Going Rogue

Chapter 5

To see a disclaimer, please visit chapter 4.

The three girls, wizard, and ermine had just finished their round of introductions when the door to their room opened, revealing an out of breath Yue. "Got here as quick as I could." She said, panting, "What's the story?"

"And that's Yue over there." Negi remarked, as if to no one in particular.

"Um, sensei?" the girl asked, "I'm pretty sure everyone here knows who I am."

She jumped when a far deeper voice spoke up. "Almost everyone."

Turning towards the source of voice, she saw Negi pointing towards the little weasel on his shoulder. "Wow, this is Negi-related."

"How do you do?" It responded brightly, "The name's Albert Chamomile, or 'Chamo' for short!"

"Nice to meet you." She said, bowing slightly. "As sensei said, I am Ayase Yue. Are there a lot of talking ermines in the world?"

"Not at all," he replied, producing a cigarette which was quickly snatched by a frowning Negi. "There's not too many of us in the worlds. That was one of the errands I ran over the months—seeing if I could find some more of my kind."

"Did you?" Negi asked curiously; it was always interesting to see what his familiar was up to between his visits.

"No, not this time." The ermine said, shaking his head. "They're probably very well hidden—I know I would be, if it weren't for my status as a familiar."

The little weasel noticed three sets of eyes looking at him with tearing eyes. "That's so sad, Chamo-kun!" Haruna finally blurted out, "Travelling the world looking for your people, alone in the world… this'll make such a great addition to my story!"

Chamo laughed off her words, "It's not so bad Nee-san, not like that was the only thing I was doing in Magicus. I take it you girls know about my little master's 'jobs?'"

Nodoka nodded, "It's still kind of difficult to believe Negi-sensei's a… black market trader, I guess."

He chuckled, "That's about the gist of it—though really, we're small fry compared to the big suppliers and distributers out there."

"Hey!" Negi said, "We're not that small fry; I make enough to pile away and expand my collections."

Chamo snorted. "Kid, there's a lot more to the underground than what you can get with a MagiNet connection. Take a trip to Magicus, and then we'll talk."

"Ugh, you know I can't leave until I finish my journeyman assignment, Chamo."

Yue spoke up, interrupting what seemed to be very-practiced byplay. "Chamo-san, you said you were Negi-sensei's familiar?"

"Yep," the ermine said, patting his chest proudly, "And someday I'm sure that'll mean something pretty big. I'm the one who showed him Inscription in the first place, after all!"

Negi felt a strong sense of doom arising when Haruna perked up at this statement. "So that means you know how to make pactio circles too?"

Chamo smirked lasciviously, "Ooh, so he's already told you about those, has he?" He turned to Negi, giving him an ineffective elbow to the head. "I didn't know you had it in you, kid! Which one's your partner?"

Blushes all around filled the room. "C-Chamo! I'm a teacher here, I'd be fired if that happened!"

"Eh, it's your journeyman test too, I'm sure the higher-ups would let it slide." The ermine said, completely unconcerned.

"Not the point…" He muttered under his breath. Partners were one thing Negi planned to put off for as long as he could—at the very least when he was actually a legal adult in magical law. There would be a lot less complications, he figured.

"Um…" Nodoka said, "wouldn't it be a good idea to ask Chamo-san about how to defeat Evangeline-san, now?"

"Who's this 'Evangeline?'" the ermine said, "Made some enemies already, kid?"

"She's a trouble student in my class, to put it lightly." He replied.

As he heard Chamo begin to make plans of revenge for anyone who was making trouble for his master, he added, "Oh, she's also a daylight walker with at least magister-level magical powers. And she apparently has a grudge against my father, which I've inherited."

He felt the scheming weasel freeze on his shoulder. "…Wow. When you make enemies, you really go and make enemies, don't you?"

He nodded, not really liking the situation he was in as he spelled it out so bluntly. "She nearly overpowered me when we first fought, and I would've lost if not for an escape tag. I'll be better prepared next time, but so will she. Probably the only good thing about it is that her powers are bound with the moon cycle; there's around a week and a half before she'll be at full power again."

