To-LOVE-Ru was created by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro, and is published by Shueisha. And don't you forget it, Baba Looey.
Other series parodied here were created by other authors.
No money whatsoever was made out of writing this fanfic, and if it was, I was gypped, because I didn't see a single freaking cent.
Any similarities between the characters portrayed here and any real pink haired aliens or boys who keep stumbling and burying their faces into crotches just have to be coincidences.
WARNING: The events portrayed here, while sort of branching out of the main Unequally timeline, save for a few changes like Ranma being Saotome Haruna's older brother instead of her father, Yue not being engaged to Lala, or Arika not being a Servant, don't necessarily reflect the events to transpire later into THAT storyline. Alternate universe with parallel timeline at work here, folks.
UNEQUALLY TO LOVE RU DARKNESS- NOT YET ANOTHER SPINOFF!
Chapter Zero: Preludes and Space Aliens.
On that day, I saw it in the Mahora Lexcorp Waterland. Rito-san blundered while trying to confess his love to Saotome Haruna-san.
It didn't really matter that she already knew, or that everyone else also knew, or that he knew we all knew. It was something he still had to do, because men are dumb like that, and we love them because of it.
She waited, standing right before him, smirking, folding her arms behind her back. Generous chest casually jutting up just the right way due to her posture. For an Earthling, she sure has an idea of what she's doing. But sadly, far too often, with Rito-san, that just isn't enough.
I'm still not exactly sure what went wrong right afterwards, although I suspect Oshizu-san, who was at one of the nearby pools at the time, had something to do with it. She still won't talk on the subject, even under the threat of dog, and unfortunately, Nana won't let me use one of her Khund bulldogs for a questioning session. Regardless, it ended up coming up... not the way Rito-san intended it, in the least.
"I... I LOVE YOU!"
The pitch and feeling were perfect, but sadly, he had messed it up, telling it to Mikado-sensei, Kotegawa-san, Nana and Run-san instead.
Needless to say, the mood was somewhat spoiled after that.
Silly violent sister of mine.
Nevertheless, my feelings did not waver. Because that wasn't about my particular position, to begin with.
Momo Belia Deviluke leaned her petite, pink-topped frame ahead, resting on the frame of her bedroom's window, and looking out, towards the vast quietness of the Mahora district, under the bright rainbow that adorned the afternoon after the rain. Strangely for anyone who happened to know her well and would have ran across her at that moment, her expression and mood at the time were far more contemplative than usual.
I don't care if I'm the second one or third one in his heart. I'll be fine as long as Rito-san directs even a little bit of his love towards me, she thought. But...
She faced her mirror, absently twirling a bang of her bright pink hair between her fingers, and wondered aloud, "If I fixed my frizzy hair... would I look a little bit more adult?"
Just yet another of life's great mysteries, even if it had an easy enough answer.
"Hahhhhh..." Yuuki Rito exhaled the next morning, which happened to be a Sunday one, watering the plants at the garden of the small house on Mahora grounds his father had left for him, his sister and their cousin before departing for the great unknown... of manga publishing in Neo Tokyo. "What should I do now?" he asked the sanest person currently living with him.
Celine looked up at him and said, "Mau?"
"My thoughts exactly," her father figure nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. "Oh man, I'm such an idiot. I really acted like an idiot back there..."
"Mau, mau," the tiny humanoid girl with the floer on the top of her head said.
"At this rate, I'm never getting anywhere with Haruna-chan, you know?" he told her. "It seems like I give two steps back for each step we give ahead, and of those steps ahead, most of them are taken by her. How long before she grows tired of her and settles for another guy?"
"... mau?" Celine asked, taking a finger to her mouth and lightly suckling on it.
"Ah, Rito-san, there you are!" Momo said then, walking out of the house and towards them. "Working hard looking after the plants again! That's so inspiring." You literally could see the hearts and musical notes in her dialogue as she said that. "But it also must be tiring for you, and in your free day, too. Why don't you come in and have some tea with me at the living room? A short break won't hurt anyone!"
