Negima! Magister Negi Magi/魔法先生ネギま！ 1. Negi, Asuna, Konoka, Setsuna

_You know the drill. I have no copyright on anyone featured here, nor do I make money out of these characters. Thanks to Darkenning for the inspiration and proofreading. This is a companion piece to his much better story _Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey_, and while it runs parallel to it, it shouldn't be considered as taking place in that same universe. Because this one has CROSSOVERS!_

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**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey.**

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**Chapter One:**

* * *

Greetings. I am Uatu, the Watcher of Sector 2814, to use the most commonly accepted term spread by the Guardians of the Universe. Since the fiery birth of this universe, our species has monitored and chronicled the exploits of any and all other living species throughout the galaxies, always sworn to bear silent witness, without ever interfering. Unless the Fantastic Four are involved.

I observe the whole spectrum of situations and activities with which the denizens of Earth concern themselves. How they wage war on each other, how they love and destroy, how they succeed or succumb to adversity. There is no ill will whatsoever in any of this; no malice or improper desire to pry into their affairs is involved. The few who know of us often find this difficult to believe, but we find no pleasure on observing and recording such affairs, other than that the satisfaction of performing one's duty.

And we are certainly not Peeping Toms.

Which is why, when I relay this story of the human being known as Negi Springfield and his associates to you, it is not with a lustful spirit or intent. Such things are beneath the Watchers.

Because we are not Peeping Toms.

Let this be spoken and recorded for posterity.

In the meanwhile, please do watch, listen and learn the lessons to be derived from this strange saga...

(WARNING: This fanfic's management wishes to make clear there's no real lesson to be learned from this snappy little tale of lust, no matter what the cosmic Peeping Tom may say. Underaged unprotected sex is VERY bad, mmmmkay?)

* * *

'No man is an island.'

Wise words, as long as we consider 'man' to stand for 'sapient being' in that sentence, but we'd probably be splitting hairs at that point. Regardless, their core meaning still rings true; nothing of what we do will ever stop having subtle influences on others, and those others, in turn, will influence other people directly or indirectly connected to their lives, and so on. We are all part of a tangled web we all weave together. Of course, some of us will always have more of an influence on the whole than others. It stands to reason that the decisions, accidental or conscious, of someone who has saved the world before hitting his twelve years of age would mean more than those of you and me.

Well, you, anyway.

That is the reason why we are sharing this story today.

As for that day, the day this story actually started, since prior aspects of it have been better narrated elsewhere, we should probably start at the main infirmary of Mahora Academy, where the school's most popular, and youngest, teacher was undergoing an examination to determine why he wasn't looking that young anymore.

"Months?" Negi repeated incredulously.

"At a minimum. In case you weren't certain," answered Konoe Kouko.

"But, but - wait, I have to deliberately absorb a spell in order to use it as a Pro Armatione," Negi protested, flailing about for some way that this could be a mistake. "How can it -"

"Mm-hm, and you normally have to incant it. You didn't have to incant anything to use the pill, did you?" Kouko asked, as Negi slapped his own forehead. "There probably was a moment where you chose this, but it might have been something almost unconscious. Some moment where you wished things were different than they were."

"Nyergh," Negi said cleverly as he remembered thinking just that while watching Fate toying with the cheerleaders.

"Well, it's not so bad. But before you get any clever ideas about taking another one and trying to get yourself back to normal that way, let me state clearly - that would be a bad idea. We don't know what might happen, and there's a real danger that you might suffer a more serious problem."

The academy's official nurse, who until then had remained at the sidelines listening intently, chose that moment to speak up. So far, she had stayed out of the discussion since magic had never been something she could or wished to understand, but now she knew for sure that magic was stuck, it was time for science to toss its figurative hat in and prove how much better and more useful it was.

"I think I could help you with that," Mikado-sensei offered, extending a small jar of pills towards the aged-up Negi. "Konoe-sensei's concern is the age changing magic could react unfavorably with your Magia Erebea-induced change, isn't it? Then, by taking one of these pills of my own concoction, which are similar in purpose but created through purely scientific means, you could bypass those concerns."

The black haired woman frowned thoughtfully. "Actually, I'm not sure that would be the wisest course of action, either. Too many unknown variables."

Negi accepted the pill jar from the alien nurse. "I think I'll do it. After all, I'm immortal now. I doubt this could damage me enough to make it actually dangerous. What's the worst that could possibly happ-"

With a small frown and without a single word, Kouko yanked the jar of pills from Negi's hand.

"But why?" The savior of a whole world would never whine, but Negi came dangerously close to it then.

"You jinxed it. I'm doing this for your own good," Konoka's mother said.

"I suppose I should feel offended," Ryoko said, although with a playful smile that never left her lips.

Kouko looked evenly at her. "I have seen enough of what your medications can do on humans. Please do stick to aliens."

"However, technically I am an alien, right?" asked Negi, all too willing to grasp for a solution. "I mean, half Martian at least, and we're not exactly sure where my mother chose to ... I'll shut up," he held his hands up at the quiet, cold glare Kouko was giving him. "I guess ... well, could you let my friends in so that I can tell them?"

"Of course," Kouko, heading over to the door to the small examination room. She opened it and let Kotaro enter quickly, followed more patiently by Fate. She regarded the white-haired boy with no small amount of suspicion, in stark contrast to Ryoko's interested smirk, but allowed him entry nonetheless.

Half a moment later, Itoshiki Nozomu-sensei walked in as well, shoulders drooped. "I feel so out of place here," he shared. "Like I shouldn't even be here."

"Well, the good news is that I'm perfectly fine," Negi said. "The bad news is, I'm stuck this way and we don't know how long."

"That is good news," Fate said. "There should be no problems completing the tasks for the project in this form. Actually, for those which would require you to appear as a more mature person, it's more convenient, since you won't run the chance of shifting back in the middle."

"It's also really bad news," Kotaro said, glaring at Fate. Itoshiki was too busy making a pale rictus of bizarre shock to comment. "Where the heck are you gonna stay here on campus?"

Negi blinked. "Oh, feathers!" he cursed.

"... that's a curse?" Kotaro asked.

"Actually, in Rann, it is," Mikado-sensei said, then quickly added, "Long time enemies of Thanagar, you know."

That didn't actually explain anything to the rest of those present, so they decided ignoring in favor of the actual matter at hand.

"I never even considered that!" Negi said, hopping off the table. "I can't stay in the girls dorm room like this, the Headmaster-"

"What about me, Negi-kun?" said a cheerful voice from the doorway. Itoshiki's face, which was returning to some semblance of normality, immediately returned to its expression of shock. As he saw the old man calmly entering the room, supporting himself on his cane, he was sure that was it. The end of the rope for the sole child (and we mean that!) of his old mentor (actually, more like 'guy who had vaguely kept watch over him for a while when he was a child') Nagi Springfield. There was no way the Headmaster would let Negi live with Konoka-san after this, and that meant Negi would be expelled from the campus, or even worse ... sent to live with Itoshiki himself!

"Then we're agreed," Konoemon was saying cheerfully. "You will be-"

"I'M IN DESPAIR!" Itoshiki cried, striking his characteristic Despair Pose. "HAVING THE WEIGHT OF ANOTHER CHILD TOSSED UPON ME WHEN I'M NOT READY HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!"

The scream, of course, caught everyone's attention, and they all stared at him. "Is there something the matter, Nozomu-kun?" Konoemon asked politely.

"Uhhhhh ... no, Sir," the lanky man quickly denied.

And so, it had been decided while Itoshiki's mind ran nightmare scenarios feverishly. Negi would, after all, stay living where he had over the last few months. Which takes us to the next stage in our tale.

* * *

"And that is basically everything," Headmaster Konoemon finished his tale for all those gathered around the table. "So now you know, Negi-sensei is to be allowed continued residence in the female dorms until further notice, despite the special conditions of his new state."

"With all due respect, sir, have you really given the situation all the thought that demands?" Nikaido Yuri asked him. "It's rather unheard of ... or at least, it was until Komori-san was allowed to room in Itoshiki-sensei's residence, but still -"

"That is but one of my many shames," Itoshiki mused darkly, hands crossed before his pale face. "I won't hold anything against you if you decide to finally bring charges against me because of it. All I ask is for Komori-san to be spared! It's all my fault for being so pathetically -!"

Konoemon interrupted the incoming Despair Rant with a well placed, "I appreciate your concerns, Nikaido-sensei, but I have the utmost faith in Negi-sensei's sense of decency and decorum, no matter the circumstances."

A heavy burst of thunder was heard in the distance, and when it passed, they could hear Itoshiki saying, "- unlike me, since I happen to be nothing but a weak-willed, good-for-nothing, woefully underqualified shame of this glorious academy and deserve nothing but a swift demise, preferably -"

"I trust Negi-sensei too!" Nekomome Shizuka said, just to cut him short while she could.

Ririko Kagome shrugged indolently. "If the Headmaster considers it so, I see no reason to oppose."

Ninomiya Hinako nodded vigorously, but whatever she was saying went muffled through her mouth filled of ice-cream mouthfuls.

"I must say I don't distrust him, exactly, but-" Akashi Wataru added dubiously.

"We are talking about a young man who is faster and stronger than a fighter jet," the cattily smiling lamia in human form spoke then. "I doubt a girl with the abilities of, let's say your daughter, just to pose a standard example I'm not using as a specific personal attack of any sort, could ever force him to do anything he didn't want to."

"Sure she could!" Akashi replied, pride in his daughter momentarily overcoming his common sense. "She'd just have to back-shoot him with a magic suppressing bullet, followed quickly by a paralysis round, and then she'd be... able... to... um, of course, I'm just being hypothetical here," he concluded once common sense reasserted itself. "Very well. If the rest of the Council accepts it, I'll add my vote of trust as well."

"Is my vote worth anything at all? It shouldn't be, since I am the worst judge of character here, but -" Itoshiki began.

"We accept your vote for Negi-kun, Nozomu," Takahata nodded. "So relax, please."

The Despair Teacher frowned, annoyed at being shown up by Takamichi once again.

"Very well," Konoemon rasped. "Next topic in today's agenda, what to do about the Dorm Supervisor after she snapped Kamijou-kun's neck."

"But he's recovering, isn't he?" asked Hinako-sensei, licking ice-cream leftovers from her fingers.

"Just barely, but that isn't the point."

* * *

That was the easy part. After all, they all were paid, and richly so, to basically follow Konoemon's instructions.

The _real_ difficult part would come next. Naturally, the students themselves would rather quickly realize there was a boy who was definitely older than Negi-sensei living in the female dorms, so that would have to be addressed as well. And so, after the staff meeting was over, they ushered the students in the know about magic into the meeting room.

Said meeting room, wide as it was, seemed so very tiny and cramped now.

Takahata looked at Konoemon. "Sir, when did so many-"

"After the Obsidian Prince Crisis that took place during the summer weeks you spent in Mundus Magicus, Takamichi-kun," the old man explained patiently.

"It was truly depressing." Itoshiki ran his bony hands through his own hair, even pulling on it. "And the worst part was, I didn't even die! Even when besieged by a private army, and then legions of monsters commanded by an ancient -"

"A private army?" Takahata interrupted.

"The Searrs Foundation," Konoemon answered, while the last few students took their seats. "You'd probably call it one of your average Tuesdays, only it took place here."

"And then there was the Holy Grail War-" Nekomome reminisced.

Nutmeg-chan twitched a few times. "It was ... horrible ..."

"Oh, really," Takahata said. "I suppose that explains why Kirei's church, and Kirei himself, are missing."

"Nothing of any value was lost," Akashi shrugged.

"Indeed," Caren Ortensia-chan said.

"Well, that's nice to know," Takahata said, meaning it, "But I was under the impression the last War had been only -"

Konoemon stood up and rasped, addressing the mostly puzzled students. "Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for attending our call so quickly, leaving your other commitments for the day behind. Let me assure you, there is a good reason for this abrupt call -"

Info Dump ensued.

"And that is basically everything," Headmaster Konoemon finished his tale, for he was a person of habits and never one to stop using a perfectly good Info Dump as long as it remained useful. "So now you know, Negi-sensei is to be allowed continued residence in the female dorms until further notice, despite the special conditions of his new state. I trust you will help us ease your classmates and associates into this situation without revealing anything they shouldn't know."

The students just sat there, mostly dumbstruck.

"- so, he's a HiME, then?" Minagi Mikoto asked. "Because only girls can be HiME."

Konoemon mentally counted to ten before answering. "No, he's not a HiME, Minagi-kun. He's a mage, on loan from Wales' Merdiana Academy, and we trust you to keep this a secret."

Mikoto looked around the room, counted a few times with her fingers, then said, "I think we're too many for this to be a secret anymore."

You could have heard a needle falling then. As a matter of fact, Hinako-sensei had just dropped one, just to verify this. It was deafening.

Finally, Yuuki Nao snorted, looking aside. "She's said something not only sensible, but reasonable. Are you sure the world didn't end?"

"Hey!" Tokiha Mai began.

Finally, after several moments of sitting there with eyes reduced to the size of mustard seeds, Suzushiro Haruka stood up violently. "Headmaster, Sir! With all the due respect to your authorizitation, that is -!"

Tohsaka Rin's pigtails stood up at the word that closed that statement, and even Matou Shinji seemed horrified. Then again, his near death during the War had left him much more impressionable (and even more of a pushover) than before. Emiya Shirou blushed and tapped on his knees uneasily, while Mikoto cocked her head aside and began making mouth motions as if to ask Mai something. Mai just shook her head quickly and placed a hand on Mikoto's mouth.

"- because it's a complete moral alternation of our guidelines, and likely to bring several issues that would be easily prevoided if he only was moved in with someone his age and gender!" Haruka ranted. "Surely even the soon-to-be-graduated-and-thus-happily-deposed president of our Student Council agrees with me here!"

"Actually, I trust Negi-sensei with all my heart," Fujino Shizuru calmly said, surely not just to go against her, not at all.

"AAAARRRRGHHHHH!" Haruka sizzled. "I can't believe this!"

"When you mean 'his age', you mean like his real age, or his current age, or -" Emiya Shirou began asking, then fell silent as he felt most glances fixed on him. Meekly, he added, "Did I err?"

Tate Yuuichi then blinked in contemplation. "On second thought, maybe that's not such a bad question..."

Konoemon cleared his throat. "Suzushiro-kun. I'm infinitely grateful for your honesty and the heartfelt expression of your feelings of concern about this Academy."

"Sir," Haruka saluted him respectfully.

Konoemon studied for a moment if he should add a slight reference to how most others no doubt thought like her but didn't have the guts to say it outright, but decided against it. "However, the decision already has been made, and it is final. At least for the time being."

"But that's a contravention in terms!" Suzushiro gasped aloud.

"Contradiction, Haruka-chan," Kikukawa Yukino softly corrected her.

"You'll find out life is often seemingly self-contradictory, yet it always obeys a greater design, Suzushiro-kun," the Headmaster sagely said. "Well, I'll start listening to your questions now."

Takahata raised a hand from the report on the summer's 'technical difficulties' Shizuna had just lent him. "Sir, may I ask about this 'Fake Mahora' incident? This section seems to be very spottily redacted."

"We ... we had a really packed summer," Kurosaki Ichigo-san replied awkwardly.

* * *

Back when they still were a force to be reckoned with in the Japanese magical community, the Matou family had established places of residence all across the country. After the Fuyuki fires ten years ago, the elder patriarch of the clan, Matou Zouken, had moved with his grandchildren into the old home he had bought decades ago from the previous Mahora management. The house had, against all odds, survived the recent Grail War mostly intact, although the pecking order inside had changed radically. Not enough to make Tohsaka Rin feel all easy about being there, but at least enough to make her walk in, in the first place, after enough prodding from Sakura. The last thing Tohsaka wanted after all that had transpired in the War was to antagonize her long estranged sister any more than she absolutely had to.

Now, gathered at the Matou household long after most other students had retreated into their homes, most of those present at the meeting were drowning their mostly mild annoyances in delicious food and non-alcoholic drinks. Shinji only sat there in stiff, occasionally shivery silence, which was creeping Tohsaka out more than his usual behavior would have. Sakura, on the other hand, only smiled placidly as she sat at the head of the large table, as if she actually owned the place.

For Tokiha Mai, who only had a passing knowledge of what had happened in the War and had been far more involved with the HiME conflict, that barely registered. "So, what are we supposed to do if they comment on it? Like heck Aoi and Chie aren't going to start asking around as soon as they see him walking in and out of the dorm building, and what do I have to tell them then? 'Oh, don't worry, I'm sure there's a perfectly rational and non-magical reason that hunk is living with the headmaster's granddaughter?'"

"Hunk?" Tate huffed, as Shiho smirked slyly.

"To use a term they would use." Mai waved a hand into a circle, just once.

Nao snorted as she kept her eyes fixed on her cellphone and the message she was texting. "I know how I'd answer. I'm gonna answer, 'I have no freaking idea, go ask the old man'. And I suggest you all do the same."

"As if anyone would ask you anything to begin with," Kuga Natsuki muttered.

Nao smiled. "True. It's great to be me, isn't it?"

Mai sighed. "You know, I actually miss Midori now. Crazy as she could be, I bet she'd at least have some idea of what to do about-"

"I have no freaking idea whatsoever about what to do here," Sugiura Midori said as she stole some rice from Mai's plate.

"AHH!" Mai jumped back. "You were here!"

"Yes, always," Midori nodded.

"No, you just arrived," Mikoto told her.

Tate blinked. "Sensei? Say, didn't you go to America with your -"

Midori was now crouching in the corner, facing away from everyone else as shadows wrapped her. "I ... I had to come back."

"The Most Important Person Ever let you down?" Nao guessed.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Midori snapped, still staring into her corner.

"What was it?" pressed on Nao. "Another woman? 'It's not you, it's me'? Erectile dysfunction?" Nao asked, before Haruka frowned and none-too-softly bopped the back of her head. "HEEEYYYY!"

Mikoto looked at Mai. "What's erectile dysfun-"

"Don't think about it!" Mai commanded.

Then the sounds of tired dragging steps called everyone's attention towards a shriveled, spent old man in dark houserobes holding a large tray with several glasses. "My, my, my, how lively ... ahh, the long lost pleasures of youth, never to return, cruelly mocking me ..."

"Leave the drinks to me, Grandfather," Sakura gently said, as the mere sound of her voice made Shinji, again, cower behind a stoic Rider-san, who sat at her Master's right. She accepted the tray, and then realized something. "This one has a worm, Grandfather." She all but pushed one of the glasses against the old bald man's face, the pixilated-looking worm on its edge squirming much to everyone's disgust. "How many times do I have to tell you not to leave worms everywhere, Grandfather? **You are experimenting again, aren't you?**" she asked with a dangerous dark edge to her voice, as a black aura seemed to surround her for a moment.

Matou Zouken seemed to shrink down pathetically. "- no! I swear it must be a leftover from when I cleaned up the workshop!"

Sakura breathed deeply, then smiled angelically once again. "Never mind, then! I'll take this one. The rest are for you!" She cheerfully offered the rest of the glasses to her guests.

Most of said guests, by now, were hiding behind Shinji.

"- I'm not thirsty, thank you," Rin said.

_"I want to leave!"_ Shiho whined, making herself a tight ball as she hugged Tate.

"Thank you!" Mikoto reached over to grab one of the glasses, before Mai pressed her hand down against the table.

"No. You aren't thirsty."

"Ah? But, Mai -"

"You aren't thirsty," her busty roommate repeated.

Higurashi Akane looked down at the glass from which she had drunk when she settled herself at the table, then pressed a hand against her mouth as her cheeks swelled up quickly, and a purplish hue washed over her features.

* * *

That night, after a vigorous session of mouth-washing, Tokiha Mai rested on her back, on her bed, with an arm blocking her eyes, and Mikoto ... well, Mikoto hadn't come to bed just yet. Then again, the same nature that made her unwilling to sleep in her own bunk also made her unpredictable in her rest hours, so Mai was sure she'd come eventually, as soon as she felt the need for it.

Mai was, right now, more concerned about her own personal life. She had thought that, after the destruction of the Obsidian Lord and the HiME Star, everything would be far easier from then on. But then, when you are riding the bicycle of life, the easiest roads were the downhill ones, right?

_Ugh. What a metaphor_, she cringed.

It wasn't like things had worsened since then, in all honesty. Okay, they had in a way. She missed Takumi very much, but she forced herself to understand it was for his own good, that he needed becoming more independent, that Akira-chan would take the best care of him in the meanwhile, while they were ...

... away.

It still hurt. No matter how much she tried to rationalize it, she still couldn't stop missing him so much. And the worst part was no one understood. Mikoto was ... Mikoto. Nao was ... Nao. Natsuki was too busy on her own, trying to cope with coexistence with her long lost mother and Alyssa-chan AND Miyu (_Miyu!_) not to mention the whole awkward relationship with President Fujino. Midori had been away until now, and now she was a wreck. Akane did her best, God bless her soul, but she wasn't strong enough to support others. And Tate ... well, he understood the least of them all. She loved the boy, but God he could be dense. His basic reaction to any problem was a hearty 'Well, stomach it up, put your best face on, and move ahead already', which wasn't without its wisdom, but did little to ease an aching heart. It worked fine to get by on a daily basis, but didn't fix the core issues underneath.

She knew that was a selfish view on her part, perhaps. After all, Takumi's health had improved greatly, and he was happy, and that was what mattered the most. But surely, she could be forgiven over still feeling bad about his absence, couldn't she? She loved all the others left with her ... even Nao, to some degree ... but even so, as Midori's return had proved, even the relationships that seemed the strongest, even the thickest bonds, could prove to be fickle.

She worried about Tate. Was their relationship, after all, strong enough to prosper when even Midori's mature bonds had -

"Mai," Mikoto said, tugging on her pajama's right leg, "What does 'Just shut up and fuck me, will you?' mean?"

After a moment of perfect silence and stillness, the forearm blocking Mai's eyes moved just enough to allow a single light violet orb peek out. "What?" Mai asked, with a strangely tense tone.

Mikoto nodded quickly. "I heard weird noises coming from the next room, so I put my ear against the wall, and -"

With a blushed face, Mai blocked the eye again. "It's probably Saotome-san giving one of her dramatic readings to her friends. I'll tell her tomorrow to -"

It was Mikoto's turn to interrupt her. "Not that room. The other next room."

"- keep her Yaoi fantasies lower, and you don't need to worry about the meaning of what what what what?" Mai asked, bolting sitting upright on the mattress.

"The other next room," Mikoto said as if lecturing a very small and slow child, and pointing at the wall opposite them. Mai knew very well what there was at its other side, and that made her gag in her saliva. Surely, there had to be a mistake.

Mikoto was moving like an agile cat towards that wall, sticking an ear to it. She made a comically cute face of deep concentration. "Now she's saying 'How great your cock feels inside my cunt'. Ah? What's that? I-" She all but was pushed aside when Mai, face bright red, rushed over to listen intently as well. However, that didn't turn out the way Mikoto had expected.

Mai ended up taking her ear from the wall and humming to herself. "I can't hear anything," she had to admit.

"Mai's hearing is very bad," Mikoto stated simply, with some slight disappointment.

Mai clenched her teeth. "Compared to yours, everyone's but Superman's is. Look, Mikoto-chan, ah ... aren't you misinterpreting things, maybe?"

"What's that?"

"It means, are you sure you aren't thinking you're hearing things, when you actually are hearing other things?"

Mikoto made that small pout that passed as a frown in her, then shook her head vigorously. "No, no, no no! My hearing is excellent." She stuck the ear to the wall again. "Mai herself said it. Negi-sensei, with his new grownup voice, and Red Hair-san, and Konoka-san, and Sakurazaki-san, are all shouting and grunting weird things like those. They're panting now."

"What?"

"Panting, Mai, is when you make a sound like this." Mikoto began giving a perfect vocal impression of an excited dog mounting -

"I know what 'panting' means!"

"Then why do you ask?" Mikoto couldn't understand why Mai felt so frustrated about having things explained to her. Usually she felt frustrated when they didn't explain things to you, right?

"I wasn't asking that, I was ... forget it. Look, are you sure those were the exact words you were hearing?"

"Which words?"

"You know which ones!"

"Um ... no, I don't."

"The words you didn't know!"

"See? I told you. Ah!" she slammed a small fist on the palm of her other hand. "You mean 'fuck' and 'cock' and 'cunt', right?"

"- riiiiiight."

"Are you feeling okay, Mai? Your face is so red."

"I am! Just answer my question, please!"

"Which one? You have been asking so many, and you haven't answered mine ... what do those words mean?"

"First, I need to know if you're sure those were the exact words!"

"Yes, they are." Well, that had been an easy question, at least.

An oddly pale Mai looked at her with terribly wide and frazzled eyes for a moment, then said, "Those words all mean 'trouble'."

Mikoto blinked. "'Just shut up and trouble me'?" she paraphrased.

"No, I -"

"'How great your trouble feels inside my troub-'"

"Gneeeerggghhh," Mai expressed.

* * *

Next morning, and all of that.

"Oh, well, I suppose that you should wait until your exercises are done to shower," Konoka said, nodding. "So, have fun with that," she added, waving politely at Setsuna as she started to ever so gently pull Asuna and Negi towards the en suite door.

"Ah," Setsuna said cleverly. "Right. Okay then." Slowly, she exited, wondering why that hadn't worked out like she'd expected. But then, she supposed that she should have expected things to not work out as she expected them to, since very little lately had ... but wasn't that a paradox?

Her head hurt.

What had happened to her life? How had her dreams of glorious and honest service led her to this point? Why was she the only one who seemed at all disconcerted by what had happened last night? Clearly, the fault had to be hers, but what exactly was it?

Her head _really_ hurt.

Right after she passed by next to Mai and Mikoto's door, an orange haired head peeked out, waiting for her to turn a corner before following her, tip-toeing in a nearly ridiculous way. Left behind in the bedroom, Mikoto kept snoring cutely, with a small snot bubble coming in and out of her nose.

Normally, Setsuna would have detected the clumsily stealthy presence following her at a distance rather quickly, but aghast and lost in contemplation as she was, she would have missed an ambush by Tsukuyomi wearing a neon trenchcoat and with a police siren attached to her head. She barely realized the arrival of Kotaro as he jogged past her in the hallway, heading back to the room he shared with Ayaka, Chizuru and Natsumi. Mai, however, took that as her cue to back away frantically before they could realize she was there, hiding back behind a corner before anyone thought she was some sort of stalker or nosy concerned citizen, because surely there was nothing to be concerned about, Mikoto had to be mishearing things, riiiiight?

"Good morning, Kotaro-kun," Setsuna said politely, determined not to let her inner turmoil show.

Abruptly, Kotaro froze in place, failing to hear the agitated breathing of the girl hidden around the corner, to sniff at Setsuna's body scent, in the wake of the great shock he had just experienced. Then he slowly swiveled to look right at Setsuna, eyes wide.

"What?" she asked, a bit startled.

Slowly, he walked towards her, eyes narrowing, sniffing as he approached. Abruptly, it occurred to her that Kotaro's sensitive nose might detect-

"Oh. Holy. Shit," Kotaro said, eyes wide open once more.

"... why am I being punished for not taking a shower when I wouldn't actually be showering?" Setsuna asked of no one in particular.

A few minutes later, Mai's eyes were bugging out as if violently pulling to pop out of her head. What she had just overheard thanks to her not-nosy-no-stalking had left her so stunned, she barely could assume an air of rattled normalcy and feigned innocence as she pretended just to be passing by, completely oblivious, when a just as shattered Kotaro walked past her. Fortunately for her, the boy was rattled enough himself as to ignore the possibility this girl who was just passing through that spot might have been standing there long enough to hear that conversation he'd just had.

Mai's pretended obliviousness meant she had to walk just slow enough to lose track of Sakurazaki-san, but that mattered little by now. She had just gotten her confirmation, and there only was one thing she could do now. She walked back to her room, looked for Shizuna-sensei's number in her cellphone, and made a call asking for a few minutes with the Headmaster that afternoon. Her recent role in the conflicts that had shaken the school gave her some leverage, although Shizuna had been reluctant at first, claiming she needed to know the reasons. Eventually, Mai managed to convince her to trust her on the subject.

As she put the phone down and sighed, she tried to tell herself that was the sole right thing to do. She wasn't a stool pigeon or a nosy stalker, she was only doing the right thing for everyone's greater good, even that of Negi-sensei.

... right?

At least, she hoped so.

* * *

Insert Wacky Emotional Hijinx with Chizuru and Kotaro here.

"Come on now, tell me all about it!" Chizuru's voice said. "Don't be shy now, Ko-"

And then ... silence fell, and lasted for several moments.

It was broken by her voice once more, only this time sounding utterly unlike her normally confident and cheerful self - rather disturbed, instead. "Ko-Kotaro-kun?" she asked.

"No!" he said, almost yelling. "No, this is not ... it's not what it - I've gotta go!"

"Wait, don't-"

He rushed past Natsumi, who'd just barely managed to make herself invisible with her artifact. For a dizzying second, though, she had the impression that he wouldn't have noticed her even if she was in plain sight, for he seemed intent on running with his hands oddly placed over his crotch, as though covering something.

_Whawhawhawha?_ Natsumi thought.

In the dining room, Chizuru, still standing in a position that left her leaning over the table, in a way that gave onlookers a very good glimpse at her cleavage, had an utterly startled look on her face.

"... but you're only twelve," she murmured. "So ... why ..."

* * *

Kotaro's frantic escape from Chizuru, and by extension his living quarters, was aimless and thoughtless. Thus, he really couldn't be faulted when his mindless dash, eyes closed and hands firmly clasped on his crotch, led him through -

"EEEEEEE!" British exchange student Shirley Fenette cried as the black haired near-blur passed by right before her face while she was pulling herself up out the swimming pool. "AAAAAAHHHH!" she comically waved her arms for a moment, all balance lost, before falling on her back into the water, splashing in all directions.

Ikoma Minami blinked, cheeks flushed. "Isn't that the brother of one of your classmates, Ookuchi-sempai? Why was he touching his -"

"You'd have to ask Murakami-san," said Akira, looking elsewhere and proving that being nice doesn't mean you have to take bullets for others in vain.

Nyamo-sensei's eyebrow twitched a bit. "I think I'll do just that."

Mizuno Ami-san kept on staring at the speck in the distance that was Kotaro now before realizing her swimming teacher and trainer, and the rest of the girls, were staring at her instead. Then she badly feigned innocence. "Perhaps it's a medical condition?"

"I think I have one now," Shirley-san said from where she floated on her back, mouth clenched aside in a wince of pain.

* * *

"EEEEEEEEE! HENTAIIIIIIII!" the girls through the dresser shrieked as they flung brushes, books, handbags and the occasional wooden sword at the head of the quickly fleeting Kotaro, who to his credit not only didn't even realize he was running through a female dresser, but neither really felt the hits raining all over him.

As soon as he left, the girls rushed to the Kotaro-shaped hole in the back door. "They start younger and younger nowadays, don't they?" Kotegawa Yui frowned. "For shame!"

"Isn't he the little brother of one of your sister-in-law's classmates, Akane-chan?" asked Sayuri-san.

"Maybe. I don't remember," Tendou Akane lied.

Kuga Natsuki looked through the locker he had stumbled through in his run and cursed after noticing a missing item. "Damn that idiot! He took Number 39!"

"Eh?" Nao asked her.

* * *

"- you have panties wrapped around your left leg. Why do you have panties wrapped around your left leg?" Ichijou Raku asked the younger boy who had just stopped, breathless, by the Onodera Candy Store.

"- just ... just shut up..." Kotaro panted raspily.

Maiko Shuu looked down at him. "Don't look now, kid, but isn't that a boner, too?"

"AAAAAAA!" Kotaro screamed. "Somehow, it grew worse as I ran! But why? WHYYYYY?!"

* * *

_Dat Afternoon... I mean, That Afternoon..._

"I'm very grateful you could grant me this visit on a Sunday, sir," Mai sad respectfully as she sat before Konoemon's wide desk in his office. "I apologize for ... how much I am going to bother you, in advance." She said this while lowering her gaze.

"It's never a bother, Tokiha-kun," the old man affably said. "Although I am very intrigued about your reasons for bringing this directly to me. Has that rascal Nagi reappeared?"

Mai grimaced despite herself. 'Rascal' wasn't exactly the word she'd have used. "Ah ... no, thankfully, no. In truth, this is about ... ummm ... your granddaughter. That's why this had to be between us, because it's a personal matter, and as you can see ..."

She apparently stuck herself there, so after a few moments of waiting, Konoemon patiently asked, "This concerns Negi-kun as well, doesn't it?"

"Ahhhh ... yes," she blandly admitted.

"Well, Tokiha-kun, I must start by saying, as a matter of fact you aren't exactly the first one to bring this to me..."

"I'm not?" she blinked. Wait, had they been that noisy? Or maybe Mikoto was right and her hearing was that bad.

"No, but I appreciate your concerns all the same. Not everyone is as zealous as Suzushiro-kun." As he said that, he placed a huge stack of papers on his desk. "This is her thesis on how much she objects to the arrangements. I'm struggling with the meaning of ... a few ... words, but I think I'm getting the basics of her points," he chuckled.

Mai tried to chuckle back. "Ahhhh ... of course. You would ... you would be very upset if... something bad were to happen because of it, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I know it won't happen, but yes, I would," he nodded. "In the completely impossible hypothetical case my Konoka-chan and Negi-kun were to act beyond the boundaries, I would be -"

_Dead,_ Mai thought, sweat covering her forehead. _My poor ancient heart couldn't take it. I'd collapse at the feet of the person who happened to bring me the news. That person would have killed me, and all in the name of something she doesn't even have solid proof on, who knows, it still might be a misunderstanding, maybe Sakurazaki-san was only -_

"- forced to make them marry," Konoemon finished, with a very grim and serious tone but a glint in his eyes that seemed mostly mischievous and excited, in contrast.

"Eh?" Mai babbled. "Ah. Huh. Sorry, sir, but aren't they ... too young?"

"Perhaps, by current standards, but her mother married when she was around your age."

"But ... you'd still be mad, wouldn't you?"

"Oh ... yes," he added, after leaving the short sentence oddly hanging in the air for a few moments.

"And sad."

"I suppose you could say I would be left rather shocked and disillusioned as soon as I hear about it, which never will happen, but -"

"And they would be punished."

"Well, that's a given, wouldn't it? Although for it, we'd need extensive proof of the ... misdeed, as with any weighty accusation against a teacher. Unfounded rumors and baseless blaming can lead to serious charges of defamation and slander ... my my, are you getting paler, Tokiha-kun?"

"... no, sir ..."

"Hmmmm. Maybe you need a better regime of rest, exercise and vitamins after your summer ordeal. Although, if it isn't a burden for you, as their next door neighbor, I would be grateful if you kept an eye on them all the same."

"- sir!"

"Not that you're obliged to do it if you think you can't or shouldn't."

"Ahhhh ... I haven't said that, sir, but ..."

"You came here in the first plaace because you were worried and you didn't want to confront me in public, didn't you? Just like all the others."

"All the others? How many, besides Suzushiro-sempai?"

"Ah, I'm afraid I can't share that information. Perhaps I even have talked too much as it is," the old gentleman rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Still, since you were concerned about what might, but won't, develop in the first place, you have my permission to keep a discreet watch on them. Mostly to ease your concerns, of course."

"Of course," Mai said, feeling like a cornered rat.

"Well, that's nice to know! We are feeling much better now, aren't we?"

"Ohhh... yes, Sensei, n-naturally..."

"I still think you should go have a physical checkup, though. I believe you have gone even paler now."

* * *

_Stupid, stupid, stupid! You should have become far braver after all that happened!_ Mai berated herself as she left the main building behind. _Instead, you were spineless, didn't take the risks for the right thing, and only ended up even worse than you began!_

A tiny Nao devil popped up on her right shoulder. _"Screw that noise, bitch! Forget all of that and just mind your own business!"_

A tiny Chie devil popped up on her left shoulder. _"No, Mai-chan! You must keep prodding into people's private affairs! Because it's the, um, righteous course of action!"_

A tiny Homura Nagi devil popped up on the top of her head, reading _The Trail of the Serpent. "Ah, ha ha! Oh, Mai-Hime, when will you learn? What you need to do is-"_

Mai shook her head and the hallucinations off and strayed off the public path to go lean against a tree, her hands planted on the trunk. "What should I do?" she wondered aloud. "No matter what I do, I'm going to screw it up! Whatever I choose, I'm going to hurt them. I'm the worst!"

"Well," a voice said from behind her, calmly, "It's nice to see you've finally realized that. What have you done this time, Tokiha Mai-san?"

That obviously was no hallucination, but it indeed was another tiny devil. With a tired groan, Mai turned around to face an impishly grinning small redhead. "Shiho-chan. If you're still worried about me dating Tate, wouldn't it be easier for you to keep stalking him?"

The smaller girl recoiled with a grunt. "Eh! It isn't stalking, it's DEEP LOVE! Tsunetsuki-sempai said so!" A beat. "I mean, when I follow Oniichan around. With you, it was just a case of just ... happening ... to be passing by and then just ... happening ... to overhear your guilty lamentations!"

"Alright," said Mai, who wasn't in the mood for a discussion.

Munakata Shiho cocked her hands on her own, slim hips. "So, what's your terrible, most likely relationship-ruining secret?"

Mai already was walking away. "See you later, Shiho-chan."

"Eh? W-Wait!" Shiho ran after her. "Don't ignore Shiho, you big fat cow! I'll tell Oniichan!"

"You're welcome."

"And he'll want to know, too!"

"Well, then I'll tell _him,_" answered Mai, not looking back, speeding her pace up as Shiho stubbornly kept up.

"It's something really horrible and dark, isn't it? Otherwise, you'd tell Shiho!"

"Think whatever you want."

"Don't be that way! Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

_Twelve minutes across the campus later..._

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No. Have a nice day, Shiho-chan," Mai deadpanned as she quickly walked into her apartment, then slammed the door on Shiho's nose. Once inside, she relaxed with a long deep sigh. "Mikoto-chan, I'm hom-"

"Tell me!" Shiho repeated, now standing right before her. Inside the room.

"AHHHH!" Mai backed away against the door. "How, how did you do that!"

"Trade secret. But I'll tell you if you tell me!"

"No!"

Shiho pouted, then looked at the other petite girl sitting before the TV watching _Japan's Funniest Kaiju Videos_. "Whatever. Miko-chan? Will you tell me what's going on with your stressed, suspiciously guilty-looking roommate?"

"Mmmmm?" Mikoto looked away from Gojira's hilarious pratfall on the Fukushima Reactor to frown at the sight of the Munakata girl. "Oh. It's you."

"Come on, Miko-chan!" Shiho turned the sweetness up. "We're friends now, aren't we?"

"Um, no, we aren't. Are we?" she consulted Mai with a look.

"We're acquaintances who tolerate each others' annoying quirks," Mai informed.

"Huh?" doubted Mikoto.

"Sort-of-friends," Mai summed up.

"Oooohhhh, come on, Miko-chan!" Shiho cooed, sliding next to the feral girls, whose fingers itched for her Miroku. "Be a dearie and tell me what's got Mai-san so worried so I can help her! I'll give you a lollipop!" She produced said lollipop out of her Powerpuff Girls purse.

"I'd never sell Mai's secrets for a lollipop," Mikoto stated very seriously, as Mai's already generous chest swelled up with pride.

"And a cupcake," Shiho added, offering a pink cupcake with a cute drawing of Rainbow Dash on the wrapping.

"She's been acting worried all day long because Negi-sensei stuck his trouble into Red-Hair san's, Sakurazaki-san's and Konoka-san's troubles, and then troubled them up," Mikoto said, taking the cupcake. Mai's hand palm crashed against her own face.

Shiho blinked a few times. "Um, what."

"Trouble means 'cock', 'cunt' and 'fuck'. Or the other way around. It's sort of confusing," Mikoto explained as best as she could, while Mai's hand clawed her own face.

Shiho blinked even more, then said, "Oh. I see. That's all?"

"That's all, you say?!" Mai yelled. "What the hell! Why aren't you overreacting like a normal girl would-!" Okay, so she was _Shiho_, which didn't exactly equal 'normal girl', but still!

"And why should I be worried or anything?" asked Shiho. "Whatever others choose to do with their own lives is their own problem, isn't it? If anything, I should be glad, since if Negi-sensei is, ah, troubling, those three girls, then it's three less girls who won't trouble Oniichan ever again, isn't that right?"

Mikoto nodded. "When she's right, she's right." Then she stared at Shiho. "But what did you just say, again?"

Mai stared at her self-proclaimed rival with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. "Wait, don't tell me you ever thought of those girls as potential rivals for -"

Shiho wagged a finger. "When you are walking through a minefield, think of every step as your last one, Mai-san. So said Tsun Zu."

"There are so many wrong things with that sentence, I don't know where to begin!"

Mikoto already was listening against the wall, beckoning for Shiho to get closer. "Oi, oi, they began troubling again. From what they say, looks like Negi-kun has a big trouble. Maybe we should help him if it's so big?"

Mai growled, red faced. "We won't do that!"

"Eeeehhh? But Mai, you've always said we should help those with big troubles!"

Shiho's cheeks were red as well, and her nose leaked red strands, as she listened as well. "Wow ... that sure sounds like some trouble."

"It does, doesn't it?" asked Mikoto.

"You can hear it, too?!" Mai gasped.

Shiho gave her _that_ glare. "What, you can't? They'd wake the dead up!"

"Poor Mai's got very bad hearing," Mikoto sadly sighed.

"Oh, definitely!" Shiho agreed.

"I do not!" Mai protested. "And stop acting like partners in crime! You're creeping me out!"

Shiho looked at Mikoto's face. "Living with her is a daily test, isn't it?"

"Huh? Ah, no, tests are boring, strange and hard. Life with Mai is nice."

"Suuuure it is," Shiho said. She got back up from her kneeling spying position, dusted herself off, and said, "Okay, before you say anything, Mai-san, I won't tell a soul. The busier those three are with their man, or boy or whatever, the further away they are from mine."

"Mine," Mai corrected.

"Mine," Shiho hissed.

"Mine," Mikoto came behind Mai and groped her, possessively.

"You got that right," Shiho nodded sagely as Mai huffed. "But anyway, if you're struggling with the burden of this knowledge ... for once I'll give you some advice and suggest you to leave it alone. I sure wonder what would Tatsumiya-sempai say about this, though." She giggled evilly.

"What's so troubling about this trouble?" Mikoto wondered aloud. And then, "Anyway, if we can listen to the trouble, and the trouble is supposed to be a secret ... why couldn't the others, on the other side, listen to it as well?"

Mai and Shiho froze.

"Unless," Mikoto added, "their hearing is as bad as Mai's."

"I don't have bad hearing!"

* * *

The tiny animal was an odd one indeed. He was supposed to be a monkey, but he looked more like an overgrown mouse. An admittedly cute and even charming mouse, but still. He acted just as weirdly, as well; ever since Tenjou Utena had begun living with Himemiya Anthy (after apparently gaining her hand in a duel against the Vice-President of the local French Fencing club, but then the girl was as weird as her pet, and her school for that matter), Anthy's beloved Chu-Chu had proved himself quite the quirky little fellow, acting more like an all too human mouse than any sort of monkey Utena had ever read about.

Just like now, when he was dragging a stethoscope pulled from God knew where through the room, passing over Utena's feet, and then applying it against the wall separating Utena's bedroom from Konoka-san's.

Utena lifted her gaze from the pile of homework she had been working on. That new child teacher, Averruncus-sensei, was terribly strict, although Utena was not in the 'He's going to FALL!' camp yet. "And now what are you doing?" she wondered aloud, seeing how Chu-Chu's fine eyebrows went up and down as his mouth curved itself in a strange comical smile.

At least he wasn't as bad as Negi-sensei's underwear thief ermine, Utena supposed.

"Chu-Chu just happens to be curious about what transpired between our neighbors last night, and now he's heard the first signs of a repeat, he wants to listen as best as he can, Utena-sama," Anthy replied quietly from her dishes-washing self imposed duty. Utena had tried to arrange an alternating schedule with her, but despite the dark skinned girl always agreeing with her on everything, she still found ways to tackle all the domestic chores herself one way or another. That was a wife's duty, she said, even if she happened to be a Rose Bride. Whatever that happened to be.

Utena would have, until a short time ago, answered this outrageous claim with a question. One like 'And you know that for sure, because?' However, after a few times getting 'Because he told me, of course' as perfectly straight faced, intended to be serious reply, she had stopped trying the uphill fight against Anthy's strangeness, and instead tried to work along with it. "Oh, I see. They had another fight?" It wasn't unheard of Kagurazaka-san and Negi-sensei to engage in rather one sided shouted discussions, usually related to baths and the need or lack thereof for them, although those seemed to have diminished in frequency and intensity as of late.

"Well," Anthy said, "I wouldn't call it exactly a fight."

Utena blinked. "Wait. You heard it too?"

"You didn't? Oh dear, Utena-sama seems to have a bad hearing."

"I don't - oh, forget it," the pink haired and fair skinned girl sighed. "So, if it wasn't a fight ... not that it's my business, I know, but ... it's about that young man who is visiting them so frequently now? I think that's Sensei's cousin, right?"

"His cousin? Oh, no, Utena-sama, that's Negi-sensei himself."

"Utena-sama?"

"Anthy, what did you just say?"

"I said that's Negi-sensei himself, Utena-sama."

"Come on, Anthy, that's just plain impossible."

"Remember what happened when we traded bodies, Utena-sama?"

"Oh. Uh, are you telling me, then, Sensei and his cousin -"

"Oh, no, there's no such cousin." Anthy walked back from the kitchen, drying her hands off. "I just mentioned that as an example of the sort of normally unheard of incidents that may develop when you dabble into the mysteries of magic. Or Indian cooking."

"So, did he -"

"It definitely wasn't Indian cooking, Utena-sama."

Utena sighed, rubbing her already aching forehead. "And you know all of that, because -?"

"Chu-Chu told me, of course."

Darn. She had done it again.

"Okay. Very well, let's recap, then," Utena said patiently, closing her Neo Horizon book. "Basically, you're telling me Negi-sensei is that older boy we've seen walking in and out for the last couple of days."

"Indeed."

"But, Sugiura-sensei was saying -"

"Sugiura-sensei says she's seventeen, Utena-sama."

"Point. Great, great point," Tenjou conceded. "So, assuming he's indeed that older boy, and those are him and Konoka-san and Kagurazaka-san Chu-Chu is listening to - if they aren't fighting, what's that racket that had Chu-Chu so interested?"

"I don't know," Anthy admitted. "I haven't asked him that." Then she looked at Chu-Chu and asked him, "Chu-Chu, exactly what are they doing there?"

Chu Chu made a few cutesy odd sounds, accompanied by a few jerky pelvic motions, as Anthy listened calmly, nodding occasionally. Utena, who already was regretting asking, returned to her homework.

Then Anty said, "It's nothing to worry about, Utena-sama. Given Sensei and Kagurazaka-san already act as if they were siblings, it's just fitting they do just what my brother and me do whenever we're reunited."

"Ah, that's alright, then," Utena nodded absently, struggling with a few conjugations of the verbs 'to mate' and 'to intimate'. "Yes. Sibling things, okay. It must be nice having a brother or sister, I guess."

"It had its ups and downs," Anthy said in a rare moment of real honesty about the most unsatisfying corners of her life.

Meanwhile, up and down Chu-Chu's eyebrows went, just like, at the next room, up and down Asuna went on Negi, and up and down Konoka's fingers went into herself.

* * *

"They're still going at it?" a bewildered Mai asked, getting up and staring at Mikoto intently listening at the wall as she crouched in the darkness. A quick look at the clock later, the orange haired girl gasped. "What in the world! It's past midnight now! Don't tell me they haven't rested ... since ... Mikoto, what are you doing?"

Her roommate quickly looked back, cheeks flushed, and her bright eyes those of a deer caught in the headlights. "Doing?" she asked, as she stopped rubbing her crotch against the floor. Mai thought she saw a damp spot in the fabric of her panties, peeking under her loose nightshirt, and shuddered a little.

"Mikoto," Mai said, warily, "are you even aware you were doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"That thing you were doing until right now, while you listened!"

Mikoto blinked a few times, before looking down. "Ahhhh ... that thing. I guess I wasn't. It was just something that came to me." And then she asked, "Was it a bad thing to do?"

There were no easy answers for that, which stopped Mai for several moments. "Well, no, not really. But at the same time, it's something girls shouldn't start doing until they're somewhat older than you."

"You said the same thing about sword practice, but you didn't stop me."

Mai rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This and that are completely different things. And no, I will not explain how they are different, I'm too damn tired and this has gone too far. I'm going to put a stop to it right now," she said, getting up from the bed and tying a robe around her pajama-clad curvy body.

"So you're going to help with the trouble. Can I come too?" Mikoto asked, sounding almost hopeful.

"No, you'll stay here and wait like a good girl. Okay?"

"But, Mai -"

"This isn't open to debate, Mikoto. Sorry," her best friend said, heading for the door.

"I thought you said we shouldn't tell them we know?" Mikoto trailed after her.

"We know, Shiho knows, the other neighbors probably know. It's pointless, at this point. Don't follow me there, okay? Besides, I need you here to, um, keep watch if the Obsidian Lord returns."

"Oh," said Mikoto, stopping immediately and reaching for Miroku. "Of course, Mai!" she seriously said, glad to have been given such an important duty.

"That's my girl," Mai said, nodding before closing the door behind her.

A couple steps later, she was before the door of Sensei's living quarters. She drew in the second deepest breath of her life, and then rang.

The moment after that, even she could hear a faint cry coming from the inside, along heavy hurried steps, and things being dragged and pulled along, and a brief muffled discussion in frantic, panicked tones. Then silence.

Mai rang again.

Even more incomprehensible hushed discussion ensued. Then more silence.

Mai grew frustrated, and banged a fist against the door. "I'm not going away!" she announced loudly.

A second later, the goofily smiling Konoe Konoka peeked out, feigning to rub her eyes. "Ahhhh?" she badly pretended a yawn. "Oh, but if it's Tokiha-san. Is there something the -"

"I know what did you do last night, I know what you were doing right now, I want in," she said. Then it occurred to her maybe she had phrased that wrong.

"Ah?" Konoka blinked.

And predictably, Mai blushed. "I, I mean, in as in to walk in and discuss it, because it's really bothering us! Nothing else!"

Konoka looked Mai up and down, then nodded, with an awkward smile. "S-Sure thing. Please come in." She stepped aside, then quickly closed the door after Mai went in.

Tokiha looked all around, then barked, "Okay, everyone here right now, all right? There's no use on pretending, and I won't leave until -!"

Asuna-san walked out of the bedroom, pulling the same 'Just waking up' routine. "What the heck? Hey, there'd better be a good reason for -!"

"Cut that out," Mai told her. She grabbed the front of Konoka's robe, startling her, and yanked it down, revealing she had been wearing nothing underneath. Before Asuna could angrily retort, Mai said, "Does she always sleep like this? Really? I can smell what you were doing from here, and your actions have been keeping my roommate up all night long. Where's Sensei?"

"I, I, I really sleep in the nude, all the time," Konoka began. "And Sensei isn't here, he hasn't been spending most nights here since Fate-kun took -"

A sighing Negi walked out into sight, buttoning his night shirt up. "Konoka-chan, no. Let's face the consequences of our actions with some dignity. And I told you we should have cast a sound barrier spell."

"I really thought her hearing was that bad! It's what everyone says!" Asuna protested.

Mai was mildly boggled. "Everyone says that about me? Why? And why haven't I ever heard- Never mind, I'm setting myself up there. It's good to see you're man enough to admit it, Sensei." She folded her arms.

"He's man enough for a lot of things," shared Konoka with a blissful smile.

"Tokiha-san, I'm not going to lie saying 'This isn't what it looks like', but let me assure you, there's a perfectly valid and sound explanation for this," Negi said, trying to sound as placating as he could.

"Oh, that's great. Let's hear it, then," Tokiha told him.

Konoka headed for the kitchenette. "I'll go brew some tea. What's your favorite type, Tokiha-san?"

Mai looked her way. "Hmmm? Sorry, I couldn't hear that. What was it?"

"Earl Grey it is, then."

* * *

As soon as they sat around the dining table, Negi looked at Asuna and asked, "Would you mind if I told her everything?"

Asuna looked away and shrugged. "It's all the same to me," she said, although she clearly was unsatisfied with the situation. Even Negi could see this, but all he could do was sigh and close his eyes.

"Thank you," he said, while a bewildered Mai kept on blinking.

"'Everything'? What do you mean with that?" the older (than Konoka, at least) girl asked. "Is there something that is even more of a shameful secret than having ... relationships with your students?"

"Keep it low," Asuna said. "Not everyone has hearing as bad as yours."

"Oh, _now_ you think of that," Mai grumbled.

"Girls, please," Negi said. "Tokiha-san, from what I understand, you just went through a very difficult situation where you briefly lost your loved ones, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did, but this isn't about me, it's about -"

"Soon, Negi and Konoka will lose me," Asuna bluntly said.

Mai recoiled, hit by shock. "Ahhhh ... say what?"

"How much do you know about the Magical World?" asked Negi patiently. "As in, not only the magical community, but the actual world of magic set aside from this world?"

"Ummm, Midori ... I mean, Sugiura-sensei mentioned such a thing a few times, but never went into any detail."

"To save that world, in a few months, I'll be placed in a forced sleep that will last one century or so." Asuna just wanted to get over with it already. "It's supposed to be a secret, you know, but then, so is that HiME thing you went through. Although I'd really, really like if mine was better kept than yours," she remarked her words with strong taps of her fingers on the table.

As Konoka set a steaming cup of tea before Tokiha, the busty girl babbled, "But ... how does that work? Why has it to be that way?"

Asuna gave Negi a jaded glare. Negi rasped to clear his throat while Konoka sat down as well.

_One lengthy techno-magi-babble-filled exposition later..._

"And I've simplified it a lot, but basically, that's it," Negi finished. "If you have any questions -"

"No. No, I don't!" Mai shook her head quickly, the better to leave that dizzying infodump behind already. "Um, I think I got it. So, you're afraid you're going to lose her, and you want to spend those last months together as ... together as you can be ..."

"Pretty much," Negi somberly said.

Konoka gently shook Asuna's shoulder, and Kagurazaka woke up with a start, the snot bubble in her nose blowing up. "No! I won't put that on again, Fate, why don't you - oh. He's done already?"

Konoka nodded.

Asuna huffed and looked at Mai's face. "See? So basically, Negi is all but cut from the faculty already, so it won't matter that much if he's fired over this."

"I would mind!" Negi gasped.

"You're getting a paycheck without giving classes anymore, Negi," Asuna told him. "Of course, it'll be a while until your project can start paying you, so I figure it's just fair, but still -."

"No, it's not about that!" he said. "If I fail at my assignment, I won't become a Magister Magi!"

Konoka piped in. "Negi-kun, you've already done more than enough to qualify for that. Wouldn't you agree, Asuna-chan? Tokiha-san?"

"Why, why are you asking me? Anyway, what about you?"

Konoka shrugged. "What's the worst thing that could happen to me over this? That I'm forced to marry Negi-kun? Bring on the punishment, then."

Mai sighed and pinched her own nose, closing her eyes.

"By the way," Konoka added, "Let me thank you about talking this with us first, before taking it to Grandpa or any of the other teachers."

Mai opened her mouth to answer that, but all that came out was a weak "You're welcome. So, you won't stop doing this?"

"Not until I'm placed in suspended animation," Asuna said.

"Don't be so casual about this!" Mai slammed her hands on the table, and Boing Boing her breasts went. Negi gulped. "It's your whole life in the line here! You've gotta do something about this!"

"You think we haven't looked for alternatives?" Asuna snapped. "But there aren't any, well, none that work in any ethical way, so it's something I have to do! It isn't that bad anyway. Negi is immortal, so he'll be there for me when I -"

"And what about her?!" Mai pointed at Konoka, and then all other three faces lost all light as the elephant in the living room was brought back to their attention. Feeling the miserable auras around them, Mai gulped. "I'm ... sorry. I shouldn't have put it like that, especially not after all I've gone through. I... I felt like I was dying when I lost Tate and Takumi, and even Mikoto in a way, and I don't even want to imagine how it would have been, had it be perman- sorry, I'm sticking my foot in my mouth again, right."

"It doesn't only happen to men," Asuna philosophized.

There was a brief silence.

"Do ... do your friends know?" Mai shyly asked.

"Other than Evangeline-san and Fate-kun, none of them," Negi replied.

"She was asking about our _friends_, Negi," Asuna pointed out.

"Don't you think they deserve to know?" Tokiha asked.

"I don't want to cause them any pain," Asuna sourly said. "We're telling you only because you aren't close, so-"

"And don't you think you'll hurt them anyway, even worse, when you're gone and they realize you haven't given them a chance to say goodbye?" Mai pressed on. "You know what was the worst of everything that happened to me during the HiME war? Losing my brother without having a proper goodbye to give him. Do you have any idea how does that feel? Do you want to cause them the same -"

"Tokiha-san," Negi said sternly. "She's already under a world of stress. Don't make it any worse."

Mai deflated upon realizing, staring at the mismatched eyes that stubbornly tried to keep themselves dry. "Oh ... yes. Sorry, I should know what's that like, after ... I guess I let my emotions get ... Look, after all that happened to me, I'm willing to believe you, I really am, and ... I'm regretful I judged you before knowing the full truth, but ..."

"We'll use spells to block the sounds from reaching your room from now on, Tokiha-san," Konoka politely said. "We're sorry we have disturbed you."

Mai looked actually hurt or moved, or perhaps both. "I ... I would appreciate that, yes, but ... if there's anything I can do ... maybe, maybe we can look for Kazahana-san, see if she could have a solution? Or maybe -"

"It's all right, Tokiha-san," Negi placed a hand on her shoulder.

Mai shook her head. "No, of course it isn't! How could it be? How can you quit even trying? How can you-"

"It's what I want to do, Tokiha-san," Asuna firmly said. "For everyone's good."

Konoka sighed as she sipped the last of her tea. "Made for each other, aren't they? They both have the exact same adorable Martyr Complex."

"WE DON'T!" Asuna and Negi cried at once.

"But that's exactly why I love them and Setchan so much!" Konoka smiled bittersweetly, rubbing the corners of her eyes.

Being called out on her own Martyr Complexes more than once, Mai chose not to argue on the subject. "... fine. I suppose you'll know better than me on that. I understand your circunstances are ... unique, so I won't tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me."

"What about your roommate?" Asuna asked suspiciously.

"Oh, she doesn't even know what sex is. It'll be okay," she said. And Shiho wouldn't ever speak because of her own interests, either, so everything was okay on that front too.

Or so she hoped, at the very least.

* * *

_The next morning:_

"What do you want?" he asked, sounding wary as he should, for the person facing him had brought much misery on others, and wouldn't hesitate to do so again if she felt compelled by circumstances. The problem being she had such a low threshold for those circumstances.

Despite which, deep inside, she was only an insecure, highly self-sabotaging, more-than-mildly traumatized girl (bitch or not), so she swallowed and hesitated before talking. When she did, it was with a shaking, even more wary tone. "I just want to tell you something."

"Is it important, or can it wait until tonight?" the boy asked, irritated but still wanting to give her the benefit of doubt.

She looked down at her small feet, their pits curving towards each other over the grass behind the building. "You can be so mean, Oniichan. Can it wait? Yes, it can. Can it wait without hurting me inside? I don't think so. Because it's a huge weight, and I need a kind soul I can trust on this, and -"

He sighed and crouched down, gently placing his hands on her small shoulders. "Oi, oi, I'm sorry. I guess I woke up cranky today, that's all. Don't start pouting like that and just tell me what's bothering you so much. You know you can trust me on anything, unless ... you didn't kill Mai and hide her body, did you?"

Choosing to pretend those few last words had never been uttered, Munakata Shiho smiled adorably. "That's so sweet from you, Oniichan who never would think me a conscious murderer, and who still works for someone who massacred a whole building of admittedly bad people! I know I could trust you! Well, the thing is, you see, yesterday, Shiho learned a very dark secret about very important people, and now Shiho is kind of worried about the repercussions."

After all, those three skanks being with Negi-sensei didn't mean anything if Oniichan wasn't aware of it. Until he knew, he couldn't be aware they were taken, or that they were such filthy huge pedo whores. Right? So she had to tell him, only him, and after all he was discreet and quiet anyway, and never a stool pigeon, and sure, she'd be breaking her promise, but it was only a promise to Mai-san after all!

So she said, "It's Negi-sensei. He's doing the ecchi with three girls."

Tate Yuuichi's face went completely blank.

"... oniichan?" she gulped, after a few moments of eerie calm.

"Damn. I owe the President, then."

"Eeehhhh?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, up and down. "Nothing. Nothing, it's just we made a stupid bet on whether he'd still be a virgin or not by the time he - wait, how do you know that anyway?"

"Yes, how do you know?" someone else asked, and that made Shiho and Tate look towards the source of the voice, startled. As their faces were suddenly drained of all color, the newcomer sneered. "What? Why so shocked? I take this path to school everyday, you know, and you weren't exactly whispering, and do you think I'm as deaf as Tokiha-san?"

Tate ran a hand down his throat.

And that's where we leave him for now.

* * *

**To be Continued.**


	2. Chisame, Yozora

Second verse, same as the first one. I don't own any of these characters or franchises. Akamatsu Ken and a whole bunch of other fine ladies and gentlemen do. I make no money out of any of them. Don't read if you're easily shocked or offended. Or a minor.

Thanks to Darkenning for the inspiration and proofreading, and to I Am Not Creative Enough for suggesting the segment set at the Neighbors' Club.

diablo4000: Well, sorry, but if you don't know what are the series involved, it still doesn't make much of a difference if you know their names or not, does it? Anyway, if it makes you feel any better, the main crossover for this chapter is with _Haganai- __Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai__._

* * *

**Chapter Two.**

* * *

Kuga Natsuki frowned at Shiho and Tate's shocked faces. "Well? Cat got your tongue?"

* * *

It had been a rather normal day for Mikazuki Yozora, seventeen, Class 2-E of the Mahora Mixed High School, President of the Neighbors Club. Waking up, brushing her teeth, using the toilet, waiting her roommate to finish with the bath since she disliked the communal baths, taking a bath, eating breakfast while contemplating how much of a cold bitch her roommate was without feeling any pang of irony or hypocrisy, going to classes, eating lunch all alone, listening to more classes, heading with Taka over to the Neighbors Club, pestering Meat, being pestered by Meat, pestering Meat again, getting into a fight with the Suzumiya weirdo and her SOS Brigade of Jerks, then heading away on her own to buy some new clothes and relieve tensions and frustrations.

And all of that perfect normalcy was shattered forever when she entered her favorite shop and saw them from afar. Fortunately, or perhaps not, they were far too busy with each other to realize her presence.

"What is it with you and suits, anyway?" Taka's younger sister, the one with the acne, that was, was asking a very tall and admittedly handsome young man with reddish hair. "It doesn't really seem to fit."

"Eh?" he said, turning to look at her. "No, this is in my size. See?" He slid his arm into one of the jacket sleeves to demonstrate.

"No, that's not what I mean," said Taka's sister - what was her name, again? "I've seen photos of your dad, you know. I don't think he was wearing a suit in any of them. So then why do you always wear one?"

"Oh," the young man said, blushing a bit. "Well. It's what a teacher is supposed to do, isn't it?"

_Huh? A teacher?_ thought Yozora.

"You're being evasive," she told him.

"Am I?" he asked.

"You're _still_ doing it!"

He pouted. "Well, it's a little embarrassing, you see. Other than my sister and the people in our village, the first person I'd ever met who actually knew my father was Takamichi. And practically from the first moment we met, he was telling me how much he was always striving to be like my father, which was something that I wanted to do as well, of course."

"Of course," Taka's sister echoed a bit more sardonically. Yozora was startled to see that the girl was speaking in stereo with that really strange Chachamaru girl, who favored her with a small smile.

Ignoring this byplay, the youth continued. "Since we were both following the same path, I guess you could say that I took Takamichi's style as a model to follow. I didn't realize until much later that while he does look up to and admire my father, his style is more or less inspired by his own master, Gateau-san." He shrugged.

"So the whole thing comes out of a misunderstanding," the girl concluded.

"Also wanting to present a respectable image for my students," he added, just a bit pointedly.

"Yeah, well, respect isn't really what you've managed to inspire in a lot of them," she told him, shaking her head.

"Yes, that's been made clear, particularly after what happened last night," he answered without really thinking it through.

_Wait, what?_ wondered Yozora, who had not-hid-merely-chosen-to-stay-still-behind-a-long-stand-of-clothes just because she wanted to, not because she was spying on those idiots at all, no sir, that would have been ridiculous.

A second or so after that somewhat inopportune statement, Taka's sister grabbed hold of the young man's shoulders, hefting him an inch or so off the ground, and dashed rapidly into the store's small change room, closing the door behind them.

"Excuse me," said one of the aforementioned helpful employees, approaching quickly. "It's against store policy to allow more than one person into a change room at a time, so-"

"Could you please make an exception?" that _really really_ strange Chachamaru girl asked, quietly looming over the helpful employee, and pitching her voice in a way as to suggest terrible fates awaiting.

It made even Yozora somewhat wary, but not enough as to deter her from walking around the area, behind the green haired weirdo's back, and ducking into the change room directly behind Negi's, taking a solid black blouse along with her because-she-had-liked-it, not-because-she-needed-an-excuse, that would have been just plain stupid to even suggest.

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

"Practice? Practice for what?" Ayaka asked, now thoroughly disconcerted.

Chizuru's smile took on a decidedly scary aspect. "For when I start chasing after Negi-kun. He's an awfully good kisser, after all."

Ayaka's jaw dropped.

"I'll share him, of course," Chizuru offered.

As Ayaka remained stiff in place there, her eyes blank while her mind rebooted and tried to process what she had just heard, Chizuru's cellphone tone drew the attention of the Naba heiress.

"Mochi mochi?" the big breasted girl said. Then she sighed, relieved. "Ah, it's you, Kotaro-kun. I was growing worried about you. When will you -"

"Um, yeah, about that, Chizu-nee ..." the boy's voice answered. "Don't wait for me, will you? I'm going to spend the night over at ... well, with a friend. Tell Natsumi-nee and the old aunt not to worry either."

"What? Kotaro-kun, why? We need to talk about, well, about what happened, I know you must be upset, but we can-"

He interrupted her. _He interrupted her._ "Upset? Why, why would I be upset? Ha-ha, no, of course not, I'm just ... hmmmm, it's like when you girls have a pajama party or those other things girls do when you want privacy and ... you know I can take care of myself, have been doing for years, see you later, please bye!" He cut the call in a flushed rush, setting his cellphone down on the grass and panting.

"That was real ... what's the expression? Smooth?" the person sitting next to him, with his back supported on the old wooden well, commented.

Kotaro frowned, looking past the small house near the Tatsumiya shrine, and into the distance. From the hillside they were on, they had an excellent view of the Mahora range spread below. "Ah, shut up. Like you're 'smooth' either, old man."

The other dog demon in the area grunted and mashed a fist down on Kotaro's head. "Shut up. At least I don't run away crying when I -"

"What did you do, then, in that case?" Kotaro asked the taller, white haired older-actually-much-older boy. "I mean, when you had your first ... well, you know?"

The dog demon in red scratched himself on the chin. "I ... I don't remember."

"YOU DON'T WHAT?!"

"I don't remember. What's the problem? It was too long ago anyway. But I'm pretty sure I didn't respond by running away crying like a little girl."

Kotaro growled and popped his claws out. Aggression and offenses, he could deal with. As a matter of fact, he welcomed them. They took him back to the old familiar waters of violence as a safe means to relieve pressure. "Wanna see who's the real girl, old fart?"

Inu Yasha smirked, standing back up and rotating his right arm. "Well, I normally don't hit crybabies, but I guess you need a spanking as much as that little Shippou creep did, so -"

"Sit," a girl with long black hair casually said as she approached with a bento box. As the white haired boy slammed face down into the dirt, she offered it to Kotaro, who accepted it with a polite bow. "Was he bullying you again, Inugami-kun?"

"Bullying? Che, that'd imply he could ever strongarm me," Kotaro said as he opened the box. "We were just trading trash talk, that's all."

Inu Yasha grunted from the ground. "I remember clearly handing you your ass every time we've clashed, kid. You have to -"

"I know this is the way you male dog demons bond, but don't you think you're overdoing it by now?" Higurashi Kagome, granddaughter of one of the Tatsumiya clan's former shrine assistants and now resident of the area, asked. "So, do you feel like sharing what's bothering you now, Inugami-kun."

"He already told me," Inu Yasha huffed. "Forget about it, Kagome. It's just a very stupid thing."

"You promised not to tell!" Kotaro reminded him.

"Yeah, and there's no point on breaking promises over something that stupid," the taller hanyu said. "So you don't need to fear ... fraidy kid."

"I'll show you who's fraidy!" Kotaro shook a fist, but lowered it when he realized Kagome-san's disapproving glare. She was sort of like a taller Natsumi-nee with hints of Chizuru-nee's Alpha dominance. Bad enough to make Kotaro sulk in defeat. "Ahhh, forget it. So not worth it."

"It's a boys' thing, isn't it," Kagome guessed. "I suppose you could ask my grandfather, if you want a consult with a real wise male ... or the closest available thing, anyway."

"Nah, I'm okay," Kotaro said as he ate. "I think I'll camp out in the woods tonight so I don't bother you anymo-"

"No. No no no, dog hanyu or not, no way you'll sleep in the cold open as long as we have a guest room available," she answered.

"But he wants to-" Inu Yasha began, annoyed.

"And I want him to stay, at least until he sorts whatever this is with his roommates," Kagome countered. "So that settles it, doesn't it?"

Inu Yasha gave her an eyebrows-raised exasperated look, then tossed his hands up and turned around. "Fine! It's your house, not mine!"

"Why, yes, it is," Kagome nodded, then patted Kotaro's scalp. "There! Don't you worry about the old dog in the pound, puppy! If you need for anything, you just whistle for me!"

"... you know, that was actually quite racist, Nee-san," Kotaro said.

"Eeeeehhhh? It was?"

"Yes, it was," Inu Yasha nodded.

Kagome bit her tongue. "Damn all that time spent in the Feudal ages! I forgot this is a politically correct era!"

* * *

Yozora was finding that dressing room awfully tight, so she thought she'd have to squeeze herself against the thin wall separating her from the one where Taka's sister was with that man.

Blah blah blah blah, they went. Dear God, but these people had issues. For a few moments, Yozora thought that couldn't end with anything but the guy punched out of there, which to be fair fit in with everything she knew about Taka's sister, but then...

"Sex happened," he said.

Taka's sister gaped. "Sex happened," she repeated.

And Yozora's mind was blown. Her jaw loosened. Of course, she didn't even know the guy, but she was repressed enough for such a confession in general to strike at her.

"You ... and Kagurazaka, right?" Taka's sister asked. "That almost makes sense, she's all touchy-feely now. But, but why did ... oh, God, don't tell me you also did it with Konoe, too?" she exclaimed.

He nodded again, and Yozora could feel his head tapping on the thin wall he was being pressed against. "And, well, also with Setsuna-san. I suppose I should just call her Setsuna after this, but somehow -"

"You had a fucking foursome for your first time!" Taka's sister almost squeaked - her voice was pitched high, but avoiding loud volume. "What is this, I don't even -" And then she fell ominously silent.

Now Yozora was fully confident the punch would come out, and she was feeling ready to actually cheer as soon as it happened. Which was an extraordinary thing for her, since she never -

"And, well, all of the girls were also with each other, but I suppose that's not really the issue here," the young man continued. "Um ... I know that it was wrong, but ... well, I can't really apologize for it, since I really, really enjoyed it, and, well, Setsuna wasn't happy but I think she has problems being happy that I can't really help her with, and Konoka and Asuna seemed pretty okay with it when we did it again this morning in the shower and -"

Steam began puffing out of Yozora's ears, and her face felt like it was burning. The worst thing was, another, much lower part of herself began feeling warm as well. But why?

"Okay," Taka's sister said at last. "I just can't take it anymore. So that's how it's going to be, huh? Fine. If that's what Kagurazaka was talking about, then that's how it's going to be. Fine."

The next Yozora heard was a male squeak of surprise, and then Taka's sister announcing, "We're going to fuck."

That wasn't what Yozora had been waiting for.

She felt like shouting for the saleswoman, the security guards, the other customers, but her throat was abruptly dry, and instead, she found herself feeling around for ... ah-hah. Sometimes, perverts, who weren't restricted to the male gender, would open tiny holes into those walls to peep at people getting changed, which was why Yozora had to poke on a few eyes every now and there. Not that Yozora was a pervert, but she had to know, for Taka's sake, not that she really cared, but everyone had a right to know if their sisters were -

Her black hair stood up.

Through the peephole, she could see Taka's sister on her knees on the floor, her hands close to the hole grabbing the guy's hips. And the guy's ass was all but covering the hole, which proved to be even more unsettling when Taka's sister pulled his pants down to his knees, followed by his underwear. At that point, Yozora's eye was almost completely buried into a buttcrack. Taka's sister was still mostly visible between his legs, though, obviously working on his hard unit, although Yozora couldn't see the penis itself from her angle. She could see the balls, however, which dangled right before her ... ahhhhhhh.

Yozora bit her tongue before it could betray her.

Panting, flushed, she barely noticed her own right hand quietly moving down between her legs. After which she unzipped the front of her pants. And in the hand went, under her panties, starting to rub on her tiny hardness as she watched.

Outside, the weird Chachamaru girl was giving some bizarre explanations to a naturally concerned employee.

"Elephants are, of course, far too large to employ any manner of camouflage when they are engaged in carnal activities with each other. Therefore, whenever they are doing so, other members of the herd will politely ignore them and make as much noise as possible to scare away would-be predators who might take advantage of the coupling elephants distraction. In a way, it is a celebration, of sorts."

"... what ... what in the world does that have to do with this situation?" the employee asked, still dumbfounded.

"Nothing, really. I just thought it was an interesting story. In any event, please don't disturb the people I love, or I will become unhappy."

"Yes!" shrieked a female voice from inside the changing room.

"Annnnnghhh!" moaned another female voice from the changing room beside that one.

The employee looked at Chachamaru again. "Is there an elephant in there as well?"

Chachamaru scanned the other room with her cold green eyes and said, "You could say it's a distant relative of the herd. For the sake of not provoking a stampede, I would say it should be left alone as well."

The employee gave her a nearly haunted look. "Girl. Who in the world raised you?"

"I was connected to a feeding machine that supplied me with basic data on what I should know, and which programmed my core personality routines. But besides that, my two co-mothers granted me occasional social interaction during my formative period, and then my Master -"

"Please forget I asked anything."

* * *

"Yes yes yes!" Taka's sister repeated herself somewhat more quietly as her back and her head bumped against the rear wall of the change room while, down between her legs, her man had assumed a position much like the one she'd been in a few moments ago, licking and sucking at her cleft. The motions which had led to this exchange of postures, as well as getting the girl's jeans off of her legs and onto the floor, had been complicated and difficult to describe - though admittedly it might only have seemed that way to the girl's perceptions, which were somewhat disoriented at the moment.

"Get up here," she gasped after a moment.

The guy pulled away from her and stood shakily up, so that their faces were together and their crotches were touching as well. "Are, are you sure -" he started to ask.

From where now she knelt on the floor, her discarded pants aside, her top pulled up, Yozora used a hand to play with her own nipples while the other kept touching her nethers. The change in the positions of the couple meant most of her main view was taken by the ass of Chisame (that was her name, now she remembered it) but much to Yozora's faint inner horror, that did little to discourage her. Maybe spending so much time with Meat was turning her into another slutty vixen? That was a really worrying thought, and yet Yozora couldn't stop herself, chewing on her lower lip as she watched the tall guy screwing Taka's sister vigorously.

"Tell me I'm pretty!" Chisame cried out a little while later.

"No!" the young man replied. "You're beautiful, not pretty!"

"Damn liar!" Chisame snapped. "I'm not beautiful, I know I'm not, you don't have to make fun of me! Nobody with zits like -"

"What zits?!" he snapped right back. "You're a beautiful, charming and sweet person whom I'm glad to know, you make me happy when I'm with you, if anything ever happened to you I don't know what I'd do, Chisame, I lugh oo!"

Wait, what? From where she knelt, Yozora couldn't see Chisame's hand blocking the boy's mouth, and frankly, right then she was too out of her own rational mind to figure that out, but before the strangle phrasing could puzzle her any further, Chisame said "Don't say such stupid things! Not even, not when we're - I don't - I - nyaaaaagh!" she concluded at last, the primal scream making its way up her throat from where her orgasm had finally exploded, triggering his own, equally noisy release.

But Yozora's hadn't come yet. She groaned her frustration as they plopped down before her, clutching on each other, so they were mostly on eye to eye level.

After a moment, the boy reached out to press his own hand over Chisame's mouth, staring deep into her eyes as he did so.

She blinked, then understanding dawned. Still, she hesitated for a moment, before making noises approximated by the sounds, "Uh lugh oo, oo."

Weeeeell, Yozora thought bitterly as she finally reached her climax, frowning deeply as realization of that phrase's meaning sinking in. Leave it to her to feel that way even when peaking in orgasm. That's gotta be the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time. What kind of idiot could be in so much denial about her feelings, even after she has just-

And then Chisame stiffened in place, her eye meeting the one that still peeked in through the peephole. Yozora realized that, and for a moment, everything was a terrible blunt silence, neither side daring to shriek just yet, almost as if waiting for the other side to erupt first. The boy blinked in mild confusion. "Chisame? What's-"

His gaze followed Chisame's towards the tiny hole, and he, too, joined the chorus of stunned silence.

At that point, there was a rather sharp knock on the door. "Excuse me, is everything all right in there?" asked the helpful employee, doing her level best to pretend that this wasn't a rhetorical question.

* * *

Mikazuki-san refused to say anything at all as they walked down the street, choosing to remain slightly ahead of them, head hanging down and body language conveying a general air of angry impotence. Chisame didn't look any happier about it, of course. "I can't believe I did that," she muttered.

Yozora's reaction to those words was an unintelligible string of what Negi presumed were mumbled obscenities.

"And still, you're thinking that things went pretty well, all told, aren't you?" Chisame hissed, abruptly rounding on him.

Negi took a wary glance towards Yozora, who seemed to have stopped at the same time as them, and after a moment of doubt, he offered meekly to Chisame, "We managed to avoid incarceration, didn't we? That counts as a -"

"Oh, shut up," Chisame snapped at him. She looked intently at Yozora. "Well, why aren't you asking anything?"

"Because I don't care," the older girl growled, fists balled up at her sides.

"You don't?" Chachamaru asked quietly.

"Of course not! Why should I care to begin with?"

"Aren't you at least curious?" Chachamaru asked again. "No doubt, you'd appreciate some sort of explanation."

"I'm sure I'll be much better off without one."

"Then why haven't you left us behind yet?" Chisame bluntly questioned.

"Chisame, please -" Negi pleaded.

Yozora spun around on her heels and hissed at Chisame. "How can you do this to your stupid brother?!"

"What about him?" Chisame asked back. "We barely talk to each other anyway! It's not like he'd worry about it anyway!"

"Of course he would! Don't you even know him enough to know he's a huge worrywart who constantly frets about the stupidest things?"

"Are we talking about the same guy? The apathetic loser who doesn't care about anything that happens around him?"

"Well, he certainly worries more than _you_ about your younger sister!"

Chisame reeled back as if she had just been slapped.

Yozora angrily rubbed the side of her nose. "Argh, just look at you're making me do, bitch. Making me defend Kodaka!"

"There's no shame in defending those we like," Chachamaru observed.

"What the hell are you saying? I don't like him!"

"But you're part of the same club, a club specifically formed to establish friendships, aren't you?" the tall guy gently asked.

Yozora shot him a killer stare. "That doesn't mean - no, wait, what's it to you? How do you even know that much about me, anyway?"

Negi breathed very deeply, then said, "Because I'm your faculty adviser."

Yozora sneered. "Funny one, pervert. But I damn well know who's our club's adviser, I strong-armed him into the role myself, and you sure as hell aren't dumb little Negi Springfield."

Negi blinked. "- dumb?"

Chachamaru flexed her fingers.

Chisame almost chuckled, for the first time in the whole day. "No, of course, he's just dumb old Negi Springfield."

That time, Chachamaru's fingers didn't flex, however.

Oblivious to that development, Chisame nodded her head towards Yozora. "Hey, this is when we take her into an alley -"

"WHAAAAAAAAT?!" asked Yozora.

"- and you erase her memory, right?" Chisame finished as if such a scream had never been voiced.

Yozora, not understanding that last half but being worried enough about the first one, looked all around the conveniently empty street and calculated her chances for a clean getaway. Damn, they weren't good, were they? Maybe she should start investing on martial arts lessons, but that was such a bother, maybe some pepper spray, or -

Negi sighed tiredly. "No. It'd be pointless. I'm not going to do that anymore. Not when my project specifically aims for the gradual revelation of the truth, when humanity is ready"

"Well, it's obvious she isn't ready yet!" argued Chisame. "And when did you even bother to do that in the first place, anyway?"

Silencing her for the moment with a pleading look and a whispered, "Trust me," he walked over to the slowly backing away Yozora and, before she could do anything, he placed his strong hands on her shoulders and spoke in a low voice. "I am Negi Springfield, and I'm a mage. I'm also deeply sorry you had to learn it this way -"

Yozora kicked him in the balls as hard as she could.

A few minutes later, thick tears of cartoony pain flowed from her eyes as she sat on a park bench, staring at her bruised foot, once Chachamaru knelt down to take her shoe and sock off so as to better examine it. "At least tell me you felt it!" she yelled to Negi, who had sat down by her side, a heartily laughing Chisame standing at his other side.

"Um, well, I did feel it, in a way, yes, but if you're asking me if it caused any pain -" he began, he thought quite reasonably.

"Fuck you, asshole!" Yozora roared.

* * *

Within the Mahora Mary Magdalene Church, in a heavy state of rebuilding since the Grail War, one Takayama Maria stretched her short arms and yawned cutely.

"Uwaaaaaa! Everything's so boring around here now! I almost wish someone had picked me as a club adviser or something!"

Kasuga Misora gave the diminutive sister a frowning, intrigued glare. "Why are you saying that all of a sudden, out of the blue?"

"I dunno. I felt like it, for some reason?"

Cocone Fatima Rosa tossed an extra broom her way. "If you're so bored, start helping us already."

Maria just turned around and went back to napping.

"Man, how come I don't get to do that?" Misora protested.

"Because you don't enjoy the excuse of being a ten-year old girl!" Sister Shakti said to her pupil as she loomed behind her. "Misora, get back to work!"

* * *

_Elsewhere:_

"Ah, it's you, Natsuki. Come in," Mai ushered her in with a subtle nod, stepping aside. "Nice to see you again!"

"Likewise," the black haired girl nodded sparsely, wearing a simple white T-shirt with jeans instead of her usual biker leathers. Shizuru's influence was slowly rubbing off on her, Mai thought. Maybe in two years or so she'd be wearing dresses...

Nahhh.

Natsuki was now looking all around. "Where's Mikoto?"

"Out there, playing," Mai said, closing the door. "Natsuki, is there something bothering you? Because you look -"

"Well," her fire-forged friend answered somewhat stiffly, "it's not that I've just heard about any actual crisis, or anything like that. It's something that, to be honest, shouldn't be troubling me at all, so it doesn't, but still, since I was in the neighborhood, anyway ..."

"Uh-huh?" Mai said when it was clear Natsuki had run out of excuses.

Kuga breathed out. "I overheard Shiho talking about how Negi-sensei was having sex, and you were the first one to learn about it. Is that true?"

"Oh, that," Mai said coldly, making a mental note to give Shiho a brutal beating. She knew she'd never carry it out, but it was still something nice to think about. "No, it isn't true."

"Oh. Well, not like I cared much either way, but that's still a relief -"

"It's not true because it was Mikoto who learned it first, not me," Mai finished.

"Ahhh," Natsuki slowly said. Then hummed. "And you aren't going to do anything about it?"

"Not really, no."

"Seriously? For you of all people to say that -"

"I'll choose to interpret that as 'You are a person of solid values' instead of 'You are incredibly nosy'," Mai sighed as she sat next to Natsuki on the couch.

"You know my opinion of you is the former, not the latter," Natsuki said, completely serious.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry. I was trying for some levity. Look, Natsuki, it's a complicated situation ... first of all, who was Shiho talking with when you overheard her?"

"Slave-kun," Natsuki replied.

"Figures," Mai frowned. "And for the last time, Natsuki, he's not a slave of the Student Council. That would imply Shizuru-san is a slave driver, wouldn't it?"

Natsuki actually smiled faintly. "Liking someone doesn't mean you have to be blind to their faults, Mai. As for him, don't worry, he's said he won't tell anyone until we've figured this out, at least. He wanted to come himself and tell you, but well ... female dorm, and it's not really the kind of thing that should be discussed over the phone."

"No, no, it isn't," Mai agreed.

"So, why won't you do anything about it, anyway?"

"Because it's not really any of my business. Isn't that enough of a reason?" Mai sounded really tired now.

"For me, yes. But you're the one with the solid values."

"You are the person with the best values I've ever met, Natsuki," Mai replied, meaning every word. "Me ... well, you know how it is. I can't help making concessions when I learn there are ... special circumstances involved. And I'd love to tell you about them, really, but ... it's something I more or less promised not telling anyone-"

Natsuki hummed. "Let me make an educated guess. Either Negi-sensei or one of his roommates is going away, probably forever, and they want to be as close as they can before that, and that touched your heart."

And what happened, then? Well, in Mahora they say, that Mai's purple eyes grew three sizes that day. "How did you know?" she rasped.

Natsuki considered how to answer for some moments, before saying, as softly as she could with a considerate sad smile, "As I said, it was just a guess. Because that'd be the best way to convince you to keep a secret."

Mai lowered her gaze. "That hurt, Natsuki."

"I'm sorry. But you deserved the truth."

She sighed. "I guess. Well, basically, yeah, that's it, although I don't want to go into too much detail."

Natsuki crossed her legs and tapped on a knee. "I see. So that's why he delegated his classes to that little albino creep? Honestly, that guy reminds me too much of Nagi, but humorless. Although that is a change for the better, I suppose."

"In a way," Mai shrugged. "Can we trust Shiho to keep herself from telling more people?"

Natsuki smirked.

"You threatened her, didn't you," Mai said.

Natsuki looked at her own fingernails, casually. "I imagine she may have taken it that way. I prefer to think of it as a promise of grievous physical harm rather than a threat. And we're all friends now, and friends never break promises, do they?"

Mai smiled. "Thank you, Natsuki."

"You're welcome."

There was a more or less long pause.

"So, can you get me a meeting with Konoe-san?"

"Eeeehhhh?"

"I kind of need tips on what do Ojous from Kyoto like," Natsuki admitted, looking aside with a pink shade on her cheeks. "N-Not that I want to take it as far as she and her bodyguard have gone, but - it'd be nice not to be stuck every time I talk with Shizuru. We have no tastes in common, we have way too different backgrounds ... and I'm mostly lost at what to do about it." She coughed softly, being truly grateful Minagi wasn't around.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Mai nodded very quietly. "Okay. I'll see what can I do."

* * *

Yozora had to begrudgingly admit that the boy might possibly have used magic to heal her foot. (Negi was no Konoka, but he had mastered almost as much of healing magic as Yue had.) Now the three of them, after that weird Chachamaru girl excused herself to rejoin the other weird girl she called her Master, were gathered in the relative peace and quiet of Chisame's room.

"So, do you live alone?" Yozora asked, just to break the nearly painful silence somehow after Chisame brought her a can of soda from the fridge. (She was no Konoka either, damn it, and she wasn't going to bother brewing tea for something like this!)

"Actually, I'm supposed to room with Hakase, you know, the genius girl," Chisame sat at the other side of the table, next to Negi. "But she spends almost all of her time at her lab, so she only leaves a few minor things here, and sleeps in the bunk above mine every once in a blue moon."

"Ah." Yozora tried to remember ... she supposed that Hakase was the same Hakase Rika often went on and on and on about, mentioning how sexy she was and how much she'd love to perform strange sexualized experiments on her if she only ever noticed her and her come-ons. (Yozora always had taken that as a sign that Hakase girl was surely blind and deaf.) "And does Kodaka know anything about any of this? I mean, other than the whole sex thing? About your being ... this guy's magical disciple, or apprentice, or whatever you call it?"

"I'm not his apprentice," Chisame seethed. "I'm his Ministra Magi. Big difference."

"Explain," Yozora coldly commanded.

"Bite me."

"Basically," Negi said to quickly cut off further arguments of the two volatile young women, "we have established a Provisional Alliance marking us as Magister and Ministra. That doesn't imply she's learning magic under me, but rather, our association has lent her powers of her own, ones that even someone uninitiated in the ways of spellwork can master with enough practice."

"Right, I think I get it," Yozora nodded. "It's like becoming a mutant, right? I mean the glamorous ones, those who fight with that Magneto guy, not the deformed ones who live in the sewers."

"... more or less..." Chisame sighed.

"Well, does Kodaka know about that?" Mikazuki pressed on.

"No," Chisame growled. "Do you think a good sibling would drag their family into something like this unless it's absolutely necessary?"

"Point," Yozora conceded begrudgingly. "And then, how does it go from here? Are you planning to hide that from him forever, or what?"

"I don't know!" Chisame admitted. "I'm still working this out! Hell, until a few months ago, I was as unaware of these things as you were this morning!"

Yozora's sharp stare didn't go any easier, but shifted towards Negi instead. "You know he's gonna be pissed off at you if he ever learn about this, right?"

"I guess I couldn't fault him," he sheepishly said.

"Hell no. And he'll kick your ass," Yozora added.

"Only because he'd let him to," Chisame mumbled, taking another sip from her own can. "So what's your big plan? Telling Kodaka?"

Yozora frowned, mixed emotions warring within her. Her refusal to show she cared and her apprehension towards what those weirdos could do to her were in open combat with her wish to rub their faces in the way that she could bring their house of cards down.

Chisame then did the unexpected and slammed a cellphone before her, on the table. "Do it," she ordered.

Yozora blinked. "Ah?"

"Ahhh?" echoed Negi.

"Quiet, you," Chisame told him before addressing the black haired one instead. "If you're going to do it, do it now and strike the iron while it's still hot. Save us the fucking preliminaries and let's go straight to the big event already. That is, if you've got the balls!"

"Language," Negi chided.

"Sorry. Got carried away," his Ministra huffed.

With an icy sneer, Yozora slapped the cellphone aside, grunted, "Don't tell me what to do!", stood up, turned around, and left, stomping each step.

Chisame looked at Negi after the door was slammed. "So."

"Hmm?"

"Aren't you going after her?"

"I don't think it'd be wise. I doubt she's in the mood to talk about it with anyone right now."

"And who would believe her anyway, right?"

"Right. I hate leaving things to chance, but ... if I follow her, she's going to take it as a sign of hostility, or worse. Oh, Chisame, what should I do?" he said, almost sounding like a child again.

Damn. It was time to show that adviser pedigree, wasn't it? Why was she supposed to be wise? She'd just managed to remain somewhat saner than the rest of them. "Ehh ... don't beat yourself up over it. You're right, she's the type that bottles everything inside." It took one to know one, after all. "You could get Asakura to spy on her with her Artifact, but then you'd have to explain why."

"No, no, I can't do that," he shook his head. "I'd trust her with my life, but even so, she mustn't ever learn about this."

* * *

_Downtown:  
_  
Haneoka Sei considered herself to be a moral person. In this she was mistaken; most people who consider themselves moral people are, and the revelation of the same is usually just as unpleasant for them as it was for Sei. She was coping with the realization that her principles were for sale - as demonstrated by her acceptance of a rather large 'tip' earlier that day - by spending her ill-gotten gains on coffee at a local coffee house, and complaining about the situation to the remarkably patient person who'd been sitting at the table beside hers when she'd arrived.

"I mean, okay, if people want to duck into the change room for a little make out time, you'd probably look the other way for a while," she explained. "But those two? Clearly having sex! So much, so loud, they even made another girl, in the next room, start to... touching herself! What the hell is the world coming to, when middle school students are popping into change rooms to have sex!" She drank her coffee, then continued, a little more quietly. "I mean, I can see what she saw in the guy. Really, really hot for a Westerner. I think he was English, or something. That smile of his made me go weak at the knees. But dammit, no matter how hot you are, you shouldn't be having sex in a change room! Don't you think?"

"I agree completely," said Asakura Kazumi. "Tell me more about these two, okay?"

* * *

Asuna stared at Mai across the kitchen table.

Knowing she was at a disadvantage there, Mai just up held her hands before herself. "I'm telling you, this isn't my fault."

"Indirectly, it is," Asuna disagreed. "How many of your friends know about this by now, then?"

"Only Mikoto, my boyfriend, and her." Mai pointed at the black haired girl sitting at her side, with her fists balled up on her own lap. "Shiho doesn't count as a friend, really."

"Okay, then, how many of your _enemies_ know?" Asuna asked again.

"I'm not sure you could call her an enemy either, at least not anymore, although-"

"Asuna, please," Konoka gently said, giving a single pat to her friend's head. "It couldn't be helped! Now, Kuga-sempai, I'm no expert on relationships myself, and my family and Fujino-sempai's have only had occasional dealings, but I'd still be glad to help you!"

Natsuki had begun to wonder what the hell had moved her to go there and ask for this. "If it's too much of a hassle for you, you don't have to-"

"Nonsense!" Konoka laughed. "What if we make it a double date with Setchan and me? That way, I can show you how it's done step by step."

"You mean you'll teach the President how it's done, right?" Asuna piped in. "Because from what I can see, she's more like Setsuna, and you're more like the - wow, that's a really nice menacing glare you've got there, Kuga-sempai. I'd give it a six!"

Natsuki finished glaring at her, then returned her attention to Konoka. "I'm not too sure, really. I mean, I appreciate the thought." She was still getting used to saying such things, but it usually grew easier each time she did it. Not so much this time, though. "But, isn't the purpose of a date to provide, well, private time for the ... daters, right? That's the term, isn't it?"

Konoka gave a half-sigh. "If you have to ask that, it's because you still aren't ready to do dates on your own, Kuga-sempai. Knowing is half the battle, after all. Let's go step by step, and we'll get there gradually. For your first date, it'll be better if you are with others, so you don't feel too intimidated and lost. In any case, there's no need to go too far on the first date."

An ominous thunder was heard in the distance.

Negi walked in, taking his shoes off and setting them beside the door, next to his bags of just bought clothes. "Tadaima - oh, good afternoon, Tokiha-san, Kuga-san. What a nice- -"

"Negi-kun, Kuga-san now knows we are fucking, too," Konoka simply said, with a wide smile. "So I'm helping her with her relationship with President Fujino, since apparently I have all the confidence she still lacks. So, how was your day?"

"Ahhhhhh ..." Negi trailed off, struck by shock, before managing to say, "Language, Konoka. Language."

"Sorry, Negi-kun!"

Kuga buried her glowing red face between her hands. What had possessed her to come to these people for help? Was she that desperate about her relationship growing stagnant? Well, okay, she was, but still-!

Konoka brought her hands together. "So, Kuga-sempai, what do you think about tomorrow by evening? What kind of movies does Fujino-sempai like?"

"I ... I'm not sure, actually."

"Well, does she like the aquarium?"

"I have no idea."

"Dancing?"

"I'm not even sure she knows how to dance. I imagine she does, she'd have to, with all her social commitments, but ... I don't. Can that be taught in a day?"

"No. Well, not by me, anyway. How about the theater?"

"I couldn't say for sure."

"Video games?"

"I don't think so, but who knows?"

"... the circus?"

"Is there a circus in town?"

Konoka's smile faltered just a little. "Okay, I can tell this is going to be a bit of a challenge, but that should make it more entertaining."

"Not that you're doing this for your own amusement," Asuna cut in.

"Oh, of course nooooot ..."

Mai was staring speculatively at Negi. She broke off, chuckling faintly.

"Uh, is something wrong, Tokiha-san?"

"I was just thinking that I might want to have you give Tate some gentlemanly lessons, and suggesting we also go on a double date between you, Kagarazuka, him, and me, but that'd turn it into a complete sex farce, wouldn't it?"

"It's not going to turn into a sex farce!" Natsuki protested.

Another roll of thunder.

"... what's up with the weather, lately?" Asuna asked as she checked the forecast.

* * *

_The next morning:_

Hasegawa Kodaka, seventeen years old, only male child of Hasegawa Hayato and his late wife Airi, was, despite appearances, a rather difficult person to interpret correctly. Those who weren't close to him believed him to be a rough delinquent, an asocial miscreant, just because of his blond hair and his reserved, introverted attitude. Those who, for some reason or another, got close enough to him long enough to see past those first impressions, even his relatives, tended to think of him as a pushover, an apathetic human pinball who was flung through life by the whims of others.

As a matter of fact, while there was some truth to the later view, it was far more complex than that, and while she refused to acknowledge it even to herself, Yozora of all people probably understood how difficult it could be to read Kodaka, and anticipate his reactions. That was why she felt so nervous ... agitated ... uncomfortable, yes, that was the word ... about what she was about to do. It wasn't like she cared much about the outcome, of course, it was just ... she didn't like, in general, to do things without knowing how she'd end up.

That was it. Yeah.

And that was why she had wanted to get it out of the way and out of her system as soon as possible, and that was why they were there now, so she could strike the iron while it still was hot, because at least in that, Taka's sister had been right, and...

(Had Chisame been there, she'd have realized how wrong she had been in her judgement of Yozora, and how foolish it had been to trust her to keep things quiet. But then, despite Chisame's normally accurate instincts for judging others, which were as good as her capacity to judge herself was bad, and despite her seemingly predictable facade, Yozora was just as difficult to predict as Kodaka. Cynics might have said that made them a good match, but normally even cynics dreaded Yozora's wrath).

"Kodaka," Yozora said after dragging him all the way behind the building, after classes, but before the club's daily meeting. "I have something really important to tell you."

"Ah?" he asked, sounding more vaguely annoyed than anything else.

"Yersterday, I was shopping for clothes at the mall."

The explanation stopped there, and then Yozora seemed to find her own feet particularly interesting.

"... and?" finally asked Kodaka.

"I happened to be in the dresser next to your sister's as she ... um ... she ..."

She stopped yet again, with a bright red face, and Kodaka blinked, mystified. "Which one of my sisters?" he finally asked, somewhat more interested but just as confused still.

Finally, Yozora exploded, "THE SLUTTY ONE WHO FUCKS GUYS IN THE STORE WHERE EVERYONE CAN HEAR THEM, THAT'S WHO, YOU IDIOT!" And then she ran away.

_Well,_ she told herself as she ran, _that was easier than expected, at least!_

Kodaka blinked a few times, stupefied, then pulled his cellphone out. "Sora-nee? What's this I just heard about you fucking men in department stores?"

Hard to predict, that boy.

* * *

She had stopped running when she reached the middle of a deserted playground for the elementary and kindergarten students, near the slide adorned with the figure of a huge Emperor Penguin. She sat on one of its edges to brood in silence, and across the world, perched on a gargoyle and waiting for dawn, the Batman felt a kindred spirit.

She looked around, at the seemingly average, yet oddly special, place that reminded so much of that one from her childhood, where she -

* * *

_They rested on their backs on the sand, panting, covered by bruises but smiling widely. (You should have seen the other kids.)_

_"We're gonna get a good scolding over this," 'Sora' said._

_"Yeah," 'Taka' agreed. "But I don't think my parents will be too angry. With my little sister almost here, they're too busy to ... well ... to do anything else."_

_"But you sound happy."_

_"Yeah! Why wouldn't I be? I'll have a new sister!"_

_"You already have two, and I don't see you partying over it."_

_Taka rolled his clear eyes. "But they aren't babies, duh."_

_"What's so great about babies?" she asked, but whatever he would have answered next was lost forever to the What Ifs when they noticed a tiny girl with a dry expression and light brown hair approaching._

_Yozora frowned. That was Taka's little sister. They never interacted much, but there had been some dislike between them from the moment they first met. Yozora suspected the little girl might be jealous Yozora was closer to her brother than she was, but then, she never made any attempts to get any closer to him either, so it surely was all her own fault. That she was coming to them now was highly suspicious in itself. Maybe she was going to tell her parents about the fight they had just won? That was why Yozora thought siblings were nothing but -_

_"Chi-chan?" Taka sat up, rubbing dirt off his face. "What are you doing here?"_

_"Kodaka," she replied, "I was looking for you. Dad wants to talk with us, right now. He says it's something about Mom."_

* * *

Somehow, Yozora felt an annoying urge to rub her eyes, so she did. Damn wind surely had blown some of the sand in her eyes.

"Ah, there you are, Yozora," Kodaka's voice said from behind her.

She grumbled bitterly. "Why did you come here?"

"Well, this is the only place around here that looks the most like the park where we used to play around, so I figured you might come here."

She stamped a foot on the sand. "Is it? It's just a coincidence, then! I was just passing by and stopped to rest! What a joke, that you suggest this means anything to me just because of _that_. Why do you always think you're the center of the universe?"

"Whatever. I'm not going to discuss that. Look, I just spoke to Sora-nee. She says you must have been mistaken, she didn't even leave the house yesterday. From her reaction, I believe her. She never was the type to fool around anyway, and she'd tell us if anyone had taken advantage of her against her will."

She turned around and stared at his face, eyes wide. "What? You idiot! I wasn't talking about her!"

Kodaka's soothing face, such as it was, turned into a scowl. "Hey, hey. Kobato's only a kid, and she's a complete innocent. So she plays the vamp often, but she isn't even aware of the implications-"

Yozora facepalmed. "Seriously, how stupid can you be? Of course it's not Kobato! I meant your sister Chisame! That one!"

He seemed badly shocked for a moment. "What ... Chisame? No. No, no, no. No, not just no, but actually hell no. Chisame is as no-nonsense as they come. At least Sora-nee is a romantic at heart, but Chisame... Are you sure you didn't see someone else? Chisame's type is very common. Hell, that Asuna kid from her class looks almost like her, just red-haired and with mismatched eyes."

"I know what I saw, Kodaka!" she protested.

"How can you be that sure?" he insisted.

_Because I was masturbating as I watched them, very closely, you idiot. Because I'm really a damn slut who gets excited watching dirty things, and I'm no better than Meat or Rika. Because I am -_ Yozora looked aside and rubbed her left hand.

"See?" Kodaka sounded vindicated. "You can't be sure, can you?"

"I am!" And she tilted her face back towards him, eyes shining in rage. "How can you be that damn sure she'd never do that, anyway?!"

Kodaka blinked, doubted, shifted on his feet aa bit, and finally said, in a very low voice, "Because she's a shotacon."

"Ah?"

"Yeah, well, she'll never admit it out loud, but we know she's in love with her teacher, you know, Negi-sensei," he mumbled, looking down. "Just like all girls in his class, apparently. It's creepy, I know, but ... there's something about that boy, something that isn't natural, don't you think? I mean, no one gives him a hard time over being red-haired, or about being from England, or -"

Yozora sneered. "See? There you go again. Always thinking the world spins around you."

"Eh? No! I was just commenting, that's all. Anyway, we can tell. From the way she talks about him. She respects him. Chisame. _Respecting someone._ Admires him, even! You've gotta know her to guess it, but if you read between her lines, then it's bloody obvious. And Sora-nee once found several pictures of him between her things, and when Chisame found out, she went ballistic and ... never mind. So, even if she were dumb enough to do that with someone while still in middle school, it'd never be with -"

"So you're telling me I'm lying," Yozora accused.

"No, not at all, just that you're confused, it happens to everyone."

"So I'm not a liar, I'm just blind and deaf and can't tell your damn sister apart from someone else when she's fucking around under my damn nose!"

"Will you keep it low! Someone might overhear you and get the wrong idea!"

"To hell with that! Like I care! Fuck you and your stupid slutty sister, Taka! If you prefer to believe her over me, fine!" she jumped back to her feet and stomped her way off, angrily, without looking back at all.

Kodaka chose not to go after her. Instead, he sat down where she had been, and sighed.

Why were women so bloody complicated?

* * *

_Why are women so complicated?_ Negi thought as he tried to keep himself focused on his work, going over the latest batch of legal documents Fate had given him for consideration. Not that Negi was totally sure this one would make a difference either. It was frustrating; as of late, he had been finding that Earth's governments and financial powerhouses barely took them seriously, unlike those of Mundus Magicus. Even with the support of the Yukihiros, Konoes and Nabas, whose influence actually mattered less on a global scale than Negi had expected, they were having a harder time than expected being taken seriously, and few were willing to risk millions for the sake of another world, which was frankly disheartening. Perhaps they would have to reach further. He was giving serious thought to the idea of approaching Tenjouin-san and Daidouji-san.

But of course, that would mean having to deal with more females, and right now, Negi wasn't certain he was up for that task.

"I understand, Sempai. Yes. Tomorrow night, of course. No, I'll tell Setchan later. No, she won't mind! Tee-hee! Of course, well, bye!" Konoka was finishing her important call now. After which she exhaled a long, heartfelt sigh.

Asuna looked up from where she rested on her stomach on Konoka's butt, in panties and a light T-shirt, no shoes or socks. "So, it's still a go?"

"She didn't sound that enthused," Konoka began slowly, before smiling brightly, "But yeah!" She made a V-sign with her fingers. "You sure you don't want us to tell her about your project, Negi-kun?"

He shook his head. "No, it's okay. Not yet, at least. Besides, it's your evening. Use it to have fun ... as long as you remember coming back safely and before the curfew."

"They're going with Setsuna, what's the wo- Ohhh, all right, I won't jinx it," Asuna stopped herself, right before smiling and thinking out loud. "Boy, this sure is a nice quiet evening! It's been a while since last time we could just relax without any-"

The front door rang.

"- crap," Asuna muttered.

"Oh, Asuna," Konoka said with faint disapproval, getting up from her chair and heading for the door. "When, when will you learn?" Shortly after, the other two heard her voice from the door asking, "Ahh... sorry, do I know you?"

"I want to talk with Sensei," a girl's dry, harsh voice said, making Negi bolt upright, and Asuna raise an eyebrow. "Is the little fucker here, or is he screwing more girls in malls?"

Asuna looked at Negi. "Wait, what? Did I hear that right?"

Negi hid his face in a hand palm. "Sorry. I wanted to tell you, whenever I found the time for it and I thought you'd be ready, but -"

"Negi-kuuun!" Konoka called out. "There's someone claiming being a friend of Chisame-chan here!"

"I'M NOT HER FRIEND!" Mikazuki Yozora's voice boomed through the apartment.

Asuna blinked. "Wait a sec, did you and Chisame-?"

Negi shrank back, shielding himself with his arms. "I didn't mean to! My tongue slipped, and she figured it out, and and and things happened from there! Please wait until she's gone to hit me!"

"Ah?" Asuna said. "Hit you? Over ... oh, yeah, over that. Well, I suppose I should be mad, but-"

He looked utterly disconcerted. She wasn't mad? Something horribly wrong and scary was afoot here.

"HEY, YOU PERVERT, COME HERE AND SHOW YOURSELF IF YOU'RE A MAN!" the newcomer was yelling.

"Fiery, huh?" Asuna asked, putting some shorts on. "Let's see what she wants."

"Ahhhh ... yes!" he had to agree.

* * *

"- well, that's a nice story," Asuna said as soon as Yozora finished her angry tale, and Negi finished checking, for the fifth time, if the magical sound barriers around the rooms were holding. He didn't want to disturb the neighbors with shouted fights any more than with their sessions of sex. "So let me see if I got everything right. You saw him having sex with Chisame at the mall, then you told her older brother, but her older brother didn't believe you. That's a good older brother. Now I almost wish I could have one."

"That's it?!" Mikazuki yelled. "That's your reaction to learning the boy under your care, and the teacher who cares about you, is a perverted creep?!"

"Yep, that's it," Asuna confirmed. "Sorry to disappoint. Now what? Are you going to keep knocking on door after door with your scandalous story until someone throws the fit you're hoping for?"

"Asuna!" Konoka told her. "That wasn't nice!"

"She's right, Asuna," Negi said, taking his seat back. "Especially since it's all my faul-"

"Don't. Say. It," Asuna growled. "Last time I checked, Chisame was perfectly able to make her own decisions. So ... Mikazuki-san, right? I think you got the wrong people if you wanted to scandalize others about Negi's actions - not that they're any of your business anyway - because to be honest, we're as guilty as him."

"Asuna," Negi said, sounding as if he was swallowing a concrete block.

Yozora blinked several times, pale as a ghost. "What. What, what what what. No, what?"

"Well, I **am** kinda angry he chose to keep it a secret from me -" Asuna began.

"You already have too much on your mind," Negi feebly offered.

"Nonsense. There's a lot of empty room in there," Baka Red said. "Well, just to be perfectly clear, Lady, Konoka and me have been having sex with Negi as well, and we're not jealous types. Well, not too much, but Chisame is one of us, s o..." She shrugged.

"But, but, bu-but, why?!" Yozora gasped.

"Because I'll be going away forever soon, and we want to live our remaining days together as intensely as we can. Isn't that reason enough?" Asuna said, calmly.

"Going ... away?" Yozora's face twitched a few times in some ways Konoka found actually quite funny.

Asuna nodded. "It'd be difficult to explain. Well, not too difficult, but I don't feel like explaining it to you."

"And ... you have to?" asked Yozora.

Asuna nodded again.

Yozora sighed and relaxed back on her chair. "This has been so fucking weird."

"It happens," Konoka said comfortingly.

"That isn't very comforting," Yozora grunted. "I really can't understand you guys. If you're going to be separated, wouldn't you want to keep him away from other women until you're gone?"

"Why? To enjoy him all myself? That'd be horribly selfish," Asuna said. "And I care about the rest of my friends as much as I care about him." That wasn't exactly true, since she cared about Negi the most, but she had no desire to explain that properly to this near stranger.

Yozora seemed to be processing a completely alien concept. "Weird. All of you are even weirder than the people in my club. How do you manage it, then?"

"Well, it pretty much goes like they describe in Health class -" Asuna began.

"No, no, I mean, if you're so weird and creepy, how can you remain friends even in the face of all that?" Yozora elaborated. "I mean, my club barely can keep itself together, and we don't have to handle any of all that magical crap."

"What are your club's goals?" asked Konoka.

"Making friends," replied Yozora.

Konoka snapped her fingers. "Ah! You're the Neighbors' Club Negi-kun sponsors, aren't you?"

Yozora folded her arms and snorted. "Yeah, we are. So, how could you make ... friends when we have failed at it so much, and we've consciously spent months on it?"

"But Mikazuki-san, you already are friends," Negi told her. "For instance, you and Sena-san are just like Asuna and Ayaka-san."

"So they are mortal enemies?" asked Asuna.

"Damn straight," said Yozora.

"Being friends doesn't mean you're always going to see things eye to eye, or that everything will be smooth and perfect," Negi continued, now with a small drop of sweat attached to his head. "But that's okay, because friends sometimes fight and then make amends. Why, when I studied with my friend Anya in Wales -"

Yozora held a hand up. "We've heard that before, Sensei. I don't want any of that heartfelt cutesy crap. What REALLY brought you together so strongly?"

"In no small part, it was because of a highly dangerous string of quests to save the world and face the buried secrets of our pasts," Konoka offered helpfully. "That sort of thing tends to bring people together."

"War buddies, huh?" Yozora hummed. "Like the Spartans and all that crap?"

"There's also the fact, sometimes, competing for the same boy's attentions sort of helps girls realize they have a lot in common. As long as you don't end up killing each other, you'll end up becoming good romantic rivals instead," added the dean's granddaughter.

"So, what you mean is, if I compete with you over this twerp, my social life will improve?" asked Yozora.

"Hey, I'm not a twerp ... anymore!" protested Negi.

Konoka blinked. "Ummm, that isn't exactly what I meant," she replied, since she was too polite to say, 'No, that's not even remotely what I meant, you horrible person.'

Yozora had started pacing around the table. "But of course! To be popular and widely loved, you've got to be skanky and slutty, like Meat or Lindsay or Paris, and the rest will come to you easily. I can't believe, all this time, I had the answer under my nose and I never realized it!" She chuckled in a truly disturbing fashion. "Yes, yes, now I see."

"Uuuhhhhhh," Negi said dubiously. "Yozora-san, if you're thinking of staging such a competition of sorts around Kodaka-san, let me warn you, our circumstances were very unusual, and I don't think they can -"

Yozora stopped, her back turned to them. "Oh, that's completely right, Sensei. No way anything like that would work for a careless, milksop bum who doesn't even care about his ties with his loyal childhood friend."

"Am I missing something important here?" asked Asuna.

"Oh, come on, Yozora-san." Negi approached the black haired girl. "You know he isn't as bad as you are painting him to be. But either way, yes, it wouldn't be wise to stage a love competition around him or anyone else, because that only would bring MMMMPPPPHHHHH!" he eloquently finished when Yozora spun around, caught him in a fierce hug, and angrily mashed her lips against his.

"I can't freaking believe this," Asuna muttered as she watched Yozora grab the sides of Negi's face to keep frenching him clumsily, smashing the front of her body against his.

"Oh, I think I can," Konoka said. "She looks like the type who needs a lot of personal contact."

"I ..." Yozora remarked as she paused for a moment to breathe. "... don't ..." she continued after grinding her mouth against Negi's a second time. "... need that! I'm I'm just doing this because I want to!"

"But I don't -" Negi babbled, before he felt Yozora's bloodshot eyes squarely on his.

"What? Don't you want someone like me? I'm not as good as those who follow you on those crazy irrational adventures of yours? Am I worth that little?" she growled.

"Don't put words in my mouth!" he protested, grabbing her wrists and pushing her back, not hard enough to hurt her.

She still grimaced as if he had. "Oh, so you're the rough type, on top of everything. Well, I can take anything a man can dish out."

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," warned Konoka, coming behind Yozora and starting to undo her uniform's top. "Negi-kun is very, very strong. Isn't he, Asuna?"

"Ah..." the other girl hesitated. "... yeah. But what are you doing, Setsuna-san would -"

"This and that are completely different things," Konoka said, beginning to plant kisses on the back of Yozora's neck while her hands groped Mikazuki's small breasts over her simple white bra. "What matters is for your heart to stay true."

Negi backed a step away, more creeped out than anything. And the way Yozora-san was moaning, dear God. "Um, I'm not sure she wouldn't consider this a -"

Yozora, with another strange moan, leaned forward, resting her hands on Negi's chest as Konoka took her bra off, showing the perky and petite mounds of flesh. Negi's eyes bugged out. Yozora's face had become impossibly red and sweaty, and she turned her huge dark eyes up to him. "Annnhhh," she said.

"Was that a plea for help?" he guessed.

"One way or another, I imagine," Asuna sighed, before taking her top off, showing her own bare breasts. "Okay, I suppose it's important to start establishing good relationships with the other classes. The project is going to need more than us to work out, and maybe we've remained isolated for too long."

"What in the world are you saying?!" Negi cried as Yozora's shaky hands pulled the buttons of his shirt off, then sneaked underneath it to caress his hard, scarred torso.

_"I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I can't believe I'm doing this,"_ Yozora whispered, as if in a fever dream, marveling at how marked his body was. That mage life had to be tougher than she had imagined. Trembling violently, she kissed him again while Konoka tugged her skirt and panties down to her ankles, and then she kicked them off. Konoka's first finger up her vagina was her reward. "Aaa-aaaannnhhhh!"

She smelled so good. Different from his students, but nice and warm all the same. And now Asuna was behind him, undoing his pants and rubbing her breasts against his back, his instincts overcame his common sense. He was growing hard, very hard, but nothing of that made any sense, it was completely illogical and irrational, but then again, it seemed to be that way whenever the realm of the senses was involved, and, oh God -

Yozora, after feeling a big hard thing pressed against her lower stomach, pulled back and looked down in fear. She would have turned and run if Konoka hadn't been holding her from behind, still fingering her nethers and licking at her neck.

"Isn't Negi-kun's dick pretty, Sempai?" the Konoe girl purred, pinching Yozora's clitoris and making her scream. "It's nothing to be afraid of. You came here looking for it, so now you won't be going away without taking it. Right, Asuna?"

"Right," Asuna said, pumping the hard male organ between her hands as Negi groaned, seemingly powerless.

"I didn't ... come here ... looking for ... ahhhhh!" Yozora squeezed her eyes tightly as she and Negi were pulled along towards the bedroom. Konoka and Asuna looked at each other and nodded, they pushed the other two onto the bottom bunk, then slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside. They then promptly grabbed each other and began making out in front of the locked door.

"Ah," Negi panted, sitting up on the bed. "They are, this is, I mean, we couldn't possibly..."

"N-No, of course not, we can't, that is ..." Yozora said in the same shattered tone.

Then their eyes fell on each other's denuded form.

They stared. His erection grew even more swollen. Her vulva began leaking a slight small trail of translucent liquid.

"Please be gentle," she begged, begged with a tiny voice she didn't recognize as her own, so she had to be dreaming, which was a good thing, because only in wet dreams she would beg a man to fuck her, which was a very Rika thing to do, but she'd look for help later, after -

He nodded wordlessly, then gently pushed her down on her back on the mattress. She wrapped her agitated arms around his body, and then he breathed deeply and pushed in.

"Arrgh!" she cried out as she felt the sharp pain of the first time. She bit her tongue and lolled her head back, planting her feet down on the bed. It did hurt, it hurt so much, she wanted to stop, but the words wouldn't come out, and so she remained silent, bucking her hips along his as he fucked her, in slow and precise strokes that only stopped hurting after the first four minutes or so. And then, slowly, something else began to rise, between his questions she was blocking out as white noise in the symphony of her own pants and groans. Some hot sensation from her crotch, tickling her nerves, going up to her belly and chest, making her breathing burn. He was asking, he kept asking, if she felt good, if she wanted to stop, if she wanted something inside or outside ...

Inside or outside of what? She wanted to ask, but it would have taken effort, some effort she preferred to devote to bucking against him, holding him tightly against her, despite his nearly crushing weight, until -

Yozora's eyes flew fully open. "Oh. God!"

He was squirting deep inside of her, rattling his hips and chomping on the air.

What a day she was having.

* * *

_At the same time, at the Neighbors' Club Meeting Room:_

"Okay," Kodaka said. "In the absence of the Club President, I, as the second senior member, will dictate the goals of today's meeting."

Yukimura sighed blissfully. "Leave it to Aniki, to grab the helm and guide us with such strong determination during our hour of need."

Kashiwazaki Sena didn't lift her gaze from the galge she was playing. It had been recommended by the mysterious 'God of Conquests' in her favorite online board, so she had known it had to be good, and so far, it wasn't disappointing. "Mmm? What happened to the Weasel? Did she hurt herself?"

"No, she didn't," Kodaka said. _At least, I hope she didn't_. "She ... had some private matters to sort out today."

"A nervous breakdown?" A smile tugged at the corners of Sena's lovely pink mouth.

Kodaka blinked.

He must have been silent longer than he imagined, since before he knew it, Yukimura, Rika and Sena were all staring at him.

"Oh my God." Sena sounded sincerely impressed. "Don't tell me I got it right. It was only joking! Mostly."

Kodaka rasped. "I wouldn't call it an emotional breakdown. It was only a -"

Sena held a hand up. "Don't worry, Kodaka, it's okay. You don't need to tell us."

"Ah? Why?" Kodaka was truly astonished at this unexpected reaction.

"Because we have decided to start being respectful of Yozora-sempai's privacy?" Rika sounded almost disappointed.

Sena smiled evilly. "No. Because it would spoil the fun of asking her personally!"

Rika nodded sagely. "Indeed. Kodaka-sempai is very bad at telling stories anyway."

"Hey, hey, respect the second-in-command," Kodaka muttered.

Yukimura nodded. "Of course, Aniki. Then, tell us, what will we do today?"

Kodaka opened his mouth to give an inspired, ground-breaking answer that would mark him as a better leader than Yozora. After a rather long moment of silence, he realized he hadn't thought of any. "Ah ... for now, just continue doing whatever you were doing," he lamely said.

Nodding, Sena returned to her galge. Rika went back to looking for mecha porn in her laptop, and Yukimura continued serving tea in her butler uniform.

Kodaka placed a a hand against his forehead as he rested on his chair.

Who had ever said it was good to be king?

At least the tea was good.

* * *

Asuna finally let go of Konoka's ass and flipped around to lie on her back, sprawling her arms and legs widely. As she did, Konoka was just starting to recover, making small puffs and whiny noises, eventually reaching down to pick some leftover juices from her own vulva and lapping them up.

Asuna frowned. "Ew! Konoka! That's kinda gross."

"But we just were tasting each other's, Asuna!"

"Yeah, but those are your own. It seems ... wrong, doesn't NNNPPPHH!" she finished as Konoka pushed her fingers into her mouth.

"Fine, then **you** taste them, instead." Her friend smiled angelically before staring at the bedroom's door, from behind which groans and moans still could be heard. "Oh dear, Negi-kun is still giving Sempai a full royal treatment, isn't he?"

Asuna sat up on the floor. "Yeah. Boy, the rest of the Wings will be pissed off an outsider got there before them, won't they?"

"It's kinda too late to go back on it," Konoka shrugged and got up, heading for the door with a giggle. "Let's see how they're doing, okay?"

Asuna dusted herself off and followed her. "You're on."

Konoka unlocked and then pushed the door open, and they immediately saw Negi on his knees on top of Yozora, pulling out of her and yanking his member a few times before ejaculating on her torso with a long-drawn "Eeeennnhhhh!" White splashed all across her chest, neck and face, and she promptly began spitting out what had fallen into her mouth, bolting up on her butt.

"Gah! Gah! This stuff tastes horrible!" the senior girl complained, before shooting the other two naked females a fierce glare. "Well, are you happy now?"

"Are you?" asked Asuna, with a fist cocked on a hip.

Yozora pushed a sighing Negi aside and sat on the bed's edge. "I asked first," she muttered.

Konoka giggled again. "How many times?"

The older girl's blush somehow grew even more intense. "Four, counting this one. He came inside the first two, so ... fuck, don't you people know the first thing about condoms?"

"- what's that?" asked Negi, genuinely puzzled.

Yozora looked at him with a blatant expression of disbelief before she exhaled a sigh of frustration. "Forget it. If I'm going down, I sure as hell won't go alone." She began reaching around for clothes, remembered she had left them at the next room, and wrapped a bedsheet around herself instead. "You manipulated me while I was emotionally vulnerable so I wouldn't tell anyone, didn't you?"

Negi gasped. "I'd never do such a thing!" He quickly looked at his Ministra. "And I didn't ... did I?"

Asuna huffed. "Of course not!" And then she addressed Yozora. "Don't play the victim now, you! You started with the whole 'Oh, sex will make me popular or whatever' nonsense! Besides, if you let him finish inside, it was because you liked it, too!"

"To be fair, I think her real reasoning was more along the lines of 'Oh, sex will make me feel appreciated'," Konoka mused, with a finger on her own chin. "And it worked, didn't it?"

"My clothes," was Yozora's only reply, gesturing with a hand for the satisfaction of her demands. Negi quickly got up and walked out to get them.

After he was out of the bedroom, Mikazuki looked down and said in a low voice, "It ... didn't feel bad."

"Oh, really," Asuna smirked.

"Shut up," Yozora snapped. And then, "If I get pregnant over this, he'll better take responsibility, kid or not, you hear me?"

Asuna lost her smirk and stated as serious as she could be. "He is the most responsible person you'll ever meet."

"Well, yeah, you coulda fooled me today." As Negi walked back in, she yanked her clothes off his hands and began putting them on. "You'll come tomorrow to our next meeting, won't you? Or are you too busy for that too now?"

"Um, well, I'm sure I can find the time in my agenda." Which was probably true. Fate had insisted on taking the next meeting all for himself, claiming Negi wasn't the type who could negotiate with these particular investors. Negi wasn't sure why, although he had his suspicions those investors might be leaning towards the wrong side of the law, even if nothing had been proved against them. When he expressed his doubts to Fate, he would neither confirm nor deny, but still claimed Negi would have to accept the Gray Path applied to more than just magic. "Aren't you -"

"Mad?" Yozora asked him while pulling her skirt back up. "Don't be ridiculous. Do I look like a raped little girl or anything? I told you I could take anything you could dish out, with no problems." And then she began walking towards the door, with notable effort and keeping her legs awkwardly open.

Negi blinked a few times.

"Um, maybe I should -" Konoka began reaching into her drawer for her Pactio card.

"I'm fine!" Yozora barked.

* * *

Tokiha Mai hummed sweetly to herself as she swept her apartment's front doorstep. She was about to finish when the door next to hers opened, and out walked Negi-sensei, Asuna-san, Konoka-san, and a girl Mai thought she had seen around the campus a few times, even if she couldn't place her name at all.

That girl gave a startled, guilty-as-hell expression of shock as soon as she realized she was being seen leaving the place.

Mai gave her a good, long look. She studied her frozen features and rigid body language. She sniffed the smell softly wafting from her, and, although she was no Kotaro, she still could identify that sort of scent after that regrettable night at her most vulnerable spent with Reito-sempai.

Mai stared at the faces of her three neighbors, frowning more than slightly.

Negi hid his face in shame. Asuna looked aside and whistled innocently. Konoka just smiled impishly. "Ahhh, you keep catching us, Tokiha-sempai! Well ... yes, this is what it looks like! Tee-heee."

Mai sighed. "You know, my life as your secret keeper would be a lot easier if you didn't keep adding more secrets to the load on my shoulders."

"Sorry," Negi begged very softly.

Yozora looked back and forth between everyone, completely baffled, and let out a mechanical chuckle as her right eye winked spasmodically.

* * *

Inugami Kotaro knew he should be heading back home already.

Night was falling, after all, and Chizu-nee and Natsumi-neechan and probably even the old hag should be growing worried. Still, Higurashi-neesan and her mother had given him so much hospitality, it would seem rude to leave so soon. Right? Of course it would, so he remained where he was, resting on his back on a tatami in the guest room of the small house on the hill.

The other dog demon had been napping on a branch of a nearby tree, right out his window. From his angle, Kotaro couldn't see him, but his senses of smell and hearing still were more than enough to pinpoint him. They also told him when he jumped down the tree to join Higurashi-neesan as she walked outside the house, her steps mashing lightly on the grass, her perfume wafting subtly into Kotaro's nose.

He sat up on the tatami, perking his furry ears up.

"- still worried about him," she was saying as they walked further from the house.

The silver haired one snorted dismissively. "Forget him. He's just a punk kid who threw a tantrum against his caretakers. He'll go back and they'll make up as soon as he realizes what he's missing."

"I hope you're right," she sighed sadly. "If he lacks proper guidance and affection, he could end up badly, maybe as an arrogant, impulsive brute."

"Cute, Kagome," the demon in red snorted. "Cute."

Kotaro peeked out through his window, scowling. The nerve of that jerk, talking about him behind his back like that. And people wondered why he never looked out for those of his species. Truth be told, dog demons were never pack animals. As most of them were left alone at young ages, they didn't exactly establish strong mutual bonds through the majority of their lives.

He snuck out, mostly to see what the moron and Higurashi-neesan were doing. From a distance, Kotaro saw she had a bicycle and a large full backpack with her. When the two approached the old, decaying wooden well, and the imbecile carefully helped her down into it, Kotaro remembered what she had told him the first time they met, shortly after his fight with the silver haired mutt. Ah. So that was the famous gate to the past.

After they disappeared down into the darkness, Kotaro hesitated for a moment before walking towards the well, looking down into the black depths, sniffing warily, and then shrugging to himself. What the heck. Surely it would be better than spending time there, feeling sorry for himself. New butts to kick, and all that. If a far worse and weaker dog demon than him could make it, sure as eggs he could too and -

He landed on his butt at the mossy, wet bottom, sending dirt in all directions. He didn't hurt himself, of course. Well, other than a minor injury to his pride, that is. He had done nothing but fall into an old dark pit. There had been no mystic trip into another, magical world filled with fantasy and awe, although to be fair maybe karma had just decided he'd already had his fill of that for the year. It wasn't that he regretted this outcome, but it still made him feel frustrated and stupid. Just sitting there, at the rock bottom, like an abandoned pup left behind by his elders.

Again.

Of course, he could easily just climb back up. And he would, eventually, but not for the moment. For now, he just sat there in silence, thinking at the bottom.

Somehow, it seemed appropriate.

* * *

_Mundus Magicus:_

He whistled happily to himself as he marched down the wide road leading to the Gateport, with a bag easily four times as big as him on his back. What a haul, what a haul! as another famous pervert for the eras would have put it. Being a close friend and mentor to a world saving hero sure had its perks, and now he would return to Wales - and later Mahora - vindicated and covered in glory, to claim his rightly place in legend as one of those who -

"Are you Albert Chamomille?" a strong male voice asked.

He sighed, and turned around under the weight of his treasure to face the quartet of armored men on white horses. "Yes, yes, I am! Do you want some autographs? I am very busy, but I suppose, for a decent fee, my good heart could be persuaded to -"

"Do you have a license to sell Negi Springfield merchandise and memorabilia?" the man at the lead asked now.

Chamo blinked. "Ahh? I am Negi Springfield's familiar and greatest ally! This is an outrage! How dare you -"

"You still need written permission to distribute and slash or sell Negi Springfield merchandise and memorabilia, Sir," another of the men said. "There are no exceptions. It's a law signed by Governor Godel."

"Lord Godel, huh, figures," the white ermine grumbled in annoyance. "Well, I do have such an authorization, naturally, but it seems I have left it in my other coat today. You know, us world saving heroes have so much on our minds at any given time. I'm sure we can settle this with a small economic contribution to your noble cause?"

"No," the first man said.

"Absolutely not," the second man expanded.

"That would be like prostituting Lord Negi's purpose and cause," the third man huffed.

"No true ally or Lord Negi and Governor Godel would propose such a dishonest arrangement!" the fourth man barked indignantly.

_Shit! Of all guardsmen in this world, I had to run into four honest ones_! the ermine panicked.

"W-Well, of course I would never, I was just, ah ... testing you distinguished gentlemen ... for ... BYE!" he cried, dropping his load (not _that_ way!) immediately and running into the woods as fast as he could.

"AFTER HIM!"

"AFTER HIM!"

"AFTER HIM!"

"AFTER HIM!"

And so, Albert 'Chamo' Chamomille would be fittingly entertained for the foreseeable future.

* * *

**To be Continued.**


	3. Kazumi, Shizuru, Natsuki

These characters all belong to Akamatsu Ken, Kodansha, Sunrise, and a whole bunch of other people all across the world. None of them is mine, and none of them nets me any money, and none of them is intended to resemble any real people without parodic intentions.

Don't read this if you are a minor or easily offended.

Thanks to Darkenning for the inspiration, support and proofreading.

* * *

**Chapter Three:**

* * *

"You want to know about my plans for the future?" Asakura asked, smiling like she almost always did, while leaning back against the classroom wall. "Interesting question. It's really rude, of course, to answer a question with a question, so I hope you'll forgive me if I ask what prompts your interest. Which is technically not a question itself."

I think we can and should fast forward over this part. Copy-pasting is an easy and quick way to fill space without a lot of effort, but it's also to be avoided whenever possible.

_So, some time later ..._

Several minutes and a slightly smaller number of toe-curling orgasms later, Asakura poked her head out of the washroom door and looked down the hallway quickly before stepping the rest of the way out into it. "I think the coast is clear."

"That's nice," said a faint voice from inside the bathroom. "I'm considering drowning myself in one of the toilets."

The red-head let out a sigh. "Get out here," she said rather forcefully.

_And then, a wild Fate suddenly appears!_

"That guy is definitely going down," Asakura declared as she wrote "I will not cut Mr. Fate's class ever again" in English, over and over again on the board.

"What is a dunce, anyway?" Setsuna asked as she sat in the corner wearing a rather ridiculous-looking hat.

* * *

_At the same time, not too far..._

"I'm Nagi Springfield, Negi-sensei's cousin," he said, keeping a pleasant, affable smile on his face while crying and lamenting on the inside. Negi Springfield, now also a master thespian in addition to an awesome hand to hand fighter, great lover, prodigy mage, PR natural, excellent teacher, master of over a dozen languages, genius strategist and athlete far above Olympic levels. At least he's still an awful singer, and can't cook. "I happen to be a qualified teacher, just like Negi-sensei, so the Headmaster has allowed me to serve as your club's adviser during my cousin's absence."

Sena, Kodaka, Yukimura and Rika kept their eyes fixed on the handsome tall figure standing before the assembled Neighbors' Club, with a stiff, awkward-looking Yozora close behind him.

Slowly, a bubbling sound of pure increasing lust began to rise from the depths of Rika's throat.

Sena moved her mouth weakly a few times, barely whispering the rudiments of a greeting to herself.

Yukimura's expression remained collected and unmoved, but she did bow for the newcomer. "It's a pleasure, Springfield-sensei."

"Ah ... yeah, likewise here," Kodaka said, after briefly tossing a questioning gaze Yozora's way. Yozora didn't even seem to acknowledge it, which made him wonder even more. "It's funny, but ... I don't think Negi-sensei ever mentioned you."

Nagi gave a short, apologetic chuckle. "I imagined he wouldn't. We aren't too close; you could say we're never in the same place at the same time."

"Oh, I'd say it's the exact opposite," Yozora muttered.

"What was that?" Sena asked her.

"Nothing!"

"So, Sensei!" Rika spoke then, bubbly and enthused. "You're that young man who's been seen hanging around the female dorms so much lately, aren't you?"

"Ah?" Kodaka tilted his head aside to look at her.

Rika nodded firmly. "Rika has heard all the rumors, despite being holed up in her lab whenever she isn't here. Rika can overhear the sexy campus population chattering around her on her way from here and back, you know. Rika has excellent hearing, no matter how much others try to quickly walk away from her whenever they see her coming. So then, you're that man, isn't that right, Sensei?"

"Ah ... as a matter of fact, yes," he had to explain.

Sena's expression lost her dreamy attitude and changed into a steel-tempered scowl. "Explain," she demanded.

"W-well ... I'm living there, with Kagurazaka-san and Konoe-san," he had to admit.

Silence reigned.

It only was broken by Rika's sounds as she stuffed a tissue up her bleeding nose and gulped for air through her mouth.

"Excuse me?" Sena hummed. "That was okay for your cousin, who was only a child, but why would the Headmaster let you live there?" She felt so weird asking that. Normally, the Weasel would be the first one to jump in outrage at a pervert, but for some reason she was just standing there trying to meld into the background.

Nagi smiled, steeling himself. Now he would have to play his master card, his perfect excuse, the one had thought about so much. His perfect lifesaver for such a situation.

"Rest assured, Kashiwazaki-san, there's no danger at all in that situation, and there's no way I could take advantage of my roommates," he said, feeling like the vilest of the heels and trying to ignore Yozora's dry groan coming from behind, "... because ... because I'm gay!"

For no good reason, the theme music to Three's Company could be heard coming through the window.

Yukimura blinked.

Sena, on the other hand, stopped blinking, her eyes growing to a gigantic size. Finally, she swallowed a huge knot and reluctantly began to speak, "W-W-Well ... that changes everything, I suppose ... however -"

She was interrupted by a faint orgasmic cry from Rika, who had fainted where she was standing, with a delirious sweet smile and a geyser of blood from her nose weakening her quite quickly.

"AH! SHIGUMA-SAN!" Nagi rushed to her side.

The downed girl opened her eyes and giggled disturbingly in his strong arms. "Ahhh ... everything ... going dark ... but I couldn't go any happier ... unless ... would you and Kodaka please ... kindly undress and kiss each other while masturbating over Rika's dying body…?"

Kodaka didn't wait to know how would that one end up, for he was out the door and running for safety without looking back as soon as the word 'undress' was completed.

* * *

_Next door:_

Kyon, whose actual name doesn't really matter, was too busy organizing his folders of lovely Asahina Mikuru pictures in the computer of the SOS Brigade to realize what the Brigade's Commander-For-Life had been up to during her unusually long silence until he heard her slam a hand on the table before him.

"Wake up, Kyon!" barked the terribly cute but just-as-terribly unstable leader of the Brigade, startling the brown haired boy and also drawing the attentions of everyone else in the room. Short haired Nagato Yuki lifted her apathetic eyes from her book, but didn't bother to close it just yet. Mikuru stopped wiping the windows with a wet cloth and froze in a standard terrified reaction. The handsome Koizumi Itsuki left his card game of solitary aside and smiled in playful expectation.

"I'm perfectly awake," Kyon said, quickly closing the Images folder and opening the Weekly Schedule one before she could realize it. "What's the matter now?"

Suzumiya Haruhi frowned and waved a disc in front of his face. "Do you know what is this?"

"Should I?" he asked back.

"This," she said, not bothering with his question, "is the recording I have made of what has just happened in the headquarters of the enemy."

Kyon blinked. "You have bugged the Computer Club's quarters?"

"Of course not!" the attractive but bossy girl sneered. "Why should we care about those losers?"

"Then ... the teachers' lounge?"

"... no, they keep finding the bugs there and destroying them," Haruhi admitted.

"Let's see, in that case ... oh, I see. You have grown desperate enough to bug the Neighbors' Club, haven't you?"

"What? No!"

"Then - " Kyon hesitated.

"I wouldn't be desperate enough to do it personally! A General can't stoop as low as that! So Yuki did it for me."

"THAT'S EXACTLY THE SAME THING!" Kyon protested.

"No, not at all," Haruhi shook her head. "See, that's why you won't ever be a leader. Anyway! My tireless labors of espionage against those enemies of our glorious goals, led by the perfidious Mikazuki, have just yielded astonishing results!"

"Ah! Progress at last!" Itsuki clasped his hands together.

Haruhi narrowed her eyes. "What's with that 'at last'? Oh, never mind. I've just gotten breaking news about the mysterious man who has been seen around the girls' dorms!"

She smiled so smugly and puffed her chest up so much that Kyon felt it was his duty taking some hot air off before the cosmic balloon exploded. "What mysterious man are you talking about?"

Haruhi sizzled, greatly annoyed. "Don't you know anything? It's been hot in the rumor mill all week long. It's a really damn hot guy who has been hanging around with Negi-sensei's roommates. And check it out, it looks like he's Negi-sensei's cousin and he'll be taking his place as the adviser of that blasted society of evil."

"Is he also a teacher?" Mikuru shyly asked.

Haruhi nodded. "Or so he claims. But that's very fishy, don't you think? All of a sudden, Negi-sensei, the beloved naive teacher half the school crushes on, disappears. That creepy white haired albino takes over his duties as a teacher, and then this other guy steals his extracurricular activities and starts living with his roommates."

"Wait, living with girls in the girls' dorms? Why would they allow that?" asked Kyon.

"Because he's gay, duh. Or so he says. But I can tell he's lying! Lying! I have a damn good radar for whenever anyone is lying or hiding things from me!" Haruhi boasted loudly. "And eventually, sooner or later, I make those no-good liars pay, hard!"

A single trickle of cold sweat ran down Kyon's forehead. Mikuru looked she was about to cry. Itsuki's cheerful facade didn't change at all, but he crossed his legs awkwardly under the table. Nagato merely returned to her book, unfazed.

"So," Kyon sighed, "you're thinking that guy is hiding under a gay facade to live with those two girls, one of whom is the dean's flesh and blood granddaughter, to ... ahhh ... take advantage of them?"

Haruhi nodded. "After killing Negi-sensei, of course."

That made both Mikuru and Kyon choke loudly, and even Itsuki's subtle change in posture reflected some measure of shock. Only Nagato continued completely unaffected.

"Pardon?!" Kyon said.

"It's the most logical thing to deduce!" Haruhi wagged a finger. "The history of crime is chock-full of vicious family murders fueled by lust, greed and envy! Since the days of Cain and Abel, this scenario has repeated itself time and time again! Now look at what we have; a beloved school icon missing for days, with not a single sighting for almost a week now. Now, the self-professed child hater and the girl who sits on a pile of money above the reach of law who lived with them are coexisting in sin with his older, mysterious relative who arrives out of nowhere, while an obviously evil albino takes his place to enforce a cruel dominion over an unsuspecting student body! And we are all that stands between Mahora and that dark web of betrayal, deceit and murder!"

"What," Kyon said.

Haruhi pumped a fist against her chest and planted a foot on top of the table to give everyone a nice long look at her panties. "For the loving memory of Negi-sensei, we must find, expose and punish his murderers! Locate his body, and reveal those involved in this conspiracy, from the Neighbors' Club to even the Headmaster himself if needed! I know it will be difficult! I know it will be risky! However, it is the right thing to do!" She tightened a fist and held it high. "And there is no challenge the mighty SOS Brigade can't tackle! SOS! Together, we are going to reach the truth and make the guilty pay!"

She looked all around, to see this time even Itsuki wasn't clapping.

"Well?" she huffed.

Kyon sighed. "Remember what happened this past summer vacation?"

"This obviously is completely different!" Haruhi said. "The odds we could ever run into two false homicide cases one after another are minuscule! Come on, guys, even a blind man can see the ugly truth peeking out from beneath the stated facts here!"

Itsuki drew in a very deep breath. "You ... you are right, of course. We should at the very least investigate to the best of our capacities."

"Yes! That's it!" Haruhi smiled triumphantly. "So we'll march right there, tell them we're on them, and ask them where they hid the corpse!"

Mikuru made a strangled whiny sound.

"That's hardly standard detective procedure," Yuki observed quietly, still reading.

"Of course it isn't. I just wanted to know if you all had learned our lessons from the island incident," Haruhi allowed, hands on her own hips. "Regardless, this crime has just become our top priority! I want everything else put on standby in the meanwhile! Kyon! You will discreetly interview the neighbors of the late Sensei! Mikuru-chan! You and me will keep the heat on the Philistines next door! Yuki-chan! You will be coordinating our activities from here! Itsuki-kun! You will comb the rest of the campus! Any questions before we go into the details?"

"I have several," Kyon said. "How about -"

"Any questions NOT involving the possibilities of dropping this case?" Haruhi asked.

Kyon lowered his hand and grunted, "None at all, then."

* * *

Just as even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea, even the longest detention eventually comes to an end, and having spent far more time in each others company than they truly wished, Setsuna and Kazumi parted company with a short wave rather than any more effusive farewells. Setsuna's thoughts were elsewhere, anyway, having returned to the question of the future.

Starting with the early hours of that very same night, where she would escort Ojou-sama into some sort of meeting that definitely couldn't be a double date (since she surely had misheard Ojou-sama's announcement over the phone) with President Fujino and her own unofficial protector. That wasn't so stressing on itself, since she had followed Ojou-sama on Omiais and the likes before, but... so soon after their recent... carnal encounter, the mere thought of going out with her in an evening, even in the company of others, was enough to make mincemeat of her nerves. And that, without taking into account she had just been unfaithful to her, doing such lewd things with Asakura-san, except because, after all, she didn't have a rightful claim on Ojou-sama's hand or heart, not that it made anything od what she had done acceptable at all...

But even so, she couldn't and wouldn't reject Ojou-sama's kind invitation.

Despite the fact that Setsuna had lately demonstrated that she could and would seize the initiative, she was inclined to minimize that as a momentary aberration. For the most part, she felt like she was just going along with the flow, rather than making her own way towards the future that everyone else seemed to have a good idea about. What sort of worthless friend did that make her to-

Okay, in the interest of brevity, let's just do the highlights, again, shall we?

* * *

"Nooo!" Setsuna groaned. "That isn't a future! It's not even a delusion! Just a sick fantasy! What is wrong with -" At this point in her self castigation, she realized that she was not alone.

"You are soooo stupid," said Evangeline as she put her in a rather complicated shoulder lock. "You don't even know what's going on with them, do you?"

"Oh, hey, Eva-chan," said Asuna as she and Negi walked up. "Having fun with Setsuna, huh?"

* * *

"My disciples," Evangeline announced a few moments later in the resort. "We shall have a final lesson together."

* * *

"Yeah, that's the real deal," said Jack Rakan, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "It's Grandma's Magia Erebea. Now that's something to see. It's a good thing I came."

"R-Ra-Rakan-san?!" Setsuna gasped. "Why are you here in Mahora?!"

"Well, I guess you can call it sightseeing or something," the tanned mountain of a man answered.

"That's not what I meant! Pure Magical World inhabitants shouldn't be able to come over to this side!"

Handwaving followed.

Magical battle ensued.

"EMISA STAGNET!"

"PERFECTUS PLASMATIONIS PER EMISIONEM!"

Their blows and spells boomed all across the resort, but the barrier keeping the arena mostly separated from those watching over blocked most of the truly deafening noise, softening to such a degree the remains of Ala Rubra and those who followed on their steps could keep a conversation without too much of a problem.

"You mean, Negi-sensei has become an immortal monster, like Evangeline?" Setsuna asked, startled.

"Kind of early to say for sure, but pretty much yeah," said Rakan, as he, Eishun and Albireo watched on.

"It is soooo cool," gloated Godel.

"You are a such a jerk," snapped Takamichi.

"Yeah. It's fucking unfair that twerp's got it while us hard working mages never stumble into those huge immortality gimmes," Lina Inverse mumbled. "Immortality would give me soooo much time to collect riches!"

Twilight Sparkle smiled, extending her brand new Princess Alicorn wings.

"See?" Inverse pointed at her. "That's what I'm talking about!"

"Be quiet, you," Queen Daenerys icily told her, rather unhappy at sitting next to someone named the Dragon Spooker/Slayer/Mass Murderer/Hitler.

"Immortality isn't such a big deal, anyway," Marceline Abadeer shrugged. "All it really means at the end is you've got more time to grow bored out of your skull."

Asuna shot Rakan an annoyed glare. "Really, did you have to bring everyone you knew from Mundus Magicus with you?"

"Hey, none of them objected at all when YOU visited!"

"Fine. Forget I asked anything. At least there's going to be plenty of girls to look after him, even if I'm not there to do it," said Asuna as she leaped down do join the battle.

"Wait, what do you mean, 'if I'm not there to do it'?" asked Setsuna, just a little too late for Asuna to answer.

"Oh, I guess you didn't know about the whole thing where she's going to go to sleep for a hundred years to save the Magical World then?" asked Albireo.

"Very well, Kagurazaka Asuna," Evangeline was saying. "I will be your opponent. This is your parting gift."

The literally ground shaking battle started again, now with an extra participant.

"JACULATIO GRANDINIS!"

"TOME ALKIS KAI ANALKIAS!"

Negi tightened a fist and took it back, preparing the devastating punch.

"DEXTRA EMISSA, SAGITTA MAGICA CONVERGENTIA FULGURALIS! ET ADDITIONAL KOSMIKE KATASTROPHE! ET DEXTRA EMISSA TITANO KTONON!"

"HEH, HEH, HEH!" Evangeline laughed with her black and red eyes shining demonically. "COME HERE, THEN!"

"Ugh, I have a bad feeling—" Asuna gulped softly.

Negi paused in mid-swing. His nose twitched as the icy air tickled inside of it. "Fweh..."

Evangeline blinked. "What?"

**"AAAT-CHOOOOOO!"**

When the dust settled down, Negi opened his eyes only to see Evangeline sitting on his face, giving him a closer view of a certain part of hers than he'd ever have wanted to.

"Oh?" the blonde vampire said.

"..." Asuna added, rubbing the back of her own head.

The fight looked to be over and all three combatants were of course quite naked as Setsuna jumped down and stormed over to slap Asuna across the face. "Why didn't you tell me?" she cried.

"... sorry," Asuna said.

"Is it just me, or is that a bit more of a passionate embrace than you'd expect of two best friends?" asked Eishun, frowning a bit.

"You really want to talk about that?" asked Albireo. Rakan was too busy leering to say anything.

Princess Twilight looked back and forth between Rakan's lecherous expression and the naked girls beneath and wondered aloud, "I'll never understand what's your species' huge fascination with being clothed or not."

"It's probably just the heat of the moment," said Kazumi.

"... when did you get here?" asked Takahata, startled.

"A while ago." Then Asakura's eyebrows went up and down as a drooling Paio Zi fondled her from behind. "You know, until two days ago, I'd have been kicking you all across this place now, so count yourself damn lucky..."

_"Oh, I doooooo!"_ the tiny dark skinned woman slobbered.

* * *

After the next objective hour/subjective day, Setsuna walked out the resort to meet her important not-a-date! with Konoka, leaving Negi, Asuna and Asakura behind for the next two objective hours/subjective days.

And so, this happened:

They walked together through the forest section of Evangeline's resort complex. It was an ancient, old growth forest, dense with yew trees that might have first flourished before the birth of Christ, along with oaks, ash, holly and hawthorn, all carefully transplanted from a Europe that no longer existed except in Evangeline's memories. Even in brightest daylight, it was dim beneath their boughs. In evening, as now, it called to mind stories of little girls dressed in red hoods and big bad wolves. Once upon a time, they hadn't just been stories, and the forest remembered that. Negi imagined that Evangeline liked to remember that too.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked Asakura as she walked a little ahead of him, her arms crossed behind her back.

_Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward..._

Kazumi hesitated. The primal woman in her yearned to feel his release within herself, but it was drowned out by a slightly more sensible aspect of her own nature. With one last rock, she pulled back and off of him, seizing the meat stick and jerking it hard. Only a few strokes were needed to unleash his load onto her stomach and her panties.

"So naughty," she said, between gasps. "So naughty."

"Yes, I think so too," said a voice from behind her.

Asakura slowly turned to look in that direction, and flinched when she saw that the girl in the Peaceful Angel shirt didn't look all that peaceful at the moment. "Um ... how, how long have you been there?" she asked.

"Why did I know that would be your first question?" Asuna groused.

"Um, A-Asuna?" Negi stammered.

"For the record," she said as she reached down with both hands and began yanking her shirt up her sides, "I've been huh sus -" That spoken as the shirt came up over her mouth, momentarily obstructing her words. "- 'bad, bad teacher," she concluded, shirt dropping to the forest floor as her hands went behind her back to start working at the fastener of her bra.

"What. The heck. Are you doing?" Asakura slowly asked.

Asuna gave her the Look. Normally it would have been something of a relief to Negi to see someone else getting the Look, but the circumstances prevented that. "Bad, bad girl reporter!" Asuna said in faux-cheerful tone. "Doing all that to Negi and not having any orgasms yourself!" That spoken as she yanked up the sides of her skirt to expose her panties.

"What?" Asakura gasped. "I, I did! I had one as soon as he put it in, and a couple more afterwards, they just weren't, you know, terribly noisy or anything." The situation was so bizarre that she found nothing strange about turning to look down at Negi and ask, in a somewhat panicked tone, "You know I really liked that, right, Sensei?"

It said something rather unfortunate about Negi's lifestyle that this was not the strangest conversation he'd ever had. "Well, I think so," he said, hesitantly. Then, since Asuna was still giving the Look in their general direction even as she skinned down her panties, he felt obliged to add, "But I'm often wrong about these things."

Asakura's face didn't so much fall as collapse into an incredulous pout - which itself dissolved into a rather startled expression that was a surprisingly rare sight on her face, as she felt Asuna pressing against her back and the other girl's right hand wrapping around her left breast. "Indeed," Asuna stage-whispered right into her ear. "It's no good unless you get a lot of screaming orgasms. Fortunately, Negi here can go for hours!"

"Hours?" Asakura squeaked. She'd noticed that his hard-on hadn't gone down, but attributed that to the fact that she was still holding it. And now, also Asuna's other hand, no, wait, both her hands were down there, but one of them was pressing up against her ohhhhhhh.

"So can I," Asuna added.

Asakura wasn't sure whether she should be terrified or really really turned on.

* * *

Meanwhile, Setsuna was sittting next to Konoka in a fine French restaurant, sharing the table with President Fujino and that biker delinquent girl who looked just as uncomfortable and out of place as Setsuna. Fittingly, both of them even were in dark dresses, although Kuga's was a solid black compared to Setsuna's deep blue.

"I'm so glad you two could make it," Konoka was smiling sweetly as she paused between polite mouthfuls of her salad. "Like I was telling Setchan, sometimes, you don't even realize how much and how well others might get along with you until it's too late, isn't that right, Setchan?"

"Of course it is, Ojou-sama," she had to say.

"Mmm-hmm. And our summer trip gave me an epiphany of sorts on the subject," Konoka continued. "It brought Setchan and me a lot closer, and, from what I understand, it was pretty much the same way with you over here, or am I wrong?"

"Yes," Shizuru replied, polite but wary, and not really liking how much this girl seemed to know about her recent ... exploits. Although surely her Grandfather could and even should have told her, even if only as a warning of sorts in case Shizuru went over the line again. (If so, then Shizuru understood and couldn't criticize, but it still hurt all the same.) "However ... well, I daresay what we went through was most likely more troubling than your own ordeals. That's not to diminish your accomplishments, of course," she said, to imply she also knew more about Konoe than Konoe would prefer

But if Konoka felt anything about that, she didn't show it. "Oh, you're probably right! Truth be told, poor Negi-kun endured most of the trauma during the misadventures we faced. It's been a test of passage for him lately; an ongoing roller coaster of forced growth," she mused, not without sadness.

"Which is why he's taken a leave from teaching, am I right?" Shizuru said, finishing her salad and starting with her fish, taking a moment to gracefully help a faintly blushing Natsuki with her fork and knife. For someone who mostly lived on Chinese takeout covered by thick layers of mayonnaise, Shizuru guessed Natsuki wasn't doing too badly.

"Yes," Konoka said. "But rest assured, even if you can't see him, he's always around in some capacity, helping us." There was a pause. "But, another of the lessons the trip taught us is we have to grow stronger in our own right, and we also have to reach out to others and count on them as much as they can count on us. That's a flaw both Setchan and Negi-kun still have to fully overcome," she giggled. "They always want to carry the weight of the whole world on their shoulders, but that isn't right at all, is it, Fujino-sempai?"

Setsuna lowered her humbled gaze. "I'm so sorry to keep failing your expectations, Ojou-sama."

"Setchan! I don't say that to make you feel bad! And stop it with the 'Ojou-sama'! They will think you are my subordinate or something, instead of my girlfriend!"

Setsuna immediately choked in her saliva, just as Natsuki did on her meal.

"Ara ara, are you an official couple already? I'm so glad for you," Shizuru smoothly smiled. "As for teamwork, yes, you're quite right indeed, Konoe-san. This summer taught us a hard, unforgivable lesson on the subject ... but never mind that now, somber matters shouldn't be discussed in such a joyous outing. Instead, why don't we -"

"E-Excuse me a moment, please," Setsuna stuttered, getting up from her chair and quickly heading over for the restroom. "It'll be only a moment."

Natsuki rubbed her throat down a few times, then nodded and got up as well. "I, I think I also need some ... forgive me." She all but ran into a waiter in her rushed path after Setsuna's steps.

Once the female restroom's door was slammed closed after them, Konoka turned her gaze back to Shizuru and smiled. "Two peas in a pod, aren't they?"

Shizuru smiled as well, in a more mature and less sincere way. "From what I have seen of Sakurazaki-san so far, yes. But their brief absence, while heartfelt no matter how short it may be, is also a good opportunity to ask you something, assuming you don't mind, Konoe-san."

"Call me Konoka, please. And no, I don't. What is it?"

"That young man actually is Negi-sensei, isn't he?" Shizuru asked in a very low and confidential voice.

Konoka's surprise only lasted a couple seconds. "Oh ... how did you -?"

"Your grandfather made sure to tell all of us who have been involved with magic, just to guarantee there would be as few misunderstandings as we could avoid. But even before that, after our close brush with death, I made sure to learn every bit of information my resources could provide me on magic and its community," Shizuru said with the air of someone expert at keeping secrets. "I know of magic pills to alter your age, and while it was possible your current roommate was indeed related to Negi-sensei, it seemed far too much of a coincidence for him to appear just as Sensei disappears."

"No, it isn't," Konoka admitted very quietly. "Nagi-san is indeed Negi-kun. Grandpa wouldn't lie to you."

"I see. Well, in a way, that is comforting, since it confirms he is indeed healthy and well. However, if I can ask this, I wouldn't mind knowing ... exactly why is he resorting to this charade? The Headmaster refused to go into details about it, so I will understand if you cannot tell me, but -"

"It wasn't his intention. It just ... accidentally happened," Konoka confessed. "It's kind of a funny story, actually, but ... you probably wouldn't find it interesting?" She lightly touched the back of her own neck.

"If you say so," Shizuru finished her main course, wondering what was taking Natsuki so long. "Well, if you are finding it hard to cohabit with him now he's a grown man, please don't be afraid to let me know."

"No matter what his apparent age is, Negi-kun will always be a gentleman," Konoka replied, with a subtle hint of steel under the silk.

"I'm sure of that," Shizuru nodded. "But even the noblest of us can act harshly when hormones and affection are involved. I-" She trailed off, blushing slightly. "No. Forget it, please. As I said, this is no moment to discuss such affairs."

Konoka lifted an eyebrow quizzically.

The shame over that night when Suzushiro and her cohort had found her leaning over Natsuki, ready to steal her innocence, slammed into Fujino Shizuru once again. It still hurt, and greatly so. And she had to wonder if Natsuki would ever forgive her, if she ever learned ...

* * *

Setsuna finished washing her hands in the sink, gripped its edge tightly, and prophesized in an ominous tone. "This isn't going to work."

Still washing herself at the next sink, Natsuki growled, "So what? If it doesn't work, we'll leave it behind and ... well, you'll try again or something. I doubt she's gonna hate you over anything that happens tonight."

"Don't jinx it!" Setsuna shuddered before starting making a lot of blessing gestures on herself, like a possessed woman. "Don't you know how these things work? If you say something bad won't happen, it will happen!"

"If that were the case, why would we ever say anything that didn't predict doom and destruction?" Natsuki asked, straining herself to hold onto some patience. "I thought you were some expert swordmistress and demon hunter. How did you ever get anything done with that attitude?"

"Demons are nothing," Setsuna sulked. "Killing demons is like walking around squashing cockroaches. This is much worse! This is ... _r-r-romance!_" She sank her teeth on her lower lip.

Natsuki gave her a jaded look. _Was I ever this young and stupid?_ she wondered. "Listen, you're making me nervous as well."

"I'm sorry, I'm always causing problems for everyone, I-"

"Cut it out!" Natsuki barked. "I don't know what Konoe ever saw in you, but if she can put up with this crap on a routine basis, it's obvious she won't ever leave you over anything!"

"B-Buh-But you don't understand!" Setsuna complained. "It's not only that! It's just... even if this works out, it might work out too well!"

"Eh?"

Setsuna paced around in place, her hands clawing at each other. "I am a threat to girls' chastity! Somehow, being around me corrupted Ojou-sama and Asuna-san and even Negi-sensei, not that he's a girl, but still! And something about me drove a fellow swordswoman mad with lust over me! And then, this afternoon, I ... I did the unthinkable! I broke the ultimate taboo! I cheated on Ojou-sama!"

"What."

"Do you see now, Kuga-san, why would I be so nervous to face her?" she grabbed the slightly taller girl by the shoulders. "Not only I stole the innocences of my Ojou-sama and my best friend, but today, I forced myself on a more-or-less innocent classmate, who-!"

A blond head with a red bow on top, resembling the ears of a rabbit, emerged from a nearby toilet stall, displaying an expression of complete outrage and disgust.

"... ahhhhh..." Setsuna paled.

With a perfectly straight face, Natsuki said, "We are practicing for a play."

"Eh?" The girl, one that Natsuki thought she recognized from somewhere, perhaps from the campus, arched an eyebrow.

"Do you think that's the kind of dialogue perfectly normal people would exchange in a public place in real life?" Natsuki calmly asked.

"Ah," the blond girl said, quickly moving to wash her hands off and drying them as Setsuna stood there, petrified. "Um. Well, then, good luck with the ... play," the stranger said, then rushed out and away _ipso facto._

"... who was that?" Setsuna could gasp at last.

"Beats me. I doubt we'll ever see or hear from her again anyway," Natsuki shrugged before saying, "You really are pitiful."

"I don't even deserve pity."

"No, really. I really doubt you could have forced yourself on another girl. Listen, um ... I'm not going to judge you, but you've got a serious problem with your self-image, and you really get some help. But do it AFTER this evening has gone as smoothly as it can, okay? No more drama. Just sit there, breathe very slowly and heavily, think happy thoughts, and make it through the evening, or I'll kick your ass myself for making a show in front of Shizuru. All right?"

Setsuna nodded. "Thank you, that vote of trust is more than I deserve, it's -"

Natsuki placed a finger on Setsuna's mouth, closing it, and shook her head with a stern attitude.

Setsuna made a gesture that conveyed agreement, and then quietly followed Natsuki outside.

* * *

A few tables away from Shizuru and Konoka's, Kirisaki Chitoge, seventeen, daughter and heiress to the Beehive criminal Family (and looking to get out of it), hid her face behind a menu as she saw those two really strange and scary girls taking their seats. The boy sitting across her blinked.

"Hey, Gorilla?" Ichijo Raku, her reluctant fiance, asked her. "You feeling okay?"

"Shut up and don't look that way," she said under her breath, vaguely gesturing towards the Konoe-Fujino table. "Those people over there are dangerous!"

So naturally, he looked that way. "Really? Huh, they all look nice enough, unlike others I know. Sure, the pale one seems scared out of her mind for some reason, but -"

With a fierce yet low growl, Chitoge poked the right hand of the sole son and heir of the Ichijo Yakuza empire with a fork. Hard.

"Yiiiiiiiii!" he screeched, then bit his tongue as he realized the eyes of most of the restaurant, included those of that table, had suddenly fallen on him. He gave Chitoge a sharp glare and mumbled, "You brute, do you want to get us thrown out, or what?"

"It doesn't sound like such a bad idea," Chitoge said from behind the menu she still was using as her shield. Then she spied, out of a corner of her eye, the tall man in an expensive suit spying on them from the branches of a large tree near the closest window, and uttered a string of curses to herself.

She really was starting to hate this city and the school.

* * *

Chamo kept running through the woods of Mundus Magicus, with a squad or armored guards hot after his trail.

"Damn it, don't these guys have any dragons to kill? Demons to vanquish? Orc armies to repel? _When did this world go down the drain like this?!_"

* * *

"So, where is Konoka right now?" asked Eishun over the resort's breakfast table.

"She went out in a date with Setsuna," shared Asuna between bites of toast. She seemed to have a big appetite that morning. Eishun thought her attitude, while living on borrowed time, was truly admirable, but feared he'd only make her feel worse by telling her that.

"Oh, I see, nothing short of that would - date!?" he said after nearly choking on a big mouthful.

"Well, yeah, they have a Pactio, they are very close, they feel a lot of affection for each other," said Asuna casually. "And you couldn't ask for a nobler, braver daughter-in-law, could you?"

Eishun opened his mouth to give a reply, but nothing but a deflated, still incredulous sound came out.

Rakan chewed on his breakfast noisily. "C'mon, man. Everyone knew it. Don't tell me you didn't!"

"- okay, I won't," Eishun weakly said. "B-But I wanted grandchildren."

"They always can adopt," Asuna shrugged. "They love each other, and that's all that really matters, isn't it?"

"And they make a cute couple," Asakura mused.

"Ah, young passions in the bloom of life," Queen Daenerys reflected aloud. "Always a treacherous path, but better than that of the forced union, in general. Mine ended up, at least briefly, being pleasant enough, but I understand why your people would value this freedom of choice over-"

"Girls shouldn't love other girls," Inverse said between large, avid mouthfuls brought over and over by Evangeline's maids.

Most of those eating with her turned their eyes on her and left them there.

The petite redhead paused after swallowing the huge chunk in her mouth, blinking in genuine puzzlement. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

Daenerys exhaled a soft puff of breath and shook her head to herself, returning her attentions to her meal.

Twilight just kept her eyes flicking back and forth between the others.

"I mean it, guys, what's the problem?" Lina continued. "There's boys, and there's girls, and they complement each other, right? Surely she'll get the gist of that eventually, she's still young after all, so odds are there won't be anything to worry about."

"Typical Zefiria hillside upbringing," Paio Zi moved her head from side to side, with an amused smirk.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean!" Lina growled.

Twilight just kept her eyes flicking back and forth between the others.

"A-hemmm," Evangeline rasped loudly from the head of the table, and even Inverse chose to hold her tongue, although clearly unhappy about it. Only then did Negi breath relatively easy again.

"If only she had come from the branch that adopts a fixed gender when they hit their sixteen," Eishun sadly whispered to himself, struggling to keep eating. "I would have absolutely no issues with, it then. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for her, but -"

Albireo, for once, was too busy rolling his eyes subtly at that while sipping his tea to bother taunting the host, for which Evangeline probably was as close to being thankful to the heavens as she could get.

In the meanwhile, Asuna added a new mental note to her inner to-do list. Before she went to sleep, someone would get a good lesson on the nature of right, wrong, and loving girls.

Twilight just kept her eyes flicking back and forth between the others.

* * *

"Well, that was fun!" Konoka said as they left the restaurant behind, walking down the beautiful boulevard, caressed by a fresh breeze. "What do you say if we go watch a movie?"

"Didn't anyone notice that girl two tables away was trying to hide behind a menu the whole time?" Shizuru asked at the same time, too puzzled about that conundrum to really have heard Konoka.

Setsuna coughed loudly to distract attention away from that question. "Ahhh. This is why I thought we should have planned this better before going out. Now we'll have to improvise on the fly."

"Nonsense, Setchan!" her precious angel said. "That's exactly the fun of it! All of my Omiais always were scheduled carefully, previously planned for days ... and they were a thundering bore! I never had fun on a date until I went out with Negi-kun to look for a gift for Asuna, and then I learned how fun a date could be as long as you play it loose and just relax!"

"That ... that was a date?" Natsuki wondered in a low tone.

"Of course. You raise a very valid point, Ojou-sama," Setsuna quickly agreed, which actually disappointed Konoka. After that brief burst of independent thought, she had _almost_ hoped...

"A movie sounds good," Shizuru pondered. "What sort of film would you favor?"

"It's all the same to me," said Natsuki, who'd never been fond of watching movies but chose not to phrase it that way.

A tiny Tsukuyomi devil popped up on Setsuna's right shoulder. _"This is it, Sempai! Your chance to finally watch a samurai epic on the silver screen! All the glorious false bloodshedding as it was made to be seen, larger than life! Remember the newspaper ads? They're showing_ Bloodied Blade of the Meifumado _in 3D, in the LexCorp Movieplex! Let's go, go, go go go!"_ She kept pumping a fist obscenely.

A tiny Negi angel popped up on Setsuna's left shoulder. _"No, Setsuna-san! Remember, this isn't about you! You mustn't surrender to your selfish desires again! For the sake of your loved one, and to help atone for your infidelity, you must choose something she'll like! Something nice and pleasant, as sweet and romantic as she is!"  
_  
Tsukuyomi waved her swords at Negi_. "Oh, for the love of -! It's only a movie, Negi-han! Konoka-han won't die just because she has to watch a little carnage that doesn't even show real blood!"  
_  
Negi assumed a battle stance and went Lighting Form. _"You won't corrupt Setsuna-san any further, Tsukuyomi-san!"  
_  
_"Let's go, Lover Boy!"_

"Setchan?" Konoka snapped her out of her strange daydream as they now stood at the wide entrance of the Mahora LexCorp Movieplex, surrounded by a small crowd also analyzing all the 'Now Showing' movie posters. The Negi and Tsukuyomi lookalikes battled above Setsuna's head, both already bloodied and battered. "Setchan, we were asking you if you would like watching the movie Fujino-sempai and me prefer."

"Ahh? Of course, why wouldn't I want to watch -" Setsuna's gaze followed Konoka's pointer finger towards a large colorful poster showing several cartoony bipedal cats wielding weapons and riding motorcycles towards a huge red-haired demon that looked vaguely like the heiress of the Tohno house. "... 'NECO ARC THE MOVIE'?" Setsuna quoted the title, in its whole CAPITAL LETTERS magnificence.

Fujino nodded. "It looks very fun, don't you think, Natsuki?"

"... it's all the same to me," Natsuki blandly repeated, wondering inside why Shizuru had instantly latched to that as soon as Konoe found the poster, especially when there was a poster for _Sensibility and Tragedy in Kyoto_ right besides it. Wouldn't that be far more her kind of movie? She was officially confused now.

Perceiving the sudden stiffness in Setsuna's face, Konoka softly said, "Of course, if you would prefer watching something else, like, um, let's say _Bloodied Blade of the Meifumado _-" She was pointing towards that poster and its manly cast grimacing threateningly. "... I'll understand. That also might be fu-"

Setsuna forced a stifled laugh. "W-Wh-What, that? Me liking that? Ah-ha-ha, as humorous as ever, Ojou-sam- Kono-chan! As if I could like that sort of crass and violent entertainment just because it deals with swords and the most primal warrior values of Japan and its brutal but fair and beautiful honor code! I hate that stuff!" she said, tears inexplicably flowing down her face.

No one was really fooled. Even the tiny Negi and Tsukuyomi battling over her head paused to look down at her with disbelief.

"Really?" asked Natsuki, arms folded.

_"Shut up,"_ Setsuna whispered to her as she walked towards the box office. "Four for _NECO ARC THE MOVIE_, please. I'll pay."

As they walked inside the movie theater, they briefly passed next to a child suspiciously similar to Kaede fiercely fighting a child suspiciously similar to Mana while the security staff vainly tried keeping them apart. Setsuna lowered her head and rushed as much as she could. Konoka, after a moment where she looked like she was about to step in, shook her head to herself and kept on walking.

Shortly after they sat down, with Natsuki and Setsuna and the edges and the two Ojous between them and next to each other, the credits for the movie started.

**TYPE-MOON PICTURES PRESENTS...**

**A NABESHIN MOVIE...**

**NECO ARC IN...**

**NECO ARC THE MOVIE.**

**CO-STARRING:**

**NECO ARC CHAOS.**

**NECO ARC BUBBLES.**

**NECO ARC EVOLUTION.**

**NECO ARC DESTINY.**

**MECHA HISUI.**

And the glorious return of **BASIL KARLO** as **MAGICAL PHANTASMOON.**

**BASED ON THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY BY SANZENIN NAGI.**

Visual Effects by **QUENTIN BECK.**

"... this is gonna suck," Natsuki whispered between clenched teeth.

* * *

_Two hours and a half later:_

Konoka walked out drying her leaking tears with a silk tissue. "That ... that was the most beautiful movie I have ever watched!"

Shizuru was similarly moved, although she kept herself on better check. "It was so very moving."

"I'll buy the Blu-Ray as soon as it's out!"

"I think I'll come watch it again next week..."

"Oh, great idea! And we can come with them once more, right, Setchan? Setchan?"

Marching far behind, Setsuna and Natsuki sported matching haunted expressions.

"What the hell did I just watch," Kuga was deadpanning.

"Gah," Setsuna cleverly answered, while above her, the tiny Tsukuyomi and Negi both hung dead after performing seppuku.

* * *

"So, where to now?" asked Konoka, swiftly walking down the sidewalk, with her hands on her skirt and a smile full of life on her lips.

"Um, how about home?" Setsuna dared to ask in another mild burst of independent thought. "Fate-sensei will surely be enforcing surveillance on us even more after today's ... ahhhh."

Konoka stopped and looked back at her. "After today's what? Ah, does this have anything to do with why you skipped classes today, Setchan?"

Setsuna's face went so red so quickly, it honestly marveled Natsuki. Never before had she seen someone who was so transparent, except maybe Shiho. "Um, ah, actually, yes, Ojou-sama, but ... I, I'll tell you all about it ... later, but um, my point still stands."

Konoka waved a hand around. "Oh, don't worry about that! Negi-kun told me Fate-kun will spend most of the night in an important meeting with more investors for his project, so I doubt even he could find time to catch us."

Setsuna's eyes went up, waiting for ightning and listening for the thunder sure to come. Neither did come, but instead, Shizuru asked something that was just as terrifying. "Project? Which project?"

Konoka smiled again. "Oh, yes, that's right, you didn't know. I had forgotten. Well, I suppose it's better telling you now, because honestly, what's the point of stalling about it when it comes to good friends, right?"

_Good friends? Since when?_ Natsuki thought, managing to convey a perfect deadpan within the privacy of her skull. _All we've done together is eating dinner, strolling across the town, and watching the world's worst movie! Is this really the dating education I needed? I want a freaking refund. This girl is worse than Mai!_

Konoka placed a finger on her own mouth. "Hmmm. But it isn't something that can really be discussed comfortably out in the open. On the other hand, the night is still too young, so ... I know! Let's hit the karaoke bar first, and then we'll go back and we'll tell you everything!"

"E-E-Everything?!" Setsuna gasped.

"Everything about the project, Setchan. Orrrrr were you thinking about something else?"

"Ahh... No, no! Of course not, since there isn't anything else to tell them about, I mean, otherwise, our lives are so perfectly normal and average and quiet and decent there's nothing else we could share with them without boring them! Eh he he he." She forced herself to laugh stiff and dumbly. Konoka thought it was very cute, although horribly embarrassing, too.

_You're a horrible liar as well_! Natsuki's thoughts protested_. God-awful, even! Even Mikoto would be suspicious by now! Okay, I'm exaggerating there, but even so ...  
_  
Shizuru, with the experience at handling weirdos and liars with secrets she really didn't want to learn granted by years of interactions with the elite and a few incredibly long months working with Suzushiro Haruka, nodded her agreement, more amused than anything else. "Of course, Konoe-san. I have never been to a karaoke bar, but from what I've heard, it should be quite entertaining, and I'm sure learning about your project will be very interesting, too. You don't have any problems with either, do you, Natsuki?"

"Do I have to wear any cosplay for the karaoke?" Kuga asked.

"Ah? No, of course not," Konoka said. "Why do you ask?"

"Just covering all my bases. Well, then I have absolutely no problems with it," the biker replied.

Konoka began rubbing her own chin. "Although now you mention it, that might add a lot of fun to the procedure."

"Wouldn't it, though?" Shizuru speculated, eyes starting to gleam.

"Please forget I mentioned anything about it at all," Natsuki dryly requested.

* * *

"Your place, or mine?"

That was the kind of question that normally ended in tears, sex, or both, although Natsuki, who was surprisingly naive about sex for someone well used to the seedy underground, had no real way of knowing that question, which had popped from Konoe's mouth after the karaoke session mercifully ended, had such a fearsome legacy to its name.

For now, Natsuki was just glad and relieved it had ended. Naturally, out of all the karaoke joints in the city, Konoe had to pick the one where Natsuki, Nao, Mai, Yukino, Sister Yukariko, Mikoto and Midori had that shameful session all those weeks ago. And of course, one of the employees had to recognize Natsuki, and ask her if she wanted to wear that _beauuuuutiful_ costume again. Shizuru, perhaps a bit vindictive over never being told about that girl's night out, had insisted on seeing the famous costume and how it would look on Natsuki, and of course, Natsuki couldn't say no.

It had been even more humiliating than the first time.

It also had been a tad disturbing how well Sakurazaki coped with being made to wear a man's black suit for her duet with a kimono-clad Konoe, and Shizuru's starry gaze as she watched them sing together made Natsuki slightly uncomfortable. Did Shizuru feel some envy at how close they were? Or was there something else to it? Sakurazaki, after all, cut a surprisingly dashing figure in that suit, which fit her in all the right ways without making her look butch, just elegantly ... gahhhhh, no, bad thought, bad thought.

Then there had been the shockingly vampish dress Shizuru chose, and the way she leaned towards Natsuki singing for her during her interpretation, coupled with the way Konoe giggled at it, only made Kuga feel even worse about it. She crossed her legs as she had seen businessmen doing in bars during lap dances, all those times she snuck around for info, since she supposed that was the right thing to do in such circumstances ... or did that only apply when you had a boner to sport? Then again, she had overheard others, like Honsho Chizuru, calling what Natsuki was clearly feeling now a female erection, but... gaaaagggghhhh, even worse thought, even worse thought.

All in all, it was no wonder Natsuki had felt much better now she was out of costume and drawn to the familiar safety of Shizuru's living quarters; after what she had learned about Konoe's private life, she wouldn't have felt at any ease there. Natsuki's own room was out of the question, with her roommate Aoi being there, and Sakurazaki roomed with that creepy (even by Natsuki's standards) Tatsumiya, so it had been no question, really.

And then, after tea and light pastries were served, Konoe opened her mouth and began to explain.

"For starters," she said, "there's a lot more to the world of magic than you two probably know, President-sempai, Kuga-sempai. Recently, we in Ala Alba, that is, Negi-kun's group of close associates, just were spending our summer vacation in the actual Magical World, a parallel pocket dimension located on the surface of Mars, where magic and the creatures spawned from it are far more common than they are on Earth now."

That was the most normal, least complicated, sentence in the whole of her explanation, but Shizuru was able to follow it remarkably well and without any major signs of shock, only making Konoe stop occasionally to ask her on some relatively minor points that Konoe was happy to make clear. Sakurazaki looked noticeably awkward at all Shizuru was being told. She actually had less of a problem with Natsuki, whom she felt as more of a kindred spirit and knew to be already better versed in the occult anyway. But she never raised her voice to object, no matter how much her face conveyed her doubts. No doubt that was a major part of why she had chosen sitting behind Konoka, keeping her gaze low ... was she staring at Konoe's butt? No, Natsuki thought, surely she couldn't be that daring.

Then Natsuki remembered she was thinking about a girl who already had sex with three of her classmates and her child teacher (older body or not; all that mattered in Natsuki's opinion was his mental age) and silently took that back.

Once Konoka was done with her explanation, Shizuru nodded. "I see. That's one of the most interesting stories I have ever heard, Konoe-san. I'm afraid I don't hold any actual power in my father's companies yet, but if you need any help from us, I'll try my best to ease him into that knowledge."

"Thanks, although actually, that's Negi-kun's call," Konoka said. "He's the one deciding the path of the project."

"Along with Fate-san," Setsuna felt she had to point out. To the devil his due, after all.

Konoka pouted. "He's only following Negi-kun's cue there. I don't think he's actually entitled to leadership over it, when he opposed it so much at first. They have been very generous with him, but ... I think he might be overstepping his limits now, acting as if he had the right to decide everything."

"Well, from what I have learned, he would have more experience in handling large scale projects than Negi-sensei, wouldn't he?" Shizuru calmly wondered. "Konoe-san, child prodigy or not, Negi-sensei is still only... well, a child. Haven't you stopped to think perhaps he is handling more than he can with this?"

Setsuna spoke quickly. "Sensei is the most capable man I have ever know, except Eishun-sama. Let me assure you, I'd trust him on this or anything else over any men thrice his age."

"Well, _of course_ you would," Natsuki quietly said, more to herself than anything else.

"I don't mean to offend," Shizuru replied in the same even tone, "However, don't you think that's an inhumanly huge weight to place on anyone of Sensei's age? No matter how intelligent and capable he is, you are still placing an unmatched responsibility on him, perhaps heavier than anyone else's in the history of mankind."

Setsuna blinked. "Ah, however, that was his idea in the first place. We never wanted ... we never wished for it to get that far ..."

"But it did."

Konoka nodded. "We have thought of that, too, but what can we do? Once Negi-kun sets his mind to something, there's nothing and no one that can stop him. And if not him, then who? Without him, the Magical World wouldn't have a chance."

"Are you completely sure of that? History has taught us, time and time again, no man is irreplaceable in the large scheme of things," Shizuru said, smoothly but completely serious. "Are you sure you aren't just letting him waste his youth, and probably his life, away on something others could also tackle with enough preparation and motivation? Probably, forgive me for saying this, even better than him?"

"Better than ... Negi?" Konoka spoke as if the mere idea was an alien, nearly blasphemous concept. "Oh, no no no. Sorry, President, but no. I understand your point, but ... no. You just don't know him. If you _knew_ him, you'd understand as well."

And Shizuru smiled. "I'll ask a variation of what I just asked, if you don't mind. Are you sure your certainty isn't only the boundless admiration of a maiden's heart in love?"

Upon hearing that, Setsuna coughed and sprayed the tea she had been nervously sipping from.

All over Konoka.

Oops.

* * *

Setsuna paced around the table as Shizuru and Konoka were in the former's bedroom, looking for something for the latter to wear after Sakurazaki's social faux pas. One Setsuna herself couldn't forget. "See? I told you so," she was telling a stonefaced Natsuki. "I am a walking disaster, a threat to Ojou-sama's happiness in all levels. Just wait and see. This is an obvious setup my clumsiness has set in motion, for some terrible scene where my Ojou-sama, moved to strip down by me, and currently bonding with your mistress, will fall prey to sin again!"

"She isn't my 'mistress', and honestly, will you let it go already?" an exasperated Natsuki asked. "I'm this close to calling a mental institution on you! There was one that did wonders for Mai's friend Akane..."

Setsuna stopped. "My apologies. Usually, I'm not as bad as this, but of late, I suppose you could say I've been on the edge, what with what's happening to Asuna-hime and all."

"Yes, I'm sure I could say," Natsuki groaned.

Inside Shizuru's bedroom, Konoka was pulling on a white nightshirt. Shizuru stood aside, watching her with some interest. Konoka-san was oddly reminiscent, physically speaking, of Natsuki, in a way. Briefly, Shizuru wondered if there could be some distant blood relation... but no, of course, that had to be impossible. To clear her mind away from treacherous thoughts, she cleared her throat and said, "Ahh ... is Sakurazaki-san always this nervous?"

"Hmmm? Ah, no, actually, she used to be very cold, collected and distant, until we bonded during our class trip to Kyoto. But I actually prefer her like this. This is the real adorable, worrywart Setchan." She giggled, fixing her hair back into shape after part of it briefly got tangled in the nightshirt.

"Ara ara," Shizuru said. The words 'Love makes fools out of all us' came to her mind, but then she was hardly the best person to criticize others on the subject, as she realized now. Seeing Konoe walking past her and towards the living room, she blinked, realizing her guest hadn't put on yet what Shizuru was holding, fresh from her drawers. So she went after her, waving it slightly for her to notice it. "Oh, Konoe-san, wait! You really should put these on -"

Konoka ignored the offered shorts as she took back her seat at the table, before a heavily gasping Setsuna and blinking Natsuki. "It doesn't matter, President-sempai! We are all girls here, after all, right?"

"O-Of course we are!" Setsuna blushed, trying her best not to look down at where the nightshirt hung loose shortly under Konoka's hips. "But Ojo, that is Kono-chan, for you to show up in this state of undress during a formal meeting -"

"Informal!" Konoka chided, wagging a finger. Shizuru, after a moment of disbelief of her own, had turned back to go fold the shorts back into their drawer. "And, well, I'm not sure anything else from the President's clothes would fit me. She is taller and has a more mature figure than mine..." she laughed lightly, tugging at where the nightshirt hung loose around her chest.

"But yours is lovely," said Shizuru as she returned and sat back down as well. So similar to Natsuki's, almost as toned, she thought, wondering how could a pampered girl with no athletic history have reached that physical state, especially compared to someone as active and prone to involve herself into fights as her beloved was. She still had no idea how harsh even the simplest of Evangeline's survival training could be.

"Thank you so very much, Sempai," Konoka said in a tone that perhaps wasn't intended to be as coquettish and even flirtatious as it sounded. Red alarms blared in Setsuna's head. Natsuki's hadn't quite reached that level yet, but she still frowned. "Now... we were talking about how much we love Negi-kun, right?"

"Ahhhh... yes, I suppose?" intervened Natsuki.

Konoka nodded. "And we love him a lot. I love Setchan the most, and I'm sure she loves me the most too, but after each other, we love Asuna and Negi-kun all the same, don't we, Setchan?"

Setchan had started coughing again.

"Maybe you should take some syrup for that, Setchan," Konoka playfully adviced, then told the others, "That's her way of saying Yes."

"Ah," Natsuki said blandly.

Now Shizuru didn't sound that amused. "Okay," she said. "It was amusing, and perhaps even cute, at first, but don't you think you're overdoing it now?"

"Overdoing what?" Konoka blinked innocently.

"You know what I mean," the other heiress said. "You keep making her feel really uncomfortable with your comments, and while that might not even faze most of those I know, you should realize she isn't the type that really reacts well to jokes. Even I can see that, and I barely know her."

"It's, it's all okay, it's all my own-" Setsuna began.

"I only want her to loosen up a little," Konoka offered.

"Well, yeah, but you're only doing the exact opposite," Natsuki opined. "All night long, she's been a nervous wreck."

"I haven't been! I'm only the slightest bit on edge, which is perfectly understable given all that's been happening to us!" protested Setsuna.

"What she said," Konoka nodded. "And that's exactly why I want her to relax."

"She doesn't look relaxed to me," said Natsuki, who was wondering if they were supposed to be learning what NOT TO DO in a date.

"It's a work in progress," Konoka said. "And besides, I don't talk about our love lightly. We really love each other, and Asuna and Negi-kun, that much," she firmly declared.

Shizuru seemed to struggle to process that for some moments, before saying, "It has been said one shouldn't serve two masters, and I think that applies to love more than anything else."

"But love isn't a master-follower relationship, which is what she needs to learn," Konoka gestured towards her bodyguard, who was now hiding her own face behind a hand.

"I was just using a figure of speech," Shizuru was growing frankly frustrated. "True love should be honest and, um, true."

"Ours is!" Konoka claimed.

"But for that, it should be devoted! And you can't do that when your attentions are divided between several!" Shizuru gestured with her hands to emphasize her point, a real rarity in her.

"We can," Konoka smirked. "We are Ala Alba. We can do anything."

_Such a confidence, such a noble and honest boast even with the simplest statement!_ Setsuna swooned.

Shizuru said nothing, but her look was one of polite, yet blunt incredulity.

That didn't escape Konoka, who pouted cutely. "I see you need proof of how true and strong our love is, no matter whom are we sharing it with. Very well." She breathed deeply, before standing up, pushing her butt up so the white panties were visible as the nightshirt shuffled up, and then grabbing both of Setsuna's cheeks in her hands. Before Setsuna could utter anything but a confused gargle, Konoka planted a long wet smooch on her mouth. Setsuna's side tail stood up on end.

"Gak," Natsuki said.

"Oh my," Shizuru took a hand to her own cheek. "How bold... um ... excuse me, but I think you are Frenching wildly in _my_ home. Which I don't think I like too much." That was true enough, although there was a certain thrill from watching them. "I'm glad your passion happens to be so... strong and indomitable, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that here."

Finally, Konoka broke the kiss, mixed drool dripping from her mouth. She delicately licked it up and swallowed, grabbing the dismayed Setsuna's wrists to keep her in place as she looked at Shizuru and said, "See? _This_ is how you kiss a strong girl. Like Kuga-san."

"Could my name stay out of this?" requested the young delinquent, as Natsuki backed the hell away, heart thumping madly.

Shizuru blushed only the slightest bit, taking a fist to her own mouth and feigning a hint of a cough. "I... I'll keep that in mind for later. However, while the graphic explanation could be definitely useful later on, I was under the impression we were going to be shown the first steps in a relationship. Not the final ones."

"How long have you and Kuga-san known each other?" Konoka asked. "It's been years, isn't it? Setchan and I met when we were children, but we spent years apart after that, so if I'm not mistaken, you and Kuga-san have actually spent more time together than we have. I don't think you should think of remaining in the 'starting' stage anymore." She beamed a bright smile. "It's time for a Relationship Upgrade!"

"Oh, for the love of-!" Natsuki groaned.

Shizuru stiffened. _No! No, no, you can't do it yet, not after what happened that night, not until you feel ... clean ..._

Konoka studied her reaction, then softly asked, "You think you aren't ready yet, don't you?"

"Yes," Shizuru answered, because it was the truth, and mostly, because it sounded like it'd get Konoe off her case quickly.

But alas. "Why, if I'm not being too nosy?" Konoka delicately asked again.

_Yes, you are!_ Shizuru thought, but said nothing.

"We can't help you if you don't tell us. Who knows, maybe we can't help you anyway, and maybe we can't do anything but let time pass until you feel comfortable with it. But keep this in mind, that makes relationships go cold and wither," Konoka warned her.

"And how would you know that?" Natsuki asked.

"Because that's what happened to my parents," Konoka explained easily. Then she quickly added, "Oh, they still love and respect each other a lot, and they aren't divorcing any time soon, but ... even from a distance, I can tell their fire has died. They basically are a couple of loving friends who stay together out of convenience now. That's why I want for our relationship to always remain vital and lively, Setchan," she explained to her stunned girlfriend. "Because I fear to become like Daddy; someone who grew complacent and bored after he stopped living on the edge."

"That's their current situation? Really?" a truly shocked Setsuna asked.

After some moments of quiet consideration, Shizuru spoke again. "Yes. I can see your point there, since it's the same with my parents."

"Maybe it's something in the Kyoto water?" Konoka tried to lighten the mood.

It didn't really work. "To be honest, I often have worried about Natsuki going away because of my inaction," Shizuru confessed. "Back before the HiME War, I had more or less grown accustomed to the idea that was how it should be, but ... ever since, I feel myself divided, because now I have the chance to go somewhere with this, but at the same time, I never know if I'm going too fast or too slow. Or both, although that should be impossible."

"Shizuru! That's how you felt?" Natsuki asked. "But you never told me..."

Konoka nodded. "See, that's exactly what we're trying to fix here."

"But it isn't that easy!" protested Fujino. "I couldn't tke that step now either way, because I have ... no, I can't even say it." She lowered her gaze as much as she could, biting her treacherous tongue.

Natsuki paused before warily asking, "Shizuru ... is this about the incident Haruka and Yukino-san witnessed?"

Shizuru choked in her own saliva and coughed violently.

"I think it is, whatever that is," Konoka nodded.

Shizuru gave Natsuki a truly panicked look. "H-H-How did you-!"

"Haruka told me after the War was over," Natsuki said. "Why wouldn't she? I mean, you know how she is. She took me aside and tried to warn me you were a lustful beast, and all that nonsense."

"But- But-!" Shizuru actually fretted. "All this time, you have known, and you haven't told me, and-"

Konoka nodded. "See, that's exactly what we're trying to fix here." She was starting to feel like a cute broken record, to be honest.

"I was afraid what your reaction would be like," Natsuki uneasily admitted. "Just like you, I guess. B-But that's okay, I understand, we all did stupid extreme things back then, myself included, and we weren't really ourselves, so -"

"No. You, and Mai-san, and Sugiura-san ... you always kept being better than that, while I... I kept falling and falling, lower and lower," Shizuru muttered, "Because unlike you, I was -"

"- without a friend at your side, to keep you away from the abyss," Natsuki said. "I'm sorry, Shizuru. It was my fault, because if I had been there for you from the start of it all, much like Mai was for me ... well, without her, I'd have lost myself as well. Much worse than you did."

"But I never told you anything to begin with, how could you be at fault?" asked Shizuru. "No, the fault is all mine!"

"Now, please, that's an unhealthy attitude..." Setsuna tried to gently comfort her, blissfully ignorant of how that sounded coming from her of all people. "You can't go through life blaming yourself over every little-" The other shoe finally dropped. "Oh. I'm sounding like a complete hypocrite, right."

Konoka reached over and played with her hair. "Of course not, silly!" she said, before kissing her madly once again.

Natsuki had moved on to embrace a nearly tearful Shizuru. "Shizuru. I'll never hate you, no matter what. I didn't hate you then, and I don't hate you now. And if you really need proof of it ... w-well ..."

Slowly, their lips touched each other, delicately, faintly, and they had the briefest taste of them while Konoka pushed Setsuna down against the carpet and began kissing all over the moaning bird girl, struggling to get rid of her clothes. Maybe it was that carnal symphony that gave them the final extra push they needed, because the next moment, something of what had been in Shizuru that night revived, and she grabbed Natsuki and pulled her down with herself, right besides Konoka and Setsuna. Natsuki resisted with some nervous shakes, then surrendered just as quickly.

So it began.

* * *

Meanwhile, Asakura was starting to grow tired. Very tired. She still felt like her vagina was literally on fucking fire, even after her bouts of rest while Asuna and Negi went at it - and boy, did they go at it! It was genuinely scary how much they seemed to be into it. Truly inhuman, they were. And the worst part was, whenever she thought it was over and began crawling back for her clothes, Asuna would notice it, sic Negi back on her, and of course Asakura couldn't say no to the poor star crossed lovers who were so wonderful at fucking her ... so yeah.

And of course, as had to happen at some point when you are mostly zoning out of it already and your mate is in sort of a frenzy, she eventually felt him stiffen inside of her and squirt in.

There was a long, tense silence.

"Um, I, I, I'm terribly sorry, I know, I know you told me not to do th-that, but I'm sure it won't-"

Kazumi's soft snores from under him where his only reply, marking the reporter's official blissful collapse and calling it quits on the whole consciousness thing for the time being.

Asuna looked over at her. "I guess she'll be mad about this when she wakes up?"

"Uhhhh..." Negi sweated copiously.

His primary partner smiled and pulled him back towards herself. "Of course, that won't be for a while. So, until then -!"

Negi's sweating grew even more intense, if that was possible. And incredibly, it was.

* * *

Meanwhile, over at Shizuru's quarters, Natsuki had been moved into a position on her elbows and knees as Shizuru knelt behind her, her hands on Natsuki's behind while she applied cunnilingus under Konoka's guidance. That gave Setsuna enough room to sit back further behind, quietly weeping to herself and bemoaning her own devious role as an accesory for the corruption of young girls everywhere.

"I'm impressed," Konoka said with a smile and a bringing of her hands together. "You're a natural, Fujino-san. It took me all of a week of trial and error practice and hours looking through the Internet for related material to reach this level."

That made Setsuna briefly snap out of her fog of gloom. "A week? I don't think we've been doing this that l-"

"Shhhh," Konoka quietly cooed right before Natsuki began screaming her pleasure, bumping her fists on the carpet, her face so red it almost looked purple.

"ANNNNHHHHH! AAAAANNNNHHHHH! ANANNNHHHH!"

"M-Maybe we should keep it down?" Setsuna pointed out, gulping. "I mean, remember what happened in-"

"My turn!" Konoka was happily diving in between her bodyguard's legs, ready to apply what she had witnessed and unwilling to be left b ehind by Fujino-san. Once again, the neighbors were mostly forgotten for the moment. It has been said, after all, man and bird demon are the only animals who stumble twice (or more) on the same stone.

In the room next door, Tenjouin Saki sighed, rose from her bed, took some earplugs from her night desk, and stuffed them into her ears.

The President truly had no control of herself whenever she started with her sexual toys. Which was deeply unhealthy in Saki's opinion, but at least made for good blackmail material for the event the President's popularity began overtaking her own. It hadn't happened yet, naturally, but the looming threat was always there, and - wait, now she thought about it, that hadn't sounded like the President, had it?

The beautiful blonde unplugged her ears, took her old trusty recorder, and rushed towards the wall with the small device ready to be applied against it. One of the few good things about allowing Deviluke-san and Jewelria-san believe she was their friend (or at least trustworthy enough ally in Jewelria-san's case) was she could often receive interesting gadgets even the best scientists of her parents' companies could not supply. (Never mind the fact Deviluke-san only thought they were friends because of her own naivete, not because of any efforts from Tenjouin herself.) True, most of them left one naked in public, but there was the occasionally actually helpful one.

Saki began listening carefully through the alien amplifier and recorder, and bright red quickly climbed up her face. A moment later, she started touching herself vigorously as she thought of Zastin-sama.

* * *

Chamo still kept running through the woods.

"Dammit, when will this stop!" he cried.

The strong voices behind him kept shouting.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

... not anytime soon, it seemed.

* * *

Side by side, almost symetrically, Konoka and Shizuru held their respective loves against themselves, running their genitals together over and over. Laying on the carpet, on their flanks, Setsuna and Natsuki had resorted to holding hands to cope with the glorious, almost painful, ongoing ecstasy. Their legs being held high by both Ojous, the dark haired fighters clenched their teeth and strained their necks at the same time they were so intimately touched, their cores on fire upon repeated contact with those seemingly unsatiable sources of carnal pleasure, and -

Through the whole procedure, Setsuna had her eyes firmly shut, so when she first heard Natsuki's gasp, she assumed it had been an orgasm. However, hearing more gasps from her, and also a half formed choked question, prompted the bodyguard to open her eyes and look up following Natsuki's shocked gaze. Then her jaw hung loose as well.

While they hadn't stopped rubbing themselves against their respective couples, the wealthy girls were now kissing each other, deeply, and the hands that weren't holding the prone girls' legs up were cupping and squeezing each other's bare buttocks. "My God," Setsuna rasped, as the sinful sight pushed her to a shuddering orgasm that made her rest against Natsuki, holding onto her and whimpering onto her bossom.

"What the-" Natsuki mumbled, fairly bitterly, until something in her seemed to snap jealously, and under Shizuru's feverish gaze, she forcefully grabbed Setsuna by the hair and began Frenching her, in an inexpert yet powerful way. How do you like this now, huh, Shizuru? Huh?

Unfortunately, judging by the way Shizuru looked down at them , licking her lips all over while mashing her sex against Natsuki's with even greater force, Fujino seemed to, indeed, be liking it a lot.

That didn't make Natsuki stop, however. She sort of couldn't anymore. Her mind felt like it was burning as she placed herself over Setsuna's lithe body, touching her all over and experimenting to see which touch on which place did what. And Setsuna seemed to have sensitive points everywhere, often near those scarily easy to find and numerous dry scars of varying length and width. The bird girl moaned almost non stop, barely stopping for air, and soon Natsuki joined her when she felt two tongues on her vulva at once. Kissing as they licked Natsuki and Setsuna alternatively, Konoka and Shizuru kept groping each other, exploring their bodies as if there was no tomorrow.

That kept on going for quite some time, more than Natsuki dared or wanted to measure. For now at least, time seemed to have become meaningless for once.

Alas, the absence of time and its limits will always be nothing but an illusion, and ultimately everything, both good and bad, ends.

* * *

Even running gags.

Just not yet.

So Chamo kept running.

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE!"

* * *

"And this," Konoka sagely lectured, resting on the floor keeping a spastically shaking Setsuna hugged against her, "is this how a real steamy date ends."

"First dates shouldn't be steamy. First dates shouldn't end like this," Natsuki said, unblinking eyes very very open, from where she rested at a short distance from them, Shizuru in the middle with a placid, faraway expression. Shizuru's right hand reposed on Natsuki's lower backside as the left one kept on absently fingering Setsuna's sopping vaginal lips, at a much slower and sedate pace now.

Konoka shrugged. "Well, I liked it. Didn't you? Because you sure sounded like you were liking it, even when you were with me instead of President-san."

Shizuru raised an eyebrow, not really liking the implications she thought she felt in that last sentence, but since she still was fingering Konoka's significant other and didn't really intend to stop, she didn't bother to reply.

"What do you say to trying Negi-kun next?" Konoka suggested.

Natsuki pushed herself up on her hands. "Cut it out already! Don't you think you've gone far enough already?"

Konoka made a pout. "Oi, but you two would like having children someday, wouldn't you?"

"I don't ever want to -" Natsuki began hissing.

"I'd love to, eventually," Shizuru said, finally pulling her fingers out of Setsuna and licking them dry delicately, all the while sporting an eerily beautiful and faraway look. "When I'm far older, and long after I have graduated and found a place of my own in life."

"See, that's what I mean," Konoka said. "And love between girls is wonderful, as you've just seen, but sadly, it still can't give us children, and there'd be no better father than Negi-kun -"

"Oh, really," Natsuki said sarcastically.

"I don't understand that," Shizuru said before Konoka could answer. "On top of everything that boy already has in his mind, and you've admitted that you couldn't talk him out of it, why add the weight of fatherhood as well? And don't try fooling us with promises that'll happen far into the future. You are having unprotected sex with him right now, so you must know nature won't wait for you. Aren't you aware at all of what you're doing?"

Konoka remained silent for several moments, as Setsuna stared up at her like an adoring hurt puppy. Finally, the Konoe heiress said, in a small voice, "Maybe I'm just hoping that would be the only thing that would tie him to us before it's too late, before his obsessions drive him away forever. Before he's consumed by his own legend like his father. At least with us, he would have a family, strange as it might be. But once Asuna's gone, he'll need something to keep him anchored. Human. And that only can be us. And even then, the only way he won't reject us anyway is he feels himself bound by his sense of duty."

"That's underhanded," Shizuru commented.

"Yes," Konoka allowed. "It's also the last resort of a desperate heart in love. Don't you think we're aware it'd be a sacrifice for us as well? But as long as it's for him, we won't care. We'll gladly endure social rejection and everything else as long as we have him, and, perhaps more importantly, each other. Because the second Asuna is gone, and then he's gone, we will fall apart. And we can't really allow ourselves that."

"That's the way life is," Natsuki replied.

"But it's gone beyond our lives now," Konoka sighed. "It's bigger and more important than all of us put together. It's for the future. We're the only ones who have a vague idea of what the future could hold, and without us working together ... I'm afraid for everyone, I really am."

"So, it's that serious," Shizuru hummed, sitting up and brushing long brown hair from her face. "Mind telling us what gave you so much insight on the future?"

"You remember Chao, don't you?" asked Konoka, stroking Setsuna's hair softly. "She came from the future, a somber future to be exact. Yeah, I know how wild that sounds. But anyway, she's Negi's descendant ... with which one of us, we have no idea, but -"

Natsuki interrupted her. "Wait. Are you trying to cover all the bases so that girl is born no matter what?"

Shizuru was blinking in mild shock. "Time traveler?" she mused.

Konoka smiled somewhat sadly. "She could come from any of us. Me. Setchan. Chisame-chan. Even you."

Natsuki groaned and sat up as well, covering her face with her hands. "I can't fucking believe any of this."

"So, will you help us, anyway?" asked Konoka. "You don't have to if you don't want, but ..."

Shizuru adopted a heavily, somberly contemplative air, visibly struggling with her own thoughts.

Then she asked, "Does it feel good?"

* * *

As they walked back home down the Sakura Lane boulevard, under a chilly nocturnal breeze, Konoka suddenly asked, "Do you feel okay, Setchan?"

She snapped out of her depressed funk for the moment. "Uh? Oh, of course. Why wouldn't I feel okay?"

"Mmm. You seemed quite lost in your thoughts, and you're far stronger than me, so you possibly couldn't feel as sore as I do."

"I, I. I'm sorry if I was too rough!"

"So worth it," Konoka's smile tugged at the corners of her lips, before she added, sounding more vulnerable than normal. "For me, at least. I'm not too sure about the others. I mean, they seemed to love it while it was going on, but now, I'm not so sure."

"T-The President didn't openly shoot your proposal down, so -"

"No, she didn't. But I really hope that's because of her own volition, and not because I'm manipulating her. Setchan, do you ever feel I manipulate you?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

There was only one answer that could come out of Setsuna's mouth at that. "Of course not!"

"You sure? Because I'd hate it if I was doing that."

"Uhhh ... of course I'm sure!"

"Okay," Konoka simply said. "Good to know," she smiled again, and wrapped an arm around her bodyguard's shoulders.

Even now, Setsuna could and did blush at that.

Much like a kitten can't help hurting the mice they play with, even if its intention wasn't to eat them, so Konoka couldn't help being manipulative to Setsuna. Or at least, several would say so to this day. Of course, others would argue, Setsuna's own personality itself probably made near impossible for Konoka not to manipulate her one way or another by merely suggesting anything. In the end, however, the result was still the same.

Even so, for someone raised and formed to serve like Setsuna, that situation was the closest she could get to true happiness. And so, finally, despite everything, she rested against her Ojou-sama and finally smiled as well.

"I can't help but worry Fate-san will find and punish us any moment now ..."

"Relax, like I told you, he still should be in that meeting."

* * *

Fate Averruncus left the titanic tower of the Mahora branch of Revocs Corporation with a sense of a well accomplished duty, a clean, antiseptic, streamlined feeling that fit his best moods remarkably well. Far from vulgar rejoicing, closer to a military pride forged for years of active service both on the battlefield and the negotiation tables. He could be at peace with himself while experiencing that. It was something he could understand and appreciate for what it was. Lesser beings would have said it made him feel safe about his own value and capacities without giving him that annoying air humans had while boasting about their success. Other lesser beings would have said it was inner boasting under a carefully laid layer of self-denial.

One way or another, Fate felt like walking back home after that. Kiryuin-sama seemed a woman of high ambition, if nothing else, and for the moment, her ambitions and his could co-exist. It would pay to keep a watchful eye on her at all times, but for now, Fate had left her premises feeling reasonably confident he had found a steady ally of mutual convenience for the next few years. Naturally, Negi, and much less Inugami, wouldn't have thought of her that way, which was why he had to come without them. Eventually, at least Negi would understand, Fate was convinced of that.

Because he would make sure of that himself.

Then, while passing near an entrance to an alley, his sharp senses caught on a familiar voice, faintly coming from its end. There were stomping sounds, and the weak pained groan of a man. Fate walked into the alley, hands in his pockets, and he stopped before the two figures he had just found.

"Yuuki-san," he coldly told the surprised redhead who had just dropped a beaten middle aged man, with his wallet in her hand. "You are well aware of the curfew hours, aren't you?"

"Ahh," Yuuki Nao said, suddenly wishing she still had Julia at her beck and call.

The next day, she angrily muttered to herself as she wrote 'I WON'T VIOLATE THE CURFEW AND BEAT MEN UP DURING ILLEGAL DATES' all over and over again on a chalkboard.

"That creep is so going down!" she decided.

* * *

"Before I start," Tenjouin Saki said, extremely serious, "I trust nothing of what is to be said here will leave this room."

Kujou Rin and Fuyisaki Aya nodded, naturally, without doubting for even a second. Both of them were loyal to a fault to the gorgeous blonde heiress and would do anything she told them to, up to and including moves of dubious legality against a perceived threat to Saki's position as the Popularity Queen at the Academy. In looks and skills, they couldn't be more different from each other, but their devotion to the only daughter of the Tenjouins made them equals in at least one regard.

"Very well," Saki said, with a pleased smile. "Just as I expected from my best friends." She meant it, as well; despite their difference in status, she actually saw them as her friends, not as her subordinates, even if ultimately she treated them as the latter. (Mostly because she honestly had no idea of how to treat anyone as anything other than a subordinate, a target for revenge and competitor, or an object of worship - and only one person fit the lattermost role.) Lowering her voice and gesturing for them to come closer, she added, "I have just learned something quite scandalous about Fujino-san."

A few moments later, Rin's hand firmly clasped around Aya's mouth was the sole thing preventing a scream from filling Saki's luxurious room and being heard next door. Not that it would have mattered much, since, as Saki knew, Shizuru was out nominally helping with the preparations for the upcoming School Festival. Rin kept her blood cool as she felt Aya hyperventilating against her, and waited until she calmed down a bit. "You won't scream now, will you?" she asked her.

Aya shook her head, eyes shiny with emotion behind her thick glasses.

Satisfied enough, Rin let go of her mouth. Aya made a weak "Eeeeeeek" out, and then fell into silence, eyes on the floor.

The always calm Rin (not to be confused with the only calm when in public and explosive tsundere in private Rin) then addressed the young woman she was tasked with protecting. "If I weren't hearing it from you, I couldn't believe it, Saki-sama. I know Sakurazaki-san from the Kendo Club, and she's always been proper and decent."

"I have recorded proof," said Saki, not really taking the observation as a slight, but still hastening to dispel it.

"And so ... will you use it against Fujino-san?" asked Aya, pushed her round glasses up.

"Not unless I have to," replied Saki. "What would I achieve by her expulsion? The School Council would fall into the hands of Kanzaki-san, or even worse, Suzushiro-san. Can you imagine a Mahora ran by Suzushiro Haruka of all people?!"

Aya and Rin kept themselves silent as a huge thought balloon showing Kanzaki and Fujino having tea together as Haruka frantically filled out documents in the background.

"Wouldn't that be the same as it is no-" Rin respectfully started.

"What we need," Saki was declaring very firmly, ignoring any counter observations and the people making them, "is to use that knowledge to convince Fujino-san to show me how to advance my relationship with Zastin-sama!"

Rin's hand, despite her own shock, was still fast and well trained enough to block Aya's mouth again. After a few moments of trying to find her own voice over Aya's panicked muffled sounds, all Rin could utter was a strangled "Whaaaat?"

Saki blushed. "W-Well, not to go THAT far, obviously, but applying just a fraction of the amatory arts that harlot has mastered should be enough to convince Zastin-sama to ... kiss me." She twiddled her fingers together. "Despite my beauty, intelligence, charm, wealth and modesty, Zastin-sama still barely notices me, so I grow convinced I need to learn more advanced seduction tactics. If those two could get a stiff humorless person like Sakurazaki-san and a heartless violent thug like Kuga-san under their full control, someone like me, using the same strategies, should have no problems winning Zastin-sama's noble but confused heart!"

"Nuhhh nuhhh pluuuzhhh rucunshudurrr!" Aya desperately begged.

"Th-that might make some sense, but..." Rin hesitated, sweating profusely. "What if those tactics she knows only work on other girls?"

Saki froze.

That made Aya calm down to some degree. Then she quietly spoke, managing to be heard between Rin's loosening fingers, "On second thought, maybe we should ask."

Of course, Saki took that the wrong way. Regaining her confidence, she said, "Yes! We should! I'm glad you agree, Aya. Surely, the techniques to snare mannish women aren't too unlike those to catch men's basest fancies! Tenjouin Saki won't be denied or deterred!" She put a hand next to her mouth in the way Ojous learned during their formative years together and laughed, "OH HO HO HO HO!"

Aya blinked. "That ... that isn't exactly what I meant..."

Elsewhere, one Daidouji Tomoyo perked up. "What's this I feel? There's some strong disturbance in the Ojou Force ... _again!_"

"Huh? What are you saying, Tomoyo-chan?"

"Nothing, forget it," Tomoyo returned her attention to the lovely dress she was putting on her best friend. "Ohhhh, this looks _sooooo_ good on you, Sakura-chan!"

* * *

Knock knock, went the door, and so Mikoto went to open it.

A rather haunted looking Natsuki dragged her steps into Mai's living quarters and past Mikoto, without saying a single word.

"Hm? Oh, hey, Natsuki," Mai said, looking up from her homework. Fate-sensei was growing even more demanding in general. "How did your date -"

Natsuki plopped down at the other end of the table, planted her elbows on the table's surface, and hid her face between her hands.

"... umm. Well, it didn't go as badly as it could have, right?"

"You could say," she finally answered, "it went far too well."

Mikoto approached them. "Did it end in trouble?"

"Yes. Trouble," Natsuki confirmed.

"Ahhhhh." Mai's voice trailed away. "W-Well, you and Shizuru love each other, a lot, so even if it was too soon for ... trouble, in my opinion, even then, it shouldn't be cause for gloom ..."

"Mai. It was trouble between me, Shizuru, Konoe-san and Sakurazaki-san," Natsuki dryly said.

Mai's mouth hung loose, and her eyes shrank down to black dots.

Mikoto whistled. "Oh, those girls sure love their trouble."

Natsuki nodded, reaching for Mai's half-full (half-empty, in Natsuki's current opinion) cup of coffee and drinking from it. "Yes. Yes, they love it very much. It was a lot and a lot of trouble."

Mai picked her jaw back up and rubbed it into place. "Okay, what will you do now? I hope this doesn't hurt your -"

"So do I," Natsuki mumbled. "But I swear, Shizuru can talk me into the wildest and craziest things. Maybe I should have myself checked into that place Akane went."

Mai gave her a suddenly blunt and even fierce glare.

"What?" Natsuki moaned.

Mai waved a finger at her. "Natsuki, I'm ashamed of you. Making jokes about that horrible place, after knowing how much Akane-chan suffered there, and considering it was run by the First District -"

"Ah? No, no, I mean the other one. The one where she went after everything was over. The one that actually helped!"

"Oohhh, that one," Mai said. "Yeah, they sure helped her a lot there. And so quickly, too! I wonder what kind of radical treatments they have there, but Akane-chan won't talk about it, and of course, I won't ask."

* * *

_The Brighton Clinic for Psychiatric Therapy, right outside of Mahora City:_

Dr. Benjamin Brighton, a thin, bearded Caucasian man with glasses, addressed his newest patient, who was straped to a table and heavily restrained.

"No ... YOU look, Mr. Wilson!" he said. "It's your inability to focus ... your incesant jabbering ... that makes you an inefficient killer. But don't worry. What Dr. Brighton can't fix ... the Psycho-Man will!"

The restrained masked Merc looked aside and snickered. "Oh, I get it. This is only for the sake of a highly obscure gag and it won't ever be mentioned or referenced again, right? Well, I sure hope so, at least, considering how this bit originally went on when it was first used. In the meanwhile, sit tight and wait for the next sexually thrilling chapter, boys and girls!"

"There you go again!" the doctor said, exasperated. "Exactly who do you think you're talking to?!"

* * *

**To be Continued.**


	4. Evangeline, Daenerys, Saki, Aya, Rin

_Akamatsu Ken and others created and own all of these characters. Don't sue me._

_Thanks to Darkenning for his original inspiration and proofreading._

_Don't read if you're a minor. You were warned._

* * *

**Chapter Four:**

* * *

Evil laughter boomed through the gigantic resort of Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell.

"Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!"

Asakura Kazumi briefly tilted her head in that direction. "Sometimes, I really worry about her."

The pale, dark haired Marceline Abadeer shrugged from where she sat lazily on the frame of a massive window, riffing on her guitar. "Pitying a vampire is pointless, girl. Yeah, we can get very kooky at times, but in the end, we outlive everyone, and it's a butt-kicking existence in addition to being long, so it's not like we really deserve or want the mercy."

"Okay, what if we start there, then?" The redhead turned her recorder on, smirking for all those gathered in the luxurious and white-painted room of ... to be honest, Kazumi had no idea at all what was that room intended to be for. Not like any of the present cared. It had been as good a place as any other to have an interview. Paio Zi sobbed softly to herself after being forcibly tied up and tossed into a corner after her wandering hands went too far too many times, but other than that and the occasional echo of Eva's evil cackling, the wide chamber was peaceful and comfortable enough. "Compared to Eva-chan, what kind of vampire are you?"

