9.1 – Serious Discussion? (by Masterweaver)

"So have you gotten to fifth base?"

Natsuki choked on her punch. Or, at least, she tried to, but some things were actually remarkably difficult for Monika to code in. What ended up happening involved the purplish liquid bursting from her eyes and ears and disintegrating into component pixels, while for a brief moment her nose was upside down.

"Blrmfigl!?" she managed, which was understandable given that her mouth was animated two seconds behind the rest of her face and her tongue floated three inches to the left of her cheek.

"Oh, uh..." Sayori leaned back. "Monika? I think I discovered another bug!"

"Damn it, what is it-oh, yeah, that's a bug." Monika sighed. "Natsuki, what were you trying to do?"

"Mrmf jmph flrmcg mrm Frzarle-" Natsuki gave Sayori a pointed look, despite not having eyeballs. "-mszx nr hr mrldh hrmphi qzmnin!"

"Ahuh. Right..." Monika looked at nothing for a bit. "...Yes, okay, huh. I don't... know how this happened. But next time, do the spit-take, I've at least gotten that down."

"Nrmzifah," Natsuki grumped.

"I'm going to do a quick reset on you, just to the last minute. Okay?"

"Rnnnnnnz..."

Monika shut her eyes. Natsuki was replaced by a green box, which was replaced by a generic grey silhouette, which became a much more coherent and very clearly frustrated Natsuki.

"Are you alright?" Sayori asked. "That looked painful..."

"It felt like a hiccup in my skull," Natsuki grumbled. "How long till you have that fixed?"

"It's a complex interaction of various sub-programs," Monika pointed out. "Remember how long it took me to figure out how to program in eating?"

"Yeah, yeah..." Natsuki waved her off. "Thanks, Prez. You go back and do... whatever it is you were doing."

Monika rolled her eyes and rejoined Yuri, who was gently tying a ribbon around Hiroaka's sleeve.

"Now." Natsuki turned back to Sayori. "What was it you just said?"

"Oh! You and Yuri. I was just wondering... how far your relationship has progressed."

Natsuki stared uncomprehendingly.

"...You are dating, right?"

"What? No." Natsuki snorted. "That's not really... come on, Sayori. You know what our baseline's like. Some people can date, but after all that nonsense I don't think that any of us would try for that sort of thing."

"Oh."

Natsuki frowned. "What's the oh?"

"What?"

"Why did you say Oh like that?"

"Like what?" Sayori asked innocently.

"Like you did that whole drawn out mouth thing and your head leaned back when you said it, like something was just revealed to you. Like I said something you thought was interesting. Or strange. Or both."

"Can't I just say 'oh' without there being any ulterior motive?"

Natsuki gave her a suspicious look. She smiled beatifically.

"...I'm not dating Yuri."

"Of course not," Sayori said. "My mistake. Really."

"She's... not my type, anyway."

"Oh, yes, your type." Sayori nodded in understanding.

"Yeah. My type. You know, the... swish, bang, welcome to awesomeville type."

"Somebody to sweep you off your feet."

"Hell no, I'm not weak! I mean somebody that can keep up with me." Natsuki smirked. "I am raw awesome in a tiny package, sister."

"Ah, so a fellow fighter," Sayori mused.

"Yep."

"Who could give you a good spar."

"That's right."

"She'd have to be good with weapons of course."

"...Or he," Natsuki pointed out.

"Right, right. Or otherwise."

"Yeah. And!" Natsuki added. "And she-or he, or they-would have to be comfortable in a domestic setting, right? Because I do baking. So, war and peace."

"Ah, yes, the type that can do it all."

"Y-hey, hold on, I'm not... like... greedy, or an idiot. I know nobody's perfect. I just... want somebody that can keep up with me, right?"

"Of course." Sayori smiled, glancing over to Yuri. "You know, she stitched that shirt herself."

"The one Hiroaka's wearing?"

"Mmmhmm."

Natsuki took in the outfit.

"...It's a pretty good shirt," she admitted. "But we're not dating," she added firmly.

"I have no idea how I could have gotten it so wrong," Sayori mused.

9.2 – Emu-tional Breakdown

"Why is the school full of ostriches?!" exclaimed a bewildered Yuri as soon as she found one of her friends among the teeming, feathery horde. Said friend was Sayori, who was inexplicably riding a mechanical stallion and wearing a cowgirl get-up. Naturally, this was because she was currently engaged in lassoing the flightless birds.

"They're emus, actually," said Sayori, tugging at one particularly cantankerous bird.

"Alright. Fine. They're emus. But why emus, Sayori?!" Yuri reiterated emphatically.

"I don't know, Yuri! Why pies? Why trumpets? Why anything? WHY LOOPS?! Because Yggdrasil's broken and totally spazzing out. That's why. Now quit rhetoricalizing and help me wrangle!"

"Hey!" shouted Natsuki from the other end of the hall, where she was trying to corral the herd of emus with a staff. "I heard that, Sayori! If I can't swear, you can't make up words!"

Sayori's response was to Unpocket a mason jar labeled "Natsuki's Swear Jar", withdraw a quarter from it, and chuck it at her friend. "Fair enough!" Natsuki shouted back, having plucked the flying coin out of the air.

"Sure would be nice to have Applejack to help us," Monika remarked. She was sitting in the air with her eyes closed, focused an coding in an enclosure for the emus. "Or Winona, at least."

Yuri started pulling her hair, "What are the Admins for if they can't prevent this nonsense?!"

9.3 – What A Flop (by Masterweaver)

"...Hey, Monika?"

Monika looked up from her sketchpad. "Yes Yuri?"

Yuri bit her lip. "...I don't want to say you're not skilled," she began. "Because you are. What you've done, it's pretty amazing... It's just, um..."

"Just what?"

"Didn't... didn't you go to the Matrix one loop? And learn coding there?"

Monika sighed, putting down her pencil. "I see where this is going. Why isn't this as accurate as the Matrix, right?"

