2013 Fanfic Contest Entries, The Humoring

[Milbunk]

Same as Lemon, I'll put a Table of Contents here:

A visit to the beach

A Wingman's Woes

An Epic Romance, The Story of Matou Sakura and Matou Shinji

Crunchy And Good With Ketchup

Happy Riniversary

Jam

The Jeweled sword of Zelretch

[Milbunk]

Title: A visit to the beach
Author: Anon

The sky was a pure azure, with nary a cloud in sight. The ocean glistened in the sunlight as waves gently lapped against the soft golden sands of the deserted beach. Further out to sea, a lone dolphin leaped out of the water, scattering shining droplets that appeared to hang in the air. A warm, gentle breeze blew across the strand.

This was the scene that everyone had been imagining.

Well, in all fairness, it was sunny.

“This looks like a good spot.” Shirou unrolled the mat and laid it down on the sand.
“The only spot more like it.” Tohsaka dropped her bag and flopped onto the mat “Seriously, why are beaches so full of people during nice weather?”
“Rin. Why didn’t you help with the carrying?” Saber’s attempts to look imposing were hampered by the large hamper she was forced to look around. “And I would appreciate it if you stopped kicking sand in my face.”
Rin gestured at her handbag. “I did. Besides, it’s your fault we had to bring that thing in the first place. If it weren’t for you, all the food would have fitted in a plastic bag.”
Despite the rising colour in her cheeks, Saber still managed to retain a scathing tone “Then how do you explain that?” She turned slightly to give the sitting girl a view of what was behind her.
Shirou was running towards Sakura, who was hopelessly entangled in the strings of several kites, the numerous bags she was carrying being the only things preventing her from being completely blown away by the wind.
Muttering a curse, Rin forced herself stand up again, kicking sand directly into Saber’s mouth in the process, and hurried over to help her darling little sister.
Saber’s coughing fit was not helped by the mat, which with nothing to weigh it down, flapped up and hit into her, before continuing on its merry way. Eyes still streaming, she dropped her hamper and started running after it, trampling on several hapless holidaymakers on the way.

With the mat firmly wedged under the hamper, and the kites crushed under the bags, the four finally managed to relax somewhat. Shirou lay down and stretched. He looked up at the sky then closed his eyes. The warmth of the sun on his face felt so nice. It was a shame about the noise.
“…just go stand beside the cliff or something!”
“No. That is not dignified. Besides, it’s quite a long walk.”
“Oh come on. It’s the beach. Who cares about dignity?”
“I do. I will not remove my clothes while others are watching.”
“See, this is why you’re supposed to wear your swimsuit under your clothes, like I did.”
“Just hold the towel up. It won’t kill you.”
“Neither will getting changed without it. Kill you I mean…Fine, fine, I’ll hold the stupid towel.”
“Thank you.”
Shirou evaluated the Risk vs. Reward of opening his eyes. Judging by what he had heard, he decided that the reward had already mostly vanished, but the risk was still there. Not worth it.
“Hurry up. My arms are getting tired.”
“It’s been five seconds Rin, learn some patience.”
“I’m half-tempted to drop this thing.”
“Really? Well, it doesn’t matter, since I’ve finished.”
“What? Already?”
“Weren’t you just complaining that I wasn’t going fast enough?”
“Not at all. Now come on, the day’s not getting any longer.”
Shirou listened as the two ran off.
*Thud, thud, thud, thud* “Ow, ow, ow, ow” *Thud, thud, thud, thud*
“Must’ve been some seashells” he thought to himself.
Slowly, he started to realise that one voice had been conspicuously absent. Maybe he should see what Sakura was up to… in a few minutes… right now everything was all nice and… peaceful…

The light was shining directly onto his closed eyes. Groaning, he tried to turn over, but realized he couldn’t move. He opened his eyes in shock, then quickly realized that that may have been a bad idea.
As if summoned by his screaming and cursing, a shadow fell over him.
“Senpai? What’s wrong?”
Shirou opened his eyes once again, and saw a vision of loveliness above him. Well actually, he saw a pair of legs behind a bunch of green and purple spots, but he knew that there was almost definitely a vision of loveliness attached to them.
“Sakura,” he said, trying to get up before realising once again that he couldn’t “What’s going on?”
“Er…” Sakura’s voice was hesitant, and seemed almost guilty-sounding “Well, you see, there were these kids, who were building a sandcastle on top of you…”
“So you chased them away, and now you’re going to dig me out, right?” Though this was nothing but a wild guess, Shirou spoke with complete and utter certainty. He knew, beyond doubt, that he was right.
“Er…”
“Sakura?” As the spots obscuring his vision began to fade, so did his certainty, as he saw Sakura’s guilty expression. But wait, since he was looking at her from below, that meant her expression was upside-down! She didn’t really look guilty! Who cares if she sounded guilty as well…
“Well, they weren’t very good at it, so I decided to…help them…”
For a moment, Shirou said nothing. The individual words all made sense, and even strung together, the sentence sounded like something someone could potentially say, but there was no way Sakura would say something like that. Right?
“What?”
“I-I helped them build it, and they said they wanted a photo with it, so they went to get their parents.”
“Just how long ago was this?”
“Umm… about twenty minutes ago.”
So that was it. Sakura would never do anything bad, but she was too trusting, so tricking her would be easy.
Ignoring his own hypocrisy, Shirou sighed.
“Sakura, they’re not coming back.”
“They will. They said they would.”
“Please Sakura! They won’t be back so dig me out!” Desperation entered his voice.
“No, I have faith in those children.”
“Don’t have faith in them!”
“Oh! The wind’s picking up again. I’ve got to go, I’ve entered a kite-flying competition with the kids.”
“What? I thought you said they’d gone to- Aaaargh!” As Sakura moved away, her comforting shadow stopped shielding Shirou’s eyes.
“Owwww! Noooo! Come baaaack! Sakuraaaa! Anyoooone! Heeeeelp!”
He yelled until his throat was sore, but was completely ignored by everyone around him.
With nothing else to do, he turned his head away from the sun’s glare as best he could, closed his eyes and waited in the hope that someone would eventually come to his aid.

He realized that he had somehow dozed off for a while when he heard the sound of the sea only a few feet away from him. The sun had sunk to an angle that made it safe for him to open his eyes without being blinded, so he did.
His ears had deceived him. The sea wasn’t feet away; it was inches from his nose. The very real prospect of drowning filled him with dread.
“Help! Someone!” He started yelling again. And, to his surprise, he got a reply.

“Shirou? Is something wrong?” Saber had dimly heard Shirou’s voice. It sounded urgent enough that she called out.
“Saber! Is that you?”
That was definitely Shirou’s voice, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
“Shirou? I can’t see you. Where are you?” A note of panic entered her voice, but it was tempered slightly when a bucket of water was dumped on her head from behind. She turned to face the culprit. Rin had a goofy smile on her face.
“What’re you shouting about Saber?” she asked.
“Rin, Shirou’s voice came to me out of the air, asking for help!”
Rin blinked. Then blinked again.
“Huh? Something happened to Shirou?”
“I’m buried under a sandcastle by the water’s edge!” Shirou’s voice called out.
“Oh, is that all?”
“It’s not ‘all’, I can’t move! I’ll drown!”
Saber scanned the water’s edge. There were a few sandcastles near it.
“Exactly how close are you to the water?”
“I’m practically swallowing it!”
There was no need for him to sound so angry; it was a perfectly reasonable question.
“Okay, okay, we’ll try to find you.”
Saber and Rin split up and began checking each sandcastle in turn. Saber had checked three by the time she heard Rin call out.
“Found him!”
She hurried over. Rin was crouched beside the largest sandcastle on the beach, peering through the windows. Shirou’s hair was just about visible at its base.
“Rin, why aren’t you helping Shirou out?”
“I’d like to know that too,” Shirou’s head said.
“It just seems such a shame to destroy such a well-made castle. Look, you can see different rooms and stairs and everything.”
Saber subjected the sandcastle to serious scrutiny, and was forced to conclude that it was the best-built sandcastle she had ever seen.
“Who cares how good it is! Sakura can make another if you want one so badly.”
“Huh? Sakura made this?” Rin managed to tear her eyes from the intricacies of the edifice through sheer surprise.
Shirou tried to nod, failed, and settled for just saying
“Yeah.”
“Wow, she has a hidden talent. Maybe she should become an architect.”
Shirou was about to reply, but he was interrupted before he could even open his mouth.
“There’s a king here!”
Rin rushed to look through the same window as Saber.
“Oh, it’s a cute little crab.”
Sure enough, the crab was indeed a king. It even had a tiny crown perched on its head.
“That’s all very nice, but if you could tear your eyes away from the crab for just a minute-”
“Don’t insult King Crabby!”
Taken aback by the sudden rage in Saber’s voice, Shirou began apologizing before he even realized it.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult…King Crabby… it’s just that I have to close my eyes every time there’s a wave right now. The bottom of the sandcastle’s starting to disintegrate too.” He was annoyed by the fact that the latter was given much more attention than the former.
“Stand back Rin.” Saber said. Shirou was horrified to see that Saber was clutching the air in such a way that she could only have been holding Excalibur.
“Wait, Saber, what’re you… No, no, nononononononono! Stop!”
Even as he yelled, he scrunched up his eyes in fear. He felt a breeze cross his face, and risked opening one eye.
Saber’s slash had caused the castle to fly through the air and land, perfectly intact, just beyond the tide line. Rin applauded. Shirou realized that he was now free, and more importantly, still intact, and sat up, his muscles protesting at being forced to move after so long being held still. He looked at Saber’s proud expression and shook his head.
“I think it’s time to go home.”

As they manhandled various pieces of beach-going equipment, most of which were not ones that they had arrived with, back to the car, Sakura came running up towards them clutching a heavy-looking trophy.
“Look, look, I won a Holy Grail!” she said proudly.
“That’s nice. Help with some of these buckets, will you.”
“Hey, can we come again tomorrow? There’s an even bigger competition on.”
“I really don’t think-”
“I would enjoy visiting again tomorrow.”
“Yeah, our fun was interrupted by Shirou.”
“I… I…” Shirou tried to resist the imploring gazes of the trio. “…Fine. We’ll visit again tomorrow.”

The following day, there was a thunderstorm.

[Milbunk]

Title: A Wingman's Woes
Author: Anon


“Tohno, I need a girlfriend.”


Shiki Tohno spat out the milk he’d been in the middle of drinking, coating Arihiko Inui and most of the school roof in saliva. “What!?” He coughed, his eyes wide, either from disbelief or his anemia acting up again.

“A girlfriend, Tohno. Don’t tell me your hearing’s going, too?” Arihiko said as he cleaned off his uncharacteristically serious face with a napkin and patted Shiki on the back. “Seriously though, I need to get one.”

“What’s with you?” Shiki said weakly, still shaking off the effects of accidentally inhaling half a milk carton. “You’ve never shown any interest in girls other than Cie- I mean, you’ve never shown any interest in girls!” He set down his half eaten lunch and looked Arihiko in the eye. “Did someone put you up to it? You better have a good reason for acting out of character like this.”

“No!” His friend retorted, his collected façade breaking as he allowed irritation to seep into his expression. “Look, I’ve just been thinking, alright? And I figured that a guy like me in his final year of high school should be swimming in babes.”

“I don’t see it.” Shiki grumbled as he reclined on the fence. “Didn’t you say all the girls in our school are poisonous? With that kind of attitude, it’s no wonder they all hate you. ”

“It’s a style!” Arihiko protested. “Girls love bad boys, so me acting mean should’ve made them go after me even more!” He shook his head. “Anyway, don’t get off topic. I should be surrounded by girls. By all logic, I should be the most popular guy in school. I’m cool, funny, I’ve got nice hair, and I’m absolutely ripped. I’m so sexy I sometimes spend a few minutes just looking at myself in the mirror naked.”

“I did not need to know that.”

“Shut up.” Arihiko took a bite of his hastily bought bread, the cheapest kind at that, and spoke again after a few moments. “Point is, I should be popular. But I’m not, and that doesn’t make sense. It ain’t logical.”

“What’s illogical about it?” Shiki muttered. “You regularly skip class, your grades are barely acceptable, and you’re the definition of a slacker. Not to mention your hair’s horrible. No one dyes it anymore unless they’re desperate for attention. Plus you’re constantly saying creepy stuff all the time, like right now.”

“Completely wrong!” Shiki’s best friend declared, a grin growing on his face. “It’s all your fault!” He triumphantly pointed his finger at Shiki, who just chewed on some rice with an eyebrow raised. “You’re the one who’s chasing the chicks away. Every other day I’m carting you to the nurse’s office, taking away from my badass reputation. What kind of tough guy takes care of a skinny anemic kid with glasses? Of course no one’s gonna take a lion seriously if he’s got a pet mouse!”

“Your logic operates on the basis that people think you’re a badass, rather than that lazy guy who poured ketchup in his hair.” Shiki said as he finished up his tiny lunch. “Anyway, assuming that this is somehow my fault, wouldn’t it be easier to stop talking to me? No one’s forcing you to hang out with me during lunch. Actually, I could probably use a break from having to listen to you talk-.”

“Nah, it’s too late for that now.” Arihiko was all business again, chewing on his bread while he forced his brain to come up with ideas. “You’re already known as my friend, so if I abandon you here it’ll just make me look bad. No, I’ll have to do this with a handicap, namely you.”

“Some handicap.” Shiki sighed and packed up his empty lunch box. “Okay, fine, assuming your sudden urge to find a girl other than your sister who’ll put up with you is genuine, why are you telling me?” He already knew the answer, and as Shiki saw Arihiko’s face light up, it became obvious that the redhead knew as well.

“I may not have a girlfriend, but I do have you.” Arihiko proclaimed.

“…I’m flattered, but I don’t swing that way.” Shiki said.

“Shut up, idiot. You’re gonna introduce me to a girl.” Arihiko said, supremely confident in his plan. “I’m man enough to admit that for whatever reason, your skinny ass is constantly surrounded by girls 24/7 while this hunk of burning love over here’s got nothing. Maybe it’s a gland or something, I don’t know, and I don’t care. Either way!” He pointed his finger at Shiki again, and the spectacled boy was suddenly tempted to slice the offending limb into tiny pieces. “My lack of a girlfriend is your fault, so you have to introduce me to one of the girls you know! And don’t try to hide it either. I know for a fact that you live with three smoking babes in a giant mansion!”

“You mean the mansion populated by my sister and her two maids?” Shiki grumbled. “This is ridiculous. Are you seriously asking me to introduce you because you want to romance one of them? Someone you’ve never even met?”

“I ain’t asking, I’m ordering.” Arihiko said. “You still owe me for getting you out of trouble that one time you puked blood all over the teacher’s desk. Besides, I’ve seen your sister. She’s pretty cool, what with that high and mighty lady air she’s got going on. A real Ice Queen, that one.”

“I still can’t believe he bought your tomato juice excuse…” Shiki said. “But Akiha? Are you sure you want to date her? On top of being my sister, she’s way out of your league. I mean, if you were a local football team, she’d be Real Madrid on steroids.”

“If you’re my friend, you’ll introduce me to her.”

“In that case, I’m not your friend-.”

“You still owe me.”

Shiki sighed, an action he knew he was going to be repeating very soon, and nodded. “Fine.” He forced himself to say. “I’ll introduce you, but I’m not guaranteeing anything. Akiha’s kinda… particular about her tastes, so don’t go blaming me when she finds you disgusting and says no.”

“Particular?” Arihiko blinked. “What, is she into girls or something?”

“No!” Shiki said quickly. “I mean, yeah, there was that one time I caught her with her hand up an underclassman’s skirt, but no, she doesn’t like girls as far as I know.”

“I think I like your sister already, Tohno.”

“Don’t make me cut you.” Shiki grumbled. “Now c’mon, let’s get back to class. No skipping this time.”


Surprisingly, getting Akiha to agree to meet his friend was a task Shiki had little trouble with.

“As regrettable as it is, I no longer have a fiancée thanks to your return to this household.” The proud young woman had said. “It has been a while since my last marriage meeting, and I was actually thinking of scheduling one recently. However, Brother, if you have taken it upon yourself to recommend one of your friends for the role, then he must be a truly fearsome person. I would be honoured to meet this friend of yours.” Shiki didn’t miss the way her eyes lit up as she said those words, or the obviously fake sincerity with which she had said them. But frankly, he didn’t care. As long as Arihiko didn’t end up his brother-in-law, anything was fine. Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d actually like his unruly friend… right?

“Okay, she’s in there.” Shiki made sure to greet his friend at the door on the promised day. The redhead had arrived dressed up, or as dressed up as someone like him could get. Shiki wasn’t sure if Arihiko’s hair had been gelled or merely exposed to hurricane level winds for two hours, but it looked even sillier than most anime hairdos, and his school clothes were definitely not formal wear. “She’s agreed to meet you, so if you don’t screw up, you might get an actual date out of it.”

“I didn’t think you’d be able to pull it off.” Arihiko admitted as he grinned from ear to ear. “But your sister must actually be shy if she’s too nervous to even step out of the house when going on a date. Looks like you might even be an uncle in a few years, ‘brother’.”

Shiki merely smiled. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” It wasn’t his problem. Some lessons had to be learned the hard way.

As he stepped into the mansion, Arihiko felt the temperature drop at least ten degrees. He shivered, hoping it was just his imagination, but it was as if something was sucking the very life from his body. He quickly hurried to the living room, where Shiki had said Akiha was.

When he opened the door, the temperature dropped even further. Arihiko almost collapsed from the strain of standing, and it suddenly became difficult to breath. He could hear his every heart beat, and a sudden fear gripped his body.

The room, which according to Shiki was supposed to be western in style, had apparently been redecorated. The heavy curtains covering the windows tinted everything with a red light, and the pale woman in a crimson kimono kneeling in the center of the room was the crown jewel in the entire arrangement.

Akiha opened her eyes and examined Arihiko critically. “Typical.” She said. “I apologize for the arrangement, Mr. Inui. It appears my brother either neglected to inform you of the proper formality of this meeting or I was too presumptuous. Either way, he shall be reprimanded harshly.” The temperature sank even more, and the redhead at the door suddenly wished he’d brought a winter jacket. “Please.” Akiha gestured to a cushion placed in front of her. “Sit. I shall pour you some tea.”

The boy could only nod weakly and collapse as gracefully as possible into the cushion. “Um, it’s nice to meet you?” He tried. As far as introductions went, it was lackluster at best.

“Likewise.” The young woman replied curtly, not really putting her heart into it. She took a cup and saucer, and began to slowly pour some light tea into it. “I find myself at a disadvantage, Mr. Inui.” She continued. “I feel as if I do not know very much about you, while you know everything there is to know about me.”

“Why would you say that?” Arihiko asked, too cold to come up with a proper response.

“Because you are, from what I know, my brother’s closest male friend.” She looked up as she slowly poured the tea. “Your parents died when you were young.” She suddenly said as her dark blue eyes locked onto Arihiko’s. “You were raised by your older sister. You suffered nightmares for several years, and they only stopped recently. You used to wet the bed until you were twelve, and met my brother some time after that. According to the teachers at your previous schools, you are a slacker, have below average marks, and are, in the words of your third grade English teacher, ‘the reason parents should beat their children more often’.” She began to pour a second cup of tea without looking. “Furthermore, it appears that you are one who practices truancy, and have skipped approximately 64% of all your classes this year. Your family has no notable bloodline, your hair looks ridiculous, and apparently you believe that a school uniform can be worn everywhere and still look good on you.” Her smile was cold enough to freeze water. “See, Mr. Inui? All I know about you is what the several private detectives I hired to spy on you told me in addition to my own observations, while you, on the other hand, doubtless know of all my secrets, since my brother, according to what he frequently claims, just loves to constantly talk about his beautiful younger sister. Now don’t you think that is unfair?” She punctuated her words by sliding a stunned Arihiko his tea cup.

