OverMaster's Little Crummy Corner of Sub-Par Writing

OverMaster Writes for Every Franchise in Existence.

---

Kill La Kill.

Matoi Ryuko, ancient and withered, lay on her death bed.

“Regrets?” she echoed Mako, who sat by her bedside. “I only have one… I never got to kill that La Kill the title told me to… I wonder who that was…?”

---

Freakazoid.

Candlejack. Candlejack, Candlejack, Candlejack. The guy’s name is Candlejack. Like, his parents named him Candlejack, or he named himself, whatever. Candlejack. That’s the name.

There, I said it! And nothing happened to me! It’s just a meme, guys! I’m not going to disappear in mid sentence!

 

The Past, Best Left in the Past.

"There's something I'd like to ask you two, if you won't mind," Emiya Shirou said as he set the plates on the table of the Fujimaru siblings. Behind the counter of the quiet Ahnenerbe Cafe, Neco-Arc-sama snored loudly on her chair, her large blonde head flung back and little Zs floating out of her hugely open mouth.

"Sure thing, what is it?" Fujimaru Ritsuka asked.

The young red haired waiter rasped. "Why don't you ever talk about your family? Do you even have any? Saber was wondering about that a couple days ago, and then I realized that I didn't know either."

Ritsuka's eyes became a bit rounder and fuller ever so briefly. "Um, well, thanks for your concern, but Oneechan and I have always handled ourselves just fine, and now we've got a whole lot of helping hands around the house, so you don't really need to worry, Senpai..."

"I'm sorry if I'm sounding noisy and bothersome, but I know how it feels, and if there's anything I can do to help..."

"No! No!" the dark haired boy gasped. "That is, it's a very long story... What matter is that Oneechan and I have always relied on each other just fine, and--"

"We come from a perfectly normal background, isn't that obvious, Senpai?" Fujimaru Ritsuko asked calmly as she ate. "There's nothing unusual about us or our background, so that's why we don't ever talk about it. Our family are simply traveling the world for years without ever calling, just like the families of all other kids in the city! It's not like they are buried in our backyard with axe wounds in the backs of their skulls or anything."

Then she smiled cutely at Shirou, and, with the appetizers finished, she moved onto the main course, quite happily.

Shirou gave several steps back in silence, failing to register Ritsuka's imploring stare.

 

OverMaster Writes for Every Franchise in Existence.

---

Wonder Woman.

The Amazing Amazon entered the room. “Donna!” she called out. “Donna dear, Mother has summoned us to—“

Then she stopped in horror. There was a dead man at the feet of her protégé, with a gun in his hand and a bleeding hole in his temple. Another man was curled up in a fetal position on the floor, only a few steps away, rocking back and forth in place and whispering nonstop. A woman was standing at a corner, bashing her head against the wall repeatedly.

“Donna!” Diana said. “You were explaining your continuity again?!”

Donna Troy looked guilty. “They asked…!”

 

Ranma ½ is the creation and intellectual property of Takahashi Rumiko and Kodansha.

All other characters and franchises mentioned here are the intellectual property of their respective trademark and copyright holders.

---

“We’re home, Shan Pu,” Tendo Akane announced, peeking into her roommate’s workshop. “Kasumi will have dinner ready in an hour or so.”

“Oh, had you ever left?” Shan Pu asked eloquently, a far cry from her speech during her first few years in Nerima, wearing goggles on her face and a long white lab coat buttoned up to the neck, although knowing Shan Pu she most likely was naked under it. A look at Shan Pu’s bare feet more or less confirmed Akane’s suspicions on the subject. “Don’t tell me that you were attending that unveiling of the memorial statue!”

“Yeah,” Akane sighed, a bit sadly, while fully entering the room and closing softly after herself. “I know it’s dumb to worry, but what if they’re right…?”

“Haruna-chan’s alright, she’s been through worse,” the woman with long purple hair said, not looking back but beckoning Akane close with a gloved hand. “Come see this, I’ve been working on a surprise for Ranma…”

Akane kept on thinking on the subject of Haruna while approaching Shan Pu half heartedly. “Nabiki insisted on going anyway, she successfully asked for royalties on the use of Haruna’s image. What is this?” she sniffed, looking at the laboratory set full of colorful fluids Shan Pu was manipulating. “Something to try and bring her back?”

“Don’t be silly, Akane, how could a chemical compound break the barriers of dimensions?” Shan Pu smiled, taking a sample of the liquid and injecting it into a mushroom. “MuTsu sent a box of these from China, and I’ve been mixing them with the contents of those age deceiving pills Haruna-chan gave us.”

“Oh, MuTsu. Is Meiling-chan okay?” Then Akane paused. “Wait! I know these mushrooms!”

“You certainly should,” the self proclaimed chemical genius of the household smirked, holding the injected ‘shroom up. “If my experiments have yielded the desired result, I can make the age altering properties of these babies permanent! Imagine being young again! Life has given me a second chance to give children to Ranma…!”

“No way…” the woman with short black hair looked at it with barely disguised fascination, trying not to sound too hopeful herself. “Have you tested it yet?”

“Of course not,” ShanPu replied. “The test animal isn’t at home yet.”

Akane frowned. “I thought we’d agreed that you wouldn’t use Ryouga-kun for experiments anymore. Besides, I doubt he’ll be around anytime soon, since he said he’d be gone only for a short while.”

“Oh drat!” Shan Pu pouted.

“Uncle Genma is sleeping at the porch, though,” Akane said nonchalantly. “He won’t reject a plate of mushrooms as long as they don’t come from me.”

Shan Pu frowned thoughtfully. “I’m not sure I want him to be young again. I mean, what do you think would happen?”

“He’d use that to punk Ranma constantly, steal from everyone in the neighborhood, and be much more of a pest than usual,” Akane groaned. “You’re right, that was a dumb idea. But then, who…?”

They blinked in realization and then shared a look.

---

“Oh, for me?” Kuno Kodachi said, graciously taking a first mushroom from the plate. “Strangely generous from you, but appreciated! Oh ho ho, I’ve always liked a fine meal of mushroom delicacies, but I suppose yours will suffice too!”

She took a first bite and began eating elegantly while ShanPu and Akane looked on, curious.

Then there was a yelp, and things wouldn’t quite be the same again.

---

Sweet Sixteen.

A sidestory of Unequally Rational and Emotional.

 

Skating Uphill.

When Satomi and Negi entered the apartment, they were greeted by a chilling silence.

Now, Chisame was usually quiet, but there was something different about the silence this time. It was somehow eerie, unnerving.

They walked towards the bedroom. "Chisame...?" Negi asked cautiously. "Are you all right...?"

Chamo quickly appeared from a side, standing on their way. "Brother, Satomi-nee, no!" he warned. "You should stay way from her...!"

"Chisame!" Negi ran past him, slamming the door open. "What's wrong, I'll help you!"

Chisame sat before her computer with a large dark aura around her, and facing away from them. "The nerve of this woman..." she said in a sinister voice, not looking back at them.

"Eh?" Negi blinked.

"You call yourself 'Okki', huh?" Chisame said obliviously. "You have made a powerful enemy today, Princess... You shouldn't have crossed Chiu's path..."

Matoi flashed from another side and clung to the boy. "Negi-sama!" she said. "I'm scared...!"

Chisame stood up and shook a fist. "I'll never forgive you, woman! No matter who you are, I'll take my YouTuber throne back from you...!"

And that was how Chisame engaged in battle with a Heroic Spirit.

Scary stuff indeed, huh?

 

"Social media, huh?" Itoshiki Nozomu-sensei said, hanging from his favorite tree. "Social media are truly a great bane of this era. They have turned a whole generation into absent minded desperados, willing to do anything for attention and hollow accolades! Talking in nothing but memes and shorthand they don't even truly understand!"

"Okay, boomer," said Suzumiya Haruhi, passing by before said tree.

"I'm not a boomer! I'm a millennial! See, that's what I'm talking about!" the skeletal man yelled. "I'M IN DESPAIR! TODAY'S YOUTH AND THEIR SHALLOW WAYS DRIVE ME TO DESPAIR! I would hang myself I if I weren't doing that already."

Sitting under the fresh shade of the tree, Negi sighed. "I'm worried about Chisame. This is driving her over the edge, I'm afraid..."

"Yes, from what you have told me, it is concerning indeed," the older teacher said. "She might end up doing a Negimaru, or something along such lines."

Negi blinked. "What's a Negimaru?"

"... please forget I said anything."

"I will," Negi decided, since experience had taught him that was the best course of action when his colleague said that. "Maybe I should search for this 'Okki' person and ask her if she and Chisame can reach a civilized agreement. These things should be done for fun, not for the sake of competition anyway. But I don't know how to locate someone through the Internet..."

"Me neither," Itoshiki admitted. "I'm banned of all the sites I ever visit since they say I'm a negative influence promoting suicide. But there must be someone in your circle of students who can help you."

Negi nodded. "Yes, you're right. I'll go ask them, one of them is bound to know. Thank you, Itoshiki-sensei..."

"You're welcome. If you want to repay me, why don't you grab me by the legs and pull down...?"

Negi pretended not listening and walked away.

---

"Why are you asking me?" Tsukino Usagi asked, narrowing her eyes and waving a floppy disk on his face. "I should warn you, I don't know how to use a computer..."

Negi raised an eyebrow at the floppy disk. "What in the world is this thing?"

---

"I'm sorry, Sensei, but I won't do it. It would be unethical," Mizuno Ami began lecturing him. "To quote Edward Snowden, 'A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded unanalyzed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to-'"

"Um, Ami-chan," her roommate Aino Minako interrupted her. "Negi-sensei already left..."

Ami blinked a few times, then pouted. "I see! An establishment hard liner, then...!"


---

"... I come from Mundus Magicus, Sensei," Siesta reminded him.

"I'm sorry," Roberta said dryly. "But I have been forbidden from utilizing computers since that incident with Raul Reyes."

