Anything That Burns

by Darkenning

In a very damaged world, a very different Negi Springfield comes to a very different Mahora Girls Middle School ... where girls start throwing themselves at him. Sometimes, the greatest difference is no difference at all. AU, Multiple Crossovers, Lemon, Massive Harem. Inspired by "Anything That Moves" by OverMaster.

14. Chapter 11

Day Five - Japan

The knock on the door drew Negi from his dreamless sleep. An examination of his clock revealed that it was Too-Early O'Clock AM, and a glance over at the bunks where his roommates slept revealed that they were still slumbering. Well, then, the only thing to do was to answer the door and hopefully get rid of whoever was there before they disturbed the girl's rest as his own had been disturbed. So he climbed down from his nook and ambled in the door's direction.

Hope died as he opened the door on a blast furnace. "Oh," he said wearily. "It's you."

"It is indeed me," said Hino Rei. "I said we were going to have a talk later, and it's later. I've put it off long enough. Come on, up to the roof."

---

Mahou Sensei Negima Alter:
Anything That Burns

Inspired by OverMaster's Anything That Moves

Chapter Eleven: Akane

---

Soon enough, he was standing on the roof, gazing at the false dawn in the distance. The night was colder than the day, especially considering that he was only wearing pajamas and slippers, but by comparison to the chill he'd experienced growing up, it was still tropical.

"Well, let's start at the beginning," said Rei, sitting down on the ledge and patting the concrete beside her to indicate where Negi should sit as well. "What do you know and how?"

"Well, I knew that there was something very odd about you from the first day that I started teaching here," Negi admitted as he sat. "There's an aura of fire around you, at all times. I don't know how I can see it, or why none of the other mages here on campus can. But it didn't take me long to realize that it had to mean that you were one of those we call wizards, individuals incarnating the power of one of the gods."

"I don't think of it in those terms," she said, considering what she'd just been told.

"Yes, since then I've been told you prefer to be called Guardians."

She smiled a little. "I remember when the word was translated as Soldiers. It's appropriate for me, at least. What I meant, though, was that I don't think of what I'm incarnating as a god. A spirit, maybe, but not one that needs or wants our veneration."

He filed that away for later. "Do you know why I'm the only one who can see it?"

Rei shrugged. "No idea, sorry. You might do better to ask our scholar, if you ever get to meet her. It's probably just some wild talent that you developed during your magical training. For my part, any concerns about the how of your knowledge are your own problem. Who told you about the Guardians, by the way?"

Negi coughed. "I'm only going to tell you my own story, not that of anyone else. Looking back on it, they were only telling me that such people as you existed in the world, not necessarily that they knew that you were one of them."

"Not necessarily," she repeated, clearly skeptical. "Have you told anyone about us?"

"No," he answered firmly. She hadn't asked whether anyone else knew about the Guardians, whether anyone else had been present when he was told about them; Yuna had learned that way, rather than by him telling her. And, again, she didn't know about Rei in specific.

"You're not doing them any favors by hiding them from me if you have," she warned him. "Some very good people have suffered horribly for knowing such things without our realizing it. I sometimes think that our enemies can smell that knowledge, somehow."

"I'm not hiding anything," he protested.

She snorted. "Sensei, please. I know how mages love their secrets."

All right, so he was, technically, hiding quite a few things from this dizzyingly beautiful creature. But not what she was asking. Rather than point that out, he asked something else, instead, "Do you really look down on us so much? Mages, I mean."

Rei took a moment to consider the question. "No, I wouldn't really say that. Some of those secrets are better kept than revealed. And when you get down to it ... do you know how many times, over the last thirty years, human science has almost destroyed the world? And I'm not even counting Second Impact in that number."

"You know about that?" Negi asked, startled.

She stared at him.

"Of course you do," he answered his own question. "I couldn't possibly guess how many times."

"It's a lot. And in that time, human magic has never once done so," she concluded.

He let out a sigh. "Sort of a backhanded compliment. It almost makes it sound like magic is useless."

"That is one way of looking at it," she admitted. "Another, that I think sounds better, is that mages are good at taking care of their own messes, without needing to get people like us involved."

"How many of you are there?" he asked, feeling a sudden curiosity.

"Eleven or twelve, depending on whether I believe the twelfth is gone or not. There used to be twenty-one -" She paused at Negi's explosive gasp. "- but four are lost to the vicissitudes of time, four moved permanently to worlds of dream, and one ..." She closed her eyes. "The best of us," she whispered, "died saving Tokyo right after Second Impact." Rei was silent for a long while after that. "No more questions, I think," she said, without opening her eyes.

"Okay," Negi said, wanting to give her time and space to grieve. He started to stand back up. "I'll just go and -"

"I still have questions for you," she said irritably.

"That doesn't seem very fair," he said, sitting back down again.

"I will now reveal unto thee one of the great rote truths," she said, in elaborately high speech. "Life is not fair. Are you planning to reveal the truth about us to anybody?"

"Not until it becomes necessary," he answered after a moment.

"Until," Rei repeated.

He shrugged.

"I ought, by rights, to ask you when that 'necessary' will happen, but I suspect you'd find a way to twist your way out of answering. Which is sort of remarkable, under the circumstances," she admitted.

"Well, what can I say?" Negi answered. "I have a goal that I believe to be an honorable one, and I will do what I have to do to reach it. I don't think I'm that different from anyone else in this."

"Not what I meant," Rei said with a shake of her head. "Sensei, do you actually think you're on the roof right now?"

And then he woke up. An examination of his clock revealed that it was Rather-Early-But-Not-AS-Early O'Clock AM, and a glance over at the bunks where his roommates slept revealed that they were still slumbering. He waited, half-expecting to hear a knock on the door.

Eventually, he fell asleep again.

---

Negi didn't have the chance to give Rei an annoyed glare when he entered the classroom later that morning. (He probably wouldn't have, even if he'd had the time, admittedly.) He was far too busy with the business of introducing the "newest" member of 3-A to the rest of the class. The notion that their classroom had been harboring a ghost, who was now visible, did upset the Narutaki twins a bit, but the fact that she seemed more scared of them than they were of her helped smooth things over. As did the fact that the world had not ended (yet) when other nonhumans came out into the light.

Ironically, the most obvious non-human in the class looked genuinely surprised at all this, and Negi found the startled expression on Mina's usually superior face to be rather charming. Still, once homeroom was over and the girls were approaching Sayo to chat with her, Mina was very much among them, cheerfully asking the third-oldest girl in the class about her 'life'. Negi quietly left the classroom, satisfied that Sayo was fitting in well.

Therefore, when Mina and Akira approached him in the teacher's lounge and asked for a private conversation, he was totally unprepared for the way that Mina would, once they were alone, lead with, "You aren't actually buying that creature's story, are you?"

"'That creature'?" he repeated. "That's not a nice way to talk about a classmate, Mina-san."

"Sensei," the vampire princess replied, frowning. "What she's saying about herself is impossible. The Soul Reapers kill ghosts that don't travel to one of the afterlife realms fairly quickly after their death." She deliberately used the English word for the creatures Japanese mythology called 'shinigami'.

"Or doesn't reincarnate immediately," Akira added helpfully.

"Or doesn't reincarnate immediately, if you're a werewolf who believes in Buddhism for some reason," Mina added less than helpfully. Akira proceeded to give the back of her master's head an unimpressed look.

"I realize that's the prevalent theory," Negi replied, speaking very carefully. "But - all right, you are older and wiser than I am, Mina-san, but have you ever actually seen a 'Soul Reaper'?"

She made a face. "No," she admitted. "I never have. But -"

"Not only have I never seen one, either," he interrupted, "but also I've only ever read about people who'd seen them through visions - and the literature about the seers who claimed to have seen them makes me very skeptical about those visions. Some of them make Blavatsky's rants look reasonable."

"As I was about to say, I've never heard of a ghost lasting seventy years or more, either," Mina said. "Psychic echoes of what might have been a ghost, but nothing as self-aware as she is. She doesn't have any memories of her life as a human, or consciousness of unfinished business that might keep her in the world. She's not ... right," the princess concluded at last, after searching for the correct word for several moments.

"She doesn't conform to my preconceptions about what someone who'd been a ghost for so long would be like, either," Negi admitted.

"Or mine," Akira interjected. "She has feet, after all."

"But that's part of learning, encountering phenomena that don't match your expectations," he continued. "You did come here to learn, not just to show off, riiight?"

Mina proceeded to give Negi an unimpressed look.

"Let me make an hypothesis," he added. "Something about Mahora hid Sayo-san's presence from the Soul Reapers, assuming the latter exists."

"'Something about Mahora'?" the vampire repeated. "Is vagueness the vogue in formal logic, now?"

"It could be many things. This place is special - you chose it for a reason, beyond simply the fact that Akira-san attends classes here, right?"

"Technically, I attend classes here because my mother chose this place for me, and since mother doesn't breathe without Hime-san's permission -" Akira started to say.

"Oh, what, I have to tell your mother to start breathing every morning? She suffocates every time I take a nap?" Mina asked irritably. "Mostly I chose this place because I helped to finance its reconstruction after the Pacific War," she added in Negi's direction.

"And you did that because?" he pressed.

The pink-haired vampire rolled her eyes and looked away. "I'd want a second ghost who managed to hide from the Soul Reapers before I bought your reasoning," she said at length.

"If I find one, I'll let you know. Is there anything else?"

"No, I suppose not."

"All right. Ah, Akira-san, could you do me a little favor?"

"Of course," the tall girl said. "What is it, Negi-kun?"

"If you could let Zazie-san know that I need to have to have a talk with her? Ideally without letting Rei-san know about it as well?"

"Ah," said Mina, a bit smugly. "Yes, I can see why you'd want to keep that one in the dark."

Akira looked from one small face to the other. "Why would he want to keep Hino in the dark?" she asked. "And dark about what?"

Now Negi glared at Mina. "You haven't told her?"

"It hasn't come up," the vampire said defensively.

"Told me what?" asked Akira.

"Tell her yourself if you want," Mina told Negi.

