Disclaimer: Insert obligatory legal disclaimer here. 'Nuff said.

Summary: An anthology of random short stories revolving primarily around Negima's Ala Alba (and, by proxy, the rest of Class 3-A), and occasionally their associates. Crack Fic. Mostly humourous. WARNING: Suggestive themes included in some stories. Spoilers, Alternate-Universe and Divergence should be expected. Pairings and sexualities run the gamut from the heterosexual, to the homosexual, to bisexual/pansexual, to BEYOND.

Author's notes: Credit for the title ultimately goes to Shadow Crystal Mage, even it was inspired by an semi-offhand comment from him. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Good-natured praise, while welcome, should be in moderate amounts.

1st ficlet diverges right after Chapter 279, 3rd takes place in an "out-of-story state of existence that crosses inter-work boundaries", and the rest take place in a hypothetical future set after the manga's current time frame.


Anthologia Alae Albae

Chapter 1: CRACK Making Service

Artifact Upgrade: Diarum Ejus, AKA The Day Miyazaki Nodoka (Un)officially Became Badass, AKA "My Very First Completed Fic Ever"

Silence reigned over the spacious chamber. The Ala Alba (plus their recently arrived backup) and all but one of the Kosmo Entelechia were at opposite sides of the room, watching with terpidation the grand clash of titans in the center of the room.

At this point, if these events were a fictional manga story, a hardcore otaku would probably be thinking "W00T! Negi vs. Fate! AW3$0M3!".

They would be half right, and half oh-so-dead-wrong-it's-not-even-funny.

Indeed, it was Tertium Fate Averruncus, second in command and right-hand man to "the Mage of Beginning a.k.a. the Lifemaker", acting leader of Kosmo Entelechia, and the man who recently managed to finally take down Jack "Thousand Blades" Rakan – a.k.a. "The Invincible Idiot" and "That Damn Guy You Can Stab With Swords All You Like And It Won't Do A Thing, Damnit!" – without so much as a single scratch on his person, that was representing Kosmo Entelechia in the battle that is currently at hand.

However, it was not Negi Springfield, Ala Alba's leader and single son of Nagi "Thousand Master" Springfield, who was facing against him.

Nor was it Kagurazaka Asuna (real name Asuna Vesperina Theotanasia Entheofushia), the Twilight Imperial Princess and wielder of the magical artifact Ensis Exorcizans, who had been recently freed from the clutches of the enemy, and – after being quickly filled in on what had happened since her abduction – had since been scearming up and down about what terrible punishments that she would visit upon her former jailers for all their ill deeds.

Nor was it Sakurazaki Setsuna, the half-tengu samurai bodyguard (and now official girlfriend) to Konoe Konoka. Or Nagase Kaede. Or Tatsumiya Mana. Or even "Death Glasses" Takamichi T. Takahata.

No, it was Miyazaki Nodoka, Ala Alba's mere slip of 5-foot-nothing-tall and almost pathologically shy bookworm.

With one hand on his knee, and the other barely preventing him from falling flat onto his face, Fate Averruncus, despite not having a single scrape on himself or the barest smudge on his clothes, was breathing hard and sweating profusely, his eyes unfocused and twitching every so often.

"Wha… What in the name of the Lifemaker did you do to Fate-sama?" Koyomi screeched, barely held back by Tamaki and Shirabe.

Nodoka, face flushed and slightly sweating, gave a nervous laugh. "Um... Well, I just projected mental images of Negi-sensei and Kotarou-kun into his mind..."

Both her comrades and her enemies gave deadpan stares at her, nonverbally informing her that they did not buy that.

"Er… with both of them naked." Eyes widened. "–and Negi-sensei in his out-of-control Mageia Erebia form–" Jaws dropped. "–and Kotarou-kun in his giant dog form–" Faces turned an odd shade of both white-pale and green-blue. "–and he was–" "THAT'S ENOUGH!" The collective shout was thunderous and near-deafening.

