Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater
(unfortunately not starring the Himeno family pet)
~X X X~
THE FUUKA ACADEMY TRIBUNE
"All the News that's Fit to Mimeograph"
A Scandalous Relationship!
Nepotism in the Headmistress's Office!
Shocking revelations have recently come to light about the relationship between previous headmistress Mashiro Kazahana and her successor, Fumi Himeno. Readers of this newspaper will recall that Ms. Mashiro was the last survivor of the Kazahana family, who have been associated with the administration of Fuuka Academy since its founding. After the tumultuous events of last year, including the occupation of the school grounds by a paramilitary organization and multiple incidents of wholesale property damage, Ms. Mashiro resigned her post. It came as a great surprise when she was succeeded by Ms. Himeno, previously believed to be the former headmistress's maid and personal attendant.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Himeno's new position was the source of considerable speculation among the students and even faculty. Her qualifications have been the subject of intense debate (see, eg., Miss A.S.'s statement that "advanced degrees in education and business administration are in no way out of the ordinary for the modern maid." in the feature article from the third of last month's edition of this newspaper).
Now, however, new information has come to light about the relationship between the two headmistresses. This reporter observed Miss M.M. publicly assert to Miss M.T. that Mashiro Kazahana was Fumi Himeno's child, making this shocking revelation based on clear personal knowledge. It will be noted that both parties to the conversation are Kazahana Scholarship recipients, among that small, elite group with close connections to the former headmistress through the program.
It will be noted, however, that Ms. Himeno does not appear in the Kazahana family registry, nor has she ever been married, giving rise to even more speculation as to…
~X X X~
Fumi set the student newspaper down on her desk.
"I don't think that I need to read any further, do I?"
The gaze that she fixed upon Mai Tokiha and Mikoto Minagi strongly implied that they would not find hearing more to be a pleasant experience.
"No, ma'am," Mai said.
"I don't understand," Mikoto piped up. That she would not understand was not surprising; she'd been nearly feral when Mai had first met her and simply didn't have the social awareness to comprehend the concept of scandal. Half the time she still didn't know the rules, let alone what the consequences were for breaking them. "Mashiro was your CHILD. Miroku and I fought her!"
For example, reminding one's headmistress of an emotionally painful time that one had caused was the kind of thing that most people would have tried to avoid doing.
"The paper doesn't mean that kind of CHILD, Mikoto. The story is claiming that Mashiro was Ms. Himeno's baby."
"Really?" Mikoto's eyes lit up with kittenish enthusiasm. "I didn't know that! Does this mean that you have a boyfriend?"
"Miss Minagi! The story is not true, which is the problem."
"Oh."
Fumi looked back at Mai.
"Do you have any idea about this?"
Mai thought that it might be nice to be Mikoto once in a while. She doubted her roommate ever worried about having a sense of impending doom.
"We were talking about the HiME Festival at lunch a few days ago. I guess that someone must have overheard us and misunderstood. We certainly didn't tell anyone anything on purpose. Even Mikoto wouldn't do that."
Mikoto nodded.
"Grandpa always said that HiME business is HiME business."
Fumi pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Well, under the circumstances I don't think it would be fair to levy any punishment against the two of you, but this needs to be cleared up swiftly, before things get out of hand and parents and trustees start asking unpleasant questions. With the First District destroyed and Mashiro no longer here, covering up matters concerning the Festival has become a more difficult problem."
Mai nodded. Both girls appreciated the kind of trouble that could come back not only on themselves but on the people that they cared about.
"So what do you want us to do?"
"Just talk to the Newspaper Club and clear up this misunderstanding. Chie Harada is one of your friends, isn't she?"
"Uh-huh. But she doesn't know very much about the Festival."
"According to this article, there's a great deal the Newspaper Club doesn't know about," Fumi noted. "It shouldn't take much to improve that situation."
Mai decided not to argue the point.
~X X X~
"Chie! Hey, Chie!"
Chie was walking with her probably-girlfriend, Aoi Senoh, when Mai and Mikoto found her. She was the kind of girl who constantly got called the "Prince" in girl's-love manga: tall, handsome rather than pretty, with short, dark hair and a rich, husky voice. She was also an inveterate gossip, which explained her Newspaper Club membership.
She and Aoi were also Mai's best friends among the "normal" students of the academy, the group that weren't privy to the secrets of the HiME, so it kind of made Mai sad that Chie's face immediately went into full "uh-oh" mode at the sight of her.
Mind you, it was only "kind of" sad because the remaining emotion was righteous wrath as Chie's expression confirmed her involvement.
"So, um, you saw the paper?"
"Headmistress Fumi saw the paper, Chie. It didn't take a long time for her to guess who 'M.T.' and 'M.M.' were."
"Oh."
"It was bad enough to say something like that; did you have to say it was us who claimed it?"
Chie held up her hands.
"Hey, I didn't write the story. That was the club president's work!"
"I know; I saw the byline. I'd have been really mad if I thought you wrote it. But it was still you who told her what we said, wasn't it?"
Mai figured there had to be some reason for the guilt, and she proved to be dead right.
"This kind of thing is a big story!" Chie protested.
