OverMaster's Little Crummy Corner of Sub-Par Writing

[OverMaster]

"But then we went and had some really good pizza, so the day wasn't a complete bust," Harley explained to Mizuno Ami as the girls sat in Ami and Minako's apartment in the Mahora student residences. "And normally it's hard to find good pizza in Japan, I tell you. I miss Big Tony."

"Screw your pizza, I'm going to lose my Mamo-chan to a guy...!" Minako lamented, keeping both hands on her own head. "This isn't fair, I keep him safe from a pheromone loaded supervillainess and a Lolicon Papacon fetish fuel station attendant, and I lose him to some random foreigner in all too tight pants...?!"

"I'm a pure and innocent girl, you take that back!" Chibi-Usa said.

"If you were pure and innocent you wouldn't know what she's just said..." Usagi pointed out, moodily tapping her fingers on the table. "Anyway, Mina-chan, don't you think you're taking this too far? Mamoru's not going to leave you just because some guy shook his hand! After everything you've gone through together, you should know better!"

"That's right, and besides, if he stopped being gay it's because he realized he's not into men after all," Ivy tried to comfort her.

"He said he never was gay to begin with!" Minako wailed.

"All the same, none of us know much about Sempai's past, do we?" Ami asked. "Not even himself, wasn't he left with several holes in his memory? There's no reason to think that man must be lying when he says they truly knew each other."

"You couldn't even blame him, that guy's kind of hot," Harley shrugged, taking a sip from her Coke can. "I'd hit that."

"You'd 'hit' on anything!" Shiho reminded her. "And both Hotaru and I felt the evil vibes coming from that freak, there's no mistaking it! He's an enemy and we must prepare an attack plan on him!"

"As long as he doesn't actually do anything evil, we can't do anything to him, but we could search for him regardless if you guys gave us a clue or two," Artemis said from where he sat next to Luna on the couch. "I don't know, an accent? Did he look like any of the Dark Kingdom soldiers? Anything like that?"

"He's kinda generic. The only traits I could give you besides being Evil Gay and aloof would be that he has a plant motif, much like Red," Harley said. "I mean, even the name's sort of a hint."

Ivy hummed. "I couldn't feel a direct connection to him, however. Not the way I could when I look at Woodrue or Swamp Thing. There was something... alien about him."

"Alien in the literal sense, or...?" Mayu doubted.

"I don't think we should read much into that, all of us are the reincarnations of aliens, and only two of us are evil," Usagi shrugged.

"Hey, I thought we weren't going to keep on harping on Shiho and the Doc over that," Harley said as Munakata and Akagi frowned. Chibi-Usa yawned and began lulling in place, Hotaru quick and quietly moving along so the smaller girl could rest on her shoulder. "Say, it's late and Pinkie's falling asleep, why don't we call it a night and we stay over, to see what can we do about it tomorrow? I figure things can wait 'til then, can't they...?"

Somewhere, out in the pitch darkness of the night, a small, dark green seed flew from the sky and, unnoticed, drilled itself into the ground, not too far from Mahora's fabled, gigantic so-called World Tree.

In a couple of hours, while most of the city's greatest defenders slept, the seed had bloomed into a large red flower.

---

Early next morning, Akira woke up as she heard the front door ringing. Rubbing her eyes, she worked her way out of the upper bunk she'd been sharing with a snoring Minako, making her way past down the one under them, where Ami and Usagi still slept on soundly.

Hotaru and Chibi-Usa were sharing a futon by the bedroom's door, the former tightly clinging to the latter, and walking out, Ritsuko was splayed on the floor, in panties and bra, with a smuggled empty can of beer still in her hand. Katsuragi-san was probably being a bad influence on her. Mayu and Shiho slept together on the couch, which probably meant Harley and Ivy had probably gone to sleep together in the tub again.

Sleepily, Akira wondered about the best way to ensure whoever was ringing this wasn't the aftermath of a lesbic orgy, but when she opened the door, that concern was briefly pushed aside, as the urgence on those mismatched eyes- one blue, the other green- was unmistakable and actually quite concerning.

"Asuna-san?" Akira blinked. "What's wrong? You sure look troubled...!"

"Oh my gosh, thank Heavens!" Kagurazaka Asuna sighed loudly, storming in and closing the door after her. "At least you are okay, I was starting to think I was the only- Huhhh, what about them?" she winced, pointing at the sleeping young women all across the living room. "Don't tell me they got them, too!"

"Them?" Akira repeated. Ritsuko hiccuped and began pushing herself back up, and that actually made Asuna breathe easier for some reason. "Please calm down, Asuna-san, what are you trying to say?"

"W-Well, I left Konoka sleeping this morning while I went to make my delivery rounds," the papergirl and Akira's classmate began explaining agitatedly, "but as I made the rounds, I started seeing people sleeping on the streets, everywhere! I tried to shake 'em up, and nothing! I mean, they breath so they can't be dead, but-!"

"Wazzat?" Shiho groaned, shuffling up onto her shoulders and smacking her lips together, slapping the dozed Mayu's hand off her ass. "Who's dead now? Geez, you guys never come bearing any good news..."

"Iinchou, Konoka, Negi, Honya and Yue, all asleep too when I ran back, and I can't wake any of them up either!" Asuna was ranting desperately, pacing back and forth while Ritsuko sat up on the floor, paying attention, and Usagi and Minako peeked out the bedroom, blinking and squinting. "On the plus side, there's a really nice scent of roses everywhere, but that's no proper trade!"

"Roses?" Ritsuko repeated, even as Mayu finally woke up as well, scratching herself on a cheek. Then the blonde frowned and shouted at the bathroom. "ISLEY! Bring your ass over here, this is your field of expertise!"

---

"Yeah, this is right what I was telling you about," Asuna said as all of them, Luna and Artemis included, stood by the bunk where Ami kept on sleeping, impervious to all attempts to wake her up. "Nothing works, ever. Not shouting, not splashing them, not tugging on their hair, not biting them..."

"You even tried biting?" Harley blinked.

"Hey, I was desperate, okay?!" Asuna replied. "Octopus-chan, Mayu-san? Any luck there?"

Shiho sobbed pitifully, putting her phone down. "Nothing! Oniichan and Mana-Oneesama won't answer either!"

"Neither will Hanabishi-sama!" Mayu said. "Ohhhh, that damned man!" she seethed. "I'm going to break him so badly...!"

Asuna blinked. "Which man are you talking about?"

"Long story," Minako sighed, cutting a call she'd just been making. "Mamo-chan's fine, he's gearing up and will greet us outside. Okay, odds are we were spared because of our Star Seeds and Asuna-san's got her Magic Immunity thing, who else do we know who could be still available?"

"I don't know... Chachamaru?" Akira doubted, starting to make a call. "Oh no, she's out of range, she must be with Eva-san in the resort..."

"Okay, we aren't getting anything done by standing here, it's not like anyone's breaking in for Ami while were're outside," an antsy Harley said, already in full Sailor Uranus regalia. "I say we head out and just find Flower Boy already, unless someone has a better idea? Doc? Red?"

For once, none of them actually had, so soon they were out and beholding the desolated streets of the Mahora campus, littered with figurative early birds- students and teachers alike- passed out on the sidewalks and streets. "Well," Harley observed, "this is gonna make a real drag out of today, huh?"

"No kidding," Sailor Moon said, kneeling by a woman and taking her pulse. "They're in like a coma, and if even Shiho's sister was affected then- Ahhhhh!" she cried as, out of nowhere, the woman moved an arm, grabbed her by a leg, and slammed her against the pavement. "Sonuva-!"

"Sailor Moon!" Chibi-Moon gasped, as the unconscious citizens of the campus began rising back to their feet stiffly, eyes still closed while lurching ahead for the Senshi. "Oh, no, what's going on...! Puu?!"

"I'm sorry, Small Lady, but I still have no idea!" Sailor Pluto frowned, readying her Time Key and hitting a first man lunging for her in the face. "Uranus, Neptune, you'd better hold back! We're watching on!"

"Social pressure! You're starting with the social pressure already!" Uranus complained while giving a roundkick to three women closing in on her. "I tell you, if Old Man Cucumber Head or someone like Death Glasses Teach comes by, I bet you'll be singin' a different tune, Doc!"

"Until then, though!" Pluto growled, bashing on a Karate Club student trying to reach Sailor Chibi-Moon. "Mars, can you pinpoint the source of this?!"