"I'm technically enjoined from doing so until it becomes necessary," Negi answered. "This doesn't qualify."

"Told me what?" asked Akira, just a little more loudly.

"It has to do with the argument I was having with Hino a few days ago," Mina answered her at last. "If it becomes relevant, I'll let you know."

"... has it occurred to either one of you that there might be all kinds of ghosts out there, they're just being hidden by people who enjoy being obscure as much as both of you do?" Akira asked. Before anyone could answer, she turned to Negi and said, "I'll see about talking to Zazie-san." And with that, she walked away, shaking her head in annoyance.

"She never acted like this before," Mina said, just a bit wonderingly, then glared at Negi. "You and that Akashi girl are bad influences."

---

He supposed that he couldn't really argue with that, especially since he was well aware that he wanted to be an even worse influence on Akira than he had been up until this point.

Be that as it may, when he came back to the classroom at the end of the day, he found Zazie sitting at her usual place, with the window open and a bird resting on her fingers. The sparrow took flight when he closed the door behind him, and Zazie turned to regard him. "Good afternoon, Young Master Springfield," she said. "I do hope this meeting does not portend some difficulty."

He made a face as he walked towards where she was seated. "That is a definite maybe, I'm afraid," Negi admitted as he took the seat where Mina usually sat. "Your Highness, when you told me about the Guardians, were you aware that there is one such individual here on campus?"

She blinked. "Yes, of course. Have you encountered that individual -"

"Let's dispense with the vague statements," he interrupted. "Yes, I've met Hino-san in her identity as one of the Guardians, and she knows that I know who she is. I didn't mention you in our discussion, though."

"Well!" said Zazie, apparently startled beyond what a mere eyeblink would convey. "My appreciation for that is somewhat lessened by my concern that you've exposed yourself to such a potential opponent, Young Master Springfield. When did this happen? I've had no news of it from any of my informants."

"I think she used some sort of dream interrogation magic on me this morning," Negi explained. "I'd given myself away to her sometime before that. But I don't think she views me as an opponent, exactly." He laughed mirthlessly. "More of a sort of hindrance than anything else."

"And yet you resisted that dream," Zazie said softly. "I am impressed, Young Master."

He shrugged. "It seemed like a real conversation, and I've gotten used to keeping certain things close to my chest while I talk with people. That's why I said she views me as a hindrance - if she'd really wanted to trick this information out of me, she could have been much more subtle in designing the dream." What if he'd dreamt that his mother, or Ilya, wanted to know these things?

"Are you always inclined to minimize the compliments others give you?" she asked.

Negi coughed. "Only when I think they're excessive. But I am grateful for your regard, Your Highness." A question occurred to him, and he asked it before he could consider the consequences. "Do you regard her and the other Guardians as opponents?"

Zazie leaned back in her seat. "Not ... personally," she said. "I would not want her to know that I am mazoku, given what she has already demonstrated she thinks of the vampire peoples. Yet I know that she does not view others as only examples of their kind - she is quite friendly with Tatsumiya, despite knowing of her origins, and has befriended the lamia who guests at the shrine as well."

"Wait," said Negi, frowning. "Tatsumiya-san is a liminal?"

"Oh, perhaps I've said too much," she said, with a hint of a smile. It faded soon. "It should be her story to tell, so I'll say no more on that subject. In any event, I think Hino would react poorly to learning that there is a leader of the mazoku close at hand - not so poorly, perhaps, as her colleague who incarnates Beauty and Love, but that too is another story."

"I think she will probably have to know at some point, and that point may come sooner than later," he warned her. "I'm under a promise to try and bring every member of the class into my collective, and that does include her. And she is very beautiful, as I reckon things."

"Indeed," said Zazie, and rested a hand against her chin as she leaned against the table, facing him. "And does that also include me?"

They stared at each other for a moment.

Negi looked away first. "It would be ... unfair," he said. "If I were to invite you, or accept an invitation you gave me, how could it not be seen as an attempt to sway you to grant me the promised reward sooner than you meant to do so?"

"How honest of you," Zazie said, just a little coolly.

"I try to be honest with those who have been honest with me," he told her.

"Hm. I was actually planning to offer myself as the twentieth member, since I believe that you are close to that point already. But if you think it would be dishonest ..." she said, trailing off.

"I think so, yes. And if things go well this evening, it should be unnecessary, as well. Besides, I'm sure you find me more frustrating than appealing, much like Asuna does," he added solemnly.

She let out a sincere laugh. "Oh, Young Master Negi," she said. "May I just call you Negi?"

"Certainly," he said, flattered by this informality. "And may I call you -"

"Your Highness," she interrupted.

"Ah, yes, of course," he said, realizing that he was not about to receive a compliment.

"In dealing with your kind, I often fear that I will misunderstand your needs, desires and aspirations, and that doing so will lead to failing in my missions. Yet, every now and then, I am reminded that even though I might not understand humanity so well as I might wish, human beings do not understand each other all that well, either, and that my missions can thus withstand such difficulties. Thank you for reminding me of this again."

And with that comment, she almost lunged forward to kiss his lips soundly, pressing him down against the table top as their tongues wrestled each other. When he finally found the will to reach up and embrace her, though, she darted back away from him, and he found that she was standing by the classroom's rear door by the time he sat up.

"Enjoy your evening's revelry, Negi," said Zazie. Then she was gone.

---

The upside to her situation, thought Tendo Akane, was that being expected to come home to eat meals with the rest of her family at least a couple of times per week meant that she got to eat Kasumi's cooking at least a couple of times per week. Being who and what she was, of course, she also realized the downside of that upside - that she was constantly being reminded of how much better of a cook Kasumi was when compared to Akane herself. This was vexing above and beyond the fact that her family had involuntarily expanded in recent weeks.

"You could try to look a little happier about having dinner with your fiance," Nabiki told her as the two sisters made their way from the bus stop to their home.

"And I could try to flap my arms and fly to the moon, and it would be just as effective as what you suggest," Akane retorted. "And that reminds me - how the hell did you talk Dad into paying for Ranma's schooling?"

Nabiki stopped walking, and slowly turned to look back at her. "How in the world does flapping your arms lead you to -"

"They're both things that happened at your suggestion! Now answer the damn question!"

Nabiki put on a put-upon expression. "I didn't talk Daddy into paying for Ranma's schooling\, and yes, I am telling you the truth, because Daddy isn't paying for Ranma's schooling. I am. The Joint Student Council is supposed to award dozens of bursaries to deserving students every year, and since Kiryuuin took over, we haven't given away any of that money. So it built up, and there's enough to pay for at least three years of Furinkan and then some. If he ends up taking nine years to get through high school, we may be in a bit of trouble, though."

"And you're keeping the 'and then some' for yourself," Akane concluded disgustedly, ignoring that last bit of absurdity.

"Someone's going to get it, so it might as well be me," Nabiki replied as she started walking again. "And remind me why the good sister is announcing the bad sister's malfeasance in public, again?"

Akane, of course, did not think of herself as the good sister. That was Kasumi. And even if she was denouncing Nabiki's embezzlement, there was no one around here who'd look down on her sister for that sort of clever crime. Oh, they'd sell her out in an instant to save their own asses, but the odds were against any of them ever being in that position to begin with. No, Akane was not the good sister, but she was a better sister than this place deserved.

All she'd ever really wanted was to leave this place behind. She loved her father, and she loved her eldest sister (when she wasn't resenting the hell out of her, at least) but this whole neighborhood could go straight to hell as far as she was concerned. She wanted to get her diploma and then go somewhere else, anywhere else, for university training, and never come back unless it was absolutely necessary.

Now, though, things were changing, a little. Things were finally happening here in Academy City that seemed ... uplifting. And even though it had to be a coincidence, she couldn't help but notice that it had started up when Ranma showed up.

Well. She'd never said that she wanted to be alone when she left, had she?

On that bemused thought, she and Nabiki arrived at the dojo's front door and slid it open. "Arriving," they announced as one.

"Oh hi, Nabiki-neesan, Akane-neesan," said a younger-looking girl in glasses, poking her head out of the living room into the front hallway. "Welcome home!"

Who the crap are you? Akane carefully did not say. She forced herself to think, instead. Setting aside the utter unlikelihood of this being a heretofore unrevealed daughter of their father, there were only a limited number of people it could be, and one name seemed most likely. "You're Haruna-chan, right?" Akane said aloud.

The girl's face went all bashful. "Oh, gosh, it's been so long since anyone called me that," she almost cooed.

"Haruna-chan?" called Kasumi's voice from the distance. "I could really use some help here."

"On my way," said Haruna. She paused to give Akane a look. "When your sister does it, it doesn't count," she said. "She actually means it." With that, the girl ducked back out of sight.

"So I guess it's dinner for seven, tonight," said Nabiki after a moment.

"Looks like," Akane agreed as she started to take off her shoes. Well, hopefully the girl would be quiet during dinner, like a proper young lady should be. It would be nice to encounter someone like that. And it wasn't as though she had to spend a lot of time in the middle-schooler's presence.

---

"I'm sorry, you want me to do what?" Akane asked, feeling the last straw settling onto her back.

Haruna had proceeded to more or less monopolize the dinner conversation, telling everybody about all the mysterious traps and phenomena that supposedly haunted the lower levels of Library Island, which she'd encountered as part of a library exploration club. Akane would have been more or less inclined to dismiss all this as a lingering case of eighth-grader syndrome, had it not more or less matched up with what she'd been able to understand of Ranma and Shanpu's crazed accounts of what they'd run into on that very island. Apparently the lunatics hadn't made it up after all. Either that or this girl was going out of her way to back up their claims for some reason.

If there was an upside to Haruna's presence, it was that it quieted down the girl's two siblings, who usually took more than their fair share of the conversation, though never as much as Haruna had. They kept watching Haruna with expressions that made Akane think the girl's presence was just as confusing to the pair of them as it was to Akane herself. Nabiki also kept more quiet, as though studying Haruna intently.

