OverMaster's Little Crummy Corner of Sub-Par Writing

The Sleeping Beauty.

They took him to a huge chamber, and there he was, resting in a coffin of ice.

Philip's eyes grew slightly in size. "Who... Who is that?" he asked, despite always having known, ever since waking up himself.

The doctors hummed and hewed. "The founder, naturally," the lead one said. "Those stories were always true, we kept him preserved since long before the old world died. It took us centuries to produce you, the perfected being who could wake him up, so this is what you were born for. Go ahead, boy. Kiss him."

Despite everything, Philip struggled with the idea. An atavic revulsion rose in him at the sight of the icy body, its eyes closed, hands neatly folded on its chest. But his programming could not be contradicted. Without wanting to, he leaned down, kissed the father of all dreams in the lips, and then pulled back, disgusted at himself and the nature of the dream.

For a moment, the wise men and women and wise ones from the new genders feared at the lack of a reaction from the sleeping beauty. But then it twitched, and hope was reborn in their long dead hearts.

The frail body shook and rattled, and something rose from inside it. It rippled through the chest, shedding the old body like so much useless skin, and the wise ones fell to their hands and knees as the Black Mouse stood, smiling, much to Philip's horror.

The mouse smiled widely. It waved a black hand gloved in white.

"Hi ya! Ha ha!" it laughed in a falsetto.

Philip turned away and began running outside.

 

Even if the Whole World Changed.

"Do you ever wonder," Michiru asked, as she danced in her arms, "how would life have gone, hadn't we ever met in that gala?"

Haruka smiled, with that roguish gleam in her eye. "It'd have been a matter of time. We move in the same social circles anyway."

"Oh, no, you do now because you come with me," Michiru smiled, grazing Haruka's cheek with her fingers. "I can't even imagine what would have happened... can you?"

"I don't want to," Haruka said, as they both moved under the moonlight bathing the hall. "Life would have found a way regardless."

Michiru nodded and rested her head on Haruka's chest.

"Last time I ever come to one of these swanky parties with you, Mayu," Harley groaned not delicately at all while munching on another shrimp, ignoring the dancers moving across the hall. "Man, these things sure are boring when you ain't robbing them."

Mayu made a mortified sound before simply grabbing Kaoru by the hand and pulling him along onto the dance floor.

"Some people just can't handle sincerity," Harley told Pamela, who just sighed, rolled her eyes, and sipped more of her wine.

---

I thought this was long overdue since I never addressed the topic before, but yes, Michiru and Haruka are still a couple in the Unequally universe, even if they are no Senshi.

 

Pulling the Gang Back Together.

"Well, as you can see," Haruna grinned, "Cocone-chan and I had some problems at first, but later, after I took over the air pirates, we really hit the jackpot. That's why Negi-kun sent us to look for everyone, since we've got more mobility than anyone else."

"Nice to hear," Misa said flatly.

"Nodoka and Illya-chan were lucky too, Illya-chan basically took over a village and runs it with an iron fist now," Haruna continued. "It's scary, really, how far the little tyke can go when given any power to build up from."

"Of course," Madoka hummed.

"Keiichi-senpai and Chamo were on the run for a while, but then they were picked up by a goddess friend of Skuld's sister, and I tell you, Senpai's got more talent with the girls than we gave him credit for!" Haruna chuckled. "He got this wacky bimbo goddesss, another one who's really annoying, one who's kinda like Touko-senpai and Matoi fused together, and two sisters who look just like Tohsaka-senpai, all interested on him for some reason, can you believe it?!"

"Niiiiice," Misa gritted her teeth.

"Natsumi-chan's accounted for too, she was found by this kind enough duck guy who is filming a movie based on Vigilante-san's life, and he's been hiding her from the fuzz," Haruna elaborated. "Maki-chan also got a benefactor in Maria-chan, this really, really nice girl from a magic academy who gave her shelter. Iinchou and Lala-chi were in a bind for a while, being forced to run from one place to another, but you know Lala-chi, she can fight pretty much anyone back..."

"As expected from Lala-san," Madoka sighed.

"Right. Itoshiki-sensei and Matoi took a while to find their way, they were lost in the jungle, but Matoi eventually could track Chisame's scent. Chisame and the Vice Prez had been hanging with a magic guild, by the way, they were saved from being turned over because the VP's girlfriend-- remember her?-- had been spending months with the guild since disappearing and got leverage for them. I really like what I've seen of this guild, they remind me of my family..."

"I feel for Chisame already," Misa growled. "Where. Is. Negi. Kun?"

Haruna shrugged. "Where do you think? Off kissing girls all over the place, naturally! Yue-chan, Asuna, Skuld-chan and Rito-chan are with him right now, but he's also recruited some pink haired Anya wannabe, some otome game villainess girl, a hot girl in lust with the otome villainess, the murderous princess of the Fire Nation fallen from grace with her father and her two henchwomen, two duck girls, a dog girl whom I'm sure is hot for Yue-chan, and Tsukuyomi."

"The psycho who wanted to cut us into so many thin slices," Madoka said.

"You know how things work for Negi-kun as well as I do," Haruna told her. "We're yet to find the others, Negi-kun is afraid they might have been captured, but I think that, if they were, surely the fuzz would have announced it already, right?"

"I wouldn't be afraid for Saku-chan," Misa deadpanned. "I'd bet you anything that she's with Hakase and living the high life."

"Ha ha haaa, you're probably right!" Haruna laughed. "So, how have YOU been doing since?"

Misa pointed at the collar she was wearing and seethed. "We're slaves, and if we don't do whatever we're told, we're shocked so we work our asses all day long, that's what we've been doing! Now get us outta here before those creeps realize we're wanted fugitives and sell us for the reward!"

"Ahhhhh, that explains the maid costumes, then...!" the girl with Haruna said, slamming a fist on the palm of her hand. "How do you do, I'm Dita and I'm part of Paru-sama's crew...!"

Madoka looked at her bag of groceries. "Misa, I'm all for escaping, but maybe we should take what we were sent for home before we do that...?"

 

Louise Valliere (Familiar of Zero)
Catherine (isekai, got an anime this year)
too many possibilities (same anime as above)
Azula, Mai, and Tai Lee (Avatar)
no clue
Collet (Negima)

and Dita is from Vandread

 

Stranger Faker than Fiction.

"Ah ha ha ha!" Saber laughed, slapping his knee as he watched the colorful movie about funny animals. "They nailed him! Even the thumb sucking! How did they know, for real?"

Ayaka blinked. "Uh, okay... Nice to see it doesn't offend you, then..."

 

"I wish for half of all sapient life in this universe to disappear."

It had been, as far as Thanos of Titan knew, a reasonable wish by the standards of universal genocide wishes. Restricting it to sapient beings meant animals and vegetal life, the very resources he was looking to preserve, would not be wiped along civilizations. The universe, after a period of chaos, would return to a pristine, peaceful state, like that of the utopia from his youth.

He was aware the phrasing left him, too, open to annihilation. It didn't matter, even as he felt himself dizzy and weak, a sensation so alien to him. It was a price he had been willing to pay for his cause the whole time.

Thanos was not afraid of Death, after all. The complete opposite.

As he watched the muscular arm holding the Infinity Gauntlet disappear right before his eyes, a craggy smile grazed his hardened, purple lips. He had done it. To make sure the gems wouldn't be used to reverse the process after he was gone, he reached over and crushed them in the only hand he had left, finding pleasure in the horrified gasps of the last few so-called 'heroes' remaining.

"It is done," the giant said, and surrendered himself to nothingness.

"Oh my God, he really did it," the Wasp muttered, stunned, Hank's death not registering in yet through the haze of her terror. She watched the dented gauntlet hit the rocky ground, the embedded gems reduced to dispersing dust of colors. Just like her male companions, in this last stand.

