Disclaimer: How many of these things have I had to write! I still don't own Samurai Deeper Kyo, gosh-flip-flammin'-durn-it!

Kanashimi: Way to censor yourself there, onee-sama...

Chapter 1: (un)Standard Deviation

In a room dark except for the lurid illumination cast by a computer's screen, a huddled figure sat, rocking back and forth, mumbling to itself in a pathetic sing-song whisper, "...significance of the bi-variant regression correlation coefficient is a function of its t-score...multi-variant regression analysis beta-coefficient of the first independent variable is a function of the x-one y correlation minus the x-two y correlation times the x-one x-two correlation divided by one minus the square of correlation x-one x-two...probability of data set occurring to chance divided by..."

Warm golden hopeful light cut the darkness as the door of the room was hesitantly pushed open just enough to permit a second figure to enter. Very carefully, it made its way over to the miserable gargoyle of a person squatted in front of the laptop, stepping cautiously over empty discarded soda cans and candy wrappers.

"Onee-sama..."

The huddled figure continued its keening wretched mantra, heedless of the gentle coaxing tone of the visitor. "...if t-score is less than the confidence interval it is likely that the data configuration is due to chance...null hypothesis cannot be rejected..."

"Onee-sama." The second figure shook its head, regretting that it had come down to this. There was only one thing to do. "Gomen nasai, onee-sama." An iron skillet was raised high in the air. "Your statistics final is not the end of the universe. Time to snap out of it."

"...predicted value of y equals the intercept constant when...snap..."

The iron skillet wielder paused. Had she heard correctly? "Onee-sama, what did you say?"

"...end of the universe..."

"Onee-sama?"

"Hahahahaha..." The low, coughing chuckle was fit to made blood run cold – its mocking merriment echoed with the desperate doleful tenor of a mind teetering on the brink of insanity.

'I'm too late!' The iron skillet swung down with the implacable velocity of divine judgment – and hit air.

"Uh-oh..."

"I'll be taking that, thank you," a rasp sounded in her ear as the hefty metal implement was twisted from her grip with strength borne from madness, "It's FUN time! Hahahahahahaha...AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Just as the maniacal cackle reached its thundering crescendo, a loud explosion and a thick cloud of noxious, sugar-scented smoke filled the room. The laughing wreck of ravaged sanity vanished.

Coughing as she waved aside the choking vapor, Kanashimi assessed the situation: "This… could be a problem."

-

'Too bad Yuya-han can't be out here with me,' Benitora thought regretfully as he stood on the bridge, looking up at the perfectly full moon, 'This is the perfect place for a romantic stroll – girls like her appreciate that kind of thing.' Of course, the black-sheep scion of the Tokugawa really could not fault the young bounty huntress. The pace Kyo had been setting the last couple of days had been killer, and even he, Red Tiger the Silhouette, was starting to feel the wear. It did not help matters that the demon-eyed samurai had sent Yuya out on another sake-run earlier that evening; by the time Yuya had returned, red-faced with exertion and anger, she had had only enough energy to make some half-hearted insulting comments about men in general and Kyo's habits in particular before turning on her heel to go to bed.

'I don't know why she thought I was being perverted when I offered to carry her to her room,' he added ruefully, lightly touching the bump on his head. Even tired out and drained as she was, Yuya still had enough fire left to give him sound thwacking for "being a baka-hentai!" 'I only would have stayed if she needed help to change into her sleeping yukata...'

A very wide, very lecherous grin spread across Benitora's features at that thought. 'I should go back to the lodge and check up on her, make sure Yeah, that's right, comfortable. And maybe Kyo-han hasn't finished all the sake yet...'

So decided, the nobleman-turned-mercenary crossed the bridge, fully intending to make his way back to their lodgings for the night without further delay. I say "fully intending" because, well, man plans and God laughs heartily.

The singing was so soft that at first he was not certain he heard it. He would have brushed it off as imagination if the distinct sound of a low chuckle emanating from the dark alley he had just drawn abreast of had not made his blood run cold.

"Oi, who's there?" he called out, coming to a halt as he peered into the shadows. He had not crossed paths with any of the town's inhabitants during his late-night stroll, which made sense; all the decent, honest citizens had already gone to bed.

"...hohoho...standard deviation of a specific case above or below mean is the z-score..."