At this point, most men would have soiled their pants and run away. A handful would have instantly realized that they were out of their league and given up, focusing solely on ending the meeting as soon as possible. Only a brave few would have attempted to keep their composure and ride out the meeting to the end simply to save face, while inwardly hoping that Akiha Tohno didn’t know about all their secret fetishes. But only Arihiko Inui would be bone-headedly, stupidly stubborn enough to think he still had a shot with his best friend’s sister.

With a shaking hand he took the cup of tea Akiha had poured him, and downed it in a single gulp. The unexpectedly warm and sweet liquid brought back some feeling to his limbs, allowing him to ignore his own fear. “Y-You’re underestimating your knowledge, miss.” He said, trying to keep a straight face. “I think you know quite a bit about me, although some of your information is obviously less than accurate, such as aforementioned… bed-wetting.” His tongue tripping slightly over a few uncommonly used words, Arihiko set the cup down. “But Tohno, er, your brother doesn’t really talk about you much.” Akiha frowned. “B-Because he probably cares for you too much to expose your secrets to the world!” The boy quickly said. Akiha relaxed, and Arihiko did so as well.

“Hm, perhaps.” The girl admitted. “But my details, wrong? I could understand that, I suppose, but I acquired several of them from interviewing your older sister. I’d have thought they’d be accurate.”

Whilst inwardly cursing Ichiko Inui with every swear word he knew and then some, Arihiko collected what wits he could muster. “Nah.” He said, flashing a grin. “That’s just an older sibling being a nuisance. You know how they are, don’t you? Always going out without telling you, doing dangerous stuff just because they don’t want to get you into trouble. It’s annoying, ain’t it?”

“Yes!” Akiha’s face suddenly lit up, and Arihiko felt the temperature return to normal as the girl’s cold composure faded. “Brother is always sneaking out of the house at night, even when I tell him not to! No doubt he’s going to the red light district or patrolling the city in hopes of killing monsters!” She complained, finally acting her age. “And he always just pats me on the head like I’m a child whenever I try to talk to him about it!”

“Exactly! Sister’s always bugging me about getting a job, or finding a girlfriend, and she’s always blowing smoke from those damn cigarettes of hers around the house. And when I found this really cool pile driver thing in the river, she made me throw it out!” Arihiko said, finally glad to have been able to find a point of information to talk about. Now he just had to keep her talking…

“Brother is always coming home with wounds, and he never tells me where he got them.” Akiha continued. “Why, last week he came home with his nose crooked and his uniform torn, and he told me it was just because he fell down some stairs!” She exclaimed, pouting in a way that made her seem very cute rather than dangerous.

“Oh, he didn’t fall down some stairs.” Arihiko said, grinning. “I pushed him down a flight of them because he stole my banana bread. Then we got in a fight and beat the crap out of each other. Obviously I won, because he’s a skinny twerp and all, but-.”

Akiha blinked, and Arihiko felt the temperature rise until it felt like his entire body was on fire. Then she glared at him. “Are you telling me… that you were the one who hurt my brother?”

“Um.” Arihiko gulped and put on a shaky smile. “Got you? It was a joke, really! I mean, sure I’m way stronger than him, but it isn’t like I get into fights with him every week or anything like that, really! Now if we did hypothetically get into fights every week, it’s obvious that I would win all those fights because I’m awesome, but we don’t so there’s no need to blame me for-.”

“I shall plunder your life, mongrel.”

The last thing Arihiko Inui saw before blacking out was a furious Akiha’s hair turning red, and all the warmth and feeling in his extremities vanishing.


“Not the toaster!” Arihiko screamed like a schoolgirl at a scary movie as he woke abruptly. He sat up, letting the bed sheets fall from his shoulders, revealing his undoubtedly manly chest, covered by a slightly charred shirt that he recognized as his.

“What are you rambling about?” Shiki asked from the bedside as he leaned back in his chair and idly tossed a cylindrical object up and down, watching it spin through the air. “Is this an everyday occurrence? If you talk like that every time you sleep I can understand why your sister assumes you’ll die alone.” He spared Arihiko a glance as he caught the utensil by the tip with two fingers.

“Ugh…” Arihiko clutched his abdomen, ignoring the constant ache all over his body in favour what felt like a black hole where his stomach should’ve been. “What happened?” He croaked, too tired to spare any witty remarks. “Where am I? Is this heaven?” He looked around as if expecting 72 virgins, but alas, he was still alive and got the consolation prize of one snarky buddy instead. “But you’re not sexy…” The delirious boy murmured weakly.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Shiki said without missing a beat. “You’re in one of the mansion’s spare rooms, having just done the impossible. I didn’t think you managed it, but it looks like a miracle really did occur.”

“So she’s into me!” Arihiko laughed weakly. “I knew it! No one says no to Inui, not even that sister of yours! She’s probably already been captured by my charms.”

“Oh, she definitely said ‘no’.” Shiki cut in. “In fact, you could say she said ‘no’ so hard that you should by all rights be hospitalized at the moment.” He slipped the tube into his pocket and shook his head. “I don’t know you managed it, but you’re the only one I’ve ever seen who made her so angry and lived to tell the tale. Normally she can control herself, but you must’ve flipped her switch and then stomped on it a few times, because she’s out for blood.”

“Ugh…” Arihiko made to stand up as he placed his bare feet on the wooden floor. “Tohno, your sister is one crazy bi-.”

“Nope.” With a single tap on the forehead the spectacled boy sent his redheaded friend sprawling back into bed. “This one’s all you. You’re lucky I saved you before you got sent to the next life. So stay here and don’t do anything stupid.” Shiki frowned. “Thanks to you I had to negotiate. Now I have to accompany Akiha on a day long shopping trip that she’s planning on taking immediately, which, again, is entirely your fault, so do me a favour and just stay in this room until I get back, okay? If you need anything, just ask Hisui or Kohaku.”

With those words, Shiki quickly left the small room, leaving a still sleepy Arihiko wondering what the hell was going on.

“She was crazy.” He told himself, reassuring his bruised pride. “In fact, I probably dodged a bullet there. I’m better off without her.” Already thoroughly convinced that everything had gone as well as it could’ve, Arihiko proceeded to conveniently forget Shiki’s warning and rose, throwing open the door so he could explore Tohno Mansion.

Only to run straight into a red haired girl wearing a French maid outfit.

With a small cry, Hisui stumbled back, tripping and almost falling until the startled student grabbed her around her waist, preventing her fall.

“Whoa. Sorry about that.” Arihiko grinned as he steadied the maid along with himself.

“N-no, I am at fault here.” Hisui looked down and bowed deeply. “Master Shiki told me to check up on you, but I did not expect you to be awake so soon after Mistress Akiha’s… tantrum.”

“It’s fine. I’m pretty tough, so a little sleep is enough to have me up and running.” Arihiko said proudly, his spirit not in the least dampened his recent fainting spell. “What time is it, anyway?”

“It is just afternoon, Mister…?”

“Arihiko’ll do.” He said, looking over the girl before him. “And you don’t really need to bow. I mean, I’m Shiki’s friend and he never asks you to bow to him, right?”

“Constantly.” Hisui agreed, relaxing slightly, although she still hadn’t looked up from the ground. “But proper formality must be preserved, Mister Arihiko. In any case, Master Shiki told me to check up on you. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, fine!” Arihiko grinned. “That Mistress of yours is pretty scary, but she’s just a lady. I’ve taken worse from gangsters and muggers.” He suddenly winced and rubbed his stomach. “I’m a bit hungry, though.” He admitted. “I know I ate just before coming here, but it feels like all my energy’s gone.”

“Hm. That won’t do.” Hisui said firmly. “I shall prepare something for you, Mister Arihiko. Master Shiki told me to see to your care, and I shall not disappoint him.” Still refusing to look up, she turned in place and marched out the door instantly.

“H-Hey, wait up!” Arihiko ran after her. “C’mon, don’t just leave me there! It’s boring lying in bed all day. Here, let me tag along. I promise I won’t be any trouble.”

Hisui paused for a moment then nodded imperceptibly, and Arihiko did a mental dance of victory, grinning as he spotted a new potential conquest. She was being nice to him at least, unlike that absolutely insane sister Tohno had introduced him to, so that obviously meant he had a chance with her! After a second look, it was obvious that all of Hisui’s specs were above average, making her a perfect choice. Arihiko Inui prepared for his second turn at bat, knowing that his Casanova skills would be put to the test in the upcoming minutes.

It was actually quite anticlimactic when they arrived at the spacious kitchen and Hisui got to work making food.

“H-Hey, how long have you worked here?” Arihiko asked the first not perverted question that popped into his head, desperate to at least start up a conversation to the girl who hadn’t even properly looked at him.

“All my life.” Hisui’s reply was short. “I came as a child, and stayed as a maid. I haven’t left the mansion since then.” She lifted up a cabbage and sliced it to bits in an instant with a large knife, then dropped it into a pot of boiling water.

“All your life?” Arihiko blinked. “What, you mean you’ve never gone out with friends?”

“No.” Hisui said. “A few times I ventured outside to go shopping when my sister was sick, but I prefer to stay inside.” She grabbed a leg of lamb and sliced the meat off the bone in one motion, dropping it into the pot as well.

“O-Oy, that doesn’t sound very healthy.” Arihiko said. He looked at the girl before him in a new light. Could she possibly be… a shut-in!? “What about school? Surely you made friends there, right?”

“I was home schooled.” Hisui replied. She took a banana and cut it into pieces, peel and all, before throwing that into the pot as well. “I was taught all of the skills necessary to be a maid in this mansion, and thus have had no reason to leave.”

“…hey, that ain’t right.” Arihiko finally said. “That’s wrong!” He grabbed Hisui by her shoulders, startling her and causing her to drop the entire wedge of cheese she was holding into the pot. “You can’t give up on life like that! You have to live like a human being!”

“But I am a human being.”

“You can’t stay inside all day, looking at figurines and salivating over Boys Love anime! You have to interact with other people!”

“I interact with Mistress Akiha, my sister, Master Shiki… and what’s Boy’s Love?” Hisui squirmed, obviously uncomfortable with being grabbed by a stranger. “Could you please let go?”

“Listen, I know it might feel like there’s nothing worth living for, but you’re wrong!” Arihiko said firmly, flames sparking in his eyes as his hands tightened. “This world is beautiful! Don’t shut yourself off from it! I know that even someone like you can find a place in society! And you have people who care about you! People like-!”

Hisui spun in place, spinning out of Arihiko’s hold with movements too quick for him to react to. She grabbed an empty frying pan off the stove and swung, smashing the unfortunate boy in the face with the metal utensil. The impact sent shudders up her arm, and Arihiko stiffened before stumbling back and sinking wordlessly into a nearby chair, holding his head in his hands.

“Ah, my apologies.” He heard the girl say. “My hand slipped because I was nervous. Stay here and I’ll get you something.” Despite her monotone, her voice trembled slightly as she spoke.

“That’s not gonna help.” Arihiko moaned, his throbbing nose and eye making him feel like he’d gone through several minutes in the ring with Berserker and Kishima Kouma. “Damn, you didn’t have to go straight for a weapon!”

“I’m sorry.” Hisui repeated. Her voice was as measured and even as always, but she did sound like she regretted her actions. “I dislike being touched by others, so I moved before I could think.”

Arihiko moved his fingers and grinned, his face almost perfectly fine save a bit of bruising. Hisui was bowing her head, and he could spot a blush of shame on her cheeks. Success! “It’s fine.” He lied. “Happens all the time, really. You’d be surprised how many guys just love to go for the face in a fight. Besides, it’s really my fault, right? Sorry for calling you a shut in.”

He saw Hisui’s blush deepen from between his fingers, mentally congratulating himself on his success. It had been an excellent plan, even from him, and Arihiko doubted he’d ever come up with one that smart again. The combination of guilt, shock, and his selfless words would definitely capture the unattainable maid’s heart!

He let his hands fall to his sides and stood up, walking slowly over to the trembling maid. “Don’t worry.” He said, his voice smooth and gentle. “I know you’re feeling horrible right now, but please don’t cry. A single one of your tears is worth a litre of my blood.” He gently reached out and cupped the small girl’s chin with his rough hand, nudging Hisui’s head up so that her jade eyes met his for the first time.

“You should look up more often.” The man said as he imagined sparkles appearing in the air around him. “Anyone who sees your beautiful eyes would be put at ease. Just from seeing your face I feel rejuvenated, milady, and your tender words have already healed my wounded heart.”

Hisui’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened. She gazed into Arihiko’s eyes, seeing for the first time the man in front of her. His boyish looks, his mischievous grin, his teasing expression. She drank it in, and slowly opened her mouth to speak.

And then she started laughing.

“Huh?” Arihiko blinked as the normally expressionless girl straightened and stumbled backwards, her mouth curved up in a smile, her shoulders shaking from the force of her laughter. She giggled. She snickered. She guffawed. A thousand different facial expressions, each more expressive than the last, each one mocking Inui Arihiko. She clung to the counter for support as her legs threatened to give out from the strain. Yes, Hisui had never laughed so hard in her entire life.

“W-what’s so funny?” Arihiko asked , prompting another burst of giggling from Hisui. She finally forced down the uncontrollable laughter for long enough to take a few deep breaths. “C’mon, you’re scaring me now.” Arihiko grumbled as the carefully built atmosphere crumbled along with any dignity he had left.

Hisui gasped, her insane giggling finally dying down. She let out one last chuckle and looked away from Arihiko, staring at the wall. Although she tried to keep herself stoic, she couldn’t stop the corner of her mouth from turning up. “M-my apologies.” She said weakly, followed by another bout of laughter. “Y-your face, Mister Inui, it’s, ahahahaha!” She doubled over as she caught sight of Arihiko’s visage once more, peals of beautiful laughter tearing their way out of her lungs.

“What?” Arihiko made his way to the kitchen mirror and peered into it, trying to see what was so funny. Did he have something in his teeth? Had Hisui really given him a black eye?

No, it was neither of those things. When Arihiko looked into the mirror, the man he saw staring back at him was almost unrecognizable.

A pointed goatee. Shaggy eyebrows. Sideburns that extended all the way down his neck. Spirals drawn in pink on his cheeks, and a circular monocle that extended around one eye. And the crown jewel that completed the image, a gorgeously illustrated curled mustache that would make any dastardly movie villain jealous. A truly classy fellow stared back at Arihiko through the mirror, a reflection gone completely wrong.

All the colour drained from Arihiko’s face, leaving his it pale and making the drawings stand out even more. His eyes widened as he remembered the last time he’d seen a permanent marker, and his mouth opened to release an enraged yell.

“TOOOOHNOOOOOO!”


“I’m sorry, Mister Arihiko.” Hisui repeated.

“Like I said, it’s fine.” Arihiko grumbled for what must have been the tenth time that minute. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s that damn bastard you work for. I would’ve forgiven a washable marker, but he just had to go and make this crap nearly impossible to get off.” He dabbed at the area around his eye with a wet paper towel, and cursed as the marker monocle remained.

“I’m sure Master Shiki had a good reason for his prank.” Hisui said. “And regardless, I should not have laughed like that. It was most unprofessional of me.”

“Nah, that’s cool too.” Arihiko rubbed a bit more vigorously, but the marker didn’t show any signs of fading. “You should actually smile more often. You looked pretty cute there.”

“…here, try this.” Hisui handed the angry boy a bottle of green liquid.

“Dishwashing fluid?” He asked. “Looks ridiculous, but I’ll give it a shot. It’s better than using bleach or swiping some expensive liquor.” He dabbed a bit of fluid onto the paper towel and resumed the rubbing. Within moments, the monocle was gone, taking its classiness with it.

“The food is almost finished.” Hisui said from behind him, her voice still slightly shaky. “Are you still hungry?”

“Are you kidding? I could eat a whale.” Arihiko said as he wiped off the last of the false eyebrows. He eyed the mustache, and decided to leave it on since it actually kinda classy. Besides, Hisui’s laughter was actually nice to hear, as bad as its timing had been. He turned to Hisui and the table, and spotted a steaming bowl of soup, already set up for him.

“Since it was on short notice, I could not prepare anything too extravagant, so I hope this will be enough to satisfy you.” Hisui bowed and took a step back, waiting stoically for Arihiko’s answer. This time, however, she looked her guest in the eye rather than keeping her eyes on the ground.

“It looks delicious.” The boy said. He took a sniff and grinned. “Smells nice too. Looks like I know who makes the meals every day.” He sat down and picked up a spoon, watching the rich broth in front of him. He had no idea what Hisui had done to make it look so good, but he didn’t care as long as it would fit in his stomach.

“Thank you for the meal!” Arihiko said, and took his first bite.

Also, coincidentally, his last bite.

The world’s colours inverted. Sweet became sour, and vice versa. Heat switched places with cold, and the texture on Arihiko’s tongue could only be described as a cross between a frog’s skin and deflated tire. He trembled as the doom brew washed over his mouth, making its way to his throat with nothing to stop it.

Every muscle in his body locked up, leaving him stuck with a spoon in his mouth and what was starting to feel like lava eroding his teeth. Arihiko Inui had never encountered such a fierce enemy before, and he knew it. The soup wasn’t bad. No, calling it bad would be a kindness. It couldn’t even be called food, because that would imply that a living being could safely consume it without feeling like they were gargling liquid nitrogen.

It was no less than the worst cooking in the world.

“Mister Arihiko?” Hisui asked, worried. “You haven’t moved in a minute. Is there something wrong with the meal? Would you like me to fetch some salt, perhaps?”

Salt!? Salt couldn’t fix a concentrated nuclear explosion! It couldn’t replace the rotting and decay that his mouth had been exposed to. No, there was nothing Arihiko could do short of spit out the offending food and immediately wash out his mouth with the nearest liquid.

Instead, he turned to Hisui, who looked with a hopeful expression, and swallowed. He then smiled weakly. So this was it, huh? To achieve victory, he’d brave defeat. Yes, he’d be the first one to praise that girl’s cooking, thus securing a place within her sheltered heart forever.

“It’s delicious.” Arihiko Inui said, right before his body shut down once more.


“Oh my, this looks very bad.”

“Can you do something, Sister? I don’t know what the problem is, but he seems to be in a great deal of pain.”

“Oh? You’ve no idea then? Sounds like a regular mystery. Why don’t you put those famed detective skills of yours to work, then?”

“It… was probably Mistress Akiha, Sister. I heard from Master Shiki that he managed to anger her at a meeting, and she temporarily lost control.”

“Oh? That’s pretty bad for a normal human. But he must have a strong body to have survived her wrath. Was he fine up until now?”

“Yes, he was walking around quite normally. He actually said that he was hungry earlier. Perhaps the effects were delayed, or he was merely pretending.”

“Hungry? Don’t tell me you prepared him a meal, Sis?”

“It was a small one, yes. Just some soup.”

“And did he happen to collapse after eating it?”

“…he said it tasted fine.”