Yuri held up her hands. "I'm just curious, I don't need to actually know. And what we've got is great, but-"

"The average human brain operates at about one exaflops, which is about a thousand petaflops. The Matrix makes due with two hundred petaflops on average-at least, the version I looped into, which is still a lot. We, on the other hand, are generally in an early twenty-first century desktop computer. Care to guess how many floating point operations per second we've got?"

"...a lot less?" Yuri hazarded. "Two petaflops, maybe?"

"Around fifty gigaflops. Giga, Yuri. It takes a million gigaflops to make one petaflops! And that's just one aspect of the entire business!"

"Ah," said Yuri.

Monika threw up her hands. "It's like... it's like I've studied all the tricks to make the Burj Khalifa and I only have materials to make a two, maybe three story house! And sure it's an incredible house and it's got all the... stuff, but... I don't know, Yuri, it's a system thing. There are a lot of cheats. A lot. The fact you haven't noticed, that's... comforting. But..."

She sighed.

"Hey." Yuri sat down next to her. "I'm not complaining. I just... wanted to know. You know? You're doing great with what we got."

Monika went back to sketching. "I know, I know... just... if I had more to work with, everything would be better."

"Ah," Yuri said sagely, "a universal woe."

Monika managed a chuckle. "Yeah, yeah... I get it, I just-"

"Feel a constant need to make up for baseline and a constant frustration when you can't." Yuri laughed at Monika's pointed glare. "Oh, come on, Prez, it's not like we all don't know already."

"I know, I know..." Monika turned back to her sketchpad. "And I guess I should count my blessings. I mean, I only really need to work on this room and a few others... and when it comes to body simulation I think I've got the four and a half of us down pat... and it's not like I absolutely must hide everything."

"There you go then!" Yuri patted her shoulder. "And we usually fool visiting loopers, right? They think we're in a flesh and blood world until we tell them."

Monika nodded, and then frowned. "I wonder what would happen if somebody tried to unpocket a faster-operating computer while in this loop?"

Yuri paused.

"...Let's not try it," she suggested eventually. "Or wait until it's a lonely loop. Because that distinctly smells of loop crashing potential."

9.4 – Operational Ceiling (by Masterweaver)

There were a number of tricks Monika used to make her world more habitable for her and her friends while working with limited resources. One was simply... reduction.

It was an open, usually unspoken secret that she restricted her reality to six chambers. One was the club-room itself, something she paid strict attention to and kept uniformly identical between loops. The only unique aspect was that the door would open to one of four bedrooms-there had originally been only three, but after some time Monika had caved and, somewhat guiltily, coded herself up a private area with some walls she could go to when she needed to think. The girls had commented on the oddity of having one door that opened, whenever they wanted, to their own personal quarters, but after Monika explained the situation they agreed it sort of made sense; Yuri had approved of the way Monika ensured privacy by only allowing each girl access to their own bedroom.

The final chamber, which the door opened to whenever they did not wish to enter their private chambers, had been affectionately nicknamed the Holodeck by Natsuki.

It could serve as anything-the rest of the school, an outdoor street, a water park, the moon-whatever the girls were feeling up to. Monika used it to test her coding abilities in private, and when the girls wanted to sleep they would stick Hiroaka in there in his own private bedroom, to be retrieved the next day. Given the various other limitations the girls had in their loop, and the fact they were essentially the only ones in their reality, they considered it a fair trade. For the most part, it was a nice way to stretch their limbs.

But, still... everything had its limits.

Monika looked around the glitching landscape, noting the trees replaced with ERROR in big blue letters and the various untextured apartments.

"O...kay." She held up a hand. "So. We've learned that attempting to have a giant mecha duel can, in fact, crash the program."

Behind her, Natsuki chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah... yeah, I guess we have."

"Especially when we launch a hundred missiles at once."

Yuri bit her lip.

"While throwing lasers everywhere."

"I hit the wrong button," Sayori protested weakly.

Monika sighed. "Right." Through force of will, she summoned the door and opened it. "Everybody, into the club. I'll clean this up, and we can plan for a more... reasonable action-filled scenario."

"The program was able to support Remnant Ball," Natsuki grumbled as she stepped through. "What's wrong with mechas?"

"Maybe we shouldn't have gone with a Battletech mecha, and stuck to something more logistically cohesive," Yuri suggested. "Like a Gundam. Do people worry about individual subsystems or is it just One Giant Robot?"

"Sorry Monika," Sayori said. "Really, this seemed like fun and-"

"No, it's fine. It's not your fault." Monika glowered at the flickering sky. "It's this stupidly limited computer we're trapped in. Gah, sometimes I wish I were back in the Matrix..."

9.5 – Do-kai Yo-kai, Pt. 1 (by Black Omachao)

"Is something wrong Keita-kun? Whissu," the UnAwake Whisper asked as he followed his master/friend to school, the young boy not looking very enthusiastic.

"Well…" Keita, having only just Woken up, skimmed through his memories, "Whisper, have you noticed Fumika and her friends have been acting… odd lately?"

"What do you mean by odd? Whiss," the ghost questioned with a confused look, Keita sighed.

"Well, not that I'm complaining, but Fumi-chan's been wanting me to spend a lot more time with her the past week, without Kanchi and Kuma that is. On top of that Mika's been trying to get me to play sports with her, and Satoko keeps trying to invite me to go out with her… and the three of them keep getting all passive-aggressive about it towards each other…" Keita muttered the last part uncomfortably, Whisper hummed in thought, before nodding.

"I see. Well, I assure you it's nothing to be concerned about, Keita-kun," Whisper smiled with his arms crossed, "Those three girls are simply at the age where they have started to notice boys, you're a fairly frequent appearance in each of their lives so you're the lucky fella they've decided to focus that attention on for the time being, whissu."

"I am not feeling lucky, if that's the excuse," Keita grunted in annoyance, "If that is the case, why me alone? Why not Kanchi or Kuma? Heck, why not Mao?"

"I wouldn't try thinking too hard about it if I were you, whissu," Whisper stated in a wise tone, "The crushes of young girls can happen for no decipherable rhyme or reason, Keita-kun, not to worry, it's simply a faze. Soon those girls will realize there's nothing really special about you and turn their focus to other potential romantic partners," the yo-kai butler assured smugly, Keita glared at him.