Far from being offended by the way the girl took as much of the conversation as she did, Soun seemed to have become quite fond of her in just a short while. One of the few times he got a word in edgewise was when he was able to proclaim that Haruna's library explorations marked her as being clearly her father's daughter, as Saotome Genma had apparently always been willing to explore ancient ruins and abandoned buildings. That compliment had made Haruna look momentarily uncomfortable, doubtless because of the way that she'd never actually known her father.

And then she'd sprung this on them.

"I think you and I should go out and see some sights together," Haruna repeated. "We're going to be sisters-in-law after all."

"Well, that's - ah - Dad, you'd agree that's a bad idea, right?" Akane appealed to authority.

"Hmm," said Soun. "I don't see any real problem. I mean, it's not a school night for you, Akane. You should try to be back at your respective dorms by curfew, but I think you and Haruna-chan should spend some time together. From what you've said, Haruna-chan, you've lacked the presence of an older sister in your life, and you can attest to how important that's been in your own growth, Akane."

Why had she even bothered appealing to a useless authority? Ranma had offered to come with them, but was told it was a girl's night out - and no, turning into a cute redhead would not change their mind. Then Shanpu, oddly, had volunteered, but Soun asked her to please remain at the house. He was going to be out for most of the night, playing with his friends, and wanted to be sure that Kasumi was well-protected. Flattered by this, Shanpu had agreed to stay.

And so Akane and Haruna ventured out upon the town.

"Okay," said Akane, as they walked together. "I don't what your brother has told you -"

"You don't give a crap about him, and the whole marriage is a farce," Haruna interrupted.

Akane's eyes narrowed. "He told you that much?"

"No, I figured it out all on my lonesome. It doesn't really have anything to do with why I asked you out, though."

"Then why?" Akane asked.

Haruna smiled and said one word. "Fate."

"Ranma told you about that?" she gasped.

"No, not a word. I found out more directly than that." And now Haruna's smile got positively demonic. "Would you like to know more?"

---

"Do you trust me?" asked Shizuru abruptly.

Natsuki, who'd settled down in one of the chairs facing the Vice Presidential desk to wait for Shizuru to finish her paperwork, raised her eyebrows. "That's kind of a crazy question to be asking under the circumstances."

"I'm not sure that it is," said Shizuru, leaning back in her chair. "I don't know ... is trust necessarily a sequent of love? I loved you long before I was willing to trust you with my secrets. I still haven't trusted you with all of them - really, you've revealed your knowledge of those you possess more than I've revealed." Her face went puzzled. "How did you find out that I was a HiME?"

Natsuki coughed uncomfortably. "Would you believe it was the same person who suggested that you were in love with me?"

"... assuming that isn't a deflection," the vice president replied, "then I would regard it with the same confusion as that earlier revelation. Who is this person and how did they know these things about me?"

The blue haired girl in the biker suit hesitated, but pushed on in a moment. "Have you heard about Tokiha Mai?"

"The name sounds vaguely familiar, but it doesn't carry any baggage with it. Who is she?"

"Well, to make a very confusing story short - she's another HiME, and one who claims to have memories of all this, of us, from another world than this. Those memories are how she knew about you, and me, and a bunch of other things that she hasn't been wrong about yet."

"And so you trust her," Shizuru said quietly.

"Sort of," Natsuki added in a hurry. "It's - can you imagine thinking that someone is right, while still thinking that they're probably crazy?"

"Eccentricity combined with competence is my own reputation - or what I thought was my reputation - but in any event, I think I do understand what you mean."

"It's not quite like that," Natsuki replied with a shake of her head. "She's so ... angry. I used to think I understood what anger was, and then I met her. Sometimes, I think if she had to burn the world to ashes in order to get back to where she belonged, she wouldn't really hesitate. Did I ever come off like that to you?"

"No," Shizuru answered promptly. "You seemed sad, lonely, and yet focused. Never a fury of any stripe."

"I felt angry," Natsuki continued. "I still do. But I can't imagine being that angry."

"I think, if I ever lost you - not just saw us part, because you'd come to hate me -" Shizuru started to say.

"Come on."

"- but actually lost you, beyond all recall, then I could become as angry as you describe. But I think I'd probably destroy myself before I harmed anyone else."

"I hope you aren't expecting me to take comfort in that notion," Natsuki asked, giving Shizuru the eye as she did.

"No, not really. But do you trust me?"

"Back to that? Yes, I trust you more than anyone else living," she said before Shizuru could press the question.

Do I deserve that? Shizuru silently asked herself. Well, I have it, deserve it or not. "There's someone I need to introduce to you."

"Another HiME?" Natsuki asked.

"Not everything is about the HiME. Besides, I only know of one other, and, with Tokiha's help, I imagine you already know about Suzushiro."

Natsuki sat up straight. "Suzushiro is a HiME? Okay ... that's the first time Mai's been wrong. She told me to ignore Suzushiro and focus on Kikukawa."

Shizuru's eyes bulged. "Seriously? Some oracle - the notion that Kikukawa could possibly be a HiME without Suzushiro knowing about it and exploiting it for all she was worth is absurd."

"Well, regardless, if it's not Suzushiro -"

"Negi Springfield," Shizuru interjected quietly.

"The boy teacher?" Natsuki asked. At Shizuru's nod, Natsuki let out a sigh. "We can't get away from it, can we? Guess who Mai warned me against, just the other day."

"I'm increasingly unconvinced of this young woman's value as a contact," Shizuru replied. "He's the only member of the magical community at this school who's bothered to give me the time of day, or offered to help with our situation. What's her problem with him?"

"She says that he thinks she's in need of an exorcism," Natsuki answered with a shrug.

"Heh. Well, I'd suggest hearing his side of the story before you make up your mind. I have a meeting with him after this, and I'd like you to come with me to it."

"All right," Natsuki said promptly.

"Thank you," Shizuru said. It was so tempting to tell her that she was about to find out some things that would probably shatter whatever good opinion of her that Natsuki felt, but ... no. Let her find out when she found out, not wait in dread for confirmation.

As she'd already said, Shizuru didn't fear the idea of Natsuki hating her. She'd had months to dwell on that idea, and come to terms with it. What she dreaded was the possibility that Natsuki would end up feeling nothing for her at all. Could the knowledge of her adultery create that? She didn't know. And she had to know.

---

Natsuki hadn't been sure what a meeting of a group of mages would look like. The closest parallel, in her mind, was the assembly of HiME that Sugiura and later Mai had tried, or were trying, to establish - only with both sexes represented. So it was a bit confusing to find that the only male at this assembly was Negi himself, and that the entire environment was more like a party, complete with snacks and music. The girls - high schoolers and middle schoolers both - were standing or sitting around, chatting with each other, except for that one girl in a Furinkan uniform who looked like she'd been sidelined completely.

"Actually, yes, I do plan to bring other male magic users and fighter types into my alliance," Negi explained when Natsuki brought that up to him after she was actually introduced to the boy mage. "Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity to meet or evaluate such people, since I'm an instructor at a female only school. The major exception would be Sakura's older brother."

"Yeah, and I guess you wouldn't want Zetsubo-sensei inolved," Natsuki said without thinking it all the way through.

"Ahem," Negi coughed falsely. "Let's show respect for teachers, all right?"

"Calling him by the same name as his own students is showing respect, Negi," said the black-haired girl who'd been introduced to Natsuki as Itoshiki Sakura. Natsuki hadn't realized that she was close at hand when she spoke. "And it's an appropriate name for him, and our father likely picked it for just that effect." She smiled reassurance at Natsuki, who should probably have felt relieved ... but didn't.

"In any event, I'm encouraging everyone in the group, especially you high schoolers, to keep an eye out for potential allies, on a friend of a friend basis," Negi concluded.

"I guess that'd make sense," Natsuki replied slowly. "Okay ... you mind if I deal with the elephant in the room?"

"There are actually a few of them," he told her patiently.

That confused her a bit, but she pressed on regardless. "Why exactly does Mai not trust you? She told me to avoid you if at all possible, and until Shizuru told me that she was meeting with you, I was planning on doing just that." She glanced at Shizuru, who was chatting with two girls Natsuki vaguely recognized from her trips to Library Island.

"Well, I can't really blame her for that, but I will say that I mean no harm to you or any of the hime," Negi replied.

"HiME," she corrected.

"... I think I might start calling you Valkyries," he muttered, sounding a bit annoyed, before speaking up as he continued to address Natsuki. "You're aware that she claims that her mind travelled from a different world to end up in the body of her counterpart in this, our own reality?"

"Yes, she told me that -" Natsuki started to answer, and then broke off as something that had never occurred to her did. "Wait, are you saying -"

"I'm saying, just as I said to her, that if she's done something to the mind of our world's Tokiha Mai, she needs to be held accountable for it," he said. "And she doesn't seem to trust the Mahora Mage Order to figure out what's going on."

"Okay, setting that issue to the side, she didn't ask for any of this," Natsuki protested. "When she was telling me about her world and how she ended up here - somebody did this to her, very much against her will. Blame them for whatever happened to 'our' Mai."

"I wish I could just take her word for it," Negi said sadly.

"And I wish you'd let me know you were planning on confronting this person, the other day," interjected Sakura. "We could have arranged backup."

"I think that would have caused more problems than it resolved," he answered her. "And once she summoned up that dragon of hers, we'd have been looking at some serious casualties on our side if we'd tried to fight her."

That rocked Natsuki back on her heels. Mai had called her Child, not to fight an Orphan, but to intimidate somebody? And just this one kid, whether or not he was a mage? She abruptly remembered telling Shizuru that she thought Mai might burn down the whole world to get what she wanted, and looked again at where Shizuru had been seated. But her girlfriend wasn't there anymore.

"Regardless, I'm not about to ask you to fight against your friend, Natsuki-san," Negi was saying. "I still hope that we can resolve this issue without such violence."

"But if there has to be, there will be?" she asked him.

"We don't always get what we hope," he admitted.

Before she could give that some sort of challenge, the boy teacher was drawn away by one of his students, the gossipy one with big boobs and glasses, who led him away from Natsuki and towards the Furinkan girl who was still standing on the sidelines.

"And her endgame is to go back to where she came from?" Sakura asked quietly.