“Oh Hisui, you’ll never understand a boy’s heart, much less how to cook properly if you keep going like this. Just leave it to me. I’ve prepared for situations like this one.”

“You’ve prepared for someone surviving Mistress Akiha’s wrath?”

“No, I’ve prepared for- ah.”

“Sister?”

“Never mind. Yes, I’ve made preparations for such an occasion. I’d have thought it’d be Shiki, but to think it would be his friend…”

“Very well then, I shall leave him in your hands. Now I really must be getting to work. Master Shiki was so annoyed earlier that he broke another chair, so I’ll need to see if it can be fixed.”

“Sis, perhaps it would be a better idea if you took care of the rest of the soup first.”

“Ah, you’re right. It would be wasteful to simply throw it away, so I shall pack the rest into a thermos. You can give it to Mister Arihiko when he wakes up.”

“Oh dear.”

“Hm?”

“Never mind, it’s nothing. Go on, Sis, do your thing.”

“...very well.”

“…heh, you’re really something, Mister Mustachio. If you can survive Hisui’s cooking, then perhaps you’ll be able to help me with a certain experiment I’ve been waiting to try…”


“Ooh, my stomach…” Arihiko woke up groaning, clutching his abdomen as if he’d been infected by a chest burster straight from Aliens. “What the hell did I eat?” He pushed down the urge to vomit and forced his eyes open. He was greeted by what looked like a normal girl’s room, albeit one populated by way too many brooms, crazy outfits, and antique weapons to appeal to anyone who didn’t have a historical cosplay maid fetish. So upon second thought, it wasn’t a normal girl’s room at all.

“That’s not really important.” A voice cut over the chiptune music that had been playing in the background. “What’s important is that you’re still alive, which means my plan worked!”

“Alive?” Arihiko gasped. “Are you saying I could’ve died!?” He tried to stand up, but immediately fell back down as he discovered his legs had all the strength of rubber. “W-whoa, I don’t feel so good.” He muttered to himself.

“Yeah, ingesting a table spoon of something that’s equivalent to concentrated sulfuric acid will do that to you.” Kohaku said. The maid sat on the floor, playing and effortlessly beating a video game that Arihiko recognized from an arcade in his youth. “Don’t worry though, it’s okay now. It was touch and go for a moment there, but the good news is that you’re still capable of fathering children!”

“How the hell would you know that!? Wait, you can’t mean-!?” Arihiko yelped and pulled down his pants to check. “Thank goodness, looks like Arnold’s okay.” He sighed.

“Oh my.” Kohaku blinked. “How bold of you.”

Arihiko suddenly realised what a terrible idea flashing a maid had been. “Wait, I just needed to check-!” He protested as he hastily pulled up his pants.

“Say no more, I understand.” Kohaku replied a teasing smile dancing around her lips. “That’s one of those guy things, right? Is it like how you style your hair to make it look ridiculous, pretend it doesn’t hurt when it actually does, and name your genitalia after famous actors/politicians?”

“Not in so many words, but yeah.” Arihiko managed to say, thoroughly freaked out.

“Like how you always feel inferior to others, and judge guys by the size of their Johnsons!”

“Well, I suppose that’s kinda true.”

“And how you’re always trying to see who’s the biggest whenever you’re changing in the locker room at school!”

“Hey, that doesn’t really happen outside of manga-.”

“And then the smallest one has to dress up like a girl!” Kohaku’s eyes suddenly took on a demonic glow. “And then he must service the rest of the boys, all the while being humiliated before the rest of them because he’s pathetically small and girly! For the rest of his life, he’ll be forced to cross-dress and be used by all his peers as a pleasure slave until he’s begging to be penetrated by hard, throbbing-!”

“Life isn’t one of your Boys Love manga!” Arihiko cut her off before the description could turn any more graphic.

“You’re no fun.” Kohaku pouted. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to ruin the pure dreams of a young woman?”

“The only thing pure about that was the feeling of disgust I got as you said it.” Arihiko said, and then winced as he felt a headache building up. “Sorry, I’m not feeling too good. It’s like someone’s filled my head with cotton or something. You’re the other maid who works at Tohno’s place, right?” Upon taking a look at her, Kohaku looked almost exactly like Hisui, but the smile on her face made mistaking the two for each other virtually impossible.

“Kohaku at your service, Mister Inui!” Kohaku said cheerfully. She set down the controller in her hands and stood up to do a small bow. “I’m supposed to be referring to you by that constantly, but I’m not as serious as my sister about that kind of stuff. So you can just call me Kohaku and I’ll call you whatever pops into my head at the time!” She rummaged a bit in a pile of weapons and pulled out a pill bottle. She tossed Arihiko a red pill. “Here, it should help with your headache.”

“Thanks.” Arihiko immediately swallowed the medicine. “You certainly seem the most… laid back person I’ve seen here other than Tohno himself.” He admitted. “No offense, but that Lady of yours is scary.”

“Just a bit.” Kohaku said. “You get used to her eventually though.”

“And why has no one told your sister that she can’t cook? Seriously, whatever she made should be analyzed at a lab and used as a replacement for battery acid.”

“Hey, you can’t trample over a girl’s dreams!” Kohaku protested. “My cute, beautiful sister dreams of one day making an excellent meal for Master Shiki and having him praise her for it!

“You know that’s never going to happen, right?”

“It’s the thought that counts!”

“Hah.” Arihiko sighed, finally allowing himself to relax as the pain in his head faded. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re the only normal person I’ve met all day.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, but aren’t you making an unwise assumption?” Kohaku giggled. “What if I’m just as… unique as Lady Akiha and my cute little sister?”

“It’s the antique weapons, isn’t it?” Arihiko guessed. “You’re probably obsessed with ancient history or something!”

Kohaku blinked. “Well, I suppose that’s true in a way. But I also do plenty of other stuff, like-.”

“And you love to cosplay!” Arihiko continued, guessing even further.

“I suppose.” Kohaku admitted. “I do like dressing up…”

“I bet you force that sister of yours to dress up when no one else is around, then you take pictures of her and threaten to spread them onto the internet if she doesn’t do what you want!” Arihiko’s imagination suddenly spiralled out of control, and the boy suddenly found himself speaking without thinking. “And you’ve already leaked photos of her onto the internet, giving her a debut as a net idol known by thousands!”

“Who’s the one having graphic fantasies now?” Kohaku lightly rapped the perverted guest on the head with her broom, feigning anger. “No, those clothes are only for me, and occasionally Lady Akiha whenever she’s feeling adventurous. Most of the time I just play video games. And I’d certainly never expose my cute little sister to the internet!”

“Oh right, video games.” Arihiko scratched his head. “I was just having trouble fitting video games into a household where everything’s so prim and proper that I completely forgot about ‘em.”

“We can’t all be ‘Milady’ this and ‘Master’ that, y’know.” Kohaku said as she booted up some Street Fighter. “Now c’mon, I know for a fact you play because Shiki’s always complaining about you being better than him whenever I rope him into playing me.”

Arihiko grinned. “I’ll have you know that in my youth I was known as Misaki’s Arcade Terror. With nothing more than spare change I could top every machine in the city. Are you sure you can handle what I’ve got?”

“Fufufu, we shall see.” Kohaku said. “Now let’s play!” Kohaku tossed Arihiko a controller, and the two redheads both got ready to kick some virtual ass.

Thirty minutes later, as Arihiko lay crying in a pool of his own tears, Kohaku finally decided she’d had enough. “That was fun, Mister Inui.” She said easily. “You’re much better than Shiki, that’s for sure.”

“It’s impossible.” The boy muttered, his eyes staring unfocused into the distance. “No human can make moves like that. The combos, they were everywhere!”

“You flatter me.” Kohaku chuckled. “Really, I just practice once in a while, whenever I have some time off.”

“The world championships.” Arihiko continued. “No, you belong in the galactic championships!”

“Here, try some tea.” Kohaku said. “Although as the loser, you really can’t say no.” She poured two cups and set them on a short table pulled up from the corner of the room. Upon seeing Arihiko’s suspicious glare, she smiled. “Don’t worry, I prepared this batch. My cute sister had nothing to do with it. And I’m also the one who regularly cooks dinner, so the taste is guaranteed.”

“I guess it’s okay then.” Arihiko said, having already accepted his loss. He straightened and took a cup of the warm, dark tea. “Is this Western? Doesn’t really look very familiar.”

“Just a little blend I came up with on my own.” Kohaku said, taking a very tiny sip from her own cup. After a moment of hesitation, Arihiko did the same. “It’s specially designed to aid in relaxation. I figured that after everything you’ve been through, you deserve it.”

Arihiko murmered a quick “Thank you” and quickly took another, larger gulp. Almost immediately he felt himself relaxing as the warm tea spread through his body. “Ahhh.” He exhaled slowly, sighing as all the pain in his body was replaced by a warm glow. “That feels much better.”

“How much better?” Kohaku asked, replacing her cup with a clipboard. “Do you feel lazy, tired, or sleepy? Can you still move all your limbs?”

“Eh?” Arihiko cocked his head to the side. “I’m fine. Sure I was tired a few minutes ago, but this tea of yours is pretty good. I feel as right as rain! Good enough to fist fight a hundred punks and still come out on top!”

“Hm, interesting.” Kohaku made a few notes on the keyboard. “Okay, now what do you get when you multiply 4 by 5?”

“20.” Arihiko said, his eyes unfocused now. “20 hamburgers. I could totally use 20 hamburgers right about now.”

“Okay… how many fingers am I holding up?”

“How many eyes do you have?”

“Don’t you be getting snippy, Mister. Now what’s the fourth letter of the alphabet?”

“D.” Arihiko said, his voice slurred. His mouth curved into a goofy grin and extended his hands. “D cups. Hehehe.” His hands groped the empty air, and a bit of drool fell from his mouth “No, double Ds! The best kind!”

“Oh my.” Kohaku couldn’t stop herself from smiling at the sight. “That’s definitely an unexpected side effect, but at least you’re still capable of being logical. Now then, Mister Inui, what’s your relation to Tohno Shiki? Do try to be coherent this time.”

At this, Arihiko frowned and stopped his embarrassing air grope. “Tohno, that idiot.” He mumbled, his head nodding forward. “Always getting me into trouble. I’m always saving his ass and carrying him to the nurse’s office whenever he pukes blood everywhere. I should beat the crap out of him but he’s always doing his stupid ninja shit and jumping around all over the place so I can’t even land a decent punch half the time.”

Kohaku tilted her head to the side. “Why are you friends with him if you hate him so much?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t hate him. The guy can be downright chill sometimes.” Arihiko said, slurring his words slightly. “He’s probably talked me out of more shitty ideas than I can remember. Couldn’t talk me outta this one though.”

“My, my, you certainly aren’t holding anything back.” Kohaku smiled. “Now that I know this is working, why are you here?”

“Because I heard that Toho’s sister was hot.” Arihiko mumbled. “And I thought I could, like, capture her heart or some shoujo shit like that.” Yes, for whatever reason, his words were nothing but the truth. “But damn that girl’s crazier than a Trekkie at a Star Wars convention. I ain’t touching her with a ten foot pole.” He suddenly burst into a fit of giggling. “Yeah, not even my ten foot pole.”

“Note to self: Joke making skills drastically reduced while under the influence.” Kohaku noted. “Okay then, what were your intentions towards my cute little sister, Mister Playboy?”

“She was pretty cute, yeah.” Arihiko admitted. “On top of having a decent body, that maid outfit hits all the fetish points. It’s like she’s made to attract creepy dudes or something. I thought I’d maybe chat her up, get her number or something. She’s definitely a nine out of ten, probably the hottest girl I’ve talked to since… since who?” At this point, he was lying on his back, staring at the patterns on the ceiling and… ceiling… Ceiling… Ciel!

“Since?” Kohaku asked.

“Ciel! I just remembered!” Arihiko blinked wildly. “Hot damn, he she was nice. I mean, on top of being a nice upperclassman and making a mean cup of tea, she had the best damn ass I ever saw.”

“Uh-huh. I think that’s enough.” Kohaku said, having lost interest. “You can stop now. I’ll get you something to erase your memories and you’ll be fine in a few hours. Just wait right there.”

“And damn, that ass was good.” Arihiko had started with the air groping again, this time even more vigorously than before. “I mean, holy shit, it’s like it was a miracle of the universe or something. You haven’t seen heaven until you’ve caught a glimpse of that butt. That one rapper dude hit the nail straight on the head.”

“Okay, please stop talking.” Kohaku said, now thoroughly annoyed. “Is the drug still unrefined? I thought I’d nailed the dosage earlier…”

“She has some serious junk in her trunk, if you know what I mean.” Arihiko, now almost catatonic, continued to mumble. “Aw man, I really miss you, Sempai. You didn’t have to just vanish like that. I was totally gonna steal your heart! And that sweet-!”

“Fuck this.” Kohaku cursed, no longer even pretending to be cheerful. “Just stay here and I’ll get the antidote right now. I doubt you’re even capable of anything other than sitting there and spouting your ridiculous sexual fantasies, but try not to expose my sister to them, okay?” She slipped out of the room, leaving Arihiko to continue fantasizing in peace.

As soon as the door closed, Arihiko’s arms dropped and he had to grab on to the couch to stop himself from falling over. “Ugh.” The boy’s head didn’t hurt anymore, but in exchange, the feeling of fuzzy cotton in his brain had multiplied. He forced himself to his feet, still barely able to stay balanced.

“Crazy.” Arihiko muttered weakly, a string of drool still falling from the corner of his mouth. “This whole place is full of crazy people.” He staggered over to the window and wrenched it open, his suddenly blurred vision making it difficult to see the fine details of the latch.

A cool breath of fresh night air blasted Arihiko in the face, blowing away his sleepiness. He looked down, making out a dimly lit backyard full of trees and fallen leaves. For once, he was glad it was autumn.

Were Arihiko more lucid, he most likely would never have gone through with his insane idea. But with his brain running on an extremely unhealthy blend of drugs, Hisui’s cooking, and Kohaku’s magic ingredients, it seemed like the best thing to do at the time.

“Yahoo!” Arihiko shrieked as he tumbled face first out of the window, stoned out of his mind and careening towards the ground two stories below, waving hello to the dozens of tiny magical elves that had crawled out of the leaves just to greet him.


“Here’s your change, sir.” The man handed his latest customer a few coins and a scrap of paper and slid another bowl of freshly made ramen forward.

The spectacled boy retrieved the money and took a moment to say “Thanks for the food.” Immediately afterwards, he proceeded to eat his food like a man who hadn’t eaten in weeks, accompanied by the gentle sound of sizzling meat and the comfortable buzz of the streets at night.

“Wow, you’re really digging in.” The chef commented, pleased to see a customer enjoying his food. “You’re already on your third bowl but you haven’t even slowed down.”

“This is good ramen, and it is a shame I cannot eat slower and enjoy it more.” The boy replied between bites. “Alas, I’m being forced to hurry because my friend is waiting outside and the longer he wanders around, the larger the chance of him getting in trouble gets. Besides, I haven’t had the chance to eat actual meat in weeks.”

“Heh, then help yourself, kid.” The chef deposited a few extra strips of sliced pork into the boy’s bowl. “Don’t worry, it’s on the house.”

“Thank you-.” Before the boy could finish conveying his gratitude, a grubby hand pushed aside the curtain of the ramen booth and a second boy levered himself onto a stool, moving like a broken puppet.

“Ramen, please.” The newcomer said, his voice slurred and almost incomprehensible. “Actually, make it two of the biggest thing you serve. Hold the maids.” His face was relatively clean, but his clothes and red hair were stained with mud and leaves, and the marker mustache above his lips would’ve raised eyebrows had the rest of him not been so grubby.

“Of course. Two bowls coming right up.” The chef said warily. While he could instantly tell the boy was going to be trouble, as a professional it was beyond his ability to refuse. “And there are no maids in this establishment. If you wish, there is a maid café down the road.”

“No!” The redhead stiffened and almost fell off the stool before righting himself. “I mean, no maids. Please. Thank you.” He said, stumbling over his words. He reached into his pocket and dropped a wad of messy but miraculously whole bills onto the counter.

“It’ll be only a minute.” The chef took the money, slid back the change, and turned around to begin preparing more food.

A minute passed. The soggy redhead stared ahead, not moving an inch while his eyes swayed to and fro, focusing on the chef’s back, the kitchen utensils, the untouched change before him, and finally, the person sitting next to him.

The redhead blinked. “Tohno?”

The spectacled boy looked up, his mouth full of noodles. “Hm?”

“Tohno, you bastard!” The redhead’s expression morphed into one of anger. “You told me you’d be with that demon sister of yours, but here I find you relaxing and enjoying the old man’s ramen? That’s low, even for you!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The target of Arihiko’s words said, bemused. “You must be mistaking me for someone else, because I am not this Tohno you speak of. And is that a mustache on your face?”

“Don’t try to get smart with me, Tohno!” Arihiko cut him off. “I’d know that smirk of yours anywhere. You abandoned me in that mansion full of crazies without even a warning! And that ‘mustache’ of yours completely ruined any chance I had with bagging that hot maid!”

“I-I’m not smirking.” The other boy insisted. “I’m not even smiling! Are you blind? And furthermore, you’re being very coarse-.”

“Hah, says the one who has to rely on those nerd-makers just to tie his shoes!” Arihiko shot back. “I can see just fine, Tohno, enough to see that ugly grin on your pompous face. Think you’re better than me, eh? How about we take this outside then!?” Arihiko grabbed the other boy’s lapels, bringing their faces closer.

The other boy blinked as he noticed the dull emptiness in Arihiko’s eyes. “You… you’re on something, aren’t you?” He said, actually alarmed now. “Please let go. If it’s money you want-.”

“Money can’t fix my broken soul, Tohno!” Suddenly, Arihiko’s anger faded, only to be replaced by grief. “You could’ve warned me! You could’ve told me that you live with a bunch of lunatics, but you let me get sucked into it all! What kind of friend are you?”

“I… I’m sorry?” The spectacled boy said, hesitantly.

“Sorry ain’t gonna cut it!” Arihiko continued, tears now streaming from the corners of his bloodshot eyes. “Apart from that monstrous sister of yours, one of your maids tried to kill me with poison and the other spiked the fucking tea! These girls are demons, demons I tell you!”

“D-Demons, you say?” Rather than being even more intimidated by Arihiko’s words, the spectacled boy paused. “Well, I did warn you, didn’t I?”

Arihiko let go of the other boy’s shirt and slumped on to the counter. “Yeah, I guess.” He mumbled weakly. “But you shouldn’t have agreed to introduce me to your sister if you knew how crazy she was! I took five steps in there and she was already sucking the life outta me!”

“That quickly!?” The other boy recoiled. “I didn’t think my… er… sister was such a horrible person! I knew she was a demon, but to think that it’s gotten to this point…”

“You don’t even know?” Arihiko chuckled. “That ain’t even the half of it, Tohno. That one maid you have? The one that’s super quiet and creepy? Well she was real eager to offer me food, so I said yeah, and guess what happened!?”

“She poisoned the meal?”

“Poision!? Hah!” Arihiko suddenly burst into insane laughter for a few seconds before suddenly becoming deathly quiet. “Tohno, what she gave couldn’t be called food. After only one bite of that shit it felt like my stomach had been turned into a black hole.”