Chamo nodded slowly, taking all the information in. "I see, looks like I couldn't have arrived at a better time—you'll need all the time you can get to prepare. What did you say the girl's name was, again?"

"Evangeline McDowell."

The ermine scratched his chin in thought. "McDowell… McDowell… Where've I heard that before?"

"I had the same reaction too Chamo—we must have come across the name on the Net somewhere."

"Huh… wait." He paused, a nervous look somehow visible on his musteline features. "She didn't happen to be an ice-user, did she? Blonde, European features?"

"…Yes?" Negi said, not liking whatever was making Chamo so nervous.

"Then you've got a bit of a problem, since you're going to be going toe-to-toe with the Dark Evangel."

Negi finally placed where he heard his student's name before—on a 'most wanted' form for the most dangerous Magical World criminals. "Oh god…" He squeaked out, falling back in his seat, almost squashing his familiar. "So the Maga Nosferatu's out for my blood. Ha ha… ha…" He laughed rather incoherently for a moment afterwards, which was only adding to the three girl's growing unease.

"Is Evangeline-san a famous person in the Magical World?" Nodoka quietly asked.

Negi looked up at them, saying, "Remember when we were talking about super-mages? The kind where people have to redraw the maps of where they fight? Evangeline's one of those. And not the good kind, either."

"Ah."

A beat later, Yue pointed out, "Weren't you holding your own against pretty well against her, though?"

"You know… that's sort of true. Even during the full moon, she barely had any power of her own to use; she was relying almost exclusively on potions and reagents to bolster her power."

Chamo scratched his chin contemplatively. "I don't know, kid, you don't get a six million drachma bounty on you without having a few tricks up your sleeve. Other than the potions, was she using any magical artifacts or constructs—golems or dolls and such?"

Negi shook his head with dismay. "I forgot; she's also called 'The Dollmaster,' isn't she?"

The weasel nodded in return.

"I guess that's one edge we have on her—she's so infamous, a lot of her major techniques are pretty well known."

"What do you know about her then, Negi-sensei, if she's that infamous in your world?" Yue asked.

"Well…" he said, taking a moment to think. "Her affinities are believed to be ice and darkness, given the nature of the landscape after bounty hunter fights—though as I recall, her bounty's been recalled for a decade or so. Actually, that would probably match up right around when she said she was cursed to stay here. She can also create and animate magical dolls, and besides that has all the advantages of a highest-caliber vampire."

"So in other words, she's the final boss of the game!" Haruna said.

Negi shrugged. "She's definitely up there, but I don't know about final boss. My father did beat her over a decade ago, after all. And thinking about it from another angle, she can't really use her strongest spells because she wants my blood, and she needs my living blood to break the curse Father put on her."

"Sounds like you've already got a plan figured out there, kid." Chamo commented.

"Maybe not a full plan, but I have an idea of what to do for the next week or so. Takamichi's out of the country right now so he's a no-go, and something tells me that if the headmaster's been letting her live here for fifteen years with no problem, he's not going to be much help. Still, I'll schedule a meeting with him as soon as I can—if anything, it'll be good to know exactly why he's letting an evil mage room on campus."

"…What a pleasant coincidence, Evangeline-san."

"Oh? Let me guess, you want to complain to the big ol' headmaster about a mean vampire that's been bothering you? Not the bravest thing I've seen in my years, boy." The small-statured girl had just come out of the door he was about to enter; now she was casually blocking the way to the headmaster's office with her arms crossed and an amused grin on her face.

Negi subtly rubbed his ring with his thumb, not rising to her bait. "Forgive me if I don't want to go a second round with the Dark Evangel without all the help I can get—even if it wasn't particularly difficult last time."