Once her ears stopped ringing, Nodoka took in the scene before her. Both groups looked obviously nauseated ("Ugh, where's brain bleach when you need it?" "Bad thoughts out. Good thoughts in. Bad thoughts out..." "No... just no." "whimpher" "D-Don't w-worry S-Secchan, I-I'll help c-cleanse your m-mind from all t-those b-bad t-thoughts.") – with the exception of Haruna, who obviously deep in yaoi daydreams ("Unsurprising", she thought sarcastically. Yes, it is a little-known fact that Nodoka can be sarcastic, but only in the privacy of her mind.) and... Was Tsukuyomi-san drooling? She sweatdropped.

And Fate remained unmoving, his mind still paralyzed by the onslaught of... that... and unaware of what is happening around him.

Meanwhile, the only four males in the predominantly female Ala Alba were wallowing in nauseated misery behind their female compatriots; the two underaged members did not know why the felt that way, but they trusted their gut instincts. And those instincts were coiling in pain and disgust for some reason unfathomable to their young, "inexperienced" minds.

"Chamo?" "Yes, Kotaro?" "That girl is scary." "Yeah, now I know."

"Negi-kun..." "Yes, Takamichi?" " I know Nodoka-san means well, but... may the gods have pity on you." "... Thanks, Takamichi. It's means a lot to me." "You're welcome".


The Reason Why You Shouldn't Bother Trying to Assassinate Shiina Sakurako

Shiina Sakurako had always prided herself possessing incredibly good luck. So incrediby good, that she has been banned by name from all lotteries in Japan after she kept hit the jackpot seven times in a row, with the last one in spite of the lottery holder actually cheating by not even printing the winning number in the first place.

Today, however, she had been having a Really Bad day, with a capital R and B. Why? Because she was having a seemingly endless streak of misfortunes instead of her golden luck... ON HER BIRTHDAY!

For one, she kept tripping on her way to school. A lot. As in, at least once every four minutes. She even managed to completely not notice a manhole that she was sure hadn't been there yesterday when she walked the very same path, though miraculously she only got a few scratches and light bruises for her trouble.

And after she got to the school building, she inexplicably kept crashing into students, getting smacked in the face by students or faculty ferrying around long objects who did not notice her, slipping on what appears to be non-existent banana peels, and even her indoor shoes got ripped out of the blue, tripping her... just as she was about start walking down a long flight of stairs.

Now she was sitting despondently in the relevant safety of her classroom, with Negi, Misa and Madoka fussing over her and trying to cheer her up, with little success, while the rest of the class were debating the mysterious cause behind her sudden bout of misfortune.

She was starting to believe that her good luck had finally run out, and karma had decided to take its due payment, when the classroom's door was slammed open, drawing everybody's eyes to it. There in the doorway was a man dressed in a dark-colored shirt, longcoat and pants combo, looking about with wild eyes... which quickly zeroed in on her.

"YOU!" The mystery man shouted at her.

"... Um, what-" Sakurako started.

"DON'T 'WHAT' ME!" The man cut her off, "I don't know how you're doing it, but there's absolutely no way you can elude me now!" With one quick movement, he had drawn a Desert Eagle pistol from his longcoat and had it aimed squarely at her head. It probably would've ended with the gunman being summarily disarmed (and possibly maimed) by no less than 10 individuals here and there–

"HOLD IT!"

–had it not been for Evangeline's timely interruption freezing everyone.

"Alright, now that I have everbody's attention", the Shinso vampiress began, "You!" pointing at the gunman, "Let me take a wild guess: You had been trying to kill her–" she moved her finger to point at Sakurako, "–several times today, but failed miserably each time, right?"

"DAMN STRAIGHT!" The man shouted in abject fury, his voice betraying how close to madness he was. "Every goddamn time I take the shot, she just keeps tripping over her own feet, or falling down a manhole, or crashing into other people or objects! She even fell down the stairs just as I was about to shoot her in the back when nobody was around! Well, guess what, missy! I'm gonna shoot you in the head right where you're sitting, and if you somehow survive, I'm gonna quit being a mercenary forever!" His crazy grin would've made the Joker proud.

