Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater
(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)
"Uhhhgh, senpai, history is so boring!"
The high-pitched whine of a middle-school girl's voice cut through the library and made the muscle at the corner of Reiko Shinohara's left eye twitch. How many years had it been, she wondered, that she'd sat behind this desk in the Fuuka Academy school library and heard the same words in the same tone every time research paper season rolled around? The pigtailed Arika Yumemiya was merely the latest in a long string of her peers stretching forward and back through time.
Irritating as it was, Miss Shinohara chose to be philosophical about things. She had different standards to worry about.
Shiho Munakata, a/k/a "senpai," also chose to be philosophical about her junior's outburst.
"Complaining isn't going to get your research done. Remember, your job is to get that paper turned in. I think the real lesson they're teaching us is how to buckle down and do what we have to do, no matter how dull and pointless the assignment is."
"Dull?"
Someone else clearly did not have a philosophical take on the situation.
"Pointless?"
Shiho and Arika looked up at the bellowing figure that was marching towards them. Her bright red hair seemed to be bristling with the force of her emotion, and the fires of righteousness burned in her eyes. Midori Sugiura, HiME of Wind, champion of justice, and more relevantly post-graduate archaeology student and part-time substitute teacher at Fuuka Academy, slammed her palm down on the girls' table.
"History boring? How could you possibly think that? History is the greatest story ever told by humanity!"
The girls stared at her in surprise. Shiho had enough experience with her fellow HiME to keep her mouth shut. Arika, though, did not know Midori, was possessed of a stalwart spirit that pressed on with whatever she believed (even if misguided), and was probably so innocent that it never crossed her mind that the redhead was a teacher.
"But it's not interesting at all! It's just names and dates. This guy killed that guy. Next year he was killed by some other guy. Like sixteen different people take over this one castle, so what does it matter what any of them did? And then Tokugawa just comes in and takes over the whole country and none of what the other guys did ends up mattering anyway."
Shiho had a moment of self-reflection, then, the understanding that this was how other people usually felt around her, when she was being the idiot in the room. Yukariko probably would have called it divine grace, and Shiho's grandfather the blessing of enlightenment. Being neither graceful nor enlightened, Shiho just wished the other two women would shut up so she could finish her homework in peace.
As was her usual experience, the universe proved to be generally unsympathetic towards giving Shiho what she wanted.
"I can't believe you're saying that! You're talking about the Sengoku period. The age of chivalry, where the bushido code was tempered by war and heroes rose and fell. Why, without understanding the Warring States, you can't see how the Tokugawa shogunate rose to power or understand its principles, and in turn how that led to Japan's isolationist withdrawal and its subsequent forcible opening, the Meiji restoration, the imperialist years, all the way up to the foundation of our modern life! Why, our very school system can't be explained without—aaurk!"
Midori's yelp of pain came at the hands of Miss Shinohara, who had grabbed her by the ear.
"Miss Sugiura! That will be enough out of you! For the hundredth time, this is a library, and I will not have you bellowing at the top of your lungs like it was a theater stage." She skewered Arika and Shiho with a gimlet-eyed stare. "As for the two of you, take this as a warning. If I'm forced to come over here again, the two of you will be joining this delinquent. If you have something to say, I suggest you write it down."
"Yes, ma'am!"
With that, Miss Shinohara began dragging Midori out of the library.
"I may not have the authority to ban you permanently from these facilities, but I can forbid you from coming back for the rest of the day, and I will do the same for each day in which I hear so much as a peep from you!"
"But…but I'm a teacher here!"
"Ha! Surely you could think of a better line than that. A teacher! Who would hire a seventeen-year-old to teach? You probably only went into archaeology because you think that it is about riding around in a jeep while taking machine-gun fire, trying to save priceless artifacts from being destroyed in regional conflicts. EIther that or you have a crush on the professor."
"Wait, how did you know about Professor Sasaki's Iraq exped—"
The sound of the library doors hissing shut cut off Midori's voice. Miss Shinohara marched back to her desk and resumed her seat. Nothing but the click of computer keys, the rustle of pages turning, and the scratch of pens on paper disturbed the calm silence. Even the two girls had fallen quiet at last, instead passing notes back and forth across the table when they needed to communicate. Occasionally, they directed nervous glances in her direction, prompting a sigh.
I hate always having to play the disciplinarian, she thought. But people need to learn that the library is for everyone's use. It may be inconvenient for one person to keep quiet, but that allows two dozen to use the library in peace!
She was so caught up in her train of thought, however, that she failed to take note of when a slip of scratch paper slid out of the tray at the edge of her desk. A moment later, a pencil was plucked from the pen cup set there for patrons' use. But she did notice when a piece of cellophane tape was taken from the dispenser, even that tiny sound clear in the library silence. A couple of seconds later, a tiny sign rose up past the edge of her desk and into view.
"'Hiss'?" she read aloud. Confused, she leaned over the edge of her desk and down towards where a six-headed hydra was holding up the sign, its fourth head wrapped around the barrel of the pencil.
"Kiyohime, you're allowed to talk if you're legitimately seeking help from the library staff," she explained.
The hydra's first head hissed at her, then glanced towards the door Midori had just been dragged through. Miss Shinohara sighed.
"All right, I can see how that might have been a little scary, but if you were going to the trouble of writing down what you said, then why didn't you just go ahead and write down what you wanted, instead?"
Six pairs of eyes looked at one another, then up at the librarian, then back at each other…and then the silence of the library was distracted once more by six simultaneous headdeskings.
~X X X~
A/N: So, Midori finally found someone who believed her Eternally 17 bit…
In addition, thanks must go out to my wife, Tarma Hartley, for the image of a snake holding up a "Hiss" sign because it wanted to be quiet in the library. This quickly got co-opted for our favorite hydra's use, so I wonder if there's a snake out there somewhere offended that Kiyo-chan stole its line?