Big Human on Campus

by Black Dragon6

Ranma gets booted out of Furinkan after dealing with Saffron, and ends up on the bus to a new school called Youkai Academy, meeting a rather timid guy named Tsukune on the way. At least this place can't be worse than Furinkan, right?

15. Yes, THAT Witch's Knoll

"Hello everyone! Are you ready for another try at Ranma's species?" asked Shizuka Nekonome, acting exuberant as usual, "well, to be honest these segments are getting tiresome and we have a lot to get to, so let's hurry and get it out of the way!"

Still sounding curiously exuberant, she gestured to the child sitting next to her. "And speaking of short, meaningless annoyances that won't go away, today's contributor is none other than Saffron!"

Saffron's eye twitched as he stared up at the cat-like woman. "Are you really an educator?"

"Are you really a king?" Shizuka asked back brightly, laughing as if she hadn't been insulted, "no, but seriously, no one cares. We're here to talk about Ranma! So what's your guess?"

Pushing aside his obvious irritation, Saffron, scratched his chin in thought. "I haven't given it too much thought, but I suppose my first guess would be a tengu."

"Tengu? Why's that?" Shizuka asked.

"His absurd agility comes to mind. Plus his obvious affinity for sensing and making use of wind currents. As a humanoid avian, I can appreciate how much energy that takes and how much wings help. He simply seems impossibly agile for a human..." then Saffron frowned. "Then again, I've fought Amazon warriors before who were that fast, so maybe he really is just a-"

"Tengu! Interesting! Well, on to the main segment!" Shizuka interrupted, clearly trying to move things along.

Saffron looked startled, and started looking around. "Wait, really? I'm not going to be killed?"

Miss Nekonome shook her head. "No, even negative attention is pretty much wasted on you!"

As Saffron's face darkened, Shizuka waved. "Enjoy the chapter!"

Black Dragon Productions proudly presents
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Key: Writing/Emphasis, Sounds, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus
Chapter 14
Yes, THAT Witch's Knoll

---

"Knock, knock!" Ranma said as Kouma reared back a fist, his fingers sputtering flame.

BWOOM! The heavy wooden doors almost disintegrated before the fiery impact, and Ranma immediately strode through the aftermath of the explosion, ready to leap into action at a moment's notice.

It proved unnecessary. The interior of Youkai Academy's basement contained several monsters, but none of them seemed ready or willing to fight the pair of battle-ready Enforcers that entered through the smoke.

Of those monsters, six of them were students wearing shackles of glowing energy, all of them in varying states of disarray. Half of them appeared to be in the midst of shoveling coal into a massive brick furnace that Ranma was pretty sure existed for the sole purpose of requiring abusive labor (all the dorms were gas heated), and one was on her knees sobbing into the dusty concrete floor.

The seventh monster was Professor Richard, who looked slightly put out by the violent intrusion.

"You know, you two are the reason I need a 'door' inventory in my club's budget," Richard said, planting his fists on his hips.

"All right, pack it up," Ranma said, clapping his hands as Kouma approached the hopeful-looking students to help them out of their bonds, "you guys are free. Lose the magic chains and get out of here."

"Oh, thank the lord serpent!" the girl crying on the floor gasped, "I thought we would die here!"

"So did I," Richard mumbled as his eyes narrowed at Ranma, "what's the problem this time?"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head, "What do you think? We already told you that your capturing students, locking them up, explaining to them that their parents never actually loved them, and working them to death is against school rules!"

Another wave of sobs came from the girl on the floor, "I didn't even know I was an accident until an hour ago! Mommy wanted to roll my egg off a cliff!"

Richard crossed his arms over his chest. "You're being quite unreasonable. How am I to engage in genuine orphan activities if there are such meddlesome restrictions placed upon my treatment of the students?"

"That's the POINT, freak," Ranma snapped before the crying girl shouted again.

"I wasn't an orphan until an hour ago either!"

"It was part of our field trip," Richard explained to an increasingly bemused Ranma, "it was necessary to show how orphans are usually made. During a meteor shower, specifically. While a flood blocked all possibility of escape. Before spearing the surviving parents with spears of the strongest acid while they try to flee." The warlock briefly observed his fingernails, looking pleased. "I try to be thorough."

"Everyone I grew up with is dead!" the girl sobbed.

"ALL RIGHT. We get it. Shut up already," Kouma snapped in annoyance, grabbing the glowing yellow manacles attached to her arms and giving them a sharp twist. A loud keening noise briefly reverberated through the room as the spell failed, and the magical chains leading from the manacles to the wall disintegrated into flickering motes of light.

"So this is it. No more orphan club. We have an official order by the student council that it's being disbanded," Ranma said, brandishing a letterhead at the warlock, "so now you're no longer allowed to kidnap students, kill off their families, and work them to death in the basement!"

Kouma frowned as he stopped in front of the last imprisoned student. "You know, he wasn't actually 'allowed' to do that in the first place. All of those things were still against the rules, whether or not it was a club activity," he pointed out, causing a sweatdrop to rolled down Ranma's head.

"Also, not having a club to thinly justify his crimes probably won't stop him from just kidnapping and killing whoever he wants anyway," said one of the recently rescued students, to which Ranma's eyebrow twitched.

"But serial killing is so much more interesting with a theme!" Richard griped, grabbing the paper and reading it over, "it's no wonder modern education is failing today's youth! When we even start cutting perfectly good extracurricular activities just because the surviving parents are afraid of their children being mutilated and-" the warlock was cut off as Ranma suddenly picked him up by the waist and threw him into the furnace.

The other students except for Kouma gaped at the unexpected act of violence, and watched in morbid fascination as the reddish glow from the mouth of the furnace slowly darkened and turned green.

"I don't even know what everyone is complaining about," came Richard's voice from within the furnace, "as long as you're totally incapable of feeling pain, this is noth-"

CLANG! Ranma slammed the furnace door shut as a vein bulged on the side of his head, and then turned toward Kouma. "Let's hurry this up, already. I doubt that's gonna hold him for long, and I'm sick of his jokes."

"Yeah, yeah," mumbled Kouma as he broke the magical bonds of the final captive student, "there. All done."

"Thank you! You really saved us!" shouted the girl who was on the floor, still sniffling, "if you hadn't come along, we would have... we would have..."

Kouma rolled his eyes as he walked out the door, entirely unmoved by the gratitude. "Grow a saving throw, wimp."

"Don't forget, now that you're not being killed by an instructor after classes, you'll need to join a new club to meet the graduation requirements," Ranma warned as he followed Kouma out.

"I think Gin said that the newspaper club is looking for more members," offered the hellhound.

"Blech. I don't think that's much better than the club they just left," Ranma countered as the two left the room and ascended the stairs to the main hallway.

While Kouma turned into the hallway as he exited, Ranma stopped short at the top of the stairs, noticing that there was a man leaning on the wall opposite, his arms crossed over his chest.

The man was dressed vaguely like a priest, with a long black coat and a collar that had a single white stripe over the throat. What was less priest-like were the sunglasses, earpiece, and the longsword that the man had sheathed at his hip.

Any place other than Youkai Academy, such an individual would have been unbearably suspicious. At Youkai Academy, such a figure attracted just enough attention to let the regular students know to ignore and avoid it, and Ranma quickly made to follow Kouma while avoiding eye contact.

"Mister Saotome."

'Damn,' the pigtailed boy cursed as he stopped in his tracks. "Yeah? What is it now?" Ranma grumbled, turning toward the man.

"The Headmaster wishes to see you, Saotome. And Aono too," the sketchy priest said, standing up straight, "I will take you to him."

"Ugh. I think I'd rather go back and help Professor Richard out of the furnace," Ranma griped, "all right, fine. Let me get Tsukune and we can get this over with."

---

"Okay, so let's go over this again," Tsukune said as he clasped his hands together tightly, "I'll go step-by-step, so you can tell exactly where you made mistakes and how to improve your performance. Okay, Chopper?"

Chopper nodded mutely as he stood in the lobby of the Protection Committee, his hand firmly clamped onto the shoulder of a student gasping in pain.

"So, you saw this guy slamming another student against a locker. You intervened. That's good! Very good! You stopped him from harming his victim and explained what he was doing wrong. An excellent job! I'm really proud of how much progress you've made!" Tsukune said, his voice slightly higher pitched than usual.

"Thanks!" Chopper said, beaming and flashing a thumbs-up. "I considered just smashin' his head into the locker, but I thought that you would want him to have some warning first."

"Yes. Good job. Very good insight," Tsukune said seriously, nodding his head, "problem: after confronting a miscreant, you only need to fight them if they resist in some way. Do you understand why this is?"

Chopper raised an eyebrow as he scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "To save time?"

"That's... one advantage, yes," the young human said solemnly, "but there are other reasons, too! If you attack someone who's willing to surrender, then they might try to defend themselves, starting a battle that could have been avoided completely!"

Chopper frowned. "And that's... a bad thing?"

"Combat causes damage to the school and gives Miss Madaraki more work to do," Tsukune explained, immediately going to the explanation that involved simple costs and benefits rather than trying to explain that even delinquents had some right to safety, "it's less disruptive to the students who follow the rules, and it means that the offender can return to classes earlier so that they can be further educated on acting like peaceful, productive humans."

"Ah. Okay, that makes sense," Chopper decided, scratching his massive chin.

Nodding, Tsukune continued. "So in the future, I'd really like you to avoid breaking people's legs whenever possible."

"Th-Thank you," gasped out the young man still being held up by Chopper. His legs lay on the ground behind him, twisted and useless from having been mercilessly crushed before being dragged around the halls and up two flights of stairs.

Chopper looked doubtful. "But what if they try to run away?"

"If they..." Tsukune took a deep breath. "You know what? We can cover this in better detail during the training session. For now, think over what I said and take him to the infirmary."

"Gotcha, Boss," Chopper said, suddenly whipping the hapless prisoner over his shoulder and then walking out the front door as the nameless miscreant whimpered in pain.

"Well, I do believe that's the first person we've successfully taken in alive!" Yukari said brightly as she wrote out a demerit with the student's school ID in front of her. "Progress!"

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it is," Tsukune deadpanned. Moka, who was the only other person present, gave him an awkward smile from where she sat next to the young witch.

A moment later the door opened up, and Ranma waved as he entered the room. "Yo! Tsukune, time to go. Gotta meet with the head jerk. One of his goons just told me where to go."

"You mean the Headmaster?" Tsukune asked as he approached his roommate.

"Isn't that what I said?"

Tsukune pursed his lips. "Ranma, I understand that you don't like this man, and you're probably right about him, too. Anybody in a position of authority who could stand idly by and watch the chaos around here without doing anything about it obviously isn't the benevolent type. But I still hope you won't insult him to his face when we meet him."

"So I can insult him behind his back all I want, right?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, although it'd be nice if you waited for him to actually do something to deserve it first," the younger human admitted. "Right now all he's really guilty of is neglect and sealing Saffron... and it's hard to fault him for sealing Saffron."

"Okay, okay, you have a point," Ranma mumbled, "hey Moka, you wanna come too?"

The vampiress perked up, pleased to be invited along but also surprised that Ranma would ask. "Oh, okay! Is there a particular reason why?"

"Yeah, so Yukari can work rather than fawning over you," the pigtailed boy said bluntly, pointing to the young witch, "she's gotta go over the student complaints, and she'll make a lot more progress if she's not busy making excuses to feel you up."

As Moka's face darkened, Yukari gave her an apologetic look. "That IS a legitimate concern, actually. Sorry, Moka."

Tsukune very deliberately faced toward the exit so that the others couldn't see the exasperation (or in Moka's case, the relief) in his expression. "Well, we shouldn't keep the headmaster waiting. Let's go!"

---

Ranma glanced around curiously as he, Moka, and Tsukune were led to the Headmaster's office, his hands in his pockets. They were walking along a long hallway, its walls decorated with large paintings and guards standing attentively every ten meters or so.

The man leading them had not given them a name, and in fact looked utterly identical to every other one of the Headmaster's guards; fairly tall and thick-built, wearing priests' clothes and a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes.

"This is pretty serious security you have here," Tsukune mumbled, feeling a bit intimidated despite Ranma's presence. He wasn't expecting so many guards for a school official, no matter how important a school official.

"The Headmaster can explain," their guide said briefly, not bothering to look at the young human.

Moka leaned over to Ranma, looking nervous. "Ranma, what do you think of this?"

Ranma took one hand out of his pocket, and his arm lashed out as the trio passed by another of the guards, snatching the sunglasses away from the silent sentinel.

The guard blinked eyes that were a solid white, devoid of any ocular anatomy, and then glanced at Ranma as the pigtailed boy walked past.

Then, without giving the matter any more attention, the guard pulled another pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

"Huh," Ranma mumbled as he looked the sunglasses over, completely ignoring the fact that Moka and Tsukune had gone tense, "dull reflexes, passive attitude, and either they're really sensitive to light or they don't actually have a sense of vision." Then he snorted. "These guys are meat shields. No wonder he needs so many of 'em to lock down the place."

Tsukune winced at Ranma's characteristically blunt assessment within earshot of the people he was assessing. "Ranma, don't be so rude! They have an important job to do."

'They're probably not truly sentient,' opined Evil Moka from within the Rosario, 'just mass-produced dolls, like Madaraki's assistants.'

'What makes you think that?' Moka asked back.

'The fact that they look and act identical to each other, and are willing to stand at attention at full awareness like this for so long at a time without causing trouble. Name me one monster species that would take up a job like this.'

Moka figured there might have been one or two if she really thought about it, but her other personality was probably right. It did look like an awfully dull job, and the men were executing it with perfect discipline, even indulging Ranma's actions and derisive comments without so much as flinching. It made perfect sense to assume they were some sort of magically animated soldiers.

"So what do you think they're here to defend against?" Moka asked aloud.

"Dunno, but there must be all kind of nut jobs who who would want a piece of the Headmaster, right?" Ranma asked, trying on the sunglasses. "Putting aside the ones with an actual grudge like Saffron, there's the students that think the school is a stupid idea and would want to attack the one in charge just out of spite, plus the guys who think that maybe they can become the boss of the entire campus if they defeat the guy in charge."

Ranma frowned as he looked around with the sunglasses, then took them off. "Actually, for all we know, they could be right, too. How do we know you don't become headmaster by beating the old one?"

"Don't get any ideas," Moka warned.

"I wasn't!" Ranma said defensively, "I'm just thinking out loud, here."

"Actually, that's a really good point," Tsukune said, which surprised Moka, "we don't really know where the line is between humans and monsters in Youkai Academy's leadership. They've made the basic setup of the school as human-like as possible, but the fact that the students are monsters usually ruins the intention. What if the headmaster is just a monster operating the school based on what he knows about human schools from TV or some book? The entire leadership of this place could be made up of monsters who barely have any idea what they're doing."

"Are you finished talking about me behind my back yet? We're almost to my office," said the Headmaster from behind the teenagers.

Even Ranma was startled by the sudden appearance, and the trio whirled around to confirm that the creepy old hooded man with glowing eyes was indeed behind them.

"I di-didn't mean any disrespect, Sir!" Tsukune said nervously as the hooded man walked past them.

"I did," Ranma admitted, "but in my defense, you're REALLY sketchy."

The Headmaster ignored them as he reached the double-doors at the end of the hallway, and then he pushed them open.

The man's office was impressive, if not in a distinctly and predictably stereotypical way: skulls adorned his massive oak desk with holes in the top to hold office supplies. Bookshelves lined every wall, crammed from end to end with thick, dusty tomes. Vials of unlabeled liquids in a wide variety of colors were stacked here and there, only occasionally marked with a skull to indicate that consumption might be a bad idea. Catholic symbols were everywhere, the cobweb-laced crosses creating a perfectly ironic and traditional contrast to a variety of more obscure fetishes and symbols.

The Headmaster walked up behind his enormous desk as Ranma, Tsukune, and Moka waited patiently, surrounded by the identical bodyguards.

"So. Congratulations on your recent promotion to captain of the Protection Committee, Mister Aono. I'm sorry I couldn't congratulate you earlier," the man said, his voice deep and curiously disingenuous.

"That's all right, Sir. I'm just glad I have the opportunity to make this school a better place," Tsukune responded.

"Oh, and you have," the strange hooded man said, grinning, "Kuyo was a rather tiresome fellow. Still, it came as quite a surprise to hear he was usurped by a human."

The trio suddenly tensed, staring up at the Headmaster with wide eyes.

"What? Did you think I didn't know?" the Headmaster asked, leaning forward as he grinned. "Did you think anything as important as a human joining the student body would escape my notice?"

"Actually, yes, that was my first impression," Tsukune admitted, "and... my second and third impression as well."

Ranma looked hopeful. "Wait, how many humans are we talking about? Like, two? There were two, right?"