"That's what she says, but if you're not going to believe anything she says -" Natsuki started to answer, finding it easier to be just a bit more openly hostile while dealing with another teenaged girl.

"Let's say that I might be willing to give certain parts more credit than others," Sakura interrupted. "I am familiar with legends about a mage who travelled between worldlines, for a number of reasons. Has she said anything about the world she wants to regain?"

That thing you call a sky. "I'm pretty sure Second Impact hasn't happened there," she admitted.

A sweet, sad laugh fell from the girl mage's lips. "In that case, I can well imagine she'd prefer to have that world back."

After some more unproductive conversation, the two of them parted, and Natsuki tried to search the party for Shizuru, who'd vanished without a trace. She found herself even sitting down on the seat where her girlfriend had been seated earlier, scanning the faces for the one she couldn't find.

"So you do guns? Your HiME thing is guns?" asked one of the girls who'd been introduced to her as one of Negi's students.

"Element, not HiME thing, and yes," Natsuki answered the girl. Yuna? Yes, that was her name.

"Ah. I got magic guns out of my Pactio, see, so, since we both get magic guns, I thought maybe you could give me some shooting training?" asked Yuna.

"It's not magic," Natsuki answered promptly ... then let out a sigh. "Okay, who am I kidding, it's magic. I'll think about it, all right?"

"Lookin' forward," Yuna answered. "Are you looking for the Veep?"

"Yes, have you seen her?"

Yuna nodded. "She went off with Mikado-sensei for an examination. She'll probably be back real soon now."

"Thank ... you," Natsuki said, slowing down as a thought came to her. Why would someone get a medical examination at a party?

Why would someone get a medical examination at a party of exclusively girls and one guy?

Why would there be a party of exclusively girls and one guy?

"Ghargh," Natsuki said faintly, as an answer to that question occurred to her.

---

"So ... you're Fate-sama," Akane said skeptically as she regarded the boy teacher.

After introducing her to Negi Springfield, Haruna had led Akane and Negi out of the room being used for the main gathering of the party to a smaller, more private room just a bit down the hallway. (Akane had noted that the total floorspace of the rooms and hallways she'd already seen was much larger than the building's actual dimensions, but under the circumstances, she wasn't about to question that.) Having done so, Haruna had then made the more complete introductions.

"Yes, that's the name I use when I wear that helmet," Negi agreed. "Minus the honorific, of course. I don't blame you if you don't believe me, since I don't actually carry the helmet around with me at all hours -"

"That's not -" Akane interrupted, shaking a hand. "I'm not saying that I don't believe you. It actually makes a lot of sense. You're about the right height, you move about the same way even though you're in a safe situation and don't need to be under guard, and even though the voice isn't right, the way you talk is."

"Very perceptive," he said, sounding quite impressed.

"And all that stuff that you're doing, that's really magic? Not, I don't know, the sort of ki powers you see in wilder comics and games, or super powers like the Americans used to have?" she asked.

He nodded again. "Looking for alternative explanations demonstrates an adaptive mind, though. And even though you know magic is real, you still have a hard time accepting it as something that people can use, rather than something that just happens to them, right?"

She thought of watching Ranma's transformation, and nodded. "Have you already met -"

"Nope," interjected Haruna.

"I'd like to, but Haruna hasn't introduced us yet," Negi explained. "I'm not particularly versed in curses - neither bestowing them nor lifting - but I can at least take a look at it and then refer them to someone who might be able to do something."

Akane grunted in understanding, then raised an eyebrow. "'Them'?"

"The appropriate pronoun for a genderfluid individual."

"Fluid is the right term," she muttered. "So why haven't -" she started to ask Haruna.

"Because if he gets it that easily, there'll be no stopping him from running off back to China in order to get even with our dad, and I'd really rather he stuck around for a while," Haruna answered. "Among other reasons. Anyway, he wants to find it himself, not have it handed to him, and since I'm a good little sister, I'll see if I can help him with that."

"And of course, there's no guarantee that it would be that easy -" Negi started to say.

"'Good little sister'," Akane repeated. "Okay, that was clearly directed at me. What is your problem with me?"

"Oh goody goodness, how could I possibly have a problem with dear sweet you?" Haruna asked. "I mean, someone who loves her daddy so much that she hopes he'll die in the next three years? You're clearly a boddhisattva!"

"Maybe I will go get the helmet, after all," said Negi, backing towards the room's only exit.

"Excuse me?" Akane snapped. "I don't hope my dad will die at all, but let's not kid ourselves about this crappy world we live in, and how the hell do you know about that, anyway?"

"Ranma might not have told me about your little crush on Fate-sama, but he sure as hell did tell me about what you said about hoping the world would end before you had to marry him. Did you not even think that might piss off people who cared about Ranma?"

By this point, Negi had shown himself out.

"Yes, actually, I didn't think about that," Akane retorted. "I don't know why, I guess it definitely fits the pattern that all of this shit takes, resulting in people sticking their noses in my life and deciding how it should go and what I should feel and do! I suppose it is a bit much to understand for someone who's lived on easy street their whole life, like you two."

"Us t-" Haruna repeated, more stunned than anything else, before she reached a new level of anger that would have shocked and horrified her fellow librarians. "Okay, you can say whatever the hell you like about me, and all I'll do is laugh at you, but do you seriously have the gall to claim that Ranma's life has been 'easy street'?"

"What's so hard about wandering around China like a damned circus performer?" Akane demanded.

"Gee, I don't know, it's not like China isn't a damned war zone, you shit!" Haruna snapped right back. "And that was before he got that curse!"

"Oh, yeah, that made his life so difficult," Akane sneered with a roll of her eyes. "I've seen how he uses it to get cheap meals from the local merchants, you know, acting all cute and 'feminine'. It's disgusting!"

"Yeah, I bet it was just a load of fucking laughs being used as our Dad's sex toy." The words were out of Haruna's mouth before she quite realized what she was saying, and she wished them back as soon as they were gone. But she was a long way from having her wishes granted just for the asking.

Akane stared. And blinked. And then stared some more, mouth open now but no sound coming forth. Finally, she managed to stammer out, "W-what?"

"Practically from her first night as a girl," Haruna replied. She was committed, now, and so she might as well let this wretched girl have all the horrifying imagery. "And you know why Shanpu's never had sex with him as a boy? Because that would be adultery, because she's married to our - to her dad, and apparently thinks he's great in bed. We're really fucking lucky that he's stayed behind in China, otherwise both of us would probably be on the old pervert's menu."

"You - you can't be serious," Akane said, taking a step back, towards the door. "This is your father you're talking about -"

"And he's a monster. Get over it, I have," Haruna snapped.

"I don't -" She broke off, shaking her head, which was good because Haruna would really not have taken a statement like 'I don't believe this' all that well. "Is this what you brought me here to tell me? That I'm marrying into a sick family?"

The door opened and Negi walked in carrying the helmet. "Here it is!" he said cheerfully.

"Actually, no," said Haruna, who'd pulled out a notebook she was carrying while Akane was momentarily focused on Negi, and was now drawing in it as she spoke. "Despite the fact that I'd pretty much be inclined to throw a parade if you died, I brought you here to offer you a way out. If you get pregnant, and it's not Ranma's, do you think your father will insist on you marrying my brother?"

"What?" Akane nearly shrieked. "What kind of a - that's insulting as well as disgusting, and even if I was inclined to go along with it, there is no one I would ever do that with, because I hate boys!"

"You don't hate Fate-sama," Haruna said, finishing her drawing.

"I hope she doesn't," agreed Negi. "Um, Haruna, where you are going with this?"

Abruptly, two very powerful arms grabbed hold of Akane's shoulders, while two other ones seized her hips. She found herself lifted into the air, and was able to twist around just enough to see that she was being held in place by a demonic-seeming creature that looked like something out of a kid's manga.

"Basically, Negi, you're going to give her a demonstration of how good of a fuck you are," Haruna said calmly, opening her blouse with one hand while holding her notebook tightly with the other. "Preparatory to a much more personal demonstration."

---

Well, now I know, mused Shizuru as Mikado-sensei led her back to the room where everyone else was waiting. It had indeed been a simple procedure, just as Negi promised. All the doctor did was look at her through that magic visor of hers, and then nod once. And so Shizuru was left with no small amount of dread, mixed with a certain grim amusement - her one time with a member of the opposite sex, and it had been enough.

One time with the opposite sex so far, she reminded herself, the grim amusement momentarily overpowering the dread all together.

It was something of a surprise to find that the party had not already dissolved into sexual chaos. It seemed likely that Negi's absence had something to do with that, as did the funk that Momioka and Sawada still seemed to be in a funk over the fact that they'd failed to entice any of the girls they wanted to join them. Or perhaps, unlikely as it seemed, they were being respectful of Natsuki, who was looking around with a frankly disturbed expression which - flatteringly - dissolved into blatant relief when she saw Shizuru in the doorway.

Natsuki promptly jumped up and headed over to Shizuru, grabbing her in a tight embrace ... so that she could whisper, somewhat frantically, directly into Shizuru's ear. "What is going on here, Shizuru?!"

Shizuru gently pushed Natsuki back so that they were face to face. "Dear, if you have to ask that, I think it's fairly certain that you already know the answer."

The way that girl's face could shift! She was seeing sides to Natsuki that she'd never imagined seeing, which was one more reason to be grateful to Negi for all of this. "What?" Natsuki finally hissed.

"Come, sit down, and I'll tell you everything," Shizuru told her, guiding Natsuki back to the couch where she'd been sitting, where that Yuna girl and her pink-haired friend, Makie, were already seated and chattering away about whatever inconsequential things their sort discussed.

"Makoto. It works either way, and I just like the sound of it," said the pink-haired girl.

Perhaps not so inconsequential, after all. "All right," Shizuru said. "You knew that I wasn't ... pure ... when we became intimate."

"Yes, and even before that, I expected that you ... you were ... with those girls, and ... um," Natsuki answered, clearly flustered.