Her lips curled a touch more, in a thankfully fang-less smirk. "So the boy's got a bit of a spine after all! I'm sure you're going to give me a lot of fun next Friday, so here's a little hint: I'd start looking for a partner, if I were you. I wouldn't want to ruin any surprises… but as you probably know by my fantastically infamous reputation, I don't need to fight you alone." She turned around with a flair, stalking off down the corridor with a cackle. "And don't think about asking Takahata or the headmaster for help, either! Unless you want the 'Vampire of Mahora' to strike some poor, hapless students again! Yours in particular look like they have some tasty blood…"

With that declaration, she turned the corner, laughter echoing down the hall. There was never a greater time that Negi wished the scroll had chosen anything, anything other than a teacher. Hell, he would've been fine with being a magical garbage man at this point. He was pretty sure whatever "problem students" the other teachers had to deal with weren't literally out for their blood. He really needed to blow off some stress before it got too much for him—and since he couldn't afford to talk to the headmaster now, he had an opening in his schedule.

Looking around the fourth-story hallway and finding it suitably deserted, he quickly murmured a concealment spell, before unlocking the nearest window. Now that he thought about it, it had been quite a while since he had gone flying; the first time he'd really used his staff since coming here was when he was chasing after Evangeline. Luckily he had his camouflage well enough mastered that even his now-raging paranoia wasn't objecting to a mid-day flight. He took a last regretful look at the door to the headmaster's office, hoping he wouldn't have needed any help when the new moon came around.

A quick hop, a bit of basic magic to lock the window behind him, and he was a transparent blur across the sky. Dipping and turning through the boundless air, Negi could feel the wind calling to him, to the element of his being. Being a wind-affinity was so fantastic!

After several more minutes of aerial acrobatics that would have left stunt pilots in tears, he relaxed, slowly ascending in wide, lazy circles on the updrafts. While absently manipulating miniature whorls and eddies of wind with his free hand, Negi decided to practice with one of his favorite wind affinity exercises. He always called it "count the birds," never having changed the name since when he first thought of it in Wales.

Slowly coasting to a stop, he closed his eyes in concentration as he slowly focused on his barriers, letting the wind protections around him melt away, free to be carried away by the currents. It was the nearly completed version of his dubbed "wind radar," though at the moment it wasn't very practical outside of refining his elemental focus.

His barrier strands were carried away by the wind in all directions, an expanding web of threads weaving through the open air. "Two… and three more behind and below…" he murmured, drifting aimlessly on his staff. "Oh, and another just to my right, and… what is that?"

He frowned, opening his eyes and glancing upwards, a white expanse of low-hanging cloud obscuring his view. That thing was bigger than any bird he'd seen before—wingspan easily as wide as an albatross, but with so much more bulk… was there anything even relatively normal about this academy?

Recalling what happened last time he tried to fight an airborne enemy, Negi began to recall the scattered wisps of his barrier from the air, keeping a tracker in the "bird's" area. Another minute later, and his wind protection was in working order again. Opting for a cautious approach, Negi sped ahead of the still hidden and presumably unaware target, before slowly rising up through the clouds.

With his reformed wind barrier keeping the condensation off of him, he poked his head through the last of the cloud cover. For a moment, he stared blankly at the sight in front of him. He recognized one of his own students, wearing some type of shrine maiden getup, flying through the air just feet in front of him. On enormous white wings. Negi wasn't quite sure how to begin this conversation.

A nearby bird had the curious experience of seeing what looked like little more than a disembodied human head zipping along through the sky followed by another, complete human that looked to have quite a bit of bird blood. A second passed. Negi realized that if he had to endure any more of this silence he would likely explode, and slowly descended into the obscuring mist, obscuring their view.

Now dropping just below the cloud-line again, he took a moment to make sure he wasn't about to have a screaming fit. Was there a single normal student in his class?

That may have been a slight exaggeration, he realized, thinking of his librarian friends. Though he supposed he really couldn't consider them "normal" anymore, exactly. And now that he was done delaying the inevitable, he supposed he'd have to back up there again, if only to make sure she was sure about what she was doing. After all, what kind of teacher would he be if he just let his students fly about without proper supervision?

He rose up again, now next to the surprisingly calm girl. "So, Sakurazaki-san… good afternoon?" Was this proper protocol for aerial conversation? Aside from her answers during class, he had never really spoken with her.

"Good afternoon, Negi-sensei." She responded with surprising calmness. "I did not know you were a mage."

"And I hardly knew you had wings, either!" He said. "Are those natural? I can't say I've ever heard of a race with white wings like that."