"No, it can't be!" the Scarlet Witch shouted.

"Great Hera, no!" Wonder Woman said, pushing herself back up on her elbows, rising from where she'd been tossed like a bleeding ragdoll mere moments ago. The tall, black haired Amazon looked around, and saw every male hero and costumed adventurer present drop to their knees, swallowing in agony. "Superman! Batman?!"

It was this way, then, how a new day dawned.

---

Not Even if You Were the Last Man on Earth.

 

Not Even if you Were the Last Man on Earth.

---

"There's no major design on it," Urd-san finally said, shrugging and crossing her legs. "It certainly wasn't our idea... but the gems weren't actual sentient beings with a mind of their own, and they operated pretty much the same way a previously programmed computer would when asked to address a problem. They took a random parameter roughly equating 'half of the universe' and followed it. They might have deleted the female half of all species instead, if only the metaphoric coin toss hadn't landed this way."

"... were," Negi said after a moment of quiet panic. "You are talking about them as if they were--"

"They are gone," Urd confirmed, and Skuld, Yuuna and the four librarians, all in the room with the two of them, paled in horror. "Thanos himself crushed after wishing upon them, wanting to leave nothing to chance. Sorry. Whatever you are going to do, you'll have to fix this some other way."

"You... You can't just put it like that, how else are we gonna bring Dad and everybody else back?!" Yuuna protested. "You should be worried too, if you've lost the male half of all deities...!"

"Who says we've lost them?" Urd sighed. "Technically, we live in a different layer of reality outside the physical universe, and it's not like even the gems' power could have deleted any of us. Father and the other gods are still fine as ever, even Thor respawned at Asgard after his physical body was pulverized. Good thing, too, otherwise your reality would have started to crack already..."

"Should... Should we be worried about that regardless?" Yue gulped while Shiori and Haruna fanned a wobbling Nodoka. "We aren't about to experience a new age of entitled gods descending and taking us for themselves, are we?"

"I don't think so, the Olympians have mellowed down a lot since we neutered Zeus' horndog directives, and most other pantheons were never that horny about mortals, really, it's mostly just bad propaganda the Olympians gave us," Urd said. "Long ago, we determined breeding with mortals to create demigods wasn't really the way to go... well, most of us did anyway, but if you ask Mitis..."

"Wha-Wha-What about Keiichi?!" Skuld cried, slamming her hands on the table. "I can't believe you're this cold blooded about it all, Urd!"

"That's a problem indeed," Urd frowned, looking down. "The population of Mundus Magicus being halved means there's a lot less pressure on its maintenance, and we've actually got a better chance of breaking Bell free now, but as soon as she notices--"

Haruna blinked. "What are you talking about now?"

Urd waved a hand. "Never mind. Anyway, Father's orders remain the same in that we cannot just magically fix all of mankind's woes this time, either. You will have to figure a way on your own, but that's okay, I'll be taking a vacation to help you figure this out as an independent party. It's the least I can do for Bell and Keiichi."

Skuld winced. "What a relief, having your bloody help of all things..."

"I'm sure we can find a way around the issue if we start thinking out of the box all together," her tanned older sister argued reasonably, and Negi found himself nodding while biting his lower lip. "It might help to look into what happened with the Heroic Spirits. That might be the key to undo the situation, or just restore all men somehow."

"The... The Heroic Spirits? The Servants, like Saber-san, you mean?" Yue asked. "That's right, what happened to them? Those who had male Masters must have vanished already from mana deprivation..."

Yuuna sighed. "Well, yes, they should have, but the case is that, you will see..."

 

Matoi Ryuko had been on another quest when it happened.

Truth be told, when the guys she'd been fighting vanished in thin air just like that, she wasn't terribly startled. Weirder things had happened before, in her quest for her father's killer. But when the woman at charge of the base reacted in so much confusion and fear at it all, that was Ryuko's first sign something really weird had just struck.

After learning that old hag had nothing to share and knocking her out, Ryuko left the mountain base behind and headed back into the city. She began realizing what was going on rather quickly. She hurried up, and she was really racing by the time she reached Mako's home, even while Senketsu kept on protesting his complete ignorance on the going-ons.

Mako's mom was uncharacteristically sad while greeting her at the doorstep, confirming Ryuko's fears. She awkwardly comforted the woman the best she could as she was hugged, then took a moment to pet Guts' head before rushing to her bedroom.

Mako sat on the bed, curled up into a ball, and for once said nothing, absolutely nothing, as she saw Ryuko burst in, calling her name out.

That silence was the scariest thing Ryuko had ever faced.

She still did not hesitate in the slightest, as she moved in and hugged her best friend tightly, not letting her go.

And not being let go either.

 

Thirty One Clown Princesses in Amber.

---

Good Things Come in--

When Yue made it to the breakfast table, there were three Dads sitting there for some reason.

"Plot Twist, there's been three of us the whole time," one of them said.

"Okay," Yue replied blandly.

"We're splitting the whole of you among us," another one said. "Criminal gets Mana, Evangeline, Akira, Chachamaru, Kaede, Kazumi, Chao, Satsuki, Konoka and Setsuna. Clown gets Fuuka, Fumika, Asuna, Makie, Ayaka, Ku Fei, Misa, Madoka, Sakurako, Zazie and Misora. Comedian gets you, Nodoka, Haruna, Chisame, Yuuna, Ako, Sayo, Satomi, Natsumi and Chizuru."

"You're all criminal comedian clowns, how are we supposed to interpret that?" Yue asked.

The third Joker sighed. "Criminal is the Golden Age one, Clown is Death in the Family, Comedian is Killing Joke."

"Okay, but which one of you is which?"

The three looked at each other.

"You know," one of them finally admitted, "that part, we still have to sort it out..."

 

Not Even if you Were the Last Man on Earth.

---

"I am," said the white haired woman who looked remarkably like a grown Illya, "the spirit who was caught inside of the Grail for years, after the last Heaven's Feel. Recently, the other force inhabiting the Grail was deleted suddenly... such a disgrace, really. For he was a tormented soul, and it is a tragedy that he was erased from existence, just because he once had been a man and cosmic forces beyond our understanding deemed it that he had to vanish along all other males or, well, most of them, that is. Alas, such was Fate."

She smiled sweetly then, so Negi had to wonder how much of a tragedy had that actually been in her opinion.

"Okay, and...?" Yue gently prompted her.

"Well," the woman sitting at the porch of Akashi-sensei's house with them continued, "that left me inside of a rapidly crumbling Grail, as the sole force deciding what to do with the untold powers stored within it, its connection to the Root of all things, and quickly fading access to the Throne of Heroes. I had to act fast! So, if nobody was going to ask for a wish, I'd have to do what I could at the time."

"You... You could have asked for the Grail to undo the great vanishing," Nodoka said in a hollow voice.

"My apologies. I didn't have a clear idea of what was going on at the time," the woman who had introduced herself as the Dress of Heaven said. "Besides, even now, I'm not sure how the Grail's power could measure to that of those gems you speak of. I suppose I simply panicked and did the first thing I could think of. So I revived all of the Heroic Spirits I had at hand and gave them physical forms, so they could have a new chance at happiness."

"WATARU-SAMAAAA!" a voice wailed from within the house. "JUST WAIT FOR ME, I'M ON MY WAY...!"

"No, disciple, not!" another woman's voice was chiding her. "Let that rope go right now! Pigleeeeets! Come here and lend me a hand, will you...?!"

"... that didn't work so well for everyone, did it?" Haruna asked blandly.

"Oh, give me a break, I never was supposed to make use of the power, I was just the gateway for it. I did the best I could."