Ranma was ignored completely as Moka made her own thoughts known. "Wait, if you knew Tsukune was a human, why didn't you do anything? He could have been killed!"

"That's not really a concern that's unique to him," the Headmaster pointed out, steepling his fingers, "Youkai Academy is an academic slaughterhouse where only the strong survive; the weak are either killed or learn to evade the others until they can escape. The strong take and do what they want until they graduate or are finally overcome. Or at least, that's how it used to be."

Tsukune raised an eyebrow. "You mean it's not like that now? It sure seems that way."

"It does, doesn't it?" the Headmaster asked, smiling in a way that made Ranma REALLY want to punch him, "and yet here you are, Aono. Captain of the Academy police force. You are, with the exception of some of the scrawnier imps, the weakest creature on this campus, and yet many fear to cross you. You have seized chaos and begun the process of hammering it into order."

Ranma pointed to himself. "What about me?"

"You're a walking tornado generator," the Headmaster said blithely.

"ONE TIME! I only did that ONCE!" Ranma complained, "God, will you people let it go?"

The cloaked man once again ignored Ranma to speak to Tsukune again. "This school has... a problem, you see. Despite it's mission to teach students to act like humans, Youkai Academy is... not very good at it."

"We noticed," the three students deadpanned together.

The Headmaster continued, undeterred. "Our teachers are not themselves adept at acting human. The mix of random monsters does not encourage peaceful co-existence, but contests of strength and racial grudges. And up until now we even had a student police force that spent more time controlling its critics than the school's mass murderers."

He nodded. "In short, things were bleak, and I knew that as it stood the students, while hardened from a life of living in close quarters under constant threat of death, would have a difficult time properly hiding among humans, never mind actually integrating with them after graduation. I decided to try an experiment, of sorts, and set out to give this school a dose of... 'genuine' humanity."

Tsukune staggered back as if he had been struck. "Wait, so... it wasn't an accident that I came here?"

The Headmaster laughed. "Hardly! You were chosen and then brought here quite deliberately, Mister Aono! In order for you to do exactly what you've done here: set an example for the monsters and properly socialize them, while displaying how human wit can overcome the brute force of monsters."

"And you brought me here to watch his back? As a fellow human?" Ranma asked.

"I brought you here because you destroyed a mountain," the Headmaster said, glancing at Ranma, "your rooming together was just because you two arrived at the same time for dorm assignments."

"Hey, that mountain was mostly Saffron's fault!" Ranma complained.

"And I brought him in, too. Now will you quiet down? You're absolutely ruining the dramatic exposition," the hooded man said irritably.

"Tsukune, can I punch him?" Ranma asked through clenched teeth.

"Not yet, Ranma. Let him finish first," Tsukune chided before speaking to the Headmaster once more, "so let me get this straight: you brought me here hoping that the influence of a real human would rub off on the students? What if I didn't last that long? I'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for Ranma!"

'So I don't even warrant a mention anymore, huh?' Evil Moka said bitterly.

'You spent more energy trying to kill Ranma than defending Tsukune. Did you think he'd want to thank you?' Moka thought back.

'You tried to kill Ranma! Wah! Wah! I'm an insipid ninny who lets dumb humans belittle me because violence is bad!' Evil Moka mocked, managing to relate a high-pitched crying voice despite the message being telepathic.

'Shut up! Violence IS bad, especially when applied to our friends!'

'You know, that kind of attitude is the reason you're the least respected member of the Committee,' Evil Moka telepathically drawled, 'seriously, sometimes even I can't figure out why Tsukune doesn't dump you for the succubus.'

As Moka was fully engaged in arguing with herself, Tsukune was still patiently hearing out the Headmaster's explanation.

"I don't really have anything to tell you concerning the threats to your life," the cloaked man said with a shrug, "casualties among the student body are a matter of course. And this was an experiment, as I said: if you didn't survive long enough to make an impression, then that's obviously a limitation of the idea. I might try again with some other fellow, or I could forget the plan entirely."

Tsukune paled. "You mean you might have just watched me die and then done the same thing to someone else? What, would you keep feeding humans into the academy until one of them survived?"

"Until another one survived, yes," the Headmaster said shamelessly.

"What?" Tsukune asked.

"What?" the headmaster asked right back.

"You said 'another one'."

"No I didn't."

The room was silent for several seconds, with the only noise being Moka's whispered angry muttering.

The Headmaster coughed into a fist, and then spoke again. "In any case, speculation of how many humans I might have hypothetically killed in the future aside-"

"Wait, I AM the first person you used for your 'experiment,' right?" Tsukune asked angrily.

"You have not only survived, but done quite well for yourself!" the hooded man said without missing a beat or answering the question asked of him. "I never would have imagined that you would replace Kuyo!"

"Hey, seriously, answer the question," Tsukune said, droplets forming on his brow, "how many humans have died here?"

The Headmaster ignored him as he leaned back in the chair, his glowing eyes staring up at the ceiling. "But I didn't call you here just to reveal shadowy back story. I understand that the Protection Committee is to have a training camp during the break, correct?"

Tsukune massaged his forehead, not wanting to let go of the Headmaster's casual disregard for his students' lives, but recognizing that he probably wasn't going to get a confession out of the man. "Yes, that's... that's right. So?"

"You will hold the training camp at a location in the human world that I've selected that would be ideal for this purpose: a small, seldom-traveled region in the human world called Witch's Knoll."

"Dun-dun-DUNNNN!"

Tsukune and Ranma glanced to the side, where one of the Headmaster's guards was doing his best to pretend that he hadn't said anything by coughing into his fist.

"The driver will take you all there on the first day of break," continued the Headmaster.

"Uh huh. And what about the witches?" Tsukune asked.

"What witches?" the Headmaster asked back.

"The witches on the knoll."

"Why would you think there are witches on Witch's Knoll?"

"Are you seriously asking that or are you just trying to tempt Ranma into caving your head in?" Tsukune deadpanned.

The Headmaster shook his head. "You're being paranoid. Witch's Knoll is in human territory. It's even been set to be bulldozed for a construction project soon. It's just called that out of superstition."

"Right. And that superstition has nothing to do with a history of strange phenomenon or disappearances, or maybe actual sightings of witches whom we all know actually DO exist?" Tsukune demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It was probably just swamp gas," the Headmaster said with a shrug.

"What?"

"What?"

As Tsukune fumed and reflected on how accurate Ranma was when it came to judging elderly lunatics, the Headmaster pointed at the pigtailed boy.

"By the way, remember when I said the driver would take you ALL there? That was a slight exaggeration. Saotome will not be with you," the Headmaster said, grinning again.

"How's that again?" Tsukune said, now thoroughly dispirited by this meeting.

"I have a different task for him."

"What a coincidence, I have one for you too!" Ranma said in a voice that sounded happy, but obviously wasn't happy. "Drop dead. I don't have to do what you say."

"I have authority over the Protection Committee, and that includes you," the Headmaster reasoned.

"Yeah, well unless that authority includes mind control..." Ranma trailed off, looking worried, "wait, it doesn't include mind control, does it?"

"No. Enchantment magic is my barred school," the Headmaster said regretfully.

Ranma sighed in relief before continuing. "Well then SCREW YOU, creep! I'm not doing anything you say!"

The Headmaster continued on as if Ranma hadn't already refused. "The mission is to accompany Professor Jadeite during his club's trip to the Juuban district of Tokyo, which I understand is for the purposes of 'finding and studying the corpses of prominent devil hunters'. It probably also involves making them."

"You're really not helping sell this thing," Ranma said blithely.

"As you might recall, Professor Jadeite recently lost his entire Exploration Club. Ordinarily they would have been accompanying him."

"Yes, we 'recall' that," Tsukune interjected, "some of us used to make up his club, after all."

"Still not seeing a reason for me to go with him," Ranma said, lacing his hands behind his head.

"In lieu of taking a small group of students with him or an invincible super weapon, it seems Jadeite has instead opted to take Professor Richard instead."

Ranma's jaw hung open for a few seconds before his arms dropped to his sides. "Crap."

"Seeing how Professor Richard also has no club trip - on account of your recent dismantling of his orphan club - he was available to light fires if a peer was willing to provide targets," the Headmaster explained, leaning forward to better stare down at the two boys, "as this is your responsibility, you will manage the consequences, yes?"

Ranma scratched his head. "Wait, we took down the orphan club, like, MINUTES ago. How did all this get arranged so fast?"

"It's a mystery," the Headmaster said, his grin seeming to stretch slightly wider.

"So... we did something right and prevented Professor Richard from torturing the students, and as a result Ranma has to follow him to prevent him from causing a massacre in the human world?" Tsukune asked.

"Yes, that's right. Any other questions?"

"Wouldn't be easier to just lock the jerk up?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, that's right. Any other questions?"

Tsukune stared up into the Headmaster's cheerful, shadowed face despondently and then sighed, totally defeated. "I understand. We'll do what we need to do."

"Excellent," the hooded man said, lacing his fingers together, "then our meeting is concluded. Good luck with your mid-terms!"

"Yeah, thanks," Tsukune muttered as he turned around, "come on, Moka. Ranma, go ahead."

The Headmaster tilted his head to one side. "Go ahead with wha-"

Before he could finish that sentence Ranma was in the air, his knuckles descending on the sketchy administrator mercilessly.

Whomp! To Ranma's surprise, his fist hit a curiously soft yet utterly unyielding barrier in front of the Headmaster, stopping his attack short and causing a previously invisible bubble of force to ripple into view around the irritating and bizarre man.

"A shield? You're kidding me!" Ranma complained as he landed in front of the Headmaster's desk, staring at the shimmering ripples caused by his punch.

"Where did you think I put all my skill points if not mind control?" the Headmaster said with an amused grin, "wards, seals, and barriers are my specialty."

Ranma followed one of the water-like ripples across the surface of the barrier. As the Headmaster was seated behind his desk, the shield covered a section of that as well, and Ranma watched the ripple reach the surface of the desk, then bounce off and ripple upward again.

"Wow, that desk is nice," Ranma said, sounding distracted as if he hadn't just tried to assault the head of the institution he was a student of, "what is it, mahogany?"

"Yggdrasil," the Headmaster said, pretending the same thing, "same finish, but its four times as heavy and nigh indestructible."

"It's a really big piece, too," Ranma said, grabbing onto the edge and lifting his side of it about an inch off the floor, taking careful note of how the magic barrier shifted around the furniture rather than holding it in place, "and not bolted down to the floor or anything."

The Headmaster nodded. "Yes, it's very... wait..."

---

Tsukune felt his spirits lift somewhat as he heard a loud crashing noise behind him. Although as a rule he didn't want to use violence against those that were not already using it themselves (and even then he encouraged other solutions), he had to admit that Ranma's occasional violent episodes against the more unsavory people they had to deal with were incredibly cathartic.

"Well, we had better check on..." Tsukune trailed off as he noticed that Moka seemed very upset about something, keeping her arms ramrod-straight with her hands gripped into fists.

"Are... you okay, Moka?" Tsukune asked hesitantly as several of the Headmaster's bodyguards dashed past them to the antechamber.

"I'm fine," Moka said sharply, her impeccable face twisted into a frown, "I was just having a little... discussion with my other self. We're not speaking to each other."

"You're not talking to yourself?" Ranma asked as he caught up with the pair, his hands in his pockets.

"Don't make it sound like I'm crazy," the vampiress muttered, pouting.

"Your jewelry talks to you and holds back your evil personality who wants me dead," Ranma pointed out, "if that happens to sound crazy, that's not really my fault."

"As I was saying," Tsukune interjected quickly, "we'll need to make a plan for where we'll stay at Witch's Knoll, and finish up our plans for our training courses while we're there."

He turned toward Ranma. "Ranma, we don't know how long you'll be gone, but hopefully you can join us in time to start that training program you were talking about. Hopefully the witches we'll be dealing with aren't hostile, but just in case I'll make sure Chopper and Kouma stay on their toes while you aren't with us."

"So we're assuming there are definitely witches, now?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I think we can rule out 'swamp gas'," Tsukune said sarcastically as he led the way out of the building.

'You know, I think I rather like Tsukune better with this cynical streak of his. I think it gives him a more hardened, intellectual edge, don't you think?' Evil Moka asked.

'Not talking to you,' Moka thought back.

'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were still in tantrum mode. Does baby need a cry? You just call me up again when you're ready to act like a big girl.'

"MRRRGH!" Tsukune and Ranma flinched back Moka suddenly growled, and the two humans slowed their gait to follow several feet behind her.

"Oh yeah, not crazy at all," Ranma grumbled.

---

"All right class, pencils down," called the Dark Liege, clapping her hands over her head in a way that pulled her breasts up and tightened her cleavage wonderfully.

Those male students near the front groaned at the state of their midterm papers, having spent far too much time ogling their teacher and leaving large sections of their papers blank as a result. It hadn't helped that the Dark Liege insisted on watching the entire test while sitting on top of her desk, legs crossed tantalizingly while giving playful winks at any boys who made eye contact.

Ranma, who found his government teacher's antics more annoying than sexy, fared better in that he finished the test, though he was only marginally certain of his answers.

He turned around in his desk, giving Kana a tired smile.

"So what'd you think? I think I did okay, except for all that stuff about parliaments or diets or whatever." The only parts of government Ranma really understood was the part that took people's money and the part that shot at people who the government didn't like. The rest of it just seemed needlessly complex and wasteful to him, and he's pretty sure it would show in his test score.

Kana flushed slightly as she held her paper in front of her. "..."

"Ah. Well, that's good. I get bored easy, so I don't really study," Ranma explained with a shrug.

"I've noticed," the Dark Liege said as she stepped up to the pair, one hand on her hip as the other held the papers she had already collected, "I'd certainly hope that the ones responsible for keeping the school in order recognize the limits to their authority and the checks imposed on them by the elected student council."

"Is that how it works?" Ranma drawled as he slipped his test paper into the stack, "well, thanks for the heads up."

"I'm being serious," the Dark Liege said as her forehead eye narrowed, "you have a real responsibility, Saotome, and it would be best that you take it seriously. Kuyo subverted the control that the council had over him, and as expected, the student body grew more and more restless under him until you deposed him. If you don't recognize-"

Ranma quickly got tired of being lectured after he was already done with his midterm test, and he interrupted the demoness as he reached in his pocket. "Oh! That's right! I found something of yours, Teach," he said, drawing out a large sapphire and holding it up in front of her.

The Dark Liege froze, her jaw hanging open and all three of her eyes wide as saucers.

"Oops," Ranma said, casually tossing the soul shard to the side and sending it bouncing under several desks, "looks like I dropped it."

Crash! Wham! Chaos ensued as the demoness dove for her treasure, breaking through several rows of desks and sending students and test papers flying as she scrambled after the gem.

"Well, I'm done with the test, so I'm out," he confided to Kana, glancing behind him.

The girl's only visible eye was wide with shock, glancing between Ranma and the tangle of students trying to get out of the way of the crazed demoness. "...?"

"I found it. I won't say where," Ranma mumbled evasively, "it's just too bad that trick will only work four more times."

Ranma immediately made good his escape, dashing out of the classroom before his fellow Committee member (or more importantly, his teacher) could question him.

---

As the students recovered from the ordeal of midterms, there was another group besides the Protection Committee that more on their mind than academics.

Kuyo waited in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest. For the first time in quite a while, he wore the standard Youkai Academy uniform, without the long coat that had for so long been the most visible symbol of his office.

He found it... uncomfortable, like he had been sent into battle unarmed and unarmored. It wasn't as if he had lost the coat itself, either, but this meeting required some level of secrecy, and Kuyo definitely noticed he got a lot of attention nowadays when he wore his long coat, along with a fair amount of smirking and snickering.

Behind him stood Jin and Volos, the only two Enforcers that Kuyo considered high enough rank to be let into the planning session.

Not that any of them had any official rank to speak of nowadays, but still.

"Kuyo," said a voice from above, startling the three monsters somewhat.

Kuyo's gaze jerked upward, and he saw Keito hanging down from one of the ceiling air ducts, her head sporting a total of eight eyes that were carefully scanning in all directions.

"Keito. How good to see you," Kuyo said warmly, his smile decidedly malevolent, "I was beginning to think you were starting to get used to your new position under Aono."

"I suppose I was, in the way that one gets used to a neighbor's obnoxious dog always barking at them," the spider woman quipped as she dropped down into the hall.

This particular stretch of hallway was clear of other students at the moment, as they had all seemingly rushed back to their dorms or were attending club meetings to discuss their trip over the break.

Kuyo nodded, a smirk crossing his features. "Come, then. We have much to discuss."

Kuyo led the way to a nearby classroom, Jin and Volos following silently (for once) while they eyed Keito suspiciously. Keito's extra eyes closed themselves up, melting into her skin and vanishing under her hair.