Seconds of utter quiet passed by. Then the silence was broken with a snicker. Nobody would quite remember just who started it, because within three seconds, everyone but Sakurako and Negi had been reduced to hysterical guffawing (or in Chachamaru, Mana, Zazie and Setsuna's cases, quiet giggling/chuckling).

The utterly stupefied gunman quickly regained his angry steam. "What the f*** are you laughing for? AH, SCREW THIS!" With that, he fired his Desert Eagle at his victim...

... and promptly had to drop his jaw as the bullet stopped mid-air just as it reached the space in front of Sakurako's nose bridge, forcing her to go cross-eyed as she refocused her sight on the bullet. "EH?" went both the shooter and his target, as the bullet dropped to the table and laid there motionlessly.

The girls kept laughing their asses off, Chachamaru, Mana, Zazie, and Setsuna notwithstanding. After a minute, the still-unnamed gunman looked balefully at the girl with short, pink-colored hair beside him, who was attempting to take a break in order to gulp up much needed breaths. Once she met his eyes and noticed that they belied his desire for an answer to the obvious question on his mind, the urge to laugh like a hyena returned in full force. "Birthday… Can't… be… killed…", she managed to spit out before she finally succumbed and rejoined her still-guffawing classmates.

The poor man stood still for a few more seconds before turning around leaving the room at a sedate pace. "I should've gone to law school like my mother told me."


The Main Man Meets Ala Alba

Lobo strode over leisurely to the currently-downed Negi and Kotaro, hefting a massive, nastily-spiked sledgehammer. "Now, the more you move, the worse that it'll hurt. So, feel free to go crazy!" He raised his weapon high, readying himself for what was certain to be a very gruesome blow—

THWAP

—when he was interrupted by a strike to his head with... something. It barely mussed his mullet, but it managed to catch his attention.

"... Excuse me?" he muttered while turning around to face whoever it was that struck him and clobber them for their trouble... and was saw a young woma— His thoughts screeched to a complete halt as his eyes took note of the most prominent feature of the individual standing before him. WHOAH, MAMA! Check out those huge ta-tas!

Fortunately, the readers were spared further exposure to the Main Man's current filthy train of thought by said woman interrupting it as she started speaking in a calm voice. "Leave Kotaro-kun and Negi-kun alone. Now."

Snapped out of his memomentary, disgustingly-depraved daydream, Lobo took stock of the rest of the young lady's appearance in front of him. Hmm... Brown hair, mole under one eye, a pair of... Wait a sec! She's attacking me with veggies, of all things?

Nevertheless, the Main Man cracked a very cocky and perverted smirk. "Well, little lady. Hello~." slurpy lip-licking

Negi tried to raise himself on one hand. "Chizuru-san... Stay back..." He promptly got a mighty kick to the head from the alien bounty hunter, who angrily growled at his interruption. "PIPE DOWN, JUNIOR!"

Lobo turned his attention back to his new "quarry", and started walking towards her. "Chizuru, huh? Guess that means ya know this loser, right Honey-Boobs? You his girlfriend or somethin'?"

Chizuru, now scowling even more fiercly than before, decided to voice her opinion of Lobo's "pet name" for her. "How rude!" She followed her exclamation with a mighty one-two swing of her terrible Leeks of Doom, but was dismayed to see them smack with no effect on the alien's torso. She was promptly grabbed by the arm and thrown behind him, landing painfully on her rear. Upon looking back at her assailant, she could only watch helplessly as her trusted leeks were quickly introduced to Lobo's merciless maw.

After gulping down his latest snack, he calmly strode over to the curvy brunette, smirking all along. "Of course, any babe with class would rather hang out with the Main Man", he said with absolute arrogance. His leery eyes roamed all over Chizuru's entire body, blatantly lingering over her immense bust, before he brought his face within her own's personal space, and continued: "Why don't show ol' Lobo how classy you are?"

Chizuru's face grimace with utter disgust. "YOU PIG!" SMACK "OUCH!" The painfully-grimacing Chizuru grabbed her sore hand. Damn, that hurt more than hitting that awful old man who tried to kidnap Kotaro so many years back!