“Oh my.” Arihiko’s companion seemed truly worried now. “In that case, you’d better eat up. Here, the ramen’s arrived. I’ll pay for any seconds you might need. We need to get some meat in your stomach before that monster’s poison kills you!”

“Heh, that’s more like it. And here I was thinking you didn’t even care.” Arihiko paused to take a large gulp from the newly arrived food before him. “Ah…” He sighed. “Yeah, that’s the stuff. Thanks, pops. It’s excellent as always.”

“Of course.” The chef nodded. “But do take care, Inui. You’ve come in here roughed up before, but if you don’t mind me speaking frankly, you look like you’ve been through hell.”

“I have.” Arihiko said after finishing an entire bowl within a minute. “It… it was horrible. I’d thought the first maid was bad, but the second one was even worse! She slipped me some sorta wonky tea that had me seeing fairies with double Ds for half an hour.”

“This really is bad.” The spectacled boy said. “I’ll have to, uh, discipline them immediately once I get home!”

“You better!” Arihiko agreed. “Fuck, and to think I thought she was hot, too.”

“Wait, what?” The other boy blinked. “You… desired them? Carnally?”

“Well duh.” Arihiko grumbled. “Don’t you remember me bugging you to set me up with your sister? Biggest damn mistake I ever made, that’s for sure. Anyway, what’s with the fancy language, Tohno? You don’t have to be so damn uptight here. It’s not like you’ve still got your sister with you or anything.”

“Inui… listen to me.” The redhead’s companion said, perfectly serious. “This is a sign. A sign from the gods! It is a lesson that has been taught to you! A message that you have received from the heavens themselves!”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Arihiko asked, half way through his second bowl.

“It means that dating isn’t for you!” The other boy said triumphantly. “Don’t try to go out with anyone until you’re an adult, for all the women around you are demons waiting to suck out your life! No, instead you should do something productive, like joining a club. I bet the Student Council is in need of members.”

“Heh, y’know, you might actually have a point there- What the hell!?” Arihiko dropped the half empty bowl on the counter and leapt off his seat, screaming and pointing at his friend, or more specifically, the area behind his friend. “Behind you! It’s a ghost!”

“Huh?” Said ghost ran a hand through his red hair and tilted his head, bemused. “Issei, who’s this guy? He doesn’t look like he’s in his right mind.”

“Er, well, I can explain.” The spectacled boy stammered as he quickly rose from his seat.

“Tohno, run!” Arihiko gasped. “It’s one of those things! Doppelgangers! It’s like in that story, where if two identical people meet, one of them will die!”

“But we look nothing alike.” The doppelganger pointed out. “My hair isn’t dyed like yours, for one.”

“It can talk!” Arihiko shivered and backed up slowly. “Tohno, don’t tell me you’re siding with that faker!”

“Well, um, yes.” The spectacled boy said. “And sorry for the deception, but I have no idea who you are and I suspect that you might seriously need to get your eyes checked.”

“Oh god, it’s already replaced me.” Arihiko almost choked as he spoke. “This… this is the end, isn’t it? I’m going to die now, aren’t I? I’m going to be replaced, and then the Body Snatchers are gonna take over the world, aren’t they? Is that your master plan!?”

“Look, I think you should calm down.” The doppelganger approached, its blurred face nearing Arihiko’s own. “You’re delirious. Here, we’ll take you to the hospital.”

“No!” Arihiko screamed. “You’ll never take me alive, faker!” He screamed, gathering up bravery he didn’t know he had, and charged his doppelganger, tackling the twin out of the ramen stall and into the cold street.

A second later, the doppelganger got to his feet, leaving the sleeping Arihiko on the ground, snoring like a baby. “That was probably the most anticlimactic fight I’ve ever been in.” He admitted.

“Emiya, you didn’t need to hit him that hard.” Issei said, slightly disappointed. “He’s been subjected to the whims of a trio of demon women. Rather than being angry, you should pity him for what he’s been through.”

“I didn’t even do anything!” The redhead protested. “He hit his head against the ground and knocked himself out.”

The two stared for a moment at the fallen boy. “Er, do unconscious people snore?” Issei asked.

Emiya shrugged. “How would I know?”

“Hey, are you two going to get rid of him or what?” The chef asked from inside the ramen booth. “I can’t have that guy chasing away visitors all night.”

Emiya sighed, looked at the fallen boy, and shrugged. “I guess we can’t just leave him there.” He admitted. “Where does he live?”


A week later, Shiki found himself on the roof again. As he chewed on a sandwich, Arihiko opened the door and sat down next to his friend, not saying a word as he took out a piece of stale bread and began to eat it as if it was made of solid gold.

That is to say, very painfully.

“I have no idea how you can eat that stuff.” Shiki said, not even bothering to glance at his friend.

“It’s not that bad, actually.” His friend admitted after spending an entire minute struggling to swallow a lump harder than concrete that would probably have been better off outside his body. “I’ve certainly eaten worse.”

“Oh really? When?” Shiki asked, skeptical.

Arihiko grinned. “Last week.”

“Ah.”

“Uh-huh.”

The two friends at in silence for a few more minutes until Shiki spoke once more. “So, are you still looking for a girlfriend?” He asked.

“Nah, it can wait.” Arihiko said as he finished off his lunch. He forced himself to swallow the last bite and his stomach protested, but he ignored it. “I’d decided to be a bit more mature about this. Going around hitting on every cute girl that passes by is only a recipe for disaster.”

“Maturity from you? If that’s what it takes to get you to learn your lesson, I should introduce you to my sister more often.” Shiki said as he crumpled up the wrapper for his meal and tossed it backwards over the roof’s fence, where it fell several stories before landing conveniently in a garbage can.

“Try it and I’ll introduce you to mine.” Arihiko warned his friend. “Now I’ll admit your sis is pretty protective, but she’s never raided your closet and replaced all your porn with National Geographic magazines. And thanks to you she thinks I’m dating some rich girl with a stalker fetish.”

“Your fault, not mine. I don’t have that kind of- whatever.” Shiki grumbled. “This isn’t a contest to see who’s little sister is more paranoid. Besides, the last thing I need is another older woman who thinks I’m cute.”

“Another? Dammit, Tohno, are you trying to make me jealous?”

“I’m not trying.” Shiki said, in between gulps of canned orange juice. “It’s your fault you’re easy to tease. I recall a guy who used to actually make me think of what to say before speaking, but now a good old verbal spar with you is like beating up a little kid.”

“Now you’ve said it.” Arihiko growled and walked backwards to the center of the roof, where he raised his fists. “C’mon, then, if it’s a fight you want it’s a fight you’ll get! I still need to take revenge on you for last time!”

Shiki sighed and got up leisurely, putting his hands in his pockets. “This really isn’t good for my anemia.” He complained but was otherwise silent as he approached Arihiko.

“If you collapse, I’ll toss you into the nurse’s office.” The redhead said. “Hell, I might even decide to cash in on all the favours you owe me for all the times I’ve had to haul your skinny ass there.” He clenched his fists and dug his back foot into the ground, preparing to dash in.

“I may be weak, but I’m more than strong enough to break your nose.” Shiki finally allowed himself to smile as he bent his knees, his hands still sheathed within his pants pockets.

“We’ll see whose nose gets broken afterwards!” Arihiko yelled and surged forward, putting all of his pent up energy into a single punch, as Shiki charged too. Despite it seeming like a horrible fight, both of the combatants couldn’t help but grin.

Arihiko swung with a haymaker that would’ve knocked his spectacled friend out cold, but Shiki merely lowered his head and dashed right under the swing. The force ruffled his hair, but little else.

“Shit!” Arihiko cursed and tried to pull back, but he had overextended and allowed Shiki within his defenses. The fight was already over before it had even begun.

The dark haired boy pulled a hand out of his pocket, a sturdy tube clutched in it. He brought it up, smoothly tracing a dark line across Arihiko’s face with the familiar weapon, a line only he could see.

Time resumed.

The redhead collapsed face first onto the ground, and Shiki straightened opposite his unfortunate foe. “It’s done.” He said. “You have been killed by me, monster.” He spun the weapon in his hand and straightened his glasses with the other.

“The hell’s with that edgy bullshit!?” Arihiko sputtered as he rose, clutching his face. “You bastard, what did you do? I thought we weren’t using weapons!”

“Nothing.” Shiki chuckled, tossing the tube towards Arihiko, who managed to catch it with one hand. “Hisui said she enjoyed talking with you last week, so I’m just going to recreate those conditions and hope they somehow stop women from running away from you. Aren’t I a swell friend?”

“Don’t tell me…” Arihiko stared at the object in his hand with wide eyes. “You didn’t-?”

“See you tomorrow.” Shiki said as he pulled open the door to the stairwell. “And stay classy.”

“Stay classy?” Arihiko blinked, and looked at the permanent marker in his hands.

He looked towards the door, not understanding.

Then he looked at the marker again, and recognition finally dawned upon his most gentlemanly visage. Arihiko’s fake bristles trembled, his immaculately curved marker mustache shivering with anger as he finally realised his familiar predicament.

“TOOOOHNOOOOOO!”

[Milbunk]

Title: An Epic Romance, The Story of Matou Sakura and Matou Shinji
Author: Anon

They banged.

~FIN~

[Milbunk]

Title: Crunchy And Good With Ketchup
Author: Anon

Pure evil. It made a glopping noise as it poured endlessly into the world from the wound in reality. Kotomine Kirei stood directly under it, on the island the black mud had formed upon the surface of the lake. The waters had vanished from sight within the first minute, though he suspected the mud had not yet reached the bottom. No matter; soon it would cover the world.

Before that could come to pass, though, Emiya Shirou would confront him. And Emiya Shirou would die. The first of six billion.

Or was it seven billion? He cursed himself. He’d tried to commit the number to memory, but it just hadn’t stuck. He tried discreetly looking it up on his phone, but the Grail was giving off some kind of interference. He couldn’t get a good signal, and whenever he got through, he kept getting redirected to an imageboard. In a fit of inspiration, he tried cleansing and blessing it in holy water.

Now it wasn’t working at all.

He should have gotten an Android.

A figure was approaching from the temple. Details presented themselves as he drew closer. A young man around Emiya’s age, blue hair, white pajamas, pink slippers, running as fast as he could. An acolyte, likely. He was waving his hands above his head and yelling frantically, clearly trying to get Kotomine’s attention.

This was less than wise. Beneath the priest’s feet, the black mud stirred. An urge to kill that was not his own - well, not entirely his own - stirred in Kotomine’s black heart. He restrained himself temporarily. If possible, he wanted to kill him in front of Emiya. And maybe borrow his phone.

The boy drew closer, and his panicked cries resolved into words: “NO DUMPING IN THE LAKE!”

Kotomine paused, looking back up at the black sun. The gateway was open, and hell looked back down at him. Avenger was entering the world in the form of the liquid curse pouring down from the tainted Grail and into, he was forced to admit, what used to be a rather scenic lake.

The priest smiled, clamping down hard on the murderous intent. He turned to his right, and fixed the boy with a stare from his left eye, the one he knew made people uncomfortable. “And why,” he asked, “Am I not allowed to dump in the lake?”

“What do you mean, why?!”

“I mean why.”

“B-because it’s illegal! It’s protected! It’s a national resource! Why are you even doing this!?”

“It’s part of my religion.”

The boy looked Kotomine up and down for a brief moment, taking note of his robes, and his collar in particular.

“Are you trying to oppress me?”

“W-what? NO! I never-”

“My father told me about how Christians used to be treated in this country...”

“No! It’s not like that!”

“Then may I dump the holy mud in the lake?”

“No! You can’t!”

“So you are oppressing me.”

“No! You don’t understand!” The boy was red in the face, flustered beyond words. He seemed to have swallowed his tongue, but after a moment of hyperventilation, managed to choke out “There’s a dragon under the lake!”

Kotomine blinked. “I’m sorry? A dragon?”

“Yes! A giant, flying, scaly, man-eating, fire-breathing dragon!”

“Surely you’re joking.”

“I’m serious! He teaches us kung-fu on the weekends!”

Kotomine looked at the boy for a long moment. “How old are you, exactly?”

The boy stomped his foot. “I’m not a child!”

“Oh?” Kotomine blinked. “How disappointing. I thought you were monk.”

“I am a monk,” the boy said through clenched teeth. “My name is Ryuudouji Issei, and I’ve been training here for as long as I can remember.”

The priest arched an eyebrow. “Tell me then, Ryuudouji Issei. What sort of monk throws a tantrum?”

“I’M NOT THROWING A TANTRUM!”

Ever the spirit of solidarity, Zarakonyr threw a tantrum.

Kotomine was blasted off his feet by a wave of water, mud and irate dragon. His blessing from Avenger still held, and instead of sinking into the churning depths, he slid off it like the world’s most pious bodysurfer (a title formerly held by Pope Radical VI).

Zarakonyr erupted from the lake, black mud clinging to his hide as he ascended, like a vulgar black mountain thrusting into the heavens. The dragon’s sinuous, serpentine body, formerly silver, but so sickly pale from the black mud that it was nearly white, spurted out of the tip. Zarakonyr opened his maw wide enough to fellate the Eiffel Tower, and formally lodged a complaint with the neighborhood and the world as a whole in that special way known only to dragons and month-old babies at two in the morning.

“I TOLD YOU THERE WAS A DRAGON!” the boy shrieked.

“WHAGH?” Kotomine asked through a mouthful of evil.

“WHAT?”

“WHAT?”

As one, priest and monk stopped shouting at each other and, directed by mysterious spiritual senses, the enlightenment provided by meditation and true faith, and a bit of common fucking sense, looked back up at the giant goddamn dragon tearing the sky its second new asshole in less than an hour.

Zarakonyr opened his maw further, and eldritch energies flickered between his teeth. Then the flicker became a blaze, and a new sun was birthed in his mouth, bring an early dawn to Ryuudouji Temple. Before going into hiding, dragons in the east tended to live longer than dragons in the west. It was largely a cultural difference; western dragons had a less healthy lifestyle. Kidnapping princesses put them at increased risk of sworditus.

Among his own neighbors, Zarakonyr was ancient. He was mighty indeed, and had firm views on environmental protection, living in harmony with nature and staying off his goddamn lawn.

A shaft of pale light, diamond-hard, erupted from the wyrm’s jaws and split the night like a searchlight. One night only, it seemed to say. Armageddon sale up at Ryuudouji! Up to fifty percent off on mud facials and horrible torturous deaths!

The lance pierced the Holy Grail, vaporizing black mud, destroying curses and ripping apart the space-time tunnel connecting reality as we know it to the depths of hell.

The gateway was closed, and the sky had the normal amount of rectums again.

Zarakonyr lowered his gaze down to the holy men at the edge of the lake he called his home. He lowered his head down to their level and looked them in the eyes, close enough for Kotomine to see the scales peeling off his snout. The dragon seemed about to speak, before he cocked his head at a sound only he could hear, like the voice of spirits, or a meteor impact. A quick look around revealed the sound to be Gilgamesh rapidly approaching.

“GILGAMESH,” he intoned. “YOU MUST KILL THE DRAGON.”

The Servant sneered at him and replied, but he spoke so softly, from what seemed to be a great distance away. The priest cupped a hand over his ear. “WHAT?”

Stars flashed across his vision as Gilgamesh backhanded him like a drunken stepfather, not even slowing down. The King of Kings marched past him towards the creature that had ruined his plans. Rage was etched across his features, and Ea was clenched in his right hand. He raised his left hand to point at the offending serpent. “Worm!” he roared as Ea began to spin.

Ea was, without question, the most devastating weapon ever unleashed upon the world. Nothing could withstand its full fury. Its weaknesses, if it could be said to have any, were twofold.

One, it was, in a way, too powerful. Fully unchained, it would destroy its wielder as well as its target, and everything in between, until only Ea itself remained. Gilgamesh was well aware of this danger, and never, ever used Ea beyond a certain point.

Two, it took several moments to charge, spinning and compressing air while the wielder stood there as deadly and menacing as a water buffalo. This was rarely a problem for Gilgamesh, as the Gate of Babylon could cover him as it charged, and he had such energy that his armor was all but impregnable.

Unfortunately for him, the Gate of Babylon was most effective best when he was standing relatively still, and barely worked at all at a dead run. And while no warrior or beast could put weapon or claw through his golden plate, Isaac Newton was not so easily denied. The dent that Zarakonyr’s tail left in the King’s armor could only be spotted by the most eagle-eyed observer, although that was as much due to its small size as it was due to the fact that Gilgamesh chose that precise moment to show off his hockey puck impression, disappearing over the temple with a final golden gleam, impacting its spiritual barrier somewhere on the other side.

“YOU CAN’T USE THAT WORD!” the dragon roared after him. “ONLY WE CAN USE THAT WORD!”

“WHAT WORD?” Kotomine asked. “I DIDN - oughf!” he added as a pink bunny slipper impacted his sternum.

“THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR POLLUTING!” Issei yelled, adopting a bow stance. Kotomine wasted no time adopting a stance himself, but he was out of practice, and his head was still throbbing from his late Servant’s blow. The young monk feinted with another kick before driving his fist into the priest’s chin, folding him up like a greek bank.

He stood there for a moment, looking down at the fake priest. Kotomine’s chest rose and fell with his breath, but otherwise, he was still. The other monks had been roused, and were out in force to change Zarakonyr’s diaper so they could go back to bed.

Said dragon was quite embarrassed at himself for having woken everyone up. He’d always thought of himself as such a considerate neighbor, but this...it was like the lawn gnomes all over again. He really hadn’t been thinking at all. In fact, he was quite sure that he was forgetting something.

A ten-year-old girl landed on his head.

Zarakonyr shook her off fanticaly. Remembering himself, he caught her delicate form before she hit the ground. Holding her up to his enormous, icy-blue eye, he gave her a once-over to ensure she wasn’t hurt. There was no blood, her limbs were all bending the right way, and she had both pulse and breath. Her silver hair was remarkably clean, considering, and her pale skin seemed entirely healthy and natural. More than that, the old wyrm could smell powerful magic on her, and not from that awful mud. Most would say she was an angel, fallen from the sky, but Zarakonyr knew better. The face, the build, the smell. Without question, a princess. He looked down on her a moment, tempted. Maybe if he didn’t inhale...

“Zarakonyr-sama! What is the meaning of this?” yelled Ryuudouji Minato, the eldest and, officially, wisest of the Ryuudouji monks. He had a certificate and everything.

“WHAT? I WASN’T-I MEAN, MY SINCEREST-my sincerest apologies, Minato-san,” the dragon whispered, abashed, “for waking everyone up. I found these miscreants dumping some foul substance in my lake while I slept, and I woke in a dreadful temper.”

”Who, Issei-kun and the priest on Fourth Street?”

“Oh, is that you, Issei-kun?”

“WHAT?”

“Sorry again.” Zarakonyr turned his attention to the prone form of Kotomine Kirei. “Some priest. Back in my day, we had real priests. Virtuous, holy men. Send a telegraph to the police to pick him up, or, whatever you do these days,” he instructed, ignoring the monks’ wince.



“...A little longer.”

The wound has almost healed. In the remaining time, I’ll have a strategy meeting.

“Saber?”

I open the door to her room. She’s not here. But there, on the floor...

...Are Saber’s clothes.

“...”

...My mind goes blank at the sight of them. I know what this represents. I know what it means, that her clothes are on the floor of the room, and she is nowhere to be found. I know what has happened. I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t hide from the truth.

...Saber is out streaking.