"Give me some room to breathe and we'll talk!" Shiho said, pulling back, closing her eyes, and bringing her hands together. She concentrated as Sailor Jupiter and Saturn kept the zombified citizens away from her, everyone else taking the fight somewhere else along the street. "Let's see, let's see... This... This doesn't feel like the Dark Kingdom's energy, but, but... There!" She pointed up a tree, where a large pinkish flower of freakishly long and thick petals had taken root on one of the biggest branches. "That thing's emitting spores or something...!"

"What?" Sailor Venus blinked, looking up at it, even as the flower, with no warning, detached itself from the tree and dropped onto the pavement. It scattered around wildly in all directions over several moments, startling the Senshi and moving on its roots as if they were thin spiderlike legs. Then the flower seemed to expand upwards, the petals growing unnaturally and peeling open at the same time, and out sprouted the top half a of a sinister but beautiful woman with pale blue skin and long, wavy, dark blue hair, still circling around on a lower half made of the flower itself. "Ewwww, what the heck...?"

The monstrous woman turned one of her arms into a gigantic mass of vinelike tendrils, and swung it around, grabbing Sailor Mercury by the throat and slamming her against a wall. "Mercury!" Minako, Usagi and Chibi-Usa all cried, and Akira gasped, kicking around even as the fiend began strangling the life from her. Sailor Saturn frowned and made a low sweep with her weapon, stabbing at the monster's midsection and forcing her back, making her drop Akira on the street.

Hissing evilly, the monster shook, and several smaller seeds jumped out of the flower, breaking into the ground and, just as quickly, shattering back and out, blooming into new, smaller demon flowers scuttering around to join their mother. Sailor Neptune blinked at this. "Very well, youve got my attention now..."

Sailor Mars sighed, rotating her arms around. "Okay. Okay, if we're dealing with plants, then obviously fire's the way to go. Just step back and keep the morons away, I'm going to roast a few-"

Then something, a regal blue blur, shouted and dropped from a nearby rooftop, swinging by and cutting cleanly through the main flower monster, bisecting her with a single, decisive motion of an invisible blade. The street trembled for a moment as the dying creature screamed, gren juices flying in every direction. And, with a smaller thud, the figure who had just joined the fray landed on her feet and on top of the being's destroyed body, scowling sternly, all splattered in green but no less beautiful than before.

"Ah!" Asuna blinked, as the smaller flower monsters scurried away from she who had just annihilated their mother unit so completely with so little effort. "Of course, you've got Magic Resistance! Saber-san...!"

The short, green eyed blonde in the blue battle gown nodded only once at her. "Miss Asuna," she flatly said. "It's good to see you safe and sound."

"Whoa, who's the babe?" Sailor Uranus blinked, leering ahead and casually backpunching a man trying to sneak on her. "She's got sick moves...!"

"She's... a classmate of mine," Sailor Mercury explained, rubbing her throat.

"Ah, well, in a way, that explains everything," Uranus nodded. Akira was confused, even as she also casually punched one of the last few manipulated bystanders trying to come at them. Should that make her feel offended, or praised?

Saber was nodding at Asuna. "Yes, Shirou won't wake up either, and neither will the Tohsaka sisters or their Servants," she was explaining. "But I've got a high Magic Resistance, and so should at least a few of the other Servants out there. Whether they would help or hinder us, naturally, is another matter altogether."

Asuna nodded. "I see! Well, we'll worry about crossing that bridge when we get there!" She turned to the Senshi and their cats with a smile. "It's all right, girls, Saber-san's on the level! She's like the most awesome warrior to ever have lived, so we're fine as long as we are with her!"

Saber, meanwhile, was plucking a small red fruit sprouting from a leg of the dead flower monster and studying it closely. "I wonder if this is edible? It looks appetizing enough..."

 

[OverMaster]

"Ah, ha ha, y'know, Red, it's kinda funny you ain't freaked out yet over the death of that other plant lady," Sailor Uranus teased as they walked up the streets of Mahora, with Sailor Mars leading the way. Shiho's sixth sense was tracing a path towards the World Tree, and so they were following it, ever alert to their surroundings. Well, most of them at least. "Seriously, what gives about that?"

"I told you, it doesn't feel like these are real vegetal lifeforms," Neptune said uneasily, eyeing the creepy flowers now growing around the streets, often choking the life of the local plants, wrapping themselves around them. "They feel more like a perversion of The Green. They make me disgusted, not at ease."

The World Tree was close up the hill by this point, and Saber made a hand gesture at the other girls who marched behind Mars and her. "Slow down. These are Caster's domains, and her sentinel might be close, even though I cannot feel their presence yet."

"Not everything is always about your Grail War, Saber-san," Asuna said, rolling her eyes. "Seriously, just because you guys shaped history, you're always feeling like you can just derail our own stories and take over! Not that I'm not thankful for your help, mind..."

"What you explained about it sounds interesting, though," Uranus opined. "Where do I have to sign up to get one of these Servant things?"

"We are not things!" Saber said, clenching her teeth, before a figure appeared blocking their way in the middle of the pathway. "Assassin?!" she growled, preparing her unseen blade.
"Ah," the man who had just shown up in a flurry of petals said, eyeing the Sailor Senshi coolly. "You are the nuisances from yesterday..."

"W-What?!" Sailor Venus gasped. "I, I have no idea what are you talking about, this is the first time we meet!"

"No, I'm pretty certain you are the self proclaimed 'girlfriend' of Mamoru-kun," Fiore said, looking at her with contempt. "The same dumb eyes, the same fat hips, the same stupid red bow..."

"Ahhh!" Uranus gasped. "He can see Venus' fat ass through the charm?!"

"It's not fat, it's just enticingly proportioned!" Venus fumed.

Saber blinked. "I don't get it. Are those supposed to be disguises people cannot see through?"

Asuna scratched herself on the head. "W-Well, they won't work on us people with magic resistance, Saber-san, but they're still better than your Mysterious Heroine X disguise."

"What are you talking about? That disguise is flawless!"

Fiore chuckled, shaking his head. "No doubt you think you have won already, just by outnumbering me."

"Well, not that you mention it..." Sailor Chibi-Moon readied her scepter, side by side with a tense Uranus. "We should, shouldn't we? What, are you going to summon the teachers and Ala Alba as your minions? Bring them on! You know how this ends anyway!"

Sailor Moon sweatdropped. "Um, Chibi, we aren't supposed to be giving him any ideas..."

Fiore gave a short, cold laugh and then slammed a foot down, his casual street clothes changing to a regal blue and white evening suit, with a long cape and a red flower on the lapel. His skin became a pale shade of blue, and his features more inhuman and elvish. His hair grew longer and green, and when he flashed a toothy smirk, it was all made of tiny fangs.

"That...!" Luna gasped, she and Artemis going open mouthed at the red flower. "The Xenian!"

"The... what?" Sailor Neptune asked, scowling.

"Back in the Silver Millennium," the white cat gulped, "there were stories about a presence commanding a plague across the galaxy, second only to that of the Black Mercy. The Xenian Flower, a malign intelligence spreading itself from a world to the next, and consuming all of their resources before leaving for the next planet to plunder..."

"The Black Mercy?! What's that?!" Mayu demanded. "Would you terribly mind, explaining your context a little better, Artemis-san?!"

"You are correct, I am a humble servant of the Xenian collective," Fiore nodded. "I have guided her to this planet, still full of life to drain, on the sole price of Mamoru-kun's company. Surely this world, which gave him nothing but grief during his childhood, is not worth existing, and long overdue its punishment. You can resist us, of course. But your eradication is already commanded from above."

"I am the Avatar of Destruction," Sailor Saturn said, stepping ahead and leveling her staff at him. "Only I will decide when this world is to fall into devastation. And that shall not happen as long as Chibi-Moon-"

"Your world's puny laws are of no concern to us," Fiore sneered, waving a hand ahead and projecting a massive invisible blast of energy that sent everyone flying back and screaming.

They rolled down the mountain, panting and groaning in pain, barreling across the dirt. Saturn, Pluto and Saber recovered first, and all three of them dashed together upwards, braving through the increasing magical pressure Fiore's hand was blowing their way. However, the closer they came, the stronger the force was, and so, one by one, they were pushed down again, crashing back against Venus and Moon, the next ones to struggle back up. Fiore chuckled, with a glint in his eye.

"I draw my power from the stars above, from something so much more ancient and mysterious than your young, doomed world," he said, as he motioned with a hand and long, sharp claws sprang from each of his fingers. He seized Venus with his gaze as she pulled herself back up, helping Pluto along the way. "Even if your friend holds the sword that struck the Velber, that's still nothing, in the hands of such a primitive being. As for you, seeing how you have deceived Mamoru-kun..."