She gave a small wince. "These wings… were not meant to be white. If it's all the same, I'd rather not talk about it."

Negi nodded solemnly. Especially when it came to mages, you knew better than to pry into secrets—it rarely ended pretty. He adjusted his course, flying slightly below her to give her wings more room. "If you don't mind me asking this, then: exactly who else in the class knows about magic? It was shock enough with Evangeline-san and Tatsumiya-san, but this is getting a bit ridiculous."

The winged girl frowned. "Tatsumiya-san yes, but McDowell-san? I wasn't aware she was a mage. As far as I know, we should be the only ones in your class aware of magic… although I admit some of them seem a bit suspect."

Negi blinked. "You didn't know? She's not just a mage; she's a vampire, too. A very… troublesome vampire."

Setsuna seemed to realize something, arcing in a wide circle around the edges of the academy. "Wait, those incidents of 'vampire attacks' were…"

"Yes, that was her." He said, nodding, "I'm going to have to have to fight with her in less than a week now, or she'll start to attack my students—and she'll do the same if I try to go to Takamichi for help."

The white winged girl frowned as she spread her wings out, coasting on an upward draft. "That is quite the problem. I don't suppose you've asked Tatsumiya-san for help?"

Negi harrumphed, "Apparently it'll take 'more gold than I could make in my life' before she would even consider taking on Evangeline."

"That does sound like something she'd say, always the economical one."

"Do you two know each other then?" He asked, curious.

The girl nodded, coasting off side to the edge of campus and prompting Negi to follow. "The headmaster hires her for small exorcisms and exterminations fairly often—whatever slips by the academy barrier when the teachers are busy. Since my job is mostly the same, we found an alliance of sorts convenient."

Negi made an appreciative noise; he'd been wondering why someone of Mana's caliber had been hanging around a peaceful place like Mahora. "Ah, so where are we going Sakurazaki-san?"

She pointed in front of her towards the approaching forest, "A few minutes in there's a clearing I made for when I practice my swordsmanship. If Evangeline-san is a vampire that managed to mask herself entirely from my senses, there's no doubt she'll be a tough opponent. You'll need all the help you can get to beat her."

"Really? Thank you, Sakurazaki-san!" Negi exclaimed, overjoyed. "Finally I found someone that can help me!"

"It's no problem, Negi-sensei," she said, giving a small grin, "I have reasons of my own for why I'd want class 3-A to be free from danger. Now, the only offensive art I could teach you is swordplay, and a week of training wouldn't even be enough to make you competent, much less a threat to her. So… I was thinking something more along the lines of 'survival instincts.'"

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, finally able to spot the clearing she mentioned.

"This," She said, appearing like a blur in front of the surprised teacher and swinging down the wrapped bundle she carried on her back straight at him. With his hands on his broom, he barely had enough time to gasp before it impacted, shattering his barrier and sending him careening down to the open field.

He flicked his hand outward as he tumbled, wrapping himself in a stabilizing wind as he fell at a more sedate pace to the ground—but, before he could catch his bearings he saw a flurry of white and red movement out of the corner of his eye and knew he needed to move now.

He sent the wind slowing his fall in a downward gust, pulling him down just below the winged blur racing overhead. He repositioned his broom with one hand, keeping the other free as he pulled up out of his fall and regained his balance, seeing his student coming at him from his other side now.

"Flans Paries Aerialis!" He screamed with an outstretched palm just a moment before she was upon him, her now-unwrapped—but thankfully still sheathed—blade stopped just inches from him.

"Three attacks to form a decent defense…" the swordswoman noted, pausing in her assault, "not the best I've seen by a long shot, but you did get something out the first try, so good job!"

"What-" Negi said, panting slightly from sudden exertion, "-was that?"

"A sneak attack." Setsuna said matter-of-factly. "Let's go back to ground, I've been flying for a while today." As they descended, she continued. "If your opponent is a vampire that has attacked innocents, you can't expect a straightforward fight. Sneak attacks, attacks from behind… you need to be ready for any of that. So what I can teach you in the time we have is how to survive fighting against an enemy faster than you."

Negi grinned, "Sounds good."

Chamo was bored.

