Elsewhere:

Until less than three months ago, Fujimaru Ritsuko had never seen a Servant, unless you counted that old guy who always followed the Director around in a tuxedo until the Director was, well, dead.

Oh, she had heard all about them during the long and grueling study sessions, during the nights spent up studying to no apparent avail. She, just like her twin brother, had been a bad learner in that she had been unable to carry most of her theoretical studies into any sort of practical application, but that hadn't meant she, unlike her twin brother, had never tried. Her Magic Circuits were simply subpar, her teachers had estimated, before moving on, leaving her (and her twin brother) aside to focus on her more gifted classmates.

The cranky old jewelcraft instructor lady had once told her she was more useless than idiot, which was kinda hurtful. She also had told her twin brother he was equally useless and idiotic, which had, as usual, slipped off him as if it had been nothing, but Ritsuko was not at all like Ritsuka in that regard. After being told that, her will deflated, she had, indeed, turned into more of a slacker (just like her twi- okay, okay, we'll stop it for now), barely pulling any weight in the Organization, but even then, her disillusionment had never made her lose her sense of wonder at the mere idea of Servants. She had kept on dreaming of the day when she would finally meet one in the flesh, even if they were not hers to summon.

Now she (and her twin brother, sorry, but it had to be said) had actually done it, she… was not sure about the results.

Ritsuka and Ritsuko were twins, as you should know damn well by now after how much we've repeated it, but hardly identical. She was fairly shorter than him, and she sported light orange locks of hair that tended to flow down, opposite to her brother's wilder, spikier black hair, which always seemed wanting to spring around in all directions. He was fairly lean and finely toned, while she was more petite and rounded, prompting her to keep on watching her weight almost constantly. Since getting into Chaldea, however, she had been having no shortage of physical activity, meaning she was rather fit and svelte at the time.

If the twins were alike in something, it was in how... normal and average they were. On their own, apart from each other, they were often described as being just as nondescript. They tended to blend in crowds, never standing out, and if people ever remembered them at all it was just because they were nice enough to everyone, but they were hardly ever paid any actual, major attention. Until recently, at the very least, when they had been picked up for a joint internship at a high-paying secret organization.

When they were together, however, the twins began acting very different from each other, even if because of contrast. Leonardo could tell from the first time she met them they brought something out of each other... something that was not necessarily their best or worst, but something that defined them beyond the nice agreeable ciphers most people usually saw them, in any instance. Ritsuko in particular seemed often irked by her brother's tendency to repeat the obvious and ask things that should have been clear, and in turn Ritsuka seemed to easily grow exasperated by his sister's somewhat impulsive habits and sporadic but increasing tendency to molest anything female with an expression best described as a 'rape-face'.

"So, should we be worried? I mean, is it that bad?" Fujimaru Ritsuka asked, standing side by side with his sister.

The orange-haired girl gave the boy a slight frown that he ignored as his attention was focused on Leonardo, the Renaissance Caster. The black haired woman, a dead ringer for the world famous image of the Mona Lisa, although packing a body that wouldn't quit under the point where our references of Gioconda cut off, stood behind them and their Servants in the gigantic chamber where an over-sized, rotating and glowing model of Earth pulsed with ever-renewing life, the glowing light that pumped through the Chaldea mystic systems. It was a truly impressive and majestic sight, and every time the siblings were there, they couldn't help but feel humbled enough they would cut their brief, rapid spats to the absolute minimum. It helped Leonardo also kept Ritsuko trapped in that giant steam punk gauntlet she had to keep her out of arms reach.

Chaldea had been created from a reproduction of Earth's own soul, using the Code of Yggdrasil as a template. Its originators had hardly been the Mage of the Beginning, but they had made a commendable work within their limitations of time and budget. Da Vinci knew that well, and thus also was all too aware of the implications of what would happen to them if that Earth currently on display died before their eyes, while still linked to it, and before they could cut their links to it.

"Not yet, as this Leyshift crisis hasn't fully manifested itself for the time being," the Caster finally answered, after double checking the current data on her miniature portable screens once again. "This Earth's lights are dying down, and its soul remains strong, but troubled nonetheless. In any instance, since we have decided to be more proactive after the Grand Caster's declaration of purpose, we would like it if you were to travel there regardless, find the root of the problem, and shoot it down before that world falls."

A tall, thin young man with light brown hair, which was long but conveniently kept tied back into a thick ponytail, stood side by side with Leonardo, also running scans on the latest parallel world the Chaldea crew had located. "This one seems to be a Singularity akin to the first one you ran into, Ritsuka-kun, but somewhat different in that Fuyuki City was fully destroyed during the Fourth Grail War's climax."

"Then where's that Fifth Grail War taking place, Doctor Roman?" asked another girl, who stood directly behind Ritsuka. She had light short hair, which fell in bangs that hid most of her cute rather than gorgeous pale face, and wore a form hugging black ensemble of body armor that actually showed off a lot of her curvaceous, rather well-stacked physique, complete with tall boots. In her hand she held a gigantic thick shield that looked like someone had taken a massive table apart and started carrying it around for protection. It was easily bigger than Ritsuka, never mind the young woman herself.

Leonardo leaned aside to share a look at the data the slightly effeminate looking scientist was checking and re-checking on, then to frown slightly, somewhat puzzled. "Apparently, it is being fought at some nearby city called... Mahora? How curious, I don't remember ever reading on that name before..."

In the chamber, thunder boomed ominously.

"Kintoki, what have I told you about using your Noble Phantasm indoors?" Dr. Roman cried towards the door.

"Sorry, doc!"


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

Fate/Grand Order is the creation and intellectual property of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.

Thanks to Shadow Crystal Mage for the proofreading and editing.

You Broke My Heart with Fanservice.

Chapter Two: It's a Brave New Frontier! FGO 2017 Mahora Memory- The Soothing White Festival.


Mahora:

"What was that, Saber?" Shirou asked after noticing his Servant had just stopped behind him in the middle of the constantly moving crowd, still with a cone of mostly devoured cotton candy in each hand.

The blonde shook her head, as if to snap herself out of the brief spell of sorts she had just experienced, a strange feeling she couldn't quite explain. "N-No, it's nothing, Shirou, I was just- Oh. Rin, Sakura," she suddenly shifted gears, making Shirou's head snap back the other way. "Good morning to both..."

Illyasviel smirked as she saw the two sisters approaching them down the street, coming to greet them in matching bikinis, Rin's red, Sakura's white, and elegant sandals. "Why, but what a happy fortuitous meeting, Fujimura-sensei, Emiya-kun," Rin said with a calculated pleased smile. "And even Saber-san, too..."

"H-Hello, Sensei, Sempai, and, umm, Miss? Ma'am?" Sakura forced a nervous smile and nod, trying her best not to look too much at the strange and pale little girl who held Shirou's hand. Moments ago, Vigilante and Monster had detected not only Saber's by now familiar proximity, but that of a much more powerful Servant, and that had prompted the Tohsaka sisters to head over and see what was happening. Right now, Sakura could feel Monster's spiritual presence uneasily, almost frantically, shifting and circling around her, as if terrified of what she could feel around the child, and the youngest Tohsaka knew that meant a lot, seeing how Monster's usual inclination for saving as much energy as possible made her regularly very quiet, and often borderline lethargic.

"Ah, girls, how are you doing?" Taiga happily said. "Looking just great, I see! I assume you haven't met Saber's little cousin from Europe yet? This is Illyasviel-chan, and that's her nanny Sayoko-sama..."

"Just a personal aide, and 'Sayoko-san' will suffice nicely enough," Sayoko humbly said, but the sisters, mostly Rin, were too startled as to listen to her, instead focusing wide eyes on Illya.

"An… an Einzbern?!" Rin had to gasp despite herself.

"A pure blooded one indeed!" Illya bowed with a mischievous look in her eyes. "And you would be Tohsaka Tokiomi's daughters, wouldn't you, Big Sis?"

"Wow, Illya-chan," Taiga blinked. "You'd heard about them already? From Saber-san, right?"

"Not quite," Illya kept on smiling at the stunned Tohsakas, "but I've heard much about them anyway. Our families once used to be... associates..."

Rin felt a wave of cold sweat running down her forehead, after which she stared mutely at Shirou and Saber, silently demanding to know what the hell where they doing, happily sightseeing with a fucking Einzbern of all people. Neither of them answered her stare with a particularly meaningful one, which only upset her inwardly even more.

