She staggered into the ruins of the house she'd left so long ago.

It hadn't been mere coincidence that had brought her to Honnouji. When she had first left the city, things had been very different, and Kiryuin Satsuki hadn't begun her reign yet. Ever since, Matoi Ryuko had wandered the country like the underage unsupervised protagonist of a long-running children's show about monsters and lots of appearances by balls, stumbling from one academy into another, always challenging the strongest she could find in her tireless quest for a killer.

She had been to Konoha, thinking it was just natural to look for a murderer in a village of assassins, but it didn't take her too long to figure most of those guys were either too friendly or too incompetent at actual murder to qualify for the target of her wrath. And that she'd have needed to be literally blind in both eyes to not be identify them if they'd been from there, since everyone seemed to think wearing clothes gaudier than a Super Sentai show was good ninja wear.

She had been to Mahora, long after Kiryuin had left so they hadn't met then, but she had almost as quickly learned people there were too nice, and yet too buffoonish, to hide the person who had ruined her life. Also, there she had first known love, that red afternoon she saw that red-haired boy trying to pull that impossible jump, but his weird and creepy short haired stalker had chased her off, convincing her to drop her romantic pursuits and stick to her road of vengeance. Ryuko may have been fearless, but even the widest sky meets a limit in the lines of the horizon.

She had been to Nerima, and she still had her doubts she hadn't run into her father's killer while there, but she preferred to believe she hadn't. Because she couldn't make tails or heads out of that place yet. How the hell did it go from looking like post-apocalyptic urban decay to squeaky clean suburbia in the hour she went to have a bowl of ramen, and back again, practically every day?

She had been to Ohtori, where she had lost her virginity in that sensational speeding car of the irresistible dark-skinned devilish principal (to the car, not the principal. Because the car was that sexy), and left after learning none of the swordsmen there could have slain her father. After all, they stubbornly refused to fight by using anything but fencing, or at most kendo in that green haired jerk's case. She had even found her way into the secret academy of monsters in the woods, where she had spent a few months pretending to be a leech woman, but she had left after learning those freaks would have just sucked her father's blood instead of...

Now, having exhausted all her options short of going abroad to enroll at Ashford or Riverdale, she had returned to Honnouji at last, backpack full of transfer paperwork and year of qualification exam results in hand. And then...

She staggered to the middle of the wrecked living room and sobbed angrily, slamming the sharp tip of her scissor blade into the crusty floor she had once crawled across while in her diapers. "I'm sorry, Father!" she growled, equal parts anger and pain, shaking on her bruised legs. "I failed you!"

She had been so close, too! She was sure that woman, Kiryuin Satsuki, knew about it, if she hadn't been the one to do it herself! The way she had looked at her scissor blade, the cold sneer she had when demanded to explain herself, the sheer power of her moves... she had moved just as swift and precisely as the killer had, that confusing night all those years ago...

"If only I had been stronger! Damn it!" she howled, slamming her weapon down again, her hai billowing daramtically in the cold wind from the open windows. "Why, Father?! What else do I need to do?! She's not that much older! I've fought everywhere, matching the best, learning all I could! What else do I need?! Tell me, Father! TELL ME! Ah, shoo, shoo!" she cried as a bat suddenly flew into the room, fluttering significantly as if trying to get her attention.

And then there was a click where her blade met the floor, and a trap door flew open under her feet, and she plummeted with a high pitched yell of shock.

The bat, finding itself without any angsty teenagers with murdered parents to inspire, seemed to sigh and wondered how it's cousins in Gotham did this. They kept bragging about that guy who cosplayed as them. It flew off, giving it the ultrasonic bat cry equivalent of "I'm in despair! My constant failure has led me to despair!"

Slowly peeking from behind a column covered by wild ivy, a hunched, unassuming man in an ugly brown suit and glasses looked at the trap door as it clicked closed, and after a few moments of thoughtful silence, he smiled. After that, he slicked his hair back, pulled the glasses off, and suddenly seemed to gain five simultaneous levels in Bishounen, his smile showing perfect rows of glinting white teeth.

"Now it's all up to you, Ryuko-kun," he mused aloud. "Don't disappoint me."

It had just started to rain, as if the gray skies overhead wept for Honnouji.

When Matoi Ryuko woke up a few moments later, she was on her back, looking up at the murky tunnel she had fallen through, surrounded by nearly complete darkness and definitely complete filth.

And no, she didn't find herself turned into a cockroach. We're not really fans of Kafka, okay?

(OM's Author Note: Hm, the line above was added in by SCM, but actually, I am-)

She grunted, struggling to sit up while checking she hadn't broken anything. Fortunately, it looked like she had landed on a hill of smelly old rags that had cushioned her fall, but as she realized while standing up, she was far from being okay at the time.

"Shit, it reopened," she grumbled, looking at the large gash in her right arm, which was bleeding and dripping on the funny smelling clothes below. Sighing like someone all too used to being injured in street fights can be, she pulled a few bandages out of her breast pocket and applied them to the wound the bitch had given her until it stopped bleeding. Satisfied, she began walking around, feeling in the darkness for an exit. "Weird. I don't remember anything about a basement. Seriously, old man, what—"

Then a voice, a sinister, mad voice called from the blackness. "More. Give me more!"

Matoi Ryuko turned around, readying her scissor blade. "Okay," she grunted. "I thought we had settled this before I left Youkai Academy! Leave now and I won't have to behead you, bloodsucker!"

"I'm no vampire," the evil voice said. "I just want to suck your blood!"

"You're not helping your case!" Ryuko snapped, looking around to no avail. "Listen now, I'm not in the mood for any—!"

Something jumped out of the pile of rags, and Ryuko swung at it, but she still was groggy and exhausted, and her attacker easily flew over her blade, then landed on her, taking a firm hold of her wrists and slamming her against a wall. A huge demonic eye fell on hers, it's partner scarred out with a huge x-shaped wound, as a wide mouth not unlike that of a laughing werewolf was spread under those eyes, chomping at her chest. The weirdest part of all, however, was those hideous features were on the front surface of—

"A school uniform?!" Ryuko yelled, surprised out of her mind, which was no small feat considering all she'd seen through the last few years. "What the hell!"

"Don't think of leaving me now!" the creature resembling some sort of demented sailor fuku blouse howled vehemently, slobbering all over Ryuko. "Use me, wear me, feed me! Get inside me! Fill me up and rub yourself on my insides! Oh yeah! I want to feel you about to make me burst!"

"Wh-What are you, some sort of pervert?!" Ryuko kicked at it as it madly shredded her shirt, revealing her blue and white striped bra. "Leggo, you idiot! Leggo, I tell you!"

"I won't go back to sleep! Give me your blood! Just a little bit! You'll be okay, I swear! I don't kill women or children!"

In the lower left corner of the screen, a tiny Evangeline appeared for a moment. "... no," she said. "I'm not even bothering to comment. Aren't I on the wrong side of the screen?"

"What the hell, I don't have to listen to a fucking sailor fuku!" Ryuko protested, realizing she was being overwhelmed by this strange creature's strength. "Oh my God, don't tell me you have tentacles! Anything but tentacles!"

"Don't be afraid! Just wear me and you'll have power beyond your wildest dreams! I'm going to make you feel awesome! You'll become a woman if yo let me in! Surrender, become one with me, and I'll show you wonders like you never imagined! Come on, make a contract with me!"

"That's so totally what a rapist pimp would say!" Ryuko said, trying the old trusty knee in the groin, only to verify it indeed didn't work on this thing, just like she had feared. "No, I don't want this, go away...!"

"I'll have you wearing me even if I have to force you...!"


Up at Yggdrasil, Rind's right eyebrow twitched stiffly, while the hand by her hip absently caressed the hilt of her axes. "Okay, this is getting sort of out of hand, isn't it? Even if we're not to interfere in mortal affairs, is there a reason why we need to watch such unsavory trash..?"

Peorth hummed to herself as she recorded the events displayed on her main surveillance screen, making sure to create personal backups in the process. "I thought you liked seeing warriors first donning their battle armor...?"

"'Donning' is not the word I'd use for that!" Rind spat, furiously pointing at the screen, "and even if I did, I'd say it's more like the thing is donning her!"

Peorth sighed. "Honestly, remember when the Vikings were raping country girls in your name?"

"Sh-shut up, I was the first one to withdraw my support, wasn't I? Why don't you go ask Thor, next time he stops by in between guilt trips helping masked marauders?!"

"Guy Thor or Girl Thor? Timelines are so confusing."


"Oh, yes! Yes! I fit perfectly! Hmmmm, just feel that...! I'm all snug and tight on all the right curves...! Ah, I can feel you scrapping my insides! So tight! My body is moving on its own!"

In the upper irght corner of the screen, a little black glob of ominous liquid-like substance with a little white spider symbol on it that resembled Flubber opium-addicted alien cousin waved cheerfully.

"You bastard! You'd better take responsibility for this!"

And then the whole house exploded in a thunderous burst of raw unleashed power...


Shizuru looked out the window, seeing in the distance, where a tall pillar of light seemed to come from outside the walls of the Academy, piercing directly into the storm clouds like a really long phallic thing going into a really yonic thing. "Ara ara?" she mused to herself. "Even rainstorms are different here, it seems..."

"Yes, they are," Kiryuin nodded, while elegantly sipping from her cup of tea. "They are simply awesome."


Unequally Rational and Emotional.

A fanfiction by Over Master and edited by Shadow Crystal Mage.

Lesson Forty Nine: Ghosts of the Present.


Kill La Kill was created and is owned by Studio Trigger.

Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei was created and is owned by Kumeta Koji and Kodansha. Studio Shaft, however, was the cool relative that taught it to live la vida loca.

Fate/Stay Night was created and is owned by Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.


Last time, in Unequally Rational and Emotional:

"Are you my Master?" the gorgeous young-looking blonde in the long blue dress with armor plate on the chest and gauntlets repeated, with a voice that was cold and devoid of feeling.

"Gah...!" Emiya Shirou had blurted out.

"That's a 'Yes', then," the woman had nodded. "Negatives are usually conveyed as 'Geh'..."

Then the wall behind had her exploded into a million splinters, and something had broken in, slamming into the girl like a train at full speed. However, somehow, the young female had managed to block it with an armored gauntlet, then swiftly swing the invisible blade she had been carrying up, slashing through a section of her attacker's decaying ribcage, although missing its center. The figure, which sure enough, had been the self-proclaimed Judge who'd been chasing Shirou, backed away with a nasty, vicious cackle, a gun in each hand.

"Yesssssss!" he had hissed. "It'd been too long ssssssince another hurt me. I've missssssed the pain, the sssssssharp caresssssssss of a bladed edge for ssssssssssso long..."

"Foul creature of darkness," the woman growled, keeping her sword (or at least that was what Shirou thought it was supposed to be; for all it knew it was an invisible giant sex toy to wallop people with, or rather it might have been that way had Shirou known what a sex toy was) ready and easily falling into a protective stand before Shirou. "I can detect your cruel killing intent even easier than I'd see the light of the sun in the middle of the Summer. And it's not even the dutiful urge to slay an enemy in war, is it?"

He had trained his guns on her, although she hadn't even flinched. "That'sssssss right. I'd kill every woman, child, elder and unborn in thisssss world if I had the chance. All are the ssssssame, for there are no innocentssssss. Life isssss a crime, the sssssentence isssssss death!"

And he had opened fire.

You'd think we'd have shown you the awesome battle that ensued, right?

Mea culpa, mea culpa. Please place none of the blame on Shadow Crystal Mage. Real World Things happened. Don't you just hate it when that sort of happenings happen to happen?

Anyway, several things had also happened in that wonderful fictional world ever since that fateful (get it?) first evening, when the woman who had introduced herself as Saber had valiantly fought the Judge for the sake of Shirou's life and chased him off, afterwards staying (get it?!) with him night after night (get it?!) in a perfectly chaste and heartwarming cohabitation. The problem things, those several things had been nowhere enough things as to please Saber, and we don't mean because the cohabitation was perfectly chaste.

Raised a warrior, and brought back to the world to fight in something she had called a Great Holy Grail War (something Shirou remembered his old man mentioning a few times in passing, usually along with the sentences 'I'll explain it all when you're older' and 'Right now, it hurts too much to talk about it' and 'WIFEY! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME AND DIE!'), Saber had been rather eager to take part in a major battle to the death between herself and six other such warriors, but instead, what had followed had been a gray and dull series of repetitive days where nobody would show up howling for her head or Shirou's, and she'd have nothing to do but staying at home watching TV and eating, eating, eating, and Dear God in Heaven, eating some more.

And it wasn't like Shirou didn't appreciate Saber's love for his meals, or for that matter that he, after all, apparently didn't have to get himself involved into a major struggle where dozens if not hundreds of innocents might die in incidents that the local mages would no doubt sweep under the rug as 'gas leaks' or 'CGI' or some such nonsense. But he could tell the quiet uneventfulness of it all was starting to drive Saber slow but surely bonkers, to the point he wouldn't be shocked if she started scouting the streets by night calling out for the Judge.

That was why she'd been so thrilled that evening, just a couple days ago, when she finally sensed someone else approaching the Emiya residence, and she ran out to meet that person, again swinging the invisible sword (once again, Shirou wasn't fully sure it was a sword yet, but he hoped so. She sure wielded it as such) towards the mysterious figure stalking the front yard in the darkness.

Said figure stood defiantly, firm on its feet but also slightly leaning forward like a sleek nocturnal predator, smirking while its icy blue eyes glinted within the confines of a purple mask. In a hand he held a dark purple gun with a fairly thick barrel, slightly upraised. "I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the Extra that comes with the Strange and Fake Apocrypha of the Grand Order! I am... YIIIIIIIIII!" it yelled as Saber's first swing hit it squarely and sent if flying across the yard, crashing against a thorny bush.

"Gahh!" Shirou cried. "My prized roses! Those were hand grown! Saber, what are you doing?!"

She briefly looked back at him. "Isn't it obvious, Shirou? This is an enemy Servant, who at last comes to attack us. I told you to prepare yourself for this moment!"

"Saber!" Shirou pointed at the small figure painfully pulling itself out of the rose bush, cringing as it did so. "What are you saying, for Heaven's sake?! That's no Servant, that's a child in a costume!"

"... what?" Saber blinked.

Shirou nodded, pulling out the flashlight he'd grabbed right before rushing out, and turning it on the small costumed creature, who tried to hide behind its purple cape. "See, that's just a child in a duck costume! Although why the duck would be dressed as The Shadow on top of that is beyond me, but cosplayers are weird. Are you okay, kid? Are you lost? The activity hall is all way across the campus, but if you want, we can take you to your party..."

"What the...?" the child in a duck costume gasped. Then he stomped a webbed foot down. "I'm not a child! I'm a—"

"—- teacher? Oh, please don't tell me you're Negi-sensei!" a frustrated Shirou interrupted, rubbing the bridge of his nose up and down. "I've never understood British humor, is this the English Club's idea of a prank?"

"I'm the terror that— You know what, forget it!" the duck waved his hands up. "I'm Servant Vigilante!"

"See!" a vindicated Saber smiled at Shirou.

Shirou blinked, getting a better, closer look at him. "... but you're a duck."

In the lower right corner of the screen, a similar duck in a cheap suit and tie briefly appeared smoking a cigar and shaking his head. "Is this what I'm reduced to while waiting for Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Fer Chriss' sake!"

Do you want us to mention your other movie?

"Pointless fanfic cameos it is!"

"Shirou, stand back," Saber commanded. "Even if he is a duck, that doesn't mean he is to be understimated. Even a rabbit can be the deadliest of creatures."

"But what if he's an endangered species?" argued Shirou. "He would have to be, wouldn't he? You don't hear about talking ducks every other day, we might get in legal trouble if we kill him! Besides, heroes of justice don't just kill endangered species! That just isn't done, Saber!"

It was the duck's turn to blink. "Heroes of justice?"

Saber ignored him, instead looking further down into the darkness. "You," she coldly said, "step out before you experience the strike of my blade. I'm willing to place a bet you are no endangered species."

There was a sigh as a frustrated young woman stepped out of the shadows, holding her hands up and wearing a long coat over her short skirt and red sweater. "You'd lose that bet," she said, "since actually I'm one of only two remaining Homo Tohsakaus Awesomeus in the world." She smiled somewhat sadly, somewhat apologetically, at Shirou. "Good evening, Emiya-kun. How are you, and why did you trade places with me when I wasn't looking?"

"Tohsaka!" Shirou gasped.

"Do you know this woman, Shirou?" Saber frowned, keeping her invisible sword aimed at her. Vigilante sulked, visibly upset his teenaged Master was apparently seen as more of a threat than himself.

"I mean," Tohsaka Rin continued ranting, making a visible effort to hold herself together, "it was I who should have summoned this magnificent looking Saber, while you, who are nothing but the adopted son with no talent of a Magus Killer, should have summoned the failure gag Class funny animal, don't you agree...?"

"Magnificent?" Saber said, one eyebrow raised. "Keep talking."

"HEY! NO!" Shirou and Vigilante indignantly cried at once.

Rin gave the Saber a pleading look. "Would you make a contract with me and be my Servant, please?"

"Do you know how to cook?" Saber sternly asked.

"Of course! My sister is also a master chef."

"Please do tell me more. I am willing to listen..."

"Hey, now, don't start involving Sakura in this!" Shirou and Vigilante again cried at once. They stared at each other then.

"So..." Emiya asked, "Hero of Justice?"

"Hero For Great Justice," the duck confirmed with a nod, and they shook hands politely.

"See, it works fine from the boys' side as well!" Rin smiled pleasantly, bringing her hands together. "Well then, glad to see I won't have to cut your arm off or anything, Emiya-kun. Hope you're very happy doing Justice things together before we have to cut your Vigilante down..."

"Har-har, nice try, Tohsaka, but no, sorry," Shirou said, frowning and placing an arm around Saber's shoulders as the blonde blinked. He may have been clueless as hell, but not enough as to fall for that kind of trade.

Vigilante threw his hands up in frustration. "What do I have to do to start getting some respect? Dress up in power armor with a lot of spikes while sentencing people to death and shooting at them with bazookas?!"

That had been then. Today, Shirou and Rin would be taking the next, possibly most important step in their young lives. It included visiting a church while accompanied by their best men— or rather, best woman and duck.

Sadly, the honeymoon would have to wait until we get to do the lemon sequel.


Or rather, make that best woman, duck, and little sister, because Sakura had wanted to come along, and Rin had been afraid to leave her all alone at home now that enemy Servants had actually started appearing at last. So naturally, she had left her waiting outside in the open with one of said enemy Servants, from the most deadly of the Classes to boot, with only a Servant of dubious quality to defend her.

In Rin's defense, not only did she not have much else to work with, and Servants were unlikely to attack anyone in the open in broad daylight, but she had a good feeling about Saber. Like she was a person worth her trust. It definitely wasn't because she thought she was hot or anything! Tohsakas were monogamous, after all! She was screwing her sister ad only her sister, so there!

The three of them sat on a bench by the road outside of the Mahora Magdalene Church, waiting idly for Shirou and Rin to be done inside.

"So, Tohsaka-san," Saber finally said, to break the ice, "your sister has told me you're a proficient cook?"

"Mm-hmmm, I suppose," Sakura nodded. "Not as good as Emiya-sempai, of course..."

"I see," Saber noted with a nod, quietly pulling a small notebook out and scratching the 'Join Tohsaka?' question off her list of things to ponder through the War. "And you," she addressed her fellow Servant, "shouldn't be in your spiritual form now? What if pedestrians happened to see you like this?"

"Why aren't you in your Spirit form?" Vigilante asked back.

"I asked first," Saber noted, "but if you must know, I can't access that form. Keep in mind I tell you this only because I know there's no way you could exploit that, but at least I bother wearing a disguise." Then she lightly touched the tip of her baseball cap, which she wore along the rest of her sports ensemble of blue zipped up jacket, tight black shorts, and golden ponytail. "What is your excuse?"

"... that isn't much of a disguise," Vigilante disagreed, "but why I should be disguising myself? Everyone knows I'm a child in a duck costume!"

At that point, two junior high girls passed by before them.

"Wow, look at that! Isn't that Negi-sensei in a duck costume?"

"Yeah, I think it is! I heard his club was doing some kind of weird haunted house stuff for the festival! You know how strange 3-A is!"

"Still, it's kinda cute. Doesn't it remind you of Boo-sensei?"

The two giggled as they moved away. As soon as they were gone, Vigilante slumped forward miserably, hiding his face and beak between his hands. After a moment of doubt, Saber carefully and slowly reached over to softly pat his back with comforting sympathy.

"Actually, I wouldn't be so blue if I were you, Vigilante-san," Sakura tried to cheer him up. "Didn't you know? Around this campus, 'Negi-sensei' is another term for saying 'sexy'!"

"What kind of troubling times do you live in?" Saber gave her an uncharacteristic, really weirded out look.

Sakura sighed, looking aside longingly. "Oh, just wait until you meet Negi-sensei yourself...!"

Saber gave Vigilante a more subtle, concerned stare, and the duck simply shrugged his shoulders.

Then they silently squeezed hands, fellow prisoners in a world not their own gone insane.

"Just to be clear, this doesn't mean I'll hold back should it come time to kill you," Saber said.

"Same here. It's not like we like each other or anything, its meerely because we'rethe only sane people left in this crazy town!"

They both nodded.

"How do you have fingers there, anyway?"

"How does your hair stick up through your hat?"

"Touche."


Inugami Kotaro was not at the church, but all the same he still was facing a higher authority out to judge him for his sins and determine if he'd be fit for damnation or absolution. Except he'd done that already, and Kotaro guessed the decision had been absolution, otherwise they'd have just sent him back to Kyoto in shackles. But phrasing it that way at least gave us a suitably dramatic opening to then ruin with the usual chain of cheap gags.

"I'm sure it'll please you to hear we finally managed to reach your mother earlier today, Inugami-kun," the ancient man with the cucumber head sitting behind the fine desk affably told him, long bony fingers splattered with liver spots crossed together over a stack of papers. "She has agreed to the terms established by the Kanto and Kansai associations, and she also promised she'd head here immediately... which, considering her current place of residence, should take only a couple of days for her."

The dark haired boy only nodded, head slumped, hands in his pockets, legs crossed carelessly. "Yeah, I thought so. Well. I suppose it's for the best, right?"