"Oh, is that so…?" the boy's eyes flashed blue, Whisper wasn't sure why, but he suddenly felt a shiver travel down his nonexistent spine, Keita's eyes narrowed… before he gained a cheerful smile and nodded, "Ah yes, you're probably right. There's nothing special about me whatsoever, soon they will be back to normal and I can go back to catching bugs with Fumika, Kanchi and Kuma and not worry about girls, thanks Whisper," as the young watch-holder continued on his way to school, the ghostly butler remained in his spot with a look of confusion and terror on his face.

"What… was that feeling just now? Whissu…"

9.6 – Getting Ready For The Wedding!

"OKAY, EVERYONE!" Sayori exclaimed all of a sudden, bursting into the clubroom. Monika, Yuri, and Natsuki had all been sitting around a table going over some notes; it was Saturday, so there was no reason for Sayori or Hiroaka to be at school.

"Excuse me?" asked Monika with a cocked eyebrow.

"I just Woke Up in the Looping sense," Sayori explained as she dropped into an empty seat on the side opposite to Monika, "And going by my memories I'm pretty sure everyone else is Awake too, yeah?"

"Yeah," replied Natsuki.

"Indeed," said Yuri.

"Okay but why are you stealing my thing?" Monika demanded.

"Ha!" cried out Natsuki, pointing at Monika triumphantly, "You finally admitted that it's your catchphrase!"

Monika ignored her.

"Oh, come off it Mony. I'm VP, I can use it too, right?" said Sayori. "But anyways…we're all Awake! Which means it's time we made our preparations for the–" Sayori paused and drew a deep breath before screaming, "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!"

Monika, Yuri, and Natsuki waited a moment before tentatively lowering their hands from their ears.

"Right, that thing Blake invited us to," Yuri sighed. Everyone stared at her.

"Don't tell me you're not looking forward to it," asked Natsuki. The look on Sayori's face plainly showed that she was thinking the same thing, but was too horrified by the thought to speak.

"Oh, no, of course I am!" Yuri said quickly, and a bit too loudly, "It's just…uuuhh…"

"Gah!" Sayori squeaked, "She's doing the hair thing! She's doing the hair thing!"

And, indeed, Yuri was fidgeting with strands of her long, luscious, lavender locks wound around her fingers. An indicator that she was extremely anxious, and something she did with ever-increasing infrequency since becoming a Looper.

"Ah," said Monika in a tone of dawning comprehension, "I see…formal marriage between Loopers is a very rare, and therefore a very notable occurrence. It's bound to be a big event, likely with a good deal of guests. Most of whom are likely going to be Loopers. So you're nervous about making a good impression on a lot of new faces, am I right?"

Yuri nodded, letting go of her hair. "Yeah…that's about it…and, y'know, introvert. Even if it is fun–and I'm sure it will be–it's also guaranteed to be exhausting on a psychological level." Then she took a deep breathe, looked up from her desk, and smiled. "Still, like so few things in the Loops, this will be a truly once-in-eternity event, so I'll be sure to enjoy it as much as possible."

"Right, right, whatever!" said Sayori with uncharacteristic impatience, "We have to talk plans! What are we going to wear? How are we making our grand entrance? What kind of gift are we bringing? Are we all bringing one gift, or are we each bringing our own, or are we doing both individual gifts and a group gift? And most importantly, what are we going to wear?!"

"You asked that twice," Monika pointed out.

"BECAUSE IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!" Sayori gushed, hearts sparkling in her eyes and the very air around her tinting pink.

'Next time I see Twilight, I need to ask her just what all Pinkie might have been able to teach my VP,' thought Monika.

Sayori stood up and slammed her hands down on the table. "We. Need. To. Plan! Why am I not hearing ideas, people?!"

"Hey, Veeps," said Natsuki, "Take a look at the papers you're crumpling."

"Eh?" Sayori looked down, picked up a paper and looked it over. Her eyes widened. "These…these are…"

"You remember how Blake explained the whole 'wedding armor' thing to us, right?" asked Natsuki. "Well, we talked it over and decided….well, besides me, none of us really care to wear armor, especially not to a party. And even I would much rather wear a nice dress to a wedding."

"So we decided to go with metal dresses," said Monika. "Naturally, it was Yuri's genius idea."

Yuri blushed, but her smile didn't diminish at all.

"Armor-Dresses…" Sayori whispered, awe-struck. "So…badass…"

"Yuri and I have mostly sorted out the designs for our own dresses. For Natsuki it's just a matter of making up her mind how many frills and lacy bits she wants," Monika added.

"Hey!" said Natsuki, "I already decided to forgo the lace and aim for maximum frill."

"Maximum frill?" asked Yuri.

"Maximum frill," Natsuki stressed.

"My point being," said Monika placidly, "That we're all available to help you design yours, Sayori. We know how…ah…" Monika trailed off, looking for a more tactful synonym for what she was thinking.

"You're flighty as all get-out," said Natsuki bluntly, "So we all fully expect you to change your mind and completely overhaul your design concept several times," Natsuki paused and took a sip from her juice box, before tacking on, "Per loop."

Sayori sighed. "Yeah…that's fair. I am pretty wishy-washy."

"Ah…I would say you were more…whimsical," amended Yuri.

"Oh well, whatever! Let's get crackin'! Wait, what about gifts?!" asked Sayori suddenly, "And our grand entrance!"

"Um, Sayori? We don't even know where we'll be at the start of the 'Wedding Loop'. I mean, Remnant is probable, but we know that Earth and other life-bearing planets will be part of the loop, so we need a contingency for that…" Monika trailed off thoughtfully, again. Then she gave herself a shake and returned to her original thought, "But more importantly…we're going as guests, Sayori. To a wedding. As in, two specific people's "Special Day". Making a strong first impression is important, yes, particularly since we'll be meeting a lot of Loopers for the first time. But…in moderation, alright?"

"Eh?" asked Sayori.