Meanwhile, Lobo was surprised that he had to muster every ounce of his willpower to resist a wince; the slap, while failing to make his head budge, was unexpectly painful! Then again, he liked his girls spunky; with that thought in mind, his grin became even more indecent than ever. "HAH! I like a babe who plays rough! Come on, give me another! Right here, right he—" He was abruptly cut off by a perfectly synchronized pair of impacts to his face, sending him off into the sky.

Chizuru blinked as her hair settled down from the sudden airflow, now noticing two very familiar arms flanking her head from the sides, and... yup, angrily-throbbing veins on the back of the tightly-fisted hands.

"Goddamn pervert...", Kotaro growled with feral menace. "Nobody, and I mean nobody is allowed to lay his filthy, grubby hands on Chizu-nee!"

"I second that sentiment." Negi's calm voice belied his frosty rage at the blatantly flagrant breach of gentlemanly conduct towards ladies that he had just witnessed.

The two young men then helped Chizuru up to her feet, and giving her a check up ("UP", NOT "OUT", YOU PERVERTS!) and assuring themselves that she's not the least bit injured - besides a bruised forearm from were her Lobo had grabbed her with the force of an iron vice, and a sorely numb hand - they started moving in the direction of Lobo's flight path, fully intent on laying a smackdown to end all smackdowns on the extraterrestrial lecher. They were stopped, however, when Chizuru pulled them back by their collars.

"Wha? What is it Chizu— MMMMPPPPHHHHH!" Whatever Negi wanted to say died off as he found himself being french-kissed deeply by the most well-endowed of his students. Off to the side, Kotaro's eyes bugged out, his mind suffering a metaphorical traffic-jam at both the sight of this sudden public display of very amorous affection, and the realization of just what that scent that he started smelling after getting Chizuru up was.

Seven long seconds went by before Chizuru finally let go of the now glassy-eyed Negi, and turned her attention to her male roommate, who quickly snapped back to attention once she grabbed a firm hold of his lapels; noticing the hungry look she was giving him, he began to sputter. "Chizu-nee, Wai— MMMPHHHH!" Again, the busty brunnete silenced all protests with a quick and deep application of mouth-to-mouth contact. Seven seconds later, the inu-youkai was finally allowed to return from Cloud Nine as Chizuru released him. She then quickly hooked her arms around both of the two men's heads and pulled them to her, their faces mashing into her very bountiful bosom.

"Remind me to thank you two properly later, " her voice sensually purred in their ears. The two heads currently buried in her bust nodded jerkily, and yet she kept her hold for around 10 more seconds before finally releasing them, and watched them walk away stiffly.

After making sure that they were far enough from Chizuru, Negi finally spoke. "Five minutes?" His monotone voice belied nothing of his current emotional state; if one looked closely, however, they would've noticed that the prominently single hair that stood out on his head was standing a lot straighter and stiffer than usual.

"One." Kotaro replied in an equally level tone. His dog ears and tail were madly twitching around.

"Right."


Relationship Advice

Most people would balk at the thought of having to work at a heavily booby-trapped mega-library, exploring ancient ruins abundant with still-functioning death traps, battling a bona fide Reality Warper who could erase from existence with nothing but a mind-reading book and some physical-augmentation magic, and clashing against a nominally-evil organization with morally-ambiguous motives that one may or may not agree with completely. Miyazaki Nodoka, however, was seriously considering that all the aforementioned was cakewalk in comparison to what she was faced with now.

Namely, Hinata requesting advice from her on... relationship issues.

"Er... So, you finally confessed your love to Naruto-san?"

The purple-haired kunoichi shyly nodded, with deep blush adorning her pretty face. She and the equally purple-haired librarian were sitting on one of the Chao Bao Zi's more secluded tables, with the rest of Nodoka's friends and classmates (sans Satsuki, Ku Fei, Satomi and the recently returned Chao, who were working their magic in the Chao Bao Zi stand) watching the ensuing discussion while respecting the two's privacy by sitting at the farther seats.

"But ever since then, he did not give an actual reply to your confession?"