"I said, who's there!" Benitora demanded, frisson pricking across his skin like the crawling of thousands of invisible ants. His hassun, which up till then had been slung casually across his shoulders, was brought to a guard position as Benitora snapped into full battle-alert mode. Nothing was going to get past his guard tonight!

A pity he did not see the shadowed figure overhead, its silent fall led by a cast iron skillet...

-

"Benitora? 'Tora, dammit, this isn't funny!" Yuya flung the shoji to the last empty room on their floor shut with a grunt of disgust. 'Where the hell is he? Kyo's going to have his fundoshi all in a twist if Benitora doesn't quit jerking around so we can get on the road!'

"I can't find him," Yuya announced, coming down the steps into the lodge house common room/restaurant.

"I could have told you that," Kyo said boredly, not looking up from his sake, "He left the lodge last night and never came back."

"What?" Yuya blurted, not believing her ears.

"There's no need to be shrill," Okuni observed with voluptuous disdain, "Benitora-san probably wanted to find some better quality sake than the terrible brew you brought up last night and fell asleep in a bar somewhere."

Yuya glared at Okuni, wishing there was some way the fallen miko's dulcet smug words would somehow freeze up in her throat and choke her. "That's bullshit and you know it," she declared, fists on her hips, "'Tora doesn't care what the sake tastes like, provided he didn't pay for it!"

Okuni rolled her eyes but declined further comment. Kyo was far more interested in the sake. "I'm going to look for him," said Yuya, "Kyo, can you..."

Kyo raised an eyebrow at her.

"...stay here in case he comes back, both of you," she ordered, knowing she would be expecting far too much of Onime no Kyo to ask him to help her look for their friend. With that, she walked out of the common room onto the main street of the town, already clamoring with human traffic.

"Who does she think she is?" Okuni huffed, glaring after her.

"Hn," Kyo snorted, but his eyes lingered on the doorway leading out into the morning air.

-

"NO, thank you!" Yuya snarled, pushing her way out of the opium-smoke filled den, breathing a sigh of relief only when she had gotten a good ten paces down the road. 'Do I LOOK like a girl interested in a "little bit of action"! Damned pigs! I hope that guy's eye stays black-and-blue for MONTHS!' The other drugged-up opium junkies had not even been fazed by her laying out one of their number with a well-aimed fist, no, they had just stood in line, each trying to get in his own indecent proposition.

Yuya's face was red to her ears from some of their suggestions. 'When I find Benitora, he's in for the beating of his life! And when I get tired, I'll tie him up and hang him on a tree to let other people take swings at him with sticks!'

In her quest to find her missing friend, Yuya had taken Okuni's snide suggestion to heart, asking after Benitora in every respectable drinking establishment. When she could find no trace of him, she had been forced to search the less-respectable venues, finally winding up in the bad dives in the bad section of town. She had kept her revolver out and at the ready, even though it was broad daylight. Despite the fact that Kyo often made disparaging remarks about her intelligence, Yuya was nobody's fool.

"Where is he?" Yuya asked herself, not wanting to admit that she was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. 'Calm down, girl, Benitora's alright. Maybe he just crossed paths with some bad liquor and his brain's so addled, he's lying face down in an alley somewhere. It's not like he could have run into any of the Juunishinshou or the Mibu or...shit, I've got to find him!'

-

Benitora was not lying face down in an alley, brain scrambled by alcohol. Rather, he was flat out on his back, struggling to regain consciousness in the middle of a perfectly respectable residential road.

'This has got to be the worst hangover since that time Nobu-nii-chan snuck that gai-jin sake into our room...' he thought, painfully squinting up at a morning sky so bright that it was an overarching smear of white and light grey. His ears were ringing from the loud cacophony of birds twittering their lungs out, and his nose wrinkled at the various strong stenches that washed over him, making his pounding headache ten times worse. 'Don't tell me I fell asleep in some trashed up alley...' He liked his clothes without the smell of garbage, thank you very much.

As least he was not feeling nauseous. He had no idea where he was or how the hell he had gotten there, but now was not the time to worry about details like that. He had to get back to Yuya and the others. 'Right, up we go!'

But for some strange reason, "up" was only as far as his hands and feet. 'Well, I look like a bloody idiot on all fours with my ass in the air,' Benitora thought, trying to push himself upright onto his feet. His legs did not seem have the strength to support his full weight for very long and he kept falling back on his hands. 'What the fuck...?'