"Well ..." Marceline said, allowing the guitar to rest on her lap. "Ah, what the heck, I'm feeling like being nice and answering questions today. It's not every day you get to talk to an Old Worlder anyway. Unlike Eva, I never was a human; my mother was, but my father is the demon king of the Nightosphere realm."

"Nightosphere?" Kazumi echoed.

"Hey, we're demons, we can name our realms whatever we please," the vampire girl sneered. "Anyway, when I was still only a little girl, a vampire king bit me and turned me. Later, I hunted him down and killed him, and that's how I became the queen of all Mundus Magicus vampires."

"That story is remarkably similar to Evangeline's," Kazumi noted.

Lina Inverse chuckled from where she rested, arms behind her head, boots aside and bare feet moving casually from side to side. "Well, that's the M.O. of vampire kings. They tend to be creeps who turn little girls, you know? And of course, any girl who gets to make it after that will obviously have revenge in mind, and ..." She swung her hand in a circle.

"Save your saliva for when it's the turn for your story!" Marceline snapped at her. She turned back to Asakura. "That's pretty much it, actually. Not that being the queen of vampires matters much, because vampires are lone creatures and very rarely gather anywhere or obey anyone's orders. Eva is a Mundus Vetus-born and turned vampire, so I wouldn't have any jurisdiction over her, even if she wanted to listen to me. But fighting each other would be too much of a pointless hassle for either, so we just keep our distance as long as we aren't crashing at each other's houses and all that."

"You mean you have been here before?" asked Asakura.

"Geh, no, never this one," said Marceline. "I hadn't heard anything about her for the last fifteen years, but that's hardly rare between vampires. We can disappear for decades at a time, and the others, in the rare case where we care at all, will just assume that vampire is sleeping or keeping a low profile. Which isn't that hard either, because the Thirst isn't as strong as your TV and movies will paint it as. Now start pestering someone else, I have rockin' art to create," she said, turning aside and beginning to play her guitar again, riffing on it while looking for the right way to start a new song.

"Ookayyyy ..." The human girl slowly looked around at the collection of Mundus Magicus beings assembled around her, and finally settled for the most unusual looking one, the lavender-furred unicorn with wings. "How about you then ... Princess Twilight Sparkle, right? Mind telling audiences of Mundus Vetus about your role and your importance in the grand scheme of things?"

"M-Me? Well." The lavender winged unicorn coughed briefly, before explaining. "I'm a student of magic under Princess Celestia, the sovereign of the queendom of Equestria. To complete my education, I was assigned to move far, far away to Ponyville. It was difficult to adapt at first, since I was surrounded by eccentrics from all sides, but I went on to become best friends with them."

"Annnd that reminds me of someone else's story," Kazumi mused aloud.

"Shortly after arriving in Ponyville, the Princess' sister Luna, now calling herself Nightmare Moon, attacked the queendom," Twilight continued. "My new friends Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy joined me in the quest for the six Elements of Harmony, which could stop Nightmare Moon. We gained control over the Elements and freed Princess Luna from the darkness controlling her. After that, we went on to defeat several other enemies of Equestria, like Queen Chrysalis, Discord the Lord of Chaos, King Sombra and Lord Tirek. We would have helped you with Kosmo Entelekheia, really, but it took us too long to get there, since no one bothered to contact Equestria soon enough." This was said with a sharply accusing glare shot Rakan's way.

He kept on picking his nose. "I thought Kurt would take care of that, really!"

"Wow," Asakura said softly. "Now I know how Chisame feels all the time."

"Ah?" asked Twilight.

The redhead shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Wow, that's a ... really interesting life you've led."

"For a small pastel colored horse, right?" Lina smiled. "Admit it, that's what you were thinking."

Now Asakura looked at her. "Nah, I actually was starting to think about you, Inverse-san. As far as I have heard, you have gained quite a bit of fame on Mundus Magicus, right?"

"I'd rather call it infamy," Rakan pointed out.

"An aura of dread, expanded through fear and intimidation, augmented through brutal conquest and legends of unmatched savagery," Queen Daenerys elaborated.

"Pot, meet kettle!" Lina hissed.

The platinum blonde did not lose her composure. "Whatever gave you the impression that comment was supposed to be insulting?"

Lina looked about to angrily reply to that, but, after thinking it through, she only snorted. "Look, I won't deny respect is respect. And yeah, you could say evildoers are well justified in their fear of me. So what if they call me the 'Bandit Killer'? Let them! That's a title I carry with honor! Bandits have no human rights!"

"Just like slavers," the Queen commented.

"Yeah, people who have no respect for human rights should have their own human rights disrespected!" snickered the bound Chichigami, who was a bandit after all.

"Exactly," Lina and Daenerys bluntly said at once.

"Tsk, while I get the point clearly, I dunno," Rakan said. "I mean, slavery is bad more often than not, yeah, but sometimes it helps forging character, yanno? If I hadn't ever been a slave, I wouldn't be the he-man I am now!"

"And that would be a bad thing, because?" the Queen said, extremely icily.

"Anyway." Lina was back to talking with Asakura. "I am THE most powerful sorceress in Mundus Magicus. That's why they gave me one of these artificial bodies to come here. They wanted nothing but the best here, although for some reason Rakan and Paio here slipped in with us."

"You don't have to be that angry at me," Paio was saying. "I told you, I love your boobies all the same, even if they are sma-"

While Lina kept her left foot firmly pressed against Paio's face, crushing it with her heel, Asakura asked her, "Sooo ... what was your excuse for staying out of the fight with Kosmo Entelekheia, then?"

"Um? Oh, isn't that obvious? No one paid me to get involved back then, of course," answered Lina.

Rakan nodded sagely. "And it's not like anyone can criticize you on that, Hon. Me, I only took part on it myself because of old ties, for the sake of old times!"

"Who are you calling 'Hon', you stupid old man?!"

"Anyway," Marceline said quietly as she kept riffing on her guitar, low enough not to block the interesting lovemaking sounds her sensitive ears were picking up from the direction of Eva's chambers. "What's with that 'greatest sorceress' boast, girl? I wonder what would your big sister say if she heard you now."

Lina's face went completely blank, and then she began hyperventilating. Her fingers clawed and held onto the cushion she had been sitting on, and, with a tense, strained voice, she uttered, "Sh-She doesn't count! As she, she always insists, she's retired from the life of sorcery, and sh-she's g-g-glad to live as a waitress."

Marceline shrugged indolently. "Fair enough."

"Yeah, about that, I've always wondered," Paio said, "what kind of person leaves a life of adventure and glory behind to become a simple wait-"

"SHE, SHE ISN'T A PERSON, AND THERE'S NOTHING SIMPLE ABOUT HER EITHER!" Lina screamed.

Kazumi lifted an eyebrow. "Okay. Now I'm interested."

"Ah, Lina-chan's sister Luna was a freelancer back in the Ala Rubra days, although her heart never really was into it," Rakan reminisced. "Even so, she was one of the scariest bad-ass mofos I've ever met. I daresay she was more fearsome than Princess Arika, although I'll always deny it if you tell anyone. Why, she once killed a plasma dragon with a kitchen knife! I'd actually say she might just have had a wee bit more raw power than Nagi himself, but she was always too lazy and unambitious to go adventuring with us on a regular basis."

"Bite your tongue!" Lina's teeth chattered. "She'll hear you!"

"Oh, come on," Twilight said. "She's all the way in the other-"

"She will find a way to know, I just know it!" Lina all but wailed.

"Ooookay, changing the subject, then." Kazumi addressed the elegant blonde with thick eyebrows now. "Forgive me for not addressing you sooner, Your Majesty, but I was saving the best for the last."

"Hey!" Twilight, Lina and Marceline said all at once.

Queen Daenerys nodded only once. "Base flattery. But you may continue. You desire to learn the story of my life as well, don't you?"

Kazumi nodded back. "I heard bits about you here and there while we were traveling Mundus Magicus, of course, but we were so wrapped up in our own problems, we never had too much time to do research."

The royal took a firm breath. "Very well, so it be. I am the sole remaining child of King Aerys II Targaryen, who himself was a cousin on the third degree of Emperor Alladia Entheofushia of Vespertatia. My family ruled, as I now rule, over the island of Dragonstone and its surroundings. When my father succumbed to madness and perished at the hands of another, I was sold in marriage to Lord Khal Drogo, whom fathered a child on me. However, my husband was mortally wounded in battle, and my child died before he could be born."

"..." Kazumi said, a bit stunned by the casual recitation of terrible tragedy.

Undeterred, the queen continued, "When my brother Viserys died, I set out to claim my birthright as the sovereign of the House Targaryen, and through several campaigns, I would say I have mostly achieved that goal. However, the path of the monarch is thorny and never ending, and keeping the throne is even more difficult than seizing it. Normally, I would never leave my domains in this fashion, but Theodora, one of the very few I trust to any degree whatsoever, convinced me to act as representative of the governments of Mundus Magicus here. Whereas the survival of our whole world depends on Young Springfield's gamble, it has been agreed by all countries all conflicts between us are of a lesser priority than our task at hand at the moment."

Rakan snorted. "Oh, c'mon, why are you giving her the abridged, sanitized version of your life story? You left all the good parts out!"

She gave him the iciest of glares. "My story is not a tale for anyone's amusement. She has been told what she needs to know."

"You won't object if I fill in the holes, right?" he grinned, pulling a film projector out of seemingly nowhere. "Pay attention, Reporter Girl! This is an epic tale of bloodshed, drama, murder, betrayal, food porn, nudity and incest I like to call it 'A Game of Fire and Ice'! Or 'Song of Thrones'. I can't decide on one yet, so I made sure to copyright 'em both for when I sell the rights to H-"

Daenerys' right foot was firmly planted on his mouth right now. "You will do no such thing!"

"Incest?" Kazumi repeated the sole word that had been a surprise among all the terms she had come to expect from affairs of royalty. "Wait, if that story includes such things, and you're distantly related to Negi-kun, then his roots -"

Marceline shrugged. "That was a common thing among several royal houses in the old times of Mundus Magicus. Most have abandoned the practice, although the clan of Khaleesi here kept fooling around with it longer than most others."

The Queen sat back, with a completely dignified air to her. "Denying the facts is as pointless as dwelling on them."

Rakan wiggled his eyebrows at Kazumi's lingering expression of concern. "Hey, don't be so sick worried, Red. I'm sure your children with Negi-kun will be healthy and smart as hell. Nagi took the defective genes of four Springfield generations all for himself!"

Against her normal custom, Asakura was annoyed enough by that to plant her foot on his face now. Luckily she was wearing shorts. Well, luckily for her. "That wasn't funny!"

Everyone else was staring at her now.

"What?" Asakura snorted.

"Oooooo!" Paio cooed. "So you like the miniature Nagi-sama as well!"

Lina snickered, with a cat-like little smile. "Fu, fu, fu, watch out for that, girlie. Romance is a bad thing for us working women."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Guys, please, don't start with this. We are all far more mature than this, except the Idiot Who Can Be Stabbed All Day Long, and it'd be just plain rude to intrude -"

_"Negi and Asakura-san, sitting under a tree, ki-ssiiiiing!"_ Marceline pointed and sing-sang.

Twilight sighed. "Why do I bother."

Asakura clenched her teeth. _All right, I won't get angry, I won't get angry, I won't lose my cool no matter what ..._

Meanwhile, the Queen intently watched her, studying her expression and subdued, subtle reactions of actual frustration. And she wondered.

* * *

_Meanwhile...  
_  
"In fact," continued Asuna, "I think you satisfy us so much that, in the spirit of classroom solidarity and that of being a mid-level boss of evil -"

"Future," Eva interjected, smile banished for a suspicious look. "Future mid-level boss of evil."

"Yes-yes-yes," Asuna replied dismissively. "In those spirits, I think we ought to share your talents with the rest of the class, both because all the girls will really enjoy it and because it will be wicked fun to corrupt the entire class under the eyes of the administration and, in particular, Fate." She beamed malevolently. Well, that was what she was going for, at least.

Evangeline stared. "You want the boya to have sex with all the girls in the class?"

Asuna nodded proudly.

Evangeline looked away. Sniffling noises may have been made.

"Are you -"

"I am not crying tears of pride as your mentor of evil!" she proclaimed without looking back.

"Right," said Asuna, then glanced up at Negi, who had a very bland look on his face. "I was expecting you to chime in with 'don't I get a say in this' by now," she told him.

"We all know what the answer would be, don't we?" he asked rhetorically. With a sigh, he continued. "Just to be clear, 'all the girls in the class' means 'all the girls in the class and no one else', right?"

Asuna slapped her hands together. "Why, Negi, that's a great idea, actually! Just think of all the burnt bridges we could rebuild with 3-F."

"That's not what I meant! That is in fact the exact opposite of what I just -"

"I guess I could hook you up with Tepes," Evangeline mused, ignoring him of course. "It'd be a great thing to rub in those decrepit lords' faces, and then maybe she'd let me have some fun with her werewolf boytoy too."

_"Master!"_ Negi squealed like a dying pig.

"And those girls - Momioka and her meganekko friend - have been asking a lot around, about your grownup form," Asuna tip-toed her fingers across his chest.

"You can't be serious!" he cried.

"It's decided then!" Evangeline smirked and slammed a fist on her hand palm. "You're doing the whole school and a few others, too, Boya!"

"We are!" Asuna said.

"Oh, that goes without saying!" Eva waved the observation away.

**"BUT I'LL DIE!"** Negi was sure of it.

Elsewhere, Konoe Konoemon shuddered. "Why do I feel like I'd better start taking preparations to kill an immortal before I lose everything? Powerful Hand, where'd I put Powerful Hand's number ..."

Oh, yeah, and somewhere in between all of this, Kotaro fucked Chizuru, as well. The non-Honsho variety, that is.

* * *

At the same time, Asakura shuddered briefly while submerged up to her shoulders in the large main pool of Evangeline's baths. "What's with this sudden feeling of dread all of a sudden?" she wondered aloud.

A moment later, the door opened and in walked a fully naked Queen Daenerys, slowly making her way to the water and steeping into it. "Perhaps," she said, "you are beginning to fully understand the meaning of what will happen to your friend now. It is truly a terrible sacrifice to impose upon anyone, no matter how noble its cause may be."

Kazumi briefly pondered teaching the other young woman how you were supposed to take baths in Japan, but seeing they technically weren't in Japan now, she decided against it. Instead, she said, "Your Majesty, it wasn't forced upon her ... which I suppose should make it better, but somehow, it doesn't."

"Naturally," the Queen calmly said. After a short silence, she added, "There is something I would like to ask you, now that the others are not around."

"Then ask," Kazumi answered, although she was aware that was one of the worst possible ways to start a conversation if you wanted to remain in control.

"Your feelings for Young Springfield are indeed genuine, or not?"

_You too? I was supposed to be the one who messed around with others!_ "In a way. I mean, I obviously respect him a lot, probably more than I've ever respected anyone ... but calling that love? I don't think either of us should be thinking about that yet."

"And besides, he is far too close to Princess Asuna for anyone else to steal that position in his heart, probably even after she is gone," the Queen observed, rubbing herself all over with a tense arm. "That degree of connection they showed during battle ... never before had I seen two souls in such synchrony."

"I guess," Asakura shrugged non-commitally.

"They were oddly unfazed about being nude in such proximity," the Queen observed. "I thought your society had very strong taboos on the subject."

"Well, against that, and against incest."

"Does that still burden your heart? As the vampire queen told you, most royal houses left such customs behind long ago, including, from what I know, that of Vespertatia. You cannot allow that fear to cloud your judgement when it comes to your future with him."

"I don't-" Kazumi had forgotten she was interrupting a Queen and commander of legions until said woman silenced her with nothing but a mild stare.

She continued as if Asakura hadn't spoken at all. "My mother and father were siblings, and my father, also the result of several generations of inbreeding, went insane in his old age, as many of our family before him did. Yet I will not allow that fear to control my life. I refuse to live in dread of the day the Targaryen madness may claim me, for that is the easiest and fastest path to that very same insanity. And neither will I allow it to stop me from securing a heir eventually. You, whose bloodline is presumably clear of those elements, should fear it even less so."

Asakura, who had been processing that information in stunned silence from the first sentence, only could nod slowly.

"Be honest with me, as I have been to you," Daenerys sternly told her. "I will learn the truth either way, so lying is pointless. That sudden apprehension concerning the young man's bloodline means you have been with him, am I right?"

"Uhhhhh ..."

"I thought so."

"I haven't said anything yet," Kazumi began lightly splashing her own face with water.

"You didn't have to."

She sighed. "I guess it comes with the job position, right? Reading others around you so they don't backstab you at the first chance, and all of that..."

"It is a gift that must be mastered quickly and efficiently," the Queen confirmed.

Kazumi leaned back against the pool's edge. "I don't want to fall in love."

"Now that is a more understandable concern."

"He's always been so extremely nice to everyone. He's innocent and generous, smart and beautiful, but that's exactly why I don't want to fall in love with him, you know? I don't want anyone who is that perfect. I never could get him, and even if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with him."

"Yet you have already given the greater part of yourself to him."

"That ... that was a mistake," Asakura began rubbing her own nose.

"Like as not it was, but is it the mistake your heart wanted?"

Yes.

"Yes."

"Then I would suggest that you strive to be there for him when she is gone, and, at the very least, see how he develops as a man from there. He will need you, one way or another. As either his woman, or his friend. That is all the advice I can give you," she said, rising from the water in all her glory.

Kazumi looked up at her before standing up as well. "Actually, Your Majesty, there is something else you could do for me. Although someone of your position -"

"If it is within my power, I will not deny it to a savior from Ala Alba."

"Thank you very much. Then, ummmm ... not that I'm saying I'm going to pull this through with Negi, naturally, but I figure I might marry anyway at some point, and I doubt I'll ever choose a nobody, so given you were the wife to a powerful man ..."

"I will teach you the best I can of the principles a strong mate must follow," she nodded, "But keep in mind, much of this cannot be taught. It must be experienced."

"Of course. Then, how should I -"

Then the Queen's arms were around her. "To start with the basest, and build up to the highest, I will teach you what I once was taught - how to satisfy a husband as they do in the best pleasure houses of Lys."

"Um, actually, I was thinking more along the diplomatic aspects of-" Kazumi began nervously before her buttocks were cupped and a wet mouth pressed against hers.

Damn, but she was better at that than Setsuna. Much better, even, which wasn't a slam against Setsuna. After all, that encounter had been remarkably mind blowing coming from someone who also was a newbie herself. But even so, that couldn't compare to this. Over the last half hour, or so Asakura dimly calculated with the tiny portions of her brain that still cared about time and could estimate it, the Queen had been applying all sorts of exotic techiques to incite pleasure, and while Asakura couldn't fathom how half of them could work on a man, she was sure she'd never forget them all the same.

Now, arched against the edge of the pool, with her feet planted on the tiled floor and her hair touching the water and floating free on its surface, Kazumi made what she was sure had to be an ahegao face, or whatever they called that stupid face with the rolled back eyes that were so prevalent in Haruna's stupid comics. Meanwhile, the Queen, nice royal ass stuck high, knelt between her legs, practicing the latest iteration in a long string of combinations applied on Kazumi's body. While her tongue washed and licked all over Kazumi's vulva and clitoris, and one of her hands pinched and touched all sorts of apparent erogenous points on one of Asakura's feet, the other hand teased and tickled the anal entrance of the junior reporter. The mixed feelings all of that sent through Kazumi's body promptly pushed her into another screaming orgasm that swallowed the soft 'Clop, Clop' sounds of hooves against the tiles.

"- ah, so there you are, Your Majesty, I see you must have dropped a -" Twilight Sparkle-san, with a towel flung over her back, around the shoulders, if horses really had shoulders, which was something Kazumi couldn't even begin to fathom now, had just stopped a few steps away from the couple, while one of her eyes bugged out and the other one shrank down.

Kazumi looked over at the young talking winged unicorn representative from a country of talking horses while she reeled from the orgasm brought to her by the dragon controlling queen still placed above her, and decided that her life had reached a point of no return, as is most often the case when you are caught in sex with dragon royalty by talking animals.

"- I haven't seen anything!" the alicorn princess stiffly said, then backed the hell away, and moments later, heavy sounds of galloping could be heard down the hallway.

Kazumi covered her own eyes with a forearm and grumbled. "Please keep going."

That was the first time any royalty actually obeyed one of her instructions. (Negi didn't really count, in Kazumi's opinion, since he neither had any functional authority nor had been raised with it.) Asakura decided she liked being obeyed by royalty very much.

* * *

"- and that's why I think importing a live tiger for the Festival is a very bad idea," Suzushiro Haruka finished her exposition, slamming both hands on the meeting table of the Student Council's reunion room, making her large breasts bounce under the tight uniform's shirt.

"Okay, how about a zebra, then?" asked Shizuru, apparently taking notes about Haruka's points but actually just sketching Natsuki (and a random Konoka here and there) in her favorite notebook. "It basically achieves the same exotic effect without -"

The door flew open, and in walked Tenjouin Saki, closely followed as always by her cronies Aya and Rin. "Excuse me!" the newcomer blonde said, in response to Haruka's deadly icy stare and the mild confusion of the rest of them. She favored Tate, Kanzaki Reito AND Kikukawa Yukino with a calculated sensuous smile before stopping right before Shizuru's seat, telling her, "I need to speak with you. In private."

"Anything that can be discussed with her during business hours must be discussed in presence of the rest of the Council," Haruka growled, while Yukino quietly fanned herself behind her, her cheeks oddly pink.

Shizuru actually nodded at that. "She is right, Tenjouin-san," she said, marking a historical first. "We were debating academy logistics of the utmost importance."

"It won't take long," Saki promised, her tone unflinching.

"No matter how long it might take, private matters are to be treated after meeting hours," Haruka intervened in a very curt tone. "The President has no time for games or trivialist issues right now."

"It's not about anything trivial," the other blonde shot back, making sure to emphasize that word. "It's ... well, since we are neighbors, there's been a leak between our rooms, and -"

Shizuru perked up in very mild alarm.

"Then call a plumberologist!" an exasperated Haruka told her. "Do we look like we fix pipe tubes while killing turtles in the sewer system?"

A small drop of sweat appeared on Reito's head. "I'm sure real plumbers don't hunt for killer turtles, Haruka-san. Outside of New Jersey, at least."

Saki clenched her teeth. "But ... the President's room is ... flooding, you see, because there have been wet leaks since last night."

"Oh my," Shizuru quietly said.

"And of course, it's my duty as her neighbor - and friend," Saki boasted with a knowing smile, "to inform her of what I know. I'm afraid something may have been broken after her last visit with Kuga-san, Konoe-san and Sakurazaki-san."

"I believe that this is important," Shizuru abruptly said, standing up. "Please handle matters in my absence as you think best, Reito-san, Haruka-san."

"But -" Haruka began grumbling.

"Thank you, I knew you'd understand. I'm indebted to you!" her nemesis said, taking Saki by a hand and quickly leading her out of the room, leaving Tate utterly shocked as they passed by before him.

Then, Rin bowed politely for the rest of the council and walked out after her mistress and the other Ojou.

Aya and Yukino's gazes, for a moment, locked on each other. During that split second, there was a spark of primal communion between them, a very brief sense of sisterhood between kindred souls. Or so Yukino thought, in her momentary daze, but before she knew it, Aya was gone as well.

Haruka looked bristling and red-faced for a moment, her expression clenching tightly in a mask of fury. But then her face relaxed into a wry, sly smirk, and she hummed to herself, "Indebted, hmmmm? All of you are my witnesses to that, aren't you? Yukino?"

"Hmmm?" the bespectacled girl pushed her glasses up. "Um, oh, sure thing, Haruka-chan!"

"Man," Tate muttered, still looking at the door. "This isn't going to end well either, will it? I already can feel it."

Reito laughed lightly, making Tate cringe. "Come on, Tate-kun, you are still paranoid about things. Let's all move on already. So, about that zebra ..."

"Can't we get the same effect on a much smaller budget painting a horse on black and white stripes?" asked Haruka.

* * *

"So, at last, the great and powerful Fujino Shizuru admits her true place in the establishment of Mahora," Tenjouin Saki boasted, arms folded, in the middle of the wide field of lillies behind the headquarters of the Student Council. "It is fitting, after all, for a President to rank beneath a Queen!"

"Is this all about feeding your ego, Tenjouin-san?" Shizuru coldly said. "I believed you had enough people to take care of that already."

"Oh my. Defiant to the end," Saki smirked. "I really love that in a rival, and I must say, other than Lala-san, you came closer to that than anyone, Fujino-san. I really regret Suzushiro-san can't see how I bested her at discovering your shameful weak points, but she'd only rush to bring about your downfall."

"At the very least, despite all her many, many flaws, Suzushiro-san would never stoop low enough to resort to blackmail on flimsy premises, Tenjouin-san," Fujino evenly replied.

The blonde took a hand to her own chest. "Blackmail? Blackmail implies extortion, a trick for lessers to take advantage of their betters. And there is nothing that you have that I don't have already, Fujino-san, so of course I couldn't be blackmailing you! Would you call it blackmail, Rin, Aya?" She turned to her two followers, who waited a few steps behind Saki, with the air of an innocent accused damsel.

"Of course not, Saki-sama!" Aya said quick and energetically. Rin denied with her head, but her expression was far more reluctant than her partner's.

Saki nodded to herself and turned back towards Shizuru. "If anything, I'm doing you a favor ... by letting you know how careless you have been, before others, like Suzushiro-san, can exploit you without a fair warning."

"Thanks, then," Shizuru said, in a perfectly pleasant tone that still chilled Aya and Rin.

Saki frowned. She was expecting far more despair and angst. "As for the alleged flimsiness of my premises, let me assure you - I have undeniable audio evidence of your misdeeds. No one will be able to mistake your characteristic voice when ... I mean, if ... they hear it."

"I'll take that as praise for the qualities of my voice," Shizuru said, with a brighter fearsome smile, and making sure to exaggerate her accent just a bit.

"Ah, yes, well," Saki coughed. "Since we are neighbors and almost equals, I will make an exception and bend the rules only this time, as a favor to the academic community that has come to rely on you so much."

"Oh dear, how benevolent," Shizuru said.

"Indeed," Saki replied. "And after all, my heart, always open to the turbulent passions of youthful love, has taken pity on your base but understandable urges. As a matter of fact, I'll gladly help you to overcome them. Tell me, then, how did you come to involve yourself in such a scandalous situation with your beloved, even though she always acted cold and distant before."

"Oh, so I do have something that you don't, after all," Shizuru plainly said, making Saki's teeth grind together. "You don't have to be so shy, Tenjouin-san. I'd be perfectly happy to help you catch your own beloved's fancy without the need for reverse psychology, but, alas ..." She looked aside with a hand on a cheek. "I am nothing but an apprentice in the arts of love myself. As you'd no doubt know if you had been paying attention, Konoe-san was guiding me the whole time. If you are looking for advice on the arts of seduction, you should look to her."

Part of being a good leader, as her father had taught Shizuru, was delegating responsibilities to others. Especially when those others were at fault to begin with.

"I wasn't using psychology -" a red-faced Saki began babbling, before settling for a mild, "Konoe-san, huh?"

Shizuru nodded.

"Konoe-san," Saki repeated, chewing on one of her thumbs, before nodding. "Um, it's not like I have anything to ask her at all, of course, but I just remembered I have important queenly matters to attend elsewhere. Come along, Aya, Rin," she quickly began leading her henchgirls away.

Shizuru waved at them, still with the same placid smile, until they were out of sight. Then she pulled her cellphone out. "Konoka-san? It's me. There's trouble heading your way."

* * *

"Dear Princess Celestia; today, I learned how different customs from other species should be respected, even if we have to ... ahhhh, no, that won't work either!" Twilight stopped pacing around her room and bopped her fore hooves against her forehead, just below the horn. "I can't even tell her what's going on! Maybe I should adopt the Pinkie Principle, even if I haven't promised anything yet?" she wondered aloud, her right eyebrow pulsing. "I got it! Spike, take note -" she eagerly said, before deflating sadly. "Oh. That's right."

She took a melancholic look at the rest of her bedroom and sighed.

* * *

_Mundus Magicus, Equestria, Ponyville:_

The rainstorm was heavy and furious, and in the darkness of the Carousel Boutique, Rarity sighed as Sweetie Belle cuddled up in bed against her. "Very well, you win, you can sleep here tonight."

"Thank you, Sister."

Then there was a purr coming from her other side.

"You too, of course, Opal."

Then, there was a pause.

"Spike," Rarity finally said, struggling to keep her calm, "Are you sure Twilight let you sleep with her during storms? Because I don't remember her ever mentioning that."

He hummed as he cozily snuggled against her flank. "You're so much more generous than her."

At times like this, she wished she could have landed Honesty.

* * *

"Fu, fu, fu, fu..." a low throaty chuckle that was almost as evil and disturbing as Discord's (or possibly the other way around, but that determination would require more experiences with it, which Twilight fortunately lacked as yet) came from right behind her, startling the alicorn and making her spin around in a defensive stance, horn shining. She didn't lower her guard when she realized it was the mistress of the resort who had snuck behind her. "So, my little pony is indeed as innocent and naive as her appearance would convey! I expected a bit more nerve from a student of Celestia, but then, you're still young. Did she ever tell you about Sunset Shimmer?"

"I **defeated** Sunset Shimmer," Twilight Sparkle said, standing her ground still.

"Big-whooping accomplishment," Evangeline, clad in only a light black teddy, examined her long black fingernails with an aloof air. "And yet, after all of that, Cel hasn't seen fit to tell you about the birds and bees yet?"

"I know about ... those things, it's just it hasn't-" Twilight started a protest before asking, "Wait, are you aware of what they were doing back there?"

"I am aware of everything that happens in this place, child ... filly ... whatever." The immortal vampire folded her arms. "And don't ever forget that."

"Aaaanndddd ... didn't it bother you?"

"Not particularly, no, as long as they bother to clean up afterwards. Which I know they will."

"Okayyyy. That's ... good to know, I suppose."

"Yes."

"And I imagine that's related to how you could appear in my room without any warning, not even a slight pulse of magic before the -"

"**My** room, which I generously allow you use despite my best judgment," Evangeline growled.

"Ah, naturally." A beat ensued. "Thanks again for that."

"Hmmmm," Eva said. And then, with a shrug of shoulders, "I don't really mind if you tell Celestia about any of this. Like she'd ever move her fat hindquarters off that throne unless she really had to anyway." Before Twilight could voice her protest about this choice of words, Evangeline continued, "She's always been the live and let live type, in any case. So you can stop angsting over it, little one. I've had my fill of angsty people hanging around my place by now!"

_"Up yours, Eva," said Marceline, elsewhere._

"Thanks, once more, that's really ... did you say 'any' of this? Do you mean there's even more to this than...?"

"Hrrrmmmm, yes, actually, this is all part of our evil project to see how many we can wrap into a web of carnal sin with Boya before I grow bored with it. You know, standard evil overlord entertainment, although I don't think King Sombra was into that. I heard he was impotent. The Dragon Queen was teaching Asakura how to better pleasure a lover. Is teaching, actually. They should be going for the sausage prize any moment now."

"Aaa-aahhhhh?" Twilight managed to ask despite her unhinged jaw.

"Yes, Boya's already been with me, Asakura, Kagurazaka, Konoe, Sakurazaki and that Hasegawa girl you briefly met during the victory party. Oh, and some other random girl from the Academy, I think," Eva carelessly said as she headed for the room's door, without looking back. "But they all need to improve at it, so that's what they're working on before we can expand the circle further. Not that such things concern you. Evil or not, we aren't into bestiality, sorry. Well, except for Murakami and Kugimiya, maybe..."

"But! B-Buh-But -!"

"I said no, sorry!" Eva nonchalantly said before walking out the door. "Good night!"

"I DIDN'T MEAN THAT!" Twilight shrieked before the door shut close behind the tiny blonde.

And then her snout crunched up into a frown.

* * *

"I see, so that's how it is," Konoka said as she sat across her dinner table facing Saki and her two friends. She didn't sound terribly upset about being exposed, much to Saki's continued exasperation. "Then, are you angry at us?"

"Angry?" Saki blinked at the unexpected word. "Uh ... it's not like I should be angry, since after all I'm above such matters. Upset about the academy's moral standards being violated by people I considered my peers, sure, but -"

"I'm so sorry to have disappointed your expectations, Sempai." Konoka bowed, which made Saki shiver inwardly. After hitting a block with Fujino, she had expected for more success with the younger girl, but to her frustration, this girl was in even greater control of herself than Fujino. "May I do something, anything, to make up to you?" she asked.

_Ah-hah, an opening!_ Saki crowed, like the panther congratulating itself while advancing towards easy bait. "Well," she said, looking aside in pondering, "I really want to help you cope with this situation, that's all I ask for. Good deeds are their own rewards, aren't they? But if I am going to steer you away from the wrong path, I need to know how you got onto it. Which steps you took to swamp yourself so deeply into immorality."

"Ah, that would be a very long story, Sempai," Konoka mused. "Asuna and Negi-kun will arrive shortly, and I haven't cooked dinner yet."

Rin stood up. "I'll cook for you, so you don't have to concern yourself, Konoe-sama," she said. "For the time being, nothing is more important than this conversation with Saki-sama."

"Oh, that's very kind of you," Konoka smiled. "Sempai is really fortunate to have you as -"

"Wait," Saki realized something. "You just said 'Negi-kun'. Is he coming back after all?"

"Oh, that's right, you didn't know that part yet," Konoka said. "Well, since we were going to ask for your help with the project eventually anyway, and you'll share everything with Kujou-sempai and Fujisaki-sempai, I suppose I might as well tell you now, before we have anymore unfortunate misunderstandings."

Saki blinked. "What ... what do you mean?"

Konoka smiled and pulled a small wand out of her breast pocket. "You have had several adventures with aliens, so I assume you aren't the type that gets rattled easily over the supernatural and superhuman anymore, are you, Sempai?"

"I'm not the type that gets rattled easily, period," Saki's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I demand to know what kind of game are you trying to play here -"

_"Lux,"_ Konoka said, after a few other seemingly random words in what sounded like Latin, waving the wand a little, and a blinding flash filled the room.

Saki rubbed her eyes. "Konoe-san! what was the point of trying to blind me with that toy?"

A few minutes of explanation later, Saki learned that she **was** easily rattled.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle pouted, posing before her room's mirror, intently looking at the back part of herself that most humans of Mundus Magicus, for some reason, would call a 'plot' when talking about Equestrian ponies.

"How could this not be attractive? I know it's another species, but still..."

She shook her head to herself and went for a book. She needed to distract herself from that train of thoughts. She really needed to.

* * *

Asuna and Negi slept together, naked, in Negi's bedroom at the resort, quietly holding each other.

They made such a beautiful sight, now that the raging passion of their mating had given pass to the calm relaxation (so rarely seen in either of them lately) of their shared rest. They were a lovely vision of youthful raw charm, embracing in innocent sin, if such a thing existed. It was a thing that would have warmed even the coldest of hearts.

Unfortunately, while Evangeline's heart was briefly warmed up, she made sure to quickly turning the cold back on.

"WAKE UP ALREADY, YOU LAZY BUMS!" she boomed, punting Negi and Asuna out of bed, making them fly in opposite directions flailing their arms around. "IT'S TIME TO LEAVE ALREADY!"

* * *

Asakura panted and wheezed as she finally gathered enough strength to get up from Daenerys' bed, shakily reaching for her clothes.

"That," the blond woman coolly told her from where she still rested on her back, "was the first course in your bedroom education. You have done remarkably well for a beginner. For your next lesson, I will coordinate you in actual intercourse with your mate."

Now Asakura did look back at her, pausing while she had been clipping her bra back on. "What," she said.

* * *

Lina Inverse stopped at the bath's edge and sniffed. "_What_ were these people doing here last night?"

Marceline, who was more worldly about such subjects, just moved into the water, because not all vampires are weakened by it. Somewhere else, Akashiya Moka experienced an unexplained ephemeral pang of envy. "Probably nothing that you'd want to learn about."

* * *

As they left Evangeline's cottage behind, Asuna asked Negi, "Aren't you the slightest bit worried about what they'll do while they're here?"

"Hmmm? Oh, you mean our Mundus Magicus friends?"

"Friends is kinda stretching it, but yeah."

Negi shrugged. "I doubt Twilight-san will want to or even be able to leave the cottage as long as she's here, so no one should be startled by her presence at Mahora."

"I don't mean her!" Asuna said. "I'm worried about letting the perverted breast maniac, the rocker vampire, the mercenary black mage, and, worst of all, Rakan, on the loose in Mahora!"

Negi stopped abruptly.

"So now you see, huh?" Asuna huffed.

Negi, visibly shaken, still kept on marching ahead. "I'm sure Eishun-sama, the Master and Takamichi will keep a watchful eye on them."

* * *

"Damn it," Takahata muttered. "Jack slipped away again? I thought you were keeping a watchful eye on him!"

"I thought _you_ were!" Eishun claimed.

Godel smiled while enjoying his breakfast. Well, now that they were out of the resort, it was technically his dinner. "Oh, were we supposed to be babysitting him? Last time I saw him, he was with that bounty hunter from Black Dog, talking about a panty raid of some sort."

Takahata stared daggers at him.

Godel vaguely shrugged. "Did you think I'd involve myself with such trivial matters, even if only to stop them?"

"You are enjoying this, aren't you," Eishun accused.

"Me? Enjoying watching my old comrades in arms squirm in dread for once? That's just preposterous."

Lina walked past them, in a casual light shirt and shorts. "I'm going sight-seeing. Do you know of any good taverns around this place? Also, if any of you happen to see the Dragon Queen, could you ask her what the hell was she doing in the baths yesterday?"

* * *

"So there you have it," Konoka said, with that small sweet smile of hers.

Aya and Saki sat there, aghast, while Rin kept working at the kitchenette trying her best to remain stable despite everything she had just overheard.

Finally, Saki said, "So, you're asking for financial support on this enterprise of yours."

"A lot of people depend on it, so yes, it would be nice," Konoka said.

Saki looked down again at the album open on the table before her, examining its strange pictures of beast-men, whale-ships, witches flying on brooms and the occasional cat-eared girl, and said, "Have you told Lala-san about this?"

Konoka shook her head, then asked, "Should we?"

Saki shook her head as well, far more rapidly. "Of course not. It's good you came to me for it first. It shows you recognize true greatness over pretense when you see it."

"B-But we were the ones who came to - never mind," Aya said in a tiny voice.

"You don't have to give an answer just yet," Konoka said delicately. "We understand you couldn't have much say in your father's enterprises yet -"

"Yes I do!" Saki sounded offended.

Konoka blinked. "I didn't intend to -"

Saki folded her arms. "Don't mistake me for an easily impressed person! I have seen and experienced even more strange incidents than you have. As for my father's business, he greatly respects my opinion." That was true in her own mind, at least. "Whenever you decide to approach him, I will support you."

"Thanks a million, Sempai," Konoka said.

Aya was moved to the brink of tears, which admittedly wasn't difficult at all whenever Saki-sama was involved. _Oh, Saki-sama! Always quick to help those in need! Always a champion of the lost and the underdog! Generously sharing your wealth with those living in your shadow! And THAT WAY your bright smile tugs upwards when you bask in that sincere knowledge of how you wonderful you are…  
_  
"So, about helping me conquer Zastin-sama's heart..." Saki said.

_... although your tastes in men could use some improvement,_ Aya thought.

"Oh. That," Konoka replied, blinking. "Um, to be sure ... I'm not that sure I could help you. The only man I've ever, for lack of a better term, gotten, is Negi-kun, and he was ... receptive. I have no idea how could I seduce a man who ... ahhhhh ..."

"A man who paid you no attention?" Saki frowned.

"I wasn't trying to say that!" Konoka quickly said. "I barely know anything about him at all, so I couldn't find the right words. All I know about him is he often follows Lala-sempai around and seems to work for her, and you're in love with him but he, for some incomprehensible reason or another, hasn't responded the way you'd like him to."

Saki sniffed. "I blame his old fashioned, chivalrous and admirable but still outdated, code of property. That's why I want you help! If you got even a typical English gentleman like Sensei wrapped around your finger, you also could do the same for a hot blooded adult male! That is, I mean, not that you'd get him, but I'd get him, by acting like you, to some degree at least, not like I'd go th-th-that far, it's just -"

"But you'd need Asuna for that," Konoka said. "She was the one to pop Negi-kun's cherry, I only went in after her."

Saki took a hand to her forehead and rubbed it. First Fujino sent her to Konoe, now Konoe sent her to Kagurazaka. It was starting to look like they only were messing around with her. "... very well. And when could I speak on the subject with Kagurazaka-san, then?"

"Tadaima!" Asuna said from the front door, and then she and Negi stopped when they noticed the visitors. "Oh, hey there. Good afternoon, there, um ... what were your names again?"

"Tenjouin-san, Fujisaki-san!" Negi bowed. "What a pleasure to see you, but it's also very unexpected. Is there something we can help you with?"

"... how do you remember this stuff?" Asuna asked.

"Ah, Negi-kun, Asuna-chan!" Konoka waved. "Guess what, Tenjouin-san will help us with the Space Elevator! And all she's asking for in return are tips on how to fuck the boy she likes! Isn't she just wonderful?"

Aya began choking violently on her saliva as Negi and Saki's faces were rushed over by a sudden flood of flesh-coloring blood. Rin's head slowly peeked out the kitchen, threateningly.

Asuna, meanwhile, only hummed. "Oh, that's right, now I remember you. You're the Campus Queen, aren't you?"

"Ahhhh ... yes," Saki said, with a far lower tone (and far less hammy choice of words) than she'd normally have used to answer that question.

And Asuna smiled very widely. "Well, sorry for forgetting that, then! Of course we'll help you, Sempai! Man, man, we have to be doing something just right if even the most beautiful and popular girl in campus comes to us for help."

"Ah, ah, why yes, thanks, you're, um, far more perceptive than Ayaka-san gives you credit for, but you'll see, he's a very special man, so of course he will need nothing short of special ... effort," Saki lamely finished.

Asuna wagged a finger. "Tsk tsk, all men, elite or not, like the same things, Sempai. No matter how much they'll deny it, right, Negi?"

"I'm Nagi, not Negi, I -" he said, blubbering on uncertainty on how much could be said in the presence of the visitors, even after Konoka's F-Bomb.

Picking up on that, Asuna asked her friend, "Do they know everything?"

Konoka shrugged. "Maybe I went too fast?"

After a moment of considerations, Asuna settled for a "Nahhh." And then she moved closer to Konoka. "You'll see, Sempai, all men, well, all straight men anywhere, react the same, basically, to a few things they can't resist, regardless of upbringing and social position. Simple things any girl with the right mindset can achieve. Things like - pay attention - this."

And she lowered her face and began to slow, sensually kiss Konoka's mouth, while Saki's eyes bugged out and Aya stumbled backwards into her chair.

Rin blinked twice, then quickly retreated back into the kitchen.

"- I have to do **that** to impress a man?" Saki said weakly, while Asuna and Konoka tugged on each other's clothes, falling onto the couch at the same time. Negi remained behind, sighing and facepalming. "Suh-Surely there must be easier, far less questionable ways!"

"No doubt," Negi said, arms crossed now. "Although I'm no expert on male seduction myself. But it seems this is Asuna and Konoka's way, so maybe you'd feel better looking elsewhere."

Aya nodded very fast, hiding her blushing face between her hands but still peeking between her fingers. "Th-That's some very good advice, Saki-sama!"

The blonde stared, with train wreck morbid fascination, at the way Asuna was tugging Konoka's skirt down her legs before pushing her panties' crotch aside and diving in mouth-first. "They are... very liberated," she observed, in a dry gasp.

"Well," Negi tried to be philosophical about it, "repeated near-death experiences tend to change people's attitudes towards life and social customs. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the ... but it's useless to dwell on that. I'm really sorry you had to see this, if you want to sue, not to pressure you or anything, and normally I'd fully justify and even endorse you, but just please remember too many lives hinge on -"

_"Oh God,"_ Saki interrupted him, a hand on her mouth as she saw Konoka arch her back and scream a high note of pleasure.

"- and this is all my fault anyway, don't ask just trust me on this, so you can take it out on me with any amount of violence you'd -"

_"Shhhh!"_ Saki interrupted him again, now blocking his mouth with a hand. Blushing even more, she chewed on her lower lip. "T-T-T-Tenjouin S-S-S-Saki never backs away once she sets her mind to something! If, if this is the way to appeal to a man's sensibilities -" She dared to look down at Negi's crotch. "- and I'd say it is, then so, so, so be it!" She puffed her chest up in shaking self-reassurance. Then she began rubbing her own chin. "B-B-But it's not like, I, I had any girls willing to put on such a show with me ... a fake show in my-my-my case, that is, because I'm not -"

Negi yelped and covered his privates with a hand, reprimanding himself inwardly over his lack of control on that field of all things. Then he realized something, "What, what did you just say?"

Aya had gone pale, her blush leaving the path free for a cadaveric hue of washed down shock. "N-No one willing, you said?" And then, as if an afterthought, "Fake?"

"Tenjouin-san!" Negi gaped. "Think of what you're saying! Such a display before a man would only make him -"

"Jealous? Mad with desire?" Saki guessed - quite wrongly, by the by. "Yes, perhaps that's exactly what it's needed! We never know what we have until we have lost it, isn't that right? And desperate times call for desperate measures! Aya, take notes! This kind of obscene display might be what is needed to finally spurn Zastin-sama into action! Also, get me a really able and good looking actress who can feign this sort of ... stunt with me."

"Actress? Display?" Aya echoed faintly.

Sitting at the kitchenette, out of their sight, Rin shook her head to herself and quietly ate from the meal she had just finished.

"Nonsense!" Asuna grunted, sitting up between the panting, flushed Konoka's spread legs, and licking leftover juices from her fingers. "This kind of ... stunt, as you call it, can't be feigned. Now c'mere, Negi, let's show them the next step on this happy process."

"But Asuna," Negi observed, "that is completely irrational, you surely are joking, you can't expect -"

Asuna gave him The Look. "Now, Negi."

He gulped. "You and the Master were serious about that, after all?"

"Yes, we were," Asuna firmly said, stepping aside and patting Konoka's exposed crotch. "Now make sure of showing 'em a good rodeo, cowboy."

"I don't think you should compare Konoka to any sort of -"

"She said now, Negi-kun!" Konoka whined.

Negi sighed and began reaching for his belt.

* * *

Minutes later, he was thrusting into Konoka while a bewildered Saki and Aya watched on, and in the kitchen, Rin resorted to sticking her fingers into her ears and grinding her teeth until they screeched.

Saki rubbed her legs together, imagining that was her in Konoe's prone position as her valiant Zastin grabbed her legs and pushed over and over into her womanhood, eyes squeezed tightly, mighty jaw clenched. Without even realizing it, she had started touching herself again over her skirt as she thought of that, although occasionally, Zastin's image would briefly blink off in her mind's eye and instead she'd think of Negi-sensei copulating with her.

Gaaaahhhh.

"Gaaaahhhh!" a startled Saki cried, joined by Aya's shrill shriek half a second later. They had failed to realized a now naked Asuna had sneaked behind them and cupped their sexes in her hands, squeezing them fondly. "What, what in the, the world are you-!"

"Well, just look at it, someone's definitely wet now." Asuna ran her tongue down Saki's neck as she touched her, doing her best not to think of any other stuck up blond rich bitch as she did so. "You like what you see, huh? Even you," she purred huskily, playing with Aya's crotch area under her skirt and over her panties, making the smaller girl shiver. Such a wonderful mid-level boss she was turning out to be, Eva-chan would be proud. "No need to be shy now, after we've come so far, right? After all, we're all girls and a brat here, nothing less, nothing more."

The fingers went in under Aya's panties and into her core, and the bespectacled girl squirmed, but didn't fight it.

Then Saki blinked, looking at the way her face was cutely contorting into now, and she had an idea. Why to pay a professional actress? Economy always made good sense, after all, and Aya-chan would always follow her anywhere, all for free, and besides, at that moment, she looked so... so...

Saki licked her own dry lips, steeled herself as best as she could, and then, on a moment's whim, leaned aside and planted her lips on Aya's.

Aya's mind suddenly exploded into a multicolor paradise that turned into a raging fire in her nethers.

* * *

Still in the kitchen, Rin turned the radio on, turned the volume as high as it would go, and used mental discipline gained from years of sword practice since she could walk to further tune out the multiple moans of delight and even twisted pain. She wouldn't touch herself. She would be better than Sakurazaki-san. She would honor her post by not stooping low enough to -

Rin started touching herself, banging her head against a wall as she did so.

And then -

_"Ahhhhh,"_ Negi-sensei's hoarse sigh of discharge came to her ears, making everything worse.

And that awful Kagurazaka whore sing-sang _"Ohhh, so you're done there, Negi-kun! Now you'll teach a poor student in need how to better handle the man of her dreams, won't you?"_

**"WHAAAAAAAT!"** Saki-sama screamed.

Rin knew it was her duty to go out and protect her lady's honor by fighting those heels to the death. But then again, just this once, she did think it was something Saki-sama had brought on herself. Ryuuga-sama himself would even probably approve of his daughter being taught this lesson.

Probably.

Besides, Rin hadn't reached her own limit just yet.

* * *

"N-N-No, wait, Zastin-sama is the only man for m-me," Saki's voice quaked madly as Asuna and Konoka slooooowly pushed a stiff in more than one sense Negi towards her.

"Great, then we won't have to get jealous over you, isn't that right?" Asuna asked. "C'mon, girl, don't you know men like their women with experience? That they tend to get disappointed when they have to be with an inexperienced woman who doesn't know how to pleasure them?"

Saki blinked. "Do they?"

"Do we?" Negi asked, just as bewildered.

"Aye," Asuna nodded, letting a bit from that old Mundus Magicus self of hers filter in for just a moment. "Of course you do! Kono-chan, Setsuna-san and me are exceptions because we're just that awesome, but that's common knowledge."

Negi blinked. "Perhaps I should start reading more on the subject."

"Don't bother," Asuna said in a tone of breezy command.

Saki looked down at the long half-erect meat mast, with a just as frazzled Aya also peeking at it from behind Tenjouin's shoulder. Then the blonde sighed, lowered herself to her knees, and, with Asuna and Konoka's guidance, timidly began licking the unit's tip. Then she made a face. "I don't like the taste," she said, while Aya went to rest against a wall, hyperventilating.

"Th-Then you shouldn't -" Negi was starting to object, reaching for his pants, which currently were pooled around his ankles. But Asuna's hands on his stopped him from pulling them up.

"Geez, it's not about the taste, it's about -" Then she sniffed the penis and frowned. "No wonder. I told you to bathe before coming here, didn't I?"

"Sorry," he sheepishly said.

"Dammit, always embarrassing us before everyone," Asuna grumbled, pulling Saki's small hand on the cock. "It's okay, then, we aren't evil enough as to make you suck on a smelly cock. Jerk it, then."

"J-J-J-Jerk?" Saki almost trembled out of her skin.

"Like this," Konoka said while guiding Saki's hand up and down the hardening member. Negi groaned his shame. "Just imagine it's that boy's, and the rest will come naturally."

"I feel my individuality strangely threatened," Negi quietly shared.

"H-He's not a 'boy', he's all a man," Saki said uneasily, but nonetheless her hand began gaining more confidence and skill after several moments of coaching, until Asuna and Konoka felt like letting it go.

Meanwhile, Rin had pulled a tissue out of her pocket, and wiped herself clean, then tossed it into a nearby trash basket and sighed, pulling her pants back up. It was at that point when she clearly began hearing words again, after a long period marked only by Negi and Saki's gasps and gulps, and Aya's tumultuous breathing.

"I don't know, this is going too far," Saki was saying.

"Come on, from what you were babbling while refusing to continue yet keeping sucking, he's some sort of badass space army man, isn't he?" Kagurazaka was arguing. "Do you truly think he's been with nothing but innocent and virginal naive girls while on campaigns? He's gonna be so let down if he has to deal with pulling all the weight on your honeymoon."

"Th-That's such a crass way to put it!" Saki was yelling.

"I'm just shocked you decided to suck him off after all," Konoka was musing. "Because it really smells now. No offense, Negi-kun."

"This is all such a bad idea!" Negi was lamenting.

"Then why aren't you flying away faster than we could follow you, since you can clearly do that?" Asuna was challenging.

"Ububububububu," Aya was lamenting incoherently.

And then, a defeated, "Okay. Fine. I'll do it. B-But I'll ruin you all if this goes wrong!"

"It's your own choice, Sempai."

"Like everything else I do in my life! Ngh! Snrt! Ow! It's big! Aya, help me getting it in! RIN, WHERE ARE YOU!"

Rin sighed very deeply, stood up, and walked out to where a half naked Konoe and Kagurazaka were holding Saki-sama, naked except for the bra hanging around her midsection, above a pantless Negi-sensei, prone on his back on the floor. Aya, also bare from the waist down, was clumsily trying to help the member fit into Saki's passage, but her attempts at doing so while avoiding contact with the cock only made it all even worse.

Rin squeezed her fists tightly for a moment, considered giving the boy an extra dose of the usual Anti-Yuuki Rito Treatment, considered doing it for everyone present there instead, and then -

"RIIIIIN, DON'T JUST STAND THERE!" Saki whined.

Rin knelt down besides her, pushed Aya's hand aside, and said, in a remarkably calm and even tone, "Saki-sama, no wonder it won't go in. You are far too tense, so you are contracting excessively. You need to relax and accept him inside."

"H-H-How do I do thaAAAAAAA -!" Saki shouted when Rin began fondling and licking gently on her left breast, gesturing for Aya to do the same for the other one. At first, the bespectacled girl refused with vehement motions of her head, but Rin scowled and kept urging her with nearly threatening gestures. Meekly, Aya placed herself at Saki's other side and began tentatively playing with her right mammary. "Aaaaannnhhhhhh," Saki continued the sound she'd started making at the start of this experience.

A moment later, seeing the blonde relax at last, Negi exhaled, grabbed her hips, and pushed up and in, finally penetrating her.

* * *

A few minutes later, they seemed to have reached a more or less stable rhythm. It looked like Saki was really in pain at first, which along the drops of blood on the carpet really made Negi gasp and panic. (The fingers of Rin tightening around his neck had nothing to do with it.) But his initiative to pull out was aborted by Saki herself, who stubbornly refused to do what commoners would have called 'chickening out'. After all, if she couldn't take this one, how would she ever be able to handle Zastin-sama's no doubt much longer and thicker paragon of virility?

_Elsewhere, half a city away, in the baths of a certain manga studio, Yuuki Saibai blinked, seeing Zastin unzip his pants and start using the urinal right next to his._

_Wow, that was unexpectedly small. At least it made him feel better about his own._

Back in Negi's living quarters and palace of carnal pleasures, Negi had turned Saki around and now pumped into her from behind, carefully, as in the background, Asuna was grabbing Aya by the shoulders and whispering something to her. The short girl kept on refusing to go along with whatever Asuna was suggesting, shaking her head vehemently, until something Asuna said seemed to hit her particularly hard. After that, she allowed herself to be guided along towards Saki's upper section. After Asuna yanked Aya's top up, including her brassiere, she pushed the girl's lower quarters towards Saki's face.

"Now, it's time for what we call a combination chain," Asuna instructed, although she had only thought of the term herself. "Lower yourself slowly, yes, like that, don't tremble that much, Glasses-Sempai. Yesss, that's it," she said, grabbing one of Saki's hands when the heiress flinched at having her mouth filled with vulva. "Quiet, there. Don't freak out. Lick her there, and pay special attention to this," she said, caressing Aya's clitoris with a finger and making her groan. This groan became a shrill cry when Saki's tongue was put where the finger had been. "Yeah, yeah, you got it, see, it isn't that hard."

"Asuna, Saki-san, I'm going to, I'm going to -" Negi urged, puffing in near release.

Asuna reached over, grabbed his buttocks strongly, and rasped, _"Fill 'er up."_

"B-But!"

_"Fill 'er up, Negi,"_ Asuna repeated herself. Saki would have objected had her mouth not been busy. Rin would have objected had she not been in a heated sidelines sixty nine with Konoka, trying to show her she could outdo Setsuna in at least one thing. (She couldn't, really, but damn if she wasn't trying her best.) Aya would have protested if she hadn't been so busy throbbing in climax, in the dream of being pleasured by her beloved Saki-sama, small breasts bouncing up and down as best as they could. And Negi would have protested and even pulled out anyway had Aya not chosen that moment to vent her orgasming libido somehow by clumsily mashing her lips against his, pushing her tongue inside of his mouth.

The prince's hips jerked, and up his seed went into the Queen of Mahora.

After several moments marked by Negi's spasmic motions, which finally brought Saki to her own climax, he rolled off her, hiding his face between his hands in shame. He was gone, and he knew it. He kept falling lower and lower. And the worst thing was ...

"It's still hard," Saki absently babbled, looking at what still remained stiff and proud.

"Yeah, it takes a long to knock the wind out of him. So then, who's next?" Asuna looked around the others. Seeing Konoka and Rin still were giving no signs of finishing, she looked at the red-faced, panting Aya. "Wanna a ride, Sempai?"

"B-Buh, but, I don't, I'm not a -"

"You always follow Queen-Sempai wherever she goes, don't you?" Konoka asked between slurping licks. "Are you going fail her now?"

"Fai-ling-?" Aya gasped, going pale now. She looked at Saki, who seemed mostly out of it but blinked unfocusedly at her, and made her mind as best as she could. Swallowing hard, she crawled over the still prone Negi and lined herself up with his big thing. "Please be gentle, Sensei," she begged in a tiny voice. "It'll be my first time."

"Of, of course," he said, gently grabbing her slim bare, sweaty hips, and then slowly entering her. She clung to him and bit on his shoulder as her maidenhood was broken, with Asuna lightly caressing her slick back and cooing comfort into her ear from behind. Aya closed her eyes and thought of Saki-sama.

"I'm fine," she blurted out, curling her toes and steeling herself like she did whenever she was bullied or otherwise overcome by adversity. "P-Please keep going."

So that was what he did.

By the time Konoka and Rin were done, Negi had moved Aya onto the couch and was pounding her vigorously, yet striving to be as gentle as he could. Saki had moved to kneel on the couch behind Aya's head so she could return the favor the blonde had earlier paid upon her, to which Aya was more than happy to agree. With her hands cupping Saki's full buttocks, Aya kept tonguing and licking at her young mistress' core, all the while the blonde and Negi kissed and fondled each other's torsos.

Asuna seemed oddly satisfied while watching that, standing nearby with her arms folded. "Kagurazaka-san?" Rin walked closer to the most likely disturbed individual. "Aren't you bothered by... that?"

"Hmmmm... nah," Asuna shrugged, then added, with a sad half-smile. "I suppose I should be, shouldn't I? But... it isn't as easy as to think of him as mine. Negi has become, by this point, the world's. Both of them, actually. And if loving him improves everyone as much as it has improved us, then -"

"Very well ... I think I understand you," Rin said, with a small drop of sweat on her scalp and really wishing to prevent any further ruminations on the subject. Then she noticed the way Asuna was looking up and down at her. "Um..."

"Do you want to do it?" Asuna asked her.

"Doing it with you, or with him?" Rin cautiously asked.

"Either. Or better yet, both," Asuna said, trailing a finger down Rin's chin, then her throat, and finally between her breasts. She licked her own lips before placing a quick peck on Rin's lips. Since she wasn't slapped, she continued, "By now, I assume it's safe saying you're bi, right?"

"I'm still going through a trip of self-discovery," Rin calmly said, pushing Asuna's hand aside, "But that doesn't mean I have to make every stop all along the way."

"But you just did it with Kono-chan... didn't you like it?" Asuna dared to ask, her other hand sneaking down to rub Rin's toned ass.

"It's not a matter of liking it or not, it's a matter of -"

"Asuna, coming, coming again!" Negi rasped loudly. "Do I, do I fill her too?"

Asuna sighed. "What do you think, Negi?"

"Oh God!" Negi shuddered, pulling Aya's body closer to his as he climaxed within.

Rin gave Asuna a bland glare.

"What?" Asuna asked.

"See, that's why I wouldn't do it with you," Rin said.

"Oh, come on!" Asuna pouted. "Kono-chan is that way too, aren't you, Kono-chan?"

"Guilty as charged!" Konoka smiled goofily from where she was resting watching TV, naked and splayed.

"Be that as it may," Rin said, walking past Asuna and approaching her spent friends, who supported each other and shared occasional kisses. "Perhaps I just find some physical allure in her that I don't find in you. Now, if you excuse me, I'll follow Saki-sama even to the gates of Hell, so I have to go honor my family's heritage and vows."

"Wow, that stung," Asuna flinched. "Wait, what are you saying?"

Rin didn't look back as she pushed Negi onto his back and squatted down over his hips. "Over generations, the Kujous have served the Tenjouins no matter what, no matter where, even through their darkest days and deeds. This won't be any different. Even if Saki-sama is in the wrong -"

"- I am never in the wrong-" Saki moaned as Aya nibbled on her collarbone.

Rin continued smoothly. "- sorry, I meant, even if it looks, thanks to my limited understanding, like Saki-sama is in the wrong, I would never stop following her wherever she goes." She grabbed one of Negi's hands and made it squeeze her left breast. "Like this," she finished, impaling herself in a single mighty thrust.

Konoka sighed, wiping a tear off a corner of her eye. "Aren't devoted swordgirls just lovely? If only everyone followed that beautiful code of honor!"

"Screw that noise, I'm frustrated, no one has paid me any attention yet," Asuna mumbled, stomping a bare foot down. "Hello! Commanding and gorgeous Princess here! Why hasn't anyone ravished me tonight?"

Negi grunted some sort of apology, but Rin had placed herself on him while they fucked in such a way they kissed too deeply for either to please Asuna orally.

Aya and Saki were now mostly cuddling each other, too sleepy to help.

That forced Asuna to focus back on the sole other occupant of the room.

Konoka pouted. "Can't that wait? I'm watching _Tornado Wind of Love_!"

But Asuna had already grabbed her head and shoved it between her legs.

Konoka surrendered and began paying her respects to the hairless shrine of Asuna's womanhood. After all, soon she couldn't have it anymore, she remembered ... and the pain of that made her also remember why she tried her best to keep forgetting.

Saki and her friends left two hours later, probably not any wiser, but definitely more knowledgeable.

* * *

Hours later, Tokiha Mai sat in that very same room, at the very same table where it all had started, across from the very same people who had started it, trying her damn best not to think about what she was being told had happened there.

"- and that's why we decided it'd be best for you to know regardless, so that you were aware of the reasons behind their future visits," Konoka was explaining with a sincere smile. "Because we haven't finished with their education yet, and Asuna-chan now really wants to tap those, ahem, asses before she has to go, and -"

"It's a matter of principle!" Asuna defended herself. "How can I look at Eva in the eyes after I wake up and tell her they never gave me the time of the day? I'll never hear the end of her lame Mid-Level Boss jokes!"

Mai rubbed her aching head. "Okay. I don't know exactly when you became some sort of videogame evil boss, but I suppose I have a solid enough idea of what you're saying. And I guess I should appreciate how you trust me enough to make me your accomplice in every freaking crime against morals you pull off against everyone else who steps in here."

"You're welcome," Asuna nodded as Negi hid his face between his hands. "Sit up straight, Negi. Posture is very important in a teacher and public figure."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Mostly, however," Mai reassumed her thread of conversation, "I am infinitely grateful you, for some reason, see fitting to spare me from being entangled in this sordid web of vice."

"Oh, you have a boyfriend already!" Konoka stated the obvious with an air of being quite aware of that obviousness. She decided not to mention the fact that Mai also obviously had a girlfriend and was unaware of that fact, because, well, Mai was unaware of that fact.

Mai glared at her. "Yeah. But that didn't stop you from meddling in other peoples' relationships."

"Still sore about Kuga-sempai?" Konoka wondered. "Tokiha-sempai, that's different. With them, and with Saki-sempai, we could see the doubt in their eyes, the need to belong to something bigger. They needed the push, while you are, I can tell, confident in what you are and the path you've followed. So you don't need our guidance."

"Me... confident in myself... and Tate?" she blinked, genuinely surprised. "Um, okay, sure, if you say so."

"Unless you want to join anyway," Asuna proposed, one of her feet tickling Mai's leg under the table.

Mai kicked said foot aside and firmly said "No."

Konoka nodded. "See, Asuna-chan, Negi-kun? That's the tone where No Means No. It's not the typical Tsundere denial where they say no but they mean yes. That's the simple and honest way of someone who is really doing her best not to shatter her cup and slash our throats because she genuinely considers us disgusting."

"Nonsense, Konoe-san, I'd never drink with someone if I thought so lowly of them." Mai uneasily put her cup aside and tried to shoo those treacherous disgusted thoughts aside. Was she really that easy to read, or was Konoe so scarily good? Or both? "Anyway, you really need to stop it already, or -"

The phone rang. "I'll get it!" Negi bolted up and away, all too happy to distance himself from that conversation.

Asuna snorted. "I'll bet it's Fate again, that little stalking bastard."

When Negi walked back, putting on a jacket, however, he said, "It's Rakan-san. I'll go pay his and Paio-san's fine ..."

"Who?" Mai blinked.

Asuna groaned. "People who make us look like puritans."

Mai blinked again and stood up. "Okay, um, I think I should be going now."

* * *

Rakan walked back into his containment cell of the Mahora Fifth Police District Station, escorted by two armed guards. "He's going to pull through!" he told the smaller figure sitting on a bunk, waiting for him in a thick jacket that hid her gender well and a baseball cap that barely managed concealing her horns. "I told you, I can count on my pal Negi for anything!"

"Dat's ghud tho knoth," the Chichigami said, reaching into a pocket for a tissue. The badly broken nose that woman had given her earlier that evening was acting up again. "I'll gunna shue dis shity, 'cuz I'm ath innushent ath a bhabe. Whereth dat disshue, I'm gunna ghet bluhd all ovah mah-"

She realized she had just pulled out a black brassiere instead.

The cops stared sternly at her.

"Whut? Ith mine!" she very seriously said.

* * *

**To be Continued.**


	5. Twilight Sparkle, Yue, Nodoka

You know the drill; Akamatsu and others created and own these characters and franchises. I make no money at all out of this, and I sleep in a cardboard box.

Don't read this if you're a minor, a soccer mom (unless you used to be a real wild child), or a relative of mine.

This time around, Darkenning gets extra credits for coming up with the second epilogue.

* * *

**Chapter Five**.

* * *

The room was fittingly dark and sinister, and they all had been told to come in wearing also dark robes with hoods to protect their identities, as part of the protocol. Which was stupid, to the mind of the 3-A student, but what the heck, everyone in Mahora had their weird quirks after all. Except that Hitou girl from Despair-sensei's class. She was so depressingly normal and average, she made Madoka (who at least had that thing for a boy who had turned out to be half wolf or something) outright extravagant.

"State your names," commanded the short hooded female standing at the head of the huge meeting table.

A boy pulled his hood down. Paru's big brother. "Saotome Ranma."

Another, taller boy pulled his hood down. "Harima Kenji."

A girl pulled her hood down, smirking widely, with a glint in her eyes. "Suzumiya Haruhi."

Another girl also pulled her hood down. "Yuuki Nao." And then, "Man, but this is stupid! Why do we have to put up with this idiotic secrecy crap? We all know who we are! What's the fucking point?"

The Suzumiya weirdo waved a finger at her. "Quiet, philistine, you're missing the whole purpose of having a secret society." Oh, this was so exciting! Sure, she had to put up with being a second-at-command here, but part and parcel of the fun would be eventually overthrowing the leader of the Society and annexing it to the SOS Brigade.

As Nao mumbled something quite bitter and rude under her breath, the leader pulled her own hood down. "And I," she said, "Takino Tomo. Together, standing defiant and proud, the Fight Fate Force welcomes its newest member tonight!"

There had been some votes for calling it the Fuck Fate Force, but eventually everyone agreed it'd send the wrong message.

Harima blinked, reached for the drapes of the nearest window and peeked out. "Tonight? But it's only -"

"Keep the lights out, you fool!" Tomo tossed a piece of chalk on his head, making him groan. "Tonight, we are joined by someone who stands at the middle of the disaster, right before the Great Beast himself! Someone who valiantly stands before him, in his home classroom, day after day! Her courage is second only to mine!"

"Hey!" Haruhi and Ranma growled fiercely.

"State your name, O New Ace Up the Sleeve and Spy for the Three Eef!" Tomo urged the girl next to her.

Said girl sighed and pulled her hood down, playing along. "Kakizaki Misa."

Man, she really had to be desperate about the little troll, didn't she? She felt so stupid. Maybe they were blowing it out of proportion after all? Asshole or not, the little pretty snot surely couldn't be worth the hassle...

Nahhhh, of course he was.

* * *

_Elsewhere, at the same time..._

"You've had a lot of fun at our expense, these past few weeks," Nodoka continued, as Fate stared up at her. "Welcome to the start of 3-A's counterattack." She smiled then, and went on her way.

His coffee was cold when he began drinking again.

* * *

_The Resort:_

Twilight Sparkle secured the medallion around her neck. It had been a parting gift from Princess Celestia. (Not to be mistaken for the very much human Celestia, Queen of Gamblers). This medallion had been forged from the very same crystal that had been used for the magic mirror that once sent her to another world and gave her a humanoid form. She closed her eyes, triggered her magic, and the medallion glowed, quickly changing her into a human ... although one with odd, vaguely purplish skin, and dark purple hair. The later was no problem, since it seemed almost everypony in modern Japan had hair colors that shouldn't be possible in Japan. As for the former, the weirdness censor still active over Mahora should take care of that. In the event anypony asked, she'd just say what the Princess had advised her to say.

"It's a skin condition," she repeated for the benefit of her image in her bedroom's mirror, quite proud of herself, before turning around and leaving the room on somewhat clumsy legs. Darn it, she had mostly lost the gist of how to walk on two legs since last time.

While she was getting used again to walk like a human being, she found herself face to face with Eishun-sama, who was coming back from taking his morning bath.

The courageous swordsman in a white bathrobe and sandals took a good look at the young woman who had suddenly appeared before him, and then yelled, startled and leaping back like an embarrassed damsel.

_Oh, that's right. Clothes!_ Twilight Sparkle thought_. I keep forgetting humans are so dependent on those!_

* * *

"Well," said Kotaro, a few minutes later, as Negi was being pummeled by a large number of girls for making Yue cry. (To her credit, Nodoka was comforting her friend, and all that Konoka did was lecture Negi while he was being pummeled.) "That degenerated pretty quickly." He supposed that he should be concerned for Negi's welfare, but somehow, he just didn't feel up to it.

"True," agreed Kaede, also standing back and watching with interest. (Who knew that Madoka possessed such a talent for grappling as she was presently employing to hold Negi in place?) "And yet, one cannot truly claim to be surprised at how it did so."

"Huh?" Kotaro blinked as he turned from what could possibly be considered a riot to look at her. "I didn't have a clue that Chibsuke felt like that. You saying you did?"

"Only that it is not a surprise. One rather suspects that the majority of Negi-bouzu's ministra have some level of affection for him, so such developments as this, in truth, should occur more frequently than they do."

"Well, I guess that does make wait wait wait wait, doesn't that include you?" Kotaro asked abruptly, gazing up at her with mild confusion.

Kaede coughed politely, covering her mouth with her hand, because she was polite, of course, and certainly not to cover any blush that spread across her cheeks. "My, such a direct question, Kotaro-kun. Whence comes such curiousity, all of a sudden?" Turning an inconvenient question back on the one who'd asked it was an old ninja trick.

Ironically, it was a completely unnecessary ninja trick, in this particular instance. Kaede's brief delay in answering had given Kotaro time to think about who else might have 'some level of affection for him' ... and the thought didn't make him particularly happy. "Kaede-ne," he began to say, in a serious tone.

"It is merely a certain pleasure that I feel in seeing a young man growing into strength and wisdom, not anything -" she began to respond.

"What?" Kotaro asked, blankly.

"What?" Kaede asked, just as blankly.

"... I asked you first," he pointed out ... then groaned a bit. "What am I, eight?" he asked quietly. With a shake of his head, he continued. "Look, never mind that now. Kaede-ne, I think I need some advice."

Kaede actually blinked. She had volunteered to become Kotaro's mentor, and taught him quite a few things in the brief interim between the school festival and the start of their adventure in the Magical World. But in all that time, he'd never asked her for advice.

_SQUEEE!_ went the part of her mind that cherished the sight of a young man growing into strength and wisdom. Fortunately, it was outnumbered by the rest of it, which recognized the seriousness of the situation. "I see," she said, in a somber tone which suggested she had never even heard the noise 'squee'. "Let us then withdraw to a place where we might enjoy some privacy ere we speak on such matters."

Kotaro nodded. "Yeah. Good practice for the free-running event I'm in - that tower, over there?"

"Let us be off."

As soon as they were gone, Twilight Sparkle arrived, still walking somewhat stiff and slowly, and wearing a shirt, boots and a pair of pants Lina Inverse had rented her. What kind of people rented clothes for the hour to somepony in need? Also, while Twilight was hardly big breasted, that shirt was sure tight in the chest area. She could barely breathe in this thing, and Inverse had actually increased the rates when she'd complained, but even that concern was pushed back when she found exactly the person she had been looking for.

"Oh, Sensei, there you are!" she said. "I had been looking for you all over -"

The girls beating Negi up paused for a moment to direct several looks ranging from puzzled suspicion to outright hostility towards the strange newcomer.

Twilight blinked. "Ah, I'm sorry. Have I interrupted some sort of courtship ritual?"

"In a way, I guess," Negi's voice weakly croaked. Yuna silenced him with a foot to his mouth.

* * *

_Soon after:_

Negi gazed in mild bemusement at Nodoka and Yue, while Twilight stayed standing at a respectful distance behind him and listening. Eventually, he nodded. "All right, that sounds like a good idea. Um, whereabouts in the building are we going to meet?"

"I'll let you know as soon as I pick it out," Nodoka assured him.

"Well, I'm sure that you know the library much better than I do, so I'll leave that to you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a washroom." He visibly steeled himself - not an easy thing to do when one has the words 'horndog extraordinaire' emblazoned on one's forehead.

"See you this evening," Nodoka said as he strolled off, waving politely. Twilight also waved before following him down the path, but by this point the two girls weren't paying her any attention whatsoever, and she realized that. With a sigh, she kept on marching behind Negi.

"I have decided I never want to become a teacher," she said, letting her head droop a bit.

"Oh, they're good girls, they only tend to overreact at times, and it's understandable now, with all they have just gone through," he replied, already starting to wipe his face off. Much to his annoyance, nothing was coming off yet. Water, he needed water. Wasn't there a fountain right over - oh, right, it had been destroyed during the demon attack ...

"If you say so." Twilight chose to leave the topic behind, pulling out a few scrolls from her handbag. "Um, last night, to distract myself, I had the idea of going over a few things in your proposed plans of mana stabilization for the surface, and I think I might have a way to optimize -"

Politely, he looked back with a smile and a finger on his lips. "That sounds really interesting, but maybe we should discuss it in my office?"

"Oh ... right," she said, once again reminded of how much of a secret magic was in that world. It was difficult adapting to that, for somepony who had been raised in an environment where no one ever denied the gifts in and around them. "Are you sure you can -"

"Quite sure!" he nodded, heading towards the main building. "Hey, even if we run out of time, we can continue the discussion in the library, can't we?"

"The ... Library of Library Island, you mean...?" Twilight's eyes grew a few sizes, and they weren't exactly small to begin with. Slowly, her head tilted towards the large island in the distance, full of ancient and modern volumes alike, whose fame and legend spread all the way to Mundus Magicus, and she felt a little bit of drool escaping from a corner of her mouth. Then: "Oh, wait. They invited you there, not me!"

He scratched the back of his neck. "I'd feel far safer if I had someone there to keep me company, actually."

She stared, shocked, at that savior of a whole world. "You'd feel safer if I was between you and your trusted comrades," she said.

"It sounds so bad when you put it like that, doesn't it?" He sighed.

"Well, actually, given what happened back there, I can understand it, but -"

"It's not like that!" he said. "And I know it's incredibly rude to them for me to invite someone they barely know to join us in what was supposed to be a private rendezvous, but -!"

"If you realize that it's so rude, why are you asking for it, then?"

His shoulders dropped even further. "Mostly so you make sure I actually go there."

"Eh?"

"Sorry. I realize I shouldn't be asking for this, but ... lately, I've come to be sort of afraid to be alone with my students."

"Ah? Oh, I know." She lowered her voice. "You're worried about losing control over your Magia Erebea?"

"I'm worried about losing control, indeed," he compromised with what basically still was a sincere answer. He felt bad about even doubting Nodoka and Yue, but just in case, he'd prefer taking someone who wasn't Ala Alba and yet trustworthy with him. They weren't Asuna; he knew none of them would be bold enough to bring in an outsider, for a lack of a better term, as the more daring Asuna and Konoka did.

She smiled and placed a small hand on his shoulder. "Of course I'll do it, then."

Negi smiled and placed a hand on hers. "Thank you, Twilight-san."

* * *

Across the park, hiding between some bushes with the stealth only someone who had stalked a campus as a killer could possess, a slim and petite figure behind huge round glasses watched them through state of the art binoculars, the best the Togami Empire could supply.

"I have found him, Byakuya-sama," a voice whispered through an untraceable new model of cellphone, in an unsteady, unbalanced-sounding tone. "And he's with a woman. And the way they're acting towards each other, I'm already doubting those rumors about his homosexuality even more. I can recognize a homosexual when I see him. This is nothing but a dirty perverted beast, an enemy to all women, a -"

_"Keep following him, and keep me informed. That's all,"_ the voice that sounded like Fate's at the other end of the line told her with no patience or warmth before cutting the call short. Elsewhere, Togami Byakuya sneered as he put his cellphone down. Recently, some 'Nagi Springfield' nobody had approached him with vague requests to discuss important matters with him. Byakuya had quickly turned him down, as he did with any and all charlatans who looked for to persuade him or his family to make investments with no guarantees of a proper return, but that man had been stubborn, and promised he'd stay in contact, as if his own life depended on it. So Byakuya ran a background on him, and found ... pretty much nothing, except a few official mentions of him joining the Mahora staff a few days ago. After that, everything was one dead end after another. Judging from his appearance and name, he had to be related to the recently dismissed Negi Springfield, but what little could be traced of the boy's family back to the backwater Welsh hills showed nothing about any wealth, or anything else that could give footing to pretensions of dealing with the Togamis.

So that was why he was using that annoying woman this time. At least, now she could be useful for something. Perhaps.

Fukawa Touko kept stalking her unsuspecting prey from a distance.

* * *

"That actually makes a lot of sense," Negi was saying now, more than five hours later, alone in his office with Twilight-san. He rolled the scrolls back up again and smiled. "I'm sure this can increase our efficiency in the distribution of mana across the whole surface in at least a 10%!"

"So will you bring it up at the next meeting of the Technical Council?" Twilight asked excitedly.

"I'm actually more minded to invite you to that meeting, so that you can tell them yourself," Negi replied. "I'm sure you'll do it much better than me, since these are your ideas to begin with. And I want you to get all the credit you deserve."

"I don't do it for the public credit," she said, lowering her face a bit. She pretty much preferred the quietness of Ponyville to the glory and majesty of the Canterlot court, after all. "But, if it makes you feel better about ... okay, sure thing."

"It will. Thank you, Twilight-san," he nodded.

She looked at his face and smiled. For a human, he sure was cute. Almost as much as Flash Sentry, back in ... but no, that couldn't be, she chided herself, blinking a few times. While those girls' attraction towards him was understandable, it also was a very dangerous thing, and the last thing she needed was a distraction from her duties that couldn't ever go anywhere, anyway.

She looked at the clock in the wall. "It's getting late," she observed.

"We still have a couple hours until the meeting," Negi half-shrugged. "Oh, sorry, I forgot, you must be hungry. We skipped over lunch, didn't we? I hadn't even noticed!"

"It's okay, I got carried away too!" she tried laughing it off. "It happens to me all of the time. But, um, weren't you hungry as well?"

"I don't feel as hungry as often as before," he confided her. "I normally have enough with one meal a day now, but please don't tell the girls. Whenever I'm at home, I like eating with Asuna and Konoka, even if I already ate."

She nodded, and then, after a pause, she quietly asked, "Why do you do it?"

"Well, other than Konoka's meals being delicious, we barely get to spend much time together anymore -"

"No, no!" she said. "I mean, why have you gone this far for us? For the Magical World? You were raised in Mundus Vetus. The first thing anyone on our side ever did to you was to place a bounty on your head and those of your friends. Our authorities wrongly accused your mother and made her a pariah for the rest of her life. We ... Professor, we haven't ever done anything good for you or yours. So, why have you devoted your whole life to us and our safety, even when it wouldn't have cost you anything to leave us alone and just come back to this world?"

"Oh, that," he simply said, because it wasn't the first time he had been asked about the subject, from people on both sides alike. "There are millions of reasons. One of them is, it's what my father would have done, naturally. Another one is, it's my mother's homeworld after all. And the third one is, I never could look at my friends and family's faces in Mundus Vetus again, knowing I could have helped you and I didn't. As for the rest ... every living being in Mundus Magicus is one of them. Princess Theodora is one reason. Rakan-san is another. And Tosaka-san, and Emily-san and her friends, and Headmistress Seras. And you, and Princess Celestia, and Lina-san, and Queen Daenerys, and -"

"Even Miss Paio?"

"Why not? Even Miss Paio!"

"Just asking."

There was another long, poignant pause.

"Is that the answer you were hoping for? I realize how cliché it must sound, but -" Negi trailed off.

"It's the answer I hoped for," Twilight said quietly. "Thank you, Professor. However, I must say, I have another question for you, but this one is of a much more private nature, and I don't think I should -"

"I'll be glad to answer anything that doesn't involve breaking a secret of my own comrades," he told her.

"Naturally," she said, remembering Pinkie's Laws all too well, "But ... that wouldn't be necessary, since I've already been told of your companions' role in what I'm about to ask about." At that, Negi looked slightly troubled and suspicious, "Sorry, it's just ... is this office soundproof?"

"It has to be. We have several mundane professors, so if it wasn't, any of them might have overheard us in passing."

"Hmmm," she said, once again cringing at how this society was so ignorant about the wonders of magic. How could humans from the Old World keep their social system working at all that way? "Okay. I'll be honest, Professor. I had to ask about your motivations, because ... sorry to say it, but I was having doubts about your morality after ... a few things Lady Evangeline saw fit to share with me."

Negi paled. "Oh. Is this about -"

She nodded. "She told me about you and the ... your partners. Is that, is that why the others were attacking you?"

"Goodness, no!" he couldn't help gasping. "They don't know anything, well, none of them other than those ... already involved." He dragged a foot around in shame. "The situation is already complicated enough without them knowing that, as you could see today."

Twilight took a deep breath, and then stood up from her chair. "I'm still hungry. Let's go somewhere else to have dinner, okay?"

He was relieved. Not only she had stopped that awful conversation, but apparently she didn't hate him even after that hideous revelation, at least not enough to scorn his continued company.

He followed her out of the office.

* * *

_The name they gave me when they vomited me upon this harsh, uncaring world was Jonathan Crane. However, I made a greater name for myself in the urban jungle of Gotham as the Scarecrow, Master of Fear, a symbol of poverty and terror._

_But even a criminal genius such as myself is not immune to the ravages of time. And, after my last sojourn into larceny, I asked myself 'When I am too old or infirm to engage the accursed Batman in our periodic test of wills, what then?' I had been a teacher once, and often toyed with the idea of returning to the peaceful life of a quiet academician._

_So, after writing a new set of release papers (and forcing an escape with that Joker fool after that failed), I set out to make that dream happen._

_Naturally, it was child's play for one of my intellect to escape overseas, as far away from Gotham as possible, and just as simple to forge the documents necessary to secure a position as an English teacher and assistant librarian at Mahora Academy. And thus I began a new life as Irving Diedrich, foreign scholar. On the whole, my pupils and those under them were a dreary lot, just like those in America so long ago. A depressingly typical assortment of underachievers and unremarkable wastes of space. However, there always have been some ... special interesting cases._

It has been said it takes a more experienced psycho stalker to outdo a psycho stalker at, well... psycho stalking? Of course, no one would have dared calling either the shy and harmless (only weird as fuck) Fukawa Touko or the dry and spiteful but composed and elegant Diedrich-sensei psychopathic, but... we are digressing, anyway. Whatever the case was, somehow, as Touko-chan kept on watching Nagi-sensei and his odd looking date from afar (what had they been doing, spending so long in the office that used to belong to Negi-sensei?), she was surprised by a tall, lanky shadow looming over her.

Shrieking and spinning around, Touko-chan stumbled back and fell on her butt, her fall cushioned in time by the bushes concealing her before she could hit her head and make everything end in tears. Her eyes bugged out as she fixed them on the well dressed bony man in black who had just appeared, with a sinister old crow perched on a shoulder.

"Miss Fukawa," the gaijin teacher spoke in a low, disapproving tone, looking up and down at her and her clothes covered by leaves in a critical fashion. They often crossed paths in the Library, and he was aware of her writing, so they knew each other well enough, much to their mutual regret. "What, may I ask, are you doing here?"

"Ahhhhhh!" she babbled, blushing in the shame of being caught in the act, by an authority figure no less. That was bad. That was very, very, very bad. Not bad enough to wake Syo up yet (she doubted anything could ever be reasonable grounds for that), but if she was found out by that man, Byakuya-sama's name might be stained, and all because of her, and he'd never forgive her, and he'd stop worrying so honestly about her, and -

Diedrich-sensei frowned, snatched the binoculars from the paralyzed girl's sweaty hands, and used them to look in the same direction she had been spying towards. He saw two young people having dinner at the Chao Bao Zi, in silence and noticeably apart from the others, and he huffed. "That's the new teacher, the one who never teaches, isn't he? The older Springfield boy."

"Ahhhhhh!" Touko said again, her hands contracting powerlessly.

He looked down at her once more. "I must say I expected better of you, Miss Fukawa," he told her, with his strong cultured accent. "True, your novels often delve gratuitously into the baser passions of youth, but everything about you always gave me the impression you were above such nonsense yourself."

"I, I am!" she protested, red-faced, bolting up to her feet and daring to yank the binoculars back. "It's just, it's just ... I'm doing research for my next book!"

"Oh, you don't say," he incredulously said.

"I, I do!" she claimed. "Um, I've been, ah, noticing a few suspicious elements about that man, so -"

"Such as?" the teacher wondered aloud, interested.

_Nothing that concerns you, fucking gaijin creep! Let me work alone in peace!_

Still, some manners had to be kept even if they were annoying, so she asked back, hoping for some information, "Had you ever seen that girl before?"

"Never, but I hardly can be expected to remember every student on the junior campus."

"W-Well, I, I never had seen her either, and don't you think she's strange?"

Diedrich, who wasn't too normal looking either, gave the girl covered in leaves at the side of the road another blunt look.

"Just look at her hair!" Touko whined. "And her skin! It looks so sickeningly ... purple!"

"It is, isn't it? However, that's hardly the strangest thing I have ever seen in Mahora ... or even in my hometown, to be honest." Which he rarely was, but that was besides the matter.

"And why are they eating together? That guy, that guy is supposed to be gay, isn't he?"

"Miss Fukawa, for your own future wellbeing, I do hope you are familiar with the notion of a man and a woman dinning together without the need for a romantic or passionate liaison," he dryly replied. "Even so, if you are so positive that is an affair that concerns the integrity of the Academy, you should denounce it before the competent authorities."

_Or what passes for those here, anyway! _they both thought at the same time, with matching inner sarcasm.

However, Fukawa only blurted out a weak and lame, "... I need to gather more evidence first ..."

Byakuya-sama would be terribly angry over this, she knew it. There was no way that this stern, humorless teacher would let that -

A moment of grim contemplation later, he interrupted her thoughts of doom with a brief nod. "Very well. If such is your actual purpose, I see no reason to prevent it, but neither will I allow you to do it on your own." He crouched down next to her, taking the binoculars back and looking away. "They are leaving now. Let us follow them, then. On the double, but with caution and stealth."

\- on second thought, that was even worse. She was failing Byakuya-sama soooooo badly!

Maybe, maybe, maybe a case could be made for letting Syo out, just this once, later on, if this kept up?

* * *

Fate Averruncus was sitting at his office, leaning over his desk in a sinister fashion. Had his students seen him thus, they would surely have concluded that he was plotting and scheming new ways to make their lives miserable. Actually, he was writing separate letters of support and comfort to each one of his Mundus Magicus orphans, including those who had chosen not to follow him into the battlefields.

Before that, however, he had been busy on the much more grim, and much more related to the Mahora students, task of ... helping to estimate the budget for the Sports Festival.

However! That had been only after going, at length, over the even darker, far more important subject of ... the next steps of the Blue Mars Project to take place over the following weeks.

Only after he'd taken care of all of that, ONLY THEN would he contemplate the countless little, subtle ways to make the students' lives miserable. And even then only those of 3-A. No matter what the campus at large thought, he'd never act against a student who wasn't part of 3-A, and thus weren't competition, unless they were caught having public fights with Kuno Tatewaki, or beating up salarymen during illegal dates, or placing live pigs in the boys' bathroom.

It was yet another jam packed afternoon for Fate-sensei. But he was a fast worker. He didn't have problems handling that schedule. The fact he didn't have sex with his students on the side probably helped, too.

His cellphone beeped.

"Good afternoon. Oh, it's my pleasure." That was a courtesy to an uneasy required ally. "And a welcome surprise, as well," he admitted. That was fully sincere, since he never expected for that person to call him personally. At best, he had expected calls from her subordinates, or her daughter at most. And yet, now she was talking to him, and there was no mistaking her voice. That she showed this much interest on the project might be a good sign. "To what do I owe this honor?"

"I have talked to Luthor," Kiryuin Ragyo told him. "He's highly interested. He would like to have a meeting with you and your associates as soon as possible, Fate-sama."

Despite himself, the pen he had been using escaped from Fate's fingers, rolling across his desk until a stack of graded papers stopped it.

* * *

Negi and Twilight marched in silence down the long narrow path leading to Library Island. By now, he was feeling very uncomfortable with the way she, who had been so talkative and open when they first met, had fallen into such an awkward silence after the confirmation of his illicit activities. She kept her gaze low and elusive, not that Negi could fault her. There she was, a lone girl in a world that was fully alien to her, left with a man who probably qualified as a sexual predator.

(Or victim of sexual predation, not that such a possibility ever crossed Negi's mind).

He stopped. "Would you feel, ah, better if I called Haruna-san and Konoka-san in?"

"Eh? Why?" Twilight Sparkle stopped as well.

"Well ..." Since telling her 'it's just so you aren't worried I'll molest you while we are alone there along our way into the depths' was most likely a bad idea, and even he knew that, he settled for, "You know, Library Island is full of traps - at least the sections beyond public access are - and while you have, um, admirable skills of your own, you aren't invulnerable, so I'd feel far better taking experienced library explorers along with us."

She blinked twice, and then nodded slowly. "Okay... that makes sense. And if it makes you feel better -"

"It, it does!" he said, quickly whipping his cellphone out. He tried to use the almost mint-condition phone, his fingers nervously tapping on the keys. "Um, sorry, I don't use this that much, I normally use the cards, but since we're in the open, it's not like I can -"

Calmly, Twilight took the phone from him, checked on it, and after a couple tries, easily accessed Negi's list of contacts. "Saotome-san and Konoe-san, right?"

Negi blinked. "How, how did you -"

"Chachamaru-san taught me after showing me my room. She said I should get one for myself as long as I'm here," she said, handing Negi the cellphone back. And then, a pause. "By the way, why do you have a massage service in your list?"

"I do?" he asked, perplexed, looking at the list. And sure enough, there it was, along what seemed to be a dozen of hotlines marked with Triple Xs. He swallowed. "Ah, this. Truth be told, Chamo normally used this more than I did -"

"Mmm-hmmmm," Twilight said, scowling as she turned back around and started walking again.

"No, seriously!" he said, rushing after her. "I, I'd never -! Oh, hello, Haruna-san? It's me, Negi. I hate bothering you like this, but would you happen to have a couple hours to spare?"

* * *

Shiomiya Shiori, seventeen, had never been an official part of the Library Exploration Club, but she worked regularly as an assistant librarian in the upper levels of Library Island. Her nearly compulsive love for books, often bordering on obsession, meant that she sometimes followed the explorers into the forbidden areas, although more often than not she only waited for their return with the haul obtained from the depths of the island.

Much like Nodoka, Shiori had been crippled by serious problems of low self-esteem and insecurities until a few months ago, and much like Nodoka, she had gained ground on them through a relationship with a boy. In Shiori's case, however, that boy had been one Katsuragi Keima, also known as 'the God of Conquests' ... in the videogaming and magical circuits, at least.

Plagued by a Runaway Sprit who took residence in the hollow space caused by depression in her heart, Shiori was seduced by Katsuragi's awkward but well-meaning charm, so Keima and his partner Elsie could drive the Spirit out of her. A couple of months later, a complicated string of related events led Keima and Elsie to discover Shiori's body also hosted the spirit of Minerva, one of the six 'Jupiter Sisters', priestesses from the Old Ages chosen to become divine beings. With Keima's help, Shiori connected with the just as shy Minerva and reached a degree of amiable coexistence, although the reserved Minerva preferred remaining dormant inside of her unless her presence became absolutely necessary.

You still following this, right?

Recently, however, Shiori's growing strength of character took a mild blow when Keima started making an apparent romantic choice for his classmate Kosaka Chihiro. Ever since, Shiori had withdrawn into the library as long as she could, something that hadn't escaped the notice of the Library Exploration Club. Of course, it wasn't the kind of thing Nodoka and Yue felt comfortable asking her, so that early evening, while passing before her desk, they only exchanged a few polite greetings before the two 3-A students wandered down towards their destination.

"M-Maybe we should have invited her?" Yue gulped once they were out of Shiori's hearing range. "I mean ... lately, she's been so depressed ... as her colleagues, we should strive to help her with whatever is -"

"Later, Yue," Nodoka promised, leading the march carefully, even though they hadn't entered the true danger area yet. "We... we can hardly help anyone while we are still sorting our own problems out, don't you agree?"

"Of course, but even so -" Yue gestured with both hands in mild exasperation for a moment, words failing her for once.

It was a wasted effort, since Nodoka's back was turned to her and she wasn't looking back. "I believe she's been let down by a boy... the one who visited her a few times around the Mahorafest, if I'm not mistaken."

"Talk about ill omens for what we're about to do," Yue muttered under her breath.

"But it's all okay!" Even from there, Yue could feel Nodoka's bright smile turning itself on. "Once we have arranged our own situation with Negi-sen - with Negi, we'll be able to give her all the advice on men she could want!"

"If you say so," Yue allowed, unwilling to engage in that kind of discussion again, just yet. "I still feel bad about leaving her there, all alone, however."

"Oh, as long as she's with some books, she'll never be truly alone..."

* * *

"Ah? A-A-Ayase-san and Miyazaki-san? Yes, they were here not too long ago, and, and they went that way," Shiori pointed down one of the many side halls of the library. She looked warily at the handsome young man and the somewhat strange dark purple-haired girl with Konoe-san and Saotome-san, and said, "If, if you want me to show you the way-"

"Come on, Sempai, remember who you're talking to," Haruna smirked. "When have I ever been unable to track those two down? But even so, if you really want to come, you just need to ask."

"N-No! I mean, I'm okay here! Someone has to keep watch until the shift change, after all," the older, but shorter, girl denied vehemently, unconsciously setting a thick book between herself and the others.

"Okay, as you wish," Haruna shrugged. "But you know, you really should let your hair loose and forget about that geek already."

"I, I, I have no idea what are you talking about!" she rapidly stuttered.

Nagi-sensei groaned. "Haruna-san, please, don't disturb Shiomiya-san like that. And don't call Katsuragi-san a geek, either. He's still your sempai, and as such deserves -"

Shiori blinked. "H-How do you know he is- I, I mean, how do you know Katsuragi-san's...!"

Negi squeezed his eyes tightly close and silently prayed for a miracle, like the ground cracking open to swallow him.

It didn't come.

* * *

So, jumping over some stuff you already should know, and if you don't, go read our parent fanfic, we'll wait...

At last, they reached the door marked "Vault XJ-62", and, being veterans of the Library Exploration Club, ignored the obvious trap to open the actual ingress, which was a concealed trap door on the floor in front of it. It was dark inside, of course, since it contained photo-sensitive documents, so they were very careful as they descended the rungs of the ladder.

"All right," said the glowing eyes which were Nodoka to the glowing eyes which were Yue. "We made it, now we just have to wait for Negi-sensei to get here and hope that he doesn't get caught in too many of the traps."

"I'm sure that he'll be just fine," said the glowing eyes which were Yue.

"But wouldn't it have been a good idea to make sure he went in the company of an expert explorer all the same?" asked the third set of glowing eyes which had just opened, floating over the other two sets of eyes.

Silence momentarily reigned in the vault, broken by the cracking sound of a glowstick being snapped, to dimly illuminate a huge grin beneath shiny glasses.

"Haruna, how?" Yue asked, voice thick with frustration and disbelief.

"Oh, Yue. Yue, Yue, Yue. It was **obvious.**"

Yue was about to lash out at Haruna, hands already all but turned into claws, when she noticed a second light approaching them, and stopping right behind Haruna, with a strong purple hue showcasing a petrified, save for occasional twitches, but admittedly cute face neither Yue nor Nodoka recognized.

Even more puzzling, on a second look, was the fact this new glow spotlighting this enigmatic newcomer was not coming from a glowstick, but from a long, pointy horn that sprouted from the middle of the newcomer's forehead.

Nodoka and Yue stared at the unresponding girl for a few moments, and then at Haruna. "Who is she?" asked Yue, bluntly.

Haruna blinked exaggeratedly. "Don't tell me you don't recognize her! Even in the darkness, it should be obvious!"

"No, it isn't!" Yue disagreed.

Haruna sighed. "What a disconcerting lapse from the most observant girls I know! It's Princess Twilight! Don't you feel like kicking yourselves now?"

Twilight spasmed with a short chortle.

A beat.

"Oh, c'mon, we already know a boy who can turn into a dog and back," Haruna groaned. "Is a magical winged unicorn who can turn into a pretty girl that much of a stretch after that?"

Twilight spasmed with a short sob.

Yue and Nodoka looked again at the girl with the horn, who, on a closer inspection, had a few bruises and obvious close shaves all over her; her sleeves were ripped into what pretty much amounted to hanging confetti, and she showed all the signs, physical and behavioral, of somepony who has just gone through the stress and trauma of several close brushes with death in quick succession.

"This," Yue told Paru coldly, "is why we can't ever let you be a guide for beginners."

"She's still walking, isn't she?"

"Wh-Why is she here?!" Nodoka cried, alternating between checking on the clearly distressed girl and inwardly despairing about her jeopardized plan.

Haruna shrugged. "Well, it was Negi's idea. He already was bringing her here when he called Konoka and me."

"You brought Konoka-san as well!" Nodoka gasped.

"Yep," Haruna nodded. "We got separated by that one trap, you know, the one that splits the corridor into two that go off in different directions, but they should be here any moment now. You girls won't mind, right? Anyway, knowing you as I know you, it's not like you'd have gotten anywhere with Negi even if we hadn't-"

Yue was about to leap fiercely on Haruna, and Nodoka was about to just stand back and let her do it, even coaching a bit, when they were both beaten to the literal punch by Twilight Sparkle, who suddenly regained enough presence of mind to react in an aggressive way. She pounced onto Haruna, with a cry that sounded more like a wild horse's neigh than human speech. "I COULD HAVE DIED!"

"- all I'm asking is that you please leave something for us," Yue blandly requested.

* * *

By the time Konoka and Negi got there, the whole thing had degenerated into some sort of vaudeville physical comedy of errors.

"It's my turn now!" Yue was all but pulling Twilight-san aside, rolling her sleeves up. "After all, she's my friend, so if someone here is going to kill her, that will have to be me!"

"Yue, so I'm still your friend! I'm so moved!" cooed Haruna, putting her skewed glasses back on.

"Don't even try to mollify me! You smug little-!"

Konoka grumbled something about the fortune-telling club as she dropped down to the floor. "Are you okay, Twilight Hime-sama?"

Twilight pointed at herself. "Do I look okay to you?!"

"Okay enough to me ... hey, you made it, Negi-kun! And in one piece, too!" Haruna said. "Wow, don'cha wish _someone_ had picked a more accessible vault for this tryst?"

"Die die die!" Yue snarled at her. "I bid you death!"

"Yue-san!" Negi said reprovingly. "That's not nice!" A brief pause. "Unless Haruna-san designed the traps, in which case -"

"Nope," Haruna interjected very quickly. "Anyway, that's not important, right now. Actually, I'm glad to have this many eyewitnesses with us right here and now, since..." Saotome reached up to take off her glasses as she looked at him, their removal making her look very vulnerable. "Negi-sensei ... seeing Yue confess to you like that has made me realize that it's my time to be brave, too. I've hidden my feelings for so long out of concern for my friends, but now I know that I have to be true to myself. And now, with both worlds to attest for me, I can say it without any fear at last! Negi-sensei ... _I love you!_"

"... no you don't," Negi replied after a moment.

"She doesn't?" Twilight asked. "I was under the impression they all did."

"All of us but Haruna have hearts," Yue grumbled.

"Are you taking Eva-chan into account when saying that?" asked Haruna, pulling her glasses back on.

"Yes, I am," Yue said. "A black heart is still a heart."

Haruna sniffled. "Oh, the pain of betrayal and unfair distrust from all sides! Come on, Sensei, can't you be all discombobulated like you were when they did it?" she protested.

"I'm sorry, Haruna-san, but while a sincere expression of emotions can do that to me, I'm afraid that I know you too well to believe that you're being serious," Negi replied, sounding genuinely apologetic but also firm.

Haruna momentarily pouted. "Am I really that -"

"YES!" Yue shouted, augmented by Nodoka's somewhat fainter affirmation.

"I didn't even get to the adjective," Haruna protested.

"Insincere, shallow, smug, malicious, smug -" Yue listed off.

"You already said smug."

"Not helping, Konoka," Nodoka grunted.

"I don't get it," Twilight said. "If you dislike her so much, why do you still hang out with her?"

"Good question. Someday, I hope to find out, myself," Yue mumbled.

"Woe is me!" Haruna declared, gazing up at the vault's ceiling. "Those who know me best, with whom I have stood time and again, view me as some manner of poltroon! Here I stand, making a maidenly declaration of love and devotion -"

"Maidenly my ass!" Yue yelled.

"Yue-san!" Negi gasped. "That's very bad language, and you're going far beyond ordinary insult -"

"Why is mentioning a donkey considered an insult here?" Twilight wondered. "Several of my friends are donkeys!" But in the heat of the moment no one was really listening to her anymore.

"Eh, no, that one's fair, that ship has sailed," Haruna admitted. "It was the only way I could get the starter money for the BL publishing boom I started, over in the magical world."

That revelation silenced the room for a minute.

Then Twilight asked, "What do donkeys have to do with publishing?"

"Haruna-san!" Negi at last said, clearly appalled. "You, you -"

"You _manipulative-_" Yue began to growl.

"What? Oh - oh, hey, no! I didn't tell you that to make anybody feel - geez, you guys!" Now Haruna sounded genuinely upset. "You don't trust me at all, do you?"

Yue opened her mouth to answer that.

"Seriously, why are you friends, if you dislike each other that much?" Twilight asked again.

"Please stay out of this," Nodoka said in a very low yet quite tense tone.

Twilight looked at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing."

"Fine," the taller girl sighed. "Then the only thing for me to do is to show you that I'm deserving of your trust, and the only way for me to do that is for me to back off. Okay, then. Konoka, Hime-sama, let's back off so that these two can do what they need to do."

"What's that?" Twilight asked, before her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Oh, don't tell me you're also into that."

"Into what?" Haruna asked, genuinely curious.

Negi had a brief but intense fit of coughing.

Konoka, who could read Negi's signs rather well, was giving Haruna a rather skeptical look that really would have reminded Negi of her mother's expression when dealing with the Headmaster, had he been looking at her then, but she acquiesced to Haruna's request and stepped back, away from Negi and their two fellow club members. After a moment, Twilight did the same thing, without either waiting for Haruna's answer or supplying her own.

"No, seriously, what are you talking about?" the mangaka insisted.

Then Nodoka, however, only sighed and closed her eyes, under the hair bangs that had somehow reappeared over her face. And she said, in a defeated tone, "Thank you, Haruna, but no, I can't do it. Not anymore. Not like this."

"Is this because I'm here?" Twilight asked.

"No offense intended, but ... yes," Nodoka said, more dryly than was her custom.

"Hmm. Okay. Fine, I can leave and, I don't know, go explore other areas of this fascinating library that have more books and less tension, all I'm asking for is a guide who isn't this madwoman."

"Heeeeyyyy! Now even the foreigners get on my case, too?" Haruna snorted.

"... and then you can stay here by yourselves to, I don't know, hopefully not kill each other or have sex -" Then she quickly brought both hands up to her mouth, while Yue, Nodoka and Negi began gagging in their own saliva.

Haruna's ahoge twitched. "... sex?"

Konoka drew in a very deep breath and said, "Okay, well, yeah, I suppose the cat's out of the bag now and there's no point in pretending anymore. Sorry, Honya-chan. Sorry, Yue-chan. I don't know how Twilight Hime-sama could learn about this." That was said with a subtle knowing glare in Negi's general direction. "But the truth is, Negi-kun has already had sex with me, Asuna and Setchan."

Seeing Nodoka and Yue hadn't fainted, nor even dropped their glowsticks from their now rigid hands, she dared to continue. "And ... things have sort of snowballed, so he did it with Chisame-chan and Kazumi-chan and Eva-chan too."

"If you'll excuse me, I'll go look for the dealiest trap available and hope it can-" Negi gloomily said, his blush glowing in the dark, but the grip of Nodoka's chillingly hard and fierce hand on his own stopped him. Nodoka's blank expression remained the same.

Konoka decided to go for broke. "And, and, Asuna has said it's okay, so ... we also helped Mikazuki-sempai from the Neighbors' Club with her problems as well, and then Tenjouin Saki-sempai and her two friends came to visit, and ... things have happened sorta crazy quickly, so -"

Haruna let out a dry whistle and, after swallowing the huge knot in her throat, tentatively asked Yue, "So, I'm like only your **second worst** friend now, right?"

"Die die die DIE **DIE!**" Yue leapt on Konoka. Setsuna and all of Kyoto be damned. **"I bid you death!"**

"Don't fight, don't fight!" Negi desperately pleaded.

Once again, the whole thing degenerated into some sort of vaudeville physical comedy of errors.

* * *

"N-Nagi-sensei?" Shiori looked up at the stern and scary teacher and the almost-as-scary author of some of her favorite recent novels, both standing before her desk. "Y-Yes, he was there several minutes ago, oh, uh, actually, almost a hour ... with Saotome-san and Konoe-san and, apparently, some new student."

"Whose name was?" Diedrich-sensei asked.

"Um... Twilight Sparkle-san, they said," Shiori spoke the two last words in perfectly fluid English obtained from long years of reading foreign books and listening to audiobooks. Then, as both visitors' glares increased, she explained, "They told me her parents were hippies!"

"And where are they now?" Fukawa-san demanded to know.

"They, they said they'd be in an important private meeting with Miyazaki-san and Ayase-san, that they didn't want to be disturbed."

"With Miss Miyazaki?" The man grew apparently concerned. Which he was, at least as much as he could ever care about another human being. Miyazaki Nodoka was one of the very few students in that campus he saw any hopes for, and he had repeatedly thought she was wasting her potential away in the company of irresponsible underachievers like Saotome and Ayase. "And where are they now?"

Shiori lifted a book to place it over her own mouth, her stare turning downright pleading. "I was requested to keep it a secret..."

"I am a member of the staff with seniority over Mr. Springfield," Diedrich said in an intimidating tone. "You _will_ tell us where they are, young lady."

"But, but it's down in one of the underground chambers! Those aren't safe to visit without the company of a credited Library explorer!"

"You often go in expeditions down there with their club, don't you?" Fukawa asked.

She hesitated. "Why, yes, yes, sometimes I do, but-"

"Do you know where the traps are?" Touko pressed on.

"A, a few of them, but-!"

"Do you think you can take us safely to where they are now?" Touko pressed on, leaning towards her as her fingers clutched on the desk's wooden surface, sharply. As long as she was on a mission for Byakuya-sama, she wouldn't stop hounding his likely enemies, no matter what!

Shiori found herself having to decide if she feared those two more than the traps.

The answer came to her easily enough, actually.

* * *

_Minutes later:_

"I, I told you I rarely venture down here!" Shiori defended herself as she led the march down a dark side corridor she had accessed through a trap door. Walking behind her, Touko sadly looked at how her left braid had been chopped in half by a sharp metal pendulum, and Diedrich cradled his pet crow jealously against his chest, the bird having triggered an old hidden flamethrower that had nearly turned it into roasted chicken. "But I think this is the correct route to Vault XJ-62!" her voice gained firmer determination just as she messed it up and took the wrong path at the next bifurcation, leading them towards XJ-89 instead.

"I warn you," Touko growled bitterly, "if you're taking us to our deaths, I'll make sure you go down before I do. And in a far more painful way."

"I'm positive this is the way," Shiori insisted, remembering the lessons learned from her recent past, and striving to show her true courage. If Miyazaki-san could grow bolder and more confident, so could she! "Now, just be careful you don't step on any of the slightly darker blocks on the floors of this passageway."

Nodding, Diedrich and Touko made sure to place their feet only on those lighter-toned blocks from there on. Unfortunately, the path towards XJ-89 worked on the exact opposite principles as that of XJ-62.

There were a few ominous creaking sounds.

The skin on Touko's back crawled. Her hands slowly began reaching for Shiori's neck. "I am a woman of my word -"

Shiori, for the first time in a while, frowned. "There's no need to fear whatsoever, that's only -"

Then the floor under their feet collapsed, and there were three shrieks and a loud crawing before the darkness underneath swallowed them whole.

* * *

"So that's what happened," Nodoka stated simply, yet with a mildly somber air of finality. They all were sitting in a circle around the glowsticks, with Twilight's horn providing extra light, so Negi could see Nodoka's quietly ashen expression well enough to feel horribly crushed about it. "That is ... I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me, in hindsight. Asuna-san was always more... pragmatic and forward than us, after all."

"No she wasn't!" Yue disagreed from where she saw opposite Haruna and Konoka, both of whom rubbed their throats hoping the ache would go eventually. "Nodoka, you confessed to Negi-sensei long before she found the courage to do so for Takahata-sensei! Honestly, what in the world brought this on? Since when did Asuna-san became this ... this sexually aggressive?"

"I notice you aren't acting as surprised about me," Konoka dared to say.

Yue stared at her again. "I've just lost all capacity to feel anything towards you. That includes surprise. Now tell me, what moved someone who used to be as frankly obtuse about her own real feelings as Asuna-san to make that bold a move?"

"Are you sure you want to toss that rock at that ceiling, Miss Glass Roof?" Haruna asked her.

"Shut up."

"Yue," Nodoka said then, just as Konoka, Negi and Twilight grew even more restless over the perspective of being forced to confess all the truth on Asuna's situation. "Isn't that obvious? Much like us, Asuna-san must have felt the need to make her play before the rest of us could. I cannot honestly fault her, or even Konoka-san and Setsuna-san, for it, since it's the same thing I would have done if I had their home advantage."

"Well, at least someone here is honest about themselves," Haruna nodded. "Other than me, of course."

"Be quiet, you," Nodoka asked her. Then she looked, rather blandly in the outside, at Negi's nerve wrecked expression. "Now I understand that's the kind of woman Sensei likes. Someone who is strong, proactive and assertive, who will take the first step when it's obvious he never will. The kind of woman who doesn't allow basic concerns of morality and pride stop her from getting her man, even if that means having sex with him before strangers."

"Nodoka-san, you're scaring me now," Negi admitted, eyes very wide.

"Seconded," Twilight nodded rapidly.

"And I wouldn't exactly call the others 'strangers', either." Negi looked down.

Nodoka gave a small sigh then. "That doesn't matter. I have decided little matters in this subject except our feelings. Which goes against all the shallow barriers and defenses of rationality I have built over the years, but do you know what, Sensei? I have come to learn those barriers are constricting my heart painfully, and will keep doing so until I break them. And it's the same with Yue!"

"No, no it isn't!" Yue protested.

Negi seemed really terrified now. Had he been in his child body, he'd have looked pitiable enough to inspire Nodoka to stop, probably. As it was, he looked more like a grown young adult doing a Scared Jim Carrey impression than anything else.

Nodoka placed her hands on his shoulders before looking at Twilight Sparkle. "For you, all of this discussion on human sexuality must feel like it'd feel for us to listen to a conversation on horse breeding, am I right?"

"Ummmmm." Twilight sweated profusely. _What have I done to get tangled in these situations?!  
_  
"Don't be afraid to answer honestly, Hime-sama," Nodoka said evenly, yet with a distant sharp edge. "You won't offend us with the truth."

_Oh, yes I would!_ Twilight frantically thought, looking for an uncompromising but sincere answer. "I, I don't think it's my place to criticize you ... Can I head back now? I think I'm willing to even risk going without a guide -"

**"NO!"** all four librarians said at once.

"That is extremely dangerous for anyone!" Yue lectured.

"And against the regulations!" Haruna added.

"Think of what will happen to the project if you're harmed!" Konoka argued.

"And I want you to watch," Nodoka said.

Every other pair of eyes in the chamber darted towards her.

She blushed, yet kept her face high. "If, if Asuna-san can do it, so can I, and I really want to prove that, b-but it might be better for me starting with the presence of someone who won't care because we're of different species."

"Nodoka-san, you don't have to prove anything!" Negi said.

Yue gulped loudly and added, "And, and besides, just because they aren't human, that doesn't mean they aren't as human as us ... yes, I do realize what I just said, Haruna!" She quickly made that clear with a dangerous glance towards Paru, who blinked and made a gesture of understanding.

"But, but it's not the same thing with her as it is with Emily-san or Collete-san. Isn't that correct, Twilight Hime-sama?" Nodoka asked the horned girl.

Said horned girl cringed awkwardly. "You don't have to call me like that! I'd prefer to be called just 'Twilight' very much!"

Nodoka nodded. "See, Sensei, she wouldn't care any more than we'd care about seeing two dogs mating. Well, three in this case, although I realize I might have used the wrong words for this comparison."

"Gee, you think?" wondered Haruna.

"I told you to be quiet. I will not repeat myself again," Nodoka softly said. "Negi-sensei, let me get right to the point. I've confessed my feelings to you, and so has Yue. And Yue and I are best friends, as I'm sure that you know."

"... oh dear," Negi said, for once getting a bit ahead of the conversation. "Are we in a love triangle?

"No, Negi-sensei. I think this polygon left the number three long, quite long ago. But that is inconsequential now. Rather than allow this situation to end up like those that a certain person told you about -"

"I'm sitting right heeeere!" Haruna bristled.

Nodoka ignored that. "- I have come up with a much better solution. I was reluctant to implement it, but matters have progressed, and I don't think that there are any other viable options." She took a deep breath. "So, the two of us are going to have sex with you. And each other. Right now. No matter who the fuck else might be watching us or not." She nodded, calmly, and began to open her blouse.

"No, really, I think I can head back through those traps," Twilight lamely insisted. "I'm sure I triggered them all on my way here anyway."

* * *

When Fukawa Touko finally woke up, the first thing she noticed was laying on her stomach and face on a cracked old stab of dusty, cold stone. That, and her nose was bleeding, which immediately sent her into a panicked frenzy. She sat up, taking both hands to her face, trembling violently, and trying to control herself, so the monster would not escape. However, the sight of blood seeping in between her fingers amidst the nearly all encompassing blackness overpowered her psyche, and with a few final shakes, Genocide Syo woke up.

A slow, wide shark grin crept up her face, as the eyes behind her cracked glasses gained an eerie glint. Her long tongue began sneaking out from between her teeth. She took the hands to her mouth in the darkness and licked them clean, before she pulled the twin sharp scissors out of her sleeves and then...

... and then a cloud of dust fell on her from above, making her sneeze violently.

Professor Diedrich and Shiori looked down from where they had been, climbing onto a massive rock formation of the wrecked underground chamber. "Oh, so you finally woke up, child," the man told Touko, with bitter contempt. "If you can move, then help us here, will you? Miss Shiomiya says she's positive there is a hidden passage back upwards around here, although I have considerable doubts on the subject, myself."

"I'm sure!" Shiori protested. "Ayase-san once told me about this place. It's a collapsed room she and a few of her classmates once visited with Negi-sensei while looking for a very special book. After that incident, the Exploration Club visited this site again and found the optional exit, and apparently, now we just found an alternative path into it. But I'm sure she told me something else about it." She took a hand to her mouth, looking visibly concerned in the light of her glowstick.

Touko, now back to what passed for normal due to her sneeze, rubbed her nose and stood back up. "Ath thou shure?" she asked, quite grumpily, hiding the scissors back in her sleeves. "Orth only ath shure ath thou were while gwiding uth hewe?"

"What?" Shiori asked her, blinking several times.

Touko took a hand to her face and sighed. "Fuhgedd it, I'm juth going tho khall Bahkuya-shama..."

While pulling her cellphone out and accessing the sole number on her speed access list, Diedrich's pet craw began crawing loudly, flapping its wings.

Touko grunted as she sat down on one of several shattered pieces of rock that had the design of a broken kanji sculpted into them. They were scattered all over the place. "Shenshei, wilth thou shutt dat bhird down?! I'm shture it'sh aghainst schtool... regulationsh... in... thu... fiwst... pwace..."

She then fell still and mute in shock and terror, as did the others, when a gigantic figure loomed over them, rising from the wreckage. It spoke, at first with difficulty, but always with a booming, overpowering tone, "ALL... OF YOU... SEARCHERS FOR KNOWLEDGE... MUST ANSWER THE GUARDIAN'S QUESTIONS WITH NO FEAR!"

The three humans quickly turned around and ran for their lives, with the crow in tow.

The armored giant with the war hammer, for the briefest of moments, made a sound that vaguely resembled that of a sigh.

Then it began chasing them.

* * *

"Nodoka! You never said anything about -" Yue began to protest while Negi simply stared.

"Yue." Nodoka grabbed her and wrapped her arms around her shorter friend, much as she had earlier that day when Yue had been weeping as her memories returned. "For once in your life, please, please, don't over-think things." Without further ado, she bent down and pressed her lips to Yue's own.

"There's nothing wrong about being extra-careful over -" Twilight Sparkle began an intervention that quickly died down as several flashbacks ran in quick succession through her head.

_"I said I'm sorry!" said Applejack. "I should'a listened to you when you noticed where this here branch would end up. Yer annoyin' attention to detail would'a saved us from this whole mess. But right now, ya need to stop bein' so dang fussy pickin' up all the little things and help me move the one big thing in here that actually matters! Please!"_

_**And later...**_

_"And that you shouldn't let your worries turn a small problem..." Rarity added for the latest letter to Princess Celestia._

_"... into an enormously huge entire-town-in-total-chaos Princess-has-to-come-and-save-the-day problem!" Pinkie Pie completed it._

_**And yet later...**_

_"Oh... poor dear," Fluttershy said as Rarity plummeted on top of her, exhausted after the preparations for her latest gala. "She really does need to take a break."_

_"And she needs to before she cracks!" Twilight sighed. "Trust me ... I should know."_

Now, Twilight simply sat back with a defeated expression. "On second thought, please forget I'm even here. Why, I'm completely superfluous, I'm sure this would turn out the exact same way if I wasn't here."

Konoka looked at her. "You over-think things as well, don't you? Awwww! You'll fit right in with us!"

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?" Twilight stuttered nervously.

Meanwhile, Yue's eyes were going wide, then contracting to tiny black dots, then began moving rapidly in swirly-shaped motions. Nodoka might have giggled if she'd seen it happening, but her eyes were unfortunately closed. And once they opened, when she'd pulled back, she had other things on her mind.

"I've always loved you, Yue. From the very first moment we met, to this," Nodoka confided softly. "I could just never admit it before. Even when I was shown what I wanted, I couldn't accept it." She smiled sweetly. "But then I lost you, and I realized that to get you back, I'd do ... just about anything. And once I knew that, I understood what it all meant. I love you, Yue. I love you, and I love Negi-sensei, and I want us all to be together, always." Another kiss, deeper this time, her tongue doing to Yue's tongue what her hands were doing to the other girl's hips.

"Buh-" Yue stammered once Nodoka pulled back again. "But, but, what about Negi-sensei, he might not -"

"Look at him, Yue," Nodoka quietly commanded. "Look at him looking at us." In fact Negi was doing so, and while his face was expressing shock, it was impossible to miss a certain tension in the lower portions of his form. "He likes it. He probably watches Konoka and Setsuna-san doing just this sort of thing -"

"Well, yes," Konoka said. "But I think he likes watching me and Asuna doing it more."

Nodoka nodded. "That's more information than what I was hoping for, but thanks regardless."

"From what Asuna said, he really liked watching her and Eva-chan, too," Konoka added in the spirit of full disclosure.

"Much too much information," Nodoka said rather testily. "You see, Yue? You see now? We need to move on this! Or else -"

"Okay," Yue whimpered.

Nodoka would have liked to exult at her victory, but if she was right, there really wasn't any time for that. So, without further ado, she guided Yue's steps over to where Negi was now standing, and drew him into her and Yue's embrace, kissing him for a full minute before pulling back and pushing Yue and Negi's lips together. The sight of her two loves kissing her excited her, but with the same focus and discipline that had let her become an ace ruin explorer, she kept her mind on the prize.

The 'prize', of course, was inside Negi's pants. Thus, while Yue and Negi kissed - rather frantically, she thought - she slipped down to undo his belt and zipper, then pull down his boxers to reveal -

"Ghhhhgghhhh!" Nodoka expressed as she saw it for the first time.

"N-Nodoka-san!" Negi gasped, pulling back from Yue's increasingly hungry kisses at the sound of dismay he'd just heard. "What, what's the matt-"

"It's, it's just so -" she stammered, staring at it. "It's much bigger than any - than I was expecting," she continued, hoping no one noticed the way she'd changed course in the middle of the sentence. As it happened, Negi didn't notice. Neither did Yue. She might have, but she was somewhat distracted by the way that she went all cross-eyed as she stared down at what Nodoka was also contemplating.

Twilight risked a look down there as well, then asked, "Is that it?"

As one, the other girls stared at her.

Twilight blinked. "Um, well, it's not that I mean to offend, but -"

Haruna smiled and sighed. "Oh, right. It's not like any of you guys in Magical Pastel Colored Horseland ever wears pants, and they don't say 'hung as a horse' for nothing, riiight?"

"It's called Equestria, not Magical Pastel Colored Horseland," Twilight replied with a deep frown. "Do you think we ever could fit all of that properly into a map?"

Nodoka chose to ignore that weird tangent and return her attention to what she had been starting at before. It hadn't gotten any smaller.

"It's okay, Nodoka-san," Negi reassured her quickly. "We don't have to do anything, we can just, I don't know, kiss and cuddle or whatever, you don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with, and I'd actually be happier -"

All the while that he spoke, Yue was slowly, ever-so-slowly, dropping down until her face was level with Nodoka's. They exchanged a glance as he spoke about 'not comfortable', and then Nodoka took a deep breath. "Sensei," she said, breaking in to his monologue about abstinence.

"Yes?" he asked faintly.

"We're going to fuck you now." And without further ado, she opened her mouth and popped the tip of the monstrosity into it.

* * *

Jonathan Crane refused to call what he was feeling fear.

After all, over the years of fighting his inner demons and terrorizing Gotham City, he had conquered all of the fears of his youth - birds, bullies, the darkness, leeches, spiders, the Boogieman, the Castle Cove meme, ghosts, vagina dentata, the Grim Reaper, his grandmother, snakes... let's just say there were quite a few of them - until only one remained: fear of The Batman. And even so, he kept challenging that fear, tackling the other true Master of Fear and Intimidation, over and over, often coming really close to killing him. It was, thus, stupid to postulate that he could be afraid of some sort of ancient animatronic monstrosity chasing him.

What he was experiencing, unlike those two shrieking young females with her, was a simple and perfectly reasonable flee-or-die survival response. Not fear, as such.

It was probably a moot point now the giant had came to a sudden halt after the fleeing trio (and crow) went over a stone bridge that passed over a seemingly bottomless dark abyss. Naturally, said bridge was far too narrow for the animated object to use it, giving the weary explorers a moment of relief.

Touko panted as she fixed her glasses, which had come slightly askew as she ran, as best as she could. "Dis is all yur fhault," she mumbled in a comically nasal accent.

Shiori blinked, hands on her knees, one of them shakily holding her glowstick. "Do you mean him, or me?"

"BOTH!"

"Assigning blames in this situation is pointless, especially because we know the actual blame should be divided between those who built this god-forsaken place and those who led us here," Diedrich grumbled, aiming his glowstick in all directions. The golem shook its arms powerlessly on the other side of the bridge. "However, Miss Shiomiya, if you happen to be ignorant of where to take us after this point, I will start considering you responsible for our grisly demises."

"W-Why me?!" Shiori cried.

"Buhcuz yur a luhbrarian, und yuhr shtupposed tha knuw thur way 'round heer," Touko grunted, nursing her infinitely aching nose. "Whuru tuh now?"

The golem slammed its hammer down against the floor, and the whole chamber rattled. Large creaks and crevices began forming, running all around the golem, then spreading across the bridge, and quickly reaching the floor under the three lost explorers' feet.

"Down," Shiori gulped, before the floor collapsed under them again, and once again they plummeted into the unknown.

IT WASN'T FEAR, MUCH LESS PANIC AND TERROR, WHAT THE SINISTER SCARECROW WAS EXPERIENCING NOW, EITHER!

* * *

Hesitantly, not at all certain that this was what she wanted but determined not to be less brave than her friend, Yue followed her action, pressing her own lips to the shaft, kissing and licking it. She broke off of that in a gasp as she felt a pair of fingers undoing the button of her shorts, but a glance down confirmed that if was Nodoka's right hand, her left being occupied by caressing the dangling... things... at the base of the shaft.

Nodoka's eyes, until now closed, opened to gaze into Yue's eyes. There was so much hunger in those eyes, but so much happiness, too.

_She really does love me as much as she loves him,_ Yue thought ... and there was just a trace of despair in the idea, for she wasn't at all sure that she felt the same way. But their lips met as they exchanged their methodologies of blowjob mechanics, and, for a while, those concerns abated.

"Hot damn," Haruna mused as she watched on. "Those two sure got a lot braver while I wasn't watching, I'll tell you. If the first one I ever saw had been that big, I'd have-"

"Haruna," Konoka, standing beside her, and sounding far more serious than she normally did. "When were you going to tell us about that?"

The artist flinched. The accurate, honest answer - 'about five minutes after never' - would not go over all that well, she suspected. "It's not that big a deal. It was just a few days of unpleasant crap. Why dwell on it?"

"Because we're your friends, Haruna. That has to mean something more than 'people you have good times with', or it doesn't really mean anything at all."

"I don't tell you about all the crap I go through whenever a book isn't coming together, why should I bother you with this?" Haruna replied defensively.

"Umm, I hate interrupting when people are talking about something as personal as this," Twilight said, actually glad to distract herself from the awkward scene taking place across from them. "But Miss Konoe is right. Well, at least in that particular regard. Ahem, as my friend Applejack once wrote to Princess Celestia on the subject-" She cleared her throat softly, before making a glowing scroll appear on midair before her and reading from it, "_'Bein' honest sure gets hard when it seems like the truth might hurt somepony you care about. But I think believin' a lie can end up hurtin' them even more. Maybe some ponies don't care about that – but I sure ain't one of them.'_ That was after she -"

Haruna rolled her eyes, which were starting to feel oddly moist for some reason. "Oh, that's right, I forgot. You're an officially qualified expert on the Magic of Friendship."

Twilight blinked. "Uh... was that sarcasm? Because, well, I am indeed-"

"Whatever. It's over, it's done. I don't, I don't want to -" She broke off, conscious of the fact that tears were starting to flow from her eyes. She hated crying. She'd always hated it. Only the pretty girls in shoujo stories could make it work, and Saotome Haruna had long since realized that her life would never be a shoujo manga.

She was also conscious that Konoka was hugging her. "You don't want to talk about it. That's okay. I can wait," the healer murmured.

Twilight nodded and produced another scroll. "Indeed. Of course, sooner or later, you must remember this_. 'Being a good friend means being able to keep a secret, but you should never be afraid to share your true feelings with a good friend.'_ That's what I wrote to Princess Celestia when I -"

Konoka sighed and took a deep breath. "Do you mind if I touch you while they're doing it?" she asked Haruna, rather than focusing on the lecture. Maybe Twilight-san was a little bit TOO MUCH like Negi-kun, after all.

Haruna blinked, confusion momentarily driving the unwanted tears away. "Touching, as in -"

"As in."

"Hah. I figured you'd be getting enough from Setchan and -"

The grip tightened just a bit. "There's no such thing as enough," Konoka said, now definitely pressing up against Haruna in all sorts of interesting ways. "Come on, Haruna, it's not like we're between thirteen and fifteen anymore."

Twilight felt a strange Pinkie-esque need to ask if that had been some sort of literary reference, but fortunately for the Fourth Wall, she didn't.

"Oookay, then," Haruna said, and turned to face Konoka just enough that their lips could meet.

Konoka really had made an enormous amount of progress, Haruna decided a moment later, as her partner slid one hand up her sweater and the other under the hemline of her skirt. Hadn't it only been a month ago that she'd had her first kiss with a girl? (Admittedly after months of trying to get said girl to kiss her.) And yet here she was, going all the way with a completely different girl, and before an almost stranger as well, and not for the first time either. Another person might have felt a bit bittersweet about the loss of her friend's innocence, but Haruna had never had much regard for innocence.

Which was why her reaction to being reminded of her own loss of it was so very baffling to her.

Yet as her panties were slid aside and two little fingers slid in another direction altogether, and Haruna's head lolled back in a way that almost dislodged her glasses, she supposed that this was a nice compensation for all that she'd been through. Here she was, in one of the places she loved best in the world - this place and Big Sight were tied for first - with the people she loved best in the world - well, it would have been nice if a certain manga artist who was known for being friendly with the groupies was here, but that was a quibble - doing something as great as fiveway sex.

Well, okay, so far it was only a threesome and the two of them off to the side, but Haruna could smell the incipient fivesome. It had a different stench than the love reek, so she was sure that she wasn't getting them confused. It might be nice to keep her eyes on said threesome to spot the perfect time to join in, so she tilted her head back to get a look at them.

"Ouch!" she said a moment later in response to a bite on her tit.

"Eyes on me, Haruna," Konoka's silky voice spoke to her.

It was probably for the best. The moment would speak to her if it was meant to happen.

Meanwhile, Twilight sat watching with distressed huge eyes. Not only had they just disregarded some of her best morals to devote themselves to such activities, but they actually were disregarding her as completely inconsequential in the face of such events. It was somewhat hurtful. Were the laws of friendship really that different in this realm, or were these humans simply not so - no, she couldn't get judgmental on them, she reprimanded herself with a hand on her own face. She shouldn't think of herself as their moral superior, even if they were doing those ... things in those ways that rattled and confused her so much. After all, _'Never judge a book by its cover. Somepony may look unusual, or funny, or scary. But you have to look past that and learn who they are inside. Real friends don't care what your 'cover' is; It's the contents of a pony that count. And a good friend, like a good book, is something that will last forever.'_

Right, that was it, she told herself, reaffirming her determination. She had to become friends with these people, she wanted to become friends with these people, and even if they were scaring her, she'd do her best to overcome that and accept them for what they were, no matter what.

Once Nodoka was satisfied that Yue had the hang of the blowjob, she left off of her own involvement to focus on the next phase of the experience. This involved stripping off her shirt and shorts, leaving her in just her bra, panties and hiking boots. (She did not even remotely consider taking off her boots. This was still Library Island.) She then turned to do the same for Yue, gently caressing her form as she denuded it - though of course, all that she could do with the shirt and undershirt beneath was to roll them both up to Yue's breasts.

_Gaaaaahhhhh,_ Twilight thought, her renewed determination abruptly coming to a halt again.

It was sort of freaky, actually, how humans had those so close to their necks. Looking down at her own changed shape, Twilight considered the breasts beneath her shirt, measuring them in her hands. They certainly were larger than Miss Yue and Miss Nodoka's but much smaller than Miss Haruna's, probably of the same size as Miss Konoka's. From what Miss Paio had said, humans, overall, appreciated most sizes all the same, each one having its own fans and followers. Briefly, however, she couldn't help wondering if the others present there would find hers appealing. After all, they'd still think of her as a non-human, wouldn't they?

Nodoka paused, to kiss those tiny teats, before lifting her head to Yue's ear. "Yue," she said, a bit hoarsely. "We're going to do it, now. We're going to have sex with him." Deep breath. "Do you want to have him inside of you first?"

Yue pulled back from the manhood, gasping for breath and most likely because of emotion as well. "I," she stammered. "I-I-aiyaiyai -"

"You are not being selfish," Nodoka said, as firmly as she could. "You are not. I am asking. I want an honest answer. Do you want to have sex first, or do you want to watch me do it so you know what it's like. Which do you want, Yue?"

Perhaps having the problem stated so baldly helped Yue to find the solution_. "... watch..."_ she muttered, amidst things too quiet for Nodoka to hear.

"Thank you, Yue," Nodoka said, kissing her once. Then she raised her voice. "Negi-sensei, please lie down."

He'd been silent during all of this, save for gasps of obvious pleasure. Now he opened his mouth to say something ... but whatever it was, he sighed instead of saying it, and then added, as he began to sit down, "All right."

Down on the rough stone floor, he lay for a second before Nodoka slowly straddled him, staring down at his face, into his eyes, as she manipulated his erection until it was in the right position to push up into her. As the tip pressed in, she made a face. "Yue," she said. "Please sit on Negi-sensei's face."

"Wha -" he said, before he was interrupted by Yue doing just that.

Nodoka looked at Yue. Yue looked at Nodoka. Nodoka lifted her hands, reached out to set them on Yue's slender shoulders... then pushed herself down and held herself back from screaming in agony only by whatever strength she was drawing up out of her dearest friend, who promptly brought up her own arms to hold them against Nodoka's own.

Had Negi seen her, he would have stopped her. And that would never do.

_Is that a special, different sort of Friendship Magic?_ Twilight pondered, feeling strangely bothered about it, her cheeks burning red as she bore witness. She could read, after all, the powerful emotional bonds flowing between them, and drink in the side waves of their union that emanated from them in regular, strong pulses. She never had been one to think too deeply about romance, but then, romance and friendship had a lot in common, didn't they? Miss Nodoka and Miss Yue certainly seemed to think so, from how close they were, how they touched each other, and watching that made Twilight feel, for the first time, that she was lacking something like that. All of her friends were precious to her, and yet, there she was now, witnessing the presence of a new, strange and yet so beautiful kind of friendship she had never really considered possible between two girls ... or mares ... before.

She felt an all new need, more emotional than anything else, begin bubbling up her. Twilight had always lived to learn, before and after finding the true meaning of friendship and socialization. When faced with anything new to learn and assimilate, her first instinct was to do so. This, after all, was no different. But of course, as things were, that was impossible, and a deep frustration began growing inside of her.

Yue was somewhat used to the way that her mind could, if permitted, run a mile a minute, if not faster. The novelty, if you could call it a novelty, was that her thoughts normally didn't do that when she was doing something, only when she was idle. And she certainly wasn't idle now, was she? No, wait, was she? She was! Technically, Yue supposed that she actually was idle, now that she gave it a few seconds of thought. After all, she wasn't doing anything, really, just sitting there, with her hindquarters perched on Negi-sensei's face, her own face screwed up as she felt him licking her down there and doing it surprisingly well. Not that she had much basis for comparison because Collette hadn't ever done that to her no matter what Nodoka seemed to think. And she had been mostly asleep that one time that she'd woken up and seen Emily and Beatrix doing something that she hadn't been able to see very well but which they'd certainly seemed to enjoy quite a bit before she'd finally forced herself to close her eyes and go to sleep despite how much she was blushing. Just like she was blushing right now as Negi licked her down there, while Nodoka, in front of her, their arms gripping each other almost painfully, rocked her hips back and forth on that that that that that -

And then Nodoka let go of her grip on Yue's arms and collapsed forward, head dropping to press against Yue's still almost-flat chest, kissing her nipples for a moment, before looking up.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" Nodoka said, so quietly, despite the loud gasps she made on either side of those intelligible words. "You're afraid that you don't love me as much as I love you."

_How did she know?_ Yue wanted to scream, even though she knew that if she started screaming right then she was never going to be able to stop.

"You're wrong," Nodoka said. "You love me, and I love you, and it's the same. I'll show you that it's the same. I'll show you."

What, what could she possibly mean by that, and why was she kissing down her stomach, and coming face to face with Negi-sensei, and -

_Oh, that's what she could possibly mean by that_, was Yue's last coherent thought before her brain turned to mush as Nodoka began licking her down there in conjunction with Negi, even as her hips kept moving atop him, pumping him.

Twilight began sobbing very softly, unable to look away anymore.

* * *

Fukawa's fall was stopped by the branches of a giant tree in which she now hung, tangled upside down, long skirt flapping all over her upper body and face, white panties and kicking legs now in full display. Not that the two bodies plunging down into the waters beneath her particularly cared, being too busy hitting the liquid with some notable force.

As difficult to kill as anyone who ever went after the Batman with a costume on, Diedrich surfaced almost immediately, splurting out large mouthfuls of water as his crow perched itself on his wet scalp. "Heads will roll over this!" he promised. "Blood will flow! This Academy will burn!"

Shiori emerged moments later, giving small coughs and taking a hand to her chest. Minerva had to take over for a few seconds to pull her body out of the water and rattle her back into consciousness before she drowned, only to quickly retreat back afterwards. "What ... what happened?"

"Your incompetence happened, that's what!" Diedrich harshly accused her. "Why in the world did you lead us down that path if you weren't sure it was safe?!"

"But, but I warned you, and you wouldn't listen!" the soaking girl whined, keeping herself afloat as the scrawny man loomed over her threateningly.

"Shtap yellin' luhke idiots an' hwelp me dhown..." Touko yelled, and after they looked up towards her, she shrieked, "Bhut dhun't luk! I'm indeshent! Yuh perverts, dhun't dink yuh can tuke hadshvantage of me in a lunely pwace like dis!"

"Lonely?" the man and the other student looked all around, their gazes roaming all over the strangely luminous underground facility, which was half-sunken and half-covered with tropical vegetation, and they took deep breaths of wonder and amazements.

Books. Books, everywhere where they could look. Huge stands and stands of seemingly well preserved books stretching in all directions, between tall trees and thick bushes. They began drooling, Fukawa completely forgotten.

"Hey," Touko said, "Duhdn't yuh lishten ta me, I shaid-" Then the branches holding her finally collapsed under her weight, and shriling hysterically, she plummeted between them, splashing everywhere. Neither of the apparently hypnotized bibliophiles seemed to particularly care about that fact.

Tears began rolling down Shiori's face. "This is it! The rumored paradise of the librarians! The Eden of Mahora's occult knowledge!" Inside of her, Minerva was swooning in delightful overload.

"Volumes upon volumes upon volumes of quaint and curious forgotten lore!" Diedrich spoke in hushed tones, his eyes gleaming with avarice.

A few bubbles came to the surface before a really pissed off Touko burst out from the depths and slapped them both across the heads at the same time.

* * *

"You know," Haruna said, between licks at Konoka's pussy, "it strikes me ... as being a little unfair... that you get to watch... those three... and I have to keep -"

"Shhh," said Konoka, pulling Haruna's face deeper into her core with a knee wrapped around her friend's neck and shoulders. "Of course I'm fair. I'm always fair. Even when I'm unfair, I'm always fair."

"Wh-What?" Twilight asked, her eyebrows taking a deliciously surreal shape. She was right and that didn't make sense, of course, but Haruna wasn't in any position to object. She did, however, have the ability to express her displeasure a bit more directly, and did so.

"Ah!" Konoka gasped in mild pain from the bite on her thigh ... then groaned a moment later, when she realized that the shock had closed her eyes just long enough for her to miss a rather critical moment. When she looked at the trio before her in the glowstick's dim light, she could see Yue's eyes tightly shut and her mouth wide open as she quivered and shook and silently screamed in what was an obviously explosive orgasm.

"Can you taste her, Negi-sensei? Can you taste our Yue's sweet cum?" Nodoka murmured to him as she licked his chin. "I can taste her on you, so I know that you can. I want it, too. Give it to me. No," she added, just a bit sharply, as Negi began to push Yue's still-convulsing form off of his face. "Not with your mouth. Give it to me with thiiiis." She bit her lip as her hips twisted on him.

"Ah," Negi said, grasping her meaning, as he began to meet her downward strokes by pumping up into her.

"Yesss, that's that's that's - ahh!" Nodoka's voice caught on that single high note as she felt the surge of his release spraying up into her. The flow of warmth triggered her own climax, and she, too, shook atop him for a few long moments.

"Oh, wow," Twilight quietly said, leaning forward and resting on her knees and hands on the stone floor.

When the ecstasy faded, Nodoka wearily pushed herself up and off of him, preparing herself mentally for the next phase of her plan, which would require Negi to be hard once more and so - but her chain of thought was broken as she stared at the member which, while dripping with their combined juices, was still more or less erect. Nodoka blinked, then looked up at Negi's face - visible now that Yue had collapsed off of it.

He gave her an apologetic smile for some reason.

Twilight examined the organ from a prudent distance under the light of her horn. "Um. W-Well, normally, this would be highly unusual, but considering the sort of ... special, unique physical state Professor Springfield has achieved, it should come as no surprise his prowess in this field has increased as well."

Nodoka blinked again, barely paying any attention to her. With a shake of her head, she moved on to the next phase, crawling up to where Yue was still trembling as she lay on the floor above Negi's head. She bent down to kiss Yue's forehead. "How much do you love me, Yue?" she asked, not really expecting a coherent answer.

So she was somewhat shocked when Yue's eyes focused on her. "I love you more than truth," she said.

Nodoka nearly froze as she realized what she'd just been told. Tears began to fall from her eyes. "And I love you," she said. "And I love you... more than books."

_Down below in another level of Library Island, Shiomiya Shiori shuddered, shaken by the strange sensation of a blasphemy suddenly floating through the air._

Far more gently than she'd been planning, Nodoka reached down to spread Yue's hips wide. "Sensei," she said more loudly than she'd been speaking. "Come here and give our Yue what you just gave me."

He looked at her, then looked at Yue ... and with an air of one surrendering, he rolled himself up into a seated position and came over to crouch between Yue's legs, held up and open by Nodoka's firm hands. Without direction, he pushed himself up into her virgin passage, as gently as he could.

"It's good, Yue?" Nodoka asked as he began to move back and forth within her.

"So good!" Yue cried. "I, I -"

"Have what he gave me," Nodoka said, then plopped herself down on Yue's mouth to let the cream deposited within her drip down there. Yue made a groan of deepest pleasure.

"Thank you for this gift, Sensei," Nodoka said, still holding Yue's legs wide as she faced him.

He opened his mouth to reply.

"It is a gift," she said before he could say anything. "It is not the curse you think. We love you, and we always have. No matter what happens, I will never regret being with you like this."

She smiled at him, the sweet smile he loved so much.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Mmm-hmmm. I wonder whether you might get another interesting gift from him nine months from now."

"Oh, quiet, you," Konoka purred as she reached towards her, her small right hand cupping a breast of Twilight through her shirt, and making her yelp. "Just give it up and join in already, silly!"

"No, that's bestiality, I don't want to ahhhhh!"

"You're incredible, Nodoka," Negi told Nodoka as he pounded into Yue, mostly oblivious to the other side's byplay.

Was it the yobisute and Yue's tongue up inside her that pushed her into her first orgasm? Was it the forbidden thrill of how illicit and steamy was this encounter as a whole? Did the added conflicted screams of Twilight-san as Konoka and Haruna joined forces to grope her from behind, popping her shirt's buttons off, contribute anything to it? Who could say?

"But, but -" Negi began to stammer, as though he'd just lost all the ground that he gained.

"What?" Nodoka asked, pouting a bit.

"I think Yue might be having trouble breathing," he finally whimpered.

Nodoka blinked, as she tried to understand what she'd just been told. Then, with a yelp, she let go of Yue's legs - which obligingly collapsed to land on Negi's hips - and backed up off of her friend's face. Yue, eyes almost glazed over, promptly coughed a bit as her airway cleared.

"Yue!" Nodoka cried. "Why didn't you say something?"

That earned her a pair of incredulous looks, each of slightly different sort.

"Yue, do you want to sto-" Negi began to ask.

Her hands, which had been resting on the floor, reached up towards him. "More," she rasped.

With Nodoka's help, Yue rose up from her supine position to dangle in front of Negi's chest, her hands wrapped around the back of his neck as she rocked back and forth, up and down, kissing him deeply as she did, then turning to kiss Nodoka as the other girl tried to embrace both of them.

"Hnnn," Yue announced. "Cumming. Cumming. AH!" Once again, she silently screamed her release to the ceiling, her vulva tightening around Negi's member and drawing a second ejaculation up into her. "Hahhhhhh," she continued, once she'd calmed down a bit. "I love you," she said, to both of them perhaps.

"And I love you," Nodoka replied, in the same way.

"And I love you too!" declared Haruna as she snapped on a second glow-stick to replace the one that was faltering a bit, revealing that she was stripped totally naked (except for her glasses) and smiling at the three of them in obvious delight while Konoka, with the smile of the very satisfied, turned Twilight around so she was on her back on the floor, shirtless, and moaning throatily. The Konoe heiress, kneeling between the Equestrian girl's legs, tugged down on her bottoms, bringing them around Twilight's knees before her mouth dove into that exotic imported garden of Mundus Magicus delights.

"No you don't," Negi, Yue and Nodoka chorused.

"Just because I'm only saying it to get some action doesn't mean it's completely untrue, you know?" Haruna protested. "There are degrees of this sort of thing. Don't look at me like that. Geez, come on, are you really going to deny me the same joys you've just enjoyed?"

"Yes," said Yue, glaring as she tightened her grip around Negi's neck.

"Oh my goodness, my dear goodness, this is, this is dirtyyyy!" Twilight was shrieking as Konoka's relentless mouth assault continued.

Haruna, who really had to focus on ignoring that for the sake of the bigger prize ahead, closed her eyes and shook her head, with an expression of profound sorrow. "I don't know who taught you to be so selfish."

"It was you," Yue 'explained'.

"But just look at Kono-chan over there! How can you be that selfish with a dear old friend while she's so open with a new one?" Haruna argued, gesturing towards the rich girl and the moaning purple haired beauty caught in her grasp and clawing on the floor.

"That's her own problem," Yue said dryly. A pause. "And Setsuna-san's, I guess."

"Haruna, come on," Nodoka interjected, trying to make some sort of peace. "Negi-sensei can't possibly do that again immediately -"

"Are you kidding?" Konoka said, laughing a bit as she licked some traces of clear fluid from Twilight's now bare mound. "He can go for hours!"

"... thank you for sharing that additional bit of enlightenment, Konoka," Negi said dryly.

"You're welcome!" Konoka beamed before diving back in.

"Reallly," Haruna said, ignoring that bit of byplay. "For hours, you say. I find that somewhat hard to believe, if you'll pardon the pun." She abruptly sat down, perching her chin on her folded hands and her elbows on her knees. "I think I'll need a demonstration. Of course, if nobody wants to demonstrate, I'll be happy to-"

"You just stay where you are!" Yue said hotly. "Nodoka and I will take care of him by ourselves, right, Nodoka?"

"Uh ... right!" said Nodoka, suddenly a bit concerned. Konoka had to be exaggerating when she used hours in the plural like that. She probably just meant an hour and then a bit more of a second hour on top of that, and it'd been, what, probably about half an hour since they started? It couldn't be so difficult as all that.

Right?

* * *

It wasn't that being in that quiet, strangely sunny place felt bad in itself; quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. It was easy to ignore the company of the others since they were as deeply immersed in their own readings as Touko was and thus couldn't bother her anymore. At the very least, that was a point in their favor, Touko guessed. No matter what else could be said about them, they both obviously loved books, and she could respect that. And the whole surroundings were so warm and peaceful, they gave Touko a sense of ethereal peace she had never felt before.

She felt at ease enough, as a matter of fact, to take her shoes and socks off, allowing her aching feet to rest in the quiet clear waters as she sat on a downed, empty shelf next to one of the lagoons, under the shade of a gigantic tree, reading a curious treaty on the nature of romantic writing by one Albert A. Iridia. Quite engrossing, and yet, the fact remained, she felt that wasn't right at all. That place seemed to mess with your mind to the degree you couldn't be sure if you had spent hours or days there, although she leaned towards the former, since none of them felt hungry or sleepy yet. Then again, with so many wonderful books around, who could?

No, that wasn't right, and a tiny voice at the back of her mind, one she dearly hoped wasn't her other self even though she knew well that was the most likely explanation, kept nagging her on it. So she had to say it, any moment now...

"Nod dad I mind bein' shere," she spoke nasally, "Gut when dhu yuh dink dey'll chome shlooking f'r us?"

"Any time now, I'm sure," Diedrich said dismissively, his hook nose deeply buried into a tome on the nature of fear from the 1920s.

"Gut even mah cephone hath no coverage shere," Touko insisted, "An' if Bahkuya-shama doesn'th knowth I'm shere, then who-"

"We'll go back over our steps and look for an exit as soon as we're done here," a distant-sounding Shiori promised, flipping a page of her epic novel _Unequal Hearts, Book One._

Touko stood up and pointed up, way up. "Ghoing gack ovah our shteps? How?! Dudhn't yuh remembah, we FELL shere! Howth in dha world we're shtuposed to climf gack up dere!?"

Diedrich and Shiori gave her twin jaded glares. "There must be an alternative way. They couldn't possibly bring all these shelves and books down that pit trap, as you no doubt can deduce," the man told her. "That's assuming we aren't outdoors here anyway, in which case, we only need to walk until we find civilization."

"Yuh jusht want tuh shtay shere wit' ush innosent yung ladieth tuh take athvantage of our bothies!" Touko accused.

Diedrich and Shiori shared a quiet exasperated stare before returning to completely ignoring her in favor of printed wonders.

Touko stomped a foot down as much as she could. "Damnth thou! Why, ah'm gonna, ah'm gonna-!"

Then the giant armored golem fell into the nearby lagoon, blanketing them all with cold water.

As soon as the wave had passed over her, Shiori worked back to her feet as best as she could, quickly, screaming. "It's back! Oh, God, n-no, it's back!"

"Ghee, dank thou foth de newsh, Shedlock!" Touko growled, nonetheless rushing to scramble for protection behind her.

The golem rose above them, massive weapon firmly between its hands. "YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE! ANY AND ALL TRESSPASERS WILL BE PUNISHED APPROPIATELY!"

"... mommy!" Shiori squeaked.

Touko gulped aloud, but then, even amidst her panicked tremors, she made a final resolution. Even if things seemed hopeless, even if all odds were against her, even if she was caught by a killer teddy bear in a pointless game of death, even if there was no way out, she would stand defiant to the end! For Byakuya-sama! She would carry her mission for him to the bitter end!

She reached under her sleeves and, trembling like an ill newborn, pulled Syo's scissors out, which quaked between fingers turned into jelly. "Y-Y-Yuh'll never thake me awive! Come fotth, bweast! Foohkawa Thouko thallenges yuh-!"

Then the scissors slipped from her fingers and fell into the wet sand.

Silence.

"... what were you doing with those puny things anyway?" Diedrich asked, quite calmly all things considered. "Surely, you didn't have them on you to cut your hair short."

"I dheally hate yuh," Touko decided.

Then a gigantic metal fist moved towards her faster than she could react, and caught her in a terribly tight grasp.

And everything went black.

* * *

Two and a half hours had passed.

"... I ... hate ... you ..." gasped the seriously dehydrated and utterly exhausted form which had been Ayase Yue, hand-like growths reaching up towards Haruna's form, utterly impotently.

"Aw, don't be silly, Yue," Haruna assured her fondly as she picked up the canteen she'd put on her belt, which she was of course not wearing. "It's not in you to hate anyone. You're much too nice of a person for that. You're mad at me, you're annoyed with me, and of course, you are completely and utterly jealous of me - and really, who can blame you, you poor pettanko, you," she added, doing a stretch to give any hypothetical onlookers a nice long look at her unbound breasts. "And there's probably a certain amount of repressed sexual attraction involved, too. But you don't hate me, and I know that, and you know that I know that."

She paused to take a sip of her water while watching Negi pounding Nodoka, who looked to be right on the verge of unconsciousness as she lay on top of Konoka. The healer had joined the melee about an hour or so ago, and was less worn out than either of the other two. Which was a bit like saying that the Atlantic was less vast than the Pacific, really.

"Would you like some water?" Haruna asked Yue.

"... yes ..." the dehydrated girl said, very quietly.

"What's the magic word?"

"... please ..." Yue ground out, eyes burning with the fury of a thousand suns.

Cheerfully, Haruna put the canteen in one of Yue's hands, and watched as it was brought to her mouth. "Don't drink too much too fast, or you'll get sick. Sicker, I guess," she amended helpfully.

"I am going to get you for this," Yue told her, once she'd finished drinking.

"Sure you are," Haruna 'agreed'.

"No, really I am. And you will never see it coming, and you will never be able to prove it was me. 'A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser," she quoted, just as Nodoka let out a wail which suggested she'd achieved yet another orgasm.

"That's not someone you should be using as a role model, Yue-Yue," Haruna assured her, patting her gently and oh so patronizingly on the head. "Oh dear, Nodoka seems to have collapsed. Hey, Konoka, is she -"

"She's just asleep," Konoka assured them in a voice which was pretty sleepy in and of itself, as she looked over Nodoka while Negi sat back and panted a bit heavily, with his erection still not subsiding.

"Oh well, then," Haruna said with utterly insincere regret as she rose to her feet. "I guess the task of rocking Negi-kun's world has been left to this humble and unworthy person." She smiled in a way that humble and unworthy people probably shouldn't smile. "Now, then -"

"No," eerily declared a voice that had been strangely quiet over the last half hour, long after said voice's owner had stopped gasping and gawking about every carnal combination unfolding before her. Ever since Haruna and Konoka had finally stopped touching her everywhere, she had only sat there, watching in a motionless stupor. Haruna was reminded of that person's existence as she looked back towards her. Twilight Sparkle seethed, hairs sticking out from several different angles of her head, coupled with bright eyes that conveyed an overall 'gone far fucking over the edge' feeling about her.

It all made even Haruna wary about her. "Umm ... excuse me?" she said. "I haven't heard you protesting about what they've been doing, so why do I get the -"

"Then you haven't been listening enough!" the naked pony-turned-human stomped towards her, poking a finger against Haruna's left breast, over and over. "You've been doing this on purpose to try and torture me, haven't you? Why are you doing this? What have I ever done to you?!"

Konoka blinked. "Wasn't ... wasn't the sex any good?"

"Yes, it was!" Twilight turned to her, gesturing with her hands in a desperate fashion. "It was _very_ good! That's what made it so bad!"

"... you lost me," admitted Negi.

"It's bad, because bestiality shouldn't feel that good!" Twilight wailed.

"... oh," Negi said.

"So we are 'beasts' now," Haruna folded her arms under her breasts and rolled her eyes.

"That, that wasn't what I -" Twillight babbled, then pulled on her hair. "Aaagghhh! It doesn't matter if you're the beasts or I'm the beast or we all are, it's still bestiality, and yet you made me like it, and that's why it's all so bad, and that's why you've been torturing me and now Princess Celestia won't love me anymore!"

Nodoka snorted, rolled in her sleep, and made a vague gesture of asking for silence with a hand as Twilight descended into melodramatic sobs.

"Awwww," Konoka cooed, patting the Equestrian on a shoulder, "Poor Twilight-san! No one is a beast here, not you, not us, not -"

Yue opened her mouth.

"- **not** even Haruna!" Konoka remarked before Yue could speak her piece. "We are all just beings looking to be loved and to give our love away! Our outside differences don't count! We're all the same in our hearts, and that's what truly matters!"

Yue felt tempted to ask, then, if Konoka would have been just as willing to have sex with Twilight's true form, but after a split second of consideration, she decided she dreaded the likely answer just too much.

Twilight cut her helpless sobs to breathe deeply and nod. "Thank you. You're depraved, but nice."

"Thank you!" Konoka beamed a very honest and pure smile.

There were a few beats of silence during which Negi shifted his legs around uncomfortably, trying to hide his erection at the way Konoka had started feeling Twilight up again.

"Ummm, well, yeah, nice to see we've sorted that out," Haruna began moving towards Negi again. "Now, as I was saying..."

"So, going to give Negi-kun a ride now?" Konoka sharply asked Twilight.

Twilight nodded.

"Eeeeehhhhh?!" Negi cried.

Twilight turned teary angry eyes on him. "You've been doing it to me, too! Flaunting that, that thing you've got, and doing those, those things before me without thinking twice about it, as if I were some animal who won't care!"

Negi backed away on his butt, genuinely scared by that reaction. "I have? I mean, of course I have! S-Sorry, it's all my fault, because I've been crass, and rude, and an immoral and indecent person, and I haven't considered a beautiful young lady's feelings!"

Twilight stood there, dumbfounded, as red crept all the way up to the base of her horn. _"Beautiful?"_ she asked timidly. Then she exploded again. "Argh, see, you're doing it again, provoking me with your strange charms that shouldn't work on me and your thing that isn't even that big!"

"Chisame-chan calls it 'sneaky natural gigolo talk'," Haruna supplied.

"That Chisame-chan is a wise person, then!" Twilight yelled at her.

"What are you yelling at me over that!"

"I don't know! I mean, I know why I'm mad at you in general, but on that particular point, I just kept yelling! **SORRY!"**

**"APOLOGY ACCEPTED!"**

**"THANKS!"**

Negi shrank back, although, much to his annoyance, that part of himself he wanted to see shrinking was, if anything, growing even stiffer. Did he really enjoy having women yell at him and around him that much? A truly troubling thought, and -

Walking rigidly to stand over him, Twilight looked down at him with a mad glint in her eyes, and a disturbing smile. "Ehhhehehehehe, hehehe, I'm not afraid, no, I'm not, I'm not ..."

"If you're afraid, you should let me-" Haruna began.

"Statute 70 of the Club's rulebook on the subject of guided visitors states all guests, especially ambassadors of good will, are to be allowed access to the services offered by the library, should they show interest on them, before we are," Yue told her, grabbing her by an arm. "Stand back, Haruna."

Paru gave her an exasperated look. "Are you kidding? You can't be willing to let her go before me just to spite me, not when she isn't -"

"Rules are rules, Haruna."

Haruna sat at her side, grumbling. "This is only a momentary pyrrhic victory for you, and you know it!"

"As I've just shown through the last two hours, I'll take whatever I can get," Yue said.

Negi gulped. "I'm not sure this can be counted as a service offered by the library. It certainly can't be said to be a regular ... ohhhh God!" he gasped when Twilight angrily pushed herself down on him, impaling herself into his shaft after two quick, rough attempts.

She made a sound that only can be called that of a horse in pain.

Haruna would never forget that sound. No matter how much she tried.

"Oh God!" Negi freaked out. "I knew it! I knew I'd end up hurting you! Okay, this is officially over and done, before-"

Twilight pushed her hands against his hard chest, clenching her teeth as she rubbed herself against him,, blood leaking out of where he was going deeper into her. "N-No ... not after going this far..."

"But-!" he moaned, struggling not to lose himself into the sensation of how tight and warm she was.

"An, an Elements of Harmony bearer doesn't go back on her ... ahhhh ..." Twilight drooled as she felt Haruna pressing up behind her, with one of her hands caressing the crack between her buttocks (one of them, Haruna noticed with a hint of amusement, was still adorned with Twilight's Cutie Mark) and the other massaging the point where Negi's member entered Twilight. At the same time, the busty mangaka used her mouth to please Twilight's right teat, her teeth grazing the aureola and nipple. "Nnnhh, no, not like that, not there, iiiit's ..."

Haruna chuckled dryly, never stopping fingering the edges of Twilight's narrow back entrance. Her opposite hand kept rubbing vigorously the bottom of Negi's shaft as it pumped into the other girl; her breasts mashed and rubbed against Twilight's back, up and down. She said something that came out sloppy and incomprehensible between wet slurps of Twilight's modestly sized breast, finishing with a barely understandable "Hurts less now?"

"Yes ... th-thank you," I guess," Twilight bit on her lower lip nervously, warily responding to Negi's thrusts with motions of her own hips. "Mmm, I, I can't get, get pregnant because of this, right?"

"How should I know?" Haruna asked, as she planted a trail of kisses down Twilight's body. "At least, I'd say your chances are far lower than Yuecchi and Nodo-chin's ..."

"It's a safe day for me, at least," Yue said quietly, placing herself at Twilight's other side to start petting the chest Haruna had left unattended. When Negi leveled an odd stare at her, Yue shrugged, "If you can't defeat them, join them."

"Finally, progress," Haruna taunted before her mouth reached the point where her teacher's crotch met Twilight's, and then opened her mouth as wide as it would go, taking Negi's ballsack into her mouth, and starting licking and suckling on the testicles. "Mmmmmrrrpphhh, twashty ... sshweat an' sweet gwirl jhuishe ..." she obscenely said as best as she could.

"Oh, dear Heavens!" Negi shouted, spasming after several moments of that treament, holding Twilight's shoulders and keeping her steady as he shot three thick loads of white into her.

"Anh!" Twilight arched her back, Haruna's fingers and Yue's mouth and hands working together with that alien sensation of being inseminated to push her into her strongest orgasm of the evening. She plummeted against Negi's chest shaking violently, and after a few seconds of reacting with nothing but silent shock, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, comforting her with his mere presence and contact.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered.

"No, no, I'm ..." she began to say, then shook her head. "Oh, well, actually, no, not yet. I'm sure I will be upset, when this biochemical rush passes on, but... in the meanwhile, at least, thank you. That felt... good." There was a short concerned pause. "It was good for you too, wasn't it?"

"Oh, yes, of course it was! A lot!" he quickly replied. Yue pouted at that, but chose not to say anything yet.

Twilight smiled. "That's ... nice to hear. You know ... I bet Pinkie Pie would really like this, too."

"Ehhh?" Negi babbled.

Twilight chuckled shyly, poking a finger in circles on his chest. "One of my best friends, you know. She's always trying new crazy things to do. Maybe Applejack and Rainbow Dash as well, since they like all sorts of demanding physical activity."

Negi blinked. "I'm sure you're trying to lighten the mood and nothing more, but still -"

"And Rarity always has dreamed of being with a strong, chivalrous prince, and Fluttershy, I'm sure, has her repressed wilder side," she continued, cheeks flaring pink.

Negi gulped very loudly. "Eh heh heh, well, that's a funny joke, and nice payback for all you had to endure here, I'm sure, but even so -"

"Wow, you ponies all have porn star names, don't you?" Haruna wondered aloud, gently setting Twilight aside. "Moving past that, I see you still have some steam left, Negi-kun, so it's time to -"

"Um, Haruna?" Konoka interjected. "We're on our last glowstick."

Haruna blinked. "We don't have any more glowsticks?"

"We've used them alllll up."

"Well, so what?" Haruna groaned. "She still has that glowing horn, so it's not like -" Then she realized the glowing unicorn horn she was pointing at had just that moment turned itself off and retreated back into Twilight Sparkle's forehead.

Twilight shrugged sheepishly. "My apologies. _Somepony_ here kept me _physically active_ for hours, so I'm exhausted enough to put my magical energies into standby."

"Um ... can we turn the vault's lights on?" Haruna muttered.

"Sure, if you don't mind ruining a few hundred thousand dollars worth of light-sensitive documents," Konoka said without a hint of sarcasm.

"Hum. Well. I suppose that we don't technically need the lights to -" Haruna began to say, only to be interrupted by sinister laughter.

Said laughter was emanating from Yue. "Working in the dark? I believe that's utterly contrary to any of the regulations of the Library Exploration Club," she said, turning that last phrase into a song lyric.

Twilight nodded. "That would be a crime against the purity of a library," she added without hesitation.

"Well, then we can leave this vault and move to a-" Haruna argued.

"When there's an unconscious party member, you should return to the surface as soon as possible, unless the mission's agenda requires otherwise, according to the regulations of the-" Yue countered.

"- you suck, Yue," Haruna informed her.

"Yes I did," Yue agreed malevolently. "It was great!"

"Yes it was," Haruna taunted right back, somewhat spoiling Yue's malicious glee.

"Oookay, then," said Konoka, crawling over to where she'd left her clothes to start getting dressed. "I guess we're done for the evening. This was fun, don't you think?"

"Your time will come, Negi-kun!" Haruna promised threateningly.

"So will yours," Yue replied.

"You're really very strange friends," Twilight considered.

"... not like that, _use_ the macaroni ..." muttered Nodoka.

"I'm the worst teacher AND government liaison ever," Negi muttered.

Twilight patted his shoulder. "If it's any consolation, you just made me look at humans in a completely different new light."

"Ummm ... thank you?"

"You're welcome!"

"More fun than some people should be allowed to have," Konoka said, by now dressed, as she headed over to put some clothes on Nodoka so that the group could start to make their way out of the depths of Library Island.

* * *

As they exited through the main entryway, Konoka (carrying Nodoka in a fireman's carry) paused momentarily while they passed a group of younger library explorers, gathered in a circle around something or someone on the grass, right outside the library doors. Her attention, under other circumstances, would have been, not on them, but rather on the library complex itself. However, due to this twist of fate, she stared at them instead, with an odd look on her face.

"Is something the matter?" asked Yue, who was walking unsteadily but managing to walk nonetheless.

"Um... Just take a look for yourself," Konoka pointed faintly towards the other group. Negi picked up on it and walked towards them, the students letting him pass to look at Fukawa Touko, Shiomiya Shiori and Irving Diedrich, all of whom lay on a crumpled heap, trembling violently and soaking wet.

"Sempai!" Konoka gasped, rushing towards Shiori. "Are you, are you okay?"

Shiori looked up at her with huge haunted eyes. "Those huge hands ... that gigantic body ... we never stood a chance ..."

Diedrich gnawed on one of his sleeves, with the air of a highly disturbed individual. "The Bat won't eat me, the Clown won't get me, the big bad bully won't find me ... No, Grandmother, no, I'll be a good boy!"

Touko whined, Diedrich's pet crow perched on her head and crawing happily. "Ah bwoke mah nhosze, all fecause off ffou. Ah dfemand wetwibution! Anw a nuwse!"

Haruna cocked a fist on a hip, eyebrow lifted high. "Oh my, oh my, what do we have here! Is this a sign of improper behavior between teacher and students, out in the open? What's this school coming to!?"

Negi shot her a flat stare. "Haruna-san, please."

Haruna only smirked cockily.

"N-N-No, no, it wasn't anything like that!" Shiori denied quickly. "I was just, it's my fault, I led them inside, into the secret chambers, and I thought I was doing okay, but then I triggered a trap! And we fell, and fell, and there was this armored giant, who chased us around, and we nearly died, and then he grabbed us, and next thing we know is we're being tossed out, and oh dear God you don't believe me, who could!"

"Actually, I believe you wholeheartedly," Yue said dryly.

Haruna wagged a disapproving finger. "Tsk, tsk, Sempai, you disappoint me! You should know you never should take others with you down there without one of us! And why were you going after us anyway?" she took a hand to her own chest. "Could it be ... that you didn't trust us?! That you called a teacher on us?!"

Shiori panicked even more. "Uwa! Uwa! No! No, it wasn't anything like that, it's just, you see!"

Diedrich, as he was helped back up by Negi, recovered enough presence of mind to reply. "She was taking us to ... some chambers where we had overheard ancient books to be categorized and properly preserved could be found. Honestly, this library's conservation system leaves a lot to be desired! Priceless tomes are kept without protective casings in old, dusty vaults more fitting Arkh- old Spanish Inquisition holding cells!"

"Riiiight," Haruna said.

Konoka examined the scowling Touko's nose. "Oh dear, it was very badly broken, Sempai. It's a shame I don't have magical powers that could fix it back easily, or else, believe me, I would gladly do it!"

Touko only grunted and batted Konoka's caring hand aside.

"By the way," Haruna told the other bespectacled girl, "I think that crow just crapped on your head."

Touko blinked, felt herself on the scalp without thinking of it, and then let loose a piercing shriek.

Twilight cringed and covered her ears.

* * *

So she had been forced to take a bath as soon as she got back home, which she intensely disliked, especially so shortly after falling into those cold waters of ... wherever they had been during those lost hours. Worst of it all, she hadn't been able to keep a single of those wonderful books she had found down there. No, even worse than that was the fact she hadn't even finished the last one, and she wasn't familiar with its author. Something told her even an Internet search wouldn't be of much help ...

No, on third thought, the worst part of it were Enoshima's usual taunts that had started as soon as her roommate had seen her coming through the door. Blocking the model's irritating prattle as best as she could, Toukawa took her shower, cleaned and fixed her hair to the best of her capacities, and then walked out (continuing to block out the terribly tasteless comments) until she found a private enough place to place a call.

"Bahkooya-shtama? It'h me. Ah fwowowed th' Shtpringfield ghuy ath you shaid, but-"

_"What? What are you saying?"_ he asked from the other end of the call.

She sighed. "Ah bwoke mah noshe duwing dat, nod dat I'm cuompaining, bhut th' gad ding is, I lofft twack of him, and I-"

_"Why are you talking like that? Are you trying to joke with me, or something like that?"_

She made an intense sound of terror. "Bahkooya-shama! Why, why, why, ah'd neweh! Ahm' tewwing yuh, mah nhose ith bwoken, it huwts ewewy time I shtpeak, and-"

Somehow, he seemed to understand her now. _"Then why didn't you just text me?!"_ he groaned curtly. She closed her eyes and let a pained whimper out.

_Because if I texted you, I couldn't listen to your voice. And I couldn't talk to you either._

She wiped a furtive tear out of a corner of her eye.

And then tightened a fist, and screamed her pent up rage.

"DITH ITH ALL YUHR FAULT, SWTUPID SHEXY NAWI SPWINGFWIED! I SHWEAR YUH'LL PAY FOW DIS!"

_"... look, we'll talk again tomorrow,"_ Togami told her, and cut the call.

* * *

_The Resort:_

"Lady Khaleesi, may I ask a favor from you?" Celestia's apprentice asked timidly.

The platinum blonde looked at her from where she had been sitting on the edge of her bed, going through her lent books of magical theory and especially the passages Professor Springfield had underlined. She was enough of a quick learner to start realizing how those would figure into his plans relatively soon. "You certainly may. But I cannot make certain promises of fulfillment on my part until I have learned the nature of that favor, of course."

"Of ... of course," Twilight, who was now back to her alicorn form for the time being, used a fore leg to rub herself on the other, awkwardly. "Um ... do your dragon-related abilities include those of sending written messages, like my friend Spike can do?"

A thick yet feminine eyebrow was raised.

* * *

"Oh my," Celestia said, after reading the letter out loud to her current companion. "I think she may have had sex with some of the humans. What a surprise! I hope no one was hurt. Still, it's nice to see her coming to appreciate some of the same things I do, wouldn't you say?"

"I fucking hate everything in all of existence," said Cersei Lannister as she shifted in her bindings.

"I know, but we're working on that."

* * *

**To be Continued in the Next Chapter!**


	6. Kotaro, Shiro, Saber, Rin, Sakura, Rider

Akamatsu, Takahashi, Nasu, others own these things. Please don't sue.

Don't read this if you're underage. Go play _Disney Infinity_ or something instead.

I'm so poor, I'm obviously not making money out of this. If I had money I'd be spending it on 3D girls.

* * *

**Chapter Six.**

* * *

"That Springfield guy? What about him?" asked Saotome Ranma between lazy mouthfuls of his lunch, legs crossed and resting against a tree as he sat with his back against one of its branches. Often, Hiroshi and Daisuke suspected he only took those weird positions during their breaks to boast of how flexible and in great shape he was.

The black haired Daisuke snorted. "C'mon, Saotome! I know you really have it in for this Fate guy, but don't let that distract you from how much worse Springfield is! At least Fate-sensei doesn't room with girls!" he seethed enviously.

Ranma rolled his eyes, tapping his feet on the trunk. "So what? The girls say it all the time, he's gay, and a waste or something because of that, and -"

"Gay my butt!" the fair-haired Hiroshi protested, not realizing how weirdly Daisuke stared at him over that. "That's only an act, I'm sure! Sure, he spends an awful lot of time around Fate-sensei and his older brother and that other black haired dude ... but none of them have any of the mannerisms, and before you tell me not all gays are like that, HANAGATA said he couldn't feel he was gay!"

Ranma gave him a clueless look. "... and what would he know about that?"

There was a short silent pause.

"Ranma," Daisuke told him, "Hanagata is gay himself."

"Really?"

"Really!" Daisuke grunted. "Everyone knows of the three-foot long torch he's carrying for Mamiya!"

"Seriously? I never noticed," Ranma went back to his lunch, carelessly. "Meh, what do I care anyway?"

"He lives near your sister!" Hiroshi reminded him.

"Haru-chan knows how to look after herself."

"I can't freaking believe it! You, who snap into red alarm as soon as anyone looks at Akane the wrong way, aren't worried about your own flesh and blood sister!" Daisuke seemed honestly appalled.

Ranma shrugged. "Unlike my sister, Bakane can't really look after herself -"

**"YOU IDIOT!"**

Right then, a zooming voleyball from the girls' open air court slammed in his face, sending him flying across the yard. Sighing, Daisuke picked the ball up and tossed it back. "Good one, Akane-san." Then he looked back at Ranma, putting his hands into his pockets. "Aren't you going to do anything, then? Even the Suzumiya weirdo thinks there's something fishy there, and even though her paranoia usually is only that, now we're starting to wonder."

"About what?" Ranma asked, already back up and looking none the worse to wear, dusting his monster sandwich off before munching on it again. "What do you expect me to do? I'm not a freaking bully, if the guy doesn't actually do anything wrong first, I can't just jump on him and pummel the crap out of him."

"Look, at least come with us after hours," Hiroshi asked him. "Taniguchi-sempai called for a Bro Campus Meeting to deal with this, figure out what to do, I don't know, anything!"

"I'm not threatened in my masculinity," Ranma confidently said, waving a hand. "If the girls are stupid enough to swoon over this guy, that's their own problem, not mine." He easily ducked under the next volleyball tossed his way, only to catch a bucket thrown at his face at the same time. After a short cringe of pain, he asked, "'Bro Meeeting', huh? That means there'll be no girls there, right?"

"That's the idea," Hiroshi nodded.

Ranma sighed. "Then count me in."

* * *

"Such misfortune," Kamijou Touma muttered in a lifeless tone as he sat in the crampled apartment along with the other boys, all of them cramped together at the living room, and most of them looking quite unhappy.

Katsuragi Keima sat at his right, completely immersed in the galge he was playing on his PFP. At his left, Ranma groaned and facepalmed. Hiroshi and Daisuke chattered nervously with Taniguchi and Kunikida. Kyon eyed everyone else with obvious mistrust, while Itsuki sat with a studied smile and his hands on his knees. Yuuki Rito was calling his sister to tell her he'd be late that evening, with a somber air of resignation about him. Sagara Sousuke sat completely stoic and silent, while Hirano Kohta and Naegi Makoto chatted with each other, trying to make some sense out of the situation. Itou Makoto antsily looked all around his surroundings, ignoring Saruyama Kenichi's attempts to make small talk with him. Komuro Takashi was simply napping at a corner, arms folded. Harima Kenji frowned, looking on the verge of punching someone in the face, so the others kept a prudent distance from him. Takasu Ryuuji and Hasegawa Kodaka eyed each other suspiciously, while Emiya Shirou walked around as best as he could, distributing tea and snacks. Tate Yuuichi looked out through a window with a deep air of concern.

Standing between them and the coveted door, Suzuhara Touji kept his arms folded and nodded. "Alright, I think we're good now. Secretary?" he snapped his fingers for the scrawny, smaller boy with glasses at his left.

Aida Kensuke sighed and turned his camera on. "I'm sure someone will use this as evidence against us at some point."

_"I won't run away, I won't run away, I won't run away_," Ikari Shinji whispered to himself from the other side of Touji.

Touji clapped twice. "Okay, if I can have your attention, guys! Do y'all know why are we here today, don'tcha?"

"Where is here?" Keima blandly asked, even though he still looked more interested in his game.

"My room," Naegi said sheepishly. "Now, I'd really like to know why you'd started pouring in here, often dragging each other in, please."

"You have the best room in this building," Suzuhara told him matter-of-factly. "The cleanest, too!"

"Well, thanks, but what I meant was -"

"Fellow proud males! Brothers in arms! Comrades!" Taniguchi stepped before Touji, blocking him from the audience's sight, and taking over his explanation preemptively. "You all know what brings us together here, in this hour of uncertainty and need!"

"Um, I just said I didn't know, so -" Naegi began.

"I'm here only because one of you tucked me under his arm and carried me here," the light and skinny Katsuragi huffed, eyes nailed on the small screen. "Whoever that was, he was lucky I was in the middle of a real time event, or else I'd have gotten a look at him and reported him to the Principal's office for kidnapping."

Taniguchi sweated a big fat drop, his earlier impetus blown out of him. "Um... yeah, well, we're here to discuss what to do on the subject of a dirty oddball playboy amongst us -"

"Haven't we gone through this before?" asked Naegi. "Kuno-sempai is mostly harmless as long as you humor him."

Touji shot him a killer glare as he pushed Taniguchi back aside. "Sempai, we're talking about that creep who moved in with the girls. The Springfield brat's older brother or cousin, or whatever the hell he is!"

"Oh, is that it?" asked Shirou in the middle of sitting down. "There should be no problems with that! He's, ah, well -"

"Gay," Tate shrugged, arms now folded.

"And the proof of that is?" asked Saruyama.

"He told my whole club himself," informed Hasegawa. "C'mon, guys, surely no man with some self-respect would out himself as gay if he wasn't gay, would he?"

"For the sake of a cover story? I would do it!" Saruyama argued.

A moment later, everyone was looking at him. All but Katsuragi, that is.

"Wh-What? Eyes on the prize, men, eyes on the prize!" Saruyama protested. "That's a small sacrifice to pay for the sake of living in a building with nothing but smoking hot girls!"

"Then I'm gay," Hirano quickly said.

"You realize we're recording this, aren't you?" Aida asked him.

"!" Hirano added.

Touji waved a hand. "Oh, it's not like you have any social life to hurt with that anyway. Now, before you continue arguing on this subject, let me tell you we have solid evidence that this Springfield guy, who's supposed to be a teacher but never teaches anything, is actually a player who always surrounds himself with girls and even locks himself up with them for FUCKING HOURS!" He gestured with both hands to emphasize that.

The gazes now drifted towards Aida.

"... not me this time, fellas," Kensuke grunted. "It's, um, him." He pointed towards someone who stood at some distance from him, in a previously completely ignored spot of the room.

There stood a grinning, skeletally thin boy with scarce black hair and glasses, holding a photo camera in a hand and a stack of pictures in the other.

"... who are you?" Naegi echoed the general feeling, making the unknown boy facefault.

A second later, Baldy sprang back to his feet. "USUI KAGERO! I'm Usui Kagero, Class Rep for Itoshiki-sensei's homeroom!"

"Oh, 3-F?" Naegi asked.

"I thought Despair-sensei only taught girls," observed Itou.

"Are you sure you aren't with Springfield? Because I've never seen you ever before!" Saruyama told him.

"I'M YOUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR!" barked Usui.

"... really? I thought that room had been empty for years."

Usui took a hand to his shiny head barely covered by pathetic strands of black and made a string of frustrated, nearly animalistic sounds.

* * *

'Nagi', 'Kojiro', 'Fates', Konoemon, Eishun and Daenerys all stood before the wide entrance of the Tokyo Lex Corp Tower, fresh from a train trip, quite early in the morning.

"Shaped like an L. Really," Kotaro snorted, shaking his head to himself. "What kind of egomaniac not only names his company after himself, but also builds his towers after the first letter of his own name?"

"Please, Kojiro-kun. Show some respect for our benefactor. Actually, Mr. Luthor's business enterprises used to operate under the name 'Luthor Corp'," Negi reasonably lectured as they marched in through the security detectors. "But after his parents' deaths, he re-branded the company, claiming the new name was faster and catchier to pronounce, and thus more marketable."

"I see no valid reason against it," Fate opined as the high tech scanners took intensive readings of his body and what there was on him. "After all, business are another venue of war, and in war, it's always important to keep your enemies reminded of who you are, and the power you yield."

"Everything is war for you," Kotaro muttered.

"True. And everything is only short-range, petty confrontation for you," Fate calmly shot back.

"Boys, please," Konoemon rasped while they made their way towards the elevators, escorted by a small team of security guards. Those stayed outside as the six entered the elevator to the penthouse offices. "Remember, unity. Unity, no matter what. We cannot show disagreements or divisions between us as long as we are here. We are all working towards the same goal here, something that is far greater than the sum of us."

"Yes, Sir," Kotaro grumbled humbly as Fate only nodded shortly.

"Good," Konoemon then looked at Negi. "They aren't hearing anything of what we are saying here, are they?"

"No, Sensei," Negi said, keeping a Pactio card pressed against his forehead. "Chisame has hacked into their surveillance system, and they are only looking at us standing in silence."

"That's good to hear, too," Konoemon nodded, choosing to inquire later about the sudden use of yobisute towards Hasegawa-kun. So did Fate, although his face had become unusually tense.

"And we all also know what to do if they ambush us, right?" Kotaro asked, flexing his fingers in and out.

Everyone else nodded.

"Although ... it's almost ridiculous, walking into negotiations of peace while preparing ourselves for a counter-attack."

Kotaro stared at him. "Excuse me? _You_ of all people scoffing against the idea of being prepared for everything?"

Negi sighed. "It isn't like I'm against it, of course, it's only ... it doesn't feel right, going in with words of peace and union in our mouths while being ready to strike them down just in case."

Kotaro pointed a thumb towards Fate. "Remember what happened last time you went to have words of peace with a shady guy while expecting for the best from him?"

"I do," Fate quietly replied, hands in his pockets, only the thumbs sticking out. "Said unnamed 'shady guy', who, incidentally, had worked with another unnamed 'shady guy' in the past, almost won. If not because of Kagurazaka-san. So the 'nice, good guy' had better grow accustomed to handling these situations in the future without her."

Now it was Negi himself who was staring harshly at him.

Fate paused, seeming genuinely puzzled. "Did I say something-"

"Yes, you did," Negi replied dryly, but then the elevator's doors went open before anything else could be said. And Negi walked out before anyone else, without walking back. A tall athletic woman in a bodyguard's gray and black uniform bowed for him and pressed a button on the nearest wall, and the doors to Lex Luthor's Japanese sanctum sanctorum opened themselves.

* * *

"I wasn't aware I had a chalkboard," Naegi faintly said, as Touji finished his rather crude yet disturbingly complicated diagram of _'Likely Outcomes of the Welsh Invasion'_ on said chalkboard, which Naegi was fairly sure no one had brought in through his door.

"So, as you can see -" Suzuhara tapped on the graphic with his chunk of chalk, making especially sure those who had arrived as he drew were taking notice. "- if we don't put our foot down an' stop this and quick, this ... perverted beast will become a menace to every pretty girl on campus! You've looked at Baldy's pics!" He slammed a hand on the collection of photos on display next to the chalkboard. "You've seen how many girls he's been hanging around for the last few days, and he just arrived! Within a month, he'll be unstoppable!"

"... baldy!?" Usui squeaked pitifully.

Kosaka Kyosuke looked up and down at the pictures, tightly stuffed as he was between Sawanaga Taisuke and Ashikaga Yuki, the latter of whom seemed to be using the oblivious Kyosuke as his meat shield from the former. "I don't get it. None of these pics show him kissing or hugging or even holding hands with those girls. They're only walking around and talking. Besides, isn't that guy gay?"

"WROOOOOOOONG!" Touji shouted.

_Lex Luthor rubbed his nose. "Excuse me, please," he told the group as they took their seats around the conference table. "It seems my private flight here overdid the air conditioner."_

"Yeah, come on, Suzuhara," Naegi, always the optimist, insisted. "Aren't you making a mountain out of an molehill?"

Touji sneered. "For shame, Sempai! Don't you have a little sister to worry about? Just like you, Saotome, and you, Yuuki, and you, Katsuragi, and Kosaka!"

Kyosuke rolled his eyes. "You mean, it's more like I'd have to worry about that poor guy if Kirino got her hands on him."

"And you, Itou, and Kyon-sempai, and Hasegawa-sempai, and of course me!" Suzuhara kept on ranting.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a sec!" Itou requested. "Those sisters, I get it, but my sister's a little kid!"

Touji gave him a bland, jaded glare. "Oi, Sempai. How naive can you be anyway? And with the player of a father you have!"

"That isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe him," Itou muttered.

"Piece of shit?" Ranma offered.

"Those are three words, but yeah, those fit," Itou nodded.

"Distant jerkass?" Ikari offered.

"Oh, those too, definitely," Itou allowed.

The three of them shared stares before doing a three way Bro Fist.

"... yeah, well, anyway," Taniguchi snatched the chalk in mid-flight as a stone faced Suzuhara flipped it in the air waiting for the cycle of mutual self-pity to end. Then he took over again. "I'd say no female is safe as a chronic pervert roams around us free!"

"Don't worry, none of us will denounce you," Ichijou Raku deadpanned, making Maiko Shuu break into hysterical laughter.

"I'm fucking serious!" Taniguchi snarled. "You of all people, a Yakuza with a smoking hot lovey-dovey girlfiend, should be jealous, I mean zealous, in this situation!"

"Jealous over a violent gor-" When Shuu discreetly elbowed him in the stomach, Raku suddenly shifted gears. "I mean, I'd never distrust my lovely girlfriend! I have my full trust on her undying love for me! Eh he he heh!"

Keima finally looked up from his galge. THAT made everyone take notice.

"You're a liar," he icily told Raku.

"... bweh?" Raku eloquently said.

Keima returned to his game, face obscured. "I can see all your flags."

"What's he talking about?" asked a confused Hirano.

"Ignore the geek," Owada Mondo grunted. "He doesn't know anything at all about real women or the real men who love them."

Yamada Hifumi huffed, adjusting the tiny glasses on his huge greasy face. "Hey, there now! I shan't permit you to disparage a fellow conosseur of the wonders of 2D -"

Mondo towered over him. "You won't let me WHAT, lardass?!"

"Don't fight, don't fight!" Shirou, Naegi and Mizuhara Makoto chorused, while Kyon and Mamiya Otaru facepalmed, and Matou Shinji kept rocking back and forth at his corner of woe, whispering about Mean Slutty Imouto-chan.

"Anyway," Keima said, still as calm as before, stopping Mondo from pummeling the massive ball of fat he had just lifted up. "If you're that interested in smoking a sex offender out, you can't confront him directly, or rat him out to unresponsive authorities. You need to use a 'honey trap'. That's the way it always is ... in games!"

The jam-packed room fell eerily silent after that.

Kyon broke the silence. "That's ... stupid."

Kodaka nodded. "Yeah ... completely stupid!"

"Yep," Taniguchi opined. "So utterly stupid ..."

"... it might just work!" Shuu smiled, with a playful glint in his eyes.

"Whaaaaat? NO!" Kyon, Kodaka, Rito, Mizuhara, Raku and Naegi shouted all at once. But by then hotter heads were prevailing.

"Question. Honey traps are usually effective only against jungle animals to hunt for meat and skin," Sagara Sousuke finally spoke, holding a hand up in a martial manner. "How would help one help us locate and eliminate a sex convict? I propose a search, stealth capture, torture and questioning strategy instead."

"Don't be stupid! That only would lead to a Bad End!" Katsuragi shouted. Ikari cringed. So he was related to Misato, after all.

Shuu rubbed his chin. "Yes, the Honey Trap could work! There's nothing like a woman, a cute, frail, harmless female in the spring of her youth, to lure a sex fiend and catch him red handed!"

"You must be kidding," Aono Tsukune said.

"No, he's right!" Touji slammed his hands together. "All we need is to find a brave woman willing to help us!"

"Are you fucking nuts? No sane woman would ever help us with that!" Harima yelled at him.

"To be fair, that still leaves like half the girls here," Ranma snorted.

"Then how about someone who can pass as a girl?" Taisuke proposed, and Yuki immediately started shivering. "Someone who would look convincing in drag!"

All looks turned to Ranma, who flipped them the bird. "Over my dead body!"

"But you're so good at it!" Aida told him, discreetly sniffling back some streaming blood.

"That's not cross-dressing, for the last time, damn it!" Ranma howled.

"Then what it is -?" Saruyama asked him.

Before the question could be answered, Taisuke asked deviously, "How about Yuki here?"

Rito immediately leapt back. "Not me! That was my cousin Riko, and I look nothing at all like her!"

The others stared at him. All but Keima, naturally.

"What are you babbling about?" Saruyama asked him. "Of course you don't look at all like Riko-chan! I should beat you up for that! You'd make a hideous woman."

"... I would, wouldn't I?" Rito eased back, with a clumsy chuckle. Nods abounded.

"I said 'Yuki', not 'Yuuki'. Clean those damn ears of you sometime," Taisuke said, then turned a creepy smirk towards the small, gulping Yuki. Most of the others followed his gaze.

"Now that you mention it," Shuu said, "he even looks like a girlier Negi-sensei, and as we all know, perverts and degenerates often lust after their own families."

Kyosuke sweatdropped, but thankfully no one was looking at him. (Some of them were looking at Itou, but his reaction was more subdued.)

Yuki gulped and backed away pitifully as several larger shadows loomed over him. "The cutest one, the cutest one, the cutest boy we could ever find ..." they chanted ominously.

He began weeping. "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

To their credit, Naegi, Rito, Mizuhara, Raku, Kyon, Kodaka and Ryuuji all tried to save him. Really they did! Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough.

_Elsewhere, Fujinami Chihiro blinked, lifting his gaze from his computer screen. "I feel like ... like I have just been spared a great pain!_

* * *

Kotaro had met several guys like this Luthor fellow, even if they'd operated on a smaller scale than him. They didn't know the first thing about real fighting (even if a few took self-defense lessons just in case), and yet they held incredible power over others who could crush them easily in a man-to-man conflict. Against the general opinion, Kotaro was actually okay with that. He respected people who could hold their own in a fight far more, true, but that didn't mean he couldn't respect those who relied more on their brains and other skills. Like Chibisuke, or Natsumi-neechan, or-

No, he couldn't be thinking of her now. Or anymore at all, period.

Thing was, he was used to taking contracts, and thus orders, from these kinds of fellows. Still, this particular fellow gave him all sorts of negative vibes. Sitting across them, with a very attractive but oddly scary older woman on one side and a shorter middle aged man at the other, he gave a sensation of being in complete control over his surroundings. Plausibly, if it ever came to that, Kotaro could have jumped over the table and taken him out in a single swipe; perhaps he even could do so while dodging all the dozens of hidden security measures and deadly devices planted between them, the ones he could smell and hear, and those that likely existed but he couldn't detect. Perhaps. Still, Kotaro couldn't dismiss the idea that they were sitting across the most powerful man on Earth.

Lex Luthor. Trillionaire. Owner of an empire spawning over every continent, Antarctic bases included. He couldn't pull the most basic spell out. He couldn't even outfight Ayaka, most likely. (Kotaro had no way of knowing about all of those green and purple power armors lined up in the basement.) And yet, if he opposed Negi's plan, they were done. No one with any actual global pull, except maybe Wayne, who still operated on a somewhat smaller scale, would invest in the project if Lex Luthor rejected it. The man ruined and blessed hundreds of lives with the most casual comments. Kotaro knew all of that, since mercenaries just can't live under rocks. He knew he was powerless against this kind of guy. So he, and everyone, would have to rely on Negi.

Yet again.

Dammit.

"Once again, welcome, lady, gentlemen," the man in the black suit said, as smoothly as his perfectly bald head. And smug, as well, oh so smug, in a subdued but blatant way that made Haruna-nee at her worst seem sound downright humble. "Allow me to introduce you to Kiryuin Ragyou-sama, whom I believe Averruncus-san already had the pleasure of meeting in the flesh."

"Indeed," Fate said quietly, as the attractive woman with the large cleavage, one that Kotaro tried his best not to stare at, nodded her smiling admission. Behind her stood a short younger woman who reminded Kotaro of a dark skinned Hakase-nee in a white suit.

Luthor continued, "... and Mr. Morgan Edge, my CEO of global communications." At that, the middle aged man flashed a perfect white smile. His brown business suit was expensive as hell, but also looked ripped straight out of the seventies, and it was obvious more than half of his dark brown hair was wig. "He will introduce you to our strategy to spread your message to the world in three progressive stages."

Kotaro was surprised that was the first thing the man mentioned regarding their joint venture. Apparently, so was Konoemon, although his expression showed it much less than the boy's.

"You refer to revealing magic to the world," the old man carefully said.

"It can't be helped, can it?" Ragyou said, in a dangerously considerate tone.

"No, it certainly can't," Negi had to admit. "However, the first item of consideration we would like to bring today concerns the construction of the Martian terraforming platform."

"Springfield-sama," Ragyou said, "with all due respect, that cannot be achieved without making its purpose known to the masses. We are talking about a global task that will demand for an unprecedented technological and economic effort. And attempting to perform such a world changing procedure without being honest to the population that will supply your resources would be highly inappropriate, wouldn't you agree?" she added, with her smile becoming sharper and wider.

Negi took a deep breath. "I know. Moreover, time is of the esence, and yet, revealing the whole truth too quickly could cause a global upbeheaval -"

"Naturally. That is why we have started working on a project to make your scenario possible with the least strain for both worlds," Luthor said. A hologram of planets Earth and Mars began hovering above their heads and the meeting table. "We call it - Project COVERS."

* * *

_The Academy:_

None of them knew the first thing about makeup, of course, or so they claimed, so they still needed a girl's help. However, it couldn't be any girl. It would have to be one that would be absolutely loyal to a fault to at least one of them. One who never would fall to the vile Springfield charms. One without any scruples.

Soon, their choice became crystal clear.

A quick call from a reluctant and quite peer-pressured Tate later, Munakata Shiho hummed sweetly, leaning over the weakly squirming Yuki on the chair they had all but forced him into, and worked her magic. Anything to gain brownie points over Mai-san, after all!

The boys waited at a distance, closely gathered together and chattering amongst themselves.

"You sure she's good at it?" asked Hiroshi.

"Well, she ain't exactly ugly, is she?" countered Saruyama.

"Hey, hey," Tate groaned. "Mind your mouth there, buddy."

"Oh, c'mon, you already have a girlfriend! Leave something for us, will you?" requested Daisuke.

"It isn't about that!" Tate growled defensively.

"Oniichan, please," Shiho sing-sang while applying the last touches of makeup on her sobbing victim. "It's lovely you worry so much about Shiho, but an artist needs peace and quiet to work properly, okay?"

"It isn't about -" Tate began grumbling again, finally falling into a tired sigh. "Forget it."

Snickers abounded around him, to which he replied with outright threatening glares, until, minutes later, Shiho pulled back with a satisfied sigh. "Aaaand it's done! Behold!" She spun the chair around, so the boys could get a full look at the result of her efforts. Flat chest puffing up with pride, Shiho heard them inhale in astonishment as pastel bubbles began filling the room...

"This is so embarrassing," Yuki looked down, blushing adorably. Wearing that long skirted dress lent him by Shiho (who was barely shorter than him, after all), and with a long red wig on, covered by the right amounts of subtle makeup that stylized his long eyelashes and accentuated his large, round eyes, he struck a downright angelic vision surpassed only by the likes of Negi-kun in kitsune garb.

One by one, the boys began falling into a mesmerized silence, until only Naegi, Tate himself, Keima, Ranma, Mizuhara, Raku, Sagara and Kurosaki Ichigo remained seemingly unaffected. Quickly realizing the absent stares on their partners' faces, they shared concerned looks before shrugging it off. (Okay, Sagara didn't notice that either.)

Then Keima walked towards Yuki, studied him with a careful analytical eye, sneered coldly for a moment, and then turned back around, waving a hand in circles. "I suppose it could work, for a target not initiated into the wonders of true beauty."

Shiho breathed easier when she saw Tate walking towards her, lacking the signs of the quiet fascinated trance gripping most of the others. He patted her head softly. "Good job here, Shiho ... I guess."

She cooed with nearly orgasmic glee. "Oniichan!"

Ranma looked around, seemingly realizing something else. "By the way," he asked Kyon, "where's your friend now, anyway?"

Kyon snapped back from his trance, quickly growing annoyed at the realization he had been in such a trance in the first place. "Huh? Who do you mean?"

"You know, Suzumiya's yes-man!" Ranma replied.

"... he isn't my friend!" Kyon snapped, before humming darkly. "Hmmmm ... I don't know. He was right here, right before ... well, you know. Knowing him as I do, he's surely giving a call to-"

Several steps away from the front door, enjoying relative secrecy and security for the time being, Itsuki was diligently delivering his report through his cellphone. "- and that's how it is. I thought you would be interested in knowing. If it somehow collides with your plans, I'll make sure to-"

_"Are you craaaazy? That sounds greeeeeeat!"_ Haruhi's voice squealed gleefully. _"Who had that wonderful idea? He deserves honorary membership! That's the kind of progressive breakthrough thought I want!"_

"Um, well, it was a joint brainstorm of sorts between Katsuragi Keima and Sawanaga Taisuke."

_"Who the hell are they? Oh, well, it doesn't matter! Keep me posted on the results, play-by-play!"_

"Yes, Ma'am."

_"And I want photos! Lots of photos! I want pictures of Spider-M- errr, of Cutie Cross Dressing Boy!"_

"Yes, Ma'am."

_"Oh, and Itsuki-kuuun ..."_

"Yes, Ma'am?"

A perverse low chuckle ensued. _"While you're at it, there's something else I want you to do for me."_

* * *

Meanwhile, in the quiet but surely all too brief lull in the middle of crises at the shrine at the hills of Mahora, Tatsumiya Mana, with the keen eye of a demonic Sherlock, realized someone had taken her makeup kit as soon as she entered her bedroom, sweaty from another day of biathlon training and then patrol.

Not that she ever used said makeup except for the rare cases where she had to go undercover and pretend to be milder and softer than she was, but still, it was the principle of the thing. And out of everyone living with her at the shrine, she only knew of one person with the interest, the lack of wits, and the blind guts to take one of her belongings away.

She tightened a fist and grumbled her apprentice's name, in a dangerous, throaty monotone. "Shiho."

She hadn't punished her in quite a while, had she? She had been so busy with her Mundus Magicus mission, she had even overlooked her duty to punish Shiho properly for her role in that deadly so-called Festival, and no doubt that had made the girl bolder and brasher, forgetting her rightful place and limits.

That would have to be changed.

* * *

"Our preliminary studies have shown," Luthor exposed, smooth and confidently, "the major source of distrust amongst our target audiences across the planet, when faced with the hypothetical perspective of an encounter with an alien society, stems from a feeling of disadvantage and helplessness. In other words, once they know for sure about your existence, and about what you can do, the masses will be naturally compelled to fear and distrust you until they are offered reassurance that they can reach a similar plane ... even if they never actually do bother to do so."

"To further elaborate," Edge said, "as long as you reveal yourselves, while presenting yourselves as a collective with both knowledge of our technology and a variety of supernatural capacities of your own, the population's first reaction will be responding with mistrust and unwillingness to cooperate. Many could see you as superior beings, even of a semi-divine nature, but most will feel threatened, whether that is your intention or not."

"Which is why we have operated in secrecy for centuries," Eishun had to agree.

"Precisely, but that isn't an option anymore, is it?" Mrs. Kiryuin remarked. "Our society, as I'm sure you will find reasonable, will demand an equivalent exchange for all the resources and efforts to be invested over decades, the best part of a century even going with the most optimistic calculations. For the barriers between the worlds to be effectively erased, the balance of power will have to be redistributed."

"But there's a big chance of that going wrong, isn't there?" Kotaro felt he had to ask. "I mean, giving everyone the means to access magic and the like... couldn't that cause many dangerous situations when everyone-"

"Everyone," Luthor pointed out, "who can pay for it, naturally."

Kotaro blinked. "Excuse me?"

"As with everything," Luthor said, "power of a physical nature has to be earned through power of an economic nature. That is a constant that will always remain, no matter what. It has been true in both worlds since the dawn of time, and will keep being so. Only the exact procedures for it, and its scale, will change, thanks to all of us."

"The masses," Edge expanded, "feel safe and cooperative, not by holding the power themselves, but by knowing their representatives do. Their governments, their financial and social leaders. I have been studying your societies since this was brought to my attention, and it applies just as well to Mundus Magicus. That's why we all have armies instead of holding our own arsenals in our homes. That basic fact remains the same, regardless of those armies being equipped with rifles and missiles or wands and dragons."

"So you are basically asking for access to magic resources as a tool of power." Queen Daenerys spoke evenly, coolly, a slight edge creeping into her voice.

"A tool for everyone," Kiryuin replied. "While only our armies may have tanks, and only yours can have whale warships, our civilians will have every right to hold implements of power much like those your own commoners can get access to through the correct amounts of economical investment."

"In other words," Fate spoke, "you are talking about spreading magical power, or a reasonable equivalent, across this world as it undergoes a social fusion with ours."

"Exactly. Consider it a necessary step towards what basically amounts to a multicultural blending," the woman with the milky skin said. "From now on, you cannot hide in the shadows anymore, holding the advantage of your esoteric practices above the heads of Earth's majority. That doesn't mean everyone on Earth will have the willingness and capacity to study sorcery, just like most of your commoners don't. However, they must feel they have access to that kind of power, should they desire it. That is where COVERS come into the picture."

"Please elaborate," Negi requested, uncomfortable but still polite.

"With pleasure," Luthor took over again, standing as the hologram shifted into a diagram showing a wide variety of implements, ranking from clothes of all types to what looked like app devices of all sorts and sizes. "This is the future. Magic and technology combined into one, at the access of everyone..."

"... who can pay for it..." Kotaro muttered darkly under his breath. Fate kicked him in a shin under the table.

"... who can, fair and rationally, compensate those who had the foresight and carried on the effort needed for such developments," Luthor completed his sentence with a slight but sharp bit of displeasure. "That is the elemental nature of any major sociocultural change with widespread ramifications through the economy, although we shouldn't be surprised a child wouldn't have thought of it."

Kotaro nearly choked on his saliva for a moment. "E-Excuse me?!"

After a moment, it was Neg¡'s turn to ask, in a far quieter but no less bewildered tone, "I beg your pardon?"

"Granted," Luthor swiftly said, before adding, "Of course we know. We have to know. We wouldn't be here if we didn't have our own ways to know. Don't take it personally. It's something we have to do with everyone ... much like your own superiors no doubt try to do with the rest of us, as well." This was said with a subtle glance towards Konoemon and Eishun, who said nothing. "I'm sure you'll fully understand it when you come to fit into the world of adults, Mr. Inugami, Professor Negi."

"I suppose," Fate said coolly, "asking for your sources would be an exercise on futility."

"I'm sure you can figure them out on your own," Ragyou said with a strangely unnerving smile.

"That's correct," Fate quietly placed a fist on the table, almost but not quite knocking on it. "It would have saved us time, regardless."

"Time that would be no doubt better invested on our joint enterprises," Luthor replied.

Kotaro made a disbelieving sound. "After you admit to spying on us like this, how can you—"

Fate gestured for him to calm down, which he barely did. "Inugami. That is a widespread nature of diplomacy in the high spheres. You should grow used to it. If everyone who ever spied on each other didn't ever made treaties afterwards, the history of mankind would never have had any periods of peace, anywhere."

Kotaro stared at him. "How can you be treating this so naturally—"

"Because it is a natural thing to happen," Fate bluntly told him.

"Which, of course, doesn't make it any more ethically correct, regardless," Daenerys said with a cutting edge to her voice.

"Your Majesty," Luthor said then, "trying to send children under false names into a world altering negotiation is more often than not considered 'ethically incorrect' as well, in our society at the very least. A lesser man would feel insulted over what could be taken as a perceived slight, but in the interest of the greater common good, and since Mrs. Kiryuin has spoken favorably of you, I will forgive it for happening ... but never forgetting. With that in mind, from now on, I will be dealing exclusively with adults for the durations of these treaties."

Before she could reply, in a manner that most likely might have sparked greater conflicts, Fate spoke faster, yet even so quiet and cold. "Negi-san is the man who initiated this project, and I am his right hand man. We will remain tied to its foreground for the whole of its duration, or else it won't be carried out at all."

"That is an interesting statement," Luthor said. "Unless my sources were sadly mistaken, I was under the impression you were completely opposed to Professor Springfield's project until weeks ago, to the point you would kill to foil it. Might we know why are you so closely tied and necessary to its conception and success now?"

"Haven't your sources told you?" Fate asked.

"Perhaps."

For the next moments, the atmosphere around the table greatly resembled that of a Mexican standoff. Morgan Edge really wished for an alcoholic drink.

Konoemon broke that silence with a calm, unwavering "Our apologies, then, if we have somehow offended your sensibilities. I assume that is why we haven't had tea."

"Coffee," Fate quickly remarked.

"My bad. Tea or coffee," Konoemon amended.

Luthor blinked twice, then addressed his assistant, "Mercy, tea and coffee for our guests."

"Yes, Sir," the tall woman said before quickly leaving the room.

"I regret that omission," Luthor said, very flatly. "Now, Mr. Averruncus, I don't doubt the three of you are greatly accomplished for people of your age. I know for sure you have achieved deeds far greater than most grown men will ever dream for the rest of their paltry lives. I am sure, in due time, you will be considered titans of the modern age ... for better or worse, since history is often written by myopic men, and misjudges the visionaries. Believe me, I should know. However, Professor Springfield, you simply happened to be the right person in the right place at the right moment. .. but haven't you stopped to consider you might have left that place and that moment behind? Have you ever led any group larger than a classroom? Even with all of your intellect, do you really think of yourself as a politician or entrepreneur? This project of yours needs men and women used to helming at a large scale. Politics, leaders of the industry, and even men of faith. You are seen as a hero by those in the world of ... magic, but so is Superman in ours, and that doesn't mean he could guide the destiny of a nation, or a conglomerate. Often, the man who plants the seeds of greatness isn't the man destined to look after the tree."

Negi's eyes went very wide, and he ignored the cup of tea that had just been placed before him.

"As for you, Mr. Averruncus," Luthor continued. "No doubt, you think you hold the fortune of this whole enterprise in your hands. That, at the slightest twist of your loyalties, you can decide the path both worlds will take. However, stop to consider this. First of all, at this point, whether your world survives or not will barely affect ours. Your ... mages like to think they have helped mankind from the shadows for untold years, but they have been so preoccupied with secrecy, they have actually changed very little over the last few centuries. And we haven't even invested anything in your plans yet, so even if you rejected our help, we only would have minor costs in the way of preliminary designs. In this equation, it is you who relies on us, rather than the other way around. As proved by the fact you came here for us. True, it would be a shame if you spurned our offers to build a new age of prosperity for both worlds, but if you succeed on placing your whole world in an artificial paradise, or if your world perished, those who rely on us would not even notice it. We simply would continue proceeding as we always have."

At that, Ragyou's eyes briefly showed an intense spark of a fearsome nature, one that spoke of someone on the verge of losing everything, and of lashing out because of that. But she held herself back, waiting.

"At the same time," Luthor kept on orating, "ask yourself, would you really be able to deviate from Professor Springfield's plans and still succeed? My reports have told me you succeeded as far as you did because you had the element of surprise. Should you attempt that course of action again, this time, the joint forces of your world and those in this world who have branded themselves the super-powered defenders of mankind would go after you. We wouldn't move a finger, of course, but ask yourself, with your own forces diminished as they are, can even your admittedly formidable might stand against those combined efforts?"

Fate said nothing, but despite his lack of expression, his frustration on the brink of fury and his newfound impotence were obvious.

Konoemon rasped, once again keeping his cool facade. "Haaaa ... yes, it is a difficult situation for all of us, indeed!" he said, rubbing his own chin. "When one happens to be in need, one should not act picky. Just like, when one happens to be in an advantageous situation, one shouldn't flaunt it to manipulate a situation."

"Naturally," Luthor said with a smile. "Good thing, then, we are so willing to help you through that difficult situation asking for only a few reasonable conditions in trade. Wouldn't you agree?"

Kotaro hissed harshly under his breath.

Fate finally touched his cup of black coffee and took it to his lips. "I like lack of mercy in a negotiation," he decided. "It's exactly what I would do, if I were in your place."

"Now here we have a honest young man," the bald man in the black suit commented, amused.

Fate began sipping, slowly. He disliked the taste. It was bitter. Even if he knew most of that taste was in his mind rather than his actual lips. "I don't think I want to deal with you, either, so I will respect your wishes, and leave dealing with you to the elders of the Associations. That still doesn't mean I will be withdrawing from the Project's direction, of course, and neither will Negi. Just that we won't be handling the duties of coordination with your side of the operation."

"Hey, now," Kotaro told him. "What's with deciding that for Negi before-"

"Those conditions are fine with me," Negi tensely said. Then he looked at Eishun and Konoemon. "However, the last word will fall on our elders."

Konoemon only nodded gravely, and after a moment, so did Eishun, reluctantly. Ragyou's face relaxed back from her near rictus, and Edge's sweat covered features collapsed into a relieved sigh.

Lex Luthor smiled. "Thank you. That is exactly what we expected to hear. I'm sure reasonable young men like you will get remarkably far in life ... eventually."

Kotaro felt like vomiting.

* * *

_Mahora Academy:_

"Hey, Emiya," he heard, coming from a few steps before him, and that made him stop right before he could enter the small house at the borders of the campus his father had left him. Turning back, he saw Tate Yuuichi coming to a halt before him, hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face. "Got a few minutes to spare?"

The red-haired boy nodded. "Um, sure thing," he said, guiding him inside. "Saber! I'm home!"

The next thing Tate knew, a green-eyed lion had pounced on Emiya, growling with terrifying ferocity.

"Shirou! Where had you been? I'm starving!"

Or a reasonable facsimile, anyway.

_Later:_

The best thing about it, Tate guessed, was the meal was really delicious. Other than the food at the Chao Bao Zi, it had to be the only food he had ever tasted that was better than Mai's.

"You'd make a really good wife," he dryly snarked between careful and slow mouthfuls of his dinner, all the better to taste it as it deserved.

The short blond woman nodded between huge, avid mouthfuls of her own. "Yes, he does."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shirou sighed.

"Soooo ... does the Headmaster know about this?" asked Tate. "I mean, I was vaguely aware of all this Holy Cup War nonsense, and how it happened at roughly the same time as the HiME War, but ... I never imagined you ended up, well, living together as a result."

Saber-san nodded, closing her eyes while savoring her latest mouthful, all the while producing a think purr from the back of her throat. "We have to. Even after the War, our unbreakable bonds as Master and Servant prevailed."

"Okay," Tate said, eyebrow quivering.

"And I need daily transfers of prana from Shirou and Rin to sustain this physical form in this world," the young woman continued. "The Headmaster graciously understands that, and has taken mercy on this newfound life of mine, the sole true retirement an ashen warrior soul can ever experience, my real Avalon, my -"

Was Emiya blushing now? It sure looked so. "A-Actually, they don't need to be daily, really, it's just-!"

Tate blinked. "What are you two talking about, now?"

Saber-san and Emiya stared at him, mildly shocked, before sharing an eerily synchronized "Never mind."

"Umm, allriiiight," Tate said, taking a napkin to a corner of his own mouth. "Anyway, I only wanted to ask you what do you really think about that whole 'Honey Trap' business, Emiya. Don't you think they're taking it so far? Considering what we knew about Negi-sensei, shouldn't we have told them something to stop them?"

"Like what?" Emiya asked.

"I don't know! You're the guy who winged it through a bloody war! I only got myself killed in mine! Okay, and then I was revived and had a brief fight with a demi-god, but still!"

"Don't feel too bad about it," Emiya told him, sympathetically. "I got killed and revived as well during my war!"

"More than once, as a matter of fact," Saber expanded.

Shirou sighed again. "Yeah ... and the demi-god I fought, I'm sure he wasn't as impressive as yours-"

_Elsewhere, the now chibified Gilgamesh tensed up._

Tate was growing really exasperated now. "Whatever, man! That doesn't really matter! What I mean is, this is gonna suck for everyone, mostly for Negi-sensei and that Yuki kid, and we still let it happen! Aren't you supposed to be some sort of freaking Hero for Great Justice?!"

Emiya quietly put his bowl and chopsticks down, and solemnly said, "Tate-san. Through the War, I grew and changed, or at least I want to believe I did."

Saber refilled her bowl quickly. "You did. Your cooking has improved greatly since Sakura-san started coming over regularly to -"

"Aaaaa-heeeemmmmmm," Shirou coughed. "As I was saying, Tate-san, I'm not the stupid idealist I once was. I still chase after the ideals of Justice, but with a changed eye. I have realized I cannot save everyone at the same time, and I also have realized some situations will defuse themselves, in a comical harem routine. A true hero bids his time until he's really needed, and then, only then, his actions can count."

_"What route is this, again?"_ Tate very weakly wondered, his voice barely a whisper.

