently watching as her Ojou-sama (it had taken her more than two years to get used to replacing 'Señorita' with that local term, and even that only in her spoken speech. In her mind she'd always be her Señorita) and the Señor's other daughter talked with the strange, stupidly naive boy below. Roberta fumed inside. She was grateful life hadn't put her in charge of a brat like him.

"For years, she and I have clashed over everything..." Ayaka reminisced, with lingering tears in her eyes, looking at the distance. "We have completely different interests, likings and opinions. We compete at everything but academic matters, and you know what? She drives me crazy. She makes me lose control of myself, to become as much of a violent maniac as her. I'm sorry... I can't control myself when she stings me, even before either of you. And today, you had to see such an ugly side of my personality."

"It's all okay," he reassured her.

"Yeah," Mizore shrugged. "I'm okay with that, since that's my real Onee-sama anyway!"

"No, it isn't. She isn't! That's not the real me!" Ayaka rubbed her eyes while Mizore just gave Negi a knowing, sardonic little smirk he didn't share. "I don't know what it is about her... but she gets me every time, even turning me against Mizore-chan. I'm half convinced she does it on purpose... or maybe she feels the same thing about me. I only know... she's the only person that can touch me that way." She sighed with a vacant smile. "I guess that says a lot about me, as well."

"If you say so!" Mizore non-commitally said, looking aside. "Sounds like kinky yuri stuff to me, but whatever."

Negi stepped forward and grabbed Ayaka's right hand, holding it up with a comforting smile. "It means you're closer than you both would be willing to admit."

"See, even he thinks so!" Mizore said.

She laughed shakily. "Oh, Negi-sensei! What a silly idea!"

"Just like you two!" he added, grabbing Mizore's hand and pulling hers and Ayaka's together before either could stop him. "You're family, and even if you don't have the same mother, the ties of siblings are much more meaningful than that. My sister's not even my real sister, just a cousin, and yet that makes no difference to me. My love for her remains the same."

"Um, okay, that's great to know, you lady killer," Mizore hummed, quickly pulling her hand away, not from Ayaka's, but from his. "You're a dangerous man, aren't you? I was wrong, Onee-sama isn't the real menace in this relationship after all..."

Negi blinked. "Ah? What do you mean, Mizore-chan?"

"See!" she pointed at him. "That's what I'm talking about! You act all nice and innocent, but you already moved past 'Mizore-sama' or 'Mizore-san' and are calling me '-chan', how shameless! You're entrapping Onee-sama taking advantage of her fetish!"

"What's a fetish?" asked Negi and Ayaka at the same time.

Mizore made a sound of utter frustration. "Aaaahhh, never mind that! Look it up in the Internet, or better yet, don't! Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye on you, Negi Springfield! If Asuna-san distrusts you, and I can tell she does, then there's something wrong about you!"

"Asuna-san distrusts me as well!" Ayaka pointed out.

"See, that's exactly what I mean!" Mizore countered.

Negi tried to laugh. "Well, sorry if I offended you with the '-chan' suffix, but seeing how we're friends now, and you're a child after all..."

"Who told you we were friends?!" Mizore demanded. "And why are you calling me a child?! You're even younger than I! Unless you're some circus midget passing yourself as a boy teacher, and that just makes you even creepier!"

"They prefer the term 'small entertainment people', I believe, Mizore-chan..." Negi patiently explained.

"Not again! Call me Mizore-sama! I'm Mizore-sama, you disrespectful fiend! You'd better remember that forever!"

"Okay, I take my earlier statement back!" Ayaka said. "Asuna-san IS a bad influence on you, and she can't speak to you ever again, young lady!"

Mizore poked her tongue out at her. "Nyahhh! Just try to enforce that, Onee-sama! I'll kick your butt in a fair fight if I need to!"

"No! You shouldn't ever fight at all, and certainly not today! I forbid it!" Negi got serious, raising his hands before Mizore simply sneered and jumped ferally on him, making Ayaka shriek in panic and disgust...

Roberta sighed and closed the room's curtains.

The End.