OverMaster's Little Crummy Corner of Sub-Par Writing

[OverMaster]

The Man for the Job.

I am the Scarecrow. The Master of Fear. All of Gotham, no, all of the country, shudders at the mention of my name alone.

I have raisen above all big burly bullies who ever thought they'd know better than me. All thanks to my prodigious brain. And tonight, I stand before Gotham's so called most powerful man, about to make my sheer worth known...

The lanky figure in rags cackled. "So, why have you called me here, Thorne? Do you want your rivals assassinated through fear? The Batman laid to waste in terror? Speak now! The Scarecrow's time is precious, and--"

"Hiccup!" Boss Thorne said.

"Eh?"

"The Boss has developed a rather bad case of the hiccups," Thorne's secretary Candace explained. "The best specialists haven't been able to cure it. But since it's been said that scares can put the hiccups away, we thought that--"

"What are you saying, woman?!" Crane roared. "Is this some mockery of me?! I'm not a medic! The galls of you..."

"You are a doctor, however," the black haired beauty reminded him coolly.

"Not THAT kind of doctor!"

"Oh, so you can't do it after all? I thought so..."

"Hiccup!" Rupert Thorne said despairingly.

---

"I can't believe it!" the Penguin gasped. "And you actually did it?!"

"Look, my reputation was in the stake, okay?!" Crane said. "I had to prove I could scare him, and that I did!"

Penguin rolled his eyes. "The dreaded Scarecrow, reduced to curing the hiccups for money...!"

"I'll let you know that the toxins I need don't come for free!"

Two-Face raised a fist, then slammed it on the table. "Enough of that! What matters is, what did scare him!? What did he see!?"

"His late mother," Scarecrow answered.

Penguin smiled. "Don't tell me...!"

Crane nodded. "A fascinating case, actually, I took a recording in secret and everything. For a fair share, I could allow you to--"

Two-Face's evil eye glinted as he pulled a checkbook out of his breast pocket. "Let's hear every last second of it. In loving, precise detail, and I'm taking notes too..."

 

[OverMaster]

Last Resource.

"Chisame," Haruna said, peeking into the room, "he's acting up again."

Chisame sighed. "I should've guessed. But, are you sure that--"

"He told Skuld, Haruka, Kuga-senpai, Ai-chan, all of them to just go fuck off, Chisame," Haruna said. "You're the only one we haven't tried yet..."

Chisame shook her head, standing up. "What the hell..."

She followed Haruna outside, and towards a large crowd gathered around the World Tree. They opened a wide respectful path for her as she approached the trunk. In the front rowds of the group, Negi gulped and gave her a silently pleading look.

Chisame shrugged at him, then frowned at the scrawny, tall man sitting on the roots. "I've heard you don't want to write anymore."

"There's no point whatsoever," the man growled bitterly. "Screw off!"

Chisame balled a fist up, then hit him in the head as Negi and the others flinched. "Don't be such a kid!"

"Go away! You don't know the first thing about being a creator! From your end, it's all so easy, you only have to--!"

She hit him again. "You whiner! So pathetic...!"

The man hissed at her, stubbornly. "Why should I bother?! I won't be able to catch up, ever! Nothing of this is worth the effort! I've thrown years of my life away for--"

She grabbed him by the shoulders and rattled him. "Stop feeling pity for yourself already and do something at once...!"

"I don't want to..." Then he looked up, and pointed at the paragraphs above, frowning at Chisame. "Is this a start?"

Chisame looked up as well, reading the preceeding lines. Then she shrugged. "At least it's something for now."

He sighed sad and miserably, shaking his head to himself. "That's all I can do today..."

"There's... There's still hope..." Negi said quietly, while the rest of the girls grabbed the protesting Chisame and began throwing her up and catching her and tossing her again while cheering for her.

Is this why Akamatsu killed her off? Did she do the same things to him?

 

[OverMaster]

The Life Aquatic.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Mahorafest Rescue Operation:

"I don't get it," Awatsuki Maaya said while taking her shorts off. "Underwater, seriously? Why would they even keep her in a cell underwater?"

Mizuno Ami sighed while pulling her blouse over her head. "She's an alien."

"A... what?" Wannai Kinuho paused in her own undressing. "Oh, when you say that, you mean a gaijin, like Neg--"

"No, no, no, I mean an actual alien from outer space," Ami said somewhat irritably, pointing upwards. "Not any alien either, but an alien princess. That must be why they took so many extra measures with her."

The rest of the girls in their underwear blinked at her.

"... but," Uruka said, "why did they even have a cell under water in the first place?!"

"I don't know, and why should I?" Ami groaned, giving a few claps as explosions roared in the distance. "Please, girls, are we doing this or not?! Speed is of the esence!"

"... oh, so that's why she has a tail!" Umihara Chinami was telling Kawase Ayako, with an air of great understanding. "So it wasn't a decoration after all...!"

"I feel so darn stupid," Ayako confessed. "She even wagged it around all the time, what were we thinking...?"

Ami sighed and then just shoved them ahead and into the water.

 

[OverMaster]

Water Under the Bridge.

The shape of the cell itself surprised Uruka even more than the fact itself of actually seeing that yes, there had been a cell under the water the whole time after all. From the outside, it looked more like a giant, round bowl upside down, and Lala-san floated inside of it, apparently asleep, in her school uniform.

Now, by this point they were close to running out of saved breath, so they turned to look at Ami, hoping for her to have a solution before they had to swim back up for oxygen. The short haired girl swam past them, pulling something out of her bra. It was a long, thin cylinder of sorts, probably something given to her by the 3-A students-- although in truth, it'd been a last minute gift from Saeki Kaori of all people, so Ami was understandably wary of what she was about to do.

She did it all the same, jamming it into what appeared to be a lock for the thing, then quickly swam back, urging her clubmates to do the same. A moment later, they all were bowled upwards across the water as the cell's surface exploded and shattered, and a startled Lala woke up suddenly, being blasted against the other girls rather roughly and almost making Maaya and Chinami swallow liquid, although they fortunately restrained themselves in time.

Next thing Uruka knew, the pink haired girl was holding her under an arm, Chinami under the other, and then swimming back to the surface with them, as the others followed. Before Uruka could protest that really, this wasn't necessary at all, she was flung back out onto the stone platform, with a coughing Chinami rolling across by her side, and then Lala was climbing out energetically, shaking herself in all directions, and beginning to wring her long hair out, casually asking, "Why are you all in your undergarments?"

Ayako coughed as well, pulling herself out and helping Kinuho up. "You're welcome, it was a pleasure!" Ayako snapped at their rescuee, who then blinked at her, genuinely taken aback by her answer. Ayako sighed. "Look, we just went down to rescue you, but we couldn't do it in our best clothes and ruin them, could we?"

Lala looked at the damp bra and panties clinging to Ayako's body. "That looks like really good underwear, so if such was the case, why didn't you just go for me naked?"

Chinami's right eyebrow began twitching as Ayako grimaced and Uruka tilted her head aside in confusion. Maaya was about to say something, but then Lala spoke again. "Where's Rito?"

"Oh my goodness," Kinuho said faintly. "We couldn't get her out before she received brain damage from being in that thing..."

"She's always like this," Ami said flatly.

Kinuho began rubbing the bridge of her own nose. "Ah. Sorry about that, then. I'll correct myself, I think I'm the one starting to suffer brain damage from all of this..."

Lala looked at her sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that. But hey, at the very least, you do still have good physical looks!"

Kinuho winced. "Next time, we go save Despair-sensei or the delinquent little boy instead, okay? Please?"

 

[OverMaster]

Movie Night.

"You know," Negi said, sounding a bit muffed through his facemask, "I know one can't rely on something as fickle as bounty hunting to make a regular income, but surely there must be another way for you to pay your own tickets."

Kotaro, in his small puppy form, simply growled as he peeked his head out of the front of Negi's shirt and stared at the large screen.

In the next seat, Tanaka Asuka blinked several times, looking at them in confusion.

 

[OverMaster]

The 'Hands Off' Kind of Help.

"You!" the Joker snapped at the wild eyed, wild haired man. "You've got to be the worst henchman I've ever had...!"

The scrawny, strange fellow just looked oddly at him while Joker seethed, pointing a finger at him. The other thugs backed away, quietly gulping to themselves.

"If not for your idiocy," the Clown Prince snarled, "Batman wouldn't have escaped the trap! You... imbecile! What do you have to say in your defense?!"

"Uh... I got nuthin'."

Joker growled from the bottom of his throat, then reached over and slapped him across the face...

"YOWWWWWW!"