Kuyo opened the door and stepped inside, only to pause in annoyance when he found that it was occupied. Four girls were sitting around a table covered in papers, obviously in the midst of discussing something before Kuyo showed up.

"Kuyo? What do you want?" one of the girls asked in disgust, immediately recognizing the former captain of the Protection Committee.

Kuyo pointed to the girls looking at him in askance. "I'm confiscating this room. Remove yourselves immediately."

One girl gulped and started to gather up the papers, but her friends were apparently not so easily intimidated.

"Excuse me? 'Confiscate'? Who do you think you are?"

"Buzz off, Kuyo. You're not an Enforcer anymore," the first girl sneered, "we don't have to listen to you."

As the platinum-haired man glowered, the girl gathering papers winced. "Ah, m-maybe we should just go, guys. There's no sense in provoking him, right?"

Kuyo raised his arms, causing a look of alarm in Keito as flames started wrapping around his hands.

"Your friend is a smart girl," Kuyo said evenly as the defiant girls clenched their teeth angrily, "it's too bad you've gotten her killed, too."

"STOP!" Keito shouted, startling everybody as she grabbed Kuyo's forearm and pulled it up toward the ceiling.

"Eh? What're you doing, Fangs?" Volos asked, raising an eyebrow, "they friends of yours or something?"

Keito hissed as she saw Kuyo's confused expression. "Are you TRYING to get us all killed? If you start incinerating people left and right, someone WILL notice, and Aono WILL have you hunted down! And possibly me as well!"

"What if we leave no witnesses? That's what I'd do, if I was planning this. Which I'm not," Jin pointed out.

Keito really felt like slapping every one of the men surrounding her, but instead she dropped Kuyo's arm and pointed to the hall. "Let's just use another room! I'm not going to risk being tornadoed to death to avoid two minutes of walking!" Keito snapped, stepping out of the doorway.

Kuyo said nothing, stopping only briefly to glance at the girls occupying the room. He expected them to be looking smug or triumphant, but instead they looked stunned, as if they could barely comprehend what they were looking at.

"Tch. You're lucky I happen to be in the middle of a sensitive operation," Kuyo said haughtily as he followed Jin and Volos after Keito, "I'll spare you on the advice of my subordinate. Don't forget this."

It was unlikely that any of the girls would easily forget that incident, and not because of Kuyo's threats.

None of them had ever seen a monster back down under threat of official punishment before. Until recently any student that could easily kill four random monsters they encountered in the halls had nothing to fear from the campus authorities, being too powerful to be easily stopped whether or not the Protection Committee felt like stopping them.

Evidently, that equation had changed, and now even powerful monsters had to reign themselves in for fear of Tsukune's attentions. There was now a considerable risk associated with even a "safe" murder, and suddenly all the rules that had been freely flaunted at Youkai Academy were back in play.

These were the thoughts that the dominated the girls' minds as they went back to planning their club trip, each one feeling that they had just witnessed something very, very important.

---

"In the future, a verbal warning will suffice, Keito," Kuyo said, frowning as he entered another classroom ahead of the others, "I don't like being manhandled."

"Neither do I, which is precisely why I had to make SURE you didn't hurt anyone," Keito snapped, surprising Kuyo with the vehemence in her tone, "Aono is just waiting for me to mess up so he can get rid of me, and Saotome is waiting for the chance to tap-dance on my exoskeleton. Any violence that is not strictly necessary could bring everything to ruin!"

"Yes, we should all get along!" Volos said with a happy smile.

"Until such time as we can eliminate those fools, yes, precisely," Keito said as she drew herself up, "so for the next few days, you all have to actually follow school rules as students, or you'll find one of my 'co-workers' at your door."

Kuyo didn't appreciate Keito's authoritative tone or the way she hadn't referred to him as "Lord" since they had last seen each other, but decided to put those concerns aside for the moment. "You said 'for the next few days'. What happens after that?"

"After that, we're going on a little trip to the human world. A place called 'Witch's Knoll'."

"Why are you training in some witch's backyard?" Jin asked.

Keito shrugged. "Not everything was explained to me, but it has something, or perhaps everything, to do with the Headmaster being a jerk."

Kuyo gave a reluctant nod. "True. So they're going to be in the human world during break. Are you suggesting we take the school back while they're gone?"

"And then what? Enjoy your office until Aono comes back at the end of the week and kicks you out of it again?" Keito asked, rolling her eyes. "No. The plan is for you to attack the Protection Committee in the human world, during our training camp."

"Ugh! We have to go all the way to the human world? But I get carsick!" Volos whined.

"While I don't get carsick, I'm kind of wondering about the wisdom of this plan as well," Jin said uneasily.

"It's less wisdom than divine fortune," Keito explained, "Saotome will not be with us."

THAT got the boys' attention.

"So you're saying we attack everyone else..." Jin said, scratching at his beard.

"Yes. With a little bit of strategy, you can take out the Protection Committee without Saotome in the way. Once they're all gone, Saotome will have no more reason to be in the Protection Committee; even the student council doesn't trust him to be in charge of the Committee himself, and he can't manage the task on his own, even if he wanted to. We'll be able to take our positions back through guile or by force, and if Saotome tries to stop us, or finds out that you killed his friends, he won't be able to stand up to the entire Committee."

At this point, Keito wilted slightly. "At least, I don't THINK so... but you should probably try not to leave any witnesses anyway."

Jin smiled. "Yes... With Saotome gone, there is considerable scope for removing the remaining officers."

Volos rubbed his hands together as he grinned hatefully. "I don't care who I have to go up against; just give me a target and set me loose!"

Kuyo nodded, quite pleased with this new direction. "I'm still somewhat worried about that Gamaroshi fellow, so Keito, I want you do deal with him."

"No," Keito said immediately.

"I know he's a fire beast, so just bite him early and-" it was at this point that Kuyo finally realized that his command had been refused, "wait, what?"

"I will not be attacking anyone," Keito said firmly, arms crossed under her breasts.

"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Kuyo snapped, starting to get upset at the spider woman's attitude, "we can't take any half-measures with this! We may never get such a great chance again!"

"That's partially why I won't be fighting," Keito drawled, "first of all, if this fails somehow, then I don't want to be removed from the Committee. I'm risking enough as it is."

Then her eyes narrowed. "But more importantly, I have a crucial role in the assault: keeping Tobaki away from the fighting."

"Awww, it's so nice that you're looking out for her!" Volos said happily, clapping his hands together.

"Wait, so we won't have Tobaki's support either?" Jin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Tobaki... has adapted rather well to the new Committee," Keito said regretfully, rubbing her jaw, "remember, her thought process is... different than ours. She trusts Aono and I doubt I can turn her against him. So the most I can do is fabricate a good reason for her to not be there."

"You couldn't just find a good reason to send her away for a while and then attack yourself? Even taking down Aono would be useful," Kuyo said, looking very irritated.

"As I said, I don't want to lose my position if this fails," Keito said stubbornly, "nor do I want to be on Saotome's hit list if it succeeds. I WON'T be attacking anyone."

Kuyo clenched his teeth in anger, his eyes flaring a bright white. "I'm giving you an ORDER, Keito!"

"And since when do students give orders to the Protection Committee?" Keito snapped back, "I'm already helping you and betraying Aono with this, Kuyo, but I'm only willing to put so much on the line. If you want to be captain again, then you'll have to earn that privilege through your own efforts, not just mine."

Kuyo straightened, his face set in a frown. "This attitude of yours may reflect poorly once I am captain again, Keito."

The spider woman smirked. "I will endure whatever punishment you see fit, AFTER Aono and that idiot Saotome are dealt with. Best of luck until then, Kuyo."

The three men silently watched Keito walk out of the room and into the hall, until Volos suddenly yawned.

"Are we done yet? I'm bored, and all this devious plotting is exhausting."

"When have you EVER plotted ANYTHING?" Jin demanded, somewhat offended.

"Silence, both of you," Kuyo snapped, scratching his chin lightly, "this is... troubling. With both Keito and Tobaki refusing to fight for us, the field is not slanted in our favor very far. Gamaroshi will still be a big problem, and there's that other girl... what was her name? The vampire?"

"What, Akashiya? Forget about her, she's as harmless as Aono," Jin scoffed, "the hellhound, though..." he grimaced, remembering the painful conclusion of his fight with Kouma, "we may need to steer clear of him. Still, these conditions are quite favorable. I can have a viable plan ready by evening."

"Good. Do so," Kuyo commanded, "and make sure it doesn't involve surrendering this time."

Jin's expression soured. "What about the back-up plan?"

"There will BE no back-up plan, because I will not accept failure in this mission," Kuyo said firmly, "we WILL succeed, and the pests that think to have replaced us WILL die. Anything else is unacceptable. Is that clear?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, because rushing in with lethal intent and no option for backing down worked SO well the last time. And look where it got you!" Volos said snidely.

Kuyo gave the hydra a strange look. "Volos, did you grow a new head, or-"

"Nah, that was Two. Everyone keeps saying that all he does is whine, so he's trying to branch out into sarcasm," Volos explained with a sigh.

"Which is really just whining with irony," Jin pointed out.

"Well, change is hard! I'm proud of him for making the effort!" Volos said brightly, grinning.

'I have completely forgotten why I bring Volos along with me anywhere, ever,' Kuyo thought to himself. Out loud, he said, "All right then, you may retire for today. Tomorrow we'll meet here again to discuss Jin's plan of attack."

"Yes, Lord Kuyo!" the two minions shouted in unison.

---

Ranma and Tsukune exited their room together, both of them perfectly silent and looking rather grim. Tsukune was holding onto a typical good luck charm for tests, of the sort usually dispensed from Shinto shrines, that his mother had mailed to him.

Ranma was holding onto one of his giant spiders, which was perhaps even less useful for overcoming the trial they were about to face in that it didn't even bring him some sort of confidence boost or sense of hope. He was just worried that there might be a cat somewhere near the grade postings, and he didn't want to freak out in front of so many people.

"So. Mid-terms," Tsukune finally ventured as they stepped out of the dorm structure.

"Yeap," Ranma said, glancing around as the shiny black arachnid clinging to his flank seemed to similarly keep watch, "how were yours?"

Tsukune shrugged miserably, having no good answer for his roommate. Tsukune had always managed average grades almost as a rule, but he'd always had to study hard to even do that well. This was his first year in high school, however, and unlike Ranma hadn't taken any unconventional classes involving devil hunters. The "normal" classes were challenging mostly because the teachers were either weirdos or outright psychopaths, but none of that translated to easy test questions.

"I think I won't have extra classes, since Moka helped me study, but what about you? You've spent a lot of time helping out with Committee duties and training your spiders... and dueling with Chopper or Kouma, and scoping out the fight club..." Tsukune frowned, "actually, it almost seemed like you were specifically trying to stay too busy to join us."

Ranma sweatdropped as he turned his head away. "Well, the atmosphere between you two is a little..." he sounded slightly squeamish as he finished, "I just feel like I'd be in the way, that's all."

Tsukune flushed as he started his usual string of denials. "In the way of what? We weren't up to anything! We were just studying!"

"You always come back with a pair of fresh holes in your neck," Ranma deadpanned, "that's a pretty awful hickey."

"Well... how did YOUR tests go, anyway?" Tsukune asked, deciding to try to deflect the conversation away from his and Moka's alone time.

"Not too bad, I guess," Ranma mumbled, "Jadeite's class was easy because I already knew what the most vulnerable organs in the human body are. Liege's was hard because governments are stupid and she's just a lousy teacher anyway. I haven't done any of my physical science homework, ever, but I did take that class at Furinkan so I think I at least passed it."

"And math?" Tsukune asked, since they had the same math class.

"I actually think I might do okay with that one, too. Miss Ririko is a pretty good teacher, I think. All the guys in our class just spend too much time trying to look down her shirt to pay attention to what she's saying," Ranma mused.

Tsukune chuckled weakly. "Yeah... Those guys..." he mumbled, feeling envious of his roommate's apparent immunity to women.

"Tsukuuuuune!" Ranma dodged backward as Kurumu swooped in from his side, latching onto the younger human and squeezing his face against her chest.

It would have been her ordinary daily greeting, save that Ranma immediately noticed the buxom schoolgirl seemed upset rather than pleased as she smothered Tsukune in her cleavage.

"Kurumu? What's wrong?" Ranma asked as Tsukune flailed his arms helplessly.

Kurumu wasn't crying or anything, but she pouted miserably as she finally released Tsukune. "I just saw my score! They want me to take remedial classes over the break!"

"That bad, huh?" Ranma asked.

Kurumu nodded bleakly, and then picked up Ranma's spider, hugging it in her arms like any other pet. "This is so stupid! I can't miss the training camp just to get ten points higher on a test!"

"Well, why didn't you join me and Moka when we were studying?" Tsukune asked. Unlike Ranma, he hadn't directly invited Kurumu, but it wasn't like the succubus had any problems inviting herself wherever she wanted to go, especially when he was there.

Kurumu soured even further. "Well, being with you and Moka when you're studying is a little..."

"I know, right?" Ranma affirmed, rolling his eyes, "all the shy, awkward glances and blushing and stammering every time they touch just makes you want to slap them."

Kurumu nodded and sighed sadly as she stroked the spider's thorax. "Of course, I would've been happy to study with you ALONE, but it's not like we would have gotten any actual studying done..."

Tsukune had nothing to say to them, his face a bright red as he walked quickly to the large board on display outside the main school building.

There was a crowd of students gathered, as expected, to see their scores, but to Tsukune's surprise those that happened to notice him approaching quickly moved to the side out of his way.

He wasn't sure how he felt about crowds parting before him as if he was someone to be feared, but he set the concern aside for now as he moved close enough to look over the class rankings.

He started in the middle, as he had always been there before. And, lo and behold, there was his name, well above the ranking that the board noted as containing those who had to make up classes during the break.

Tsukune let out a sigh of relief, glad that his plans for teaching the Protection Committee about when it's not okay to break someone's legs hadn't been derailed by his math teacher's inability to button her blouse.

"Hey, I scored higher than you!" Ranma said brightly.

Tsukune forced out a smile and a shrug, hiding a brief moment on indignation. Ranma WAS repeating the year, after all. "All right, good. Then that means we're both clear."

"Not that it does me any good," Ranma grumbled, his mood dipping as he considered the "break" that was waiting for him, "I think I'd rather take extra classes than have to baby-sit the psychos all week."

"But think of the catastrophic loss of life that would happen if you weren't around!" Tsukune pointed out helpfully.

"Yeah, there is that," Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head as he looked at the top end of the list. "Yukari got first."

"Of course I did!"

Tsukune, Ranma, and Kurumu all turned around to greet Yukari and Moka, who had arrived together.

Yukari had her hands on her hips and looked even smugger than usual with her name at the top of the scoreboard. "And Moka scored thirteenth! Just below Tobaki!"

"So THAT'S who that is," Ranma mumbled uneasily, looking at the long series of nonsensical characters next to the number above Moka's. It looked completely alien, even more so than other foreign writing systems he had seen in books, and just looking at the letters seemed to be bringing on a headache.

"Ah, Hokuto scored second highest. Not very surprising," Tsukune admitted.

Ranma shifted over to the other side of the board, shaking his head as he found Kurumu's name in fairly close proximity to another familiar peer.

"Well, looks like you'll have Chopper to keep you company, Kurumu. Annnnnd..."

Ranma trailed off as he read to the end of the list, not recognizing a single other name. "That's weird. Is Kouma not on here?"

"Why are you looking at THAT end of the score board?" asked the irritated hellhound, approaching from behind Moka as he overheard their conversation.

"What, you mean you actually passed?" Yukari asked, looking shocked.

"Wow, congrats Eyebrows!" Ranma said cheerfully, approaching the hellborne canine and patting him on the shoulder.

"What're you being so patronizing for?" Kouma asked, a vein popping up on his head, "you thought I wouldn't pass?"

"Well, it did cross my mind," Ranma admitted with a shrug.

"Uh, Ranma?" Tsukune tugged on the older human's shirt, "Kouma's was the tenth highest score."

The various expressions of condescending praise turned to surprise, which naturally annoyed Kouma even further.

Yukari's expression quickly returned to normal, though. "Ah, I get it. So did you copy someone else's test or just threaten to wallop the instructor?"

Kouma's eye flared red as he bared his fangs at the young witch. "Hey! Don't accuse me of cheating! I worked for that score, pipsqueak!"

Yukari looked skeptical, but Ranma waved off her assumption.

"Nah, Kouma's not that kind of guy. He respects authority and is about as subtle as a freight train," he explained, shaking his head, "he didn't cheat."

"But then how is it possible? A scoring mistake?" Kurumu asked.

Kouma's eyes narrowed as he looked at his fellow Committee members suspiciously. "Hey... do you all think I'm some kind of idiot?"

