OverMaster's Little Crummy Corner of Sub-Par Writing

Fate/Stay Night, Fate EXTRA, Fate Extella, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Fate Kaleid Prisma Illya, Fate Apocrypha, Fate Prototype, Fate Requiem, Fate Strange/Fake and Fate Type/Redline are the creation and intellectual properties of Type-Moon and Nasu Kinoko.

---

"No... Please, don't!" Tohsaka Rin begged. "I can't take it anymore!"

"Uuuu, fu fu fu fu...!" Wu Zetian giggled, cheeks flushed with excitement. "Too late, my dear! The game is mine, and there's nothing you can do about it...!"

"No... No!" Rin took both hands to her head. "This is so unfair, what a fiendish torture!"

"It is, isn't it?" the tiny woman enjoyed Rin's suffering, slamming her piece back on the board and claiming victory. "I just happen to be better than you could ever be, naturally! And you have seen nothing yet! Oh, how much I enjoy this Western game! Not as much as other pleasures, of course, but it is up there!"

Presiding over the game of checkers by standing guard, arms folded, at the doorstep of the royal fun chamber, Li Shuwen sighed in a jaded way. "What is the point of any of this?"

Wu frowned at him, extending a hand ahead and silently demanding for more of the strange currency this girl carried on her. "Oh, you can't understand any form of entertainment that doesn't involve punching others in the face!" she told her warrior while Rin ruefully paid the terms of their latest bet. This China was so whacked out of balance with proper history it wasn't like she could change anything meaningfully this way, she hoped. "I mean, that is fun too, every once in a while, but you also have to keep on trying new things!"

Rin groaned. "Maybe we should go sleep already. I'm tired."

"No, no, we insist, let us keep going!" Zetian said. "What can we bet this time, I wonder..." Her gaze went mischievously over all the torture implements in the room. "What if whoever loses gets to whip the other fifteen times? I won't renege if I lose!"

"You won't lose, you're just much better at this stupid game!" Rin protested, hitting the board with both games. "Bring me a game of chess and I'll kick your butt!"

"Oh, you want to up the stakes, yes, we do agree, mere cracks of the whip are thinking too small," Zetian ku-ku-ked, completely missing her point on full purpose. "Maybe I should coat those delicate little feet of yours with hot wax and pull the skin off, or-"

"I definitely won't bet on those terms!" Rin protested.

"Okay, then what if we make it a game of strip?" Wu suggested. "I'll even send Li out and everything. It's not like I couldn't subdue you easily..."

Somehow, despite this little troll's laughable stature, Rin believed her. "Like... strip poker? Huh, no, thank you..."

"You're no fun," Wu pouted. "What else do you have on you, that we could bet, then?"

"W-Well, I don't know, let me see..." Rin tried to buy time until bedtime, rummaging through the pockets sewn into her robes. "Lighter, hunting knife, a Game Boy Mini? Why did Sakura put this here, she knows I don't like videogames! I'm sure I have some milk chocolate somewhere in here..."

"What is that?" Wu pointed with curiosity at something Rin had also just pulled out without fully noticing. "I want it!"

Rin blinked, looking at this thing. "What? Well, I'm sure we could-" She froze, staring at the remote control. "Oh! Oh, no, no, sorry, I can't bet on this one..."

"Well, then I'll confiscate it and we'll bet on something else," Wu said, reaching for it. "I want it regardless!"

"No!" Rin yelped, yanking it back and away from Wu, while Shuwen heaved a sigh and closed his eyes. "This isn't even mine!"

Arrrrghhh, I'm such an idiot, I should have given this to Akuta before-! she thought. No, wait, SHE is the idiot for not thinking of it herself! I've got a damn good excuse, being stressed over being left with this psycho!

"Of course it's not yours, it's mine!" Zetian wailed, stubbornly trying to grab the device even as Rin put a hand on her face and tried to shove her back. "What a disrespect to your Empress, I'll boil you aliv-!"

Far, far away, past the valleys and mountains, Xuanzang, having dinner with Hinako's party in a small roadside bar during their second day of traveling together, issued an apologetic smile while rising from her chair. "I'm sorry, I believe I need visiting the monks' room for just a moment, please. You won't mind, right? I'll pay the bill as soon as I come back!"

"Of course," Hinako nodded, sipping from her bowl of noodles and soup, and watching her depart quickly. "Don't fret, she's just heading for some brief private meditation," she told Musashi and Kojiro in Japanese then.

"I'm starting to think you don't like addresing me for some reason," Perseus said. "And when do we have sex with the prostitute? I mean, since you went and hired her, the least we could do-"

"She's a monk and she's our guide to the capital!" Hinako irritably replied in his language. "We should be there in two days at most, if we keep this pace. I suppose I should congratulate you on being remarkably mobile while-"

"That's nice, so we just have to enther this man's palace and slay him, and then we are free to go, that is still the plan, isn't it?" he interrupted her. "Is the artifact to travel back still functional?"

"Of course it is," Hinako said, taking a hand to her breast, "I have taken great care to keep it safe, by- by-"

Her eyes widened slowly, and her face went ashen pale, "By leaving it with Rin..." she eeped in Chinese.

Musashi took another gulp from her gourd of liquor, then asked her, "You're trying to recall what you did with the thingamabob, aren't you? I think you left it with Rin-chan."

There was a brief, bright flash of light visible in the far distance, past the valleys and mountains, and Kojiro looked out through the window. "Was it ever that much bright before, I wonder?" he said calmly.

Xuanzang returned, smiling kindly and setting several coins on the table. "Sorry I took so long! This should cover all expenses, I'm sure, I'll pay for the hotel as w- Miss Hinako? Why are you weeping to yourself?"

---

Fate: Time and Punishment.

 

"Hey, boy," Mordred said, entering the Dojo. "Can we talk?"

Shirou pulled back from Kiritsugu, massaged the swollen right side of his face as the older man let go of him, and nodded. "Sure thing. Will it take long?"

"Might." The ancient warrior then waved a gloved hand at Kiritsugu. "Leave, will you?"

"Sure thing. This is not actually my house after all," the mercenary said indifferently, shoving his hands into his pockets and walking out.

Mordred made sure of seeing him leaving, then asked Shirou, "Are you improving?"

"A little. I think," the boy sighed, sitting down on the floor. "Do you need help with your homework as well? Sakura should be a better instructor than I."

"I'm not going to anchor you down," Mordred said, taking the helmet off and tossing one of the wooden swords hanging from a wall his way. "We'll talk as I teach you a few things."

"Uh, thank you, it's a honor," Shirou said, catching the sword in mid air. He looked at Mordred locking the door, then taking the rest of the armor off, and he gulped at how much skin was exposed by the bright scarlet garments under them. "Uh, you're worried about the King, aren't you..."

"I'm always worried about the King," Mordred confirmed dryly, grabbing another of the practice swords and holding a ready stance before Shirou. "Now, the swords you use in this country don't fit our fighting style very well, but our ways and yours still share enough basics you should learn a few tricks from me, if you just pay some attention. You are too tense, for starters. I'm not going to kill you, idiot, and even if I were, stiffening wouldn't help you."

"Ah. Sorry," he said, trying to relax. "Normally, I'm not like this, but-"

"I know, I have to make you uneasy, right? The homunculus woman's Servant told me, of the infamy I left in history," she grunted, giving a first token swing and watching Shirou blocking. "Your arm must go in a wider arc for a better defense. I'm second only to Judas, and if we stay, they'll learn sooner than later."

"But... you haven't decided to betray the King yet, have you?" Shirou asked, paying attention to the way she was moving, and noticing how she was holding back, despite all. "I mean, you don't have a reason to. You... You love her..."

"Him."

"Sorry, him," Shirou gulped, as the next blow was much stronger, almost shattering his boken. "What's the problem then? None of our stories ever said he was a... well, that he had that kind of body, so it stands to reason the rest of your legends have to be the same either. There's no reason why you should be a traitor if you don't want to!"

"What kind of logic is that, what does one thing have to do with the other?!" Mordred growled, pushing him back further with her increasingly agressive swordplay. "You're the kind of person who thinks of everything in terms of gender! So as long as we have female bodies, anything goes for you, doesn't it?!"

"I didn't say anything like that!" Shirou said, almost cornered by now, and wincing under her blows. "All I'm saying is, if stories from badly documented times don't match in some parts, they don't have to match in the rest either! You're sure you won't betray him, so why do you worry so much!"

"Because I know, but I don't know if the others will know!" then she was surprised as she parried successfully and almost hit her. "Always aim for the middle of the mass! Not for the flanks! And you can't blame me for being on the edge, look up there, even this bastard refers to me as a woman!" she roared, pointing at the paragraphs above.

Of course, biologically speaking she was a woman, and thus this impartial narrator of the omniscient variety feels like sticking to the strictly factual core of the matter.

"Oooo, this no good fink! He could at least use the 'They'!"

Take it to Mother Nature, sister. 'They' is for plural and I only see one of you.

"Will you two stop doing that, it's creepy, and it'll get us in trouble!" Shirou requested, just before Mordred finally disarmed him. "Okay, that sucked, didn't it?"

Mordred huffed, then shook her head reluctantly. "No, for a novice you're good. You'd make for a good foot soldier, but if you want to be an actual Hero you'll need a lot more. Now, I mostly fight from the guy and I'm not good with fancy explanations. Gawain might be a better teacher, technically speaking. But I'll help you as much as I can if you can help me in turn."

Shirou frowned. "I don't need a reward to try and help others."

Mordred paused. "... neither do I, actually. I know you might think otherwise, since I'm apparently the kind who would burn a kingdom just because they weren't found fit for the throne, but-!"

"No, no, I think I understand," Shirou exhaled wearily. "This isn't about the throne itself, is it? This is about being recognized as the King's son."

Mordred took another awkward pause, then looked aside. "Yes. Which is, sadly enough, precisely the reason why I cannot introduce myself to him as such. Not only I'm also the child of a monstrous union with a fiend of a mother, but I have hid this from him all this whole time, and now, should he learn of the rest... he'd have every reason to believe I'm truly another felon, just biding for his time."

"It's not an easy matter to sort out," Shirou admitted.

"Tell me about it!"

"Let me think about it for a while, okay?" Shirou asked after a moment. "I'm sure we can come up with a solution if we really put our minds into it. I know I'm not that smart, but..."

"Odds are you are smarter than me regardless," she said bitterly. "I'm just the brute with the wicked blade. I'm not a thinker like Agravain, a schemer like Palamedes, not even a savant like Bedivere. I'm smarter than Kay, okay, but who isn't?"

"No, don't be so hard on yourself. For what it counts, I think you are a cool guy," Shirou told him.

"Thank you." She pointed up again, angrily. "Now if only that stubborn moron would think like that, too!"

Yeah, well, sorry, but you still have a vagina.

"Narrow minded buffoon!"

 

"I am Zhu Bajie!" roared the humongous black beast blocking the mountain pass. "I will kill you all now! Unless you give me all your money and women!"

Hinako sneered with cold despise. "What a foul creature..."

"Something's wrong here," Musashi said, drawing her katana out. "I can't put my finger on exactly what, but..."

Sanzang stepped ahead, closing her eyes and bringing her hands into a praying position. "The Buddha compels you to let us pass!" she told the towering, four armed demonic creature in the silver armor. "So you'd better be a nice guy and do as he says, because this pilgrimage is important! Please?"

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" he howled on her face.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Kojiro and Perseus shared a bland look, then each held a hand behind his back, counted to three, and then swiftly pulled them back.

"Ttέτρα!" Perseus said.

"Ronbun!" Kojiro said.

"Sκατά!" Perseus cursed.

Kojiro smiled, swinging his sword over his shoulder and walking past the others, including a Xuanzang clinging to the annoyed Hinako's side. "Good thing this game is universal. I wonder why the United Nations of the future don't just resort to it for everything...?"

"Sasaki-san," Hinako flatly told him. "Just in case, try not to kill him. He may be necessary for the course of this timeline, deformed as it is."

"I will kill whoever I want, woman. Now you don't even hold the device to bargain for my obedience," the man said, not with spite or real arrogance but more with the unemotional statement of a fact. "Have at thee them, devil! You may make the first strike!"

Zhu Bajie blinked, interrupting his fierce growling. "Wh-What? What are you saying? You aren't delivering the girls? Ah, hah, hah, you... you obviously are insane..."

"Aren't you a devil?" Kojiro demanded. "What manner of devil doesn't understand the heart of man? I bore of this."

"Ah? S-Speak slower, you surely can't expect to kill me with that little... sharp... thing..." the monster grimaced. "Besides, you- AAAAIIIEEEE!" he cried out as Kojiro rushed ahead faster than he could react, and stabbed him in the gut.

Well, that was fast and disappointing, wasn't it.

 

"There is something I need to tell you," Mordred said. She was well aware that she was starting this conversation in what had to be one of the worst possible ways.

"Then speak," her father said as evenly as ever, sitting across the table opposite her, and absently polishing her fabled sword with a cloth.

For a moment Mordred considered her father, Arthur Pendragon, King of the Bretons. The Once and Future King, the Lion of Camelot. Looking to serve him faithfully, Mordred had abandoned her mother's cause, and yet now she had learned she was fated to betray his trust, ruin his kingdom and all they cared for, and besides—

"I am waiting for that question," Artoria said, still polishing the blade.

"Oh, yes, of course, I apologize," the armored helmet hewed into a heavy fist. "I was just trying to look for the correct way to approach this topic."

"That you would put great care in your ways to address me only shows your pedigree as a thoughtful knight," her lord and father said, still not looking at her. "Don't ever apologize for displaying such qualities."

"Ah… thank you!" Mordred beamed inwardly at the praise, which only made what she was about to say next all the more difficult to say. "I just wanted to know, what would His Highness think of one of his knights, should this knight prove to be, um, later in life, should he learn that he actually is—"

The sentence was not finished, and thus now Artoria quietly glared at her, an eyebrow slightly raised. "Yes?"

"—gay!" Mordred eeped then, completely unable to finish her originally intended train of thought, and just latching onto the first next thing to come to mind.

Wait, why she'd thought of that?! GAY?! What did that have to do with anything?!

Well, come to think about it, he, or she, whatever would HAVE TO be gay, should they ever display interest on anyone, right? Identifying oneself as a man, yet having the body of a woman, one would have to be either asexual or gay, no matter one's choice, that was just plain common sen—

And then Artoria shrugged her shoulders and went back to polishing Excalibur. "I fail to see why should I care."

"Eh?!"

"The measure of a knight does not come from their sexuality, preferences, or whatever they chose doing under covers, Mordred. As long as it's not done with unconsenting partners, farm animals, or the French. But the true measure of a warrior comes from their courage and loyalty."

"Ah hah hah, their… loyalty… of course."

"And you have more than enough of both," Artoria said, Mordred now being unable to enjoy THIS praise. "I won't mind if Gareth, Galahad and Bedivere are women, I won't mind if Percival refuses to learn how to read and write, I won't mind if Palamedes is a foreigner, so I won't mind if you choose loving Shirou either."

"Ah, thank you, you are always so underst—Shirou?! What does he have to do with any of this?!"

"You have been somewhat uneasy around him since he saw you in the bath. I had assumed…"

"You had?!" Mordred gasped. Now this was bad! The King couldn't be wrong, and you certainly couldn't tell him he was wrong, so what was she supposed to do now?!

"As I said, there is no shame on it. All I can tell you is, be mindful of Galahad's feelings," the King lectured wisely, holding a finger up. "I also can tell she is starting to feel an interest of her own. Please do compete fair and chivalrously."

"What."

A few minutes later, Galahad was passing by the King's quarters, ready to go take a bath, when she saw Sir Mordred exiting the room, his agitation and befuddlement evident even through the concealing helmet.

"Ah… Sire?" she stopped by, regarding him with honest concern. "Does something trouble you? May I be of help?"

"Apparently we are rivals now," Mordred said in a haunted tone.

"Eh?"

 

Fate/Stay Night, Carnival Phantasm, Fate EXTRA, Fate Extella, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Fate Kaleid Prisma Illya, Fate Apocrypha, Fate Prototype, Fate: Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, Fate Requiem, Fate Strange/Fake, Fate School Life, Fate Tiger Colosseum, Fate Unlimited Codes, Fate Capsule Servant, Fate: Lord El-Melloi II Case Files and Fate Type/Redline are the creations and intellectual properties of Type-Moon and Nasu Kinoko.

All other franchises and characters mentioned within this story are the intellectual properties of their respective copyright and trademark holders.

---

The House of Fate.