... and just like that, the henchman had bitten all of the hand's fingers off.

The Joker kept on howling in pain as his subordinate chewed calmly. The other crooks stared on in disbelieving shock.

"You shouldn'ta done that, Boss," the wild eyed man said, after spitting several shattered bones and swallowing the meat. "You knew what I did at the sideshow? I wuz the Geek, I'd bite anything's head off, just on reflex... Sorry. A few times I went an' bit the owners' hands, too. Just a thing I sumtimes do."

The Joker hopped in place, waving his hand up and down.

The other henchmen looked at each other.

"He's gonna kill us all for this," one of them said, "but this almost makes it worthwhile."

All the same, then they all ran for the door.

 

[OverMaster]

Join the Dark Side.

"You should join us," Haruna said.

Takane scoffed in disgust. "Please! As if I'd ever stoop low enough as to fall into the clutches of your filthy sex club!"

"That's the thing, though," Haruna said. "I've had sex with Rito, Negi, Lala, Nodoka, Yue, and even Chisame that one time, and yet we've seen you naked more times than we've seen each other..."

The depressing part, Mei thought as he held her senpai back from killing the creep, was that the pervert was probably still right about that.

 

[OverMaster]

Mahou Sensei Negima! is the creation and intellectual property of Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.

---

It started in a train back from Iinchou's manor, after a long Sunday chilling off by the pool.

No, of course it hadn't started back then. It had started long before that, the morning Negi-sensei had first been introduced to them as their new homeroom teacher. But you have already read at least a version of that and what happened immediately afterwards.

None of the young people in the car had read Unequally Rational and Emotional, however, and you probably didn't either, or you don't remember much from it, so them and you couldn't be blamed for getting the wrong ideas about him.

Murakami Natsumi knew the basics, of course. She knew that Negi-sensei, their adorable boy teacher, had been made to room with Hasegawa Chisame and Hakase Satomi, the two biggest turbo geeks in the classroom, as Misa would call them. She also knew that shortly after, Sensei had formed a club, the English Research Society, with his roommates and several others, including Iinchou, Misa herself, and Misa's own roommates and best friends, Sakurako and Madoka.

During the class trip to Kyoto, Natsumi had first noticed several really weird things about Sensei's circle of closest associates. A team of actual supervillains had actually tried to kidnap Konoka. Which, okay, was not such a strange situation when you were a rich heiress; it had happened to Iinchou and Chizu-nee more than once too. And yet... there had been something different about this. Natsumi couldn't quite put her finger on what it was just yet. It was a work in the progress, so to speak.

It took until that overheard conversation in the train, however, for Natsumi to actually realize how utterly bizarre the whole situation was.

---

Son of Unequally Rational and Emotional.

---

Lesson One: New Management, (Not Quite) the Same as Before.

 

[OverMaster]

Yukihiro Ayaka was napping as her head rested on Naba Chizuru's shoulder, a fact the busty Chizuru seemed quite calmly pleased about. Natsumi, well used to that kind of scenes by then and just wondering when Chizu-nee would just tell Iinchou already, was checking on her text messages when a bit of conversation coming from a few seats away called onto her attention.

"Are you gonna attend the Mahora Festival?" a boy a couple years older than her was asking.

A tall, gorgeous blonde senpai smiled, surrounded by two girls who gave strong vibes of being her lackeys. "Of course I will. Mahora or not, their food is just too good, I'm not missing on it."

Saeki Kaori, Honnouji.

"Is... Is it that good?" asked a short girl with short light brown hair. "It'd be my first year going there, but I've heard so many scary things about it..."

Nishizumi Miho, CLAMP Gakuen.

The blonde laughed. "What, Mahora? Oh, no, trust me, Mahora is a cakewalk compared to Honnouji! You're from Ohtori, right?"

"We're from CLAMP, but Miho-chan just joined in this year," explained a pleasantly smiling girl with long black hair. "She was studying overseas until recently."

Isuzu Hana, CLAMP Gakuen.

"Mahora is weird, people there are really soft hearted for the most part, but they're also crazy as hell," said the boy who'd talked first, one with short red hair. "They just don't act with any common sense..."

Akabane Karma, Furinkan.

"Is it true," the short haired girl gulped, "that they, you know, have this strange cult about this child teacher...?"

Ayaka's eyes snapped open immediately.

"Oh, you've heard the stories already," said an even smaller and younger looking girl with short black hair and a very slim, flat build. "Yes, the infamous Negi Springfield..."

"Infamous?" Ayaka echoed with a subtle dangerous hint, sitting up straight while Chizuru sighed in subdued distress.

Since the others hadn't heard her yet, the petite girl kept on explaining. "A... person I know from a time ago is a member of his club, the so-called English Research Society. Not a person I'm fond of, let me tell you. She is, and I'm not fooling you, the girlfriend of the Perverted Beast of Mahora himself..."

Saotome Otome, Ohtori.

The girls all pulled back on their seats, horrified at the mention. The red haired boy let out an amused whistling. "No way...!" he said. "That guy? I've heard he can take a girl's underwear from a block away!"

"I, I, I heard he's got three different children across the Four Schools area!" a girl with long, wavy light brown hair gasped. "How isn't he jailed yet?!"

Takebe Saori, CLAMP Gakuen.

Ayaka blinked. "Yuuki-senpai? Oh, please..." she said to herself.

"The part about the full block distance is true, however," Natsumi mused aloud with understated bitterness and a sour memory.

"That would fit in with what I've figured out from what I've heard," the blonde said with a solemn nod. "That bunch of people, quickly gaining influence and pull all over Mahora... are a mystic sex club, a secret society out for supernatural domination!"

Ayaka facefaulted onto the car's floor instantly, while all of the others gathered around the blonde, except for her nodding classmates, stared at her in disbelief.

"No, now, come on," the tiny black haired female said. "Supernatural? Pull on my finger now, those things don't exist..."

"I wouldn't be so quick to say that," opined a boy with freckles, large round eyes, and messy dark green hair, between munches from the bento box he held on his lap. "What I heard is, they're a team of mutant superheroes in training."

Midori Izuku, Tomobiki.

The incredulous gazes formerly fixed onto the blonde now were on him, and even the Honnouji trio had joined them now.

The boy blinked. "What? Mutants and superheroes existed all over the world, everyone knows that!"

"Oh, believe me, that person I know never would or could be a superhero," the tiny black haired girl snorted. "A super villain, maybe..."

"Ayaka, no, please," Chizuru warned from between clenched teeth as Ayaka angrily pulled herself up from the floor.

"That might not be as crazy as it sounds," the red haired boy threw his opinion in. "After all, Sailor V mostly operates around Mahora, and there might be some rel--"

"Excuse me!" Ayaka rasped loudly, walking towards them and past Natsumi and Chizuru's attempts to reach for her sleeves.

The strangers all looked at her. "Y-Yes...?" the first CLAMP girl who'd talked asked.

Ayaka smiled and put a hand on her own chest. "I couldn't help but overhear your sadly misguided small talk, and I felt I had to correct you on the subject! No doubt you've all been the victims of misinformation, but I happen to be a member of Neg... Springfield-sense's Society myself, and we have no links whatsoever to supervillainy, costumed vigilantism, magic, or most especially sex cults!"

"Ah, for real?" the red haired boy asked. "Then you don't have anything to do with the Perverted Beast either?"

"Uh, actually..." Ayaka blinked, suddenly uneasy.

The smallest of the girls fixed a cold death glare on her. "So, you know Haruna...?"

"Well, yes, actually, we've been classmates for a few years now," Ayaka said, now on slightly more solid ground. "What is it to you, miss...?"

"Saotome Otome," the girl said icily. "I happen to have the misfortune of being Paru's cousin."

"Really? Saotome-san's never mentioned you."

"It's the least I could hope from her. So, which one are you? Let me guess, Ayaka-san the shotacon?"

Natsumi shrank back onto her seat in abrupt, primal panic, and clung onto one of Chizuru's arms. To her credit, Chizuru shielded her fiercely just as soon.

Which was just as good, because Ayaka's anger exploded just one moment after.

 

[OverMaster]

"-- so, as you can see," Ayaka finished her tale with airs of great wounded dignity, "our society is merely one devoted to cultural pursuits! There's nothing suspicious or morally dubious about it!"

"Okay, but why are you so sure you'll manage to redeem such shady characters?" Midoriya-san asked. "I mean, from what you and Otome-san here say, they're just giving you a bad reputation everywhere..."