Out of all the lousy mornings, this one only could get any worse if-

No! Don't even think it! her common sense warned her a second later, a second too late. For almost as soon as she had given life to that idle idea, she heard the obnoxious, annoying laugh from someone just turning around a corner to meet them, a smaller figure dutifully marching behind her.

"Ohhhh ho ho ho!" laughed a tall, statuesque blonde who was even shapelier than Sakura, finely toned feminine muscle in a tiny white bikini that made Shirou's eyes go tiny at first sight, and Illya to cringe in disgust. At least until she noticed the short, demure looking black haired girl in a purple one-piece humbly standing behind the buxom hyena with drills in her hairdo, and Illya's expression shifted into quiet, intrigued curiosity for some reason unknown even to her. "My my, but if it isn't Tohsaka Rin! What an unusual venue is this, for our re-encounter after so many months, ho ho!"

"... good morning, Luvia-san," Sakura gave a small nod her way. "Miyu-chan, too. It's been a while, yes."

"Nowhere enough if you ask me," Rin grumbled to herself before straightening up, quickly retaking her act with a forced smile. She also tried her best to ignore Vigilante's sudden, constant screams and calls to arms in her ear, even if that sounded so pleasant now Luvia was here. "No, of course that's just a joke. Finnish humor for the greatest Finland has ever been able to produce, right? Everyone, please meet Luviagelita Edefelt, my roommate while studying abroad, and her nanny, Miyu-san..."

"Nanny?" Luviagelita frowned.

"I'm Master's personal aide, and just 'Miyu-chan' will suffice, as you know, Miss Rin... ah..." the dark haired little girl had finally raised her head enough as to catch a good view of Illyasviel. As their eyes met, the world seemed to abruptly stop in its tracks, while the breeze seemed to just as abruptly bring Sakura petals that lightly rained all over the scene, a soft, lovely piece called Shojo no Shukumei lingering around the encounter, much to the growing confusion of Saber and the invisible Berserker, Vigilante, Destroyer and Monster.

Miyu stared into Illya's eyes.

Illya stared into Miyu's eyes.

'BA-BUMP! BA-BUMP!' their hearts went.

Saber finally just shrugged and finished eating the last of her cotton candy.

Next to them, the karaoke machine finished playing Shojo no Shukumei and moved on to the next song, about a girl whose eyes made the stars looked like they'd stopped shining.

Not too far away, a green one-piece clad, barefoot Takamachi Nanoha paused in her task of tossing water filled balloons at the 'dunk the clown in the tank' game. "Ah!" she sighed for the benefit of the ferret sitting on her shoulder. "Did you feel that, Yuuno-kun? I can't quite explain it, but it felt soooo nice...!"

The ferret made a few short noises that probably tried to convey he hadn't felt anything at all.


The English Research Society's Haunted House, a.k.a. Sayo's Secret Lovenest:

"Take... Take me back to the Joker's stage, please!" Fujiyoshi Harumi pleaded.

This was definitely the most terrifying thing she had ever seen, and from the current width of Abiru's only exposed eye, the H-mangaka could see her classmate thought the same. Before them, Kotaro-kun, Negi and his roommates sat the older girl's homeroom teacher, in an otherwise perfectly normal traditional Japanese room, smiling at them over a small table and a fragrant cup of just brewed tea. Tatami mats covered the floor, a teapot heated over a small hotplate, flower prints made up the walls and there was a vintage movie poster for the original Gojira.

"So you've been enjoying the house, have you?" Itoshiki Nozomu happily asked, his smile positively radiant and brightening the room in the middle of the otherwise dark and twisted manor. "That's just wonderful, youth should be greatly enjoyed after all. Isn't it great, this is such a sunny and warm day, with no rainclouds in the sky, attendance is sure to be very high! Heh heh, that's right, let's be positive about this! About everything, as a matter of fact! Konoemon-sensei was right, keeping a positive outlook on life is just what I needed all these years! I promise from now on I'll fill your lessons with nothing but hope and-"

"YAAAAHHHHHHH!" the scared-out-of-their-minds Abiru and Harumi bolted up to their feet and ran out the door, directly into the next room where they would find something safe and pleasant like a maniac armed with a chainsaw or broken bodies hanging from meat hooks.

Negi gulped nervously, then smiled shakily at his colleague. "W-Well, Itoshiki-sensei, congratulations! I must admit I had some doubts you could adapt to this role, but now I see you are a very gifted actor!"

"Oh?" Itoshiki now smiled at him, just as sweetly. "Negi-sensei, do you really think I'm acting? Heh heh, what a silly young man, just like your noble father. I have truly seen the light, I'll be this way forever and ever, and I'll make sure to bring the same happiness to all of Ala Alba...!"

Negi, Chamo, Chisame, Sakurako and Satomi stared at him in newfound primal horror, then quickly ran after the 3-F students, screaming their heads off.

As soon as they were gone, Itoshiki made a really miserable face as he rubbed the corners of his mouth, where a deep frown now replaced his happy-go-lucky smile. "Doing this thing, this how do you call it... it really hurts a lot, how can you youngsters keep doing this so often? Are you all masochistic?"

"A smile," Kotaro indifferently supplied while still sitting there sipping his tea. "So you've been taking notes from that Kafuka girl, haven't you?"

"Well," the depressed as ever teacher muttered, looking down at his sandaled feet, "I'm a perfectionist after all, if I had to perform here I wouldn't pick cues from anyone but the most fearsome creature I've ever met..."


Back at another dimension, timeline or whatever (The Nasuverse Is So Confusing!):

"Basically, this is what we have managed to gather from preliminary observation of this singularity," Romani Archaman lectured, giving the chosen away team for this mission their briefing before being deployed. "In addition to observing magical signatures matching all seven standard Classes, we have detected signals from Servants not fitting any of the known Classes, plus one Shielder, one Ruler, and a partial signature of what might be the remains of an Avenger."

The girl with the over-sized table shield blinked, surprised by the news. "But how can that be, Sensei? I thought the Shielder Class only came to be because of Chaldea's research? How can it exist in a world we haven't reached before?"

"Well," Da Vinci smiled, taking over the explanation, "the prior developers of Chaldea seem to have followed basic patterns that should fit most alternate dimensions across the shared continuum. As for the new Classes we have found, they seem to fit previously theoretical Class containers experimentally labeled as Vigilante, Destroyer, Trickster, Temptress and Monster."

"Oooo, Trickster!" chuckled a lean, colorful figure of buffoonish appearance standing at the back of the crowd of Servants designated to stay at the base for the Singularity's duration, unless emergency backup was needed. "I like the sound of that one. If I'm ever killed, please summon me again as one, Master," he requested of Ritsuko with a wide, playful smile that, as usual, greatly upset her off.

"Please be quiet, Mephistopheles," Dr. Roman frowned before taking back the explanation. "Anyway, this world's Grail seems to have remained dormant longer than usual, despite our preliminary readings showing all local Servants have been active for at least a couple of weeks by now. This is bad, as Da Vinci's first scans seem to point out to massive contamination in the Grail."

"Just like in Fuyuki?" Ritsuka asked.

"Yes, Master, indeed," Leonardo picked up the infodump baton once more. "But while that Grail was unleashed in a violent, explosive way, this one's been building up as its War remains stalled or stalemated for some reason."

"But," Ritsuko understood, "that only means the fallout will be even bigger when the Grail is finally summoned, doesn't it?"

"Very perceptive, Ritsuko-kun!" Roman smiled. "Yes, a Grail can't remain dormant indefinitely, especially one that has been corrupted by an outside force and hence possesses a mind of its own. Even if its intelligence were vestigial, it would still try to absorb all available Servants to extend its influence. Our current theory is, given the abundance of Servants in that world, the Grail wishes to bide its time. The more Servants it gathers around itself, the more power it will be able to absorb later."

"Heh," chuckled the bulky figure in horned armor standing by Ritsuka's left. "So of course you'll be sending more Servants its way!"

"It can't be helped," Leonardo smiled in a truly Gioconda way, "if we don't act soon, the Grand Caster will move on to take that sector with a Demon Pillar, and given it's a densely populated area with some of the biggest and fullest Leylines I've ever sensed, losing it would be a massive blow to our schedule. It's not like you plan to be consumed either way, do you, Mordred?"