Emiya retook his bowl and chopsticks. "Seriously, they are goofing around, and nothing else. And it might help Yuki-san to forge character. Adversity did that for Tohsaka, for Saber, for Sakura, for Caster-san, for Ilya-chan, for my father, for Shinji-"

"For Matou?" Tate incredulously asked. "But of late, he just sits around muttering in a traumatized tone!"

"And he's much wiser now than he used to be," Saber stated, while Emiya nodded.

"But, but-" Tate said, "At least we should warn Negi-sensei, or his roommates, I dunno. I hate the idea of being a stool pigeon, but -!"

Then the front door slid open. "Saber! Emiya-kun!" a pleasant female voice sing-sang. "I came for today's recharge session! And this time I brought the lubeeeeehhhh... Eh." The rather naughty smile on Tosaka Rin's face melted into a frown as she came into the dining room and stared at Tate. "And what are you doing here?"

"Good afternoon, Rin. Tate-san came to discuss a trap set with honey for Negi-sensei with Shirou," Saber told her, with a soft. warm smile of her own. "Children of this age are really powerless against sweet things, aren't they?"

Tohsaka gave both boys a doomsday glare. **"What?"** she demanded, and they shuddered in terror. Facing the Obsidian Lord in Gilgamesh's body would have been preferable to that.

* * *

"I feel dirty," Kotaro grunted, sitting at the back of the rented limo with Negi, Fate, the Konoe men and the Queen, all conveniently shielded from the driver by a magical sound barrier. "I also feel more insulted than ever."

Fate felt sorely tempted to ask if that included the recent incident in which he had been kicked out of his living quarters (which had been noisy enough for the neighbors to hear, and rumors traveled fast in Mahora) not to mention questioning him on the causes behind it, but decided it only would muddle the current situation and detract attention from the really important subjects at hand. "If this offers any consolation, I am not completely pleased with the results. Still, we have a preliminary confirmation of cooperation, and in the end, that is all that matters."

"We should have gone to Bruce Wayne first," Eishun somberly said. "Even if his name doesn't carry the same weight as Luthor's, he would have offered a better start for us."

"Ah well, it's better to get the unpleasantries out of the way first, don't you think?" Konoemon wondered aloud. "It's far from being the first time we have had to play along with his kind. And just like before, we will prevail this time, as well."

Negi sighed. "I doubt my father would have stood for this. They are as bad as the Megalomesembrian Senate, aren't they?"

"They are the same everywhere," the blond woman mused, looking out the window with an unreadable expression. "They might not cast shackles of iron, but they still have this world in a prison of its own."

"Yet, what is the alternative?" asked Fate. "Their system is corrupted, but it at least brings a measure of lawfulness and order. Take them down, and this whole world will degenerate into anarchy. Here, it's not as simple as marching into a nation and taking the chains away from the slaves."

"No, they have those chains in their souls instead. Don't they?" she asked.

Fate mildly shrugged. "It's still a system that works, for the most part, and one that will enable our own goals."

Eishun smiled sadly. "Nagi wouldn't ever have come with us in the first place. I sincerely can't imagine him sitting there, much less being awake through Luthor's full speech."

"No, he wouldn't," Konoemon agreed. "But he would have had a constant hand on the project, all the while pretending he wouldn't even care about the logistics, and that they made his head hurt. Only to surprise us with simple but precise insight whenever we would get stuck."

Eishun and Negi shared a sigh.

"And at some point, later on, he would punch Luthor in the face, and get away with it," Konoemon added with a chuckle.

"And it would be glorious, and Jack would upload it to the Web with a music remix," Eishun laughed.

Even Fate almost showed a slight sign of a smile then.

"All we can do is try to make him proud," Negi quietly said. "Until his return. I only hope, when that happens, I can look him in the eye and hear a 'Well done'. That's all I ask from life at this point."

"Oboy, here it comes again. Mr. Martyr, let me tell you something," Kotaro said. "You don't have to act as if your own life wasn't worth anything just because you're the world's savior. If anything, that only gives you more right to some happiness of your own."

"It's fitting you would mention that," the Khaleesi said. "That is the very same thing Miss Asakura told me during our latest ... interview."

"About him, or about yourself?" asked Kotaro.

"Judging from her phrasing, I would say both," she replied.

"What can she know about affairs of such a scale?" Fate said. "She's only -"

"- one of my valuable partners," Negi sharply said.

"One of those who were all the way behind him while others were an obstacle," Kotaro added, just a bit pointedly

Fate narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't change the fact her views are only those of a child in her fifteen."

"I barely was older when I seized the throne," the Queen said.

"And like we've just been so harshly reminded, we are children ourselves," Negi said, placing a hand on a groaning Kotaro's shoulder. "Yet here we are, with you, to no protests from you. And Father-"

"You can't possibly compare our circumstances to hers," Fate protested. "You are being far too lenient on -"

"- lesser beings?" Kotaro guessed, rolling his eyes. "You know, it's just like we hadn't left Luthor behind..."

"This conversation," Konoemon spoke suddenly, casual but firm, "ends here and now."

The blonde gave him a side glance. "That doesn't mean the feelings behind it will."

"We are rational beings because we have the capacity to restrain our personal feelings for the greater good," the old man continued, his ancient gaze traveling over the trio in assumed identities, all of whom sat in silence. "And everyone here is mature enough to realize that."

For a moment, Eishun reached into his breast pocket for a cigarette, but stopped himself short of it.

Daenerys looked out the window again, examining the strange wonders of that alien world and its streets. "I would dearly hope so," she said.

* * *

The locals had called it the Tatsumiya Shrine for years, after the late priest, then very young, who rebuilt it after the firebombings of the Great War had been named Tatsumiya. After he died an old man, leaving a newly adopted daughter named Mana behind, a man of the Masaki family that had originally founded the shrine returned from his trips across the world and took over it, and had been running it ever since.

What most did not know, of course, was the fact that man was, actually, the very same man who built the shrine seven hundred years ago, kept alive because of his alien nature. Now posing as the distant direct descendant of the original Masaki Katsuhito, he'd returned to his old duties and took charge of Mana's education, and later on Shiho's, after her family died leaving her under his care. Even if she rarely showed it, Shiho was grateful for that, and tried her best to be a good shrine maiden. And to quickly deliver her adopted family a heir with Tate Oniichan, of course. What she didn't particularly appreciate was being kept in the dark for so long about so many secrets of the family.

"I'm home," she moaned after making her way up all the dozens and dozens of steps uphill, finally arriving at the area connecting the shrine with the extended family's residence. Roughly five months ago, a young man and a very beautiful young lady had shown there in a motorcycle, begging for refuge on a rainy night. They hadn't left, which was okay, Shiho guessed, because Bell-sama was very kind and patient and a great cook. However, storms often follow sunlight, and weeks after, Cousin Tenchi, Grandpa's flesh and blood grandson, freed a lusty female demon from the sealed cave near the shrine, and in the ensuing melee, large parts of Mahora had been wrecked. The following inquiry was mostly swept under the rug, as usual, but Cousin Tenchi had been homeschooled ever since.

That very same demon was too busy drinking sake and watching TV with Urd-sama at the living room to realize Shiho's arrival, much less greet her. Of course, Shiho herself liked it better that way, so she quietly snuck in behind them, trying to ignore how they discreetly traded short wet kisses and gropes under their loose robes at seemingly random intervals. That had to mean Ayeka-hime-sama was out shopping. Ryoko-san never did that when Ayeka-hime-sama was near.

Knowing everyone as Shiho did, Grandpa would be in another vigil (read-lazing around at the shrine itself), Cousin Tenchi and the furry thing would be off at the carrot patch, Bell-sama and Sasami-hime would be busy in the kitchen, and Skuld-san and the terrifying red haired midget would be locked in their labs cooking pernicious abominations against nature. Mihoshi-san was probably foiling those abominations for everyone's good without even realizing it. Keiichi-san should still be taking classes. And Mana-sempai ... probably off with Sakurazaki-san, on one of their patrols.

It was bitterly funny, in a way, how you could still be alone even while surrounded by so many nutballs.

But Shiho honestly preferred it that way.

She went into her bedroom and closed the door behind herself, taking her shirt off and starting to unzip her skirt with a tired sigh. And then -

"What have you been doing today?" a harsh, unforgiving voice asked her.

Shiho cringed, her four pigtails standing up. Slowly, with a face marked by dread, she turned around to see an unamused Tatsumiya Mana sitting on her bed.

"Sempai," the small redhead gulped. "What, what gave you the impression I've been doing anything at all today?"

"You took my private, special makeup kit, didn't you? The one I've told you, over and over, is reserved for emergency situations of espionage and infiltration, correct?"

Shiho's face began turning a stark white color, and she trembled violently. "Noooooo ... I have no idea what ... ah," she said as the makeup kit slipped out from between her clothes and slammed down on the floor. "I wonder how that got in there."

_**"Shiho..."**_ Mana began growling.

* * *

_**"Shirou..."**_ Rin began growling.

* * *

Shiho whimpered helplessly.

* * *

Shirou made a sound that surely wasn't a helpless whimper, because hardened Heroes of Justice who boink King Arthur never make those.

On the other hand, Tate, not a wimp himself either, did whimper helplessly.

* * *

Revelations happened.

* * *

Now everyone had taken their separate ways, except Negi and Kotaro, who walked together towards the female dorms, in an awkward silence. At least, until Negi stopped and looked aside, into the distance, with his hands in his pockets and a faraway look in his face.

"Hey," Kotaro said, stopping as well, "You feeling okay there?"

"Hmmm? Oh, yes, of course, Kotaro-kun. Sorry, I just spaced out for a moment. Look... could you please go ahead, and tell the girls I won't be there for a while? I think I need some time alone... to think."

If Negi expected for some sort of objection, he didn't receive it. "Sure thing. You're going to marinate into your own brooding angst for a couple hours, right?"

Negi clenched his teeth. "We all have our own hobbies."

Kotaro actually laughed at that. "When you want to, you can be a riot. Well, if you aren't there by dinner, I'll tell Asuna to come here so she can slap some sense back into you and drag you back. I'd do it myself, but... right now, I don't feel like making you any favors."

Negi smiled at him. "And I thank you over it."

They lightly bumped fists. "Don't get that get to you, Negi. That kind of crap... happens."

"Yes, of course I know."

"Of course. Just like with everything else," Kotaro shrugged, and then went alone on his way, whistling. Negi watched him go until he was missing from sight, and then wandered around on his own, trying to clear his thoughts. Eventually, he just walked back to the dormitory, but climbed up onto the roof, instead of slipping into his room. Which was a stupid thing to do, because he should spend as much of their remaining time together... well, _together_, and he knew that.

_You can't be our teacher anymore_.

It was funny how he hadn't really faced up to that reality until now. He'd spent days and weeks working on the project, away from the school and his friends here, and yet he'd always somehow thought that he'd come back here eventually. But the truth was, things were going to get harder from here on out, and he'd be drawn further and further away from this place and the people here.

Especially after Asuna was gone.

But of course, and now the probability seemed hideously plausible, when it would have sounded ridiculous to him days ago, maybe he wasn't as necessary for his own plan as he had believed. Maybe he wasn't as wanted as he would have thought. That hurt, as well; he knew the project was going to be filled with all manners of capable people, and he knew no large enterprise should ever rely too much on a single person, and yet, the new perspective of being demoted or losing nominal or effective importance somehow chilled him. Maybe the girls would think that was okay, and maybe they would be right... but it didn't _feel_ right.

Was that only his own ego assering itself? Was his concern about measuring up to his father making him too worried about his own role and importance, rather than the project itself? Once, Anya had opined martyrs were the most self centered people, while berating him over his then latest exhaustion breakdown. That they thought the world spun around them, and thus they magically could change anything and everything if they sacrificed enough of themselves. Then her words had barely registered, but now, thinking back on it, they did bite him with no small amount of poison.

But then, if he left his friends behind, and the project didn't really need him, where did that leave him? What should he make with his unending life? What was his true purpose?

Negi closed his eyes as he lay on the rooftop of the dormitory, drinking in the sun in the way that he'd seen Evangeline doing from time to time, trying not to think about that. But though he loved his master - despite, and in some cases, because of all of her little quirks - he wasn't equipped to simply ignore the world the way that she could. To do that, he'd need a distraction.

"Negi-sensei?" asked a nervous voice.

_Here comes one now,_ Negi thought happily, and opened his eyes. "Hello, Sayo-san, what are you doing up here?"

"I came up to look for you, Sensei," the ghost told him as she hovered nearby, hands clutched before her in a rather prayerful gesture.

Now, you already should know what comes after this point, so we will skip over Sayo, Negi and Haruna's adventures and misadventures for the time being, to better focus on other players of this complicated play of destiny...

* * *

Whatever else could be said about Tate Yuuichi, no one could really deny the boy was courageous. He hadn't hesitated when he had to pitch in during the Mars versus Mages game, or during the siege of Searrs on Mahora, and later when the stripping demons from above struck. He'd faced certain death by green sparkles with dignity and a smile, and upon reviving, he stalled a living god by tackling him with nothing but a practice sword. He'd probably have died early if he had gotten himself involved in the Grail War, but he wouldn't have died begging and postrated.

Unless he had faced Tohsaka Rin. Not her Archer, he could stare into that one's eyes without flinching (too much). To be fair, women in general were his Achilles' Heel, so he probably would have broken under enough pressure from the albino Lolita, the ancient Greek witch or the Darkness-Possessed Sempai as well. On second thought, we aren't making him sound that courageous anymore, are we? Um, he was, most of the time, trust us. Anyway, moving on.

"So that's the way it is," Tohsaka said, softly drumming with stiff fingers on the table's surface. Her voice was rigid and dry enough to make said table look like a cushion. "You knuckleheads have grown jealous of Negi-sensei's continued success and the fact he looks and acts more like a man than all of you put together, so you have banded together to send a spy after him. Said spy is a weakling boy who is being bullied into seducing Negi-sensei."

"That's unforgivable!" Saber growled.

"On the other hand," Rin continued in the same flat tone, "Negi-sensei isn't as innocent either, as he's been having sex with three of his students, including Sakurazaki Setsuna of all people."

"That's unforgivable as well!" Saber growled.

"I'm shocked and appalled," Shirou blandly said.

"Wait a minute, when did I tell you that?!" Tate cried.

"While you were listing off reasons why Rin shouldn't just blow up the whole lot of you," Saber coldly told him. "Apparently, you believe two wrongs make a right."

"Oh, that's right, that's when I - eeeeeehhhh, no, it's not like I believe that, I was just saying the guys were somewhat justified in -"

"QUIET, YOU!" Rin barked.

He shrunk down. "Yes, Ma'am."

Shirou had also shrunk down, mostly due to learned reflexes.

"Saber." Rin looked at the blond Servant. "What do you think we should do with these rapscallions?"

"A fiery crusade to rightfully smite their asses, as you use to put it, would seem the best course of action, Rin," Saber said.

She nodded. "True, true. However, exposing one thing might expose the whole, and that might lead to Negi-sensei being booted out, and that might bring forth doom for his Martian project, and that might spell death and destruction for countless generations. So there's that."

Saber blinked twice, then slowly said, "Oh ... I see. Seen from that perspective, it's not that different from going to rightful war with my own wayward child, only to spell the doom of the whole Britain."

"I refuse to believe this conversation is taking place in the same world as me," Tate decided aloud.

"Right." Rin brought her hands together. "So, in everyone's best interests, we'll allow the idiots to fall victim to the principle of evil punishing itself. There's no way those imbeciles will pull one over Negi-sensei, so we'll wait for them to fail, then these two will alert us about it, THEN we will mercilessly stomp the sweet living crap out of them."

"But, there's no honor in that!" argued Saber.

"Saber, look at it this way," Rin calmly told her. "Didn't your armies ever resort to the always popular tactic of allowing your enemies take each other out so you could triumphantly march over them with a minimum of losses to your beloved country?"

"Actually ... no," Saber said.

"And did it all end well for you OR you beloved country, Saber?" Rin pressed on.

"Actually ... no."

"Well, there you have it."

"But, even so -!"

Rin sighed. "I'll tell you what. In the meanwhile, we'll go directly with Negi-sensei and settle matters with him so his debauchery stops. By force if it's necessary. And before you say anything, it's not the same thing as with us! None of us is ten, and none of us has the fate of the world on their shoulders! Anymore!"

At that, Shirou and Saber closed their read-to-reply mouths and just sighed with a deep sense of loss of a chance.

Rin shot a stare at Tate. "Now leave my house before I kick you out, and remember, not a single word of this to anyone, or else!"

"_Your_ house?" Tate asked. "I thought this was-"

"A woman's harem's house is her house! Now scram!"

"Gladly!" he honestly replied before bolting out for the front door, barely stopping to pick his shoes back up at the entrance.

Shirou helplessly looked at the door his sole remaining male support had slammed, leaving him trapped in. Then he gave Tohsaka a half-pleading look. "Are you sure about this?"

Rin huffed. "Certainly! What harm could befall from going over to Negi-sensei's and starting a civilized but heated discussion with him and his illicit sex partners?"

_Across the campus, another Rin, Saki, Aya and Yozora all sneezed._

"But-" Saber began to protest.

Rin waved a hand nonchalantly. "Never mind about that! Leave the thinking and planning to me! Now, that left me frustrated as hell, so, um ... well ... after all, I had been summoned here to, well, you know?"

For a second, Saber and Shirou were about to tell her they didn't need to invite her anymore, but as one they realized the futility of that, and also that they were actually sort of horny again, and began pulling their clothes off.

* * *

A short while after, Shirou was on his back on the floor, naked, as Saber, wearing nothing but her bra, vigorously rode his manhood; not that the bra mattered that much, since Rin had pulled the cups down to lick and lightly chew all over the Servant's small breasts as she rubbed her own crotch against Shirou's mouth and tongue.

Eventually, Rin and Saber began kissing, Shirou struggling to keep a proper pace between pumping up into the blonde and managing to breathe into Tohsaka's cunt at the same time. Under the circumstances, it's not surprising that his muffled screams of "Cumming!" went unheard. He tightly placed his hands around Saber's hips and buttocks and buried himself even deeper before giving her the regular dose of Od she needed to keep her physical form.

"Ahhh," Saber exhaled, rolling off Shirou with flushed cheeks, which Rin quickly took as her chance to jump onto the spot the King of Knights had left vacant. She had come a long way in a short time after her early days of shyly struggling through the act, had Rin; with the nearly daily practice and the experience it had brought, now she panted loud and obscenely as her petite breasts bounced up and down in tandem with Shirou's thrusts. He had resorted to reinforcing his penis to keep himself active through those long, often difficult sessions of shared sex, which Rin had found laughable at first, but had come to accept without a word of mockery as soon as she began reaping its benefits.

Then Rin clenched her teeth as she heard the front door going open. They had forgotten to lock it up after that Tate boy had left, hadn't they? She dearly hoped that wasn't him, coming back for some reason or another ...

No, wait. It was worse than that. She knew those steps, slowly approaching them. The steps of two of the four other people in Mahora who dared to walk into the Emiya house without knocking first. (Then again, it at least was marginally better than the case of the other two - Illya and Taiga - would have been). And Saber was walking towards them, still just as naked, to greet them.

"Good afternoon, Sakura, Rider," she welcomed then. "You look good today."

"Oh. Good afternoon, Saber-san. And you two, Sempai, Oneesan," Matou Sakura said, sounding just slightly upset, as her violet eyes caught sight of a smirking Rin in nothing but black stockings riding her man. _Their_ man, Sakura supposed that she ought to think, as there was no real way she could change the situation without it ending in another disaster, but still, it was never easy, particularly not when Rin got to him before she could. Stupid Grandfather and Shinji, still unable to cook for themselves and wasting her time ... oh well. _Good girl, good girl_, she had to remind herself as she began unbuttoning her blouse. "On our way here, we happened to see that Tate-san who was in the last meeting with us walking the opposite way. Judging from the scared look on his face, did he talk with you, Oneesan?"

Rin shot her an annoyed look, but stubbornly kept kissing the young man she rode just so he couldn't answer to Sakura's greeting or questions yet. Even though their faces were starting to take a faint purplish hue.

"Indeed," Saber answered instead, taking Rider's bicycle jacket after the other Servant took it off, a gesture of hospitality that Rider accepted with a slight bow. They had actually connected rather well now, after they'd stopped being enemies, despite the fact their respective personalities made their interactions look and sounder colder than they actually were. "They were discussing matters of a private nature with Shirou and Rin."

"Oh? Such as?" Sakura casually inquired while pulling her skirt down.

Rin, who by this point really had to breathe, pulled back from the kiss and said, "Such as the private kind that is, well, private!"

"Good afternoon, Sakura-chan, Rider," Shirou greeted after gasping loudly for air, his hips crashing harder against Tohsaka's body as he reached climax.

Sakura mildly pouted in the middle of unhooking her racy black bra; she had been favoring lacy black underwear ever since her brush with the shadows, and even after being freed from them. "Aw, please, Oneesan ... as your little sister and Sempai's future bride, don't I deserve this much trust?" Boing boing, her large assets went after being released.

"It's not, it's not that, it's just we promiseeeeeed!" Shirou's voice trailed off as he finally shot into Tohsaka. "Oh God, oh God! That was incredible, Tohsaka!"

Rin smirked, tossing a coquettish glare over her shoulder at the now nude Sakura and Rider. "It was, wasn't it? And we're just begiiiii-" she said that as Rider, after a short nod from Sakura, pulled her back from Shirou's lap. "Hey, I hadn't finished yet!"

"Rider, make sure my Oneesan finishes, will you?" Sakura said as she crouched on top of Shirou's recovering reinforced hardness, then impaled herself down. "Mmmmm, yes. Now, now, Sempai, any secret of yours is a secret of mine, isn't it?" she asked, making sure her breasts hung right above Shirou's drooling mouth, in all their well rounded glory.

Shirou's eyes became oddly starry, and he instantly latched his mouth onto a nipple.

"He he heh," Rin chuckled, "If you wanted him to speak, you shouldn't have given him something to fill hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" she shrieked when Rider held her firmly from behind, then shoving two fingers into her vulva with little to no foreplay. It wasn't that Rider couldn't appreciate the tsundere's own female charms - quite the contrary, actually - but she definitely wasn't her favorite of the Tohsaka sisters. Not that it stopped her from licking and nibbling on one of Rin's ears as she mashed her breasts up and down Rin's sweat-slick back.

"Oh, you brought cakes! Thank you, Sakura-san!" Saber happily began devouring what Sakura had brought with her.

* * *

_Meanwhile!_

"You fucking sanctimonious bitch!" Chisame shouted. "'if there's ever a time'? IF? When you already know that there's going to be a time like that coming up real damn soon? Where the hell do you get off?"

"Won't you come in?" Asuna said, as politely as one can when one is speaking through clenched teeth.

_And then!_

"So let me get this straight," Kotaro asked, a few moments later. "You're going to be put to sleep -"

"Not euphemistically!" Asuna interrupted as she held Chisame in a headlock.

"I got that after you explained it to me the second time," the boy retorted. "Anyway, you're going to be put to sleep for a hundred years, and you haven't told anybody outside of Konoka-nesan, Setsuna-san and Pineapple Head - and she only found out 'cuz she was eavesdropping and promised not to tell anyone either. Is that right?"

"Yes," Asuna admitted, containing Chisame's struggles easily. "That's all there is." There was a brief, awkward pause. "Okay, and we also told a few others, those outside the class we had sex with, and the next door neighbor as well, but only so they could understand our circumstances and not denounce us, and they don't count anyway because they weren't in our circle, so -"

"You are a total cunt."

_And THEN!_

Chisame finally found her voice. "Wait a second," she gasped, as Asuna began rolling down her jeans. "I never said that I was going to - stop looking at me with that skeptical expression, it's weird in a person wearing nothing but bra and panties!"

"Well, since they're going to come off anyway," Asuna answered blithely as she reached for the straps of her bra.

"That's not what I - shit, you went and did it all the same!" Chisame howled her protest. "Look, I don't want to have sex with either of you!"

"Well, then, you can leave, or you can stay and watch," Asuna said quite reasonably, as she folded the bra and set it down.

_And __**THEN!**_

"Come on down here, Chisame-chan, and we can play with this thing," Asuna offered in between licks at the boy's erection.

The urge to tell her to stop calling her Chisame-chan almost overpowered the sexual frenzy into which Chisame had once again fallen, but she quickly dropped down to join her.

Kotaro sat back against a wall, moaning and groaning and completely failing to realize, without Negi around, the room wasn't soundproof for the moment. Next door, Mai sighed as she fixed the table. "Don't they ever get tired of it?"

"This time, it isn't him," Mikoto frowned, ear stuck to the wall. Her cute face showed a decidedly strained expression. "Now it's that dog boy who often chases me around."

Mai nearly dropped a plate. "- what?! Oh, for the love of-! They aren't happy with just dragging in even more girls? They have to involve children as well? How messed up can they be, anyway?"

Very messed up, actually, as Kotaro proved by turning Chisame around so she was on her back on the carpet as he crawled over her, his hands showing his sharp claws now, and said claws slashing and ripping Chisame's remaining clothes almost gently. She slapped him, but he barely felt it. "W-Wait a minute, twerp! I never said I was going to-!"

He panted like an animal in heat - well, the male version of 'heat' - forcing her legs open, and lining up against her front entrance. "You said I hadn't given you enough satisfaction, didn't you?"

"W-Well, yes, I did, but I didn't mean-!"

Asuna chuckled, sitting down behind Chisame to play with her hair. And then her breasts. "But so far, you've only pleased him, not the other way around. Don't make promises OR threats only to back up on them later, Chisame-chan."

"I'm not going back on anything, and don't call me ChisameEEEEEEEEEE!" she quaked into Asuna's suddenly firm grip on her upper torso, just as Kotaro pushed himself ahead and penetrated her. "Ooooo, alright, you two are going to pay for this, badly!"

"Consider this an advance payment," Kotaro grunted, licking his lips all over as he started pumping into her, more delicately than he had done to Asuna. Chisame tried her best for a protest, but only a tense sound of NNNNGHHHHH came out as Kotaro and Asuna began licking her nipples, occasionally stopping to sloppily kiss each other.

Next door, a darkly resignated Tokiha Mai had begun stuffing cotton balls up her ears.

Mikoto thought that looked funny.

Back in the other room, Kotaro kept ramming into Chisame as he held her ankles and used his grip to keep her legs lifted high and open, the wolf boy now energetically pumping into her sex, even if still not as strongly as with Asuna.

"So, how do you like this, Chiu-chan!" he growled between thrusts. "Not so mouthy now, huh, Miss Smartypants! Oh gods, you're so tight!"

"Ngh!" she groaned, bucking back against Asuna's own grip on her. "Not even half as good as Negi! Harder, twerp! Harder! Ahhhh, not soooo haaaaaard!"

"Yeah, you like your idiot hero now, don't you, don't you ... nnngh! Cumming! Cumming!" he announced.

"Nnffhhh. Bwahh? Eh, outside, outside, you damn fucker!" Chisame cried.

"Aiinnhh!" he whined, pulling back after squirting a first load into her. The rest splattered all across her pubes and tighs. No sooner had he stopped, falling back on his butt, than Chisame slapped him, hard, hurting her own hand but barely realizing it in the heat of the moment. She struggled free from Asuna's grip ands ran naked for the bathroom, trying to wipe the semen out of her snatch as she ran. She looked rather comical like that, Asuna decided.

"You damn fucking idiots!" Chisame slammed the bathroom's door behind her. "I have to wash this out, I have to -!" she screamed as they heard the sounds of running water. Asuna glanced at the spent Kotaro and smirked at him.

"Ooohh, you're in real trouble now," she teased.

He slumped forward onto himself. "I'll say it again; you're a royal cunt."

"Indeed," she licked her lips as she straddled him. "And you guys just love that, don't you?"

Quite a while after, a grumpy Chisame, wrapping a towel around herself as she kept wiping herself down there with another one (with 'Konoka's' sewn on it, by the way) was greeted by a still smirking Asuna, who sat on top Kotaro's crotch as he napped. "So, you got it all out, then?"

"How should I know? I swear I'm not carrying any brat from this idiot! I'm going to stick the damn baby in with you so you can take responsability for it!" Chisame blurted out, angrily as hell.

"I'm pretty sure you can't do that," Asuna calmly pointed out.

Chisame huffed and looked down at the sleeping boy. "He was only good for another go, huh?"

"Yeah," Asuna said, poking the boy's member with a finger. "Doesn't have Negi's endurance, either, I guess. Then again, he was very busy today, so ..."

"... what the hell did I just do?" the hacker asked, rubbing her own face up and down, as if hoping that would wake her up.

Asuna rolled her eyes. "And here comes the denial of reality."

"I'm not in denial of - nnngghhh!" Chisame broke off in a growl. "That is so annoying!"

"Sorry," Asuna replied, manifestly not sorry, as she pulled Kotaro's briefs back up and arranged him so he could sleep a little more comfortably, petting his head once more as she did so.

Watching this in almost a daze, Chisame shook her head. "What was the point of all this?"

"Does it have to have a point?" the other girl asked back. "If it does, why don't you accept the point that I gave you at the start of this?"

"Because I don't believe it. Even if I did believe that you wanted to train me for when Negi goes back to being the annoying little ... person that he was before all this zaniness started -"

"You'd actually have to go way back to the start of his teaching career, if you want to be that general," Asuna told her dryly.

"- then what you did isn't consonant with that goal, is what I was trying to say!" Chisame concluded. "Also, stick it."

"Stick it," Asuna muttered. "That's a good one. I'll have to use it." She got up from where she was crouching on the floor, walking over to the window and gazing out of it. "It's a beautiful day, don't you think?"

Chisame, glasses restored, stared at her.

"I don't have a lot of beautiful days left. A few hundred, at most. And ... you know, I want to experience everything. Everything. I know I can't, but I want to experience so much more than I have in the last nine years. Maybe, if I do that, then the little bit that's me won't drown in the vast ocean that is her and all her borrowed memories," she murmured. "Maybe I'll be real."

She turned back to look at Chisame, and smiled. "And the sex isn't so bad, as you already know."

Chisame slowly shook her head. "And what about -"

"What about poor Negi?" Asuna answered. "Do you think it'll hurt him, to know that I'm screwing around behind his back? Do you think he'll feel pain and sorrow?" A deep breath. "Do you think if he feels that, he won't miss me so much in all those years to come?"

"No," Chisame promptly answered.

"Oh well," Asuna replied with a shrug. "Now, I believe that I mentioned something about teaching you how to be with Chachamaru." She hopped up onto the window sill and spread her legs. "Come here and give us a kiss, Chisame-chan."

* * *

"So... that's how it is, anh," Sakura panted as she rubbed her sex against Rin's, grabbing her sister's leg as they humped together. They had started doing it two weeks ago, when one of their brushes in the middle of a session for the next dibs on Shirou ended up, somehow, with the two of them wrestling and rubbing against each other just a bit too much, while Saber seized the chance to show Shirou, once again, why she also could have been a great Rider. Rin still thought it was freaky, not only how often they ended up in that situation ever since then, but, even worse, how often Sakura used it to pry information out of her. Just like now. "So Negi-sensei is growing up so fast! And poor Kagurazaka-san, too ... we really need to pay her a visit and show her how much we care, don't we, Oneechan?"

_It's not wrong because it's not incest, she's a Matou, I'm a Tohsaka, she Matou, I Tohsaka,_ Rin forced herself to repeat in her mind, far from the first time, while panting what she hoped would come out as a stern rejection of such a ridiculous idea.

"Ah, yes..."

Damn it.

Shirou, who at first had majorly freaked out upon witnessing that sort of contact, was now both mostly used to it and too busy fucking Rider in the corner to really voice objections against it anymore. Saber, who after all had a son-slash-daughter with her own sister, regardless of the methods involved, sat in the nude at the table, watching over the other four as she kept eating.

Rider's long and silky purple hair whipped around in all directions with her motions, occasionally slapping Sakura's bare ass, something the young human tolerated with the same practiced good humor she had developed to allow her loyal Servant - who would give her own life for hers and her happiness - have her way with her man. It helped that having Oneesan reduced to her playful wicked mercy felt so good, it really smoothed over any of the other involved circumstances.

Shirou bit on one of Rider's nipples as he held himself as deep as he could inside of the Servant, and ejaculated. He sighed as Rider caressed his scalp with a hand, tenderly kissing his forehead, and then he looked towards the sisters. "So I'm the one who can't keep secrets, huh?"

Rin clenched her teeth, refusing to scream her climax just yet as Sakura laughed lightly. Damn, in moments like those he reminded her so much of Archer, it ached. In every sense of the term.

Using her hands on the floor to push herself against her sister's core one last time for the afternoon, she let herself go. But she didn't aknowledge Shirou's point. Which meant that she won the argument, of course.

* * *

_Much later, this happened..._

Now Haruna was smiling, and it wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Ummm," Asakura considered.

"It's all right," Sayo reassured her as she led her friend towards the door. "We can handle her. Really."

Haruna's face didn't fall until the two of them were out of sight. "How did she do that? That thing where they understood each other without saying a word or even making an gestures?" she asked irritably.

"It's called friendship, Haruna," Negi told her, with obvious sympathy in his voice. "You might want to try mending your own friendships for a while. Meanwhile, I'm going to try and talk Fate into having your suspension lifted, once I check in with Asuna and Konoka."

"You don't have to do that -"

"No, but I'm going to do it anyway, since ... well, when you get right down to it, I'm the reason that he's here in the first place." Negi sighed. "I hoped that this would help him develop a little empathy, but I think that might not be working out."

"Ah, British understatement, how do I love thee?" Haruna muttered.

Then there was a slight, shy cough coming from behind them, startling them. It was a sensation Negi hadn't felt for a while, that of someone successfully sneaking behind him. Turning around preparing themselves to do battle, even if they didn't realize it, they found themselves face to face with a very cute short girl with long and wavy red hair, blushing intensely as she held a pink envelope in her small, delicate hands.

"Kya!" the girl shrieked, shocked with the sudden way they had turned around on her. "Ah, ah, sorry, to interrupt your conversation, wh-whatever it was about, but, but ... Nagi-sensei, please accept this proof of my feelings!" she whined, slamming the envelope down in Negi's hands before turning around and running away and out of sight as if the devil chased her.

But Haruna didn't chase her, although she considered it for a moment. Instead, she looked at Negi and grinned. "That's a trap, you know?"

"Huh?" he asked.

"I mean, a trap, in the sense that you're getting yet another admirer right when you least need one, you unrepentant Casanova, you. So tell me!" She nudged him with an elbow. "Who's that girl, hmmm?"

"- I have no idea."

"- you don't?"

"Uh ... no? Why should I know about every last student on campus?"

Haruna blinked. "Because this is the first time ever I've seen you failing to remember a student's face, no matter how obscure it might be?"

"I have my limits as well, Haruna," he reminded her, opening the envelope and reading from the card within. "Oh my. Ashikaga Yuu? I don't know this name either."

"Okay, now I'm sure this has to be a trap," Haruna said.

"Come on, Haruna. There's no reason to feel paranoid about this," he sighed, as she craned her neck over his shoulders to read the letter herself. It was a fairly stereotypical confession of love, as cliched as they come, but he supposed some girls just had no imagination to speak of. He figured, if she was keeping it short and unremarkable, that was good, because it had to be a simple plain crush rather than a complex passion like-

"No, look, look!" she insisted. "This confession is copied word by word from 'My Broken Heart and a Really Big Axe', Japan's best selling romance manga! Geez, how can she be so transparent and lazy? She only took Taro-sensei's name off and replaced it with yours! Honestly, that's the kind of cheap lame trick only a boy would pull off."

"Well, I'm glad." Negi pocketed the letter. "If she's putting so little effort into it, I can't mean that much to her anyway. Don't you agree?"

Haruna pouted. "I guess so, but still ... ah, what the heck. Okay. Message received. I'll leave that to you, and go make nice with Yuechi and Nodochin." She threw him a mock salute and started to march in.

Negi sighed and shook his head. He was learning, however slowly, to pick his battles.

* * *

"I'm home," he announced shortly after as he went in through the door.

"Welcome back darling, would you like dinner, a bath, or me?" Asuna asked without looking up from the history texts she was studying once more.

"You," he answered honestly.

"Ah, gee," she said, looking up with a smile. "We're all out. Maybe later, okay?"

"Okay," he replied, looking around. "Where are -"

"Kotaro-kun has some kind of job for the headmaster, Konoka and Setsuna are off on a double date with Nodoka and Yue, so it's just you and me for now. How was your day?" she asked.

"Well, I found out that Fate has given Haruna a suspension, helped Sayo discover her body and woke it up so that she's alive again, told Haruna about your situation, and had sex with the pair of them. Oh, and right before walking in here, I got a love letter from an admirer I never knew I had. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know she studied here," he informed her calmly. "How was yours?"

"Got yelled at by Chisame after Rakan told her about the situation, had sex with her and Kotaro,- did you want to say something?"

"Nope," Negi said, shaking his head and closing his lips firmly.

"Good. Good. I don't really want to tell any more people about the situation, Negi."

"So you're ready to tell everyone in the class?" he asked hopefully.

"No, that's not what I _said_. Iinchou, maybe. But only her, and only ... Chisame has this weird idea that she loves me or ... oh, not you, too."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to."

* * *

In the meanwhile, Ashikaga Yuki kept on running, with an arm shielding his eyes. Oh, the shame! Oh, the intense, burning, scathing self contempt, bordering on sheer hatred! Reduced to a pawn in a heartless game of petty grudges and jealousy! If Kotonoha-san or Roka-san could see him now, they never would forgive him!

It was at that point, naturally, that he stumbled into someone else.

Somewhat against the usual Peter Principle concerning these instances, that someone was not Katsura Kotonoha or Kitsuregawa Roka.

However, as he looked up, way up, Yuki realized he was facing the OTHER person who made for his Worst Possible Scenario on such an occassion. And he paled.

The tall, strong-looking, dark-haired Sempai in the kendo practice uniform stared blankly at the lovely vision of maidenly beauty who had just slammed against him on his way to visit Tendo Akane. He noticed her nearly tearful expression, no doubt that of an innocent virgin who has stumbled into the object of her affections. He felt her panic, her frozen terror, and he knew he had to act, and now.

Then the pastel bubbles began floating around...

Yuki shrieked as the Sempai's large, strong hands closed tightly on hers. "Don't be afraid, small delicate flower of the prairies," his deep, manly voice said comfortingly. His hands wouldn't let go, despite of Yuki's frantic attempts to pull away. "I, Kuno Tatewaki, the Blue Lightning of Mahora High, have instantly realized the deep nature of your passionate crush, one powerful enough to send you literally running into my arms. I accept your sincere feelings!"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

* * *

Uphill, between the bushes of the surveillance point, Taniguchi put his binoculars down. "Damn it," he quietly said.

"What's wrong?" asked Shuu. "Didn't he take the bait?"

"No, no, it isn't that," Taniguchi said. "Springfield got the letter, alright, it's just-"

"Gimme that!" an annoyed Ranma snatched the binoculars from him, took a look down, and then his eyebrows twitched.

A second later, the binoculars fell on Taniguchi's head, making him yelp, as the blur that was Ranma bolted towards the mismatched duo.

* * *

"FOOLISH SORCERER SAOTOME! Must you intervene in the path of every damsel who prefers me over your paltry charms? You shall pay for this!" Kuno roared as he kept striking ahead with his boken.

Ranma kept leaping around, dodging and kicking him. "Ahhhh, just shaddap already, you big ox!"

Yuki kept watching back and forth between them with huge watery eyes, occasionally weakly asking for a cease of hostilities, until, suddenly, there was another blur between the combatants, and a small pale hand caught Ranma's next punch, stopping it and fiercely squeezing on his fist. "You Saotomes, honestly," a dry, quiet yet harsh voice said, as the short white haired boy who had just intervened casually kicked Kuno in the face, sending him down for the count.

"- oh crap," Ranma cursed.

The newcomer looked back at Yuki, who knew he was lost right then and there. Screwed. Finished. Done. Expelled, no doubt, to be a shame to his family and friends, and then he would have to...

"Are you well?" the short boy asked him, in a decent, if cold tone.

"... uuuuhhhh?" Yuki babbled, before nodding rapidly.

"Good. Then go," the boy said, still keeping Ranma's fist tightly in his grasp.

It took another moment for Yuki to react. When he did so, it was with a nervous nod and a bowing. "Of, of course! Thank you, Fate-sensei!" he said in his best girlish voice, before running away for dear life.

Fate wondered who that girl was. Busy as he was with far more pressing matters, he hadn't memorized the faces and names of those students not directly under his supervision. Yet. Still, he could have sworn he had seen her before. Not that such trivial subjects mattered now. (Though there was something about her that he couldn't quite understand ...)

"Saotome-san," he icily told the bristling Ranma, "what will we ever do with you and your kind?"

* * *

The next day, once her classes were over, Tendo Akane walked all the way to the detention hall, darkly muttering to herself. Once there, she slammed her notebooks before her pummeled fiance, who stood on one foot holding buckets of water on the other foot, both hands and his head. "Here, today's classes," she growled. "Are you feeling better now?"

_**"That little creep really is going to pay-"**_ Ranma mumbled over and over.

"Hey, you two made it worse by picking a fight with him AFTER he gave you your punishments." Akane then looked towards Kuno-sempai, who stood close holding just as many buckets, all bandaged like a mummy, which made his garbled speech quite difficult to figure out. That was most likely for the best.

Akane finally looked towards the tiny redhead with pigtails writing, 'I won't keep secrets from my Oneesama and steal her things' on the chalkboard time after time. "And ... what did _you_ do to get Fate-sensei angry at you?"

"Well," Munakata Shiho grumbled from between tightly clenched teeth. "Not exactly _him_, but if anything, someone _far worse_ ..."

* * *

**To be Continued Next Chapter!**


	7. Haruna, Ranma, Ku Fei, Rika

Akamatsu, Kodansha, Takahashi, Kadokawa, others, are the owners of this menagerie.

**WARNING:** Don't attempt any of the following stunts in your autumn Sports Festival. You might seriously injure yourself and others and even **DIE**. We won't accept or return any videos of your reenactment of the _Jackass_ show at your local school, and instead will burn them in a pyre as we laugh. Unless that video includes young teachers fucking dark skinned Chinese fighters. Then we will confiscate it for research purposes.

* * *

**Chapter Seven**.

* * *

'Twas the night before the Sports Festival, and all through the headquarters of the SOS Brigade, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Except Suzumiya Haruhi, who circled the table where sat an immobile and terrified Ashikaga Yuki, his sole possible exit through the door blocked by a standing and just as still Koizumi Itsuki. She moved like a hungry shark with the wide smile to match, coming closer and closer, until she finally stopped before him.

"No doubt you are wondering," she sweetly cooed, "why I made Itsuki-kun bring you here?"

Yuki gulped. "You learned what I did to trick Nagi Springfield-sensei - very much against my will, by the way - and now you want to use that for your own schemes against Nagi-sensei?"

Haruhi looked truly impressed for a moment. She looked at Itsuki and said, "Not only cute, but clever!"

"Why, thank you. I try-"

"I'm talking about him," Haruhi curtly said before smiling once again at Yuki, her hands on his shoulders. "You're perceptive, my ambiguous vision of honey trap beauty. Indeed, you will help me to find the truth about the perfidious Nagi-sensei and his connection to Negi-sensei's disappearance. Wouldn't it be horrible if he had it his way and all of us started disappearing as well? Could this world survive ... _The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi_?!" She gestured as grandly as she spoke.

"Most likely not," Itsuki said, all honesty.

"That's right," Haruhi nodded. "However, your scope also falls a bit short, my dear Yuki-kun," Haruhi said, and if she had a cat at hand, she would have stroked its fur right then, probably while wearing a monocle. "You'll be my secret weapon, not only against that deceptive stranger in our midst, but also against that oppressive, power mad tyrant known as Fate Averruncus ... and against the heartless men who forced you into drag for their own myopic, petty purposes! Seriously, what kind of evil creature would force a poor, innocent, confused and harmless creature into fancy frilly clothes he or she doesn't want to wear, for nothing more than their personal benefit and amusement? They would deserve a punishment, wouldn't you agree?"

Yuki blinked.

At that very moment, Mikuru walked out the HQ's bathroom, in her newest frilly and short skirted Meido outfit, with a bucket and a mop. "Um, I finished cleaning the toilet already! Can I, can I go now?"

"Not now, Mikuru-chan!" Haruhi waved a hand towards her. Then, addressing Yuki once again, "So, what's it going to be, Boy? Yes, or no?"

Yuki pondered that. It was an evil, indecent proposal, an insane and hopeless scheme against two teachers, one of whom had been kind and gentle to him, while the other had saved him from Kuno-sempai's appetites. He shouldn't accept it, no matter what, not even if it cost him his -

\- his chance to finally get one over Sawanaga Taisuke.

His gaze met Haruhi's. "What do I have to do?" he asked.

* * *

_Unequally Productions Present:_

An Adventure Not by Stan Lee and Jim Steranko.

**Ashikaga Yuki, Agent of SOS!**

With Ashikaga Yuki.

**Also Starring:**

Tertium 'Fate' Averruncus.

Saotome Ranma.

Negi Springfield.

Ku Fei.

Kagurazaka Asuna.

Takamichi T. Takahata.

And Itoshiki Nozomu as Mr. Despair.

Soundtrack by Whoever You Want to Listen to While Reading This.

Only one Averruncus was hurt during the making of this chapter.

* * *

_The First Day of the Sports Festival, Ground Zero, Mahora Academy:_

You could have heard an epic movie theme over the voice of Asakura Kasumi right then and there. As a matter of fact, you could; whatever the rest of the Mahora students could say about Class 3-A, there was no denying they could do damn fine stage plays and the like.

High in the sky above Mahora, a holographic projection of Asakura's grinning face and upper body had appeared. "That's right, you lucky people!" she declaimed. "It's the start of this year's campus-wide event! And this year it's 'Rush the Teachers! * The Super-Scavenger Competition!" Behind Asakura was a hologram of Sayo throwing holographic rose petals into the air.

Across the Academy grounds, the students (except for Katsuragi Keima, who remained sitting on a bench obliviously playing his latest galge) paused on whatever they were doing, and stared and listened intently, their eyes shining with a wide gamut of emotions, ranging from dread to sheer joyous excitement, from gleeful thoughts of revenge to, of course, those of lust. Hands were rubbed against each other. Even a few lips were licked, up and down, from left to right and back.

"In this event, the goal is to hunt down our teachers and make completely unreasonable demands of them! And this year, there's a special bonus for anyone who manages to track down the beloved-" Asakura's hologram began coughing, perhaps to cover the utterance of the word 'bullshit'. "- child teacher of class 3-A!" Now Sayo unrolled a poster... with Fate's unsmiling face clearly emblazoned on it. "Anyone who successfully obtains their item from this handsome fellow-" More coughing. "- will have their points multiplied two hundred-fold! Isn't that amazing?"

The SOS Brigade, naturally, also bore witness, interrupted as they had been in the middle of Haruhi's latest inane filming.

"Two-hundred fold!" Suzumiya Haruhi squealed.

"Oh my," Mikuru shivered, taking a tiny hand to her cute mouth.

Kyon's right hand tightly clasped around his own face.

Nagato didn't even blink.

Itsuki took a tissue and daintily applied it to his nose without anyone noticing.

Haruhi, grinning insanely, spun around on her feet and gestured grandly. "BRIGADIERS! There's been a major change of plans! Right now, our first and foremost goal must be ... GETTING THE TWERP!"

Kyon darkly muttered something very obscene, but also thankfully very unintelligible.

Fate, who had quickly left the archery hall after Okochi's surprising disappearance, was standing in the street watching this display with as much emotion as he ever showed.

"And furthermore, teachers, you should be aware that if anyone other than a member of your class borrows from you, you'll get a penalty! Fate-sensei's penalty will of course be two hundred times worse!" Asakura announced.

"They cannot be serious," Fate murmured.

At that very moment, a small number of what were clearly tanks rolled up the street, and their artillery pieces quickly rotated to point at him. "Attention, Fate-sensei!" declared the tank's commander over a loudspeaker. He recognized her voice, even through the sound-altering speakers of the armored vehicle. Nishizumi Miho from the Anglerfish Team, Tankery Club. "We are the combined representatives of every military and wargaming club on campus. Please surrender immediately, we have no desire to harm you, but our honor obligates us to collect-" A pause, as if she was reading a note. "- your boxers!"

"... all right, they apparently can be serious," Fate concluded, as he departed by air, taking advantage of the cloud cover thrown up by the tanks' sudden assault. He considered petrifying them and explaining it to any bystanders as 'CGI' - this apparently being readily accepted as an explanation, against all logic - but decided to save that for when he actually confronted the delicate young ladies who were responsible for this.

* * *

Elsewhere, not too far away, Kurosawa Minamo-sensei and Tanizaki Yukari-sensei, who had been calmly drinking soda with their students after an athletic competition, blinked and looked at each other.

"Man," Yukari-sensei said, "if only he wasn't such an asocial, stuck-up jerk, I'd really feel sorry for Fate-kun." Then she chuckled.

'Nyamo'-sensei, as she was beter known, frowned. "That's very insensitive towards someone who obviously has had a hard time fitting anywhere."

"Well, I bet he'd fit in better if only he wasn't such a asocial, stuck-up jerk," Yukari replied.

"Besides -" Nyamo said.

"Yes?"

"She meant 'all' teachers, right?"

"Aaahhhh."

Right then, Takino Tomo tackled Yukari's legs. "I got her! Catch the other one!"

Kagura leapt for Nyamo. "Leave it to me!"

"YEEEEE!" Nyamo screeched, barely dodging in time.

* * *

"I don't know," Yuuki Rito groaned. "Isn't this like stealing from a corpse?"

"Yuuki-kun is right... w-well, sort of," Sairenji Haruna gulped. "And, and what sense of achievement could be gained from this, anyway?"

"Hey," Saruyama shrugged, bringing on a ladder, "don't look a free horse in the mouth, or whatever." He hummed as he climbed up the ladder, towards Itoshiki-sensei's body, which hung limply from a sakura's branch. "Sensei, can I have your wallet in a way that absolutely isn't theft? Thank you," he grinned, pulling the wallet out of Itoshiki's hakama pants, then looking inside. "Damn, only cyanide pills and two yen. Is this really a millionaire's wallet?"

"Get me his underwear, Saruyama-kun!" Momioka Risa giggled, before she felt a shadow looming ominously over her and her partner in crime Mio. Looking back, they saw Kitsu Chiri from 3-F, standing behind them, with a shovel in her hands and several of her classmates flanking her. "Oh, shi-"

"How dare you, stealing from OUR teacher's not quite dead corpse! WE'LL SUE!" Kimura Kaere pointed at them, dramatically, as a mighty burst of wind blew her skirt and showed her pink panties, against which Rito promptly slammed his face after a sudden stumble when he shifted his position. No small feat, considering he had been at the other end of the group. "AH! I'LL SUE YOU TOO!" she added, kicking Rito against the trunk.

"Maybe that wouldn't happen if you didn't wear such a short, immoral skirt!" Kotegawa Yui angrily pointed at her.

"What are you saying? Yours is as short as mine! These are grounds for a defamation lawsuit!"

Hitou Nami silently slipped away as the fight broke out, carrying Itoshiki's inert body in her arms. Normal or not, she was quite scarily stronger than the average Japanese student, but then, that was normal in Mahora.

She won all the points her class earned during that game, which was something Chiri, Matoi and Kiri never forgot.

"Ah, it's so nice to see everyone getting along so well," Fuura Kafuka said cheerfully as she overlooked the fight.

Beside her, Oshizu Murasame, the only person there who could see what Kafuka actually looked like, nodded quickly with a fixed grin on her face as she tried to hold in a scream of unimaginable horror...

* * *

"Bw-wark?" Boo Welker-sensei asked, tilting his head aside.

"That's right, Sensei!" the very pompadour-ed Gotokuji Kaoru assumed an expert fighting stance while blocking his path, alongside three of his kouhai in the Mixed Martial Arts Club. "You shall not pass ... unless you hand over your glasses!"

"And tie!" another boy added.

"And shirt!" a third one said.

"And the answers for this term's tests!" the fourth one smiled.

"Buckkk-waarrrk! Bwak, bwerk bawak buckkk-aaawwwk!" Boo-sensei protested.

"What? You think you can take us all at once?" Kaoru huffed. "Bring it on, then! We accept your challenge!"

"Bwak! Buck-buck-buckkkaaawwk!" Boo cried, jumping up and then dealing a flying roundhouse kick to Kaoru's face. Faster than the others could react, he spun between them, slapping them down, no move wasted or failed, a living whirlwind that scattered feathers everywhere and caused several loud sounds of crunching and crushing, their exact causes being too violent to describe in this wholesome story. Kaoru himself proved to be a tougher challenge, managing to land a few punches across his face, until Boo blocked his last blow with a-

Kaoru stared, aghast, at the thing protruding from under one of the teacher's sleeves, as the glasses the man wore were slightly askew and loose over his ... beak? "Is that ... is that a ... wing?! Oh Kami-sama, you're a giant-!"

"Buck-bkk-buckkaaww!" Boo said, headbutting him into unconsciousness before fixing his tie and glasses back on. "Bwak, bawk, bwak."

"That was impressive, Chicken," an Rhode Island-accented voice said in English behind him. Eyes growing narrow, Boo turned around to face a large, obese smirking man with short brown hair and glasses, in a white shirt and black pants. He was rolling his sleeves up now. "I'm going to enjoy this, you bastard. After you made me chase you all the way from Quahog, now you'll finally taste - THE REVENGE OF PETER GRIFFIN!" He charged ahead.

So did Boo. **"BWWWAAAAAAKKK!"** he yelled, running over the fallen students to clash against his hated nemesis once more.

Don't ask.

* * *

"Are you sure," the tall lanky man with the crow asked patiently, yet also glacially, "you would get anything at all out of mugging me? That infernal rapscallion didn't mention anything about teachers from the college area."

"Tch, she said 'teachers' in general," Enoshima Junko snorted, with her twin Mukuro standing shortly behind her, and her classmates Celestia Ludenberg, Maizono Sayaka, Asahina Aoi, Ogami Sakura and their sempai Owari Akane circling him (and his crow, can't forget the crow) from every other side, effectively trapping him after ambushing him on his way back from Library Island. "Anyway, even a bad catch is better than nothing, right?" she said with a truly disturbing grin that greatly reminded him of the Joker, hands perched on her shapely hips. "So hand everything over, Scrawny. Unless you'd want us to do it for you, pervy Four-Eyes?"

He sighed, pushing his glasses up. "Truly remarkable. All of you, plucked from diverse walks of life, with nothing in common but your intellectual shortcomings, and yet united by the goal of harassing and bullying others, no doubt to get your own sort of petty revenge against authority. I can sympathize, I really can. However," he said, slamming his cane on the ground twice, "I won't be intimidated. Can you truly say the same?"

"What in the-" Junko began snorting again, which proved a mistake when it made her breathe the first of the strange mist that had started flowing out of the gaijin's cane.

Moments later, all the girls twitched helplessly on the ground, clawing and whimpering for help, sobbing about their worst fears. The well dressed man smiled, basking in the satisfaction of a scratched itch he had not tended to for far too long. It was almost like in the old times.

"Hroo. Hraaa," he happily cooed, walking over them and twirling his cane around. By the time they could get back up, even assuming they would ever want to admit their defeat, the quickly self-disposing chemicals would have evaporated through their accelerated sweating and fully absorbed into their organisms. In the meanwhile, maybe he could stay around long enough to observe their reactions and study and categorize them. He rarely had the chance to perform live studies anymore.

"Kenshiro..," Ogami cried to herself, hugging dirt tightly against her massive chest.

At least she was better off than Owari, who was pushing mouthfuls of the same dirt into her mouth, while complaining about being so hungry, and feeling so cold. Or Ikusaba, who had collapsed and was crying for her sister, interspersed with pleadings of 'don't hurt me'.

And then there was Junko herself ...

... who seemed to be shaking in climactic delight, licking her lips over and over as her hand reached under her micro skirt. "Oh, oh, oh yes, that delightful despair ... that, that overwhelming feeling of pointlessness ... ahhhhhh!"

The man cringed in disgust.

* * *

"It's over, Ninomiya-sensei," Katou Otome smiled as she and her cohorts Minami, Natsumi (definitely not a Murakami or Hinata by any stretch) and Mori surrounded the tiny teacher in the playground where she had been frolicking. Damn, it almost felt shameful. Too easy. Otome almost felt bad about it, not that her friends seemed to care at all, judging from their vicious smirks ... well, they could overdo things at times, Otome thought deludedly, that's why they had her, to reign them in for their own good. "Just give yourself up, and we'll make this very, very easy for you."

The little girl in the loose yellow dress stopped spinning around on the merry-go-round, licked a last spot of chocolate ice-cream near her mouth, and pulled a shiny coin out. "Oh, really? Don't tell me!"

Moments later, the four girls trembled face down against the ground, moaning with as much energy as their drained bodies could muster for the task. A fully grown, sculptural woman in a tight mini yellow dress sighed as she pocketed a coin in. "Really, girls from good families like you should know better than to become cheap delinquents."

After several moments of stunned silence, the other children in the playground all stood up and began clapping.

With a gentle smile, Hinako-sensei turned back towards them and took a sincere bow.

* * *

"Sir?" Minamoto Shizuna asked, arms neatly folded behind her back, after she finished listening. She stood before the large windows of Konoe Konoemon's office, and now tilted her head back to look at the old man. "I assume you have heard all of that?"

"Perfectly well, Shizuna-kun," Konoemon calmly replied from behind his desk, flipping through a magazine. "Why wouldn't I have heard it?"

"That being the case, what do you plan to do about this hastily concocted scheme to harass our teachers, particularly the potentially lethal one brought from Mundus Magicus?"

"Why, Shizuna-kun, the answer should be obvious. I plan to stay behind these closed doors all day long. I have a teaching certificate as well, after all."

"Ah. That is a very wise answer," she sedately said.

"Thank you. I try my best."

"Should I get extra locks?"

"I was about to suggest that myself."

* * *

So, there was Saotome Ranma, hopping from rooftop to rooftop with his hands in his pockets and humming a certain song that went 'Yappa pa, yappa pa' to himself, pondering what to do next. On one hand, Ranma had been the frequent victim of manhunts from irrational youngsters before, and he knew better than anyone how awful that felt, so he was actually quite sympathetic towards most of the teachers right now.

On the other hand, Fate. Fuck that guy. Not in that sense, of course. That'd have been gross.

So he was now on the prowl for him, feeling quite confident he'd catch him before any of the others did, because he was Saotome Ranma, that was why. He grinned just a bit viciously to himself, in a way that absolutely wouldn't have reminded anyone of Ryouga's at his worst and without the fangs, of course not, as he oversaw the chaotic area from above, bouncing rapidly across the campus. Not only would he avenge Haruna-chan's honor, but he'd also settle a score of his own with the little dipshit.

Then he spotted him, which made him freeze at the middle of a rooftop, right above him and ... Haruna-chan?

Okay, and some of the weirdo girls in her class, as well. But what were they -

"Get him!" Haruna ordered, and then all of them except for the one with the dark hair and the slutty gunslinger costume, the one who had done so well during the Martian invasion game, charged.

Ranma tensed, ready to leap down to interfere any moment now. Wary as he was of interfering into anyone else's fights (which was quite against the Martial Arts Code), but those weak silly girls should be horribly mismatched against a guy who had fought him so incredibly well before, and also ... what if they stole his reward, and his chance for revenge, before he could claim them?!

And what the hell, Haruna-chan was grabbing the tiny pale bastard and whispering something into his ear now, too! Ranma's field of vision was fully bathed by bright crimson, and a combat aura instantly surrounded him. Why, that shitty little -

And then, from above, a bolt flashed down. Ranma barely could react in time to jump back, and even so, the shockwaves sent by its impact were enough to send him tumbling dangerously close to the edge, blinding him for a second. "What the-?!"

Undeterred, sick worried about his sister's safety, he scrambled over to look back down as soon as his vision returned, and then he wished he'd never had so. His jaw fell.

The other girls but the gunslinger were gone now, and Haruna and the little jerk were naked, naked, and she was kissing him and whispering something to him, and the rooftop under Ranma's feet cracked and shook violently. A dark, insane gurgle of fury crawled up his throat.

"Now, Yuna!" Haruna shrieked when she saw Fate's face turn incandescent with fury.

Ranma was too livid with anger of his own to catch on too much of the way the other girl (or rather, another one of the same girl, but that mattered NOTHING AT ALL now!) shot at Fate and sent him down, accompanied by another girl who had just appeared out of nowhere with her.

All he could think of right now was of leaping down there and pummeling the sister-rapist jerkass to bloody painful death, so he did so, landing on his feet with a heavy thud and several rounds of shockwaves right before the four of them. Blood injected eyes. A terrifying shadow obscuring his face. A deadly inhuman hiss escaping his mouth. Hands turning stiff in a wonderful impression of claws about to tear someone apart.

"- eeep!" Murakami Natsumi said, going horribly pale, and dropping a piece of paper.

"Oooooh, crap," Yuna gulped, lowering her guns just a little.

Fate, flat on his back, only gave a soft dizzy hiccup.

Haruna blinked, swallowed what felt like a bowling ball stuck in her throat, and then grinned. "Ahhhh ... oniichan! Nice to see you around, but ... weren't you supposed to be with Akane-nee?"

"**GWWWWAAAARRRKKKK!"** Ranma growled, charging ahead.

Later, much much later, Haruna would always have a hearty laugh about the day when not only she had to save Fate's life, but also, somehow, in some way that she never could figure out after the fact, manage to restrain her big brother in the proccess.

* * *

When Fate could think again, he was staring up at a blue sky. It was rather pleasant. Or rather, it would have been if not for the animalistic howls and growls he could hear Saotome Ranma making right out of his sight range, which somehow felt far shorter now.

Moving his head aside, Fate could see Saotome Ranma was being held against the sidewalk, cheek roughly rubbing against the dirt, by Saotome Haruna, still naked, who had caught him in a complex lock grapple from his back, exerting every last bit of her strength to keep him pinned. Even then, it was clear to Fate only the fact the boy refused to harm her, primal rage or not, was preventing him from tossing her aside like a ragdoll.

"Are you listening now?!" Haruna yelled, all but bashing her brother's head down just to keep him in check. "Are you, just for once?!"

**"Grrrffrrrrghhhh!"** Ranma graciously replied.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" she said. "No wonder you and Akane-nee make a perfect match!"

**"Ggrrrrrmmmghhhh!"** Ranma protested against said observation.

And then Yuna intruded, looking down at Fate. "See what happens when you force our hand? Everybody loses, but well, at least you'll lose harder than everyone. Ten three-minute magic suppression bullets," she informed him. "Enjoy mortality."

Then she was joined by Murakami, who tried her best to look bewilderingly smug, sticking to her role despite the commotion going on right behind her. "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting," she declared, unfolding the crumpled-up piece of paper she had retrieved, one with the words "Fate-sensei's Dignity" written on it. "Welcome to the Old World. Jerk."

"Scatter! I'll take charge from here!" cried Haruna, and the two girls were all too happy to disappear.

**"Bbbrrrffmffff!" **Ranma said.

Fate decided that he would lay there for a while. It seemed the smarter move, since he doubted trying to flee would do much other than finishing hurting his dignity. The Saotome girl was saying something near her brother's ear which seemed to calm him down slowly, out of which Fate only could tell the word 'Mom' out.

Fate closed his eyes and waited patiently, until he heard Ranma's snort, and felt a relatively soft punt to his cheek, which still stung like one of Negi's best punches. "So he's been sorta Moxabusted, right?" he heard him ask.

"Yeah, basically," Haruna nodded, wrapping the jacket her brother had lent her. "And rest assured, I'd never have enough bad taste as to do him. You of all people should know how often you can end up naked while fighting someone! Can we go now? I'll explain everything elsewhere, in private, please," she nasally whined.

Ranma huffed as he kept prodding Fate's body with a foot, warily. "I'm not sure."

"The rest of the girls will punish him from here on," she said.

Ranma winced. Having been on the wrong side of 3-A's wrath once before, back when everyone thought his female form was out to seduce Negi-sensei, he knew, even if he would never admit it, those harpies could enact harsh revenge on anyone even far better than he could.

On the other hand, precisely because of that, it'd feel awful leaving even that guy in their hands ...

"You'll dearly pay for this," Fate weakly promised.

Ranma slammed a foot on his face, not nearly hard enough to knock him out, and then turned around, pulling Haruna away with himself.

"I'm all out of checks and fucks to give," he dryly said, before scooping Haruna up in his arms and leaping away with her.

Fate sighed and remained still where he was.

Then, he could clearly hear a lingering and not too distant echo of Ku Fei's voice saying _"... loving you ... loving you ... loving you ..."._

Fate's nude form twitched.

* * *

Meanwhile, several blocks away, three girls were walking out of an apartment in a certain building where they had left a certain ruggedly handsome teacher.

With a pleasant smile, Tenjouin Saki turned around one last time to give Takahata-sensei, who sat on a chair rubbing the bridge of his nose, a final look and some parting words. "Well, as long as you are here, you should be safe, Sensei. No one will think of looking for you here! If there is anything else you'd like?"

He shook his head, keeping his unfocused gaze low. "No, thank you, I'm fine as it is. Just ... call me if there's some disturbance that would require for my help, will you, Tenjouin-kun?"

She nodded. "Of course! But I'm sure nothing like that will arise, Sensei. You worry simply too much. Enjoy your stay." Her smile, for a moment, became downright devious and mischievous, not that he could get a good look at it, even in the event he had looked up. And so, as she exited the room for good, closely followed as always by Aya and Rin, he closed his eyes and relaxed, until proper paranoia sank back into him.

* * *

"Kagurazaka-san?" Saki said through her cellphone, while the three girls left the old building behind, "He's in position as you requested. Enjoy yourself ... well, and him," she said, with the air of sympathy of one older men admirer to another. Kagurazaka had sworn she'd help her with Zastin-sama later, not to mention another bout with the also admittedly handsome Negi-sensei, and so a deal had been established.

* * *

Takahata had been relieved enough by the students' offer of relief and rest from the chase that he hadn't noticed how... rehearsed it sounded until after they guided him to the building and left him there. He recognized it by the smell - the old teacher dormitories where he'd lived in the earliest years of his employment here, with Asuna at first. The familiarity also distracted him from considering the possibility that this was a trap of some sort. It wasn't until now that the students had gone on their way that the also old and familiar alarms of danger began blaring in his head once more.

Reviewing all of this, he decided that he probably shouldn't stay here. But just as he began to sit up, the lights in the room turned off, robbing him of nearly all the vision he'd had. Naturally, he froze. And then he felt something soft, fabric-like, slipping over his face, cutting off the last traces of sight he possessed. A mask? Who'd put a mask on-

"Be quiet, you," a curt, yet unmistakably feminine, voice asked him from behind, making a bad impression of a raspy mugger from a Hollywood movie. "Don't move or you'll regret it, you, errm, fucker?"

Behind the mask, Takamichi blinked. He thought he recognized that voice, from the couple of times he had visited Negi in that club he sponsored. "Mikazuki-kun?" he guessed aloud.

"... N-NO!" she said, with a violent gasp. "I don't even know any, any Mikazuki Yozora, I mean, I've admired her from afar because, because she's so beautiful, but we've never-! Oh, hell, you just stay put there or else!" He heard her quickly scurrying away before he could reply.

What in the world was going on here?

And then he felt the fastener of his trousers coming undone, and their zipper sliding down. His jaw dropped. This had been nowhere on the list of things he'd even remotely considered as a possibility ... except, wait, no, he was getting ahead of himself, surely there was a simpler explanation. Yes, and actually, this one made sense - someone had gotten assigned 'Takahata-sensei's trousers' and this was simply a way for them to take them without having him know who was doing so, because-

And then he felt his boxers being tugged down.

* * *

Mikazuki Yozora breathed like a possessed woman as she ran away from the building, hiding her face between her hands. Damn those roommates of Sensei, they had her by the figurative throat, knew all her dirty secrets, and were so damn good at cunnilingus, too, and then there was Kagurazaka's sob story. When they gave her an urgent call saying one of their classmates couldn't fulfill her part in their latest insane scheme, claiming they needed her to replace her, she wanted to refuse so badly, but how could she?

_"Oh, come on, it's just slipping a mask on a guy's head from behind! That's all!" Kagurazaka had protested. "How can you deny us that after all we've done for you?"_

Yozora clenched her teeth angrily as she ran. Well, now she had done it, so they were even, right? Yeah, of course, now she wouldn't have to worry about any of that anymore, now she was free, at least until the next time they needed her for, noooooo, perish the thought, from there on, she'd never -

Shiguma Rika finally caught up to her. "So, what were you doing there, Sempai?" she curiously asked.

Yozora screeched to a halt and yelled. "YAAAAA! What, what are you doing here?!"

Rika stopped as well. "Um, well, you suddenly slipped away from the Club after getting a mysterious call, so Rika grew curious, and then Kodaka-sempai grew worried about your disappearance, and Sena-sempai wouldn't look for you, and Yukimura-san wouldn't leave Kodaka-sempai, so using this -" Rika held up a strange small device that bleeped and glowed brightly as it was pushed closer to Yozora. "- Rika tracked you to what Rika could identify as Takahata-sensei's old apartment from Rika's extensive academic databanks. Just as Rika saw Tenjouin Saki-sempai and two of her cohorts leaving -"

A blushing Yozora tightened her hands around Rika's mouth and squeezed. "Shut up!"

"But you demanded an explanation from Rika!" Rika said, although it came out as "Bhhh yhhh dmnd uhn xplntn frm Rhkk!" instead.

Yozora kept squeezing, frantically trying to think of what to do next, until she saw Rika's face growing dark blue. And then a second or two longer. Then she finally released it, with a hissed warning of "Keep it low!"

"Haaaanhhh! Haaaaanhhh!" Rika panted, supporting herself against a tree. "Sempai, you'd be glorious at sexual suffocation techniques, you know? Yes, Rika think you would be a natural."

Yozora was about to protest angrily and issue a few blatant threats, when Rika asked, out of the blue, "So, was Sempai having illicit sex with a teacher, then?"

"Whaaaa-? NOOO! Who, who told you about Negi-sensei?!"

Rika blinked. "Negi-sensei? Rika was talking about Takahata-sensei."

"NOOOO! I haven't ever had sex with Takahata-sensei!"

"So, only with Negi-sensei, then?" Rika asked with a catty smile, her glasses fogging up. "And you know where is he now? Oh-ho-ho, that's very interesting, indeed!"

"It's not like that at all, you idiot!" Yozora growled, her hands gesturing as if she was about to strangle the shorter girl. Again.

"Actually, yes, it is, isn't it?" an accusing voice startled them. They spun around to look at a stone faced Tohsaka Rin standing a few feet apart, arms folded, frowning sternly. "Are you involved in that as well? I can't believe it!"

"I, I, I can't, I don't know what you're talking-" Mikazuki babbled, recognizing that girl as one of the wealthy and popular ones that were one of the many banes of her existence. Then she felt Tohsaka's sharp glare fiercely drilling into her eyes, and she let her head hang in utter defeat. "Why me? I'm such a nice, agreeable person! And victim!" she whimpered.

Rika grinned and slammed her hands together. "Ah-hah! Victory, sweet, highly stimulating and exciting victory! Rika knew it!"

"Quiet, you!" the other two girls barked at once.

* * *

Oniichan had carried her all the way to her dorm room, managing to slip into the female residence without being detected; in addition to his rather acceptable skills for stealth, everyone living there was out at the moment, after all. He had plopped her down on the bed, stood before her, and, unlike most men who drop a beautiful young woman on a bed, demanded for explanations rather than a blowjob.

So Haruna had explained, but for some reason or another, that still hadn't made him happy.

Ranma paced back and forth before her, fast and nervous. "I can't believe you!" he said.

Haruna made a frown. "You, the guy who fell into a gender-altering magical spring, the guy who once wore a cursed magical swimsuit, the guy who once ate magical age changing mushrooms, the guy who got magical duplicates from magical mirrors, can't believe Nagi-kun is Negi-kun with his age altered by magic?"

"I can't believe it, because that's right the kind of lie you'd tell me to calm me down!" Ranma said. "You know I think your kid teacher was an okay, decent and normal little guy, so you're spinning that story about him being that sleazeball who hangs around with the twerp you were kissing to throw me off!"

Haruna, now wearing her brother's jacket and pants, stared at him, who bristled in nothing but his undershirt and boxers. It was hardly an unpleasant sight, brother or not, but there were lines even she wouldn't think of ever crossing, and besides, any thoughts of that nature were drowned by her frustration. She held her Pactio card up. "Do you want a demonstration of what this thing can do?"

"What does that have to do with-"

A moment later, Haruna drew a cat. A tiny, adorable brown kitten. Another moment later, Ranma crouched on top of her closet in abject terror, turning away from the kitten that meowed in Haruna's arms. "See?" she told him. "I wouldn't love to you about my pure, honest, boundless, selfless love for Negi-kun! And this is the fruit of our passions!"

"Getthatthingawayfrom me nownownownow!" Ranma cried, trying to bury his face into the wall.

Haruna dispelled the kitten and smiled. "You can come down now, Onii-chan. Seriously, that's just like you, being always so afraid of pussy."

He shot her a deadly glare as he climbed down. "Funny. Oh so funny. I'm freaking mad at you now!"

"Mad as in Mad at Ryouga, as in Mad at Mousse, or as in Mad at Kuno?"

"As in Mad at Happosai!"

Haruna winced. "I'm that bad?"

"Yes, you are!" he yelled. "You have disgraced our family! Our honor! You have kissed a little boy to gain power, and then you actually... you actually... you actually SLEPT with him! And with other girls, too!"

"There you go, as homophobic as ever," she rolled her eyes.

"Do you have any idea what will Mom say at this? She'll make us commit seppuku!"

"So what? Here's a hint, Ranma, the times where you had to kill yourself just because someone, mother or not, told you to do so have passed! Right now, a mother who pressures a child of hers into that would have her ass tossed into jail! I love Mom, but I don't have to and won't put up with that kind of bull just because you did!"

He grew ghastly pale. "But ... but ... but you'd be kicked out of the family! At least, at the very least, to wash your honor, you'd have to marry that ... guy ..."

"Say what?"

"You just said you loved him, didn't you?"

"Errrrmmm ... yes, of course I do! But that doesn't mean -!"

"Right. That's good. So you'll marry the little creep so you can have your little creeps like a normal honorable family or else I swear I'll kick his ass into the continent!"

"You'd do what?" she laughed. "Onii-chan, I think you don't have the slightest idea of how strong Negi-kun is now?"

He bumped his fists together and snarled. "How 'bout I test him?"

"Don't you dare," she growled. "The poor thing's already got too many important things into his mind now."

"Like seeing how many of you he can screw?!"

"Well, excuse us for not being as sexually repressed as you!"

"I'm not... se... sex... I'm not repressed!"

"Oh God, you can't even say the fucking word! No wonder you never can make Akane-nee happy!"

For a moment, he looked about to actually slap her. "Don't ever say that again about-"

"What?" she challenged, with her fists on her hips. "That she needs a good damn fuck to hopefully take the bitchiness outta her? Well, I'm saying that right now, because it's the fucking truth, and if you don't like it, too fucking bad! Of course, seeing how much you enjoy her slapping and punching you, no doubt you wouldn't want that ! That's the only way you ever can be in any sort of physical contact!"

Ranma was livid in outrage. The Happosai Levels had been left behind long ago by now. "I swear, if you weren't a girl AND my sister -!"

"But I am, whether you like it or not!"

Then she truly expected for him to yell 'NOT ANYMORE!' and she was already thinking of a good, very biting comeback, when she instead saw him doing the unthinkable. He buried his face into a hand, and let out something that was very clearly a long, pained sob.

"Ranma?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," he quietly, darkly said. "I never was around for you. When ... when Dad took me away with him, you only were a baby, and when we met again, you ... whatever happened to you must have been too deeply ... what's the word ..."

"... engrained?" she offered.

"Yeah, that, I guess ... too deeply engrained into you by then. I'm sorry, Haruna. I know Mom must have tried her best to raise you alone, but women obviously need a strong man or two around to -"

She gave him a very Takahashi-esque kick to the face. "There you go again, you hopeless sexist pig!"

"I'm not the pig, that's ... never mind," he sighed, taking the bare foot from his face. "I'm sorry I never could be that man, Haruna. I'm sorry, because of me, you are now this way and -"

"But I'm happy being this way!"

"You are? You think so, but -"

"No, fucking really! I don't want to be like you or Mom and Dad, always chained by that stupid honor crap! I want to be with my friends and teacher, living the life I chose for myself! As a great conqueror, a peerless heroine, a ... a ... a free woman! I don't want you, or anyone else, choose who I'm going to marry! Because I've seen what that has done to you, and I really pity you, Ranma!"

"No one pities me, because there's no -"

She placed her hands on his cheeks. "Again, too fucking bad, because I do," she softly told him. "I love you, Oniichan, no matter how different we are. But I feel bad for the path you've decided to follow. No doubt you feel the same for me, but... please respect my path, just like I still respect yours."

"Haruna, I-" he began, and then they heard steps and voices from right outside. He grew tense, with a feral snarl. "That's him! Now I'll show him!"

"You'll do nothing!" she hissed, wrapping her hands tightly around Ranma's mouth and forcefully pulling him back with herself, into the room's closet, which she slammed close behind them. To his credit, she only could do so because he was still completely unwilling to fight her back. But those considerations mattered little one second after, when, while he still had her hands closing his big mouth, 'Nagi' and Ku Fei tumbled together into the room.

* * *

"So, since you have kindly bothered to bring Rika here," Rika started, quite reasonably in her own opinion, while she sat at Tohsaka Rin's table opposite the owner of the house and the incredibly sour looking Yozora, "it is obvious you have plans to explain things throughly to Rika, and Rika is thankful for that, because right now, Rika's curiosity is reaching levels even Rika herself never suspected it could reach."

The jaded Yozora looked directly at Tohsaka, who, she was fairly sure by now, belonged to that strange magical subculture Yozora had started learning about. "You can do that mindwipe thing mages use to get rid of troublesome people, can't you?"

"I'm still deciding if you count as 'troublesome people' as well, so you'd better watch your words," Rin told her.

"Is this about the unorthodox fringe activities Hakase-san has employed in her robotic research?" asked Rika. "Rika has seen enough of her developments to realize she had tapped into sources of dubious scientific value, and yet they also seem valid enough to be of proper help in the creation and growth of the Karakuri unit. That is what you would call 'magic', isn't it?"

Rin frowned, an eyebrow twitching. "Clever little thing, I see."

"Why, thank you. Rika tries her best!" she coquettishly said, with a hand on her own cheek.

"I wasn't flirting, it was just-!" Rin protested, before melting into a sigh. "Forget it. Let's just start comparing notes before we decide on anything, okay? I know Nagi-sensei has been lately involved in activities of a questionable moral nature. Now, while I was looking into the case of his roommate Kagurazaka-san-"

"You mean stalking her?" asked Rika.

"It's not stalking! Just making sure of what she was doing today, for the sake of our whole community!" Rin snapped. "Anyway, while I was doing that, I found you carelessly talking about ... that in the open, and I find out not only YOU," she said that with a vigorous finger-poking at Yozora's forehead, "but even Takahata-sensei have been dragged into it! That could have terrible consequences for everyone, so I want the whole damn truth, and I want it now!"

Yozora's eyes went impossibly wide. "Who ever told you -"

"That shouldn't concern you!" the young magus replied. "Just tell me what I want to know!"

"Yes, yes, tell us!" Rika excitedly said.

"Shut up, you!" Rin grumbled.

Yozora sighed. "Fine, whatever, you got me. This was a crappy school anyway, and I'm sure I'll enjoy myself much more at juvie. This is what I know on the subject, who are involved into it, and how I was dragged it completely against my will, losing my innocence forever..."

_Rather later:_

"Wow. You are a royal grade A fucking slut, Sempai," an impressed Rika said. And then she made a juicy, highly delirious with glee sound. "Rika never suspected you were soooooooo cool! And sexy! Rika's impression of you has improved oh so considerably!"

"Your approval fills me with shame," Yozora deadpanned.

Rin blinked. "Wow. Oh, just... wow. Even the Student Council President and the queen bee of the campus!"

"Well, the former has never been with him herself, but yeah, they have become parts of the same web," Yozora conceded. "Do you see now? If this becomes of public knowledge, the very foundations of the school's social system will shatter! The established order will be broken beyond repair! And - on second thought, it might be worth it after all. Mock me now, will you, campus? Ostracize me and everything? Well, let's see how much you enjoy your precious idols being dragged through the mu-"

"SILENCE!" Tohsaka slammed a hand on the table. "Are you crazy? That would be a complete disaster, not only for Mahora, but far beyond as well! Dammit, Tate never mentioned it went that far-"

"- Tate?" Yozora asked.

Rin bit her tongue. "I didn't say anything."

"No, you did," Yozora insisted. "Who the hell is that-"

"I SAID NOTHING, I SAID!"

"- that's a contradiction on itself, you kn-"

"SHUT UP!"

Rika blinked. "Tate Yuuichi, former President of the Kendo Club until a serious injury forced him into retirement last year, right?" asked Rika. When the other girls stared at her, she smiled. "Rika may be a chronic loner by choice, but Rika also has a complete database of all sexually attractive students and staff members in the campus! And sometimes, Rika will Photoshock their pictures for masturbatory purposes!"

"What," said Rin, quite unblinking.

"You are in that database as well," Rika said, in a genuine attempt to praise.

"Uuuuhhhh..."

"Although you are quite the bad host," Rika added, with a small petulant pout. "Ever since you brought us here, you haven't offered Rika and Sempai anything in the way of refreshments. Not even some snacks, or a drink, or sex-"

"Or what?!" Rin yelled.

"Well, since Sempai is apparently highly sexually active, and your expertise on rampant sexuality seems to point towards you sharing that tendency, Rika was hoping you would take the chance to finally ravish Rika, who sadly remains lacking any actual sexual intercourse with human beings. For some reason, Rika's advances always seem to scare suitors away."

"Gee, and I always wonder why," Yozora mumbled.

Rin's face grew beet red. "If you want sex so much, go ask Negi-sensei and his merry gang! I doubt they'd reject anyone, even you!"

"... Negi-sensei?" asked Rika.

"Nagi-sensei is actually Negi-sensei," muttered Yozora, who by now saw little point on keeping the rest of the secrets. Odds were they would all be mindwiped shoftly after anyway, if they were lucky.

"Oh," Rika said. "But how-"

"Magic!" Yozora barked.

"That fails to explain anything," the petite perverted scientist huffed. "But I see you are as obtuse about supplying answers for the advancement of science as you are about providing sexual relief for a clubmate in need..."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Yozora cried, violently standing up. "Sex, sex, sex! That's all you ever care about, isn't it! You think it's so great, don't you? Well, I'll fucking show you, then! You want sex? Alright, I'll finally give you your fucking sex!"

Rin backed away, reaching for some gems at the random reaction of the girl, mostly ignorant of the fact it was the result of many days of growing and mounting tension. Tension that now exploded as Yozora, simply not giving a shit anymore, took a fierce grab of Rika's arms and tugged her towards herself, smashing her lips cruelly against hers.

Rika's ponytail stood up on end.

So did Rin's pigtails, for that matter.

* * *

Of course, the closet door HAD TO have slits. And of course, Haruna had to settle herself with Ranma inside in such a way she held him from behind, breasts smashed against his back, hands tightly holding his waist, all but bashing his face against said slits as she whispered threats into his ear, most of them involving creative castration. So he could see and hear, almost completely, what the newcomers were doing right then.

The teacher and his student kissed passionately as they made their way to the beds, their clothes falling from them as they went. By the time that they collapsed to the lower mattress, Negi was only in his undershirt and trousers, while Fei's bra hung loosely on her stomach, just above her panties, exposing her small and firm breasts to his sight. He promptly bent down to take one of the dark brown nipples in his mouth.

Ranma was about to yell right then, but the scream died in his mouth.

"Ahh!" Ku gasped at the feeling that ensued. "So ... so strange, this. First time I ever touched by man not trying to hit me ... oh that sound so wrong when I say it ... like I like being hurt ..."

Negi paused, looked up at her. She avoided his gaze. He considered his next action carefully ... then, as gently as possible, bit down.

She screamed. "Negi-bouzu! Bad, bad! No do that -"

So of course he did it to the other one as well.

Haruna was craning her neck up to look over Ranma's shoulder, and she let out a loud hiss of visual pleasure. Without even realizing it, her grip on Ranma's body tightened even more.

"Mmmmm!" Ku gasped, hand over her mouth to hold in the scream this time. That she could do that told him that she wasn't really upset, rather the contrary. But... well, this was all a bit much for Negi. The whole reason he'd been unwilling to fight back against her, after all, was the fact that he didn't want to hurt his students, even if they knew what they were getting into.

It may be that he could no longer be their teacher... but they'd always be his students.

"All right," he said, just a bit hoarsely, as he reached down to her panties, pushing them a bit to the side and rubbing at what lay beneath to confirm that it was lubricated enough. "This is probably going to hurt a little bit, too."

She sniffled. "Okay," she said. "I strong. I can take it. It nooooooh wow wow wow," she said as his own pants opened up and she saw the it she was thinking about taking. _That_ was supposed to go inside her? Seriously?

Ranma blinked, getting a good long at that thing, and then looked down at the bulge in his own boxers. His was bigger, wasn't it? To his growing annoyance, he realized Haruna was looking in that very same direction, too, and from what little he could see of her expression, she was deeply considering... something.

"Hey," he began to growl.

_"Hush!"_ Haruna urged him quietly, but he could feel all too well how fast her heartbeat was.

"Don't you get any-" Ranma started, right before one of Haruna's arms wrapped itself around his neck instead, and tugged, just hard enough to keep him under wraps. Then she cruelly bit on one of his earlobes, and he shuddered. It'd be hella hard to explain things if anyone ever found them like that...

"We don't have to do anything if -" Negi began to say, genuinely hoping that this time, _this time,_ the girl would see reason and avoid this precipice - but he didn't have to finish, for he could tell from the suddenly stubborn look on Fei's face that this time was going to be just like all the others.

She promptly rattled off something in Chinese far too quickly for his limited understanding of the language, then added, in Japanese, "A warrior knows no pain! Show no mercy for none shall you receive!" Through clenched teeth, both for the sake of ferocity and to stop them from chattering.

"All right," Negi said regretfully, not even bothering to sigh this time. He reached down, took hold of himself, and pressed its tip to the entrance of her vulva. With a deep breath, he pushed up and into her.

Ranma made a choked half-scream of surprise that went unheard by the lovers due to the high pitch of Fei's scream.

Haruna panted as she watched, and she began to forget things, things she always had felt and upheld, standards she had held onto for years, against her custom.

Let's say, for instance, Haruna had ever happened to hear Asuna saying that her mother (which was absurd, because the girl was an orphan, right) had propositioned her sexually, and while we're at it, to make the fantasy even more lurid and wrong, let's also say Negi was Asuna's little brother (what a laugh!) and she was being offered sex with him as well. Sure enough, as Haruna knew well, her reaction to it would always have been:

_"Are you going to call the police, or would you rather I did it?"_

Right, because as sexy as incest was in doujin, in real life it was sick and wrong, and that had been one of the few principles all of her mother's efforts had managed to slam into her mind, and yet now she was, a grown teenager with another teenager, mind, trapped in there watching such a sexy display, and surely it wasn't as bad as Negi's case would have been, because Ranma was no child, and his suitors were all such bitches, and Gods she felt so hot and sweaty and she couldn't restrain herself.

Negi promptly planted his lips on Ku's to muffle the sound of her scream as he began to move back and forth. Her arms came up and wrapped tightly around him, clawing at his shoulder blades in ways that would probably have been very painful to anyone who wasn't basically invulnerable. The way that her hips clenched around his, tightening her passage in the process, was a bit painful, actually- that particular area was not _quite_ as impervious to pain as the rest of him.

He pulled back, to ask if she wanted him to stop, and saw that her eyes had rolled up in her head and her jaw was hanging loose. Negi correctly deduced that he wouldn't get much in the way of conversation from her at the moment. Left with no other option, he kept on pounding into her, varying the pace a little- as he'd learned from practice, many girls liked that sort of variety, and from the incoherent noises that Fei was making, she was that way as well.

Ranma began choking and sputtering on his saliva, and he pressed a foot against the door, ready to kick it open... and right then, realizing what he was about to do, Haruna pulled him further back with herself, and decided to take a drastic measure only to stop him the only way she could, because she was his poor little loving Imouto-chan, so much weaker than him, not because she suddenly desired his hot athletic forbidden and wrong body or anything, nope.

And so, Haruna's right hand went deep into the boxers and took a shaky but strong grip of the swollen manhood in there.

Ranma almost screamed, but she was faster for once, and smothered his lips with hers, closing her eyes as her tongue went into his mouth.

The boy, who after all was a boy with years of pent-up tension even the most inhuman regime of training couldn't quite fully drain, tensed for a moment to almost painful levels before relaxing in the arms of the girl he just couldn't bring himself to hurt. No more than he could ever hurt ...

... Akane ...

He tried to struggle free, desperately, but then the hand on his member was pumping it fiercely, and she was growling something into his ear, and her other hand yanked the boxers down to his knees to immediately caress and fondle his balls, and he just lost it.

With an agressive growl, he turned around in the tight darkness, stared into the eyes of the girl who had stolen something he had been saving for another, and pressed her against the wall. She moaned in anticipation, and her lack of fear or regret only frustrated him more. He literally tore the jacket off her body (after all, he reasoned, it was his, to do whatever he wanted with it), as she squirmed out of the pants she had borrowed from him, which softly fell around her ankles. And, with another animalistic sound, he pushed his hips ahead, and in the first try, he entered her. She groaned in completion, and then went on to pant in synchrony with him, and with the other two right outside.

For a moment, Negi thought he had heard something very strange coming from the closet, something that almost sounded like Haruna, but his attempt to look in that direction was short lived, as he felt the sensations which told him that his climax was about to be upon them both. He cried out, "It's coming! It's coming! Where-"

She grunted and pulled him more tightly against herself, so that he sprayed up into her. As he did so, she made a noise that he'd never heard before, something between a sigh and and a sustained high note.

"I hope ... I hope this was a safe day," he said to her, after a moment.

"Fret not," she said, eyes still on the ceiling rather than his. "We have beautiful, powerful children when we married."

There was a rather loud sneeze and a 'Gesunheidt!' coming from inside the closet now, and this time both of them could hear it. Negi's protests on the nature of what he would have considered to be a mere example of Chinese humor were filed away for the moment, as both warriors quickly came up, assuming defense stances and approaching the rattling closet from which boomed shouts of incoherent pleasure step by careful step. Like a well trained battle unit, they didn't even need to exchange a word. Neither was there the time or inclination to reach for clothes.

"Coming, coming, coming, cumming!" they clearly could hear Haruna's voice now, as she was quickly pounced into, breasts bouncing wildly. And then there was a masculine, hoarse roar like that of a mighty tiger, and the closet shook so violent it fell off, landing with a crash between Negi and Ku's bare feet.

The two of them stared, dumbfounded, at the fallen closet door for a moment, before a fist punched a hole through its back, and a very naked Saotome Ranma emerged from it, protectively clutching a very naked (glasses aside) and satisfied looking Haruna, who snuggled against his hard pecs making tiny mewing sounds.

Both boys stared blankly at each other, and their faces became matching seas of crimson.

"... aru?" Ku Fei said, her eyes reduced to black dots.

And finally, there was a soft click of a key on the room's door, and a moment later, slowly, Konoka, Nodoka (thankfully not the one named Saotome), and Yue each bent over to look into the room, with varied, yet all of them very unusual and interesting on themselves, expressions on their faces...

* * *

"I... I can't believe you!" an aghast Rin gasped aloud. "Are you just going to do that right in front of me, in my own freaking house?!"

Yozora paused in her rough, mean, kissing and undressing of a sighing Rika to groan at Tohsaka. "So, whatcha gonna do? Do you think I will care if I'm mindwiped and forget all these events that have turned my life around to the point I'm doing THIS? Then you're welcOMMMMPH!" she said as Rika, hungry for more and unwilling to wait, pulled her in for a new brash kiss.

It annoyed Yozora, as much as the whole situation annoyed Rin, that Rika didn't seem to be fazed or discouraged by her violent advances, and instead relished them, paying her in the same clumsy but effective coin. True, maybe it was to be expected given Rika's general attitude, but after hearing she was a virgin after all, Yozora had bet on her old unspoken hunch about the perv being far more bark than bite. Why did she have to keep challenging and foiling Yozora's expectations in so many unexpected ways?

And yet it was too late now to pull back without losing face, and so Yozora allowed herself to be pulled along on a couch by a madly giggling Rika, who was pulling her shirt open, and then pulling on Yozora's bra with her freaking teeth...

Rin, the veteran of a Grail War, the woman who had defeated a Servant in close quarters combat, watched on helplessly, powerless, as the two girls torridly kissed and suckled on each other's small breasts before sighing her defeat. Standing up, she began stripping before those two nearly complete strangers, neither of whom seemed to be paying her much attention, until she was reduced to her black stockings, and then she approached them, swaying her hips enticingly without realizing it. Definitely, Sakura was a bad influence on her.

As Rika huffed and puffed and rubbed her private parts against Yozora's in a way learned from many an adult movie, Rin grabbed the Mikazuki girl by her short black hair and pulled her mouth towards her vulva. "I'm not going to erase your memory," she told her. "Otherwise, you'd forget the day when I put you in your damn place. You think you can use my ancestral home as your love motel without my- ahhhh," she exhaled as Yozora's tongue, tentatively at first, began paying her the rights for usage of her house.

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck that's so fucking hot, ah ah ah yes! UNIVEEEEEERSEEEEEEEE!" Rika shrieked, raching her back and achieving a trembling orgasm. After which she was pushed back lying face up, and two mouths quickly darted down to lap on the liquids leaking out of her.

* * *

_Meanwhile, near the Church, under the old orange trees:_

Kashiwazaki Sena smiled proudly as the Neighbors' Club (and a replacement honor member to augment its currently diminished ranks) secured the child teacher they had just caught. "See? Do you see now? I told you, once we left the Weasel Woman behind, our luck would return to us! It's thanks to the absence of her distractions we have reached this great success, under my leadership! Oh, ho ho ho!" Boing boing, her big breasts went with her laugh.

"Yes, we are all worried about her and Shiguma-san, sempai," Yukimura quietly said.

"I'M NOT WORRIED! SHE COULD STAY LOST FOREVER FOR ALL I CARE!" the blonde quickly snapped, her face becoming taut with naked tension.

Kodaka sighed. "Is this anything to be proud of, at all?"

Takayama Maria kicked around helplessly, trying to punt any of the big bullies who had tied her up, which was all she could do with her arms immobilized as they were. "Heathens! Philisteians or whatever they're called! Enemies of the Church and God! You only could catch me while I was napping!" she bawled, making Kodaka feel even worse.

"Fu fu fu..." Hasegawa Kobato chuckled, still drawing doodles on Maria's face. "Cry, cry, lapdog of the Vatican! Reisys VI Felicity Sumeragi can easily take on you and ten more like you! Bring on your crosses and other symbols of a dead faith, for I shall readily crush them! Bwa ha ha ha ha!"

So busy was she gloating she never noticed Kodaka and Sena's sudden gasps until the sneakily approaching Sisters Shakti and Kate were looming right over her...

* * *

"Then, was that incredibly good and mind blowing, or what?" Rika asked, smirking kittenishly and resting on her side, a hand on a bare hip.

Resting in each other's arms, Rin and Yozora growled as one. "Shut the hell up!"

"Rika will take that as a yes..."

* * *

Ashikaga Yuki dragged his tired steps towards the SOS Brigade's headquarters, taking his long wig off as soon as he thought it was safe to do so. His feminine clothes were in a state of mild disarray, and his body posture spoke of great unrest and the onslaught of stress and physical pressure. He was going to quit this crossdressing stunt, he really was going to, no matter what the other boys or Suzumiya-san might-

He heard a voice that didn't belong to any of the Brigade's members coming from the room shortly before reaching it. "-I think that's a fair warning," a girl, it had to be a girl, was coldly saying.

"Don't fairly warn me," Suzumiya-sempai was replying, in a firm yet careless tone. "Don't you have faith in her? If you're so sure everything will come out as you expected it, then why to worry, and more importantly, why to take it out on me? Why don't you go out back and try enjoying the rest of the Festival? Oh, I forgot it, you can't do the 'Enjoying' thing anymore, can you?"

There was a silence that even Yuki, without actually seeing them, could feel as piercing and chilling. Then, a moment later, a rather slim, pale girl with long black hair left the room, walking away and hardly giving Yuki a passing glance as she stepped by him. It was only after she was gone he realized, much to his horror, he had forgotten to put the wig back on, although she never seemed to notice it.

"Come in," Suzumiya's voice, far less amused now, commanded, so he obeyed.

"Who was-" he began stuttering.

"Doesn't matter," Haruhi, who was there alone with him, the rest of the Brigade nowhere to be seen, sharply interrupted. "What have you found out? What have you foiled?"

"Ummmm, not much, actually. Everyone went their separate ways with their own teams once the game started, so I couldn't really tail anyone ... I tried my best, but ... c-come to think about it, why aren't you playing?"

"I was. Then she called me here. So I called you," she sighed, sitting behind a computer and sighing, fingers playing with the keys. "So you don't have anything to report? What a pity, and we had branded you as the star of our next student movie, too." From the way her fingers tapped on harder each time, he could clearly see her impatience.

Outside, the skies had grown slightly darker.

"I ran into a few ... personal problems," he looked down, playing with the wig in his hands. "There's this girl who's been really kind to me, and I happened to run into her, so naturally she thought I was my own cousin, and then Kuno-sempai showed up..."

Haruhi leaned back, folding her arms. "Keep your conquests to yourself, you little accidental stud/slut monkey," she sneered, as if convinced her comment would annoy some superior being who disliked those kinds of references, if that was indeed some sort of reference to begin with. It was a definitely strange thing to think right now, Yuki decided. "Or, better yet ..." She paused, humming in sudden contemplation.

Yuki took a wary step back. "W-What?" he warily asked.

She gave him her best (or should it be said 'worst' instead?) devilish smirk. "Yuu-chan, are you a virgin?"

Against his expectations-fears, it turned out she wasn't propositioning him sexually, at least not yet.

It was something even worse, instead.

* * *

**To be Continued in the Next Chapter**.


	8. Nui, Tsukuyomi, Ragyou, Rei

Akamatsu Ken and dozens of other talented (some more than others, granted, but all of them more talented than me) creators came up and/or own these characters.

No money is being made out of this, which surely won't please my loan sharks.

Thanks to Darkenning for the original concept, inspiration and proof reading for this story.

Disclaimer: There are no actual loan sharks after OverMaster. Yet.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Episode Eight**.

* * *

The short boy with dark gray hair rushed through the campus, jumping from shadow to shadow, from hiding place to hiding place, as the late afternoon fell over Mahora. Camera in hand, brave smirk in mouth, he moved with studied grace and skill through his chase, stopping occasionally to take well placed snapshots of the most remarkable events in the heated war between teachers and students.

He had been combing the campus through most of the day, relentless, with energy and drive far greater than his thin, weak complexion would have suggested. And even now, he barely sweated.

Always moving, fast and silent, and yet never losing the strategic placement of the hair bang over his left eye.

Finally, he reached his true goal. He found her on a rooftop, overlooking the campus with her back turned at him, smiling as she witnessed her handwork.

Perhaps, had Chachamaru not been so focused on watching over Sakurako and Fate, she would have noticed him sneaking behind Sayo and Asakura. As it happened, the former ghost was the first one to realize his presence, turning around with a quiet yelp of surprise.

The redhead reacted instantly, looking back as well. She had been honing her detection skills greatly during her Mundus Magicus adventure and afterwards, so it honestly surprised her that short kid had been able to catch her unaware. Well, it was too late to hide the drone cameras surrounding her, but if he asked, she always could explain them away as some of Hakase's toys. "What the-? Hey, hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with the others playing the game?"

"Oh, I'm afraid I have no club to play it with yet!" he chuckled softly, looking down at his feet. "That's why I was looking for you, actually, Asakura-san! And it took me quite a while! As expected from the star of the school newspaper!"

Kazumi frowned a little, feeling something was odd about that kid, even if she couldn't quite place her finger on it. "Are you trying out for the newspaper?"

"Oh, yes! That's why I've been taking pictures of the game all day long, hoping to amass a portfolio for you! I have several albums of my own already, of course, but I thought I should try coming to you with something that shows you I can build a large portfolio of a given situation just as it's happening." Shyly, nervously, he extended his camera up to her, with a spark of veneration in the right eye shown through the sole visible lens of his glasses.

"Aw, geez," Asakura said, as right behind her, Sayo shifted around in suspicion and dislike of the newcomer. "That's the spirit of a reporter, yeah, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait 'til this is done. Then I'll check your photos, I promise, but right now, well, I'm a bit busy. I don't think I've ever seen you before, by the way. What's your name?"

"Oh, that's no surprise, since I've just been transferred here. I know, it's late in the school year, but ... Mother decided that, not me! Not that I'm against it, since your school is as good looking as you! As for my name, well, you can call me Nagita Shinjiro!" he exclaimed, full of life and energy.

Sayo decided she really disliked that flirty girly-boy.

* * *

_Haruna and Ku Fei's bedroom, aka Ground Zero_.

"I can't believe it," Yue said, once she could talk. It was a very brief and plain sentence that, while summing up the core of her current situation, only barely scratched the whole of her conflicted, boiling feelings about what she'd just discovered. Anger, disgust, outrage, moral betrayal, sadness, and a bit of interesting excitement, all scrambled together in something Yue could only call 'being Haruna'ed'. "You know, Haruna, I keep coming to you with no expectations, and you still manage to disappoint them."

Haruna forced a smile that tried to be smug. "Being Ala Alba is about achieving the impossible."

Yue gestured with her hands, in the all too familiar impotence of having her point ignored. "Your own brother! You were doing it with **your own brother,** because Negi apparently wasn't enough for you!"

"But you never protested while we were-" Haruna began.

"That, that and **THIS** are completely different things!" Yue spat the words out. "For starters, we aren't related!"

"That's it!" Konoka clung to that faint hope. "You've just found out Ranma-san isn't your actual blood related brother! Right? Right?" She clenched an eerie, begging smile.

"Um ... nope, that ain't it," Haruna denied. "What do you think this is, a soap opera?"

Ranma hid his face between his hands and actually whined, too embarrassed to even argue anything, while Negi sat on the bed near him, also naked and torn between comforting him and beating him up for taking advantage of a dear student he was not feeling jealous towards, no way, no.

"Your nerve! Your freaking nerve! You know, I, I never thought I'd say this, but I can't think of any words to describe you! Nodoka? How, how would **YOU** describe this?"

_"Hot,"_ Nodoka said softly, in a fascinated tone.

Yue nodded strongly. "Yes, I agree, this is too hot ... wait, what?!"

Everyone else also stared at Nodoka's cutely blushing face, which had a slow enigmatic smile curving up her lips.

"H-Honya?" Ku Fei stammered.

"N-Nodoka-san...?" Negi echoed in his own way.

Nodoka quietly placed her hands together and said, each word calm and collected, "Ku-san, you have, ah, been with Negi, and only with Negi, so far, haven't you?"

"Ahhhh... yes?" Ku-san babbled. "Haruna and brother in closet this whole time."

"In every sense of the term," Haruna pointed out.

Ranma glared fiercely at her from between his fingers. "I'm not-"

"Then," Nodoka interrupted with a warm tender giggle directed only at Ku, "Welcome to the harem." And began to pull off her t-shirt.

"Ah?" said Fei, eyes gone all swirly.

"Way to go, Nodoka!" Haruna cheered wildly as she clasped both hands before her chest. "Isn't it great to go beyond silly petty feelings like jealousy and spite and resentment and -"

"Haruna, I know that it will be difficult, but could you please shut up?" Yue growled as she undressed as well, blushing brightly but unwilling to be left behind by her best friend and rival, even if said dear friend had obviously cracked under the recent pressure.

"What?" asked Fei bewilderedly.

"No, r-really, what the hell, are you actually going to do this before me?!" Ranma cried, covering his eyes with his hands.

"Well, you ARE part of our extended family, so there's no real reason to be that shy around you," Haruna reasoned.

Nodoka, now down to just her socks, ignored Ranma altogether and almost danced across the floor to the side of Ku's bed. "Now, Ku-san, I know that you're, well, not very smart - I hope I don't offend by calling you that."

"No, no offense taken," Fei said, blinking as Nodoka bent down over the two of them.

"Ah, good. Anyway, you might be not very smart, but did you really think that you got there first?" Nodoka asked, trying to sound as patient as possible.

Fei looked at Negi. Then at Nodoka. Then back at Negi. Then, slowly, she angled her perspective to take them both in. "Yes?" she said, in a way that implied she realized that this was in fact somewhat unlikely under the circumstances.

"Well, you weren't. But it's all right, because we're going to share, and I'm sure that the many, many other girls -"

Ranma yelled. "MANY, MANY?! What the hell this playboy's been up to?!"

"At least he hasn't done it with any relatives," Konoka calmly muttered.

"And there aren't that many," Negi interjected quietly.

"- won't mind you joining either." And with that promise, Nodoka bent down to kiss the other girl's dark nipples, taking one of them into her mouth and -

"AHH!" Fei shrieked. "B-b-bookstore-chan?!"

"Share and share alike," Nodoka said, before moving over to the other nipple.

"Okay, I'm calling dibs on Negi's negi right now, I didn't get nearly enough the other day," Haruna asserted. "The rest of you will just have to make do... man, it'd be convenient if we had another guy here..." This was said with a rather pointed stare towards her brother.

"Um, I, uh, I think I'll be, um-" he stammered, fumbling around while Konoka just stood there and stared back and forth between them all, as if the words had just been stolen from her mouth itself.

Haruna purred, folding her arms behind her back and pushing her chest up enticingly. "A real man, a hunk who can compete on even terms with Negi, who won't miss a chance to show us he's as much of a stud as him, if not even moreso."

"Uhhhh..." Ranma blurted, being rather familiar with the concept of baiting and yet still so powerless against it.

Before he could conclude her response, if he had been about to do so, Haruna was distracted when Yue, making an incredibly loud growl for someone so small, grabbed her by the hips, bit out the words, "Shut. UP," and pushed herself up high enough to slam her mouth against Haruna's. The tactic seemed to accomplish its goal, which was really all you could ask of any tactic.

Meanwhile, Konoka began slipping towards the door, looking a bit disturbed...

"Hey, Konoka, why aren't you naked yet?" Haruna stopped her with that simple question, spoken from between wet clashes of her mouth and Yue's.

"I..." the Konoe heiress lamely said, "... I think I'm going to look for, ah, for Setchan, so she can, ahhhh, join us, and... ahhhhhhhh..."

Finally, she sighed and began stripping down as well, because obviously things were always meant to be so screwed up no matter what, trying to escape them would be useless anyway.

And that's why sometimes the presence of a Wild Horse can be the want of a nail in the horsehoe that- ahhh, fuck it, we're getting tangled in our own metaphors, and you came here for the sex, didn't you?

* * *

As threatened, after a relatively brief bout of tongue wrestling with Yue, Haruna had moved her vitriolic best friend aside to settle on Negi's lap, impaling her cunt in his dick and then beginning to bounce up and down on it, moaning wildly as she did so. "Ohhhh yes Negi, yes yes yes!"

"We get it, you're enjoying it, no need to shout," Yue grumbled, seeing Nodoka had pushed Ku Fei on her back on the bed (something the Chinese student had to allow, or else it never could have been done) and now she was on all fours between Ku's spread legs, giving mouth service to the martial artist's vulva. Yue felt tempted to do the same to Nodoka in turn, but Nodoka's current angle would have made that difficult, and besides, her attention was caught by Konoka, now naked as a jaybird, kneeling down between the legs of the sputtering Ranma-san.

"What in the-" Yue voiced her shock weak but eloquently. "I thought, other than Negi-sensei, you didn't even like men..."

Konoka sighed. "It's not," she said, "a matter of liking them or not, not anymore. Besides," she added before anyone could ask what the fuck she meant, "Ranma-san is a guest and relative to a... sister of sorts in need of attention, while everyone else is unavailable to bestow it. That's why I have to do this," she detachedly explained, as she craned her head lower and her mouth began doing on Ranma's member what it had done several times on Negi's before.

"I, I don't need anyyyyy- yi-yi, yi yi yiiiiiiiiiiiii..." Ranma descended into incoherence as his fists bumped on his section of the bed, briefly touching Negi's ass, and Konoka's lingering tongue pulled him into Nirvana.

Meanwhile, Negi grunted and pushed up and up, against and into the laughing Haruna, whose big breasts bounced at left and right. Yue looked at them, then at Nodoka and Ku, then at Konoka and Ranma, and then she sighed. "Screw this," she said, far less verbose than usual, climbing onto the overcrowded bed as well, standing between Ranma and Konoka with her ass on Konoka's face and each foot on a side of the boy's hips, and finally pushing her almost hairless cunny against the Saotome School heir's mouth.

After all, she reasoned, Asuna was arguably closer to Negi than anyone else, and Asuna was going around having sex with other men now, wasn't she? It stood to reason, if Yue did the same, not only could she show Nodoka that she was actively working on being the kind of strong, liberated woman Negi-sensei favored, but she'd also spare Nodoka from having to do that herself, if only ...

... if only that stupid, even dumber than Kotaro brute would actually start doing anything that day, at least.

"Lick me. What are you waiting for?" Yue icily said, looking down in an unforgiving way, and Saotome Ranma, skilled and fearless champion over Herb and Saffron, could do nothing but obey very quietly and clumsily.

Negi kept pumping up into Haruna until a long drawn moan of hers told him he had just climaxed, after which he finally could let himself go as well. Practice and application of the same mental discipline used for fighting and training had helped him to become nearly infallible at holding his ejaculation back until the exact desired moment, and he allowed himself a short inner congratulation as Haruna rolled off him.

Looking aside, he saw Yue shuddering against Ranma's mouth, while the other boy's hips twitched, and Konoka made a few gagging sounds, thin lines of white escaping down her mouth and all the way to her chin. Negi sighed, telling himself he really couldn't act against the young man if his students were doing it with him of their own will. It was not like he had the moral higher ground to criticize him, either. Although, come to think about it, didn't he have a fiancee?

Such thoughts were momentarily banished away as Nodoka, leaving a flustered and trembling Ku behind, slid to his side, rubbing his softened member in her small hands. "Negi..." she softly purred, dispensing with the honorifics, before craning her neck over to kiss his mouth. He didn't fight back, rather grabbing her by the back of the head to deepen the kiss. His hands gripped her hips, and he turned her around to lie on her back, placing himself on top of her before penetrating her.

"Nodoka," he said in kind, and then started moving in and out, rocking gently.

Meanwhile, Konoka sighed, rising back to her feet as Yue stepped aside, momentarily satisfied and with her vulva bathed in a mixture of Ranma's saliva and her own juices. The Konoe heiress rubbed the phallus for several moments until it became a mast again, and then she straddled his hips, sinking into him slowly.

"What are you, no, no, why..." Ranma blabbered, in token protest.

"It's okay," Konoka absently said. "This is the natural order, isn't it? The natural state of things, so it can't be possibly wrong. And we're all friends here, yeah, so..." She shrugged, even as she shivered a little, feeling Ranma's member going as deep into her as it could do. He voiced his own arousal as well, but in the form of a low growl. "It's not like I had anything better to do right now"

* * *

Konoe Kouko sat alone at a cafe, blandly looking at her cup. "Mahora is less interesting than I had thought," she mused aloud.

* * *

Kagurazaka Asuna sat on a bench near the lake, absently listening to the ongoing chaos of the Festival in the distance.

She half-hoped Takahata-sensei, no, Takamichi, would come after her any moment now, but then again, she couldn't blame him if he didn't. Him, or Negi. Or both, although the idea of having them both at once ... oh, how delicious it would be, she would have to try that before-

No, she shouldn't be thinking of that now.

On the other hand, perhaps she should be going after Negi? After all, he was guaranteed to go after Fate to 'save' him, and it could get ugly... or sexy, if Honya and the others succeeded at their part. Either way, Asuna wanted to be there.

And yet, she didn't want to become overbearing, no matter how short a time they were left together. Besides, a moment of lonely peace and quiet was a welcome and treasured change of pace from all the recent overcrowded lunacy in her life. She supposed she'd be alone and in silence pretty soon, but ... by then, she wouldn't really be herself, would she?

What a pain.

And then, naturally, someone else came along to disturb that moment of quiet, pleasant ... brooding.

"Hey, you're Kagurazaka, right?" a voice asked.

Asuna looked aside, and saw a slightly younger (well, a lot younger, all things considered) girl with short red hair and a slim build standing hear her, casually posed with a cellphone on her hip. Her aspect didn't ring any bells for the bell-bearing girl, lame puns aside. "Um, yeah? Kagurazaka Asuna, not that I think there are any others. And you are?"

The girl sat down next to her, without bothering to ask first. "Yuuki Nao. I'm one of those involved in the HiME fiasco, so I was told of the deal with you and the kid teacher who isn't a kid anymore."

"Oh," Asuna said, slightly souring again. While she understood the Principal's reasons, she just couldn't like the idea of that secret being known by that many.

"Yeah," Nao slung an arm over the back of the bench, resting lazily. "And going from that, I've been doing some research, asking around, I have my ways, and... well, don't be mad at her for this, but Kuga Natsuki owes me a few from back then, and I also have my sources in the church..."

Asuna frowned. "Misora?"

"Hey, you started snooping on HER private life first!" Nao cocked a smirk. "So she only needed a push, one I'll admit I might have forced a wee bit." She flexed her fingers, which didn't have claws anymore, but might as well have.

"What do you want?" Asuna asked curtly.

"You don't have a mother, do you?"

"Is that something you'd care enough to mock me about?"

"Far from it. I can understand how it'd feel, because I've been dreading becoming an orphan myself for years now. My mother ..." she sighed, all dangerous humor gone. "My mother is hospitalized. She improved for a short while after the whole HiME thing, but ... she's dying." Her voice cracked. "Prayers haven't helped. Magic isn't helping. I'm looking everywhere, anywhere, for a way out. And, since you're such a powerful sort of magical Princess out to save a world, no doubt you could save a single, poor woman too ... it wouldn't be too much for someone like you, would it?" she asked, with the constricted air of someone who is too proud to beg, yet does it anyway because of forces much higher than themselves. Like she had practiced before going to Asuna, avoiding eye contact so she could say the words.

Asuna blinked. "Oh. Oh, geez. I'm sorry, I honestly am, I'd love to help, but ... is your mother's, ah, problem, magical in nature? Because my whole thing is cancelling magic. I'm not good for much else."

"So I'd been warned, but I wanted to believe ... no," she exhaled. "What happened to her was as mundane as it comes. Mugged and beaten to near death. How about that girlfriend of yours? The granddaughter of the old man?"

"She... she only can heal wounds suffered a certain amount of time ago... But, but she's developing her powers, and quickly, too! Who knows... I'll put a word for you on her..."

"My mother doesn't have that long," Nao hissed, fists on her own knees.

"I told you, I'm sorry, but ... uhh. Maybe, maybe another friend of mine might help, but I'm not sure ... how would your mother feel about having ... implants?"

Nao blinked. "What?"

"I mean, I've never seen her doing it, but she built a robot, so maybe she can make people into cyborgs or something, like in the movies..."

"What are you talking about?" asked Nao.

Asuna inhaled deeply. "Let me tell you a story."

* * *

So it had come (no incredibly lame pun intended) to pass that Ranma was with Konoka, until he came into her, and so did Negi with Nodoka. Afterwards, both young men sat back to rest, back to back and panting like warriors during a pause in combat. Of course, Negi was barely tired at all, but he still acted his best for the sake of Ranma-san's ego. After all, if he had been pulled into this, it had been because Negi's actions had hastened Haruna's full sexual awakening, so it was no wonder Negi felt indebted to him.

Such rest did not last long, however, as Nodoka crawled on all fours on the mattress to start suckling Ranma's penis back into hardness. That really unsettled Yue, but the smaller librarian still chose not saying anything. Perhaps it had been witnessing Yue's own oral encounter with Ranma-san that moved Nodoka to take such a decision. And so, Yue began feeling terribly guilty as well, not that it mattered much when Negi, not willing to overlook anyone and hurt their feelings, moved onto her to make her his woman again. That placated Yue's conscience for a while, just as Haruna and Ku rolled across the floor, fondling and kissing each other.

"We really have to start doing this every night from now oooooon ..." Haruna moaned, guiding Ku's mouth into her vulva, and then instructing her on what to do to please another woman. That, too, was unsettling in its own way, Yue decided between vigorous thrusts of Negi, while Nodoka, who was now being drilled by Ranma-san, reached over to intermingle her slender fingers with Yue's.

_God above, but we're fucked up_, the normally agnostic, well spoken and philosophically complex Ayase girl thought, since there were really no better thoughts to describe their situation.

* * *

Things had gone well enough, she... oops!... he decided, bouncing haway happily, clumsy as a grasshopper but not without some strange grace to it, leaping from one rooftop to another now that he was out of the visual range of that nosy Oneechan. Actually, no place was out of her visual range, but she was too busy stalking her friend and that boring but cute Fate kid to pay him much attention.

Then again, wasn't that the problem with hearts? They made fools even out of the smartest.

So there he was, moving in an erratic zig-zag, all the better to lose any probes that reporter oneechan might send after him, although he had felt none yet. So he considered he was out of trouble for the time being, and if he wasn't ... oh, he could welcome trouble as well.

That was why he stopped after detecting that other, hiding figure on a rooftop a couple blocks away, overlooking a well known cafe. Approaching warily, he saw that his person of interest was looking down at a beautiful but mostly average-looking woman who, to a connoisseur of the unstable situation behind the curtains of mundane life, was anything but average. The daughter of Mahora's own headmaster, and wife to the elder of Kansai. That confirmed the identity of the gorgeous creature watching over her, and the boy's heart swooned. Ah. Finally, to cross weapons with such a remarkable kindred spirit!

Then again, wasn't that the problem with hearts? They made fools even out of the smartest.

One moment after, the girl who spied on Konoe Kouko narrowed her eyes behind her glasses, spinning around as she hopped, not too high, on her dainty cute feet, her light blond hair whipping around. She had just felt someone sneaking behind her, and anyone who could do that was not to be trifled with. Probably Negi-kun, or Fate-han, or best of all-

\- no.

It was only... a nerdy boy with a camera?

"Gotcha," he giggled, taking a picture of her. The sheer absurdity of the situation made the girl take a half-step back, although her sword was already out and in position. "Ahhh, you're even cuter in person! Happy day, this is my lucky happy day!" he sing-sang.

The girl clenched a smirk. "As it should be. It's always a lucky day when you get to meet your maker. Before you do, however, mind telling me your name? Not that I particularly care, but-"

He interrupted her with an annoying, high pitched, rapid laugh. "Meet my maker! Oh, that's a good one. You'd love my maker, I'm sure, and she'll surely love you as well. I've heard so much of you, Tsukuyomi-san. And I want to believe you've heard of me, so gosh, sure hope I don't need to tell you my name ... this should suffice ..."

Tsukuyomi lifted an eyebrow as she watched the boy literally rip the skin off his face, revealing much cuter and feminine features with a visible large, baby blue eye (and a cute lavender eyepatch on the other one) now free of the artificial layer. The newcomer kept pulling and ripping off, effortlessly shedding the skin and clothes of the young man, showing herself as an angelic vision on pink, golden locks cascading in freedom everywhere. In a way, it was like staring into a mirror, so naturally, Tsukuyomi liked what she saw.

The girl giggled again, reaching behind her back for a parasol, which she opened to pose with, in a perky, coquettish pose. "Ta-daaaahhhh!"

"Yes," Tsukuyomi purred, licking her own lips slowly. "Of course I have heard of you as well. Harime Nui-han."

"Oh, I'm sooooo relieved! Now, while I'm sure we have no real reasons to fight -"

"There always are reasons to fight."

"True, true, but humor me, will you? I'm sure our agendas don't have to clash yet, otherwise we'd already be killing each other, chop chop, chop chop, snap. Or rather, I'd be killing you since I'm so much better, no doubt! Same difference, for me at least! Still, no matter what, it'd be an unforgivable omission, to not go at it now we finally meet in such a fateful, beautiful day, don't you think?"

"I think you talk too much, and believe me, this is coming from someone who knows," Tsukuyomi replied, approaching her playfully, yet also measuring her, drinking in the sight of her and pondering her threat.

"Then let's skip the nice words," Nui purred, almost huskily, lowering the umbrella with studied slowness. "And let's cut to the nice stuff."

"Let's," Tsukuyomi agreed, and they charged each other.

* * *

They were taking a breather now, sitting at different spots of the bedroom, wiping their sweaty foreheads off. Yue had gone to steal, okay, borrow, a carton of juice from Haruna's icebox, and although it was too mundane for her tastes, beggars couldn't be choosers. She drank in contemplative silence, sitting back to back with Nodoka, small butts touching each other. "I'm sure," she mused all of a sudden, "my grandfather would kill me if he could see me now."

"Akane would kill me of she saw me now," Ranma-san said, in a haunted tone. "Scratch that, she WILL kill me when she learns. And she WILL learn, trust me."

Haruna snorted, resting between him and Negi. Living the dream. "She'd have to kill me first. Seriously, it's a forced marriage. She dislikes the idea as much as you do! You two should just drop the farce and let each other go, because frankly, you're toxic for each other."

"It's not as simple!" her brother claimed. "And look who's talking about being toxic, look at what you made me do!"

It was Ku Fei's turn to snort. "I no saw no one forcing you, Big Strong Man, to be with weaker smaller girls. No true man and warrior would be ever forced by girls against his will, that no right, Negi?" she smiled at her man.

Negi sweated intensely and blabbered a non-committal answer meant to placate her without offending Ranma. Not that it was too useful, since the other boy had just jumped back to his bare feet. "What do you know about strong men and their ties of honor? I've always seen you fighting weaklings or other girls!"

"Oh dear, there he goes again," Haruna rubbed the narrow space between her glasses (the only thing she was wearing) and her nose.

"You saying girls no can be strong, or have honor?" a fired up Ku rose to meet his hardened gaze. "Those serious fighting words! All of Fei's victories have been legit!"

"Well," he said, "maybe that's because you haven't fought Saotome Ranma yet!"

"I just fought much better man and won! I can beat you, too!"

"Really? Bring it on, then! I don't like fighting girls, but this should be fast and painless!"

"Guys, seriously, please, don't-" Negi began.

Konoka sighed. "Let them be, Negi-kun. It's better if they vent this way. At least they won't be-"

The sounds of the ongoing discussion interrupted her. "Hah! I so sure I'll win, if you do, I'll do like Honya and Konoka and let me be yours! Not that I have to worry about that!"

Konoka clenched her teeth. "What have I done."

"You're on!" Ranma decided, too fired up to care anymore. "I'll betcha they're better at it than you, too!"

Nodoka shrugged vaguely. "Probably, yes. No offense, Ku-chan."

Haruna blinked. "Does that mean... I rank below all of them?" And then, seeing them about to start fighting, "Hey, hey, if you're going to duke it out, do it outside!"

"This my room too!" Ku said, not looking at her. "If I want fighting here, I with as much rights as you when you draw gay manga here!"

"But you'll trash everything!"

"Don't care!" Ranma and Ku said at once, then leaped ahead to collide in a flur of mutual fists that began rattling the whole room.

Nodoka arched an eyebrow. _"... kinky ..."_ she whispered to herself.

"Oh, what the..." Negi sighed his defeat. "Okay, everyone give them some room, maybe we should just leave."

But Nodoka already was fellating him while keeping her eyes nailed on the nearby symphony of martial violence.

"Aaahhhh..." Negi said.

Haruna wailed her impotence. "Ah! No! Look out for those originals! They're autographed! RANMA! STOP KNOCKING MY DRAWING UTENSILS DOWN! At least take it to the living room!"

* * *

She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Tsukuyomi, feared, terrifying, imposing Tsukuyomi, didn't have the best record against opponents she considered worth her time.

Back at Kyoto, a seeming lifetime ago even if it only had been a few months since then, during their first encounter, her Sempai had ended up defeating her with relative ease. She had done much better in their rematch, but by that point, Sempai was admittedly going through complicated times, and probably not at her best. Even for someone who cared as little about fairness as Tsukuyomi, that was a bit nagging, at the back of her mind. She had only done as well as she did against Fate-han while provoking him because he wasn't really going all out, she was well aware of that. Then Negi-han had defeated her with frightening - _exciting_ \- ease. And then, when she had every logical and illogical advantage against Sempai in their final match, when she had her down against the ropes with no way out, somehow, Sempai had won regardless, and it was stupid and unfair and absurd, and ...

... and now this girl, this Harime Nui whose name was whispered with as much dread as her own through the underworld, was kicking her across the rooftops, toying with her, giggling and giggling and casually ripping pieces of her clothes apart as she did so. Tsukuyomi wondered if Sempai felt the way she was feeling now, during their duels. Lacking the necessary empathy, that didn't make her feel any sort of true realization, much less an epiphany, but barely enough to make her vaguely aware it actually sucked a lot when you were in the receiving side.

"C'mon, c'mon, please please please put more life into it please!" the short skirted girl sang aloud, dancing over Tsukuyomi's low sword slashes and ducking under her high ones, each action fluid and effortless, and under other circumstances, Tsukuyomi might have admired her skill, and how easy she made it look. As things were, however, she only could feel annoyance and frustration at that person tossing her aside with the occasional swipe of her parasol or clumsy-looking taunting kick. The latest of which felt like it had cracked a rib, apparently. Rolling on her latest landing, and supporting herself on her blade, Tsukuyomi panted, blinking to clear her vision. She had moved her further apart from the Academy itself, which seemed to point to a desire to keep themselves out of the staff's watchful eyes. Whether it was out of a genuine fear or respect for them or out of a simple whim to keep her game uninterrupted remained to be seen.

Nui hopped on a single foot to her, twirling the parasol over her own head. "Awwwww, that's it? I expected for so much more! If you're as cute as the stories say, why aren't you as strong? I'm so, so disappointed!"

Tsukuyomi grinned. In a way, Sempai had taught her something. When you exploited your chances, slight as they might be, properly, when you struck at the right opening in the right moment, preferably when your vastly superior opponent was crowing over you, then, with enough of a strong fighting spirit, you still could score a victory. An absurd, unfair, stupid victory, but a victory nonetheless.

And so she did, following that example. She rose in a single mighty, surprise attack right when she had looked the most vulnerable, and stabbed as deeply as she could. Granted, her aim was to the chest, and yet the other warrior could block it in time... but stupidly so, it had been with the arm holding the parasol, rather than the odd weapon itself. "I got you," Tsukuyomi hissed, her eyes golden on black, as the arm and the object it had been holding flew over the edge, spraying oh so pretty blood all over them...

And then Harime Nui began laughing.

Tsukuyomi blinked in utter puzzlement, and then she was kicked in the gut again. As the other arm of Harime Nui pulled something out from behind her back, revealing, dark gods knew from where, a much larger sharp weapon shaped like half of a pair of scissors.

"What-" Tsukuyomi babbled, right before that dainty, hard hitting foot planted itself on her again, this time on her mouth, crunching down on it, loosening a pair of teeth.

"Silly," the other sociopath said, fondly, as the open wound she had began quickly growing a new arm, to Tsukuyomi's shock and awe. She had never fought anyone like this before. She had lost from the moment she had started fighting. Now she saw that, and infuriating as it was, it also felt ... strangely liberating.

She only regretted that last dance couldn't be with her Sempai.

As she fell on her back, coughing blood up, Harime Nui stood over her, her sole eye glinting menacingly, a wide grin slashing a perfect cut up her face.

"So it comes to this. Naturally, it couldn't be otherwise," Tsukuyomi said, the scissor pinning her blade down and away from her hand. Maybe if she still had Hina with her. (Okay, she had more than just that one regret after all.) But alas. "So do it! Kill me now, and let's get over with this!"

"Kill you?" Harime Nui eerily cocked her head aside. "Now, why would I kill you? Do I look like a killer...?"

"Ah?"

"Because I am, but I don't look the part, do I?" she impishly smiled, striking another coquettish pose, her regrown hand on her own chest. "And a killer who doesn't look like one is a killer who won't kill when it's expected. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?" she cooed, lowering herself to her knees, to gently grip on Tsukuyomi's shredded skirt, pulling it up to kiss and lick on her bruises. "Ah. Your wounds are cute as well. Everything about you is. You're weak, but that can be fixed! Wanna go home with me? I know a perfect, wonderful woman who will surely love you, as much as I do!"

Tsukuyomi blinked, perplexed for once. "W-Wait, what are you trying to-"

"I imagined you, of all people, would find it obvious," Nui mischievously said, tugging on the elastics of Tsukuyomi's cute and old fashioned panties down, lowering them down her legs and inhaling at the small crotch covered by a light patch of blond hair. She licked her own lips, and then licked Tsukuyomi's lower ones, diving her head in between her legs.

All sex was better enjoyed after a generous serving of violence, after all.

* * *

Proof of that being how, after trashing the whole room and everything graphic arts related in it, much to Haruna's wailing despair and Yue's dry amusement, the two headstrong, academically obtuse, loyal to a fault, currently naked young martial artists and kempo experts had found their emotions jarringly shifting from mutual frustration and anger to begrudging respect in the middle of furious exchanges of blows, and then, as those exchanges began favoring Ranma, to a different sort of heated, out of control passion.

"I win," Ranma snarled, pinning her down against the floor, roughly grabbing her wrists as she kept slamming the soles of her feet on his stomach, to not much avail other than making him wince.

There was no much honest arguing against that, and since Ku liked to think of herself as a honest and honorable fighter who wouldn't lie to disguise her defeats, she conceded. "You do. Then, you do as man and carry on your promise, yes?"

Ranma blinked, having honestly forgotten about that part. "Uhhh... but you're in love with him, aren't cha?" his head gestured towards where Nodoka rode Negi, moaning loudly, her hands on his hard chest.

Ku gave them a wanton side glance and then sighed. "I do, yes," she said, low enough to be unheard by Negi, under Nodoka's long drawn moans. "But as you see, he'll never be only man for me, as I wish. And... you have won, really. So that is moot point either way." She chewed on her lower lip for a few moments, clearly troubled, before sighing. "It okay, really. Ku must change her mind to better fit this modern world. So do the others, my friends, my sisters, no matter what, no matter how we might compete."

"But, still, I don't want to do it, if your heart isn't into it, it'd be wrong..."

She reached up to tug on his pigtail, which did made him yelp. "My heart? Don't talk to me about my heart. My heart is broken, and only way I can fix it is by remaking me, like they have done. I won't be outdone by them there, too. This is about my own pride. Where yours? Are you no man?"

He scowled deeply. Women. They never understood. They never thanked him for all his concern, did they? No matter what, they always would just keep thinking of him as another perverted jock to exploit for their own goals, for their own emotional... whatever they called those, anyway, he was just way too pissed off, and God surely would forgive him, even if Akane never did, but then, she understood the least of them all, she never would think of him of anything as a pervert to suspect and beat, so, if she would do it either way.

"The best of men," he sneered, pushing his hips down to enter the dark skinned beauty. And then he began fucking her, and she fucked him, no mercy asked or given from either side. Both still were novices, but picking the skills as quickly as they did with anything else that was physical. Yue and Konoka sat back and watched, mutely and with unreadable expressions, side by side; while Nodoka and Negi still seemed to be alone in their own world, despite being just a few steps aside in the sidelines of the wrecked room. Haruna had vanished for the time being, but no one was particularly concerned yet.

The sounds of flesh slapping flesh vigorously as the two fighters mated were actually stronger than their grunts and other strange sounds of intimacy. Ku Fei closed her eyes tightly and clung to him, while whispering another's name. So did he, actually, and ironically, in that they reached a greater communion.

It lasted long, almost as long as their fight, but eventually, all conflicts of the flesh must come to pass, and the sign for that in this instance was given by Ranma's screams of "Coming! Coming! I'm-!"

**"Nnnnnhhhhh!"** Ku bucked her hips a few more times, and hearing Nodoka's own cry of release triggered hers. A few moments later, Ranma surrendered and shot his seed into the first Chinese Amazon he'd ever intimate with.

Elsewhere, Shampoo was suddenly feeling very dumb and very lame for some reason or another.

Ranma gasped for air, rolling off Ku Fei's body, and then felt around for his pants amidst the disaster area. What he found, instead, was a glass of icy cold water being dumped on him from above.

"Eeeee!" Female Ranma's shrill voice yelled. She looked up to see her naked sister, standing above her, empty glass in hand, eyeglasses in a sinister blank. "Haruna?! What's your big idea?!"

"Shut up, Oneechan," Haruna said, pushing a foot down against one of Ranma's large, perky breasts. Her toes clenched around the nipple. "I've told everyone here about my Oneechan's curse, right? Right. So it's time for the last person in this room who still hasn't gotten her due to get it. My sister," she vengefully said.

"Uhhh," Ranma babbled, "don't you think I've already done it enough?"

"I said my sister, not my brother," Haruna coldly said.

Ranma, finally understanding, grew rigid in dread. "Oh, no, you can't be serious."

"That's what everyone is always saying," Haruna said, lowering herself to slam a finger into Ranma's vagina, taking her by surprise. "Like I'm a clown or something. I guess I haven't shown you enough of how serious I can get."

"Serious? You?" Ranma tried to sound mocking and dismissive, while attempting to deny Haruna the knowledge of the dark, forbidden pleasure her hand was provoking on her nethers. It wasn't particularly effective, since Ranma was well used to disguising his physical pain, but hadn't ever experience enough actual pleasure to master hiding it. She arched her back and moaned, and it wasn't any easier for her at all when, at a signal from Haruna, Nodoka and Yue came behind Ranma, each one taking a nipple into their mouths and starting to lightly suckle. "Y-You can't be- annnghhh. Stop it, stop it, I'm warning you!"

"Your warnings are nothing but a big bundle of nothing, Oneechan," Haruna mused aloud, now applying her other hand on Ranma's ass, sticking a finger up her rectum, a move that would have made the redhead scream if not for the fact that Ku Fei had just sat on her face, blocking her mouth. A strange wet taste in her mouth puzzled her for a few moments, until realization sank in; that was the same... stuff that had just come out of him and into that crazy girl, and now it was ... Gross. Gross, gross, gross! Even someone as sexually naive (at least until that morning) as Ranma could realize that. She tried shaking the Chinese blonde off, but the way she was pressing her lower body against her face, as her hands gripped her pigtailed hair, made quite clear what she wanted. So Ranma, despite having triumphed over her before, had to submit to her wishes now. Women, always sneaking around to get their way somehow even when they ...

_... annnnhhhh!_

Haruna pulled her now sticky fingers out of Ranma's cunt and licked them clean. "Yum," she blandly said, the other hand now fondling a buttock. As she looked away from her shuddering big sister and towards her teacher, she invited with a crooked grin, "She's all wet now, Negi-kun. Your turn!"

Negi blinked a few times. "What? What? No! I mean, he's a boy, and I'm sure he doesn't want to!"

Ranma made a few energetic sounds of agreement with that.

"Nonsense," Haruna smiled, patting Ranma's crotch, "she's as girly as they come, can't you see? And besides, even if she weren't, even if she strove to be a man amongst men, which is stupid and sexist anyway, they don't make them much manlier than men who lie with men! It's very Spartan, see?"

Ranma screamed muffled noises of agony that were drowned by Ku's vulva and her own screams.

"See, she agrees with me!" Haruna nodded.

"But-" Negi began.

"I'm her sister, shouldn't I know her that much?" Haruna argued, wagging a finger.

"You don't want to discriminate, do you, Sensei?" Nodoka teased, really getting into the mischievous spirit of it now. "Are you insecure about your own masculinity? Either of you?" she added, running a soft hand down Ranma's belly, until her fingers played with the redhead's clitoris.

Negi blinked, looked down at Ranma's enticing body and her long, kicking legs, and gulped. "Okay... I guess..."

Haruna, since Ku was falling back from Ranma amidst small yelps of ecstasy, approached him/her from behind and whispered into his/her ear. _"Relax and take it like a man, Oneechan. Akane will be disappointed and upset if she ever learns you didn't take it like a man."  
_  
Ranma froze.

Haruna giggled and played with that beautiful red hair. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to draw all those stupid pages you always insult so much? The gay ones? Why do you hate the gay stuff so much, Oneechan? Might it be that you're in denial about something?"

"I'm not in any-!" Ranma growled, but then Haruna was kissing him deeply and passionately, in a way that surely couldn't have been born from pure spite or desire for petty revenge (well, not totally), and the Springfield boy was pulling her legs open and holding her because he was, and Ranma oh so hated to admit it, stronger than her, and then his tip was touching her entrance, and then, in a single strong thrust, he was going in.

_**Gahhhh!**_

In all truth, Haruna loved her brother, and very much so. Despite him never being there for her, despite his outdated and annoying views, despite his rampant prejudices against the things she loved the most, despite his mostly innocent contempt for what she really was (which, to be fair, was mutual), she greatly loved him. But as Nodoka and Yue could attest to, Haruna's love often took strange forms. Right now, she was doing what she really thought was the best for him in the long run, even if he wouldn't appreciate it any time soon.

But perhaps she had underestimated his capacity to adapt, or the magic of Negi's dick, or both, because in a short time, after several violent motions that made Negi really wonder about the nature of what he was doing, Ranma stopped struggling and began moaning into Haruna's kisses. "There, there, there," the little sister cooed, comforting Ranma with gentle touches and pecks. "The less you fight it, the better it'll feel ... now, it feels kinda good, doesn't it? And it'll feel way better, I promise," she said, her fingers working with Nodoka and Yue's along Ranma's clitoris. While Ku and Konoka rubbed privates not too far, Ranma panted and began adapting to Negi's rhythm, falling into a synchrony that was actually more coordinated than any other Negi had experienced before, except those with Asuna and Evangeline. He reached up with a hand to massage Ranma's left breast, pinching on the nipple, and Ranma experienced a quick string of small orgasms, making her vaginal muscles squeeze painfully.

Negi's face twitched. "Girls! Girls, Ranma-san, I'm going to, I can't pull out!"

Oh, so he just couldn't tug it off, Ranma realized with some smug satisfaction. Good, so there was one thing where he was better than him, then! It made Ranma so happy she, if anything, only consciously redoubled her efforts to keep Negi trapped.

"Squirt it in," Haruna growled. "Not like you can get her pregnant! I think."

Ranma blinked her surprise. "You, you _think_?! Wait, what, no, wait a- AHHHHH!" she shook, feeling Negi's release going into her as the young teacher exhaled deeply, tossing his arms back.

And that was how Saotome Ranma, the Wild Horse, lost his virginity.

And her virginity, as well.

* * *

"Now," Haruna suggested, once things finally quieted down somewhat, "if you two could do it again, but now with Oneechan as a boy...?"

**"DEFINITELY NOT!"** Negi and Ranma yelled at once, in a way that was quite cutely synchronized.

* * *

By now, Nui had discarded her pink minidress aside, and it came as no surprise she had not been wearing anything under it. What she had not discarded were her high heeled pink boots, and she was using one of such heels right now to press it as deeply as it could go into Tsukuyomi's vulva, even making it bleed amongst Tsukuyomi's moans of pleasure.

And then, pressing the heel with even more strength, Nui -

\- oh, screw it. Even *I* can't write this down. Instead, please enjoy these wholesome, radiant and cute stock scenes until it's safe to go back into the storyline.

* * *

_Sado Yasutora, who'd never been interested on chasing teachers around no matter the reward, sat at the middle of the empty lot, petting the kittens he and Chachamaru-san took turns looking after, and pouring them generous helpings of milk, directly from a bottle to several plates placed before them. He wondered what could Chachamaru-san be doing at the time._

* * *

"Lick it," Nui commanded, placing the red stained heel on Tsukuyomi's pink lips. Poking her tongue out, the weakened swordsgirl obeyed, just as Nui used the handle of her half-scissor to press it against Tsukuyomi's anal entrance, pushing in, and then...

* * *

_"Lala-san, turn around," Yuuki Mikan said, after the Deviluke Princess' return home from a long, long day of chasing around terrified respected educators with tripods and other ultra-technological alien devices of doom. __"I'll wash your back now!"_

* * *

"Aaaaaaand now, for our next trick...!" Nui laughed musically, balling a hand into a fist and then plunging it directly into Tsukuyomi's-

* * *

_Sitting in the eerie quietness of his Arkham Asylum cell, the Joker lifted his gaze from the newspaper he had been reading, and one of his green eyebrows went way up._

_"Really, a Negima fanfic?" he wondered aloud. "What the heck would I ever be doing in a Negima fanfic? Who would be dumb enough to ever _try _such a thing?"_

_"Who are you talking to?" asked Killer Croc from the cell right across the hallway._

* * *

Tsukuyomi panted and whezeed weakly, stirring at random intervals, broken and naked at Nui's feet. She couldn't go on anymore, and she knew it. She was past her limits, and that was an indisputable truth. And yet, she only could say a single thing, the sole word currently bubbling up from her fractured, confused and quite likely deeply in Mad Love soul.

_"More," _she creaked out.

"Hmm?" Nui asked, standing above her with a fist on a hip. "Now, why would you be asking for something like that?"

Tsukuyomi, as best as she could, stared up at her with a mixture of dread and rejection.

And Nui smiled her angelic best again. "After all, there's no need to ask for more when one's barely starting, silly pie!"

Tsukuyomi, somehow, managed to crank a twisted, goofy smile before Nui descended on her again.

* * *

Back at the dorms, Negi was sitting on the edge of the roof gazing out at the city and trying to figure out how to resolve the situation he'd gotten himself into this time, something that even he, the eternal brooding optimist, was starting to nearly feel was becoming a complete impossibility. He could at least take some pleasure in the fact that he'd moved beyond sitting around feeling disgusted about himself and was trying to figure out a solution. That was progress. It was commendable. And it only had taken sex with another boy magically changed into a girl to push him that further up, too!

Anyway, cutting directly to the point without looking too deeply into it, he had to put a stop to this right now, before it got any worse. If that was possible.

"Negi-dono. I believe that you and I must have words, now," came a voice from behind him.

_It's about to get worse, isn't it?_ he thought with genuine annoyance.

"Negi-dono?" she repeated when he hadn't made any visible reaction to her announcement.

"Kaede-san, I think I warn you that, with only a handful of exceptions, most of them named Tokiha, every conversation or discussion that I've had with any of you in the last little while has ended in the exact same way," he said wearily as he turned around to look at her. At the moment that he did so, she was leaning slightly out of one of the shadows cast by the rooftop's access doorway.

"Really?" she said, frowning slightly. "They've all ended the way that your recent discussion with Ku-dono did?"

He nodded instinctively. Then, "You saw, then?"

"One chanced upon Ku-dono as she sat weeping over your injuries, having just lately fulfilled one's own role in our stratagem and released Akira-dono some distance away. You recovered promptly, and -"

"Just a moment," Negi interrupted. "'Released Akira-san'?"

"That is not what one said," Kaede said honestly.

"What did you mean by what you did say?" he asked, frowning. "Did you do -"

"Rest at ease, no harm was done to her. You would be proud of her, however, for she attempted to warn Fate-sensei of our scheme, and this one was compelled to retrieve her and place her in custody that she could not do so."

Negi sighed. "Of course she did," he said, shaking her head. "She's such a good person, you should all learn from her example instead of - oh, never mind." He shook his head. "In any event, I suppose that you followed us back here, and watched through the window."

Kaede nodded, just once.

"Well, that's what's happened to my discussions with Asuna, Konoka, Setsuna, Chisame, Asakura, Sayo, Master, Mikazuki-san, Twilight Sparkle-san, Tenjouin-san, Fujisaki-san, Kujou-san and Ranma-san, too, so you might want to take precautions."

Incredibly, her eyes opened almost completely as she looked at him, clearly amazed. "Indeed," she said. "Well. Thank you, Negi-dono. One appreciates the warning. However, I will trust in my training, and the serenity of my soul, to protect me from your seductive powers, which are clearly as formidable as any of your other faculties. For it is very important that I discuss this matter with you." Deep breath. "Negi-dono ... are you all right?" she asked.

Negi stared at her for a moment, before he dropped his head into his hands and began crying.

"Ohhh, dear, this was not part of the plan. Um ..." Kaede hemmed as she drew closer.

"I'm sorry!" Negi said through his sobs. "I'm sorry I implied you're not a good person, Kaede-san! You are! You're a very good person! It's me, me who's the bad person! I'm a heartless playboy who toys with girl's feelings while all the while all I care about is chasing after my father! Waaaaaaah!" he concluded.

_Elsewhere, Itoshiki Nozomu's eyes snapped wide open. "I can feel a great disturbance in the Wangst Force! Someone is trying, and with great success, to outdo me! I'M IN DESPAIR! Being unable to even- umm, Hitou-san, what are you doing?"_

The girl kneeling before his heavily tied up form, which had been tossed on a couch, smiled nervously up at him. "Sensei," Nami said, eerily calm, "if I step waaaaay over the line here and now, I won't be normal and average anymore, will I?" she wondered aloud, tugging down on his hakama pants.

Itoshiki made a horrified, high pitched sound mid-way between screech and shriek. "TSUNETSUKI-SAN, PLEASE SAVE ME!"

Right outside the dorm room, Tsunetsuki Matoi slept with a large bump on her head and her face in the grass.

"No one thinks you're a playboy!" Nagase said. "Well, all right, I suppose technically you fit the definition but -"

"Worst teacher ever! Worst person ever! Unfit to manage a computer forum, a job suited for the scummiest of the scummy, let alone a complicated project like space development!"

Kaede felt appalled as she stood there, watching one of the young men whom she'd most enjoyed watching blossom into wisdom and power now collapse in shame and self-condemnation. It was horrible. But, in her serenity, she found resolve. Once before he'd been driven into such despair, and she had helped him then. She would help him now. And the same tactics that worked last time would surely work again!

"Sensei," she said sternly.

"Yes?" he asked, raising his head.

She slammed the first two fingers of her right hand into a pressure point right between the eyebrows, sending him into blissful unconsciousness. It would never have worked if he had been defending himself even slightly, but one who dwells in the shadows prefers it if one's targets cannot do so. Having successfully incapacitated him, she packed him away into her cloak, and began to make her way towards the campus' boundaries.

But you already know what happens afterwards, okay? Okay!

* * *

The absurd chases had finally stopped, and the teachers were currently enjoying some much needed rest and relaxation. Well, those who could enjoy things at all anymore, at least. Most were too shaken by their recent experiences, and Counselor Arai Chie had to work overtime that day to cope with the situation. She actually had to _try_ giving real useful advice, which always was such a bother.

As it happened, the man known in Mahora as Irving Diedrich had escaped unharmed from the insanity, which had earned him some respect at last from his colleagues. Once, he would have cared, with great smug pride, about that result, but the man he was now was so broken and alien by now, that fact had barely registered with him. He sat alone in his apartment, with his faithful pet crow, engrossed into the reading of old psychology tome after even older psychology tome. That was, of course, until his doorbell rang. Again.

With a sigh, he stood up, walked to the door, and opened it, to find as expected a slumped forward Enoshima Junko standing at his doorstep, with a haunted, yearning and frankly disturbed look in her eyes.

"C'mon, just another dose," she moaned, in a borderline hostile, but also needful and almost pleading, tone. "I'll give you **anything** you want," she added, pulling her shorts up to reveal more of the creamy, firm flesh of her smooth legs.

Once again, the man who once was Jonathan Crane would have considered the offer back when there was something human left in him, but at that point, after years of chemical exposure, head trauma, daily coexistence with the likes of the Joker, and massive episodes of dark obsession, he didn't even flinch when he closed the door on Junko's face.

And then she said, loud enough for him to hear through the door, "Or you know, I could repay you in another way. I've been looking on you and that wonderful gas, okay? As it happens, a good enough web search told me about some crazy scrawny guy in America, who looked a lot like you and used a nifty gas like that one to-"

With a maniacal growl of menace, he pulled the door back open, and found her smiling at him, holding a black and white plush bear in a hand. It faintly reminded Crane of something Harvey Dent would have liked, even if only as a trinket to decorate those idiotically arranged hideouts of his. "Oooohhh, that stung, didn't it. Tell you what, Teach, I know what really pushes your buttons, and let's be honest for once, sooner or later, if I figured it out, others will too. So why not to enjoy ourselves before that? I've got this great idea for a... let's call it social project of the kind you like, but... I think I need some patronage to get it running."

The man frowned at her, torn between just killing her and hearing her out. She was sharp and fearless, it seemed, and he appreciated the former and loved to break the latter. First of anything, however, he had to know, "What's the bear for?"

"Oh, this?" she grinned and winked. "Every franchise needs a cute mascot, see..."

* * *

Elsewhere, a heavily bandaged, staggering, but also quite happy and dumbly smiling Tsukuyomi was being dragged down a long narrow hallway by Nui, who hummed sweetly to herself as he kept the younger girl grabbed by a leash tightly secured around her neck, forcing her to follow her along. The walk lasted a long, long while, through that perfectly white passage, so well lit and antiseptic, like a hospital's. Tsukuyomi preferred to think of it as a death corridor, however.

Finally, they reached a large door at the end of it, which Nui opened by slamming an open hand on a side panel. Immediately, they were granted access to a gigantic set of baths, not too unlike those of Mahora, where a beautiful older woman with fabulous hair sat naked on the edge of a pool, legs wide open, a hand on the head of a dark skinned, lily-haired smaller girl who knelt in the water, silently applying cunnilingus on the woman. The girl's ass was pushed up, it and her back fully visible to Nui and Tsukuyomi as they walked in, even if her face was not.

"Ah, Grand Couturier," the woman greeted. "Welcome back. I see you brought some unexpected bonus from your expedition."

"Not so unexpected, since I had been hoping and expecting running into her for a while ... but yes!" Nui nodded rapidly, giggling as she quickly stripped down, even shedding her boots this time, to join the other females in the water, pulling the still clothed Tsukuyomi in with her. "Say hi, Yomi-chan!"

"Good evening," Tsukuyomi breathed out, with a nod, "Kiryuuin Ragyou-sama, riiiiight? It's a honor..."

The woman moved towards her, caressing Tsukuyomi's cheek with a hand as the other began working on getting her heavy wet dress off. "I am sure it is. I look forward to an intense relationship with whoever you were working for ... until now, since from here you work for us." Said that, she lowered her head, and began planting hungry, vicious kisses on Tsukuyomi's mouth.

It sounded like a reasonable deal, Tsukuyomi absently thought as a hand with long and sharp fingernails went into her panties and into her vagina.

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	9. Anthy, Ayaka, Mrs Yukihiro, Roberta

Bueeenas, soy Carlitox y vengo a dar el disclaimer, jo-jo-jo.

**Advertencia:**

Las siguientes líneas pueden afectar la sensibilidad de algunos sujetos tácitos. Esto es SOLO PARA ADULTOS CON MENTALIDAD DE NIÑO PERVERTIDO y debe ser visto por abuelas que no pertenezcan al Pami. Si tenes obra social, mejor para vos, que yo no tengo a Negima, esa, Love Hina y la mierda de UQ Holder son de Akamatsu Ken. Si tenes ganas de ir al baño, hubieras ido antes. Guarda que empieza...

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey.**

**Chapter Nine.**

* * *

Tate Yuuichi supposed it was unfair.

There he was, hiding secrets that weren't his to kept, secrets that were borderline if not fully criminal (because, older body or not, those girls still were having their way with a child... or was it the other way around? Anyway, it was pretty much the same), and all for what? Not that he did such things for his own sake, really, but it still seemed rather unfair to him. No one ever bothered to stop by and tell him 'Hey, thanks for not blowing the whistle, dude. Thanks for keeping our asses safe and warming your own place in Hell for the day you have to check out!' The only one who even acknowledged what he was doing was Tohsaka Rin, who would periodically pass by near him and subtly remind him he was dead meat if he ever talked about it all.

And when he had told Mai, his steady, understanding, loving girlfriend about it, what had she done? Just shrugged it off and sighed "That's how she rolls, isn't it?"

Tate was not envious, and tried his best to keep himself that way. Even so, he was a young man, and his sense of pride and self worth was somewhat wounded, knowing that kid was boning (there was no more fitting word in Tate's opinion) so many girls, left and right, while he still remained a virgin. Naturally, it wasn't like he could tell that to his hot, young, vital girlfriend. He was no pervert, dammit! He was so much better than that brat, and he knew that, and he wouldn't be anymore if he-

But dammit, his balls were starting to get blue.

He was sure Mai would get pissed off if he told her he wanted to take their relationship to the next step. She had been edgier than usual since she had started keeping those secrets, too, and often, Tate felt like walking on mined ground while around her. He was wise enough to know that throwing suggestions of sex her way would set her off... and most likely not the good way. Besides, anyway, if Mikoto hadn't been around to be a cockblocker, there was the presence of Shiho to do the same thing, so it was doomed either way. Looked like his balls would remain blue for some time. Which, again, was terribly unfair when that Negi brat got to sleep with hot girls so often.

Well, at the very least, Mai was faithful to him; no small feat when it looked like every other girl on campus was throwing herself at the kid. But, would things remain that way if he kept things stalled too long? Maybe she was waiting for him to make the first move. Maybe that was why she was so edgy? Maybe he was misreading her, yet again, and she felt as frustrated about it as him, but how could he know for sure? It wasn't like he felt safe just going and asking her, and the only one who knew Mai enough AND he could ask safely was Takumi, who wasn't available anymore.

But that was not true. There was someone else he felt more or less at ease asking about it, and one who had come to know Mai remarkably well in a very short time. Perhaps far better than Tate himself.

So that was why he had come to ask her that afternoon, the day after the Sports Festival, while she was fixing her motorcycle. Kuga Natsuki lifted her oil-stained face from her labor to look curiously at the awkwardly standing boy. "Mai? Interested in... that? Oh, no, no, I'm sure she isn't."

He rasped loudly, red face in a frown, staring aside. "Y-Yeah, I guess so, I was just- Oh, screw it, you're thinking I'm a dirty pervert, now, aren't you?"

She shrugged indolently. "Until a few weeks ago, yeah, sure thing, I'd have thought so. Now? I've seen so many real perverts up close and personal lately, you come off as a perfect gentleman. At least you're asking before jumping."

Tate blinked. "... up close and personal...?"

It was Natsuki's turn to blush fiercely, realizing she had just said too much. "Ummm... Y-Yeah! I mean, not in that way, I mean-"

"Only with one or two, depending on how do you look at Sakurazaki-san's case," Fujino Shizuru calmly said from the workshop's doorstep, scaring the pants off Tate and Natsuki. The perfect Ojou only smiled in perfect radiant peace. "Ara ara! It's rather funny, how you, who are innocent, are the one most acting like he's guilty here, Tate-kun."

"Um, am, well, ah, yeah, thanks?" the boy stammered, quickly stepping away from Natsuki.

"You were eavesdropping, Shizuru?" Natsuki asked, in weak disbelief.

"Goodness, no," Shizuru said, extending a small basket towards her. "I simply happened to overhear your conversation while coming here to invite you to a picnic. Konoe-san will be away for some days, so I thought to surprise you and Sakurazaki-san with a little ... private party to make her feel better in Konoe-san's absence!"

_"Three,"_ Tate whispered, cringing but also feeling oddly excited about the mental images that explanation brought to him.

Shizuru looked his way. "I beg your pardon?"

Tate rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Never mind."

"Oh, sure thing. I'll completely overlook the way that you implied the presence of three perverts in close contact with Natsuki, one of them being me," Shizuru nodded, as Tate sweated bullets.

Natsuki coughed uncomfortably. "Ahhh ... didn't you have to deal with the aftermath of the Festival and-"

"Haruka-san is handling it," Shizuru quickly dismissed, still smiling at Tate in a very unnerving way. "You know, Tate-san, for once, I feel I have to disagree with Natsuki. I can tell Tokiha-san *is* feeling as ... frustrated as you are, and she also needs to vent out before she... explodes. I have been there, believe me, until... Oh dear, Natsuki, is everything okay?"

Natsuki nodded as best as she could, trying to stop her sudden fit of choking.

"Thank goodness," Shizuru mercilessly returned her warm smile to Tate. "And do you know what, Tate-san? I think it's time for the two of you to help each other!"

Natsuki's choking sounds grew worse.

* * *

But that had been later that day. Rather earlier, this had happened:

"Oh, it'll be okay," Asuna soothed Negi as she kissed her way down his chest, to join Nodoka and begin an attempt to persuade the other girl to relinquish her grip on the dick through kisses to her cheek and, after a moment, her lips as well. "We can reschedule the appointment - it's not like they're going to pass up a chance to examine you, now are they? And if it should happen that it gets delayed long enough that we have to give Iinchou our apologies and not actually go to her house, welll -" She broke off as the tip of Negi's dick finally emerged from Nodoka's mouth, and she swooped down on it herself.

"That's not - mmmnnnn," Negi replied.

Nodoka shook her head as she gazed down at Asuna, admiring her technique which was clearly far more advanced than her own. "I wonder if this is what it was like," she mused as she ran a hand down Asuna's back, reaching for her butt with some fingers. Asuna moaned but didn't let go. "For my friends, I mean, watching me being all shy around you," she continued, glancing up at Negi. "Wasting so much precious time."

Asuna frowned despite her enjoyment of what she was doing. That ... hit a little close to home.

"That's not going to happen," Negi said, regaining the thread of what he'd been trying to say earlier. "I'm not going to be late for my appointment. I'll, I'll take care of you two girls and -"

"And what about Yue and Chachamaru-san?" Nodoka asked.

"I have already rescheduled the appointment for somewhat later," announced Chachamaru's voice from a bit outside Negi's field of vision. "Please do not reply to this statement, as it is a recording made so that I need not interrupt the use of my lips on Yue-san."

"AAAAAAH!" cried Yue's voice from much the same direction.

Negi gave up.

Temporarily, at least.

Vaguely, he could also tell Tenjouin-san and her two loyal friends ('lackeys' being a word out of his normal train of thoughts) were in the apartment as well, since he could hear the sounds of their rubbing and moaning from outside his field of view. "Ah, is Tenjouin-san-" he began, placing a hand on Asuna's scalp.

"She said she and Iinchou have a few things to discuss, concerning how their families are going to pool their resources together, and how they are going to handle their respective parents," Nodoka replied, kissing his chest all over. "Don't worry about that now, please..."

"Don't say it that way, it's as if you think I worry about absolutely everyt- Oh, my God!" Negi bolted sitting upright, although Asuna still wouldn't let go off his penis. "You started this, and so loud too, without my setting up the sound barrier first, and -!"

Then there was a rather sharp knock on the front door, and Negi's blood turned into ice in his veins.

Tokiha Mai suffered a milder case of terror of her own when, on her way to go ask Negi keep the volume down and warn him that someone far less permissive than her would inevitably hear sooner or later, she saw someone had gotten there first.

Himemiya Anthy-san, one of the neighbors on the other side of Negi's quarters, was standing there, right before the door, in a plain bedrobe, slippers and her glasses, rapping with her knuckles on the wooden surface of said door. Mai took an instinctive step back as if a wasp had just stung her, which made the darker skinned girl turn to look at her and smile in that shallow, oddly disturbing way of hers.

"Good morning, Tokiha-san. Have you been disturbed as well? I suppose Nagi-sensei is indeed too loud with his sexual activities, if even you-"

"I, I don't have a bad hearing!" Mai defensively said. "And, and, um, this isn't the first time this has happened, but I think you're mistaken, that's the, ah, the TV, it's always too loud, but I can vouch that there's no sex going on there, I-!"

Then the door was opened from the inside, and out peeked a frowning Tenjouin Saki in a hastily tied bedrobe. "Tokiha-san, why do you keep doing this? We're not too loud, you possibly couldn't hear us unless you were ... ahhhhhhh ..." She grew silent, seeing Anthy standing there along a facepalming Mai. Saki's cheeks instantly flared red, and so did Aya's, the shorter girl standing right behind the blonde next to a sighing Rin.

"I can assure you, Sempai, I was not," Himemiya said, bowing slightly in greeting. "Sorry to disturb you during your erotic TV watching in turn, but while Utena-sama is a heavy sleeper, I'm not taking any risks, and she needs a lot of rest after spending the whole of yesterday saving teachers from ... oh." Anthy took a hand to her mouth as a spiral-eyed Saki fainted back on Rin's expecting arms. "Have I said anything wrong?"

"I'm going back to my breakfast," Mai decided, walking away from there.

* * *

"There's better be a damn good reason why you are here, so early, disturbing my perfectly good beauty sleep, especially since you should know-" Evangeline began to growl, flexing the fingers of a hand, as she stood facing Haruna, who was on her cabin's doorstep in a light top, tall boots and short shorts.

Haruna nodded. "- Chachamaru can't handle your visitors right now, as she's having fun with Negi and the others," Haruna nodded. "Yeah, I know. Do you think I would be missing out on _that_ if I didn't have a damn good reason for it?"

Evangeline growled. "What do you want, then? And you'll better make it quick!"

"It's about my brother," Haruna said.

"What about him?"

"Well, you and Asuna basically kickstarted this whole Let's Get Negi Involved with Everyone business poor old innocent me got tangled into." Haruna batted her eyelashes. "And in turn, I'll admit I miiiiight have tricked and slash or roped my brother in as well, and he's taking it a wee bit badly, and he seems afraid it'll ruin his relationship with a girl I think doesn't deserve him, but even so, he loves her, and I can't do anything about it. And since indirectly this is all your fault and you are so helpful and powerful and wise, I thought you should-"

"I SAID 'QUICK'!" Eva hissed.

And Haruna swallowed hard and summed up quickly, "I want you to help me deal with a girl named Tendo Akane!"

* * *

"Oh, that sounds quite complex, and so, in a way, fascinating," Himemiya-san said, after being told of everything that didn't involve Asuna's hibernation. Negi almost was starting to miss the days when wiping memories away was an option. He still didn't quite like the idea, but had come to understand why the first mages after the Dark Ages had implemented the concept. Then she added, casually, "May I join in?"

It shouldn't have surprised Asuna as much as it did, perhaps; even though Asuna wasn't as attuned to the local rumor mill as Misa or Haruna, she still was well informed enough by overhearing at her art club and athletic practices to be informed Himemiya-san was generally considered to be of ... loose morals, and had been that way ever since her days of studying at Ohtori with her roommate (and probably romantic partner?) Tenjou-san. They said she had slept with half the student directives, barring the no-doubt-a-frustrated-virgin Suzushiro and her sidekick. (To be fair, however, the most insistent rumor linked her to President Fujino, when they had done nothing but regularly trading tips on tea, roses, and romancing strong tomboys.)

Much like with most rumors, however, there was some truth behind them. Anthy had had quite the active sexual life back at Ohtori, although most of those encounters- not all of them, admittedly- had been forced upon her, back when she had little will of her own to resist her big brother or her other suitors. Even now, while she stayed away from temptation's path and close to Utena-sama most of the time, she lacked the sense of repression to outright reject opportunities thrown her way. It wasn't something Utena was crazy about, but since the alternative seemed to be Anthy regressing into being constricted by someone else's desires (in this case, Utena's own), she granted her a free leeway and mostly trusted Anthy's instincts on where to go and where not to.

And this time, she had gone onto her back, denuded, resting on the couch as Negi fucked her, his hands on her hips, his tongue on her dark brown nipples, while Asuna and Nodoka planted kisses all over her exotically dark skin.

He was good. Better than Akio, as a matter of fact. Mostly because he cared about giving her pleasure, more than about taking it for himself. It seemed he had grown experienced at it by now, as well, which was another plus. Maybe that half-explained (the other half owing to Kagurazaka-san's sudden support of the idea) his rather fast acceptance after a few token groans of protest and discomfort, because Anthy had mostly expected for a gentle but firm rejection from all parts involved. Go figure.

It felt so well, as a matter of fact, she thought that perhaps it would be a good course of action to eventually talk Utena-sama into accepting it as well. Because even now, Utena-sama sure needed something to spur her up every now and then. All princes need periodic challenges, after all, lest they become rusty and lazy on their thrones. New dragons to slay, new contestants to joust, new lovers to rekindle the romance in their lives. At least, that was how Oniisama had always painted it, and despite all his many failings, Anthy still regarded him as wise in his own dark ways.

Which was why she accepted the seed into herself, holding that other enchanted prince against her when he expressed his stubborn desires to pull out. Anthy had never been able to bear new life, despite all those she ever had been with, something she believed was the result of her brother's manipulations not only of her heart and soul, but on her body. By now, being quite older than she appeared, she desperately yearned for that something else no one could give her, not ever her dashing pink haired prince (especially not her, sadly!) Something that would finally move her from princess archetype to full blood and flesh woman. Mother. (Which, naturally, was far from being the most progressive or correct view on femalehood, but that happens when you raise a girl in a long circle of twisted fairy tale abuse.) Perhaps this boy, this mysterious immortal heir of the Royal Magic of Ostia, would give her that.

"Anh!" Anthy moaned as she felt him give her his very essence, the thick liquid of reproduction. She said nothing else, instead clenching her hands on him and letting out a long, tense sigh as her toes curled. She closed her eyes and rested her chin against his shoulder.

"Was ... was it good?" he asked, shyly despite everything they had just done.

Anthy only could nod in silence.

When Utena woke up, a full hour later, falling of her bed in surprise at the time, Anthy already was finishing with their breakfast. Chu-Chu walked around her feet, sniffing at her legs and making comical disapproval faces. But Utena failed to catch on that, and Anthy made no comments on what she had been doing before her morning shower. The time was just not right for it.

Yet.

* * *

Eventually, Negi got to go to the doctor. Just as eventually, he got finished there, and walked out beside Kotaro (in grown-up form himself) to meet Asuna as she waited just outside the office building's doors.

"So?" she asked.

Negi and Kotaro stood in silence.

"Well?" Asuna pressed on.

More silence.

"Negi?" Asuna began growing really worried. "Is everything... okay?"

"Define 'okay'," Kotaro said slowly.

"I was asking him," Asuna said a bit sharply. Then, just as quickly, "Um, sorry, Kotaro-kun, I'm just... a bit on the edge lately, as you know..."

"'S okay," Kotaro blandly said.

Negi took a deep intake of air, and then said, "Three months. Their best estimate is three months for the effect to work its way out of my system, and they don't have a way to speed the process up." He grimaced. "And given that developing one would put a pretty effective weapon in the hands of anyone who opposes me, as it'd work on anything I turn into a Complexio, I'm not entirely keen on that particular line of research."

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Asuna said. "So why are you two so shaken? Anyway, Kotaro-kun, why were you there?"

The dog-boy shrugged, rather stiffly. "They wanted a baseline of how this crap is supposed to work to compare against the way it's working with him," he answered.

"And they picked _you_ as a baseline?" Asuna said, obviously checking him out.

"Oy!" he replied, ducking behind Negi. "No more of that!" As he protested, Kotaro quickly realized that Negi was giving him a moderately unamused expression. "Oh, what?" he groaned. "You said there was no hard feelings!"

"I may," Negi said coolly, "have been slightly exaggerating."

"Aw, come on!"

"Yeah, Negi, come on!" Asuna agreed. "Think of it as a way of deepening your friendship! Now you're- Wait. 'No more'?" she wondered aloud. "Guys, seriously, don't you tell me you and those women-"

Negi recoiled, startled. "Asuna! No! Do you think I have become nothing but a machine that has sex with any female that crosses my path? Why are you objectifying me now?"

"Us," Kotaro said.

Negi looked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"'Us', not 'me'. She's objectifying the both of us, not only you! I mean, I know I'm not the irresistible perfect guy you are, but with no fake modesty, I'm sure I'm pretty darn irresistible for my own good!" Kotaro protested.

Negi blinked. "Is that something either of us should be proud of?"

Asuna sighed, and was that a slight hint of disappointment the boys had heard in her tone? "Oh, alright then. I had just imagined you might have -"

"We barely walked out of there with our lives, Asuna-nee," Kotaro grunted. "Thinking we might have had sex with them is stretching it too f-" Then he trailed off, realizing the way Asuna's eyes had just narrowed. "-uck."

"What. Made. Them. Mad. At. You?" Asuna asked slowly.

Negi shifted around on his feet, uneasily. "I'd prefer not to talk about that."

"Tough," Asuna said, pulling them both further away from the public path, behind a tree. "I want the whole truth!"

"That's a funny line, coming from someone who is hiding from most of her friends the fact she is-" Kotaro began.

She planted a hand tightly around his mouth. "Kotaro-kun, dear, once again, I was asking him." And this time, she definitely didn't apologize to him afterwards. "Negi. Tell me right now what happened there, with Konoka's mom and pretty much all of Ako's superiors, and you two. And then tell me how long we have before the Headmaster boots us out."

"I, I don't think you have to fear about that, Kouko-san promised-"

"Start from the beginning, Negi," Asuna groaned.

So he sighed, defeated, and did as asked.

"Well, you'll see... ahhh..."

Asuna and Kotaro waited for the rest.

But since the rest never came out, Kotaro took over. "We'll, you'll see, there we were, Negi and me, side by side, once again facing a host of terrible adversaries -"

"It was only Kouko-sama, along with the school medical staff of Kitami Reika-sensei, Mikado Ryoko-sensei, Marikawa Shizuka-sensei and Sagisawa Yohko-sensei, Kotaro-kun..." Negi stated.

"Wait, wait, who are all these people?" asked Asuna. "Who do you think I am, Ako? You can't expect me to recognize any of those by name, other than Konoka's mom."

"Yeah, sorry, we forgot you're a healthy idiot who never even catches a cold," Kotaro replied.

"Keep that attitude and you're gonna regret it for real, Kota-kun!" she threatened.

The wolf boy exhaled. "... evil looking shifty nurse, buxom short haired nurse who dresses like a slut, really big breasts blond nurse, and serious nurse who hangs with the redhead teacher who lies about her age, respectively, Asuna-nee."

"Aaaaaahhhhh..."

"Ahem!" Negi rasped. "Anyway, they all were there because Kouko-sama said she and Mikado-sensei couldn't figure out my full biology by themselves, and since Kitami-sensei had shown an interest."

Kotaro took over again. "Yeah, like everyone else, right? Tends to happen when you're so unique, doesn't it? Anyway, haven't you ever wondered why they only hire women for the medical staff around here, even to look after boys? Kinda strange, if you ask me."

Asuna had to chuckle. "Wow, Kota-kun, I didn't know you could do surly sarcastic lampshading so well. Some of Chisame must have rubbed on you when you-"

"Aaaaaaaanyway!" Negi exclaimed. "The first thing they asked me, once they had my shirt off and I sat down, was what I had been doing for the last few days..."

* * *

Negi gulped just a bit harder than he had intended to. Since he really didn't want to lie, he decided to tell them a technical truth that still could leave a lot to free personal interpretation without sounding too suspicious.

"Well, I have been on several meetings all across the campus and beyond, and engaging into regular physical exercise," he said, trying his very best to sound natural and casual. "My students-"

"Partners," Kotaro corrected him.

"My partners," Negi said this time, "had been complaining I had been drifting apart from them too much lately, and disregarding my social life, so I decided rekindling my ties with them during the free lapses the project would give me, so I could relax my body and mind as you suggested."

"That only happened after Luthor rejected him as his liaison, and after that Prof. Richards from the USA lost his patience with him and told him via video conference to leave the scientific parts to him, tho'," Kotaro said this time.

Negi more-or-less clenched his teeth. "... that is open to interpretation, but yes, basically, a few collaborators have further stressed the fact it might be even counterproductive for me to be all over them the whole time. So, I suppose I'd better start trusting others to do their parts more, while I ... get a better handle of my relationships with those who helped me when I was getting started."

And that wasn't a lie at all, was it?

Of course not.

But somehow Mikado-sensei seemed to grow suspicious of him for some reason or another after he said that.

It escaped Negi's normally peerless attention the fact that might have had something to do with the way he had been erratically shaking like a child under detention questioning while saying all of that. Kotaro placed a hand on his own face. How could someone so brave, someone he even respected so much despite everything, be so much of a-?

Perhaps, Kitami-sensei and Kouko-sama suspected something as well, from the way they looked at Negi, but neither of them pressed on the subject, and the boy teacher honestly thought he had cleared that up. Obviously, there was nothing to fear from the blond Marikawa Shizuna-sensei, who just stood back smiling daffily, and Yohko-sensei didn't seem to care that much one way or another.

"I'm sure Konoka appreciates that," Kouko-sama slowly said at last, with a slight nod, "and so, I thank you in her behalf."

"Um, that's all right, there's no need for it," Negi swallowed, feeling like a first class heel.

"Konoka-nee has already shown him how grateful and appreciative she is," Kotaro mused, walking around with his hands behind his neck. Kitami smiled sharply at that, also taking the chance to subtly check him out and undress him with her catlike glance as he moved around, unaware.

"Hm," Kouko said, in a bland and cold tone, and choosing to leave the subject untouched as she began examining the Springfield boy. Until, after taking his blood pressure, and examining his eyes and nasal cavities, Kouko-sama casually asked him if he had been engaging in his exercise sessions during that time alone or with someone else. It was an innocent enough question, so he said it had been with others.

"Like Konoka-chan, for instance?"

Negi instantly lost his recomposed attitude and began breathing much faster.

"It was a joke, of course, but Negi here still panicked," Kotaro narrated.

"I didn't!" Negi protested.

"Yes, you did. Anyway, he tried to make the best out of it, and said Konoka had been mostly with Setsuna-san most of the time for the last few days."

"Which was true as well!"

"But she's been with you as well, hasn't she?" Kitami asked with a mischievously borderline perverse smirk. "More than once, I'd wager, from the way you're reacting..."

Oboy.

"Ah!" Marikawa said, taking a small hand to her mouth. "But Konoka-san isn't a hand to hand trained fighter, is she? Negi-kun, you could hurt her with that kind of rough horseplay!"

Oboy!

* * *

Now, Kotaro sighed, folding his arms. "Yeah. Of course, that had sent the first red signals, since Konoka has no actual reason to train with Negi ... Negi just sucks at healing magic, and his type of attack magic is so above the norm and specific to him, it's like asking Hakase to teach Math at kindergarten. Even so, I guess Kouko-sama wasn't very aware of the training mechanics in our team, or she didn't want a scene before the others, since she just took it with a smile and a strained thanks to Negi helping Konoka to keep up."

"And she even thanked me for taking time away from my agenda for it, so I had no reasons to think she suspected, right? Right?!" argued Negi, while Asuna ran both hands down her face. "Regardless, while all of that happened, Mikado-sensei drifted apart from us, passing by the one of us with the keen animal senses, to head towards her medical cabinet without any of us noticing, not even the already mentioned one with -"

"Okay, okay, guilty as sin! Happy now? No one ever told me I had to keep an eye or ear or nose on any of them! It was supposed to be nothing but a routine checkup!" Kotaro snapped.

"Ah, you two, such best friends," Asuna mused.

"Like you and Iinchou?" Negi and Kotaro asked at the same time.

Asuna bonked their heads together. "Just keep that story going!"

* * *

"Now, now, Negi-kun," Mikado said as she walked back, with a syringe full with a transparent liquid in a hand. "You aren't being very helpful, are you? I've been on both ends of intense questioning to know when someone is faking it... and sorry, but you are faking it. You aren't being honest with us, and that'll only hamper our research!"

"Our attempts to help him, you mean," Yohko said with a dry frown, her hands in the pockets of her white coat.

"Yes, yes, that too!"

... and then she just walked up to Negi's side, grabbed his arm, and injected him there.

* * *

"... it's so weird, needles still hurt so much, when nothing else seems to!" Negi later reminisced, shuddering before Asuna and Kotaro.

"Wow, so Dragon Ball GT got something right, after all?" Asuna wondered aloud.

"Huh?" Negi said.

"Huh?" Kotaro followed.

She waved a hand. "... never mind. And what happened then? What was that injection?"

* * *

"What was that injection?" Shizuka warily asked, proving that strange and not terribly bright minds indeed thought alike.

Mikado smirked, in that way of hers that tugged on a tiny curl at the corners of her mouth. "Nothing that should worry anyone." That last word was slightly punctuated with a subtle glance thrown Kouko's way. "Since our subject was proving uncooperative, for his own good, I gave him a mild dose of Czarnian Truth Serum. The Czarnians, before being exterminated by... well, that's not really important, were a highly advanced and peaceful race that rejected any and all forms of violence, so, whenever they needed to obtain information from a spy or suspicious outsider, they resorted to this concoction. It relaxes the body and mind, and makes the subject unable to elaborate psychological defenses, such as lies, over the best part of, on average and depending on the species... half an Earth day."

(In truth, it was nothing but a placebo, for once, but Mikado knew it would work far better on the nearly invulnerable and immune boy than any actual chemical she could produce. After all, she had a doctorate on Earth psychology as well.)

Negi paled hideously.

Kitami lifted an eyebrow in interest, a hand on her own hip.

"That's ... that's highly unethical and irresponsible!" Kouko gasped. "I'm shocked you would resort to such low stratagems to obtain information from ... a child!"

"I'm sure someone who regularly employs assistance from a mind reader understand the importance of obtaining information over all other things," Ryoko replied, with a vague shrug of shoulders. "Isn't that right, Negi-sensei? You aren't upset at me, are you?"

"Of, of course I'm not!" Negi nearly choked with the words. "But still -!"

Ryoko directed another beautiful smile at Kouko. "Do you see? He's not mad at me at all, so why should you be?"

Yohko had a hand on her own face. "And I thought Midori was bad," she was muttering.

"Wh-What if that substance ... harms him in some way?" asked Shizuka, wide blue eyes nearly watery with fear you wouldn't normally expect from a qualified nurse, not even a schoolyard one. "I mean, with his changed body chemistry and all that!"

"Every medication and dosage in my offices is officially certified by the Bureaus of Chemical Control from New Genesis, Jurai and Deviluke to be fully non-lethal to, at the very least, the 132 most common sapient species in the universe," Ryoko stated, fully serious. "And besides, given the conditions of Sensei's current state, he should be completely invulnerable to lasting damage from this dose."

"Why, of all the, how can you say that with a straight face?" the normally stoic and tranquil Kouko was nearly sputtering now, before turning to Kotaro. "Inugami-san! As Sensei's comrade and associate, I want you to bear witness to-!"

The dark haired boy sighed, waving a hand. "It's okay, Doc. I'm completely confident this won't harm my pal at all."

Negi, his face twitching slightly, gave him an expression that came as close to disappointed outrage as he could manage, but he didn't dare say anything.

Ryoko patted Kouko's shoulder lightly. "Isn't this fortunate? Now, no one will ever be able to say it was you who used unethical means to extract the full truth about your daughter from him!"

Kouko shook the hand off herself as if it had been coated with poison. "Is this your sick idea of a gift for me?"

Ryoko pulled back, actually looking sort of wounded for a moment.

"I'd be thankful, if that had been done for my sake," Kitami mused, lazily examining her fingernails.

"Be quiet, will you?" Kouko, with no patience for anyone at this point, walked past her and the gulping, cowering Shizuka, standing once again right before the trembling, sweaty Negi. With a controlled, even voice, she asked him, "Sensei, do you feel physically fine, right now?"

"Ah, ah, yes, I feel no pain anywhere, and I also feel well rested and fed," Negi stammered.

Kouko nodded. "That's good to know. And yet, you look nervous. Are you, indeed, as nervous as you look?"

Negi began saying, "N. N. N. N ..." Before exploding in defeat. He just couldn't add the 'O'. "Yes!"

"I see," Kouko nodded slowly. "And you feel more nervous the closer I get to you. Are you, as Mikado-sensei ridiculously postulates, nervous because of fear for my reactions to anything you might be hiding from us?"

"Y... Y... Y..." Proving stopping the simple word from being completed and replaced with a 'No' proved to be just as impossible. "Yes! Y-Yes, I am!"

"And that secret," Kouko's eyes grew narrow and fierce. "Does it anything to have with Konoka?"

Negi closed his eyes and felt his head moving up and down and back up.

There was a long, blunt silence punctuated only by Shizuka's heavy breathing after that.

And then, Kouko demanded, with a voice made of cold steel, "Elaborate on it. Please."

For the next few minutes, Shizuka and, to a lesser extent,Yohko stood back paling and listening in disbelief and terror at Negi's rambling, profusely apologetic and even tearful speech. He sounded like he was having the words pulled out of him with red hot pincers, and yet he wouldn't stop talking, giving more details about his recent sexual life (and those of the ones around him) than even Ryoko cared to know about.

All the while, Kouko just listened without saying a word, clenching her mouth aside in a deep grimace.

Ryoko, discreetly, walked over to her secret drink cabinet, poured herself a glass of fine Melmachian wine (all the more valuable since that planet had exploded) and drank it down quickly. Damn, but she had needed that.

Meanwhile, Kitami had wandered out of sight while no one was looking at her, and when she returned, it was to mix a strange pink concoction. While Ryoko still drank, Kitami swiped the leftover contents of her syringe, poured them into the chemical she had been readying, and then quietly heated them up on a nearby burner, until the solution evaporated into a faint pink gas that spreaded across the room. Had Mikado's concoction been what Kitami had taken it for, it would have spawned an orgy in the medical wing in quite a short time. But alas. She and the readers who were hoping for hot Negi-Kotaro-and-five-hot-medical-professionals action were doomed to disappointment. For now at least.

Yohko sniffed the air and turned her head back towards Kitami. "What's that?!" she demanded to know, pinching her own nose, despite the gas being very sparse and mostly odorless.

"Just something I was taught to use to relax people who are under a great deal of stress," the short haired blonde smiled. Gesturing towards Kouko, she added, "And I can tell she fits that bill quite nicely."

It was hard to argue that point, when Kouko, with a ghastly fixed expression not unlike that of a stone gargoyle, slowly reached up towards Negi's neck, wrapped her fingers around it, and squeezed her best, only to give up when she realized she was hurting her hands without even making him breathe any harder, or stopping his whimpering for that matter.

"Well," the Konoe woman finally said, in a strained tone, "I suppose Father will be pleased."

"No he won't!" Negi quickly said.

"True," Kouko agreed rather readily. "Oh, he would be happy if you only had dragged my daughter into sin. And perhaps Asuna-san as well, since he takes pity at her plight. And maybe even Setsuna-kun, since he's old fashioned enough to buy all that 'Wife and mistress' macho nonsense. Eishun, on the other hand, WILL try to kill you, Blue Mars Project or not."

"I, I realize that," Negi said, gagging in his saliva.

"And ... what is YOUR opinion?" Kitami needled her a little.

"My opinion," Kouko blandly repeated.

"Yes, your personal opinion," Kitami nodded. "Because, you know, you are your own human being, who isn't supposed to just reflect on those of the males around you without -"

"My opinion," Kouko said a second time. "My opinion doesn't matter, does it? Because you are wrong, because you barely know anything of the world we're moving into, because I'm the wife of the Elder and the daughter of the other Elder, so what do I know?" she hissed, bitterly dripping each word down. "Because I do nothing but stay back as the men make all the decisions, like I'm expected to do, because I hold no power of my own, and it's not like I could kill or really punish this pathetic little man if I tried."

"Don't think, maybe you're being a bit hard on hi-" Shizuka shyly began.

"Screw all of that!" Yohko said, far more curtly than was her custom. "The only thing that matters here is you're Konoka's mother!"

Kouko's shoulders hung lower. "I'm not even that. I've barely spent any time with her. I'm a horrible mother, and now this is the proof. I always left her care as someone else's problem. I was never here when she needed me the most - and now see where this took her!"

"... I'm sorry..." Negi whined.

"Yes, you are. I have no doubt you are!" Kouko huffed, moving away from him. "A chair, please. I'm not feeling too well."

Shizuka quickly pulled a chair towards her.

"Thank you," Kouko sighed, sitting down. "Is it hot here, or it's just me?"

"Well, you are hot, I mean, it has been a hot day..." Kitami mused aloud.

Yohko looked at Negi. "Sensei, you realize now we'll have to report this, no matter the consequences, right?"

"Do we?" asked Kitami, folding her arms under her chest. "You're aware of what'll happen if the man, the beloved hero, who holds the Blue Mars Project together falls from grace, aren't you? Can you imagine how many lives would be lost?"

Negi hid his face between his hands. "It's all my fault... I jeopardized everything, everyone, for my own selfish sake!"

Kouko slammed a hand down on her knee. "Yes, but it's Konoka's own fault too! And Asuna-san's! And everyone else's!"

Kitami shrugged. "Most people are like that."

"No they aren't!" Kouko growled.

"Yes, they are," Kitami nodded, impassively. "That's what makes us human, the capacity to make mistakes and yet keep going despite them. To prosper because of them, even. Don't you believe me? Look at this, then. And I guarantee, before this meeting is over, all of us will have proved it. Negi-sensei," she said, turning towards the boy and taking her white coat off, revealing the skimpy black dress she wore underneath, "I'm willing to help you with your enterprises. I want to join your cabal, as well."

Shizuka broke into a sudden fit of violent coughing. Yohko took a hand to her own chest and gasped.

Ryoko sighed, but she was hardly surprised.

* * *

"And then ... you had sex, right?" Asuna asked, blinking many, many fast, fast times.

"Um ... no, actually, Kouko-sama bonked her in the head, berated her, and told me she was going to discuss all of that very seriously with Konoka before making any further decisions. She made us swear we all would keep it a secret for the time being, and while Kitami-sensei didn't seem happy at all, she still agreed readily. Yohko-sensei took some real convincing, however."

Asuna seemed to have gone back to 'actually disappointed' mode. "Oh. Oh, I see. That's, um, anticlimactic as heck but not so bad to hear, I guess. I mean, if she really wanted to act against us, she'd have done it in the heat of the moment. I suppose."

Negi closed his eyes. "Actually, having an encounter with several attractive women where they learn my shameful secrets and we still don't end up having sex is a refreshing change of pace, somehow."

"Oh, you know you love it, you!" Asuna punched him in an arm. "Anyway," she huffed, turning back on her heels and starting walking away, "let's stop wasting time here. We're late to meet Saki-sempai, and as much as I dislike the idea of being with her and Iinchou at once, we promised."

Negi began walking after her. "Asuna? Are you angry at me?"

"What? No! Why would I be? Um, I think it's useless worrying about that now, anyway! Konoka surely will handle her mom just fine. She knows her better than anyone, after all."

"Oh God, you really wanted us to screw those women, didn't you?" Kotaro gasped. "You're so weird."

"Said by the boy who walks on all fours howling to the moon," Asuna mumbled.

"Eh? You really wanted me to?" Negi said.

"W-Well, it'd have secured their loyalties, at least!" argued Asuna, not looking back at them.

Kotaro and Negi shared perplexed looks as they followed her.

Finally, Kotaro shrugged. "She's **your** girl. Figure her out yourself!"

"What do you think I've been trying to do ever since the first day I met her?"

"Alright, that's it, you'll get no sex tonight!" Asuna decided.

"But then," Negi argued a short while after, when they almost had reached Saki's room, "since Konoka will most likely be too busy sorting things out with her mother, even in the best of cases-"

"I think I can manage just fine without sex for one night," Asuna said. "Can you?"

Negi opened his mouth to protest with an energetic 'Of course!', but then closed his mouth and seemed to give the matter some deep, serious thought.

Kotaro stared at him. "Oh God, what have they done to you?"

"Cough, cough," rasped a voice from nearby.

Asuna froze, then turned to look, relaxingly slightly when she saw who it was. "Oh, hey, Natsumi-chan. Slap anybody around today?"

"It's early in the day," said Natsumi, frowning. It was very tempting to say that she expressed herself by frowning, but we won't.

Kotaro jerked out of his distracted state, face going pallid as he turned to look at Natsumi, one of the few who, whether using her Pactio or not, always could sneak past his animal senses. "Na-Na-Natsumi-nechan!" he stammered.

"Kotaro-kun," she said, glaring. Again, it was very tempting to say that she glared those words, but we won't.

He forced himself to calm down. "Natsumi-nechan ... I'm really, really sorry."

"Yes, you are."

He let that slide. "I done wrong. I admit it. And, y'know, I realize that it's gonna be hard to fix this. Trust is gonna be hard to rebuild. We will have to learn if we're still the same people we were and actually can we just skip all that?"

"No!" Natsumi snapped, storming forward to grab ahold of his earlobe. "We are going to have words, you and I! Lots and lots of words! If you'll excuse me, the two of us are gonna go off and have words! Actually, even if you won't excuse me, the two of us are still gonna go off and have words!"

Negi felt moved to offer some assistance to his friend and rival, hard feelings or not. "Um, Natsumi-san, I hope that you won't be too hard on -"

"Butt out, Sensei."

"All right then." There were limits, after all.

He and Asuna watched Natsumi basically dragging Kotaro off.

"That girl has some moves," Asuna said admiringly. She looked speculatively at Negi's earlobe.

"I thought you had said-"

"I spoke about tonight, I never promised anything about the rest of the day!"

"A day we will be spending with Iinchou and Tenjuoin-san, starting right now, Asuna."

"Dammit."

* * *

"And then, what happened?" Saki asked, legs crossed, as she sat opposite Negi and Asuna in the back of her limousine, flanked by Aya and Rin, their conversation kept secret from the driver thanks to the privacy crystal separating them.

"Well, duh, what do you think?" asked Asuna, wondering what it was about rich blondes that bothered her so much. Maybe it had something to do with how stuck-up they tended to carry themselves, in tone and posture, even when only casually asking simple things like that.

"Actually," Negi said, "I just stood up, told them all I couldn't let something like that happen again, and walked out after apologizing to Kouko-sama."

Silence reigned.

And kept reigning.

And continued.

"Wow," Aya of all people finally said. "I must say, that was an un expected outcome."

"It's also a lie," Asuna muttered.

Negi sighed. "I can dream, can't I?"

"You know you love it to itsy bitsy pieces with a cherry on top!" Asuna said.

"Oh, so you ended up having sex after all," Saki hummed, folding her arms.

"Nah, actually, it was Kouko-sama who stopped the whole procedure," Asuna huffed.

"Well," Rin politely butted in, "it's just logical she wouldn't go with it. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised it didn't end up violently."

Saki smiled. "Of course it didn't. Us women of prestige and social stature know better than to surrender to our primal instincts of anger and retaliation, no matter how well justified they are. That's why I keep myself above Lala-san's petty trickery, which doesn't befit her supposed rank!"

"Uh-huh," Asuna said. "By the way, how are your attempts to surrender to your primal instincts with that girl's servant going?"

Saki's smile melted down into a frown. "It's a work in careful and calculated progress."

"Awwww, I'm sorry," Asuna chuckled, ignoring how Negi's pointed glares were begging her to shut up. "C'mon, there's still like fifteen minutes until Iinchou's house. What if Negi here gives you another consolation prize in the meanwhile?"

"All right, all right, I get it when it's my cue," Negi relented, unbuttoning the front of his pants.

"Tenjouin Saki doesn't need pity, or consolation prizes, or-!" Saki began, right before her attention was caught by the still flaccid monster being pulled out of Negi's underwear. "- but then again, what defines humanity, but the capacity to enjoy things we don't really need?"

* * *

"And then," Negi narrated, wiping his cock clean with a tissue and stuffing it back into his pants, "Natsumi-san forced Kotaro to go along with her, and Asuna asked if we-"

"Ojou-sama, Springfield-sensei," the driver's voice came through a speaker in the back of the limo, "We've just arrived."

Feeling the limousine stopping, Saki sighed, fixing her panties and skirt back into place. "It looks like we'll have to hear the rest of that fascinating story later, Sensei. It wouldn't do, making Ayaka-san wait, would it?"

"Eh, Iinchou's life has always been about waiting and waiting for minimal payoff. She'll be fine," Asuna said, sighing with post orgasmic relief, as Aya and Rin went back to their feet, primly licking the leftover Asuna juices in their mouths. Asuna supposed, at the very least, she couldn't deny Tenjouin had trained them well.

"Asuna, please," Negi sighed, while Saki nearly bathed him and then herself with cologne, all the best to hide the smells of recent intense sex.

Asuna didn't outright answer, choosing just to push the back seat's door open and step outside. "I'm just saying," she said, walking out and absently securing the bells on her head.

_**"Welcome to the Yukihiro household, Negi-sensei, Tenjouin-sama, and Asuna-himesama,"**_ chorused a dozen or so black-clad maids in carefully rehearsed unison, except for the tallest one, who simply remained silent as she glared at Negi and Asuna behind her thick round eyeglasses. If any of the others experienced any cognitive dissonance over calling someone 'Himesama' when they had, a year or so earlier, been instructed to refer to her as 'gorilla woman', it wasn't apparent on their faces.

That was all right, though, because Asuna was clearly experiencing enough of it for all of them combined. "Please can I hit her this time, please?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"No," Negi said firmly. "We can't do that sort of thing anymore."

"I'll hold back so I don't kill her, just hurt her really really bad," Asuna promised.

"Asuna."

Saki lightly coughed into a fist. "If I may point it out so, I'd like to remind you all my two closest and dearest associates have come with us, as well. They are as deserving of your greetings as we are."

Rin blinked. "Oh, no, it's okay, Saki-sama. Our rank is not high enough to-"

"Nonsense," Saki firmly said. "You are fully deserving of recognition and basic courtesy on your own merits."

The lead maid blinked, clearly taken aback by those demands towards those that barely enjoyed a higher social status than their own. "Oh! Our apologies. We were never told of your arrival, and it seems we have not been supplied with your names, ah, Miss-"

"Kujou Rin and Fujisaki Ayako," Saki said, graciously gesturing towards the duo. "Please remember those names, for they are practically members of the Tenjouin family."

Aya blushed fiercely at that. "Oh, Saki-sama, p-please, you honor us more than you should-!"

Ayaka chose that moment to make her entrance, high at the top of the foyer's staircase, resplendent in a dazzling white dress which managed to suggest both a wedding dress and a fairy queen's costume without looking quite like either of them. "Ah, I see that our guests have at last arrived," she declared as she began to walk down the stairs ever so slowly. "Welcome, all of you, including you, Asuna-san!"

"Trip," Asuna muttered, each time the class representative took a step. "Trip."

"Stop that," Negi muttered.

"Is something the matter, Asuna-san?" Ayaka asked cheerfully as she descended yet another stair. "You seem somewhat disconcerted."

"That's a good word for it," Asuna replied, finally lifting her voice. "I told you that I hate it when I get treated like that, over and over again I told you that, and what do your maids do?"

Ayaka paused, and lifted a hand to her mouth. "Gasp!" she gasped. "Do you mean to tell me that they did so, despite my deliberate and specific instructions against doing so? Is this true?" she added, glancing down at the still-assembled maids.

The foremost maid - Negi realized with a start that, other than Roberta-san and Siesta-san, he'd never bothered to learn any of their names, despite the fact that several of them had shown up on campus from time to time and even visited his room in Ayaka's company - took a step forward. When she spoke, it was with the tone of one who was clearly aware that she was being thrown under the bus, and had in fact been thrown under the bus so many times as to grow accustomed to the sight of its chassis. "We apologize, Ojousama and Asuna-sama. Our enthusiasm sadly got the better of us."

"And there you have it," said Ayaka, taking another step down as she did so.

"Oh, bullroar! How would they even know about any of that if you didn't tell them?" Asuna demanded, glaring in the maids' direction ... and abruptly doing a double-take.

"You're imagining things," Ayaka said dismissively, as she finally arrived at the ground floor and began to sweep across it towards them. "There are many ways they could have learned without my telling them. Far too many ways to discuss, when dinner awaits!"

"Uh," said Asuna. "Right."

Negi noted her abrupt change in attitude, but as they were being ushered along to the dining room, there wasn't any time for him to do anything except shoot Asuna a quizzical glance, which she answered with a quick shake of her head. Whatever had provoked it, then, was going to remain a mystery for a while.

As they walked, Saki leaned closer to Negi and whispered to him, _"Even if she happens to be an actual princess of a much greater and more powerful kingdom, no offense intended, you will never see me telling __**my**__ servants they should call my rival 'Lala-Himesama'."_

"Lucky Lala-Himesama," Asuna muttered, although more mechanically than anything else.

* * *

_And so, a short while afterwards..._

"I don't know what the heck you want from me," Asuna said, finally looking right at Ayaka for the first time since her bomb had been dropped. "I can't elaborate on it except by talking about weird magical jargon that I don't really understand and you won't either, and I can't say 'psyche, just kidding' because I'm not kidding, so before I say anything, could you tell me what exactly you want me to say?"

"Why," Ayaka said with glacial slowness, "am I only now learning about this?" Her jaw dropped. "Don't tell me ... no! You couldn't have done it again! Tell me that this isn't like with Negi-sensei's magic and I'm the last one in our class to find out!"

"You weren't the last one last time either, that was Fuuka and Fumika!" Asuna protested.

"Actually, Kaede told them everything before we left for the airport," Negi interjected.

"Oh," Asuna said, wind momentarily taken out of her sails. "Okay, then... but you still weren't the last one to know, that was, I guess, the cheerleaders! Or maybe Satsuki-san!"

"I actually think she might have known since the festival," Negi mused. "If not earlier."

"We learned long after you did, if that's any consolation," Saki offered.

"No, it's not!" Ayaka quickly barked.

"Whatever!" Asuna snapped. "This time, I've only told Konoka, Setsuna, Asakura, Chisame, and, well, technically, I've admitted it to Nodoka and Yue, and I guess Konoka also told Haruna when she was telling the two of them and Asakura has also told Sayo-chan but I haven't really talked about it with either of them and Evangeline and Chachamaru also already know and, oh, gosh, I guess Hakase knows, unless Chachamaru kept it out of her logs but I can't see why she would and ah crap you really are coming in very late," Asuna concluded rather weakly.

"Kaede knows, too," Negi added just as weakly. "And... well, I think Commander Tatsumiya and Zazie-san -"

Had this been a slightly more absurdist story, mention would here have been made of the way that Ayaka had literally turned to stone while listening to this litany. No, wait a second, this IS a far more absurdist story than the original one. Fair play! So, she indeed did far more than only become very pale and utterly, utterly still and silent, until at last she cracked through the outer stone layers covering her. "I FOUND OUT AFTER AISAKA SAYO DID?" Ayaka screamed at the top of her lungs.

"... who's Aisaka Sayo?" Aya asked timidly. Futilely, too.

Negi swallowed, dragging a foot around. "And, you'll see, as it happens, things spiralled sort out of control for a short while, and Mikazuki Yozora-san happened to learn about it as well, and Twilight Sparkle-san and Queen Daenerys as well, but that's okay since they always were supposed to know as important representatives from Mundus Magicus. Not that you aren't just as important as them in your own way, it's just, ummm, you know how government affairs can be, don't you? And, as you can see, Tenjouin-san and her two associates learned as well, and President Fujino and Kuga Natsuki-san, and Tokiha Mai-san as well, it couldn't be helped, she's our next door neighbor and her hearing is remarkably good."

"Who are these people?! Other than Tenjouin and Fujino, I don't even have any idea who these people are!" Ayaka protested.

"Well, but those are all who are in the know," Asuna offered. "So far, at least."

"Oh, well, then," Ayaka said, grinning broadly after a moment of gaping at her. "That makes it all better! _Not!_" she snarled. "And when, pray tell, were you planning on telling me about this, if not for your inadvertent discovery today?"

Asuna looked at Negi. Negi looked at Asuna. Then, simultaneously, the two of them looked away from each other, all without even once looking in Ayaka's direction.

So they weren't looking at her as her eyes went wide and her jaw worked silently for a few moments, before a tiny voice finally came out of her mouth. "You weren't planning to tell me at all." Her tone didn't make it a question.

"... you probably would've noticed when I didn't show up for graduation, so ... then, maybe?" Asuna speculated, still without looking at Ayaka.

Saki's right eyebrow twitched. "You know, if you had been my friends... No, never mind that, if you had done that, you wouldn't have counted as my friends in the first place..."

The _other_ blonde debutante staggered, glancing at the table with the cooling food on it. "I wish we were a little older," she said dazedly. "Just a few years older. Then I would have felt justified in raiding our family's wine cabinets, and there would be glasses of wine there, and I could pick one up and _throw it in your face!_ Instead, all we have is fruit juice, and that just wouldn't be even a little bit the same, now would it?"

"I can call for wine," Saki offered. "I'm seventeen."

"Isn't that still one year too young to-?" Negi began asking.

Saki smiled. "Not when you have enough money!"

Asuna gave her a bland stare. "That's all you came here for, isn't it?" Then, addressing her rival again, she groaned, "Come on, Iinchou. Look, if you're mad, go ahead and start grabbing my face or -"

Saki sighed. "That's your solution for everything, isn't it? Do you really think it's that simple, or are you only underselling her intelligence so much?"

"Shut up, tagalong," Asuna muttered.

"Why bother?" Ayaka interjected, before either Aya or Rin could loudly argue against that mutter. She stumbled towards one of the dining room chairs, pulling it away from the table so that she could collapse into it, staring wildly at the two of them she loved. "Why bother indeed? There's no point in it. No point to any of that. You don't care about me at all."

"What?" Asuna babbled.

"Likely," Saki shrugged.

"I think I told you to-"

"It's so obvious, in hindsight," Ayaka continued her monologue, gesturing with her hands. "You were uncomfortable with my honest expression of emotion, so I returned to our old banter, and yet even that just makes you irritable, so it's clear that you just don't care even little bit about me, that I'm just some sort of burden, and -"

"No!" Asuna snapped, dashing over to stand in front of the chair, hands gripping its arm rests as she brought her face right up to Ayaka's. "That's not it. That's not even a little bit -"

"Then why?" Ayaka demanded, tears starting to flow. "Why didn't you tell me, why weren't you going to tell me, when you were telling everyone else, even perfect strangers, why, why, why?!"

"None of that was planned, it just kept on happening!" Negi argued, borderline exasperated by now.

"What are you going to do, now that you know?" Asuna demanded right back.

Ayaka drew in a shaky breath, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, there were no more tears there. "I'm going to save you, of course," she snapped. "I'm going to use everything in my power, every resource my family commands, to -"

"Yes, of course you are!" Asuna interrupted. "God, no wonder you went crazy for Negi, he's just like you!"

Negi blinked. So did Ayaka. They exchanged a look, then blinked some more.

"I consider my point proven," Asuna said with a roll of her eyes.

"... really?" Saki hummed, looking back and forth between them. "I don't see that much of a resemblance..."

"What in the world -" Ayaka started to demand.

Asuna slapped her hands against the chair's armrests. "You'll do whatever it takes to rescue me. You'll drop everything to do that. Just like him! And tell me, oh person of awesome power and deep responsibility, what else won't get done while you're moving earth and heaven? What if something seriously important goes wrong and you aren't able to deal with it because of all the resources you've dedicated to saving me? How'll you live with that?" She was silent for a second, then added, far more quietly. "How am I... supposed to live with that?"

"That's a lot of 'Ifs'," Rin piped in then, quietly, "And it's also somewhat insulting to the other persons of awesome power and deep responsibility involved. We may not be as well versed about this bizarre fantasy world as you are, or as your friend would be if you had bothered to talk with her earlier, but Saki-sama and the others Sensei have seen fit to reach to for help are, in my opinion, quite able to cope and adapt without being guided every step of the way."

"Shut up, you tagalong of the tagalong, what do you know about ... about ..." Asuna began to seethe at her, then abruptly seemed to realize what she was saying, and the tone in what she was saying it, and collapsed back on her chair, hiding her face between her hands. "Do you think this is any easy at all for me?! That I do these things, the way I'm doing them, just because I want to?!"

"Perhaps," Aya shyly ventured, "they wouldn't be as hard for you if you just accepted help from the many, many around you who love you? Instead of trying to be the martyr -"

**"But I have to be!"** Asuna said, now slamming her hands on the table.

Then, silence.

"That's," Saki said, almost absently, "a great testament of trust in all of the people who originally helped to save you from earlier unbeatable odds. Just saying, from what little I have been trusted with."

"For the last time, you just, just..." Asuna said through gritted teeth, before slumping ahead again. "It's ultimately pointless, anyway. I'm not... I'm not... I'm not -"

"Asuna-" Negi tried to interject.

"I'm not real," she said at last. "This person that you care for, the one you tried to save from Fate, she's just another silly illusion, and you should - you can get along without me, I know it, you'll find -"

Ayaka's hands, folded in her lap, shot up to grab hold of Asuna's forearms. "You are not permitted to say that," she hissed. "Whichever of the confused young women presently residing in what I may loosely refer to as your mind whom I am presently addressing, know this - you are not permitted to dictate to whom this Yukihiro Ayaka gives her love and affection. Not now, not ever." Very quietly, she added. "And no one, not even you, is ever permitted to say, in my hearing, that Kagurazaka Asuna is not real. Not now. Not ever."

Asuna sagged - quite possibly, without Ayaka's firm grip on her arms, she might have collapsed. "Dammit," she said.

"Language," Negi interjected.

Asuna recovered enough to shoot him a look which told him that he was going to pay for that later. "You really do love me, huh?" she said to Ayaka.

Ayaka hesitated, then sighed. "Yes, I guess that I do, at that. It's so annoying. I did so want to be pure for Negi-sensei, but it just didn't work out that way."

"Oh, that's not a problem," Asuna said, shooting Negi a look that told him that later had arrived. "Negi doesn't really mind purity. Really, not at all."

"Oh, boy," Negi muttered.

Saki smiled, even as Aya and Rin shifted uneasily on their chairs. "Oh, definitely, he doesn't. And the feeling is truly mutual!"

"What are you talking about?" Ayaka asked, bewildered.

* * *

"Ahhhh, Siesta-san... Do you think it's safe to go back in now?" asked one of the maids waiting outside the closed door to the dining room.

**"You did what?!"** came a shriek from that direction.

"Not even a little bit, Taeko-chan," the maid she'd addressed answered. "Let's go clean the house. Specifically, the other side of the house. And let's pray Roberta-san hasn't just heard that..."

* * *

'Be careful what you wish for', the sage old saying goes, and indeed, Siesta got her wish, but only because Roberta-san, Ayaka's most fiercely devoted servant and secret bodyguard since her childhood, was out in front of the manor at the time. Most specifically, greeting another large limo, this one all painted shiny pearly white, stopping at the gates. Siesta realized this only when she casually looked out a window while polishing silverware, and, with a start and a shudder, glimpsed the former 'Bloodhound of Florencia', the infamous retired Colombian mercenary turned just as feared Terminator maid and armed guard of Yukihiro Genjuro-sama, silently following the Master's wife and Ayaka's mother, Yukihiro Minako, into the house.

"Siesta-san?" Taeko asked, seeing how the shorter, more worldly maid had just dropped the fine set of forks she had been working on. "What's wr-"

Before the sentence could be finished, Siesta already was bolting out of the kitchen and rushing towards the entrance hall.

"... okay..." Taeko said then, choosing to go back to work.

* * *

"M-Minako-sama!" Siesta said, performing a deep bow as she came to a halt before the mistress of the house, who struck a remarkably similar appearance to Ayaka, only much bustier and wider on the hips. She wore an elegant, yet somewhat skimpy for her age and position, black dress with deep cleavage, and a pearl necklace. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I mean, had we, that is, I, known you were coming today, we'd have prepared a better welcome for you! It's a honor to have you back, of course, but-!"

The beautiful older woman gestured with a hand in a way that tried to be calming, but only made Siesta even more nervous. "That's okay, Siesta-san. A good morning to you, as well. But there is no need for great ceremonies simply because I am stepping into my own home. Besides, my decision to return today was fairly recent. As soon as I heard Negi Springfield-sensei would be coming, I knew I had to be here, to discuss several issues of the utmost importance."

Siesta blinked. Despite her respect and even fear towards the powerful woman, she couldn't help mouthing out a weak, "You were told? B-By whom...?"

Roberta looked aside for a moment, her bland, stony expression still the same, her eyes still opaque and unreadable behind the thick glasses.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Minako added, walking past the stunned Siesta, "I wish for this encounter to happen as soon as possible. The professor must be having lunch with Ayaka, am I right?"

Siesta blinked herself out of her stupor, then continued rushing after the two taller women. "Oh, yes, I suppose so! I mean, that's where we left them, but Ayaka-sama insisted for us to leave them alone, so I don't know-!"

"There is no reason why she would keep me out of that meeting, had she known I was on my way," Minako said, never looking back or slowing her pace down. "That will be all for now, Siesta-san. You may return to your current endeavors... elsewhere."

"B-" the young black haired woman began saying, but then Roberta's brief, yet intimidating glare on her cowed her into stammering "Y-Yes, Ma'am!" and quickly taking the opposite way.

* * *

By the time Minako-sama's limousine had stopped at the entrance, Negi was flat as naked and everyone else, on his back on the floor, with Ayaka crouched over his hips, gazing down in awestruck wonder at his member. Asuna was crouching behind her, pressed up against her back. Saki and her two friends waited and watched several steps behind.

"Well?" Asuna asked. "Getting cold feet? Even Honya likes being watched by many!"

"It's just so cute," Ayaka said softly.

"... cute?" Asuna repeated. "It's a one-eyed trouser snake."

"Ruby-tipped warrior of love," Ayaka cooed a correction.

"Mighty drill of masculinity," Saki offered her take.

"Warrior blade of virility," Rin commented.

Aya fidgeted around with her fingers, and then whispered shyly, _"Mr. Happy Times?"_

**"Mr. Happy Times?!"** the other girls asked, all looking at her now.

"Um, could we please stop coming up with silly names for my penis?" Negi asked. "It's just a little embarrassing, really."

Ayaka drew in a deep breath, then nodded solemnly. "Yes, Negi-sensei, we will move on from that now. We will move on to the trying part of this. I know there will be pain, and blood, but you must not worry for -"

"You ride horses," Asuna interjected dryly.

Ayaka broke off, and twisted around to look at her bewilderedly. "I know that I ride horses. Why do you see the need to announce it?"

Asuna used her hands to mime a pair of legs spreading.

"... why are you making odd gestures in response to a perfectly straightforward question?" Ayaka asked.

"... oh great balls of fire, how can anybody be so ... look, there's not going to be any pain and blood, okay, so just hurry up and go for it, will you?" Asuna replied. "Should've done it with Maki-chan first, I bet she wouldn't have been anywhere nearly this naive," she added in a low mutter.

Blithely ignoring that last remark, Ayaka turned back to Negi and smiled sweetly down at him. "Please be gentle," she cooed as she grabbed his unit firmly.

"But it's better when it's not gentle!" Saki observed.

"I know it, you know it, but candy-asses will be candy-asses," Asuna shrugged.

"Got it," said Negi, doing his best to ignore the catty commentary as he shifted in Ayaka's grasp, pushing the tip of his erection up into her.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Ayaka cried. "Oh joy, oh bliss, oh elysian transport! At last we are one, as was always -"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, he's just gotten started!" Asuna groaned, then pushed Ayaka down so that the erection went further up into her.

"GUUURGGGHHHH!" Ayaka commented as her eyes went utterly blank.

"Aaaaahhh!" Ayaka shrieked a few moments later. "My hips, my hips! They're moving on their owwwwwnnnn!"

"No, you're moving them," Asuna informed her as she pushed tightly up against the other girl's back. "You're in control of yourself and you don't get to pretend otherwise. No matter what happens," she added as she reached down to rub Ayaka's rear entrance with her fingers.

"Aaaahhh!" shrieked Ayaka some more. "No, don't, not there, it's dirrrrtyyyy!"

"Eeesh! Are you going to use every single cliché in the book?" Asuna shook her head as she snaked her other hand around the front of Ayaka's self-governed hips, so that her fingers brushed against the other girl's clitoris. "Let me guess, now you're going to say -"

"Nooooo!" Ayaka obligingly shrieked. "I'm going to go craaaaaaaaazzyyyyy!"

"Are these really cliches?" Negi asked as he pumped up into Ayaka.

"Oh, such cliches," Asuna sighed.

"Old as erotic narrative itself," Saki confirmed, and quickly added, "Or so I have heard."

"Nyaaaaaagggghhh!" Ayaka said.

"And so is reverting to wordless howls," Asuna sighed.

**"AAAAAAAHHHH!"** Ayaka climactically shrieked, then collapsed forward onto Negi's chest, giggling faintly. "So good, Negi-sensei, so very very wait wait why are you still hard inside of me?"

"Well, um, I didn't really -" Negi stammered uncomfortably.

Ayaka's eyes went tiny. "But ... but surely the terrible pressures of my orifice constricting upon your member as I achieved the blissful state of climax would be enough to compel you to release your ejaculation up into my moist, receptive womb?"

"... sorry," Negi apologized.

"It doesn't always work that way," Rin offered, rather sympathetically.

"But that also can be part of the fun!" Saki wagged a finger.

"But... but... but surely -?" Ayaka whined.

"Oh, just fuck him some more, already," Asuna sighed, drumming her fingers impatiently on Ayaka's right shoulder blade. "He's kind of developing a talent for staying hard for a long time."

"And with multiple partners," Saki started matter of factly, petting Aya and Rin's scalps while they licked her breasts.

"But... but..." Ayaka babbled.

"Or would you rather watch me do it?" Asuna teased.

"Since Saki-sama already had her turn with him earlier in the limo, and I was under the impression you had promised not having sex with him today, I believe it's Aya's turn and mine," Rin took the chance to reaffirm their own rights, as Aya quickly nodded, face all flushed.

"For the last time, I only said we weren't having sex **tonight**!" Asuna cried.

"... ahhhh!" Ayaka shrieked. "My hips are moving on their owwwwwnnnn!"

"- but then again, what do we know about the subject," Rin sighed.