Negi had gone off to talk to the old coot, leaving him with unfortunately specific instructions to stay in his room and absolutely not try to go to the bath again, putting a little power into the familiar bond to demonstrate how serious he was. Honestly, it's not like anyone cried over a little lost underwear.

The little weasel was making headway in his fifth self-guided tour of Negi's room when he heard a knock at the door. It only took a moment to decide any kind of company would be welcome, particularly if they were middle-schoolers that loved to pet furry adorable pets! In another moment, he raced to the door and jumped onto the handle, pulling the chain free with his tail, jumping from there to Negi's bed.

Several seconds later the door hesitatingly opened, the face of Haruna Saotome peeking inside. "Hello? Anybody home?"

"Over here Nee-san!" The small creature waved from atop the bed. "Where's the rest of the book lovers?"

"Just me today!" She said brightly, slipping off her shoes. "Not like any of the others know I'm here, after all."

"Ooh, you a sneaky one, Nee-san? You did seem awfully interested in those pactios" Chamo said, giving the girl an appraising look.

Haruna giggled in response. "Well, what can I say? Get an awesome power up and a super magical item just from a kiss? That's so cool it's practically illegal to keep it from me—er, us!"

"I like the way you think!" Chamo exclaimed, hopping down from the bed to Haruna's shoulder. "And you know what, I'd like the kid to have a partner or three too! Absolutely terrible at asking people to do things for him, always running off on his own making trades; got on my nerves, I tell you. Especially with the full moon and Evangeline's challenge coming in just six days, he needs more help that he'll admit."

Haruna hummed slowly, resting a hand on her chin. "So Negi's one of those character's that tries to do everything by himself? And then we're gonna be the ones to save him dramatically at the last possible moment and show him the true power of friendship and pactios?"

Chamo let out a deep laugh at that. "That you are, that you are. Forgot you kids probably read that stuff all the time; that's pretty much the situation I'd like to avoid. They usually don't go so well in real life."

"So what can I do 'avoid this situation?'" Haruna asked, sporting a grin that was matched by Chamo.

"You know, I already had thought of a few ideas the moment I heard the kid was going to stay at an all-girl's school, but since you three already know about magic—I think some plans can be adjusted…"

Negi was feeling something awfully foreboding as he flew slowly back towards the academy. The feeling was a bit difficult to distinguish from the myriad aches he had picked up over the course of two hours of "dodging practice," as Setsuna called it.

He mentally labeled it as the "Oh god where'd she g—OW OW oh that's where" game, one that she recommended they only play for those two hours at most, which he quite happily agreed to. Any longer, and Evangeline would have to drain his blood from a puddle on the floor. So it was with a wary and weary heart that he finally touched down on the roof of the dorm building, painfully aware that he left his conspiring ermine alone in a room full of magical artifacts and a MagiNet connection for the better part of the day.

Turning the door handle he silently prayed the room was still explosion-free, and more importantly that he wouldn't find any mysterious charges to his MagiNet account.

It was nearly a shock when he found the room… perfectly untouched. Books organized; laptop still charging and unopened; his inscription kit might actually have been a little cleaner than when he left it.

Definitely not a good sign.

He saw the telltale swish of his familiar's tail on top of his pillow, and knew he had to find out what was going on before the little weasel's schemes grew to ridiculous proportions.

"Hey, Chamo, what've you been doing all day?" He asked, poking the white tail with the end of his staff.

"Mm?" The ermine said, stretching his paws out. "Sleeping, mainly. Not much else to do, since it turned out to be a pain to try and guess your MagiNet password. Hope you don't mind I ate all your snacks by the way, since, you know, 'don't leave the room or I'll turn you into a pair of slippers' and all."

Negi's eye twitched. Dammit, he brought those crisps from halfway round the world! "I'll be sure to leave out some pet food next time you feel like sticking to the letter of the law. Anything else I should be worried about?"

"Not really. Konoka came in once or twice, I wasn't really paying attention. But I didn't talk to anyone I wasn't supposed to, honest!"

"It's all right, Chamo, I believe you." Negi said tiredly, "It's just been a long day since I actually found someone to help me out against Evangeline."