---

Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg was not- is not, as a matter of fact, as he should still be alive by the time you read this-, what troublesome youngsters of this era would call a 'troll', and as a matter of fact would hate being thought of as such. True, he would gladly indulge himself with healthy doses of Schadenfreude every now and then, but that was a perfectly reasonable character trait to develop when you are constantly surrounded by magi, and when you spend years frequenting the companies of Clock Tower. The fact he hadn't turned into a genocidal monster out to ravage the planet after literal centuries of being in contact with them was an impressive testament to how well centered the man was.

It was also true that, occasionally, he would commit one little peccadillo here and there, that of meddling into someone's affairs just to see what would happen, but never for long, never with any particular malice, and never to anyone who, to one level or another, didn't deserve it. He wouldn't hit unless he or a person he had fondness towards were hit first, and he could be excused for wanting to relieve his extreme boredom every once in a while. Also, I'm not saying all of this because I'm afraid he could ever read this and hunt me down. Absolutely not, as Lord Zelretch wouldn't do any of that, just like I have written out of my complete own volition.

The Old Man of the Jewels, as he was also called, was one of The Five, the sole users of True Magic, not magecraft or wizardry, in the whole world. The True Magic wielders could perform miraculous feats far beyond the ken of any other mages, rewriting the codes of reality set upon The World by the gods. Dimensional travel, the resurrection of the dead after the decay and destruction of the body, creating matter from a void, those were all deeds that only they could perform. The other four were Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme; Aozaki Aoko, the Magic Gunner; Dana Ananga Jagannatha, the Witch of the Rift; and Kent Nelson, the Lord of Order.

When compared to The Five, even the likes of Giovanni Zatara, Nagi Springfield, Karl Amadeus Mordo, Evangeline Athanasia Katherine Mc Dowell and Victor Von Doom were found lacking. Only beings from beyond like Ialda Baoth, Shuma Gorath, the Seven Beasts of Calamity, and the Beasts' longtime enemy, the enigmatic Shazam, plus the gods and the sovereigns of hell themselves, surpassed the might of The Five.

As for the Beasts, each incarnated a deadly sin, an Enemy of Humanity. Not all of them were openly hostile to mankind, and a couple of them had just recently inherited their powers from their forebears, but each still had the potential to someday destroy The World on their own.

There was Goetia, the King of D'Jinns once imprisoned by King Solomon the Wise, representing Greed.

There was Anung un Rama, the Prince of Demons, the Wrath, a relatively young entity who had no affection for his intended role and would rather help humanity.

There was Mara, the Lust, short in sights and scarce in wits, contented with working for Hild, Queen of the Niflheim demons.

There was Tiamat, the Mother of Life, ancient incarnation of Envy, in the sense of a constant relentlessness over her children's vitality and growth.

There was Rachel Roth, the avatar of Sloth, the youngest of all Beasts and who, like the Beast of Anger, would rather be left alone to aid humans.

There was Cath Palug, standing for Gluttony, an animal that could devour all children of men upon waking.

And finally, there was the strongest and most dangerous of all Beasts, the nameless Beasts of Revelations, Pride, the primal force that had inflamed the heart of Lucifer Morningstar and turned him into the Devil to reign over all devils himself.

Keeping all of this in mind, and being now aware of the nature of the extremely serious issues Lord Zelretch had to contend with, you should understand, by this point, how he was not a troll, no matter what anyone could say about him.

That being said, you still could say that, yes, what happened in the story I'm about to tell you about was his fault regardless.

 

Duck Tales and Darkwing Duck are the creations and intellectual property of The Walt Disney Company.

---

"Oh, hey, Mrs. B!" Launchpad waved happily as she walked into the room. "How do you do, this is my friend Drake! Drake Mallard!"

She was surprisingly taller and bulkier than Drake had expected her to be. From Launchpad's descriptions, he'd assumed the housekeeper would be a traditional plumps, affable old lady, not this brickhouse of a mature woman, which quietly sharp eyes instantly scanning him from behind her shiny glasses. Then again, maybe he should already learn not to expect much accuracy from Launchpad's descriptions, ever.

"Ah, nice to meet you, Ma'am," Drake said as the tall, graying lady served them a tray with biscuits and coffee, with only a professional, silent bowing of her head. "I won't be staying too long, I only came to-"

"I understand. Please call me if you need anything else," she said, simply walking back out, each step not making any sound against the fine old carpets of the manor.

Drake stared after her for a moment, then looked back at LP, who was happily stuffing his mouth with biscuits. "Um, she's kind of... intense."

"Really?" Launchpad blinked. "She almost never raises her voice that much."

Drake sighed. "Not all intense people are intense by virtue of talking loudly. It's like with acting, often the most intense performance comes from playing it subdued."

The fact Drake was, as an actor, usually rather hammy and thus probably not the most qualified to make such a statement never crossed LP's mind. Instead, he just asked him, confused, "Acting? But Mrs. B never acts, she's always upfront and honest about what she does, like when she tells you that you've been stupid for crashing-"

"I didn't mean that!" Drake said, starting to munch on a pretzel, which was very tasty indeed. "Never mind, let's concentrate on the matter at hand."

"Yeah, let's!" a peppy happy voice said, coming from right next to him, and Drake almost jumped up on his chair, seeing the one by his right was suddenly filled by a bright eyed, terribly cute creature who smiled gently and waved at him. "How are you, I'm Webby, Grandma's granddaughter! You're Darkwing Duck, right?"

"Darkwing- Of, of course I'm not Darkwing Duck, Darkwing Duck's a TV character!" Drake gasped while Launchpad chugged down a large gulp of coffee. "I'm just an actor who plays Darkwing Duck! Well, I was going to play him, I mean, I'm still going to, we just need a new investor and a revised script, that's-"

The young girl with the bow in her hair tilted her head aside curiously. "Aren't you the guy Dewey mentioned, the one who fought that deranged Evil Darkwing Duck? I was under the impression you were going to be Darkwing Duck for real. And I'm also pretty sure you're also the same Darkwing Duck who took that picture with us after-"

"I don't know what are you talking about and I never had anything to do with that secret invasion from the Moon!" Drake protested while LP just reached calmly for more pretzels. And then the shorter male duck just slumped down with a weary sigh, slamming a hand on his own face.

Webby chuckled, then reached up to pat his shoulder. "You need working more on keeping that secret identity, Mr. Mallard," she gently told him.

---

Of a Feather.

 

Crisis on Infinite Apartments.

Apartment One:

He's got all the money in the world. He really doesn't need to come here.

But he's just come from a messy divorce, and he says he's attached to this place from long ago. From before us. Like, way before us.

Two-bit wannabe supervillains come every day to meet him, to ask for advice, to be coached on the laugh. Nuisances, all of them. Yet he takes the time to meet every last one of them, ever eager to sign an autograph book, to quote himself, to play one of his scenes for them. I swear I've memorized the damn Killing Joke mirror house speech already just from the times I've passed by his front door, because he never bothers to close it. He loves having an audience more than anything else.

I heard he's dating another girl now, one who probably could be his granddaughter or something.

And they call me a pedo.

Apartment Two:

Things have been kind of rough for us since the series was closed. We still get cameos every once in a while, especially him, but it's nowhere the same, of course.

For a while we were starring in an ongoing fanfic-- fanfics barely pay anything, but it's still better than anything-- but then the author got an existential crisis or something. That's the way it usually is with fan authors, they never finish anything. Then again, sometimes, official authors don't either. Just our luck, that both things happened to us.

Negi's taken to teaching in a small school a few blocks away while we figure out what to do, and Hakase does repairs and fixes by online request. She's actually supplying most of the income nowadays, actually, even though she really doesn't work in manga or animation anymore. I'm a blogger now, but even that has kind of dried out. Something happened to the Internet. The days of actually setting a proper page with care and efficiency are gone, it's all about the instant gratification of the twitter and instagram now. Whatever you can fit in your phone or portable as you go around. I feel so freaking old. And I'm still just fifteen. This is going to be a long, grueling proccess.

Life goes on, somehow.

Apartment Three:

"We heard about the cancellation," Negi told the next door neighbor as we stopped by his doorstep. "We're so very sorry."

"Huh? Oh, that," the duck said, then waved a white hand at us. "Don't worry, I've got a new deal going. Seth Rogen's going to be producing a new series, all of my own, can you believe it?" He smiled. "I won't have to piggyback on another's spotlight like a secondary!"

... well. I guess he deserves it after spending like two decades out of a job. That's one advantage of being American and working for other Americans, they're always going to hire you again eventually, even if it's just to recycle your old stuff. As if that mattered, as long as the checks clear.

For us, it's kind of different, most of the time. Once you're done, you're generally done, unless you're a Tenchi haremette or something like that.

And speaking of that...

Apartment Four:

I'm not saying that Senpai has a hard time moving away from his first woman. I'm writing it.

Much like the Joker's wife... or concubine, I guess... she just got too popular for the relationship to work. Difference is, while the clown's always stood relevant, Senpai, well, not so much. There's technically his older self, and that other guy using a copy of his body, but... not the same thing. Senpai claims that doesn't bother him, and that he'll always wish Saber-san well in her ongoing new enterprises along all her other different selves. He says he's moved on, and in a way, I suppose that's true...

"Ah, Praetor, what a beautiful day for a date all through this majestic city...!" she coos as they walk out of the building, passing by next to us, the blonde making sure we see her hugging his arm as she mashes her large breasts against his side. "You spoil me so much, even if rightfully...!"

... but I also can't help but thinking that he's just compensating with the next best thing. Then again, perhaps the same can be said about her.

 

Apartment Five:

We've never seen the man who lives in the fifth apartment. The housekeeper calls him 'the Doctor', refuses to talk about him without mumbling too much to understand, and leaves a plate full of food for him every week at his doorstep.

He's ever silent and quiet, and if not for the stark blue light you can see coming out of his window at nights if you're standing on the sidewalk, you might be forgiven for thinking there's nobody living there.

The Joker seems to know who he is, but when asked-- Negi tried that once, because he was just that curious about it-- the Joker just laughed and laughed and answered nothing.

And they call me a shut-in.

Apartment Six:

Morisato-senpai and us were working in the same fanfic, the one I just told you about, for a while-- in several ways, our careers ran parallel. He's an old friend of my older sister, and much like us, his career dried up once his series was over. He always was a dreamer and saved little, and his high maintenance girlfriend left him to perform in NTR doujinshi.

Not a pretty story, that. Maybe he kinda deserves it though, since, I suspect that, like most Japanese men, he's a lolicon. Okay. So maybe I am a shotacon and I have no right to talk. Still, I'm fifteen, I've been for the last thirteen years, and he's been twenty for the last thirty years, so he definitely should know much better than I. Instead, he's now living with his ex-girlfriend's loli sister. Granted, she's nice enough to work with, all things considered. And it might not be Senpai's full fault-- we're much like our writers, and his writer is a real box of issues in the world above, yours.

Skuld-chan seems to know who's living in the fifth apartment, too. She damn should, they're next door neighbors after all. And she claims knowing everything, dubious at it may be.

I guess maybe I should give her kind of a pass on that arrogance, too. It can't be good, living under the shadow of someone who's perfect. I know, even if I created my perfect annoyance myself when I created Chiu.

Skuld's was sort of pushed onto her from the start.

Apartment Seven:

Mr. Markham will never be in a Spider-Man movie.

Other than the Joker, and maybe the guy in the fifth apartment, we're has-beens or second stringers, but Mr. Markham's whole claim of infamy is being the biggest loser out of all of us. Others in the building are much less known... I'm not above realizing I might be one of those, too... but his whole shtick is that he's a laughable never-been, never-will-be. A joke character. His apartment always smells of old wet fur when you pass by it, his floors are always creaking above our ceiling, and he's always mooching off the Joker, who seems to feel an odd sort of disgusted pity for him. I don't like him myself, either, even if he's never done anything to us.

I imagine he was created to have that manner of effect. Or he might have just turned out that way regardless. I don't know, and I don't care to learn.

I'm not sure he even has other clothes than that stupid fursuit. I've never seen him wearing anything else.

No wonder he'll never be in a Spider-Man movie.

Apartment Eight:

In the seventies, as I understand from what Haruna explained to me once, there were several horror guests for American comics, guys who took their cues from the really old, cheesy stuff from the fifties. You know, that old Tales from the Crypt TV series? As I understand, the host in that one came from those books, the difference being that he made enough fame and saved enough as to live in the nice part of town now, and Uncle Creepy now has to bum it up in the building.

Uncle Creepy-- that's how he likes being called, not that we're related, thank God, unless that Darkenning guy didn't tell me something back when I was working for him-- usually sits by the front door of his apartment on an old rocking chair, decaying and grinning a wide mouth full of loose teeth, with an open book on his lap. Not even a laptop, for Kami's sake. He'll cackle at us when we pass by and ask us to stop by and sit down, to listen to "a chilling thriller from the bold pages of yore... something to put the fear of the Devil in your veins, hee heee!"

I've told Negi not to associate with him. Even if he most likely can't get it up, he's still probably a molester.

Tales from beyond the grave, my ass. The real terrors of the world are of a different nature.

 

Apartment Nine:

This one, this one's rented by these two mobster guys. I keep telling Negi that we really need to move out of this dump as soon as we get the chance, there's too many criminals and low key villains living here. I swear, I pray we get to do it before Sakurazaki's girlfriend learns about it.

I think they had their own comic, one or two decades ago? I'm not sure, I don't think they hold a series anymore, so I suppose they've fallen back into character to earn a living. They're away most of the time, thank God, but every time they return I keep fearing a cop squad or mafia hitmen will burst in right after them. They certainly act like they're followed by those, most of the time.

They're creepy, too, and whenever they look at Hakase or me, it's clear what are they thinking. The little one is just a lustful dumb slot, with his Richard Nixon face and his clumsy attempts to sound slick and wordly, but the big one, the solid, stoic one, is even more grating in how chilling he is. I hope Kagurazaka never learns about him. He's exactly the kind of older asshole she'd fall for.

Apartment Ten:

There's Archie characters living all over the city-- they create so many, that you're bound to see fifth-and-sixth stringers of the bunch scattered pretty much everywhere. A few work at the supermarket, and if you'll give them any chance they'll start going on about how they once were drawn by Dan De Carlo, whoever that was.

Our resident one is Cricket-san, who had like two or three appearances in the sixties and then got a few new gigs ion the noughties, from what I understand. So I suppose I should call her Senpai, but I really don't want to. She's plenty annoying herself; she reminds me of several of my classmates in that she has this single character shtick and relies on it to get anything done. Her particular gimmick is that she's greedy and very loving of money and can smell a coin or a bill anywhere, and, well, that hasn't aged well in the era of digital money.

I think she likes Negi, too. Big surprise.

Apartment Eleven:

Now, Zelgadiss-san, I can tolerate, and even respect. He's considerate, he never throws wild parties despite having that kind of friends, and while he can be kind of curt, not that I can talk, I suppose, I prefer that to someone being openly chummy and sticky. He's my kind of neighbor, yeah. Just sticks to his affairs and won't nose into yours.

As a matter of fact, he's so quiet and reserved that I don't have much to say about him, which is always weird to say when talking about magical men made of stone. Go figure.

Apartment Twelve:

I refuse to say much about Minase-senpai and his cousin. I mean, it's not like I'm a prude; I've done my fair share of ecchi. And I realize they didn't even use to make the most screwed up kind of hentai. Still, just associating with them is trouble.

Seriously, you can't get too close to those people if you ever wish for some kind of career comeback. Negi sympathizes with them, probably because he can see himself on anyone raised by an older cousin who might as well be a sister, and probably just because he's Negi, but... no, sorry, that kind of life squeezes everything out of you and leaves you a dry has-been worse than pretty much anything else in the business.

Even though, I guess, that's a lost cause for us by now, regardless.

 

My Secret Life, Part One.

"Satoru?" she asked, entering the room.

The young man looked back from the report he'd been writing on his computer. "Oh, it's you, Sayoko. Do you need money?"

"No... I mean, yes, I do, Of course I do!" she corrected herself after a moment, applying two fingers to her forehead. "Why wouldn't I? But we can discuss that later, I have something more important to tell you right now..."

Satoru's eyes grew hideously large and round, and he literally fell off his chair, dropping on the floor while, suddenly, Neena, Emi and Takako all craned their similarly shocked heads in from the next room, the television still yapping in the background. "... hey," Sayoko frowned. "What the hell's with that reaction, now?"

"H-H-Hold on there, Sayoko!" he wailed as he clung to her legs, struggling to get back up on wobbly knees. "S-Sit down, I'll call the ambulance right now, just tells us where are you hurt--"

She growled, pulled him back up by his shirt, and lovingly applied her crushing fist on his skull, making his eyes pop up. "You moron! I'm serious here, will you stop clowning around?! That goes for all of you as well!" she roared back at the other three women, who stared on at her in sheer disbelief. "Gimme some credit, what I've done to ever give you the impression I only care about cash!"

"The... The sex, the clothes and the liquor don't count, you get those through money, so..." Takako managed to stutter.