* * *

Several minutes and a few position changes later, Ayaka was lying on her back, with Negi still vigorously pistoning into her. Now, he decided, feeling his climax racing dangerously closer. _I have no idea if she's in a safe day or not, and I've placed myself and others into too many risks already, so I'll pull out now, now, right-_

And then the dining room's doors flew open, completely distracting him from pulling out in time, terrifying him and the others with the sight of the triumphant entrance of Yukihiro Minako-sama, whom he had briefly met before in a parents' reunion (where she'd arrived after almost everyone else had left) closely followed by the always intimidating Roberta-san.

"Ayaka-chan, Professor, I'm home!" the mother announced herself, as grandly as her daughter. "Oh, and you're also here, Asuna-san, and Saki-chan, and... you... are... all... naked... and... and..."

As Negi stiffened into acerbic pain and terror at the vision of both older women blanching hideously and coming to a sudden stop, something in him reacted in a somewhat unexpected way, and, as his hips jerked back as if on their own accord one last time, he ejaculated into Ayaka.

_Oh, feathers!_

* * *

Since Ayaka and Negi had fallen completely silent, and the Tenjouin trio was reduced to helpless sputtering while Asuna backed the hell away, it was Minako who spoke next, once she regained enough of her voice. Surprisingly, she sounded more jaded than anything else. "So things have gone_ this_ far, huh?"

The boy only made a strange sound, a mixture of a bird getting caught in a trap and a major saliva splurt.

Ayaka managed to say, "Well, y-yes, but..." before getting a pathetic mew out, and regaining enough poise to ask a livid, "How 'far' was the 'that far' you'd been expecting for?"

Minako frowned. "Ayaka, let's be honest here. I know kids your age nowadays. I still remember you playing with your friends Paris and Lindsay all those years ago, and now I just see how they are now, and ... well, let's just say I haven't been blind to your preferences, but I tolerated them because you at least weren't turning out like ... those girls. Of course, I grew a bit worried when I learned you'd be studying under a Springfield, but I told myself you were always terrible at expressing your real feelings, as Asuna-san here can attest to. But now, seeing you like this... well, I'm convinced I was dead wrong. Not many can ever achieve that from me, so some congratulations are in order, I suppose."

"Mother!" Ayaka gasped.

"Well, if you prefer a violent outburst, I can do that, as well. Although someone else should be taking care of that for me right n-"

And then Negi was dropping to his knees before Minako, his forehead touching the ground. "I'm sorry! It -"

Something leaped towards him.

"-was-"

Ayaka barely noticed the white and black blur before it swooshed from behind Minako and past her, making her yelp and almost lose her balance and footing.

"- my -"

Then Asuna noticed it as well, but even she scarcely had time enough to begin moving towards the incoming disaster.

"- fault!" Negi managed to finish the sentence, uttered at normal human speed, mind, before he felt a strong hand grabbing his throat and pushing him down roughly, his spine crashing against a wall. It didn't really hurt him, of course, but the shock of the whole situation still stunted his normally sharp battle reaction reflexes.

Bloodshot murderous eyes behind thick round glasses were nailed to his pupils now.

_**"PUTO PENDEJO BASTARDO!"**_

Some of Roberta's warm foaming saliva was splashing on his face as she roared like a wild animal, and the hand that wasn't grabbing him pressed a button on the maid's ever present umbrella, a long sharp blade jumping out of the tricked-out device's tip.

Asuna stopped herself, and actually smirked. "Oboy. She's for a nasty surprise."

"Negi-sensei!" Ayaka yelled desperately, jumping on Roberta and pulling the armed hand back with a strength that surprised the domestic servant, twisting her wrist enough to make her drop the concealed weapon. Ayaka's fighting training was paying off, not that she was thinking about it at all now. "Roberta-san! Are you insane?!"

Roberta looked back at her, and Ayaka was reminded of why they used to call her the Bloodhound of Florencia. Her maid's normally sedate and apathetic eyes were just like that night during the attack on Mahora, while fighting the demons. They had become bestial and savage, harsh and unforgiving. They were eyes that struck terror into Ayaka's heart now.

But still, she had trained herself to master terror. All forms of it, save for the terror of being separated from her Sensei. So she slapped the much taller woman, taking her by surprise. "Answer me, damn it! What are you trying to do, kill him?!"

_**"Yesssss,"**_ Roberta hissed, the other hand throttling Negi even harder, and pushing his head closer to the window. There was outright poison in her stare at Ayaka now, and her neck muscles tensed in a way that looked downright painful.

Ayaka was mildly taken aback for another moment before slapping Roberta again. "Don't even think about it! Hurt him and I swear, no matter what, I'll make you pay for it! Mother, Asuna-san, say something!"

"What can I say, other than wishing her luck in making any sort of dent on him?" Asuna shrugged. "Really, I'd be better off trying to protect him from a Chihuahua."

Minako stood back, in no hurry to interfere. "Roberta, I thought I had told all of you to give us our own space unless we called for you. Oh, who am I kidding, like you ever listen to me."

The angry hiss was directed at her now. _**"Señor Yukihiro is my master, not you."**_

"Well, then, you should know that he won't like it if you leave a dead body in our best dining room, especially not one with strong connections to the world of magic," Minako chided her, walking closer, hands on her hips. "You also should know he doesn't care enough about Ayaka to really mind if she has lost her virginity by now or not. Really, Roberta, this reaction is entirely your own."

_**"What if it issssssssssss?"**_ The maid actually bared her teeth at her.

"Well, since every action has a reaction, I'd advise you to remember your training and stop giving him such an opening," the mistress of the house suggested, quite reasonably.

"What ope-" Roberta began being kicked in the gut by Negi, who coughed as he pushed himself back to his feet. The maid screeched to a halt before being tossed too far and kicked down. The hidden knife in her right shoe sprang out, and she pulled it off, growling and charging ahead. She didn't get far enough before Minako calmly grabbed her from behind, slammed her down, and pressed a foot against her spine, catching her in a hold that was much more cruel than the one she had placed on Ayaka that one day when she dared to shout at her.

"And this was another one," Minako said, still as calm. "I always have admired your skills, but while you are trained in many things, my dear, your temper is your greatest undoing. The best warriors are always the ones who keep a cool head. Are you taking notes, Negi-sensei?"

"Ah," Negi said, rasping and rubbing his throat while helped up by Ayaka and Rin.

Then Roberta twisted around like a rabid animal and tossed Minako off herself, taking the chance to leap back for Negi, tackling him away from Ayaka. They wrestled each other, tumbling around the table, faster than Ayaka or Rin could follow them despite running frantically after them. Minako followed at a slower pace. The other three stayed back, Aya and Saki clinging to each other as Asuna chuckled bitterly.

Roberta was using her size advantage (even in his older form, Negi was still somewhat shorter than the towering woman) to try and suffocate Negi under herself, but the boy was faster and struck with more precision, making her wince as he hit her nerve points, but holding himself back too much to be really effective. He was greatly holding back from hurting her at all, while she clearly wasn't. She clawed at his face and spat at it, while shouting a storm. "PUERCO HIJO DE PUTA! YO CONFIE EN TI! MANCILLASTE EL HONOR DE LA SEÑORITA!"

Anyway, that was stupid and had to stop already, Negi decided, punching her in the stomach just hard enough to make her double up on herself, so he hopefully could talk her down. That brief pause gave Ayaka enough time to arrive to their side, but before she could do anything, one of Roberta's long braids brushed against Negi's nose.

**"AHHHHHHH... AAAATCHOOOOO!"**

Roberta blinked, stunned, as she felt the whole of her maid outfit and even her glasses being blown off her body, becoming black and white petals in the air. Then she felt a softer draft caressing her ass while her panties disolved into nothingness. Her hair flew free in all directions, draping around her and Negi.

Minako, whose whole clothing had been blown off of her as well when the sneeze filled the room, sighed. "Ah. Now this is a misfortune. I really loved that dress. I will demand compensation."

For a moment, Roberta remained perfectly still, her eyes fixed on nothing in particular.

Then Negi, with eyes turned to black dots, sputtered, "A-AH! S-sorry about that, I didn't want, are you -"

Roberta began throttling him again.

Negi choked, more out of habit rather than any actual current need for air, but pushed her back with his feet once more, and she was caught from behind by a combined effort of Ayaka and Minako, who could barely hold her back. She still kept spitting at him. "MOCOSO DE MIERDA! And you too, alien bitch! Your damn deviancy and evil company have rotted Ojou-sama's mind! I swear this won't -"

"Roberta-san," Ayaka said, stiffly. "**No**. I love him."

Roberta's head snapped aside to look at her. "Don't say that! You have no idea what -"

"I'd die for him," Ayaka said. "I'd do anything for him, no matter how dirty, immoral or twisted it may be! And if you kill him, you are killing me as well. So decide!" She was suddenly holding Roberta's discarded knife in one of her hands, and pressed it against her own chest. "If you're going to do it, kill me first, because otherwise, I'll never allow you to -!"

And then Negi was pressing a fist against Roberta's temple. "No. No one will be hurt here! I won't allow this to end in violence!"

"And besides, think of your colleagues, dear," Minako said, controlling with difficulty the urge to laugh her head off at that last remark. "You know Fubuki asks too many questions, Siesta faints at the sight of blood, and Taeko-chan is terrible at washing it off."

Roberta's hand drooped down, and the knife clanged against the ground. "I really should have taken that offer from the Lovelaces, instead."

* * *

Roberta had refused to leave Ayaka's side, so she had resorted to simply wrapping a wide beach towel Minako had kept at hand around herself while the whole lot of them more or less sorted things out around the nearby pool.

"... so, as you can see, I was the one, with my selfish carnal desires, who kickstarted this whole situation," Ayaka finished her lengthy explanation of the remarkable events which had transpired over the last few hours. "Punish me if you must, Mother, but I won't stand for any hurt to be brought upon Negi-sensei!"

"I still say it's all my fault," Negi muttered weakly, keeping his head low.

_"Asssssssuna-ssssssssan..."_ Roberta hissed as her head snapped aside towards the apparently unfazed redhead. _"I'll get you for thisssss..."_

"You'll do no such thing," Minako chided her, softly bopping her head with a paper fan. The maid only grunted like a caged animal. "How could she have known my foolish daughter would try following her into the depths of vice?"

Saki felt tempted to point out anyone even slightly familiar with Ayaka would have suspected that, but out of respect for a friend of her father, she kept herself mum.

"So that magical world of yours may need Asuna-san's ultimate sacrifice. What an annoyance!" Minako shook her head. "And just when the two of you were starting to get along, as well."

"You sound chillingly casual about it, Mother," Ayaka told her.

"Too damn casual!" Roberta barked. "Are you going to turn a blind eye to... to this outrage?! This repulsive sin against nature!?"

"Are you using birth control, Ayaka?" Minako calmly asked.

"Um..." Ayaka replied dubiously.

"As imagined," Minako said, sounding utterly disappointed. Then she looked at Negi. "You?"

"Um..." Negi replied dubiously.

"See?" Asuna asked Saki. "They are so alike! Anyway, no, Ma'am. I don't need it because I am... a doll, Konoka doesn't need it 'cause she likes living dangerously, Setsuna-san doesn't need it because it's unlikely a hybrid like her can conceive, and Negi... well, I know it'll sound so stupid, but when he cums, the shot is so powerful it always rips the condoms Haruna gets him through means I choose to remain ignorant about. Funny, huh?"

"I-I am, though!" Saki answered very quickly.

"That's just wonderful, dear," Minako told her, with a clear 'Like I care' tone. "I'm sure your father will be so relieved when he learns. Which he will. Very soon."

Saki sank down on her chair with a distressed expression, as Aya and Rin tried fanning her back into shape.

"Ayaka," Minako said then. "I know I should be angry at you. Maybe it says a lot about my own shortcomings as a mother than I am not actually furious towards you, or your friends, or even towards the child you have just molested."

"It wasn't molestation!" Negi argued.

"Yes it was," Minako bluntly said. "World hero in adult body or not, you are still a child. Regardless, it's not like we have not witnessed and even covered up even worse things before, much to my shame. Which is part of why I am not angered at you, Ayaka. Otherwise, I would be a hypocrite. However, it saddens me to see you'd readily risk your own future for a fleeting passion."

"It's not fleeting!" Ayaka shouted. "We will love each other forever!"

"It's amusing that you happen to say that, because that is exactly what I used to think about a boy much like him, when I was around your age. However, time proved me wrong, and odds are it will do the same to you. Fortunately, with your father, I would then find, if not that raw passion, then something far more important. Stability. And not only in the financial sense -"

"Yet, I'm sure his millions greatly helped to mend your poor, shattered heart!" her daughter sneered.

"They didn't hurt," Minako admitted. "God knows your father might have been impossible to bear in the long run without them, until I learned to cope with and even appreciate what he is. At first, I thought we truly loved each other the same way my first love and I did, but as time passed, I came to realize all his character flaws, and yet love him despite them. True, he was cold, arrogant, distant, and worst of it all, he was -"

"Mother," Ayaka interrupted her very coldly.

"Yes, dear?"

Ayaka threw a punch at her face. Negi reached up and intercepted that punch before it could connect, literally flashing in between mother and daughter, and blocking his student's fist with ease. "No fighting, no fighting!" he cried, somewhat predictably.

Undeterred, and aided by Negi's momentary distraction, Ayaka flung her other fist over the boy's shoulder, and that one did hit her mother in the face.

Minako barely recoiled, calmly rubbing her aching nose. "Much more protective of your father than I would have expected, despite how you act around him. Even though he has been keeping all those secrets from you, and even though he doesn't hold you in high esteem. And worst of it all, even though he isn't really -"

"SHUT UP!" Ayaka shrilled, jumping past Negi and on her mother before she could finish the sentence.

"Ayaka!" Negi screamed at her, but his student already had pounced on her mother, tackling her down and starting to pull on her hair, since there was so much of it. He tried to come in between them to separate them, but Minako herself pushed him back with a foot.

"No, Sensei," she said, proceeding to push Ayaka off herself as well, with her other foot. "We need to settle this strictly between ourselves. I should have disciplined you this way long ago, Ayaka."

Her daughter seethed. "And now you're admitting you wanted to abuse me? For shame, woman! I disown you as my mother!"

"You can't do that! It's only parents who can disown their children, not the other way around! I believed you were smart enough to know that!"

"Well, then consider this as a declaration of my emancipation from you!"

"You can't unilaterally make those kinds of declarations either! That requires a court hearing!"

"Oh. In that case... in that case consider this as a cause to have me disowned!" Ayaka roared, ramming against her and sending her down again.

"This is... interesting," Asuna mused aloud, a hand on her chin. "But it's also uncool, Iinchou. Why, if I had a mother -"

Roberta by now had pretty much called it quits on the subject and just sat back with a hanging head. Aya and Rin were still fanning an absently whimpering Saki.

"I won't disown!" Minako yelled, wrestling Ayaka down into a painful back lock, mounting her body. "Because I love you!"

Ayaka headbutted her to squirm free. "You don't love anyone but yourself!"

"That isn't true!" Minako said as they began slapping each other, in a way not too unlike Ayaka and Asuna's own fights. "I love you more than anything! And I love your father, even if not in a passionate way!"

"You just said you couldn't bear him, you lying harpy!"

"That doesn't mean I don't love him! That's what I was outright telling you! Often, you can't help loving people who drive you mad! Like you with Asuna-chan!"

"Heyyy!" Asuna said.

"Okay, that is IT!" Ayaka punched her mother in the stomach - repeatedly, as punctuation. "I. Don't. Love. Ape. Girl. Period!"

"What she said!" Asuna said. "And it's mutual, no matter what we might have said while not in control of ourselves!"

"Yes, you do! Gods, you're so stubborn!" Minako throttled Ayaka in a very Homer Simpsonesque way, letting her go after just a moment. "Be more honest with your feelings!"

"I can't be honest since you were never honest first!" Ayaka returned the favor. Despite the warning, Negi tried to interfere again, only to be pushed away once more, this time by Minako's hips.

"The kind of person I was doesn't matter!" Minako spun around, caught her daughter in a back suplex, and slammed her against the ground, keeping her pinned there. "I raised you to be a better person than me!"

"YOU DIDN'T RAISE ME AT ALL!" Ayaka all but bawled.

At that, Minako blinked and loosened her grip, seeming to shrink back slightly. Ayaka pulled herself free, sniffling, and slapped her mother once again. Then, seeing the woman wasn't moving or even reacting at all, Ayaka began tearing up, crumbling down on her knees and into her mother's arms. Minako caught her mechanically and finally rested her chin on Ayaka's right shoulder. There was a whisper. _"I'm sorry."_

"Saying that doesn't make anything better now, you... you witch!" Ayaka kept on crying.

Minako kissed the top of her head softly. "I know. I was afraid that I'd end up turning you into another me if I spent too long around you. That was a stupid mistake, and I know it's no excuse for my other mistakes. But... that's the way I have felt all these years."

"Yukihiro-sama," Negi said, on the edge of tears. Even Asuna and Roberta seemed genuinely moved.

Ayaka said nothing, but continued sniffling angrily against her stoically stiff mother. Until the older woman finally spoke again. "Keep in mind, despite my even and dignified noble attitude, I'm not taking this as anything normal," she cautioned, "And you, Ayaka, have greatly fallen short of the moral standards I had expected you to meet."

"I think I can live with that," Ayaka said, copying the tone and delivery of the average Chisame snarking.

Minako frowned. "Don't get clever with me, young lady. Just because I'm not going to alter the delicate balance of your group and potentially doom mankind, it doesn't mean I like your belonging to a... a..."

"Community of hot free forbidden love," Aya supplied.

Minako casually nodded while Roberta made a darkly annoyed grunt. "As for you, Sensei, I'll be lenient on you, since, despite your claims, it's clear you are the biggest victim of all in this entire ugly even if terribly alluring affair. But if even your guardian has basically washed her hands of this, who am I to try and save you?"

"You're doing the same thing to your daughter!" Roberta roared.

"Th-Thank you, Yukihiro-sama!" the boy blushed. "Although, although I don't think I really need to be rescued from anything ..."

Mrs. Yukihiro smiled, caressing him on a cheek. "No, you wouldn't think that, would you? Poor darling. Gods, you're so cute. So much like that person, too. I guess that's why I really can't blame my daughter for falling after you, just for not being strong enough against the temptation. Still, I'd have done the same thing in her place."

"Then why are you putting my morals into question?" Ayaka asked her.

"Because it's a fun thing to do?" Asuna asked in turn.

"Because, notwithstanding any of that, it is objectively wrong, and because all mothers want their children to be better than them, that's why," Minako explained with a condescending tone. "You'll understand when you have children of your own and they come to you saying they slept with Sensei's children."

"Sensei's children will be mine!" Ayaka protested.

"Saying they slept with each other, then."

"Ghrar." (Need it really be said who made that utterance?)

"My point is, Ayaka, while I am far from being the squeaky cleanest person in the world, I had hopes you'd be far better than me. Maybe you still can be. But I won't deny a part of me has been crushed today. However, I won't stop loving you. And that's why, Sensei, from now on I'll consider you indebted, permanently, to our family."

"Ah," Negi said, with very wide eyes, while Ayaka took the chance to nod vigorously, finally agreeing with something her mother said. Asuna rolled her eyes but said nothing.

"And for that," Minako continued, "and in exchange for my sacrifice, specifically the silence of an offended mother, I want the means to protect my daughter and her future husband, also our business partner in an unprecedented enterprise spanning two worlds." She smiled again, and said invitingly, "I want to be a partner for you, as well."

Roberta, Saki, Asuna, Rin, Aya and Negi made identical wild takes.

"So, you want sex with him as well?" Ayaka asked dryly.

Roberta shifted around uncomfortably. So did Negi. Saki seemed to be snapping out of her daze by then, tilting her head aside curiously, and Asuna hummed with deep thoughts.

Minako put a hand on her own cheek. "Oh my! How kind from you to offer such relief to your poor, neglected, forgotten mother, my dear. Actually, I was thinking mostly about one of those, how do you call them, Alliances, but that would be nice as well."

"I'm not offering anything!" Ayaka snapped. "In brutal and crass Asuna-san terms, like Hell I'm sharing my precious Negi-sensei with you, too!"

"But you do it with your friends. Am I, blood of your blood, the woman who gave you life, less for you than your classmates, people you only have known for seven years at most?"

"Yes!"

"Ayaka!" Negi gasped.

Minako put a finger on her mouth. "How cruel. You truly took after your father, Ayaka-chan. And you would even deny Roberta-san the sweet relief of finally getting over her long-standing sexual attraction for you, as well?"

"What are you babbling about, woman?" Ayaka sneered. "Roberta-san doesn't hold that sort of appetites for me! Right, Roberta-san?" she turned to her maid for confirmation. "You ... don't ..."

She trailed off as she saw Roberta gazing down at her own feet, looking like a somber stone sculpture of guilt personified. Even Ayaka could get the point, although Negi still seemed somewhat puzzled.

"Do you?" Ayaka asked quietly.

The maid spoke in a low voice. "You are the light of my damaged soul, the only beacon of ongoing hope in a life marred by violence. Even corrupted as you are now, you are still my icon of purity, but also, over the years, I have watched you blossom into the most beautiful of all women. I would crawl over mile upon mile of broken glass to sweat in your shadow."

"Huh?" Ayaka said.

"In terms even a sheltered teenager and a traumatized boy can understand, please," Minako gently requested.

Roberta drew a very deep breath and said, "You would make me the world's happiest woman if we fucked, Ojou-sama."

"Ah," Ayaka and Negi blandly chorused.

"Ah, of course," Rin said, even more dryly. It came as no surprise to her, since it took one to know another.

Ayaka scratched her head. Wow, first Chizuru, and maaaybe there had been occasional sparks with Natsumi, then probably Ape Girl, and now Roberta? She always had known she was, in Asuna terms again, hot stuff, but this kind of confirmation was simply vexing! In a way.

Still, Roberta seemed so oddly mortified, Ayaka felt moved to say, "Ah, well, if, if you really, love me so much, I'm honored, very honored, but ... but... oh, what the hell. Let's fuck."

Minako beamed a smile as her daughter drooped in defeat. "Your room or mine, Ayaka-chan?"

Roberta grabbed Ayaka by an arm and hissed, _**"Hers."**_

"But mine has a mirror on the ceiling, and -"

_**"Hers,"**_ Roberta repeated.

Minako blinked. "Oh. Oh, of course it would hold more of a forbidden appeal for you if -"

Roberta was all but pulling Ayaka away with herself, without looking back. "You always can make use of your own room if you wish so, Madame. We won't mind."

"I will!" Ayaka protested weakly.

Minako pondered that, frowned, and then grabbed Negi, rushing after them with him in tow. "No, no, no!" she declaimed. "Doing this separately would only undermine the point of my renewed bond with my precious daughter!"

Asuna chuckled as she followed them, hands on her hips. "Well, all's well when it ends well!"

"Aren't we going to-?" Aya hopefully asked Saki.

The Tenjouin heiress shook her head, sitting back and rubbing her own temples. "I've been struck by a sudden headache. But... you can go join them, if that's your wish."

But neither Rin nor Aya moved away from her side.

"Didn't we come here to talk about more pressing subjects, anyway?" Negi sulked. "And what about your domestic help? Won't they get susp-"

"Oh, Sensei, how naughty!" Minako chided him. "Wanting for the staff to join us? Well, I always can ring for them-"

"On second thought, just telling them to leave us alone for a while will suffice?" he quickly amended.

* * *

At the front of the mansion, Fabiola Iglesias, Fubuki, Taeko, Sebastian the Butler and Siesta kept on sweeping.

"Honestly, we should stop by now," Siesta complained. "My hands hurt, and I'm sure Minako-sama wasn't literal when she told us to do this until she called for us."

"You just keep sweeping," Sebastian instructed.

"But it's so clean now, we could even eat on-" Fabiola began.

"KEEP SWEEPING!" Fubuki barked.

* * *

It always ended like this. No matter what he did, no matter how much he protested agianst it, he always ended up having highly questionable sexual activity with the women who approached him for close companionship, and even with some that didn't. By now, Negi was not exactly used to it, but more or less resigned to the idea that his budding hormones and those of the females in his life would end up betraying them. So he wasn't protesting anymore.

He was naked in bed with a married woman, the mother of one of his closest students, taking her from behind while said daughter and student lay a few inches away being thoroughly licked by her maid. A married woman. Negi had never been particularly religious, always being more prone to believe on science (and even applied magic counted as a science once you mastered its principles), but even so, what he was an obvious offense against the Commandments Nekane had taught him about. In his mind, his conscience would not stop ringing, accusing him of how horrible and awful he was being.

But it felt so good, and Minako-sama seemed so happy, and her flesh felt so nice between his hands as he grabbed her hips and thrusted into her again and again. The boy panted and rocked back and forth, unable to hold himself back anymore. She had told him her husband would not care, and that he had done worse to her, so maybe it was some sort of karmic compensation for her. And Ayaka had stopped protesting about it, although the way Roberta was applying frantic cunnilingus on her seemed to have the lion's share of explanation for that. Dimly, Negi wondered how Chizuru would react to this turn of events. He was not that naive anymore. He had more or less realized Chizuru had Ayaka as her clear favorite person in more ways than one. Even if only after Asuna and recently Kotaro drilled the subject into him.

"Coming," he announced, clutching onto Minako's body as he ejaculated into her, holding himself steady to unload all he could as the woman sighed lovingly. He had trusted her when she said her miscarriage had left her unable to conceive again, so he had not pulled out this time. Had he known she had lied to them with the vague hope of conceiving a child from him, the closest thing to that long gone man she had been left with, he never would have done that.

And then she rolled onto him and kissed him wildly, covering his lips with hers over and over. Yes, it was Ayaka's way of kissing; heritage was a powerful thing. He kissed back to complete her happiness, feeling her large plump breasts against his chest. He was getting sort of hard again already. And then he casually eyed Roberta's posterior and vulva, clearly visible from where she had crawled on top of Ayaka to kiss her mouth, and against his better judgment, his mind began wondering ...

Minako smiled at him and purred, "Oh, are you thinking what I am thinking, my dear?"

"Ah!" Negi quickly tore his eyes away from Roberta's firm and muscular buttocks, actually blushing. "NO!"

"Oh yes, you are," Minako said, lifting him by his armpits and guiding him towards Roberta's back, with a strength that seemed highly unfitting a pampered woman raised in luxury by mundanes. "Roberta-san," she spoke then, "Bloodhound of Florencia, do you accept, as this family's watchdog, your future master and husband of my daughter, the same way you accept my daughter herself?"

"Ah, I don't think you should call her that, because she's also a -" Negi began gently protesting, before Roberta grunted and pushed her derriere against his erection.

The maid lowered her head as her hands held Ayaka's against the mattress. "I am only a rabid animal given a second chance by this family. And if Ojou-sama has accepted you into this family, it is not for me to deny you. Use my body as you see fit," she said, with a dry and stoic voice.

"But... but I couldn't possibly -" Negi gasped, then shuddered as Roberta subtly shifted her position so his tip was rubbing against her vaginal entrance. His skin crawled, and then his primal mind took over. He rested his hands on Roberta's scar covered back, and then pushed into her wet vulva, hissing with pleasure.

It was strange for Ayaka, even after all she had seen and done lately, watching her beloved teacher taking her closest maid right on top of Ayaka herself. Roberta's large breasts flipped back and forth over Ayaka's face, while the woman clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. Roberta was far from being a virgin, and particularly during her years with the FARC, she had been with a variety of men in both sides of the law, but it amazed how this young stupid man seemed to be better than any of them. Granted, the size of his thing probably helped, although a tool that was too big in the hands of an inexpert oaf was a

Negi's hands traveled up Roberta's body until stopping at her breasts, which he squeezed for support as he panted softly, and kept on pumping into her. At the same time, Minako hugged him from behind and began kissing his neck and cheeks. Asuna sat at a corner of the room doing what she did best at that kind of situations, and through her self-caresses, she wondered if she should try his luck with Minako-sama, since she apparently was so loose with those things lesser people called morals. She was wary of going there, though, since the things he had heard about angry the woman from Ayaka (who granted, was far from being the most reliable source ever) made her skin crawl up. Although so far, in the flesh, she didn't seem to be that bad at all. Odd and weird, but less stuckup than Iinchou.

Ayaka saw the by now known signs of near release on Negi's strained face, and to make sure Roberta climaxed with him, she poked a thumb against her maid's most sensitive private point and began stroking it. Roberta arched her back against him, grunting in release. "Ah, yes," Negi gasped, surrendering himself and ejaculating.

Roberta flopped down on top of Ayaka, with Negi falling on top of her as well. The three of them breathed heavily while Minako and Asuna sat back and smiled with detached amusement. After a few quiet moments of resting together, Roberta blinked, finding him to be still hard against her. "It can't be," she said. "Are you still -"

Ayaka smiled, squirming from under her and sitting up on the bed, Roberta's saliva still on her breasts. "My Negi-sensei is a man amongst men! He can go three or four times with no problems!"

Roberta, against her custom, blinked in puzzlement. "I... I see."

Negi scratched the back of his neck. "Um, so, I suppose you want ... to go next, now, Ayaka," he said, with some odd mixture of reluctance and childlike eagerness.

"Yes!" Ayaka hissed, pinning his arms against the bed and looming over him. "However, now that I think about it, we have never done this in private, have we, Sensei? I'd love a special time where I could have you all to myself. In private. Just the two of us. With no annoying parents or unruly classmates or even otherwise dear guardians present."

"Very well, I can take a hint," Minako said, standing up from the bed and grabbing Roberta by her hand, gently pulling her away from Ayaka. The maid groaned, but made no effort to resist. "Ah, young love! Have fun, Ayaka, you little wonderful whore of mine. Let's go to my room then, Roberta-san. Mirrors in the ceiling, remember!"

Seeing how they still were naked but almost at the door now, Roberta said, "Wait, shouldn't we first -"

"You know, I always wanted to walk naked around my house, but never dared to do it," Minako mused. "And what's the point of being a multimillionaire if you can't do what you want in your own house? Besides, your colleagues should be still sweeping the front. And it's not like you have been shy around them with your nudity - and more - in the past, or am I wrong?"

"Ahhhh," Roberta said.

Minako threw a look over her shoulder at Asuna. "Well, Asuna-san? Aren't you coming as well? My daughter has indicated she wants to be ALONE with Negi-sensei."

"Ahhhh, but-!" Asuna said.

Minako winked at her. "I have always tried to be nice to my daughter's dear friends. Who knows, you might end up learning that age and experience sometimes trump youth and vigor... so to speak."

Asuna bolted after them, chuckling. "Yes, Ma'am!"

As the door clicked close after the three, Ayaka chuckled. "Well, I suppose that horrible woman might not be so horrible after all. Now, Negi-sensei, where were we?"

"Ahhhh," Negi said.

"I thought so," Ayaka said, and started kissing his mouth frantically.

* * *

Roberta looked over her mistress' shoulder, at the mirror hanging over the bed, looking at how that Asuna, now wearing a double-ended dildo straped around her hips, was plugged into Minako's rectum, pumping madly while the blonde rubbed her sex against Roberta's, her mouth kissing all over the maid's neck. As expected, Minako was technically much better at sex than her daughter, but it provided nowhere nearly the same amount of satisfaction for Roberta than her time with Ayaka had given her.

Which was not at all surprising, because despite two or three experiences in her past, even before her drunken times with the other maids, Roberta had never been one to feel an actual sexual attraction for any female other than her Ojou-sama. She had expected the mother would give her some of the same feeling the daughter had given her, but now she realized that had been a foolish hope. Still, she had agreed to it, and it would be in bad form to go back on it now.

Although she would draw the line on letting Ojou-sama's rival (whom her Ojou-sama did NOT love) have her way with her body.

Minako's fingers pressed all over Roberta's body, at times rubbing against her old wounds. "Tell me," she rasped. "Did my husband never take you like this? Don't tell me you never were his."

"He never approached me that way," she replied honestly, biting on her lower lip as Minako finally hit a sweet spot. "I have a feeling I scare him."

"Really? No woman has ever scared him."

"I must have scared him," she said, tugging on Minako's hair, which only made her moan harder. "Otherwise, he'd never have hired me."

"CUUUUUUMMING!" Asuna cried out, jerking in place and then falling on her back from Minako's buttocks, landing between her legs. "Ahhhhh, now this was some fine stuff, Yukihiro-sama! Do you think maybe you could lend us some-"

Minako's foot absently sent her flying her off the bed, as her energetic rubs against Roberta grew faster and rougher. Not fast and rough enough for the maid's liking, so the Latina woman turned her around and took over, pinning her and humping her in a way that made Minako almost feel like it was a man fucking her. She certainly didn't do it like any other woman she had ever been with. "Ah! Ah, yes, Roberta-san, that way, it's, it's -"

"Ow, well, thanks to you too!" Asuna bitterly muttered from the floor.

"Shut up, bitch," the maid ground harder, almost hurting Minako, squeezing her wrists. "Fucking rich slut, you turned your poor daughter just like you, you -"

"Oh, don't give me that," Minako hissed as she used the same foot as before to slap Roberta in the ass. "If Ayaka were still a naive girl, you wouldn't have just vented out your own dirty impulses on her. And if you have to blame someone about it anyway, it's Negi-sensei and Asuna-san here's- OOOHHH GODS YESSSS."

Roberta waited until her mistress stopped shaking in orgasm, and she didn't even protest when Minako reached up to kiss her mouth. But once their lips were separated, the servant asked, humorless, "Exactly what will we do about Genjuro-sama?"

Minako sighed, lying back and tossing her glorious golden hair aside. "I will handle the familiar difficulties of this house. That is all you really need to know about that, Roberta."

"But-"

"I think I will nap for a few minutes, until the children are done and we can have our talk about more long term matters," the blonde decided, closing her eyes tightly. "You are, of course, welcome to join me in this as well, my dear Roberta, Asuna-san."

Honestly, Roberta felt like killing her. But she was getting softer in her old age.

* * *

He knelt between her spread legs, grabbing her ankles as he pumped into her. By now, it was like a well practiced act that made up for the lack of novelty with how comfortingly ... safe it felt. It was strange thinking of sex with a student as a safe thing, but the more often he had been with a girl, the less disorienting it felt. Which most likely was a bad thing on itself. It meant he was growing accustomed to doing wrong things.

Regardless, out of them all, no one voiced her pleasure at being with him more than Ayaka, which was, in a way, also rewarding emotionally. Best of all, he could feel she was fully sincere, while Chisame and Yozora had problems to express their emotions and Setsuna seemed to always lack something from the experience. He swore he'd get them to enjoy it as much as Ayaka did, since he hated letting people down.

"Ah, yes, yes, like that, I loooove it so much..." Ayaka panted, her breasts bouncing in rhythm with his motions. They didn't bounce all over the place like Kaede's, but they had the right size to make for a more appealing bounce than Asuna's, never mind the others. Until this very same day with Minako and Roberta, most of Negi's lovers but Asakura, Haruna and Kaede had been of modest breast size. And while he recognized the beauty of small breasts, he couldn't help wondering how would it look, to see the bouncing chest of Shizuna-sensei, or Chizuru, or Mana, or Asahina-san or -

Ugh, no! He was turning into some kind of pervert, wasn't he? He was losing his mind, and yet, even now, all he could think about was about how wonderful it felt, to be with the girls, his girls, making them happy, and how pleasant it was, how Ayaka's inner walls massaged his member, with so much skill, so much love ...

"I love you, I love you, with all my heart, Negi-sensei," his lover muttered, hoarse by now, rolling her tongue out, clawing at the bed under her. "Please, please say it, you love me too."

_"I love you,"_ he whispered, hoping she understood the context in which he was saying, that she knew that, while he loved them all, it most likely was not the same kind of raging love she had for him. It would have to suffice, he told himself, hoping it wouldn't hurt her in the long run, or he couldn't live with it. That way, perhaps, he could only ever love -

No. A teacher couldn't ever play any favorites, and he still was their teacher before anything else.

"Ayaka," he said, gulping hard, hugging her. "Almost there."

"Inside," she begged, like always, keeping him secured against her. And once again, he complied, shooting hot liquid inside of her, making her sigh. What was the use anymore, on trying to fight it?

They lay there together for several moments, holding each other and saying nothing, until he saw the sun was setting down through the nearest window.

"You will eventually talk with my father about this, won't you," Ayaka quietly said.

"I must," he sighed, sitting up on the bed. "I can't keep running from this. Will you be at my side, please?"

She placed a hand on his, smiled, and squeezed it. "In all moments of your life, as long as I can."

He weakly smiled back, and didn't resist when she kissed his lips again, tenderly.

All in all, he told himself, he was fortunate.

Right?

* * *

_Meanwhile, across the campus..._

"Tendo Akane?" asked a small blond girl, closely followed by a green haired slim beauty, as they approached Akane at the baths, after a long day of physical training.

The short haired girl stopped, finishing wrapping her pink towel around her body. "Hm, yes, that's me. Who wants to know?"

The small blonde smirked. "I'm Evangeline A.K. McDowell, a classmate of your fiancee's sister, and this is Karakuri Chachamaru. We would like to talk with you about Saotome Ranma for a short while, if you don't mind?"

"What did Ranma do this time?" Akane sighed, with an air of exasperated resignation. No wonder Ranma had been acting so strange since the Sports Festival, even actively avoiding her most of the time. He never failed to act like that after really messing things up.

"Alone," the Evangeline girl said, glancing towards Akane's friends Yuka and Sayuri, who stood several steps behind the Tendo girl.

Akane frowned suspiciously. "Let's get this straight before anything else. You weren't engaged to Ranma by your parents and Uncle Genma, were you? No offense, but you seem a bit too young for that... or to be Haruna-chan's classmate, for that matter..."

"My parents... have absolutely nothing to do with any of this," the petite blonde said, now sounding strangely tense. "And no, rest assured I have absolutely no romantic designs on that boy. Even so, I know something about him you have every right to learn as well."

Akane pondered that for a few seconds, feeling the blunt honesty in that strange girl's words, before turning to Yuka and Sayuri. "Girls, would you please go ahead? I really want to have a talk with McDowell-san here."

Yuka blinked. "But, Akane...!"

"Please," their friend stated, simply but categorically. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. And don't go and tell Ranma or Nabiki anything about this..."

"Unless more than four hours have passed without receiving news from her," Evangeline said.

One of Akane's eyebrows twitched. "Yes. Unless that happens."

She followed the other two girls outside, always glancing in all directions, searching for the first sign of Kodachi or Shan Pu's presence. (She still really wanted to believe Ukyo wouldn't try anything like that.) And then, as if reading her mind, the short foreigner amusedly told her, "This is no ambush, Tendo Akane. And I have no reasons to work for any of your rivals. I am the exclusive master of my own fate."

"... I think we're 'alone' enough here," Akane said, stopping under a large tree.

Evangeline stopped as well, glanced around a few times in a lazy, condesvending way, and yawned. "I concur."

"Then, what's what you wanted to tell me about Ranma?" asked Akane.

"I lied," Evangeline said.

Akane blinked. "You mean you don't know anything about Ranma? But then, why bother bringing me here?"

"No, no. I meant, I lied when I said this wasn't an ambush," the blonde matter-of-factly said. "You'll forgive me, I'm sure. When you grow as old as I, little everyday lies become pretty much a necessity. As well as an endless source of amusement."

Akane's body sprang into alarm. Unfortunately, nowhere near enough to make any difference when, silent and swiftly, Karakuri-san came up behind her and softly tapped her on the back of her neck.

Then, sleep and darkness claimed her.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Wow. That WAS a very difficult chapter to write, mostly because the muse briefly dumped me in the middle of it (capricious mistress!), but also because I originally was going to include a lemon scene set in the medical wing and dealing with Kotaro, Kitami, Kouko and the others that never panned out (but it took me more than one week to realize I had to drop it). Luckily, I had an unpublished lemon scene for another dormant project dealing with Ayaka's mother and Roberta around, and after a few tweakings, presto, chapter finished! Still, it delayed me (and Darkenning) a lot, and so I'm very sorry, Dark. And thanks a million for the wait!

The Yukihiro Minako seen in this chapter, despite being blond, sexually free spirited and possibly half-blood, has nothing to do with Aino 'Sailor Venus' Minako, who also exists somewhere in this universe.

Next time- Whatever will happen to Akane? All that, plus, um, well, let's see what does Dark have in store next, okay? See you!

Bueno, chau.

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	10. Misa, Sakurako, Madoka, Makoto, Yuki

"F'r Gosh's sake, Spirit- Spill it!" Commissioner Dolan said, doing an admirable job of balancing his pipe firmly in his mouth while shouting. "What's it all about?!"

The Spirit held the piece of paper up, and read aloud, "This story is for adults only. _Mahou Sensei Negima_ and all its characters belong to Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha. No money is being made from this fanfiction."

Dolan blinked. "But... what does that have to do with Sand Saref?"

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Ten**.

Now with 100% more non-sequitur disclaimers.

* * *

"Well?" the small blonde asked. "You're wide awake now. I can appreciate the fact you didn't wake up with the 'Ooohhhh, my head ... Where am I?' cliché, but don't you owe me at least the 'Who are you, and what am I doing here?!' cliché? It's basic courtesy from a hostage, you know."

Tendo Akane exhaled, still enjoying the cool breeze on her face. "There's a very pretty view here," she said, looking down at the endless abyss of blue sky and white clouds just past the edge of the platform on which rested the chair to which she was tied. "Since I assume this is your place, I trust that counts as a form of relatively innovative politeness, which should be far more to everyone's liking."

Evangeline, who had been standing before the chair in her child form and the very skimpy black negligee that definitely did not mesh with it (at least not according to all standard social taboos), blinked. "Oh. I see. This happens to you often?"

"Like you have no idea," Akane nodded. "Now, let's see, normally, my kidnappers are enemies of Ranma using me as bait, or Ranma's insane suitors out to get me, or insane suitors who are after me. I think we can discard your being in love with Ranma, since otherwise you'd already have chucked me down that abyss while I was unconscious." Wow, was this going to suck if she'd got that wrong and the crazy girl was way more sadistic than even Kodachi.

"Perceptive," Evangeline conceded. "Indeed, the Saotome boy is hardly my type. Not without his physical appeal, but too dumb, and yet too clever. I'm afraid I'm a woman of extremes."

"I can tell," Akane agreed. "I also can tell you aren't in love with me, since I have never attracted a single lesbian in my life, much less one who went in for kidnapping. And your eyes really aren't those of a girl in love. Not even yandere love. You're just really annoyed at how much of a smartass I'm being."

"Quite," Eva conceded again, twitching an eyebrow.

Akane smiled. "It's also unlikely you are working for a third party, since I can see, from your posturing and attitude, you're a proud strange creature who likes being her own master. Therefore, the only reason why I'm here is that you are using me as living bait for Ranma, whom you're after because of some vendetta or another. Let me guess; you have an adult form like Hinako-sensei?"

Evangeline smiled back. "Close, but not quite. I do have an older form -"

"- but you chose showing yourself this way because it'd unnerve me more." Akane nodded. _Damn, I've got a real knack for this detective stuff_, she thought, making reference to a different SCM story than usual.

"Quiet, you. As I was saying, I do have an older form, which I chose not to use for this interview because of my own reasons that aren't your business and don't have anything to do with unnerving you so there - but I have no vendetta against your boyfriend, much like an immortal phoenix can have no grudges against the beetle that walks through the dun-"

"He isn't my boyfriend!" Akane protested.

"Ho ho! Finally, a cliché victim answer! Even with a blush! It's all a matter of pressing the right buttons," the diminutive blonde boasted. "Tendo Akane, while you indeed are here because of Saotome Ranma, it's not because I have anything against him, or even you. My motives are never that petty."

"Ahem," the doll sitting at Eva's feet and holding a huge butcher knife rasped. Until then, Akane hadn't really realized that doll was there, and the added realization it was apparently was really shocked her. Not enough to make her scream, mind. After all, she'd had her mind switched with a cursed doll's once, and when that happens to you, you stop being creeped out by that sort of thing. Mostly.

Eva casually kicked the doll aside, and the doll grabbed hold of the platform's edge by sinking her knife into it and climbed all the way back up. Eva's smile became downright beatific. "Baseless slander aside, of course. Do I look or sound like the petty type?"

Akane chose not to point out how kicking a seemingly living being dangerously close to a seemingly bottomless chasm only because of a merely implied and not actually voiced comment sort of did count as being petty. "I guess not," the Tendo girl allowed. "A really petty woman would have tied my feet as well." She moved her legs around. "That means you are confident I can't escape by only using my feet, probably kicking you, then breaking the chair by pushing myself back against the floor. And that, in turn, means you are either terribly naive and arrogant, which would be your usual bad guy downfall, or you actually can back that up with facts. Since you seem to own a floating platform and a living doll with knives, I lean towards the latter."

Evangeline nodded sagely. "I'd like to congratulate you on becoming that impressively savvy on reading your kidnappers mostly right -"

"Thank you," Akane sincerely replied.

"- except that being incompetent enough to get yourself kidnapped that many times in the first place is nothing to be proud about!" Eva growled.

"Who are you really, and what am I doing here?" Akane asked, nonplussed.

Eva stared at her.

Akane shrugged. "It's not that much of a cliche if I say it now, instead of blurting it out right after I woke up, right?"

"Let me kill her, Master," the doll begged, weighing the big knife in her little hands.

"Not yet, not yet," Eva denied, rubbing her own temples in circles.

"I really gotta go pee," Akane said, choosing to go with a typical Ranma careless claim to further throw her off balance. "I mean, I'm on a flying platform of some sort, so what am I going to do if you untie me so I don't mess your chair and floor up? Am I going to sprout wings and fly away?"

McDowell-san looked at the doll and nodded once.

The doll raised her knife, then brought it down, cutting Akane's...

... ropes, barely touching the hairs on the girl's arms.

"... thank you..." Akane said, getting up and rubbing the almost bleeding marks on her skin. "Then, what if I hear the start of those explanations as you show me the way to the ladies' room?"

"Let's go," Eva nodded. "Although I've a good mind to drown you in the toilet as soon as we're there..."

"Oh, come on. Last time I was kidnapped, they AT LEAST had the decency to try and drown me in a spring!"

* * *

"So, it's much better to discuss things here than in the toilet, wouldn't you agree?" Evangeline smirked as she sat across Akane in the middle of a flowery garden, with Chachamaru serving them drinks (wine for Eva, orange juice for Akane).

The other girl groaned. "I guess, but even so, I think I've waited too long. So, is this place some sort of illusion, or-?"

"It's completely real, it just happens to exist in a separate plane of reality. Don't strain yourself too much thinking about it," advised the blonde. "Suffice to say, one day here equals one hour outside, so that'll give us enough time to sort things out."

"Uh-huh. And what do we have to sort out, then? If you have nothing personal against me, why bother bringing me here?"

"Curiosity, perhaps," Evangeline shrugged. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Then ask," Akane said, fully aware she was taking this conversation onto what had to be one of the worst paths. She was placing herself in a position where she would have to defend rather than attack.

"What do you know about Nagi Springfield?"

Akane blinked. "What does he have to do with me?"

"I was asking for an answer, not another question. Who do you think you are, Socrates?"

"Sheesh... I don't know a lot about him, but then, who does?"

"That's another question - look, haven't you ever stopped to wonder why they'd allow a young adult male teacher who has just arrived at Mahora to live in a female dormitory, without ever actually teaching classes?"

"... because he's gay?"

Evangeline chuckled.

"I mean," Akane said, "that's what everyone says!"

Evangeline kept chuckling. "Oh, no! No, no, he's definitely not gay, no sir! Far from it!"

"How can you be so sure?" an annoyed Akane asked.

"Because I've had sex with him. Repeatedly," the little girl replied matter-of-factly.

Akane grew instantly beet red and choke on the last of her drink. Chachamru softly patted and massaged her on the back to help her swallow.

"Whaaaat?!" Akane finally could say. "How dare he, that fiend, that pervert, that enemy of all women, that-!"

"And he's done it with several other females!" Eva cheerily added.

There was no more drink to choke on, so Akane proceeded to choke on her own saliva instead. Then, slapping Chachamaru's helpful hand aside, she yelled, "Y-You can't be serious! What kind of man -?!"

Eva looked lazily at her own fingernails. "Not a man, actually. Being as it is he's only Negi Springfield, that adorable Boya you no doubt knew about, just under a temporary ... let's call it a curse, that makes him look older, I expect your judgment on him to be more merciful. If anything, it's us who have corrupted him."

"Whaaaat?!" Akane said again.

Eva snorted. "Oh please. Unless Haruna lied to us, it's not like you haven't witnessed age transformations before. What about those mushrooms that-"

"That isn't what I'm mad about!" Akane cried. "You know ... you know -!" A pause, and then, said with a deadly tension, "Haruna-chan is one of those girls, isn't she?"

Nod, nod, went Chachamaru and Evangeline.

Akane facepalmed, wonderful Internet Era verbal conjugation. "And Haruna-chan told you to bring me here, too? She's never liked me for some reason."

"I think she might have mentioned your being violent, irrational, judgmental and abusive of her brother as reasons," Eva hummed. "She's got a bit of a Brother Complex, if you ask me."

"On the bright side, I believe she dislikes your romantic rivals more," Chachamaru finally intervened.

"They aren't my romantic rivals!" Akane said. "And, and why should Haruna-chan do that just to cover up her involvement in this, this, whatever this is?! Why does she care if I learn or not?!"

Eva rolled her eyes. "Like you wouldn't go straight to Saotome Ranma to tell him everything just as soon as you learned about it."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?!" Akane challenged, leaping to her feet. "Well, joke's on you! I wouldn't, and I won't, because I don't care who's she having, having, having ... relationships with!"

"Oh really," Evangeline said, noting her inability to use the word 'sex' with interest.

"Really!" Akane confirmed.

"I'll take you up on that."

"Whatever!"

"Okey dokey." Evangeline poured herself another glass. "Haruna thought you would be quite problematic about this, but I can only sight with relief -" She snickered with the greatest sarcasm. "- now that I know you couldn't care less about the fact that she has been having sex with her own blood brother, your fiancee."

And with that, with nothing but mere mundane words, with no spellwork or witchcraft whatsoever, she petrified Akane in a way that would have made Fate envious.

* * *

Now that we have just hit a major critical point of shocking suspense, that only can mean a single thing... we're going to take a detour over to a lighter side plot and leave you hanging for a while!

"You know, I really, really think we shouldn't be using the Student Council room for this," Tate objected, running a hand in circles over his forehead.

"Oh ho ho, that's a very cutely Suzushiroist thing to say, aside from the lack of malapropisms, Tate-san," Shizuru lightly laughed, sitting at the head of the table. "But, what is the function of our Council, if not to help all of our students deal with their issues? And there are no students with bigger issues than you and Mai-san, so it's only natural for you to receive in situ help."

"We're the only ones not screwing anything that moves, how we are the ones with the biggest issues?" the boy protested. "Are we in Bizarro World now?"

Natsuki, who sat across the table opposite him, stared cold murder to him. "Three girls."

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Shizuru, Konoe-san, and Sakurazaki-san. Three girls," Natsuki coldly said. "I've been with no one but them, and that hardly counts as 'anything that moves'."

"It was just a figure of speech, and you know it!" Tate hissed.

"Use that speech again, and I'll twist your figure," Natsuki warned. "Alright, now, let's start the second round. What's Mai's favorite pop band?"

"Uhhh," Tate hesitated, "Afternoon Tea Time?"

Natsuki crossed her arms in an 'X' shape, which was the sign for Shizuru to ring a buzzer which she did while grinning broadly. "Mai doesn't like pop bands! She's old fashioned in her tastes for music!"

"Ah?" Tate blinked. "But, she loves going to karaoke and-!"

"Liking to sing silly pop songs and liking to listen to silly pop songs are different things!" Natsuki said, pulling out another card, from which she read aloud, "What's Mai's favorite animal?"

"How could anyone dislike some music and yet- Ahhhh, the phoenix?" Tate muttered.

Natsuki made the 'X' shape again, and again Shizuru rang the buzzer. "Just because that was her CHILD, it doesn't mean that's her favorite animal, you fool!"

"I thought those monsters were supposed to mirror your spirits, and all that!" Tate slammed a hand on his own face. "What's this got to do with our relationship, anyway? What kind of weirdos talk about their favorite animals in dates? Veterinarians?"

Now Shizuru AND Natsuki were starting very coldly at him. Tate felt a shudder down his spine.

"Aaaaanyway." Shizuru forced a smile. "I take it that you have never taken Mai-san to the zoo, then?"

"Why would I take a girl to a place full of annoying loud kids that smells of animal dung?" asked the boy.

Shizuru lost the forced smile again. "Our first date was at the zoo."

"I thought it was a movie theater?" he asked, trying his best to figure out why his foot kept pushing itself into his mouth when talking to any woman.

"No, that was the first OFFICIAL date. There's a big difference there," Shizuru said.

"Uh. Well," he uneasily said, "have you ever wanted to go back to the zoo after your relationship became, you know, an actual relationship?"

Natsuki and Shizuru blinked, then had to slowly shake their heads.

Tate smirked. "I rest my case. Anyway, what IS Mai's favorite animal, for future useless reference?"

"Pandas," Natsuki said, without hesitation.

"Pandas?" echoed Tate.

"Aren't they everyone's favorites?" asked Shizuru.

"What? No, mine are wolves!" replied Natsuki.

"Seriously? I thought yours were pandas, as well! You seemed to like that cub at the zoo so much!" said Shizuru.

"See, that's why I think Mai's have to be ... phoenixes? What's the plural for that?" hummed Tate.

"Kiyohime wasn't a panda, though," Shizuru pointed out, right before stopping to wonder exactly how they had gotten to that point. Also, now you are thinking of MaiHiME with Kiyohime as a gigantic panda bear.

"Soooo ... how come you know that about Mai, for starters?" Tate asked Natsuki.

Natsuki frowned. "What are you trying to imply?"

"I'm not trying to imply anything, it's just ... did you really know pandas were her favorites?" He pointed at Shizuru.

Shizuru raised an eyebrow, and after a moment of silence, added, "Yes, you knew that, didn't you, Natsuki?"

"Of course I did!" Natsuki blurted out. "Even if you didn't know mine were wolves!"

"Ara ara, but you never told me that ... yet Mai-san told you about her likes and dislikes?"

"You know how open she is!"

"But she isn't that open," Tate differed.

"That's because you're a boy!" Natsuki shot.

"What's that gotta do with anything?" he asked.

"I mean, what I mean is, you're her boy, and Shizuru is my, she is my girl, and Mai and I are friends instead, and that's why we're more open with each other than she's with you, or I am with Shizuru, or whatever!" she babbled, face growing bright red. "Because romantic relationships need that halo of mystery to work!"

"Then why are you pushing me towards learning as much as I can about Mai?!" he asked.

"Because we're talking about a halo of mystery, but what you don't know anout Mai isn't a halo, it's a fucking nuclear ring after a megaton explosion!" shouted Natsuki, then fell into accelerated panting.

Shizuru took a picture of her with her cellphone. "You're so cute when you're like this. I think I'll forgive you for not knowing I liked pandas."

"Thanks awfully." Natsuki deflated back into her chair.

"But isn't she who should forgive you about the wolv- never mind," Tate said when Natsuki and Shizuru's glares fell on him. "Just give me that next question already."

* * *

Akane began making a long string of incoherent, gagging sounds. Her face had lost all color, and her eyes were bugging out as her hands came higher and clawed at her hair. "gah. Haghah GhHAH GhaAHH GAK-GAK! GYAH!" she said.

Chachamaru, clearly concerned, moved closer to help her, but Evangeline stopped her with a gesture and a smile. Now she had the temperamental child where she wanted her. She had just started breaking her like a cool Boss of Evil naturally would, so the only thing that remained from now was to finish the job. And to do that, she only had to keep talking and explaining the whole situation until the girl would finish snapping under the whole deal. At that point, all rationality useless, her basic instincts would kick in and take over, and like every other freaking kid at that Academy (honestly, was it because of something in the water, or what?) she would surrender to her angry lust. Because Hate Sex was the best sex. That was, other than Dom Sex. And Hate Dom Sex, of course.

"You'll see, Tendo Akane," Eva began to orate, "it all began with Boya, the young man you have believed to be Nagi Springfield until now -"

"Gah ghuurrRRRHH GAH! GRRAAAAHHHH!" Akane said, her lack of color being quickly filled up by a lovely shade of crimson.

"- and then Kagurazaka, like all agressive and foolish young Tsunderes eventually do, not that I'm thinking of anyone else present, snapped under her desire and went for the, if you'll pardon my French, cock she needed so much-"

"GrreeeEEEHHH!" Akane's face went purple, and she began foaming out the mouth. Just in case, Chachamaru went for a first aids kit. "Whe, when, hoW, wHy-?!"

"-and so, Chisame also did it with him. Noticing a pattern in the Tsunderes by now?" Eva asked, pouring herself more tea. "Oh, and that's nothing, because that wench Mikazuki from the Neighbors' Club, who happened to learn they had just done it, was the next one. It came to pass because-"

Akane's face was violently changing colors now, as she trembled and her muscles clenched, and Chachamaru began actually suspecting at any point now, she'd turn green and become a mountain of muscle ripping out of her shirt, like in that one ridiculous Addventure. **"HREEEEEEEEEEE!" **Akane said.

Evangeline just chuckled, picking some biscuits from her plate. "Would you care for some? No? Oh, well, your loss. It was at that point that your foolish sister-in-law-"

_**"RRRRRRRRRRRRR!"**_ Akane said, slooooooooooowly getting up, twitching.

"And then, isn't it funny, Boya grabbed Boya-Turned-Girla and gave her a good, much needed f-"

Chachamaru stepped back, mostly because she knew her Master could easily handle what would come next, but also because, deep deep inside, a tiny part of her sort of thought, in the completely remote and statistically impossible event that she could not, Evangeline had really been asking for it.

"SHUUUUUUUUT! UUUUUUUP!" an extremely angry Akane threw a punch at Evangeline, who graciously moved aside to easily avoid it, while sipping her tea.

The Vampire Witch smirked. "Was it something I said?"

"I'm going to kill him!" Akane shouted, throwing punch after punch, never coming close to hit the tiny blonde, who kept dancing around her punches while barely giving an impression of actual movement. "Where is he?! Tell me! Tell me, tell me, so I can kill that perverted rat bastard!"

"Oh dear," Evangeline said. "I must say I just can't understand it! Why bother getting so steamed up over a rat bastard one doesn't even love?"

Chachamaru discreetly coughed something that might have vaguely sounded like 'Nagi' under her breath, but Eva gave no signs of hearing it.

"I'm going to kill him." A tearful Akane wasn't really listening either. "And, and then I'm getting him expelled, all of you expelled, you monsters, you fiends, you perverts, and, and, and -!"

"I'd be eternally grateful for that miracle," Eva said, stopping her next punch with a pinky. She made it look so easy, too. It was even more frustrating than fighting Shan Pu. "Getting myself thrown OUT of this school? I've dreamed of that for more than fifteen years! And as for Boya, technically, he doesn't even work here anymore."

"Shut up shut up shut up, just tell me where he is!"

Evangeline sighed. "A true prodigy of verbal communication. And this is a product of the best modern Japanese education has to offer. Tell me, Chachamaru, don't you think even Asuna-"

As the vampire ranted, Akane had somehow pulled out a gigantic mallet out of... somewhere, and slammed it down against Evangeline's... blocking pinky. The eternal child raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"GRRRRRR!" Akane growled.

"Oh, in the name of all-!" Eva sighed, batting the mallet aside. It wasn't working as expected, actually. It was rather annoying; it seemed all this one was able to achieve was more rage, and channeled in a clearly non-sexual fashion, too. Eva had hoped for something more... 3-Aish, perhaps? And she certainly hadn't expected anything as blatantly ridiculous as a wooden mallet out of nowhere. It was like something out of a bad comedy, or rather a bad interpretation of a so-so comedy. Why couldn't it be something logical and believable, like an Artifact she'd gotten for kissing someone?! "What kind of obtuse, one-track-minded creature are you, girl? By now, shouldn't you be, perhaps, breaking down in self doubt over your ability to please your man or lack thereof, and your true feelings towards said-"

"GRRRRRAAAA! Akane said, producing ANOTHER mallet, and this time hitting Evangeline's head with it.

For a moment, Eva only stood there, in silence, her face darkened and featureless, with the mallet as her new fancy hat, and Akane seething as she gripped the weapon's handle.

"Hah, HahH. hanh hanh hanh hnnnaaaa..." Akane began panting, tearful eyes red and nearly rolling off their sockets.

Chachamaru discreetly took a few pictures for Chachazero.

Eva's small right hand reached up and tightly grabbed the handle, not to mention Akane's knuckles, so hard she made the black haired girl yelp.

"Very well," McDowell quietly said. "So that way will not work on you. I suppose there are others that would take longer and be just as efficient, but I'm impatient, and evil, and old fashioned, so what the heck, the classics never fail to work."

"Bweh?" Akane said.

Then Evangeline jumped up, caught her in her arms, and sank her angs into her neck.

* * *

_Meanwhile!_

Ashikaga Yuki, once again in his overwhelmingly cute and feminine 'Yuu' disguise, crouched in the darkness of a janitorial broom closet, located at the end of the corridor where the infamous Nagi-sensei also resided. He sighed once again, securing his pink headphones around his head, to make sure he had heard those in the apartment correctly. Although those weren't really his headphones; like the rest of the spy equipment Suzumiya-sempai had gotten him for the current task she had assigned him, she had obtained them for him from some of the Black Ops clubs in campus, no doubt through spine-tingling dubious means.

_"Now," she had told him. "I suspect the root of the problem may lie in what happens within the walls of their vile lair! So I want you to monitor it for me! What? Oh, don't complain, you big baby! Yuki-chan already did the hardest part, setting the hidden bugs in there. You only have to sit in the broom closet at the end of the hall and ... what do you mean, why don't I send Kyon? Kyon's too big! And clumsy! Besides, you're the cute girl, remember? If they catch you in the act, they'll be far more lenient!"_

Well, he didn't know about being caught, but he had a good suspicion now the whole thing was somehow being arranged by Suzumiya as some sort of overly complicated trap for him. First Nagi-sensei and those three girls, then Nagi-sensei and Fate-sensei, had been talking about so many absurd and nonsensical things, most of them related to 'magic' or sexual deviancy, that it just had to be scripted by Suzumiya. There was no other way around it. She had to be pulling the strings of all of that, perhaps as some kind of bizarrely baroque roleplaying-blackmail operation. And he had played right into it, hadn't he? He'd have fled the place long ago, if only he wasn't so sure doing so would only speed the inevitable outcome.

And then, things grew _even_ worse.

(Human) Nature finds a way.

"So there you are!" Sawanaga Taisuke said, opening the closet's door and frowning down at the terrified Yuki. "See, Makoto? I told you the little shit would be around here!"

_"W-What are you doing here?!"_ Yuki hissed, while frantically gesturing for them to keep low. Itou Makoto, who hung a few steps behind Taisuke, in the middle of the corridor, sighed and shrugged his shoulders. _"H-How did you get in, in the first place?!"  
_  
Makoto shrugged indolently. "Tsunetsuki-san owed Taisuke a few favors from when they were an item, so she helped us sneak in."

"Listen, kid!" Taisuke said, grabbing Yuki by his pink collar and pulling him up, so they were eye to watery eye. "Don't play the fool, okay? We've seen you going and out of Suzumiya's club! We know you're working for her, so we've tailed you, and what do we see now? You're gathering info for the bitch, aren't you?"

"Taisuke, there's no need to yell," Makoto groaned.

"Okay, okay, I confess, but listen to him, please!" Yuki urged, placing a finger on his own lips, as Taisuke growled on his face. "Come in, come in," he ushered them in, and the two taller boys complied after a moment of doubt. Yuki closed the door behind them, as the three tried their best to fit into the small cramped space. "Honestly, can you blame me? You know Suzumiya-sempai! She can get anything she wants! Listen, I think she's with them, staging some sort of crazy prank or plan to ... I don't know!" he confessed, handing the headphones over to Taisuke. "I don't know what to do, this is too much for me! Listen carefully -"

Taisuke frowned, placing the adorable pink headphones around his own head, and paying attention as the other two boys descended into an expectant silence.

_"It is not the time to discuss the question of responsibility," Fate-sensei's voice retorted. "If they had simply sought to make a pactio with me, I would not have bothered to bring this to your attention, but simply shut the two hoydens down."_

"Ahem," Nagi-sensei's voice rasped.

"The two charming and clever young ladies, then," Fate's voice continued, now obviously annoyed. "However, they have fixated on making a pactio with you, which I'm sure you'll agree will be a distraction that you cannot afford, even if you have, amazingly, added Aisaka to your association."

Taisuke could all but outright see the Nagi guy blinking when he spoke next. "Now how in the world did you know about -"

"In her somewhat disjointed explanations of how this had come to pass, Shiina-san mentioned that your other associates had volunteered their identities, including Aisaka. Though oddly not Naba, for some reason. I find that young woman utterly bewildering," Fate's voice added.

Taisuke blinked, utterly puzzled. "What the fuck are they talking about?"

"Beats me," Yuki sheepishly shrugged. "I was hoping you two might have some idea."

"What is it? What is it?" asked Makoto.

Taisuke huffed, handing him the headphones. "Let's see if you can make tails or heads out of that. Your family is the insane one, after all."

"Hey! It's only my old man who is crazy!" Makoto sulked as he took the headphones and paid attention as well.

_"The security staff. The_ janitorial _staff. I'm good at that. I'm good at cleaning up other people's messes," Fate was saying, in a tone Makoto, much to his shock, found a bit agitated. "But no. Be a teacher, like I was, you told me. Is that really what friendship means to you, Negi-kun?"_

_"Fate, calm down."_

_"I am perfectly calm!" said Fate. He was heard drawing in a deep breath, perhaps recognizing that using multiple exclamation points - take our word for it, he used multiple exclamation points, even though this site won't let us show them - anyway, that his tone was not all that suggestive of calmness. "I will go and I will find them. I would appreciate it if you would promise that, if they come to you seeking a pactio, you will not give it to them."_

_Negi sighed. "Very well, since this is clearly very important to you, I will promise - if, after this, Misa-san, Madoka-san or Sakurako-san come to me seeking a pactio, I will not give it to them."_

_"Thank you," Fate said next. "I apologize for the outburst. I will be on my way. Good evening."_

A moment later, the three boys shuddered as they felt the not-as-measured-as-ever steps of the feared child teacher passing by next to the closet. They huddled together in terror and stopped breathing, praying in their minds like never before.

For a brief moment, Fate actually stopped, looked at the broom room, raised an eyebrow, and then, shaking his head to himself, quickly departed to take care of far more pressing matters.

Once his steps were not heard anymore, Makoto, Taisuke and Yuki breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Ummm," Yuki said next. "One of you has a hand on my crotch."

"Shut up," Taisuke mumbled, although he did pull his hand back.

"Wait, wait," Makoto urged. "I think I'm hearing something else now. I think your ex-girlfriend's there with that Nagi guy, Taisuke. Although, I wonder why Fate-sensei called him 'Negi' ..."

"Matoi-chan?" Taisuke made a face of disgust.

"Nope. The cheerleader, you know, the one who's in that cla-"

Taisuke pulled the headphones off Makoto and back onto his head. "Misa-chan? Gimme that!"

"Hey!" Yuki said. "Watch it, if you break these, Suzumiya-sensei will take it out of MY-"

"Shaddap." Taisuke pressed a hand over Yuki's mouth as he listened, and sure enough:

_"Negi-kun," Misa, it just had to be her, her beautiful voice was unmistakable, interjected. "I don't have that kind of relationship with him, and I don't ever want one. Frankly, the sooner this guy is out of all of our hair, the better. Frankly, he's even worse than that good-for-nothing creep Taisuke!"  
_  
Taisuke doubled up on himself as he felt several arrows piercing him from all directions.

"Um... you okay, man?" asked Makoto. "Also, don't bend like that, your ass is poking against my-"

_"That's a very immature attitude, Misa-san," the young man told her. "In recent days, while working on my project, I've had to encounter quite a few people who annoyed me just as much as Fate seems to annoy you. But I've striven to remain professional and -"_

_"Have you found yourself counting the seconds until you were out of their presence?" she asked._

_The guy paused before admitting, quietly, "Once or twice."_

_"Swell. Then you know what our every school day has been like since he showed up."_

_At last, Madoka's voice let out an annoyed grunt. "Come on, Misa, it's not that bad. And anyway, it's not like Negi-kun can get Fate pulled off the job now, is it?" she added._

_"Whatever," Misa growsed. "Can we get on with the kissing, now?"_

Taisuke, who had been recovering slowly through the last few lines, fueled by the harsh words against a teacher he disliked, cringed and folded up on himself again just as soon as he heard that. He let out a very low and long-drawn moan of "Hhhhhhoooooooooeeeeeeeee!"

Makoto and Yuki traded questioning glances in the tight darkness, and then shrugged to each other.

It didn't take long for Makoto to frankly get sick of waiting for his best friend in the whole world (other than Lil' Makoto, who many would actually say was his ONLY real friend in the whole world, but we're digressing) to stop gagging and choking in his saliva as he listened, so he forcibly yanked the headphones back. "Oh, for Pete's sake! Gimme that!"

"You'll break them!" Yuki whined.

"Hushhhh," Makoto instructed, placing the headphones back on.

_"Anyway!" Nagi-sensei interjected. "In every previous case, the situation was one where my partner was either in a dangerous situation or becoming involved in something where the benefits of a pactio would be very helpful. That doesn't apply here, since neither you, Misa-san, nor you, Madoka-san, will be getting involved with my project. I'm willing to give you one -"_

_"Hold it," Sakurako interrupted. "Why not me?"_

_"Well, you already have a pactio, Sakurako-san," he explained in the tone of one explaining something which doesn't require explanation._

_"But, but - but you already have a pactio with another girl who has a pactio with Fate!" the blonde said, no doubt blinking frantically. "What difference would one more make?"_

Makoto looked at what little was visible of the others in the dark. "Seriously, what's that Pactio they're talking about so much? Any ideas?"

Taisuke shook his head, with gleaming streams of tears running down his cheeks.

"Man, let her go already," Makoto groaned. Although, if it means you'll stop pining after Kotonoha-san, all the better.

Yuki rasped softly. "Well, 'pactio' means 'alliance' in Latin, I think."

"Thanks, Mr. Homework, that's so helpful," Makoto mumbled, and went back to listening intently.

_"And before you answer," Misa pressed on, "I should point out that the sort of utter jerk who could cheerfully brush off the feelings of the innocent delicate flower-like girls around him is so utterly not the sort of person who should be protecting the world!"_

For some reason, that made Makoto feel like he had just been hit in the stomach.

_"... oookay, then," Nagi said. "Um ... well, without diminishing anyone's feelings... because I'm definitely not that sort of utter jerk, eh-heh, no sir ... um ... I think it would be wrong for me to choose one girl in particular, because, after all, I'm not all that great and -"_

_"GAHHHHH!" chorused Sakurako and Madoka._

_"Eep."_

"Eep," Makoto agreed.

_"No, that is the worst way of thinking about this sort of thing, Negi-kun," Sakurako informed him, an extraordinarily intense tone in her voice. "It only sounds selfless! It's really not!"_

_Madoka agreed. "Great or small, you have to settle on one girl and hope that she'll accept your feelings and not feel inclined to punch you in the face if you tell her that she's practically one of the guys."_

_A long pause ensued, in which Makoto supposed everyone was slowly turning to look at Kugimiya._

_"Um ... not, not that I'm speaking from experience," Kugimiya said._

_"Right," said Misa. "But, um, yeah, whether it's a disturbing kind of feeling like that possessed by whatever freak confessed to Madoka -"_

_"Not that I'm speaking from experience!"_

_Ignoring her, Misa continued. "Or more normal types, whether it's a deep feeling or something shallow -"_

_"Talk about speaking from experience," Madoka muttered._

_"- you have to be honest with it. So. Do you like someone in particular, Negi-kun?"_

_"Yes," he answered at last._

Makoto's expression gained such a degree of morbid interest, even the boys stuck with him could see it despite the absence of proper lighting.

"What are they saying? What are they saying, dammit?!" Taisuke cried. "C'mon, Itou, that's MY sweetheart there!"

"SHHHHHHH!" Makoto hushed him, in a tone downright stolen from his father whenever he requested some Quality Time.

_"Hey, that was really mean, Misa-san!" Nagi said now, upset. "And it's unfair, too! I mean, I'd be very happy if I liked Madoka-san, I think she's very sexy!"_

_"Thank you, Negi-kuuuuuu-" Madoka said... and then fell ominously silent, as did Sakurako and Misa._

_"What?" Nagi asked._

_"'Sexy'?" they repeated in chorus._

"What's so weird about her being sexy? She's hot!" a confused Makoto muttered.

"AHHHH! Don't talk like that about my fucking girlfriend!" Taisuke took the headphones back by force. "Goddamnit, Itou!"

"You'll break them!" Yuki despaired.

"Quiet you!" Makoto snapped at him. "Oi, Taisuke, that wasn't about her! And face it, Kakizaki's kind of a slut anyway."

"Shut up before I punch your damn generic eroge lead face, motherfucker!" Taisuke growled in that way only true Bros can achieve, securing the headphones back on.

"Well, she is," Makoto blandly said. Taisuke only huffed, leaving the face punching for later. Right now, listening was more important.

_Listening to HIS Misa-chan! "That implies that you find us sexually attractive. And that implies that you are capable of finding girls sexually attractive, not just of having strong feelings for them like you've already admitted. And since you're... and so... Oh. Em. GEE. Since you got grown up like this, you've had sex with Asuna - no, not just with her, with quite a few other members of your little gang, haven't you?!"_

_"Really, Misa-san, I'm a little dismayed by this. If you're capable of such clever logic, I have to wonder why you don't get better grades than you do." That motherfucking duplicitous fiend Nagi was insulting her!_

_"Cram it, sensei!" she replied. Way to go, Misa-chan!_

_"Is that true, sensei?" Sakurako asked._

_"Saku, do you really think he'd be sitting here blathering about reason and logic if it wasn't?" Madoka asked her._

_"I think I should take issue with the characterization of my speech as blathering," the blathering dude bemoaned._

_Sakurako also ignored that blathering. "But he hasn't really admitted to anything, so it could all just be a horrible if actually sort of funny misunderstanding that happens all the time, like when he said that he wanted all of us to get undressed and show off our bodies but it was just him announcing the start of medical exams. That's it, isn't it sensei? It's allllll just a big misunderstanding by Misa-chan, jumping to conclusions, right?"_

_"I'm such a bad teacher," Nagi moaned. "Doing such things to my precious students... worst teacher ever!"_

Somewhere in North America, a portly unkempt fellow in a comics store sneezed all over his newly imported volume of _UQ Holder_.

"Worst Shounen Ever," he decided. "It's even giving me Liefeld Allergies!"

_"Holy shit," Sakurako said._

_"That sounds like a confession to me," Madoka pointed out._

_"Holy shit," Shiina repeated._

In the closet, Taisuke had stiffened, in more than one way, his face ghastly pale and his eyes reduced to black dots.

"... Taisuke?" Makoto finally grew concerned now. "Hey, there, you okay?"

Taisuke slammed the headphones on Yuki's hands, kicked the closet's door open, and then ran like wind towards Negi's door.

It took a moment for the other boys' minds to process his reaction.

"H-H-Hey, no, no!" Yuki finally screamed. "What in the world are you doing?! Why won't anyone ever listen to m-"

Taisuke pulled a leg back, then swung it forward, as hard as he could. Unfortunately, since Negi had been foresighted enough to lock it from the inside, and Taisuke was no Asuna, all he got for his trouble was a really badly hurt foot and some cracked toenails instead of a Dramatic Dynamic Entry. "AIIII-YIII- YIIIIIIII!" he yelled, holding his leg as Makoto and Yuki approached him.

Makoto quietly was taking a video of Taisuke hopping on a foot with his cellphone. "This is so going viral," he decided.

"FUCK YOU, ITOUUUU!" Taisuke bawled.

And then the door was open from the inside, and out peeked Misa's horribly darkened and dreadsome face, surrounded by dark swirls spinning slow and ominously in the air. "Oh, it's you," she spat the words with the acrid poison of those who have just been cockblocked. "What the hell, Tai-kun, Generic-kun, and... ummm... who cares. How long have you been there, listening?"

Makoto blinked as Yuki hid behind him. "Ahhhhh... What's a Pactio?" he ended up asking instead.

Misa grabbed him by the tie and pulled him in, making him cry a strangled call for help. A moment later, she also pulled the still hopping and cursing Taisuke with them.

Yuki blinked, waited for a moment, then began carefully tip-toeing away. Misa popped back out, grabbed him by the skirt and pulled him in too.

**"WHY ME?!"**

The door slammed close from the inside, and the sounds of it being locked again echoed through the corridor.

* * *

"That was wrong and downright cruel, Master," Chachamaru said yet again, as she placed her iced drink next to her.

"Really, Chachamaru," Evangeline said, never taking her eyes off her videogame, "there must be a limit to everything, even flattery."

"This time, it was not meant to be flattery, Master," the gynoid said, more passively cold than it had been her custom for a long time. "To see you resorting once again to outright mental manipulation, when Haruna-san only asked you to break the news to Tendo-san and -"

"Oh, for the love of-! This again?" Evangeline complained. "Look, leaving aside the issue of Saotome not having any room to talk about morality, that girl challenged me and attacked me in my own home!"

"To which we brought her after a kidnapping," Chachamaru simply stated.

"Oh, I didn't hear you complaining then!"

"That, in and of itself, wouldn't have left her with any damage."

"Don't be such a drama queen," Eva mumbled, pulling her own knees further against her body. "It's not like I gave her the same treatment as to Sasaki and her friends, back then. I only... made it so her stance is softened a biiiiiiiit! Just so, you know, she doesn't outright murder Saotome's brother when they next meet."

"I take Haruna-san hasn't told you the story of when a rival used amnesia hair hygiene products on Tendo-san?" asked Chachamaru.

"I don't think so. Is it as lame about the story about the super-noodles?"

"When Tendo-san was sufficiently enraged after having all her memories of Ranma-san erased, it only took some heavy prodding from him for her to remember him."

"Prodding?"

"Basically, he drove her angry enough to remember. What if, once again, her boundless anger manages to break the mind conditioning imposed upon her?"

"Well, then maybe you'd stop nagging me over how unethical was to 'mind rape' her! Sheesh, I didn't even dress her up in Goth Loli and make her pose for pictures! How much softer do you want me to get, Chachamaru?"

"I'm not mad at you, Master. Just, please, the next time you are in a situation like this, do try to consider all your alternatives before biting someone."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Mother. Bring me some crackers now, will you? I'm getting hungry!"

Chachamaru outright sighed. No, this time she didn't make the standard mechanical sound that might have been the robotic equivalent of a sigh. She downright sighed before heading back for the kitchen.

"I don't know why you're so upset anyway," Evangeline mumbled. "It's not like I overdid it and gave her an unhealthy affection for the boy, or anything..."

* * *

Yuka and Sayuri watched, quite concerned, how a glazed-eyed Akane covered the walls of their shared bedroom with posters and photos of Ranma.

Yuka finally looked back at Sayuri. "Where did she get all of those, anyway?"

"This school has a black market for anything short of babies," Sayuri said. "And I'm not even that sure about babies being exempted."

Akane hummed something that went Yappa pa, Yappa pa sweetly to herself, as she sighed, sitting down on her bunk and pulling her cellphone out. "Hm, hm, hm, ohhh, hello, Ranma-kuuuun? It's me, Akane-chan! ... no, I'm not Gosunkugi-kun playing a prank on you, why would I be? Tee hee! Nonsense, I'm perfectly normal and fine now, so I must be sounding perfectly normal and fine too! Hee hee! Ne, ne, Ranma-kun, I've realized I've been veeeery mean to you lately, so, what if we go out in a date tomorrow? I'll cook something just for us! What? Ah? Oh, Ranma-kuuuun, what a kidder! Tee hee hee, what if you bring Haruna-chan along? Yes, Ranma-kuuuun, I know about Haruna-chan and - Ranma-kuuuuun? Are you hitting yourself, silly cutie macho bunny? Oooo, that sounded like you broke something!"

Yuka and Sayuri hugged each other in tearful, overwhelming terror, and quickly backed away and out of the room.

* * *

Negi facepalmed while Misa marched back and forth before the three interlopers, who had been forced to sit down on the living room's couch. Makoto's half-hearted attempt to cleverly escape the situation by turning the TV on and washing his hands off the whole affair was short lived when Madoka turned the TV off just as quickly, then bopped him across the head with the remote. 'Yuu' was in the middle of the trio, much to 'her' discomfort. "And that's it?" she coldly asked. "Are we expected to believe, like for real, you don't have anyone else listening right now? Come on, spit it out already, you're working for Fate, aren't you?"

"N-No, of course not! W-We already told you everything there's to know!" 'Yuu' pleaded.

Negi looked again at the tiny microphone in his right hand, the one he had plucked out from behind a portrait and disabled after Yuu admitted where Nagato had placed it. "Home invasion. I can't believe it. I'm shocked and appalled! I really expected better from Suzumiya-san and Nagato-san."

"You did? For real?" Madoka gave him a jaded glare.

"Hey, you like that Kyon guy who is with them, don't you?" asked Sakurako.

"W-What would that have to do with anything, even if it were right?!" Madoka protested.

Negi pondered the conundrum, barely paying them any attention anymore. From what Yuu-san had just told them, the microphone had been there for more than a full day. Just figuring out when she had entered their home to hide it was difficult to figure out, even if he, Asuna and Konoka were spending more time out than usual lately, due to the preparations for the project. But on top of that, Chachamaru's sensors hadn't picked up on it that morning, when she came over to, ahem, visit. Why? He was no expert, but it didn't seem like it was particularly advanced technology either. Maybe there was more about Suzumiya-san or Nagato-san than met the eye?

"So, what kind of sick roleplay are you doing here, and why didn't you ever do it with me?" a wounded Taisuke asked Misa.

Misa smiled angelically at him. "Because, Tai-kun, I didn't want to. And that also was why I gently suggested we should start dating with other people, and give each other some space ... and when you still didn't get the freaking clue and started stalking me, I had to fucking make it clear that I wanted you to keep the hell away from me! Not that it seems to have gotten through your thick skull anyway!"

"Language!" Negi chided.

"Oh, zip it," Misa huffed.

"Uhhh" Itou spoke next. "You're aware that doesn't really answer our questions, right? We answered yours, so don't you think it's fair to do the same for us?"

"Okay, you caught us!" Sakurako stepped ahead, shrugging her shoulders. "Listen, this hunk here is actually Negi-sensei, who has been stuck in an older form after saving a parallel magical world on the surface of Mars. Because he's a Kung Fu sorcerer who gives magical powers to people by kissing them, and that's what 'Pactio' means. So we're going to kiss him and get some of those sweet powers for ourselves. Well, Madoka-chan and Misa-chan will, because I already got mine from Fate-kun, who is also a Kung Fu Mage from Mars, and a robot, sort of. And he'd gladly turn us into stone forever if he ever learned we told you this, so please don't ever tell him, mmkay?"

Yuu, Taisuke and Makoto stared blankly at her. Meanwhile, Negi could be seen in the background repeatedly bashing his own head against a wall. Madoka's mouth hung loose, and Misa arched an eyebrow. "... holy shit," Misa ended up saying.

Finally, Taisuke barked angrily. "DON'T TAKE US FOR DAMN IDIOTS! Like we don't know this is nothing but a sicko sex game of yours!"

"Well, if you already know, then why do you ask?" Sakurako asked, with an accomplished air of grating innocence.

"I only want to go home!" Yuki cried, nailing his Distressed Damsel role perhaps all too well. "I swear I won't tell anyone anything that I don't even know anyway and nobody would listen to me if I did!"

"Sorry, but that just isn't going to cut the mustard," Misa waved a finger at them. "You already know too much, don't they, Negi-kun?"

Negi paused in his futile attempts to knock himself out and wake up at Merdiana, after a strange dream about a trip to Japan. Granted, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have aimed for that long ago. "Uhhh ... yes, definitely they do."

"Errr... I don't think I'm lucky enough as to successfully cover a triple murder!" Sakurako nervously said. "O-O-One, maybe, but -!"

Misa, Madoka, Negi, and the three boys gave her suddenly agahast stares.

Sakurako blushed. "It, it was a joke!" she said, rubbing herself on her arm.

Makoto exhaled, barely managing NOT TO stain Konoka's favorite spot on the couch.

"... oooookay," Negi sagely decided erasing the last few lines out of his mind, while pulling a wand out of his hanging jacket's inside pocket. "I really hate doing this, and come to think about it, I haven't practiced this spell ever since I arrived to Mahora, so I make no promises, but -"

"Fuck!" Taisuke jerked back. "Is that an enema?!"

"What? A what?" Negi blinked, then, as Madoka leaned closer and whispered something into his ear, he blushed and shouted, "NO! Does it look like one?!"

"No, but that doesn't mean it can't be used as one! Uh, or so I guess, anyway," Makoto added.

"What are you going to do, Negi-kun?" asked Sakurako.

"Erase their memories," Negi grimly said. Yuu began trembling violently in 'her' seat.

"Oh, for the love of -" Taisuke muttered. "Stupid pervy game and its stupid coded language! At least explain before doing anything!"

"Negi-kun, wait," Misa said, grabbing Negi's wand hand. "If you do that, the Three Stooges here will be left with long blanks in their memories, won't they?"

Negi nodded, since telling them there was a possibility he could screw the spell up and erase ALL of their memories would only complicate matters further.

"Aaaand between that and their destroyed microphone, Suzumiya and her Wacko Brigade, and the United Alliance of Future Frat Boys behind these losers, will only grow even more suspicious, and keep upping the stakes until you have to mindwipe them too, and so on," Misa reasoned. "Do you really want to end up having to mind-rape the whole student body?"

"Mind-rape is too strong a term." Negi pouted like an overgrown child, "But, but, regardless, I know that's wrong, but what else can I do?"

Misa smiled in a way that sent familiar signs of danger up the spines of Madoka, Sakurako and Taisuke.

"Weeeeell... since desperate times call for desperate measures and strange bedfellows, and all of that..." Kakizaki chuckled, taking a hand to her blouse's buttons. "Here comes the part of the evening's intrigue where the depraved educator must purchase the silence of his clever and sexy students with the only coin available to him," Misa said as she finished unbuttoning her blouse and reached back to let it fall from her shoulders. "That, by the way, is also the part where said clever and sexy students make sure their brutish male counterparts and shy acting but shrewish rival remain silent on the whole affair through any and all available means."

Makoto and Taisuke were too busy now staring at her upper torso, bare save for her tight white bra, to protest too much on the 'brutish' remark. Despite everything, so was Yuu, who crossed her legs in a rather uncomfortable way, as if to protect her crotch.

"You're joking," Negi weakly said.

"We wish," Madoka replied in the same voice.

"Uh-huh. So, on to our fall from virtue ..." Misa said cheerfully, bare foot coming up to rest against Taisuke's clearly bulging crotch, toes twitching.

"I think I'm actually well past that," Negi replied morosely.

"Holy -" Sakurako started to say.

"By our, I meant the three of us, Sensei, not the three of us plus you boys and the little tramp," Misa quickly explained as she started to pull down her ex's zipper, having already unbuttoned the pants' clasp.

"Three of us?" Madoka murmured.

"Tramp?!" Yuu demanded, her temper finally flaring up. "That, coming from a girl doing... how do you do that anyway?" she asked, amazed despite herself.

"Brains, beauty, skill and style," Misa replied in the manner of someone reciting a motto. "I can teach you if you'd like to learn."

"Speaking of questions," Madoka said, swallowing hard and visibly. "When you say, 'three of us', do you mean -"

"Yes, Madoka, dear, sweet, cannot-take-a-hint-unless-given-to-you-on-a-silver-platter Madoka, I do intend to share this buffet of male meat with you and Sakurako, and, what the hey, her too," Misa answered as she got the zipper all the way down, exposing Taisuke's underpants, which she promptly began to pull down with her incredibly dexterous toes.

"Seriously?" Madoka said.

"Referring to boys as 'male meat' is incredibly objectifying and sexist, Misa-san!" Negi argued. "I'm sure Itou-san and Tawanaga-san won't want to be looked at that way!"

Makoto already had his pants and underpants down his ankles. He clenched his eyes tightly and breathed in and out quickly. "We'll cope!" he promised.

Yuu-san took a good long look at the two members currently in display, remembered her role to play, and shrieked like a good innocent and virginal girl.

"Look, you're scaring Yuu-san, as well!" Negi protested. "Think of her, will you! A poor, innocent, naive soul, exposed to this-"

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Taisuke growled, angry because Negi's words had made Misa briefly stop before she actually could touch him. "Look, that isn't a girl, okay! She's just another dude, so don't worry about him! Geez!" And he folded his arms behind his neck. "Keep it going, Misa-chan."

But Misa had stopped altogether now, to give the blushing, whimpering deer in the headlights that was Yuu a combination Stare Attack with Madoka and Sakurako. A split moment later, before the teacher could stop her, the three had fallen on Yuki, forcefully stripping him. "AAAIIIIEEEE!"

Taisuke cringed. "Hey, I didn't tell you that just so you could- Holyyyy-" he trailed off, as the girls backed away from Yuki's denuded form, and what there was between his legs was now visible to everyone.

"- shiiiiiit," Sakurako completed the sentence.

Taisuke and Makoto felt instantly very inadequate.

Yuki closed his eyes and sobbed in the agony of humiliation.

Negi pouted again. "I've seen bigger," he commented, moved by a primal part of his male mind awakened by all the recent frequent intimacy.

Misa looked at him, her interest growing. "In a mirror?"

Her stare was challenging. Negi scowled. They all already knew how'd that end up anyway, didn't they? So there was no point in delaying the unavoidable, Negi decided, pulling his zipper down, and then yanking the pants to his knees, and then freeing the thing from his boxers.

"You tell me," he dryly answered.

"Oh wow," Sakurako said, with a hand on her cheek.

Misa licked her own lips.

Yuki blinked, looking back and forth between his unit and Negi's. Then Makoto and Taisuke quietly reached over to pat him on the back.

"Anyway!" Negi rasped, his best sense regaining control of him, "That hardly matters now, and I apologize over that bad taste outburst. I honestly don't know what came over me. What we should focus on now, instead, is what in the world moved Ashikaga-san here to gaaaaahhhhh..." he groaned when Misa touched the tip of his member with her carefully trimmed fingernails, tickling it.

"Oh yeah, now this is what I like, baby! Nice size, not too big, nice shape, great color... like a rainbow, almost... mmm, I think it's time to taste the rainbow." She let her skirt drop to the floor and followed it shortly, dropping to her knees in front of him.

"Not too big?!" Makoto cried. "How many horses have you been with?!"

"Only one!" Negi instinctively replied, blushing madly.

All the eyes in the room drifted from his crotch to his face.

"Long story," he bemoaned. "She's an otherworldly mare given human shape, okay?!"

"Holy shit!" said guess who.

"Ooohhhh-kayyyyy," Makoto and Taisuke winced as a single man. Madoka's face twitched slightly for a moment. Yuki looked truly sick in the stomach.

Negi opened his mouth again to further explain, then thought better of it. "Never mind, just take my word for it, please? Um, Misa-san, I take it that you've done this sort of thing already?" he asked a bit weakly.

Taisuke coughed on his fist with quite the annoyed air.

Misa looked affronted. "Sensei! Shame on you! A gentleman never asks such questions and a lady never answers them!"

Taisuke feigned a louder cough this time.

Negi gasped. "Oh, of course, I apologize and -"

"But since you're no gentleman and I'm a hot tramp, I'll tell you all about it if you really want to know!" Misa concluded, grinning broadly.

Makoto blandly looked at Taisuke. "See, she even freely admits it herself."

"Oh, shut up, you!" the taller boy growled.

"Please say no, please say no, please say no, please say no," Madoka was muttering rapidly into Negi's ear.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Negi said smoothly.

"Whatever," Misa said, then promptly dropped her mouth onto his unit, lips sliding down it until they reached his thatch of pubic hair, tongue slicking out to gently caress the skin above his testicles. Steam literally blew out of Taisuke's ears.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," Madoka muttered rapidly into Negi's ear.

"I take it she boasts about such matters quite a bit," Negi muttered right back.

"Oh so much," Madoka said.

"All the time," Sakurako added, since the mutter hadn't come out as low as Negi had intended.

"Usually to make you feel worse by comparing you to her stepfather," Taisuke bitterly grumbled.

Negi blinked. "Wait, her WHAT?!"

Misa swung a leg back, expertly kicking Taisuke in the Sawanaga Family Jewels while never stopping fellating her former teacher. "Oooiiiiiiii!" Taisuke cried, hands rushing down to his soft parts.

"Seriously, holy shit!" Sakurako demanded, although not as reiteratively as she would have been under other circumstances.

Negi was then treated to the rather unique sight of Misa rolling her eyes as she slid back up the length of his unit and smacked her lips once the head was past them. "Ah," she gasped, then focused her attention on Madoka. "Y'know, if you're gonna talk trash about me, I can think of several better things for you to do with that black tongue of yours."

"Huh?" said Madoka, suddenly on edge. "What are you -"

Misa deliberately eyed Negi's erection, then looked back at Madoka with a raised eyebrow.

"Seriously?" Kugimiya asked.

Misa rolled her eyes again. "Did I become Chisame recently?" she asked no one in particular. "Did I start wearing glasses and frowning all the time? Is that it? Is that why everyone thinks I go in for an unending stream of sarcasm?"

"That's kind of a sarcastic remark, right there," Negi observed calmly.

"Kind of?" Makoto wondered, his right hand absently massaging on his own thing as he watched, since it was obvious the girls had a clear favorite, and it wasn't him. Yuki, in turn, watched him in a confused mixture of bizantine horror and sudden morbid fascination.

"Bite bite bite," Misa said in ominous tones. "Yes, I'm serious," she continued, directing it at Madoka. "I may make fun of you frequently, especially behind your back, but I'm not going to refuse to give you a chance to establish some freaking heterosexuality. And before you respond to 'behind your back', focus on the part of this that has a positive takeaway, would you?"

"Well, all right then," Madoka said, smiling broadly.

But of course Misa was not done. "I know you'd probably prefer it if it were Kotaro-kun whom we' were about to debauch -"

"Not as much as I would," Negi observed as his erection twitched in Misa's iron grip.

"- or that Kyon guy, but we cannot have everything our own way. By we I mean you, since I fully intend to have everything my way, always," Misa grinned.

"That's a terrible attitude," Negi said. "And actually, won't Sakurako-san refuse to betray -"

"Holy shit!" Sakurako said again. Okay, so maybe it was just as reiterative as in the other story after all.

"I think we got that covered," Misa assured him as Madoka oh so slowly circled around the mage, descending as she did until she was on her knees beside Misa, gazing directly at the member between Negi's legs.

"It really is big, isn't it?" Madoka said after a moment of silent contemplation.

"Gee, thanks for keeping rubbing it on us," Makoto moaned as he kept rubbing his own. "Otherwise, we might even forget!"

Sakurako paused in her Combo to shoot him an annoyed glare. "You're getting a free show most boys in Mahora would kill to get, and yet you're complaining?"

"Yes, Madoka, it is," Misa agreed with a sigh, trying to block the side comments out. "Now suck it."

Madoka showed no signs of having heard this gently-voiced suggestion. "And yeah, it really does look kind of like a rainbow."

"Yes, now suck it."

"But, I can't, not possibly in front of three boys like that, no..."

Taisuke's pained howl came from the kitchen, where he now was applying a bag of ice on his privates. "OH GOD IT HURTS SO MUCH! BITCH, IF I START PEEING BLOOD, I'M SO SUING-"

"- two boys, actually," Misa corrected her reflexively, then shook her head. "For crying out loud, Madoka-chan!" she said disgustedly, then grabbed Madoka by the back of her head, following it up by seizing her jaw and jerking it down, then pushing Madoka's head forward so that the head of Negi's unit went in her mouth without much warning.

"Glurgh?" Madoka observed.

"Um, hey now -" Negi started to say.

"I did what I had to do!" Misa proclaimed. "If I hadn't, she'd have been sitting there staring at it for hours and hours and hours. It may be that I'm a little loose -"

"Oh, there's no may be about it," Sakurako said faintly.

"Nope, none at all," Makoto agreed, rubbing faster. Yuki's face was a traffic light now, tilting from red to green and back.

Resisting the impulse to tell her other best friend to start fucking Generic-kun so they'd both shut the fuck up, Misa pressed onward. "- but a certain person is way too tight! That's the real reason I wanted you to come down here!" she added, directing these words to Madoka as she pushed and pulled her back and forth, impaling her mouth on Negi's unit. "You need to be less tight!" With that remark, she yanked Madoka's skirt up, exposing her panties momentarily before pulling them to the side and shoving her fingers into Madoka. _"Way too tight!"_ she repeated.

"I really don't think this is right -" Negi said as he started to push Madoka's head back and away from his unit.

"Nugh!" Madoka grunted just before the dick cleared her lips. "No! No, it's, it's okay, sensei, it's -" Deep breath. "Th-thank you, Misa-sama, for your kindness," she concluded without looking back at Misa's face. Then she ducked her head away from Negi's hand and slid the dick down into her mouth again.

"You're welcome, Madoka-chan," Misa sneered as she continued to finger her.

_The dynamics of this relationship_, Negi decided silently, _are not exactly as I thought they were_. It was a rather frightening thought, to be honest. He glanced in Sakurako's direction, hoping that she might seem as surprised by these developments as he was. Unfortunately, while she had apparently recovered enough poise to be communicative beyond utterances of - well, you know which two words, by now - she was nonetheless directing a shocked look in his direction, not that of her two teammates. When she saw him looking at her, she apparently got the message, glanced at Misa and Madoka, then turned back to him with a shrug.

_Greaaaat_, he thought.

Taisuke walked back in, now wearing nothing but his undershirt and the bag of ice he kept pressed against his crotch. "Hey, Misa, aren't you listening? I'm going to... gah-gah-daaaaa..." he trailed off, his eyes gaining stars as he watched what his ex was doing to her friend. A huge goofy grin crept up his face, replacing his former sour expression. "There is a God!"

Misa paused for a moment to tell Negi, "For the longest time, he was pestering me for a threesome or foursome with the girls. But of course, nice and wonderful sister in cheerleading I am, I had to save my dear friends for something better!" she boasted, reaching up to tickle his nose.

"Ah, well, I-I'm honored," Negi said, clenching his teeth.

"As for Saku-chan," Misa added, pushing her fingers into his mouth, making him wince at his first faint taste of himself, "she will be joining us later, as a penalty for - well, guess. Meanwhile... shift over, Madocchi."

"Muhduhee?" Madoka mumbled as she pulled back so she had just the head in her mouth.

"Close enough," Misa declared, and swooped down to begin licking those parts of the unit that were now exposed. A great deal of byplay then ensued, with the two of them trading off and on, lips brushing against each other frequently as they did so. They didn't seem accidental, those brushes, but they were too brief to really be called kisses, and though one of Misa's hands stayed back there at Madoka's rear, the gesture wasn't returned. Madoka's hands stayed behind her, crossed at the small of her back, as though they were tied there. It was sort of surprising that she was able to maintain her balance like that.

But then again, she was a cheerleader.

And then again, he was finding it somewhat difficult to consider such things, with his attention more or less fixed on the sensations he was feeling, the pressure becoming almost unbelievable.

Meanwhile, the other three boys sat now in the nude, touching themselves as they watched on, although Yuki did so timid and clumsily, his Yuu wig still hanging precariously from his scalp. "You guys just don't waste any time, do you?" Sakurako asked them, hands on her hips. "What makes you think you'll get lucky tonight?"

"We've been lucky so far," Taisuke commented, pulling and pulling on his still somewhat aching meat.

"True enough, I guess..." Sakurako musically mused, shifting on her feet, which were curved towards each other for maximum cute effect, adding to the finger idly on her chin. "But then, there's lucky and there's really lucky..." she hummed, beginning to pull her skirt down her hips, then her smooth, strong legs.

The trio stopped their self-ministrations to look at her, mesmerized.

She smiled impishly at them. "Face it, tigers," she copied a sentence she had once read in a manga Haruna-chan had once lent her. Not like she had a liking for manga, but if Haruna-chan had given it to her, how could she refuse? "You have just hit the jackpot."

Seizing the advantage from the paralyzed Yuki and gasping Makoto, Taisuke all but leapt on her like a hungry panther.

Sakurako giggled as she accepted him in her arms, welcoming his feverish kisses all over her neck. Oh, boys...

* * *

"Mmmm," said Misa, pulling back again from Negi. "You're almost ready to go, aren't you? Almost ready to let loose that salty white candy of yours." Without warning, she grabbed Madoka's head and pulled her back as well. "You know, it abruptly occurs to me that this might be a good time to settle an argument we've been having for a while, now."

"Oh, come on, Misa, this is not the time to discuss the transience of love and the fragility of the human soul!" Madoka cried, looking to be on the verge of tears.

"Not that one, the other one, you -" Misa snapped.

Another glance at Sakurako.

This time, she was too busy being wildly kissed and placed on her back on the couch by Taisuke, who then clumsily climbed over her, rubbing her breasts roughly. Still, she was nice enough to answer as soon as she could between kisses. "Yeah. We have some really weird conversations."

"The argument about whether an experienced male - like sensei, here - prefers innocence or experience," Misa continued. "Nice going there, by the way, Tai-kun. Good to see you're regaining some of that drive you had started to lose. So, which is it, Negi-kuun? Do you want to spill your seed up into Madoka's innocent coochie or my warm, wet, well-trained one? Which is it?"

"Uh," Negi replied cleverly.

"Coochie?" Makoto wondered aloud.

"Or would you rather spew it out on our faces like the naughty whores we are?" Misa made a point of ignoring Generic-kun. For now at least. Maybe she'd give him a pity fuck later, just to see how he measured. Taisuke had told a few interesting stories about the guy's father, after all.

"Now, now," Negi said, just a bit anxiously. "None of you are dirty whores, or any sort of -"

"So that rules out the third option, then," Misa mercilessly cut him off. "In that case, my humble self or Madocchi - who is it gonna be today?"

Negi remained where he was, motionless like a deer caught in the headlights, and feeling incredible tension in his lower regions.

Misa began drumming her fingernails against his thigh as loudly as she could.

When faced with a difficult conundrum, one should analyze all factors. Seeing how it all had been Misa's idea from the start, she probably expected a compensation of sorts the most of them all. Though on the other hand, if that had been what she wanted, she could have simply seized the opportunity to take what she wanted without making him make this choice. From what he was given to understand, Madoka had some sort of interest in Kotaro, and picking her as long as he still had a chance to avoid doing it with her would probably only make his current relationship with his best friend all the more tense. Although that sort of consideration hadn't stopped Kotaro from having sex with Asuna and Chisame, and anyway, Kotaro didn't know about any of this. But nonetheless, Madoka's face seemed to convey a certain reasonable amount of 'Oh shit shit shit pick her first, I can't cope with this yet!' even he couldn't possibly miss. And yet there was also a small amount of 'Oh crap crap crap I am so horny right now, let's gooooo!' there too. Running screaming into the night was not an option, mostly because the sun was only just now starting to set, and it was really more evening than night.

It was really a more difficult decision than it seemed at first glance! Yet decide he must. And so Negi-

"... you?" he squeaked out, in a tone that wouldn't have sounded out of place in his child self, pointing at Madoka.

Misa made a face. "I see. Well. You'd know your preferences best, wouldn't you. Hurry up, Madocchi." She looked neither satisfied nor all that surprised.

"Oh man, I never thought I'd miss being called Kugimin," Madoka groaned as she shifted forward to place herself over Negi's erection. Then, taking a deep breath, she descended onto it, drawing him up into her and -

"Ahhhhh!" Negi cried as he achieved his delayed release.

"Ghhhhaaahh!" Madoka gasped as she felt herself flooded, the surge of warm wetness within her triggering what Misa's forceful fingering had not quite provoked, spasming in orgasm atop him.

"Uhhhhhh!" Taisuke howled, his hands clawing on Sakurako's hips as he shot his seed into her.

"Eeeeeeee!" Sakurako said, although she had not hit climax yet. But boys liked to hear you had just as soon as they had.

"Uhhhhhh..." Yuki and Makoto said at once, standing next to each other and waiting for their turns.

"Um, is this okay? Dumping it inside, I mean?" Taisuke then weakly asked.

"It's a bit late to ask now, don't you think?" Yuki dryly asked.

"It's okay," Sakurako waved a hand. "I'm just that lucky!"

"That isn't too much of a-" Taisuke began.

"And on the pill," Sakurako added.

"All right then," sighed Taisuke, pulling out.

"Huh," said Misa as she watched Madoka still quivering. "I honestly expected to have to shove my fist up your ass again to get that result."

"Hyeeeee," replied Madoka as she fell back against Misa, grinning broadly at both her own fulfilment and a narrow escape. Taisuke, from where he sat regaining his strength, winced at the comment and rubbed his own ass in sore remembrance.

"Again?" Negi repeated a rather frightening word as he disengaged himself as gently as possible from Madoka.

Misa smiled wryly and kissed Madoka's cheek as she settled the delirious girl to the floor. "Okay, now, I'll just take a minute to get you hard agaOHHH SWEET CHRISTMAS you are still like a rock!" she exclaimed as she turned back to Negi.

"Um, yeah, well, you know," Negi offered.

Misa then looked back at Taisuke's flaccid member, placed in an odd manner on his sweaty crotch.

The older student growled. "Yeah, yeah, he recovers faster as well! Happy now? Forgive us, poor humans who aren't warlocks or whatever he is!"

"Not a warlock, a mage," Negi explained, "The difference is... uhhh, Misa-san, are you feeling okay...?"

She didn't look a thing like Konoka, but Negi had never seen such a gleeful expression on anyone else's face before. Which probably meant she had snapped or something else along those lines. "For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful," she said (very approximately), rising, turning around, and sitting down on him so that he entered her from the rear. "Hey, Saku-chan, it's later! Get over here and lick my sweet cooch!"

"Oh well, here we go again," said Sakurako as she dropped to the floor and crawled over to where they were sitting - or rather, where Negi was sitting and Misa was rocking up and down, back and forth, on his lap, letting out short high-pitched shrieks as she did so. The blonde cheerleader's face slid nicely in between the spread thighs of her lavender-haired friend and she obediently started licking the aforementioned sweet cooch.

"Those 'agains' are really starting to concern me," Negi squeaked.

"Ahhhh! Goddamn, I say, goddamn, sensei, you gotta AAAAAAHHH lighten up some!" Misa nearly shrieked, toes curling slightly as her legs came up to rest her heels against Sakurako's naked butt. "You're as bad as Madocchi! Am I gonna have to fuck your ass to get you to lighten up too?"

"... and then are those 'toos'," he said after a moment of confusion. "The toos are really dist-"

"For the love of God, man, don't let her do it!" warned Taisuke, who DIDN'T hate him THAT badly despite everything.

"Oooh, Sakusaku, you've been practicing on some of the girls on your lacrosse team, haven't you!" Misa squealed then.

"Nugh," Sakurako replied semi-coherently as she sucked on Misa's clit. She hadn't. She honestly hadn't even considered it. (She had heard some stuff about the goings-on at the high school level of the team, but she wasn't sure if she believed them or not.)

"Ooooh?" The inflection turned this particular squeal into a question, as if Misa's next words wouldn't have made it clear. "You haven't? What a shame! Are you still crushing on Sa- OUCH!"

Sakurako pulled back from the bite mark she'd just made on Misa's thigh and looked up at her reproachfully. "I've just had sex with the ex of someone I *still* consider one of my two best friends. Do I look like I'm keeping myself pure for a crush?"

"Fine, fine, I won't go there," the other girl grumbled.

Negi found himself sighing with relief. Clearly, Misa's dominance wasn't totally unchallenged. Even if he didn't have it in him to challenge it, it was good that the girl didn't, despite what she said, always have her way. Not that it mattered much, since she was clearly just about to have her way with him.

"I'm about to -" he stated.

Misa's response to this was to clench down low on him, pushing the tip of his member up against the mouth of her uterus. "Yes, yes, do it, yes!" she cried.

He did it.

"... climb the mountain, number seventeen," Misa said faintly, before tumbling down off of him to land lightly on the floor.

"... 'climb the mountain'?" Negi repeated, looking down at himself. "It's not _that_ big, is it?"

"Hey, asshole!" Taisuke barked. "If you think yours isn't 'that big', are you saying, then, ours are just 'that small'?!"

Negi blinked. "Hmmm? Ah, oh, sory, Sawanaga-san. For a moment, I forgot you were here."

"... making others feel worse without even knowing it is like a talent for you, isn't it?" asked Makoto.

"If what Asuna says is to be believed, yeah, it is," Madoka confirmed.

"Welllll," Sakurako said, taking a nice long look at the thing that was much bigger than the other boys'. "It's actually a bit bigger than most of the guys on the football team have."

"Oh," Negi said, nonplussed. And not certain whether he should be more disturbed by her knowledge of this fact or his own surprising satisfaction at her statement of it.

Some of that apparently showed up on his face. "Relax, it's not what you're thinking," she quickly assured him as she started to rub his erection with her hands. "Part of the team's hazing ritual is to expose themselves to our squad. Nothing more than that." Which was not to say that she had not fucked a few of them after the ritual, the last time, but that wasn't the point.

"I knew I should have gone in football," Taisuke sighed, crossing his legs in a careless way, still letting everything hang down. "I'd have gotten this far sooner."

"Oh," Negi repeated, somewhat relieved at the same time that his tension began to rise. It was a confusing moment. That happened a lot. "Um, Sakurako-san, you -"

She held up a hand, waved it slightly. "Let me guess. This is where you assure me that I don't have to do this, that both Misa and Madoka are too out of it to realize that we didn't actually do anything with each other, that nobody would listen to those three dorks, that you don't want to interfere in the relationship I've got with Fate-kun. How'm I doing?" Her other hand kept stroking him as she talked.

"We aren't that out of it," an annoyed Misa grumbled, proving her point by kneeling before the weakly protesting Yuki and beginning to rub his second place meat.

"Um, v-very good, I mean, yes, that's more or less exactly what I was about to say," Negi gulped.

"Really, I'm not out of it either!" Madoka said, looking up from the floor.

Sakurako sighed, shook her head, and went back to using two hands. "Sensei, sensei, sensei," she chanted, doing a particularly vigorous tug on each repetition. "I'm sooo disappointed in you. Do you really think telling me to lie to my best friends is the more responsible course of action?"

"Gyaaaacchhh," Negi replied.

"There's no point on lying to us when we can perfectly see what you're and you aren't doing! Sheesh," Misa shook her head before leaning ahead to take Yuki's penis into her mouth, then slapping herself on the coochie with her right hand. It took Makoto a few moments of clueless blinking before placing himself behind Misa.

"Wait there, Itou," Taisuke grumbled, reaching over to grab his own discarded pants. Rummaging into his pocket, he fished out a condom and tossed it for Makoto. "That's still my girl, dude!"

"Ammm noffff!" Misa claimed from between vigorous suctions of Yuki's member.

"If you had some of these, why hadn't you used one when you were with Shiina-san?" asked Makoto as he pulled the rubber onto his erection. "And why didn't you give one to Sensei either?"

"Because I didn't want to, and because unlike you, that guy is a warlock who could turn me into a frog if I got on his nerves. Dig?" his best friend snorted.

"I'm not a warlock!" Negi repeated.

"Don't pay them any attention!" Sakurako told him. "Look, when it comes to Fate-kun, I mean, I went into that thing with no expectations of it ever turning into some sort of sweet love story - and I'm pretty sure he didn't either, even if he's a lot more lonely than he lets on - so he really doesn't have any cause to object. Well, other than the whole you're a kid and I'm a teenager thing, but then he's kind of a kid himself and he was getting all smoochy-face with me so -"

"Wait, you think Fate is lonely?" he asked, having regained a bit of coherence.

Now Sakurako glared at him. "Little bit of focus on the girl with her hands on your dick might just possibly be a good idea, don't you think?"

"Sorry, sorry."

"Anyway... I have to admit that I wouldn't mind being with grown-up Fate, just like I don't mind being with grown-up you, but none of you are really the person that I want to be with the most. But that person is... well..."

"Is it Satomi-san?" Negi asked.

Sakurako blinked. "What? How in the world ... oh. Because of the 'Sa-' thing Misa said earlier." She nodded, then blinked, then shook her head rapidly in negation. "I mean, no, it's not her! Geez! She's cute, but -"

"Well, then, who -" asked Negi.

"Saionji-san?" asked Makoto, who was holding onto Misa's ass while ramming his protected unit into her.

"Sa-Sa-Sagara Sousuke-san?" Yuki guessed, huffing as Misa's tongue action drove him closer to climax.

"Sawanaga?" Taisuke grinned.

Sakurako shot him a dirty back glare. "Your sister's not that - oh, you mean - no! Seriously, you give a guy in need a pity fuck, and they start _imagining_ things!"

_"Pity?!"_ Taisuke cried.

"Yeah, pity. Now look, Negi-sensei, if it's okay for you not to tell us, then I think - look, enough talk, okay?" And with that, she stood back up to reveal that she was, if not dripping with desire like she would be in other stories, still clearly aroused. "I'm not _her_, and you're definitely not _her_. But you're with _me_, now, and I'm with _you_. Let's just have some fun, okay?"

"Okay," Negi agreed, with a faint smile on his face.

"Oh, so it's another girl," Taisuke inhaled. "That makes it even hotter."

_"Pity!"_ Sakurako hissed the word back to him, making him wince.

When Misa finally brought Yuki to a climax into her mouth (he had remarkable stamina for a virgin), and she could look back past Makoto, who still was thrusting into her, Sakurako was busily riding Negi; her breasts in his face and their tongues intertwined. Misa smiled, glanced at Madoka who was also watching, and once Makoto came in the condom and pulled out with a groan, she crawled over to assert some more dominance... and incidentally have sex with one of the people she loved most in the world. (Not that she'd ever admit that where Madoka was listening.)

The third time Negi had sex in any given episode generally lasted longer than the first two combined, even if he didn't take steps to prolong it by thinking of baseball players as someone had once mentioned doing in his hearing. (Unfortunately for Negi, in his case this consisted of thinking 'Babe Ruth... um... Hank Aaron... Reggie... Jackson, I think... oh, Lou Gehrig... um... did I already think of Babe Ruth?...' and so on and so forth. Had someone told him that thinking of cricket players had the same effect, that would have been much more helpful.) Sakurako seemed remarkably happy about this. Misa, once she realized what was happening, was perceptibly less so.

Well, since he'd thought she shouldn't have her way in everything, that was probably for the best.

Eventually, Sakurako shrieked out her last orgasm just a few moments before he climaxed, and they lay together on the living room table, panting heavily.

"All righty, then," Misa announced. "I guess that we're most definitely ready for those pactios, now, Negi-kun!"

Taisuke, who thought he had recovered enough by now, gave her a wounded look. "No nookie for me tonight?"

"No nookie for you ever again," Misa confirmed. "Didn't you have enough with Saku-chan?"

"How comes he gets three rounds and we only get one?!" Taisuke pointed at Negi. "Hell, Yuki hasn't even cummed into any cunt yet!"

Misa looked back at Yuki's slowly recovering member, then nodded. "Fine, I'll give him his first cunny ride. But first, Pactio!"

"Uh," Yuki gurgled.

"That still doesn't do anything for ME!" Taisuke yelled.

Misa looked back at Negi. "Can't you turn him into a frog?"

"No," the former teacher said, rolling off of Sakurako's giggling form. "Um... about the Pactio..." He lifted his head and glanced at the circle, which had stopped glowing. "Um, I'm going to have to redraw the circle, I'm afraid..."

"We can wait," Misa said, not sounding terribly patient.

"... and, well, technically, the resultant delay would mean that you were coming to me seeking a pactio in the future, and I promised Fate that... if .. you..." Negi trailed off as all three of the girls lifted their heads to give him their own unique versions of The Look.

"You cad," Sakurako declared.

"You bounder," Madoka stated with a sad shake of her head.

"Enemy of all women," Misa said.

"Really fucked up motherfucker," Taisuke joined in, just to vent his frustrations out on someone.

"Um, well, yeah, what they said, I guess," added Makoto.

"Okay, I'll just go get started on that right now," Negi interrupted the chain as soon as Yuki opened his mouth, thoroughly defeated. Ironically, Yuki had only been going to ask for permission to use their toilet.

Fortunately, redrawing the circle was a lot easier than drawing it in the first place had been. Still, he wished that Chamo was there to do this instead, and once again wondered what had happened to his old friend.

But we'll be skipping that part here, of course!

* * *

"Huh," said Misa as she stared at the card in her hand. "It looks just like Sakurako's. Isn't that weird? Hers is with Fate, so shouldn't they look different?"

Negi finished kissing Madoka, and the light show died down as the newly forged pactio card hung in mid-air. "I really couldn't say. The images on Setsuna's cards symbolizing her pactio with me and with Konoka are slightly different, but until I make my pactio with Sakurako, we won't know what hers looks like -"

"Yeah, about that," said Sakurako. "Um... I'm okay with not getting another pactio."

Negi blinked. "Really?"

She nodded.

"... well, I suppose it's sort of locking the barn door after the horse has already stampeded, but -" Negi started to say.

"Hey, is there any way we can get one of those?" asked Makoto, trying to look over Negi's shoulder, no easy task since Negi currently was that much taller.

Negi mentally counted to ten and inhaled. "Not until you prove you can support the full weight of this responsibility."

"Which will happen the thirty second of Neverember," Misa pointed out.

"Uh-huh," Taisuke said. "And how long it took you, and how much did you have to do to deserve it?"

"Bitch, we went to an alternate magical world and helped saving Asuna long before this," Misa snapped.

"But anyway, if you want some of these, you would have to kiss Negi-kun," Madoka said, waving her card around.

"It's not a toy, Madoka-san, please treat it with respect," Negi moaned.

"Can't we get ours from kissing a hot witch?" asked Taisuke.

"Well," Negi replied, "you might try kissing my master, Evangeline-san, but odds are she would simply suck all your blood out and dropkick your bodies off a bridge instead. If she's feeling benevolent that day."

"Ah-h-h-h, I think I'll pass," Yuki gulped.

It was at that moment that the door to the dorm room was flung open.

"Hey, Negi, we're baaaaa," said Asuna as she goggled at the sight of the cheerleaders and the three boys - none of whom, of course, had bothered to get dressed before proceeding with the Pactio ceremony - and in particular the sight of Negi naked in the pactio circle in front of Madoka.

Haruna, who was following along behind her along a somewhat taciturn Konoka, raised her eyebrows. "Well?" she asked, breaking the silence fallen after Asuna's declaration. "Isn't someone going to say 'this isn't what it looks like'?"

"Dhuhrgh," Yuki choked in his saliva, then covered his privates with Yuu's wig.

Misa glanced at Sakurako, who was blushing to the roots of her hair, and interrupted her before she could stammer out anything. "This is exactly what it looks like," she said with total sang-froid.

"Like my girlfriend said," Taisuke gave a thumbs up.

"I'm not your fucking girlfriend anymore!"

"Shoot," Haruna said with her usual wolfish grin. "I was so looking forward to -"

"Way to go, Negi!" Asuna cheered. "I think we're half-way there, or so! Um, and these three are?"

The taller boy flexed his arms and struck a pose, much to the black haired one's annoyance. "Sawanaga Taisuke-sempai here, boyfriend of Misa-chan! And these are Itou Makoto-kun and Ashikaga Yuuki-kun! Friends forever and never making a girl unhappy!"

"EX-boyfriend!" Misa clenched her teeth.

Konoka blinked. "We're bringing guys in now, too?"

"Well, not everyone is as lesbian as you are, Kono-chan," Haruna pointed out.

Negi let out a sigh. "Welcome back, Asuna, Konoka, Haruna-san. Don't worry about the gentlemen, our secrets will be safe with them... won't they...?" he gave the trio a midly threatening, even if unintentionally so, glare.

"We will get more sex, won't we?" asked Taisuke. "Because so far, it's been kinda lacking..."

"Weeeeell, excuse me, Mr. That's-My-Line!" Sakurako pouted.

"Huh? Oh, no, I didn't mean that, you were great, it's just we should've had more!"

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Yuki clenched a hand on his own face.

"Hey, great, Negi-kun, you got us a man who is even worse with the Foot-in-Mouth syndrome than you and Ranma!" Haruna grinned. "I wouldn't have thought it possible before today," she added before anyone could say anything else, and proceeded to start checking Madoka out. "Niiiice," she murmured.

Sakurako made a small noise. Negi glanced in her direction, and sudden comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh, Sa-" he started to say.

"Negi has a girl that he likes!" Sakurako announced loudly.

"Really?" Asuna, Konoka and Haruna chorused.

"Yes, and don't you think that she should be told about that?" Misa said, with a glance in Sakurako's direction of her own.

"Definitely!" Haruna quickly agreed. "It's Nodoka, right?" Beat. "Or is it Yue?"

Negi looked at her in annoyance, then turned to Asuna to say something ... but the look on her face made him halt. "Yes, I do," he said. "And yes ... I am going to tell her. Tomorrow," he added.

"Well, all right then," said Asuna, who was betting on Chisame. "Meanwhile -"

"It's still tonight!" announced Haruna. She held up her drawing hand and snapped her fingers, causing her outfit to dissolve into sparkles and leave her standing there naked as she kicked the door shut behind her.

"... I like the direction this is taking," Makoto quietly said. Taisuke nodded, as Yuki began choking in his saliva again.

"... how did you do that?" Negi asked.

"Golem clothes," the mangaka explained briskly. "Oh, Kugimiiiin? Let's pick up where we left off when I came back home, okay?" she added, before leaping on Madoka's startled form, the other girl's squawk of panic drowning out Sakurako's tiny wail of frustration.

Misa would probably have given Sakurako a vague word of comfort had her mouth not presently been occupied by Asuna's tongue.

"Welcome to my world," Negi told her wearily.

"Thanks," she replied in much the same manner.

* * *

Tokiha Mai's reddened, sickly bulging out eyes snapped open for the umpteenth time that night, as she lied on her back in the darkness, with Mikoto soundly sleeping as she hugged Mai's midsection and tried to snuggle her head under Mai's pajama shirt.

"Why do they keep forgetting the sound proof spell?" Mai moaned. "They're just teasing me until I break down, aren't they, Kami-sama?" she asked her ceiling.

* * *

"Yes, yes, that's it! Put more life into it, my bronco! YEEEE-HAWWWW!" Haruna cackled as she rode the dry and vaguely humping husk Taisuke had become.

"More of them, you said. More of them, you asked for..." Makoto, in a similar sorry state, moaned while weakly pumping into Konoka from behind, the naked heiress supporting her own weight on a wall with her hands.

Yuki, now wearing only the Yuu wig and a bra, would have added his own lamentations if only Asuna hadn't been sitting on his face then, trading kisses with Misa as the cheerleader gave Yuki's penis her second vaginal try of the night.

From where he copulated with the moaning Madoka on the floor for the third time in a straight row, Negi watched his fellow men with a reasonable measure of pity, despite everything.

Was someone banging on the wall now, from Tokiha-san's room? No, he had remembered the sound proof spell this time, hadn't he?

Come to think about it, though...

Madoka reached up and yanked on his hair as she climaxed, and then, at least that concern was forgotten.

* * *

The next day, an emaciated and pale trio of Yuki (in Yuu garb), Makoto and Taisuke gave their report to the Mahora Anti-Nagi Association.

"S-So, as you can see, we're now convinced that Nagi-sensei is indeed gay, as gay as they come," Taisuke said in a spent, wheezing voice. "N-not that we experienced it from first hand, but we've got our reliable sources."

"Y-Yeah, so there's no need to fear over the girls, there's nothing dangerous about him," Makoto gurgled, his eyes vacant and dull, nodding like a broken doll. "I'm Itou Makoto, Oniichan to an Imouto, and I approve of this message."

"Ghu-ghu-glurg, guh," Yuu fidgeted around, eyebrows quivering at random intervals. "I mean, I mean, y-yes, what they said!"

Suzuhara Touji stared suspiciously at them. "He fucked you guys, didn't he?"

"HE DID NOT! "

Saotome Ranma normally would have commented then, but he was too focused on rocking back and forth in the corner, mumbling about Akane in a lost, unhappy voice.

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	11. Makie, Ako, Haruhi, Kyon, Nagato

Somewhere, quite far from the usual locales of this story, a small secret society, whose members had changed over centuries while always remaining influential, powerful and dangerous, sat in council around a shiny round table. Their current lineup was a far cry from those of the past, especially considering they had pretty much disbanded the one that came right before them, even managing to send a few of them to prison. And even so, they had preserved the name itself, the name that defined the inner circle of those who shaped the world's destinies. Even if they, unlike the predecessors, would generally try to place the masses' interests over their own.

The Illuminati.

"Japan?" Tony Stark asked, his chin resting on a fist. "Seriously? He wants to build an elevator connecting Earth to Mars, and he's placing the Earth end of it in one of the planet's most seismically active zones?"

"He claimed, during our video conference, the Mahora area was one of the two most highly-charged for the 'magical' energies needed for the project," Reed Richards explained. "Leaving aside the dubious nature of those so-called mystic energies-"

The astral form of Stephen Strange hovering over the table seemed to cough slightly for a moment, all dignity and gravity.

"- I made a case for it ultimately being a moot point if an earthquake or tsunami destroyed the foundations before or shortly after the project started construction," continued Richards, who for a genius could be quite oblivious to hints dropped by others. Even his loving wife of many years. "It seems to me he's allowing his fondness for the country to overwhelm his rational judgment on the subject. It took me a lot of convincing and arguing to make him tell me the second best physical placement for the Earth contact point, in his opinion."

"Which is?" asked Prince Arthur of Atlantis.

"Gotham," said Richards.

The dark figure sitting further back, in the shadows at the end of the room, grunted gruffly. "Hnh."

"Oh, for the love of -" Stark said. "The same city that was levelled by another earthquake less than two years ago? Does that elevator actually work on telluric activity?"

"I can vouch for him," Doctor Strange's projection said. "And believe me, the salvation of Mars and its magical society is an imperative necessity for our future as a species."

"Indeed," Princess Diana of Themyscira nodded, looking at King Black Bolt of the Inhumans. "What is your stance now, Your Majesty? Would you be willing to allow use of the Blue Area for the bridging section of the Elevator, as Mr. Springfield requested to Professor Richards?"

The black clad figure nodded solemnly, then gestured towards another of the council to signify she should be consulted on the subject, as well.

The slender blonde currently stuffing her mouth with nachos blinked when she realized, one moment later, all eyes in the room were set on her. "Hmmmm? Oh, yeah, I'm the Princess of the Moon, aren't I?" she asked in Japanese, the language the others had been using through the conversation, since unlike them, she just plain couldn't keep up with foreign languages. "Ah, sure, whatever! If it's for a good cause ... not like I'm using those grounds anyway," she shrugged, before gulping her mouthful and passing the bag of snacks around. "Sorry, I've been a glutton, does someone want some? Di-chan?"

Diana sighed and took a few.

"X-sensei?" asked the newest member this time.

The wheelchair bound bald man sighed and took a few.

"Strange-sensei?"

Stark sighed, then ran a hand through the astral projection's mouth twice. The astral projection didn't seem amused.

"Ohhhhh, yeah, can't eat like that. Bummer." Usagi turned back towards the figure in the shadows. "Batman-sama?"

"Batman doesn't eat nachos," the Dark Knight growled.

Usagi stuck her tongue out. "Nehhhh. More for us then!"

Arthur chuckled. "Outrageous! I can tell already I'm going to like you, Princess!"

"Liking her?" Stark chuckled as well. "More like-"

_**"Hnnnhhhhhh," **_went the Batman.

"Very well, very well, I won't be going there. It was just a joke anyway. I know the concept and you don't get along, but-"

"Uh, well," Usagi said, drop of sweat on head. "That's nice and all, Stark-sama, and you're really very cute under that metal mask, yeah, but I already have a boyfriend, and that reminds me, I should be going now, I'm going to be late for my dinner with him, and Mom will get really mad if I'm out past my curfew."

Standing right outside the room, four other girls in short skirted fuku waited with varying levels of impatience.

"She has to be doing this on purpose," Rei mumbled, tapping a foot. "She just knows I'd love to share a table with Tony Stark, and it wouldn't cost her anything to just put a word for us to get in with her!"

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter (Up To) Eleven**.

* * *

I still don't own these characters or make any money out of them! Can you believe that?

Huge thanks to Darkenning for the proofreading.

* * *

Later that afternoon, by Japanese reckoning, Ashikaga Yuki was leaving his classes for the day, drooping shoulders and wide bags under his eyes, when, while passing under a tree through one of the barely used paths he favored, someone dropped down out of the branches to dangle upside down behind him. Just as soon as he realized that, said person tightened their hands around his mouth and whispered, hot and urgently, "He's declaring his feelings today, isn't he?"

"Mmmmhhh-iyahhhh shhhmmmpppp?!" he blurted out from between the steel grip of those fingers.

_"Surprised, Yuu-chan?"_ the voice whispered. "_You thought you had fooled me when you disposed of that bug in Negi-sensei's room, didn't you? For shame, Yuu-chan, for shame,"_ she cooed in a dangerous intonation. _"If nothing else, I'd have thought you would consider me more intelligent. But I am. Much more intelligent than you, as a matter of fact. Which is why I foresaw such a double cross."  
_

* * *

Kyon entered the headquarters of the SOS Brigade that afternoon only to find them deserted. Which was strange enough in itself, even by Mahora and the Brigade's flimsy standards; while Haruhi had been spending a disturbing amount of time away lately, and she usually had Nagato tailing her around when she did, Asahina-san and Itsuki had remained steadfast presences in the club at almost any given time, and all in all, the recent course of events had seemed a pleasantly quiet one.

Kyon mentally kicked himself in the tuchus for being so Contractually Genre Blind at times. Was he really needy enough for semblances of normality that by now, whenever one showed up, it lulled him into lowering his guard?

Those were his thoughts as he walked towards the table at the middle of the room, on which someone had left a hand-written note. Picking it up with a healthy measure of dread, he read it. It took him only the span of his ensuing blink, since it only said 'I'm sorry'.

Those words were puzzling, to be sure, but not that shocking on their own right. Had they been written in Asahina-san's calligraphy, he'd have more or less understood she had gotten herself into a bind, but one she wished to keep him out of, like during the summer time loop crisis. Had they come from Itsuki, Kyon would have guessed the other male in the Brigade wanted to toy with him as part of a complex manipulation to achieve some result aimed, one way or another, at keeping Haruhi under control, since of course he couldn't just ask Kyon directly for his cooperation, no strings attached.

What made it so flooring was the fact that was Yuki's spartan handwriting.

Then the room's door opened and immediately closed behind him, and Kyon gasped as soon as he turned around, recognizing the person before him. "You!"

It was far from being a clever observation, but considering the boy's current circumstances, the buxom beauty in the tight white shirt and short black skirt decided to let it pass.

The older Asahina Mikuru just nodded and said, "Hello again, Kyon-san. May I take a few minutes of your time?"

* * *

"What ... what do you mean?" Yuki gasped, trembling as the fingers moved from his mouth to caress his chin, sensually.

_"We placed a second bug without telling you,"_ the voice chuckled mischievously. "Oooohhh, upside down for too long," Suzumiya Haruhi gurgled before dropping from the branch and land with a loud thud.

Yuki shrieked and tried to take the chance to run away.

Haruhi's arm, even now, was faster, and a hand firmly grabbed him by the leg.

* * *

Watching the events from a nearby rooftop, the very same pale black haired girl Yuki had found talking with Haruhi a few days ago huffed slightly as she felt someone quietly approaching her from behind. "Don't even try it," she warned in a tired monotone. "That would work on anyone _but_ me."

"I know," the other pale short girl now on the rooftop said.

"And even if you could, my will is all that is keeping her from causing a chain reaction."

"I know that, too," the other girl said, with even less emotion.

"Then why are you here?"

"To ask you why."

The long haired girl remained silent over the next few moments, her purplish deep eyes dull and lost, before she finally answered. "The same reason why I do everything else. You couldn't understand, of course."

She turned around, facing Nagato Yuki with a stare as cold as hers. She tightened a hand, on the back of which a purple gem still shone with an eerie glow. "You never knew Madoka."

* * *

As soon as Kyon sat at the table across Big Mikuru, he asked the question.

"Where's Asahina-san?"

Big Mikuru smiled and waited.

After a few moments of silence, Kyon exhaled a defeated breath. "Fine. Where's Koizumi, then?" he added, begrudgingly.

"How curious. Not asking about Nagato-san?" Big Mikuru wondered aloud.

"I know she's okay. She has to be. The Data Overmind wouldn't-"

She interrupted him with a slight shake of her head. "No. I guess not. Not for now, at the very least. To answer your questions, the two of them have been recalled, naturally, as it befits the situation. Don't worry too much, however. I'm sure they will be sent back soon enough..."

"What is the situation?" asked Kyon.

"That's a good question, one that Nagato-san might be better suited to answer," mused Big Mikuru. "It's actually difficult to give a precise answer without knowing exactly what's going through Suzumiya-san's mind at the moment."

_Like anyone would ever want to_, Kyon couldn't help but think. "She's learned something she shouldn't have, hasn't she?" he grimly asked, because he had to.

Big Mikuru nodded.

"How could it happen?" he asked, again because he had to.

"We aren't that sure of that either," Big Mikuru admitted. "But I'm sure it's not your fault. None of us could have ever predicted it, either."

"Exactly what did she learn?" Kyon pressured.

"We still are quantifying that. We're reasonably sure it wasn't anything about herself, but, other than that... it has to do with Negi Springfield-sensei. That's as much as we're getting from our findings so far."

Kyon's bland expression managed to give a vague impression of an actual scowl. "What's the deal with him? I thought he was just a normal boy, other than the child prodigy carrying a stick around part. And isn't he gone anyway?"

"No, actually, he's a magic user, the son of a princess from a magical world hidden on planet Mars, currently under the guise of an older boy, and having sexual relationships with more than a dozen different students across campus," Big Mikuru explained.

"Hhhh," Kyon said, inwardly berating himself over not finding that too bizarre and disgusting anymore. "I suppose I should be mad at someone over not getting the memo on that."

Big Mikuru shrugged. "It wasn't directly related to the Brigade."

"It is now."

She could only nod.

Kyon half-sighed. "Well, it can't be that bad, can it? Reality isn't unraveling yet, so whatever she's learned can't go too deep. Maybe she hasn't even bought it yet. She's like that at times; when truth kicks her in the face, her first reaction is denying there's a foot in her mouth."

"Our specialists assume the same force that guided Suzumiya-san towards the truth also might be stabilizing the continuum's reaction to her altered influence."

"Isn't that kind of that force, since it was its fault in the first place. And what kind of force is that?"

"That's Classified Information. I am forbidden from mentioning the designation of the entity that approached Suzumiya-san two weeks ago slipping through our surveillance network. In nine point five minutes, the protocols forbidding me from telling you she's a female, short and thin, with long black hair and purple eyes, with a purple gem embedded on her right hand, and currently standing with Nagato-san on the rooftop of the Third Storage Building overlooking the narrow pass near the river in the female portion of the campus where you could find Suzumiya-san if you hurry up, will also become effective-"

Kyon already was out the door.

Big Mikuru smoothed the lap of her skirt quite properly. "Glad to be of assistance," she told the now empty room.

* * *

As soon as Kyon, running as fast as he could, passed the door of the (fittingly) neighboring Neighbors' Club, a blond-topped head with a blue butterfly-shaped hair ornament popped out that clubroom. One moment later, that head's proud owner (even if, in the opinion of a certain Weasel, the head was too empty to be useful) slipped out and began running after the boy, large breasts bouncing rythmically.

Hasegawa Kodaka looked up from the videogame he had been playing over the last few minutes while Sena paid attention to what transpired outside. "Sena?"

From where she sat flipping through a magazine, Yozora snorted. "Meh. She's been paranoid about Suzumiya's club of late."

"Mostly, since you stopped being paranoid about Suzumiya's club," Rika pointed out, calmly closing her laptop, standing from her chair, and smiling.

"What's that supposed to mean, you smartass?" challenged Mikazuki, but Rika already had gone out the door and after Sena, giggling mischievously as she went. "Eh? You too?"

"Well," Kodaka sighed, rising as well, and briefly shaking his hands on his pants, as if to dust them off, "It's true you've been acting kind of strange lately."

"And you?!" a squeak of outrage rose from Yozora's throat.

Kodaka gave her a mildly cold glare. "I still haven't forgotten what you said about Chisame. And I'm going to learn about it," he said, then headed after his other two clubmates.

Yozora sat there, blinking for a few minutes, after squealing, "Then why haven't you asked her yourself?!"

At the same time, Yukimura, who had been cleaning in silence, quietly set her broom aside, smoothed her butler suit down, and began a dutiful sprint after her Aniki, fists properly twirled up and shoulders moving around into a stereotypical girly run not that fitting a male wannabe.

"... and you!" Yozora all but wept.

Then she muttered something definitely obscene to herself and followed the people who definitely were not and could never be her dream friends.

* * *

"... I assume you aren't talking about Kugimiya," Nagato said after a moment of running possibility calculations spanning the whole universe and its different variants, with a special focus on the Mahora District, in her mind.

"Kaname. Kaname Madoka," the young female identified as Akemi Homura told her.

"There is no Kaname Madoka in any of the schools present in this academic complex. I know of four different Kaname Madokas across the country, but-"

She was sharply interrupted. "I know that. I'm not talking about any of them."

"Another extraneous element to this continuum," Nagato deduced.

"Quite the opposite, actually. You are the extraneous elements." Her right hand briefly swept around, gesturing towards the whole Mahora landscape. "You don't understand it yet, do you?"

"In the event I haven't, would you explain yourself?"

"Only after the others have arrived."

"Which others?"

Homura's mouth weakly twitched up in a sad resemblance of a smile. "Those I consider to fit the next stage of the experiment, of course."

Nagato started to have a reasonably good idea of how Kyon felt all the time. She also was starting to understand the real reasons behind his outlook and demeanor towards existence in general. It was fascinating, how actually feeling it firsthand lent a whole new understanding to his perspective, even if it only threw further shadows over this particular subject. "Allow me to theorize-"

She was interrupted again, as Homura lazily looked down at where Haruhi and Ashikaga already were on the move again after a heated discussion. "No time for that right now," she said, jumping of the roof and landing safely on her feet on the grass below. Without missing a single beat, Nagato followed her, choosing not to ask anything as they followed the two from a distance. Not because she wanted to preserve any energies, since her organism had no need for that, but because it seemed obvious Homura would not say anything of any further value until those 'others' had arrived. It also seemed clear, for now, Homura wanted Haruhi to keep playing her cards without their interference, although Nagato was for once at a loss about what sort of goal Haruhi might have in mind this time.

But there seemed to be another reason, beyond not catching up to Haruhi's attention, that moved Homura to keep her own pace relatively slow. A reason that only became completely clear when Nagato saw a panting Kyon barely catching up to them, sweaty after what had to be a desperate rush across campus. "... what are you doing here?" she asked him, in a day where wonders would just never cease. Although, in hindsight, it should have been extremely obvious that Kyon would be one of those 'others', he was one of the minuscule weaker spots in Yuki's icy logic.

Kyon inhaled and exhaled twice, after stopping before her, with his hands on his knees. "I saw your note," he told her afterwards.

"I left no notes anywhere at any time recently," Nagato said.

"Actually, that was me. I fabricated and planted it," the black haired young woman said.

Nagato looked back at her.

"This is my world," Homura said. "I can do nearly anything I set out to do."

"I see," Nagato replied, not visibly fazed at all.

The same could not be said of Kyon, of course. "... what?! Um, no, wait, who are you, anyway?"

"I have many names. You can call me Akemi Homura," she answered, starting walking away again. "For now, suffice to say that I've been in dealings with Suzumiya-san recently, behind most of your backs, except for Nagato-san's."

Kyon gave Yuki a startled gaze.

The petite short haired girl replied immediately. "She is an unknown variant that had to be properly gauged before allowed any contact with you."

"... of course," Kyon scowled, before looking into the distance. "Isn't that Haruhi, dragging that boy from... oh no. She's on the Anti-Nagi Club, isn't she."

"Quite," replied Homura, never looking back at them.

"And where are they going now?" asked Kyon.

"Evangeline McDowell's cabin in the woods," answered Homura. Then, abruptly, she stopped again and looked back. "Good. Your numbers are complete for the moment."

"Numbers, which numbers are you-" Kyon stopped himself when he turned to see the majority of the Neighbors' Club stopping several steps behind him, all panting and wheezing from the exertion.

The one named Sena, the rich popular girl, almost collapsed onto him, forcefully grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket, and shaking him. "Where the hell's the damn fire?! Spit it out! What are you, Suzumiya, and the Weasel hiding from everyone?!"

Yozora opened her mouth to give an angry, energetic protest, but once nothing but incoherent pants came out, she just shook her head and went back to grab her own knees.

"This is all about sex, isn't it?" Rika wondered aloud.

Sena tossed a hostile glare her way. "Don't be stupid. Not everyone is as perverted as you a-"

"Actually, not for me, quite the opposite, but for the rest of you, yes, this is about sex," Homura confirmed.

Rika smirked. "Called it!"

Kodaka and Kyon gave out matching, confused "Bweh?!"s.

Rika kept on smirking and waving a finger. "How many other forces could keep students running madly across campus, especially when such a hot, uninhibited piece of desirable ass as Suzumiya-sempai is involved?"

"You have curious taste in women," Homura calmly observed.

"Thank you, Also Desirable Mysterious Waif, but Rika prefers labeling Rika's preferences as 'omnivorous'!" Rika chirped.

"Very well," Nagato told Homura. "Since it seems the numbers you were expecting would appear to be complete now, perhaps you should-"

Homura already was moving away from them again, following Haruhi's path relentlessly.

"Do I seem that inconsiderate when I act that way?" Yuki asked Kyon.

"Uhhhh," he said.

"I apologize," she honestly replied.

"So, if it's about sex for anyone but her, it's because she just likes to watch, right?" Rika guessed again, walking with her hands idly crossed behind her back. "Also, don't try and sneak away, Yozora-san, admit it, you're as curious as we are."

"What! I'm not curious, or interested, at all unless-!" a bewildered and perhaps protesting-doth-too-much Kodaka began.

Yozora grunted miserably as she walked. "Yes, yes, it involves your slutty sister, who indeed has been having actual sex with that Nagi guy! Happy now?"

Kodaka's eyes grew narrow as slits, his face grew red as an apple, and then he literally ran ahead, all prior exhaustion forgotten, quickly overtaking all but Nagato and Homura.

Sena gave Yozora a highly suspicious glare. "How do you know so much about other people's sexual lives, anyway?"

Yozora absently gave her a punch to the face.

* * *

"So, here we are," Ashikaga Yuki blandly said, as he and Haruhi stood before the cabin.

"Yes, here we are," Haruhi confirmed, surprisingly without any patronizing.

"And why are we here, anyway?" he asked.

"Because, according to my continued surveillance, very important things are about to transpire in there, but of course, you should already be aware of that," she told him.

"Oh. Um," he hummed, dragging a foot along the ground.

Haruhi rubbed her chin. "I suppose they didn't tell you how to sneak in there undetected?"

"Who would do such a thing?! Why would anyone do such a thing?!"

"These guys, maybe? They are crazy, after all."

_Pot, meet kettle!_ Yuki thought.

Haruhi chewed on her lower lip. "Oboy! Who knows what kind of succulent, bizarre aberrations against all that is good, natural and sane are happening in there! Things juicy and fantastic enough to make what happened to you positively bland and boring!"

"Please, not so loud!" begged the boy. "We're still in the open!"

"Oh, 'please' yourself!" she scoffed. "We're in the middle of the woods! What, do you think ten of our classmates are suddenly going to appear right behind us and say-"

"Do you want to get in, Suzumiya-san?" Akemi Homura evenly asked, appearing from between the trees right behind them, followed by Nagato Yuki, a bristling Kodaka, and a puzzled Kyon, Sena, Rika, Yozora and Yukimura.

"..." Haruhi said. Then, turning towards Ashikaga, who had gone as pale as paper, she added, "See? You were worried for nothing. Only seven classmates and one outsider." Then, to Homura, "Yes, of course I do, Homura-san. Thank you." And then, to Kyon and Nagato, "And what the freaking hell are you doing here, and in the company of our rivals, to boot?! Is this your pathetic attempt at a coup d'etat? Or are you spying on me like cowardly rats?!"

"No, we're just spying on you like you spied on Springfield-sensei," Kyon quietly accused.

"... ah. That's okay, then," said Haruhi with a careless shrug. "As long as you learn from the best."

"We are your rivals? Really?" Yukimura wondered.

"Oh, hey, it talks!" Haruhi whistled, fists cocked on her own hips.

"Where's my sister?!" Kodaka demanded. "She's in there, isn't she?! I need to talk with her right now!"

"Hasegawa Sora is currently taking extra lessons at the college area, and Hasegawa Kobato is at your home waiting for you to cook her dinner," Homura answered.

"I don't mean them!" Kodaka growled, then came to a halt. "Wait, how do you even know-"

"You don't want to know," Nagato cut in.

"But-!" Kodaka began.

"As for Hasegawa Chisame, yes, she indeed is in there," Homura nonchalantly continued. "However, I would advise against knocking or ringing. The cabin's current inhabitants and guests should be far out of your hearing range."

"Seriously, how do you know all of that? And who are you anyway?" Sena asked her.

"A friend of mine," Haruhi snapped.

Sena rolled her eyes. "Oh, that's a relief."

Kodaka stomped past them and began banging on the door. "Out of hearing range, are they? We'll see about that!"

Haruhi sneered. "As expected of a delinquent."

"You stay out of this!" Kodaka waved a finger her way.

Sena, Yozora, Rika and Yukimura raised their eyebrows in surprise.

"Wow," Yozora finally said, as Kodaka kept on hitting the door. "That Oniichan instinct."

"If you'll excuse me," Homura quietly said, stepping next to Kodaka and readying a kick.

"Stop," Nagato said. "That entrance is sure to be heavily-"

Homura kicked the door, and it easily flew open. She then dusted her delicate pale hands. "- open," she concluded, with a faint hint of irony.

Nagato turned to Kyon once more. "Am I really that annoying?"

Kyon shifted nervously. "Well…"

"I am very, very sorry."

Kodaka gruffly huffed something that sounded like a Thank You before stomping in.

"Isn't this home invasion?" Kyon rhetorically asked.

"I suppose you might say the home is actually mine in the first place, and I'm inviting you in," Homura said.

"No. No, it isn't," Ashikaga replied, even as Haruhi decidedly marched in after Kodaka. After a moment, so did Yukimura, Rika and Sena.

"It is," Homura dryly insisted, as she stepped aside to let Nagato in. "Now, are you going in, or not?"

"Hell no!" Ashikaga and Yozora firmly replied at once, before Haruhi's hands shot out the front door, grabbed each by an arm, and roughly pulled them in.

"I thought so," Homura nodded, closing the door after them, and then walking the opposite way, down the hill and towards the campus, absently humming to herself as she went.

There had been a few unexpected bumps along, but all in all, her experiment was progressing nicely enough.

* * *

"Chisameeee! Where are youuuu!" Kodaka shouted as he walked deeper into the cabin.

"Well, here we are, valiant troopers exploring the forbidden depths of a child prodigy's cabin, no doubt to scar her developing mind as soon as the delinquent brutally asks about his sister's deflowering," Kyon dryly narrated.

"Shut up, Kyon," commanded Haruhi, walking around the living room while looking behind the pictures hanging from the walls. "I must say I'm disappointed. I expected something more sinister, less cutesy than this."

"It's the home of an European child. How did you expect for it to look? Like something pulled out of your sick imagination?" asked Sena, settling herself on a couch and crossing her legs.

"Can you tell your girlfriend to shut her trap?" an irritated Haruhi asked Yozora.

"She isn't my girlfriend!" Yozora and Sena growled at once.

"Chisameeee!" Kodaka repeated himself. "Come here right now!"

"It's a very well kept home," Yukimura pondered quietly, looking all across the living room.

"Has anyone else noticed that weird Homura-san just went away and left us alone here?" Ashikaga shuddered.

"Meh, who cares about her," Haruhi waved a hand in his general direction. "Focus, kid, focus. We're thinking of important things here."

"Rika thought she was your friend?" Rika asked her.

"Friendship, like most things in this world, is a relative term," said Haruhi, as she began looking under the cushions now. "Come on, come on, give me something interesting here."

"Well, anyway, looks like there's no one here, so why don't we just leave and forget this ever happened?" asked Yozora. "As in 'really forget', not as in 'I Know What You Did Last Summer forget'."

"We'd have to kill someone first for that, genius," Haruhi absently shrugged. "Although I imagine there's a good chance of that as soon as your delinquent boytoy finds his-"

"CHISAMAAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!" came Kodaka's voice from the next room.

"Kodaka/Kodaka/Sempai/Aniki!" yelled Yozora, Sena, Rika and Yukimura at once, all heading there immediately.

Kyon blinked.

"I know what you are thinking," Haruhi smiled, as she followed the others, satisfied at how it finally seemed like something interesting had happened. "You're wondering why Yuki, Mikuru-chan and I never yell that way when you get yourself into a jam."

"I was not -" he began protesting, then cringed when he saw the cause of Hasegawa's shock; a tall, lanky girl with long black hair who now stood before the Yankee Punk, in a light black T-shirt with a skull design on it, and worn down jeans. She was attractive in her own way, but also unnaturally pale, almost sickly so, and rather skinny. "Uhh, sorry about this intrusion, Miss-"

"What's up guys," the strange girl - well, the newly arrived strange girl, since there had been no shortage of them this day - greeted them by waving a hand. "I'm Marceline's, um, Eva's cousin. Of sorts. Didja come here for the thing with the Prof?"

"The thing?" Sena repeated, dubiously. Yozora and Ashikaga were hiding their faces in their respective hands.

"She, she, dropped from the ceiling on me!" Kodaka stammered.

Haruhi narrowed her eyes, then aimed them directly at Marceline's face. "Izzat true?"

"Huh, nope?" she asked back. Stupid Old World and its stupid need to keep what you were a secret.

"You did!" Kodaka accused. "I saw you clearly!"

"Ah, that. I was practicing. I do a lot of rock climbing," she lied badly. "So, you here for that thing, yes or no?"

"You're a vampire, aren't you?" Haruhi asked her, eyes now gleaming.

Kyon choked violently in his saliva, and even Nagato's face briefly betrayed what might have been a subtly troubled expression.

"Why do you ask that, Sis?" Marceline calmly asked in turn.

"You have two huge bite marks in your fucking neck!" Haruhi gushed, pointing at said marks intently.

"Oh please!" Sena scoffed. "You of all people never ran into a Neo Goth pretender before?"

Marceline stared disapprovingly at the big breasted young woman. "... you're starting to remind me of someone I don't like very much, just much ... blonder."

"She only grows worse over time, trust me," Yozora nodded, as Sena hissed poison her way.

"You're turning the Yankee's sister into a vampire through an obscene forbidden ritual here, aren't you?" Haruhi eagerly asked.

"Uhhhh... nope," Marceline said. "I'm just looking after Eva's cottage as she probably engages in obscene forbidden rituals with the Prof, the Yankee's sister and others down there, but I'm not too much into that kind of stuff, and it's no business of mine, I'm just staying here for a few weeks, so ... ahhhhh, I've said too much, haven't I," she blandly finished, seeing Rika starting to nosebleed violently, Haruhi grin like a crocodile, and Sena, Kodaka, Kyon and Ashikaga break into nonstop coughing. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I doubt anyone will get turned into a vampire tonight. Most of us actually are against turning people, it's just a bother and creates more competition, and - geez, I suck at this stupid secret keeping thing, don't I. It's all pointless anyway. I don't think any of you are in this list Eva gave me -" She paused to lazily check on a crumpled piece of paper she had pulled out of a pocket. "- but what the heck, if you managed to break in past the security system, Eva will want to have words with you anyway. Come on." She snapped her fingers and began guiding them towards the stairs to the basement. "The sooner you're her problem instead of mine, the better."

"So you don't actually do rock climbing?" asked Yukimura as she and Rika helped a catatonic Kodaka to move along.

"Of course I do, it's way cool! Why wouldn't I?"

"Aaaahhh, just asking, that's all."

* * *

Akemi Homura didn't realize she had strayed from her intended path back to school until she saw her casual contemplative stroll through the Mahora campus had led her right in front of the small residence that currently housed Hasegawa Kodaka and his youngest sister, on loan from the faculty as a favor to their father, who was a frequent archaeology consultant for the staff.

She stopped, looking at the house's door. Come to think about it, if things worked out as expected, Hasegawa would not be returning home for at least a couple hours of objective time. Which meant the young girl would starve until then. She was, if Homura remembered her notes correctly, too proud to cook for herself in a 'Kodaka Day' or to call the eldest Hasegawa sibling, the amateur mechanic, for help.

Oh well. She would bring that on herself, wouldn't she? It was not like Homura had to concern herself over that, much less when there were-

_Madoka wouldn't have liked that_.

Homura winced to herself, despite herself.

_And technically, it's your fault this is happening. To her, and to everyone_.

Damn her conscience. It was, now that she thought of it, even more of an annoying voice than the Incubator's. And she couldn't torture its source to death for a million subjective years, either.

_I didn't start her sister on the path of vice, she already was that way when I-_ she tried telling herself.

Homura kept looking at the closed door. Then she looked up at the darkening skies.

She checked on her wristwatch. Then she frowned at it, and the time set itself half a hour back.

There were, after all, definite perks to her new condition.

More or less pleased, Akemi Homura walked to the door and rang its bell.

The door flew open, and she found herself looking at a mismatched set of piercing, bright eyes accompanied by a cute frown. "Who are you?" grumpily asked the even shorter girl hugging the plush bunny, clearly disappointed by her brother's absence at the doorstep.

"I'm Akemi Homura. Your brother sent me to cook you dinner," the black haired young woman coldly said.

The door was promptly slammed on her face. "That's a lie! He'd never do something like that!" said the girl's voice, now from the closed inside.

Homura balled her fists up and repeated the mantra in her head. _Think of what Madoka would like, think of what Madoka would want, think of what Madoka would do_. "Your brother will be busy, and he won't come back until much later. Open up. I'm not going to hurt you." _If you open right now_.

"Hurt me?" scoffed the girl inside. "Filthy plebeian, you never could even begin to hurt the powerful queen of the night, Reisys VI Felicity Sumeragi!"

"Then why are you hiding from me?"

"I'm not hiding! Hiding is something one does only when one lacks control over a given situation, and I am always in control!" protested Kobato from behind the couch.

"Let me in, or I'll tell your brother," warned Homura.

"My bro- I mean, even if I didn't happen to be a sovereign above your petty, pathetic demands, if I happened to be a simple mortal with an older brother, he would have told me to never let strangers in!"

"Very well, that's a wise, good advice," Homura allowed.

"Naturally! Anyone who would happen to be a relative of the undying Reisys VI Felicity Sumeragi would have to be wise and careful and nothing would ever escape their gahhhhhhh!" Kobato jumped back when she noticed the same girl calmly climbing into the living room through a window. "What are you doing, mortals can't enter a vampire's abode without their invitation!"

"I think that's the other way around," mused the girl now standing before her. "For shame. You of all people would be expected to be better read on the subject," she added, as she coolly moved towards the kitchen. "Now go refresh yourself, wash your hands, and put on something better fitting a dinner table than that goofy Goth getup."

"IT ISN'T GOTH!" Kobato shrieked petulantly.

* * *

"Are you in his club?" Kobato asked, breaking the tense silence over the dinner table at last.

Changed into a light tee-shirt and shorts, other than her mismatched eyes and her blond hair, she almost actually looked like a normal Japanese young girl now. Not that Homura was sure that was a good thing. She had witnessed too much of what 'normal' people could do as soon as they were pushed out of their comfort zone, and that girl's comfort zone was evidently far too narrow.

"No, I'm not," Homura simply replied, eating reluctantly, sitting across from her.

Kobato was barely touching her own meal. "Then how come you are his friend? I thought he had no friends outside of his stupid club for jerks."

"I'm not his friend," Homura said. "I wouldn't call those people his friends either."

Kobato sneered. "That's what they want us to think." A pause. "Do you have any friends?"

"I had one. Once."

"What happened to her?"

"Why are you sure it was a girl?"

"Duh! Girls only can be friends to girls, right? Otherwise, they become girlfriends to boyfriends."

"Then," Homura patiently replied, "your brother, a boy, would have girlfriends, not friends, at his club, wouldn't he? Since they are all girls there."

Kobato recoiled in pain.

Homura smiled thinly, purple eyes placidly narrow. "Don't you think girls can be girlfriends to other girls, then?"

"O-Of course not, everyone knows that."

Homura half-sighed. "You remind me of someone I used to know. A little. Come to think about it, I never got to know her too well. Probably just as well."

"You're weird," the girl who deluded herself into acting like a TV drama vampire told her.

"I know," Homura said. "One way or another, I have always been. And there always was only one person who accepted me that way, so, believe it or not, I can understand your situation."

Kobato sneered, poking on her meal again. "You don't cook like him at all. This tastes bad. And cold."

"They say, for your cooking to have warmth, you must have warmth in your heart," Homura explained.

"That's a jab against me?" Kobato pouted.

"Against myself. I said the cook, not the one who tastes the meal, didn't I? Your brother, unlike me, has, in his own way, warmth in his heart. I lost mine long ago." Then she said, distant and quietly, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Kobato blinked.

"For him not being here right now," Homura was honest.

"That is your fault?" Kobato accusingly asked.

This time, Akemi Homura didn't answer.

* * *

"You know," Evangeline told Marceline, "I can't fathom whether you're just so terribly stupid or so terribly dead-set on screwing with me."

"There's also the possibility I might not have cared about being your bouncer. And for the record, I'd like to think I have better taste in sexual partners," the other vampire replied carelessly.

"You've slept with a woman made of bubblegum, don't you come lecturing me on sexual partners," Eva wagged a threatening finger at her. "And above it all, don't you come bringing foolish interlopers who have no business into my house!"

"A woman made of bubblegum? Really?" an intrigued Rika piped in.

"This is so scripted," Sena said. "It's one of those bizarre surreal theater plays the Stage Clubs are obsessed with, right?"

"How was I supposed to know what to do with them?!" Marcie was yelling at Eva now, waving her arms high. "You said no one who wasn't supposed to get in could even get past your wards, so why shouldn't I bring them here so you could check on them?! And besides, weren't you planning to have your boytoy bone the whole damn school anyway?!"

"Come again?" Sena winced, as Rika's nose exploded into a geyser of blood. Kodaka, Kyon and Ashikaga began choking violently. Haruhi swooned.

"Are you implying I should be grateful to you?!" Eva yelled back, starting to wave her arms as well.

"Why no, of course I wouldn't ask for the impossible from you!"

"Are you now implying I'm some sort of ingrate?!"

"More like ALL the sorts of ingrate!"

"Really, how did that work, though?" Rika wondered, standing beside the pool next to a facepalming Ashikaga. "Wouldn't bubblegum get all over and into your - which could be some new kind of kink, Rika supposes, but-"

"Are you REALLY believing any of this bullcrap?" Sena asked her.

"It's all tragically true," Yozora deadpanned miserably.

Sena pointed at her. "See, if she believes it, it all must be false!"

"I'm too depressed to hit you," Yozora groaned.

"Whoa, it's really serious," Rika was impressed.

Haruhi's excited, nearly orgasmic squeal made them all look back at where Evangeline had taken her adult form, black aura swirling menacingly around her. "Here, it is up to me to decide who gets in and who stays out, who lives and who dies! And that includes even you, Princess!"

Marceline had just shifted into a monstrous, grotesque beastlike form, armed with long claws, sporting crimson eyes, and sprouting gigantic black bat wings from her back. "And I won't ever be humbled, no matter where, Dark Evangel! You INGRATE!"

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"No, it's my house, so you shut up!"

"But I'm your guest, so you shut up!"

"No, you!"

"No, you, you, you you you!"

"You to the umpteenth time!"

"... kind of kinky, yeah," Rika chewed on her lower lip.

"Oh, come on, as if they were going to transform like that only to degenerate into this kiddy contest of 'No, you!'," Sena sighed. "This isn nothing but another CGI show."

"You don't have the slightest idea how CGI works, do you?" demanded Yozora. "Stupid Meat, CGI is applied to film during production, it doesn't appear in the action as they film it!"

"Actually, it's more complex than that, it's -" Nagato began, but then the stoically silent Kyon placed a hand on her right shoulder and shook his head, and she fell back into background-melding quietness.

"What would you know on that subject, Weasel!" Sena growled. "Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!" Yozora smartly countered.

"No, you shut up!" Sena cleverly struck back.

"All three of you shut up!" Evangeline snarled.

"No, you shut up!" Marceline repeated. "And the two of you, too!"

"It's my home, so it's you who has to-"

"Again with that? Shut up already, you old broken record!"

"You two shut up!" Sena shouted at them.

"No, you two shut up!" Marceline and Evangeline said at once.

Haruhi, with her hands curled into fists under her own chin, rubbed her legs together as she looked at the changed appearances of the two vampires. "This... This is so cool! It's what I dreamed through my whole life, now, if you only started fighting to the death for real, it'd be-"

**"SHUT UP!"** Sena, Marceline, Yozora and Evangeline told her all at the same time.

Grinning goofily, and happy to have two cool looking bloodsucking fiends commanding her, Haruhi nodded and made a motion of zipping her own lips up. Kyon almost felt that moment alone was finally worth all the hassles of the day and the looming threat of universal destruction. Maybe, if anyone survived the experience, they should add those two vampire weirdos to the Brigade, if it meant more Silent Haruhi.

Kodaka opened his mouth, regaining some of the drive that had brought him there in the first place. "Before anyone tells me to shut up, I have to ask-"

"Then ask," Eva gruffly allowed.

Kodaka blinked. "I'm not getting a 'shut up'?"

"Do you want one, Boya?" Eva grumbled, bitter as hell.

"You're worried about your sister, isn't it natural you'd want to ask?" Sena conceded.

"Yeah, I guess, what the Meatbag said," Yozora huffed, looking aside and blushing.

"I can admire a human kid who would stand up to two monsters - make that four - for the sake of his friends or family," Marceline nodded, certainly not thinking of any kid back at Mundus Magicus having adventures all the time with his shapeshifting dog. "So go ahead, feel free to ask Eva here anything."

_**"Shuuuuut up,"**_ Eva clenched her sharp teeth at her.

"No, you sh-" Marceline began again.

"Where's my sister?!" Kodaka rushed to stop the madness before it began anew.

At that moment, Chisame and Chachamaru arrived to the pool area. "For God's sake, Evangeline," Chisame was saying, "what's all the racket about this time, we could hear you and ... Ko... da... ka..." she trailed off, stopping as she saw his brother standing there with the rest of his club, the Suzumiya weirdo of all people, some kid with glasses, that guy Kugimiya had the hots for, and some girl she thought she had seen in the library every time she went there.

Yukimura, who all through that had been standing right behind Kodaka, stepped out into sight to bow and politely wave at her.

Chisame's face twitched, and she immediately threw herself headfirst into the pool, without bothering to check first. Unfortunately for her, it was filled.

"Good afternoon," Chachamaru said politely, once the splash subsided.

* * *

A few minutes later, Sena, Yozora, Rika, Evangeline, Marceline, Haruhi and Kyon sat on summer tables by the pool, talking amongst themselves, while Yukimura, Ashikaga, Nagato and Chachamaru sat slightly apart from then, in a gamut of silences with varying degrees of attention. Most of Chachamaru's was focused on the small, closed summer shack where Kodaka and Chisame had holed up after Chachamaru fished her classmate out of the pool. Not that the gynoid had to strain her hearing systems excessively, what with the sudden bursts of intense discussion coming out at periodic intervals.

"All I'm saying is, you're ruining your own life with this!" Kodaka was saying now.

"Oh, that's rich! Who gave you of all people the capacity to tell what's better for anyone's life?!" Chisame was yelling back.

"Anyone could see that!" Kodaka was replying. "This is far worse than joining a cult!"

"I'm so glad I'm an only child," Yozora deadpanned as she sipped her juice through a straw.

"Well, the world would be lost with two of you," Sena observed.

"At least my father never sired children out of wedlock, then used them for domestic service," Yozora remarked.

"After seeing what they got from their first try, I'm shocked they didn't get themselves neutered afterwards," Sena shot back.

"Wow," Evangeline smirked. "And here I thought Kagurazaka and Yukihiro had it bad."

"What makes you think you can be a good older brother now?!" Chisame's voice screamed this time. "You and Sora, you always were like you were living in different worlds from me! You never cared, you never looked after me!"

"I know, I know!" Kodaka shoted in response. "How many more times do you want me to apologize over it? At least I have tried to make up for it looking after Kobato! Whom you've never given a second thought, by the way, so you shouldn't talk about being a terrible older sibling!"

"I couldn't be a close sister when you were always sticking in the way!"

"I'd gladly have let you in if you had ever tried!"

"Well, what if I try now?"

"Hah! Why for, so you can pass your sluttiness over to her?!" This was followed by the heavy sound of a slap, and the thud of Kodaka's body hitting the wall, followed by a weak "Okay, maybe I deserved that."

"YOU THINK?!" Chisame's voice cried.

"Her ... sluttiness ..." Yozora said, shuddering a little.

"Hitting a bit too close, I reckon?" an amused Sena asked.

"Envious, Sempai?" Rika smiled.

The busty blonde cringed. "Ew! Why should I be envious of someone who got herself pulled into-"

"Think of what you're about to say, Meat," Evangeline warned her.

"You too?!" Sena gasped.

"Yadda yadda yadda, yeah well, all this sex stuff is mysterious and exciting in their own way," Haruhi complained, "but why in the world are we discussing it instead of talking about the neat FUCKING POCKET DIMENSION OF MAGICS you have here? C'mon, Eva-sama, gimme a guided tour already!"

"I'm no one's tour guide, and you'll call me EVANGELINE-sama," Evangeline growled.

"Whatever, would you bite me, please, EVANGELINE-sama?" Haruhi bared her neck to her. "I already learned your dark secrets, so isn't it standard vampire protocol for you to make me into your immortal slave?"

"Blech. Pass," Evangeline said. "Why are humans always assuming we'd have any hurry to create more vampires? Most people are so annoying, why would we want them around us forever?"

Haruhi pouted, then offered her neck to Marceline. "How about you, Hardcore Punk Rocker Metal Undead?"

Marceline made a face of disgust. "No way!"

"Oh, come on!" Haruhi whined. "What does a girl need to do to sell herself to the forces of darkness around here?!"

"Fine, have it your way!" Kodaka now was stomping out, with a red-eyed, angrily sniffing Chisame after him. "I'm not telling Dad and Sora so they believe me insane again, but let's see how long your house of cards holds up! When it comes down on you, don't come crying to me!" He turned to Marceline. "Hey, you, is the way out the same as the way in?"

"You idiot," Evangeline told him, "Didn't they tell you? Once you're here, you can't leave until twenty four hours have passed."

"Twenty... four ... hours?" Kodaka echoed. "But, but, no, I need to get out right now, Kobato -!"

"Hasegawa-san, don't worry about that, please," Chachamaru quietly spoke in. "Twenty four hours inside of this resort equal one hour spent outside, so you should be able to head back home comfortably before nightfall."

"Cool," Haruhi observed.

Kodaka was not that satisfied. "Ah? Uh, even if that nonsense is true ... what am I supposed to do for twenty three more hours inside this brothel, anyway?"

"For starters, you can shut your huge mouth up about my home lest I toss you into an abyss, whether you're Hasegawa's brother or not," Eva told him.

"Be my guest," Chisame huffed.

"Oh, you don't mean that," Chachamaru told her.

"I mean what I mean!" Chisame answered.

Haruhi looked at Chachamaru now. "So, there's no reason whatsoever for YOU to deny me that tour in the meanwhile, is there? Or do you have many more important things to do for the next whole day?"

"I would be glad to show you the surroundings, Suzumiya-sempai -" Karakuri started to say.

"A-hem," Eva went.

"- as long as the Master has no objections," she smoothly added.

Eva looked aside. "Do whatever you want, as long as it's far from me."

Her maid bowed. "Thank you, Master."

Right then, a tearful girl with long dark hair passed by before them, running at Misora-like speeds, holding a hand against her face.

"... and who's that?" asked Kyon.

"... Okochi Akira, from our classroom," Chisame said. "I see she took the news just as well as Brother of the Decade here did."

"You mean the news about how you have this place turned into the central of a massive web of vice and depravity spreading through the whole campus?" asked Rika.

"Yeah, pretty much," Chisame growled, then looked at Chachamaru. "Shouldn't you be going after her?"

"I can recognize the signs of needing to be left alone for the time being in a distressed friend when I see them," the green haired girl replied.

"Then why don't you ever leave me alone when I need it?" Chisame asked.

"Because you don't ever show them," Chachamaru straight out told her.

Chisame's heated reply to that went unsaid when they realized Haruhi was briskly heading in the direction from which Akira had just come.

"Sempai?" asked Chachamaru. "What about your guided tour?"

"Later, later!" Haruhi waved at her. "Right now, whatever is happening that way must be too juicy to ignore! I just gotta see it!"

Kyon rolled his eyes up at the false sky, expecting a dimensional collapse at any moment now.

It didn't come.

How annoying.

* * *

"Negi-kun," Makie said, sounding more serious than any of them had ever heard her sound before now. "I need you to look at me, okay?"

He lowered his hand and his devastated-looking eyes met hers.

"Yeah, I get it now," she said, nodding. "The girl you were going to confess to, the one you really love ... it's Akira. Isn't it?"

"... no," Negi said, and prepared to say, It's you. "It's-"

"TA-CHAN, TA-CHAAAAAAN!" Suzumiya Haruhi said at the top of her lungs, slamming her hands on both sides of the hallway's entrance as she stood on the doorstep, which had remained open after Akira had stormed out.

"Seriously, there's evil cockblocking, and then there's this," muttered Kyon, who had stopped shortly behind her with Nagato, Kodaka, Sena, Rika, Yozora and Yukimura. Ashikaga and Marceline had stayed long behind by the pool with Evangeline, Chachamaru and Chisame, due to intense fear in the former's case and just as massive disinterest in the latter's.

Rika raised an eyebrow at him. "That's sort of strong language for you, Sempai," she told him, knowing him well enough from prior brushes between their clubs.

Kyon vaguely shrugged. "I guess you might say I'm having a bad day."

"What ... what are you all doing here?" asked a startled Negi, who nonetheless felt somewhat relieved about the interruption.

"It's a rather long story," Yukimura said.

"Longer than this?" Makie pointed at Negi's whiteboard.

Yukimura looked at the board, studied it carefully for a moment, then replied, "... yes. I think." She glanced at a certain name and looked at a certain person with speculative interest.

"Whoa, like real bad stuff here," Yuna cringed.

Haruhi walked up to Negi, grinning in evil triumphality as she took a tight hold of his collar. "We know everything now, Negi-sensei!"

"Everything?" Negi asked, finding that difficult to believe despite everything.

"Well, obviously, not the identity of the girl you were about to mention, but never mind, I can deduce it easily!" she wagged a finger of her free hand, smugly. "From what I've collected about this whole mess while I've been here, you were going to confess to the girl you love before telling anyone else about her, weren't you?"

"Ahhhhh," Negi said, carefully eyeing Kodaka, who stood with his face wrapped in unexplainable shadows, cracking his knuckles together.

"Right," Haruhi nodded. "Now, you were about to tell this girl, Whatsername from the Gymnastics Club that tried to recruit me once, to her face. You certainly weren't looking at the face of Whatsername Here instead, so-"

"Izumi Ako. I don't think we have been introduced," Ako lamely said, in a choked gasp.

"Irrelevant," Haruhi waved a hand her way. "Be quiet, Non-Loved Girl. All of that adds to a single, inescapable answer, telling us the woman you love, rather than any of those other sluts you've been with before, is no one but-"

_**"Sluts?"**_ Kodaka growled.

"You basically just admitted to thinking just that about your sister, didn't you?" Haruhi gave him an annoyed glare.

"Sluts ..." Yozora clenched her teeth.

Sena snickered. "If you think the shoe fits!"

"Sluts?" Negi repeated. "Now, wait, I won't let anyone, not even you, treat my students that way, even if they aren't my students anymore, and even if they happen to be your own-!"

"It's her, isn't it?!" Haruhi vehemently pointed a finger at Makie.

The most overwhelming of silences fell on the hallway.

That silence was only broken by Makie's nervous giggle. "Ah, hee hee, why, Suzuraya-sempai! Don't be silly! It's Akira-chan, it just has to be her! It's just Negi-kun here blew her chances to tell her, so he couldn't stick to his original plan! Right? It's obvious to _everyone who matters_ how much Negi-kun feels for Akira-chan!" She looked to Ako and Yuna for confirmation, and took their silent blank gazes as examples of it. "See?" she said triumphantly.

"Everyone who matters?" Sena repeated, her lips curving into a grim scowl.

Negi gulped. "Well, yes, I do have such - but -"

"I know, it's hard! It's sad, even! I bet you didn't even realize how you really felt until recently, didn't you?" As Negi gaped at this bizarre combination of accuracy and its opposite, Makie pressed on. "And so it isn't even really your fault, the way that you've blown it with that girl. Didn't you hear her saying that her heart was broken?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Haruhi spat venomously.

Makie blinked, charmingly. "E-Excuse me?"

"Why you spineless, sappy, disgusting pretender," Haruhi was on Makie's face now. "You know what's the worst thing about your kind? That you aren't nearly as dumb as you act. It's like with Mikuru-chan." As she said that, Kyon choked in his saliva for a moment. "You have this warped, childish idea everything will just be better if everyone's kept in eternal ignorance, so you do your part by playing the idiot, but do you really think anything like that can ever last? Or are you just fucking stalling until graduation, so you can then just leave the people you fooled with your simpleton act behind? And then you'll fucking move on to do the same fucking thing in college, and then you'll fucking try it a third time through your marriage to some slob you'll get because you were too cowardly to take your chances with the guy you really liked! All because you only ever wanted to play it safe, because it was comfier and easier to play it dumb, to keep your own bar low! And then one day, you'll fucking die regretting it all, wishing you could have, today, just dropped the farce long enough to accept reality as it is!"

At that moment, an ominous thunder ran all across the resort, startling even Evangeline. Kyon told himself that this was The One, and waited patiently for the end. It didn't come this time either.

Bummer.

Makie, her eyes turned into spirals, weakly sobbed for a moment.

Negi grabbed Haruhi's shoulder from behind. "Suzumiya-san. I have no idea why'd you think it's acceptable to harass Makie-san like this, but I'm going to have to ask you-" At that moment, Kodaka's right fist collided against his cheek, but it felt like barely above a mosquito sting. To Negi, that was, for Kodaka had pulled his hideously aching hand back, hissing in abject pain.

"It didn't work any better for me when I kicked him in the junk," Yozora reminisced.

Negi blinked. "Uh, s-sorry about that, Hasegawa-san, just give me a moment here, and I'll call Konoka-san..."

"Maybe," Nagato quietly spoke then, "we can reach a compromise of sorts on this issue. Since, judging from Hasegawa-san's furious reaction at his sister being rejected after being sexually used, by now it's quite obvious that all of us believe that Springfield-sensei's feelings of passionate love are focused on Sasaki-san -"

"Heyyy!" Makie and Negi said at once.

Nagato did not flinch or pause. "- however, it's also apparent that a widespread revelation of this fact might prove being socially disruptive for the campus as a whole, perhaps it would be for the best if, for the time being, the issue is kept amongst the exclusive lot of us, with a tacit agreement none of us ever heard that until the time is ripe to adress the subject for good."

"Which will be when?" challenged Haruhi, arms folded.

Yuki looked at her. "The fun will lie on seeing when, won't it?"

Haruhi opened her mouth for a retort, the retort didn't actually come out, Haruhi closed her mouth back, the mouth took the shape of a crooked smile. "... point."

Yuki nodded. "I thought so. Then, in the interim, perhaps it would be for the best," she casually pushed Makie and Negi closer together, "if the two parties directly involved in a completely hypothetical and unofficial declaration of that sorts would establish an equally completely hypothetical and unofficial agreement on the matter."

Makie fidgeted around, nervously. "Ummmm ... w-well, if that ever were to be the case, I'd gladly accept your completely hypothetical and unofficial feelings, Negi-kun."

Negi blushed. "And ... in that completely hypothetical and unofficial instance, I'd be very grateful at your completely hypothetical and unofficial acceptance, Makie-..."

"Ahem!" Haruhi coughed.

"... chan."

A new, completely verified and official silence fell over all those presents.

Ako wiped a completely verified and official tear off a corner of her eye. "I'd be so glad for you if that ever were to be the case, Makie-chan."

"Uhhhh ... yeah, yeah, sure thing, here too!" Yuna added after a moment of hesitation.

Makie slumped ahead and completely verified and officially cried into Negi's chest.

"Second weirdest love declaration I've ever seen," Sena said, actually quite impressed.

"Which was the first one?" asked Yozora.

"Let's just say you're fortunate Kuno Tatewaki will never set his eyes on you," Sena shuddered.

Rika bawled in a tissue. "Oh dear gods I don't believe in! There's nothing more heartwarming and romantic than a bizarre non-declaration of forbidden love between aged-up prepubescent teacher and student in a closed sub-dimensional space! It could only be better if incest was involved!"

Yuna coughed uncomfortably for no readily apparent reason.

Makie now took a deep breath. "And ... while we're waiting for that day when you can officially and ... what was the other word?... anyway... until the day comes when you can tell that girl - whoever she might actually be - you might just possibly be able to make it work with someone else. Someone else very close to you. Someone who has been watching over you with fond eyes for so long. Someone with pink hair."

"Makie!" Ako was finally moved to interject.

"Or blue," Makie continued as though she'd always intended to add that addendum. "Or, um, Yuna, would you say that your hair color is hazelnut?"

"Uh -"

"Yeah, hazelnut." Makie kept her eyes firmly on Negi's the whole while. "Someone who will love you no matter what."

"Now, now, I wouldn't go that far as to say love really works that way," Haruhi piped in.

"Yeah, 'bout that -" Yuna continued to interject.

"Yes, Negi-kun," Ako interrupted, coming forward to stand beside Makie. "There are girls like that in the world. Many of them. Many of them, here. Well, okay, only two or three of them, not many. But girls who appreciate your honesty, and -"

"Just a moment," Negi said, raising his hand. "Um ... is this going where I think it's going?"

Ako and Makie exchanged a look, then turned back to him, nodding rapidly.

Rika's eyes sparkled. "Sweet!"

"Of course it is," Negi sighed. "Oh well." He reached out around Makie and Ako's shoulders and pulled them close to him, embracing them both tightly. "You are amazing," he said.

Kodaka made a few rather rude and incoherent mumblings as he nursed his broken hand.

Yuna sighed and took him by his good hand, leading him towards the door. "Here, here, Sempai, I'll take you personally to Konoka..."

"Yuuuna!" Makie whined as she pulled back from her first deep kiss with Negi so that Ako could get some as well. "Someone else can do that, can't they?"

"Maybe, but after I'm done with that, I think someone really ought to go be, uh, perturbed, yeah, perturbed with Akira, and since I don't really want any ... yeah, I've got a boyfriend, you see, and -"

"Oh you do not," Makie said disgustedly.

"Yeah I do, I just haven't - oh, screw it, include me out!" And with that, she departed, all but dragging a yowling Kodaka with her. After a moment of doubt, Yozora, Sena and Yukimura hurried in hot pursuit after them as well.

Kyon looked at Rika. "Aren't you going with your friends, too?"

"Friends don't have to do absolutely everything together, you know," she shrugged. "So, even though Suzumiya-sempai will no doubt be interested in joining this..."

"I am," Haruhi made a point of nodding as she saw Ako, Makie and Negi sucking faces.

Ako groaned something not very nice to her through a corner of the kiss.

"Yeah, well, I don't see you stopping because we're here!" Suzumiya replied.

Rika sighed. "Anyway, Kyon-sempai, even though she's in, and Yuki-sempai seems to be in too if her lack of retreat is any indication, a gentleman like you doesn't need to-"

Kyon hummed, hands in his pockets, dryly watching over the three way kiss as well. "You know what, I'm tired of all of this."

"Ah?" Rika blinked.

Then Kyon forcefully grabbed the fascinated and distracted Haruhi, turned her around, and slammed his mouth on hers, roughly, before she even could ask.

Rika looked at Yuki. "There's a fucking lot of bottled up sexual tension and frustration in there, isn't it?"

The Data Interface nodded. "As they would say, 'Like you have no idea'."

"Oh, Negi-kun," Ako moaned, heedless of these developments. "I wish you'd had this realization before you started pretending to be Nagi-san. That would have saved me so much-"

Makie cleared her thoat politely.

Ako conceded Makie's point with a vague shrug and a drop of the sentence. After all, if Makie herself was going along with the recent agreement, she darn well should go for it, too. Well, now it wasn't the time to address the matter anyway. Negi was kissing her back now, hand moving down her back to gently caress her buttocks. Doing so made her moan into his mouth.

At the same time, only a few steps away, Kyon had undone the buttons of Haruhi's shirt, roughly massaging and kneading her breasts as they kissed, her eyes tightly closed. That annoyed Kyon a fair bit. Was she imagining she was doing it with someone else? Itsuki, maybe? Had Itsuki gone through half the crap he had gone through for her sake, and because of her? That was what he asked himself then, because that was all there was to it, a fair sense of proper compensation, he was in no way jealous of Itsuki, at least not concerning Haruhi, even if he was willing to concede jealousy when it came to Asahina-san...

... well, now wasn't the time to think about Asahina-san, right? It'd be hypocritical, kissing and touching Haruhi while being annoyed she might be thinking about Itsuki, while at the same time thinking about Asahina-san's sweet face, and pink full lips, and much larger breasts than just had to be much softer and plumper than Haruhi's nicely shaped and sized but rather meaty...

... well, the comparison had led him to think about Haruhi, anyway, so it was okay, right? That, and how Haruhi was pulling the zipper of his pants down.

Meanwhile, Makie had finally stopped looking jealously at Suzamaya-sempai's much larger breasts; and generously and not out of any selfish intent to do anything with Negi (who was still the boy who had sort of confessed to her even if they wouldn't talk about it) before Ako could, kissed her way down his chest until she was kneeling in front of his trousers, then started undoing his belt and pulling aside his boxers so that she could -

Well, whatever she had been planning to do, what she did was gape, and, in the sort of tone normally reserved for utterances of profound religious truths, say, "Homina homina homina homina."

"Fucking motherfucking shit of all that fucking fucks!" Rika added, her glasses fogging up.

"... adequate," was all of Nagato's detached comment.

Haruhi opened her eyes and looked towards Negi's lower section, blinking several times. Then she looked down at the member she had just pulled out of Kyon's boxers, and mumbled something into Kyon's mouth.

Kyon angrily mumbled something into Haruhi's mouth.

Ako rolled her eyes as she kissed Negi, annoyed at Makie's exuberant overreaction and the sempais' usual antics. Even though, as the manager of a team of older boys, she was more used to it than most of 3-A. "Oh, come on guys, how big could it possibly baaaaaahhhhhhhh?" she asked as she pulled back and looked down and saw the answer to her question.

"We don't have to do anything if you don't want to," Negi said, sounding vaguely bored.

"Huh?" Ako said, head jerking up to stare at him. "Negi-kun?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that I nearly always say that in these situations, and it never makes the least bit of difference so I don't know why I bother," he answered sadly. "It's really starting to get to me, a little. I'm sorry," he repeated himself.

"It's the way your conscious mind copes with your unbound unconscious urges, the man attempting to rationalize the beast," Rika helpfully analyzed. "But don't worry, you'll grow out of it. Rika did!" She beamed a wonderful smile.

Negi sighed. "Thank you, Shiguma-san, that's such a relief."

Rika's face soured down a bit. "That was how you do sarcasm, wasn't it?"

"Oh, Negi-kun," Ako moaned. "You're so sweet, even to those who don't deserve it."

"And that's how your own sarcasm works," Rika deduced, drooping a bit. No one really paid her any attention.

"And savory, too!" Makie chimed in as if Shiguma hadn't even said anything (thus proving last paragraph's point), eyes dancing. The surprise had been considerable, but now that she'd had a chance to examine the member that would be parting her folds, surprise had been superseded by excitement. It was wayyyyy bigger than the baton she'd used to masturbate that one time, and warm, too. And - lick! - yep, savory! Without further ado, she took it into her mouth and began sucking with the same enthusiasm she confronted everything that interested her.

Haruhi looked at her for a moment and considered moving over there to at least lick the ballsack, or better yet, to push the girl aside so SHE would take the ballsack instead. That conquest plan was sunk when Kyon, allowing himself a bit of payback over all those times he was pushed and pulled around, grabbed Haruhi's scalp and pushed her head down to his cock's level.

Haruhi growled, made as if to bite the member a few times, and finally relented and started sucking, with a skill that definitely was not that of a first timer. That, too, annoyed Kyon a bit, but it was drowned down by how great he started feeling right afterwards. For the first time ever, he found himself thanking the heavens for Haruhi's big mouth and long, rapid tongue.

Rika, gnawing on her lower lips, antsily looked aside, at Yuki. "Well," she said.

Yuki said nothing.

"That sort of leaves us on our own, doesn't it?" Rika asked.

"Depending on the nature of your question," Nagato stoically said, although her eyes were a bit too fixed on Kyon now, to seem as emotionless as she habitually was, "I could answer one way or another. 'Are we alone and on our own in this world?' is a common question plaguing mankind for ages, and I cannot offer you a real definite answer if you aim for that philosophical discourse. However, knowing your personality and tastes, I assume you are talking about how they don't seem to allow the possibility to join their act-"

"Don't you want to do it, having to look at that?!" Rika cried, pointing at them.

"Do what with whom?" Nagato asked back, still looking at Kyon and how Haruhi's mouth bobbed back and forth in his manhood.

Rika almost looked about to cry. "... with Rika..."

Now Nagato did look at her. "Do you really feel a desire to perform sexual activities with me rather than joining any of their interactions? For instance, you should be quite able to placing your genitals against the mouth of either -"

"Maybe later, but right now, Rika wants youuuuu!" she whined.

"Is it because of any appeal I might hold for you, or solely because I am the only person in this room currently offering you any one-on-one emotional satisfaction, the kind you actually desire beneath your pretense of baseless sexual-"

"You are offering?! Thank you!" Rika cried, pulling Nagato's petite body towards herself and hungrily claiming her lips with her own.

A moment later, Nagato-san started kissing back, and Rika's mind was truly blown.

What they said about the quiet ones! It WAS true!

As this all happened on the sidelines, Negi moaned into Ako's mouth, which startled her enough to pull back from the kiss she was presently sharing with him to stare first at him, and then down at Makie. "Wha - Makie, how are you -" she stammered.

"Schlorp!" replied Makie, hands working on the portions of the shaft she couldn't fit into her mouth and going back to tickle the dangly bits behind it. She pulled back to give a somewhat more coherent answer. "Come on, Ako-chan, it's not rocket magic!"

"R-r-rocket magic?" Ako repeated.

"Magic trumps science, rocket science is the toughest kind of science, so rocket magic is the toughest kind of magic," Makie 'explained'. Then went back to sucking dick.

"... is that true?" Ako asked Negi.

"Maybe," Negi blissfully replied. Rika managed to mouth something about it being bullshit since nothing but sex ever trumped science; but her protestations, once again, went over everyone's heads. Even Nagato's, which was buried under Rika's skirt and licking at her sex, Rika's stained panties around her ankles.

"Schlorp!" Haruhi voiced her own opinion on the subject.

"Maybe?" Ako mouthed back at Negi. Then shook her head, wondering what she was thinking. Makie often had that effect on her, she wearily realized. Judging from the expression on Negi's face, she was having a similar effect on him, if not one that left him even less aware of the world around him. Really, she'd been lucky to get even a 'maybe' out of him.

Well, then, her course was clear. Really, even Suzumiya-sempai was following that course as well, although thankfully, with her own man. Who really looked kinda scary, almost as much as Chisame's brother. Ako wondered for a moment what could Madoka possibly see in him before kissing her own, much more approachable and warm man once more, for luck, and then dropping down to where Makie was kneeling and -

Whatever she'd been planning to do, what she did was gape as Makie let it drop from her mouth, licked her lips and breathily declared, "I think it's ready. Negi-kun, will you please make me a woman?"

"Ahhhh," Ako managed to say.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Rika agreed shuddering in ecstasy against Nagato's efficient mouth.

"Ahhhhh," Kyon added, sighing as he closed his eyes and stiffened his hips, shooting into Haruhi's mouth. Haruhi kept her composure, swallowing as much as she could as she tugged Kyon's pants down the rest of his legs. Then, just to remind him she was still in charge, she stuck a finger up his butthole. He yelped.

Makie blinked. "Oh," she said. Then, more sadly, "Oh ... yeah, you're right, Ako-chan."

"I am?"

Makie nodded, then looked up at Negi again. "On second thought, you should do it with Ako-chan first. She liked you first." She nodded somberly.

"No, no, that's not right, you liked him before I met Nagi and -" Ako said reflexively before the saner portions of her mind could shriek at her to stop.

"Oh! That's right!" Makie said, cheerful once more, and promptly stood up and started pulling down her panties. "Thank you, Ako!"

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_ went Ako's internal monologue.

Rika, still trembling in aftershocks while Nagato primly wiped her pale lips clean, smiled at the assistant nurse. "Who snoozes loses, as the old saying goes. That's why Rika will move on Kodaka-sempai right after this, and before either-"

Ako gave her a mildly jaded glare. "With the way things work around here, how are you so sure he isn't having sex with your friends, Yuna, Konoka and the others right now?"

Rika giggled. "You don't know Kodaka-sempai at all. He's simply too obtuse about these things..."

"Just like he used to be?" asked Ako, pointing over at Negi as a naked Makie mounted his crotch and lowered herself into his member.

Then Rika began to actually worry.

* * *

_Not as far as you'd probably think_:

"Aaaaand it's done," Konoka said, as Kodaka flexed his hand in and out, surprised at how good it felt. Better than it had felt in a long time, as a matter of fact. "So, whatever gave you the idea that punching Negi-kun would be the best course of action at the moment?"

"He knows, Konoka," Chisame grumbled.

"He knows about ... what?" Konoka warily asked.

"About your whole wicked sex ring, that's what we know," Sena stated.

"Oh," Konoka said. "Then I assume then you also know about-"

"About Yozora-sempai's involvement?" Yukimura innocently asked, just as Yozora froze at the back door she was trying to escape through.

Sena and Kodaka tilted their heads back to look at her.

"Didn't you bother to actually read that whiteboard?" Yukimura innocently asked again.

Sena and Kodaka, equally as stunned, now stared at the door, but Yozora had already fled.

"I assumed you already knew, Kashiwazaki-sempai," Yukimura told Sena. "What with the way you've been teasing Yozora-sempai since we arrived."

"Don't, don't call it teasing, and I only was guessing, and messing with her, but oh God, I had no idea, why that slutty weasel!" Sena cried, eyes turned into blue spirals, arms flailing around. "I had no idea she really had gone with it, and behind myour backs, too!"

Chisame sighed. "I must confess I was partially to blame over her start in this," she said, then bopped a fist lightly on the paralyzed Kodaka's head. "Shall we go after her, then?"

"Bwah," Kodaka said.

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Chisame said. "Get on with the program already, Taka. You're her friend, and the object of her crush, even I can see that, and I'm one of those who corrupted her, and now she's hurting over a combination of that, so let's man up already and go after her. It won't be pretty, but it's what has to be done."

"Bwah," Kodaka repeated, although he did stand from his chair and moved towards the door beside Chisame.

Sena blinked a few times before running after them. "Hey, what about me? The lifelong rival and bitter enemy has to be there as well! It's what always happens in these fantasy stories!"

That left Yukimura alone with Yuna, Konoka, and the eerily silent so far Setsuna in the room the later two shared. "- won't you be going with them too?" Yuna finally asked her.

"That wouldn't be too manly of me," Yukimura quietly replied.

"... there's so much wrong with that sentence, coming from you, and in this context." Yuna marveled.

* * *

Moments later, as Negi was pumping into Makie forcefully, with her back set against the hallway wall, one of her legs wrapped around his back while the ankle of the other was wrapped over his shoulder, in a way to give most gymnasts fits, Ako found she had recovered enough poise as to understand her own internal monologue.

_\- don't understand it, that's what was supposed to happen in these situations, except that it shouldn't happen at all with these sempais around, I barely know them anyway, oh wow, back and forth and back and forth like table tennis balls, until finally someone gets tired of listening to humility one-upmanship and just makes a choice, but it wasn't supposed to be her choice but his and now he's doing it with her right in front of me while I sit here on the floor naked before these strangers like a slut why am I not covering myself but watching with googly eyes and listen to her squealing like that and boy these sempais are noisy too and AAAAAAA -_

Well, it was understandable for a while, anyway. It didn't help that currently she was the only one around without anyone to, ahem, calm her sinful urges. Nagato-sempai was on her back on the floor as Weird Scientist-sempai (weirder than Hakase-san, which was saying a lot) repaid her earlier favor while fingering herself. It didn't seem to be doing a lot for Nagato-sempai, who just rested with the same non-expression she always had, but once a cold fish, always a cold fish, or so Ako guessed. Suzumiya-sempai seemed to be out to more than make up for that, her clothes and Kyon-sempai's in a small pile as the boy ate her out, holding one of her legs high, her toes twitching madly.

"Damnit Kyon, harder, deeper deeper rougher!" Suzumiya-sempai kept on shouting, running a hand down Kyon's back as if trying to shred his skin. "And you'd better have that pencil dick fully back up by the time I come!"

And once a slave boy, always a slave boy too, Ako also guessed.

"So pretty," Negi gasped. "So, very, pretty!"

"Ahhh!" Makie cried in release and genuine appreciation. "Thank you, Negi-kun! Am I as pretty as Akira? Am I?"

"I - really - don't - want - to talk - about - her!"

"Oops!" she giggled, not sounding terribly apologetic, but he supposed that sexual ecstasy didn't combine very well with that in any event. (Did that mean that lust meant never having to say you're sorry? That would explain a few things.) "Ahhhh!" she wailed a moment later.

"Makie - I'm going to - going to -"

"What? What?" Makie asked.

"Cum, you fucker! Fill the bitch up!" Haruhi cheered, slamming a fist on Kyon's back.

And with that Negi groaned and spewed up into Makie. Haruhi's voice was one of authority, after all.

_"Oh fuck yes,"_ Haruhi purred, as the sight finally pushed her into a climax in Kyon's mouth.

"Ohhhhhh," Makie moaned in pleasure at the new warmth within her. Then a realization, and a somewhat shorter, "Oh! You were asking if... oh. Oh. Um... you'll take responsibility, right?"

"Of course," Negi assured her.

"Good, good... um, what does that mean, though? I've just heard it on soap operas, and they never really explain -"

Whamwhamwham went Ako's head over the sounds of Negi trying to explain what it meant. He managed to do a remarkably good job at it, considering how Haruhi and Rika's efforts to color and spice the exposition up (or rather, take it over) only made it much more bizarre to follow. Kyon and Nagato sat slightly behind, the boy wiping the sweat off his forehead, and the girl, most likely for his sake, taking her shirt and bra off, leaving her as naked as everyone else. Except Rika, who still kept her glasses. As if it mattered. It seemed to work too, as Kyon began growing rather nervous and antsy about that right afterwards. Ako almost thought she almost saw an almost smile in Nagato's doll like face for a split picosecond then. But it probably was a side effect of the repeated head blows to the wall. Yeah, that had to be it.

"Wow, really?" Makie asked.

Negi nodded.

Haruhi snorted. "Eh, he missed a lot of details, including the eventual juicy divorce, but yeah, that's the basic gist of it."

Makie smacked Negi on the head. "Negi-kun you dummy! I'm fifteen, I don't want to get married yet! Sheesh!"

"I'm sure your parents will find that opinion of yours particularly interesting after this," Haruhi snarked.

"How about _your_ parents, Sempai?" Ako felt like asking, just to take that arrogant girl a peg down.

It didn't work. Haruhi just shrugged. "How about them, indeed? I doubt I'll care any more than I've ever cared before."

"Of course," Ako and Kyon found themselves saying at the same time, much to their mutual discomfort. He facepalmed, while Ako resumed hitting her head against the wall.

Makie, in the meanwhile, kept on blabbering, with a finger lazily tracing circles on Negi's hard chest. "I mean, I wouldn't mind the wedding dress thing, or the introducing you to my parents bits, or - but that's not important right now!" she quickly continued once she realized that Negi was starting to look just a bit panicky. "What I mean is, when you do it with Ako-chan, you shouldn't do that! That's something your chosen one who happens not to be me would be sure to appreciate! And you should, very soon - well, I mean, you shouldn't do that when you do everything else, which you should, very soon - just as soon as I wait wait wait why isn't it going down?" she asked after clambering off of him and gazing down at his still-present erection.

"Well -" Negi started to reply.

"Holy shit," Haruhi said, leaning ahead to take a better look, as somewhere else, Sakurako sneezed. Rika fished into her discarded clothes for a cellphone and began taking quick pics of The Thing That Wouldn't Go Down.

"Shiguma-san! Would you please stop doing that?!" Negi cried, blocking his own face with his hands.

"It's for the sake of scientific research that could result into the betterment of millions of sexual lives in the future. Also, it's hot. You owe that to the world at large!" she replied, never stopping taking pictures.

"I want the complete set," Haruhi instructed her.

"It's supposed to go down," Makie said, then lifted her face to look at Negi uncertainly. "It is, right? This isn't something that gets left out like the meaning of taking responsibility or just what you do with the feather duster once you've got it, right?"

Ako was lying face first on the ground nearby and didn't immediately respond.

"Ako-chan?" Makie repeated, turning to look at her.

"Wow," Haruhi said, taking a good look at Ako's back. "Cool scar there. Looks so badass."

"What scar?" asked Rika, who was too busy checking on the ass under said scar.

"Hm?" Ako asked, looking up to show a mild bruise on her forehead.

"What happened?" asked an appalled Makie.

"Oh, I slipped," Ako lied. "What were you asking?"

"Uhh," Makie hesitated, looked at Negi, then looked back at Ako. Now, she thought, was perhaps not the best time to seek medical advice. On the other hand, the presence of all these people was kind of stressing her out. "It's shouldn't stay like it is after it does it, should it?"

"No, it shouldn't," Ako sighed. "I mean, that's what the books say!"

"Mmm-hmmm," Haruhi and Rika chorused.

"HEY! I'll let you know, unlike _others_, I'm still a virgin!"

"And what a shy virgin," Haruhi observed.

"Actually, Rika's a virgin too, at least when it comes to being with men. Somehow, Rika has always scared men away with her winning, open personality," Rika said.

Makie blinked. "Well... I guess the experts agree, then."

"I'm, I'm hardly an expert either! Just going with what the books say!" Ako protested.

"Same difference," Makie handwaved that. "Negi-kun, is there something wrong with you?"

"... I honestly don't know how to answer that question," the emotionally disturbed and prematurely aged superhuman undying immortal replied. Before Makie could express further concern, however, he coughed and continued. "What I mean is, this is pretty much how things work for me."

Kyon muttered something dark and bitter under his breath, until Nagato's soft and small hand was placed on his unit and began stroking it slowly. Then he just gasped aloud.

"But... I mean, that's not right," Makie said. "Ako-chan, Sarumiya-sempai, Prof-sempai, Bookworm-sempai, back me up here!"

"If you mean it's not normal, yeah, but if that's wrong, then I don't want it to be right!" Haruhi grinned, and Rika nodded sagely. Nagato just kept ignoring them and rubbing on Kyon.

"Well, anyway, Ako, it's your turn, now," Makie said, filing all this away for future reference.

"I was thinking, as your guests of honor here," Haruhi said, "why don't you let one of us, okay, me, go nex-"

Ako rose from prone to crouch rather quickly. "R-Really!?" she asked anxiously, ignoring Haruhi.

"... well, sure thing, Little Miss Hoarder," Suzumiya grumbled. "Handicaps before beauty, after all..."

"Of course it's you, Ako-chan!" Makie assured her, ignoring Haruhi. "Who do think I am, Yuna? Or Suzushina-sempai?"

Negi sighed and shook his head. "I wish you girls wouldn't be as mean to each other as you can sometimes be. You're all supposed to be friends, not people who just know and tolerate each other. How would you like it if someone said things like that about you, behind your back? That isn't a friendly thing to do. All the fighting and backstabbing and cruel jokes that have been happening lately are really doing bad things to your group dynamics, and it all makes me very unhappy in the bargain. So please stop doing that-"

"Are you some sort of idiot savant?" Haruhi interrupted, a bit further annoyed by how, behind her back, Yuki had taken advantage of her distraction to sit on Kyon's lap and slid his thing into hers, which made them both gasp softly. Oh, if only she were some sort of reality warper who could punish these transgressions as fitting. Not that she cared particularly about Kyon, of course, but the Brigade's statutes clearly read the President always had dibs on every form of new activity to be undertaken by its members. And that included fucking each other. Maybe she should have actually written that explanation sub-clause down.

Negi blinked. "Excuse me?"

"By now, you've fucked like more than twenty of these girls, all of whom have strong feelings for you. If they were really out to backstab each other, don'tcha think one or more of them wouldn't have ratted everyone else out by now? Or worse? Kid, you don't even know the true meaning of backstabbing!" Haruhi shook her head in dismay, hands on her own hips.

"That's not something I'm all that keen to learn about, I must confess, but - why am I now lying on the floor, anyway?" Negi suddenly wondered aloud.

"We moved you to that position while you were lecturing us on morality!" Makie cheerfully informed him as she knelt with her knees on either side of his head while Ako moved over him. "It must have been very distracting for you. Especially when Shishimiya-sempai -"

"Suzumiya!"

"- when the loud girl started hectoring you," Makie clarified.

"I guess so," Negi, the battle veteran of sharp perception instincts honed by many combats, yet always a sucker for the moves of lovers, replied as Ako slid herself onto him, letting out a tiny cry as her maidenhead ruptured.

"Silly Negi-kun," Makie said fondly, tapping her crush's nose with a finger. "We can do all that stuff because we're true friends. True friends understand that pointing out each other's flaws isn't hurtful, it's helpful. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously. It clears the air! It relieves tension. It's wonderful. Wow, I bet I could really help a lot of people who have problems making friends. Maybe I should write a book or something! What do you think, Ako?"

"Rika thinks that's completely true. As a matter of fact, that sort of interplay is nothing compared to the exuberant friendship Yozora-san and Sena-san share-"

"Uh, I wasn't asking you!" Makie pouted. Rika pouted right back.

Ako, who'd just had several orgasms and provoked another ejaculation from Negi, thought (again) that she really was doomed to be a supporting character. So of course what she said, a bit dazedly, was, "Great idea, Makie."

"Aw, thanks!"

Haruhi sighed irritably and looked back. "How about you, Kyon, Yuki-chan? You done back there already?"

"CUMMING!" Kyon howled, holding Nagato's legs open as he rammed one final time into her and shot inside. _Wait, can Data interfaces get pregnant? Damn, of all the things I should have asked before, not like I could in front of ... uh-oh, now she's sure to be mad, but Nagato wouldn't have moved in if she thought there was a chance-  
_  
Haruhi moved towards them as Yuki pulled back, her crotch leaking creamy white. "I have concluded," she stated calmly, "Kyon-san is a satisfactory enough performer for your demanding but fair necessities."

It had been a gamble, perhaps, but over the months, Nagato Yuki had grown human enough to allow herself the occasional illogical move in the eternal labor of keeping Suzumiya Haruhi contained. And after a while of being trapped in an endless summer time loop, you start growing fond of the idea of occasionally showing the bitch what's what, no matter how coldly rational you were before.

That didn't mean it had been a gamble devoid of a good knowledge of Haruhi's personality, of course. After a moment of frowning, the Brigade's Commander smiled. "Ah, of course! Such a good underling, Yuki-chan!" She briefly played with those violet hairs before looking at Kyon's mast. "Hoo-hoo, and just look at this! Someone else can master the endurance trick after all!"

"What?" Kyon asked, looking down at himself to realize that yes, he still was erect. It had to be something Nagato had done to him while she touched him, but what - no, he would ask for her technobabble explanation later, but for now, the thing to keep in mind was the descending, evilly smirking Suzumiya lowering herself on his erection. "You'd better not disappoint here, Kyon, or else..."

Rika chewed on her lower lip frantically now. Of all the moments to be without HER own man!

"Ahhh!" Makie cried once she noticed the tiny glops of white running down Ako's sex and her thigh. "Negi-kun, you did it again!"

"I'm sorry, I was sort of distracted by , um, everything else going around us, I guess."

Ako refocused her climax-dazed wits on giving him a scathing glare for that remark.

"I, I mean," Negi gulped, "of course the bulk of my attention was on you, then, but first and foremost on making you feel well, and on top of that, everyone else was-!"

"AHHH! AHHHH! OH KYON YES YES!" Haruhi howled as she bounced on Kyon's lap, which of course also made her respectably-sized breasts jump in accord. Once again, Makie and Ako's looks drifted there, with no small amount of envy.

"- see? Rather noisy," Negi meekly said.

"Oh, like your class is a paragon of quiet!" Haruhi took a moment to snarl, tongue half lounging out of her mouth, before Kyon turned them around and began pistoning down into her instead. "YIPE!"

"The rebellion of the oppressed, brought over by the wonderful social shifts only the sexual revolution can bring forth!" Rika sweetly sighed. "The power to change the world! The Absolute Destiny, Apocalypse!"

"Apocalypse?" asked Negi, Makie and Ako at once.

Rika shrugged. "You can pick all sorts of truly strange things from even the most casual conversation with Himemiya-sempai."

Negi had to agree in silence, since one relatively casual conversation of his with Himemiya-san HAD ended up in sex with her. Then again, wasn't that becoming the rule rather than the exception of late? A truly troubling thought if there ever was one...

"Anyway, it's all right," Ako sighed absently as she leaned over Negi, absent-mindedly drawing designs on his chest with her fingernail. "I'm sure you didn't mean to get distracted by Makie's failure to keep them quiet as we enjoyed ourselves."

Makie's face was a picture, likely to be titled 'The shock' when displayed in a gallery. "You mean it's my fault?" she peeped.

"Not like you could have kept Haruhi down even if you had tried," Kyon grunted as he hooked Haruhi's legs around his arms for better support.

"Oooh, that's petty talkback against your superiooooor!" Haruhi whined as he bit on one of her nipples. "You'll get your ass so sanctioned over this, Kyon!"

"Maybe... maybe to make up for it, we could do it again?" Ako asked Negi speculatively. "Um... not, not right away," she added quickly. "In a little bit, I mean."

"Damn right, since it's Rika's turn now," a frustrated Rika huffed.

Negi nodded. "Of course. Um, if you wanted to, Ako, you and Makie could enjoy yourselves together while I-"

"Ew!" Ako exclaimed, pulling away. "Negi-kun, I know you've probably been spending a lot of time with Konoka-san and Setsuna-san, but not all girls want to do stuff with other girls!"

"... that hasn't been my experience at all," Negi replied.

"Well, they don't!" Ako repeated.

"Bullshit, even if it's deep inside, everyone's biiiiiiiiiiiii!" Haruhi cried as she felt a warm splash into her. Then, more quiet and darkly, "Oh, you fucker. You couldn't even pull out right. You had one task!"

"I'll take responsibility," Kyon deadpanned.

She waved a fist at him. "What works for him won't necessarily work for you, you know!"

"Oh, you guys are crazy!" stated Ako, Mistress of the Obvious. "Makie, tell - argh. Makie, snap out of it!" she yelled at Makie, who'd gone off to sit in a corner, curled up in a ball facing away from the six of them, murmuring something about it all being her fault.

"Nyah?" Makie asked, lifting her head and turning to look back at them.

"You don't want to do sex stuff with me, do you?" Ako asked sharply.

"... I'm good with it," Makie answered bewilderedly.

"See, she doesnnnnnnwha?" Ako triumphantly told Negi, until the actual nature of the answer she'd just been given registered.

"You're cute, so why wouldn't I want to have sex with you?" Makie asked.

"Yeah, cute as a button," Rika nodded. "What was your name, again?"

"Quite. Would you like to be our Brigade's new official Moeblob? I hate to say it, but the old one's starting to lose her charm," Haruhi added.

"Haruhi!" Kyon gasped, horrified.

Haruhi shrugged. "What can I say? After being with cuties who actually dish it out, someone who only stands there and lets herself be fondled and won't go for the gold sorta loses her appeal."

Ako tried, for a few moments, to process those remarks... without notable success.

The ensuing silence was broken by Haruhi. "I'm not leaving this place until I've had sex with everyone here."

"Me neither," Rika agreed.

Makie hummed. "Well... I wouldn't mind being with Sarumuya-sempai either. She reminds me a lot of Yuna, only more noisy."

"Suzumiya!" Haruhi yelled, large red kanji appearing behind her. "Su! Zu! Mi! Ya! Take the effort to learn the names of those you're going to fuck before fucking them, Sakaki!" Haruhi chided.

"Sorry, Sukumiya-sempai," Makie offered, ignoring her subsequent hiss of frustration. "And I won't mind Genius-sempai either, since she's almost as cute as Hakase."

"Almost?!" Rika gasped, while moving over Negi's body and touching his genitals with both hands. She wasn't the easily provoked type, but being unfavorably compared to another scientist was one of the few things that did the trick.

Makie poked the tip of her tongue out. "Sorry, but have you ever heard about people who just try too hard?"

"Gryaaaghh," the normally affable Rika snarled at her, before going "uUUrrrHhhh," as Negi gently grabbed her hips and pulled her into his erection in an attempt to defuse the tensions. Please do remember social circles where you can defuse tensions by starting unprotected sex with an acquaintance before the girls who are in love with you are a rarity.

"I'm sorry. I hope I can make it up to you with this," Negi said as he slowly pushed his length into Rika.

She blinked her eyes to wipe the tears of exertion that had just flowed out. "Huh? Y-You're sorry over what?"

He grunted, running his big hands over her small ribs. "Over being a bad advisor for your club. I always was out doing things of my own and on my own, leaving you to your own devices most of the time," he panted as he fucked her.

"I can't believe it," Kyon said. "He gets aroused while putting himself down over his failures."

"That's our Negi-kun," Makie nodded, then patted Ako's back. "But at least someone else got over her issues! Really, Ako-chan, all this time naked before outsiders, and you've never shown any shame over ... you know!"

Ako sighed. "Yeah, well, after you spend that long in public baths, especially ones in another world and surrounded by exotic elves and beast women who looks like supermodels with melons attached to their chests, you stop caring that mu-"

Haruhi forcefully grabbed Ako's hands then, stars in her eyes. "Tell me more about that, please. And I'll repay you by showing you the wonders of love between women."

Ako cringed. "Eeehhhh?! No, please, I really don't want to-!"

"Oh, you want your payment first? All right!" Haruhi said, and kissed Ako's mouth just as forcefully.

"Hhhhmmpphhhhh!" Ako called for help, but since Negi was too busy being mounted by Rika, and Makie was too busy fondling and kissing her nurse friend from behind, she was unlikely to get help from either anytime soon.

As for Nagato-sempai and Kyon-sempai...

He looked at her. "So." He pointed at his own Thing That Wouldn't Go Down Yet. "Round two?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she blandly said, accepting him in her arms.

Rika tossed her hair back and arched her body as she shook in the final motions of climax. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckkkkkkkkk! God damn Sensei you piece of shit! You don't care who it is as long as you can shoot it up them, do you, you little bitch! You shitty little boy-playing-at-being-a-man! Holy fucking shit what a god damn manwhore you are! Hah, you're Mahora's greedy little prostitute, you damn creep in heat! Fuck you Mr. Counsellor, it took you this long to do something for us, you dirty little whore! You're just the sperm bank for this shithole's needy mass of sluts who can't get enough dick from our girly-men who collapse in nosebleeds whenever someone shows a tit! Shitty little hypocritical social conditioning! Akihito, you old limp dick fuck, you son of an even older limp dick fuck! What, you got something to say, Britannian!? Then move that huge fat foreign cock of yours faster! Cum faster than the speed of light! Cum into my twat and make a lot of interracial babies and hooray for international relationships and whoa! Fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking UNIVERRRRRRRRRSSSEE!"

"... whoa," said Haruhi, pausing a moment in her tag-team session of oral pleasure on Ako's person, leaving Makie momentarily alone in licking Izumi's flower. "That's some lung capacity!"

Rika tried to thank her for the perceived praise, but only dry rasping sounds came from her exhausted throat.

Negi, who had been lying under her, ejaculating twice during her climactic speech, blocked his eyes with an arm. "I'm the worst," he muttered in a defeated tone.

"Nah, I've met worse. Far worse," Haruhi said, walking away from the squirming Ako and Makie and towards the young hero, giving the copulating Yuki and Kyon a mildly annoyed glance as she did. "Sheesh, Kyon, variety is the spice of life. Shoulda tried one of the juniors before giving her another spin." Then she stopped right before Negi and Rika, smiling very cutely and with her fists on her hips. "My turn now, rite?"

Rika's throat produced yet another raspy spent sound, and since one moment later she still hadn't moved away, Haruhi delicately punted her aside.

"That," Negi sternly said, "was mean and uncalled for."

"Then punish me," she challenged, placing her hands on his chest and lowering herself onto his stiffness. She sank her teeth into her lower lip, almost drawing blood. "Yesssss, that's how I like it. And now I have an interplanetary mage's cock in my cunt ... this is the best day of my life!" she chuckled rather goofily, toes twiddling against the floor.