"Nice, kid!" Chamo said, "The headmaster finally give you some backup against that crazy vamp?"

"Actually, no. She caught me before I could get to him and told me bringing in any of the teachers would be… detrimental to my students' health. Surprisingly enough, it's one of my students that's helping: Setsuna Sakurazaki."

Chamo perked up at that. "Another one in your class knows about us? That's a surprise. How's she helping?"

Negi smirked at that. "They're not the only ones, either. Remember that one buyer that was always haranguing me about discounts? Bought a bunch, but super stingy? Turns out she's in my class, too."

"What?! But she's been buying from you for what now, three years? There's no way she's actually a middle schooler!"

Negi shrugged, "That's what I thought, but everyone acts like she's been there for at least a year or two. I'm not too sure what to make of her, but she did say that hiring her to fight Evangeline was way out of my price range."

The weasel snorted, "Well, ain't that a surprise."

"Anyway, Sakurazaki-san is shoring up my weak points as best she can considering the time frame we're working with. Mainly aerial agility and being able to dodge whatever hits I can't afford to shield against."

"I'll leave you to it, then. Just let me on the laptop, will you? It's been ages since I've been able to go on the net!"

Sighing good-naturedly, he set the computer up on his bed and showed his familiar the password. "Where's yours? I never see you without the thing."

"Had to ship it back from Magicus." The ermine said absently, already typing away with his little paws. "Couldn't have anything on my person when I sneaked the border, and the last time I tried to seal away a laptop it came out melting and on fire. Along with all the other stuff I had in it," he added, grimacing at the memory. "It should come in the next week or so."

"Ah. I'll leave you too it, then." He said, tapping a series of spellbooks on his desk, grabbing them as they shrank to the size of matchbooks and leaving Chamo to his own devices. He'll probably get off when he gets hungry again.

He finally decided to get some of his work done in Library Island—less chance of any mundanes stumbling across his work in the basement. He had to get some of his own preparations done before the school week started, after all.

Coming to a stop in what appeared to be a passable work room in level 2—if one ignored the floor made of books, that is—Negi quickly sketched out a small standard ward that would compel away anyone unaware of the magical world.

With another wave of his wand and a murmured incantation, a plain wooden chair and desk sprung into existence, shortly followed by a small floating ball of flame. Conjuration was hardly his specialty, but he knew enough about the subject to make them last for the few hours he'd be there.

With all the time he'd spent between grading papers and filling out his clients' orders, he hadn't much time to do some good old theory and research lately. While the most cursory of readings told him he wouldn't be getting an easy win by waving some crosses and garlic around, he did find a reference to her infamous magical constructs. After all, if the Dollmaster was going to be so kind as to tell him what she was bringing to their fight, he couldn't help it if he made his own preparations, could he?

Now, settling himself in his chair and adjusting the intensity of his makeshift lamp, the little professor tucked himself in for a long, nostalgiac night of research.

Negi found it strangely easy to slip back into his newly-acquired routines, even while the threat of mortal danger hung ever-closer. Evangeline had resumed her habit of skipping classes, which at least left one less thing for him to worry about between teaching the class, surviving Setsuna's hellish training, and his own research. If he let himself believe enough, sometimes it was almost like he was just an average English teacher in middle school! A class that seemed somewhat more antsy than usual, but a group of refreshingly normal nonetheless. As he finished class 3-A's lessons for the day, he realized only a moment too late what the cruel, cruel world would do after a statement like that.

The distant sense of dread that he'd been attributing to his coming fight with his student came to a terrifying crescendo when, the moment before the dismissal bell rung, Haruna casually stood up and declared, "As everyone I'm sure knows by now, and please do follow the rules we posted, the contest of 'Pin the Tail on the Negi' begins… NOW!" And with the ringing of the bell, all hell broke loose.