Just then, Benitora noticed something on the ground, right where his hands were. Or rather, he noticed that he had paws right where his hands used to be...

"What was that?" Yuya gasped, freezing midway across the bridge as an animal's agonized howl pierced her ears, sending a flock of sparrows into panicked flight. 'It sounds like the poor thing is pain!' She hurried to reach the far end of the bridge, toward the walled houses where the last dying echoes of the anguished, almost human cry were fading.

'Yuya-han?' Benitora paused in the middle of full-on freak-out. He did not know what had made him think that she was near, until he sniffed the air, finding the elusive sweet scent he knew could only belong to one person in the entire world. 'YUYA-HAN! She's here! She found me! She's gotta help me!' Benitora took off like a shot, not giving thought to the fact that he was much faster on all four paws than on two human feet.

Yuya turned down one street, then another, searching for the source of the cry. 'Why are you getting so worked up about one animal?' a small part of her consciousness called "Logic" demanded, 'You've got more important things to worry about, girl!'

'But it was hurting - it needs help!' she protested mentally, even though she knew she was being silly, not only for going out of her way to help some stray, but also for arguing with herself!

A loud bark made her pull short with a startled yelp. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the rather large, roan-furred mutt barreling toward her from around the corner ahead. He was barking his head off, the bright sunlight gleaming on his bared canines as he closed in on her.

'Yuya-han! Yuya-han! Man am I glad to see you!' Benitora's grin was equal parts relief and happiness upon spotting her. He did not understand why Yuya was staring at him in stark terror as he ran to her, or why he could not distinguish the color of the girl's eyes from her hair (come to think of it, the whole world seemed have suddenly changed to nothing but shades of grey). But that did not matter. Yuya was here now, she would help him make sense of everything! 'You won't believe what's happened to me! I need your help!'

'Oh...shit!' Yuya thought as the slavering hound gathered himself to spring at her, possibly to rip out her throat. She had to defend herself. 'Use your gun, you silly twit!' her instincts screamed, but her arm seemed frozen by her side. 'I'm going to die,' she told herself frankly as the dog jumped. "Argh!" she screamed in panic as the full weight of the animal crashed into her like a sack of rice.

'Sorry about that Yuya-han!' He had not meant to knock her on the ground like that, but he had not quite gotten the hang of the body he had found himself in. 'Yuya-han, you all right? Oi, Yuya-han!'

"Augh, get off me, get off me!" Yuya shrieked, trying to shove the barking dog off her chest, protect her throat, and roll away all at the same time, "Someone, help me! It's trying to kill me!"

'Wha...! What are you talking about, Yuya-han! It's me, it's Benitora!'

"Go AWAY!" she yelled, finally managing to push the vicious beast off of her purely through the virtue of adrenaline. But before she could get to her feet and make good to her escape, the dog's jaws clamped down on the trailing sleeve of her kimono, arresting any chance of retreat.

Yuya was about to start screaming and hollering again when something about the way the dog stared at her over the printed cotton cloth made her pause. He was not trying to rip her to shreds and eat her, he wanted her to... "What do you want?" she found herself asking. 'This is impossible, I can't believe I'm talking to a dog! And expecting an answer!'

As if responding to her inner tirade, the dog made slight pulling motions on her sleeve – if he had been a person, Yuya would have sworn he was trying to get her to follow him somewhere.

'This isn't happening, this isn't happening, it can't be happening!' "You want me to come with you?" Yuya guessed.

This time, there was no mistaking the gesture. The dog nodded, his tail wagging energetically. Yuya could have sworn he was grinning at her around the mouthful of sleeve.

'Okay, I've obviously snapped or I'm dreaming...yeah, that's right, I'm still dreaming. This is all just one mad crazy dream where I'm talking to a dog and he's...well, I don't know just yet.' Relieved to have puzzled it out, Yuya felt more agreeably inclined to her canine assailant. "There's something you want to show me, Inu-san?"

The dog frowned at her, but nodded again.

"Then lead the way," she said, "But on one condition: no more jumping on me, got it?"

The dog nodded vigorously and let go of her sleeve. 'No problem Yuya-han! This way!' Benitora started jogging back to where the whole incomprehensible mess had started, checking over his shoulder every once and while to make sure she kept up. 'I've got to make her understand what's happened! Not that I quite understand it myself, but...'