Konoe Konoemon remained silent for a moment before asking him, "Why do you keep running away from her? She seemed absolutely distraught over your absence. Has she wronged you in any way? If so, please do tell us. You have my word we'll act on it. Our main duty here, after all, is looking after children and their every need."

"Like the egghead?"

"That's different, Negi-kun has way more issues than any sane person can handle. We're out of our depth."

Kotaro ran a hand down his own face. "Nah, it's not that. She's... the best mother I could have asked for. The problem's me, see? I'm not a son who can make her happy."

"Certainly not if you keep abandoning her," Konoemon chided, his tone soft but stern, like that of a grandfather (which he was, but not to him) rather than a Principal or the Director of an Association. Every other leader of an organization Kotaro had ever dealt with before had treated him like crap or, in Eishun's case, at the very least like an upset father would do regarding his daughter's kidnapper. There was none of that in Konoemon's demeanor towards him. If he still held a grudge over Konoka's ransom, he was hiding it remarkably well, and Kotaro could usually sniff out liars through their body language and the inflections of their voices.

"I send her money, every month, no matter what," Kotaro exhaled, folding his arms behind his neck and making a point of staring at the ceiling. "And before you tell me that's not enough, that's still the best I can do for her. Whenever I'm close to her, I only bring her problems. I'll only make her suffer. You wouldn't understand."

"There's no greater suffering a parent can experience than their child's absence," Konoemon disagreed, shaking his head slowly. "Regardless, Inugami-kun, it has been determined your recently performed several heroic deeds for the Kansai Association have merited you a pardon from your criminal charges. As part of your community service, you are to spend a few months of probation in Mahora, under our surveillance."

"And here I thought the Prison School was Honnouji," Kotaro rasped a chuckle that sounded too old and cynical for him. "What, you wouldn't trust me to them?"

"Just between you and me, I wouldn't trust my worst enemy to anyone under the influence of Kiryuin Ragyo," Konoemon replied, the kindly grandfather briefly pulling back and letting Kotaro get a glimpse of chilling disdain that startled the boy into silence. Just as soon, however, the kindly grandfather was there again, as if he'd never left. "You are to report regularly to Professor Akashi, who will be your probation officer. He is one of my best men and I trust you'll cause him no grief at all," he said this with a mostly playful shake of a finger. Mostly.

"Oh, you aren't handing me over to the nerd?" Kotaro cracked a smile.

"No, Negi-kun already has too many other things in his mind by now, and I wouldn't dream of increasing his duties yet," the old man said. "You will meet the Professor himself tonight, since he's currently helping with the sealing of Graf Wilhelm, and that will take all day long. However, there's no reason you can't meet your roommates in the meanwhile, Inugami-kun."

"Oh? You mean I won't be living with that teacher guy?"

"No, generally speaking, our policy runs against students cohabiting with teachers."

"But the nerd—"

"Professor Springfield, which is how you will refer to him now, is a special case because of many reasons I'm not obligated to discuss with you, but students are expected to room with other students. However, our specialists have advised, until you can be returned to your mother's custody full time, you will benefit from having the guidance of suitable maternal replacement figures."

"Ungh, like the nerd?" Kotaro snorted, making a point of defiantly pronounce that last word as markedly as possible. "I don't think so, Gramps! That's just asking for trouble!"

"Trouble for whom, Inugami-kun?" Konoemon asked, his tone barely any less friendly, but his white eyebrows curving in a threatening way not unlike that of an angry old deity. Kotaro couldn't help but pulling back on his chair for the shortest of moments, before the Headmaster simply pressed a button on his desk and gently requested through his speaker, "Shizuna-kun, please tell the girls they can get in now."

"Yes, Sir," the extremely sweet voice of the busty woman Kotaro had met earlier that day said, and then two high school students walked in, one wearing a casual ensemble of loose pants and a long sleeved T-shirt, and the other one wearing a simple white dress with sandals. The former had her hair black, long and loose, and wore glasses; the latter had her hair just as black but made into braids at the sides of her head, and oddly had bandages all over her arms and the exposed parts of her legs, as if she'd been through a sever accident lately. She even had a gauze eyepatch over her right eye, or perhaps where her right eye had been before the accident or whatever else had happened to her. Kotaro, who couldn't help but feeling for any woman's distress, immediately felt himself moved by her calm, melancholic appearance, like that of someone carrying a great burden inside. If only he had known better, the poor sucker.

"Inugami Kotaro-kun," Konoemon said, "meet Fujiyoshi Harumi-kun and Kobushi Abiru-san, from High School Class 3-F. They will be your caretakers for the remainder of the school year."


"The facts of life are simple," Kiryuin Satsuki proclaimed, her voice even and steady to a chilling degree as her own portrait loomed behind her. "The strong survive and thrive, bending the world around them! The weak have three options: adapting to survive around the fringes, growing stronger to join the ranks of their superiors, or perishing! Currently, Honnouji is the strongest of our schools, and these are changing times, with the worst yet to come! The old paradigms just won't cut it anymore! You must face your weakness already and start thinking of which option will you pick for your future!"

Shizuru blinked at the strangeness of this forceful declaration, and it dimly bothered her that Haruka seemed to be absorbing it better than she was. Normally, by this point far less than that would already have set her off, but here she was just considering Kiryuin's words carefully, with a thoughtful scowl and an occasional soft nod of her head.

"There are some truth to what you say," Haruka finally allowed, in a much more mature and restrained tone than Shizuru had been expecting, "but I dissagrionate with your implocit 'survival of the fittest' motto. The duty of the strong, the responsabity that comes with the great power, is to grab the hand of the weak and gently pull them up, rather than roughly pushing them up, then down if they don't answer the way you want them to. As Professoctor X said in his famous telepathical message to the world in the 1980s, 'Those with the greatest power protect those without'."

"Dissagrionate? Implocit? Responsabity? Professoctor? Telepathical?" Sanageyama scratched his head. "Hey, Inumuta, you're the Big Words guy around here. Is that just a weird accent, or what?"

"There is no true strength if your resolve is marred by hesitation!" Kiryuin replied. "The strong weaken themselves by stooping to the level of the unfit, and then everyone loses! Compassion is a self-destroying lie, as in a word forged by the strong, eventually there will be no weak to feel compassion for!"

"I have met," Haruka said, a hand on her ample chest, a furious scowl on her features, "a woman who is the strongest to ever walk under this sun! And while she may speak words much like your own, President, her heart actually agrees with mine! She has taken the weak in her hand and helped them each step of the way up, and it hasn't weakoniated her a bit! If anything, I'd say, it's just made her stronger!"

"Then," Satsuki coldly answered, her eyebrows curving much the same way but with more dramatic weight due to their bigger size, "that woman should have come to speak to me instead!"

"Kiryuin-san, please," Shizuru said, trying to steer the ship back into the kind of course she was more familiar with, "excuse me, but I fail to see the point of this turn in our conversation. We only came to extend a peaceful invitation to our yearly Festival, it's not like…"

Satsuki walked to the large window, folding her arms behind her mighty back, eyes fixed on the storm raging outside. That didn't lessen the intmidation much, since the giant portrait of her face was still glaring at them. "You know nothing, Fujino Shizuru! Konoe Konoemon has raised his children in a precious cage of fancy lies, foolishly thinking he could keep you safe and blind forever! But the time is about to arrive when you must wake up and realize the crossroads you find yourselves at!"

Haruka stood up. "Yes! I've heard that before, too!"

Satsuki looked back at her over her shoulder. "Oh, you have?"

Ignoring the cynical tone of the question, for she was so prone to take words at face value, Haruka nodded. "Perhaps you know more, as I've been told little. But I know there is a storm coming! If you claim being powerful enough as to stear our densities, then share what you know, so I can beiberlieve you."

"I think the word you meant to use was 'steer'," Nonon said, legs absently swinging back and forth, and smirking to herself. "And 'destiny'. And… "

Satsuki smiled harshly at the blonde. "You've stepped past the boundaries Konoe set for you, haven't you? Do you know why he expellsed me from the Academy he claimed as his? Because I wanted to show your masses what lied beyond those safe limits! His kind fool themselves into believing those limits will hold on forever, when they are collapsing under their noses as we speak! Men of steel and mutants of magnetism fill our world, and yet he acts as if nothing has changed!"

Shizuru looked with concern at Haruka. "Haruka-han… If there's something you've been hiding from me this whole time, then I think, as your hierarchic superior, I'm entitled to know about it…"

"Hierarchic?" Sanageyama asked Inumuta.

"Legitimate word," Gamagoori stoically supplied so Inumuta didn't have to unzip his collar again. "It refers to one's position in a hierarchy, or structure of power. 'Hierarchical' is the more modern and widely used wording of it, but both are valid, and Fujino-san comes from an ancient clan, so it makes sense she'd use the more traditional expression."

Sanageyama smiled and nodded, while giving Haruka an amused glance. "Thank you. That's a relief, so it isn't a contagious thing after all."

"I'm not sure the limits I have chronossed are the same limits you intented to mean, Kiryuin-san," Haruka answered. "Since you pushed the topic first, I believe our garcious host should eelaborate on the subject before we do!"

"A stubborn negotiator, I see," Satsuki nodded. "Very well, you do have a point! Sanageyama, escort Fujino-sat out while I explain a few matters!"

"Excuse me?" an offended Fujino said. "Kiryuin-han, I am the ultimate authority in what concerns to the Mahora Student Council. Subjects as grave as those I believe you have been alluding to should be discussed with me personally."

"Woman, I shall be addressing those with a greater knowledge of the truth," Satsuki spoke harshly. "I'm not interested in dealing with those who flaunt an authority based on lies and subterfuge! Sanageyama," she urged. "I won't repeat myself!"

"This is an outrage, my victory in the elections was completely legit! Everyone knows only Kikukawa-han and Haruka-han herself voted her!" Shizuru protested. "No one has had a higher approval rating since Kurokami Medaka's infamous 98% win!"

"She doesn't mean that, Ojou-chan," Sanageyama calmly said, walking over to her and gently grabbing her by an arm. "C'mon, don't make this any harder than it has to be. Satsuki-sama won't take any longer than she absolutely has to."

Shizuru fumed, but, after giving the impassive Haruka a truly toxic glare in a curious role reversal of their usual relationship, followed the young man outside with as much aplomb as ever.

Once the door clicked behind them, Satsuki asked Haruka, "How much has Evangeline told you?"

"Ah?" Haruka blinked, her carefully prepared answers for whatever Kiryuin would tell her now crumbling down as soon as she'd heard that completely unexpected question.

"Do you think we would be foolish enough as to leave any and all members of our opposing Councils without extensive background checkups?" Satsuki asked contemptuously. "Inumuta. The record on Suzushiro-san's current club activities."

There was the sound of a collar being unzipped, and then a droning lecture. "Two months ago, shortly after a class trip to Kyoto during which vast amounts of Kyoto landscape formerly owned by the Fujino family were bought by Mahora Academy, Suzushiro Haruka joined the English Research Society sponsored by Professor Negi Springfield, from Wales. During the very same trip, there were reports of fugitive criminal and international terrorist 'The Joker', real name unknown, causing mass hysteria amongst the populace. There is also mention of a fiance cousin who does not match what records we have of Negi Springfield's only living relative. Further members of said club include Konoe Konoka, granddaughter of Headmaster Konoe, Yukihiro Ayaka, daughter of industrialist Yukihiro Genjuro, Kagurazaka Asuna, for whom no birth records or family data exist anywhere that I have not managed to debunk as a fabrication, and Hasegawa Chisame, aka Net Idol Chiu, the highest-rated non-pornographic freelance idol on the Internet."

He pushed his glasses up and added, "N-not that I'm interested in her or anything. It's simply she appeared in my search of significant personages involved in that incident! Hmph!"

"Nerd boner," Jakuzure snarked.

Haruka turned her bewildered stare back to Satsuki, and only a question could come out her lips. "Are you... mages?"

"Far from it," Kiryuin shook her head. "Mages are the past. Mages are the last vestiges of ages where superstition ruled, the era of obscurantism over development, where ignorance and weakness passed as strength over the true forces of human evolution. Times where humans were supposed to kneel before otherworldly forces instead of taming them. We?"

She then smiled at Haruka, and her smile was a thing even more terrible than her scowl.

"We are the future."

Haruka gasped. "You're mutants?!"

Everyone but Satsuki facefaulted.

"No, we are not!" Gamagoori cried.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Jakzure demanded.

"Wasn't Kiryuin-san quoting Magneto-san? Oh, I'm sorry, you prefer to be called 'metahumans' now, don't you. That was insensidyne of me," Haruka said.

"We are not mutants, woman!" Jakuzure snapped.

Haruka's eyes widened and she slammed one fist down into her opposite hand as if in understanding. "Oh, of course! The posering, the lightinging, the overblown sense of theatericals, the vague gay feeling I'm talking to Sakurazaki-san! You're Mahou Shoujo!"

Everyone but Satsuki facefaulted. Again.

"Do we look like Magical Girls to you?!" Gamagoora, Inumuta and Jakuzure all chorused.

"No one looks like a Mahou Shoujo until you find out, then it becomes obvioustant," Haruka said.

As her underlings protested their non-magical, non-girliness, Satsuki sighed ever so quietly behind her teeth. Her leaving Mahora hadn't completely been because she'd been gently shown the door out. Really, these people were insane!


"Kirei!" Tohsaka said, fearlessly walking into the oddly, kind of eerily silent church. "It's me! I've brought another Master!"

Shirou approached her from behind and whispered close to her ear, "Tohsaka, I've never visited this church before. The priest, what kind of person is he? Should I, uh, have any special precautions around him?"

"Hm?" she raised an eyebrow. "Nah, I don't think you've got anything to worry about. He may be a bit creepy, but I don't think he's that kind of priest, and aren't you a bit too old anyway?"

"I, I don't mean that!" he hissed in frustration, although in truth he wasn't that sure what she'd just meant. He seemed to remember his father once expressing a deep distaste towards that priest, however.

"The priest with the afro, that one you have to watch your ass with," Rin continued. She shrugged. "It's hard to explain, really. I've known Kirei for around ten years, and I still don't have a firm grasp on his character either."

"Ten years?" he blinked. "You mean, like in—"

At that moment, a tall man in a black priest vestments seemed to appear out of nowhere at the end of the chapel, quiet and solemn, his arms folded behind his back. He was nowhere as old as Shirou had been expecting him to be, and as a matter of fact still seemed rather young and strong, with a head full of black hair and wide, straight shoulders more fitting a trained fighter or a construction worker. Despite that, he was not overly muscular, and the eyes on his angular, chiseled face were old and lifeless, slightly greenish like those of a dozing snake.

"Welcome, Rin," this man said with a deep, rich voice, a certainly interesting and commanding one. "I was wondering about your absence. What have you brought me now?"

"Who, not what, Kirei," she said, rather coldly, before making the introductions. "This is Emiya Shirou, and he's just summoned a Servant, but had no idea he should come here. So I've been nicer to you than you've ever been to me, and just made your job a little easier. Emiya-kun, this is Kotomine Kirei, the Church's overseer for the Holy Grail War."

"Emiya?" the man said, looking into Shirou's uncertain eyes. "Now that's a name I hadn't heard of in years. What an intriguing twist of fate."

"You knew my father," Shirou said, faintly but not questioningly, just a statement of a just dawning fact. So Kiritsugu was not talking of mere rumors? Did he and this man have some sort of past relationship?

"Indeed. He was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil," Kirei said. "Before the Dark Side. Before the terrorism."

Shiro blinked. "Really?"

"No, but I always wanted to say that," Kirei said.

Shirou facefaulted.

"Everybody who knows about the world of magic knows about Kiritsugu Emiya, boy," the man impassively said, beckoning for them to come closer. As they did, he gestured with his hands to the effect. "Show me the Command Seals. That is the first thing I must evaluate."

Shirou nodded absently, still studying Kirei's lifeless expression, lifting his hand and showing off its back, and the elaborate designs on it. The priest's face featured no surprise. "I see. The Master of Saber, then? That should be the last Servant to appear. The stage should be set now..."

"Now, wait a second, please," Shirou requested. "Before this goes any further, let me tell you I've no interest in the 'game' Tohsaka described to me. If I came here, it was mostly so I can learn if there's a way out."

"There are many ways to exit a Grail War," Kotomine confirmed stoically. "Why, Wars are designed for contestants to leave as soon as possible. However, I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate most of the likely exits for a Master or a Servant..."

"As you see," Rin noted, "Father Kirei is an excellent man of cloth, but missed his true vocation at stand-up comedy."

Kirei made what could charitably be called a smile, but although it seemed to show no particular malice, it was just as devoid of any warmth or true humor. It looked more like an automatic rictus than anything else. "What have Rin and your Servant shared with you?"

"I know," the boy said, "this is supposed to be an all-out conflict to the death, but I have a hard time seeing the Headmaster, head of the Kanto Association, to let it happen here. Surely you, a man of God, should agree we shouldn't let it come to pass..."

"God sends death just as He sends life, and mankind is ultimately powerless to stop either," Kirei gravelly lectured. "That includes men of Konoe Konoemon's stature. If the Holy Grail chose manifesting itself here after the destruction of Fuyuki, there is nothing any of us can do about it. It will awaken among us sooner than later, one way or another. All we can do is seeing who will get to summon it forth."

"There's always another way," Shirou insisted.

"How can you be so sure of that, when you don't even know what's the nature of the Grail?" Rin asked him, with a hand on her hip.

"Rin is correct, certainty born from ignorance is nothing but a bane upon those who suffer it," Kirei nodded. "The Grail is a force invoked by magi which is far greater than any of us, and none of us can cancel what they created. The Masters and Servants can only fight to dictate their own terms for its revival."

"All the same," Shirou said, "is that really worth it to let other people die for it? Do you think that's actually fair at all?"

"Of course not," Kirei quickly said, "but what I, a mere mortal, think of the fairness of existence is of no importance in this. Listen, Emiya Shirou. The role of a Master is not one that can be shuffled aside because you have no need or desire for it. Although it's unlikely the responsibility would have come upon you had you had no actual desire for it, whether you are aware of that or not."

"What are you trying to say?" Shirou blinked.

Kirei kept his steady, calm lecture on. "Forfeiting in the Grail War pretty much equals forfeiting your life. I won't deny there are ways to abandon the duties imposed upon you, but be warned most of them are likely to have you killed, and others destroyed as well. This is a do-or-die game, and your fellow contestants, extremely rare and foolish exceptions aside, will not give you any second chances. I believe you will only run into a single exception in this particular War."

Rin grumbled. "And this is what I get from playing fair to you, I see."

"Playing fair in a Grail War would seem to be a generally bad idea," Kirei softly reminded her, "although your assistance and adherence to the Church's rules on the subject is duly noted. Keep in mind, however, you're a Magus, and this is one of the areas our respective fields see in quite divergent ways."

Shirou sighed. "Okay, So you're telling me the only thing I can do is keeping on fighting until I get my hands on this Grail thing, right?"

"Indeed," Kotomine said. "That will be your test, and not only for your fighting spirit, but of your ruthlessness. The Grail is able to grant any wish its Master can ask from it. We could say whoever controls it can effectively control and shape the world. In the hands of a fiend, it would destroy us all. In the hands of a saint... who could say what good could it do?"

Of course, that was an elegant way to avoid outright saying the answer would actually be no good wish could be achieved from the Grail anymore, but reaching that conclusion would have been too much for Rin, much less Shirou.

Emiya gulped, his throat now very dry. "I don't think I could bear the weight of that kind of responsibility on my shoulders."

"Then, if you enter the War with that kind of doubt in your heart, you have already lost," Kirei grimly cautioned. Truth be told, his tone was no different at all from before, but the words and the atmosphere made it sound very bleak for Shirou. "Why not to embrace your courage, instead of being chained by your fear?" the priest asked, opening his arms. "A man your age should be thrilled at a chance to fulfill his wildest dreams. What kind of young heart doesn't dream of being a great hero of justice?"

Shirou flinched, and now Kirei did smile in a way that felt more vivid, but also visibly more disturbing, even if only for a quick moment.

Rin frowned. "Kirei," she said. "You're supposed to be neutral. I don't think you should be manipulating Masters by goading them."

Kirei's arms returned to their original position. "It is my first sworn duty to help those in need, and there are those who only can find salvation through helping others. The legendary heroes who qualify to become Servants were that sort of person, and it is just logical someone who would summon them, without a prior drive to do so, would have the same sort of determination."

For all Rin detested Kotomine, she could not deny his uncanny ability to describe people shortly after getting to meet them. She had no adequate way to rebuke his point.

"Only one Hero can hold the reins of destiny," Kirei ranted, "and so all those who cannot meet the challenges demanded from the greatest Hero must perish so—"

"Hold on, don't start putting weird ideas in his mind now," Rin interrupted. "All Servants but one must die through the War, yes, but there's no rule saying all Masters must die as well. Technically, once a Servant is defeated, their Master will pose no threat anymore, so going after them past that point is only a waste of efforts." She smiled at Shirou. "As long as you're skilled enough, you don't have to kill a single human being through this War, Emiya-kun."

He frowned at her. "So you say! Look, I've lived with Saber for weeks now, and she's as human as any of us where it matters! Even if your Servant doesn't look human at all, he still acts like one as well! I can't believe you're so cold, Issei was right!"

"Well, Rin is Rin after all," Kirei commented, as Rin fumed at such lame wordplay on the meaning of her name. It wouldn't even make any sense in the English language narration! "But don't fool yourself, boy. Servants were created to be destroyed, and they are all too aware of that fact. If they were the kind of people to panic at the idea of losing their lives, they would never have become Heroic Spirits to begin with. You don't become a heroic spirit by lying down and getting messily killed without fighting back."

Somewhere, Avenger sneezed.

"That doesn't make it right, for us to use them and throw their lives away!" Shirou protested.

"The life of a Servant is wasted only when it's not used for its intended purpose," Kotomine told him. "Besides, they've already died anyway, and will not last long in this world without the war to sustain them, so it's not like they can go off and retire on some farm if they wanted to. Their days are numbered either way. I'm sure your Servant would berate you if you shared those thoughts with them. Actual human lives, on the other hand, will be lost if you allow a Master with a heart set on evil obtain the Holy Grail. It's up to you deciding which is the greater wrong."

Shirou seethed. "You're acting as if it's okay to pick a wrong just because it's 'not as big' as another one! But that's not how it should be! Wrong is wrong, no matter what!"