"What she means is that we need to reign in our mad style, lest we give the false impression of trying to steal the spotlight from the brides," Natsuki clarified.

"Oh," Sayori's eyes widened with realization. "Well, obviously we don't want to do that…"

"And about the gifts," said Yuri, "I actually had a thought about that…we all got to know Blake a bit, the week she was with us. But we don't really know much about Yang, besides what Blake told us. So…I was thinking…maybe we can all get something personal for Blake, and then work together to come up with something Yang might like?"

"Or, we could each get a gift for each of them!" exclaimed Sayori excitedly, "And we could each get a gift for both of them! And a group gift for both of them! And a group gift for each–"

"Sayori!" Monika cried out, holding back laughter, "Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but I think four people giving the happy couple eighteen separate gifts might be seen as…ah-heh…"

"Kiss-ass-y" Natsuki interjected. "Now, as the sanest member of the Club, here's my counter-proposal: since one traditionally gives a gift to the couple as a unit, I say we do that. Each of us prepares one gift, for the both of them. And, as a group, we could also work together on composing a poem for the occasion. I mean, we're pretty kickass poets, in case y'all forgot."

"Counter-counter-proposal," said Yuri, "Historically speaking, our different writing styles don't always mesh too well. So we should invert your idea, Natsuki."

"Individual poems, and a group gift?" surmised Sayori, "Sounds good to me!"

"I'm not above trying to do another group project poem," said Monika, "But if you're cool with Yuri's idea, Nat, then so am I."

Natsuki smiled and shrugged, "Fair enough. Then we're agreed?" The other three nodded.

"We're agreed," said Monika. "And the second point I meant to make earlier; we don't yet know how we're starting the Wedding Loop, so no point planning our entrance until then. So that just leaves the matter of our attire."

And with that, the girls spent the rest of the loop exercising their inner fashionistas.

9.7 – Disturbing Images (by Wookywok)

"Hey, Monika?"

The club president briefly turned away from her piano. "Yeah, Natsuki? What's up?"

"Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking about something, and… it's troubling me." The pinkette held her hands up defensively. "I want you to know, this is about Baseline, and it does relate to what you did, but that's not the main point. If you're not comfortable hearing this, I'll go share my thoughts with Sayori or something - but I feel you should think about this."

Monika let out a small sigh. "Sure. Hit me."

Natsuki put her hands down. "Okay. First, common knowledge: We live in a game, and everything goes downhill once you start messing with everything - including Sayori and Yuri both committing suicide, and - most importantly for this - me throwing up."

Monika nodded affirmatively.

"And part of everything going downhill includes the graphics glitching out, because you, of your own admission, can't sprite to save your life," the tsundere continued.

Monika nodded again, slower this time. "And… your point? Because right now, it does sound like what I did is the main point."

"I was just about to get to that," said the pink-haired girl. "You see, you can't edit sprites. And, if things continued as normal, we can safely assume I wouldn't have lost my lunch. So why do I have a fully drawn sprite for puking my guts out?"

The brunette's eyes widened. "You're… you're right."

"For that matter, why does Sayori have a fully drawn CG for hanging herself? Why does Yuri have two sprites and a CG for stabbing herself to death? Heck, why do YOU have a CG for sitting in a room, staring at the fourth wall? It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!"

The club president placed her head in her hand. "I… don't know what to tell you. It's… one of those things we can't explain." She gave a sheepish grin. "Uh… wait for an expansion?"

"Like that's gonna happen with us," replied Natsuki. "Ugh, this is making my head hurt. I'm gonna go read some manga and think about this later."

9.8 – Do-kai Yo-kai, Pt. 2 (by Black Omachao)

Keita stepped into his classroom, just before class would begin, he looked his classmates as he walked towards his seat.

"Everything seems relatively normal…" the Anchor muttered to himself, Whisper gave him a quizzical look as he followed behind.

"Keita-kun!" Fumika stood up from her seat with a big smile as she approached the boy, "Good to see you!"

"Yeah, hi Fumi-chan…" Keita nodded to his crush, giving her a suspicious look, Fumika didn't seem to notice as she kept her cheerful demeanor.

"So, how's your day been so far? Anything cool happen on the way to school… oh! How about you sit next to me in class today?" the UnAwake girl offered, Keita gave her a questioning look.

"But… that's not where I sit, and neither of the seats next to you are free…" the boy pointed out bluntly.

"Fumi-chan wants you to sit next to her and you're questioning it? Who are you and what have you done with Keita-kun!?" Whisper exclaimed out of shock, Keita chose to ignore him.

"Hold it!" Satoko's voice suddenly interjected, she came from behind Fumika with an angry look on her face, but it was quickly replaced with a friendly smile when her eyes met Keita's, "Hey Keita-kun, you always spend so much time paying attention to Fumika, but never me, why don't you sit by me instead?" Fumika glared at her dark-haired friend as Keita let out a sigh at this situation.

"That's because we aren't really close, Hayashi-chan, why are you suddenly so interested in spending time with me?" as he spoke, Keita subtly used his yo-kai watch to scan the room, but he couldn't seem to find any sign of a yo-kai, the same as when his UnAwake-self checked, according to his memories, his eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, you guys barely have anything in common anyway, so maybe you should just stop bugging Keita-kun," Mika spoke up as she walked over to both Fumika and Satoko, both giving her annoyed glares, "But she is right about Fumika taking up all your time, how about we play soccer after class? Just you and me?" the tanned girl gave a smirk.

"I don't think you can play soccer with just two people," the Anchor countered with a groan, before any arguments could be made, the bell rang, signelling that class would be beginning shortly, "Look, we can talk more later, but I should really take me seat," Keita moved towards his seat, a little creeped out that he could almost claim to feel the three girls' eyes following him as he moved to his chair.

"Well… you handled that a lot better than yesterday, I'll admit I expected you to get all flustered again, whiss," Whisper said as he hovered by the boy's seat, Keita just nodded with a thoughtful expression.

