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- "On that deserted beach, I was standing in the presence of one of the most evil beings in either world, and didn't even know it at the time."
- —Mei Narusegawa
Mei Narusegawa (成瀬川 メイ, Narusegawa Mei) is a fictional character from the series Love Hina and Negima!: Magister Negi Magi by Ken Akamatsu and a protagonist in Kuro Arashi: The Black Storm. She is Naru Narusegawa's half-sister or more accurately, step-sister, since her father married Naru's mother.
She is kohai to her senpai, Takane D. Goodman, whom she initially refers to as "onee-sama". However, she ceased using this honorific for Takane after her relationship with her sister improved. She is deemed as a skilled ministra magi, whose artifact is a broomstick. Mei is also a transfer student, sent to study from a North American mage academy before the Mahora Festival. She is a 2nd year middle school student in Mahora Academy, making her a year younger than most of the 3-A students.
She travels to and appears at Hinata-Sou and attempts to bring Naru back with her. She is also the one who found the photo of Naru, Keitaro Urashima and Mutsumi Otohime in the sandbox outside Hinata Inn when Mutsumi and Keitaro were both five years old and Naru was only two years old.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Almost no information exists on Mei's early life. All that is known is that some time in her youth her father married Naru's mother and the two then became step-sisters.
It is know that Naru was aloof towards Mei during their youth together.
North American Mage Academy[]
Nothing is known about Mei's studies abroad, only that she traveled and spent two years abroad, from the time she was twelve to the time she was fourteen, and studied magic in North America at an unknown mage academy similar to Mahora.
Mei at Hinata-Sou[]
At sometime before or during her enrollment into Mahora, Mei visited her sister at Hinata-Sou in an attempt to convince Naru to return home. To accomplish this, Mei attempted to get Keitaro to hook up with Mutsumi. The end result was Naru finding out that Mutsumi was Keitaro's "promise girl," which would complicate Naru and Keitaro's relationship further.
In the end, Naru left with Mei and returned home. Eventually, however, she came back to Hinata-Sou, not intending to leave. Mei is among the group that goes to check the examee's scores after Keitaro had fled to Pararakelse. Along with Kaolla Su, Mutsumi Otohime, Mitsune Konno, Shinobu and Sarah McDougal all of them go to look at the posted scores for the three young hopefuls. Mutsumi is the first to find hers and exclaims happily that she has finally gotten into the University. Mei discovers that her older sister has also managed to get into the school. Mitsune then states that the group is ready to depart, but Shinobu protests, stating that they should check Keitaro's score. The entire group displays shock, upon their discovery of the score, that Keitaro still managed to get into the school, despite rushing and fleeing the exam.
Accompanied by Shinobu and Mei, the younger three determined that they need to go look for Keitaro as well. They are stopped for a moment by Mitsune and Mutsumi, though Kaolla remidies this problem swiftly via means of her Mecha-Tama and a jet pack installed in Shinobu's stuffed animal and the three head off to Pararakelse.
Priority Shift[]
Many months later, after the tenants of the Hinata-Sou were awakened to their destinies, the Kanto Magic Association grew nervous at the presence of such a group of unregistered and potentially non-compliant mages right on their doorstep. To this end, ten of the most renowned mages at Mahora Academy, including Mei, were sent to the Hinata-Sou in order to gain their compliance in preserving the worldwide masquerade. Due to Gandolfini's non-diplomatic approach, the meeting swiftly evolved into a standoff, which soon broke into violence.
With the battle joined, Mei chose to engage Shinobu Maehara, confident that the shy girl's white magic powers wouldn't make her an effective combatant, especially as she had been separated from the others. Unfortunately for her, Shinobu had retreated to the kitchen, and Mei underestimated the girl's inventiveness. Shinobu begged Mei several times to stand down and not fight, but when the more experienced mage stepped into the kitchen, she was promptly flattened by Shinobu using a skillet as a bludgeoning implement.