"Let me put it this way," Kirei coolly lectured. "Do you know what happened the last time, ten years ago, a fool refused to master the Grail that had manifested itself for him?"

Shirou recoiled instantly.

"The Great War is intended to appear in sixty year intervals," Kotomine said. "During each manifestation, no man or woman has proven worthy of controlling its power, and that has led to conflict time and time again. However, the winner of the last War took it even further than anybody else, and because of that, the city of Fuyuki was destroyed. Is that the fate you would, through your inaction, allow to befall Mahora?"

Shirou felt truly sick, a feeling of crushing chill filling his innards. Brief flashes of all consuming fire came to his mind, making him squirm in almost forgotten— but never truly dispelled— pain.

In other words, he was having a Negi Moment.

Tohsaka looked at him with mild concern. "Um, you okay, Emiya-kun? Look, I know this is a lot to take in, why don't you take a seat, I can bring you some wat—"

He gestured at her with a hand to stop talking, then stared into Kirei's even serpentine eyes, his own ablaze. "I still hate this cruel game of yours, and given the first chance to cut it short, then I'll gladly do so. But I'm not letting anything like that happen again if I can help it!"

"Then rejoice, Emiya Shirou," Kotomine Kirei told him. "Because you have just become a Hero. Now all you have to decide is whether you'll die as a failure of a Hero or live as a success. And possibly be remembered as a villain. I make no promises."

Shirou huffed while stepping back. "Gee, thanks for the seal of approval for my first test, then!"

"Now, now, don't take it that badly," Kirei said, his mood apparently improved considerably. "Should you exhaust your Command Seals and lose your Servant, or should your Servant perish in battle, all you need to do is come here, and my sacred duty will be protecting you, even at the cost of my own life, until the War is over. It's fairly quiet and comfortable here. Everybody praises Cocone-chan's pancakes, even if I find them somewhat... tasteless. But then, my taste buds are different." He paused. "Though I have to warn you about Father Garterbelt. Seriously, watch your ass there."

"He's not joking," Rin told the upset Shirou out of the a corner of her mouth.

"Of course," Kirei cautioned, "I can't guarantee the other Masters will let you live long enough to cross our gates. Your own Servant is also all but guaranteed to murder you should you fail them. Most of them come from times where their concepts of honor and justice, not to mention fair play, do not match ours all that well. And some could just be murderous psychos who like killing people."

"Duly noted," Shirou mumbled, his mood definitely soured from when he had entered.

"So hold on to those Command Seals unless you absolutely need to use of them," the priest warned. "That is the best advice I can give you for now. But, if you have any further questions...?"

"Um, yeah, actually," Shirou doubted, "Where would you have your—"

"That hallway, the second door to the right," Kirei helpfully pointed down another side. "Next to the stature of Saint Mungo."

"Wait, that's a real saint?" Shirou asked.

"Of course. Who do you think stole the secrets of British magic and revealed them to Rome so that we could kill the heretics?" Kirei said.

Shirou stared at him, then quickly headed towards the restroom the House of the Lord had reserved for His sons.

Yep, Rin decided, the bastard really had a scary gift for reading people like books...


"Before this temporary relationship of ours goes any further," Fujiyoshi Harumi said, stopping by her dorm room's door, "you should know we aren't any happier with this than you are, Kotaro-kun. We're not pedophile perverts like 3-A, after all. Well, pedophile perverts and an old-man chaser."

"Somehow I doubt that," the mouthy kid standing between her and Abiru said, his single bag of luggage thrown around his shoulder. "But don't worry, I'll be gone sooner than you expect."

"Don't get me wrong," Harumi said while opening the door and taking her shoes off, "it's not like we hate children, we aren't that Asuna girl, but we aren't exactly thrilled about the idea of being mothers, replacement or not, just yet."

"I'm used to taking care of myself. No sweat," Kotaro said as he gestured for Abiru to walk in next, which she did. "You'll barely notice I'm even—Holy crap, what is this?!"

The living room of the girls' shared quarters was far messier than any other room of girls he'd ever seen, which on the other hand only amounted to Nodoka and Yue's, his mother's, and those in a few mansions he'd had to hide in while performing kidnappings or data theft. He still had the occasional nightmare about the job at the Shiratori Manor, where that creepy woman who still dressed like a pink-obsessed teenager had held him hostage, calling him 'Henriette', putting dresses on him, and forcing him into a whole week of tea parties (an incidentally giving all those cautionary stories his mother had once told him about strangers who might kidnap him a very wacked-out context he kept to this day). But at least her living quarters had been neatly ordered.

This? This was a madwoman's place. Or rather, make that two madwomen. Half of the room had been turned into a disorganized manga studio, with a drawing board, plenty of illustration implements everywhere, and tons of reference material consisting of photographs of handsome young men in several states of undress stuck on walls and furniture alike. The other half, while far more organized in the strict sense of the world, was if anything even more bizarre, as it was aligned with what could be most charitably called the extensive collection of a deranged mind obsessed with animals of the dead kind. On small tables, portraits of large animals showed them alongside Abiru herself, sometimes hugging each other (even in the case of impressively large tigers and bears), sometimes with Abiru in safari gear riding them or posing by their side. Next to those pictures you'd see plenty stuffed and mounted bodies of smaller animals like lizards, chameleons, exotic bull frogs and strange looking field mice and moles, most often with tiny golden plaques under them, stating their given names, species and date of death. Only one of the pictures showed Abiru with another human being, and that was an American looking little girl who sort of looked like a red-haired Loli Elmer Fudd in a dress, both of them making 'V' signs at the camera while standing before several cages holding assorted howling apes, toucans, and miserable looking ducks and dogs.

The most disturbing part of it all, however, was the wide wall where, instead of a collection of mounted animal heads like those many big name hunters, certain kinds of aristocrats, and some kinds of Crazy Rich People that were on the cusp of turning to supervillainy owned, Abiru held a collection of mounted animal tails. Crocodile tails. Tasmanian devil tails. Fluffy bunny rabbit tails. Paradise bird tails. Lion tails. Monkey tails. Even a few tails Kotaro was sure belonged to animals which only existed in the World of Magic, and…

"Is that… Is that a dinosaur tail?!" he gasped, pointing at the biggest tail of them all, which had been placed at the middle of them, and was obviously reptilian and scaly. "And how the heck did you get permission for all this! That's gotta be some kind of structural violation!"

Abiru nodded. "Yes. Father is a field agent for the Japanese division of S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was once assigned to the Savage Land. Best half year of my life…" she dreamily sighed, experiencing fond memories of running after a terrified sabertooth tiger brandishing a knife while the tiger's handsome, macho-blond owner in nothing but a loincloth chased after her in turn, yelling at her to stop. "Father enjoyed the local women in fur bikinis too."

"Uh," Kotaro said.

"As you can see, Harumi's hobby is drawing manga," Abiru explained, "but mine is looking after animals. And mostly, looking after animal tails. Ah, tails, I love them so much," she mused, reaching over to caress the tail of a Mississipi snapping turtle. "Short or long alike, tails are wonderful. I'd love having a tail so much! There's nothing I wouldn't do for a little tail!"

"Y-Yeah, I suppose that'd be advantageous," Kotaro shuddered, feeling the tail he was keeping retracted right above his anus shrinking in place. No wonder the cagey old man had assigned him there. After all of Egghead's blunders, no doubt he wanted Kotaro to be in a place where, no matter what, he couldn't reveal his true nature. "So, um, anyway," he gulped, looking at the other side of the room, "why don't those guys have clothes on?"

"I'd love to answer that, but I've been forbidden by the faculty to discuss this matter with children," Harumi informed. "Which makes it all the more puzzling why they'd send you here…"

"I mean, I can understand the basics of having references for drawing people," Kotaro hummed as he approached one batch of pictures, "I'm not dumb, I know it's easier to sketch the naked figure first and then add the clothes on them, and you have to worry about the anatomy and all that, but why are all of these men, and why do those two look like they're—"

Harumi gently stepped in and slapped his hand away before he could flip through a stack of images. "Kotaro-kun," she said, "those are Oneechan's No-No pictures, got that? If you're going to live with Oneechan, then you'll have to leave those alone so your mother won't sue Oneechan, and it's not like you're really be interested in them anyway."

"Wow, Harumi-chan," Abiru said. "I'm impressed. That's some commendable show of restraint."

"Who do you think I am, Paru?" Harumi shot back.

Kotaro blinked. "Why that much fuss over some dumb pictures? It's not like I haven't seen naked men before, I enjoy public baths a lot!" He craned his neck, trying to get a better view of some of Harumi's sketches. "Wow, you draw wrestling manga! That's great, I love wrestling! The real kind, that is, not the fakes…"

"Th-That isn't wrestling!" the mangaka yelped, slamming an 'H-Manga for Dummies' tome on top of the revealing sketches. "Don't ask what it is, but it isn't wrestling!"

"You sure? Because it sure looked like they were grappling…"

"Wh-What if I show you another of my hobbies instead?" Harumi stammered nervously, reaching around to pull out a collection of false animal ears, most of them nekomimi attached to headbands. "Look, these are nice accessories for people of all ages!"

"Isn't that silly cosplay stuff?" Kotaro grimaced.

"There's nothing silly about animal ears!" Harumi chided. "They are the ultimate in charm accessories for women, men and children!"

"Tails are better, but ears aren't bad either," Abiru said.

"And they complement each other!" Harumi enthused. "There's nothing cuter than seeing someone wearing matching animal ears and tail! Hmmm… your name is Inugami-kun, isn't it?"

Kotaro recoiled instinctively. "W-Wait, what are you trying to say—"

Harumi and Abiru looked at each other, smiled, shared a nod, and then each held a set of false dog ears and a false dog's tail respectively.

"AUUUUGHHHH! No, no, take your hands off there! I don't wanna! Bad touch, bad touch!"

"Oh, Kotaro-kun! You're a natural!"

"Yes, it's like you were meant to wear these!"

"See! This is why I hate dames!"

Cheeky old bastard, he thought, I know I kidnapped your granddaughter, but this is going way too far!

All in all, he was kind of missing Shiratori Azusa already.


Mundus Magicus:

"I've always liked animals," Ascot reminisced fondly, with a faraway intonation to his words. "Ever since I was a toddler, after my birth village was ravaged during one of the pointless wars humans wage on each other, I've looked after animals, and animals have looked after me."

He ran a hand through the fur on Gilda's side, making her purr while the Fairy Tail members were covered by thousands and thousands of bugs and critters breaking through the ground and leaping on them, swarming all over their bodies, biting and chomping and clawing savagely. At the same time assorted birds and tiny reptilian beasts with leathery wings pecked and slashed on them from above. Too small for Erza's sword slashes to connect on most of them, and while Natsu and Gray's wider area attacks were proving more effective, proximity to each other as the animals kept pushing them closer lessened the effects of their respective magic. Natsu's fire died down quickly in contact with Gray's cold, and Gray's ice quickly melted being so close to his partner's flames.

"You're ruining it all, moron! Move away!"

"Moving away? Why should I?! This is my battlefield! Scram, scram!"

"I don't remember you ever putting a property sign on this place!"

"Guys, stop it already!" Lucy yelled as her hair was being pulled back by two crows she quickly whipped out of the air with her trusty nine tails. She cringed before kicking away a few naked mole rats erupting from the ground to bite on her toes. She was faring better than the boys, however, as Virgo kept on efficiently driving attackers back from her, no motion wasted, a look of fierce silent resolve on the maid-themed Spirit's face. "Erza-san! Let's take the fight to the Beastmaster already, okay?!"

"On it!" the armored redhead nodded, leaping over the through dozens of frantic wildlife species rushing on her, cutting a bloody swat through them before Ascot, scowling at her, made a motion of swatting a hand through the air. And from a portal that suddenly appeared between them, a gigantic roaring minotaur with a conveniently pixelated lower area flung himself at Erza, his black mace and Scarlet's sword colliding with a thunderous boom. "Damn it!"

Lucy's eyes popped at the sight of the impressive length of blurry pixels between the minotaur's legs. "What the—! I'm glad this is just an 'M' fic!"

Natsu briefly paused to cringe, and then briefly squeeze on his own crotch. "That… That isn't that much bigger than mine, anyway…"

Gray chuckled as he blasted a pack of wild dogs away with hammer-shaped ice projectiles, his own censored area hanging loose. "Heh. Next you'll be saying you're just cold, and that that's my fault too…"

"Look who's talking, your pixels aren't exactly that impressive!" protested Natsu, pointing down at Gray's censored area. "And you're butt naked again, dumbass!"

"I couldn't help it, these stupid animals have destroyed my clothes, you lunkhead!"

"I've been fighting the same animals and I've only got a few rips on mine!" Natsu pointed out. Standing shortly behind him, Happy chuckled, winked at the audience, and pointed at the back of Natsu's pants, where a large hole had been opened, showing his butt.

Ascot grimaced at them all, then sighed and continued narrating for the Magic Knights, who had been pushed into a close circle, all sorts of squirrels, bunnies, armadillos, an aardvark on two legs who kept crossing swords with Nanami while wondering aloud "What's Cerebus doing here?", bobcats, really huge-ass spiders, flying hot spring turtles, Liddo-kuns, fast-footed kiwis who kept in flashing back and forth over the Knights pecking and kicking them, and lizards with spotted backs and very long necks, pressing on their attacks on them.

"Wherever we went, however, my friends and I would be bothered and hunted by the dumb, dumb, evil people!" the little boy said, growing agitated and gesturing towards the struggling members of the Guild. "Just look at them! They're doing it even now! They won't care if my friends get hurt as long as they get paid!"

"And if you cared, you'd call them back already!" Hikaru pointed out, unable to do more than pushing animals back with small bursts of fire without burning her friends as well. "They're hurting them only because you keep siccing them on them!"

"I know," Ascot said with a bitter hiss, his hand stopping petting Gilda, "and I hate myself for that. But they'll keep getting hurt unless I kill you now, and I stop your threat to Zagato's plans. In the perfect world Zagato will help bring forth, all my friends will live happily forever. All of them…"

"What, what are you saying?!" Yukino asked, swinging her heavy shield as best as she could to keep the animals coverging on her at bay, which was mostly working as she had less bite and claw marks on her than Nanami, Tsuwabuki or Hikaru. "Zagato's just a kidnapper out for power out to usurp the Princess' throne! What lies has he told you?!"

Ascot paused, his eyes briefly visible as they blinked under his heavy bangs. "An usurper…? Is that… what you've been told…?"

He broke into laughter. "What a bunch of stupid ol' poopie-heads! What a laugh! Are you so blind, you can't see all those old adults out there will manipulate you into—"

"Zagato's an adult too, you little fool!" Erza growled while quickly driving the minotaur further and further back with a barrage of lightning speed swordsplay, making the ancient beast roar in confused frustration, but not enough to defeat him just yet.

"Ah, but he's an adult with a dream, and as long as man has a dream, there's still a bit of a child in him," Ascot said, wagging a finger in mock playfulness. "And there are no bigger dreams than those brought by the Entelecheia."

"Cosmo Entelechia?!" Erza briefly stiffened, although not enough to render the next mace slam from the minotaur useful; on sheer combat instinct, she skillfully parried it, even through the shock of hearing that name again, and retaliated by stabbing on a flank of the howling man-beast.

Ascot bristled at that sight, but managed to recompose himself, for his mightily endowed warrior kept on fighting regardless. "Are you that much older than you seem, Grandma? I thought adults had made their best to make children ignore that name, and to forget it themselves." He cocked his head aside to the Magic Knights, which were literally back on back now, with no further room to maneuver. "Don't worry, I'll tell you all about them. As soon as your friends are dead and you're about to follow, of course, since it's just stupid starting the explanations while there's still—"

It was then that, with no further warning, a gigantic carrot was thrown on his face, sending him flying in circles several feet back before landing on his face in the dirt.


"Anyway," Haruka said, clenching a confident smirk while reaching into her side pocket, her fingertips grasping the edges of her Pactio Card, "now what? Are you officially decallrating war on Mahora? That insanity would be quickly answered by our school. Because no-one tops us at insanity!"

"I've heard," Inumuta smoothly commented while navigating the web.

"War is to be declared in a proper grandeur," Satsuki told Haruka, her eyes fixed on hers, "and you hardly are the sole audience we are aiming for. Don't think so highly of yourself! I only want you to deliver this message to Evangeline, that we will meet again at your Festival!"

"And that's where you want to proanounce yourself," Haruka guessed.

Satsuki smiled. "You'd hardly find a wider venue for such a declaration, would you?"

"Sorry," Haruka said, "but my duties to Mahora would never allow me to keep this quiet until then. Headmaster Konoe, too, will know about this."

Satsuki shrugged as if nothing. "Let him know! In the great scheme of things, his time's already passed, and he means nothing! He knows we are coming anyway! Do you think your presence here is a test for us? It is, no doubt, a test of character for you!"

Haruka boggled slightly for a moment, before hissing low, her Card starting to peek out, "Just because your Principal happens to be a pushingover joke, don't assume Konoe Konoemon is one as well. He's far more than you Reddit him for." "I think this one's yours, Doggy-boy?" Jakuzure smiled at Inumuta.

He wagged a finger briefly. "I pass. Too easy."

"That's your problem, Suzushiro Haruka," Kiryuin told the Mahora representative. "You have the raw ambition, skill and power needed to seize power and stand with the truly strong! We have followed your career. Despite being disliked by your peers, you still rose to a position of great authority! You keep the sinking ship of fools that is the Mahora student body barely afloat practically on your own! Despite the loss of your right hand woman! And you haven't cracked before Dark Evangel yet. I can respect that, which is why you still stand. HOWEVER!"

"However what?" Haruka asked after a silence.

"That," Satsuki informed her, "was a dramatic pause! However! You waste our own resources, your own inner strength, by blindly trusting those who deem themselves your superiors! You lower yourself by respecting Fujino's leadership when you think yours is clearly better!"

"That was the will of the voters!" Haruka argued. "Even if I don't agree, I'm still obligationated to respectate it!"

"The will of foolish masses is nothing but folly to mend, self-destroying imprudence to correct by any necessary means!" Satsuki argued back, balling up a fist. "Keep that well in mind! And also, when you return to Mahora, and report to the people you grovel to, you'd do better to ask them how that's turned out for those who came before you! Ask Evangeline whatever happened to Kitami Reika!"

Haruka blinked. "... who?"

Nonon arched an eyebrow, quietly sipping from the tea cup she had just refilled for herself.

"Just ask her that, and see if she's woman enough to answer with the truth, blind puppet!" Satsuki growled, returning her attentions to the storm raging outside. Squinting, she seemed to stare into a small burning point in the distance, and added abruptly, "This discussion is over! Nonon!"

"Haiiiiiii, Satsuki-chan?" Nonon asked, having finished her tea and nibbling on a tiny heart shaped sugary snack.

"Fujino and Suzushiro will no doubt be tired after the trip. Show them the baths. Gamagoori! You will come with me. It seems there's an insect who hasn't learned her lesson just yet!"

"... only a moment, please," Haruka said after a moment of furious scowling, tempered by breathing deeper, thinking of Yukino, and remembering a few things she'd been forced to learn of late. She pulled her cellphone, and not her Card, out, and dialed an impossibly long sequence of numbers, to which Inumuta, Gamagoori and Jakuzure reacted with visible interest, but to which Satsuki only scoffed, already moving towards the door with a dutiful Gamagoori following, even if he still tried his best to listen on his way out. "Hello? Albert-san? It's me. Yes, I'm still there. No, I'm okay. I think you should learn of this. The tygrant of this place knows about Eva-san. Yes, of course, why wouldn't she? They probably went to Evil Hoverlady School together!"

Right before stepping out, one of Satsuki's prominent eyebrows twitched violently. "... I'm not that old!" she protested before leaving without a single word more.

"And they're all mutants! Or possibly Magical Girls!"

"We're not mutants or Magical Girls!" Inumuta, Gamagoori and Jakuzure all cried.


"Once upon a time," President Kiryuu narrated with an air of great solemnity, fragrant cup of tea elegantly gripped in a hand of slender fingers, "years and years ago, there was a little princess, and she was very sad, for her mother and father had died. Before the princess appeared a traveling prince, riding upon a white horse. He had a regal bearing and a kind smile. The prince wrapped the princess in a rose scented embrace and gently wiped the tears from her eyes."

The members of the Ohtori Student Council listened reverently while, sitting at the other side of the crystal table, Setsuna, Asuna and Konoka simply exchanged discreet perplexed glances and mutters of "Suspicious pervy behavior!", and Ayame-san stood behind them, arms respectfully folded behind her back. Whatever she was thinking about the whole situation was impossible to say, due to the neutrality of her expression, but probably had something to do with dick jokes.

"'Little one' he said," President Kiryuu continued, "'who bears up alone in such deep sorrow, never lose that strength or nobility, even when you grow up. I give you this to remember this day. We will meet again. This ring will lead you to me, one day.'"

"And then he left," Asuna whispered into Konoka's ear, "just like a man, right?"

Konoka simply nodded in silence while Setsuna hissed and pinched Asuna's arm.

"Perhaps the ring the prince gave her was an engagement ring," the handsome red haired young man said, looking directly at the Mahora trio with an air of the most extreme seriousness. "This was all well and good, but so impressed was she by him, that the princess vowed to become a prince herself one day. But would that really be such a good idea?"

He lowered his cup, and finished, "And that is the legend of our Academy."

"... okay," Asuna said. "Um, it's a beautiful legend. Very... beautiful."

"I don't get it, was that princess your founder?" Konoka candidly asked while Setsuna stifled a mortified sound. "Or was that the prince? Or were the princess' parents the founders? I'm sorry, I find fairy tales to be lovely, but sometimes I get lost in the symbolism..."

As Setsuna made her best not to facepalm in shame, the skinny and delicate boy with short blue hair who sat by Kiryuu Touga's left answered with a soft, just as fragile voice while writing each statement down on a thick book of richly textured green covers, also making sure to take the exact time of each sentence, his own included, with the golden watch he kept on his left hand. "We, the members of the Ohtori Student Council, are the direct heirs of the Rose Prince's legacy. As such, we wear rings just like his," he explained, briefly showing the golden ring on his right hand, "and duel amongst ourselves for the true Prince amongst us, who will marry the Rose Bride."

"You mean the Princess," Asuna said. "And which prince are we talking about here, the prince on the horse or the princess who became a prince?"