"... Velber?" Saber winced from the ground, already running lower on mana, as she could feel Shirou grow weaker for some reason. "What..."

"You have no reason to know anything!" Fiore roared furiously, once again shoving his hand at them. "DIE!"

And then, a red rose flew across the air and pierced him through the hand.

 

[OverMaster]

"¡Aaaaaahhhh!" Fiore screamed, shaking his hand and looking at the thorny rose piercing it. "¡Shiryu, malvado, quemaste mi mano!"

The Senshi, Saber, Asuna and the Mau blinked their collective surprise. "... excuse me?!" Sailor Jupiter was the one to speak for them this time.

Fiore rasped, plucking the rose out as Tuxedo Kamen, in all of his evening wear clad glory, landed on his feet before him, leaping out of somewhere and brandishing his cane. "Wrong fandom and language, sorry!" the villain growled before addressing the newcomer. "Mamoru-kun, what's the meaning of this?! Have these harlots warped your mind so much?!"

"You're the warped one, and I won't let you harming them!" the masked gentleman said, furiously standing his ground between them. "I was trying to wrap my mind around you last night..." he growled, making Venus and Chibi-Moon grow very pale and Uranus snicker, "... and if you really are that boy, I can't believe you could fall so low!"

Fiore smiled, pulling a black longsword out, his injured hand apparently not affecting his ability to wield it. "Ah, so you remember me now! Progress. Then, what? Aren't you a man of your word? Won't you fulfill the promise you made back then?"

"This is about a promise?" Saber asked, confused. "Well, if that is the case, then honor demands for it to be met, no matter the consequences."

"See, the man in the dress agrees!" Fiore nodded, taking his own fighting stance with his blade.

Saber blinked a few times. "... thank you?" She was vexed right now, she was finally being acknowledged as a man, so why did it feel somewhat insulting...?

"Mina-chan is the light of my heart, my lifemate!" Mamoru protested, lunging ahead with his cane and forcing Fiore to block with the sword. Sailor Venus swooned. "Chibi-Usa is also dearest to me!"

"Ah, Mamo-chan, you do care!" the little girl cooed, her eyes turned into big pink hearts.

"Usagi's the best person to play videogames with, Doctor Akagi tutors me at college, and if you kill Sailor Uranus the Joker will come and kill everyone in Mahora!" Tuxedo Kamen continued, sounding just as serious as before while his weapon and Fiore's collided, clanging over and over. "I will die before letting you hurt any of them!"

"The rest of us apparently don't matter that much, huh," Sailor Mars said, a small drop of sweat appearing on her head.

"Well, your own fault, you never want to play games with us," Sailor Moon reasoned, pulling the scepter out and trying to take good aim. "Dammit, TM, get out of the way and give me a good shot, so we can skip all over the stock attack sequences..."

"Why don't you just shoot through him and we take him to Konoka once she's woken up?" Sailor Neptune suggested. Saturn frowned and bopped her on the head from behind.

"Oh, we can't just stand here doing nothing!" Sailor Venus said, running ahead and swinging her Love-Me-Chain of glowing hearts in her hand. "Hold on there, Mamo-chan! Help's on the way!"

Asuna gasped, trying to reach for her. "Venus-san, no! Eva's taught us that-!"

Fiore sneered acidly, taking a moment to take a hand off the sword's handle, swielding the weapon one handed. Thus his other hand was left free to gesture at the incoming blonde, and his fingerblades stretched ahead impossibly, zooming across the air towards Minako. Mamoru gasped, and pulled back instinctively, getting in their way-

- and predictably enough, blocked the sharp nails with his chest, being ran through right before they could have hit the now horrified Sailor Venus.

"M-MAMO-CHAN!" Chibi-Moon screamed, out of her wits.

"Tuxedo Kamen-sama!" Sailor Mercury gasped.

"Oh my God, you killed Tuxedo Kamen!" Saber shouted. "You aren't human!"

Somewhere, Hasegawa Chisame sneezed in dreams.

"M-M-MAMO-CHAN!" Sailor Venus shrieked, panicking, as he dropped back into her waiting arms, stopping his fall and exploding into tears. "Oh God, oh dear... What have you done?!" she screamed at the stunned Fiore, trying to pull the claws out of the bloody wound in the frozen Mamoru's torso. "Look at what you did, you beast!"

Sailor Pluto moved closer. "Um, actually, you shouldn't be doing that, he could bleed to death, Minako," she adviced, leaning in for a better look. "Maybe Sailor Moon can do something about this, or Saber could run back home and pull-"

"W-What?! No, you won't do anything!" Fiore said, pulling the fingerblades back regardless, then flash stepping like a blur of motion to snatch Mamoru's comatose body from Venus' arms, holding it tightly against himself. "I won't let you! This is all your fault, meddling interlopers! I won't let you ruin his life anymore!"

"Ruin his life? I wish I could have an apartment like his!" Sailor Mars grunted, stomping a foot down.

Fiore stared at her in horror. "You've been to his apartment!"

"Well, duh, all of us have!"

"All of you?!"

"Hey, now, she and I haven't ever," Asuna made clear, pointing at a nodding Saber. "Don't lump us in with his harem, please."

"It's not a harem, they were just social visits!" a scandalized, blushing Jupiter claimed. "Minako's the only one who stays there whole nights doing God knows what!"

Fiore's face began twitching madly, looking at Minako as she blushed and Chibi-Moon turned green. "Y-You... You... Why, you... I HATE ALL OF YOU BUT THE MAN!" he yelled, taking up in a perfectly straight vertical line, with Tuxedo Kamen in his arms. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!"

"Wait!" Sailor Venus tried to reach up. "Where are you taking him?! Come back here, you, you... NO!" she cried as they disappeared in a new flurry of unexplainable petals once they had reached enough of a height. "MAMO-CHAAAAAN...!"

Sailor Mars grimaced. "He can fly," she said. "Why can everyone fly but us?"

"I can't fly either," Asuna reminded her.

"Neither can I," Saber said. "Well, I suppose I can, for a short while, if I apply a Mana Burst on my sword and propel myself on it, but it's not the same-"

"Not the time! Not the time at all!" Sailor Mercury shouted back at them while she and Pluto supported a weeping, desperate Venus who had collapsed to her knees.

"Aw, c'mon, Boss, don't cry! He'll be fine!" a sympathetic Uranus tried to comfort Venus. "This ain't even the first time he's wounded and kidnapped! You know the score, he'll be put in some kinda alien healing thingy and then emerge perfectly healthy to fight us Brainwashed and Crazy! At least your boyfriend's only homicidally insane HALF the time!"

"You aren't very good at this, are you?" Saber asked her.

"Well, are you?" Harley countered.

"Not at all, but I'm not even bothering to try..."

Saturn bopped them in the heads from behind.

 

[OverMaster]

The Beast Who Wanted to Know how to Love.

There was a thin line between the satisfying delivery of a punchline and botching it.

It is funny when the guy in your movie falls down and starts whimpering and whining. It's unfunny when the same guy instead starts weeping heartfeltly. Oh, sure, the pain was enjoyable all the same-- the Joker was a sadist first and foremost, above all other things-- but there were rules to this kind of thing, blast it!

When you push the first guy you are the sharp trickster and the audience laughs with you. When you push the second guy, you are just a bully, and in a way, the joke's on you-- abusing others was fine, it always was and always would be, but without the proper flavor and flair to the task, it just came across as petty.

"Oh, my Jennifer, my poor Jennifer..." the man cried under his breath, trying to reach for her across the floor.

Joker looked down at them, trying to figure out if, for the life of his, this particular punchline had delivered or not. Usually, killing the girl first and finishing the gag with the guy worked more often than the opposite way, even if it sounded kind of sexist, but tonight, it wasn't quite geling together. It was difficult to tell why.

Joker rubbed his long, sharp jawline and crouched by the man. "You loved her?"

"Oh, yes, of course I did! I loved her so much, more than my life...!"

"Well," the clown sighed, and placed the gun on his head. "Then you won't mind this, right?"

The man shivered, and for a moment, Joker's eyes lit up, as he thought he had it, that the joke was going to gel after all. He'd mess his pants, or start crying for mercy, as they most often did, and Joker already had the one liner ready along the bullet. But then the idiot just closed his eyes and lowered his head, and whispered, "No, I won't..." and the whole thing fell flat like a badly made pie in the oven.

Joker pouted, withdrew the gun, and stood back, sighing and turning around, walking away from the wounded man and the corpse.

"You aren't fun at all, Rob."

On his way out, he threw the bag full with the goods at Punchline and the boys. "I got all I wanted. Turn the car on."