[Milbunk]

Title: Happy Riniversary
Author: Anon

Rin Tohsaka had never had an anniversary before.

It was the simple truth. She'd never actually dated anyone before, much less two people. She knew the general rules of doing so well enough, but she'd never actually taken the time to do it, between magus training and maintaining the unbroken image of a school idol. But then the Holy Grail War had upended her entire life, and when the smoke had cleared, she had found herself with something she had never really expected to have: a boyfriend, and one she chose of her own free will.

And a girlfriend.

Things had been... weird. But good. She almost hated to admit it, but Shirou and Saber were the best things that had ever happened to her. She really did love the two overly noble idiots; they were just so chivalrous and awkward and silly and adorable, and they made every day brighter. And so, with the one-year anniversary of their odd little relationship beginning just around the corner, she wanted it to be special.

Maybe that was idiotically emotional of her, but they clearly wanted it to be special for her. He clearly hadn't wanted to let her go to study in the Clock Tower in the first place, but rather than complain, he'd just started plans to move himself and Saber there as soon as he could. This visit was more than just coming to meet Rin; he and Saber would be scouting out living quarters near the academy. They couldn't risk bringing Saber into the Clock Tower proper, of course, but the three of them could find a small place nearby. It was a perfectly normal and sensible thing for them to be doing...

But they were doing it on their anniversary. They were going out of their way to visit Rin on their anniversary. And if Rin didn't do something equally special, she would lose at the relationship.

(At this point, it is best to take a brief aside to mention the fact that Rin Tohsaka thought you could “lose” at a relationship explained a lot about what was going to happen next. At the very least, it should tell you something very significant about the way her mind worked.)

Shirou was easy. He was like a puppy, any gift at all would be treated as something rare and special. She had gotten him a selection of European spices, and he would adore it. Rin had totally won that relationship. But Saber? Saber had literally been a king. She had lived in a palace with knights and princesses and large silken gowns. Further, this was not only the anniversary of Saber's relationship with Rin... it was the anniversary of the first year of her second shot at life. Rin wanted whatever she got Saber to be phenomenally special. So special it blew the other girl out of the water. The single most special thing that Saber had ever gotten. And she had no idea what it should be.

She rifled through the library at the Clock Tower, studying as she often did. This time, however, she was not studying magecraft. She was looking into the history of King Arthur, both the official legend, and what the tower archives knew about the reality of it. Searching for something, anything that might offer an idea as to what Saber would like to get. Something that would have special meaning for her. She had no idea what it was, but she just knew that if she kept looking, something would jump out at h--

She flipped open the massive reference book on Arthurian myth that she'd found in the rear shelves, dust flying off it, and a smaller, leather-bound book fell out.

Rin blinked. Clock Tower students generally didn't have time to read for pleasure, so a book about mythology didn't get checked out often, if ever. It wasn't impossible for something to be stuck inside it for ages without being noticed. But what was it? She looked at the small book, which appeared to be a journal, the pages yellowed and fragile with age. She opened the first page, and despite the age of the text, was able to make out the words, The following was written by the Magus Merlin, during the spring of the year of our Lord 923...

Rin looked left. Then she looked right. Nobody was nearby, and nobody would hear.

“Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” she said, wrapping her arms around the ancient journal. Merlin! The Merlin! Blind luck it may have been, but she had just kicked the crap out this anniversary. She was the queen of relationships, and God those two were painfully lucky to have her. She hid the journal carefully among her other books and ran out of the library, clutching her new treasure, snickering wickedly at the thought of just how hard her lovers would have to work in order to equal the magnitude of this gesture... and slammed into something soft, and blue, and loud. And that was when things started to go wrong.

“Ulf! Excuse me, please watch where you're goi—oh. It's you,” said a painfully familiar, painfully unpleasant voice.

Ugh. “Luviagelita Edelfelt,” Rin said, her tone of voice the one that someone would typically use to say “festering infection.” Rin had been studying at the Clock Tower for a little over eight months at this point. She had wanted to beat fellow student Luvia to death with a shovel for seven and a half of them, and the feeling was mutual.

Neither of them was completely sure where this deep-seated loathing had come from, really; perhaps it was the fact that they were the two front-runners for the wildly sought-after apprenticeship to Meister Zelretch. Perhaps it was the fact that they studied the same rare school of jewel magic, and each was secretly convinced the other's family had stolen the idea from their own. Perhaps it was the fact that when Luvia had made a mildly disparaging comment about Rin's ethnicity, Rin had responded by driving an elbow into her face, leading to a running fight that had destroyed two practice rooms, an alchemy lab, and a hand-painted portrait of Lady Szelnabeth's favorite poodle. Whatever the reason, the fact was that the two girls had a long-standing respectful rivalry, which was being used to poorly disguise a disrespectful searing hatred.

The two women locked eyes, and did not speak. There was a certain dignity that they, as elite students, had to maintain. Despite this, without saying a word, the following exchange still managed to happen, all with mere expressions:

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, Luvia's eyes said as she brushed off her skirt. Charging through the halls like a rampaging barbarian suits your infantile mind.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, Rin's hair said as she brushed it behind her ear. Your nose so upturned you can't see what's right in front of you.

Luvia sniffed delicately, and the tiny sound said, That is the sort of attitude I suppose I have come to expect from a self-righteous pauper masquerading as nobility.

Rin smoothed her skirt, standing up and gathering her books, and this motion said, Yeah, well, that poofy dress makes you look like a fat blue cloud.

Luvia smiled and said, “Ah, Rin Tohsaka. I wasn't expecting to see you here,” and the curve of this smile said, Skank.

“Well, Luviagelita, I am here on a scholarship, so I'm afraid that unlike one of those students who only got in due to their family's money, I have to work rather hard to keep my grades up to the academy's standards,” Rin said demurely. The students like you, you demonic Swedish whorebag.

“Well, I do suppose that you have the minor disadvantage of a substandard training regimen, and it would likely take you far more effort to produce the same results,” Luvia said with a beautiful, warm smile. I'm Finnish, you backwater slattern. And my grades are the top of the class.

Rin opened her mouth and carefully positioned her pigtail to reply to this, but was knocked out of the zone by the realization that she had neglected to pick up one very important book. Gah! Where did I drop th--

“Hm? I've never seen a book like this. What is i--” Luvia began, picking up the small journal and opening to the first page. She cut off mid-sentence, squeaking, “Merlin?!”

An icy lump formed in Rin's stomach. “Hand it over, Edelfelt. I need that for... for a project, and...”

Luvia looked up at Rin, and she was wearing the warmest, friendliest smile that Rin had ever seen on a human being. It made Rin's blood turn to razor-sharp ice.

“Well, I'm terribly sorry, Tohsaka, but this particular book is just going to be an essential part of my collecti—of my research on... ritual effects in magical creation,” Luvia said, tucking the book into her own bag. “Be very nice, and I may let you copy my notes on it. In a few months.”

Rin's eyes widened. “No. No, you can't just steal my--” she began, only to be cut off when Luvia lazily pointed to the sign on the outside of the library door. The tiny brass plate that Rin had walked past every day for the last eight months without ever really stopping to read it:

Edelfelt Family Memorial Library, founded 1903.

“Or... I guess you can,” Rin murmured bleakly. Damn her ill-gotten Swedish wealth!

Smirking like a satisfied predator, Luvia walked down the hall to take her new treasure home, stopping only for the briefest moment to say, in tones of absolute triumph, “Oh, and I'm Finnish. Try to get it right.”

*

Some people, when they realized their only course of action for acquiring the present they had chosen for their girlfriend was to commit robbery, would simply choose to select another anniversary present.

Rin considered these people quitters.

She was not, it must be made clear, doing this just because she hated Luviagelita with every fiber of her being. She was doing this for love, and no other reason. None. At all. She swore. If Luvia happened to be accidentally maimed or humiliated, that was just fine, of course. But it was to be specified that Rin had no intention of jumping Luvia in the cafeteria, slamming a tray of pudding into her face, then punching her in the throat and stealing her pack just for the joy of doing so.

Those were just the perks.

Her first option, however, should be stealth. Ideally, by the time Luvia realized she had the book back, it would already be safely in Rin's possession and outside the school grounds where Luvia could not prove it was ever hers. For this approach to work, however, Rin would need a pats—erm, assistant.

Without turning, Rin slammed her open palm into the wall directly behind her in the hallway she was doing her plotting in, prompting a shriek from the small, mousy girl walking past. “Helloooo there, Hannah,” Rin said, looking down on Hannah Jacobs, the first year student who was both noticeably smaller and weaker than Rin, and currently looked like a rodent cornered by a cat. “Goin' to lunch?”

*

The plan was simple.

Hannah, as the expendable decoy, would go up and ask Luvia to give a speech. Most people would find this suspicious, but Luviagelita was a vile arrogant skank who couldn't resist yammering on and on about her greatness, and she would fall for it. Then one of two things would happen. In plan A, Rin would delicately steal the book from the backpack and subtly slip away, leaving Luvia none the wiser. In plan B, she would stab Luvia in the eye with a fork and burn down the cafeteria to hide the evidence.

Rin considered these plans equally valid. They were labeled “A” and “B” in the order she had come up with them.

Taking up her position at the south end of the cafeteria, Rin signaled across the hall for Hannah to begin her attack.

*

Hannah was not the best spy. She was pale, and shaking, and clearly struggling to determine if Luvia or Rin was scarier. At the moment, however, Luvia was eating a petite salad and some fresh bread while surrounded by loving admirers, and Rin was stalking the cafeteria with her crazy eyes, so she decided that she was better off doing as the Tohsaka Heir said. Less chance of her ending up chained to the bottom of a pit being prepared to be used as materials in a woman-skin suit.

Mustering her courage, Hannah walked over to the Edelfelt magus's table, and cleared her throat. “Er... um... Miss Edelfelt?” she said. As Luvia looked up, she spoke the words that Rin had told her were certain to catch the woman's full attention: “I was doing a report for my teacher on the history of magical families, and I wanted to pick y-”

Luvia did not appear to move. One moment she was seated, the next she was cradling Hannah's face tenderly in her hands, a warm smile on her face, and the very air around her seeming to sparkle. “Of course my dear. The history of the proud and illustrious Edelfelt clan is open to all who would seek to study it. Come, sit at my table.”

Behind Luvia, Rin delicately and politely shoved a small boy into the trash in her efforts to get into position. She was, after all, a lady.

Hannah swallowed, sitting at Luvia's table. She was surrounded by the most popular students at the academy, and she was not the sort of person who interacted with them under anything like normal circumstances.

“We must begin at the beginning, of course,” Luvia began. “The Edelfelt castle. It was built in 1201 among the magnificent forests of my native Finland, hewn from granite cut from the quarries of blah blah, blah blah blah, blah...”

Hannah admitted she was kind of drifting in and out of the discussion. It wasn't that Luvia's essay on how amazing her family's granite was wasn't just enthralling, really, but Rin had just threatened a group of first years into silence with a plastic spork, and that was making it hard to focus.

“Blah blah blah, and then my great-great-grandfather invented the idea of rye bread. Not the bread itself, though, just the idea of it. Blah blah blah...” Luvia said.

“How does one invent the idea of...”

Luvia took her hands, her smile growing, if possible, warmer and fluffier. “I'm so glad you asked! It all began in 1405 when blah blah blah...”

I don't like upperclassmen, Hannah thought.

*

All eyes were on Hannah. Or rather, on the woman enthusiastically telling Hannah about how her family had managed to combine their invention of Jewel Magic (Lying Swedish whorebag!) with their breeding of prize-winning stallions.

Rin slid under the table, avoiding the legs of adoring underclassmen (and why were they not adoring her? Traitors), and hooked one finger into the strap of Luvia's designer bag. It was a gorgeous leather number that probably cost more than everything in Rin's closet combined. Under normal circumstances Rin would have been jealous, she admitted it, but at the moment, what was inside it was the only thing that she cared about. Gently, she undid the clasp, opening the top of the bag...

There was a sound not unlike a gunshot from three inches in front of Rin's face, and something burning and blinding filled her eyes. She screamed, involuntarily leaping to her feet... which, given that she was underneath a table, was not the wisest decision. Stars flashed behind her—burning!—eyes and pain filled the top of her head, sending her to roll on the floor amid a rain of spilled lunches.

When she was finally able to rub the... stinging, burning crap out of her hands, the first thing she saw was Luvia's smirking face. The second thing she saw was that her hands were covered in bright orange paint.

“You like, Tohsaka?” Luvia asked. “It's an exploding dye pack. You know, like the sort they use to booby-trap stolen bank notes, so they can be marked and made unspendable? I had it set up to explode outward if my bag was opened without clicking the disarming switch. It does get my texts a bit dirty, but since I habitually take any valuable texts immediately to my laboratory at home. Because, you see, I am not a moron.”

“I... see...” Rin snarled, struggling very hard to keep from having a fury-induced heart attack. The rest of the cafeteria was dead silent, which should have told you how the two girls were viewed; anyone else, they would have been laughing at. Rin and Luvia, though... those two just got the Silence.

“Oh, and I'm Finnish,” Luvia said cheerfully. Her smile was soft, and warm, and behind her eyes Rin saw a malice that could have burned out the stars. “Just to head that off.”

*

“Okay, Hannah. What did you do wrong?” Rin asked a few hours later, after classes had ended for the day and she had gotten the last of the paint out of her hair.

“Um, I did exactly what you asked, a-” Hannah began.

Rin held up a hand, cutting her off. “You didn't warn me. I was going for a booby-trapped bag all along, and you gave me no heads-up!”

“Um... that... well, it's just that I couldn't see inside the bag, so I didn't know it was tr-”

“Hannah. Are you or are you not one who seeks to be a Magus?”

“Well, I actually wanted to be a dentist, but my dad made m-”

“If you seek to be a Magus, Hannah, you must have a greater eye for detail. You need to spot the snares and murderous traps of the demons, Hannah. Your eyes must sieve through Luvia's endless bloodthirsty schemes, don't you see? You must be a relentless, implacable predator who cannot be caged or outwitted.”

“Um, actually, Miss Edelfelt seemed pretty nice to m-”

“Now, Hannah. I am going to storm the very gates of Hell itself. I am going into Luvia's estate in the city, and I am going to reclaim my property,” Rin said, her aura burning with boundless confidence.

“Um, well, that seems a little bit illegal, and I thought it was really her proper-”

“And you are going to help me,” Rin said, clapping a hand onto Hannah's shoulder in fellowship.

“What?!”

“Consider it a free lesson in the path of the Magus, from one who has walked further along it than you ever will,” Rin said cheerfully.

Hannah made a kind of confused whimpering noise.

“No need to thank me.”

*

The Edelfelt manor in London was a beautiful and elegant mansion, and Hannah did not want to be there. Luckily, Rin didn't care what Hannah felt or thought.

“Okay, you have your role down?”

“Um... this is a really bad idea...” Hannah said, wearing a Girl Scout uniform and carrying a box of cookies.

“Nonsense, she'll never recognize you,” Rin said dismissively.

“She... she just saw me at school two hours ago...”

“Yes, but you're not very memorable,” Rin said, even more dismissively.

“Then why do you keep remembering me?” Hannah muttered as Rin left her to walk up to the front door on her own, circling around the manor's outer wall until she found a tree to climb.

Hannah sighed, walking through the beautiful rose gardens to the front door, knocking on the door. An older gentleman in a suit answered, smiling warmly at her. “Good evening, ma'am. I am afraid we do not accept solicitors here in the manor; Lady Edelfelt is a busy woman, and she cannot...”

“August?” said a woman's voice from within the manor. Luvia, in an informal (it should be mentioned that Luvia's idea of “informal” was still something that most people would consider appropriate to wear out to dinner, so it was very frilly indeed) evening gown, walked up to the door, a cup of steaming tea in her hands. “August, who is that at the... oh, how charming! A saleswoman. And a girl scout as well! I've always said that the scouts are the champions of the commoners. Welcome, common woman, to my home. Enter, and take tea with me, that you might peddle your simple gypsy wares.”

She really doesn't remember me, Hannah thought, the depression sinking in. Also, she might be as crazy as Tohsaka.

Glancing out a side window as Luvia led her to the kitchen, Hannah saw Rin climb over the outer wall circling the grounds, quickly gaze back and forth like a hunted animal, and begin slinking between flower bushes as she approached the manor with a slightly manic expression on her face.

Or not.

*

As was to be expected, the boundary field around the Edelfelt mansion was impressive. Just what Rin had come to expect of the demon she had deemed the greatest enemy of her life. But as deadly and cunning as Luvia might have been, Rin was a Magus of vastly superior natural skill, intellect, and beauty, and slipping through the security was well within her powers. She smirked, wondering how long it would take her to break back in one day in the future when she was finally ready to make war on the Edelfelt family and cast them into oblivion for the indignities their heir had heaped upon her.

Rin was maybe not taking this situation well.

The side wall, under the master bedroom window, was overgrown with creeping ivy. This gave the manor a rustic, lived-in feel that Rin, as a traditionalist, approved of. Also, it gave her a foothold to climb up to the window, which was actually far more useful. A lifetime of Chinese martial arts had left her in great physical condition (And it didn't hurt that having a great body was just one more way for her to win at her relationship), so scrabbling up the plants wasn't too hard. The window was even open, so all she would have to do was climb right inside and...

Inside the bedroom, she heard Luvia's voice say, “And here, commoner, you see the beautiful bedroom of a noblewoman. Worry not, for even though it is beyond your simple means to achieve, you may join me here for tea and some of your wonderful commoner treats, basking in the light of my wealth for as long as you wish.”

Damn her Swedish hospitality! Rin thought, slipping down a few inches on the wall. Was drinking your tea in the dining room like a normal human being so terribly hard?!

“I'm Finnish,” Luvia snapped, suddenly.

“Um... I didn't ask if you were, Miss Edelfelt...” Hannah said softly.

“I... I'm sorry. I just... was compelled to say it,” Luvia said softly. “I sense something. A presence I've not felt since...”

Her voice drifting off, she stormed out of the room suddenly, leaving Hannah to sit at the small table and sigh. “Well... the tea is good, and at least I'm away from crazy, crazy girls for a little while...”

“It's good that you realize she's crazy,” Rin said, dragging herself up into the room.

“EEEK!” Hannah shrieked, the contents of her teacup splashing into her face as she jumped in her seat. “H-how... wh-where did you come from?!”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Rin said. “She knows something's up. We have to maintain operational security, or we'll never achieve our objective.”

“I don't have an objective,” Hannah said, wiping stinging hot liquid from her face. “I just want to go back to the dorm and study and get away from you scaring me and her thinking I've never had tea before...”

“Oh, Hannah,” Rin said cheerfully, laying a single hand comfortingly on Hannah's shoulder, both to establish familiarity and to subtly remind the girl that she was physically powerful enough to snap her collarbone. “I know that isn't true. You really, really want to help me. Because we're best friends, aren't we? We are.”

“... We are,” Hannah squeaked.

“Good girl. Now, you just stay riiiiight here and clean up, m'kay? And if Luvia comes back, you stall her. Ask about Luvia's family again, she can talk about that for days.”

“Um... I have a test tomorrow...”

“Then it's really very sweet of you to stay here and be my decoy, isn't it?” Rin asked warmly. “I don't see the book in this room, so she must have anticipated I would come to look. Stay here, I may or may not be back for you.”