"Oh, sure thing, Momo," he said. "Thank you..." And then he stopped, looking at her. "Huh, did you do something to your hairstyle?"
"Ohh, you noticed!" she cutely giggled, playing with a few pink strands. "Yes! Just a little bit!"
"Ah, well, that's great," he simply said, with a smile.
And that was it.
That's it?! Momo thought.
Yes, it was.
"I'll finish water these, and then go drink that tea with you, okay?" asked Rito.
"Um, yeah, sure, that's fine..." she had to say, as Celine glomped on her and began crawling up her legs.
I'm happy he noticed at all... Momo thought, not really noticing how Celine stopped at her chest, nestling herself against it. But, couldn't he say anything else? Like, 'It's so cute!' or 'You look much more mature now!'? Oh well, maybe I was expecting for too much, too soon... she reasoned.
At the same time, from the other side of the backyard, Yuuki Mikan, who had been hanging clothes to dry, paused for several moments to stare in silence at the distracted Deviluke Princess.
Cousin Nao, who lazily lounged next to her on a beach chair, wearing a light cotton top and Daisy Dukes, stopped checking on the text messages in her cellphone, and alternatively looked between Mikan and Rito, who now was following Momo inside. She opened her mouth to speak, but right then, without missing a beat, Mikan said "No," as she went back to work.
Nao blinked. "I haven't even said anything yet!"
"You didn't need to," Mikan replied, polite but firmly.
"Oh, for the love of-!"
Sometimes I really wonder about him... Momo thought, that afternoon, sitting alone on a couch. I swear, sometimes, Haruna-san's teacher seems more perceptive than him, and he's only what, eleven in Earth years? This problem really has to be fixed before he can become a lover.
"Ah, Momo!" Lala Satalin Deviluke said, walking in closely followed by a hovering Peke. "You did something to your hair? How cute...!"
"Oneesama!" Momo said, for she was one to use the local mannerisms and verbal formulas far more readily than either Lala or Nana. "You look very happy today."
Well, happier than usual, and that really was saying something, although Momo knew better than anyone else not all of Lala's perennial happiness what it looked like.
"He he he..." Lala chuckled. "Can you tell? Well, just a little...!"
"Actually," the floating robotic unit chimed in, "Lady Lala is happy because the other day Lord Rito confessed his love for her!"
"Seriously?" asked Momo. Wow, she too? Maybe there are more hopes for him than I thought!
"Oh, Peke!" Lala told her. "You can't reveal that so lightly, after Rito went so far to make it a private confession!"
"E... Even from Lady Momo? I, I'm really sorry!" the tiny being gulped, backing away.
Momo blinked, her own offense over being left in the dark overshadowed for the time being by another concern. "But..." she lightly mouthed out, "he told the same thing to Haruna-san..."
Lala looked back at her. "Oh, you already knew that too? Weeeeell... Actually... That's okay with me, it can't be helped. Rito's grown to love me, but he's known Haruna for a lot longer. It'd be mean from me, trying to split them up."
"Ahhhh... I see," Momo said, slowly.
Lala smiled again. "But, don'tcha think that's something to be happy about? That won't be a problem at all if Haruna and I marry Rito! After all, once he becomes the Emperor of Deviluke, Earth laws won't apply to him anymore!"
"No, but..." Momo pondered, rubbing her own nose, "Considering Father's still got so long ahead of him, and the average lifespans of Earthlings, that's-"
Then she stopped herself, staring up at the way the smile had frozen on Lala's face.
A second later, Momo began waving her hands before herself. "I mean, even so, royalty is royalty, no matter what! You're right, of course!"
Lala sighed happily, twirling around on a foot, her long black tail making a heart shape. "I am, am not I? I know Haruna won't oppose that either! It's all but done! However," she cautioned, abruptly spinning back to wave a finger on Momo's face, "no matter what, you can't tell anyone else about this! Rito's still got too much to sort out before, and he's told me his friends and Haruna's won't understand overnight, so let's not cause them any problems, okay?"