While Moka winced, few of the others bothered to downplay their assumptions.

"Yes, absolutely," said Yukari.

"Well, I admit there's SOME doubt now, but yeah," said Kurumu.

Mizore's head poked down from beneath the score board, hanging upside-down. She nodded, then pulled her head back up to once again disappear from view.

"Sorry. You do kind of give off that vibe," Ranma admitted, shrugging awkwardly.

"Now that's not fair at all," Tsukune chided the others, being the only one who had never gone out of his way to judge the hellhound, "I know Kouma has a difficult time interacting with people normally, but that's never stopped anyone from acknowledging Yukari as a genius. He's a perfectly competent student!"

Kouma looked somewhat surprised that Tsukune had actually had something nice to say about him, and for once couldn't think of anything to say despite his lingering anger at the others.

"Yeah, I guess..." Kurumu admitted reluctantly, "though if he'd occasionally spit out something intelligent instead of, you know, FIRE, then we might be able to take him seriously."

"I don't want to hear that from YOU, miss Remedial Lessons," the hellhound growled, a few sparks leaking from between his teeth.

"Hey, HEY! No fire! You'll cook poor little Guile!" Kurumu protested, holding up Ranma's pet spider, "plus, you know, me."

"So, what, do you study a lot?" Ranma asked Kouma, still rather intrigued that the hellhound had done better than Moka, who didn't have much to do EXCEPT study.

Kouma snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I only have two goals: to make it into law school and become strong enough to kill my father."

"It figures that both goals would be horrifying and destructive," Kurumu quipped.

"Shut it! Anyway, I set aside most of every day training to accomplish those two goals. It's been... HARDER since I was press-ganged into the Protection Committee, but still I make sure to find time for going over my notes or practicing my boxing."

"How devoted of you," Yukari said awkwardly, as if it strained her to pay a compliment to someone she didn't especially like, "I just had no idea you were capable of that kind of discipline when you can barely go two sentences without literally exploding in fury."

"I think the fact that you're all still alive says plenty about my self-control," the hellhound snapped.

"Pff. You would have killed me by now if you could manage it," Ranma scoffed.

"It's hard to aim fireballs coming from your mouth," Kouma grumbled.

"All right then, I still have preparations to make, so everybody that can make the trip should meet here at noon in two days! Mizore, could you tell Tobaki, Keito, and Kana?" Tsukune asked.

Mizore's hand appeared beneath the board, making an upside-down "V".

"All right, thank you. I'll see you all soon."

---

Two days later saw the gathering of the Protection Committee at the school outskirts, each one of them with a small bag of personal items (save Kurumu, who seemed to have brought the entire contents of her room and had convinced Chopper to carry most of it for her). The bus was barely visible in the distance, slowly approaching over the unpaved road that led from the school to whatever strange barrier seemed to separate it from the outside world.

"This is so exciting!" Tobaki squealed as she clung to Keito's arm, "we never got to go on trips when Kuyo was in charge! I haven't been on a field trip since elementary school in the Demonweb Pits!"

Kurumu quirked an eyebrow as she shouldered a duffel bag almost as big as she was. "What kinds of things did you study there?"

"Elements, of course," Tobaki said, as if it were obvious, "it's a neat program, but you have to catch your own lunch."

"Don't you mean 'bring'?" Kurumu asked unwisely.

"No, I imagine she didn't," Keito answered for the yochlol, ruffling Tobaki's hair fondly. "By the way, weren't you supposed to be staying behind for extra classes?"

Kurumu smirked, giving Chopper an appreciative glance over her shoulder. "We had a talk with the teacher in charge of remedial classes, and convinced him that our training with Tsukune was important enough for us to make up the test scores when we come back."

Keito snorted. "And may I assume that this 'talk' involved your allure charm and a good bit of exhibitionism?"

Kurumu snorted back. "As a matter of fact, it didn't. I managed to convince him with nothing but an appeal to reason and Chopper's help."

---

(The previous day)

"So we'll be studying the entire time we're at the camp anyway, except that we'll be learning about ethics and the proper ways to protect the peace here on campus!" Kurumu pleaded, her hands clasped together over her chest. "Tsukune wants to make sure all of us in the Protection Committee learn to be the best Enforcers that we can, so that everyone in Youkai Academy is safe and nobody has to suffer under the abuse of another just because they're stronger! Don't you see how important this is?"

"Yes. Yes, I do," answered the teacher in charge of remedial classes. He had to almost shout to be heard, as he was currently being held upside-down out the window, with Chopper hanging on to one of his legs from the fourth-story window.

"Then you'll let us postpone the extra classes?" Kurumu asked brightly.

"Will you learn not to ever do this to teachers again?"

Chopper shrugged. "No promises. We don't know the curriculum."

"We DO promise not to drop you if you let us off, though," Kurumu pointed out.

"Good enough. By all means, pull me up and LEAVE."

---

"Chopper helped a lot," Kurumu reaffirmed.

"Lovely," Keito drawled, annoyed to hear that the top-heavy girl would be coming along on the trip after all, "so why is Saotome's pet spider coming along too?"

"For cuddles!" Kurumu said brightly, petting the huge black arachnid clinging to one side of the bag she was holding.

"Greeeat..." sighed Keito. 'I hope she dies slowly.'

"Tsukune, are you all right? You don't look very happy that we're setting out," Moka remarked.

Tsukune was waiting by the edge of the road, trying and failing to look as if he wasn't sulking.

"It's no big deal, Moka. Well, not really," Tsukune said, trying and mostly failing to reassure her, "it's just kind of hard to feel confident in this trip after the Headmaster got involved."

Moka nodded sadly. "I know what you mean. I can't help but feel like we're being set up for something."

"And then, of course, he had to go and send Ranma off somewhere else," Tsukune griped.

Glancing behind him, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one disappointed. Although Mizore and Kana had been informed ahead of time that the pigtailed boy wouldn't be joining them until later if at all, both girls looked like they were being transported to the gallows. Such was their depression that they even seemed to be getting along; Mizore, being the stronger of the two, was carrying Kana's duffel bag while the siren girl muttered complaints that only Mizore was close enough to hear, as apparently she was not agitated enough to speak normally.

"Ranma has an important job to do, though," Moka protested.

"Of course I know that," Tsukune said wearily, "and if lives weren't on the line, he'd definitely be here for us. It's not his fault," Tsukune stopped speaking briefly as the bus rolled up in front of the group, its poorly-maintained brakes squealing loudly enough to interrupt the human boy, "but why does the Headmaster tolerate teachers like Richard in the first place?"

"For the same reason he tolerates me," said the driver suddenly as the passenger's entry door on the bus slid open with a hiss, "our wit is sharp as a KNIFE!"

Tsukune and Moka stared at the man incredulously.

"That's IT?" Tsukune asked, looking fairly disgusted, "you're being serious right now?"

"Well, we do all belong to the same country club," the driver admitted, briefly talking like a normal person, "but yeah, it's mostly just his sense of humor." Then he grinned again and his high-pitched tone returned. "Now hurry aboard! It's a long trip to the OTHER SIDE!"

---

"So then, of course the guy doesn't answer me back, because I vaporized his head, right?" explained Richard, shrugging helplessly, "so I'm all, 'Wait. I did that wrong. Interrogations are hard.'"

"HA HA!" barked the Headmaster, his usual grin even wider than usual. "Really though, I'll bet that's an intensely painful way to die."

"It better be, otherwise I'll have to retrain my entire build," muttered the warlock.

Ranma trudged behind the pair, his hands in his pockets and his mood in the doldrums. "Hey, when are we going to meet up with the third Stooge and get a move on? I don't have all week to listen to you dolts."

"Mister Saotome, you should really learn not to be so uptight," the Headmaster said, his smile unbearably aggravating, "you're going to be accompanying your teachers for quite some time. You should all get along!"

"Not finding murder funny isn't 'uptight'. It's called 'sane'," Ranma grumbled.

"Well, whatever it is, you have too much," the Headmaster said with a shrug, "you'll be going on many more unpleasant little errands for me, so you'd best get used to them."

Ranma glared silently at the smiling hooded man for several seconds before he spoke again. "Your legs healed awfully quick from being crushed under that desk."

"We have a pretty good health plan," Richard said, shrugging, "it doesn't cover decapitations like I wanted, but those deductibles have to come from somewhere, you know?"

The Headmaster chuckled. "I commend you on your creativity, but you won't be getting through any more of my barr-"

Bam! Ranma stamped on the edge of the floorboard under his right foot.

Crack! The other end of the board, being completely under the Headmaster's barrier, snapped up and slammed into the white-robed mystic right between his legs.

"You should really hire some more maintenance staff," Ranma deadpanned as he walked past the stunned Headmaster, "this place is a wreck, with loose floorboards and walls and everything. Someone could get hurt."

The Headmaster didn't answer, and in fact his expression remained completely frozen in his aggravating smile as he slowly tilted forward and collapsed onto the dusty wooden floor.

"Your disrespect for authority gives me hope for future generations," Richard said amicably as he and Ranma continued down the hall.

"Swell," Ranma answered, clearly not impressed by the compliment, "by the way, I'm kind of surprised that you're still here. I figured you and Jadeite would have taken off by now."

Richard raised the pale strip of flesh where his eyebrow used to be. "And leave you behind? Why would I do that?"

Ranma looked honestly confused. "To kill and destroy without anyone to stop you?"

"And where's the fun in that?" Richard asked.

Upon seeing that the martial artist was no less confused, Richard suddenly swung an arm over Ranma's shoulder and leaned down. "Listen kid, why did you take up Karate or whatever? It isn't just to keep in shape, right?"

"It's to beat up freaks like you, mostly," Ranma deadpanned.

"Exactly!" Richard said brightly, startling the human boy, "but what if there were no freaks like me? Or even any nasty humans or murderous animals? What are all your skills and techniques good for then?"

Ranma frowned as he tried to move past his instinctive urge to make snappy remarks and actually considered the question. "Well, it makes for a pretty good tea ceremony..."

"Yeah, sure. The correct answer is: nothing. Your popularity is built upon your fighting skills, and those skills are only useful so long as there's someone awful enough for you to beat on without consequences," Richard lectured, pointing one sharpened finger into the air, "if all of us villains disappeared, then Aono and the rest of the students would be in good shape, but where would you be?"

Ranma felt slightly queasy as he considered the warlock's point. "Well, I still have that tea ceremony thing..."

"Don't believe you," Richard snapped before continuing with his lecture, "evil is the same way. There's only a POINT to it if someone is going to stand up to us. Without a hero, what is a villain but a nasty little man with a cool outfit and lots of Daddy issues?"

"I didn't realize it was that complex," Ranma said rather bitterly as he considered that the school's resident mass-murderer considered him essential entertainment.

"Indeed, it is," the warlock said sagely as they finally reached the classroom where Jadeite awaited them.

Then he leaned down again to whisper to his student, "Besides, I don't want to spend the whole break with Jadeite alone. That guy is a massive tool."

"Yeah, I'll give you that," Ranma admitted as he opened the door to the classroom.

"Well, well, good of you to show up. DO take your time, it's not like we're on a schedule here," Jadeite said stiffly, his hands raised over a swirling pit of darkness stretched vertically over a portion of the blackboard, "I'm just supporting a hole in the fabric of time and space and trying to keep reality from asserting itself, it's really no trouble. Don't hurry on my account."

"Such a tool," Richard mumbled under his breath.

"What?" asked Jadeite.

"Nothing. Just wondering if we'll need any tools while we're there," Richard lied, "well, let's be off!"

As Richard stepped through the quivering gateway, Jadeite's eyes narrowed at Ranma. "Saotome, I DO hope that you'll keep your interference to a minimum while we're engaged in club activities in the human world. It is necessary for the-"

"Prof, I'm not gonna let you kill the Sailor Senshi," Ranma deadpanned.

"Stop reading my diary!" Jadeite suddenly snarled.

"Then put a better lock on it, dork," Ranma said, rolling his eyes as he stepped into the portal ahead of the fuming dark general.

---

"Oh, wow! It's the human world!"

"It's so bright! What happened to all the clouds?"

"Hey! I see the city!"

Tsukune couldn't help but feel relieved as he glanced the skyline of Tokyo out of the bus's window, finally having left behind the nightmare dimension that contained Youkai Academy. No matter how well he adapted to the school or how important his friends were to him, the fact remained that, at Youkai Academy, he was a mere human among crowds of terrifying creatures that could, and in some cases wanted to, gut him on a whim. To be suddenly relieved of that pressure was a fantastic comfort.

'Not that I'm COMPLETELY safe even now,' Tsukune thought, casting an annoyed glance at Keito.

After spending a moment to glare, he turned to face forward again to speak to the bus driver.

"So you said that Youkai Academy is actually in another dimension than the human world? Is that why humans never wander into there?"

"Correct," the driver said, smirking around the pipe clenched between his teeth, "the Academy is locked in a small reality barrier built by the Headmaster. The equivalent space in the human world is nothing but rocky outcroppings and infertile plains. So a human could be walking right next you, or through you, and neither of you would ever know it!"

The driver jabbed a thumb behind him. "The only point where the two dimensions overlap is the passage I used, and even then it only works if you can see the LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!"

Tsukune considered that for a moment. "Then what about that Starbucks that was in the middle of the tunnel? What's that about?"

"The company went transdimensional last year," the driver said, immediately dropping into a normal, less creepy tone of voice, "I personally think it's a damn shame when even magic force fields can't keep those vultures at bay."

"Hey! Those people are just trying to make a living!" Tobaki said unexpectedly, poking her head up behind Tsukune's seat.

"They could do it without ruining the natural splendor in the communities they infest!" the driver shot back.

"What 'natural splendor'? It's a tunnel!"

"Oh, of course. We can't have open spaces anywhere, can we. Better fill them up with coffee shops and fast food joints!"

Tsukune decided that the conversation wasn't about to return to the nature of Youkai Academy's dimensional separation from the rest of the world, so he got up out of his seat and addressed the rest of the Protection Committee.

"All right, who here has never been to a human country before?" he asked, "or at least, the inhabited parts?"

Yukari, Kurumu, Tobaki, Mizore, Chopper, and Tobaki all raised their hands (though Tobaki didn't stop arguing with the driver).

"All right, so some of you are familiar with the place, and probably have some idea of what to expect," Tsukune said with a nod, "why don't we take turns explaining our experiences to everyone? Moka, you go first."

Moka hesitated for a moment, then stood up out of her seat when she saw everyone's expectant gazes (except Tobaki, who was in the middle of explaining Adam Smith's theory of specialized labor).

"Well, I went to middle school in the human world. I didn't make any friends back then, because vampires weren't quite as popular with pre-teen girls as they are now," she admitted, lacing her fingers together nervously, "as for the humans, well, they weren't very nice, but none of them ever tried to kill me or anyone else I knew. I think I really took that for granted when I went to Youkai Academy."

"Thank you, Moka," Tsukune said, looking serious, "although there certainly are violent humans, you usually don't run into them in schools and most neighborhoods. And even when you do, those humans almost never want to actually kill you."

"Why not? Are they just too weak?" Chopper asked.

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Humans... take death pretty seriously, Chopper. Even violent criminals will usually try to avoid killing because they're more likely to get caught and punished more harshly. Anyway, Kouma, you're next."

The boxer grimaced as he stood up. "Well, I actually only lived in the human world for a year after moving out of Hell, but it was really, REALLY different. Like Aono said, people tend to really freak out about violence here. Especially the parents of whoever you just beat up. Even when you DON'T kill them! I can't tell you how many times-"

"Thank you Kouma, that was very helpful," Tsukune interrupted, a strained smile on his face, "as Kouma said, even non-lethal violence tends to attract a lot of attention and upset people when around humans. Kana, you lived around humans before?"

"..." Kana shied away from standing up, mumbling her response in a voice that was completely swallowed by the bus. "..."

"Wow, that's pretty harsh," Mizore said in her usual deadpan voice while everyone else sweatdropped, as she was sitting next Kana and thus the only one close enough hear.

"Okay... Thanks, Kana." Then Tsukune steeled himself and glanced toward Keito. "Keito, how about you?"

"I spent some time in a rural village growing up, learning how to hunt, weave, and sneak, that's all," Keito said with a shrug, not bothering to stand up, "I found that humans tended to keep to themselves, with a select few being far too curious for their own good. There are some individuals who will doggedly pursue anything unusual, trying to figure out the truth even at great risk to their own lives. For example, there were several men that seemed quite determined to find the source of the massive webs me and my siblings wove while we were there. We had many close calls avoiding them."

Keito fell silent, but soon realized that everyone was still staring at her expectantly. "That's it. That's all I have."

"Oh. Uh..." Tsukune was clearly surprised by how tame the account was, "thank you Keito, that was actually pretty useful."