Sayoko groaned. "What have I done to deserve this...? Listen, I've got something to confess, and you'd better save your shock for it, since it's an actual big one. I... Well, I'm not really Bizen Sayoko! That's not my birth name!"

Emi, Satoru, Takako and Neena all just glared on at her.

"... and the surprise is...?" the bespectacled beauty of the group said after a beat.

Sayoko ground her teeth together. "I give that much of a shady impression, huh...?"

"Don't be offended, chere, but eez true, you're obveeously zee keend who eez, how should we say..." Neena doubted.

"Completely making everything about yourself up so you don't have to suffer the consequences of all the shit you've tried to leave behind," the short haired bombshell finished the idea for her.

The blonde smiled. "Mais oui! Took zee words right out my mouth...!"

Sayoko facepalmed. "Believe me, you have no idea! I... I'm actually a goddess, and my name is Urd..."

Neena frowned. "Oh, pleeze, Sayoko-chan...!"

"Even for your standards, this joke's lame," Takako snorted.

Emi raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound drunk, so what's the deal? You haven't started doing drugs, have you? That shit'll ruin you quite badly, Sayoko-chan."

"Drugs?! No way!" Satoru gasped.

"I'm not on drugs!" Sayoko roared. "I'm a goddess, for real!"

"Yeah, sure thing, goddess of scammers, maybe," Takako said.

"And of uncontrolled libido," Emi smirked.

"Goddess of debts, eef you ask moi..." Neena giggled, covering her mouth with a hand.

"Well, to be technical, I'm half goddess, half demon," Urd admitted.

"Only half?" Satoru asked.

Sayoko glared at them again. "... yes. Only half. And now I'm going to meet my little sister, who has just... dropped by in the city. She's just a kid, so..." She stared at the large thought balloon suddenly hovering over the heads of her roommates/lovers, showing a younger version of herself covered in tattoos and chugging a large bottle of vodka, and then high kicked it, scattering them in all directions. "She's not like that, imbeciles! She's bratty, prudish, and a complete gearhead nerd...!"

"Alright, now I know you're bullshitting us!" Takako barked. "No way anyone like that could be related to you! And what's with that whole goddess shit, are you so full of yourself now that--?!"

Then she, Emi, Neena and Satoru all just squeezed together into a huge eyed ball of mutual shocked hugs, as Sayoko had just made a finger gun motion and, without the slightest warning, simply blown a hole through the closest wall with a blast she'd just shot from her hand.

Urd sighed, then smoothed down her very short, tight red skirt with the still smoking hand. "As I was saying," she said, "my baby sister, Skuld, has just moved into the city, well, into one of the four academies, to be exact. And I'm going to have to pay her a visit. I figure I'll have no choice but introducing the lot of you to her and her... friends, so I'm just going to ask you, and only once, that you come along and try to be as civilized as possible around them..."

 

Book of the Unequal.

"Yes, what do you want?" Hasegawa Chisame asked the girl standing on their doorstep.

Said smelly, short, black haired young woman in glasses rasped delicately into a fist. "I'm here to interview Negi-sensei for the book I'm writing."

As if on cue, Negi Springfield peeked out of the next room, blinking his large brown eyes curiously. "Oh, Fukawa-san!" the young boy said. "Good evening! Isn't a bit late to visit, though? Is something wrong?"

"I received a pass from the Honnouji Student Council to visit you over the night, as this is a matter of importance, Sensei," Touko gave a small smug smile as she stepped into the apartment, Chisame closing after her with a groan. "You've become so relevant, Kiryuin-sama has commissioned your biography for our local editorial house!"

A subtle, yet foreboding presence seemed to materialize from right behind Chisame then, blinking twice at the newcomer. "The Black School has its own editorial, seriously? I thought they burned books, not publish them!"

"Ahh!" Touko gasped, springing back. "You were here?!"

Tsunetsuki Matoi nodded. "Yes, always."

Touko scowled, even as Negi and a mildly interested Hakase Satomi also stepped into the living room. "W-Well, of course you'd be... And of course the student Council has its own editorial house! It's published obligatory texts like the Honnouji Obedience Mannuals, the Encyclopaedia of Campus Discipline, the--"

"Right, we should've seen that coming," Chisame sighed. "You've written all of those, too?"

"Ew, no," the novelist winced. "I'm not as much of a mercenary! But Kiryuin-sama thought my talents would be bset applied for a subject of this nature, and well, I... I would have to agree with her for once." She gave Negi a rare, nervous smile, the kind she'd never apply on anyone but him or Byakuya. "I know you're busy right now, Sensei, but you c-could spend a single night sharing your experiences for posterity, right?"

Negi rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "To tell you the truth, Fukawa-san, things have changed so much, so fast, that I don't know if now I can do that or not..."

"Well, there's not a single soul in the four schools that doesn't know you're a mage now," the writer noted, "and you'll need as much publicity as possible if you want to succeed with this Red Venus prohect of yours, so..."

"Blue Mars," Matoi dryly said. "You haven't even started and you're already altering the facts."

"Who says I haven't started?" Touko snapped irritably, showing her the small stack of sheets she'd brought with herself within a manila folder. "This is what I've put together so far, from all of my personal experiences with Sensei since the festival! But now, now I want to hear his side of the story as well!"

Chisame squinted at said sheets. "Why didn't you just write all of that in your computer like a normal person?"

Touko gritted her teeth at her. "If you need to be explained, you'd never understand the soul of a true writer anyway!"

"What kind of answer is that?" Chisame frowned. "What are you, eighty? Why can't you type on a computer?"

"I'd be glad to submit all of my technical findings and applications on the Project for publishing after review by a panel of my peers," Satomi offered with a wry proud smirk. "But I must warn you, you'll have to trump the offers I've received from Lexcorp Books and Stagg Publishing..."

Chisame blinked. "The what of what now?"

Touko scowled at the petite scientist. "That's not the kind of material I'm interested on writing, not my audience is on reading, Hayate-san."

"Hakase," Matoi corrected now. "I don't like her either, but I never got her name wrong..."

"Please, don't fight, don't be like that," Negi chuckled slightly, sitting down. "Okay, Fukawa-san, I suppose you're right, the nature of our mission from now on means we hardly can keep on being this secretive..."

Chisame pulled a chair. "I must tell you, Asakura's going to be pissed off. She made a big effort to hold herself back from questioning you until you had fully recovered, and now you're just going to take her exclusive away from her?"

"That's right," an upset voice said from right outside their front door. "I can't believe it, the nerve of you, Negi-kun!"

Negi took pause, then blinked. "Asakura-san?"

"She's had this room bugged since we came back, after all," Matoi said casually, pulling a tablecloth up and showing the small device attached to the table's third leg.

"What the-?! And you knew this the whole time and you never told us?!" Chisame gaped.

"What can I say? We're sort of kindred spirits when it comes to spying on others, I felt sympathy for her!" Matoi explained.

Negi breathed out and walked for the door. "You're right, Kazumi-san, I should've thought of you before. I'm sure we can arrange something, though..."

 

Apartment Thirteen:

It'd be easy, for a casual visitor-- and it has happened to the girls more than once-- to assume Dr. Doom himself lives in apartment 13. In truth, it's Doombot-san.

Whenever Doctor Doom needs to take an embarrassing defeat, star in a ridiculous promo comic for toothpaste or some such nonsense, or appear in a crappy movie, he'll summon Doombot-san there and let him deal with it.

Not that you should ever tell Doombot-san about this, of course. As part of his programming, he IS convinced he is THE real Victor Von Doom, and will angrily grab people by the throat whenever asked why he's living in an apartment building for second stringers and has-beens then.

He only accepts his reality whenever the real Doctor Doom comes to run checkups on him, and then he'll just become docile and silent until his master leaves.

All the same, whenever the real Doom comes-- or it might be another Doombot, who can tell-- we lock ourselves up until he's gone. Just in case.

Apartment Fourteen:

I don't like talking about Mineta.

Apartment Fifteen:

The keepers live in the last apartment. They're an old married couple and, like all old married couples, constantly bitch and groan at each other but have nowhere else to go. They're also old fashioned as hell, not helped by how they literally are from the BC Gaul.

She's uppity and snobby above her station, and he's a bore of a man. I think they were/play the leaders of some Barbarian village or somesuch, and so you can't expect much modern refinement from them, or for them to know how to fix anything that gets broken in the building; that's what Hakase is here for. On the plus side, that means we get to pay less rent than the others,so I suppose we can't complain too much.

That's the kind of people I have to live with. So in truth, I'd even prefer to live in a dorm building full with stupid nosy schoolgirls.

But that's the way reality works. You've got to separate fiction-- and so, the job-- from it.

 

Mahou Sensei Negima! is the creation and intellectual property of Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.

---

It started in a train back from Iinchou's manor, after a long Sunday chilling off by the pool.

No, of course it hadn't started back then. It had started long before that, the morning Negi-sensei had first been introduced to them as their new homeroom teacher. But you have already read at least a version of that and what happened immediately afterwards.

None of the young people in the car had read Unequally Rational and Emotional, however, and you probably didn't either, or you don't remember much from it, so them and you couldn't be blamed for getting the wrong ideas about him.

Murakami Natsumi knew the basics, of course. She knew that Negi-sensei, their adorable boy teacher, had been made to room with Hasegawa Chisame and Hakase Satomi, the two biggest turbo geeks in the classroom, as Misa would call them. She also knew that shortly after, Sensei had formed a club, the English Research Society, with his roommates and several others, including Iinchou, Misa herself, and Misa's own roommates and best friends, Sakurako and Madoka.

During the class trip to Kyoto, Natsumi had first noticed several really weird things about Sensei's circle of closest associates. A team of actual supervillains had actually tried to kidnap Konoka. Which, okay, was not such a strange situation when you were a rich heiress; it had happened to Iinchou and Chizu-nee more than once too. And yet... there had been something different about this. Natsumi couldn't quite put her finger on what it was just yet. It was a work in the progress, so to speak.

It took until that overheard conversation in the train, however, for Natsumi to actually realize how utterly bizarre the whole situation was.

---

Son of Unequally Rational and Emotional.

---

Lesson One: New Management, (Not Quite) the Same as Before.

 

Yukihiro Ayaka was napping as her head rested on Naba Chizuru's shoulder, a fact the busty Chizuru seemed quite calmly pleased about. Natsumi, well used to that kind of scenes by then and just wondering when Chizu-nee would just tell Iinchou already, was checking on her text messages when a bit of conversation coming from a few seats away called onto her attention.

"Are you gonna attend the Mahora Festival?" a boy a couple years older than her was asking.

A tall, gorgeous blonde senpai smiled, surrounded by two girls who gave strong vibes of being her lackeys. "Of course I will. Mahora or not, their food is just too good, I'm not missing on it."

Saeki Kaori, Honnouji.

"Is... Is it that good?" asked a short girl with short light brown hair. "It'd be my first year going there, but I've heard so many scary things about it..."

Nishizumi Miho, CLAMP Gakuen.

The blonde laughed. "What, Mahora? Oh, no, trust me, Mahora is a cakewalk compared to Honnouji! You're from Ohtori, right?"

"We're from CLAMP, but Miho-chan just joined in this year," explained a pleasantly smiling girl with long black hair. "She was studying overseas until recently."

Isuzu Hana, CLAMP Gakuen.

"Mahora is weird, people there are really soft hearted for the most part, but they're also crazy as hell," said the boy who'd talked first, one with short red hair. "They just don't act with any common sense..."

Akabane Karma, Furinkan.

"Is it true," the short haired girl gulped, "that they, you know, have this strange cult about this child teacher...?"

Ayaka's eyes snapped open immediately.

"Oh, you've heard the stories already," said an even smaller and younger looking girl with short black hair and a very slim, flat build. "Yes, the infamous Negi Springfield..."

"Infamous?" Ayaka echoed with a subtle dangerous hint, sitting up straight while Chizuru sighed in subdued distress.

Since the others hadn't heard her yet, the petite girl kept on explaining. "A... person I know from a time ago is a member of his club, the so-called English Research Society. Not a person I'm fond of, let me tell you. She is, and I'm not fooling you, the girlfriend of the Perverted Beast of Mahora himself..."

Saotome Otome, Ohtori.

The girls all pulled back on their seats, horrified at the mention. The red haired boy let out an amused whistling. "No way...!" he said. "That guy? I've heard he can take a girl's underwear from a block away!"

"I, I, I heard he's got three different children across the Four Schools area!" a girl with long, wavy light brown hair gasped. "How isn't he jailed yet?!"

Takebe Saori, CLAMP Gakuen.

Ayaka blinked. "Yuuki-senpai? Oh, please..." she said to herself.

"The part about the full block distance is true, however," Natsumi mused aloud with understated bitterness and a sour memory.

"That would fit in with what I've figured out from what I've heard," the blonde said with a solemn nod. "That bunch of people, quickly gaining influence and pull all over Mahora... are a mystic sex club, a secret society out for supernatural domination!"

Ayaka facefaulted onto the car's floor instantly, while all of the others gathered around the blonde, except for her nodding classmates, stared at her in disbelief.

"No, now, come on," the tiny black haired female said. "Supernatural? Pull on my finger now, those things don't exist..."

"I wouldn't be so quick to say that," opined a boy with freckles, large round eyes, and messy dark green hair, between munches from the bento box he held on his lap. "What I heard is, they're a team of mutant superheroes in training."

Midori Izuku, Tomobiki.

The incredulous gazes formerly fixed onto the blonde now were on him, and even the Honnouji trio had joined them now.

The boy blinked. "What? Mutants and superheroes existed all over the world, everyone knows that!"

"Oh, believe me, that person I know never would or could be a superhero," the tiny black haired girl snorted. "A super villain, maybe..."

"Ayaka, no, please," Chizuru warned from between clenched teeth as Ayaka angrily pulled herself up from the floor.

"That might not be as crazy as it sounds," the red haired boy threw his opinion in. "After all, Sailor V mostly operates around Mahora, and there might be some rel--"

"Excuse me!" Ayaka rasped loudly, walking towards them and past Natsumi and Chizuru's attempts to reach for her sleeves.

The strangers all looked at her. "Y-Yes...?" the first CLAMP girl who'd talked asked.

Ayaka smiled and put a hand on her own chest. "I couldn't help but overhear your sadly misguided small talk, and I felt I had to correct you on the subject! No doubt you've all been the victims of misinformation, but I happen to be a member of Neg... Springfield-sense's Society myself, and we have no links whatsoever to supervillainy, costumed vigilantism, magic, or most especially sex cults!"

"Ah, for real?" the red haired boy asked. "Then you don't have anything to do with the Perverted Beast either?"

"Uh, actually..." Ayaka blinked, suddenly uneasy.

The smallest of the girls fixed a cold death glare on her. "So, you know Haruna...?"

"Well, yes, actually, we've been classmates for a few years now," Ayaka said, now on slightly more solid ground. "What is it to you, miss...?"

"Saotome Otome," the girl said icily. "I happen to have the misfortune of being Paru's cousin."

"Really? Saotome-san's never mentioned you."

"It's the least I could hope from her. So, which one are you? Let me guess, Ayaka-san the shotacon?"

Natsumi shrank back onto her seat in abrupt, primal panic, and clung onto one of Chizuru's arms. To her credit, Chizuru shielded her fiercely just as soon.

Which was just as good, because Ayaka's anger exploded just one moment after.

 

"-- so, as you can see," Ayaka finished her tale with airs of great wounded dignity, "our society is merely one devoted to cultural pursuits! There's nothing suspicious or morally dubious about it!"

"Okay, but why are you so sure you'll manage to redeem such shady characters?" Midoriya-san asked. "I mean, from what you and Otome-san here say, they're just giving you a bad reputation everywhere..."

The girl with very short, charnmingly messy hair who had been with Saori, Miho and Hana the whole time looked at Natsumi curiously. "What about you? You're her friend, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, I am, and so is Chizu-nee..."

"Then you're part of her club as well?" the other girl asked.

"No, no," Natsumi asked, not losing her patience yet since she liked this girl for some reason. Maybe because she made her more comfortable about her own hair. "I'm too busy with my theatre club, and Chizu-nee is likewise busy with her astronomy club..."

"Besides," Chizuru said just a bit sharply, "we've never been invited to join in."

Ayaka blushed and coughed delicately into a fist. "Chizuru, please. You never showed an active interest, and we only can handle a certain amount of members at one time..."

"Oh, then I apologize over echoing all those awful rumors about you," Saeki-senpai said, taking a hand to her own cheek. Natsumi, with the trained instincts of a thespian, merely stared at her quietly. The older blonde smiled at Ayaka, pulling her smartphone out. "Let's be friends, Yukihiro-san! I'll give you my number and you'll give me yours, okay?"