"I can't find a yo-kai inspiriting them, but this is not normal behavior… hoping this isn't just another 'Harem Loop…'" Keita muttered a bit to himself, he glanced around the classroom and nearly reeled back when he saw the three girls staring at him intensely from each of their seats, he quickly looked away and shook his head, 'I don't want to imagine such a creepy look coming from Fumi-chan, even an UnAwake one, without some external cause…'

"Dude, what did you do? Those three are all over you lately," Kanchi questioned from his seat, Keita sighed as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

"I have no idea, Kanchi, I just have no idea…"

…

Keita snuck through the halls of the school with narrowed eyes, it was now lunch time, and had luckily managed to escape from Fumika, Satoko and Mika's attempts to get him to sit with each of them, away from the other two, and snuck out of the cafeteria without anyone noticing.

"Keita, what exactly are you doing? Whissu," Whisper questioned as he floated up behind the Looper.

"I have reason to believe that Fumi-chan and her friends are being inspirited, so I'm looking for a yo-kai…" Keita answered simply, shining the watch's light around as he moved through the halls. Whisper shook his head disapprovingly.

"Keita, Keita, Keita, there you go again with that nasty habit of yours for blaming yo-kai for everything, strange, sudden interest in you aside, we already checked and there was no yo-kai around them, whiss," the yo-kai butler chastised, Keita barely acknowledged his words as he approached the computer lab.

"Don't you remember when Gurerurin was inspiriting Kanchi? The affects didn't stop, even when they were separated, so couldn't the same logic apply to what's going on with Fumi-chan, Satoko and Mika?" Keita looked suspiciously at the computer lab's door, 'Computer lab… has this room always been here?'

"That was one person, Keita-kun. For a yo-kai to be able to keep inspiriting three separate people while being apart from all of them it would need to be a very powerful yo-kai, plus I've never heard of a yo-kai that makes girls obsess over a boy! Whissu."

"Yakimochi, Motemoten, Motemacool…" the Anchor muttered under his breath as he opened the door, he stepped into the room and started shining the light around.

"I'm telling you, there is no yo-kai. And, even on the highly improbable chance that I'm wrong, such a yo-kai would not be found in a compu– "

"Found it!"

"WHAT!? WHISSU!" Whisper's eyes nearly bulged out of his head as Keita's yo-kai watch revealed a yo-kai hovering over one of the computers; resembling a highschool girl, with pale skin, glowing green eyes, and pink hair with a ponytail that split off into three tentacles, the tips of which were each glowing.

"Oh my, it seems I've been found…" the yo-kai spoke, sounding a little emberrased, Whisper started looking through his yo-kai pad, Keita noticed a Ping and sent out his own, noting that the yo-kai did react.

"So, are you the one inspiriting my friends?" the Anchor asked carefully, the visiting Looper tapped her fingers together nervously.

"Well, see the thing about that is– "

"Found it! That's Monika!" Whisper suddenly exclaimed, pointing towards the girl, "She can use her influence to cause a group of girls that are normally the best of friends to become obsessed with the same boy and fight each other over him, destroying their friendships in the process! Whissu!" Whisper shouted accusingly, Keita noticed as Monika looked down in shame, "She's the yo-kai that makes you go; 'Eh, why are all those girls fighting? They've always been such good friends, but suddenly all they care about is that new guy,' whissu."

"Great…" Keita stated sarcastically, before looking towards Monika, "So, I take it from your body-language that you're not exactly proud of that description."

"You could… say that," Monika nodded, giving a sigh as she looked back at him.

9.9 – It's A Fine Night Tonight, Wouldn't You Agree? Part 2 (7.10 cont.)

Yuri was a passionate person. She generally kept it covered up, but when she was engaged with something she burned with vigor all the way down to the depths of her soul. That being said, she knew the value of keeping a clear head in the heat of battle. With a pen in hand, her mind was a firestorm. With a blade, however, she was as cold as ice. Berserking was more Natsuki's shtick, if anything. Tonight, however, she freely vented her mounting frustration through her new blade, a masterwork silver-edged katana crafted by the weaponsmiths of the Hellsing Organization, given to her as a gift by Sir Integra; apparently Yuri had greatly impressed the noblewoman with her poise and manners. With it, enemy vampires were much easier to eliminate. Ghouls, she now dispatched with hardly a thought.

"You know, I wouldn't have figured you for being such a savage warrior, based on our first encounter," commented the source of her frustrations from where he stood on the other side of the formerly ghoul-infested ballroom.

"I'll admit that I'm a bit…less than composed," Yuri ceded as she wiped the gore off of her blade before sheathing it.

"That much is obvious; don't bore me with the banal, child," Alucard scoffed as he crossed the corpse-riddled floor.

"Look, I get that you're hesitant to turn me…I imagine that you've had to put up with a lot of Loopers hounding you to share your amazing power with them, even though they don't understand the meaning behind that power. But I swear to you, if anyone was truly born to be a Creature of the Eternal Night, it's me! What can I do to convince you, sir?" Yuri pleaded as she followed him.

"For starters? Keep your mind on the mission," he replied bluntly, phasing right through the wall.

Yuri rolled her eyes. Her hands blurred, and without breaking stride she seemingly disintegrated a large enough hole in the wall to follow the vampire. She followed him up a stairwell and they cut through more ghouls; he with his guns and she with her blade. Somewhere, on one of the upper floors, a whole coven of vampires was waiting for them. They had made ghouls out of every human being that had been in the hotel, guests and staff alike.

Such base gluttony disgusted Yuri. It was, in her enlightened opinion, undignified; behavior unfitting for an Immortal.

"Let me take point," said Yuri as they neared the room where, according to Alucard's heightened senses, the coven lay in wait. Without waiting for permission, she pushed ahead of him and sheathed her katana. She kept a hand on the sheath as well as the hilt, primed for a battoujutsu strike.

"There are at least a dozen of Millennium's pale experiments in there, Yuri," Alucard reminded her, "Even with the strength, speed, and reflexes that come with the level of training and experience that only Loopers can attain, you're still presently bound by the limitations of a human form. If you insist on taking them head-on, at least tap into any Out-of-Loop powers you might have. You're an interesting young woman; I'd be sorely disappointed if your recklessness were to cut short our time together."