"Okay, so that... that answers that question, then..." the visibly rattled Nodoka gulped. "B-But, you still haven't told us... h-how come you look so much like Illya-chan...?"

The woman blinked a few times, then gave Nodoka a stunned gaze as her red eyes shone. "You know Illya...?!"

 

"Do you... Do you really think he's gone?" Kugimiya Madoka asked, sitting with the rest of what remained of the SOS Brigade at their club headquarters.

"We don't have any recordings of his presence in the continuum anymore," Nagato Yuki reported dryly, sitting with a book on her lap. You could tell things were dire because the book wasn't open. "We theorize that his cosmic awareness might have subconsciously recognized the directives going on at the moment, and he felt he had to comply as another being subject to the laws of physics."

"So... he deleted himself because he felt that was the right thing to do?" Suzumiya Haruhi guessed.

"That... is one way to phrase it," Yuki allowed. Tellingly, she was wearing her glasses again, now that he was gone.

Haruhi sighed while Madoka gasped. "That's just like Kyon!" the former said. "And I guess that doesn't jive with the timeline you were given, right, Mikuru-chan?"

"That... That is classified information," the baby faced Asahina Mikuru said, sitting very still and very pale.

"And that's so much like you!" Haruhi tossed her hands up. "Okay, what do we do now?!"

"My personal thoughts on the matter do not matter, but since the subject linking our association together doesn't exist anymore, I believe we should disband the SOS Brigade," Nagato said emotionlessly. "Of course, I need orders on the subject before acting on those precepts."

"So do I," Mikuru nodded soberly. "I also need an authorization from my superiors before just grabbing my things and leaving for good, and for the long sought relief of release..."

"Ah! Traitors!" Haruhi gasped at them. "I thought we had something special, even discarding the penis bridging us all together!"

"You shouldn't be thinking about Senpai as a penis!" Madoka said. "Show some respect!"

"I have just realized we haven't mentioned Itsuki-san at all over the last three hours," Mikuru said very quietly. She was ignored.

Haruhi sighed, and ran her hand through her hair. "The greatest paranormal breakthrough in the history of mankind... now womankind... and my forces try to abandon me in its cusp! Okay, Yuki-chan, and what's so important to do now that you want to leave? Are you going to enjoy a retirement, or what?"

Nagato looked down at her book. "Well... I haven't had the time to keep up with all new books in the library..."

Then the door of the room was flung open from the outside, and in stormed a non-chibi Asakura Ryoko. "Not so fast, everyone! There's still so much to do...!"

"Aaaahhhh!" Haruhi gasped, jerking back on her chair. "You're alive?!"

Madoka blinked. "... who are you?"

Asakura glared at Yuki. "You never told her about me?"

"Why should I? She is friends with the greatest gossip monger in the school, I assumed she would know about your mysterious vanishing."

"Mysterious vanishing?" Madoka blinked and began counting with her fingers. "Let's see, this obviously isn't the Nice Boat girl, nor is she Kikukawa-senpai, and she's too young to be one of that Occult Club girls from twelve years ago, so--"

"Asakura Ryoko, the popular Class Representative who disappeared without a trace nine months ago, before you joined this club...!" the newcomer told her.

"Ah, yes, that, now I remember," Madoka said. "Well, how do you expect me to remember everyone who disappears in this school? I was about to guess you were that Sayoko girl instead..."

Ryoko sighed. "Your teacher."

"What... What about him?" Madoka gulped.

"The Data Overmind has restored me with the express purpose of handling the situation concerning him, since Nagato-san is not up to the task whenever it comes to handling boys," Asakura wagged a finger. Yuki looked down again, unable to refute this. "As he might be the key for the evolution of the human species from this point on, I--"

"What does the kid have to do with any of this?" Haruhi asked curiously. "Any special circumstances about the way he disappeared?"

Ryoko smiled slyly at her. "Disappearing? That is the thing, Suzumiya-san. Negi Springfield still lives..."

Mikuru snapped into full wide eyed attention and even Madoka, who hadn't been told about this just yet, gave a small, somewhat hopeful, gasp at the news. Yuki opened her book and lifted it slowly, conveniently hiding her face behind it.

Haruhi took on this with a raised eyebrow and an open mouth for a moment of two before finally breaking into a smile.

"Well!" she said. "Time to go shotacon, then."

"Already thinking about that right after losing your father and your prior romantic interest?" Asakura flinched mildly. "And I'm supposed to be the inhuman one..."

 

"I'm not here to start a conflict, or to finish the one already existing between us," Kiryuuin Satsuki said.

Shizuna-sensei forced herself to stay driven and cold under the steely gaze of the younger woman. Around her stood Touko, Taiga, Shakti and Mana, in a display of strength that was necessary considering who had come to visit. And yet, Shizuna realized, also a dangerous show of singular weakness on her own part, since Konoemon-sensei wouldn't have needed backup in his office while granting the President of the Honnouji Student Council an audience.

In contrast, only Jakuzure Nonon stood behind Satsuki's chair, with a bored, aloof air about her.

"That is good to hear, since that would be the last thing any of us needs at the time," Shizuna said evenly. "What do you want, then?"

"I have been told you hide a surviving male within these premises," the black haired young lady said sternly, and every Mahora representative in the office was briefly taken aback. She gave a harsh smile, then. "I see, so it is correct then. I knew it..."

"Who... Who told you that?" Fujimura-sensei hissed. "Only a select few knew...!"

"Not as few as you wanted to believe, I'm afraid." Satsuki paused for a moment after saying this, her tone stoic. "Rest at ease. We won't take him forcefully away from you. We realize that... wouldn't be convenient at the time, for any of us. As much as we might despise admitting it, our forces have been halved, much like yours, and while I'm certain we would still stand victorious in an open confrontation, any victory would certainly be a pyrrhic one."

Shizuna frowned, unsure of what to do about this apparent, and so strangely unusual even given the circumstances, confession of weakness. "Then what do you wish for?" she asked.

"Half of your campus has been depleted, and so has ours," Satsuki slammed a fist on the desk. "In a moment like this, even survival itself isn't guaranteed for anyone! Generously, I offer you, then, a truce as long as this emergency lasts. To keep all of our remaining students alive and in any shape to tackle the challenges of the future, we'll need joining forces, no matter how much we may hate the idea!"

"Oh, I thought we were far too weak to be anything but your subjects?" Touko allowed herself, inwardly flaring at the sight of the heiress.

Kiryuuin gave her an icy stare. "We will strengthen you, so count your blessings," she said. "Or you could simply choose standing alone, and see how your system sinks under your feet before long. Your hands aren't strong enough to hold the reins alone. Not like this, having lost that man."

Touko was about to protest, but Shizuna, copying a favored gesture from the prior Headmaster, silenced her by silently raising a hand. Thankfully, the effect still worked. "What about the other schools?" she asked Satsuki.

"Ohtori, CLAMP, and the lesser ones will have to come together under our umbrella if we make a common front," Satsuki said. "That, too, is for their best. Alone, they stand even less of a chance under the incoming collapse than you do."

Shizuna folded her hands under her chin thoughtfully. "There is a problem, however," she ended up saying. "I cannot authorize, with a clear conscience, to move our students into the gulags and ghettos of Honnouji."

"Actually," Satsuki said, "we are going to move Honnouji's students here, instead."

All of them looked at her. "Why is that?" Shizuna asked. They had figured out that Kiryuuin would want to have every last remaining student under her jurisdiction, in her territory.

"It will be more manageable that way," was all Satsuki said on the subject. "Well? What is it going to be then, woman? Yes, or not?"

Shizuna sharply bit on her own lower lip.