"You killed 'em all, Boss?" asked one of the clowns while another started the van.

"I left one," Joker broodily said as he got in the back, squatting down and frowning. As ever when he wasn't smiling, the gag kept their distance. "Better that way. The news are more interesting when there's survivors to throw some color in, right?"

It was not the Joker wanted to ever love, of course. The mere idea turned his stomach from the inside out. He didn't miss Harley in the slightest, and as a matter of fact her absence was a relief.

Still, he prided himself on knowing things, even if only bad things, and there was no worse thing than love, so it kind of bothered him, not being unable to love, but being unable to understand what was it like.

Both things, naturally, were not the same, not anymore than knowing what's a fighter jet and knowing how to fly it. Not grasping the later just made you a reasonably ordinary person (as disgusting as that concept was on its own right), but ignorance on the former just made you an imbecile.

Joker tapped his fingers on the van's wall as they speeded through the night. "Maybe I should have killed that idiot after all."

Punchline shrugged. "You always can send them a gift later."

"Not the same thing," Joker grouched. Stupid kid, a punchline delivered long after the fact just wasn't funny anymore. Well, sometimes they just didn't work and that was all.

"It's incomplete," he mused after another moment. Henry shyly looked into the bag, then paused, too afraid to note that, as a matter of fact, the loot was complete after all.

"I don't mean that!" Joker waved a gloved hand, guessing him out anyway. "I mean... something else," he mumbled, too afraid to note that, as a matter of fact, he was the incomplete one.

Even seeing the signal in the sky through the window wasn't completing him tonight. His feelings for him were... complicated, and probably the closest to fulfillment he could have for anyone, but even so, it was not the same thing. These lacking human vermin in the car with him couldn't ever hope to even come close to that, natcherly. Joker hugged his knees against himself and tried to think of something, anything to laugh. AIDS, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Penguin, a newborn choking its nurses and the doctor to death while complaining about the service, the Holy Trinity as played by the Three Stooges, bleached skulls sporting eternal grins.

Those were things he knew well, routines he had practiced in his mind enough times to have developed hundreds of gags for each, macabre delicacies of humor. Love, on the other hand, was not funny on itself, right? Love was funny only when it failed, when you could make jokes about nagging, unbearable wives and no good drunkard husbands and capricious lovers and parents strangling their children to death. Love only was funny when it wasn't love. When love was genuine, it only got in the way of funny, just like tonight.

And yet, he could make humor out of anything! Even about koalas! Except this single annoying thing that he couldn't understand, so either it was impossible for anyone to wring hilarity from it, or he was the one specifically failing at it. Neither option put him in a great state of peace of mind.

They say the Devil became what he is when he fell from God, who is Love, and turned into the complete absence of it. A being who will never know love. A being who will always ignore.

A blind beast at the bottom of darkness.

 

[OverMaster]

The Eternal Question.

The rest of the assembled fictional omniverse stood in front of the Fate universe. Captain America spoke first because that's what America always does, speaking for others whether they are asked to or not.

"If we are going to be doing crossovers with you, we need to know... how do we start with the Fate franchise?"

"Well, that's quite easy," Shirou said. "Start with--"

"-- the visual novel," Artoria finished for him.

"-- Zero," Iskandar said at the same time.

"-- Zero, but the anime," Diarmuid said at the same time.

"-- playing Grand Order," Gudako said at the same time.

"-- EXTRA," Nero said at the same time.

"-- Prisma Illya," Kuro said at the same time.

"-- Unlimited Blade Works anime," EMIYA said at the same time.

"-- Deen's anime," Angra Mainyu said at the same time, because he was that way.

"-- Prototype Fragments of Silver," Kirei said at the same time, because he liked making others suffer.

"-- trying Tsukihime instead," Berserker Arcueid said at the same time.

They all stared at each other.

"..." the rest of the Omniverse said.

The Fate characters all began fighting each other. It was epic.

By the time it was over, only a set of small shining chests were left by the feet of the rest of fiction.

"I told you we should have started with the hentai," Moroboshi Ataru said after a moment.

 

[OverMaster]

Servants who Never Should be Summoned.

Caster.

"Quick, Caster!" Ritsuka said. "Use your first Noble Phantasm!"

The freckled, red haired young man sighed and pressed on his signal watch. Superman flew in and onepunched Saber Alter.

---

"Quick, Caster!" Ritsuka said. "Use your first Noble Phantasm!"

The freckled, red haired young man sighed and pressed on his signal watch. Superman flew in and onepunched Jeanne Alter.

---

"Quick, Caster!" Ritsuka said. "Use your first Noble Phantasm!"

The freckled, red haired young man sighed and pressed on his signal watch. Superman flew in and onepunched Demon Pillar Flauros.

---

"Quick, Caster!" Ritsuka said. "Use your first Noble Phantasm!"

The freckled, red haired young man sighed and pressed on his signal watch. Superman flew in and onepunched Goetia. With the spleeblitz, so don't start whining about the magic weakness, now.

---

"Quick, Caster!" Ritsuka said. "Use your first Noble Phantasm!"

The freckled, red haired young man sighed and pressed on his signal watch. Superman flew in and onepunched Surtur.

---


"Quick, Caster!" Ritsuka said. "Use your first Noble Phantasm!"

"Oh, for the love of...! I have other Noble Phantasms too, you know! I can show you Giant Turtle Jimmy, or Elastic Jimmy, or Hyper Evolved Mentalist Jimmy, or the Fat Bouncing Jimmy, or--!"

"THE FIRST ONE...!"

The freckled, red haired young man sighed and pressed on his signal watch. Superman flew in and onepunched the Alien God.

 

[OverMaster]

Rin and Negi.

The ever enigmatic face within the hood seemed to smile.

"Master?" the man said, his lower half starting to dissipate into sparkles.

The dark haired girl swallowed and forced herself to keep a straight face, holding back the tears. "Yes, Caster?"

"Save the boy from his fate, please," he asked, sounding more gentle than ever.

The wind blew with more strength, pulling the hood back, and Rin gasped at the sight of Caster's revealed face, still smiling that small sad smile at her.

"Do you love him?" he asked.

Slowly, painfully, she nodded, the tears now running down her cheeks. He reached over with the only arm he had left, and softly rubbed them off with his thumb as it, too, vanished in the gale.

"I'm glad," Negi Springfield said, closing his eyes, lowering his head towards her, and surrendering himself to oblivion.

Rin still stood there for several moments afterwards, not making any sound, just staring at the spot where he had been, before finally turning around and walking down the hill, back to her little idiot.

 

[OverMaster]

Fate/Stay Night, Carnival Phantasm, Fate EXTRA, Fate Extella, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Fate Kaleid Prisma Illya, Fate Apocrypha, Fate Prototype, Fate: Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, Fate Requiem, Fate Strange/Fake, Fate School Life, Fate Tiger Colosseum, Fate Unlimited Codes, Fate Capsule Servant, Fate: Lord El-Melloi II Case Files and Fate Type/Redline are the creations and intellectual properties of Type-Moon and Nasu Kinoko.

All other franchises and characters mentioned within this story are the intellectual properties of their respective copyright and trademark holders.

---

The House of Fate.

---

Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg was not- is not, as a matter of fact, as he should still be alive by the time you read this-, what troublesome youngsters of this era would call a 'troll', and as a matter of fact would hate being thought of as such. True, he would gladly indulge himself with healthy doses of Schadenfreude every now and then, but that was a perfectly reasonable character trait to develop when you are constantly surrounded by magi, and when you spend years frequenting the companies of Clock Tower. The fact he hadn't turned into a genocidal monster out to ravage the planet after literal centuries of being in contact with them was an impressive testament to how well centered the man was.

It was also true that, occasionally, he would commit one little peccadillo here and there, that of meddling into someone's affairs just to see what would happen, but never for long, never with any particular malice, and never to anyone who, to one level or another, didn't deserve it. He wouldn't hit unless he or a person he had fondness towards were hit first, and he could be excused for wanting to relieve his extreme boredom every once in a while. Also, I'm not saying all of this because I'm afraid he could ever read this and hunt me down. Absolutely not, as Lord Zelretch wouldn't do any of that, just like I have written out of my complete own volition.

The Old Man of the Jewels, as he was also called, was one of The Five, the sole users of True Magic, not magecraft or wizardry, in the whole world. The True Magic wielders could perform miraculous feats far beyond the ken of any other mages, rewriting the codes of reality set upon The World by the gods. Dimensional travel, the resurrection of the dead after the decay and destruction of the body, creating matter from a void, those were all deeds that only they could perform. The other four were Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme; Aozaki Aoko, the Magic Gunner; Dana Ananga Jagannatha, the Witch of the Rift; and Kent Nelson, the Lord of Order.