"Except for the part where it's not true!"
"Wait, what?"
"Mashiro was her CHILD, not her baby!" Mikoto said. Both Chie and Aoi looked at her in complete bewilderment.
"Why didn't you come to us first, Chie? I thought we were friends, not someone to gossip about."
"It wasn't my fault."
"Yes, it was," Aoi said, quietly but firmly. She's upset, Mai realized, and only then remembered that Aoi was apprenticing with Fumi in the arcane arts of maidcraft. She'd likely have been annoyed that her mentor had been made part of a big scandal.
Chie sighed.
"Okay, but I didn't mean for anything like this to happen. I wasn't even going to say anything until I had a chance to ask you two about it, but we had our club meeting that afternoon, and the President started going on and on about how we hadn't had any interesting stories this year, and how boring it was especially after all of last year's excitement, and all of that, and I…"
"You couldn't resist being the heroine to provide the big scoop," Aoi concluded.
"I couldn't," Chie said, her ease in saying so probably because it wasn't the first time Aoi had gotten the admission out of her. "But believe me, Mai, I never thought it would happen like this. I thought the President would investigate the story, ask you about it, dig into the background, and come up with a real expose."
"Chie, have you ever actually read the school paper?" Mai drawled.
"It isn't what I'd call journalism," Aoi said.
"It's really good for lining the litterbox, though!" Mikoto tried to say something positive.
"I get it, I get it! I should have known better, and I'm really sorry. I…hope the Headmistress wasn't too mad?"
"She didn't get out her scythe!"
"Stop helping, Mikoto." To Chie, Mai said, "She wasn't really angry at us, because she knew what we meant when we were overheard, but the point is, that story isn't true, and it could make for a lot of trouble with the Academy."
"I told you," Aoi pointed out.
"But Mikoto just said Mashiro was her child not two minutes ago, right here, again," Chie protested. Mai could understand her concern, at least; Chie might have been a lover of gossip and hunting out secret information, but she'd never deliberately pass on lies.
"Not her child, her CHILD. You know, like Kagutsuchi or Miroku. Aoi, you room with Nao Yuuki, so you know what I mean."
"That's right; she calls Julia her CHILD." Aoi scowled. "Though I don't understand why anyone would keep a nasty spider-thing like that as a pet."
"A HiME's CHILD reflects her true nature," Mikoto said, forgetting the ban on helping.
"Okay, now that explains the spider," Aoi concluded. It will be noted that she and Nao were not the best of friends.
"So if you could explain this to your club president and have the paper print a retraction?" Mai urged.
"I'll tell her this afternoon at the club meeting. I'll make sure she agrees to print a special edition with the correction."
~X X X~
THE FUUKA ACADEMY SUN
"Journalism As Yellow As Its Name"
The Truth Revealed!
The Headmistress Scandal Explained!
A previous edition of this paper contained a story which implied that the previous headmistress, Mashiro Kazahana, was the illegitimate child of the present headmistress, Fumi Himeno. We have now discovered that this was reported in error. While it is true that certain people did refer to Ms. Mashiro as Ms. Himeno's "child," this was not in the sense of being her biological daughter. We regret any misunderstandings that may have been caused by this error.
Particularly when the truth of their relationship is far more shocking!
It has come to the attention of this paper that there is a certain group of students and faculty who are the owners of exotic pets: a hydra, an oni, a chimera, and other, similarly unusual creatures, who refer to their animals as "childs," possibly because of these pets' high intellect and rarity.
Understanding that Ms. Himeno is one of this group, it quickly becomes apparent what kind of relationship existed between the two women that Ms. Himeno, while apparently serving as a maid, was in fact keeping Ms. Mashiro as a pet! Discretion forbids us from going into specifics as to what kind of activities this would involve, or the type of "tricks" and "commands" that…
~X X X~
"Do you know, Chie," Aoi said, smiling sweetly in a way that would terrify down to the very bones anyone who knew her even slightly, "I think I can give you some help with your club activities."
"Um…do I want to ask how?"
"I thought I could suggest a headline for next week's edition of the paper. You should definitely tell your club president."
Chie tugged at her collar.
"I'll suggest it to her right away." Stupid, she was not.
"That's good. I hope that she'll take it to heart."
Chie decided that she was very glad that she was only a reporter and didn't have any editorial control over the school paper. Guilt by association was bad enough.
"What is it, then?"
"Police Find No Evidence Implicating Maid Society in Newspaper Club President's Disappearance; As Expected, They're Good at Cleaning Up."
"…Honestly, that sounds a little too truthful for our paper."
~X X X~
A/N: Yes, the name of the newspaper changing is on purpose; the club is still working through ideas. "Yellow journalism" is a term for scandal-mongering, overblown, editorializing reporting, being more concerned with selling papers and whipping up public sentiment than with reporting the truth. Unfortunately, I didn't really have a good candidate for the identity of the club president, Irina and Elliot from the Otome side of the franchise were my closest thoughts but they didn't really fit the "mad gossip-monger" type. And if you don't know what a mimeograph machine is…then dammit, enjoy your youth, you young puppies! ^_-