"Okay," Momo agreed, seeing the folly on trying to make Lala understand SHE was the most frequent cause of everyday problems for Rito herself.
She smiled as well, despite everything. That's my big sister! Always so optimistic and happy go lucky! So pure, and yet-
It was true that multiple consorts and concubines were a common arrangement fashion across the known universe. Their father, the current Emperor of Deviluke, was a rarity on keeping a single wife and no lovers, but no one, except probably Mother, would bat an eye if his successor happened to marry several women at once. At least once the initial hurdle of proving Rito to be worthy to the masses was sorted out, that is, which Momo feared would be a titanic task on itself. But they'd cross that bridge once they got there. Before that, Rito would have to prove himself as a man!
And once he gets to be a real man... Momo dreamed, eyes shining eerily, I'll be able to partake on his affections, too! I won't have to marry any of those smelly and ugly suitors, either! Lala's right! That's what I should aim for! But even higher! She and Haruna-san won't suffice!
However, there was a major hurdle for that from the very start. Rito just wasn't aggressive enough to be interested on multiple conquests. The fact he had admitted feelings for two girls at once had to be a gigantic step up for him, as it was, but that had to be his limit, if left to his own devices. So Momo would have to change his mind and strip it from that stupid, primitive Earth common sense.
And in order to do that...
Yes, that's it. To achieve that, first I must gather them all at a single place, where I can monitor them and guide their contact with Rito-san...
"Nana?" she asked, innocently walking in, hands crossed behind her back.
"UWA!" her twin bolted up on their shared bed, dropping the romance manga she had been reading aside. "Don't walk in without knocking first, Momo!"
Momo bit back the comment she'd normally have made on how they never had secrets from each other before and forced another smile. "Nana, don't you think it's time to enroll into Mahora Academy?"
"Ah? Why? It's not like they have anything to teach us!"
"Well," she said, dragging a foot around the carpet, "It's keeping harder and harder... to justify why we're living at the campus without actually studying here. And Dad wouldn't like us to stop receiving any sort of education while we're here!"
Nana frowned, suspecting the trap behind the bait but actually unable to pinpoint it. Which probably was for the ultimate best. "Okay, that's true..." she had to admit. All in all, it WAS getting bored, lounging around at that tiny house all day and night long with nothing better to do. She couldn't even look after a private zoo there. "But, even if you say so... Do you really think they'd let us in anyway?"
"Oh, just leave that part to me!" Momo rapidly giggled, winking an eye.
Not too terribly far away, one Ayase Yue blinked. "Are you sure that's what he actually was trying to tell you, Haruna? What if you are misinterpreting his words?"
Saotome Haruna rolled her eyes behind her thick glasses. "Oh, please, Yuecchi! Let's be serious here! He may have botched the execution, but anyone with half a brain could see he was meaning to tell me 'I love you'! Ah, my poor cute Rito!" she sighed, bringing her hands together cutely... and just as soon, rubbing them together evilly, drool peeking off a corner of her mouth. "Soon, soon, soon...!"
"Didn't he tell those girls later he only meant 'I love the pool'?" Miyazaki Nodoka shyly asked.
Haruna gave her a condescending glare. "Nodo-chan. No offense intended, but what kind of dense idiot could buy such a lame explanation? Right, Kero?"
The living plush toy sitting across the room with his back to them, playing Ultra Hyper Mega Street Fighting Turbo in his Pony Playmation. "Yeah, sure, you're right for once. You want a medal for that?"
Haruna smirked at her two smaller closest friends. "See? Kero-chan agrees, too! You girls are too naive. Anyone could see Rito loves me! I'd have to be a clueless hopeless moron to NOT see the continued hints always tossed MY way!"
"I guess you're right there," Yue said, not seeing a point on discussing that. Yuuki-san really WAS that pathetically obvious, and only in a manga romantic comedy everyone and their dog around him would miss his evident clues. "But, even so..."