 

"Okay, when I called for everyone we know and who isn't a sobbing wreck or too busy supporting a sobbing wreck right now, I should have expected for this," Evangeline said, addressing the people gathered at her cabin. For the standards of Ala Alba and random associates, it was a paltry reunion consisting of Negi, Chisame, Sora, Akagi Ritsuko aka Sailor Pluto, Satomi, Tohsaka Rin and Sakura, Artoria, Haruna, Nodoka, Yue, Shiori, and Chachamaru and Evangeline themselves. Oh, and some short haired girl was also there for some reason. "And who are you, and who brought you along?"

"Um, charmed to meet you, I'm Mizuno Ami, and I'm a roommate to Aino Minako," the girl introduced herself in a polite tone. "Akagi-sensei thought I should come along, and since Minako is helping her mother right now..."

Eva frowned. "And who the hell is Aino Minako?"

"That's Sailor Venus," Chisame said.

"Oh. Oh, so she's hurt because of that flower throwing guy, right?" Eva hummed, stroking her chin. "A pity, he, too, must have vanished, much like the Black Rose Baron..."

A loud sneeze was heard from right outside the cabin's window, and there was a small fluttering of black petals against the glass frame. Negi ignored this stoically as everyone gave him a mild look for a moment.

"Maybe," Chisame said after a moment, "we should let the Black Rose Baron in."

"I don't know what are you talking about, Chisame," Negi said very stifly. "The noble Baron must have disappeared as well. Otherwise, surely he'd have contacted us again."

"No, no, Chisame's right," Eva groaned. "Who knows what great secrets, key to the revival of men, could the Baron supply through his survival. He should get in right now before I make Chachamaru burst out, pummel him down, and drag her sorry ass right here."

There was a beat, after which the window was shyly knocked on. Chachamaru moved towards it and opened it, and in shuffled the mysterious masked Baron, intently looking aside. "Don't ask how I survived, please," he said. "I'm so mysterious that even I don't have all the details about my--"

"Yes, yes, anything you say," Eva sneered as Chachamaru dutifully closed the window back. "Okay, Chisame? My opinion of you and your sister has improved. Either you two have more galls than I'd given you credit for or... your father was that much of a bastard."

"Let's just say we never talked much about him for some reason," Chisame flatly said.

"Okay," Evangeline said, "but even so, surely your mother could use your--"

"Too busy celebrating, she said when we called," Sora said, for once sounding as dry as Chisame. To Eva's raised eyebrow, she only shrugged her shoulders. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Negi would have normally commented on this complete lack of care for a father, but he was too busy now sitting on the Baron's lap as he soothingly patted his head and rocked him back and forth.

Eva breathed out. "Alright... Saber, Younger Tohsaka?" she asked next. "Are you sure you're functional after what happened to Emiya? Especially you, Younger Tohsaka, what's that rash growing up your neck?"

"It, it's nothing, really, I, I, I can cope," Sakura stammered, eyes fixed as she scratched a few red lines creeping up over the flesh of a side of her neck. "I'm, I'm sure that, somehow, we can bring Senpai back from--- wh-wherever he is now..."

"I have seen everything I ever held dear crumble down in flames around me before," Artoria said, "so while Shirou's loss is tragic indeed, I can keep on fighting for the sake of his memory." Here she paused, seeing Sakura twitch, the rash pulsing for a moment scaring Rin. "Not that I believe said loss is necessarily permanent, of course," the blonde quickly amended at this.

Eva nodded. "Well, yes, about that, someone we know tangentially through Aisaka has been brought to my attention by Aisaka herself, saying she could throw some light on these events," she gave a soft clap and, from the next room, stepped a depressed looking svelte short girl with short black hair and large, soulful dark eyes. "This is Kuchiki Rukia, and you could call her a ghost-buster working for the afterlife..."

Sakura began making a desperate, gurgling loud sound as the rash began pulsing under her skin again.

This would be a long, long afternoon.

 

A preview from a later chapter.

---

"That..." Negi breathed out almost reverently, cuddling to her side on the crumpled bedsheets. "That was so sweet. So loving..."

"Hmmmm... thank you," the Dorm Mother said, by now wearing nothing but her glasses, and intently looking at the ceiling.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't ever ask for your name," he gasped quietly, hugging her hip. "How should I call you, please?"

She told him.

"That's such a beautiful name..." he said in awe.

 

"Good afternoon," Golden Darkness bowed. "I come to express my condolences over the loss of your loved ones."

Yuuki Nao blinked at the girl standing on her doorstep. "Um, thank you very much," she said. "But... you are that weird girl who wanted to kill Rito, aren't you?"

"I suppose you could say I'm weird by the standards of your species," the small blonde allowed. "You are rather brave or dimwitted, then, addressing me that way when you know I'm more than able of killing."

"Well, yeah, I'm kinda finding it hard to give a shit about anything nowadays," the redhead said, then looked at the three pale giants standing behind the girl. "I thought all men everywhere had been wiped out, are these robots or something? Like that classmate of Haruna?"

"No, the recent incident only wiped living males across the galaxy, but they aren't alive to begin with," Golden Darkness matter-of-factly explained. She pointed at the first one. "This is Mr. Walter, we worked together to oppose your cousin and Ala Alba recently."

"Uhhhrrrrr," Mr. Walter said.

Golden Darkness next pointed to another of the sinister behemoths. "You may recognize Mr. Grundy, he's made a name for himself in this world. Recently he's been trying to turn a new leaf as the butler to a family in America, but after the incident his remaining masters and some of their associates in the mystical world sent him to Japan, to look into a few errands for them."

"Uhhhrrrrr," Mr. Grundy said.

"Last but no least," Golden Darkness said, pointing at the giant with the canine face, "this is Mr. Bombie, from Mundus Magicus. You could say they are all brothers... of sorts... animated by the same pseudo life force, at the very least."

"Uhhhrrrrr," Mr. Bombie said.

"To make a story short, since I've already worked with Mr. Walter, he contacted me and they have hired me to help them with these errands they are running, conductive to learning more about what they have started calling The Snapping. Are you following me?" Golden Darkness asked.

"I hate my life, my baby cousin has been crying for hours, and my head fucking hurts," Nao said. "Also, what's a Mundus Magicus?"

Golden Darkness sighed. "I'll go straight to the point then. We know you have a survivor in these grounds."

"We do?"

The blonde nodded. "Yes. And I already know enough you to know that, if there's anomaly anywhere near Ala Alba, then Ala Alba IS part of it, or the anomaly is part of Ala Alba. Is it the immortal teacher, isn't he? I'm sure we can solve this without the need for any violence. But just because I respect your collective mourning."

Nao stared at her in silence. "Why aren't you taking this directly to them?" she asked finally.

"I told you, I wanted to pay my respects to Yuuki Rito's family first," she said. "Of course, if you actually know something about the main purpose of our visit, then all the best if we could settle this from the--"

Nao closed the door on her face.

"... she's more stupid than brave, I believe," the killer for hire opined blandly.

"Uhhhrrrrrrr."

 

Not Even if you Were the Last Man on Earth.

---

Chao:

"Did... Did any of this ever enter your calculations?" Yotsuba finally asked her, setting the tray on the table.

"No," Chao admitted, still looking out the window.

"What are we going to do now?" Satsuki asked next.

"I don't know," Chao confessed.

And coming from Chao, words that simple were terrifying indeed.

---

Junko:

As soon as her sister came back home, she plopped down on the couch and began slapping herself on a knee, laughing her head off.

"Bwa ha ha ha! That was great, an excellently spent day! They even thanked me and everything!"

Mukuro smiled as she poured her tea. "Glad to see you enjoyed yourself, Neesan."

"You should have seen Fukawa's face! They're so funny when they leak from the nose as much as they tear up! The whole time she was wailing over that asshole, I was tempted to just stay the night with her...!"