"Good heavens, the rumors had started even back then?" she asked, startled. Somewhat to her horror, she saw that Makie and Yuna were about to chime in, and, unsure whether confirmation or denial would be more hurtful, Shizuru pressed on quickly. "Well, the rumors were not true. I was actually very innocent when you and I met, Natsuki, but that was not to last."

She told her everything, from the machinations she'd employed to come as close to winning in the elections as she'd managed, to her acceptance of the vice presidential uniform and everything that had come with it. She told her without hesitation about her encounters with Suzushiro, of what they now suspected that the uniform did to anyone with their background. And then she told of the time when she'd suffered the urge when Suzushiro hadn't been there, and how Negi had ... helped.

"He took advantage of you," Natsuki said numbly.

"Hey!" chorused Yuna and Makie.

"You - no talking!" she snapped in their direction.

"Natsuki, they're right," Shizuru told her. "I was given a choice, and when I realized what he was about to do, I still could have chosen to refuse, or to ask him to find someone else to help me in that way. I didn't choose that. I chose this. And now we have to live with the consequences." Her hands, folded on her lap, came up to cover her abdomen. "All of the consequences."

Natsuki didn't miss the meaning of that gesture, and her own hand came up to cover her mouth.

When she hadn't spoken in a while, Shizuru continued. "I still very much want to be with you, Natsuki. No one has ever made me feel so happy as you do." She ignored the cooing noise from the direction of the middle schoolers. "But Negi is a part of my life, now. He will be a part of my life, forever. If we're going to be together, this is something you have to accept ... and I think the best way for you to come to accept it, will be if you join me in his collective."

"... I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to any of this," Natsuki confessed after a moment.

"Kudos for not going to the 'he's just a child' well," Yuna told her.

Natsuki gave her a look that could kill. When Yuna failed to oblige her in death, she unbent enough to say, "The most powerful being I know would not warn me away from 'just a child'." She was starting to wish that she'd listened to Mai, but on the other hand ... no, there were enough 'other hands' in this situation to fit one of those giants from Greek mythology that she'd read about.

"So what will you do?" Shizuru asked, the picture of calm. The picture, as they often were, was a lie. She knew that this was it, this was the moment that she lost Natsuki forever, and that everything would be worthless after this, no matter how she lost herself to sensation, but she'd had to know, and now -

"Anywhere you go," Natsuki said at last. "Any depth you go down. Any craziness you embrace. I will be there, beside you, shaking my head, and following you all the same."

It's a beautiful lie, Shizuru thought with what few parts of her mind were not singing the Ode to Joy. She knew that it wouldn't be like that, that sooner or later her demands for Natsuki would drive the other girl away, just like everyone always pulled away from her. But if this wonderful girl was willing to pretend to believe that lie, how could she not try to match her courage?

She leaned forward and kissed Natsuki deeply, as though drinking in her essence, and completely oblivious to the way that their gesture inspired nearly everyone else in the room to start pulling at each other's clothes and beginning their gentle and not-so-gentle caresses. Shizuru pulled back from her lover's face and reached down to unzip her biker leathers and expose the lingerie-coated skin beneath, kissing it as well as she worked her way down towards Natsuki's core.

"So hey," said Yuna as she bent above Natsuki.

"Ahhhh," Natsuki said, mind awhirl by what Shizuru was doing, but conscious once more that they were not alone.

"Hey, no," Yuna answered the unspoken question. "We don't have to do anything you don't want, but, well, you're kinda hot, sempai. Would you be okay if I kissed you?"

"I - I -" Natsuki stammered, then gazed down the length of her body to see that Makie and Shizuru were having a tongue duel above her belly button. She collapsed, then. "Okay," she said weakly.

"Groovy," said Yuna, and pressed their lips together for a long moment. Then she pulled back, and smiled. "So now we both know what it's like to kiss a gunslinger. Kinda cool, don't you think?"

"Uhhhhhh," Natsuki gasped, as the tongue duel was now being fought on her, instead of above her.

---

Akane had never had any real interest in sex. She hated the overwhelming majority of the male population she encountered, and endured - not gracefully, but without attacking anyone yet - the occasional implication that this indicated that she was a lesbian, which she was not. If pressed, she would admit to finding pictures of men in magazines to be attractive, especially given that the pictures couldn't talk and ruin everything that way. The notion of intimacy with the individuals those images represented, however, would have been laughable if it wasn't a little sickening.

And yet here she was, being held by what she was later told was a representation of Tars Tarkas (which would mean absolutely nothing to her when she heard the name) and her feet dangling in the air, while she watched Negi having sex with Haruna. She considered looking away, and even tried closing her eyes for a while. But the sounds didn't stop, and she couldn't plug her ears under the circumstances, and the pictures her mind painted for her were probably worse than what she was actually seeing.

It had started out, typically enough, with Haruna sucking on Negi's ... thing, and rubbing it with her breasts. This wasn't exactly alien to Akane - she didn't find sex interesting, but she was aware - from having followed her eldest sister around, and watched her being 'big sisterly' with other people in the neighborhood - of how it was supposed to work. But even though she'd known that Kasumi wasn't really being forced into anything, those encounters had seemed more forceful on the part of the men than this was.

It wasn't that Negi seemed reluctant or hesitant, just that he wasn't pushing Haruna to do anything, as though she were in charge. And that wasn't because he was younger than she was, it was just how he was choosing to do things. And that was demonstrated by the way that, before too long, he pulled back from Haruna's hands and mouth, and bent down so that his own face was between her spread hips, and began licking there, to Haruna's obvious delight.

As though he was as much interested in Haruna's pleasure as his own.

No, no, that can't be right, Akane told herself. Boys and men, no matter how nice they might seem, did not think like that. Even her father only cared about seeing the family continue, not about how the girls inside it might feel about how it was meant to continue. This, all of it, all of this, had to be a trick that was being played on her. A show for her benefit.

Even if that meant that the most sincere and heroic person she'd ever met was one more liar.

Now he'd stopped licking at her and was pushed up against her, clearly penetrating her vulva and moving back and forth and side to side, so many subtle pushes and pressures that Akane found herself cursing her own perception of movements, the one that Negi had praised earlier. If not for that, she could have just thought this was nothing more than a boy-man rutting against a taller girl and felt nothing. Instead, she was aware of just how much he was doing to make the experience enjoyable for the girl involved, even if it was a trick, a hoax, a ...

What was this wetness on her cheeks?

"Oh," said Negi. "Okay, we're stopping this now." He began to pull back from Haruna.

"Huhbuhwha?" Haruna gasped, not letting go of her hips' grip on him. "No, no, I'm almost there," she pleaded.

"Haruna, your guest is in tears," he told her as he spread her hips a bit wider so that he could pull himself out and tuck his member into his boxers.

Haruna glanced briefly at Akane. "She could be faking," she said. "The twins do it all the time."

"Regardless of what Fuka and Fumika do, have your golem set her down. Please," he added, just a bit sharply, just the slightest hint that a less polite request might be in waiting.

Haruna made a face, but had her magic Martian lower Akane so that her feet were against the floor, and then let go of her rather than doing it the opposite way, which could have caused injuries when her knees gave out under her, so that she collapsed into Negi's arms as he tried to hold her up.

"No, you wouldn't fake tears, would you?" he said softly. "You think they make you look weak. Being unhappy doesn't make you a weak person, Akane-san."

"Nghhhhh," she replied, tightening her arms around him.

"Okay, that hurts a little," he admitted. "But you know, this demonstrates that you're not a weak person, because -"

"You," she managed to say coherently. "You ... you actually are what you seem to be, aren't you? Even if you are a huge pervert."

"Well, um, I think perversion is a subjective thing, really, it depends on what you personally find sexually appealing, so if you only find a very narrow number of situations appealing to you, someone with a very broad number of situations that appeal to them, like me, would probably seem somewhat perverted, but -"

"But you still care about people, instead of just what you can get from them?"

"Well, yes," Negi admitted. "Like anyone else, I care more about some people than others, but I do care about everyone as much as they'll allow me to do so. That's what it means to want to save the world."

"Why are you so young?" Akane asked, suddenly back on the brink of tears. "Why aren't you my age, and your dad an old friend of my dad, so we could meet and I could be happy with my Fate?" And then she kissed him, deeply.

"Annnnd Pactio," announced Haruna, who'd used this interval of deep reflection and communion between two people to draw a circle around the two of them. She'd studied the circle quite a bit after using it for the first time, and it was easy for someone of her skills to reproduce. It was nice to be the third wheel sometimes.

"Pactio?" Akane repeated, blinking away the dots on her eyes.

"Um, we've just made a magical alliance, thanks to Haruna," Negi explained. "Here, um, this is your card that signifies -"

"Why does it show me with a mallet?"

There followed some explanations and demonstrations, but Akane had mostly asked out of simple confusion rather than a need to know. A magical card and a magical mallet were more or less extraneous to her interests of the moment, which were limited to satisfying the ache she now had to admit that she had been feeling since she started watching Negi and Haruna having sex. She set the card down and began kissing Negi some more as she felt him pulling at her clothes.

Eventually, she was naked enough to get down to business. She was somewhat surprised to discover that she didn't have to start by sucking him, as Haruna had; what he'd been doing with Haruna, and what he'd done since with herself, had apparently kept him erect enough to proceed without further stimulation. With just a bit of warming up on her own part - including a quick check to confirm that, yes, years of stretching and high kick practice had taken care of her hymen - they began.

And it was great. Clenched tightly against her, moving in a rhythm that she'd needed only a very few moments to learn, his face occasionally spreading kisses on her breasts - it wasn't like anything she'd ever experienced, but it was quickly becoming something she loved almost as much as fighting. Even the way that it was being done in front of Haruna added to the pleasure, as Akane realized that the girl had to be suffering just as she herself had in watching and being unable to participate -

Wait, was she sketching them?

No, never mind her now. Something seemed to be coming, a sensation that she'd never even imagined anything could make her feel, and even as she considered that, it exploded in her and she honestly shrieked a little in release. That turned into sobs as she felt Negi let loose his own explosion inside of her, spilling warmth up into her sensitive depths. It pushed her over into another orgasm.

"Welcome to the collective, Akane," Negi told her a moment later, as he began to pull back.