"In the slums of Caracas, we only had electric light two days per week, on average," Fabiola recalled. "I didn't get to see a computer until I was twelve years old. I still can't tell the Excel apart from the Word."

"I see," Negi sighed. "Sorry I disturbed you, then. Please give my regards to Iinchou when she returns from her family reunion."

He bowed politely and left.

Taeko walked in then, surfing the Web in her laptop. "Hey, girls. come and see this! The new Net idol, Okki-chan, is sooooo cute...!"

The other maids all looked at her in silence.

Taeko blinked. "... what did I say?"

---

"Hey, Sensei!" Usui Kagero-kun waved at him on his way back. "I heard you were looking for someone who could help you looking for someone in the Net!"

Negi walked past him without noticing the young man's presence. "I had no idea finding a good specialist would be this difficult..."

Usui blinked, then rushed after him. "Hey! Sensei! I said I can help you! I happen to be an expert on this subject!"

Negi kept on walking, shaking his head to himself. "Sayo-san and Oshizu-san wouldn't know either... There's no point on asking them..."

"Ask me! Me! Me!" the thin-haired student yelled. "In the Internet, I'm really someone! Well, I have to bait them to be noticed, but it's something...!"

Negi slumped miserably, walking into the girls' dormitories. "Nobody could even tell me what a Negimaru is supposed to be..."

"Oh, that's my favorite doujin series after Re-Take!" Kagero gushed. "I'll tell you everything about it if you only promise not to--!"

The front door was absently slammed on his face.

 

The job—nay, the duty of a shinobi retainer is one filled with danger and stress. Sasuke had long made his peace with that, and in truth, life in the Nerima district had quieted down a lot in the recent years, after Happosai’s death and Haruna-chan leaving for Mahora.

Still, it was not unusual for Sarugakure Sasuke’s mistress—not that kind of mistress—to startle him near dinner time, with a high pitched cry of surprise and confusion. The small, aged ninja looked up from his tablet and adjusted his glasses, first looking at where Genma slept, and then towards the koi pond.

The panda bear was snoring contentedly holding a sign reading ‘It wasn’t me!’ in his embrace. As for the enlarged pond, the gigantic, fattened and old Mr. Turtle, Kodachi’s pet crocodile, was swimming in lazy circles there with clean jaws, so it was clear that whatever had startled Kodachi-dono hadn’t had anything to do with either of them. Unless one of them had taken a dump on a hallway again. That happened.

Sighing and reaching for the bucket and mop closeby, Sasuke stood up and began dragging his feet into the bed, apathetically. “I’m going, Kodachi-dono…”

He had barely reached the dining hall when he stopped, blinking several times. For Kodachi was there alright, but she looked as youthful as she’d been when she’d first met Ranma, happily skipping around and producing a gymnastics ribbon out, then to twirl it around in delirious joy.

“Ohhhhh ho ho ho ho ho!” she laughed, while Akane and Shan Pu stood by nearby, watching her in awe. “I don’t know what is happening, but this is wonderful! Oh ho ho, just wait until Ranma-sama sees this…!”

Sasuke looked at ShanPu and the plate with mushrooms she was holding, adjusting his foggy glasses again. “You!” he gasped, recognizing the issue for what it was. Whenever it wasn’t the fault of Genma or Haruna, it usually was hers.

Shan Pu cleared her throat, raised a pointer finger, and began lecturing academically. “Indeed! This radical discovery is the result of my rigorous research! Rising from education in a poor mountain—AIYAAAA!” she screamed as the plate was snatched from her hands by a blur. “Don’t you do that, stupid little man-troll!”

Sasuke was a ninja, after all. “A one in a life time chance!” he exclaimed as his mistress kept on prancing in circles, not even noticing his arrival. “Here it goes!” he added, grabbing a mushroom, and tossing it down his widely open mouth. He gulped it down, barely chewing, while Shan Pu retook the plate angrily. For a moment he felt really ill and upset in the stomach, and he wondered if he hadn’t just been poisoned after all. Then he felt a sharp pain in his upper belly, and he shook in place, jerking only once as his body changed…

… not that much, actually, but suddenly he felt so much better.

“I knew it…!” the somewhat revived Sasuke cried, beginning to flex his short arms. “I must’ve lost like twenty years in a single go…!”

“A-Around fifteen, actually,” Akane said, marveling at how it hadn’t been a fluke after all. “Shan Pu calculated the dose that way…”

“She did?” Sasuke looked at the seething Shan Pu, and then began counting with his fingers. “Let’s see, that means… and I’d like to be… fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, mmm… More!” he all but begged, frantically reaching for the plate.

“NO WAY JOSE!” Shan Pu roared, slamming a foot on his face, hard. “I’M NOT GOING TO WASTE ANY MORE ON THESE ON THE LIKES OF YOU!”

Then she glared murderously at Kodachi, who was just reaching for an extra mushroom herself. “And if you take another bite, I swear I’m not going to be changing your diapers, you hear me?!”

“… fair enough,” Kodachi wisely pulled her hand back. “There’s such a thing as too much youthful beauty, I suppose…”

Akane rasped. “Y-Yeah, well. Shan Pu, before you even think of eating one yourself, maybe you should wait a little, any side effects might take a while to manifest…”

Shan Pu pouted, looking at the plate. “I guess you’re right…”

Kodachi blinked. “Wait. You mean to tell me that you hadn’t tested those before starting delivering them around?!”

“We, we were your Guinea Pigs?!” Sasuke cried.

“NO ONE EVER THOUGHT OF GIVING YOU ANY, YOU INVITED YOURSELF!” Shan Pu told him.

“But what about me!?” Kodachi whined. “I thought we were sisters now!”

‘Kocchi is right, Shan Pu. That was mean of you’ read the sign that Genma was holding now, as he stood behind her taking a mushroom for himself and wolfing it down.

“GAAAHHHH!” Shan Pu pulled the plate from him. “NOT YOU, TOO! THESE ARE FOR RANMA AND HIGHEST BIDDER SALE!”

“I will leave enough for Ranma!’ promised the next sign, just as Genma popped down into a younger panda who looked practically identical to how he’d looked moments ago.

Akane sweatdropped. “… you guys… if those things really work, we’ve also gotta think of Kasumi-neechan, and Nabiki, and Ukyo…”

A somewhat chubby woman with long brown hair stepped from the next room, wiping her hands dry with a piece of cloth. “Ah, you were calling? Kasumi thought you were being too noisy, and she wanted to know what—Ahhh, shiitake!” Her eyes shone, as she grabbed a mushroom as well and ate it happily. “It’ll make for good appetizers, well thought!”

“AIYA!” Shan Pu gave a small sharp scream. “Akane, bring something to put on these things, will you?! Nobody here asks before taking food away!”

“Oh, but they never do that when I am the one cooking, do they…” Akane said bitterly while watching Ukyo double in pain for a moment, and then reverting back into a much slimmer and younger woman.

 

OverMaster Writes for Every Franchise in Existence.

---

Cow & Chicken.

A small, greasy restaurant by the highway, somewhere in the deepest America.

A couple steps out of a car and head for the bar.

"An extra burger for each, please," the husband asks, as they sit down.

"Immediately, sir." The red man behind the counter smiles warmly. He is not a Native American and I'm not being politically incorrect.

He returns from the kitchen with two large burgers and sets them down before the marriage.

"Thank you," the husband says. "We're looking for our kids, you know. They disappeared around here a couple days ago."

"Really?" the Red Man says. "That's a pity..."

"Yeah, well," the husband says, as he and his wife grab their burgers and begin eating. How, I have no idea since they canonically are just a set of lower halves. I just write this stuff, I don't think it up. "I have a feeling, as I was telling my wife, that we'll find them soon enough."

"Oh, I'm sure of that!" the Red Guy says amiably, rubbing his hands and watching his customers enjoy their hamburgers of beef and sliced chicken.

Brother and sister. Together, even to the end.

---

I.M. Weasel.

"Soooooo..." Cow asks as she and her frowning brother wash the greasy plates, "How did you even get here, Mr. Weasel?"

The weasel cuffed by a leg to the same wall as them sighs while drying more plates. "It's all the fault of a stupid baboon..."

---

Negima!

"Ah!" Misora said. "It's our turn at last!"

"I wonder what will he have to say about us?" Ayaka wondered.

"Will it be stirring drama, or whimsical comedy?" Natsumi pondered.

"After so many stories and sketches, what else is there to say about us?" Evangeline hummed.

The curtains were pulled, to reveal...

Chisame pulling Negi towards herself and kissing him deeply.

"Well, of course!" Misa growled at this. "It's this author, after all...!"

 

Branding.

"I have a suggestion," Hyuudou Issei raised a hand.

The others looked at him.

"Look, I don't want to offend any of your girls anymore than you'd ever want to offend mine, but there's too many of us by now and each of us has several girls," Issei argued. "So we start running into girls we don't know, and if we hit on them when they're taken, it's problematic for everyone..."

"What is your freaking point?" an annoted Emiya Shirou asked him.

Negi Springfield frowned. "I'm not sure I like the way you use posessives when you talk about the girls' relationships with us."

"Maybe we could make our girls wear badges or something to identify them?" Issei argued. "Like, if I see Chisame-san wearing Negi-kun's badge, I'll stay away from her, and so on. Wouldn't that make everyone's girls much easier?"

"Are you SERIOUSLY considering marking the girls as if they were our cattle?" Yuiga Nariyuki asked incredulously.

"Don't put it like that!" Issei said. "Look, it's just an idea...!"

"Chiri-san would kill me if I told her she'd have to wear a badge marking her as my property," Itoshiki Nozomu said. "So I think the proposal is actually worthy of consideration."

"Don't start making him feel he has a point!" Saotome Ranma barked.

Itou Makoto scratched his chin. "It's actually sort of a good idea past the stage of convincing them..."