"More useful than what really happened, I'm sure," Keito drawled, smashing Tsukune's foolish glimmer of hope for the spider woman.

"Fine. Speaking as a human, I should say that while humans can be dangerous together, individually we're usually harmless and can be reasoned with. We don't know - technically - what we'll find at Witch's Knoll, so keep to your humans forms unless I give the okay and try to avoid contact with humans in general."

Chopper raised his hand.

"Yes Chopper? You have question?"

The troll put his hand down. "I didn't know you were a human. What's up with that?"

Tsukune fell silent, having been caught flat-footed. Ranma had outed him to most of the new Protection Committee as a human, while Keito knew from the old Protection Committee's findings. It had never occurred to Tsukune that anyone might have been left out of that loop.

Finally, he shrugged. "Well, who better to guide you in the human world and teach you the principles of human society's justice system than a human?"

"Ah, good point," Chopper mused, stroking his massive chin.

'Ranma was right. Maybe I'm being way too cautious about hiding my humanity,' he mused.

"All right kids, here we are!" the driver said suddenly as the bus's brakes started to squeal.

Tsukune glanced out the window as he held on to his backrest so that he wasn't thrown off his feet. A vast field of sunflowers stretched out into a veritable forest over the knoll, with the road and a single large shed being the only signs of civilization outside of the distant skyline.

"Gather your things, everyone! I know you're just DYING to stretch your legs!" the driver cackled.

"So when are you going to come back for us?" Tsukune asked as he gathered his backpack.

The driver laughed.

Then he laughed some more.

Tsukune patiently waited for him to stop laughing.

He didn't.

"Never mind," the human grumbled as he stepped off the bus, followed by the driver's cackling.

The driver seemed to get his laughter under control as the other students left the bus one by one.

"Make sure you have all your CARRION with you! Have a good time, and don't feed the crows, if you know what I mean!" the driver said as the monstrous teenagers each wished there was a hiking route that connected Youkai Academy to the outside world just so they wouldn't have to be barraged by puns during their trip.

"Thanks for the ride, hippy," snapped Tobaki as she stepped off, casting the old man a contemptuous glare.

"Enjoy your stay, Nazi," the driver snapped back, a vein popping up on his head.

---

As the bus roared away, Tsukune surveyed the area.

"Sunflowers. Lots and lots of sunflowers," he muttered, effectively summing up the situation.

"Did humans plant this field? It's beautiful!" Moka said, brushing her hand against one of the flowers.

Kouma looked perfectly uninterested in the local plant life, and crossed his arms over his chest. "All right Captain, what's first?"

Tsukune considered the question, and then glanced over at the shed next to the road.

"Check the shed and make sure it's safe and has room. The girls will sleep in there while we'll camp out here," Tsukune said, pointing to a large bare patch behind the shack, "there's a straw bale, so we can spread it over the ground to pad our sleeping bags better. Chopper, could you do that while I gather stones for a fire pit?"

"Gotcha, Boss."

"Whatever you say, Aono."

Then he turned toward the girls. "Kurumu, Kana, could you two fly a circle around the area for me? I want to know if there any other buildings or roads nearby. Also, keep watch for any cars or people coming our way."

"You got it!" Kurumu said enthusiastically as her wings burst open behind her. Kana gave a subdued nod as her own wings slowly and delicately pushed free of her body.

"Tobaki, Keito, I want you two to go with Kouma and start setting up the shed for you to stay in. Mizore, follow Keito and make sure she doesn't do anything evil."

Keito's eye twitched as Mizore saluted mutely. "I object to this unfair treatment," she drawled.

"And I object to sleeping a few meters away from a giant, man-eating spider. We'll both have to make sacrifices during this trip," Tsukune said sarcastically.

"Hey, that's not right!" Tobaki complained, "Big Sis Keito has never eaten a man before! She prefehgrfg..." The yochlol was silenced as Keito held a hand over mouth and started dragging the dark-skinned girl toward the shed.

"That's enough, Tobaki. Let's not waste our captain's time with needless yammering," Keito grumbled.

Tsukune felt reasonably satisfied as he watched the horrifying schoolgirls retreat to the shed, followed by Mizore. Then he turned to Yukari.

"Yukari, if there are witches here, how do you think they'd respond to us?"

Yukari frowned. "Well, it depends on whether or not they consider this part of their territory or not. If it is, then we can expect a response, though that could be anything from a happy welcome to swarms of wild animals eating us in our sleep. If we're outside of their territory, then they won't bother us since there are so many of us in one place, but they might spy on us with animal familiars just out of curiosity or paranoia."

Tsukune scratched his head as he considered this. "And there's no way to tell where their territory extends to, exactly?"

"Well, it's hard to..." Yukari trailed off as she glanced around, "hey, where did Moka go?"

"YEEEEEEEEEEEK!" a somewhat familiar scream of horror burst from the sunflower grove, and Yukari clicked her tongue.

"Okay, yeah, we're probably in witch country," she admitted.

"MOKA! What's wrong?! Can you hear me?!" Tsukune shouted, unable to see the vampiress from within the tangle of flowers.

"Help! It's got me! The vines!" Moka screamed back, although it didn't help Tsukune in spotting her.

Kurumu, who hadn't gotten very far in her scouting flight, swung around in the air once she heard Moka's scream.

"I've got her!" Extending her nails into razor talons, Kurumu dive-bombed the area where Moka was trying to untie several vines wrapped around her leg.

Kurumu flattened out her glide and then landed next to the vampiress, slashing at the tangle of vines stretched between Moka and a group of trembling sunflowers. She sliced through the offending vegetation with ease and rendered Moka's bonds instantly slack, and then Kurumu grabbed the vampiress around the waist and leapt airborne again.

"What was that about?" Kurumu asked as she flapped her wings hard, having to put forth twice the effort to get altitude with Moka holding on, "it's like the flowers were trying to eat you."

"They WERE trying to eat me!" Moka shouted, her eyes searching the grove below in a panic.

"That's silly," Kurumu scoffed, "how is a sunflower supposed to eat you?"

"FEED ME!"

At hearing a sudden and very questionable demand below her, Kurumu glanced downward to see a massive green mouth attached to a bulky seed pod stretching into the sky at them, its bulbous head supported by a thick central stem that seemed to strain under its weight even as vines wormed upward through the air toward their feet.

"Oh, THAT'S what you meant," Kurumu mumbled, gingerly pulling her foot away as a leafy vine groped awkwardly for it through the air.

"There are more of them!" Moka shouted as Kurumu gained more altitude, bringing both girls safely out of reach of the unusually violent plant.

By this time Moka's plight had attracted everyone else's attention (save Tobaki, who thought nothing of mortal peril and was happily making a pet bed for Guile), and everyone watched curiously as the snapping green jaws tried in vain to grasp its hovering prey.

"How many more are there?" Tsukune asked, noticing that the sunflowers immediately ahead of him were shaking ominously.

"I think maybe half a dozen?" Moka replied as Kurumu flew her over to the shed, landing heavily next to Tsukune.

Shf! Shf! Shf! "Feed..." "... Me..." "Feed me..." "Feed..."

Kouma frowned as he looked at the trembling sunflowers all over the edge of the grove that surrounded the shed. "Or maybe more like a full dozen?"

Chopper snorted, his height allowing him to see several green mounds slowly rising above the veritable ocean of flower blossoms. There were far more than a dozen. "We can do a body count after we're done, can't we?" he asked, pounding a fist into an open palm. "First let's do some weeding."

---

"Hello everyone! The students may be on break but so is my union rep, so that means I'm still doing the Monster Encyclopedia segment!" cheered Shizuka Nekonome, though it seemed doubtful that her heart was in it. "Today we'll be talking about the garigari plant!"

She pointed to the blackboard, which had a chalk outline of the carnivorous vegetation along with a great deal of technical detail that was obviously written by someone in a different class.

"The garigari plant is an uncommonly aggressive piece of flora from the deep jungles, where food is abundant and the environment is harsh! In their native territory garigaris are dangerous but largely passive creatures that spend their lives lazily gorging themselves on any animals that wander too close!"

She pointed to a second picture of a garigari plant, this one with its jaws snapping and its vines whipping about.

"Taken out of its native environment and into a drier region with less ample prey, the garigari often goes berserk, aggressively attacking any source of food and moisture to feed itself! All of its biological processes speed up tremendously, from its overpowered metabolism to its photosynthetic processes! Incidentally, this would make them a very effective countermeasure for greenhouse gases, so long as you consider bloodthirsty carnivorous plants less of a problem than global warming."

Shizuka pointed to the part of the drawing the represented its leaves. "Garigari plants can uproot themselves to walk and they secrete toxins from their leaves that relax the body of their prey and induce drowsiness, which is a necessary aid as they aren't exceptional hunters. Although possessing a primitive brain and nervous system, and being FAR faster than all the plants that can't walk, their vines can only exert so much force and their senses are..."

Shizuka trailed off in embarrassment, "Well, I don't really know much about their senses because they use some sort of gas-detection thingy that has way too many syllables, but according to the notes Fran wrote for me, they're only good for up to a few meters, and their crude ability to detect vibrations through the ground, while having a longer range, isn't helpful for pinpointing prey. This means that, while vicious, the garigari is an awkward fighter and can be avoided without too much trouble when necessary."

"Well, that's all! Practice safe gardening, everyone!" Shizuka said, grinning as she waved.

---

Not so far away from the battle breaking out, a single figure draped in old woolen robes sat alone inside a small hut, her weathered face turned toward a single window that looked out upon the sea of sunflowers.

'My lady,' called a voice that spoke only to her, 'there are intruders near the grove. Our precious flowers have seized them.'

The elderly woman's dry lips turned up into a smile. "More fools to feed the soil of Witch's Knoll. How many?"

'Several, this time. A pair just near the border and another group near the old grounds keeperﾒs shack.'

"Interesting. How many in the group?"

'Six, seven... maybe more. It is difficult to... Wait! My lady, there is a witch among them!'

The old woman turned her head up to the ceiling. "I see. Then she must be rescued before our pets harm her. We must look out for our own, Ruby."

'My lady... they're... they're dying.'

"Then you must hurry," the elderly witch pressed, lowering her gaze, "we cannot allow a fellow witch to suffer for the crimes of the human race!"

'Er, no, my lady, that's not what I meant,' the telepathic message said, seeming rather confused, 'the garigari plants are the ones who are dying.'

---

Fwoof! Kouma, in hellhound form, spit a thin stream of flames into the slowly advancing garigari plants, almost instantly shriveling the stems supporting their bulbous heads and sending the bulk of the plants crashing into the embers and ashes below.

"Kouma, try to keep the fire under control, all right? We don't want to light up the whole grove!" Tsukune called to the giant black hound.

Kouma snorted as vines and leafy growths tried to sneak around his legs and bind him, only for them to dry out and wither away the moment they touched his fur. "Why not? We could kill off all these things at once that way!"

"As a rule, lighting huge swathes of land on fire is BAD!" Tsukune pointed out. "It would probably destroy the shed and that construction site we saw earlier! We don't know if we need to go that far!"

"Okay, fine, whatever you say," Kouma said, his voice a rumbling growl as he stepped forward into another cluster of plants with magma dripping from his jaws.

"F-Feed HYURK!"

"Haw haw! This is awesome!" cheered Chopper, ripping a garigari's jaws apart as he let loose in his massive troll form. Garigaris surrounded the rampaging beast, wrapping vines around whatever they could and biting into the wrestler's flesh, but it barely served to even slow Chopper down. Skin regrew as fast as the splinter-like teeth could tear it, and Chopper ripped through his floral bonds with nothing more than a flex of his muscles.

"Chopper, don't wander too far into the grove! There could be some other threat out there!" Tsukune called.

"No problem, Boss!" Chopper shouted, holding up one arm and smirking at the garigari uselessly gnawing on his forearm. "It's like a salad that tries to eat you first!" he said before he took a big bite out of the garigari's head, causing the plant to shudder briefly before its jaws went slack and it collapsed.

Tsukune had no warnings for Kurumu and Mizore, who had taken to shredding the plants that managed to slither past Chopper and Kouma. The latter had sprouted a series of scythe-like blades from her sleeves in lieu of fingers, and like Kurumu could cut through the clumsy but angry vegetation like so much butter before the plants could even attempt to bite them.

Shwp! Shwp! A pair of cards flew through the air at the few plants that managed to stagger past this brutal front line intact, slicing through their primary stems and sending the heads tumbling to the ground in a useless heap.

"There sure a lot of these things!" Yukari noted, drawing up another card in each hand, "witches don't normally keep THIS MUCH security. I think this might be something else!"

Tsukune and Moka kept back with Yukari, both of them "armed" with gardening tools they had pillaged from the shed. As it stood, however, their help was totally unnecessary; the Protection Committee had already felled dozens of garigaris, and though the seemingly endless numbers of them had Tsukune worried, none of his fighters seemed close to tiring.

Tsukune spared a glance at the open shed door, spotting Keito as she continued helping Tobaki set up sleeping space as if nothing was wrong.

"Well, how many of these things can there be?" Tsukune asked, staring at a nearby severed vine as it squirmed and wriggled like a worm.

"If they happened here naturally, then there couldn't be more than a dozen or so within ambush distance for the kind of food supply in a place like this," Yukari reasoned, letting loose another card and scoring another garigari kill, "but given how many we've killed, and the fact that this is human territory, I'd definitely say that this field was cultured and fed by someone, which mean there could be hundreds within a single square kilometer."

"Hundreds? Not thousands?" Tsukune asked warily.

"They'd require too much food and probably drain the soil to wasteland if there were THAT many," Yukari reassured him as she let loose another card. Thwump!

"I see..." Tsukune said uncertainly as he saw Kana descending toward them out of the corner of his eye. "Hold on a minute."

Kana's great feathered wings fluttered gracefully as she touched down behind Tsukune, making sure to hold her skirt down against the wind currents as she got her footing (in a stark contrast to Kurumu's own flight patterns, Tsukune noticed).

"I saw some humans..." mumbled the siren, leaning in just close enough for Tsukune to make out her raspy voice, "they're in trouble. More plants."

Tsukune grimaced, both at the knowledge that there were innocent people being attacked by the plants, and that he needed to keep these people from seeing the members of the Protection Committee as they were now.

"All right, how far away, and how many?"

Kana pointed down the road, looking rather disinterested. "About... half a kilometer, I guess? There were two humans and one plant... next to a truck. That I could make out, anyway..."

"Okay, then," Tsukune mumbled, hefting the shears in his hands before shouting toward the others, "Kurumu! I'm going to take Moka and Yukari to go help someone! You're in charge here, okay?"

"'Kay! Have fun!" Kurumu chirped, waving with one hand as she dove over a garigari's head, slicing it open with the other.

"Kana, keep airborne and warn them if any other humans approach, okay?" Tsukune asked, getting a curt nod from the siren before she took off again.

"So we're going to fight one on our own?" Moka asked, gripping the hoe she had found behind the shack and glancing at the monstrous plants being annihilated by the others.

"Hopefully it's just one," Tsukune mumbled, "Yukari, stay behind us and only use your magic if things get bad, all right?"

"Sure! I'm right behind you," Yukari said, slipping her heart-topped wand under her cape.

---

In the branches above a pickup truck parked by the side of the road, a single crow gazed intently as a pair of young women struggled in a ditch by the side of the road. One had fainted dead away, her body wrapped up in vines and sticky leaves as she was slowly dragged into the undergrowth. The other was desperately trying to pull her out, but having little success while occasionally stopping to tear away the few tendrils that reached her own legs.

"Help! Is anybody out here?! What is this thing?!"

The crow's gaze almost seemed contemptuous as it stared at the scene with none of the typical curiosity or fascination that most of its kind would have watched the conflict. Its gaze was unwavering, hateful, and above all, purposeful.

"Feed... me..." growled a garbled, guttural voice as a dark shape slowly pushed itself from within the clustered sunflowers, digestive juices dripping from thick, waxy lips.

The conscious girl could hardly be more terrified at that point even as she saw something pushing through the flowers, and she braced her legs against the wall of the ditch before grabbing onto her friend's shoulders and pulling with all her might.

"No! Come on! Come on! I can't-"

"There! I found them!"

The girl was startled to hear a new voice, and her foot suddenly slipped in the dirt, loosening her grip. Her friend immediately slipped further into the wall of sunflowers, and her eyes widened as a dark mouth full of needle-like teeth emerged from the leaves, slowly but surely descending on her unconscious partner as it stretched open.

"Feed on THIS!" Moka cried, jumping into the ditch and swinging her hoe like a baseball bat over the girls' heads.

Thwack! The garigari was sent reeling from the blow, and the blade of the hoe lodged fast in the plant's fleshy head, tearing the hoe free of Moka's grip as she stumbled.