Seeing no reason or way to refuse her without looking bad in front of everyone else, Ayaka only could agree. "Ahhh, yes, of course. You'll be welcome at the Festival, naturally. We'll be attending the Haunted House, please make sure to pay a visit and recommend us to your friends..."

The train reached the Honnouji station there, so Saeki and her two friends left after said exchange, making Natsumi breath considerably easier now. Ayaka sat down by Otome, asking her, "So, how comes you're Haruna-san's cousin? I wasn't aware her father had any siblings."

"No, I'm actually a distant cousin, although not distant enough for my liking," the girl with the quirky, odd sounding voice replied. She reminded Ayaka a lot of Shirai Kuroko-san, from Mahora's Discipline Committee. "Let's be clear here, now. It's not that I'm appalled at what Haruna does, it'd be hypocritical of me. I draw Yaoi doujin as well, after all..."

Midoriya blinked. "Yaoi?"

"Then why do you seem so upset at her?" Chizuru asked. "I mean, if I'm not meddling into anything too private..."

"Let's just say that her side of the family has wronged mine a lot," Otome growled from between grinding teeth, "and that such is a constant of life with anything regarding Saotome Genma."

Ayaka smiled. "Well, I hope you won't extend that hostility towards us. The same offer we gave Saeki-senpai extends to you as well. There's no reason why there should be any ill will between us just because we belong to rival schools, your cousin is a perverted malcontent that you hate, and you were spreading horrible rumors about our Negi-sensei and my sexuality."

"I apologize over buying Haruna's crap and saying you were a shotacon," Otome blandly said. "If you're a normal person who isn't into little children, I won't accuse you of being one anymore."

"... not that there's anything too wrong on having strong feelings for a man slightly younger than you as long as those are pure!"

Saori and Akabane shared a quietly jaded glance. The train announcer called for the Ohtori stop then, and with a brief nod and bow, Otome got off her seat and left the car without looking back.

During the rest of the trip, Hana-san and Chizuru seemed to strike a quick good friendship, talking happily with each other while Ayaka tried to talk with an uncooperative, shy Miho-san about the latter's family life. Ayaka had recognized the Nishizumi name, and apparently she knew the girl's mother personally, but this only made the other girl even more reluctant to talk openly on the subject.

Akabane-san had fallen asleep on his seat, arms folded, while Midoriya-san and Saori-san had started talking on the topic of superheroes, with the girl clumsily trying to flirt with him occasionally only for him to completely miss on the point. That left Natsumi without anyone to speak with for the moment, and she used this time to consider things in silence.

Realizing how outsiders thought about the English Research Society had just made her think a lot. But mostly, Ayaka's explanations, while satisfactory enough for the others-- except maybe Saeki-senpai, since Natsumi had also detected a faint incredulity to her reactions-- had also struck Murakami as strangely fabricated or false, the sort of thing you say from a script to sell your organization in the public eye.

Of course, Natsumi tried to tell herself, maybe she was just being unfair to Iinchou. She guessed that, deep inside, she still resented the Class Rep, their old roommate, a bit for never inviting her and Chizu-nee, who loved Iinchou so much, into her new fold. And once or twice, Natsumi had even suspected that maybe Iinchou knew about Natsumi's own feelings for Sensei, and that such might be the reason for-- but no, surely, that wasn't it. Iinchou was not that kind of person, for all her flaws she was both all about fair play and as dense as a brick about others' feelings.

And yet...

The woman through the speakers called out for the Mahora station, and Natsumi snapped out of her daydreaming for now.

 

“So that’s how the other schools see us? Deploratable!” Suzushiro Haruka said as she sat in the waters of the large Mahora communal bath, along the other Ala Alba women plus assorted female hanger-ons. “Even Saotome-san’s family…”

“Especially Saotome-san’s family,” Ayaka confirmed, giving Haruna a pointed glare. “Are you sure you didn’t personally harm that girl, ever? That there’s no woman-to-woman grudge between the two of you? Because she sounded like there was!”

The large breasted mangaka held her hands up. “I’m telling you, Iinchou, I had no personal hand on it! They’re just unfairly casting an all encompassing blame on all of us, just because Grandpa Genma happened to sell their ancestral home and all their other belongings…”

“As expected from Genma-Ojiisan,” Ayase Yue said with a small sigh.

“Hey, it was a home belonging to all of the clan!” Haruna argued. “Gramps had as much of a right to those deeds as they did! We lost those claims as well, you know!”

Aino Minako breathed out, gathering water in her hands and washing her face off. “They can see a connection between you and us, just from that far… maybe we should stop spending so much time with you guys…”

“That’s the wisest thing you’ve ever said as our leader,” Munakata Shiho observed, with water reaching up to her flat chest, and a subtle yet firm nod.

“Oh, they’ll just forget about it soon enough,” the short haired Kasuga Misora said, with an ever quiet Cocone Fatima Rosa sitting on her lap. “Honnoujiers have the attention span of flies, and Ohtori people are too enamored of themselves to think about others for long!”

“Right, so tomorrow it’s our turn to work at the haunted house,” Ayaka said. “At the pace we’re going, I feel confident it’ll be finished long before the Festival starts. Ooohhh, I can hardly wait for Negi-sensei to see it…!”

“Where is he right now, by the way?” Mizuno Ami asked.

“Dog-Boy dragged him away to have another sparring fight, you know how obsessed he is,” Hasegawa Chisame scoffed, sitting between Matoi and Hakase as usual. “That’s what happens to boys who grow up without any brothers, I guess!”

“Oh, I hope it’s only a need for a brother,” Kakizaki Misa rolled her beautiful eyes back, then frowned at the quiet glare Miyazaki Nodoka was giving her from between her thick hair bangs. “What? This wouldn’t happen if only you held his leash tighter, Honya!”

“That’d be up to Abiru-chan and Harumi-chan right now, actually,” Matoi mused aloud, faintly trying to sneak a hand around Chisame’s shoulders, only to have it swatted away. “By the way, Ayaka-san…”

“Yes, Senpai?” the heiress said.

“That girl, your former roommate, hasn’t she ever asked you for membership, really?” the short haired older girl asked. “I find that hard to believe, what with the way she’s looking at Negi-sama all the time…”

“Who, Chizuru?” Ayaka then let out a short laugh. “Ha! Chizuru’s not that kind of girl, she’s always been more attracted towards older men! Not as old as those Asuna-san favors, of course, but…”

“Oh, butt off, Iinchou,” Kagurazaka Asuna retorted.

“No, no, I mean the other one,” Matoi waved a hand before Ayaka and Asuna could start fighting again. “The small one, you know. She’s always gloomy and neurotic-looking as befits a thespian, and whenever close to Negi-sama, she stares and stares from a distance, Jiiiiiiiii…”

Ayaka grimaced. “I can’t believe it! Now you’re comparing Natsumi-chan of all people to yourself?!”

“Paru-san won’t let me lie,” Matoi looked piously towards Haruna. “Your love antennae have caught it as well, right, Paru-san?”

Haruna nodded, pointing at her ahoge. “Yeah, you’re right! I’ll tell you something else, I didn’t want to raise a ruckus about this before, but during the class trip, Chizuru-san tried really hard to bring Natsumi-chan and Negi-kun together…”

Ayaka gasped. “What are you saying?! No, no, Chizuru would never do that!”

“Well, she’s your friend, but she’s also hers,” Haruna cautioned. “I don’t want you to fight each other, but I thought that, for fair play’s sake, you should know…”

Misa frowned, worried. “Natsumi-chan, seriously? It’s always the innocent looking ones…!”

“Misa, please,” Kugimiya Madoka groaned. “Don’t start picking more enemies along, will you?”

“What are you saying, Madoka?” Misa shot back. “I don’t have any enemies! Iinchou, Misora, the Vice Prez and I only happen to be healthy rivals with no trace of personal enmity between us, right, girls?”

“Well, actually…” Haruka began.

Then the doors of the baths slid open, and in walked Asakura Kazumi, wearing only a white towel wrapped around her shapely body. “Oh, but if it’s Ala Alba’s happy hour!” the redhead grinned, waving hi. “Good afternoon, what a surprise finding you all here…!”

“You know perfectly this is the time of the day we spend here while everyone else keeps their distance in fear,” Chisame blandly accused while Asakura took a seat by the shower stalls, and Aisaka Sayo’s ghostly form, also managing to wear a ghost towel for some reason, also drifted in after her, shyly waving at the living girls. It was always better not to think too much about the mechanics of Sayo’s afterlife. “Are you fishing for anything in particular today?”

“Nah, I already learned everything I wanted for now while listening by the door,” Kazumi said, undoing her towel as Sayo picked up the soap and began washing her back. To all the girls but Shiho, who had her priestess sixth sense, and Misora, who had gained an early perception of Sayo back during the Eva fiasco, this manifested as nothing but a bar of soap and pail of water simply floating around and washing the redhead’s smooth back. But all of them were sort of used to that by this point. “Hey, don’t hold it against us. We also made sure no real intruders approached by to learn your secrets!”

“There are not that many people left in Mahora who don’t know by now, right?” Madoka philosophized with a weak chuckle. “When did you and Sayo-chan get this close, by the way?”
“Oh, haven’t I ever told you? I come from a family expert on ghosts, that’s part of what made me curious about Sensei in the first place,” Kazumi explained. “Currently, I’m trying to convince Sayo-chan to let me be her Shaman…”

Minako blinked. “Her what?”

Kazumi giggled. “Oh, let me tell you a story about my late grandfather. It’s the least I can do for you, after all you’ve let a snoop like me into…”

 

“I bet you’d love to use magic right now, ne, Poindexter?” Inugami Kotaro teased with a grin as he and Negi bounced across the trees, occasionally finding openings to hit each other rather brutally.

“Not particularly, no,” the red-haired British boy said, crossing his arms together to block Kotaro’s latest swinging kick. “I’m not eager to break a pact between gentlemen… or even one made with you.”

“Oh, I’ve been offended. How hurtful!” the black haired boy laughed, jumping up and reaching with a punt to Negi’s jaw, making him stagger back. “Wiseguy, you’re just lucky ‘m not going to go all wolf shape on you! I’d beat you black and blue, magic or not!”

Negi recovered quickly, ducking under Kotaro’s next strike and uppercuting him in the stomach, sending him flying back. “You seem to be under the wrong impression that your mercenary lifestyle grants you a big edge over me, Kotaro-kun,” he estimated.

“Why not?!” the chuckling canine child said, rushing back from where he’d just fallen and charging at Negi, who barely stepped aside in time to avoid his fist. “It’s real world experience, Four-Eyes! Something they don’t teach you at school!”

“Maybe, but how much of it could you realistically have had?” Negi asked, grabbing him by an arm and slamming him against a tree. “You’re not that much older than me, and how long ago did you start? Let’s say you’ve been doing that for two years at most…”

Kotaro swung back with a mule kick, pushing Negi off himself. “So?! That’s still two years added to the big gap between us you’ll never cover!”

Sitting not too far from there, on a small clearing of the woods near Mahora Academy, Lala Satalin Deviluke, Itoshiki Nozomu, Kaga Ai, Yuuki Rito, Morisato Keiichi and Sasaki Makie were having a small picnic.
“I’m just glad they’ve already mastered the most important part of shounen action hero training,” the son of a mangaka said, while Keiichi poured him another cup of green tea. Girls had long given up on serving Rito as that level of proximity inevitably ended up with them being stripped and groped accidentally.

“Which one?” asked the older, black haired young man.

Rito cracked a small smile. “The trash talking, of course…”

“Um, sorry to take this upon myself,” Ai gulped, “but maybe I should try and break them apart before they hurt each other? They should have dinner already, after all…”

“Let them be just a little longer, this makes them happy,” Itoshiki sighed, reminiscing old times spent with Ala Rubra. Ah, the most things changed. “Sasaki-kun, wasn’t Skuld-kun supposed to be here today too?”

Makie made a small pout while slicing a piece of cake for herself. “She called me to cancel, apparently she’s got important things to do with Chao-chan… again…”

“Ah, the path of scientific progress, ever relentless in its pursuit of a world constantly evolving into more frustrating forms,” the lanky pale teacher began one of his bizarre ruminations. “Like, for instance, how you’re always just one cellphone call away from your parents demanding to know if you’ve found yourself a bride at last this week, no matter where you are. Or—“

“Yes, yes, you’re in despair, tech has left you in despair, we know, Sensei,” Lala gently but firmly gave him a soft smack to the back of his head with a hand. Perhaps because science was being badmouthed by him. “Be patient with her, Makie! These things always take their time, you know!”

“Not for you, apparently,” Rito said. “You never seem to take any long building those crazy devices of yours…”

“Ah hah ha, you’re so much of a flatter, Rito!” she laughed, energetically slapping his back so he stumbled ahead and onto Makie’s chest. Being the understanding type, Makie did nothing as he pulled back stuttering apologies that made Ai take notes quietly. “It’s all practice…! Although, come to think about it, Skuld should have plenty of that herself… Hmmmm…”

“I think her excuse is that she’s not used to work with Earth materials,” Keiichi said, buttering his sandwich up, then adding the lettuce. “Makes sense, I guess, who knows what kinds of ultra-advanced stuff they have in the realm of the gods?”

Lala’s eyes shone as she took a hand to her cheek. “Ooohhh, don’t even tell me…! I’m so envious of her…!”

Then she was wacked on the back of the head by a rock.

“Oops!” Kotaro said, pausing with a bunch of rocks in his hands. “Sorry ‘bout that, Lala Nee-san! I didn’t mean to!”

“See, this is what happens when you start playing dirty like that!” Negi scolded him.

Rito edged away from Lala carefully as she rose back to her feet, then cracked a small cutesy smile. She turned around to beam said beautiful smile at the two small boys, and then cracked her knuckles. “Negi, Kotaro?” she called out. “If you wanted me to join you, you only needed to ask! I’m always up for a good fight between friends!”

“Ahhh,” Kotaro said carefully, “you know that I really don’t want to pick fights with girls, so…”

“Let’s goooooo!” Lala shouted, merrily running towards them, and a few seconds after they both were sent flying high through the air.

It was then, while barreling and spinning up past the tops of the trees, that Negi casually caught a glimpse of something unusual and somewhat concerning in the distance, further away from the school.

 

Shortly after returning from the class trip, Natsumi had received a call from her mother.

"I heard the Joker attacked Kyoto while you were there!"

Natsumi had sighed. "Yes, that's fine, Mom, it's not like I ever met him, saw him even from afar, or even was close to him..."

That, of course, failed to mention how Natsumi's group had been close enough to that other American maniac, the superpowered mutant Sabretooth, but frankly, Natsumi hadn't felt like bringing that up then.

"We once met the Joker ourselves, you know..."

"Yes, Mom, you've told me that story before," Natsumi had said patiently.

"Back then, he was in his Campy Clown Prince of Crime stage," Velma had reminisced once again. "He wasn't even killing anyone at the time, and yet we almost died..."

Natsumi had endured the ensuing tirade on responsibility and always being careful without ever hanging up, which she, in all honest modesty, thought had been remarkably praiseworthy from her. That didn't mean she wanted to ever go through another of those again, which was why now she was fairly sure she wouldn't tell Mom about whatever she was about to learn, if she ever got to learn anything, that was.

"Stop right there, Neechan. You'll need the clearance code to pass this door," the pimple faced young security guard by the laboratory's door told her.

Natsumi put on her best false smile. "Oh, please, Oniisama. Negi-sensei sent me, he needs sending a message to his students here..."

A good thing about being an actress, even though also one Natsumi tried not to exploit too much, was how it made it much easier to lie to others and have your way around them. True, you always felt bad afterwards and it never worked with people like Chizu-nee, but more often than not, it got the job done. And so, shortly after, Natsumi was descending into the complex under the science building, in a remarkably slowgoing elevator.

How many stories does this thing have anyway? Natsumi wondered in a mix of fascination and annoyance. It took more minutes that she thought possible, passing through several levelsof classified access, before reaching a stop at the end. Natsumi came our warily, already having second thoughts, and then braced herself, going the route the guard had told her.

The place seemed to be empty, but all lights appeared to be on, so there had to be someone still there. Sure enough, when Natsumi rang the black door at the end of the left wing, someone quickly opened for her, blinking at her in surprise.

"Hmmm... good afternoon," Natsumi gulped at this barely taller, not that much bustier girl with glasses and her dark brown hair pulled into a short ponytail. "I'm Murakami Natsumi from 3-A, can I please talk with Hakase-san?"

After a moment of silence and staring up and down at Natsumi's figure, the stranger smiled widely. "I'm sorry, but Satomi-chan is with Hasegawa-san right now, I believe. My name is Shiguma Rika, why don't you come in and-"

"Ahhh, thank you, Senpai, but I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a hurry, I shouldn't be staying here any long and distracting you from your work," the freckled girl gulped. She recognized the kind of light in those eyes now, having seen it often in Haruna, and those weren't good news at all."