The gorgeous young lady with orange curls who seemed to be oddly fascinated with Setsuna shook her head while still looking at the clearly uncomfortable Sakurazaki. "No. The Rose Bride is the fated spouse of that who will take the role of the Princess turned Prince, transfigured by the power that will revolutionize the world."

"Okay, that explains everything, thank you," Asuna nodded rapidly, her eyes very tiny.

The green haired boy who was almost as bishie as the President and sat by his right chuckled, his chin resting on the back of a perfectly manicured hand. Asuna couldn't help being reminded of that Jadeite guy with a wig on, and wondered if that wasn't him revived. Magical Girl villains tended to do that in anime. Although his face was far more angular, so that probably wasn't it. In anime, the bad guys' disguises were invariably pathetically obvious. "Not that it helps us at all, currently. We have lost our Rose Bride, taken away by the latest candidate to the role of the perfect Prince, through subterfuge, and then shanghaied away to your academy."

"In other words," the smallest of the three boys helpfully offered, "they escaped together."

"It wasn't an escape!" the green haired Vice President howled, losing all composure all of a sudden, slamming his hand down on the table. "It was kidnapping! Kidnapping! I knew we never should have allowed that big-breasted cow in!"

"..." Setsuna, Asuna and Konoka said, their heads growing sweatdrops.

"It was your own fault, Saionji," President Kiryuu said, "for treating the Rose Bride as your personal belonging. Had you been more mindful of her status, Tokiha Mai wouldn't have been lured in to try and foolishly steal her away from her duties."

"Tokiha Mai?" Konoka hummed, a finger on her lips. "I don't think I recognize that name... Are you saying she transferred to our school...?"

"She took refuge amongst us with someth— someone who was rightfully ours!" Vice President Saionji cried melodramatically, standing up violently and gesturing over the table like a veritable ham. "She interrupted our marital bliss and lured her away with false promises of happiness amongst deviancy!"

"... deviancy...?" the orange haired girl the Mahora delegates had been introduced to as Arisugawa Juri asked, with a hint of a dangerous edge to her voice, before looking again at Setsuna, this time less like a predatory hawk and more with the air of someone asking 'Can you believe this guy?!' to a peer. After a moment, Setsuna had to nod her agreement, and as one they and Konoka stared hostilely at Saionji Kyouichi.

Asuna added a few more sweatdrops to her head.

Kyouchi cringed, backing away. "Why, why are you looking at me that way, Representative of Mahora? If anything!" he grew more courageous, directly addressing Konoka and Konoka alone, "Your academy owes us a great debt of honor! If you aren't returning our Rose Bride, at least you should give us an equivalent one!"

Konoka blinked. "An equivalent prize, you mean? Well, I suppose I can ask Grandpa to pay you some measure of compensation... We can commission a nice statue or fountain for your lovely floating platform, and I'm sure we even could throw in—"

"Material goods cannot come anywhere close to the worth of my, I mean, our Bride!" Saionji bellowed while Miki and Juri shared oh-so-very-jaded glances. "We wish for a replacement Rose Bride!"

"Wh-What?!" Now Setsuna grew more agitated. "Vice President, please mind your manners! You cannot ask us to hand you any of our students, as if they were stock to be traded! Why, we'd never—!"

"We always could give them a 3-F student or two!" Asuna intervened. "I know Despair-sensei wouldn't mind!"

"Not helping, Asuna-san!" Setsuna told her.

"What kind of student would this Rose Bride have to be?" Konoka asked.

"W-Well," Saionji rasped, blushing slightly, "to be equal to Himemiya Anthy's worth, she'd have to be a very special sort of woman. She'd have to be a woman of incredible beauty and elegance, yet with strange, whimsical quirks only adding to her charm rather than spoiling it."

"She'd have to come from a prestigious lineage, related to one of the families that built and to this day still maintain the Four Main Schools," Juri added.

"There would need to be an incredible allure around her," Kaoru Miki expanded, "born from a perfect combination between approachability and distance. She'd have to be the sort of woman who will never reject your company, a perfect homemaker and wife with no delusions of grandeur; and yet she'd also need to have an unmistakable aura of unapproachable greatness about her, the kind of female you know you will never be good enough as to merit unless your feats surpass the impossible, and you become a Prince amongst Princes..."

Then the three of them sighed lovingly at once, leaning closer to each other.

"In other words," Kiryuu summed up, far more stoically, "she'd have to be unique. I dare saying each Academy only has one like her, at most."

By this point several arrows of all colors were hanging over Konoka, blinking out and in, and all pointing stubbornly at her while she just blinked repeatedly.

"Hmmmmm..." Asuna gulped.

Setsuna leapt from her chair, hugged Konoka fiercely, and pulled her against herself while baring her teeth at the Student Council, viciously hissing at them, "MINE...!"

Juri gave them a thumbs up.

Konoka cooed delightfully. "Oh, Setchan...! Had I known this, we'd have visited Ohtori long, long ago...!"


The rainstorm that had been hitting Honnouji had eventually extended itself across the whole area of the Four Schools, gigantic black clouds spreading southward. By the time Negi's Ala Alba left Evangeline's cabin after another subjective day and objective hour of stay there, Chachamaru had to distribute spare umbrellas among them again.

And once again, Eva had complained, grunting about why they couldn't start bringing their own umbrellas already, and harshly reminding them she wanted them back— the umbrellas, not necessarily the teammates—tomorrow in as good a shape as she'd handed them over. If not better. But that was behind them now, as were Eva's cabin itself and its inhabitants, as they were about to reach the female dormitories.

Rito and Lala were still with them since their house was further down the campus, and so other than the members who were currently out of town, it was a full membership of Ala Alba who ran across of—

"Emiya-san?"

The boy was not one Negi was familiar with, but he'd made a point of learning the names and faces of as many students all across the schools as he could, and he'd remember this one well because of his last name, and what it meant for the whole magical community. Recent experiences had only reinforced that importance. Kuro-san had not been restrained in bragging about how awesome her brother was.

"Negi-sensei?" the taller, older redhead asked back, squinting at him and his companions through the heavy curtain of constantly falling icy water. Since he had no umbrella on him at the time, he'd resorted to shielding himself under a newspaper he was holding over his head, but that newspaper was by now reduced to a sopping, limp mess of paper slowly breaking apart between his fingers. "What are you doing out here under this rain?"

He was not alone, Negi realized, for other than Tohsaka Rin-san, who hung close to him (her Servant currently invisible and herself well protected by an umbrella of her own, since she had lived in London until recently and had formed the habit of carrying her own umbrella due to that countries habit of trying to have spring summer, fall and winter all happen on the same day) there was another female standing closely behind the young man. One mostly wrapped in a concealing, gray long overcoat, with a blue baseball hat obscuring most of her features. For some reason, alock of hair was sticking through it. Somehow. The rain did not seem to be bothering her at all, as she just stood there making no effort to protect herself from it.

Truth be told, so much of her was hidden from sight Negi himself, months ago, wouldn't have been able to tell at first if that person happened to be male or female. But close constant contact with large numbers of females had sharpened such perceptions of his more than he'd care to admit or even acknowledge.

Rito, who was also far more familiar with details of feminine anatomy of late through repeated close exposure, knew it immediately as well, and so took a cautious step back, wanting to lessen the chances of slipping on a puddle and landing on that stranger or that famous Sempai with the twintails as much as he could.

The woman with the delicate, beautiful half-obscured features kept on looking sharply, emotionlessly at them with her piercing green eyes while Emiya Shirou answered apologetically. She seemed to be analyzing each one of them in much the same way Setsuna would do to incoming large groups of strangers while walking down the street. "Oh, yeah, that, this must look kinda strange for you, right? Sorry, um, w... came from the church just now."

"The church, right," Misa chuckled secretively, leaning closer to Madoka and Sakurako. "Like that excuse ever works."

"The church?" Negi blinked. "You mean—"

Misora, meanwhile, frowned at the trio of older teens. She was vaguely familiar with Tohsaka, she'd often visit Father Kirei and they'd have lots of secret reunions just the two of them, but that only made her dislike that Sempai. If her suspicions were right, she was sleeping on the side with Father Kirei, who was supposed to be her tutor or something like that, and seriously, who could ever trust anybody with taste that bad? She wondered if Tohsaka knew about Father Kirei's blond boytoy who came over a lot and practically lived in the basement with him.

"The Mary Magdalene, yeah," Emiya admitted to the boy everyone in campus knew. He was supposed to be a genius, so in turn Shirou supposed it was no shock he not only would recognize him as well but would know he was no Catholic, judging from his confused tone. "It's a long story, but ... oh, oh, my manners!" He seemed all too happy to change the subject while gesturing toward the silent woman. "I think you already know Tohsaka," this was confirmed by a dry nod from both Rin and Negi, "and this is, well, a friend of mine, a new friend—"

Then he seemed to get stuck again, as if at a loss to announce his alleged friend's name.

"Saber," she said, flat and calculated, studying Negi's presence carefully. "You may call me Saber. Pleased to meet you, Professor. I have heard of you."

Tohsaka had been, after all, generous enough to even give her a quick crash course on the local notables.

Then it struck Negi, and from the faint muted gasps behind him, he guessed Ayaka, Chisame and Haruna, at least, had made the connection as well. Saber. That name. Now he knew why she'd seemed vaguely familiar to him. The memories of Kuro-san's exposition during the trip to Kyoto came back to him, triggering all sorts of alarm signs. Kuro-san had said Emiya-san was her sibling back in her own world. And then, nights after that, Illyasviel von Einzbern herself had introduced herself to Negi, and said—

"Negi-sensei, are you okay?" Emiya-san asked him, now sounding even more worried, and Negi cursed himself inwardly. Control, he urged himself. Now more than ever, you need control. This must be what Kuro-san was preparing you for. Rise to the challenge, then. Don't let it show. Your fear. Your—

He nodded mechanically. "Y-Yes. Sorry, Emiya-san. I just happened to have... a slight spell of sorts. I mean, I, I had a lot of physical exercise today, and I was a bit dizzy, but that's all right, we'll just head back home and—"

Then there was a slight, soft giggle he knew all too well, despite hearing it only once before. But it had left a lasting mark on his memory, and so Negi clenched his teeth, while Saber-san grew alert, her hand as if gesturing for something at her side. Emiya-san also looked in the direction the tiny, cute giggle had come from, down the deserted street, into the growing shadows of the stormy day.

Then the ground beneath their feet seemed to shake ever so lightly, once, then twice, as a gigantic lurching shape appeared in the distance slowly heading towards them, became visible, with a much smaller figure sitting atop it. Negi's blood froze in his veins. Misa frowned and then squinted as much as possible, since the smaller shape seemed oddly familiar to her for some reason.

"Shirou. Behind me," Saber-san curtly said, but Emiya was as paralyzed as Negi was at the time, although from perplexity rather than dread.

"I had been waiting for this moment, and it was about time!" the tiny, pale person sitting atop the muscular, shirtless giant with grayish skin and red eyes that almost seemed to glow said, loud and clear. Neither of them seemed upset in the slightest by the intense rain either. "For my two brothers to be together, so I could introduce myself properly! Good afternoon, Shirou-kun and Negi-kun!"

She tilted ahead just a bit, perfect, tiny white teeth glinting or at least giving the illusion of it, her diminutive hands wrangled into the thick, messy black locks of her ride's long hair. Violet eyes feasting on the sights before her. Anticipating what there was to come.

"Your big sister's here," she said. "Your Illya-chan!"

"Ah!" Misa cried, pointing and rushing back in shocked recognition. "White Kuro!"

Rito blinked. "White Black?" he dubiously repeated. And Rin groaned to herself. Another lame Japanese wordplay gag that wouldn't work half as well in English anyway!

The man was truly gigantic, a mass of grotesque muscle wielding a massive slab of rock that was to the sword what the rock is to the bullet. It was easily twice as big as Illya herself. Chisame guessed that had to be her Servant, although he did not look at all like the Dark Knight Kuro had spoken about while mentioning her 'sister's' Servant. Still, he definitely gave a matching sense of threat and undiluted power, and even the often stupidly brave Negi could not blame Emiya-san for freezing in place where he stood, one of his hands tightly wrapped around one of Saber's wrists.

While Tohsaka cursed under her breath and swiftly shook some gems out of her sleeves, expertly rolling them between her fingers, the blond woman simply stood defiantly in an expert stance and as if holding some manner of invisible or imaginary weapon between her hands. With a mere shrug, she had allowed the long coat drop off herself, momentarily revealing to be a pair of skimpy shorts, a nigh-microscopic top, very high stockings and some shoes before there was a blaze of light, and when she was visible again she wore a long regal blue dress with armored plates all over it, plus heavy, thick gloves of matching armor.

Chisame was instantly jealous at how modest and lacking in nudity her transformation sequence was.

It hardly looked like the most comfortable outfit to fight in, Negi dimly thought before his full attention returned to Illyasviel, who had shifted around so she sat cross legged on a shoulder of the giant.

"Illya-san," the younger boy said. "Why are you here? It can't be to hurt me, since otherwise you'd have done it the first time we met..."

"Do you know her?" Saber coolly asked him, her eyes still fixed on the titan who fumed at her like a mad bull waiting to be released.

Negi had to nod slowly. "Not too much, but yes... We have crossed paths once before. And her Servants looks… vaguely familiar for some reason. But—"

"That's not all, I also happened to meet your little girlfriend back at London," Illya mischievously said, eyes narrowing and smirk growing. "Spirited young lady, I actually liked her a lot! Better make sure she won't ever become your grieving widow!"

"Girlfriend?" Ayaka coldly asked, her hand briefly stopping in the task of pulling her Pactio card out. "Widow?!"

"Anya?" Negi gasped, his hand reaching for his staff without even fully realizing it. "You... You didn't do anything to Anya, did you?"

"Why is she the first girl to come to your mind when someone talks about your girlfriend?" Misora asked pointedly.

"How many other people does he know who lives at London, dumbass?" Chisame sizzled at her. "Seriously, do you think this really is the moment to be thinking of that crap?!"

"I said I liked her, didn't I?" the tiny albino asked back, smirk dissolving. "As for you, I won't make such promises just yet. First I have to see if you're indeed a worthy brother of mine. I can tell, however, someone else isn't."

"Wow," Makie blinked. "So that's your little sis, Negi-kun? I like her, she's cute! The added edge only makes her cuter! So we've found one of the sisters your dad was talking about…"

"She is n—" Negi began, then bit his tongue as it clearly was unwise to provoke the obvious prodigy Magus with a Servant at her beck and call. "Illya-san, please listen, let's be reasonable here, I'm not sure what have you heard about us, but—"

Illya's gaze drifted towards Shirou, who was coming back to himself enough as to now try and pull Saber back with himself, and completely fail at doing so. "Although," the small girl added, completely ignoring Negi now, "I wasn't expecting for this boy to be able to summon a Servant himself, and of the Saber class, no less. I see Father might have been able to teach him something after all. Well," she said, leaping down to land on her booted feet on the sidewalk, scaring Misa further, and then pulling the edges of the skirt up a bit, enough as to properly accompany her subtle bowing in a cutesy curtsy, "now we'll see exactly how much! Berserker! Kill that ugly Servant!"

Then there was a roar, not unlike that of a huge beast from long gone eras, something that might have haunted the nightmares of the first men and women in a young world, something that chilled Negi, Keiichi, Rito and Shirou to their very cores, and made Madoka, Misora, Sora and Ai shriek while covering their ears. Itoshiki yawned and drew out his ruler.

And then, in a blink, before any of them could truly react past the primal dread or awe that roar elicited from them, the massive titan was charging at them with incredible speed, so fast as a matter of fact only one of them could react to it. That was Saber, who similarly charged forward, leaving Emiya's hand suddenly holding nothing but air, and ducking under the first mace swing of the colossus, striking with her invisible or imaginary (Negi dearly hoped for the former) weapon at the muscular midsection of the Berserker.

And Negi could literally feel the shockwaves of the clash making the ground rattle under his feet. He hadn't seen such display of power since Kyoto; even the mountain of a man known only as Walter who had fought Kotaro recently seemed to be nothing compared to the raw aura of power literally emanating from this behemoth, who didn't even flinch at the obviously also very powerful direct attack Saber had directed at his granitic body.

Instead of expressing any pain or being set back at all, the Berserker simply swatted Saber aside like a fly, sending her crashing against a wall. "SABER!" Shirou cried, trying to rush for her, before Negi, still mostly reacting instinctively, held him from behind, pulling him back before the taller young man could advance.

"Oh crap!" Rin backed away further on agile legs, readying her magic and commanding Vigilante in a whisper to hold himself back just yet. She suspected his apparition in the middle of this particular situation could only cause more chaos and worsen things, rather than actually helping any. She could hear his faint growl of frustration, but he obviously didn't dare disobey her yet, since one moment later the puff of purple smoke still failed to manifest itself.

Negi steeled himself, breathing as deeply as he could. He could feel the nervous gazes of his team, all on him, as they tensely waited for his reaction, their cue of what to do. Well, all but Lala-san, who only stared in wide eyed fascination at Berserker's display of raw power, no doubt scheming to end up studying him under a microscope eventually. And maybe even literally to boot.

So. That was what leadership truly felt like. He wasn't all too sure he liked that feeling just yet. It was very different, despite the surface similarities, to what he felt in his comfortable role as a teacher.

For all he knew, he would be very outmatched here, in this conflict between legendary heroes whose recognition dwarfed even that of his father. In fact, he was practically sure of it. As for his team, they didn't have Setsuna, Asuna and Haruka, their strongest hitters, or Konoka, their healer, and they were too far to be summoned, not that he wanted to endanger them as well in the first place anyway.

Still, he couldn't just stand back and simply let that happen as he did nothing but watching.

"Ras Tel Ma Scir Magister..." he began to softly chant under his breath...

"Bure bure bure bure..." Itoshiki joined him, since after all he could recognize a golden chance to die whenever he saw it .


Interlude: You Should (NEVER!) Make A Movie Of That.

"— but then Puddin' broke into Belle Reve and freed me, and that's the last time I ever worked for the government!" Harley finished, remarking on her point by kissing two of her own fingers and them shaking them off vigorously.

"... okay," Ruri said while sitting at the middle of the quietly listening Hansel, Gretel, Tsukuyomi and Quartum.

"For a story about something named a Suicide Squad, I was expecting more people to kill themselves. I'm disappointed in you," Tsukuyomi ended up saying.

"Your story is bad and you should feel bad," Quartum agreed with a nod.

"I only liked the part where the government stooge crushed the witch's still beating heart in his hand," Hansel added. "I like it when witches die! Did you ever kill any more witches?"

Harley grimaced. "Um, okay. I haven't told you about the time we took on General Zod and he killed Boomerang, have I? I think you might like that one..."

"How could he have died then, if he still was alive by the time you had your last job for the—" Gretel began.

"We're supervillains, supervillains come back from the dead all the time, okay?!" Harley said.

Joker threw a book on her head from the next room. "I heard that! What's with the gag about saying I had tattoos? You know I've never liked tattoos! Are you saying you'd like me better with tattoos? Or you mistaking me with another clown with tattoos you've been fooling around, you skank?! Well, I'm so sorry for not having tattoos, Little Miss Damaged! What next, do you want me to peel my face off? Grow a mustache? Get a nose job? What happened to the natural acid-splashed look being good enough?"

Harley pouted. "It's like I still have a bomb collar on all the time, anyway..."


Walking to the end of creation! My name inscribed there upon a coffin!

As the grandiose music blared across the platform, Asuna turned aside to look at Ayame, who now sat by her side with a completely neutral expression, "Who writes these lyrics for you, anyway?"

"We have a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy on this, actually," Ayame replied, just as flatly as her face emoted.

"Only on this?" Asuna muttered before looking back at Setsuna, pumping a fist up. "Go, Setsuna-san, go! Yayyyyy, Setsuna-san...!"

"Asuna-san, please, I appreciate the feeling, but try conveying it more elegantly!" requested Setsuna, who had traded in her gorgeous dress for a stock Ohtori PE uniform and now stood at the edge of the Duel Arena with a fencing blade in her right hand. She frowned at the unfamiliar weapon she held, measuring its ridiculous weight and uncomfortable handle, and then just shrugged at it, calling out for Konoka. "Just hold on there, Ojou-sama! This won't take long!"

At the end of the world! Walking to the end of creation!

Konoka, who sat at the Arena's other end, surrounded by a stoic Juri and Touga, giggled cutely, now clad in a beautiful sleeveless red dress, with a golden crown on her head. "Don't pressure yourself, Setchan! Just have fun!"

Saionji sneered as he took his place at the Arena, a fist cockily on a slim angular hip. "I trust your weapon won't betray you, Mahora bodyguard? We could get you a bokken, if you'd prefer that."

"Thanks, but that won't be necessary," Setsuna said, assuming a ready position. "Truth be told, I'd never fought with one of these, but I suppose it won't be that much of an issue."

"Such arrogance," Saionji coldly huffed, fingers reaching in another direction. "Well, if this is truly a fitting Rose Bride, then she should provide a suitable Sword of Dios in—"

As soon as his fingers began twitching dangerously close to a blinking Konoka's chest, he had Setsuna and Asuna's knees firmly slammed into his face, and a split second later Konoka's crashed against the back of his neck.

"... oi!" he squealed before collapsing on the floor, crumpling down into a heap.

Touga sighed and asked Miki, "How long—?"

"I hadn't even started taking the time!" Miki protested, the watch in his hand still closed.

"Never mind," the slightly exasperated Touga sighed, two fingers running circles on his smooth forehead. "Saionji made a mistake assuming the Mahora Rose Bride would have the same properties as Himemiya. Well, she might have a Sword of Dios—"

"I don't have a sword in my chest!" Konoka said, taking a hand to her breast. "Why would I ever have a sword in my chest?! Just because my dad is a swordsman? Genetics don't work that way! Why would there be a sword in anyone's chest?"

In the lower right corner of the screen, Deadpool and Tsukuyomi waved. "Yo! Here's your favorite sword-in-chest-ers!" they cheered. "When you absolutely need to put a sword in someone's chest!"

"— but we'll have to verify that after we have gained her hand," Touga continued ignoring her while addressing Juri. "Arisugawa, looks like the responsibility falls on you."

"Very well," the orange haired beauty smiled as she seized Saionji's place, unsheathing her own blade while Miki dutifully swept the twitching Kyouichi aside. "Prepare yourself, gallant bodyguard! I shall honor your bravery by not holding b—!"