"I need to get my head examined," Yuya muttered to herself as she followed the dog around the corner and down a side street, "Here I am following some crazy mutt around town when I should be looking for Benitora... I don't care if this is a dream, there's definitely something wrong with all of this and... hey, isn't that...?"

The dog had sat down on his haunches beside a pile of clothes, but that was not what had caught Yuya's attention. An alleyway opened up onto the street and at its mouth lay a very familiar-looking weapon. "What the hell is Benitora's hassun doing out here?" she asked herself, bending over to pick it up. It was a bit heavier than she expected, and rather unwieldy. There did not appear to be any damage to it, so why would Benitora discard it, here of all places, unless...

'Unless he's hurt!' Yuya's attention zeroed in on the twilit alley, scanning for any sign of Benitora, and fearing that she would find him. "Benitora?"

'Yes, exactly! I knew you'd get it, Yuya-han! Thank Kami-sama! I don't... Yuya-han, why are you going in there?'

"Quiet!" Yuya hissed at the dog, who for some reason started yapping his head off again. Gripping Benitora's hassun tightly and taking a deep breath, she began walking down the alley, praying that she would at least find him alive.

'Oi, don't go in there! It's dangerous! It smells bad! Yuya-han get back here! Yuya-han!' In his frantic desire to prevent any calamity befalling the bounty huntress, Benitora threw all caution to the winds and leaped, his jaws closing firmly on her obi.

"AAAAAAHHHH!" Yuya screamed, suddenly seized from behind by an inexorable force that very nearly ripped her obi from her waist as it dragged her back out into the street. She whirled around, twisting out of her attacker's grasp, ready to lay into him with everything she had... only to see the mutt standing in front of her, growling and barking as though admonishing her for doing something foolhardy.

"I told you not to jump on me again!" Yuya scolded, laying a hand over her pounding heart. The stupid dog was going to be the death of her! "Go home!" she told it, making a shooing gesture with her free hand, "Go along now! Thanks for showing me the way, but I need to find my friend now!" She turned around, only to find the dog had run to place himself between her and her desired path.

'I'm sorry about grabbing you like that Yuya-han, but you need to stop and listen to me!'

"You're starting to get on my nerves," growled Yuya, narrowing her eyes dangerously at the dog. The canine seemed to wilt slightly under her glare, but growled back resolutely.

'No way I'm letting you past me. You don't want to go in here!'

"Let me through!" Yuya shouted, trying to push past him.

It was not entirely Benitora's fault that she landed on her backside, but he knew an advantageous situation when one landed in his...er, paws. Darting over to his pile of clothes before she could regain her footing, Benitora snapped up the one article that could not fail to drive his point home.

"Itai..." Yuya whimpered as she sat up. 'I can already feel the bruises – stupid dog!' She reached for Benitora's hassun, intending to use it to help get to her feet.

Instead, her hand encountered the furry forepaw of the dog. "Leave me alone, dammit!" she snapped at him, "Why don't you just..." Her eyes fixated on the cloth hanging from the dog's mouth.

A very familiar bit of cloth.

With red and white stripes.

Yuya suddenly felt very, very cold. Unless Benitora was off running around somewhere without his clothes or his weapon... She licked her suddenly dry lips and looked the dog in the eye. "Benitora?"she asked in the barest thread of a whisper.

The dog nodded once and winked at her.

Yuya fainted.

-

"Tell me you're not going out to look for her, Kyo-sama," Okuni said in an irritated voice, her pristine brow furrowing slightly as Kyo wordlessly got to his feet and picked up his katana.

"Fine, I won't," Kyo replied, making for the common room door.

Okuni heaved an exasperated sigh (making nearly all the men in the room collapse from nosebleeds) and got to her feet to follow him. "Why are you so concerned for one little slip of a girl?" she demanded, placing herself between him and the door, "You know you'd be better off just leaving her behind."

"Both of my servants are missing and that's inconvenient. Now get out of the way, Okuni," Kyo said evenly, although the look in his eyes promised a terrible punishment if she did not comply.

Okuni shivered slightly but smiled, arching an eyebrow. "Oh, yes," she simpered, "You couldn't possibly do without those two deadweights, now could you?"

Kyo made a growling sound in his throat, and his hand went up to either push her out of the way or effect a more permanent solution.

"Kyo! Okuni-san!"

"Woof!"

