Negima! Vol 18 (Ch 162) *SPOILERS*

Thanks to AQS for the scans.

Chapter 162

Chao briefly imagines what it would be like traveling with Negi and his partners in the near future as one of Negi’s partners. She admits that such a future sounds nice (which pleases Negi), but she’s returning home to the future anyway. She teases Negi about partnering with him since being a partner is like being married and so he’d be proposing to his blood relative. Negi was serious about his offer to be a mage with him and she tells him to save such words for someone important to him. Since Negi doesn’t want to take “no” for an answer, Chao tells him she’ll be forced to use a terrible weapon she hasn’t used yet, one so terrible it is certain to cause conflict among Negi’s companions. This weapon is her family’s registry (ie: her family tree).

Chao explains that since she’s Negi’s descendant, then her family registry shows whom Negi married and had children with. Suddenly, Negi’s partners understand how this is an ultimate weapon. Ayaka arrives on the scene in a mood, demanding to know more about Negi’s marriage partner. Paru uses her power to create a thing to fly her to Chao and Negi where she grabs the book. Chao continues to discuss how the registry would contain all kinds of details about Negi’s life, which has Ayaka’s nose bleeding at the thought.

Asuna takes down Paru with her harisen weapon. The book falls into Nodoka’s hands, and Asuna tells “Honya-chan” (Nodoka’s nickname) to dispose of the book. With Ayaka, Makie, Konoka, and Yue with her, Nodoka starts to cave to the temptation to open the registry. Chisame rushes in and grabs the book while chastising the other girls for starting to look. However, she is unable to resist the temptation to peek, resulting in Asuna breaking Chisame’s glasses. This leads to a free-for-all among Negi’s partners, causing Chao to be pleased with how well this weapon did work.

Chao then prepares to return to the future, stating she’ll return to her own battle there. She requests Negi continue the fight here. As the multi-mandala forms in the sky and she beings to rise, she instructs Satsuki to take care of the street car cafe (Chao Bao Zi). She thanks Chachamaru and Hakase for their work. She has some instructions for Hakase and tells Chachamaru to live her life as she pleases since she’s an individual. As Eva, Chachazero, and the Headmaster observe from a distance, Chao tells Ku that they should “cross arms again.” She then tells Negi they should meet again, which Negi agrees to. With that, Chao is gone.

Negi’s parters return with shopping bags full of food, where we learn that Asuna burned Chao’s family registry. Negi tells them that Chao is gone and he was unable to do anything for her. Ku disagrees, saying that Chao happy (laughing) as she left. Negi’s girls decide to have a party since the festival is now officially over, after getting some rest of course.

Thoughts

So, the School Festival Arc is actually over. Man. This thing went on for quite some time, covering nine volumes (volume 9 contained the prelude to the arc with the actual arc starting in volume 10, and volume 18 wrapping up the arc and going into some aftermath). That’s some kind of mad number of chapters. No wonder there was a joke about resting for 2-years since this story took a little over 2-years to do in Japan.