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous!" the armored being's voice boomed as they slammed the tip of their correupted but still beautiful, silver and red sword on the shiny floor of the platform, sending small tremors everywhere. "It'll soon find out the heir of Camelot is impossible to digest! So what are we waiting for, Master?" they demanded of Ritsuka. "Why aren't we there already? I can feel as if that world were calling to me as we speak!"

At the Festival grounds, Saber again shuddered in disgust. "Why won't this sensation fade away, no matter what..." she mumbled to herself.

"Well, now I'm interested," quietly said a taciturn mature man with tanned skin and white hair, most of his body concealed in form fitting black and red armor. "I wish to go after that Grail, too."

"Sorry, Assassin," the Doctor said, "but the field team for this Singularity has already been chosen. Ritsuka-kun, you will be the on-point Master this time..."

"Aw, geez," Ritsuko made a face.

"You're still grounded, Ritsuko-kun," Roman said sternly. "Thirty days or until there's none of that pancake left, whichever comes last."

"Are you trying to ruin my figure?" Ritsuko wailed. "It's 'INFINITE PANCAKE' for a reason, Sensei!"

"No excuses," was the merciless reply. "You let Medea-chan cook it, you have to finish it."

Her brother nodded at Roman. "I'll do my best, Sensei!"

Leonardo nodded, tapping on her e-notepad with a pen as the faces of several Servants showed in the large screens set around the chamber while she named them. "For support, Mashu, Karna, Kiyohime, Diarmuid, Anne and Mary, Fionn, Mordred, Teach, Tamamo-san, Beowulf, Scathach, Sasaki and Marie Antoinette will act as your designated Servants..."

"A most wonderful decision!" eagerly approved the beautiful, blue haired Kiyohime, bringing her hands together as her large eyes shone splendidly. "I couldn't ask for a better group of followers to cheer for my union with Anchin-sama while in an exotic location! Well, other than the bearded bum. Unless the intent is to drop him there, in that case I shall gladly do it for you, Professor."

"Hey, what kinda way of treating a fair playing crewmate is that?!" loudly protested the foul-smelling fellow with the thick, unruly black beard. "I was actually rooting for you and the Master, yanno!"

"W-Well," Mashu, the Shielder, uneasily said then, "as long as we're with Karna and Miss Scathach, all enemies we find should pose no actual threat, I suppose..."

From the sidelines, the Phantom of the Opera chose that moment to play a few loud chords of truly ominous, haunting music.

Mordred glared at the masked fiend and the gigantic organ he sat at. "Why do you keep bringing that huge stupid thing to Leyshift meetings anyway?"

The shapely, tall Lancer in the body hugging dark purple outfit, Scathach the Witch, smiled enigmatically at Shielder's words. "While I am flattered you would think so highly of me child, I hope we find adversaries up to the task of threatening our lives despite my and Karna's presence. Otherwise, what would be the point of that whole incursion?"

"Um, saving all of existence?" Ritsuka blandly pointed out.

The Phantom played the same despairing cue once again.

"Will you stop doing that before I force-feed you that organ, you melodramatic drama queen?!" Mordred threatened him.

Scathach almost chuckled softly while absently tugging some of her very long hair back. "I suppose there's always that, Master. But, even leaving that aside... I do feel like there's something calling me to that battlefield, regardless. For some reason, my heart can't help but feeling some measure of pleasing anticipation at the prospect of heading into this 'Mahora'."

At the Festival grounds, Lancer again shuddered in unusual dread. "Why won't this sensation fade away, no matter what...?" he mumbled to himself. Therefore, he was not watching where he was going and got stepped on by the animatronic T-rex.


Mahora:

One Yamazaki Takashi, in a light summer ensemble of thin white shirt, short shorts and a Little Fauntleroy hat, and one Mihara Chiharu, in a simple dark blue one piece and sandals, stopped by a tank themed food stand from CLAMP Gakuen. It was, on closer inspection, literally a real tank they had brought in, around which they had set several small tables and a kitchenette. It wasn't unusual for visitors from other schools to set up stands at a Mahorafest as a way to further fund their clubs for the remainder of the school year. After all, it's what all the Mahora clubs did. Mind you, the Social Economics Club and the Merchants Guild Club all protested these stands by 'scab students' and had been trying for years to get them banned, but since the administration got the rent money either way, it had not yet borne fruit.

Mahora students often were curious about the meals and customs of other academies, so that tactic worked more often than not, and Chiharu was no exception. She really wished she could have studied at CLAMP, and you even could say she had always felt like a CLAMP character...

"Welcome!" happily greeted the pretty girl, only a few years older than the junior students, sitting behind the makeshift counter desk set by the tank. She had short brown hair, a slim and short build, and wore camouflage-printed shorts, bikini top, and a cap she had put on backwards. "I'm Akiyama Yukari, may I take your order?"

"Um, yeah, good morning," Chiharu gave her a quick nod. "What's on your menu, Sempai?"

"Well, there's egg and bacon," Yukari answered. "Uhh, egg, sausage, and bacon. Egg and spam. Egg, bacon and spam. Egg, bacon, sausage and spam."

"Okay, I got it," Chiharu flinched a little. "Spam, alright..."

"Of course!" the older girl said. "Spam is an important part of military food, or battle food. It's always to be found during military operations. Spam, bacon, sausage and spam!"

Chiharu sweatdropped. "It's not like we are in a military operation, though..."

"The spam, egg and spam combo is like luncheon meat!" Yukari explained. "Nutritious and delivious rations for energetic days like these! Spam, spam and baked beans, too!"

"Oh!" Yamazaki brightened. "You mean, like the luncheon meat in Okinawa cuisine, with bitter gourd and tofu? And there's luncheon meat sushi, too!"

Yukari nodded, laughing. "Luncheon meat sushi and eggs and spam!"

Several girls from the other divisions of the CLAMP Tankery Teams, who stood around taking orders and serving tables while in colorful bikinis (and in one case, wearing a full diving suit), quickly fell into a straight line and sing-sang, smiling widely, "Eggs and bacon and spam! Eggs and bacon and sausage and spam!"

Yamazaki brought his hands together, singing along. "Spam, spam, spam and spam! Or lobster Thermidor, aux crevettes with Mornay sauce!"

The bikini girls nodded and added, "Garnished with truffle pate, brandy, and a fried egg on top! And spam!"

"We aren't of legal age to drink!" Chiharu protested. "Have you got anything without spam in it?"

"Well, the spam, egg, sausage and spam special doesn't have much spam in it," Yukari offered.

"Why can't we have egg, bacon, spam and sausage?" Yamazaki asked Chiharu.

"Because that's got spam in it!" she replied. "Look, couldn't we have egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam?"

Yukari and her girls made a face. "Ewww...!"

"Whaddya mean by 'Ewww'?!" Chiharu cried. "I don't like spam!"

"Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam!" loudly sang a nearby large table of Viking cosplayers, raising their jars of root beer. With spam. "Spam! Spam! Spam!"

"Shut up! That's annoying!" Chiharu shouted.

"LOVELY SPAM! WONDERFUL SPAM!"

Insert random brief footage of a sailing Viking ship in black and white here.

"LOVELY SPAM! WONDERFUL SPAM!"

"Okay, everyone, that'll be enough!" Yukari said, slamming a huge spoon on her desk a few times to impose herself. "Miss, you can't have egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam! Then it wouldn't be egg, bacon, spam and sausage, would it?"

"Why not? I hate spam!" Chiharu screeched.

"LOVELY SPAM! WONDERFUL SPAM!"

"Oh, don't make a fuss, Chiharu-chan," smiled Yamazaki. "I'll have your spam. I love it! I love spam, spam, spam, spam, spam! And baked beans!"

"Baked beans are forbidden!" Chiharu made an expression of disgust.

"Well, may I have some spam then?"

"LOVELY SPAM! WONDERFUL SPAM!"

A red-haired, clearly foreign older boy walked in, wearing swimming trunks and an open jacket. He was carefully reading through an open booklet on Quick Learning Japanese, standing before Yukari and asking her with a stilted All-American accent, "Oh, hello great boobies, Honey Bun-chan-desu. My lower intestine is full of spam, egg, spam, bacon..."

Reizei Mako's head lazily peeked out of the tank. "We've just wasted valuable moments of your life making you read through a gratuitous Monty Python pastiche of a gratuitous Girls und Panzer pastiche of a Monty Python joke," she dryly told the audience. "We now implore for your forgiveness."