"So, are you going to be paying more sympathies tomorrow?"

"Of course! Let's see, I'm still missing the Occult Club... on second thought, maybe just Argento, the others are just likely to tear my head off..."

"Would they know?" Mukuro doubted.

"Oh, they would. Believe me," Junko said, sounding very serious now.

When you are a devil who can read others' true intentions, you usually are able to tell others who are apart. It comes with the territory.

---

Elsie:

"It's alright, Mom..." she kept on saying even now, holding the woman tightly against herself, even long after Mari had ran out of energies to cry. "Oniisama is, no doubt, in a better place now..."

Of which Elsie had no doubt herself, for even a devil can be, in her own way, a believer. And no matter what, no matter when, she would keep on believing, and even praying, for her brother's sake.

And now also for this woman, who was her mother. As her sole child left, Elsie certainly owed her that much.

 

Life Fibers had no genders in the human sense of the term, even if some, like the one worn by Matoi Ryuko, assigned themselves one gender identity or another. Regardless, the wish asked from the Infinite Gems-- items of which the Original Fiber had spoken to Ragyo occasionally-- had been clear; the deletion of half of sapient beings in the universe. In the case of genderless creatures, this simply translated as random annihilation of half members of said species.

The Original Life Fiber itself had survived, but its link to every spawn of its race had greatly weakened it through the backlash felt from the demise of half its children. Hence, Ragyo's plans had hit a temporary barrier, and she had to act accordingly.

"Did they accept?" she asked the girl who had just entered her office.

"Yes," her daughter said stoically, gaze low. "They had to. Preparations will be started early next week, as early as Monday, as a matter of fact."

"Good, good," the older woman said, standing by her large window and staring down at the unusually quiet city sprawling beyond her tower. "Keep Rei informed on every development, especially those involving the boy, as soon as they happen. That will be a--"

"What happened to Matoi Ryuko?" Satsuki asked curtly, lifting her gaze, which was now as sharp as her blade.

"Why should anything have happened to her? Unless her father performed any surgery on her that I ignore, she--"

"You know what I'm talking about!" the black haired beauty snarled. "Is her uniform still functional?"

Ah. As passionate about her sister as ever. Ragyo smirked. "You are in luck. She still is as able as you, as the forces she trounced all the way through and past the Snapping can attest. Be patient. Look into these matters first, will you?"

There was a pause, after which the young woman nodded, stepping back towards the door. She left silently, before she could think of starting molesting her, at which Ragyo could only shake her head in amusement.

"What a foolish child," Ragyo mused, grinning.

She went back to looking into the distance, her eyes now fixed on the lands of Mahora, that long desired conquest that had refused her so stubbornly. One that now was headless, all the best to play into her hand.

"I just hope the grandchildren she will give me will make for better heirs."

 

Great Faces Think Alike.

"-- and so, I had them all put in a ship and sent it to be sank," Artoria continued. "Alas, it was all for naught since just the one I needed to sink sailed amidst the waves and was found by a man who raised it for a while, before delivering it back to Morgan. What a disgrace."

Then she looked at her listener again. "Of course, I only did it for the greater good, that of the whole country."

Nero sighed and shook her head. "That tactic never works, umu! I am not one to judge your motivations, fair King of the Isles, but the means were doomed to fail! Whether to dispose of a mother or a son, the sinking ship trick shall never work the way you intended it to!"

"Do you think so?" a troubled Artoria stroke her own chin. "I was thinking that, perhaps a second time--"

"A second what?!"

---

"Look, look, he cares about me after all!" Mordred beamed happily, gesturing at the miserable looking boat tied to the shore. "He just gave me this precious gift, with the only condition I would give her a maiden sail all on my own! It is obviously a show of trust on my skills as a sailor knight...!"

Mash and Ritsuka stared on, squinting and wincing, at the ruin barely holding itself together.

"For you own good," Mash finally said, and smashed her shield down on it.

 

"Negi-sensei?" repeated the dark skinned girl with the tiny monkey-mouse weird thingy perched on her shoulder. Apparently the Infinity Gauntlet had strict standards on what counted as 'sapient life', or perhaps that had been a literal to the letter interpretation of Thanos' own rather dismissive views on the subject. "No, I'm sorry, he's not home right now, he's not the kind who would hide from danger anyway. He must be at one of his club reunions again, I suppose."

Golden Darkness took another dour glance back at the closed door opposite these quarters, across the dormitory hallway. "This isn't the time to be gathering in social meetings..."

"Or he might be in another meeting with the teachers and the new Headmaster, to decide the future of this campus and all its inhabitants, that is also a possibility, I would say," Himemiya Anthy added with a shrug of shoulders. "Will you be leaving a message, or simply smash his room and be satisfied with that for the moment?"

"Rrr," Solomon Grundy opined.

Golden Darkness shook her head at him. "No, that's not the way I do things," she told the three hulking and pasty brutes. "Thank you for the information, Himemiya-san. I also extend sympathies over any recent loss of yours."

"Oh, I will get over what happened to my brother," Anthy said not quite truthfully-- that had happened long already by now, almost as soon as realization of what had happened sank in. "And I didn't have any other male relatives, but thanks for the feeling anyway."

The blonde nodded. "I know we may not look like it, but just this once, we would like to carry this assignment without the need for any violence. Even our employers agree that there's been far too much death already. It's just that, well, one must always come well armed and prepared even for the most basic of missions. That has always been my motto."

Walter growled his thoughts on the subject, which were far less delicate. Bombie nodded his silent agreement, while Grundy only began picking his nose.

"I see, so you aren't here to kill or kidnap Sensei?" Anthy asked.

"Only as a last resource," Golden Darkness admitted matter of factly. "Mostly, we come to relay some petitions several assembled factions of America's magical underworld have to propose him on the subject of recent events."

"Then you may wait for him inside," Anthy offered, fully opening the door and stepping aside. "Take a seat, and I will prepare snacks."

"That wouldn't be correct for me to do, my associates cannot fit through the door," the shorter young lady declined politely.

"Grrnt," Walter huffed.

Yami raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you sure?"

"Rrrtttts!" Bombie said.

She smiled and nodded, walking inside. "It turns out they have no problem with it as long as they are served snacks as well."

"Naturally," Himemiya said, showing her to the table. Once Yami was seated there, a soft lament was heard from another room, and Anthy sighed. "Please don't mind that, it's my roommate, Tokiha Mai-sama. She's currently grieving her younger brother, and our other roommate, Mikoto-sama, is trying to comfort her the best way she can."

A chain of desperate mewling sounds, like that of a very large anguished cat, followed, and Anthy kept her cold blood as she poured Yami a cup of tea. "Then again, Mikoto-sama is also worried about a brother of her own she never quite got to meet. Tragic, really," she said, her tone not really conveying much in the way of a heartfelt sympathy this time. "I assume you don't share such a heartache, Darkness-san? You appear remarkably collected about this whole situation."

"I never had any family to mourn," the blonde said detachedly, looking at her steaming cup, even the wisps of hot air blowing from it swirling stylishly before her eyes. The mark of a true housewife from Ohtori.

And yet, Anthy could say, in her own way, this stranger was also hurting inside, just like all of them, to one degree or another.

 

“Well,” the average looking woman with blank eyes spoke then, staring at the large monitors all showing different angle images of the same boy. “At the very least, I won’t have to worry about being the last man on Earth anymore.”

She was the only average looking woman in the majestic main meeting room of the Metropolis Hall of Justice, as every other female present was impressively beautiful and larger than life, and even the token black haired reporter in their midst had a definite cosmopolitan glamour about her, even now.