The first thing Negi saw was a piece of paper being flung straight at his head, weighted down by a smooth pebble. He allowed his knees to buckle momentarily, letting the small scrap of copy paper smack against the blackboard as he caught himself on his desk. He was about to ask just what the heck his students were doing, when he noticed a design on the paper, crudely etched out in blue ink. The concentric circles with glyphs arranged along their border, in that peculiar order every magus past puberty knows by heart…

A pactio circle, but how on earth would-

His thoughts were cut short with the slap of another, less accurately thrown slip of paper slapping against the wall, this one weighed down around its edges by paperclips. He spinned around, seeing the majority of the class grinning mischievously and armed to the teeth with hundreds of pactio charms. Somewhere deep in Negi's mind, a voice said, "Run." Negi ran very quickly indeed.

He burst through the classroom door and slammed it shut behind him, hearing a steady thunk of paper charms of all sizes and materials impact it behind him. As he breathed a sigh of release, he flinched when he heard the click of a window unlocking. Dropping into a dead sprint down the hallway,he only spared enough of a glance behind him to avoid a charm shot from a rubber band by a girl with a black side-tail.

He turned the corner as quickly as he could, as the noise level around him spiked as girls everywhere started coming out into the hallway. He quickly realized what a dangerous spot he was in when he jerked his foot out of the way of a Narutaki twin about to slap a charm on his ankle. He ignored her disappointed whine as he took off again, trying to put as much distance as he could between him and his classroom while the halls were still empty.

Still somehow his students managed to get ahead of him, as evidenced by the numerous they sprung on him from stairwells and the windows of empty classrooms. With every near miss or swat with his staff, he raced even more frantically down the hall. He knew enough about the pactio ritual that if he was tagged with one of those circles he'd barely have the coherency to walk, let alone avoid his students—whom he was reminded quite forcibly that they were nowhere near normal when a pigtailed girl—Hakase—pulled out some kind gun behind him and launched a rapid fire stream of tags straight at him. It was only his quick removal and subsequent tossing of his jacket to intercept the paper projectiles that kept him from losing this insane "contest" that he was entirely sure Chamo was the source of. Apparently he had underestimated the lengths to which he'd go to try and find a partner for him.

Ducking underneath another set of tags aimed at him, he was never more grateful for his student as when he saw Nodoka just down the hallway at the door to the in-campus library. "Quick sensei, they won't find you in here!" He didn't even need to take a moment to consider it before he bodily flung himself through the doors, which were quickly shut behind him.

Eyes still darting around as if he was expecting one of his students to pop out from the shelves, he realized something, "Wait, why wouldn't they find me in the library?"

"A-ahh, sometimes I wonder if most of the class even knows where this library is." Nodoka admitted with a sigh.

"Right you are, Nodo-chan!" A new voice spoke up. Turning around, Negi saw a smug-faced Haruna standing atop the shelf next to them, earning some muttering from the other students in the library. "If the main library didn't have its own island, I doubt they'd know where that was, either. Guess it's just us now, Negi-kun!" Negi was quickly questioning the wisdom of his decision when her eyes took on a distinctly predatory glint.

"N-now Haruna-san," Negi said, backing up slowly, "I know you think pactios are the coolest thing since sliced bread, but you really should think—"

"No excuses, Negi-kun!" Haruna shrieked, "I'm getting my super cool magic item one way or another!" Before he could react to her proclamation, she pulled a rope behind her, sending a box tumbling down over Negi's head, spilling pactio charms as it went. Resisting the urge to blast the charms out of the sky with other mundanes in the library, he twirled his staff point upwards, using just enough power to redirect the slips of paper away from him in a conic dispersal. His vision soon became filled with the seemingly-innocuous slips, and the muttering from the other students in the library gave way to open confusion. Nodoka's voice in particular was demanding to know what Haruna was doing.

It was only when he saw a hand dart through his impromptu screen, pactio charm in hand, that he realized obscuring his vision might not have been the best thing to do. He tried to twist out of the way, but found himself quickly blocked by the falling charms, just now beginning to thin out. The flash of light that emanated around them when the charm finally connected with his chest was quickly followed by the leering smile of his student, giving him a wink before swooping down and capturing his lips with her own.

A rush of power flowed through him as he completed their kiss, disorienting him as Haruna drew back, her eyes distant. At least, until she spied something above his field of vision, which she quickly snatched with a cackle.