Kyo's eyes widened slightly and he pushed past Okuni without further ado, leaving the woman very put out. Okuni turned to see what had so diverted his attention.

'Her, of course,' she thought acidly, 'Noisy, undeveloped, uncouth little... why is that dog with her?'

"Something terrible has happened!" a dusty, disheveled Yuya cried, bursting into the lodge house, a large, flop-eared dog hot on her heels. He was barking so loudly that they could barely hear her over the din. Yuya brandished the hassun in her hands, obviously trying to explain something about it. She very nearly speared the unfortunate man eating breakfast at the table beside the door in her agitation.

"Get that animal out of here!" bellowed the owner, while patrons contributed various exclamations of surprise and outrage to the general commotion.

"Kyo, it's Benitora! He's...!"

"I said, GET THAT DAMNED ANIMAL OUT OF MY INN!"

"Woof woof bark grrrrrrrrrrrr woof!"

"How dare anyone bring an animal like that into...!"

"Get it out of here, I'm trying to eat my breakfast!"

"Eat your breakfast! She nearly took my head off with that thing!"

"It's probably diseased!"

"Yuya, what on earth possessed you to bring that filthy beast in here? Kyo-sama, tell her to take it away!"

"He's not a filthy beast! Will you just listen to me...!"

"GET HIM OUT OF HERE OR I WILL SUMMON THE NEIGHBORHOOD POLICE!"

"Shut up."

It took only two words, not even shouted, but the entire establishment fell silent as suddenly at though everyone in it had been struck dumb. "Take the dog outside," Kyo continued, looking sharply at Yuya when she opened her mouth to protest, "We're leaving this shit-hole."

No one had the nerve to make a parting shot as the loud-mouth blonde and the dog preceded the scary, crimson-eyed samurai and indecently dressed miko out onto the street. Even the innkeeper had no inclination whatsoever to follow them and demand payment for all the sake the samurai had drunk that morning.

Kyo marched them practically to the outskirts of town before allowing her to talk.

"What happened?"

Yuya breathed a sigh of relief. "It's Benitora," Yuya said, "When I went looking for him earlier this morning, this dog attacked... well, he didn't really attack me, he only wanted me to follow him although I knew it was crazy and..." She glanced over at Kyo, who was staring at her impassively, and Okuni, who was rolling her eyes at Yuya's babbling. Yuya glared at the miko and started over. "I found this and a pile of his clothes lying in the middle of the street," she said, holding out the hassun and the bundle she had made of Benitora's clothing, "At first I thought maybe Benitora had gotten into a fight and was lying wounded somewhere, but then what would he be doing without his clothes?"

Okuni stifled a ladylike snort; obviously, Yuya had no idea what sort of rhetorical broadside she had opened herself to. Unfortunately Okuni was too well-bred to take advantage of it. Besides, it was far too easy.

Kyo said nothing, merely waiting for Yuya to get to the point.

"And... well..." Even with the evidence standing right there beside her, his wide mahogany eyes pleading with her to say what needed to be said for his sake, Yuya found herself reluctant to blurt out the truth. Standing here in the light of day with Okuni ready for any opportunity to make a disparaging comment and Kyo... well, who knew what Kyo would do if he thought she had suddenly gone off the deep end.

"You realized Benitora had been turned into a dog," Kyo finished for her without batting an eye.

"Yes, exactly!" Yuya exclaimed in relief, "Wait a minute..." 'Did he just say...?'

"Kyo-sama, what are you talking about?" Okuni breathed, her gaze switching back and forth between Kyo and Yuya, "Kyo-sama, is this some sort of joke the two of you are having at my expense?" Anger and confusion warred across her features.

'It ain't no joke, Okuni-han!' Benitora (who felt he had been quiet more than long enough) contributed, 'I sure as hell wish it was!'

Okuni recoiled slightly from the dog's outburst, still staring at Kyo and Yuya as if waiting for the punch line.

"Kyo, how did you know that this is Benitora?" Yuya asked, raising her voice over Benitora's barking and Okuni's wordless, indignant sputtering.

"As if I'd forget the feel of the ken-ki of anyone who's crossed blades with me," Kyo sneered, "Stupid girl."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!" Yuya flared. 'Oh, there are times when I could just...just...HIT HIM!' Not that she would ever be so foolish as to try, but the temptation was there all the same.