"... right. I'm glad for you, then," Negi inhaled, reaching to touch the back of her head and lightly play with her hair as he tenderly pumped up into her. If it really meant so much for her, he'd better do his best to give her a really good time, regardless of how ... disagreeable he might find some of her more extreme quirks.

Ako looked up from where she rested, Makie holding her legs and rubbing her sex against hers as she panted. Ako had no idea how she'd figured that out, and wasn't sure she wanted to ever learn. "W-Wait ... after, after all that noise and promise about making me enjoy, ah, lesbianism, you move on as soon as there's an (ah, Makie!) opening with a man?!"

Haruhi waved a hand back at her as she bounced on Negi's lap. "It's not a matter of genders, it's a matter of him just being that much more special than you regardless of that. Sorry, I promise I'll later give you a good - fuuuuuckkkkk, Sensei, you know how to move iiiiiiiit."

Ako sighed in a mixture of pleasure and heartache. "Yeah, of course, he would be, wouldn't he."

"Awwww, Ako-chan," Makie cooed as she leaned forward to nibble on one of her pale nipples, making her moan. "You're just as special in your own way. Really, you are. Our uniqueness doesn't come from what we can do, but from here," she said, placing a hand on Ako's heart.

"Bullshit," Rika muttered, too quietly for anyone to hear.

Ako blinked, her cheeks faintly flaring. "Maki-chan!"

Makie kissed the tip of her nose. "Are you satisfied now?"

"I think so, yeah," Ako nodded erratically.

"Good. Do you want to do it with Kyon-sempai now?"

"Bwah?" asked Ako.

"What?!" asked Kyon, who still held himself within Nagato after finishing into her again.

Makie looked back at him. "Well, um, you're good looking after all, and if Negi-kun chooses someone who might or might not be me, wouldn't it have been nice if we'd had cleared that up tonight, and we choose being monogamous, Ako-chan might need to keep her options open. And anyway, like Negi-kun might have proved tonight if he had confessed, it's not like having naughty fun together is something you only have to do with the one you love, and so, in the event I had been his chosen girl, it stands to reason I'd follow my beloved's logic."

"Uwaaaahhhh," Negi complained as he moved within Haruhi.

"B-B-But that'd be wrong, I can't do that to a friend and fellow musician, Madoka-chan likes him after all!" Ako said.

"... who?" asked Kyon.

"Kugimiya Madoka! From Decopin Rocket! You know, the band Suzumiya-sempai sang with in the Mahorafest! Our band!" Ako said.

Kyon blinked, then delicately asked, "... is that the purple-haired girl?"

"No! That's Misa! Madoka is the really cute one with short black hair!"

"'Really cute!'" Makie giggled while making air quotes. "See, Ako-chan, after all, you really do like-!"

"Not now, Makie!"

Kyon paused, perplexed. "... she likes me? Um, well, I don't know what to -"

"But Madoka-chan didn't really hesitate when she had fun with Negi-kun before you did, despite knowing you liked him. Right?" Makie pointed out.

"..." Ako said. And then, "... right..."

Nagato subtly pushed Kyon towards Ako and Makie.

Ako and Kyon just stared at each other like deers caught in the headlights. After several moments of that silence only broken by Haruhi yelling obscenities and Negi grunting, Makie sighed. "Okay, if it makes you feel better, I'll lead the way now too." And she leaned ahead to start sucking on Kyon's member.

"URRRRAAAAAHHHHH!" Negi yelled, eyes bulging out as the girl he loved began fellating another.

Makie took a moment to smile as she briefly let the penis out her mouth. "Ah, Negi-kun, that's so sweet from you, cheering on me like that! You're so selfless! No wonder I love you so much!"

"Uwaaaaaahhhhh," Negi blurted out as Haruhi giggled, rubbing his hard pecs. "GGGRRRREEEEEEHHHHH." The sound grew lower and throatier when Kyon, after several moments of doubt, took a firm hold of Makie's lower body and jammed his sex into hers. Negi's neck strained itself until it resembled a turtle's.

Then one of his hands roughly squeezed on Haruhi's breast, and he began speeding his pistoning into her, until, for once, he ejaculated into the wildly shrieking young woman with no remorse or regret.

Then shame immediately washed back over him, and he seemed to deflate under Haruhi.

A few moments later, he heard the unmistakable vocal signs Kyon-san had just finished into Makie.

Haruhi patted Negi's cheeks softly. _"You reap what you sow,"_ she gently whispered, before moving aside and gently leading Nagato over to him. "Now buckle up, brigadier. There's still a lot to do."

Almost mechanically now, Negi began fucking Nagato-san. A few moments later, as he turned the violet-haired girl around on her back so he could do her from above, he could see Ako on her knees and hands as Kyon-san gently caressed her face as he took her from behind.

"Oh god I'm such a slut, I'm such a slut, I'm such a whore, I'm such a ..." Ako repeated over and over.

"Shhh, no, you're not, not at all ... you're not getting paid for this!" Makie warmly smiled at her while placing small kisses on her face.

Negi closed his eyes and tried to focus on nothing but the sensations of the girl under and around him as he kept pumping into her.

* * *

Later, much later, as they lay like scattered dominoes all across the hallway's floor, he told himself that by this point, Akira-san had probably calmed enough that he would be able to talk to her. And after he was done with that, he'd bring a mop and bucket and clean Master's floors. Yeah. it wouldn't be nice to leave that task to poor Chachamaru. Sitting up from where he had been between the sleeping Ako and Makie, Negi reached for his boxers and began putting them back on.

From where she kept a napping Rika against her own chest, Haruhi smirked at him. "Gonna try your luck with the swimmer now?"

"If you mean I'm going to try and have a civilized, gentle discussion of the non-sexual variety with her in the hope that she won't hate me forever, yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do," Negi replied while buttoning his pants up.

Haruhi shrugged. "If she doesn't forgive you, that's her loss."

"Yes, I suppose you would see things that way," Negi said. "But I really don't want to talk about that right now."

"Poo," Haruhi pouted, wrapping a finger around Rika's brown tresses and absently twirling them on. The sleeping girl giggled. "You can't go through life always worrying about what others will think of you. Most people won't ever understand -"

"I'm not a superior being who stands above others, I can't just do that!" a frustrated Negi said. "I've gone too far as it is, but I can't just pretend I don't care about the lives I ruin!"

"Oh, for the love of-" Haruhi grunted off a corner of her mouth. "Nobody who isn't a complete idiot has their lives ruined over a failed childhood crush. You don't think your students are complete idiots, do you?"

"Of course not," Negi mumbled, buttoning his shirt up. "But-!"

"No buts!" Haruhi said, standing up and passing over Kyon and Nagato to help Negi straighten his tie. "Whatever, you know those girls better than I do, but I don't think you're ruining anyone's lives here. If anyone's lives are being ruined through these wonderful eye opening experiences, that's because of our own damn decisions. You aren't forcing anyone into anything, are you? Let them take responsibility over their own actions already; because none of us are children anymore." Then she squeezed his arms. "Well, except you. I guess."

Negi blinked. "Suzumiya-san."

She smiled and gave him a mock punch in the chest. "After you're done, I want my complete tour of this fantastic place, okay? And a damn good breakfast, because I'm starving after all that workout!"

"You... You are right," he slowly said, with a quiet air of wonder. "If I'm not anyone's superior, then that also must mean -"

"Huh?" Haruhi arched an eyebrow.

"That's it," he said, with a half broken, half realized tone. "I think I know what to do now!"

"... go find that girl, make sweet love to her until she sees the light, then come back and give me the tour and breakfast?" asked Haruhi, dubiously.

"Yes! No, no, I mean, not the make sweet love part, I couldn't possibly do that to her, um, not now anyway, but, ah, I promise I'll give you that tour and breakfast after I settle things up with her!" he said, and then fled, sounding far more relieved than he had been moments ago.

"Well, I'm glad I could be of help!" Haruhi huffed.

Kyon looked up at her from the floor. "Was that you being nice?"

"What, are you implying I'm not nice?" Haruhi protested. "I gave you a pity fuck, and a damn good one, didn't I?"

He sighed. "Okay, let's go with that. As long as you don't try and force Asahina-san into this. 'None of us are children anymore', remember?"

Haruhi waved a hand without looking at him. "Mikuru-chan is different, because she's ... special."

"Haruhi -"

"Anyway, I think you haven't fucked Rika-chan yet, have you?" She began prodding Rika's ass with a bare foot. "Hey Rika-chan, you missed one!"

"Haruhi!" Kyon said.

* * *

"Oh, there you are," Chisame said blandly as she stopped behind her brother's childhood friend, who sat on the edge of the platform. It was funny how, back then, when they all were so small and stupid, Chisame had always thought 'Sora' was actually a boy. She still acted as stupidly as one, that was for sure. "Don't do anything rash now, okay? Taka is here and he wants to talk with you," she added, rather needlessly, as Kodaka and Sena had just stopped next to her.

Yozora, still slumped down, legs dangling over the abyss and gaze lost in the infinite horizon, grunted like that boy Chisame had once known. "I'm not going to toss myself. I can't even escape properly, why would you expect me to kill myself?"

"Actually, you escaped rather well," Chisame conceded, "it took us like-"

Kodaka sighed. ""She means that other time she tried to flee, after ... you know, the thing with Rika."

"You mean with Shiguma? What thing with Shiguma?" asked Chisame.

Kodaka rubbed the space between his eyes. "Oh, that's right, I never told you about that either."

"Imagine my surprise at that!" Chisame replied.

_"Eh? You said anything?"_ Yozora said, in a very good imitation of Kodaka's voice. "Why didn't you go 'Eh? You said anything?' this time, Kodaka?"

"Hey, now," Sena intervened. "Are you still holding a grudge over that? If anything, it's me who should-"

"I'm not going to toss myself, but come any closer and I'll toss you instead," Yozora warned.

Sena sneered. "Let's see you try, weasel!"

"Sena, Yozora, please," Kodaka said. "Not now of all times."

Yozora stood back up and angrily stomped towards Sena. "I suppose you are realllly happy now, aren't you? This is your big chance to prove how much of a virtuous virginal meatbag you are, despite your body and the slutty way you always act! While I, the uptight bitch who wears bathing suits from the twenties to the beach, turned out to be a real whore! Isn't that a laugh? Why aren't you laughing? Would it ruin your new good girl image?"

Sena narrowed her blue eyes. "You're making it too easy."

"Yozora," Kodaka said. "None of us think you're any kind of ... prostitute."

"Of course not, since prostitution implies a financial compensation," Sena nodded. "You're nothing but a psychologically damaged weirdo who latched onto sexual gratification to cover the emptiness in your soul."

Yozora glared. "From which Visual Novel did you get that?"

"Yozora, I'm sorry," Kodaka said. "I should have been a better ... friend, aside from being a better brother. I'm in no position to judge anyone."

"Not like that stopped you from judging me," Chisame muttered.

"That's different, you're my sister," he told her. "Anyway, Yozora, I ... geez, I have no idea how to say this."

"Big surprise there," Sena huffed. "But at least you aren't only thinking with your man-thing, like all other men in this nuthouse you call a school."

"Will you please let me finish here?" the frustrated boy requested. "Yozora, I'm not happy about you over the decisions you've made, just like I'm not okay with Chisame's, but even if I'm ... upset right now, I'm... I'm not going to reject you, either, okay? I really, really want to be a better brother and... friend from now on, and so does Sena, don't you, Sena?"

"I can't be a brother to anyone, and I would only promise to be a better friend to those who already were my friends to begin with. A category my nemesis Weasel Woman has certainly never fit."

"See?!" Yozora growled. "It's always the same fucking thing with you!"

"Oh, like you've ever been a ray of friendly sunshine towards me either!"

"Oh, like you'd ever want my friendship! Be honest and stop posturing before Kodaka! And yes, I know I'm a bitchy hypocrite saying this after what I hid from you, but do you think I care? The only thing I care about now is about an end to the lies you keep pitching at - your words - the only dumbass in this place who isn't getting himself into all women's panties!"

Chisame softly tapped her brother's back. "See, she cares about you."

"It's the only kind of care I'll ever get, so hooray," her brother proved that deadpan tone did run in their blood.

"You are the one who keeps bringing your sexual transgressions up!" Sena protested. "Do you really think I'd fall as low as to mock someone about hitting their moral bottom?!"

"As soon as he turns around, yes, you will!" her rival protested.

"That's a lie and you know it! When did I ever mince my words about you before Kodaka or anyone else?"

Unable to refute that point, Yozora winced. "Well ... uh ... you're still enjoying this! I bet you feel even more superior than you always do! Why aren't you being open about your feelings and just kicking me while I'm down, like you know you want to?! I dare you stupid bitchy Meat, you you you-"

Then Sena gave her a slap that echoed somehow in the huge open space.

Chisame blinked. "Oh. Wow."

Kodaka's jaw loosened. He'd been giving them their own space without interfering since he guessed they needed to vent, but -

Before Yozora could even grasp having taken the hit she really should have seen coming, she was promptly caught into Sena's arms, her face being all but crushed between the taller girl's mammaries as the blonde pulled her towards herself in a single tug.

"Don't you ever," Sena icily, sternly, warned, "give me that kind of pathetic whiny speech. Don't you ever _surrender_ to me like that again. I don't want it. It's an insult to both of us."

Yozora violently struggled and protested against a grip that looked (to Chisame) like the other girl was trying to smother her, but Sena only tightened the vicious hug, making use of all her strength.

"You are my sworn enemy, my rival, and by lowering yourself, you lower me as well, and I will not have that," Kashiwazaki said. "For aren't we all defined by our enemies?" she quoted some Light Novel. "Consider this, if you must, us getting even over all those times you made a fool out of me. When I let you go, we'll call it a draw and start our beautiful enmity all over again. But, if you want me to serve as your patsy in an attempt to turn your own inner demons on yourself, to despise you as much as you're despising yourself now ... no weasel will ever tell Kashiwazaki Sena what to do!" she sobbed, fighting off the tears as she kept on hugging. "Stupid, stupid woman, I won't let you become your own worst enemy! Can't you see... _that's what I'm here for?!_"

Chisame half-suspected the by-now limp Yozora had suffocated to death by then, but at that moment, she returned the hug, wrapping her arms around Sena's midsection until a faint sound of vertebrae snapping was heard.

With a sickening grimace, Sena kept on hugging even stronger, reaching a whole new power level, and now it was Yozora's body structure that began cracking loudly.

Neither yielded in their embrace.

"Well," Kodaka finally said, "good thing they're friends again."

**"NEVER FRIENDS!"** his clubmates yelled at once.

Chisame sighed. "Okay, I'm gonna go call for Konoe again, she won't mind dealing with this crap." Then she took a look at the other side of the platform, where Negi and Akira were sitting together after their own heartfelt conversation, which they had somehow managed to have despite the screams of the Neighbors' Club's best frie- worst enemies. "How about you two? Have you patched things up yet?"

"..." Negi said, sweatdropping.

"... we're good, thanks for asking," Akira finally replied, her chance for a nice dramatic emotional climax rather ruined.

* * *

As they left Akira, Ako, and Yuna talking amongst themselves, and after splitting ways with the shyly silent Ashikaga, the Neighbors' Club and the SOS Brigade quietly marched behind a confident Haruhi, who walked smugly down the pathway leading back to campus like the ruling rooster of the flock. Kodaka stared coldly at Kyon, who walked far more humbly, hands in his pockets, and rather downcast and contrite over his earlier loss of control. They were in such deep shit now, Kyon was so sure of that.

Haruhi talked a happy nonstop storm about future plans and wildly extravagant dreams, but Kodaka wasn't really paying her any attention. He was actually happy when he and Kyon had to take their own separate way to the male dormitories ... along with Yukimura. How had she gotten herself a room there, Kodaka didn't know and didn't want to know. In the short bus trip back home, she quietly sat between them, and none of them said a single word until they gave their goodbyes and headed for their respective homes.

It was better that way.

"Kobato-chan?" Kodaka asked as he walked in. "Sorry to be so late, I... I ran into Chisame, and we talked for a while, nothing too ... oh," he said, seeing that strange Homura girl sitting on his couch, with the head of a sleeping Kobato on her lap.

"Welcome," Homura-san softly said, carefully settling Kobato on the couch without waking her up as she stood. "Don't worry about her. I made sure to cook her dinner, and she ate everything. Did you-"

"You knew what would happen in there, didn't you?" he asked before she could finish the sentence.

"I only know things that have happened, not those that will happen," she answered. "That's exactly why I'm doing all of this. Did you join in?"

"No. Never will," his answer was hard as steel.

"Hmmm," she pondered.

"What are you?" he asked her this time.

"I am the Devil," she said, walking past him and for the front door. "It's a lousy job, but someone has to do it. Enjoy your life, enjoy your time with your family and friends, Hasegawa Kodaka-san. Please."

He didn't dare to approach her, and yet he had to ask. "What are you going to do to us?"

"I just told you," she said as she opened the door. "I don't know what the future will hold. Even for me. All the same, 'Enjoy your time with your loved ones' is always good advice. Advice I should have heeded while I still could. Goodbye now. Be seeing you," she promised, before closing the door behind herself.

And then Kodaka shuddered.

* * *

"Shiguma-san, please wait just a second," Nagato requested before they, the last two to take different ways from each other, headed towards their respective rooms.

"Ah... yes, Nagato-chan? What do you want?" asked Rika, as Yuki pulled a small piece of paper out of her skirt and tucked it into Rika's breast pocket.

Yuki patted said pocket twice. "My number," she calmly said, her voice barely more than a careless, emotionless whisper. "Call me."

And then she left.

Rika stood there, blinking very slowly, before grinning hugely and leaping in a perfect Dragon Punch motion.

"YES! RIKA SHOOTS, RIKA SCORES!"

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	12. Yuna, Akashi, Kitami, Kouko, Midori

This chapter is brought to you in a new interactive type of amazing Smell-O-Vision technology! Every time a character has sex, rub a hand over your genitals and sniff it. If a character has anal sex, scratch your buttcrack and sniff on your fingers instead! It's guaranteed to enhance the experience!

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Twelve: Now Only One Chapter Away from Catching Up to The Land Before Time Sequels!**

* * *

These characters are not mine, but neither are yours unless you're Akamatsu, Takeuchi, Fujishima, Hasbro, Nasu, or one of those other guys, so that leaves us even.

I make no money from this. I live under a bridge in a cardboard box and eat raw rats for dinner. I stole this computer from a hobo who bought it by selling his gold teeth. Then I went and kicked an orphan and ate his raw rat.

* * *

"Oh wow oh wow oh wowowowow!" Makie shrieked as her heels shook in the air over Evangeline's shoulders as the little vampire feasted on something that definitely wasn't blood between her legs.

"So let me get this straight," Chisame asked, hand tightly wrapped around Negi's member and stroking slowly but forcefully as the two of them sat together at the other end of the room and watched Makie getting it from Evangeline. "That... is your true love."

Negi flinched, most likely at her tone since it wasn't as though she could realistically injure him by jerking him like this. "D-Don't put it like that, please! We only said, it was a completely unofficial, hypothetical scenario we staged, where we all agreed-"

"I don't want that bullshiiiiiiit!" Chisame growled, jerking him even harder.

"Ah, well, regardless," he gasped, "When Misa asked me whether I liked someone the most, I immediately might have thought of Makie and -"

"And yet," Chisame interrupted, pausing in her own interjection to nip at his nipple, "she's going through with this stupid, paper-thin make believe roleplay in a stupid attempt to not hurt anyone's feelings?"

"I can hear you from here, and it isn't stupiiiiiiid!" Makie moaned.

Negi coughed. "Well, it's a very complicated situation, and I'm sure you'll agree it must be handled with grace and tact lest it cause heartache and further problems for everyone, so - why did you just bite me again?"

"We wouldn't be having any of this if you and Kagurazaka hadn't started it in the first place!" Chisame accused. "Anyway, spilled milk and all of that. Let's assume the sheer imbecility of your roleplay charms everyone who matters enough through pure Crosses the Line Twice, making them all go 'I can't believe they think it's going to work, how cute!' Then what?"

"Well," Negi gulped. "That's where I was going to ask for Master's help again. We'll need her to lend us the resort for what I have planned, although it also could work in any space that is large and private enough to hold everyone we have had sex with, and-"

"Only you, you know that? Only you," Chisame growled.

"Only me what?" he asked.

"Only you could give a girl that kind of elaborate speech while that girl jerks you off. At least moan uncontrollably like those guys in Haruna's training movies. And only you would get a crush on a promiscuous chick who goes both ways and is dumbly generous enough to want you to be a frickin' harem king or whatever they call it," Chisame concluded. "I'm pretty sure that not even in manga do these things normally happen."

"Life is stranger than fiction?" Negi offered helplessly, then tried to get serious once more. "And hey, don't call her promiscuous, she -"

"AAAAAAH!" Makie shrieked. "Don't call me dumbly generous, I'm doing it, doing it, for my own sake too! After this I wanna, I wanna do it with Asuna-chan, and Yue-chan, and Kaede-chan, and Ku-chan! Baka Sex Rangers forevAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

"Sorry, were you saying something?" Chisame asked dryly.

Negi just sighed.

"I'm just surprised that Akashi didn't get dragged into this, too," the bespectacled girl sighed as she continued to stroke him.

"She's got a boyfriend, now," Negi explained. "She mentioned it in passing. A couple of times, actually. And I guess she wanted to, well -"

"Fidelity? What a concept," Chisame said.

"Oh, don't be like that," Negi pouted.

"Yeah, Hasegawa Chisame, as one of the beneficiaries of the boya's complete inability to be faithful, you really shouldn't knock it," Evangeline snarked as she ambled across the bedroom towards them, having left Makie in a post-orgasmic stupor on the bed. "Anyway, it's easier for Akashi Yuna to be faithful to her swain than you'd think, given the givens."

"So you know who it is?" Chisame asked, deciding to focus on the part of the situation that didn't immediately concern her.

"Hah!" Evangeline laughed. "I know everything I care to know!"

"Then how come you didn't know about Father being alive until I told you, or about my mother until much later, or about Asuna being the Princess of Twilight until Colonel-san told you, or ohhhh I don't think that's supposed to bend that way," Negi concluded.

Evangeline pushed down with her foot just a little more. "As I was saying, I know everything I care to know, though I don't always know what I ought to care to know," she continued, just a little less haughtily. "But I've known about Akashi's situation since it started."

"Well, I'm sure that whoever it is, Yuna-san cares about him a lot and -"

"It's her father."

"- huh," Negi said after a few moments of silence. "I just know that should shock and stun me, but after actually seeing Haruna-san doing it with her own brother ..."

"Terrible, isn't it?" Eva asked. "That moment where you realize you have truly forfeited your humanity forever."

"Indeed," Negi agreed, not really sounding that sorrowful over it, only ... eerily neutral.

"- so, mine was reached two weeks ago?" Chisame wondered, looking at Negi's expression at the time and comparing it to her own right back then.

"So," Evangeline sharply continued. "Why the hell would you want to bring everyone in your harem here anyway, Boya?"

* * *

_Library Island_.

Twilight Sparkle closed the latest book in the long list of volumes she had read that afternoon and looked at the clock on the wall, noticing it was rather late now. She wondered if it would be safe to head back to Evangeline's cabin, where she and the Mundus Magicus visitors had been staying since their arrival, much to Evangeline's alleged annoyance. (In truth, she wanted them around her as much as possible, all the better to keep them under direct surveillance. Except Rakan. Now him, Eva only wanted him far far away from her. Naturally, he rarely took the hint, or so he pretended.)

Twilight had overhead, quite early that morning, Evangeline and Professor Springfield's preliminary discussion on the love confession the Professor would be giving later that day. And so, Twilight had decided spending the whole day out.

_Better to be on the safe side_, she thought, pulling another book from the very tall pile Miss Shiomiya Shiori, Librarian, had brought her. She definitely didn't want to be close to the resort, much less actually inside, while the confession took place, or even shortly after it. Twilight supposed Miss Nodoka would be the fortunate girl, and although she was rather pleasant herself, it'd still make for an awkward situation if she -

A tiny angel who looked a lot like Spike with feathery wings and a golden halo sprouted on Twilight Sparkle's right shoulder. _It's because you're afraid it'll hurt you, isn't it? You should be more honest about your feelings, Princess Celestia said-  
_  
"Don't be ridiculous, Imaginary Feather-Winged Spike," Twilight calm and rationally said. "How could I possibly have developed feelings for Professor Springfield? We've only known each other for a very short time."

_Wasn't it the same time span you spent with Flash Sentry last time you were in a parallel world? And unlike Negi, Flash Sentry didn't even have the advantage, if you can call it that, of having -_

"Imaginary Feather-Winged Spike, I'd never ever hurt Spike, but you aren't really Spike, so please shut up or else," Twilight requested, all patience.

"Gee," Pinkie Pie said, "good thing we're here now. When you start talking to Imaginary Spikes, it's a sure sign you really need some company and badly, Twilight!"

"GAHHHHH!" Twilight Sparkle recoiled in her chair, dropping her book. "P-Pinkie?! And Rarity! Rainbow Dash! Applejack! F-Fluttershy?!"

The head of the Shiori who was not a follower of Fate peeked up from behind her own book at her desk at the other end of the wide reading room. _**"Shhhhhhh!"**_ the dark haired girl hushed, in a truly intimidating tone that contrasted with her meek appearance.

_"Hello, Twilight_!" Pinkie waved, loudly screaming comfortably under the allowed levels of library noise. Somehow. It had to be her, even if for some reason she was in a humanoid body that was an exact lookalike of the Human Pinkie Twilight met during her pursuit of Sunset Shimmer. _"Guess what, Princess Celestia read your latest letter and then called us to send us here to help you with whatever is troubling you! So what's troubling you, huh huh? Oh, do you like our new bodies? Oh sorry, I should keep this low, shouldn't I, but I guess it's okay, there's no one else at the Library this late."  
_  
"Please take your roleplay somewhere else if you aren't going to be reading," the librarian patiently ... demanded, eyes on her own tome.

Pinkie pouted. "Oh, right. That."

"Howdy, Sugarcube," Applejack greeted Twilight with a small warm smile. Much like the others, she was in a human form strikingly similar to that of her antropomorphic parallel counterpart, although wearing a Mahora High School female uniform. And her ever present cowboy hat, of course. "You feeling okay here? Kinda down looking, if y'ask me. No one would answer when we called the numbers we were given, so we came to the library instead."

"It was Flutter's idea," smiled Rainbow, whose skin had to be under several layers of flesh colored makeup to cover the blueish hues she sported even in a human shape. As the pink-haired pony-turned-human hugged the baffled Twilight, Rainbow added, "This whole bipedal thing is such a drag! I feel like I'm being forced to walk tied to a stick with my fore legs chained to my sides. How do you manage it?"

"Rainbow, please, you came here running. It hasn't taken you any more to get used to it than it's taken me, and I'm not complaining!" the human Rarity chided, stiffly walking over to Twilight to hug her as well. Then she squeezed on Twilight's arms and grimaced. "But yes, it's been horrible! Poor thing, you aren't having back pains yet, are you?!"

"Uh... no, thanks for asking," Twilight blandly said. "When did you get here?"

"Um, a few hours ago?" Fluttershy twiddled her fingers together nervously. "Sorry, we meant to call you before actually coming, but it all happened so fast..."

"Oh yes, definitely," Rarity nodded. "The Princess sounded very interested on sending us here as soon as horseingly possible. She even commissioned emergency spare bodies for us."

"But, but I didn't call for any help!" Twilight squealed. "Not that I'm not happy to see you here, but-!"

Sighing sadly to herself, Shiori-san stood up.

A single moment later, they were sitting outside, on the steps leading to the Library's gigantic entrance.

"... how did that girl do that?" Pinkie Pie pondered aloud.

"I, I never even felt her grabbing me!" Fluttershy gasped.

"She's good," Rainbow admitted with a nod.

"How did you even get here anyway?!" Twilight demanded.

"Huh? That big door over there was fully open, it wasn't like we needed any - ohhhh, you mean how we got into this world!" Pinkie finally understood. "Well, turns out, after all, there was an old, secret and long abandoned but still working passageway between the worlds through a cave in these mountains. Isn't that lucky?" she asked, deliriously happy.

"... Professor Springfield will probably not be terribly happy when he learns he never had to do that trip to Wales," mused Twilight, who had no way of knowing the details about the link between Negi and Nekane. "But seriously, girls, I'm so happy you're here, but I never asked for any further help!"

"Maybe the Princess read between your lines?" bluntly asked Rainbow. "Heavens know you can be stubborn at times when it comes to admitting you can't fix things on your own."

"That isn't true and you know it, I've never rejected your help," Twilight said. "But I wasn't in need for help right now!"

"Twilight, Twilight," Rainbow exhaled, placing her hands on her friend's shoulders. "There's a reason why Applejack is the Element of Honesty and not you."

"Darn straight," Applejack nodded.

"..." Twilight said.

"No, seriously," Rarity said at last. "What's your problem?"

"I didn't have any problems!" protested Twilight. "I only told the Princess I was making satisfactory advances in my relationships with humans and Professor Springfield in particular! Does that sound like a problem to you?"

"No, it doesn't," Fluttershy conceded. "But there must be some explanation."

"Otherwise, we wouldn't even be here." Rarity mused.

"You sure that's all your letter said?" Rainbow frowned.

Twilight fidgeted around. "Ummmm."

"You've fallen in love with him, haven't you," Pinkie said, in an exaggeratedly somber and ominous tone, unexplainable shadows framing her face from everywhere. "It's The Springfield Curse of legend, striking again at another unsuspecting victim!"

"The what of what now?" asked Applejack.

"Of, of course not!" Twilight waved her arms around. "How, how and why would I ever?! We're of different species!"

"Flash Sentry," Pinkie said, the shadows shifting all over her face and back forth causing a truly disturbing effect on her appearance.

"And we haven't known each other for that long either!" Twilight said.

"Flash Sentry!" Pinkie howled like a ghost haunting your attic would.

"Are you going to keep making that comparison too?!" Twilight yelled. "No way! There's no way that'd ever happen! I'm not in love with anyone, so let's forget about this, okay?!"

Her five friends stared at her. "Oh my gosh," Fluttershy took a small hand to her own petite mouth.

"Well," Rarity slowly said. "You could have done much worse, dear."

"Sorry, but that's icky!" Rainbow pulled her own tongue out in a sign of disgust.

Applejack looked really worried. "That's really the way you want it, Hon? Are you sure?"

"Called it," Pinkie nodded. "Now, we're going to stay at your place as long as we're here, right?"

Twilight hid her own face between her hands.

* * *

"Hello," Twilight weakly waved as she walked into the living room of the cabin and past Marceline, who was splayed on the couch riffing on her guitar. "Nice axe, by the way. I played one like that last time I was in a human world."

"Don't call it an axe, it's a - Hellooo," the vampire said, pushing down the glasses she had been wearing, just a bit, to give the five girls following Twilight in a better look. "Wait, wait, let me guess. Judging from those inane hair colors, the slightly overzised heads, and the bug eyes, you went and brought more horse girls, didn't you?"

"Inane?" Rarity asked, stopping as she absently twirled a finger into her own hair.

"Oversized?" Fluttershy gulped, taking her hands to her head.

"Bug eyes?" Rainbow Dash huffed, narrowing her eyes.

"Hey, whassap!" Pinkie chuckled derangedly, screeching to a halt before Marceline. "You're Evangeline the Dark Evangel, aren'tcha? Nice place you have here! I love what you did with the carpets... they are so... unlike you..."

Marceline ignored her and gave Twilight a jaded glare. "You know, I'm going to start charging admission fees. Because now Eva's going to pester and bitch at me about how I let your pals in, blah blah blah... but on second thought, seeing her face then will be enough a reward," she smiled, then offered Pinke a hand. "How's it shakin', Hooves? I'm Marceline Abadeer from the Nightosphere. How's Discord doing nowadays?"

"Hm," Fluttershy said, bowing to her as she rubbed herself on the arm. "He's doing fine, thanks for asking."

"I see. How about Queen Chrysalis?"

"Last time we saw her, she was bein' flung across the hills," Applejack replied.

"King Sombra?"

"Shattered into pieces that turned into vapor," Twilight deadpanned.

"The Dazzlings? Those horsies sure knew how to rock!" Marcie smiled, waving a fist in circles.

"Are all your friends from Equestria evildoers?!" Rainbow Dash asked her.

Marceline kept a long silence, after which she shrugged. "Tengo chaleco, viteh."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Rainbow cried.

"By the way, Twi," Marceline turned back to TS. "Negi's asked me to keep an eye out for you. Looks like he's got another pea-brained scheme in mind, and he needs you and others for it."

Twilight blinked several times. "M-Me?!"

"Ooooo!" Pinkie smirked, nudging her elbow against Twilight's arm. "He already calls for you and everything!"

Marceline blinked just one. "Ah, did you already tell -"

"NO!" Twilight shouted. "I didn't tell them anything because there's nothing to tell them about!"

A long silence fell on them, through which the other five Equestrians looked intently at Twilight.

Eventually, she just collapsed into a sigh. "Where's Negi right now?"

"Last time I checked, he was in an indoors reunion in the resort with Eva, the grumpy girl with glasses, and that pink chick who kinda looks and acts like her," Marceline answered, casually pointing at Pinkie Pie.

"Cool! Sounds like a great person to me!" Pinkie grinned.

"I'm already wary of you ever meeting that person," Applejack quite correctly predicted.

"Okay, then. Thanks for the answer," Twilight sighed, beginning to drag her steps towards the stairs to the basement. "C'mon, girls, don't worry about the rest of the cabin, there's not much to see there, and you might lose a limb if you snoop around too much."

Pinkie looked at Marceline. "She's in love, right?"

"Starting to get there, I think," the vampire carelessly said. "Not like she has too much of a chance, with all the competition."

"A real heartbreaker, isn't he?" Rarity wondered.

"You could say so, in a 'Shucks, I wasn't trying to!' way," Marcie nodded.

"Those are the worst ones," Rarity sighed.

"Why does she have that weird thing for bipedals, anyway?" Rainbow grimaced.

"Um, no offense!" Fluttershy quickly added.

"Are you coming, or not?!" Twilight asked from the top of the stairway.

"So, before you go," Marceline calmly said, "How about Tirek, that scamp?"

* * *

By the time the six Elements of Harmony reached the entrance hall to the resort's main building, they saw Negi, who had just finished buttoning his shirt up and fixing his tie, coming the opposite way from the inside. Followed by Chachamaru, who wore her usual French maid uniform, and Chisame, in nothing but a chemise and a pair of socks.

"- yipe!" Chisame said, quickly stepping behind Chachamaru. Negi didn't move away, but was just as visibly startled.

"T-Twilight-san!" he said. "I wasn't expecting for you to be back so soon, and ... ah ..."

"Girls," Twilight exhaled, gesturing towards the three locals. "I think you already met Negi Springfield, Hasegawa Chisame, and Karakuri Chachamaru during the festivities over Cosmo Entelecheia's defeat, didn't you? Professor, girls, you may not recognize them like this, but these are my friends Pinkie Pie -"

"Oh wow, time _really_ passes a lot faster here!" Pinkie excitedly said, skipping before Negi. "You were only a little boy when I first saw you!"

"That's only a temporary appearance of his, Pinkie Pie," Twilight mumbled.

As Fluttershy, Applejack and Rarity bowed, Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow. "One of those weird magic pills humans sometimes use?"

"Sort of," Negi tried to smile. "Um, I'm glad to see you back, Twilight-san, and I'm sure your friends have excellent reasons to be here as well, but I was on my way out, although -"

Twilight blinked. "Didn't you want to see me? Princess Abadeer said-"

"Oh, yes, that!" he said. "Well, it's something very important, but it isn't too urgent, so if Chisame-san and Chachamaru-san could explain it to you in my absence-"

"I thought humans liked to wear more than this?" Pinkie asked, suddenly reappearing right behind Chisame.

"Ahhh!" Chisame spun around Chachamaru, placing herself opposite Pinkie. "Um, I mean, don't startle me like that! You'll see, there's a perfectly valid explanation for-!"

_"Those socks and that chemise don't really mesh together at all,"_ Rarity whispered into an eye-rolling Applejack's ear. _"Poor thing..."_

Realizing the ponies were reacting with far less alarm than she was, probably due to being naked most of their lives themselves, Chisame straightened up and cleared her throat. "This is my normal Sunday best," she calmly lied.

_"I'd hate to see her Wednesday's,"_ Rarity whispered again to Applejack, who couldn't care any less.

"Ahhhh," Pinkie said. And then, taking her hands to her belt, "Am I overdressed for the occasion, then?"

"NO!" Chisame, Negi and Twilight cried at once.

"Bummer," Pinkie pouted, taking her hands back off. "These clothes sure are restrictive. Especially the 'panties'."

"Ahhhhh, well," Negi began slowly moving away. "You'll see, right now, I must pay another student of mine a visit, there's something I must discuss with her and her father, something I really should be looking into as soon as possible, so I'm terribly sorry, but if you'll please excuse me."

And at once, he was gone.

Crickets chirped.

Crickets kept chirping.

Pinkie Pie looked at Chisame and casually asked, "So, how long have you guys been having sex with Twilight?"

"AAAARRRGGGHHH!" Chisame and Twilight growled at once.

"... excuse me?" Applejack finally asked in response at what had to be the weirdest Pinkie Non Sequitur ever.

Rainbow placed a pinky into her left ear and twisted it inside. "Sorry, for a moment there, I think I heard you asking -"

"What's so strange about asking each other about our sexual lives?" asked Pinkie. "I mean, we aren't fillies anymore, are we?"

"Gah, there it was again!" Rainbow yelled, trying harder to clear her inner ear as Fluttershy blushed like a tomato and gagged in her saliva. "I'll have to get myself checked!"

"Really, sometimes you girls can be so immature," Pinkie shook her head with a faint air of dismay. And then: "Oh, I get it! You made a promise about not talking about it, didn't you, Twilight? If so, please please please forgiiiiiive me!" she all but wailed. "I had no idea!"

"N-No, I hadn't promised-" a stupified Twilight began.

"Oh, it's all right then?" Pinkie instantly regained her wide white grin.

"... bweeeeeeh," Twilight said, realizing how much she'd just screwed it up.

"Come on, come on, Pinkie," Rarity clapped twice to try and impose some order upon chaos. "No doubt you're misinterpreting Twilight's situation here. What makes you sure she's been, ah, engaging into things she'd probably never do while on a diplomatic mission?"

"Come on, Rarity!" Pinkie waved her arms around. "Couldn't you feel the awkward tension she's been having and everyone's been having since we arrived, and the odd phrasing of the vampire lady up there, and the way Twilight cut her off, and how that boy reacted to her, and Twilight to him, and I'm pretty sure that's not how humans dress up for their Sunday best!"

"It is!" Chisame protested.

"See? She's acting weird and stingy like that too! And I know on these things, I really do! I can tell! I am ... worldly!"

"Uh-huh. Sure you are," said Rarity as she folded her arms.

"Am too!" Pinkie pouted. "Whatever gave you the impression I wasn't?" Then she pulled a candy bar out of a pocket and began messily munching from it, dirtying her whole lower face.

"Wait a darn second there," Applejack said. "Are ya tryin' to tell us yer not a ... virgin?"

"Should I be?" she asked, slightly puzzled over their reactions.

"You ... you never said anything about that," Fluttershy stammered.

"You never asked," Pinkie simply said.

Fluttershy looked down. "Okay, I did set myself up with that question."

Rarity's left eyebrow jumped up and down like a rabbit. "Who-?"

Pinkie waved a finger. "Ah-ah-ah! That, I can't tell you! He made me promise I would never tell and ruin his political career, and promises are sacred!"

Rarity's jaw hung loose. "Oh my dear sweet Celestia, it was a potentate!"

Pinkie hummed. "I could tell you about my second time, however, but ... oh, no, I promised her I'd never tell anyone either."

**"HER?!"** repeated her five friends.

Pinkie blinked. "Did I say anything bad again?" And then she turned towards Chisame and Chachamaru, who were crouching around a Twilight rocking back and forth in a fetal position, trying to shake her back into functionality. "Hey, by the way, what was that boy going to tell Twilight, anyway?"

"Ah, yes," Chachamaru said. "Twilight Hime-sama, Negi-sensei wants to establish a Pactio with you, and with the rest of those he's had sex with, at the end of a meeting he will be calling forth as soon as he returns from Akashi-san's place of residence."

"... mweh?" Twilight looked up at her with huge haunted eyes.

"Y'know, you could have just said, 'it's a message for her ears only,'" Chisame pointed out as she felt the headache migrating from Negi's head to hers.

"Perhaps I am overcome by their magic of friendship."

"Oh, not again with the -" Chisame started to say.

"See, I told you! Sex! Sex, sex, sex sex! Who was right, who was right, who was right?" Pinkie began happily prancing around her friends.

"- well, I'll be whipped an' bathed with tar and feathers!" Applejack whistled.

"Ummmm ... w-well, like I believe I've said already, Twilight, I'm sure you could have done a lot worse, so ... congratulations?" Rarity said with delicate awkwardness.

"With a bipedal? For real, Twi?" Rainbow made a face.

"No offense intended!" Fluttershy reassured again, before helping Twilight to stand back up. "Are you feeling okay?" she tenderly asked.

Twilight nodded mechanically.

Fluttershy hugged her. "There, there. No one's going to judge you, we're all friends. If that's the way your heart lies, I'm glad for you."

"Eeeehhhhhh," Twilight said.

Chisame sighed. "So. Are you taking the offer, or not?"

Twilight nodded mechanically a second time.

"Great, then," dryly exhaled the hacker.

Rarity gave the human and gynoid a wary glare. "As Twilight's comrades and Heterosexual Life Partners, Bisexual in Pinkie's case, Asexual in Rainbow's, I think we have the right to ask this. When you mentioned 'all those who have had sex with Professor Springfield', exactly how many did you mean?"

Chisame loosened the collar of her chemise a little, looking clearly troubled. "Well, you'll see..."

Dutifully, Chachamaru pulled out the whiteboard Negi had used earlier for his explanation to the Sports Girls. Then she carefully added the names of Makie, Ako, Haruhi, Nagato and Rika, drew lines connecting each of those names, another line connecting Makie and Evangeline's names, and a dotted line connecting her own name to Chisame's name, and stepped aside to let the Equestrians look at it unobstructed.

Fluttershy's face took a grotesque smile rictus, and then she fainted dead away.

"Holy Mother of all Horsehoes," Applejack decided.

"... I think even Discord would get a headache from looking at that," Rainbow opined.

"Well, at least, he seems a sharp and classy dresser," Rarity observed.

Pinkie laughed nervously. "Ehhh... eh, he he he. Well. Wow, yeah. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting this..."

And then she firmly grabbed Twilight by the shoulders. "But don't worry! With our help, you STILL stand a chance! Never say die until you're dead, and at that point you can't say anything, so that's a moot point and you never should say die anyway!"

"... bmweeeehhh!" Twilight said.

"... honestly, is that a new verbal tic you've picked up here?"

* * *

Negi thought it was eerie and worrying, as he stopped before Akashi-sensei's front door. And the eeriest part was that, while his rational mind was well aware that description fit Yuna-san's situation perfectly, what felt the most disturbing was how he couldn't find it in himself to feel as outraged - no, downright outraged, as he'd have felt before... things started spiraling out of control.

Well, he supposed it was logical to some degree, although he knew he shouldn't try to rationalize it either. After all, he walked his Master's path, and she had forsaken such concerns long, long, long, long, long, okay, perhaps she wasn't old enough to merit that many longs, ago. It didn't mean it still felt right at all, however.

He took a deep breath as he reached the door in question, and another one before he raised his hand to knock.

The knock didn't send the door flying off its hinges, further proving the point of Negi's concerns.

"Hello, Akashi-sensei," he said, loudly but, again, all too calmly for his own comfort. "I know you are in there, so would you please step out?"

A moment or so after he concluded speaking, he saw the door being opened from the inside, and out peeked the last head in the world he had expected to see there.

Itoshiki Nozomu's haunted face stared directly at the surprised Negi. "Good evening. Did you get the call as well, Negi-sensei?" the pale black haired man asked.

"I-Itoshiki-sensei!" Negi gasped. "What are you doing here?"

With a heavy, heartfelt sigh and a melodramatic gesture, the older man pushed the door fully open, ushering Negi to walk in. As Negi did so and Itoshiki closed the door back, Negi felt himself rattled at how Akashi-sensei's living room seemed to have transformed into a war council for the school's faculty. Around the room sat, in diverse levels of uncomfortable silence, Nekomome Shizuka-sensei, Ririko Kagome-sensei, Sugiura Midori-sensei, Sagisawa Yohko-sensei, Takamichi, Mikado Ryoko-sensei, Kuzuki Soichirou-sensei, Konoe Kouko-sensei, Minamoto Shizuna-sensei, and Marikawa Shizuka-sensei. In the middle of it all, on the main couch, with everyone keeping a prudent distance from them, Yuna, wearing nothing but a bedsheet around her body, and Akashi-sensei, in naught but his glasses and a pair of pyjama bottoms. Kuzunoha Touko-sensei paced angrily back and forth, gesturing with her hands as if she were a stereotypical Southern preacher doing her best on a sermon about the fires of hell.

"- absolutely disgusted, appalled and horrified! To think we've shared our table, our responsibilities, our friendship, even, with a being so despicable! To think we trusted a monster stalking amongst us, preying on his own kin, and who knows who else! This is a betrayal of all this academy stands for, and Headmaster Konoe will-!" She abruptly stopped, realizing the frozen Negi's presence. "Ah. Welcome, Negi-sensei," the woman said, walking up to him and bowing slightly. "So you received the call as well. I'm glad, actually, since you of all people should know about this. It's true that perhaps you are still too young to be told of these horrors, but alas, sometimes life forces us to grow before our time... as I'm sure you know well by now."

"What... what has happened here?" Negi babbled, dreading the answer.

Touko sadly shook her head. "I hope you may forgive me."

"For what?!" Negi said.

"For thinking Fate-sensei would be a better fit for your classroom than you ever were. Although I still doubt this sexual predator's honesty, he claims to have only starting performing his crass immorality with his sadly twisted victim here after your return from overseas, during Fate-sensei's term. It seems, in your absence, he hasn't been able to guide them into morality like you could."

"Tou-chan, you're only confusing him," Midori groaned. "Get to the point already!"

Touko frowned and softly coughed into a fist. "A-hemm! What I'm trying to say, Negi-sensei, is that less than a hour ago, we got an anonymous tip from a young woman, perhaps another victim of this filthy deviant, who informed us we should come here immediately, for a crass violation of the academy's principles was being carried out. I had serious doubts about that tip, always having trusted this man's values, so before calling for the Headmaster, I arrived to verify the situation, and so did our colleagues."

"I had nothing better to do, and I live only two blocks from here," Midori flatly said.

"I'm not a curious cat!" Nekomome quickly denied.

"My wife said I should check on it, just in case," Kuzuki monotoned.

"I didn't want to believe that!" Marikawa nervously said. "But, after, um, I mean, what I mean is, after all, who knows, I felt I had to check! N-Not to spread gossip later or anything!"

"Itoshiki-sensei, in his own unorthodox but honest ways, set out to learn the truth by climbing onto the rooftop and lowering himself with a rope from there," Touko grimly explained.

"I was just trying to hang myself!" Nozomu protested. "I honestly didn't think Akashi-sensei was guilty, but I told myself any world where such slanders were being spread about an honest teacher was not a world worth living!"

"And it was at that moment!" Touko gestured fiercely, accompanying her narration with a motion of an arm brutally swinging against an imaginary surface, "He surprised them in the middle of that vile act, by bravely slamming against their window! Caught _In Flagrante Delecto_!" she finished.

"... it was so scary, too," Yuna muttered.

All looks in the room fell on her.

She snorted. "What? As if **you** wouldn't have been scared shitless if it'd happened to you!"

Touko began sputtering angrily, hiding her own face behind a nearly clawing hand.

Negi was less extreme and only ran a hand down his face. "That girl who called ... do you have any clues on her identity?"

"What does that matter right now?" asked Kouko, coldly.

"Well ..." Negi sighed, but couldn't find a proper way to finish the answer.

* * *

Somewhere else, in the quiet loneliness of an apartment in Academy City, Akemi Homura looked at her wristwatch.

It should be happening right then.

* * *

"YOU were scared?!" asked Itoshiki. "YOU weren't the one falling down, upside down, to smash your face against a window, and see, through the curtains, a respected colleague licking chocolate off his daughter's privates! The shock almost killed me! YOU almost killed me! What if I had died?!"

"... you'd have been happy?" Minamoto asked, in a small voice.

"..." Nozomu said. And then, drooping his shoulders, "To think I'd owe my ultimate fulfillment to a colleague's hideous misstep! Why must so many things that are for the ultimate good come from unspeakable evils? Like our slave, Atomic Power, born from the infernal development of the A-Bombs! Or the rise of our ancestor the Cro-Magnon, due to the fall of our pitiful cousin Neanderthal! Or the well-being of the Magical World relying on the sacrifice of- never mind now," he gulped, feeling Negi's sharp glare on him. "That's the tragic way the world works! It seems like good only can be born from the rotten depths of evil!"

As he gestured with his bony hands, a long scrolling of written examples appeared in the air behind him.

_Karin is kind of cool, but we had to lose Negima for UQ Holder to happen._

_Spider-Man will be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we lost Cool Bro Andrew Garfield for it._

_With no Batman &amp; Robin, there'd never been a Batman Begins._

_Darkenning's work is great and he's having a really good time writing it, but it seems to be giving his cool friend OverMaster a wholly undeserved inferiority complex._

_Your airline flights are under better safety regulations now because terrorists took planes down before._

_Christ saved you from your sins, but he died on a cross for it._

_We got to wear cool, snazzy clothes only because of the Original Sin._

_Azzarello's Wonder Woman was well received, but it came from the DCNU reboot._

_England began giving a shit about the slums after being horrified by Jack the Ripper's crimes._

_You're jacking off to this lemon because OverMaster got like 50% of the series used here from piracy._

"I'M IN DESPAIR!" Nozomu cried. "This world that forces us to take the good with the bad has left me in despair!"

"Wow, how do you do that?" asked Nekomome.

"That's what 3-F has to go through every day? No wonder they're insane," Yuna said.

"Ahem!" Touko coughed up in a fist, a vein bulging up on her forehead. "Don't you go imagining that you won't have to pay over your own part in this affair, Akashi-san. The way I see it, you are old enough to accept responsibility for your actions, and I will make sure you are treated accordingly."

"See, that's what I've been trying to tell you this whole time!" Yuna cried. "Um, I mean, about being old enough to know better, not about the whole punishment part. Can't we negotiate this somehow? I'm not even his student!" she added, pointing at her father. "Never been, either!"

"Ooooh, that's a good point," Marikawa said, with a finger on her mouth.

"It's not!" Touko barked, making Marikawa shrink down. "Since most of the Mahora teachers with the greatest moral authority, and Kitami-sensei, are here to bear witness of this unforgivable transgression, it's a given you will be -"

Negi blinked, taking his hand off his face and talking before even realizing he was interrupting an adult. "Kitami Reika-sensei? Is she here, too?!"

"Did someone mention my name?" Kitami-sensei asked, walking out the kitchen and holding a big tray with several glasses of drink. "Oh, it's you, Negi-sensei. Welcome. Perhaps cooler heads will start prevailing now you are here. Juice?"

"Is it really only juice?" Touko grunted, clearly unhappy to have the short haired blonde back.

"Juice was the only drink he had in the fridge," Kitami skillfully sidestepped the actual answer while gesturing towards Akashi-sensei. "Whatever his other faults may be, he is no drunk."

"I personally select his diet, so it's as healthy as a teacher's salary can pay," Yuna supplied. "Thank you," she nodded, accepting the glass Kitami was offering her now.

"This is no moment to be sneaking into the kitchen, ignoring this important discussion, just to go for drinks, soft or not!" chided Touko.

Kitami looked all around at the others. "Has this been an actual discussion, or just an angry monologue?"

"An angry monologue occasionally broken by Nozomu-kun breaking into hysterics," Midori said, accepting another glass.

"Don't call me 'Nozomu-kun'! I'm older than you!" Nozomu-kun said.

"But an angry monologue is what these people need! For starters!" Touko protested, then had one of Kitami's glassed held before her face.

"You'll hurt your throat if you keep raising your voice that much without refreshing it," Kitami evenly reminded her.

Since the alternative was lowering her voice or just stopping talking, Touko huffed and took the glass, drinking it down in a single big gulp.

Negi, who already had some experience with Kitami-sensei's chemical preparations, eyed the glass in his hand carefully. "This is very kind from you, but I don't think I'm thirsty right now."

"Neither am I, actually," Yohko rejected Kitami's offering with a shake of her head. "Sorry. Midori, I was under the impression that, if it wasn't liquor, you wouldn't be-"

"Seconds, please!" Midori grinned, extending her now empty glass ahead. "Best juice I've ever tasted!"

Yohko sighed. "Of course, you'd choose **tonight** to break your single rule."

Itoshiki calmly pulled a small bag with a skull and crossbones design out of one of his pockets. He poured a white dust out of it and into his drink and began elegantly sipping it. "My deepest gratitude," he said.

"I don't want to come off as a complainer," Nekomome said, "but could I have mine in a plate on the floor, please?"

Ririko glared at her.

"On second thought, never mind," Nekomome said as she started drinking.

"Anyway, this isn't a random social event!" an annoyed Touko started to steer the conversation back to its proper subject. "Minamoto-sensei, as the Headmaster's personal assistant, please start composing a report relaying our findings and the formal accusations against the Akashi family."

"Yes!" Shizuna nodded, before asking Akashi-sensei, "Where do you keep your stacks of paper for official reports?"

The extremely downcast man, who was making Itoshiki jealous with how crushed he looked, miserably pointed towards his study's door. "Third drawer next to the door."

"Thank you," Shizuna said, finishing her glass and heading that direction.

Takahata, who had remained strangely pensive and quiet the whole time, snuffed his cigarette off and casually asked Negi, "Negi-kun, if, as it seems, you had no idea about the calls that summoned us here, why did you come, regardless?"

Negi thought his answer carefully before pronouncing it. "Evangeline-san gave me information that pointed me in this direction. As I am sure she would consider it improper if I gave any of you any more details, I refer you personally to her for further information."

Everyone in the room fell into a stunned, awkward silence. Touko only grimaced, for even she wouldn't dare to go against Evangeline in that way. "I understand," she finally said.

"Oh." Yuna blinked at last, now her reaction times had caught up to her shock. "How'd she find out -"

"Like I said," Negi replied, "It's not up to me to share that-"

Yuna stared at him.

* * *

_Then:_

"This -" Eva gasped between hungry kisses as they stumbled down the hall. "- never - happened!"

"Anything you say, toots," Rakan agreed, sinking his fingers into her firm, glamorous flesh. "Where's the room?"

"It's right h-"

"Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy!" came the cry from the closed doorway.

"Next one down," Evangeline hissed. "Next one down."

"Ain't we gonna peek?" Rakan leered.

"No!"

"Oh, Mr. Rance, Mr. Rance, Mr. Rance!" came the cry from the next one down.

"Hey, sounds like my old buddy Rance, from Keith's Guild!" Rakan grinned. "What if we join him and whoever he's-"

"The one after that! The one after that!" Eva urged.

"Oh, Gray-sama, yes yes yes yessss!" cried a young woman from the door after that.

"What kind of people did they invite to this victory party?!" Eva screamed.

* * *

_Now:_

"Eh, I guess she probably peeked at some point," Yuna concluded.

Several people across the room rubbed their legs together uncomfortably after listening to Negi's explanation.

Mikado-sensei looked down at her glass. "I really, really, out of all people, should have known better than to drink this," she mused to herself.

Kitami, who sat right next to her, with a hand dangerously close to Mikado's ass, smirked. "You know you want it," she said, just loud enough for only the alien to hear her.

"Oh my," Shizuna said, with a hand on a cheek.

Touko lifted an eyebrow. "So how come you agree to answer when it's a mere student asking you, but not a veteran member of the faculty?"

"We aren't 'mere' students, we're his comrades in arms," Yuna grumbled. "And, as for you 'veteran members', I bet Dad isn't the only one with dirty laundry. You may be loving this, lording it over us like that, but I bet those in this room who haven't ever bedded someone they shouldn't have are a minority."

"Yuna, please," her father sighed.

She shrugged. "It's not like speaking truth to power can make our situation any worse, right? And we all know I'm right!"

Touko leveled an icy glare at her. "With no solid evidence, we have no reasons to think of those words as nothing but a baseless smokescreen to try and lessen your own guilt. And if you do have any evidence, then provide it."

Yuna looked aside. "I'm no snitch!"

"I thought so," Touko said. "Because you have nothing to, as you say, snitch!"

"I do!" Yuna angrily argued, before narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "Oooooh, I get it. You're trying to egg me on, so I lower my guard and talk about what I know for your convenience. Well, I wasn't born yesterday, and I've watched a lot of police procedural shows! Not as many as Suzushiro-san, but a lot! So there!"

"Can we just get them dressed up and go deliver the report already?" a frustrated Yohko asked.

Touko and Yuna were staring at each other closer and closer with each passing moment, their faces gradually approaching each other as the air around them crackled with electricity.

"You do believe you are very clever, don't you, Akashi-san?"

"If the shoe fits, wear it, that's my motto!"

"You've put on way too many shoes, that's what I'm seeing here!"

"At least no one will say I went into my old age without ever trying anything!"

"Is that a barb against me?"

"I refer you back to my motto!"

"How can you be so sure I haven't ever tried 'anything', as you call it?"

"Someone at that age with that much pent up frustration just has to be a virgin!"

At that point of the exchange between the two females, Shizuna, who had been sitting in silence writing up the report, blushed brightly. Everyone else leaned closer to the brewing conflict, looking oddly interested.

"I'm, I'm not a virgin!" Touko shouted, unsure of why she was letting that child's words bother her so much. "I, I have a boyfriend!"

"The same one everyone knows left you two weeks ago?!" Yuna challenged.

"He did?" Negi blinked.

Touko cringed, looking suddenly truly hurt. "How, how can you say something so cruel, just like that, right now, just because you're slutty and young and cute and ... and -!"

And then she began violently kissing Yuna's mouth.

"And it begins," a satisfied Kitami said, sinking her long nails into Mikado's right buttock while everyone else gasped.

The alien scientist-cum-nurse, however, only sighed. "You devil. What are we going to do with you?"

"Oh, I can think of a few things."

"This will go into the record as well," Shizuna gave fair warning, adding it to her writings.

"... well," Kuzuki-sensei said, talking for the second time since Negi's arrival. "That was unexpected."

"Ku-Kuzunoha-sensei!" Itoshiki gasped. "Think of what you're doing, whatever that is!"

Just as violently, Touko-sensei pulled her head back, covering her mouth with a hand. "Blerh," she said between her fingers.

"Was that the sound of vomiting into your own mouth? I seem to recognize it from prior repeated experience," Midori inquired.

"It is," nodded Marikawa, who was just as knowledgeable in that area.

"Was it because of my breath?" Yuna frowned. "Okay, so it might have smelled a bit of penis, but-!"

"I don't know what's come over me, but I know it's that damnable woman's fault, and this damnable little sexy thing's as well, and I don't feel that well, but it's a funny feeling, sort of hot and breezy at once, and oh God I wanna cry," Touko, indeed, began lightly crying after that useful explanation, which, in turn, came after a lot of embarrassed swallowing.

"Oh dear, there, there," Marikawa said, coming closer to hug her, nestling Touko's head into her gigantic bossom, against which Touko sniffled while Nekomome rubbed her head against her leg, like a kitten trying to comfort its owner. Which actually makes no sense as a comparison, because actual kittens are ungrateful self entitled little bastards, unlike fantasy world catgirls. But you get the point. "I understand, I've been there, too."

"The kid's right, though," Midori began blabbering, "I hate admitting it, but we've all got our own skeletons in our closets, like, huh, not that I've ever slept with any student, yet, but I slept with my teacher, for all the good that did me, and then I guess there's that thing about organizing my students into a doomed squadron of Mahou Shoujo without an official license ... it seemed a good idea at the time!"

"Midori, please, not now, definitely not right now..." Yohko warned out a corner of her mouth.

"And then there was the time I really tried seducing Aono-kun and devouring his flesh," Ririko-sensei mused aloud without really understanding why. "If only Akashiya-san hadn't stopped me ... that damned Akashiya-san and her legs that go on for days!" She tightened a fist and made a string of really curious frustrated sounds.

"And don't forget Ryoko-chan supplying unsuspecting students with illegal alien drugs," Kitami nodded sagely, as her hand snuck down the back of Mikado's short skirt, making the alien moan. "Or Kuzuki-sensei cohabiting in sin, in a sacred temple, with that woman suspected of causing all those ... incidents ... all across the city. Honestly, how did we ever fall so low?" she mused aloud. "Fortunately, there'll always be someone willing to sacrifice everything to expose the truth, right, Yuna-chan? Negi-kun?"

"Uh," Negi said. "This is all wrong, wrong in so many levels." He shook his head.

"Errrr ... well, I wouldn't be that fast to shoot the notion down!" Yuna blinked nervously. "And, after all, it's not like ... oh, what the fuck, Negi-kun. I've been trying to cover your ass this whole time, but even now, you won't do the right thing, will you?!"

"The right thing?" Negi repeated, dubiously.

"The right thing," Takahata repeated blandly, looking down at his own hands. Then he stood up and raised his voice. "Yes. The thing I should have done as soon as I fell into that terrible mistake, myself. I am in no position to judge anyone. Not when I have taken advantage of Asuna-chan myself."

"You did what?!" Akashi-sensei gaped.

"Uh, no, actually, I'm pretty sure it was Asuna who took advantage of you. That was the plan, at least!" Yuna protested.

"**YOU** did **WHAT?!**" Akashi-sensei gaped.

"Oh my! The plot thickens!" Kitami chuckled devilishly, pulling on Mikado's black thong and making her squirm.

"I could have resisted! I should have! It's all my own fault!" Takahata closed his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Negi-kun! I'm so ... but, come to think about it, why did it seem like she was so experienced at it?"

"Eeehhhhh," Negi said.

"See, you aren't doing the right thing yet, even when everyone else is!" Yuna accused him. "Come out clean and help save our honor, Negi-kun!"

"Is there any sort of honor left to save anymore?" Shizuna wondered, still taking notes that grew more erratic by the moment. "Oh, getting this all down is becoming harder and harder."

"But, but you said it yourself, you had been hiding it, so I figured you wanted it a secret too!" Negi claimed.

"That was then, this is now, and yes, I realize that then was very shortly before this now, but still!" Yuna told him.

Kouko tossed her hands up. "Oh, in the name of Heaven!" she finally voiced her opinion. "Okay, let's just all stop pretending right now, okay?! Negi, you remember the other day as well as we do, when Kitami tried this very same nonsense, and apparently she isn't going to stop until she pulls it off, so let's just cut to the chase!"

"The other day?" Takahata, Shizuna, Ririko, and the Akashis asked all at once.

"Basically, from what I could pry from Yohko-chan, the Hot Nurse Squad here all were going to have sex with Negi-kun and his pintsize thug pal the other day, but they, well, 'chickened out' is perhaps too strong a term, but -" Midori shrugged her shoulders.

"YOU knew!" Negi's skin crawled up all over.

"... well, one grows curious when one's best friend forever starts acting even antsier than usual all day long, you know? And then one starts gently prodding for answers, and then one starts harassing for them until one gets them," Sugiura said. "That's what best friends do!"

"I don't know you," a red faced Yohko muttered.

Midori grinned and rubbed her cheek against Yohko's arm. "Awwww, I know you'd have done the same for me!"

"No I wouldn't have!" Yohko said.

"Anyway," Midori said as she kept on rubbing, "Before tonight, I wouldn't have squealed on it, because hey, not my problem, right?"

"That kind of attitude is what got us here in the first place!" Yohko said. Then, realizing she had contributed to that herself by not talking before, she fell into a depressed silence.

"... I see..." Takahata tried to sound stoic as his right eyebrow twitched, ignoring the very dirty and disappointed glares Shizuna was shooting him over her report, which by now was covered by doodles of naked buff men, especially ones with Death Glasses, with dirty epithets written all around them.

"I'm very sorry, Takamichi," Negi sincerely repaid Takahata's earlier act of contrition.

"A-anyway! Even if so many of you have deviated so far from the rightful path of a teacher, Touko-sensei hasn't done anything like that yet, so her observations are genuine and valid and sincere and uuuuhhhh..." Yohko said, realizing how the tipsy Touko and Marikawa were Frenching now, the blond nurse undoing Touko's top and playing with her nicely shaped breasts, while Nekomome was on all fours between Touko's legs, pulling her panties aside to lick at her flower. That made Yohko level a deadly glare at Kitami, who was vigorously fingering Mikado from behind. "You're paying for all of this, and so richly, too!"

"I bet you not only I walk away from this scot-free, but also much better off than I was before tonight," Reika taunted, looking at her from above Mikado's shoulder.

With all rational hope lost, Yohko turned to - "Itoshiki-sensei! Say something! Back me up here!"

The man himself was crouched at a corner, his back to all of them, dragging a finger all across the floor. "I'm no better than any of them. I've committed an unspeakable sin with Hitou Nami-san, as well."

"The normal girl?!" Midori gasped.

"Don't call her normal!" Itoshiki said, as was his duty in his student's physical absence.

Kouko sighed, more annoyed than anything else. "I suppose those are the normal ways around this academy as of late, so it comes as no shock to me."

Itoshiki then looked all around, with a haunted paranoid expression. "How strange. That confession should have made Tsunetsuki-san angrily pop out from behind me, so someone would ask her if she had been here, and then she'd answer-"

"I'm sure even she has moments to call her own, without stalking you, sometimes," Reika interrupted him between sucklings of Mikado's now exposed breasts.

* * *

_Back at the kitchen, a heavily gagged and bound Tsunetsuki Matoi squirmed in place, furiously_.

* * *

"But... we are talking about Tsunetsuki-san..." Nozomu weakly said.

Sugiura stood up, stomping a foot down. "Oh, what the fuck! I don't care anymore if we're drunk or drugged now, but are we doing it, or are we gonna spend the whole night talking like idiots instead?!"

"But I'm not drugged! I didn't drink anything!" Yohko said.

"Me neither!" added Negi.

"I'm game," Ririko said, taking her top off.

"Caster and I are experimenting with an open relationship," Kuzuki nodded, taking his hands to his belt. "At least, since I found her and Saber doing -"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Wataru said. "First you barge in here to arrest me, and now you decide doing a full turn and having a full on orgy in my living room without waiting for my opinion instead?!"

"These matters often evolve and change their course quickly, as you are no doubt aware," Ririko professionally said.

"Anyway, if the man who fucks his own daughter wants to express his opinion on our respective morality or lack thereof, he's always welcome," Midori observed.

"... I was just asking," Wataru meekly replied.

"Before I decide on anything, I'd like having a serious, long discussion in private with you, Negi-kun," Takahata spoke, "regarding the issue of Asun-" It was at that point that Shizuna tackled him down against the floor. He was fairly impressed. It had been a long while since someone could get a drop on him like that.

Negi blinked and began mouthing a question to him, but as Shizuna's mouth blocked Takamichi's, he asked Kouko instead, "You didn't drink that juice either, did you?"

"No, I didn't," she confirmed.

"Well, that's great. Then a married woman, who was against it so adamantly last time, surely won't-"

"For fuck's sake," Kouko snarled, not sounding that elegant anymore. "You know the difference between then and now, Boy? By now, I've had time to think of how bloody spineless you are, Mr. Big Brave Hero, considering you have the gall to keep fucking my daughter even after I found out about it. So I'm fucking teaching you how to be a real man. Hopefully I'll have better luck than with Eishun, God bless him."

Negi blinked. "You do love him, don't y-"

"A lot. Which is why I'll really beg for his forgiveness after this," she grimly said, grabbing Negi by the arms, standing up on her toes to reach his face, and mashing her mouth against his.

* * *

"Are you planning on getting dressed sometime today?" Chisame asked the naked girl sitting to her left at the big table. Despite the snarky tone, she was actually rather glad of Sasaki and the assembled Equestrians' presence, as a distraction from Chachamaru's steady gaze and the challenge it represented.

"Ahhh! Nope," Makie replied cheerfully once she finished drinking her milk.

Some distractions, of course, Chisame didn't need. "So, what, you're just going to walk around in the nude the whole day?"

"Why not?" Makie said, shrugging and consequently jiggling. "I'm not leaving the resort until Eva-chan kicks me out, and why should she do that?"

"Uh-huh," Chisame snarked. "And what happens if you run into one of the people she has as a guest? Rakan, or the creepy governor, or -"

"Hey guys, don't mind me, just coming for something to drink while waiting for the muse," Marceline casually said, walking in with her guitar hanging from her shoulder. She made her way for the nearby mini-fridge, poured herself some from Eva's red unlabeled bottle no one else would ever dare to touch, and whistled at Makie in her way back out. "Wow, nice butt there."

"Thank you. Well, then, I guess they'll see me naked," Makie answered Chisame, in tones of one explaining the obvious. The really, really, really obvious.

"... and ... you're okay with that?" the hacker asked, blinking.

Perhaps she'd not so much been blinking as closing her eyes for a lot longer than a blink. Perhaps that explained how Sasaki had gotten up from her chair to stand on the table. "Why shouldn't I be?" she asked grandly. "Why shouldn't all of us be? Let us be comfortable with our bodies! Let us be free of the encumbrance of our clothes! Here, in this wondrous place, warmed by the sun and cooled by the gentle ocean breeze -"

Chisame, sensing the onset of a multiple-page manifesto worthy of Ayn Rand on the virtues of nudism, desperately strove to return this narrative to sanity. She liked sanity, it tasted of bread. "A," she said loudly, "that's not the sun that's warming us, B, that's not the ocean and hence no ocean breeze, and C, biggest issue with your plan, eventually Eva will get tired of all this and kick us all out, and I don't think she's gonna give you time to get dressed when she does. So clothes might just possibly be a good idea."

"Honestly, what's your species' big deal about clothes anyway? I just don't get it. Clothes are supposed to be something special you wear for special occasions, right, Rarity?" asked Pinkie Pie, who now sat in the buff between Makie and Twilight's seats, much to the latter's surprise. "I mean, listen to her! She's our resident clothes horse, and yet she isn't wearing them any more than necessary!"

"Well," Rarity mused, barely touching her own meal, "a visit to another world IS a special occasion, so maybe we should be doing what the locals do."

"She's a local as well," Pinkie pointed at Makie.

"Ooooh, that's a good one!" Makie said, high-fiving Pinkie. "I like the way you think, Pinkie-san!"

"No, no, no, no, I like the way you think, Makie-san!" And then both of them giggled loudly, in eerily perfect synchrony.

"Oh my gosh, they are multiplying," Rainbow quietly said. 'Quietly' being the key word in something Rainbow Dash was doing. It was the event's sure sign Things Were Very Wrong Now.

"Yes, we are!" Makie's giggle turned more deranged. "Ooooo, resistance is futile, accept it, accept us, you know you want to, Chisame-chan."

"Don't call me -!" Chisame started to say, only to be interrupted as a pair of hands extended past her shoulders and then wrapped around her in a hug.

"What shouldn't we call you, Chi-sa-me-chan?" said a familiar voice.

"Ah. Welcome back, Asuna-san," Chachamaru greeted from across the table.

"Geh," opined Chisame.

"Asuna-chan!" Makie cheered.

"Maki-chan!" Asuna replied, holding her arms out as she let go of Chisame. Makie prompty bounced into her embrace, kissing her face.

Twilight promptly stood up. "Princess Asuna! It's a honor, um, seeing you again! Perhaps you'll remember my friends Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Applejack. Forgive the suddenness of their arrival, but Princess Celestia saw fit to send them immediately."

"It's okay, the more the merrier," Asuna said, smiling and nodding towards the newcomers, who bowed politely to her. Even the naked one. "So, um, to what do we owe the casual dress code?"

"Haven't you heard?" Makie asked, after one more kiss. "Negi-kun and me, and Ako-chan, and Suzunaya-sempai and her friend and that other very smart girl, all of us did it with Negi-kun, and he might have confessed to me except that he didn't, it's a long story really, but the thing is-!"

"Eh?" Asuna asked. "It was you? Seriously? Wow! I never would have thought... not that I'm saying you aren't well worth it, it's just, wow, I never saw it coming!"

"It wasn't like that!" Makie pouted.

"It was, they're just playing pretend because of stupid reasons," Chisame deadpanned.

"We aren't!" Makie protested.

"Is that so? Well, I just hope the news of what Baka Negi was doing before, fooling all around, didn't bother you then, Maki-chan," Asuna sympathetically said.

Makie looked aside. "I don't know what are you talking about since I wasn't confessed to, but if I had, I love all of you too, and I wouldn't want your hearts to be broken for my sake, just so I can claim Negi-kun all to myself."

"Wow," Rarity said, clearly impressed. "That's some... generosity."

"And she is the Officially Approved Element of Generosity, girls," Pinkie nodded sagely, gesturing with a hand towards Rarity. "So, again, an authority is backing us up on what we're saying!"

"I, I'm not giving any approval of this!" Rarity gasped. "It's just-!"

"Mmm-hmmm, thank you, then, that's very sweet of you," Asuna continued to muse as she started to walk away from the table, more or less carrying Makie with her without actually noticing the other girl's weight. "Well then, I think that generosity must be rewarded, and since we all, even Chisame-chan, love Maki-chan as much as she loves us ..."

"Ooh, you keep misinterpreting the whole thing, you Sexy Baka Leader, you," Makie said, wrapping her arms loosely around Asuna's neck. "But if that's the way you want us to play it, fine, I could let you have him as well. Or, you know, you, Chisame-chan, or -"

"I don't really like him that way," Asuna said.

Twilight finally spoke again, her earlier formal reverence for the Princess a bit more muted. "Or rather, you don't really like to like him that way, do you, Your Majesty?"

Asuna flinched for a moment, stopping.

"Element of Sincerity," Twilight turned to Applejack. "What's your opinion on Her Majesty's, well, sincerity?"

Applejack briefly cringed. "Why do I have to get myself wrangled into this, too?" And then she sighed. "But yeah, alright, it's not like I really know this girl, but I think I can see it when someone's in blatant denial all the same."

Asuna's right eyebrow twitched a few times. Makie giggled and tickled her nose. "Never doubt animal instincts, Asuna-chan!"

"I don't see any animals around," Asuna tensely said. "I don't like him that way, really, I don't. And Chisame's got other things on her mind, right?"

"Leave me out of this conversation," Chisame growled.

"Oh, that's right. Hey, Chachamaru-chan? What would Negi do in your situation?" Makie called back to her.

"Huh?" Chisame asked.

"I believe that he would wait and allow the more assertive person to whom he was attracted to begin romantic activities," Chachamaru opined.

"Well, then, do the opposite of that!"

Chachamaru blinked.

Chisame blinked.

Well, perhaps she was doing it again, and that was why Chachamaru had, in the blink of an eye, lunged across the table to start kissing Chisame quite soundly.

"I am such a genius!" Makie proclaimed as Asuna carried her out of the dining room.

"And cute, too," Asuna leered.

"I think this is our cue to depart, as well," Rarity said, getting up from her chair.

"M-M-Most definitely, yes," Fluttershy stuttered rapidly.

"Seriously? I think the short blade popping outta her arm and aimin' our way is our cue to leave," Applejack said as she followed Rarity's cue.

"My apologies, it must have been a malfunction," Chachamaru said between avid kisses of Chisame, although she didn't pull back the blade protruding from the arm she kept apart from Chisame and towards the Equestrians.

"Have fun!" Pinkie cheered, hopping off her chair and merrily skipping the way the others were going.

"What are you doing? Chachamaru!" is what Chisame wanted to say, but with the gynoid's mouth on her own as she was borne to the dining room floor, it came out muffled - as a ridiculously large number of rather important things she'd said lately had been. "Muh? Huhuhmuhuh!" is what was actually said.

In the hallway just outside the dining room, the Elements of Harmony paid close attention, sticking next to the door, almost piling up on each other, with Twilight more or less at the bottom of the pyramid, Applejack and Rarity slightly above, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash somewhat over them, and Pinkie Pie at the top. "Of course y'all know this is eavesdroppin' on strangers' privacy. I don't think this is something we shoulda be doin'," Applejack muttered.

"I, I agree!" Fluttershy said empathically, with her eyes glued on the scene.

"I'd gladly turn around and leave already if only you girls would get off me," Rarity pointed out, clenching her teeth.

"Ooopsie! Sorry, Rarity!" Pinkie said, hopping back down and pulling Fluttershy and Rainbow down with her. After a moment of catching her breath and haughtily fixing her hair back, Rarity dusted her short skirt off and turned around.

"Much better," she said, taking a first step in the opposite direction. "Now, if somepony wants to know, I'll be in my room checking if it has any- iiiiiiiihhhhhh!" she stopped as she found Asuna in her way, pushing Makie against a wall and crouching between the gymnast's legs, burying her face into her hairless cunt.

Twilight sighed. "See, this is why I wouldn't worry that much about anyone's privacy around these places. They seem rather lax about being seen clopping."

"Clopping?" asked Makie, her eyebrows twirling up and down.

"Oh," Fluttershy said, with a hand on her small mouth. "Well, if that's the case..." she spun around to peek again on Chisame and Chachamaru's activities. "I believe I find this scene more... culturally interesting, for some reason..."

Asuna pulled her mouth back from Makie's crotch. "Everyone just wants to tap Chisame's ass, don't they?"

"It's a nice ass," Makie observed.

"What do donkeys have to do with any of this?" Rainbow scratched her colorful long hair.

"That's how they call plots in this world, Dash," Twilight patiently explained.

"Isn't that insulting to poor donkeys?" Rarity wondered. "Why would they do that?"

"Plots? You call them 'plots'? Really?" Makie giggled while Asuna caressed her plot and went back to lick her... well, ponies didn't have a different word for it, so, cunt.

"It's... It's not that!" Fluttershy blushed, her hand absently rubbing over her skirt without her even realizing it. Perhaps. "Miss Chisame is the one with the reddish mane, isn't she? W-Well, she is... attractive in her own way, but, but I really like the way Miss Chachamaru looks better," she sighed.

Asuna, Makie, Rarity, Rainbow and Applejack all took a few moments to blink repeatedly.

"Hhhmmmm. Well," Twilight Sparkle shrugged, "I think you are akin spirits, so you should get along well."

"And if you want to go for it, then go ahead! These humans are very generous and sharing!" Pinkie cheered.

Fluttershy blushed even brighter. "What? What?! Oh, no, no, no no! I wasn't, I wasn't really thinking of that! I couldn't, I wouldn't, I'd never-"

Gently pushing Asuna's face away from her bare crotch, Makie moved towards Fluttershy, brushing her long pink hair, lighter in tone than her own, with a hand. "It's okay, no one here will judge you, Flimsyshy-san!"

"It's, um, Fluttershy," the pegasus-cum-human gulped.

Makie grabbed both of her shoulders. "Even the species doesn't really matter, as long as we all have the same kind of heart beating here!" One of her hands rested on Fluttershy's left breast, making her squeak slightly. "Right, Twilight-san? You loved being with Negi-kun, and Asuna-chan and Chisame-chan have both been with Kotaro-kun, and Asuna-chan has been with Setsuna-san, and Chamo-san loves the way we look, and when he comes back, I'm giving him some of what the poor thing has wanted for so long, and -"

"You're doing **what?!**" Asuna cried.

Makie looked back at her. "Asunaaaa! What kind of friends are we if we start putting arbitrary limits between some of our friends and others?! That's discriminatory!"

"When did you ever learn those big words?!" Asuna grew bewildered.

Makie poked the tip of her tongue out. "I may be a Baka, but Suzumiya-sempai kinda was right about me, you know?"

"What are you talking about, and why are you pronouncing her name correctly?!" Asuna was borderline scared now.

"Oh. Oh, I get it," Rainbow Dash deadpanned. "It's like with Pinkie, where she'll act scatterbrained and silly most of the time and then she'll shock us with a clever solution to a given problem."

Pinkie brought her hands together angelically. "Now you're the one being silly, Rainbow. Anyway, Fluttershy, Makie here's absolutely right!"

"But, but, but it's CHAMO!" Asuna screamed.

"Look, it's no big deal, either, as long as it's with a good person," Makie said, showing her example by taking Pinkie Pie's cheeks between her hands and graciously asking, "May I?"

Pinkie Pie nodded eagerly.

"Thank you," Makie said, then placed a long, wet kiss on Pinkie's mouth.

* * *

With his pants and underwear now pooled around his ankles, Negi flexed his hands in and out while the wife of his father's trusted comrade sucked him off with a skill comparable only to Evangeline's, which perhaps was logical, but also somewhat concerning in a way. He only hoped all that experience came from the sanctity of the nuptial bedroom ... but come to think about it, wouldn't that make his betrayal that much worse, then? "Aaaaannnhhhh!" he moaned, deeply troubled by those thoughts.

_I still have it, apparently_, Kouko thought with some measure of pride in her shame. At their right, Nekomome and Ririko had stripped each other and Touko, and now both of them held the human woman between them, licking and nibbling all over her body. Kouko only hoped their respective mythical beast instincts wouldn't spring enough as to make them try and eat the swordswoman; not that they could succeed, but the whole situation would grow really ugly and vicious instantly.

Yuna had thrown her bedsheet aside and pulled her father's pants off, and now sat on the floor between his legs, suckling on his member while playing with his testicles. Kitami had literally ripped Mikado's clothes off and now furiously fingered her from behind, all the while sinking her teeth into Ryoko's neck in a way Evangeline would have found disturbing. Kuzuki and Marikawa, a veritable case of opposites if there ever was one, were kissing and feeling all over each other. And Itoshiki ... had just hung himself from the ceiling, and from her angle, Kouko could clearly see the suicide note poking out of one of his pockets if she tilted her eyes up just a little. Since that would shortly become a turnoff for everyone but Kitami, she tugged on Negi's shirt, and getting the hint, the young man reached up and pulled from Itoshiki's leg, snapping his rope so the Despair Teacher landed on his face on the floor.

"Ow," Itoshiki blandly said, and Kouko thanked Negi by undoing her top and placing his unit between her decently sized breasts, rubbing them up and down his length.

Takahata still remained fully dressed, although Shizuna had unzipped his fly and pulled his member out, and now rode it, thrusting herself up and down on her feet, large breasts bouncing as wildly as her tight sweater would allow. She also moaned and groaned incoherently, with tears in her eyes, confirming Kouko's long lived suspicions on the unrequited nature of her crush on Takamichi. Midori and Yohko were still undressing as they kissed, taking their sweet time. Yohko's face was as red as they came, and she wouldn't stop protesting into Midori's mouth, but her only replies were giggles and squeezes of her flesh.

Freeing the monster from her mouth, Kouko gently pushed Negi back to lie on the floor, and she yanked her skirt and panties off. "Negi," she said, very seriously. "Be honest with me, now. How many times have you ejaculated inside Konoka by now?"

"Uhhhh ... do you mean before or after Haruna-san introduced her to birth prevention pills?" he asked.

"She did what ... oh, never mind, before that."

"Six," he ruefully answered.

"Six!" Kouko echoed, her voice choked.

He only could nod. Kouko hissed her frustration for a moment, prompting him to add, "I'll take responsibility!"

"I damn sure hope so!" Kouko hissed again, descending into his erection and impaling herself, wincing as the monster went inside her. "Blast it! No wonder I thought she was walking funny lately! Negi!" she growled, moving her hips in a circular fashion, and seeing him gain goosebumps. "Now listen! You know, I, ah, long ago, promised to be with Konoka no matter whaaaaaat! After she fell into that riveeeeeer!"

"Ah-haaaaaaaaah?" Negi went, despite the fact that this was the first time he'd heard any of this.

"Right!" Kouko panted, her hands clawing at his shirt's buttons, popping them off. "And then, then I failed at that, when we sent her to Mahora! Ugh! You fucker! Not so rough!"

"Sorry!"

"And then, and then I failed to help her when she was kidnapped! And when you took her to Mars! Fuck! Shit! Not so fucking soft either! A balance! A balance is important in all things!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Negi repeated.

"So I, so I'm going to get it right this time!" Kouko promised, speeding her motions on top of him, as she pinched herself on a nipple and him on one of his. "So, since you, you little son of a Nagi, have no doubt knocked my daughter up, I'm finally paying my, my my duties to Konoka by going through this with heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" she shrieked, rocking in climax.

"What, what kind of logic is that oh nuts!" Negi gasped, as Kouko's vaginal contractions choked on his member, and made him spew his seed into her. Then, after gulping for air, he blocked both of his eyes with his hands. "Eishun-sama is going to kill me," he realized. "He'll find a way, I'm sure."

By now, while Shizuna kept on giggling disturbingly and humping Takahata's grunting figure, the rest of the involved had finished their own businesses for the time being, coming closer to get a look of Kouko resting on Negi's chest. All but Touko, who had shrunk into a fetal position ball on the floor whimpering to herself, and Ryoko, whom Kitami had left behind on a sofa, still dizzy from that truly inhuman treatment.

"Wow," Yuna said, marveled, once Kouko dismounted, allowing her a clear view of Negi's fluids-slick member. "Ooh sweet silver bullets of the Looooone Ranger, Makie wasn't exaggerating at all!"

"What kind of exclamation is that?" asked Itoshiki, tightening the neck of his hakama shirt around himself, since he was the most dressed person in the room by now and wanted to keep it that way. He looked oddly endearing in a goofy way as well, with Shizuna's sweater and bra now resting on his scalp after she tossed them away, now going BOING BOING BOING BOING in full force atop Takamichi. It was enough to make him finally proactive enough to reach up for the massive globes of flesh, pressing his powerful hands around them.

Akashi regarded Negi's negi dispassionately. "Size isn't as important as some people seem to think."

"Sure, Dad, anything you say," Yuna replied without a backward glance as she began to rub the erection, grinning widely as she did so.

"It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean," he continued, eyebrow twitching slightly.

"Mm-hm," she said, licking her lips before taking it into her mouth. Part-way, at least, since she couldn't fit more than half the shaft in there before she coughed and had to pull back. "I'm gonna need to practice this," she mused aloud.

"Yes, indeed," Reika nodded sagely.

"For a newbie, your technique isn't half bad," complimented Ririko.

"... you're not listening to me, are you?" Akashi-sensei asked.

"Yeah, yeah, definitely," Yuna affirmed, before making another attempt to take the monster into her throat.

"They never listen to me, either," Negi said sadly. The two men exchanged a glance, and sighed in synchrony. Takahata sighed as well, although in his case it was the result of an ejaculation into Shizuna.

"Oh, don't be like that," Yuna said, pulling back to look down at Negi's prone body fondly. "Or you, either, dad!" she added after quickly replaying the last few minutes of conversation back in her own mind.

"I just wonder what happened to the person who wanted to be faithful to her boyfriend," Negi replied, sounding (even he realized) a bit defensive. "I mean, it was before I learned that you were engaging in something any sane person would regard as morally abhorrent, but I really respected you for taking that position despite the pressure you must have felt from your peers to join in on their activities. I think it's sad that you're not only abandoning those standards, twisted as they were, but also oh come on how does this keep happening to me?" he asked as he realized that now Yuna was perched above him. Further adding to his disconcerted state was the sight of her father, standing some distance away, completely naked and with his hands rubbing his member.

"We're the products of the Japanese school system, Negi-kun, we're really good at letting lectures just wash over us," she explained, then lowered herself onto his erection. "Mm, yeah! Uh, so good! Okay, dad, you know what to do, right?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"Yes, I suppose so," he replied. "I've never done this in quite this fashion, but-"

"Oh, fucking come on!" Reika protested. "A man who was married over years, and you and the wife never tried it even once? Who are you trying to bullshit here, Wataru?!"

"I meant the group thing, not the anal thing," Akashi-sensei mumbled. "Our marriage was exciting enough without having to-" He broke off, shook his head, and crouched down to push his own erection against the rosebud of Yuna's anus.

"OH FUCK ME!" Yuna shrieked.

Taking this as the command that it may or may not have been, her father and Negi proceeded to do so.

Kitami, who had just pulled a small bottle out of her discarded clothes, blinked for a moment. "Um, I was about to suggest you'd try lubrication first, but... never mind. Get here, you," she randomly grabbed Yohko and turned her around with surprising physical power, beginning to apply the lube on Yohko's anus.

"Hey, no, wait, what are youuuuu!" Yohko shrilled. "Midori, do fucking something!"

Midori, who was doing something, namely struggling to get Itoshiki's pants off, considered that Yohko was probably in good enough hands.

"Who are you expecting to buttfuck me anyyyyyyyyyy!" Yohko shrieked, feeling Kuzuki's hands on her breasts, and then his meat slowly push into her asshole, guided along by Reika's hand. "Oh. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Fuck! I'm going to do something so horrible to you after this, Reika!" she promised.

"Looking forward to it," smiled the woman who once had been raped by a demon on a ritual altar.

Touko shivered, hugging herself, and closed her eyes. Then something into her seemed to snap, in shame and frustration over being reduced to that pitiful state, and falling back on the instincts of a warrior, she sprang up, growled ferally, and pounced on the nearest prey to become predator rather than victim. _**"I'm going to fuck you up so badly!"  
**_  
While taken by surprise by the attack, Nekomome Shizuka quickly smiled as she accepted the lashing woman into her arms. Her cat ears popped out of her hair. "Nyaaan! Okay, I accept your challenge!" she purred, hands clawing on Touko's back and leaving red slashes on the human's fair skin while Touko savagely bit on her teats.

Some kittens like playing rough.

* * *

"NYAAAAAAGGGH!" Yuna expostulated.

"Well said, Kiddo!" Midori chuckled as she rode the spasming Itoshiki, who wouldn't stop doing choked, gurgling sounds under the buxom redhead. "Wow, now that's a trooper! You remind me of myself two years ago!"

"For the last time, you aren't seventeen! Get that through your head already!" Ryoko told her, standing up from the sofa to look for someone who would scratch her latest itch. Takahata seemed the best bet, as he rested with Shizuna in his arms, both apparently dazed, so Mikado gently pushed Minamoto aside with a foot and descended upon the male's strong build. "Now, Sensei, how about building some good old interplanetary relationships?"

Negi looked back from where Mikado-sensei was pulling Takamichi's member into herself to look at Yuna again. He was uncertain whether the sounds that Yuna was making indicated pleasure or pain, and he had the unsettling feeling that she herself was somewhat oblivious to the distinction at the moment. This was far more disturbing to him than Fei's enjoyment of pretend injury had been, and from the look on his face, Akashi-sensei didn't seem all that happy either. Of course, it was also a bit disconcerting to be able to look at the other man's face while this was happening, not to mention all the other activity all around them, and Negi expected that it was the same for him.

They'd moved around a bit, so that Akashi-sensei was the one serving as the anchor for this positioning, with Yuna lying with her back to his chest while Negi pumped into her from above. It had been the logical thing to do - inasmuch as logic could be said to have any place here - since he had vastly more endurance and could engage in the required activity longer.

He suspected that she was oblivious to that, as well.

Of course, just as that thought coalesced in his mind, Yuna decided to reveal that she was not, in fact, completely oblivious. "Mmmmm, yeah, yeah, both of you inside of me, rubbing up insiiiiiide of me, so fucking good! Ahhh! But ... but you know what would be even better?" There was a faintly mischievous note to her voice.

"What?" Negi gasped in response.

"You just had to ask, didn't you?" grunted Wataru. (Negi found himself obscurely grateful to Kitami-sensei for informing him of the other man's name.)

"Both of you, rubbing up insiiiiiide of me, and rubbing up against each other in the same fucking hole!" Yuna hissed her conclusion.

"No," Negi replied firmly.

"No," Akashi-sensei echoed maybe half a second later.

"Awwwwwwwwwwwww!" Yuna's moan of disenchantment surged into another kind of moan half-way through, leaving her in no fit state to talk about the matter. The tension of her orgasm form proceeded to set her father off, as well, and a load of his semen jetted up into her intestines almost immediately. At the other end of the room, coincidentally, Kuzuki-sensei was similarly unloading into Yohko's rectum just a few seconds later, making the woman slump ahead, panting and balling her fists up.

"There there, dear," Reika said, moving towards Yuna and gently patting her on a cheek. "By the night's end, I swear I'll either talk them into it or convince two others to do it for you."

"Slim chance," Akashi-sensei growled.

"Oh, don't start acting all possessive now, Wataru-kun," Kitami chastised, moving along further to press her foot on Akashi's genitals as he pulled them out of Yuna. "Or what, are you planning keeping her all to yourself, with exclusive loans to Negi-kun, until you're old and gray? Or are you just going to place conditions on her boyfriends? 'To date her, you must prove yourself a better lover than me'?" she taunted. Then blinked. "That would actually be kind of fun to watch."

"You witch," Akashi hissed.

"With a capital B, darling," she purred, rubbing his hardening shaft in the space between her big toe and the next one.

For his part, Negi kept plugging away for almost a full minute, before he felt the by-now-familiar sensation and quickly pulled out in order to ejaculate all over Yuna's stomach.

"Ooh, dirty," Yuna sighed, reaching down to smear her fingers with it, then bringing them up to her mouth. "Yum."

_She and Kaede are going to have so much to talk about_, Negi decided, then slumped forward on top of her, less because of any fatigue he might be feeling than in the faint hope that she wouldn't notice -

"Holy crap, you're still like a rock!" she exclaimed when she rubbed her hip against it, as her father - as gently as possible - shifted her so that he could fully slide out from under her.

_Why do I bother with anything, ever?_ Negi asked himself.

Kitami leaned closer while continuing with Wataru's footjob. Crouching down enough to lick all over where Negi's body met Yuna's, she swallowed as much of his seed leftovers as possible, slurping her own lips sensuously once she was done. "Yummy indeed. But Sensei, you are aware even pre-cum can get a woman pregnant, aren't you? Pulling out at the last moment doesn't always prevent insemination. That's part of why it's a highly contested anticonceptive measure."

"S-Seriously?!" Negi yelled.

Kitami nodded. "Mm-hmmm. This is quite the predicament you've gotten yourself into, isn't it?" she asked, moving Yuna ahead so she squatted over him herself. "But don't worry, Auntie Reika here has the perfect solution for it all, and all she asks for in trade is a good dose of that up here..." she chuckled, pulling him firmly into her front entrance.

"Aaannnnhhhh!" Negi moaned as her inner muscles constricted around him stronger than any of her prior lovers, except Evangeline. Not even Kaede had squeezed him like that, which made him wonder... "Unt!" he grunted, beginning to pump into the woman. Out a corner of his eye, he saw Midori disentangling herself from the twitching, crying Itoshiki so she could go deeply kiss and fondle Yohko, and Kouko licking and slurping on Takamichi's ballsack while he thrusted into Mikado-sensei.

And then there was what Nekomome and Touko still were doing at a corner, while Ririko watched and fingered herself, which was frankly disturbing and would no doubt leave permanent damage on Wataru's carpet. Oh, and on the subject of Wataru-sensei, where was he now- oh. He hadn't gotten half the way towards his bedroom, presumably to dress back up and go out the apartment, before being pounced on from behind by a very naked and sweaty Marikawa-sensei, who began kissing him wildly as she mashed her titanic breasts against his back.

One moment later, Wataru had turned her around and held her by the legs as he drilled into the busty blonde, grunting under his ragged breath. "Cool show, huh," Reika smirked, reaching up to grab Negi's hair and pull his face back to her. "But you always can have her later. For now, eyes on me, boy."

"Uhhhh... Okay, sorry, my mistake," Negi said, redoubling his pace since she obviously could take it, for some reason. Kitami arched her back and let out a truly inhuman shriek as she rattled in the throes of a brutal orgasm, the first one in a long chain of repeated incidents until, some undetermined time later, Negi closed his eyes and let himself go inside.

"Aaaaahhhhhh... yes yes, yes, that's what I wanted, so good," Kitami drooled on him, planting a hand on the floor at each side of Negi's head. She closed his eyes as well, enjoying the intense warmth bubbling into her and reacting with what had been implanted into her the feral red night that changed her life. She smacked her lips together and opened her eyes again, rolling off him. As expected, he still was hard. "Not enough," she decided. "Pick another."

"Picking another?!" Negi cried. "Why do I have to pick another, we've gone far enough as it is, don't you think maybe it's en-"

"He's right!" Midori said, walking closer, breasts bouncing with each step. "He doesn't have to pick another!"

Negi sighed. "Thank you, Sugiura-sensei, I assume whatever you drank is wearing off, so why don't we-"

"You don't have to pick another, because *I* will go next, no matter what!" Midori added, dropping on her back onto the floor, grabbing on her ankles and pulling her legs back, thrusting her vulva towards Negi.

The young mage blinked, exhaled, inhaled, and just penetrated his colleague.

"Ohhhh, yes, feel that fresh seventeen year old pussy!" Midori deliriously yelled as she was filled.

"You aren't sevente-" Itoshiki began protesting.

"I think she means," Kitami smiled, "the amount of years spent since the first time that vagina was used."

Itoshiki paused and did some mental arithmetic. "Uh. I suppose I can see some merit in that theory."

"Oh, fuck you guys!" Midori growled as she was fucked.

* * *

As the kiss between Makie and Pinkie heated up, Fluttershy slammed her hands together, as if hit by an epiphany. "That's it!" she proclaimed. "This must be why Princess Celestia sent us here! To learn the same lesson as Twilight, a whole new way of making friends!"

"Um, Fluttershy..." Rarity rasped softly. "I happen to know, not too much, mind, about these activities, and while they're okay between ponies, I mean, people who truly appreciate each other ... they're not necessary for friendships to be established or confirmed. As a matter of fact, often, going this way may ruin a friendship."

Makie pulled back from the kiss as Pinkie giggled dumbly, and assumed one of her lecturing airs. "Sparity-san, any activity between friends can bring them closer or apart depending on how it's done, and this is no exception. As long as it's done with nothing but love and sharing in mind, there should be no problems, right, Asuna-chan?"

"Right," Asuna nodded.

"Sprinkle-san?" Makie now looked at Twilight.

"It's Sparkle," Twilight sighed.

"Don't you feel much closer to us after you did it with Negi-kun and the librarians?" Makie asked her.

Twilight blushed, twiddling her fingers together. "Ah, well, yes, I do, but that's not a guarantee it'll work the same way with everyone. We are all different, that's part of what makes us special, and also part of what makes friendship between diverse ponies, yes, that is, people, so valuable. If everypony were the same, being friends wouldn't be worth any effort!"

"Well, yeah, that's right," Pinkie said, absently pinching on a moaning Makie's nipples, "but if were weren't all supposed to learn the same lesson, Princess Celestia wouldn't have sent us all together, don'tcha think?"

Applejack laughed nervously, slamming her hands together. "I think I understand it! The reason why we're all here is so we can learn, uh, about tolerance, an' how friends don't have to do everythin' together, but they respect each other's favorite activities all the same! Much like I don't have to spend my time around flyin' and makin' rainbows with Dashie to be a good friend of hers, rite?!" she chuckled shakily, pulling Rainbow Dash towards herself, and then whispering out a side of her mouth and into Dash's ear, _"I'm tryin' ta save ya, so leave it ta me, willya?"_

Rainbow Dash, very silent and stiff, just nodded quickly.

Pinkie pouted, her lower lip protuding. "I suppose that makes sense, but-!"

"So, wit' that in mind, Dashie an' me, who respect these, am, things, but aren't really interested in playin' this kinda game, are just gonna take our leave an', I dunno, take a look around this place! It's a darn nice lookin' place, ain't it, Dashie?" Applejack said.

Rainbow Dash, very silent and stiff, just nodded quickly.

"Darn right it is! Well, see ya! An' have fun!" Applejack smiled, pushing Dash, who still was nodding quickly, away and down the hallway. "Play nice!"

Pinkie kept on pouting, nearly in tears. "But, but, but!"

Makie patted her back comfortingly. "It's okay, it's okay, Paris wasn't built in a day. Whatever will happen, it's gonna happen eventually. Don't force it, like I won't force it on Akira-chan."

"What's a Paris?" Pinkie looked back at her.

"It's Rome," Asuna said. "Rome wasn't built in a day. Negi taught me that's the correct saying."

"Ehhhh?! So Paris was built in a day?! Those Gauls were awesome architects!" Makie gasped.

"That's not what I meant, and I'm sure Paris is in Finland, not Gaul-land or whatever, and- Never mind!" Asuna sighed. "So, are the rest of you in?" she asked the others.

"You know I am!" Pinkie grinned. "This looks like it'll be tons of fun!"

Twilight shrugged. "Why not? It'd be pointless for me to back away now."

Fluttershy blushed until her face resembled a neon apple, but she still nodded. "As long as everypony is... gentle... This, this is my first time, you know."

"Marity-san?" Makie finally asked the last pony, who stood in a puzzling silence and with a strange expression in her face.

"Okay," Rarity looked at Pinkie, Twilight and Fluttershy then. "I've told all three of you how Sweetie Belle came to be, haven't I?"

Her three friends nodded.

"Same conditions apply here. You know I'm not a whare, but you also know I'm no prude either," Rarity evenly said. "So, just like you've kept Sweetie's origin a secret from her, Applejack, Dash and everypony else, all I'm asking you is to do the same about this. If you do that, I'm in."

"It's a fair deal," Twilight agreed.

"A secret is a secret!" Pinkie made a motion of zipping her own mouth shut, sound effect included.

Fluttershy nodded. "If that's how you wish it, sure thing, but I still think you should tell Sweetie Belle someday."

"Who is Sweetie Belle?" asked Asuna.

"My sister, who under no circumstances might also be my own filly with my own father," Rarity huffed while pulling her fashionable blouse off. "And that's all I'm saying on it."

"Uuhhhhh... okay," Asuna cringed just a little, drop of sweat on head.

"Ahhhh, so you're a Yuna," Makie understood. At Asuna's odd gaze then, she replied, "More perceptive than I look! Remember?" with a smug little smile. And then, "What's a whare, by the way?"

"A word of relatively recent slang, made by combining 'mare' with the term 'whore', brought by merchants and travelers from the lands of Westeros," Twilight lectured while pulling her skirt down.

"Wow, you're going commando?" Asuna asked her now.

"What can I say? Pinkie's right, those things feel uncomfortable."

* * *

"I think we're safe now," Applejack said, stopping pushing Rainbow Dash once they were out the building's front door and standing on the top of the front stairs. "Okay, maybe 'safe' is the wrong word, since they're after all our dear friends and they'd never willingly do anythin' that'd hurt us, but ..."

"Yeah, but I also think 'safe' is the right word here," Rainbow Dash said, sitting down on the stairs' upper top step. "Out of all the things Pinkie can get scary about, this just has to be the scariest."

"More than that party with the inanimate objects?" asked Applejack, sitting next to her.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash nodded. "Sooo ... other than clopping, what else's to do around here anyway?"

A guitar riff sounded above them, making them look up at Marceline, who suddenly sat floating in the fake night's air above them, starting to play her guitar. "Well," the black haired vampire said, "you always could go look for someone who could train you how to fight, or you could try hitting the liquor cabinet without being caught and chopped alive by Eva's servant dolls, or you could go hit the lakes and swim around naked, or- I think I haven't checked on the rest, so, sorry? Mostly, I slack around and practice."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "You know, I think I like that music of yours. Can I try that thing?"

"Have you ever played one?" Marceline asked.

"Huh, nope."

"Did you ever have the fingers to play one until yesterday?" Marceline asked.

"Yesterday's morning, or yesterday's afternoon?" Rainbow Dash asked back.

Marceline frowned. "You aren't ever touching my guitar."

"But then what are we supposed to do here?!"

"Same thing you always do back at home, runnin' an' flyin' around for kicks?" Applejack huffed.

"I could," Rainbow said. "But then what would YOU do?! If one of us is dying of boredom, the other one will, too!"

Applejack blinked, then smiled. "Aw, Dash. That's awfully nice from ya!"

"Wow," Marceline quietly said. "You really are good friends, aren't you?"

Rainbow and Applejack smiled and nodded at her.

"Then, you sure you two don't want just head back there and join your friends in-"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" they chorused.

The vampire shrugged. "Just asking," she said, and went back to her rocking and rolling.

Soon enough, they all settled for having their own small concert.

* * *

Moments later, what Midori had expected to be a pleasant diversion at best had rapidly developed into one of the best sexual encounters she'd had all year. Or possibly within the last few years.

"Fuck me," she said as he pumped up into her while her hips rocked back against him. "Fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me!"

Negi obliged her, though his own enjoyment of the encounter was muted, even more than it normally would have been, what with all the grunts and moans coming from all around the room, and all the other mating couples. He just kept himself focused on pleasuring her in a steady but gentle fashion, trying to be a gentleman, at least in manners. At the very least, judging from her reactions, his efforts to make her enjoy it seemed to have been successful.

And so here she was, with her tits pressed up against Akashi's window and her butt shoved up against him, so that anyone in the street could see her being pounded from behind and loving it, loving his cock pumping into her, glad that she had been on the pill so he didn't need a rubber and could spray that milky white goodness up into her unprotected womb. Although, now she thought about it, she was not too sure of how many days ago she had taken her latest one. She'd been going through kind of a dry spell, lately, which probably helped to explain why she had been so -

"Urragh!" she cried out as one more surge of bliss surged up from below, a few seconds before a sweet load was dumped into her cunt. For a few moments, they just remained tightly together, in their lewd embrace, breathing heavily.

"I haven't been fucked like that since grade school," Midori finally murmured. For some reason, she could feel some sort of strange and very strong sensation of _deja vu_. It was almost like a rather powerful recurring dream.

Negi blinked, startled. "What?"

"No, no, not really, 's just something I saw in a movie once," she explained as she lowered her head just a little. "When I'm really feeling good, I say shit without thinking about it, sometimes. You know how it is. Like when you called me Makie while nearing climax."

Yohko rolled her eyes, and not only because of the way Shizuna's tongue worked her pussy as she kept her hands on the blonde's head. She didn't feel betrayed enough as to reveal what Midori had actually been like in grade school, but the basic feeling still was there.

Negi swallowed. "I-I did? I didn't realize I'd done that. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Sugiura said, absently, checking the clock. Huh, still not even midnight. "She's the one who jumped you first?"

"No!" he said, then looked away guiltily. "I'd never have had the courage to... do it to her, back when I was... inexperienced. She's far too precious to me."

Midori, Yuna, Kouko and Reika all stared at him.

He gasped. "Of, of course, after this, you're all also precious to me, you'd have to be, it's just, doing this with her did deviate her life, while... while ..."

"While we can take it fine," Midori philosophized, somewhat sadly.

"Damn fine, I'd say," Ririko nodded while scissoring with Touko and pinching on Nekomome's right breast as Kuzuki took the catwoman from behind.

"That's our Negi-kun," Yuna sighed from where she sat enjoying Reika's expert tongue in her cunt. "He says the sweetest things that always hurt the most."

"I haven't ever wanted to hurt anyone," Negi sighed, closing his eyes.

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm sure that's just typical 3-A humor," Midori reassured him, taking another look at his penis, which much to her surprise was still erect enough, and regaining stiffness on top of that. "Round two?"

"I have been told ... I apparently have remarkable stamina, but I'm not sure we should -"

"What's the difference now?" she mused, falling to her knees before him. "Round two, then," she said, and began sucking on his tip. Negi's protests dissolved into pleased gasps.

"Wow, such a glutton," Ryoko observed, walking closer to the couple, and rubbing on Negi's nipples from behind. "Dibs on the next turn anyway, Negi-kun."

"Uhhhh ... sure thing," the defeated boy exhaled. "But we really should be moving away from the window now, or at least close the curtains, even if it's so late, someone could-"

Ryoko clenched her teeth, her eyes fixed on the street. "You had to say that, didn't youuuu..."

Standing on the sidewalk, and wearing a black suit with striped tie, Boo-sensei tilted his head aside. "Bwack-kawk?"

Ryoko faintly waved and smiled, as Negi's head tilted down, covered by shadow.

"Mmmmhppphh bbhhwwwfff bfffmmmfff!" Midori expressed her opinion.

"Bwark-bwack-bwack bukkawwk. Bwwwaaaarkkk!" Boo-sensei said, waving a feathered arm around, before strutting down the street until he reached his own home three houses away, closing the door behind himself.

"It should be okay," Marikawa said as she rode a whimpering and sobbing Itoshiki on the couch. "He's a man of few words who really can keep a secret. And I don't think he could see Yuna-san from that angle!"

"He's a huge secret himself," Akashi-sensei mused as he fondled his daughter absently, and Takahata did the same from behind after Yuna had literally pulled him towards her, so she could be pressed between her bodies. She definitely wasn't going to miss on chance on trying what Asuna had crowed so much about. And probably repay her with just a tiny bit of boasting on how she got to be with two hot older teachers at once first. "Definitely the most enigmatic man I've ever met."

"Angel or demon?" Takahata grimly wondered while nibbling on Yuna's earlobe.

"He's a chicken," Yohko said as she turned Shizuna around to repay her favor.

Everyone briefly paused in what they were doing to stare at her as if she had just gone mad.

"What?" Yohko huffed. "He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken! A real one, it's so obvious, with that tail and wings and that beak and those huge, soulless eyes that-"

Kouko only sighed, coming from behind Yohko to push her face against Shizuna's crotch before she could embarrass herself any further.

"Oh yes yes oh yes yes it's as good as I'd imagined!" Yuna screamed as Takahata and her father shared her front hole, rubbing tightly against each other and trying their best to have non-gay thoughts at the friction.

Negi shook his head to himself, faintly dismayed. To think not only Akashi-sensei would falter so easily from his prior conviction only to further spoil his child, but that even Takamichi's iron resolve could fail in this darkest hour, it made him rethink a few things about his fellows -

Then he felt himself ejaculating into Midori again, as she laughed her joy, and he realized perhaps he of all people should be more lenient on the subject.

* * *

_The resort:_

"Crazy robo-chick," Chisame answered, blushing incandescently and looking away.

"I will accept that as an affirmative response," Chachamaru said with a tiny smile, and shifted the hem of the chemise up further, exposing the tips of Chisame's breasts, which she promptly swooped down to kiss while her fingers resumed motion below.

"Ahhhhhh," sighed Makie as she leaned back against the hallway wall just outside the dining room, while Asuna, down on her knees in front of her, demonstrated all the skills she'd gained in this area. "Friendship is so... magical..."

"Mmmphhh mmm mmmphh mm-hmmm!" Pinkie replied enthusiastically, with her head buried into Twilight Sparkle's crotch as Twilight, who lay on her back under her, repaid the favor in a position Asuna had just taught them. A sixty-nine, she had called it. It was not something that could be done comfortably in a pony body, so Twilight supposed there were definite advantages to this bipedal form after all.

"Oh darling, you're such a laugh riot," Rarity complimented from where she sat, expertly touching and kissing all over the body of the moaning Fluttershy, her fingers and mouth dancing on all the sensitive and weak points with the pinpoint accuracy of a seamstress used to avoiding those same spots while dressing a customer. "Twilight, don't we just have to take them to Ponyville after we're done here? I'm sure my parents will love them. They threw some really wild parties back in the day."

"No incest, please!" Asuna requested, pulling back from Makie's crotch.

Makie pushed Asuna's face back to its rightful place. "We aren't going to judge Yuna-chan, or Misa-chan, or the twins, so we aren't judging her either," she said, with a faint air of finality. "And- oh, Chisame-chan, Chachamaru-chan," she completed, as the two girls walked out of the dining room, as unclad as the six of them. "Decided to join the All Natural Style, then?"

Chisame sighed. "My path in life has very little to do with my own decisions, Makie."

"Yaaaayyyy!" Makie tossed her hands up. "You aren't calling me 'Sasaki' anymore!"

"What if I call you 'nutball' instead?!" Chisame grunted.

"I'd be happy! Only friends give each other nicknames like that!"

"Geh."

Pinkie lifted her head back, licking Twilight's juices off her lips, eyebrow twitching while Twilight kept working her on. "Glad to see you've lightened up, Miss! Had fun back there?"

"You should know since you've heard everything, just like we could hear all you were doing here!" Chisame pointed out.

Rarity smiled and shrugged, letting Fluttershy go. "Turnabout is fair play, dear," she said, gently pushing Fluttershy ahead, towards Chachamaru. "Go, then, Flutty-luvvie. Tell her."

"Flutty-luvvie?" Chisame echoed.

"See?" said Makie.

"Um, well, you'll see, Miss Chachamaru, I got the name right, didn't I?" Fluttershy sputtered, blushing adorably and flicking her fingers together. "I know we've just met, and maybe I'm being too bold, and I'll understand if I am rejected about this, but I've been told, you wouldn't mind, and you're all so very open, and this is a new way to establish friendship ties, and you are very beautiful and and and and and."

Chisame blinked.

Chachamaru looked at Chisame.

Chisame blinked again. "What, are you waiting for my approval? Look, I didn't ask you before doing with with Mikazuki, Asuna and Kotaro, did I? So why should I be your owner all of a sudden? Do whatever you want and I won't hold it against you. Didn't Asakura screw you that way once, anyway?"

"Thank you," Chachamaru told her, before handing Fluttershy the key.

Fluttershy, who had heard but not actually seen Chachamaru's recent climax, blinked at the small metallic object. "What ... what am I supposed to do with this?"

A bit later, as Rarity and Pinkie tag teamed on a screaming Chisame's vulva, and Asuna and Twilight kissed passionately while Makie scissored against the human-shaped pony, Fluttershy spun the key into Chachamaru, finding the experience to be somewhat lacking on her side. Oh, sure, it felt good making her feel good, or at least she hoped those moans were a sincere manifestation of feeling good; but even so, she partially wished to receive more from the experience. Surely Miss Chachamaru had been more active with Miss Chisame than she was being here.

"You ..." Fluttershy said, with a trembling voice, before her eyes bulged out, her face tensed, and the twisting became stronger and rougher and faster, "YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE ME!"

Chachamaru shook in a yelling, fierce climax while everyone and everypony else paused to give Fluttershy shocked glares.

Fluttershy blushed again and shrank down. "... sorry. Sometimes, that sort of happens to me."

* * *

"You know," Ryoko-sensei mused as she wrapped her arms around Negi's strong neck and shoulders, and he pumped down into her, "there's a lot we could and should (ah!) learn from your improved physical condition (ah!). Aren't you, oh yes like that, obliged to share your findings, oh fuck yes so fucking good, with mankind, and the rest of the oh fucking univeeeeeeerse!" she shrieked, slamming her ankles on his butt.

"Universe?" Negi grunted as the word, in that situation, brought him vivid memories of Rika. Which, to be perfectly honest with himself for once, sort of improved upon the whole act. Maybe they'd get along famously and no no no, bad thought.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Ryoko panted as she moved along with his thrusts, breasts swinging back and forth. "It's time, it's time for Earth to open itself to the whole alien community, oh Gods, after this, and you're the right man, what a man!"

Negi blinked, grabbing her ankles so she wouldn't kick around so much. She might hurt herself if she kept doing so. "Me? On top of, uh, everything else I'm doing?"

"Well," Takamichi said from where he sat, hands on his own face, slumped on himself, "you haven't been doing a lot of PR work lately, have you?"

Negi cringed during coitus. "No ... as a matter of fact, that's one of the things I want to address when..." He shuddered in the throes of orgasm, dumping his seed into the pointy-eared woman. "... aaaahhhhh. When I invite you, I mean, Mikado-sensei, Kitami-sensei, Kouko-sensei, Sugiura-sensei, to an important meeting for-"

"Oh?" Kitami interrupted her, kneeling between the spent Akashi's legs and trying to massage his member back to life. "Is this a meeting for admittance into your harem?"

"Don't call it that," Negi groaned as Ryoko chuckled and he rolled off her, "But in a way, yes, you could say the basic principle is... sort of the same?" he bashfully admitted. "I mean, not exactly like that, but part of what I'm going to do to improve the project's progress relies on giving Pactios to everyone I have ... um, everyone with whom I have been intimate."

Kitami's eyes sparkled. "Seriously?! Oh, Sensei, that's so sweet from you! But why to stop at us? You still haven't done Marikawa-chan, or Ririko-chan, or Shizun-"

Marikawa moaned, sitting with her legs open and a snoring Yuna resting against her naked body. "No more tonight, please! I'm spent! Another day, yes?"

"I'm not sure that's such a good-" Negi said, but his sentence was interrupted by the loud ring of the house's phone.

For a moment, everyone who still remained awake only looked at said phone.

When it rang again, Kitami stood up. "I'll get it."

"Don't bother," Akashi said curtly, walking past her and taking the phone. "Hello? Akashi here. Oh. Oh, good evening, Konoemon-sensei." At the mention of that name, Touko, who had been resting in Midori and Yohko's arms, began twitching uncontrollably. "Oh, sure thing, sorry, Sir. It happens we have been having a ... casual social meeting here. Yes, I'm with your daughter, Shizuna-sensei, Yuna-chan, Negi-kun, Takamichi, Kitami..." Here he shuddered as Kitami licked and nibbled on his right nipple. "Ah, and Kuzuki, Nekomome, Ririko and Touko-sensei, and- Oh. What? Oh, um, I see, Sir. Yes. Yes, that seems to be very important, Sir. Yes, I'll tell them immediately. We're on our way, Sir. As you wish."

He slammed the phone back down, with a truly haunted air about his expression.

"Something wrong?" Nekomome asked, twitching her nose.

"Everything's wrong," Akashi grimly replied. "Including the World Tree, it seems. The Headmaster says there's a serious problem with it."

Muted shock reigned all across the room there, and Touko's twitching grew far worse. Itoshiki started to bash his head really roughly against a wall.

Only Kitami kept enough presence of mind to declare, in a controlled tone, "So I suppose I'll have to show you my trick with the clitoris some other time, then."

* * *

As yet blissfully unaware of the recent sinister going-ons behind the magical scenes, very early the next morning, Kujou Rin briefly left Saki and Aya's side to take a detour in their way to school. All the better to surprise two nearly identical pink haired girls not named Narutaki shortly after their path to classes separated them from one Yuuki Rito and his sister Mikan.

"Might I have a few words in private with you, Momo-san?" she asked the short haired one of the duo. "It'll just take a couple minutes, I promise."

Momo Belia Deviluke blinked, pointing a finger at her own chest. "Me? Oh my. Have I done anything wrong?" she asked, affecting the utmost charming innocence.

"Hey," her sister Nana grunted, not really caring about looking that sweet or pleasant as her. "If Momo can be told about something, so can I! What's so hush-hush I can't learn about it, huh? What are you and your friends scheming against Lala now?"

"I swear on my honor this doesn't concern Lala-san at all," Rin told her, "but all the same, it's a private, delicate matter between Momo-san and me. Please, satisfy this request and I won't bother you any further."

"Until next time that Saki girl asks you to..." Nana mumbled.

Momo giggled, taking Rin by a hand and leading her away, behind a tree. "Come on, Nana, don't take it that way! I'm sure it's no big deal." And once they were apart from Nana and it was clear Nana wouldn't come around to spy on them, she asked Rin, "Well? How can I help you?"

"It has come to my attention lately," Rin told her, "you have been trying to set me up with Yuuki-san, just like you've been doing to several other girls. I just wish you to stop involving me in those activities, no matter your ultimate purposes."

Momo blinked, losing her smile instantly. "Eeehhh? But why?!"

"You could say I have found myself someone else."

"Oh, really?" Momo hummed, suddenly very interested. "And, does that person already know-"

"Before you ask, no, I'm pretty sure I have almost zero chances to win that person's heart. But regardless, I have committed myself to help him and Saki-sama, and I don't need your distractions getting in the way of that."

"Eehhhh, that's so mean. So, who is it?" Momo asked, long black tail swinging around vivaciously.

"That is no business of yours," Rin said, beginning to walk away. "All you need knowing is you'd be better off pursuing any of the many other matchmaking options you've sought for your allegedly loved sister's fiancé. Now, we promised Nana-san this would be brief, so with my part said and made clear, I take my leave. Have a good day."

"You too, Rin-san. You too," Momo hummed, taking a hand to her own chin and stroking it lightly.

Interesting! The never ending game of love was afoot again. And Momo never turned away from a good side challenge in that eternal quest!

"You already done back there?" asked Nana's annoyed voice from afar.

"Just one more second, please!" her twin asked. "I'm still mischievously contemplating what to do next!"

"Yeah, yeah, isn't that always the way?" Nana mused aloud.

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	13. Fumika, Fuuka, Momo, Nana, Utena

Thirteen gates to the World of Magic, all around the world. Mahora, Constantinople, Meridiana, Florida, Gotham, Niagara Falls, Valencia, Ayer's Rock, Mt. Wundagore, Wakanda, Siberia, Sri Lanka, and one hidden in the depths of the Pacific Rim. Gates they were called, and truly, for they could allow for the passage of dozens or hundreds of travelers at once, where the smaller doors that occurred near to them might swing open for one or two at a time, at best, and were unstable and prone to malfunction. Gates they were called ... but they might also be called nails, holding down the fabric of the Magical World and tying it to the life-giving magic of Earth.

And the gate at Mahora, tied to the World Tree, had become the most important nail, which held the others in their place. If it failed, so would all the others. And if they all failed...

The Asylum was filled with the savage howls, cries and cackles of the deranged, and the rattlings of doors as they were kicked and pummeled mercilessly. Doctor Arkham had placed the whole building under preventive quarantine and lockdown, but all his efforts so far had yielded nothing when it came to determining what had suddenly affected all of his inmates.

"Two and two! Everything is two! Two worlds, and soon, they'll both be the world of the dead!" Harvey Dent despaired.

"Riddle me this, what has thirty one heads and sucks a single thirty second head?" Edward Nygma asked the walls, hoping they could provide an answer to the question that just keep ringing in his head.

"The Bat! Bring us the Bat! He'll know what to do!" Doctor Destiny roared. "You know nothing! Nothing!"

Harleen Quinzel kept on giggling to herself, drawing imaginary obscene scenes on her cell's floor with a lazy finger. "I think I need some sweet lovin'."

"Busy, now," said Poison Ivy as she worked frantically with a bonsai that bore a marked resemblance to a certain much larger tree.

"Worlds were once apart! Then they weren't! Then were smashed back together, and now all will crumble!" the Psycho Pirate lamented.

"Food! I want food!" demanded the bestial Killer Moth.

Only the Joker remained calm, and sitting quietly, in the darkness of his cell. Hands on his knees, a large red grin curved up his angular face.

"Akamatsu Ken and other authors created and own these characters," he evenly said to the cameras watching over him. "OverMaster owns none of these franchises, and makes no money from them. This story is not intended for anyone under eighteen years old. A huge thanks to Darkenning for all the help. Now, kiddies, let's enjoy the show! HYA HA HA HA HA HAH!"

And so, with the final laughter in place, Arkham Asylum, built on ground once blessed, now cursed, by the hands of a madman, was the first landmark to fully show the gravity of what there was to come.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Thirteen**.

* * *

"Excuse the cliché, please," Negi began addressing the group assembled before him. "You may be wondering why I have summoned you all here."

In the end, Evangeline would not lend her resort for an assembly that included so many outsiders, and anyway, it would have been difficult staging it there without Rakan, Godel, Paio and Inverse asking too many questions they could not have answered yet. So they had gathered at the huge back yard of Yukihiro Manor instead, under the shadow of gigantic trees. The rest of the house's servants had been instructed to stay inside, far away from listening range.

Other than Negi, there were the cheerleading trio, Itou and his two comrades, Ayaka and her mother, Roberta, Saki and her two cohorts, Himemiya-san with her pet... miniature rodent-ape, Kitami-sensei, Twilight Sparkle, Kouko-sensei, Mikado-sensei, Sugiura-sensei, Yozora, Rika, Haruhi, Kyon, Nagato and Ranma, the latter of whom had a black mood and matching aura about him bad enough to put Ryouga's to shame. As for the others, their emotions ranked from wary concern to intense curiosity, with the whole gamut of in-between emotions.

"It's about Homura-chan, isn't it?" asked Haruhi. "You want to know why she knows so much about us, and what do we know about her?"

Negi shook his head. "No. Thanks to instructions left by Nagato-san, and many of the clues you gave us earlier, Chisame, Kazumi, Setsuna and Chachamaru are following on that lead as we speak, and they'll contact us the second anything beyond their control happens."

"Then what's the problem?" asked Yozora. "You look terrible."

"I'll get better," Negi promised, running two fingers down his nose's bridge. "As my fellow teachers here can attest to, we have just been in a highly important meeting with the Headmaster that only made the matters we are about to discuss here the most important. It has a lot to do with everyone, every last one of us, and even those all across this campus, and in both worlds. Yes, it is that serious. But mostly ... it has to do with Asuna."

Those who knew Asuna's secret could hazard their guesses immediately, and reacted accordingly, any traces of good humor spoiled. Those who had remained ignorant on the subject simply raised their eyebrows and paid further attention.

"I hope she forgives me for sharing this with you without her consent," Negi confided. "It isn't something she likes to have known. But to clarify matters between us, and so you can help us, it's necessary for you to know. So please listen, and only ask your questions after I've finished. This is the whole truth about Asuna, and why she has acted the way she has lately."

So Negi told them all.

And no one asked anything through his speech.

Few could have even if they had wanted to.

* * *

_Elsewhere, at the same time:_

"You have deployed her? Against an ally of the Springfield boy?" the tall, black haired young woman with the thick eyebrows asked incredulously.

Her mother smiled, her back to her, Rei stoically at her side like always. Kiryuin Ragyo stared at the city sprawling, unsuspecting, below her office's large window, and the tiny World Tree in the distance. "You know how she is. She often will make these decisions on her own, just to exert her fancy. As long as there's no harm to be had from him, why to stop her?"

"But-" Kiryuin Satsuki warily began.

Her mother pulled out a little white fan and delicately waved it twice. "That Konoe girl is of no consequence for us. If her death saddens the Springfield boy, all the better for me. It'll leave him more open, more manipulatable. And without any way for it to be tracked down to me. It's only a young couple in love, cruising around to settle one of the girlfriend's old scores. Ah. Isn't young love just wonderful? You should try it yourself some time, Satsuki-chan."

Her eldest daughter grimaced, her eyes growing viciously narrow.

"Of course," Ragyo mused, "why not exert your own fancy as well? You deserve your own happiness at times, I suppose. As long as it can't be tracked down to me either. Otherwise, you know what will happen."

"You just want Nui to teach me to fall back in line," said Satsuki.

"It is a lesson in which you could use a good refresher by now," Ragyo allowed. "Of course, there's always the slight chance you could be the one to teach her a thing or two this time. Either way, it'll be very interesting to witness. What do you say, girl? Yes, or no? You should know that I won't always give you chances like this."

Ragyo now looked back at her, over her shoulder, smirking cruelly.

Satsuki answered with a matching smirk of her own. "Thanks for the chance, Mother."

* * *

As Ayaka sobbed, supported by Minako and Roberta, Negi exhaled a deeply sad breath.

"And there you have it," he said. "This is... perhaps the universe's final wake-up call for me. I've been arrogant. This whole time, I've thought I had all the right answers, even when it should have been clear I didn't. I kept on making decisions for others even when it affected their own lives, often without even consulting them first, and no one suffered worse from that than Asuna."

"Well," Kyon rasped, not really finding it into him to feel animosity towards the guy anymore. "It's not like you had too many choices, did you? And now you have even less, so I don't think anyone'll say you did anything but the best you could ..."

"Thanks, but no, I don't deserve that sympathy," Negi said. "Asuna and Chisame were right the whole time, I kept on ignoring everyone else's input because of my stupid complex of-"

"And you're doing it again," Misa interrupted him.

Negi blinked. "Ah?"

She gestured with both hands for effect. "We're now telling you we're thinking you did the best you could, and yet you're, as usual, ignoring us and putting yourself down anyway, because even while pointing out that recurring mistake of yours, you keep repeating it and not listening!"

Negi grew slightly pale. "Oh fudge, you're right. My apologies."

"See?" Misa told him. "That's why you need us around, because the second you're left to your own devices, you start going that very same path again, and without Asuna, it falls on-"

"Not without Asuna-chan," Sakurako frowned. "We aren't allowing that."

"Definitely not!" Ayaka fiercely growled.

"Uh-huh, and how are we supposed to help with that at all?" Taisuke asked her. He pointed with a thumb at Negi. "This guy is an expert on this whole magic business, so I don't understand why he keeps treating our opinion as if it matters there. What the hell can we supply that he can't already?"

"No, everyone's opinions matter," Negi said. "And because of that, I apologize over what I told you the other day, when I said you wouldn't be taking part in my project. Now I see this is so much bigger than myself, than all of us, that I can't just place those sort of restrictions on it. This is going to affect the whole world. Both of them. We are all part of it, for better or worse. Even if it's because of something I started, and -"

"Yes, yes, we know, it's your cross to carry, to bear the terrible weight of pulling everyone down this path even when the whole damn Magical World collapsing in the first place wasn't ever your fault to begin with," Kitami sighed. "Hell, kid, even I wasn't that bad at your age."

"Kitami," Kouko sighed. "He's suffering."

"A lot of people suffer, every day, everywhere, that's the way of the world," Kitami mused, lighting up a cigarette. "Of course, there won't be a way or a world anymore if we don't fix this, period, and no matter how much of a bitch I might be, I like existing, and for that I need a world to live in. So let's get busy. And, for once - never thought I'd be saying this - I mean that in a non-sexual manner. At least until the post-success celebration."

"Do you know," Negi asked then, "why I have had so much spare time that I'm able to have sex with all, well, most of you while I was supposed to be in the middle of such a serious enterprise?"

"I had been wondering, but I decided it was one of those things one's better not knowing about," Yozora deadpanned.

"I've been handling this the wrong way," Negi explained. "I thought I could do it with Fate and Kotaro, but I failed at estimating our capacities for the task. Can you imagine how difficult it has been for us to connect with the people we need to work with at this side of the gates? How many times we haven't seen things eye to eye, and we have been either rejected or stalled because of it? As the days passed by, we find ourselves with more schedule delays and available time than we had expected. I can tell Fate is holding himself back only because the Associations and the Justice League have him under surveillance. But God help me, he's seeing my way isn't working, not really, not like this."

"Well," Madoka sighed and shook her head. "Can't say that's a real surprise, all things considered. You will let anyone walk all over you, Fate's got the exact opposite problem of not listening to others, and Kotaro-kun is... Kotaro-kun. What you need is more people with the attitude of negotiators, and those who can appeal to others easily. I don't know how much we can help with that, but we'll do anything we can, for you and Asuna."

She then saw Kyon thoughtfully nodding at her words, and she blushed a little, vaguely smiling to herself. An unexpected bonus, indeed!

"You're right," Negi solemnly said. "So, if you'll still accept me after all I've done, I'd like to have your cooperation. Anything you can do, no matter what, will get you my eternal gratitude, and Asuna's as well, I'm sure."

"Wow, you're accepting help. No, looking for it." Misa took a hand to her chest, looking truly scared. "Anything bad enough to take you there is something we just can't ignore!"

"I'm in!" Saki nodded. "I'll convince Father, no matter how, no matter what it takes, to play his part here! And to tell his friends to do so, too!"

Kitami hummed, tapping with a finger on her chin. "I think I might have a few ideas that could help with this."

"While this field of expertise is beyond me," Ryoko cautioned, "I'll contact everyone in my call list that might be helpful on the subject!"

Twilight Sparkle nodded. "We'll be behind you every step of the way, as well!"

"Well, yeah, that's really nice and all, but," Haruhi gestured with a hand around herself, "awesome and extraordinary as we are, myself definitely included, we are going to need more people for a stunt like this. Whatever it actually ends up involving. We're gonna need a really bigger SOS Brigade."

"Ala Alba," Kouko said.

Haruhi smiled. "If we're going to promote ourselves across the world, a name in Latin won't cut the mustard!"

"... as opposed to one in fractured English and Japanese?"

"Shut up, Kyon."

"We... we'll talk about names later," Negi said. "But yes, we'll get there. I began with you because, other than Ala Alba, you're the ones who have grown closer to me during the last few weeks, with all that involves. We can think of a way through this if we think and act all together, I'm sure of it. In the meanwhile," he stated, pulling a piece of chalk out of his breast pocket, "I want to show you my commitment to my side of this bargain by giving you the best gift I can provide at the moment."

* * *

_Across the city, on the top floor of a small apartment building._

"This is it," Setsuna said as she, Natsuki and Chachamaru stopped in front of the door, Natsuki holding trick gun copies of her HiME Elements. Hakase had not asked when they requested miniature weaponry equipped with its own non-lethal coolant projectiles that worked upon impact with solid matter, but the trio was sure she'd try to look into their reasons later on. They'd worry about that after solving the matter at hand. She kept speaking for the small pin attached to her shirt's neck. "Chisame-san, Asakura-san, you were correct. The landlord's confirmed it. We're going in now."

Chachamaru's eyes glowed faintly in a greenish hue as she scanned the door and what there was inside. "She has a massive arsenal stocked inside, but currently, she is holding none of it. She sits at a table in the living room, with three tea cups and a teapot deployed before her. I believe... she's waiting for us."

"Great. Let's not disappoint," Natsuki inhaled deeply, then kicked the door open.

Setsuna cringed, annoyed at Kuga-sempai's lack of patience. Not that it seemed to work against them regardless, since there was no violent response from the inside. Instead, they only found the petite black haired young woman from Negi-sensei's descriptions sitting there, as Chachamaru had described her, with a perfectly neutral expression on her pale, doll-like face.

"Welcome, Karakuri-san, Sakurazaki-san, Kuga-san. Right in time, as well," she said, with the air of a well-studied subdued performance. "I assume you are here for answers on the condition of Mundus Magicus, and my connection to it."

Kuga trained her guns on Homura's head. The shorter girl faintly smiled. "Not enough gun, not at all. Lower them, Kuga-san. I don't want a fight."

"And that's why you rented the whole floor to yourself while stocking up enough guns to start a war?" Kuga grunted.

"I said I don't want one, not that I'm not prepared for one," she replied.

"Wouldn't your powers be enough for your defense?" asked Setsuna, fingers on the edge of Yuunagi's handle.

"I prefer not using my powers unless I feel I have to," Homura said as she invited them to sit down with a gesture. "Abusing them further unravels the delicate balance I have here. And besides, long ago, I grew used to favoring gunplay in battle. Old habits die hard, I suppose."

As the three visitors sat down with uneasiness, Homura began pouring the tea. "This is nothing but an experiment, you know. I am testing the limits of reality, and most specifically, those of Suzumiya Haruhi."

"Suzumiya-san? What does she have to do with Mundus Magicus? Does she ... come from there?" asked Setsuna.

Homura shook her head. "Much like myself, and much like Kuga-san, she wasn't even from this reality originally."

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Natsuki asked the obvious madwoman.

Homura poured herself, at last, the final steaming cup. "I wanted to know whether a godlike being can be subjected to stimulation of her latent capacities while also being forced to suppress them. That's why I guided her towards you. That's why I placed her directly in the path of all you are, all you have been, and all you stand for." She took her first, thoughtful sip. "To tickle her fancy, to pique her interest, as much as possible while keeping her reality warping abilities under control. _My_ control."

"Are you implying," Chachamaru asked, "that Suzumiya-sempai is a high level magical being herself, even without being aware of it? So ... does she hold the key to Mundus Magicus' salvation?"

"The details on who Suzumiya Haruhi is, and what could she do for you, are something you'd do better to ask Nagato Yuki," Homura coldly said. "Mundus Magicus, and whatever happens to it, are of no concern to me. All I want is to see if I can keep Suzumiya Haruhi suppressed permanently, even in the face of all the abnormalities this world has to offer."

"What do you mean by all of that?" Setsuna grew outraged at the girl's callousness. "Why would you want to do that to her, and why is that your only concern over the wellbeing of millions?!"

Homura's eyes met hers directly. "To keep Konoe Konoka safe, healthy and contented forever, wouldn't you do anything, risk anyone else, for her? I just happen to be the same."

"I don't understand you," Setsuna confessed, her frown growing deeper. "Why are you comparing your situation to mine?"

"I do all of this for love," Homura said, pulling a small pink ribbon out of her breast pocket, and delicately placing it on the table. "Out of everyone in this city, you three should understand. What Hasegawa Chisame, Konoe Konoka and Fujino Shizuru are to you, that's what Kaname Madoka is to me. For her sake, I'd go anywhere, murder anyone, disregard anyone's cries and laments, and *burn worlds to cinders*. I didn't start any of this, at least not any of what you consider to be your problems. But even if I could, I wouldn't solve them for you. If I do that, I never could save Madoka."

"You're insane," Natsuki hissed. "We'd never-"

Homura smiled a sad little, pitiful smile. "No. Maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you don't love them as much as I do love her. But you are still the closest thing to kindred souls I can see in this world."

"You're coming with us," Natsuki growled, aiming her guns at her again.

"No. I'm not," Homura rose slowly from her seat, showing off the purple gem on the back of her hand. "I did say I wasn't hoping for a fight, and this won't be one. That's why I'm not pulling the guns out. But you'll leave regardless. You have learned enough for one day."

"Try us," Setsuna challenged, swiftly pulling the sword out.

A moment later, the three of them were flung out through the window.

* * *

"Wow, this is so completely, totally, absolutely cool!" Haruhi gushed as she watched Negi drawing the Pactio circle in the middle of the wide pathway across the lawn. "Dibs on the first try!"

Yozora grunted, tilting her head aside. "Does it really matter who goes first and how it plays from there?"

"For shame, Sempai, where's your sense of adventure now, after beating Rika to the punch when it came to the wonders of irresponsible sex?" Rika wagged a finger. "Or is it that, now that actual responsibility comes into play, it's lost its appeal to you?"

"I'm not dignifying that with an answer," Yozora decided.

"Done," Negi said, stepping back to overlook his work. The circle was glowing correctly, which was a relief. "I hate rushing a moment like this, but since we don't know when the World Tree might further malfunction and disrupt the Pactio circle, we'd better- MMMPHHH!" he finished as Haruhi wrapped her arms around his neck and slammed her mouth against his.

"Aaaaaand it's worked!" Sakurako said, reaching over to catch the card as it appeared in mid-air one moment later. "Now let's see what-"

"Mine!" Haruhi pulled back from the kiss, yanking the card from Shiina's hand. "Wow, it's still warm too! And it reads _'Summa Imperatrix'_! Yeah, the ghosts behind these things sure know what they're doing!"

"They aren't ghosts, they are spirits that have been- never mind that now," Negi sighed as Rika smiled and walked towards him with her arms folded behind her back. He gently grabbed her chin and pulled her head a bit higher, and answered her pouting mouth with a kiss on the lips.

Ayaka's face twitched a bit as she watched Shiguma's approach to a Pactio kiss, which hit a bit too close for comfort. Everyone else was more interested on the card now descending into Sakurako's waiting hand to mind too much about the way Rika violently and clumsily frenched Negi, despite the way her face was turning purplish by now, and how he was trying to push her back without hurting her before she suffocated herself. After all, after being in a few orgies, violent kissing starts losing its visual shock.

"Lemme see that!" Haruhi snapped, taking the card from Sakurako with a grin.

The cheerleader frowned. "Excuse me, but are you going to keep doing this every time I grab a card?"

"Of course not, starting with the next one, I'll be catching them in the air to start with. You just had a lucky start," Haruhi nonchalantly said, smiling at the image of Rika in an open lab coat and yellow bikini underneath, surrounded by a quartet of flying miniature drones oddly shaped like eighties anime mecha. "Oooohhh, I really like this one. Sexy AND geeky in a single package, as expected from Rika-chan. You really sure you don't want to replace Mikuru, Hon?"

Rika, who now sat on a nearby bench with Negi and Yozora fanning her as she regained her breath and normal facial pigmentation, could only answer with a few dry gasps.

"We've already gone through this," Kyon muttered.

Haruhi pouted. "What a horrible trooper she is anyway. She didn't even come here with us to have sex with Negi-kun and then kiss him!"

"Could you try and reign in your sexual appetites, at least until we have sorted this whole ugly affair out?" Kouko asked now, moving closer to Negi and making him stand in the middle of the circle with her. "I assume," she asked him, "that the offer applies to me as well?"

Stiffly, and not in the sexual sense, he nodded. "My backup plan might not work if I haven't established Alliances with every sexual partner I have had. I, I apologize ..."

"Ehhh? Does that include me?!" Sakurako said. "I thought we had agreed!"

"I know, but sadly, circumstances have changed, Sakurako-san," Negi exhaled. "But, if you really don't-"

"Oh, like hell I'm going to look like the selfishly unreasonable one here," Sakurako interrupted, waving a finger. "That's Misa-chan's job! If that's the way it has to be, fine. I go after Kono-Mom, though, to get it out of the way ASAP."

"Cute, Saku-chan," Misa droned. "Very cute. You didn't sound that eager to get over with it while getting his dick, though."

"Wait a damn second," Ranma snapped out of his moody silence all of a sudden, at long last. "Does that mean me too?!"

Without missing a beat, Madoka splashed him with an unexplainable glass of water. He had to wonder what was up with short-black hair Tsunderes and their ability to pull objects out of nowhere. At least she didn't go in for mallets, apparently. "You're a girl, though, so isn't it right after all? And yes, Haruna told me all about it the other day. She sure loves talking a lot after sex."

Sakurako's brief gasp of pain was covered up by a cry of joy from another direction. "Holy shit, so you aren't a crossdresser after all!" Haruhi almost jumped on Ranma, eyes gigantic and starry. "This shit just keeps getting better and better! You actually change into a girl and boy what a girl!" she drooled wildly, beginning to madly fondle Ranma-chan's breasts.

"I'm no girl or cross-dresser and I'm kissing no man! Again!" the redhead cried.

"You'll do it or I'll tell Haruna you didn't cooperate," Madoka threatened. "After sex."

"... okay, you're doing it on purpose, aren't you?" Sakurako growled, fists clenched.

"But -!"

"And your parents. And your other fiancées," Madoka continued. "And that hunky guy with the fangs who shows up every month to make it clear how gay in denial for you he is," Misa continued.

"But -!"

"No buts!" both cheerleaders loomed over him.

Ranma cowered back, almost elbowing Haruhi's head in a half-hearted attempt to shake her off. It didn't work.

"Ah," Minako said, now holding Kouko's brand new card. "Truly cute, Konoe-sama. I bet your daughter will love it so much!"

A flushed Kouko scowled and tightened her jacket's neck around her throat.

"GAH!" Haruhi whipped her head back. "What's going on?! We had agreed I'd be the official card-captor!"

"No one ever agreed to that!" Kyon said, vein bulging on head.

"... but you're married!" Ashikaga blandly told Kouko. "Aren't you?"

The black haired woman said nothing and just stared intently aside as Sakurako walked up to Negi, calmly kept Haruhi-sempai at bay by pressing her foot against her stomach, and then placed a kiss that gave no real impression of 'getting it out of the way ASAP' on Negi's lips.

* * *

Somehere else, walking around campus with a black mood that dwarfed Ranma's, Fate took a moment to stop and shudder twice for some reason.

Chachamaru hit the window first, as soon as she was hit by the dark force suddenly blowing from Homura-san and creating a barrier around her. She had instantly stepped in front of Kuga-sempai and Setsuna-san to protect them, and as such her body took the main blow of the impact. She was sent flying over her partners' heads and head-first into the window, and assumed a proper fall position as soon as she crashed out.

Setsuna was next, slammed by the remains of the initial strike, being made to lose balance and sent stumbling back, trying to regain footing for a half-second on the window's edge before Kuga was flung against her stomach, making them drop together, Sakurazaki's arm instinctively clutching around the older girl.

Natsuki felt her neck whipping painfully for half a moment, but Setsuna's hold meant it was nowhere as serious as it could have been. She would be having neck pains until Konoka could get her hands on her, but it might have been far worse. Same thing for the cuts of the shattered glass, which was mostly blocked by Setsuna's wings as they deployed protectively around her, stopping their fall.

Down in the sidewalk, a girl with brown hair walking around with a group of friends looked up, pointed and gasped. "Look! Up in the sky!"

"Is it a bird?" asked the blond young woman with her, catching a glimpse of huge white wings retreating back inside the building.

"Well, it sure ain't a plane!" commented the light haired bespectacled boy with them.

"I think it's that Hawkgirl character from the news. I wonder what's she doing around here?" wondered his best friend, hands in his pockets.

"Isn't that Karakuri-san from Junior Class 3-A?" asked the small girl with glasses and a ponytail next to the girl who had spoken first, pointing at the flying figure following the strange bird creature inside.

"Who?" asked a girl with light orange hair.

"You know," Miyamoto Ruri answered, "that girl who sometimes flies around getting kittens down from trees and recovering balloons lost by children?"

Tachibana Marika shook her head. "Never heard of her before!"

"HOMURA-SAN!" Setsuna growled, stomping back into the apartment, sword at the ready after placing Natsuki on the floor, "That will be enough! For attacking an officially sanctioned enforcer of Mahora's security and two students, I hereby place you under arrest!"

Homura, now standing on scattered glass shards and holding a small shield in a hand, droned softly. "You don't even want to be here. While you waste your time with me, Tsukuyomi is about to murder Konoe-san and her mother. Near the train station."

Setsuna's eyes expanded almost monstrously.

"Of course,"Homura quietly continued, "you'll probably choose not to believe me. Which would be a real-"

Another moment later, Setsuna was flying back out through the window, this time out of her own volition, and zooming towards downtown.

Down below, Kirisaki Chitoge squinted, trying to get a good look at the speck in the sky that hopelessly rushed out of sight. "Are we sure that's really Hawkgirl? I thought she was taller. And bustier. And she didn't wear a Mahora uniform."

"Well, when in Rome-" Marika shrugged. "I mean, who else could it be?"

"She almost looked like ..." Ruri speculated for a moment before shaking her head. "No, never mind. It couldn't possibly be ..."

* * *

And so it had continued, with one going after another, and there's probably little point in going into detail about them all.

After Sakurako, Kitami took her place, deeply kissing Negi in a way that made even Misa uncomfortable. Her kiss produced a wet, obscene sound that almost matched those of her lovemaking, and for a moment, Negi almost thought the light that accompanied the card's apparition had shifted into an ominous dark hue before the proof of the Alliance came into being. Even the card's design was unsettling, with an intricate design, and a slightly darker background than was the norm. In it, Reika wore a set of black bustier and panties under an open coat, and her hands were filled with several sharp looking instruments of outdated medical research that were as intimidating as her smirk.

Midori's card, in contrast, sported her in a variation of her waitress outfit and holding a variation of the same labrys that had been her HiME Element, which made her oddly happy.

Graciously, Minako-sama stepped in next, grabbing Negi's chin and tilting it down so she could have a better access to his lips. The resulting card featured her wearing an elaborate black and dark red skintight and form defining costume, with high heels and golden cuffs around her wrists and ankles. She had a long golden rope between her hands, and stuck the tip of her tongue out, mischievously.

"- but you are married, too!" Ashikaga squeaked, again wondering exactly what was he supposed to be doing there. "Aren't you?"

"All I know is, my mom isn't ever getting into this act," Makoto duly noted.

"You're aware you've just jinxed it, aren't you?" Taisuke blandly asked him.

"Don't even joke about that!" Itou yelled at him. "Or I will start making comments about someone's older sister!"

"... cold, dude. Cold."

Roberta came for her turn after her mistress, giving Negi a dry, harsh kiss which resulted in a card that had her in heavy guerrilla fatigues, with camo pants and boots adding to a skimpy top, a bandanna, and as much of an arsenal as magic could fit within the card's frame.

Ryoko-sensei approached him next, getting a Pactio that, judging from her card, involved a disturbing arsenal of biochemical warfare instruments, as her image was shown smiling and surrounded by dozens of tiny containers, tubes and jars filled with all sorts of differently colored liquids. Not to mention the belt loaded with needles she had on under her lab coat.

Rika pushed Yozora to the foreground afterwards, and with a heavy frown, Mikazuki covered Negi's eyes with a hand before kissing him. Perhaps she had been spending too long around Chisame lately. Her card seemed relatively unremarkable, as she wasn't wearing any especially elaborate costume or holding any visible Artifact. "Actually, I think I prefer it this way," she muttered when Rika remarked on it.

"Oh, you can be such a bore!" Haruhi rolled her eyes.

Next, Madoka, Misa and Sakurako all but dragged Ranma before Negi. "Come on, for Heaven's sake!" Madoka grunted, struggling to push the incredibly strong girl into place. "If you're so dead set on being a brave man, don't start acting like a coward now! I thought you didn't back away from any challenge!"

"That's it, Madoka," Misa nodded. "Better start learning how to lay the law down now. It'll serve you as practice for the NEXT jock, perhaps with dog ears, you set your sights on!"

"Actually, I think Madoka-chan and Kotaro-kun would make for a lovely couple," quickly said Sakurako. "Wouldn't you agree, Ranma-sempai?"

Ranma was too busy twitching, face to face with the visibly uncomfortable Negi, to reply. Finally, after several moments of tense silence only broken by Haruhi and Kitami tapping their feet down, they threw their arms around each other and kissed forcefully, pulling apart as soon as the card came down. For added discomfort value, the card had Ranma in his male form, in a colorful Chinese acrobatics uniform and swinging a staff around.

"Ah, ahem," Negi rasped, rubbing a hand behind his own head. "Thanks a million for your, ah, understanding collaboration, Saotome-san. I swear, as soon as we have sorted this out, I won't rest until I have fixed Tendo-san's situation."

"You'd better," Ranma grumbled, experimenting with her card by twisting it between her fingers. "So, how do I make this work?"

"All in its due time, Sempai," Himemiya-san walked past her and stopped before Negi with a pleasant smile on her face, and Chu-Chu perched on her scalp. They kissed almost immediately, and as soon as their lips grew apart, Chu-Chu jumped down to also kiss Negi's mouth, much to his shock.

"CHU!"

As everyone else but the smiling Anthy briefly changed into startled cardboard figures, a second card flew down and into Anthy's waiting hand. "How nice! Now Chu-Chu can be a valuable asset to the Project, as well!"

"Isn't that thingy a male?" Sakurako wondered.

Anthy shrugged and pointed at Ranma. "So is he, isn't she?"

Negi blinked, taking a hand to his own mouth and shuddering a little for a moment.

That ... that had been, much to his horror, perhaps the best kiss of his life so far.

Not that he ever would say it, of course.

Nagato's turn came next, and once again, the resulting card did not look particularly special, depicting Yuki in a simple variant of the Mahora winter uniform with a black jacket over it, and no Artifact in sight. Unless they were the pair of glasses she was wearing.

Saki, Aya and Rin were the next in line and, perhaps not surprisingly, received a matching set of cards depicting them in futuristic skimpy armor, more reminiscent of trashy sci-fi bikinis than anything, complete with what just had to be ray guns.

"Wow," Haruhi gushed as she examined the cards. "This is soooooo Dirty Pair!"

"Dirty? What gave you the impression that, just because we have had sex with a single man and a small group of women, are any 'dirtier' than you are?" demanded Saki.

"There's also the matter there are three of us," Rin added.

"The Dirty Pair," Ranma lectured, "is a series of science fiction novels turned into two Original Video Animation series, two animated movies, and an American manga, dealing with two young female agents for a space faring law enforcement association in the distant future. They wore battle bikinis just like those, and that's why she made that comment."

Everyone looked at him.

"What?!" Ranma waved his arms around. "YOU try spending any time with an anime obsessed little sister and see if she doesn't ruin you!"

_Elsewhere in Mahora, one Kosaka Kyosuke sneezed loudly_.

"Okay, who's left now?" Haruhi asked, clapping only once, but loud enough to draw everyone's attention. "Ah, you, the cute girl back there with the purple hair!"

"Actually," Negi said as the cute girl with the purple hair marched towards him, "her name's Twilight Sparkle-san, and she's a Princess and representative from the Mundus Magicus country of Equestria."

"Normally, I'm also an unicorn-pegasus mare," Twilight added while passing by Haruhi.

After several moments of blinking, overwhelmed by the fantasy factor of it all, Haruhi just fell to her knees, doubling up on herself and fingering herself intensely. _"Oaaa-whoaaa-whoo-whoo-whoooo."_

Twlilight sighed, stopping right before Negi. "I'm really impressed. For you to be able to sustain so many Pactios, added to all those you already had ... does Magia Erebea turn you into a borderline limitless source of magic?"

Negi shrugged. "I have no idea. Nobody before me had ever tried to test the limits of Pactios in combination with Magia Erebea, so ..."

"So the only way to learn, for knowledge's sake, is to keep testing," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and tilting a leg back, then kissing him as deeply as she could. "Mmmmmm!"

What happened next was ... interesting, as the Pactio circle began glowing back and forth between golden and purple, and right afterwards, Ayaka recognized the same pattern Chamo-san had talked about after she and Negi made their own Pactio; the card showing up above him and Twilight Sparkle started changing back and forth, alternating between showing images of both of them, as if the system couldn't decide on who would be the Magister and who the Minister. Kitami and Mikado also seemed very impressed and intrigued, but either way, the effect was short-lived, as moments later, Negi grabbed the card as soon as the lights died down.

It had a picture of Twilight's original winged and horned shape, with a wide halo of light surrounding her. He breathed out very deeply. "Well," he said. "Thanks again, everyone. We've achieved the very first step, at the very least. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd love to stay and-"

"-have wild sex with the whole lot of us, your conquests, oh stud monkey?" Kitami taunted with a purr.

"- chat with you with all the consideration such a wonderful group of friends and supporters deserves," Negi said without missing a beat, "but I'm badly pressed for time, and I really need to find Asuna, and ... Look, we'll talk again very soon, but in the meanwhile, I need you to reach over to all those you believe trustworthy and able enough to help us with this situation, will you? I'd be eternally grateful."

"And you'd owe us," Kitami winked at him.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I would."

"Oboy," Midori sighed. "That's not something you ever should tell her, Negi-kun."

"It's okay," Kitami waved a hand. "I think I know exactly whom to resort to now."

"Don't even think of-" Ryoko started.

Kitami took a hand to her own heart, affecting an innocent tone. "I'm only talking about Hiroko-chan! You know what they say about strange bedfellows. Why do you always think the worst about me?"

Ryoko opened her mouth to give a through answer, decided it wouldn't do at the moment, and just shook her head muttering grimly.

"What will we do if Fate-kun asks us why I have this now?" asked Sakurako, holding her second card up.

"Tell him my promise was I wouldn't give you Pactios if you came to me after our talk. Misa and Madoka's were the result of what they asked me before that conversation. Yours happened because **I** asked **you**, instead of it being the other way around."

"Wow!" Sakurako said. "You'd have made a really good lawyer, you know that?"

"I'll choose to interpret that as praise, so thanks."

"I guess my Dad could help, too," Makoto pondered slowly. "God knows he isn't shy about sordid things, and he's got money to burn, although I doubt he'll care at all, but -"

"Oh, that's right, you're one of Tomaru's children, aren't you?" Kitami smiled at him. "In that case, don't worry, I'll go with you to convince him after I recruit Hiroko-chan. Do you want to come with us?" she further smiled, asking Taisuke, Ashikaga and the cheerleading trio. "What I have in mind will require a few helping hands. Come to think about it, we also could pick Kaori-chan on our way."

"Saeki Kaori!?" Taisuke nearly drooled, eyes gleaming.

Kitami now winked at him. "A connoisseur of the best available at the campus, aren't you? I can put a good word on you boys for her if you're helpful enough."

Taisuke began rubbing his hands together. "I think I'm gonna love this world saving crap!"

"Focus, damn you!" Ayaka slapped him across the head. "Negi-sensei, will you please tell this-"

"He's gone," Twilight Sparkle informed him.

"Huh?" Kyon looked all around. "Wow, it's true, and just like that, too. Actually kind of creepy."

Silence dominated the scene over a few minutes after that.

Finally, Haruhi shouted, "Oh, for Pete's sake! Is no one ever going to make the obligatory Batman reference?!"

* * *

Negi began wondering, as he walked back home, if he should have just pulled the 'Batman Trick' on everyone as soon as things had started getting sexual from the very start, and if that wouldn't have saved everyone a whole world of problems. Sure, it'd have been rude, but compared to the alternative, wouldn't it have been the lesser evil? It seemed to work for Batman-sama, from the few contacts he had established with the man since he began meeting with the Illuminati. After all, none of the other hugely influential members seemed to actually hate him or plot his doom for it, no matter how much Sailor Moon-hime-sama grumbled about it.

But alas, it was too late by now to start doing that, wasn't it? If he did it from then on, the girls would take it as a serious insult, and he couldn't hurt them anymore than he already had. Still, the fact he hadn't even considered it before was rather troubling on itself. What did that say about him?

His ruminations on the subject were interrupted, for better or worse, by an encounter with Fate and the Narutaki twins that went rather badly. At the end of it, in less time than it would take to tell it, Fate was standing right in front of Fuka, their eyes separated by no more than a couple of inches, the cold emptiness of Fate's glare boring into Fuuka's gaze. Laughter died. Speech was impossible. She couldn't even breathe. He hadn't laid a finger on her, not even lifted a hand, and yet all that she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and roll away as fast as she could.

"Fate!" came a voice as from a long way away.

Just like that, he had moved away from her, and was no longer staring into her. "Very well, then. If these are your allies of choice, far be it from me to criticize you for choosing them. May they give you all the help you could ask them for ... because you will get none from me.

"Three days," he added into the silence that followed.

"The Headmaster gave me five," Negi started to say.

"Good for him. Three days, then I restart Cosmo Entelechia. I told you that was my condition at the start of all this. Good luck, Negi-kun."

"You know," another voice casually asked. "You actually can't do that, don't you?"

The boys and Fumika, since Fuuka stilll was too busy spasming in place, looked back towards where another pink haired short girl, this one wearing a white dress and sandals and sporting a long and thin black tail, stood at the middle of the pathway, with a small ice-cream cone in a hand.

"I mean," Momo Belia Deviluke carelessly added, taking another nibble from the cone's top, "Let's face it, Fate-sensei, everyone in this campus and beyond who really matters in the big picture already has their eyes on you. Oh, my bad. Here am I, enjoying this all by myself. Does anyone want some?" she asked, extending the ice-cream forward. When Fate's glacially sharp glare was her only reply, she shrugged and went back to nibbling. "No? Your loss, I guess. As I was saying, Fate-sensei, Headmaster-sensei and his people wouldn't be that clueless, bringing you here, to this place, the eternal powderkeg just waiting for a matchstick, without telling the really important people to be on the lookout in the event things went South with you. And, well, I don't like boasting, really, I don't, but as a daughter of an alien emperor who could blow up Earth *and* Mars all by himself in the event any meanie teacher would hurt any of his cute daughters, I think I qualify as 'important', too."

Negi sighed. "Ah. Good afternoon, Deviluke-san. Talkative today, it seems."

Momo nodded in his direction for a moment. "Good afternoon to you too, Sensei. It took me a while, to figure out what were you doing, but let's discuss that later, okay? Fate-sensei, you're smart and you know this already, but while you're strong, you only got as far as you did in the first place because of the surprise element. By now, you've lost that, perhaps forever. And you are a big fish in a pond of bigger fish. Even if Daddy were to stay out of this, you wouldn't even make it to the nearest Gate before having Superman-sama and Flash-sama taking turns tapping you in the head. So please, please," she brought her hands together after swallowing the last of the cone. "Before entertaining yourself by proving how superior you are to average humans who can't fight you back, which I'm so sure doesn't make you a cowardly bully or anything like that, think of how you are also on that very same side of the equation when looked from the other angle, okay?"

Fate's normally cold and empty visage briefly tensed into a seething, raging mask of impotent fury.

Momo smirked, and her smirk was a tiny, perfidious, terrible thing. "Now please, if you could step away? I have actually important subjects to discuss with Negi-sensei."

Briefly making a sound comparable of that of an overheating teapot, which further terrified the Narutakis and worried Negi, Fate finally calmed back down, at least in the outside. "Perhaps I am powerless now, thanks to you," he told Negi. "But that also means, whatever results from this will only be on your hands, not on mine. Think about it," he warned, before briskly walking away.

"Fate!" Negi tried to reach for him, but got no answer save a quickening of the retreat. Negi took a step after him, but by then Fate was gone. The young mage looked at Momo then. "I hope you are happy now."

"Nothing of what I said was a lie," the alien princess replied. "You know what I hate the most? People who make hollow threats just to make themselves feel better. Where I'm from, when we threaten, we mean it. When we menace, it means we have the power to back our words. And I really want to lend that power to you, Negi-sensei. No strings. No tricks. All I wish for in trade for the Deviluke Empire's cooperation with your project is -"

"Wait, so you're an actual alien princess?!" Fumika cried. "I always thought you were just another cosplay chick!"

"- the tail is real," Momo deadpanned, annoyed at having her offer cut short, and waving the tail in circles to prove her point. "Where I was before being so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes! Negi-sensei, all I want from you is ... please help Rito-san in becoming as great a harem master as you are! Please please pretty please!"

Negi's eyes bugged seventy percent out of his face.

When he failed to provide any verbal answer beyond a strangled gasp, Momo giggled, waving a hand rapidly. "Oh, never mind, we'd better discuss that somewhere indoors! There are too many snooping interlopers out here, in the open!" she said benevolently.

A nearby bush shuddered violently, rattling leaves everywhere.

"Wow," Fumika said, circling around Momo to take better looks at her tail and the way it moved. "Even after everything else, it's so difficult to believe it ... a real alien amongst us! Hey, hey, are your sisters aliens too?"

"... they would have to be, wouldn't they?" Momo asked back.

"A-HEM!" Fuuka loudly rasped, with all the air of an actress on stage forcing a clumsy partner to remember her lines.

"Huh? Ah. Oh, yeah. Of course. Neechan!" Fumika "shrieked" stagily as she 'ran' stagily up to her sister, still crumpled on the pavement in a way that Negi had found distressingly reminiscent of the way that he'd left Sextum after their fight. If a bit stagily so.

"I ... can't believe ... I'm still alive," Fuuka whispered, eyes still locked on the way Fate had taken. "I really thought he was going to -"

"He wouldn't do that, Fuuka-san," Negi assured her, dropping down to the ground beside her. "Fate is maniacal about obeying the rules, and the rules of being a teacher here wouldn't let him hurt you. Frighten, yes, but not hurt. Can you stand?"

"... no," she said.

Momo smirked, pulling a small capsule out of a pocket in her dress. "How about a dose of this energizing formula I distilled from the root of a Juraian tomato? It's guaranteed to pump you full of life and excitement for hours! As long as you don't have a heart condition, of course. Do you?"

"Thanks but no thanks, Deviluke-san," Negi politely but firmly declined. He had had enough of strange chemicals in his circle of acquaintances for quite a long while. "Fuuka-san, would you like me to carry you back to the dorm? I'm going there anyway, so it's not any trouble. And we can keep talking on our way there, Deviluke-san."

"Sounds like a plan," Momo nodded. "Hey, Nana-chan, you coming too?"

A grumpy voice muttered angrily from some nearby bushes.

"She's in as well!" Momo smiled at the other three, who were giving strange glares. "My twin sister. Never mind her. She's like that."

Negi sighed. "Of course. Good afternoon to you as well, Nana-san."

The bushes muttered something that perhaps was gruff but polite. Perhaps.

"Oh, believe me, I think I can empathize," Fumika told Momo.

"That's my line!" Fuuka grunted. "Okay, if, if it's really no trouble, Negi-kun," she said, looking away in a gesture he suspected was at least 40% unfeigned. Maybe as much as 45%. From the look on Fumika's face as her sister crawled up onto Negi's back and hung there as he stood up, he was fairly sure that he was the only one giving Fuuka that much credit, though.

That said, when Fumika finally spoke, it was to address the larger situation. "Then he's all bluff?" she asked, before Negi could begin asking Momo what the hell she had meant earlier, trotting alongside Negi as he walked steadily, as though Fuuka wasn't much of a burden at all. Momo marched slightly behind, with a seriously embittered Nana emerging from the bush to shadow her steps, red-faced.

"Not all, but since he didn't threaten Fuuka-san with an academic punishment, what he did just now was all that he was going to do." Not all bluff, not at all, even if what he'd said about restarting Cosmo Entelekhia was. As things had stood when he'd said that, he might have been able to do so. But as Deviluke-san had pointed out, time had passed, and now there were too many forces which were aware of him and which would align against him, and the majority of his allies - the other Averrunci, Dynamis and the others - had been made permanently unavailable.

Or so Negi hoped. You never knew anymore. Although, thinking better about it, the idea itself of thinking of someone spending eternity trapped in ice as a relief was quite worrying. What did that, too, say about him and his path, if he thought of such a cruel punishment as the most fitting result for other living beings who had believed themselves in the right?

Well, other than Quartum. Like Yuna might have said, fuck that guy. Even Negi had his limits. Not that he ever would admit feeling that way on that particular subject.

But regardless, even if it had been a bluff, the warning beneath it was clear. If he failed at what he had set himself out to do, not only Fate would do whatever there still was in his power to actively oppose him, but the responsibility of any negative outcome would fall squarely on Negi's on shoulders.

Well. He supposed that he should consider that an additional incentive. Not that he would have thought of it as anything but his own responsibility anyway, and- No, no, no. Sharing responsibilities, even if not faults, wasn't that what he had proposed himself to do? He really had to try changing his ways of thinking from there on...

"Are you going to go tell Asuna now about what's happening?" Fuuka asked from his back.

"That's the plan," he answered with a nod. "She ought to be back at the dormitory by this point, though she may have stayed back at the resort with Konoka..."

"Huh?" the Narutakis chorused.

"Which resort?" Nana grumbled while Momo only lifted a fine eyebrow.

"Oh, right, you don't know about the resort, yet," he said, shaking his head in self-reproach. "I really ought to have something typed up, to get everyone on the same page about what's been going on." Though deciding how much of that should be omitted was a bit daunting.

"Everyone, like in every one of us, or everyone around?" Fumika asked, poking a thumb back towards the alien twins. It was frankly disturbing, hearing Negi-kun being so open all of a sudden around outsiders. Wasn't he theirs, after all? Even if he wasn't their teacher anymore, didn't he still belong to 3-A?

"Actually, **we** know about that. Kaede-ne told us about that when she told us about everything else to get us to stop from hiding ourselves in her luggage," Fuuka clarified.

"Hey!" an annoyed Nana shouted. "Haven't you been listening to me? What's that resort you're talking about, and what does it have to do with Momo's usual stupid plans, and why have you been looking for him all day long anyway, Momo?!"

"How can you accuse us of not listening when you aren't listening either?" Momo sighed. "I said we'd talk about this indoors. Really, Sis!" she shook her hair with an air of faint dismay, turning around and speeding her steady walk towards the dorms.

Nana began sizzling in place, stomping a foot in anger.

"And that," Negi calmly told Fuuka and Fumika, "is why you two should be thankful to have each other."

"Aaahhhhh," they chorused.

"Shut up, wise guy!" Nana barked.

* * *

"And here we are," Negi declared as he opened the door to his dorm room, Fuuka still hanging on his back and Fumika trailing along behind with a dissatisfied look on her face. Momo closed the formation, keeping Nana grabbed by a hand and all but dragging her along. "And ... she's not back yet. Of course not. Do you feel strong enough to stand, Fuuka-san?"

"Welllll," Fuuka hemmed.

"Yes," Fumika interjected. "She does."

Fuuka promptly made a face at her sister, who proceeded to make one of her own right back at her. Apparently oblivious to this byplay, Negi proceeded to squat down so that Fuuka could slide off of him, and she reluctantly did so. In the meanwhile, Momo discreetly closed the door, whistling to herself as she did so.

"Well, it can't be helped. I'll just have to wait for her and start working on other aspects of my plan until she comes back," he began to say. "As soon, of course, as we make clear why are you so interested in us all of a sudden, Momo-san."

Momo coughed with a very dignified and important flair, folded her arms behind her back, and smiled. "Don't take it out on her, Sensei, but Kujou Rin-san gave you away," she said. "Early today, she came to me and asked me to definitely leave her out of the harem plan I am structuring for Rito-san and our sister Lala's sake. She sounded so determined and serious, I just knew it had to be because she had found herself a new love!"

"... love?" Negi said, his eyes shrinking down. Fuuka and Fumika scowled in perfect synchrony.

"And naturally, it couldn't just be because someone simply doesn't want to be in one of your hare-brained perverted schemes," Nana grumbled.

Momo gestured vapidly around, with both hands, ignoring her sister altogether. "Of course, I knew I had to look into it, and a few hours of asking around revealed she, Aya-san and Saki-san had been seen around you and several of your students a lot recently," she explained. "That made it clear; you had to be the man who had caught her fancy! From there, I only had to -"

"How many people did you ask?" a livid Negi asked.

"A few," Momo vaguely replied. "Your next door neighbors were a lot of help! Tokiha-san didn't want to talk a lot, but often you can learn more about someone from what they refuse to say. And you wouldn't believe how much info you can bribe from Minagi-san just by resorting to some cake."

"Oh dear God!" Negi ran a hand down his face.

"So, in short, how many young women have you been, ahem, dating? Let's be nice and call it dating." Momo smirked, pulling a pen and small notebook out.

"You mean the sex stuff?" Fuuka asked.

Momo nodded. "Yep! The sex stuff!"

Nana went white as a sheet of paper, and her jaw loosened in place.

"What?!" Negi looked back at the Narutakis. "Who told you about that? W-Was it Kaede?" he asked them, trying without success to stop blushing.

"No, we spied on Asakura-san and Sayo-chan while they were talking about it," Fumika explained, looking a bit embarrassed herself. "But they didn't mention exactly how much you had done, so yeah, we're kinda curious about that too."

"That's nothing to feel curious about!" Nana shrieked.

Negi sighed. "Asuna, Konoka, Konoka's mother Kouko-sama, Setsuna, Chisame, Mikazuki Yozora-san, Twilight Sparkle-hime-sama, Kitami-sensei, Yuna, Makie, Ako, Kazumi, Sayo, Nodoka, Yue, Haruna, Ranma-san, Shiguma Rika-san, Suzumiya-san, Mikado-sensei, Nagato Yuki-san, Madoka, Misa, Sakurako, Ayaka, Ayaka's mother, their maid Roberta-san, Aya-san, Rin-san, Saki-san, Himemiya Anthy-san, Chachamaru, Kaede and Ku Fei."

The pen rolled out of Momo's fingers and across the floor.

"... I'm a creep," Negi sadly summed up.

"Wow," Fuuka mouthed, her lips dry. "That feeling when you realize more than half of the class has beaten you to something. Again. No matter how many times it happens, you never get used to it, do you, Fumika-chan?"

"Even Suzumiya-san?!" Fumika whined, eyes suddenly very spherical and watery. "The weirdo?! And Konoka and Iinchou's moms! Married women! And Haruna's brother? Buh-buh-but he's a man! A man who cross dresses, but a man!"

"Actually, he's a boy who transforms into a girl upon contact with cold water," Momo blandly said as she picked her pen up, just a tad pale herself. "Before you ask how I know that too, keep in mind he's asked everywhere for a cure to his condition. But... wow, Sensei, you've far more of an edge over Rito-san than I ever suspected! Your power levels just can't compare! Yet."

"I, I don't even have any idea who most of these people are!" Nana yelled, waving her arms around very rapidly, and her eyes spinning in place.

"Well, I'm pretty sure they don't know you, either!" an annoyed Fuuka declared. "Anyway, get over it, Fumika-chan! It's not the end of the world! Uh, well, I guess it is, but not because of that!"

"Buh-buh-but, being beaten to it by classmates is one thing!" her sister sobbed. "But, losing to outsiders -!"

"Well," Negi said, "I understand why'd you be troubled about that, Fumika-san, but please understand the borders between 'us' and 'outsiders' must disappear for what we're going to do. The project will work on too large a scale, and while I'll always be thankful to you girls first and foremost, I'll need to be in contact with many others whose talents will be useful, too."

"There's a huge difference between 'being in contact' and doing ... that with everyone, you creep!" hissed Nana as she was held from behind by Momo.

"Quiet, silly Nana-chan," Momo cooed lovingly, wrapping Nana's tail around her wrist and pulling on it, which immediately made Nana tense up and produce a loud shrill sound while arching her back. At the shocked expressions of Fumika, Fuuka and Negi, Momo only waved her still free hand. "Never mind this. It's just an occasionally convenient physical trait of our species. Please continue your enlightening and character-developing conversation!"

"Oookayyyy ... Negi-kun, can I ask you something else?" Fumika said then, after sniffling.

"You just did, but go ahead all the same," he told her.

"It's about what Fate said," she continued, very hesitantly. "He was saying that Asuna is..." Fumika fell silent at the look of obvious pain that crossed Negi's face.

"He said that she's resigned to her fate," Negi confirmed. "I don't know that I'd put it like that, but ... yes, Asuna believes that it's her responsibility to enter stasis for the sake of the Magical World, and asked me to stop looking for other solutions to the problem. But that was when we had months to go before she'd have to do it, not days. Under the circumstances, I'm sure that she'll ..." Now he fell silent.

"Negi-kun?" the Narutakis chorused.

"I'm not actually sure about that at all," he admitted. "I think ... she's hypnotized by the hard choice. I think that it's such a hard decision that she's afraid of any alternatives, that they'd have hidden costs which made them even worse. And I think that she's so fixed on this solution that it's... making her act in ways that she normally wouldn't."

"Like deciding to have sex with you. She kickstarted it all, didn't she?" Momo deduced, absently toying with the tail of her squirming and teary-eyed twin.

He nodded. "Pretty much, yeah. So, I think you should be actually asking her about that plan of yours, not me," he admitted. "She encouraged me almost every step of the way."

"What an admirable example to follow!" Momo said, taking a fist to her chin while pastel bubbles floated around her. "It's decided, then! To make Rito-san a fitting ladies' man and Emperor of the Galaxy, this Asuna-sama must be saved and her sage advice preserved!"

"'Emperor of the Galaxy'?" Fuuka dubiously repeated.

"After a long, long while, upon our father's retirement, of course," Momo conceded. "I've tried steering him that way, but everything's failed, and I don't know what else to do!" she lamented, inadvertently, or perhaps not, tugging harder on Nana's tail as she gestured her despair. "He just won't stop being the same lovable but frustrating sack of sexual repression! And so, how can he ever marry Lala, while getting to terms with how he loves Sairenji-san as well, and not letting down Mikan-chan, or Kotegawa-san, or Kujou-san, because yes, I'm taking her back to Rito-san's harem, you already have enough, you greedy boy you, and then there's Yami-chan, and, of course, our exalted selves!"

"NNNNNNGHHHH! LEMME GO!" Nana cried, trying to tug her tail free, but only shuddering further with each attempt.

"Please be quiet, Nana, you're making a scene in front of our host," Momo primly chided her.

Negi blinked. "Uhhhhh... I assume your species allows for-"

Momo nodded. "And I'd suggest you, as a likely future ally of the Royal House, to do what you can to enact similar laws wherever you should choose to reside. Or else I foresee a lot of jealous stabbings in your future."

"I can take being stabbed just fine, so please don't worry," Negi replied.

"I'm not talking about only you getting stabbed, actually," Momo pointed out. "I think I know that Hasegawa girl. Sister to a classmate of Rito-san, right? She looks like the type to go looney stalker with a knife upon rejection."

"Well, now that you mention it…" Fumika rubbed her chin.

"Granted, the same has been said about us," Fuuka added. "There was this time we grew so angry at Mom, Kaede-ne was actually afraid we'd end up stabbing her to death. Isn't that silly, though?"

Fumika blushed and looked away, hoping no one noticed it. Perhaps Momo did, but let it slide.

"Absolutely not. Chisame isn't that kind of person, and I should know," Negi firmly said. And then, "Either way, thanks for your advice, but we'll worry about those things later. Right now, we need to -"

"- see if you really fit your claims," Momo completed the sentence for him.

"... excuse me?" Negi gulped.

"Well, you know how it is!" Momo tossed her hands up, as Nana shrieked in a tearful climax. "Oops, sorry, Sis. Don't worry about that, she's okay. But Sensei, I can't rely on rumors and your own word alone! I am going to need to see by myself if you're actually up to the task of being a harem master Rito-san can respect!"

"What ... what ... what are you trying to ..." Nana panted, face flushing, hands on her knees. "You wacko, weirdo, shame of the family, I'll tell Mom!"

Negi cringed. "Uhhhh... I'm not sure I should be an example to follow by anyone, Momo-san-"

Momo waved a finger. "No evidence, no help!"

"But that's unfair!" Negi cried. "Right now, for the greater good, we should be focusing instead on-!"

"It's alright," Fuuka interrupted. "We'll do it!"

"Huh?" Negi said.

"Huh?!" Fumika said.

**"HUH?!"** Nana said.

"Sounds about right for starters," Momo said with a pleased nod.

Fuuka nodded back. "Until Asuna and Konoka show up, all you really need is some proof Negi-kun is an experienced lover, right? Well, we can help him with that demonstration," she added, tugging on her clothes. "After all, everyone's already done a lot for Negi-kun; it's time we started doing our part as well!"

"Okay," Negi sighed, taking his jacket off. "Okay, if that's the way you way you want it, fine. You might want to leave, though, Nana-san. Things are about to get ... perhaps a bit too heated for you."

Nana blinked. "Are you insinuating I'm weak to 'the heat'?"

Negi blinked back. "Eh... But, haven't you been complaining about -"

"Are you calling me a complainer?!" Nana shrilled now.

"Don't mind her too much. There's just no way to please her," Momo advised.

"Oh, screw that!" the other princess hissed. "After humiliating me before these people, touching me where no sister should touch another - **AGAIN!** \- and making me, making me, well, that, now you're calling me a wussy-fussy little flower who can't take anything like you, who are so worldly and mature and better than me?!"

"Wow, those two have unresolved issues," Fumika mused.

"You got that right," Fuuka agreed.

"No one was saying any of that," Negi said, "We only meant, for your own best interests-"

"Mind your own best interests!" Nana shouted. "Hah! Like I care about seeing you doing that icky stuff or not! It's just like watching animals mating, which I do a lot because I like looking after animals, you know!"

"So you're into furry stuff?" Fuuka wondered.

"**I'M NOT!** And that's why I wouldn't care one way or another if you started screwing right before my eyes, because I'm not weak, not afraid of any perverts like you or Rito and you Earthlings are all the same anyway!" Nana ranted frantically, her face a sea of shining red.

"Okay, sorry for misjudging you, you can stay then," a frankly just tired by now Negi just took his hands back to his shirt.

"I'm not saying I have any interest on sticking around to see your gross things either!" Nana said, but did not step away. "It's just, just, after you got to see me without moving a finger to help, I've gotta get my payback by doing the same!"

"But you were enjoying it, why would they stop it?" Momo asked her.

"No one asked for your input, Momo!" her sister told her.

The Narutakis blinked in stupefaction as Negi began to get undressed again. "You mean, you're actually just going to agree to that blunt proposal? Just like that?" Fuuka asked.

"You asked for it, didn't you?" Momo asked in turn.

"Yeah, and I hoped he'd accept, but not that quickly! That's not like him!" Fuuka replied.

"Well, there was a time, not so long ago, when I would have tried to talk you out of the idea," said Negi as he unbuttoned his shirt starting with the cuffs. "But that has never worked, not even once, and I'm afraid that I don't think it will work this time, either. So really, there's nothing to do but go through with it, and try to do the best job that I can, even though my heart isn't really in it. I hope that you're all right with that."

"Wait," Momo gestured with a hand. "Did you just say your heart wasn't into it?"

Negi blinked. "Hm, yes, I did. Why-"

Momo abruptly turned around and began walking for the door. "I'm out. I'm not giving you any help either."

"Eh?!" cried Negi, who was almost as shocked as Nana herself. "But, why?!"

"I need someone who helps Rito-san put his heart into it," Momo shrugged. "If you aren't that kind of person, you are of no use for me, I mean, us, and not only that, but you're insulting everyone you're having sex with. I'm disappointed on you, actually. I thought you were the kind who actually cared about others..."

_"I am!"_ Negi protested.

"Then your heart would be in it when you're in close contact with the people you claim to care about," Momo said, her hand already on the doorknob.

"Okay, okay, sorry, maybe I chose the wrong words!" Negi apologized. "Look, it's not what you think, or at least what I think you're thinking, it's just- well! I'm sorry maybe I'm not the kind of man you were expecting for, but if you could accept me for what I am, like everyone else has-"

Momo gave him a glare over her shoulder. "Oh my, Sensei. Was that a come-on to me?"

"Eh?" the other four said at once.

Momo placed a hand on her cheek. "You want me to accept you as everyone else has, don't you? Oh, so your heart really is in the art of conquest after all! I'm flattered, really, but I owe myself to Rito-san, and I'd have to save him as my first, so-"

Nana almost spat poison. "Oh, for Father's sake. You're rubbing your legs together, Momo. If you want to screw this guy already and use him as practice for the idiot just say it already! It's not like the idiot will ever mark you as his first either! You're so pathetic! We're princesses! We take whatever we want, however we want it, and make no apologies over it! It sickens me, seeing you devoted to that spineless creep like that! At least this one has a spine of sorts!"

"Um, thank you?" Negi felt like he had to say.

Momo frowned, looking back at them. Finally, she sighed. "Okay. I guess you're right. Rito-san has never thanked my efforts to open his eyes, and it's obvious he'll never pick me before Lala or Sairenji-san, so turnaround is fair play, isn't it?"

"Hey, no, keep your hands to your own man!" Fuuka said, very affronted. "I mean, holy smoke, Sensei, I think you shouldn't allow this alien slut to wear down your resistance. Who needs her anyway? Just turn her down altogether and let's find another way to hmmm hmmm hmmm... hmmm?" she concluded as she realized that Fumika's hands were over her mouth.

"Neechan," Fumika said into her ear, voice quiet and deadly. "You're my sister and I love you, but so help me, if you wreck this for us, and you will because blowing these bitches off will mean Negi-kun won't have to prove himself with us before them, I swear to Lucifer, you will need to spend our entire high school career sleeping with one eye open. Got it?" Fumika hissed.

"Mm-hm, mm-hm," Fuuka agreed, nodding rapidly.

"Wow, that was quite a speech," the short haired alien slut marveled.

"... is something the matter?" Negi asked, deciding (as he often did) to pretend that he hadn't seen or heard certain things which had happened right in front of him and which he could not possibly have missed.

"Nope!" the Narutakis said in chorus, Fumika's hand coming down from Fuuka's mouth just in time to ensure that her section of the chorus wasn't a meaningless mumble.

"I thought not," he sighed and unbuckled his trousers so that they pooled around his ankles.

"Wow, sensei is going commandoooooooooo," said Fuuka before she went slightly cross-eyed.

He found that this part of the unvarying routine ('girls are stunned by size of male member') was actually a bit comforting, and was moved to explain. He'd have felt less sure about the whole thing if he had realized Momo and Nana had failed to be impressed. "Well, I was in something of a hurry when I left Yuna's father's apartment, and -"

"Oh wow, you're having sex with Yuna's father?" Fumika gasped.

"No, no, with Yuna," he clarified. "Though I think he's a nice enough fellow, and -"

"Oh, so he wasn't there?"

"... no, he was there," Negi admitted.

"And he knew you were having sex with his daughter?" Fuuka gasped.

"He... couldn't really not know it."

"You mean... he was there, _there_?" Fumika said, going pale.

"You couldn't really get _more_ there."

Dead silence. The Narutakis exchanged a look. "Ewwwwwww!" they chorused again, and deliberately stepped apart.

**"GROSS!"** Nana made a really extreme face.

With sudden hope, he continued talking. "If that revolts you, I can't really blame you for not wanting to be involved. We don't have to -"

"No, you do have to," Momo pouted, folding her arms and tapping a foot.

"No, no, we're okay, it's just a little bit sick and wrong, and it's important that you understand that we don't want to do that sort of thing, do we, Neechan?" Fumika quickly replied.

"... uh ... yeah!" said Fuuka, maybe just a little bit slower than she should have.

"By the way, it's a bit small, don't you think?" asked Momo, looking down at Negi's reproductive organ.

The color left his face. "It is?! But, everyone but Twilight Sparkle-san has said-"

"Well," Nana grimaced, "not that we have a lot of experience, but -"

"I do!" Momo chirped. "I've checked a lot of research material from the whole galaxy in my quest to enlighten Rito-san!"

Nana clenched her teeth. "- but we have taken baths with our father, mind, completely innocent and merely family bonding baths where our mother and Lala and a few close bodyguards have been as well because seriously when the whole Royal House is gathered, bodyguards are a must, and- well, even in his current diminished form, Father's still got a sizeable advantage over... _that thing_."

Negi blinked several times. "I'm small compared to the galactic average?"

"Afraid so," Momo admitted. "Afraid so," Momo admitted. "Well, except for Zastin!" she added, doing the universal hand gestures for 'Abnormally Small Penis'. "Saki-san is going to be a very disappointed woman someday, let me tell you! She'd better stick with you."

"Poor guy," Nana had to sigh sympathetically.

"..." a heartbroken Negi said, before picking himself back up. "Like a very wise man once said, 'It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean'."

"Mmm-hmmmm," Momo purred, as she pulled her dress up over her head, revealing she only wore skimpy black and pink panties under it. The other girls winced awkwardly at the view of her bare breasts, much larger than their own. She smiled at him. "Then let's take a good swim."

* * *

While Momo was getting ready to jump into the ocean without a swimsuit, this had been happening elsewhere in the campus.

"You know, I wonder," said Tsukuyomi, who was standing behind Konoka. "What will hurt you most? Killing your mother, in front of you, or killing you, right in front of your mother, so that the last thing your eyes perceive before the world goes dark forever is the sight of her horrified face?"

Konoka stared, after turning around. She had to stare. Instead of one of her usual fancy combat dresses, or even the tighter and more practical clothes she had worn during the battle at Old Ostia, Tsukuyomi now was clad in a very skimpy white two-piece that was mostly comprised of tiny frills and bows kept together by string, and yet still gave the impression of being a dress. Of sorts. To go along with her tall boots and hat. Rarity-san would probably have grown sick in the stomach at the mere sight of it.

"I'm really very curious. I don't have these sorts of bonds, you see, so I couldn't possibly relate. You get them, though. So which do you think it would be?" The girl in the glasses tilted her head just slightly, as she regarded Konoka with the same sort of interest a born doctor in a middle school biology class might regard the frog she was about dissect.

"Hello, Tsukuyomi-han," Konoka said, quietly. "Those clothes really don't fit your figure, you know?"

"Ah, not 'you'? I was really looking forward to hearing you shriek 'you'."

"I'm actually sort of glad to see you," Konoka continued, as though the mercenary hadn't said anything. "Because, you know, the last few days have been very stressful ..."

"So you want someone to pull you out of your stress, not to mention your misery?"

"No, no, no! Because I've been wishing for a way to vent. But I can't vent at my loved ones, of course. Despite everything, they still mean well. So, thank you for taking the time and effort to break free and come directly here, to the wolf's own mouth. I mean, even if you manage to kill me, do you think you'll remain free and healthy for long after?"

"Oh, let me worry about my own health, Hime-sama," Tsukuyomi replied. "I think you're being too harsh on my new dress. It's a Gokou developed especially for me, and I bet Setsuna-sempai will agree it's to die for!"

"Ah," Konoka blandly noted. "Of course, you wouldn't ever go into a fight with Setchan without an unfair cheat ... whatever that Gokou thing is. But you aren't the only one who thinks that way, you know? I'm afraid I'm not too concerned about fighting clean and fair, like Ku-chan or Kotaro-kun, and that's another thing I've gotta thank you and Fate-kun for. You showed me that, in a world of costumed supervillains, aliens, mutants, crazy assassins who are getting fat, and unapologetic kidnappers around every corner, I had to step up my own game."

"Who are you calling fat, girl?!"

"Well, let's just say that string bikini you call a dress is showing more flesh than it should, in more than one sense."

Konoka heard her name called one more time, desperate fear in the voice.

So she raised her own. "Mom, stay back!"

And the little twitch of Tsukuyomi's eyes in response told her all that she needed to know, told her that no, the swordswoman's attention was not on her at the moment, and that she had more than a prayer. And in that moment, Konoka lunged forward, left elbow slamming into her opponent's unguarded stomach, then left hand up against the glasses on the other girl's face, pulling them away, sending them tumbling through the air.

"Agh!" Tsukuyomi shrieked. "My glasses! I can't see anything without my glasses!"

Right knee strike to enemy's side -

Blocked. By a still sheathed sword, directed by steady hands and guided by eyes that were now clearly focused on Konoka.

"- is what you were probably expecting me to say," Tsukuyomi nearly hissed. "Stupid princess, did you really think I wouldn't get that little weakness corrected? Isn't magic wonderful?"

"So it is," Konoka agreed. _"ADEAT!"_

* * *

And what had become of Chachamaru and Natsuki in the meanwhile, you ask?

"Leave now," Homura had warned, while the gynoid carefully placed Kuga down and faced the mysterious young female again, "or else, I won't hold back at all this time. Sakurazaki has left, and you must be aware you stand even less of a chance now."

Chachamaru nodded. "We're leaving immediately. But this won't be the end of it."

"I suppose it couldn't," Homura said apathetically. "But never here again. I'll be leaving right afterwards, so don't even bother. Also, the landlord is a relatively good man, and we shouldn't cause him any further problems."

Natsuki grunted. "You're far worse than Mashiro, did you know that? With her, you could at least see her reluctance, her regret in her eyes. I look into yours, and I see nothing but a vacuum."

"Perhaps," Homura replied, briefly pointing at one of her own eyes, "you are looking into a mirror."

"Sorry, but I don't think so," Chachamaru respectfully disagreed, taking a hand to her heart. "I see the same thing, and ever since my Pactio, nothing and no one will ever tell me anymore I am hollow inside."

Homura gestured towards her open door, as the air around her warped slightly, hideous squirming forms slithering from behind her, gesturing like nervous and rabid beasts. "Your friends may have need for you. In half a minute, I will be unleashing my Familiars on you, if you still are here."

"As she said," Kuga promised, following Chachamaru out the door with a slight limp, "this isn't over yet."

Homura waited until they were gone, down the stairs, to reply.

"But soon enough."

The Familiars were pulling back behind her, although with seeming great reluctance. She actually had to roughly push the last one, which vaguely looked like a monstrous Sakura Kyoko, back into the subspace where she usually kept them. It clawed at Homura's hand for a moment, leaving a thick red mark, before calming down and vanishing into the pocket dimensional space Homura kept around herself, to summon her nightmares from at will.

Or at least, she reflected as she looked at her bleeding hand, the wound ominously close to her Soul Gem, with slightly increasing pain on her part.

"But soon enough," she breathily repeated to herself.

* * *

"I thought we were going to meet girls, not a dude," Taisuke complained while Kitami-sensei rang the front bell of one of the small houses on campus owned by students who happened to be relatives to faculty members, which, coincidentally enough, was right next to the house where Yuuki Rito watered the plants in his front lawn wondering what was taking Momo and Nana so long.

"I heard he lives with his cousin," Makoto said. "Who happens to be, well, quite built."

"Okay, you have my interest again," Taisuke perked up, but before Yuki, Misa or Madoka could call him out on being a pig, the front door was opened from the inside, and out stepped, much to Taisuke's disappointment, a rather handsome boy around his own age. Misa grew instantly interested.

"Oh, good afternoon, Kitami-sensei," the other boy gulped nervously. "Is this about -"

"Only partially, Minase-kun," Kitami smiled beautifully. "Yes, we're going to meet Saeki-san as we'd agreed, but further complications have popped up. Nothing too big or difficult anyway. Do you happen to know Kakizaki-san and her friends here? And how about Itou-kun and his comrades? I just know you're going to get along very well."

They left shortly afterwards, and as they retreated down the street, Rito found strange Minase-san wouldn't answer when he waved at them and asked them why the hurry. Eh. Maybe they just hadn't noticed him...

* * *

Since he was honestly still a bit uncomfortable over allowing Yuna and Haruna dabbling into incest on his watch, to say nothing about his apprehensions about what was going to happen once Konoka found out about him and her mother, Negi naturally had no objection to the Narutakis not doing that with each other. On the other hand, as they proceeded to drop down on their knees in front of them along Momo-san, he was also aware that their refusal was causing problems of its own. They shied away from any contact with each other as they stripped off their jumpsuits and the underwear beneath, and while that was easy enough, especially with Momo-san in their middle, they kept avoiding it as they began to suck and lick at his erection and testicles, which made the entire process far more awkward than it had to be.

Even taking the size of his member into account, it was still a relatively limited surface, though, so with three tongues at once on it, it was unavoidable for them to bump into each other now and then. It was usually Momo's tongue touching those of the Narutakis, however, and every time it happened, all three of them flinched, mostly Fumika, but none of them gave up, mostly because of stubborn drive. Momo would close her eyes and force herself to remember how Risa-san's attack in the baths that one time had shown her how much she had to overcome in her quest. If she really wanted to organize the perfect harem, she couldn't step back from direct contact with the other haremettes!

... right? Otherwise, she'd be just like Nana...

Where had she gone, anyway? You took your eyes off her for a moment and... had she ran away, the little cowardly thing?

_Now standing in the bathroom, with her hands on the sink and shaking violently, Nana faced her wild-eyed reflection in the mirror. "I can do this, I can do this, all I have to do is not run away, that'll show her, I'm better than her, so much better..." she recited to herself_.

"All right," Negi said at last. "Let's try something else. Something that will - ah, of course. I'm going to lie down, and, um ... okay, Fumika, would you stop doing that and come up here so that I can - oh, Fuuka, Momo-san, please keep right on, that's very nice, yes - and here we go."

With that, he plunged his face between Fumika's spread hips and began licking at her, to her great satisfaction, loudly expressed.

Perhaps a bit too loudly expressed, in fact. It wasn't long before Fuuka paused in her ministrations to complain. Momo quickly seized the chance to plunge the whole tip of the unit, and as much of the rest as she could swallow, into her mouth, to start suckling vigorously. "This isn't fair! Why does only Fumika get to have fun like that?"

"Because you're a hooli-" Fumika began Standard Reply To Inequalities Of the Narutaki Siblings #1, but was cut off.

"I'm sorry, but I only have one mouth, Fuuka, so there's really nothing -"

"You could use magic!" Fuuka suggested, eyes dancing. "It would be easy to be in two places at once and -"

"No," Negi said firmly, flinching only a bit at what Momo was doing to him. Yuuki-san would be a very fortunate man soon enough.

"Awww!" Fuuka whimpered.

"Would you mind if I switched around?" Negi wearily asked Fumika.

"Oh, fine," said Fumika, more than a bit out of sorts.

"Mmrrrghhh mmmgghhh mmmph mmph," Momo said, obviously upset on not being consulted first. Which she punctuated with a string of bites on Negi's dick. Regrettably, it seemed to hurt and punish his oversight a lot less than she had hoped, as it only made him wince very slightly.

"Ohhh, sorry, Momo-san," he moaned. "I promise I'll give you something special, as well..."

Momo pulled back, looking intrigued as she licked her lips. "Seriously, now? Like what, Sensei?"

* * *

"Aaaaaannhhhh!" was the scream of a very familiar voice that rattled Nana out of her frozen stupor before the mirror. Since, no matter what she might ever say, she still loved her crazy slutty twin dearly, she ran back to the living room roaring threats and epithets no one paid any actual attention to, only to screech to a sudden halt.

The other twins had shifted around so the pigtailed one was receiving the boy's oral attentions, while her sister gave tongue and lip service to the former teacher's private parts. But that barely mattered to Nana anymore. What shocked her was seeing Momo crouched next to the boy, being vigorously fingered by him as her tail was wrapped around his strong arm. He would keep tugging and pulling on the tail as he caressed Momo's intimate folds, adding to her long drawn moans of pleasure.

After a moment of livid, red-faced outrage at having a fellow Royal Family member treated that way, Nana saw the irony of the situation and actually started laughing. "Oh! Oh, heh, that's rich! Of course, now the tables are turned, aren't they, Momo? Now it's you who has her tail abused before others, and her shame exposed, so how do you like that? Huh? Huh?!"

"A looooot," Momo panted, reaching over to catch an arm of Nana in her strong grip, pulling her closer to Negi and herself before her twin could react out of her mocking laughter. "Senseiiiiiiiii?"

After a moment of doubt, Negi took a hold of Nana's own tail, and much to her shrieking surprise, wrapped it around his forearm, tugging strongly on it before his fingers went up and into Nana's clothes, rubbing on her panties' crotch. As he did so, Momo's hands tugged on the clothes covering her sister's torso, downright ripping them off her, before taking her mouth to one of Nana's tiny teats.

Fumika paused in her efforts, just as startled as Nana. "Oh. Ick," she said.

Nana was about to yell something much more indignant and unflattering than that, but a combination of Negi's finger work making her arch her back and scream, and Momo's mouth moving quickly all the way up Nana's throat, ultimately planting itself on her sister's mouth, prevented that from reaching fruition.

Fumika watched at the two weird sisters starting kissing madly for the next few moments, before vaguely filing it away as actually kinda hot to see as long as it wasn't with her own sister. Then she returned to licking and sucking on Negi's hardness.

However, she also grew steadily more and more out of sorts over the next few minutes as she was compelled to listen to her dearly beloved older sister shrieking about how good Negi's tongue felt in her and on her (the other two weren't that much of an annoyance, as their cries mostly went muffled into each other's mouths). It was so annoying, having to listen to that nonsense, which was completely different from whatever restrained and sedate exclamations of ecstasy she herself had made a few minutes ago. Yet here she was, busily sucking Negi's admittedly tasty cock, and unless she wanted to abandon that and go elsewhere, she had no choice but to lie here and listen to to to to...

_Wow, we're really not all that smart, are we?_ Fumika realized abruptly, after an idea occurred to her just as abruptly. She pulled back, shook her head, then reached down between her legs to make sure she was ready.

"Ah, yes, lick me there! Eeeeyahh! Oh, Negi-kun, you bad bad boy, you -" Fuuka declared, eyes closed.

"Ahhhh!"

Fuuka's eyes shot open as the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh rang through the room. Her neck craned up, and a strangled gasp escaped her mouth as she saw Fumika bouncing up and down on Negi's hips. "What are you doing?!" she cried.

Fumika didn't even bother to look at her. "Well, neechan, when a daddy and a mommy love each other *very much* -" she started to explain as she worked her hips furiously.

"But you can't do that! Not until I do it! This isn't right! I'm the edgy mischievous one!" Fuuka complained.

"That's, that's right," Momo stammered as she pulled back from Nana's drooling mouth. "That, those are protocols that must be followed, unwritten rules are important in this sort of thing!"

"You, you, you are so perverted!" Nana decided as she kept on pushing her hips down on Negi's hand, which had faltered as Fumika rode him.

"Done it! Done it before you did it! Don't care if it's right or not! The cute nervous one is scoring first! And fuck you alien bitches! Heeheehee!" Fumika said (not laughed.)

"Gyaah!" Fuuka howled. Not only was she being humiliated by this, it was clearly distracting Negi quite a bit, since he wasn't licking at her all that often anymore. And there she was, her little sister, showing her up, her itty-bitty-titties shaking as she humped up and down, nipples so hard and and and and...

_Wow, I can't believe I'm about to do this_, she thought, and proceeded to do it anyway. Damn those two weird creepy girls, putting ideas into her mind like that. If they weren't around, this surely wouldn't have happened!

"Aaaaaaauuuhhhh?" Fumika's sigh of release turned into a confused grunt as she realized that she was being kissed rather firmly... and not by Negi. Or even any of the others, which would have even been tolerable and perhaps sorta hot and desirable. "Uhhhh?!" she grunted again as she stared somewhat cross-eyed at her sister, whose tongue was in her mouth and whose hands were on her tits.

_So much for not wanting to do that_, Negi thought, once again mourning the death of standards.

Nana and Momo looked at each other over a few long and tense moments, shrugged together, and then leaned ahead to also lick and nibble at Fumika's exposed flesh.

"Kyaaaaaa!" Fumika cried.

_We really should have brought Lala along too_, Momo regretted as she kissed all over a side of Fumika's neck. _Oh well_.

"Whuhhh?" Fumika mumbled loudly. Then she jerked her mouth back from Fuuka's mouth, and by doing so, also more or less managed to pull back from the other girls' wandering mouths. "No, wait, no-!"

"Oh, come now, dearly beloved little sister, you had to know this was going to end up this way," Fuuka cooed as her hands squeezed Fumika's breasts once more, then slid down her sides to wrap around her hips and start squeezing Fumika's buttocks, even as Momo, in turn, sensually caressed hers. It felt really nice. "It's not a real five-part unless all five parts work together, after all."

"The correct term is five-way, isn't it?" Nana wondered.

"Ooohhhh, it's our language, we'll use it how we want!" Fuuka dismissed her, and kissed her twin again, exploiting Fumika's recoil to push her off of Negi's negi and onto the floor, where she crouched over Fumika's body. "Well, go on, Negi-kun, get back to fucking my cute little sister! Fuck her hard! Fuck her hard then come in her so I can suck your seed out of her and spit it in her mouth!"

"... that's a very detailed plan you have there," Negi said a bit dazedly.

"I've been watching a lot of porn recently!" Fuuka confessed sunnily.

Momo's eyes resembled stylized stars now. "Oh! I can tell we're going to get along great!"

"You would, wouldn't you?" Nana rolled her eyes.

"Hey, the success of any great work relies on DOING THE RESEARCH!"

"Get off!" Fumika kicked around.

"I'm trying to get you off, silly!" Fuuka giggled.

"Gyaaaah!" Fumika clarified as Negi, obedient to a girl's instructions as ever, began pounding into her. It occurred to him that he should probably cast a silencing spell to keep from bothering the neighbors... but his heart just wasn't in it at the moment. Oh well. It couldn't be helped.

As luck and destiny would have it, at that very moment, he felt the familiar tingling of a Pactio telepathic call adding to the sensations of the coitus. Since his clothes had been left close enough, he reached into them with a hand as he held one of Fumika's legs high with the other, all the better to keep a good angle into her. He picked the card without hesitation, with the practice of months of telling his cards apart from each other, almost on instinct by now. It was one of the new ones. "Yes? Sorry, but I'm a bit busy right now," he grunted, pushing into Fumika as he held Anthy's card against his forehead.

_Utena-sama wants to know if you're having sex right now_, Anthy's voice told him.

He sighed. "So you've told her by now?"

_I have just done so, yes. She's... having a few difficulties coping with the concept, but I'm being mostly successful on restraining her from stomping her way there. She would really like to know if you're having scandalous, neighbor-alerting sex at this moment, however_, Anthy dutifully reported.

"Senseiiiiiii!" Momo whined, running a hand all over his chest, while her other hand held Nana's and forced it to do the same from his other side. "Pay attention to your lovely partners while you're doing this!"

Negi sighed again. "Then, since honesty is the best policy, please tell her than yes, I'm currently fucking two sets of twins."

"Language!" Nana chided angrily, pinching on one of his nipples.

Negi blinked. "Wow. So that's how it feels."

"You never had your nipples pinched ever before?" Momo incredulously asked.

"No, no, that's not it, Master Evangeline even uses pincers, I mean-" Negi began explaining, before Momo grew tired of the already lame explanation and silenced him with her wet mouth on his.

Once it became clear to her that no help was coming from Negi's direction, Fumika redirected her attention to her sister. "I hate you so much, neechan!" she cried as Fuuka rained kisses down her jawline.

"No, you don't," Fuuka cooed. "You love me. And even if it's wrong, you don't care if it's wrong or not. I know you don't... because we are the same. We have always been the same, with only tiny superficial differences between us. We don't even know if I really am the older one, no matter what mommy and daddy might have said. We are the same, and so I love you, and you love me, and you can't do anything else."

"That's so beautiful!" a deeply moved Momo sniffled, running a hand all up and down Nana's back and her ass. "Isn't it, Nana? Don't you think it's the exact same thing with us? Don't you think it's destiny itself that brought us together with them?"

"Neeergghh," Nana opined.

"Yeah. And isn't it fucking awful too?" Fuuka asked, grinding her hips into Fumika's hips, their clitorises pressed against each other and wow clitorises is an ugly word for something so pretty. "Fuck her!" Fuuka yelled over her shoulder at Negi. "Fuck her, then fuck me, fuck us both, and then fuck them too, as we all fuck each other, fuck us all, fuck us like the fucking fuck fuckers we fucking are, get on with the fuckery, fucking Negi-kun!"

"Fuck!" Nana cringed as Momo plunged two fingers at once into her cunny.

Ah, romance.

Someone knocked at the front door.

"Just a moment, please, I beg you, Tenjou-san!" Negi cried back over his shoulder, speeding his pace into Fumika, and climaxing inside of the girl moments later, just as Momo graciously stood up and walked for the door, opening in and stepping aside as a red faced Tenjou Utena, followed by a more sedate and calm Anthy, stormed in, each step slamming on the floor. "Aaahhhh ..."

The much taller pink haired girl stopped, livid, before the long-tailed pink haired girl who sat on the floor hiding her face and shame between her own hands. Not to mention the OTHER pink haired girl who was kneeling between her identical twin's spread legs as a bashful Negi pulled away from them. Said kneeling girl noisily sucked as much sperm as she could from her sister's mouth, and then went up her body to kiss her, depositing the sperm into her mouth. Only after that was done, Fuuka looked back at Utena and asked, "You don't have a twin as well, do you? Because that'd just send us into Twilight Zone territory."

"..." Utena said. And then, "Actually, no, I don't. I'm an only child."

"Oh. You don't sound too upset over having to see this?" asked Fuuka.

"Well," Utena sighed. "Anthy-chan here used to do it with her brother all the time, so I might have grown desinsitivized to the idea."

"It's terrible, when that happens, isn't it?" Negi moaned.

"Quite," Utena agreed, one of her eyebrows twitching. Anthy innocently looked aside, while starting to pull her own clothes off with the most casual air about her. Momo looked at her with vivid interest.

Utena gestured around with a hand.

"And, well, I suppose I had thought we'd stop getting ourselves involved into these things after leaving Ohtori, but I guess that's too much like a story-tale ending, isn't it? I must admit, at first I really wanted to come here and open you a new hole, Sensei, but Anthy reminded me, well, it's not like I didn't have my own ... missteps before."

Anthy, already naked save her glasses, patted her shoulders gently. "It's okay, Utena-sama. No one could ever resist the power of Onii-sama's car. It was the car. Everyone dug the car."

"Um, well, yes, it was a nice car, but even so, I should have - are you stripping me down 'til I'm nude, while I'm trying to have a conversation with these people who still haven't dressed up?"

"That's the way Ala Alba has conversations, Utena-sama," Anthy patiently explained, pulling the cups of Utena's bra off and starting to massage her breasts.

Momo blinked. "Ummm, well. Eh-heh-heh. Looks like Rito-san and me have to catch up to EVERYONE ELSE on campus, right? That's okay, I can start my real practice right now with- ahhhhh drat!" she groaned, seeing Fuuka already squatted on top of Negi, happily bouncing up and down on his cock. Then she looked at the wall opposite that which separated Negi's room from Utena's. "Who lives on that other side, anyway?"

**"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!"** Tokiha Mai's voice roared from the neighboring dorm room, making Momo wince.

Negi waved the hand that wasn't gently caressing Fuuka's hip. "Don't, really. Please. She's our Token Chaste Sane Friend."

Momo wrinkled her nose. "Ew. Disgusting."

* * *

"I can't believe you are asking me to help you." Takashiro Hiroko, the buxom, red-haired Arts teacher sat in her living room and stared, wide-eyed at the assembled Kitami, Misa, Sakurako, Madoka, Minase, Makoto, Taisuke and Yuki sitting across from her.

"Well, it's for a good cause, isn't it?" asked Kitami with an unnerving smirk. "Think of it as making amends for what you did to me twelve years ago. Do this, and I won't have to do what I originally planned to do, so I'll consider us even. Well, mostly. Let's say I'll be content to dance on your grave instead of torturing you to death."

"Excuse me," Minase-sempai said. "But what exactly what did she do twelve years ago?"

Kitami waved her hands in the air, vaguely. "Without going into all the juicy details, let's just say she set into motion events that sort of completely fucked my life forever. Have I mentioned that, before that, I was a sweet, innocent and all loving young soul?"

"... that's difficult to believe," Misa bluntly said, before asking the red haired woman, "Is it true?"

Hiroko had to sigh. "Regrettably, the part of it about my involvement is true. But she was never sweet, innocent and all-loving."

"I was so!"

Hiroko gave Reika an unimpressed look. "If you were all-loving you'd have given Nami a tumble when she started flirting with you, and none of that crap would have happened."

"That was the innocent part!"

"So take notes," Misa told her friends. "The key to never becoming an evil person is never denying anyone else a tumble."

"That'd explain why Negi-kun is the nicest person ever," Sakurako nodded.

"Hey, you've denied *me* tumbles several times over!" Taisuke protested.

"I never said I wasn't interested in being just the teeniest bitsiest smudge of evil myself, did I?" Misa asked him. "Not all of us can be angels!"

Madoka began rubbing her own temples. "Could we go back to talking about the end of the world as we know it and the plans to stop it? I swear to God that was less disturbing than this."

"... in any event," Takashiro continued after shaking her head. "I was part of the Rose Cross witchcraft club."

That was met with nothing but stumped silence from the youngsters.

"You know," Hiroko said, frowning. "That club, the one that was involved with the scandal in the Library Island underground chambers back then?"

"When we were all of us three or four years old?" Misa asked.

"We don't know the first thing about Library Island beyond 'It's big and full of books'," Madoka candidly said. "You'd have to ask Bookstore and her friends. Hey, Sakurako, you wouldn't have happened to hear about that, would you?"

Her friend hummed thoughtfully. "I remember Bookstore and Yue warning Haruna-chan and me against never going into one section of the underground passages, but they never wanted to explain too much about it."

"But it was a huge deal! One that scarred the student body for years!" Hiroko gasped. "It can't be that everyone's forgotten about it by now!"

"Well, you know how the rumor mill goes," Misa shrugged. "If it's from before two months ago, no one pays it any attention anymore!"

Hiroko facepalmed. "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

"Yeah, isn't it cool?" Kitami chuckled. "Blame the official policy of keeping secrets, especially those of a magical nature, buried as much as they can. It's a real double edged sword, isn't it? Girls, boys, Hiro-chan here wasn't always such a stickler for rules and laws. Why, she was kind of a demon! Or slept with them anyway. And I can tell she's still the same under that innocent face. That's why I brought you here in the first place."

Madoka cringed. "You must be joking."

"You don't see either of us laughing, do you?" asked Kitami, pointing alternately at herself and Hiroko.

"You just did a minute ago."

"That was chuckling, not - anyway, you've had sex with a boy infused with demonic essence, so don't start thinking you're that different. Well, Hiro-chan, what do you say? We're going there anyway, so why not to at least keep an eye on the procedures, if they worry you so much?"

The other staff member huffed her discomfort.

"That's a yes," Kitami told the youngsters.

"I have another question," Yuki meekly asked. "What would have you done if this situation hadn't presented itself, anyway?"

"Have you ever watched the Chucky movies?" asked Kitami.

"... you were going to stalk a boy named Andy?" a confused Sakurako asked.

"... you were going to patch your dead boyfriend back to life?" a confused Taisuke asked.

Hiroko sighed before saying, stoically, "I think she means she was going to transplant her soul into another body."

"Eeeehhhh?!" Madoka gasped, although everyone else also cringed to a lesser degree.

"This body may be gorgeous beyond comparison." Kitami placed a hand on her own chest. "But even so, it's doomed to an imminent collapse due to events a certain person that shall remain unnamed and her witchcraft club of bitches set in motion. So I just have to find a way to survive! Can you blame anyone over that? Wouldn't you do the same thing?" she asked, as innocently as she could. Which wasn't a lot.

Hiroko's right eyebrow twitched. "Okay, fine, I'll make it up to you, whatever."

"If it's any consolation," Kitami told the students, "I'd need to have used a virgin body, so all of you would have been safe."

"Good luck finding one of those around here," Madoka observed.

"You'd have had to aim for the Vice Prez," Misa mused. "I mean, she has obviously never gotten laid."

"Hmmm!" Kitami hummed, suddenly intrigued. It never hurt to have a back-up plan or two. Or five.

"Okay," Yuki gulped. "And so, what you're trying to do with us is gaining access to something Itou's dad has that will help you stay alive and also help Negi-sensei's plan, right?"

"What a clever young man," Reika reached over to gently pinch one of his cheeks.

"I wasn't aware the old man had something like that," Makoto mused aloud. "Are you sure about it?"

"How old do you think he really is?" Reika asked him. "The geezer probably went to school at the same time as the Headmaster, and believe me, Konoe-san is even older than he looks, as well."

"Aaaaaaand," Misa said, "how's a life-extending trinket, sweet as it sounds, going to help us with the whole Asuna thing?"

Sakurako clasped her hands together. "Oh! I know! It's so we become long lived enough as to be there for Asuna-chan when she wakes up, right?"

"... sure, why not?" Reika shrugged.

Hiroko frowned suspiciously at her.

"Oh, come on, that's just too fishy to be true, surely you don't expect us to-" Madoka began grumbling, before realizing the starry eyed gazes in the faces of Taisuke, Misa and Sakurako, and the silent interested stupor of Minase and Itou. "Oh, fuck you, guys, seriously."

"Hey, if Negi-kun has the right to do it, so do we!" Misa pointed out. "What, are we worth any less just because we're secondary characters?"

"But immortality is a curse, like in the movies!" Madoka claimed. "If it was such hot stuff, do you think Eva would be that grumpy and Negi-kun that angsty?"

Misa paused, giving that point a moment of real, serious, deep thought ... before shrugging it off. "I imagine Eva-chan hasn't devoted her whole immortal existence to the wonderful pursuit of hedonistic pleasures, and Negi-kun is still getting used to it. I'm sure he'll be a lot happier with an immortal hot wife at his side forever!"

"Oh, for the love of God, Misa!" Madoka shouted.

