Mahou Sensei Negima! is the creation and intellectual property of Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.
All other franchises mentioned within this story and their related characters and elements are the intellectual property of their respective trademark and copyright holders.
A Little Bit of Courage.
Chapter One.
The world was perfect.
Life was perfect.
True, there always were a few little snags here and there. There was the fact that a child teacher had been sent from overseas shortly ago to room with Chisame and Hakase, for instance. That would put a hamper on anyone's cherished normal life, of course.
But Negi Springfield had proved to be surprisingly agreeable and mature so far, and he hadn't bothered Hasegawa Chisame nearly as much as she'd have expected him to. What bothered her were the dreams, and the memories.
Since his arrival—or perhaps since shortly before that, it was difficult telling for sure with dreams—the pockmarked, bespectacled girl had been having these strange, strong feelings of déjà vu where she and Hakase would have all sorts of delirious adventures with Negi. Granted, the fact that Negi was a mage, as he'd revealed shortly after moving in, surely had a lot to do with that. Still, it made Chisame feel awkward about the whole situation. Even more than she would usually be.
Otherwise, it was a good life.
They sat around the breakfast table, buttering their bread in a Western style morning meal, the kind he liked better, and the kind Chisame didn't mind. Chamo the white ermine sat at a corner of the room eating from his own small plate. It was then that the short, red haired boy, already wearing one of the dark green suits he'd bring to the job, made the announcement.
"By the way, my parents are coming next week. Sorry if this is sudden, but I just was informed yesterday, by the Headmaster."
Hakase Satomi looked at him curiously from across the table, her large round brown eyes shining with mild intrigue under her even shinier large forehead, framed by slick black hair neatly tied into pigtails. "Oh, is that so? I was under the impression that Sensei's mother had passed away some time ago."
"What? No!" the boy said. "It's true that we haven't gotten to spend so much time together as we'd like, what with the Academy and all of that, but… she is alive and well." He smiled faintly. "I barely can remember her, but I'm still so eager to see her, all the same…"
"I see… Good thing for you, then," the ponytailed girl said, taking a pensive bite.
After a pause, Negi added in a quieter tone. "Although…"
"Yes, what is it?" the smaller of the two girls asked.
Negi shook his head. "No, it's nothing," he told Satomi. "I don't know what came over to me for a moment."
He felt it as well, Chisame thought, and yet she didn't dare to bring the topic up. What if she was wrong, which she had to be? He'd believe her a crazy weirdo…
And there was nothing worse, in Chisame's opinion, than a crazy weirdo.
The world was perfect.
Life was perfect.
The world was miserable.
Life was miserable.
An ocean away, a tall, thin man was hunchbacked over a desk, wearing black paints with matching suspenders and shoes, and a white shirt, buttoned all the way up to the neck. The man had black hair and green eyes, and also an elongated, sharp face with a long, pointy nose.
The man was sealing documents. They'd be dropped at his desk by one errand boy or another, and he'd have to read through them before slamming approval seals on them. The documents were always approved since the world was perfect and there never were any serious disagreements; only every once in a while, in very exceptional cases, a document had to be rejected and sent back for minor corrections.
Said corrections would be made immediately—for the world was efficient, and so was the system—and then be sent back to Jack's office for approval. Even better, the mistakes and anomalies never were serious, so there was not a real need to send the documents back to Upper Management in the first place. So Jack Napier saw little of a point, if any at all, to his job, but he was not supposed to complain. Wayne Enterprises had given him so much, after all.
The horn blared somewhere, signaling the shift of turn, and Jack got up with a sigh, dusting his pants off and marking his time. On the way out, he crossed paths with Arnold, who was in charge of the night shift.
"Hello, Mr. Napier, sir," Arnold said meekly. He was a short, slightly dumpy older man, with thick glasses and a balding, graying head. His suit was even plainer than Jack's, all dully gray with a white bowtie.
"Hello, Mr. Wesker," Jack sighed lifelessly, pulling on his jacket. Before leaving, he saw Arnold sitting behind the desk, and carefully putting his good luck charm by the stack of papers.
Jack's eyes widened. He'd seen the charm before, of course, but this felt like the first time he'd actually paid it any attention. It was a small, comical dummy in the suit of a stereotypical movie gangster, with a thin scar running down its face.
For a moment, a vivid image of violence flashed through Jack's mind. He almost felt the acrid smell of gunpowder, and almost heard a loud, cruel cackle, a heartless laughter that—
Jack left the office quickly, feeling sick and rushing onto the street, all but fleeing the Wayne Tower.
Feeling sick in the bottom of his stomach.
And yet…
The world was perfect.
Life was perfect.
Mahora was harmonious.