The girl with very short, charnmingly messy hair who had been with Saori, Miho and Hana the whole time looked at Natsumi curiously. "What about you? You're her friend, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, I am, and so is Chizu-nee..."

"Then you're part of her club as well?" the other girl asked.

"No, no," Natsumi asked, not losing her patience yet since she liked this girl for some reason. Maybe because she made her more comfortable about her own hair. "I'm too busy with my theatre club, and Chizu-nee is likewise busy with her astronomy club..."

"Besides," Chizuru said just a bit sharply, "we've never been invited to join in."

Ayaka blushed and coughed delicately into a fist. "Chizuru, please. You never showed an active interest, and we only can handle a certain amount of members at one time..."

"Oh, then I apologize over echoing all those awful rumors about you," Saeki-senpai said, taking a hand to her own cheek. Natsumi, with the trained instincts of a thespian, merely stared at her quietly. The older blonde smiled at Ayaka, pulling her smartphone out. "Let's be friends, Yukihiro-san! I'll give you my number and you'll give me yours, okay?"

Seeing no reason or way to refuse her without looking bad in front of everyone else, Ayaka only could agree. "Ahhh, yes, of course. You'll be welcome at the Festival, naturally. We'll be attending the Haunted House, please make sure to pay a visit and recommend us to your friends..."

The train reached the Honnouji station there, so Saeki and her two friends left after said exchange, making Natsumi breath considerably easier now. Ayaka sat down by Otome, asking her, "So, how comes you're Haruna-san's cousin? I wasn't aware her father had any siblings."

"No, I'm actually a distant cousin, although not distant enough for my liking," the girl with the quirky, odd sounding voice replied. She reminded Ayaka a lot of Shirai Kuroko-san, from Mahora's Discipline Committee. "Let's be clear here, now. It's not that I'm appalled at what Haruna does, it'd be hypocritical of me. I draw Yaoi doujin as well, after all..."

Midoriya blinked. "Yaoi?"

"Then why do you seem so upset at her?" Chizuru asked. "I mean, if I'm not meddling into anything too private..."

"Let's just say that her side of the family has wronged mine a lot," Otome growled from between grinding teeth, "and that such is a constant of life with anything regarding Saotome Genma."

Ayaka smiled. "Well, I hope you won't extend that hostility towards us. The same offer we gave Saeki-senpai extends to you as well. There's no reason why there should be any ill will between us just because we belong to rival schools, your cousin is a perverted malcontent that you hate, and you were spreading horrible rumors about our Negi-sensei and my sexuality."

"I apologize over buying Haruna's crap and saying you were a shotacon," Otome blandly said. "If you're a normal person who isn't into little children, I won't accuse you of being one anymore."

"... not that there's anything too wrong on having strong feelings for a man slightly younger than you as long as those are pure!"

Saori and Akabane shared a quietly jaded glance. The train announcer called for the Ohtori stop then, and with a brief nod and bow, Otome got off her seat and left the car without looking back.

During the rest of the trip, Hana-san and Chizuru seemed to strike a quick good friendship, talking happily with each other while Ayaka tried to talk with an uncooperative, shy Miho-san about the latter's family life. Ayaka had recognized the Nishizumi name, and apparently she knew the girl's mother personally, but this only made the other girl even more reluctant to talk openly on the subject.

Akabane-san had fallen asleep on his seat, arms folded, while Midoriya-san and Saori-san had started talking on the topic of superheroes, with the girl clumsily trying to flirt with him occasionally only for him to completely miss on the point. That left Natsumi without anyone to speak with for the moment, and she used this time to consider things in silence.

Realizing how outsiders thought about the English Research Society had just made her think a lot. But mostly, Ayaka's explanations, while satisfactory enough for the others-- except maybe Saeki-senpai, since Natsumi had also detected a faint incredulity to her reactions-- had also struck Murakami as strangely fabricated or false, the sort of thing you say from a script to sell your organization in the public eye.

Of course, Natsumi tried to tell herself, maybe she was just being unfair to Iinchou. She guessed that, deep inside, she still resented the Class Rep, their old roommate, a bit for never inviting her and Chizu-nee, who loved Iinchou so much, into her new fold. And once or twice, Natsumi had even suspected that maybe Iinchou knew about Natsumi's own feelings for Sensei, and that such might be the reason for-- but no, surely, that wasn't it. Iinchou was not that kind of person, for all her flaws she was both all about fair play and as dense as a brick about others' feelings.

And yet...

The woman through the speakers called out for the Mahora station, and Natsumi snapped out of her daydreaming for now.

 

[OverMaster]

"So that's how the other schools see us? Deploratable!" Suzushiro Haruka said as she sat in the waters of the large Mahora communal bath, along the other Ala Alba women plus assorted female hanger-ons. "Even Saotome-san's family…"

"Especially Saotome-san's family," Ayaka confirmed, giving Haruna a pointed glare. "Are you sure you didn't personally harm that girl, ever? That there's no woman-to-woman grudge between the two of you? Because she sounded like there was!"

The large breasted mangaka held her hands up. "I'm telling you, Iinchou, I had no personal hand on it! They're just unfairly casting an all encompassing blame on all of us, just because Grandpa Genma happened to sell their ancestral home and all their other belongings…"

"As expected from Genma-Ojiisan," Ayase Yue said with a small sigh.

"Hey, it was a home belonging to all of the clan!" Haruna argued. "Gramps had as much of a right to those deeds as they did! We lost those claims as well, you know!"

Aino Minako breathed out, gathering water in her hands and washing her face off. "They can see a connection between you and us, just from that far… maybe we should stop spending so much time with you guys…"

"That's the wisest thing you've ever said as our leader," Munakata Shiho observed, with water reaching up to her flat chest, and a subtle yet firm nod.

"Oh, they'll just forget about it soon enough," the short haired Kasuga Misora said, with an ever quiet Cocone Fatima Rosa sitting on her lap. "Honnoujiers have the attention span of flies, and Ohtori people are too enamored of themselves to think about others for long!"

"Right, so tomorrow it's our turn to work at the haunted house," Ayaka said. "At the pace we're going, I feel confident it'll be finished long before the Festival starts. Ooohhh, I can hardly wait for Negi-sensei to see it…!"

"Where is he right now, by the way?" Mizuno Ami asked.

"Dog-Boy dragged him away to have another sparring fight, you know how obsessed he is," Hasegawa Chisame scoffed, sitting between Matoi and Hakase as usual. "That's what happens to boys who grow up without any brothers, I guess!"

"Oh, I hope it's only a need for a brother," Kakizaki Misa rolled her beautiful eyes back, then frowned at the quiet glare Miyazaki Nodoka was giving her from between her thick hair bangs. "What? This wouldn't happen if only you held his leash tighter, Honya!"

"That'd be up to Abiru-chan and Harumi-chan right now, actually," Matoi mused aloud, faintly trying to sneak a hand around Chisame's shoulders, only to have it swatted away. "By the way, Ayaka-san…"

"Yes, Senpai?" the heiress said.

"That girl, your former roommate, hasn't she ever asked you for membership, really?" the short haired older girl asked. "I find that hard to believe, what with the way she's looking at Negi-sama all the time…"

"Who, Chizuru?" Ayaka then let out a short laugh. "Ha! Chizuru's not that kind of girl, she's always been more attracted towards older men! Not as old as those Asuna-san favors, of course, but…"

"Oh, butt off, Iinchou," Kagurazaka Asuna retorted.

"No, no, I mean the other one," Matoi waved a hand before Ayaka and Asuna could start fighting again. "The small one, you know. She's always gloomy and neurotic-looking as befits a thespian, and whenever close to Negi-sama, she stares and stares from a distance, Jiiiiiiiii…"

Ayaka grimaced. "I can't believe it! Now you're comparing Natsumi-chan of all people to yourself?!"

"Paru-san won't let me lie," Matoi looked piously towards Haruna. "Your love antennae have caught it as well, right, Paru-san?"

Haruna nodded, pointing at her ahoge. "Yeah, you're right! I'll tell you something else, I didn't want to raise a ruckus about this before, but during the class trip, Chizuru-san tried really hard to bring Natsumi-chan and Negi-kun together…"

Ayaka gasped. "What are you saying?! No, no, Chizuru would never do that!"

"Well, she's your friend, but she's also hers," Haruna cautioned. "I don't want you to fight each other, but I thought that, for fair play's sake, you should know…"

Misa frowned, worried. "Natsumi-chan, seriously? It's always the innocent looking ones…!"

"Misa, please," Kugimiya Madoka groaned. "Don't start picking more enemies along, will you?"