"... my father seems happy enough, if it matters," Makoto observed, rubbing his own chin.

* * *

"Well well," Tsukuyomi said - with difficulty, since it's hard to talk with the arch of someone's foot on your throat. "Baji and pigua united, I see. Somewhere heroes must be sighing. Alas, I am a villain, and -"

With everything she had, Konoka kept Tsukuyomi pinned to the ground. "And what?" she asked once the rest of the sentence didn't come out, since she had learned that sort of eerie pauses for no reason often forebode ill. Then again, it might just be that the psycho had grown out of breath. But, judging from her faint grin, Konoka felt inclined to doubt it. The change of Tsukuyomi's wardrobe still bothered her. There was something definitely wrong, even moreso than usual, here.

The hardest part had been keeping the mercenary's swords in their sheathes long enough for her to strike them out of her grip. If they'd come out, disarming her would have been a much harder and more dangerous affair. It had still been dangerous, since Konoka was well aware that Tsukuyomi had the same mystical connection with her weapons that Setsuna did and so could call them to her hands if they were out of them, and was not even a little bit aware of how far that connection could stretch. But she'd managed to get them far enough away that her mother had been able to snatch them up and take them further, definitely putting them out of Tsukuyomi's 'reach'.

She'd had to rely on her mother to do that. She'd taken advantage of the fact that her mother was in danger. It seemed likely that was contributing to the faint red haze that enshrouded her vision at the moment.

"So are you beat?" Konoka asked, pressing on for a confirmation she needed so much.

Tsukuyomi's grin grew wider. "- even when heroes cheat, villains cheat harder," she dryly cackled, as an inhuman burst of strength took over her, and she pushed Konoka off herself, sending her flying a few feet back and into her mother.

Tsukuyomi got back to her feet, cackling throatily as the skimpy clothes she wore seemed to produce matching white blades from themselves, which came to rest on the madwoman's small hands.

"It would seem I'm not beaten yet, after all," Tsukuyomi replied with obvious delight. "Even so, clearly, I need to work on the unarmed aspects of my style, for next time. Or maybe not! After all, I don't plan to get rid of this Gokou uniform anytime soon!"

The red haze got denser. "Where... where did you get that?" Konoka hissed, supporting herself on her mother and wiping her mouth with the back of a hand. She had been struck there, and now was bleeding rather fiercely.

"Like it, Princess?" she taunted, giving another step towards them. "This is the glorious future. This is what COVERS will bring to this world. Not that either of you will be able to tell Negi-kun about it before it happens! It makes sense, in a way, the poor sap will be the one to allow-"

"You are nobody to decide our future on our behalf, stray dog!" a strong female voice commanded from above. Konoka and Kouko looked up to see a tall, black haired young woman with thick eyebrows, wearing a tiny outfit very similar to Tsukuyomi's, but with higher stiletto boots and impossibly tall and sharp shoulder blades. In her right hand, a gigantic sword. "In the name of the Kiryuin family, I demand that you return our property!"

"Ooooohhh! You must be the Onee-sama," Tsukuyomi cooed, slowly turning around to face the statuesque beauty as she landed on her feet before them. "I've been told about you. Repeatedly. Over and over. Nonetheless, it's a pleasure to meet you, dear Onee-sama," she said, with a smile and a curtsie.

"I know you..." Konoka breathed out, recognizing the face from a certain party her parents had once taken her to. "Kiryuin Satsuki, Council President of Honnouji...!"

"You just stand back and watch, your turn will come next," Tsukuyomi whimsically said, happily skipping towards the taller uniform-wearing combatant.

"I'm not to run away, no," Konoka promised, steeling herself into place.

"Konoka!" Kouko said, taking a firm hold of her from behind.

"You go, Mom," her daughter said, sounding strangely distant as both fighters ran towards each other, weapons at the ready. "But I can't. Not anymore. There are things I have to see through. And mostly -" she finished as the swords clashed for the first time, resulting in a boom that echoed all around, "- I need to finish this."

Kouko scowled bitterly, but said nothing, and made no move, and neither did Konoka. They just stood silent witness at the cataclysmic battle unfolding before them and proceeding to wreck their surroundings, firm in the eye of the storm, never stopping looking at the repeated, brutal clashes of the two women clad in death.

Until it was all over, actually faster than Konoka had expected it. That Kiryuin girl was good. She had stabs and cuts and slashes all over her body, and she breathed harder and ragged after a combat that was as bloody as brief, but she still stood firm. Which was more than what Tsukuyomi could say now.

Calmly, Konoka walked back to her fallen foe and placed her foot back on her throat. "Now, where were we before you interrupted me?" she mused aloud.

Tsukuyomi chuckled raspily, sounding even more spent and out of herself now. "Well, there's always someone stronger, right? It's not like you're going to kill me. The pretty princess is never going to do that. You think life has value. That makes you so very very weughh." Her eyes bulged out as speech became not difficult, but impossible... along with breath.

"Do it," Kiryuin said, rubbing herself on an arm to push it back in shape.

Crouched over her enemy, eyes livid as she held a hand over Tsukuyomi's mouth and nose, Konoka stared down at the woman she was going to kill. It was important to do this. She would not turn away from what she was doing. When the light in the eyes of the other girl - so young, really, for all her bravado and skill - went out forever, Konoka would see it, and acknowledge that this was the deed of her hands and -

"Konoka!"

The fact that the voice wasn't calling out 'oujosama' rendered it somewhat unrecognizable to her, and so she didn't react at once.

"Konoka, stop!"

Even when she did recognize it, she didn't look up. Didn't look in that direction. Didn't want to see the shame and horror that would surely be on that so-loved face. She'd have to eventually. But not now. Not while she was doing this.

And then strong, gentle arms wrapped around her midsection. "Kono-chan."

Not quite against her will, her hands on Tsukuyomi's face and her foot on the girl's throat eased back, and she heard, as from a distance, coughing and choking.

Kiryuin sneered with cold disgust. "Will I have to do it myself, then? Fine with me," she shrugged, readying her blade once again.

"Ooooohhhh, but not on the first date," Tsukuyomi moaned through bloody coughs. "It's all your Mom's fault really, she gave me a faulty one, of course the Princess would get the best one, Princesses always get everything..."

"No. She's mine! I have to do it myself! Because otherwise, she'll come back," Konoka heard herself say. "She'll come back, and she'll try to hurt us, and she'll try to hurt our friends, the people we love, my mother, and she only has to win once -"

"- and we have to win each and every single time, you are not saying anything I have not said to myself before. But we are Ala Alba. We thrive on those kinds of challenges, Kono-chan. Every time they try to hurt us, we become stronger, wiser... heaven help us, we become kinder. I would never be able to love you as I do without her to make me realize just how much our bond means. So we're going to put her in a cell, for a while, and when she gets out and comes after us again, we will beat her again... and the sad part is, that is the only kind of bond this sick, sad girl can ever have with anyone," Setsuna spoke.

Breathing heavily, Konoka closed her eyes... and completely by her will, pulled her hand away from Tsukuyomi's face.

"If you start making out on top of me, I'm going to puke," Tsukuyomi rasped.

"You'd need a head on your shoulders for that!" Kiryuin growled, moving closer and bringing her sword down...

... only to be blocked by Yuunagi. "No," the Shinmeiryuu coldly said as she held Konoka close. "I don't know what's your problem with her, and I'm grateful for your assistance, but we aren't sparing her only so her blood is on your hands instead. That's a hypocrite's way, and frankly, I'm growing tired of being one."

Kiryuin stared fire at her. "Confound you! She's right on you after all, you're weak! And those who are weak are as unfit to chart the future as she is!"

The sound of another voice stopped her cold before she could lash ahead once again. A voice that sent tingling chills up her exposed spine. A sugary, sweet, charming and pleasant voice.

"My, my, my, Tsuki-chan!" the voice said. "What a disappointment, my girlfriend just turned out to be another weakling! Looks like your girlfriend will have to bail you out and then spank you over your failure."

"Girlfriend?" Setsuna made a face of marked disgust as she and the Konoes looked up to where Kiryuin had been only minutes ago. Now, a much smaller and skinnier girl in a pretty short skirted dress stood there, coquettishly holding an open parasol over her head.

Satsuki's blood froze in her veins.

"Hello, everyone!" the petite blonde cheerfully greeted. "I'm Harime Nui, Tsuki's new girlfriend! And now," she added, just as peppy, leaping down as she swung the parasol around, "you're all dead! Dead dead dead deadie oh so dead!"

* * *

There was it again, that feeling of deja vu, as Negi realized while he pumped into Fuuka.

"Ah, no, no, this is dirty, so dirty, so bad!" Fumika cried as she ground her vulva against Fuuka's face while Negi took her twin from behind, pumping firmly against her buttocks. "Why, Negi-kun, why! Why did you let her do this to me, why are you letting them do that, why oh why!" she added, pointing a shaky hand towards where Momo was dominating Nana, forcing her into a position where Momo held her down while rubbing their vulvas together. A few steps away, Utena sat on the floor, naked and with Anthy kneeling between her legs, lovingly licking on her cunt.

"Hmmmm!" Fuuka made a sound of vague protest, her lips and tongue being restricted from talking.

"No, I'm not shutting up just because you say so!" Fumika replied, grabbing Fuuka's pigtails and using them as handlebars to control the motions, back and forth, of her sister's head.

"NNNNNN!" Fuuka cried.

"Now come inside, Negi-kun!" Fumika vindictively said, rattling Fuuka's upper half against herself, rather roughly. "If it happened to me, so it happens to her! I'm not going that way alone, I'm not the only one getting scolded, come come come give her a baby too!"

From the look of deep focus on his face, Negi wasn't really paying attention to this byplay. But perhaps he actually was more attentive to Fumika's somewhat maniacally expressed wishes than he appeared to be, because a moment later, he gasped and let loose with an ejaculation right up Fuuka's vulva.

"Aaaahhhh," he said, pulling out and falling on his butt on the floor while Fumika, always one for turnaround as fair play, quickly swooped down between Fuuka's legs, gathered as much of the leaking semen into her mouth, and then unloaded it into Fuuka's mouth with a deep kiss.

"We just gotta get ourselves some of that," Momo observed as she slowed down her thrusts against Nana's crotch. "Aaaaand on that topic ..." she added, pulling back from Nana's naked flesh, making her twin blink.

"What are you doing?!" the other princess shrieked. "I hadn't finished yet!"

"Neither had I, but that's about to change," Momo answered, walking up to Negi and pushing him on his back against the floor, positioning herself above his tool.

"But *I* hadn't finished!" Nana repeated, urgently.

"Then wait for your turn," Momo huffed, placing her hands on Negi's chest as she slowly lowered herself on and into his erection. "Ngh," she added while being penetrated. It didn't hurt, really, perhaps due to how much she had played with herself in the past, especially since her arrival to Earth. Seriously, working on the Rito Project left one with so many unsatisfied urges! Having the boy of your dreams repeatedly bump into you in diverse states of undress and yet never getting anything out of it ... it vexed!

Well, this wasn't the boy of her dreams, but he'd make a nice learning step in her quest to become the perfect lover. He grabbed her hips tenderly as he pumped up into her, and then caressed her skin sensuously, so he obviously knew what he was doing, as he should after all those girls. Yes, she would learn a lot from this. As expected from lessons from a prodigy teacher ...

"Oh, I get it!" Nana whined. "You're manipulating me, so I'm too bothered and hot by the time you're done, and so I'm out of it enough to feel forced to have dirty, filthy sex with a man!" she deduced, slamming a bare foot down, tiny breasts jiggling. "Well, joke's on you, it won't work! I'd prefer to resort to these girls' help for it!" She snapped her fingers. "Earthling twins, to me! It's a royal command!"

The Narutakis had gone to lazily rest on the couch, Fumika on top of Fuuka.

"Forget it, that left us doggone tired," Fuuka groaned.

"Yeah, we aren't your sexual slaves anyway. Go ask one of those big-wang slaves you have," Fumika pouted, as Fuuka cuddled against her.

"They aren't slaves, they are well paid - ooohhh, forget it! You, Dark Skinned Girl! Tomboy!" she clapped for Utena and Anthy. "Give me some help here, will you?"

Being the Revolutionary type who had grown tired of the games of princes and princesses by then, Utena and Anthy ignored her in favor of keeping their heated sixty nine exchange.

After several moments of waiting in mute disbelief, Nana screeched, shaking her fists around. "Fine then! I'll do it myself!" she proclaimed, beginning to finger herself furiously.

"Ahhhhh ohhhh Sensei, it's so great, yes, much much better than masturbation ever could beeee!" Momo laughed, arching her back as she rode Negi's hips. Negi, always the inventive mind, had put two and two together and grabbed Momo's tail again, using the pointy tip of its spade-shaped end to tickle and rub Momo's clitoris while he kept penetrating, for thrice the sexual pleasure. Momo's tongue hung out, and her breath came out in ragged pants. "Oooohhhhh, I feel so, so good, yet so, so bad for anyone who never experiences thiiiiiiiis!"

Nana clenched her teeth in frustration, not diminished at all when Momo exhaled a deep, rough sigh and rolled off Negi's prone body, stopping briefly to suckle the last traces of seed from his penis. Then she used her fingers to scoop up the leftovers in her own vulva, and sticking the fingers into her own mouth, added the sperm to that she already held there.

And then, as expected, she walked back to Nana, kissed her, and spat her mouth's contents for her twin to swallow.

And Nana did swallow.

"Copycats," Fuuka groaned as she absently fingered Fumika's cunt.

"Yeah," Fumika agreed, shuddering against her.

"Quiet, you two are, um, a few years too young to claim to have anything on me," Momo said, really not wanting to go into a tangent explaining Deviluke years as compared to Earth years. She spun around behind her sister and asked her. "Still no climax, huh?"

A crimson faced Nana had to shake her head.

"Geez," Momo said, playing with Nana's tail just a bit. "You're sure a tough one to crack. Okay, Sensei, all yours!"

"Okay," Negi sighed, moving in between Nana's legs.

Nana placed a hand on his chest. "Wait."

"Fine, so we won't do it." Negi tossed his hands up.

"Like hell you're leaving me hanging after taking me this far!" Nana shrieked indignantly. "I... I was just going to ask you to take responsibility, okay?"

"Okay," Negi sighed again, just as blandly as before, before grabbing Nana's hips and slowly jamming himself into her tightness.

"Oioioioioioioi!" Nana cried, resting back against her sister, who delicately kissed her on the cheek.

"Yeah. Isn't it just great?" Momo asked mischievously, reaching down to use Nana's tail on her sister's clit much like Negi had taught her. Nana's ensuing cry was such a great reward.

Elsewhere, Rito, Mikan, Lala and Cousin Nao looked at the two empty chairs at their table.

"Shouldn't we ... I don't know, be calling them or something by now?" a concerned Mikan asked.

"Momo told me she'd probably come back late!" Lala said, taking a big, happy mouthful. "I don't think there's anything to worry about!"

"Eh, if there were, they'd have called, right?" Nao indolently asked.

"Didn't she tell you where would they be, at least?" Rito asked Lala.

Lala took a finger to her mouth and thought about it. "I think Momo mentioned something about doing some research on English. Dunno why, though."

* * *

She was good. Very good.

But she also was bad. Very, **very** bad.

After pulling out one of the most absurd-looking weapons Konoka had ever seen, which looked like half of a giant pair of scissors, the blonde with the cute eyepatch had started swinging it around easily, singing to herself in a loud, whimsical fashion as she did so. And completely kicking the asses of Setchan and that Kiryuin girl at once, and even Konoka's when she tried joining in.

She made it look so easy, as well. She moved around with uncanny grace and skill, combining brutal power with a deceptive speed. Even though at times her skips and hops were goofy and silly in appearance, just as soon, she would unleash a cruel rampage of strikes whenever an adversary got too close, and Konoka suspected the sole reason why she hadn't outright skewered Setchan a few times she got too close was because she actually was toying with them.

She seemed to be everything Tsukuyomi was, and then some. A truly terrifying idea. Something Konoka had never thought possible before.

Life always finds ways to surprise you.

Sometimes, Kiryuin and Setchan, and even Konoka twice, would find ways to land strikes on her, but their wounds would close as soon as their weapons and spells left Harime's flesh, in a way that reminded Konoka greatly of Negi's capacities of late. And the crazy girl would only giggle at it. Tsukuyomi, when hit, at least would flinch before going on creepily about the beauty of pain. This girl didn't even react to injury with anything but sheer delight, and her body reacted accordingly, so she looked no worse at all than when she had started.

Kiryuin, after her previous combat, was in little shape to pose that much of a fight, and the battle went so quickly Konoka had no time to heal her or Setsuna. By now, the three of them had been forced back, Konoka supported by her mother from behind, all seriously cut and bleeding all over.

The only good side seemed to be Tsukuyomi still was unable to help, but her assistance was clearly not needed.

Giving tiny playful hops towards them, the Harime girl smiled as wide and childishly as Makie would, swinging the weapon around in such a way she gave the impression she was going to behead herself at any moment. "Well, that was fun! But not too much of a challenge! You've clearly seen better days, Satsuki-nee, and as for you two, why were you Tsuki's archenemies, again? You know what, never mind, I don't really care to know. Who's first? The loyal loving bodyguard, right?"

"She's mine, don't kill her, I have to-" Tsukuyomi asked from the floor, reaching for Nui's leg, before her dainty foot kicked her in the face to keep her down.

"Quiet, please, Tsuki. Don't further embarrass yourself. Ah!" Nui said as Setsuna charged ahead, towards her, again, with a last burst, ignoring Konoka's desperate cry. Spinning around, Harime kicked Setsuna in the throat, grabbed her by the head, and slammed her against the ground, face first, breaking her nose. Then she pointed the edge of the scissor weapon down towards her. "Aaaaand now, for my next triiiiick -!"

Then a shot pierced Harime's hand all the way through, and while the wound, again, closed itself almost instantly, the force of the beam blew the weapon out of her fingers, sending it flying far from her.

Konoka gasped, looking in the direction the shot had come from. Kouko looked that way as well, smiling weakly as she held her Pactio card up. "While you were risking your life and ignoring my advice to just keep back," she told her daughter, "I took the liberty of calling a few friends. Negi is too busy right now, of course, but if this fails, I'm calling him next."

"I hope it's enough," Konoka pondered, helping Setsuna back as they saw Chachamaru landing on her feet, blaster rifle ready, before them. Shortly behind them stood Haruna, Ranma, Nodoka, Yue, Kaede, Ku Fei, Natsuki, Makie, Yuna, Ako, Nagato, Haruhi, Ayaka, Minako, Yozora, Rika and Twilight Sparkle, all of them with their weapons and Artifacts ready to go.

"We heard there's some asses that needed a kicking around here," Haruhi smirked. "Well, where they are? Any ass will suffice, actually. Oh, it's that skinny ass there? Not bad looking, but I expected more."

"Don't get cocky, newbie," chided a tiny holo-screen with Chisame's face in it, floating around her. "You're here only as backup, remember."

Konoka blinked. "Chisame? Since when you can do that?"

"Do you think you're the only one who's been training lately?" Chisame's representation muttered with bitterness. "Eyes on the bitch, everyone. I'm trying to look for info about her, but so far, drawing blanks."

"Oh my oh my oh my," Nui hummed, tilting her head aside with interest. "Strength in numbers! The only kind of strength weaklings can aim for, but still strength. Well!" she made a mockery of a sigh, raising her arms, "It looks like I'm beaten, then! I surrender!"

Kiryuin blinked, going actually pale. "You ... _**you surrender**_?!"

"You surrender?!" Tsukuyomi echoed, just as bewildered.

"Quiet, Tsuki-chan. Quiet! Ahem. I give up, I wave the white flag, I toss in the towel, I call it quits, I submit myself," Harime recited, rolling her sole blue eye. "I hope you haven't gotten too many hits to the head. Wasn't that clear enough?"

"Awwww," Haruhi moaned. "What was the point of bringing me here, then? I missed all the good stuff, didn't I?"

"Shut up," Natsuki limped past her.

Haruhi blinked, pointed at Natsuki, and asked Yuna, "Hey, and who's her? I don't remember seeing her in the fuck-buddy list."

"Biker girl in love with the Council Prez, remember?" Yuna asked back.

"Ooooohhhh, yes, I do now!"

Natsuki stopped close to Konoka and Setsuna as Haruna drew a set of reinforced handcuffs for Harime and Kaede and Chachamaru placed them on the smiling psychotic blonde, while Kiryuin looked on in quiet suspicion. "We found Homura, but we only walked out with more questions than we had before. We couldn't even scratch her."

"You weren't there to scratch her, you were there to reason with her," Konoka said.

"Well, that didn't go too smoothly either," Natsuki grumbled. "Unless she's packing massive illusion powers, and I doubt even Sanada was that good, my best guess is she's some sort of reality warper. She also knows about pretty much everything, but refuses to reveal it all. If I had to theorize, I'd say she's testing us."

"Great. Good thing we had a good teacher then," Konoka said, starting to heal Natsuki after finishing with Setsuna's bruises and wounds. "Why is Iinchou here?"

"Her Artifact brought us here," Natsuki explained, looking aside as the last flower petals from the activation of Ayaka's Artifact floated down around her. "I think a better question would be, what's **she** doing here?" she demanded, pointing at the icily scowling Kiryuin.

Satsuki huffed, clicking her heels together and slamming her blade's tip on the ground. Despite her battered state, when she spoke, her voice was as strong as defiant. "Where is Negi Springfield?" she demanded.

Setsuna blinked. "Eh?"

Haruhi sighed, making a mocking imitation of Kyon's 'fingers on the forehead' frustration gesture. "Of course she'd be here for Negi, wouldn't she? That just makes sense, yessir. So tune in next time for the next thrilling chapter of this story!"

"Why are you saying that?" Makie asked her.

"I dunno, it's just something that came to my mind all of a sudden," Haruhi confessed.

* * *

Fuuka and Fumika were lying on the floor, gasping in near exhaustion, while a few steps from them, Momo kept holding a leg of Nana up as she, again, would keep grounding and mashing their genitals together, despite Nana's constant stream of gasps and grunts of protest and complaint. Utena and Anthy sat together on the couch, still naked and sweaty, the dark skinned girl resting in the arms of the pink haired one, her head nestled above Utena's breasts.

"This has to be the wildest thing I've ever done," Utena muttered, with her eyes on the ceiling. Before Anthy could point something out, Utena added, "Yes, that includes the body-swapping, the naked car race, saving Cow Nanami from that butcher, and dueling that Black Rose fencing kangaroo."

"You've led an interesting life," Fumika told her.

Utena tossed her hands up. "If it makes it any more normal, the kangaroo used to be a simple boxing kangaroo who developed an irrational hatred for a classmate, until our local sinister seminary got a hold of him. I wonder what's become of him by now?"

* * *

Elsewhere, Boo-sensei looked over the poker table at Kangaroo-san, his old friend and occasional visitor, who had just sneezed all over his cards.

"Bwwakk-buckawwk-kaw-kawww," Boo-sensei said, which translates as 'Gesunheit!'

Kangaroo-san nodded his understated thanks, very politely.

* * *

"... I don't think there's any part of that sentence that makes anything more normal," Fuuka observed. Then she looked over at Momo and Nana, who kept on going at it like there was no tomorrow. "Geez! Not having enough yet? What on Earth are you made of?!"

"We aren't made of anything on Earth, silly," Momo replied before leaning ahead to bite on one of Nana's engorged nipples, which made her scream.

Negi, in nothing but his pants, sat at the table nearby and tried to focus his thoughts on a plan to save Asuna. The distraction from that goal that the girls had presented had been considerable. After finishing with Nana-san, he thought he'd been done with them for the time being, until Anthy coughed primly into one of her fists, using her other hand to point at Utena's vagina.

Negi blinked, staring mutely for the next moments at the exposed pink entrance. Then, after a long hesitation of her own, Utena nodded her authorization after Anthy placed several wet kisses all over her neck.

So Negi scooped Utena's long, strong legs up, hooked them over his shoulders, and entered her. It had been a good, to use the blunt term, fucking, he had to admit it. Perhaps one of his best, and he had to wonder how it would have felt under better circumstances. Except because he couldn't waste his time on mulling over how warm and tight her insides had been, or how delicate and yet firm her building screams of release had been, or how, again, he hadn't bothered to pull out during his own release, which was becoming a worrying unconscious tendency of his own. At least Tenjou-san hadn't been too angry about it, and forgave him over it with relative ease, after a few well placed kisses and hushed words from Himemiya-san.

And then, of course, he had to make love to Himemiya-san as well. Poor guy.

It looked like Himemiya-san had quite the power of persuasion. If it worked just as well out of sex, Negi would have to add her to his negotiation team.

"Admit it," Fuuka said now, between sighs. "You loved that."

"I only did it because you wanted to," Fumika said without looking at her.

"Tsundere," Fuuka cooed. Momo took that very same moment to giggle and pat on Nana's ass.

"Oh, shut up!" Fumika and Nana said at once.

"Hey, Negi-kun," Fuuka said, apparently deciding to give her sister some space. She lifted her head to look at him. "How you doing with the plan?"

"I'm still considering ideas," he answered honestly.

"Well, if you want to bounce them off of us ..." Fuuka said, trying to sound ingratiating.

"Oh, leave him alone, neechan," Fumika said crossly. "All we can do is help him anyway we can when he comes up with something. We're not nearly clever enough to help him do so. And he doesn't have time to waste fooling around with that! It really sucks, Negi-kun! If only you had more time!"

"Lala is very, very clever," Momo mused while pulling on Nana's tail again. "Well, in her own way. I'm sure, if we ask her nicely-"

And Negi sat up straight.

"Hey, maybe you are not clever enough, but I'm the one who tricked him into thinking there's a stroll through Death Valley, so I think maybe I could pull it -" Fuuka started to tell her twin, oblivious to Momo's tangent.

"Say that again?" Negi demanded.

"... okay, there's not really a stroll through Death Valley, and all we do in strolling club is come up with crazy ideas like that, but -" Fuuka replied.

"No, no!" he said sharply. "Fumika? What did you just say?"

"... if only you had more time?" Fumika said, confused by his intensity.

"That's it! I need more time!" Negi shouted, grinning broadly.

Silence fell.

"... I think maybe we broke him, neechan," Fumika said hesitantly.

"Wow! We're awesome!" Fuuka exclaimed, grinning broadly.

"Really?" Momo looked over her shoulder. "Aren't you going to tell her 'Fumika, you're a genius!' like they always do in these moments in TV?"

Nana groaned and pulled her closer. "You aren't done here yet, don't start damn things if you aren't going to finish them!"

Utena looked with mild interest as Negi as he stood up from his chair and pulled something out of a pocket.

"But first," he said, holding a piece of chalk up, "Fumika-chan, Fuuka-chan, Nana-san, Momo-san, Tenjou-san, there's something I'd like to ask of you."

"What's that thing for, Sensei?" Utena asked.

* * *

**To Be Continued**.


	14. Uncle Grandpa, Pizza Steve, Mr Gus

Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha created and own _Mahou Sensei Negima!_

Peter Browngardt and Cartoon Network created and own _Uncle Grandpa_.

I'm not making money from this, plz don't sue.

Thanks to Darkenning for writing most of the first half of this.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Thirteen and a Half**.

* * *

"That's it! I need more time!" Negi's voice declared.

Makie and Asuna exchanged a look as they stood together in the doorway. Makie shrugged, and they started walking together down the hallway to the living room.

"... I think maybe we broke him, neechan," Fumika's voice commented.

"Wow!" said Fuuka, just as they turned the corner and saw the three of them, plus two other pink haired small girls and two of the next door neighbors, wearing little more than the faintly manic (in the case of Fuuka, Momo and, disturbingly, Negi) and mildly perturbed expressions (in the case of Fumika, Utena and Nana) on their faces. "We're awesome!"

"That's a good attitude to take, generally speaking, but I'm not sure if this specific instance is really something to be proud of," Asuna declared. "Somebody's been a busy little woodchuck, I see."

"Asuna!" Fuuka and Fumika chorused, then ran at her.

"That's my name, don't whurf?" she said as they hugged her tightly.

"You've got to tell me how to get greeted like that," Makie mused, plainly checking out the twins' well-formed bottoms.

"This, this isn't what it looks like!" Utena gasped, quickly covering her crotch with a cushion before lowering it just as soon. "Ah, sorry. For a moment, I forgot how this social circle is supposed to work..."

"Welcome home, Kagurazaka-san and, ah, friend," Anthy bowed.

"Asuna!" Negi gasped. "I've got good news!"

"Okay," she said, reasonably. "What's the good news? And why didn't you comment about my using woodchuck just now instead of beaver, because I had this whole routine about how beaver means something else planned out in my head, and I'm a little annoyed that I'm not gonna get to use it, now, so -"

"I know how I'm going to save you!" he told her.

Asuna's face went still. "Ah," she said quietly. "You told these two about... okay, that, that explains it. And the others too, I assume?"

"Explains what?" Makie asked, eyebrows now quite high on her forehead.

"Look, Fuuka, Fumika, I know that you're probably sad about it, and that's okay," Asuna said. "But it's something that we can't really help, and before then, we're gonna have a lot of fun in the months before it happens, so -"

"Days!" the Narutakis chorused in sorrow.

"- it's not sooooooooooooooo ..." Asuna eventually trailed off into stunned silence.

"Yes, that's the other thing," Negi said once she did so. "The World Tree is dying, you see, so in order to save it and the magical world, we're going to have to put you in suspended animation in... well, probably about five days, or so. But it's okay, I have a plan."

"Nothing like not wearing any pants while announcing you have a plan to make it sound reassuring," Nana muttered.

"What?!" Makie shrieked.

"Uh," Asuna replied cleverly.

"It's a good plan!" he assured her.

"I ... I think I need to sit down," Asuna said, sounding just a bit faint.

"Oh my gosh," Makie said, watching her friend stumble over to the couch without ever once dislodging Fuuka or Fumika from their embrace of her person. "Oh my gosh! That's why... that's why this has all happened, isn't it?"

"Yes, Makie, that's why -" Negi began to confirm.

Makie leaped across the room as Asuna was settling down, and grabbed her hand in both of her own. "That's why you've been going around screwing everything in sight! Well, don't worry, Asuna, I'll help you to fill these days with as much hedonism as possible! We'll have sex with everything that moves! And things that don't move, but might be movable! I - I'll even let you bang my little brother before I do!"

Negi's mouth hung open with not even the slightest noise coming out.

"Your little brother?" Asuna asked weakly.

"Well, I'm having sex with Negi-kun in an aged up form, and Yuna's having sex with her papa, so if I have sex with Kagehi-kun in an aged up form, it's almost the same thing, right?" Makie asked. "And you two are having sex with each other, aren't you?" she added, glancing at Fuuka and Fumika.

"Yep," Fuuka asserted proudly.

"Gek," Fumika asserted incoherently.

"And you?" Makie now pointed alternatively at Momo and Nana.

"Going at it like Tamaraneans!" Momo confirmed.

"Grrruhhhh," Nana confirmed as best as she could.

Negi's mouth hung open with not even the slightest noise coming out.

"You think that's bad, wait until she tells you what she said about Chamo," Asuna said with the slightest ghost of amusement in her voice. "Okay, but what's that plan about, because, if you couldn't have it ready in all the time before this, I don't see how-"

Then a large and old, mostly white, recreational vehicle crashed in through a wall.

"DIVINE PUNISHMENT!" Nana cried, ducking behind Momo.

"What the-" Asuna blinked, before one of the RV's doors was kicked open from the inside, and out rolled a ball that unfolded and popped into the shape of a short, mustachoed older man with a funny face and round belly.

"Good mornin'!" the man peppily greeted.

"Uncle Grandpa!" Makie, Negi, Asuna, Nana, Momo, Fuuka, Fumika, Utena and Anthy said.

"Hello, kids! How you doin'?" Uncle Grandpa said. "I got a call saying you were having problems with the World Tree!"

"Wow, Uncle G, the Headmaster called you to help with that?" asked Makie.

"Mmmm, nope. The World Tree did," Uncle Grandpa replied.

"Hey, hey, hey, what's up, people!" said a sunglasses-sporting slice of pizza with tiny arms and legs, walking out of the RV as well. "Don't fear anymore, Pizza Steve is here! Whoa, I see it's Day of Dressing Up as Pizza Steve! You're still missing the shades, though."

As Pizza Steve placed shades on the girls, Negi explained the situation to Uncle Grandpa.

"Hmmmm, I see," UG slowly pondered, rubbing his bulbous chin and narrowing his eyes. "This calls for drastic measures! Clearly, we're going to have to dress up as ducks, coat ourselves into peanut butter, challenge the spirits of magic to a duel with pillows at noon, and then retrieve the Ring of Eastern Babylon, Ohio!"

"But I already thought of a solution, I only need more time..." Negi began.

"Time? Negi, we are in a short April's Fools chapter! We don't have the time to give ourselves more time!" his Uncle Grandpa told him. "Sorry, but I can't let you do that!"

"April's Fools? But, Uncle Grandpa," the big, bipedal, green scaled reptile who had just slowly walked out of the vehicle said, stopping by next to the short man and the boy while the later was given his shades by Pizza Steve, "we're a day late for that. Look!" He pointed at the calendar in a wall, that marked the date as April 2nd, 2015.

Uncle Grandpa chuckled. "No, Mr. Gus, see, that's exactly what makes it such a sneaky plan...!"

"Technically, we're actually twelve years late, since Negima takes place in 2003," Pizza Steve pointed out.

"I don't think we have the time to dress up as ducks, coat ourselves into peanut butter, challenge the spirits of magic to a duel with pillows at noon, and then retrieve the Ring of Eastern Babylon, Ohio, either," Asuna further stated as she adjusted her cool shades.

"Drat!" Uncle Grandpa slammed a fist on the palm of his other hand so hard he ripped a non-bleeding hole through it. "You're right, Asuna! What can we do, then?"

"Heyyyy, don't sweat it!" Pizza Steve said. "Leave everything to me! After all, I'm like a modern-day Thomas Einstein except a brazillion times better!"

"Oh, yes? And what's your brilliant solution to this problem, then?" asked Mr. Gus.

"Brilliant is the name of the game, pal!" Pizza Steve grinned. "All we need is switching the really old, tsundere, cranky and insanely strong brute with a big butt who's going to be sacrificed with another being who fulfills the very same traits! The system will never even notice the difference!"

Asuna hummed. "Well, that sounds actually rather- Hey, are you calling me a fatass?!"

"Well, you've been growing sort of thicker in the hips lately, Asuna," Fuuka confessed.

_"I like big butts and I cannot lie. You other brothers can't deny that when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face, you get sprung..."_ Momo sang.

"I don't like the way this is taking. At all," Mr. Gus commented, very dryly, as Uncle Grandpa finished applying makeup on him and Pizza Steve placed a red wig with tiny bells on his head.

"Just think of it as one of those hibernation beauty sleeps you reptiles take all the time, Mr. G!" Pizza Steve told him. "And boy, you need all the beauty rest you can get..."

"Words to live for!" Uncle Grandpa's Belly Bag confirmed.

"No, really, we shouldn't even be here, doing any of this," Mr. Gus complained. "I doubt Darkenning, or anyone else who is reading this for that matter, knows who are we supposed to be..."

"Savaris surely knows," Uncle Grandpa respectfully said, as a tiny bird randomly flew out of his tiny hat. "Savaris knows everything!"

"He gets every reference!" Belly Bag dreamily sighed.

"He has a kickass Zenpachi avatar!" Momo cooed.

"He has an Awesome Mc Cool Name!" Fuuka joined in.

The four of them then melted together.

"And anyway, Darkenning's intentions were doing an April's Fools chapter of his own. I quote," and Pizza Steve began talking in a Canadian accent, _"I considered doing a 'I'm quitting Conquests' gag for April Fool's Day. Asuna and Makie were going to show up, Negi was going to announce that he had a clever idea, and then we were going to fade out to the strains of 'Self-Preservation Society'._

_"Then I realized that no one on Earth would get that. Which made me sad."_

"Wow," Mr. Gus said. "That sounds so much better than this."

"Doesn't it?" Pizza Steve nodded. "But we still have to carry on with his dream, our way!"

Momo sang again. _"And now, the end is near; and so we face the final curtain. My friend, I'll say it clear, I'll state my case, of which I'm certain. We've lived a life that's full. We've traveled each and every highway; and more, much more than this, we did it our way..."_

"Thank you, Frankie-chan!" Uncle Grandpa nodded, dusting his hands off. "Well, now that's taken care of, we can end the chapter, and the series, on a cheerful up note...!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO FORCE ME TO SLEEP FOR ONE HUNDRED YEARS!" Mr. Gus roared.

"Wait!" Makie said. "Uncle Grandpa, we can't end any chapter of this series, other than the first one, without a sex scene!"

Pizza Steve gasped hard. "So you were having sex! You weren't doing incredibly faithful Pizza Steve cosplay!"

Uncle Grandpa placed his paternal hands on Makie's bare shoulders. "Maki-chan. I appreciate your offer. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, well, maybe not so really, do. But it can't be. We are family."

"But that's okay!" Makie answered. "To copypaste myself, Yuna's having sex with her papa, and the twins with each other, and Haruna with her brother!"

"Even so," Uncle Grandpa shook his head sadly, "you and me having sex, even in a non canonical chapter, will only traumatize the legions of readers waiting with bated breath for every chapter of this epic, even if most of them NEVER LEAVE ANY REVIEWS AS THEY SHOULD NOT THAT I'M TRYING TO IMPLY SOMEONE SHOULD DO SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR!" he added before rasping, "Sorry. I think I got an Author Tract stuck in my throat."

"Uh," Makie blinked.

"We can bypass that problem if we have offscreen sex," Anthy pointed out as Momo began humming seventies porn music.

Uncle Grandpa blinked, then took his hands to his pants and began lowering them...

"OH GOD! JUST PUT ME IN THAT CENTURY-LONG SLEEP IMMEDIATELY!" Mr. Gus begged.

* * *

_One hundred and I'd have to check the end of Negima-which I'm not doing-more years later:_

Mr. Gus, still in full Asuna regalia, knelt under the World Tree, tearfully looking down at the contents of the time capsule.

There were dozens and dozens of photos of the whole Negima cast having sex with the whole casts of Uncle Grandpa, Bible Black, Zetsubou Sensei, Mai HiME, Utena, Haganai, My Little Pony, Fate Stay Night, Suzumiya Haruhi, SWAT Kats, Steven Universe, Ed Edd and Eddy, Boy's Empire, Oh my Goddess!, Ranma, Dirty Pair, Game of Thrones, Slayers, A Christmas Carol, Lyrical Nanoha, To Love Ru, Shrek, Dragon Ball, School Days, School Rumble, Nisekoi, Madoka Magica, Bakemonogatari, Kill La Kill, Pani Poni Dash, Billy and Mandy, the Disney Princess movies, the Powerpuff Girls, Keroro Gunso, Code Geass, Oreimo, Love Hina, High School of the Dead, Calimero and Sailor Moon. Batman was spared because this author still regrets his sole time writing Batman erotica.

"So that was it..." Mr. Gus sobbed. "This all was... It was a lame attempt of meta-commenting the Uncle Grandpa crossover with Steven Universe!" he began wailing uncontrollably.

"Girla," a voice said from behind him, startling him. "Pull yourself back together. You still have so much to do."

He turned around, to find himself face to face with Evangeline and Chao Lingshen.

Eva smiled. "Girla, we've gotta go back to the future."

"Past," Chao corrected her.

"Yeah, well, whatever, as long as it prevents UQ Holder from ever happening..." the vampire said.

* * *

**To be Actually Continued for Real in the Next Chapter! Happy Day After April's Fools! And thanks for your continued support and love!**

* * *

No Giant Realistic Flying Tigers were sexually used in the making of this chapter.


	15. Chizuru, Satsuki, Nonon, Siesta, Taeko

"We will never speak of this again," Asuna sternly said.

"Oh? But Asuna, we can't just keep pretending that isn't going to happen to you," Makie said. "Besides, if we want to help Negi-kun with his plan, we have to-"

"No, no, I mean the whole thing about Uncle Gr-" Asuna paused. "Oh, I get it. Yeah, sorry, what you just said, I guess."

"Although that old guy can sure show a girl some nice wild fucking," Momo hummed.

The others stared at her.

Momo tossed her hands up. "Fine, fine! Just saying."

Nana looked at the camera and sighed. "The author of this fanfic doesn't own Negima or any other successful series, and is making no money from this. Special thanks to Darkenning as always, but I still feel moved to ask, when is _Diabolic Styles_ supposed to come back anyway?"

"When OverMaster gets back to _Tenderly Troubled, Thoroughly Touched_," answered Beatrice, the Golden Witch, before she escaped this story.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Fourteen**.

* * *

"Saeki, it's me," Minase-san's voice said, after her front door's bell had rang twice.

Saeki Kaori perked up from the rather moody talk she had been having with her two young female partners in amateur witchcraft and looked directly at the door. "Minase-kun? How did you get access to this-"

"Took too long, sorry!" a woman's voice said, and the door flew open, revealing Kitami Reika standing just outside the apartment with Minase, not to mention three other boys, three kouhais from that crazy 3-A class, and Hiroko-sensei, who really looked like she was having a very bad day.

"What the hell?!" Saeki gasped, as she and her two friends, all clad in black robes and barefoot, instantly fell into a triangle defensive formation, startled by the unexpected arrivals. "Minase-kun, this isn't what we had agreed on!"

"We hadn't actually agreed on anything," the tallest of the boys icily told her while Kitami strode inside, with a step as confident as her smirk. "You tried to manipulate me, to take away what was rightfully mine. We can say I'm just striking preemptively."

"Wow, um, well... good afternoon? And nice pad?" Sakurako asked, with a rather large gulp. "I hope we weren't interrupting anything important."

"What are you trying to pull off here?" Saeki grunted, stomping towards the advancing Kitami. "Look, school nurse or not, you can't just barge into my-!"

"Aside, child," the witch sneered, easily pushing the younger blonde aside. "Keep your hands off me until I say otherwise."

"Saeki!" the student's cronies yelped, then rushed ahead in her defense, gesturing with their hands. _"Senapos. Terfita. Estamos. Paranthes. Histanos!"_ they chanted, producing paper charms out and throwing them at Kitami, who easily diverted them away with a twirl of a hand.

"Treat me with respect, insolent children," the woman growled. "You're far too young to hope to stand against me."

"Kitami, you'd better not do anything rash..." Hiroko warned, although she remained where she was.

"Girls, be careful!" Saeki shouted, stepping before Kitami again, blocking her way to the dining room. Pushing her hands ahead, she said, _"Rafael. Gabriel. Michael. Uriel!"_ A shield of magical energy in the form of a blue pentagram was projected between them.

"Wow," Misa commented. "Someone's not been paying attention when they said all that stuff about being turned into ermines."

"They're nothing but unsanctioned practitioners, probably self-taught," Hiroko observed. "No wonder they behave so laxly. Then again, it's impressive for them to have reached even this level."

"'Impressive' is a such a relative term," Kitami aloofly said, punching through the magical barrier and into Saeki's face, sending her stumbling down on her butt. "Pathetic! What did I just tell you? Stupid brat."

"Wow wow," Taisuke mouthed of, standing over Makoto's shoulder as Itou, Yuki, Madoka and Sakurako gasped aloud. "Magical catfight! It's even better than muggle catfight!"

"Muggle? What do you think this is, Harry Potter? Kids these days!" Kitami said as she glanced over her shoulder. She shook her head as she grabbed Saeki by the neck of her robe and easily pulled her up, until they were face to face. "Now listen, you little shit. We're going to need help from every magic user in this academy, and, regrettably, that includes you twerps. So you'd better play nicely, unless you want us to solve the issue by having three less magic users around."

"You mean taking their powers and memories away, don't you?" Hiroko asked blandly. And then added, far more harshly, "Of course you do, as long as I'm around."

Kitami seethed. "Believe it or not, it's all the same to me, actually, but I bet you this little bitch doesn't want to go down that road either. Do you, Kaori-chan?"

The younger woman's blue eyes went hideously open in fear, and then, slowly, she asked, "What ... what do you want from us?"

Kitami's vicious smirk returned. "We just want to show you what real power is."

* * *

"Tadaima," Setsuna said wearily, as she walked in carrying Konoka, with Kouko trailing not far behind.

"Welcome!" Momo happily chirped, while she and Anthy waved at the newcomers. Konoka took a moment to look blandly at them, then waved back. Nana facepalmed, and Utena did her best to fuse into the wallpaper.

"What in the world happened?" Asuna asked, as Negi and the girls he'd been having sex with just finished dressing. OverMaster wishes to take this moment to admit that he's not one to talk just after writing an Uncle Grandpa chapter, and he thinks Darkenning has millions of brilliant ideas, but even so, he isn't ever going to write a 'reverse dress-up sneeze' unless it involves Pre-Crisis Superman.

"I beat up Tsukuyomi," Konoka explained.

"... no, seriously, what happened?" Asuna repeated.

"Well, actually," Konoka said, waving a hand in a circle, just a bit frustrated, "I beat up Tsukuyomi, and then Tsukuyomi's new girlfriend, who is just as much of a psycho, showed up and beat us and Kiryuin Ragyou-sama's daughter up, but then Mom called everyone and they were captured. I think Takahata-sensei is questioning them as we speak. Oh, and Kiryuin-san really wants to talk with you, Negi-kun."

"But, but, but are you all right?" he promptly asked Konoka.

"Been better," Konoka admitted wearily.

"You mean you seriously -" Asuna started to ask.

"Ojousama was magnificent," Setsuna interjected, eyes shining with pride.

"It was just a fight, Setchan."

"Yes, a magnificent battle of will and courage!"

"If you say so. Anyway, Negi-kun, about Kiryuin-san -"

"Oh. Hm, sorry, Konoka, but I have my hands full at the time. Tell her to discuss it with Fate or Daenerys-sama, okay?"

"I don't think she's going to take that for an answer. She was very adamant about discussing something with you personally," Konoka told him. "What's so urgent that you can't spare a few hours for her? I thought your agenda had been loosening of late."

Negi glanced at Kouko, subtly indicating Asuna with a nod of his head. The lady shook her head in denial. Negi gave a sigh. Once again, it was being left to him. He was really becoming somewhat annoyed with the elder members of the Konoe family when it came to this particular tendency.

Now, however, was not the time to address such concerns. "Konoka-san, Setsuna-san, I'm sorry to have to dump more unhappiness on both of you when you're obviously quite exhausted, but -"

"I'm getting frozen in a couple of days instead of a few months," Asuna announced.

Dead silence fell for a moment.

Eventually, Konoka shifted in Setsuna's grip - not difficult given Setsuna's current abject paralysis - until she was looking over her girlfriend's shoulder at her mother. "You knew?" she asked quietly.

Kouko looked away.

"Figures," Konoka said quietly. "Setchan, please set me down next to her, okay?"

As Setsuna silently half-stumbled over to the couch and proceeded to follow her mistress' commands, Makie spoke up. "But it's okay, Konoka-chan! Negi-kun has a plan, you see, and while he's working out the plan, we're going to see that Asuna has every opportunity to fuck everyone who loves her, and everyone she loves, and maybe a few people she hasn't actually met yet! So she can be happy in her last days that won't be her last days anyway! But like my grandpa used to say, everyone should live like the world will end tomorrow!"

"That's awfully nice of you, dear," Kouko quietly told her.

"Thank you, Konoe-sama!" Makie beamed a wonderful smile.

Konoka and Asuna, hugging tightly, didn't really pay any attention to any of that. Until the other shoe fell, and a startled Konoka looked back at Kouko, eyes still shining with tears. "Mom! Don't tell me, you not only got a Pactio from Negi, but -!"

"Yes, dear, your forthcoming little brother or sister is going to be the half-sibling of my first grandchild. Imagine how happy this makes me," Kouko said evenly.

"Phlug'i," said Negi, who'd reverted to being broken.

"And you knew, too!" Konoka now looked at Makie, Fuuka and Fumika.

As Fumika hid behind her sister, Fuuka gulped. "Negi-kun just told us!"

"And you - okay, I know who you two are, but the two of you are a complete mystery!" Konoka now looked at Utena, Anthy, Momo and Nana. "And you found out before -"

"If it's any consolation," Asuna absently added, "I'm just learning about it as well. Huh. How are you going to break it to Eishun-sama?"

"I'll worry about that later!" Negi said, somewhat restored. "Don't you worry about it either!"

"I suppose it's not my mess to clean up," Asuna mused, looking up at the ceiling. "Whatever, just go talk with that heiress girl already. An English gentleman shouldn't keep any ladies waiting."

"Good thing you mention that," Negi said, just a bit sharply. "Because you're a lady waiting for a solution, and I'm not wasting any time on delivering it," he sternly promised.

"Don't you dare use me as an excuse. And don't speak for me, either." She weakly waved a finger at him, head still tilted back on the couch's back.

"Well," Konoka coughed, straightening herself and running a hand over her own eyes, "since you obviously aren't yourself at the moment, or else you wouldn't be throwing in the towel without a fight, I think Negi and I are qualified to speak on your behalf until you regain your senses."

"Konoka, please," she groaned.

Konoka looked at the boy again. "Negi," she said. "Do what you need to do."

He nodded resolutely. "I'm so glad you aren't mad at me, Konoka."

"I never said that, Negi. I wouldn't ever mind your fooling around with anyone else, but, doing this to my Daddy! But, as you said yourself, we'll settle this after more important matters are handled. And we'll settle it but good!"

He gulped loudly.

"Why do I bother?" Asuna wondered, covering her eyes with a hand.

* * *

"What do you want?" Tokiha Mai groaned at the girl on her and Mikoto's doorstep.

Makie blinked, somewhat stunned at the unexpectedly cold reaction. "Um, Tokiha-sempai, right? Asuna-chan told me you were in on her secrets, and Negi-kun's, and ... ah, I'm Sasaki Makie, a classmate of Asuna-chan and Konoka-chan! Nice to meet you!" _And your rack_.

From behind Mai, Mikoto craned her neck out the front door, actually sniffing at the pink haired girl. Since she smelled nice, Mikoto smiled. "Hello! I'm Minagi Mikoto, Mai's best friend!"

Makie blinked down at the girl, a bit surprised at the almost simian way she clung onto Mai-sempai from behind, but finding her smile to be sincere, she repaid her in the same coin. "Pleased to meet you too, Mikoto-chan! So, ah, Konoka-chan sent me over. She'd have come herself, but she's a bit tired, and yet she's also organizing the party, so -"

"What party?" Mai asked, taking an instinctive step back.

"Well, this is difficult to say," Makie scratched the back of her neck. "But, you know that thing that's gonna happen to Asuna-chan? Well, it seems it's going to happen sooner than expected."

Mai gasped, genuinely taken aback. That girl might be a pervert, but even so, Mai couldn't help admiring her willingness to sacrifice herself for others, and her courage. "Oh! Oh, my god! When-?"

"In a few days, but that's okay, Negi-kun's working on that, so nothing bad's gonna happen after all," Makie waved a hand in circles, speaking with the utmost confidence. "All the same, Asuna-chan really could use a pick-me-up right now, and so, all her friends are gathering next door to ... well, cheer her up! Won't you please come?"

Mikoto blinked. "What's happening to Bells-in-Hair-san?"

"Mikoto-chan, please, not now," Mai sighed, with two fingers on her own forehead and closed eyes. She opened them again to look directly at Makie. "It's just gonna be a normal, decent party, right? No weird stuff or anything?"

Makie shook her head. "I don't think Asuna-chan's in the mood right now, and Negi-kun left and it's not like we can get more boys in here. Well, I'm sure we could find a way, and come to think about it, they should be calling Kotaro-kun, who lives right over there, but ..."

Mai gestured with a hand for her to stop. "Alright, alright, I understood. If that's the way it's gonna be, we'll head over there right now, of course. Just give me some time to put on something else."

"Got it. Thanks!" Makie nodded as Mai walked back for her bedroom. Then she smiled at Mikoto again, and Mikoto smiled back.

"Will there be cake?" Mikoto eagerly asked.

"Well, I guess we can order one. Or maybe a few."

* * *

And so, bright and early the next day...

Ah. But perhaps we're getting ahead of ourselves just yet.

And so, dark and late that night, before the next day, Negi Springfield woke up feeling a huge shadow looming over his futon, and a pair of white piercing eyes looking down at him.

"Batman-sama," he said, finding, for the first time in the last few days, two simultaneous motives to be glad. Glad that he'd gone to sleep in his own futon that night. (It had helped neither Konoka or Asuna were in the mood for sex. As for him, he'd finally reached a point where even his new physiology demanded some sleep, which Konoka had insisted that he take.) And then, glad he'd finally had a bedroom visit that wouldn't end in sex.

Or so he hoped, at least.

The dark figure towering over Negi's prone form said nothing, so Negi had to speak again. "What's wrong?"

"You know what's wrong," the terse, gruff voice told him. "Strange says there's heightened activity at all the convergence points. Arkham is about to explode, the situation in Latveria is getting bad enough Von Doom called Strange demanding for explanations, and now your Headmaster tells me your Tree is dying."

"You'd better not have hung him from a flagpole," Asuna said from her bunk, with her back to the men in the darkness. "Or else Konoka will be mad."

"Boy, will I be," came as an addendum from the lower bunk.

"Hnhhh," went the shadow over Negi.

Negi sighed, sitting up on the futon. "Was there really a need to take an urgent flight to Japan to ask us personally, instead of just placing a few calls?"

The Bat grabbed him by the pyjama's collar. "Are you forgetting how much is at risk here? Do you really think I'll be satisfied just by sitting at home waiting for you to fix this on your own?"

"Not on my own," the younger man told him. "At least, not anymore."

"Working with the Kiryuins? You're aware one of the assassins yout stopped today is linked to them, aren't you?"

Konoka sat up on her bunk, turning her head towards them and reaching for the light switch. "What?"

A large, black-gloved hand gestured for her to stop. So, after a moment, her own hand retreated from the switch before she could turn it on.

Negi stopped blinking. "How do you know that? Kiryuin-san herself fought her."

"When you have the time for it, do try to do some research on the Honnoji area," the cowled shadow told him.

"Huh," Negi said. "I'm aware, of course, of that revolutionary cell of sorts making occasional moves against them, but -"

"We'll ask that girl as soon as we see her again, okay?" Asuna asked, further coccooning herself into her blankets. "And don't worry about the Tree, because before the week is over, I'll have that solved myself! Forever!"

The Bat tilted his head towards her.

Negi rasped. "That won't happen. I mean, we'll have it solved, but not the way she says."

Asuna said nothing at that.

Finally, the shadow let go of Negi's collar. "I'll be watching."

"You probably won't like what you'll be seeing, then," Asuna muttered. "Go back to America to punch clowns in the face, or whatever else you do there. And leave this to us. _**This is our city**_."

_Ah_, Wayne thought. _So this is what it feels like_.

"I'll go as soon as I see an actual solution," the shadow said, flowing towards the open window, a vague sound of dark cloth being caressed by the nocturnal breeze following him.

"Just close the damn window as soon as you're out," Asuna lifted a hand without looking back and waved it around, twice. "Okay?"

"Language," the former teacher and the vigilante said at once, and then the sound of a grappling gun being shot was followed by a louder rustling of the cape. Then the window was slammed close, and the flow of the breeze inside was interrupted.

"Foreigners," Asuna mumbled while Negi cringed. "Always thinking they know best."

"You," Konoka quietly reminded her, "are a foreigner as well."

"Don't remind me."

* * *

And so, bright and early the next day, this time for real, Negi and Asuna found themselves once again in the passenger compartment of a luxury car driving to Ayaka's mansion on the outskirts of Mahora. Just not the luxury car they had been expecting.

They were used to things anyone would find life-shattering surprised by now, but surprise is a bottomless pocket in the pants of life, or something like that, and so they still reacted in surprise when, instead of the car they had expected to pick them up before the dorms, a big, long, elegant white limousine - even bigger and longer than those the Yukihiro family kept in their Mahora residence - pulled up by them as they stood on the sidewalk.

One of the opaque windows in the back of the limo lowered, and the first thing they saw from the inside was a pair of thick black eyebrows, under which rested two sharp, stern dark eyes.

"Springfield-sensei and Kagurazaka-himesama, I assume," the young woman behind the eyebrows told them, in a voice nearly identical to Suzushiro-sempai's, both in pitch and tone.

"Actually, my name's Asuna," Asuna said, recovering a bit from the surprise.

The back door was pushed open from the inside. They now could see the young woman in one of the passengers' seats was very tall and beautiful, despite her lack of any apparent delicate traits. Busty and long haired, with a composed air of Amazonian power and inner strength in each subtle motion, each controlled, measured word. She wore a fine, expensive white business suit with dark blue tie and high heeled shoes. Next to her sat a much smaller, pink-haired girl, thin, wearing a dark red minidress and holding her hands on her own lap.

"I've talked with Yukihiro-san," the taller teen spoke, in a tone that made clear she would not accept negatives for answers. "I convinced her to let me drive you to your audience with her. Which is now our long due audience."

"Well, isn't that awfully nice from you," Asuna dryly sighed, getting in and sitting on the seat facing the two girls'. After a moment of doubt, Negi followed suit, and the tall young woman closed the door behind him.

"Apologies," the tall youngster said, not sounding that apologetic beyond the mere formalities. "I am Kiryuin Satsuki, and this is my assistant Jakuzure Nonon." The pink haired girl, who actually reminded Negi more of Munakata Shiho-san than of Makie, bowed politely, but said nothing. "I had to resort to these measures, since you kept refusing an interview with me."

"I'm terribly sorry," Negi honestly said. "But, Fate-san could have -"

"I'm not interested on dealing with subordinates, only with the head of the operation," Kiryuin-san said.

"Fate-san is not my subordinate; he is my associate."

Kiryuin hummed critically. "Diumvirates are almost always guaranteed to result in failure. I hope you know what you're doing."

"It's not a diumvirate," Negi frowned. "A diumvirate implies an intent to govern, while we -"

Asuna interrupted him this time. "How did you know he was Negi and not 'Nagi'?" she asked Kiryuin.

"It's my duty to obtain good intel on those our companies deal with," she replied. "And my mother already knew that, as Springfield-sensei knows full well."

"Right. Of course," Asuna sighed, tapping with her fingers on her own knees. "I keep forgetting how these things are supposed to work. I guess my mind has been elsewhere of late." She looked out the window. "It's really beautiful, isn't it?"

"The countryside around Mahora?" Negi asked. "Yes, I think it's quite -"

"The world," Asuna clarified.

Negi fell silent, and nodded after a moment.

"There've been times and places where things weren't nearly so pretty," she continued. "I was really very lucky to have lived in this age, and this land. I'm a lucky, lucky girl."

He didn't have a thing to say to that.

"Yet, it's a land and a time on the brink of collapse, even if your project happens to succeed," Kiryuin said, in a tone far less grim than the words themselves would indicate, even if not hopeful either. It was a simple statement of a fact. "Strong hands are needed to steer this world into better times, and only the fittest will suffice."

Asuna looked back at her, blandly. "You mean yours."

"I make no secret of it," Kiryuin answered.

Asuna sighed. "I've seen so many like you, back in the old days. Most of them convinced they were in the right, that they were the chosen of the age, that only they could give the world what it needed. Only a few were honest about only wanting what was best for themselves. But in the end ... it never made a difference."

"That's quite a cynical view, Himesama," the Nonon girl spoke at last, as Satsuki's fierce scowl was the only indication of her own reaction.

"Please don't call me Himesama," Asuna sighed. "I'm tired of having people do that, especially when most of them don't even mean it. You know what, Negi, if Iinchou has her maids pull that welcome Himesama bit again, I'm turning around and leaving if I have to walk all the way home."

"Asuna," Negi said between clenched teeth.

Satsuki raised a hand slightly, her scowl almost toying with the idea of becoming a faint smirk. "Please, Sensei. That's okay. I appreciate honesty, since it's a show of inner strength very few dare to have. Why, in all of Honnoji, I could count those who dare to be honest with the fingers of a hand."

_That girl. That girl with the fierce, driven eyes. The girl with the black cursed seifuku and the scissor blade. She, with the most stupid and honest tongue of them all. Why couldn't she, even now, stop thinking about her? She was naught but a meager obstacle waiting to be squashed upon her return, once she established-_

"From what I've heard," Asuna almost yawned, staring out the window again, "you squashed those who dared be honest. So you only have yourself to blame."

Kiryuin tensed up, her facial muscles constricting into an ugly rictus. Nonon just paled, not believing her ears just yet.

"Asuna!" Negi hissed.

"Oh, look, we're here. Well, let's get over with it. It'll be nice seeing Chizuru-san again or one last time, whatever," Asuna half-shrugged, as the limo came to a soft halt before the mansion's entrance.

The tall, muscular driver opened the vehicle's door for them, and one after another, they stepped out, sharing an uncomfortable silence, even if, in Nonon's case, it was clear she only achieved it by chewing her own tongue inside of her mouth.

They walked towards the manor, leaving him behind, forgotten for the moment; and so he pulled the car into the private parking lot, currently deserted. Crime rates still were low in Japan, and the manor was pretty much a fortress, so the heads of the house had not particularly cared about leaving anyone looking after their cars. That allowed the driver to open the car's trunk briefly, to peek inside and check on the tall, muscular and sedate man sleeping there, gagged and bound. His vitals were still okay, as expected. So the driver nodded to himself, closing the trunk on the man with the face identical to his own.

Then he ripped his own face off, and pulled on his real face. The dark cowl.

There was work to do.

* * *

Siesta had been having what could be called an average, normal morning, or, in the Mahora jargon she didn't actually know or understand, a Hitou Nami morning. Wake up. Take a bath, brush her teeth, dress up. Have early breakfast with the other servants. Be informed of the day's expected tasks by Fubuki-san. Go greet Ojou-sama's latest visitors as assigned.

That was the point when her morning, and the rest of her life, took a decidedly abnormal turn.

At the door, she greeted Negi-sensei, Asuna-san, Kiryuin-sama and her companion. It wasn't the first time any of them had been there, although never all four of them at once. "Good morning and welcome, Sensei, Kagurazaka-san, Kiryuin-sama, Jakuzure-sama. You all honor us greatly with your radiant presence today."

"Hey, I get a 'Kagurazaka-san' again," Asuna noted. "And a single-maid reception. Maybe things are improving after all."

"Asuna, please," Negi said in a very small and tired voice.

"Orders from Ojou-sama herself," Siesta told her.

Nonon frowned. "Satsuki-sama does deserve a multiple-servants reception, however!"

Siesta looked at the pink haired girl with the bland look of the very unimpressed and said, "You'd have to discuss Ojou-sama's reasons with Ojou-sama herself, I'm afraid."

"It's okay. The strong don't need to be pampered," Satsuki mused as they followed the black haired maid into the gigantic house.

After looking like she had the sails just blown out of her for a moment, Nonon only nodded weakly and mouthed two words. "Of course."

"Where's Roberta-san, by the way?" Asuna asked. "I thought she'd be the one sent to greet us."

"Again, I don't make those decisions or are told about the reasons for it, Kagurazaka-san," Siesta answered. After a pause, she added, "I haven't even been told about the latest advances in the Project."

As Negi winced, Asuna blinked and said, "Oh! Oh, that's right, you're in the Mundus Magicus immigration program, aren't you? It's ... well, we're going to have a definite solution for that in a few days, one way or another. You don't have to worry about that, Taeko-san."

"That's good to know," she quietly replied. "And I'm Siesta, by the way. Taeko wears glasses and has brown braided hair."

"My bad, sorry," Asuna apologized.

After that, patiently and quietly she led them to the breakfast nook where Ayaka, her parents and Chizuru were already waiting for them. "Good morning, sensei, Satsuki-san, Nonon-san," Ayaka said gravely, rising to greet them. "And you," she added to Asuna.

"Sensei. Asuna-san," Chizuru likewise greeted them, without rising. "Kiryuin-san, Nonon-chan."

"Negi Springfield-kun," Yukihiro Genjuro said, with a firm but unreadable smile and a nod. Negi had talked with the man only once, in one of the first meetings to promote the Blue Mars project, and he still didn't know what to make of him. He was tall for a Japanese, but also perhaps too thin for his size, not to mention the width of his shoulders, which seemed too wide for his bony frame, giving the strange impression he was hiding a clothes hanger sticking against the shoulders of his shirt. Other than that, he wasn't exactly an ugly man, but at first sight, an outsider would feel more inclined to brand him a used cars salesman instead of a billionaire. "And of course, the two loveliest flowers of Ragyo's garden."

"Welcome one and all," Minako quietly said.

Satsuki and Nonon gave matching nods of acceptance, but remained silent as they took the empty chairs the head of the family subtly pointed towards at the moment.

"If you won't be needing my services for the moment," Siesta said, "I will be-"

"Please stay," Minako ordered, vaguely gesturing with a hand for the effect. "Part of what we will be discussing here concerns you greatly."

"But, I'm only-"

"You are an important part of human history," Minako-sama interrupted her again, making Siesta feel strangely divided on the subject. Surely an important part of human history would be allowed to at least finish her sentences at times. "Don't belittle yourself, child."

"Very well, Minako-sama," Siesta nodded, taking good mental notes of how, despite being invited to stay, no one had invited her to sit down with them yet. So of course she didn't.

"Mr. and , Iinchou, Chizuru-san, hello," Negi said. "I'm so sorry that Kotaro's actions have, uh -"

"Driven me from house and home?" Chizuru asked.

"I wasn't going to put it quite like that."

"Well, it's not really Kotaro-kun's fault, so there's no real need to apologize on his behalf. I'm sure that I'll be able to go back once Natsumi-chan calms down and forgives me. Or once hell freezes over. Whichever happens first," she said airily.

"Ah, student life," Mr. Yukihiro said, shaking his head as he gave the body language of a man trying to look for a cigarette he just couldn't have while there. "Do I want to know?"

"I'm sure there's no need for that at the moment, Father," Ayaka blandly replied, still not looking at him.

"I know that things will be all right, Chizuru-san," Negi replied uncomfortably.

"He does that a lot," Asuna said.

"I've noticed that tendency," Chizuru mused.

"He's even doing that about the way I'm going to be put in suspended animation later this week instead of in a couple of months," Asuna added.

Nonon's eyebrows suddenly rattled up and down. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, your intel didn't go that far? My bad," Asuna replied.

"Hime-sama!" Siesta gasped.

"Please, you had been doing well until now, Siesta-san," Asuna sighed. "No relapses, I beg you."

"Oh, my," Chizuru said, slow and coolly. "I just know there is a very interesting story behind this. I do wish someone had told me about it before."

"Chizuru, please," Ayaka asked, rubbing the bridge of her own nose, up and down.

"Just as I suspected," Kiryuin said, indeed looking completely devoid of any shock or surprise. "That would explain the sudden burst of activity in and around the project."

Genjuro looked at his wife. "You never mentioned this part," he told her.

She half-shrugged. "You seemed far too interested in the rest of the story to care about it."

"Well, I should have had the chance to be interested in this part as well, shouldn't I!" For the first time since he haad met him, Negi saw in the normally alarmingly and deceivingly placid man true signs of exasperation.

"I'm sorry to have spoiled your appetites," Asuna apologized, calmly lowering her head.

"Mine is not, so don't fear," Satsuki said, taking the first bite of the plate before her. "Well then, Kagurazaka Asuna. Give Naba-san the details of that story she would have wanted to hear so much."

Asuna proceeded to explain the whole situation, leaving nothing out. Except the parts dealing with sex, because really, so not in the mood right now. "And now it's going to happen a lot sooner than I was expecting. I'll be entering that sleep later this week, and not emerging until, probably, a hundred years."

Siesta, now terribly pale, took a hand to her mouth, with eyes as wide as they could go. Taking pity of her, Minako gestured towards one of the chairs at the table, on which the maid promptly dropped down.

Genjuro-sama simply arched an eyebrow, taking a careful, analytical look at Asuna's face and then at his daughter's. The tense pain painted on the later did not seem to faze him terribly, as he reached over to spread some butter on his bread.

"I see," said Chizuru, lifting up a cup of tea. "Well. Good riddance, then." And she sipped gently.

"Thank yehhhhhhh," Asuna said reflexively, drawling to a halt when she realized that, no, she hadn't imagined it, Chizuru had really said that, and Negi and Ayaka were gaping at her. Even Minako was, actually. Siesta seemed a bit too out of it to do so, however. "Uh," she added.

Nonon blinked. "Wow," she said. "You know, I like to think I have comfortable standards for this sort of thing, but... that was cold."

Satsuki said nothing, waiting for the next step in the exchange.

"Was there something?" Chizuru asked, blinking.

"... why would you -" Asuna started to say.

"Oh. Well, from what I have collected of your story, you have told many, many about your predicament before, and so you're probably quite tired of hearing meaningless words of solace and comfort. No doubt it gets boring after a while. So I decided to give you an honest response, since I really don't care if I ever see you again, personally. In other words, good riddance." She nodded for punctuation.

"Meaningless," Negi repeated the word as one of his eyebrows jumped. He was dangerously close to You Have Insulted My Students territory now, tempered only by the fact that Chizuru Is My Student Too.

Nonon looked to Satsuki. "Do I look like that much of a gigantic bitch when I'm acting that way to others?"

"Of course not. You are petite," Satsuki simply said.

Chizuru would have rolled her eyes, had she been less of a proper lady. "Oh, the 'big fat cow' insults. How innovative."

"Her father's daughter, no doubt," Genjuro nodded to himself, taking another bite.

"Now, that was an insult, uncle," Chizuru said.

"And earned with flying honors," Minako muttered.

"It was meant as praise, actually." The man sounded actually sincere.

"Chizuru-san, you are being unfathomably -" Ayaka began to rant.

"You're lying," Asuna said quietly, her softly-spoken words stopping Ayaka in mid-outburst.

"Am I," Chizuru replied coolly.

"Yes. I... you were there, back then. You were there with all the others, calling out to me. I heard your voice. You didn't, don't hate me. I know better," Asuna affirmed.

"I was there," Chizuru said. "I wasn't terribly happy to be there. I remember frowning, quite clearly. But I was willing to set my personal feelings about you - or rather the complete lack of them, since you're really basically a type of insect that I'd prefer to ignore - because I realized that a number of the people about whom I do care a great deal also care about you, and would be devastated by their loss. And so I prayed for your well-being, as I haven't prayed for anything in quite some time.

"And now? Now I learn that I needn't have bothered. Because what we were trying to rescue you from, is going to claim you anyway. And you don't care." She paused, shook her head. "For a girl who is only notionally Japanese, you have certainly mastered the attitude 'it can't be helped'. Congratulations, I suppose."

Satsuki sneered out of a corner of her mouth, showing disgust for the first time in the conversation. "Damn the day that defeatist trait came to be associated with our people. It's what has turned us into a country of docile pigs."

Chizuru glanced back at her. "Why do you complain? It has made that much easier for you and yours to steer the pigs around."

"Many will have to settle for the slaughterhouse, apparently," Satsuki replied in the same tone.

"Please, no implications of Darwinian genocide or subtly veiled threats at my breakfast table," Genjuro calmly warned.

"That isn't fair, Chizuru-san!" Negi protested. "She's, she's obviously hurt by all of this, and you're -"

"Negi-kun," Chizuru snapped. "She is neither an infant nor an idiot. She can speak for herself. Can't you?" she demanded of Asuna.

"... are you trying to make me cry?" Asuna asked, almost inaudibly. "Is that it?"

"No. I don't care if you cry or not. If you do, it can't be helped," she repeated. "Honestly? Do you really want to know what I honestly want from you?"

"Yes."

Chizuru stared at Asuna for a long moment, then shook her head. "I remember the day you came into our class for the first time. I remember you staring at all of us with just the sort of indifference that you've been showing us all through this conversation. It was horrifying. And I remember... I remember a girl who then got angry when another girl, a wonderful but horribly pushy girl, started talking to her ... and it was such a relief, to see that you were human after all.

"People are trying to take your life away from you! They are going to take my choices away from me, but at least I have the comfort of knowing that I'll have a life, even if it's not the one I would have chosen for myself! Don't talk about self-sacrifice, or necessary evils, or what has to be, or anything like that. This is something that's being done to you, not something you chose. What do I want from you? I want you to _GET ANGRY, DAMMIT!_"

Asuna screamed.

The delicate crystal glasses on the table exploded. The windows of the breakfast nook shuddered in their fixings. In the mansion's kennels, the guard dogs began baying in response. Ayaka dropped to her knees, covering her ears and staring at the other girl in obvious terror. Negi started to reach out to take her in an embrace, only to hold back as he realized this was not a cry of pain, but of unfathomable fury that underlay it.

Chizuru, in the full force of the blast, was unmoved. When at last the horrible noise ended, she was the first to speak. "And what do you want, Asuna-san?" she asked, her voice normal, but sounding impossibly quiet in the wake of what had just passed.

"... I want to live," Asuna whimpered.

Nonon, a side of her face twitching slightly, had a tear peeking out a corner of her right eye. "That sound... such a beautiful, sublime agonized pulsation, a wonder of piercing cacophony ... I just have to use it in one of my attack compositions! Will you let me record it before you're gone?"

"And still, less annoying than her voice," Genjuro mumbled to himself, softly poking into one of his ears with a pinky, trying to massage it back into full functionality.

Satsuki chuckled. "'But at least I have the comfort of knowing that I'll have a life'. What a wretched, pathetic joke. Life under someone you despise is a fate worse than death. No doubt, you feel disgusted by that woman so much because you are both the same."

Chizuru shot another look at her. "Some people shouldn't talk about being disgusted by those they so greatly resemble."

"At least I'm doing something about it."

"While wearing her clothes."

Genjuro sighed. "And they are that way, pretty much every time they meet," he told Negi, finishing his tea (or what was left of it after most of it was spilled, anyway) and gesturing for Siesta, who mechanically, with dead eyes, handed him a newspaper. "Thank you, dear," he said, before starting checking on the business section.

Likewise, Chizuru made a face as she realized that the cup was now lying on its side, its former contents now soaking the table cloth. "Karma," she murmured, shaking her head, before turning to look at Negi. "I expect that you have a plan."

He nodded in silence, not trusting himself to speak at the moment, as Asuna covered her face with her hands and sobbed silently while Ayaka rose up to hug her tightly.

For the first time, actual emotion showed on her face. "Have I hindered it, by doing what I did, just now?" she asked.

Now he shook his head. "If anything..." he began to say, then clammed up.

"Oh," Chizuru replied, blinking in surprise. "Ohhhh," she repeated, nodding as understanding dawned. "Well. Achievements in ignorance remain achievements, I suppose." She started to stand up. "If you'll excuse me, then, I'll leave the rest to -"

"SIT," said Asuna, face still in her hands. "DOWN," she concluded.

Chizuru sat. "Interesting," she said faintly. "I knew that worked on Kotaro-kun, but I didn't expect that it would work on me, too."

Asuna took a deep breath before she lowered her hands. She glanced at Ayaka, standing beside her, with a look of genuine appreciation, and even at Minako, and at the poor servant girl who, on the other hand, probably wouldn't even really process what she was going to say, before turning to glare at Chizuru. "Just curious, but did you use that line on him before you fucked him?"

Nonon began choking on the tea refill the still robotic Siesta had just brought her.

"Well!" Genjuro pleasantly said, although that pleasantness for once came out rather rigid and forced. The fact his face was still hidden behind the business section probably helped his acting, however. "Now that's some good news. Not only can no one keep accusing Ayaka-chan of being the only shotacon in our social circle, but Chizuru-chan is not homosexual after all. My brother and Tetsuo-sama will be overjoyed. Not that they ever had their suspicions, unlike me, but I suppose I just have an overactive imagination."

Minako began rubbing her own temples. "Why can't you become irate and jealous like all other men?"

"This is me being irate and jealous, Mina-chan," the voice from behind the newspaper said. "Not that I can blame you for forgetting, after spending so long trying to stay away from me."

The youngsters finished looking intently at the side exchange before returning to their own. Chizuru was blushing slightly as she spoke. "I suppose it was inevitable that you'd find out while he was hiding out in your dorm room."

"Yeah, it was. Specifically, I found out right before I used that line on him and fucked him," Asuna said.

Silence reigned for a moment, broken only by Nonon's continued fit of violent coughing, and Kiryuin's soft patting on her back.

"Well, actually, it was more like before I used that line on him and then Chisame and I fucked him, and each other. I forget, did I tell you about Chisame being there or not?" Asuna asked Negi, glancing past Ayaka's pale, paralyzed face.

"Which... Which one was Chisame-san?" Siesta felt like asking with an erratic voice. "The assistant nurse, right?"

"I... can't say that I remember, off hand," Negi replied. "I mean, about what Asuna asked," he quickly added. "The assistant nurse is Izumi Ako-san, and Chisame-san is the computer-inclined classmate."

"He's fucked them both, incidentally," Asuna informed her.

"Ah," Siesta said, blandly as fuck.

"Y-you -" Chizuru started to stammer.

"It was really sort of cute, the way Negi was all 'I'm not jealous' in a way that really made it obvious that he was totally jealous. You know what I mean?" she asked, reaching out to her side to put a hand firmly on Ayaka's hip. "Yes, he was going about with that expression on his face, the one on yours right now, and the one Genjuro-sama has behind that stupid newspaper. You definitely know what I'm talking about," she added.

"I don't have such an expression," Genjuro-sama pointed out, still barricaded behind the stupid newspaper. Negi took a mental note of that defense mechanism. It seemed reasonably effective. "And if I did have it, it'd only be about Sawachika-kun beating me to these stocks on the rise."

Chizuru took advantage of that unhelpful interjection to calm herself down. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Same reason I've been doing all sorts of things, lately. 'Why not?' Oh, I had all sorts of justifications - like how I wanted to thank the people who'd helped me out with the most precious thing I had - but since I've just had it made very clear to me that not all of them were really all that interested in helping me, as such, what with me being a species of insect or something, I guess those justifications are looking a tad bit flimsy at the moment," Asuna explained.

"So then -"

"I'm telling you all this because I've decided you're going to join Negi's harem, and I'm probably going to fuck you too, and, since I'm such a swell person despite being a species of insect, I think you're going to also get something else you wanted. And what the fuck, let's get Minako-chan and Roberta in on it again, too. Close your mouth, Ya-chan, flies might get in," she added, pushing Ayaka's slack jaw upwards with her pointer finger.

"That's awfully nice and deviant of you, Hime-sama," Kiryuin rose from her seat, making sure to punctuate the much despised term with as much power as the one her hands exerted on the table's surface. "However, before you go into your private matters, actually important issues must be attended. Negi-sensei. So far, I have seen very little proof you are the kind of strong, driven warrior who could save a world. All I have seen since I made your acquaitance has been a hesitating, erratic follower, dazzled and shaken by every imprudent twist in the overwrought drama of your lessers."

"Lessers?" Ayaka, Asuna and Chizuru found common cause at last.

"So," Kiryuin told Negi, ignoring the lessers, "before our working relationship goes any further, I demand seeing actual proof of your strength of character. For that purpose, I challenge you to a duel! For real men and women are tested in the heat of combat, rather than petty domestic intrigues!"

"... okay?" Negi gulped.

Asuna brought her hands together. "Oh, goodie! A chance to kick some ass. Come to think about it, relieving pent up tensions through sex works much better as the dessert after relieving ourselves through senseless violence!"

"I'd be very thankful if you stopped using dirty language at my table, as well," the man behind the newspaper requested.

* * *

_We'll return you to your scheduled Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey lemon course relatively soon. Please stand by..._

"So," Satsuki said, shortly after. "This is the widest open space you could lend at your grounds, far enough away from your residence as to hopefully spare it any collateral damage."

She said that as she, Nonon, Negi, the Yukihiros, Asuna, Chizuru and Siesta gathered at the far end of the villa's grounds, along with Roberta, Fubuki, Fabiola, and Taeko, the other active Yukihiro maids at the time. More specifically, they stood at the middle of a tennis court in the villa's 'miniature' sports complex. Roberta and Fabiola had taken the net away to allow for more mobility across the court, turning it into an effective enough fighting arena, or at least, so Yukihiro Genjuro half-hoped.

"My apologies," he said, standing aside with his hands in his pockets, only the thumbs poking out. "I never had the foresight to include a battle colisseum in this house. You know, it's one of those things one somehow just never expects, like the notion of your daughter and wife eventually becoming the lovers to a ten-year old."

"Twelve, technically," Negi uneasily said, "with all the time I have spent in Mundus Magicus and Master's resort-"

"They're here," Satsuki noted, looking up.

"Huh?" Negi blinked, following Kiryuin's gaze, as did everyone else. His mouth loosened just a bit; when Kiryuin-san had made a quick call for her subordinates to bring her and Nonon's battle gear for the duel, after Asuna insisted on making it a tag team match, Negi had expected the driver of the limo to come back with the uniforms. He had certainly not expected to see a black helicopter with the logo of REVOCS painted on a side, approaching the court and then hovering above it.

And he had even less expectation of witnessing a flimsy, frail looking hand ladder of ropes dropping from the chopper, covering less than half the distance between it and the ground, and then a massive, hulking figure in white quickly descending the ladder, and, upon reaching its end, jumping down the rest of the way, landing on his feet before Satsuki and causing a small earthquake that rattled everyone but the impassive Kiryuin.

**"KIRYUIN-SAMA!"** the gigantic man of deeply tanned skin and blond hair shouted, with a voice as larger than life as himself, saluting Satsuki with the air of a well disciplined soldier. He was probably even taller than Rakan, even if only by a centimetre or so, and almost as muscular and imposing. He dropped two large, black and thick suitcases at the feet of Kiryuin, who only nodded a dry approval.

"Hey, Ira-chan," Nonon snorted. "I happen to be here as well, you know."

The mountain of a man only huffed at her as he pulled out a dressing screen from somewhere behind his titanic body, and then he placed it all around the two girls of Honnoji and the suitcases. He turned around to step in between the screen and the assembled witnesses, folding his powerful arms and scowling sternly.

Genjuro looked back up at the heli still hovering above them. "Could someone remind me again why we have the fame of being the eccentric clan around these places?"

"Sir! None of our aircraft has the faces of children plastered on them, sir!" the mountainous young man replied, each word a deafening yell on its own right.

"... it serves me right for asking," Genjuro shrugged, putting on a nicotine patch as Ayaka scowled at the unfazed huge enforcer.

"You may retreat now, Gamagoori," Satsuki said, stepping out into sight while wearing the scandalously skimpy uniform with high heels and much higher shoulder blades Negi recognized from Konoka and Setsuna's descriptions. Jakuzure wore a skintight pink bodysuit with a light skeletal motif, topped with a bandleader hat, and a baton in her right hand. "Unless, of course, now someone wishes for a three-way encounter."

"I think I'll pass on the offer, thanks," Genjuro said, rotating one of his arms around.

This time, Minako didn't repress a long suffering sigh. "You really are enjoying yourself today, aren't you?"

"Not as much as you did a few days ago."

"I thought not." Satsuki, ignoring this by-play, nodded to Gamagoori, who saluted again before jumping up, impossibly high, grabbing the end of the ladder and being quickly flown away by the chopper, into the unfathomable distance.

Asuna sweatdropped. "Maybe we should have had that guy for the duel instead of Pinky."

"I'll make you eat those words, you weirdo perv!" Nonon exploded.

Satsuki looked at the Yukihiro marriage. "I'll pay every last yen of your property damage, so rest at ease. Of course, no one can pay for the loss of human life - which is of course profoundly valuable," she added as a not-terribly-convincing afterthought. "So I'd still be heavily on the lookout while this lasts, if I were you."

"... then you can't really tell us to 'rest at ease', can you?" Chizuru asked.

"Everyone, please, reconsider!" Siesta gasped. "One way or another, Asuna-himesama is still necessary for the survival of my world! If you hurt her, you'll be killing thousands and thousands!"

"Easy there, there, girl," Asuna made a few hand gestures towards her. "No one's hurting me today! Right, Negi?"

"Right," he nodded, clenching his teeth as he took his shirt off, baring his strong manly torso to many intent stares. Noticing them, he gulped. "W-Well, these are my best shirt and jacket, and it'd be foolish to let them get ripped up, wouldn't it?"

"Actually, that's a damn good point, and this is too much of a nice dress to lose, too," Asuna agreed, beginning to take her clothes off, to the astonishment of most of those around her. (Chizuru just took advantage of the distraction to roll her eyes; Satsuki was, surprise surprise, impassive.) Shortly, she was reduced to her underwear, waving her Pactio card around as a stonefaced Roberta held her and Negi's discarded clothes. "And if I'm going to live through this after all, I really want to wear it again! So let's get this done! Adeat!" she called, making her sword appear in her other hand.

"And now a warning for you," Kiryuin told her. "Our uniforms are not magical in nature. You are a fool if you think your abilities grant you any edge over them."

"I already knew I was a fool, but you don't know even half of the abilities I've picked up. So let's get this started already, okay?"

Kiryuin stomped a foot down, lifting a massive dust cloud, not because of any frustration, of course not, but as a mere preliminary. "Let's."

"You're so convinced those fancy clothes give you a victory, but even half naked, not that you're too covered either, we can - oh," Asuna said as she saw Nonon raise her baton. When the pink haired girl pressed something on it, a dot quickly descended from the skies, until it hung over the manor and its grounds, throwing it into shadow. Now revealed as a gigantic satellite-like pink machine armed with multiple cannons, the damn thing really made Asuna wish for a quick call to Chachamaru. Did everybody have one of those things hanging in orbit now? Even that weird Greer girl from the church had shown one during the summer, if Tokiha-sempai's stories could be believed.

"Okay," Negi calmly said. "This might take a bit longer than expected, after all."

"I think that definitely counts as more eccentric than your private jet, wouldn't you agree, Ayaka-chan?" asked Genjuro, humming as he rubbed on his chin.

"Negi-sensei! Please be careful!" Ayaka cried.

"... and you're not listening to me. Of course not. No one ever does ... I should have sent her to St. Lilian, then none of this would have happened, and all I'd have to worry about would be listening to her whine about her oneesama and petite-soeur." Shaking his head, the mogul calmly made a call to his insurance agent as everyone around him gasped at the sight of the gigantic floating construction literally pulling Jakuzure-san up and into itself, fitting her right in the middle of it, where she smirked down at Negi and Asuna, flexing her fingers.

"Three-Star Gokou Uniform! Symphony Regalia Grave! Aerial Form!" Nonon declared.

"Is that proper English?" Asuna asked Negi. "Because it sounded like she just pulled words at random from an English dictionary when coming up with a name."

"Focus, Asuna," Negi asked. "I'll take the flying adversary. You hold Kiryuin-san at bay down here in the meanwhile."

"Tsk," Asuna went. "You're talking as if you expect for there be something left for you to help me with by the time you're done up there..."

"It begins!" Nonon cheerfully shouted, her squeaky voice amplified by the multiple speakers built into the machine, just as a deafening rendition of Franz Liszt's _Hungarian Rhapsody_ began covering the whole area.

"No, that's just the giant pink mecha currently hanging over my property," Genjuro evenly explained through his cellphone. "Yes, the Kiryuins, how did you know? Oh, so that's why you don't take policies at Honnouji anymore? Well, it's still valid if it's happening in the Mahora district, right?"

"Good luck," Negi said, squeezing Asuna's hand for a moment before going into his Lightning Form, further startling the maids and Minako before taking off in a vertical line upright, leaving a sparkling trail behind him.

_"Ditto,"_ Asuna whispered before blocking Kiryuin's charge with her sword. "Hey! Thank you for waiting this long!"

Kiryuin smirked at her above their clashing blades, pushng Asuna back with a strength that frankly surprised the redhead. "Only because this isn't supposed to be a duel to the death, Hime-sama. Otherwise-"

"DON'T CALL ME HIME-SAMA!" Asuna yelled, trying to hold her ground, straining her muscles while the other girl gained ground on her.

* * *

Meanwhile, Negi was hit in mid-air by a massive wall of compressed sonic vibrations from Nonon's battle unit, or at least that was how it looked to Chizuru, who had no idea on how those things were supposed to work. She and Minako held the pale Ayaka, who wouldn't stop alternately looking up and down in panic, between themselves, restraining her from going to join the melee in a typically heroic and reckless Ayaka way.

The boy, taken relatively unaware by that, gave a few flips back in the air, but much to Nonon's awe, was not blasted all the way down and into the ground. Instead, he recovered remarkably fast, absently wiping a few drops of blood from his nose with the back of a hand. "An interesting form of attack," he said.

The pink haired beauty ground her white teeth back and forth. "You haven't seen anything yet! That's only the first few notes of the overture!" she screeched, her cannons beginning to shoot barrages of black, stylized and sharp projectiles vaguely shaped like musical notes at Negi. He only moved between them with incredible grace and speed, as he chanted something under the booming music.

Nonon narrowed her eyes as she made her best to read the motions of his lips. "... Magica... Lumina... what?" she said, before being taken by surprise by an onslaught of lighting projectiles perforating her Gokou from below, all missing her but quickly doing heavy damage on the hull and launchers. _"NANI SORE?!"_

Negi smiled faintly and regained his flight up, quickly reaching Nonon's level... to give her a playful flick on the nose. He still was a child, after all, and probably, to some degree, still too naive to foresee how that behavior could, once again, plant the seeds of a complicated love-hate relationship. (Or so Chizuru hoped.) "Tagged you," he announced.

Her face went crimson with fury, and she slammed both hands together, a sign for the Gokou to intensify its attack. Instantly, the cannons began pummeling Negi's body even further with dozens of simultaneous blasts of the same concentrated ... sound energy, Chizuru supposed. Even so, the release of that much offensive power seemed to be adding to the damage the Gokou had taken, seeing how it was descending slowly but surely as it kept attacking. Even more frustrating for Nonon, despite taking the strikes full on his face at point blank range, the annoying-and-not-hunky-at-all young man barely flinched under the onslaught, his body only squirming at times with a particularly rough hit. From what she could see, even when she made him bleed, the wound seemed to heal almost instantly, and that despite his obvious absence of any sort of Gokou uniform.

_What kind of freak of nature is he?!_ she thought. _Maybe I will need Satsuki-chan's help to finish him off_. Not that she could spare the time to look down, but had she been able to, Nonon would have been relieved to see her Fearless Leader was faring much better in her own side of the fight.

"Now this is just sad," Satsuki said as she moved her sword around quickly, with a bored expression, batting Asuna several feet away and out of the court, or rather, the by now shattered remains of the court now their battle had wrecked most of it. "After all the rumors I heard about the Twilight Princess, I had imagined someone more impressive."

Not even half as good as the young fool in the black seifuku. Not that she should be thinking about her right then, but perhaps the fight was just boring her that much. Yes, that was a nice, sensible explanation, so she instantly adopted it without a second thought.

"ASUNA!" Ayaka cried, forcing Chizuru and Minako to hold her back more tightly, as Roberta stepped in between them and the fight taking place at ground level.

Asuna coughed, pushing herself back on her feet, supported by her sword before swinging it up to block Satsuki's next strike. "I'm just getting warmed up!"

"That's why I'm only toying with you!" Kiryuin said, twisting her own blade around to hit Asuna's stomach with the hilt, sending her flying over a row of perfectly trimmed bushes, and into the swimming pool.

"Stop it already!" Ayaka screamed. "I'm telling you to stop, damn you!"

"That's up for her to decide," Satsuki icily said, walking towards the pool. "I'll gladly obey a Princess' orders, after all," she added, her lips turning up into a harshly mocking smile.

Asuna rose from the water, sword firmly in her hands, wet hair sticking to her skin, sopping bra and panties semi transparent. "Then obey this one. Go fuck yourself!" she said, jumping out towards Satsuki again. This time, however, she decided it was time to start playing smart already. She obviously was no match for this woman's speed, but now she remembered her full fighting potential, she felt confident she was well above her in the raw physical strength department. So she only had to use what Setsuna had taught her. And so she did.

Using a feint, she took advantage of how much skin that skimpy uniform showed, and she left a red slash on Kiryuin's stomach. Clenching a harder smile, the black haired one seemed to approve with a nod, and thanked Asuna's seriousness upgrade wth a knee to her chin. So Asuna repaid by headbutting her, shockwaves resounding everywhere even over the all dominating music. After that, they fell into another close range exchange of furious slashes and parries, under which Asuna's bra finally collapsed to shreds. Not that either cared about that.

Ayaka did, however. "Asuna, please! Konoka-san isn't around to heal you!"

"I'll worry about that later!" Asuna yelled, the fact she was swinging with both hands while Satsuki only used one not escaping her. Even with Setsuna's training, the other girl was still ... perhaps not technically better, but still far more confident in her swordfighting. It probably helped that her sword was much lighter and fit close combat. Asuna had cut her a few times, and if her abilities had relied on magic, she would have dominated her already, but now Asuna could see perhaps she had been too overconfident at the match's start.

Her concentration, and fortunately Kiryuin's as well for that matter, was broken by Taeko and Siesta's shrieks, a moment before Nonon's Gokou crashed down not too far, Negi still hovering before it, and smiling wearily at the mouth-foaming Nonon, suspended in the middle of her fallen behemoth like a butterfly trapped in amber.

"Sorry for the delay, Asuna," he said, still not looking away from Nonon's reddened with bulging veins eyes. "I'll help you finish things in this side now."

"Nah, I have it well under contr-" she threw herself back right in time to avoid another sword slash. "This isn't as much of a close shave as it looked!"

"Enough nonsense!" Nonon bristled, leaning ahead as her Gokou began rattling violently, startling Negi again. "Symphony Regalia Grave! Ground Form!"

"... maybe we should evacuate?" Genjuro suggested as the Gokou, badly damaged as it was, sprouted tank threads from its sides, regaining its balance as it started plowing ahead, pushing Negi back as Nonon giggled maniacally.

Minako looked at him. "For shame! Didn't you take pride in saying a Yukihiro had never been run out of his home?"

"I fancy myself an innovator," he replied, taking a few steps back, although to his credit, he didn't outright run away.

"Asuna!" Negi shouted, "As soon as I tell you, let's trade adversaries!"

"I'm okay with having a bigger and slower target, if that's fine with you!" Asuna said, resorting to throwing Kanka-powered kicks around to help her own sword strikes, all the better to keep Kiryuin at bay now the taller girl had redoubled her efforts against her. Even Chizuru was flinching and cringing, and visibly so.

"Okay then!" he steeled himself while Nonon's smirk gained a truly disturbing edge, her cannons all charging up to their max, aiming at him and gathering enough power for an all or nothing blast... one Negi didn't want to bet on causing massive collateral damage to everything and everyone around or not. He had a nagging feeling perhaps he had pushed the girl far enough as for her to be unable to really care that much anymore. And then, solemnly, he said, _"Exarmatio."_

"Huh?" Nonon blinked.

And then she felt like the world around her literally exploded.

For a moment, she lost all her senses at once, due to sensorial overload. But before panic could sink in, she felt the multiple caresses of petals all over skin, accompanied by a refreshing breeze tickling her ... and she realized her beautiful music had stopped abruptly.

Then she felt herself falling, literally dropping like a rock, flailing her arms around. Not that she fell for any long, as the long haired lightning bolt stopped her fall with his powerful arms ... but before she could properly react by punching him in the face, he gently threw her towards Asuna. "Please be gentle," he begged his primary partner.

"Oh, so now you sent her to me! Why the fuck do you keep understimating me?!" Asuna said, balancing herself on her sword for a moment to leap back from Satsuki and into Nonon's descending way, kicking her in the stomach and into a cushioning bush. "Really!" Asuna finished, landing on her feet. "That's what I'm reduced to now?! Kicking naked girls thrown at me?!"

"Language," he sighed, descending next to Asuna as Nonon finally realized, face up and stick between branches and leaves, she was indeed naked now. But how? It was much like what Matoi had done to the club presidents she had fought, but unlike her, this guy didn't have any sort of uniform powering him up, so how did he -?

She'd probably have felt better if told that an Exarmatio cast by a less powerful mage wouldn't have damaged her Gokou to anywhere nearly that extent, but then again, most likely she wouldn't have felt any better at all.

Negi and Asuna both stood before Satsuki now, side by side, as Ayaka swooned and Siesta and Minako sighed in relief. Roberta was still as expressionless as before, and everyone else remained too bewildered.

"That was highly interesting," Kiryuin nodded. "Thanks for showing me the kind of opposition we should expect from the upper levels of your secret society. For starters, now I am well aware I need to start out of that blast's range. Or just behead you before you use it."

"Give it up, hag," Asuna snorted. "You're as screwed up as your REVOCS accomplice."

"Oh! You mean ... no, we aren't alike at all. Your implications, frankly, disgust me. And so -" She slammed her sword on the ground, sending massive tremors everywhere. "- it's time for you to pay for that slander! With your own tongue!"

"... I'm okay, thanks everyone for asking ..." Nonon's voice said from a bush.

* * *

"Come to me, then!" Kiryuin challenged, waving her sword in circles, creating small tornadoes of powerful, exploding sonic booms all around herself. "Show me then, prince and princess of Mars, if you are as fit to lead the new era as I am! Fail, and I only guarantee suffering under my heel!"

Asuna blinked. "Maaaaan, I have a feeling Kurt-san will come to love this girl."

"You think so?" asked Negi, carefully analyzing Kiryuin's posture and the angles and aims of her strikes. Despite the seemingly chaotic nature of her barrage of attacks, she had far more precision than Jakuzure-san; so far, she only seemed to be giving a show of her power, and actually carefully aiming so none of them would hit the onlookers.

Yet, he also got the feeling at least part of that showoffish display was just to lure them into a sense of fake security, to make them think she was less of a strategist and more of a blowhard than she actually looked. He hoped Asuna wouldn't fall for it. Sometimes, her first reaction to provocations was simply to-

"An opening!" Asuna shouted, finding the pattern of Satsuki's movements and leaping for it, sword cleaving the residual air bursts and the dirt they ripped from the ground, shattering the Yukihiro's valuable pavement. Satsuki welcomed her with a feral smirk, quickly shifting under Asuna's strike and slashing from beneath, leaving a long red mark across her belly. Ayaka and Siesta shrieked hysterically, and Negi shouted her name, stepping towards them. But as he could glimpse almost instantly, the cut had been superficial - as expected, Asuna had moved aside in the last instant, although that only had set her up for Satsuki's kick to her ribs, which sent her flying a few feet ahead. Like a spinning doll, Asuna's figure cut a strangely beautiful bleeding contrast against the blue sky for a moment, before hitting the ground with a growl of pain.

"Asuna!" Negi gave her a distraught look, long enough both for him to see her nodding at him, as she pushed herself up on her hands and knees, and for Kiryuin to be all over him already, slashing madly from all directions, managing to cut him deeply on the shoulder.

That did it.

Negi, unlike Kotaro, felt no qualms about attacking a woman, even a physically inferior one, after sufficient provocation, as Tsukuyomi could testify. While he always would try to inflict the least possible damage, as Sextum could testify (had not she been trapped in ice at the moment) you don't get trained by Evangeline Mc Dowell without learning a lot of things about the equality of genders as applied to the battlefield.

Mostly, though, no one, regardless of gender or species, age or race, social or economic condition, could lay a hand on his students. Former or not.

The next thing Satsuki felt was a very warm, almost burning, strike to her stomach, almost like a comet crashing against her before she even could realize what was happening. Half a second later, she realized she had a set of knuckles grinding against her flesh. Then she looked at Negi's cold, dead eyes. And a second hit, now to her jawline, ensued, sending her clashing against a tree.

"Give it up," he blandly said. "I don't want to hurt you, and you can't hurt me."

She roared and slammed her sword on the ground, which opened under Negi and sent a shower of rocks and dirt everywhere, forcing Roberta to open her umbrella to shield Ayaka, Chizuru and Minako. Running amidst the distraction supplied by it, Satsuki ran towards Negi, leaping up to slash him across the chin, also twisting up in mid-air to follow that with a kick to his stomach. He only calmly grabbed her by an ankle and tossed her down to the ground.

The ground trembled again as the impact opened a major crater, and it was Nonon's turn to shriek as she looked from between the bushes. Satsuki coughed, standing back up, and then Negi was again right before her, hitting her lightly with the back of a hand and pushing her further back. "I repeat," he said, coolly and rationally. "Let's just stop this already." He gesture to his already healing chin. "We both have better things to do with our time. So let's quit before you are hurt, because you won't hurt me no matter what. Sorry."

The black haired young woman stared at him, with an air of shocked wonder for the first time since he had met her. "It can't be ... it can't be that your ancient parlor tricks have lent you that much power! You have to be using some species of Life Fiber! Is ... is it in your pants?" she finally guessed, a little lower in tone, since she just couldn't see another option.

Negi blinked. "What?"

Satsuki waved the sword his way, not to attack, but to aim while stabbing the air. "What else could it be? You're wearing pants made of fiber that augments your so-called magical powers and stamina!"

Negi blinked again. "Ah, no, they are perfectly ordinary pants, see?" he asked, holding a leg of his well ripped pants. "True, magic can create clothes, especially through Pactios, but most of the time they are accessories and rarely provide any actual enhancement. That's the Artifact's-"

"Don't lie to me!" Satsuki growled. "If you're hiding secrets that would concern our companies, be man enough as to reveal them!"

"Negi," Asuna said, now stepping away from Ayaka and Chizuru after they had helped her back up. "Show her. Get naked."

"Ehhhhh?! But, Asuna, we're in semi-public!"

"Get naked, dammit," she grumbled, lowering her panties all the way down her legs. "Let's show her firsthand it's all us. Besides, I'm fucking tired of being the only one who ends up bare naked during our fights. Consider this my payback over what you did to me at Eva's."

"Oh my," Taeko took a hand to her mouth. "D-D-Don't tell me -"

Genjuro blinked, getting a good long look at Asuna's ass. "Ayaka-chan. Why did you ever fight with this wonderful young lady, again?"

Ayaka grumbled and ran a hand down her own face.

After a seemingly eternal moment of disbelief, Negi nodded. "If you say so, Asuna," he meekly said, lowering his pants and underpants and freeing the monster. Aside from the matter of her surrender to fate, he couldn't go against her anymore. He just couldn't. He owed her that much, and perhaps more.

Siesta and Fabiola went cross-eyed. Taeko recoiled, a geyser of blood erupting from her nose as she fell on her face, legs twitching in the air above her. Fubuki-san grew darkly red and began stammering about indecency to herself.

"Ah, so that's why?" Genjuro looked at Minako. "Mina-chan, I wouldn't have minded if you had employed a few of Ayaka's horses for that. It'd have been less scandalous than-"

Minako absently punched him in the face.

Nonon began choking violently on her saliva yet again. Chizuru, who could recognize a fellow long-suffering rich girl hopelessly in love with an aristocrat of even higher position, calmly approached her and patted her back until she more or less recovered.

Satsuki only frowned. "Do you hope to impress me with that? Even assuming you haven't simply gone insane -"

"Oh, shut up already, motherfucker!" Asuna barked at her.

"Oh god," whimpered Nonon into the dead silence which followed. "We're all going to die."

"Achievements in ignorance, indeed," Chizuru muttered, rubbing her forehead as Nonon's reactions confirmed her long-standing suspicion. Again, it took one to know one, after all.

Satsuki's eyebrows went up, way up, her forehead. "What. What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?!"

"Motherfucker!" Asuna repeated, and before Negi could utter the usual single word admonishment starting with 'L', she told him, "The socks too!"

Negi blinked and gestured at the sole articles of clothing he had left on. "Are you serious? You aren't saying she'll now believe these socks are the source of my -"

"We're proving a point, and that demands completeness or completion or whatever!" Asuna commanded. "Off with them too!"

Negi sighed as he obeyed. "Sometimes you can be surprisingly fastidious for someone so careless..."

"Pot, kettle!" Asuna said, lining up next to him, sword at the ready. "Now let's give her our non-sexual best! The other best, later!"

"I'm vainly hoping that last bit is a joke," Negi said as he led himself be led by her, both steamrolling towards Satsuki, who in turn charged ahead as well, blanketed with a gigantic battle aura, for the final clash of the combat. And clash they did, almost throwing everyone else off their feet, Ayaka keeping footing only because Roberta held her and Minako.

An eerie silence between the clouds of raised dust followed over the next moments.

When half of the dust dissipated, everyone could see Negi and Asuna standing over a blinking, battered Kiryuin, Asuna holding her sword against her throat and smirking. "Now you can call me Hime-sama," she told her.

Satsuki blinked slowly, barely aware of how Nonon had just fainted with a quiet gasp. A million conflicting emotions, from awe to rage to disbelief to puzzlement, violently warred inside of her until, somehow, a smirk of her own rose from the result. "Well played, Hime-sama," she allowed. "Learn something new every day." Defeat felt ... very different from her expectations.

"Well, I'm not Konoka-san, or even Yue-san," Negi said right after finishing healing Satsuki up. "But that should suffice. How do you feel now, Kiryuin-san?"

Satsuki flexed her arms and hands slowly, looking at them with her usual scowl. "Truly impressive," she begrudgedly admitted. "A man of so many talents, yet so sadly wasted."

"Sadly wasted?!" Ayaka cried from where she stood in the garden, where the maids had brought several lawn chairs to acommodate the injured to be healed. "He's saved the world around three times before turning thirteen, and you're calling his talents wasted?!"

"If you are including the incident at Kyoto," Negi humbly said, "that was the Master's success, not mine. And if you're including Chao's defeat, while the world might have fallen into temporary turmoil afterwards, I think saying I saved it is going too far."

"Whatever. Now, about that whole mess with the crazy one eyed swordgirl," Asuna hummed from her chair.

"She's not a sword user," Satsuki corrected her. "She wields half of a giant pair of scissors."

"Whatever!" Asuna threw her hands up. "You know her, she knows you, so we want to know what your deal is!"

Satsuki frowned, looked around, and then finally said, "I refuse to share that information in any level of details with anyone but Springfield-sensei, and I suppose you as well. Mostly, I refuse to share confidential information with that woman," she added, pointing at Chizuru.

Naba's reply was calm and concise. "Thank you for sparing me the annoyance of having to listen to you more than absolutely necessary, Kiryuin-san."

Nonon hissed viciously at her, but Naba just ignored her.

"All I will say for now is that Harime Nui's goals and mine are completely incompatible, and she's a stain on the face of all I stand and aim for," Satsuki added. "Had it been within my power, I'd have gladly terminated her long ago."

"So, we'd be better off asking your mother about it, wouldn't we, dear?" Minako asked.

"I advise you to never get closer to my mother more than is, as that woman would put it, absolutely necessary."

"Oh, I see," Asuna said. "So that's why that 'motherfucker' insult -"

Satsuki harshly gestured for her to be quiet.

"No good vibes between you two, right?" Asuna guessed.

"You don't know the half of it," Nonon whispered, leaning closer to Asuna from the next chair. "Don't keep pressing on it, okay?"

With their backs to the females and Negi, still talking through his cellphone, Genjuro-sama overlooked the still smoking remains of his private sports complex. "So we can expect your crew to be here around tomorrow at this very same time? Yes, that works. No, we're all physically fine, thanks for asking. No, I don't think I'll be available tonight. Maybe next week? Great. Tell your secretary to call mine. You too, bye." He sighed as he pocketed the phone, turning around. "I hope you appreciate how patient I am being to all of you. Your father would have had you all killed by now, Chizuru-chan."

"Very big of you, Uncle," she replied dryly.

"Think of it as a way to lighten your karma, Genjuro," his wife told him.

"No, I fired my spiritual advisor last month, after getting fed up with that crap," he replied, shaking his head. "Hadn't I told you? Huh."

"You hadn't even been home for the last three months, father," Ayaka reminded him.

"Still, I was pretty sure of having told her through the phone," he pondered nonchalantly. "Anyway, why haven't you gotten dressed?" he asked Negi and Asuna. Not that he minded the view in the latter's case, but still.

"Same reason why these incompetents haven't brought me any clothes either!" Nonon shrieked, pointing at the maids, who stood respectfully to the side. Well, not so much respectfully as simply too stunned over all the recent events to react at their fullest, or, in Roberta's case, too unwilling to care. The pink haired girl had been brought a blanket to cover herself with, but nothing else.

"I'm afraid," Roberta answered for the team, "none of Ojou-sama's clothes would fit a young woman of your much smaller size."

"Don't worry about the Gokou you couldn't properly protect, Nonon," Satsuki icily told her. "When we are back at Honnouji, I'll tell Iori-san to remake a Two-Star out of the shreds."

"A Two-Star?!" Nonon cried.

Asuna looked at Genjuro's face and replied honestly. "Well, we're going to have sex shortly, so why bother dressing up in the meanwhile?"

"Wait ... what?" Ayaka said.

"Oh," Genjuro replied blandly, as his maids began choking and gagging on their saliva, all but Roberta, who only sighed stoically. "All right, in that case, please enjoy yourselves on _my_ property with _my_ wife and daughter again. Why, I wouldn't even dream of spoiling your healthy youthful fun!"

"Yep, thank you!" Asuna answered, casusally walking towards Ayaka and starting to undo the fastenings of the blonde's dress. "We're going to have sex, and since Chizuru-san is such a nice person that she'll help people she thinks of as insects if people she likes like them, we're going to reward her for her niceness by giving her a ride on the Iinchou train. Anyone not interested on buying tickets is gently suggested to leave the station immediately."

Fabiola, without saying a single word, took that as her cue to walk into the house and out of sight.

"... I really need to work on my sarcasm," Genjuro decided.

"The Iinchou train?" Chizuru asked, watching all this with her elbow on the garden table and the palm of that hand on her chin.

"Wait... what?" Ayaka repeated.

"Oh, boy, she's stalled out," Asuna said.

"I have not!" Ayaka protested. "I am simply a bit startled by how and where this is going so suddenly! And, and, how did you know about Chizuru-san's feelings for me, Asuna-san?"

"I've had my tongue up you and I'm still getting '-san'?"

"What," Fubuki blurted out. Taeko's face began overheating behind her glasses.

"There are proprieties to be observed! Now answer my damned question before fiddling with my bra right before my parents!" Ayaka demanded.

Asuna made a frustrated noise. "Like I said, I've seen the way she looks at you. It was the same way I was looking at Takahata-sensei for the last few years. It's not that complicated, but I suppose you don't realize that. So can I get back to figuring how this thing unhooks, already? Why do you have to wear such complicated -"

"Wait, are you really going to do that right before us?! Are you guys freaking crazy?!" Nonon yelled.

Negi nodded in silence, with a long suffering face.

Ayaka made a simple gesture and the bra dropped off easily.

"Oh, good grief, don't tell me you've gone in for golem wear, too?" Asuna asked, startled but not enough to stop her from starting to grab the exposed breasts and thumb their firm nipples.

"You ARE doing it right before us!" Nonon yelled. "Satsuki-chan, say something!"

"This is such a pitiful, yet oddly intriguing development," Satsuki mused in a dry tone.

"Satsuki-chaaan!"

"I don't know what that means - nnn! - but for your information, I was aware of Chizuru-san's feelings for me!" Ayaka explained through clenched teeth.

"I confessed during the party after your liberation," Chizuru elaborated, eyes clearly on the exposed mammaries. "Unfortunately..."

"No, no, no, no! You just can't do these things right before our eyes!" Nonon insisted, stomping a foot.

"It is _our_ house," Minako reminded her.

"**My** house, technically," Genjuro hummed, definitely too aloofly for someone seeing his daughter squirm as she was fondled and stripped before him. Ayaka kept understandably avoiding eye contact with him, but wasn't fighting Asuna-chan off either. He wondered what Minako had done to her. "I didn't see you taking part in any of the ventures that paid for it."

"Dowry," she said absently.

"... okay, good point."

"Wow, all sorts of things happened at that party," Asuna mused, replying to Chizuru. "And you and Negi should definitely get together to chat about confessing to your true love and it not going anywhere."

"Yes, because you wouldn't know anything about thaaaa," Ayaka said as Asuna's other hand went down her panties from the rear.

"Oh, so you told Maki-chan, then?" Chizuru asked, eyebrow raised.

Negi, who had turned around to softly bap his head against a tree, slowly turned to look at her with a stricken expression.

"Excuse him. He and Makie are doing some sort of bizarre pretend play where they act as if they hadn't confessed to each other, out of fear of hurting others' feelings or something. It's very naive and unrealistic, but kids will be kids," Asuna explained.

"... really," Chizuru, Satsuki, and Ayaka's parents found themselves saying at the same time.

Ayaka squealed with the pitch of someone whose feelings might have been saved from being hurt by a childish ruse being well kept. "M-Makie-san?!"

"Yes, really!" Asuna confirmed. Then, realizing the sour expression Negi's face had taken, she added, "Oh, well, or rather, that's the way it'd have been if things had gone that way. Which they haven't, because he's so totally open and available to anyone and Makie-chan would understand that even if she had been chosen. Which she hasn't!"

"Oh, thanks goodness!" Ayaka, who like any other rich person was well acquainted with the concept of living lies, sighed pleasantly and with immense relief.

"There, happy now?" Asuna asked Negi.

"Moderately. Thank you," he nodded.

"You are freaking weird. I'll never complain about the monkey, the toad and the dog again," Nonon decided.

"In any event!" Ayaka interjected, letting her outfit's skirt drop to the ground around her feet. "I have explained to Chizuru-san that while I accept and honor her feelings, I do not share them, as my heart belongs exclusively to Negi-sensei -"

"- even though you've shared your lady parts with me, him and others," said Asuna, as both of her hands got down to the business of gently caressing the aforementioned lady parts.

"That-that-that happened afterwards!" Ayaka protested. "And - urgh!" With some difficulty, though not nearly as much as she might have had if Asuna was actually trying, she got out of Asuna's grip and stumbled over to Negi. "And the heart, in the end, is what matters. Isn't it, Negi-sensei!"

"Ojou-sama, please think of what you're doing!" Fubuki cried, before turning to... "Roberta-san! Say something!"

"I cannot stop Ojou-sama, as she made clear to me the day we first were together," the Bloodhound of Florencia said. "I can do nothing but let her chase her happiness as I loyally follow her trail."

"What?!" Chizuru suddenly turned to look at her.

Minako coughed softly into a fist. "Ayaka-chan! Don't tell me you didn't tell the other girl with a blatantly obvious crush on you about the time you were with Roberta-san! What do you have to say in your defense, young la-" She interrupted herself upon seeing Ayaka was down between Negi's legs, her long blonde hair bouncing as her head bobbed back and forth.

"For real, right before our very own eyes!" Nonon spat a strangled yell. "Do you have no shame!?"

"Um, we've kind of lost it along the way lately," explained Asuna, just a bit sheepishly. "One thing has quickly led to the other, seriously, and it has escalated to the point where, well, I'll admit we'd have been just as outraged as you if we'd seen this happening months ago, but..." She ended up shrugging. "Shit happens!"

"Language, please!" Negi requested, his hands gently perched on Ayaka's head.

"Indeed it does," Genjuro snarled out a corner of his mouth.

"Uh-huh. Well, it's spreading quickly, and as you can see, it has changed us a lot, now that I look back at it," Asuna said, not looking at Negi and not seeing him twitch from reasons that had nothing to do with Ayaka's talented fellatio. "I suppose that yes, we've sort of let it spin out of control, but the thing is, things were already out of control anyway, so you could say we're only rolling around with it, making sure to stay together in the meanwhile, before we fall apart. The way I see it, by sharing these life-changing experiences, we become stronger and tighter, after we've established ties that, for better or worse, can't be broken so easily. Or something."

"That's an awful lot of justification for the satisfaction of your lowest appetites," Satsuki calmly opined.

"Maybe you're right," Asuna shrugged. "But that's the way we've taken, and by now we've gone too far to turn back anymore. So basically we're taking this as a rite of passage of sorts for those who want to join us."

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Genjuro said. "I'm hardly scandalized by this, in itself. I've seen and even done far worse. It's just ... nothing ever involved my daughter! Who really should not be giving head to a man right before my eyes!"

Ayaka pulled her lips from around the member to give her father a poisonous glare. "At least this got you to finally bother looking at me again!" she argued before going back to suckle, twice as hard as before.

"Well, excuse me for thinking you were mature enough as to be allowed to look after yourself!" the older man replied. "If I had known the truth about you, I'd have acted very differently!"

Ayaka said something that sounded like 'Whatever!' around the cock.

"Oh, so now you're a responsible parent. Well, I imagine it had to happen someday," Minako said, looking aside.

"I know, right?" he shot back. "Who knows, maybe someday it'll happen to you as well."

"M-Maybe this isn't the right time for this," Negi said, feeling like the world's official greatest heel, pervert and homewrecker. (Which was untrue, after all, since Sawagoe Tomaru was still alive for now.) "After all, we don't really have to do anything if you don't want to."

Ayaka pulled back, bewildered. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"I don't know, really, I just always feel compelled to say that for some reason. Maybe it's a motto of some sort, which I somehow know instinctively. Or a transformation phrase," he began to speculate, tilting his head to the side and going a bit starry-eyed. "Wouldn't that be wonderful if it were the case?"

"In this case," Satsuki observed, as she began pulling her own clothes off much to Nonon's terrified shock, "you should have phrased it like this. 'We aren't going to do anything if you don't want us to', aimed at the masters of the house who obviously feel uncomfortable over this debauchery."

"Then," asked Fubuki, "why are you apparently joining said debauchery?"

Satsuki smiled at her, in that arrogant way of hers. "Because in the upcoming world order, the desires of the rulers take priority over those of their financial supporters. And right now, my desire is to join this strange elite to steer it to true greatness and help it develop its true potential. After all, as Yukihiro-san himself said, I've seen and done far worse."

Nonon's eyes became itsy-bitsy dots as she squeaked helplessly.

"What, are you going to take over the world?" asked Asuna, with a fist cocked on her hip. "I've gotta warn you, one of our classmates already sort of got dibs on that."

Genjuro, who knew well the risks of going against the Kiryuins, blinked. "Uh."

To be fair to him, part of his bafflement was not due only to his fear, but also to the rather enticing view the now naked Satsuki featured, casually walking towards Ayaka and Negi as her wide behind oscillated slowly. Nonon's eyes were just as nailed there as his.

"The moral of the day being, once again," Siesta said, as she undid the top of her uniform, "wealthy and influential people will always do what they want, no matter how immoral, decadent and corrupt it is, and poor denizens of the oppressed masses like us will never have any chance to do anything but suffer under their bare heel. Oh well."

"You realize we aren't using our influence to force anyone to do anything, right?" Asuna asked her. "Hell, Fabiola-san walked in and washed her hands off us and no one tried to stop her."

"Siesta-chan!" Taeko nearly jumped off her skin. "Wh-What are you doing?!"

Siesta looked at her. "Taeko-chan. I've been rejected by the young man I loved, who chose a shrill, tyrannical, pink-haired, flat-chested aristocratic bitch over me. I could have taken most of that, but the flat-chested part really fucking stung. Never again. This time, I'm joining the winning side. This time, I'm not wasting my chance to be with a world-saving hero. This time," she said as she finished stripping down, curvy body and full mammary assets on display, "I'm being the slut everyone accused me of being, back when I couldn't claim the fruits of being one."

Genjuro stared blankly at her, awestruck, before only nodding once. "You getting a raise," he said.

"See? It's working already!" Siesta told Taeko.

"Ugugugugu," the even bustier maid said, her eyes spinning in place.

"And furthermore," Siesta said, walking over to her and starting undoing her top as well, "if I'm not mistaken, Hanabishi-san rejected you as well, didn't he? Well, of course he did, you never had a chance against Sakuraba-san, much like I never had one against Miss La Valliere. So let's work together as secondary characters fighting their fate," she added, rubbing Taeko's massive breasts over her bra. "And incidentally, fuck around a lot. What's it gonna be, Tae-chan? Yes, or no?"

After a few incoherent whimpers, Taeko said something that Siesta chose to interpret as an affirmation, and so she was kissed.

"I'm sorry," Roberta said, not really sounding that sorry, as Chizuru deflated with a sigh after several minutes of assimilating the situation. "But please understand my love for Ojou-sama runs even deeper than yours. After all, I got to met her even before you did."

"We were in kindergarten together."

"Your point being?"

Chizuru sighed in resignation. "Fine then, I can't say I'd have reacted any differently if our roles had been reversed. Which I realize is sort of creepy. Anyway, one way or another, we have both lost to someone who got there much later," she said sorrowfully as she reached behind her neck and pulled some sort of string back there, loosening the neck of her dress enough that it slipped down around her shoulders, and then, once she lowered her arms so that they hung at her side, the rest of the way down to the floor, leaving her clad in a dark purple bustier and matching panties, which - notably - left her breasts exposed. "Ah well. It cannot be helped."

"What?" Asuna asked, now whipping her head back and forth between angles which gave her a view of Ayaka frantically rubbing Negi's dick with her tits and those which gave her a view of Chizuru. "What are you _wearing_?" she finally demanded, likely of the latter.

"Underwear," Chizuru answered, reasonably enough. Then, perhaps but probably not taking mercy on Asuna's beleaguered neck muscles, she casually ambled over to Ayaka and Negi, casually pushing Satsuki aside with her hips and pressing her breasts up against his chest as her spare hand, the one not wrapping around his shoulders to hug him closely, went down to tease Ayaka's hair.

"Chizuru-san, what-" he stammered in response to her actions, not really sure what he wanted to say beyond that.

"It's all right. A great heart has a lot of room, and while I can't say mine is anywhere as great as yours, I still like to think you have made mine grow. All of you," she added, then turned her face to glance at Satsuki. "Not you, though." She promptly turned to back to Negi, and kissed him deeply.

"Hurhuroo-hun?!" Ayaka babbled around the phallus she'd started sucking again a moment ago, after a few moments spent in regaining her breath.

After a moment, Chizuru released Negi's lips, and smiled gently at him. "A lot of room," she repeated, then easily sank down to her knees so that she was beside Ayaka.

"You'll share with me, right?" she added, smiling ingratiatingly.

Ayaka felt torn. On the one hand, what she wanted to say was 'no no never mine mine mine alllll mine!' But that was completely inappropriate. One of her stature should be generous. She considered briefly just making helplessly confused noises while still sucking the wonderful thing in her mouth, but that would be rude. And so, with some apprehension, she pulled back to say, "Of course, I'll shuuhh."

Really, some part of her brain scolded the rest as she was kissed just as deeply as Negi had just been, she should have seen that coming.

"Okay." Asuna inhaled deeply. "So, who else is in? Minako-chan? Genjuro-sama? Jakuzure-san? Lead Maid-san? Roberta?"

Roberta nodded sparsely and began undressing. "In the event you should fail to dim Ojou-sama's fires, I won't fail her."

Asuna looked back at where Chizuru and Ayaka frenched each other. "I think that's already covered, but thanks anyway and welcome back."

"Why do I rank a 'Lead Maid-san' while you remember the names of the rest of the staff?" Fubuki asked.

"Sorry, I forgot why I forgot your name," Asuna sincerely said. "So...?"

"What makes you think I'd be interested in joining this ring of perversion?"

"... the fact you haven't left yet?" Asuna asked back, genuinely confused. "Also I was actually kinda trying to subtly ask your name."

Fubuki was silent for what felt like a long while before starting to unbutton her top. "I'm just tired of swimming against the stream, every day, at everything I do," she shared.

"I can sympathize, believe me," Negi empathically nodded her way.

"Do you know how many men would kill to be in your place? Sheesh, when Chisame's right, she's right. What an ingrate," Asuna shook her head.

"I'm impressed. I had no idea Ayaka-chan could hold her breath that long," Minako added, looking at her daughter's ongoing kiss. "Anyway, Asuna-chan, how can I refuse a kind offer from the only person who still calls me 'Minako-chan'?"

"I call you 'Minako-chan'," her husband told her.

"Only while snarking to me and attacking my self-esteem."

"You have enough of that to spare some third world countries! Okay, anyway, I know how these things go."

"Oh, you do?" his wife raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I do. I either refuse to join you in this insult to my authority and stomp away, in which case I'll have surrendered and will be forced to lock myself in the bathroom to masturbate, which is simply too pathetic for a Yukihiro, or I agree and you brand me a chauvinistic pervert who couldn't hold a firm position."

"Or you could just kick them off of your property, Genjuro-sama," an already _au naturel_ Fubuki, also large breasts on display, reminded him. "Which, you know, you are perfectly entitled to."

He gave a look at Satsuki's harsh face with her harsh glare. "... I would prefer not to so," he decided, taking his hands to his belt buckle.

"SATSUKI-CHAAAAAAN!" Nonon trembled. "Don't let them do this to you! Why are you going along with this?!"

"Nonon!" her superior shouted like a thunder. "To reach the greatest power in this world, this is the treacherous road I must navigate, careful yet boldly! I cannot cling to the puritanical views of the masses, and so prove myself inferior to them! I won't be ashamed, if it means I can fulfill my ambitions, I will bare my breasts for all to see! I will do whatever it takes! For I know that my actions are utterly pure!"

Nonon gave her an aghast, baffled look before meekly tossing the blanket she was wearing aside. "You ... then, you know I'll always follow you anywhere, no matter what, Satsuki-chan!"

"Aaaaand that settles it, then!" Asuna made a satisfied noise and walked over to her classmates to begin kissing Negi deeply. As she did so, her presence nearby was noted by Chizuru, who broke her own kiss to look up. "Well, I suppose we should do our part as well," she mused.

"Mruuhh?" inquired Ayaka, who - at least for the second that Negi was able to glance at her while Asuna was kissing him - looked a bit like Chachamaru had after receiving her pactio.

Chizuru delicately tapped the shaft of the enormous organ which pointed upwards near both their faces.

"Uhhhh," Ayaka replied, indicating her comprehension with a slight nod... then, with a slight sideways gesture of her head, indicated her hesitant but continued acquiescence to Chizuru's earlier, somewhat deceptive request to share.

A smile slowly spread across Chizuru's face. "There's the Ayaka that I know and love," she said softly. She turned to look at it, both because it should be looked at and to keep her from seeing the fact that the smile didn't really reach her eyes. This would be the first one since Kotaro-kun, whose member had been much smaller, and his had been the first since -

Well. She didn't have to think about that, since Negi-kun was nothing like either of them. A bit like Kotaro-kun, perhaps, but certainly nothing like -

Well. She didn't have to think about that. So she didn't. Instead, she took a deep breath, painted the smile on more firmly, and took first the head, then the rest of the shaft, into her mouth... and then the rest of the way, into her throat, until her lips were kissing his thatch of pubic hair. As Ayaka had earlier, she shifted back and forth a bit - not as far, admittedly - to give him some more sensation. From the look on his face as he stared down at her, she suspected that he was more startled than pleased by this. Or it also might have something to do with how Kiryuin - that blasted forceful meddler - had just grabbed him tightly from behind to begin harshly biting and chewing on his right nipple.

Well, whatever the case was, it wasn't exactly pleasant for Chizuru either, but she supposed that feeling the member bend in ways that it wasn't really meant to bend probably felt worse than having her throat filled in ways that it was never really meant to - oh, she'd better pull back, her vision was starting to go dark.

Oh, air felt good sometimes. In fact, it felt so good that she let the member, now slick with her saliva, slip the rest of the way out of her mouth. She held it in place with her lips as she glanced at Ayaka, just as wide-eyed as Negi, and lifted an eyebrow inquiringly.

Ayaka hesitatingly nodded, and she passed it to her, delicately kissing the girl's cheek once it was in her mouth - a bit deeper than it had been in there before, but not, thankfully, as deep as she'd taken it. (If the girl did not acknowledge limitations, she was not, at least, stupid. Most of the time.)

In the meanwhile, a dubious Nonon knelt down between Satsuki's legs, which grew slightly apart to allow for a better fit of the girl in their middle of them. Jakuzure shuddered slightly, finding herself face to face with Satsuki's well shaved crotch, and the slightly wet pink opening at its center. It smelled funny, like Nonon's own fingers after touching herself while thinking of Satsuki-chan, so how came she couldn't do nothing now but stare at it, paralyzed? She was no coward, she hadn't been raised to hesitate in the face of anything, and she had dreamed of this moment for so long, so it made no sense now she couldn't-

"Ahem," Satsuki growled, and Nonon began to diligently lick at the flower of her feminity.

It was easy as long as she only thought of it as an imposed duty, ironically. Which it wasn't, not at all, but she knew she'd freeze again if she started thinking of how actually great it was, of all the butterflies dancing in her stomach, of how completely happy and happily complete it made her feel, to be finally there, one with Satsuki-chan, long before the monkey or the dog or the toad or that exchange student bitch no wait wait wait why would she ever, Satsuki and her were mortal enemies and -

"Faster," Satsuki ordered between licks all over Negi's chest, and Nonon sighed and redoubled her efforts. Love was a much more complicated matter than war.

Meanwhile, the now naked Minako and Genjuro stared at each other in a tense standoff.

"How gross, you have grown a gut," the woman said, staring at her husband's body. "No wonder you insisted on leaving the lights off last time we did it."

"Well, unlike you, I don't have the time to spend hours and hours in a gym."

"Well then," Minako said, "I suppose we're expected to do it with each other before anything else, aren't we?"

"What do you mean with 'before anything else'?"

"Are you implying I can't do it with Negi-kun again?"

"... you know, that really is the kind of question a woman should never ask his husband until the ink on the divorce papers is dry."

"... are you asking me for a divorce?"

"And go through all that legal hassle?! Have you lost your mind, woman?!"

"Oh, that's good," she exhaled. "I thought your hubris had gotten the best of you. Anyway, I assumed you'd want to do it with a few of the girls afterwards, as well."

"... I'm being set up for a lawsuit, isn't that right?"

"Oh, for the love of God, Genjuro! Stop being so bloody paranoid! If this happened to be a trap, don't you think we'd be setting ourselves for a fall, as well? And are you telling me you really never fucked any of the domestic service?!"

"Not me," Siesta shook her head.

"M-Me neither!" Taeko added.

"He knew better than that," Roberta cracked her knuckles ominously as she knelt behind Ayaka, then to lean down and forward to begin licking on her young mistress' vulva, making her yelp and Chizuru hum.

"I can't honestly say he ever made a move on me," Fubuki piped in.

Minako gave the man a surprised glare. "Really! Genjuro, I'm awed! Everyone else does the domestic service!"

"I know. Why do you think I only hire old men as the butlers, gardeners and chauffeurs?"

"You're aware that hasn't ever stopped me anyway, right?"

"It hasn't? Huh. At least nobody can say I never tried."

They kept on looking into each others eyes. For a few moments, as their faces came slow and inexorably closer, the onlooking maids thought they were going to surrender to their basest passions, their combination of old love and burning spite, in an explosive burst of aggressive sexuality in the middle of the equally absurd, bizarre impromptu orgy. For they seemed to be communicating without words, in an intense, heated fashion, a duel of wills if you will. And then ...

"Siesta," she said.

"Fubuki," he argued.

"Siesta."

"Fubuki."

"Siesta!"

"Fubuki!"

"..."

"Taeko," she said.

And he nodded, warmly smiling at his wife. "Taeko."

Taeko blinked cluelessly. "Hmmm? I don't get it, what about MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she wailed as she was grabbed suddenly by husband and wife, each taking one of her large soft breasts into their mouths and starting suckling on it as their hands, together, rubbed and massaged Taeko's vagina, under her light patch of brown pubic hair. "AAAAAHHHHHNNNNN, Genjuro-sama, Minako-samaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

After a moment of shared silent observation, Siesta and Fubuki sighed and patted each other on the back and shoulders. Then they began kissing, because why not.

* * *

"And she gave you her permission to walk around like that? Really?" Rainbow Dash dubiously asked Pinkie Pie as the two of them and Applejack walked down a wide boulevard surrounded by flowery fields and under a crystal blue sky in Evangeline's resort. Rainbow and AJ were fully clothed, while Pinkie happily marched in the buff between them.

"Well, she wouldn't make ponies wear clothes, would she?" Pinkie asked back. "Around these places, everypony, sorry, everybody agrees it's silly making ponies wear clothes! It was quite a shock for Rarity."

"Well, yeah, but all that changes when we are like this, doesn't it?" asked Applejack. "Golly, Pinkie, if you misunderstood her and she only gave you her permission to walk around her place like that in your real form, you'll be in some real hot water!"

"Nah, I don't think I have anything to worry about. Hello, Miss Eva!" she waved, towards where, at a side of the boulevard, Evangeline rested on her stomach in the nude on a lawn chair, pale perky small ass pumped up as her legs slowly swung back and forth above it. Applejack and Dash gaped as the miniature vampire lifted her gaze from the book she had been reading.

"Oh, it's you," Mc Dowell said. "Aren't your friends somewhat overdressed?"

Pinkie shrugged. "I guess they tend to feel cold now we don't have fur. I'm sure they'll come around after they grow used to it!"

"Ah," Evangeline blandly returned to her book. "By the way, Boya's going to be busy over the next few days, but as soon as he returns, Chachamaru will tell you so you can have your turn."

Pinkie happily clasped her hands together. "Thank you, Miss Eva! That'll be great! He looks like he really, really really could use some cheer! I'm going to throw him his best party ever!"

"Hrrnh. Whatever," Eva grumbled, waving for them to keep walking.

And so, they did.

"Twilight says he's very tender and loving," Pinkie explained after a few moments of walking in silence. "I'm sure there's no better choice to get, I don't know, two virgins started on -"

"I'm not doing any bipedals ever, period!" Dash tossed her hands up.

Abruptly, a throat cleared somewhere nearby. "Pinkamena," someone said.

Pinkie froze, turned to look at the Governor General who had just arrived, and, in the coldest voice any of her friends remembered her using, said, "Kurt. You look well."

"What are you doing here?" Goedel asked.

"I'm visiting Twilight. She's a friend of mine. I assume you've met," Pinkie replied, still chillingly formal.

"I thought we had an understanding," said Goedel.

"I wasn't aware you were here," she said. "Are you staying?"

"For the duration."

"I see," Pinkie said, nodding gravely. "I hope that we can agree to be professional."

"Of course," he said, nodding himself.

"... you do look well," Pinkie added after a moment.

"You look amazing," Goedel quickly answered, and there might have the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

All the while, Rainbow and Apple had been watching this like spectators at a tennis match, jaws dropping lower and lower with each passing word.

"Well then, I'll see you around. Hopefully much more, and very soon," he faintly waved, walking past them at a careless pace.

"I don't think you can see much more of me than this," Pinkie said, gesturing down at her bare body. And then, after he was gone, she looked back at her friends and peppily said, back to her old, happy go lucky tone, "Never mind about that! He's not a very nice person, but I'm not inviting him to our party with Prince Negi, so he won't be disturbing you while you -"

"Still not doing any bipedals, no no no never!" Rainbow insisted.

* * *

Now that the slightly unnerving display was over - seriously, Chizuru was _such_ a showoff - Asuna slowly began to shift Negi away from the two Honnouji girls and then backwards, in order to lay him on his back on the ground. It wasn't the simplest procedure, given that, even under the circumstances, he was the exact opposite of 'weak in the knees', and the way that Kiryuin seemed to want to keep him held close to her, but with Ayaka and Chizuru (whose hands and tongue were occupied with his balls) and Jakuzure-san (whose mouth was occupied with Satsuki's vulva, and her hands with the taller girl's ass) serving as distractions, she managed to do it.

And, once again, once Negi's attention returned to his surroundings, he made a face. "And here I am, on my back again, without even having noticed," he grumbled.

"Look on the bright side, it didn't happen while you were lecturing anyone this time," Asuna told him cheerfully.

"I suppose that is a good thing, now that you menhugh," Negi reluctantly agreed in the moments before she sat on his face.

"Ohhhkay then!" Asuna cheered as he promptly got to work eating her out, toes almost curled on the grass as she almost lost herself in the moment. (She owned it. She wouldn't ever let it go. You only get one shot so don't ... um, anyway.) "Out of you two privileged and wealthy young ladies -"

"- said the princess of an entire planet," Chizuru and Ayaka chorused, the latter coming up specifically to join in on the sass.

_"- two?"_ Kiruin pointedly said, one eyebrow looking like a staccato as her hands held onto Nonon's scalp.

Asuna ignored all of that with an attitude which can only be termed 'regal'. "- which one wants the first ride on our stallion, here?" she continued, reaching down to tickle Negi's waist just above his pubic hair. He shuddered, making the organ wave slightly. "Will it be the experienced equestrian? Or the... um... darn, it's hard to keep up a metaphor, sometimes... the, uh, the dog fancier?"

"Dog fancier?" Chizuru repeated.

"Metaphors are tricky things!"

Ayaka took a deep breath, trying to focus on the question rather than on what the kneeling Roberta was doing to her sex. It wasn't easy, but she was disciplined. "It should be-" Before the sentence could be finished, however, Satsuki had walked past them, stomping on each step, and leaving a dazed Nonon on her knees and making sucking motions on the air. It took her a few more attempted suctions before she tilted her distraught face towards where her fearless leader was crouching down onto Negi's lap and the hard thing poking above it.

_"Satsuki-chan?!"_

"Astronomer," Satsuki said, staring into Asuna's eyes.

"Bweh?" she said.

"Naba is an astronomy enthusiast, so you should call her an astronomer," Kiryuin dryly explained, rubbing Negi's dick between her hands and guiding it towards her own vagina. "Don't tell me you don't know that. Even I do!" She flinched just a bit as the spongy tip of the humongous thing began slowly spreading her nether lips apart, drawing a long moan from him into Asuna's cooch.

"I was making reference to the fact that Ayaka's done this before, and Chizuru has been with Kotaro!" Asuna defended herself. "And anyway, astronomy is more of a hobby for her -"

"Actually," Chizuru calmly expanded as she patted the shoulder of an Ayaka making her best impression of an ice sculpture next to Nonon's ice sculpture, "I take my astronomy as seriously as Ayaka takes her equestrianism."

Asuna shut her mouth and made a note to introduce Ayaka to all Twilight Sparkle's friends. Surely the blonde would be thankful for all the friendly support of her … equestrianism.

"Hng," Satsuki grunted, as Asuna noticed Negi's thing was going up into her far deeper than it had with most of the girls she had seen him fucking with. It was sort of impressive to behold, actually, especially when Satsuki began using her feet to push herself up, then to slam herself back down, then to repeat the process over and over, energetically. Mighty boobs of steel bounced like basketballs being dribbled. "Yes, that's it. Let's sire the heir of the next era. You are the strong partner I need under me, to consolidate my ambit-"

"You just met him today!" Asuna reminded her. "I mean, I know I told you this was, ah, our entrance test, and I'm glad you have, uh, yeah that's it lower Negi lower, changed your tune about us, but what the heeeeeeeck! At least all the other girls, we knew them previously from-"

Since the Princess' inane chatter was boring her, Satsuki took a page from her mother's book and did exactly what she did whenever she thought Satsuki was acting stupidly, but she didn't want to beat her up for whatever reason. So she grabbed the back of Asuna's head, pulled her face towards her own, and began roughly kiss her lips, to silence her as they rode opposite ends of Negi, and their breasts mashed together.

Ayaka and Nonon fell into an eerily synchronized cacophony of helpless whimpers. Chizuru just sighed and wrapped her arms around both of them, shaking her head in sympathy. Roberta's soft suckling sounds could still be heard coming from between Ayaka's legs, all the same.

Meanwhile, not too far - though far closer to Ayaka than any father should be fucking a domestic employee in the general vicinity (and visual range, had Ayaka bothered to look back) of his daughter - Minako sat on the grass, tenderly holding Taeko's upper body on her lap, while keeping Taeko's wrists grabbed not so tenderly. All the while, Genjuro similarly held Taeko's spread legs up as he plowed into her, his flaccid belly bouncing less majestically than Satsuki's firm breasts or even Taeko's gelatinous ones.

"Tae-chan," the man raspily hissed. "I'm, I'm almost, I'm going to-"

"Eeeeeeeeeee! Not there, not inside, no no no no I'll get pregnant and yi yi yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" Taeko shrilled as she rattled into orgasm, finally triggered by Minako's tongue on her right nipple and the final few thrusts of the master of the house.

"Huhhhhhhhh..." Genjuro went briefly cross-eyed as Taeko's vaginal constrictions tugged hard on him, and he spewed into her. One moment later, coming back from the rush almost as quickly, he backed away on his ass, gasping aloud. Reality hit him back with a vengeance, his shame coming back twofold through the window after being brutally thrown out the door when it all started. "What, what have I done?"

"What my father did, and your father did, and Chizuru-chan's father often does, and so on, dear," Minako told him gently, as she scooped the sobbing Taeko in her arms and kissed her forehead. "There, there, darling. It's okay, it happens all the time around us. Genjuro's nephew, the one Chizuru-chan is engaged to? He's actually his brother's child with his secretary, which his wife legally took as her own. Wasn't that nice of her? Likewise, we swear we'll look after your child, if you happen to have one, as our own."

Chizuru looked back at them, still holding Nonon and Ayaka. "And you never bothered to tell me he was a bastard?"

"Dear, you've always known well he's a bastard!" Minako smiled at her.

"I don't mean it in that sense and you know it."

"What of it? Even he doesn't know it yet," Minako shrugged, while Genjuro, true to form, forgot his shame and firm purposes to never fall that low again as Siesta fell on all fours between his legs to fellate and revive his dangling manhood. "Does it really change anything for you?"

Chizuru fell into a long thoughtful silence and ended up shaking her head in a somber way. "No. Not at all, I'll admit it."

"Well, good thehhh..." Minako said as Fubuki started to lick her ass.

The grim seriousness of the moment was further broken by Satsuki's Hot Blooded screaming. "OH FUCK FUCK DON'T BE SUCH A FILTHY SHIT YOU NABA SHEEP I'LL HELP YOU OUT OF THAT AS LONG AS AH! AH! YES! THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA!" Her hands clawed on Negi's stomach as she deliriously rode him through her fourth straight orgasm and into milking him at last. "GIVE GIVE GIVE ME UUUUHHHHHH! VICTORY!" She tossed her hair back, and Negi arched his back, his legs shaking beneath Satsuki's hips and his penis shooting into her.

"Whoa," Asuna blinked as she saw them both slowly float back to a panting calm, whiteish liquid trickling down from their union point. "You know, it's funny, you're the polar opposite of a Satsuki we know and love. Anyway!" she looked back at the other rich girls. "Who's next, then? This is a regular Energizer bunny!" she said, tugging on Negi's still erect hardness when Satsuki rose from it.

"Duh duh dhuh bruh bwuh, Chu-zu-whu," Ayaka answered, eyes reduced to streaming blue ping pong balls.

"So generous!" said Chizuru. "So noble! Always a lovely angel of generosity, Ayaka-chan! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!"

"I dunno, are you sure she meant-" Asuna doubted.

"Shut up, Asuna," said Chizuru, who was - quite startlingly quickly - mounted on Negi's shaft, and pumping up and down with practiced ease.

"Buwh bruh bwaaahhh! Bwahhhh," Ayaka babbled.

"Bruh-bruh. Bruhwh bwak," Nonon agreed.

"Oh?" Asuna said, as her own hips rocked and rolled above Negi's mouth. "Did someone tell me to shut up? Unfortunately, being a species of insect, I can't really understand human language sometimes!"

"This - nyah! - is actually a pleasant experience, but I will admit that being compelled to watch you while I do it somewhat diminishes thaaaaat!" Chizuru gasped.

"Oh yeah?" Asuna breathed, then turned around so that she had her back to Chizuru, and bent forward slightly. "Guess what you can kiss!"

It would be easy, Chizuru realized, to do something rather different to that ass. All she would have to do was say one small word in Latin, and then - but no. That would be abusing the trust Negi had placed in her. She would not do so for so little provocation.

"She should be accustomed to that."

Kiryuin, on the other hand, would get hers before the day was over, definitely. Chizuru almost (almost) felt sorry for Jakuzure-san, but ...

* * *

Actually not too far away, from where people still could look at the trail of smoke coming from the Yukihiro grounds, Misa, Madoka and Sakurako stared at the trail of smoke coming from the Yukihiro grounds.

"... well, that's our Negi-kun," Misa said as she followed the others across the wide gardens of the Sawagoe residence. "I wonder who's he measuring dicks against this time?"

Ashikaga gagged on his saliva for a moment before asking. "Shouldn't you be worried about them?!"

"Nah, if something serious had happened, they'd have called us through the Pactio cards already," Sakurako shrugged. "Odds are they'll chalk it up to Iinchou's family throwing a private show if someone asks."

"And you called me careless about keeping this so-called Masquerade," grunted Saeki-sempai, whom Misa had come to actually sort of like despite how unlikable and unpleasant she acted. She at least seemed to have clear ideas on what she wanted and how to take it without any apologies, which was something Misa could respect.

"Keep it lower!" Madoka hissed. "The butler!"

"The butler won't even remember any of this in a few hours," Kitami said, marching right behind the mesmerized manservant they had met at the gates. When telling him Tomaru's own son was there hadn't granted them access, Kitami ran a hand over his face, muttered something in French and Latin, and they were being led inside moments after. Misa thought it was quite a neat and useful trick, no matter how much Takeshiro-sensei frowned and shook her head at it. "Rest at ease, dear. Now, I must warn you, the things you'll see inside go beyond the child plays you've been engaging into so far. Try not acting too bewildered, and that goes double for you, Ashikaga-kun, Kugimin. If these people see you scared or hesitating, they'll eat you alive. Perhaps literally."

"You have been on speaking terms with me for less than a day, and now even you call me 'Kugimin'?!" Madoka complained.

As the butler led them through several wide, regal reception rooms, chambers, halls and corridors, each one more luxuriously decorated than the last, they could see more and more houseguests, all of them informally dressed, and in many cases wearing only loosely tied robes and slippers. They most often would be sharing drinks and chattering amongst themselves, turning curious looks at the youthful procession and the two shapely adults with them, studying them with interest but none daring to actually approach them just yet. If, as most of them suspected, they were special guests Tomaru had brought, he'd want to have the first go at them, and virtually no one at the mansion knew that average looking nervous boy marching in the middle was one of Tomaru's heirs.

"Are they really having a party this early in the morning?" Taisuke asked.

"No, they had the party two nights ago. It's an all weekend binge," Reika explained. "A retreat for the rich, famous, and otherwise deadly bored. Eyes ahead, children. The best is yet to come."

"The Master will greet you inside," the butler droned, standing aside as he opened a final door for them.

"Thank you, sweetie," Reika purred, briefly giving the man a peck on a cheek and a squeeze on the crotch before walking in with no fear, closely followed by the sour Takashiro and the mostly intimidated teens.

Misa then learned a new definition of bacchanalia that made her jaw drop. Her eyes had been drawn inescapably to the figure with the truly hideous moustache in the center of the room, surrounded by partygoers engaged into all manners of obscenity, who was presently drinking milk ... from the teat of an enormously pregnant girl not much older than Misa herself, naked save for a collar around her neck, the chain of which was being held by a much older woman whom the girl somewhat resembled. He himself was stripped to the waist, with a medallion dangling from his own neck.

"Ah, delicious," he said as he pulled away from the teat. "Oh?" he added, while his eyes wandered over to the door. "Oh, it's you... Kitami-chan, isn't it? The one who got away... for a while," he smirked, remembering that young woman who had resisted his mind control five years ago. He never forgot those sort of incidents, sporadic and frustrating as they were. "I heard you were working at Mahora, but I never dreamed it'd take you close to Makoto-kun."

"Hello, father," Makoto growled more than greeted, fists balling up at his sides.

"For shame, Makoto-kun," the man said, walking towards them with the stalking air of a panther. "After your mother warned you so much to never get close to me. And, to be perfectly honest, I'd rather see Moeko's other child here."

"Leave Itaru-chan out of this, you -" Makoto warned, steeling himself while the other students, even Saeki and her two cronies, seemed to grow uneasy at all the scenes of perversion in display before them.

"Tomaru-sama," Kitami said, with a perfectly calm aplomb about her. "We heard about your birthday, and I told myself, well, while I wasn't invited, maybe I still should make it up to Tomaru-sama for our previous unfortunate encounter. So I have come with gifts of reconciliation for the joyous occasion."

"Gifts?!" Madoka and Ashikaga exclaimed at once.

"How curious," Tomaru mused. "They don't seem aware they are gifts."

Reika's smirk grew. "Well, that only makes them much better gifts, doesn't it?"

"Hm, Sensei, wait a sec, this wasn't in the-" Sakurako began, before Takashiro placed a hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear.

_"I won't allow them to hurt you. But, if we try to escape now, we are dead. So play along. Once you walk into the wolf's mouth, you'll only rip yourself against the fangs if you squirm too hard."_

_"It'd have been nice knowing that before walking into this mouth,"_ Sakurako whispered back. _"Also, that's a horribly lame comparison, Sensei."_

Tomaru laughed heartily. "Still just as bold, Kitami-chan! I just love initiative in a woman." _And how wonderful it is to break it_. "Go ahead, take a seat as we get to know each other better, ladies, gentlemen. Unless you have something better to do. You might try the Yukihiro's place. I just heard they are been having a really wild party."

* * *

After a moment of thought, however, Asuna's slim straight back, leaning the way that it did, suggested some useful notions to Chizuru. "Ayaka," she said ingratiatingly to the girl still crouched behind her.

"Nnnnn?" Ayaka replied, still slightly dazed both from shock and from the way Roberta lapped at her even now.

"I almost wish my servants were that loyal to me. Almost," Chizuru said almost reflexively. Then, shaking her head, she continued in a more ingratiating tone. "Come here, dear."

Eyes expressing vague bewilderment, Ayaka crawled forward just enough for Chizuru to reach out at pull her the rest of the way forward, setting her down on Negi's stomach, her face to Chizuru's face, her back to Asuna's back, and her legs spread so that her knees hooked over Chizuru's hips. Oh, and leaving Roberta open mouthed and frankly disappointed-looking. Ayaka just had enough time to make a noise of confusion before Chizuru kissed her again... and pulled Ayaka's hips so that their vulvae pressed against each other, specifically their clitoral areas.

"Hey, what are you -" Asuna asked, unable to see.

"Hnnnnnnnn!" the Bloodhound of Florencia made a tense sound at mid-way between that of a giant violin chord and a gun's muted percussion. Her hands flexed in and off like talons, and watching them from where she kissed and nibbled on Satsuki's breasts as her mistress held her against herself, Nonon wondered what there was in Yukihiro-san to attract so many girls. She didn't seem forceful and magnetic enough for it.

"Not how I dreamed it," Chizuru admitted, once she pulled out of the kiss, her hips rocking as she fucked back against Negi, then forward against Ayaka. "Not even remotely. It doesn't matter that it's not now how I dreamed it. It doesn't matter if it never happens again. It doesn't matter if I have to marry a bastard who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'no' and only wants me to fund his lifestyle."

Satsuki rolled her eyes. "I offered to take him off your back as long as you help our cause, didn't I?"

"Yes I did hear you, and I don't want your help," Chizuru growled.

"Well, good riddance, then," Satsuki said with a smirk.

"Grgh. None of that matters," she pushed on, still fifty-fifty torn between who was the lesser evil, her fiance or Kiryuin. "I will take what I can get from this life, and I take this. I love you, Ayaka, and-"

"Chizuru?" Ayaka asked weakly.

"Yes?"

"Shut up and fuck me."

"Okay then." She proceeded to do so.

"Okay, that sounds sweet and all, but can someone pamper me a bit as well? I know there has to be someone available," Asuna mused as she felt the bodies grinding against each other behind her.

Fubuki, with the sigh of a dutiful worker, placed herself before Asuna and began kissing and fondling her breasts.

"Oh, thank you! Um - you still haven't reminded me of your name, have you?"

"Fubuki," she patiently said, her mouth leaving Asuna's right nipple for a moment.

"Ah, and what a cute name it is!"

* * *

"I doubt," Madoka said, sitting between Misa and Sakurako with her hands on her own lap, "that what Negi, Asuna and Iinchou are doing right now is even half as wild as this, explosions or not."

Sakurako could do nothing but nod, and so did Misa. The weirdest part of all this, Misa was thinking, was the part that shouldn't be weird at all. Okay, there was a guy lounging around in a pair of tight leather pants and sucking a pregnant woman's tits. Okay, there was a fairly good-looking white-haired woman in nothing more than a set of purple lingerie being used as a pony girl by a pair of gross older guys whom she had a feeling were probably in the Diet, as another one who looked disturbingly like an older Itoshiki-sensei licked her ass. Okay, there were a bunch of girls playing what looked like strip mahjjong with another bunch of old guys.

But the weirdest part had to be the way that Kitami-sensei was just sitting there chatting pleasantly with 'Tomaru-sama' about how her job was going, waiting patiently each time he paused to suckle a bit more milk. As though she'd seen it all before. Which, granted, did gel with the image the woman constantly presented, at least in private, but Misa, as most teenagers do, had grown accustomed to think of most adults as far more bark than bite. To learn she actually was that callous about that sort of thing was still mildly disturbing, to say the least.

Even Taisuke, always so willing to talk a storm and taking nothing seriously, sat straight and awkwardly beside a moody Makoto and terrified Yuki-kun, on the couch across from the cheerleader trio, while Saeki-sempai, her two friends and Minase-sempai stood slightly apart, talking amongst themselves in rushed, heated tones.

"Very well, then," the owner of the residence finally said, in a louder voice than before, snapping Misa's attention back to him and away from the rest of the bacchanalia. "I accept your apologies, Reika-chan. I can't say these new delicacies don't look promising. Let's say, for starters, I shall choose -" And he pointed at Saeki, Misa and Madoka. "- her, her and her!"

Madoka pointed at herself and let out a squeak of terror. "M-Me?!"

* * *

Genjuro tried his best, his actual, honest best, to block out the sounds of his daughter's lovemaking as he kept Siesta grabbed by the ankles and rammed into her, again and again. She certainly was nowhere as tight as Taeko had been, but it mattered little. Minako seemed to be enjoying things on her side as well, sitting where Siesta could lick at her privates by just taking her head slightly back.

Ocasionally, the married couple would lean ahead, towards each other, and share a wet deep kiss, as he fondled her breasts and she chuckled darkly, calling him dirty, insulting names under his breath. After nearly a year of not having sex with each other, it almost was like old times, and truly better than their disappointing last time together, when he couldn't bring Minako to orgasm even once. While by now, he had seen signs of climax in his wife's face twice from Siesta's tongue and his hands alone.

Even so, when he finally came deep into the Mundus Magicus-born servant, he still tried to think only of Siesta, and to utter only her name. Not that of Minako, and naturally not that of Ayaka. He really was tryng his best to ignore his daughter's high pitched screams of pleasure, coming from so close, where he'd only need to walk a few steps to grab her and finally exert his long-forgotten authority over her, to dominate her and get the true male heir the Yukihiros needed so badly, over his stupid no-good nephew.

"Hn!" he shuddered as he ejaculated, feeling the skin of the back of his neck crawling. He had to be more careful with his imagination, lest he ended like the father of the hoyden currently happily guiding his child into homosexual deviancy.

By now, said hoyden had achieved a few orgasms, brought Ayaka to a comparable few, and, from the sounds of things, a 'species of insect' - Asuna's words, not hers, exactly - had known a few of her own. (Not that Asuna's pleasure mattered all that much to her, under the circumstances. Under any circumstances, actually.) And from the sensation of Negi's dick, within her, and the sounds that he was making, muffled by Asuna's muff, it seemed he was fast approaching his climax, about to shoot his rich man juice up into her moist, receptive womb.

Chizuru decided that she had other ideas. On her last bounce, she jerked herself completely free of him - only to find herself firmly held down by strong hands on her shoulders. Startled, Chizuru tried to shake that grip off, but the hands were like steel, pressing her down against Negi's body, and she knew the identity of the damned figure behind her even before she heard the thick words in her ear. "You aren't doing that."

"Grgh!" Chizuru replied as Negi spewed his emission upwards into her moist, receptive womb, thus frustrating a perfectly nice and lovely plan, even if it would have been one without as much 'heart' as what, let's say Makie, would have achieved.

Chizuru angrily snapped her head back towards a sneering Kiryuin Satsuki, who knelt behind her, with a wary looking Nonon shortly further behind. "Why in the world did you do that?!"

"This weak world desperately needs more inheritors of capable bloodlines to helm it, even if their blood has to be diluted with yours," Satsuki explained. "Besides, your despised fiance will refuse to accept one carrying another's child."

"I've said I won't accept your misguided help! I don't want it! Why do you keep insisting on this?! Why do you even care?!"

"Man doesn't ask the river if it wants a dam. Man doesn't ask the mountain if it wants a tunnel. We are all but parts in something far greater than the sum of us, much less our individual selves."

"In other words, deal with it," Nonon chuckled.

"I don't care about your twisted, revolutionary nonsense! I only wanted to-!" Chizuru growled.

"Decide your fate for yourself?" Satsuki smiled. "Because you were doing that already, weren't you? Just because your beloved wouldn't choose you, you'd throw your whole life away even before reaching an age where you could decide what you really wanted for, much like the young woman you disliked so much. Since you had done that already, what difference was there if I just used your discarded life some other way? Believe me, I'd never have done this to someone with the conviction to live their own life the way they wanted it."

Chizuru griamced at those words. "Thanks for the oh so valuable life lesson, Satsuki-sama," she said with words dripping with subtle poison. Odd, how that devil of a woman could share a name with an angel like Yotsuba-san. Maybe it was the cosmic balance at work. Oh well. No use crying over the, ahem, spilled milk. She'd just have to make the best out of it. Like always.

As Kiryuin nodded in acceptance of the thanks, Chizuru delicately reached down, smeared the cum flowing out of her entrance on her fingertips, and brought it up to Ayaka's mouth. After a moment of hesitation, Ayaka came forward and slid her lips down around the fingers, tongue wrapping them up tightly for a moment, before she let them slide free and leaned in to kiss Chizuru's lips.

_Bliss_, Chizuru thought as she tasted the semen slipping into her mouth along with Ayaka's saliva.

"Um not that I want to interrupt your fun time -" Asuna started to say, having swiveled around so as to get a partial look at what was going on 'behind' her.

"Then don't," Chizuru growled, in a momentary interruption of the kiss.

Asuna laughed a bit uncomfortably. "- but, y'know, that thing is still good for three or four goes, so we might as well get at it, right? I mean, he's still gotta do me, Ayaka, Minako-chan, maybe the maids and Jakuzure-san-"

Nonon backed away screaming and waving her arms around frantically.

"- or maybe not her," Asuna said agreeably.

Noting the incredibly hungry way that Ayaka was staring at the dick, Chizuru could only sigh. "You're right. Are you ready for round ... three, I think, Negi-kun?"

Asuna slid off his face to let him answer.

"Oh, breathing is good," he murmured.

"I've always thought so," Chizuru agreed, smiling fondly.

* * *

Now 'Tomaru-sama' was pistoning away behind Misa in one of the bedrooms of the manor (not too far from where they had left Sakurako, the boys, Takashiro-sensei and Saeki's two girlfriends- Misa decided she really should learn their names later, even if only for simple convenience) while she leaned forward and enjoyed the feel of the high thread-count sheets on her hands and face. Misa found that her opinion of the creep had not particularly improved, despite the fact that he was actually surprisingly good at this part of it. He filled her up nicely, knew how to move and his hands were active on her.

However. There had been next to no foreplay, even less than there usually was with Taisuke-kun. Well, at least none for her; he'd made her suck him off for a few moments before he pulled her up and threw her onto the bed. And he'd been, to be very kind, resistant to the notion that if there was no glove, there was no love - or at least, no latex, no sex. So what if Saeki-sempai had been too slutty, and Madoka-chan too inexperienced and trustful of the pill, to make those demands before she did?

As it happened, she'd been too distracted taking the opportunity to chide Madoka-chan on her lack of foresight to see him doing something to the condom he'd finally put on, something that would render it useless, although Kitami-sensei, who had been all the while standing by the door and fingering her as she watched, did notice, and shared a smirk with the man over it. Not that Madoka-chan had paid much attention; she and the sempai looked strangely spacey and groggy after he came into them. Misa would have suspected drugs except that none of them had drunk or eaten anything before sex. As it was, she chose to blame exhaustion and stress, rather than external factors.

After all, Kitami-sensei had managed the apparent impossibility of convincing Madoka to go along with it after briefly taking her aside from the others and striking a short secret conversation with her. If she was inclined to be suspicious, Misa would have half-suspected Madoka had received some of the same treatment the butler at the gate had gotten. But Madoka, while still quite shaky and nervous upon her return with Kitami, had not looked as out of it as the butler, and certainly not as much as she acted and looked now.

"Tell me how much you love this!" he shouted right into Misa's ear.

"Oh god!" she cried. "Oh god oh god oh god!" The fervent invocation of deity usually worked rather well as an entree to this sort of thing. "I've never, never - oh, god, you're so good!"

"Yes! I'm your god!" he shrieked.

She found it difficult to keep a straight face as she hissed, "Yes, yes!" when he pulled her hair for not making a quick enough comeback. Generally speaking, she'd found that only really insecure people needed that level of reassurance at times like this, which made his whole 'master of the universe' schtick sort of hilarious.

"And you are mine! Only mine! Just like all of them will be! All of them! And everything! All mine! MINE!" he roared.

Serious issues. Serious, serious issues. She wondered what he'd been denied to make him so desperately needy. Well, maybe he didn't have that excuse. Maybe he was just an asshole. Speaking of which, yep, there it was, right on schedule, two fingers sliding up there. "Ah!" she gasped. "No! I, I've never had anything up there!" At least, not within the last twenty-four hours. Equivocation was a marvelous thing.

"Pretty little liar!" he hissed. "You take men up there all the time, don't you!"

"Nooooo," she groaned. At least, not just men. Sakurako sure as hell knew how to use that dildo. Of course, it had been Misa herself who originally taught her how to use it, but Sakurako had, although Misa would never admit it, surpassed her at it in quite a short time.

"Yyyyyesss!" he gasped, and went rigid as she felt wetness spread up and into wait wait wait no that was not what she should be feeling right now, something was very very wrong. She was very grateful for the positioning, now, because if he'd seen her face he'd have known something was up, instead of sighing blissfully as he pulled out of and off of her, rolling over to sit on the edge of the bed and reach for the dresser drawers.

She heard him flicking a lighter and smelled the scent of burning tobacco. "It's good that you're well-trained," she heard him say. "That'll help you make some money in the brothel where you're going to be working from now on. Kitami-chan, it's been a real pleasure, doing business with you."

Wait, wait wait. As Misa rubbed her eyes and the space between them, trying to shake off the sudden sensation of cobwebs, she felt herself wobbling on the bed. So not only did he know, but he had caused it himself, and Sensei was on it as well, and of course, she'd been such a fool, she really should have known better, she-

Tomaru smiled, taking a look back over his shoulder as Misa became as unresponsive as the other two girls. "Real dynamite, that last one. I feel half-tempted to keep her for myself, but of course, being a classmate of Chizuru-chan and Ayaka-chan, there might be an investigation, and the sooner she's in Thailand, the- Nnnn," he grunted, lifting a hand to the space between his eyes and rubbing there.

"Something wrong?" Kitami innocently asked.

He shook his head. "No, of course not. Must've been partying too hard too long, that's all."

"Or," the blonde mused, "it might just be because of the mirror spell I silently cast upon this room while you were so absorbed in screwing Saeki-chan's pussy."

He gave her an aghast look. "Y-You bitch! What-?"

She blew a kiss at him. "There's always a bigger fish in the pond, honey," she said, before the effects of what he had done to the girls returned to him, thrice multiplied, thrice faster, and everything went dark for him.

* * *

Misa felt hands slapping her cheeks. "Wake up. Quick, on your feet, girl," she heard Kitami-sensei say, as she pulled Misa - oddly, already dressed - out of the bed and towards Madoka and Saeki, who waited by the door, barely in any better shape than herself. "Speed is of the essence."

"Whu, what, why, is he de-" Misa garbled out, straining her eyes to look back at Tomaru, who was on his stomach and the bed, naked, motionless, and with a dildo up his ass. That last bit wasn't a necessary part of Reika's plan, but nothing wrong with having some side fun as long as you're carrying out your main task correctly, right?

"No, no, not at all," Kitami shook her head as she pushed the three out the door. "Do I look like I want all the cops and half the criminals in this country after me? Now smile pretty and act normal, we got what we wanted."

Misa nodded weakly as she let herself be taken towards the main orgy hall, where -

"Huh," Kitami halted and blinked. "I must admit I wasn't expecting this."

Sitting at the middle of the room, still fully clothed, Sakurako and Hiroko were debating with the two fat members of the diet. "- so, as you can see, while I understand your viewpoint, I can't say I- Oh, Sensei!" Sakurako waved at her. "Girls! Didja have fun?"

"... what are you doing?" Kitami asked.

"We've been discussing Nietzsche with these gentlemen, of course," Hiroko answered. "What else?"

"... all the time we've been away?"

Sakurako nodded. "Well, they tried talking us into a foursome as soon as you left, but I'm trying not to have sex outside of my circle of friends, for the sake of someone who will probably never appreciate it, but love makes you dumb, right? Anyway, this gentleman -" She pointed at one of the men, who chuckled with a hand behind his neck. "- tried to convince me with a quote on his superiority, so we've been going back and forth on it since."

"You know enough about Nietzsche to able to debate his philosophy?!" Kitami wasn't an easy person to impress, but this did it.

Sakurako wrinkled her nose. "There's a damn good reason I was in the Library Club, you know!"

Kitami then looked at Makoto, Taisuke and Yuki, who sat nearby and also fully clothed. "... and you?"

"No one here had any condoms, at least none they were willing to give me without first taking me up the ass," Taisuke said. "If you had told me you'd be taking us to an orgy, I'd have brought my own!"

"Never in my old man's house," Makoto seriously said. "Just knowing he's near is the biggest turnoff I can imagine."

"I just want to go home!" Ashikaga begged.

Kitami sighed, pulling a small bag out of a pocket and discreetly handing it over to Hiroko as the old men and Sakurako shook hands in a friendly way, trading phone numbers and promises to discuss philosophy some other time. _"Here it is. Take it away and keep it safe until my return. And remember, no double crosses,"_ she harshly whispered.

Hiroko scowled. _"That's my line."_

_"I'm fucking serious. You know what I'll do if you try it,"_ Reika threatened. _"Go now. The girls will be okay after a few hours. I'll rejoin you by early evening."_

Hiroko frowned at her strange figurative bedfellow and finally nodded before looking towards where Minase was fucking one of the wives of the Diet members, as Jun was on all fours, sodomized by a large white dog held by a chain in the right hand of the morbidly obese nude man Maki was fellating. "Okay everyone, playtime's over, we have to - Oh my God, Amatsuki-san, you'd better have all your vaccinations up to date."

Kitami chuckled as she retreated back into Tomaru's royal bedroom and closed the doors behind herself.

* * *

So, later, much _much_ later:

"Siesta-san!" he cried. "I'm going to, going to, going to...!"

She clung harder to him, biting on his shoulder, pressing her ankles against his tight, hard butt. Ayaka opened her mouth to protest, but after a moment just shook her head in defeat and let it happen.

Siesta shuddered as Negi held her tightly under him, closed his eyes, half-hissed half-sobbed, and released into her. She clawed on his sweaty back for a few moments, chewing on her lower lip, and finally let him go with a contented sigh. He sighed as well, whispering a few tender words to him before moving away from her.

The sun was well on the way down towards the west, and Negi briefly stared at it for a moment after he rolled apart from the last stop of his carnal trip for the day. After enough time and activity to expend the energy of an immortal, he thought he had earned a few moments to gather his scattered thoughts back and wondering whether this was going to be the way each step of his plan would go. He suspected that it probably was, and enough of the humble and modest boy he'd been when he came to Mahora yet remained in his heart to feel a small amount of shame at the prospect.

On the other hand, the not-at-all-humble-or-modest young man he'd become felt just as much anticipation.

Arms wrapped around him as he stood up facing away from the others, holding him tightly. He glanced to the side, fully expecting to see a tail of bright orange hair out the corner of his eye, and was genuinely startled to see several locks of long blonde hair. "I thought you'd still be asleep," he said quietly.

"I slept through round four, remember?" Ayaka replied in the same low tone. "Why do they call them that, anyway?"

"Eh?"

"Rounds. They don't seem to have anything to do with circles."

"... I'm honestly not sure," Negi admitted. "The term comes from boxing matches, where each episode of conflict is called a round -"

"Yes, I knew that part, too, but why do they call those episodes 'rounds'?"

"... we're back to, I'm honestly not sure."

"I've stumped the teach," she said, then laughed quietly.

To cover his mild shock both at having been stumped and at having heard Ayaka use such terminology, he turned further, to look back at Asuna and Chizuru, lying together at a side, under the shadow of a tree, antagonism vanished in sleep. (Well, to be honest, their antagonism had vanished a few times in the hours of frantic sexual congress before then, notably when they'd fallen into a sexually charged sixty-nine, as opposed to... never mind. Anyway, the antagonism always came back, and probably would again once they woke up. So Negi enjoyed the sight of the two of them at peace while it lasted.)

Not too far away, the powerful daughter of the Kiryuins (well, the eldest of them anyway, but that's neither here nor there) was on her back with her ass slightly thrust up, and a long onion leek sticking out of it. Negi cringed slightly at the sight of it, even if he had to admit it had been actually quite useful to make several things clear. Still, he wasn't going to feel any more comfortable letting Chizuru use it in the future. Jakuzure-san, who to her credit had remained firm in her resolve to never be intimate with anyone but her superior, rested at Satsuki's side, a small snot bubble blowing in and out of her nose as her throat gurgled raspily.

Further away from Negi, Genjuro rested on a bench, applying another nicotine patch on himself as his wife slept supported on him. He stared disapprovingly at Negi, mostly since it meant it made it easier not to stare at his still denuded daughter. "When are you going to dress up?" he asked her. "The damn butler must have been staring at you through that window's curtains at least for-"

"Well, then a few more minutes won't make any difference, will they?" Ayaka said, trying to restrain herself. "And you should lead by example, Father."

"Ummmm," Negi cleared his throat awkwardly, finding some small comfort in the fact he at least hadn't had to service Fubuki-san and Taeko-san, both of whom had moved back in quite a while ago, unable to keep up with the others. He tried to keep on staring at the sun, since it meant a momentary reprieve from the difficult task ahead, that of-

Ayaka followed his gaze in silence for a moment. "I'm not sure if I did a good thing just now or not," she admitted. Genjuro mumbled something very unflattering in response, but she made a point of ignoring it.

"Welcome to the club," Negi told her - not sarcastically, but with empathy, and patting her hand as he said it.

"Heh," she said - not laughed - then grew quiet once more. "I wish I loved her more than I do," she said at last.

"I wish I loved all of you more than I do," Negi admitted.

"Then do so," Satsuki grunted as she worked back to consciousness, rising without stirring Nonon awake yet.

Negi sighed. "It isn't as easy as that, one can't just-"

"One can do anything as long as one aims for it and actually tries. There are no excuses," Satsuki grunted, reaching back and pulling the negi out of her asshole. "Of course, not that I suggest that you weaken yourself like that. I'd just like to hear less of that drama from a partner of mine in the future. If we're all going to be naught but lovers, at least make your peace with it already." She examined the leek carefully, even giving it a sniff or two. "How much did I confess while under this thing's influence? I can barely remember, for some reason."

"I think you confessed all there was to confess," Ayaka told her. "Mind, it actually has made me think slightly better of you now. Twisted as your views are, you seem to have genuinely good intentions behind them."

Satsuki grunted, throwing the leek back to Chizuru and hitting her on the butt. Chizuru grunted but did not rise yet. "Your approval is neither needed or wanted." A pause. "But it's still welcomed and appreciated."

"Hmmmmm," Ayaka folded her arms. "You know, I'm starting to see why Chizuru would dislike you more than Asuna-san. So ... I return your thanks, since I suspect you have given them a common foe to bring them together in the future."

"I have just said I'm not thanking -" Satsuki then just shook her head. "Oh, forget it!"

Ayaka chuckled. "You know what else? Seeing this side of Chizuru- the side that isn't always prim and perfect, the side that can hold grudges, the side with actual feet of clay like the rest of us ... it actually has made me like her better," she confessed, looking down.

Chizuru's prone form made a sound that might or not have been one of approval.

"Good for her, I suppose. It might be a first step in the path she's set for herself, assuming she's courageous enough to actually follow it," Satsuki callously said. "Moving onto actually important matters, Sensei, I think it's time for you to come forth with those plans of yours. I have been fully honest with you, after all, so I demand a fitting compensation."

Now Chizuru did open her eyes. "You had to be forced to do so."

"After being ambushed and suffering the indignity of anal assault - for which I would have killed lesser people," Satsuki clenched her teeth. "All the same, those are still grounds for a compensation!"

Negi inhaled. "I was going to tell you, actually. I'm going to need your help, and Chizuru's help, also, for this phase of it. Honestly, you're the linchpins of it."

"I'm flattered. Tell us, then," Ayaka said.

"Yes, let's hear it already," Genjuro tapped a foot impatiently.

And Negi did tell, at length, outlining every part of it, watching their eyes grow wide with horror and shock. Well, excluding Satsuki's, which only remained coldly narrow and quiet.

"... you can't be serious," Ayaka breathed when he was done.

"I am. It's the best plan I can imagine."

"But... but Negi! So much could go wrong, and if -"

"If it goes wrong, then millions of people, on both worlds, will die, Asuna will be lost forever, and everything that we've done since we returned from the Magical World will have been utterly wasted," he answered. "And this is still the best plan that I've been able to imagine."

Ayaka shook her head. "It's..."

"It can't be..." Siesta covered her mouth with both hands.

"No," Genjuro firmly said, standing up. "I've tolerated more than what any sane man would tolerate from you. I've been patient beyond absurdity, but this... Don't you have any limits?! After all you've brought on this house, now you'll also turn us into accomplices of this mad-!"

"Silence, hypocrite!" Satsuki barked, without looking back at him. "Don't even try acting as if you've allowed all of this out of the softness of your heart. Only a combination of your character weakness, your fear of his might, and your own appetite for basking in what he's enjoyed, and reaping the benefits of his actions, has moved you. Now you see risks in the enterprise, you cowardly try and bow out, ignoring that there's no great tasks without great threats. True strength and worth lie on navigating around them to reach glory! There's no honor to be gained from an easy challenge!"

The older man blinked helplessly. "Ma'am, I'm still a businessman, not any sort of ... warrior, and this is ..."

"This is," Satsuki sneered, "a far less risky proposition than going along with your original plans and going along with my mother's schemes after it. Should my mother succeed, doom is guaranteed for the human species. As you must know well by now, if I have told you what I suspect was forced to share. At least this gives us all a fighting chance for the future. One I plan to seize!"

"But, one thing doesn't have anything to do with the other, we can just go with the much safer alternative and then do something about your mo-"

"I have made up my mind!" she roared. "Decide now if you stand along or against me, Yukihiro!"

Genjuro gulped, paler than ever.

"Will you help me?" Negi finally asked, weakly. "Please, will you help me?"

"... sometimes," Ayaka said, after a long moment of simply staring at him, "I wish I loved you ... less."

"So do I," Genjuro muttered.

Negi nodded understanding.

"Yukihiro Ayaka will devote all the resources of herself and her family to ensuring that this plan succeeds," the blonde concluded.

"Thank you."

"Hey, now, that's only for the actual head of the company to say-" Genjuro began.

Sharply, Satsuki glanced back at him. "So say it."

He sighed, in a way curiously reminiscing of that of Negi. "Yukihiro Genjuro will devote all the resources of **himself** and **his** family to ensuring that this plan succeeds."

"Thank you, honorable father," Negi bowed.

"... father?!"

Negi blinked. "Isn't that the right say to thing in this kind of situations?"

"There's absolutely nothing that could ever be right to say in this kind of situations!"

Nonon stirred back up, yawned and smacked her lips together. "Satsuki-chan? Can we go back home now?"

* * *

Finally, he was waking up, and when he finished stirring, he abruptly turned around, going from being on his stomach to sitting on the bed, facing the smiling Kitami - which, since he had a dildo up the ass, proved not to be the best of moves.

Eventually he pulled the giant out of himself and got finished screaming, which drew a few chuckles from the partygoers assembled outside. (It wasn't often that someone could turn the tables of sexual torture on him.) Kitami shook her head as he felt himself all over, then rummaged desperately through the sheets.

"Looking for your medallion, Tomaru-sama?" she aloofly asked, a hand poised on a cheek, and giving him a disdainful glance. "I took it away. I found it to be a simply terribly outdated fashion statement. Nobody with any taste would be found dead wearing it ... literally, I suppose."

He stopped searching and turned bloodshot mad eyes at her. "You goddamn filthy whore! I'll have you tortured and killed over it! Then I'll feed you to my dogs and kill the dogs afterwards and feed them to some more dogs! Where's the medallion?!"

She feigned a yawn. "You know, had you asked me nicely, then I might have felt inclined to answer. Well, not really. You do realize that, if you kill me, you'll die as well, don't you?"

He looked down at his hands, as if expecting them to turn into bone and dust any moment now. "Before ... before my time's up ... I swear I'll find those children of yours, and, and kill them, and force them to talk, and -"

"I think you got the order wrong, Tomaru-sama," Reika nonchalantly said. "And remember, one of those children is yours as well. Okay, probably some of the others too. Why, I wouldn't even be surprised if you turned out to be my daddy."

He gestured towards her as if to strangle her. "Damn you! I'm telling you to tell me where that damned thing is! I need it! You won't take it from me!"

"Of course not, since I already did. But take it easy, Tomaru-sama. You won't die as long as you have the minor demon I have placed inside of you. Which, of course, will be destroyed if I, or any of my followers, happens to be murdered or, in my case, sufficiently annoyed. So you'd better play along, accept that there's been a change of the guard, and take it like a man. For once. I'm not even asking for that much from you, really. Other than the medallion, I only need human resources."

He gave her a bewildered, lost stare, so unlike his normal collected and smugly in control demeanor. It was the stare of a desperate animal, lost and scared. "What?"

Kitami reached down to pet his hair. "It's not too unlike what you already did, only now, instead of the Triads and Yakuza, you'll be supplying me. Not that I'm bad at gathering followers myself, but I'm on a tight schedule, and I could certainly use the help."

"What..." he weakly repeated, as her hand went lower to gently cup his cheek ... then her fingernails sank into his skin, drawing blood. Kitami Reika licked her lips cruelly and laughed.

All demons must answer to the devil, after all.

* * *

Minako and Roberta kept Satsuki, Nonon, Asuna and Negi company as they walked towards Satsuki's limo in the private parking lot. "Well, Negi-kun," the mistress of the house said, keeping her emotions at bay as she led the way. "If you could get Genjuro behind your plan, so be it, then. It's not like I can tell the CEOs what to do and where to invest, or -"

"You always could try fucking them, Minako-sama," Roberta said, dryly and flatly.

"Very funny," Minako said. "As I was saying, I suppose I am nobody to stand in the way of anyone with previous experience in saving the world and an actual business mogul or two. I still have my serious, very serious doubts, however."

"I understand, of course," Negi said. "Anyone would have good reasons to have their doubts. I'm asking a lot from all of you, and the technical implications, I'm sure, must be overwhelmingly worrying for anyone who-"

"Actually, I didn't understand a single thing of what you and Ayaka-chan told me after I woke up." Minako raised her hands a little. "But I know you'll have a hard time convincing Chizuru-chan's father. That's what I was so doubtful about, but thanks for warning me I also should be concerned about likely failure."

"One never should worry about how to avoid failure, but rather about how to assure success," Satsuki said, taking the lead as they came closer to her car. "About the Nabas, leave that to us, that - Well! Now this is interesting!" she huffed, coming to a stop right next to the driver's seat.

Negi took a curious look over her shoulder and gasped hard, as did Nonon. For they could see Satsuki's chauffeur tied and gagged in the driver's seat, with a small note pinned on his chest. Satsuki reached over to pull the gag off, and immediately the man started begging. "Ojou-sama! Please, don't let your mother know this! She'll have me killed! I tried my best, really, I did, but it was over before I even realized what was-!"

"Rest assured, whether I find you are at fault or not, you'll only have to answer to me, not to my mother," Satsuki coldly said, unfolding the note to start reading it, as did the others, who had gathered tightly around her. Not that there was too much to read. Only a few words in English under the small emblem of a stylized black bat.

_"Now I know your secrets,"_ Satsuki read aloud, as Negi paled hideously and Minako took a hand to her mouth, gasping.

A terribly tense silence ensued, blanketing them all.

A silence only broken by Asuna's inspired response. "... so?"

"So?!" cried Nonon, Roberta and Minako, looking back at her.

Asuna shrugged. "Our secrets? Our so-called secrets are a fucking joke! It seems every day more and more people keep learning about them, most of them getting to screw with us shortly afterwards, so why should we be shocked about having our secrets found out anymore? Listen, guys, by now I've realized I can't just keep a nice, quiet facade of normalcy while waiting to take that long nap, so, whether I have to finally take it or not, why should I care if an American boogieman in a Halloween costume who was already snooping around us learns about my sex life as well? I'm just sick and tired of all of this, so I don't think I really give a shit anymore. I've better things to worry about. And you too, Negi, so don't be that rattled about this minor inconvenience. I know you're really down when you don't even go 'Language!' after a few obscenities."

"You're right, Asuna, I'm sorry. Language!" he said, running a hand down his face.

"That's better," she nodded.

"... anyway, I always thought that guy was a mere urban legend?" Nonon asked.

"No, he's definitely real," Negi said. "I've had several video conferences with him and one of the secret cabals interested in the project."

"That's just plain ridiculous," Nonon said. "Why would they even let a vigilante in a society of that kind? Those roles should be reserved for people of wealth and power, exclusively!"

Negi just shrugged. "Maybe it's better not to think too much about it."

More silence, this time of the thoughtful, deep variety, ensued.

Finally, the driver said, "... so, could any of you please untie me? I, I think I really have gotta pee now."

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	16. Zazie, Mana, Natsumi, Mai, Shiho, Tate

"Have you heard, have you heard?" asked one of the female-shaped shadows on the wall. "Word is Nagi-sensei, who really isn't gay, is actually Negi-kun!"

"Have you heard, have you heard?" asked another female-shaped shadow, gracefully dancing around the wall. "I heard he's slept with the most notable girls on campus! Except they didn't _sleep_ together, if you know what I mean!"

"I heard he was with the Rose Bride!" the first Shadow Girl said.

"I heard he's been with Prince Utena!" the second Shadow Girl added.

"Haven't you heard, haven't you heard!" the two Shadow Girls chanted together.

A third Shadow Girl, standing away from the others, calmly addressed the audience. "OverMaster neither created nor ever owned any of the characters or franchises mentioned in the story, and neither he nor co-writer and inspiration Darkenning make any money out of it."

"Haven't you heard, haven't you heard!" the other two Shadow Girls chanted together.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Fifteen**.

* * *

He woke up in pain and confusion, staring at a dark, decaying ceiling, in a badly lit room with the stink of old rancid death all over it. Further muddling matters was the fact he was wearing his straw filled costume over his civilian clothes, and heavy chains held his scrawny legs and arms to the stone slab he was lying onto.

"Good, you're awake," said a pale, petite girl with long black hair he'd never seen before, looking down at him as she walked towards the slab. "We can start with the procedure, then. You are the connection I needed with the main opposite focal point. All I need is for you to start being afraid, Crane-sensei."

Walking back home after his latest successful meeting with Miss Enoshima, discussing the finer points of her project. That was the last thing he remembered. She had ambitions, that young woman. Definitely different from her scatterbrained classmates. She had a real drive and goals. Which weren't incompatible with his own. She wanted to test and spread Despair. He wanted to test and spread Fear. Pain and Panic, after all, went hand to hand, and so they had been scheming together of late. But that was a secondary concern now, in the light of what had just happened to him. Had she betrayed him to this other female?

"Craw?" he babbled, looking around, through the darkness.

"How curious," Akemi Homura said. "I didn't expect for this. I didn't think your first concern would be for the pet I found crawing on your shoulder. He's in a cage elsewhere. I try not to harm birds. I only hate small furry animals."

"Where am I?" the man asked.

"A proper focal chamber, still haunted by the homicides and debauchery it has witnessed. It'll be a while before its former users return to further engage in such activities. In the meanwhile, we will engage in something more important. Your fear."

A low, throaty cackle escaped his throat. "Imprudent child! I don't know how or when you got the drop on me, but-"

"You have lost your capacity to fear anything or anyone but the Bat. I know. But you know what, Crane-sensei? _He's here_. And soon, he'll know you are here as well. I'm counting on that. And I know that the same way I know everything there's to know about you. Which you, in turn, won't be learning. Because I'll be helping you to regain the primal fear the human race has. Fear of the unknown," she finished emotionlessly, looming over him, dead purple eyes shining eerily.

It wasn't that she was enjoying it, for she had lost her own capacity to enjoy anything other than her memories of Madoka. She only was doing that because it advanced her project. But when Jonathan Crane started screaming a short while later, Akemi Homura found that she could still feel the satisfaction over a job well done.

Over at Arkham, at the same time, all patients but the Joker started screaming frantically as well.

The Joker only laughed.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Yuuki Rito was neither homosexual nor impotent. Extremely panicky and prone to cold feet, yes, but you couldn't say he was actually indecisive, for he had made his mind on the woman he'd want to marry long ago. True, Lala had shown up afterwards to throw a space monkey wrench (also known as a Saiyan wrench, but never mind that) into his plans, but even after it all was said and done, Rito had decided to strive for an idyllic future existence with two girls at most. Haruna and Lala. That was it. Two. That meant no harem, no Momo, no Yami-chan, no Kotegawa-san, no Rin-san, ESPECIALLY no Mikan-chan, no... well, to make a long story short, even though he knew he'd eventually break Momo's heart, no Momo Harem Plan. Some day, he was going to make sure to make it that clear to Momo.

Which was not to say he still wasn't tantalized by the occasional fantasy, even if he fought tooth and claw to keep them from overwhelming him. Otherwise he'd start agreeing with Momo instead of just humoring her while stalling for time, and that just wouldn't do. But one usually holds very little control over one's dreams, and so, it was no strange thing for Rito to wake up from extremely risqué dreams of having a girl's mouth around his private parts. Sometimes, the girl wouldn't even be Haruna or Lala. And then, upon waking, he'd find out his hand was around his dick and softly stroking it, which would mortify him to no end, especially if Lala or Momo were in the bed with him after sneaking in on him, sleeping or pretending to sleep. He was sure, at least in Momo's case, she only pretended to sleep to mess with him. In every other case where he wouldn't wake up from a wet dream, he'd find her well awake on top of him, after all. And then there were her sly little smirks while she feigned sleep right next to him.

So, this morning was just like any of those other mornings. Except that, as Rito noticed now as he woke up, he was completely naked. And someone was holding his hands over his head, so the thing wrapped around his dick couldn't possibly be one of them. Come to think about it, the thing wrapped around the dick was too wet to be a-

Startled and panicking, Rito looked down to see an equally naked Momo kneeling between his open legs, with her mouth on his genitals. She looked up at him and smiled, letting the saliva-covered organ slip out of her mouth. "Good morning, Rito-kun," she purred. She'd considered calling him 'Master' for their first time together, but Asuna-himesama and the rest of Negi's girls had convinced her against it. It was demeaning and creepy, they had said, and would only satisfy the fantasies of a sexist pig, which Rito obviously wasn't, so why make him uneasy about it?

"MOMO-CHAN!" he screamed, so loudly Mikan could hear him all the way down in the kitchen. Not that she paid him much attention, used as she was to Momo's usual antics. If she just waited long enough, Nana would go there herself and solve the situation for her.

"B-B-Be quiet, you idiot!" the also equally nude Nana hissed, blushing as she kept her firm grip on Rito's wrists, as she sat on his pillow, right above his scalp. "Don't, don't act as if you didn't want this, you beast!"

"N-Nuh-Nana-chan!" he gasped. "Why, you, what, why aren't you -!"

Momo giggled, moving up as to settle herself, sitting, on Rito's lap. "Calm down, please, Rito-kun. You'll see, we've been talking with some new friends we've made, Negi-sensei's girlfriends. And, well..." she said as she grabbed Rito's erection and pressed its tip against the entrance of her vagina. "They've taught me that if you really want to get anywhere with an elusive boy, you've got to stop fooling around... and just get directly to the point!" she finished, as she pushed herself down on the stiffness, which penetrated her in a big thrust.

Momo didn't scream. Rito did.

Down in the kitchen, Mikan frowned and wondered when Nana would go do her thing. Meanwhile, cousin Nao napped at the breakfast table, as Lala kept on checking the laptop, avidly absorbed in some no doubt highly interesting reading.

Then Nana sighed, gathered her courage, and covered Rito's mouth with her hairless cunt, only to silence him and his annoying overreactions, that was all. "Lick," she commanded, trying to restrain the shaking in her voice, and, after a moment, Rito began obeying her as his hips started thrusting on their own, pistoning into the giggling Momo, who drew her sister into a deep kiss as soon as it was clear she'd be the next one to scream.

Who knew one could ever learn so many useful things from Earthlings of all people?

* * *

_Later:_

"Negi told a bunch of us a while ago," she rattled off. "I kept my mouth shut all day, today, hoping you'd talk to me about it like a human being -"

"Which I'm not."

"- but you didn't so here I am, and I'm really kind of tired after the weird crap I've been through today with Kitami-sensei -"

Fate frowned perceptibly. "Why are you associating with her?"

Sakurako kept right on ranting. "- and now I'm standing outside your door shouting my lungs out like a crazy person and other teachers are starting to peer out their doors to look at me and what the hell are you waiting for ask me in already, Fate-kun!"

"Please come in," he said. When she did so, he closed the door behind them without even bothering to say anything to the other teachers peeking out their doors at him.

Nor did he allow her to have the first word. "I repeat - why are you associating with Kitami Reika?" He knew of her only vaguely, through the occasional contacts Cosmo Entelekhia had had with the Prieurie de Sion, but those alone were enough to slightly disconcert him.

She pouted, perhaps without even realizing it, and looked aside. "She's part of the staff and she already knew about magic, so she's helping Negi-kun, since he needs all the help he can get! So far, she's been more helpful than you!"

"Some sorts of help," Fate dryly cautioned, "are far worse than no help at all."

Now she did look at him, exasperated. "If you ever had anything against her, why didn't you ever file an official complaint against her?"

"What makes you think I never did?"

"I'm guessing. But am I wrong?"

After the briefest of pauses, he had to admit, "Not about that. I never imagined I'd have a pressing reason to do so. Are you desperate enough to resort to help from a party you obviously know near to nothing about?"

"Well, yeah! Duh! Unlike you, we care a lot about Asuna, even if we aren't that close!"

"And what makes you think I don't care about her?"

"I mean, about her as a person, not as a tool!"

"Again, you are acting under the assumption I can only care about others as instruments of my own designs. Had I been that way, I'd have forced or manipulated everyone I ever rescued into active service. Which I could have done. Asuna-san is at least as annoying to me as any of you are, but... her involvement in the project, on the Mundus Magicus side, has been crucial at times. Leaving aside her importance as a 'tool', as you'd put it-"

"It's not me who's putting it like that, it's you!" Sakurako protested.

"You were the one who brought the term into this conversation," he pointed out, before deciding to steer their discussion away from technicalities. "Regardless, while I won't deny said importance, I also can objectively respect her courage and determination to face her role without attempting to escape it, as most of you would have done."

Sakurako frowned. "Will you ever stop underselling us?"

"Let's leave the discussion about your merits as a collective for later, if ever. We are debating the Princess', and nothing else, right now," he requested. "And... while I do not have any personal feelings for her," he added, just a bit more quietly, "I am not blind to the fact that her loss will cause pain to others, who do have such feelings. Which I would... prefer... to avoid."

Sakurako stared at him in silence for a few moments. "You mean -"

"I mean what I say," he said, turning to look at her, face as stoic as ever. "However, the world is full of things which are other than the way that I would prefer them to be. In this, I am no different from you, or anyone else. And one of those things is the fact that if she does not enter suspension very shortly, millions of people will die. I was created to prevent that from happening, and while I have a choice of methods, I do not have a choice of goals. In that, I am utterly different from you. With all of that in mind, I find your choice of methods to be highly dubious at best, especially if it involves an alliance, temporary or not, with Kit-"

There was a knock at the door, much more polite than the earlier pounding. Fate recognized that knock, and without even a moment's hesitation, he turned away from Sakurako and headed over to open the door.

"I've accomplished phases one and two," Negi said, looking exhausted. "It's halfway ready to go. Do you want to hear about it?"

Fate opened his mouth - then, feeling Sakurako's eyes boring into his back, closed it again. "I will listen," he said. "Come in."

"Thank you," Negi said, with a sigh, as he did so.

"And now, before anything else, tell me about your recent involvement with Kitami Reika."

"Oh, feathers."

"While we're on it," Fate added, "an explanation of where did picked up 'Feathers' as an euphemism of choice would also be welcome." At that, Sakurako couldn't help but nodding.

"I picked it up from a Potions teacher at Merdiana, who-" Negi quickly began, happy to pick the alternative to the explanation he didn't want to supply.

"After you explain the more pressing subjects concerning Kitami Reika," Fate smoothly interrupted.

"... why is it so pressing, anyway?" Negi weakly asked in return.

"Well," Fate replied, "I would prefer to be informed whenever outsiders are brought into our project." At that point, he noticed Sakurako's eyeballs rolling and asked her, "Something else wrong?"

"Nooooothing," she replied, dragging a foot along the floor.

Negi drew in a deep breath. "I've made her a Pactio partner."

"I see. I suppose," Fate supposed, "after spending so long pursuing that course of action, you'd eventually stumble onto a case where it would backfire."

Negi frowned slightly. "More than deepening the project's bonds with Kiryuin Ragyo-san on your own, despite of her multiple unethical activities?"

"I take it you've talked with the Kiryuin heiress already," Fate calmly assumed. "Her mother is a calculated risk, as much as Luthor is, but there is a much greater upside to her resources and what she can supply us with than there is on joining forces with Kitami Reika."

"What's your issue with the poor woman?" Negi groaned. "What was her crime, to nearly be killed by cultists twelve years ago? Do you have any conclusive proof of anything against her?"

"No, I hold no such material proof," Fate admitted. "Dynamis might have, however."

"Well, we aren't going to get him out anytime soon," Negi said. "Just to be sure, we don't have anything against her that is more telling than Satsuki-san's testimony, and that of the killer we captured, against Ragyo-san, do we?"

"No," Fate said.

"And, as we can surely agree, Kitami-sensei's more limited resources also mean she would be less of a threat than Ragyo-san, should either ever turn against us. Do we?" Negi asked again.

"While your choice of words is sound and logical, it also goes completely against the perfect logic of my own points. How do you manage that?" Fate sounded mildly intrigued.

"In no small part, I learned it from my discussions with you."

"Ah. I'm both pleased and extremely displeased I have helped to shape you into such a cleverly irritating debater, then," Fate complimented.

"Thank you," Negi honestly replied.

Sakurako kept on looking back and forth between them. "You're going to kiss any moment now, aren't you?"

"... nonsense," Fate said. "Negi, my point is-"

Negi held a hand up. "Fate. Is the implied danger you foresee of trusting Kitami-sensei for the time being urgent enough as to make it a priority over what we're doing right now?"

"It wouldn't seem so," he had to confess.

"Then, what if we start discussing that after we've managed to save Asuna? Please?" Negi asked, briefly sounded very tired now.

Fate thought about it briefly before allowing, "Very well. My explanations, in full detail, will wait until we have settled the imminent situation with the Twilight Princess, one way or another. And I expect for a written report by that time. Preferably including your most recent psychological evaluation. Now then, let us not stall the purpose of your visit any further."

It only took a few minutes for Negi to outline his plan to Fate and Sakurako. Fate was impressed. He would have expected it to take much longer, owing to interruptions from Sakurako. Perhaps she found it difficult to talk while her jaw was hanging so low. A camera would have been very useful. He should probably look into getting one.

* * *

It was a beautiful evening in the middle of not so beautiful circumstances, so Mr. Fate chose to go out and take a relaxing walk. And probably pay a visit to a fellow Mahora staff member. Not because he particularly cared about the young women who had recently fallen under her range of influence, of course.

Mr. Fate waited until he was far down the boulevard enough to stop and ask the figure who had been following him through the trees, "Would you step down now? At this point, it's safe. There's no one around here at this time of the night."

Mr. Batman dropped down before Mr. Fate.

"Quite an unusual sight, as I understand. Isn't it early morning in Gotham, now? One wonders how many felonies must have been committed in your absence," Mr. Fate mused.

"It's nearly midnight, here. In more ways than one. And I left my city in capable hands," Mr. Batman said.

"Are you here on behalf of the Illuminati? Not that I particularly mind if you are, as long as I don't have to deal with the alleged Princess of the Moon. I have enough dealings with air-headed youngsters at the moment."

"I'm not here under anyone's orders. And I've been following your partner around. I don't think he's thinking clearly at the moment."

"That might be the greatest truth I have heard all day long," Mr. Fate mused. "But if that's what you wanted to tell me, I'm afraid you have wasted your time. I just got first-hand confirmation of it, before you began stalking me."

"And I've got recorded proof. I placed wide-range recorders around Yukihiro Manor, where he was all day long yesterday. I know about his plan."

"And I imagine you want my help to stop it."

"I want your opinion whether we should stop it."

As dispassionate as his face still was, Mr. Fate managed to convey an air of curiosity regardless. "Hm? Oh, I suppose you are going through a moral dilemma of your own right now, aren't you? You have, as I'm given to understand, sworn to never take a life, or to be an accessory to murder. Yet, you are weighing allowing the risk of loss of millions of lives against sacrificing a single life for certain."

"What you are going to do to that young woman isn't murder, but it's still destroying her life."

"Actually, since there's a high possibility the process will erase her current personality and memories, you could say it's a near-certain actual death sentence for the person she is. The technicalities of the case are fascinating, but I assume that you, much like Negi, are not that interested on that venue of discussion."

"Are you?"

"I have to admit it'd make for a more comfortable event to ponder in the case it only happened to be hypothetical."

"You know Springfield far better than me, and I must confess I can't supply a solution of my own. This... isn't my field of expertise. At all. Mastering it would take me years."

"Your answer, then, is simple. In this instance, I don't really want to trust Negi, but I will, regardless. And should you oppose him, then you will be opposing me as well, at least for the duration of this project. Should he fail, I would be greatly inclined to join you in making him pay for his failure."

"Should he fail, none of us will be around anymore."

"I estimate there's a decent chance for my own survival," Mr. Fate said. "But that's hardly consequential now. I admit there is a rather serious possibility of my own demise in the backlash of a worst case scenario, and yet, I have chosen to keep trusting Negi in this development, with my own life. I suggest you do the same, as there is nothing you could do about it regardless."

Mr. Batman narrowed his eyes.

"You wanted my honest opinion. Didn't you?" Mr. Fate asked, calm and serene.

"Contact me if there's any unexpected twists," Mr. Batman said.

"How?"

"Be imaginative."

"That's not exactly my strongest point," Mr. Fate admitted, "but I suppose it wouldn't take much from me to make some ridiculous looking Bat-shaped signal. If nothing else, I'm sure my students would find it rather -"

But Mr. Batman wasn't there anymore.

"Hm," Mr. Fate said, tucking his hands into his pockets before continuing his stroll towards Kitami-sensei's home. "Maybe the Moon Princess would have been more tolerable."

* * *

"Tadaima," Negi announced as he walked in. "I do hope you stop doing that when she goes to the bathroom," he said to Konoka and Ayaka, who were hugging Asuna on either side of her while Setsuna knelt behind the three of them with her blade unsheathed on her lap.

"Nnnope," Asuna said quietly.

"Oh dear... oh, um, hello, Kotaro-kun, Natsumi-san," he added, belatedly realizing that there were unexpected guests on the other side of the table.

"'Sup," Kotaro said, glaring at him.

"Hello, Negi-sensei," Natsumi said. "Chizuru-san asked me to tell you that hell hasn't frozen over, yet."

"Oh," Negi said, flinching at the formality in Natsumi's reference to Chizuru. "Um... but she's moved back in."

"Yes, that's part of the reason I'm here, now," Natsumi said. "The other reason... well, I've been discussing the other reason with Asuna-san."

"Guess whose turn it is tonight?" Asuna asked Negi with the ghost of a naughty grin. "It's your own damn fault, you know," she added to Kotaro.

"Someone's about to ring on the door," blandly said Kotaro.

"Seriously?" Negi blinked. "Who- Oh well, I guess we're about to learn, right?" he said as the doorbell rang, which made Natsumi mutter something under her breath. "If you'll excuse me, please," he added, moving towards the door and opening it. "Good evening, how may I help-"

A wooden practice sword was swung against his face, and shattered on impact.

"- you, Tate-san?" Negi said. "Good call, not using your fist, although I must warn you, you'll need more than-"

A second wooden sword broke against Negi's face.

"- no, not enough yet, I'm afraid." Negi shook his head sadly, rubbing splinters off his face.

"That was actually sort of beautiful," Kotaro mused in an absent-minded fashion.

"Yuuichi!" Tokiha Mai said from the hallway, pulling her seething, furious boyfriend back. "Cut it out already!"

"Good evening, Mai-sempai, Tate-sempai!" Konoka waved. "How's your boyfriend coaching from Fujino-sempai and Kuga-sempai going, Tate-sempai?"

Mai blinked while still holding Yuuichi from behind. "... boyfriend coaching?"

"Aw nuts, they just were telling me what you liked, things like that!" the boy in her grasp spat fire. "That isn't important now! What's important is, even now, this jerk keeps bringing his women here and having his way with them right where you and Minagi can keep hearing them! Don't even try to deny it! I squeezed it out of that rat-bastard Itou this morning!" He kept waving the remains of his spare sword on Negi's stoic face.

"So," Asuna mused aloud, "Itou-sempai and his friends wouldn't dare rat us out, you said?"

"A miscalculation of that nature isn't in any way an indication of any likely miscalculations for the project, Asuna," Negi calmly promised, before asking Tate, "How did you walk into a girls' dormitory, Tate-san?"

Tate stopped seething and hissing just long enough to answer by slamming a bad wig and a Mahora high school feminine uniform on Negi's face.

"Okay," Konoka said. "Now, that would have been interesting to see. Why don't you step in, have a drink with us, and stop trying to bring everyone in the building here?"

"It won't be necessary, than-" Mai said before Tate squirmed out of her grasp and stomped in, pushing Negi further back with each sentence he shouted. It worked, of course, only because Negi posed no resistance at all.

"I was patient with you!" Push. "I knew the whole time you were doing those things right next to Mai, but I kept trusting you!" Push. "Because I trust her!" Push. "But you've gone too fucking far!" Push. "Do you have any idea what are you doing to her and Minagi?!" Push, push, push, and now Negi's back had met the wall.

Mai sighed and closed the door behind herself. "Yuuichi, it isn't that big of a deal, really, I'm getting used to it, all I've got to do is turn the TV all the way up... for hours... and hours..." She ground her teeth to the point it looked like they were going to crackle sparks at any moment, "... and hours..."

Natsumi arched an eyebrow. "That long?!"

Ayaka smiled proudly. "And he offers quantity **AND** quality!"

"Anyway, Mai-san," Konoka casually commented as she returned from the fridge with several glasses of orange juice on a tray, "when you do that, maybe you should choose cultural programming instead of those reality shows. I think they're a bad influence on Mikoto-chan and Negi-kun, and we can hear them from here."

"That's MY/OUR line!" Mai and Tate screamed at once.

"Actually, I think it's mostly my fault, really," Asuna sheepishly confessed. "You'll see, whenever I get too excited, sometimes my anti-magic triggers itself in a wide radius, and that kind of tends to screw Negi's sound isolation spells."

"I don't care! Go fuck in the woods then, whatever!" Tate yelled at her.

"Tate-san," Negi frowned. "Despite the validity of your protests, please never address Asuna like that again."

"Oh, I think I understand it now," Natsumi quietly said then. "This is the pattern, isn't is, Asuna-san?"

"The pattern?" Negi asked.

Natsumi nodded. "You know, this pattern Asuna-san and Konoka-san told me about. The one where, lately, whenever you have sex with anyone from 3-A, some outsiders also show up and end up having sex with us in some bizarre new orgy. These are the ones who'll be in a bizarre new orgy with us, aren't they?"

Mai and Yuuichi began choking violently on their saliva.

"It isn't always that way, you know, Natsumi-san," Negi replied. "For instance... um. Come to think about it, I suppose you're right. It's been a way since the last time I did it with a single person at a time."

"At my house, after our first time, and after my mother, Roberta-san and Asuna-san left us alone, remember?" Ayaka reminisced in a dreamy tone.

Negi nodded. "To be honest, I think I miss the added intimacy and the special touch that brought to-"

"Too bad! There's too little time and too many people to do that, anymore!" Asuna interrupted.

"No, no, really, what the hell?!" Tate yelled. "You were just going to-!"

"Relentless, I tell you," Mai sighed. "Night after night, although they did give it a break last night."

"Well, of course we did. Batman was there then, and we possibly couldn't do it before Batman," Konoka explained, as she served the glasses around, now that she saw an opening for it.

"... right, of course," Mai mouthed distantly.

"Batman? Huh," Natsumi said, before addressing the visitors, "Well, you'll see, Kotaro-kun, that's my boyfriend over there, cheated on me with Chizuru-san - and apparently with some other people as well," Natsumi added with a sideways glance at Asuna, who just smiled faintly. "Although it turns out Chizuru-san did it with Negi-kun as well, surely because she's such a soft-hearted all loving woman and not because she's a gigantic turboslut like everyone else, but more treacherous. So basically, I've come here tonight to balance the scales, which is just the perfectly logical and normal thing to do under the circumstances. And I assume you two are the extra participants the pattern always reels in, and while I could happily do without your presence, I'm an aspiring actress, and an accomplished actress is never afraid of performing before-"

"You," Tate told her, "are fucking batshit crazy. All of you."

Natsumi nodded. "I guess so. 3-A has been hearing that since long before we fell into a freefall spiral of sex and occasional magical violence."

"Well, yes, but you see, Natsumi-san," Setsuna intervened at last, "Tokiha-sempai's case is very different, because, unlike everyone else, except for Chisame-san's brother and his girlfriend, as I've heard, she's the only one who has made it adamantly clear-"

"Oh, fuck it," Mai granted.

Setsuna nodded. "Yes, the only one who has made clear she doesn't want to fuck - excuse me?"

Mai stomped her foot. "You win, okay?! Night after night, day after day, even, you've been rubbing this in my face, so well, right now, I'm fucking tired of it and fuck you, I say! Happy now?!" She trembled, as Yuuichi took several wary steps back from her. She hadn't acted that way since losing Takumi during the Festival. "You want to see a fucking mad Tokiha bitch, bitches?! You pushed the patient long suffering girl enough, and this is what you get! Yuuichi, don't even think of escaping, you fucking spineless coward with no balls!" she roared towards the door.

"I'm no coward with no balls," he meekly said while pulling his hand from the doorknob. "I took on the Obsidian Lord armed with nothing but-"

"Forget your fucking resume and get your ass back here, Yuuichi!" Mai commanded.

"... yes, ma'am," he timidly walked back towards the others, then quietly drank his juice.

The Ala Alba members and Ayaka shared stunned glares.

"... she scares me..." Natsumi finally said. "Why did she have to be our added-"

"I should fucking scare you, you walking pancake with freckles! I'm the fucking crazy queen bitch of the HiME! You just ask some of those who actually took part in a war, instead of hiding behind an invisibility cloak!"

"- freckled pancake... wait, how did you know about -?"

"Your friend Makie has a very big mouth and wouldn't stop pestering me all through that party they threw for Asuna-san!" It was Mai's turn to seethe and bristle, leaving Tate's earlier outburst to shame, and the boy himself terrified.

"... oh," Natsumi said, wisely choosing not to confront the madwoman any further. "A-Anyway, I was going to even the score by cheating on Kotaro-kun with Negi-kun, but I suppose, under the present-"

"You aren't going anywhere until we're done either, freckled pancake! You made your bed, now sleep in it!" Mai warned.

"... okay," Natsumi said in a very tiny voice, "but if we're going to do this together, you should know my name's actually Natsumi ..."

"Pleased to meet you!" Mai's voice boomed, as her eyes went through several quick chains of tics.

"Oooohh, a batshit crazy one," Asuna said. "This should be interesting, we haven't ever done it with a batshit crazy one. I mean, even with Kiryuin-san and Eva-chan and Momo-san, there's a method to their madness."

"You realize," Negi tiredly told her, "she's this way because we've broken her, don't you?"

"Broken?" Mai smiled ferally, slamming her now empty glass down. "I'm feeling better than ever, kid! So, when do we start fucking like rabid animals?"

"With 'we', you'd better not mean you and-" Tate grumbled.

"Yuuichi-kun," Mai said, eerily quiet of a sudden. "I hate to tell you this, right now of all times, but you should be aware you wouldn't be the first man I've ever been with anyway, so ..."

"Oh." He took the blow rather well, all things considered. "So, you and Kanzaki-sempai, after all ..."

"Well, you were supposed to be dead at the time!"

"My green sparkles were still warm!"

"... green sparkles?" asked Kotaro, bewildered.

"I was confused, broken and irrational, like I am right now!"

"I thought you had just said you weren't-" Negi began.

"SHUT UP!" the couple yelled at him.

Negi made a quiet gesture of zipping his lips up.

"It was a cold night, in a cold cabin! And the blankets were warm!" Mai kept on protesting.

"And he was warm as well, I assume!" Tate shouted.

"... no, actually, he was quite cold. Well, him or the Obsidian Lord, or both, I don't know, I never wanted to dwell on it, and neither does Reito, I think."

They stared at each other in an absolute silence, until Tate began scratching the back of his neck. "I guess, in our own way, we're as bad as them, aren't we?"

"I guess we are, yeah ..."

Negi cleared his throat. "Okay, that was something you needed to get out of your systems, I'm sure, but now you seem to be done, I'm going to say a few important things, and I'd really appreciate it if I wasn't laid on my back and/or disrobed while I was doing so."

"Oh, come on, who'd do that?" Natsumi asked, frowning skeptically.

"Makie, Yuna, the twins," Negi began to wearily recite.

"Me that one time before any of them," Konoka added cheerfully.

"Technically not me," Asuna interjected. "Oh. Well, I guess that one time does actually count."

"Man, you are as 'whipped as Kendo-boy there," Kotaro said disgustedly to Negi.

"Kotaro-kun, that is a disgusting phrase, don't ever use it again," Natsumi said sharply.

"Yes'm."

He and Yuuchi shared a look of mutual sympathy, that was broken as soon as Tate got back over the earlier zing by saying, "But at least mine isn't a freckled pancake."

"Heyyyy!" Natsumi cried.

"That's my boy," Mai blandly patted Tate on an arm.

"Fucking bastard," Kotaro mumbled, but made no attempt to retaliate.

"Right!" Negi cleared his throat very loudly to impose himself in that key chance moment. As of late, he had learned that, when in the middle of that many people discussing things at once, it was often very difficult to find a moment to steer the conversation back from the latest tangent. And those moments had to be seized as soon as they presented themselves.

The others stopped their inane prattling to look at him again, and he clung to the seized chance as hard as he could, taking a little tiny step back just to further reduce the chances that they could grab him if he got too involved in his speech to pay attention to his surroundings. "Natsumi-san, Tokiha-san... revenge is a poison. I've had this made very clear to me in my dealings with the Megalomesembrian Senate. I'm fairly sure that some of the men and women I've had to deal with in the course of my work have been the ones who ordered the attack on my village. I wish I could say that I've set my anger over that aside, but I'd be lying if I did. But if I sought vengeance on them, I'd only be hurting my own cause and ultimately many other people in the process. While that situation can't really compare to yours, I hope that hearing about it will convince you to set aside your respective plans to settle frankly petty scores. That means you, Natsumi-san, should try to accept Kotaro-kun's genuine remorse over his actions instead. And you, Tokiha-san, should continue in your monogamous and virtuous relationship with Tate-san instead of 'showing us' in response to our mistakes, mistakes I promise we will correct from now on."

"Hmmm-hmmm, sure we will," went Asuna, Mai, Konoka and Kotaro all at once.

Negi remained unflappable this time. "And while you're at it, also stop watching those reality shows, because Konoka has a real point there."

"Darn straight!" Konoka nodded.

"There. Lecture over. And I got through it without losing any clothes!" Negi added just a bit excitedly.

"You took off your jacket and tie while you were talking," Setsuna pointed out.

He looked down. "So I did. How about that? Still, it's not really... well, never mind."

"What's a Megalomesembrian Senate?" Mai asked.

"On that subject, hadn't Goedel-san disposed of most if not all of those men and women during his rise to power?" Setsuna added.

Negi sighed. "Please don't undermine my point, Setsuna."

Yuuichi shook his head. "Weirdos, weirdos all."

Asuna reached over to pat his shoulder. "Maybe you should have a friendly chat with Chisame-chan one of these days."

"Okay. I think I get your point anyway. Negi-kun, you're right," Natsumi said, standing up and looking at him. "I've changed my mind. I no longer want to have crazy sex with you in order to get revenge on Kotaro-kun."

"That more than makes up for the thing with the jacket, thank y-"

"I want to have crazy sex with you because I'm horny after all the stories Asuna-san and Konoka-san and Iinchou told me."

"Right," he said, and started to undo his belt.

"Wow, just like that?" Natsumi asked, starting to undo her uniform blouse. "I thought I'd have to try and talk you into -"

Negi silently shook his head. "I don't need to be talked into anything, anymore. When I take down these pants, and you see what you're getting into, I'm not even going to bother trying to backhandedly talk you out of it by saying 'we don't have to -'" He broke off in mid-cliché, shook his head again, and went back to the business of taking down the aforementioned pants.

"Are you really going to do this right in front of us?" Ayaka asked amazedly. "ALL of us?!"

"It's the way it always seems to work, isn't it?" Mai muttered, also unbuttoning her blouse. Just like on the first day they'd ever met at the boat that brought her to Mahora, Tate's eyes immediately drifted there and stayed there, delaying his incoming protest and making it all the more difficult. Men are creatures of habits.