The short, svelte and pink haired girl in the junior high uniform contemplated this as she approached her two classmates cautiously, under a bright late summer sun and a beautifully blue sky. Chisame and Hakase were eating lunch by themselves, somewhat apart from the others, as it was their custom, since they weren't very popular.
Except because the other girl remembered it another way. They'd made a lot of good friends over the last few months, even if Chisame wouldn't admit it. So why were they back to eating alone? That would have been a concerning question in Makie's mind even take on its own, apart from everything else.
Makie was not a person for worries. They made her feel awful.
"Chisame-san," she said, stopping shortly before the bench taken by the duo. "Could we talk for a moment, please?"
Chisame looked up at her from her bento box. "What do you want, Sasaki?"
"Ano… Just the two of us, please, if you won't mind!" Makie said, gesturing with a hand back and forth. "Um, not like you're a bother or anything, Satomi-chan! It's just that… well… I'm not sure you'd understand this!" she blurted out, blushing.
Chisame raised an eyebrow while Hakase only nodded. "I have no inconveniences with this," the genius said, standing up and starting to walk away. "I'll go talk with Chao for the duration of this interlude, then, if you will not mind."
Chisame saw her disappearing past where the three cheerleaders were teasing Negi, and towards Lingshen and Ku Fei. Then she looked at Sasaki in annoyance. "Look, if this is about something involving emotional advice, I'm barely any better at that stuff than Hakase. Why don't you go ask Akashi or Ookuchi? They—"
"You remember as well, don't you, Chisame-chan?" Makie asked.
"Excuse me?"
Makie nodded firmly. "Yes! I can tell you do! You feel things aren't like they should be. I notice from how you react to everything, compared to the way you were before. Please tell me that I'm not going crazy, Chisame-chan. Tell me of everything that you remember!"
Chisame pulled back, and her eyes widened ever so slightly. "I… I don't have the foggiest idea what are you talking about now…"
"I'm talking about Kyoto and Mundus Magicus and the Count Grant Whatever, Chisame!" Makie sai, clearly frustrated as she slammed a foot on the manicured grass. "Don't pretend you don't remember! Since Negi-kun arrived, you're tense at all times, because you're afraid all those things will happen again, and you don't want to face them!"
"No, you're freaking crazy, what are you on?" Chisame growled, pushing her glasses up and pinching the bridge of her own nose. "It's true that I've been on the edge of late, but that's just reasonable having to room with a boy, and a foreign to boot, and…"
"Chisame," Makie said. "Are you happy with the way things are?"
"Ah?"
"I'm not happy, Chisame. And I'm always happy. So I can feel your own unhappiness, and it's not the same unhappiness you had before being happy while pretending to be unhappy. Are you okay with the way things are?" she repeated.
"That doesn't even make any sense, I-!"
"I won't judge you if you want to leave things as they are, Chisame-chan," Makie said. "If everyone's truly happy, then I guess that it'd be selfish for me to wish otherwise. But I don't think that they'd be really happy, either, if they remembered how things are supposed to be."
"Things… Things aren't supposed to be insane…" Chisame said in a strained tone.
"Oh! So you do remember!"
"I remember you being a pain in the neck as much as ever, that's what I remember!" Chisame said, tossing her hands up. "Why can't you leave well, well alone?! What need is there to-?!"
"My mother," Makie said, biting on her lower lip.
"What about your mothers?!"
"That is the thing. You just said it! My mothers. Plural. Now I have a single mother," Makie said, suddenly beginning to sniffle, finally collapsing behind the façade. "And… And that mother isn't the woman I remember anymore…"
Chisame looked at her in a startled silence. "…"
Makie began weeping softly. "I can't be happy this way, Chisame-chan… I want Mama Madoka and Mama Homura and Sku-chan and Keiichi-senpai back…!"
Chisame doubted and trembled.
Makie began crying in full force, leaning ahead.
Without saying a word, Chisame opened her arms and caught her in them.
She placed a hand on Sasaki's scalp, and after several moments, she said softly, "I do."
"Y-You do?!"
"Yes," Chisame whispered. "I remember Tsunetsuki-senpai and that annoying mutt boy. I remember Kero-san arguing with Chamo, and I remember that Sextum bitch blowing us up. I remember the Holy Grail War, now that was a damn hot mess I'd rather leave behind. I'm not sure I was happy back then, Makie. But… I suppose that everyone else was… I'm sorry. It's me who has been selfish. I refused to acknowledge all of that, just so I could have an easy, normal life."
"Chisameeeee!" Makie bawled, hugging her tightly. "You're baaaaack!"
Chisame rubbed the smaller girl's scalp. "I guess so. Don't worry, Sasaki. Some way or another, we're going to fix all of this."