"Who are you even talking to?!" Chiharu screamed. "Stop the silliness! There's too much silliness!"


Chaldea:

"Okay, preparations complete!" Doctor Roman shouted. "Systems, all green! So, let's go! Just like usual, I'm relying on you guys! Leyshift, begin!"

That was, naturally, the exact second things chose to go pot.

"... okay, so much for all that hotblooded enthusiasm," Ritsuko calmly commented as all sorts of alarms began flaring and howling all over the chamber. "Maybe I should go on a diet after all, too much pancake can't be good for me…"

Mozart gasped. "Her Majesty! Someone do something for Her Majesty!"

Mephistopheles cocked his head aside quite unnaturally. "Oohhhh, does this mean more work for us from here on...?"

"Fou fou fou, fou kyu..." opined the small, adorable and white fluffy quadrupedal sitting on the floor next to Ritsuko's feet.

"No need for such foul language," Mephistopheles grinned.

"Everyone stay calm," Da Vinci instructed while frantically reading from one screen to another, fingers racing over one keyboard and then the next. "This is nothing but a minor access inconvenience, isn't that right, Doct-"

"AAGGH!" Roman took both hands to his head. "Trouble just like usual again!? This is bad! Just as usual! Why do we never learn?-! We're all the pinacle of heroism, learning and human experience, why do we all act like the crew of the Enterprise on a particularly moronically-written episode?"

"Where's all that optimism from five seconds ago now?!" Ritsuko protested.

"Shut up and eat your pancake!"

Nero quietly waved at the fox-tailed silhouette of Tamamo-No-Mae, frozen in place in the flash of the Leyshift, just like those of everyone else with her. "Goodbye forever, Goddess. You were, for all intents, the sole worthy rival for someone of my stature..."

"Good riddance, yeah, I can agree there," muttered the Lancer Elizabeth Bathory. She had never forgiven Tamamo for that time the fox had stuffed her in a maid outfit.

"Doctor, just react already!" Da Vinci urged. "This is no time for panic!"

"But rejoice!" Bathory added. "The stage is clear at last for the true star of this show!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Roman said, getting to work while ignoring the young Countess' off-place remarks. "But these are no mere off-tracked readings! This is literally a black hole! There was a black hole just before the destination of the regular Leyshift! I can't shift the Leyshift track back by mere regulators!"

"C-Can they be brought back, or not?!" Ritsuko asked, grow quite worried now.

"No! But I think we can reroute them successfully!" Da Vinci said, adding pressure to the transdimensional jump. "Yes! That's it! Jump! Jump, Romani!"

"I'll bet that's what you tell him every night after work hours," the pink haired Queen Medb commented.

"It is, but that's none of your business!" Leonardo said, then addressed one of the remaining human operators after Professor Lev's massacre at the start of this ongoing crisis. "Opeko-chan, shoot an anchor, quickly! We need to at least get a grasp of their position! You've already shot it? NICE! Um...!"

"What... What's that 'um' supposed to mean?" Ritsuko frowned.

Da Vinci sighed as the signals went back to acceptable parameters. "The good news are they pulled through and the Leyshift was completed. Apparently, there was some sort of additional interdimensional incursion going on at the same time, which threw our own attempt off balance. The bad news is... well, the party's bio-magi signatures were detected as being scattered in opposite directions."

"So everyone just went flying their own ways and will land separate from each other, huh," Ritsuko summed up. "Again. Well, that's not too bad, it's standard protocol for most 'party of wacky heroes gets plunged into alternate world' tales. They'll get into trouble anyway, maybe it's better if they start a chain of small incidents rather than a single huge one. Heck, it's happened enough that we really should invest in better GPS and maybe walky-talkies for everyone."

Again, the Phantom of the Opera played the haunting foreboding music on his organ, louder than ever before.

Since her son (she was learning to support his non-cishet self-image, even if the terminology still made no fucking sense to her) wasn't around anymore to do the honors, the Santa Rider Artoria Pendragon Alter did her part for the family and wordlesly slammed her titanic bag of presents on the Phantom's head.


The road to Mahora. In more than one sense:

"I told you guys we should've taken the train," the short-haired Fujimi Chihiro mumbled, fanning herself with a hand as the Nekomi Motor Club's van made its way along one of many side ways and byways leading towards the massive tree and academic complex in the distance.

"But, Chief!" loudly whined the mountain of a man behind the wheel, one Tamiya Toraichi, in a white muscle shirt and blue jeans. "We're Motor Enthusiasts Supreme, how cud we'd show up dere not drivin' our own wheels?!"

"Well, then I should've been the one driving, not you!" the much smaller young woman angrily snapped at him, making Tamiya and the not-that-shorter college student sitting at his side, the mohawk-sporting, leather clad Ootaki Hikozaemon, cringe in complete fear. "You've still got no sense of direction at all, Tamiya! It took you hours, bringing us to a place with THAT big a landmark!" she accused, pointing through the windshield and to the World Tree's mass, which was still mostly behind a hill.

"But, but I wuz the designated driver f'r dis week, remembuh..." the musclebound giant mousily apologized, almost shrinking under her glare. "Yuh had said yuh wanted ta take a break t'day, Boss...!"

Chihiro sighed, leaning back on her back seat, and rubbing her forehead with two fingers. "I know, I know, but if I'd known you'd do this bad a job at this, I'd have done it myself... Geez, let's just stop so I can take the wheel already, Megumi-chan must be eager to get there already..."

"Nah, I'm okay, don't bother," smiled the even younger junior student sitting at her right, happily stuffing her mouth with Pocky sticks while enjoying the view of the Mahora fields. She had short, chocolate brown hair and was wearing a lime green bikini under her open jacket and shorts. "'S alright, not like Keiichi will be waiting for my arrival with open arms..."

Tamiya narrowed his already small and beady eyes, squinting at the road ahead. "Wuzzat, a flash...?"

"Watch out, man," Ootaki reached over to tug on his shoulder, "I've heard 'bout junk like this punk robbers like to do. They blind drivers on the highway, get 'em to stop and then, blam! Bad shit! Whatever you do, don't- Stop, man! Stop, for the love of God!" he suddenly added, steam blowing out of his ears as his mouth grew positively huge.

Tamiya, those tiny dark eyes suddenly growing as wide as they'd ever get, nodded eagerly. "No need ta tell me, man! Dat ass' worth any risks...!"

Chihiro frowned as she leaned ahead to look over their broad shoulders. "What? What's that, you idiots? As your Club President, I've got to know... Oh, wow." She smiled all of a sudden. "How cute...!"

"Something that's both sexy and cute?" Morisato Megumi asked, curious, finally bothering to take a look as well while the vehicle screeched to a halt. "Don't tell me Net Idol Chiu's doing hitchhiking now... Oh, whoa, nice," she ended up smiling.

Two mismatched figures were rising from the pavement and dusting themselves off, attracting the attentions of all four people in the van. One of them was a tall, buxom and long legged blonde beauty, clearly a foreigner, in skimpy red and black pirate cosplay, her large round breasts almost popping out of her wide cleavage. The other was much shorter, a pale, silver haired little girl in a very concealing, mostly black with some red along the sleeves, outfit that, thanks to her collar, even hid the lower half of her face.

They looked at their surroundings, then at the van and the people coming out of it, and then at each other.

"Well," the shorter of the duo said, "the Doc's done it again."

"No doubt about that," the tall woman nodded. "I just hope Master's okay. Should we steal their car, Mary?"

The little girl pondered it as the big men whose expressions were already reminding her of Blackbeard's approached them quickly. Her wish to just gut them on general principle for reminding her of Blackbeard won at first, but then was swiftly overruled by another concern. "No," she quietly shook her head. "I guess Master wouldn't like that..."

"Huh, the sooner he embraces the lifestyle, the better," the blonde said, putting on a friendly smile while waving at the newcomers. "Hello!" she greeted them. "Good to see you, I think we're lost! We're looking for a boy-!"

"Well, this your lucky day then, Ma'am!" grinned Tamiya, swiftly walking past the annoyed Mary as if she were invisible, and almost getting himself on her partner's face, much to her subdued annoyance. "You won't find no boy here, but a man, an' what a man, an' dat's much better...!"