There I see myself and the universe reborn! At the end of time!

WHACK! WHACK! WHAAAA-AAAACK!

"— ack!" a Juri with her gorgeous head suddenly topped by many bumps several stories high fell on her side, blade rolling off her fingers and tongue lolling out of her pink lipped exquisite mouth.

Stranded in the desert I find a haven! Shining with the brilliant gleam of fool's gold!

While Ayame cringed and shuddered and Asuna laughed and slapped her knees in hilarity, Touga blinked. "Um, well, that was... certainly impressive, for a beginner. I suppose then we should—"

"I FIGHT ON!" an abruptly revived Saionji shouted, the spirit of the everliving Tatewaki Kuno manfully pumping through his adrenaline boosted body as he charged past Touga, leaving a blinking Miki behind with the bandages he'd been applying on Saionji's head a second ago in his hands. Leaping over Juri's goofily chuckling fallen form, he swung his own sword at Setsuna, filled with courageous fury. "You will never make a fool of—!"

WHAAA-AAAAA-AAAAACKKKKK!

Ayame cringed even further, her gaze following Saionji's body as it flew in circles over the platform, thrown up like a ragdoll, hitting the floating castle above and bouncing from shining tower to shining tower, making them all glow like pinball tilts. After hitting the ultimate jackpot which filled the platform with colorful lights and making Konoka applaud joyfully, Saionji fell back next to Juri, in an even sorrier shape than before. "Ah, gah, guh, bluh, buh, bewh. Duh duh," he made his point.

Touga's perfect beauty was somewhat marred by several streams of cold sweat running all over him. "Y-Yes, certainly... spectacular swordmanship, peerless for someone without the Power of Dios. We should reconsider these events, and so you may—"

Setsuna smiled, gesturing at him and Miki to come at her. "Oh, Senpai," she said, "we won't be in this beautiful Academy of yours for much longer, after all. Why not settle allof our duels at once? I'm so worn down and exhausted right now, but I still believe I can offer a half decent fight..." she taunted, OH SO OBVIOUSLY NOT WORN DOWN AND EXHAUSTED AT ALL.

Both the day and night have turned their backs on me! While I stand within this long lost paradise...!

Asuna was laughing even more hysterically now, doubling over and holding her stomach while Ayame simply stared on with a face of absolute horror and the continued WHACK-WHACK-WHACK-WHACK-s echoed across the platform. "Oh, Setsuna-san, you kill me! You kill me, I tell you!"

Darkness of the ages! Darkness of the sunlight!

"Setchan, please be gentle..." the Rose Bride gently requested as the School Council as a whole stood on wobbly legs before her, swords drunkenly held in their hands, pure stubborn Ohtori Pride being the only thing still holding them on their feet. "It's nice of you offering them an edge in numbers, but you should go easier on them anyway! I don't like seeing my Setchan brutalizing... Oh, who am I kidding, go nuts!"

"As My Lady desires," Setsuna huskily purred, making Konoka swoon and rub her legs together, and then gracefully twirling her sword around in an inviting gesture. "You heard her?"

With fierce battle screams to fuel their resolve, Kiryuu, Arisugawa, Saionji and Kaoru all charged at once. "Leeeeerroooyyyyyy Jeeeeeennnn– !"

WHACK!

WHACK!

WHACK!

KATA-KRAKKK!

Darkness spread before me! Darkness never ending! Walking to the end of creation! The end of the world!

Asuna smiled, nodded her satisfaction, and clicked the golden watch she'd been holding onto for Kaoru closed. "Aaaaaand the final time is, not a second too soon!"

Ayame looked reverently at her. "When are your next admittance exams?"

"Why wait?" Asuna said cheerfully. "We accept transfers at any time!"

Ayame nodded. "I believe I have found… the homeland!"


It annoyed Haruka that Shizuru still avoided talking to her, but mostly, it annoyed her how she was so annoyed by Fujino's silences. Normally, she hated having to hear that voice, always thick with that stupid accent. Even Konoe had dropped it after a few years of living in Mahora, so why Fujino kept using it was beyond Haruka's understanding. And yet, right now, knowing Shizuru chose to ignore her as much as she could, even preferring to focus on talking with Jakuzure instead, couldn't help but upset her, making her feel as if she had something to prove, which was just plain dumb, of course. It wasn't like she liked her or anything, but it was really insulting she'd rather talk to someone from Honnouji that Haruka!

Haruka does not get irony. She thinks it has to do with things made of iron.

Haruka chose to look away from the two naked girls sitting across her in the small pool and instead let her gaze wander across the rest of the public bath hall. They were large enough, but still nowhere as majestic and grandiose as Mahora's, and rather spartan and sparse in design instead. Several warning signs reminding students of many assorted school rules hung from each wall as well, adding to the suffocating, oppressive feeling of the environment. Thankfully, no giant posters of Kiryuin stared down at them. Apparently even they realized how creepy that would be.

All in all, Haruka already missed bathing with her noisy, chattering juniors of Ala Alba, since other than Jakuzure and Fujino, every girl in attendance seemed to bathe in a fearful silence, choosing to leave as soon as they were done instead of relaxing in the water, chatting and publicly masturbating as was the Mahora custom. Occasionally, a few would dare whisper to each other while looking towards Jakuzure, and that invariably would be followed by the girls leaving shortly thereafter. It was obvious the aura of fear Kiryuin radiated also applied to her collaborators, and once again, Haruka couldn't help feeling bad for the Honnouji student body. That wasn't the nature of True Order she had always dreamed about…

"PEEPING TOMS! PEEPING TOMS!" some girl's voice suddenly cried in terror.

… and then again, it has been said, even the most absolute of orders born from terror will spawn the sedes of its own kind of chaos, growing roots through any tiny creak they may find.

Yes, even in her narration, Haruka messed up words.

"Blast it," Nonon grumbled while rising from the water, "They must've thought the rain would help cover them! Stay here, Delegates of Mahora! This won't take long…" she wickedly grinned, wrapping her towel around her slim body, and then dashing for her bath basket…

"Ara ara," Shizuru blinked, seeing Nonon depart already in full specially-uniformed regalia, and finally deigning to talk to Suzushiro again. "Well, Haruka-han, now I think I can ask you, what exactly were you discussing that I couldn't—"

And then she realized Haruka had disappeared as well, during the brief moments she hadn't been paying her any attention.

"I see," she told herself. "Will the wonders never cease…?"


The boy with brown wild hair, rather longer than the Honnouji average but despite that was just another generic idiotic main character type, ran for dear life, turning corner after corner after leaving his dear comrades in arms behind. He could hear Jakuzure's ominous chuckle as she descended upon the two unfortunate boys who were only generic background fodder and thus don't even rate a description, and also the desperate screams of both of them, cursing his name.

"DAMN YOU, ISSEI! DAMN YOU TO HELL…!"

"THIS WAS YOUR IDEA, ISSEI…!"

He stifled the need to scream "It wasn't!" since it'd only help Jakuzure spot him. How could they have known the only female of the Elite Four would be bathing right then? Everyone had been talking on how the Student Council would be in a meeting with the Mahora representative instead, and so he and his friends had thought the time was ripe for some skin watching. The unexpected rain further boosted their confidence, as nobody (else) would be stupid enough to go out, and into the female baths, just to risk a few peeks. Now, however, that very same rain slowed him down, and he was sure it wouldn't do much to stop Jakuzure's advance.

Already, he could feel his pursuer rushing after him, following his trail with unerring accuracy. The fact she wasn't Sanageyama or, worse of all, Gamagoori himself, was of little comfort. Sure, the first few moments of being dominated by a very cute girl would be bliss, but Issei knew what would happen to him afterward. It wasn't something he was looking forward to.

"PERPETRATOR!" he heard Nonon's high pitched threat through the rain. "Stop making this harder for yourself! Every block you cover only adds a full month to your sentence! Turn yourself in, and there might be a ghost of a chance for you yet!"

In the lower right corner of the screen, a cute and confused Takamachi Nanoha looked around wildly. "Eh? Why me? How do I have anything to do with this scene?-! I'm not that sort of person! Are you sure you're not confusing me for someone else?"

Yeah, right. He knew he'd lost already, but he still held on to some shred of basic manly pride even through his panic, and he wouldn't surrender without a fight… or at least the best escape attempt he could pull off. Peeking up at the windows, he occasionally could see glimpses of faces looking down at him, none offering any help, but none shouting to reveal his position either. People at Honnouji usually chose to get themselves involved as little as possible, one way or another.

Snitching was sometimes a valuable tool to ascend in the social ranks and eventually get oneself a One Star Uniform, but more often than not, cheap attempts to get in the good graces of the Council were easily caught on and ignored or downright punished. They didn't know why, but in truth, Kiryuin Satsuki's wicked sense of honor would make her despise those who would easily turn themselves on others, since in her opinion, Once a Backstabber, Always a Backstabber.

That was pretty much the only consolation the fleeing boy had right now, however, as he was fairly sure, any moment now he'd be captured—

And then he was.

Only not in the way he'd been expecting.

Instead, a powerful hand, much bigger than Nonon's although still undeniably feminine, forcefully grabbed him by the collar from above, and then he was pulled up and off his feet, as easily as he would've pulled up a kitten. Were this in Europe, or some other old world country, he'd be screaming about vampires. If this were in Gotham, he'd know he had attracted something worse than vampires. This being Japan however, all he could think of was What the hell?!

Not able to stifle a scream anymore, the boy yelped as he was quickly dragged up, along the side of a building, hearing strong stomps along the wall that grazed his sides and scraped his knees and elbows. Squinting up through the heavy rain, he could see he was being held by a girl, and what a girl! One of the most beautiful ones he'd ever seen, with a well-+proportioned, large-breasted figure clad in some sort of skintight, green, yellow and white Gokou Uniform, and carrying a huge spiked mace in the hand that wasn't clutching on his collar. Long golden hair trailed behind her, and her icy blue eyes sparkled firmly, as he found himself drooling after her, fingers twitching.

Below, Jakuzure had come to a halt, looking up just as the blond streak pulled up into a rooftop, dragging along the final perp, a generic looking young man she couldn't properly identify through the obscuring storm. She thought she had a fairly good idea who was supposed to be his rescuer, however. "Damn you," she hissed between clenched teeth. "I get you're from there, but still, why'd would even you do something THIS stupid?!"

Stupid American exchange students! This had to be their work, she'd warned Satsuki-sama about their bizarre obsession with 'Sticking It To The (Wo)Man'!


"No, seriously, why do I gotta do this?" an annoyed Asuna asked, walking onto the duel arena while wearing an Ohtori Student Council uniform they happened to have at hand for any such incidents, and holding a fencing rapier in a hand.

"While we can't deny Sakurazaki-san's physical superiority," the heavily bandaged Kiryuu stoically replied while Kyouichi wheezed within his iron lung unity, Miki struggled to holding his precious watch with his hands in thick casts, and Arisugawa profusely thanked the paramedics, "we'd like to verify this is indeed power befitting Mahora as a whole, and not a single fighter hailing from it."

"... I don't think that was ever the point you were trying to prove," Asuna sweatdropped, then sighed as she saw Ayame discreetly cheering for her, pumping a fist up slightly while her glasses glinted in a way that was starting to remind her of Haruna. Wanting to keep her mind away from that, the redhead turned around to face Setsuna. "Okay then, Setsuna-san, if you're fine with this?"

Setsuna nodded. "I am. Ojou-sama?"

"Setchaaaaan," Konoka drawled while whimsically swinging her legs back and forth on her crystal chair, "even if we're playing pretend, you still should call me Kono-chan...!"

"Then," Setsuna coughed with a bright blush, "show me the fruits of your training, Asuna-san! Hold nothing back!"

"I won't, Setsuna-san!" Asuna charged forward. "Aiii-yaaaaa!"

And then they began to half-heartedly bashing swords against each other, as slow and mechanically as possible.

"Clang clang. Clang clang, clangitty clang. Clang," Asuna boredly said as they 'fought'.

"Clang clang-clang clang, clang. Clang," Setsuna said in the same tone as she also played the pantomime, Konoka laughing heartily at it. "And, clang again."

"Ohhhh!" Asuna melodramatically said as Setsuna's sword cut off the rose pinned to her chest, and she feigned a drop on her back, a forearm covering her eyes. "You have crushed me, O Brave Prince! The hand of the fair Rose Bride is yours, blah blah blah, whatever Natsumi would say in this situation! The curtain falls, I am foiled by your fierce resolve, yakkity yakkity, and all that Shakespeare stuff!"

"..." the sweatdropping members of the Student Council said, even the comatose Saionji.

"So," Asuna moved her arm enough to stare at them with her green eye, "your school's like ours now, ain't it?"

"We haven't said that," Touga sighed, rubbing his elegant broken nose up and down, and immediately regretting it, "but the Rose Bride is all yours now, please, please take her away! Also, yes, we will gladly accept your invitation to your School Festival. Even in the worst case scenario, we will make sure to bring Saionji's ashes along."

"Mmmppphhh mphhh mph mph!" Saionji protested through the iron lung, suddenly reviving.

"Congratulations, Sakurazaki-san," Juri smiled, walking up to Setsuna and gallantly holding her smaller hands. "You are now proud husband to the noble Rose Bride."

"... HUSBAND?-!-?!" the Proud Prince shrieked, abruptly terrorized out of her princely panties.

"Oooohhhhh!" Konoka swooned, taking both hands to her blushing face. "This is going sooooo fast! But I like it anyway! I'm just glad we don't have to go through more than two hundred chapters of extra unresolved sexual tension now!"

"Yaaaaay Konosetsu forever...!" Asuna cheered, rising back to her feet, then beginning to throw rose petals on the stunned, slack-jawed Setsuna along with the gently smiling and only slightly twitching in anesthesia-dulled pain Juri. Miki also tried to pitch in to help but again, the arms in casts were making it kind of difficult.

By the time even Touga had begun to politely clap his blessings and Konoka had pulled out her cellphone, starting to dial on her mother's number to rub it in her face, the visibly shaken Setsuna mechanically staggered to Saionji's bed, roughly punted his body out of it, then quickly encased herself within the iron lung, loudly wheezing in and out as she spasmed.

Somewhere, a chill went through Tsukuyomi's spine. "Huh," she mused. "For some reason I feel like I want to kill a bitch. Moreso than usual, I mean."


In the event the prior segments depicting Mahora students and teachers happily partaking in activities like visiting other academies, intruding into each other's memories and having sex in the bushes (wait, no, we haven't given the Narutakis a segment here yet. Our bad) during the middle of the day didn't clue you in yet, the events of this chapter were taking place during a Sunday. After the ceremonies of the morning, which is why Kirei could spend a few hours talking to his literal black heart's content with Shirou and Rin.

That's also why Miyazaki Nodoka was currently free to fight her way through the elaborate death trap the latest Clow Card to appear had set for her in the main building of the male side of the academy. Which it had helpfully labeled as 'Main Building Full Of Elaborate Death Traps'. And that, in turn, was why she and Yue were wearing boys' uniforms as they easily leapt over and ducked under trap after trap (With convenient labels like 'Spike Trap', 'Blade Trap', 'and 'Buzzsaw Trap' that only appeared after they were triggered), barely ever missing a beat (not like they could afford to) in a way that surprised even the more experienced Magical Girls trailing behind them.

"Seriously, how do you do it?!" Sailor Venus demanded, a razor sharp blade springing out of a wall ('Razor Blade Wall Trap') and forcing her to dodge, but not before it could cut a few golden strands off her hair, then to embed itself on the opposite wall across the hall. "Who taught you how to be so good, if you don't go with the others to train under this vampire girl?!"

"Eh," Yue shrugged, in between sips of her juice carton ('Pek-Pek Sweat'), her face just as expressionless as ever even while stepping all around the marbles with little skulls painted on them ('Spherical Non-Crytalline Amorphous Silicate Balance Disruptor Bomb Trap') currently rolling their way. Sailors Venus, Mars and Mercury yelped as they jumped over them just in time to avoid triggering them, and so they simply rolled away to go explode at the other end of the thankfully deserted corridor. "This card's just a beginner compared to the architects of Library Island. No big deal."

".. I had no idea a librarian's duties were this harsh..." Akira commented with new found respect while Shiho just kept on mumbling miserably, holding her high heeled shoes in each hand, and marching at the back of the quintet. Sextet if we count the flying plushie fluttering around the determined Nodoka leading the group. Artemis had skipped this one on the excuse of watching over the front door to distract anyone who'd want to enter the danger zone, which had been just reasonable enough as for Minako to let it pass, but not enough as to make her not to resent him. She did not think a sign that said 'Location Closed. Filming A Movie. Sorry For The Inconvenience' needed that much supervision.

"To be fair," Kero said, "this is an exceptional case between all of Master Clow's cards. Most of them can be mischievous, but they hold no malice..."

"The Tentacle still tries to sneak out of the book and fondle us while we sleep," Yue reminded him. "That's why we have to sleep with sticks by our beds," she added for the sweatdropping Senshis' benefit.

"That's only her way of saying hello. She's strictly safe, sand and consensual when it comes to penetration. And anyway, Haruna's far worse," Kero argued as he gestured for the girls to stop before a classroom's door, which had been spray painted to depict a large, perverse smiley symbol on it. The soft, deranged sounds of erratic chuckles could be heard from the inside. A sign above the door helpfully read 'Door To Anti-Climactic Final Boss Battle Room'."Anyway, this one's different. Master Clow created it after a nightmare, which he claimed was a vision of the future. Then he named it after the equivalent card of the Tarot..."

"The Devil? The Death?" Shiho grumbled, pulling out a piece of shrapnel that had lodged itself in one of her pigtails seven death traps ago ('Deadly Shrapnel Trap'), missing her flesh by like two centimeters. "The Murderous Raving Lunatic?"

"Well, not precisely..." Kero said as Nodoka took a deep breath, then shattered the door with a mighty cry accompanied by a just as strong burst of gale force.

"WINDY!"

The members of the nascent United Magical Girl Association of Earth (it had been Nodoka's idea, although she admitted she had simply taken it from someone named Psycho Purple. Akira had vouched for this, much to Venus and Mars' puzzlement) stood at the broken doorstep now, readying themselves as they came face to face with the card. Because some things are just too good to pass up, they were doing the Charlie's Angels pose.

Akin to most of Clow Reed's other designs, this one was feminine and svelte, like a nymph of the woods, but in a far more threatening and sinister fashion than the norm. She had green hair and wore a mannish purple suit, with a comically oversized spotted bowtie and a red rose on the jacket's lap. Her shiny black and white shoes were pointy and curved at the tips, like elf boots, and she twirled a cane around as she chirped something that obviously pretended to be elaborated and metaphysical, but only came out as overblown cutesy garbled nonsense. A sign above her with arrows pointing down helpfully read 'Anti-Climactic Clow Card Final Boss Of Dungeon!'

Nodoka risked a brief glance at Kero. "What is she saying?"

Kero grimaced. "You... You really don't wanna know, Nodoka."

Nodoka sighed, stomped through the classroom, which had been decorated like some sort of demented carnival funhouse, and slammed her staff down on the pale-skinned card's head. "Return to the humble form you deserve! Clow Card!"

"As you can see, however," Kero told the now even more sweatdropping Sailor Senshi, "while The Fool is an expert on up setting traps for her intended prey, she's a very weak close quarters combatant..."

"Hey," Artemis peeked in through the classroom's door, "is everyone alright, I was growing worr— MEEEOOOOOOW!" he yelled as, right after stepping on a random, slightly misplaced tile, he was blown up through the roof, leaving an Artemis-shaped hole in it.

Shiho joined the gasping Minako and Akira's gazes up said hole, then told the simply stunned Nodoka and Yue, "I'm taking my chances and going out through the window," pointing at said window, which was helpfully labeled 'Seemingly Safe Exit Window!'


After leaping across several rooftops spanning almost a dozen of campus blocks, Haruka decided it already was safe enough as to make a stop, and came to a halt on top of a dormitory building, slamming her captive down against the floor, then securing him on place by placing a foot on his chest.

"… does this mean you're coming onto me?" the boy asked, half hopeful, half terrified, lifting his hands in a clear sign of surrender. "Because it's not like I mind strong women, and I'm seriously thankful you just saved me, but—"

"SHUT UP!" she barked at him. "What was the big idea, pecking on us like that?! Do you have no shame?! I thought Hounnouji men were supplanted to be hardened gentlemen!"

"… pecking? Supplanted?" the boy babbled, crossing his legs so she couldn't see, even if he was no perfect gentlemen, the sight from his angle still was making him quite hardened. Those pants of hers were TIGHT! "I think you meant—"

"I mean what I mean, and I mean you've just brought me a whole lot of trouble, Mister!" Haruka spat, in one of those fits of rage where she pronounced words perfectly. "You'll better help me coming with an excuse to justify my absence from the baths!"

He blinked, then squinted to get a better view of her face, which not only was half obscured by the intense rain, but also half covered by sopping wet blond locks falling on her features. Oh, she was the dynamite blonde bathing with the Marching Band Director and the other babe! No wonder they hadn't recognized her. She had to be one of the Mahora representatives.

"Do you also have Gokou uniforms in Mahora?" he guessed. "Well, I guess it was only a matter of time. The Prez will still be furious, tho'."

"Answer me, dart it!" Haruka lifted him by his collar and rattled him back and forth. "What were you and your friends doing?!"

"Okay, okay, you got me!" he said, waving his hands to ask for a timeout. "What do you expect me to say? Look, we're just men who can't get any, and around here you can't even buy porn mags! Inumuta-senpai somehow can and does block our Internet porn 'cause the Prez says it corrupts our school spirits and all that! What are we intended to do, turning gay?!"

Haruka blushed, and her mouth twitched. "You, you should just have clean thinks all the time! Is that that hard?!"

The young man blinked, gave Haruka's bustline a confused glance, and then asked her, "All that oppai and you haven't had your own hormonal spurt yet?"

She slapped him, then slapped him back across the other cheek, leaving large red marks on his face. "You know, I took pity on you, but now I'm serially thinking of turning you to Jakuzure-san!"

He tried to retort, but found he actually couldn't speak, and simply took a hand to one of his swollen cheeks, rubbing his jaw and cringing in pain. Again, he tried to speak, but only a pitiful little squeak came out.