Leaving what's-her-name (Helga?) in Luvia's room, Rin began her hunt. The Edelfelt manor was, she noted without any rage at all, both larger and nicer than her own family estate back in Japan. But there were certain basics to all security; the central location, deepest within the home's defenses, was typically considered the most secure point. That was the best place to look first.

She slipped through the rooms like a wraith, always in the shadows, always silent. She saw no servants or household staff, but that hardly meant there were no eyes seeking her; this was the home of a Magus. And given that she was a Magus who had totally stolen all her spells from Rin's own family, a dangerous one (though limited by her meager intellect). She moved from room to room, seeking the center of the house, the most heavily defended place in the manor...

There. The door at the end of the hall looked like the same elaborately decorated foppery that adorned the rest of the house, but a quick inspection revealed it to be heavily reinforced beneath the exterior. Luvia's personal workshop, it had to be, and there was no place she was more likely to place anything that she wished to keep safe and study. Rin checked the lock, studying it for traps—and found the room unlocked.

“I had known you would come,” Luvia said, the book in her hand. “You really do want this, don't you?”

“Luviagelita,” Rin said, her eyes narrowing as she stepped forward to look at her foe face to face. “So you did know I was here...”

“I had never expected anything less of you,” Luvia said dangling the leather-bound tome from her fingers as a taunt. “My greatest foe would never give in so easily. Only when you came here, to the source of my power with all your ferocity, could my victory be complete. Now we shall have our final battle. Our powers shall clash, and when the smoke clears only one of us shall be left st--”

Rin snapped her hand forward, grabbed the book, and ran out the door.

Luvia blinked a few times at her empty fingers, before saying, “Bitch!” and sprinting after her.

*

There were people who would have called Rin's actions those of a coward. Rin called these people, “Failures.”

She had the book, and while she also had a furious Swedish pro-wrestling wizard—

“Finnish!” Luvia shrieked from behind her.

—on her ass, she considered this to be a price worth paying. Or at least, it would be worth paying when she got out of this house alive and with her prize intact. Which she was going to do, certainly. Really, Luvia was hardly going to...

Something exploded in the hall next to her head, showering her with plaster dust.

She's trying to kill me! Rin thought in something less like genuine rage and more like exasperated annoyance. “You are such a bitch!” she snapped, without stopping to look back. She couldn't afford to stop and fire back, either; she had a fragile treasure in her hands and a running fight just would not work. Her only real goal at this moment was to get out of this damn house.

“What was that?! Did something expl-” Hannah began, stepping out into the hall. Rin grabbed her mid-sentence and threw her down in Luvia's path as an obstacle. Some might have called this cruel, but then, Hannah had been so utterly charmed by Rin that she'd volunteered to help her however she needed, even at the cost of her own life.

It should be noted that Rin saw no appreciable difference between “volunteering” and “being forced” when she was the one doing the forcing. It should also be noted (though at this point it probably went without saying) that Rin saw no particular difference between being “charming” and being “kind of a bitch.”

Luvia took a flying leap, hurdling over the hurled schoolgirl without the slightest break in stride. Had Hannah been in a better place, mentally, she might have noted the fact that both Luvia and Rin running her over without slowing even slightly or really noticing she existed was pretty much a perfect metaphor for her life. At the moment, though, he thoughts were more along the lines of Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch...

Rin turned the corner, spotting the first window she'd seen since starting her flight. Covering her face with her arms, she leaped through it, flying through the air amid shards of glass. It had been a second-floor window, but she was... pretty sure that she was over the lawn, at least. If not, rolling with the impact was seriously going to hurt...

Ow. Ow. Ow.

She hadn't been over the lawn. She had been over the paved path leading to the main gates.

Wiping the blood off her forehead, she got to her feet and started to run again, even as she heard the sound of Luvia impacting behind her. The pavement shattered beneath her feet, and the sun got a little less bright.

Yeah, she was pretty pissed.

Rin took off running, pumping mana into her legs and clutching her treasure close. All she had to do was get off the Edelfelt property. She was pretty sure that Luvia wouldn't continue trying to murder her in public, and there was no actual proof who the book belonged to. It was her word against Luvia's and everyone knew the Swedes were horrible liars...

With an earsplitting shriek of “I'm! From! FINLAND!” Luvia vaulted a solid fifteen feet through the air, tackling Rin around the knees just as the other girl cleared the entryway and stepped onto the sidewalk. The two magi tumbled, and as was befitting two ladies of high class and standing from ancient, noble families, they most certainly did not begin to beat the crap out of each other. There was no biting, no scratching, no knees driven into stomachs or elbows driven into noses. Luvia most certainly never slammed Rin's head into the pavement by her pigtails, and Rin most definitely never threw aside the book in her hands to grab up a loose cobblestone in an attempt to smash Luvia's skull in.

Because they were too civilized for that, you see.

So if anyone saw anything like that, it was clearly their own overactive imagination.

However, this was where things began to unravel. And yes, I know that seems like an odd statement, since to the untrained eye, things had never been terribly raveled in the first place. However, to Magi, short-sighted conflicts over largely worthless prizes were basically just Tuesday. They tended to have a bit more dignity than this, usually, but the girls were young and couldn't be expected to self-destruct on an adult level just yet. So far, this had actually been on the tame side.

Then the dog showed up.

It was not a large dog. Probably some kind of corgi mix. It had a big friendly doggie grin, and it wagged its stubby doggie tail. It was extremely interested in the sight of the two girls fighting, and it trotted up on its little doggie legs to investigate. And upon reaching them, it found something truly interesting. Why, it was made of delicious leather! The perfect thing for a little doggie to pick up and take home to chew on. It did so.

Rin and Luvia stopped mid-brawl, their eyes wide at the sight of the little dog's teeth clamped firmly around the journal.

It stared at them, wagging its tail.

“Hey there lil' guy,” Rin said as calmly as she possibly could.

“Could you please put that down?” Luvia asked with what she hoped was a dog-charming smile.

The little dog, still wagging its tail, turned around and sprinted away.

Luvia and Rin, in a display of divine providence, managed to elbow each other in the gut in simultaneous attempts to stop the other from running along. They then hunched over for a few seconds, gasping for air, what with each just having a sharp elbow driven into her solar plexus. Then they started running.

The dog had gotten a head start on them, and it clearly also had the minor advantage of four legs. But it was a short dog, and Rin had long amazing legs (Luvia's legs were also long but hideous, because she was a loathsome troll from the far north). They never lost sight of it even as it turned in and out of alleyways, dodging between the legs of pedestrians, and generally just ran as a doggie would.

It was happy and free, heading home with its new toy and totally oblivious to the two angry women who wanted to make mittens from its hide. In part this was because it was a dog, but also neither one of them had gotten anywhere near close enough to touch it by virtue of the fact that they were and always would be each other's greatest obstacle. Each time Rin pulled ahead, Luvia was all too quick to grab a pigtail and yank. Each time Luvia pulled ahead, Rin was more than happy to stomp on the hem of that poofy nightgown. Had either of them been chasing the dog alone, they probably would have caught it by now, but Luvia and Rin combined were far, far less than the sum of their parts.

Rin ran, head pounding, lungs burning, hair very much in pain and the dog not seeming to get any closer no matter how hard she ran.... partially because she got pulled a little further back every few steps. Am I never going to catch this shit?

Rin... use the magic, Rin... she thought she heard, like a whisper on the wind, barely audible over her own heartbeat and breath.

Archer? Is that you...? she thought, her eyes widening in confusion even as she ran.

I have returned from the beyond to be your spirit guide, Rin. Trust your instincts. Do, or do not, there is no try... Archer's voice said into her mind.

The world seemed to slow down. In her mind, the shot was already made; the action she took now was merely to make that inevitable reality occur as she knew it must. She channeled the primal forces of the universe through her body, and the crest on her arm glowed. The gandr shot rang out, invisible and implacable, her aim flawless. It slipped past pedestrians and static obstacles alike, honing in on the fleeing dog...

… struck the journal, sending it flying from the animal's mouth and sending it scampering off with a yelp...

… and leaving the priceless journal flying over a nearby guardrail into the Thames river.

“You useless dead son of a bitch!” Rin shrieked at Archer.

Oh God, I can't believe you did that, Archer said, laughing uproariously. Spirit guide? I'm just a hallucination you're hearing because Luvia gave you a mild concussion back when you were fighting! Hell, I was just making Star Wars references for fun, I didn't think you were going to listen to me! God, you suck.

“I've never even seen Star Wars!” she snapped, much to Luvia's confusion as the two of them ran along the guardrail looking for the journal. It was floating, so maybe if they could get to it fast enough then it might not be damaged.

I know, your across-the-hall neighbor was playing it while you were sleeping three days ago, Inner Archer said. Say, the current in the river there isn't going very fast. I bet if you jump in you can catch the book by swimming.

How do I know you're not just screwing with me again?!

Because if I was lying to you, I'd recommend you tear off your clothes before you jumped in so all these pedestrians would think you were even more crazy than you already look to them... Inner Archer said, his voice fading away.

Rin sighed, taking this as about the closest she was going to get to any sort of confirmation of the correct path. Generally speaking, her mind didn't lead her down the right path, but at least it was now acknowledging there was a worse path to take.

She flipped over the guardrail and into the water.

Coldcoldcoldcold! Rin thought eloquently as she swam with the current, her teeth chattering as she swam with the current, the book bobbing up and down in her vision. It was flowing along aimlessly with the current while she pushed herself the limits of her physical ability, and she was getting closer with each second...

Her hand clasped down onto leather, and she kicked off to the edge of the water, slamming it down onto a mostly dry stone. “I,” she gasped, “got i--”

Before she got the 'T' out, Luvia dive-bombed onto her head.

Luvia held Rin's head under the water, her eyes wild with fury as she hissed, “This will teach you to steal back something I stole from you while you were stealing it from a library my family built and may not actually own!”

Rin took this as her hint that they were no longer even pretending to be dignified, and wrapped her hands around Luvia's ankle, flipping the girl off her feet and into the current. Luvia flailed in the water, her skirts soaked and making it harder for her to right herself than the comparatively underdressed Rin. She flailed about on the slick mud of the river bottom, trying to right herself, which Rin made notably harder by kicking her in the face. She turned back to the book, wrapping one muddy hand around it, and was of course immediately tackled back into the water by a rampaging Swede.

“I'm Finnish!” Luvia roared. “Get it right you stupid, ignorant c--”

For the sake of propriety, we will assume that Luvia was about to say “cow.” Not that it mattered either way, given that Rin cut her off at the “c” by throwing the first thing she found at the bottom of the riverbank into Luvia's mouth as she screamed.

The Chinese Mitten Crab was an invasive crustacean species that had made significant inroads into English waterways since being introduced to Europe accidentally. They were about the size of a human palm, with sharp claws and legs, as was common for a crab. They were considered a pest species, one that displaced native creatures and damaged man-made waterways.

Luvia did not know any of this. She did, however, know that something big and sharp had clamped onto her face. She fell back, flailing at the thing with the claws clamping onto her nose, and Rin was free.

Battered, bruised, covered in mud and icy water, the shuddering, broken young Magus claimed her prize and slowly, painfully dragged herself up the wall by the riverbank, slipping under the guardrail and collapsing onto the sidewalk, gasping for air.

“... Rin? Is that you?” said a painfully familiar female voice.

With some effort, Rin raised her head, blinking mud and river water out of her eyes to see her boyfriend and girlfriend, looking at her in some confusion. This may have been that they were surprised to see her, may have been that they were surprised to see her climbing out of a river, or they may very well have just been unable to tell it was her beneath the layers of mud and bruises.

“Oh. You're here,” Rin croaked.

“Um... yes,” Shirou said warily. “We managed to get on a different flight and arrived early, and we were on our way to surprise you. So... um... surprise.”

Slowly, painfully, Rin struggled to her feet and slammed the muddy book into Saber's hands. “Happy 'nnversary. I win.”

Saber blinked in confusion. “Win wh--”

“Winna relationship,” Rin snarled. “Read book!”

Saber, her expression suggesting she was too scared to not do everything Rin ordered her to, opened the book. The wet pages made a kind of sticky popping noise, but she looked in, and read, “The journal of the Magus Merl—oh. Oh, Rin. This is... amazing. You went excavating beneath the river for a relic of my past? I... I don't know what to say...”

Rin smirked at Shirou. “I win. See that? Me. The winner.”

Saber eagerly turned a page, studying the text intently. “'The fifth of December. I met a fine young lass huddling by a lone campfire in the woods today, and made conversation with her. She was a dim sort, and it took only five minutes of conversation to talk her out of her garme-'” she read, cutting off sharply, her cheeks going cherry-red. “Oh, dear. Um. Perhaps a different entry. 'The sorceress Nimueh and I met to exchange spells to day, and in the end exchanged far more as I thrust myself into her womanh-' oh my.”

“What's wrong, Saber?” Shirou asked, once again demonstrating he had all the guile of a baby hamster.

Saber flipped between entries rapidly, her blush only growing deeper as she skimmed each one. Muttering in disbelief, she continued, “My God, he actually wrote all of these down? Even the one with those two barmaids that got him banned from eating in Essex..? 'The seventh of February, I have engaged in a wonderful prank upon milady Arturia. Having always taken some amusement in the young lady's efforts to be seen the man, I have used mine magic to give her a male orga--' NO! No, that is enough of that!” she shrieked, slamming the book shut.

“Great present, right? I'mma winner,” Rin muttered dizzily.

“It is a wonderful gift, Rin,” Saber said, her face as red as Rin's shirt. “I love it dearly, it perfectly commemorates our first anniversary, and I am most definitely not going to burn it at the first opportunity.”

Rin smiled in victory, gave a triumphant thumbs up, and passed out.

Shirou and Saber looked down on her for several long seconds, unsure of what to say. In this time, Luvia dragged herself out of the river thirty feet away, a crab still tangled in her hair, and pointed at Rin triumphantly. “I,” she said, her voice slurring slightly, “am Finnish.”

She then passed out.

Shirou and Saber looked back and forth between them, until Shirou finally said, “You know, I was just going to get you a tour of London for our anniversary. Let you see how England has changed. I wanted it to be a surprise, but... um. Well. It doesn't seem important anymore.”

“That sounds lovely, thank you,” Saber said. “Do you suppose we should carry them back to the Clock Tower?”

“Oh, you want to go to the Clock Tower? Just follow this road north until the streets get foggy, then turn down alleys until you find the gates. Boundary fields, and all,” said a young woman neither of them knew, lugging a suitcase behind her and smiling warmly as she walked down the street humming a jaunty tune.

“Oh, thank you, miss,” Shirou said. “Are you a student there?”

Hanna smiled at him. “Not anymore. Dentist school, here I come!” she said cheerfully, skipping off with her bag.

Once again, silence reigned. Even the other London pedestrians were totally still.

“Shirou?” Saber asked.

“Yes, Saber?”

“Is... every anniversary going to be like this?”

[Milbunk]

Title: Jam
Author: Anon

“That was your mistake, vampire. Life and death may be back to back, but they will never face each other.”

Shiki took a menacing step forward towards the vampire on the other side of the hall.

“-I’ll show you. This is what it means to kill something.”

With those words, the boy plunges his knife towards the point of death of the hall. Once he ‘killed’ that, everything would be over. But the moment before contact was made; he was stopped by the sound of laughter from across the hallway.

“Haha, I’ll acknowledge it. Yes, I acknowledge it. Your eyes of death perception far exceed mine. However, that means nothing.”

With those words, an incredibly overpowering aura seemed to emanate from the vampire known as Roa, to the point where Shiki was almost forced to take a step back.

“What are you talking about!? This fight is over!”

“Yes, that may be. However, this isn’t the end. After all…” Roa reached behind his back, causing Shiki to tense. Was this some secret weapon, some trump card? This sort of development was completely unexpected. Roa brought his hands forward to reveal some sort of orange sphere.

“Can you beat me in a game of basketball, Shiki?”

“What?!”

“This is a challenge to a Space Jam!”

With those words, the Roa’s aura exploded. His body began giving off so many sparkles that it looked like he was emitting beams of light. The overwhelming brightness blinded Shiki, forcing him to shield his eyes. There was suddenly a large explosion, and the earth itself began to shake. After a few minutes, the sound, light, and tremors finally died down, and Shiki could see and hear again.

The hallway, no, the entire school had been demolished by some sort of blast, and the earth had split open, causing a basketball court to rise from the depths. Roa had already changed into a jersey and shorts, and was spinning around the basketball on his index finger.

The Space Jam had begun.

“Who the… what the… why the… I don’t even…” Shiki seemed to be lost for words and stumbled through several phrases before settling on a classic line. “You’re crazy! This is insane!”

Roa gave Shiki a long hard look. “Don’t you understand it, boy? This is the Space Jam.”

A cheerful voice behind Shiki suddenly spoke. “He’s right, you know, Shiki? You can’t just decline a Space Jam.”

“Arcueid!?” Shiki spun around to see the woman who had just moments ago been on the verge of death. But contrary to his expectations, she seemed to be in perfect health. “How!?”

Arcueid and Roa both tilted their head in unison and gave Shiki a bewildered look, as if he had just asked the most incomprehensible question in the world.

“There’s no need to be confused, this is just the slam, the space jam.” Another familiar voice spoke, but this was one that certainly no longer existed in this world. Shiki snapped his head away from Arcueid back in the direction of Roa, only to see that he had been joined by another person wearing an identical jersey and shorts.

“SHIKI!!?”

“No need to scream as if you were trying to pronounce my name in all capital letters, I’m right here” replied SHIKI in a deadpan tone as he crossed his arms.

Roa turned and grinned at SHIKI. “You made it!” “You kidding? There’s no way I would have missed this for the world!” The two of them talked excitedly to each other as they exchanged high-fives.

“Okay, hold on just one second,” said Shiki as he massaged his forehead with one hand as if trying to fight a headache. “First of all? How the hell are you two separate people when you’re both basically the same body, only with different personalities in charge. Second? Wrong route bro! You don’t show up in Near Side routes!”

“Human, have you not been listening? You seem somewhat slow-witted. I believe this has been repeated several times already, but let me say it again. This is the Space Jam.” This time, a deep voice came from what appeared to be a black shadow on the floor. The shadow began to bubble, until a tall humanoid figure suddenly emerged from it. And as expected, this tall, dark man was wearing an identical jersey and shorts just like Roa and SHIKI.

“But I killed you Nrvns-, Nvrnq-, Nrvqn-, Nero! I stabbed you with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception! Argh, yes I get it, I get it, it’s the Space Jam.” Shiki said, mournfully shaking his head as he saw the three villains and Arcueid open their mouths to once again explain. “Okay, putting that aside, you need five people for a team, and your team is still short two. And there aren’t many more villains left for your team. I mean, I guess you could possibly use vampire Satsuki, or maybe a few living dead, or something-”

“Here comes our next member,” interrupted Roa as he pointed to something behind Shiki. Shiki turned around and then immediately dived to the side as what appeared to be a giant flying circular saw span through the air.

“JAMJAMJAMJAMJAMJAMJAMSLAMJAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMJAMJA MJAMJAMSLAMSHUTUPANDSLAMJAM!” The blade shrieked as it flew chaotically through the air before finally stopping near the villain team, and transforming to a humanoid form.

“Oh come on, Zepia, you aren’t even in Tsukihime, you first appear in Melty Blood! That’s just-” Shiki began to rant again, but was suddenly interrupted yet again.

