Alice in Wonderland belongs to the public domain by now, but The Walt Disney Company created the take on the story seen here.

Kodansha and Akamatsu Ken created and own Mahou Sensei Negima! even if all they do with it now is screwing it up.

I make no money from this fanfic.

It's a Wonderland Wherever You Go.

A pseudo-sequel in dubious continuity to The Keys of the Kingdom.

Edits and extra gags provided by Shadow Crystal Mage.

"Good morning, everyone," a still sort of sleepy Negi said, walking into the dinning room while finishing buttoning his shirt up. "I had the strangest dream ever last night, you know. Actually, it's more like they were two different dreams, and each one contradicted the other's events, yet they seemed to happen in parallel. It's very strange, I don't know how to best describe it..."

The only ones sitting at the table, over a few plates of pancakes in the Western style Evangeline favored, were Alice, Cocone, Madoka, Lala and Rito. The first three at opposite sides of the table, Madoka and Cocone sharing one, Alice alone at the other, and they'd been comparing Pactio cards when Negi had walked in. Rito sat slightly perplexed for some reason a few seats away from them, while Lala sat by his side happily eating like a Saiyan, without any concern in the world.

Negi blinked, looked all over them, and finally said, "There's something strange here..."

"We were the first ones to get up this morning, that's all," Cocone quietly said.

"Oh," Negi said, nodding, and then calmly pulled his chair and sat down. "Well, I guess they won't mind if we start without them. It's my turn to do the dishes this morning, right?"

"Riiiiiight," Rito said, slowly deciding Negi-sensei had the right idea after all in just going with the flow, for their own sanity's sake.

"The skirt is far too short! It's just plain indecent!" Alice gasped, insisting on trying to tug it down so it covered more of her mostly exposed legs, but since it wouldn't go that far without sliding down her hips, it was ultimately an exercise in futility. She quickly realized this and simply pouted, looking clearly unhappy about it all. "I had no idea Japanese customs were this dissolute. In the books, all Japanese women wear kimonos that cover pretty much the whole of their bodies…"

"Stop complaining, it looks cute on you," Misa complimented, ruffling the cloth with the black and red checkered patterns back into proper place, then taking a moment to briefly pat both hands on Alice's hips. "You'll get used to it in no time, I'm sure!"

"But, but, what if there's a strong wind?" Alice doubted, uncomfortably taking her hands to the back of her skirt, flinching at how tight and skimpy her new undergarments felt, allowing chilly drafts to sneak under that treacherously short skirt. "Then everyone will see, well, the unmentionables!" she blushed brightly, avoiding Misa's amused smirk. "Don't laugh, please, this is extremely serious!"

"What a cutie, so shy!" Misa fondly said, reaching over to ruffle her fingers through her blond hair. "Even though you're a rival in love, I can't get mad at you! Relax, you'll spend most of your time around other girls, so even if they get a look, what's the problem?"

Shiina the lesbian and Kugimiya the grudging member of the SOS Brigade (aka, the complete and total weirdoes) exchanged flat looks at this statement.

"W-Well..." Alice kept on looking aside, "then there is that, I suppose, but even so…"

Sitting on the edge of Madoka's bunk, Kugimiya and Shiina watched on with mild interest. They were too entertained to tell Alice about bicycle shorts under the skirt yet, or even those hideous cheap shorts Misaka Mikoto-sempai, the freelance enforcer for the Discipline Committee, used to wear. They also found Misa's 'more gay than normal' behavior mildly entertaining. She didn't seem to notice she was being more touchy-feely than normal. "Yeah, you look great, Alice-chan," Sakurako eventually nodded, smirking impishly. "You'll get yourself a fanclub before the week's over, I can tell!"

"F-Fanclub?" Alice stammered dubiously.

"Yeah, well, foreign students and teachers always get a lot of attention," Misa nodded, adjusting Alice's tie carefully, and not tying it as tightly as she'd have done to any other rivals, then smoothing down Alice's lapels and lingering longer on her chest than was necessary. "I can't guarantee that'll last, though, so enjoy it while you can!"

"Oh, I honestly don't know if I could enjoy having a lot of attention heaped upon me," Alice said, as Misa combed her hair one last time before they left. "After all, last time it happened because I was in the middle of a trial and waiting for a death sentence."

Misa sighed. "Well," she said, putting an arm around Alice's shoulders. "I'll be honest with you. Navigating through the social scene of an academy… pretty much amounts to the same thing as that."