Haruka was startled. "Oh! I'm, I'm sorry, I guess I still am getting used to my incrementased strenghtforce when I'm, um, like this, I can take you to a doctor…"

The boy tried a few more times before managing to lock his jaw back, somehow. While it still visibly ached him to speak, and his redenned cheeks were rather hideously inflated, he managed a smile. "N-Nah, it's okay. The only doctor I can pay 'round here is kinda… dangerous. Sorry 'bout that. I'm Hyudou Issei."

"Suzushiro Haruka," she introduced herself, growing more hostile now but nowhere as much as before. "Listen, the only reason why I saved your hide is because I don't agree with Honnouji's brutalish methodizations of corporal punishment." It came to Issei's attentions that, while she struggled and generally lost with any complex word, 'corporal punishment' she had pronounced perfectly. "I mean, yes, back at Mahora, we'd have made you stand on the hellway with a bucket on your head, then clean toilets all month long… unless you're one of those perversteds who get excited on toilets… But—"

He nodded, rubbing the back of his aching neck as Haruka finally set him down on his feet. "Yeah, the Council would've sent me with Meiko-senpai and the others at the Prison. I've seen what the Prison does to people, Ma'am. When they come out… they never are the same. It meses 'em up, Ma'am."

"You have a prison in campus?" Haruka asked, awed.

Issei looked around. "Kinda shocked Jakuzure-senpai's not already on us by now, though. We shouldn't have lost track of her this easily."

"What do you mean, I ran across enough blocks as to lose anyone…"

He shook his head. "Not a member of the Student Council, no. If they're on your trail, they'll chase you to the ends of the Academy, and sometimes even beyond. Something must've happened to her, but what could be—"

"It seems," a Kyoto-accented voice came from the other side of the rooftop, making Haruka's skin crawl, "President Kiryuin is currently involved in a fierce battle, and her enforcers were recalled to her side. You sure got quite a lucky break, Hyudou-kun, Haruka-han."

"Shizuru!" Haruka hissed, her head snapping aside and her eyes narrowing venomously while Issei leered appreciatively at the newcomer. "How did you find me, no, what are you doing here?!"

Fujino stood now wearing a dark blue yukata with brown trimmings, and her feet were in traditional white socks and black wooden sandals. However, what puzzled Haruka the most was the huge naginata she held in her hands, which was just as long as Haruka's morningstar. Despite all these changes in appearance, however, her behavior was the same as always, confidently distant and aloof. "Ara ara ara, to think Haruka-han would be a Hime as well, that's so unexpected," she almost chanted, regardless not as pleased as her smile would suggest. "I'll have to ask Arashi-san what was she thinking when she decided on this…"

"A princess?" Issei grew more puzzled by the moment. "Are you girls princesses?!"

"Sh-Shut up, I'm no principess of nothing anything!" Haruka stuttered before aiming her mace at Fujino. "I'd also app—appre—I'd like it if you lowered that thing, it's making me nervous!"

"Hime shouldn't fight Hime, so I'll do it as long as you lower your own weapon, Haruka-han," Fujino said, taking her naginata just a little bit lower. "Now, maybe we should let this boy go and talk on—"

"I'm not letting this perp go yet, he still has a lot to answer for!" Haruka roared. "Just like you, Fujino-san! You'd better start exploiting your strange change of wardrope, and mostly why you're suddeathly holding a nagonata!"

"I think you meant 'explaining'?" Issei guessed.

"You stay out of this!" both girls sternly warned him.

He sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe I should go turn myself in anyway. Who'd have thought it, Mahora IS crazier after all…"

Standing on a much higher rooftop, unnoticed so far, a tall, manly figure mostly enveloped by a long flowing trenchcoat watched on as he reported through a mobile pone kept close to his obscured face. "Lady Raynare, another interloper has arrived. This one looks like one of the twelve Princeses, instead."

The female voice at the other end of the line growled, "What, one of the Princesses of the Heart? I thought they couldn't leave Mundus Magicus?"

He sighed. "No, Lady Raynare, I mean one of the Hime. Highly Advanced Materializing Equipment, remember?"

A pause. "Oh. Yeah. The world's stupidest acronym. What's she doing here anyway?"

He shrugged. "They seem to be in transit from Mahora and nothing else. Should we wait for them to leave?"

"No," the voice had quickly decided. "I want this wrapped up today, we're on a schedule. Let's just lure them into the trap as well, what do we care? Once we're done with this not even Mc Dowell and the rest of that Mahora flotsam will be able to stand to us."

"As you wish, Lady Raynare," he respectfully said before leaping down the building, disappearing into the alleys below.

Shizuru was blinking now. "Oh. I undestand. You're just pretending, aren't you? Arashi should've told you the standard procedure for these situations, Haruka-han," she gently told her before telling the boy, "We are filming a movie, Hyudou-han."

"Like hell you are!" Issei said. "Look, even if I'm an outcast, I'm also a Honnouji student, and you guys should be ashamed of stealing our tech! So I want you to take those Gokou uniforms off right now…" By this point his outraged tone had descended into a lecherous chuckle instead, as he imagined both women stripping down for him…

Haruka casually bopped him on the face with the morningstar as she told Shizuru, "I think he believes we're wearing one of those uniforms the poor devil at the gate was accusionated of stealing?"

"Well, are you?" Shizuru asked. "That'd explain your increased abilities if you aren't a Hime…"

"My increaked… since when were you… Oh, drat!" Haruka growled. "Of course I didn't steal anything, but how I got these powers is no businessation of yours, FU-JI-NO!"

"Then my choice of attire and weaponry *and* how I located you are no business of yours either, HA-RU-KA-HAN!" Shizuru stood her ground against her.

Issei looked back and forth between them, still rubbing his bleeding nose. "You starting ripping each other's clothes off now, or I should be leaving already?"

Before he could be hit again, his salvation (or the opposite) came in the form of a desperate cutesy girl-cry from below. "Someone help me! I'm being robbed! Ahhhh!"

Shizuru and Haruka tensed as they briefly stopped staring naginatas and spiked maces at each other, their School Representative Senses madly tingling.

"See you down there," Shizuru sparsely aside, leaping aside and over the rooftop's edge, her blade at the ready.

"Th- That's my line!" Haruka said, jumping right after her. "Wow, you must have quite a good Magister!"

"A what…?"

Issei blinked, looked down after their retreating forms, and felt himself all over, verifying he still was complete and alive. He began turning around, hands in his pockets, happily whistling to himself. What a great lucky day to be alive…

Then the cute sounding girl shrieked again for help, and he sighed, undoing his steps and beginning his long way down the building's fire escape stairs.

He couldn't help it, that was the truly disadvantageous part of being a Chivalrous Pervert.


Interlude: The Martian Chronicles.

"I had a dream last night," Hino Rei said over the lunch table.

"So did I," confirmed her Servant, Shielder, who had never ever been called Shield, shut up.

"In my dream, you were some sort of princess of Mars," Rei told her, matter-of-factly.

"So were you in mine," Shielder replied, with a gentle nod and complete aplomb.

"What the... You must've been just imagining things, I've never been a Princess of anything," Rei waved a hand, slightly annoyed at Shielder's occasional, strange sense of humor. It was almost British, and she had never gotten British humor. "I'm convinced my dream showed images of your prior life, however."

"Would that make any difference, Master?" Shielder evenly asked.

"Of course it would, I've read not only on the link that allows Masters and Servants to experience each other's pasts, but on the secret world folded within Mars. If you were to fight using secrets from that realm, that'd be a huge advantage over Servants born in this world, but I'd like to at least know how great is your legend in that world!"

"I'm impressed you would know about my place of origin. Its true location is something even most mages from this world ignore. Congratulations, Master." After refilling her own cup gracefully, she answered, "I'm afraid my legend is still very recent, which might prove a hurdle. I died when you were still a child yourself, so I could hardly be called a mythical figure. Besides, my legend is somewhat tainted by infamy."

"Are you Lina Inverse?!" Rei gasped, unconsciously pulling herself away from her.

"Lina— No, no, that name is... familiar, but the person I knew to bear it would hardly be any older than you are now," Shielder explained. "I fought along one Luna Inverse, however. A woman of great stature and might, noble and yet as fearsome as the Devil himself. She still should be alive, as far as I know..."

Rei breathed easier. "Y-Yes, I thought so. Lina Inverse was or is supposed to have no breasts, after all. Still, I had to be sure... I've heard horror stories... um. Okay, never mind, even if your legend isn't ancient, not many should know about you, which should be enough to balance our chances. Why do you think we haven't been attacked yet, though? We've spent more than a week in this city now, and yet the other Servants still fail to appear, despite what the priest said. Maybe, ah, we should...?"

"I think," Shielder sagely replied, "it would be unwise to agitate the waters first, as that would make us the easiest and most glaring targets for the rest of the Masters. Right now, the others seem to be fighting an unusual war of attrition, biding to see who breaks first and then gather upon those persons, as they naturally would be the most problematic duo in the the contest. I don't wish for us to become that duo, Master."

"You're right, it's just... something about this simply feels off," Rei heaved a sigh and shook her head. "Even trying to read the flames isn't showing me anything. I don't doubt the other Masters are either cowardly or playing it safe, but I think that's not the whole of it. It feels... I don't know, but I almost can sense as if some sort of force was holding the Grail War from breaking out already."

"And doesn't that bring you any relief? Are you sure you have truly grasped the meaning of a War, and what it will do to you?"

"I still have to do it," Rei said, looking down. "I owe that much to my mother."

There was only silence after that.

"Shielder?" Rei looked at her again at last. "Did I say anything to offend you?"

"No, Master. It's more about what I have done wrong, instead."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just say," she distantly said, "perhaps I haven't honored my familial duties as much as you have."

"Oh?"

"Even though your father all but abandoned you, you have stuck to not only carry on his family name, but commuted yourself to follow his stipulations after the War. And of course, you fight in the War for your mother's sake. While I— I haven't even actually deigned to visit my kin, and ponder what this War's outcome will mean for him."

Of course, Rei realized. If Shielder had died that recently, an anomaly in what concerned to Heroic Spirits, that meant she most likely had still living relatives elsewhere. "Do you... Do you want to go meet them... him, in that case? I have no objections as long as—"

"Perhaps it's for the best if I don't," Shielder declined stoically. "I doubt I can bring that person anything but calamity."

"The Queen of Calamity!" Rei almost jumped out of her chair, even more startled than when she had exclaimed Lina's name.

"And not only that, but as you just saw, simply thinking of that person makes me lower my guard as well. I suppose you were bound to learn sooner or later anyway, but as long as you don't know—"

Rei frantically pointed at Shielder, eyes spinning faster and voice growing higher in pitch. "Paramour of the Thousand Master! That means Springfield! Like, Negi Springfield, that teacher girls around here talk about so much! Oh my gosh, Shielder, you have a CHILD! Right here, and you haven't even bothered to check on him! How, how can I trust a Servant to be loyal when she's a useless do nothing deadbeat mother to her own blood...!"

"... useless do nothing deadbeat..?" Shielder echoed weakly, with a faint dangerous tingle to her voice.

"You're just like my father after all!" Rei was now pacing back and forth before her. "Pretending to be too busy with life and death matters to waste a few minutes with your child! Seriously, Arika! No wonder half of your people detested you! Maybe I should've gotten myself Attila the Hun instead! Or Jack the Ripper! Heck, even Captain America would have done!"

"... perhaps you are not fully aware of how deeply you are insulting me as you speak, Master," Shielder warned. "And it's not like I have anything against Attila, in actuality, she was a far better individual than generally recognized, but—"

Rei was waving her arms right before her now. "Arika, I don't know if you know yet, but your very underage baby son is being lusted after by every darn crazy Shotacon in this campus!"

"... exactly how many pedophiles are we we talking about here? Because it was not like his father was not lacking that kind of attentions from his earliest childhood himself, and yet he grew up fin— Hmmmmm..."

"Hmmmm!?" Rei pressed on, frowning angrily at Arika's sudden thoughtful expression.

Finally, Shielder spoke in a very quiet and tiny echo of something a child she had been fond once herself used to say around her and Nagi. "I am in despair. Realizing how badly I have failed has left me in despair."


"Man, what is it with you guys and these impossibly tall buildings?" Asuna asked as they started up the stairs that extended up with no clear end in sight, past the front entrance of the next building Ayame had guided them into during their Ohtori tour. A few dozen meters ahead of them, some poor boy also climbing was already struggling. Muffled swearing about how they only put elevators in the stupidest places drifted down. "Not that I mind, they're good exercise, just asking."

"I think they're pretty stylistic," Konoka smiled while guiding a still slightly-dazed out of her mind and shaky Setsuna, keeping her hand firmly held. She looked around, noticing even the handlebars for the stairs seemed to be made of fine marble inlaid with ivory, and silently prayed for the souls of a few poor elephants and whoever must have suffered lugging all those rocks to make the stairs. "Kind of otherworldly, though, no offense."

"None taken," Ayame blandly said, leading the march up, casually moving her hips ever so slightly so her skirt fluttered a little. Asuna blinked, wondering if she'd just given them a conscious pantyshot... no, that couldn't be it, that girl seemed too proper and prim for that. "It may look like we live in some sort of enchanted fairy tale, but like with any other academy, we face our own problems and altercations. Have you heard of 'Nudist Beach'?"

"What?" Asuna blinked again.

"Oh, the terrorist organization?" Konoka asked, while Setsuna instantly tensed up at the mention of the 't' word, instinctively gripping the handle of Yuunagi.

"Terrorist organization?" Asuna echoed, glancing back at Konoka, who closed the formation with Setsuna.

"Asunaaaa!" Konoka said. "For someone who delivers newspapers everyday, you sure are behind on the news!"

"I only deliver them, never read them!" Asuna protested. "They're depressing to read! I mean, even more depressing than reading in general!" Konoka, Library Club, gave her a rare glare at those words.

"Kagurazaka-san's blissful ignorance can be excused," Ayame calmly said, slightly incensing Asuna over the use of the 'i' word, "since as far as I know their tentacles haven't reached into Mahora yet. They are... homegrown rabble-rousers who got their public start in Honnouji City months ago protesting the uniform-based hierarchy, but have been operating in Ohtori as well since a few weeks ago."

"Uh-huh, and what do they do?" Asuna asked as the boy ahead of them collapsed in a wheezing heap, sitting on the stairs until he got hist breath back. They still hadn't caught up to him when he let out a groan and started climbing again five minutes later.

"It's not like they're murderous, apparently," Ayame explained, her glasses glinting in a sinister way none of the others could see as they walked behind her, "but they are rather scandalous, revolting against the system while wearing nothing but boots, gloves and equipment belts. The 'Nudist' part of their name is literal. Have you ever heard about anything that outrageous?"

Asuna, Konoka and Setsuna all thought of all the people they knew who liked to magical become naked just before a fight.

"So they're just public exhibit— exibit— um, weirdos who like flashing people?" Asuna said. "That's gross, I guess. For their own sake, I hope they won't run into our Vice Prez while she's in Honnouji."

"They seem specially intent on sabotaging any properties of the Kiryuin and Nishikinomiya conglomerates," Kajou elaborated, with another subtle swing of her hips Asuna dearly hoped wasn't meant to be seductive. The skirt fluttered further this time, allowing them a clearer view of the racy black panties underneath. "That must be why you've been spared their raids so far, since they hold little to no influence in Mahora City."

"Oh, I've met Nishikinomiya Anna-san at parties, though," Konoka reminisced, then giggled. "Great girl, although a little bit weird...!"

At that, Kajou stopped suddenly, and her hand squeezed the stairs' handlebar much more tightly, faint cracking sounds accompanying the apparition of small creaks on the marble, between her fingers. Two of the Mahora girls cringed, while Setsuna simply nodded sagely, recognizing the signs of another Ojou Lover. Just as soon, however, Ayame began walking up again, saying, "Anna-senpai is great indeed. Regardless, the ringleader for Ohtori's branch of this organization seems to be a woman calling herself 'Blue Snow', who—"

Then the tall, distracted and dark haired young man, who had a very Generic Main Character sort of face, around Ayame's age they had almost caught up to gasped faintly, looking up. Asuna immediately looked up as well, following his gaze, and saw a shapely girl with long purple hair, a few shades darker than Misa's, plummeting from the top of the tower, several stories above, and quickly falling their way. Instantly, the boy jumped forward, extending his arms to stop the girl's fall in time, but Asuna was even faster and passed like an exhalation by Ayame's side, spreading her arms and beating the boy to it, catching the stranger in her hands...

... and realizing she had absolutely no weight whatsoever.

Damn. Were diets THAT good in Ohtori? No wonder their Student Council members had mostly looked like variations on stick figures...


Omake! Manga is That Kind of Business!

"Um, Puddin'?"

"Yeah?" he asked, without looking up from the complex bomb schematics he was designing.

"Remember that fancomic you rushed through the weekend on a whim and then sent to that Doujin-Con downtown, to try and terrify 'em?"

Now he did look up, pushing the Look-Smart glasses he had gotten for himself even though he really didn't need them up his long, pointy nose. "Ah, yeah, that gag. Well, did we get their reaction yet? Scared the pants outta them, didn't it?"

"Actually," Harley held an envelope up, "they praised it, wrote back saying you were nominated for a Revelation of the Year prize. They only suggested putting more tentacles and groping in. Oh, they also said the guro was kinda vanilla, whatever the heck that means. And that there wasn't enough blood and violence."

"... what the hell's wrong with this country, I don't even."

Tsukuyomi stumbled into the room, feeling all over the walls helplessly. "Has anyone seen my glasses?!" she half-whined, half sobbed, squinting at them but instead staring into a wall.

Joker whistled a little, then pointed in another direction. "I think I saw Croc taking 'em."

Then he laughed as Tsukuyomi walked the exact opposite direction and into another wall.


"This is so foolish," a bored-sounding Illya commented, standing on the sidewalk while looking at the fingernails of one of her hands. With the other, she was establishing a sound-dampening Bounded Field to cover the area. It wouldn't do, after all, to have nosy bystanders call the local authorities to interrupt this perfectly nice match. "Do you know who Berserker is? It's Heracles! You just don't get into a fight with Heracles and, well, survive it! What a couple of dumb brothers I have!"

"Heracles?" Makie asked, catching her ball Artifact back after it had bounced off Berserker's head, as useless as everything else they were trying on him.

And they were trying a lot; while Saber frontally attacked the giant by repeteadly hacking and slashing on his muscular front, Ala Alba tried to, at the very least, keep him distracted. Negi zapped at his upper section with a constant stream of Sagitta Magicas, already starting to clench his teeth under the pressure. Misa, who'd gotten turned around while running away and had eventually found her way back to them, was throwing needles at Berserker's eyes, aiming like Kuro had, ironically, taught her to; but while most of her hits did connect, they didn't look like they were blinding the creature. It was doubtful even blinding him would have mattered after all, since he attacked with single minded intensity not unlike that of a mindless beast.

However, as Negi realized immediately, Berserker followed Illyasviel's orders to the letter, so when she had commanded for him to kill Saber, that was what he focused on. That meant he thankfully ignored the youngsters attacking him from all sides, treating them as pests beneath his attention. Negi realized, to his dawning horror, that had she ordered him to kill everyone, at least a few of his students would be dead by now.

"Hercules!" he gasped. "That's the Greek name for Hercules, Makie-san! Everyone keep their distance!"

"That means you too, Senpai!" Misora yelled, using her Pactio enhanced strength to keep the desperate Shirou grabbed from behind. "Are you suicidal? Even Despair-sensei is keeping himself out of reach!"

"I, I don't want to turn a child into a murderess by association, that's all," Itoshiki weakly argued, standing by Negi and shooting thick strands of darkness from his wooden ruler, trying to grab Berserker's legs and keep him in place. Since he was no Gilgamesh and his spell was no Enkidu, it was having little to no effect, although a lone figure standing on a rooftop high above them, overlooking the fight, was still taking good note of the strategy. Not that he needed it, but he was such a chronic thie— err, rightful claimer of approaches mongrels might develop but only he could use properly.

The handsome blond man in biker leathers kept most of his attention on Saber's heroically struggling figure, however, a boken lazily resting in his hand. "It's you," he purred huskily, with a cruel, lecherous smile. "I knew you just had to come back to me..."

Lashing from behind with her whip, Ayaka redoubled her efforts even though she already felt like her arms were going to fall. "Cocone-san!" she called out. "Your divine thunderbolt!"

"You're all too close, might hit you as well," Cocone said, keeping her cross well in hand, and standing shortly behind Misora and Shirou. "Akashi-san? This is a magical being, why aren't your bullets working on it?"

"Do you think the damn guns talk to me, how am I supposed to know?!" Yuuna complained, unloading another round on the monster's tough hide and then cocking her guns at her side, reloading them instantly. Even if actual ammo was not needed, the effort itself was after twelve shots each time. She took aim at Berserker's now hugely open, roaring mouth and grunted, "Let's see if this one works..."

When the next magic cancel bullet was just crushed between Berserker's teeth with a minor explosion that didn't inconvenience him, Makie gestured at Yuuna. "Okay, Yuuna-chan, that's enough! Hand me one!"

Yuuna blinked, then obeyed immediately. "Wh-What are you trying to do? Even if you're a better shooter than me..." and that was true, even after all the gun coaching Makie had been giving her at the resort, "the bullets themselves won't get any better..."

"You still can't do this," Makie calmly said, taking aim. "It's a much smaller target, and well, sorry, you don't have the guts."

"What do you mean with— Oh!" Yuuna gasped, realizing Makie was instead aiming at the White Kuro, who simply smirked evilly and raised her hands, deploying a barrier before herself. Makie still shot, undeterred, and the bullet flew, reaching the shield in a second and then, to Illya's brief but crushing shock, outright rippling through it, then to hit her squarely in the face...

"What— YES, OH YES!" Misa gushed, pausing in the middle of another throw. "Hah ha! Take that you evil, evil loli! I might not be able to beat up Evangeline but other little girls are fair game!"

Illya dropped on her butt on the sidewalk, rubbing her aching face and whining. "Ouchie!" she said, fleetingly said as if her connection with Berserker blinked, and that made her feel so crushingly cold and alone under the rain. "What, what's your game here, you stupid Japanese girl?!"

Berserker himself paused for a moment, one that Saber immediately used to plunge her invisible blade in his midsection, although even that didn't seem to rattle him at all. Instead, he only said, clear and distinctively, with a voice that still was growling and deep but vaguely human now, 'Why—?'' before the madness overtook him again, and he flexed his arms and roared, the force of his angry scream sending everyone stumbling back.