Kyo smirked at her rage and then looked down at Benitora. "How the hell did this happen?" he asked the warrior-turned-dog.

Benitora's tail wagged happily as he more or less shrugged his canine shoulders. 'Search me, Kyo-han. But thanks for saying you recognized my ken-ki!'

"I don't think he knows," Yuya interpreted needlessly. She clutched the clothing bundle to her chest as she knelt beside Benitora. "Dammit, how could you let this happen to you!" she scolded, "I can't believe a grown man needs to have a chaperone!"

'Oi, it's not like I asked for this to happen to me!' Benitora whimpered, 'Have a little heart Yuya-han! I mean, it's bad enough...' He smelled the tears before he actually saw them, the bitter saline odor of her inner tumult and concern for him alerting his heightened senses.

"I was so worried about you, when I couldn't find you earlier, and now this..." she admitted to him, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay, "We've got to find someway of turning you back!"

'Hey, hey, don't worry, Yuya-han! I'm sure we'll think of something. Just don't cry!' Instinctively, he licked away the tears that escaped her best efforts.

"Hey, just because you're a dog now, don't think that...!" Yuya blurted, but her habitual anger simply did not manifest. "It'll be okay," she whispered, touching her forehead to his, "We'll find a way. Right, Kyo?"

"Hn." Kyo grunted an affirmative, but only Okuni's sharp eyes caught the momentary frown of displeasure that marred his features as he regarded his two "servants."

-

The swordsman stood firm in the midst of the clearing, thickly-leaved branches of the forest canopy casting all into sable-green twilight. But neither light nor darkness mattered to one such as he.

"How long will you insist on delaying your death?" Akira challenged his attacker, his ken-ki probing for the malevolent presence that had beset him without warning.

"Ohohohohoho... assumption of equal variance in a case of less than one thousand units..."

'There!' Ice blasted across the shadowed space, mercilessly enveloping everything in its path in killing cold. The other presence vanished like a candle's flame extinguished by the wind.

Akira allowed himself a small smirk of satisfaction. For all the trouble whoever it was had been, they certainly had not expected his final attack and had thus paid the price.

He was just about to sheathe his katana when a single smothered snicker informed him that he had been wrong.

Dead wrong.

A loud explosion shook the forest and a cloud of blue and black smoke enveloped the empty clearing.

"Gah! Argh, dammit Bob, how many times have I told you that I DON'T NEED THE FREAKIN' SPECIAL EFFECTS ALREADY!" the person at the epicenter of the blast screamed to the heavens.

The heavens remained silent, so the person had to content herself with muttered, dire threats to what would happen to a certain laptop's motherboard once she got back to the real world.

"And where the heck am I, anyway?" Kanashimi wondered, peering through the dissipating gloom, "Where's Kyo and them? I told Bob to land me at the site of onee-sama's last..."

Her booted foot just barely missed stepping on the small white, stuffed bunny rabbit that lay disconsolately on the ground. "...attack. Damn, she's moving faster than I thought!" Kanashimi bent down to retrieve the transformed Akira. The blind swordsman was the latest victim in her sister's maniacal rampage, but he certainly would not be the last.

"It's not fair that I have to be the one to clean up her mess just because she flips out over finals," Kanashimi sulked, "And I doubt I'm going to get any playtime with Kyo! Unless of course..."

A chilling, evil laugh filled the clearing, making all the fluffy critters in hearing cower in their dens.

-

Narrator here. In the midst of writing Intermezzo, my muse of Angst, Drama, and Other Not-So-Fluffy Feelings was walloped over the head with a shillelagh by my muse of Comedy and Insanity, thus giving rise to this fic. (rubs head ruefully) I think my statistics final had something to do with it. In any case, this is just an indulgent, insane, throw-away fic I wrote to soothe the emotional backlash I had to writing a serious work like Intermezzo. I may or may not make reference to it here, but I get the feeling this is going to become an independent project.

Kanashimi: Which means, anyone who reads this had better prepare themselves for mind-bending insanity and lack of plot.

Narrator: Too right, unfortunately. P.S., I got an "A" on that statistics final! W00t! (does happy victory dance to the tune of "The Cuckold Comes out of the Amery")

Kanashimi: (sighs) (thwacks Narrator on the head with a shillelagh)

Narrator: Itai! Ooooo, pretty stars...! (passes out)

Salute!