"So, who are you rooming with?" Yuuki Mikan asked her newest classmate over lunch. The rest of her friends had sent her as a test balloon of shorts while they hung behind, discreetly watching their conversation and taking note of what was going on for future reference. Mikan thought it was a stupid thing to do, but she knew she wasn't going to change their minds on the subject, so she was a good Japanese girl and avoided confrontation by going with what the group expected from her. Besides, the new girl seemed likable. Mikan had no idea why her classmates were so wary of approaching foreigners, even Lala-san was fairly agreeable.

"Um, with three upperclasswomen from Class 3-A," Alice said, and further into the background, Mikan's friends could be faintly gasping in shock and alarm. "Miss Kugimiya, Miss Kakizaki and Miss Shiina…"

Here, the gasps grew in intensity and urgency, and one of the girls was briefly heard whimpering, "Th-The scout of the SOS Brigade! This is an omen of doom…!"

Mikan sweatdropped and smiled, forcing her own tone up to try and disguise her friends' voices. "I see, they are in the same club as my brother's girlfriend... Um, I assume, then, you are…"

Alice nodded, with a faint blush and her hands on her knees. "Y-Yes, I am the newest member inducted into the English Research Society… Professor Springfield has been a great help in making me feel like at home…"

The voices grew in pitch and agitation.

"I knew it! She's one of his girlfriends!"

"Oooohhhh! Maybe, maybe if we become her friends, she'll get us a spot too!"

"Quick, before Mikan gets the lead! You know boys will always go for her first!"

"Q-Quiet down! Look, she's about to—"

Mikan came back from quelling the chattering voices, cheeks slightly flushed. She dusted her hands off on her hips, sat down with Alice again, and made her best attempt to smile sincerely. "I'm sorry about that," she offered. "Now, I trust Haruna-san hasn't been bothering you? She's a good girl, but she's also a bit… eccentric, but then again, English people like eccentricities, don't you?"

Alice blinked, craned her neck up to look past Mikan's shoulder, and very honestly replied, "I've seen worse than Miss Saotome, if that's what you mean."

"Dammit," one of the girls said groggily. "I'd forgotten she packed that kind of right hook."

"Soooo..." Mikan said as they both sat together on the porch of the Yuuki household, eating Popsicles, "You're a princess, then? I'm so honored! I mean, getting to know TWO princesses in less than a year, when I never dreamed of ever meeting a single one!"

"Well," Alice said, "it's not that I am a Princess as such, since my family has no royal blood. But apparently some council of superior entities somewhere decided I was one of twelve or so so-called Princesses of Heart, who are necessary to keep the balance between light and darkness. Or something along those lines. I don't understand it too well myself."

"Um," Mikan said. "And where are all those other Princesses, then?"

Alice only could shrug. "I have no idea, the Professor had to abandon that quest after the whole chain of events seemingly collapsed in on itself and we were pulled into this world. Or at least that was how Doctor Hakase explained it to me."

"... okay," Mikan said, deciding trying her best to take all of that in stride. "I guess it wasn't too important, since that search could be dropped aside without all of reality blinking awa—"

There she stopped herself, looked around very nervously, and trembled. "I was one letter away from destroying reality! Scary!"

Alice blinked. "Ah. By the way, I heard you liked gardening, Mr. Yuuki?" she asked Rito as he walked out bringing their glasses of orange juice. "Here's something I'd like to give you as a token of my gratitude. It may not be much, but... it's a seed I picked up while in Wonderland, and I figured it might make a fine addition to this beautiful garden of yours..."

The boy blinked, looking at the small green seed Alice had just handed him after pulling it from her skirt pocket. "Seriously? Oh, thank you very much, Alice-chan. Um, I've always liked exotic plants, yes..."

"Why don't you go bring the special watering can Lala gave you?" Mikan smiled. "Alice-chan, you should see it! When he waters plants with it, they grow thrice as big and healthy! It's like a miracle, it's incredible!"

Now, Alice had seen more than her fair share of incredible miracles of late, and in all honesty, she was not sure she was ready for, or even wanted to, witness any more. Still, it would have been so impolite not to share in Miss Mikan's enthusiasm! "Oh, well, I'd love to see it, in that case!" she made herself smile, bringing her hands together.

Rito smiled as well, looking at the shiny seed in his hand. By now he knew better than to trust strange gifts from alien worlds, but this was A PLANT! His gardening spirits couldn't resist to the promises of seeing A NEW TYPE OF PLANT!