“Move.” Another voice from behind him, which sounded strangely like his own voice commanded and Shiki instinctively dodged again. A dark shadow flashed across his eyes, followed by two more.

“Nanaya!” Shiki began to yell, before stopping, and then continued in the tone of somebody pushed to the edge of despair. “Why are there three of you?” Indeed, across from him on the other team, were three identical Nanayas. And this time, everybody looked equally confused, including the Nanayas themselves.

“So, who are you?” Spoke one Nanaya to another.

“I’m the Tohno Shiki who never understood the value of life and was thus misunderstood by him to represent the end of the world within a dream world.”

“And I’m the unconscious fears of Tohno Shiki of what he would be like if he was a simple murderer manifested in the real world.”

“Ah, well you see I’m the suppressed emotions and instincts of Tohno Shiki given flesh.”

“Mhmm, I see, I see.”

“Indeed, it all makes sense”

The three Nanayas nodded at each other as they reached a mutual understanding.

“Oh come on, you have got to be kidding me,” complained Shiki. Roa wagged his finger at him.

“Regardless, my team now has more than enough members to play and have subs at the same time. Team ‘Type Moonstars’ are ready for action. Now, it’s your turn. And then, the fun begins.”

“So anyway Shiki, who should be the other members of our team… Shiki?” Arc waved her hand in front of Shiki’s vacant expression.

“Haha, I get it, this is a dream. Yeah, that makes the most sense, so I’ll probably wake up soon,” he muttered.

“Get a hold of yourself, this is important!” *SMACK* *SMACK*

“OH JEEZ THE PAIN, OKAY THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT A DREAM.” Shiki yelled, clutching his head. “But even though I’m thinking as fast as I can, I just can’t seem to get anywhere in regards to this situation.”

“A slow sort of person!” replied Arc. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the thinking you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to understand something, you must think twice as hard as that!”

“…Alice, right?”

“The Monster Lord?”

“I was thinking more of that rainbow puppeteer.”

“That tsundere, right? At least in fanon.”

“…if we’re going by fanon, at least 70% of all characters ever are tsunderes,” muttered Shiki.

“That’s probably a conservative estimate at that. Honestly, fanfiction authors rarely get the characterization of the original works right. It’s even worse for those so-called ‘comedic fanfic writers’, who mess with the original characters personalities just for cheap laughs. Those people are the worst of the worst. But the very worst hypothetical person would be one who just discontinues a series after starting it, before writing a so-called ‘crack-fic’ for some meaningless online contest where the characters personas are twisted into something completely different. Anybody who does that deserves to be sentenced to the lowest rings of writing hell, or at least punched in the stomach a few times,” stated Arcueid with righteous indignation.

“Er… of course,” stuttered Shiki, desperately trying not to think of his current work-in-progress for an online fanfiction contest and hoping Arcueid wouldn’t notice his sudden cold sweat.

“But anyway, all I’m saying is I’m glad I don’t exist in that sort of world.”

“Ahem!” While Shiki and Arcueid were distracted with their conversation, it seemed like there were people behind them waiting. They turned around to see some rather familiar faces.

“Geez ni-san, it’s because you were spacing out at the start that our entrance got totally ruined,” pouted Akiha.

“That’s right! And then you two rambled off into talking about the red queen’s race and tsunderes and fanfictions and completely forgot about the main plotline,” added Ciel.

“…” said Hisui.

“Like what Hisui just said, we’re here to support you, Shiki-sama” said Kohaku.

“Have no fear, for I am currently calculating the most efficient plan to lead us to victory,” said a certain purple haired alchemist.

“…What are you doing here, Sion?” asked Shiki in a flat deadpan tone.

“Isn’t it obvious? There weren’t enough Tsukihime heroine characters for a full team plus sub, and Kohaku’s more of a coach, and Melty Blood’s much closer to Tsukihime than those Fate characters are, so here I am.”

“…there goes the fourth wall,” muttered Shiki, but by this point nobody was listening to him.

“But what should we call our team,” wondered Arcueid out loud. “Shiki and the heroines… But Sion isn’t really a tsukihime heroine. Possibly considered Melty Blood’s gold heroine, but she’ll be downgraded to silver eventually-“

“-Wait, what?” Sion tried to interrupt, but was ignore as Arc continued.

“So how about Shiki and his haremites?”

“Oi oi, wait a second there, I have kind of a bad feeling about that name” Shiki said as he tried to object, but once again he was completely ignored.

“Hey, ‘Type Moonstars’, ‘Shiki and his haremites’ (“Oh god, I can’t believe that’s our official team name” muttered Shiki to himself) are ready to play.” Arc called out to the villainous team on the other side of the court.

“Excellent timing. I contacted some suitable referees and they should be arriving soon,” replied Captain Roa.

“There are referees?” wonder Shiki out loud, not noticing the brief flash of light on the moon. Moments later, some object impacted the ground at an extremely high speed behind Shiki, sending out a large shockwave and knocking him over. From within the smoking crater, two figures slowly emerged.

“Satsuki!? Kouma!?”

“Uwaa… Sorry, Tohno-kun, but I’m here purely as a member of the United Earth’s Official Space Jam Team to act as a referee for this match.”

“United. Earth. Official. Space. Jam. Team. What.”

“As the name suggest, that is the basketball team this planet fields in order to compete in intergalactic, or even the occasional multi-universal space jams in order to settle various disputes. As it turns out, we were just finishing team practice on our moon facilities when the request came in for referees for a space jam. As this location is closest to our home location, me and Satsuki were chosen for this duty and thus jumped from the moon to here.”

“…There’s so much that that needs to be asked, but first thing first. You jumped from the moon? All the way here?”

“A technique originally developed by Bruce Lee. With a lifetime of training for space jams and an extensive knowledge of the human anatomy, a person can have incredible control over their body. This much is simple for any starter,” explained Kouma.

“Furthermore, out of every single person in the entire world, why are you two starters for this space jam team?”

“It’s certainly not because we were chosen for the simple reason that we have ‘dunking’ moves in the Melty Blood games. Nope, totally not for reasons like that at all,” said Satsuki as she waved her hand in front of her face.

“What a whimsical reason…” muttered Shiki with the voice of somebody who has completely given up.

“Anyway, let’s get this started. Will the starters of both teams step onto the court?” At those words, Roa, SHIKI, Nrvnqsr, Zepia, and one of the Nanayas stepped up for ‘Type Moonstars’, and Shiki, Arcueid, Ciel, Akiha, and Sion stepped up for ‘Shiki and the haremites’. For the opening faceoff, Zepia and Arcueid were chosen from their teams to compete for the jumpball.

“Now, I want a nice, clean, sportsmanlike game for all of you,” said Kouma as he bounced the basketball a few times. And with those words, he tossed the ball high into the air. The instant the ball left his hands, the two players leaped into the air like they had replaced their feet with rockets. But between the two of them, Arcueid was just a little bit faster.

“Here, Shiki!” yelled Arc as she swatted the ball towards Shiki, who easily caught it.

“Mhmm, I may still not be completely sure what the hell’s happening, but at the very least I’m confident in my athletic abilities and basketball skills, barring an attack from plot anemia” said Shiki as he started dribbling towards the opposing basketball. However, suddenly Nrvnqsr stood in his way.

“Flock of magpies”

“Wait, what-” Before Shiki could even finish voicing his disbelief, numerous dark chaos birds shot out from Nrvnqsr’s trenchcoat and swarmed Shiki. Instinctively, Shiki threw the ball away, and Nrvnqsr leaped into the air and grabbed it. Before Shiki even realized what was happening, the crows had already returned to Nrvnqsr who was transforming. Now in his 999th beast mode, he charged towards the basket and threw down a slam.

“And Nrvnqsr puts the ‘Type Moonstars’ on the scoreboard first with his ‘999th Beast [Dunk of the Beast King]’” announced Satsuki.

“…” said Hisui.

“Time-out!” yelled Kohaku. “Okay, team huddle.”

“…Shiki, you had such a good chance,” said Arcueid in a disappointed tone of voice.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be prepared next time,” responded Shiki as he took off his glasses and took out his knife from his pocket.

“No! If you do that ni-san, it’ll be a flagrant foul!”

“…then how about what Nrvnqsr just did?”

“The only way you can really use your Mystic Eyes of Death Perception is in attacking the opponent directly, which would be a flagrant foul. After all, Nrvnqsr didn’t really attack you, he just stole the ball using his technique,” explained Ciel.

“…I think I’ll just sit on the bench for now.”

“Okay, Hisui will take your place. Is that fine, Hisui-chan?”

“…”

“She said yes.”

And so play resumed with haremites Arcueid, Ciel, Akiha, Hisui, and Sion facing off against the ‘Type Moonstars’. The game turned into a furious back-and-forth action-packed match between two teams giving it all.

“IMOUTO FADEAWAY!”

“SQUARE SHOT!”

“SEVEN BLOCK!” “Master whyyyyyyyyyyyy”

““JAMJAMJAMJAMJAMJAMJAMSLAMJAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMJAMJ AMJAMJAMSLAM!!!”

“…”

“Triple Nanaya Play! Double Kyokushi Nanaya Seventeen Dissection Breakaway!”

“Calculations complete. Barrel Replica Obelisk Shot!”

But among all the techniques and players, one clearly stood out as far beyond the rest…

“TRUE ANCESTOR DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNK!!!”

“TRUE ANCRESTOR BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!”

“MARBLE PHANTAAAASM!!! DESCENT OF THE RED MOON SLAAAAAAAAM!”

And so after one half of furious play, ‘Shiki and the Haremites’ led the ‘Type Moonstars’ in points.

“Something’s wrong. They’re too relaxed for this point lead. They must have something planned,” muttered Kohaku. That instant, a bright flash of light appeared from the bench of the ‘Type Moonstars’, and suddenly a new golden figure appeared.

“Referee, we would like to sub in a player for our team”

“Wait a second, Gilgamesh!? How does this not break the rules?” yelled Shiki.

“Each team is allowed to add in one more player from any location at any point of the game. This is known as the ‘Bill Murray’ rule,” explained Satsuki.

“But it’s not just me. BEHOLD MY ORIGINAL TEAM!” yelled Gilgamesh loudly as some portal in space opened up behind him. From within, out stepped Black Berserker, Saber Alter, and Kotomine.

“…they’re only allowed one extra sub, right? Not four?”

“…Gilgamesh is their extra sub, but those other three were brought here by Gilgamesh’s technique, which bypasses the rule. Damn it, they got us. I need to go make preparations.” And with those words, Kohaku disappeared, and play resumed with SHIKI, Gilgamesh, Saber Alter, Black Berserker, and Kotomine facing off against the haremites. Unlike before, this time the flow was entirely with team ‘Type Moonstars’ as Gilgamesh and his teammates worked together like a well-oiled machine, catching up to ‘Shiki and the Haremites’ and far surpassing them. Then, at the very end of the third quarter, Kohaku reappeared.

“Tell me you have a plan, Kohaku! We’re getting crushed out there!” exclaimed Shiki.

“They should be arriving soon, ah there they are!” A portal appeared from the sky, and Magical Amber appeared, carrying a character.

“Arara I found him, Kohaku~”

“Thank you very much, Amber~”

“Stop that, that’s way too weird,” said Shiki, before noticing who Magical Amber brought. “Shirou? So much for this being Tsukihime, with Gilgamesh and now Shirou, it’s going to be all Fate now, isn’t it? What, is Ryougi from Kara no Kyoukai going to show up too? Hell, since there are Melty Blood characters, we might as well have some CCC and Apocrypha too.”

“Fate? Are you misunderstanding something, Shirou?” Kohaku asked quizzically.

“This Gilgamesh and Shirou aren’t from the Fate-verse,” added Magical Amber. “Rather, they’re from an alternate verse, ‘Jam/Stay Night’. It’s actually quite a hit in certain parallel universes, with the three routes being ‘Jam’, ‘Unlimited Slam Works’, and ‘Heaven’s Jam’.”

“So which Shirou is this?”

“Fufufu, using my magic, it’s all three combined into the same body. A little loophole abuse to counter Gilgamesh’s loophole abuse.”

And so began the final quarter, with Shirou subbing in for the ‘Shiki and his Haremites’.

“Here I come, boy” said Kotomine as he drove in for a lay-up, but Jam Shirou was ready. He slid in underneath Kotomine’s body, and with a fluid motion, punches a magic dagger into the basketball.

“"Läßt-!"

With those words, the Azoth dagger exploded, knocking the basketball away from Kotomine’s hands, allowing Shirou to easily catch it and begin dribbling towards the other end. But in front of him stood Saber Alter and Black Berserker, barring his way.

“…” But he charged forward regardless, and as he moved, his left arm transformed into a much more tan, muscular one wrapped by a red cloth. Wordlessly, he ripped off the red cloth as Black Berserker charged.

“BGM, on. Initialize: Emiya.mp3.”

One second passed. The black giant grew ever closer.

“Remix, confirmed: Quad City DJs. Play: UnlimitedSlamWorks.mp3.”

Two seconds passed. The black giant is right before him.

“Set. Nine Lives Crossover.”

With godspeed, he moves in nine simultaneous directions at once. For the mad basketball player who reacts on instinct, his body is unable to react to nine different directions at once, and he crashes into the ground. However, there still remained one more obstacle. Now it was Saber Alter who stood in his way. He already knew that there was no way past her without pushing himself to the very limits.

Divine skill, flawless and firm. He juked in one direction, and as she followed.

Strength moves mountains. He tried pushed forward like an unstoppable force, and she stood her ground, like an immovable object.

Blade cuts water. Suddenly he spun backwards and around her. Not expecting this, she also followed, and managed to keep up.

Life approaches the imperial Villa. Instantly, he stopped his movement, while she who was trying to keep up, ended up moving past him slightly. He instantly began once again moving in a different direction.

“Two great men, shared life.” However, for all his movements, she was still in position to stop him from progressing forward when she suddenly noticed that he no longer had the ball. Too late, she noticed the ball was traveling around her on the other side, and by that time Shirou had once again regained the ball and moved past her.

“Not bad, faker, but this stops now.” Now all that remained between him and the basket was Gilgamesh, but this was also the ultimate obstacle. His left arm returned to normal, and he started a chant.

“I am the slam of my jam. Slam is my body and jam is my blood. I have created over a thousand dunks. Unaware of guards, nor aware of bigs. Withstood pain to create jams, waiting for one’s arrival. I have no regrets. This is my only jam. My whole life was Unlimited Slam Works.” With those words, Shirou, Gilgamesh, and the entire court disappeared.

“Mhmm, Reality Marble huh? Interesting,” remarked Kouma.

“So uh, what happens now that we can’t see them?” asked Shiki.

“Don’t worry, we wouldn’t be members of the United Earth’s Official Space Jam Team if we weren’t able to see through a technique like this,” answered Satsuki. “Right now Shirou is saying “There is no need to be surprised. These are all imitations. As you say, these are all trifling techniques. But there is no rule that an imitation cannot defeat the original. If you say you are the original, I shall surpass every one of your jams and destroy your existence. Here I come, king of slams. Do you have enough dunks in stock? –wow, what a furious exchange of techniques that is happening now. Almost makes me want to buy a copy of Jam/Stay Night if cross-universe shipping fees weren’t so expensive.”

And so, everybody stood there as the referees watched the invisible action happening from within the reality marble and kept score. Soon, ‘Shiki and his Haremites’ had caught up, but it seemed like Gilgamesh was also just about fed up.

“Uh-oh, it looks like Gilgamesh is fully serious. He’s running at Shirou, the ball is spinning in his palm, it’s the ‘Enuma Elish [Dunk of creation which separated heaven and earth]. But Shirou is… shifting? He just leapt up high in the air, it’s ‘Avalon, [All is an ever-distant basket]’, the only technique which could possible stop Enuma Elish!”

“Impossible, only Jam Shirou can use that technique, unless… Multi-route drifting!?” yelled Kohaku like a street racing fan.

“It also feels kind of like there was going to be a flashback here and a reference to both the ending of Jam/Zero as well as Prism Illya, but a deadline was fast approaching,” remarked Kouma.

“After blocking Gilgamesh’s dunk, now Shirou has the ball. His arm’s transformed once again, the ball is glowing, yes this is it, the technique of his teammate, ‘Excalibur [Jam of Promised Victory]’.”

As soon as Satsuki finished speaking those words, the court was flooded with bright light, and everybody returned back into reality. It was clear that everybody was out of energy, and ‘Shiki and the Haremites’ was up by one, as time was running out.

“I guess it’s time to use it,” remarked SHIKI as he took possession of the ball. Then, he instantly leapt up, at an insane speed, far up into the sky.

“…what?” asked Shiki, but all of a sudden warning sirens appeared from out within the ground and went off like crazy.

“Oh no, I shouldn’t have put so many drugs in his body over the years… EVERYBODY WATCH OUT IT’S A CHAOS DUNK-” before Kohaku could even finish that sentence, SHIKI crashed back onto the court, ripping the ball through the basket and sending out a shockwave capable of destroying an entire city. The shockwave knocked Shiki unconscious, and as darkness filled his vision, he heard a familiar voice.

“Shiki, why do we fall?”

“Dad?” He suddenly found himself lying on a court as a young child, with his father standing over him.

“We fall so we can stand up again, Shiki” explained Kiri.

“Dad-” started Shiki, with tears in his voice. “What’s with the movie clichés, and why is the rest of the family outside playing orchestra music?”

“Hmm? I thought it would be appropriate for when you flash back to it at some point in the future.”

“You think my life is a movie!?”

“Or at least an anime or a visual novel. Although I guess I’d be out of luck if it was a non-music medium like manga or light novels.”

“I think it’s more like a bad fanfiction to be honest. But anyway dad, I can’t do this.”

“Very well, son. I guess I’ll show you this once and one time only. For this is probably the last time I can perform this technique. Engrave it into your heart, and inherit it for the future.”

“No no no, that’s okay dad.” But it was too late, and as Kiri performed the technique, Shiki was struck by how beautiful it was-

“-Shiki!? Shiki wake up!” Shiki was shaken awake by Arcueid.

“It’s okay Arcueid. I remember now. I understand now, the space jam and all its glory. Coach Kohaku, I’m going in.”

Kohaku nodded. And with those words, Shiki stepped onto the court, with the time ticking out, and down by one point.

SHIKI noticed his opponent had regained consciousness. “Ha, it’s impressive enough that you woke up after a shock like that, but can you take another?” With those words, SHIKI leaped into the sky for another chaos dunk.

Shiki simply smiled serenely, his eyes transformed into a spiral shape and his body was enveloped into a soft, golden light. “Who the hell do you think I am?” he said softly.

“Mystic Eyes of Dunk Perception. Even rarer than Mystic Eyes of Death Perception,” remarked Kouma.

“Super Nanaya!?” yelled Arcuied.

“No way, it’s more like the true super mode that one unlocks after achieving true peace of heart,” said Ciel.

“Well, his body certainly is glowing with an awesome power. It’s loud roar probably tells him to grasp victory,” added Akiha.

“Actually, it seems to be Saint Elmo’s fire. Nothing more than a phenomena caused by intense friction in the air,” observed Sion.

“…intense friction, wait it can’t be!” Satsuki yelled as she suddenly realized something, but Shiki had already launched himself into the sky.

“Yes it is, there’s no mistake about it,” noted Gilgamesh. “The Chaos Dunk is a technique that can destroy an entire city if used improperly, and my Enuma Elish is anti-world, but that surpasses all of it. I never thought I’d ever see it.”