"Well," Skuld blinked, "she's my Ministra after all, but unfortunately she's also an idiot."

"Well, excuuuuuuse me, Master!" Makie protested. "I wasn't listening to the brilliant smart-girl ideas you were having but not telling us!"

Illya jumped back to her feet, pointing madly in pretty much all directions. "Berserker, Berserker, Berserker! You know what you have to do!"

"... there's only one good idea to have while battling this guy," Skuld gulped, then turned tail and ran away for dear life. "RUN AWAY!"

"... see, that's why she's genius in our team, sorry, Hakase!" Misora gulped, letting go of Shirou and grabbing Cocone by a hand. "Sensei, you heard the fake but still sensible deity, let's scram!"

"You do that!" Negi insisted, blasting at the rampaging Berserker while he battered on Saber, the smaller Servant's sword barely offering any defense against the force of his blows. Even so, her face was bleeding, and there were tiny cracks on the front of her armor, where the slab of rock had hit. "That includes you, Emiya-san!" he warned, as Itoshiki put his tendrils to better use by restraining Shirou, who still struggled to get to Saber's side.

"He's right, your teachers have suicide privileges, you don't!" Itoshiki chastised the young man sternly. "Besides, what will I tell Fujimura-sensei if I get you killed? She'd kill me!"

Makie sighed as she finished her cellphone call. Her cellphone, by the way, was pink and had Hello Kitty stickers all over it, with a sticker photo of her and her mothers on the back. Because she was that kind of girl. "Well, that leaves us with Plan B, then."

"Plan B?" Haruna asked, drawing a Death Metal album cover-looking skull ram head and battering on Berserker's head from above.

"Akira-chan said they happened to be close enough, luckily," Makie calmly shrugged, pocketing the cellphone back. "Since the Sailor Senshi move so fast, and Honya-chan has that Jump card going for her, they should be here..."

"FOOL!" a voice called out from above.

Makie pouted. "A fool? You too, Honya-chan? That's what I get from—?"

"Who are you—" Illya looked back and over her shoulder at the source of the unknown voice, and she found herself staring at the grinning face of a green haired Loli in clown makeup. "— bwuh?"

The strange girl grabbed her hand, shook it with a small deranged chuckle, and then Illya cried as a jolt of electricity shook her into unconsciousness.

Berserker immediately stopped hammering on the trembling Saber, looked back at his Master, who now laid at the feet of the newly arrived Nodoka and Yue, and made a leap for her, leaving everyone behind. As quick as carefully, he scooped the tiny, sleeping albino child in his huge arms, looked at her face for a second, and then exhaled what only could be called a hellish sigh of relief. Then he stared madly at those gathered around him, roared viciously sending them down again, and leapt away with his precious charge, disappearing from sight into the storm.

"You just," Yue said from under her umbrella to Nodoka, "used a still-untested Card to zap a small child with electricity, under a heavy rain."

"A small child who was about to have Negi-sensei and Haruna killed," Nodoka corrected. "Is… is everyone okay? Sorry, we came as soon as we received Makie-san's call. It took us a bit since for some reason we couldn't hear the noise of the fight..."

"Nodo-chan, Yuecchi!" Haruna ran to hug them tightly, smashing them against her breasts, the smaller girls starting to wave their arms around because of the sudden suffocation. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you! You're the best, never change!"

"Yue!" Lala finally popped out of the trash bin where Berserker had forcefully slammed her into earlier in the fight, a bit we didn't bother to show Because Reasons. She smiled as bright and proudly as ever, despite her head being covered in rancid junk that made Peke shudder and cough. "My savior princess!"

"I, I didn't do anything, what are you talking about...?" Yue said as she struggled free from the chuckling Haruna's grasp.

"Yeah, well, join the club," Sailor Venus grumbled, jumping down from the rooftop of the ceiling where she had stood a moment ago, followed by Mercury, Mars, Artemis and Kero. "Seriously, Bookstore-san, what's the big idea, not leaving this stuff to professionals? Oh, and you have even more now, I see," she frowned at Saber, who was staggering back breathing heavily, and Shirou, who was coming to her side to hold her tenderly on her feet. "For real, Sensei, why don't you just hand out recruitment fliers like the SOS Brigade, it'd be less—"

Then her jaw slackened, as she realized the identity of the guy she could barely see through the curtain of water. She pointed and cried, all but openly gushing, "Ah! You're him! The high jump boy!"

"The who of what now?" an annoyed Shiho muttered, while Negi came to Nodoka's side to profusely thank her, which made her blush adorably, and then to ask her why she was in the company of a loli-Joker crossplayer, which made her blush in shame.

"You see," Minako excitedly said, "when I was very little, I once saw this really cool redhead who was trying to make a high jump over a bar, and while he kept on failing, he never gave up, and that was so cool, I only wish I had the courage back then to approach— Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, only now realizing the dead, humorless way that famous Sempai who was also there was staring at her, her fingers all but crushing the colorful gems between them. "Aren't you a fan of superheroes, or what?"


Saber dreamed, a dream not her own.

The first time Shirou actually saw his father, Shirou had been sitting on his hospital bed, as quiet as a child can be, saying nothing, doing nothing, not even looking at anything in particular. He'd been that way for a while by then, not even reacting when the nurse walked in, checked on the catheter still in his arm, and kindly told him he had a visitor.

Then the man had walked, wearing that old, gray trenchcoat over his suit, with the shade of several days without a shave, and smiling sadly, walking closer to the small bed of sheets that were as white as Shirou's thin gown. Saber felt an icy revolt in her stomach, easily recognizing that man. Emiya Kiritsugu, Magus Killer Kiritsugu, the man who had led Irisviel to a senseless death, all for a prize he even wasted at the end of it all.

Shirou finally moved his head enough as to get a good look at the tall, slim man, who seemed to have been once firm with taut muscle, but suddenly had most of the life sucked out of him. Even his eyes were gray and dull, and yet stubbornly reluctant to let go of that last sparkle of hope. His voice was pretty much the same as that.

"Hey there, Champ," he said. "Remember me? Probably not."

Shirou remained mute, not even blinking, simply staring eerily at him, perhaps struggling to remember his voice and face.

The man exhaled. "My name's Emiya Kiritsugu. And you're Shirou, I've been told."

Shirou managed to nod as best as he could. His name, he could remember that much at least. Perhaps he'd told the doctors as they struggled to save his life, although that was difficult to say for sure. The last few days had been nothing but a confusing blur where events and their sequence got wrangled with each other.

"I'll be honest with you, since we don't have much time," the man told him. "They also told me they're letting you walk out next week. After that, you can choose whether you want to go to an orphanage or stay with me."

"Ah," the child say. Only that, and nothing else.

"I've heard orphanages in this country are very good, very professional," Emiya Kiritsugu said, putting a lot of weight on each word. "While I, well, I won't lie to you, I don't have a mother for you, my house isn't too big or fancy, and I don't have the best of jobs either. Still, I was really hoping you'd let me become your Dad."


"Dad," Shirou said, more than one year later, as they sat on the porch of Kiritsugu's Mahora home, watching the starry sky sprinkled by New Year fireworks. "I've decided what my resolution will be!"

"Oh, yes? Let's hear it, then," Kiritsugu contentedly said.

Shirou took a deep breath in. "I want to be a Hero of Justice, just like you, Dad!"

Kiritsugu paused, first somewhat rattled and perplexed, and then pensive and contemplative. When he finally talked again, it was slow and measured, giving each word a lot of thought. "That's a certainly commendable goal, Shirou, but there are goals that are just too commendable for most of us to follow. I'm not sure if I didn't do more harm than good, but then again, I'm sure you'll be a better man than I was."

"That, that wasn't what I meant, Dad!" he gasped. "I know I'll never be as good a magus as you are, but, but I can do other things too! I'll be as strong as Takahata-sensei, or as wise as the Headmaster, I'll find a way to make up for it! I don't care as long as I get to be a Hero, and make you proud!"

"You already make me proud," the man said. "You're the best achievement I've ever managed. Listen, Shirou, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life. I'm not sure I'm the best man to decide that. If, by the time you're a man, that's still what you want to do, just pursue that dream with all you've got and be the best hero you can and want to be. But remember, even the best of heroes can't save everyone. The most important thing… is saving those who are the closest to you…"

Kiritsugu the Magus Killer would die a few years later, but that short conversation was, perhaps, the most important he ever had with Shirou. It encapsulated the nature of their relationship, and the bond they shared, perfectly.

Just like Saber, Shirou had been raised by a flawed father not his own, but that was where most of the similarities between their origins stopped. For Saber—

And Saber woke up, startled.

If you're wondering, she did not wake up from troubled dreams as some kind of insect.

"Please stay down, okay?" she was told by a busty, pink haired girl she recognized as one of those who had been following Negi-sensei when they met him, gently keeping a hand on her chest before she could bolt upright. Saber took notice of the rather strange fact this girl could keep her down at all, even if she hadn't really pushed her hand up hard at all, and found herself looking up at a by now familiar ceiling. That of Shirou's bedroom, which she would visit every night as he slept as part of her routine watch duties, and definitely not to look at him while in bed. "Your wounds were so serious, we even thought of taking you to a hospital, even if Rin here said—"

"Tohsaka was correct, Heroic Spirits have no need for medical assistance. I have fully recovered now," Saber stoically said, sitting up on Shirou's futon and stretching an arm over to grab o the chestplate someone had taken off her and placed aside before adjusting it back over her shirt. As she did so, those tightly gathered in the spacious but now crowded room saw she indeed seemed completely healed, even her face having regained a pristine, almost unearthly beautiful appearance. "Illyasviel, that girl. Where is she now?"

Shifting her eyes around a bit, she saw Shirou sitting by Negi-sensei's side, looking somewhat stiffer and slightly more spent than usual. He still smiled at her, even though she didn't smile back. "Saber," he hoarsely said, "I'm so glad you're okay. But, are you sure...?"

"Yes, I am," Saber sternly replied, her tone giving no room for doubts. "Please answer my query, Shirou."

"Saber-san, you still need to rest," a girl she hadn't seen before at the scene of the field warmly told her, kneeling by her side and touching her forehead. She had short grayish hair and was rather petite, even more than Saber herself. "Your wounds may have healed now, but your body's still tired. You should go back to sleep. Oh, oh, we haven't been introduced yet, have we? How do you do, I'm Izumi Ako, assistant nurse. Hm, Akira-chan and Makie-chan called me to see if I could be of any help..."

"Pleased to meet you, Izumi-san," Saber exhaled, slightly frustrated. "And I'm, of course, happy to see you're alive and well too, Shirou," she added, and then gave a better look at Negi, who sat with his shirt off and a few bandages around an arm. Saber vaguely noticed the boy was slightly more muscular than she'd have thought for a child of this era, but then, that explained how she'd seen him move around Berserker while avoiding the brute's strikes. "However, before anything else, I'd like to have my question about Illyasviel-san answered..."

"She's okay, she left with her bargain bin Solomon Grundy after Miyazaki here took her down," mumbled the pockmarked girl with glasses and a ponytail who also sat by Negi. The short girl with thick purple bangs hanging over her face looked down in awkwardness. "If what Tohsaka-sempai told us about her family while you slept is of any indication, and if she's anything at all like... well, some person like her we once met, then she should be allright. Seriously, though, what did you guys ever do to her?"

"Me?" Shirou asked back. "N-No, I don't even know who she is... She called me a 'brother', but ..."

"It looks like she's under some sort of delusion she and I share a father," Negi said, as Rin eyed him dubiously, and Itoshiki tried to look innocent, rummaging through Shirou's closet in search for anything to cut or hang himself with. "Where do you fit into that, though, I don't know."

"Is that so?" a frowning Shirou asked. "Well, Dad was my adoptive father, not blood related to me. I don't even know who were my birth family. That could have something to do with it, although no records have survived from my hometown's destruction, so I have no idea what might have made her think that. Anyway, no one was killed after all, right? Then everything's alright..."

"No, of course it's not 'alright'!" protested the ponytailed girl. "You don't know what you've just gotten into, do you?!"

"I must agree with her, Shirou," Saber dryly said. "Even after being told of the Grail War, and after listening to the priest's words, you don't seem to be taking this as seriously as you should. Your behavior on the battleground was hardly befitting a Master."

"Actually, that goes for you as well!" the ponytailed girl snapped. "Look, great warrior of the past, future or alternate world or not, I doubt you have any actual idea of what's going on with this whole Grail business!"

"Oh?" Saber coldly regarded her. "Would you happen to be a Master as well?"

"Me? Perish the thought!" the girl recoiled. "Do I look like a suicidal idiot to you?"

"Hey!" Rin and Shirou protested.

"Chisame, please, this isn't the way to explain it," Negi wearily said. "Emiya-san, Saber-san, Tohsaka-san, these are my roommates and students Hasegawa Chisame-san and Hakase Satomi-san, and the rest of them... well, they are our fellow members of the English Research Society. And the Sailor Senshi."

"Why the heck are we still here?" Sailor Mars mumbled, sitting near the door in seiza and impatiently tapping her fingers on her knees.

"It's still raining, would you rather go out and soak to the bone?" Sailor Venus hushed her, with a finger on her own mouth. "Now be quiet and don't make me, I mean us, look bad in front of Senpai!"

Shiho grimaced, giving Shirou a disdainful glance while Mercury looked like she really wished to be anywhere now but by their side. "You and your taste in men," she muttered to Venus. "No point of comparison at all with my Oniichan!"

Shirou perhaps overheard this, as he was next heard sighing heavily, like a man who is being insulted right at his own home but is too polite to mention it. "Pleased to meet you all, and sorry to have brought you into this. But, if we could know exactly what's—"

"That Grail thing is cursed!" Chisame blurted out, and Saber's eyes subtly widened for a moment.

Rin did a sudden, violent spit-take, and a small voice by her side could also be briefly heard gasping aloud. "S-SAY WHAT?!"

"We don't know that for sure just yet," Negi gently told Chisame.

"Murphy's Law!" Chisame said. "When something can go wrong, it'll go wrong! And it went wrong in Kuro-san's world!"

"That's... a very pessimistic outlook on things," her teacher tried to reason.

"She was nearly pulped to death by a murderous brute strung along by a creepy little girl who would've then killed us all!" Chisame argued, pointing vigorously at Saber. "Do you think that's what would happen in a War where everything was going on just fine?!"

"If everything were going well and in a civilized fashion, would there be a War in the first place, Chisame?" the girl named Satomi argued in response.

Shirou nodded. "Yeah, well. The way I see it, too, any Artifact people kill each other for is already cursed, in its own way. But you'll have to explain further..."

Yue sighed and stood up. "I'll go brew up some tea. I feel we'll be here for a while."


"You're an idiot, Berserker!" Illyasviel pouted as she finished stripping down. The rain tapped furiously on the large windows of her pool bath, Sayoko dutifully waiting by the water with a bucket of bathing implements in a hand and a folded white towel in the other. Illya walked past her as she continued berating the giant who had stayed by the doorstep, quiet and silent. "You could have killed them all before leaving! Argh, that's the problem with summoning a Berserker, all muscles and no brains! I should've summoned you as an Archer instead!"

"Well," Sayoko stoically said, "lamenting that now won't solve anything. You will always have more chances later. Besides, are you sure you really wanted your blood brother dead? I thought—"

"On second thought," Illya bitterly commented, "servants who do think are just as annoying as those who don't. Look, Sayoko, that boy disappointed me, okay? Hanging around all those dumb, ugly girls, like a two-bit Casanova... Honestly! I should have suspected that much after meeting his slutty girlfriend in London!"

"I'm more worried," the unflappable maid said as Illya entered the warm water in the nude, "you told them of Berserker's identity. Should they find a way to exploit his weaknesses..."

"Which weaknesses?!" the annoyed albino growled, resting in the water, letting her long silver hair float around her. "His complete invincibility? His beyond godly strength? His peerless skill in battle? His numerous appearances in every medium ever? Even if they had years, they still couldn't find a way to damage Berseker. That's not the problem."

"Then what is it?" Sayoko asked.

Illya frowned, staring up at the chamber's ceiling. "What is that to you, Sayoko? Know your place."

"My place is with Master Einzbern," Sayoko formally declared, "and without her, I wouldn't know what to do, or where to go. That is why this is, indeed, my problem, Master Einzbern."

The frown only grew. "You might," she decided, "be even dumber than Berserker."

Sayoko said nothing, but her expression remained just as grimly serious.

Illya sighed, closing her eyes. "I won't die, of course. But, in the event I did, I'd like you to keep on living, Sayoko. Go to the Britannian House, tell them I sent you. I'm sure Lelouch and Nunnally will be glad to take you in, just like with Sella and Leysritt. They'll be glad to have their girlfriend back for threesomes" Sayoko lowered her head.

"Whatever you do, however," Illya cautioned, "never go back to Grandfather. He'd punish you as if my failure— if I ever could have one— were yours."

"I don't feel comfortable discussing impossibilities of this caliber, Master," Sayoko uncomfortably confessed.

"Good. Neither do I."

Sayoko kept on looking at the little girl who was like the only family she had, and despite her cold, unchanging exterior, she could feel a deep, lasting pain burning inside of her.

It kept on raining on the castle in the woods.


"I see," said Saber-san, long after Negi's explanation (complete with helpful diagrams he had quickly sketched out during his narration. He was no Haruna, but Shirou could see his experience as a teacher had paid off. The boy was a master with a sketchboard— now, if only Shirou could remember where he had been keeping that sketchbaord in the first place) had begun, and even longer after they all had gathered around the Emiyas' rather wide dinner table. For such a loner, Kiritsugu had always been well prepared for large visits, in more than one sense.

"You see," Chisame weakly echoed, pushing her thick glasses back up her nose. She couldn't believe the cold blood this woman had taken the news with, even if she was supposed to be some sort of hardened ancient warrior.

"YOU SEE!?" Rin heatedly agreed, her eyes spiraling feverishly, her hands slamming on the table's surface. Near her, a vaguely Jim Cummings-esque voice could be faintly heard ranting to itself in dismayed confusion, although only Itoshiki seemed to be noticing it, frowning in puzzlement as if trying to remember something.

"Indeed, and given several of the events around the conclusion of the previous Grail War, it wouldn't surprise me if what you are saying is actually true," Saber stoically said.

"Eh?" Shirou blinked, breaking from his thoughts on the subject of sketchboards. "Saber, you took part in the War ten years ago?"

She nodded.

"Wow!" Shirou said. "And who was your Master then?"

Saber stared coldly at him. "Shirou, in whose tool shed did you happen to summon me, without a catalyst in your hands, and without any conscious effort to do so? I believe that should give you a clue."

Shirou's jaw went slack. "You knew my father?!"

Negi sneezed. "Excuse me," he said, wiping his nose and glad this time he hadn't accidentally set off a stripping spell.

"Oh my God," Chisame ominously said. "We have another one now."

"Hey," Negi pouted.

Yuuna scowled. "That better not mean what I think it meant, Chisame."

Haruna chuckled and whispered to Rito, "Well, at least he actually figured it out. I was so sure he wouldn't!"

Rito politely nodded, since there were cases that Honor Amongst Males simply couldn't provide cover for.

"We might talk about that some other day," Saber told Shirou, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. "Aren't you the slightest concerned, instead, about the matter of the Holy Grail itself being corrupted?"

"Um, actually, no," Shirou replied. "After all, I couldn't stop thinking about what Father Kotomine told me, about how I'd want to use the wish from the Grail for my own goals, and it had me worried, if I or anyone else could be trusted with that sort of power." Then he smiled. "But this really takes that concern off my mind! Now, if the Grail's evil, we have no reason to worry about that! After all, no one should wish on it, so all there's left to do is to destroy it! As the saying goes, lets solve this problem by burning it!"

"..." Saber, Rin, Keiichi, Negi, Ayaka, Misa, Madoka, Misora, Satomi and Chisame said.

Tsunetsuki Matoi, on the other hand, simply nodded sagely and said, "Well thought, Emiya-kun. No wonder I fell in DEEP LOVE with you that summer, after watching you almost jumping that bar..."

"Gahhhhh, it's you!" Shirou abruptly pulled back from the table, panicking in recognition of a sight from several years ago. "You were here?!"

"Yes, always," Matoi nodded.

"Hadn't you noticed?" Saber asked her Master. "Well, it matters not. If this truly is no misdirection or trickery, then I shall obliterate the Grail itself with my Noble Phantasm. Should that fail, I cannot think of other force in the world up to the task."

"Awfully sure of yourself, aren'tcha, Cutie?" Haruna observed.

"Haruna-san..." Negi said.

"What's a Noble Phantasm anyway?" Madoka asked.

"Oh, that's right, you weren't there during Kuro-chan's lectures and we haven't had the time to fill you in yet," Makie said. "Well, to be honest I was asleep through most of that explanation myself, and I could used a refresher too. I remember those really cute Chibis, the whole thing about that cursed cup wanting to destroy the world, and about Saber-san here being really skilled at fellatio, but I don't remember anything about Noble Phantoms or Phantasms! Eh heh heh, sorry, it was too much info and I wasn't taking notes!"

Saber broke into a sudden, violent fit of choking while Shirou and the rest of the girls blushed deeply.

"... I still don't know what fellatio is," Negi mumbled.

Makie shrugged. "If it makes you feel any better, Negi-kun, I don't either. Maybe that's why it stuck with me, because it sounds so funny, but... maybe we should look it up on the Internet?"

"NO!" Ayaka, Keiichi, Rito, Rin, the disembodied voice next to Rin, Madoka and Chisame yelled at once.

Shirou, in the meantime, had slowly edged away from the also slowly crumbling, embarassed Saber, but he stopped himself with a start and a yelp when he saw he was moving steadily towards Matoi.

"It's okay, Emiya-kun, I got over my DEEP LOVE for you long ago," Matoi assured him. "Now and forevermore, I shall only love Chisame-sama... well, and a bit of Negi-sama on the side, too," she conceded.

Chisame blinked, then clutched onto Emiya's sleeve. "Sempai. Tell me how you did it. Please!"

"He was oblivious to my needs, overreacted to my displays of affection, treated me as an embarrassment in public, and never understood me," Matoi explained for him. Then she cooed while hugging Chisame. "Nothing like you at all, Chisame-sama!"

"Why me?!" Chisame screamed while Satomi puffed her cheeks up.