"TA-MI-YA!" Chihiro growled, reaching over to grab him by an ear and easily pull his rock hard body back, her other arm already doing the same with the barely any less eager Ootaki. "Be a gentleman, will you?! And you, Hikozaemon, you've got a girlfriend back at home, remember?!"

"I'm just being friendly, dat's all, Chief!" Ootaki protested while Megumi chuckled, standing slightly behind.

Chihiro pushed them back, smiling before reaching down to pat Mary's head. "Please excuse Tamiya and Ootaki, they're both brain-damaged. You got lost on your way to Mahora, huh? Going to score some wicked prizes at those contests, no doubt!"

"Yes. We are always going for the big wicked score," Mary nodded. "I'm Mary, and this is my mate Anne. Where are you going?"

"Well, to Mahora, of course!" Chihiro said. "We're going to visit two friends who moved there recently. One of them is the brother to Megumi-chan here," she gestured towards the Morisato girl, who smiled at the two girls and waved at them. Once again, Ann waved at her as well. "But, what happened to your ride? Why are you all alone at the middle of nowhere?"

"You could say we were kicked out of our ride here," Anne supplied. "We've got some very incompetent and downright unfriendly crew mates, I guess!"

"Huh, yeah, I know the feeling, Sis," Chihiro nodded. "Well, no prob, then! We can't possibly leave a cute little girl and her big sister all alone on the highway, so why don'tcha come with us? There's still a lotta room in the van!"

"Oh, that's so kind from you," Anne politely enough nodded while Mary said or did nothing. "Good to see those roads aren't filled only with hijackers and thieves, but also with trustworthy nice people!"

After all, competition was bad, but an abundance of suckers was always a good thing.

And so the Servant(s) Rider, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, found their ride to Mahora Academy in this strange new world. But, what about...?


"There's not much to steal here," estimated Edward Teach, the Rider Blackbeard, lazily scratching his cheek.

After appearing in a bang of light in the middle of a huge sealed chamber that actually was quite reminiscent of several of Chaldea's rooms, they had snooped around quickly only to realize there was nothing there but the many lines and lines of mechanical men stashed along the shiny walls, all of them standing perfectly straight with complete non-expressions on their faces.

"No, seriously? Thanks for telling me, I'd never have noticed otherwise," huffed Kiyohime, all of her graceful, ladylike charm completely gone while alone with the unpleasant male Servant. She eyed the whole lineup of artificial men, standing in silence like mannequins, suspiciously, finding them to be almost as repulsive, such a far cry from her Anchin-sama's appeal. They all were identically tall and muscular, dressed in black shirts and pants, with their eyes covered by shades, and their synthetic hair kept stylized spiked and blond. "What kind of homunculi are these anyway? Part of a plan from Solomon's forces, perhaps?"

"Who knows?" Rider shrugged, reaching into the pockets of one of the metal men and failing to find anything inside. "Damn, not even a miserable coin! This place's a bust, let's just get out and look for the Master..."

"Finally, you speak with some sense," Kiyohime said, nervously covering her small mouth with a demure fan. "I'm so worried about Anchin-sama, if he were okay, he'd have summoned me to his side already...!"

"Eh, odds are he's just unconscious, you know he gets knocked out every time a breeze hits him the wrong way," the pirate said. "We'd be disappearing right now if he were dead, wouldn't we? So why don't we just-"

Finally, the alarms of the chambers picked up on the presence of transdimensional Servants (and in Chao's defense it must be said she'd never had the chance to perform detailed studies on Servants before. She was a mage after all, not a magus!) and began blaring in earnest, bathing the whole room in red and blue lights as a Chinese accented voice kept on shouting "ARELT! INTLUDELS! ARELT! INTLUDELS! ARELT!"

"EEEEEEEE!" Kiyohime shrieked.

"Well, shit!" Blackbeard cursed, pulling his ancient, rusty flintlocks out. "Get ready, Princess! The heat of battle is upon us again! Come forth, scurvy dogs! The King of Pirates waits for your deaths with open arms!"

One of the robots, the one right before Blackbeard, moved at last, seeming to look down at him, for while Teach was tall, the artificial man was even bigger and more imposing in appearance. "Well?" Teach challenged, gesturing with his guns. "At least you moved unlike your brothers, boy, but aren't you doing anything beyond that? Come on, you sissy! Give me something before I send you to your-"

The robot opened his unusually wide mouth, shot a massive blast out of it, and vaporized all of the clothes off Blackbeard while Kiyohime screamed again.

Teach blinked, looked down at himself for a moment, and then only scoffed at the robot. "So what? Do you think having my sausage exposed Is gonna even slow me down, son? Thank you, it was kinda hot in here anyway! Now what if you stop being so-"

Much to his surprise, he was not further attacked from the front but from behind, as the Berserker bashed him on the head with her fan, which cracked with a deafening toll as Blackbeard's eyes bugged out. "COVER YOURSELF, DAMN YOU! MY EYES ARE FOR ANCHIN-SAMA'S NUDITY ONLY! AH! MY MAD ENHANCEMENT IS RISING! IT'S RISING!"

"Owie owie owie, boo-hoo...!" the pirate sobbed, collapsing to his knees while holding his bleeding scalp. As he did, he rematerialized his clothes around his body, Kiyohime still seething furiously. "You gotta some real bad set of priorities, Princess! Well, never mind," he regained his crooked grin, leaping back to his feet to train both guns on the scowling mockup man. "Time to send this piece of scrap to the junkyard! Maybe Edison will pay something for him, heh heh..."

"Units 002 to 137, activate," the Chinese voice said then, as several other robots, dozens of them, stirred to life as well, surrounding the two Servants from all directions threateningly. "Units 002 to 137, activate, you are to contain the enemy until the Master's arrival..."

Kiyohime sweated nervously as the robots began all opening their mouths, aiming them at the duo. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh no, this can't possibly be..."

"Feh!" Blackbeard spat. "Do your worst, nancy-men! Do you think we're any scared of your little silly trick..."

"KYAAAAAA!" Kiyohime screamed as several dozens of stripping beams converged on them from every side. "MAD ENHANCEMENT!"

A few moments later, the chamber's door was blown from the inside, and off ran the naked Kiyohime, doing her best to shield her privates with a hand as the other dragged the just as nude Blackbeard along by the shaggy hair, as if he weighed nothing. "C'mon, let's be reasonable here, Lady!" the pirate shouted, still shooting at the army pursuing them down the long corridors he was being pulled into. "We're Servants, mankind's best and strongest! If we just stay and fight, in no time we'll be done with them and you'll just dress up agai-"

"No, no, no, anything but this!" Kiyohime wailed while leading the frantic escape. "I can take any other sort of enemy, I don't mind being killed in battle for Anchin-sama, but I won't be disgraced like this anymore...! Anchin-sama, please please forgive me...! Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama…!"


In another chamber, several stories higher and closer to the surface, Soryu Asuka Langley snapped as soon as she heard the news. "You're saying who's WHERE?!"

Horaki Hikari, who currently was dressed as a bridge bunny for some sort of secretive military organization that employed unethical child labor flinched as she pointed at her screen, which was showing live footage from the events currently transpiring below. "Um, I'm not sure myself, Asuka, but the fact is, there's SOMEONE in there... How they broke through all of the defenses, I have no idea, but they're on the run from the Tanaka Squad..."

"A hobo and some whore in cosplay?!" Asuka gasped, staring at the images while Suzuhara Touji and Aida Kensuke also leaned closer to get a view. "Damn, how could this happen, Chao told me this place was virtually unbreakable! Okay, Hikari, start the lockdown and call on Chao! These bastards might have slipped under our noses, but they won't escape alive..."

Right then, however, they simply blinked out of sight.

"... they went invisible?" Asuka's eyes became diminutive.

"We aren't getting any heat or heartbeat readings from them either," Hikari said, taking further lectures from the security controls. She had been a very quick student and had gotten the grasp of the system shortly after Asuka started educating her on them. "I think they just, I don't know..."

"They teleported away?!" Kensuke excitedly smiled, his glasses glinting. "Alright, that's the coolest! There's not a boring day here, guys, this place's just the greatest!"

"You idiot, don't act so thrilled!" Asuka yelled at him. "Don't you realize this is a serious matter? We've just had a major security breach here! And right at the worst moment, too!"

Touji sighed. "The biggest mystery here is, you know, what a guy like that was doing with a babe that hot? Does he have her kidnapped or sumthin'?"

"It looked the other way around instead, if you ask me," Kensuke offered.