When compared to The Five, even the likes of Giovanni Zatara, Nagi Springfield, Karl Amadeus Mordo, Evangeline Athanasia Katherine Mc Dowell and Victor Von Doom were found lacking. Only beings from beyond like Ialda Baoth, Shuma Gorath, the Seven Beasts of Calamity, and the Beasts' longtime enemy, the enigmatic Shazam, plus the gods and the sovereigns of hell themselves, surpassed the might of The Five.

As for the Beasts, each incarnated a deadly sin, an Enemy of Humanity. Not all of them were openly hostile to mankind, and a couple of them had just recently inherited their powers from their forebears, but each still had the potential to someday destroy The World on their own.

There was Goetia, the King of D'Jinns once imprisoned by King Solomon the Wise, representing Greed.

There was Anung un Rama, the Prince of Demons, the Wrath, a relatively young entity who had no affection for his intended role and would rather help humanity.

There was Mara, the Lust, short in sights and scarce in wits, contented with working for Hild, Queen of the Niflheim demons.

There was Tiamat, the Mother of Life, ancient incarnation of Envy, in the sense of a constant relentlessness over her children's vitality and growth.

There was Rachel Roth, the avatar of Sloth, the youngest of all Beasts and who, like the Beast of Anger, would rather be left alone to aid humans.

There was Cath Palug, standing for Gluttony, an animal that could devour all children of men upon waking.

And finally, there was the strongest and most dangerous of all Beasts, the nameless Beasts of Revelations, Pride, the primal force that had inflamed the heart of Lucifer Morningstar and turned him into the Devil to reign over all devils himself.

Keeping all of this in mind, and being now aware of the nature of the extremely serious issues Lord Zelretch had to contend with, you should understand, by this point, how he was not a troll, no matter what anyone could say about him.

That being said, you still could say that, yes, what happened in the story I'm about to tell you about was his fault regardless.

 

[OverMaster]

My Experience as a Fate Writer.

"So in fact," they lectured me, "the principles of the Third Magic don't collide with the previous laws and limitations upon the system set by Nasu, they just happen to override them whenever the proper use of the correct Magic Circuits is applied upon the Reality Marble, thus bypassing the law of conservation of magic rather than rewriting it, except when it does, but that's only whenever Aoko wakes in the wrong side of the bed this morning!"

I blinked. "Um, sorry, I think I didn't get like half of that. Do I have to read Kagetsu Tohya, then...?"

They glared at me. "Get out of here, fucking secondary."

---

I blinked. "Okay! I guess I can start writing in full about this now! The franchise has gotten a lot more widespread, so odds are I'll be allowed more creative leeway and slack at the research now. A pity we had to lose Tsukihime, I barely remember any of it anymore beyond how much I liked Ciel, but that's life..."

---

"So after that," they told me, "I farmed for apples and got this CE Bond after grinding my Merlin to Bond 7 with my friend's Heracles! Aren't you excited about the rerun of NeroFest lasting this whole month? I'll use it to burn my One Stars to get more buffs for my Three Stars, and then hopefully I can roll for Castoria and level all my Busters and Arts! What about you?"

I blinked. "Um, sorry, I didn't understand absolutely anything of that. I don't play it, I just follow the lore, actually, and I only asked when did you think we'd get another new Servant, it's been three months now..."

They glared at me. "Get out of here, fucking secondary!"

---

I'm still dumb and slow at this, please forgive me.

 

[OverMaster]

Servants who Never Should be Summoned.

---

Archer.

The pink haired girl in the pink dress smiled.

"How do you do, I'm Servant Archer! I come to promote Magia Record, the most engaging magical gacha game! After playing it you won't need or want to spend your time with any other gacha game, and--!"

Ritsuka raised a hand. "Look, you're going to have to learn a few things fast, if you really want to stay..."

 

[OverMaster]

Martha and Kojiro.

He sat by the Tree's wide shade, staring off into the distance.

Everything was silent and peaceful around him, and in a way, he liked it best that way. He had retreated to a desert island for a reason, after all. Beyond the ways of the sword, he never could contact with others all that well, and in return, they never were especially fond of his company for long periods.

And yet, sometimes, he wondered.

Then he saw Ruler coming up the steps, holding a basket in her white hands.

"Ruler-dono?" he asked. "What is it? If Caster has made any moves today, I haven't been notified yet..."

She shook her head, never looking at him as she sat on the grass before him and began pulling sandwiches and a thermos from the basket. "No. I don't come to fight you, sorry to disappoint. I was just thinking, it is unfair you would spend your days in this land ever alone. Our Lord wouldn't approve, and I apologize over not aiding you with this plight before."

He smiled, and chose not telling her that he was fine with matters being that way, really.

Then again, perhaps this wasn't bad either.

 

[OverMaster]

Ultimate Anti-Chaldea Secret Weapon.

Ritsuka blinked. "They... They must be joking..."

The horde of naked, disgusting, fat bald men descended upon his party, howling, flaccid parts dangling.

Artoria sneered and stepped ahead. "Excalibur," she said, and blew them all apart.

From his safe vantage point, a troubled Beryl Gut stroke his chin. "That's strange, it always worked in doujinshi!"

 

[OverMaster]

Cuties.

Kuro's eyes were nailed on the screen. "Netflix is awesome," she decided.

"Stop watching that trash already!" Sella told her.

 

[OverMaster]

The Unmentionables.

Meuniere stared into the distance.

"Penny for your thoughts," Mash smiled, approaching him from behind.

He shrugged. "They're not worth that much."

"Come on, don't say that," she said, ever so friendly. "You are a good f--"

"No, sorry, they are, this time, worth it," he sighed. "I was thinking of them."

She blinked. "Them?"

He closed his eyes. "You're living in a different world, now."

"Huh?"

"And... you know, I can't blame you. I really shouldn't," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "When was the last time you could allow yourself, thinking of them?"

"Oh," Mash said very quietly. "Them..."

Meuniere went back to staring into the featureless distance through the narrow window. "I've never seen a Servant approaching me, or Sylvia, or Kawata, to speak about them. Any of them, approaching any of us, really. Only you care."

She lowered her head. "I'm sorry on their behalf, really. I'm sure most of them share your pain, it's just, well, you said it yourself, most of them are busy all the time, and several aren't that good coping with loss, and--"

He repressed the urge to tell her of how they hadn't lost anything themselves, not this time at least, since they still had their Master. He didn't mention, either, how they had plenty of time to rayshift into summer vacations, or play silly romance games around the Master. What would the point be? It'd only feel like he was pettily bitter about it, a little man daring to compare his importance, and those of similar dead lessers, to the plight of the last light of mankind.

After all, it was fair, right? Servants kept themselves to Servants, and to their Master, there was no point on trying to pretend any of them would ever connect with lessers. It was the way things were, and it was logical. What could they even talk about with the First Emperor of China, with Thomas Alva Edison, with Cleopatra? Even if they tried, they were on completely different planes of existence. No, he had no right to be jaded about it all.

And yet...

He just kept on nodding as Mash talked, not listening, and then she patted his shoulder with affection, turned around, and walked back to her larger than life world of daring do and adventure, of great drama and larger than life stakes.

For the dead, larger than life stakes did not matter anymore.

For those waiting to die next under the shadows of oblivious giants fighting each other, stakes did not matter much more, either.

The last time he'd ever seen a Servant approaching a staffer to ask more than three questions in a row, it had been before the disaster, and Carmilla had been trying to seduce Miriam into her room.

Miriam, poor little Miriam, was now buried, like so many others, under the Antarctica. Not by Carmilla, but that was not the point. The gods kept on fighting with valiant smiles and courageous hearts, for as long as the Master stood, there would be hope.

For all but for those lost, so far away, into that distance.

From where he sat, he could hear the Master and Mash happily laughing, his laugh a bit shaky, while Nursery Rhyme and Jack the Ripper no doubt pulled on his sleeves again.

 

[OverMaster]

How Komori Kiri Joined Ala Alba.

It wasn't like this was Chachamaru's first time kidnapping someone. Still, it remained a thing she didn't like doing.

Being part of 3-A, she didn't like visiting Classroom 3-F, which made the whole situation even more uncomfortable. Still, such were the Master's orders, so she soldiered on and rapped her knuckles on the door.

"Yes...?" came the soft voice from inside.

"It's me, Karakuri Chachamaru from 3-A," she gently said. "May I come in?"