"Let's do it!" he cheered, pumping a fist up...

"Uwah!" Rito cried as he was held upside down by the long, thick root grabbing him by a leg, high over the garden. His Artifact was still firmly clutched in hand, not that further watering the gigantic, monstrous flower with the tentacle-like roots spawning from his fertile grounds would have helped any. "LALA! Do something!"

"Will do, of course!" Lala, standing by a shocked Mikan, mortified and appalled Alice, and scowling, glowering Nao at the house's door, was dialing a long number on her Devilukian cellphone, eyes gleaming, watering grin wide. "The Galactic Botanic Research must be contacted on this fantastic discovery immediately! Oh, and Momo will want video of it, naturally!"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL! LALA!" he cried while the plant shook him around experimentally.

"... she needs a name. How 'bout 'Celine'?" Nao dryly offered after a long, thoughtful consideration. "Because she looks like a Celine to me..."

"I think it might be an Audrey," Mikan said.

"Rito, there's a weird old guy looking for you," Nao said, walking into his bedroom without even knocking first. In her defense, he had his door wide open, since he hadn't met Momo yet. "He's got creepy eyes and a pervy face."

"Tell him Dad won the lawsuit, he doesn't have to make his manga any less lewd, and if there's another trial, they can find him at his studio," Rito said, without looking up from his homework. "If it's about Celine, tell him—"

"I have come for you, not your father or any 'Celine', Keyblade wielder," Yen Sid grimly announced, appearing on the doorstep right behind Nao, Keyblade well in hand.

"GAHHHHH, IT'S YOU!" Rito screamed, quickly backpedalling against the wall. "How, how did you even find me?!"

"Magic," Yen Sid said. "And Facebook."

"Okay, I'm leaving you guys alone, have fun," Nao flatly said before walking away, texting on her cellphone all the way down the hall. "Just make sure it's safe and consensual."

The old mage smiled, which with his pervy face was really disturbing. "Distance is nothing for the searchers of the Light. You cannot escape your responsibility!" he vigorously shouted, shoving the Keyblade into the boys' hands. "Even now, dark forces out there scheme to subjugate the worlds! You cannot simply pretend to abandon your duties, as if they were a game!"

Rito handed him a list.

"What's this?" Yen Sid frowned, reading from the names written on it. "Takamichi T. Takahata, Akashi Wataru, Negi Springfield, Ku Fei, Misaka Mikoto, Kotegawa Yui, Suzushiro Haruka, Sakurazaki Setsuna, Shirai Kuroko, Kuchiki Rukia, Bujushima Saeko, Akemi Homura, Chicken Boo? What is the meaning of this?"

"It's my list of people on this campus I'd trust with a fated weapon in a fight to save the universe, Sir," Rito gulped. "You'll notice I'm not there, and that's because, well—"

"Nonsense, the Keyblade chose you! It wants you to use it, you are not that easily replaceable!" Yen Sid insisted, in utter defiance of everything past Kingdom Hearts 1. "You are not going to flee your training!"

"But, they're all responsible, and good fighters, dutiful, not flimsy or indecisive at all, well, Negi-sensei is, but only in romantic matters, but he's only ten, and it's not like that matters anyway in a—"

Yen Sid huffed, beginning to pull large bags of heavy luggage out of his wide sleeves, where they shouldn't have fit at all no matter how spacious they were. As he placed them on the floor, one after another, he humorlessly told Rito, "Show me your guest room. This place is nowhere as fit for a knight's training as my tower, but we will cope, I am sure."

"HAVEN'T YOU HEARD A SINGLE WORD OF WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING?!"

"Where are your parents?" Yen Sid asked. "The terms of my stay will have to be discussed with them."

"Um, I don't know. They're at their jobs, I guess."

"Well, when will they come back?"

"I don't know either."

"They are coming back today, aren't they?"

"Um, unless you pull them here with your magic, no, they won't, and I'm sure even then they'll just call a taxi and leave immediately."

"I see. But they'll be back by the weekend?"

"I think they don't know the meaning of that word."

"Which one?"

"'Weekend' or 'back'. Either works. Maybe they'll drop by Christmas. Dad might visit for my birthday, but that's in October, and I make no promises."

"…" Yen Sid said.

"Are you disappointed?" Rito asked.

"Hardly. Where I come it's expected for parents to be absent for most children. It's good to know a few traditions are the same everywhere."