"What are you saying, Madoka?" Misa shot back. "I don't have any enemies! Iinchou, Misora, the Vice Prez and I only happen to be healthy rivals with no trace of personal enmity between us, right, girls?"

"Well, actually…" Haruka began.

Then the doors of the baths slid open, and in walked Asakura Kazumi, wearing only a white towel wrapped around her shapely body. "Oh, but if it's Ala Alba's happy hour!" the redhead grinned, waving hi. "Good afternoon, what a surprise finding you all here…!"

"You know perfectly this is the time of the day we spend here while everyone else keeps their distance in fear," Chisame blandly accused while Asakura took a seat by the shower stalls, and Aisaka Sayo's ghostly form, also managing to wear a ghost towel for some reason, also drifted in after her, shyly waving at the living girls. It was always better not to think too much about the mechanics of Sayo's afterlife. "Are you fishing for anything in particular today?"

"Nah, I already learned everything I wanted for now while listening by the door," Kazumi said, undoing her towel as Sayo picked up the soap and began washing her back. To all the girls but Shiho, who had her priestess sixth sense, and Misora, who had gained an early perception of Sayo back during the Eva fiasco, this manifested as nothing but a bar of soap and pail of water simply floating around and washing the redhead's smooth back. But all of them were sort of used to that by this point. "Hey, don't hold it against us. We also made sure no real intruders approached by to learn your secrets!"

"There are not that many people left in Mahora who don't know by now, right?" Madoka philosophized with a weak chuckle. "When did you and Sayo-chan get this close, by the way?"
"Oh, haven't I ever told you? I come from a family expert on ghosts, that's part of what made me curious about Sensei in the first place," Kazumi explained. "Currently, I'm trying to convince Sayo-chan to let me be her Shaman…"

Minako blinked. "Her what?"

Kazumi giggled. "Oh, let me tell you a story about my late grandfather. It's the least I can do for you, after all you've let a snoop like me into…"

 

[OverMaster]

"I bet you'd love to use magic right now, ne, Poindexter?" Inugami Kotaro teased with a grin as he and Negi bounced across the trees, occasionally finding openings to hit each other rather brutally.

"Not particularly, no," the red-haired British boy said, crossing his arms together to block Kotaro's latest swinging kick. "I'm not eager to break a pact between gentlemen… or even one made with you."

"Oh, I've been offended. How hurtful!" the black haired boy laughed, jumping up and reaching with a punt to Negi's jaw, making him stagger back. "Wiseguy, you're just lucky 'm not going to go all wolf shape on you! I'd beat you black and blue, magic or not!"

Negi recovered quickly, ducking under Kotaro's next strike and uppercuting him in the stomach, sending him flying back. "You seem to be under the wrong impression that your mercenary lifestyle grants you a big edge over me, Kotaro-kun," he estimated.

"Why not?!" the chuckling canine child said, rushing back from where he'd just fallen and charging at Negi, who barely stepped aside in time to avoid his fist. "It's real world experience, Four-Eyes! Something they don't teach you at school!"

"Maybe, but how much of it could you realistically have had?" Negi asked, grabbing him by an arm and slamming him against a tree. "You're not that much older than me, and how long ago did you start? Let's say you've been doing that for two years at most…"

Kotaro swung back with a mule kick, pushing Negi off himself. "So?! That's still two years added to the big gap between us you'll never cover!"

Sitting not too far from there, on a small clearing of the woods near Mahora Academy, Lala Satalin Deviluke, Itoshiki Nozomu, Kaga Ai, Yuuki Rito, Morisato Keiichi and Sasaki Makie were having a small picnic.
"I'm just glad they've already mastered the most important part of shounen action hero training," the son of a mangaka said, while Keiichi poured him another cup of green tea. Girls had long given up on serving Rito as that level of proximity inevitably ended up with them being stripped and groped accidentally.

"Which one?" asked the older, black haired young man.

Rito cracked a small smile. "The trash talking, of course…"

"Um, sorry to take this upon myself," Ai gulped, "but maybe I should try and break them apart before they hurt each other? They should have dinner already, after all…"

"Let them be just a little longer, this makes them happy," Itoshiki sighed, reminiscing old times spent with Ala Rubra. Ah, the most things changed. "Sasaki-kun, wasn't Skuld-kun supposed to be here today too?"

Makie made a small pout while slicing a piece of cake for herself. "She called me to cancel, apparently she's got important things to do with Chao-chan… again…"

"Ah, the path of scientific progress, ever relentless in its pursuit of a world constantly evolving into more frustrating forms," the lanky pale teacher began one of his bizarre ruminations. "Like, for instance, how you're always just one cellphone call away from your parents demanding to know if you've found yourself a bride at last this week, no matter where you are. Or—"

"Yes, yes, you're in despair, tech has left you in despair, we know, Sensei," Lala gently but firmly gave him a soft smack to the back of his head with a hand. Perhaps because science was being badmouthed by him. "Be patient with her, Makie! These things always take their time, you know!"

"Not for you, apparently," Rito said. "You never seem to take any long building those crazy devices of yours…"

"Ah hah ha, you're so much of a flatter, Rito!" she laughed, energetically slapping his back so he stumbled ahead and onto Makie's chest. Being the understanding type, Makie did nothing as he pulled back stuttering apologies that made Ai take notes quietly. "It's all practice…! Although, come to think about it, Skuld should have plenty of that herself… Hmmmm…"

"I think her excuse is that she's not used to work with Earth materials," Keiichi said, buttering his sandwich up, then adding the lettuce. "Makes sense, I guess, who knows what kinds of ultra-advanced stuff they have in the realm of the gods?"

Lala's eyes shone as she took a hand to her cheek. "Ooohhh, don't even tell me…! I'm so envious of her…!"

Then she was wacked on the back of the head by a rock.

"Oops!" Kotaro said, pausing with a bunch of rocks in his hands. "Sorry 'bout that, Lala Nee-san! I didn't mean to!"

"See, this is what happens when you start playing dirty like that!" Negi scolded him.

Rito edged away from Lala carefully as she rose back to her feet, then cracked a small cutesy smile. She turned around to beam said beautiful smile at the two small boys, and then cracked her knuckles. "Negi, Kotaro?" she called out. "If you wanted me to join you, you only needed to ask! I'm always up for a good fight between friends!"

"Ahhh," Kotaro said carefully, "you know that I really don't want to pick fights with girls, so…"

"Let's goooooo!" Lala shouted, merrily running towards them, and a few seconds after they both were sent flying high through the air.

It was then, while barreling and spinning up past the tops of the trees, that Negi casually caught a glimpse of something unusual and somewhat concerning in the distance, further away from the school.

 

[OverMaster]

Shortly after returning from the class trip, Natsumi had received a call from her mother.

"I heard the Joker attacked Kyoto while you were there!"

Natsumi had sighed. "Yes, that's fine, Mom, it's not like I ever met him, saw him even from afar, or even was close to him..."

That, of course, failed to mention how Natsumi's group had been close enough to that other American maniac, the superpowered mutant Sabretooth, but frankly, Natsumi hadn't felt like bringing that up then.

"We once met the Joker ourselves, you know..."

"Yes, Mom, you've told me that story before," Natsumi had said patiently.

"Back then, he was in his Campy Clown Prince of Crime stage," Velma had reminisced once again. "He wasn't even killing anyone at the time, and yet we almost died..."

Natsumi had endured the ensuing tirade on responsibility and always being careful without ever hanging up, which she, in all honest modesty, thought had been remarkably praiseworthy from her. That didn't mean she wanted to ever go through another of those again, which was why now she was fairly sure she wouldn't tell Mom about whatever she was about to learn, if she ever got to learn anything, that was.

"Stop right there, Neechan. You'll need the clearance code to pass this door," the pimple faced young security guard by the laboratory's door told her.

Natsumi put on her best false smile. "Oh, please, Oniisama. Negi-sensei sent me, he needs sending a message to his students here..."

A good thing about being an actress, even though also one Natsumi tried not to exploit too much, was how it made it much easier to lie to others and have your way around them. True, you always felt bad afterwards and it never worked with people like Chizu-nee, but more often than not, it got the job done. And so, shortly after, Natsumi was descending into the complex under the science building, in a remarkably slowgoing elevator.

How many stories does this thing have anyway? Natsumi wondered in a mix of fascination and annoyance. It took more minutes that she thought possible, passing through several levelsof classified access, before reaching a stop at the end. Natsumi came our warily, already having second thoughts, and then braced herself, going the route the guard had told her.

The place seemed to be empty, but all lights appeared to be on, so there had to be someone still there. Sure enough, when Natsumi rang the black door at the end of the left wing, someone quickly opened for her, blinking at her in surprise.