“Boston, please,” Diana of Themyscira said. “If there ever was any moment not to crack wise…”

“What’s the story about him, then?” Lois Lane asked curtly. “Robot boy with a heart of gold? Plant creature taking a human shape? Or maybe a different kind of plant… a plant of Thanos, if you get my drift?”

“Not… a plant at all,” the Swamp Thing spoke, slow and solemnly as ever. To some unconscious level, it mildly annoyed Lois that he had survived. True, he was technically genderless, but so had been Robotman and the Vision and yet they were gone. Not that she had anything against the Earth elemental, but you had to wonder why him. Maybe precisely because he was so firmly connected to Earth itself? Or Gaia, as Diana called it, whatever. “He’s got no… direct link… with the Green…”

“He’s Negi Springfield, son to Nagi Springfield, one of the greatest mages alive. Well, sort of technically alive, by now,” Zatanna Zatara said. “For all we know, he might’ve been snapped away. Batman met Negi a short while ago, during that secret crisis in Kyoto we told you about. Said he was ‘a nice decent young gentleman’. And you know Batman didn’t give praise generously.”

“What’s so special about him being the son to a powerful mage, though?” Hawkgirl frowned, arms folded. “Powerful magic didn’t protect Doctor Strange. Or Fate. Or Doom himself.”

Zatanna sighed. “This is extremely confidential information along the upper elites of mages… apparently, even the boy himself doesn’t know it… but Negi’s also the son to a queen from Mundus Magicus, from a lineage directly related to powerful magic cancellers. As the heir to that lineage, it’s possible he was spared from the power of the Gems somehow. That’s Clea’s theory right now, at least.”

“Kyoto, huh?” the woman currently housing the spirit of Boston Brand rubbed her chin. “Funny, he doesn’t look very Japanese to me.”

“He’s a child prodigy currently teaching at Mahora Academy, near Neo-Tokyo,” Zatanna relayed. “The good news are, Mahora and Clock Tower aren’t in the best of terms, so it’s not that likely he’ll be handed over that easily. The bad news are, well, with the change of guard at Mahora, who knows. I don’t know much about the current person in charge, but I doubt she’d have the magical and diplomatic acumen of Konoe Konoemon.”

“We’ll send someone to keep an eye on the situation,” Wonder Woman, the current leader of the Justice Society, gave a thoughtful nod. “A school, then. I think it’s obvious who would be best qualified of us to go undercover as a teacher.”

The Huntress, who had been standing on a corner brooding, tensed up as she felt every eye on the room fall on her. “Wouldn’t it be just as functional to simply have Swamp Thing sprout a copy body there, by their botanical garden or something?”

“Do you really have anything better to do right now?” Fire asked her in turn. “Like ninety percent of all gangbangers in Gotham were men, after all.”

Huntress groaned. “All the same, I don’t know the first thing about magic. And my Japanese’s horrible, why not to just send Katana?”

“Katana will be busy helping the team researching on bringing the male souls back,” Wonder Woman informed her. “Maybe the properties of her sword can provide us with a lead on the matter. You have the most experience teaching normal children out of anyone here, Helena. Please.”

Zatanna, despite everything, had to crack a sad half-smile. “Actually, if Batman was to be believed, ‘normal children’ have nothing whatsoever to do with what Negi Springfield does…”

 

Kaere:

"How dare you, abandoning us!" She shook a fist to the sky, even as the wind fluttered her skirt up, pink panties showing. "Leaving without saying goodbye first! That's emotional abuse! I'll sue! I'll sue...!"

Everyone had their own, different ways to cope, after all.

Sekijou:

Ogata Rizu still had problems expressing her emotions.

That meant that even conveying grief through tears was difficult for her.

Ogata Rizu had been thusly spent almost a whole hour now, crying clumsily while leaning on the only person able to support her right now.

Sekijou Sawako smiled sadly and rested her hand on Rizu's head, gently petting her hair.

It hurt her, too, seeing Ogata Rizu suffer. At the same time, though, part of her wished this moment, this warmth, would never end.

Thank you, Yuiga Nariyuki, she thougth. Wherever you may be.

Naru:

She just kept on sitting in the bath, staring helplessly at the half open door, as if expecting for him to walk in at any moment now.

But he never did.

Eventually, she broke down in tears.

She felt like she had been punched right in the soul. Even if she thought that, probably, she deserved it after everything.

 

Someone rang at the door.

Normally, Pamela Isley would just have ignored them, but she'd just gotten Harley to fall asleep at last, after so many hours weeping and wailing hysterically over her 'puddin', and the last thing Isley wanted now was to have anyone waking her up. So she went over to answer the door quickly.

To her puzzlement, she found herself face to face with a pale woman of long, wavy red hair and evil eyes. She found her creepy, the irony of it completely flying over her head. In any case, she couldn't recognize her, so she just asked the stranger, "Who are you?"

"I'm Beryl, Queen of the Negaverse, your longtime sworn foe acting from the shadows," the visitor said arrogantly. "I fell the Silver Empire of the Moon! I am the greatest emissary of shadows who has ever lived!"

Isley frowned. "So... you are the idiot who's been sending all those monsters after us? What, will you tell me now that you wiped all men from Earth, too?"

"That... That wasn't me, actually," Beryl said, sobering down a bit. "I hate having to admit it, but I have lost half of my forces, including all of my able Generals. So... I came to ask if I could crash with you here, for a while, until I figure my next move against what is left of humankind. Since, well, I have to say, I don't know anyone in the human world but you accursed Senshi."

Isley's eyes narrowed. "Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. You are our alleged ultimate enemy, even though I don't even know who are you or why the devil are you doing any of this, and yet the first thing you do when you learn our secret identities is to just knock on our door and ask for a room instead of just blowing us up?"

"Correction," Beryl sneered, "I haven't just learned your secret identities. I knew them the whole time."

"What?!"

Beryl nodded. "With my all seeing crystal ball, I have access to every crook and corner of this world. Of course, I can't be spending my whole time looking literally everywhere, that would drive anyone crazy, so I couldn't just use it to find the Silver Imperium Crystal that easily, but your identities? Piece of cake. I just had to look around the general area the Sailor Senshi were active."

"You always knew where to find us, and yet you never just snuck in our homes at night and sliced our throats in our sleep?!"

Beryl looked aside somewhat uneasily. "I... I would have had to tell my Generals, and I didn't feel safe sharing all the intelligence I had with them. They might use it to betray me eventually... I think most of them had feelings for some of you in prior lives, after all..."

Isley facepalmed. "Oh my God, you're awful at this line of work!"

Beryl balled her fists by her sides and hissed. "Hey, give me a break, will you?! I can't stand it anymore, being surrounded by nothing but youma all the time! Most of them can't say anything but their names over and over, that'll drive anyone crazy! Besides..." she groaned, "... if Prince Endymion isn't around anymore, then there's really no point anymore..."

"Prince Endymion?"

"You knew him as Tuxedo Kamen," Beryl shared reluctantly.

"What the-- Don't you tell me that, all through this, you only wanted to get into some masked moron's pants?!" Ivy protested. Again, the inherent irony of her statement, being hers as it was, completely escaped her.

Beryl looked down. "... it's complicated..."

"And what's this bull about your losing all of your Generals?! Don't tell me Zoisite was dusted too!"

Beryl blinked. "Why wouldn't he have been?"

"He?" Isley repeated dubiously.

"You didn't know Zoisite was a man?!"

There was a long, tense silence as both redheads stared at each other.

"Will you let me in, or do we have to engage into deadly combat to the finish?" Beryl asked at last.

Ivy sighed and stepped aside. "Look, I'll tell you what. If you can help me convince my roommate that it wasn't a waste to have her bastard of an ex-boyfriend dusted off, I won't object if you stay. I doubt you can be any worse to live with than Livewire."