"Yours don't need a tag with your name, just a credential of insanity for the security of everyone in the city!" Mamiya Otaru said.

"You only say that because yours can be identified at first sight already! One only has to look at the joints in the articulations!" Makoto snapped back.

"Even if they accepted, they'd start asking for tags specifying rank, and that would mean civil wars everywhere!" a terrified Yuuki Rito screamed.

Listening in silence behind the door, Yokoshima Naruko-sensei smirked to herself, then licked her lips all over.

---

Taiga-sensei looked up from the papers she was grading.

"Why are you wearing a jacket made of patches with men's names on them?" she asked Naruko.

 

A reworking of an ealier sketch to fit into the main storyline's continuity.


---

The girl with the long tail who had introduced herself as Tamaki (the girl, not the tail) gave a step toward Yue and Collet, and Yue and Collet gave a step back, pulling their magic wands out.

"Pika!" said Collet's small yellow familiar, jumping out from behind a turned chair and stepping between the girls and the intruder. Its small teeth clenched, sparks began appearing on its rosy cheeks.

"The three of you won't be able to stop me," Tamaki said, even though in truth she had no idea about what this creature was and what could it do. She'd still have to play it cool regardless. "Why won't you save further pain from--"

"HEEEY, YOU!" an annoying voice called out at her, from behind. "Whaddya think you're doing to these friends of mine?!"

She glanced back over her shoulder, and saw a young man with pastel colored hand, wearing baggy pants, an open black jacket, and a scarf. He smirked deviously at her, with a fiery look in his eyes, and was crackling his knuckles together.

"Natsu-san!" Yue gasped.

"Ah. So you are Natsu Dragneel from Fairy Tail," the dark skinned acolyte said coldly, advancing towards him.

"Yeah, that's me!" the young man snorted. "So what?"

"And you were raised by Igneel, the King of Dragons," she added, stopping right before him.

"How do you even know that? No, never mind, why would you even care?"

She frowned, then raised her thick tail and moved it from a side to the other. "Recognize this?"

Natsu raised an eyebrow. "Not any more than the rest of you. Should I? Don't tell me we've met before!"

"No. Never."

"Then why should I recognize it?"

"Doesn't it remind you of anything else?!"

"..."

"My father!" she roared. "Igneel was my biological father! Yet he never had any time or use for me, his child, while he took years to look after a complete stranger not even from our species!"

Natsu paused for several long moments, then went "Oooohhhhh..."

"So that's why I'm about to take revEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she yelled as a flame wrapped fist hit her in the face, sending her flying several feet back against a wall of a neighboring house. She then was buried by a small collapse of brick and mortar upon her, and popped back out immediately, with two crossed bandaids on her head. "IS THAT ANY WAY TO TREAT YOUR SISTER?!"

"You were about to tell me you were about to take revenge on me, so I hit first!" he said matter-of-factly.

"You... Why you... YOU BASTARD!" Tamaki roared, bursting out of her clothes as she grew into a large dragon, and throwing herself claws first against Natsu.

 

OverMaster Writes for Every Franchise in Existence.

---

Code Geass.

Still stunned, Lelouch turned back from the dead soldiers. "I... I really did that? Now I'm going to have problems with the law..."

The green haired woman in the white straightjacket spoke again. "That is the power of the Geass, a spell of absolute obedience. It will force anyone to do whatever you wish."

"Is that so...?" Lelouch paused, stroking his chin. Then he looked into C.C.'s eyes and pointed at her. "I want you to be my sexual slave forever!"

She laughed dryly and shortly. "That will not work on me! I had thought you'd be a man of higher aspirations, but--"

Then she stiffened in place.

---

Lelouch gently caressed C.C.'s face as he took her from behind.

She moaned into the pillow. "Someone up there needs to explain a lot..."

Nunally wheeled by past the closed doors of the bedroom and winced. "You can't go anywhere in this academy anymore, for the love of God...!"

 

A What If.

---

Shin Seiki Evangelion is the creation and intellectual property of Anno Hideaki, Sadamoto Yoshiyuki, and GAINAX or Khara or whoever has the rights now.

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

---

We are not Angels.

---

"Are you really sure you want to do this?" Rider asked. She was wearing a black sweater over jeans and sneakers, plus the set of tinted glasses Matou had forged for her in trade for her cooperation so long ago already. Or at least it felt that way. So she looked fairly normal and unremarkable for a tall bombshell with long purple hair.

If not for the fact that a sweltering summer was starting, and hence it made little sense to go around in a sweater. But Rider was a Servant, and she had difficulties feeling heat and humidity unless they were too extreme. Besides, Shinji would rather have her catching puzzled looks over leering looks.

Ikari Shinji drew a deep breath in. "Yes. Yes, of course. I owe Asuka this much. I've been in Mahora for like two weeks now, and I haven't even told her that I'm here..."

"You don't owe her anything," Rider said.

"She is my friend," Shinji said, looking at the picture in his hand. It had been sent to him through e-mail last night, when he finally had dared contacting Katsuragi-san.

The woman in the picture he'd printed had her hair shorter than Rider's but still reasonably long, a dark shade between black and purple. She was fairly curvaceous as well, instantly drawing Shinji's eyes to her figure. Wearing only jean shorts and a blue sleeveless top, she was leaning towards the camera and blinking an eye while making a 'V' sign with a hand.

"What kind of woman is this?" Rider asked, echoing Shinji's thoughts. "And why would your father hire her for anything?"

Shinji shrugged and fanned himself with the picture, both of them sitting on the bench by Mahora's main avenue, as the festive music of the Festival blared all around them. "I have no idea," he confessed. "She must be some kind of pencil pusher or another, that's all! Dad's job is fairly boring, just technical research for grand projects that will never come to be. It's not like-"

The sidewalk trembled and rumbled under them, then.

Shinji blinked, eyes now wide open. "What was that?"

The crowd surrounding them and transiting across the school grounds paused, also startled by the sudden incident. Earthquakes weren't ever unusual in Japan, but they had become actually less frequent after the cataclysm fifteen years ago. The back of Rider's neck crawled up in goosebumps, and she clenched her perfect white teeth. "Master. Be extremely careful," she said under her breath. "This sensation... it's something I hadn't experienced in over two thousand years..."

"Eh?" the black haired thin boy asked.

A second later, there were several shrieks from the crowd as a jet fighter zoomed by from the South, passing right over the Academy. There were a few cries of "Aerial Exhibit!" and then, shutting them up, the booming presence of a low-cruise aerial missile.

"HARMAGEDDON!" another voice shouted. The crowd began quickly huddling away together, off the streets and onto the sidewalks, chattering in confusion and a bit of fear.

Shinji was still staring at the sky, open mouthed, when he felt Rider grabbing him by an arm and pulling him up.

"Master, we've got to go!" the gorgeous woman urged him. "A Divine Spirit! This is the essence of a Divine Spirit... or close to it, at least!"

"Ah?" he looked at her tense face. "What are you talking about, Rider?"

"Your attention, please," asked a pleasant, if strained, female voice with an Osaka accent over the speakers lined along the streets. "This is Fujino Shizuru, President of the Mahora Student Council. We have been informed that a kaiju has just appeared in the bay, and it might be heading towards us as we speak. You are encouraged to head towards the designated emergency shelters in an orderly fashion, following our designated discipline enforcers..."

"HARMAGGEDON!" the voice from before repeated.

Chaos and panic, as they say, ensued. People began running in all directions while screaming, so nobody really noticed it when Rider scooped Shinji up in her arms and gave a single high leap with him, landing on the rooftop of a general store. From there, they overlooked the panicking masses.

"This is bad!" the boy gasped. "What, what is it? Some kind of Super-Servant?"

"Might be..." Rider said dubiously, scowling. "Master, it's definitely coming this way, we must flee! I cannot fight this thing..."

Then it came into sight, doubling around a distant mountain, and clearly gigantic even in the distance. It was a lumbering, titanic humanoid monster of black skin and long limbs, with a tiny white head grafted directly, and with no visible neck, on misshapen wide shoulders.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Shinji screamed. Below them, more cries and yells abounded while festival goers scattered around, running into every direction.

"NO! NO! I SWEAR I THOUGHT SHE WAS EIGHTEEN!"

"I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS MY SISTER!"

"I'm too young to die!"

"My son! Has anyone seen my son!?"

Then another cruise missile hit it, squarely across the torso, connecting directly with a huge explosion but barely pushing it back.

There were more screams.

"MOM! TAKE MY HAND!"

"TH-THAT'S NOT GOJIRA!"

"Get out of my fucking way, you-!"

Rider grunted and began running away with Shinji in her arms. She was about to leap from rooftop to another when the ground trembled again, throwing her off balance, and she dropped to the street. She spun in mid-air to land on her feet like the proverbial cat, shielding Shinji with her body.

Then they saw a bright blue Renault Alpine A310- thank you, Wikipedia!- speeding madly towards them, and screeching to a mad, sudden halt in front of them, and one of its doors opened, and out peeked the head of the beautiful woman from the picture, smiling at the boy.

"Hey, hello, Shinji!" she chirped out cheerfully. "Come on, jump in! We gotta run for it before Big Boy arrives here!"

"Katsuragi-san...?" Shinji craned his neck forward. "Is that you?" He asked mainly because she was wearing a red jacket and skirt with a black shirt buttoned to the neck, and no cleavage shown. He mainly was familiar with her cleavage, since he really hadn't looked at the rest of the picture that well.

"Who else could I be?" Katsuragi Misato said, opening the back door and ushering them in. "You must be Shinji's tutor! Weird that Commander Ikari never mentioned you, but he's like that!"

Since he wasn't Emo enough to wish to die right yet, Shinji quickly jumped into the backseat, with Rider following him in and closing the door behind herself. "What's going on here?!" he asked. "Is this the end of the world?!"

"Well, maybe," the driver admitted, shrugging. "Get ready," she said.