"Oh, Rika insists!" the older girl laughed, grabbing her by a hand and pulling her in, closing the office's door after them. She took her lab coat off and, thankfully, walked back behind her desk in the school uniform she'd been wearing underneath. "Please sit down, would you care for some chocolate? Rika could always call a robot assistant..."

Natsumi swallowed as she pulled a chair before the desk, noticing the tall pile of papers by an open laptop. "Uh, thank you... But I think I must insist, I don't have much time before curfew, could I speak with Chao-san then...?"

"Banpei-kun?" Rika asked through a caller. "Chocolate for Rika and a guest, please! Well loaded, like Rika likes it!" Then she smiled again at the yonger girl, intertwining her fingers. "Sorry, but Chao left half a hour ago! She got a call and had to run! She's an ever busy woman, you know..."

"Oh, I do," Natsumi nodded. "Skuld-san, in that case...?"

"Skuld is busy in a private project and demanded not to be interrupted, no matter the reason," Rika said as a small round robot with spindly limbs and a wide brimmed hat walked in, carrying a large tray with a steaming cup and two glasses on it. Rika took it and nodded, waving at the robotic servant. "Thanks, you're a dearie, now buzz off, will you? Rika will call you if there's any need for it!"

Natsumi looked after the retreating bipedal machine in mild shock, even as Rika poured cocoa for her and herself. "You look stunned by a lesser AI like Banpei-kun, why is that?" Rika asked. "Shouldn't you already be used to have Chachamaru-chan in your class?"

Natsumi looked back at her, puzzled. "What does Chachamaru have to do with any of this?"

Rika sighed. "Perhaps there's a thing as 'too lifelike' after all," she mused. Then smiled again, somewhat unnervingly. "Tell Rika, then, what did you want to tell the girls? Rika will gladly give them your message as soon as Rika contacts them again."

Natsumi flinched slightly, since talking to people who spoke about themselves in the third person always creeped her out. "It's... It's nothing important, actually..."

"It must be so, since you came here, late a Sunday afternoon, just to speak with classmates you've never been close to," Rika said, sipping from her hot drink.

"How do you know we aren't close?" Natsumi protested. "Of course we're fairly close, all things considered..."

The smile disappeared briefly as Rika stared over the cup. "Rika's not the same type of genius as Satomi-chan, Natsumi-san. Rika has social skills. The kind nobody appreciates, but social skills regardless."

"I didn't mean to offend, it's just-!"

Rika smiled again and sipped more cocoa. "This is actually about Negi Springfield, isn't it?"

Natsumi staggered back and suddenly fell off the chair.

 

"I should be leaving for a moment, if you don't mind," Negi said quickly, dusting himself off after landing. "I really need to absent myself..."

Lala stopped even as he latest massive blow was being blocked by Kotaro's crossed- and now rather aching- arms. "Eh? What happened? Yo aren't hurt, are you?"

Negi laughed uneasily. "No, no, of course not! I'm fine! It's just that I have to, ah, answer the call of nature!"

Makie frowned and tilted her head aside. "You need to abandon human society and join a pack of wild animals? Why?"

"Makie-chan, it isn't that," Keiichi said. "He simply needs to, um, you know."

"No, I don't," she said. "What are you talking about?"

Kotaro sighed and waved the other boy off. "It's okay, when you've got to go, you go, right? Just make sure to wash your hands in the river after it!"

"You really should have gone before coming along..." Itoshiki began chiding Negi.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. I'll be back before long, I hope," Negi said, grabbing his staff from where he'd left it leaning on a tree, and then rushing into the woods.

"Hey!" Rito called out after him. "Why do you need the staff for that...?!"

Kotaro chuckled. "I hope it's not for what I'm thinking!"

"You're a very dirty minded kid," Keiichi scolded him. "When I was your age-"

"Save the sermon, Pops, I was just joking," the young mercenary said, walking to the picnic basket and helping himself some bread. As he chewed, he looked into the direction Negi had taken. "I only hope he doesn't take too long, the curfew's almost on us."

Rito chuckled. "I thought you prided yourself on being a rule breaker?"

"Hey, you don't know the Dorm Mother," Kotaro replied. "That woman's worse than... worse than anyone else I've ever faced, actually.

"Ahhhh..." Makie said then. "He went over to pee, didn't he?"

The others looked at her.

Makie blinked. "What? Is he pooping instead? I brought a roll of paper in my bag, he should've asked...!"

 

"Negi-kun, come closer, please," said the old man, and Negi closed the door after himself, walking respectfully towards the large desk. "How have you been of late? Resting and feeding well enough, after all you've gone through?"

"Yes, of course, Sir," the young boy told Konoe Konoemon, Headmaster of Mahora Academy. "Thank you for concerning yourself so much."

"Well, you have been spending a lot of time with Eva-chan, so I have solid reasons to be slightly worried," the elder said, gesturing at him to sit down, which Negi did. "She's a good girl deep inside, but... you know how she is!" he sighed, throwing his bony hands up.

Negi smiled. "Oh, indeed I do, Sir!"

Konoemon rasped. "You won't ever tell her I told you she was a good person, naturally. Anyway, I'm glad you are feeling well, Negi-kun. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel at ease having to ask this of you."

"What is it, Sir?"

Konoe produced a small jar of candies from a drawer and offered some to Negi, who accepted them eagerly. "With the Festival just one week ahead of us, there would seem I have a slight problem handling the tourism from the other schools. Applications have reached a historical record, and for the sake of our relationships with the other schools, I cannot outright reject their students without risking an impasse."

"I see. How may I help you with that?"

Konoemon sighed. "Well, you have proved yourself to be quite able to handle and steer large groups of rebellious children, and apparently your fame has grown beyond our boundaries, so... several students from the other academies have asked for your assistance with the Festival."

Negi blinked. "Me? That popular? Sir, you couldn't possibly be implying that..."

The Headmaster nodded. "Yes, Negi. Actually no, I'm not implying it, I'm outright stating it. I'm sorry to disturb any plans you might have for the three days, but you have been appointed as an emergency tour guide for the Mahorafest."

---

Live for Today, Plan for Tomorrow.

---

Lesson One: What Happens in Mahora...

 

Negi paused for a moment before saying, very seriously, "With all due respect, Sir, I'm afraid I'll have to question you on the reasoning behind that decision. Surely you always could come up with a believable excuse."

"I suppose I could," the old man said, "but that would make liars out of us, wouldn't it?"

"Sir, a certain degree of truth bending is often necessary to preserve the secrets," Negi reminded him. "I don't like it any better than you, but... I'll be honest, even if brutally so, now," he resolved, sighing and running a hand down his face.

Konoemon nodded with interest. "If you please, Negi-sensei."

"Since my arrival to Mahora," Negi said after breathing in, "I have pulled too many people into our world, when I should have remained completely undetected until now. I am not going to deny my fault in those incidents, and I'm infinitely thankful to you for not firing me yet. All the same, I already have too many... what should I call them...?"

"Followers?" Konoemon said innocently.

Negi let out a small frown. "That's... not the kind of word I'd have selected, but I defer to your wisdom, Sir. One way or another, I already have many more followers than I feel comfortable with, and I'm not sure I can or ever should take any more under my direct tutelage, on top of my primary responsibilities as a teacher."

"Ho-ho," Konoemon quietly said. "I hope Konoka-chan doesn't fall in the 'excess' range of those followers then."

Negi blushed and waved a hand quickly. "S-Sir! I didn't phrase that well! Of course I'm thankful for everyone in the team I am tutoring with Master Evangeline's help! I have no real complaints about any of them individually, it's just that, well, I shouldn't even have placed myself in this position to begin with, and you know that!"

Konoemon nodded slowly, folding his hands together. "Yes. I understand perfectly. And... I apologize for placing even more weight on your young shoulders."

He stood from his chair, folded his arms behind himself, and walked to a window, looking at the sunny campus suffering the first strokes of the sweltering incoming summer. "The truth is, Negi-kun, you just happened to be born in turbulent times. That's not your fault. Since the Second Impact, and then the Fourth Grail War, the world of magic speeds towards a future where we won't be able to keep the lid on anymore. I won't lie to you either; that greatly concerns me and, yes, to a degree, it scares me as well. I guess that you could say I, too, am a part of that past that doesn't know yet how to adapt."

"Oh, no, Sir, my ineptitude at keeping my secrets can't be excused by that! Takamichi and the others can keep doing it! Even Itoshiki-sensei has had his own secrets revealed only because of me! But I swear that from now on, I'll change, I'll be much better at it! I only ask you not to place me in more situations with students before I can learn how to act more discreetly!"

Konoemon raised a hand to impose silence gently. "Negi-sensei. If not for you, my granddaughter would probably be dead now."

Negi lowered his head. "She wouldn't have been put in risk to begin with if I hadn't insisted on going to Kyoto."

"It was only a matter of time. We cannot hide from what we are forever," the Headmaster reflected. "Sensei, smart as you are, I'm not sure you have understood this yet. The timing of this year's Festival couldn't possibly be any worse, since it came to be right at the middle of a Heaven's Feel that shouldn't even be taking place here."

"You are still in time to cancel it, aren't you?"

"That would only call further public attention on what's going on here, even with the best of fabrications," Konoemon said sadly. "I'd like to, but it also would be interpreted as a show of weakness by Honnouji."

"Let them think what they want," Negi suggested. "We know we are better than that."

"Negi, Negi, Negi," Konoe shook his head. "You don't know half about Honnouji, and what they are capable of, either."

Negi waited for an elaboration on this, but it didn't come, with the Headmaster returning to the original topic instead. "Other than Takamichi, who cannot be everywhere at once, you've already proved yourself as the best staffer I have to keep students safe and sound in the face of overwhelming odds. To keep these children safe, I'd rather risk letting them learn about us... even if I do hope you'll truly try to live up to that promise you've just made, concerning the improvement of your secrecy."

"But... What about Touko-sensei? Gandolfini-sensei? Mitsuru-sensei?"

"Have they fought Evangeline and Graff Wilhelm and survived it? Do they have the Sailor Senshi a quick call away?" Konoemon asked back. "Learning to place trust in yourself, and backing that up with your skills without succumbing to overconfidence, is one of the most important parts of becoming a Magister Mage, lad," he lectured the boy. "And as always, you won't be alone."

He pressed a button of the caller on his desk. "Shizuna-kun?" he asked. "Bring them in."

"Yes, Sensei," said a sweet feminine voice, and a moment later, the door of the office was opened and Minamoto Shizuna walked in, ushering two of the girls from Class 3-A in.

Negi recoiled mildly in surprise. He had been expecting Evangeline and Iinchou, perhaps even Chisame. Instead, he was now facing an unusually tense Chao Lingshen and a confused Murakami Natsumi.

"Chao-kun, Murakami-kun," Konoemon said. "Thanks for coming. I know you both had previous plans for the Festival, but I'm afraid we'll need your assistance with a few tasks during it, in tandem with Negi-sensei here..."

Clever old owl, Chao thought, now realizing it all and struggling not to smirk. As clever as you can be with the information you have, at least. But you might have just handed me right what I need to win...

 

"Oh, that's quite clever from Grandpa, actually!" Konoka said while she and Chachamaru passed the meals round the dinner table at the resort. Konoka, of course, was starting by serving Setsuna with a smile, making her guardian blush and lower her gaze. "Pairing you up with Natsumi-chan, one of the last few in our class not in the know, means you'll work extra hard not to be found..."

Ayaka nodded. "Yes, yes, I can see his logic..." she said, sounding oddly worried.

Asuna caught on to this. "Why that tone, Iinchou? Even if she finds out, what's one more in the class by now?"

"You still don't know Natsumi-chan all that well, do you, Asuna-chan?" Sakurako said, making sure to thank Chachamaru with a nod. "Well, you've never been all that close, after all. Natsumi-chan may look like, uh, kind of a pushover, but when she gets mad at you over something, she doesn't forgive easily. She's not like Madoka-chan, who won't ever hold it against you if you keep very important secrets from her for months!"

Kugimiya nodded while beginning to sip her soup. "Yep, that's me, the always forgiving pushover."

Now Negi looked quite concerned as well. "Is that so?" he asked.

"What did you ever do to Murakami, so you'd know that?" Chisame asked as well.

Sakurako laughed. "Not me! But Misa's chorus once butted heads with her club over a musical, and Natsumi-chan didn't talk to the three of us for nearly a year!"

"Oh dear. It sounds like she'd actually be upset at the whole lot of us..." Negi said faintly.

Ayaka rasped. "Shiina-san is exaggerating as usual, Sensei. Natsumi-chan is much more forgiving than that!"

"I still remember her wearing a long purple wig for her role of Jezebel after that," Misa grouched. "I've got to admit it, her imitation of my voice was spot on too... Anyway, Negi-kun, can't you take some time off for the second day and drop those people on Chao? I had plans for us!"

"What kind of plans?" Misora frowned, giving her a warning stare along Ayaka and Haruka.

Misa smiled and produced a poster from under the table. "I'm going to register Negi-kun and myself for the Miss and Mister Mahora, of course! We're sure to win, too!"

Negi blinked. "A beauty contest? Misa-san! Sorry, but absolutely not! I'm pretty certain a teacher couldn't take part in such an activity, and certainly not with a student!"

Ai looked a bit more downcast than usual then.

Itoshiki noticed. "We'd never win anyway, Kaga-kun. I look simply hideous in a swimsuit."

Ai sighed. "Sorry for even thinking about it..." she said.

"Let me see that," Saber said, taking the poster from Misa and reading closely. "Hmmm, this is interesting. Shirou, perhaps we should register ourselves?"

Shirou gagged on his soup, then sprayed it all over Keiichi's face. "What, what gave you the impression that'd be a good idea, Saber?! That's not like you at all!"

Saber slammed her fist on the table, now causing Keiichi's own plate of soup to splash him as well just as Chachamaru was starting to wipe his face dry. Morisato only exhaled patiently. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, Shirou! Since all other contestants in this War are cowardly quitters, we must draw them out by making our presence known in public, risky as it may be! Besides, if this is the King and Queen of Mahora, then I am born for the task!" After a moment, she added, "And I'm sure you may make a decent Queen as well."

Shirou facepalmed. "If the other Masters notice it, it'll only be to make fun of us!" he groaned. "Surely, nobody else could be that willing to do anything just to pick a fight!"

---

Illya put the poster down. "Berserker?" she asked very soberly. "What kind of swimsuit would you favor, speedos or trunks?"

"GRRWLF?"

---

"I don't see any regulations against teachers competing here, actually..." Haruna said as she went over the tiny print, adjusting her glasses.

Asuna perked up. "Ah, really?"

"Takamichi would never register with you, regardless," Itoshiki said.

"Shouldn't you be choking yourself on a chicken bone right now, Sensei?" Asuna replied, annoyed.

Haruna smiled, a glint in her eyes. "This is great! I'll make Nodoka and Kotaro-kun compete, and I'm sure they'll take one of the prizes! Now that should make that blockhead kid start seeing her as a woman already!"

"Oh, so you aren't making me register with you, Haruna-chan?" Rito asked, half relieved and half disappointed, as he reached over for the pepper shaker and instead groped Matoi's breast. Without a word, she stabbed his hand with a fork instead. "AIIIEEEE!"

"Nah, it'd be unfair to everyone else," Haruna said. "Lala-chan and I would have to register at once with you, and even if they allowed three-ways, who could even begin to compare?" At this, Lala nodded sagely. "By the way, Matoi-chan, you'd better not do that ever again. That's my Rito-chan's fapping hand..."

"That's okay! I'm a helper!" Konoka said happily, moving from her chair to heal Rito's hand.

"What's 'fapping'?" Negi asked.

"That doesn't matter right now, Boya," Evangeline said from the head of the large table, beating Chisame to the punch. "Anyway, Hasegawa is completely right in what she was about to tell you. You aren't going to compete in that stupid contest with Suzushiro, Yukihiro, Kasuga or especially Kakizaki, that'd be simply retarded..."

"Master, you're slipping into offensive alt right speech again," Chacahamaru said.

"Why that 'especially' when it comes to me!?" Misa protested.

Ayaka seethed. "Evangeline-san, I must point out that your role as our sponsor doesn't give you any rights over our private lives!"

Eva gave her a cynical look. "Says who?"

"Um, thank you, Eva... I guess..." Chisame said, then barked at Misora right when she was about to open her mouth again, "Be quiet, you! You're Church! What would Sister Shakti say if she saw you parading before everyone in a bikini?!"

Misora cowed back, eyes very round.

Evangeline chuckled cagily, wetting her bread on some sauce and daintily taking it to her mouth. "You are, instead, teaming up with me so I can prove myself as this campus' queen before leaving it behind."