"No one did," Asuka grouched, then looked back and forth between the confused Hikari and the pondering Touji, in a bitterly sulking way. "And some girls just have tastes that crappy, after all..."


"Where are we, I wonder?" Sasaki Kojiro, the elegant Assassin from the East and legendary savior of France wondered aloud as he and the petite and adorable Marie Antoinette, the All French Rider, walked around the large, quiet house they had materialized at.

"I don't know, but it's certainly a very comfortable home," the short-female who looked like she was wearing a wedding cake smiled, eyeing each room they passed with heartfelt warmth. "It's a place where you can feel the love between its inhabitants, the unmistakable bonds of family..."

"And it's also a traditional Japanese home," Kojiro approved, taking a glance of a training hall, with even a pair of boken hanging from a wall. "I like its atmosphere, and it must mean we haven't strayed too much from the path intended for us. Da Vinci-dono mentioned this 'Mahora' was a Japanese city, although I don't remember it from my time..."

"Oh! Monsieur, look!" Marie said, stopping by a framed picture of a man posing before the house with a small, red-haired, mostly inexpressive boy. "Doesn't this gentleman remind you of someone?"

Assassin looked at the picture carefully before providing his answer. "He strikes a fair resemblance to the Assassin from Fuyuki, indeed. Do you believe, Your Majesty...?"

"Well, it could be said there are no coincidences, and Madame Leonardo said this Mahora was close to Fuyuki City," the Queen reasoned. "Who can say which path Assassin's life took in this world? Oh!" Seeing a shelf with a few books just past another door, she quickly ran there, selected one of them, eagerly read through it, and finally put it down with a small sigh. "Then again, some things remain constant, apparently. C'est la vie."

Assassin took a discreet look at the tome, which was one on World History (which Shirou had brought in desperation in an attempt to decode the increasingly trollish hints about Saber's identity), and guessed Rider had just looked up information about her own self from this world. "It can't be helped, Your Majesty," he politely told her, looking out through a window, and seeing the lively campus in the distance. "Please don't distract yourself with such thoughts and let us search for the Master and the rest instead. If I had to guess, I would say there are some festivities happening across this city as we speak. In that environment, most of our companions are sure to stand out, so finding them should be no difficult task..."

Marie took a look as well, her face brightening with another smile. "Oh, how perfectly lovable! A Carnival! It's been such a long time. If only all Singularities could be as pleasant as this...!"

Kojiro, being a highly respectful man for the most part, restrained himself from pointing out that would have earned a fitting ominous cue from the Phantom right then and there...


Somewhere else, Diarmuid, as per standard procedure, put a bag over his head., looking out through two crudely made eyeholes. His body was still covered by lipstick marks from women he'd barely escaped, and all things considered he looked ridiculous, but after seeing someone walk by wearing armor made of cardboard boxes with the ensign 'Gundam' written on the front, he felt he would likely fit right in.

Really, the women of this Singularity! Had they no shame? Surely he was the most unfortunate person here, for his cursed love-mark to cause him such terrible suffering in this place!

Meanwhile, Negi sneezed.


The Haunted House:

"The legend of La Llorona, or 'The Crying Woman'," Sakurako explained as she led them into the next room, Negi rubbing his nose and Abiru re-adjusting her bikini top on, "is one well spread among almost all Latin American countries, from Mexico to Argentina (except for the Philippines, where it never really caught on). It has a lot of variants from one country from another, but generally, it tells the story of a woman of native heritage who, after being abandoned by her usually Spanish lover, took the lives of their own children in an attempt to take revenge. Afterwards, she was cursed to roam the fields and plains constantly calling for her lost children."

"Wow," Harumi said. "She really didn't get how revenged worked, did it? What kind of cray woman thinks killing your own kids will be a good revenge on your no-good ditching husband?"

Somewhere in Mahora, Medea sneezed.

"¿Donde? ¿Donde estaran mis hijos...?" moaned a haunting voice from the darkness of the room.

"See? That's Spanish for 'Where? Where are my children?'" Sakurako said. "La Llorona usually appears before carefree men hanging out in the open and parting ways from their families, seducing them into coming with them, before revealing herself as a hideous specter shouting for her lost children..."

"And memory problems too," Harumi tsked. "Is there any mention of how drunk she was when she made this plan? Because her being a violent drunk would actually explain a lot…"

Two strong arms reached out of the shadows and firmly took hold of Negi, pulling him towards the tall, eerie figure of Roberta Cisneros, Ayaka's closest and strongest maid, clad in a long white robe, her long black hair loose and her face completely caked in thick, chalk white greasepaint. "¿Dooooonde estaraaaaaaaaan mis hiiiiijoooooooos?!"

"Wheeeere aaaaaaare my chiiiiiildreeeeeeeen?!" Sakurako translated again, all business-like, while Roberta held the blinking Negi against herself, his head tightly nested between her substantial, robust breasts.

"¿... Se me antoja una galleta?" Negi meekly said, before Roberta let him go and the party kept on marching, Harumi, Kotaro and Abiru not even flinching as Sakurako ushered them towards the next room.

"Now, in the next blood curling display, we will face the Jersey Devil itself, who definitely is not one of my cats in an elaborate devil costume, nya..."

"Who was that woman, by the way?" Harumi asked Shiina as they left the room behind.

"Oh, one of Iinchou's maids who graciously agreed to help us, that's all..." Negi explained.

"No, Sensei, you're doing it all wrong, you're breaking the illusion!" the cheerleader protested. "That's La Llorona herself, directly from the depths of El Infierno, nya! I mean, miau!"

"She's not very scary one way or another..." Abiru commented.

"Oh, try saying anything bad about Iinchou in her presence and you'll know true terror at its worst, trust me..." Chisame said.

Roberta huffed to herself while they disappeared deeper into the house, then flicked a hand, a small handgun popping out of her sleeve and aiming at a certain patch of darkness. "What are you doing here?" she curtly asked.

The rough, manly voice answered immediately, even though the man himself had not stepped into sight yet. "That's only a .22. It won't do anything against my body armor."

"It's been improved upon by the Zaibatsu. It would shock you to learn how many layers it can shoot through now," Roberta icily said. "Now don't give me any reasons to teach you and tell me, why are you snooping around them now?"

"They might be in danger," the Batman's voice said.

"From whom?" Roberta growled.

"The Joker's still on the loose, last time he was seen with Sakurazaki's sworn nemesis, and this festival offers exactly the kind of venue he would crave above all others," the Bat explained. "What else do you need?"

Roberta's scowl only grew. "What makes you so sure he'll come here? It'd be like walking into a huge trap. Nobody can hope to wander here, harm the students and teachers, and leave alive. Even Amagasaki had to wait until Konoe left the school's perimeter."

"The Joker is both good enough at what he does to have a chance at it... and crazy enough to not care if he can't succeed," the grave voice warned. "Either way, would you gamble your charge's life on that?"

"Never," Roberta's reply came with no hesitation. "But why would he come here instead of going back to your city? It's you he's obsessed with."

"I don't know," he admitted, "but it's been almost a full month now and he hasn't returned to Gotham yet. Joker's anything but patient, if he wanted to aim for a rematch with me, he'd have gone back already. Whatever brought him to Japan in the first place, he's still wrapped up in it, and odds are it involves Professor Springfield, Rosario."

"Never call me that," she sneered, still not lowering the small gun. "And honestly, that boy... when will he stop bringing problems to La Señorita? You came alone?"

"As a matter of fact... no, this time, I didn't."

"You didn't bring the masked dog this time around, did you?"

"No."

"The obnoxious floating midget, then?"

"I told you then, he isn't with me, I don't control when he comes and goes... but I really hope he skips this one, last thing we need at all is his presence here..."

"Please tell me you didn't bring your son!"

"He's not my son. Why does everyone keep assuming he's my son? It's weird."

"It would be weirder if he wasn't your son."


Meanwhile, in the 'Jersey Devil' exhibit:

"Come on Blair, let me be the Jersey Devil this time!" a busty cat-woman (not catgirl. Definitely not a catgirl) whined at one of her compatriots.

"Nope, it's still my turn," Blair said, sitting in place and smirking.

"Damn it! I'm the actress here, I'd be better at this than you!"

"You pretended to be a dog. That's not acting, that''s getting drunk."

"Yoruichi!" Felicia whined. "Make her switch with me!"