There was the expected reluctant pause before the pale beauty wrapped in the long blanket opened the door, frowning slightly. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to apologize," Chachamaru said truthfully, and tossed the sack down on Senpai's head, bagging her up.

---

"So, as you can see," Chachamaru added after Evangeline finished, "this isn't something I could just explain back at the school. And you wouldn't leave the classroom out of your own volition in any case, so... Again, I apologize," she bowed.

Kiri blinked at the large bottled model. "And... do you want me to work in there with the rest of you? Why? I don't have any special skills of any use..."

"No, what I actually need is for someone to look after the house while Boya and the others spend our hours in there. The rest of my maids won't function outside the resort after all," the tiny blonde sneered. A random, inexplicable drift of air flew through the basement and flipped her skirt up, showing her panties, since that happened to any blondes in contact with Class 3-F. Matoi aside, she was practically 3-A by now. "Will you do it?"

Well, now that she was here, it wasn't like she could... ugh... get out of the cabin and... walk all the way outside back to the school... shudder... but, even so...

"What about my lessons?" she asked.

"Boya and Despair are both qualified teachers, they will take hours before and after training to teach you," Evangeline said.

"I don't know..."

Eva smirked at her. "When we take too long, past the curfew," she told her, "sometimes they'll spend the night here, you know. Have you ever slept under the same roof as Despair?"

"I will have to move from THIS room, but as long as I don't have to leave the house I can cope," Kiri decided, a faint glow to her cheeks. "When do I start?"

"Well, it's not like you're going to leave and then come back tomorrow, are you?"

"Thank you. By the way... d-does Sensei already know about this?"

Eva gave her THAT kind of flat look. "Who do you think I am? Of course not!"

"But, this is the kind of thing you'd need an authorization for!"

"What are you talking about, this is MY house!"

Kiri, being used to 3-F's environment, knew she had to stop pushing back against this mad person right then and there.

Sensei wasn't too pleased when he learned, meaning he tried to kill himself, but eventually learned to deal with it.

And Mom and Dad, actually, were glad when they learned she'd moved from a classroom to a tiny lost cabin in the wilderness.

When you are family to a 3-F student, you learn to accept small victories and progress for what they are, sooner or later.

 

[OverMaster]

Don't You Start Taking Roots on Me.

There was no way to sugarcoat it, Sailor Neptune had killed.

Akira was always accepting of everyone. Hotaru-chan was so detached from reality and common sense, so sheltered and alien, she didn't mind either. Ritsuko-san was coldly analytical, only thinking of the greater good. Usagi, as much as she liked to play the rough facade, was an ever loving heroine. Same thing for Minako-- it was impressive, Mayu had decided, how alike Usagi and Minako were deep inside. And Shiho-chan, well, Mayu had to admit it, she thought that, with just a shove the wrong way, Shiho-chan would be quite able to become a killer herself.

Neptune, though--

Mayu had been taken hostage by the Riddler once, long before being a Sailor Senshi. Her family had been in Gotham at the time, in a gala, when the Riddler's gang broke in. Then the Batman broke in too, shouting something about solving some clue, and Riddler had rushed to Mayu's side, put a gun on her temple, and tried to get away.

A boomerang to his head later, the large man in black had knelt before the hysterical Mayu, gently showed her the gun was a fake, and took her back with her parents. The Riddler was no killer, just a petty thief with airs of sophistication. Yet Mayu had been only a child back then, and she, out of all Sailor Senshi, knew better than to ever forget what being an enemy of the Batman meant.

They liked to tease Uranus with how she was 'more evil' than Neptune, since Neptune had done things for a larger cause, and Uranus, only to please a man. And it was true, in a way. But looking at it from another angle, at least Uranus had more of an excuse, on the grounds of having much less self control to begin with.

"It's okay, we've got clean bills of mental health now!" Uranus had grinned when showing up that morning, patting Neptune's shoulder. "So we can stay now, right? Um, Gotham's not the best of places for us right now..."

The others had shrugged it off, and so had Mayu, but only externally. To this day she remained inwardly terrified of Sailor Neptune.

Because when looking at those calm green eyes, she knew that there was no real difference. They weren't the eyes of someone who snapped back from snapping down in the first place, like Uranus', or those of someone who just keeps a balance of the edge of snapping, like Shiho-chan's. They were the eyes of someone who never truly snapped in the first place, even when deciding to put on a green swimsuit to stalk the night while talking to plants. The eyes of someone who knew, the whole time, that what she was doing was insane and evil.

And yet, while Mayu fell off that rooftop, it was Neptune's hand that caught hers and pulled her back up, while Emeraude escaped. It was Neptune who protected her with her own body when Prince Diamond stabbed at her with his blade, taking the wound for her. It was this terrible, awful, horrifying woman who had comforted her when Hanabishi-sama started dating Tina-san, who held her and told her that everything would be fine.

Then she had asked whether Mayu wanted Tina-san killed, but then again, she STILL was terrible, awful and horrifying.

"She really told you that?" Shiho-chan had laughed afterwards. "Oh, you should've taken her on it!"

Mayu glared at her.

"Uh, I'm just joking, of course!"

On second thought, if she still could be friends with Shiho-chan, maybe she could be friends with Pamela-san as well after all.

 

[OverMaster]

Compulsion.

Konoka and Asia were the two nicest girls you could ever find.

There wasn't even a single evil cell between the two of them.

And yet, when they met her...

"Hello!" the gorgeous blonde smiled very sweetly. "I'm Ristarte, Goddess of Healing! I hope we can be good--"

For some reason, they both had to roughly push her back at the exact same time.

 

[OverMaster]

A preview of a work in progress.

---

Not Even if You Were the Last Man on Earth.

Chisame blinked. "You are the acting Headmaster?"

Minamoto Shizuna nodded calmly, hands folded over Konoemon's large desk. "Yes. I was the most familiar with Konoe-sensei's research and routine as his assistant, so as it turned out, nobody else had a solid grasp on how to handle his schedule."

The busty, bespectacled woman sighed then, closing her eyes briefly. "Naturally, the current circumstances are hardly ones fitting a regular schedule or routine. We finally received word from Clock Tower-- they were struck as well, even Lord Zelretch was affected. He's nowhere to be found."

"Oh my God," a terrified Negi said, paling.

Satomi frowned. "And who would that be?"

"He's one of the five most powerful magi on Earth, or was, I am afraid," Shizuna said somberly. "Doctor Strange has vanished as well, right at the heart of the conflict that apparently caused all of this. It happened in the asteroid belt surround Jupiter, where Earth's superpowered defenders were battling some being called Thanos. If the reports from Wonder Woman upon return are to be believed, this Thanos had some sort of cosmic weapon he used to wipe half of sapient life in the universe."

"Thanos, the Mad Titan!" Lala gasped, sounding genuinely scared out of her mind for once, which impressed Chisame even more than anything else this morning. "The lover of Death himself! But, but we all believed him dead after he was turned to stone!"

"Lover of... Death?" Misa worried. "The longer this goes, the more I learn, the worse it all sounds..."

"It would appear that this Thanos has, perhaps unintentionally, eliminated the male half of rational life everywhere, himself included," Shizuna said, while Lala took a hand to her mouth and trembled. "Whether they are all transported somewhere or... something else, we don't know yet. But news are all male heroes at the scene disappeared immediately, while the heroines were left standing. Batman, Captain America, Thor, Martian Manhunter, Reed Richards... even Superman-sama, all gone."

"But... But Negi, though...!" Chisame said frantically, pointing at the stunned boy teacher sitting by her. "He's still here, isn't he?!"

Shizuna half-shrugged. "There are reports very few men scattered across Earth survived the event with no major inconveniences either. It would appear that this cosmic artifact was all too precise, and that males slightly outnumbered females through the universe, so a tiny, precious amount of them escaped unharmed. We haven't shared Negi-sensei is one of them, of course. Clock Tower might try kidnapping him and pulling research on him, or worse."

"... worse...?" Negi said meekly.

Misora bit deeply into her lower lip. "Worse...!"

Evangeline sneered. "Odds are they'd try to reach the Root through his root."

"Master, please don't make jokes in the face of every other male's probably permanent disappearance from Mahora," Chachamaru requested gently but firmly.

 

[OverMaster]

More on that.

---

"So, how's Konoe doing?" Chisame asked as Asuna sat down, and Matoi poured tea for them.

Asuna sighed and shrugged. "Reasonably well, all things considered. She stopped crying so I left her with Setsuna-san and came to see how's Negi doing. I figure he must be devastated about his father..."

