魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 21 Chapter 188

Summary: With the Pactio Cards and weapons in the air, Asuna grabs Konoka’s card and flings it to her. Both she and Asuna activate their respective cards with costume as Paru, Yue, Nodoka, Asakura (with the Sayo doll), Chiame, and Chachamaru check out the sounds and see Fate and a wounded Negi. Donet is working with the mages in the control center for the gate port, where they are unable to do anything for at least 15-minutes. Things are so bad and Fate got through so easily that Donet wonders if someone in the Magic World working with Fate.

Asuna goes to attack Fate with Ku providing backup to clear the way for Konoka to get to Negi. However, Fate instant-moves to Konoka’s location and goes to put her out of commission (petrification spell?) but the spell is thwarted by Setsuna, who uses a fuda (charm; talisman) and her wings to protect Konoka. Setsuna is angry and using her artifact, she and attack on Fate. She manages to slice Fate in half, but the body is merely liquid and now Fate is behind her attacking. However, Ku is waiting for Fate and her attack takes out all of his stone spears that were intended for Setsuna, but of course he survives.

Asuna brings Negi to Konoka but before anything can happen, she receives a warning (telepathically?) telling her to look out above. One of Fate’s companion’s has launched the same attack that took out Kaede but Asuna’s magic nullification protects them. The sword girl greets Asuna as “Princess,” remarking on how she’s grown and attacks, but Kotaro intercepts her (having been healed by Anya) and protects Asuna. A “charm” bomb rolls to Fates location and explodes while Kaede’s giant Shuriken swoops in.

Konoka uses her abilities to completely heal Negi as Setsuna and Ku join Kaede, who managed to escape from the trap though still has some of the black substance on her. Asuna and Kotaro form up and Negi rises to face Fate. Seeing this, Fate retracts his remarks about Negi’s companions being garbage. Since Fate found the encounter fun, he wonders if he’ll seriously fight the next time they meet. Negi demands to know about Fate’s group and what they are up to, but Fate says they are out of time and they have to leave. Negi says he will stop them, which leads to him receiving a punch in the face from Fate. Fate tells him that even with the recovery spell, he should take it easy. With that, Fate rises into the air and causes several dark, monstrous pillars to come down and completely destroy the gate area.

Thoughts: Wow. A rather nice fight there. I hope that my theory that Fate is actually Spider-Zero from Akamatsu-sensei’s A.I. Love You (English title) because in addition to looking identical, they have other similarities. Besides, Nitta-sensei was also in that manga so why not Spider-Zero?

I wonder who it was who warned Asuna. Since they used the term “neechan,” it wasn’t Chamo and no one else in Negi’s group refers to Asuna in that manner (this is why honorific usage is so important in Japanaese literary works), thus as I see it, someone else warned her. I wonder who.