"Hmmm... good afternoon," Natsumi gulped at this barely taller, not that much bustier girl with glasses and her dark brown hair pulled into a short ponytail. "I'm Murakami Natsumi from 3-A, can I please talk with Hakase-san?"

After a moment of silence and staring up and down at Natsumi's figure, the stranger smiled widely. "I'm sorry, but Satomi-chan is with Hasegawa-san right now, I believe. My name is Shiguma Rika, why don't you come in and-"

"Ahhh, thank you, Senpai, but I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a hurry, I shouldn't be staying here any long and distracting you from your work," the freckled girl gulped. She recognized the kind of light in those eyes now, having seen it often in Haruna, and those weren't good news at all."

"Oh, Rika insists!" the older girl laughed, grabbing her by a hand and pulling her in, closing the office's door after them. She took her lab coat off and, thankfully, walked back behind her desk in the school uniform she'd been wearing underneath. "Please sit down, would you care for some chocolate? Rika could always call a robot assistant..."

Natsumi swallowed as she pulled a chair before the desk, noticing the tall pile of papers by an open laptop. "Uh, thank you... But I think I must insist, I don't have much time before curfew, could I speak with Chao-san then...?"

"Banpei-kun?" Rika asked through a caller. "Chocolate for Rika and a guest, please! Well loaded, like Rika likes it!" Then she smiled again at the yonger girl, intertwining her fingers. "Sorry, but Chao left half a hour ago! She got a call and had to run! She's an ever busy woman, you know..."

"Oh, I do," Natsumi nodded. "Skuld-san, in that case...?"

"Skuld is busy in a private project and demanded not to be interrupted, no matter the reason," Rika said as a small round robot with spindly limbs and a wide brimmed hat walked in, carrying a large tray with a steaming cup and two glasses on it. Rika took it and nodded, waving at the robotic servant. "Thanks, you're a dearie, now buzz off, will you? Rika will call you if there's any need for it!"

Natsumi looked after the retreating bipedal machine in mild shock, even as Rika poured cocoa for her and herself. "You look stunned by a lesser AI like Banpei-kun, why is that?" Rika asked. "Shouldn't you already be used to have Chachamaru-chan in your class?"

Natsumi looked back at her, puzzled. "What does Chachamaru have to do with any of this?"

Rika sighed. "Perhaps there's a thing as 'too lifelike' after all," she mused. Then smiled again, somewhat unnervingly. "Tell Rika, then, what did you want to tell the girls? Rika will gladly give them your message as soon as Rika contacts them again."

Natsumi flinched slightly, since talking to people who spoke about themselves in the third person always creeped her out. "It's... It's nothing important, actually..."

"It must be so, since you came here, late a Sunday afternoon, just to speak with classmates you've never been close to," Rika said, sipping from her hot drink.

"How do you know we aren't close?" Natsumi protested. "Of course we're fairly close, all things considered..."

The smile disappeared briefly as Rika stared over the cup. "Rika's not the same type of genius as Satomi-chan, Natsumi-san. Rika has social skills. The kind nobody appreciates, but social skills regardless."

"I didn't mean to offend, it's just-!"

Rika smiled again and sipped more cocoa. "This is actually about Negi Springfield, isn't it?"

Natsumi staggered back and suddenly fell off the chair.

 

[OverMaster]

"I should be leaving for a moment, if you don't mind," Negi said quickly, dusting himself off after landing. "I really need to absent myself..."

Lala stopped even as he latest massive blow was being blocked by Kotaro's crossed- and now rather aching- arms. "Eh? What happened? Yo aren't hurt, are you?"

Negi laughed uneasily. "No, no, of course not! I'm fine! It's just that I have to, ah, answer the call of nature!"

Makie frowned and tilted her head aside. "You need to abandon human society and join a pack of wild animals? Why?"

"Makie-chan, it isn't that," Keiichi said. "He simply needs to, um, you know."

"No, I don't," she said. "What are you talking about?"

Kotaro sighed and waved the other boy off. "It's okay, when you've got to go, you go, right? Just make sure to wash your hands in the river after it!"

"You really should have gone before coming along..." Itoshiki began chiding Negi.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. I'll be back before long, I hope," Negi said, grabbing his staff from where he'd left it leaning on a tree, and then rushing into the woods.

"Hey!" Rito called out after him. "Why do you need the staff for that...?!"

Kotaro chuckled. "I hope it's not for what I'm thinking!"

"You're a very dirty minded kid," Keiichi scolded him. "When I was your age-"

"Save the sermon, Pops, I was just joking," the young mercenary said, walking to the picnic basket and helping himself some bread. As he chewed, he looked into the direction Negi had taken. "I only hope he doesn't take too long, the curfew's almost on us."

Rito chuckled. "I thought you prided yourself on being a rule breaker?"

"Hey, you don't know the Dorm Mother," Kotaro replied. "That woman's worse than... worse than anyone else I've ever faced, actually.

"Ahhhh..." Makie said then. "He went over to pee, didn't he?"

The others looked at her.

Makie blinked. "What? Is he pooping instead? I brought a roll of paper in my bag, he should've asked...!"

 

[OverMaster]

Interlude: Please Don't Bother Me, Nagatoro.

Someone rang at the front door of the cabin, and so Chachamaru went to open.

She looked down at the deeply tanned girl with dark hair standing on the porch, wearing a very short skin and a short sleeved white top. "Good afternoon, how may I help you?"

"Please call me Nagatoro!" this complete stranger said happily, sporting a very wide and Haruna-esque smile. "Glad to make your acquaintance, Kouhai!"

"Ah, nice to meet you as well. My name is Karak--"

"Oh, I don't care about your name, Kouhai; Kouhai is just fine as just Kouhai!"

"I see..."

"What I would like," the girl said, rubbing her hands together and chuckling, "is joining this fancy secret club of yours! Is Negi Springfield-sensei here? Tell him I want to talk with--"

"I am terribly sorry, but we aren't taking applications for now. Good bye," Karakuri, bowing very politely, said right before closing the door on her face.

After a moment of standing there in stupor, the girl began shaking a fist. "Hey, do you wanna make an enemy out of Nagatoro Hayase, Weird Girl?!" she shouted. "Are you sure about that?! I'm the newest popular sensation in the campus, everyone's talking about me...!"

Evangeline lounged on her favorite couch, sipping tea while her maid rejoined her inside. "What is all that racket about, Chachamaru?"

"It would seem that we have another one, Master."

"Another one, huh? It had been a while..." the tiny blonde mused. "Does she look like she might perhaps make it?"

Karakuri's green eyes widened ever so slightly. "Master! You wouldn't be thinking of..."

Eva groaned. "It's just that always torturing and bullying the same people is starting to get stale. I need some diversity in my life, you know..."

"Well, I'm not sure you should take this one," Chachamaru doubted. "How should I put it... she is dark skinned. You might be accused of racism."

Eva paused, looking at her. "Oh," she said quietly after a moment. "Oh, so that's how it is. Yes, yes, I can see your point. Things nowadays, the world sure has changed, huh..."

"I suppose it has," the robot who had literally been created the year before allowed.

The voice from the doorstep came shouting again. "I'm not leaving until I've been granted an audience! Take me to your director, or your executive secretary, or whoever's at charge...!"

Eva clenched her teeth. "Are you sure you can't even throw scalding water on her? Is she really dark skinned, or just tanned?"

"It would seem to be a little of both," the gynoid said, moving over to close the curtains of a window Nagatoro was now peeking in through. "She will either get bored soon or remember the curfew before long and return home, Master. In either case, there's no need for--"

Right then, a rock with a note tied to it flew in, breaking through the window, and hit the back of Chachamaru's neck.

"On second thought," the robot said, "I believe I shall start boiling water now."

 

[OverMaster]

Rama 1/2.

Genma finished shaking the last few droplets of water over his son, then threw the bucket aside and declared solemnly, "Yes! As you can see, now, whenever Ranma's splashed with cold water, he turns into a super strong, unstoppable mythical warrior from the India! What a terrible curse...!"

Soun and his three daughters blinked.

"Ahhh..." Akane said, "Excuse me, but where is the downside in that? Why does he want to be cured from that, or even turn back from this?"

"If that hero was so powerful and unbeatable, how could he die by drowning in a mere spring?" Nabiki added.

"I'll never be able to be together with the one I love," Rama stated sadly. "As for your second question, I was very drunk that day."

"Oh my, that's so sad..." Kasumi sighed. "Wait, does that mean you're already in love with someone?"