"Are you sure you're from the forces of good?! What sad place are you from that it's expected for kids not to have parents to take care of them?"

"Our founder and king had mother issues. Your parents' lack of meddling will make things all that much easier," a pleased Yen Sid nodded. Then he paused, stroke his beard thoughtfully, and shifted his eyes around. "Is Professor Mikado here?"

"She lives a few blocks away, in the big spooky mansion," Rito deadpaanned.

"I see. The one I saw in my way here, I assume. A fine home for a fine woman. It was just natural, indeed…"

"Um, okay, if there's no way out of this, you can go tell her hi while I put your things in your room," Rito said with weary resignation. "I'm sure she won't mind…"

Yen Sid was already gone.

"At least I won't have to live with those perverted twins anymore," Rito sighed very deeply, and began to lift one of the bags. "What the hell, why are they so heavy?! Brooms?! Why are there so many BROOMS in this one?!"

From here to there, then back to here, and then back again! It looked like the last few days in Alice's life had been nothing but that, and worse, it also looked like they'd keep on being that way. Now, Professor Negi had called her and the cheerleader trio and summoned them to the Yuuki's residence, where besides Negi himself, Chamo the ermine, Princess Lala, Mr. Yuuki and his sister (apparently their cousin the harlot was out on some sort of excursion, thankfully. Alice had not liked her very much, and she could tell the feeling was mutual), there had been a very stern looking old gentleman with the long white beard, tall pointy hat and long robes befitting a wizard from a fantasy book, waiting for her.

"So," Mikan told Negi while Yen Sid carefully studied Alice, looking under her eyes, feeling her pulse, passing a few small tablets over her head and other assorted actions one would expect from a magical medical test, "you're a mage, then."

"Yes, I am," Negi had to confess, since there was no point in denying it to her at this point either. He dearly hoped this chapter would never become canon, the poor devil.

"Ah, that explains a lot of things, I suppose," Mikan calmly said.

"I'm surprised," Negi said, with a voice that despite everything didn't sound terribly surprised. "You've taken it remarkably well. Most people ask me for a love potion or a money tree."

"Well, it's one of those things that get chipped away little by little, you know?" Mikan shrugged. "First your brother somehow got a girlfriend without paying her. Then a girl with a tail shows up and says she's your brother's alien fiancee, then your brother shows up with a watering can that only could be magical, then the new girl in your class claims to be Alice in Wonderland, then Gandalf shows up and says he's going to train your brother so he'll be a Jedi. So now I just take them as they come. Don't blame yourself, ultimately it's just Lala-san's fault. Although in hindsight, the first thing that broke normalcy was Rito finding a girlfriend. On second thought, better blame Rito and Haruna-san."

"Hey!" her brother protested.

"Yes," Yen Sid approved, finishing his exam by patting Alice's shoulders. "The Light shines brightly in her heart. She is one of the twelve Princesses with pure hearts. As long as we have her, the plans of the enemy cannot be fulfilled… but should the rest of them fall in their clutches, the threat will still be present. Should they gather the eleven, r even just unite the seven, they will amass enough power to come for her and reach their endgame."

"Okay, and who are 'they'?" Madoka quite sensibly asked.

"The exact nature of the hand guiding the Heartless is unknown to me yet," Yen Sid said, "although I have several theories. None that can help you yet, however, as those names would mean nothing to you. One way or another, your goal is clear. With Traverse Town lost as a base of operations, you must find the Princesses and bring them here, for their own safety."

"Are you suggesting we go and kidnap girls from their homes, families and loved ones, then to bring them here, into another world, where they won't know anyone, for God knows how long?!" Negi gasped. "Sir, I'm shocked and disgusted! There must be another way!"

"You just did that with Alice-chan," Sakurako pointed out.

"Only because I don't know yet how to return her to her proper place and time!" her teacher said. "I'll do that as soon as I can! In the meanwhile, what else could I do, leave her with the Queen of Hearts?"

"I'm sure my mother will say a woman's proper place is with her future husband, so…" Alice shyly said with a small blush, looking down at her dainty feet.

"I understand your reservations," Yen Sid told Negi, "and while your assistance in retrieving the first Princess is duly noted and thanked, perhaps the task should be left to the Keyblade wielder from here on."

"Are you joking?!" Chamo, Negi and Mikan said all at once, even if because of completely different reasons.

"You can't ask Rito to run that kind of risks!" Mikan said.