"You know how he is, he's just in denial, saying his father's super special and rationalizing explanations for his survival. Right now he's at the library with the trio, looking for the damn book again. For answers," Chisame said. It had been such a short time since then, and yet they'd grown powerful enough that taking another stab at looking for the blasted thing only took a small handful of them, or so Chisame hoped at least. He'd call them if they were needed. "I guess there's some merit to it, in the event his... survival... has something to do with his heritage."

"Who knows," Asuna allowed. "But... I'm honestly afraid they're gone for good, Chisame..." Her voice cracked a little. "I mean, Honya's card... is just like Mana's now..."

Chisame and Matoi blinked, seeing her shiver and tighten her fists on her knees. "Kagurazaka... no, I mean, Asuna..." Chisame said finally, very wary. "I'm sure this thing, whatever it is, can be reversed, it's not a natural thing after all. Everyone's looking for solutions, and there's so much we don't know about--"

"I didn't ever get to tell him goodbye," Asuna said, taking both hands to her head. "Much less to tell him how much I loved him... I, I couldn't cry before Konoka, n-not like she is right now, but... but..."

"You can cry now if you want to, Asuna-san," Matoi said very gently. "I think that you should, as a matter of fact."

And so, Asuna did just that.

 

[OverMaster]

Another bit. A reminder; these fragments are just pieces of the first chapter, but I haven't even written the opener just yet.

---

"Disappointing, but hardly unexpected," Negi sighed as they made their way back, climbing up the darkened tunnel. "It made sense that they would move the tome after last time."

"We will comb through the whole library until we find it," Nodoka promised, climbing after him decidedly. "It must be somewhere, they can't have taken it anywhere else!"

It was Shiomiya Shiori, of all people, who would say then what Negi, Yue and Haruna were thinking, but dared not to say.

"Why... Why wouldn't they?" the soft spoken, black haired senpai asked shyly. "If it truly has all of those properties, it makes sense they'd move it to a safer location..."

"There's no safest place than Library Island," Nodoka firmly told the girl closing the formation, without looking down at her.

Shiori waited to see if the boy and the two other girls wouldn't say what they clearly were thinking this time either, sighed, and spoke her mind again. "Miyazaki-san, I know I've just learned about these things, and that you are far more experienced than I, but... if you don't even know who kept that book here in the first place, you can't tell if they had a better hiding place for it or not, either..."

"Senpai, please," Yue said then, while Nodoka's lips tightened. Negi was already reaching the level above and kindly helping Miyazaki up, the bangs obscuring more of her face than ever. "We can't allow ourselves that kind of defeatist thinking," Ayase added, being helped up by Negi next, while Haruna pulled herself up and aided Shiori emerge in turn. "Besides, if the book could allow knowledge on this incident, whoever took it could have foreseen this would happen. They must have left it somewhere where we can find it. If not here, surely they left a clue."

"Well," Negi breathed out, "there must be limits to the knowledge held in its pages, even if we never could test them properly during our brief contact with it. This was a gamble from the start, and we all knew it. There is a solid chance the book only holds knowledge on what was perceived and learned at the time of its writing, and not a full gamut of universal truths."

"Right..." Nodoka nodded sadly. "If, if it could predict the future, odds are their owners would have greatly altered the course of history, but, still..."

Shiori looked at them, sharing a crushed, depressed silence, even the ever happy go lucky Haruna-san. "I'm sorry," she said at last.

"Over what?" Haruna asked.

Shiori looked down bashfully. "I... I... I haven't lost anywhere as much as any of you, and so I might, I might have said something I shouldn't have! I didn't want to contradict your hopes, of course! I realize I'm still an ignorant on all these things, I spoke out of turn...!"

"It's not your fault we kept you in the dark about magic so long, and you've caught on more quickly than I did," Yue told her with a subtle calming gesture. "Don't worry about that. It's important to keep things in perspective, after all, and you've helped greatly with that. Thanks for coming with us, even when you didn't have to."

Shiori gulped, folding her hands before herself nervously. "Ahhhh... It was nothing, really! A-Anything for you!" she stammered. "So, what do we do now?"

Negi took a deep breath and pulled his bifocals off. "We're going to meet up with Skuld-san, report to her on this, and see what has she learned from her end. You're welcome to come along if you want, Shiomiya-san..."

The girl doubted before nodding stiffly. "R-Right! Thank you very much for trusting me to this degree, Sensei!"

She should, she guessed, maybe try and call Mother again, to see if she could comfort her this time, even if she was just rebuked again. It was her duty as a good daughter, and she owed Father that, too. Even now, as she followed the 3-A students and their teacher towards the front gates of the vast building, she made another attempt, and this time, Mother didn't even pick the call up.

Shiori swallowed the pain and kept on walking after the others, pocketing the phone back.

 

[OverMaster]

Royal Rights.

"And then," Ferdinand smiled at the memory, "I softly kissed Snow White's lips, and she woke up."

Even Al and Naveen couldn't help feeling moved. "Wow, that's great," Eugened said, giving a mild clap. "But wait, how did you know she needed a kiss?"

Ferdinand blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Um, yes, well, you know," Philip said. "At which point were you told that, and by whom? You never mentioned any fairy godmothers like Aurora's or Ella's, so..."

"Uh, no, nobody told me about that," Ferdinand said. "I just felt like kissing her."

They all stared at him.

"Let... Let me see if I understood correctly," Eric said at last. "You found this girl you'd been kind of looking for, and when you saw she was apparently dead, and the dwarves--"

"Small people," Adam supplied.

"They prefer to be called dwarfs, actually," Ferdinand said.

"Whatever...!" Eric threw his hands up. "Your first instinct after those guys told you she'd been dead for weeks was planting a big kiss on her mouth?!"

Ferdinand stared back, not understanding. "... I was going to take her with me to the castle, not just leaving her there, you know. I'm not the kind who kisses and runs..."

"That, that only makes it all even worse!" Eric gasped in disbelief as Eugene and Adam rushed out of the room, pressing hands against their respective mouths, and Philip facepalmed.

And that was the last time they invited him for poker.

 

[OverMaster]

What a Man Likes Best.

"Senpai," Makie asked, "what does a man like the best, as a gift from a girl?"

Shirou looked at her, confused. "Um," he said after a moment, "w-well, if you really want to give something to Negi-sensei, a good book should suffice. I'm aware you aren't into books, but Tohsaka could help you look for--"

"No, no, this isn't about Negi-kun!" she said, waving a hand. "I said a man, not a boy, didn't I? Sheesh, Senpai! If I wanted on advice for what to give Negi-kun, I'd be asking Kotaro-kun!"

Shirou blinked. "Is Morisato-senpai's birthday coming, or...?"

"I just want to give him something," Makie offered. "He's the guy I like, after all."

Shirou's eyes grew slightly wider. "Is... Is he? But, I thought you and Sensei..."

"Oh, no, Negi-kun's cute, but he's still a kid! Who do I look like, Iinchou? Besides, there's just too much competition there! Iinchou, Misa-chan, Misora-chan, the Vice Prez, and of course, it's not like we can catch up to Chisame-chan anyway..."

"And then... Skuld-san? Because, if you don't want to steal Sensei from Ayaka-san, you shouldn't--"

"Senpai," Makie said, as if explaining something to a slow child, "what Matoi-senpai aims for with herself, Negi-kun and Chisame-chan, and what Nodoka-chan aims for with herself, Yue-chan and Kotaro-kun? It's what I aim for with myself, Skuld-chan and Keiichi-senpai."

"I'm sorry I asked. Nevermind," he ran a hand down his face. "Well, obviously, you should give him something involving mechanics and cars, perhaps, I don't know--"

"Oh, no, I'm sure he has me hopelessly beaten on those things," she declined. "What could I pick that he wouldn't have already? I'm not aiming too high, I just want to know what do you think is a thing that any man would like, yet one he's surely not going to have yet. Please, Senpai...!" she pouted all too cutely.

Shirou smiled and patted her head. "W-Well, if you really want my opinion...!"

---

"And that's why it's there," Keiichi finished explaining, still working on the motor Fujimi Chihiro had brought him to repair. "Besides, like I told her, it's elegant and nice to look at."

She kept on looking in appreciation at the fine sword nicely framed on the workshop's wall. "How many times did you cut yourself with it before giving up on trying to use it for her sake, and just leaving it here?"

He frowned, holding his bandaged hands up. "Only nine, geez! What does that have to do with anything, anyway?!"

 

[OverMaster]

Maid for You.

"Oh, Negi-sensei!" Ayaka beamed a most beautiful, serene smile. "You know everything mine is yours, the way to use however you wish!"