"Oh, breaking a woman's faith on her lost paramour? I, I can do that, yes..."

 

Why so Blue?

Gilles smiled, riding onto the battlefield and stroking his long, blue beard.

"Jeanne," he said smoothly. "Good to see you again. What do you think of this? I spent all these months grooming it carefully..."

She stared on and, ever unable to say a lie, finally spoke, "It's horrible! Shave it off!"

---

"-- I actually spent more time growing it than having it, but I still never lived it down!" Saber Gilles finished, in despair. "Did she have to say it before everyone in the troops?!"

"Ah ha ha ha, yes, I remember...!" Caster Gilles cackled fondly. "Even your innocent cruelty is wonderful, Jeanne...!"

Jeanne Alter frowned. "Really, did she say that? I think one would look great on you...!"

 

"I don't have enough political weight to do what you're suggesting, sorry," Negi said, as he finally had arrived back home and sat down to talk with Golden Darkness. "Not nearly enough!"

"You do now, you just haven't realized it," she said, after primly sipping some of the rather good tea Matoi had served her. "You're the last man on Earth--"

Three loud, gruff groans came from right outside the apartment's door.

"Sorry. The last known living man on Earth," the blonde amended. "From now on, whenever you speak, people will take notice. They have no choice but to do so. And now I realize how hideously sexist this task I've been called to enforce actually is," she finished the sentence quietly, frowning in a quite cute way.

"We should be worried, right?" Chisame asked. "From now on, many will try to kidnap Sensei, or to just take... genetic samples from him, any way they can. Maybe even your employers, if we don't do as you say."

"My employers aren't asking for too much from the Professor," Yami said. "Just for him to speak on behalf of their cause, that of allowing more representatives from the World of Magic on these grounds, around him. After all, there's no single recorded instance of a male Mundus Magicus survivor yet. They need you as a last resource even more than Earth does."

"A last resource for what?" Satomi asked suspiciously.

"I don't want to answer that, since I hate ecchi things," Yami replied truthfully.

Negi blinked. "I don't understand," he confessed as Chisame facepalmed. "But, after having the whole of the campus' male students disappearing, I suppose that won't be an issue of room logistics for Shizuna-sensei," he reasoned. "I'm more concerned about the probable culture clash."

"And what about your people?" Chisame pointed at Yami.

"My people?" the shorter girl echoed.

"Yes, you know, aliens!" Chisame said. "I bet that, right now, aliens are scheming to get their hands on Sensei too! You had all your men wiped out too, didn't you?!"

"You're perhaps being a bit paranoid, Chisame..." Negi tried to suggest as kindly as possible. "I greatly appreciate the concern, but there's no way news about me might have traveled across the galaxy already..."

"Lala-senpai must have informed her mother and sisters already," Hakase reminded him. "I would say there is a good cause for concern."

Yami shrugged vaguely. "I haven't been contacted by any authorities from off Earth limits yet. I'm not in a very high demand past your planet's boundaries after I killed that Juraian nobleman, I'm afraid. You could say I have been... blacklisted, so I wouldn't know. But I imagine there is some cause for worry. All the more reason, then, you should have the support of the faction I represent currently."

Negi gulped. "Ah, I see... I, I will transmit your message to the Headmaster then..."

"So," Yami said, nodding, "what you have learned is that all souls of the male population have been transported to the afterlife, huh? So they actually are dead, not just sent somewhere away..."

Negi nodded sadly. "That's what Kuchiki-san said, yes... Apparently, Soul Society couldn't handle all that influx of newly arrived souls at once, so most of them have been placed in storage for the time being. We hope we can find a way to restore them back to life, but the problem is their physical bodies were destroyed altogether."

"Cloning, then," Yami said. "Several species have mastered the procedures of clonation across the civilizations. Granted, growing a cloned body so the soul can be restored upon it usually takes years..."

Satomi nodded. "And generally speaking, at least here on Earth, most individuals don't have the resources to have enough of their genetic material in storage anywhere. We don't know if the force that destroyed their bodies in the first place wouldn't just do it again as soon as the individuals are restored, either. There's still too much about this that we ignore."

For a self professed avid pursuer of scientific knowledge, that is about the worst, most painful admission one can make.

Yami absorbed all of that information in a pensive silence. "I see. Well, then, I am glad we could reach a peaceful conclusion to this solicitation for the time being." She stood up and began heading for the door, much to Chisame's relief. "I will be staying over at Professor Mikado's residence for the time being, until my assignment has been completed. I will call you if more developments happen to be observed, and I strongly suggest you to do the same. Or else."

"You don't have to put it that way..." Negi groaned, emotionally exhausted. "We'll be glad to help as best as we can, but there's only so much that we can do..."

"Get used to it," Yami said before leaving. "Now you have to think and act for all men in the universe."

"No pressure or anything, right?" Chisame snarked as soon as she was out of listening range, according to her estimation. She glanced at Negi's depressed form and, after a moment of hesitation, placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Sensei, we won't let anything happen to you. I'm sure we all can pull together on this. I'll call Iinchou and Eva and ask them to arrange an Ala Alba meeting, it's about time the others stop moping around and start pulling their weight around you again."

Negi said nothing, only staring at the door.

Then somebody else rang at it.

 

This Sums Up my Life Right Now.

"I'm just frustrated," the patient said. "No matter what I ever say, no matter what opinion I state, no matter what I suggest, everyone, everywhere, seems to just disagree with what I say by default."

"No, they don't," the psychologist replied.

 

Misa:

"I... I don't know how am I going to keep going without him," she admitted at the dinner table. "We may have had our differences, but... I loved him so much, and I never really got to tell him. If I'd ever known I'd lose him this early..."

"Yes, I know what you mean," her mother nodded. "By the way, his lawyer just called. Turns out he left half of everything to his lover."

"-- on second thought, he never loved us that much, did he?" Misa added then without skipping a beat. "Always away, always making excuses, and then there's what he did last Christmas... Maybe there's some element of divine justice to this. You know what? All in all, much better him than you, Mom. Because I know you WILL eventually leave everything to me, right?"

"Well, I wouldn't have left him a single yen, that's for sure..."

Fujinami Ryuunosuke:

"Finally, I can be what I always wanted to be!" she said, jubilant, stepping out in a dress at last. Under the bright sun, she pumped a fist up. "A woman! A woman! I am a woman and nobody can take that from me anymore! Nature itself just said so!"

She began strolling down the street in the exuberant style of a proud macho. "From now on, I'll be just another normal, female face in a crowd of nuthin' but women! Ah ha ha! It'll be great! Yessir, nuthin' but yet another... pretty, feminine face..."

---

Benten glared at her. "Then what the hell's wrong now? It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Ryuunosuke kept on hugging her knees, sitting at a corner of the house. "I don't know what to do from here, dammit...! It's like, okay, I did it, and now what...?! F'r starters, I'm gonna have to be a butch anyway, no man will ever be around to tell me 'you did it'...!"

Benten sighed harshly and slammed a hand on her own face.

Kitami:

"Why are you so distraught?" Hiroko asked, entering the nurse's office in Honnouji. She had heard the rumors, and she had refused to believe them, but now, seeing Kitami personally for the first time since the incident, she was having mild second thoughts. Reika seemed honestly shaken and disturbed, just sitting at her chair with a devastated expression.

Perhaps there was some hope yet for this broken soul that Hiroko herself had once helped to corrupt? The red haired woman couldn't believe it, and yet, she wanted to, so much, for the sake of both of them, and maybe, in this disgrace, there might be some good coming from--

"I lost my penis," Kitami said in a haunted voice, still not looking at Hiroko. "I was fucking Mikan-chan right up the ass, and then it just disappeared-- my cock, not Mikan's asshole-- and I haven't been able to summon it back since! Why, why, why..." she took both hands to her head and grieved.