Yoruichi looked up from her copy of 'Shapeshifting Cat-Women Monthly'. "Leave me out of this, I just operate the special effects for this room."


"Be my briiiiiiide! Be my bride, will you, nyaaaaaa!" the gigantic, overly amorous, fat cat that floated in the middle of the next room eagerly requested, trying to wrap a large paw around Sakurako's waist while attempting to force a golden bell on a collar on her neck at the same time. "My sweet little kitten...!"

"... basically, this is something Haruna brought from her old neighborhood in Nerima," Chisame dryly explained while Satomi and Negi bravely tried their best to pry the ectoplasmatic, obese feline away from the shrieking, punching and kicking cheerleader.

"Huh," Harumi huffed, with her arms folded. "Funny, she never told me they had any makers of hyper-realistic holograms there. The way she describes it, it's always sounded to me like that place's eternally stuck in the eighties, and possibly from a Mad Max movie set in China..."

Kotaro muttered something, turned away from the situation with his arms crossed behind his neck, twitching uneasily. The combined impulses of leaping over to save a girl and leaping over to attack a big cat were overwhelming indeed, but he'd promised his mother he wouldn't reveal himself unless absolutely necessary, and there was no impulse that was greater to him than a promise to that woman.

The threat of the Maomolin wasn't finished until Abiru sneaked behind him and somehow managed to take a firm hold on his long white tail to start tugging on it mercilessly, much to her pleasure.

It was there he would learn at last that yes, there were heights of insanity that were even greater than those found in Nerima, and that it's not always good when a pretty girl shows an intense interest in you...


"Geez, this planet sure is hot," Nana complained while fanning herself with one hand as she, Momo, Lala, Rito and Mikan walked through the Commercial District of the Festival. Nana wore a functional blue one piece, while Momo was clad in a bikini that mostly seemed made of elaborate frills strung together around her breasts, crotch and hips. Lala was in a very daring dark green bikini, Mikan in the same summer clothes she had been wearing for breakfast, and Rito in blue swimming trunks and old, worn down sneakers. The kind you don't mind if they're gone in a clothes destroying accident, you know.

"And now you see why I always walk around naked," Lala nodded sagely, making quite a few heads in the passing crowds turn around so quickly you could almost hear their necks snapping.

"That's no excuse, you always did that at home too," Nana muttered. In all truth, public nudity was not a huge taboo in Deviluke, but Nana was kind of a prude by her species' standards. "Is it like this all year long here?"

"No, the winter months are a bit colder. The weather used to be overall gentler before the Second Impact from what Dad's told us," Mikan said, occasionally taking longing looks at the items on display for sale, then discouraging Rito with a hand gesture as soon as he looked at them as well. "But, Nana-san, isn't your, ah, country far harsher in temperature than Japan? From what Lala told us, I thought it had a very rough climate..."

Momo giggled coquettishly. "Oh, Lala gets overheated too easily, that's all! Again, that's why she always prefers wearing as little as possible!"

"I have cooling functions attached," Peke sighed from where she sat on Lala's head, keeping her quirky voice low enough she wouldn't call out too much attention from the bystanders, "but Lala-sama usually says they don't feel right..."

"You either overdo it or don't do enough, Peke, sorry," Lala sighed, absently tugging on the shoulder straps of her top. "Ritoooooo, why don't we stop by to get a drink or twooooo? I would like that...!"

"Um, sure, why not?" Rito asked, reaching for the wallet in one of the pockets Mikan had sewn into his trunks. "I'm a bit thirsty too, I'll pay for everyone..."

"Well, then I'll ask for three drinks for myself!" Nana smirked, showing her sharp little fangs out.

Momo laughed at her. "That's good, as long as you ask for ice cold milkshakes! You still need a lot of milk in your daily diet, Nana!"

Nana's eyebrows twitched as she watched her twin's breasts bounce ever so slightly with her laugh. "Sometimes you're just the worst, Momo..."

"Now, now, it's a happy pleasant day, keep it that way, will you?" Rito asked as they moved towards a small food and drink stall, blinking when realizing there were others there he recognized. "Oh, good morning... Nagase-san, right? And you're also Haruna-chan's classmates, huh..."

"Oh, Yuuki-dono, how are you. Lala-hime-sama, Mikan-dono, too," Nagase Kaede, in a black one piece with a deep low cleavage cut, detached collar, necktie and detached cuffs, turned her head to look at them with her always closed eyes. "Look, Fumika-dono, Fuuka-dono, it's Haruna-dono's honorable boyfriend!"

Two nearly identical pink topped heads, different only because of their hairstyles, rose from the ice-cream cones they had been feasting on.

"Oh!" the one with small buns on her head said. "Good morning, everyone!"

"Lala-sempai!" the one with short twintails waved happily. "Come on, come on, sit around here, there are still a few... Oh," she stopped, her gaze and Fumika's meeting those of Nana and Momo. "Why, he-llooooo, I don't think we've been introduced...?"

"What? There are more of them?" asked another voice, making Rito take a look at the boy sitting at Kaede's other side, opposite the Narutaki twins. He was on the tall side, blond and with blue eyes, his torso bare and his lower half in Bermuda shorts, feet bare. On each cheek he had some strange markings that looked like animal whiskers, or perhaps symmetrical scratches. His obnoxious tone had Rito pegging him as an American tourist at first.

"Naruto," came the short, tense preemptive warning on a pink haired girl in a dark red bikini sitting next to the shy-looking, blue-haired pale beauty in a purple one piece and open jacket sitting by the older boy's other side. "Don't say it like that, as if there were anything wrong with that!" She then smiled for Rito's party. "How do you do, I'm Haruno Sakura, a sempai of Kaede-chan from her old school! And these are Hyuga Hinata-chan and Uzumaki Naruto, we've come to visit her during the Festival. So, Haruna-san's boyfriend, huh? Kaede-chan's told us a lot about Haruna-san!"

Then, keeping the same friendly smile, she made her stool hop back a few steps away from Rito, since she also had been warned about HIM. Her anger management sessions were going fine, so she didn't want to risk a new incident of having to punch some unfortunate clumsy soul into the stratosphere.

Rito nodded as he walked several steps back in the opposite direction, for pretty much the same reasons but from the other side. "Oh, that... that's great, Haruno-san. Then, um, I'm Yuki Rito, this is my sister Mikan, this is my, our, ah, classmate Lala, and they are her sisters, Momo-chan and Nana-chan..."

"Such lovely names...!" Fuuka said with a bright smile, intertwining her fingers while Fumika gave her a small suspicious look. Then Fuuka tilted her head towards Sakura. "Do you have a twin sister as well, Sempai?"

"Having pink hair doesn't equal having a twin!" Sakura snapped, those sessions' worth already chipping away.

"I think I like you already!" Momo told Fuuka with another mischievous giggle.

For a moment, Fumika and Nana's eyes met, sharing a long-suffering look about how frustrating trollish twin sisters were and how it almost didn't seem worth it to keep sleeping with them. Almost.

Thus was a mutual dependent sanity-preserving friendship formed.


Haunted House:

The next room was filled with all sorts of small, disturbing living shadows, creeping around each corner, dropping from the ceiling, squirming across the floor. They were misshapen and twisted, and although not much of them could be seen in the darkness, it was at least clear most of them were armed with claws and sported several mouths lined up with rows and rows of sharp teeth that were highly uneven in size and colors. They had quickly surrounded the youngsters from every side, chuckling and sneering and staring at them with their crimson sharply shaped eyes.

"C-Congratulations, Sakurako-san, Satomi-san!" Negi uneasily smiled, feeling a strange sense of deja vu and strangely thinking that the eyes should have been yellow. "This has to be the most realistic display yet..."

"Y-You don't understand, Negi-sensei!" Shiina gasped. "There wasn't supposed to be anything like this here, it was meant to only be a breather room with no attractions! Nya!"

"I certainly didn't work on any of this..." Satomi calmly observed. "Chisame?"

"Don't look at me!" Chisame replied. "This is too... disgusting for my tastes!"

"A-ha-ha, yeah, well played, guys, acting as if this was a surprise to you to..." Harumi uneasily said, kicking an imp too close to her for comfort, "B-But seriously, cut it out already, you aren't fooling anyone, right, Abiru-chan...?"

"I'm scared out of my mind," confessed the Ghost Cat, who was still being tightly held by the tail by Abiru, as if he were some sort of huge festive balloon.