"Yeah, Iiinchou. You weren't complaining this afternoon when he -" Asuna started to remind her.

"That was entirely different!"

"Well, I suppose we could go in... um, in the shower and do it there," Negi said as he folded the pants and then started to slide down his boxers. "Out of sight, I mean."

"Yes, please, that'd be awfully nice from you," Yuuichi groaned.

"I like it in here," Natsumi replied quickly. "And besides, if anyone doesn't want to watch, they can just make like Kotaro-kun is now and stare at one of the far walls or - oh, I see what you mean now," she continued after she saw what was underneath the boxers. "Yes, that would probably frighten a lot of the girls. It's almost as big as yours, Kotaro-kun."

Negi froze. "Almost?" he repeated.

"Ha," said Kotaro, staring firmly at one of the far walls. "Ha. Ha. Ha."

Mai looked at the exposed thing in awe, then at Tate's blandly frowning face.

"I'm not going there. I'm not going to say anything," her boyfriend warned. "I know how this crap goes, from what Itou told me. I'm not going to be an Itou and react in transparent envy over that thing's size, no sir, not me. I'm a warrior, a master of the sword, in peace with myself, perfectly content with my qualities and-"

She patted his back tenderly. "It's okay to be honest with yourself, Yuu-chan."

"DON'T CALL ME YUU-CHAN JUST BECAUSE COMPARED TO THAT BEAST I MUST LOOK LIKE A GIRL!" he cried as copious streams of manly Hot Blooded rage tears rolled down his face.

"... well, that's a first step towards honesty, I guess," she sighed.

"Oh, don't feel bad, either of you. Although I expect Negi-sensei probably knows how to use it better than you guys," Natsumi added, as she started walking towards him.

"Well, yeah," Asuna agreed.

"Hurgh," said Kotaro.

"Bleh," said Tate.

"You can't possibly know that, since you haven't tried my guy," Mai challenged Asuna.

"Yet," Asuna smirked. "And neither have you anyway, am I wrong? In any case, I feel confident saying no man alive can match Negi in the use of that thing!"

"Finally, something we can agree on!" Ayaka declared, as she and Konoka clapped, Setsuna half-heartedly following their example one moment too late.

"Thanks, that's actually a very nice thing to say," Negi sighed as Natsumi crouched down right before him. "Um, by the way, Tokiha-san, where's Minagi-san at the moment?"

Mai's stare suddenly went from impressed to downright lethal. "Oh, no, no, you literal fucker. No matter what, she's off-limits, you sicko-"

"I didn't mean that! I just wanted to be sure she was okay without youuuuuuuuuur," he trailed off when a second later, Natsumi happily started doing things that had Tate crossing his legs awkwardly.

"Oh, that," Mai said. "Don't worry, your debauchery has been so noisy of late, I've been sending her a few nights a week to stay over at Kikukawa-san's."

* * *

"- so obviously and painfully clear it's sex, but I don't have the heart to tell Mai I've figured it out," Mikoto shared with a sad, eloquent sigh over the green tea and pastries. "She still thinks of me as her little girl, even when I'm growing up, so perhaps I've grown trapped into the role?"

"Uh-huh," Yukino mechanically nodded.

"Which is troubling, since she wants to stick to her maternal position so much, while I frankly desire a more intimate and carnal relationship, but I suppose it's my own fault for having tricked her with the wild child act for so long, wouldn't you agree?"

"Uhhh-huhhhh!" Yukino's nods became more nervous.

"Talking with Sasaki-san at that party was a revelation, and I've seen what results from keeping up appearances just because of a wish to keep others fooled. Granted, perhaps Mai should have figured it out without my help anyway. After all, she couldn't possibly have thought the heiress of a powerful family, expected to be a proficient fighter and to take over the future of Japan after winning a bloody contest with centuries of tradition behind it, would really have been raised as a feral simpleton, should she?"

"I, I, I guess. I mean, I guess not. I mean... I'm not sure what I mean."

Mikoto didn't really pay much attention to that. "After all, while I do enjoy running on all fours and chasing small animals around, that's just a quirk obtained from the active life outdoors. Even Burroughs' Lord Greystoke, after assuming his role as an English gentleman, still enjoyed running naked through the jungle. Maybe I should run naked around Mai? Do you think that might finally clue her in, if all the breast touching hasn't yet?"

"I, I think I'm scared."

"Good. I chose to share this secret with you because you are so reliable, and you are so reliable because you understand the consequences of taking dangerous courses of action, like betraying the trust placed by a hardened warrior in you. These cookies are delicious, by the way. Would you happen to have more, please?"

"Ahhhh ... y-yes, I think so ..." _Haruka-chaaaaaaan!_

* * *

"You know," said Konoka, speculatively. "I bet we could provide poor Kotaro-kun with a much better distraction than the wall."

Setsuna blinked. When, after a moment, she realized that Natsumi was too busy on her knees before Negi, sucking on his balls and rubbing his member with her hand, to reply to that, she felt obligated to do so. "Um... Kono-chan, when you say 'we', you don't really mean 'Asuna-san and you and me', right?" she asked.

"Of course not, silly. I wouldn't leave Iinchou out like that."

"Eh?" said Ayaka, eyes wide.

"I'm so glad I didn't immediately let out a sigh of relief," Setsuna mused sadly.

"Hey, what about me?" asked Mai as she pulled her bra off, freeing a pair of melons that made Natsumi cringe for a moment, despite the actress' back being turned on her. The faint sound of _'Boing!'_ that was inexplicably heard for a second then probably didn't help.

"Eeeeeehhhhh!" Tate growled, despite his stare being still too entranced by Mai's breasts.

She tenderly caressed his scalp. "Of course I'd never do it with him before you, Baby, it's just a matter of principles."

"Eh?" said Ayaka, eyes wide.

"'Before you'?" Tate quoted. "Does that mean, you intend to-"

"Oh, just shut up and kiss me, you," Mai said, wrapping him into a hug and then kissing his lips soundly, mashing her bust against his chest.

"And there goes the last bastion of decency around us," Setsuna mused sadly.

"Well, there's still Chisame's brother and his girlfriend, remember, although I give them until Sunday. If I have to go, please get them for me, will you?" Asuna requested.

"Don't be silly, Asuna-chan, we won't lose you. Wasn't Yozora-san his girlfriend, actually? Those were the vibes they gave me anyway," Konoka mused.

"Eh?" said Ayaka, eyes wide.

Natsumi abruptly jerked back from Negi, and, without turning back, pointed behind herself in Kotaro's general direction. "Sit!" she said sharply.

"I'm sitting," Kotaro said in a placating tone.

"Good!" she said, then tilted her pointer finger to the approximate direction of the girls. "Sit!" she repeated.

"Have you been spending a lot of time around Higurashi-san lately?" Kotaro grounded his teeth together.

"When you need learning how to cope with dogs and bitches, you go straight to the expert!" Natsumi confirmed. "Now be quiet before I ask her for one of those collars!"

"Oh, now wait a minute, Natsumi-chan, that's not fair," Konoka started to say.

"Note freckles! I'm not fair!" Natsumi snapped, turning to glare cutely at Konoka.

"Huh?"

"It's a complexion joke," Asuna explained.

"Oh."

"Anyway, sit! Kotaro-kun doesn't get to have any more fun tonight because I said so that's why!"

Mai pulled back from her wet kiss with Yuuichi to belatedly ask, "Higurashi-san? But how does - oh, you mean Akane-chan's cousin, don't you? Hey, Yuu-chan, what if after this we go on a double date with Akane-chan and Kazuya-kun and-"

"W-Who are you and what have you done with Mai?!" Tate yelped, but when her only reply was a dark chuckle, an unzipping of his pants and a taking of his member into her mouth, his protests became naught but incoherent gurgles of pleasure and full-body twitches.

"It's not right, Natsumi-chan!" Konoka continued to protest. "You don't own Kotaro-kun, and just like he's letting you do what you want to do, you should do the same! Or do you expect us to take that as a consolation prize?" she pouted, pointing at what could be seen of Tate's decidedly much more normal-sized member. Tate replied by gurgling a bit more aggressively, in what probably was a 'Fuck you, entitled cunt!' Probably.

"... does that apply to me too?" Setsuna asked hopefully.

"Of course not! That's entirely different!" Konoka said.

"You two are really similar, sometimes," Asuna observed to Ayaka as they watched this byplay.

"No we're not," Ayaka and Konoka chorused... then blinked as they looked at each other in confusion.

Ignoring the strangled noise coming from behind her, Asuna focused on Kotaro. "Can I get a second opinion on this?" she asked, both out of genuine curiosity as to whether he saw what she did, and also to give him an extra distraction from the sounds of Natsumi starting a heated competition with Mai, as both of them vigorously fellated their respective men in a Freckled Pancake Versus Orange Cow Monster duel for the ages.

"Well," the wolfboy said reluctantly. "They're both pushy and always act like they know what's best for everybody else."

"I do not!" Konoka protested.

"You're a little more subtle about it than some people, Konoka, but, yes, you kind of are," Asuna told her gently. "Right, Setchan?"

"... I really don't want to take part in this conversation," Setsuna said in a tiny voice.

"Tell her how wrong she is, Setchan!" Konoka demanded.

"You are totally wrong in every way, and my saying this does not prove your point at all, Asuna-himesama."

Asuna raised an eyebrow as she looked at Konoka. So did Mai, who briefly paused in her attempts to one-up Pancake to look accusingly at Konoka. "Natsuki has told me horror stories about you, you know?"

"I didn't force Fujino-sempai to force Kuga-sempai to do anything Fujino-sempai and Kuga-sempai didn't already want to do!" Konoka defended herself.

"Well, there was the time when both of you made Kuga-sempai and me to lick at each other's-" Setsuna began.

"Weeeeeeell, whateeeeever!" Mai interrupted, not wanting to explore why the mental images of Natsuki having sex were making her even hornier, as she lowered her shorts down her legs, then her panties. "I've better things to do than discussing that, right, Yuu-chan?" she asked, pushing her vagina against Tate's mouth, and making him sigh before starting to lick her.

"Muuuu!" Konoka growled cutely... in a way that conveniently covered up the low moan which escaped from Natsumi's lips as she, having pulled Negi to the floor with her, crouched over his face and felt his tongue working between her legs while her mouth moved back and forth on his phallus, in another attempt to show Boob Monster up. Isn't that a lot better than just saying 'they went into a sixty-nine'? Much less a sexually-charged sixty-nine?

('Guilty as sin, but only because of subconscious osmosis gained from years of licentious reading!' OverMaster declared somewhere before a jury of his peers.)

"And I'm not pushy either!" Ayaka spoke up.

"... okay, no one here is going to buy that, except maybe Sideburns-kun," Asuna told her.

"I'm your Sempai, treat me as such!" Tate managed to gasp before Mai pressed him down against the floor and straddled his face as she kept on sucking him off.

"Nope, not even Sideburns-sempai," Konoka opined. "Iinchou's famous across the whole campus, after all."

"I of course agree with Konoka-ojousama," said you-know-who.

"I'm -" Ayaka started.

Asuna mimed bringing up a cell phone to her ear. "Hey, Misa? It's Asuna. Aw, thanks, I'm doing great. Except the whole sleeping for a century bit, but you knew that. Anyway, I wanted to ask you, when you went and spied on Konoka and Negi shopping, why'd you do that?"

"Muuuuu!" Ayaka growled, not quite as cutely but a bit more sexily. Yes, you can growl sexily. It's totally possible.

"Yeah, and that's another thing, they're both really kinda spoiled, but in a sweet sort of way," Kotaro continued his narration. "I dunno, maybe all girls from rich families are like this."

"Nope," Asuna said firmly. "You'll understand as soon as Negi introduces you to Kiryuin-chan and her sidekick. We got ourselves a good pair, here." She rolled her head back a bit to look up at Setsuna. "But just think, if the Aoyamas had dropped you off with the Yukihiro family -"

"I really don't like this counterfactual scenario," Setsuna declared nervously.

"Hmmmm," Konoka said, looking at her speculatively.

"Or with Himemiya-sempai's family..." Asuna further mused. "Say, it's odd they haven't yet -"

There was a ring at the door.

"Ah, I was starting to worry about them," Asuna nodded. "Okay, who should-"

"I will go, Hime-sama," Setsuna quickly took the chance to excuse herself to the front door.

Asuna sighed. "How can someone who has gone through so much still be so repressed?"

"If only I had an answer for that," Konoka shared her sigh.

"Ahhhhh!" Natsumi said as she turned it around so that their lower regions were facing each other, drew Negi's member up into her and began rocking up and down upon him like a cowgirl. Not just to beat Cow-Sempai to it. "Oh, soooooo fucking biiiiiiig!" she cried, making sure of draw the words out as long as she could for Cow-Sempai's benefit.

Mai grunted in annoyance and followed Natsumi's example. "Ohhhhhh, so thiiiiiiick!" she moaned, as a spiral-eyed Tate under her clung to her flesh and thrusted madly.

"It isn't thicker than this one, though!" Natsumi grunted, punctuating each word with a thrust of her hips.

"No, but I'm tighter, so it feels thicker!" Mai countered, pulling Yuuichi's face to one of her own breasts, and making him run his tongue all over its large surface, as if to prove a certain point about mass and size.

"Are you telling me I'm hhhmmpphhhh!" Natsumi said as Negi silenced the argument by kissing her.

"Good evening, I hope we aren't intruding, but Anthy insisted ooooooon," Utena said as she and her Bride were reluctantly ushered in by an ashamed Setsuna. "Oh. Um. Nice to see you ... Inugami-kun, isn't it?"

"Grumble," Kotaro said.

"Welcome, and nope, you aren't intruding," Asuna easily said. "I think you girls haven't been introduced to Tokiha-sempai's boyfriend yet, have you? Boyfriend-kun, these are Himemiya Anthy and Tenjou Utena, our other-next-door neighbors."

Tate waved a hand at them as his mouth remained otherwise busy on Mai's generous bosom.

Anthy countered with a nice, gentle smile and wave before asking Asuna and the other girls, "Aren't you overdressed for the occasion?"

"We were about to remedy that," Asuna nodded, taking her hands to her skirt. "You know, maybe you can help us settle a few issues. We've been wondering how it'd have been if Setchan here had been adopted by your family or Ayaka's, instead of Konoka's."

"T-Technically, I wasn't legally adopted, just-" Setsuna whimpered.

"I think the counterfactual scenario is kind of -" Ayaka started a bit nervously.

"Oh my," Anthy blinked while stripping a mortified Utena down. "I don't know about that, Kagurazaka-san. Our family... well, my family was pretty much limited to my older brother, and, he, well... I'm not sure Sakurazaki-san wishes to ever consider growing up under him."

"You're absolutely right, I don't!" Setsuna decided.

Then a loud growl interrupted their lovely discussion. "Okay, I've had it!" Kotaro shouted, standing up and reaching into his pants pocket. "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!" Out came a little bottle, which he crushed in one hand, causing its cap to fly off and a pill to shoot out of the bottle top on a ballistic arc that terminated at his mouth. With the usual poofing noise, he emerged as a fifteen year old version of himself. "We'll just see about that!"

"Men," Anthy sighed. "Always overreacting when they think they're being ignored."

"I said siuumph!?" Natsumi shouted, interrupted half-way through the last word by Negi kissing her soundly. Again.

Negi suspected that what he'd done to Kotaro already could only be considered a betrayal of their friendship. Admittedly, people were not property, and so Kotaro had no legal claim on Natsumi's time or activities (and that was without considering how technically Kotaro had gone there first, a tiny voice that sounded like Kitami-sensei's pointed out in Negi's mind). But Negi had enough empathy to be able to imagine how Kotaro must be feeling right now - very much like he himself had felt when he'd learned of... various things. (He could get over Pinkie-san, but ... her little brother? Gaahhhhh!)

While Negi could not undo what had been done, he could arrange matters so that if Kotaro wanted to do things instead of sitting unhappily and staring at the wall, then his friend could do so. He just hoped that Kotaro's 'things to do' list didn't include violence directed at anyone other than Negi himself. And, well, also not at Negi himself, invulnerability or not.

Kotaro's first act on assuming his adult form was to tear his pants off with a flick of his clawed fingernails.

"Well, I sure missed out earlier," Asuna said as she, Setsuna, Konoka and Ayaka gaped at what had been revealed.

Utena went cross-eyed and began gagging violently, as Anthy gently patted her back.

Tate instantly snapped his head in the opposite direction, also pulling Mai's head, and thus her gaze, away from Kotaro's standing figure. "Hey!" Mai protested, pulling her head back to look towards where her boyfriend didn't want her to look. "What the hell, Yuu-chan, don't be so... ahhhhhhh..."

Tate growled ferally and redoubled his efforts into Mai's crotch, but if he was aiming to punish her in some way, he was sorely disappointed, for she only kept her hands on his chest as she chuckled dumbly, staring intently at Kotaro's tool.

"N-Negi-sensei's is big-bigger!" Ayaka stammered.

For a frightening moment, it looked like Kotaro was on the verge of giving Ayaka the opportunity to take a closer inspection of what was supposedly not as big as Negi, but he just clenched his teeth and turned to look at Natsumi and Negi, since their posture gave him a pretty clear look at where they were joined together. He lifted his gaze a minute fraction. "Okay," he said, and started stomping towards the two of them. He ignored the playful slap Mai gave on his ass when he walked past her.

"I'm down here," Tate grunted while grabbing his girlfriend by the hair, not gently but neither hard enough as to hurt.

"Ahhh, sorry, sorry!" Mai kept on chuckling goofily.

"Kota-" Natsumi managed to gasp out as he arrived.

"Right, here we go," he said, then spat on the palms of his hands, rubbed them together momentarily, and brought them down to his crotch.

"Uh, what are you -" Negi started to ask.

"Don't tell me-!" Utena gasped, and not only because of how Anthy had started fingering her vulva from behind.

"Kotaro, no! I didn't douche before we came here!" Natsumi cried out. "It's going to be -"

"Whatever," he said, then grabbed her crouched form by the hips and proceeded to bugger her.

"Nyaahhhhh!"

"Ghghhhhhh!"

"Eeeeeewwwww," Utena shuddered into Anthy's arms.

"Oooooaaaaa," Mai said.

"Grrrrrrrrr!" Tate added, madly holding onto his upcoming release. Stupid sexy dirty show, trying to push him so he would finish first and prove himself inferior there too! Of course, he could have just closed his eyes and tried to block the sounds off, but it was like a sexy dirty train crash!

"Wow," said Asuna, somewhat drowned out by Negi and Natsumi's synchronized moans. "I seriously missed out. The two of you're doing that to me, next!" she added, raising her voice a bit.

"N-No, me next!" Mai eagerly said.

"Maiiiiiii!" Yuuichi all but wailed.

"Really, Asuna-san!" Ayaka gasped.

"Right, sorry, let's give them some space... and talk about the counterfactual scenario where Setsuna's your playmate turned bodyguard with a crush instead of Konoka's playmate turned bodyguard with a crush," Asuna said, beginning to lead her friends away.

"I suppose I should be thankful you gave up on Himemiya-sempai's scenario, shouldn't I?" Setsuna sighed sadly.

"Yes. Yes, you should," Anthy nodded.

By the time that Negi groaned and released his orgasm up into Natsumi's vulva, the sensation of which could be felt through the thin membrane separating his member from Kotaro's, thus triggering Kotaro's release as well, Setsuna was busily going down on Ayaka to the depraved amusement of Konoka and Asuna. Natsumi might have found that funny if she wasn't semi-comatose from all the orgasms she'd had in the process.

"I think," Tate quietly told Negi, as he rested, sweaty and spent, under a sitting and still very ready to go Mai, who had been watching the three way with vivid interest ever since Tate came into her, "that I hate you."

"Just remember I hated him first," Kotaro cautioned as he and Negi gently placed the nearly broken Natsumi on a couch. "And more than you, too."

"Boyfriends," the older boy grumbled, willing to give shots whenever he could land them.

"Hey, what are you saying, you dumbass!" Kotaro protested doth too much.

Mai tenderly patted Tate's cheek. "It's okay, dear, we don't have to do anything else with them if you don't want to."

"You're well aware by now that's never worked for me, aren't you?" Negi asked her.

"I know, that's what I'm counting on," Mai candidly confessed, as she stepped off Yuuichi's prone form. "What can I say? People have always told me I'm a woman of extremes, so I guess I try my best to keep myself in check, but when I let myself go, I can't stop until I've gone all the way."

"I find that to be a very interesting character trait, actually," Anthy said, briefly lifting her head from between Utena's legs. "In another world, we might have been very good partners, Tokiha-san."

"Yeah, okay, thanks, I guess," Mai nodded. "Now, Yuu-chan, really, jokes aside, if you don't-"

"If we're going to do this, I want the blonde," Tate grumbled, pointing towards Ayaka.

Ayaka, in turn, snapped in shock from Setsuna's treatments. "What? NO!"

Kotaro just tossed Tate the pills bottle. "Take one of the blue ones, and we'll see if she keeps that tune."

"What? Are you freaking-" Tate said, before cutting himself short, frowning at the bottle, shrugging with a grunt, and following Kotaro's advice. One moment later, he was looking at the tiny dick in his much smaller naked body. "I'm like ten!" he whined, in a much cuter voice that Mai found simply lovely, in a way. Just like Tak- _No, no, bad thought, no_.

"Yeah, so?" Kotaro asked.

"I don't remember ever ejaculating until I was twelve!" Chibi-Yuuichi complained. "How can I please a woman like this?"

"We... We might just find a way!" a gulping, starry-eyed Ayaka gulped, quickly crawling away from a grateful Setsuna and then leaping on the gasping boy with sideburns.

Mai looked at the scene with odd curiosity for a moment, before smiling at the other two boys. "Okay then, guys, my turn!"

"MY turn!" Asuna protested.

Mai sighed and stepped aside. "Ah, sorry, I forgot. Your house, your teacher, and all that. I'll just wait until you're -"

"The wait will be a pleasant one, I promise," Konoka purred, pulling Mai away from Asuna and the rivals and towards herself and Setsuna.

* * *

And meanwhile, this had been happening.

"How do you do it?" asked the deep, intense voice from behind Takahata as he shaved in his bathroom.

Takahata barely flinched, despite the fact, under any other circumstances, he would have immediately leapt back to neutralize the person who had been good enough to sneak up on him. He couldn't count more than six people that he knew were still alive whom he'd ever met and could fit that requirement, and that voice certainly fit one of them. So he also knew spinning back and reacting would have been useless, even if he hadn't been sure the Batman was on his side no matter what. He knew he was stronger, faster and more skilled than the Batman, and yet he also knew he'd end up defeated regardless.

"What do you mean?" Takahata quietly asked back.

"You shave everyday," the Batman said, "so how do you always manage to keep a perfect two-day shade?"

"How do you know I - on second thought, never mind, I don't want to know," Takamichi decided, putting his razor down and washing his face. "I assume you didn't cross the Pacific just to ask me that. Let me guess. You learned about Negi's plans, and you've got an objection. And you want my support to oppose them. Before I give you my answer, which will defer to Negi's better judgment anyway, you might start by telling me about the plans. I haven't been told in depth yet, which I guess shows how much I've lagged behind in the -"

"It's not about that," Batman said. "I have learned all I needed to know about his plans. And I have to admit I can't properly judge his chances for success. I am an ignorant when it comes to magic."

"Well," Takamichi said as he toweled his face, "you always could ask Zatanna for her opinion."

"That. Is. Not. Funny."

"Sorry. You're right, of course. But someday, you'll have to forgive and let go of that."

"Of course, an attack dog for the magocracy wouldn't see a problem with altering people's minds against their free will."

"Let's not go into that again," Takahata sighed, finally turning around to face the cowled visitor. "Alright. Let's make this quick, no guessing games, then. What is it?"

"You know what the children under your care have been up to, don't you?"

"Do you mean-"

"I mean what I mean, 'Professor'."

"Oh, so you mean... that. Yes. Yes, I can't deny it. Listen before you start hitting me, please, I -"

Batman socked him across the face.

"Okay," Takahata said, rubbing his chin (again sporting a perfect two-day shade) back into proper shape, "I admit I deserve that, and the next one as well, but if you'd just listen -"

Batman punched him in the nose, bashing the back of his head against the wall.

"Okay," Takahata said. "Before the third one, I'd like to admit I had sex with Asuna as well, so better make it a good one."

Batman pulled his brass knuckles from the utility belt, then bloodied Takahata's mouth.

"... and Yuna-kun, and while you're at it, you might like to pay a visit to Wataru down the street."

The Batman turned on the electrical function on the brass knuckles, which buzzed loud and sickeningly before colliding against Takamichi's face once again.

Takahata plopped down sitting on the toilet seat, wiping his bleeding face with the shower's curtains. "Happy now?"

"I can't be happy. I'd stop being Batman."

"Right. Anyway, I know I've never been a good caretaker. I'm not sure I've ever been a good teacher, either. I have failed Asuna and Negi at each possible turn. So I'm sorry, and I know this makes no difference to you or anyone else, and it shouldn't, but... I'm just a brawler forced into a role of giving guidance, when I couldn't even guide my own life. However, for all of my flaws... there never was anyone better than me, to do that. I don't say that to try and redeem myself, I'm just regretting that fact. That *I* was the best thing they could ever get."

"I know the feeling," the living shadow grunted, memories of a silent wrecked warehouse on foreign ground wafting into his mind. A small broken body in red, yellow and green, its blood splattered all across the destruction. In his mind, he also could hear the chilling laugh of a madman. "I am the same, in a way. But that doesn't excuse either of us."

Takahata raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? So, then, all those jokes are -"

"No. **NO**. Never **THAT**. That's why you don't get a punch on me."

"Fair enough," Takahata allowed, his shoulders drooping.

"After this is over," the Batman grimly said, "I want you to leave this Academy. Your children don't need you anymore, and you've crossed too many lines concerning them."

"I've been thinking of that, myself," Takamichi admitted. "I'm not saying I will do it - there are still too many things to do, of the type you've admitted to having no knowledge about - but believe me, I'd do it if I had it my way. But alas. Are you going to visit every other teacher who crossed that line as well?"

"If necessary. Give me a list."

Takahata looked up at him with deeply sad and empty eyes. "Batman," he told the occasional ally and perhaps twisted mirror image. Or was he the Batman's twisted mirror instead? Now he certainly looked that way. "Leave, please. Leave for your city, cursed and blessed at once with its black and white lines, where you can tell the demons, the angels, and the dark angels apart. There is nothing you can do here. We have fallen in a way you couldn't possibly understand. Even the purest of us all. Losing his innocence, we have, perhaps, lost everything... and yet, much like you can't help fighting on in your own pit, so do we. But it's a kind of fight you can't undertake any more than we could undertake yours."

The Bat silently looked at him before asking, "And are you actually contented at all with that?"

The sad and empty eyes were matched with an identical small smile. "I can't be contented. Then I'd stop fighting. I'd stop being Batman."

So Batman punched him one last time before leaving.

* * *

She had left Saeki spent and asleep in her bed, after a rough late afternoon and early evening of showing her the interesting magic she could use on her clitoris. It had been a shame she hadn't had the chance to use it on Negi-kun and his little friends yet, so she embraced an opportunity once she had it, and had abused the girl's body until she was unconscious.

Then she had abused it some more, until someone rang at her door. Using a scrying spell to verify the visitor's identity beforehand, she smirked to herself. She loosely tied a bedrobe around her naked body, and walked out to meet...

"Fate-sensei," she purred, now facing the pale, expressionless boy. "What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe-?"

She saw him extending a hand towards her, and then she lost consciousness.

She regained it what seemed like a blink after, but Fate already was inside, behind her, neatly placing a stack of the papers she had kept in her locked drawers on her table. "How disappointing. Hardly surprising at all, but still disappointing. I never had imagined one could be disappointed in someone after fully expecting to be let down, but you have proved me wrong. Mahora has taught me a lot, it seems," he blandly told her.

Kitami, her earlier amusement replaced by seething anger, spun around to face him, readying a spell. "How dare you-?!"

He gestured towards her with a hand again. Before Reika could speak a single word, she felt herself fall unconscious again.

She woke up another apparent moment later, only to find the inexpressive Fate pointing up at the clock on her wall, which showed a time hours ahead of that when she had left Saeki sleeping. "As you can plainly see, you have no chance whatsoever in a confrontation against me," he plainly stated. "I have petrified you twice, before you could even start an attack or defense against me, and I can easily keep doing it as long as you test me. During those periods of immobility, I have found Saeki Kaori-san, woken her up, questioned her, and sent her home with a stern warning. Which she will probably not heed, but such is life. I also found your private documents and, with the authority given by the academic regulations to a teacher in situations where one has suspicions of 'foul play' against the school, I took the liberty of reading through them and deciphering your codes. I know what are you up to, and I cannot honestly say I approve of it."

Reika grimaced hideously. "If you know that much, you also know my very survival is on the line here. I couldn't abandon that path of action even if I wanted to. And I'd fight anyone who tried to stop me to the death, if necessary."

Fate walked a step closer, his hands in his pockets. "I said I don't approve of it, but I don't have the time or inclination to stop you at the time being... as long as you don't harm Negi or any of our students. Doing so, and exposing you for what you are, would only sow tensions and inside conflicts within Negi's ranks in a moment when they need union above anything else... since he has regrettably chosen that course."

The grimace turned into an evil smile. "Don't you say. So the great fearsome Averruncus has actually changed his heart of stone after all. Feelings make you weak, Fate-kun. You should remember that."

"Don't be ridiculous, Witch. Nothing softens or weakens me. I'm not like you, who have been consumed by your own appetites. Since the correct functioning of Negi's enterprises takes precedent over Mahora's own rules, I am willing to overlook your transgressions as long as you limit your predations to Sawagoe and his corrupted circle. Step out of those boundaries, harm Negi or MY students in the slightest, and the next time I petrify you... I'll also _shatter_ you."

The grimace returned, twofold. "You little pompous shit, you won't-!"

"This is my only warning," Fate said. "You can't defeat me. You can't seduce me either. I find you repulsive and disgusting, and I hope your end is as close as it appears. But all the same, I won't bother to speed it up, for that is beneath me. Unless, I repeat, you foolishly try to force my hand. Good night, Kitami Reika," he finished, swiftly walking past her at a speedy pace, as if wanting to distance himself from her as fast as he could.

Reika bristled inside, her fury at an all time-high. She contemplated attacking Fate from behind, and raised her hand to do so, only to lower it a moment later. Fixing a semblance of normalcy back on her face, she snarled, "Thanks for your benevolence, Fate-sensei."

Not looking back, he blandly answered, "Not mine. Thank Negi's and Shiina-san's."

_Oh, I will do so_, she bitterly thought as she closed her door. _I'll make sure to thank them well, indeed!_

* * *

And so, soured and ruined for Kitami as it was, since time waits for no one, the night went on.

_And on, and on_, Negi thought, early the next morning, as he pounded Natsumi against the back wall of the shower stall, water raining down on them both as her ankles crossed behind his back. Considering that she'd passed out almost immediately after their encounter last night, and stayed passed out throughout the rest of the festivities, she was showing remarkable endurance. Whatever else she might be, she was certainly a trouper.

Of course, it was possible that she'd actually recovered a bit more quickly and simply feigned unconsciousness to avoid having to watch Kotaro and Negi giving Asuna what she'd asked for. And then giving the same thing to Ayaka, once she'd insisted that anything Asuna could go through, she could endure. And then Mai-san, while Asuna comforted Tate-san in her own special way, after making him swallow another pill to age him back up... and then some. And then Konoka... well, Konoka had actually backed out when it became clear that she really wasn't ready to do anal after all, and so she'd just done Kotaro while Negi did Setsuna.

That had finally worn them all out, and they'd rested for a while. In the morning, he'd decided to take a shower before he went out to try and complete Phase Three, requiring - as Fate had guessed - a trip to visit Captain Tatsumiya, and then another one to contact Zazie-san. Natsumi's self-invitation to join him in the shower had been a welcome one. Negi entertained vague notions that, if he got enough of this sort of thing out of the way before he saw either of them, he could reduce the chances that he'd engage in this sort of thing after he saw either of them.

He was well aware that this was bound to fail, but he had to try something.

Distraction from these somewhat depressing thoughts came in a flash as he orgasmed up into the condom Natsumi had carried in her teeth when she came naked into the bathroom. He was a bit bewildered by her insistence on using it this time, after the previous night's revels, but he'd agreed to use it all the same. He sighed in release... then blinked in horror at his own selfishness. "Oh, uh, did, did you -" he started to ask.

"Uh-huh," Natsumi said with a blissful smile. "Over and over and over again."

"Oh, good," he said, easing her thighs off of his hips as he withdrew from her. "I'm glad. I truly am, and - uh?"

She pushed him the rest of the way out of her, then reached down with her hand to pull the condom off of his member, quickly bringing it to her lips. "Mmmm," she sighed as it went in her mouth. "Don't tell Kota, but you _can_ use it better than him, and your stuff tastes better, too."

"... I can definitely promise that the subject will never come up in casual conversation," he assured her.

"You should know by now you've just jinxed it, shouldn't you?" asked Tokiha-san as she slid the shower's curtains open, standing there still very naked. "You still up for a last one before we hit the shrine?"

_"We?"_ Negi dubiously echoed as Mai walked to him, rubbing his hard pecs as Natsumi frowned and stepped aside, although not leaving the stall yet. The three of them were rather tight there, but she didn't want to give Cow-sempai the impression she'd just leave as soon as she appeared. It would have been like admitting defeat. Or something.

Mai nodded as she went from rubbing his chest to doing it to his quickly recovering erection. "Well, yeah, Shiho-chan works there as well, don't you know? And now Yuuichi and I have reached a new stage in our relationship, it's time to settle things for good with her. Just so she doesn't get heartbroken worse later on."

"Riiiight," Natsumi drawled out.

Mai gave her a quick glance. "Okay. I guess that applies to you as well. Look, last night, I wasn't thinking clearly-"

"And now, when you are about to cheat on your boyfriend a second, no, third time counting Konoka-san and Setsuna-san, you are?" Natsumi challenged.

"Oh-hoh! So you were looking and listening!" Mai pointed out, much to Natsumi's blush. Then the orange haired girl smirked impishly. "And you've just done the same thing, too!"

"Yeah, but I'm an actress! In our profession, we are supposed to be screwed up like that! It comes with being an artist!"

"Uh-huh," Mai said as she placed the tip of Negi's hardness against her vulva, teasing it by lightly rubbing herself up and down it. "Anyway, like I was saying, I wasn't thinking that clearly, and I lashed out at you for no good reason, mostly because you reminded me of another younger, petite girl I might have felt tempted to call an Octopus Pancake more than once. That was wrong, and I shouldn't have done it. So I apologize over calling you a Pancake Girl, and I won't do it again. Hnnnnnh!" she eloquently finished as Negi penetrated her.

After a few moments of silent contemplation while watching Negi bang Cow Girl right before her, Natsumi sighed. "Okay. I think I also used you as a way to vent out my feelings about another big breasted, maternal girl I've been having problems with, so I apologize over calling you a Cow Girl, Sempai?"

"You, you did it?" Mai gritted her teeth as she clung into Negi and her breasts bounced against his chest. That annoying soft _Boing Boing Boing_ started again. "I, I don't remember-"

"Eh, I called you that way in my mind, several times, at least," Natsumi shrugged. "I apologize either way."

"Oh, that's sweet from you, Natsumi-chaaaan," Mai moaned as she reached over with a hand.

"Please take that hand off my ass, Sempai. I don't swing that way," Natsumi deadpanned stoically.

"Ooops! Sorry!" Mai pulled the hand back while Negi placed kisses all over her neck. A moment later she closed her eyes and shuddered in release.

And then another.

And another.

And another!

Until he climaxed as well, spilling within her with a hoarse, long drawn sigh.

Over several moments after that, they remained still where they had been, Mai and Negi still joined in a tight hug against a wall while Natsumi quietly watched on touching herself.

"Um, well. Good," Natsumi finally said, pulling the hand back up as soon as Mai favored her with a crooked smile. "Hrm. You're gonna save Asuna, right, Sensei?" she asked, sounding far more nervous than she had a few moments earlier.

"I'll do all I can. I thought you didn't like her, though," he added as she pulled out of Mai, with a mild version of the teasing tone he sometimes used on Setsuna.

She proceeded to demonstrate that she wasn't Setsuna by giving him a mild smack to the side of his head. "Not wanting to have sex with someone doesn't mean you don't like them," she said, not really angry but a little annoyed. "I told you already, I don't go for that. Chizu-ne and Iinchou can do whatever the heck they want, but I'm not - why are you smiling?"

"'Chizu-ne'?" he repeated.

Eyeroll. Whap! "I know perfectly well that I'll forgive her eventually," she said. "But that doesn't mean-"

"What a pity," Mai sighed. "Now I was starting to come to terms with my sexuality and my likely latent bi tendencies thanks to Asuna-san, I was willing to put you even before long standing friends like-"

"I'm veeeeery honored, Sempai, so thanks but no thanks. Anyway. Let's go rescue poor Setsuna-san from whatever Konoka-san's making her and Kota do."

"Let's," he agreed.

"Ahhhh!" came a loud voice through the bathroom walls. "Setchan, why does Kotaro-kun get the wings when I don't?"

"Oi, Kono-chan, just don't get picky and focus on Tate-sempai instead!" Asuna's voice instructed. "Men don't like it when you're looking elsewhere as you ride them!"

"Or," Negi swallowed, "maybe we first should discuss the wisdom of confronting Munakata-san like that, right now, Mai-san," he smoothly said. "From what I've heard, I don't think she'll take it easily at all unless she has enough time to get used to the idea."

Mai wagged a finger. "No amount of time in the world will be enough for that, Sensei. Trust me, it's better doing it before things get further complicated, and we get ourselves into yet another mess of misunderstandings."

"And you're eager to apply those 'latent bi tendencies' on someone who is flat and petite," Natsumi added. "You know, it'd be a lot easier to just ask your roommate for-"

"N-N-Not with Mikoto-chan, ever!" Mai recoiled back, and Natsumi was vaguely satisfied at finally getting that sort of reaction from her. "I, I, I just want to vent some Foe Yay, that's all!"

"I'm not that well versed on the subject," Natsumi asked Negi. "So please teach me, is admitting Foe Yay easier than admitting Incest Yay? Or is she just trying to disguise the later with the former, so she can use that Munakata-san as a substitute for-"

"Incest Yay? Since when I have had Incest Yay?" Negi asked.

"Incest Yay? Since when I have had Incest Yay!?" Mai asked, really trying hard not to think of cute, pretty Takumi-kun at the moment.

Natsumi blinked. "Well, Asuna-san is your sort-of-somewhat-kind-of distant cousin, and Tokiha-san's roommate is like her adoptive daughter, and-" She tossed her hands up. "You know what, I just realized I don't want to learn more on the subject. Let's go make breakfast, Tokiha-sempai, since it's obvious no one else is going to bother."

"Can we do it while wearing nothing but aprons?"

"Uh... well, Kota-kun might like it, so sure, why not?"

* * *

As he, Tokiha-san, and a Tate-san who clearly wished being anywhere else, all climbed the stairway leading up to the Tatsumiya shrine, Negi silently reviewed what he planned to say to Captain Tatsumiya. It was probably pointless. This was, if anything, the part of the procedure that he expected to be relatively easy... almost ironically so, given how crucial it was. The financial infrastructure to what he was planning, which he'd put into place through consultation with Ayaka, Saki and Kiryuin-san, would be useless without competent oversight. And there could be no more competent oversight than this woman.

Other than Batman-sama, but he didn't seem too open to cooperate. And lacked one other crucial feature...

At the top of the stairs, they found Munakata Shiho in her miko uniform, pretending she was sweeping the front entrance. Negi had to wonder if she had just started doing that, or she'd been doing it the whole time she had been waiting, in the event they showed up too suddenly. Judging from how pristine the entrance was, it was probably the later. "Good morning, Munakata-san," Negi greeted, with a deep bowing. "Nice to meet you again."

"Oh!" Shiho stopped pretending she was sweeping, quickly setting her bamboo broom aside. "Good morning, Oniichan!" She favored Yuuichi with a wide, genuine smile. "And Negi-sensei." This was said with a polite and kind, although far more artificial and smaller smile. "And Mai-san." Here Shiho's tone grew quietly grim and barely short of hostile, as a small thunderstorm cloud hung over her pigtails for a moment.

"Hey, Shiho," Tate waved. "Sorry to drop by without an invitation, but we have been helping Sensei lately, so ..."

"Oh, don't worry, you're always welcome here, Oniichan!" Shiho giggled girlishly. "Just wait a second, I'll Tatsumiya nee-sama you're here and-"

"That won't be necessary, Shiho, but thanks for the thought," said Mana, walking out the small shrine, also in her day-to-day robes. "I'll take it from here. Good morning, Negi-kun, Tate-kun, Tokiha-sempai."

"Oh, good morning," Negi said, taking Mana's appearance as confirmation of Shiho's own wait for them. "Did... someone call ahead to let you know that we were coming?"

"I did receive a rather confusing phone call from a certain class representative," Mana confirmed as they climbed up the last couple of steps to stand before her, Shiho quickly stepping aside, as if afraid of mere casual contact with Mana. "I hope the forthcoming explanation is a bit more coherent."

"I'll certainly try," he said sheepishly.

"Well, good. Come in, there's tea and cookies waiting for you, unless Zazie's eaten them all."

Negi paused again. "Zazie-san is here? Did Ayaka call her, too?"

"No, she claimed that it was Sakurako-san who told her to come over here," Mana said, not blinking an eye at the odd familiarity as she led Negi and the others across the courtyard to the shrine's building. "I look forward to an explanation for that, too."

"Ah. Well, to make a long story short, she was present when I described matters to Fate, and... well, here we are."

"That is certainly a short story," she said as she slid open the door.

"It gains a lot with the details," Mai amusedly said, making sure of wrapping an arm around Yuuichi's and quietly enjoying the way Shiho's hair briefly moved in a way that would have made Rider-san stand back and take notice. "Good morning... Rainyday-san, I assume?"

"I'm not that much of a glutton," Zazie said quietly as she sat on the far side of the table. She did, however, have a half-eaten cookie in one hand.

"Sure you're not," Mana said as she went over to sit down across from her. "Negi-kun, if this is a subject you'd feel more comfortable discussing in private, I'm sure Shiho can entertain-"

Mai shook her head. "Thanks, but no. We know all there is to know. I think. Do we?" she asked, glancing aside at Negi.

He sighed. "Other than a few things I'm about to explain, yes, you are. And I don't mind if you hear them, actually."

Mai nodded, then smiled at Mana. "We're good to begin, then!"

Mana nodded back. "Well then, Negi-kun, the floor's yours."

Negi took a deep breath, and once more explained the details of his plan, with a focus on the phase of it that they would - hypothetically - be responsible. He was pleased that neither Captain Tatsumiya nor Zazie had reacted in the way that Ayaka and Sakurako had. Their composure was a necessary feature, after all. True, Munakata-san had fainted into Tate-san's arms at mid-exposition, and he and Mai-san barely looked any better than her by the time Negi's presentation was done, but all in all Negi thought that first step had gone remarkably smoothly, all things considered.

Regardless, Zazie and Mana were silent once he'd finished. Even more than usual, that was.

"Sensei," Zazie said, very quietly. "This is an extraordinarily risky plan. I'm sure that you realize that. I believe that my sister would be in hysterics, now, if it were explained to her, and she is not one given to the same excesses of emotion that I am."

"Really? Hysterics?" he asked.

"She's given to different ones," Mana interjected. "Keeps showing up every week to ask me to reconsider my refusal of her job offer. Has she always had problems taking no for an answer?"

"It is not a word that we generally encounter," Zazie admitted. "However, that does not presently pertain. Negi-sensei... you awe me with your audacity. I will do everything in my power to fulfill the role you envision for me."

"Thank you, Zazie-san," Negi said with relief. "And, Captain -"

"No," said Mana.

"Damn straight!" Mai, Tate, and a suddenly recovered and very stiff Shiho yelled at once.

Mai and Shiho looked at each other, shared a grimace, and then Mai said, sheepishly scratching her chin. "On the other hand, it might just work after all, what do I know?"

"You damn contrarian!" Shiho barked at her.

"No?" repeated Zazie, a faint note of surprise in her voice.

"Hell no!" Shiho firmly stated, sliding on her butt over to Mana's side and dragging a still mostly-stunned Tate with her. After a moment of surprise of her own, Mai reacted and tugged Yuuichi back to her side. Both rivals stared fiery swordchucks at each other over a groaning Tate's lap.

"By any chance," Negi asked in a tone which suggested he was just this side of panic, "are you trying to acclimate Zazie-san to the sound of that word, with which she has, by her own admission, heretofore been less than familiar?"

"No," Mana said, this time shaking her head for emphasis.

"Hell no!" Shiho repeated, pulling Tate back with her.

"We'll see about that!" Mai pulled Yuuichi towards herself again.

"You won't do it," Negi said, ignoring that byplay.

"No. I won't do it."

"You heard her!" Shiho pulled on Tate's right arm.

"If winners were quitters, they, um, wouldn't be winners!" Mai insisted, pulling on Yuuichi's left arm. "Take it from someone who actually won a war by not giving up when things went 'No!'"

"I've heard a different story!" Shiho shrieked.

"I got better from that! Or else no one would be here today!" Mai shrieked back.

"May I ask why not?" asked Negi. From the look on his face, he had several things he wanted to ask Mana besides that.

From the look on her face, Mana was holding back from flatly replying that he could and should ask just that. "I won't help you with this plan because it is insane, Negi-kun. It is dangerous beyond imagination, and likely to fail and wreak havoc. I don't believe in what you're describing," she finished, absently twirling a hand around to slap Shiho on the back of the head, silently commanding her to cut it out already.

"It has worked in the past," Negi interjected. "You've seen it yourself."

"The circumstances of that were different, Negi-kun. This is not that, nor could it be. I understand your desperation, but this... boys and girls should be ambitious, but this is megalomania, not ambition. You're risking countless lives..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "No. I'm not going to go over that again. Because, ultimately, it's not the key issue here. There's another reason that I'm refusing, a more fundamental one."

"And what might that be?" Zazie asked quietly.

"You are an idealist, Zazie," she said. "So, however different her ideals might be, is your sister. So are you, Negi-kun. But I am not. I am a pragmatist, and a mercenary. I do what I do because I expect to be rewarded in some manner. I can overlook the insanity of a plan, if the rewards are good enough, and I arrange to receive them in advance - in which case I will do all that I can to make the insanity workable, while arranging for my own survival.

"But this? No. There is no reward in this world which could make me go along with this plan. There is nothing you can give me, or promise me, to make me consider this. It is that insane. In a way, you have my respect, because I honestly thought that there was nothing anyone could come up with that would make me back away from the table before I even heard about payment, but I suspect that my respect is very cold comfort."

"You're right," Negi said numbly. "I can't... there's nothing -"

"Nothing in the world. In any world. No amount of money would allow me to live with myself if the plan failed. Frankly, no amount of money would allow me to live, period, because I suspect that, if the plan failed, everyone involved would be hunted down like dogs."

"I suspect no one involved would survive in the first place either," Tate blandly said, trying to rub his arms back into their sockets. "So... you wouldn't have to worry about that, anyway?"

"Yuu-chan, that's so sweet of you, always trying to see the bright side of things," Mai sighed.

"I try my best."

_"Yuu-chan?!"_ Shiho yelped.

Mana let out a long sigh. "I'm truly sorry, Negi-kun, because I want to help you. But there's nothing in it for me, and I need more than that."

"Then you don't want to help, period," Mai said. "Look, I'm not holding that against you, but don't say you 'want to' when you don't actually want to, even if your reasons for it are good."

Mana gave her a half-annoyed glare. "Are you trying to drown me into semantics, or trying to make me feel bad about it? Because I've done my fair share of terrible things I don't feel bad about."

"Like her usual treatment of me," Shiho pointed out.

"Be quiet, Shiho."

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer girl," Mai replied.

"So," Mana said, beginning to get up, "unless there is something else I can help you with-"

"Oh what a rogue and peasant slave art thou," said a voice from underneath the table. From its fourth side, and from between the legs of a yelping and jumping Tate, Kaede abruptly slid out and into sight, then assumed a seated posture there, gazing mockingly at Mana as she did.

"I assume that someone called you and told you about this meeting, as well?" Mana asked, sounding annoyed.

"Konoka-dono phoned me after hearing Iinchou-dono on the phone to yourself," Kaede confirmed patiently. "She believed that my humble self might be helpful should you descend into nonsense and tomfoolery. Good morning, by the way, Tokiha-dono. How is Okuzaki-dono doing?"

"Oh, Akira-chan and Takumi are okay, thanks for asking," Mai answered. "They asked me to tell you-"

"Excuse me?" Mana asked.

"One was unaware you had become hard of hearing as well as hard of heart," Kaede continued. "One will essay to speak more clearly. Nonsense and tomfoolery," she repeated, just a bit loudly.

"I can hear you perfectly well," Mana bit out. "What do you mean, nonsense and tomfoolery?"

"Telling this poor, dear boy that there is nothing he can give you, nothing that you would wish for more than anything else in the world, when we are all well aware that there is a thing you desire just that much," Kaede said mockingly.

"We are?" Negi quietly asked Zazie.

The demon princess shrugged. Then Negi looked at the others.

"I can think of a few things Oneesan would want dearly, but they all terrify me too much to even mention them," Shiho deadpanned.

"I barely even know her!" Mai said. "How would I be supposed to know? Anyway, Nagase-san, what Akira-chan said was-"

"Oh are we?" Mana asked. "And what, pray, would that be, oh sage?"

Kaede rose from her seat, and leaned forward, across the table, staring into Mana's eyes. Mana, in her turn, rose up and also leaned forward, so that no more than a few centimeters separated them. Tate couldn't help thinking that was kind of hot. Okay, a lot, actually.

"I do hope you're not about to suggest that what I want is you. Either sexually or to prove once and for all who is better," Mana said. "Neither of those things appeals to me."

"Liar again," Kaede said, smirking. "But no, that's not what I'm talking about. What do you want more than anything else? What do you want that Negi is certainly qualified to give you? The answer is obvious.

"A child."

There was only silence for a moment.

"A CHILD?" Mai grimaced. "Wait, why would you ever want to be a HiME, it's not that good a thing, believe me, and I was under the impression you already were- Oh. Oh, oh, oh, _a child!_ Stupid me. Go on, then. But seriously, a child? That's barely any better, at our age."

Shiho looked at Mana. "Now do you see why I hate her so much?"

"Shut up, Shiho," Mana tensely said.

"Oh, that's right, because shutting me up will help fix everything," Shiho rolled her eyes back.

"It sure couldn't hurt, anyway," Mai mused aloud.

Shiho went back to stare flaming swordchucks at her. "Do I ever go to your house to badmouth you?"

"Shut up, both of you," Mana stoically commanded, before turning to smile warmly at a shocked-looking Negi. "I'm sorry, Negi-kun. I shouldn't have called you names."

"Uhhhokay?" he replied.

"Yes, that was wrong of me," she said with a nod. Taking a sip from her cup, she continued. "It's not your fault that you've become a megalomaniac. It was probably inevitable given the rampant insanity that clearly afflicts both your closest companions and recent allies of convenience."

"I... can't really argue with that, but -" Negi started to say.

"I am not crazy," Kaede stated, as she stepped up onto the table, light as a feather but nowhere nearly as soft as she walked barefoot across its surface to stand in front of Mana, who finally turned her face to look up at her.

"Crazy people always assert that, don't they?" Mana asked, perhaps of Zazie.

"It's not a particularly useful diagnostic," Zazie chose to reply.

"And it's not accurate, either," a dark voice pointed out from under the table. "Some really extreme cases of insanity revel in their mania, brandishing it like their personal calling card."

Everyone blinked, surprised. Then Kaede reached under the table, felt around, and pulled out a small mechanical device shaped like a black bat.

Negi sighed. "Oh, yes. That. Don't worry too much, he's been keeping tabs on us as of late. It seems he shares Captain Tatsumiya's reservations."

Mana's right eyebrow twitched twice, as she swiped the bug from Kaede's hand and then crushed it in her fist. She made several extensive mental annotations about what to do during the rest of the day.

"What, how, when, how did he get in-" a stunned Shiho babbled.

"Anyway, Cap- Tatsumiya-san," Negi interjected. "I just... is there any truth to what Kaede is saying?"

"No, I have no idea where she would get this bizarre notion-"

"Of course not!" Shiho protested. "For Oneesan of all people to wish for a child, when she even hates the idea of looking after me, not that I need it, that's just plain-"

"What exactly do _you_ know about Mana Arcana?" Kaede interrupted in turn.

"Arcana?" Mai, Tate and Shiho asked at once.

Mana went silent for a moment, it broken by the sound of her fingers clenching tightly around the teacup. "I suppose it would do no good to ask how you happened to learn that name?" she asked quietly.

"Nin nin," Kaede replied, mockingly, before continuing. "Daughter of a demon and a refugee, orphaned and abandoned in the moment of her birth, raised in the Mahora orphanage and yet never truly home there. Taken under the wing of an adventuring mage from this area, one of many who sought to do great deeds in imitation of -" Here she paused, eyes flickered towards Negi. "- a certain person," she continued after the pause. "After his journeys reached their end, adopted by her magister's family and taking their name. Driven to continue his works left undone, and the covert benefactor of the orphanage where she was raised. Tasked with looking after the only granddaughter of this shrine's former priest, whom she actually cares about more than she would care to admit. Yet always believing that there is more that she can do, and referring to these charitable deeds as a sop to her conscience. Aware that the children there need more help than she can ever give -"

"Enough," Mana snapped.

"She cares?" Shiho took a hand to her own chest. For a moment she looked really moved, but then she just blurted out a bitter, "Well, that's completely useless if she never gives any signs of it! Love without solid proof isn't actual love!"

"Shut up, Shiho," Mana and Mai blandly said at the same time.

Kaede knelt down, nearly crouching on the edge of the table before Mana. "Dost accept that thou art known?" she asked quietly.

"I could easily do the same thing about you," Mana replied. "What in all of that would lead you to think -"

"More help than she can ever give," Kaede repeated, far more softly. "And so, in the privacy of her heart, she imagines what it would be like to have a child of her own, one not already tainted by a previous botched education, whom she would protect and guide as she was protected and guided, who would grow in a world of love and hope instead of fear and doubt, paying forward the debts that she owes and can never pay back."

_"Tainted!? Botched!?"_ Shiho repeated, really disliking the implications behind those words.

"The world - regardless of the emotions which invest it - is a dangerous place," Mana said after a moment.

"Nor shall it grow less so as time passes," the ninja agreed. "But opportunities do not always come more than once in a lifetime."

"She is not wrong about that," Zazie interjected.

"Well, unless you happen to be revived by an enigmatic otherworldly force, but I admit that's unlikely to happen in a regular basis," Tate snorted.

"Yes, it is," Mana said again. "And no, she is not wrong. Well?" she said, turning to look at Negi. "What have you to say, teacher?"

"I'm honestly not sure what I'm supposed to say to any of this," Negi admitted, then flinched as the young women and the young man all gave him a synchronized annoyed look, Kaede even opening her eyes slightly to do so. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not sure. Would you like me to lie about my deepest personal feelings?"

"Yes," they all chorused.

All but Shiho, who just groaned. "What? Why the hell should you lie, to start with?"

"It would simplify matters," Zazie explained to Shiho, "just as it would if the three of you happened to step outside for the time being."

"Too late!" Mai said. "We're in now, as well!"

"'In'?" Shiho scowled once more. "What are you 'in', that doesn't make any ... Oh. Oh, no, **no, no!** Not what you told me about like two weeks ago!"

Mai hesitated before saying, "Well... Yes? That's why we tagged along today in the first place. It's not like we want to hurt you, honest, no matter if you don't believe me or not, but still, you had a right to know..."

Shiho desperately turned to Tate. "Say it ain't so!"

Yuuichi hesitated even more before trying something. Since saying it hadn't gotten Negi punched across the room, he said, "Shiho, I'm so sorry, but... Would you like me to lie about my deepest personal feelings?"

Shiho punched him in the stomach. "STUPID ONIICHAN!" she cried, bawling madly before running for the door...

... Mana quietly pulled a coin out and tossed it at the back of Shiho's head, making her come to a sudden halt as she rubbed the impacted area.

"Why in the world did you do that?!" the red-haired girl shouted.

"Running away from your problems will never solve them," Mana sternly said. "I warned you time and time again about this, so you can't say you weren't prepared. Now come back here, sit down, and face reality like a woman."

Mai nodded. "That's some very wise advice, I'm really-"

"And if you really want to punch someone, punch the woman who stole the love of your life away using her superior feminine charms," Mana smoothly continued.

"What kind of spiritual advisor are you?!" Mai and Shiho cried as one.

"I see," Zazie pondered as she sat now naked on the other side of the table. "Then that greatly simplifies things further, since there is no need to circumvent the circumstances through subterfuge, and I'm sure there'll be less uncomfortable misunderstandings to handle this way."

"No, if anything, that should make everything more where did your clothes go!?" Negi asked.

"I sneezed very quietly while Munakata-san's human drama briefly took the center stage," she explained.

"Oh."

"See? That lie simplified things," she added to Shiho.

Shiho frantically clamped her hands around Tate's eyes. "No! I refuse to lose my Oniichan to moral corruption like this! Shiho fights on!"

"Shiho should have fought on last night, before he did me, Konoe-san, Asuna-san, and Yukihiro-san," groaned Mai, already losing her good will reserves again. When it came to Shiho, those reserves had grown awfully thin of late.

_"... what?!"_ the small redhead squealed, going very pale and tightening her hands around Tate's skull, as if to crush it.

"Those were only carnal encounters for mere pleasure, completely devoid of the unending pure and platonic affection I'll always hold for my beloved little sister!" Tate yelled.

_**"Platonic?! Pure?! SISTER?!"**_

"Munakata-san," Negi grimly said. "If you want to punish someone, punish me, because I originated the chain of events that has wrapped everyone up in my downfall, along with myself. As you all know by this point, it was me who started this by... being with a number of my students and colleagues. And a pony," he started to say.

"A pony?" Shiho echoed, loosening her grip on Yuuichi's head.

"'A number of' them?" Mana asked with raised eyebrow. "Underselling yourself a bit, aren't you?"

"Indeed, your frigid and unwelcoming self is one of 3-A's last five holdouts," Kaede elected to inform her.

Mai began counting with her fingers. "Wait, there's you two, and Yotsuba-san, and the crazy science girl, and I think there was a nun, and even if she left you, there's also Chao-san, technically, so -"

"Baka Ranger! Bad at Math!" Kaede said.

"Yes, I have been aware," Zazie confirmed to Negi with a polite nod. "I may not speak much, but I hear everything." In particular, she'd heard a certain quartet of girls getting busy in the bathroom some time ago. Deducing the rest had been rather simple.

"By the way, since when I am 'frigid and unwelcoming'?" Mana asked with two raised eyebrows.

"One simply calls them as one sees them."

"One shouldn't even know, since one hasn't ever been in a position where one could confirm that."

"And whose fault is that? Certainly not one's."

"Ahem!" Negi rasped. "I should here interject that... uh... I am not myself certain that I can provide the service that Kaede suggests. I don't know if the altered form has changed me that much, and if my, um, pre-existing condition will allow it. Understandably, the medical tests that I've had done haven't really focused on that aspect of my situation. However, the tests involved would take some time, and this is not something we can afford -"

Zazie rose up, launched herself across the table, and pounced on Negi, kissing him firmly as she bore him to the ground.

"Nguh?" he asked with her tongue in his mouth - a tongue which, he was not terribly surprised to realize, was literally able to reach his tonsils at full extension.

Then, for a moment, Zazie seemed to pause and stiffen in mild confusion, something only Negi, by virtue of being so close, actually realized to any meaningful degree. That confusion was brief, however, and a moment later, if it hadn't passed, she at least had hidden it very well. She released him, and pulled back to glance over her shoulder at Mana and Kaede. "Fertile," she reported shortly, and then resumed kissing while starting to undress him.

"Ah crap," Mai quietly mused for a moment, before Tate gave her a narrow-eyed look. "W-Well, no use on crying over the spilled milk, as they say. Whatever will happen, will happen."

_"You did it with him?!"_ a bewildered Shiho shrieked.

"Calm down, Shiho," Mana said. "Well. I suppose we have an agreement, then."

"Indeed," Kaede nodded. "Shall we entertain ourselves while they-"

K-LICK went the safety on Mana's pistol as it came out of her robes' long sleeve.

"Or we could just watch."

"I've spent too long sitting and listening to just sit back and watch now, sorry," Mai stated, beginning to pull off her own clothes.

Ordinarily, Negi would probably be somewhat concerned about the newest developments in what was already a confusing and frightening time in his life, to say nothing about the dramatics going on between the other three people present, and their implications for recent events. However, Zazie was a considerable distraction from such concerns, with the way that she kissed him like the hungry demon that, you know, she actually was. He found just enough psychic space to be concerned that her talon-like hands were about to tear his clothes apart, but she proved as deft as she was agile, and they were removed with neither damage nor delay - and her hands, happily, reverted to fingers as they wrapped around his member and began stroking it the rest of the way to erection.

"I... didn't know... that you..." he started to say when she paused kissing his mouth long enough to allow her to tongue one of his nipples.

She smiled at him, almost catlike. "Almost all the girls in class are united in this. And from the looks of like, several from beyond our ranks as well. Why would I choose to be different?" she asked.

"Oh," he said, feeling strangely disappointed. "Then -"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I do not love you." She paused, looked reflective. "I do not know if I can love, as you and yours do," Zazie admitted. "It may be that my kind is not meant for that. But know, Negi Springfield, that I do not bestow my favors on those who do not already possess my regard, my respect and the heat of my desire." This said, she slid down his chest to lick at his erection, caressing it with tongue and then sharp teeth before she smiled wickedly up at him again. "Though it seems I do bestow them on those who forget to attend the circuses to which I nicely invite them," she added, then began sucking him in earnest.

"Ahhhhhhh," he replied. "Sss-aahhhhh-rrrry."

"What the hell?" Shiho babbled, pausing in her vain attempts to try and put Mai's clothes back on her, while Tate sighed and unzipped his pants. "I have never seen such shameless debauchery, I-"

"Her technique is quite advanced, isn't?" Kaede noted as she watched from atop the table.

"Uh-huh," said Mana, who was busily clearing said table.

"One has much to learn from her."

"Good for you."

"Are you seriously bent on such matters at a time like this?" Kaede asked, finally turning to regard her rival with amazement.

"Are you seriously going to engage in color commentary?" Mana asked as she poured what was left of the tea into a thermos.

"Since this appears to be my role -"

"Swell. My role is the caretaker of this shrine. So I'll do that before I get down to rocking his world, if you don't mind. In the meanwhile, Tokiha-sempai," she addressed Mai, who was flinging her clothes over to the next room to stop Shiho from trying to put them back on her, "while it seems you are used to group sex by now, if you're trying to initiate Shiho, you must be aware she's quite sensitive, so I suggest that you start slow with her."

Shiho gave her a panicked stare. "Oneesan!"

Mana pointed to the door leading further into the residence. "I'm sure this will be easier for her if it's done in relative privacy. I'm sure it'll disappoint Tate-sempai, to some degree, but-"

"I, I wouldn't be disappointed!" the older boy gasped, forcing himself to pull his eyes away from Zazie's backside. "Um, as a matter of fact, I'm not sure I can, we should, I mean, she's still like my little sister, I-"

"Yes! I mean, no!" Shiho gasped. "I mean, no, I'm not your little sister, but still, what are you trying to do here, I'm not ready yet, I'm not a slut who would jump in the sack before marriage like-!"

Mana favored her with a very narrow and dangerous glare. "Like I'm about to do?"

Shiho gulped. "That, that isn't what I was trying to say! I meant like Mai-san!"

"Uh-huh, well, this slut already beat you to the finishing line, so it's not like you'll ever undo that, even if you killed me," Mai said. "Still, this slut is kind enough and has learned enough and for some reason still feels enough sympathy for you as to understand how you must feel. So this slut is willing to share, so you can decide for yourself if you want to-"

"Do you think I want your pity?!"

"... I'd take it if our roles were reversed," Mai calmly said. "I'd be thankful, even. If it makes you feel any better, Tate wasn't my first either."

"Why would that make me feel better?! Should I be happy that I was beaten by a seasoned pro!?"

"... only mildly seasoned amateur," Mai clenched her teeth and exerted her patience. "And think about it; you'll be the first virgin for Yuuichi, so you'll still be very special to him."

"..." Shiho said, then glanced back at Tate, who crossed his legs awkwardly. Then she sighed dryly. "Okay, then. I'll salvage a shining victory from apparent complete defeat! Last but not least, Shiho will trump all those skanks who came before! She'll prove she's tighter and better and yummier than everyone else!" she decided, tightening a fist.

"'Yummier'?" Kaede and Mana found themselves saying at once, to the latter's annoyance and former's amusement.

Shiho threw herself into the arms of the boy who now wore nothing but his white undershirt. "Take me to my bed and make sweet, sweet, sweet love to me, Oniich- Yuu-chan!" she said, nuzzling her head under his chin. "You can stay here and placate Ninja-sempai's appetites, Mai-san."

Kaede gave Mai a good long look and smiled. "Since the alternative seems to be wait for a frigid woman to finally make up her mind, this one wouldn't mind enjoying a warmer person's company ..."

"Uh, I'd be honored, but as soon as I finish our own private business, okay?" Mai said. "After all, I wouldn't dream of leaving my boyfriend and my respected worthy rival alone in a time of emotional need."

"No, really, I don't mind at all!" Shiho screeched as a resigned Tate carried her out of the room bridal style.

"Such a strong person in the face of doubt! Shiho-chan, I admire you so much!" Mai said not-ironically-at-all as she stubbornly followed them away.

"If there's hope for them," Kaede observed, "then maybe there's also hope for the two of-"

"No, there isn't," Mana said.

* * *

Meanwhile, Yuuichi had carefully set Shiho down on her bed and tugged his undershirt off, as she cooed at the sight of his hard rock pecs. Mai, who hung shortly behind them, took a nice long look around Shiho's bedroom, and the curious mixture of portraits of Yuuichi and Shiho herself, good luck charms and amulets, adorable plush toys, and neatly aligned DVDs on display. "My, my, Shiho-chan, your tastes are more eclectic than I imagined. What's this? You collect flutes?"

Shiho snorted out a corner of her mouth while Tate carefully worked her clothes off and she blushed brightly. "Since that's a flute collection you're looking at, I'd say I do, don't you think?"

"I like this one," Mai picked a very long flute of elegant sleek lines. "Yes, I like it a lot..."

"It's a gift from my grandfather, you'd better not- Why aren't you rock hard yet?" Shiho looked at Yuuichi's lower section. "You were rock hard while looking at Rainyday-sempai!"

The boy sighed. "You noticed, huh? I've telling you, I still think of you as my little sister."

"But she isn't!" Mai rolled her eyes around, shaking her head.

"When we started going out, you were happy I thought of her that way!" Tate pointed out. "How would you feel if I told you to have sex with Takumi?"

Mai blinked, thought in silence over several moments, and then blushed, rubbing her legs together absently. "W-Well, before this, I'd have slapped you and thrown you out, but I've been rethinking-"

**"WHAT?"** Tate yelped.

"What a Grade-A slut!" Shiho cried, before starting to rub Tate's dick up and down, furiously. "Your sister, am I?! Well, sisters don't do this - well, except for dirty rotten slutty sisters like someone else - so I'll make you change your mind! Do you still think I'm your kid sister, Oniichan?!"

"Uhhhhh!" he replied as his mast began gaining further hardness.

"You aren't helping your cause with that choice of words, Shiho-chan," Mai pointed out, beginning to masturbate with the flute.

Shiho's hair stood up. "What the hell, Slut-san! I put my mouth on that thing!"

Mai licked her lips as Tate placed Shiho on her back, finishing stroking himself to full stiffness before placing himself against her small entrance. "Think of it as a preview for when your mouth is here as well. I think I'll enjoy that," she chuckled as she caressed herself with the instrument.

Shiho was about to yell her protests on the subject when Tate's slow, yet painful penetration startled her and made her scream his name instead.

After a short while, Mai reached the conclusion that stimulating herself with a flute, never mind a flute that had been repeatedly in Shiho's mouth, was not actually all that exciting after all, so she set it aside and sat while quietly fingering herself, watching Yuuichi plow into the smaller girl, clinging to her as he grunted and she whimpered. It didn't look like she was enjoying it that much, so Mai felt like saying "You know, the first time usually hurts a lot, so maybe you two should take it-"

"Don't! Interrupt! The! Moment!" Shiho hissed poisonously.

Mai sighed and tossed her hands up. "Okay, sorry 'bout that. Your choice," she said, pulling her fingers out and absently licking them over, since she might as well do it as long as she was being depraved. Huh, she tasted better than she had imagined. She considered following through on her threat of making Shiho taste her as well, but looking again at the girl, Mai doubted that would help their relationship at all, and the longer their bad blood went, the longer Yuuichi would have to be stuck in the middle. "I'm going to pee. Enjoy yourselves until I come back, okay?" she announced, standing back up and leaving the bedroom, not bothering to get dressed first.

Tate only grunted in what seemed to be an acknowledgment, while Shiho kept on gasping and whimpering even harder and more frequently under him.

Mai locked herself in the bathroom, used the toilet, patted herself dry, and then wandered around the small house naked, again because she had never done that kind of thing before, and in a way, it even felt nice, liberating. She walked back into Shiho's bedroom and found Shiho had by now climbed on top of Tate, riding him as his hands rested on her tiny teats. There was still a lot of pain in her short shrieks, but also a sharp, manic glee as she gave Mai a half-saucy, half-taunting look.

Mai poked the tip of her tongue out, then walked away again, heading back towards where the others were. She stopped several steps behind Tatsumiya-san, who crouched down behind a mostly closed door spying on Negi-sensei, Rainyday-san and Nagase-san. Her back was towards Mai, but Mai knew it was unlikely she hadn't detected her presence, even as entertained as she was. So the orange haired girl decided to just quietly head back the way she had come. If both of them pretended that had never happened, then Tatsumiya-san would likely never hold it against her at all.

She went into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and then poured herself some orange juice from the small icebox. She enjoyed the glass in silence, washed it, put it back where she had found it, and returned once again to the bedroom, where a visibly spent Shiho now rested on Yuuichi's chest, his arms loosely wrapped around her. "Was it good?" Mai asked.

"A lot," Shiho smiled, although Mai couldn't tell whether it was from stubborn refusal to admit the contrary, from real enjoyment, or from a middle point between both.

"Well, I'm glad then," Mai said, sitting on the edge of the bed and lightly playing with one of Shiho's pigtails. She didn't have her hand batted away, which she chose taking as a good sign.

"I'm not into girls," Shiho warned "So that's as much as you can touch, Mai-san."

Huh. So she was like her in that regard, as well. "Suits me fine," Mai shrugged, yet making a point of not stopping playing with the bright red hair. "And do you want to keep doing this?"

Shiho nodded eagerly.

"I was asking him," Mai said.

Tate sighed, looking directly at the ceiling. "It's a bit late to ask now, isn't it?"

"No, it isn't, why should it be? That's just like you, trying to dodge questions just because they're difficult," Mai observed.

"I never asked to be asked the questions, so... oh, never mind," Tate exhaled. "I know how these things go. No matter what I say here, I can't win."

Shiho lazily traced little spirals on his chest with a finger. "I'd say you already have won, Oniichan."

"Please don't call me that when we're naked and in bed," he asked.

"Whoopsie! Sorry!"

"So," Mai said, "you up to rejoin the others? I can't let Nagase-san down after she was so kind to me, and I'll let you do Rainyday-san if you really want to, and I'm sure Negi-sensei won't say no to Shiho-chan..."

"What makes you think I'll let On- Yuu-kun do that girl or want to be with Negi-sensei myself?" Shiho grumbled, hugging Tate's torso harder.

"Don't be silly, all girls want to do it with Negi-sensei at least once," Mai shook her head. "Really!"

"Well, I don't! I only want O-" she heard Tate rasp loudly, "- Yuu-kun, got any problem with that?"

Mai stared evenly at her, then grabbed her and dragged her, kicking and screaming, back towards the others. After a moment, Tate breathed deeply and followed them.

"Negi-sensei," Mai said a moment later, "after you finish with Tatsumiya-san there, Shiho-chan wants a turn as well!"

"I DON'T NO NO NO!"

"- shut up, don't break the moment, Shihoooooooo!" Mana said as she slammed herself up and down on Negi's impressive tool.

"Well, never mind that, then," Mai sighed, looking towards Zazie and Kaede instead. "What if we join you instead? Your offer still stands, right, Nagase-san?"

Kaede smiled at her, while Zazie quietly pulled back from her, Tate's eyes widening as he saw what he had thought was a double end dildo being shared between both kouhais was anything but that. "Certainly, Tokiha-dono," the shinobi said. "If I'm not mistaken, Tate-dono was showing a lot of interest in Zazie-dono's figure, so they-"

"S-Screw that, that was before I learned she was a shemale!" a freaked out Yuuichi frantically pointed at Zazie's nethers. "I mean, no offense, but I don't swing that way!"

"I'm not a hermaphrodite," Zazie calmly said, pulling the phallus back inside of herself. "See?"

"It's still inside!" Tate insisted. "I can't do it knowing that!"

Mai rolled her eyes. "Oh, Yuu-chan, you're embarrassing me! You're insulting her after she's been perfectly nice enough as to not reject you! I thought you had resolved not to be that macho-narrow-minded guy anymore."

Tate blinked. "I'm some kind of bigot now? All I'm saying is-"

"Don't mind her, she's just being crazy again!" Shiho said, clinging to his arm.

"... could I do it with Ninja-san instead?" Tate asked, just a bit dubiously.

"ONIICHAN!" Shiho cried.

"I'm sorry, Tate-dono, but this one would not consent to love, or merely embrace, either, one who would reject a classmate only because of her appearance," Kaede firm but politely said.

"C'mon," Mai said as she started fingering Kaede's vulva, and Nagase placed a hand on her head, "She's still the same cute girl as before, isn't she? Think of it this way, if anything, that just makes her more exotic."

Tate's lips quivered as she looked again at Zazie, who lay on one side enticingly. "Yeah, I guess so, but still -"

Then Zazie mouthed something he couldn't quite figure out, and tendrils sprouted from her shadow, grabbing him and pulling him to herself, and she silenced his yelp of surprise with her lips.

"...!" Shiho said, then gave Mai an aghast glare. "This is all your fault, you know!"

Mai smiled impishly as Kaede started returning the favor, with skill that dwarfed Mai's own. "You're still welcome to join us, you knoooooooohhh, that's really good, yes!"

Shiho muttered something very unflattering, then moved towards where Mana rode Negi's dick, placing her crotch over Negi's mouth. "You're just going to lick it," she warned, lowering herself towards his expectant lips. "That's all! You certainly aren't ever going to penetrate my cunny or my poo-poo chute, because that's icky, and I'm doing this just to get ev-"

"Shut up, Shiho," Mana said, before blocking the nonstop silly mouth with her own.

Kaede actually opened her eyes from the sixty-nine she and Mai were at. "I thought you didn't like- Oh. You don't, and yet you're doing it only to rub it in this one's face, aren't you? That you'd do it with anyone before this one?"

Mana just deepened the kiss, grabbing the spiral-eyed Shiho tightly while never stopping bouncing on Negi's erection.

"Figures," Kaede sighed, almost sadly. "You are, this one hopes, well aware that such petty behavior is beneath what a miko should-" At this point, Mai just forcefully pulled Kaede's back into her crotch.

Kaede supposed this was how Munakata-dono felt most of the time.

* * *

By the time Negi left the shrine, walking just a bit unsteadily beside Zazie, it was early afternoon. Mai and Yuuichi had left before everyone else, and Mana had gone tuck Shiho into her bed for an early evening's worth of much needed rest- particularly after the apprentice and Negi had been finally roped into doing it with each other after all. He wasn't sure where Kaede had gone. She'd disappeared like the wind after giving him one last deep kiss while he was recovering from the last bout, before Mana had delicately suggested it was time for her guests to leave.

Not until he passed under the shrine's gate did the exact nature of what had just transpired truly hit him, making him stop dead in his tracks. "What have I done?" he asked.

"... I assume that the literal answer is not what you are seeking," Zazie asked.

He didn't really listen. "In the name of this project, I have ... I knew that I would have to do things, make compromises that would trouble my conscience, but... to create a child simply as part of a strategy to advance my agenda... I am a monster. I am more of a monster than Evangeline could ever hope to be. Perhaps even more than Ragyou-san. I am the lowest of the -"

"Negi-kun," Zazie interrupted the torrent of self-recrimination. "Do you recall what I said about lies that simplify matters?"

"- a base and disgusting -"

"There are explicit lies, and then there are implicit lies," she continued.

"- beyond all moral and ethical -"

"One such implicit lie would be the notion that I could detect your fertility by kissing you."

That got him to stop. "... what?" he asked after a moment. "You mean you can't-"

"Normally, I could," she explained. "First of all, let me explain something to you, in a concise but hopefully clear way, about the nature of the demon race. Much like divine beings, we exist in a multiplanar fashion. Our essences, you could call them our souls, are attuned with those of our other physical bodies across the dimensions. That doesn't mean we have full awareness of what our other manifestations are doing in other realms at the time, but ... occasionally, we can catch glimpses. Passing views. Additionally, in this particular plane of reality-"

"Wait," Negi blinked, "you are trying to tell me..."

"The nature of true immortals is quite different from that of mortals and those who have achieved immortality through magical means, Sensei," Zazie said. "It's pointless dwelling on that for now, but suffice to say, there are good reasons why the veils separating the different aspects of reality never should be shredded, even by those who sometimes can look through them. As I was telling you, in this particular realm, part of our gifts include being able to read human minds as well as their physical makeup through physical contact. That's how I learned today, when Tokiha-sempai and I were together, that she was with child-"

**"What?!"**

"Tate-sempai's child, Sensei."

"Oh. Wait, that doesn't make it right either, they aren't ... when were you with her, anyway?"

"While you were fucking Munakata-san. Now don't interrupt me again, please. I never interrupt you, do I? You might have noticed I was briefly confused while first kissing you, and that's because I couldn't read your fertility spectrum. Neither could I read Kaede-san's. Or even _my own_, for that matter, after being with you. That's technically impossible, unless a higher force happens to be obstructing my powers in that specific instance."

"Homura-san," Negi gasped.

"I beg your pardon? What does Fate-sensei's-"

"No, not her, I meant Akemi Homura-san, she's-" He winced at the sudden blow at his head. "Why did you do that?"

"I told you to never interrupt me again, didn't I? I don't recognize the name 'Akemi Homura', so I imagine she must be the wildcard factor who could blindside me. Am I wrong?"

"I'm not sure yet," he admitted, "but she's certainly someone who knows too much about us, and yet we know little to nothing about her. Look, I'd love to tell you all about her, but sadly, my schedule-"

"I'll make sure to ask Konoka-san. As for you fertility... You may be. You may not be. I have no way of knowing. Whoever has done this to me has an interest in keeping us in the dark for some reason. I would suggest that you seek out actual medical testing if you have concerns on the subject."

" Of course I would, but... but Zazie!" he protested, feeling a bit annoyed that she had, in fact, interrupted him after saying that she never did so. "If, if I'm not, then what's going to happen when Mana finds out that she's not -"

"Well, it's not like she can kill you," the demon girl said with a shrug. "And she is probably mature enough to put the blame where it belongs - on me for lying, and on that unknown factor for making me lie, in other words. Which will have the additional effect of hardening her heart further against my sister's entreaties, which will hopefully give Poyo a valuable lesson in accepting limitations. Ideally not a fatal one, but so it goes. Demon," she added, by way of reminder, in response to his aghast look.

"I'm not sure if going along with this makes me more of a monster or less," Negi said, hands over his face. "I -"

"There's something else you should know," she interrupted again, making her earlier point about never interrupting him less and less valid each time. "When I failed to review your fertility status, I instead saw something else, which takes us back to my earlier point about transdimensional experiences. For a very short moment, I could see through the eyes of another one just like myself, in a world much like this one... but one who didn't have that particular skill. I suspect our mysterious outsider might have made me miss by briefly tuning my existential makeup with that of that parallel timeline Zazie."

Negi exhaled loudly. "That's too complicated, even in the light of everything that's been happening, I don't know if I-"

Whatever else he might have said was lost forever as his phone rang. Fishing it out of his pants pocket, he answered it. "Negi here. What -" he asked. "Fate, what are you talking about? What? Yes, yes, I do, I will be right there." He hung up. "There's... I've got to go," he said at last.

"Be well," Zazie said, waving regally.

With a shake of his head, Negi dashed off.

She watched him go, thinking of lies implicit and explicit, thinking of the day he'd walked into their classroom and her life had changed forever. Thinking of him.

She suspected that she was going to be doing that a lot in the years to come.

Again, she had another of those annoying moments of _deja vu_.

* * *

_Later..._

Sensing Fate's eyes on him - for his ally had been invited to _this_ assembly of Mahora's magical faculty, held at the World Tree's base - Negi nodded. "I just have one more step that I'll need to take before I'm ready to implement, sir. And I plan to do that as soon as we're done here."

"Good, good," Konoemon said, nodding. "Do I even want to know?"

"No," he told him honestly. Considering the reactions he generally got when describing it, he feared for the Headmaster's heart.

"Didn't think so. Ah, here it comes," Konoemon observed as the glowing surrounding them began to become almost blinding ...

... and then there were quite a few more people on the hill. Most were armored knights of the type with which Negi had become quite familiar during his sojourn in the Magical World, but there were a few others of the female persuasion. There was a smiling, petite young woman in white, with short black hair, a long cape hanging from her shoulders. There was a much taller woman with long dark red hair in sturdy battle armor, with a stern, incredibly powerful presence about her. There was an even taller curvaceous beauty of pleasant and radiant splendor, in a resplendent white dress with a sun design on its lower half, accompanied by a beautiful but sour looking blonde of green eyes, clad in a regal dark red long dress.

"Why only females?" Fate wondered in a low tone that almost qualified for a grumble. "Artificial male bodies aren't that much more difficult to create."

At their forefront was a tall, blonde woman with delicate horns, dressed in an elaborate costume that resembled a long coat over a swimsuit.

"Theodora Basileia Helladis de Vesperisszimia, exalted Celestia of Equestria, Lady Cersei of the Seven Kingdoms, Lady Amelia Will Tesla of Seyruun, and Erza Scarlet, honorable delegate from the Magic Guilds Union," Konoemon declared. "Little did I dream that our humble academy would ever be so fortunate as to receive such exalted guests. Be welcome all."

"We thank you, Konoe Konoemon-dono, for your exquisite hospitality," the Princess of Vesperisszimia replied for the committee, inclining her head. "We regret only that this time of great trouble and hardship had to come to pass before we could aaaaaah can't keep this up," she concluded flatly.

"Eh?" Konoemon said.

_Poof._

Just as abruptly as she and the others had appeared, the Princess disappeared, to be replaced by a much shorter young lady in an Ariadne school uniform looking exceptionally stressed. "It's really hard, maintaining the appearance of someone so much taller than I am," the girl complained, then flushed. "Um. Hello, Negi-san. Hello, Fate-san."

_"... Shiori?" _ Negi and Fate chorused.

"Huh?" the short princess with black hair blinked, then looked at her companions. "Who is this-"

"I have no idea whatsoever, and I care little to know," the woman in the red dress bluntly stated.

The humanized Celestia smiled and patted her head. "Now, now, remember what we have discussed on the subject of manners, will you...?"

* * *

**To be Continued**.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

This literally was the hardest chapter for me to write so far, as I kept losing inspiration and drive, not because of the source material, but mostly because of personal issues. Getting here was a real struggle, let me tell you. I really hope I'm in better shape for the next one...

This chapter was going to have an appearance from Urd of _Oh my Goddess!_ fame, tying into the demon theme, that ended up being cut out because of space and plotting constraints.


	17. Satsuki, Misora, Ukyo, Sayo, Rito

And now, for something (almost) completely different!

Negima belongs to Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.

All other characters belong to their respective copyright holders.

Darkenning supplies inspiration and proofreading, plus Pinkie Pie's song.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Sixteen**.

* * *

"Miss Lina," a breathless Amelia said, wide-eyed.

The figure sitting at the other end of the banquet table made a sound that was mid-way between that of a ferocious boar and that of a tornado swallowing everything on its wake, as she scarfed down another huge chunk of meat. Amelia had never watched or even heard about Star Wars, so she could be forgiven over ignoring the uncanny similarities her friend now sported, in looks and behavior, to a certain interplanetary crime-lord if you placed a red wig on him, but she still imagined the closest Mundus Magicus equivalent.

"What?" asked Lina Inverse, as one of Evangeline's maids diligently pulled the now empty plate and placed a new full one in its place. "Don't tell me you didn't know I was here."

* * *

_Twelve Chapters Ago, this had happened:_

Now Asakura looked at her. "Nah, I actually was starting to think about you, Inverse-san. As far as I have heard, you have gained quite a bit of fame on Mundus Magicus, right?"

"I'd rather call it infamy," Rakan pointed out.

"An aura of dread, expanded through fear and intimidation, augmented through brutal conquest and legends of unmatched savagery," Queen Daenerys elaborated.

"Pot, meet kettle!" Lina hissed.

The platinum blonde did not lose her composure. "Whatever gave you the impression that comment was supposed to be insulting?"

Lina looked about to angrily reply to that, but, after thinking it through, she only snorted. "Look, I won't deny respect is respect. And yeah, you could say evildoers are well justified in their fear of me. So what if they call me the 'Bandit Killer'? Let them! That's a title I carry with honor! Bandits have no human rights!"

"Just like slavers," the Queen commented.

"Yeah, people who have no respect for human rights should have their own human rights disrespected!" snickered the bound Chichigami, who was a bandit after all.

"Exactly," Lina and Daenerys bluntly said at once.

* * *

"Of course, it happened a long while ago, and I've been sitting here enjoying the good life ever since, so it's okay if you or anyone else forgot about it. Don't sweat it!" Lina shrugged, taking another gigantic bite of a juicy and well cooked leg. "Easiest job I've ever had, although also kind of boring."

"Uh-huh, I'd imagine so," said Amelia, who by now was starting to get a full picture of what had happened. Expecting Miss Lina to wreck havoc, intentionally or not, upon her arrival on a new world, was a completely logical course of thought, so her hosts had resorted to the only steps they could take to keep her entertained without infuriating her- feeding her as much as she wanted, surrounded by riches, in the deepest chambers of the Vampire Witch's secret resort until it was her time to leave. Wonder of wonders, it seemed to have worked, as well!

"But now you're here," Lina said, wiping her chubby hands on her thighs. "Maybe it's time to finally stretch those legs and get to see the Old World in the flesh! It's been a while, huh, Amelia? Since the second coming of Rezo?"

Amelia gulped. "N-No, I mean, don't bother, Miss Lina! If you're enjoying yourself so much here, then please stay! I'll even stay with you, to keep you company, and these feasts look quite delicious."

"Yes, but they are my feassssstsssss. Miiiiineeeeee," Lina briefly hugged the plates before her to her small chest. (It was incredible, in a way, how it remained so small after Lina got so big.) Once again, Amelia lacked enough knowldge about Mundus Vetus fiction to recognize the eerie parallels to another sub-human figure well known in that world. Then Lina smiled, and said in the same old cheery tone, "Besides, you know me! I can't stop too long in a single place before I get sick of it, and your arrival gives me the perfect excuse!" As Amelia turned several colors with worry and shame, Lina stood on legs that now barely supported her massive body structure. "Hmmm, I think I'll need to do a few pushups."

* * *

"Miss Lina, you have a remarkably accelerated metabolism," an impressed Amelia commented as she and her friend, now as svelte and lithe as ever, left Evangeline's cottage in the woods behind. "But, are you sure Lady Evangeline won't mind? Her golems seemed quite eager to keep you inside, and then you, well ..." She didn't want to say, 'did what you do best'. It was too hurtful and accurate.

"I'm sure they all can be repaired!" Lina laughed, waving her gloved hand. "Don't worry too much, Amelia, I even left their heads intact! Mostly. Anyway -" Now her right eyebrow twitched a little. "- no one keeps Lina Inverse a prisoner, no matter how good the food! No one!"

Then she began chewing on one of the chicken legs she had brought along in a small, greasy brown bag.

"... can I have one, please?" Amelia asked hopefully.

"My feaasssssst, miiiiiiineeeeee."

* * *

"There were broken golems dressed like maids everywhere. Why were there broken golems dressed like maids everywhere?" asked the Princess, after reaching Twilight's private chambers in the resort and sitting down before her six emissaries.

"Um, well, it seems, from what we've heard, Miss Inverse had... a disagreement over the terms of her stay here, so... she left," Twilight Sparkle gulped. "It happened fast, too, so ... we didn't really have any time to step in and try to negotiate..."

"That vampire witch sure is going to be angry when she comes back, isn't she?" Rainbow Dash wondered aloud.

"Well, that should teach the Mages' Association to send better representatives next time," Rarity huffed. "I knew that woman was not to be trusted as soon as I first saw her. Honestly, why would one wear a yellow loincloth over the pants?"

"I'm sure it all will work out in the end," Princess Celestia said, choosing to leave that topic behind. "Now, how have things been progressing since I sent you, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy blinked rapidly. "W-W-Why are you asking me?"

Celestia shrugged with a confident smile. "Alphabetic order?"

"My name starts with an A," Applejack said.

"Reverse alphabetic order, starting from the last letters," Celestia unflappably replied.

Rainbow Dash quickly muttered, "Dash, Pie, Sparkle, Rarity... wait, then Rarity had as much of a -"

"I asked Fluttershy, though," Celestia very sweetly. "I don't think that should be much of a problem either way, should it? After all the successful reports all of you have delivered in the past."

Fluttershy drew in a very deep breath, then started, "It's okay. It's all right. She's completely right, this is something I must be honest about. Princess Celestia, I, I... I have learned a valuable lesson not only on friendship, but also love! I learned you can't help whom you fall in love with, but you can decide what to make of those feelings, and how to best steer them so they hurt yourself and others as little as possible in the event they are unrequited!" She stopped then to pant, with blushing bright cheeks and trickles of sweat on her forehead.

Applejack reached over and turned the air conditioner on. "Now, who turned this darned thing off? It's hot and humid 'round these parts!"

Celestia paused, then nodded elegantly. "I see. That's a very important lesson to learn, Fluttershy, but be warned, the most important part of it is never forgetting it. It may seem painful at times, but it's for your ultimate good to always keep it in mind."

Fluttershy nodded. "I'll do so. Thanks."

"So... who was it, if I may ask?"

"... a golem girl."

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, then, I never imagined -!"

"NO! No, no, she wasn't here today, she's out with Lady Evangeline, and actually, she's... she's Prince Negi's partner, well, one of them, much like Twilight is now, and ... ahhhh, Twilight should have told you this herself, shouldn't she," she seemed to shrink a few sizes down.

Celestia gave her student a highly interested glance.

Twilight made the unmistakable sound of swallowing a few slabs of stone, and then said, "W-Well, you'll see, Your Majesty, I had to do it, because, to help save Princess Asuna ... well, that, and because of what Prince Negi and I had previously... ummm... I mean..."

"Go on, please," Celestia gently said a minute after. "I am in no hurry to go anywhere at the moment, and I'm sure your story will prove to be highly interesting."

"Oh, it is!" Pinkie Pie jumped at the chance. "Just let me tell you, Princess! With a little... SONG AND DANCE NUMBER!" she grandly said, jumping on the table with her arms open.

"A musical number? Really, Pinkie?" Twilight frowned. "Don't you think, perhaps now is not the time for-"

"It's okay, it's okay!" Pinkie waved a hand at her. "You're in it as well! As a matter of fact, most of it will be about you and Prince Negi!"

"That's not it! As a matter of fact, that only makes it even more-!"

But, as it often happened, Pinkie's notoriously short attention span had already cruelly snatched her friend away from the tenuous grip Twilight's observations had on her, and now the pink-haired girl was gracefully moving before the others, starting her latest song, snapping her fingers to set the beat as music came up out of nowhere.

_"It started when Negi, the kid with a plan,  
Took an age-changing pill and turned into a man!  
As anyone would when under that hex,  
Our Negi decided to start having sex!"_

"Oh my!" Princess Celestia primly took a hand to her mouth, feigning surprise as delicately as she could. Twilight just seemed to sink under the unfathomable weight of crushing invisible forces from above.

"'Our'?" Applejack wondered aloud.

_"He banged lots and lots of girls from his class,  
Girls who had style and girls who had sass!"_

Oddly, tiny pictures of Konoka and Asakura floated in the air around Pinkie's head as she made that declaration.

_"But something was lacking in this life of delight,  
And that something was our good friend Twilight!"_

At that point, out of literally nowhere, Marceline Abadeer dropped by next to the strutting Pinkie and accompanied her latest verse with a loud guitar riff that somehow fit into the music. Twilight just sank ever further down, her eyes now at the table level. Fluttershy had started slipping down as well.

_"Now, let me be clear, according to Twi,  
She doesn't just go for ANY two-legged guy!  
But the Springfield Curse will not be denied,  
So Twilight fell hard, and her innocence died!"_

Seven of Evangeline's dolls, three of them missing their arms and one missing her head, slid in behind Pinkie and Marceline, and sang in a chorus (well, six of them did, at least), _"Death of innocence, doo-doo-doo!"_

_"Yet mourn not its loss, for it's Twilight's great luck  
That Negi, we're told, is a really great - cough cough cough!  
And Twilight, it happened, had fallen so hard,  
That Negi was moved to give her a card!"  
_  
Celestia gave Twilight a very curious and intrigued stare that had to be directed way, way, way down. From almost floor level, Twilight only groaned and sheepishly held her Pactio card up. Celestia cooed, absolutely delighted.

_"Yet 'ere that pact was sealed with a kiss,  
It happened that her friends were told all of this!  
Our responses, of course, would vary a lot,  
I speak just for myself in declaring it hot!"_

_"Some like it, like it hoo-ooot..."_ the dolls and Marceline chorused, thrusting their hips back and forth.

_"But I've never been bothered by the notion of sex,  
As I'm sure you'll find out when you chat with my ex!  
Now Rarity was also quite willing to clop,  
But it's NOT 'cause of history with her mom and her pop!"_

Rarity blinked, then began going down her chair as well, with an uncontrollably awkward chuckle.

_"While Fluttershy was nervous, a bit or a lot,  
But she had tons of happies with a sexy robot!"_

"I... I regret nothing!" Fluttershy cried.

_"Rainbow and Applejack declined and that's swell,  
They went off to be together; so don't ask and don't tell!"_

It was Dash's turn to blink as Applejack facepalmed. "Are you... are you trying to imply something there? Because I suspect you are trying to imply something there!"

_"I think that covers all that's happened this moon -  
Oh, wait, Princess Asuna will go to sleep really soon!  
And Negi doesn't like that, it's a definite fact!  
So he's up to something major, hence he made Twilight's pact!  
And he's also hanging out with some folks who are mean,  
But that's not all that important to our dear Goddess-Queen!"_

Then Pinkie stopped her rhythmic dancing, posing with a bright flashing smile and arms that were as open as they would go.

Princess Celestia stood up and clapped. "Oh, bravo, dear Pinkie! Out of all the songs I have ever heard from you, this might be just my favorite!"

Pinkie giggled and made a curtsie. "Why, thank you! But in truth, I had a lot of help from a newfound friend with the lyrics and some of the special effects!"

* * *

Elsewhere, a certain lookalike of Beatrice the Golden Witch suddenly took a finger to her mouth and sternly glared at the screen, so the fic's other co-author got the hint and carefully stepped back from this particular tangent.

* * *

"So... so, you aren't mad with us? At all?" Twilight weakly asked.

"Well," Celestia said. "Unless the three of you happened to drop some keys or your purses, I might be somewhat disappointed in your choice of trying to slide out of sight rather than facing the truth of what you did... but otherwise, I'm hardly upset at either of you. After all, Twilight, as my dearest disciple and the closest pony I have ever had to a daughter, you might just give me, through this series of events, one of the few joys I have never been able to experience."

"And... that would be?" Twilight asked, already suspecting and dreading the answer.

Celestia brought her hands together, and her eyes became sparkling fountains of wonderfully blinding light. "Grandfillies!" she gushed.

Applejack began choking violently on her glass of apple juice.

"Ohhhh dear," Fluttershy's teeth clattered as Twilight became as white as snow.

Rarity opened her mouth to say something, but before any sound could leave past her lips, another pink-hair topped head peeked in, and another musical, cheerful voice sing-sang. "Ohhhh, here you are, Pinkie-chan!" Sasaki Makie said. "I had been looking for you...! Come on, come on, the party's about to start, and ... oooooo! Who's the beautiful tall lady with you guys?"

"Party?" an interested Celestia asked. "Do you mean, on the brink of Apocalypse itself for two worlds, you are taking the time to throw a private party?"

"It's, it's not that private, actually, since there's going to be-" Rarity gasped.

"I think," Celestia firmly added, "that is a marvelous way to consolidate your friendship right before the greatest challenge of your lives! It makes me so happy, seeing you are mature enough to keep remembering the important things like union and love, even in the face of hopelessness! And it's wise too, since one always goes into a challenge with a clear mind after being reminded of the pleasures in life that one must fight for."

"... ah, yeah, basically, that's it, that's what we're trying to accomplish," Twilight blandly replied.

"It was my idea!" Makie chirped. "Well, mine and Haruna-chan's, and Suzumiya-sempai's, but I also did - oh, I know! You're that Celestia Hime-sama Twilight-san is always talking about so much!"

The impossibly gorgeous woman nodded. "And you must be Sasaki Makie-san. I think I saw you in the victory celebration in Ostia. Would you mind if I joined your party?"

"Not at all! The more the merrier, Hime-sama!" she said, looking up and down at the woman's shapely body.

Rainbow Dash sighed her defeat. "Okay. Okay, fine, then! We're joining that crazy party as well, then!"

"Eh?" Applejack asked, dumbfounded. "What's with this whole 'we' business, all of a sudden?"

Pinkie looked at Rainbow Dash, now mildly concerned. "Dashie ... you're doing it because you really want it, and not just because the climax is coming closer and it's time to bring in everyone who hasn't joined in yet ... are you?"

"... sometimes I just don't understand a single thing you're saying, Pinkie Pie," Dash had to confess.

* * *

"Well, we're going, see you later," Yozora grumbled as she and Rika headed for the club room's door.

"What? It's still too early," Sena looked up from her gossip magazine. "Where are you going?"

"The resort!" Rika chirped, smiling widely. "Want to come with us?"

"No, thank you," Kodaka muttered from where he surfed the Net on his laptop, without looking at the girls.

"The resort? You mean... oh," Sena frowned bitterly. "So you're going to keep doing that."

Yozora shrugged mechanically. "We were invited to Kagurazaka-san's second farewell party. I think there'll be really good snacks, so not going would feel like a waste."

"Right. Snacks," Sena said.

"Enjoy yourselves, then," Kodaka dryly said, while a mildly concerned Yukimura stopped by his side, offering him a glass of juice. He accepted it with a nod of thanks.

"You are welcome to come as well. All of you!" Rika told them.

"I think I said 'No, thanks'," Kodaka sighed. "Unless Sena and Yukimura want to go, but that's their problem then."

"Hell no!" Sena yelped.

"If Aniki isn't going, why should I bother?" Yukimura said.

Yozora stared at her. "Because you aren't a mere appendage of Kodaka?"

"Just like you aren't supposed to be mere appendages of the latest sex club craze?" Sena shot back for Yukimura.

"Do you think I go there because I'm forced to, Meat?" her rival asked. "Please, if I bother, it's just because the atmosphere there is better than the one here of late! Not that it ever was too good!"

"It's nice you should mention that." Kodaka finally looked at her, in an even, cold way. "Because I've been thinking about it, and I decided we'd better dissolve the Neighbors Club."

Cue shocked silence everywhere.

"... what?!" the four girls finally said, as one.

Kodaka shrugged. "You said it, we never meshed too well, and when we finally were going, perhaps, in the right direction, this happened. I think you two finally found yourselves friends... sex buddies, even... so you don't need this club anymore, and when the President starts leaving meetings this way, the club's left headless and directionless. So, why to bother keeping this up? We'd better just move on already."

"But... but Sempai!" Rika cried. "Just think of all the time we've spent here, together! This club may seem humble and small, but it's still the result of our joint labors! A fruit of a work of love! We can't throw it aside like that, just because some of us have a new side project!"

_"... love?!"_ Sena cringed.

"I was just saying," Kodaka shrugged indolently, going back to his laptop. "Then again, you've never paid me any attention, so why would you start now? All the same, I repeat, enjoy yourselves, and tell Chisame I said hi."

"Oh, so now you're passive aggressive, aren't you?" Yozora sneered. "Absolutely disgusting. I never thought I'd say this, Taka, but I rather prefer Sena's take on this whole mess."

"My name isn't Sena, it's Mea- Wait, wait, what?!" Sena yelled. "Why do you say that, or what did you call me, again?!"

Yozora huffed as she walked out. "That's what you'll always do, right, Taka? As soon as you see things aren't going your way, you'll just try to shut down, so you can go back to feeling sorry about yourself. Well, I got tired of doing that, myself! So I'm going to enjoy myself, indeed!"

Rika pouted. "But Rika won't feel at ease knowing Sempai isn't-"

"Are you coming or not?!" Yozora yelled at her from the hallway.

"Going, going!" Rika whined, stopping for a moment to give Kodaka a wounded look he ignored completely. Then she sighed and followed Yozora outside.

"The mechanics of this society," Yukimura observed quietly, "have changed greatly."

"You, you aren't serious about shutting the club down, are you, Kodaka?" Sena babbled. "Do you have a problem with me as well?!"

"... none at all," he passively said after a moment of contemplation. "But we can't possibly keep a club with only three members, can we? I'm sure you'll be fine, Sena. You are rich, beautiful and popular, you could befriend anyone you wanted if you only-"

"I don't want 'anyone'!" she told him. "I want you! And God help me, I want to keep my enemy around, too! Because, because, I don't know why, but I'll never learn if I let her go now, and if I never learn why I wanted someone so annoying and crude around, I'll never sleep well again! And this place will feel too quiet without Shiguma-san as well! And, and... and Yukimura-san brews the best tea I've ever tasted!"

"I'm honored," Yukimura said.

Kodaka gave them a tired, even glare. "Sena... well, I don't know what to say. Really, I don't know. But we always knew this club would be a temporary arrangement, and I can't possibly see how we could keep it going. We can't live with what they've become, and now there's this new wall between them and us, and-"

"Welcome, Oneesan," Yukimura said, bowing for the door.

"Oneesan? What Oneesan, you don't have any- Oh," Kodaka gulped, after looking towards the door and seeing a pale, livid Hasegawa Sora standing right there, her glasses slightly askew and her short brown hair a mess after what had to be a mad drive across the campus from the College area. "How, how are you doing, Sora-nee?"

"Kodaka-kun," his older sister's voice cracked painfully, as her haunted eyes focused squarely on him. "What's this I've just heard about Chisame-chan joining some sort of deviancy club?"

* * *

"No. We aren't going. I can't even believe you're asking me that!" a furious Saotome Ranma said, walking back from classes with the still docile Akane, and rebuking his sister's insistent invitations *and* the Genma-like voice in his head urging him to just punch her that once.

"Now, Ranma-kun, don't be like that," Akane pleasantly said. "Why can't we go with her? I've been so much happier since last time I visited Evangeline-sama."

Ranma hissed in deep frustration. "You don't even know what you're saying! And neither do you!" he quickly added for Haruna. "I've had enough of your weirdo circle of friends! What else do you want from me? I even went and, and did that, that thing you asked from me!"

"The thing with the kiss?" Haruna asked.

Ranma blocked her mouth with a hand. "I know half the school is sleeping with you guys already, but you should still keep some secrecy for the other half's sake!"

"But Ranma, you're being even louder than Haruna-chan," Akane rationally pointed out, with a cute smile.

Her fiancé sighed. "I'm really missing the times when, by this point, you'd have shattered that mallet of yours on my head."

"She never used it that much, Mr. Exaggeration," Haruna chided. "And I can hit you with a mallet, if that's your kink."

"No thanks!" Ranma barked, grabbing Akane by a hand and just speeding his pace up.

Haruna somehow managed to keep up with them, barely. "C'mon, Oniichan! I'll ask Eva-chan to try again to undo that thing she did to Nee-san!"

"Oh, thank you, Haruna-chan, but I assure you I'm much, much happier this way!" Akane giggled.

Ranma stopped and breathed out. "Fine. Okay, you win, you daughter of my father, you. But!" he aimed a finger at her. "We'll only go for that! Nothing else! At all! Okay?"

Haruna nodded rapidly. "Okay!"

"I don't like how you agreed so quickly!"

"Well, what did you want then? For me to - oh, nuts!" she said, backing away very fast, as a bicycle fell from... somewhere... directly onto Ranma's head, knocking him down to the ground. Fortunately, no one else was around, for by now most students and staff chose to avoid being in the proximity of Saotome Ranma and/or Class 3-A. Or the latter's new teacher, for that matter. The newcomer, however, was not like most people at all.

"Nihao, Ranma, Sister-In-Law!" the beautiful Chinese girl in the bike elegantly jumped down, to face the smiling Akane directly. The newcomer's eyes narrowed in a way that was as vicious as her smirk. "So, Shan Pu heard you acting unlike you now, Akane! What you trying now, hmmm?"

Akane gave her a small, playful wave of a hand. "Oh, good afternoon, Shampoo-san! It's been a while."

"Shampoo!" Ranma growled, pushing the bike off himself. "Don't even think about it! Akane's not herself right now!"

"Ho ho ho ho ho ho!" came a nerve-wrecking laugh from a nearby tree, making a shuddering Haruna look towards where a black leotard-clad beauty stood on a branch, holding a black rose in a hand and witnessing the encounter from above, with a smile even crueler than Shampoo's on her perfect lips. "Is that so? I see her as no more than the ugly, unkempt and unremarkable woman she's always been!"

"Damn, not you too, Kodachi," Ranma mumbled, swiftly stepping in between Akane and the others. "Why don't you go mind your own business for once?"

"My business is the business of your wounded heart, Ranma-sama," Kuno Kodachi purred, leaping down to stand at the side of a clearly not pleased either Shampoo. "Don't be fooled by Tendo Akane's latest act of innocence! Those are the same vile ways she has used to ensnare my brother's simple heart!"

"Good afternoon to you as well, Kodachi-san," Akane bowed to her. "Ah, maybe you would also like to come with us and Haruna-chan? How about you, Ucchan?"

"Ucchan-?" a startled Ranma blinked. It was easy to forget, especially for him, Akane was an accomplished martial artist in her own right, and even in her current condition, she could read her surroundings well. Indeed, perhaps now her mind was not in a semi-constant state of frustration, her perceptions surpassed those of the emotionally troubled Ranma. "Akane, what-"

From a nearby bush, Kuonji Ukyo, giant spatula well in hands, jumped out into sight, with a mortified expression and a slight blush. "How bothersome. Well played, Akane-san! I gotta admit I dropped my guard around you, after you started acting so dumb in class."

"If you're lowering your guard about her, why were you following her around?" an amused Haruna asked her.

Ukyo grunted at her fiancé's sister. "I was just passing by! Anyway, what's that I accidentally overheard about you taking Ranchan and Akane-san somewhere, Haruna-chan?"

"Yes. I'd like to be informed on the subject, as well," Kodachi sneered dangerously.

Shampoo blinked. "What you talking about? Is it ... Sister-In-Law want to take Airen and Akane somewhere to get they together behind Shan Pu's back?! Sister-In-Law favored Akane always!"

"Well, she's the least of all evils," Haruna muttered before lifting her hands. "Okay, now, now, time out before the typical Big Ball of Violence starts, everyone. It's actually a nice thing you're all here now, because there are a few things Ranma-kun and I need to make perfectly clear to you."

"No, we don't! That's actually the last thing we need!" Ranma yelled.

Shampoo wrinkled her nose. "Talk," she commanded to Haruna.

"And do so immediately," Kodachi cracked a gymnastics ribbon against the ground.

"Um, yeah, what they said," Ukyo nodded, although at least she didn't seem about to attack Haruna and/or Akane just yet. "This once."

Haruna folded her arms, smiled impishly, and tilted her head to give Kodachi a whimsical look. "You know what, Sempai? Maki-chan really will appreciate some quality time with you. She's told me of how attractive she finds you, but how she has such a hard time approaching you. Were you ever aware she always wanted to be your friend?"

"Eh?" a confused Kodachi asked.

Haruna sighed. "No, of course you weren't. Well," he unfolded her arms and pushed her glasses up her nose. "I'm not sure Eva-chan will even let you in, but it's worth a shot, I suppose."

"No, really, what Sister-In-Law going on about?" Shampoo grew even more annoyed. "She trying to play Shan Pu for fool, like Akane?"

Haruna turned around and began to walk away, towards the woods. "I want to stay alive long enough for you to learn of everything, so you'll excuse me if I don't start explaining now. But if you come with me, I promise you'll get all your answers. Although I make no promises about your liking them."

The fiancée brigade stared at her calmly retreating back over the next few moments, totally dumbfounded by her even stranger than usual behavior. They were about to shout at her when they heard Ranma say, "Don't pay her any mind! She, she doesn't know what she's talking about, you know, kids! I can explain everything, and much better than her, if you'll only give me ... a few hours ... without interrupting ... and ... ahhhh ..."

Kodachi, Shampoo and Ukyo stared at him, then shared a few suspicious, hostile glares, and then nodded at each other.

They knocked Ranma down and began dragging him along, following Haruna's trail through the Mahora wild. Akane closed the formation, happily whistling to herself. "Oh, what a merry day, for a nice stroll," she began singing.

"Ugh," Kodachi groaned. "And I thought her older sister was too disgustingly nice!"

* * *

"This place sure is dull," Lina commented, as she and Amelia walked through the campus, the redhead keeping both hands behind her head lazily. "And I don't mean it just because it's a school. My academy may have been a lot of awful things, but it never was this boring."

"Well," Amelia said, "most students must be still in classes at this don't we go somewhere else, like -"

"Like back to Lady Eva's cottage?"

"Oi, no! I mean, that's a place of Evil! I don't know how you could be there for that long, Miss Lina... oh, right. The food."

"I've learned evil people often have the best food around. I wonder why, however? It's not like she has an use for it, being undead and all."

"I heard she was depowered," Amelia said in a lower tone.

"Yeah, right, like someone ever could depower the Mistress of Puppets. If someone with that much power existed, I'd already have tracked them down and made them give Xelloss a piece of my mind," Lina groaned. "Forget that, if she were depowered she couldn't even keep that resort active, that much is obvious!"

"But why would someone with so much power choose to hang at a place that is, as you said, so dull, Miss Lina?"

"I don't know! The food, perhaps!"

"But you said a vampire shouldn't have any uses for good food!"

"Who knows with vampires! They're weird like that! Especially nobles!" Then she stopped. "Huh. You know, it's funny how, despite people in this world being supposed to remain ignorant about magic, they still don't bat an eye when they hear us talking about it."

Amelia sighed miserably as another student going from one class to another trotted past them. "You mean when we're talking about the things we were told not to discuss in public?"

"Yeah, those. I don't care, but what's your excuse?"

"My excuse is you always make me get carried away, Miss Lina! This is your fault!" Amelia whined.

"Man, those drama club essays keep getting weirder and weirder, "another random student told the one walking by his side, as they also passed next to the girls.

"Yeah, those two sure are cute, too," his friend nodded, hands in his pockets. At that, one of Lina's ears grew to gigantic size. "Must be newbies, since I don't remember them from anywhere."

"A shame about the one with no boobs, though."

Amelia managed to grab Lina from behind before she could throw a spell, her redhead friend kicking and growling madly at the obliviously retreating youngsters. "WHO'S A GIRL WITH NO BOOBS, YOU IDIOTIC JERKASSES?! YOU DON'T KNOW WHO ARE YOU MESSING WITH! COME BACK HERE, YOU PENCIL-NECKED MAGGOTS, I'LL SHOW YOU-!"

"Miss Linaaaaaaa!" Amelia cried. "Be the better woman, please! Look, if you calm down, I'll take you to the best place to eat in this academy!"

Lina stopped struggling and gave her a curious back look. "Seriously?!"

Amelia had to nod. "Takahata-sensei and Akashi-sensei took me and Lady Erza there before taking us to Lady Evangeline's! We only had the time to taste a few dozen plates, but it was all wonderful! Want to come with me?"

"Do I!" Lina drooled, her eyes growing huge and starry. "Show me the way already, Amelia!"

"Um, okay, I think it was this way, southward," her petite friend nodded, as she began leading them northward.

"I think that's the north, Amelia," Lina said.

"No way, you're just confused because of the world shift, Miss Lina!" the younger girl laughed. "Come, come, trust me, I've been actually there."

"Okay, if you say so," Lina groaned, following her. As she did so, she happened to notice there was a tiny black piglet with a bandana and a huge backpack on top of him walking exactly along them now, apparently unconcerned about the great weight on his diminutive body. "- why do I get the feeling this is supposed to be a bad omen?"

Oh well, it kinda looked appetizing. Push came to shove, they always could pick it up and cook it at a side of the road if Amelia got them lost too much and hunger struck again.

* * *

Very shortly after that, since Lina had no patience whatsoever and she'd just asked the damn way to the first forest guard they had found, Yotsuba Satsuki's feet were leaving the floor, and she was falling back against the back wall of the car as her knees came up to wrap around Negi's hips. And at once, he was shown to be right. The car was rocking.

_Well, let's hope no one comes knocking_, he thought somewhat whimsically.

* * *

"See, if we'd just taken this way from the start, we'd be there long ago, and by now we'd be enjoying a nice meal!" Lina grumbled, rubbing her growling and threatening stomach. "Meat! I hunger for meat! A good, thick, juicy weiner filling my mouth, for starters," she dreamily sighed.

Amelia, who, despite being raised in a Purity and Justice obsessed palace, had still learned a few things about the perversions of men she'd immediately Justice Punch in the mouth afterwards, chose not to voice her opinions on how ... awkward Miss Lina had just sounded by saying that. Instead, she just accepted her guilt. "Okay, I'm sorry! But I really don't know what happened! Oh, look, there it is!"

"Why is it rocking from one side to another?" asked Lina. "Did it do that when you were there?"

"Maybe the car just heard or felt Miss Lina was coming, and it started trembling," another person said.

"Well," Lina said, "one just can't help being- WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING WITH THAT?!" She abruptly spun around to face the smirking person who had just said that. Much to Lina's further annoyance, the first thing she saw of that person was her impressive bust, and since the person was much taller than she was, even worse, those breasts were almost on the same level as her face.

Erza Scarlet, in her usual long skirt and the white shirt she wore under her breastplate, itself nowhere in sight at the moment, stood her ground at Lina's angry fuming. "Nice to see you again, Bandit-Killer. I had heard you'd arrived before us. You know, that Serpent friend of yours has been bothering our Guild asking to be -"

"Like I care about that woman enough to listen to anything about her!" Lina exploded before Amelia could ask who they meant. "Why are you following us around, Titania?!"

"Eh, don't get the wrong idea," Erza snorted. "I was just heading the same way you were. Apparently, Evangeline-san wanted to throw a private party, and I can tell when I'm not welcome somewhere. So I decided to hit the best dinner place in this city again."

"It was a wonderful meal, wasn't it?" Amelia beamed.

Erza smiled at the petite princess and nodded. "Yes, it is. It's funny, though." She looked towards the car in the distance. "Why is it rocking like that now? If I were the dirty-minded type, I'd say someone is having fun in the-"

"Miss Scarlet!" Amelia gasped. "A talented young child as obviously innocent and pure-hearted as Miss Yotsuba would never-"

"You are too naive, Princess," Erza shook her head. "Well, looks like someone's about to find out for us, regardless," she added, seeing a boy wearing a school uniform approaching the restaurant. She walked somewhat closer, followed by the curious Amelia and grumbling Lina, and they saw the boy having a brief conversation with the manager through a window.

"... sorry, that dish isn't ready for public consumption," Satsuki declared after a moment. "And actually, we're closed for repairs and testing of some of our equipment." Then she looked at the three young woman and added, "Oh, hm, nice to see you again, Erza-sama, Amelia-sama, and, um -"

"Lina," Lina grunted. "I was at the Ostia victory party, remember?"

"Oh. Ah ... sure, I do! Nice to meet you again, but, like I was telling Shindou-sempai-"

"We heard," Lina grunted again, as the disheartened boy walked away.

"Ohhhh. W-Well, in that case... come back tonight and I'll have a special banquet ready for you, okay? Okay, I'll be looking forward to that, too. Please, if you'll excuse me," She bowed her head and slid down the blinds again.

After a few moments of standing there in confused silence, Erza chuckled and began walking away as well. "Ah, young love!"

"What young love?" Lina muttered bitterly, following the obnoxious, arrogant, big-titted cow...

Erza touched her own nose with a finger. "She had the smell of a man all over her."

"Well, I'm sure you'd know a ton on the subject!" Lina barked. Erza's face twisted into a hardened scowl, but before Amelia could step in between them to stop the epic fight to ensue, the Chao Bao Zi took up into the air and flew away right above their heads.

"!" Lina said, and then frantically pointed up. "SEE?! Why do we have to bother hiding our magic in a world where freaking restaurants fly?!"

"Wow, that's some real nice CGI," a passing girl told the friend at her side.

"After Lingshen left, they'll do anything to promote themselves back to the top!" her friend agreed.

Lina's shoulders drooped and she growled miserably. "Let's... let's just find ourselves another place to eat until nightfall."

* * *

"... it's flying rather erratically," Miyamoto Ruri quietly observed, moments later, as she stood in the middle of a small crowd looking at the flying Chao Bao Zi making its happy way through the skies of Mahora.

"D-Do you think it might fall and crash?" Onodera Kosaki fearfully asked.

Ichijo Raku tensed up, his skin gaining goosebumps all over. _This is it!_ he thought. _Now, I have to comfort her in the face of danger, LIKE A MAN! I should be telling her something to the effect of 'I'll protect you, Onodera! No matter if the skies themselves were falling down, I would-!'  
_  
"Kyaaaaa!" Tachibana Marika clung to him in mid-thought, rattling him out of his carefully considered plan of action. "How terrible! But you'll protect me no matter what, even if the skies themselves were to fall on us, won't you, Raku-kun?"

"... of course I will!" he had to quickly answer, and he had to immediately regret it a second later, as Marika focused huge eyes full of dancing stars up on him.

"You will, of course!" she cooed, clinging even harder, which hadn't even seemed possible a moment ago. "Oh, thank you, Raku-kun, I shouldn't even have to ask, although of course a girl likes being told, because, you know!" she trailed off, timidly poking a finger against his chest and moving it in circles over his shirt.

"Wh-Wh-What do I know?" he babbled.

"Ooooor we could just move away, right?" Kirisaki Chitoge wondered aloud, with a grunt. "Honestly, what's the beansprout gonna do to protect anyone from a massive falling object? Shield you with that empty noggin of his?"

"What was that, Sempai?" Okochi Akira, present as Ruri's teammate in the swimming team, briefly snapped from her troubled contemplation to look aside at Chitoge.

Chitoge immediately snapped back into Lovesick Sweet Girl Mode again. "I mean, we shouldn't be expecting anything too unrealistic and dangerous from my poor widdle Raku-chan, of course! That's what I was saying, nothing else! I don't know how could I ever live if I were to lose him!"

"No, really, why aren't we moving away, like you asked?" questioned Momioka Risa.

"Because we still don't have enough pictures yet?" said Sawada Mio, holding her cellphone up next to Risa's.

"Well, there's that," Risa admitted with a short shrug, never stopping taking pics. "Asakura-chan will pay a lot for these as soon as she learns we beat her to it! I wonder where is she, though, missing something like this isn't like her."

Akira squirmed uncomfortably.

"I bet she just got herself a better spot," Takino Tomo guessed, while Chiyo-chan cried for dear life in the arms of a comforting Sakaki. "Or maybe this was scheduled? Hey, YOU!" she suddenly pointed a swirly-tipped finger at Akira. "What's your class of loons up to this time?! Confess already, you wet giant, you!"

"- wet giant?" Akira squirmed again, confused by the much shorter girl staring accusingly at her.

"Now it's rocking from one side to another," observed Mizuhara Koyomi. "How can it do that in mid-air? How?"

"Aaaahhhh," Kasuga 'Osaka' Ayumu said, "Now I know what that reminds me of! It reminds me of my father's car when Mom is away and he and the neighbor go shopping together and then park it in the garage and -" She noticed the others were looking at her now instead of looking at the Chao Bao Zi. "I mean, not that my father's car flies, although that would be really cool and very Harry Potter, but it's the same principle, and have you heard they'll film another Harry Potter movie but it's not about Harry Potter? I think it won't be very good because it's not about Harry Potter."

"Okochi's class is the class of loons, huh?" Ruri asked Tomo.

The other short girl only stuck her tongue out at her.

"- wow, that sure showed me."

* * *

"Well, that was a whole lot of a huge waste of time," Tomo yawned as she and her friends walked back home. "The thing never crashed down at all! It just slowly sank down beneath the majestic and romantic horizon. That was kinda ... anticlimactic."

"There's a freaking lot of unattended serious problems with you," Mizuhara Koyomi decided.

That was when their cellphones began beeping.

As well as those of several other students across campus.

They all had just received a short, urgent message.

_Come to the Neighbors' Club quarters right now. __Or else_.

* * *

"Close the door behind you," the disturbingly cold and emotionless voice told Shirou as soon as he and Saber had walked in, "and make sure it's well closed."

The boy, who had stood up to Kotomine Kirei and Gilgamesh First of All Heroes himself, gulped loudly and obeyed with no question. Women had always been one of his weaknesses, but there was something about this particular young woman's current tone that was especially ominous and foreboding, chilling him to his core. Saber seemed fairly relaxed, however, quickly finding Rin in the small crowd and smiling as she sat down next to her, on the floor; they had run out of available chairs long ago, and the few ones there were had been taken to the forefront of the clubroom, overlooking the meeting.

A miserable looking young man with blond hair sat slumped on one of the chairs, flanked by a beautiful busty blonde and a short girl in a butler's suit, who seemed far more sedate and less antsy than her two clubmates about the whole affair. Standing behind the currently unoccupied final chair, with her hands firmly gripping its back, a barely taller college student with short brown hair, glasses and freckles, the one who had just commanded Shirou around, seemed on the edge of a nervous breakdown, eyes reddened and breathing erratic. Only Matou Shinji looked in a worse state than her, and well, ever since the Grail War, that was hardly surprising at all.

"Oh, Sempai! Come sit with Rider and me, please!" Sakura invited her, patting the segment of available floor Rider had kept between Sakura and herself for the eventual occasion. Shirou hesitated for a moment, looked at Saber and Rin, saw how Rin mildly freaked out at not thinking of doing that herself, and, since actually there was no more room anymore next to them, went to sit down between the Matou girl and her Servant. "Do you have any idea what this is all about, Sempai?" Sakura asked him them, edging closer to him.

"Huh... haven't they told you yet?" Shirou asked back, glancing all over the many students gathered in the clubroom, which seemed about to burst from the inside. He doubted it would have the capacity for a single person more, which would probably cause a problem as soon as anyone needed to go use the bathroom.

"I think we can start now," said the girl with glasses and freckles in an eerie voice. "My name's Hasegawa Sora. I'm the big sister to Kodaka-kun here."

Tomo-chan sighed. "What did the Yankee do this time?"

"NONE OF US ARE YANKEES, AND I WON'T STAND FOR THAT SMARTASS FUCKING ABUSE AND DISCRIMINATION WHILE I'M HERE, YOU DISRESPECTFUL SQUIRREL!" Sora roared, her head growing a few sizes too large for her neck. Tendo Nabiki found herself impressed. Her father could have taken a few notes from this girl.

"... squirrel?" Tomo squeaked.

Sora picked her head back up and began pacing around, back and forth, before all the present, her eyebrows twitching, her eyes obscured by her glasses, her hands gesturing wildly. "I am, you should know, a terrible, awful sister. I'm as much of a failure there as I've been ... as I've been with everything else! You all bully Kodaka-kun based on unfair, stupid misconceptions, you've been doing it for years, and yet I never put my foot down on the subject because I was too cowardly."

"Also because all men should fight their own battles without needing to-" Suzuhara Touji began.

"DON'T INTERRUPT YOUR ELDERS, YOU NO-GOOD CHAUVINISTIC MONKEY PUNK!" Sora roared now, actually making Touji duck behind a pale and livid Aida Kensuke. "You... You disgust me!" she whimpered before returning to pacing madly before them. "But not as much as I disgust myself. I've also dropped our youngest sister, Kobato-chan, on Kodaka-kun, and while he's tried his best, far better than any of you maggots could ever try, for I'm sure all of you would be or are crappy elder siblings too -"

"That might just be true, or it might not," Sakura nodded with a sly glance towards a scowling Rin.

"- Kobato-chan's still degenerated into a delusional little NEET who thinks she's a vampire princess from TV!" Sora bawled. "And our other sister, Chisame-chan, oh, Chisame-chan! Chisame-chan is the reason why I brought you here after rattling Sena-san for her list of contacts, and then for the contacts of those contacts, and the contacts of those-!"

"What is wrong with Chisame-san?" a voice asked with curiosity.

Sora tearfully looked at the girl who had just asked that, someone sitting in the back rows, with a big forehead, glasses, and braided black hair. "Who are you?" Sora asked her.

"Hakase Satomi, student number twenty four in Class 3-A," the girl informed. "Which means I am a classmate of your sister, and as such I feel-"

Sora looked all across the crowd with haunted eyes. "Of course. Of course I wouldn't know her classmates. That's how bad and awful a sister I am! Who else here studies at that Class 3-A?!"

Only one single other person raised her hand. That was a tall girl of serene beauty with a long black ponytail. "Okochi Akira, Hasegawa-sempai. It's a pleasure meeting you." I guess, Akira thought, frankly scared by Sora's behavior. It had to meant she had already learned what had nearly broke Akira herself, so Akira was pretty much the only person in the audience who could fully sympathize with her at the moment.

"Only you two. You two, you both, the both of you," Sora babbled weakly. "So it has come to that. Only the two of you remain."

"Let me guess," a wary Chitoge said. "You killed all the other students in that class and want to confess, don't you?"

Raku, Onodera and Tsugumi began to violently choke in their saliva.

"As expected from the daughter of a gangster," Marika muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Chitoge asked her.

"Oh, nothing!"

Sora, oblivious to the accusations, stepped over many heads and bodies until she caught Akira with an arm, reached over for Satomi with the other, and brought them together in a tearful hug. "I thank you for not contributing to Chisame's moral decay, like the rest of you! Otherwise, you wouldn't be here with us now! You'd be... with THEM!"

"Is this about how your sister cosplays as virtual idol Chiu and pretends none of us has ever realized they are the same person?" Kensuke asked.

Dozens of perplexed stares, including Sora's, fell on him.

"Oh, come on!" Kensuke groaned. "Do you mean I'm the only person in this academy who can see through a Photoshock job?!"

"Chisame-chan, Chisame-chan did what... NO!" Sora cried. "I mean, I don't know, I didn't know that, but maybe, who knows, it wouldn't shock me anymore!"

"And yet you are shocked," Nonogusa Miyuki from Akira's swim team told her.

"I'm shocked but that's not because of any cosplay, it's because my sister is in some sort of secret weird sex club that is operating right now as we waste our time talking here!" Sora screamed in a paroxism of despair.

The room fell into a deadly stillness after such words were yelled.

* * *

Negi blinked. "There's a surprise party?" he asked, unaware others also were preparing a surprise lynching party for him.

"... surprise?" Satsuki said. "Apparently, Makie-san thought that the earlier party wasn't enough, so she's having another one for Asuna in Evangeline's resort... wherever that is." She shrugged. "When Fate cancelled class, she invited everyone, but I was planning to work and... well, I expected that it was going to be one of those kind of parties, and so..." She trailed off, blushing a bit, and shrugged.

"Ah," he said, nodding understanding. "Well... would you like to come now?"

Now Satsuki blinked. "But... weren't you going to go talk to Hakase as soon as -"

"It'll be all right. Master's resort is time shifted, so an day inside is an hour outside. We can attend the party and be back here or wherever else in an hour."

"That's amazing," she said... then shook her head. "I still don't think so."

"Why not? I thought you would -"

"Yes, it was wonderful, Negi," she told him. "And now... now I understand that I can have that kind of happiness, I'm going to look for it... but... I want that happiness to come from someone who wants to be with me more than anyone else. And I'm not going to find that, I think, on the path that you're following. Maybe you can find the happiness you want on that path. I don't know. And it doesn't matter. I can't walk your path for you, and you can't walk your path for me. And that's the way it is." She nodded in conclusion.

"Yes," Negi said, nodding. "I hope you find what you're looking for, Satsuki."

"And I hope you do, too. Because you deserve whatever tiny morsel of happiness you can find in the life you've chosen for yourself, Negi. Please believe that."

He took a deep breath. "I'll try," he told her, and then he was gone.

Satsuki sighed to herself, then began walking back towards the Chao Bao Zi. She had a lot to do, a ton or two of meals to prepare, to get ready for when Amelia Hime-sama and her friends returned. Amelia Hime-sama had eaten like a horse, Scarlet-san hadn't been exactly measured in her eating either, and their short pettanko friend gave a strong impression of being even worse than the two of them combined. (Satsuki just had a gift to divine what kind of eater a person was from just looking and listening to them.) Not that Satsuki had anything against those who enjoyed feeding, of course, but she did have a few issues with people devouring their food rather than eating it and enjoying the amounts of food over the taste. Sadly, she most probably would never come to learn a certain blond pirate chef at Mundus Magicus would have been her actual soulmate in that regard.

If those thoughts sound too elaborate and long winded for the short path from the spot where she had waved Negi goodbye to the Chao Bao Zi, that was partially because she was walking very slowly, far more than her custom. For once, the idea of cooking for others, her _reason d'etre_, was starting to give her pause for concern now.

Then there was the fact Takane D. Goodman-sempai and Sakura Mei-chan were standing in her way now.

"Good afternoon, Yotsuba-san," the blond self-appointed Apostle of Justice told her, arms folded right under her breasts, as if subtly pushing them up gave her any sort of confidence and imposition boost over the much smaller girl even she would normally feel uncomfortable confronting. To be fair to Takane, that was a mostly unconscious advantage reflex. Mei, who had no advantage in any size and far less confidence to start with, just stood shortly behind her superior, awkwardly holding her broom. "We'd like to ask you a few questions about why you were piloting this restaurant, which I remember we all had agreed would stay at ground level at all times save emergencies after the Festival, all over the campus minutes ago. Because I am sure, if you had been authorized for it, we'd have been informed on the subject by Gandolfini-sensei."

"..." Satsuki said. And then said, "I'll love to answer eventually, but right now, I have an urgent commitment to meet, sorry..."

* * *

Negi had been walking perhaps slower than it was his usual custom, as well. It was almost as if he didn't really want to reach his destination that much, although of course that's silly and we all know it, riiiiiiight. But he was unaware of how his current pace was less of a pleasurable stroll through the school he had come to love so much and more of an half-assed attempt to stall for time before being milked dry and treated like a living sextoy until he saw Satsuki actually catching up to him.

"Satsuki!" he said, surprised. "Is there something wrong? I thought you said-"

She silenced him with a sedate, subtle gesture of a half-raised hand. "I realized I shouldn't be ditching my friends in a time like this, Sensei. That's it. So please don't ask any further, okay?"

* * *

"A sex club?" Nabiki asked, growing greatly intrigued. "Involving Class 3-A? With Ranma's sister?" Her fingers began to itch as she pulled a small notebook and pen from a pocket. This smelled like great blackmail material, assuming all these idiots there didn't mess it up.

So yeah, odds were low, but she'd still have to try!

"Not only them! It also includes many more!" Sora gestured vehemently. "Like, uh, those, ah, you know," she turned to Kodaka. "Those kids next door, you said, right?"

"Yeah," Kodaka nodded blandly.

"Oh, Suzumiya's weirdos? Sounds legit," Chidori Kaname nodded.

"I bet it was Suzumiya's idea from the start," Momioka Risa mused. "I'm kinda jealous she beat me to it, actually."

"And she didn't even invite us!" Sawada Mio added.

"Clearly, we have to step our game up," Risa nodded.

"Yeah, we aren't being taken seriously anymore," Mio agreed.

"Will you two stop with all the indecent jokes? We are discussing important, serious matters here!" Kotegawa Yui yelled at them.

"What did I tell you?" Risa sighed. "No respect."

"I still think it must be a misunderstanding!" Naegi Makoto tried to calm the tensions down. "Like I told the boys the other day, Nagi-sensei is, um, well, you know, so there's no way he and those girls-"

The girls in the clubroom all went to stare at him, shadows growing eerily over their faces.

"Which other day with which boys?" Kosaka Kirino frowned, suddenly reaching over to grab her older brother's tie and tug tightly on it.

Naegi gulped. "Well, the boys, you know, most of the boys here and a few others, were growing uneasy about Nagi-sensei, so they sent Ashikaga-san to spy on them, but I don't think they ever -"

"You had suspicions about this for days, and you never told us!" Kotegawa gasped.

"I bet they only wanted to squeeze themselves in," Fujiyoshi Harumi muttered.

"No!" Touji yelled. "You girls are getting it all wrong, we never - say, that reminds me, where's Ashikaga now? And Itou and Sawanaga, for that matter?"

"They are on the list Rika-san supplied us with, if that helps," Yukimura said.

Now all the stares turned towards her instead.

"Which list?" Suzushiro Haruka began to lurch towards her.

Unfazed, Yukimura reached into her butler's black jacket, pulled a very long roll of paper out, and handed it over to Haruka. "I imagine she was attempting to tempt us with it, and it might have even worked, because I saw Aniki's eyes grow very shiny while reading through it, but then, Aniki's so manly that-"

"I was just reeling in shock, nothing else!" Kodaka protested.

Haruka yanked the list up, gestured for Kotegawa to come closer and for everyone else to stand back OR ELSE, and then the two of them began to read through it. As it happened, Yui's face began flaring in a wide gamut of tones of red, and once she ran out of reds, she started to quickly go through the rest of the color spectrum, while Haruka just clenched her teeth and ground them together, sparks jumping in all directions as an ominous black aura surrounded her.

The rest of the students, even Sora, began growing afraid of the scene, and several of them began moving towards the door in silence, until a chilling, rattled laugh stopped them dead on their tracks. Haruka had thrown her head back and now laughed insanely, holding the list in a hand and gesturing up with the other like a Prometheus who has just stolen fire from the gods. Or Ikari Gendou. Take your pick.

"Fujino! Fujinooo! Fujinooooooooo!" she cackled, eyes blackened with golden pupils, which is always an incredible trick for anyone not named Evangeline to display. "I have got you now, insuferringable bubuzuke woman! Finally, I can show you as the worthless shameless slut you are! FUJINOOOOOOOO!"

"Ha-Haruka-chan!" Yukino gasped.

"How, how, how, how, how, how, how!" Yui was trembling.

"Indecent?" Ikari Shinji offered.

"Yes! How indecent!" Yui nodded very fast. "Even Nana-san and Momo-san! With those involved, Yuuki-kun's downfall can't be far behind! N-Not that I care about him any more than I would about any other student, but -!"

"You're talking about my cousin," Nao grunted. "I doubt he could get laid even if they were making sex legally obligatory. And the Prez is in there, huh? Does that mean her little precious pet-"

"Yes, she too!" Haruka confirmed, nodding vigorously.

Nao smirked. "Oh boy, this is going to be so sweet to watch."

Touji, in the meanwhile, had sneaked beside Haruka and taken the list away from her. "Motherfuckers! Itou, Sawanaga and Ashikaga betrayed us! They used the job we gave us to join with the enemy!"

"By the way," Kensuke observed, looking over Touji's shoulder. "She listed Nagi-sensei here as Negi-sensei. Those scatterbrained geniuses."

"Hey," Satomi huffed.

"Well, I can't be too mad at them, I guess," Saruyama mused aloud. "After all, I'd have jumped the fence as well for a chance to-" Then he was slapped across the head by Yui, and added, "Never mind, I'm just joking!"

Haruka recovered the list, rolled it up, and slapped it on the desk, addressing the crowd like a general. "Enough nonsense! Listen now! Our faith on our ultimate council authorities has been betreached! So I hereby assume my rightful - I mean, my proper place as the deputy Student Council President in the wake of Fujino's immoral fall from, um, what you once dumbly thought made her good for the job! And I'm sure you all know what we must do now as good and decent students of Mahora!"

"Go to the Headmaster and denounce these vile misdeeds, even those involving his own granddaughter!" Yui answered.

"And then take care of the old man's corpse after his fatal heart attack!" Risa nodded.

"No! First, we must gather evidence to shame Fujin- I mean, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt those bad apples to our happy wooden barrel are actually rotten with cute cartoon worms peeking out of them, we must go wherever they are staging their latest friendship ritual of perversion and getting evidence of their, that word you use when women are being loose and men are putting themselves into each other's butts!" Haruka proclaimed. "Now, if we only knew where they are at the moment!"

"Fiendish ritual, Haruka-chan," Yukino sighed. "And I think the other word you meant is-"

"They are currently at Evangeline Mc Dowell-san's cottage," Yukimura quietly said.

For a second time, all stares fell on her. Wow, catching others' attention felt good, after all. Aniki was sure to be proud of her, well, his, masculinity and capacity to impress and direct the masses, especially the women.

Even if he was for some reason covering his face with a hand right now.

* * *

"Well, there they go," said Satomi, standing next to Akira, as they watched the crowd depart the building, towards the woodland. Both 3-A students leaned on a large open window's frame, overlooking the campus beneath.

"Yeah," added Akira, even more unnecessarily.

Satomi looked at her. "You could have gone with them, you know."

"W-What? M-Me? Oh, no!" Akira gulped. "Far from it!"

"But all your friends are there, and odds are they won't be having a good time anymore once Suzushiro-sempai and the others surprise them in flagrante delicto," the shorter girl argued. "I believe they could use your support in a moment like that."

"I'm not sure I could grant them any support. Rather, I'd make everything even worse," Akira sighed, then asked, "By the way, how about you? Aren't you concerned about Chachamaru-san?"

"Quite. But I'm of no help with that sort of issues either, and Chao and I had agreed we'd let Chachamaru's emotional course to follow its own path, with as little interference from us as possible, unless Chachamaru herself asked for it. Of course, now it's far easier for Chao to stick to that resolution than it is for me," the genius almost smirked.

Akira blinked. "Wow. So... it does bother you, after all. That's... sort of good to know. I mean, Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying-"

"Why wouldn't it bother me?" Satomi asked. "Chachamaru has grown to mean far more to me than a science project, and I find it frankly vexing she would choose to hide personal data, no matter how private, from me. But I recognize that as part of a cognitive process to assert her own personality, so I'll be patient, as both good researchers and good mothers should, and wait until she is ready to inform me personally. Well." She dusted her hands off. "It's been nice to talk to you, Okochi-san. It occurs to me this is the longest exchange we have had since we first met."

Akira didn't have to think it for long. "You know, you are right! Maybe we should talk more often."

"Perhaps, although I doubt our respective occupations will leave us much time for that. Unless you are thinking of joining Negi-sensei's project?"

"After this, I'm not that sure he'll be able to carry on with that."

"Oh, he will. Utilitarian needs of the many trump the moral concerns of the few every time in any enlightened culture. Come to think about it, however, perhaps there is room for concern after all... Oh well, that part is for Sensei to address, right? I'll see you tomorrow, Okochi-san."

"Hakase-san," Akira told her when she reached the door.

Satomi stopped, with her hand on the doorknob. "Yes?"

"How can you retain... so much faith? So much trust?"

"In Chachamaru, you mean? That's the difference between being a parent and friend, Okochi-san. The former are forced to place hope in their children. The latter have the choice to keep placing hope in their comrades or not."

Satomi then waved a hand at her, smiled and left.

Akira sighed again. "That's not exactly what I meant to ask."

* * *

"You know," Tomo said as they marched, "there's something very important missing here."

"You mean the spirit of our school?" Marika asked. "The feeling of trust between us and our fellow students, that will remain shattered forever after these revelations and the confrontation to ensue?"

"No, don't be silly!" Tomo shook her head. "I meant the true feeling of an angry mob!"

"I'm not actually angry, I'm just curious," Kensuke shrugged indolently.

"I had nothing better to do," yawned Takahara Ayumi.

"I just want to see it firsthand for the laughs!" Nao shared.

"I can't believe Haruhi-san wouldn't invite me!" Tsuruya-san fumed. "But ... eh, I'm not mad anyway! Ha ha ha ha!"

"No! We are angry!" Haruka decided, ripping a random branch from a tree along the way, and holding it for Yukino to turn it on fire with her lighter. "And you all know what that means, don't you? It means... it's time for us to come together through a good angry mob song!"

"Oh, goodie!" Tsuruya-san clapped. "We haven't had one of those since we ran the rugby coach out!"

The students began singing as they went on.

_"Through the mist,  
Through the woods,  
Through the darkness and the shadows,  
It's a nightmare, but it's one exciting ride.  
Say a prayer,  
Then we're there,  
At the doorsteps of a cabin,  
And there's something sexily terrible inside!"_

"Wait a second," Ikari-kun said, looking up, "what shadows? It's late, yeah, but not that late yet, and-"

"Just keep your mouth shut, baka!" Asuka barked to him as she grabbed one of the pitchforkes the Gardenning Club was passing around.

_"Nagi's a beast.  
Everyone he bangs.  
Everyone he bones  
With massive balls  
And killer charm for the feast  
Let's hear them moan  
See them, ahem, foam  
But we're not coming home,  
Till they're dead.  
Their boners dead!  
Perverted Beasts!"_

"This," Horaki Hikari groaned, "is a simply awful set of lyrics."

"Yeah, well, most of the good singers are with them!" Higurashi Akane huffed. "It can't be helped!"

_"Raise your torch, it could be worse,  
Screw your courage to the sticking place.  
We're counting on Debochin to lead the way,  
Through the mist,  
Through the wood,  
Where within a haunted cabin,  
Something's lurking that you don't see every day..."_

Haruka nodded and smirked proudly before belatedly whipping her head back towards them. "Debochin?!"

_"It's an ecchi leader beast  
His dick as tall as a mountain  
We won't rest  
Till he's good and castrated  
And his clubmates eliminated  
Sally forth!  
Tally ho!  
Grab your bokken!  
Grab your bow!  
Praise the Kami and here we go!"_

"- since when are we so religious anyway?" Matou-kun dared to mutter, before Sakura harshly hushed him, following the mob just to see what would happen along with a concerned Shirou, Rin and Rider, and a Saber that remained as stoic as ever.

"Well," Rin sighed, "when Mahora gets something in their minds, they won't let it go until they've milked it for all it's worth."

_"We don't like  
What we don't understand  
In fact it, scares us  
And this club is mysterious at least  
So we'll shift to extremity!  
For Japanese conformity!  
Lock up your mikos and your nuns!  
Keep 'em safe from their yogurt guns!  
Save your Imoutos and future wives.  
We'll save our school and our love lives.  
We'll kill the Beasts!  
Perverted Beasts!"_

Hitou Nami shuddered. "This 'kill' we keep repeating, that's a figure of speech for this situation, right?"

Kitsu Chiri gave her reply by maniacally swinging a shovel back and forth. "Kill kill kill, a complete perfect kill! No half-kills! Nothing half-done! We're deadlier than a loaded drone!"

"If her shovel doesn't kill them, her verses will," Abiru mused quietly.

_"Lights ablaze  
Banners high  
We go marching into battle  
Unafraid, although the danger just increased  
Raise the flag!  
We'll cut Nagi's wang!  
Sing the song!  
We'll chop his dong!  
Here we come, we're filthy strong!  
Twenty seniors and fifty Freshmen can't be wrong!  
__Let's kill the Beasts!  
Perverted Beasts!"_

* * *

"Let's kill the beasts, perverted beasts," Chachazero sang to herself as she sat all alone at a corner of the resort's pool, swinging her tiny legs back and forth in the water, and absorbed with her unique brand of strange thoughts. Everyone present had just been ignoring her completely, which suited her fine. Frankly, all the sex all around her only bored her. At least in the old times, people had the decency to pepper their sex parties with some bloodletting and cruelty, but these were only children playing at being adults. And adults who weren't much better than them, in the doll's opinion.

(Perhaps she would have felt far more at ease in one of Tomaru's orgies, but alas, it was not meant to be.)

Those in the 'everyone ignoring her' demographics included Makie (yes, even Makie just wouldn't go there), who howled as she bounced, tiny breasts shaking, up and down on the lap of her current partner. "AAAAAHHHH! Yes, yes, fuck me, Yuna's dad, fuck me, fuck me haaaard!"

"He's got a name, you know," Yuna glowered as she ran a finger down Makie's spine to her butt, and then inwards.

"EEE!" the pink-haired girl cried out, then giggled softly. "I'm sowwwy, Yuna-chwan! It's just so naughty to think of him as Yuna's dad! But to make up for it, you can fuck Kagehi when he shows up and call him 'Makie's little brother' instead of his name!" She pursed her lips as she gazed adoringly at her friend.

"Well," Yuna said reluctantly as she continued to sodomize Makie with her fingers. "That does sound kind of cool."

"Cough, cough," coughed Yuna's dad, less than thrilled about the discussion concerning Makie's little brother.

"Quiet, Yuna's dad, or I won't let you bang Ako, later," Yuna said.

As Akashi-sensei fell silent, whether because he considered this a credible threat or because he was thrown off by it, Makie giggled some more. "Ride his face, Yuna-chan! Ride his face, so I can get my face in your sweet big tits!"

"Oh, you sweet talker, you."

"... surprise," said Asuna to the cardboard cutouts of Negi, Satsuki and Misora standing beside her.

All before them, bacchanalia reigned. Ako, Mikado-sensei, Shizuna-sensei and Konoka were discussing medicine as they sat naked on poolside deck chairs. (Bacchanalia doesn't just mean sex, you know, it means pleasure. And there are such things as intellectual pleasures.) Near them, Madoka and Misa were taking Setsuna vaginally and anally with strap-ons. (Misa was a bit more enthusiastic about this than Madoka, who still found herself wishing that there were more guys here, or at least that some of those that were there weren't off-limits.)

Over in the corner, Natsumi and Kotaro were getting busy in front of a bound and gagged Chizuru, who was attached to some sort of machine that was driving a dildo into her. Anytime any of the girls even looked like they were looking at Kotaro, Natsumi would start growling and hissing. (Hence 'off-limits'.) Negi had to wonder who could possibly have come up with that sort of machine, since Satomi obviously hadn't been reached yet ... and then he saw a naked Lala Deviluke-san vigorously riding Yuuki Rito-san under a palm tree, with Nana and Momo sitting closely and watching while Momo absently caressed Nana's tail, all despite Nana refusing to return the attention. Huh. So Momo-san had made good on her word after all. Well, as long as she showed the same drive for sticking to her word given to the project.

Elsewhere, on the far side of the pool, Kazumi and Ayaka were comparing breast sizes and incidentally kissing and licking each other, while Sayo and Roberta sat back and quietly masturbated while not watching each other, and taking great care not to accidentally ever touch each other either. Saki, Aya, Ku Fei and Rin were in a daisy chain while Kaede was being assaulted, after a token mock battle, by the Narutaki sisters. Chisame and Chachamaru were watching all this from chairs, occasionally exchanging kisses as they did so.

Once he stopped being a cardboard cutout, Negi actually moved his head around so he could look at the rest of the recreational landscape. Shizuru, Natsuki, Utena and Anthy simply swam all across the pool, enjoying their mutual company. Mai rode Yuuichi's crotch while Shiho sat on his face, and struggled in vain while Mai kept her firmly grabbed by the cheeks as she passionately kissed her mouth. Zazie and Mana were actually playing naked beach voleyball against Haruhi and Nagato-san, although oddly, Kyon-san, Asahina-san and Itsuki-san were nowhere in sight despite Haruhi's promise to bring them all along. Rika and Yozora couldn't be found at first sight either. Twilight Sparkle, Nodoka, Yue and Rainbow Dash all sat quietly, fingering themselves as they read thick novels with lurid cover images tightly together. Haruna also sat in the nude at their side, starry eyed and sketching Itou-san and Sawanaga-san, who were taking, anally and orally respectively, a very cute young girl who was on all fours... and then Negi realized there was a small dick hanging back and forth between the girl's legs. It was then he realized the girl was actually Ashikaga Yuki-san wearing nothing but his 'Yuu' wig. "How -?" he babbled.

Asuna shrugged. "Paru insisted we needed some Yaoi material, and that it was unfair for us girls to provide all the homo entertainment ... you know, I don't really mind one way or another, but Suzumiya-sempai agreed with her, and, well, those three have been the only ones we've been able to rope in so far. Better watch your steps. There's been some talk about you and Kotaro."

"I'll keep it in mind," Negi nodded with a small icy shudder.

"She brought her brother's fiancées along, as well," Asuna mused, with a finger on her chin.

Negi nearly jumped out of his skin. "WHAT?! Where, where are they now?!"

"Calm down, they're with Evangeline, who's helping them sort it out. It'd have to be her, wouldn't it?"

Negi gulped. "I guess so, yes." He ran a hand down his face. "My God, when you said all of that about corrupting the whole school, I never dreamed it'd actually get this far."

"The school and beyond, remember," Asuna wagged a finger. "Princess Dany is somewhere in the main building with Celestia Hime-sama and that former Queen she brought; apparently Celestia Hime-sama is acting as a mediator between them because they have some bad blood over some petty war nonsense. Honestly, those games of thrones are actually really stupid, under all the grandiose facades! Anyway, Celestia Hime-sama told me to tell you to go there to give them a helping dick as soon as you could, but what the heck, I think they can wait, right?"

"Right," Negi almost deflated with a sigh. "Princess Dany?"

"All part of my brilliant plan to get her to call me Princess Suna-chan!"

"That sounds so lame," Misora groaned.

"It is! That's why I want to hear it from her!" Asuna nodded.

"Makie's brother isn't actually coming here, is he?" Negi weakly asked then.

Rather than immediately answering, Asuna turned to look at Satsuki, who'd remained a cardboard cutout much longer than either of the other two. "Are you okay, Satsuki?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

"... oh sweet oven of Julia Child," Satsuki replied in a total non sequitur. "Sacred cheese of Brillat-Savarin," she added.

"She's fine," Asuna declared out loud. She then bent to Negi's ear. _"Relax, it's been taken care of,"_ she whispered.

* * *

"Wow, this is such a cool game, sensei!" Sasaki Kagehisa enthused as his fingers worked the controller's buttons while staring wide-eyed at the TV screen.

"I'm glad you like it," Takahata told him. Evangeline had recommended this one, which had been oddly helpful, since he had no interest in or knowledge of the subject.

"Are you sure my big sister won't mind me not showing up to whatever thing she wanted me to visit?" Kagehisa asked without looking back at him.

"I suspect she'll probably have just as much fun without you," the teacher said dryly.

The irony of luring a young boy with video games in order to prevent him from being sexually assaulted appealed to Takahata on some level.

Then he heard the loud chants coming from the outside.

* * *

"How," Shampoo asked dry and guturally, as she ignored Akanes' smiling twitches, "did we get in this?"

Ukyo, who was in the block of ice on Akane's other side, sighed. "Well, hon, I'll try to be nice and pretend you're asking because the cold did a number on your short term memory, rather than it always being bad in the first place..."

"Like the rest of her mind?" asked Kodachi, also stuck up to her neck in a large mass of ice.

"Hey!" Shampoo hissed.

Ukyo nodded. "Like the rest of her mind. Anyway, sugar, it really started when we first set foot in this house of horrors. The woman with the devil tail should have been our first warning -"

* * *

"Oh!" the pink haired beauty smiled at them, keeping the squirming orange haired boy firmly grabbed by an arm. "Are you here for the party as well?"

Ranma blinked, looking at the boy and recognizing him from his class. "Yuuki? What's your angle in all of this?"

One of the pink haired twins Rito and his girlfriend were with giggled. "Oh, hello, Haruna-san and Ranma-san! As I promised, I brought Rito along because he's part of our family now, and as you know well, family must remain united in everything, right, Ranma-san?" she added, maliciously wiggling her eyelashes at Ranma.

"Honey?" Ukyo frowned. "From where do you know this girl?"

"Treat her with some respect, she's not just 'some girl'!" Haruna huffed. "Everyone, these are Princess Lala, Momo and Nana from planet Deviluke, and this is their boyfriend Rito-kun. Momo-chan and Nana-chan have recently joined Ranma and I in the long list of closest allies of Negi-kun."

"Negi-sensei? I thought he had left the Academy," Kodachi coldly said.

"Nooooo!" Haruna wagged a finger. "He's never left, and as a matter of fact, you might have ran into him several times recently, but -"

The front door finally opened, and out walked Takahata-sensei. "Sensei!" Haruna rushed to him, to hug him and kiss him once in each cheek. "Sorry about the unexpected guests, but I'm sure Eva-chan and Negi-kun will understand! Well... he will, at least."

"Death Glasses-sensei?" Even though Shampoo was not a Mahora student, she still was very well acquited with the local fighting underground and all its stories. "What you doing here?"

"Sensei?" a child's voice came from the inside, along the unmistakable sounds of an american animated series, like Tom the Cat's howl of pain while trombones blared in the background. "Who's that there?"

Haruna, who still had a handful of standards left, paled hideously. "Sensei! Who-"

The teacher sighed as he ushered them all in and closed the door behind them. "Sasaki-kun's brother. She invited him herself, but don't worry, I'm in charge of keeping him busy ... in a good way," he explained in a low, secretive tone.

"You'd damn well better," Ranma nodded, with a stern look on his face.

"Ran-chan," Ukyo said, as she, Kodachi and Ukyo closed in on him, arms folded, staring accusingly while the vapidly smiling Akane stayed behind. "I think you've been stalling with those explanations long enough by now."

"For once, Shan Pu agree with tomboy!" the Amazon growled. "Shan Pu want to know what happening here!"

"And immediately!" Kodachi demanded. "I don't like being led around blindly, like this!"

Haruna gestured for the stairs to the basement. "If you ladies would follow blindly just a little bit longer," she purred, "you'll find all the answers you need just right down there."

* * *

"I don't think I like these answers a lot," Kodachi hissed as she powerlessly watched Evangeline, in her glamorous and buxom older form, energetically riding Ranma's nude body right before them. It had been Evangeline who had explained the whole situation to them shortly after being brought by Haruna, and as Ranma expected, the three non-Tendo fiancées had exploded in sheer fury once they had been told.

As usual, they had charged Ranma himself first, but Evangeline had stepped in between them, easily blocking all of their initial attacks, and then challenged them to take on her before even thinking of starting fights with anyone else in her home. Naturally, it hadn't taken more than that invitation for Shan Pu, Ukyo and Kodachi to jump on her all at once.

That proved to be a grave mistake, as seconds later, they were all soundly beaten and then made to watch as Evangeline dropped her clothes and advanced towards Ranma. "Foolish children," she told the beauties trapped in non-lethal ice. "I think you all need a lesson on the meaning of sharing, not to mention accepting defeat. The first one to show me she has assimilated it will get to go down on the boy after me."

"Hey, no, wait a moment!" Ranma protested. "This is just gross, you're just a kid, what thing of sicko freak do you take me for -"

Evangeline instantly grew into the appearance of a gorgeous woman who left Kodachi, Shampoo, Ukyo and even Akane open-mouthed. The vampire witch smirked. "Is it any better this way, then, O proud Wild Horse?"

"Gah, gah, gahhhhhh!" Ranma babbled while his proud Wild Horse answered for him, standing to full attention under the fabric of his pants.

"I thought so," Evangeline laughed as she reached over and quickly tugged Ranma's black pants down.

And so, there they were now, reduced to having to watch that strange magical woman have their way with the man each one of them had a long-standing claim on, and unable to do anything about it but complain and yell at them, which didn't seem to have any effect on Evangeline, and Ranma, for once, could barely pose the most basic pretenses of a fight under her. It seemed to be getting even to Akane, who, during the course of the show, had gone from smiling blissfully to stand in awkward confusion, and then to chew on her lower lip as something bubbled nervously under her surface.

Ukyo was the first one to notice that, and though initially she had little concern for it over her Ran-chan's situation, by now she was growing actually concerned and/or freaked out enough it to weakly ask, "Akane? Are you, maybe-?"

Akane took her hands to her own head, whimpered a long chain of expletives and curses, and then, snapping out of her long standing spell, leapt towards the mating couple, hands first, and a savage scream leaving her mouth. "RANMA, YOU IDIOT!"

Another second later, a fuming Akane was in an ice cube amongst her peers.

"I have to say, that almost made all of this worthwhile," Kodachi said.

"She look almost as funny being freezed as Laughing Girl did," Shampoo nodded.

"Be quiet, peasant!" Laughing Girl definitely did not laugh at all.

"Do you see now, boy?" Evangeline chuckled, still bucking on top of Ranma's hips as if she never had been interrupted at all. "I promised I'd help your fiancée to break out of that spell, and haven't I delivered?"

Ranma just groaned in pained annoyance, thrusted up against her one last time, and spewed out into her. Maybe this would satisfy her enough as to let him go drown himself in the pool.

Alas, it didn't.

* * *

"I'm very grateful, Asuna," Negi said, eyes closed. "But even so... this is a lot to take in. Do you think it would be possible for me to make a discreet exit from this affair, before anyone notices that I'm here?"

"Oh, hey, it's Negi-kun!" Shizuru waved at him from the pool. "How are you doing, Negi-kun...?" she greeted him, being promptly imitated by Utena, Anthy, and a rather mortified Natsuki. Chachamaru nodded at him from her beach chair, and Chisame nonchalantly flipped a hand at him in casual salute.

"- a bit too late by now for that, don't you think?" Asuna asked Negi.

In addition to keeping his eyes closed, now he also had a hand clamped over them. "Maybe, but I haven't been drawn in yet, and I still have a chance to oh dammit you've taken my clothes off again without me realizing it, haven't you?" he asked, opening his eyes.

"But how'd you do mine at the same time?" Misora asked incredulously. Granted, she'd only been wearing her bra and panties, but still!

"And mine, as well." Satsuki looked down at herself, sounding more blandly irritated than terribly shocked.

"I am just that awesome," replied Asuna as she flipped Satsuki's panties off her right pointer finger, tossing them aside, and then she gently maneuvered the incredulous and thus not-really-in any-state-to-resist-being-maneuvered Misora to the floor. "Okay, then, Negi, we're almost done with the corrupt the whole class project, since you've done it with Satsuki now and you're probably going to end up doing it with Satomi once you meet with her -"

"The sad thing is, I can't even argue with your reasoning," Negi admitted.

"You could certainly try!" shouted Misora, who could guess where this was going.

"Hell yeah, Satomi-chan!" came Rika's excited voice from deeper into the party. "Rika hardly can wait!"

Asuna continued as though there had been no interruptions. "- the next step is to do it with everybody's favorite vaguely cowardly nun." She proceeded to spread Misora's legs with her ankles as she sat behind her. "Let's get on with the getting it on!"

Negi sighed. "Misora-san, I hope you understand that we don't have to do anything if you don't want to," he said, pronouncing the words of the cliche almost casually.

"Really?" Misora asked quickly. "Great! I don't want to!" She began trying to close her legs, but Asuna's ankles kept them spread open.

"Misora, we talked about this," said Asuna with a frown, not noticing the look of transcendent joy which had just settled on Negi's face. Before Misora could go into a frantic Lewis Carroll quote that Asuna couldn't possibly get, she told her, "I mean, look at these people! Even girls like Tenjouin-sempai and Mikachuki-sempai-"

"Mikazuki!" Yozora's voice indignantly corrected her.

"Well, yeah, even she's had the courage to do it, so why don't you?" she asked, reaching over to gently rub on Misora's cheek. "I know you've shown you could be as brave as anyone, after what happened at the ruins, so what's something like this in comparison to something like that? Or like what we did to each other in the beach?"

Misora really, really wanted to say it was that it really didn't have that much to do with fear anymore. That her fears on that subject had been mostly conquered after doing it with Asuna. That, as a matter of fact, this only had to do with the fact she liked girls, not boys... but then, looking at Asuna's almost pleading face, she just couldn't say it. She looked at Negi then, and somehow, naturally, mistook his concerned expression as one of rejected pain. After all, it'd be a big blow to the boy's fragile ego, she reasoned, if she rejected him now, after everyone else had shown they loved him enough to do anything for him... right?

"Okay," Misora sighed, gently pushing Asuna aside and opening her arms, gesturing for Negi to come closer. "But please be gentle, Negi-kun. This is only my second time."

He sighed as well as he knelt between her legs and kept them spread. "I was sure, just this once, 'we don't have to do it', would work," he mused as he rubbed his member twice, then lined it up against Misora's front entrance.

"Don't be like that, it's worked already, with Jakuzure-san, remember?" Asuna said. "Come on, Misora's going to think you don't like her enough, or something."

"It's not that!" he gasped, his tip coming closer to her vulva. "You're very, very pretty, you really are, Misora-san!" he reassured the young sister, also mistaking her apprehension for disappointment in him. Perhaps they were a better match that most would have realized, even if in a completely wrong way. "Y-Yes, so cute," he swallowed, placing a hand on her chin.

"W-W-Wait, are you trying to say, you're doing this only because of, because I'm actually okay with it not, uhhhhhhh!" Her eyes rolled back as Negi slowly sank into her, and her hands began to claw on his scar-covered back as if to add new wounds.

Asuna smiled and dusted her hands off. "Well, that worked better than I expected, actually." Then, noticing Satsuki's quietly accusing glare at her, she exhaled. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I'll do anything to make up for this, but please don't ask me NOT to try and bring my beloved together as much as I can!"

"I am one of your beloved as well?" Satsuki asked her.

"Of course you are! How couldn't you be? You are, after all, so ... you know, I've never been good with words." She smiled, taking a hold of Satsuki's soft plump body and pulling her to herself for a deep screwdriver kiss.

Small fireworks began going off into Satsuki's mind, and she thought she also heard explosions.

Those might have been Misora's loud, throaty moans, however.

* * *

"Ah? Suzushiro-kun?" Takahata asked, blinking in a way that managed to come across as genuinely clueless, even if, inside, he already had a dreadful suspicion about the reasons for them being there. Especially after noticing the livid and tearful Hasegawa Sora standing right behind Haruka, along with a guilty looking Kodaka. "And all of you, too ... what are you doing here?"

"No, the question is, what are you doing here, Sensei?!" Haruka pointed a swirly-tipped finger at him. "This isn't the place or time for a teacher to be at this place or time!"

Tomo nodded very quickly. "Yep, that! She's completely ri- Care to repeat that again, Debochin-sempai?"

"Don't call me Debochin!" Haruka growled. And then, back to Takahata, "Sensei! We know everything! Just tell us already where is Fujino and all those she's corrupted with your help!"

_"Hey, you sure it's wise to provoke Death Glasses like this?"_ Hiroshi whispered to Daisuke.

Daisuke gulped. _"I don't know, man, I'd really like for Ranma to be here."  
_  
"I'm not going to hurt anyone, boys," Takamichi replied calmly, pulling his non-shiny or scary glasses up his nose. "So you all can lower the pitchforks and the flaming sticks. Be careful not to burn the glass, however. As a matter of fact, Evangeline-san is currently busy, so I offered to look after her house, that's all."

"Oh, that sounds reasonable!" Aida Kensuke nodded quickly. "It's, it's a pretty cabin, after all, I'm sure she wouldn't want anything to ever happen to it."

"Don't let yourselves be fooled that easily!" Haruka barked at them. "Did you really think he'd confess as soon as comforted with the truth?!"

"Confronted, Haruka-chan," Yukino sighed.

"W-W-W-We know you're in a wild o, or, org, orgy with my sister and other children in there, Sensei!" Sora told him, steadying herself as best as she could. "Please give my sister back!"

"**Our** sister," Kodaka corrected.

"You let her do this, so you don't talk on the subject!" Sora said.

"An orgy? Now, whatever gave you guys that idea?" Takahata asked, his voice even under fire.

As one, they all pointed at Yukimura, Kodaka and Sena. The latter two seemed to sink down as much as they possibly ever could, but the butler lady seemed frankly unfazed. "You know what you did," she said in a small but undeterred voice.

Takahata actually had to appreciate that courage. Still, he also had to keep up appearances, no matter how filthy it made him to feel. It was for the greater good, after all, and he had experience on doing highly questionable things for it. "Does it sound," he asked, "like we are having any sort of party inside?"

They all listened intently, and could hear nothing but the vague sounds of old cartoons coming from the cottage.

"I agree it's not what I associate with wild sex parties," Kurauchi Kazuya began to say, before shuddering under his girlfriend Akane's sudden piercing glare. "From pure logical reasoning, of course! Not like I have any actual experience!"

"I do," Momioka Risa added. "And no, no orgy worth a damn is that quiet." When almost everyone turned to stare at her and Mio one second after, they snorted as one. "What?"

"I can't hear anything I assume you would find questionable, other than the sound effects of a television program even I know is not intended for anyone in Professor Takahata's age group," Sagara Sousuke reported. "And a small quiet breathing, probably that of a child-"

"That of a WHAT?!" Haruka screamed.

"Sensei, what's taking you so long...?" Sasaki Kagehisa could be clearly heard now, from two rooms further into the small residence. "Are those more guests for Oneechan's party?"

The brief moment of wide-eyed terror and confusion from the lynch mob gave Takahata the chance to facepalm right before being trampled all over by a stampede of students storming inside.

* * *

"You ask him, Kana-chan," Tokiwa Kyoko whispered to Kaname as they, along with most of the group, stood right outside the room where a small boy sat watching TV and wondering what the deal was with all those weird sempais apparently afraid of him.

"Me?!" Kaname hissed defensively. "I've never been good with children! Why not Onodera-san? She has a kid sister!"

"Ah, ah, who, who, me? I, I, I don't think I could-" Onodera-san babbled.

"Oh, nuts. Who else here has kid siblings? Suzuhara?" Saruyama asked.

"A sister, yeah, but it's not like I've ever had to ask her if she was raped, thank God!" Touji protested right before Hikari slapped a harsh hand on his mouth.

"Katsura-san?" Saruyama asked.

"Buh, buh, buh, buh, bwahhh-!" Katsura Kotonoha wimpered, her eyes reduced to black dots.

"Okay, now I'd say we really have to call a teacher. Of the non-sullied variety," Risa said. "I was okay with all of this until they started bringing kids in. Now that's freaky and not in the good way."

"But, but, what if it turns out we, we were wrong after all?" gasped Sairenji Haruna. "Then, then we all would look, I mean, we would have damaged Sensei's reputation for nothing, and-!"

"Oh, for the love of God, I'll do it!" Haruka exhaled.

"Debochin-sempai!" Tomo said. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Of course it is, Takino-san, I'm a person of great sensitivility, used to feel the heart of those around me, open to the pain of others, AND DON'T CALL ME DEBOCHIN EVER AGAIN!" she finished before walking in. Then she stopped awkwardly right before the sitting boy, who looked up at her. She blushed crimson and rasped a stiff, "Hello."

"What's up?" Kageshisa casually waved up at her.

"Have you been touched?" Haruka asked him, even more stiffly.

Everyone else facefaulted.

"... touched?" Kagehisa asked.

Haruka nodded very quickly, so much Yukino feared for a moment her head might drop. "Have you been touched by Takahata-sensei?"

Kagehisa blinked. What a strange question! He thought it over, then answered, "I don't think so... Well, his hand touched mine when he handed me that glass of milk, does that count?"

Haruka looked at the glass of milk on the nearby table and her eyes bugged out. She ran to it, held it with shaky hands, and quickly took it with Risa. "You! Tell me is this was actual milk or, or, or, or... male milk!"

Risa sighed, picked the glass, smelled the leftovers, and without hesitation, took a sip. Holding it in her mouth for a moment, she seemed to be considering as the eyes of every onlooker (except Kagehisa) got wider and wider. Eventually, she swallowed, cleared her throat, and blandly said, "Milk. Just plain old, simple, boring cow milk. Honestly, can we just go now? This has been a complete waste of our time."

Haruka sighed in relief, then tensed up again. She stomped back to Kagehisa, firmly grabbed his shoulders, and demanded, "Has anybody else touched you tonight?!"

"... you are touching me now..." the child replied.

Haruka yelped and let go of the boy as if he was coated in poison.

"Did Takahata-sensei touch you?" he asked.

"Wha-wha-wha-whaaaaat... NO!"

"Uh, well, since you were asking so much, I thought maybe -"

Haruka exhaled again and held her hands up to silence him, before facing the others again. "It's okay! He hasn't been touched!"

"But you just touched me!" he said.

"Not the same thing!" Haruka said, and then asked the rest of the group, who were coming along from the back of the cabin with Takahata, "Did you find something else?"

Nonogusa shook her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary anywhere."

"The house seems all clear!" Shirley Fenette nodded.

"Sensei, can we go back to playing now?" Kagehisa asked the bespectacled man, turning the TV off and the game console back on.

"Well," Chitoge forced a smile, "it's all for the best anyway!"

"Yeah!" Kafuka happily added. "No way something as out of the ordinary and made for American cable as wild sex parties could ever happen in our beloved school anyway!"

At the sound of her voice, Oshizu shuddered and slipped behind Sairenji for protection again. Sairenji blinked, still not understanding very well what was all of that about.

"Sort of disappointing, if you ask me," Nabiki groaned. It looked like she couldn't pin anything on anyone for any sort of blackmail, after all.

"I, I don't understand it," Sora babbled, "Kodaka, Kashiwazaki-san, why did you spin that sort of awful, terrible lie about Chisame-chan?"

"As expected from the no-good yankee!" Tomo huffed.

Kodaka sighed and lowered his head, willing to take the punishment and the final nail on his social coffin. Before he could start to say it had all been his idea and not Sena's or Yukimura's, however, the latter quietly said, "Aniki is no liar, and neither are we. Real men never lie and are honest and outfront on all we say! And you should look in the basement," she added, pointing at the set of stairs leading down and under the house, not too far from her current location.

"Are you implying," Higurashi Kagome dubiously said, "that all of them are... doing _those_ things... in a basement right under us, right now?"

Yukimura nodded, undeterred.

"Mein Gott!" Asuka broke into laughter. "That's so stupid! This deviant weirdo sure has lost her mind! More than usual, that is!"

"No option must ever be discardated," Haruka sharply told her, "until all of them have been verificated! Step aside, Sensei!" she growled to Takahata, walking past him and stomping down the narrow stairway. After several moments of doubt, most of those present followed her, cramping themselves tightly across the way. Eventually, Kagehisa was left sitting alone, and he grumbled as he turned the game off again and changed the channel.

"Cartoon Network is so repetitive," he said to himself.

* * *

Once the crowd was tightly packed into the basement, however, their disappointment/relief only grew when they saw nothing there but a large model of a vacation resort inside of a huge bottle on a stand.

"Oh yeah, sure, this looks like the wildest sex party ever!" Asuka snarked.

"Have you been doing drugs, Kodaka?" a truly worried Sora asked.

"I haven't touched drugs in my whole life!" he protested. "Okay, except for that one time when Rika - but that was a placebo, so no!"

"W-Well," Tohsaka gulped. "Now we've seen there's nothing at all to see here, why don't we all turn back, head off, and see what could possibly have given Hasegawa-san and his friends the wrong idea about this? I think we should blame the Saotomes. It's almost always their fault, after all."

"I can't say I disagree with that," Nabiki said, although she still was intrigued by the stare Emiya-kun was giving Tohsaka-san now over that comment.

Takahata, despite himself, felt a tremendous amount of relief. They had dodged a major bullet there and now. After this, no way they would ever believe again anything was out of the norm, unless the gods decided to send them-

"YO! So there you are, Takamichi!" a loud, booming voice said from the top of the stairs, making Takahata shudder. "What was your and Negi's big idea, hiding all the wild sex and crazy fun from m- Oh, sorry? Didn't know you were having this sort of company,"

Everyone turned around to give bewildered, shocked stares to the titanic man standing above them, who had just started picking his nose with a pinky.

"Hey there. Name's Jack Rakan. Those pitchforks mean you're here for a lynching, or for some Sado stuff?" he casually greeted them.

Takahata barely repressed his inner trained assassin's urges to jump directly for Jack's throat.

"... you're very tall," a somewhat dumbstruck Nonogusa commented, with a sudden slight blush on her cheeks.

"So this is it, we're going to die," Aida gulped, finally realizing how this had been a trap to lure them underground and have them killed by a gigantic gaijin with more muscles than the Incredible Hulk. He only hoped his camera would survive and a Retrieved Footage movie could be made from his experiences, to critical panning but surprising cult success. That would be cool.

"It's a nice day," Harumi added.

The others took a moment to stare at her.

"Well, you said 'You're very tall', and you said 'So this is it, we're going to die', so I had to complete the trifecta!" the mangaka claimed.

Crickets chirped.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Asuka asked.

Harumi placed two fingers on her own forehead and rubbed. "To die surrounded by witless philistines, what a disgrace!"

"'Going to die'? Whoa, wait there, who said anything about killing you guys?" the tanned mountain asked. "I mean, yeah, I could kill all of you, Takamichi included, with an arm tied behind my back and then chopped off, but why would I do that? I'm a nice, good guy - well, let's be honest, a great guy, really - who just wants to have some fun!"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of that," Takamichi said.

"Sir," Yukino warily said, "I, I believe you are under a misconception. Perhaps you heard, just like us, there would be events of a licentious nature happening here, but as you can see, you are quite wrong."

Rakan grinned like a shark. "Ohhhh, so you came for the licentious events after all! Honestly, you girls with glasses are all-"

One of Haruka's shoes tossed at his mouth shut him up. "Mind that filthy mouth of yours around Yukino!" Haruka warned.

Rakan wrapped his lips tightly around the shoe stuck in his mouth and began suckling on it, avidly.

"What are you doing to my shoe, you savage?!" Haruka screamed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Nabiki asked. "Check on his face. He's getting off on it!"

"What?!" Haruka cried. "That's preposteporous!"

"Not as good as sniffing panties, but good all the same," Rakan replied out of a corner of his mouth.

"Eeeewwwww! Gross!" Saionji Sekai shuddered.

"Okay, sheesh, no need to get so stingy!" He pulled the piece of footwear, covered in drool, out of his mouth and offered it to Haruka. "You can have it back, then."

Haruka's face turned dark green. "... you can keep it, thanks."

"Seriously? Thanks, you're way nicer than you look!" he smiled, sticking the shoe into one of his pockets. "So, you here to join Negi's little social circle, huh? And you're nervous because it's your first time. Relax, I can understand, but if anyone's ever going to be gentle about it, that's Negi -"

"Jack, please," Takahata said, "you're only making this even more-"

"You mean Nagi-sensei, right?" Kotegawa asked Rakan.

"Well, yeah, I mean Nagi, who is Negi, but not Nagi, who is Nagi's father," Rakan said.

"You mean his cousin," Kiyoura Setsuna corrected.

"No, that's just ridiculous, how could Nagi be his father and cousin at once?" Rakan asked. "That'd be simply screwed up and decade- ohhhh, you mean his cover story! Wait, why would you still go with the cover story if you're here?" He looked at Takahata. "Yo, Death Glasses, exactly how much have you told these kids?"

"Told us about what?!" a frankly exasperated Asuka asked.

Takahata sighed. "You'd know if you had bothered to read the reports I gave you upon your arrival. Only those aware of magic know Negi was-" He stopped himself there, the exhausted cigarette falling from his mouth.

Rakan shook his head disapprovingly. "Tsk! For shame, Death Glasses! Being so careless about the secret in public! Your ass is ermine ass now, buddy!"

"You... You made me -!" Takahata nearly lost his legendary self-control. "Oh, for God's sake, Jack!"

"What magic? What secret? What the hell are you guys going on? Is this some sort of massive prank?" Sekai babbled. "You're giving me a gigantic headache, and-!"

"Oh, screw it, I'm fed up with this shit already!" Tohsaka yelled. "Okay, everyone, pay attention! This is how it goes! Negi-sensei is actually a mage, but he got stuck in an older form, so now he's pretending to be his gay cousin Nagi while he saves the world, using that name because Nagi was actually his non-gay father! He did that so he could keep on living with Kagurazaka-san, and then they started screwing, and then they screwed with a lot more people, and that's why we're here now! Satisfied?! You'd better be, because I'm not explaining that again, you idiots!" Then she panted and wheezed hideously, as two intimidated Matous, one just plain freaked out Emiya, and two quietly wary Servants silently stepped away from her.

Rakan pointed at the Tohsaka heiress. "Girl, your ass is so ermine ass now, too!"

"I don't fucking care anymore!" Rin tugged on her pigtails.

"I'm so sorry about neechan becoming an ermine, sempai," Sakura tenderly said to Shirou. "Let's take comfort in each other while we mourn her loss."

"It hasn't happened yet!" Rin shouted, still tugging.

"... you are taking us for fools, aren't you, Tohsaka?" Marika asked her. "For you to spin such a nonsensical story about all of this, and then pretending to believe it... how lowly you think of us? For shame!"

"Naw, she's right," Rakan said. "And by now, I think it's too late for you to go back on this... so how about I show you some proof?" he chuckled, blatantly ignoring Takahata's frantic gestures meant to stop him.

"Proof?" Saruyama echoed weakly.

"Oh yeah, you can bet your scrawny ass, kiddo..." the tall man kept on chuckling dangerously.

Saruyama yelped and covered his ass with both hands.

"I didn't mean it literally, of course." Rakan stopped smiling. For once.

* * *

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" Misora gasped as her fingers dragged across the floor and her back arched, supporting herself on her feet and hands while Negi kept her grabbed by the hips and drilled into her, over and over. He had a hard time telling if her gasps came from discomfort or pleasure, but since she never issued any direct command to stop or slow down, he felt mostly safe interpreting them as expressions of the latter.

And it felt good, physically at least. She was tight, certainly tighter than Asuna or Haruna, but not as much as the Narutakis or Yue, leaving her at a good middle point; and while her body was trim and did not offer as much to grab onto as Kaede or Chizuru's, the slight amounts of trim muscle on her runner's physique were surprisingly pleasurable to the touch.

"Coming, I'm coming," Negi gasped, his fingers tightening around her flesh, but his hips also starting to buck back, ready to pull out at any moment now. Misora never ordered him to stop, though, and after hearing her hiss, he shot inside, with a full body shudder.

Slowly, carefully, he let her slip from his grasp as she gradually made her way to the floor, covering her flushed face with both hands, which worried him quite a lot even as his member, slick with its wetness, slipped out to hang limply. "Misora," he said, "I haven't hurt you, have I?"

"Nuh-uh, uh-uh," she groaned between her fingers.

"Well... didn't you like it, in any regard?" Asuna asked, a bit concerned herself.

"I'm not sure," Misora said in a small voice. "I'll tell you later."

"Oh, come on!" Asuna said. "What do you mean by 'later'?"

"When my mind clears up from that," Misora babbled as she supported herself on Negi and Satsuki to get back up. "But if there's a next time, Negi-kun, we do it when you're back to normal, because that was too biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig," she trailed off as she saw Jack Rakan, a few steps away from them, taking his underwear off and revealing some equipment that utterly dwarfed Negi's. Or even Kotaro's for that matter. Her mind boggled at how any woman could ever take that inside. Not to mention on when and how he gotten here to begin with.

"Rakan-san!" Negi gasped. "I thought you had gone back to Mundus Magicus!"

"Yo, Negi, Princess, everyone," Jack waved a hand. "Hey, even Glasses is here!" he chuckled, further waving towards Chisame's beach chair. "Wanna do it with me after I get to talk a few things with Eva?"

"Whatever," came the reply.

Rakan chuckled throatily. "Hear that? She's been wanting to ride this ever since that time she first saw me naked!" he boasted, tugging once on his meat while Misora and Satsuki went cross-eyed and Chisame groaned from afar.

"... I thought you had gone back to Mundus Magicus," Negi repeated himself.

Rakan humphed at him. "I'm not talking to you yet, kiddo. You've disappointed your poor old master, hogging all the girls for yourself! Even those who clearly are all over me, and you neglect them so cruelly!"

"I'm not all over you, jackass!" Chisame shouted.

"Oh, so you aren't over me yet? Classic Tsundere," Rakan chuckled. "And I'm really going to milk all the dere outta her... but first, where's Granny?"

"Granny?!" Misora gasped.

"He means Eva," Asuna supplied.

"He calls Eva 'Granny'?!" Misora cried.

"Yeah, I do," Rakan nodded. "There's a huge crowd howling for blood right out of the resort, so I want to discuss with her what to do with them before we can screw."

All sexual activity around the pool stopped all of a sudden.

"There's a huge WHAT?!" Negi yelled.

* * *

"- so, where did he go?" the bespectacled, busty, pink haired Takagi Saya asked.

"Inside," Takahata sighed.

"No way!" Suzuhara said. "You mean inside of the bottle?!"

"Well, it looked that way to me," Sekai said. "You saw it too! There was that burst of light, and then bang, he was gone! Where else could he have gone to?"

"M-M-Maybe outside? And, and and he tricked us with some s-s-sort of light show," Sairenji Haruna desperately tried to control herself and rationalize the events, lest she felt into another supernatural-fueled panic.

"Man," the chubby Hirano Kohta adjusted his glasses again, looking all around the diorama, "now that was some CGI!"

Nods abounded all across the basement, until the tall, dark and Bishoujo Busujima Saeko asked Takahata, "So, how can we go in as well?"

* * *

Kuonji Ukyo supposed there were upsides to being long-suffering and often overlooked. It helped you to build up a lot of pent up frustration and annoyance at the world, but let you build up a lot of tolerance at said world and everything it tried tossing at you.

Out of all of Ranma's arranged or self-appointed fiancees, Ukyo probably was the one somewhat distantly closest to being an actually emotionally understanding and rational being. Akane normally would have easily trumped her with that at anything not related to Ranma, but as the case Evangeline had posed was which one of them could give up and accept Ranma in the context of a polyamorous monstrous hydra involving his own sister, the often ignored Ukyo ended up being the first one to say, after way too much teasing punishment of watching her beloved go at it with the vampire, "Okay, whatever, you win, just let me give him a ride too, fine?!"

And so she had gotten her long-desired Wild Horse ride.

Shan Pu, Akane and Kodachi had by now ran out of breath and out of mean, insulting things to yell at them, so they were reduced to coughing and rasping through dry throats as Eva smirked, standing aside, and Ukyo bucked up and down on the lying Ranma's hips, doing her best to be heard in fine detail by everyone around. "Oh gods, Ranchan, you're so great, so thick, so long, and you do it so well, yes yes yes!" While holding back the impulse to add, 'So much better than Tsubasa, or Konatsu, or Ryouga, or all those guys from the school before I transferred, yum!'

Ranma only grunted as he bucked into his childhood friend, fighting his orgasm since it was obvious Ukyo wouldn't be getting off anytime soon, and he feared to injure her if he pushed her off himself. Evangeline was actually impressed by how long he had been able to fight his climax, to the point that strained pain was visible on his face. The vampire witch was about to take pity on him and join him to make him ejaculate, when she noticed the also naked Kitami Reika standing at her doorstep, and Eva's face soured. "What are you doing here? I told you not to disturb me," she warned, flexing her fingers.

Perhaps, although she would never admit it, Evangeline still felt guilty about what had happened to Kitami, twelve years ago. After all, the girl had been under her alleged protection when Kozono Nami and her cult took hold of her and ruined her life forever. But Eva would never admit, not even to herself, that might have anything to do with her giving permission for Reika to finally make her arrival into her resort; that was, Evangeline reasoned, only another example of the old and wise doctrine of keeping your allies close and your enemies even closer, under direct and constant surveillance. Still, Evangeline drew very clear lines on how close she wanted that proximity to be.

"It's that friend of yours from Mars, Rakan, I think," the human witch calmly replied, arms folded under her breasts, eyes quietly wandering to Ranma and Ukyo's union. "He's here, looking for you, and seems somewhat pissed off. And bearing news that might be good or bad, depending on how you look at it."

"What do you mean? I don't like being talked to in riddles," snarled the vampire who just loved being as cryptic as possible to others.

Kitami smirked smugly at hers. "Your house up there is full of vermin now."

* * *

"How did it happen?" asked Evangeline, walking briskly down the hallways of the resort's main building, along Rakan and Kitami, all three naked and not likely to cover up anytime soon.

"Ask Takamichi, he was the one who greeted them," Rakan shrugged. "I left him doing damage control with them, but if you ask me, he isn't having much success."

"And you, of course, weren't of much help either," the vampire accused. "Never mind. If they're all at the same place, all I need to do is cast a memory-erase spell all over them. Presto, problem solved."

"As long, of course, as they're the only ones who are in the secret," Reika observed. "Knowing teenagers, there's no way all of those who knew dared to come here. And besides, how are you going to handle their collective missing time? That's easy to do with one, two or three at once, but that many? What are you going to spin, alien abduction?"

Evangeline suddenly stopped, and so did they. "What are you suggesting? To bring them in?"

"I was under the impression that was what you were aiming for the whole time," the other blonde calmly replied.

"Not all at once!" Eva hissed.

Reika shrugged. "Why waste time waiting that long? It's better to do them all in a single sweep, wouldn't you agree?"

"Whoa, wait, Nursie," Rakan huffed. "Now you're going to tell us this was your doing from the start, aren't you?"

Reika smirked. "Oh, so you aren't just muscles and swords, Mr. Great War Hero. Well, I'm afraid I can't deny or confirm your quick deductions, but I think I might have made a single decisive call to a certain Miss Hasegawa before coming here. How was I supposed to imagine it'd snowball into something like this?" she nearly chuckled.

"You troublesome bitch," Evangeline snarled. "I'd almost like you if only you weren't bringing those annoyances on me."

"Consider it payback for what happened twelve years ago, if you will," Reika said.

"Okay, Granny, what did you do to this one?" Rakan questioned. "Was it any worse than what you did to Karin?"

"That's no business of yours, idiot!" Eva growled. And then, even more curtly, to Kitami, "Fine, before I skewer you like you deserve, what exactly do you think I should do with these pests you've brought to my doorstep?"

So Kitami told her.

"Hmmm," Eva rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "It's feasible, of course, but..."

"Whoa, no! Absolutely not!" Rakan said. "Listen, I may be all up for fondling girls and taking their panties off against their will, and the gods know I won't turn one who comes to me out of her own volition, but that's going way too far!"

Kitami gave him a cynical glance. "But they'd be doing that out of their own volition, anyway."

"Just because you'd be suppressing their inhibitions!"

"How many times have you taken advantage of women after getting drunk with them?" Eva asked him.

"That doesn't have anything to do with-!"

"It's the same thing," Kitami waved a hand. "Listen, big bleeding heart, it's either this or blowing what Negi's been doing to save your whole world. Are you really willing to risk all of that just to protect the sensibilities of a bunch of children who should be getting laid already either way? How old were you when you had your first time?"

"- my first time wasn't consensual," he recalled between clenched teeth.

"So that already puts those girls and boys in better conditions than you," Reika nonchalantly said. "One way or another, it's not your decision, it's hers. Well, Evangeline-sempai? What's it going to be? Yes, or no?"

"I never thought I'd ever say this, but I really miss the person you were back then," Evangeline bluntly told her. "But fine, let's try your way. But mark my words, before this is over, I'll make sure you get gangbanged so hard, you'll feel like that time was a series of gentle caresses."

"Looking forward to it," Kitami nodded. "It'll be far from the first time you let something like that happen to me, but at least I can enjoy it by now."

Evangeline grumbled bitterly and walked back outside, closely followed by the other two.

* * *

"And what are you doing now?" snorted Evangeline, as she walked out into the open to see her guests pulling their clothes on around the pool.

Negi blinked and paused in buttoning his pants up. "Um, Master, in the event you weren't aware of it, protestors are literally at our doorstep, and-"

"MY doorstep," Eva corrected him. "And so I will decide how to best deal with them. Since they came to join us, I think you're jumping to conclusions and overdressing for the occasion."

"Joining us!" Makie (who was, yes, still stark naked) gushed, bringing her hands together, stars growing in her eyes. "Oh, Eva-chan, how many of them will there be? How many, how many? And is Kagehisa-kun with them?"

"Joining us? Are you sure?" Chisame asked. "From the sounds of the old fool's story, it looked like they wanted to rip us new holes, not to exactly fill them."

The old fool standing behind Evangeline tossed his hands up. "And what do I know anyway? Kitty's got her own concepts of people joining her and going against her."

"Take it all off again, all of you!" Eva commanded as she walked past them, a smirking Reika at her side. "Unless you want for your clothes to be shredded to nothingness afterwards anyway."

"Master!" a dismayed Negi gasped. "What are you trying to do?"

"Something that won't really work if all of us aren't looking like we're welcoming them into our fold," Evangeline halted suddenly, and so did Kitami. "So don't question me and just do it!"

"Okay, you don't have to get that pushy," Asuna said, beginning to strip down again. After a moment of doubt, most of the other guests began following her example dutifully, Negi himself included, although his face betrayed obvious discomfort. After stripping herself to her birthday suit, Asuna gently took hold of the paralyzed Misora and began taking her clothes off as well. "Let's all just trust Eva-chan, okay? And yeah, this is something I never thought I'd find myself saying, but -"

"Funny," Eva growled, and with a few killer glares shot around, she convinced those who had not yet obeyed her to do so. "That's better," she nodded once they were all done, and gestured around to make them fall into a loose semi-circle around her and Reika. "If this fails, the devil won't need to come for you, I'll personally send you to her," she told Kitami then, in a low tone.

"Her?" asked Rakan, who had been close enough as to hear.

"Her," Kitami confirmed, as she took the hands Eva was offering to her. Holding hands, they closed their eyes and began whispering in Latin.

"Um, Negi-kun?" Misa gulped. "What are they saying?"

"It's a wide area teleporting spell," Negi said, not really sounding surprised, "but what does she intend to achieve from just bringing them here, I don't-" Then his ears caught on something else, and he made a sound of choked shock. "Oh, no, Master, you wouldn't-!"

After the part that had surprised Negi so much, Eva and Kitami opened their eyes again, and shared a hissed, _**"Exarmatio."**_

"Ohhhhh, crap," muttered Chisame, who had grown to recognize the word after many an unfortunate encounter with stripping magic.

And then there was a huge flash of light covering the whole resort, and making even Negi to give a step back, instinctively covering his eyes.

When he opened them again, one second later, he felt the blood in his veins and arteries turning into ice.

In the middle of the semi-circle, right before Eva and Kitami, there was now a huge mountain of naked bodies piled up on top of each other, groggily muttering and moaning in disorientation, most of them still too confused to realize what had just happened to them. All around them, what looked like frail flower petals floated in the air.

Negi's dick stiffened, and much to his own horror, that stiffness didn't falter when, one moment later, Kotegawa Yui was the first one to scream in terror and realization.

**"INDECENT!"**

* * *

Kagehisa, still sitting before the TV in the cabin, looked towards the stairs to the basement, thinking he had just heard a faint cry of "Indecent!"

One moment later, after hearing absolutely nothing else, he returned to his videogame. A shame, he thought, he apparently would have to play solo after all.

"I'll play one game or two with you," decided a very pretty, cold faced black haired girl as she sat at his side.

The boy blinked. "Um, and who are you, Oneesan? Did you come with the others?"

"No, I just arrived," Akemi Homura replied, all calm and distance, as she plugged the second controller in. "Your sister's parties, frankly, are not my type of party."

* * *

Elsewhere in the campus, Okochi Akira sobbed in a café restaurant, sitting across three girls she had recognized at first sight, from their odd tourist-like behavior and gargantuan amounts of consumed meals, as visitors from Mundus Magicus. They also had recognized her from Ala Alba's Ostian victory party, although she had no recollections of ever meeting them. Not like she cared anymore, as she poured her heart out to them, not even minding about the rest of the patrons, who chalked her behavior up to delusions of possible chemical origin anyway.

"- and so I got fed up of sitting there, all alone, waiting for Yuna's return, and I went out to walk around, hoping to clear my mind, but it wasn't working at all, see? At least now I feel somewhat better, confessing this burden to someone who actually has an idea of what I'm talking about... but then, but then I realize I'm a horrible person, by betraying Negi-sensei's trust like this!" She broke into tears.

"... probably," Erza Scarlet said, taking another large gulp of her drink.

"Like hell!" Lina took a fist to the table, which shook violently. "It's all their own fault, for being disgusting creepy perverts, and I can't believe I actually ate from their food! They could have drugged me to take advantage of my beauty! Good thing I didn't eat too much while there. Well, Amelia? Aren't you going to say anything about how nasty they're being, and how this somehow offends Justice? This is your thing, after all!"

"GaH gAH gah gha-gah GHA Gha GHa! Duuuuhhhh." An Amelia whose eyes spun as spirals going into opposite directions tried to massage her dislodged jaw back into shape.

Erza sighed and gestured towards a waiter. "Check, please."

* * *

**To be Continued**.


	18. Yui, Haruka, Cersei, Matoi, Veronica

"There's something I have to ask you," Negi said hesitantly. He was well aware that that was starting this conversation off in what had to be one of the worst of all possible ways.

"Then ask," replied Arika, in the same calm, unchanging tone that she nearly always used. And with remarkable patience, since she had gone through like a thousand variation of this very same start every fucking time OverMaster decided to riff on Decadent Habits.

For a moment, he considered Arika Anarchia Entheofushia, last queen of the lost land of Ostia, Queen of Calamity. His mother. A woman only slightly taller than the tallest of his students, with long blonde hair just a touch lighter than Yukihiro Ayaka's, and now, incredibly, seated seiza on the other side of the coffee table, in a skirt and sweater borrowed from Shizuna-sensei, both of which were too big for her. His mother.

Seeking clues to the whereabouts of his father, he had found his mother, rescued her, and brought her back to the academy. And here she was.

He had never permitted himself to wonder what had happened to her. Nekane-neechan had been so gentle and so kind that he could not imagine hurting her by saying that he wanted something else, a presence other than hers. And what had happened when he began to wonder what had become of his father had further soured him on such speculations.

He was so glad that Asuna-san and Konoka-san had both withdrawn to give the two of them this time together in their room, and -

"I'm waiting for that question," Arika interjected.

"Oh, my apologies. I was trying to think of the best way to put this," Negi temporized, as he had been doing no such thing.

"That you show such concern for what you would say is an admirable quality," Arika replied, with a slight shake of her head. "Please do not apologize for such qualities."

"Yes. Um. Thank you. Ah. You... What do you think is better, our story, or Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey?"

Arika, despite herself, just had to blink. "I beg your pardon?"

Negi sighed. "Well, now that they are getting close to their own finale, I'm growing eager to see how they compare to us, and how we compare to them. I realize it's perhaps a foolish comparison, and perhaps even pointless, but still, one just can't help wondering, just like I can't help measuring myself against my father's legacy ... and I suppose the other Negi might be feeling the same as well, or even more since we came first... I think what I'm trying to say is, perhaps I'm somewhat nervous about our own legend now... will we coexist peacefully, will we be left forgotten after they leave their mark, or will they be overshadowed by our saga instead? For that matter, will our saga even continue at all, what with Diabolic Styles still on that hiatus and all, and- Oh, sorry. I have spoken too much, haven't I?"

Arika pondered all of that with a mildly perplexed expression before carefully saying, "Whatever will be, will be. I don't think there is any purpose in worrying about that. As long as we have left our own mark, it's an exercise in futility to try and compare our impact with those of others. Ultimately, history will judge us all, and that's something we have no say in after we have done our part. Just try to be the best man you can, Negi, and be content with that. Ultimately, that's the sole true benchmark of a great man."

Negi nodded, marveled at his mother's wisdom, and then asked, "And how do you feel about OverMaster's version? Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey?"

Arika only grimaced in disgust.

* * *

Akamatsu and others created these franchises and characters.

Darkenning created the original frameline of this story.

I make no money from a single word here.

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Seventeen**.

* * *

It was a strange, terrifying world which she had helped come into being, Homura decided as she led the boy into the chamber. A world where a child would be better off following a complete stranger to safety rather than his own flesh and blood sister, who would only debauch him along with her partners in depravity. Then again, she thought as she closed the door after Kagehisa, hadn't the world always been, one way or another, just like that? Every time, no matter how much things changed, there would always be those preying on their own kin. Even Madoka had not been able (or willing, Homura chose not to think) to change that, whatever her reasons could have been.

The power to change the world was Homura's now, and she, being far less pure of heart than Madoka, had not been able (or willing) to change that either. Now the power was slipping through her fingers, but Homura thought she had hit a major breakthrough. Suzumiya Haruhi had not changed anything, had not destroyed this semblance of reality Homura had cobbled together. Homura had successfully suppressed Suzumiya's capacities while recreating her, and now the same thing could be done to Madoka before Homura lost her ability to keep her restrained, and the world under her thumb from unraveling.

"Hadn't your parents ever told you you shouldn't follow strangers around?" she quietly asked, belatedly as she realized, now as the boy stared, confused, at the other children sitting on chairs around a large table, all silently sleeping. Itou Itaru. Cocone Fatima Rosa. Yuuki Mikan. Hasegawa Kobato. Niujin-sense's daughter. Suzuhara Sakura. Naegi Komaru. Haruki-kun and Yuki-chan. Katsura Kokoro. Those children, unlike him, had not come as peacefully, except the Hasegawa's youngest sister, whose trust Homura had gained after looking after her that afternoon, seemingly so long ago.

"They have, but you said you were Oneechan's friend, you never said-!" he panicked, as Homura placed her hands on his shoulders, gently.

"I don't mean you any harm, Sasaki-kun. Quite the opposite," she softly told him. "I'm going to save you, and all those children, from what is coming. Your sister has been a very bad girl, and so have been the brothers and sisters and parents of all of them. So I have no choice but to let them go, but you don't have to suffer through that, none of you. Because you are pure, and good, just like Madoka-chan, who will be your Oneechan from no-"

"What are you saying? I don't want another Oneechan!" he cried, backing away from her in fear. "I want Makie-neechan, where is she?! I don't want to be here anymore!"

She just smiled at him, sadly. "I apologize, Sasaki-kun. That escapes my control now. If it makes you feel better, I won't bother you anymore after this. I will be going as well, but with Madoka, you'll never need anyone else. You and your siblings will be happily ever after, under Madoka-neechan's care, and dirty beings like me will never trouble you again."

"How about," a voice asked from behind her, "you stop troubling them now?"

For the first time in too long, Homura's even expression shifted into shock and confusion. She turned around to see three colorful figures standing at the doorstep of the chamber, weapons at the ready.

"You," Homura said, her voice almost cracking. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't even exist. I didn't ever bring you into being!"

"That wasn't necessary, Homura-san," Tomoe Mami said. "Madoka-chan did it for you."

"Madoka!" Homura gasped, then looked up, at the ceiling, and Kagehisa followed her gaze. Fixed to the ceiling, there was some sort of crystalline, sparkling cocoon of weak light, within which rested, immobile and with her eyes closed, hands folded over her chest, a placid pink haired girl who looked a lot like Makie-oneechan. Homura's expression changed again, this time into an even sadder tiny smile. "I'm sorry, Madoka-chan. But I can't let it happen. For your own good," she said, as twin handguns popped out from under her sleeves. She stood her ground against the newcomers. "Do your best, but be reassured, I'll do the same thing."

"Not so close to the children," the red-haired Sakura Kyoko snarled.

"If they are hurt, it won't be because of me," Homura said, unflinching.

"A very intelligent move, placing Madoka-chan where the Lifemaker used to be," Mami said. "Of course no other place could have held her here. Which only brings the question, where did you keep her before-"

"If she didn't tell you that, neither will I," Homura said as the ground around her began spawning Familiars that were as black as ink. "Join me or get out of my way. For the sake of Madoka, and all these children. Your decision."

"We can't do any of that, Homura-san," Miki Sayaka inhaled deeply, steeling her nerves for the task.

"That's a real pity. But not unexpected at all," Homura monotoned, before her Familiars jumped ahead for the three girls standing before her.

* * *

"Are you Death?" Saruyama Kenichi asked the beautiful, slim pale young woman in black before him, with the black umbrella casually swung over her shoulder.

"Yes, I am," she kindly answered. "Nice to meet you!"

"Why am I dead?" Saruyama asked.

"Actually, you aren't dead yet, although you are in the brink of... me," she told him. "Right now, you are suffocating under a mass of naked bodies."

"Well," Saruyama said, "I could think of better ways to go."

"Although," Death cautioned, "your face is directly under Sagara Sousuke's ass."

"AAAGGGGHHHH! SEND ME BACK, SEND ME BACK, SEND ME BACK!"

"Looks like you are in luck, they are pulling you out and giving you CPR. Be seeing you," Death said as she slowly vanished and Saruyama regained consciousness ...

... to find himself being given mouth-to-mouth CPR by Sagara Sousuke.

"AAAAAAGGHHHHH!" he shouted, shaking the other boy off himself and spitting vigorously. "My mouth tastes like your mouth AND your ass!"

The nude Sagara, on his knees next to Saruyama and both close to some pool, turned around to give Kaname Chidori and Tokiwa Kyoko, both of whom hid behind the bare and unshamed Risa and Mio, a thumbs up. "Mission accomplished. You don't have to worry about his life anymore."

"That's great, but now stop looking this way!" Kaname screeched at him.

Meanwhile, Kotegawa Yui, no less livid than she'd been a few moments ago, stood with a hand blocking her crotch and her other arm shielding her breasts, and angrily confronted the stonefaced Evangeline. "W-Wha-What are you doing here?! And what was your purpose in kidnapping us and bringing us here!?"

"And what did you do to our clothes?!" demanded Suzushiro Haruka, who had fallen into a crouching position and hugging Kikukawa Yukino against herself, all the better to block both girls' erogenous zones from everyone else's sight. Yukino babbled something that tried to add to that imperious question, but came out as nothing but incoherent murmurs from someone whose nose was bleeding way too much. Which it was.

"And give them back to us, while you're at it, you fucking sick freaks!" gently requested Soryu Asuka, who was doing pretty much the same thing with a much less blissed and much more uncomfortable Horaki Hikari.

Evangeline exhaled and shook her head. "Kidnapping you? That would imply we've taken you somewhere else, but the fact is you're still in my house, which you invaded without my consent - with the intent to hurt me, we might as well add. If someone has committed an infraction or misdeed here, that would be you-"

"For shame, Master, getting outdone at infractions and misdeeds by mere children!" Chachazero said, a few steps behind her.

"Quiet, you!" Eva growled.

"The... the doll SPOKE!" yelled Sekai, who was copying Haruka and Asuka's decency-preserving trick with a mildly blushing Kiyoura Setsuna.

"I'm working on fixing that," Evangeline promised before continuing. "Your clothes have been lost forever in your transit here, and as you can see, we don't have any to give you either. I don't have any obligation to go around dressing up the rude peasants who invade my premises and interrupt our PRIVATE festivities."

"And it's Nudie Day today, anyway!" Sasaki Makie added, with a couple of energetic nods. "Glad you could make it here for the party, though! It's so good, seeing all of you care so much for Asuna-chan, too!"

Negi gulped. "Maki-chan, I don't think that's exactly what they-"

Most of the newcomers then pointed the hands that weren't covering their shames at him right then. "YOU!" they chorused. "THIS IS ALL YOUR DAMN FAULT!"

"You!" Haruka was saying as she pointed at an amused Shizuru. "This is all your- wait, why are you all pointing that way? This is the real licentitonous mastermind, I'm telling you!"

Shizuru brought her hands together piously. "I'm nothing but a fervent slave of love who walks where my heart and Natsuki's guide us, isn't that right, Natsuki?"

"Eeeeeehhhhhh... sure thing," said the rather awkward and brightly blushing Kuga standing at her side. Then Shizuru quietly grabbed the hand she had been using to cover her own crotch and moved it away. "Shizuru! Since when do you want me to show myself to others?!"

"Relax, Natsuki," her girlfriend said, "I know that's been a habit of yours since the days when you hitchhiked in tiny bikinis. I can live with it if that's what you like to do."

"Shizuruuuuuu!" Natsuki whine- no, not like someone as collected and controlled like her could ever whine, of course.

Shizuru briefly gave the Narrator an eyebrow-raised mild glare then, so the Narrator wisely chose to move to an interlude before covering Negi and Evangeline's attempts to calm the crowd down.

* * *

"It's a very nice day," Asahina Aoi, who in no way was actually related to any time travelers, even if some time traveler who will not be mentioned here had indeed included a false blood relationship with her as part of her cover story - mental manipulation of poor Aoi included - mused with a smile, sitting next to her best friend on a bench as they waited for the Chao Bao Zi to open again.

"Mmm-hmmmmm," Oogami Sakura nodded, looking at the wristwatch that bravely tried to keep on holding around her massively thick right wrist.

"I wonder if they're having fun," Aoi said, legs swinging back and forth whimsically.

"Do you really think," Fukawa Toko bitterly asked, sitting at a prudent distance from both as she texted Byakuya-sama on the situation, "they could be having any kind of fun there?" Not that attacking perverts was something that lacked attractive, but that was the sort of thing Syo would have enjoyed more than her, and the mere fact it had turned out to be a group activity had turned Toko off from it. After what happened last time she tried to go after Nagi-sensei, in Library Island, she had little if any desire to go directly after him, much less in the always uncomfortable company of a crowd. Byakuya-sama would probably be upset she hadn't followed the trail on the enigmatic teacher to its end, but Toko still hadn't been able to bring herself to it. So she had dropped out mid-way towards McDowell's cabin, along with the Ogre and her airhead friend.

"Oh," Aoi peppily said, "Once they have sorted this misunderstanding out, I'm sure they will have a lot of fun making up and laughing at how silly all of this ultimately was!"

"Then," Toko grumbled, "why are you here and not with them?"

Aoi made a short, poignant silence, before asking, "Well ... what if they were right?"

"Then," another voice said, "they will all have sex."

Startled, the three girls turned to look towards where Kirigiri Kyoko sat by herself, quietly reading a book without ever looking at them.

She made some sort of vague shrug of shoulders. "Just a wild guess."

* * *

"IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" several voices shouted at Negi again.

"Yes, it is," he sighed, lowering his head.

"No, it isn't! Well, not so much! It's hers! HERS!" Haruka insisted, pointing at Shizuru over and over.

"It's our collectively shared fault," Asuna said.

"But that includes Fujino!" Haruka cried.

Asuna sighed. "Well, sure thing, if that makes you happy -"

"Hey," Shizuru blandly said.

"Actually, from what I have heard," said the still bound Chizuru (Naba, not Honshou. Honshou, much to her eternal regret later on after she would hear the news, was not there at all, having chosen to ignore the weirdo text message she got earlier that day.) "It was originally all your fault, Asuna-san, since it was you who decided to sneak into Negi's-"

Asuna sighed again. "Natsumi-chan, please."

"Sorry," Natsumi sheepishly said. "I took it out in a moment of weakness," she shared, before sticking the gag ball back into Chizuru's mouth. Chizuru mumbled something perhaps not too nice right after all, but it would have been impossible to tell for sure, what with the ball and that.

"Can we even talk about faults in a moment like this?" Makie asked aloud. "Guilts and faults are, after all, things to have after bad things have happened, and we haven't done anything wrong here!"

"So, then, it's like some sort of nudist camp you have here? You haven't been actually having sex?" Higurashi Akane asked, trying to make herself a makeshift skirt with a nearby potted plant. After Evangeline shot her a particularly vicious glare over destroying her property, however, she only yelped and let the leaves drop. "Um, I mean, I, I, I think I can understand that, although I'd have thought Suomi-sensei would be here too then, but-"

"No, we are actually having sex," Kiryuin Satsuki said, stepping ahead from the back of the 'locals', while behind her, Nonon squirmed and discreetly wiped a corner of her mouth.

"Um, then that isn't so nic- Wait, you're that Super-Council President from Honnoji, aren't you?!" Akane gulped.

Kiryuin just nodded.

Gasps of fear abounded about the newcomers, and many of them took a few steps back.

Haruka's hair stood up. "Plotting with the bitter rivals of our Academy, even! Why, I wouldn't be shocked if you had the President of Ohtori here as well!"

"Believe me, then I wouldn't be here at all," Utena mumbled.

Kiryuin nodded. "How such a person could rise so high, I'll never know."

"It had most to do with sword duels," Utena shared.

Kiryuin pulled her sword out of honestly-God-knows-here, raising even more gasps of fear from the crowd. "I doubt any of your swords can begin to compare to this one!"

Evangeline grumbled. "Oh, sure, they fear you, who are nothing but a swordswoman with a rich mother, but they still fail to pay me proper respect."

"The fact you always have hidden your real identity from most of them might have something to do with that, Master," Chachamaru observed as Chisame did her best to hide behind her, since Sora and Kodaka were desperately looking for her all around. And they were closing in.

"Who are you anyway?" Kotegawa asked Evangeline.

The buxom blonde looked down at herself. "Oh, right. There's that," she said, and promptly dropped the glamour.

Even more gasps of horror than before ensued.

"Well," Kiryuin said. "Now that you have proved you have your own way to inspire more terror than me, I would hope you would be satisfied."

"Not particularly, no," Evangeline replied.

"So... you're McDowell-san, then? Really McDowell-san?" gasped Yui, who somehow,whether due to the shock of the reveal or to anything else, was not looking or sounding that worried about her own nudity at the moment. Even the fact she had just glimpsed Yuuki-kun, who hadn't been on Hasegawa-sempai's list, hiding behind a happily waving Lala-san, was not registering as much as it should have with her.

"Well, duh!" Evangeline said. "Haven't I just changed right before your eyes? Are you going to be as delusional as that Kuno idiot? By the way, I was half-expecting he'd be with you..."

"Actually," Kensuke noted, "he joined us mid-way, and asked us what was up, but none of the girls wanted him along, so -"

* * *

Beaten and tied up to a tree in the woods, the Blue Lightning of Mahora wondered to himself, "What could have possibly possessed them to reject company as exalted as mine?"

* * *

"I see," Evangeline nodded. "That, I approve."

"So you're disgusting pedos anyway!" Fujiyoshi Harumi cringed.

"Why, hello, Sempai!" Saotome Haruna merrily waved at her.

"Um, hello, Haruna-chan," Harumi gulped, then averted her gaze awkwardly.

"We aren't disgusting pedos," Makie argued, "because Eva-chan is actually a vampire witch five or seven hundred years old!"

"... okay, sure thing," Tomo snorted.

"She was the Sakura Lane vampire!" Makie added.

"I thought the Sakura Lane vampire was Miyu?" Nao asked Akane.

"No, those two only started attacking girls long after I stopped," Evangeline grunted. "Fucking posers."

"Master, I don't think that's too accurate, because-" Chachamaru began to say.

"Helloooo! Small cute blonde with superpowered gynoid servant, attacking female students at night through Sakura Lane! I'd have sued those bitches long ago if only I didn't think lawyers are the lowest kind of bloodsuckers!"

Yui rubbed the bridge of her nose up and down, beginning to feel weirdly dizzy. She saw Kitami smirking at her, and decided she didn't like that one bit. "V-Very well, for the sake of rational argument, let's assume I, I mean we, believe that. But, even so-"

"Even so," Rakan reminded her, "these are still disgusting pedos anyway, because Nagi here is actually Negi!"

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Makie pouted.

"... ah, yes, yes, there's that," Yui began to sigh softly before suddenly exploding, "THAT INDECENCY! THAT'S RIGHT, YOU SAID THAT TOO! D-Don't tell me, I mean us, that utter immorality's true as well!"

And once again, all looks fell on 'Nagi'. Just as Asuna squeezed one of his shoulders tightly, for support.

"Yes," he said, full of resignation, "I am Negi Springfield."

"Okay, then prove it and change back just like she did," an unconvinced Kiyoura said.

"Are you a vampire as well?" asked Risa, taking a hand to her neck.

"I can't change back, and no, I'm not a vampire, and no, we aren't turning any of you into vampires," Negi exhaled.

"Again with that. Why would anyone ever think I'd want more vampires around?" Evangeline asked. "Why would I want an annoying large bunch of useless groupies pestering me, using my place for their leisure and calling me Master like no-good suckups and - you know what, now that I think about it, there'd be not much change from where I am now..."

"Aw. Becoming an immortal would be rather sweet," Nabiki said. "You could even charge fortunes to people for that!"

Eva tossed her hands up. "I have no use for money, dumb child! Can't you see I already have all I ever could possibly want in here?!"

"Including friends!" Makie chirped.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, for your own good," Eva grumbled.

"Subjects, then?" Asuna asked.

"I assume from those words, then, you already have no need or want for the release from Nagi-san's-" Chachamaru began.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, you two, you all!" Eva stomped a bare foot in their direction.

Haruka rubbed a finger in circles over her wide forehead. "I guess, then, we can definitavely add child corruption to Fujino-san's long list of gross misdoings punisherable by law."

"You mean punishable," Yukino weakly said.

"No, punisherable, as in, that vigilante from America should just shoot her."

"No, if Nagi, I mean, Negi-sensei's really a mage at that short age, then that means he's already an accomplished ... whatever he's supposed to be!" Yui argued.

"Mage, you mean?" Kyon asked.

"Yes, that!" Yui nodded. "And just being a teacher already proves he was able to, to, to be charged with responsibilities, and he knows what he's doing, and... look, I won't deny odds are he was corrupted, but I'm sure he also bears his fair share of the blame for this situation, here!"

"It's not anyone's fault, since fault means-" Makie patiently lectured her again. That Sempai obviously wasn't too bright. At least she was hot. Very hot.

"I know what faults and guilts mean, thank you very much!" Very-Hot-Sempai cried.