"Yes, that is much-- Whaaat?!" Chisame said.

"Being born this handsome was a curse," Negi said in a very low voice to himself.

"What was that just now?" Skuld asked.

"Nothing, I was just murmuring nonsense..."

 

"You're wrong," Hasegawa Chisame told Kakizaki Misa. "As a matter of fact, I've been confessed to by a guy once."

Negi Springfield and Tsunetsuki Matoi stopped eating immediately, and their heads sprang up to stare silently at Chisame. Not so silently in Matoi's case as a shrill JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII began emanating from her.

Chisame rasped quickly. "I rejected him, of course! The guy was a real loser! It was last year..."

---

Chisame looked at the lover letter just placed in her hands and winced.

"N-No!" she said, shoving it back at the black haired boy, two years her senior. "I can't accept this, Senpai! I don't even know you!"

He looked absolutely crushed, pulling back and staring at her with widened, devastated eyes. "Oh, oh, okay...!"

---

"He gave up very fast, didn't he?" Shiina Sakurako observed, already finished with the main course and starting with the dessert. "He wasn't trying his best then. It's clear you weren't soulmates."

"No, obviously, they weren't!" Matoi huffed. "What a quitter! What a spineless jellyfish! Not trying and trying, to get the supreme prize that is Chisame-sama...!"

"If he'd done that, you'd be constantly trying to stab him right now!" Chisame growled.

"Oh, that guy?" Misa mused aloud. "Yeah, I think I know which guy are you talking about..."

---

"No," Misa said bluntly, handing him the parfumed envelope.

"But, but you haven't even opened it...!" the boy whimpered.

"I don't need to, I already have a boyfriend!" Misa said, folding her arms in indignation. "What kind of girl do you take me for?!"

He turned around, a broken shell of a man, and began walking away.

---

"Oh, so he doesn't have money," Kugimiya Madoka said while starting with her own pudding.

"How can you deduce that from such a short story?" Morisato Keiichi-senpai asked.

"I'd have accepted him and dumped Taisuke if he'd been wealthy," Misa said matter-of-factly.

"That, that's the kind of thing someone should be saying only for you to protest!" Itoshiki Nozomu-sensei argued.

Sitting by his side, Kaga Ai sighed sadly. "Ah, y-yes! I'm sorry to admit I also did a very bad thing by breaking his heart! A few months ago, shortly before I learned bout magic, he approached me as well..."

---

"S-S-Sorry, but I can't possibly burden you with such a troublesome person as myself!" Ai gasped, giving several steps back. "I'm sure you deserve someone better, whoever you are!"

"Please don't say that!" the younger student asked. "You're a wonderful person, you shouldn't be that harsh on yourself!"

"I beg you, don't become a liar for my sake!" Ai whined. "I couldn't ever forgive myself! I'm sorry! But you must forget about me! It shouldn't be hard! Sorry, I don't mean that you look forgetful or stupid, it's just...! I'm sorry, okay?!" she cried, turning around and running away.

---

"I'm sorry, whoever you were!" Ai yelled, raising her hands much like her beloved teacher. "I was a dirty liar myself! I told you that just because I didn't like you! I'm in despair! Being a liar who hides behind false concerns for others has left me in despair!"

Then she looked at Itoshiki and sobbed. "I'm sorry I stole your routine, too!"

He sighed. "Think nothing of that, but please don't make a habit of it..."

Kagurazaka Asuna rolled her mismatched eyes. "Ah, yes, that guy..."

"Did he propose to you as well, Asuna-san?" Sakurazaki Setsuna asked. "I hope you were mindful of his feelings. Casanova or not, it sounds like he always was respectful in his proposals and never pushed the matter after being rejected, and your temper can get the best of you at times, so--"

"Nah, it wasn't me," Asuna cut Setsuna's latest lecture short. "He proposed to Konoka."

Setsuna's eyes instantly flashed crimson. "You better kicked that fiend's ass hard..." she growled from the bottom of her throat.

"Setchan!" Konoe Konoka chided her. "Stop stereotyping Asuna like that! She's not my enforcer gorilla or anything like that!" She daintily picked her cup of tea up and sipped elegantly. "I can handle myself just fine. I kicked his ass myself."

"That's my Ojou-sama," Setsuna approved, relieved.

"He sounds like a chronic womanizer," Saber said with disgust, refilling her bowl of rice for the third straight time. "What a pitiful existence."

Somewhere in the Throne of Heroes, Gawain and Lancelot sneezed.

"Actually, I didn't feel he was bad when I rejectionated him," Suzushiro Haruka shared. "It's just that, well, there's something about him that is kind of repulsive, don't you think? There's something about him that tells you 'No, this guy couldn't ever possibly be' and makes you want to shove him away."

"Maybe that was Yukino-senpai standing behind you and whispering those words in your ear," Saotome Haruna guessed.

Haruka shrugged. "That might be it, but you felt it too, didn't you?"

"Yeah, well, I did," Haruna admitted.

Inugami Kotaro gasped loudly. "Four Eyes didn't give him the time of the day?! He must be damn hideous then!"

Yuuki Rito scowled and slapped the back of Kotaro's head. "What are you implying about Haruna-chan, you brat?!"

"No, no, he isn't bad looking either," Yukihiro Ayaka pondered calmly. "He doesn't look any worse than Morisato-senpai or Rito-san, and he's certainly polite and kind enough. But--"

"But he isn't a child, so you weren't interested," Asuna said rather correctly.

"Shut up, you!"

"What is that... young gentleman's name?" Negi asked. "It sounds like I should be aware of his activities, in the event any overzealous girl ever attacks him, or an offended boyfriend goes after him."

"Or girlfriend," Hakase Satomi pointed out.

"Right," Negi nodded. "I mean, if from our team alone, he's approached Chisame, Ai-san, Konoka-san, Iinchou, Haruna-san, Haruka-san and Misa-san, who knows how many others has he tried to romance?"

Chachamaru rasped very quietly while refilling Saber's bowl for her.

Satomi grew agitated in a second. "You too, Chachamaru?! Why didn't you ever tell me?!"

"His name is Aijo Rentarou," Chachamaru said very quietly. "I'm sorry, Mother, I was just created back then, and I hadn't yet fully assimilated my safety report protocols..."

"He proposed to you when you still were a newborn...!" an apoplectic Hakase cried.

"He had no way of knowing that..."

Misa hummed. "Rentarou, right. That's his name! I had forgotten. He's kind of forgettable like that. I wonder what is he doing now...?"

---

The 108 Girlfriends who Really, Like Really, I mean it, Man, Really Love You, Dude.

---

Chapter One: Wait, Weren't They Supposed to be 100?

 

The young man knelt before the altar, brought his hands together, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply.

"O Goddess of Love," he prayed. "Please, end my suffering. Allow me to know love at last..."

The temple was deserted at this time of the day, but for him and a shrine maiden sitting on the lower steps leading to the altar. She was very young, probably thirteen years old, and had red hair arranged in four pigtails that gave the impression of having an octopus sitting on her hair. Although wearing the red hakama and white robe shirt of a priestess on duty, she had set her bamboo broom aside and was currently watching soap operas in a portable TV.

"I'm sorry, Yamazaki-san!" a woman sobbed. "I'm so sorry! We can't be together because we... because we're siblings!"

"No! You're wrong, Mika-san!" a man declared melodramatically. "We aren't sublings... because my real father is Nabeshin, the Man from Stars!"

"Wow, what a plot twist," said the small miko, apathetically munching on chips from a Kira Poofs bag. "Who could've seen it coming..."

The young man sighed and kept on praying. "Since my earliest childhood, I've had this sensation of missing something. There's a huge feeling of absence in my heart, and it only grows bigger over time. I can't-"

"Would you terribly mind keeping it low?!" the girl said from below. "I'm trying to pay attention here!"

"This is the voice of my soul speaking!" he protested.

"Tell your soul to speak lower then!" the girl scolded him. "You do this every weekend, what makes you think it'll be any different now?!"

The boy groaned to himself and reassumed praying. "Please, please, please! I won't bother you anymore if you hear my plea! It's not a big deal for you, right? You're the goddess of love with almost unlimited power! This can't be difficult at all for you...!"

"Geez, right when she was about to stab him!" the girl growled, as her screen began filling with static. She began changing the channels back and forth. "C'mon, c'mon! I told Oneesama we should've contracted Netflix, this never happens with Netflix...!"

And then there was a large flash of light that somehow pushed the girl back, dropping her at the edge of the step. She helped herself back up blinking many times, and the boy also looked down, only to gasp in terror at the sight of a pair of long, lean, tanned female legs coming out of the television set.

"NANI SORE?!" he screamed, and somewhere in Honnouji Academy, Jakuzure Nonon sneezed. A full woman, shapely and curvaceous, with dark skin and long white hair, unmistakably youthful and vital but with the MILF aura of a mature temptress, pulled herself out of the set wearing a skimply black minidress and high heeled shoes. "Poltergeist?!"

The woman stood over the wearily sighing miko, dusting herself off. "Okay, if the Dark Agency sent you, please give me a sec to transform," the miko told her. "Hey, you, Loser!" she called upwards. "Think nothing of what'll happen next! We're filming a student movie!"

"Actually, I'm not here for you, but him," the tanned female said. "You're Shiho-chan, right? You know Skuld-chan, don't you?"

"Yeah..."

"Right. I thought so. Well, keep doing those things you're doing. I root for you and Tate, you know."

The miko nodded blandly. "That's good to know." She grew more interested. "Hey, can you give me an amulet or something that-?"

"Sorry, I told you I came for him!" the gorgeous woman said, merrily skipping upwards to stand before the paralyzed, huge eyed boy. "How do you do, I'm Urd, the goddess of love you were praying to! Pleased to meet you, Aijo Rentarou! Sorry, I guess I stalled this way too long!"

"Huh?!" Rentarou intelligently said.

Urd nodded. "You'll see, those love problems you've been having so far? I guess they're my fault, somewhat. See, in this world, there are two types of romantic love, that which has to be earned through hard work and constant pursuit, like the task and a half Shiho-chan has ahead of herself. That's the most common kind of passion by far."

"It wouldn't be so difficult if the wonderful goddess I have devoted myself to so much graciously gifted me with an amulet or charm to ensure my happiness as a reward for my hard work," Shiho said, having caught up to her and bowing.

Urd frowned, ran a finger over the altar, and presented its dust covered tip to her. "Sorry, sister, but you're on your own! Now listen, Rentarou-kun, the second kind, that is the special kind you'll see in sappy love novels and movies, the rare and valuable 'love at first sight', not to be confused by mere infatuations. Are you okay? You look a bit pale."

"You're a goddess who just popped outta a TV to address me directly!" Rentarou panicked. "Why aren't you flipping at this, is this a frequent sight to you?!" he demanded of Shiho.

"I've seen some shit," Shiho grumpily told him. Then she glared at Urd. "I'd hoped you'd be better than Skuld!"

"For that, you want Belldandy," Urd wagged a finger at her before keeping talking to Rentarou. "Don't hold this against me, kiddo, but the day I had to calibrate the red thread of Fate linking you to your soulmate, I was distracted by an important matter..."

"You were drunk?" Shiho guessed.

Urd stared at her angrily.

"Skuld's told me about you," Shiho summed up.

Urd threw her hands up. "I was just slightly tipsy, okay?! I've got every right to make my job easier every now and then! Anyway, after it was decided that you'd be one of those lucky souls with a Love-at-First-Sight soulmate somewhere, I kind of accidentally added two cyphers to the number of soulmates you'd have while punching the stats in..."

"I have no idea whatsoever what are you talking about," Rentarou confessed, his eyes now tiny.

Urd sighed irritably as Shiho shook her head. She grabbed the yelping miko by the back of the head and made her look into the boy's eyes. "Shiho-chan! What do you feel now?!"

"Disgust!" Shiho said without a hesitation. Rentarou flinched at the all too familiar admission.

"Precisely!" Urd let go of her. "Our Yggdrasil System, controlling the fates of humans, has to compensate the balance of luck in the world. So, since you were granted the boon of one hundred eight soulmates, you had to compensate by having terrible luck at love otherwise. But since enough time has passed without us correcting that error, it's time now to address it. I'm here to notify you that you'll start meeting your intended soulmates tomorrow."

"... 108?!" the boy squealed after a very long pause. "You really are filming a movie, right?! Or is this the Candid Camera webshow?!"

"You just saw her coming out of a TV barely bigger than my fist, Senpai," Shiho snorted.

"You can do all kinds of amazing feats with CGI nowadays!" Rentarou argued.

Urd frowned and slapped him across the head. "Stop drinking the officially mandated Kool-Aid already, son! Sheesh, no wonder the Mystery is in the decline...!"

Rentarou grumbled and rubbed the new bump on his head. "Okay, okay, I'll believe you! Sorry, Ma'am, I guess I should be thankful... or not! Look, I know I asked for better luck at love, but 108 is too much!"

Urd rolled her eyes back. "Just like a man, right? Once they get what they want, they start having second thoughts and complaining!"

Shiho nodded. "And they have the galls to call us complicated creatures!"

"I'm just stating the obvious, sorry!" the boy said. "If I understood you correctly, I've been made the soulmate to 108 different girls..."

"I never said that they'd be all girls," Urd cautioned.

Rentarou paled horribly.

"But for all I know, they could all be," Urd shrugged. "Finding out is part of the fun."

"You don't know who did you bind me to?!" the young man screamed.

"I was a bit tipsy, remember?"

"That, that goes beyond being just a bit drowsy!" Rentarou cried. "How am I supposed to decide out of 108 different people and break 107 hearts?! I'll be even more hated than before!"

"Look at the kind side, you're unlikely to ever meet all of them," Shiho said. "Many spend a whole lifetime without ever meeting their soulmates."

"No, that's just a saying," Urd informed them. "If you're a special soul bound by the red thread, you're destined to meet the terminal at the other end of it. You'll meet all of them sooner or later."

Rentarou took both hands to his head. "So I have to reject 107 people after all...! How could I do that to so many?!"

"Well, yeah, there's another thing," Urd rubbed the back of her neck uneasily, a gesture she'd picked up from Keiichi without noticing. "Being rejected by your soulmate drains your existence of the good karma and fortune you were granted, so if you reject them, they'll eventually die in misery and suffering, most probably in freak accidents and... have you watched the Final Destination movies? Something like that, those are their odds."

Rentarou and Shiho stared at her in appalled terror.

Urd lowered her head. "I'm sorry this all happened because of me. I'll try to help by-"

Shiho threw a sandal at Urd's head. Hard.

 

"Why are you wearing those stupid glasses?" his roommate asked him as they walked towards Monday morning classes.

"I don't want to make eye contact with any girl today," Rentarou confessed.

Saruyama Kenichi raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so you finally got burned? Look, man, I understand, but you can't just give up on women forever. What are you gonna do, become a monk?"

"Maybe," Rentarou said. If he did that, perhaps he could ask the gods to spare his soulmates, whoever they were. He'd just devote himself to celibacy the way he'd devoted himself to finding a girlfriend, and surely, the divine beings would understand...

"Okay, even if you say that," Saruyama argued, "why are you worrying about running into girls? We study in the male wing, dummy!"

"Just in case," Rentarou mumbled, remembering Urd's 'I never said anything about them being only women' speech from yesterday. The last thing he wanted, after causing someone's death, was having a man falling in love with him. Well, other than Chris Hemsworth, but could anyone blame him?

"You're paranoid, not even Rito's got it that bad. Hey, Rito!" Saruyama waved at an orange boy also heading their way. "Get a load of this, Rentarou snapped so bad he doesn't even want to look at girls anymore!"

Rentarou blushed. "Please, not so loud...!"

Yuuki Rito looked back at his incoming classmates. He remembered the conversation about Aijo taking place yesterday in Evangeline's resort, the one where he'd chosen not mentioning anything about studying with that boy. "Huh? Oh, hey, guys. You know Sensei will give you a hard time over those, right, Aijo?"

Rentarou flinched and pushed the obscuring sunglasses up his face. "I'll tell him I'm hurt in the eyes, I don't know, I'll make something up!"

"What brought this along?" Rito asked, the three walking together now.

Saruyama laughed. "Man, a lucky dog with two hotties like you wouldn't understand! It's obvious Rentarou would crack sooner or later, but I'm telling him that he should keep his chin high! Someday his big chance will come along!"

Rentarou was thinking of how to tell them that was exactly what worried him, when a much younger girl, far from her Elementary School grounds, came running by, making him shudder. "Rito, Rito!" she called out, holding a small bag in a hand. "You forgot your lunch at home!"

Rito blinked. "Oi, Mikan!" He looked into his schoolbag. "Dammit, that's right! Sorry you had to come all the way here..."