"Uh, for what?" Shinji blinked, then saw the small memo pinned on next to the car's steering wheel. 'From Yukari-chan to Misato-chan, please drive more carefully, you scare even me!' He sweatdropped. "Oh, I get it…"

"TURBINES TO SPEED!" Misato yelled with a sudden maniacal high pitch, and sank a foot on the accelerator… "MISATOMOBILE, GO, GO, GO!"

"I, I think we just ran someone!" Shinji gasped in horror.

"No, we didn't!" Misato said as the car speeded away from the colossus, and Rider clung on for dear life. "The streets are clear by now!"

"I'm pretty sure you just ran a man over!" Shinji insisted.

"That's Itoshiki-sensei!" Misato said, briefly looking through the back mirror. "He'll be fine!"

"Give me the wheel!" Rider shouted.

"What? No!" Misato shouted back. "This is my car and I don't even know you!"

"I have A+ ranked Riding, and you will have us killed!"

"The hell are you talking about?!" the other female said as the world became a blur of velocity around them. Shinji began feeling upset in the stomach. "You don't even know where I'm taking us!"

"You're taking us to Hades, that's where!" Rider protested.

"You mean like Hell?" Misato smiled, wildly turning around a corner and crashing through a mercifully just abandoned stand of souvenirs. "Well, if you want, I can just drop you here so you deal with the Angel instead!"

Shinji blinked, and then looked back towards the giant monster. "That thing... it's an Angel?"

"It's a long story, I- oh, shit!" Misato cursed. The creature had just swatted aside one of the missiles shot at it with its slashing right claw, and the charge had rocketed down towards Mahora, becoming a fireball even before hitting a building, right in the way the car was taking. Misato struggled to get off course, and at the last moment, the vehicle managed to swerve out of the way of the falling debris.

A gas leak- real this once, not just a mage excuse- exploded before them and turned the car around, making it spin and tumble around a few times. Rider once again protected Shinji with her body, saving him from the worst of the impact, while Misato's seatbelt saved her life. Finally, the car stopped on all four wheels by a small group of gasping and shocked onlookers, and Misato shook some dust off her face, heaving a deep sigh.

She managed a weak smile and looked at Rider. "On second thought, you know what, I'll give you the wheel and tell you where to take us. That fine with you?"

"... I guess," Rider stared at her coldly, while a petrified Shinji twitched in her embrace.

 

Following Katsuragi's instructions and a helpful GPS, Rider had driven them far from the spoiled festivities and into a small parking lot by an even smaller set of installations near the awesome, ever impressive World Tree dominating the Mahora landscape. These instalations, outwardly at least, consisted of only a small building, every door and window tightly sealed, and not even a sign visible anywhere.

As subtly disturbing as this was, however, they had left the 'Angel' long behind by now, and Ikari truly appreciated this.

Misato walked out of the car and took a moment to appreciate its state. "Wow, it's still functional!" she marveled. "This feels so strange..." Then she looked at Rider, who was helping Shinji out. "Do you want to be my chaffeur from now on? I'm willing to pay well!"

"We aren't here for anything of that!" the Servant snapped. "Will you finally tell us why you brought us here?!"

"Ah, yeah, you'll see, I was gonna take you to see you see Asuka-chan, so we could have a chill evening at home over some pizza, but then the Angel attacked and, well, your father wants to see you now, Shin-chan. He's waiting for you deep down."

Shinji blinked. "My father is back from overseas?!"

"Yeah, he and your mom. They just arrived earlier today, we weren't expecting them either," she gestured at them to follow her inside. "So don't make them wait for you, Shin-chan! We're running against time here, you know!"

"Well, I waited for their return for two years, seven months and twenty five days, so I guess they can wait for a little longer," Shinji grumbled as he and Rider followed her.

"Oh wow, you have a spine!" Misato marveled while using a pass-card to open the large metal door in front of them. "So, the reports and Asuka-chan were wrong after all!"

"What do you mean with that?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing! Nothing!" she sweatdropped. "Forget I said anything, please! Now, don't worry, I'll get you to your Daddy and Mommy in five minutes flat, tops…"

---

Two hours later, this happened:

"I told you, we're walking in circles!" Shinji whined again as they continued following Misato through a maze of cold and lonely halls.

Rider was looking all around them in silence, quietly fascinated at how much bigger this place was underground, when compared to what was in plain sight above ground level. After taking an extremely long and slow elevator several stories down, they had reached this sleek, futuristic and well lit complex that was so unlike any other place she had ever visited before.

Of course, just walking in circles through it constantly did take some of the sense of wonder out of her.

"We're not!" Misato shouted back. "We're about to arrive there, we're at only three doors away from him!"

"You said the same a friggin' hour before!" the teenager despaired, pulling his hair out. "And look, we passed next to that very same 'In case of Fire Break the Glass' sign ten minutes ago!"

"That's another one!" she differed. Misato huffed, and took another look at the map of the NERV headquarters she held in her hands. Damn, I knew we shouldn't have trusted that Hibiki Ryouga guy with making these, she thought bitterly.

Right then, another door opened behind them, making them stop, and they spun around to see another very shapely woman, with short blonde hair, wearing nothing except a skintight blue one piece swimsuit with lots of cleavage, and an open white lab coat open over it, stepping out of a room to face them.

"Captain Katsuragi!" the blonde said in a very stern voice. "You are two hours late now! The Angel has destroyed half of the city, and the N2 Bomb the UN used to try to stop it wiped the other half off! What do you have to say in your defense?"

"It was his fault!" Misato promptly pointed at Shinji. "He kept on distracting me and making lecherous proposals!"

"WHAAAAA-?!" Shinji screamed. "ME?!"

Rider frowned and slapped Misato in the back of the head. "OW!" the latter yelped. "Just trying to take some of the tension out!"

"Ugh. Excuse Captain Katsuragi, please," the blonde sighed. "She's just that irresponsible. And slutty. You're the Third Child, aren't you?"

"Third Child of whom?" he asked.

"Bah, forget it," the blonde said. "Your father will explain it all. I am Doctor Akagi Ritsuko, Director of Scientific Development here at NERV."

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor," Shinji bowed politely. "But, um, excuse me, but what is a lead scientist doing walking around a secret base in a swimsuit, may I ask?"

"I am forced to provide as much fanservice as I can. This is an ecchi story, after all."

"Oh."

Akagi then looked at Rider. "And you must be-" Then she froze in situ for a moment, staring at Rider's face and actually recognizing her upon actually paying attention to her. Briefly, Shinji feared Medusa's glasses might have failed and that the woman was about to turn into stone, but then she seemed to control her fleeting fit of panic and compose herself. "I'm sorry, I... I actually have no idea..."

Rider bowed stiffly. "Master Shinji's current caretaker. Raida Gorgo. Pleased to meet you," she said emotionlessly.

"She... She is from Greece," Shinji offered lamely, wondering how he would explain this to Mother and Father.

"Greek... I see. Of course." Ritsuko sighed and turned around on her heels. "Now come with me, I'll escort you to meet your father, Shinji."

"How do you know my name, Ma'am?" he respectfully asked, with Misato grumbling and going after them.

"Like I said, your father will explain it all," she dodged the matter. She threw a lollipop at him. "Here, suck on this along the way and don't ask any more questions."

"Ooooooo! Lollipop!"

 

Half an hour and five lollipops later, they arrived to a gigantic chamber where a huge purple mecha was held inside of a pool full with a strange red liquid. "Well, here we are," Ritsuko sighed. "You were right, Captain, those maps are bitches…"

"What's that giant thing submerged in all the blood?" Shinji cringed. "Is it a weapon designed to battle creatures like the one that is destroying the city right now?"

"Bingo," Ritsuko nodded.

"Does it have an unbelievable power that can cut like butter through all enemies of mankind, bringing peace and safety again?"

"You are right once again," Ritsuko confirmed.

"Then, why, I don't know… WHY ISN'T IT OUT THERE BATTLING THAT DAMN THING?!" He yelled, then regained his usual meeky tone. "Sorry. Been under a lot of stress lately."

"Don't worry. I know," Dr. Akagi shrugged. "Anyway, this is Evangelion Unit 01 ™, The Ultimate Weapon for the Defense of Humanity against Angels, Last Hope for Our Survival (all legal rights reserved, GAINAX, 1995-2021). She's an artificial humanoid designed to battle the Angels… creatures hellbent on attacking Earth and destroy our species at all costs…" She made a pause, walked to a nearby water supplier, and poured herself a glass, after which she continued, "However, it needs a pilot to function, or else all its might is worth for nothing!"

"And that's where I come in, right?" Shinji dreaded, while Rider's eyes grew wide behind her glasses.

"What? No, why would we ever use you for that?" a cold, imposing voice asked from above, and the boy looked up to see his forty eight-year old father, in a black suit, wearing dark tinted glasses and white gloves, standing on an upper catwalk overviewing them, closely followed by his loyal right hand man Waylon Smithers… I mean, Dr. Fuyutsuki Kozo, an old and gray frail man who held his arms crossed behind his back.

"Father!" Shinji gasped. "You… You…!"

"Hello, Shinji dear!" a still beautiful young woman with short dark brown hair, wearing an open lab coat over a business suit, stepped out from behind Fuyutsuki and Ikari Gendo, waving down at her son. "Ah, you've grown so much taller! ... you obviously aren't feeding well, though."

"And Mother, too!" Shinji gasped again.

Misato narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, well, why are you so surprised? I thought you she'd be here too, didn't I?"

"Father, you..." the boy swallowed.

"Yes, Shinji?" the Commander asked, his eyes unreadable because of his opaque glasses.

"You look much dumber with that goatee now, did you know?" Shinji asked.

"Really?" Ikari Gendo paused to caress his black goatee with a hand, thoughtfully. "But women like it… You still like it, don't you?" he asked, glancing at his wife.

Ikari Yui smiled and nodded patiently. "Yes, yes, naturally I do, Darling..."