After the battle, with the other mages having fled from their defeat, Mei was interrogated by the Hinata tenants and her sister, who had been away during the battle. She explained the reasoning for Mahora's actions against them, and remarked that if their ragtag group had managed to defeat the top ten at Mahora, then the threat they presented was not overestimated. Mei was released shortly thereafter, and given a message to deliver to Mahora that the Hinata tenants simply wanted to be left alone, and that they weren't out to cause any trouble.
Despite her defeat, Mei was thrilled at the prospect that Naru was now aware of the secretive magic society. For her entire life to this point, she had been forced to hide that aspect of her life from her step-sister, whom she adored, and always felt as though it had driven a wedge between them. With the secret out, Mei resumed regular contact with Naru, attempting to visit whenever possible.
Mahora Festival[]
On the night before the festival, Mei, Takane and Gandolfini made up the group that arrested Chao Lingshen, but released her on behalf of Negi. During the first day of the festival, she and Takane, realizing that Nodoka Miyazaki was at a high risk of doing something that would activate the World Tree's magic, tried to intervene during her date with Negi Springfield. Unfortunately, Negi came to Nodoka's aide and, as a result, Nodoka ended up triggering the World Tree's magic to turn Negi into a "Kiss Terminator" obsessed with giving her a deep kiss. When Mei and Takane tried to subdue Negi, he ended up giving them the first of many strippings.
On the second day of the festival, she took part in the Mahora Fighting Tournament, where she was swiftly defeated in one hit by Kotaro Inugami. Later on, after Takane and Asuna Kagurazaka were also eliminated from the tournament, she and the other two noticed Misora Kasuga and Cocone Fatima Rosa sneaking around and, upon realizing that they're there to investigate on Chao's plan, joined them in exploring the underground of Mahora.
In the timeline where Chao was successful in revealing magic to the public, the press constantly hounded Mei in the aftermath. She, along with Megumi Natsume, assist Takane in their mission to arrest Negi's group when they try to find a way to rescue Negi and return to the third day of the festival. While Mei's artifact was able to nullify the abilities of some of Negi's Ministra Magi, Asuna's magic cancel ability and Ku Fei's martial arts training resulted in Mei's group getting defeated and stripped bare. After Mei's group comes to (and given the Library Club's tour blazers as cover for their body), Nodoka used her pactio artifact on Mei to find out where Negi has been held, and Asuna comforts Mei by promising her that they will return the world back to normal.
After Negi and his accompanying students return to the third day of the festival, Mei was shown along with Takane entering in the battle against Chao's robot army, where she took charge of the student defenders at the Tatsumiya Shrine. Though she fought valiantly, the weaker defenses at the Tatsumiya Shrine and the relentless attack of the droids forced her and Kotaro to retreat to the World Tree, covered by the few defenders that remained.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Magical Prowess: Mei seems to have an elemental magic affinity for fire and is shown to be proficient enough to disarm Kaede and Setsuna at battle. Although in most fights, her true strengths were not demonstrated, so it is unknown the full extent of her abilities. She's capable of casting spells onto her broom, which then activate later upon striking a target, as demonstrated during the tournament preliminaries when she used multiple sleep spells to overcome her adversaries in this way.
- Pactio: Puella Genista (lit. Broom Girl): Her pactio artifact, the Favor Purgandi (lit. Liking to Clean), is a broom that she uses for combat as well as transportation, just as how Negi's does with his staff. It may be similar to the broom that Yue has. One possible power of the broom is to completely to disarm opponents with a stroke, but it is uncertain whether this is due to the broom, or Mei's own magical prowess. The broom, for all intents and purposes, appears as a mundane broom, however. Mei's pactio card displays her in her school uniform atop the broom surrounded by sakura petals.
Trivia[]
- It has long been debated whether or not the Mei Narusegawa of Love Hina and the Mei Sakura of Mahou Sensei Negima! are the same individual. In the Kuro Arashi canon, the two are treated as the same person. The explanation is given that Mei kept her magic ability secret from her step-sister in line with the global policy, not revealing her talent until after Naru and the others were awakened as the Chosen Heroes.
Appearances[]
- Kuro Arashi: The Black Storm (First appearance)
- PokéFiends (Mentioned only) (Non-canonical)