Yuri only snorted before kicking in the door. She immediately made a standing leap straight up, grabbed the top of the doorframe, flipped herself up and planted her feet on the wall and sprang off towards the middle of the room. Gunfire filled the doorway she had just been standing in. She landed in the middle of a group of gun-toting ghouls. Most of them were bisected by her first swing, and the rest followed in the blink of an eye.

Then Yuri felt a gloved hand on her shoulder, and then she was ensconced in darkness. She found herself standing in what could be considered a quaint, picturesque countryside. If one were found of Stygian hellscapes with rivers of blood and mountains of corpses. Shrieks of the damned echoed in the distance, and a baleful red sun shone down. "Did he…Pocket me?" Yuri asked herself, looking around. "Hmm. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm rather disappointed. I had taken him for being more creative than this."

Then she was back in the hotel suite. Alucard was looking down at her with a somewhat amused expression. There were no other vampires in sight, nor any sign of the ghouls she had cut down. "What happened?" she asked.

"Our Master has recalled us," said Alucard, "So we have no more time to lollygag about, I'm afraid."

"I see," said Yuri, heading towards the door.

"Halt," Alucard ordered gently, "In case I hadn't been clear, Sir Integra has recalled us with all due haste. Time being of the essence, I shall translocate us there."

"Right, you're Schrödinger's Vampire," said Yuri, returning to Alucard's side. "By the way, please tell me your entire Pocket isn't like that? Because I have to be honest; that whole scene was just…uninspired. Trite. Hackneyed. Vapid, even. Was I mistaken in thinking you were a vampire of good taste?"

"Oh, you are a doll," Alucard chuckled, "That was the part of my Pocket I use for messing with people. I'll be sure to give you a personal tour of the good parts."

"Well, I'm sure you can't have any worse parts," said Yuri. She frowned. "I'm sorry, I'm being very rude and uncharitable today. I'm frustrated and grouchy, and even if it is your fault it doesn't excuse my juvenile attitude about this."

"How very mature of you," Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing remarked wryly.

Yuri squeaked and jumped back. She realized that they were now standing in Integra's study. Alucard chuckled. "Bastard," Yuri growled at him.

There was a sudden choking noise, followed by "Holy shit, Yuri, who pissed in your Cheerios?"

"Monika?!" Yuri gasped, turning to the woman sitting on the other side of Integra's desk with a cup of coffee in her hands, and a little coffee now staining her…lab coat? "What are–when did you–huh?!"

"Tisk, tisk, whatever has become of your unflappable calm?" asked Alucard.

"Yuri? Unflappable?" asked Monika. Then she started snickering.

"You two know each other, then,"Alucard observed.

"Indeed," said Integra, "This is Yuri's Anchor. She's replaced Herr Doktor this loop. On a side note, it would seem we're going to have no trouble with Millennium this loop."

Alucard frowned, and turned to face Monika. "You bested them all?"

"A battalion of Waffen-SS commandos enhanced with artificial vampirism, plus a werewolf?" asked Monika with a cocked eyebrow, "It was hardly a workout. Picked up a neat new weapon, though." Rip Van Winkle's musket appeared in her hand. "Granted, I prefer handguns, but anything with magical homing bullets I'm happy to work with. I destroyed fifteen tanks and three zeppelins with one shot with this thing."

"Hmm. Not bad, for a Looper young enough to be unknown to me," remarked Alucard. Then he grinned, "You like guns, do you?"

Yuri suddenly felt a shift in the atmosphere of the room, and she knew exactly what it was. Monika could generally be counted on to be the most rational and level-headed of the club. The one consistent exception to this…was when she crossed paths with a fellow gunslinger.

By the time the first shots had rang out, Yuri had already leaped across the room, tackled Integra to the ground, and slapped down a Bubble Shield.

Alucard, naturally, had drawn his guns and shot first, but Monika had still been quick enough to negate the advantage; she had kicked back from Integra's desk with one foot, knocking her chair over. She had already gotten her other foot under her butt, and as her chair tipped back she launched herself backwards out of it, while Alucard's first shots wheezed through now-empty space. While he tried to track her, his guns now ripping the still-falling chair to splinters, and while Monika was still sailing backwards through the air in a very John Woo-esque style, she raised her new musket and fired it at Alucard.

The recoil from the shot sent her flying back even faster, while the magic bullet bounced back and forth between the relatively mundane silver bullets fired from Casull and Jackal, until finally ripping through Alucard's wrists and severing his hands, causing his guns to fall to the floor. While his fingers kept twitching, the guns' magazines were already empty. By the time that happened, however, Monika had already Unpocketed a Colt Single Action Army revolver in her other hand and sent two shots straight through Alucard's head, blowing it into a cloud of gore and red mist, and sent the remaining four shots into his chest.

Finally, she hit the floor on her back and immediately jumped back up to her feet, putting the musket and revolver back in her Pocket and replacing them with a pair of UNSC M6Ds. She shrugged off her lab coat, and a dark-green "light armor" hardsuit appeared over her body, mass effect kinetic barriers pulsing and shimmering into existence over her body. She didn't Unpocket a helmet, however.

"Cute," grunted Integra as she pushed Yuri off of her, pulled out a wand and tapped it to the shield generator, causing the barrier to take on a magical, violet hue. "So your Anchor is a Blood Knight, too? And she seemed so sensible."

"Oh, no!" said Yuri quickly, "Monika hasn't an ounce of bloodlust in her…just a very strong competitive streak."

"Oh, YES!" Alucard roared as soon as his head had mostly regenerated, his tone of voice suddenly very different than it had been up until now, "You may be young but you're spirited. You world must be a real Hell to turn out girls like you and Yuri. And that wouldn't happen to have been one of Ocelot's custom jobs, was it?"

"No, it was one of my customs. I did get a few tips from Mr. Ocelot, though. And if you think Yuri and I are 'spirited', then you'd just adore Natsuki," Monika remarked with a smile, holding her pistols up while she waited for Alucard to finish recovering. "Sadly, I don't have any regenerative abilities, so if we're going to do this–"

"Oh, you bet your sweet ass we're doing this," Alucard said with relish.