The garigari reared up as Tsukune came in behind Moka, lunging his shears at the plant's central stem.

Sthunk! With a single powerful snip, the garigari plant's head collapsed, falling backward into the obscuring sunflowers and vanishing as the severed stem spat gooey sap into the air from its wound.

"Are you all right? Is your friend hurt?" Moka asked, immediately turning toward the stunned but entirely conscious woman.

"I-I'm okay, I think," she said, clearly bewildered at being rescued, "what was that thing?"

"I don't know!" Yukari said loudly as she caught up with Moka, joining the conversation with a voice that sounded very deliberate in its confusion. "You should probably take your friend and flee for the safety of your human home!"

Tsukune fought off a tired sigh as the young woman stared at Yukari.

"I mean, your home! Which is human, obviously, but there's no particular reason to point that out!" Yukari tried to correct, droplets of sweat speckling her brow. "We're all humans here, right? No reason to doubt that!"

The woman continued to stare.

"I just like this hat, okay?" Yukari snapped, grabbing the rim of her witch hat defensively, "don't stereotype me!"

Moka jumped in fright as she heard a shuffling noise behind her, and glanced over to the sunflower grove as she saw several looming dark lumps moving through the foliage, like the dorsal fins of a pack of sharks.

"I think there are more out there!" the vampiress said, wondering if she should risk retrieving her hoe.

"What should we do? They're coming!" the woman said, cringing at the prospect of fighting more of the horrific vegetation.

With a flick of her wrist, Yukari had a magic card in her hand. "Well, shall I do it?" she asked, glancing meaningfully at Tsukune.

"Yeah, no," Tsukune said blandly, surprising the girls at how calmly he seemed to be taking the horde of monstrous flora bearing down on them. "Miss, is that your car?" he asked, pointing to the vehicle parked next to the road.

The young woman nodded rapidly.

"Is there any reason why we can't carry your friend into the seat so you two can drive away?" Tsukune asked.

She shook her head.

---

Vrrrrrrm! Tsukune watched the truck drive off down the road, and then turned to snip a vine that was trying to wrap around his ankle.

"They're coming closer!" Moka shouted as she backed past him, watching the gaping mouths of the plants emerge from the wall of foliage. "They're here!"

"Okay. Let's leave," Tsukune said as he started walking back to the shed, his gait easily matching the speed of the vines snaking out of the grove at him.

The girls followed him uncertainly, feeling awkward about casually walking away from the shambling horrors.

"Wow, they're... they're really not very fast, are they?" Moka asked, glancing back at the garigaris. They gave chase as best they could, but just couldn't seem to match their targets' leisurely pace.

"A garigari can walk, but it can't really manage more than 2 or 3 kilometers an hour. It is a plant, in the end," Yukari admitted, "although usually SOME sort of concern is expected, if only for the sake of propriety. You ARE just a human, after all."

"Well, I don't know what we have to be afraid of," Tsukune reasoned as the garigari plants furthest away quickly gave up the chase and slunk back into the flowers, "they're not native to the human world, but they're not really any more dangerous than most other wild animals. You've just got to stay away from them."

"But what are they doing here?" Moka asked, glancing behind her as the rest of the garigari plants gave up the chase and shuffled back into the sunflower grove, "they're not supposed to exist this close to humans!"

"It probably has something to do with why the Headmaster wanted us to come here," Tsukune said, catching sight of a watching crow out of the corner of his eye. He thought it was rather strange that animals weren't avoiding this place entirely since it was full of predatory flora, but figured that if he could escape the vicious vegetation, then a flying animal certainly could.

After a few minutes' walk they had reached the edge of the battlefield around the shed. The sunflower field was ruined in a wide area all around the shed, with the harmless and lovely flowers being alternatively shredded, scorched, and trampled among the numerous garigari remains.

"Kurumu! Is everyone okay?" Tsukune shouted as he caught sight of the succubus.

She was standing in front of Chopper, who was splayed out on the ground. This would have been a cause for concern save that the heavy rise and fall of his chest indicated he was just asleep.

Kurumu immediately abandoned the troll, using her wings to propel herself over to Tsukune and very nearly tackle him to the ground. "Tsukune! We won! Praise me!"

"Okay, okay! Good job, Kurumu," the young human said awkwardly as Moka puffed up her cheeks in a pout.

Kouma approached, still in hellhound form, and Tsukune had to admit it still shook him to hear the mighty black canine speak.

"We killed all the ones that attacked us, so I'm pretty sure the rest are too far away to sense us at all," explained the hellhound, his voice a rumbling growl that blew hot air through everyone's legs, "should we go out and finish them off?"

"No, I don't want to bother them if I can help it," Tsukune said, "we might figure out what they're doing here later, but for now it's enough that everyone is safe. How's Chopper?"

"He ate too many garigaris. Eventually he just fainted, but even when they started chewing on his body they couldn't really hurt him," Kurumu explained as she finally let go of her beloved.

Tsukune looked around at the area around the shed. Mizore was crouched near the entrance to the building, probably regretting that Ranma wasn't around for her to spy on for no reason, while Kana was still flying in lazy circles above the battlefield. He couldn't see Tobaki or Keito, but there were now thick spider webs attached to the frame of the door.

"Okay... Well, it's starting to get late, so why don't we get the camp set up like we were going to do, and then eat supper. We'll take shifts keeping watch for more plants, just in case, but before that, we can discuss why causing massive damage to property is bad if it's not completely necessary."

Kouma grimaced, recognizing that his earlier idea of torching the entire grove probably prompted that. "Isn't that kind of a pointless lesson without Saotome here? None of the rest of us can unleash full-scale natural disasters."

"Ranma gets enough flak for that on his own," Tsukune deadpanned, "now transform back and help me shake Chopper awake. We still have work to do."

"Okay, fine..."

---

In a dark place hidden within the choking groves of sunflowers, the elderly woman draped in blankets gazed into a glass sphere that sat upon a small, round table.

The crone nearly shook with rage as she watched the scenes play out: a giant black dog roasting garigaris at will and rending them apart with flaming jaws. A troll tearing the plants like tissue and scarfing down the remains. A succubus and a snow fairy carving the garigari up like they were whirling lawnmower blades. Two more girls, so sure of the plants' eventual destruction that they didn't even stop unpacking.

What enraged her the most, though, was the scene of two foolish girls being rescued from her carnivorous servant by the smallest of the boys and the pink-haired girl.

These were monsters, were they not? She had no idea what a random mish-mash of monsters were doing wandering around Witch's Knoll, but she could only expect them to defend themselves if they were attacked. But why had they rescued humans? Gone out of their way to rescue humans, at that! They'd even maintained those stupid illusions the whole time, to make it seem like they were normal humans themselves!

An echoing creak filled the room as the door opened behind the elderly woman, and she forced herself to calm down. Behind her entered a teenage girl of slim build, with raven black hair tied in two ponytails draped over her shoulders. She was wearing a dress that seemed to be stylistically tattered, and had black fingernail polish along with a heavy eye shadow. In her hand she clenched a wand as long as her forearm that was topped with a crescent holding a prismatic gem.

"Ruby. You're back," the elder witch mumbled as she swept a hand over her crystal ball, banishing the image.

"Yes, Lady Oyakata. I'm... I'm afraid the eastern field is a total loss," Ruby said with a bow, "the garigari plants simply couldn't handle other monsters, and these intruders fought well."

Oyakata the elder witch frowned. "It is not common for so many different creatures to fight together without quarreling themselves. There may be another force at work, here."

"There is more, my lady," Ruby said gingerly, pursing her lips, "one of them is a human, I believe."

The elder's head snapped up. "Human? They travel with a human? Openly?"

"It's most strange, but I definitely heard the young witch Yukari refer to the short boy, Tsukune, as such. It would seem the others are merely disguised as humans," Ruby said distastefully, "what should we do, my lady?"

"We parley," mumbled the old witch, "we have too much to lose if we let the monsters run rampant. But I will not negotiate with a human."

Oyakata walked over to a dusty bookshelf in the corner, selecting a thin tome that was wrapped tightly in overlapping leather belts.

"The usual methods would be... cumbersome, in this case. We will eliminate the human silently, and then appeal to his acquaintances."

Ruby tried to contain a shiver as the elderly witch started undoing the many belts. She had never seen her guardian unbind any of the more dangerous tomes before. Such books were sealed for a reason, either as a reminder that their power should not be used lightly or because the entities contained within could not be allowed to reign free for fear of the carnage and mischief they could unleash.

As soon as the last leather binding fell to the floor, the book began to visibly tremble in Oyakata's hands, trying to force itself open against her grip.

The crone laid the book open on the table, and a dark mist seemed to seep upward from the cloth paper as the ink on the pages rapidly evaporated from the ancient symbols scrawled there.

"Ellunas greshulla, simeenas killethok," Oyakata mumbled as she leant over the tome, "come forth, tainted one, and earn your freedom from this prison. I have a task for you."

The remaining ink on the page was suddenly torn from the paper into the seething black fog, and that cloud compressed itself to roughly the size of a basketball before a single red light flickered into existence on the edge of the hazy sphere facing Oyakata.

"You offer me freedom from your imprisonment, WITCH?" an unearthly voice boomed, speaking with hateful contempt but also bitter resignation.

"Indeed I do," said Oyakata, briefly sweeping her hand over the crystal ball and summoning an image of Tsukune, "this is the human, correct?"

"Yes, my lady," Ruby said, eying the ball of shadows uneasily.

"Kill him," Oyakata said simply, "you may take on your material form for this task, and once completed, you may leave and do what you will."

"That's it? Kill one human?" the being asked, its voice softening, "what's the catch, hag?"

"There are many others with him," Ruby explained, though the flickering red light did not turn to face her, "they are powerful monsters, and they'll probably defend him if you're detected."

"Ha! Is that all? Then let this pact conclude. Finally I'll be free of you vile crones!" snapped the summoned creature.

"Mothiul sheluul forussyal..." Oyakata mumbled, holding her hands toward the black orb as she spoke words from a language forgotten millennia ago.

The orb suddenly screeched horrendously, and Ruby flinched backward as the sphere suddenly lost its curious freedom from gravity, landing onto the book before bouncing off onto the floor while trailing inky smoke.

The sphere seemed to writhe painfully for a moment, and then it stood up, its boundaries stretching, inflating, and compressing as necessary to form a complete body. Four legs ending in short, sharp claws formed on the bottom, a lithe head full of needle-like teeth and with triangular ears sitting atop the skull pushed free near the top, and the "rear" of the orb stretched out into a long tail as short black fur sprouted all over the creature.

Within seconds, the feline assassin was on its feet and padding out the door, black fog still seeping from the tip of its tail.

"Good luck," Lady Oyakata said with a sneer as the empty book clapped shut like a bear trap.

---

"Ah, the human world," Jadeite said to himself as he gazed upon Tokyo, his hands clasped behind his back, "millions of little people, going about their bland, pointless lives in ignorance of the universe around them. Like ants, really."

He was standing at the edge of the roof of a massive skyscraper, with Richard and Ranma behind him paying absolutely no attention to the pontificating lunatic.

"But tonight, their sad little world will be shaken. Tonight we tear down their gods and destroy their hope," the dark general said, grinning at the lines of cars slowly crawling along below.

"Yeah, sure. Can we get something to eat first?" Ranma asked, slapping his stomach, "I do my best god-tearing on a full stomach."

Jadeite glowered at his companions, neither of which showed much interest in what he thought of the pedestrians. "Very well. But we must lay low until nightfall. Devil hunters tend to dislike operating in the daytime."

"OR," said Richard, pulling out a pair of sunglasses, "we could make FULL use of this opportunity and go party with the meatbags."

Ranma quirked an eyebrow. "Is 'party' some kind of dumb ancient word for 'murder'?"

"Well, it depends on the kind of party obviously, but generally no," Richard said, wagging a finger at his companions, "I can slaughter innocent people any old time. And I will! But for now I'm on vacation! Let's cut loose and abuse our considerable powers for petty and reckless diversion!"

With that unnecessarily bold declaration he slipped the sunglasses on.

Instantly a heavy guitar riff suddenly sounded, and Ranma and Jadeite blinked in surprise as rock music started filling the air.

"Wait, where is that coming from?" Ranma asked, scratching his head as he stared at the warlock.

"Summon theme music," Richard explained simply, "most magi think it a waste of a third-level spell slot, but most magi are WRONG."

Jadeite grit his teeth. "Professor Richard, we have a very specific mission to-"

"Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. You didn't seriously think this trip was all about YOU, did you?"

"Frivolous use of magic is only going to complicate our mission!" Jadeite snapped.

"Pf! You call this frivolous? I'll show you frivolous!" Richard said, his hands glowing with arcane power. "Summon Greater Montage!"

Jadeite deflated as the background music started spouting lyrics. "Oh, for the love of Metallia..."

Ranma frowned, "No, I think that's AC/DC," he said as everything started to fade.

---

Back in black! I hit the sack! I've been too long, I'm glad to be back!

Ranma was seated in front a booth on the beach, in girl form and wearing a tank top rather than her normal shirt. She was also devouring slices of watermelon at an astounding rate along with several other contestants as a crowd of beach goers cheered.

Yes I'm, let'n loose! From the noose! That's kept me hangin' around!

After tossing another rind behind her, she grabbed another slice and was about to bite into it when the crowd's cheers suddenly turned to screams.

Glancing to the side, she saw Richard standing over a fiery Hell pit of snarling teeth and lashing tongues as he used a shovel to pile watermelon into it.

Jadeite fumed silently to himself as he stood next to a pile of watermelon rinds buzzing with flies.

---

I keep lookin' at the sky 'cause it's gettin' me high! Forget the herse 'cause I'll never die!

Richard skated through a large ice rink, did a sudden one-eighty turn and then continued to the edge of the rink, skating backward.

Ranma skated across after him, jumping during his run and doing a complete spin before landing perfectly and then following Richard across.

I got, NINE LIVES! CAT'S EYES! Usin' every one of them and runnin' wild!

Jadeite soon followed Ranma uneasily, and then tripped onto his face half-way, sliding across the ice as he had evidently forgotten he could fly.

All the while numerous confused citizens watched from the sidelines in their bathing suits, wondering how the public pool had gotten iced over.

---

'Cause I'm back!
Yes, I'm back!
Well, I'm back!
Yes, I'm back!
Well, I'm back! Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey! Ey-ey-ey-ey!
Well, I'm back in black! Yes, I'm BACK IN BLACK!

Richard, Ranma, and a severely disheveled Jadeite all looked over the railing of a double-decker tour bus, taking in the sights as the tour guide desperately tried to shout over the omnipresent background music.

---

Back in the back of a Cadillac, number one with a bullet, I'm a power pack!

Several men on motorcycles sped down the highway, all of them bearing tattoos and wearing sunglasses that stereotypically identified them as Yakuza.

Ranma, who was steering a motorcycle while Richard sat behind him, weaved back and forth through traffic after the Yakuza. Jadeite sat in the motorcycle's sidecar, sulking.

Yes, I'm... in a bang! With a gang! They've gotta catch me if they want me to hang!

Several of the mafiosos drew sub-machine guns and started spraying fire behind them, causing cars to start swerving and braking in a panic.

Ranma steered behind a car next to him, and the car started braking as a dozen bullets impacted its windshield. Ranma then bounced the front tire of the motorcycle up, ramping up the back of the car and into the air.

Richard pointed at the motorcycles ahead like he was holding guns, and then shouted "Bang, bang!" over and over as he blasted each of the motorcycles with a volley of magic missiles, causing every one of them to explode.

---

'Cause I'm back on the track and I'm leadin' the pack! Nobody's gonna get me on another rap!

Richard and Ranma sat in a roller coaster car as it slowly climbed up to the high point on the track, and then they threw their arms up as it descended, the car racing up and down the various curves and dips.

Richard suddenly thrust his hand forward as it glittered with ethereal light, and a comet materialized in the skies above and rocketed down toward the tracks, screaming flames as it headed for a high segment ahead of the car.

So look at me now, I'm just makin' my play. Don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way!

Ranma slipped out of the harness and stood on top of the car, his body glowing a bright blue before he unleashed an orb of shimmering blue energy at the meteor, causing both projectiles to obliterate themselves just before the coaster sped past the threatened length of track.

Below the roller coaster, Jadeite fumed as he held an armful of drinks and snacks, wondering where his companions were.

---

'Cause I'm back!
Yes, I'm back!
Well, I'm back!
Yes, I'm back!
Well, I'm back! Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey! Ey-ey-ey-ey!
Well, I'm back in black! Yes, I'm BACK IN BLACK!

Back on the tour bus, everybody in the top section, led by Ranma and Richard, stood up and rocked back and forth with the music, tilting the entire vehicle as the tour guide silently sulked with Jadeite at the front.

---

Well, I'm back!
Yes, I'm SKREEEEEEEEEK!