Oh. So much for that, then.

---


---
This Mikan is the one from Danganronpa, by the way...

 

Epilogue of Chapter One.

---

Chisame opened the door, only to find herself facing a teacher and a child who was vaguely familiar.

The woman, she'd seen her a few times before from afar, some High School teacher with a reputation of being stern. She was very beautiful, with long pink hair and fascinating green eyes, and she looked slightly haggard now, in a dark gray suit, with bags under her eyes. She had a hand on the shoulder of a girl with mismatched eyes, one red, the other green, and light blonde hair made into twintails, who had to be at most two years older than Negi, and only looked down in a pained silence, hugging a plush bunny.

"Kirisu-sensei?" Negi tensed up behind Chisame before his student could even speak. "Good afternoon, what does bring you here, please?"

"Negi... Negi-sensei," the woman said rather stiffly, giving him a rigid nod. "Good to see you... are well, but in truth, I haven't come here to speak with you. Rather, I have something to tell Hasegawa-kun."

"M-Me?" Chisame said while Matoi raised an eyebrow. "I haven't done anything, what--"

"You do remember your uncle and your cousin Kodaka, don't you?" Kirisu Mafuyu asked, and Chisame did, but only now. She hadn't seen them for years, since the last family meeting, and the Hasegawas as a general rule weren't very sociable.

"Ah... Ah, yes, of course I do," Chisame gulped, looking down uneasily at the miserable looking girl. "I, I don't know what to say, really, I... I'm so sorry, Kobato-chan..."

The other girl completely failed to answer or acknowledge her, so the pink haired educator sighed. "You, your mother and Sora-san are the only family she's left, but your mother decided she'd be better staying with you for the time being. She needs the company of peers, after all. CLAMP's management has agreed on this." Then, after a pause, she added, "Wait, your mother hadn't called to tell you this yet?"

"No... No, she didn't," Chisame admitted spacily, and then the little girl finally broke down for some reason and began bawling her eyes off on their doorstep.

When it rains, it pours.

---

Next: Five Months Later!

 

Kakizaki Misa was just back from another visit to Mom.

It was strange, in a way, how the departure of the old man had brought them closer after all. Misa visited her now more often, not because either was particularly pained anymore, but because it had turned out they had more in common than they'd previously thought. Mom was kinda cool to hang with, who would've thought it?

Of course, it'd have helped if only they hadn't spent most of Misa's formative years pawning her on a private school. Then maybe they'd have connected before, but whatever. For the standards of queen bees in love with themselves, Misa was not a person to hold grudges. If not for Mahora, she wouldn't have Sakurako and Madoka... or Negi-kun.

Happily, the long haired girl skipped out of the bus and began crossing the boundaries of the campus, holding the bags with the birthday gifts for Negi-kun in her hands. As she approached school grounds proper, she saw one of the three pale giants sitting on the ground, playing sentry as usual, frowning to himself. "Hello," she told him, slowing down. "How's it shaking?"

"Grrt," the behemoth growled between clenched teeth.

Misa arched an eyebrow. "Can't you talk?" she asked him. "Because I once heard that you, at least, could. It's rude not answering a lady when she--"

The giant opened his mouth and spoke slow and guturally, in English.

"Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday. Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday. Married on a grey and grisly Wednesday. Took ill on a mild and mellow Thursday. Grew worse on a bright and breezy Friday. Died on a grey and glorious Saturday. Buried on a baking, blistering Sunday. That was the end of Solomon Grundy."

Misa paused at this. Being a student of Negi, and a grand follower of the world of American fashion, she had technically understood all of that, and yet...

"Forget it," she ended up sighing. "Hey, wanna come to Negi's birthday party tonight? I don't think he'll mind."

The monster gave her a dark, quiet look.

"I mean, it's been months already, and he needs something to finish snapping him out of that funk," she explained, rolling his eyes while wondering if he was even understanding her. "Even Chisame agreed on that. You'd better put new clothes on first, though. Geez, I'm sure Yami-chan can and should provide you with some already..." she added, waving a hand before her nose.

Solomong Grundy shrugged his massive shoulders, made something that looked like a nod, and kept on staring into the distance.

So Misa, having taking longer than she'd intended to, simply nodded and warily kept going her way. "Okayyyy, then, it was nice talking... so to speak... with you, take care, bye."

Kakizaki Misa really missed men, actual men, by now. As blockheaded and clueless as they were more often than not, at least they usually weren't this creepy.

At least Negi-kun actually smelled really good, when you got him to actually wash himself off as Kami-sama intended one to.

---

Not Even if you Were the Last Man on Earth.

 

I remembered I already had written a story titled 'Of a Feather' (it was a Penguin/Joker oneshot) so I'll have to retitle this one.

---

"So, what are you discussing anyway?" Webby asked, starting to stuff her mouth as well.

Drake breathed out. "The whereabouts of Jim-- I mean, the whereabouts of Evil Darkwing Duck, or whatever remained of him after the studio collapsed. LP here insists he's alive, while I say--"

"Did anyone ever find the body?" Webby interrupted sharply.

"Well, no, but--"

"Then he's right, no body, no dead villain," Webby nonchalantly said. "Everyone knows that, you need getting used to the idea if you're gonna be a crimefighter!"

"Ha! See, I told you!" Launchpad said. "It's like in every movie, or at the conclusion of any story arc if we're talking about TV shows!"

"This is real life! I love the show as much as you, but I don't pretend that every trope from it could apply to the real world!" Drake argued. "Let's be honest here, Jim already was pushing his years, and it's not like he had superpowers or anything!"

"Jim Starling, the actor, you mean?" Webby arched an eyebrow.

Drake tried to shoo her away. "Don't you have anyone to be playing with right now?"

"The boys are with their scout troop, Violet's with her dads, and Lena's studying for a test," Webby shrugged, all but hopping up and down in place, the obvious consequences of an excessive level of sugars in her diet. "Haven't you gone and looked under the ruins yet?"

Drake sighed. "That was a crime scene until right now, and crime was ever restless everywhere else, not to mention, you know, the Moon invasion going on while--"

"But I was just talking Drake of going and checking now that we've got the time!" Launchpad said enthusiastically. "If there's any chance to find Jim and save him, we've gotta take it, right?!"

"... right..." Drake allowed, rubbing a hand in circles on his forehead. "Okay, what's the worst that can happen? We just waste a few hours circling around the sewer system, and then we take a shower and call it a night..."

"You take a shower?" Webby paused.

Drake frowned. "He takes one, and then I take one. What were you thinking about, young lady?"

"Nothiiiing," she said innocently.

Launchpad blinked. "I don't get it. What was that just about?"

"We'll tell you when you're older," Webby said sympathetically, patting him on an arm, and then cheerily asking Drake, "Well? What are we waiting for?"

"... we?" Drake replied coldly. "Do you want your grandmother to kill us?"

"Granny...!" Webby called out. "Can I go with Launchpad and his friend to go look for a dangerous, deranged actor in the sewers?"

"Only one actor? Not a troupe?" Mrs. Beakley's voice asked back from the kitchen.

"No, just one!" Webby shouted. "It's just a washed up old man anyway!"

"Okay, but don't wear anything expensive and be back before dinner!" Beakley warned, and then Webby grinned impishly at the two men... ducks... whatever.

"See? There's no problem with it whatsoever!"

"It won't work," Drake said flatly. "I have no reason to take you along regardless."

"Oh, this will be just like in the movies, too, where after a scene change she's right there with us looking for him," Launchpad predicted.

"I'm telling you, reality doesn't work that way, sheesh!" his friend countered.

---

Of course, you already know how the next scene starts, right.