"Well, not yet..." he admitted.

Nabiki grinned and shoved Akane ahead. "Then go ahead and marry Akane! Any marriage with her will be loveless, so you'll never have to worry about losing her!"

And that is the story of why Akane is summonable in the Arcade game but not the main one.

 

[OverMaster]

Nightcrawler.

"Please tell us, Nekane-san," Chisame said. "Why didn't you ever stop Negi from sneaking into bed with you? I know he had a hard time with his trauma, but he should've been taught--"

"Wait, wait a moment," Nekane said. "What are you saying he did?"

Misa nodded. "Yeah, well, you know, he always keeps sneaking in our beds because you got him used to it."

"I never did such a thing!" the older girl gasped. "I mean, he would often try, but I always would make clear that was an improper thing to do...!"

The 3-A students turned back to glare at Negi.

He chuckled nervously. "Heh heh, I can explain everything, if you'll just listen..."

"If you wanted to, all you ever needed was asking for it!" a wounded Misa said right as, somewhat contradicting her words, a seething Chisame sprang ahead and wrapped her hands around his neck.

 

[OverMaster]

From Zero to Ero.

Negi frowned as he flipped through the thin book.

"I'm sorry to say I don't understand what's so good about this, Haruna-san," he said. "Why do you read it? For something called a 'parody' there isn't any humor, they miswrote a word as basic as 'Hero', and all the fights between the guys are based around grappling in close quarters, why aren't there any long ranged attacks?"

 

[OverMaster]

Return to the Unequally-Anything that Burns Crossover!

Negi was exiting the bathroom, clad in slippers and a bathrobe tightly tied around him, when he saw a sultrily smiling Momioka Risa, coming from a bedroom in nothing but lingerie.

He blinked. "Ah, oh, good morning, Momioka-san. How are y--"

She wrapped her arms around him, lowered herself a bit, and began kissing him passionately.

Another Negi came out of another bedroom, wearing only underpants while a long drawn moan was heard in Nodoka's voice. He frowned at the sight of Risa frenching the other, frantically squirming Negi, and slipping her hands down the band of his boxers under the robe.

"Hm, Risa-san!" he rasped loudly. "I believe you are kissing the wrong Negi!"

She paused, smiled back at him over her shoulder, and winked an eye. "There's no such thing as a wrong Negi, silly...!" she giggled, then went back to kissing Negi Tiberius.

 

[OverMaster]

A Brief Return to The Keys of the Kingdom!

Misa appeared at her doorstep, brush in hand and looking as gorgeously youthful as ever.

"Raps-chan...!" she sing sang happily. "It's that time of the day...!"

Rapunzel sighed and threw her long golden hair back. "Very well..."

Misa gleefully sat behind her and began combing her, singing melodically.

"Flower, gleam and glow
Let your power shine
Make the clock reverse
Bring back what once was mine
Heal what has been hurt
Change the Fates' design
Save what has been lost
Bring back what once was mine
What once was mine".

Misa then stood back and left the room waving. "Thank you, Raps-chan! You're a dearie...!"

"Yes, yes..." Rapunzel returned to her book, only to have Konoka and Setsuna showing up moments after.

"Oh, Raps-chan...!" Konoka cooed. "We're due for our dose...!"

Rapunzel sighed and threw her hair back again.

Forty three years of this, already. Why had she escaped Mother, again?

Ah, yes. The sex was still great, she supposed.

 

[OverMaster]

Mikado-sensei opened her front door, still wearing her open bedrobe and the racy, black lingerie under it.

"Oh, it's you," she said. She recognized Misa, Sakurako, Madoka and Yuna, but she didn't recognize the ponytailed girl with light brown hair and large round glasses. "I don't know youthough, you would be...?"

"Hasegawa Chisame. I'm their classmate," the girl said, dryly pointing at the others.

"Oh, yes, of course!" Mikado sighed, running two fingers down her own nose. "Sorry, that should have been evident. Negi's mentioned a Chisame-san a few times..."

Sakurako brightened up. "Is Negi-kun here?"

"Huh? Of course he is, come in," the doctor said, ushering them in while Misa and Chisame gave her openly suspicious stares. As she closed the door, the mature woman chuckled. "Well, the innocent one is. But I think that, if you want to find John-kun, you'd better--"

"The... innocent one?" Hasegawa blinked a few times.

"Yeah, that's gotta be ours. I hope so, at least," Yuna said. "Sensei, before you take us with him, we should make something clear. We aren't exactly--"

"Yuuna?" said a curious, hopeful voice from further into the manor, and the girls all looked in to see a perplexed Asuna in plain white pajamas, standing a room away before an open door, a cup of coffee in a hand.

"Asuna!" Yuuna said. "Oh, thank God, it's--!"

"Don't jump to conclusions just yet," Madoka said, holding her back by placing her hand on Yuuna's arm. "This could be just the local--"

"No, no, it's really me, Madoka!" Asuna said happily, leaving the cup on a stand and running to her, hugging her tightly. Madoka blinked, unsure of why she'd been chosen for this treatment over all others. "Oh, thank God indeed! I was starting to think we'd never see you again! How, how did you even make it here?!"

"It's... uh, a long story, Kagurazaka," Chisame said, still wary, while Mikado hummed to herself in understanding. "Before we share it, what if you take it to Sensei, and before that, ahhh... how did you recognize us so quickly?"

Asuna pulled back from Madoka, smiled, and reached over to pat Yuuna's chest a couple times. "Yuna's can't compare to these yet! That's clear on a first sight!"

Yuuna's eyebrow twitched as she lightly swatted Asuna's hand off. "Hey, is it me? Or are you more touchy than usual? What kind of companies have you been keeping here? I'm afraid to ask..."

Tsukuyomi's head peeked curiously out of another room, blinking behind her glasses. "Oh?" she said as the just arrived girls jumped back in shock, all of them reaching for a card hidden in their clothes. "Oh, it's YOU!" she grinned evilly, noticing how this Chisame had a Pactio card with her. "This is so remarkable, especially if you have brought Oneesama and Ojou-sama along...!"

Asuna sighed in shame, blushed a bit, and shook her head. "Yes, Yuuna, I'm sorry. I guess that we've been keeping bad companies lately, but it couldn't be helped..."

---

Anything but Rational, Burning Emotionally.

---

Lesson One: Boy, this Has a Ridiculous Title.

 

[OverMaster]

Another Mahorafest Unequally Preview.

---

"I am... I'm just frustrated, okay?!" Natsumi admitted, pacing back and forth across the rooftop while Negi, Skuld's sister, and Yuuna watched on in concern. "All this time, I've been lied to for months by most people I know and live with...!"

"It's not so much of an ongoing lie," Negi tried to argue, "as it is a reasonable retention of dangerous information for your own--"

The rather sharp look Murakami threw at him then silenced him quickly.

After a moment spent waiting for confirmation on his silencing, she kept on pacing and rating. "And now that I've learned that the World Tree actually grants wishes, I can't even get that out of this bitter newfound knowledge?! All because some people have decided summoning ghosts to kill each other all around us?!"

"They aren't ghosts as such," Yuuna said, "and frankly, Natsumi-chan, you're being quite selfish about this, I expected better from you..."

Natsumi stopped again and frowned. "Oh, please, Yuuna! Don't call me selfish when your whole stay with this team is just a way to call your dad out!"

Yuuna screeched, grinding her teeth. "What gives you the right to say that, you don't even know me all that well...!"

Urd chuckled from behind the fist she was daintly applying on her own mouth. "It is that obvious, I guess..."

"You know me even less!" Yuuna said, pointing at her.

Urd huffed. "I'm the big sister to your roommate and I have a perfect observation site from above! Why wouldn't I know everything about you?!"

Yuuna blushed intensely. "Y-You voyeur!"

"Oh, I don't watch you in the shower or anything, you have nothing that I don't," Urd walked past her and smiled at the obviously distrusting Natsumi. "So you'd like to have a wish, huh? You poor, romantic young soul, you're a teenager with illusions and dreams after all..."

Natsumi blushed a bit herself and rasped, looking aside. "I mean... It's not like I really care all that much, I'm just putting it as an example of how useless this magic of yours is to make anyone hap--"

"Say no more!" Urd grabbed her hand forcefully and shook it. "Big Sis Urd likes you, so I'm willing to give you one, if the Tree won't!"

Negi blinked. "Can you really do that, Urd-san?"

The goddess glared at him. "You doubt my power, boy?"

"N-No, but I thought that, unless you were summoned by a mortal, you couldn't grant their wishes?" he said.