Negi nodded. "Well, finally, someone gets it right. Thank you, Kotegawa-san, as I've been trying to tell everyone as they drag and pull me around, I'm at fault here as well."

"You're undermining your own point there, you know," Kensuke told him.

"No, because it's my fault I let they drag and pull me around. Maybe because, despite all of my protestations, I still enjoy this as well. Maybe because I felt I needed a release valve for all the many, many frustrations and stress I've had recently. Maybe I'm just that crooked myself. I honestly don't know, and I've better things to worry about at the time. Because God helps me, I already have more than fifty people I've been leading around on my mind, in my conscience! And you'll excuse me, but I think I can't handle any more now! So go ahead, be mad at me if you want! I won't even oppose you if you try to hurt me!"

"We will, however," Kaede remarked, very seriously, as most people behind Negi nodded. Even Kitami. He still was useful for her plans, after all.

"Kill me if you want!" Negi continued telling the newcomers. "If you can, that is! I'm sure, anyway, learning out what can kill me would be useful for my future research!"

"... you're aware you're saying something that makes no sense, right?" Mio asked.

"Perhaps!" Negi said. "What I'm trying to tell you is, I'm at the end of my rope! I'd love to answer for my actions, and everyone's actions, but until I've saved Asuna, I can't and won't worry about that! And I'll only save Asuna after giving her the orgy she wanted so much with everyone she loves, so if you don't like that orgy, I'm so sorry, but I won't let you ruin it!"

"... saving Kagurazaka-san?" Yui spoke, amongst the shocked silence now sweeping through the newcomers. "From what?!"

As Negi recoiled back, realizing he had just said too much, Asuna sighed and stepped ahead. "I'll be gone forever soon unless Negi can help it. In the event I don't make it, I want this to be my farewell to the school I've always loved so much. In the event I do, this will be my first sort of rebirth celebration, with another one after I come back."

"We're having another one soon, then? Sweet!" Makie cooed.

"Yes, Maki-chan," Asuna nodded fondly, "we are. And next time, all of you will be invited as well. Because I love the whole of you anyway. I love everything and everyone who is Mahora, including you, Kitami-sensei."

"I'm moved," Reika said dryly.

"And I even love those who aren't with us, like the Headmaster and that crazy twin tails chick with the slutty idol motif, and that creepy balding boy who sits at the back of 3-F!" Asuna proclaimed. "And those three weird sempais in that Ala Whatever club, and Minagi-chan and yes, even Blue Lightning-sempai!" Gasps of horror everywhere ensued. "And no matter where I go, I'll always think of you, I'll hold onto your memories to keep myself, and the less regrets I have, the better! And the less of you I'm not with, the less regrets! Basically, what I'm trying to say is, I don't want to fade away without doing this to as many of my friends as I could!"

"Doing what, I don't get it, what what what-" a madly blushing Yui babbled, right before Asuna held her cheeks in her hands, and then lunged ahead to claim her lips.

"- what balding creepy boy at our class?" Kobushi Abiru belatedly asked.

"I'm right here...!" Usui Kagero moaned, but none listened to him.

Haruka wanted to scream something, anything, then; preferably accompanied by a dynamic leap towards Kagurazaka to kick her away from her current prey. But, much to her silent horror, as much as she tried to move her muscles, they just wouldn't answer to her iron will. Her jaw, in particular, seemed to have loosened to hang as low as possible, while her arms had dropped to her sides, no longer shielding her private parts. The few eyes around the crowd that weren't too absorbed into watching how Asuna kissed Yui fell instead onto Haruka's large mammaries as they finally dangled freely.

Yukino gave a tiny squeal.

Yui would probably have squealed as well if she hadn't been melting into Asuna's arms, tears trickling down the corners of her eyes upon bright red cheeks. Her eyes went crossed, and so did her legs; not like that stopped Asuna from easily sliding a knee up between them, beginning to rub it against Kotegawa's core. Yui squirmed more violently now, until Asuna pulled her leg back and cooed huskily, never letting her go, "You're wet, Sempai..."

And it was true, for as she held the knee high, supporting herself on her other leg, most of the attendants who were close enough, Haruka included, could see the thin, translucid strands of liquid on her skin. Yui closed her eyes and whimpered, "This, this is the most indecent thing I've ever-!"

"It gets better," Asuna promised before kissing her again, expert hands roaming all over Yui's curves and touching exactly where they needed to. Yui cried into Asuna's mouth, peeking at Yuuki-kun staring dumbfounded, between Lala-san and Momo-san, the later naughtily jerking him off with a hand as she shot a saucy gaze at Kotegawa.

Yui let herself go into the kiss, her hands tentatively reaching over to cup Asuna's buttocks.

That was when Haruka knew they had lost. But further confirmation came a second later when she heard a faint, tearful "I, I'm sorry, Haruka-chan, I can't stop myself, I, I, I -!"

And then a small, trembling hand was caressing her quim from behind. Haruka yelped and stiffened, just before hearing an even more strained and softer, _"... I love you..."_

"What," Haruka gasped, as she felt the lithe, light body molding against her back, and another small hand on her ass.

"I've always loved you, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is, and this, and seeing this, and, and and and -" Yukino sobbed, before reaching up with her head and tenderly biting on one of Haruka's shoulders.

Haruka's world shifted into a confusing hot, red and pink haze. She couldn't hear the gasps of the other girls around them. She couldn't see all the boys who started to touch themselves at the sight of what the crying Yukino was doing to her. She only could feel the wonderful sensations making her weak in the knees, and slowly assimilate the confession she had just heard. A confession, she just realized it now, that echoed into her heart just as powerfully.

Her mind made, the woman of action returned, and Haruka abruptly spun around to catch Yukino into a strong hug and start kissing her woman's mouth.

Not like she was going to let Fujino surpass her, after all!

Hands on her hips, Kitami chuckled. "Well, so it ended up working! For a second, I was almost afraid I had lost it."

Rakan stared accusingly at her. "You're a real evil bitch, aren'tcha?"

"Guilty as sin," she placed a hand on her heart. "Are you going to punish me, then, Mr. Big War Hero?"

"Like I haven't ever punished anyone before," he growled, picking her up and pulling her up into a violent, cruel kiss.

That was when Negi knew they had lost.

And all havoc broke loose. Since all was lost, decency and Honor of Mahora-wise, Negi thought it made little difference if he just closed his eyes and placed a hand on his face now. After all, he was already naked, and Asuna was busy frenching Kotegawa-san as Misa knelt and fingered both of their vulvas, so it wasn't like anyone was going to strip him while he wasn't looking.

_Fate-kun_, he thought, _I leave the last few shreds of this school's decency in your able hands. I know you're far more no-nonsense than I ever could be, so I trust on you to not let them drag you around. __You'll succeed where I failed_.

* * *

"Ah, ah, ah!" Sakurako cried as she rode Fate's dick, somewhere else in the campus. "Damn, but you're good at this, Fate-kun!"

"... Fate-sensei," Fate dryly corrected her as he rested on his back under her, almost perfectly still, save for the motions of his hips.

* * *

Negi shuddered for some reason, and that moved him to open his eyes.

Looking down, he saw the likely reason for his shudder, in the pretty shapes of Risa and Mio, kneeling around his crotch and licking on his erection and ballsack.

"Oh geez, it's so big," Risa purred as she briefly let go of the unit, only to ran two fingers along its wet side instead. "Bigger and thicker than any I've ever seen before. How about you, Mio-chan?"

"You know I usually only go with girls, Risa-chan," the bespectacled and pigtailed cutie reached over to squeeze one of Risa's teats.

Risa giggled as she pumped on the root of the thick, pulsing member. "Right, right, so it won't bother you if I go first, will you?"

Mio smiled, stood up, stepped aside, and gracefully bowed towards her best friend while extending her arms towards Negi. "Be my guest!"

"You're so kind," Risa chuckled, placing herself before Negi and raising a leg. He got the hint and held the leg up, as his cock pressed against her vulva. "You know," she mused, "normally, I wouldn't ever do it raw."

"Raw?" he asked, confused.

"Do you have any condoms around?" she asked in turn.

"Uh, well, no," he had to sheepishly admit.

"Ah, damn. Well, I normally wouldn't ever do it without one, but hell, I'm so hot, and feeling so hot, mind, that I can't control myself, I've gotta have it right noooooow!" she said, pushing herself forward so he entered her. Negi grunted as he did it, realizing he was feeling the very same way, as if more urged to have sex than normally, even with Makie ... but he was given little room for pondering, as he quickly began to steadily pound into the moaning Risa, both managing to keep a precarious balance on their feet while Mio crouched down to lick on Negi's testicles and her friend's clitoris.

Evangeline looked at them for a few moments before approaching Tendo Nabiki, who just stood there in mild confusion and fascination, seemingly oblivious to most of the ruckus and gasps around her. Even for someone as normally unflappable as her, this all was too much to take in a single sitting. So Eva smirked as she set out to make it worse. "Hey, you," she said. "Do you want to go see your sister?"

"Ah?" Nabiki turned aside to look at her. "Do you mean- Kasumi?" she asked, one second before realizing just how lame and stupid she hd just been and worse, sounded.

Evangeline laughed. "Not yet!"

"Oh, you mean... Akane's here too?" Nabiki, one second too late again, chastised herself over saying such idiocies at a moment like this. Why was she letting this get to her that way?

"And your brother-in-law," Evangeline confirmed. "I left him fucking the Amazon after he did the cook, but if your sister's being reasonable by now, I'll let her have the next turn. If not... well, would you be interested? You seem more biddable than the bitchy gymnast."

"Are you asking me if I would be interested on fucking Akane's fiancé right before her?"

"... while she's helplessly bound right there and can't do anything but listening and watching and maybe crying a bit," Eva nodded.

"... you know what, that sounds actually far better than it should, but what the heck. Let's do it." Nabiki couldn't help but smacking her lips together in anticipation.

* * *

"It's pointless," Homura sighed as she slammed a foot down between Mami's breasts, tightly pressing her against the cracked floor. Sayaka was slumped, unconscious, against a wall, while Kyouko struggled to keep herself from being completely overwhelmed by a group of shadow Familiars surrounding her from all sides, her spear slashing in all directions rapidly. "Even if Madoka managed to summon you, it's too late by now. By showing up here and now, you're only endangering the only positive outcome this world has left."

"But you're wrong!" Mami shouted, an arm still trying to reach for a musket that had fallen away from her. "If you would just let Madoka-chan go, you-"

"I'm not doing that," Homura denied her. "Saving her from her role was the sole reason why I started all of this. Why would I undo it right now, when I have a satisfactory outcome so close to my grasp? You don't even belong here, you should have just stayed at-"

Then she had to duck, and quickly, as a sharp golden blade sliced right above her head, managing to cut a few of her hairs. Homura looked towards the newcomer who had just made it into her sanctum and almost blinked. "Oh, I had forgotten about you. I had estimated you wouldn't be an obstacle when I started, so -"

Long sharp hair snaking in all directions around her, Yami the Golden Darkness stood with a humorless expression. "I don't know who are you, or what is your conflict with these people. And honestly, I don't care. But you have taken Yuuki Mikan away, and I found her missing. So I want her back."

"No, you don't," Homura told her, keeping her foot on Mami's body, "You don't know what's about to happen to this world, and I want to keep those who are innocent safe before it collapses and is created anew. But you, I'll admit, are innocent in a way as well, and your devotion to that girl is commendable. Don't interrupt me, and you'll spend eternity with her."

The hair of the expert alien tracker and bounty huntress stopped moving for a moment, then took the shape of a single gigantic blade hovering over Golden Darkness' head. "... I have no idea what sort of lunacy you are spouting, but it's not the first time I've been confronted with Messianic nonsense. Deliver Yuuki Mikan to me peacefully and I'll simply leave. Don't, and I'll only walk over you."

"A pity," Homura said, reloading her handguns. "Because I won't."

"A pity indeed," Yami nodded briefly, readying herself.

"You should know," Homura said, "right at this moment, Yuuki Rito is engaging into abominable debauchery with many others, in a disgusting spectacle far beyond the worst you ever imagined about him. He and his kind are the ones who should be punished and stopped, not us."

"If they are doing so," Mami gasped as she clenched her teeth in pain, "it's because you put them in the position for it!"

"I don't care about that either," Yami said. "If that's the case, that's what Yuuki Rito does, and I'll just have to punish him properly ... but this takes precedence. I hate ecchi ... but I hate people who try to kidnap Mikan much more."

Homura half-smiled, then took her foot off Mami's chest. The blond Puella rolled around for her musket, regained it, and quickly stood up so she could face Homura along Golden Darkness.

Homura slammed a foot down, sending shockwaves across the room, terrifying Kagehisa, who had gone to cower behind a chair. "One last dance, then," she said. And she charged ahead.

She didn't realize the small fissure that had just appeared on Madoka's containment chamber, right above their heads.

* * *

Matou Sakura moved up and down, slowly, on Negi's rigid manhood, her weight supported on the soles of her bare feet, which were firmly planted on the ground. Her large breasts moved accordingly in a rhythm that was actually rather annoying to Tohsaka Rin, currently sitting on Negi's face and enjoying his oral attentions.

Looking down at herself, Rin could see her own breasts' motions, which were far more jerky and random, and mostly lacked the same kind of bounce Sakura's had. She also could see Sakura's hands on her chest, pulling and twisting on her sister's nipples almost (almost?) cruelly, but the harshness of Sakura's caresses didn't bother Rin. After all, she had been trained to ignore the pain, and that was nothing to her. No, what really did upset her was the certainty Sakura's hold on her teats was mostly meant to keep them from bouncing anywhere as much as her own...

It was an irrational concern, of course, but hardly anyone around was in a rational mood anymore, and no one was thinking too much of the reasons either. They had fallen into a long-drawn sexual frenzy, even up to the normally most stuck-up paladins of morality in attendance. (Fortunately for him, at least in his opinion once he eventually learned about the affair, Kiyotaka Ishimaru was currently blissfully ignorant of the situation elsewhere in campus, and thus, until his graduation, he would never stop reminding others of his moral superiority whenever a discussion of any ethical nature would arise amongst the leading students.)

In few words, everyone had pretty much resorted to fucking whoever happened to be the closest, although personal preferences still held as much as they could given the circumstances. Looking past Rin's curling toes, which dimly he realized were some of the cutest he'd ever seen, Negi could watch how Ichijo Raku-san was currently the subject of a frantic tug-of-war between Kirisaki-san, Onodera-san, Tachibana-san and Seishirou-san, to the point none of them had started fucking him yet. It looked fairly painful, and Negi would have objected if only Tohsaka-san's wet vagina hadn't been fully blocking his mouth. Perhaps the girls closest to him were more rational than he'd ever thought before, in hindsight.

Emiya Shirou sat at a short distance, dazedly watching at Rin and Sakura mounting the young teacher, while Saber and Rider knelt between his spread legs, licking and suckling at his penis and testicles. A vague part of the backj of his mind kept nagging him he should be upset, or something, but he found it frankly difficult to focus on that right now...

... much less when he found himself face to face with a slight patch of light brown pubic hair, and what there was right underneath. He recognized the hair color instantly, which moved him to look up at Fujimura Taiga's naked, fit body, which towered over his sitting figure. "Fuh... Fuji-nee?!" he cried. "What, what are you doing here?!"

"I came with the lynch mob, duh," his guardian said, standing with a leg at each side of Shirou. "You were so noisy I had to approach and see what you were doing, of course!"

"You mean you saw us going to kill someone and you never tried to stop us?!" Shirou said, although the last part came more squeaky than he'd have liked. Rider vigorously suctioning his ballsack as Saber licked on Taiga's buttocks, and all that.

Taiga fell into a long blunt silence, staring down at him as if he were an idiot, before pushing her crotch against his face. "You have a hot woman's muffin on your freaking mouth, and that's all you can think of? Start sucking, boy!"

Shirou tried to be a student mindful of his teachers' orders as long as they weren't draining the townsfolk's souls and life energy, so he began doing as Taiga said.

"Ahhh, yes, that's it. Shirou," Fujimura purred like a contented leopard cub, being licked from behind and the front at once. Yes, a leopard cub. Leopard. Not any other kind of big cat. No.

Ahem.

* * *

It was unfair, so simply unfair, Nonon lamented inwardly even as Misa licked and sucked on her cooch, and Madoka rubbed and nibbled all over her breasts - not that those Mahora students, whatever their names happened to be, were unskilled at that, but Nonon would have greatly preferred to enjoy Satsuki-sama's attentions again. Yet Satsuki-sama was currently busy entertaining herself with that admittedly cutely chubby local student, just out of Nonon's reach, as it happened.

Satsuki-sama was on top of the girl, who, from what Nonon had been able to gather from their brief pre-coital conversation, was named Satsuki as well. Somehow, in the blissed haze of the admittedly confusing moment, that had seemed to amuse Satsuki-sama enough as to make her choose the ... chef, Nonon recalled ... over poor, loyal, faithful to a fault Nonon as her first choice of entertainment. Now she kept the cook's legs open as she vigorously rubbed her genitals against hers, making the smaller girl moan and groan like a wounded koala... a bizarre comparison that seemed to make perfect sense to Nonon at the time. And Satsuki-sama was, of course, gorgeous as always, dominating over that much shorter girl, keeping her ankles firmly grabbed while ramming her core against hers. Over and over. If the other girl was a koala, Satsuki-sama was like a glorious eagle swooping down from above to dominate the koala and catch her in a predatory-

Okay, now the comparison was getting too crazy even for Nonon's comfort. It didn't help either that the purple haired girl's rapid mouth and wet tongue had just brought her into a screaming orgasm, just as the black haired one giggled with that raspy voice of hers and bit on Nonon's right nipple.

As Nonon briefly relaxed back against Madoka's body, panting and shuddering, she heard the purple haired one ask, "So, Sempai... what do you do, anyway?"

"Ah? Bwah?" Nonon gasped, before attempting to regain some poise. "Um. Ahem! I am a proud member of Satsuki-sama's Elite, forever watching her back and-!"

"And what a back," Misa licked her own lips, her eyes now fixed on Satsuki's powerful, scarred backside. It was the back of a fighter, just like Negi-kun's, and Misa was finding that more and more appealing than the unmarked bodies of the school jocks and colleagues in cheer and song. Luckily Ako-chan combined common interests and scarring. She'd have to try her after... what was Ako-chan doing right now, anyway?

Oh yes, being screwed by Sideburns-sempai, that orange-haired Sempai's boyfriend, at the other side of the pool. She'd have, then, to join them as soon as she got her answer...

"I think she means," Madoka asked, fingering Nonon's wet cunt as if to tell her to stop with the Satsuki-sama praise already, "what are your club activities?"

Nonon gasped, shuddering once more against Madoka, and quickly gasped out, "I'm with the school band!"

Misa and Madoka blinked, then shared glinting glares and smiles.

"A fellow musician!" Misa hugged Nonon tightly.

"Nani sore?" Nonon asked.

Misa lightly poked a finger against Nonon's cheek. "Have you ever thought of joining an ACTUAL band? We have this successful enterprise that could use some new talent. It seems Sakurako-chan is starting to drift away from us."

"Say what?" Madoka asked.

Misa pouted. "What kind of best friend isn't with her best friends at said best friends' orgy?"

"You people are really weird," Nonon decided. And, a moment later, "What's your band's name anyway?"

"Decopin Rocket," Madoka supplied.

"Yeah, REALLY weird alright."

* * *

"Gruh," Negi said into Rin's vulva as his hands tightened around her hips, and his own hips jerked against Sakura's. Judging from the blissed expression on her sister's face at that exact time, Rin had to guess his orgasm had sent her into one of her own.

Okay, so you had enough for now, Rin thought, taking the chance to rather unsubtly push the purple haired girl off Negi's negi, which, much to Rin's awe, remained as stiff as it had been when it entered Sakura. "Wow," the Tohsaka heiress mouthed. "Isn't it supposed to-"

"Not this one," Negi sighed as Rin stood up and reached down to tentatively touch it with the tips of her fingers. Then, making a nervous grin, she jerked it once. Then twice. And then she just turned around, sat on his lap, and let it enter her.

* * *

At the Clock Tower, at the same time, going over her latest batch of studies assigned by Lord El-Melloi, Luviagelita couldn't help wondering why she had suddenly felt yet another chill going up her spine.

* * *

Sakura groaned, crawling on all fours away from Rin and Negi. Against Rin's expectations, receiving Negi's seed had not sated her in the slightest, and it wouldn't have even if Kitami's wide range spell hadn't been in effect. The worms inside of her would have craved more all the same, and while they, somehow, were trying to pull her over to Kitami's side, Sakura opposed the notion. Not only was Kitami-sensei too busy being roughly drilled by that admittedly good looking tanned titan with silver hair, but Sakura had a few bad memories from visiting the nurse and being violated by her, as much as the term violation applies to someone whose worms make her willing even against her will. If that makes any sense.

Regardless, the thing was that Kitami-sensei made love pretty much as Shinji, only for her own sake, and while technically Sakura guessed she was much better than Shinji, it still wasn't an experience Sakura was eager to repeat as long as there were better partners around.

Regrettably, Sempai wasn't one of those available at the time, as Taiga-sensei was riding him and laughing uncontrollably while Rider, well, rode his face and Saber-san was with that wolfboy who was a friend of Negi-sensei and a freckled girl Sakura guessed was his girlfriend, from the way she tried to boss him and Saber-san around. Not that she was having much success; it was clear she didn't have what it took to steal the control away from King Arthur in a threesome, as evidenced by her current position-lying under the other two as wolfboy-kun and Saber-san copulated sitting on her face and facing each other. What the girl voiced in the brief moments where she wasn't licking the genitals placed right above her mouth seemed to be angry instructions, but neither of them seemed to be paying much attention to her at the moment.

Sakura contemplated just commanding Rider to step down and take her place, but Sempai didn't like when she did that, so she only sighed and kept on looking for another partner. She passed by that blond boy who everyone rumored was a delinquent, who had been angrily discussing with one of Negi-sensei's partners (that one with glasses and a ponytail) and another, slightly older girl with freckles and glasses. That had been shortly ago, but now the boy was grabbing the ponytailed one by the hips as he thrusted into her, over and over, while the freckled young woman kissed her face and breasts from behind.

"Oniisan! Oniisan! Damn you, Oniisan!" the younger one shouted as he penetrated her.

Sakura still wasn't so sure what everyone saw in the sibling fetish, but she supposed not all siblings were the same. Or they were. Whatever, she just was itchy for more and would have it one way or another.

Finally, she reached a group of six girls with oddly colored hair who were squirming and mashing together in a rather clumsy daisy chain under a palm tree. Sakura could only stare in dismay at their technique. What, were they inexpert at using legs and arms? She, Rin, Rider and Saber-san had done it better at their first try!

Sakura gently and softly coughed into a fist.

The girl with bright pink hair lifted her face from the vulva of the one with rainbow-tinted wild hair and looked at Sakura with huge, sparkling eyes full of enthusiasm. "Oooooohhhh, you're cute!" she said.

"Ah... thank you," Sakura replied. "I have noticed, and I hope you don't take this badly..."

"Not at all!" Curly Pink-Hair answered.

"... thank you," Sakura nodded. "I have just noticed, I'm sure this is your first time at a daisy chain..."

"My third one, actually," said the glamorous looking one with purple wavy hair, a tad darker than Sakura's. It's hard to transmit an aura of sophistication, glamour and elegance while you're naked and a blonde with a cowboy hat is eating your cunt eagerly, but this girl somehow pulled it very well. "But then, in my first two times, I didn't have these..." she moved the fingers of her right hand, "... or these," she added, twiddling her toes.

Sakura blinked.

"We used to be ponies from Equestria. In Mundus Magicus," explained the one with even darker purple hair with a few thick lighter streaks. The girl with very light and smooth pink hair who had her mouth into that girl's vagina said something that perhaps added to it, but Sakura couldn't hear it clearly at all.

"... ah," Sakura said. "Okay... anyway, if you don't mind, I was hoping you would allow me to give you a few tips."

Curly Pink-Hair cooed in delight and grabbed Sakura's hand, pulling her down with them and kissing her deeply. Once Sakura's ears stopped ringing so loud, she could hear Pink-Hair asking her, "- and what's your name, anyway?"

"... Matou, Matou Sakura..." Sakura said, sounding as if she was deflating. Damn, but was that a great kisser or what? "And... and you are?"

"Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbow Dash!" Curly Pink-Hair said, punctuating each name by pointing at each one of them in turns. All of the other five meekly waved at Sakura, who waved back.

"You are porn stars, aren't you?" Sakura supposed, taking her place between Pinkie's legs as Twilight began licking her privates. If they were, her technique sure left a lot to be desired for one.

"What's a porn star?" Pinkie asked.

Sakura sighed. "We'll move onto the theory later," she said, and applied her mouth to the entrance under the light pink bush.

* * *

Next..." Negi breathed out, resigned to his fate, cock still twitching as if with a life of its own while Rin got off him, with a gentle pat on his chest and a quick, reluctant kiss on his cheek. The only response he could give to that was a nod and an attempt at a smile, but he wasn't too sure Rin actually noticed it, for she already was moving back towards where Shirou had turned Taiga-sensei around to piston down into her, her legs wrapping around his frame.

"I guess that'd be us, as long as you still have some time for your old comrades, Negi-kun," said Asakura's voice, a moment before Negi tilted his head aside to look at the amateur reporter, who had just crouched down at his side to lick and rub at his member.

He reached up with a hand to fondly stroke that pineapple red hair. "I'll always have time for you, Kazumi-chan," he absently promised, this time managing to smile for real.

"That's great, so then get to work," Asakura nodded, moving around as to plant her lower half over Negi's face and mouth, lowering her vulva into his mouth. Then she looked at Sayo, who stood at a short distance from both with a somewhat disappointed expression, and said, all innocence, "What?" she asked, all innocence. "I'm just getting him ready for you, Sayo."

Asuna looked up from where she was instructing that Ikari kid into his first sexual contact, gently caressing his hair, and paused her hip motions to say disgustedly, "Oh, come on, who's going to be-"

"Thank you so much, Asakura!" cried Sayo, in such a way as would have a heart as punctuation if it were in a word balloon, the disappointment melting down as fast as snow thrown into the furnace. While Asuna rolled her eyes in annoyance, Sayo quickly dropped down and crawled over to mount Negi's negi, facing Asakura as the other girl rode his face. Not that Sayo could see her as she was impeded by having her eyes closed. "Oh, Negi, it feels so good to be with you again!" she cried some more. "It's been so long!"

"Has it really been that long?" Negi asked. As in the original version, let's forebear from representing the mumbled things he actually said and communicate his intended expression, all right?

Because Sayo clearly grasped that meaning, as shown by her prompt response as she bucked and rode on Negi, hands coming up to caress her own breasts as she did so. "No, not really, but it felt that way. I've felt so hollow without you inside of me! Like I was back to being a ghost, almost. Oh, oh, oh, you do that so wonderfully, Negi!"

Several of the men across the place briefly stopped their activities to share collective groans of annoyance.

Asakura's eyes, it should be noted, were not closed. And her position on Negi's face meant that she was getting the full force of Sayo's gestures, meant to present allure to Negi. They were working. Well, they, and the sensation of Negi's tongue on her cunny, were working. "Oh, God, Sayo, you're so beautiful," Asakura gasped.

Sayo's eyes came open a bit. "Really?" she peeped.

"Reeeeally!"

"You're so much more beautiful than I am, though," Sayo said very quietly. "And strong, and clever, and -"

"Oh, come on," said Asuna, watching all this, annoyed at the fact that she was stuck with teaching a virgin she never had been close to instead of having sex with her most beloved one at her surprise sex party, and also annoyed because she knew where this was going to go.

Kazumi ignored her. "But you're sweet, and kind, and lovely and - and -"

"Kazumiiii," Sayo cried out as Negi thrust up into her just so. Then, much more quietly, she said those three little words. "If it's you-"

Before the other three little words could be said, Asakura lunged forward to press her lips against Sayo's lips. They kissed frantically as Asakura pulled herself off of Negi's face and down his chest to press up against Sayo, holding her tightly.

"Uh?" said Negi as he looked up.

"Fuck us, Negi!" Asakura cried out as she looked back at him. "Fuck us hard!"

He obliged her request.

"Oooh!" said Konoka as she stood beside Asuna and Shinji's prone forms, over the gasps of the boy while reaching a climax that came far too early for Asuna's liking. "I was really looking forward to be the one who was going to convert her!"

"Yeah, wait, what?" said Asuna as she gave Ikari's sweaty back a few pats and looked around and saw that just about everybody had come up to watch beside her. "Come on, is this really that fascinating? Don't you all have better things to be doing right now?"

"Wow," said Natsumi. "It almost makes me want to-"

"Almost?!" Rin asked her. "Moments ago, you had that tongue way up Saber's vagina!"

"I wasn't doing that on purpose! Her vagina kept getting into the way of the cock I was licking! Right, Kotaro-kun?" Natsumi said.

"Ah, ah ah ah ah!" cried Kugimiya where she was getting banged by Kotaro.

"I was talking to him, not you!" Natsumi snapped.

"No, you definitely were licking me," Saber disagreed, as she magnanimously patted Natsumi's head.

"Like heck I was," Natsumi argued, "I'm not taking that sort of lie from-"

"King Arthur," Rin said.

Natsumi blinked. "What?"

"Athur Pendragon, King of Britain, Lord of the Roman Empire" Saber very seriously said. Shirou and Rider nodded their confirmation.

"..." Natsumi said, and then, "Okay, I guess I was doing it, then."

And then, having fucked Sayo and Asakura while they kissed and caressed each other - having gone so far, in fact, as to do the hyperspeed trick of penetrating each of them in turn so rapidly that to all observers, including the two girls, it seemed that he was penetrating them at the same time, much to their amazement - and brought them both to multiple orgasms before achieving his own climax, which he released onto both their sweaty and excited forms, Negi turned to look at the circle of excited and amazed looking teens (and senseis) and said, "All right. Who's next?"

He was promptly mobbed.

Not only by girls, much to his renewed mild panic.

* * *

It had been said, many times now, that Negi could go for hours. It was true. And he did so now. He fucked-

* * *

"This is so indecent! Indecent, shameless, immoral, wrong, sick, indecent indecent!" Kotegawa Yui cried as her fists pounded on Negi's chest. Her eyes were tightly closed as Negi took her from the front and a gasping, gulping, ghastly pale Rito who looked on the verge of death by nosebleeding worked her from behind, with shaky hip motions.

"Then, then, maybe we could stop, if you don't want to-" somehow, Rito managed to say it before Negi could. Not that it worked any better for him than it'd worked for Negi.

"Don't stop your indecent, shameless, dirty, wrong, immoral, sick efforts!" she cried, pushing back against him. "Because quitting is even more indecent, shameless, despicable, wrong, dirty-!"

"Okay then," Rito sighed, going back to thrust as he wiped his nose with the back of a hand.

Sitting nearby, Momo sighed dreamily. "I feel so great! Finally, my dreams for the Harem Plan have been crystallized! Well, except for Yami-chan, but at this point I feel like I can do anything."

Nana looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. "But by now, it's not really Rito's harem but Sensei's, right?"

Momo absently pushed her twin's head back between her own legs. "Be quiet and don't bother me with details, Nana-chan."

* * *

-screwed-

* * *

"Oh my dear holy powers of all that is, this, this, this feels so, so, so!" Haruka gasped as Negi pumped into her, keeping a firm hold of her ankles and her legs held up, eyes fixed on her large bouncing breasts, the very ones that Yukino was licking and kissing all over while on all fours at her side. "I can't, can't, can't even think of words!"

"I'm sure the words are thankful, then," Shizuru smiled from where Tate was pushing his cock in between her vagina and Natsuki's, the biker firmly pressed on top of the Ojou as Mai and Natsuki kissed sloppily. Occasionally, when Shizuru would look upset enough about their intensity, Mai would calm her down by kissing her as well. Shiho's own protests were currently being taken care of by Takeda-kun, who was vigorously taking her under a nearby palm tree.

Haruka managed to growl. "Even now, you won't stop pesterating me, will you, Bubuzuke? Okay, this unsettles it, even here, even now, I'm not giving you the pleasure of-"

"A true winner," Shizuru said, "doesn't wait for things to be given to them. They take them instead." Since they were close enough, she only had to slightly shift aside to prove her point by claiming the shocked Haruka's mouth with her own. Yukino's faint cry of surprised outrage a moment later was quelled when Shizuru stuck two fingers up Kikukawa's vulva.

Negi exhaled and let himself go inside of Haruka.

* * *

-debauched-

* * *

"So, how do you feel right now, dear?" Princess Celestia kind and warmly asked, sitting on Negi's face while Cersei Lannister bounced up and down on Negi's cock. "By now, isn't most of that aimless anger and frustration replaced by this wonderful, enlightening feeling of peace and all consuming friendship?" she marked her question by lightly tugging on the ex-queen's nipples.

Through clenched teeth, she replied, "It, it never was aimless, or pointless, and this is nothing but a temporary entertainment that, that isn't even as good as my-"

Celestia sighed. "I figured it so. It seems like you need a few more lessons, but fortunately, my best student is here with us now, so she can help us with that..."

The Queen's nearly bulging eyes fell back on the radiant, smiling woman who used to be a horse. "What do you mean with-?"

"Now, Twilight, my dear," Celestia sweetly said, grabbing Cersei's shoulders right before Twilight Sparkle, who had snuck behind the Lannister with a dildo belt on, nodded and slowly pushed into her ass.

Cersei gasped and doubled over in pain, her vaginal muscles tightening enough as to force Negi into ejaculation.

* * *

\- copulated-

* * *

"Ah!" Negi gasped aloud, as his brief rest was interrupted when a pair of lips wrapped themselves around his cock and started sucking. "You were here?!"

Tsunetsuki Matoi paused in her suction efforts, let the drool-slick penis slip out of her mouth, shrugged and told Negi, "Yes, always."

"But, but, but Itoshiki-sensei...!" Negi protested.

"Don't mind me, Negi-sensei," Itoshiki stoically said from where Kaga Ai was riding his cock sobbing apology over apology, and each hand of his fingered Fujiyoshi Harumi and Kobushi Abiru, who were making out above his head. "I have decided to go along with it, as there is a possibility it may grant me release through what pop culture has seen fit to label 'death by snu-snu'..."

"Ahhhh..." Negi said before Matoi mounted him.

* * *

-laid-

* * *

"Oh my Goddess, I mean, my God, Negi-sensei, yesssss!" Hasegawa Sora sobbed as she achieved climax into Negi's cock, drenching it with her fluids.

He swallowed hard while Chisame vacantly played with her testicles with a hand and fingered her older sister's anus with the other. "Well," Chisame philosophically said, "At the very least, now we've got an actual topic to share over family meetings. It used to be none of us would ever know what to tell the others..."

"KOBATO-CHAAAAAAN!" Kodaka yelled as he ejaculated into Sena.

"KOBATO-CHAAAAAAAN!" Sena agreed as the hot seed flowing into her pushed her into another climax.

Yozora, who sat nearby being eaten out by Yukimura and Rika at once, gave them a dirty look. "Made for each other, I suppose," she bitterly said, keeping a hand on each of the heads exploring her feminity.

Yukimura turned her eyes up at her. "Are you sure this is manly, Sempai? Shouldn't a true man be the one pleasured by the woman?"

"Listen, I'm a woman, so I know a lot about what makes a woman a woman and a man not a woman, don't I?" Yozora grunted. "Now go back to work on your homework, boy!"

"It's plenty manly, Yukimura-kun," Rika giggled, taking a moment to kiss Yukimura's lips. "Someone being kissed by a gorgeous girl as they explore an almost as gorgeous girl's sex must be either a man amongst men or a lesbian, and you aren't a lesbian, are you?"

"... I surrender to the weight of scientific reasoning," Yukimura nodded quietly.

"Hey!" Yozora cried. "I think you got the gorgeous girl and the almost as gorgeous inverted!"

* * *

-made out-

* * *

Negi was growing really worried about Katsura-san now. She had been acting strangely, even for the standards of this orgy, since everyone had started having sex, but the way now she tossed her hair back and forth while he took her ass and Itou-san took her front, while speaking in random non sequiturs and the occasional burst of a foreign language or another (he only could hope it was a knowledge gained from her privileged education and strong reading habits) and shaking her limbs in all directions, occasionally slapping the groaning Makoto's body, was definitely abnormal from any viewpoint, which had kept most other orgygoers away from her until now.

On the other hand, it had been an improvement from how she was acting while watching Itou-san having sex with Saionji-san and Kiyoura-san.

"Well," Saionji Sekai pondered as she took her turn to watch, rubbing Setsuna's hair fondly, "at least I'm not being outdone by my own mother this time. Ummm, yeah, like that, Setsuna-chan. Your tongue feels so good in my cunny!"

"How could I be licking your cunny when I'm licking your breasts?" Setsuna asked as she kept on doing that.

Sekai blinked out of her blissed out stupor. "Damn, you're right! But then, who-!"

She looked down to see Kuroda Hikari licking and kissing her genitals and fondling her buttocks, on her elbows and knees, while Taisuke took Hikari from behind.

"How long have we been friends?" Sekai asked.

"Seven years now," replied Hikari between wet licks and kisses. "Why?"

Sekai sobbed. "Seven years we haven't fulfilled our friendship as much as we should have!"

"Well, yeah," Hikari shrugged. "But I never imagined you'd be bi. If you had been like Nanami-"

**_"Nanami and you?!"_**

Hikari gave her an annoyed look. "You didn't think I got this good all by myself in a day, did you?"

* * *

-mated-

* * *

"Oh my goodness, oh dear, oh fuck, this is so good, yes, fuck, Archie who?!" cried, in perfect accented American English, the raven haired beauty he was pumping into now, hugging the palm tree as Negi fucked her standing.

Negi stopped. "Wait a second. I've just realized I don't know you, but I know everyone in this school so..."

"Veronica Lodge, arrived here last week in an exchange program with America, can you go back to fucking me now?" she grumbled, rolling her eyes back.

"I can vouch for her! We meet once every year, normally in Monaco!" Ayaka said from where she had more or less solved the bad blood between Natsumi and Chizuru by forcing them into a foursome with Kotaro and herself. Although you could question how effective it was being, as Chizuru had been having to lick on Natsumi's asshole while Kotaro penetrated the actress' front for quite a while now.

"Um, okay, nice to meet you, then..." he awkwardly said as he resumed his pelvic thrusts.

"Likewiiiiise..." Veronica purred, melting back into the moment.

* * *

\- and otherwise had sex with each and every one of the girls. And Kotaro, but you probably don't want to hear about that.

And the girls were getting busy with each other, as well, in startling and surprising combinations. Well, perhaps not really all that surprising, Negi mused as he pounded into Nabiki-san while she gamahuched Akane, while watching Ako being brought shrieking to orgasm by Misa and Kitami-sensei, while Makie and Yue were in a - you knew it was coming - sexually charged sixty-nine. That would have been surprising, perhaps, to anyone who didn't know about the odd pact that the two had made during the last battle, and what had come later. In a way, that had been the start of the whole thing, hadn't it?

Well, no. It had started with Asuna, who was-

Wait - where was Asuna?

Oh, there she was, sitting with Konoka and Setsuna, doubtless resting for a while, her head on her roommate's shoulder, hands entwined. It was really sort of sweet.

... he had to save her.

But there was time for that. Right now, as he shuddered out the most recent of many climaxes, he was finally feeling like taking a bit of a break himself.

"Oh for all that is...!" Nabiki-san gasped, rolling off him and supporting herself on Akane. "That, that, that actually was BETTER than money! So this is why people pay for it! I, I finally understand!"

"... I'm glad, really," Negi said, eyes drilling into the false sky. Then he looked aside, at the boy resting on his back at his right. "And I'm glad you finally could sort your situation with your, ah, suitors and sister at last, Ranma-san."

"Ghuh," Ranma gurgled.

"Why are you counting me apart from her suitors?" asked Haruna, clinging to one of Ranma's sides while a napping Kodachi clung to the other, and Ukyo and Shampoo rested between his open legs.

"Bweh?" Negi asked.

Haruna shrugged. "Thank Eva-chan. She's the one who helped us kinda sort all of this through, and my eyes have been opened to the forbidden wonders of an illicit lasting liasion."

"Oh Kami, no!" Ranma sobbed, blocking his eyes with a forearm.

Negi perked up. "Wait, the Master! I almost forgot about her! And about the time! It's almost time to exit the resort and-!"

"Why were you going to leave the resort without doing me first, Boya?" dangerously cooed a familiar voice.

Negi painted on a smile, and rolled over to look up at Evangeline, who was giving him a smile he knew to be just as false. "No, of course not, Master," he told her. "I'm ready whenever you are."

"Well, good. I guess you really have given up, then," she said.

He blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Your plan. You've abandoned it for senseless hedonism."

"What? No. I'm going to go right to Satomi-san's lab as soon as the day here is over, which should be right about-"

"Oh," said Evangeline, blinking. "Oh, right. I didn't actually tell you about that. Yeah, I changed the resort's time distortion. Wow, this is embarrassing. Really messes up the whole 'bathe in the waters of depravity' spiel I was going to give if you don't -"

"Master? What do you mean you changed the resort's time distortion?" Negi asked very quietly.

"An hour inside is an hour outside, now," she told him.

Negi stared.

"I'm evil," she reminded him.

"AGGGGGGGGGGH!"

"Oh, NOW your ass is aching?" asked an unknowing Kotaro from between Natsumi's legs.

* * *

It had been a harsh, long, bloody battle, lasting more than what any of those taking part on it could have foreseen. Even Homura. Actually, _especially_ Homura. From the start, she had felt like she had not been dominating the confrontation as easily as she should have, but the longer it went, the more she had felt herself growing tired, straining herself to her limits. Limits she knew well she wouldn't have had when her experiment started.

In the stories she had sometimes enjoyed before first meeting Madoka, that would be the moment when the villain would say "No! I can't lose like this! I'm a god!" Homura would never consider herself a goddess, although she had no problems with being the Devil. Regardless, at the moment, rather than any outrage or fury that she even now associated with shallow villainy, she just experienced a nagging sense of annoyance. And yes, a rather potent added tingle of mounting despair.

No matter the effects on her outlook, however, she had not expected for such a quick depletion. She had calculated it would have taken longer, far longer as a matter of fact, long enough for her to dispose of the interlopers and be left with enough to finish her project. For a moment or two, she actually wished she could have had Kyubey around to help explain the current situation. For all of its flaws, the creature usually knew exactly what was happening at any given moment, and since it technically couldn't lie, all you had to do was to steer the questioning the right way.

But it was pointless, completely absurd, dwelling on that now. No matter what, she had just won. It had taken far too long, but her opponents were, in the end, still mortal, still flesh and blood. She had needed to throw the Golden Darkness up and down several times through many sections of the underground chambers, repeatedly, to even start putting a dent on her inhuman stamina, but by now, the proud killer from outer space was staggering weakly before her, bleeding and wheezing, her hair moving around aimless and erratically, in vain. Homura's former Puella Magi colleagues were in even worse shape, scattered in several degrees of diminished consciousness across the floor, their weapons broken like discarded toys. Homura herself was bleeding profusely through her nose and mouth, but she at least could still stand, even if barely.

She could sense the skies growing red outside, and the first confused screams of the onlookers. She felt, in what was agonic pain, the incoming presence of this Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, who for all his power would arrive too late. Soon enough, they would feel it inside of Mc Dowell's resort, as well. But by then it would be too late for even Suzumiya to do anything, even if she could unleash her potential.

Now, as she stepped towards the coughing Golden Darkness, there was nothing left to do but...

Then she sensed the light, the blessed and overwhelming, all encompassing pink light filling the chamber from above, and in that single second, all of Homura's confidence shattered and turned around, into a complete and crushing certainty she had just lost. She simply hadn't been good enough for Madoka.

From behind, a soft, almost silky hand tightened itself around Homura's wrist, making her stop. With a grip that was, paradoxically, as tight as that of Destiny itself.

"Homura-chan," she heard Kaname Madoka's voice saying. "This has to stop now."

* * *

"Okay," said Chizuno Masuto, hands clenching the edge of the table. "Then what?"

At the other side of the cafe table from him, Kageyama Yamiko, the Professor, leaned back in her chair and tapped her chin with the spoon with which she had lately been eating the parfait before her. "I'm not sure what happens next," she mused.

"... you're not sure what happens next," Masuto growled after a moment. "You."

"There are so many intriguing possibilities."

"Miss 'I have a plan.' Miss 'Let me check my notes.'"

"I think that one is someone else," Yamiko said mildly. "And I prefer 'Ms.' Well, unless you're speaking French, in which case Mademoiselle has just such a lovely ring to it, don't you think?"

"I refuse to believe that you don't know what comes next," Masuto said.

"Well, perhaps a divinity appears from backstage and solves everyone's problems -" she suggested cheerfully.

"You did that joke already."

"- a different divinity? A tall bald elf with an attitude problem, maybe?"

"You know that I have no idea what you're talking about," Masuto said, facepalming. "Why, why why. Senou, back me up here."

"Oh, now you want my help," said the dark-skinned, fair-haired loli in a pretty dress sitting between the two of them. "Mr. 'I don't think we should be seen in public together.' Mr. 'You creep the fuck out of me.'"

"All I was saying was that in this looney tunes campus, where magic and super-science are available on every corner -" Masuto started to say.

"- where cliches from a dozen different genres make war and love against a backdrop of metatexual fan fiction -" Kageyama supplied.

The other two stared at her.

"I read that somewhere," she admitted.

"Anyway," Masuto continued. "All I was saying was that, since you weren't all that enthusiastic about this transformation of yours when it happened, I don't know why you haven't taken steps to get it undone like any sane person would!"

"I've been busy with stuff," Senou Kaede said piously. "Also, not all that sane."

"Regardless of all that, I think we're being a bit rude to our guest," Kageyama said. "Not letting her get a word in edgewise, at all. It's terrible. I'm so sorry."

"Oh, don't be," said Enoshima Junko, sitting across from Senou and finishing up her own parfait. "I always love listening to my sempai whenever I get the chance. I learn so much from your experiences!"

"Oh, that's very admirable," Kageyama said admiringly. "It's so rare to meet someone who displays appropriately pious regard for one's sempai these days. I wonder what you've learned from your friend who's spying on us from behind the corner of this cafe?"

Junko waited the second it would take for the rather wild-haired individual to whom Kageyama was referring to poke his head back behind the corner, before turning to look in that direction. Conveniently, he'd done so. Rather than doing the obvious (and boring) denial, she turned back to Kageyama with a helpless grin. "He's not really my friend, as such."

"I see," Kageyama said. "So, I believe that we went off on this tangent when you started talking about your plans. Where were we again?"

"Well, I think we'd gotten to the point where the class had woken up inside the school, and the school life of mutual killing had begun. Of course, no one was actually going to die or anything," she added in a rather unconvincing tone.

"Of course not," Kageyama agreed in an equally unconvincing tone.

The duel had begun.

* * *

"Negiii? Where are you going?" Makie asked, approaching the young man as he frantically dressed himself back. All the while taking a mental note of developing a spell to dress up instantly as soon as the current matters were addressed. Preferably a reverse of the stripping sneeze. Yes, that would do.

"To Satomi-san's lab!" he told her as he straightened his tie. "The last phase of my plan to save Asuna and the Magical World depend on her, and I'm - oh, good grief, it's after midnight, she'll probably be asleep! I'm going to have to wake her up, and she'll probably be dazed, and -"

"Then why not stay here until morning?" she asked. "There's still so many combinations we haven't tried yet! I really want to get taken by both you and Yuna's dad, front and back, like you did to her," she confided.

"No, I, I really need to focus on the plan right now, Makie," he told her while tying his shoes.

She sighed. "Okay. Good luck, then. If you need someone to go with you..."

"No, not yet, this part is simply-" Negi lifted his head and looked right at her. "Are you actually okay with it?"

Nod.

"Really?" Negi gulped.

Nod nod.

"I mean, why wouldn't I be?" Makie asked. "It's for Asuna's well-being, and Baka Rangers have to stay united, and if we lose Asuna, we'll never have those wonderful things only she knows how to do with her tongue again, so... Best of lucks!"

He stared at her, wide-eyed.

"Negi?" she asked when he hadn't said anything for a moment.

"That's why I love y-," he said, then, with total sincerity.

She placed a finger on his lips. "Don't be silly, you don't love me anymore than you love anyone else, remember? Now go, and we'll save you a spot for you when you come back!"

"... do you really intend to keep this going until I-" Negi sighed. "Never mind, just have fun and please keep Asuna distracted so she doesn't do anything brash. I, I've got to go!"

And with that, he proceeded to do so, dashing out of the resort's exit.

Makie placed a fist on her mouth and coughed delicately. "Ahem!"

A second later, he rushed back, scooped her up into his arms, and planted a long, wet and deep kiss on her mouth before speeding out again.

"Better," Makie nodded before turning back to where Takahata-sensei was handling Asuka and Asuna at once. "By the way, what happened to Kagehisa-kun, sensei?"

The teacher plucked his mouth away from Soryu's. "... eh?"

Asuna wiped her own mouth with the back of her hand and muttered, "What gave that idiot the impression I would do anything brash, anyway?"

* * *

Just a few minutes later, Negi found himself outside the door of Hakase's private laboratory, knocking desperately on it. He supposed that he was making a lot of noise, that it wasn't just his imagination that the knocks - as the only sound in the hallway - sounded terribly loud. But frankly, at the moment that was a rather minor concern in the big scheme of things. Even moreso than it would have been before he stepped out of Evangeline's cabin.

The door promptly opened a crack, and Hakase peered out of it up at him. "Oh, Sensei," she said, sounding a bit surprised.

"Hello, Hakase-san!" he said. "I'm very sorry to wake you, but-!"

"You didn't wake me," she told him, blinking. "Lately I've been staying up 'til around two in the morning. Did you have any problems handling that lynch mob?"

Now Negi blinked. "How did you-? W-Well, actually, in a sense, I didn't, but-" He broke off, abruptly. "Never mind that! Haven't your instruments been picking the readings?" A pause. "Haven't you looked through a window, or heard the news, or gotten a call, or-?!"

"What in the world are you talking about, Sensei?" Satomi asked. "You know we don't have windows here, you know everyone I know was either with you or asleep at this time, and you should know I don't concern myself with news reports while I'm at active duty. Would you like to come in?" she finished, in an elegant yet radically abrupt change of tone.

"Yes, please, of course!" he said, rushing in as Satomi closed behind him. "Then, I assume you haven't realized it, but the night sky is currently blood-red, and I'm afraid this might have something to do with Mundus Magicus' impending collapse, and my project has suffered an important setback, and-!"

His frantic tirade was abruptly interrupted by a brilliant flash of light from the corner of the laboratory, leaving them both temporarily blinded. As the spots before his eyes faded, Negi turned to see what had caused it.

Standing there, facing him, was a familiar form, wearing a familiar set of black and white body armor. Standing shortly behind her, there were six young women, one of whom Negi could recognize as Homura Akemi-san from his allies' reports. The others were a redhead with a lance, a blue haired girl with a sword, a busty blonde with muskets attached to her waistband, and a pink clothed, pink haired petite girl vaguely reminiscent of Makie. Even so, it was only the one at the head of the group who caught Negi's full attention at the time.

"Chao-san?" Negi gasped.

"Negi-bouzou," Chao Linghsen nodded. And then she said, "Well, here's another big mess you've gotten us into!"

* * *

**To be Concluded**.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Well, this has been a troubled chapter indeed. Would you believe all of this was going to be the tail end of the previous chapter? Unfortunately, things spiraled out of control in my private life. I've been having physical health problems, and while I'm not satisfied with the end result of this chapter, it's the best I could manage under the circumstances.

My apologies.


	19. No one has sex in this chapter

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey**.

**Chapter Seventeen and a Half.**

* * *

Negima created by Akamatsu Ken.

Conquests of an Accidental Stud Monkey created by Darkenning.

Additional material by Darkenning. Proofreading of the OverMaster-written segment by Shadow Crystal Mage.

Batman created more by Bill Finger than by Bob Kane. This has no particular bearing on the chapter, mind, but you'll never read it in an actual DC created story, so I thought I'd mention it anyway.

* * *

**That One May Smile, And Smile: ****A Side Conquests Omake- by Darkenning.**

"I'm a monster, you know," Kitami said.

Most of the guests had gone home (or, more likely, just gone somewhere else) by now, while Tomaru had withdrawn to his private sanctum, doubtless to try and scheme some way to get out from under her control and/or masturbate to the picture of the late Inou Moegi he thought no one else knew about. She supposed that she ought to leave, herself, since she had no more real business here. And yet...

The pregnant girl grunted vaguely in response as she lay on her side on the couch. Her mother had been one of the first to leave, abandoning the girl to her fate, again... though as she had been somewhat complicit in her damnation, that might actually have been a kindness. Except that it left her to Kitami.

"It's true. There's not a speck of human decency in me. If I ever appear kind, it's to gain some sort of advantage by doing so. I've had years-long relationships with people for no better reason than I thought they might be useful some day. This one student at one of the schools where I worked before I came to Mahora... well, I doubt that you really want to hear about that."

She took a slight shift in the girl's supine posture for a shrug of sorts.

"All right, it's more like I don't feel like telling you about it," Kitami admitted. "Anyway, the point is, I don't feel anything when I think about what he's done to you, what he's continued to do to you. You were dumb enough to get caught in his schemes, and you deserve what you got as a result. But ... I can see some influence to be gained if I get you out of here. So maybe I could do that. It would amuse me, to further disconcert him. What do you say? Would you like to help me keep up the pretense of being a good girl?"

After a moment, the girl's eyes, so distant, so empty, turned so that they met Kitami's gaze.

"It is too late," said Takatsukasa Rideru.

Kitami was silent for a long moment. "Yes," she agreed eventually. "I suppose it is, at that. Close your eyes, child. The bad dream is about to end."

The stupid whore actually closed her eyes when told to do so by a woman with a knife in her hand.

Really, she totally deserved whatever she got.

* * *

**Is It Possible to Avoid This Sorrow?- by Darkenning.**

"Hello, Archie. Hello, Betty," said the soft voice from behind them.

As one they turned, and blinked in genuine surprise. "Veronica!" Betty said first. "Wow! It feels like it's been ages! You didn't tell us you'd be coming back for the holidays!"

"I wanted it to be a surprise. I like surprises. Don't you?" Veronica said, smiling at the two of them in a very strange, very un-Veronica way. The fact that she was wearing a very un-chic coat was also a bit confusing, as was the cloth bag she was carrying in one hand.

"Uh, well, yes, I guess so!" Archie confirmed for both of them. "Um ... so ... what's Japan like?"

"It's lovely, Archiekins. Just lovely. And I've so many wonderful friends, like Negi, and Matoi, and Kotonoha ... just wonderful people, whom I've learned so much from. But like the old saying goes, make new friends, but keep the old, and all the rest of that ... and really, I've learned a lot from you and Betty, too. Why, without Betty I wouldn't even know what Walmart was, much less the sorts of things you could buy there!"

"Huh?" Betty asked, now utterly bewildered.

"Let me show you," said Veronica, eyes gone spirally, as she dropped the bag and pulled the garden shear from it, bringing it up to Betty's nick in a single motion. "Sayonara," she said, and pulled the shear's edge backwards.

Betty's golden hair dropped to the ground behind her. Her sweater's neck fell open to the air. "Huh?" she repeated, right before the blood began to well up on her neck ...

... then exploded outward.

Archie gaped in shocked horror, as Betty collapsed, life flowing from her in a flood.

"Hello, Daddy?" Veronica quietly spoke into her cell phone. "We have Wolfram and Hart on retainer, right? Oh good." Then, as _Kanashimi no Mukou e_ began playing in the background, she started laughing maniacally...

* * *

**Don't Worry, This Isn't In Continuity Either— In Either Continuity- by OverMaster**.

_Meanwhile, in a certain, Unequally Rational and Emotional different world…_

"Okay," Chisame said, "now I figure it's the moment for you to tell us why you've brought us all here, in the middle of the night, out of our comfortable and well-earned rest before we find your motives stupid and we lynch you."

"Chisame-san, please," Sakurako rolled her eyes at her, but then just told Satomi, barely any warmer, "Anyway, Satomi-chan, while I trust you and Lala-sempai's reasons for doing this are excellent, and I'd say lynching the Princess of half the known universe _and_ the cutest girl ever would be a serious mistake... I think you could have handled this better, myself."

Misa muttered while rubbing her own eyes. "Look, Saku-chan, if geek girls turn you on so much, maybe you should start dating Chao instead. At least _her_ insane science projects all seem to place indoors where it's warm..." she said this rubbing her own arms up and down. The night air around the World Tree was chilly.

"Tch!" Satomi clucked her tongue. "Ye women of little faith, even if at least one of you happens to have supreme romantic tastes! This had to be a surprise, and this display couldn't take anywhere else but under the World Tree, away from prying eyes after curfew! For we are about to engage into a complete view of an alternate world! Isn't that simple exciting?"

Negi blinked. "An alternate world? You mean like—"

"Exactly!" Satomi nodded. "With Lala-san's help, after I explained the situation to her, I could isolate and track the trail of tachyons left behind by the other world's Ala Alba, designing a small and practical device that will let us peek into a parallel dimension of the many they had to reverberate through in their way back home!"

Skuld began violently choking in her saliva. "WHAT?! Why, why, why would you two ever do something as stupid as that?!"

Lala and Satomi blinked, looked at each other, then both looked at Skuld. "Because we had to find out if we could? FOR SCIENCE!"

"Aaaaaaaahhhh!" Skuld tugged on her hair. "No wonder Urd hated me, if I was anything like this!"

"Epiphanies are always beautiful things, aren't they?" Satomi nodded with a small smile, then turned on the small yellow device at her feet, which was oddly reminiscent in shape to a portable washing machine. "And so are breakthroughs! Rejoice, for you are about to be witnesses of how the World Tree's power allows us a glimpse into what transpires around another World Tree at this very moment!"

"I think I'll be watching from here, thank you," Itoshiki said from where he already hung from one of the upper branches.

"Your capacity to speak clearly while a rope constricts your throat will never stop to awe me, Sensei," Matoi complimented him. "No wonder I loved you so much... for a short while..."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Asuna gasped. "What if the Mahora you're going to let us see is a Zombie infested Mahora, or a werewolf Mahora, or a post WWIII radioactive wasteland Mahora, or—"

"I congratulate you for understanding the concept so quickly from my explanation, Asuna-san!" Hakase said with manic glee as the machine bathed the surroundings with a powerful white light. "But the progress cannot be halted by your unlikely fears! Contemplate, everyone, an open window to another plne of reality!" she began cackling madly.

"Seriously," Misa told Sakurako, "Chao even has a way better figure and is rich and everything."

"Shhhh!" Sakurako hushed her. "Look, Satomi-chan was right, I can see something now...!"

Indeed, a new image of another World Tree began to superimpose faintly over that of that universe's guardian tree, allowing the impressed Ala Alba to see what was transpiring in a world much like their own at that very instant...

_High above them, the World Tree soared. Until this very moment, it had also drooped. Branches that had formerly been firm enough for small children to walk along, if they were careful, had begun to sag, just as some lower branches had sagged enough that they broke loose from the trunk and fell to the ground. Leaves had dulled, past brown to almost gray. Death had been drawing closer and closer._

_No more._

_The light surged up from the roots of the World Tree, suffusing each branch. Leaves gone grey turned brown, turned green... turned a brighter green than ever before. Branches straightened, extended. New leaves budded, opened, spread. And pollen exploded from each flowering bud, filling the early morning air, with new doses streaming forth every moment, like... well... like a boy spewing forth semen._

_But sweeter smelling._

"Wow," Negi said quietly, sniffing. "It even brings us smells, too! Say... those two figures over there... they look like Akira-san and me, but what are they...?"

He couldn't complete the sentence, for he was mobbed from all sides the very next moment.

* * *

**To be continued**.


	20. Akira, Satomi, Chao, Madoka, Homura

You are being watched.

The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know, because ...

... well ... I'm the machine.

I was designed to detect acts of terror, but I see everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. And also all that stuff you get up to in private, or technically, semi-private, since there's usually at least one other person involved, and sometimes ... well, it's not that interesting to me, I don't have that reproductive instinct, but you get the idea. Anyway, the government considers these sorts of things irrelevant, but my human interface doesn't.

Periodically, in order to better advise my human interface of the correct courses of action, I run simulations of various hypothetical events. The fact that the atmosphere has apparently gone red as a result of some sort of dimensional anomaly inspired me to crunch quite a few, and sometimes I speed up the process by simplifying the dialogue of the actors within.

"Morbid self-deprecation," declared Chizuno Masuto, looking up at the sky.

"Ironically detached observation," replied Senou Kaede.

"Despair despair despair!" said Enoshima Junko, rather cheerfully.

"Pointless disclaimer," observed Kageyama Yamiko.

"... um, shouldn't you actually say the disclaimer?" asked Masuto as the simulation slowed down again.

"Pointless disclaimer" repeated Kageyama, sternly.

... sometimes I worry about these simulations...

* * *

**Side Conquests of an Accidental Stud-Monkey**

**Finale**

* * *

This chapter has been mostly written by Darkenning, after OverMaster fell into the throes of depression. OverMaster is deeply thankful.

Shadow Crystal Mage wrote the _Railgun_, _Date A Live_, _Girls und Panzer_, _Card Captor Sakura_ and _Neptunia_ segments. Many thanks go to him, as well!

* * *

Don't you just hate it when the first few minutes of a new episode of a TV series are taken up with the last few minutes of the previous episode? I mean, hello, TV people, do you think our memory spans are that bad? Do you think- wait, I think we already did this joke.

Awkward.

Anyway...

"Chao-san," Negi said, almost out of breath, "this is such a- Wait, why are you saying this is my fault? What did I do to bring anything of this forth?"

"Well," Chao said, "for starters, you have allowed the matters concerning these ladies-" Here she gestured towards Homura and her companions. "- to slip away from you in a way I find frankly appalling, coming from one of us. The Negi Springfield I read about and then studied under would have focused his attention on them, taking no time to rest or screw around, until he had learned all he could about them."

"I don't know what they told you," Negi argued. "But I was too busy handling Asuna's problem, and I tried to gather intelligence on Homura-san, but it was as if she didn't even exist and there was no info any of us could find beyond the basics! And, and I don't even know who these other ladies are supposed to be! By the way, sorry about my manners, my name is Negi Springfield," he added, hastily bowing for the others.

The blonde smiled benevolently and made a curtsie. "Pleased to meet you, Springfield-sensei. I am Tomoe Mami."

"Hey there, my name's Sakura Kyok-" the redhaired one began to wave with an impish grin.

Homura shot her an icy stare. "There's no time for that right now. We have no time for anything but the most important details." Then she gallantly gestured towards the pink haired girl and told Negi, "This is Kaname Madoka, the most important person in the Universe."

"And most important detail," Kyoko snorted.

Madoka blinked, then giggled, lightly slapping Homura on an arm. "Oh, Homura-chan! When will you learn? I'm no more important than anyone else in this universe, or any other!"

"Of course you are," argued Homura. "Without you, this universe wouldn't even exist in the first place."

"The same could be said about you, silly! And about him, since after all, the core universe you took as the basis was centered around his legend."

Negi blinked. "Uh... excuse me?" He had the rather annoying feeling that this must be how the Baka Rangers felt all the time, and it wasn't very pleasant.

Satomi, in the meanwhile, kept on looking hopelessly back and forth between her laboratory's measurement and detection instruments and the girls gathered around Chao, finally going over to touch the one with blue short hair on a shoulder. "You exist," she said. "You have a corporeal, solid presence."

"That's nice to know," the girl said, one eyebrow quivering.

"And yet you shouldn't exist, since you have no presence I can scan, unless Chao has seen fit, for some reason, to sabotage my instruments or outfit you with some counter tech to escape my detection." The genius paused, then turned to look at Chao with a sorrowful expression. "Why, Chao? I thought we had split on good enough terms!"

"This isn't my doing!" Chao snapped before adding a reluctant. "This once."

Madoka sighed, shook her head a little, and then smiled. "Okay. Rest assured, Negi-sensei, we bear good news. We aren't here to be an obstacle in your quest to save Mundus Magicus and Kagurazaka Asuna-san. We shouldn't be helping you with that, but that's just because we think you don't need our-"

"Spoiiiiiiiiilers!" Kyoko sing-sang.

"Ah yes. Well," Madoka continued, "we are, however, here to help you stop the imminent collapse of the whole universe, since that IS our fault, sort of."

"I only count one guilty party in this whole room," the blue haired one grumbled, looking directly at Homura, who just ignored her.

"You are saying our universe is on the brink of collapse," Negi blandly said. "I could have sworn you mentioned bearing good news."

Madoka paused. "Actually, yes, I think I could have phrased that better, sorry." She laughed lamely, rubbing herself up and down an arm, "but it's okay! We know of a way that should work to prevent that!"

"Should," Kyoko muttered.

"If I agree to it in the first place," Homura mumbled, looking aside with strangely red cheeks.

"Guilty party," the blue haired girl reminded her. "You break it, you fix it. You aren't going to leave the responsibility for your actions to Madoka-chan, are you?"

Homura then gave her an electrically charged stoic stare that the other girl answered by gritting her teeth and snarling at her.

"Um, well, that's very nice of you, thanks, Kaname-san. But, as you have been saying yourselves, you are short on time at the moment, so I hope I'm not being rude when I ask you to give your explanations about how you'll help us as quickly as possible."

"Grab a chair first," Chao told him. Then she looked at Satomi, "Two, actually."

Satomi pouted. "I'm a woman of science who has prepared herself to learn and face the greatest ultimate truths of the universe no matter how dismal and crushing the answers are. I don't need any chairs to-"

"And a good, big cold glass of water," Chao told her.

Satomi growled in an unusually tense way that startled Negi before she stomped over to the next room.

Negi blinked and looked at Chao again. She shrugged. "The process to bring Chachamaru to life was taxing, let me tell you."

"Chao! We agreed we wouldn't ever talk about those details with anyone, not even the Nobel Committee!" Satomi angrily reminded her as she walked back in, carrying two chairs and a big jar of cold water with her.

* * *

_Many, many decades into the future, this would happen_.

"One day, I shall come back," the girl in the damaged armor said quietly, in Mandarin, eyes closed. "Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."

"That's nice, Lingshen. Really nice," a male voice said from behind her. "Now reach for the sky."

"I just did. It didn't really work, though." She exhaled what might have been a sigh, playing along and raising her arms regardless, as she slowly turned around to face the seven beings who had just appeared at her lab. Big Barda, immortal New Goddess of war. The fit Aquagirl, last heiress of the throne of Atlantis. The shadowy, robotic Hourman. The towering, hulking Warhawk. The tiny, shaved child holding the power ring of the Green Lantern of 2814, formerly held by one Takamachi Nanoha. The black-clad, scarred Superman, Last Son of Krypton, sole survivor of the original League.

And of course, Batman, the Dark Knight.

"Wow," Chao said. "The gang's all here! And I was worried I wouldn't get a proper welcoming committee."

"Chao Linghsen," Superman gravely said. "The Justice Legion International hereby places you upon arrest on the charges of breaking the time travel protocols, conspiracy to change the past, and illegal -"

"Stuff it, Kent," the voice who has spoken first said. It seemed to come from a holographic projection hovering over the Batman's extended right hand, which showed an one-eyed, bald old man in a wheelchair, connected to sophisticated life support, and yet growling with enough ferocity to make Bruce Wayne proud. "You know there's no time for that right now."

"Heh. Time," Chao let out a small chuckle. "Why, hello there, Wayne-san. Glad to see you're still hanging around."

"Not thanks to you," Damian Wayne said from the other end of the globe. "Let's make this quick, Lingshen. Before we take you to trial, there's something you must do, not for us, not for yourself, but for Negi Springfield and his Ala Alba. And if you do it well, maybe we could take some time off of your sentence."

Chao hummed, tilting her head to one side and resting a cheek on two fingers. "What are you talking about, Wayne-san? Maybe you got the wrong idea about my destination, but I have just arrived from that time period, and I wasn't planning to go back for a-"

Then she fell silent, as the Justice Legion stepped aside to allow five young women in colorful uniforms walk closer, all eerily quiet and serious.

"They say," Superman told Chao, "that they have been waiting for you ever since the day the World Tree fell. And they want you to go back with them. To see if something can be done."

* * *

"Wait, the World Tree fell?" asked Negi, alarmed, as he sat in the chair facing Chao.

"Apparently so," Chao said, nodding. "It was news to me, too. I gather that you have some sort of plan to prevent it?"

"Yes, you see I-" he started to tell her enthusiastically.

"You plan to send Asuna into suspended animation and then get Hakase and others working on developing time travel technology so that when she awakens she can return to the present at the very moment of her departure," the time traveler interjected.

Negi boggled. "You mean... it doesn't work?" he gasped after a moment.

"Oh, it's perfectly workable," Chao said.

"It is?" Satomi asked, eyes reduced to tiny black dots.

"It's no harder than what we planned, back then," the time traveler said casually.

"I beg to differ!"

"I think it's sad that you don't have as much confidence in your abilities as I do," Chao said with a sad little shrug.

"Oh, you don't get to play-" Satomi started to yell.

"But!" Chao interrupting with a raised finger. "It would only work in a universe much simpler than this one. One assembled with more caring and concern, and less haste and selfish spitefulness-"

"I am sitting right here," Homura said through clenched teeth.

"So you are," Chao agreed. "In this universe, assembled hastily by a selfish and spiteful person-"

"You could chime in with objections to that characterization, you know?" Homura side whispered to her fellow Puella Magi.

"Wellllll," said Madoka, tapping her pointer fingers together in front of her lips.

"Why?" growled Sayaka, Kyoko and, yes, even Mami.

"- that sort of plan would probably be co-opted to figuratively put a figurative bandage on the figurative gaping wounds that have figuratively been torn open in reality, ensuring that the whole figurative structure can figuratively live just a bit longer while not-at-all-figuratively sacrificing key elements of that reality. Like the World Tree. Or Mahora. Or Asuna. So we've had to come up with something else."

"Okay, let's hear your plan," Negi requested.

Chao, with a few interjections from Homura, proceeded to explain their plan. Having explained his own plan while watching a horrified expression grow on the faces of those to whom he was explaining it, Negi found it ironically easy to guess what sort of expression was gradually coming into being on his own. But he said nothing, nothing at all, until Chao finished her account.

"This..." he said, slowly. "This is..."

"I know, I know," she said, nodding. "You're probably horr-"

"... actually, it's not all that different from something I've already done in the name of my original plan, so I guess that's not such a big deal," he concluded, as everyone face-faulted. "But I guess this explains why Homura-san was confusing the situation back then." He nodded soberly.

"Why I was what?" Homura asked, blinking in confusion while recovering from the face-fault.

"Well, you see -" Negi started to explain, when the door to the lab was flung open.

"Negi!" shouted Sakurako as she ran in. "We've got- oh wow."

"Should I come in there?" Shiori's voice asked from the hallway, sounding tired and sick.

"Well, everybody's fully clothed, but there's even more girls here than I was expecting, so it's pretty clear what's about to happen even if it hasn't happened yet," Sakurako replied as the tiny black dots that were her eyes took in the sight before her. "So probably no."

"'kay," Shiori said weakly.

"Um, hey Chao-san, I'd say that I'm glad to see you except that I think you've probably made a really really really complicated situation even more complicated by showing up now but on the other hand I actually am glad you came back from wherever it was that you went even though we were never all that close and I'm actually a little worried that you'll take a terrible and lingering vengeance on me for that whole tickle you until you cry thing where you said that you were violated but I did sort of think it was funny and I have a feeling that you don't mind about the whole sex thing after all and I wonder if these girls are your harem and ummm I think I may have actually lost the thread of this conversation and oh wow that has never happened to me before and this is a really bad development and ah that reminds me -"

"Sakurako," interjected Negi, helpfully. "Is something the matter?"

"I was getting to it," she assured him. "Um, the World Tree is dying. Like, now."

"Yes, we know," Chao replied, as she also stood up from the floor where she'd face-faulted. "I was just dealing with the fact that you're getting sneaky, Negi-kun," she told him in an uncomplimentary tone.

"That's just what I told him," Sakurako told her.

"Stands to reason," Chao said softly.

Sakurako wasn't really listening, which made her next words terribly ironic. "But did he listen? Nooooo. Okay, what about me and-" She gestured, vaguely, in the direction of the open door to the lab.

"I need you to-" Negi broke off, and hesitantly, walked to the door and peered past the threshold to see Shiori sitting in the hallway - more crumpled up there, to be honest - and breathing heavily. "Um, Shiori-san? Are you okay?"

"Well," she answered, after giving the question a great deal of thought, "I feel like I am dying and my heart is broken. Other than that, things are just great."

"I don't know what to say," he admitted, stepping the rest of the way out into the corridor, so that she could see him, unbuttoned shirt and all.

"That's good, because I actually don't want to talk to you, right now. I don't get a lot of chances to be mad at people, so I'm sort of enjoying this - except that I'm not, really. The contradiction is confusing."

"Yes, I understand that," he agreed. "All that I can say is that I'm sorry, and-"

"Okay, I forgive you," she interrupted.

"Really?" he asked, blinking.

"It's disgusting how you're surprised at how easily the people who love you forgive you," she told him. "Really, if I had the capacity for anger at you right now, that would... never mind. Are you going to save the world?"

"I'm going to try," he told her. This time, he fought the impulse towards total honesty ... and was dismayed when he lost. "But there's a chance that I'm going to end up destroying it."

"Uh-huh," Shiori said, as one unsurprised might speak. She shook her head. "I really did fall in love with the same guy, twice."

"Sorry?"

"Go, do what you do," she told him.

With another deep breath, he turned to look at Sakurako, who'd been watching this conversation in silence. "Sakurako, I need you watch over her, but if you could also call Zazie and ask her, if she isn't already heading for the gate, to start that way. I'm going to need her for this, too."

"Got it," she said. "What about-"

"No, Mana won't be needed for this part."

"That's not what I was going to say," Sakurako told him with grave dignity.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," he said, embarrassed.

She looked at him. "It really is disgusting," she said. "Anyway, after I got finished asking about Mana, I was going to ask about Asuna -"

"She'll already be heading there," Negi told her, suppressing a faint smile at her admission. "She knows her duty. Our task is to convince her that she can get out of it."

"I was right," Negi announced to Chao as the group dashed down the streets, Satomi riding on her scooter just a bit behind the two of them, who were in turn a bit behind the five Puella Magi. "Ayaka just sent me a telepathic squirt, saying that Setsuna's taking Asuna to the gateway terminus. The Headmaster and Fate are already there, along with the Illuminati."

"Pretty much the whole cast, then," Chao mused out loud. "It's going to be odd, with Sanjou Kozue not there."

"Excuse me?" said Negi, doubling the phrase as a polite apology to the lady walking her dogs that he'd just ripped past. "Who is Sanjou Kozue?"

"Asuna's roommate and best friend in the original timeline," she explained. "Wrote the biographies of you and pretty much everyone else in the class that I read growing up."

Negi nearly stumbled. "Well, what happened to her?"

"I don't know!" Chao admitted. "I think my early experiments with time displacement, where I sent inanimate objects back to various points in the timeline before I jumped back myself, may have caused divergences from the history I learned, like a butterfly flapping its wings to make a hurricane. At the very least, I've never found any record of her attending any of Mahora's schools."

"Actually, you haven't yet made the changes to the timeline that will remove her from it," Homura casually tossed her hair over her shoulder. "That's one of the paradoxes that's destroying this reality."

Chao blinked. "I haven't yet-" She shook her head. "No, don't tell me. I'll figure it out for myself."

* * *

They stood around the World Tree, looking up at it. Finally, the Sorcerer Supreme lowered his hands and exhaled. "I have stabilized it for the moment," he gravely declared. "And yet, even my power is insufficient for the task. I'm afraid the moment has come to bring the Twilight Princess. Where is she?"

"We have sent for her," Konoemon said, "but we suspect she is at Evangeline-san's resort, so... bringing her here could take a-"

"I'm here," Kagurazaka Asuna said as she was safely placed down by Setsuna, who had just swooped from above, landing between Batman and Sailor Moon. "So it's already started, huh? Where's Negi?" It was only then that she noticed the gasping, slim young woman at her and Setsuna's side, who had quickly slid even closer. "Um, and good evening, I guess," Asuna cautiously said."Sailor Moon Hime-sama, am I right? Normally, I'd be gushing all over you, really, but it's a pity we couldn't meet under -"

_"Such beautiful wings...!"_ Sailor Moon cooed, her eyes sparkling, as she reached over to stroke a wary Setsuna's wings with a hand.

"Ahem!" Sailor Mars rasped loudly, also reaching over... to pinch Sailor Moon's ear and pull her back from Asuna.

"Owie! Sorry, sorry!" Sailor Moon said. "I promise I'll keep my mind on the problem now!"

Konoemon exhaled. "Asuna-kun, these are the Illuminati. I think you already met Batman-sama, from what he has told me. And these ladies are the Sailor Senshi, Princess Moon's royal guard. As for Negi-kun, well, we were under the impression he'd be with you..."

"He left us shortly ago, to go have a meeting with Hakase at her laboratory," informed Evangeline, who had just descended as well carried into Chachamaru's arms. "His Ministra have been trying to contact him, but it seems there's a network of conflicting magical pulses interfering with all kinds of communications across campus."

Chachamaru nodded a confirmation. "Although the spell that binds the Master to Mahora still seems to be in full effect."

Evangeline grunted. "Thanks for that completely extraneous remark. Anyway, we just felt the ramifications ourselves. It was easier to notice now the timeframes inside and outside match. How long do we have?"

"Hours, at most," Strange said, as Reed Richards literally circled his elastic body around the gigantic trunk, taking all sorts of detailed meditions that only increased his frustration and confusion. "The Mundus Magicus visitors are literally starting to die as we speak, and I predict that those still on the other world's surface will start feeling it as well in less than half a hour."

Eva nodded. "Yeah, we know; the Westeros women and the ponies began doubling down and choking right when things were getting- but never mind that now."

"Pardon me?" Wonder Woman said.

"I said, never mind that now," Evangeline repeated.

"Indeed, you're better off not knowing," Batman grunted.

Asuna inhaled, let her breath out, and tried to control her shaking. "Fine. Let's do it now, in that case. Open the gate, and... when you get to see Negi, tell him he'd better not fail me."

"Asuna! Wait, don't go in yet!" Negi cried as he bolted in from the opposite end of the campus, accompanied by a quartet of girls in unfamiliar outfits. They were girls none of the present had ever seen before, except in the case of Setsuna and Chachamaru, who at least had met-

"You!" Setsuna snarled, drawing Yuunagi out while Chachamaru readied her weapons systems. "Homura Akemi!"

Negi held a hand up. "Setsuna, Chachamaru, no. She's on our side now. Or we are in her side. Rather, it's more like we're all in the same side ... you know what, I'll explain it later. I hope."

"How do you do," the girl in pink whom Negi had just lowered along Homura bowed for everyone. "I'm Kaname Madoka, and Homura-chan and I will try to solve your situation as best as we can. Since, well, it's technically our fault, after all."

"How so? What do you have to do with the Lifemaker?" Evangeline asked, walking dangerously close and growing even more dangerously interested.

"We have something to do with everything in the fabric of this universe," Homura answered. "Technically, I created it."

"Eh?" Sailor Moon asked.

Richards looked up from his instruments. "Indeed? It's... certainly intriguing. You don't even register under the sensors. It's almost as if you didn't even exist."

"How do you know her, Setsuna-kun, Chachamaru-kun?" Konoemon asked.

"She's been tailing our group for a while," Negi confessed, while Chao and Satomi arrived. It's perhaps a telling statement of how concerned the old man was with this circumstances that he didn't groan at the very sight of the former, who was faintly miffed at that.

"Oh? And why was I never informed about that?" the old man asked.

"Because it was a matter strictly concerning Ala Alba," Evangeline said harshly.

"No, it never was, and it was a mistake, treating it that way," Negi shook his head. "It's a matter concerning absolutely everybody, at both worlds. This whole time, we've all been part of a cosmic gamble by Homura-san."

"Say what?!" the tall brunette Senshi gasped, as her teammates took their hands to their mouths. And you almost could feel Tony Stark's eyebrows rising behind his metal mask.

"We never were born in this universe," Madoka explained. "We were born in a world where none of you ever existed, a world where magic only existed in the form of a complex system set by beings called Incubators to prevent the death of the universe by heat entropy in the far distant future. To those ends, they recruited girls and made them Magical Girls, or Puella Magi. They granted them powers, but at a terrible price; the girls would eventually become Witches, monstrous and murderous creatures with no mind of their own, after losing their souls. Homura-chan, who had gained powers to effectively reset time, used a gamble to prevent me from becoming a Puella Magi myself."

"However," Homura picked up the narrative, "Madoka eventually made that deal, and became an avatar of hope, an incorporeal entity transcending time and space, through her wish. She did that to save the souls of every Magical Girl through history, but I couldn't allow her to sacrifice herself -

"Because you're a selfish spiteful person," interjected Kyoko.

With great difficulty, Homura let that pass. "So through another gambit, I usurped her power, eradicated the Incubator species - eventually - and captured Madoka's essence in this pocket universe."

"Pocket universe!" Reed said, rubbing his chin. "It's almost like the time we were transported to a pocket dimension by Franklin after the fight with Onslaught!"

Black Bolt and Iron Man shuddered silently at the memory.

"This," Sailor Venus decided, "is going frankly too fast for my liking."

"I concur," Sailor Moon blandly said.

Homura nodded at Richards. "The basic principle is the same. Like your son, I used Madoka's powers, ones she had not dared to use at their fullest herself, to access the Source Wall of the space between universes, and spawn a combined universe from samples taken of the essences of previously existing universes."

"So, that's why Zazie-san mentioned all of that information about parallel worlds," Negi mused, finally being reminded of that after the rushed first explanation at Satomi's lab had left him too dumbstruck to even think about that.

"Wow, you and Rainyday really like to talk about cosmic mechanics during- Never mind," Evangeline sighed.

"Excuse me?" Konoemon said.

"Never mind," Evangeline repeated, teeth clenching.

"So... you are our God?" Sailor Moon gulped.

"I suppose it shouldn't be said I actually created you, but rather I kickstarted the proccess of your universe's development from essential material already created by those who exist beyond all of us," Homura elaborated.

"Ah," Sailor Moon said. "That's better. I think."

"Either way," Madoka said, "Homura-chan only, well, 'created' this universe as an experiment of sorts to see if there could be a world for me to live in as a normal girl. She only wished for my happiness, actually, so I hope you won't be too harsh on her. But now, even if you place Kagurazaka Hime-sama in hibernation ... well..."

"It seems," Chao cut in, finally getting closer, "even if we do that, we won't be saving the whole of 'our' existence. Homura-sama tried for a task that was simply too large even for her, and the universe that resulted is dangerously unstable. That's why nature itself across the planet is reacting so violently, when only Mundus Magicus should be affected. There might be a way to stabilize it for good, however."

"Chao-san!" Chachamaru said, eyes opening as much as they would go.

Chao smiled and waved at her. "Hello there, dearie. Mom's sorry she won't be able to stay for long. But there are some hardasses in the future who really want to have a few words with me." This was said with a glance in Batman's general direction. "Damian-kun sends his best wishes, Daddy."

Bruce Wayne flinched.

"If there's a future, then there's hope," Wonder Woman said. "Tell us, then, what do we have to do."

"Okay, if you say so. But your participation isn't necessary, actually. Although we wouldn't reject it either." And here she chuckled roguishly. Then she straightened just as suddenly. "Okay. Let's be serious. First of all, we need to send Asuna into stasis as the project intended."

Asuna exhaled. "I knew it. And then?"

"Then," Chao said, as Negi, Madoka and Homura looked away in diverging directions, "we need to establish anchors. Living beings who can succeed where even Homura-sama and Kaname-sama here would fail. They can't be ultimate stabilizing factors for this universe because, being foreign to it, they lack the adequate resonance with this plane of reality."

"And you know that, because?" Richards asked, ignoring how Hakase just stared at him and nearly drooled, hands firmly intertwined over her chest, too nervous to actually say anything. Chachamaru was just shaking her head to herself about that.

"They had more than a century to perform research on themselves and this dimensional plane, of course," Chao answered. "After these events, after all, they will do what is needed to preserve existence, which is why there is a future I came from to begin with."

"Way, way, way too fast," Venus groaned. She turned to Mercury. "Are you getting any of this?"

Ami had to be honest and shake her head.

"So they need to create new beings, who are like them, but in better synchronization with this universe's essence, to replace them in that labor as soon as possible," Strange elaborated, while Chao nodded, and so did Madoka and Homura, more reluctantly. "You mean -"

"I mean," Chao said, "they need to have offspring with someone native to this universe, someone who is very powerful himself, someone who will be in permanent contact with the Blue Mars Project and the upper echelons of the magical community for the next few decades of those children's growth. And that conception has to happen here, at ground zero, while the current key pulse of magical energies between the worlds still lasts. That should send a reviving counter-pulse through the World Tree, which should work as a tuning device to spread that stabilization effect through Mundus Magicus, Vetus, and the rest of existence."

"In other words," Evangeline said, growing annoyed while everyone else's eyes went tiny and black, "you mean Boya has to get these two knocked up under the Tree, right now?"

Chao nodded again.

"Wait," interjected Fate. "Wait just a brief moment. This plan makes no sense. How can Negi-kun possibly procreate when he has no experience doing so and -" He broke off and stared at Negi.

"Um," said Negi, rubbing a hand behind his head.

"Ohhhhhh, dear!" Sailor Moon was as red as a tomato, and her Inners weren't faring much better.

"I'll be gone for a while," Batman said before vanishing away ninja-style.

Wonder Woman tried to make sense of the bizarre situation, threw her hands up, and then just walked away, followed by Black Bolt. She turned around and went back to physically pick up Richards and Stark and drag them away with her.

"You," Fate said. _**"You-!"**_

"Um, once we're done here, you might want to go talk to Shiori and Sakurako, I think they would welcome your presence," Negi said without looking at him.

Abruptly, Fate started laughing. It was even less of a pleasant sound than Evangeline's laughter, if you can imagine that, and you probably can't. "So," he said. "This is what self-righteousness feels like! Intriguing!" He laughed some more as he walked away from the base of the World Tree.

"Are you," Konoemon gasped, "are you really going to, Negi-kun-"

Asuna smiled sadly and placed a hand on Negi's shoulder. "Negi," she said.

"Yes, Asuna?" he sniffled.

She tried to giggle as she mock punched him on the chest. "Give 'em your best, hear me?"

He had to nod through the tears they shared. "I will, Asuna."

"And tell me all about it when I come back, right?"

"Right, Asuna!" he all but bawled now.

"And then, we'll have a foursome as well, okay?" Asuna told Homura and Madoka. "You two are kinda cute, after all!"

"That," a grouchy Homura said, "is not any sort of necessary part of this proccess."

"Don't care! You owe me that much!" Asuna said.

"Asuna-kun?" Konoemon babbled, while a mounting feeling of dread built up within him.

"I'm sorry, Sensei," she told him. Godel and Rakan, along Konoka, Takamichi, and several others, could already be seen approaching in the distance. "Believe me, it never was my intention to drag your family, or specifically Konoka and your daughter, into anything bad. I hope it is something that brings them happiness instead."

"Gharghl?" asked Konoemon.

And she looked up at the red sky. "Alright, then... beam me up, Scotty!"

"You're aware," Chao said, "that is a sentence that never was actually uttered in Trek canon, right?"

"Okay, now you'll have to pleasure me too, as soon as I get back," Asuna told her.

* * *

The sun was starting to clear the eastern horizon.

Asuna had left, along Rakan and Godel. And then, everybody had also left, to make room for Negi, Homura and Madoka, after some explanations to those who had arrived after the earlier exchange. Konoka supported herself on Setsuna, who tried not to cry as much as her Ojou-sama was doing, only to fail completely at it. Ayaka supported herself on Chizuru, and for once Natsumi had done nothing against the busty girl then, just choosing to walk along a just as crestfallen Kotaro. Fate just grinned in a rather megalomaniacal fashion the whole time.

Negi tried to put on a brave facade as he stood along the silent Homura, Madoka, Chao, and Satomi. "Well then," he grimly said, taking his hands to his jacket and starting to undo it. "Like Asuna would say, let's get this show on the road."

* * *

The future, Asuna had decided, kind of sucked.

When she had at last awakened from her century-long dream, she had not found herself alone, as she had sort of dreaded. She had feared, to some degree, that her sacrifice might ultimately fail to do any good, so waking up to find herself surrounded made her suppose she should have felt ashamed of herself for not trusting Negi more. And it was good to see mankind had survived that long, which was the reason why the future only 'kind of' sucked.

Still, she couldn't say she felt particularly thrilled about her current company, elderly and thus even hotter Superman-sama aside.

She supposed Superman-sama's presence should have made everything automatically better. It was supposed to be like meeting the Pope, the President of the United States, Jesus and the greatest pop star at the time at once. And it was, but Asuna found that, by now, even that kind of thrill actually mattered little now. She only could think of one thing to ask the mighty presence standing before her. Not of how it felt to fly far above Earth on his own power. Not of how it felt to be strong enough to push the Moon around. Not of his origins, or his favorite food, or if he had a girlfriend or not.

"Where's Negi?" she asked him and the members of the Justice Legion gathered before her.

The Man of Steel did not answer immediately. The girl sitting on the wooden chair at the end of the sterile room, wearing only a hospital gown after the final series of lab tests, waited patiently for his answer; after all, she had waited decades and decades. Then the Batman placed a hand on one of his broad, powerful shoulders, and Superman sighed.

"I see," Asuna said, in a distant, faint voice. "It's an age of miracles and wonders, after all, isn't it? An age of impossibles made possible, so... so..." she sniffed, running the back of a hand over her eyes. "When did it happen?" she asked, her voice breaking.

"2065," the hooded android, the Hourman, answered.

"Which day?" she asked.

"Would you prefer for an answer in terms of Mundus Magicus, or Mundus Vetus?" the Hourman asked back.

She shook her head. "You know what, never mind. How ... how did it happen? I bet it was in a fitting grand fashion, right? Fighting against the ultimate evil along you guys, or something like that ... nothing less than that could have done Negi in, could it?"

"That doesn't matter now," the young Green Lantern said. "Princess Asuna, what matters is-"

"Of course it matters!" she protested. "Because I've got to tell him, when you send me back in time, so I can warn him, and-!"

"We aren't sending you back in time, sorry," Aquagirl said. "Time travel has been legally prohibited for several years now. Abuse of the time displacement mechanisms almost led to a rupture of the time continuum, and-"

Now Asuna really broke from her nearly apathetic and lethargic spell, eyes almost bulging out, rising back to her feet. "What?! No way! We had agreed we'd do it that way! Negi said he had a plan, and we know it can be done! Whatever gave you the right to decide that?"

"Negi Springfield and the Blue Mars Project did," Big Barda said. "For the sake of everything they managed, for the sake of all the lives they saved, for the sake of the legacy of those who died so we can endure, we cannot allow any more incursions through the timestream. Not after what happened five years ago."

Asuna blinked. "Five years ago?!"

"In Mundus Vetus terms, five years, three months, fourteen days and nine minutes," Hourman explained.

"What happened five years ago?!" Asuna cried, fearlessly giving a step towards the pantheon.

Superman spoke next. "Princess, please. Sit back down and listen. Five years ago, Chao Lingshen-"

"Enough, Kent," the raspy, wheezing voice of an old man sounded through the sterile room's speakers. "Bring the girl to me now."

"Who's that?" Asuna asked. "What are you guys doing here? Get me Evangeline, then! Why isn't Evangeline here?! Or Chachamaru, or Zazie, or Mana, or -"

The Batman reached over with a hand in a massive black gauntlet, gently touched a spot on the back of the frantic Asuna's neck, and she fell back into unconsciousness.

The future definitely did kind of suck.

When she regained her self-awareness, she found herself sitting in an office before a large desk, not too unlike that of Headmaster Konoe, behind which sat an extremely old man in what looked like a cross between a wheelchair and a life support unit. Everything about the man, from his completely bald head covered by brown spots to his bony, twisted hands, conveyed a sense of decay and weakness, save for his eyes, which gleamed with a vital, blunt intensity.

"Okay," Asuna said after a moment. "I trust there will be no more lapses of consciousness from now on?"

"Have I fallen unconscious since you were brought in?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. "If so, I apologize. My breather has been fed with enough neuro-support chemicals to keep me alert over the next five hours, so-"

"Oh, no, no, I meant mine," Asuna quickly said, deciding not to think too much about what she'd just been told. "It was you who made Batman-sama knock me out, right?"

"Oh, that," he said. "Well, his exact means to bring you here without too much of hassle were only his to decide, but yes, I have taught him to go with the most expeditious means whenever possible."

"You taught Batman-sama? So, you're... the former Batman-sama?" she guessed.

"Not the original Batman," he replied, "but I assumed the mantle over... a few years. I'm Damian Wayne."

Silence.

"Son of the late Bruce Wayne," he added.

"Ooohhh! The millionaire playboy!" Asuna said, and, after a beat, "He was hot."

"... so was I, once ago," he mused. He waited for a few moments to see if the girl would make the connection, and, when she apparently didn't, he sighed. "Aren't you going to ask me why I had you brought here?"

"If you brought me here at all, it's to tell me why you brought me here, and even if it isn't, it's obvious you wouldn't want to tell me at all, so asking would be pointless," Asuna reasoned. "So, Negi is still alive, right? Since I woke up here, I've been surrounded by what clearly is a gigantic superhero conspiracy, so now I've thought it better-"

"I can't tell you about Negi Springfield's ultimate fate. That would pose a greater risk of disturbance to the timeline."

"Oh, then you ARE sending me back. Otherwise, what's the harm in telling me?"

Damian Wayne began wondering if she had actually made the connection, but just refused to show it. Perhaps he had undersold the girl. "I'm not sending you back," he said. "That's against key regulations I helped enact. I'd be branded a traitor to the whole human race and the other species that now populate both worlds. You have to understand, after Chao Linghsen's latest act of defiance to the system, time trespassing offenses are the ultimate kind of social disruption act. Even I can't revoke that, and neither can the Justice Legion."

Asuna's lower lip tightened. "What did Chao do?"

"You'll understand in due time," he said, his lips curving up in a small, tired but quirky smirk.

"Why not now, this all pointl- Was that a joke? 'In due time' because it's about time travel? Sorry, Batman-sama, but I'm not laughing. The only reason why I'm not punching you in the face already is because I'm afraid you'd crumble into dust."

"You will be sent to psychological and genetic restructuring, so you can live the remainder of your natural life under a new assumed identity, with no memories of your prior life and all the pain it caused you. The general public will be told you died as a side result of the hibernation procedure, after achieving your objectives. Funeral services will be served around the whole world, to surpass those Superman once had, and you will be hailed a heroine for all upcoming generations. You should be glad, actually. Both you and your legacy will get a happy end."

"It's not the kind of happy end I want, you old mummy fart," she growled, her fists tightening. "I bet the real Batman-sama would be disappointed at you."

"Yes, he would have. Since long ago," he dryly mused. "But you can't resist it, one way or another. This office and the building we are in are completely escape-proof, and the only way you could make a quick getaway, after killing me or not, would be jumping through time. Which you can't do, of course."

"You damn bastard," she hissed. "No doubt this isn't the same Superman-sama, the real one would have never-"

"It's the same Superman. He just got better."

"Then 'better' isn't the word I'd use!"

"Such a crass, troublesome girl," he disapproved. "And to think, if only you had woken up as the Twilight Princess as we calculated, all of this could have been avoided. Well," he said, as he pressed a button on his chair's right armrest, "the sooner you are out of my figurative hair, the better."

Asuna flinched as a panel opened on the desk's surface, revealing a golden watch with a long chain to her.

"Take it already," the old man said, "so we can start with your funeral services immediately. They should be cremating your body right now, as a matter of fact."

"Is this... a Cassiopeia?" Asuna's trembling hands reached for it. "I thought, you said -"

"I'm an old bastard my father would have disapproved of, Princess, and I have very little pleasures left in this life. Please allow me to pull ones over people's heads while I still can. It has the precise time and place coordinates programmed in, and it only can be used once. So goodbye forever, but, before you go... tell Chao Lingshen to never come back. Or she'll be executed on the spot."

"Just like I was?" Asuna smiled, holding the watch close to her chest.

The man frowned. "Mercy is precious because of its scarcity, Princess."

Asuna lost her smile. "Okay... I'll tell her, then. But Negi, how can I-"

"Just be yourself, and act accordingly."

"I think I can do that," she nodded.

"Then don't talk about it anymore and just do it."

"I will. Thank you, Batman-sama. And don't worry, your father's secret is safe with me."

"Otherwise, your funerals wouldn't be staged, Princess."

"Riiiiight," Asuna took a deep breath. "Okay, goodbye. Here we go."

And just like that, she was gone.

"Tt," Wayne groaned, then addressed the shadows on the opposite end of the half-lit office, from behind where Asuna had sat. "Happy now, Terry?"

The batlike figure smiled as it seemed to peel itself off the wall, the suit's camo functions going dormant. "Don't you feel better now, Mr. Wayne?"

"Of course not. I think I'm running out of painkillers. Go bring me some."

"I think you were wrong, though. Your father would have been proud of you."

"He wasn't that kind of man, McGinnis. I don't think he would have been proud of you at all, either. Now, those painkillers, please."

"You're even starting to say 'please'! And it only took you twenty years."

"Don't start pushing your luck now, McGinnis."

* * *

"I don't want to do this," Negi quietly said, as he stood alone with Satomi, Chao, Madoka and Homura.

"And do you think _we_ do?" Homura coldly told him.

"I do," Satomi pointed out.

Negi exhaled and rubbed the space between his eyes. "Listen, please. I know we have to do it. It doesn't mean I want to. I've just been in... a situation where I lost control of myself and I was with a lot, and I mean a lot, of people, many of whom I didn't know very well. And you know what? After the fact, after the rush passed, I... I don't feel good about it, at all. In truth, I feel borderline repulsed. Mostly by myself."

"And yet, you'll do this regardless," Chao calmly pointed out.

"Yex. But just because I have to, and I know you feel the same way, and so I want you to know I feel for you, and-"

"But I want to do it!" Satomi said.

Negi looked at her. "W-Well, in that case, I hope you don't misinterpret my hesitation as a sign I don't like you. I find you actually rather physically attractive-"

Satomi placed her hands on her hips as she now stood naked before him. "I should hope so!"

"Well, yes, I do," Negi sighed. "But there's a lot of room between finding someone attractive and putting all of you into an intimate encounter, so I hope you won't be offended if I can't give my best effort in this."

"I'm a virgin, well, at least in what concerns to men, so odds are I won't be able to find a difference yet. From what the girls told me before leaving, you're unlike all other men even when you're half-performing."

Negi blinked. "Half-performing? I never half-perform!"

"You just said that's what you were going to do," Madoka said.

"No, I didn't!" he protested. "There's a difference between half-performing and not performing as well as you could when your heart's fully into it!"

"Really?" Homura asked as she slowly slid her skirt down her legs. "They sound like the same thing to me."

"No, they aren't!" Negi claimed. "And which girls said that, anyway?"

The seven girls ignored him by this point, looking at each other, all of them in the nude. Homura still was doing her best to keep her eyes off Madoka's petite frame. "We have limited time," Chao said. "Who should go first?"

"Well," Madoka said, "we still have enough time for all of us, and I don't feel ready just yet. Maybe the one with actual experience with men should go first?"

"... what makes you so sure I've had experience with men?" Chao asked.

"She's been the supreme deity over this world before, remember?" Homura dryly said.

Chao sighed and tossed her hands up. "This is why science killed God and then wore his skin," she said, casually advancing towards Negi, then throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him into a violent, deep kiss. His own hands came up and wrapped around her midsection, caressing her ... but also causing her to flinch slightly as they touched a part of her epidermis which was sensitive in a particularly unpleasant way.

For his part, Negi also flinched as he got a good long look at the scarring and tattooing on Chao's naked form, normally covered up by masking spells but in full view now, along with the still forming bruises from their - to her - very recent fight. "Um, Chao-san, you know, I don't this requires, um, I mean, we don't have to do anything if you don't -"

"Oh, no, she is not getting out of this now," Satomi interrupted, frowning grimly as she adjusted the glasses that were the only thing that she was wearing.

"I never said that I wanted-" Chao started to reply.

"Quiet, you!" Satomi declaimed, pointing a non-swirly tipped finger at her. "Unlike you, I've had a few months to think about this, and I've come to a few conclusions that I'm more than ready to air!"

The time traveler glanced at Negi - who had paused while taking off his trousers and watching all this - and then considered both Satomi's naked form and her own, as well as those of Homura and Madoka. "Have you perhaps examined the notion that this isn't the time or place to air those conclusions?" she asked mildly.

"No, and I choose to leave that notion unexamined!" Satomi almost snarled. She stopped pointing and waved her hands in the air. "You tried to manipulate me into acting like someone who's sold their soul to science - 'sold their soul', an absurdity since the soul does not exist and thus has no commercial value, and 'to science', an even bigger absurdity since there is no anthropomorphic personification of science who would buy it! All this, because you didn't want to confront the possibility that your pawns might have more complicated feelings than you're capable of having!"

Now Chao was starting to get a bit angry. "I never viewed you as a pawn!"

"'All that seems like a dream!'" Satomi quoted. "Your exact words! We were all just characters in a story you were telling, all just people long dead that you don't have to care about or even really respect and how am I supposed to take your reassurances about my abilities seriously nughhh?"

As has often been observed, it is somewhat difficult to express oneself verbally when one is being kissed.

"Well," said Negi, observing. "She really is clearly related to me, I guess."

Chao responded to that remark with a raised middle finger as she frantically snogged Hakase. "Yes, I said that it was all like a dream," she softly told to Satomi as she pulled back from the kiss. "But even if I haven't had months to think about it, maybe only an hour, that was long enough that I've realized that it was the sort of dream you never really want to wake up from. And you, and Ku, and Chachamaru ... of all of you, you were the best part of it. No, you were not just pawns. I love you."

"... dit yu shay shum'in?" a goggle-eyed Hakase asked blearily.

Chao let out an exasperated sigh. "Social dominance pheromones are more trouble than they're worth," she muttered in Mandarin, then turned to look back at Negi. "Get over here, will you?"

Obedient as always, Negi headed over in nothing but his boxers, which came off as soon as he was within arm's reach of Chao.

"Ghlghlghl," Hakase said, glasses fogging over, as she got a good long look at what was covered up by said boxers.

"Should I take it that that reaction has become depressingly common?" Chao asked her abruptly weary looking ancestor.

"I'm afraid so," Negi admitted.

"Well, if it helps, you're undersized for my era," she told him.

"... why would that help?" Negi asked, mildly appalled. "And how-"

"Enhancements are wonderful things," she explained, then pulled Hakase down to her knees beside her, and started demonstrating to her how the procedure was supposed to go. Fortunately, Satomi was a fast learner.

So, soon enough Chao was sitting back and watching Satomi's head bob back and forth on Negi's unit with a curious, vague mixture of pride and awkward melancholy. Negi would have certainly realized how telling it was, to see that plainly visible on her expression, since normally she would mask her true feelings under several layers of courageous smiles. (This marked another parallel between both of them, although this bit might have escaped Negi's reasoning even now).

Alas, at the moment Negi, who was only a man or boy-turned-man after all, was too absorbed into Satomi's attentions to truly notice all of that. Satomi's tongue worked diligently on his member and ballsack, and her hands gripped tightly on his buttocks, so, although she was far from being as skilled as Kaede or Asuna, she more than made up for it with drive and enthusiasm. Before too long, he was sighing and giving short, gasping warnings that Satomi really did not get, but that Chao was kind enough as to heed, so she could gently pull Satomi back before Negi ejaculated, spraying white all over their faces.

Satomi coughed frantically a few times while Chao, with far more aplomb, delicately licked the sperm off her lips, then kissed Satomi's mouth a few times to collect the semen spread all across it. Negi, breathing heavily due mostly to emotional reasons, watched her as she made sure to swallow as much of his seed as she could, and then asked her, "Doesn't it make you feel bad at all?"

"Does anything ever make you feel good at all?" Chao asked back. "Be careful, because someone who loses their capacity to enjoy life also loses the capacity to hope."

"Oh, that's true," said Madoka, nodding. "That's very true." She studiously did not look at Homura as she said it.

"I'm not helped by people constantly turning my words against me like that," Negi admitted.

Chao rose back to her feet and kissed him. He flinched slightly, but didn't resist. She held his cheeks in her hands and said, "Lessons stop as soon as they are learned. All of them still have a lot to learn, but so do you, and it seems you still refuse to learn the more important lesson. Finding the balance between what makes you happy and what makes others happy. What makes you happy, Negi? Be honest."

"Other people's happiness," he quickly answered.

"Ah," she meowed, kissing his chin and giggling at his newest flinch. "That's admirable, but keep in mind, nothing that one does will ever make everyone happy at once."

Satomi nodded. "Now that's an empirical fact. For instance, I'm sure this display is making Chao highly contented, and yet I can't help feeling slightly dissatisfied after fulfilling my purpose for this stage of our sexual act."

Chao gave her a dirty look, pulling her towards them. "Oh, for someone so proud of being guided by pure intellect, you can be so much of an emotional drama queen!" She kissed her again. "You know, I never implied directly you were MY ancestor, despite what you might have thought."

Satomi actually pouted, as she felt one of Negi's hands coming to rest on her left buttock, and Chao's on her right one. "That's easy to say when one hides behind skilled words of misdirection that can be taken one way or another, especially by someone with limited social expertise and -"

Chao gave her another kiss. "Oh, be quiet. Of course, the fact I never did imply that doesn't mean I never implied you might have originated another bloodline with Negi."

Negi tensed up, his eyes growing wider, and so did Hakase's.

"Of course," Chao purred, moving aside while bringing Negi and Satomi's bodies tightly together, "that was in another timeline, with several diverging factors. Still, scientific experimentation all but demands that we see if at least some factors from that timeline still hold true under the present circumstances... ne?" she playfully added.

Satomi and Negi were looking into each other's eyes deeply now. She nodded firmly. "For science," she declared, wrapping an arm around his scarred body.

He nodded back, gently bringing her down as he placed herself on top of her. He soothed her tremors with soft cooing sounds, and slowly held her legs apart as he entered her, bit by bit, first the tip, and then, once it was settled tightly against her entrance, he-

"Too slow!" Chao said, slapping his ass so hard he all but shoved himself within the hissing Satomi in a single go.

After several gagging and sputtering sounds, Satomi turned her tear stricken eyes to Chao and promised, "I'll get you for this!"

"Think of it as an incentive for you to miss me less after I'm gone again," Chao shrugged. "Is it working?"

Satomi groaned, tightening her legs and arms around the young man. "I'll ... I'll wait for the experiment's conclusion before being able to answer properly."

"I imagined you wouldn't want to suspend the experiment, huh," Negi sighed before starting to move back and forth as smooth and kindly as he could.

Even now, it troubled him (more than usual) to learn that he had just deflowered a virgin, which obviously was the case here and now. He had heard Satomi's faint sobs as blood slowly trickled out of her, and he could do nothing now but kiss her face and whisper words of comfort to her. That she was a virgin had not surprised him, and she was no sports aficionado, so hoping for an otherwise broken hymen would have been too much. Even so, thinking of how she had just granted him her virginity with no evident second thoughts concerned him, in that it showed she either cared nothing about that sort of important event or, despite her apparent lack of interest in him, she actually felt deeply for him - much like Nodoka, or Ku Fei.

It is unfair, he thought as he rammed into her and vaguely paid attention to her growing cries of pleasure, that I should have that strange gift to attract so many people I can't possibly love back as much as they deserve. Maybe there was some merit to those suggestion of creating copies of himself to-

No. That way madness lied.

"I'm coming," he rasped when he finally felt his climax approaching. "Are you still sure you want it?"

"OH YES YES YES YES YES!" Satomi clawed at his back, and Chao shifted closer to apply two fingers in her colleague's clitoris, applying enough efficiently calculated pressure as to bring her to orgasm at the same time Negi grunted and shot into her. "Aaaahhhhh," Satomi exhaled, pink tongue lolling out.

Chao pulled his fingers back at the same time Negi pulled out with a sighed. She blew on her fingers as if blowing on a smoking gun and winked an eye at her lovers. "Count yourselves lucky you've got a partner that knows all the tricks of the trade!"

"... you do?" Satomi weakly asked her.

"Is that disappointment in your voice?" Chao asked back. "What, did you truly think I'd have become a worldly genius able to master magic and science to incredible levels, plus acquiring great business skills and unmatched martial arts prowesses, without ever dabbling in something as mundane as sex? Something any shmuck walking past you in the street has experienced before being of age to drink?"

"I have to admit I had a more idealized view of you in that regard," Satomi muttered.

"I'm sorry to have failed your expectations," Chao honestly said.

"And your martial arts aren't unmatched, by your own admission Ku Fei is your superior," Satomi reminded her.

"That was a figure of speech!" Chao protested, then faced Negi again, hands on her hips. "Since it's clear Satomi-chan will need a rest right now, but your virility isn't taking it, I think you know what comes next, right?"

At this point Homura was just nervously rubbing her legs together while trying her best to look stoic and aloof at what she was witnessing, not to mention keeping her slightly trembling hands off Madoka's body. Madoka thought it was a really brave and commendable effort, not to mention cute, but she decided not to give it to her yet all the same.

"... but you're my descendant," Negi blandly said.

Chao rolled her eyes. "I seem to remember I am, yes. Just like I was when I first told you about it!" She then took a hold of his member and stroke it, not bothering to be gentle. "Anyway, this isn't getting any softer from looking at my nudity, so you shouldn't bother with pretenses of disgust!"

"The flesh and the reason have their own desires," Negi said. "And I think I'd like to keep at least a few taboos untouched."

"Have you had intimacy with animals?" Satomi asked, resting on a side.

"What? NO!" Negi shouted. He supposed Twilight-san and the others didn't count. They were humans at the time, after all.

"Has any of your sexual activity involved the use of urine or fecal matter?" Chao asked.

"Wha- No, that's disgusting! Why are you even asking-"

"Sexual intercourse with children, as in actual children, Evangeline-san not counting?" Satomi added.

"What kind of sick person would even, um, sorry, don't mind me!" Negi gulped at the mild glares Chao and Satomi were leveling at him now.

"Sex with other males?" Chao asked now.

"Hey, now, homosexuality is not a deviancy, as you should be well aware after what you've just done to me," Satomi argued.

"Yes it is," muttered a certain person.

No one paid Homura any attention.

"I know, but try arguing that with someone raised in a small conservative Welsh town, will you?" Chao said, looking at her but rapping her knuckles on Negi's forehead.

"Well, actually..." Negi started to reply, looking uncomfortable.

"Oh, is that why Fate-sensei was feeling so self-righteous," Satomi said in a tone of great enlightenment.

"Huh?" Negi asked. "What does Fate have to do with-"

"Diaper fetish?" Satomi interjected. Bondage? Erotic suffocation? Rape-themed play pretend? 'Furry' costume play? Sex in exchange for money? Sex with senior citizens who actually look like senior citizens? Cheating on a married couple?"

"Ah, well, I-" Negi started to reply, blushing furiously.

"Cosplay exhibitionism for pay?" asked Madoka, getting into the spirit of things.

Everyone on the hillside turned to stare at her, faintly aghast. Especially Homura.

"What?" she said, blinking innocently. "I'm a goddess, remember? Specifically the goddess of magical girls. I know what my people get up to in order to support themselves financially."

The aghast look of the three principal actors now focused on Homura.

"What? No! I never did, she's talking about someone else!" Homura protested. "I got my money by using time stop to steal it like God intended!"

"Ooookay," said Chao as she made Negi rest on his back and straddled his hips, guiding Negi's dick towards her cunt. "Anyway, as you can see, Negi-bouzu, you still have a lot of taboos left to break. And you still have a lot of ground to cover before reaching my level."

"That's a relief of sorts, actually, but -" Negi blinked. "Wait, are you telling me you've dabbled in inceeeeeeehhhh..." he trailed off as he felt himself enter Chao.

She chuckled, her hands on his chest, her feet acting as leverage for her paused descents and ascensions. "I don't 'dabble' in things. Every single thing I have ever done, I've mastered it."

Negi boggled for a moment before asking, "This isn't one of those strange sci-fi scenarios where you are your own descendant, right?"

"No, I'm descended from you and Anya, but ev-" Chao started to say as she started to bounce steadily on his cock.

"Anya?" Negi and Satomi chorused.

"Oh, yeah, didn't get around to mentioning that this time."

"Wait... no, no, wait..." Negi said, waving a hand at Chao, who'd paused above him. "That, no, I'm sorry, Chao, but what you're saying makes no sense whatsoever, there's no way that it could be, I mean, Anya thinks I'm annoying, she doesn't like me at all, and and and and and -" He began repeating as images played across the movie screen of his mind.

_"It's not like I like you or anything like that!" Chisame declared._

_"It's not like I like you or anything," Evangeline sniffed, looking away._

_"I hate brats like you!" Asuna shouted, blushing brightly._

_"I do not like you!" Anya shouted at him._

_"Don't think this makes us friends or anything," Fate sneered._

"Doyyyyy," said Negi, abruptly gone cross-eyed.

"I think you may have broken him, Chao," Satomi declared a bit nervously.

"Maybe I can help!" Madoka said, eyes bright, as she started towards the two of them.

"No," snapped Homura, blocking her and certainly not enjoying the sensation of running into Madoka's body with her own.

"Oh, he'll be fine," Chao said as dismissively as she possibly could while having toe-curlingly good sex which made it difficult to say anything without it coming out as a purr more than anything else. So not very, in other words. "Mrrrmmmmmmrrrmm, yes, so very good, daddy!"

"-yyyyyyywait, what?" Negi asked, abruptly recovering from his broken status. "Daddy?"

"Ahhh! Well, you see, there's thisssssss whole bunch of rumooooooors about one of my grandpaaaaaarents," Chao explained at length. ""When you have a legendary ancessssssstooooooooooooohhhh - AH! Um, yeah, yeah, reputed to be immortal, well, the notion of him showing up in disgIIIIIIIII oh, gods, yes, yes, YES! CUM!"

He obliged her despite being appalled by what she was saying. "But, I mean, you don't think I'm your-"

"Oh, no," Chao reassured him, kissing him on the cheek as she collapsed on him, grinning broadly. "You're way better looking. And much better at sex."

"Uh."

"Oh, gee, I'm glad you didn't mention that when Kyoko-chan was here," Madoka said as she leaned in towards the two of them. "That's kind of one of her triggers because of stuff that happened to her in the timelines before the one where I was god."

"Madoka, stop bothering them during their pillow talk," Homura said tensely from where she stood a few feet further back, looking away.

"Is this pillow talk?" Satomi asked as she sat nearby, tearing up for some reason.

"No, there's no pillow, so -" Chao started to reply snidely until she got a look at her collaborator and deflated. "Mozi," she muttered. "Okay, over to you, 'god'." With that air quoted remark, she got up and quickly headed over to drop down and embrace Satomi far more gently than one might expect.

Madoka smiled at Negi. "I guess it's our turn, now," she said. "I know it won't be easy for you, since you hardly know me at all, and I wish we had more time to get to know each other, but -"

"It'll be okay," he reassured her. "Actually, it's not that hard at all."

Her eyes flickered in a certain direction. "Eh-heh-heh," she said once she was looking at his face again.

"I mean, well, you remind me of someone that I care about a lot, actually, so," Negi started to explain while making a brief attempt to cover what was, in fact, quite hard, before either sanity or possibly just the awareness of the pointless nature of the act reasserted itself.

"Really?" she asked, blinking. "What's she like?"

"She's wonderful," he told her. "She's brave, and funny, and a lot more clever than she lets on, and loyal beyond belief, and ... I love her," he said, for possibly the first time. "Sometimes I think I don't deserve to love someone so amazing."

"Well, I wouldn't know anything about that," said Madoka, nodding. "But I bet that if someone is as wonderful as you're saying, and if that someone cares about you, too, you should probably just accept that whatever she sees in you that's worth something is probably something you should probably heed. Not that I know annnnnything about people who have that sort of problem, or the people who care about them but are frustrated by -"

"Just get on with it!" shouted Homura, blushing brightly.

"Okay, then, Negi-kun - do you mind if I call you Negi-kun, not Negi-san?" Madoka asked, giving no particular sign that she heard the annoyed hiss that Homura made when she went off on that tangent.

"I'm good with it," he told her, glancing over in Homura's direction to watch her tapping two fingers against her elbow as she held her arms across her chest.

"Oh, good. Negi-kun, I should probably explain that I really don't know much about this sort of thing," Madoka said, blushing about as pinkly as her hair. (For a moment, she actually stopped reminding him of Makie and started reminding him of Utena for some reason.) "Well, I mean, I know about it, because, like I said, I watched my people doing all sorts of things, but I've never actually personally done anything, and ..." She trailed off, flush now almost florescent.

"Normally, this would be where I'd say that we don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but since the whole world will tear itself apart if we don't, I guess that isn't really true," Negi replied, rather blandly. "I'll try to be gentle." With that, he sat up and brought his face close to hers, then kissed her warmly as his arms came up to wrap around her tiny shoulders.

_NO, NO, CHANGED MY MIND, SCREW STUPID REALITY, EAT IT UNTOLD INNOCENTS_, shrieked Homura's not-really-all-that-suppressed-Devil side as she had to watch this. Yes she'd wanted Madoka to find a nice boy and be happy with him, but this boy was the enemy of all women and definitely not the sort of nice boy she'd had in mind. All that came out of her mouth, however, was an unhappy grumble, repeated a second later when she tried to look away from it and found herself instead regarding Satomi and Chao in a, yes, one last time, sexually-charged sixty-nine! Torn between two mutually disgusting sights, she forced herself to turn back to watch Madoka.

Who had in the interval been borne to the ground, Negi atop her, his mouth at her tiny teats, licking and suckling at them while she cooed in pleasure. "Oh, Negi-kun! So very sweet, you!" Madoka added in semi-broken English.

All right, Negi told himself sternly as his hand went down between her legs to rub the tiny bump there, making her coos take on an even more frantic pitch. We don't have time for a lot of foreplay, and she's too innocent for fellatio. Fortunately, she's fairly wet, and I'm still lubricated and oh oh OH I'm so callous, what's wrong with me? He pulled back from Madoka's chest and sighed in dismay. "Okay, Madoka-san, this is probably going to hurt a little," he said as he lifted one of her legs up.

"It's okay, Negi-kun," she assured him, though clearly taken out of her earlier bliss by his statements. "I know that you don't want to hurt me, and so I can endure it, because it's for a good reason, and so I won't cry - much - but I hope that you'll do it soon because the anticipation is worse than -

"I already did it," said Negi, who had in fact penetrated her some time earlier.

Madoka went crosseyed. "Hweh?"

He began moving back and forth within her. "Did you ever do gymnastics?" he asked.

"Nn-nn, nn-nn," she replied, shaking her head back and forth as the sensations swam up her spine while the leg that Negi wasn't holding to one side twitched, as though instinctively trying to lift up to wrap itself around him and pull him deeper into her.

_WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH_, went several aspects of Homura's somewhat disturbed psyche as she watched this.

After a surprisingly brief interval - considering that the traditional understanding of matters is that the time between male climactic events must necessarily increase as the events occur - Negi found himself growing tense once more, and released his baby batter up into Madoka's womb on the downstroke of his pounding rhythm.

"Ahh!" she cried out. "So warmmmm!"

_Right, then_, Negi told himself. _Almost done. Almost done this whole silly sequence of events_. Once more, and then everything will be the way it should be. Aloud, he spoke up, trying in vain to look over his shoulder at Homura. "Okay, then, I guess it's your turn, Homura-sa -"

_**"Meine Meinung geändert,"**_ something said from just outside his field of view. Something shifted there, as well, and there was a strange sound which made him think of nuts being cracked for some reason, and the accompanying sound of something dropping to the grass in a steady flow.

"Wha -" he asked, starting to turn to face whatever was behind him.

Madoka held him in place. "Don't!" she said quickly. "This is my task." After a moment, she spoke a bit louder. "Homura-chan ... stop doing that. It's not going to work this time."

_**"Vielleicht wird es,"**_ the creature which Negi couldn't see said.

"No, maybe it won't," Madoka replied. "I am not going to start hating you, no matter what you do. I will be unhappy if you wreck this like you're doing, and I don't think you want that. Stop playing these silly games, and come here so that we can finish the plan like we agreed. I don't think Negi-kun will mind all that much if you look like this - he's not that particular, I think - but you'll probably be happier if you look like your regular self. Okay? Come here, Homura-chan,"

Behind him, something shifted. From its great bulk, things continued to fall - things which, as they began to fall into his line of view, he now recognized as teeth. But by the time that the creature fully hove into view, there was nothing to see but the petite, dark-haired girl he'd met in Satomi's laboratory, naked and, he now saw, pouting.

"It would have been so much easier this way," she muttered as she knelt down next to Madoka's supine form.

"Yes, but if we did things the easy way, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place," Madoka replied, reaching out to gently caress the side of Homura's face.

"It's not right," Homura complained. "Why -"

"Because I love everybody, and you are part of the everybody I love, so I love you. Even the parts that you don't want me to love," Madoka said, pulling Homura down towards her so that their faces met, and she could kiss her deeply.

"... she really is like me," Negi murmured, shaking his head, as he pulled back from Madoka, and, after a deep breath, began to work on Homura.

* * *

"Bruce, there's something I'd like to ask you, and I'd appreciate an honest answer," said Diana, not even remotely conscious that this might be an awkward way to begin a conversation, because really, what was awkward about it?

"Ask," said the Batman, not taking his eyes off the lenses of his bat-themed binoculars.

"You don't do this sort of thing when Robin goes on dates, do you?"

Although his only audible response to the question was a polysyllabic grunt, it did get him to pull back from the bat-binoculars and give her a sour look.

"It seems a reasonable question, given how you've spent most of the last hour watching teenagers having sex!" she answered the look. "I'm getting a little worried about you!"

"Two teenagers, two entities of unknown provenance who appear as teenagers, and a prepubescent boy magically transformed into a teenager," Batman corrected her as he went back to his viewing.

The Princess of the Amazons took that correction in good grace... which was to say that she throttled the impulse to smack her friend and colleague upside the head. "Nevertheless -"

"Richards has gone home to write up his observations and spend what might be existence's last moments with his family, Strange is off doing... stuff... and Stark has doubtless gone off to hit on the Moon Princess or something. So I'm going to keep monitoring this situation."

"'I keep track of these things,'" Diana quoted in a mock-bass voice. "'Somebody has to.'"

"Exactly. And I think it's over."

* * *

It was indeed over, and Negi had collapsed on his back, staring up at the early morning sky and breathing heavily. "All done?" he asked wearily.

"Yes," confirmed Madoka, holding a blank-eyed Homura gently. They had both redressed themselves in their costumes with a simple act of will, not even reverse-sneezing or anything. "You have created the beings who will maintain/have maintained this reality, Negi-kun."

"All right, then. Asuna should be appearing any moment now, so, unless you actually want to have a foursome with her -"

"No," said Homura firmly.

"Didn't think so. I won't tell her that you skipped out, when she shows up, any moment now. But you should probably -"

"Um ... Negi-kun?" Madoka interrupted. "Did you not really understand what I meant when I said that this wasn't going to help with your problem, but was only going to create a stage on which whatever solution to your problem you eventually came up with might possibly work?"

"Yes, I understood, but, but surely..." And then he trailed off.

"I'm sorry, Negi-kun," said Madoka. And then she was gone, as was Homura.

"Any moment now?" Negi repeated, once more, making it sound like a little prayer.

The artificially aged boy began walking unsteadily towards the tree trunk. When he arrived at last, he leaned forward to rest the palms of both of his hands, and the side of his face as well, against its bark.

"Why?" he asked, quietly. "What did I do wrong? I don't understand. Did I just not do it soon enough? I don't understand. What do you want of me? I don't understand. **Why?"** he finally howled.

"Negi-kun?" asked a voice from behind him.

With some difficulty, Negi managed to push himself back from the tree, then turned around to see who had addressed him. As he did, he vaguely realized that it was a bit strange that he hadn't recognized the voice immediately. Perhaps the roaring noise in his head was distorting his hearing. After all, there was no way that he wouldn't recognize this girl when she spoke to him ... or the one standing right behind her, in silence. It was a little odd, though, how only a little while earlier, he'd been thinking how much Madoka reminded him of her, and now he was reminded of Madoka as he looked at -

"Makie," he said. "And Akira-san." Yes, the roaring must be distorting things. His own voice sounded almost unrecognizable for how unsteady it was.

Perhaps it was even distorting his vision, for Akira's usually stoic features looked utterly appalled at the moment. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "How are you? I mean, uh, I mean, why are you both out and about so early?"

"W-well, you see," Makie started to explain, seeming apprehensive for some reason. "When I finally got back to the dorms, last night, Akira was waiting for me and Ako and Yuna, only Yuna wasn't there because... um, never mind that now, but anyway, she had a very strange story to tell us, and I told her that we should probably get a good night's sleep and then come out here and tell it to you in person. So - let's do that, Akira!" Makie looked up at her with a frightened little smile.

Akira met her face with a perturbed expression. "I don't know whether -" She broke off, shook her head, and then turned to look at Negi. "Negi-kun," she said, looking more downcast than he could ever remember her seeming, which didn't seem to be part of the distortion. "I'm sorry. I betrayed your trust."

He stared at her. "What."

"I told some of the people from the magical world about the things you've been doing, even thought I promised that I wouldn't tell anybody, because I was so confused, and ... and I'm sorry, Negi-kun, and I hope you can forgive me some day, and -"

Negi began to laugh. To someone who'd been exposed to Evangeline's laughter, it wouldn't have been terribly unpleasant to hear, but it was certainly disturbing to anyone who'd never heard him do anything more than offer polite chuckles in response to something amusing. Honestly, it was just plain disturbing, period. Certainly Makie and Akira looked disturbed even to his distorted vision.

"Y-you are apologizing to me?" said Negi, in between gasps of hysteria. "After all that I've done? After all that I've failed to do? After I destroyed your good opinion of me? Betrayed my obligations as your teacher?" He let out a howl, then, almost sounding like Kotaro for a moment, before speech returned to him. "I didn't save Asuna. I didn't save the World Tree. I didn't save the magical world. I haven't saved my father. I've debauched the entire class and oh so many others, I've conceived children just for some esoteric purpose, and ... and ... I ... broke ... your ... heart ..."

"You haven't debauched the whole class!" Makie protested. "There's still Akira left to go!"

"Makie, this is not the time -" Akira started to cry out, then abruptly subsided. "No," she murmured. "This is the time." With that she began walking towards Negi at a slow, steady pace.

"All this power," Negi said, gazing at his hands which he'd held up before him and which were faintly crackling with lightning. "All this power, and I can't ... do... any-"

"Negi-kun," Akira interrupted sharply as she stood in front of him. "Do you still respect me?"

The sheer non-sequitur nearly floored him. "Huh?" he asked softly.

"Do you still respect me?" she asked again.

"Y-yes," he said. "Out of all the girls in the class, you were the one I least wanted to disappoint or upset. And -"

"No," she interjected again, her own hands coming up to press against his cheeks. She might have flinched at the heat that was flowing from him, but now was not the time for that. "You have not lost my respect. I may have damaged my own self-respect, but that was my mistake, not yours. I still respect you, Negi-kun." A heart beat. "I love you, Negi-kun. No matter what happens, what you do, I think that I will always love you. And no matter how much of a failure you think that you are ... you are never going to be a failure in my eyes. So if you believe in this person who believes in you, maybe you can believe in you, too."

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, again feeling the heat and again not flinching.

"Way to go, Akira!" Makie cheered from off-side, pulling out some chalk. "Boy it's a good thing that Haruna-chan taught me how to do the pactio thing, in between times with her brother!"

Since arriving at Mahora, and especially since he'd found himself aged up, Negi had had the opportunity to learn many new things. Until now, however, he had never fully apprehended how difficult it could be to remove a pair of sweat pants without using one's hands - occupied as they were with the shoulder blades of the young woman whose sweat pants they were. Lifting one's foot to try and pull them down through rubbing at the ankle proved less than efficacious, perhaps because of their respective postures - him resting with his back against the tree, her pressed up against him with one leg lifted so that it might have wrapped around his hip had the tree not been in the way.

If the posture was the problem, however, then it was possible that a change in that posture might be a solution. If so, he was about to learn something even now.

_Study, study_, he told himself, then pushed away from the tree, slightly startling Akira - though not enough to prevent her from seizing the opportunity to perform the aforementioned 'wrapping' maneuver - and, with a pair of quick steps, reversed their positioning relative to the tree and pressed her back against it, kissing her soundly on the mouth as he did so. From the sounds coming out of her throat, she approved. That approval became more verbal as he began kissing down her jawline.

"Negi-kun!" she cried as he descended far enough to kiss her sports bra-covered bosom, and proceeded to tear the fabric clear with his teeth. It would probably have been simpler, he mused as he began to tease and bite at her now-exposed nipple, to use his hands to remove it, but he hadn't thought of it until afterwards. Never before had he so thoroughly given himself to the moment as he was now, not even in battle. All else outside of the moment was a blur.

Once he was done, and Akira's nipples both bathed in his saliva, he kissed down her long, flat stomach, briefly fucking her bellybutton with his tongue to her cries of rapture, before once again solving the problem of removing someone's clothes without the use of his hands through the employment of his teeth. First the pants, sliding them down around her knees, and then the bikini briefs beneath, pulling the strings taut until they snapped. He moved in, to repeat the action with the bellybutton with another, much more sexually relevant orifice.

"NEGI-KUUUUUUN!"

Meanwhile, Makie was busily drawing the circle around them for the pactio. It wasn't easy to do, given her lack of experience in circle drawing, but it was further complicated by the way that their feet kept moving, often stepping over the line that she'd started drawing, so that she had to go back and expand the circle. Unfortunately, it was getting to be big enough that the radius was including a chunk of the World Tree's trunk. Makie frowned. Would it still work if it was a pactio oval and not a circle?

Abruptly, another notion occurred to her. "Oh, man, I am such a baka!" she cried out.

Neither of them paid the baka any attention, even as she backed up a few steps from the two of them, put down the chalk and began dragging it along at comedy relief speeds while she ran around the circumference of the World Tree.

"NYAAAAAACCCCKKK," Akira cried, not referring to the village in New York but rather releasing an unintelligible noise that happened to correspond to said village's name. Her left leg had hooked around Negi's neck, and the constriction of her knee as she shuddered in orgasm might have done a mischief to someone who wasn't practically invulnerable. "So good!" she cried out. "So very good! I... I... kiss them, who taught you, so good!"

"You're welcome!" Makie cried out from where she was coming from around the far side of the tree. "Oh, hey, Chao, hey, Prof-chan! Oh, sorry, didn't mean to wake you up like that."

Between the roaring in his head, which had only eased slightly once Akira had come into his arms, and the erection that he had exposed by pushing down his own pants, Negi was a bit too distracted to say anything in response to that. Instead, as he began kissing his way back up her torso, he steadied himself to say something else, for what felt like the thousandth time.

"We doooooh fuck it," he said instead as he came face to face with her, seeing both the eagerness and the apprehension in her eyes. "Are you ready?" he asked, somewhat breathlessly, as he pressed the tip of his erection against her vulva.

_"Yes,"_ Akira whispered.

"Okay," he said, and pressed his lips to hers even as he pushed up into her, past whatever barrier remained after her athletic training.

"Annnnnd circle!" Makie proclaimed as she arrived at the start of the line she'd started drawing an absurdly short time ago. The light surged up around the pair of them, not that they noticed, being fully engaged in the act. Nor did they see the card starting to emerge before the gymnast. "Ah, how cute!" she said. "Look, Akira, it's you in a mermaid costume! And there's a silver border around this one!" Beat. "Why is there a silver border around this one?"

_"Ah! Ah! Ah!"_

_"Akira! Akira! A-KI-RAAA!"_

Makie blinked as she looked up from the card to the lovers coupling against the World Tree, and realized that unlike the times that Ako and Yuna and she herself had gotten their pactios, the light from the circle had not died down once the card appeared.

"Um," she said. "Did I err?"

**No, child**.

"Oh good," Makie said in relief. "Wait, who said that?"

And then the light became all-encompassing.

Negi's eyes were shut. He couldn't see that light. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything. There was only the roaring in his head, growing louder and louder.

_What do you want from me?_ he asked it, as he had before. _I will give you anything if that's what it will take. I will give you everything if that's what it will take! Is that it? Take it! Take all that I have, all that I am, just please, please, please, help me to save her/them/all/everything/please!_

The roaring stopped.

In the silence that ensued, for a fraction of a second, Negi heard a voice answering his own.

**Thank you**.

Then climax took him and his self-awareness ceased as surely as it had when Ku Fei struck him.

High above them, the World Tree soared. Until this very moment, it had also drooped. Branches that had formerly been firm enough for small children to walk along, if they were careful, had begun to sag, just as some lower branches had sagged enough that they broke loose from the trunk and fell to the ground. Leaves had dulled, past brown to almost gray. Death had been drawing closer and closer.

No more.

The light surged up from the roots of the World Tree, suffusing each branch. Leaves gone grey turned brown, turned green ... turned a brighter green than ever before. Branches straightened, extended. New leaves budded, opened, spread. And pollen exploded from each flowering bud, filling the early morning air, with new doses streaming forth every moment, like... well... like a boy spewing forth semen.

But sweeter smelling.

Still sufficiently like a little boy's emissions that it immediately attracted Kitami's attentions as she stood outside Evangeline's cottage, having a smoke in the early morning air. She straightened up immediately as the scent reached her, and realized what it meant.

"The brat actually pulled it off," she said, quietly amazed.

After a moment, a cold smile spread across her face. Although she wasn't being affected by the scent, for whatever reason, she was sufficiently familiar with the effect of similar scents to guess what the effects would be on everyone else. A tidal wave of decadence, disturbance, and dangerous activities was about to crest over Mahora, and she found herself anticipating the results with diabolical glee. The world was once more about to demonstrate why it deserved someone like her.

In fact, before she went to congratulate Negi for his success and let him know what that success had wrought, perhaps there was time enough for some gloating to dear sweet Eva-chan about what her disciple had done ... and then address some other long-standing issues between the two of them. Kitami was, of course, not foolish enough to think that she could actually killEvangeline, but she could certainly make her suffer a bit. Her smile grew positively gleeful as she headed up the stairs into the cabin, all the while imagining forcing herself on the foolish little girl and making her weep.

"Oh, Eva-chan," Kitami cried out as she flung open the door. "I just realized we didn't have any fun together last night! Let's change thaaaaa ..."

And then she saw.

And then she gaped.

"What in the world are you doing?" she gasped as she stared at Evangeline, crouched so that her head lay on Chachamaru's lap while the gynoid sat in a rocking chair and gently petted her hair.

"Picking daisies, what's it look like," Evangeline answered wearily without turning to look at Kitami. "This is what that odor's doing to me."

"This ... this is what you lust for?" Kitami asked, stunned.

"Guess so," Eva replied lazily. Saying, 'it's as close to what I want as I'm likely to get' would have been more accurate, but it would have taken longer, so it was simply laziness, and certainly not any concern for Chachamaru's feelings, that kept the fuller explanation pent up in her mind.

"Well isn't that sweet," Kitami said after a moment, her face twisting in anger. "But meanwhile, there's my lusts to consider, and -"

"You're not affected by the cloud," Evangeline said quietly. "Or you'd understand that it isn't making anyone do anything they don't want to do, or making anyone do anything to anyone else that they don't want to do. But you've never understood that sort of thing, and I'm sorry about that. I truly am. But there's one other thing that you don't understand."

"And what might that be?"

"Chachamaru's not affected by the cloud either."

A few moments later, Kitami came flying out of the cabin's front door to land in the dirt in front of it.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the classroom where he had locked himself up to go over the budgets for the next few school activities, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, with the air conditioner turned on to the max, kept on working diligently all by himself.

* * *

Slowly and sneakily, Misora crept into the front doors of the cathedral. She wasn't exactly praying that no one would notice that she was coming in so far past curfew as to completely redefine the definition of the word 'late', since, despite everything, she still held a few things sacred. But she really really hoped that no one would catch her.

"Misora."

_Aw crap_, she thought as she froze in place just a bit past the doorway. Maybe she should have prayed after all.

Sister Shakti, who had been standing right beside the doorway, hidden by the frame, walked up to the frozen girl and glared down at her. "Where were you? And why isn't Cocone-chan with you?"

"... would you believe -" Misora started to ask.

"No."

"Well, then I'm not sure why you bothered to ask," the student nun said, looking down... then blinked, met her mentor's eyes and asked, "Wait, what's that about Cocone?"

"Misora, this is not the 'you have pulled an amusing if rule-breaking prank and will now suffer the consequences thereof' angry face," Shakti said angrily. "This is the 'students in my care were out all night and now I want to know why' angry face. Do not -"

"Could you two please keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep," came a voice from the pews.

Both nuns blinked, then turned to look at the source of the voice. "Who's that who spoke?" Shakti demanded suspiciously. And loudly.

A sigh issued from the pews. "Well, that backfired," Hiroko muttered as she sat up. "Just a humble seeker of truth, currently seeking some peace and quiet." And possibly, she admitted to herself, sanctuary against the likelihood of Kitami's inevitable betrayal. Despite the noise that had awakened her, the church had actually proved to be rather soothing. Perhaps she should quit her art teacher/white magician gig and become a nun...

_What's that smell?_ all three of the women abruptly thought.

A few moments later, the doors to the church swung open again. "Thank you for accompanying us back to the church, Sister Miyu," said Cocone as she and Alyssa Searrs, who had also been taken captive by Homura in the previous chapter even though she wasn't mentioned at all so shut up shut up shut up, walked together through the doors.

"I am always happy to come to Alyssa's assistance," said the cool young sister. "And you were there too."

"Yeah," said Cocone, letting that slide. "I hope Misora wasn't too ... worried ... about ..." Her chain of words trailed to a halt as her eyes took in the sight of her partner and their mutual superior frantically grappling in a semi-clad state with a third, equally naked woman she didn't immediately recognize, Misora's reddened butt in plain sight, shrieking obscenities as their fingers and tongues worked each other over. Their cries stilled momentarily when they realized that someone was staring at them.

"C-cocone-chan, th-this isn't-" Shakti started to say.

Before Cocone could say anything, Miyu had quickly picked the two young acolytes up and whizzed through the now thoroughly profaned chapel into the cloisters to Alyssa's room, and firmly locked the door to it behind them.

"Thank you, Miyu," Alyssa said, as though this was nothing new to her.

"Buh," said Cocone.

* * *

"So. That happened," said Nao, still blushing almost as brightly as her hair as she sat very straight in her chair, not looking directly at any of her fellow ex-HiME-plus-two around the table set up not far from the Chao Bao Zi's streetcar.

Midori, Natsuki and Mai coughed uncomfortably. Shiho was clutching Tate with a psychotic expression, where he looked haunted. Yukino was clutching Haruka with a haunted expression, where Haruka looked ... well ... psychotic. It balanced out, in other words.

"Indeed," said Shizuru as she took another sip of her tea, looking incredibly blase. "It is somewhat surprising that you managed to resist the temptation to become involved, Yuuki-han. That must have taken remarkable willpower, the sort of thing not even possessed by allegedly very stubborn and determined people."

"killyou," squeaked Haruka. No one minded her.

"What temptation?" Nao snarked reflexively, then coughed as if reminding herself that she was trying to be a better person than that these days. "... okay, it was a little tempting, but the only reason I went there was to find out whether these people could do anything about my ... never mind that now. But anyway, finding out that Rito was there with all those crazy girls who are always hanging out at his house pretty much did a number on any appeal it felt. I'm going to have a hard enough time explaining all this to poor Mikan without confessing that I - guhhhhh," she concluded, facepalming.

"Maybe your cousin or one of those girls will explain it for you?" said Mai in an attempt to be helpful.

"And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt."

"What problem exactly were you hoping to get help with?" asked Midori, eyebrow raised.

"Never. Mind," Nao answered firmly.

Silence fell on the table. Nao's eyes roamed across the other handful of tables, of which only two were presently occupied. One had a trio of middle school girls in really odd costumes, with golden, light blue and hair almost as red as Nao's own. And the other had a trio of ladies who were looking in their direction and, in the case of two of them, another red-head who was carrying the cosplay just a little far with the sword at her side, closely followed by a dark-haired girl in white, getting up and starting to walk over to them -

"Uh, guys, I think we might have a bit of an incoming -" Nao started to say.

"Excuse me," interrupted Lina Inverse rather loudly. "I couldn't help overhearing you talking about some sort of affair you all attended recently, and it raised a bit of curiosity in me about whether or not it might be -

And then the World Tree lit up and a very strange odor filled everyone's nostrils.

A few brief moments elapsed.

It must be understood that Lina Inverse was, at bottom, something of a hick - or, if one wanted to be kind for some reason, a simple country lass. Despite travelling throughout the magical world and now beyond it, her tastes in all things with the exceptions of magic and, of course, food, were fairly simple. She was convinced that at some point she would marry someone - the fact that that someone would definitely be male was not even a question in her mind - and retire from this vagabond life and stay married to him for the rest of their lives. Despite being incredibly vain, she was also surprisingly modest; hence her modest apparel, particularly when contrasted with certain annoying sorceresses to whom she had never felt any stirrings of sexual attraction whatsoever and in particular had never ever imagined forcing down to her knees and between her own legs so that she could scream out -

"Oh, Holy Ceipheeeeed!" Lina shrieked as Amelia went down on her while Lina's butt rested against the table.

"Lina-san!" Amelia shrieked - well, more mumbled excitedly, really - in her turn. "Lina-san!"

All around the table, it was the same. Haruka and Yukino had tumbled to the patio floor, kissing madly, as had Shiho and Tate. They were sufficiently far apart from each other that the two groups had not yet merged into one. The same could not be said of the five on the opposite side of the table, who'd crowded together in one molten blob of bodies.

"Wait," Shizuru exclaimed as she pulled free of the kiss in which she was presently entangled for a moment. "Something seems disturbingly familiar about this -"

"Such a sexy accent!" Midori crowed, and pressed her lips once more to Shizuru's.

"Mrrrmph!" Shizuru replied as her reserves of dignity vanished like morning dew.

Meanwhile, Mai, Natsuki and Nao were also tearing at each other's clothes like wild animals while pressing lips and flesh together. Any vague hesitation that Natsuki and Mai had shown about this side of their affections towards each other during the great orgy in the resort was gone now, as was any shred of modesty that Nao had ever possessed. While Nao's lips closed around one of the nipples of one of Mai's great breasts, Mai and Natsuki kissed one another while Natsuki grinded against Nao's rear.

_So messed up_, they thought as one. _And I don't care!_

Across the way, Erza Scarlet watched all this with stunned amazement. She knew that she should be affected as well - even if she reequipped to one of her armors designed specifically to thwart attacks based on scents at this point, enough of the gas had already gotten into her airway that it would have to affect her. She should be flinging herself at anyone nearby, without regards for the fact that this was another planet where she knew almost no one. She should be doing that.

Except for one thing.

She was Erza.

"Jellllllllaallllllll," she moaned as her hand went down between her legs.

Likewise, a sense of self almost as rigid had kept Yotsuba Satsuki from flinging open the doors of her restaurant's car and throwing herself at the nearest party. Had anyone been there for whom she had a profound affection, matters might have been different, but there were only customers. And she had a duty to her customers, which she would strive to satisfy even as she strove to satisfy herself.

"Mooooore!" came the cry from the window.

Satsuki looked out to see the three small girls, who'd been there even before she'd arrived to open up for the breakfast crowd, curled up together, with the redhead lifting her head to gaze at the Chao Bao Zi's window. "But, Kyoko-san, surely you must be full by now -" she said.

"Fill with moooooore!"

Girl really liked her food, apparently.

* * *

"It is happening," Nijuuin confirmed as he stumbled towards Nitta. "Can you not feel it yourself? The nearly irresistible urge to throw oneself at another, regardless of emotional connection, and begin mating?"

"I ... can feel it," Nitta answered through gritted teeth. "But... it... can be resisted!"

"I am in awe of your willpower, Nitta!" Nijuuin cried out. "My own is not nearly so mighty. It is with immense difficulty that I have not seized upon the opportunity presented by Ninomiya's obviously available rear entryway! Only the thought of my daughter has kept me from doing so ... and as I say that, my thoughts of her begin to turn salacious!" he concluded with a shriek.

"No!" Nitta replied, appalled. "Fight it, Nijuuin! You know that to be an abominable act far worse than anything we have already witnessed!"

"I do, I do, and yet - and yet!" Nijuuin agreed, tears flowing from his eyes. "All I can do is hope that I encounter some willing person between here and the kindergarten! Farewell, Nitta-sensei. I will most likely kill myself if I am unfortunately unable to encounter some willing person... afterwards," he added gloomily.

"Wait!" Nitta shouted, interposing himself between Nijuuin and the door. "Have you truly considered all options?"

"I - are you suggesting -"

"Wouldn't it be better than molesting your child?"

Nijuuin sucked in a breath, then nodded. "For the sake of my daughter," he said, and then pulled Nitta close to him. Things I gotta go through to get laid these days, the closeted gay teacher thought wearily.

In the meanwhile, another teacher who had just been playing a silent, still witness to the debauchery all over the room, not bothering to join in at any given time, simply cocked his head aside.

"Bwaak-bwak buckk-buckaawwkk," Boo Welker-sensei opined.

Sadly, his colleagues were all too absorbed in their respective couplings (and other assorted piece of interaction involving larger numbers) and paid no attention to his wise advice, save perhaps Takahata, who only grunted out a corner of his mouth.

"Bwak. Buck-kawwk kawwk kawwk-kawwwk buh-wakk! WAAAK!" Boo-sensei replied.

"Snort!" said Takahata, acknowledging Boo's point but also refusing to act on it, instead choosing to just squeeze one of Shizuna's large breasts.

Boo-sensei tossed his hands up, which made a few feathers fly all across the lounge, but again, everybody else was too distracted as to wonder about it. He turned around, kicked the door open, and walked out, strutting firmly on his way to the Principal's office.

Again, he kicked the Headmaster's door open- for he for some reason used to have problems pushing doors open with his hands- and announced, "BU-WAAAK! Bwak-bwak-buck-kawk kawk kaw! Buuu-waaaak!"

"Nnnngh?" asked Konoemon, looking up from the girl he was on top of while a beautiful young redhead held up a CD player's speakers while still trying to reach under her skirt with a hand. The three of them stopped for just a moment to stare at Boo, who stared back blankly before simply spinning around and strutting away.

"Bwek-buckawk, bwak bwak. Bawk!" he yelled as he marched off.

"Huh," Asakura Kazumi said over the sounds of _Best of Both Worlds_. "Was that his way to praise you, or an insult?"

The Headmaster murmured a likely answer before returning his full attentions to Sayo, but a second after none of the three were caring at all anymore, anyway.

* * *

Shaking his head to himself all the way, Boo-sensei strutted elegantly yet firmly all the way through the Mahora campus, effortlessly ignoring the mating couples (and trios, and quartets, and several other combinations of varying numbers) along his path.

"Oh, Sensei!" a beautiful blonde tried to reach for him from the bench on which she was being energetically fornicated by a groundskeeper. "Come join us, please!"

"Kluk-bwak-buck-kwk, buck-wakk! Cluck-bwaaaak!" Boo-sensei virtuously refused before slamming his beak on her head, then kept on marching.

The rejected girl rubbed her head and sniffed. "Oh, what a man! Why the best ones always are the unreachable ones? Why?!"

The groundskeeper just grunted as he kept on pistoning into her.

His head high, his chin firm and solid, the teacher moved across the rutting masses, never deviating from his path, his step never faltering. At his wake, sighs and exclamations abounded.

"Sensei! Please, don't ignore us!"

"Bwak-kawk clucckk cuck kuk buck-bwak! Bwaaaaak!" he firmly kicked those trying to grab him aside.

"Sensei, I have always had the hots for you! Don't break my heart now!"

"Kluwwk-kwak buckaw bwe-warrk kak kaw. Buckaaawk!" he said as he literally walked all over those throwing themselves at his feet.

"But, Sensei, you're even hotter than Negi-sensei!"

"Bwark? Bwak-bwak bawk kuc-clawk! Bawak!" he casually bitchslapped a few nude judo-ka trying to rush him from behind and soil his virtue. Once again, feathers flew everywhere for some reason. The world might never know why.

"Just look at him! He's so badass!"

"And what an ass!"

"I never had realized, what great legs he has!"

"For fuck's sake, Mariko-chan, he's just a chicken. A giant chicken!"

"Stop saying nonsense and put your mouth back down there, Kojiro!"

The hero Mahora needed but didn't deserve finally made it to his destination. The kindergarten, past the playground with the Emperor Penguin slide that has been making the rounds through OM fanfiction for years now. Thank you, _Card Captor Sakura_. Boo-sensei kicked the door open, fearing the worst yet braving himself, courageous heart full of resolution and vigor, ready to face anyone who would stand on his way.

Kimura-sensei, who had been slowly advancing towards the assembled cornered children in nothing but trunks, looked back at him, made his best awkward aghast face, and intelligently asked, "Bweh?!"

"Bwak-kluk-bwak bweak. Kawk!" Boo-sensei said before bringing his beak down on the head of the creepy Azumanga import, instantly knocking him down and out.

The children, who had been panicking against the corner, grew starry eyed and looked up at him in admiration.

"Boo-sensei! You saved us!"

"Thank you so very much, Boo-sensei!" a little freckled girl bawled as she hugged his legs.

"We were so, so scared of this weird guy!" a boy sobbed while angrily kicking the fallen and comatose Kimura in the head.

"Bwak-bukawk kwak cluck," the teacher softly said as his arms paternally extended themselves over the terrified children looking for his protection. "Kluk-kluk-kluk-bak-waak. Waaak!"

A girl blinked while touching one of his forearms. "Are these feathers?"

"Rawk-kawk-bwak buckkawwk?" Sensei asked in turn.

"Hm, Kokonoe and her friends?" one of the boys rubbed his nose awkwardly. "Well, they're over there..."

He pointed at the other end of the wide room, where Kokonoe Rin eagerly guided Aoki Daisuke's head between her legs. "Oh, oh, right there, yes, Aoki-sensei!" the tiny blonde panted, wringling her toes while her friend Kagami Kuro hummed as she rode Shirai Sae-sensei's face and Usa Mimi-chan and Hoin Kyoko-sensei engaged into a sixty nine of the sexually charged variety, because it was Darkenning who promised Chao and Satomi's would be his final one, and it's me, OM, writing this piece instead.

Boo-sensei stared in complete silence for a few seconds, then, as he felt his eyes starting to slowly melt down like wax, began to quietly herd the rest of the children outside.

* * *

"Let me see if I understood this right," Officer Kinezono Rio of the Mahora Precinct asked the teacher sitting before her desk, surrounded by children playing all over the office. "You're telling me everyone is having, ahem, wild and wacky rabid squirrel-rabbit you-know-what at the Academy, and that you had to fight your way outside to bring these kids to safety, tooth and claw, against everyone who wanted to you-know-what them. And you."

"Kluk cluck kewark. Buck-buck-bukwaaaaak!" he nodded rapidly, trying to straighten his half-ripped tie and squinting his twitching, swollen black left eye.

"No, sir, I'm afraid the rest of the precinct is too busy quelling the panic riots all over the city. Red skies, assumed end of the world, you know," the busty blonde said as she took notes. It was hard. The guy had the strangest accent she'd ever heard. Darn gaijin. "Anyway, why would anyone want to you-know-what you? You're a giant chicken."

Boo-sensei frowned and expressed his displeasure by pecking on her scalp as well.

* * *

Meanwhile, still in the same classroom, Kiyotaka Ishimaru shapened a pencil and kept on working alone, feverishly. Some of the World Tree's scent might have filtered in under the door and into his nose, but if it did, all it did was to increase his lust for the paperwork.

Which didn't mean he began humping the papers, of course. It might have happened had he been more knowledgeable about sex, however.

* * *

"Damn it Neptune, we're going to be late because of you!" the dark-haired beauty with standard issue twin tails and zettai ryoukai accused as she and her similarly-attired sister tried to chivy the group of girls along. "Why did you have to stop and eat at a time like this?-! We need to be part of the Negi Springfied's plan to save the world! As the religious figures and leaders of the four largest and most militaristic religions in Gamindustri, we deserve to have a say!"

"Mundus Magicus," I.F. corrected gently.

"What have I told you about being party to that sort of heretical talk I.F.?-!"

"But Noire, the place was called 'Pudding By The Bucket'," Neptune said in tones somewhere between a moan and a sigh. "They actually had actual pudding in actual buckets! That's, like, the dream!"

"The dream!" Rom, Ram, Lady Wac and Resta all cheered.

"Hey, wait, what are they doing here?-!" Neptune suddenly cried out, pointing at Lady Wac and Resta.

"What are you, stupid are something?" Noire scolded. "The generals have been with us all along. Really Neptune, it's very rude of you to ignore people."

"But… that means… " Neptune said as she fell into RROD, her eyes becoming wide white discs. "That means this is in the Hyperdevotion Noire continuity! I'm not the main character!"

"Actually, it's more of a mishmash," Dengekiko reported from off to the side. "See, we also have Peachy, Plutia and ReBirth True Ending!Arfoire here with us too."

"Plus the Oracles," Famitsu chirpered in, gesturing towards the miniaturized loli bait hovering in a group with Histoire.

"And all the Makers too!" Nisa declared, her scarf flapping dramatically as she posed in a henshin-hero-approved manner. "Even the ones no longer licensed to be in the franchise or whose companies have gone under!"

"Wha… okay, that's a lot of characters!" Neptune cried. "All of them threatening my main character status!"

"Technically, since this is only an establishing side-scene in a Negima fanfic, you're not the main character anyway," Blanc said pedantically.

And then the scent hit.

"Oh, wow… " Neptune blinked. "Whoa, pure sisterly feelings plummeting… incestous thoughts about Nepjunior rising!"

"Oh, Neptune! Finally, you're returning my feelings!" Nepgear cheered.

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Hey!" Uni and Noire exclaimed tsunderely, even as the held each other for moral support, not thet they needed it, no really, they didn't and oh, the ground was kinda cold and hard and hey why are you wearing my blue-stripped panties and why do you have you're finger there oh my, oh my, oh my!

"Oh, Iffy… " Vert teased, stepping over Ein Al and Estelle rolling around on the ground trying to rip each other's clothes off (Ein Al lost), "It's time we made good on those flirty scenes together… "

"I'm so glad Warechu isn't here," Compa muttered as she reluctantly made room for the CPU to also get at I.F.

As the large group of women began to dissolve into a large orgy of women, Blanc, with heroic resolve, managed to give her little sisters the sternest look she could manage. "Run while you can," she said, even as Lady Wac began to eat her out.

Rom and Ram made it about ten steps before they came together.

* * *

In the restaurant where the Mahora Sensha-do club was celebrating winning the national championship, the scent of well-cooked crab and tonkatsu mixed in with the sweetness of the world tree. In the corner, the three gamer chicks of Anteater team were clumsily trying to put their solo experience to multiplayer, and were actually doing a pretty good job of it. The members of middle school student council, which was also the Turtle team, were participating in their first government scandal. Mallard team, the Morals and Discipline Committee, was down a member, since the committee head was busy disciplining her favorite chronic tardiness case, leaving the two girls with similar appearances to commit pseudo-incest.

Most of the club were having yuri sex divided up by tank team, even the young first years of the Rabbit team. As far as the eye could see in the private restaurant room, young and naked female flesh was trembled, heaved, sweated and did interesting things to each other in between various and strangely military-sounding exclamations. Some, like the Leopon team, had paired off, while others, like the Duck/volleyball team, were taking the time for group bonding, involving entry into orifices with phallic-substitute extremities. One of the younger ones, Karina-chan of Rabbit team, was indignantly disappointed girl-cum tasted absolutely nothing like sweetness or honey, and how could the lemon fanfics lie to her, but she was quickly shut up with the expedient maneuver of sticking a tit in her mouth and a finger up her ass.

Much fun and team spirit was had by all.

* * *

Meanwhile, after wiping some sweat from his brow (strange, he thought, since the air conditioner was working correctly. Maybe he'd make Emiya-kun take a look at it afterwards anyway) Kiyotaka Ishimaru kept on quietly working on his budget planning duties.

* * *

Daidouji Tomoyo was a perfectly ordinary pre-pubescent heiress, of the sort you could find anywhere on the grounds of Mahora. She was a modern renaissance girl, who could sing, dance, sew and have her mom's toy company make prototype products for her like she was about to embark on a life of punishing the superstitious and cowardly for their crimes.

She was also flat on her back, her virginity a fading ache in her loins as she was deflowered in the classical sense, which was an experience she had been very sure would never happen to her, and was a bit uncomfortably surprised to find it was very pleasant, in its own way. A shame about who she was with.

Her best friend's boyfriend thrust shakily into her, his usually serious face covered in a more extensive and intense blush than usual. His eyes were also closed, which Tomoyo found a bit insulting since he was in the process of clumsily pushing up her top. She took some pride in her appearance, after all, although to be sure, what he was exposing generally wasn't for public viewing and this was wrong, so wrong.

She tried to push away his hands and found herself massaging her own nearly flat but forming bosom, which was a lot more familiar territory for her than what was happening below, which also felt pleasant and hmmm, no this was wrong, it wasn't, it wasn't–

"Sakura," the boy above her moaned just as she whimpered, "Sakura-chan… "

For a moment, they stopped, the boy above her finally opening her eyes and looking her in the face, in the eye. Their gazes met, and at that moment, they both agreed on something.

Then the sweet scent rushed back in.

"Sakura," the boy said, hands moving up to her chest. She cupped them, pretending they were someone else's.

"Sakura-chan," she agreed, trying to pretend what she felt was a girl-on-girl strap-on dildo, and the one wearing it was… "Sakura-chan!"

At the fantasy, flimsy as it was– they smelled nothing alike, felt nothing alike– her hips began to move on their own accord rather than due to outside impetus, and she met the next thrust on the way in. Wetness, hardly scarce and hardly all him, began to increase.

"Sakura," he repeated. His eyes were closed again, but then, so were hers. It was easier to pretend that way. The rhythm increased slightly, became distinctly more enthusiastic. His hands cupped her breasts, clumsily rubbed on her nipples. "Sakura."

"Sakura-chan!" she moaned, getting into her own fantasy. Her opened her legs a tad wider, pushed her hips a little more enthusiastically. Experienced hands guided clumsy ones in a mutual delusion to preserve, if not sanity, at least some mutual respect. "Sakura-chan!"

She felt hands leave her breasts, begin roaming the rest of her torso. Down her sides, across her back. They came to her rear and stopped to make themselves at home, getting a good grip as movement became slightly erratic.

For the next little while, invoking the name came out as moans. The heads came together, foreheads touching. Neither opened their eyes. Lips met in mutual self-delusion. The name came out sloppy and strangled.

The end came.

There was a gasp in a mutually familiar voice and two sets of eyes snapped open in panic. Two suddenly embarrassed and borderline mortified gazes met and tried to get as far away from each other as possible, an act complicated since both parties were still in the middle of orgasm.

Sakura stood some distance away, face pink, legs shaky in the way of one trying to hold in nature's call lest one have an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, and looking betrayed. "Lee-kun! Tomoyo-chan!" she wailed. "Why did you two start without me?-!"

A few moments later though, delusion became reality.

* * *

It had been, overall, a fairly good for Jonathan Crane, although not without its downsides.

Waking up very early to the early terrified screams of a few passerbys right next to his window, he looked through his window to see the reddened sky and the idiots standing on the sidewalks and streets, pointing up and pathetically whimpering about the end of times.

The day couldn't have started in a better way. It was the ultimate spread of terror through the ultimate test field; Gotham, at the time, was surely too hardened and numb by years of urban nightmares, including the Ebola plague, the earthquake, No Man's Land quarantine, and the filming of Schumacher's movies, to qualify as a proper subject spawning ground anymore.

After leaving food for the crow, Jonathan Crane went down to his basement, suited up like he hadn't for months leaving his good professor assumed persona behind at last, gathered all the chemicals he had been saving for such an occasion, and joyfully took off into the streets.

He had found little to no opposition as he happily marched through the streets, gassing everyone in his way and taking precise notes on his findings. Once he thought he had gathered enough data from his neighborhood, he kicked one of his victims out of his car, borrowed it, and drove into the campus, where he had started all over again, now with his students...

... three minutes before another strange biochemical substance had been released through the air as well.

Now he huddled behind a wall, hastily writing on his notebook, hat half skewed on his head, his breathing erratic. Was he feeling... fear? It was a certainly welcome feeling, after so many years of losing terror and panic to anything but the Batman, and yet, Crane couldn't help but wishing it had happened under other circumstances.

_Unexplained phenomena of unknown origins has just swept over the campus, seemingly infecting the whole of the staff and the student body at once. Isley probably at fault. Memo to self-find and kill her ASAP. The filters built into my mask to protect me from my own toxins seem to have protected me so far, but_

He yelped as a few naked students, male and female alike, lurching ahead like drooling zombies with twitching fingers, came around the wall, trying to circle on him. The Scarecrow, with the skill of anyone who has had to survive in Gotham City since childhood, pushed them back with a roundhouse kick of his self taught Crane style, sprayed them with some fear gas, and then ran away from him, lanky gangly legs giving him surprising speed as the youngsters behind him coughed and did little else.

The Scarecrow ran into one of the nearby buildings, past several couples who were having sex along the halls, mercifully too engaged into each other as to notice him or even care. He ducked past the first half open classroom door he saw, slammed it shut from the inside, barricaded it with the desk, and plopped down on one of the seats, retaking his notes frantically.

_Fear toxins- all varieties- seem to be overridden by this strange agent, which spreads too quickly to avoid contact with the infected, and is invisible, making difficult to collect samples. Sends subjects on random copulative frenzies, regardless of age or gender. Will try to set trap for a subject, then take and analyze samples from their dead_

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Jonathan Crane screamed as two massive, musclebound arms grabbed him from behind and pulled him back from his seat, violently. Looking back in horror, he saw two females who had been rutting together behind some other seats until moments ago. At least, one of them was a female, and Crane supposed she was fairly attractive. The other one, however, the one who had grabbed him and kept a vicious grip on his bony body, was some sort of tanned ogre with long silver hair, with a hulking figure rivaling Bane's. Only the unobstructed view of her genitalia and her large round breasts identified the fearsome creature as a woman.

"Oh, wow, wow, just look, Sakura-chan...!" the much smaller and curvier girl who was pulling Crane's pants down, sending straw filling all over the floor, giggled crazily as she pushed the pants past down his knees. "It's a cosplayer...! Isn't that, how they call it, kinky? You won't mind pulling him in too, will you, Sakura-chan? At least 'til we find Naegi-kun..."

Oogami Sakura grunted and pulled Crane's mask off. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he cried desperately, beginning to kick away madly, but then she blocked his mouth with hers, and the strange new smell tickling his nose made him relax in the iron-like embrace.

"Oh, but if it's Diedrich-sensei!" Asahina Aoi said, placing herself between Crane's legs and licking her lips all over. "I never thought you'd be on this kinda thing, Sensei! Heh heee!" she mischievously said before her mouth descended on the Scarecrow's crotch.

* * *

Misaka Mikoto was a perfectly ordinary super-powered middle schooler, of the sort you could find anywhere on the grounds of Mahora. Unfortunately, her powers were very unfashionable, since as far as she could make out she was a mutant, and her powers were not the result of being bitten by a radioactive electric eel, genetically engineered electric eel, being hit by lightning during a particle accelerator explosion, or by being exposed to any combination of strange chemicals or energies, but rather a part of her since birth, due to manifest at any moment. Yes, life was very hard to have powers you were born with naturally rather than being given to you by freak and medically impossible random chance, though she was still trying to figure out exactly why. It probably had to do with Americans. It sounds like the kind of thing they'd start.

She was unusual in Mahora, however, for these powers not leading her to a life of adventure, heroism, a group of close friends she would fight beside and for, and sexy hijinks. Other students with powers who spent their spare times saving girls in danger, fighting secret organizations, researching terraforming and unlocking the secrets of the universe and magic looked at her with no small amount of jealous awe as she remained completely uninvolved with adventures and boringly and mundanely worked towards a degree in electrical engineering.

This was all extemporaneous, however, to the fact she was lying back on her bed, bare from her stomach down, clutching her patched-up teddy bear tightly as her friend/roommate/unwanted-lesbian-suitor kissed, licked, rubbed, tweaked, fondled, and fingered her nether regions to a sixth orgasm. As she trembled in pure physical pleasure, Mikoto had to admit that this was definitely superior to the few rather tepid results of her own hurried stimulations in the questionable privacy of their shared bathroom. For one, she wasn't needing to keep an ear out in case her roommate returned and… well, tried to do exactly this sort of thing.

A major part of her was wildly declaring how stupid they were in retrospect, and really, if this was what would have resulted, she should have not only left the bathroom door open but spent every free moment lying on Kuroko's bed in her skin masturbating wildly and loudly lest Kuroko miss the invitation. A part of her that was surprised to find itself so small tentatively tried to remind the rest that they hadn't swung that way, having not been attracted to girls and, if they were being honest, at best ambivalent to boys, with the exception of Negi-sensei, who awakened all sorts of confusing, possibly criminal feelings…

This part was violently mocked and told to shut up as another orgasm rolled through them, and Mikoto didn't bother stifling her loud moan of ecstatic satisfaction. It would be nice to say she'd been hearing the cries through the walls for a while and made the relevant connection, but honestly, she just felt so good… !

And selfish, another small but less mocked part of her chimed in. Hazily, she realized that she had been enjoying Kuroko's ministrations while the other girl had been left neglected. Well, that wouldn't do. Her mother had brought her up right after all, and selfishness was only allowed in the face of chocolate and ice-cream. Shakily, she pushed herself up and made a heroic effort (Kuroko hadn't stopped and was steadily getting her to number 8) to pull the girl up to face her. Kuroko looked up, startled, and that was enough of an opening for Mikoto to tug the other girl so they were mostly face to face. Kuroko's face was covered in wetness and a look of surprise, one that transmuted to an almost embarrassing degree of joy as Mikoto clumsily lay the other girl down so she nestled half on top of her, a warm and comfortable weight, as Mikoto reached down and tentatively tried what little she'd worked out about self-stimulation on another girl, her other arm wrapped around Kuroko to hold her in place.

"Ah! ONEE-SAMA!" Kuroko cried, turning and snuggled against Mikoto as she orgasmed practically instantly, deluging Mikoto's fun-time hand. Kuroko's hands began to grope and fondle Mikoto through her top, a semi-familiar sensation that was currently producing wildly different results than usual. Mikoto moaned, but relentlessly continued her efforts, daringly sticking two fingers into Kuoroko's vagina as she tried to return that favor and grope Kuroko's own chest. "Onee-sama!"

Sparks flew.

* * *

Itsuka Shidou was a perfectly ordinary harem romcom protagonist candidate, of the sort to be found anywhere and were actually so plentiful there were bills in the Diet to have them shipped abroad as a leading cause of Japan's plummeting birth rate.

"Kotori-chan!" He was currently heroically defying this stereotype, however. Shidou gently caressed his little sister Kotori's face as he took her from behind, thrusting enthusiastically into her tight, sloppily wet cunt. She moaned, replying with equal enthusiasm as she pushed back.

"Onii-chan!" she called out. "Fuck me! Fuck my cunt! Stick your dick and pour your cum in my cunt!"

Shidou, being a good big brother, did as she asked.

* * *

Meanwhile, after finding some puzzling irregularities in the budgets he was calibrating, Kiyotaka Ishimaru decided to give President Fujino a call.

"Hello? Fujino-san? It's me, Kiyotaka. Let's see, I was wondering if-"

"AH! AH! AH! OHHHHH RIGHT THERE YESSSSSS!" something that almost sounded like Fujino-san's voice came to him, making him feel oddly intrigued for a moment. "Sorry, were you saying something, Kiyotaka-kuuuuuu-" Then a violent crash, as if someone had just snatched the phone away and smashed it against a wall. There were a few delicate grunts that sounded like they came from Fujino-san and that delinquent Kuga, and a few sounds of flesh slapping flesh, and then nothing.

Ishimaru lifted an eyebrow, shrugged to himself, and decided for once let that slide as he went back to work.

After all, it only meant he had more GLORIOUS DUTIES all to himself! He didn't even notice he was starting to drool...

* * *

Kirigiri Kyoko walked aimlessly across Mahora, her cold, rational nature providing her some resistance to the sexual haze which had descended on the campus. Some resistance, in that she was able to ignore the urge to throw herself into every coupling that she observed. Some resistance, in that she didn't really want to ignore that urge ... but she did, nonetheless.

She'd crossed the whole campus, and seen things she had never seen outside of the pornographic magazines she sometimes studied while searching for suspects. Boys &amp; girls, boys &amp; boys, girls &amp; girls, grown men and women and adolescents, all fucking as though their lives depended on it. Only the very young were immune. In some cases, their caretakers had had the presence of mind to shield their charges from the sights and sounds which were about to occur, before they joined the orgy. In some cases ... that presence of mind had not been present. There would likely be a number of rather traumatized children after this day was done.

Kyoko might have mourned, but she of all people knew that innocence was too fragile to endure in this world.

She walked aimlessly, or so she thought, but eventually she realized that her steps were leading her in the direction of the boys' dormitory where the male half of her class lived. And that they were growing quicker. She smiled faintly at her unconscious as she walked along. She wondered, in a vaguely amused way, whether a certain person had been lucky, or unlucky, enough to avoid entanglement as she had.

She arrived at the doorway to that residence, which opened up into a large lounge. She smiled faintly as she saw Sayaka and Leon frantically coupling on one of the couches there, pleased on some level that her class' best-known sweethearts had stayed faithful to each other, even in this time of confusion. Her smile got just a bit nasty as she saw what was going on on one of the other couches.

"Byakuya-sama! Byakuya-sama! Bya-bya-bya-yachooooo! BYAKUYA-CHAN!"

Beneath Toko - or someone else, perhaps - Byakuya looked up at the world with a frightened expression, and his eyes met Kyoko's. "Help meeee!" he hisssed.

"'And I'll look down and whisper, no'," Kyoko replied, quoting lines that he'd quoted at her once as she walked on by towards the elevator.

The elevator ride took only a few minutes, but it felt like hours. At last, the doors opened up on the right floor, and she walked out onto the hallway. Passing the room shared by Chihiro, Mondo, and Kiyotaka, she smiled once again at the sounds coming from it.

"Aniki! Aniki! Aniiiiiiiiikiiiiiiii!"

Good to hear that was still going well, too. She'd hate it if anything ever happened to that odd friendship. But all such considerations vanished as she arrived at the room, and pushed the door open. Her eyes briefly considered the spectacle of "Celeste" sprawled across the communal area's couch, stocking-clad legs splayed widely as Yamada frantically gamahuched her to her obvious delight, before locking on one specific bedroom door and starting to walk briskly in its direction.

"Kirigiri-san!" shrieked Naegi Makoto as he grappled on the bed with a fair-haired girl grinning frantically. "Help! Enoshima has gone crazy!"

"That's not Junko," said Kyoko as she began to unbutton her jacket. "It's Mukuro."

"Eh?" said Naegi, baffled.

"The freckles?" asked Ikusaba, pulling off her wig.

"Also, I saw her on my way here," Kyoko confirmed with a nod of her head as she exposed her bra and started skinning down her skirt.

"So?" asked Ikusaba, meeting her gaze.

"Nothing of what will happen here should be taken as meaning that I do not intend to see you and your sister arrested and jailed at the earliest opportunity," said Kyoko ... then lunged at the two of them.

"Neesan wouldn't have it any other way," Ikusaba assured her.

"Help!" cried Naegi.

Lucky bastard.

* * *

"Why did it turn out this way?" Rin asked, staring up at the living room ceiling.

"Shirouuuuu!" cried Illya's voice in the distance. "Not fair! It was bad enough that you were having fun with Saber and Sakura and Rin and Rider instead of me, but Taiga now, too?! Not fair! I demand restitution! I demand parity! I demand you fuck me like the naughty loli whore that I am!"

"... 'kay," said Shirou's voice in the distance.

"Why did it turn out this way?" Rin asked, staring up at the living room ceiling.

"Bend over, niichan, here it comes again," said Sakura's voice, quite cheerfully, in the distance.

"Gnaaaaaaaaaagggh!" cried Shinji's voice in the distance.

"And this is really what Tosaka is into?" asked Makidera's voice in the distance.

"Very much so, wouldn't you say, A-ya-koooo?" supplied Rider's voice in the distance.

"Gnaaaaaaaaaagggh!" cried Ayako's voice in the distance.

"Oh, my, oh, my, oh myyyyy, Saber-san!" exclaimed Himuro's voice.

"Why did it turn out this way?" Rin asked, staring up at the living room ceiling.

(Saegusa, in case you were curious, had promptly headed over to the shrine when the confusion hit, and was in the process of demonstrating that while Assassin was bishonen, he wasn't gay. Or at least not exclusively gay.)

"My goodness, we are all acting very out of character," said Caren's deceptively sweet voice in the distance. "How strange. Now Lancer, keep fucking the two of us nicely!"

Bazett's voice proceeded to shout something in Gaelic in the distance.

"Why did it turn out this way?" Rin asked, staring up at the living room ceiling.

"I believe that should be my line," Issei said, staring up at the living room ceilling as he lay naked beside her.

"Oh shut up, you."

* * *

"I wonder what happened to Mikan, anyway," Momo wondered as she gazed out through the window, resting momentarily before her planned dive into the unending maelstrom around Rito which had taken over the main floor of the Yuuki house. "I was really expecting her to get dragged into this."

(In fact, Mikan was presently grinding against and having her lower orifices penetrated by Yami, the latter courtesy of the hunter's shapeshifting hair, within the tunnels formerly occupied by Homura. Yami was only slightly affected by the drug in the air, but she demonstrably had less resistance to ecchi when it came from girls, and virtually none when it came from Mikan. Later, Mikan would get Yami to admit that she herself was just a little bit ecchi through a subtle bit of emotional blackmail, but that still lay in the future.)

"Everybody else has," Momo continued, unaware of the scene change that had momentarily interrupted her chain of thought.

Indeed, just about everybody else had. Zastin had arrived to make a noble attempt to rescue the Princesses once the sky had turned red, only to promptly be jumped by Saki and her posse. Saki had been too hyped up to be really disappointed by her discovery of Zastin's shortcomings. For his part, Zastin had been too stunned by the notion that girls might actually like him to notice any disappointment - or, more accurately, amusement - on the part of Saki, Rin or Aya.

And then Ren had shown up to try and Lala too, and promptly sneezed on the perfume filling the air, and Run had been seized and offered the opportunity to make up with Lala and also have what she wanted from Rito, so that was going well, and once Rito got tired they could turn Run back into Ren (and maybe turn Rito into Riko, Momo thought mischievously) so that things could get interesting ...

"Haaaahhh," said Lala as she sauntered nakedly into the living room where Momo was resting. "So much fun! This was a really good idea, Momo!"

"Thank you, oneesama," Momo replied, eyes shining. "It's really all been for your ultimate benefit, this harem plan of mine, and I'm so glad that you -"

"Yeah, about that," Lala interrupted. "Momo... the harem plan..."

"Yes?" Momo asked, wondering how much her big sister was going to expand on her designs.

"Forget it," Lala said gently.

A pin dropped, somewhere.

"What?" Momo asked weakly. "But... but oneesama, we've all - and you've - and all the girls whose feelings depend on-"

"I understand all that, and I feel sorry for those girls, but Rito is going to marry me and maybe Haruna-chan, because he's loved her for so long and she's awfully cute, and that's it. No harem."

"But... but... you were okay with the idea of him marrying everybody -" Momo babbled out in protest.

"Ah, but that was when I was innocent!" Lala explained cheerfully. "Now that I've lost my innocence, thanks to you, dear little sister, I'm a lot more selfish and jealous. I miss my innocence, a little, but it can't be helped." She shrugged cutely.

"Gyaack," expounded Momo.

"I'm glad we had this little chat," Lala said, heading back into the fray.

"But... but... but..."

And then hands wrapped around Momo's sides. "Naughty, naughty Momo-chan, getting up to all this naughtiness without letting me know!" cooed Risa into her ear. "Time to make amends with your body!"

"Waaaaaaaah."

* * *

Elsewhere, far away, Kirisaki Kyoko sighed sadly.

"What's wrong, Kyoko-chan?" asked the director of the TV spot they had been filming before the skies had changed and production had made everyone to shuffle back into the lobby of the hotel. "I mean, well, other than-"

The famous starlet smiled, also sadly, at him. "It's nothing, Tamaki-san. Really! It's just, well, I'm kind of worried about Run-chan right now. You know how, sometimes, she can't handle crises that well when left by themsel- herself, I mean."

"Mmm-hmmm," the director nodded absently, looking past the glass of the doors and towards the deserted Hawaiian beach. "Well, it's important to keep a positive mind! I'm sure you'll get to ask her how she's been doing soon enough..."

"Y-Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm sure we'll live on past this! Let's have faith!"

"That's right. And even in the worst case event, at least I'm glad I got to be with my favorite actress one more time before-"

"Oh, don't even say it...!"

"But, it's what my heart is telling me to say, Kyoko-chan..."

They traded a discreet glance at each other, nodded in silence, and then headed upstairs together while the rest of the staff was busy listening to the WGTBS news.

A moment later, her bedroom's window exploded from within in a burst of flames.

_"Whatever the problem is, I'll solve it by burning it!"_

"DAMMIT, KYOKO-CHAN! *THIS* PROBLEM CAN'T BE SOLVED LIKE THAT! JUST LET ME GO LOOK FOR MY VIAGRA!"

* * *

Not too far away from _that_, Chiba Mamoru stood in his apartment and stared out at the red sky of morning with a grim expression that would have looked perfectly at home on the Batman's face. When this had begun, he had prepared to go out to come to the assistance of the Sailor Senshi as he always did, only to get a phone call from Usagi telling him that the situation was being handled by someone else and that he should just stay home. So he had done so, and waited ... and the situation wasn't changing.

He had no idea what he ought to do. He had no idea what he could do. He had no idea if anything he might do would even matter.

But in that case, the only thing that mattered was what he did do.

And so, with a gust of wind, his clothes transformed into an elegant set of evening wear, accompanied by a long black cape, and a mask appeared on his face as his hat settled on his head. Thus attired he strode towards his apartment balcony.

He abruptly stopped dead in his tracks as a bright light shone behind him. He whirled, cape held up as a shield while his other hand went down for one of his exploding roses, only to pause as he recognized the forms standing in the light - five girls he knew well. "Sailor Moon?" he asked, bewildered.

Conveniently, she was standing on the far side of the Sailor Teleport circle, so that when her eyes opened, they immediately fixed on him. And then ... he must be imagining things, but it seemed to him that the pupils of her eyes took on a shape not unlike that of a symbolic heart. _""MAMO-CHAN! TAKE ME!"_ she shrieked, and pounced.

"And us, too!" chorused Sailors Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus - the lattermost with pupils and corneas resembling hearts as well.

"No, not you too, mine, mine -" Sailor Moon declared as she pulled off Tuxedo Kamen's belt.

"Usagiiiii," Sailor Mars growled. "Shaddap!" And to make sure that she couldn't, she promptly kissed her leader soundly as Tuxedo Mask stared up at them and the other three senshi continued to pull at his clothes.

His doom, if doom it was, drew nigh.

* * *

Back at Mahora, Iron Man stood by a spot of grass in Mahora that still smoked and glowed. "... does that mean you're not interested? Damn," he softly said.

* * *

"Um, Satsuki-sama," Nonon said hesitantly as she walked beside her master through the town streets filled with coupling individuals and pluralities.

"Yes, Nonon?" Satsuki replied without turning her eyes from the World Tree.

"Do you think maybe we should also-"

"No. Never. When I choose to engage in such matters, it will be because I choose to do, not because of some strange influence on my actions. And I am sure that you, who choose to stand with me, are the same way."

Nonon, rubbing her legs together in a way that she hoped was discreet, nodded forcefully after a moment. "Of course. I merely asked to determine your intentions, Satsuki-sama."

"Indeed. Others may fall to their urges, their strange sick urges, at this time, but not Ki-"

"KIRYUUIN SATSUKI!"

"Oh, shit," groaned Nonon, facepalming as Satsuki turned from her course to inquisitively gaze upwards towards a nearby lamppost, where a young girl with a bright red streak in her coal black hair, wearing a most unusual outfit, was standing and pointing a finger at her.

"I know that this must be your fault somehow!" Matoi Ryuuko declaimed. "All this bizarre, sick, not-sexy-at-all stuff that is happening here and that also happened in the car between Mako and Gamagoori and that has scarred my tender maiden eyes for life, it ... it's your fault, isn't it!"

"Please just tell her it's not," Nonon murmured, too low for Ryuuko to hear.

"And if it is?" Satsuki sneered up at Matoi.

"Aw, nooo," Nonon groaned.

"What will you do about it, Matoi Ryuuko?" Satsuki continued, sneer growing more pronounced.

"I'll, I'll, I'll -" Ryuuko screeched - and then lunged at Satsuki.

Nonon closed her eyes, and did her best not to hear the sounds which told her that the confrontation, if you could call it that, was quickly becoming something other than a fight. Unfortunately, doing that made her notice the sounds of a car bouncing up and down, up and down, and mindless girlish giggles coming from the same direction.

"Aggggh," she muttered. "Shut up shut up shut up!"

* * *

Elsewhere, Tsukuyomi, heavily bound and gagged as she sat in a cell beneath Mahora's church, felt a strange and mysterious sensation of annoyance over and above how she felt about being unable to do anything while she helplessly watched Touko and Kataragi violently coupling before her tender maiden eyes.

_It's like someone stole my schtick_, she thought. _But how? How?_

"Ah, it's happening here, too," said Nui as she poked her head into the cell block. "How boring!"

"Ngggh!" Tsukuyomi grunted.

"Hi there, Yomi-chan!" Nui said with a wave. "Still tied up, huh? Wow, you suck. I bet you're hoping that I'll set you free or possibly perform bizarre acts of sexual torture on you while leaving you bound, aren't you?"

Tsukuyomi nodded rapidly.

"Yeah, no. That's not happening. You see, I'm so constituted as to feel the opposite of whatever someone is trying to make me feel. And since this drug in the air is making people horny... I'm just sort of bored. And, like I said, you suck, so I think we should see other people. Well, I think I should see other people, I don't really care what you do after this. It's not me, it's you. So, anyway, byyyyyeeee!"

And just like that, she was gone.

Tsukuyomi found herself wishing that her girlfriend had literally carved her heart out of her chest... which, she supposed, might have been the point of the exercise.

* * *

And then she was back.

Asuna wanted to look around at her surroundings, to determine how long it had been since she departed. That was a bit difficult to do, though, given that her attention was forcibly grabbed by the sight of Wonder Woman, minus certain significant portions of her costume, astride Batman's recumbent (and likewise slightly denuded) form, rocking back and forth with herculean force, panting and gasping in a variety of languages as she did. What could be seen of Batman's face beneath his cowl (which he was of course still wearing) was more poleaxed than anything else.

"Um, hi there!" Asuna said, since announcing her presence seemed the polite thing to do.

"Buzz off!" said Wonder Woman in Greek.

"help," said Batman.

"Right then," Asuna said, and turned to start walking in the direction of the World Tree. She wondered whether this was what was going to result in the birth of that Damien fellow. No, probably not, she decided, shaking her head. In any event, it now seemed apparent that it was just a little bit after her departure. Nothing looked to be on fire, so things seemed to be going rather well, given the givens. And the World Tree, which had looked so droopy and fragile, was flourishing, glowing with vitality and probably magical energy. It seemed to her that the branches of the tree shifted slightly in a way that resembled a wave of greeting to her, so she answered it with a wave of her own.

"Asuna-san!" called a faint voice from somewhere not too far away. Asuna found herself bracing to receive a hug delivered by dynamic entry. When it became obvious that nothing of that nature was forthcoming, and the cry was followed up with, "Help!", she started walking towards the World Tree, as the voice seemed to be coming from that direction.

She blinked as Makie's crumpled, unconscious form came into view, and bent down to shake her awake, since despite the urgency of the moment, she could already see who was calling for her.

"Oh, hey, Asuna," said Makie, as she came around. "You wouldn't believe the dream I just had-"

"Probably not," Asuna interrupted, since listening to stories about someone else's dreams wasn't really on her agenda. "What's up with Akira?"

That got Makie on her feet, and together the two of them hurried to where Akira was nakedly crouched by the base of the World Tree. "Thank goodness!" Akira said, expressing more emotion in that one moment than Asuna had ever seen from her. "Something's happened to Negi!"

"Uh... yeah," Asuna agreed, still staring. "Something other than the obvious, because, y'know, that has been happening a lot. What... what was it?"

"I don't know! We were... and then... he-" Akira looked to be on the verge of panic. "And he won't wake up!"

"Ah," Asuna said, nodding. "This, I can do something about." Deep breath. "You dummy! Why are you crawling into my bed again!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Negi immediately woke up. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so-" he started repeating, then broke off in mid-apology. "Asuna?" he asked tremulously.

"Sure looks like me to me," Asuna replied, idly patting herself on the head and shoulders.

"But... but when did you get so tall?" he asked. "And... and why can't I see you clearly?"

"I didn't get tall," she told him. "As to the other-" She produced a pair of spectacles from nowhere in particular and set them on his nose. "Is that better?"

"Much!"

"Okay," she said. "So... how did you do this?"

"Do what?" Negi asked, then looked down at his ten-year old form, and murmured a confused, "Oh".

"Indeed, 'oh' would seem to be the appropriate reaction," Asuna said, starting to unhook her skirt.

"Asuna-san!" Akira gasped. "Surely you don't intend to-"

"Oooh!" Makie grinned.

"Huh?" Asuna asked, dropping the skirt to reveal that she'd picked up Setsuna's trick of wearing bicycle pants underneath.

"Oh," said Akira.

"Aw," said Makie, pouting.

"See, even Akira thinks it's the appropriate reaction. But you should probably just call me 'Asuna', since we're pole sisters and all," she added to Akira.

"I thought you used the expression 'eskimo sisters'," Negi replied a bit dazedly as he stood up and shuffled off his trousers, dangling around his left foot and now miles too big for him. So was the undershirt he was still wearing, but that was a lesser problem at the moment.

"And I thought you said that was a bad word and those people preferred to be called Aleunuit, or something like that," Asuna replied absent-mindedly as she slid the skirt up around his legs and cinched it around his waist, like a kilt.

"And I thought his relationship with Evangeline-san was very strange, but this takes the cake," Akira observed, dressing herself while listening.

Negi and Asuna each gave her a look- one apologetic, one vaguely amused. Then their attention returned to each other.

"So I guess this wasn't part of the plan?" Asuna asked.

"- part of the - Asuna, every single bit of my plan went out the window as soon as you didn't appear again within a few moments of your departure. I'm not sure what happened, but..." The boy trailed off, turning to look at the flourishing World Tree. "I'm not sure," he said, in a much more hesitant tone, as if he was somehow unsure of his lack of surety.

"I think maybe I made some sort of miscalculation," Makie suggested, embarrassed. "Maybe that's why it's laughing at me."

"... why what's laughing at you?" Asuna asked, eyebrow raised.

"You can't hear someone gigg-" Makie started to inquire, then paused as a rare moment of common sense intruded on her awareness. "Um, never mind, I'm probably just imagining things."

**Hee hee hee hee hee hee**.

"Or something."

* * *

"I suppose you're wondering why I've called you here," Kitami said, as she smirked in the general direction of the World Tree. "I've always wanted to say that, so I suppose that I do feel a certain measured amount of gratitude to you for facilitating that, Tomaru-kun."

She turned to regard him with the same vicious smile as he stood on the hillside nearby, dressed in an unseasonable trench coat over his usual, slightly unfashionable garments.

"No," said Sawagoe Tomaru, through gritted teeth. "I can't say that I was. Nor do I give a damn about your gratitude. Give me back my amulet, you cunt."

"Dear, dear, such language," she cooed. "And I was actually considering returning this to you, too." She held up the amulet in question, obtained from a desecrated church while the individual she'd had guarding it had been ... distracted.

It glistened in the clear light of day, and Tomaru unthinkingly reached out for it - only to find it jerked firmly out of his reach, and Kitami's wagging finger held up to block his path.

"Tsk tsk tsk. I was considering it. Now I'm not. Anyway, the reason that I called you here was that so you, one of my lesser triumphs, can witness my greatest yet - the perversion and corruption of one of the world's greatest heroes!"

"... I'm leaving," Tomaru said, and turned to go.

"You'll stay exactly where you are or I will be sufficiently annoyed," she snapped. "Now ... bear witness." And with that she whispered something in Latin, something that caused the sounds to be heard immediately beneath the World Tree, some distance away, to become quite audible where they stood.

_"So you finally made a pactio with him, Akira-san?" asked the voice of Princess Asuna._

"_I guess so, though I didn't get a card," said a soft voice in response._

_"Ah, I'm such a baka," said the voice of Sasaki Makie. "Here it is, Akira-chan! Your card, with its pretty silver lining."_

_"Silver lining?" Asuna inquired. "That's new."_

_"Yes, it is, and I'm afraid I don't know what it might mean," Negi's voice admitted. "But ... thank you, Akira, for being with me in this time of trial ... and I'm sorry that I can't fully return your feelings."_

_There was the sound of a deep breath._

_"Makie," Negi continued. "I've had a lot of time to think about this, and ... I've realized that what I thought was love for you was just a silly infatuation. I didn't know you well enough to say that I truly loved you -"_

_"Negi-kun?" the girl's voice interjected tremulously._

_"- but now I do. And now I know that I truly do love you. All of you. Even the parts that aren't sweet or cute, I love them just as much. So whatever you want to do, I want to do it with you."_

_"You mean -"_

_"Yes, Makie. I look forward to sharing you with your little brother."_

Kitami let out a faintly maniacal laugh as she ended the listening cantrip in mid-joyous squeal from Makie. "Do you perceive it now? The depths of my triumph?"

"Big fat hairy deal," Tomaru replied, plainly unimpressed. "I do worse things before breakfast, most days."

"But you were never an innocent. I have lured an innocent and a paragon into the depths of such sin as to make angels weep and -"

Kitami's rant, which would doubtless have made reference to how badly disobedient to the Ten Commandments the modern age had become - ignoring that said Commandments had been disobeyed from almost the moment of their inscription - was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a personalized ring tone resembling the Bible Black theme music. She froze momentarily, before quickly pulling the phone out of her coat pocket. "Excuse me, I have to take this - yes, Master?" she said, sounding rather obsequious.

Tomaru just glared as she listened to the other side of the conversation, which he of course couldn't hear.

"What? What do you mean?" Kitami said after a moment.

And then abruptly he could hear it. "Maybe I should increase the volume of this call a little, since you seem to be having problems hearing me," declared a feminine voice which somehow contained a phenomenal amount of sheer malicious menace. "You've blown it. Our current projections show that there's virtually no chance that your little side project will turn to us for help and make wishes with our office. If anything, the chances of that have gone down, now!"

"No! That cannot be!" Kitami cried.

"Oh, you just screwed yourself with that one," Tomaru observed with a smirk that almost matched the one she'd been wearing at the start of all this.

"He'll have to! He's corrupt, and sick, and depraved - he won't be able to turn to the forces of 'good' for help, he'll need -"

"It's not working out that way, Kitami-chan! He's one of those types who can come to terms with his current level of crapulence, without sinking further into it. You blew it! And with the amount of magic you've been spending lately on this project ... we've reached the conclusion that allowing you to continue acting as our agent is no longer in Hell's best interests. Your time is up. See you real soon." And with a click, the connection was lost.

A moment later, there was a rumble in the Earth. Beneath Kitami's feet, the ground began to shift apart. "No," she said frantically. "No! I can still fix this! Don't -"

"Give me my medallion, woman!" Tomaru snapped, smirk banished. "You're done!"

Suddenly a great calm seemed to descend on Kitami, as she saw one last way to hurt someone, even as the ground split open to reveal a passage filled with brimstone gas. "Perhaps. But I'm taking you with me." In the last second before the earth beneath her feet gave way, she whipped the medallion around like the noose of a lariat, landing it on Tomaru's neck with her hand wrapped around it. And then they both dropped, screaming all the way.

The passageway to the infernal realms closed itself a moment after those screams vanished.

* * *

"Did you hear something?" Akira asked abruptly.

"Oh, wow, I really thought it was only-" Makie started to exclaim.

"A rumbling noise?" Akira continued.

"- you, yeah, must just be you," Makie continued.

"There might be some sort of seismic disturbances from the revitalized World Tree," Negi speculated. "Perhaps we should go pick up Linsheng and Satomi and then get back to the dorms."

"Linsheng, huh?" Asuna asked, smirking a bit. "Right, let's go -"

Just as she turned to walk in that direction, the World Tree's gate opened again in its usual blinding radiance, this time depositing a pair of travelers somewhat more roughly, as though they were tumbling out of it rather than being transferred while standing.

"I can't believe that worked," said a familiar voice.

"You'd better be glad that worked," said a less familiar one. "If we ended up tumbling through space and time for all eternity, I was going to eat you raw."

Again, Negi blinked away the blindness, and gaped. "Chamo-kun?" he cried out.

"Aniki!" the ermine also cried, like one stranded in a desert and perceiving an oasis nearby. He promptly ran over to the magician's leg and began holding it. "I'm sorry, aniki, I'm sorry I left you alone for all these years -"

"It's only been a few weeks," Negi said vaguely.

"- years, years I say, years where you were without the benefit of my guidance and advice and you've probably been-" Chamo paused, took a long whiff, and stared up the leg he was holding at something hidden behind Negi's improvised kilt. "Aniki, what the actual fuck?" he asked.

"Ah-" Negi stammered, then, desperate for any way to avoid this conversation, looked towards Chamo's traveling companion. And then looked towards Chamo's traveling companion again, because she demanded a second look.

"Hey, there, Negi," said the fifteen-year-old-looking red-haired girl who was, despite everything, clearly Anya. "Everything", in this case, included a sneaky, triumphant smile.

"Anya?" Negi gasped.

"Uh-oh," chorused Makie and Asuna.

"Excuse me, Chamo-san, but could you tell me what this silver lining on my pactio card with Negi-kun is supposed to mean?" Akira said, bending down to show the card to the ermine.

"Uhhhhhh," Chamo said, staring at the card. "It - uh - well ... it's a permanent pactio," he admitted, stumbling back from Negi's leg, and in the process looking from Akira's face to Negi's, and then to Asuna, Makie and finally Anya ... who was in the process of turning bright red. "Oh, lordy lordy lordy," he said.

"NEGI!" the not-quite-so petite Russian girl shrieked. "What have you been doing to make a permanent pactio?"

"Could you keep it down, please, some of us are tryin' to sleep?" came Chao's voice from not too far away.

* * *

With a blissed out sigh, and his cheeks softly flushed for some reason, Kiyotaka Ishimaru absently fixed the neck of his uniform, dusted himself off, and walked out of the classroom. He realized it was very late as he marched down the deserted corridors. Wow. Had it taken him that long to complete all the budgets? Well, it had been well spent time, of that there was no doubt...

He was greatly shocked when he saw almost everyone gathered outside, in a gigantic crowd surrounding Headmaster Konoe. He had to wonder what was up, and why they hadn't called him, if it was something as important as it seemed to be...

* * *

The door to the lady's room of one particular cafe opened, and Enoshima Junko peeked out, with a confused look on her face, her usual twin-tail hairstyle now being supported by black and white bear hair decs in the opposite of their usual positioning and her shirt buttoned up far more than it usually was. She stepped out of the doorway and was soon followed by a young man with icy blue eyes and wild white hair, wearing a green hoody and jeans with the zipper undone, and a look on his face every bit as confused.

They looked around, making sure no one else was there, then turned to each other, and declared, in startling synchrony, "This never happened."

"Right," said Junko, wondering how something that had failed utterly to fill her with despair could have been so much fun.

"Right," said Komaeda, wondering how something that had failed utterly to fill him with hope could have been so much fun.

They stood there, rather awkwardly, for a moment, before turning their backs on each other and walking briskly away in opposite directions.

* * *

A few hours later... after the skies had finally gone back to their regular blue color, after Asuna's bone-crunchingly huggy reunions with Konoka, Setsuna, Ayaka and, well, most of the class - Evangeline stood sneering in a way that might have fooled a small, not particularly clever child as to her pleasure at Asuna's return, and Chao just smiled enigmatically in a way that might have made a certain twin-tailed girl want to punch her very very hard - and also after everyone else on campus had calmed down and started to return to their original business, accompanied by a faint ukulele rendition of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'... the Headmaster called an assembly - of every class, every school, every person in the Mahora district.

They gathered underneath the World Tree, serving as the largest open space in the area and also (unconsciously, in most cases) linked in the public mind with recent events. A platform had been hurriedly set up, with several of the senior members of the Faculty already standing there as Konoemon approached the microphone-equipped speaker's pulpit. He paused briefly as he passed by his daughter and son-in-law, the latter of whom was stripped to the waist, holding a naked sword in one hand, smiling maniacally and firmly tied up with strong-looking ropes. "Um, is something the matter, dear?" Konoemon asked Kouko, hesitantly.

"Well, you see-" she began to explain.

"KILL NEGI," Eishun declared, eyes seeming to glow. "KILL NEGI REPEATEDLY."

"Oh, dear," Konoemon murmured. He also noted that Takamichi was doing his level best to make himself inconspicuous beside Kouko, and shook his head before stepping up to the pulpit.

"Ahem," he began, his voice magnified many times over. "It has been an interesting day, hasn't it? Many... unusual and uncharacteristic things have happened. I'm sure many of you are quite confused by recent events."

"Damn straight!" echoed thousands of voices in response.

"And I'm sure many of you would like an explanation."

"YEAH!" again the voices echoed.

Konoemon began stroking his beard, maybe just a touch nervously. "But ... if you think about it ..." His oration slowly ground to a halt, as did his beard stroking, and finally he let his hands fall to the side, and shrugged. "Fuck it," he declared. "It's all Negi's fault. Go bother him for an explanation if you want one. I'm tired of all this bullshit, really. Being turned into an ermine is going to come as a relief. So what the hell." He reached out, pulled the microphone out of the pulpit, and proceeded to drop it to the ground before walking away.

Right around then, five mismatched figures walking from the distance stopped by the assembly. Sawanaga Taisuke was the first one in the crowd to notice their arrival, and blinked in probably exaggerated surprise. "Ah! Kurosaki, Sarutora, Orihime-san, Kuchiki-san, Ishida!"

"'S up," Kurosaki Ichigo greeted apathetically, a hand half-raised. "What's going on?"

Itou Makoto, who was looking away from the confused crowd and their erratic chattering, joined in the conversation, mostly to escape at least momentarily from the eerie looks Kotonoha and Sekai were giving him. Even Kiyoura was starting to join in, which was all sorts of creepy. "What do you mean what's going on? We're discussing about what's been happening since yesterday, of course!"

"... what's been happening since yesterday?" Orihime Inoue innocently asked.

"And who are you two anyway?" Ichigo asked next.

"Who are-" Taisuke echoed faintly before exploding. "I'M SAWANAGA AND THIS IS ITOU, DAMMIT! WE STUDY IN THE SAME FUCKING CLASSROOM AS YOU, AND WE WERE IN THE SAME FUCKING 'NAGI-SENSEI MUST DIE' MEETING LAST WEEK!"

"... eh," Ichigo shrugged and snorted. "I'm bad with names."

"And faces," Kuchiki Rukia reminded him.

"Rub it in, will you?"

An angry Kiyotaka emerged from the crowd, fists shaking at his sides in a fit of self righteous frustration. "That's the same thing I'd like to know! Why no one will give me a straight answer?! What's been going on that has everybody so... so... acting so strange?!"

Taisuke leveled an odd glare at him. "Just out of curiosity, what had you been doing all day long before-"

"I had locked myself up to go through my duties without being bothered!" Kiyotaka responded. "Any problems?!"

"Figures," Taisuke sneered. Then he looked back at his other classmates and asked them, "And what's your excuse?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes and sarcastically said, "Well, if you really need to know, we were in Soul Society, the afterlife, helping the Shinigami to deal with an attack of the forces known as the Vandenreich, which for us took weeks but only lasted less than one day in Earth terms. Satisfied now?"

"Ah," Taisuke quietly answered. "Well, I guess that explains why you weren't around. Not even for the assault on Mc Dowell-san's cottage? Really?"

"... my God, you're actually believing it, aren't you," Ishida Uryu said.

Makoto shrugged. "A lot has happened through this day. At this point we believe pretty much anything."

A bawling redhaired girl with glasses violently threw herself at Orihime's feet and tightly hugged her legs, making her shriek. "Hime-chaaaaaaaan!" Honsho (not Naba!) Chizuru wailed. "Please forgive me! I don't know yet whatever came upon me, but I was weak, and the desire was strong, and I let Tatsuki take advantage of me!"

Arisawa Tatsuki stomped a foot down in the dirt, then chose using it to punt Chizuru's butt instead. "What the hell! You were the one jumping on me and ripping all my clothes off!"

"Well, you certainly didn't fight back a lot this time!" Chizuru sniffled in her direction.

Sarutora Chad, Ichigo and Uryu all shared mildly creeped out looks, then began to quietly walk away from the group. "Well, yeah, um, have good luck and fun too, I guess, with this thing, whatever it is," Kurosaki said.

"Yes. What he said," Ishida agreed, starting to speed his pace up a little.

"I still don't understand," Kiyotaka blandly said, his eyes tiny. "What does Honsho-san being the way she usually is have anything to do with-"

Rukia, who by now had mostly figured the basics of the whole thing out, just placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. "Iinchou," she told him, "Perhaps this is an exceptional case where you should choose to remain in ignorance rather than fighting it."

"But ignorance is always bad and wrong, and isn't this an Academy, a temple of learning and self discovery where we all should-"

"Just take my advice and forget about it!" Rukia raised her voice.

Makoto blinked as his cellphone beeped. "Hello? Oh, h-hey, Mom. What? Itaru is with you? But why? Dad's house... WHAT?! Um, no, well, I'm okay, only a bit..." Then he looked towards where Katsura, Saionji and Kiyoura and now Kuroda all stared fixedly at him, standing next to each other, and deflated with a whimper. "On second thought, Mom, I think I'm in real serious danger here. Could you please come pick me up?"

Then the sky turned red again.

* * *

"Oh, low blow, grandpa!" Konoka exclaimed as she watched the assembly through binoculars.

The entirety of 3-A, plus quite a few of Negi's newer... friends... had assembled right below the World Tree to welcome Asuna back, congratulate (and/or subtly threaten) Makie for having openly won Negi's heart and boy parts, and (in the case of Nodoka and Yue) prevent Anya from following through on her declared intention to kill the dirty rotten pervert leek. Spying on the assembly, as their position allowed them to do, was gravy.

"I'm sure your grandfather has his reasons, Kono-ojousama-chan," Setsuna told her.

"Oh, he definitely has his reasons for throwing Negi-kun under the bus, but it's still a low blow!"

"Um, well," Negi said as he endured having Sad Eyes gazing at him while Anya cursed his name and ancestors. "It all just sort of happened, you know?"

"It just sort of happened?" Anya shrieked. "Who are all these people? I don't even know who some of these people even are?"

"Oh, join the freaking club, you annoying childhood friend," Ayaka said crossly.

"Indeed, I suppose it would be appropriate to introduce her," Kiryuuin Satsuki declared, clapping the shoulder of the girl with the red streak in her hair and the equally red face who was standing beside her. "This... is my girlfriend."

"What?" gasped Matoi Ryuuko. "I'm the girlfriend?"

"Did you want it the other way around?" Satsuki inquired.

And then the sky turned red.

"Negi!" Asuna shrieked. "I thought you fixed this!"

"I thought I did, too!" Negi replied, turning to stare at the World Tree. "I don't understand!"

"Is this bad?" Makie asked in a tiny voice.

**No, child**, said the voice only she could hear. **It's something funny**.

"KILL NEGI!" declared Eishun, abruptly standing before Negi.

"Oh, wow, Daddy burst his bonds and ran off!" Konoka declared, still looking through the binoculars. "I wonder where he went?"

Just as Eishun's sword was about to come up to run Negi through - and reveal the loss of Erebus' protections, which had not yet been discovered - a tiny red-haired girl who looked like she should be in kindergarten abruptly dropped out of the sky and landed on his head, knocking him momentarily senseless.

"Ah hah!" the little girl declared as she saw Negi watching this through tiny dot-like eyes. "There you are! Give me the Springfield Family Jewels!"

It began to rain girls. A few boys, too, but mostly girls. Mostly red-heads, in defiance of the actual workings of genetics, and mostly landing softly, in defiance of the actual workings of gravity.

"DADDY!" not a few of them chorused.

"Fear not, Father-person, Rika will protect you!" declared one of the girls, who looked exactly like Shiguma Rika.

"Fear not, Father-person, Rika Junior will protect you!" declared another one of the girls, who also looked exactly like Shiguma Rika.

"... the heck?" said the actual Shiguma Rika.

"Fear not, mother dear," declared one of the young men to Anya, who was still being held by a (figuratively petrified) Yue and Nodoka. "I have arrived and shall help you to steer father towards an appreciation of more modestly endowed figures, such as your own perfect... um... not that I've noticed or anything," he concluded, blushing brightly.

"Gyah nyah myah uyah," Anya replied, eyes spinning.

A red-haired teenaged girl in a long black coat paused as she rushed past him. "Alex! Stop bothering your mother and help me get things back under control!"

"In a minute, Arika!" he replied tersely.

She malleted him. "Anarchia! Call me Anarchia, dammit. And not in a minute, right n- NIGEL! Stop bothering your sisters!"

"KILL... NEGI..." declared Eishun as he was grappled by a group of tiny girls who vaguely resembled Setsuna, Tsukuyomi, Natsuki and Midori.

Yet another tiny girl, an exact duplicate of his daughter, was standing between him and his intended prey, and she spoke up. "But Granddad, you don't want to do that. If you do that, I won't have any brothers and sisters and then I'll be lonely just like Mommy always was and you don't want me to be lonely like Mommy always was, do you, Granddad?" She puppy-dog pouted at him.

Eishun made a strangled noise, just as Kouko arrived to try and take him back under her control.

"Hi Mother-the-Sequel!" cried the little girl. "Kourin-neechan is around here some place and she probably wants to say hi to you too!"

"... how thrilling," said Kouko.

"Isn't it, though!" cheered Haruna, grinning broadly. "Okay, whichever one of you is my kid, I really want to -"

"Hello, mother person," said a tiny girl who vaguely resembled a five-year old Sextum, standing behind her.

Haruna whirled, stared down at her. "No," she gasped. "You mean after all that fucking with Negi and my brother and that Taisuke creep, the one who knocked me up was -"

"I hate my life," announced Fate, doing his best to ignore five of his alleged children surrounding him and giving him the Care Bear stare.

"Wow, quintuplets," said Sakurako dazedly. "How lucky!"

"Qudruplets," one of the mini-Fates informed her with a glance at Shiori.

"Ah, gotcha."

Negi found himself in somewhat horrified agreement with Fate as he surreptitiously made his way away from the currently paralyzed Eishun in search of some vague sign of sanity in all of this. It was all surely because of what he'd done with Madoka and Homura. Oddly, the only girl around who resembled either of them was Makie. What he found instead was a familiar head of blonde hair and a profile that he thought he recognized. "Oh, Kitami-san, there you are -" he started to say.

She turned to look at him bewilderedly, and he saw that the girl in question was a teenager wearing an antiquated Mahora uniform. "I'm sorry, have we met?" she asked. "My name is Kitami Reika, but ... I ... the last thing I remember was starting my first day of school and now I'm here, and ... what's happening?"

"It's okay," he assured her, finding strength in the fact that someone was even more bewildered than him. "Let me help."

"... now I wonder how that happened," mused Chao, watching all this from a safe distance.

"It's actually a very interesting story," said a girl standing beside her. She had long hair and an unfamiliar face that grew more familiar with each moment spent looking at it. Pieces of faces from borrowed memories could be seen there. Konoka, Chisame, Sakurako, Misa, Madoka, many others. And one more face, in particular.

"Wait a minute, aren't you -" Chao started to ask.

"Sanjou Kozue," the girl said, nodding in agreement.

"... but ... they told me that I wiped you from history."

"They're not as all-knowing as they like to pretend," Kozue replied. "Here I am regardless."

"And you ..." Chao paused, resting a hand against her stomach. "Are you my child?"

"Nope. We're sort of sisters. Well, actually... no, never mind. It's a verrrrrrrrry complicated bloodline, best discussed another day. Come on. Let's go help them out."

* * *

**THE END...**

* * *

A few days later, Orihime Inoue sighed as yet another girl rushed away from her, blushing and giggling after leaving her with a parfumed love letter in her hands. "I swear, why did this have to happen to me...?" she moaned pitifully.

Standing in the hallway with her, Ishida shook his head and said, "Well, right now you're pretty much the only virgin girl left in the Academy, at least past the sixth of elementary. I imagine that has something to do with your sudden violent spike in popularity."

"But, but there's Rukia-chan as well!" Orihime pointed at Kuchiki.

Rukia answered her with calm collectedness. "I'm more than five hundred years old. Since when were you under the impression I was a-"

"Don't go all Aizen on me, it's just plain creepy!" Orihime whined, then tightened a fist in frustration. "I can't take it anymore! They stalk me wherever I go," this was said while a loud**JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII** sounded right around the hallway's corner, "they overstuff my locker with letters, and Saki-sempai won't stop calling me demanding for her top spot! I have to do something about it!"

"Well, and what could you possibly do?" Ichigo shrugged. "I mean, you'd pretty much have toooooooooo-!" he trailed off as Orihime forcefully grabbed him by the collar and began pulling him away down the hall.

"I think the Neighbors' Club is now lending their clubroom thanks to Shiguma-san," Rukia helpfully informed. A beat. "And the other Shiguma-san. And the other one."

"Thank you!" Orihime firmly exclaimed as she stomped away dragging the choking and kicking Ichigo with herself.

As he saw them disappear down the hall, Ishida adjusted his glasses, which had grown rather foggy. "This... this isn't, I think I should, what I don't even-"

Chad threw his massive hands up and began walking away in the opposite direction.

* * *

**OR IS IT?**

* * *

_Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane_.

He sat alone in the padded room, reading the newspaper with interest, legs crossed, a slipper dangling around playfully on a chalk white foot.

Outside, the feral, savage groans and moans of self-induced pleasure coming from the other cells, and those of the staff having their way with each other, had finally stopped. And the headlines said the skies all over the globe had finally returned to normal, and worldwide panic was receding after a few public declarations from Superman and Mr. Fantastic, so Joker guessed everything was okay again. Bummer.

And no, don't ask how both parts of the preceding paragraph fit with each other in the timeline. Gotham and Arkham were almost as weird as the Joker himself, after all.

He scratched his forehead, as oblivious to the side effects from what had happened in the main focal point at Mahora as he had been when everything started. Again, weird guy. Even weirder than Gotham and Arkham, even if not by that much.

Then his eyes tilted slightly up.

"Are you still here? I thought you'd have left after the fapping material stopped," he said, sounding slightly annoyed.

Then he grinned. "Oh, I know, you're hanging around for the omake chapter, aren't you? A good perv never quits, it seems! Well, have fun, then. As for me, I'm actually kind of shocked I didn't have that much of a role this time, but hey, for some reason, some people doesn't automatically think of me when they think of sexy."

He rolled the newspaper up and chuckled devilishly. "So make sure to enjoy the next chapter! I heard it's written by the same guy who actually has some talent and wrote most of this chapter, unlike the bum who barely could stumble around until this point. Have your fun without shame! After all," he said before whacking the Fourth Wall with the newspaper, "that's why we're all here, babes! Hah ha ha ha ha!"

* * *

**Not The End**.

* * *

And so, after everything was set and done for the time being, although there is no such a thing as a conclusive ending, Ohtori Akio, Headmaster of Ohtori Academy, sat at his office, smelling of fragant fresh roses as always, behind his shiny white desk, smiling gently at the newest addition to his teaching staff.

"Oh yes, of course I have heard about Mahora," the dark skinned handsome man smoothly said. "A true shame to all involved, if the rumors are to be paid credit. I hardly could believe my good friend Konoemon could have ever allowed let it happen, but I feel inclined to believe someone of your reputation and moral stature."

"Bwak-bwak-cluck-cluck," the just hired teacher replied.

Akio nodded. "I can fully understand your outrage. Let me assure you, however, nothing like that would ever happen in Ohtori under my direction. Welcome then, Boo-sensei," he smiled, and his teeth glinted brightly under the sunlight coming through the ofice's large windows. He extended a hand ahead, and Boo-sensei gave it a friendly, manly shake.

"Bu-waak wak-wak-wack buckawwk! Cluck cluck!" the teacher enthusiastically said.

Akio nodded again, chuckled softly while pulling his hand back, and then blinked, staring at something now stuck between his fingers.

"Now, where did these _feathers_ come from...?"

* * *

**The Ever Lovin' End!**

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED IN  
CONQUESTS OF AN ACCIDENTAL STUD-MONKEY II: A COMPLICATED BLOODLINE

AND

SIDE CONQUESTS II: A VERRRRRRRRRY COMPLICATED BLOODLINE

* * *

(OM's Note: Wait, _seriously?!_)


End file.

Negima! Magister Negi Magi/魔法先生ネギま！, Humor, Romance