"Why, yes, she's right!" Negi agreed. "But also, my father could be in one of those parallel worlds! Undertaking that search is my duty as a teacher and a son!"

"If those Princesses are so important, they all should be making Pactios with my brother Negi!" Chamo said.

"Actually, getting them Pactios is a sound enough idea," a voice said from the doorstep, and they looked that way to see Skuld standing there, lazily resting against the doorframe, her arms folded and her mallet tucked behind her back. "I've observed… patterns of repeating events of this nature unfolding in the past. Invariably, the Chosen Ones would get captured because they lacked enough skills for self defense while the heroes stumbled around like dumb hotheaded Shounen manga parties." She shrugged callously. "The way I see it, there's some merit to the idea of letting them help with their own defense instead of, I don't know, blindly trusting thirteen emotionally conflicted pretty boys and the random talking mouse and cute girl to pull all the weight of their protection."

Yen Sid narrowed his cold gray eyes at her. "Woman. What are you?"

"Don't call her a 'what', please," Negi frowned. "She's my student, and as such, to be treated with due respect."

"She's also a goddess," Sakurako added.

"Yes, she is that, too," Negi nodded, as if addressing an afterthought.

"A goddess," Mikan evenly said, since all of her talk of taking things as they came had not been pure bluster. "Sure, why not."

"She was there with Miss Asuna when the Professor rescued me!" Alice further explained.

"Skuld, Norn of the Future," Skuld bowed graciously, yet also with some taunting mischief, to the old magician. "A pleasure! So, as I was saying, while giving them Pactios is not a bad idea, having all of those Pactios to be connected to a single Magister Magi is. Should something happen to the Magister of the twelve, all the effort put into equipping them would be instantly lost. It's better to diversify and assign different Magistra for them."

"Wow, are you that eager to kiss another girl already?" Misa asked her. "You can always just smooch Makie again, you know."

"Shut up, I wasn't saying I'd have to be one of the Magistra!" Skuld comically bared her teeth at her.

"How did you know you'd have to come here to join this conversation in the first place?" Rito asked. "Exactly who called you? I don't remember doing it. You don't have my house bugged, do you?"

"I have every strategically important site in this campus bugged, isn't that just logical?" Skuld shamelessly admitted with a big smile and an aloof shrug, while Lala just nodded sagely, rubbing her own chin and moving her tail around. "And it's not really any less ethical than peeking into a friend's dreams while she was sleeping innocently, is it? But just so you know I hold no grudges, I'll lend you an important asset for this enterprise!"

She clapped twice and in walked, after her, Banpei's small, stiffly moving figure, making Yen Sid to lift an eyebrow. Producing funny clicking and whirring sounds with each step, Banpei eventually stopped before Rito and bowed to him, without saying a word.

"Banpei-kun might not look like much," Skuld haughtily said, looking at her fingernails and proudly making slight 'Fu, fu, fu' sounds in between words, "but he's been programmed with numerous programs and subprograms of runic magic, including demonic dispelling, barrier setting, perimeter search, ballistic strike, ground-air-bombardment, and even a function to trace Alliance circles far faster and more accurately than any old familiar," this was said with a smug look at the fuming Chamo. "About the only thing it can't do to support the tasks of Princess-hunting is supplying the means of transport, but I assume Master Sid has that covered already, or am I wrong?"

Yen Sid kept on warily looking at this strange young woman who still made his skin crawl quietly, and finally said, "As a matter of fact, yes, I have."

"Here it is," Yen Sid said after leading them into the large empty lot near Rito's house with the sign announcing an upcoming Lexmart. Negi observed it was the same lot where Chachamaru kept her stray kittens, and that said kittens had been moved to a corner, where a sign with Chachamaru's unmistakable handwriting hung on the fence, right above the kittens' cardboard box home. It read:

Do Not Disturb, Even in Case of Liftoff or Landing, On Pain of Unfortunate Consequences. -Karakuri Chachamaru

As Negi sweatdropped, Rito asked, "Are we going to travel into another worlds... through thin air?"

Yen Sid merely extended a fist ahead and knocked on said thin air, causing a curious metallic sound, almost as if his knuckles were hitting something solid. A moment later, a tiny head with blue eyes, large ears, and long golden hair peeked out a small door that had just opened itself in midair, sporting a very unamused expression as the kittens tensed in attention, meowing and licking their whiskers.

"You really need to find me a better place to stay," Gadget Hackwrench dryly warned the old mage.

