Chapter Two Omake

Fei found it a bit bewildering that she was sitting around the table eating breakfast with her roommate and two unwelcome houseguests, given how she'd fled this den of perversion and obscenity the previous night, but then she realized that she was in an omake and should really just relax.

As she did so, Haruna finally spoke up. "Okay, there's just one more thing I don't understand," she said, looking in Shanpu's direction.

"You understanding not my burden," Shanpu told her.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, but if you people are so matriarchal that you don't even have the concept of 'father', why do you call the children of your mother's husband your sisters?" Haruna pressed.

Shanpu let out a sigh. "One, I not an idiot. Two, mother adopt Ranma before we leave, and she adopt you too if you ever meet."

"Oh, so that's what the business with the feather duster and the bowl full of groats was about," Ranma said in a tone of great revelation. "I wondered!"

"Ha?" said Fei, looking confused. "Thought Joketsuzoku tradition was to kill prior children of husband?"

Haruna and Ranma dropped their toast in unison.

"Gehh," Shanpu replied disgustedly. "Not even great-grandmother is that old school!"

"Great-grandmother?"

"Mentor, great master, elder of clan," Shanpu answered with a nod.

Fei felt a horrible suspicion. "Her name ... it not chance to be Ko-" She broke off, shaking her head rapidly. "No. No. I no want to know. So glad this an omake, and I never actually have this suspicion."

"What?" chorused the other three people in the room as the omake ended.

Chapter Four Omake

Negi listened with interest to the accounts Weiss and Ruby gave of various questionable activities that students and staff at Kibogamine and Honnoji were getting up to, but he found himself a bit distracted by something he'd realized a while ago. He wanted to ask, even though it was a bit personal to talk about in a first meeting ... but then again, it was an omake, so he should really just relax.

"Excuse me, Ruby," he interjected. "Your real name is Mei Gui Long?"

"Mm-hm," the girl replied. "Means 'rose' if you write it a different way than you write it."

"And you said your sister's name is Yang Xiao Long. But don't Chinese people put the family name first, like Japanese people do?"

"Ah, yeah, pretty much. But we're only sorta Chinese you see," she started to explain.

"Oh, boy, here we go," muttered Weiss, rubbing her head.

"My dad's dad grew up in Sweden, and my dad's mom was actually Swedish. My mom was born in Area 9 - Vietnam, they used to call it - and was part French and part, well, Vietnamese. Yang's mom, and our uncle, are Yakama, and -"

"Yakama?" Negi asked, fascinated.

"Native American, from the northwest. Anyway, from what uncle's said, they're technically not Yakama, as their blood quantum is too low. So we're kinda from all over," she concluded.

"I see. Thank you for being so forthright, Ruby. Admittedly, it's an omake, so the question never actually came up."

"What?" she asked, as the omake came to an end.

Chapter Six Omake

There was a knock on the door, and Haruna stood up from her desk to go over to open it. She blinked when she saw that it was two college area students that she'd seen around a few times.

"Good evening, young lady," Senou Kaede bowed. "We wish to give you this award for your services to mankind," he said as Chizuno Masuto, stonefaced, nodded and offered Haruna a small statue of a winged female angel (which was naked) pumping a fist.

Haruna stared at the statue, completely floored. "My ... my what now?" she asked.

"For your noble and selfless contribution to the cause of Yuri, helping to bring two kindred souls finally together in a warm, not to mention hot, display of long overdue mutual affection," Senou declared solemnly, with tears running down his face.

"Oh, you mean Yuetchi and Nodochin," she said, nodding despite her bewilderment. "Uh, I don't think that really qualifies as a service to mankind, but -"

"Even so, please accept the award," Masuto deadpanned, with a completely flat face.

Shrugging, Haruna did so. "How did you two guys get in here without the dorm mother finding out?" she asked.

"They didn't," said the dorm mother who was standing behind them.

Haruna jerked back at the sounds of a pair of necks being broken.

"Good evening, Saotome," said the dorm mother as she dragged the two bodies away down the hall.

Haruna just shook her head. "Boy, it's a good thing that this is an omake, and none of this actually happened." She nodded to herself as she waited for the scene to dissolve.

And waited.

And waited.

And got a little uncomfortable waiting, so she stepped back into her room and closed the door behind her.

Eventually, the scene did in fact dissolve.

Beyond Fear.
by Over Master

Once, he had known fear.

Back when he was a child, growing up in the bayou, always running away from the other kids armed with sticks and stones, usually only to end up running into his drunkard of an aunt, who would pummel him black and blue at the slightest need for some release.

Then the fear shifted into anger and resentment, when he grew bigger and stronger - way stronger - and when he carved Auntie like a turkey, and then went wild on the neighborhood kids, no longer kids - and no longer alive anymore either.

They'd caged him like the animal he resembled over that, naturally. That didn't really faze him anymore, he was past fearing social rejection by now, and so he just escaped and fled Northward, to the big dark city where rumors said freaks like him made it big, and he began living the life of a king. But again, it was not to last long.

Then he was reacquainted with fear, as the big black bat descended upon him. At first he thought being defeated by him had been just a fluke, and so he had challenged him again, as soon as the chance presented itself. But the bat managed to beat him down, over and over after that, and Waylon Jones was flooded once again with the same primal fear from his childhood, that of having to run away constantly, only to find himself hunted and pummeled into submission, only for the cycle to start all over again...

Then the world half-ended. Well, at least Gotham did.

Waylon was just fortunate he hadn't been in the loony bin at the time. While hiding in the sewers after his latest escape as usual, he'd been surprised by a massive flood washing over him and everything else, but while most city folks just died drowned right here and there, his freakishness, for once, worked in his favor. Like the aquatic beast whose appearance he had been cursed with, he swam through the disaster, eventually making it to the new coastline, and then, with nowhere else to go, he just went back home.

And now he was here again, sitting in the swamp watching the red sun set down slowly. It had been a good life, over the last fifteen years. Everybody complained nowadays, but not him, no sir. Not Killer Croc, because nobody had called him that in over a decade now. Coppers were too distracted and busy everywhere else to come after him, and the Bat... well, the Bat had to be dead, right? Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. So, all the ghosts from his past, all reasons to ever fear, were exorcised now. Waylon Jones knew peace at last, and he had everything he really wished from existence now. A nice cave where to sleep, enough wildlife and random hobos passing by to snack on, respect from the local weaklings who wouldn't leave their cabins past sunset in fear of him, and even would leave food for him every so often, if only to keep him placated and calm.

He even had something he'd never had before.

A friend.

Making his way back into the depths of the woods, he took a moment to stop by his friend, fondly patting and rubbing his head. "Good 'vening, pal. How you doin'?"

The creature only made a soft, inhuman gurgle. A great conversationalist, he wasn't, but then Waylon had always liked people who made him feel and look smart, and those weren't exactly easy to come across. One who, besides that, endured him this faithfully was something to be treasured anyway.

"Yeah, I thought so. Me too, buddy, me too..."

He chuckled at the grossly misshapen, muck encrusted large being rooted to the swamp, and together they looked up at the beautiful stars managing to cut through the dark red above. With eyes that were just as red and unfathomably quiet and stupid, the creature that once had been human stood along the man who had never been in the first place. Brothers, in a fashion.

Once they had said whoever knew fear would always burn at the touch of the Man-Thing.

But Killer Croc was long beyond fear by now.