Ranma grimaced as he stood in front of a rather short, female police officer wearing blue body armor and carrying a rifle on her back as she wrote furiously on a clip board.

Behind him stood a massive wall of ice that was currently obstructing traffic to barricade off the intersection walkway - such that Richard didn't have to wait for the light to change - but had only partially obstructed the police cruiser that had smashed half-way through the ice wall and was now a smoking wreck.

"Look kid, it doesn't matter if you're a minor. If you're going to walk around town with your warlock, you have to keep him under control at ALL TIMES and make sure he obeys all basic traffic laws and at least MOST of Newton's physical laws," lectured the blue-haired woman, glaring up at the pigtailed boy.

Ranma smiled nervously, pointing over to where Richard was on the ground being kicked repeatedly by a pair of male police officers. "No, no! He's not MY warlock!"

The policewoman quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? Then who's is he?"

"Well, he's... his own, I guess?" Ranma suggested, shrugging helplessly.

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you have any idea how dangerous a warlock is on his own without a generally sane 'leader' character to keep him in line?"

Ranma couldn't stop himself from wincing. "Yes," he admitted, wilting completely.

Her gaze softened. "Well, Snake said he's registered, so this should go quickly. I'll let you off with a warning this time, but letting him run wild can cost LIVES, you understand?"

Ranma nodded quickly, quite grateful he was being let off. "Yes, Ma'am! Thank you, Ma'am!"

"Captain!" shouted one of the two male officers, who looked like some sort of foreigner with a drum-feed automatic shotgun hung over one shoulder, "finished running his I.D. Took a bit longer because I was busy kicking him."

"Hey! How much longer should I keep this up?" shouted the final officer, a man with long blond hair who was still kicking and trampling the undead magi relentlessly.

"Until his lungs are crushed too badly for him to make cop jokes!" the foreigner shouted back.

"Oh, come on! Oof!" Richard complained as the blond officer tried to crush his ribcage underfoot, "I only have two - guh! - or three more - hurk! - how many cops does it - grhg! - take to screw in a - huhk! - lightbulb? Just - hmp! - one, but he's never - kuh! - there when you need him!"

"Is this normal for you guys?" Ranma asked, scratching the back of his head. He wasn't exactly familiar with police tactics, as Nerima was a well-recognized "law-free" zone where the rules concerning assault and destruction of property did not apply, but this was WAY different than what he saw from cop movies.

"Eh, usually we do a lot more shooting and less beatings," the lady officer admitted as she took a look at the tablet screen her male cohort was holding.

Her eyes hardened instantly. "Richard? Are you serious?"

Ranma started to sweat. "Uh, are you sure you have the right Richard? Pretty common name, right? This one is 'Emperor of the Black', and, uh, I think the other one was 'Lord of the Bones'. Is yours one of those?"

"Around here he's known as the '652 Natal Ward Buffet Butcher'," the bluette deadpanned as Ranma's face darkened.

"In my defense, those doctors' directions to the ACTUAL cafeteria were all wrong!" Richard said before the blond man landed a particularly crushing blow to his sternum.

CRACK! "THERE we go. Snake, I think I got it!"

Ranma gulped. "So, uh... that crime doesn't reflect on me too, does it?"

"Why don't we have a long discussion about that downtown?" the police captain asked dangerously, holding up a pair of handcuffs, "we should hurry, since it's a long walk and our car is still stuck."

The pigtailed boy grimaced, watching as Richard was folded up into a sack and slung over the blond officer's shoulder like a bag of garbage. "Man, this is easily the third worst montage I've ever been through," he complained as he was cuffed.

"Try Red Hot Chili Peppers or Aerosmith next time," the foreign officer apparently named Snake suggested. "Let's move!"

---

Next to the grounds keeper's shack on Witch's Knoll, a large section of the field had been cleared of sunflowers and garigari remains and was made to serve as a classroom, as the shack was too small to house all the members of the Protection Committee at once.

Most of the students ate their dinner while Tsukune lectured, save Chopper who had already stuffed himself on the plants that had been trying to eat him.

"In addition to basic things like a right to live and generally be free of injury, people also have a right to property," Tsukune explained, "Kouma, you don't steal things from people, right?"

"No, of course not," the hellhound confirmed, sounding mildly offended.

"So you respect that if someone owns something, then you don't have a right to it without their permission?" Tsukune asked.

"Maybe if I beat 'em down first, but basically, yeah, that's right."

"That's... good! Mostly. Anyway, the connection I want you to make here is that if stealing other people's things when it isn't necessary is wrong, then destroying them is also wrong. To the owner, his property is gone either way, so it doesn't matter all that much whether you benefited," Tsukune explained.

Keito sighed wearily, not bothering to hide her contempt for the lecture. "I can't believe we have to sit here and listen to this tripe. He acts like he's teaching children," she hissed under her breath.

Her indignity was undermined somewhat by the fact that Tobaki looked intensely interested, and was taking detailed notes on Tsukune's lesson.

"You're thinking of this the wrong way, Big Sis," Tobaki whispered back, "these lessons are coming from a human. A real human! This is special insight into how they think and react to monsterkind; this could be more valuable toward our academic goal of fitting in with the human world than ALL of the classes taught by largely incompetent sociopaths combined!"

Keito clicked her tongue. "Not all of us take to the curriculum with such enthusiasm, Tobaki. I for one don't care for the idea of meekly following human rules for the rest of my life."

"Well, at least you can learn enough about right and wrong to operate properly in your capacity in the Protection Committee, right?"

"I DO know right from wrong," sniffed Keito, "I just don't care."

"Keito!" Tsukune said suddenly, having noticed that the spider woman was having her own conversation (though he couldn't make out what she had been saying) , "here's the scenario: You come upon several items that you recognize as stolen, and a student who claims they belong to him. What do you do?"

Keito straightened immediately. "I note the identity of the supposed owner and then verify that the items are indeed the ones that were presumably reported as missing, either by a detailed description or by having the reporting student identify them. After resolving any dispute in ownership, I secure the thief for imprisonment until such time that his final punishment can be determined."

By the time she finished, everyone was staring at Keito, surprised if not shocked by how orderly, detailed, and non-violent her procedure was.

Chopper scratched his head. "How did you get all that from 'don't burn stuff'?"

"Experience and subtext," Keito said with a shrug, "I just thought of what kind of result our good captain would want and how to best achieve that with as little bloodshed and room for error as possible."

Tsukune's eyebrow twitched. 'It sure would be nice to have her on if she wasn't trying to kill me.' Keito was fully grounded and actually quite intelligent, but he was well aware that she still resented him for stripping her of her former rank and privilege. She probably always would.

"Good answer, Keito. And what do you do if the alleged thief resists?"

"Immobilize him if I can," Keito said immediately, "if not, retreat to find you or Kurono and return with the compliance squad."

"Another good answer," Tsukune admitted, "and when do you dissolve and eat the thief's innards?"

"Only AFTER he has been released from custody and is no longer the center of attention," Keito answered before she realized what she had said, "I mean, never!"

"Nice save," Kurumu snickered while Yukari and Kana giggled next to her.

"Wait, I'm confused," Tobaki said, raising her hand, "is there a better time to slaughter and devour the guilty?"

"It was a trick question," Tsukune explained, slightly exasperated by Tobaki's horrifying ignorance, "because the punishments for serious or repeated offenses is left to the administrators, we're never going to be executing students, as far as I know. So we won't need to kill them, and so we certainly won't be eating them."

"What if you could eat them WITHOUT killing them?" Chopper asked, "or, like, you kill them because you had to, or maybe they're even dead before you get there, and you happen to have soy sauce with you. What's the call then?"

Tsukune forced himself to rationalize the question in his mind. "It's... best if you don't eat any students, ever," he said with a slightly disturbed expression, "because the body might need to be identified later, and the relatives of the victim might want it unmolested. Also Miss Madaraki has a very specific procedure to go through when confirming the death of a student, so it's helpful to have a complete body."

"So instead of getting eaten, they get dissected and used for parts. That's much better," Kouma quipped.

"What's wrong with that? Better they're used for science than lunch," Yukari responded.

Despite the bizarre discussions, Tsukune couldn't help but feel a significant measure of pride as the members of the committee started earnestly talking about the disposal of bodies in Youkai Academy and what they would best be used for. It wasn't exactly harmonious and definitely morbid, but it was still a huge step forward.

Of course he could have just listed series of rules and demanded obedience because he was in charge and had a strong friend to back him up, but besides being more dangerous it somehow seemed perverse for a human to lay down rules without explanation and expect monsters to obey them. Wasn't the whole point of him being at Youkai Academy to impart the values of humanity upon the other students? And how could he do that if there was no understanding?

Feeling pleased with himself, Tsukune suddenly held up his hands. "All right, everyone settle down. Next I want to discuss sexual assault and how we should identify and approach it."

"Ooh! I have lots of experience with this subject!" Tobaki said excitedly, startling most of the other students and causing them to cringe.

Tsukune, once again failing to dissociate the image of a cute, innocent-looking elven girl from the terrifying demon that she was, did not pick up on her meaning. "So you've seen a lot of this around Youkai Academy while you were in the Protection Committee?" Tsukune said, clearly concerned about the prospect.

"Oh, I see it all the time," Tobaki answered, looking somewhat proud that she got to contribute to the discussion, "my abyssal friends like to hit up the boy's locker room after school and force themselves on some of the guys from the sports teams. I usually just watch and make sure he survives, but occasionally I indulge myself too," she said with a bashful flush over her cheeks.

As the Keito massaged her forehead and Tsukune gaped wordlessly, Kurumu sighed. "And here we go again. Crazy demons."

Tobaki raised an eyebrow at her. "What? I'm sure nothing I've done could impress a succubus. Your species embodies deviant and illicit sex."

"H-Hey! Don't slander my species like that!" Kurumu shouted, her cheeks burning as she jumped to her feet.

"It's not slander," Yukari said, incredulous that Kurumu would even try to deny it, "even putting aside your racial reputation, your physiology and powers are specially suited to attracting and and immediately subduing humanoid men."

"Well, not all of us are like that!" Kurumu protested.

"Didn't you spend the first few days hypnotizing and flirting with the entire male half of the freshman class?" Keito pointed out.

Kurumu struggled for something to say before she gave up and pointed at Tobaki. "Why are you all getting on MY case? Tobaki is a serial rapist!"

"Well, yes, but I'm making an effort to put my duty before my appetites," Tobaki said, nodding as if her admission resolved everything, "but seriously, you've never forced yourself on a man?"

"No! Why would I even have to?" Kurumu demanded, crossing her arms under her breasts.

"Well, maybe your guy is hung up on someone else," mused Mizore in a bored monotone, pointing to the grounds keeper's shack.

"Tsukune, are you all right?" Moka asked as she approached Tsukune from behind. He was currently leaning against the wall of the shack, hanging his head.

"Yeah... I'm fine," Tsukune said wearily, "really, it's my fault. Nothing Tobaki says should faze me by now. This sort of thing IS why we're here, after all."

As he started to turn around, his eye happened to catch one of the heads of the garigaris that had been shoved next to the building and was laying next to his feet. "Well, that and the thinly veiled plotting of a creepy administrator," he grumbled, giving the dismembered head a spiteful kick.

"It's going to be fine, Tsukune. You're doing great!" Moka affirmed, squeezing the human boy's shoulders as her expression turned serious. "Nobody else thought to teach everyone the reasoning behind human laws so that they could make the correct decisions on their own! You're doing the best you can, and everyone here knows it!"

"Moka..." Tsukune felt a great sense of relief as he turned around to see the vampiress's flawless, smiling face, and soon he was smiling too. "Thanks, Moka. I just-"

"Hey, should we leave you two alone, or do you have more to say, here?" Kouma asked as Kurumu fumed silently behind him, grinding her teeth.

Tsukune almost jumped around, and then quickly stepped back to his previous place. "Thank you, Kouma, we're not done here just yet," he said through a forced smile, "now, as I was saying: let's discuss how sexual assault is wrong and we always need to put a stop to it."

"Awww! Lame!" Tobaki complained as Keito patted her head sympathetically.

---

"So, what have we learned today as part of our trip to the human world?" Jadeite asked as he stepped out of the police station via its rear entrance. Although the question itself was the sort that a teacher would legitimately ask his students, the way Jadeite grit his teeth and glowered the whole time suggested he didn't really care.

Ranma scratched the back of his head. "I learned what it means to be an 'accessory' to something," he said, "I never knew it was illegal just being with someone else who was committing a crime without stopping him."

Richard stepped out behind the martial artist. "I learned that if you try melting a vault door open from the inside, the convection will cook you before you get halfway through it." His normally bone-white skin was deeply browned, and Richard looked even more withered than usual. "You'd think I'd have known that, being a physical science teacher, but no."

Jadeite stopped on the sidewalk and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest. "And do you two have anything else to say to me?"

"Thank you for posting bail, Professor Jadeite," Ranma and Richard said reluctantly.

"Actually, he didn't," corrected the foreign policeman the others had referred to as Snake as he followed them out of the building, "you see, bail is a deposit given over to the court to ensure your presence at trial. It is set by a judge and returned upon the start of the trial."

"Okay..." Ranma scratched his head, unsure where the American was going with this.

Snake continued. "As there is no formal law entitling the undead to due process, Mister Richard-"

"PROFESSOR Richard. I didn't spend three decades in Evil Wizard school to be called 'Mister', thank you very much," the warlock snapped.

Snake glanced at him briefly. "This hunk of wasted flesh over here doesn't actually get a trial, and you don't get your money back."

Ranma considered that as Jadeite sputtered angrily over this revelation. "Wait, that means that what he just paid you was-"

"A straight-up bribe, yes," the foreigner confirmed, "toodles!"

He promptly shut the door, leaving the three alone once again.

"And now I've learned something ELSE new about the human world," Richard said, looking pleased, "isn't this educational? It's a pity we don't have more students to share our new insights into the human criminal justice system and its relationship with non-humans!"

"While there actually ARE some questions I'd like to ask this 'Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment', that is not our mission here," Jadeite said through clenched teeth, "and as it finally nightfall, we should be getting TO that mission, don't you think?"

"Yes, yes, very well," Richard said as he started walking down the street, "Saotome, are you prepared to thwart our dastardly plans?"

"Got you covered, Freak," Ranma said, looking rather morose as he gave them a sarcastic thumbs-up.

Jadeite grimaced, his hands clenching into fists. "Professor, would it not be best to eliminate the obstacle before we begin? I warned you that Saotome would try to stop us."

Ranma, as usual dismissive of an open threat to his life, simply stuck his tongue out at Jadeite as the dark general glared at him.

"Oh, don't be such a whiner," Richard scoffed, "we're in devil hunter territory now, right? Well then, let's get this show on the road!"

FWOOSH! Richard's hands exploded into twin fireballs, pulsing with energy as he aimed his palms at the tallest nearby building he could see.

WHAM! His casting was promptly shut down as Ranma hammered him in the back of his head with a street sign, smashing him into the sidewalk and causing the flames to sputter out.

The warlock remained face-down for a few seconds, then pulled his head up, glancing at Ranma in annoyance. "You know, I'm trying to meet you half-way with this 'not killing you before the battle' thing. You could at least let me SUMMON the devil hunters we're here for."

"That's not it," Ranma deadpanned, jabbing his thumb behind him at the police station immediately behind them, "I'd just rather not get arrested twice in one night. I don't think Proff Jadeite has any more 'bail' money."

The two villains glanced silently at the police station.

"Good call," Richard said, standing up suddenly, "I usually like to be more discriminating in my targets, anyway. Let's go find an orphanage! Or a petting zoo! Ooh! Or a petting zoo being visited by an orphanage!"

"You're not going to find one of those open NOW," Jadeite snapped as he started walking down the street, "how about a gambling den? They're nice and packed, and often have poor fire suppression facilities."

"Bleh. Not sympathetic enough. Isn't there any place open that houses innocent, doe-eyed, wonderfully flammable children?" Richard asked, following him.

"Do teenagers count?"

"I'm sorry, do you not understand the word 'sympathetic'?"

Ranma trudged after the pair of lunatics, grumbling to himself. "I went too easy on the Headmaster. WAY too easy."

---

As the night wore on, the partially ravaged fields of Witch's Knoll fell silent. The garigari plants that had not been destroyed, as they weren't close enough to the grounds keeper's shack, went into hibernation, their swollen heads resting on the ground and wrapping themselves in leaves as the darkness deprived them of energy to hunt.

As the fields finally became safe for travel, the nocturnal animals around the knoll finally emerged from hiding, most of them blissfully unaware that they were crawling within a slumbering death trap.

One such beast, however, was under no such illusions.

"Wretched witches. They've turned this place into a nesting ground for their beasts," mumbled a black cat as it padded through the sunflower fields.