Urd threw her hair back and smiled. "I can still contract a human and grant their wishes. Unlike Skuld, I'm still connected to Yggdrasil after all."

Negi's eyes lit up, but Yuuna stopped him with a hand gesture. "Skuld says you're half demon, wouldn't that cost your contractor their soul or something like that?"

"Hey, I'm all goddess by allegiance and heart!" Urd swore, kissing her own fingers. "Believe me, the last thing I want is to help Mom's business with anything!"

Negi eagerly moved towards her. "I'm willing to contract you, Urd-san, for--!"

Natsumi blinked, uietly muttering to herself. "Do you mean that, if I said s-something like, 'I wish for a kiss from m-my beloved', you would...?"

"-- finding Father," Negi was saying with a very fast ragged breathing, "and then maybe bringing him here, unless that counts as another wish? Can I just contract twice, or...?"

"What do I look like, a Djinn?" Urd told him. "Only one wish per person! Yours is granted, by the way, sweetie, because we have a deal, right?" she smiled, putting a hand on Natsumi's hair and rubbing it. "There's a price, of course, but not that of your soul! You'll just have to be my acolyte since you didn't access the system through a call like Keiichi did..."

Natsumi blinked. "Eh? But I haven't-- Ohhhh, I guess I have, right..." she suddenly grew very pale, biting down on his tongue.

And then lighting cracked across the sky, and Negi stiffened in place. Moments after, the thunder roared, and Negi's eyes went briefly blank.

Yuuna and Natsumi shuddered as one, and then quickly pulled together in fear, as Urd smiled and dusted her hands off.

"I understand..." Negi said, head now hanging low, face obscured by bangs of frontal hair. "That, this is... good too," he said in a very low, spaced out voice. "I always can find him later... on my own..."

"Suh-Sensei?" Natsumi gulped. "C-Come on, this isn't funny! You don't have to, I mean, when I s-said 'my beloved', I didn't mean, I don't even have one yet...!"

Yuuna briefly dropped her fear to scowl at her. "Oh please, Nat-chan."

Negi's head snapped back up, eyes glazed and a vacant smile on his lips. "I will give you now... the wish of your heart, Murakami-san..."

"aaaaaaaaaaiiiieeeeee!" Natsumi cried, terrified out of her mind.

The thunder roared again.

"Will you stop doing that?!" Yuuna shook a fist at the sky, then reconsidered and shook the fist at Urd instead. "I mean, will YOU stop doing that?! Turn him back to normal now!"

"No backsies," Urd said with a wink, as Negi began lurching towards Natsumi with a slow, mechanic gait. "My wishes don't half-do things, so when we mean 'kissing', it's going to be a full treatment kiss, dear... Just stand back and watch, you're going to see something really--"

"N-No!" Yuuna decided, reaching over to grab Natsumi's wrist, pulling her back right before Negi lunged on her, falling facefirst on the rooftop and kissing it with enought power as to blow several tiles up into so many tiny shattered fragments.

 

[OverMaster]

A Matter of Image.

"How are you, girls!" a very falsefully smiling Saeki Kaori waved as they ran into her along the street, the older girl wearing glasses, and her blonde hair tied back into a long ponytail. "I was wondering if Negi-sensei has said something on my application f--"

"Evangeline's reviewing that!" Chisame said, hurrying past her and all but dragging Hakase after herself.

Two blocks away, then found Akatsutsumi Momoko, also in glasses. "Ah, senpais!" the younger girl approached them. "I was thinking, Hasegawa-senpai, how do you think I'd look if I dyed my hair like y--"

"Please stay a redhead, have a good day!" Chisame said, hurrying again and soon leaving her behind.

Three blocks away, almost entering the dorms area, they met Takebe Saori, sporting glasses and a ponytail as well. "Oh, what a coincidence finding you here!" she ran up to them. "Just the girls I wanted to talk with! I'd like to know if there's some form or something I must fill for--"

"We're with a full roster right now, sorry, please stick to tanks or whatever you do!" Chisame hissed, quickly leaving her in the dust, with Satomi struggling to keep up.

---

"Okay, so the Festival made everyone think that's the kind of looks Negi-kun favors and she doesn't like that, I can understand that," Misora said as she and Cocone looked at the corner where Chisame sat facing the wall and whimpering to herself. "But that only explains what made her mad, not what made her so distressed!"

"It would seem," Satomi sighed, arms folded, "that boys also have been caught in this unexpected popularity wave. Guess which fanpage has just completely surpassed Chiu's in popularity...?"

"I don't know, I believe I could get used to this fashion," Matoi observed quietly, looking down through the window, at the passing girls below. "I'm sort of hoping it has the legs to last for a long while..."

 

[OverMaster]

Mahorafest.

---

Much to Natsumi's mounting horror, Negi simply peeled himself off the broken rooftop, not even bothering to shake the pieces of tiles as they rolled off his barely bruised face.

"You are in the way, Yuuna-san," he said flatly, and only then Natsumi truly noticed Yuuna had stepped in between both of them. "Please step aside, so I can kiss Natsumi-san."

"N-No!" Yuuna protested, wiping her Pactio card out. "Get a grip of yourself, Negi-kun! Not like this! You're acting like some sort of zombie!"

"The Ultimate Force itself is driving him," Urd pointed out. "It won't stop until Natsumi-chan has been kissed, although I'll admit maybe I overdid it a bit..."

"A, a bit?!" Natsumi gasped. "If I'm kissed like that, he'll literally explode the skin off my face!"

"That won't be a problem," Negi said, taking a stiff step towards the students. "It's nothing that Konoka-san can't fix..."

"Th-That's not the point, you'll traumatize her! And me, if I have to see that!" Yuuna said, pressing the card against her forehead. "You just stand back, I'll call Chisame and she'll scold you badly!"

"I, I don't think he, he cares about that anymore..." Natsumi gulped, sweating as Negi prepared himself with a small vague smile.

And then he was moving in a flash, so fast that Natsumi couldn't see him when he dashed forward, shoving her classmtae aside. With a yelp, Yuuna staggered towards the edge of the rooftop, but Urd moved almost as fast and caught her in her arms before she could fall. Yuuna hadn't even processed the shock of being treated like that by him, when she noticed he'd already trapped Natsumi in his arms, pulling him close to him.

The freckled teenager paled starkly, as his small mouth breathed warmly on her face. His lips pouted, and advanced towards hers, making her heart thump madly. Maybe, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all? He still was Negi-kun after all, surely he would restrain himself...

Yes, just like he's just restrained himself with Yuuna, right? Idiot! she chided herself in terror, and then screamed loudly for help, a help that she was sure wouldn't arrive in time...

Except that it did, as right then, Yukihiro Ayaka herself dropped from somewhere with a loud, despairing cry of "Noooooooo!" and yanked powerfully on the back of Natsumi's blouse, violently pulling her away from him as his mouth only clashed with thin air, creating a small but strong burst of air that blew Ayaka and Murakami several steps back, making them fall on their butts.

 

[OverMaster]

Ritoilet Humor.

They were spending a few days at the castle of Dana-sama now, which was sort of like Eva's resort but much bigger-- the library might have impressed Yue had most of its volumes been in languages she could understand, although Nodoka and Haruna were working on translating as many of them as possible. Being more of the lazy type than them, Yue wasn't as comfortable here.

The most annoying part was how the place seemed so awfully short on bathrooms, something that had never been an issue over at Eva's. Luckily, tonight she hadn't found anyone in the ladies' room, which meant she had it all for herself, and good thing too, as she'd just woke up in a real hurry.

Lowering her panties down, Yue stopped when she noticed the toilet itself was making noise, frantically tapping its cover up and down.

Sensing something afoot even more than usual, she quickly pulled her underwear back and stared at the strangely moving toilet. It took her a few moments to realize why did it sound so odd and yet so familiar, that was...

"Morse Code?" she mouthed to herself, incredulous.

Thank God! the toilet's Morse spelled. Good thing you came before anyone else, Yue-san!

Yue narrowed her eyes. "Rito-san...?"

H-How did you know it's me?

"These things always happen to you," she said, looking around until she saw a small pile of clothes on the floor by a small funny looking machine. "You've got to stop accepting gifts from Lala, even if she means well. What was this one supposed to do?"

I thought it was a lantern, and I wanted to find my way in the dark... I ended in the girls' bathroom again, didn't I?

"I'm here, so yes, you did," she sighed. "Dana-sama really needs to update this palace with electricity. Wait, how do you even know Morse?"

I am more complex than people gives me credit for, Yue-san.