"Yes! I knew it was going to be a book—oh wait, a sketchbook? Even better!" Cackling madly to herself, she dashed off through the library, touting her newly acquired artifact, snatching a protesting Nodoka along the way.

It looked like it really was becoming one of those kinds of days.

"I swear, Chamo," he muttered, "you are so dead when I find you."

"Hey, c'mon kid, it's not too bad, is it-urgh!"

Hearing the all-too familiar voice, Negi acted more or less on instinct and snatched the little ermine in a tight grip before stalking out of the library himself. Seeing the hallway cleared of people, he once again decided to take the most direct way out of the school: the window.

Luckily for Chamo's nerves, the library was located on the ground floor of campus; so, instead of being dangled off the edge of Negi's broom like he had planned, he was instead just suspended in the air under a bubble of wind.

"Chamo." Negi began, "Albert, come on. Why do you have to be so stubborn on things like this? These girls, my students, they're just normal people! You can't get them involved with our world; bad enough that those three already know, if any more people find out about us I'm going to get exiled!"

Chamo was beginning to feel a bit loopy from being held upside-down, but managed to respond, "Hey kid, I had the entire thing under control. All those charms those girls were throwing at you? Very close to being accurate pactio charms, but completely non-functional. Besides, it wasn't even my idea this time—that girl really wanted a pactio, I decided to help her out a bit."

"Wait… you're telling me those were all fakes? All of them?"

Chamo nodded, "All except the one Nee-san had, of course. Like it or not, kid, I'm looking out for you—you've been preparing for Evangeline tomorrow, and this is just me doing the same."

Negi sighed, but much more relieved now that he knew there wasn't any serious danger from his familiar's 'preparations.' "Chamo, I just don't want to get them involved more than they already are—it's bad enough that I had to use Nodoka as bait for her, there's no way I, as a magus, can let them anywhere a serious fight between us!"

"But they're not just 'mundanes' anymore, are they?" Chamo interjected, "You know how it is: once you're involved, there's no backing out. Magic attracts magic, and all that. So you want to protect them, I get that! But if you lose because you didn't let them help you, you're not going to protect anyone as a bloodless husk!"

After a long pause, Negi said, "Always the tactician, aren't you? Alright, go find Saotome and figure out what her artifact does—let's hope she hasn't blown anything up yet. I'm going to meet with Sakurazaki-san, she said we'd have one last training session before tomorrow."

Released from the constraining air, the little weasel twisted through the air to land nimbly on his feet. "Knew you'd see it my way, Negi!"

The child teacher snorted, "Please Chamo, if you think I'm forgetting this little stunt anytime soon you've got another thing coming to you."

"Heh heh, well…" He said, backing away slowly, "Good thing I have such a forgiving master!" he said, scampering off into the bushes.

Negi just shook his head at his retreating familiar. "Just one more day…" he muttered, clenching his staff tightly. "I'll be ready for you, Evangeline."

Lexicon Negimarum Falsum

Pactio Charms – The bond between a master and his attendants, the pactio may not be one of the oldest rituals of bonding known to mages, but it is without a doubt the most ubiquitous within magical culture. This famous contract, signed with a kiss (among other possibilities), requires the assistance of a creature to act as an envoy to the spirits which govern the pactio system. The most prominent race to have this capability are the Sidhe and their kind, though there are other lesser-known races which communicate with the pactio spirits.

However, pactio-capable creatures may not always be present for when a pactio needs to be formed. In those cases pactio charms, which in themselves can only be created with the assistance of one such aforementioned being, were the solution to pactio demand. Though the rise of standardized "pactio brokers" with commemorative photos and reasonable prices have largely displaced the demand for pactio charms, they are a well-remembered part of the history of "pactio."

A/N: What's this? Meterion has updated? It must be a Christmas miracle! Really, this story isn't dead. Promise.

These next chapters… I'm not going to pretend and set a date for them, but know that I will at least be working on them. Now that college (which, I'll freely admit, was a big cause of why this took so long to write) is winding down for the semester, and that I actually have a first-hand idea of what kind of time it consumes, there will be relatively more frequent updates.

So don't despair! There will be more Going Rogue yet! Faves and reviews do wonders for guilting me into writing faster! Meterion—away!