Another nod, this time meek and coupled with an obviously sad expression. Nodoka was wondering just how dense this Uzumaki Naruto was; at least Negi-sensei had the excuse of being a 10 year old, and he still was able to understand the full implications of a love confession... as long as the love confession is delivered with little to no subtlety.

"Not even after the war with Akatsuki ended?"

Another nod, with an even sadder expression. The librarian suppressed the urge to frown at this; months without addressing the issue? That's simply cruel!

"And to compound matters, Sakura and Ino are spending more and more time with him, apparently having developed similar feelings of their own?"

The expected nod came, accompanied by the kunoichi's eyes tearing up. "I... I... sniff I don't know what to do! Please, Miyazaki-san... You, someone who lived through similar suffering and hardships in pursuit of her love and ultimately won, are the only one that I can trust! PLEASE, TEACH ME YOUR SECRET!" Hinata punctuated the last sentence with a deep bow to Nodoka.

"Ah! Please, Hinata-san! There's no need to bow!" Nodoka pleaded as she brought her guest up from her bowing position, clearly flustered by the show of extreme submissiveness. "Um, ano... I'm not sure how to help, though." Noticing the dismayed expression on the kunoichi's face at her words, she quickly blurted out, "But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to help!"

Though she was relieved to see that she managed to soothe her guest somewhat, Nodoka was starting to feel a headache at the problem in her hands. How do you manage to catch the attention of a thick-headed boy who seemed to care more about nindou, ramen, fighting evil-doers and seeking the redemption of traitorous ex-friends than the intricacies of romance and relationships? He was practically nothing like Negi-sen— Wait a minute.

It was brilliant! If her hunch was right, this might actually work! "Hinata-san, I think I found a way to help you."

"R-Really?"

"Yes. But first, let me introduce you some of my classmates." She took hold of Hinata's hand and tugged her towards the Chao Bao Zi stand, right where she knew Satsuki, Ku Fei, and Chao were at.

"A-Ano... NARUTOKUNHEREPLEASETAKETHIS!"

Uzumaki Naruto, hero of Konoha twice over and of the entire Shinobi world, blinked in surprise as he turned from where he was trading jokes with Sakura and Ino at Ichiraku's restaurant, and saw Hinata extending a covered bowl to him.

"Oh, Hinata. What's this?"

"R-ramen. I... made it myself, and... Well, I wanted someone's second opinion, since... it's my first time, and... Well, I know how you like ramen." The Hyuuga heiress was glad for the Ala Alba's coaching; she didn't think she'd manage to be this intelligible in Naruto's presence otherwise. "So... Um, do you... mind if... you be the first to... try it?"

The blond son of Konoha's Yellow Flash and the Red Habanero grinned. "You kiddin'? I love ramen! And I don't mind at all!" He took the bowl from the purple-haired girl's hands, plucked the cover to reveal the still steaming-hot meal, grabbed a pair of chopsticks that a widely-smiling Ayame threw in his direction with ease that spoke of long practice, and promptly dove in... and stopped abruptly once he had his first mouthful.

"... Naruto?" Sakura said with growing alarm, as she watched the self-proclaimed future Hokage's eyes slowly widen; she was startled when they started to overflow with tears. Just as she was about to ask Hinata just what did she put in her recipe, Naruto swallowed his mouthful and, after a couple of seconds of silence, finally spoke.

"He-Heavenly..."

blink-blink "What?"

"THIS RAMEN IS HEAVENLY! I NEVER TASTED ANYTHING BETTER IN MY LIFE!" Completely oblivious to the volcanic blush that erupted over Hinata's entire head, the last descendant of the Uzumaki clan dove back into his meal, taking time to savor each and every mouthful. A few minutes later found him disappointed that his heavenly meal had been interrupted by the depletion of its finite amount. He turned to said meal's maker with imploringly-tearful eyes.

"Ano..." The girl was having trouble fighting down her shyness-induced panic. "I-I can make more o-once I restock on th-the ingredients."