"Thank you," Gendo said, relieved. "Anyway, Shinji, what matters now is, we had you brought here because this is the safest shelter in Mahora against the Angel attack. We want you to stay put here while the EVA 01 NERV has built destroys the Angel that is menacing all of our lives."

"Ah?" his son blinked. "You mean that you don't want me to pilot it?"

"Eh? Of course not, what kind of lunatic idea is that?" Gendo asked, confused by him. "Do you think that I would ask you to do something like that? That I would risk our only son in a last second gamble against a monster from beyond? Shinji, do you truly believe me so inhuman?"

The teenager blinked, then slowly said, "W-Well, no, but..."

"I think you have been reading too many adventure manga, dear," Yui said. "You still like those, don't you? By the way, Rit-chan, who is the lady with him, hmmmm?"

"I am Raida Gorgo, Master Ikari's caretaker," Rider said dryly.

"Oh, so your uncle hired an assistant after all" Shinji's mother said. "He should have called us on the subject..."

"Then who's going to pilot that Evangelion thing back there?" Shinji asked.

"That matter has been taken care of," Gendo said. "There is a qualified pilot who has been trained for the task since her earliest childhood. He turned to his second-in command. "Fuyutsuki, now that Shinji is here, to can bring on Rei."

"What?" the old man gasped. "But, Commander Ikari...!"

"It's an order, Fuyutsuki!" Gendo insisted. "If she is alive, then she can pilot it!"

Fuyutsuki gulped down, and minutes after, three redheaded Nurse Joys came bringing a stretcher with a severely wounded, bandaged young, also extremely shapely, quite busty for her age, fourteen years old girl with short blue hair, wearing some sort of skintight white battle outfit. "Ah… ahh…" the girl moaned in pain.

Gendo rushed to her side. "Rei, I know it's too soon, but that Angel is not going to kill itself…"

"Is this some kind of freaking sick joke?!" an appalled Shinji said from below.

"… Will you pilot Unit 01 again, for us and for Everlasting World Peace?" Gendo continued asking her, completely oblivious to his son. "Will you do that for us, Rei?"

"Ahh- ah hah…" the girl nodded with a lot of effort, and tried to stand up, only to slip down and fall down to the floor with a loud thud. "… Ouch…"

"DAAAAAD!" Shinji shouted. "Surely you must have someone older and more qualified for that kind of job right here!"
Rider raised a hand. "I can pilot that thing, whatever it actually is. I have A+ ranked Riding, and I'm only an expendable tool."

"Again with that?" Misato complained. "This isn't like driving a car, and I'm not going to lose my perfect chaffeur just like this!"

"Only those born fifteen to fourteen years ago can pilot the Evangelion, Shinji, Miss Gorgo," Yui told them.

"What? Why is that?!" Shinji wanted to know.

"That's a Top Secret we are not qualified to share with civilians," Misato said.

"How convenient..." Medusa muttered.

"But...!" Shinji said. And then his face tense, and he shouted "Fine! I'm fifteen! So I'll do it instead!"

Rider jumped back as if Saber had just blasted Excalibur on her face. "What are you saying?! No, Master! I refuse!"

Gendo stared back at him. "Nani?! You're insane! Absolutely not! I won't allow it! Don't get in the fucking robot, Shinji!"

"There is a strong chance that you could just trigger a Fourth Impact," Doctor Akagi lectured. "That is a risk we cannot allow ourselves."

"It's fine..." Rei said weakly, trying to pull herself back up by climbing clumsily up a sighing Fuyutsuki's legs. "I can perform..."

Shinji slammed a hand on his own chest. "If there's a super qualified extremely skilled fifteen years old here who can do it better than me and isn't coughing their lungs up, then bring them on! Otherwise, that thing will kill us all anyway! I'm tired of being protected like a weak wuss! This time I'll prove them all! I'll prove everyone that I'm a man... I mean, that I can protect my loved ones with no selfish motives of self reassurance or anything!"

"You... You will? YEAH!" Misato clapped happily. "YAY, SHINJI…!"

"W-Well, when you put it like that... We'll never forget your brave sacrifice, Third Child…" Ritsuko sniffed some tears back. "Just try not to kill us all..."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence…"

"I still haven't said that-" Rider began, only to fal silent when Shinji showed her a balled up fist with the Seals of Command subtly shifting under the skin. Misato blinked. Had he just threatened to punch his tutor out?

Gendo paused, startled, and then consulted it with a quiet glare at his wife. She shrugged, and he sighed. "Then, go there and make him sorry, son," his father said, going down the stairs and patting him on a shoulder. "We're all counting on you here!"

"Father...!" the enraptured Shinji said with starry eyes, joyous at being recognized at last.

"Little… help here, please…" Rei weakly pleaded from the floor she had slipped back to.

 

As Shinji sat on the control cabin of the EVA, which was quickly filled with the red liquid to sustain him inside, freaking him out at first, he asked through the intercom, "Hey, it was just a coincidence that this thing came just after Mom and Dad, right?"

"Of course it is, why would it be any other way?" Ritsuko replied through the communication window. "Now listen, the EVA will react according to your actions. If you want it to walk, just move your legs. If you want it to throw a punch, just move a fist. It's so easy, even Rei mastered it in only one day."

"Then why is she so hurt?" he asked, distrustful.

"She slipped in the bath," Akagi lied. "Now, ready for launch! GAMBARE!" she yelled as the purple titan was shot outside to the mean streets of Academy City.

Well, at least it isn't half as bad as Misato-san's driving, Shinji thought as he clumsily guided the Evangelion in his first baby steps, stepping on a few cars and yapping dogs. It was a bit like driving a bicycle. If he only managed to get a full gist on it before meeting the so-called Angel, then he could—

Moments after that, he cursed his hopeful thinking as the Angel appeared out of nowhere and jumped on him, ready to rip him and the EVA apart with its huge claw-like hands.

"Weeeelllllll…" In the depths of the Geofront, crossing his gloved hands in front of his face, Gendo somberly pondered, "If he can't do it, you will go in the EVA 00 to finish the job off, Rei."

"MY CHILD!" Rider bawled desperately. "YOU MONSTERS! DAMN YOU ALL!"

"We will send Rei before he's too badly hurt," Yui said in a stoic sober tone. "We won't let anything bad happen to him."

An unintelligible low moan from the blue haired pilot was all of her reply, lying on the stretcher with the Nurse Joys taking her pulse, while Ritsuko and Misato shared worried looks.

"She is half dead!" Rider accused, pointing at Rei. "Ohhh, my sisters were right all along! Humans are the real monsters!"

Finally, Misato spoke. "So… we are basically dead, aren't we?"

"You are if any harm befalls him!" Rider promised furiously.

"I will be philosophical about it. I have led a rich and fulfilling life," Akagi lied, lighting herself a cigarette.

Up on the mean broken streets, the Evangelion was folding its arms above itself, to shield itself from a punishing barrage of blows from the Angel. "Damn it, how does Rider do this?!" he screamed. "This thing really knows how to fight! I thought it'd have no mind of its own!"

Well, if movies had taught him anything, it was that there was a move guaranteed to win in any fight, as long as the opponent was male. Moving a leg up as hard as he could, Shinji swung with a kick to the Angel's crotch and sank its foot into its crotch.

The expressionless white face did not change at all, and the blows to the EVA continued being just as relentless.

"OH MY GOD, THIS IS A GIRL!" Shinji panicked.

The Angel grabbed the EVA's head and bashed it with its own, stunning Shinji for a moment. Shinji retaliated with a blow to its midsection, and for the first time he had a feeling he had just hurt the creature in the slightest. "Where is the damn Justice Society?!" he demanded. "Where is Superman?!"

"Off-planet at the time," Ritsuko said over the communicator. "Not that the government would let them act on Japanese territory over something like this. This matter is strictly NERV's jurisdiction."

"This, this is not the moment for political... things like those!" the boy yelled as the Angel punched the EVA in the face. "My nose, this brute's just broken my nose!"

Okay, what would Emiya-senpai do in a moment like this? Shinji tried to think. He'd have Saber blast the monster with Excalibur and- Wait a sec, what is their excuse now?! Why hasn't SHE blasted it with Excalibur already?!

---

"Get out of my way, Gilgamesh!" Saber roared, slashing her way through the barrage of weapons the Golden King was throwing at her. "I promise in m honor I will deal with you after I take care of that fiend!"

"Bwa ha ha ha ha! Sorry, brave Saber, but I don't believe you could survive a clash with a creature of that nature! So we will have to enjoy our fated duel right here and now, as mankind stands on the brink of a long overdue trial!" the blond man in shiny armor laughed, keeping his arms folded.

"Asshole, why don't you just take care of that thing yourself if you're that powerful!" Emiya Shirou shouted.

"Oh?" the King of Heroes said, raising an eyebrow. "Don't be foolish, mongrel! That abomination is far too disgusting for me to waste my cherished treasures on it!"

"Again?!" Saber screamed, pushing her way further. "You haven't changed in the slightest...!"

---

"Okay, you know what, I'm just through with everything!" Shinji decided, as he leapt on the Angel and hugged it tightly, struggling to keep in place as it bashed against it to break free. "Damn, there must be a way to take your head off!"

He began gnawing at the air, and the mecha reacted by biting on the points where the Angel's head met its body. It didn't seem to do much other than hurting his teeth. Shinji next tried applying a hold he'd seen in female wrestling on TV, but the Angel's misshapen body was too angular and it felt too slippery for that to work either. He smashed a knee against the creature's chest, and when that seemed to make it twitch, he repeated it, but it was clear that he was still fighting a lost battle.

How do I even hurt this guy, I mean, girl?! Shinji despaired. I'm gonna die...!

Then the communication link sizzled and crackled, and everyone in the Geofront was startled.