She tried to hold onto him. "Stay?" she asked needily.

He hugged her, but kept pulling away all the same. "I have to go and check on our other friends," he told her. "I'll try to come back before too long. If you feel like you can, you might want to join us there."

It was so weird to be so unsatisfied so soon after being so satisfied, but there she was as she watched him pull on some pants and head out the doorway. Akane glanced to her side to see that Haruna had stopped sketching and was regarding her in an odd way. "What?" she asked, eyes half-closed.

"Well," said Haruna. "Here's the thing. I didn't get off when he and I were doing it, but I don't really feel like going back to the party either, so even though I really don't like you, I was thinking maybe we could have some hatesex."

Akane's eyes opened fully. "Hatesex?" she repeated quietly.

"Yeah, you know, hatesex, where neither party likes the other but they put everything they have into just doing it and -" Haruna was interrupted as a pair of hands grabbed an incredibly strong grip on her shoulders.

"Tell me more of this thing - this wonderful-sounding thing," Akane quietly demanded.

---

It was a little weird, Natsuki decided, how the fifteen year old girl who was eating her out was doing so with more enthusiasm and energy than Shizuru did. Yuna certainly had some moves. And from the sounds of things, so did Makie as she was down between Shizuru's own legs. It was a little disconcerting to hear Shizuru making noises that Natsuki had never made her make. It was a little disconcerting that even though they were lying on the floor right next to each other, heads fairly close together, that Shizuru made no attempt to reach out and kiss Natsuki.

Then again, what wasn't disconcerting about all this?

"Annnnd this is pretty much what I was expecting to happen," came the sound of Negi's voice from not far away.

Yes, it was also disconcerting that the voice of the ten year old boy whose fault all this was could cause Natsuki to blush brightly, jerk away from Yuna's touch, and try to cover the more personal parts of her anatomy.

For her part, Yuna seemed unbothered by that implied rejection. "Hey, Negi," she said, waving at the shirtless boy standing in the doorway. "I was warming her up for you. She's got a really yummy cunny."

"I think that should be considered high praise," Negi mused as he came over to them, kneeling down in front of Natsuki.

"Uhmmmm," Natsuki replied.

Negi nodded. "You've probably been through a lot tonight, haven't you, Natsuki-san?"

She nodded.

"I should tell you that Shizuru made it clear that she won't be a part of this, unless you are," he continued.

"Already had this discussion," Shizuru announced in a satisfied tone as she and Makie and Asakura, who'd crawled over in the last few minutes, exchanged kisses.

"Well, I think we should have it again," Negi replied. "Anyway, Natsuki-san, you can be part of this without necessarily being the mother of one of my children."

Natsuki swallowed. "I ... I already told Shizuru that I'd go wherever she went."

"Going wherever she goes does not have to mean doing whatever she does," he told her calmly.

"Yes it does," said Shizuru.

"Ahem."

"Well, what's the point of going, then?"

"Enough!" Natsuki managed to snap. "I'm ... I'm not crazy about this, but ... okay. Let's do it before I have the chance to change my mind." She lay back and thought of Shizuru - who helpfully did bend over and start kissing her at this point. Well, at least she wasn't alone, and after all, all these girls were probably well-satisfied with him, or they wouldn't be sticking around, and so he was probably rather good at it, and it wasn't like she'd ever thought of herself as lesbian, exactly, more of an asexual creature of vengeance, so this was more or less switching from off to on, rather than -

"Ahhhh!" Negi cried in release.

... that's it? she thought.

---

Ranma was not a particularly deep thinker. He had a decided tendency towards impulsive behavior, and had never been a particularly reflective individual. How much of this was his nature, and how much of it was his nurture, was lately being tested, as he'd been put in the position of having to be the one who did the thinking for both himself and the even more impulsive and non-reflective Shanpu. Truthfully, having the opportunity to think was something relatively novel for him, and as he lay back on the floor of the room he'd been given, the gears of his mind were running rather more steadily than they ever had before now.

He wasn't sure why, but he didn't trust Haruna with Akane. Well, granted, there was a pretty good reason for him to worry about what Haruna might say to Akane, but he also knew that Haruna had no reason to do that - or at least he thought he knew that. It was a little worrying, the way that girl could shift her attitudes as quickly as she had in the past, going from being sick at the sight of him-as-her and Shanpu to throwing herself at the two of them. Yet it was that impulsiveness that reminded Ranma most of both himself and Shanpu, really the only way that he saw their mutual father in Haruna.

If that impulsiveness led Haruna to reveal all to Akane, what was going to happen to this life? He'd have to go back to wandering, probably, and something in Ranma found that less than ideal. This was probably the longest he'd been able to stay in one place for the past fifteen years, and he found that there was something to be said for settlinng down. The conditions for that settling might not be completely to his liking, but -

There came a knocking at his chamber door. "Ranma-kun?" said Kasumi's voice from the opposite side. "Could I come in and have a brief word with you?"

"Uh, sure!" he replied. "Door's unlocked."

"Oh, good," she said, then slid the door open. He was a bit surprised to see that she was wearing an evening gown and on her knees in the hallway outside. Once the door was open, she pulled herself forward with her hands, then turned and closed it again, before turning once more to face Ranma with that unflinching gentle smile, which he answered with a slightly confused grin. He'd mostly stayed out of Kasumi's way in his time here, and found it impossible to guess what she wanted to talk about at the moment.

"Ranma-kun," she began speaking after a moment. "I would like to begin by asking a rather personal question, and I hope that you won't mind it, but you should know that the answer is very important. To the point, then: how do you feel about Akane? As your fiancee, I mean?"

"Oh. Uh. Well. I mean ... I never expected any of this, and I've never really had a fiancee before," Ranma admitted - truthfully as far as he knew. "I ... don't think she's all that happy about the situation," he understated.

"No, probably not," Kasumi agreed. "But I asked how you felt about her."

He flinched. "Well ... she's kind of ... I get that she doesn't want any of this, but, well, none of it is my fault, either, and I really feel like she blames me for a lot of it! It pisses me off! But ..." He trailed off for a while, and Kasumi opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off when he spoke again. "I mean ... then I hear about what she was going through before I showed up, and I can't really blame her for being so damn touchy. And, I guess, I wish she was happier."

"You care about her," Kasumi said.

"Well, yeah. She's my fiancee, right?" Ranma said, clearly uncomfortable.

"Ranma, please don't take that as an accusation. I think it's very admirable how much you care about your sisters."

He looked to one side, not accustomed to receiving praise for such matters, then froze momentarily. "Uhum?" he said as he turned back to gaze at her. "Kasumi, weren't we talking about Akane, not Haruna or Shanpu, right now?"

"We were talking about Akane," she agreed.

"Then how come you said 'how much' -" he started to ask.

"Because Akane is also a daughter of Saotome Genma," said Kasumi.

"Dwah?" asked Ranma, wide-eyed.

"In my mother's private journal, which I found after her death, she discusses her many adulteries," she began to explain. "After I was born, mother's physician told her that she was fated to have only daughters, and never sons. Since she would never be able to give my father the son he needed to carry on the Tendo family name, she decided that it no longer mattered who fathered her children, and began to have affairs with many men - your father among them. Akane was the result of this union, while Nabiki was fathered by yet another man."

"Ohhhkay then," he said, nodding just a bit woodenly. "That, that does sound like my piece-of-shit dad, yeah. Does your dad know about - no, he doesn't, does he," Ranma concluded. "I guess the better question is, why are you telling me this?"

"I have spent the interval since you arrived, and since you became engaged to Akane, considering what to do about all of this," Kasumi replied. "You are a young man - and occasionally a young woman - of good character, very different from your father as mother's journal depicts him, and as your own account agrees. I believe that you and Akane could be very good for each other. Especially as you are uniquely qualified to satisfy her urge for bisexual experimentation."

"But she's my sister," he pointed out.

"That has not stopped you with Haruna-chan or Shanpu-san," she said.

"How did you know -" he squawked. "Did Haruna tell you?"

"No, you did, just now. Thank you for confirming my suspicions," she said cheerfully, with a truly loving smile.

"Ohhhhhh," said Ranma, facepalming.

"Regardless of such matters, however," Kasumi continued, "your father owes my father the opportunity to combine your houses. One way to do so would be to allow him to father a daughter on your female form, but I think you would object to that."

"Um, yeah," he replied. Becoming pregnant in his female form was not anywhere on his list of things to do, as it would require him to spend nine months stuck like that. He suspected that wasn't why she thought he'd object, though, but wasn't about to explain his experiences as a woman to her under the circumstances. It might give her ideas.

"So, as I see it, the only other option is for us to mate," she said, and opened up her nightgown to reveal that she wasn't wearing anything underneath. "So, Ranma, would you like to fuck me like the naughty whore I am? Like your stud of a father fucked my slutty mommy? Slam into me and spew your baby batter into my oh-so-fertile womb?"

"Well, when you put it like that, how can I possibly refuse?" he asked dazedly. "Like this, that's how!" And with that cry of outrage, Ranma reached out and pulled Kasumi's nightgown closed. Before the young woman could possibly react, he stepped past her, slid open the bedroom door, then half-pulled/half-shoved her out through the doorway - surprisingly gently - before slamming the door shut again. Click, went the lock.

"... all right," said Kasumi once she had regained her poise. "We will have to do things the hard way, I see."

Day Six - Japan

Ranma had spent the rest of that evening warily watching the door to his room and jumping at the slightest noise, until finally an uncomfortable sleep claimed him. His dreams were filled with images of a happy married life - with a girl whose face he couldn't quite recognize - being ruined when he realized that all their children were in fact his own half-siblings, as were all the children in their kindergarten classes, and the majority of the people in their neighborhood. When he woke, shortly before sunrise, he found himself in a cold sweat.

In a way, it was funny. Up until he'd met Haruna, he hadn't given his girl-half's relationship with his father much in the way of thought. His pop had needs, his girl form could meet them, so what was the problem? Nobody else with whom he'd had dealings - mostly Shanpu and Komu - had had an issue with it either. The strong took what they wanted, and the weak should just learn to live with it. And then Haruna had made a big deal about it, and Ranma began to consider the idea that his father - the guy who would screw over pretty much anyone for a laugh - might possibly have included Ranma himself among the people to be screwed over, quite literally in this case.