"REALLY? YATTA!" Naruto jumped. "Hey, it'll be faster if I come with you and help out, right? LET'S GO!" In a flash, the blond boy grabbed the shy kunoichi's hand and half-dragged her out of the restaurant and towards the market, leaving behind a pair of stupefied kunoichi.

The Hyuuga heiress was blushing from head to toe, and yet was smiling wide with utter emotional ecstasy. ("Yes, yes, YES! I DID IT! Now I'm getting somewhere! Oh, thank you, Miyazaki-sama! Thank you, Miyazaki-sama's friends! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!")


The Dark Side of Ala Alba, AKA Yet Another Reason Why You Shouldn't Piss Off Negi Springfield and His Comely Comrades

Aspiring Dark Lord Satanael MakMalystein-O'Godkiller von Hellington, the All-Deathbringer - and yes, it's "Mak", because it looked cooler to him - currently re-imprisoned after escaping from his centuries-long imprisonment in some remote island off the coast of England, had learned a very valuable lesson in his latest attempt to take over the world: He should not have attacked that elvish-looking blonde-haired young woman and dealt her a bloodily-incapacitating blow, and then gloated about how he will "enjoy" her once he finishes off the rest of her comrades. (And yes, dear readers, she got better once a nearby medic-healer got to her in time to stabilize her.)

Why, you ask? Because it sucked to be the one facing off against a certain normally-nice Springfield in his maddened ultimate (and very much "broken") Magia Erebea form, or against an equally enraged white-haired former second-in-command of the infamous Kosmou Entelekeia...

Because it sucked even more when Negi's transformation resulted in some sort of magical feedback through his Pactio bonds with his 40+ Ministrae (including said white-haired ex-member of Kosmou Entelekeia) that, by reacting to their own feelings of all-consuming rage at his vile actions, turned them into equivalently "broken" and scarier versions of their heroic selves.

Because it really sucked when all of the aforementioned ganged-up on him.

But most importantly of all, it really sucked big time when that certain Springfield's mom arrived. And she was not pleased at all about what he did to one of her prospective daughters-in-law ("Lucky bastard!", he thought at the time). And she was also just as transformed as that certain Springfield's Ministrae. ("Ewwwww!" was his reaction at realizing what that implied.)

To put it simply, he, in spite of his then-acquired physical godhood, was royally screwed - in a strictly metaphorical sense, thankfully.


The Importance of Being Chamo

Love is such a strange and complex thing, Kakizaki Misa contemplated as she lied on the megabed that was at the center of Ala Alba's Lovely Suite (aka the master bedroom of their home), large enough for all of Ala Alba's 40+ members to sleep in together.

She remembered when they all thought that all they wanted in their collective love life was Negi-kun (and Kotarou and/or Fate, for some of them, of course). It was only when they were finally starting to finalize their collective arrangement of their complex love dodecahedron that they realized they were missing one last person, and surprised themselves by who that was. And good thing they did, because that allowed them to stop that person from leaving their lives - perhaps forever.

"I didn't want to get in the way", my ass!, the purple-haired cheerleader thought to herself as she remembered when they finally corned the last member of their giant, sometimes-convolutedly-connected harem. Shaking off that negative train of thoughts from head, she looked to the side where the person she was just thinking of at.

Well, strange or complex, I wouldn't trade what I have now for the world, she thought happily to herself as she watched Albert Chamomile snooze from between Ala Alba's 4th largest pair of breasts. Good thing it's my turn tomorrow. The saucy smile on her face belied what her current thoughts revolved around.


In the Blood, Part 1

Since Negi looked nigh-identical to his father, had eventually grown to be as ridiculously overpowered as he was, and his first great adventure had so many "Generation Xerox" moments (as Chisame had called it) that it might as well have been a "cookie-cutter copy-paste" of Nagi's own exploits during Ala Rubra's long fight against Kosmou Entelekeia, the girls of Ala Alba (Kotaro couldn't care less) always wondered what exactly had he inherited from his mother besides inherent politeness, intellectuality, emotional awkwardness, and general obliviousness to romantic love directed at oneself.