"Honestly, where is your head?" the little girl with the pineapple hairstyle chided him, handing him the bagged bento. "Please be more careful, I had to convince Nao not to eat it herself..."

Seeing a terrified Rentarou step back from Mikan, Saruyama frowned and yanked his sunglasses off. "Oh, for the love of-! It's just a kid, man!"

"N-No!" Rentarou gasped, trying to get them back. "Give me that, I'm telling you, I need them...!"

Mikan looked at him, distracted by his voice. "Huh? What's the problem?"

Rentarou froze in place as she looked at his face curiously.

He couldn't help but looking back, despite himself.

Their eyes met.

Time seemed to stop for a moment.

And then...

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

Somewhere in Mundus Magicus, Roronoa Zoro sneezed.

Mikan blinked and frowned. "So...?" she said.

"Nothing," Rentarou sighed with relief, taking his glasses back and putting them on. "I'm just a bit jumpy today, that's all."

"Huh, all right, sorry I asked. See you later, Senpais." Then she favored her older brother with a sweet smile. "I'll cook your favorite stew tonight, Rito!" she promised before leaving, feeling rather happy she had, all in all, lucked in when assigned a brother. It could have been much worse.

"Thank you, Mikan! Bye...!" Rito waved at her, then scowled at Rentarou. "Look, I don't know what's going on with you, but my sister's off limits forever, got that?!"

"Yes... and good thing..." Rentarou nodded.

Saruyama thought that was kind of lame as an answer. Himself, he wouldn't mind getting a crack at Mikan-chan in a few years.

---

Later that day, in classes, Rentarou panicked again.

"Your sensei's been diagnosed with that new terrifying civilization threatening new virus today and will be taking a leave of absence for a few weeks!" Fujimura Taiga commented casually, appearing at the head of the class much to Rentarou's horror. "In the meanwhile, I'll be teaching you homeroom since I had a few free hours left! So you'd better make that extra effort worth it, or else!"

Rentarou tried to melt under his seat as discreetly as he could, failed, and wondered why did it look so easy in Western anime.

"You all know me, I'm Fujimura Taiga, and I have no patience for lack of discipline or-" Then, suddenly, she stalker over to Aijo's seat quickly and seethed down at him, like a furious tiger. "Violations of the school dress code, no matter how minor they seem!"

She yanked the sunglasses off Rentarou's face, making him scream girlishly. "This kind of delinquent glasses is a no-no indoors, boy! Who do you think you are, Harima Kenji?!"

"No! No!" Rentarou said, trying to block his eyes with a forearm as all other students, including Yuuki, Saruyama and Ren, stared at him in mild disgust. "Please, Sensei, I need those! I have a weird eye condition! They call it a Medusa Syndrome! For everyone's best, I shouldn't-!"

"Then why aren't you with the school nurse!" Taiga roared, grabbing him by the chin and forcing him to look at her face. "Let me see! Why are you crying, for the love of God, aren't you a man?!"

She gazed into his eyes, sternly.

He couldn't help but looking back, despite himself.

Their eyes met.

Time seemed to stop for a moment.

And then...

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

Somewhere in Mundus Magicus, Roronoa Zoro sneezed. Again.

Fujimura-sensei dropped him with a sound of annoyance. "Your eyes are fine! These are confiscated because you lied to me!" she declared, sticking the glasses into her breast pocket and walking back to the head of the class.

Once again, Rentarou breathed much easier even as he heard his classmates whisper and snicker among them. Not that it mattered much anyway, since Taiga silenced them fast and started the lessons.

A much more relaxed Rentarou left the classroom hours after, thinking that maybe the goddess- if she was even that and wasn't just someone filming a movie after all- had fixed things through the day, or maybe she'd just been mistaken about his condition from the start.

He whistled as he left the classroom behind, Taiga barking at Saruyama and Rito, who were cleaning after classes as a punishment for accidentally groping her ass. Thinking about it, being unlucky at love wasn't that bad at all, compared with the chances of ending 107 innocent lives. He wasn't the Joker, for Kami's sake! Many people could lead fruitful lives full of love without ever marrying, like the Pope or, huh... Barney the Dinosaur?

This latest thought made him feel bad again, but he consoled himself by noting how unlikely it was for him to run into any women on his way back to the male dormitories. If Urd-sama's predictions had failed, then everyone around him should be safe. Who knew, maybe he'd even be able to look for his soulmate again with a clear mind.

But he had to stay his course and keep working hard for it. Love wouldn't just stumble into him like in a cheap romantic manga...

Rentarou, with renewed resolve in his heart, turned a corner around, almost leaving the building by this point, and walked facefirst into two girls who'd come to put posters for the School Festival.

 

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, I'm sorry!" Rentarou said, pulling himself up and offering a hand. "Are you okay... guys...?"

He was looking at what had to be two girls; he had spent a lot of time proposing to girls and he'd learned the hard way how to identify traps, crossdressers and male shapeshifters. He'd parted ways with Clayface on good terms, in case you were wondering.

One of the girls who definitely wasn't a Clayface was curvy and busty, with short light brown hair and a cute flower ornament in it. This one took his still extended hand and thanked him with a soft spoken, warm voice. "Ah, thank you, it's me who should be sorry... This girl here distracted me, I'm afraid..."

The other girl, who was slimmer and much less abundant of chest, had blonde hair arranged in twintails and was shouting a storm already. "I distracted you?! You were the one distracting me because you wanted to come this early! You're so desperate to see men that you... you... I told... you..." she trailed off, staring at Rentarou's face.

The other girl was staring at him as well.

He blushed, overwhelmed by the beauty of both rather different feminine archetypes conveniently featured before him, before the day was over.

Romantic music began sounding softly in the background, from the janitor's office where the man had just turned the radio on while reading To Love Ru obliviously.

Three hearts began beating louder and faster. Somewhere, a goddess smiled.

Rentarou realized this was it. He'd never felt this way before, not when rejected by Hasegawa-san, not when turned down by Kakizaki-san, not while approaching Uruka-chan, and certainly not when wetting his pants at the sight of Stephanie-chan turning in Clayface and then turning him down rather more politely than any of the other girls. It was a wholly different sensation, akin to having a sugar high while being kicked in the spine and being told you have just won seven billion yens in the lottery, all at once.

For a moment, everything else was forgotten and had stopped mattering. He only could think of how cute those two girls were, their small mouths slightly open, their gazes growing mildly vacant. The music hit a nice, subdued jazzy beat. The world was perfect.

And then the buxom girl let herself drop back to the floor, grabbing her foot. "Oooohhh! I'm afraid I have hurt my ankle! Would you please take me to the nurse's office?"

The other girl blinked, as those words seemed to have just snapped her out of her own spell. "Me? Why me? Bitch, just call one of your mom's thugs and tell them to come here and pick you up, I'm not y-"

"I'm talking to the nice gentleman here...!" the first girl said, giving out a strangled gasp and all but throwing herself onto Rentarou's leg, hugging it very tightly. "Oh, I beg you, dear sir, forgive my manners, but I'm rather frail...!"

"Ah, ah, of course, how could I refuse?!" Rentarou quickly helped her up again, supporting her against himself. "I'm a living disaster area! This is the least I could do for you, Miss..."

She sighed while placing her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes. "My name is Hanazono Hakari... Please let's go slowly, step by step, as I don't think I can move quickly like this..."

The other girl stared in shocked stupor, and then her mouth contracted into a terrible, teeth showing grimace, her face turning crimson and steam blowing out of her ears. She quickly let herself fall as well and shouted, "Hanazono, you weak pussy! Always depending on others! Look at me! I've splintered my leg and I'm not begging for any help!"

Rentarou panicked further, now looking at her again. "Ah?! You too?!"

"What, what is that to you?" the blonde huffed, looking aside. "First you ram into me with violent intent and now you feign concern?! Screw your help, I can drag myself to the nurse's office myself!"

Hakari nodded. "She's right, dear mister, we don't have to worry about her. She is strong as a bull, and nearly as smart..."

"No, please don't say that!" Rentarou told her, using the hand that wasn't holding her to grab the blonde's own hand and pull her up as well, delicately. The blonde's blush grew a softer shade of red, almost pink, but no less bright than before. "You're absolutely correct, I was only thinking of myself, oblivious to everything, and it's my fault you're hurt now..."

The blonde blinked, being held against him as well, opposite a pouting Hakari. "Ah, ah, yeah, well, you're right, but th-this isn't really necessary, I told you, it's not like I want your help or anything..."

"I'm Aijo Rentarou," he said, starting to move with them towards Mikado-sensei's office. "Please tell me if I'm moving in a way that is too brusque for you."

"I am... Inda Karane," the blonde said. "High School 1-D, we were here to put some posters..."

"We're doing an animal coffee for the Festival, you, of course, are welcome to visit us," Hakari said eagerly. "I'll reward y-your helpfulness giving you a free ticket..."

"Only one?! You've got money pouring outta your ears and you're only giving him one?!" Karane growled, reaching into a pocket and slamming two tickets on Rentarou's face. "What a cheapskate! You make me sick!"

Hakari frowned. The tickets slipped down Rentarou's face, and since he couldn't let go of the girls without making them fall- or so he thought at least- he had to catch them between his teeth, clenching a stifled, "Thaffk yyuh."

"Don't be like that, Karane-san," Hakari said. "For starters, you're troubling Aijo-san more than necessary! You can't be hurt from such a simple incident, you're much stronger than that..."

"Why would I subject myself to this humiliation if I didn't really need to?!" the other girl growled.

Hakari snifled tenderly. "At least show some gratitude to Aijo-san! He's bothering to help your minor injuries with the greatest care, and yet you only treat him rough and rudely!"

"I gave him two tickets already, what am I supposed to do, treat him to dinner?!" Karane snapped, then told Rentarou, "The Chao Bao Zi won't close for an hour, you know that, right? Let's go for a bite after I have my injury looked at, we'll talk about who pays later..."

"Oh, you are incorregible!" Hakari disapproved. "Don't believe a single word of what she's saying to stray you, Aijo-san!" she said, hugging his arm and pressing her bustline against his body. He hiccuped loudly.

"You're the one straying men away, again!" Karane seethed. "Always using your body to get your way! I'll bet you aren't even hurt at all!"

"I am! It's you who is fine as a fiddle!"

"I'm much worse off than you! You cushioned your fall with those cow udders of yours!"

"As a matter of fact, I'm in great pain, and I feel even worse when you yell at me like that!"

"You wanna talk about pain?! Okay, let's talk about pain! I feel like my damn leg's about to fall, but that's still nothing compared to the pain of hearing you yapping!"

"Pweese don't fffwight..." Rentarou said, still holding the tickets between his teeth. Then Rito and Saruyama appeared around the corner, and both girls tensed up.

Saruyama blinked, coming to a halt. "Ah? What's this? Rentarou, you sly dog! You finally did it...!"

The girls, as one, pulled back and backpedaled in terror, their attention fully on Rito now. "THE PERVERTED BEAST!" they screamed, pointing at him.

Rito sighed miserably. "Here we go again..."

Rentarou blinked as well, looking at the girls, who were both perfectly fine on their feet. "..."

They looked at him, both blushed, and looked down in shame. "..." they said.

Rentarou opened his mouth to speak, gently. "You shouldn't strain yours-"

"I'MSORRYGOTTAGO!" the girls said, and then fled the scene in a terribly embarrassed dash, instantly disappearing from sight past the hallways.

Saruyama stared on stupidly after their trail of dust. "... what the hell's the problem with them?"

Rentarou breathed sadly and spat the tickets on his own hand. "I'm going to kill them," he said.

Rito raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"

 

That night, while Saruyama slept, Rentarou sneaked out and sat on the edge of the dormitory's building. He looked through the starry night, towards the female dormitories, and remained silent, clearly troubled.

At one point, a voice startled him. "You already met the first one, didn't you?"

"GAHHH!" he cried, almost losing his balance, but thankfully Urd-sama grabbed him by an arm and pulled him back before he could fall. "W-Where did you come from?!"

"I'm a goddess after all," she handwaved the question. "What's wrong, Rentarou? It didn't work out?"

"No! No, it didn't at all!" he said. "There's two of them, actually!"

"That isn't bad," Urd said, sitting by his side. "It means that you're going to save some time on meeting them right from the start. You began with the right foot!"

He facepalmed. "I hurt them by being clumsy, and now they'll think I'm a weirdo who keeps perverted friends! They must hate me!"

"I see," Urd said blandly. She whipped out a cigarette, a lighter, and began puffing quietly. She had started with the habit as soon as Belldandy had been taken from them.

"How long does that curse take?" Rentarou demanded. "How long do they have left?"

"There's no way to know for sure," Urd said. "It depends on the person, and their life choices. It could be days. It could be years."

Rentarou pointed a finger at her, something that he wouldn't do normally as it would be rude. "You. I know! You'll go with them, and tell them what's happening, they have every right to know the truth..."

"Why don't you tell them yourself?"

"They'd think I'm insane!"

"Well, they'd think the same about me if I told them."

"You can prove you're real! Use your powers! This is your fault, so you owe us that much!"

"I know," Urd sighed. "But it's not that simple. Sure, I could tell them, and prove I'm a goddess, even though I'm not supposed to do that. But it wouldn't help. It's written that your soulmate must love you on the basis of what you are, and you must love them for what they are."

"What does that mean?"

"Rentarou, it won't work if they choose to be your partners just because they'd die otherwise. That's not what love is about. Your mutual love must come from deep within your hearts, and that needs more than the initial spark from the first sight. Love, whether at first sight or earned the harder way, must still be nurtured and raised just the same. If not, they'll still plunge into unhappiness, as they'll be pretty much forced into being with you."

Rentarou slumped, depressed. "Yes. I understand. But that's impossible! What kind of person would accept being in a relationship with 106 others? That's asking for too much from anyone!"

"Love can do anything, as long as it tries enough," Urd said very seriously, writing something on a piece of paper. She smiled and gave it to Rentarou. "I can't help you directly, but these people are experts of sorts on balancing several relationships at once without it turning sour... not yet, at least. They'll be glad to help, even if they don't sound like it at first. Go there tomorrow, after classes, and tell them Skuld's sister sent you."

He looked at the note. "Thank you... I guess. Look, sorry if I sound rude, I appreciate your warnings and explanations, it's just that- Ah?!" he gasped, seeing she wasn't there anymore. His head whipped around wildly in all directions. "She pulled a Batman?!"

And then he saw Urd climbing down the fire escape stairs. "Curses!" the goddess said. "Don't look at me now! You ruin the mystic!"

"Why don't you just teleport away?"

"I need a nearby turned on electric device for that! Or a mirror!"

"Then why don't you just fly away?"

"I could be seen! I'm supposed to keep my presence a secret!"

"Okay, but then why don't you-?"

Urd ignored him and quickly went down the rest of the stairs.

---

In the quietness of the bedroom she shared with Hakari, Inda Karane searched the Net in silence, cheeks flushed.

"I see..." she said to herself, for no good reason at all other than plot convenience. "So, if I find one of the four leaf clovers that grow around the World Tree and make a wish on it, my confession of love, if I had one, would be guaranteed to succeed..."

Behind her, in the upper bunk of the room, a pair of eyes went open and glowed silently in the dark.

"I mean, it's not like I have anyone to confess anything, and if I did, I still wouldn't believe that nonsense," the blonde kept on monologuing, giving brief little hiccups of excitement, "but all the same, what an interesting useless bit of trivia...! I think I'll go there tomorrow, just to see if people are really dumb enough as to search for those things! Y-Yes, I'll do just that...!"

The eyes glowed brighter, without Karane noticing them.

 

With a mixture of hope and uncertainty in his heart, Rentarou headed towards the address Urd-sama had given him, after classes were over.

It was fairly apart from the campus, downright into the mountain woods, and there were no bus routes taking one there, so he’d been walking for quite a while now. On his way, he passed by the World Tree, and couldn’t help taking a look up to admire the majestic beauty of that Mahora landscape titan.

When he did, he came to a grinding halt. He’d just seen two specks crouching by the wide roots of the giant, apparently on their hands and knees, looking through the grass. Instantly, something in his heart told him those were the two girls, Hakari and Karane. Once again, he was overwhelmed by his feelings. Their beauty and charm, even from that far, overcame him, and he dropped all thoughts of heading anywhere but with them, to try and help them as best as he could.

Rentarou quickly moved up the stairs leading to the top of the hillside where the famous Tree rested… only to have a man blocking his way, as if just appeared out of nowhere.

He pulled back by instinct, as this man was carrying a large sword by his side and was wearing some manner of samurai cosplay. This wasn’t completely unheard of in Mahora, where cosplayers and people filming strange fantasy movies out in the open weren’t an infrequent sight, but after his meeting with Urd-sama, Rentarou had learned not to take such things lightly.