How Haruna later reconciled herself having sex with him with her disgust with their father for doing the same thing wasn't all that clear to Ranma, and he'd arrived at the conclusion that it would not go over all that well if he ever asked her about it.

But none of that was important, right then. What he was dealing with here was the lingering effects of his piece-of-shit father's general bastardy, which had apparently extended to seducing the wife of a sworn brother. That was well beyond the pale of what Ranma could have excused, even before he'd started to view his father more critically, and it made it clear that the appropriate thing to do would be to get himself (and Shanpu, and - oh, what the hell - Akane) the hell away from this den of deceit and iniquity.

He poked his head out into the hallway, and looked both ways, very quickly. It was empty, and so he quickly and quietly slipped out and then tiptoed down the stairs, making sure that the kitchen was empty before descending into it. From there, he headed towards the spare bedroom and rapped on its door. "Shanpu?" he said. "Wake up, dammit!"

His first warning should have been the fact that she wasn't already up and doing her morning workout, which she nearly always managed to do before he could. His second warning should have been the dreamy smile on her face when she slid open the door to reveal that she was wrapped in a blanket instead of her usual pajamas. Fortunately, it wasn't like he could really miss the third warning. "Ah, bonjour, cher Ranma!" she said. "Comment fais-tu, cette belle journee?"

Gharrrrrk! thought Ranma. "You're speaking French." Nothing good ever happened when she started speaking French. Add that to the 'just-got-fucked' look she was currently sporting, and there was only one reasonable conclusion that he could reach. "Kasumi got to you, didn't she?" he nearly yelped.

"Yes I did," sounded a voice from further in the spare bedroom.

From elsewhere in the house, there came the sound of a door being opened rather loudly.

"Oh, dear," said Kasumi, still out of sight. "That must be father. Ranma-kun, would you mind helping him to his room? I'd do it myself but I suspect he might take my currently quite nude and well-fucked state somewhat amiss."

Grateful to learn that Kasumi had some limits (and unaware that no she really didn't and was pursuing a scheme) and glad of any excuse to get away from her and Shanpu at the moment, Ranma promptly replied, "Right, on it!" And dashed towards the front door.

"Ah, Ranma my boy!" a thoroughly soused Soun declared when he was discovered having failed to climb up the first step up from the doorway. "Did I wake you? I sorry, so sorry. And hungry, so hungry."

"No, no, I was already up," Ranma assured him as he strugged to avoid wrinkling his nose at the less familiar scents that he was picking up off the individual on whom he freeloaded. (The booze was nothing new, but some of the other smells were just completely unknown.) He helped the old man up and started to lead him in the direction of his bedroom.

"Some breakfast would be nice," Tendo mused.

Okay, make that the kitchen, where Ranma would hopefully find some cereal or something to deal with the munchies his host was having. Instead of what he did find, which was Shanpu in Kasumi's nightgown - open at the front - eating some toast.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Tendo!" she declared. "Vous devriez être fier de votre fille aînée. Elle fera une concubine merveilleuse pour quelqu'un un jour. Peut-être même mon mari!"

"... is that French?" Soun asked blearily. "Where did she learn to speak French?"

"Comic books, apparently," said Ranma, who had no idea what had just been said and was rather glad of that fact. "Why don't you just wait here, I'm sure Kasumi will show up and make something edible in a few minutes. I'll go see if she's awake!"

He rapidly left the kitchen, intending to just as rapidly leave the house and go hole up at Haruna's again, if she'd let him. (What if she didn't? Maybe Hiroshi and Daisuke's place.) All such ideas vanished as a bucket of rather icy water was flung at him before he reached the entrance.

"Whajadothatfor?" she asked Kasumi, much more quietly and weakly than he might have done under normal circumstances.

She did not answer directly. Instead, she raised her voice. "Oh, daddy! I've been practicing those disguise arts I told you about, and managed to assume Ranma-chan's appearance! Doesn't that sound like a fun role play for this morning?"

Ranma made a noise.

"Well, you wouldn't take the easy way," said Kasumi, who then sort of slid out sight.

---

"Later that day, in the arrivals section of Tokyo-2's international airport, the sublimely beautiful entity incarnate known to the simple people of Earth as Enoshima Junko, dressed in a leopard skin coat, sat upon a small mountain of luggage, patiently - or perhaps not so patiently - awaiting the arrival of the other Despair Sister, the sublimely smelly entity incarnate known to the simple people of Earth as Ikusaba Mukuro. Her patience, or lack therof, was rewarded when the smell of that sister preceded the actual arrival of the elite mercenary through the gates. Dressed all in black, Mukuro immediately perceived the presence of the only being who had ever or would ever or could ever care about her in any way, and walked over to the mountain of luggage, where she offered up a salutation."

"Um, Junko, what are you doing?" asked Mukuro, staring up at her sister who was, indeed, sitting pretty on a bunch of bags.

"Junko frowned the frown of the unfathomably put upon at the idiotic and inane question her moronic sister had just asked. 'Obviously,' she said, in a voice of cold contempt. 'Obviously,' she repeated, for it was indeed so utterly obvious as to be immediately apparent to anyone with a speck of brain matter separating their ears. 'Obviously, I am narrating for the benefit of the audience.' She awaited the obvious question with patient superiority written plainly on her features."

"... okay, then."

"Once again frustrated beyond imagination by the arrant stupidity of her alleged sister, who could not stick to the script if her life depended on it, which, bee-tee-dubs, it very much did, Junko decided to stop narrating for a while," she said, then dropped down from atop the luggage to stand in front of Mukuro. She leaned in close to her, taking in deep breaths through her nose. "You smell," she declared."

What Mukuro wanted to do was to move even closer to Junko than her sister had moved close to her, so that they would be in physical contact for the first time in four years. What she ultimately did do was remain perfectly still, and drink in the sight, sound and smell of her sister. "I smell?" she asked.

"I said you smell, didn't I? Have things changed so that what I say is not true? Have they? I don't remember that happening. I think I would remember that," Junko faintly growled. "I say you smell, and so you smell. When was the last time you bothered to shower?"

"Before I went to the airport to get on the plane here. I was really careful to clean off all the blood from when I -"

"That would explain the airplane smell I'm detecting over your usual disgusting body odor," Junko interrupted. "Yes, you smell. What are you going to do about this, neesan?"

"I guess I could take a shower when we get to the hotel?" Mukuro asked, just a bit feebly.

"And I'm supposed to put up with your stench in the car all the way there? I asked, what are you going to do about this, neesan?"

"Well, I can't take a shower here, there are no showers in an airport."

"Did I ask if there are showers in an airport? No! I asked what are you going to do about this, neesan, and you have been unable to answer my simple, straightforward question. Why do I put up with you? Why?" And she looked away.

Now, something must be said here. Junko would no more actually look away from Mukuro when she was in the process of damaging her sister's ego than a sculptor would look away from the chunk of rock in which they saw a statue needing to be set free. Like much of what she said, this was a rhetorical gesture, and her eyes would ordinarily always remain on her target. But on this particular day, one of her eyes happened to move just a bit away from Mukuro, gazing for no more than a second across the terminal. It was something she would not ordinarily do.

And so she saw him.

"Well, I mean, I guess I could wash myself in one of the toilets, here, with some soap from the dispensers and the toilet paper as towels," Mukuro was saying.

"Don't bother, it's not important," Junko hurriedly told her. "Let's go." And with that, she grabbed Mukuro's hand and pulled her sister with her as she began to run towards the airport's doors.

As the two Despair Sisters reached the curb, Junko saw a cab pulling away from the curb and knew, with the same certainty that told her she had not imagined seeing him, that he was in that car. Unhesitatingly, she headed over to the limo she'd arranged to pick the two of them up, pulled open the passenger door and slid inside, still dragging Mukuro with her. She thumped on the window separating the driver's compartment from the passenger compartment. "Follow that car!" she demanded.

The window slid down, and the driver turned to look at her. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but that's not included in the service," he said patiently. "I'm contracted to drive you from the airport to your hotel, and that's all. No departures from the route, for any reason."

Junko stared at him. "Not for any reason," she repeated.

"No, ma'am."

"I see," she said, very calmly. "Thank you for explaining this, and I respect your integrity far too much to waste your time and mine by offering you a bribe. Neesan, please kill this man."

"All right," said Mukuro, still a little blissed out from having had her hand held, and snap-threw one of her ceramic knives through the driver's throat. He made a series of choking noises as he slumped back against the driver's side door, blood spurting richly from his wound.

"Right, now, go take the wheel, and follow that cab."

"Um ... it's probably quite a ways ahead of us by now -"

"Did I ask

whether it was ahead of us by now? Did I even hint that was a topic I found interesting? Just drive, useless smelly sister!"

Eventually, the limousine managed to catch up to the cab that Junko had identified as 'that car', and followed along behind it at a safe distance. Mukuro wanted to ask certain questions, like what was so important about this particular car - or more probably its passenger - but she knew that such inquiries would not be welcome. Mukuro was really only good at two things, which more or less boiled down to the same thing. She was good at obeying orders, and she was good at killing people. Her ambition, if it could be called that, was to one day develop a third talent, which would make her good at anticipating her younger sister's changes of mind so that she wouldn't annoy Junko so much, and Junko would stop making veilled threats against her life.

Not that she was worried about those, of course. She knew that her sister only wanted to experience the despair that came from ending the life of someone that she loved with her own hands, and that she had to prevent that in order to keep Junko from completely falling into despair. Besides which, part of a talent for killing people involved a talent for not getting killed by people. But it would be so nice if Junko didn't do it anymore.

Eventually, Mukuro saw the cab pull up to a self storage facility, and then pull away again after its passenger disembarked. "Junko, he got out."

"Hm?" said Junko, still in the back compartment, sipping Dom Pérignon and using her makeup collection to prettify the face of the driver's corpse. "Who got out?"