Saber, a bit more recovered now, stared at Shirou. "Truly you were a deplorable romantic partner, Shirou. Shame on you."

"She was never my girlfriend!" Shirou said.

"You tell him, Saber-sama!" Matoi said while Chisame tried to peel her off herself. "Never give him fellatio, even if he begs you for it!"

"I have no idea what are you talking about!" the Lion of Camelot roared at her.

"Okay, before this goes any further," Rin said, in no small part to give the poor Saber a break, "there are several things I'd like to ask you."

Negi nodded. "Please ask as much as you want to."

"Okay," Rin sighed, folding her arms on the table. "are you really sure that girl, that 'Kuro' you speak of, actually came from another dimension? Because bringing someone from across the borders between dimensions, while theoretically possible, is only reserved to practitioners of True Magic, who are all but extinct now. Master Zelretch from the Clock Tower might be able to do it, but..."

"True Magic?" Makie blinked.

"What us Magi and you guys use," Rin nodded, twirling a pointer finger in Ala Alba's general direction, "is Magecraft."

"Wizardry," Negi corrected.

"Magecraft."

"Wizardry."

"Magecraft."

"Wizardry."

"Magecraft!"

"Wizardry!"

"I now get why you guys don't seem to have a lot to do with each other," Chisame said.

"No, wait, how is that not True Magic?" Makie protested. "I've seen Negi-kun throwing arrows of light, putting people to sleep with spells, stripping people with sneezes and finding a book that made me smart, and you're saying that's not True Magic?!"

"Technically, it was Chachamaru-san who found the book," Negi said.

"That's all real magic, of course, but it's not True Magic!" Rin argued.

"What are you saying, that makes no sense!" Makie kept on shouting, "Real Magic only can be True, because if it's True it has to be Real and—!"

"Aaaaarrrgh, never mind!" Rin shook her hands up. "I'm not taking the time to educate a neophyte for free when even her own Magister hasn't bothered to!"

Makie pouted. "See, Kuro-chan would have done it! And she'd have done it with cute chibis and funny sound effects!"

Rin sighed, deflating, then chose to keep on addressing Negi instead. "So anyway, about that question..."

Negi nodded. "She and our counterparts did indeed come from a parallel world, Tohsaka-san. And yes, True Magic was indeed involved."

"Of course it would," Makie mumbled, "if it's real magic, then it has to be True, because—"

"Okay, let's go with that," Rin interrupted. "Even so, if you really have been sitting on that information this whole time, why haven't you shared it with our higher-ups, or at least the Church? And I mean more than nun apprentices, no offense intended."

"None taken," an obviously offended Misora said.

"We didn't have any solid evidence, what could we do?" Negi asked. "Even so, we did tell the Elders of the Kanto and Kansai Associations. I'm sure they sent the requisite warnings to the rest of the Associations. Whether they bothered to tell anyone is beyond our power."

Rin hummed. "I never heard anything about that, not even from Kotomine. Well, they still think of me as a child, after all." Pause. "Again, no offense intended."

"None taken," Negi sincerely said.

"Still, it's problematic," Rin pondered, "Kotomine may be... well, not a pleasant person, but he still takes great care to do his job well. For him to forfeit warning Masters of the possibility the Great Grail might be tainted, that's strange from someone as fastidious as him."

"Maybe he didn't really think it could happen?" Shirou shrugged. "If there wasn't any actual proof after all..."

"I suppose you're right," Rin uneasily conceded. "Well, I don't really care if I have to destroy the Grail. I didn't have any wishes to ask from it anyway."

"Oh, come on," Misa said.

"No, no, I mean it!" Rin replied. "It's not like I don't have any dreams or aspirations, but I want to chase after them on my own, not just getting them as freebies from any magical source. I can't even say I'd use it to bring my parents back to life, since it has been said the Grail cannot be used to revive the dead."

"Oh," Misora softly said. "You're an orphan then? Sorry to hear that."

Rin half-smiled. "Thank you. My sister and I have carried on rather well ever since, in any case. As long as I have her and my career, I don't see the need to ask for anything from the Grail."

"Then why did you enter the War in the first place, Tohsaka?" Shirou curiously questioned.

"Eh?" Chisame said. "She's a Master as well?"

"Ahem," Rin rasped, blushing a bit, "yes, I am, but—"

"I can't believe it!" Misa said. "Then why didn't you call on your Servant to help us against that freaky bull-elephant-dinosaur man!? Were you waiting to see how many of us would he flatten before achieving the status of an emergency?!"

"Bull-elephant-dinosaur man?" asked Sakurako and Madoka, blinking.

"My Servant..." Rin slowly said, keeping her gaze low, "Well, I'm sure you'd understand if you saw my Servant..."

"Hey," the disembodied voice grunted.

Yuuna huffed, tapping her fingers on the table. "Then let's see that fabled Servant already."

Rin clenched her teeth and ground them together. "I don't have to show him off if I don't want to..."

"Tohsaka," Saber spoke then, stern and firmly. "As a Servant myself, I find your current behavior deplorable."

Rin blinked at her. "What?!"

"No Master should ever be ashamed of their Servant," Saber told her, turning on the pressure. "For a Servant fights for their Master's life and happiness, and unless the Servant betrays that sacred bond, which Vigilante has not done yet, it's the Master's duty to repay in kind by not reneging from their connection. I can understand keeping your identity as a Master a secret, as well as your Servant's real identity, but once you have been revealed, out of all the reasons to keep your Servant hidden, shame is the most cowardly and dishonorable."

She slammed a gauntlet on her breastplate and added, "I cannot, in a good conscience, share my table with someone who would feel embarrassment over a faithful comrade in arms. Decide, then, if you will keep yourself set in your ways so I can leave, or reconsider your stance so I remain."

An aghast Rin simply stared in silence at the scowling young woman who had lectured her so harshly while Lala blinked and said, "But, this isn't your table anyway...?"

Rin ended up sighing, admitting defeat. "Okay. You're right, Saber, I'm sorry. Vigilante," she clapped once. "Show yourself, please."

A thick cloud of purple smoke manifested itself on the table as a voice spoke, "I am the terror that flaps in the night... I am the Black Key that shows up at your gacha... I am... Servant Vigilante!"

And the smoke burst in all directions, dissipating enough as to show a small figure mysteriously wrapped in a long purple cape and shadowed by a wide brimmed purple hat and mask, under which jutted... an orange duck beak.

There was a silent beat from all those present.

It was Misa who finally broke the silence, talking to Rin. "Okay, Senpai, I take that back. You were right."

Rin nodded at her, even as Vigilante huffed grandly, folding his arms.

Nodoka and Yue tilted their heads, frowning. "Have we met before?" Nodoka said, sounding uncertain. "I feel like I should know you."

"I doubt it," Vigilante said, though he also sounded uncertain. "Have you ever urinated on my mailbox?"

"What?! No, of course not!" Nodoka replied. And glanced at Yue.

"I don't urinate on mailboxes," Yue said indignantly.

"Why isn't she wearing pants?!" a panicky Rito cried, covering his eyes.

Vigilante glared venomously at him. "Who are you calling 'she', dishrag?"

"Well, nothing's sticking out, so– "

"Master, can I beat up this idiot?" Vigilante said levelly.

"No fighting, not fighting!" Shirou cried.

Itoshiki began gasping slightly, pointing at Vigilante and weakly starting to blabber, "You! You, you, you are..."

Vigilante shot him a piercing 'complete that sentence and I'll do something far worse than kill you', so Nozomu simply gulped and lamely added, "... a duck."

Makie clasped her hands together. "IT'S SO CUTE! He kinda looks like you, Negi-kun!"

"Servants aren't supposed to be 'cute'!" Rin protested, since she had no way of knowing about the current Temptress, or Nursery Rhyme, or the Prisma Caster. "Listen. Vigilantes, much like Assassins, are supposed to act better in secrecy, moving in the shadows, and Berserker was the worst possible kind of adversary for him. What was I supposed to do? Have my Servant killed in the first actual battle of the War? I'd have brought eternal shame to the name of my family, and I only fight here to honor Father's legacy!"

Shirou reached over and placed a hand on Rin's shoulder. "Suddenly, I feel much closer to you, Tohsaka."

"You go, Tohsaka-san!" Negi said, putting a hand on her other shoulder. "Fight to make your father look good!"

They both smiled at her in a beatific, encouraging way.

"I feel like I've just failed at life somehow," Rin said, leaning away from them.

"I once took down an actual kaiju, you know," Vigilante said. "Don't misjudge me because of my size, right, boy?" he added, reaching over to pat Negi's head.

Negi blinked. "Um, yes, you're right, no one should judge others based on their physical appearance, but... I'm not that strong either, so I don't know if I'd be the best point of comparison..."

"Nonsense, I saw the way you fought back there," Vigilante complimented him in a vaguely aloof 'think nothing of it' sort of way, "and you held your own remarkably well, in that you weren't bashed instantly despite getting closer than anyone but Saber. You'd have done well against a weaker enemy."

Negi chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. "Ah, well, thanks, that's high praise indeed, coming from a Legendary Spirit..."

"Well, I've gotta hand it to you, you got yourself a Spirit whose identity nobody could ever learn, Senpai," Chisame told Rin. "I'm trying to think of famous heroes from myth who were ducks, and only drawing blanks."

Kero shrugged from his vantage point on Nodoka's shoulder. "Must be a legendary figure from Mundus Magicus. The humans of this world know next to nothing about the beastmen from that world, although some lore from it will filter through every now and then. Did you guys know Robin Hood was actually a fox?"

"One of them," Rin cautioned, wagging a finger. "It was a collective identity, a legacy passed from one outlaw to another, and not all of them were decent people. Kind of like 'President of the United States."

They all shuddered in horror

"I'm impressed, I never suspected there'd be so many talking animals," Emiya hummed. "I knew mages turned their criminals into ermines, which I guess is a step up from what magi do to them, but I never imagined there'd be talking ducks, or cats, or plush lions..."

"This is naught but a temporary form," Kero haughtily replied. "Once Nodoka catches all four Elemental Clow Cards, I'll return to my majestic, incredible and powerful awesome true form!"

"Ooooohh, I didn't know that!" Makie said. Then she asked Vigilante, "And how many cards do you need?"

"This is my true form!" the duck protested.

"My court jester was a rabbit," Saber casually supplied. "Resourceful sneaky creature, as well. Defeated the Black Knight and his dragon to retrieve the Singing Sword for us, all on his own, when all of our knights had failed..."

The rest of them stared at her in silence, trying to make sense of what she'd just said. Since none of them could ever imagine the Knights of the Round failing where a rabbit would succeed, her secret was still safe, just as she had expected, and they mostly assumed she was another historical figure from the World of Magic.

"Anyway, Vigilante-san, could you please get off the table already?" Shirou requested of the duck. "Ladies eat there all the time, you know."

Keiichi and Rito shot him an unamused glare over that remark.

Shirou recoiled at the sudden perceived hostility. "Wh-What? I only mean Saber, and Fujimura-sensei, and Sakura, who sometimes comes along to help! What kind of weird ideas are you getting now?!"

"To 'help' with what?" Misa evilly smiled. "Hey, Tohsaka-sempai, that Sakura is your little sister, isn't she? Don't you have anything to say about her spending that time at the house of a young man who lives all alone?"

"... Sakura is old enough already to make her own decisions..." Rin said, voice neutral, seeing the bait and refusing to bite any more than strictly necessary. Vigilante, knowing the realities of the Tohsaka household, heroically held his peace. Sailor Venus, in the meanwhile, chewed on her lower lip tensely, her hand reaching over to grasp Mercury's tightly, making Akira slightly roll her eyes around.

"Okay," Negi said, cutting the teasing before it could get any more distracting, "now that's out of the way and we know of Tohsaka-san and Vigilante-san's nature as Master and Servant, we can fully focus on what's truly important here..."

"Your sister?" Satomi asked him.

"... she couldn't possibly be my sister, although yes, she'll need help to get over that..." Negi patiently answered.

"Your father said– " Chisame began.

"But what I mean," Negi interrupted loudly, "is what are we going to do about this corrupted Holy Grail matter. I trust, Emiya-san, Tohsaka-san, Saber-san, Vigilante-san, you all are willing to reach a truce at least until we can learn what is truly going on here?"

Shirou nodded. "If I could reach a truce with each Master and Servant, that'd be great with me, actually."

In a parallel universe where Green Lantern was a ten year old girl, Emiya Shiro, NOT Shirou, sneezed.

"That'll never happen," Rin sighed, "but yes, I agree it's stupid to fight each other for the sake of a Grail that would only harm us if we get our hands on it. Let's try and get to the bottom of this before deciding on anything else."

In a parallel universe where Illya was a Magical Girl, Tohsaka Rin sneezed.

"That is a fair, smart course of action," Saber nodded. "I agree."

"Okay," Vigilante said, "and how do we get to learn that in the first place? The Grail is unattainable until the Heaven's Feel ritual is completed. Until that point, there's literally no way we can analyze or study it, to see if it's tainted or not. So what can we do?"

"Actually," Negi said, "we could try and find evidence from the Grail's prior manifestation site."

Emiya turned his face towards him, startled. Chisame grimaced. "With that place, you mean... Oh, what the hell!" she complained. "You can't be seriously suggesting we get past the barriers and into Fuyuki City!"

"I'd never dream of dragging you guys along," Negi said, "I'm just saying I could head there on my own and easily locate at least—"

"BY THIS POINT, YOU'RE JUST USING REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY ON US, AREN'T YOU?!" Chisame accused.

"Should I still be here for this?" Ako asked.


Next: Ghosts of the Future.


Omake: Shiho's Little Dirty Secret.

"Your roommate knows!" Shiho told Minako.

"That couldn't be helped," Minako said, "I had to transform in front of her to save her life, and I had no choice..."

"More than half of the people in her class knows!" Shiho accused, pointing at a guilty looking Akira. "Including, as you know, the Manga Gossip Queen herself! And from what I gathered, the Paparazzi Gossip Queen knows about them, how long before she learns about us too?!"

"They're already in the world of magical things, they're used to keeping secrets, the paparazzo hasn't even shown up in God knows how many chapters now, with any luck she'll be forgotten and put on a bus," Minako groaned, waving a hand. "Besides, none of that is Akira-chan's fault. Stop acting guilty, Akira-chan."

"S-Sorry."

"That includes apologizing that way too!" Minako said. "You aren't that 3-F girl!"

Shiho pouted. "Yeah, they've made such a good job at keeping their secrets, too! Oneesama!" she called out for Mana, who quietly sat to the side drinking tea and meditating in her miko robes. "I've been keeping your secret faithfully for years, but this is a secret of MY own! I can tell Yuuichi-Oniichan about it if I want to, can't I?!"

Mana finished her tea and said, "That's for you to decide."

"What?!" Minako, Akira and Artemis cried at once.

"Just let her act on her own," Mana told them. "If you are to be partners, you should trust her better judgment."

"But—!" Minako gasped.

"Oneesama...!" Shiho sniffled, tears springing to her eyes, moved oh so greatly. "So you care after all...!"


"Oh, Shiho?" Tate Yuuichi blinked, noticing her standing by his locker when he exited his afternoon classes. "What are you doing here? Something wrong?"

"Um, not exactly, Oniichan," his childhood friend told him. "I have, ah, something very important to tell you. Ah, um, eh, well."

"Yes?" he stopped before her. "What is it?"

"Urrr, ehhhh, well yeah, ah, you'll see. Hrm, ahem, eh, it is..."

"... what will I see?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just, ihhhh, it's simple, actually, it's ah, never mind, I mean, uhhh, the thing is..."


"So, as you can see," Mana said later that afternoon, during the latest meeting of the Sailor Senshi at the Tatsumiya Shrine, "your secret will never be as safe anywhere as it will be with Shiho."

"Ohhhhh..." Akira, Artemis and Minako said, greatly enlightened.

Shiho stopped bashing her forehead on the wooden table for just a moment to angrily yell, "You knew it'd happen this way, didn't you?!"


My Little Ferret: Ventriloquism is Magic.

After yet another particularly hard day of being hammered in the face by the beautiful girl with the sad eyes, Takamachi Nanoha staggered into her bedroom, teetered on the edge of the bed for a few moments, and then fell flat on her face, burying her features in the pillow.

Miyuki-neechan peeked in a few moments after. "Are you getting into fights again, Nanoha-chan?"

A very un-Nanoha-like grunt was her only reply.

"You know," Miyuki said, sitting next to Nanoha's prone form, petting the ferret who leapt onto her lap as usual, "I know we're all able to fight to one degree or another, even Mom, and I know that is your way of getting your point across to those who are difficult to befriend through mere words otherwise, but that just isn't the way you should be approaching your day to day relationships, Nanoha-chan. Fighting should only be a last resort, or when it's safe, sane and consensual, and done with adequate protection. Don't ever become a fighting maniac! Or else, you could turn into a deranged loner shunned by society!"

"Ah-hah," Nanoha tiredly said without lifting her face.

"Are you actually listening to me, Nanoha-chan?"

"Yes, I am, Oneechan... just like I listen to what Kyouya-niichan and you do every night in the next room."

" …Ahhhh… " Miyuki said.

"Which is certainly very ladylike and proper and sure not to turn either of you into deranged loners shunned by society," Nanoha said, her face still against the pillow. "And probably also very safe, sane and consensual too, with adequate protection."

"Right," Miyuki gulped.

"So I apologize for my bad habits, and instead, I'll go ask Kyouya-niichan if he can teach me how to be a lady just like you. With his help, I'm sure I could—"

"Ah, a-actually, you, you're just fine as you are, Nanoha-chan! N-Never change, please!"

"Okay."

After Miyuki rather hurriedly left, Nanoha blinked awake and pushed herself up the bed, rubbing her still reddened eyes. "Huh? Say, Yuuno-kun, I had the impression Miyuki-neechan was here? Was she —"

The ferret sitting on her nightstand nodded. "Yes, she was. Don't worry, she only came here to see if you were ok."

"Oh," she sighed."Yeah, I can say she's been worried about me lately. Do you think maybe she'll start to look too closely, and—?"

"Oh, no, I don't think she'll be looking into this any further than she already does!" Yuuno said. "Don't worry about that, I'm sure she won't compromise your secrecy! After all, she looks like the type who can appreciate privacy in the family!"

And he smiled, apparently very satisfied. Nanoha wondered exactly why he looked so sure about that.


Extra! Sailor V Says!

"So, what are we doing here? I thought we had killed, well, I had killed our bad guy because everyone else were, no offense, pansies? What, the next weirdo already showed up to threaten the city with a giant cheese grater or something? That was fast!" Sailor Mars said.

"Ahem, no. Now that you're here, I thought we might just as well use the chance to boost our corner of this universe up by doing the 'Sailor V Says' segments again," Sailor Venus explained.

"The what of what now?" Mars asked.

"It used to be, we'd have a little segment at the end of chapters," Sailor Mercury helpfully said, "where we'd address our audience and give them a small piece of moral advice on some topic pertinent to the chapter we'd just covered. I liked that. It proved we could be helpful in ways that wouldn't involve violence."

"... what the hell," Mars said. "That sounds like the most cornball thing ever. You guys were ripping He-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog of all things! Didn't you have any shame?!"

"Well, we have to use any advantage we can latch onto if we want to stay afloat!" Venus said. "In this story, if you don't keep yourself relevant, you'll be quickly pushed aside by the new characters coming out of the woodwork! Do you want us to end up like the cast of Full Metal Panic? Those guys will be lucky if they ever get five more lines of dialogue each!"

"... we have Edward Elric in this thing, seriously?" Mars asked.

"That's Full Metal Alchemist. We won't have that because the author doesn't believe he can write those characters as well and properly as they and their fans deserve," Mercury said while holding a disclaimer saying instead 'Over Master won't ever write Full Metal Alchemist because it doesn't have enough fanservice'.

"Okay," Mars said, conceding defeat. "Well, then. What do you guys know about morality to provide even a bit of advice on that field? You dress like whores, you forced me into this whore dress, you lie to your parents about your dual life, you go out at night to meet mysterious older men in back alleys, you're always taking the law into your own hands, you claim to be superior just because you're royalty from ancient times, which is classist as hell, and I'm sure you don't get enough sleep either..."

Venus made a disgusted face. "Why do you have to phrase it the worst possible way? Anyone can put a negative spin on anything by nitpicking on all the bad things while overlooking the good ones! You sound like OM reviewing the latest UQ Holder, while we should accentuate the positive, in the TV Tropes spirit of—!"

"To heck with that," Shiho waved a hand, "I'll tell you what the real moral for this episode is!" She turned to the camera and wagged a finger. "Good girls don't become Magical Girls!"

"Maaaaars!" Venus cried. "Mercury, help me reason with her!"

"Actually, Senpai," Mercury doubted, "maybe she has a point here...?"

A succession of Magical Girl profiles flashed across the screen accompanied by explanatory text.

Takamachi Nanoha- Violence junkie.

Sasami Jurai, aka Pretty Sammy- Incest fetish.

Illyasviel von Einzbern- Incest fetish, Meido fetish.

Star Butterfly- Hyperactive abuser of non-human species.

Akemi Homura- Gun nut with possessive-stalker loner tendencies.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, aka Ladybug- Thinks A Cat Is Fine Too.

Arcueid Brunestud, aka Phantasmoon- Dates Guy who Thinks A Cat Is Fine Too.

Maria Cadenzavna Eve- Witless Plaything of Perverted Mad Scientist.

Akazukin Chacha- Bestiality.

Fancy Lala- Proponent of child labor.

Yuuki Yuna- Disability fetishist.

Watanabe Poemi, aka Puni Puni Poemi- DON'T GET US STARTED.

"So there, girls everywhere!" Mars continued, "If you ever run into a dealer of the occult, suspicious looking alien entity, or shady agent of the darkness offering you a Faustian deal, just SAY NO! Or you might end up like the skanks from Day Break Illusion!"

"Oh, really?" Venus scoffed. "Well, then, why don't you hand YOUR powers in? I'm sure Kagurazaka-san would appreciate them! Or even that Hino girl hanging around with the enigmatic European maid!"

"What? And end up like the Full Metal Panic cast?!"


Somewhere else, Takane D. Goodman, Apostol of Justice, blinked under her black umbrella made of shadow magic. "Wait a minute," she said. "Where are our scenes for this chapter?!"

Sakura Mei sighed. "Hopefully next time, Oneesama. Hopefully...!"