Negi gulped, then stared at Roberta, Fabiola, Taeko, Fubuki and Siesta, all of whom stood behind Ayaka's chair tensely.

---

Roberta sighed. "And that's why we are going to need extra help at the manor for the next few months. Any suggestions?"

Nero, Nella, Nelly, and Alfred and Aloysius Pennyworth looked at their pregnant bellies yet again.

"I could place a few calls, I suppose..." Aloysius finally said, reluctantly.

 

[OverMaster]

Second Best.

"I'm kinda curious," Misa told her. "After Chisame, who would you say is the most beautiful girl out of us all?"

"Rito-san," Matoi answered without doubting for a second.

Misa took pause. "Well played," she said after a moment. "Lala-chi should have just left him that way..."

 

[OverMaster]

Don't ask how this fits into continuity.

"Chisame-san," the large knight said, grimly approaching her.

She blinked and looked up at him. "What is it, Lancelot-san?"

He rasped uneasily. "I... I don't know how to say this. I suppose I must tell you, regardless, to expiate the faults from my past. I once swore I'd never allow anything like this happen ever again as long as I had a saying on it, and--"

Chisame frowned. "To the point, please...!"

"I know he's not your boyfriend, but I've just seen Misa-san kissing Professor Negi!" Lancelot groaned, putting a hand on his face.

"Ah," Chisame said. "Is that all? Yeah, she does that all of the time. Call me if she starts pulling his pants down again, will you?"

And she went back to her laptop.

Lancelot stood there, blinked, and finally left. He walked over to the porch and sat down next to Artoria, who was eating a large slice of watermelon.

"We sank a kingdom over nothing," he brooded.

"Mmm-hmmmm," his King nodded, between chewings.

 

[OverMaster]

Ala Alba Rooms with Chaldea.
---

Serenity.

"Well," she sighed, "it's time to go sleep."

She grabbed a full bodysuit, pulled it on, and zipped it up all the way to her chin, leaving only her face uncovered as she also secured a tight cap around most of her head.

Liz blinked. "Wait, why are you doing that?"

"Because Negi-sensei sleepwalks into my bed every other night now," the Assassin explained patiently.

"Ahhhhh... Wait, wait," Liz said then. "Don't you spend your nights sneaking into the Master's bed anymore, then?!"

Serenity gave a small smile as she blushed. Then she pulled the facemask on.

"Liz-chan, let her be...!" groaned Kiyohime's voice from the outside, down the hallway. "If that's what she chooses now, of course we must respect her decision...!"

----

Mordred.

"What-- What the hell are you doing here?!" she said, startled.

Negi rubbed his eyes with a fist and mumbled "Mmhhmmm... sorry, I used to sleep with my sister... and you smell and kind of sound just like her..."

"Your what?!"

"My brother," he quickly amended, gulping as that killer gaze closed in on him. "I used to sleep with my brother, that's what I really meant to say!"

Mordred frowned, pondered this, and then shrugged, lying back and patting the bed next to her. "That's alright then. I'm not that heartless. Sleep tight, Bro."

He smiled, and did so.

 

[OverMaster]

Ala Alba Rooms with Chaldea.

---

Scathach.

"Professor," Negi lowered his head and clicked his heels together. "I beg you, teach me in the way of your arts."

The tall woman looked down at him for a moment, then said, "No."

This wasn't an unexpected answer. Negi had prepared himself to make his case. "I will prove myself, I will take any test you want to give me, I--"

"But I don't want to give you any tests," the spearwoman said. "For starters, you already are studying under another teacher, and from what I gather, you haven't concluded her education yet."

Negi gulped. "That... That might be true, but I can study under both at the--"

"I don't approve of two-timing men," the Witch of the Land of Shadows said, wagging a finger. "That is why I have devoted my current efforts to teaching a young man who has proved himself and will take me, and only me, as his teacher."

Negi blinked. "Who is that?"

Kotaro, sweaty and shirtless and slightly bruised, with a towel thrown around his shoulders, stepped out of the next room while grinning cheekily. "Yo, Four Eyes!"

"You...!"

---

"Serves you right, for looking after another woman while you had me," Evangeline sneered, sitting on Negi's back as he did push ups.

He seethed. "She's got a type, that's all! The dog type...!"

 

[OverMaster]

A Thing for Goddesses.

She smiled and lowered her head.

"I'm sorry, my champion," she told him gently. "But I have found a person who appreciates me for what I am, weak as I may be. You will be taken back home safely, of course. So, congratulations. Your caution has paid off."

"Um, okay," Seiya said. "Bye."

"Thanks for being so understanding. Farewell," Ristarte said, bowing her head and then turning around, walking out of the temple. She made her way to the front gates silently, and sure enough, the land vehicle waited there for her. The black haired young man at the driving wheel gave her that small soft smile of his.

"Everything fine, Ris-chan?" he asked her.

"Yes, Keiichi-san," the blonde sighed, getting in the back of the large car, pushing the snoring Aqua aside with her hips, and onto Ishtar-- not the same Ishtar as her mistress-- and Ereshkigal, who were frantically arguing as usual while Ariadoa tried to pull them back from each other and Peorth simply played Fortune Lover in her PFP, with Hestia looking intently at her advances. Adenela clung tightly to Keiichi's back, her long messy hair wrapped all around him. "Let us go, please."

"Okay," he said, and turned the car on.

Skuld, sitting by his side, mumbled as they headed down the road, to rejoin Ala Alba. "I swear, I didn't like the way Rind was looking at you over breakfast either..."

Rista smiled, and then Ishtar, without meaning to, lashed back with a leg and slammed her bare foot on her face.

 

[OverMaster]

A Thing for Goddeses, 2.

Chamo approached her after dinner. "Neesan? I'd like you to give me your opinion on something."

"What is it, Chamo-san?" she asked. For the standards of Ala Alba, Tsunetsuki treated him reasonably well.

"It... It is about one of the goddesses Keiichi-san met while we traveled around," the ermine rasped, uneasy.

"One of the two you didn't try to steer towards Negi-sama through dinner, right?" she guessed. "Which one, the annoying loudmouth with blue hair?"

"Nooooo," Chamo clenched his teeth.

"Ah, the other one," Matoi said, frowning. "Of course, she looks like a crazed stalker so I am the expert on the subject of her, now...!"

The ermine looked down guiltily. "Pretty please," he said meekly.

Matoi sighed. "This is only for Morisato-senpai," she told him. "Show me her room."

Nodding, the small white animal quickly led her to one of the rooms Godel had lent them. Matoi knocked.

"W-Who is that...?" a voice stammered from the inside.

"It is me, Tsunetsuki Matoi, we spoke briefly during desserts," Matoi said while Chamo quickly ran away. "Could I speak with you for a bit, please?"

There was a long pause. "O-O-Okay..." the voice stuttered.

Matoi took a breath, then pushed the door open with a dry "Thanks," and walked in.

Her eyes grew wider.

Adenela stood by a wall with a black marker in her hand, the word 'KEIICHI' written all over every section of all walls, the floor and the ceiling.

"I, I, I am sorry, I think," the dark haired female with the haunted eyes said. "I, I couldn't stop thinking about him..."

---

Chamo was smoking very nervously when she finally walked in. "W-Well? What's your opinion on the matter?!"

After a moment, Matoi's neutral face displayed a wide, bright smile. "She's a wonderful finding and we're best friends now. Senpai is a fortunate man..."

 

[OverMaster]

Negi Springfield, Master of Chaldea.

After leaving him in his room, she walked out with no clear destination in mind.

She ended up sitting on the thick frame of a massive window, looking at the winterland outside.

Fou, turned out, had come after her.

"Fou?" he asked, looking up at her.

Mash hugged her legs against herself and placed her chin on her knees. "You heard him," she said, not looking at the small animal. "For all intents and purposes, I'm his sister now. I have to be the sister he lost. So he can keep going. I promised him."

"Fou..."

Her only hope was they could bring that sister back before her own time was over. Because otherwise... no, she couldn't even bring herself to think of that.

Mash Kyrielight closed her eyes.

"Fou....?"

She wanted to cry, she wanted to cry so much. Like she hadn't cried through all of the experiments, through all the injuries of battle, from seeing the Director die, from seeing valued friends and caretakers dead in the middle of flames and wreckage.

Fou hopped up to her side, placing a small paw on her leg. "Fuuuu..."

The tears came at last.

She cried for that boy she had come to love so much, and who would be left completely alone while surrounded by everyone.

And then, Primate Murder finally understood what humanity was truly about.