Yet again, her sister's mind had moved on from a previous obsession. "The passenger of the cab you had me -" Mukuro started to explain patiently.

"Oh, him! Well, then, stop the car and let's go after him, what are you waiting for?" Junko was reaching for the door of the limo before Mukuro had quite halted the car.

They were soon both out of the vehicle and headed through the gates. "Of course you'd come here, this is probably a cache you set up decades ago. This is where you put the stuff you'll need for whatever you're going to be doing. Okay, where are you, then?" Junko asked, surveying the rows of locked garages, looking for signs of recent entry. "You closed the door behind you, probably, but -"

"That one's unlocked," Mukuro said, pointing to one unit.

"All right," said Junko, very quietly, very seriously. "Open the door on three, neesan. Onetwothree!"

Mukuro had, of course, headed over to the door as soon as Junko had acknowledged her observation, and was more than able to fling the door open no matter how quickly Junko counted.

"It is such an -" Junko began to declaim, then paused as she realized that the storage unit was empty save of crates marked Acme Corporation with various product names on them.

"There's no one here, Junko," Mukuro observed helpfully.

"No, there isn't. Obviously, someone's disgusting odor scared them off. So where is he, then?"

"Standing behind you," said a voice in lightly accented Japanese.

Mukuro whirled, knives ready, taking the measure of the tall, very pale foreigner, wearing sunglasses and a Panama hat, who was pointing a revolver at them, and smiling broadly. Before she could send one of them through the enemy's throat, however, Junko held up a hand signalling for her sister to halt.

"It really is you," Junko said, almost dreamily, in unaccented English. "I ... I never dreamed that I'd have this kind of chance. I thought those stories about you having survived Second Impact had to be nothing more than wishful thinking on someone's part. It is such an honor to meet you, sir. You are such an inspiration!"

"Oh, dear," the foreigner said. "Young lady, you're reminding me of a certain person, and that's not a smart thing to do. She was occasionally amusing, but mostly very annoying."

"I'm so sorry," Junko replied, grinning broadly at the fact that she was actually having a conversation with him. "I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm Enoshima Junko, and this is my sister Ikusaba Mukuro. We're in the same line of work as you."

"... we are?" asked Mukuro, not taking her eyes off the person who was still pointing a gun at them. This was probably the longest time she'd ever allowed someone to do that without a very bloody example of them.

"Odd pair of names for a pair of sisters," he said. "Doubtless there's an interesting story there."

"Several, depending on the needs of the moment, but nothing to dwell on at this particular moment."

He let out a faint laugh. "Sounds familiar. Let me guess, you want to work for me?"

"I'd prefer to view it as 'work with', but I recognize that we'd be the junior partner, at first."

He sighed, despite still wearing that broad grin. "And what makes you qualified to come work for me, young lady?"

"Well, I'm a certified genius, recognized as one of the most brilliant analytical minds on the planet by Kibogamine Academy," Junko began to admit modestly.

"Never heard of it," he interrupted.

"My sister, meanwhile, has spent the last four years working as an operative for the elite mercenary army, Fenris," she continued.

"... them I've heard of," he admitted, regarding Mukuro with a bit of interest.

"Well, you won't hear any more of them, because dear sweet big sister killed the lot of them, all because I told her to do so, so that she'd be free to join me at our new school, where we can plot The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History. That's my defining ambition, you see. And I'm sure, beyond any possible doubt, that you and I were meant to work together to cause this. And, incidentally, I'm fairly sure I know who Japan's only superhero actually is, so we'd be able to take care of him in advance."

The man laughed then, almost seeming to collapse in on himself in a paroxysm of sheer uncontrollable mirth. Mukuro took a step towards him, whether to assist him or to make his 'corpsing' literal, and he promptly straightened up and pulled the trigger on his gun.

CLICK! declared the tiny flag that slid out of the barrel.

"I like you, kid," he said, then.

"How much?" Junko asked, eyes gone all heart-shaped. "Are we going to seal our partnership in the bedroom?"

"Uh," he said, suddenly looking a bit less cheerful. "Didn't you say you two were sisters?"

"Yes? And?"

---

"I never would have expected him to be such a prude, neechan!" Junko complained as they walked back to the limo.

"Who exactly was that man, Junko?" Mukuro asked as she followed.

"Never mind, you'll figure it out when he gives us a call. Meanwhile, I think we should celebrate even if he doesn't join in," said Junko as she opened the rear door of the limo and started to climb in.

"Yes, Junko," replied Mukuro, trying to hide how thrilled she was. "I'll drive us to our hotel and -"

"Hotel, schmotel. Get in here."

Mukuro promptly did so. A few moments later, the door opened briefly to allow a made-up corpse to be deposited on the sidewalk beside the limo, which promptly began rocking up and down on its suspension.

---

After a long evening, a relatively brief sleep, and some fun in the shower before leaving Mikado's place, Akane was still uncertain whether she enjoyed regular sex or hatesex more. She would have to keep trying and find out. Examining that thought as it crossed her mind, she smiled faintly, before giving way to a rather deep yawn. She was lucky that her school had a day off today, as she'd be able to go to her dormitory and get some more rest instead of going to class and risking falling asleep there.

And yet, despite that, Akane found that her footsteps were leading her to the Tendo dojo. She decided that she just wanted to see that it was still standing despite having been left in the care of Ranma and Shanpu. She was, of course, only worried about Kasumi, definitely not Ranma. She wasn't thinking about him ... her ... and definitely not what Haruna had said about either of Ranma's identities.

Well, it was, indeed, still standing. She could hear faint shouts and the unmistakable sounds of violence coming from within, however, so she decided to look in on what was happening. "All right, what's all this?" she asked wearily as she unlocked the front door and slid it open.

Then stared.

In the middle of the foyer, her father, stripped to the waist, had frozen in place in the process of trying to pull female Ranma, likewise frozen, out of her clothes, while Ranma apparently tried to fend him off without actually hurting him. The bottom of one of her feet was pressing up against Soun's jaw. They were also staring back at Akane.

The three of them stood a while in non-thought.

Eventually, Akane coughed, and this apparently freed the two of them from paralysis, enabling them to chorus, "This isn't what it looks like!"

"Of course not," she replied, very calmly. "It couldn't possibly be what it looks like. And I'm sure that there is a reasonable, rational explanation for all of this. But I suspect that hearing your attempts at the reasonable, rational explanation would only increase the anger that I'm trying very hard to control right now, so I'm going to ask that you ... just ... keep it to yourselves. Daddy," she continued, somewhat sharply. "Why don't you go to your room, lie down, and have a nap. A long nap. A still nap. The sort of nap where you either don't hear anything else going on in the house, or you can pretend that you don't. Doesn't that sound nice, daddy?"

Terrified of the way that Akane was co-opting the way that Nabiki usually addressed him for her own purposes, Soun let go of Ranma (who nicely let go of her counterhold on him) and swiftly backed away down the hall to his bedroom on the main floor, bowing politely all the way.

Once he was out of sight, Akane turned her glare on Ranma. "Okay," she said. "I think you and I should have a little chat."

Ranma nodded quickly. "Yes, yes, there are some things that I think I should probably tell you -" she started to say.

"Too late, Haruna already did," Akane interrupted.

Ranma's blue eyes bulged. "Wait, how did Haruna know?"

"... she said you told her."

"... how could I tell her, when I just found out last night?" Ranma asked plaintively.

"I think we might just possibly be talking about two different things," Akane said after a moment. "What's your thing?"

"Uh, apparently Shanpu isn't my only sister by another mother, because, aheh, well, he's apparently your real dad."

Akane considered this. "Welp," she said at last, "there went any righteousness I could feel about you knocking boots with Haruna and Shanpu. Ah well. Onto the next subject. Do you know what hatesex is?"

"Eh?" she asked, blinking cutely.

Akane smiled. "I have such things to show you," she cooed.

---

"So you have succeeded," said Zazie that evening, as she gazed across the dormitory's roof at him. "And much more quickly than I expected. I thought it would take until at least our class trip for you to achieve the goal that I set for you, and yet that's still a week away. You have done very well, Negi."

He let out a sigh. "I am honored by your praise, Your Highness ... but no, I have not."

Her eyes widened. "Please elaborate."

"I suppose that I could claim that everything was all right, but you would find out soon enough, I imagine. Of the young women who've joined my collective, nearly all are in the early stages of pregnancy ... but nearly all is not all, and there are some medical difficulties with some of them that Mikado-sensei is going to have to address. Until all of them are on their way, I can't consider myself to have succeeded in your goal."

"I see," she said after a moment. "Might I ask who -"

"I would prefer that you didn't, in order to respect their privacy," Negi replied.

"... Ayase, Momioka and Shanna," Zazie guessed aloud.

Negi let out a sigh. "You really do have some amazing sources of information. In Shanna's case, it's more that we haven't been able to confirm or deny the situation, but from what Mikado has told me about what she knows of her origins ... it's possible that, as with most of the Einzbern homonculi, she was never intended by her creators to give birth. The other two cases involve genuinely sensitive medical conditions, so please do not inquire further. Please." And he lowered his head.

She regarded him in silence for what seemed like a few minutes. "You've grown," she said at last. "In many ways, I think you are placing more conditions on this goal than I ever intended to require of you, just as you require greater probity of yourself than anyone else would ask. It is a humility that borders on arrogance, in some ways."

Then Zazie shook her head. "Very well, I will inquire no further. But Young Master Springfield ... you should understand that, if you choose this, and there comes a time when you need the power I am offering you but you have not yet exceeded the limits you set for yourself, I will not be able to help you."

"I do understand," he said, taking a bit of joy in the fact that she was calling him that once again. He wasn't sure if he truly believed that he had regained her respect, but it was something to hope. Thinking on it a bit further, though, he found himself swallowing. "Is it likely that such a time will come shortly?"

She looked away, towards the setting sun. "I see the future no more clearly than you do," she answered. "But the world continues to turn, so there will always be more and greater challenges. Whatever will be, will be."

"It can't be helped," Negi quoted.

"That too," said Zazie, turning back to favor him with a genuine smile.

Next: Setsuna.