"Doctor Akagi!" a young and cute short haired female technician cried from one of the control panels. We are, of course, talking about Elmer Fudd. Who do you think we are talking about, seriously? Do you really need to wonder? Well, I'm always throwing oddball curves so maybe you do. Sorry. It was Maya. "We have lost contact with the pilot!"

"W-What?!" Yui said. "But, he hasn't sustained enough damage for that!"

"MY MASTER!" Rider wailed. "POOR, POOR MASTER!"

Misato was making a phone call. "Kyoko-chan? Yeah, I'm afraid so... I love you so much, Hon... Tell Asuka-chan I love her too..."

Shinji, meanwhile, had been tossed against a building, and he was flinching in pain when he saw an unfamiliar face in the small holo screen next to him. That wasn't Ritsuko but a very young girl, around twelve or so, with long black hair and round dark circles on her face, each on a cheek and the forehead. "Wh-Who are you...?" he coughed. "The angel of death...?"

"I'm a friend of Emiya Shirou and Saber," said the girl. "Listen, we only have a few minutes before NERV resumes this channel so I'll tell you what you need to do fast. You have to hug Sachiel hard and never let go of him..."

"I... I thought that was a girl?" Shinji asked as Sachiel grabbed him by the head and punched him in the nose again.

The girl grinded her teeth. "What does that matter...?! Just do as I say!"

"Okay!" Shinji said, wrapping its arms around the entity's body again and hugging it, the Angel beginning to hit him madly just as soon. "Now what?!"

"I'm going to release a massive discharge of energy channeled through a pirate connection to Yggdrasil and your bioframe," the girl said. "That should be enough to destroy Sachiel, but be warned. It's going to hurt you too!"

"E-Exactly how much hurting are we talk- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Shinji screamed in agony as he felt every nerve extension in his body exploding with fire, and then he blacked out, unable to stand it.

 

He woke up with a start.

He was lying in a hospital bed now, wearing a thin hospital white robe, his upper head wrapped in bandages. A Nurse Joy was entering his room, and smiled warmly for him. "Ah, Ikari-san, you have awakened at last! Doctor Hazama was right; at this rate you'll be ready to leave us tomorrow."

"H-How…" Shinji groaned weakly, his half-open eyes focusing themselves, "How long was I… unconscious?"

"Three days," the Nurse replied.

"And… what happened to the… Angel?"

Joy took a few furtive looks around herself, then leaned down to Shinji's right ear and whispered on it. "It's okay. Your machine went into some sort of automatic Berserk Mode after you fell unconscious, and defeated the monster by itself in a spectacular slugfest the author didn't bother to show. It is destroyed now. There's nothing to worry about, well, at least until the next one comes."

"Huh…"

She beamed a large bright smile at him then. "You've got visitors, by the way! Now that you're awake, I can let them in!" She called out to someone outside the room. "Hey, you! You can come in already, but make it fast!"

Rider rushed in, bust bouncing as she made it to kneel by his bedside, grabbing his hand tightly. "Master! Oh, Master! Thank the gods you are well...!"

"There is only one true God and you would do well to remember that," a weary, jaded Saber said, walking inside as well with Shirou. The Nurse stepped out and closed the door after them. "Good evening, Young Mister Ikari. Congratulations on your victory."

"Saber-san. Senpai!" Shinji looked at them, placing a hand on the scalp of Rider as she bawled onto his chest. And then, after a pause, "Why the hell didn't you ever try to Excalibur that thing to bits?"

"It's a long story!" Saber said with annoyance.

"... okay," Shinji ended up saying. "I suppose that I shouldn't be questioning you when you say that you had better things to do than tackling a giant monster who was threatening the lives of everyone in the city and-"

"I was fighting the First of All Heroes, who was standing in my way and who almost killed me and Shirou!" Saber snapped. "I'm sorry we couldn't be there for you!"

"This is the worst part of heroism," Shirou mused quietly to himself. "Now I know how Superman must feel in those Senate audiences..."

Shinji sighed. "Fine, fine... I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't judge you without knowing the whole extent of whatever went on elsewhere."

Saber looked moderately more pleased with this choice of words. "I understand. You almost were killed yourself, so I can see where are you coming from."

"Thank you, you guys are all here even though my own parents haven't bothered to visit," Shinji told them. "I truly appreciate that."

"You know that for sure yet," Shirou said. "What if they had to absent themselves just for a moment right when you were coming back to your senses?"

"Shirou, it's cruel to fool the boy with lies," Saber said. "We have been here for two days straight, since I recovered, and we haven't seen those people here even once..."

Shirou winced. "Saber...!"

"He's got to come to terms with that reality," the blonde argued.

"It's okay, Senpai, that doesn't come as a surprise at all," Shinji said in a dull tone. "There must be a lot of... important bureaucratic paperwork to cover after the city was destroyed, and someone's got to handle that, right...?"

"Miss Asuka has been here since before we even arrived, however," Saber pointed out. "She had to leave two hours ago since she was too spent, waiting by this room for your recovery. Professor Negi had to convince her to let him take her back home for some sleep."

Shinji's face seemed to brighten in a subtle, yet noticeable fashion. "Asuka...? Are you sure...?"

"That's how she introduced herself. A girl your age, with red hair, right?" Shirou asked. "She said she was a childhood friend of yours."

Shinji smiled. "Y-Yes. The best friend I ever had..."

Then he blushed, noticing the way Rider was looking up at him from under the hand resting on her head. "I mean! R-Ruh-Rider, our relationship kinda goes beyond that of friends by now, r-right?!"

Rider seemed satisfied by this answer.

 

Now, he was sitting on a chair of the hall outside his room, watching TV with a group of other patients. One of them was some martial artist, or at least he claimed so; he wore a pink hospital robe, had thin light brown hair tied into a ponytail, and said he was there because some Muay Thai murderous thug had pummeled him because of some revenge, or something like that.

The other was a thin blond with blue eyes and a ton of flamboyant mannerisms, who apparently had been hurt in the Angel rampage. His name was… Hanagata, Shinji seemed to remember, not that it really mattered at all for him.

"Here I am, Reporter Rikdo Koshi, at what little is left of Academy City after what the authorities have officially labeled as a 'freak earthquake. With explosions'," a thin man with glasses was saying in the screen. "Although witnesses have said they saw a giant robot and a monster fighting during the events, the Academy Mayor and Colonel Shikishima from the JSSDF claim those were 'only hallucinations created by mass hysteria. And paint fumes'."

"Man, who do they think they are fooling?" Shinji grumbled.

"Oh, I see!" Hibiki Dan shouted. "An earthquake!"

"See?" Hanagata smiled crossing his scrawny arms. "I told you! It was nothing but the wrath of nature!"

Shinji sweatdropped hearing the two goofs chatting. Obviously, they never would believe him if he told them the truth about what had happened… if that hadn't been just a mad dream of his, that was.

He brooded. His parents had not even come to see him, or to ask how he was doing. Stupid, stupid rat bastards. If he ever went into that robot again, first thing he was going to do was to 'accidentally' step on a Gendo…

"Whoa!" a scream of Dan brought him back to reality. "Pretty lady comin' up!" The martial artist elbowed Shinji in the ribs while winking an eye at him. "Watch this, kid. The Master of Saikyo will put his charm to work! Observe and learn!"

Shinji watched, shocked, how Katsuragi Misato arrived to the place, to be greeted by Dan, who jumped into her way and struck a pose. "Why, hello, Gorgeous!" he shouted. "Came to visit Mommy? Daddy? A sick little nephew? Let Hibiki Dan, Super Fighter Extraordinary Supreme, to help you to heal your hurt heart! They say I am a—"

Not really in the mood for dealing with him, Misato just slapped him aside so hard she slammed him into a wall. Then she walked to Shinji, and a scared Hanagata just moved aside to let her to pass.

"Hello, Shin-chan!" she smiled happily at him. "Excellent work back there! The Boss is very satisfied with your job!"

"The Boss?" Shinji frowned. "Do you mean my… father? Then why isn't he here to tell me that himself?"

"Well, you see, he had… things to do…" she replied.

"And my mother?"

"W-Well, your mother, naturally, they both hold ranks that are just as high in their own separate branches, and-"

"Which things could be more important than their son?"

Misato struggled to find a suitable answer, failed, and shrugged. "Do you want a honest answer, or a kind one?"

"Forget it," Shinji sighed.

"But hey!" she added. "There are good news, too! I've been assigned as your tutor, so you'll be living with us, a bunch of sexy girls, in our very small, very intimate, very romantic apartment!"

"… Great" Shinji groaned.

"Hum, Shin-kun?" Hanagata asked him. "You feeling okay? I am as gay as they come, and even I envied you for a split second…"

"Oh, shut up, Hanako," the boy mumbled. "Katsuragi-san, I'm sorry, but I'm already living with Emiya-senpai..."

"Not anymore!" Misato chirped. "Come on, you want to see Asuka-chan again, don't you?"

Shinji looked aside and blushed. "Y-Yes... Of course I want to, but..."

"Then it's decided!" She pumped a fist up. "C'mon, it'll be fun, and you won't have to rely on charity from a complete stranger now!"

Shinji glared blandly at her.

Misato laughed rigidly. "Eh-heh-heh, I know I'm a complete stranger as well, but... You're going to force me to say it, aren't you? The Commander says this is the only way you get to keep Rider."

"..." Shinji said, his eyes growing much larger for a moment. And then he lowered his head, defeated. "You win..." he ended up grumbling.

"I'm sorry, Shinji," the woman said. "This isn't my decision either."

"I know..."

 

Erza Should be Arrested.

"Ugh..." Chisame woke up with a terrible hangover. "Why, why do I feel so bad...?"

"Um, yes, about that..." a nervous Lucy said, sitting next to Chisame's bed. "It's Natsu and Erza's fault, they got you to drink last night..."