"But nothing!" Haruna waved a finger. "The ball is in my court now, and I'm not going to drop it! Just like you," she poked on Yue's wide forehead, "aren't you going to drop it with Negi-kun, and you," now she poked between Nodoka's bangs, "aren't going to drop it with Kotaro-kun! We're going to make it, all together! Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno!"
"N-N-Negi-sensei?" Yue gasped, blushing crimson. "But, but Haruna, unlike you and Nodoka, um, even assuming I wanted to go there, which I don't really, I'd have far more competition! It'd be hopeless! Why to have me, when he can have Chisame or Iinchou or even Natsumi-san or Suzushiro-sempai, or-"
"Yue-Yue," Nodoka sighed, "we've talked about this at length..."
"Not you too, Nodoka!" Yue protested.
Haruna placed her hands on Baka Black's narrow shoulders. "C'mon! You've got as good a shot as anyone! Even now, Chisame's too stubborn for her own good, Iinchou undermines herself, Natsumi-chan is even more insecure than you, the Vice Prez is a lost cause, and... really, who else is there to be a real threat? Now Negi-kun is reunited with his mom, it's not like she's gonna allow skanks to gather around him. This is the moment for a classy decent girl like you to move in..."
Meanwhile, several rooms away:
"There's something I have to ask you," Negi said hesitantly. He was well aware that that was starting this conversation off in what had to be one of the worst of all possible ways.
"Then ask," replied Arika, in the same calm, unchanging tone that she nearly always used.
For a moment, he considered Arika Anarchia Entheofushia, last queen of the lost land of Ostia, Queen of Calamity. His mother. A woman only slightly taller than the tallest of his students, with long blonde hair just a touch lighter than Yukihiro Ayaka's, and now, incredibly, seated seiza on the other side of the coffee table, in a skirt and sweater borrowed from Shizuna-sensei, both of which were too big for her. His mother.
But you probably already know how this part ends...
Kotegawa Yui tensed up, stopping working on her summer vacation report. "My indecency-sense... tingling!" she said aloud, startled. "Someone, somewhere... doing naughty things!"
Then she blinked a few times and shook her head to herself. "No, no, what am I saying? Talking to myself, too... The stress must be getting to me... And I'm doing it even now... I really should doing it right now... Okay. This is it. I'm done. Yes."
Then she looked over towards the pink floater Yuuki-kun had given her at the pool, and deflated into a sigh.
"This is all his fault... Blast it. I'm doing it again."
It's gotta be this way...
Mikan-chan, so innocent and pure...
Run-san, so tangled up in her idol life...
Saki-san and her cronies, so proud and arrogantly set in their own ways...
Yami-san, so... extremely dangerous and unpredictable...
None of them will ever make the first move, but even moreso...Neither will Rito-san...
He will have to change his ways...
Sure, she could trust Haruna-san, but she didn't trust her execution not to be sloppy. She couldn't even successfully hook her longtime friends with their own respective romantic interests, so what could she know on the subject?
So it all would have to fall on her. And Momo was actually okay with that.
She could hear Rito-san washing himself in the bath as she stood right next to the door. She would have to act now. Steeling herself, she pulled her top off, and then unhooked her pink bra.
Sitting in the tub, Rito closed his eyes and pulled his head back. What should I do now...? he wondered.She's okay with polygamy, no, both of them are, I guess, but still, that's just not right, unless... No, what the heck's going wrong with me?! Ever since Lala came in, my life has been careening out of control! This has to stop, but I can't see a way it could-
Momo skinned her panties off and began walking in.
She would make it happen! For Onee-sama's happiness, and her own! No, everyone's!
Rito opened his eyes, startled by the sounds of approaching steps, and that of a door being slid shut behind...
... Momo-chan...
"Rito-san," she said, as naked as the day she had been born, long tail carefully swinging behind her, as Rito's jaw grew loose and he lost all capacity to speak or scream beyond stuttering gurgles. "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings."
To be Continued.