One morning, while spending the weekend at a beach resort, they had their first clue when they found Arika and Negi sleeping on a convenient couch halfway between their rooms, embracing each other. For Asuna, Anya and (to a lesser degree) Chisame, the inherent cuteness of the scene was ruined by the following facts:

Both mother and son's clothes were scandalously dishelved - were those prints on Arika's panties of Nagi's face or Negi's? Or both? More than a few of the girls had independently decided to not think too hard about it, for their respective sanity's sake

Negi's head (Not that head!) was deep into his mother's bosomy marshmallow heaven, loosely held in place by one of Arika's hands.

The placement of their... lower bodies was so absolutely in violation of SFW and Family Friendly standards that, to avoid possible lawsuits, the author will resort to this following summary from Her Cyberspatial Majesty and Net Idolness Chiu-sama: "Chapter 283, page 9, second to last panel, only Arika's legs go around instead of one acting as a support. That is all."

It did not help that Nagi was clearly holding back roaring laughter lest he wakes the still sleeping pair up, as Kazumi quickly and expertly snapped photos "for posterity", while Haruna was sketching down the image with mad speed while dodging several attempts to stop her by most of the other girls. Misa and Ayaka? They were each deep in thought on how to arrange for the scene before them to be reenacted... With themselves in Arika's place. And of course, Anya had attempted to extract Negi off his mother. She managed to lift up his body about 40 centimeters away from Arika's before he started sleep-whimpering in protest... prompting a split-second response from the still-sleeping Arika to the offender.

In spite of a soft "Grrrr..." leaving Arika's lips, Anya never saw the brutal punch to the groin coming; it was a miracle that she managed to hold back her scream of pain, given the attack's utter suddenness. Her brain, however, was now suffering from a mental traffic jam between the overload of pain signals and its own attempts to send commands to the rest of the body, and thus unfortunately she did not do the smart thing and let go of Negi for the next four seconds (during which the onlookers were "busy" being stiff as statues in a mix of awe, fear and pained sympathy).

Those four seconds were too long for the still-sleeping Arika's patience, and thus she suddenly twisted her hand around, grabbed a firm fistful of Anya's Bleep, and Pulled. Hard. The newly-introduced agony had flooded poor Anya's mind to the limit, locking her body up even further; it was only when Asuna and Chisame's cries for her to "Let him go already!" finally penetrated the dense sea of abject pain that filled her consciousness that she managed to will her hands to do just that. When Arika's death grip finally released after Negi fell back onto her, the redheaded girl dropped from the couch and to the floor like a sack of potatoes, clutching at her site of injury while a seemingly-unending torrent of tears streamed out of her eyes. She then and there swore to never do anything that might upset Arika, even while asleep.

Meanwhile, Negi, oblivious to all the happenings around him, only shifted a little to return to the comfort of his prior position, the only sound coming from him as a soft-spoken "Marshmallows..." after his head found its original resting place. Arika, in response, tightened her hold on her sleeping son, a small smile of pure contentment gracing her face, matching her son's own.


Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, Entry 1: Chao Rinshen and Hakase Satomi

Chachamaru really loved her sort-of-but-not-quite parents. Really, she did. She could not fault them for going into a roaring rampage of revenge in response to her suffering extreme structural damage - again - at the hands of Evil-Villain-Attempting-World-Domination-By-Hijacking-the-Power-of-the-World-Tree #83 (Really, when are they going to learn?).

And even though she thought that breaking out a small-skyscraper-sized, armed-to-the-teeth giant robot (with the two as its pilots, naturally) as part of said rampage was a bit on the side of overkill, it was somewhat justifiable.

She could even excuse them for completely unnecessarily calling out ridiculously hammy names for their attacks as some sort of wierd psychological warfare tactics distorted by their personal eccentricities. Maybe.

But she really could've done without them punctuating their ultimate attack with "OUR-DAUGHTER-CHACCHAN-IS-THE-BEST-IN-THE-UNIVERSE ATTACK!"

It took a whole month before she could finally dare to make eye contact with anyone; and it took another two months before she stopped erupting into volcanic blushing everytime someone (usually snickeringly) said "Chacchan".