“Jesus!” the boy said, the mild swear taken from that time he’d spent trying to know Sister Shakti better only to fail miserably. “You scared me, Mister!”

The man smiled at him, and thankfully nothing happened when they made eye contact. He was very handsome, almost as much as Chris Hemworth, with his strong yet lean build and his long ponytail, but even so, Rentarou would rather not go there. For real.

“My apologies,” he said. “I have been appointed the groundskeeper for this site. Normally, I wouldn’t object to mere students to approach the Tree, but I have felt something unusual about you.”

Rentarou blinked. “Ah?”

The man hummed, analyzing him with his stoic gaze while stroking his own chin. “I cannot say what is it, and you certainly aren’t one of us, but all the same, I can tell you are not normal…”

Rentarou honestly had no idea what to answer to this. “Do… Do you know Urd-sama?” he asked at last.

“Urd?” The man paused, then shook his head slowly. “No. That name says nothing to me.”

Rentarou, inwardly, breathed slightly easier. “Look, I’m just an average, completely normal student, so ordinary that I could star in a light novel or isekai manga, I only need a truck heading my way. Honest. The only unusual things about me are my Love Freak tendencies that have turned me into a campus laughingstock and that my roommate says I should go for therapy, but—“

The man gave a mild gasp. “What an anti Japanese stance, that of your roommate!” He stepped aside. “Very well. Then I see no reason to stall you any further. Go ahead with whatever you wanted to do, but be warned that should you attempt to have your way with the fair maidens above, I shall be obligated to intervene and slice you into so many thin pieces. You will see, I may be a heartless wraith, but I despise date rapists.”

Rentarou sweatdropped. “I have no idea why you’d call yourself that, but I’m not that kind of man, bye,” he said, and quickly moved past the weirdo.

Assassin sighed and sat down on the steps. “Now I’m glad I never got to attend school in my lifetime…”

“Why don’t you move elsewhere?” Karane was telling Hakari angrily as both girls kept on rummaging through the grass. “You are ruining my search for truffles!”

Hakari groaned in mild annoyance, unearthing another truffle by accident and tossing it at Karane’s face. “You can have this one too! Just remember, any and all four leaf clovers are mine!”

“As if! Karane cried. “If I find one, why should I give it to you?! They’d be all mine, to succeed at that love confession I don’t intend to carry out!”

“Okay, but if I find one, I wouldn’t let it to waste,” Hakari frowned, ever diligent in her search. “I’d use it to ask Rentarou-kun on a date…”

“What a tramp!” Karane gasped, scandalized. “You already are on a first name basis with him!”

Hakari smiled. “Of course I am! Why to waste my time with the first stages of denial and pondering? My heart is a strong locomotive, steadily advancing towards the consummation of our passion! Life is too short, and I have to seize at this chance the God of Love has given me!”

“… H-Huh!” Karane said, looking over Hakari’s shoulder. “Th-Then, if that boy were here right now…”

“I’d be completely honest and open with him and confess my feelings, naturally!” Hakari said happily. “Yesterday, I couldn’t be as sincere as I’d have liked, but--!”

“Good afternoon, excuse me!” another, pleasant voice said, and Hakari stiffened. Her eyes swelled up. Her nipples hardened against her bra. “Are, are you feeling better now? How are your legs?”

Hakari rolled back and dropped onto her butt on the dirt, looking up in nervous shock at the awkwardly smiling Rentarou. “Ah! Ah, it’s you, Aijo-san, I mean, Aijo-kun, I mean! What a happy, wonderful coincidence to meet again, and so soon…!”

“Were you following us since yesterday?” Karane squinted at him suspiciously. “What a creepy thing to do! No wonder you’re friends with the Perverted Beast!”

“We… We aren’t friends, I mean, we’re classmates, but we aren’t all that close…” Rentarou said, scratching his cheek. “He’s not a bad guy, actually, but you know, just because you study with someone, that doesn’t mean that you have to be pals…”

Karane and Hakari stared at each other, then at Rentarou. They nodded. “Yes. Yes, we know,” they said in unison.

Rentarou smiled again. Ah! Their quirky behavior only made them so much more endearing! He crouched before them, tenderly helping Hakari to sit up on the grass. “I was just passing by and saw you from afar. Since you seemed to have lost something, I wanted to know if I could help…”

“I, I,I’m only looking for truffles!” Karane said. “It’s just I don’t have a truffle-tracking pig, so I brought Hanezono instead! I’m not looking for any four leaf clovers since I don’t believe in superstitions, and I’m not interested on any, on any boys anyway! Much less you! I wasn’t looking through helpful local rumors online because I can’t connect with others and ask them myself! I only looked online for how to look for truffles! Got all of that?!”

Rentarou and Hakari sweatdropped.

Karane frowned. “Wasn’t I clear enough?”

Rentarou sighed, blushing a little at such an earnest display of Tsunderism, and then crouched down. “I see! In that case, I’ll help you look for truffles, but if I see any four leaf clovers, I’ll give them to you anyway, since—“

“I am looking for four leaf clovers!” Hakari blurted out. “Because you’re really, really, really, really and really good looking and helpful and caring and I’d like to ask you on a date, Aijo-kun!”

“...!” Rentarou said.

Karane’s eyes had become perfect blank spheres.

Hakari facepalmed. “Oh dear! Blast the honesty of my heart! I wasn’t supposed to say that until I found the clover…!”

Somewhere down the steps, a casual burst of wind blew a four leaf clover onto Assassin’s face. He grabbed it casually, looked at it for a moment, and then crushed it between his fingers. “I have no use for something like this…”

 

It was late now, and everyone had left Evangeline Mc Dowell’s woodland cabin already, except for Negi, Chamo the ermine, Chisame, Tsunetsuki, Hakase, Sora-san, Keiichi, Skuld, Makie, Yuuna and Ayaka, which I realize is still a whole damn lot of people. All of them were at the front porch with Evangeline and Chachamaru now, preparing to leave as well.

“You’ve looked antsy all day long, Sku-chan,” Makie observed while pulling a jacket on herself. There was a cool wind blowing from the South, and it appeared it’d be a cold night coming. “What’s bothering you?”

The young, black haired Norn stared into the distance, frowning. “I don’t know. I’ve been feeling a disturbance in the Source since yesterday. A grating sensation of wrongness that I hadn’t felt for a while…”

“It might be related to that young man coming this way,” Chachamaru said calmly, her eyes glowing in a faint green shade as they scanned the narrow mountain road leading to the campus. “Since normally, nobody but us would dare coming here…”

Evangeline snorted out a corner of her mouth. “What, an intruder? I swear, if it’s one of those foolish Masters trying to bring their War to my doorstep…!”

“It’s Aijo-senpai,” Chachamaru reported, even as the vague shape of a man appeared in the distance.

Keiichi blinked. “Aijo? That name sounds familiar…”

“Damn! It’s the creep we talked about the other night!” Chisame said, as the man’s figure came closer very slowly. It lurched more than walking, with the crushed gait of a living dead. “Did he learn we were meeting here?!”

“A stalker harassing Chisame-sama?! Unheard of! Inacceptable!” Matoi said, reaching into her hakama blouse and pulling a switchblade out. “He’ll pay dearly for that sin…!”

Negi frowned and took the weapon from her. “This is confiscated! I thought we’d talked on this subject!”

“But, Negi-sama…!” Matoi lamented.

Aijo Rentarou did indeed come to them now, with fixed, haunted, dead eyes and the general appearance of someone who has lost every reason to live. He stared vacantly at Chisame, who was at the head of the formation with an angry scowl, and blandly said, “Ah… It’s you…”

Chachamaru bowed. “Good evening, Senpai. Who are you looking for here? I’m afraid you have only two minutes to vacate these premises before I unleash my arsenal on you.”

Evangeline blinked. “Ah? I always give intruders three minutes!”

Sora sweatdropped. “So Chacha-san is human too, huh… She still hasn’t forgotten that…”

Rentarou lowered his head even further. “Urd-sama sent me to look for council here. Sorry, I never wanted to trouble any of you again, Chisame-san, Ayaka-chan, Karakuri-san. I… I don’t feel too well…” he admitted, and then fainted facefirst on the dirt.

Negi gasped. “Ah! He died?!”

Eva hummed in mild interest. “Bring this piece of trash inside. He might have some interesting story to tell…”

“No!” Skuld shouted. “Don’t do that!”

Eva glared at her.

“I mean, please don’t do it!” Skuld said. “Urd is my other sister, the foul one! Nothing good comes from associating with her! Those evil vibes, I should’ve known!”

“Well, what are we supposed to do, let him catch his death from a cold out here?” Negi said, holding Rentarou by the legs as Chachamaru grabbed him by the arms, both lifting the young man and carrying him inside.

“YES!” Skuld and Matoi said, following them inside.

“I mean, Chachamaru could always just fly him to the nurse and drop him there!” Chisame argued, coming in next. “This time I feel like trusting Skuld, I don’t want to deal with this guy ever again!”

Ayaka shuddered. “Why did he call me ‘-chan’? I feel so dirty…!”

“I have to say I don’t like him either,” Yuuna said, closing the formation as Keiichi closed the door after them. “I’d never seen him before, but there’s something eminently hateable about his stupid geek face.”

“Seriously? He looks normal to me,” Keiichi said, leaning closer to examine the unconscious youngster Negi and Chachamaru had set on the couch. Having been turned off rather harshly after a couple of proposals himself, chiefly by Mishima Sayoko, he felt himself somewhat inclined to sympathize with this poor sap’s story. “You girls normally aren’t this bitter about men…”

Chisame rubbed herself up and down an arm. “I can’t help it! He makes my stomach churn for some reason!”

Makie sniffed at him. “It’s not that he smells badly or anything, it’s just that…”

“I despise most of the human species, so I don’t feel any different about him,” Evangeline shrugged indifferently. Then she walked over to him and slapped him several times, hard. “WAKE UP, MORON! Make this amusing, or I’ll just throw you outside to die in the wild!”

“… No, you definitely dislike him more than the average too!” Sora said. “You never treat anyone like that until they start talking back to you!”

Rentarou opened his eyes, making the girls wince and pull back, so only Keiichi, Chamo and Negi stayed close. “Where am I?” he asked.

“You’re in Evangeline-san’s house,” Negi said kindly. From the stories the girls had told he’d been picturing this boy to be unpleasant and sleazy, but so far he seemed to be more pitiable than anything. “Take it easy. Why are you so… depressed? How can we help you?”

Rentarou sat on the couch and hid his face in his hands. “I’ve just killed two girls!”

Everyone in the room froze in abject horror, even Evangeline.

Matoi, without saying a single word, was the first one to move after a while, pulling out a second switchblade and leaping onto Rentarou.

Chachamaru barely could grab her in time.

 

Rentarou made a pause in amazement, before making a wide, shaky smile, eyes sparkling. "Why… I'm so honored! Hanezono-san, my answer is—"

"What, what are you doing, are you just jumping into his arms like that?!" Karane demanded of Hakari.

Hakari laughed softly, making Rentarou swoon. Such a beautiful, feminine laugh…

"Is there anything wrong about it?" she asked her roommate. "It's what I came here for, after all. You should be happy, we will now go out on our date and you can enjoy your truffles in peace…"

"He hasn't even said anything yet!" Karane pointed out.

"Of course I do!" Rentarou said in a hurry. Then he remembered, and he almost bit his tongue. "Ah! I mean-!"

Hakari smiled angelically and brought her hands together while Karane made a grimace. "Do you see, Ka-ra-ne-san? So strong is the power of my love that I didn't even need the clover after all!"

"That's what I was saying, that, that you don't need a stupid clover to…" Karane struggled to squeeze a moral victory out, at least. But suddenly that didn't matter at all. "I mean… Truffles… No, no, w-what I mean is… well…"

Hakari noticed a sudden change in her expression, going from that usual comical exasperation to almost looking on the edge of tears, and genuinely grew worried. "Karane-san? Are you-?"

"I don't care!" the blonde growled, pushing a hand ahead and shoving Rentarou back just as he tried to get closer to tell her something. "So what! It's just a stupid infatuation over a man you just met, I'm above those things! You won't last a week together anyway!"

"Karane-san," Rentarou said, "I… I'd like to tell you that…"

Hakari raised an eyebrow and grabbed him by an arm. "Aijo-kun?"

"Were you… were you intending to ask me out as well?" the boy asked the other girl.

Karane blushed harder than ever, and then socked him with a good punch to the face. Hakari gasped. "N-NO! Of course not! It's not like I like you or anything! Just go away with your new girlfriend for all I care! You don't owe me anything, right?!"

He rubbed his newly swollen cheek and doubted. This was a literal matter of life or death! "You're also lovely, of course, I wouldn't want to offend you by—"

"D-Dummy, why would you offend me when I've just told you I have no interest on you!" the shaking blonde looked aside, then pointed at the troubled looking Hanezono. "On the other hand, you ARE insulting her by showing interest on me after she asked you out!"

"She is right, Aijo-kun," Hakari said cautiously. "Did you come here for her, or me?"

"I came… for both of you, actually," he said, not finding anything better to answer.

The two girls stared at him, frowning.

He sighed. "In a perfect fair world, this wouldn't have to happen. But… Give me a break, please! We've just met! Let's take this easy and—"

"Okay, fine, that's a fair point!" Karane tossed her hands up. "So maybe we're rushing this! It's not like we're going to drop dead if you take a day to think this over, right?"

"Uhhhh… right!" he said.

Hanezono made a small frown, still holding onto his arm. "I suppose… But wait, you still haven't said you WANT TO date him!"

Karane mumbled between clenched teeth, then pulled out a pen and a small piece of paper. She hastily wrote on the latter and held it up, frowning and gazing at the grass. The paper read PLEASE DATE ME, YOU IDIOT.

"Um… Okay!" he nodded quickly. "That, that is-!"

"Aijo-kun!" Hanezono whined.

"Shaddap, I've thrown the gauntlet and you have to pick it up, on your honor as a woman!" Karane told her. She pointed at Rentarou. "One day! That's as much as we're going to wait for your answer! We hate wishy-washy men so you'd better have made your mind up by then!"

Rentarou deflated, realizing that fighting back now would only made everything even worse. "Okay…"

---

"… and?" Matoi asked.

"And then I left, feeling awful and very dizzy, and lost my way in the woods until I found your cabin," Rentarou said miserably.

"Okay, but where's the part where you murdered them and buried their bodies under the World Tree?" Matoi pressed on.

"I never did such a thing!" Rentarou gasped, horrified. "I left them perfectly fine, if still doomed because of me!"

"Then why do you say you killed them?" Makie asked.

"Makie-san, did you already forget the first part of his story?" Negi sighed. "If he rejects one of them, that young lady will suffer great misfortune and die…"

"That's right!" the older boy said. "And I've just entered a deal that will hurt at least one of them, but most likely both! They're roommates, so whoever loses will be constantly reminded of the fact! They'll make each other unhappy, and even if we get our relationship going, that's going to ruin it! They'll both suffer because of my indecisiveness, but deciding anything also leads to disaster! There's no way out! I'm in despair! This absurd, cruel situation has left me in despair!"

"Please don't say that…" Chachamaru said.

"Why? Do you see an alternative, a way I can make them happy?" Rentarou asked hopefully.

"No, what I mean is that you're stealing Itoshiki-sensei's beloved catchphrase," the gynoid said.

"Aaauugh!"

Ayaka looked at Skuld. "Does that surrealist story ring true, or is he making it up?"

Skuld shrugged. "The basics of it gel with the postulates of the Balance of Fortune and Misfortune in the Human Plane," she allowed. "And of course, it'd be just like Urd to commit such a careless mistake while failing to keep reports of who his soulmates are."

He threw himself to her feet. "Please help them out, Imouto-sama! I'll do anything!"

"What do you expect me to do?!" Skuld said. "I'm not a goddess of love!" She pointed at Negi. "He's a mage, ask him to brew a love potion for you!"

"I don't think that's going to help either since it'd only be a false love," Eva said, elegantly sipping from a cup of fragrant tea, sitting crosslegged. "It sucks to be you, Boya."

Negi frowned at Skuld. "Please, don't give my secrets away so happily."

Skuld waved a hand in circles. "Oh, you should've thought of how important your secrecy was before recruiting over half of your students for your pappy-searching crusade!"

"A… mage?" Rentarou blinked at Negi.

"An apprentice," Evangeline sneered. "A mere novice, still learning the most basic ropes of the mystery walk. A simple child, he cannot possibly help you, anymore than he can help himself…"

"Thanks for your usual vote of confidence, Master," Negi said dryly.

Eva got up with her small evil smirk on. "But I can help you," she told Rentarou. "If you beg me hard, long, and pathetically enough, I might be convinced to save those two harlots for you…"

---

To be Continued.

---

Next: Return of the Sakura Lane Vampire!