Or at least, most creatures would have mistaken them for mere sunflowers. The feline assassin knew better, and its softly glowing yellow eyes could sense the trace magical energies and subtle malevolence seeping through every stem.

The sunflowers themselves were alive, waiting. Sleeping. Hungering.

The shadow beast felt uneasy walking through the dangerous field, but it was the only approach that offered enough cover to properly stalk its victim. This beast knew that many monsters possessed flawless night vision (as it did), and had a variety of other sharpened senses. It would probably get only one chance to attack.

As it crept through the vegetation, its mouth split open slightly, revealing razor-sharp fangs that released a dark, acrid mist that was invisible in the dead of night, but caused nearby leaves to wither from its virulence.

One chance would be all it needed.

'Just a little further,' the feline thought, its steps absolutely silent as it approached the shack. It could see signs of combat here: sunflower stalks snapped in half, and scorched vegetation littering the ground. It pressed forward, its soft feet making not a sound even as it stepped on the dried, burnt leaves that littered the ground.

In the end, however, its skill at stealth did not help it evade simple traps.

The feline saw the ultra-fine threads come into focus at the last second, as its face unwittingly plunged into the webbing rendered almost invisible in the darkness, even to its eyes. The assassin recoiled immediately, dragging the web back with it as the sticky threads clung to its fur and whiskers.

'Oh, for the love of tuna...' the feline grumbled in its head as his claws emerged to cut away the trap. There were other ways that a shadow beast could have dealt with the minor indignity of getting its face trapped in spider webbing, but it didn't want to risk being detected.

'This is actually pretty tough stuff,' the feline thought as it carefully scratched at its face, drawing the threads out of its fur, 'how big was the spider that made this thing?'

It received its answer as said spider suddenly tackled it to the ground.

"JESUS BAST PHAROAH DEMOGORGON SATAN BAHAMUT HELP!" the shadow cat screamed, all concern for stealth lost as huge, hardened legs as long as its tail wrapped around it. The spider was massive, easily as big as the cat itself, and was evidently just as stealthy. Inch-long fangs stabbed into the assassin's back and poured venom into it, though non-magical poison was luckily harmless to the feline. Much more of a concern was being subdued and bound by a spider the size of a cat mere meters from its target.

Steeling itself, the cat's eyes went from spooky yellow to furious red, and the ends of its extremities started to evaporate into the air, filling the immediate space with hissing gases that sizzled as they brushed against the arachnid terror.

It didn't respond immediately, pinning the feline down to begin wrapping it while the corrosive gas blew over its hardened carapace, but as a wisp of the dark fumes touched its face, the spider immediately recoiled, jumping forward and scuttling away to try and escape this unexpected defense.

The assassin clenched its teeth against the wound in its back, which was extremely painful even without suffering from the poisons, and quickly rolled to its feet. Despite feeling several strands of webbing clinging to it still, the feline dashed away to the side, giving little thought to hiding its movements anymore.

'All right, all right, this isn't totally a wash,' the assassin thought grimly, 'I'm pretty sure someone heard me scream, but I'm still a cat. I might be able to pull off a sneak attack still.'

It stopped running after a few seconds, feeling that he had probably gotten away from the monstrous spider. Such predators rarely chased their prey very far from their webs.

Or, at least, that was the manner of ordinary spiders. But that thing had been far from ordinary.

'What was that thing doing here? Is it one of the witch's beasts? Or maybe one of the human's guards?' the deadly feline thought as he once again started to approach the shack. 'Whatever. Hopefully there are no more giant spiders out here.'

A light shuffling noise was all the warning that the assassin cat got before Keito stepped out from the wall of sunflowers behind it.

"Hmmm..." Keito said nothing as she stared down at the black cat that was just barely visible in the darkness, its glowing yellow eyes staring up at her as its body tensed for flight.

A much louder shuffling noise heralded the approach of Haruo, who was in gargoyle form and thus couldn't take a step without his wings brushing over a dozen flowers.

"Oh, it's just a cat," the gargoyle said, only to freeze up as Keito whirled on him.

"Idiot!" she hissed, "why did you follow me! If someone sees you, we're done for!"

Haruo winced and started to slink back.

"No, stop! I can feel that no one is approaching now, so stop making such a racket!"

The shadow cat bolted the moment their attention was off of it, knowing that the only way for it to complete its mission now was to make a bee-line for its target and attack immediately, before anyone knew what was going on.

'It's this or being trapped in that damn book for the rest of time, I'll take my chance-hwuh?'

Its thoughts were interrupted as it felt something wet and sticky strike its back without much force.

And then, suddenly, it was pulled clean off its feet and into the air.

Keito snorted as she tugged sharply on the webbing stretched between the cat and her arm where the other end was wrapped around her wrist.

She snatched her catch out of the air, holding it by its midsection as it started to yowl and struggle.

Then her mandibles emerged from the corners of her mouth, and she plunged her fangs into the clearly shocked and terrified creature.

Haruo winced as he watched Keito feed on the hapless cat. Not that he was squeamish about killing animals, but the way the feline twitched and writhed as the enchanted poisons filled its body was especially gruesome.

"Is this really necessary?" Haruo grumbled.

Keito drew her fangs out of her new meal, casting her co-conspirator a withering glance.

"Maybe. These sorts of creatures are commonly used as familiars by witches. And whether it belongs to Sendo or the residents of the knoll, I'd rather not have either of them interfering."

As the feline gave another, final jolt, Keito once again plunged her fangs into its body, and a quiet (though still sickening) slurping sound came from the spider woman as she fed.

"Whatever. You understand what's going on, right? Everything will be ready in two days. When you see the signal, get Tobaki and go," Haruo directed.

"Very well. I'll probably only be able to delay her for so long, though, so don't dally," Keito mumbled through her mouth even as the cat withered and shrunk to a furry husk.

Then, the body seemed to suddenly collapse, disintegrating into a dark fog that caused Keito to jerk backward in surprise.

"Blech. I knew it. A magic beast," the spider woman spat as her fangs slowly folded back into her cheeks, "Probably some sort of spy. Blasted witches."

"Well, it won't be getting in our way anymore," Haruo said, looking rather smug despite the fact that he hadn't contributed at all to its demise, "I'll be leaving, now."

"Hurry up before someone comes," Keito hissed as the gargoyle jumped up and flapped its wings, rustling the sunflowers as he finally departed.

"Lumbering moron couldn't stalk a sleeping man in the dead of night in a garden of gargoyle statues," Keito grumbled as she started heading back to the camp, her own body moving all but silently through the thick foliage.

She had almost made it to the edge of the sunflower field (or rather, where the edge was after the Protection Committee was done fighting) when she detected two people approaching from the camp, their footsteps reverberating through the ground more clearly than the sounds bouncing about above it.

She froze, gathering her wits as Kouma and Kurumu pushed their way through the sunflowers, neither of them looking pleased to have found her.

"Keito? What are you doing out here?" Kouma demanded, a lit cigarette leaking smoke as his blazing red eyes scanned the surroundings, "I was on watch when I heard some shouting out here."

Keito raised an eyebrow. "Then why is Kurono here? Did you hear it within the shed?"

"I was trying to sneak into Tsukune's sleeping bag at the time," Kurumu said bitterly, crossing her arms under her breasts, "and now it's ruined! So what are you up to?"

Keito gestured vaguely in the direction of the sunflower field behind her. "It was a magical beast, doubtless some familiar sent by the witches here to spy on us. I dealt with it appropriately." Of course, she had no idea what the feline had been doing, and suspected it belonged to Yukari, but she wasn't going to give up a perfectly good excuse.

"And what were you doing here in the first place?" Kouma asked, plucking the cigarette from his lips and blasting a smoke cloud out of the corner of his mouth.

Keito stared at the pair for several seconds before she finally said, "Our shed lacks restrooms."

Kurumu's expression of annoyance dropped instantly. "OH. Uh... I see."

"The familiar surprised me, so I killed it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd best get back to my web," the spider woman brushed past Kouma and Kurumu, not giving them so much as a backward glance.

Kouma took another long puff on his cigarette. "She's lying," he mumbled, suddenly tilting his head back and swallowing his smoke.

Kurumu looked startled, wondering why Kouma hadn't moved after Keito left. "What? About which part?"

"Why she came out here. She probably did kill something, since I could smell the blood and venom, but she didn't come out here to piss."

Kurumu recoiled. "You CHECKED for that?"

The hellhound gave her annoyed look. "I didn't CHECK for it, but I would have been able to tell immediately."

"Really?" Kurumu asked, looking a bit squeamish, "wow, having such good senses kind of sucks sometimes, doesn't it?"

"Yeah... Excrement doesn't really bother me after living in Hell for a while," Kouma admitted, "there are worse smells."

Deciding not to press any further on that subject, Kurumu rubbed her chin. "So, why was she out here?"

"Dunno. She's a spider, they skulk around all the time. She was probably just looking for a snack or something."

Kouma took a few sniffs of the air to make sure he wasn't missing anything, and then turned around. "Well, whatever. Not like she's not allowed to be out and about."

"Maybe that's true, but Keito is a special case," Kurumu mumbled bitterly, "I'm going to ask Mizore to keep tabs on her. I have a bad feeling about this..."

The two of them started walking back to the camp where the rest of the Protection Committee slumbered.

"Kouma," Kurumu said seriously, glancing over to the hellhound, "I'm worried about Tsukune. I'll take the next watch after all."

Kouma rolled his eyes. "Sure you will."

Kurumu glared at him. "I'm serious! Chopper's up next, right? Between Keito possibly plotting something and the witches sending animals to spy on us, I need to personally keep a close-"

"You can slip into his sleeping bag," Kouma interrupted, "seriously, I don't care. Just keep the noise down." "Thank you!" Kurumu said, immediately bolting for the camp.

---

End Chapter 14

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

(About half an hour earlier)

"This is so exciting! It's like a slumber party!" Tobaki chirped as she hugged a pillow to her chest, her eyes gleaming.

The other girls all more or less ignored her as they undressed in preparation to put on their pajamas.

Kurumu, however, stopped after she stripped off her top, and then stepped over to Mizore and Kana.

"Hey, you two have been getting along a lot better recently, haven't you? Did anything happen?"

Mizore hesitated as her skirt dropped to her feet. "There just isn't much point if Ranma's not even here..." she admitted. Kana nodded mutely in agreement.

"I don't see how there's a point even when he IS here," Moka said as she pulled down a pink pajama top over her head, "he's already engaged, right? If you two want boyfriends, there are plenty of guys on campus I'm sure are just as good as he is!"

A trio of derisive snorts greeted that opinion, with the third issuing from Tobaki.

"You have pretty questionable taste in men, but you do have a point about Ranma," the yochlol mused, sighing and laying back on a stretch of foul yellow webbing that covered the corner of the shed, "that's why he rejected me, so it doesn't make sense to keep going after him, right? At least, not now that we've got this restriction against sexual assault hanging over our heads."

Most of the other girls sweatdropped as Keito sidled up next to Tobaki and ran her fingers through the yochlol's hair. "He doesn't deserve you, Tobaki. You'd be wasted on someone like him."

Kurumu, who still hadn't put on a top (to the girls' increasing annoyance) suddenly chuckled. "What's with that weak resolve? You're seriously giving up that easily?"

She smirked as she planted her hands on her hips. "If any of you talked to Ranma as much as I do, you'd know that he's not exactly head-over-heels for his fiancee. The arrangements were forced on him, and he hardly cares about any of them!"

Moka grimaced, not liking the expression of surprise and intrigue on Kana and Mizore's faces (at least, she thought she saw some of that in the way Mizore quirked her eyebrows slightly). "Kurumu, how could you possibly know that?"

"And are you almost done showing off how your boobs are bigger than ours?" Yukari grumbled.

Kurumu wagged a finger at Moka. "Oh, you know, little things. Like the fact that he prefers not to talk about them, ever, and when he does he complains, yet he'll never deny being engaged in the first place. And the fact that he has a picture of his parents in his wallet, but none of any of his fiancees. Or the fact that he's still chaste after being engaged for over a year."

Then, as the other girls were either blushing or gasping in surprise, Kurumu turned toward Yukari. "Also, no."

"Hey, why do YOU know so much about him?" Kana's voice rang, the melodic tone containing a definite note of dangerous envy now that she was provoked enough to speak.

"Because I actually talk to him instead of just meekly following him around all the time," Kurumu answered with an infuriating smirk, "anyway, I'm just saying that he's engaged, but not in love. He's loyal to his fiancees because he's supposed to be, not because he's committed himself to any one of them. If you got a little adventurous and put in some effort, who knows what might come of it?"

"I assume you take the same tactic regarding Tsukune?" Yukari asked blithely, only to be rewarded with a pillow to the face.

Tobaki looked somewhat skeptical even as Kana and Mizore started staring at each other with renewed heat, as if their rivalry had been revived. "I'll give you that you probably know Ranma better than any of us, but it just feels wrong to take romantic advice from a succubus who's never even raped someone," she pointed out.

Kurumu's preening instantly shattered into indignation. "What does THAT matter? Actually, no, that should be a credit to me that I've never done that!"

Keito gave a questionable look as she stroked Tobaki's hair. "You've at least claimed some of the men you've charmed with your powers, right?"

"How is that any different from rape?" Kurumu demanded, with Moka nodding rapidly in support.

"Rape is intercourse without consent. If you hypnotize someone into giving consent, you're legally free and clear," Tobaki explained.

"That's twisted! It completely ignores the point of the laws!" Moka protested.

"Besides, any REAL succubus can seduce a man without hypnosis!" Kurumu said, stretching one arm behind her back and thrusting her chest out in a pose, "having to use force or cheap tricks just means you're weak!"

Tobaki nodded slowly, admitting that the logic made a crude kind of sense. "Okay, so how many men have you seduced, then?"

Kurumu didn't move from her pose, as if her body had become locked in place. Mizore, ever sensitive to local sources of moisture, noted that sweat was starting to bead on her forehead.

"Well? Are you having trouble counting them all?" Tobaki asked in a manner that somehow sounded innocent despite what she was actually asking.

"The m-mission of the s-s-succubus is t-to find our f-fated l-lover," Kurumu stuttered, her face turning bright red as she fought off the crushing embarrassment of having argued herself into a corner, "so, you know, it d-doesn't really matter-"

"Lolth's tears, she's a virgin," Keito said, looking stunned as Kurumu wilted.

This didn't really surprise everyone in the room, and even if Mizore and Kana hadn't been expecting to hear such a thing they didn't particularly care to make a big deal out of it. Still, Kurumu's damning silence caused Yukari to snicker and Tobaki to suddenly burst out laughing, rolling off her web and onto the cold, dirty floor of the shack.

Moka immediately placed a hand on one of Kurumu's shoulders, frowning. "And what's wrong with being a virgin? She just wants to give herself to someone she actually loves!"

Yukari shrugged as she smiled. "That's fine for, say, any species EXCEPT a succubus, but it's kind of her race's defining trait."

"Even succubae have feelings, you know? So what if we want our first time to be special?" Kurumu cried, flailing her arms as Tobaki kept giggling, "you can't judge a person by their sexual experience, even a succubus!"

"Then what are we supposed to judge you by?" Mizore asked blandly, sitting in a corner while rolling her lollipop candy around in her mouth.

Kurumu dropped her arms uncertainly, and then stared down at her chest.

"Don't go there," Yukari warned, "haven't you already lost enough dignity tonight?"

Kurumu suddenly growled, and a tear squeezed from the corner of her eye as she picked up her shirt and put it back on. "Oh, screw you guys! I'm going to go sleep with Tsukune right now!"

"Sure you are," Kana said, rolling her eyes as Kurumu stomped past and swung the shack's door open.

"Kurumu, wait! Don't do anything hasty because you're embarrassed!" Moka shouted, her own face flushed as she beckoned to her rival, "it's okay if you're different! There are vampires who never drink blood, too!"

Kurumu stopped, surprised. "Really, there are?"

"Sure! Even I used to drink tomato juice all the time!" Moka said, smiling pleasantly and gently taking hold of one of Kurumu's hands.

Tobaki had finally finished her snickering, and idly noted that Keito was gone as she wiped a tear from her eyes. "Wow, really? You ARE just as pathetic as she is!"

Moka gave the yochlol an annoyed glare. "Well, of course I drink blood NOW. I mean, we're already in high school! It would be weird If I didn't!"

It took her two seconds to realize what she had just said, which was still one second after an infuriated Kurumu snatched her hand away from the vampiress and then stepped out, slamming the door in her face.

'Smooth lines there, Pinky. Not like it matters. Nine-to-one odds she spends the whole night in his sleeping bag and nothing happens. Seriously, see if you can get Yukari in on this.' Evil Moka mocked.

'Oh, shut up,' Moka thought bitterly.