Kotaro hissed, unsheating his claws at hip level, where the girls couldn't see them yet. There was no way to fool his eyes or nose, these were real live shadow demons, but who had brought them here, and why...?

Right then, something else rose, gracefully, from the dark, and Negi readied his staff, while Chisame and Satomi reached for their Pactio cards and Kotaro prepared himself to lunge ahead. But he stopped himself when he saw the newcomer was a young woman with dark skin and white hair, wearing a flashy yellow bikini, with a jester's hat and pointy, curling elf shoes. She only bowed to Negi, and formally said, "Sensei. I hope you are having fun."

"Holy shit!" Matoi cried. "She can talk?"

"Yes, always," Zazie said.

"Z-Zazie-san?!" Negi gasped.

"Rainyday?!" Chisame yelped. "What the hell were you doing here?!"

"I forgot to give you these," Zazie said quietly, handing Negi two tickets. "For our Nightmare Circus tonight. Don't mind about paying for them. A gift from me. Bye. Be there."

"Ah... thank you?" Negi blinked, his eyes reduced to dots.

Zazie made a small smile at him, nodded, and then skillfully cartwheeled her way out of the room on her hands like a master acrobat, the shadow creatures hastily rushing out after them until there was not a single one of them left.

"..." Negi, Kotaro, Chisame, Satomi and Sakurako said.

Harumi stifled a laugh. "See?! I knew it, you 3-A are so predictable! Well, that was fun anyway, what's next...?"

"Can I go now?" the Maomolin asked hopefully.

"No," Abiru firmly said, tugging on the tail and making him meow loudly.

"... Rainyday smiling!" Chisame stuttered, tucking the card back in with trembling fingers. "Now THAT was freaky scary!"

"More than Itoshiki-sensei doing it, Chisame-sama?" Matoi asked her.

"Well, no, but what a close second...!"


Sitting by a large fountain along with a large group of girls, Tate Yuuchi looked at his wristwatch and wondered aloud, "I thought English people never were tardy?"

It wasn't that he disliked the company, far from it. Shiho, currently in a bright yellow one-piece with a frilly short skirt, was annoyingly clingy to his arm as usual, but he'd grown used to that over the years. And of course, being with her new circle of friends was a visual treat, especially the leggy blonde in the orange bikini and sarong, and the stunning tall black-haired beauty in the royal blue bathing suit that almost looked like a competition one. It was difficult to believe she was from Class 3-A, since she behaved with so much elegance and politeness.

Her pink haired smaller friend was almost as annoying as Shiho, though. "Oi, English people are also often too wrapped into very important things, Sempai! Cut them a break, will you!" Makie said reproachfully.

Tate gave the girl in the pink bathing suit that looked suspiciously like a gymnastics leotard a bored look. Too small and child-bodied for his liking, if only Mana-san were there... "I think you only know a single English person, right? How can you tell?"

"Actually, I know two," Makie said proudly. "Well, technically I know the same person twice, but it still counts!"

The orange haired Shirley Fenette, Akira's friend from the swim team and the one who had invited Akira over in the first place, tried to impose peace with a soft laugh and an airy wave of a hand. "It's okay, it's okay, we can be just as early or tardy as anyone else, right, Minako-san?"

Aino Minako blinked as she stopped petting the white cat sitting on her lap. "Uh, why are you asking me that, Sempai?"

"Well, Akira-chan told me you lived two full years in England, that makes you an honorary countryman, right?" the older swimmer and exchange student beamed her a smile.

Minako smiled and awkwardly rubbed the back of her own head. "Well, gee, I never had thought of it that way! I'm honored, but I don't know if I'd count as the perfect embodiment of the British spirit... never really got Monty Python…"

"None of us do," Akira confirmed.

"You don't look or sound the part at all, no," grumpily commented a very lost foreigner in all-concealing armor, passing by them while looking for their comrades.

"Bleh, who asked you!" Minako stuck her tongue out at the rude passerby as they disappeared into the crowd, bitterly mumbling to themselves. Artemis, for some reason, had grown very agitated at that sight, waving his tail around nervously. "Must be from Honnouji, being crazy enough as to wear that with this weather..."

Shirley tried to gently disagree on the whole Honnouji prejudice thing when her cellphone rang, and she quickly picked it up. "Hello? Ah, it's you, Milly! Yeah... By the SOS Brigade's stand? Y-Yeah, you're close enough now, just take a turn to the right and then walk all the way straight until you see us... Uh, uh, glad you survived that, then... N-No, they aren't all that bad here... Huh, you liked them? Ah, right, of course it would be Kallen who- Okay. Fine. See you then, you're almost here!"

Akira and the band of curious onlookers who had tagged along as soon as they heard Akira was going to greet visitors from Ashford of all places were by now leaning close enough Shirley only needed to half-turn around to be able to tell them right to their faces, "My friends are about to arrive, so you won't have to wait any longer! Just, just remember what I told you, please?"

Tate nodded. "Never ask the skinnier guy about his family."

Shiho nodded. "Never look the meidos in the eyes."

Minako nodded. "Never invade the redhead's personal space."

Akira nodded. "Polite but firmly set limits as soon as the blonde invades your personal space."

Makie nodded. "Step away from the meganeko as soon as she gets her hands on anything mechanical. That one's easy, it's our daily rule to coexist with Hakase-chan!"

"Riiiiight!" Shirley brought her hands together, her smile widening. Finally, her role was going to have some payoff after that guest appearance so many chapters ago! "Do all of that and you should be fine! Oh!" she perked up, springing to her feet while waving very high, gesturing towards a small group of people coming through the crowd, all of them stuck with SOS Brigade hats, the two boys even keeping SOS fliers in hand much to their quiet dismay. "There you are, there you are, come on, we are here...!"

Minako bit on her lower lip, her smile becoming downright kittenish. "I can't believe it, I'm going to actually meet Ashford students now! That's what I always dreamed of while living at London!"

"Yii-ppeeee," Tate sighed, so clearly not interested at all. "Just what I like the best, having to spend time with people we share nothing in com- Oh, oh, oh!" he quietly finished while Shiho frowned fiercely and tightened her possessive glomp on his arm.

Shirley had just skipped ahead to give a big hug to an exotic, dark-skinned and light-haired woman in high heeled shoes, an open safari jacket, and what had to be the most scandalous white bikini Tate had ever seen on anyone (he had not yet run into Shirai Kuroko in swimwear, the poor fool). And his mouth hung open, as Shirley went quickly from one member of the newcomers to the next, hugging them in succession, lingering more on the shorter and skinnier boy and having the busty blonde bombshell in the scarlet bikini linger on her far more, in turn. "Professor Villeta! Lulu! Nunally-chan, I mean, Li'l Nunally! Milly! Kallen! Suzaku-kun! Nina-chan! Nice ring, is it new?" And then, finally, Shirley respectfully pulled back to simply bow at the two pale women with white hair pushing the wheelchair of the adorably frail looking little girl, instead of daring to hug them as well. "Miss Sella, Miss Leysritt, it's my pleasure to see you again. Um, well, nice to see everyone could come, please meet..."

She spun around grandly and gestured to introduce the Mahora contingent who just sat there not knowing exactly what to do next, other than Minako who simply swooned with stars and hearts in her eyes. "... my friends at Mahora Academy!" A paused. "Well, my friend Akira-chan at Mahora Academy! And her friends! And one of her friends' Oniichan! But I'm sure we'll all be good friends too, all the same!"

"What happened to the kingdom, a true disgrace indeed," the figure in the armor sourly commented as they walked past again, following the exact opposite direction from before but now holding a huge stick of cotton candy and a caramel apple. "This wouldn't have come to pass if only Father-"

Minako, greatly upset at this random asshole by now, simply picked up pebble and tossed it at the back of their head, where it bounced off with a loud metallic clang. She'd really wanted to look good in front of the Ashford students she idolized so much, especially the two hunks, but principles always came first, after all! Besides, she was defending their honor, maybe that would score her brownie points with them...

Mordred stopped abruptly as she felt the tiny thing hit the back of her helmet, not even beginning to dent it at all in the smallest microscopic fraction, and of course, immediately saw red over this unforgivable, terribly meaningful serious offense.

Perhaps now it would be as good a time as any other to skip to another group of characters for the time being?

Oh, the chapter's already over, you say? That's even better!


To be Continued!