Yue arched an eyebrow. "Figures. W-Well, um, I'll go find Lala and see if she can do something..."

Right then, however, she was startled when someone else rushed in behind her. A gigantic shadow loomed over her.

"Oh, you're already finished, aren't you? Good, good, then please leave," the Witch of the Rift urged her, abruptly picking Yue up by the armpits and lifting her off her feet, as easily as one would carry a kitten. "Why don't you go back to sleep, a child your age needs the rest before what I'm going to put you through tomorrow..."

"W-Wait, there's something I must tell you!" Yue gasped as she was quick and easily taken outside. "Rito-senpai is--!"

"Yes, yes, he is lovely in a way, the poor fool, we'll talk about that later," Dana said, closing the door after her and leaving Yue standing outside, perplexed. "I cannot conversate right now!"

Yue blinked to herself. "Wait!" she still said, over the stacatto of frantic, terrified Morse from the closed room. "Can vampires even 'go'? I never noticed Eva going to--"

She bit her tongue when she heard the loud, meaty noise of vast, heavy buttocks splattering down on a seat, and then the deafening sound of an urgent call of nature being answered in full.

"Aaaahhhhhh!" said Dana's voice, pleased. "I hadn't had one like this in decades...!"

Yue thought that, somehow, in the back of her mind, she could heart Rito's faint yet shrill and piercing, desperate cry of pain and angst.

Then, her own urges piqued her again, and she crossed her legs together, biting on her lower lip.

Since it didn't sound like Dana would finish anytime soon, Yue quickly darted across the hall, towards the men's restroom.

A moment later, Negi's surprised scream ran through the fortress.

 

[OverMaster]

Auntie Yukino.

Surprisingly, she quickly became the most doting aunt to little Nara.

Even moreso than Nekane, she would always lovingly shove praise and cares upon the boy whenever they met, and hers used to be the priciest gifts for his birthdays, no small feat when the list of honorary aunts also includes a Yukihiro, a Naba, and three princesses from the Deviluke Empire.

Out of them all, only Nara's own mom and Haruna correctly guessed the true reasons from the start.

Yukino truly cherished and loved everything about Negi and Chisame's marriage, after all.

It had been the thing that gave Haruka back to her.

 

[OverMaster]

Tales from Negi's, er, Collective.

---

Hasegawa Chisame.

The last few days had been horribly taxing.

And it was all the fault of that kid. Since he had arrived, Chisame's life had shifted violently from relative normalcy among weirdos to a waking fever dream that gave no signs of stopping yet.

She sat very late now, dozing off as she faced her computer, finishing the latest updates to her page. She hadn't had the time to do it earlier, as she had been too busy helping Negi with that research on the 'Sakura Lane vampire'. A vampire, or something like that, geez. Why had this happened to her? What had she done to deserve it?

The cause of her woe slept soundly in Hakase's bunk along Hakase herself, as his pet ermine snored at a corner, splayed in a shoebox stuffed with panties pilfered from across the campus. So Chisame could not, in a clear conscience, blame them for what happened then.

Her screen began flashing an image she hadn't uploaded, first sending her into a panic over the prospect of being hacked by a rival, a troll, a scorned online suitor, or probably a morality guardian. Then the image, vague at first, settled in, and Chisame was further shocked, as it looked astonishingly like her own face. But it wasn't anything she remembered ever editing. That wasn't Chiu.

It was an older, more dignified Chisame, smiling benevolently.

"I'll be brief," her own voice, but more mature and marginally deeper, spoke to her, and Chisame was so stunned she couldn't even yelp as a response.

"Hold on there, Chisame," the woman told her. "It won't be easy. It won't be a pleasant road all the time. They'll drive you crazy, much more often than we'd care for. He'll put you to the test many, many times, and it's just starting. But it'll be worth it all. Please. Have faith in them. And whatever you do, never stop loving him."

"What... What are you...?" Chisame finally managed to stutter, trembling violently.

The woman closed her eyes. "Sorry. I can't explain. Sending this message was very difficult, short as it was. Be sure to thank Satomi someday, when the time comes."

"H-Hakase?" Chisame stuttered. "Cut that out, who the heck are--?!" Chisame demanded, right before her update finished loading, and her new front pics replaced that face on the screen. Once again, it was Chiu smiling at her and all the fans.

Chisame sat there, silent and wide eyed, over the next few moments.

"I really need to go to sleep already," she decided at last, turning it off.

Loving him. What a joke.

She snuck under the covers with a shudder, and tried her best to forget.

It didn't exactly work. How could it?

 

[OverMaster]

Tales from Negi's, er, Collective.

---

Hakase Satomi.

Sekijou Sawako let out an impressed whistle as she analyzed the schematics in her computer.

She turned back towards the shorter, slightly younger black haired girl standing behind her seat. "I've got to congratulate you, Hakase-san, you've surpassed yourself once again. How do you do it? You've been in such a roll of late..."

"Rolling?" Satomi blinked. "I'm afraid I have no idea what are you talking about, such gymnastics are beyond my normal--"

Sekijou interrupted with a long suffering sigh. "It's a figure of speech to say you've been having a remarkable streak of notable achievements. What is your secret?"

Satomi scratched the back of her head bashfully. "Oh, that. I'm not sure you could say there's a direct correlation, but there is something I have been trying over the last few weeks..."

---

Satomi growled to herself, running her hands through her hair. Then she darted a look across the room to make sure Chisame wasn't nearby.

"Sensei!" she called out then. "Inspiration block, again!"

Negi blinked, set aside the book he'd been reading, and, with a sigh, stood from his small bunk. He walked over to Satomi and puckered his lips.

The young scientist clumsily darted ahead and claimed his lips into hers in a kiss that was not as awkward as when they'd started doing this.

After several moments, she pulled back with a smirk. "Eureka! Thank you very much, Sensei," she contentedly said, hands going back to dance onto her computer keyboard.

"You're... welcome," the boy said faintly, just standing there.

---

Hakase shrugged. "Let's just say I've found an efficient stress reliever to help me with my recurring frustrations," she plainly told Sawako.

 

[OverMaster]

Tales from Negi's, er, Collective.

---

Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell.

She smiled as sultry as evilly and extended a pale, bare foot forward.

"If you want me to train you..." the small temptress purred, "kiss my feet..."

Negi blinked. "Oh, is that all?"

He fell to a knee before her, grabbed the foot, and began kissing it tenderly all over.

After a few moments of this, she blushed and began choking in her saliva. Flabbergasted, she looked at Chisame and Satomi. "He, he's experienced at this! What the hell's wrong with you people?!"

"D-Don't look at us!" Chisame protested. "We've never taught him anything like this!"

Negi briefly stopped kissing. "Evangeline-san, am I supposed to suck your toes as well? Anya likes it that way..."

 

[OverMaster]

Tales from Negi's, er, Collective.

---

Kakizaki Misa.

Her phone rang through the darkness.

Blinking out of her nice dreams, Misa reached out with a groan. Sakurako still slept blissfully in the bunk over hers, and Madoka across the bedroom. Not many would have guessed that, out of all three of them, Misa was the only one who wasn't a heavy sleeper, but even Misa hd her own share of surprises past the appearances.

She finally found the ringing phone in the nightstand's drawer and groaned into it. "Hello? This better be good..."

"Misa-chan, it's me."

She grimaced. "Taisuke, why the hell are you calling me this late?"

"I needed to, but I was too busy... doing important things..." his voice said.

"You just wanted to wait 'til your roommate was asleep," Misa accused with a tired yawn.

"Hey, Itou can be a pest when he wants to, and--"

"I told you already, Taisuke, it isn't going to happen," the girl snapped. "I have a new boyfriend!"

"Already?!"

"What are you implying with that? And why should I pin over you? You should be happy, now you can pursue that Katsura girl freely!"

"Who is that?"

"Do you take me for some sort of idiot? I've heard all about that Katsura airhead, the rich girl you--"

"No, no, I mean, who is he?! Don't tell me it's Death Glasses, you all have this weird torch for him as if he were such hot sh--"

"Screw you, take me for an Asuna? That's the worst thing you've ever done to me! Go fuck yourself, I don't want to see you ever again!"

And she slammed the phone back into the drawer, pushing it closed.

Sawanaga Taisuke sat on his bed perfectly still and blinked very slowly.

In the bed across the room, Itou Makoto opened his large brown eyes. "I thought I heard Kotonoha-san's name being ment--?"

Taisuke absently tossed the phone on his head.

The next morning, Sakurako and Madoka noticed Misa's eyes were somewhat reddened and swollen.

They were smart enough to not mention it.