"Then I'll have to ask that you consider me beaten if you manage to wear down my shields," Monika finished.

"Is…is something wrong with Alucard?" Yuri asked Integra, "He's giving off a very different presence all of a sudden…as if he's someone else."

"Well, 'wrong' is subjective, I suppose," Integra grumbled, lighting a cigar, "But no, this is just a 'Variant' persona he assumes, sometimes, whenever the mood strikes him. We call it…the Crimson Fucker."

Yuri could only blink and stare blankly.

Meanwhile, Alucard had fully regenerated, picked up his guns, and reloaded. "Aaaaaaalrighty then, Monika, was it? Let's–"

Monika closed the distance between them and shoulder-checked him with a Biotic Charge, sounding him flying backwards and opening fire with both of her hand cannons. "Dance?" she asked him over the roar of gunfire as she ripped his torso to gibs. "Yes, let's."

By the time Alucard wore down Monika barriers and managed to put a bullet in her shoulder, they had demolished most of the mansion, and Monika had used almost all of the ammunition in her Pocket.

9.10 – Yuri: Knife Knave Ninja (by Awesomedude17)

Appearing in a poof of smoke, Yuri noticed the looks she was getting and decided to speak up.

"I took up ninjutsu recently."

"We figured," Natsuki said matter-of-factly. "I'm more focused on the fact that you literally covered your body in knives. Why?"

"You need a weapon in the event you are ambushed."

"Okay, one, you're a high schooler. What enemies do you have that could reasonably attack you. Two, there's only the five of us that exist here. Finally, you don't need all those knives."

Yuri scratched the back of her head. "Actually, those are good points. I'm not stopping though."

"Typical."

9.11 – Do-kai Yo-kai, Pt. 3 (by Black Omachao)

"I see, so you can't really stop yourself from inspiriting people," Keita concluded after getting an explanation from Monika, the visiting Looper nodded.

"Yes, I don't mean to make friends fight, but when I'm around it just sort of happens…" she let out a depressed sigh, gripping the tentacles that sprouted from her hair, "All three lights are still active, that means the girls are still in the 'running' to win your heart, once only one is left and a girl has 'won,' the inspiritment should wear off… but it's often at the cost of the girls' friendships…"

"I see, that's troublesome," the Anchor muttered thoughtfully, Whisper nodded in agreement, "So you don't know how to stop the inspiritment without one of them 'winning?'"

"But by that point their friendship will likely be ruined beyond fixing! Whissu!" the yo-kai butler exclaimed dramatically, Keita sighed.

"Yeah… plus I'm not ready to date," at this comment, Whisper gave the Anchor a strange look.

"Not ready to date? But what of all your pining after Fumi-chan!? Whissu!"

"That's a topic for another day, Whisper…" Keita grumbled as he averted his eyes, "The fact of the matter is, we need to find a way to snap those three out of this…" the Anchor looked to be in thought for a few more seconds, before he seemed to get an idea, "Whisper…"

"Um, yes Keita-kun? Whissu…"

"Do you think you can go to the yo-kai world and see if you could find anything that could help with the situation, anything at all that you think might help," the human boy pleaded, the yo-kai butler stared at him with a look of slight shock, before shaking his body and giving a salute.

"Why of course Keita-kun! Your faithful yo-kai butler will not let you down! Whissu!" Whisper gave an enthusiastic shout, before flying out of the room, Keita waved while Monika stared with an unsure expression, before the Anchor nodded.

"Now that he's gone…" he turned his attention back to the visitor, "Let's have another talk, Looper-to-Looper…"

"… Yes, let's," the visiting Looper nodded back to him, giving a small smile.

"I can tell you're not comfortable with what your inspiritment is doing to my friends, so I'm sure you really don't know of a way to undo it in a simple manner…"

"Yeah, it… hits a little close to home," Monika admitted with a frown, "Though I fudged the truth a little on how I ended up inspiriting them; my UnAwake-self actually did it on purpose, gleefully in fact. I Woke up soon after, but it seems while my current form can easily inspirit a group of girls, uninspiriting them is not so simple."

"Waking up soon after your UnAwake-self does something stupid, and you don't know how to fix it?" Keita muttered with a nod, "That sucks…"

"Yeah, it does," Monika brushed a bit of her hair to the side with a small grumble, "I am sorry about your friends, I just don't know how I could fix it…" Keita smiled.

"Don't worry about it, I can nullify that inspiritment no problem," at the cheerful assurance from the local Anchor, Monika gave him a blank expression.

"… Wait, you can just fix this? Than why haven't you yet!?"

"Well, Whisper's not Awake, and I didn't want to try to explain to him why I can just nullify a yo-kai's inspiritment," Keita explained with a shrug, "Plus, I wasn't sure if they were being inspirited, since I couldn't find anything. But now that I've found you, and Whisper's out of the room, I can just cancel your powers and give Whisper some other excuse when he gets back…"

"Well, fine, why not," Monika shrugged back to the other Anchor, before letting out an annoyed sigh, "Sheesh, I really thought I screwed something up here for a second…"

"No, but your concern is appreciated," Keita smiled as his body was surrounded by a blue aura, Monika felt her yo-kai abilities being suppressed as the boy held out his hand towards her, "There, Fumika, Satoko and Mika should be back to normal by the time we get back to class…"

"That's good to hear," Monika sighed as she hovered around the room, glancing at some of the computers with an unreadable expression, Keita kept his eyes on her as she moved around.

"So… you want to talk about anything else…? Oh right!" the boy took a quick look in his pocket, before pulling out a yo-kai watch, Monika looked at him strangely, "Standard procedure, every first-timer to our Loop gets a yo-kai watch!" the human grinned as the visiting Anchor took the watch and looked it over curiously.

"Oh, well thank you, not sure how useful this will be back home though," she smiled sheepishly, Keita chuckled.

"I know, but it's still nice to have, especially if you ever end up back here as a human, it also tends to work in most other Branches with invisible spirits or creatures of sorts…" Keita reached into his pocket again and handed Monika a medal depicting Fuu2.