"Ah! Gadget-san!" Negi recognized her, smiling widely.

"Who?" Madoka blinked, perplexed as Hel— Hades, we guess.

"Oh, hello, Professor, Miss Misa, Miss Sakurako, Miss Alice, and um... everybody else," Gadget threw a token greeting nod their way, too. "It's good to see you're okay. At least, I'm assuming those are you and not alternate dimension versions of you. That'd be okay too, I guess, but I'd really rather be dealing with the versions I met. Usually that feels far more comfortable."

"After the— after what happened," Yen Sid began explaining, yet clearly unable to explain what had happened between Point B and the current Point D, "I managed to contact Miss Gadget and we retrieved Donald and Goofy's Gummi Ship from..." Here he also was unable to explain this part properly, so he ended up just leaping over it as best as he could, which was not that much, but at least he achieved it stoically enough. "However, since Rito's homeworld apparently hasn't mastered commercially available interstellar travel yet, not even through pirate sail ships, I took the precaution of casting a spell on it to make it invisible to the local naked eye or the native detection devices. The latter is hardly my specialty, but I counted with Miss Gadget's assistance on the subject..."

"Don't worry, the spell will react so you can see it whenever you need to," Gadget nodded, patting a hand on a side of the invisible ship, then caressing it with a fond sigh. "I only wish we could have brought the far more advanced ship of King Mickey instead, but apparently it couldn't be savaged from... um... where did you say it was, Master Sid?"

"Still crashed at Symphony of Sorcery, that much I can remember, Miss Gadget," Yen Sid humorlessly replied. "Still full of copulating Fairies, unfortunately."

Lala laughed, a hand behind her head. "Sorry! I'm not that good at landings, Zastin usually piloted for me!"

"I have noticed," Yen Sid said. "And so Miss Gadget will be transporting you during your search. I trust you will repay her help by making sure her stay at this realm is a pleasant one."

"In other words, please take me away from the cats," Gadget summed up. "The last few hours have been a constant sage! And the gynoid refused to take them away! I thought we were better friends than that by now!"

Negi blinked. "Okay. Hm, I'm sure Satomi-san won't mind offering you a place at her laboratory...?"

Gadget nodded. "A laboratory will be the best place, yes. Thank you!"

"Out of all the things I never expected for a mouse to say!" Sakurako whistled.

"I never expected a mouse to say anything, period!" Madoka gasped. "And what kind of a name is 'Hackwrench'?"

Yen Sid and Gadget gave her a disapproving look. "Oh, right, I've forgotten how casually namist everyone from this dimension tends to be,"

"Namist? Is that even a thing?" Madoka said.

"... all right," Mikan finally said, in a very little and faraway voice. "So, this genius pilot mouse lady will be taking you on trips to other planets in a ship that will be invisible as long as it's on Earth, so you can find princesses to kiss to protect them from the nebulously defined forces of evil."

"Basically, yes, that's it," Yen Sid nodded. "My congratulations, not only you are perceptive, but have quite a cultivated vocabulary for a child your age."

"Thank you," Mikan blandly said. She looked at Negi, "Sensei, remember what I told you about taking these things in stride? Well, it seems there is a limit for that capacity of mine after all."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mikan-san," Negi honestly said. "I could wipe your memories if you—"

Mikan held a hand up quietly. "I'm sure I'd re-learn the very same things the very next day, so let's just do this instead. I'm going to pretend I never saw or learned any of this, so I don't have to start screaming in confused horror about the true nature of the world and the hopeless nightmares it hides."

Negi nodded. "We'd appreciate that, Mikan-san. All in all, it's probably the best thing you can do."

"Thank you. I only wish you could do the same," she sincerely said, then began bowing for the others. "Good afternoon to all. Rito, Lala-san, I'll have dinner ready for you. Alice-chan, see you tomorrow."

Yen Sid nodded at her as she silently walked down the street, then told Rito, "You have a truly remarkable sister. I'm glad she doesn't seem to remember anything from when the world perished in hideous agony around her, no doubt crushing her in boundless darkness."

"Ummm... thank you?" a very pale Rito said.

"She... She isn't mad at me because I am one of the abnormal things myself, is she...?" Alice worried.

Misa cooed and hugged her, ruffling her hair. "Of course she isn't, Alice-chan dear... She's just using a wonderful invention of the modern times we call coping sarcasm!"

"I happen to know what 'sarcasm' means, thank you very much!"

To be Continued?