"What?!" Chisame yelled, before realizing that Negi also was in the same bed, sleeping on top of Tsukuyomi while Tsukuyomi kept a hand on Yue's ass. Haruka and Yukino slept together on the floor, with a very pleased looking Yukino resting her hed between Haruka's breasts. Thankfully they all were clothed. "How did that even come to happen?"

"You never could tell no to Erza," Lucy said honestly.

"I don't remember any of that..." Chisame insisted. "So it never happened!"

"You will, eventually," Lucy sighed. "A-Anyway, Erza tried to talk you into officially joining us, but then she changed her mind and said that you guys should be your own Guild, as you were comrades long before even meeting us."

"That's so stupid," Chisame sat up on the edge of the bed. "Why does my arm itch like-- AAAAAAHHHH!" she screamed, taking a good look at her own right forearm, emblazoned with the image of a small set of white wings.

"... and she forced me to design a logo for you before she called a magical tattoo artist," Heartfilia confessed meekly, twiddling her fingers together. "I'm sorry...!"

Chisame began cursing a storm, even though it only was making her headache worse.

"Look at the kind side," Lucy said, getting up from the chair and flipping Tsukuyomi's skirt up as to reveal the same design tattooed on her right buttock. "It could've been worse...!"

 

Some Things Never Change.

"I'm sorry we took so long, Misa, Madoka-san," Negi bowed. "You must have suffered a lot there..."

Misa sniffled. "Yes, thank you for understanding, Negi-kun! It broke my heart, seeing Madoka being exploited that hard for my sake!"

The rest of the girls and Rito stared at Kugimiya.

Madoka gave a very long and exhausted sigh. "Tosaka-san didn't care that much about who did the work, as long as it was done..."

Chisame looked back at Negi. "It's not too late yet, you know. We still can head back, return Kakizaki, and keep Kugimiya!"

 

"I can walk just fine now, really. This isn't necessary..." Shinji protested as his wheelchair was pushed out of the hospital by Rider.

"The Commander himself asked for this, and an order is an order," Misato lectured, guiding them towards the parking lot. Negi-sensei was there as well, arguing that the Mahora Headmaster had sent him as his representative. "You'll be visited and tested by a physical therapist before you can be deemed fit to start classes."

"I'm just surprised that enough of the Academy has survived for the rest of the school term," Shinji said very quietly, eyeing past the lot and towards the streets, displaying several still smoking shattered buildings. "My God, I must have failed so many people...!"

"The contingency plans set in place by Principal Konoe were put in motion adequately, so nobody in the Academy died," Negi said, pushing his tiny bifocals up his small nose. "Except for Itoshiki-sensei, but he got better."

"Really?!" Shinji looked incredulous. "Absolutely no one?!"

"That is what he told me, and I'm absolutely sure that he wouldn't lie to me just to keep my spirits up," Negi said with a fist on his heart. Shinji gave a silent worried side glance at Misato, who took a pointer finger to her closed lips. "But yes, a few areas of the school were heavily damaged, so there will be some reshuffling of the classes. But you don't have to worry about that right now."

"Yeah, yeah, and look who's here!" Misato changed the subject, smiling and pointing towards her banged up parked car. Shinji pointed in that direction and smiled at the sight of his old friend, wearing a light yellow summer dress and waving at him with a cocky smirk.

"Asuka...!" he said.

"Hey, Shinji!" Soryu Asuka Langley said, closing the distance between them and looking up and down at him. "Just look at yourself, you've really let go of yourself, huh?!"

Shinji chuckled weakly, rubbing the back of his head. "I guess I have, huh..."

Asuka then looked up at Rider. "Yo, Rider-san." They exchanged a brief, rather elaborate salute of sorts with complicated hand motions, and then bumped fists. "Yeah, that's it! You remembered!"

Shinji blinked. "You became this close so quickly?"

"Well, there was nothing better to do than discussing the classics while waiting for you to finally wake up," Asuka shrugged. "It's good to finally meet someone you can have a decent conversation on myths with. There's Ayase and Nagato, I guess, but they're like the worst conversationalists ever."

"Hey..." Negi frowned slightly.

Asuka grinned and rapped her knuckles on Shinji's head. "Anyway, thanks for everything, Slim. I've gotta admit, that took balls! Rider-san must have taught you a few good things while you were away."

Rider smiled to herself. "I have done my best."

"Well, let's get going," Asuka poked a thumb back towards the car. "Mom wants to see you too, and there's someone else you should meet, as well. Sensei, you'd better go home too before that nag who lives with you starts calling me again. And you'd also better talk with Chao, she's been having a serious- Hey, are you paying me attention?"

"I... I'm sorry, I think I've got something in my nose," Negi twitched, smelling some of the wafting leftover dust from the ruins. "Oh, oh dear, maybe you should, step, aw-aw-AAHHHHCHOOO!" he sneezed thunderously, blowing a mighty burst of air all under Asuka's skirt, and making it flare up.

"YAAAAAAHHHHH!" Asuka screamed as her white and blue striped panties, the same kind as Chisame's favorites, were exposed for everyone to see, and Shinji collapsed in the wheelchair with a powerful nosebleed.

"See?" Misato said. "You might have hurt yourself if you'd been standing!"

 

OverMaster Writes for Every Franchise in Existence.

---

Babar.

The King sat at the middle of his destroyed capital, reading a book.

He did his best to ignore the sounds of glasses being shattered and houses being toppled in a frantic frenzy. Eventually, as he read on, the scandal grew quieter, until the only sounds remaining were the occasional retreating stompings, and a wild elephant call in the distance.

King Babar closed his copy of The Island of Dr. Moureau and sighed. "I see. This explains everything, then."

He still was too different by now, though, so in the morning he took the first boat back to Europe.

A stranger everywhere.

 

Happy Birthday.

Negi blew on the candles.

Everyone in the fully packed room clapped loudly, even Evangeline, taking advantage of how nobody would notice amidst all the noise. Most cheered, too.

"What did you wish for, Negi-kun?" Makie asked eagerly.

"Ah! Moron!" Yuuna said. "Don't ask, he's not supposed to answer or else it won't come true!"

Negi laughed weakly. "That's fine, that's fine, I'm sure it'll become a reality regardless..."

"Oh, then are you gonna say it?" Kotaro asked.

"No."

And when the party was finally over and everyone was finally gone (except for Ayaka, who had crashed on Hakase's bunk exhausted, and now slept soundly on top of the groaning smaller girl), Negi just stayed in a poignant silence, sitting before the table and waiting for someone he knew wouldn't come.

Chisame looked at him in a silence of her own, from the top bunk, until the clock rang twelve, and the day passed without Nagi Springfield ever showing up.

Negi excused himself in a whisper for the toilet, and locked himself there.

Since there really was nothing else that she could do, Chisame waited patiently until he'd finished crying.

 

Fate: Into the Artoriaverse.

When Shirou came back home, he found her all but depleted and sitting at the main table, her head tossed back over the chair.

Around the table also sat a tall and handsome blond man, a towering curvy blonde with a massive bust, a tiny female lion creature with green eyes, a nervous looking Saber lookalike wielding a long staff and appearing to be rather shy, and a pale, disturbingly aloof second Saber with golden eyes that drilled through your soul.

“Don’t ask,” his Saber said, as weary as someone may sound. “We were saving the Multiverse.”

 

A preview.

---

"There!" Chamo said, pointing ahead. "That's New Ostia!"

"It would have to be, it's the only city anywhere in sight," Morisato Keiichi, still in costume as a female fortune teller, sighed while driving the cart. "Okay, remember, you have to stay hidden until we reach the arena. I'll handle the guards at the gates, and--"

Then a huge explosion coming from within the city walls startled them. There was the roar of some manner of gigantic fearsome beast that reminded the boys of the Mahorafest, and then something larger than life itself flew out of the city, briefly tossing a titanic shadow over them.

It passed as soon as it had appeared into sight, zooming away from the city and into the badlands, and as it flew, it left behind a trail of strong, unmistakable maniacal cackles.

"... Haruna-san," Chamo and Keiichi said after a moment of shock.

Keiichi sighed and turned the wheel around, spinning the cart to go in pursuit of the whaleship. "We should have expected something like this from her."

"Yeah. Totally," Chamo said, sweating a little while looking back. The gates of the city were being flung open with haste, and dozens of armored soldiers, most of them flying on brooms, were pouring out in pursuit. "Um, we can catch up to them before they catch up to us, right?"

"We always can say that we're just innocent travellers who happened to be in their way..." the young man said calmly, turning the boosters on. And then he smirked. "But they won't be catching us!"

He stepped on the accelerator.

The cart became a blur of pure velocity as Chamo cried out in terror.

 

When Collet met Kotaro.

Negi smiled and gestured towards the dog girl. “Kotaro, this is Collet Farandole, a loyal friend of ours who has accompanied us all the way from Ariadne. Collet, this is Kotaro-kun, my—huh,” he interrupted himself, blinking.

Collet and Kotaro had started walking around each other in circles, leaning down and sniffing each other’s butt.

“…” Negi sweatdropped.

“You shouldn’t have expected for anything but this,” Lena said.

“Pika,” Jean-Luc opined.

 

Brand Recognition.

"Y-You..." Negi gasped, looking up at the hooded figure. "You're the one who defeated Kotaro!"

"Yes." The stranger smiled enigmatically. "I am Colonel Sanders. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Negi's current party stared at him, dumbfounded, for several moments.

"Yeah, well," Haruna said then. "And I'm Wendy!"

"I'm Ronald Mc Donald," Rito said.

"I'm the Burger King," Touko deadpanned.

"I'm the Hamburglar," Saeki said.

"Are we actually doing this? Seriously? Oh, fine. I'm Chester Cheetah," Chisame threw her hands up blandly.

"I'm Joe Camel!" Kurusu Kanako said.

The others looked at her.

"What?" she asked defensively. "They are an important part of MY balanced diet!"

 

Her Urges.