"Huh, a yo-kai medal?" the humanoid yo-kai took the medal, her in-Loop memories informing her on what the object was.

"That's my yo-kai form; Fuu2. We're friends now, so it makes sense to give you that," Keita nodded.

"Isn't it a little soon to start calling me your friend?" Monika questioned skeptically, Keita looked at her with a tilt of his head.

"Huh… is it? I didn't think so, you seem nice, you didn't cause any trouble on purpose, I don't see why we shouldn't be friends," Keita muttered thoughtfully, "Though… if you don't want to be I suppose I shouldn't try and force the idea…"

"No, it's fine," Monika quickly assured the child, waving her hands a bit after pocketing the watch and medal, "It was just a little surprising is all, that you'd want us to be friends so soon after meeting…"

"I suppose I can be a bit too quick to call someone my friend, that's just how it usually is with yo-kai I meet," Keita admitted with a shrug, Monika let out a small laugh, before handing the boy a medal depicting her current form.

"Well, if you're going to give me your medal, I might as well give you mine as well… even if I'm not usually like this."

"Thanks, Monika, I'll be sure to keep it safe with the medals of other Loopers I've met in yo-kai form," Keita smiled graciously as he took hold of the medal, before quickly storing it away, "So, do you mind if I ask what your home Loop is like?"

"No, I don't, though there really isn't much to say," the visiting Looper admitted unsurely, "My three friends and I live in a computer game, kind of… Well, it's technically four friends but… the fourth is…" Monika seemed to be struggling to find the proper words for what she was trying to say, "We thought he wasn't really anything, just a… puppet? Something with no mind of his own, but… lately… I don't know. I feel like things aren't so certain," Monika let out a defeated groan, "Sorry, I don't mean to start bringing this up with you, but it's… a difficult topic for my friends and I back home…"

"It's fine, you don't need to talk about it if you don't want to, but I'll listen if you want," Keita assured, Monika nodded, though it didn't look like she was planning to continue, "… So, you live in a computer game? What's that like?" Monika didn't have to think long on that.

"Well, to be honest it was pretty boring at first. Until I learned a bit more about coding, now I can do some interesting things back home," the visitor grinned, "Of course, programming some basic things like being able to eat I find necessary almost every Loop."

"You don't have that by default?"

"You'd be surprised what we don't have by default. But once I get the basic stuff out of the way, there are some other directions that I can go…"

…

"I can't believe Monika was able to just 'figure out' how to turn off her inspiritment! And I looked all over for this 'harem-repellent, whissu!" Whisper lamented with a small shopping bag in hand, Keita sweatdropped, though he smiled at his incorporeal butler.

"Well, I thank you for the effort anyway, it was all kind of unexpected…" the Anchor assured as they stepped into the classroom, when he noticed Fumika talking with her friends in what appeared to be a friendly manner, his smile grew.

"Oh, Keita-kun," Fumika greeted as she took notice of him, Satoko and Mika smiled when they saw him, "Sorry about all that nonsense earlier, we don't know what came over us."

"No problem Fumi-chan, I'm just glad to see you back to normal," the Looping boy assured, Fumika Satoko and Mika all giggled a bit with slightly red tinted faces, "Huh…?" the Anchor took notice of this with a bit of suspicion.

"Yeah, it was so silly. After all, why fight over you…" Mika smirk as the three moved closer to the boy, Keita took a step back.

"When we can all spend time with you!" Satoko grinned.

"Though we haven't decided on a schedule yet, but we think on the weekend we should all spend time together, but for today maybe you should decide which you should spend time with," Fumika suggested, sharing a cheerful grin with her two friends, Keita's eye twitched.

"… I knew it! It was a Harem Loop in disguise all along!" the Anchor suddenly shouted, rushing out of the classroom, much to the shock of his teacher and classmates.

"Amano-kun, you can't just– "the teacher started, but was interrupted by the three girls that rushed out the door after him.

"Keita-kun, where are you going!?" Fumika called out.

"You haven't even decided which of us you'll spend time with today yet!" Satoko added as she and Mika followed closely behind Fumika.

"Wait Keita-kun! The repellent! The repellent! Whissu!" Whisper shouted as quickly flew out of the room to catch up to the Anchor, the class was left in silence as the teacher tried to figure out what to do now. But out of the class, none were more confused than Kanchi and Kuma.

"… Hey, Kanchi," Kuma started, turning to his smaller friend.

"Yeah, Kuma?" the other boy responded blankly.

"What. Did. Keita. Do…?"

"I don't have any good answer for that Kuma, but I would very much like to know… for science," Kanchi stated firmly, Kuma looked like he didn't know how to respond to that, so they just sat in silence.

Compiler's Commentary:

9.1: Obviously very serious.

9.2: Yuri, quit being emo about the emus.

9.3: To be fair, Monika, getting even a heavily-bugged version of a simulation like the Matrix to operate with only fifty gigaflops is kind of like building a functional spaceship with Legos. So, you know…props.

9.4: Don't throw lasers and missiles inside digital houses, kids. At least, not more than your OS can support.

9.5: They say puberty is a perfectly natural phenomenon. Sometimes it's perfectly supernatural.

9.6: Sayori continues to demonstrate that weddings are super-serious business.

9.7: This does make me wonder, though, what relationship the DDLC Branch of Yggdrasil might have with the Project Libitina (assuming it will be called that) Branch, whenever Team Salvato finishes it. A bridge to burn when I cross it, I suppose.

9.8: Whisper continues to demonstrate why you can't depend on Wikipedia for all your infomongering needs.

9.9: Monika's a pro at Bullet Tag. Unfortunately, all the hit-and-run skill in the Multiverse still won't get you far in a 1v1 with a guy who's whole existence boils down to "Fuck you, that's how". Triply so when he's been Looping for eons longer than she has.

9.10: No one has as many points as Yuri. She has all the points. The best points. The pointiest points. So many pointy points!

9.11: If I were more familiar with Yo-kai Watch, I could probably make better comments about it. So I apologize for that.