Far in the sky, SHIKI was just about to begin his downward descent when Shiki flew by him, even faster, and wrenched the ball from his hands. But he didn’t stop, he kept going, he broke through the atmosphere, and kept accelerating, faster and faster. Behind him, the Earth died, the sun exploded, the solar system collapsed, the milky way was consumed, galaxies crashed against each other and exploded, black holes merged and consumed the universe as eternity ended. And as he kept traveling forward, now existing more as a concept than a physic being, new matter exploded outwards in a big bang, galaxies formed, hot gas condensed itself into a new star, rocks began orbiting it, organisms crawled from the oceans into land on the third planet, giant reptiles roamed the land and died in an impact from a giant meteor, the world was covered in ice which then melted, monkeys turned into humans, the man of jewels played a one-on-one against the king of the moon on the lunar surface as the moon was on a crash course to earth, people migrated, technology progressed, people were born, a school was built, a confrontation at night, a challenge issued, a court emerged.

The Slam that was both Alpha and Omega.

The Dunk that is the one closed to God.

Shiki returned to Earth and threw down the Space Jam.

There was no light. There was no sound. There was no shockwave. None of it could keep up. However, everybody there was struck to tears by the beauty of it, and nobody could react. It was only until a few seconds were left that SHIKI finally regained control of his senses.

“Shiki!!!” he yelled as he charged at Shiki with all his might, but Shiki simply stood there and waited. At the last second, SHIKI charging and put his arms on Shiki’s shoulders.

“Ha. You realized I didn’t have any energy left to do anything…?”

“…brother”

“Come, let me see the face of the one who defeated SHIKI of the Chaos Dunk.” SHIKI softly touched Shiki’s face with his hands. “…Splendid!”

By this time everybody else could move again, the gametime had ticked down to zero and ‘Shiki and the Haremites’ had won by one.

Elsewhere, in a separate universe, a certain type moon heroine who did not appear in this work felt it.

“It looks like another space jam user was created. Really, what are you thinking?”

I thought you went around randomly creating your own universes now that a certain idiot academy story is indefinitely frozen.

“I’m just here to read the amusing type moon April’s fool’s event. It’s pretty good this year. I even oneshot the entire protagonist party. Take that, powerlevels!”

…

“…hey, Magical Girls are pretty popular nowadays, right? With the recent Prism Illya and even Ultimate Satsuki is really just a Godaka parody.”

Why? Are you planning on turning into a magical girl?

“Please, I still haven’t thrown away my dignity yet.” With a wave of her hand, suddenly several pages randomly appeared in her hand.

That’s-!?

“Zeltretch vs Type Moon one-on-one for the fate of the Earth. Now just imagine how much better it would be if those two were turned into Mahou Shoujos halfway through.”

…please try to at least limit yourself. Fixing the stuff you pull is so tiring sometimes.

“You don’t really have anybody to blame but yourself for that. Anyway, I’m off.”

… *sighs*

Back to the correct universe.

Without any sadness, the rest of his team walked over to Shiki and shook his hand.

“Congratulations Shiki. Now, the rest of us most go, for our planet needs us,” said SHIKI as manly tears rolled down his face.

Manly tears rolled out from Shiki’s eyes as well when he understood what the words SHIKI said really meant.

“Don’t cry for us Shiki. We played that game without a single regret!” with those words, team ‘Type Moonstars’ raised their fist as one towards the sky, and their bodies became light and disappeared.

“A great star has fallen…” said Hisui, somewhat sadly.

Arcueid walked up to Shiki, who was still staring at the night sky with tears in his eyes, and put her arm on his shoulder.

“Cheer up, Shiki.”

Shiki wiped away his tears and smiled at Arcueid. “It’s okay. I know they’re still out there, and I’ll surely meet them once again, when I need them most.”

And so ends the tale of the first space jam of Shiki’s life, and the beginning of his legend. But that’s certainly not the end of his tale.

Now imagine an ending credits where the Nanaya orchestra play soft, sad music over an image of Shiki about to dunk over Type Moon after catching an alley-opp from Ado Edem in the final space jam of Shiki’s life and the end of his legend- but that’s a story for another time.

[Milbunk]

Title: The Jeweled sword of Zelretch
Author: Anon

Present...

The shadow giant let out a moan as it was bisected by the narrow beam of light. If Rin had more time, she might have been interested in whether an artificial construct made entirely of curses was actually capable of feeling pain. Presently though, she was a little busy preparing another wave of pure prana to blast apart the next wave of shadow giants.

Rin should have died instantaneously. The amount of power required to defeat a shadow giant was immense, even if she had abilities designed specifically to counter curses. She should barely have defeated the first giant but she'd taken out a dozen of them now. The only reason she was keeping up was thanks to the Mystic Code she was wielding, the Jeweled Sword of Zelretch.

While the magical theory was incredibly complicated, the effects of the Mystic Code were easy to summarize. It took in the ambient mana, converted it into prana then fired it in a concentrated blast. While similar Mystic Codes that could draw on mana in the environment existed, the Jeweled Sword possessed an extra strength that turned from a one shot cannon into a truly remarkable and deadly weapon. It's ability to utilize the Second Magic to access alternate universes meant that no matter how long the fight went, there would always be more mana available to use.

As Rin let loose another wave of prana, she was painfully reminded of the singular problem with the Sword. Every time she used it, she could feel her muscles tearing. That was fine, Rin was already expecting this. The Sword she was wielding was only a projection of the original. It was only natural there would be problems using it. That minor detail did not dampen Rin's determination.

This was a weapon that used the Second Magic. Zelretch himself used it to fight the Crimson Moon. The Sword had actually halted the moon when it was falling towards the Earth! Rin could not possibly have a better weapon to use right now; even Noble Phantasms would not be capable of matching its performance.

She was just past the crest of the cliff now. Ahead, another wave of shadows was coming, more than twice the number of the last one. Gritting her teeth, Rin activated the Sword. She felt her od being pulled into the Mystic Code...

__________________________________________________ ___________________


About a century before the present...

After helping set up the Holy Grail system, Zelretch had resumed his most common pastime, seeking out his alternate selves. He'd always wanted to meet another Zelretch, to compare notes, research, discuss the worlds they'd visited, mess with people by having two Zelretches running around, maybe work out that masturbation or incest question.

Now if only he could find himself.

Zelretch had been looking for well over a millennia across thousands of alternate universes, but he'd never been able to find an alternate self. There was certainly evidence that they existed; having access to the Second magic usually meant that every magical person had heard of you but Zelretch found that his alternate selves kept disappearing into thin air. The most information he ever got was that a Zelretch had been around and had fought the Crimson Moon but then disappeared some time afterwards, either decades or centuries later (usually leaving a trail of havoc and chaos in their wake).

He'd tried to pick up their trail by searching for traces of the Second magic, either notes on the phenomenon, accessories or prana residual. Some time sooner or later though, the trail would run cold, evidence simply fading away.

Zelretch wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Every alternate self had always beaten the Crimson Moon and it wasn't very likely that they'd have to fight another being on that scale ever again. It was possible that he just kept missing them because every Zelretch was dimension hopping but the evidence or lack of it suggested that wasn't the case either.

He even entertained the idea that every Zelretch in existence was in a mass conspiracy to avoid him and mess with him by teasing him with trace amounts of evidence till he eventually went mad from searching too hard and never finding anything.

It was the sort of thing he'd do.

Thus when Zelretch finally found another Zelretch while exploring a world populated with textbook fantasy monsters, he felt immense relief and happiness; feelings which were returned in kind. Sure the other guy looked a fair bit older than him, and that was saying something, but at least he had found himself at last.

For the better part of the day, they engaged in light hearted banter over their appearances, various knickknacks and doohickeys they had acquired over their journeys and personal equipment (Jeweled Dagger of Zelretch? Sword of Zelretch sounded much more awesome). Finally the question of what took so long for his counterpart to find him came up.

He was most curious as well.

Their stories were almost identical. While the worlds they had visited had differed, the same element was always there, the lack of any Zelretch from that dimension. Sometimes the story was that he'd died to destroy the Crimson Moon, other times that he had faded away into obscurity.

Both Zelretches agreed that this was a conundrum of the highest order and pledged to not rest until they had solved it even if it took centuries to answer. Till then, they would travel together, eat, drink, be merry, annoy everyone, ruin a few old families and generally enjoy themselves.

Naturally the solution came to Zelretch a fortnight later. He was masquerading as an invading madman at the Association who wanted to cause havoc and strike despair into the heart of all people (everyone ignored him at first). It was surprisingly simple to pull off. Zelretch had merely dumped a few dozen slime monsters taken from the world they were just at into the main halls, added water to maintain the size of the slimes and that was quite enough. The slimes didn't do anything other than nudge people but given mages were rather obsessed about appearing dignified and that the slimes were ruining their clothes, it was an easy guess to determine what would happen. In a matter of hours the entire association was knee deep with the gelatinous monsters.

The Zelretches were blasting away at each other (using fireworks from the local vendor) in the central hall of the Clock Tower acting out a ludicrous and over the top play. As they reached the climax where they were to fire their strongest attack at each other (the largest pair of explosives the pair could get their hands on), Zelretch had a sudden flash of brilliance.

Later in his counterpart's private quarters, once they or more accurately the newest batch of pupils had cleaned up the mess and Zelretch had washed the ash of his face, Zelretch pre-empted the questions about why he had messed up the climax. Once he explained that he knew just why there were so few Zelretches his counterpart was at full attention.

The Jeweled Sword of Zelretch was a simple weapon, access an alternate dimension, utilize the mana there and attack with it. Something interesting had almost happened in the central hall though and Zelretch had never considered it.

What if there were two Swords? What if two Swords happened to be activated at the same time? Just like their act in the hall? What if, and it was a very BIG if, the two Swords both accessed the exact same reality at almost the same time?

The result was simple, one Sword would pull all the mana out and function normally. The other Sword would attempt to use the mana but get nothing.

The most obvious fault with this theory was that the odds of it happening even once were unbelievably tiny. There were an untold number of universes; the idea that the same universe would be connected to at once was laughable. This didn't even take into account the sheer odds against the two Swords being activated at the same time.

But what if there happened to be a situation where multiple Swords were activated and not only activated once but used billions, perhaps trillions of times?

Zelretch couldn't remember just how much mana he had used to push the Moon back. It wasn't just Zelretch either, his counterpart would have used the Dagger multiple times. Judging by his appearance he must have hit multiple universes with no mana in them and he had simply kept pouring prana into the Dagger until he stopped the apocalypse. It wasn't like they were paying attention to null responses; they had been a little preoccupied at the time.

Taking into consideration that there were multiple Swords all activated at roughly the same time, a picture began to emerge. Every Zelretch had pushed the Moon back, there was no doubt about that but the level of effort required had differed greatly. Zelretch himself had been relatively lucky while his counterpart was not nearly as fortunate. Many other Zelretches though had gone through numerous universes with no mana available. Attempting to grab enough mana they went to the next universe, then another and another and another...

Their counterparts had pushed too hard and far beyond their limits, permanently damaging their magic. They had all eventually died as they were hunted down by their enemies or happened to end up in a dangerous situation they couldn't get out of.

The solution was simple enough; between the step of opening the gap then draining the mana, they added a simple instruction to the Sword/Dagger to check on ambient prana levels and if there weren't any to return to step one and try another universe. Most of the prana used on the sword was on pulling the mana into it so avoiding that step would greatly reduce effort required. The only reason they'd never thought of it was because it had never occurred to them that another X of Zelretch might be working at the same time.

The whole thing was a stop gap solution though and the two decided it might be a good idea to create a new customized weapon that would be useful not only in combat but for other uses as well such as data collection. As they thought about the idea over a bottle of wine, they decided it might need other capabilities such as insane durability; autonomous capabilities if the user was injured, no wait a full blown AI; an IFF system; heck if it was an AI then it could learn spells as well, curses, alchemy, runes; inbuilt modern weapons like electronics and lasers; radar, video phone, microwave, 50 feet of rope, clothes dispenser; a self-destruct mechanism was mandatory of course; it also needed to stock a mini bar because they had no more wine in the cellar and really did need some more...

A month later Zelretch woke up in a large and lavishly supplied jail cell. After the room stopped spinning and he could focus on his hand, he pushed himself off the fur rug and staggered towards the cell bars. As he neared it, he spotted a guard outside dozing and twitching every so often. Clearing his throat to get the guard's attention, he successfully roused the sleeper. Unfortunately the guard took one look at Zelretch then ran away screaming he didn't want to be the little girl.

Searching for more information, Zelretch found stuck to the bars a small note and scroll. All it said was that there were no more guards because the entire city was in turmoil. It begged the two distinguished gentlemen to stay in their cells, promised to move them later to the best hotel in the city under house arrest and would provide every drop of alcohol they might want just please don't do any more magic.

Opening the scroll, Zelretch found a list of offences he had committed. At the top of the list were the minor ones like public drunkenness and dangerous driving. The middle consisted of serious offences like grand theft of property (specified as entire physical locations disappearing) and the bottom crimes were obviously made up on the spot (ruining the marriageability of the heir to the throne, permanently). Zelretch couldn't remember how he had done these things but he had better fix them, or the ones he could be bothered with anyway.

Looking back into the cell, he noticed there was a book on one of the king sized beds. Flipping through the book, Zelretch found the complex layout for an item and a note from his counterpart apologizing for leaving the jail early but he had something to attend to (what that was wasn't clear, the scrawl was beyond awful and splattered with alcohol and heaven's knew what else) and that he had added a few finishing touches to the weapon. Chuckling to himself, Zelretch had a look at the name of their new creation.

Well, Kaleidostick was a very interesting name...

__________________________________________________ ___________________


10 seconds before the present...

In universe 01100110 01100001 01110100 01100101, the Greater Grail chamber was silent.

A small rip to another universe opened and drained the mana in the chamber then shut.

A few seconds later another tear in the fabric of space appeared...

__________________________________________________ ___________________


Present...

Rin felt her od being pulled into the Mystic Code...

And nothing happened.

Rin immediately went through multiple scenarios in her mind, trying to find a way out. The Sword would take time to prepare and the Shadow Giant would be on her in a handful of seconds, not nearly enough time to get an incantation out.

If she had any jewels remaining on her she could have launched them all at once which would hopefully do something although the odds of that were doubtful. The only weapon she did have was the hidden dagger and attempting to attack the giants with it was laughable. She had no way to retreat nor was there room to dodge. She had her crest of course but shooting a curse at a construct of curses seemed counterproductive.

As the Shadow Giant swung an arm at her, Rin wondered where it all went wrong. The plan was the best available even if it was incredibly risky. She had planned for everything except for the sudden failure of the Sword. So logically the problem lay with the weapon in her hand.

Thus with her last breath, Rin blamed the creator of the Jeweled Sword of Zelretch. She blamed...

"EMIYA! YOU INCOMPETENT B-"

Splat.

[Arch-Magos Winter]

I think the clear winner is An Epic Romance. Made me laugh harder than any other entry.

[SeiKeo]

Second year running that Humor is plagued by schizo spacing.

[Gaterjhonz]

I'm going with arch-magos here, the first time I saw An Epic ROmance, I just couldn't believe the genius that it represented; the person who created that deserves a Noble Prize

[RadiantBeam]

Spacing is a bit wonky.

An Epic Romance and Happy Riniversary are my two favorites.

[Seika]

Second year running that Humor is plagued by schizo spacing.

Spacing is a bit wonky.

Mil said he hadn't fixed humour up to proper forum formatting yet. Might want to leave off reading this for a bit.

[SeiKeo]

Snap opinions:

A visit to the beach:

You do know that you're supposed to capitalize titles, right? Well, you are. Do that.

Aaaagh, your prose. "Shirou lay down and stretched. He looked up at the sky then closed his eyes. The warmth of the sun on his face felt so nice." Seriously, the entire thing is like this and it's like trying to read some kind of spy report or a stalker's diary - that is to say, events but hell if I have a reason to care, nor is there anything engaging in the way you present this.

I could literally find-replace Shirou, Rin, Saber, and Sakura with any other three names I pulled out of a hat and this would be just as funny: that is to say, not at all. You need to actually work with the characters, bro.

Thumbs down.

A Wingman's Woes:

Your angle on Arihiko's ego is actually funny, kudos.

For some reason you hate using commas to link in and out of quotation marks, it's odd. The fact that you end up using periods instead slows down your flow.

Yeah Arihiko owns.

While this certainly isn't a first draft, I think it could have used a bit of editing for length. I don't think you really suffer that badly for how long it was, but I (and this is more of a personal opinion) feel that cutting it down a fair bit would have condensed the impact. Right now, the humor is fairly drawn out and concentrating it would give you more of a concentrated punch.

The namedrop of Fate I'm not sure helps you. It's a pretty long sequence, and in the end doesn't do much for me. Possibly would stick out less to me if it was in a shorter fic.

Well, this was actually funny! Kudos. Thumbs up.

An Epic Romance:

Okay, it's a gag fic, I guess we needed one. Mereo's was better.

Thumbs down (Leo in charge of taking gag fic too seriously)

Crunchy and Good With Ketchup:

Maybe I'm dumb but I don't get what's with the little Saber gag at the end, it seems out of place. If anyone funnier than I can explain it please do so.

I guess my opinion is that it's not very original? That is, it's the kind of comedy we see a lot of the time, at least in format: the content is new as far as I know. So, not the greatest, but you managed to make me smile and it at least is more or less interestingly written, so tentative thumbs up. Probably shouldn't win anything in the overall but there's nothing really to seriously down-judge in my opinion.

Happy Riniversary:

Apologies to the author: I have to read this later because by god the forum's formatting screwed you badly.

Jam:

Ugh.

I think by now we've all accepted that metahumor is not actually that funny. Please, no, we have seen Arc/other random character referencing fanfic writers and their tendencies. Ha ha! Funny! Innovative!

The only possible way this can be funny is because you jammed characters into basketball.

Thumbs hard down.

The Jewled sword of Zelretch:

The point of 'Show don't tell' seems to have breezed straight over your head. There's what, one line of dialogue in the entire thing? And we get all of the story through you telling us what team Zel talked about? Feels like a report.

Also it's not very funny.

Thumbs down.

[Tobias]

I think by now we've all accepted that metahumor is not actually that funny.

ironically because of this I went and read this and laughed quite a bit. I actually like meta-humor.

[Polly]

Wow. That was harsh Leo.

I don't necessarily disagree with you.

[SeiKeo]

Well prove me a liar then why don't you, birdy D:

[DezoPenguin]

Crunchy and Good With Ketchup:

Maybe I'm dumb but I don't get what's with the little Saber gag at the end, it seems out of place. If anyone funnier than I can explain it please do so.

I believe we were supposed to come to the conclusion that Saber was the dragon?

[Tobias]

Well prove me a liar then why don't you, birdy D:

to me meta-humor is like doing stand up comedy, its a lot harder to do because you are trying to be funny when people already know you are trying to be funny.

So getting it right requires a certain verve and a certain felicity of style that isn't necessary when doing more natural jokes. But it is possible to get right and when people do its enjoyable.

[SeiKeo]

I believe we were supposed to come to the conclusion that Saber was the dragon?

Oh, okay, I... guess that makes sense? I'm not sure why she'd be the Ryudo dragon but that at least slots in now, I forgot about the dragon reactor thing.