Itoshiki cleared his throat. "Miz-sama," he said. "This is Tsunetsuki Matoi, one of my students. Please greet Miz-sama properly, Tsunetsuki-kun."

"Mm-hmmm," Matoi said, not looking at the priestess. "Nice to meet you..."

Miz blinked, confused. "Why is she doing that?" she asked the man, seeing how the girl was obsessively rubbing two open scissors against each other.

Itoshiki sighed. "Please forgive her manners. She hasn't been able to see her girlfriend in quite a long time..."

 

Illyasviel von Einzbern winced in a mixture of terror and disgust.

Not at the sight of the just arrived enemy. No, this cat girl was, as a matter of fact, very cute, and despite everything, Illya couldn't take her seriously yet. No, what made Illya's stomach want to turn itself out from the inside was the deranged laugh of her hired hand as she stepped in between both of them. She had known this woman for weeks, and she still couldn't get used to her damned laugh.

"OHHH, HO HO HO!" Naga the White Serpent sent shivers of extra terror all through the crowd fleeing the scene, jarring her fists on her hips. For a moment, Koyomi eyed her bouncing breasts and mildly flinched inside with fleeting primal envy. "How cute, a kitten menaces me with her claws! Didn't anyone- UHHH!"

Illya blinked, surprised as suddenly the innocent looking cat had lashed ahead with a wide arching swing kick to Naga's jaw, closing her mouth and pushing her back violently. Naga flew a few feet back and crashed on her back into the pavement, bouncing back to her feet just as soon. "Why, you little piece of-!"

Koyomi tossed her overcoat back and assumed a fighting stance in her white short skirted dress. "As always, a spellcaster is at a disadvantage against a physical fighter. Lina Inverse may be both, but you are not, and that is why you never bested her."

Naga seethed, her face reddening as her mocking good humor disappeared. "The nerve of you...! Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"We are researchers, and we have full data on you," Koyomi lectured her in a cold tone. "I'll beat you to the draw every time you try to cast."

Illya, from the sidelines, gestured with her hands, and the shiny silvery threads of the combat magecraft her mother had taught her so many years ago flashed to life between her fingers. Absently, and without taking her eyes off Naga, Koyomi slammed a foot down in a precise angle, and a chunk of pavement flew from under her sole, shattered on impact and colliding against Illya's forehead.

"OWWW!" the albino cried, dropping back and letting go of the threads, taking both hands to her bleeding head.

"You wench...!" Naga fumed.

"Come on," Koyomi challenged her. "Draw your sword out. If you can."

Naga's eyes burned red with furious fire, and she shoved her gloved hands ahead, gesturing as if wielding an invisible bow. "FREEZE ARROW!"

A barrage of large icy projectiles flew towards Koyomi, who leapt over them with truly feline grace, pirouetting in the air to kick Naga in the head, and dropping her on top of the yelping Illya. Before Naga could get back up, Koyomi landed on her feet on her chest, and just as quickly she took Naga's head in her hands and headbutted her, stunning her.

Naga saw stars and little laughing Linas with horns and tails flashing in circles around her skull. "Y-You fool!" she gasped, trying to push herself back up. "It'll take more than this to-!"

"I know," Koyomi calmly said, grabbing her by the long hair and slamming her face against a wall, brutally. Before Naga could recover, she repeated the procedure, then did it again, and once more, and yet again, and finally threw her aside, groggy and stumbling. "You are stupidly strong, after all."

"A-And you are just stupid..." Naga coughed, wiping the blood off her nose with the back of a fist. Illya, who compared with her had the endurance of wet paper, lied on the street with winging spiral eyes and unable to pull herself up. "You're only delaying the-"

"You are quite wrong, Princess Gracia," Koyomi said plainly.

Naga's eyes widened in horror and shock at those words, and then, taking advantage of that pause, Koyomi jumped on her and punched her right in the middle of the face. She followed this by slamming a boot on Naga's nose as hard as she could and then tossing her on top of Illya again.

Seeing how she'd stunned the dark sorceress harder this time, Koyomi took a moment to catch her breath, standing over them. She brought her hands together and flexed them in and out. "Adeat," she said.

A shiny, pearly hourglass came into being before her, floating in the air, and Koyomi allowed herself a small smile. For all of her bravado meant to throw Naga off, she knew that in a long confrontation, and with the surprise element faded, Naga would inevitably defeat her sooner or later. She was Lina Inverse's near equal, after all, lack of brains or not.

"Horaria Porticus," she began activating her Pactio Artifact. "I command you to-"

And then there was a soft voice coming from right behind her, blowing warm reluctant air on the back of her neck.

"I'm sorry. So sorry!" a girl said, nearly weeping.

And then two sharp daggers were stabbed deeply, one from each side, into Koyomi's neck.

"MYAAAAAAA!"

Illya blinked from under Naga, looking at the black haired, sad looking female who had attached herself to Koyomi's back, surrounding the catgirl's torso with her legs. "K-Kaga-san?!" she recognized her. "A-Ah! You were here?!"

"Yes, always! I mean, sorry, no, I just arrived, and I stole Matoi's catchphrase without meaning to, I'm so awful!" Kaga Ai whimpered pathetically, while easing back off Koyomi and casually tossing her, rather brutally, down the street and against a metal fence. "Ahhhh! Sorry about that too, Cat-san!"

"Ghhhrrlll!" Koyomi choked, taking a hand to her punctured neck and collapsing on the sidewalk after taking her first taste of Class 3-F's insanity.

"I, I, I said I'm sorry!" Ai panicked. "Look, I just arrived in the city, and I saw you bullying Illya-chan, and I'm a ninja, so I had to-!"

"You are a ninja?!" Illya said, helping Naga back up. "Since when?!"

"I, I don't have my Zetsubou Sensei manga at hand right now, but I think it was around Chapter- Uuuhhh-" Ai stammered nervously, then looked back at the twitching Koyomi. "S-Sorry for saying this about your bully, buh-but maybe we should call a doctor for her?"

Illya hummed, then walked over to Koyomi and kicked her in the head, knocking her out. "She'll be fine, her friends will be here shortly to heal her, assuming the rest of the party doesn't kill them first."

"Ah!" Ai said. There was a pause. "Sorry for telling you this, but you are kind of mean, Illya-chan."

"My God, we really should have brought Nagase instead of you," the Einzbern said.

"I'll accept that as the whole extension of the thanks a lowly person like me deserves for your rescue..."

 

What Brought This About, Senpai?

Shirou closed the doors after himself, then walked towards his classmate.

"Issei," he said very seriously.

"Yes, Emiya?"

"Take off your clothes."

Issei blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Your clothes. Take all of them off."

Issei backed away, gasping. "Th-Tha's not funny! What are you--"

"I'm not joking. Strip down. Please don't question me."

Issei clenched his teeth and assumed a martial stance. "D-Don't provoke me! I've studied under Kuzuki-sensei...!"

Shirou charged, and then charged at him. "Your resistence will only make this harder for you!"

---

"..." all of Ala Alba stared at him, slack jawed.

"I needed to make sure he didn't have Command Seals anywhere on him!" Shirou argued.

"Senpai..." Nodoka said faintly. "You could have asked me for help... I'd have read his mind..."

Shirou paused for a moment, then said, "Something, something, telepathy blocks or something!"

"Did you take pictures?" Haruna asked eagerly. "His whole body needs to be examined by us magical experts before you make an unqualified call on his innocence!"

"No, I didn't," he said. "Should we go and strip him again?"

"Let's!" Haruna cheered.

Kotaro raised an eyebrow. "Senpai, aren't you a bit too much into that by now...?"

 

"I'll handle her," Asuna said, putting Rito down on another sidewalk. "Her flames must be generated by magic."

"But...!" Rito gasped. "That's still too risky...!"

"You won't be able to fight her without falling facefirst on her and burning yourself, dammit!" Asuna barked as Homura exploded into flames, surrounding herself with fire and turning her clothes into ash falling around her. "Keep the Keyblade safe and let me take care of the rest!"

"Oh, no, I won't!" Rito began stomping his way, falling in line side-by-side with Asuna. "What kind of man would I be if EEEEEEE!" he yelled as Asuna grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and threw him back into the house, where he crashed on a couch.

"Just do as I say! I'm a Princess!" Asuna shouted, and then charged at Homura. With a small sly smirk, the naked girl leapt back and began leading Asuna away, down another street while everybody else was busy fighting their own battles and Rito struggled just to remain half conscious. "Where are you going, you coward?! You won't escape me now!"

They moved so fast that in no time Homura had led Asuna into a small, narrow alley, keeping her at bay with volleys of fire that Asuna would swat aside with her sword. "You just drew yourself into a dead end, dumbass!" Asuna growled, not too princess-like. "Come on, you were better than this before, why--"

Then she shuddered as she felt someone jumping down from a roof to land on their feet behind her, and her eyes grew wider. "Oh crap. Stupid me!" sher realized. Quickly, she spun around, finding herself face to face with a very beautiful girl slightly shorter than her, thin and elfish even to her pointy ears, identical to Medea's. This girl also wore stainless white, and had blue eyes and light short blonde hair.

"It is a honor, Princess," the stranger said sweetly. "My name is Shiori."

"You are with them too, aren't-- MMMPPHH!" Asuna said, trying to lift her blade but thrown off balance when the girl did the last time Asuna had been expecting. She grabbed Asuna's face, putting a hand on each cheek, and pulled her to herself, landing a big deep kiss in her mouth.

Asuna twitched, blushing and gasping, and then began going cross eyed, her knees faltering under her. For some reason she felt very cold and sleepy right now, almost as if the life was being quickly drained off her. Still, she resolved herself and began shoving the girl back, only to gasp at seeing she was pushing herself. The girl had just turned into a perfect copy of herself, right to the clothes.

"Wh-What in the world are y--" Asuna gurgled as she wobbled in place, and then Homura slammed a fist on the back of her head, knocking her out at their feet.

"Sucker!" Homura said.